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= Using E-Readers to Reduce Paper Waste = **The Problem:** With the advent of the Internet and network technology, people are printing more than ever. According to an article published in Nature Photonics in 2010, “[t]he paper industry is the second biggest generator of waste water.” People tend to print out documents for all sorts of reasons, and, in many cases, they just get thrown away later. According to a paper entitled “Exploring Sustainable Design With Reusable Paper,” documents are often printed out so they can be compared or proofread, tasks which many people find easier to do with physical copies than electronic ones. In other cases, people print documents so they can leave them somewhere to remind them to do something. In most, if not all of these cases, the documents end up getting discarded. **Solution: **  While there are plenty of places paper is used, one particular area that would be a good place to start would be at universities. Students generally end up carrying all sorts of paper – syllabi, assignments, textbooks, worksheets, and more. While there are courses that post this sort of material online, reading long documents from a computer screen can be rather tiring. Existing e-readers would work relatively well for some of this material, and given the rate of innovation these sorts of devices have been going through in just the past few years, it won’t be long before a model that can handle textbooks well is released.  This would probably involve some sort of program, similar to RPI’s mobile computer program, where students receive e-book readers, and schools distribute electronic textbooks. Ideally, the reader device would have some sort of a stylus so students can easily mark up textbooks, highlighting key phrases, etc. This would definitely require some work by the textbook publishers, as ebooks are generally more linear than physical books, and, depending on the device, may not have as flexible layout options. (There are also potential pricing issues with ebook versions of textbooks.)  This sort of program has already been tried at a few places – according to an article on GreenBiz.com, Stanford University has given out iPads to their medical students to use instead of physical textbooks, providing electronic copies of course materials.  There are some other interesting solutions in development; Xerox is apparently working on paper that’s reusable – it is printed by exposing it to light, and fades over the next 16 hours. This sort of solution would work quite well for scenarios in an office where documents are only needed temporarily, and would work beautifully for proofreading, at least if it doesn’t need to last overnight.  There is also a company called Sanwa that is making a printer that can print on reusable “paper” that is actually made of plastic. According to the company, it can be printed on up to 1,000 times, and since the printer is thermal, it doesn’t need ink or toner. Links: Xerox Reusable Paper: [] Rewriteable Printer: http://www.sanwa-newtec.co.jp/english/products/rp_rp_3100_e.html Info on Stanford Med iPad program: [] Image Links: [] [] [] [] <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">[] <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">Papers: <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">Harris, Slân. “Emergence of the e-book.” Nature Photonics. 4. 748-9 (2010).
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">Full citation.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">Harris is an editor at Research Information magazine, and a science and technology journalist and editor at Freelance.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">Where does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials?

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">The article focuses on the e-ink technology behind most modern ebook readers, and does bring up some of the environmental advantages of ebooks.
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">What is the main topic or argument of the text?

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">4. Describe at least three ways that the main topic or argument is fleshed out. <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">The paper starts out discussing the history of why e-ink was created. It continues by explaining the details of the technology, and how it works. It finishes up by discussing future developments for ebook displays.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">5. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text? <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">“E Ink’s aim was to commercialize a display that does not need a backlight but instead uses reflected ambient light in the same way that printed paper does.” <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">“Peruvemba believes that one of the key markets for e-book readers will be e-textbooks. This market brings additional challenges for the e-book readers and their displays. Users want to be able to write on the device with a pen as well as to use touch input, to highlight pieces of text and take notes. This can be done using an inductive pen and a digitizer, and is being pursued by E Ink in partnership with the digital pen technology company Wacom.” <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">“Peruvemba is excited about the environmental benefits of the shift to e-books.”

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">6. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports your research focus. <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">The text discusses how much of an issue the paper industry is, and points out some potential future developments for electronic ink displays.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">7. List at least two details or references from the text that you have used in your presentation and wiki post. <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">- “Peruvemba is excited about the environmental benefits of the shift to e-books. “The paper industry is the second biggest generator of waste water,” he said. “And if you switch to electronic books you could save up to 300 trees depending on how much you read”” <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">- There are color e-ink displays in development. <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">1. Full citation. <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">Wagner, Julie; Mackay, Wendy. “Exploring Sustainable Design with Reusable Paper.” CHI 2010: Earth, Wind, and Flyer.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">2. Where does the author work, what else has s/he written about, and what are her/his credentials? <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">Julie Wagner is a student at INRIA Saclay in France, and Wendy Mackay is a research director at the same institution.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">3. What is the main topic or argument of the text? <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">The paper focuses on why people tend to print out materials and how reusable paper – both using e-readers and using re-usable/erasable paper, which is apparently still in development.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">4. Describe at least three ways that the main topic or argument is fleshed out. <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">The paper used a survey to determine why people print out documents, explaining that the whole idea of a “paperless office” has not really taken off yet, and people still have various reasons to print out documents.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">5. What three quotes capture the critical import of the text? <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">“Far from early predictions of the paperless office [6], we are inundated with paper: typical American office workers use about 10,000 sheets a year1.” <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">“Examining users’ print choices revealed several situations specifically amenable to sustainable design. Sometimes the user is in a hurry and does not know in advance which documents will be useful. In such cases, they often resort to batch printing of a large number of documents, after which they throw away those that are unnecessary.” <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">“Just as people leaf through books before buying them, sustainable paper interfaces should permit an examination phase that postpones printout decisions.”

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">6. Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports your research focus. <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">The main way the text supports my research focus is that it explains //why// people print things out, and how solutions to paper waste can address these issues.

<span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">7. List at least two details or references from the text that you have used in your presentation and wiki post. <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">- There are all sorts of reasons people print documents, and any sort of replacement solution needs to take these into account. <span style="font-family: 'Liberation Serif','serif';">- Reusable paper should allow the user to maneuver pages, etc, and otherwise work like real paper.