• San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, November 11, 2005 1:46 PM

Handy-dandy roll-up digital displays were the stuff of commonplace life in the Tom Cruise film "Minority Report," but the sci-fi movie was set in the year 2054. In 2005, such stuff-'em-in-your-pocket displays remain the stuff of high-tech dreams. However, there's increasing evidence we won't need to wait until mid-century before the real deal arrives at local Circuit City stores. A story in the San Francisco Chronicle details the considerable progress that's been made by a number of U.S. and British companies to bring plastic and paper displays to the mass market. For example, Gyricon, a Xerox subsidiary, has already released an electronic paper product for use in advertising displays. Says Raj Apte, a Xerox researcher: "I have something like a sheet of plastic that you put into an electric paper printer, and when it comes out... it has an image. It holds that image for hours, days, or weeks... without any electrical connections to the rest of the world." The holy grail of super-thin display technology, according to the Chronicle, is computer displays that can be conveniently toted anywhere.

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