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The Future Of The Book

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the tall-order dept.

Detritus writes: "First Monday, a peer-reviewed journal on, and about, the Internet, has published an excellent and thought provoking paper by Clifford Lynch, the Director of the Coalition for Networked Information, titled The Battle to Define the Future of the Book in the Digital World. The paper lays out and examines the complex questions raised by the migration from dead trees to bits, and the competing interests of authors, publishers, readers, libraries and society."

58 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Greatest Archealogical find of the 52nd Dynasty ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    33 years ago, on the planet formerly known as Earth, archeaologists discovered what appeared to be plastic blocks with strange looking keys on them.

    It is believed that these artifacts originate from the early 21st century and until now, scientists have been unable to figure out exactly what they were used for, although they assumed that it was some archaic form of storage device.

    Recently, scientists in the gumbar system have discovered that by applying an ancient technology known as 'electricity' into an orifice in the back of the plastic block, would cause the following message to appear on the block :-

    "Error 41200a: Unrecoverable System Error, all data on device corrupted. Microsoft 2005"

    This is an exciting development and the scientists hope that some day, they will be able to retreive data from these devices, although, so far, the tests performed on 1256 of these devices have all proved negative...

  2. Re:Cutting Down Trees = Toxic Computer Parts ??? by Jon+Peterson · · Score: 2

    The environmental impact of manufacturing computers is quite high. Just because we think of chip fabs as nice clean places with no smoke stacks doesn't mean they have a low impact.

    Chip fabrication consumes quite enormous amounts of water. I've no idea how much energy goes into purifying all that water.

    All the devices consume vast amounts of power. Your average webserver draws, say, 1.5 amps. That means a rack of 1 u machines in a data center is getting close to, say 60 amps, errr say 12 kilowatts (UK power). That's 12 kw per rack in a datacenter that, while admittedly not really running at that density throughout, is still drawing a massive amount of power.

    Add to that every home PC, all the littel ebooks of the future charging their heavy-metal batteries every night. The power requirements become massive.

    Now, because of the massive cost of fabs for chips and so on, there are very few factories in the world for these items. Because of that, they all have to be shipped all over the world, with assocciated use of fossil fuels, not to mention all the disposable packaging consumed each time.

    --
    ----- .sig: file not found
  3. A modest question... by sphealey · · Score: 2

    I have several books in my collection that were printed in 1500; quite a few from the 1800's. I reasonably expect that these will all be readable in 2300 as well.

    Now, how long do you expect your "e-book" reader to last? Will PDF still be a usable format in the year 2300? What happens if a very large software company puts a propriatary lock on all digital book files?

    And this doesn't scratch the surface of the ergonomic issues. Perhaps rather than the Luddites, the appropriate parable for e-books is The Emperor's New Clothes?

    sPh

  4. Re:Electronic Paper by sphealey · · Score: 2

    Assuming that (a) the problem CAN be solved. It is possible that paper is the optimal solution for human-readable output. (b) the "solution", once forced upon the consuming public, is BETTER than the previous technology (paper). As Seymour Hirsch used to say of hi-fi systems, once a thing can be done digitally, there is a tendency to always do it digitally, whether or not the results of the digital method is superior (he was speaking primariy of tuning and other controls, not the method of reproduction).

    I have seen very little convincing evidence that e-books are a better solution than paper, but I have seen a lot of arguments that contain hidden and circular assumptions that they are superior, well, because. Remember, just because it is _possible_ to put text on a computer does not mean that it is necessarily better to do so: you must prove WHY it is better.

    sPh

  5. Maybe, maybe not. by Apuleius · · Score: 2

    Issue #1: if it's between an ebook reader and hemp-paper books, the books win hands-down. But never mind that for now.

    Assuming the hardware is sturdy, an ebook reader shouldn't go obsolete so quickly. Just because you can double a computer's speed every 18 months doesn't mean you need to, if all you do is display book pages on the damn thing. So ebook hardware should become a long term investment. There is also the issue of carrying capacity, but after 20 or so books, you don't even need more. Frankly, my Palm IIIxe gives me enough reading for a long flight. A memory dongle for a Palm will give me enough reading for a coast-to-coast ride on Amtrak. We don't need to put more books on these things than we will read between syncs. So, hardware may break, but it won't go obsolete.

    Hopefully, any hardware company in this business will keep this in mind rather than go all bubbly like Cisco did.

