Blogs and Organizations

Blogs are an open diary to anyone to read and the convey information to a third party. In an organizational environment Blogs are useful because they “allow millions of people to easily publish and share their ideas, and millions more to read and respond” (Welcome to Technorati). Hence, with blogs, individuals from all the levels of the organization can share their ideas openly, thus, increasing the productivity of an organization. However this new technology also has some disadvantages, it can create conflict between an employer and an employee. For instance, according to USA Today, a delta airline employee recently sued Delta airlines after posting pictures of herself in her uniform (Delta emplyee..) . Hence, if employees use a blog with the intellectual property of an organization it can cause some serious legal problems .Blogs can also be very dangerous for organizations because classified information may be distributed without permission. To illustrate, a Microsoft employee lost his job after “he took some pictures of Apple G5 computers being unloaded onto the software company's campus and posted them to his blog” (Hansen). Hence, delicate information can be conveyed through blogs which can be disastrous for an organization. To conclude, blogs can be beneficial or troublesome for organizations.

References:

Welcome to Technorati,Technorati Media,

http://technoratimedia.com/about/

Delta employee fired for blogging sues airline, USA Today,

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2005-09-08-delta-blog_x.htm

Hansen, Evans, Google Blogger has left the Building, CNET news, February 8, 2005,

http://news.cnet.com/Google-blogger-has-left-the-building/2100-1038_3-5567863.html

E-Paper and its Disadvantages for Organizations

Like all technologies, E-paper has its flaws that make it inaccurate to use. Organizations face many disadvantages with e-paper and e-paper technologies. Publishing departments may have a bad time adapting to this new technology because it is still complex to use. Organizations still have manufacturing costs that “were higher than expected, and some companies had trouble programming signs in their stores” (Farrel). Hence, companies are still reluctant to use this technology because it is more complex than paper and it is more expensive to use. Also, according to David Dejean e-paper is still less attractive to technologies such as LED or LCD, because it still unable to reproduce animations and it is difficult to read when there’s no light (Dejean). Thus, unless the room is not bright enough, employees in an organization will have a very hard time reading the e-paper. The biggest challenge a company faces with e-paper and its sister technologies is piracy. In this internet era, it is easy to send information from one side of the globe to another, thus, organizations have to be careful with their information. According to Manuel Viloria, an internet specialist, with e-paper technologies, “your file can be easily emailed to someone living thousands of miles away. It can even be placed in a public server for anyone to download” (Viloria). Hence, this could be troublesome for book publishing companies that may lose millions of dollars and for organizations that have classified information. To sum up, e-paper has many disadvantages that

References:

Farrel Maureen, Is E Ink Publishing’s Savior?, Forbes Magazine, September 15, 2008

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/forbes/2008/0915/060.html

Dejean David, The Future of E-Paper: The Kindle Is Only the Beginning,

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=Hardware&articleId=9091118&taxonomyId=12&pageNumber=2

Viloria, Manuel, Ebooks: Advantages and Disadvantages,

http://www.manuelviloria.com/archives/ebooks-advantages-and-disadvantages/

Organizations' New E-Messenger

Organizations use paper in a daily manner to keep their information up-to-date and to convey information to their peers. For instance, the newspaper companies will be able to reduce the costs of buying paper; with e-paper the only thing they have to do is to send a signal to the e-paper and change the information. In Japan, electronics companies such as Hitachi, are testing e-paper technology that will reduce costs to the newspaper industry by getting rid “of the printing and pasting up of leaflets and posters with wireless, real-time e-paper” (Hall). Hence, newspapers will only have to send a signal to the paper and it will convey the information. This will not only benefit newspaper providing their services. At the organizational level, managers will be able to communicate information to all the levels of the organization. To illustrate, instead of printing pamphlets for the marketing department a manager can send the desired information wireless to the e-paper poster of the department. Companies such as JC Penny use e-paper to advertise their products to the general public by using “large programmable in-store billboards, which were blue and white” (Farrel). E-paper fused with e-books can help managers of an organization to send or receive information instantly, from everywhere to anywhere. According to Doreen Carvajal a writer for the New York Times, a device containing the e-paper that weighs no more than 13 ounces and can easily fit in the palm of a person’s hand; can be continuously updated in Wi-Fi hot spots (Carvajal). Hence, managers and other employees can receive relevant information from the organization anywhere and anytime thanks to this new information technology. Therefore, e-paper is effective for transmitting information in and out of organizations.

