With black and white electronic paper being commercially released in britain in march 2006/7, I don't doubt that the colour version will follow within a short number of years.
Another application for this - as opposed to computer screens, would be decoration - for example, imagine yourself waking up and trudging to the bathroom. You open the door to be greeted by the calming sound of waves played from hidden speakers, you look at the floor and see sand, at one end of the room, waves lap around your toilet.
You step gingerly toward the sink, hearing a faint crunching sound every time you take a step, you look down and the sand has footprints in it. A crab ambles past, and you tread on it, crushing it into the sand.
The floor could be a blank canvas - saving the impressions of your feet on it as you walk, or making shock-wave images erupt from beneath your feet when you take a step.
If you feel slightly more vindictive, a generated birds-eye view of a city scape could be played onto it, leaving destruction wherever you pass.
The effect would be achievable by using electronic paper (See the link just incase you haven't heard about it), the e-paper would cover the floor, being beneath a clear layer of linoleum-like material (possibly linoleum), and a generated image of a beach (Or chosen scenario) would be played into it - fully interactive, pressure sensors would allow for it to sense your footsteps and alter the image accordingly.
The same technology could be applied to wallpapers, allowing choices of colours/scenes to suit the floor/personalised creations allowing you to draw on them with your fingers or upload personal pictures to it.
The wallpaper could also have applications elsewhere around the home, such as an alternative to a TV.
-- fridge duck, Apr 25 2005

Electronic paper http://www.sciencen...10&language=english
[fridge duck, Apr 25 2005]

TV Bath Tiles TV_20Bath_20Tiles
by maheid [mahatma] [calum, Apr 26 2005]

Touch sensitive disco dance floor http://web.mit.edu/storborg/ddf/
Baked in a retro lo-res way by MIT students [Acme, Apr 27 2005]

It would probably just be eaten up by advertisements eventually, but + anyways.
-- RayfordSteele, Apr 25 2005


The only adverts that might be shown on this would be TV adverts - if it were used as a substitute for a TV. Although I don't doubt that the software developers would like to add something to it.
-- fridge duck, Apr 25 2005


Neat. But no need to wait. You can do it now with flat-panel LCD's. Both ways would be similarly very expensive.
-- sophocles, Apr 26 2005


<newspaper off topic>Until you can give me a /Favourites/My Crosswords/times.fav folder for the Times or Telegraph crosswords WITH a pointy stick menu option to fill it in then I am not interested. Having said that I can't even complete them when using a photocopy - wrong sort of ambience.</not>
Back on topic, what a cracking idea!. 'Grand Canyon' setting for those with vertigo.
-- gnomethang, Apr 26 2005



random, halfbakery