If a prototype tablet PC that debuted at this month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas ever gets produced in volume and becomes the next big thing in portable consumer computing, we'll be back to laying out sheets of paper on a desk. Except a lot of data will be stored in each sheet, and the sheets will be communicating with one another.
The PaperTab flexible tablet splits a tablet's windows into separate sheets of electronic paper. Developed at the Human Media Lab of Canada's Queen's University in collaboration with Plastic Logic and Intel Labs, the conceptual device should probably be called PaperWindow, since each sheet serves as an app window.
The device runs on the Intel Core i5 processor and is based on flexible plastic transistor technology and 10.7-inch display touchscreen technology developed by Plastic Logic, a company known for its research in plastic transistors and flexible displays. (We've discussed this company before.)
The PaperTab flexible tablet PC splits a tablet's windows into separate sheets of user-editable electronic paper that store a lot of data and communicate with one another. (Source: Human Media Lab, Queen's University)
Instead of cramming separate windows on to a single small display, the PaperTab system spreads them out on a physical desk. In a video demonstrating the conceptual device, the displays appear to plug into a box under the desk. Users can have 10 or more "interactive displays," or one per app in active use, that communicate with each other and transmit data through an undefined medium. The idea is to make it easier to work with multiple documents and multiple apps.
The process is similar to opening a window on a regular tablet or notebook PC. When the user picks up a PaperTab, it switches to a full-screen page view. Moving it farther away makes it revert to a thumbnail overview of a document, and when it's beyond reaching distance, it displays icons. Users can navigate through multiple pages within a single PaperTab document by bending one side of the display: one side for forward, the other for backward. Users can also place two or more PaperTabs next to each other to form a larger drawing or display surface, edit its contents, or enter data.
The video shows someone using two PaperTab: one blank and one showing PDF icons. The user hits an icon on one PaperTab with the blank PaperTab to open a particular document. To open an email, the user hits the email inbox on one PaperTab with an empty PaperTab, which is then bent to open a reply window. The user writes on the reply window with a touchscreen keyboard. The user can also create a larger view of a drawing by placing two PaperTabs side by side and then dragging an image from one to the other.
Elizabeth, this does not reduce the number of windows you have to look at for a given app and a given task. It makes it possible to lay them out like sheets of paper, each of which can access multiple windows. I suggest checking out the video--this is tough to describe in words.
Think of them as a single large sheet of paper (say, C or D sized) that you could unfold or unroll. The individual sheets may still be connected via the cables, but they'd be unobtrusive, I would think.
Several science fiction authors (Robert Heinlein in "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" comes to mind first) describe such displays. In Heinlein's the two characters "unroll a game board" to while away some time.
I really like this idea because it's intuitive and replicates what we are all used to doing. The only downside I see is that the system is presently tethered with quite a few cables. If they could reduce the system down to be wireless I think they would have a fantastic system. Of course, it means we'll all be going back to having an overly cluttered desk.
Ann, What is your take on the ability of a device like this to provide a good level of reliability? The idea is intriguing but it's difficult to foresee how it would handle the heavy stresses of daily use.
If I'm understanding this right, it should relieve the "eye crunch" of having to look at and consume myriad information adn files on a tablet screen...is that correct, Ann? That would be cool, though I'm not sure what to do with all of that intelligent paper!
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