Bear Flag Republic Radio Weblog

< 6:30:49 PM        >

Roll Up Displays in 2005?

"Cambridge Display Technology group has acquired its rival Opsys, fusing the two companies together in the hopes that flexible, rollable TV and computing displays might see the light of day by 2005. As we've reported before, Organic LEDs will be the Next Big Thingô in flat panel displays, and Kodak, IBM, and CDT are racing furiously to get a grasp on the emerging market. CDT owns a patent relating to one of the major OLED production technologies, but this acquisition moves the target date up, so it seems....

While the energy efficiency and wide viewing-angles of OLED technology is exciting to me, what really gets me going is the idea of a roll-up display. Since an OLED-based displayed needs no backlight and can be printed on flexible plastic, it's a real possibility. What can I say, Semi and I want our Globals! Imagine a visual communicator with a retractable screen that fits inside something the size of chapstick. Or how about a pull-out display built into your dashboard that can display anything from maps, to TV, to websites?...

I would like to see maps that get updated via bluetooth, and/or are synched to a GPS unit, allowing for a constant update of the users postion. Imagine if you bought a subcription ($10/year) to a map service that automatically updated your atlas, with options for countries, history, and higways.

Further uses: Flooring tiles: change the pattern of your flooring whenever you want, as the tiles are all networked together allowing you to have ever shifting patterns, video feeds, maps, or visualizations that are synched to music all on your floor. For that matter, your ceiling as well. Heck, any flat surface that they can be mounted to could be used.

Buy one game board and have it include all kinds of games, chess, checkers, backgammon, monopoly, parcheesi, trivial pursuit, all from one master board, and all you buy is the data of the game and any pieces that you might need.

Instead of buying the newspaper every day, have it fed via RSS to your livepaper via bluetooth either at home from your computer, via your cell, or at a newsstand when you walk by (since you've subscribed, right?) via 802.11. You could get all your magazines in this manner, simply subscribing online, and everytime you are in range of a stand, the paper automatically checks to see if there is anything new that you are due to get. Leace the paper in a cradle overnight to recharge and gather feeds while you sleep eat, etc, and that way it's always up to date.

Given enough RAM, the paper could serve video as well, so the shows that you missed last night that you recorded on your PVR are now watchable in a comfortably sized format while you commute into the city.  If you have a fat enough pipe while mobile, you could get live feeds from news channels as well, and watch what is happening in real time as you go." [Ryan Greene's Radio Weblog]

I don't have much else to add to this except to echo Ryan's thoughts. Pardon the pun, but this rolls into one "device" much of what I talk about in my presentations - constant information feeds (RSS style), The Heavenly Jukebox, mobile labs (OQO + VKB + roll up monitor), etc.

Notice, though, that Ryan doesn't mention libraries anywhere in his speculations. And why should he? Have we proven ourselves yet that we're ready for this brave new world of digital content, delivery, and preservation? We need to make sure we stay in the dissemination and distribution loop so that we can serve patrons (like Ryan) with these types of devices.

As a whiplash turn to make the point, witness the lack of understanding about the role librarians can and will play in a society drowning in information. Even Tom Peters doesn't get it:

"Round two of the revolution is underway. We have a term for job positions occupied by travel agents, stockbrokers, bank tellers, librarians, receptionists, reservationists, and many customer-service oriented jobs--Toast! Not crunchy, cooked-just-right toast. We are talking about burned to the crisp and then left on the counter for three days toast. The kind of toast that leaves a thin layer of toast sweat on the counter. Toast thatís only palatable if you soak it in milk for an hour, plug your nose and swallow." [People & Places that Rock, link courtesy of Simon Chamberlain]

comments < 6:29:23 PM        >

Digital Video Recorders Still Greater Than Sliced Bread.

