Mathieu Tozer's Dev Blog

I wrote the following in a Café called Swell in Jan Juc this morning within the vicinity of 10 and 11. I was watching the few people around me, and writing my day dreams down.

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Why does information about the news still get distrubuted on paper in trucks all around australia, when there are high speed information transferring wires connecting those places together?
It's the inertia of traditional ways of doing things I suppose. Maybe it isn't actually more cost effective to set up printing more locally, since the paper has to moced there anyway. The only benifit for electronic transfer would be gotten if people were reading it off screen as well. Which means that great advances in screen technology need to be made.

I just saw a woman push a door by the glass, try the other size, and then it had to be her friend to use the door handle. Now they're choosing Phillippa's bread. It was all I could do to stop from laughing.

But just like that man over there, it wouldn't be the same sitting down to some device to read the news, no matter how many sound clips and video files could be included

The people doing the writing and publishing is fine.
What I envision is a new way of reading it, and distributing it.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could just have a portible, mobile networked device with colour ePaper that, once subscribed to, would

Another person did it with that door! Maybe it has something to dowith the design of the door. Not everyone can be stupid! It must have something to do with the way the dor is designed...

would automatically deliver each subscription to you for reading on your device. Then, once the information (be it The Age, Will Shipley Blog, Dave Draper) is published it is swept around the globe to whatever device is subscribed to it. The software would be not a new or complex thing. Indeed technology exists for doing this already. It's mundane, hello, email, attachments, RSS, eBooks, etc etc, it's the hardware for once that is the limitation here. There is also some limitations with digital rights management that have been resolved through software.

Think about it, at the push of a button (Blogger said it: Push button publishing) information sweeps around the planet and into every crevise aware of it. People who want to know, will know.

Observign the man reading the newspaper though, you must be able to easily flick through the news to the sections you want. The sport, for example. Ads can appear in the same spots, if they want, adapted to the smaller screen of the device. But an easy slider could flick you thrugh sections or pagers, at the same time as showing you where you are in the document also, and how much more you've got to read.

People want to read while they eat too.
And people want to be able to tare out snippets of information and put them somewhere else. (Attached quick printer?) You might be able to prop it up on an angle so you don't have to lean forward and strain the back to read.

How do people feel about typing on a touch screen? Then the device could open like a book, or be used like a laptop as well. And have two large, low power consuming, ePaper screens for beautiful reading

Idea: Something tactile for scrolling? As opposed to on screen? Sony does this with the click wheel.What about a scrolling strap? Kind of like a tank track wheel to quickly flick pages with.

If there were touch screens, two of em, and a pen, then the device could be used for drawing on as well, like an electronic etch-a-sketch. Great for taking notes too, and then you can export them, print them, read them, whatever. Plus you can scribble on publications too, or read from one screen and take notes on the other.

This is a grat toastie.

What if the device were to hang from the hip, a stylish, durable device. It must have a handle.

Why not work a day down in Torquay during the summer?

Things should autosave, so that you don't have to worry about saving al the tie. Things are jst stored. Just like a pile of paper, really.

Downloaded publications are stored in a reading list or library. And displayed like a podcast is in iTunes.

If the ePaper is bendable, why not have one that fold in half. Then the curving crevice that the device makes would be a nice smooth surface along which to run a finger...

And with lightweight, high capacity (if a litle pricey) flash memory, you don't have to worry about heavy, moving hard drives stuffing up.