Paper Industry Needs to Turn Page to a New Future
June 03 2008 / by juldrich / In association with Future Blogger.net
Category: Business & Work Year: 2020 Rating: 5 Hot
By Jack Uldrich
Cross-posted from www.jumpthecurve.net
Yesterday, in this video, fellow business forecaster and futurist, Patrick Dixon, discussed why he thinks the future of the paper industry is bright for the foreseeable future. Personally, I’m not so optimistic and to understand why I’d invite you to watch the short video below which documents the impressive work researchers at Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab are doing in creating “organic user interfaces.”
To be sure, the technology is still not very sophisticated and, in general, people will be reluctant to change; but if one considers the success of Amazon’s Kindle and then extrapolates out (or “jumps the curve”) how organic user interface technology will only continue to improve in the near future, it is entirely possible that growing legions of people will soon turn away from reading the content of newspapers, magazines and books on paper and instead choose to use flexible electronic paper. This will be especially true if, as the video suggests, flexible electronic paper feels like paper and the user can even turn the page in a fashion similar to paper.
Comment Thread (2 Responses)
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I hope this technology allows me to hold a newspaper again, albeit an electronic one. I refuse to get my news from one singular old media source at a time, so I’m excited for RSS aggregator-type newspapers great for on the go!
Posted by: Marisa Vitols June 04, 2008
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Marisa: It seems almost inevitable that such a device will soon be possible. Whether people actually use it to get information from multiple and indpendent sources – well, that’s a different question.
Posted by: juldrich June 04, 2008
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