hey its cool as hell

I meant to say something to your editor about this. This has become the darling of the PIC microcontroller forums as the magazine has ushered a challenge on their website to any crafty hackers out there that want to try their hand at reprogamming the display.

How much does this issue cost? I can't believe that Esquire ate the cost of the circuit board, batteries, and "E-ink" just to celebrate their 75th anniversary. Speaking of which, I have a new word to teach Esquire's hardware guys - "Leclanche cells." They've got to be cheaper than the coin batteries on that circuit board, and Polaroid probably has a ton of them left over from their instant camera film pack operation, which is rapidly winding downnnnn......

Cool vid but you could have made it much better just by having Vanessa introduce it or something. You don't feature her doing stuff near enough.

Pretty cool, but I wonder how much did they pay to do that, and whether or not they made a profit.

Actually, this is cooler than it looks - can you imagine slicing a LCD display up and it still displaying stuff?

OK, so the technology has a way to go before it's as functional as paper and pen - but it's getting close.

However... the E-ink wasn't the coolest part of October's Esquire. Take a look at three of the five scientists listed amongst the 75 most influential people of the 21st century - they are synthetic biologists (Keasling, Endy and venter) - SynBio is clearly where the future lies!

More at: http://2020science.org/2008/09/30/small-particles-are-sexy-synthetic-biologists-are-sexier/

I also had never purchased an Esquire magazine before, but I had to have this one for the E-Ink cover. I have had it for over 2 weeks now and it is still going non stop. I imagine the car ad on the inside is the company that covered the cost of this publicity stunt. I doubt the Esquire paid a dime for it.

hmm , brings me back to the ye olde birthday/christmass cards wich u open and play music ...

but why they didn't use a simple thin solar panel ??? it would still work in 20 50 100 years when by then they would've stopped making these little cells ...

I absolutely disappointed with this website. If tech was really their obsession, then I'm sure they'd go in depth on how the cover actually worked instead of whining about the lack of pretty colors and cutting it up with scissors. LAME.

i think u rock

that is so mint

BOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gee, I bet killing a few trees for normal paper is WAY less bad for the environment than this. Probably less bad than even one of those button batteries, let alone that whole stupid useless epage.

Nah, don't worry about the environmental impact of print media.
All of the mainstream media outlets are dead, anyway.
They performed so badly this last election that their readership/viewership is down 70 to 85 percent overall.
Print, network TV and online mainstream outlets...all toast.
And instead of trying to become more responsible and professional, they try garbage like this instead!

"When you're in a hole, stop digging" is a phrase they STILL don't get.

Now, if they'd tried something like full color OLED, I'd have been interested enough to at least buy.

No wonder Esquire's going bankrupt.

Sometimes I think we are all like little pieces of dust floating in someones coffee....The world will end....not by our doing but by the finger of Someone greater. I hope that all of you will be prepared.

"Gee, I bet killing a few trees for normal paper is WAY less bad for the environment than this. Probably less bad than even one of those button batteries, let alone that whole stupid useless epage."

Hey genius, guess what? The whole point of e-paper is to make things like magazines and newspapers obsolete, so that you would buy the "paper" once and then upload your articles, news whatever from the publisher. This is a great first step towards a paperless future.

@Mike

Full colour OLED? You do realise that is completely unrealistic.
OLED wouldnt last 10 mins displaying on the shelf with such a small power source. And besides, could you imagine the weight of the magazine.

Its nothing to do with being in "a hole".

They wanted to celebrate their 75th with something no other print media has accomplished yet. And to think that this could set other Print Publishers to try out something like this would be extremely cool.

No Innovation is without risk.
If anyone never tried anything new, we wouldn't have even electricity, nevermind this website where you feel urged to post your backward closed minded comments upon.

Three Cheers to Esquire for trying it out!

This is a tech site,right? It's amazing all the nut-jobs that come on here crying about the environment,and the web site,and all the other useless,booooooooooooorrrrrrrrinnnnnnnnnnnngggggg things people post rather than just enjoy the article for what it is.the cover is awesome.Who cares about the rest of it?If it leads to bigger and better things.......huzzah!

LOL. WITHOUT going back and pushing play... who remembers what the vehicle in the ad was even for?

75th an LAST anniversary! Cooler would have been solar powered cells and no batteries. Now we have magazines with toxic batteries! How cool, not!