Goodbye newspapers

Goodbye newspapers; the plastic era is coming. The a student team at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory has revolutionised the world of media and communication with the development of the “e-paper”, an electronic version of the traditional daily made out of plastic.

The programme will be developed by British manufacturing company Plastic Logic at a factory in Germany, where scientists had the idea of replacing silicon chips with plastic ones. The invention is due to arrive in our cities next year.

The revolutionary “e-paper”, as explained by the inventors, will be made from plastic, super-thin, as light as the average magazine, and able to store and display documents, whilst reducing the waste that currently comes with the traditional product.

Dean Baker, Manufacturing Engineering Manager of Plastic Logic, said: “We have paper being distributed all over the country which is consumed on that day and then discarded into the bin. This doesn't need to be the case.

“All of that contact could be transmitted electronically and stored on a single e-reader, with the same visual appeal as paper.”

The heart of the product is a flexible plastic electronic display that has the thickness of a chip. The device is about as big as a pad of letter-sized paper.

“Both business travelers and private users will really appreciate having all their paperwork on a single device when they're on the move,” Mr Baker said.