August 11, 2011

E-paper for Writers

This is a (very) unscheduled post, but I've just noticed these news about e-paper and its possible usage in advertisement, newpapers, ticket-selling, etc. And suddenly remembered that I decided to buy a printer in the near future, which is quick, can print a lot with one cartridge and the quality is great.
Add the two of them together and... I realized e-papers can be extremely helpful for writers, as well.

First, let me introduce the technology a little (here you can find the article with more details). What is important to us that it can be re-printed 260 times and the developers at ITRI aim to increase it to 500 in the next two years, when they plan to commercialize the technology.
That means, after you printed on the paper, you can delete and print it another 259 times. It can be printed with thermal printers (such as in fax machines), electrical and physical technology.

Even if writers love e-books and electrical gadgets to make their life easier, we still love the traditional paper books and lots of us do edits on paper and like to see our research printed so we can see the whole. And I'm betting there are many literary agents and editors who print out their work and like to read on paper. Because you can still catch mistakes, inconsistencies, etc. more likely in the printed form. And... you know, it does feel different when reading on the screen or on paper.

Imagine, what we could do with e-papers?  Because you don't need to worry about wastes and costs, you can:
  • see your scenes in printed form and edit more easily
  • re-print your drafts every time you update it
  • have less/smaller pile of papers on your desk (nowadays, because you don't want to waste paper you recycle them - as in, using the back to write on it)
  • if you print extra material (timeline of story, storyboard, research, summaries, character sheets, etc.) and later you need to change them or realize you don't need them, you can just re-print it with corrections or with something you need or simply delete the page.
You can do this all without wasting paper or ink! Isn't it exciting? An effective and cost-friendly way to protect your workspace/home from a huge mess and Earth, because you don't need to cut down loads of woods just to get paper and then throw it out when you're not satisfied with what you wrote on it.
And now it's in our reach, no longer science-fiction or a dream of the future!

I only gathered these 4 things from the top of my head, but I'm sure there's more. Help me collect these here. What other ways can you use e-paper in your work?

2 comments:

Angela Perry said...

It's real now? Like really real? How cool! Have you ever read The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson? There's a book in it that's written on paper powered by nanobots. It reminds me of this :)

Tika said...

It certainly seems that way now! We need to wait a couple of years to be able to use it, but it's really exciting!

No, I haven't, but I'll check it out.
And thanks for commenting :)