DATE=10-06-03

TYPE=English Programs Feature

NUMBER=7-37917

TITLE=High Tech World: Electronic Paper

BYLINE=Rosanne Skirble

TELEPHONE=(202) 619-2806

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Rob Sivak

CONTENT=

Attention: This is another in the bimonthly series of discussions on computers and information technology featured on VOA's "Our World" with New York technology writer Peter Meyers.

INTRO: Despite the phenomenal popularity of computers over the past two decades, paper is still everywhere: in books, daily newspapers, and billboards to name just a few examples. But what if paper that ages old technology could be upgraded, brought into the digital era by acquiring a computer screen's ability to display ever-changing information while retaining the properties, the portability, the high-quality display that has made it so ubiquitous.

Electronic paper may be a big part of paper's future. And while it is not ready for everyday use, a few companies have recently made strides that before long could make this technology increasingly visible.

In the following interview segment, VOA's Rosanne Skirble speaks with computer and information technology expert Peter Meyers about electronic paper.

RS: "What is electronic paper?"

PM: "It is material that looks like paper, but acts like an electronic display capable of presenting constantly changing information. A few companies and a few researchers have made progress recently in shrinking the size of this paper making it thin enough so that it actually can be rolled up into a cylinder and potentially put into somebody's pocket. There is a group of researchers who have come out of M-I-T (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) who have formed a prototype that is as thin as three sheets of paper and it is about size of a business card and can be rolled up into a cylinder. The quality of the display is about as good, if not a little bit better than you would see on a computer screen."

RS: "(You are saying) about the size of a business card?!"

PM: "The idea is get to 8 ½ (inches) by 11 (inches or the size of a standard sheet of paper) or the size of a newspaper or magazine so that you could just hold one sheet of this paper on your way to work, maybe stick it in your briefcase or roll it up and then take it out and it would be constantly updated with new information.

RS: "How does it work?"

PM: "The technology behind this is really incredibly sophisticated. What the scientists have done is that have developed a very thin material that contains microscopic elements that are manipulated by electronic charges that reflect light in different ways and if you put enough of these microscopic elements together they collect to produce a display. If is much like the principle that is used for images on a computer screen where there are thousands and millions of tiny pixels you can end up producing a picture. One approach at this point, which is really fascinating and has been one of the most popular solutions, is to suspend these tiny microscopic spheres that are less than the diameter of a human hair and within the spheres inject a series of chips that are either white or black and depending on the charge that is applied, the black chips will come to the top of the sphere or the white chips will come to the top of the sphere and if you put thousands and millions of these together you get something that looks like a display or hopefully, a piece of paper."

RS: "What uses are there for electronic paper? Why would I want to use electronic paper over (conventional) paper?"

PM: "At this point the areas where this electronic paper have actually made it out of the lab and are sort of being experimented with are in stores for either an advertisement or for information about products that are available. The idea behind electronic paper is that you could put these displays up. They would be cheaper to put up and a convenient way to constantly display different information."

RS: "What can you do with electronic paper that you can't do with (conventional) paper?"

PM: "What you could do is constantly refresh the information. So, if you think about the morning paper that comes out with a story about news from the Middle East or what is happening with the economy, at this point we are accustomed to seeing the news change during the course of the day with electronic paper you can conceivably feed in new information, update a story and have that paper, that electronic newspaper change its contents change during the course of the day. This could also be used in places like the world of academics where textbooks take advantage of information that is fed in on a constant basis. You can imagine an economics textbook that uses examples from the stock market that are constantly fed in and constantly updated. So think of it as a living piece of paper."

RS: "So what is ahead for electronic paper?"

PM: "The first area that really needs to be proved as a viable concept is this area of billboards and in store displays. That is really happening right now, and many people are viewing that as a viable technology. Ahead, but more like two to three years from now, the next testing ground will be things like newspapers and books, information that people are reading on a regular basis."

TEXT: Peter Meyers is a freelance technology writer in New York. (SIGNED)

NEB/RS