  6. The revolution is already here. by Apuleius · · Score: 2

    (on another note) I got me my Palm IIIxe. I'm not much of a gamer, and I haven't packed my date book and address book to the gills. But I have several books on board for when I'm bored. Right now, I have Clausewitz's On War, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, a novel called Tartarin of Tarascon, and Sun Tzu's Art of War. And I still have 4 megs free. Beats reading the tabloid headlines when the line at the supermarket is long.

    1. Re:The revolution is already here. by YKnot · · Score: 2

      Reading "Art of War" when waiting in line at the supermarket is not for the aggresive type of person. Kids, do not try this at the supermarket. He's a trained professional.

  7. Re:On Razorblades and Concerted Pirating by Apuleius · · Score: 2

    There's nothing anyone can do about existing copyrights. But the cost-free and absolutely
    hassle free availability of pre-1920 works
    is going to make ebook reader owners lean
    toward the works available on PG, and
    drive a harder bargain when it comes to
    copy-control hassles with new ebooks.

    Hopefully.

  8. One thing the article didn't note. by Apuleius · · Score: 5

    The article goes into thorough detail on the problems that could be posed if publishers are allowed to use the new medium to redefine intellectual property rights for text works. A scary portent of the future, and a distillation of those paragraphs would make a good thing to keep on hand to give (for example) your fellow students if your college wants to switch out of textbooks.

    But, the article omits the importance of sites like Andamooka and the Gutenberg project, and also the significance of wireless technology and the Web. If I buy an ebook reader of some sort, it had better 1. do HTML, 2. do PDF and PS, 3. do ASCII, 4. let me make downloads of these from whatever sites I want. What does that mean? Any ebook reader must also be a Web pad to get me to buy it. I do believe that thanks to the Web and to sites like those two (and Nupedia, and many more), and thanks to upcoming Web pads, we have dodged a bullet here. (A Web pad with good handwriting recognition would be dreamy. Mmmm..)

    Is this enough? No. We need more content on those sites, not to mention more effort to clue in Joe Sixpack about these issues. But things do look good IMHO. Since any ebook reader has to be able to navigate the Web (either through wireless or through a well thought out Web-suck program), ebook buyers won't be too eager to have to buy books with insane reader software and rights management software hassles.

  9. The b & b response by msouth · · Score: 2
    First Monday, a peer-reviewed journal on, and about, the Internet, has published an excellent and thought provoking paper by Clifford Lynch

    Heh, heh, you said "paper".
    --

    --
    Liberty uber alles.
  10. New technology, old story by SparkyUK · · Score: 2
    Ancient mesopotamia :

    In the race to put everything into writing, we forget that the best solution is not always the most technologically advanced. I mean, we've abandoned barter for letters of credit and there is even writing on the walls of toilets in Xanchu. Dear Lord, what will they be writing on next?

    Word-of-mouth is close to the ideal form for people to digest information from. You can take a story anywhere and it never wears out and it doesn't rely on all the equipment that writing does. Hell, with the clay shortage in Cresus at the moment, you'll be lucky to find a peice of tablet to write on! :)

    And more to the point, people feel comfortable with the oral-tradition. They know where they stand. In Mesopotamia, where there is a very healthy streak of techno-skepticism amongst the general public, the story is what they want, not the latest fancy writing from MIT that promises to "revolutionize" the way information is disseminated. And the storytellers and bards knowhere where they stand when they tell a story - who gets paid and so on.

    No, the oral-tradition is here to stay for a long time. As for yet, I have seen nothing that has any compelling reasons to change. Don't let a techno-fetishing blind you to the obvious solution to such a non-problem.

  11. clipboard-size monitors by peter303 · · Score: 2

    Ebooks become as convenient as printed books
    when the monitors become small enough.
    The "first generation" ebooks about the size of an
    EtchASketch (TM) are still too bulky.
    E-paper may result in clipboard-size monitors.

  12. advantages of e-libraries by peter303 · · Score: 2

    A big advantage to me of this media would be
    saving shelf spacing. I probably have a 100 feet
    each of books in the office and home. I'd acquire
    more books, but don't like having to move them
    when I move. Books are among the heaviest portion
    of my possessions.

  13. How publishers are ripping off authors by Lumpish+Scholar · · Score: 2

    In The budding e-book controversy, the retired founder of Random House Electronic Publishing bemoans how "Random House's lawyers are trying to stretch the definition of the word "book" in order to justify a grab of author's rights." (Beware the phrase "mechanical reproduction rights.")

