A new page in how people read

It must be noted that Michael McCreary still likes old-fashioned books. The kind made out of paper. He's got a whole library of them at home, and he says he loves their feel, their weight, their texture and - most important for McCreary's story - the look of the ink on the page.

As he says this, he's holding a Kindle, the $399 electronic book reader released last month by Amazon that many writers and scholars are calling the beginning of the end for paper books. And McCreary, the vice president in charge of research and advanced development at E Ink Corp. in Cambridge, is the scientist leading a team of 21st century Gutenbergs who have gone a long way toward electronically re-creating the perfection of ink on a page.

As McCreary clicks to a page on Kindle - his team created the "Electronic Ink" display for the paperback-sized device - the impact is both overwhelming and underwhelming. The electronic display looks just like ink on paper. Big deal. Then again, it functions just like ink on paper, which means it's easy on the eyes, you can look at it in direct sunlight, you can hold it at an angle and still see the text. The E Ink technology takes the complaint out of reading text on a computer screen but still provides all the benefits of a computer.

"I think this is another huge expansion on the utility of publishing," McCreary said from his office, just off the Fresh Pond Reservation. "Before Gutenberg's printing press, you had books hand-transcribed by monks. Now we have the future where you can wirelessly download any title in 60 seconds to a library in your hands."

Of course revolutions don't happen overnight, and McCreary has seen a lot of them come and go in his field since he first became interested in visual images as his high school's yearbook photographer in the mid-1960s. When he joined Kodak in 1973, just after receiving his doctorate at MIT, instant photography was cutting edge. By the time he left the company, 26 years later, he had transitioned with the industry from chemistry-based image capture to electronic-based.

In 2000, he transitioned again to image display when he joined E Ink, where he has become a leader in the field, according to Greg Raupp, the director of the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University.

"For electronic ink technology, it's a consensus that E Ink is further along than anyone else, and a lot of that has to do with Mike," Raupp said. "He is directing and driving that work, and he is as knowledgeable, if not more so, than anybody else in the field."

The basic technology behind Electronic Ink - which McCreary describes as simple on a broad level but very complex at the detail level - involves millions of tiny microcapsules containing white and black particles that are pulled to the display surface or pushed back, with an electric charge. The basic idea was created by Joseph Jacobson, an MIT Media Lab assistant professor and E Ink co-founder, in the mid-1990s, and because power is really only necessary to turn the page - i.e. when the electrical charge rearranges the white and black in the microcapsules - the image will remain on the display even with the battery out.

While the Electronic Ink technology has consistently received rave reviews, McCreary is now helping to push it in new directions - onto paper-thin sheets of plastic and even clothing, with color and video capabilities to come. The bigger question is whether the world is ready to leave paper behind. McCreary is optimistic.

"This is not just a new technology; it's a new way of reading," he said. "E-books have been out for quite some time now, but the Kindle has gotten so much good press that I think we really are at the beginning of something new. I think it's ready to take off."

And then he pauses for a second and smiles.

"But ask me again in a year."

Fact sheet

Hometown: Grew up in the Atlanta area; lives in Acton.

Education: Received a chemistry degree from Principia College, near St. Louis, in 1969; earned a doctorate from MIT in physical organic chemistry in 1973.

Family: Wife, Carol, has a degree in physical therapy and works as a trainer at Healthworks in Cambridge; daughter, Michelle, 23, is a medical researcher; son, Kevin, 20, is a junior at Skidmore College currently studying abroad in Dublin.

Hobbies: McCreary swam for Principia, where he held the school record in the 50-meter freestyle, and still loves the water. He also enjoys running, bicycling, and windsurfing and has a pilot's license.