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About LinkBacksRead more.Canadian academics invent the ‘world’s first interactive paper computer’.
Read more.Canadian academics invent the ‘world’s first interactive paper computer’.
Maybe its me but I don't see the point of it at the moment.
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I'll just wait and keep an open mind since a lot of widely adopted technology are initially viewed with a level of scepticism. I think they still have a lot work to do though: the screen can't be the way it is, at the moment it looks like the person need to bend quite hard, and I think the typical touch screen is more efficient (it's main appeal at the moment is how thin it is, but I wonder how that'll change with internal storage/battery).
And I am still weary that it might be vaporware (that too many things that aren't a slight incremental improvement of what we already have end up to be).
Last edited by TooNice; 09-05-2011 at 12:15 PM.
Hmmm. Maybe. I'm up for convincing, but right now, for me, Jay nailed it.
Keep in mind as well that as far as they are concerned, it's not necessarily about what some of us thinks, but whether the general public will buy it. After a little more thought, based on the presented form in the video (not read the PDF yet), it seems more suitable to the e-book reader market than as a smartphone replacements.
I like it. I hate bulky phones.
True enough, but that general public are a fickle lot, and it can be hard to predict what will fire them up.Originally Posted by TooNice
I seem to remember Clive Sinclair being terribly excited about revolutionising personal transport with the C5, for but some reason (go figure) the public didn't buy into it.
Conversely, text messaging was dismissed as a niche feature that few people would use. Oops. That's akin to the guy that rejected managing the Beatles 'cos they'd never amount to anything.
Smartphones have a kind-of sexy gadgetedness, and in a different (and probably more limited) way, so do e-readers. So do tablets. But it remains to be seen whether tihs can catch the public's imagination .... especially if it is either monochrome (acceptable, but just barely, in an e-reader and a killer for just about anything else), and if colour, how bright and vibrant, how "sexy" is the item. Somehow, showing off in the pub of office with a sheet of fancy paper doesn't seem to quite cut it? And if it's paper, where will you put the speaker? Does it flop about when you hold it? Will it break if it's in your pocket and you sit on it? And so on. The general public are hard to predict.
Paper? pen? I turn to technology to get away from those antiquated paradigms. Not to emulate them.
Can't view the video at work, but judging from the photos and write up - does this actually even work as a simple mobile phone?
Obsolete isn't a verb! Using it that way will thick you.
I'm with Saracen to a certain extent; most people that I know that bitch about anything to do with their phones bitch about their fragility, bulk, battery life etc. With the possible exception of bulk, I don't see those problems being solved by this (and even there it only reduces thickness not form factor). I can see people being instinctively leery of a bendy phone, also.
There should be an XKCD cartoon to accompany this
if they can get it so you can fold it like paper but it unfolds easily and stays flat when unfolded along with the structure being durable(i.e it doesnt rip after being folded multiple times like paper) then im in!.
Eh?! Are you mad?! These are two of the greatest inventions humankind has ever accomplished! Antiquated, possibly, but still great.
The pen is a superb interface for a human - certainly, my fat fingers are no replacement for it, no matter what Apple likes to think.
And paper is also great. Great texture/friction - much better for drawing on than a glass plate with a stylus.
I'm yet to see a satisfactory technology that can replace either of these things. The closest I've seen was that "Courier" booklet PC that Microsoft decided to can about a year back. Looked like it had some potential as a replacement to pen and notepad. Obviously it didn't have the texture of paper and the screen required a backlight, but it showed promise.
Yes it is. It might not be a common usage, but it absolutely is a verb.
I can absolutely see this working in the disposable phone market. I think that it has already been postulated in a couple of books.
Society's to blame,
Or possibly Atari.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but surely this is just a flexible touchscreen with some sensors?
Any processing (and power supply) looks like it's being handled by a seperate laptop.
Flexible batteries may be a theoretical possiblity (I'm sure I've read about them somewhere), but there's no practical example of them (that I'm aware of), and I'd be suprised if they can come up flexible PCB and ICs...
Until they nail those, calling itseems a tad OTT.The world's first interactive paper computer
I'm sure there's potetnial applications here, but I'll be surprised if they appear within the next 5 years.
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