    Worth reading.

    --
    Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
  14. Re:Regular books aren't going anywhere... by dmorin · · Score: 5
    • Can I toss an ebook reader in my pocket without worrying about sitting on it and breaking something?No, nor can you do that with any books other than paperbacks. Can you fit 3 of the biggest brand new hard covers into your carry on for when you're going on a long plane flight? No. But my ebook stays the same size no matter how many books I have with me.
    • With books I own, they get torn up... They're bent, torn in places, the spine is messed up. Can I do that with an ebook?Why do you want to? Just because you can?
    • What happens when the power goes out and I don't have any charge left in the tablet or whatever I'm using to view the digital text?What happens when the power goes out and you can't read your traditional book at all? My ebook is backlit so even when the subway car stalls in the tunnel and it's pitch black I'm still reading.
    • Can I dogear parts of a digital book and go back to them by simply picking it up and opening it?Sure. My ebook always starts on the page I left. That's actually better than dogearing, because I don't crease pages, and my pages won't un-dogear themselves accidentally.
    • Will I be able to read an ebook for hours like I can do with regular books and not have any form of eye strain?Good question. I read it for about an hour a day and don't seem to have too many problems. What usually causes the eyestrain people associate with ebooks is the fixed nature of a computer monitor, and not being able to move where the text is. The ebook is in your hands and you can move it around just like a regular book, changing the distance to your eyes, etc.
    • If I like the book enough that I loan it to friends or family, will they all have to pay additional licenses or transfer fee just to read it?Finally, a good question. No, the proper billing/licensing model has not yet been determined. That's the big issue right now. Personally I feel it's the exact same as the whole Napster thing, but I can't get people to agree with me.
    The arguments against ebooks always start by saying "Let's think of features of books that ebooks don't have, then think of why those features are good, and presto, ebooks therefore must be bad." I mean, sure, crisp page turning and getting ink on your fingers is kinda neat, but is it really necessary? In the days of typewriters (before word processors), you'd see typos, crossouts and whiteout on a typical page. We don't miss that, though, do we? I agree that the billing model needs work. There's actually a more simple problem with billing right now, and that's price setting -- if the new Stephen King hardcover comes out for $22, the ebook costs $22. 6 months later when it's in paperback at $12, the ebook costs $12. That's hardly fair. I'd rather see them fix that problem first and get more people to buy the dang books, and THEN worry about how people are going to loan them to each other. Personally I have hundreds of books, but it's not like I'm a library. I might loan out a small handful a year. It's just not that big a deal to me.
    --
    www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
  15. Here's the key paragraph by mav[LAG] · · Score: 2
    An audio CD player costs a few hundred dollars, as does a DVD player. But it can cost tens of thousands of dollars to replace an LP collection with audio CDs or a video cassette collection with DVDs, and this within a span of only a decade or two. Are we willing to burden our personal libraries (and our institutional libraries) of books, music, and films with such costs in order to make a technology transition every decade or two in order to satisfy the economic models of the content industries? And to lose some precious, but perhaps not widely popular, works with each technology transition because they are not made available using the new technology? Do we have, and will we continue to have, the rights and ability to preserve content that we have already acquired in the face of changing technology? For existing materials the answer isn't entirely clear. We certainly have the ability, but the legal rights of consumers and institutions such as libraries are less clear. In a future world of license agreements and digital rights management technology governed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, both rights and capabilities are questionable.

    As someone else has already said, we can read printed material that is hundreds, or even thousands of years old. Should would-be content controllers start applying their pay-per-view-we-own-it-you-don't mindset to books, they shouldn't be surprised when it doesn't sell.

    --
    --- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
  16. Looking around the site by wiredog · · Score: 2

    I also saw Lessons from Open Source: Intellectual Property and Courseware.

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
  17. The Hacker Crackdown by wiredog · · Score: 2
    Bruce Sterling, tangentially, on e-publishing.

    THE HACKER CRACKDOWN:
    Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier
    by Bruce Sterling

    From the Preface to the Electronic Release
    "However, if you were so foolish as to print this book and start retailing it for money in violation of my copyright and the commercial interests of Bantam Books, then Bantam, a part of the gigantic Bertelsmann multinational publishing combine, would roust some of their heavy-duty attorneys out of hibernation and crush you like a bug. This is only to be expected. I didn't write this book so that you could make money out of it. If anybody is gonna make money out of this book, it's gonna be me and my publisher."