Rounding out news emailed to me, Jennifer Choate notes a study her company did about users of Digital Video Recorders (DVRs, also called Personal Video Recorders or PVRs). Some interesting statistics culled from the report:

• 22% of PVR users (consistent across all three waves 877 interviews) claim they NEVER watch live television now.
• News & Sports continue to be the top two types of programs watched live.
• 65% claim they watch more kinds of programs now.
• 55% claim they watch more channels.
• 20% claim they ìDONîT KNOWî the change in channels, ìthe PVR records what they want.î
• 63% claim they watch more television with their children now, and 40% of their children know how to program the devices.
• Top three channels watched with PVR by children and family: PBS, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network.
• 60% say they rent fewer movies than before and 39% believe they are saving money because of it, despite their expense with PVRs.
• 20% of the commercials are NEVER watched by PVR owners.
• But, 80% claim they watch certain commercials deliberately for entertainment and product interest.
• When testing new concepts in advertising, very interestingly 35% of these owners say they are ìvery likelyî to ìaccept suggestions and visit a website for more information; and 23% are willing to accept ìincentivized viewershipî paving the way for truly interactive television.
• 43% of these owners own multiple devices.
• 74% of these households want one for every TV in the house.
• 60% of current users are more satisfied now with their cable or satellite provider.
• What they value most: CONTROL ñ customization, personalization, TV is more meaningful, something always available to watch.

And some user comments:

• ìI watch less BAD TV.î
• ìI treat it like my Internet now, I seek and find what I want, when I want it.î
• ìI watch more shows, in less time, and on my schedule.î
• ìMy children donít understand when they see regular TV.î
• ìAfter owning one, you would never consider watching TV without it.î

I haven't read through the whole report yet, but all of these observations and statistics are certainly true at my house. The majority of programming on the 60-hour ReplayTV is for the kids, and next year we're hoping to get a third Replay for the upstairs. I expect that in another year or so, the kids will rarely watch live TV anymore. As I say in my presentations, if you don't have a DVR, you should. Like wireless and broadband internet, it changes how you view and interact with information and entertainment.

You can get a copy of the report by contacting Jennifer Choate at jenniferc@ccubedllc.com. (Note: it's unclear in the email I received if you have to pay for it.)

[The Shifted Librarian]
comments < 6:28:20 PM        >

Why PDF Sucks

"I wish PDF-for-ebooks would fold up and die, but it wonít. Therefore I need to explain why, except in certain limited circumstances, relying on it for electronic books is a terrible idea....

No, it isnít the much-touted ìreading experienceî that frustrates me about PDF. Partly, itís Adobe successfully creating the widespread illusion (mentioned in the apologia) that PDF is non-proprietary.

Of course itís proprietary. It is completely owned by Adobe. ìPDFî is an Adobe trademark, for Peteís sake! (I think. Itís not listed in Adobeís official trademark list, though the PDF logo is. Anybody got the real scoop on that?) Read my lips: PDF IS PROPRIETARY. I tell you three times: PDF IS PROPRIETARY. PDF IS PROPRIETARY. PDF IS PROPRIETARY. Donít make me repeat myself on this again, please; I am enormously tired of saying it....

A more serious flaw with PDF is its accessibility problems. Again, much has been written; I need not comment, except to say that Adobe has had plenty of time to solve these problems and just plain hasnít.

My chief quarrel with PDF: it is a dead-end format; it as well as its inputs are utterly putrid for archival purposes. Once you have a PDF, you are not guaranteed to be able to back it out to anything useful. (If youíve saved it right, you can get at the PostScript, admitted. Sure you save your PDFs right? And PostScript is no treat to convert to anything useful, either.) Itís simply not futureproof, something that ebooks ought to be.

How do you get a PDF in the first place? Via typesetting. (Some people word-process; doesnít affect my argument.) If your archived PDF dies, or Adobe comes out with a nifty new feature that you want to add to an already-published ebook, you have to return to your typesetting files. If your typesetting files are no longer usable, you are out of luck....

Speaking strictly about text, well-constructed OEB 1.2-compliant XML files are a reasonable archive. Theyíre typesettable. Theyíre easily adapted to HTML for the Web. Theyíre accessible. Theyíre plain-text, so if all else fails you can pull the text out of them (with a single regular expression, if youíre slick) and try again. ìAll elseî is unlikely to fail, however; good XML is pretty much as futureproof as text gets....

Donít settle on a system that will someday make your data extinct!" [Caveat Lector, via TeleRead]

[The Shifted Librarian]
comments < 6:27:02 PM        >

Orson Welles. "Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch." [Quotes of the Day]
comments < 6:25:57 PM        >

Microsoft to limit access to Office 11. The next version of the productivity suite will run only on the latest versions of the company's operating systems, Microsoft confirms. [CNET News.com]
comments < 6:22:48 PM        >