Electronic ink = future of print?

Is this the future of print?  Esquire Magazine has just published an experimental, limited-edition issue that features something called electronic ink on the cover, with moving words and flashing images.  The same technology puts a Ford ad in motion on the inside front cover.

Wired’s Charlie Sorrel is not impressed.

Way to go, Esquire. If you want to fight off the inevitable death of the print magazine at the hands of the internet, don’t do it by emulating the worst aspect of the web — Flash banner ads.

Bill Kling of American Public Media compares the experiment to the earliest video games, saying E-ink is now at the “Pong level.”  But he’s convinced this kind of technology could redesign newspapers and “put them back on top.”  Think of the “Daily Prophet” in the Harry Potter books and movies, a wizarding newspaper, which can be updated by magic after publication, with still photos that turn into video when the reader looks at them long enough.  “It isn’t too far off,” Kling says.

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