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| Science & Technology |
| Ink and Paper or 1s and 0s? |
| 2005-10-15 |
| Would you be reading this story if it were displayed on a 2-by-2-inch screen on your BlackBerry? WaPo? Voluntarily? Not phreakin' likely if I had to pay for it. How about if it were electronically printed on a video scroll that spooled a few inches out of the side of your cell phone? Could you tell what was in the tiny picture? Ddddddumb. Now. Would you read this story if it were electronically printed on a paper-thin video screen the size of a tabloid newspaper, or maybe something bigger, like The Washington Post, and resembling a vinyl placemat, like the image you see under these words? What if this new electronic paper could be folded under your arm like your dad's sports section or rolled up inside your yoga mat? Oooooh - yoga mat. There's some solid snob appeal. As newspapers fight declining circulation and face rising newsprint costs -- and their corporate owners demand wider profit margins -- editors, publishers, reporters and technologists have worked over the past few years to devise new, paperless ways to deliver the news. Sure, the format and delivery means could be improved... but to regain sales, whatever the form, try dropping the Agenda and simply reporting the facts in a neutral context. Radical, I know, but hell, try it - for a change, assholes. But the change stretches beyond the physical delivery system. Reread the preceding paragraph. The tone is formal and authoritative. It is aloof and addresses no one in particular, as in a textbook or a lecture. It is newspapery. Whereas my comment above is directed squarely at you, WaPo, and is, um, more colorful, yeah, that's the word. The two paragraphs above it are chatty and inquisitive, provocative rather than definitive. They call attention to themselves and speak directly to you. Their tone is usually not considered appropriate in a newspaper, and certainly not atop a news story. Their tone is more at home on the Internet, with blogs and discussion groups and webzines. We don't mind informality - if the facts are delivered in a neutral context. Storytelling will change, as well. Long articles such as this, with complete sentences and linguistic device, likely will dwindle in number and be restricted to the remaining newspapers and e-papers. News on small screens, such as that of your cell phone, will spit out in headlines and blurbs and sentences without articles: "Mars rodent attacks NASA probe." Oh, goody. Tabloid-style. Russell J. Wilcox, chief executive of E Ink Corp., a spinoff of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is working on the technology part: a paperless newspaper delivery system. Okay... His business creates paper-thin video screens that, in simplest terms, are filled with tiny black and white chips. When an electrical current with data is sent through the screen, the chips become charged and arrange themselves into a pattern of black type on a white background. When readers want to flip to the next page, the particles scramble and rearrange. Animation, okay... In a Tuesday interview and discussion on the future of newspapers on washingtonpost.com, Wilcox said his company is working on adding color to the flexible black-and-white screen. Adding video and sound, he said, is at most 10 years off. Newspaper companies such as Gannett Co. and Hearst Communications Inc. believe in the idea enough to be investors. Color. Sound. Okay... For years, newspapers have thought of ways to deliver their news -- and brand -- in as many formats as possible. But they have found, from reader surveys and intuition, that the centuries-old newspaper size provides an optimal viewing experience. Really? I've always though they were clumsy, resisted refolding, stained my hands with newsprint, and were generally suited for lining gerbil cages. "We think the essence of newspaper is the large size," Wilcox said during the interview. "[As] a reader you're an eagle flying over the desert, you're scanning. You see the rabbit and you zoom down and you grab it," reading a story that grabs your interest. Oh boy, metaphor! w00t! Mebbe he should be writing this story, oh, no wait, he's doing something useful. Nevermind. Because the Internet provides an instant two-way exchange that newspapers cannot, papers are using it to ask readers not only how they want their paper but what they want in it. Even if papers don't ask, feedback can be instant, via blogs, e-mails and discussion groups. And it goes the other way, as well. When newspaper reporters take to their papers' Web sites for discussions or other reader exchanges, they tend to adopt the Web's laid-back patois. Okay, I think we can handle pattywas... if it delivers the phreakin' facts in a phreakin' neutral context. In this way, the Web may change the tone of newspaper writing, as in this story. Among mainstream communications outlets, newspaperese is pretty much the last outpost of such strictly formal use of English. Think of how your nightly newscast sounds -- anchors speak of "your neighborhood," for instance. Now think of how many times real people use common newspaper words such as "slate," as in, "I'm slated to see a 7 p.m. showing of 'Wallace & Gromit.' " Shucks, I say that all the time... just not Wallace & Gromit. I prefer the Military Channel and CSI, myownself. But not everything on the Web is chatty. That be true... Tuesday's online discussion stirred some interest among bloggers, many of whom see themselves as alternatives -- and, sometimes, superior -- to traditional news outlets. The "Annotated Life" blog (which washingtonpost.com linked to) wrote, with some indignation: "The truth is that media corporations are not in control of the exploding online population, and it is frightening to those in ruling circles who have much to hide from the people at large." Superior? Of course we are, we prefer truth, not agendas. The truth is that you have zero control over the web. Zip, zilch, nada. Which is why we're here - and not reading your rag on the front step. 5 will get you 10 the blog identified above is a liberal POS... complete with WaPo agenda. "Ruling circles"? Lol. Yep, that sounds like a Kos Kiddie. "People at large"? Not sheeple? They're pretentious Moonbats. Rather than hide from the people at large, I (there's something you usually don't see in newspaper stories) asked readers how they use newspapers and the Internet during Tuesday's