I assume we all know about the e-ink technology. It sounds great for reading books, but unfortunately the size of such an electronic book is the size of the average book (and 300 grams, see 1st link). How to read a broadsheet newspaper?
Think of the mechanism in new PowerBooks that puts the hard disk in a save position when you drop it. The Sudden Motion Sensor. There are now even fun applications that use this mechanism as a different kind of input (2nd link).
1+1=2. Load the PDF of a broadsheet newspaper on your electronic book, but you get to see only a 6th of the entire page. Tilting the entire book a bit and your frame of moves, enabling a natural way of reading your newspaper.
The book should calibrate when you hold it still for a few seconds and it only listens to sudden moves of the book. Otherwise you are required to keep the book always in a certain neutral position and the thing tilting over because your hand gets tired will become navigational input.-- rrr, Nov 18 2005 Sony's Librié http://books.guardi...305,1200034,00.htmllame, uncritical review in the Guardian of Sony's Librié ebook [rrr, Nov 18 2005] software for the Sudden Motion Sensor http://www.kernelth...m/software/ams2hid/The Apple Motion Sensor As A Human Interface Device [rrr, Nov 18 2005] Tilting as an interface control is an interesting idea, but doesn't it just do what a wheel already does?-- DrCurry, Nov 19 2005 This has been done with Pocket PC and I've played with it. You can "pour" pages around--scroll--that are larger than the display by tilting the device. It used accelerometers for sensing orientation.
An especially interesting little feature on one of the prototypes was that when you tilted away from you, flipping it over as if to show it to another person, the screen inverts so that the image is right-side-up to the person to whom it's being shown.-- bristolz, Nov 19 2005 Except when you try to read the newspaper in its most common location, this lurching, pitching and bouncing carriages of most public tranport systems around the world. At least it would be a way to flick quickly to the sport pages....-- Minimal, Nov 21 2005 ... or, more importantly, away from the sports pages.-- bristolz, Nov 21 2005 I was reading [krelnik]'s newbie guide again today and I noticed the phrase "Many of the users of the halfbakery are busy professionals". Then I come to the site and one of the first things I read is \\This has been done with Pocket PC and I've played with it\\-- hidden truths, Nov 21 2005 Just goes to show that you shouldn't believe what you read.-- DrCurry, Nov 21 2005 random, halfbakery