"From Tuesday, all pharmacies (in Belgium) must be computerized and have a folder "drug" for each customer, to know his drug use and power as well, identify potential incompatibilities. In this case, we find the data required, as the list of medicines prescribed by a doctor, but also optional data, such as drugs purchased without prescription, allergies, health status, and contact information, such as those of a contact person."
"Maarten Poot has won the Creative Challenge after his Inflight E-reader idea was voted the best for the future of air transport. This joint initiative by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and the Dutch social networking site Hyves is intended to give talented young people an opportunity to present refreshing ideas on the future of air transport."
"The Inflight E-Reader allows passengers to read newspapers, magazines and books in their own language. According to the panel of judges this innovative concept reflects the ambition to make air transport more sustainable. The Inflight E-Reader not only ensures that fewer paper media are required on board, but also gives passengers access to the latest news. The logistical and technical feasibility of the Inflight E-Reader will be assessed in the coming period."
The Belgian Minister for Simplification, Vincent Van Quickenborne, wants to eliminate the requirements of drugs to pharmacists, the certificates for mutual care and medical certificates to employers. For 2011, Minister Van Quickenborne (Open VLD) plans to introduce electronic prescriptions and certificates, to avoid paper documents, says he in De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad. "The electronification comprehensive health care represents a saving of 1, 5 billion," said the minister.
Why not carrying your prescriptions and cerificates with you on a eReader, within a secured your patient file ?
Today, I would like to point you to a real ePaper application : the eFlyBook.
"eFlyBook is a portable electronic device that contains all of the U.S. digitized terminal procedures, IFR high and low altitude enroute charts, U.S. airport facility directory, the FAR/AIM, and can accommodate other user installed eDocs such as books, newspapers, magazines, pictures, and many others. eFlyBook brings revolutionary technology right to your fingertips with impressive features such as an ample 8.1 inch display in a 1/2 inch thick, 13.7 oz device, with very low power consumption providing days of interaction, incredible document viewing capability, and so much more."
When you search on ePaper, you will find some really outdated websites. Look for example at http://www.epaper.org.uk/. It seems that some people had than jumped on their board to surf an ePaper wave that lasted too long to arrive.
I'm conscious that this market might take years before really taking off, but I'm confident it will eventually fly.
Yesterday, Apple released the iPad but I'm confident that ePaper will provide solutions with much lower energy consumption which will allow a competitive advantage. ePaper should provide a more stable and cheaper technology for long term consultation of eContent.
But it might take time : I'm ready to spend many years doing this on the side even if I'd prefer to have ePaper as primary activity :
Design/Architect innovative content production chains with ePaper as Preferred client
Develop the best integration software that couples the strongest platforms
Design for the best eReaders
Re-sell all or part of total ePaper solution (hardware, software, content and services)
Yesterday, Apple announced the iPad and this morning I had a look at the video on ZDNet.
It is a really cool device ! Let's comment on Steve Jobs's demonstration:
Graphics : just like on the iPhone/iPod, the system looks really great
Pictures : the iPad will become a great way to share photos
Internet : It's surely the best experience for browsing the web in your sofa, nevertheless if you want to write long texts (like blogging), I'm not sure yet.
Email : I don't believe in it yet. I'd need to test the virtual keyboard to see if it's convenient to write an email like this
Reading eBooks : I'd need to compare reading during 1 hour on ePaper and 1 hour on a iPad.
The iPad will probably deeply hurt ePaper manufacturers. Their only chance of survival is a price war against the iPad. Also they will have to innovate aggressively to come nearby the same user experience. See an example here : http://vimeo.com/8217311. (Thanks to Michel Duperrier for sending me this video).