Internet discussion. And they all answered in unison, "Help! Help! We're being repressed! Neocons! Halliburton! Oil! BusHitler! Complaining that her local paper is late on news that she's already seen on the Internet, that stories raise more questions than they answer and the paper as a whole is of little relevance to her, Linda Loomis of San Antonio e-mailed yesterday to say that she often ends her days thusly: Linda needs Rantburg. Bad. And we'd love to have her - read on, lol. "I throw down our local fiber newspaper in disgust, as I do most days when I'm reading the San Antonio Express-News, and exclaim to my husband (the subscriber), as I do most days, 'I'm going upstairs, online, for the real news.' " Ya gotta love her, lol. C'mon over, Linda - you're our kinda gal. Bill Breen is a delivery foreman for the New York Times and, at 59, wrote in an e-mail, "I know what the dinosaurs must have felt like, when it started to get cold." Lol. A big newspaper such as the Times or the Wall Street Journal can go through 200,000 tons of newsprint per year. Now that newsprint has matched its historical high of $625 per metric ton, Breen understands the savings that would result if Wilcox's video-screen newspaper catches on. And profit, that's corporate profit - oooooh - is why the owners and stockholders are in the game, not any sense of noblesse oblige. And why their stock is falling. But only part of why they are doomed. "Why in their right minds would the Sulzbergers [the family that controls the Times], or any owners, pay for huge printing presses, fleets of trucks (burning a lot of expensive diesel fuel, by the way), warehouses and union drivers, if the need was not there?" Breen writes. Cuz they're ignorant Luddites? But many readers use both the paper and electronic versions of newspapers, they write, portending a future of co-existence. Lol - you hope. "And the Sunday paper," writes Takoma Park's Abigail Grotke, "who would want to read all of that online? Not me. I need it in hand with the cup of coffee on a relaxing Sunday morning." There's a rather sizable list I wouldn't accept if they offered it in a pill. And I'm still hung up on getting the facts, unspun, delivered in a neutral context. I'll figure out how it fits into the Big Pic, thanks. Now buzz off, lol. |
| Posted by:.com |
| #6 "And the Sunday paper," writes Takoma Park's Abigail Grotke, "who would want to read all of that online? Not me. I need it in hand with the cup of coffee on a relaxing Sunday morning." I do look forward to my Sunday morning with a cup of coffee, laptop, Mark Steyn, David Warren, and Rantburg. |
| Posted by: john 2005-10-15 21:07 |
| #5 This stuff is decades away. I suspect, like it or not, the sales ads and cents off coupons will make getting the local paper indispensible, or at least cost effective, for the rest of our lives. Unless you'd like to get spam from all the advertisers. Newspapers are just too convenient and cost effective for readers and advertisers. |
| Posted by: Whoth Ebbomong9535 2005-10-15 13:53 |
| #4 I was looking at getting one of the development kits for one of the electronic paper thingies (as shown here but they were charging a couple thousand dollars for a screen plus a hundred-dollar-or-so single-board computer. There are e-book readers out there today, but their business models coupled with low production runs keep what should be a $ 30.00 unit somewhere in the $ 150.00 range. (IMHO). All the e-ink thing does is improve slightly the display contrast and power consumption at the expense of the screen's refresh rate. It doesn't give them much more in technical capability they couldn't have today, if they knew what they wanted to do with it. (Which they don't). |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2005-10-15 13:38 |
| #3 At a keynote speech for my companies, SAP, convention about 5 years ago we had one of the top dudes from the MIT Media Lab discussing new technology. One of the things he talked about were reusable books. Basically this was a bunch of "paper" bound just like a regular book today. There was a plug in the spine that let you download the content, un-plug, and then walk away with a "new" book. One of his main points about reading is that one of the main issues consumers have with PCs is the light source. Humans seem to work/see better if they're looking at something via an indirect light source as opposed to the object being the source. The tech described had all the pros of a normal book plus the ability to be reloaded off any connection. Pretty cool stuff. The REALLY cool stuff was the idea of using the human body as the "wiring" for personal devices. The scenario was a generator built into the heel of your shoe generating the power which was then fed do devices that were being worn. The description of closing a deal with a handshake (each persons ring being the device) led to a number of ribald comments during the breaks. ;^) |
| Posted by: AlanC 2005-10-15 10:19 |
| #2 ground transportation = horse and buggy ground transprotation = automobile Would you be riding in your buggy if it were able to go faster with four horses than two? How about a little gas heater for those cold winter Sunday morning trips to the church? Blah, blah, blah. The technology is killing an old way of life. Horse breeders are going to decrease, buggy and whip manufacturing is going to drop, etc. However, over a hundred years later there are still some breeders and manufactures of the old way of life. However the auto brought us suburbia and a new life style. Either you evolve and adapt or face history. As each new generation is adapting to newer consumer electronics the desire for paper touching and old formats will decrease. Can't say I have any pangs of regret to see dead tree media dying. When the advertisers figure out how to work around the apron strings they've been locked to for a hundred years, the death will come rather quickly. |
| Posted by: Shereting Omager3789 2005-10-15 09:18 |
| #1 the format and delivery means could be improved Now that the ink doesn't rub off, I don't think this is true. The papers' problems are primarily related to faster news cycles and delivery alternatives, the declining attention span due to TV and the concommitant dumbing down as well as leftism of the content. I still read the WSJ ODT and prefer it because I can easily read it where ever I am. Ever try to take a laptop into the commode? |
| Posted by: Whoth Ebbomong9535 2005-10-15 08:36 |