New E-Newspaper Reader Echoes Look of the Paper
The Plastic Logic reader, left, has a screen the size of a sheet of paper for a copy machine. Center, Sony’s eReader; right, Amazon.com’s Kindle. The Plastic Logic device, which is yet to be named, can be updated wirelessly and store hundreds of pages of documents.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The electronic newspaper, a large portable screen that is constantly updated with the latest news, has been a prop in science fiction for ages. It also figures in the dreams of newspaper publishers struggling with rising production and delivery costs, lower circulation and decreased ad revenue from their paper product.
While the dream device remains on the drawing board, Plastic Logic will introduce publicly on Monday its version of an electronic newspaper reader: a lightweight plastic screen that mimics the look — but not the feel — of a printed newspaper.
The device, which is unnamed, uses the same technology as the Sony eReader and Amazon.com’s Kindle, a highly legible black-and-white display developed by the E Ink Corporation. While both of those devices are intended primarily as book readers, Plastic Logic’s device, which will be shown at an emerging technology trade show in San Diego, has a screen more than twice as large. The size of a piece of copier paper, it can be continually updated via a wireless link, and can store and display hundreds of pages of newspapers, books and documents.
Richard Archuleta, the chief executive of Plastic Logic, said the display was big enough to provide a newspaperlike layout. “Even though we have positioned this for business documents, newspapers is what everyone asks for,” Mr. Archuleta said.
The reader will go on sale in the first half of next year. Plastic Logic will not announce which news organization will display its articles on it until the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, when it will also reveal the price.
Kenneth A. Bronfin, president of Hearst Interactive Media, said, “We are hopeful that we will be able to distribute our newspaper content on a new generation of larger devices sometime next year.” While he would not say what device the company’s papers would use, he said, “we have a very strong interest in e-newspapers. We’re very anxious to get involved.”
The Hearst Corporation, the parent of Hearst Interactive Media, owns 16 daily newspapers, including The Houston Chronicle, The San Antonio Express and The San Francisco Chronicle, and was an early investor in E Ink. The company already distributes electronic versions of some papers on the Amazon Kindle.
Newspaper companies have watched the technology closely for years. The ideal format, a flexible display that could be rolled or folded like a newspaper, is still years off, says E Ink. But it foresees color displays with moving images and interactive clickable advertising coming in only a few more years, according to Sriram K. Peruvemba, vice president for marketing for E Ink.
E Ink expects that within the next few years it will be able to create technology that allows users to write on the screen and view videos. At a recent demonstration at E Ink’s headquarters here, the company showed prototypes of flexible displays that can create rudimentary colors and animated images. “By 2010, we will have a production version of a display that offers newspaperlike color,” Mr. Peruvemba said.
If e-newspapers take off, the savings could be hefty. At the The San Francisco Chronicle, for example, print and delivery amount to 65 percent of the paper’s fixed expenses, Mr. Bronfin said.
With electronic readers, publishers would also learn more about its readers. With paper copy subscriptions, newspapers know what address has received a copy and not much else. About those customers picking up a copy on the newsstand, they know nothing.
As an electronic device, newspapers can determine who is reading their paper, and even which articles are being read. Advertisers would be able to understand their audience and direct advertising to its likeliest customers.
While this raises privacy concerns, “these are future possibilities which we will explore,” said Hans Brons, chief executive of iRex Technologies in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
IRex markets the iLiad, an 8.5 by 6.1-inch electronic reader that can be used to receive electronic versions of the newspaper Les Echos in France and NRC Handelsblad in the Netherlands.
The iRex, Kindle and eReader prove the technology works. The big question for newspaper companies is how much people will pay for a device and the newspaper subscription for it.
Papers face a tough competitor: their own Web sites, where the information is free. And they have trained a generation of new readers to expect free news. In Holland, the iLiad comes with a one-year subscription for 599 euros ($855). The cost of each additional year of the paper is 189 euros ($270). NRC offers just one electronic edition of the paper a day, while Les Echos updates its iRex version 10 times a day.
A number of newspapers, including The New York Times, offer electronic versions through the Kindle device; The Times on the Kindle costs $14 a month, similar to the cost of other papers. “The New York Times Web site started as a replica of print, but it has now evolved,” said Michael Zimbalist, vice president for research and development operations at The New York Times Company. “We expect to experiment on all of these platforms. When devices start approximating the look and feel of a newspaper, we’ll be there as well,” Mr. Zimbalist said.
Most electronic reading devices use E Ink’s technology to create an image. Unlike liquid-crystal display of computer monitors and televisions, electronic paper technology does not need a backlight, remains displayed even when the power source runs down, and looks brighter, not dimmer, in strong light. It also draws little power from the device’s battery.
