The Modern Journalist

The Future of Paper: E Ink

I’ve referenced — on the site, and more recently during my talks — the MIT company E-Ink, which created the technology that prints words on a digital read-out that look just like words on a page.

It’s a little freaky (and, as a side, part of a growing trend of digital technologies to re-create the analog experience so that people are more comfortable with the technology), but if that’s what it takes for adoption rates, so be it.

I’ve included some older images of what E Ink technology looks like, but for the most up-to-date, you should head to the company’s website, sit back and watch the Flash display scroll by on the home page.

Images below:

Here is an older version of the E Ink technology from 2007. The display is not perfect, but you can see the beginning of technology’s evolution.

What’s even cooler is the E Ink technology being used on devices that have words, but not in the way you might think. Here’s the digital technology used on a watch.

And finally, the Amazon Kindle. This isn’t the latest version (it’s now smaller and it folds up like a pocketbook), but you can see how a newspaper looks on an early version of the screen.