PAPERLESS PORTABLE BOOK

Abstract: A paperless portable electronic book is disclosed which is adapted for use with interchangeable magnetic floppy discs, optical discs or the like and comprises a reproducing device for reading information from the floppy disc, a display and a battery. Preferentially, the display is a liquid crystal display and the battery is an amorphous silicon solar cell.

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a paperless book, and more particularly relates to a paperless book which is in readily transportable form and is compact and convenient for assembly in book collections such as in the home, in schools and colleges, and in libraries. A vast quantity of printed matter is widely distributed in the form of books. Such printed books generally comprise at least several tens of paper sheets and often several hundreds of paper sheets, and therefore the weight of a book can be quite substantial. Especially in the case of novels and books for professional use, the weight of a copy may exceed 1 Kg. Because of this, books are generally transported by trucks to book shops and other retailers, which increases their cost due to the high transportation cost. Furthermore, books are often somewhat large in size so that a large amount of space has to be provided for storing copies. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the present invention there is provided a portable information display device for use as a paperless portable book, said device comprising, in an integrated unit, a reader (7) for a magnetic floppy disc, optical disc or other interchangeable compact data storage medium, a processor (11), an input facility (3) operable to cause said processor to selectively process for display information retrieved from or written to the data storage medium, a display panel (2) for displaying such information, and a solar panel (6) for powering the unit, the unit being generally in the shape of a book comprising a body portion (1) and a cover portion (5) hingedly connected thereto, the display panel being provided in said body portion and occupying a major part of the surface area of the body portion that is covered by the cover portion, and the solar panel being provided in said cover portion. As will be explained in greater detail hereinafter, the invention proposes that an electronic display and an electronic memory are used in place of printed paper to provide a handy device for reading written material. More particularly, the information consisting of characters such as letters, symbols and the like is converted into digital form. Namely, the information in the form of printed words of a book is converted into a suitably encoded digital form on a memory such as a magnetic floppy disc, an optical disc or other convenient storage device. The paperless book according to the invention is comprised of a reproducing device for use with such a memory and a suitable display. The reader views the display in place of reading the printed paper of a conventional book. By virtue of the invention, a collection of conventional books can be replaced by one reproducing device as abovementioned and a collection of floppy discs or other compact memories each weighing, for example, only 10g to 30g. Furthermore, only the light weight memories have to be transported to book retailers. The advantages of the invention become particularly significant if the reproducing devices are standard issue to all members of a particular group. For example, if one reproducing device is provided for each student in a school, the students do not have to bring their heavy books to the school and instead need to carry with them only light weight memories. Further features of the invention are set forth in the appended claims and will become clear from consideration of the following description of an exemplary embodiment which is shown in the accompanying drawings. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Fig.1 is a perspective view showing an exemplary paperless book in accordance with the invention; Fig.2 is a side elevation view showing the paperless book of Fig.1; and Fig.3 is a block diagram of the paperless book of Figs. 1 and 2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to Figs. 1, 2 and 3, a portable paperless book in accordance with the present invention is illustrated. The book comprises a reproducing device 1 having a display 2 occupying a major part of the upper surface of its body portion, key buttons or other external input facilities 3, an on/off switch 4 operated by opening and closing a hinged lid 5 of the device, a solar panel 6 for energy supply provided on the lid 6, and occupying a major part of the surface area of the lid a data file processor 7, an input terminal 8 for connection of an external electricity supply to the device, and terminals 9 and 10 for inputting data from an external device. In the illustrated embodiment, the display 2 is a liquid crystal display and the data file processor is a disc drive adapted for use with optical discs on which information is stored in terms of variations in the reflectance of the disc to incident light. A magnetic floppy disc and associated magnetic read heads can be employed in place of the optical disc and its associated reader. Liquid crystal displays are preferred in that they do not over stimulate the eyes, but other display formats can be used. The solar panel 6 may for example be an amorphous silicon semiconductor solar panel of 200 mm length and 300 mm width. The amorphous silicon solar panel consists of a plurality (e.g. 25) of photoelectric conversion devices connected to each other in series, each conversion device comprising a transparent substrate (such as a glass or plastics plate, or the like), a transparent conductive film of such as indium tin oxide, SnO₂, ZnO or multiple layers thereof formed on the substrate and constituting a first electrode of the panel, a multi-layered amorphous silicon semiconductor incorporating a PIN junction therein formed for example by a known CVD process, and a second transparent electrode film formed over the semiconductor. The conversion devices may be manufactured by using laser processing techniques scribing the layers deposited on he 200mm x 300mm substrate. By virtue of the transparency of the substrate and the underlying and overlying electrodes, the solar panel can receive sunlight from both sides of the lid so that power generation can continue regardless of whether the lid is open or closed. The paperless book according to the invention is further provided with a processing unit 11 shown schematically in Fig.3 and comprising a microcomputer and a memory. By means of this unit, information reproduced by the data file processor 7 may be transmitted to the display 2 in accordance with commands entered by use of the input facilities 3, so that a user can as he desires read from the display screen 2 just as he would read a conventional book. On the display 2, 50 lines of text each accommodating up to 60 characters can for example be displayed and the text displayed on the screen can be changed easily by operating the input facility 3. In a modification of the above described embodiment a plurality of data pages may be reproduced at a time by the data file processor 7 and temporarily stored in the user memory provided in the unit 11. By this means a reader can repeatedly call arbitrarily selected pages of text for display on the screen without delay just as he can during reading of a printed reference. Furthermore, a matrix array of touch sensors or photo sensors can be formed on the display so that, by use of touch or of a light pen, a user can designate particular portions of the display information and store corresponding flags in the user memory in the unit 11, for example in order to cause important portions of the display text to be emphasized by underlining or inverted commas. While the present invention has been described in conjunction with a particular embodiment, it is to be appreciated that the invention is not limited to the described embodiment and that many modifications and variations are possible without departure from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims. For example, the reproducing device of the described paperless book could if desired be provided with a battery for storage of electricity generated by the solar panel. Furthermore, the compact digital storage medium could alternatively be a digital magnetic tape for example or an EPROM or the like. It is further to be appreciated that whilst the paperless book of the invention has been described herein as a replacement for novels and other conventional books having pages of printed text, the book could be adapted to be used as an electronic diary with the facilities 3 enabling the user to make his own entries onto blank "pages" of the diary.

Claims: A portable information display device for use as a paperless portable book, said device comprising, in an integrated unit, a reader (7) for a magnetic floppy disc, optical disc or other interchangeable compact data storage medium, a processor (11), an input facility (3) operable to cause said processor to selectively process for display information retrieved from or written to the data storage medium, a display panel (2) for displaying such information, and a solar panel (6) for powering the unit, the unit being generally in the shape of a book comprising a body portion (1) and a cover portion (5) hingedly connected thereto, the display panel being provided in said body portion and occupying a major part of the surface area of the body portion that is covered by the cover portion, and the solar panel being provided in said cover portion. A display device according to claim 1 wherein the solar panel (6) occupies a major part of the surface area of the cover portion (5). A display device according to claim 1 or 2 wherein said solar panel (6) is made of amorphous silicon semiconductor material. A display device according to any preceding claim wherein said solar panel (6) is adapted to generate electricity from light received on both sides thereof. A display device according to claim 4 wherein said solar panel (6) comprises a transparent substrate, a photoelectric conversion layer supported by the substrate, and transparent electrodes associated with said photoelectric conversion layer, the solar panel (6) thereby being responsive to light received on both sides thereof. A display device according to any preceding claim wherein said data storage medium stores the text of a book and said input facility (3) is adapted to enable a user of the device to selectively access said text. A display device according to claim 6 wherein the processor (11) includes a user memory and the device is arranged to enable a plurality of text pages to be stored in said user memory and to be selected arbitrarily for display. A display device according to claim 6 or 7 wherein the display includes a matrix array of sensors arranged to enable a user to flag designated portions of a displayed text. A display device according to any preceding claim wherein the display panel (2) comprises a liquid crystal display panel. A display device according to any preceding claim in operative combination with at least one said compact data storage medium.

Inventors: HAMATANI, TOSHIJI, YAMAZAKI, SHUNPEI
Applicants: SEMICONDUCTOR ENERGY LABORATORY CO., LTD.
Application year: 1987
Main classification: G11B33
IPC codes: G11B31, G06F1, G11B33, G09B5