Heracles' Musings

The Electronic Newspaper.

There will have to exist some form of electronic newspaper that is portable, light and durable. If we don't soon invent one then we will simply have to invent a new way to make paper when we run out of trees. And as trees become more difficult and expensive to get, paper will become more expensive. Would you pay $10 for your daily newspaper? An electronic alternative would be much more desirable.
I have included a sketch of what I believe the basic design will be:

The unit will be made of an impact resistant plastic and will have a large flat screen similar to those used in laptops. And as the idea will be to manufacture it as cheaply as possible, the screen will not have to be perfect, just pretty good. The first ones will probably be VGA grey scale, but later on there will be a full colour deluxe model available.
It will not have its own power supply but will instead take a data module that is powered. This data module will be a solid state unit that is either exchanged or reloaded with the daily newspaper for a small fee (say 50 cents). It will have an integrated, rechargeable battery.
Because of the nature of the medium, it will store not only text and still pictures, but also video clips and sound. It will be a real replacement for the television news for people on the go.
The most likely processor to be used in such a device would be either a Caruso or a DEC StrongArm processor. These processors are so far ahead of the Intel pentium series chips that they are not even in the same league. They are cost effective and have a variable speed - you can slow them down to preserve power! They are also very efficient in their use of power. They could easily run for weeks on a pair of AA batteries as They do not consume any power unless they are working.
And now to my Electronic Newspaper/Magazine! It will look something like this: (click on the picture to see the design specs.)

Although I have not as yet figured out what it should look like ( maybe something along the lines of the OLPC project), I feel that it is urgent that we invent something to replace paper in our schools as there is massive waste in this area. Many schools use around four or five sheets of paper per student per day on average. This amounts to between 3000 and 6000 sheets of paper per school per day depending upon the size of the school. If you add the other paper used - student work books and pads etc. you come up with a staggering 6000 to 12000 pieces of paper per school per day or more than a million sheets per school per year.
What a waste. How can this be changed this for the better?
One probable solution is to have each student use a notebook computer.

Email me with your ideas and comments