The material shown in the photo contains piezoelectric nanowires which, when flexed can produce enough power to drive an LCD.

When we first produced our Living Art magazine for Outside (vid below), we envisioned a future where magazines and other media were published and distributed on recyclable, flexible OLED devices which would cost about the same as a hardcopy magazine today. Imagine something about size of a sheet of paper, and the thickness of a laminated menu, that you can purchase on your way to work and use as long as you like. Nanogenerators like this may be the technology that powers such a device.

Our belief is that once portable media is freed from the constrains of the proprietary device like a smartphone or tablet, the barriers to access this media become low enough to make the medium near ubiquitous. So naturally we are excited to see little advancements like this emerge. If you’re looking forward to someday curling up with a flexible digital magazine that you can afford to loose on the train, this is definitely technology to keep your eye on.

“Now researchers at Georgia Tech have made the first nanowire-based generators that can harvest sufficient mechanical energy to power small devices, including light-emitting diodes and a liquid-crystal display.” [Technology Review]

IDEO, a design and innovation consultancy, has released an inspiring video of three concepts that illustrate new and engaging ways ways to display the written narrative using the digital book. IDEO believes that increasing the digital context can add to books instead of taking away from it. The three concepts Nelson, Coupland, and Alice provide very different solutions that offer a way to enhance the digital book.

We’re excited to see some of these innovations develop, and it’s great to see these in a concept video before they go to market- a process which gives forum for discussion. The book is still being written on how digital content can be delivered in ways that are meaningful- wether they attract or distract, and how we use technology to enhance the reader’s experience. Check out the video above, and let us know what you think.

Pics:

Time Warner’s CEO Jeff Bewkes hinted that he wants to allow his tree killing print subscribers to automatically have subscriptions to the corresponding better looking tablet versions. These include tablet magazines such as Time, Sports Illustrated and Fortune. There is no plan on when this will exactly happen but Bewkes stated that the “key to it all” is to allow all subscribers to get content “over all broadband devices as soon as possible.” If this happens, there will be added incentive for more users to use the tablet version, which in turn, could lead to a larger subscriber base of the digital magazines and lead to more innovation. Although Time Warner has yet to produce an example of Living Art such as a motion cover, they do plan on it, and we haven’t given up on them yet.

via WSJ

From Bonnier’s blog:

“The concept aims to capture the essence of magazine reading, which people have been enjoying for decades: an engaging and unique reading experience in which high-quality writing and stunning imagery build up immersive stories.”