image

Years ago I called for a black and white computer[1], and that strange desire still lives within me today. While no one has yet taken me up on this amazing idea, the monochrome devices that do exist have improved, yet are still frustratingly limited in their capabilities. That’s why the reMarkable [2]tablet is such a pleasure to me. They went full e-paper.

If you’ve been following it since the announcement late last year, you’ll know the reMarkable is a sort of Kindle on steroids, a digital notebook that’s made to imitate as closely as possible the experience of writing on paper — but with all the advantages of modern tech.

Now, I didn’t get a hands-on with a prototype the way several other outlets did (a hazard of working in the remote Pacific Northwest), so I’ll be waiting for the final device before I render a final opinion on whether the reMarkable accomplishes what it sets out to do. But I want to put down for the record that I’m rooting for them.

I talked with co-founders Magnus Wanberg and Mats Solberg, CEO and chief design officer, respectively. They seemed a lot like myself: nostalgic for the undeniable qualities of paper, excited about the prospects of e-paper devices and disappointed with existing options.

“In our opinion as really hardcore paper people, none of them really work,” Wanberg said. “It’s not the same experience, not for writing, not for reading, not for sketching.”

Over the last couple of years they worked to augment the capabilities of e-paper displays, tweaking this and that, improving software and trying different interaction methods. All this, it must be said, while tablet and Kindle sales weren’t making any headlines. I admire...

Read more from our friends at TechCrunch

They cover the coming chaos for the oil industry, the potential for our basic systems and infrastructure to fail, fundamentals of silver, when to buy precious metals, and much more.

Read more from our friends at Gold & Silver