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
  18. Monitors vs Hardcovers by Shadowcaster · · Score: 3

    Well, I'll always go for books myself, even with the Gutenberg (sp) project. Books don't give you that I-want-to-gouge-out-my-eyeballs headache like a CRT can.. and when was the last time you curled up in a chair next to a crackling fire with your pc in your hands? Somehow that doesn't strike me as the next Rockwell style painting..

  19. How about a book you can wear like... by Louis+Savain · · Score: 2

    a pair of glasses. Optically you just see a hi-res screen in full color. You could take it to bed with you and read it in total darkness without disturbing your sleeping partner. You could wear it in the bus or the train (not a good idea todrive while wearing it though). It might have a little clicker (wireless or not) that you can use to flip the "pages" , add bookmarks, notes, etc... You get the picture.

    Until that happens, I'll continue to frequent my favorite antiquated, tree-consuming bookstore, thank you very much.

  20. The revolutionary shift by Louis+Savain · · Score: 3

    But how is this step any different from those we've seen thus far? This is not a paradigm shift, it's the reflection of the impact of technology and innovation on a process.

    The revolutionary shift has to do with the fact that a book can now be archived electronically. With the aid of digital communication and file sharing technologies, it is now possible to copy and transmit an entire book almost instantly to someone half way around the world. And that's not all. It does not take any special sort of expertise to do so: the entire copying and transmission process can be done with just a few mouse clicks.
    This changes things dramatically, in my opinion. It will have pronounced consequences not only in the continued viability and enforceability intellectual property laws but may also affect the financial livelihood of content authors and distributors, and the way they market their wares.

  21. Headline messed up by mwalker · · Score: 2

    Covad Faked DSL Trouble For Verizon

    Um, right words, wrong order. The headline was:

    Verizon Faked DSL! Trouble For Covad!

    Verizon pounded Covad into the ground by strangling the technology with problems. Free marketplace my ass. Now that Covad and the CLECs are running out of money Verizon is putting the nail in the coffin with groundless, bogus lawsuits. Read the 100's of posts here: anyone who tried to get DSL from Covad failed due to intentional Verizon negligence.

    Falsified bug reports. What about falsified fucking lawsuits! The only upside is that the public is so fed up with Verizon's shit that the cable companies have seized the whole broadband revenue stream away from the RBOCs (baby bells) so they don't get to play.

    --

    --
    What happens when you outlaw guns
  22. Re:I'm genuinely interested! by agshekeloh · · Score: 2

    I'm also interested, but as a content producer.

    I've written half a dozen novels, none of which have been published. Each of the last three has gotten a personalized rejection letter from a senior editor, with comments relevant to the book, so they don't suck completely.

    With the high cost of paper, publisher catalogs are shrinking quickly. E-books are beginning to become a good marketplace for new writers. If you can make it as an e-book author, you can get "promoted" to real book author.

    On the other hand, I don't want my books either a) pirated, or b) chained down.

    Writing is work. Some day, I'd like to pay the rent doing work I love. If it's spammed all over the Net, I can kiss that dream good-bye.

    I've discovered my favorite authors by someone handing me a battered paperback and saying "Read this." If I liked the author, I went out and bought their works. Heck, I have everything Philip K Dick and Tim Powers ever wrote, thanks to someone handing me a book.

    In fact, one of my friends just said that I'm the only person he knows that "has three feet of Dick, and isn't afraid to show it off." All from a hand-to-hand paperback.

  23. Re:The masses aren't always correct by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

    > I also can't see someone sittin in church and looking at a computer screen bible...

    I have. Usually the bible in church is NOT used linearly but for searching / looking up a few scriptures. Computerized books work very well for this.

    > But as for the paper back/hard back novel, I just can't seem to see that going away.
    I agree. I would rather take a small pocket book to bed to read then my laptop any day (or nite ;)

    For something to be read sequentially, computer books suck compared to the "natural" high resolution flicker-free paper.

    Cheers

  24. Re:books will stay by gargle · · Score: 2

    I can still read tablets inscribed 10 000 years ago. Try and do that with *any* paper.

  25. The Book is dead long live the Book by Uggy · · Score: 2

    Well, whatever books become they've got to be portable, not need batteries, be easy on the eyes, and last hundreds of years.

    Hmm, sounds like a book to me *shrug*

    --
    Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
  26. reasonable expectations by rodentia · · