I have seen a lot of news in mainstream newspapers about e-paper lately, a good sign, it seems that new readers as the Kindle are breaking the e-reading curse. The last new I read in El Pais (via Tech Crunch) is that Amazon is planning an oversized version of their Kindle for textbooks. Schools and universities are the more obvious application area for e-readers in my opinion. Heavy textbooks with a limited use time, kilos of printed articles. Think the environmental benefit of one kindle vs all the textbooks any kind of student (university, high school, primary,…) needs. A possible LCA study, anyone?

I will keep an eye on this. I read most articles in my Sony Reader, but the transformation from PDF A4 to the reader size is not optimal, neither its horizontal view is. Personally I think that a specific reader for the academic environment would be a killer device for the electronic paper.

  

Mobile everything, originally uploaded by It’s a mobile world.

The three things no one leaves at home are the wallet (some kind of id, money), the keys, and the mobile phone. (See Chipchase et al (2005) Mobile Essentials)

In my new apartment we have a RFID card that opens all the doors, from the apartment one to the mailbox. Hanging from my mobile phone (together with a lego brick =) it’s one thing less to remember.

How mobile phones can start having this other functionality so we only need one device when leaving home? Mobile payment as the japanese suica? some kind of personal id combined with biometrics as fingerprint? RFID keys integrated on the device for opening the apartment or using public transportation? Which kind of security problems arise? How more traumatic the loss of the mobile device would be?