Electronic Paper

I saw that the tide was coming when I saw the XML specification for electronic paper display, I thought it was close. Then I saw the development kit. The kit itself is kind of ugly-- but imagine what the kit for first TV would have looked like. There will have to be several passes of failed experimental models in the marketplace before someone comes out with transistor radio equivalent of electronic paper: cheap, ubitiqitous and handy. To augment the power of electronic paper, gumstix computers will likely play a large role.
Where is this going? I remember the most common complaint of books on computer: they're not as handy as books. Well, what if you either take 500 sheets of electronic paper, plug the book into a USB connection and the pages are zepped with new static text. This week your book is Moby Dick; next week, it's the Art of War. What is more likely is that you will take one sheet of paper that has a bulge for a USB port and four more bubbles. Plug in the paper, the book is zapped into the electronic paper: one sheet of electronic paper. Then, the bubble buttons are for backwards and forwards movement. The problem is that model takes power to rewrite the paper. So that model will take some time.
If electronic paper can become very cheap and widespread is may give a new woe: revisionism. The progress of the DMCA and digital rights management may mean that you can only commit the official source of a document to electronic paper. When they revise the book, you can get a free revision. When they revise the material with a double-plus revision, your old version will be illegitimate; you won't be able to commit it to electronic paper. Voila! Already, people who are trying to free their own cellphones from manufacturer and reseller lockdowns are getting slapped with DMCA violations.
With the tap of some keys a futuristic Winston Smith can remake your edition. You won't keep copies you pay for on your own machine--- not when you have wide open access to the Internet and you can get the document from the source whenever you want it. They'll handle versioning for you. Before you know it, your electronic paper will have nothing but good speak.
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