On May 27^th, 2004 BRT 19 was held in the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam. The BRT was organised and hosted by Electronic Media Reporting in co-junction with the Media Café of the multimedia association OPPO-MMBO. Almost 50 people attended the BRT.

The theme Digital paper was chosen in the framework of new content technologies. Paper has been a carrier of culture for centuries; digital paper has been a promise taking over the role of carrier. In the BRT the question is discussed whether digital paper will take over the role of (print) paper and screens. So far electronic books with reading machines have not been a commercial success. Electronic newspapers barely made it as a prototype to the stage of electronic tablet. The question to be discussed is whether the digital paper of Philips/E-Ink will change the chances for electronic books and newspapers.

Digital paper has been discussed since the nineties. Several approaches have been made. One of the approaches has been made by Anoto, a Swedish start-up. It basically involves paper pre-printed with thousand of tiny, nearly invisible spots. A big pen consists of a pressure sensor, a digital camera and a Bluetooth transceiver. This Bluetooth component can send the writing to a Bluetooth equipped PC or mobile phone for e-mail.

Another approach has been taken by Americans. Xerox has developed digital paper based on ink, encapsulated in plastic, which can be transformed to letters with electric pulses. A variation on this approach has been taken by E-Ink, which puts small capsules on a substrate and can change the letters with electric pulses.

Philips has bought itself into E-Ink and is now bringing digital paper out of the laboratory into a production environment.

The subject was introduced by Jak Boumans, principal consultant with Electronic Media Reporting. He outlined the development of electronic books and the promise of electronic newspapers. He also indicated that electronic books and digital newspapers have their criteria of success and failure. A strong criterion for failure was the readability.

Jan van Bekkum of Philips Consumer Electronics gave a product presentation of the present state of digital paper. He had brought a prototype to show people what it looks like and how the readability has been improved. Compared with a screen of a Rocket Book reading machine, it became clear that Philips/E-Ink are about to make a qualitative leap with this new product. A first e-Book with digital paper of Philips/E-Ink has been introduced in Japan by Sony in April 2004.

Sander van Kempen, managing director and publisher of New E-Publishing, showed the process of publishing electronic books from print to e-Books. He indicated that there were obstacles of which readability was one of them. However he also stressed that an electronic book is used differently. So readability is a factor, but definitely not the only one. But digital paper was absolutely a qualitative step forwards.

Conclusions

1. Digital paper is a qualitative step forward as a carrier of books and newspapers.
2. Readability is not the only criterion for success or failure of digital paper and electronic books as well as newspapers.
3. The acceptance of electronic books will be helped by the quality of the new digital paper, but also social conditions and status of a book are at play.

Presentation on digital paper

Sample of digital paper

       BRT 19 - Full report

Presentations:

• Digital Paper for Books and Newspapers
• Electronic Paper Displays
• From Paper to Digital Books