Papyrus E-reader Geared for School Market
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Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 5/5/2008 10:10:00 AM
Lugging around an eight-pound laptop may not appeal to students already burdened with overstuffed backpacks. But what if that laptop replaced the books—and the notepads, for that matter—all for just $100?Enter Papyrus, an e-reader that would allow students to scribble notes with a stylus right on the screen. These comments could be made available to teachers and classmates. Add a calculator and a 30-hour battery life? That’s not a hard sell.
Before racing to the Web to place an order, eager buyers should know that Papyrus is still a concept—one proposed by The Greener Grass, an online think tank run by design and product strategy firm Kaleidoscope.
Still, even with Papyrus in draft form, e-readers are starting to slowly make inroads. Just look at Amazon’s Kindle, a digital reader, which has many in the educational community a-twitter—even though the online book giant has yet to release any numbers on how many of these $399 devices have actually sold.
While few believe e-readers are ready to make an immediate dent in the $5.5 billion college students spent on textbooks during the last school year, the potential of these devices is clear. College textbooks are too expensive and cumbersome not to inspire students and institutions to look to a lightweight, bundled option.
