Quick-change
newspapers are
wave of the future

If you don't like this column appearing in the printed pages of your newspaper, in the near future you may not have to bother complaining to the editor or threatening to slash my car tires or even turning the page. You could just switch your paper's "channel."

As far-fetched as that sounds, (the switch-channel part -- not the I-have-a-car part) researchers have almost perfected "digital ink" that will put all newspapers at our fingertips, even if we're holding just one.

This technology will tune into a radio signal that will move ink on paper, changing content to match not only your politics, but perhaps your outfit as well.

Companies such as E Ink are already selling their first-generation wares, producing high-tech billboards and retail-store signs that can price-gouge in real time as if by magic. Eventually, even wallpaper and furniture could have the kind of quick-change fashion range normally seen only in a teenage girl's closet.

But the ultimate vision is RadioPaper, which could take much of the power of the Internet (even video) and capture it on paper. This reusable, tree-saving technology also promises to free you from straddling shrubs in your boxer shorts every Sunday morning to compensate for a delivery boy's consistently abysmal predawn aim.

Of course, we Digital Slobs know these are all big promises.

Think tanks have had the obituary for traditional newspapers written and ready to go for decades. I went to a media conference about the coming "paperless society" a dozen years ago. Ironically, they gave us all half a ream of handouts about it.

"The Internet will be the end of newspapers," one man in a much better suit than mine said. But 12 years later, this fact remains: leave a newspaper on the bus and you're out 50 cents; leave your Sony VAIO on the bus and you're out $2,799. And, as far as I know, you can't just pull another laptop out of a rack on the next street corner (I'm sure the temptation to take out more than one at a time would be far too great).

The Internet can provide information faster and in more detail, but how often do we need that? We all want to know if sewage work will delay our commutes, but few of us care to read about it for hours on end to the point where we could pass our state's civil engineering exam.

This is not to say the nation's newspapers aren't in Digital Age demographic dire straits. If you're under 35 years old and reading this in an actual newspaper, instead of on the Internet, chances are it's because your PlayStation 2 is broken, your digital cable is out, your DSL is offline for scheduled maintenance, your ex took all your CDs and DVDs after a bitter break-up, your MP3 player was stolen and you can't remember how your stereo works, your cell phone got lodged between your car seat and the emergency brake and you haven't thought to look for it there yet, your poker buddies won't let you back in their game until you settle some IOUs, and you won't even try to get a Monopoly game off the ground because everyone fights about who gets to be the race car.

Then, maybe then, you'd read a paper, but probably just the funnies. Hard to blame you, though -- who wouldn't need some cheering up after all that?

Nevertheless, if the power of the Internet merges with the ubiquity of newspapers, Slobs could turn into classic print junkies. Papers have always survived by giving readers something they can relate to -- in our case, maybe it's a remote control.