E-Newspaper Experiments Reach the Next Generation

By Roger Fidler

The downsizing of broadsheet newspapers may not stop with the compact format, which is becoming increasingly popular around the world. Within a few years, newspapers could be adopting page dimensions similar to newsmagazines — at least for their next-generation digital editions.

Several hundred newspapers around the globe are now offering first-generation digital editions that replicate their printed editions. These so-called “screen facsimile” products have provided publishers with a low-risk, low-cost way to marginally bolster sagging circulation numbers, but their large-format pages are awkward and frustrating to read on typical computer screens and do not add much value to editorial and advertising content.

Since 2000, Adobe Systems and the Los Angeles Times have sponsored an initiative at the Kent State University Institute for CyberInformation in Kent, Ohio, to develop and evaluate a magazine-size, multimedia digital newspaper format that would combine many of the qualities of print with the interactive features of the web to add significant value for readers and advertisers.

One of the incentives for newspapers to take the crucial next step in digital publishing is coming from the emergence of electronic display technologies that afford a reading experience more like ink printed on paper.

The recent high-profile announcement by Sony Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics and E Ink Corporation of “the world’s first consumer application of an electronic paper display module” in Sony’s new LIBRIé electronic-book reader has reinforced the notion that soon everyone could be reading digital newspapers.

Press releases distributed by these companies claim the lightweight device, which is about the size of a thin paperback book and sells for about US$375 in Japan, provides “a truly paper-like reading experience with contrast that is the same as newsprint.”

A BBC News online report about LIBRIé noted that, in addition to books, owners would be able to download “fresh reading material such as newspapers and comics.”

Sony’s LIBRIé electronic-book reader and E Ink’s electronic paper technology have attracted the most attention, but they are not alone. A few weeks before the Sony-Philips-E Ink announcement, Panasonic System Solutions Company (a subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Company) introduced, with much less fanfare, the SigmaBook.

Panasonic is betting consumers will judge its electronic-book reader, which also is about the size of a thin paperback book and sells for less than US$400 in Japan, to be twice as good as the Sony device. Unlike the LIBRIé, which displays one page at a time, the SigmaBook opens like a printed book to display two facing pages.

SigmaBook uses a Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Display (ChLCD) technology developed by the Liquid Crystal Institute and Kent Displays Incorporated. Both display technologies — E Ink’s electronic paper and the ChLCD — are reflective, so they can be read comfortably in sunlight or lamplight, and can run on penlight batteries for weeks or months depending on usage.

Philips also is developing a two-facing-page design using E Ink’s electronic paper. Several Swedish newspapers are now attempting to create a digital newspaper format that would be appropriate for reading on this future Philips device.

While the Sony, Panasonic and Philip products are impressive harbingers of electronic display media to come, they are nowhere close to resembling the electronic-newspaper reading device conceived by IBM a few years ago. It took on the literal properties of a standard broadsheet newspaper. Pages were presented just as they would appear on paper with no differences in size, layout or typography from a printed edition.

The simulated large-format electronic paper display, which consisted of thin laminated sheets of flexible plastic, could be folded and rolled up for easy carrying. The only obvious electronic controls (also simulated) were contained within a two-inch wide strip across the bottom of the display.

The Industrial Designers Society of America awarded the IBM concept a Gold IDEA in 1999, but don’t expect to buy one anytime soon. A reading device such as this with an affordable, durable and flexible electronic paper display the size of today’s broadsheet newspapers is still far in the future.

Moreover, by the time this electronic-newspaper reading device could be mass-produced at a reasonable cost, the traditional broadsheet page probably will not be the newspaper format preferred by readers and advertisers.

For the present and at least several more years to come, commercially available reading devices with electronic paper displays will be relatively small, black-and- white, and rigid. And none will run video clips and fast animation.

Newspapers are no longer predominantly black and white, and their visually rich designs require at least a magazine-size format. So these initial devices are unlikely to serve as a suitable medium for digital newspapers in the near term, even with two facing pages.

This does not mean the newspaper industry needs to put off development and implementation of next-generation digital editions. Newspapers, whether printed or digital, are defined by their content and presentation formats, not by specific delivery and display technologies. The current challenge for the industry is to develop an appropriate magazine-size page format with standardised advertising units for digital publishing that will be compatible with any emerging display medium.

Electronic paper ultimately may be the preferred display medium for reading, but today any laptop or desktop computer with a contemporary flat-screen monitor can be used to download and comfortably read a digital newspaper if it has the page dimensions of a news magasine. Companies such as Zinio already have demonstrated that a large market exists for digital versions of magazines and newsletters.

Until electronic paper displays can be economically produced in sizes larger than a paperback book and can display full-colour images and video clips, the best alternative for reading digital publications will be the portable tablet PCs, which were introduced in 2002. They can serve as fully functional laptop computers and as reading devices for digital publications. All provide high-resolution, full-colour, magazine-size screens that can rotate at the touch of a button to display pages in document (portrait) orientation. Some models weigh as little as two pounds and are only a half-inch thick.