Zen ink

Regardless, though, there are those among us to whom comfort means a great deal. Translated, that means "keep your bloomin' hands off my newspaper!"

OK, so maybe we could do without the inky fingerprints on the light switch that follow relaxed Sunday mornings. Just an idea, here, but assistant professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT Joseph Jacobson is on to the notion of electronic ink on almost regular paper. Whether it means that readers get a low-cost printer with reusable paper, a paper that "refreshes" when laid on your coffee table (not just your average coffee table, of course), or an electronic book with paper pages and buttons on the spine that let you choose what the pages will hold -- push one button, and you get Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal"; push another and you get The Cole Papers.

As I look at the piles of paper, books, and journals that surround me, I sense that this could be a very Zen-like approach to publishing. I know it would, at the very least, make moving a lot easier.

Hotlinks:

http://www.media.mit.edu/groups/casr/jacobson.html

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Last updated: 30 June 1997.

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