Plastic Logic’s first display, while offering a screen size that is 2.5 times larger than the Kindle, weighs just two ounces more and is about one-third the Kindle’s thickness.
It uses a flexible, lightweight plastic, rather than glass, a technology first developed at Cambridge University in England. Plastic Logic, based in Mountain View, Calif., was spun off from that project.
Esquire Unveils Cover With Electronic Ink
NEW YORK (AP) -- Although readers keep shifting to the Internet, Esquire magazine's editor is sure print isn't dying, and he aims to prove it Monday by unveiling a 75th-anniversary issue with a cover that features electronic ink.
''For the last couple of years I've been in search of ways to do something that shows that print is a particularly vital product,'' said Esquire magazine's editor-in-chief, David Granger. ''I really do think that print is the most exciting and rewarding medium there is.''
A 10-square-inch display on the cover of Esquire's October 2008 anniversary issue flashes the theme ''The 21st Century Begins Now'' with a collage of illuminated images. On the inside cover, a two-page spread advertising the new Ford Flex Crossover features a second 10-square-inch display with shifting colors to illustrate the car in motion at night.
The displays, which Granger said have boosted advertising in the issue, were developed by E Ink Corp., a Cambridge, Mass., company that also supplied the electronic paper technology for the screen of Amazon's Kindle e-book reader.
The technology for both products uses micro-capsules of ink that are controlled by an electric charge. Unlike the Kindle, the magazine's display is not linked to a wireless network, so it cannot be updated.
Scott Daly, a Dentsu America Inc. executive who oversees media buying for Canon, Toyota, aigdirect.com and other companies, said the concept is a needed shot in the arm for the newspaper and magazine industry.
''A lot of people will say that there isn't that much excitement in the magazine world, but this proves that there can be,'' Daly said.
In the first half of 2008, newsstand sales of U.S. magazines fell more than 6 percent, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Meanwhile, the economic slowdown has exacerbated a decline in advertising revenue for newspapers and magazines' print editions. The Publishers Information Bureau reported that magazines had roughly 8 percent fewer ad pages in the second quarter of 2008 than the same period a year earlier.
Ad pages for Esquire, a general-interest magazine targeting higher-income men, were down 5.7 percent in the first half of 2008, according to the Magazine Publishers of America.
Esquire's circulation gained slightly compared with 2007, according to the ABC.
''If we want to keep print vital, print advertising has to be just as vital as print editorial,'' Granger said.
So far, he said, the electronic display has been a strong draw: The October issue has the most ad pages of any issue in his 11 years as editor-in-chief of Esquire.
Granger wouldn't disclose the extra cost of printing the electronic display or its gain from Ford's ad buy.
''Flex is a breakthrough product for Ford, and the Esquire opportunity offered us the chance to show the vehicle in a way we could never previously have imagined,'' Jim Farley, Ford's group vice president of marketing and communications, said in a written statement.
Esquire is printing 100,000 copies of the October issue with the special cover, which will sell for $5.99 - $2 more than the standard $3.99 cover price - at Borders and Barnes & Noble stores and certain newsstands. Without the e-paper cover, single copies of the anniversary issue will sell for $4.99. Esquire's total monthly circulation is roughly 725,000.
Esquire first approached E Ink about a collaboration more than seven years ago, but the technology was not yet ready for magazines. In the summer of 2007, Esquire and parent Hearst Corp. again contacted E Ink about creating a display for the anniversary issue. The biggest hurdle, Granger said, was packing the six batteries and two computer chips needed for the displays into the magazine's cover. The batteries are guaranteed to last 3 months but expected to work for more than 6 months.
''It was a very difficult process because at every step of the way, nobody had ever done this before,'' Granger said.
Granger predicted that Esquire will someday include e-paper displays linked to a cellular network or radio frequency, which will allow the magazine to add updates to stories during the month an issue is on sale.
''It could be a year away, it could be three years away, but it will happen soon,'' Granger said.
E Ink has an exclusive agreement with Hearst through June. Granger said he hopes to use an electronic paper display again in the magazine during the first half of 2009.
''We're already in meetings about what we can do at Esquire and throughout the Hearst magazine division to really take it to the next level and show what this technology is capable of,'' Granger said. Hearst Magazines' titles also include Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and SmartMoney.
Granger believes e-paper is the technology to finally usher magazines into the 21st century.
''I treasure the magazine experience of, like, going into this little world that's been prepared for you by somebody else,'' Granger said. ''It's not like the Web, where there's just this constant cacophony of noise.''
E-paper, Granger said, can incorporate digital technology into magazines without making them unrecognizable. ''It preserves that experience but then it adds a little something else,'' he said, ''a little incentive to spend even more time with your magazine.''
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