Movies on paper?
‘Electronic paper’ is four years away
By Rick Callahan
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Scientists have created a
new type of “electronic
paper” that may one day
enable books and newspapers
to show full-color movies.
Tiny dots packed in
columns and rows on the
paper can change colors in
just one one-hundredth of a
second, fast enough that a
whole array of these dots
could display video images,
said Robert A. Hayes, a sci
entist at Philips Research
Laboratories in Eindhoven,
the Netherlands.
Before the movies can
begin, Hayes said researchers
need to devise a system to
control each dot’s rapid
changes.
He said the first products
are three or four years away,
and would probably have
only one color at first.
The findings are reported
in Thursday’s issue of the
journal Nature.
“You could see this lead
ing to displays everywhere,
the sides of trucks with live
displays on them — like
Times Square but moving,”
Robert Wisnieff, senior man
ager of IBM Corp.’s Advanced
Display Technology
Laboratory in Yorktown
Heights, N.Y. “Imagine the
traffic accidents.”
The electronic paper is not
really paper at all, but elec
tronics embedded in a flexible
piece of plastic as thin as a
sheet of paper. It would have
to be connected to a power
source, such as a cell phone
or a handheld organizer.
The paper’s display sur
face is four times brighter
than reflective liquid-crystal
displays, such as those seen
on mobile phones and person
al digital assistants, Hayes
said.
ss
You could see this
leading to displays
everywhere, the sides
of trucks with live
displays on them —
like Times Square
but moving.
— Robert Wisnieff
Advanced Display
Technology Laboratory
The Philips researchers
developed two kinds of elec
tronic paper. In the first sys
tem, each dot in the experi
mental paper contains water
with a single layer of colored
oil, along with an underlying
transparent electrode and
white foil.
The viewer sees the color
of the oil, unless an electrical
signal is applied that moves
the oil aside. That reveals the
white foil underneath.
The researchers have
taken that system a step fur^
ther by creating dots that con
tain two layers of colored oil.
Each of these dots is divided
into three compartments,
each containing combina
tions of cyan, magenta or yel
low oils.
Each compartment is cov
ered by a colored filter. Its
hue depends on the colors of
the oils beneath.
These compartments can
be switched independently
and are capable of displaying
a variety of colors. That is
achieved by varying which of
the two colored oils in each
compartment is pushed aside
or left in place.
Hayes said this system can
display a full palette of red,
blue, green, cyan, magenta or
yellow and black along with
intermediate shades.
The researchers are not the
first to produce a form of
electronic paper.
Aris Silzars, former presi
dent of the Society of
Information Display in San
Jose, Calif., said the new
material has some advan
tages over other forms,
including its apparent ability
to rapidly switch among a
range of colors.
If Philips researchers can
overcome the technical chal
lenges, he said its first use
would probably be in cell
phones or handheld organizers.
Former test-tube babies
find comfort in doctors
By Bipasha Ray
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON — Elizabeth Jordan Carr grew up
reading and re-reading a letter her first doctor
wrote to her the day she was born, telling her that
in spite of her unusual conception — in a petri
dish — she was a normal human being.
That four-page letter, she said, got her through
the tough times of feeling insecure.
On Tuesday, for the first time since her birth,
America’s first test-tube
baby met the doctor who
cared for her after she was
born 21 years ago in
Norfolk, Va.
“She was perfect. She
did everything exactly
right. She was pink, she
cried at the right time,” Dr.
Fred Wirth, 62, said.
“When I wrapped her up in
a blanket, she relaxed, her
eyes opened up and I was
the first person she saw.”
He also determined how
people perceived the
nation’s first test-tube
baby, Carr said, by pro
claiming her healthy and normal at the first
news conference, which the nation watched
eagerly at a time when such medical technology
was new and scary.
Tuesday’s meeting, at Simmons College
where Carr is now a senior majoring in commu
nications, came after years of missed calls, lost e-
mails and phone tag.
Carr only knew Wirth from a television image
of a masked doctor carrying her as a newborn
down the hallway, “holding me like a football.”
That, and his handwritten words to her.
“That letter was a comfort. When you’re an
awkward teenager, wearing braces, probably over
weight at some point, it was a nice thing to have —
to have someone other than your parents tell you
that you’re a normal human being,” she said.
Earlier this year, when Carr was a reporting
intern at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, she,witli
the help of a colleague and the in-house librarv
began trying to track down Wirth.
They found a Web site for Wirth’s company
and Carr sent him an e-mail in May.
“Twenty-one years ago, he held me like a
football and declared I was a beautiful baby,"she
wrote. “I would like so much to contact him and
talk to him to thank him for the beautiful letter he
wrote me 21 years ago that I have read so man)
times on the days where things seemed tough.'
“It just touched my heart to have her gotoali
this effort to reach me,”said
Wirth, who’s now a neona-
tologist at the Reading
Hospital and Medical
Center in Pennsylvania
“Eve saved hundreds of
children’s lives, and noneof
them have bothered to even
call me. I’m overwhelmed.'
At their meeting, Can I
brought Wirth a signed f
copy of an infertility bod I
for which she wrote the
foreword, and a newspaper |
column she wrote about her
life and connections to |
Virginia.
Wirth gave her a neck
lace bearing his company’s logo — a round plate
with the heads of a parent and child — and this
month’s issue of Time magazine, which had a
photo of a diapered Carr in a list of greatest inno
vations in the last 100 years.
Carr was bom on Dec. 28, 1981, three years
after the world’s first test-tube baby, Louise
Brown, was bom in England. About a million
test-tube babies have been bom since.
Wirth says he always wondered what kind of a
woman Carr had become.
“She’s incredible, not just intellectually, but
more important, emotionally. When she talked to
me on the phone last week, I went ‘ka-ching’,” ;
Wirth said. “To me, she’s a testament to the
power of the reproductive energy that we have in
the human race.”
When you’re an awkward
teenager, wearing braces,
probably overweight... it was
a nice thing... to have
someone other than your
parents tell you that you’re a
normal human being.
— Elizabeth Carr
former test-tube baby
/Is time tv get your copy.
P ICKING UP your 2003 Aggielandyearbook is
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2003 Aggieland
TA
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