The paperless office may yet become a reality if such items as multimedia specialist Digithurst Ltd’s newly-launched electronic newspaper really take off. And best of all, the Royston, Hertfordshire-based company has simply taken technology that it has already developed and used it in a creative way, which means the newspaper should be relatively cheap – no pricing was available, however, as the firm builds bespoke systems to suit a customers individual needs. To create an electronic newspaper, all you need is a desktop personal computer that you can use as a server. Then, plug in different Digithurst Microeye boards (CI No 1,843), which capture the information you require. A TV board, for example, collects Teletext data and images from a television set. Simply plug the aerial into the board at the back of your computer. The board picks up the signal, and translates it into digital data, which is then stored as a data file on the computer’s hard disk. This uses about 600Kb of memory. The same applies for video and sound, using the Microeye 2C video capture board, and illustrations and advertisements, using the 1C board. Images and sound use approximately 4Mb of memory. Then, take an IBM Corp Thinkpad 700C portable computer and download the information stored on the desktop to it. The Thinkpad has Digithurst’s PictureBook 2 software installed, which translates the data into ASCII code. Furthermore, it orders the data to a standard format, with, for example, business stories on page seven and international news on page three. Each electronic page carries a certain amount of advertising, which is on display alongside the editorial copy and comes complete with sound and video.
Pen-based Thinkpad
You can then either read it as a standard newspaper or use it as a database to search for particular articles. You can even create subject profiles that guide you to the pages containing stories most relevant to yourself. The Thinkpad was chosen as the best machine for the job because it is pen-based, has high memory capacity – 12Mb – a 120Mb disk drive and a parallel port-based sound device. Also its high resolution colour display means that the reader can use computer graphics to enhance articles or illustrations within the publication. But according to managing director Peter Kruger, it is a little more expensive than he would have liked at approximately UKP3,000. Other less sophisticated options are available though – Tandy Corp’s Grid Systems portable is one possibility, although this has the disadvantage of being monochrome and can’t display moving video images. Another is Amstrad Plc’s pen-based notepad, PDA 600, launched in March of this year (CI No 2,131). Kruger favours pen-based machines because he says they make life easier for the user – all he needs to do is ring the bit of text he wants to file away for future reference, and his computer will store it away on hard disk. It is also the best way of filling in the crossword, he added. The system, which is available now, is targeted mainly at corporate users, wishing to provide their staff with instant access to information, or information suppliers, such as publishing houses. The idea is that, while Digithurst provides the technology, its customers will, in turn, sell the system to its users. Kruger reckons that each organisation should target about 5,000 subscribers. Digithurst is currently negotiating with a couple of potential customers via consultants – a couple of newspaper companies in the UK, and a satellite television firm in Germany. Although Kruger would eventually like to target consumers and the breakfast table market, he said that this was not possible at the moment – some form of docking station would be needed to make the proposition viable, and this is not yet available. Also the battery life of portable computers is not yet long enough for comsumer use, the memory is not adequate, and it is not yet possible to replace disk drives with removable solid state memory. – Catherine Everett
