New York Times R&D Lab

This video produced by the Nieman Journalism Lab shows the various devices the folks at The New York Times R&D Lab are working with, including some e-ink prototypes, while figuring out how to transition from the old broadsheet to whatever the heck ends up being the next standard.

I’d like to call special attention to the smart layout demonstrated in the New York Times reader software for Adobe Air (which was just released here). Not only does it automatically format the page to the size of the screen, but as the screen gets bigger, it appears to include more and more stories, mimicking the “scanability” of a conventional newspaper. The important decisions made by the editors who layout the pages of a newspaper each day–the people who actually decide what is most important for you to pay attention to and communicate that through story placement and headline size–can often go unnoticed. That means they’re doing a great job. This is entirely lost in an RSS feed.

If a practical device comes out that is easy to update each morning and manages to maintain that presentation, it’s game over for paper. And by the looks of it, it’s right around the corner.