Re: Creating 'the Last Book' To Hold All the Others

Steve Nordquist (signa@tfs.net)
Sun, 12 Apr 1998 02:45:08 -0500


I haven't written anything for SmartCards lately, but this is still a killer

extension for it. Even with GCA approval far off, the resolution and
probable non-copyability of the screen...even viz. trying to spreadeagle
a laptop over a copier...could be great entry points.

Even more so than that, if it's 100% thin materials, it can feed the
30% of people (not just feldspar-dipped idiots) who won't buy a book
unless it's bendy like a paperback (and possibly aspiring people among
the $7.00 book set.) (This 30%...evil marketing source...have bought
some laptops, though. Probable some spare screens, too!)

Also importantly, your web size is not tied to Trinitron or the small
display foundries, so you can make the 11x14" sheet necessary
to be useful at all (as slow as refresh seems to be.)
Then there's the water resistance criterion the SmartCard has....

AND, if you shredded it and dipped it in digital paste, you could make
a digital pinata, which would drop bits when you hit it.
Wait a minute there....
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/familyphotos/chinaroll21/foilsepimagedir/005IMAGE.html#buttons

Altavista is good. Mmm.

Robert S. Thau wrote:

> Jay Thomas writes:
> > Okay, so it's got this nifty book metaphor going, for all those
> > neo-luddites who can't bring themselves to buy a laptop, but don't we
> > currently have this technology? Are they re-inventing the wheel?
>
> Three things to consider: packaging, price point, and pixellation.
> Current laptops are basically ill-suited for book-type uses ---
> they're too expensive and too fragile to be physically tossed around
> the way a lot of books typically are, and their rigidity (and the way
> the keyboard and pointing whatever-it-is physically relate to the
> screen) make them really awkward to curl up with. Also, the
> resolution on just about any currently available display screen is
> dreadful by print standards, and it makes a real difference to the
> readability of the text. So these are the problems that these guys
> are working on.
>
> Now, the evolution of technology might well take care of all of these
> issues without ivory-tower impractical philosophers thinking great
> thoughts about them. But it hasn't happened yet...
>
> rst