I have seen a lot of news in mainstream newspapers about e-paper lately, a good sign, it seems that new readers as the Kindle are breaking the e-reading curse. The last new I read in El Pais (via Tech Crunch) is that Amazon is planning an oversized version of their Kindle for textbooks. Schools and universities are the more obvious application area for e-readers in my opinion. Heavy textbooks with a limited use time, kilos of printed articles. Think the environmental benefit of one kindle vs all the textbooks any kind of student (university, high school, primary,…) needs. A possible LCA study, anyone?

I will keep an eye on this. I read most articles in my Sony Reader, but the transformation from PDF A4 to the reader size is not optimal, neither its horizontal view is. Personally I think that a specific reader for the academic environment would be a killer device for the electronic paper.

Picture thanks to Jan Chipchase

One of the applications in my thesis was a “mobile instant guilt killer”, meaning a easy way to offset carbon dioxide emissions on the move. If the mobile phones are aware of our greenhouse gases emissions (following our travel patterns using gps) and they reminds us of our lifestyle excesses, why would they not help us reliving the guilt a bit?

I hadn’t found any such application yet, but today reading Jan Chipchase blog I saw that Nokia has recently released an offsetting application developed together with Climate Care! Jan had used the application for offsetting his travel Kabul – Dubai – Tokyo. In the post he brings up the interesting question that such semi automated application makes so easy to offset your actions that you do not need to reflect about the problem (maybe hindering a needed behavioral change).

A good move from Nokia. I could not install the application on my phone, but I will give it a try soon.

Blog post in Jan Chipchase blog.

  

Mobile everything, originally uploaded by It’s a mobile world.

The three things no one leaves at home are the wallet (some kind of id, money), the keys, and the mobile phone. (See Chipchase et al (2005) Mobile Essentials)

In my new apartment we have a RFID card that opens all the doors, from the apartment one to the mailbox. Hanging from my mobile phone (together with a lego brick =) it’s one thing less to remember.

How mobile phones can start having this other functionality so we only need one device when leaving home? Mobile payment as the japanese suica? some kind of personal id combined with biometrics as fingerprint? RFID keys integrated on the device for opening the apartment or using public transportation? Which kind of security problems arise? How more traumatic the loss of the mobile device would be?