there has been a lot of clamor over the future of writing and the production of paper based books. i personally prefer reading from off the screen , i have a pretty huge p2p ebook collection , but i think ethically the paper based book is an outstanding experience in this era of computational shrinkage (im only differently quoting ..moores law). i mean portable lcd based books with no pages to turn (they even feel like real books,textured likewise) are already here and are being experimented with by the suparich. the media lab at MIT is already experimenting with ideas for devices which emanate particular olfactory stimulants which imitate real smells, maybe they could incorporate such a device into an lcd book to make it smell like an old book or maybe a pine scent? they could even make antiworm software for these lcd books to clean up any āwormsā(can be called bookworms !!!..lol).
I really canāt stand E-books. I have to be able to flip the pages and not just click a button or drag a scroll bar. Thatās interesting with the smells thoughā¦ I wonder what implications that might have for other internet industriesā¦
other industries need not only be internet based. company catalogs of industries making perfumes or soap manufacturers and maybe even certain food products?? can find digital smells useful for retaining customers worldwide! theres even some talk goin on in the lobbies of MIT that a digital taste device maybe just on itās way. the MIT touch lab already boasts of a digital real feel cross continental handshake. http://touchlab.mit.edu/
the combinatorial contraption is whatās gunna make some news!!
Until they come up with a display technology that isnāt so hard on the eyes, and is easily read at any angle, unlike some LCD displays, books arenāt going anywhere. Besides, I think that the smarter publishers donāt want to go the way of the music industry. I think they will stick with the analog technology for as long as possible.
I hope it will be a long time before real books are gone.
Imagine:
*our ālibraryā, the room where we keep all our books, would be empty;
*you wouldnāt be able to peek into other peopleās bookcases, which gives such a good impression of what kind of people they are;
*snuggling up in bed with a computer;
*the kids would have to select their bedtime story from the computer;
*babies gnawing on a computer instead of on their cardboard books;
Nope, I donāt see it happening yet .
Althoughā¦
*I do have a cd-rom somewhere with 200 āgreatest classical booksā;
*you can lend out a ābookā without worrying about getting it back;
*we do have network access points in our bedroom (and in the kidsā bedroom too)
*the kids listen to stories on the bbc/cbeebies site regularly already
*with their way of running from the table to the computer before washing their hands, the mouse of the kidsā computer regularly acquires a sugar coating that would delight any baby.
Call me old-fashioned, but in spite of the advantages of ebooks, I hope Iām a thousand years dead before real books are gone. Donāt get me wrong; Iāve read ebooks that I never could have afforded in print. I like ebooks. I just like them in addition to real books, rather than instead of.
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