References:

Hall, Kenji; E-Paper Is Ready for Its Roll-Out , February 21, 2006, BusinessWeek,

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060221_539961.htm

Farrel, Maureen, Is E-Ink Publishing’s Savior, September 18, 2008, Forbes,

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/forbes/2008/0915/060.html

Carvajal, Doreen, One Day Soon, Straphangers May Turn Pages With a Button, April 24, 2006, New York Times,

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/24/business/media/24epaper.html?scp=1&sq=e-paper&st=cse

E-paper Makes Paper Disappear

Humans have used paper for thousands of years to convey information to their peers. In this new era, scientists have developed a new way to convey information to their peers. People around the world will use this technology to convey information and replace obsolete technology in an easier, more comfortable and cheaper way. To illustrate, a Dutch company named edupaper.nl, which seeks to exploit the features of the e-paper for digital education, paperless offices, and many other features that can be exploited for business purposes. According to edupaper.nl, e-paper can keep children interested in reading with up-to-date information; e-paper can save money to students with a reduction up to 30% in the price of books (Educational E-books). Moreover, edupaper.nl claims that 70% of forests are cut down for paper production, thus, by introducing e-paper in the daily life not only can profits go up it can also save the forests and thus reducing CO2 emissions that generate a long-term cost on the economy. E-paper is not only present in the education industry. Motorola has introduced a cell phone that contains Electrophoretic Display (EPD), which means that the screen is constituted of e-paper. According to Motorola, the MotoFone F3 technology “provides users with a large, high-contrast screen viewable even in bright sunlight. The ClearVision Display combined with a flush-fitting keypad and dust-resistant design makes the Motofone F3 durable in active everyday use” (Motorola Motofone F3). This cell phone is considered to be one of the cheapest in the market and its (EPD) technology replaces (LCD) technology making it basically indestructible:

Also e-paper will also replace books in a near feature companies such as Sony have created e-books that fit a whole library in a little device. The Sony PRS-500 e-paper screen amazed reviewers because “it has a paper-like high contrast that makes you feel you are reading a paper book. What’s even more amazing is that in direct and bright sunlight, the contrast gets better, not worse. And the viewing angle is just about 180 degrees” (Zhang). E-books will make paper books obsolete since they can contain more than book and they have a display friendlier to the eye. To sum up, e-paper will make paper and other technologies obsolete.

References:

Educational e-books, http://edupaper.nl/inhoud/welcome

Motofone F3, Motorola Inc.
http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details.jsp?globalObjectId=165

Zhang, Tong, Sony Reader PRS-500, Mobile tech Review, November 16, 2006,
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/Sony-Reader.htm

E-Paper Also Known As The Super Paper

According to SearchMobileComputing.com, E-paper or Electronic paper, is a portable, reusable storage and display medium that mimics paper and ink (E-paper). This technology is as flexible as real paper and it can be refreshed countless times. Small Times, an internet website that specializes in new technology, states that many semiconductors manufacturers and other electronics companies have created an e-paper that has a “100-micron layer of water with a droplet of colored oil, a 1-micron-thick hydrophobic (water repellent) Teflon layer, a 15-nanometer transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) patterned electrode layer and a white polymer background” (Philips finds an e-paper..). Hence, thanks to these materials, e-paper not only mimics paper it makes its materials more resistant and with more vivid than conventional paper colors. The following video shows a prototype of e-paper manufactured by Phillips:

According to Nicholas K. Sheridon, inventor of Gyricon, companies such as IBM and HP want also a share of this pie by creating their own e-paper technologies with features that will eclipse any other type of display technologies already in use. These features go from “flexibility and even bendability; thinness, at approximately 0.8 millimeters; lightness; a bi-stable nature, requiring no power to maintain an image and very little power to change it; good brightness, contrast, and resolution; as well as vivid color and a decent refresh rate capable of displaying animation and possibly even video" (Sheridon). Hence, e-paper will display information in a very reliable, effective, vivid and resistant way. Therefore, E-paper features will revolutionize display technologies in a scale never seen before.

References:

E-paper; http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid40_gci535038,00.html

Philips finds an e-paper technology that's quicker on the draw,January 6,2004
http://www.smalltimes.com/articles/article_display.cfm?Section=ARCHI&C=Consu&ARTICLE_ID=269182&p=109

Sheridon Nick; E-paper History: An Interview with Nick Sheridon, Father of E-paper, October 17, 2007, http://thefutureofthings.com/articles/1000/the-future-of-electronic-paper.html