Nano Book

The main problem with e-books is that you have to read them on the computer or other PalmPilot like device. Many people get turned off by that, because nothing beats flipping paper pages and being able to read in pretty much any light conditions(try reading off a portable screen on a sunny beach!).

Hence the idea of a nanotechnology book, that in the beginning has blank page. When you choose the book you wish online you'd transfer the content into the book's memory which is a micro circut found in the book's spine. The pages wouldn't be actual paper, they'd be made out of something more durable that would nonetheless have a paper feel. They would be covered with nanopixels, which are simply nanorobots being able to change colors. Once the book is in the memory the circut sends information to the pages that "print" the book out. They would be resuable obviously.

The advantage of this technology would be that you wouldn't need to waist paper, but more importantly production costs would go down big time, and lesser known people could reach a much bigger crowd. Amateur writters would find their public more easily. I leave you to imagine all the other upsides of a revolution.

Imagine all the possibilities and the evolution of such a technology. You could have hundreds of books in the same physical book. Take your whole library on holiday. Read interesting independant magazines, that wouldn't otherwise see the day due to financial reasons. What would happen probably is that people would agree on a few book standards, having certain dimentions. Novels wouldn't be in the same format as let's say magazines. Magazines would loose their present format, at least until the technology becomes a bit more advanced, since I presume tha pixels would only be black or white at the begining, allowing only for low res b/w pictures. When I meant magazines I wasn't talking about Vogue, but more informative ones, less esthetics more content.

I know this technology is nowhere near that today. Though there is certain potential in let's say 20 year at the most.