E-books have a glowing future, or so I hope, but the buzz about this e-book reader vs. that one vs. the one that's promised for next year is misguided, I think. Why? Because no matter how interestingly e-book readers evolve, they're just a stopgap.
Small(ish), portable(ish) computers - laptops, notebooks, PDAs, cell phones; let's call them SPCs - are also evolving. The need and market for SPCs is greater and more urgent than the need and market for e-book readers, so the evolutionary pressure is greater for SPCs. The current progress in e-book readers is just a byproduct of the technological progress in computers in general and SPCs in particular.
Not too long from now, everything the best e-book reader then available can do will be available in software form on SPCs. Instead of buying an e-book reader, you'll buy (or otherwise acquire) e-book reader software for your preferred SPC. By then, e-book readers will be quaint old electronic gadgets of interest only to collectors.
5 comments:
I believe you are correct. Also... it will take a Long Time before paperbacks are upstaged.
Hi, Christine.
Yes, that book feel and smell. Maybe eventually our little computers will be able to mimic those, as well.
Even then, I don't know if opening a new book onscreen will have the same feeling of excitement and anticipation one gets from a physically new book that looks, feels, and smells different from all the others.
I neeeeeed the smell of new books.
Also, is SPC a new, official acronym? Can I now start using it in casual conversation? I just want to know :)
Feel free to use SPC. However, I just made it up, so no one will understand you! :)
Maybe we'll have e-book readers that will feel and smell just like a new book.
Whence to me the nobility?
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