Google wants to turn your wall into a giant e-book screen

The writers of Back to the Future Part II in 1989 got many of their predictions about life in 2015 right. We have tablets and video calling, and we’re even getting Nike Air Mags with power laces (though we’re still waiting for hover boards and flying cars). One of the more fanciful pieces of tech in the film was the window shade that turned into a screen displaying scenic views (an idea similar to the dining room wall in another futuristic classic from the same era, 1990’s Total Recall). No such device is on the market now, but it seems that Google is working on rectifying this. In a patent awarded to Google today, the company outlines a projection system that can display images on a wall painted with photo-reactive paint. Google’s idea would essentially turn any wall in a house into a massive e-book screen. The projector would emit a beam of light or a laser that would produce what the patent calls a “theme.” When the light or laser hits the wall, the photo-reactive paint would change from being whatever color it was painted into something rather similar to a computer wallpaper or screensaver. The photo-reactive wall would work like e-ink, meaning that the projected image would stay on the wall until a new image is projected.