"The possibilities of print have just begun," David Granger, Esquire's editor in chief, recently commented to The New York Times.

"Magazines have basically looked the same for 150 years," Granger said. "I have been frustrated with the lack of forward movement in the magazine industry."

Esquire has attempted to buck that trend and to celebrate its 75th year, has designed an electronic cover that will flash "the 21st Century Begins Now," when it appears on newsstands in September.

On its own, the magazine will run for 90 days by a battery small enough to fit inside the cover. "Mr. Granger knows some will see the cover as a gimmick -- but he says he thinks the technology behind it, which has been used for supermarket displays but never embedded in a magazine, speaks to the possibilities of print," reported NYT.

E Ink, a Cambridge, Mass. based company, designed the cover. The company has also worked on Amazon.com's e-book device, Kindle.

"The interesting thing," said Peter Griffin, the deputy editor, "is it has almost nothing to do with the normal way of putting out a magazine."

"We are trying to combine a 21st-century technology with a 19th-century manufacturing process," Granger said.

Esquire first hired an engineer in China to develop a battery small enough to be inserted in the magazine cover. The batteries and the display case are manufactured and put together in China.

The project was expensive, so Esquire found a sponsor - Ford Motor - who will have an advertisement on the inside of the cover that employing the same technology to promote its new SUV, the Flex.

Esquire has acquired exclusive use of E Ink's technology through 2009, and according to NYT, "Mr. Granger said he hopes to come up with new ideas for it. 'This is probably just a limited view of its use,' he said."

Granger is optimistic about the potential trajectory. "In two years, I hope this looks like cellphones did in 1982, or car phones."

Source: The New York Times