Electronic libraries (electronic ink)

[Steve Cramer]

Charles P. Hobbs <transit at primenet.com>
"That I'd like to see. How would such a system look like. 
(I'm envisioning something like an LCD screen, but I feel
somewhat limited by my own imagination at this time)."
_____________________________________

Joseph M. Jacobson, a professor of media arts and
sciences at MIT, first proposed electronic ink (as far as I
know).

Basically, a thin layer of millions of tiny balls, black on one
hemisphere and white on the other (there could be a pool
of other colors, too) are manipulated by
radio-transmissions emitted from a second layer of
circuitry. Viewed against a layer a paper, the display looks
like traditional ink on paper. Unlike LCD displays,
however, power-use is minimal -- electronic ink requires
no additional power to retain a display.

There's more info at:

"Electronic ink on a paper screen."  by Jim Rosenberg. 
Editor & Publisher, August 9, 1997 v130 n32 p20

"Surfaces and Displays" by Nicholas Negroponte
[Jacobson's boss], Wired, January 1997, p. 212

personally, I think this would pretty neat!

Steve Cramer
Davenport College
Holland, Michigan USA
scramer at davenport.edu