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Before reading this post you must read this earlier post. This is a continuation.

Affordance of P-MR means what is made possible by the the use of P-MR. (Walsh 2006) The purpose is the final goal of the carried act. Are the above mentioned points affordances of P-MR or purposes? Or is it important to make this distinction?

I believe that we do need to make this distinction. Affordances are things specific to the tools we use. for example that affordance for chairs that they allow us to sit one. The affordance of icons on computer desktops that they allow us to move them around. While purposes should be our ultimate goals. We try to reach our purposes with any feasible tool (at least sometimes!)

The four ways physicians use P-MR mentioned in my previous post are affordances which we may or may not be able to mimic using EMR. But, if we can mimic the purpose of P-MR using superior methods than those offered by P-MR that would be even better.

Walsh,  M. 2006. The ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy. Vol 29, NO. 1, pp. 24-37.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Amazon’s Kindle pulled the attention of the market to e-readers. There are two promising technologies currently in the market; electronic ink (e-ink) and electronic paper. E-ink provides black and white displays. I myself was a skeptical of this technology. But after holding Kindle 2 in my hand, I stand beside those who admire this technology. In the past, I could not imagine the ease of reading off e-ink screens. But, reading off my Kindle 2 is pretty close to reading off paper. Wikipedia page on e-reader mention other devices using this technology. (Including the new large screen Kindle DX).

Electronic paper is developed by Fujitsu. This provides color. Yes, color. The devise is called FLEPia.

In my view there are two points that still need to be solved for these devices to be adapted in medicine:

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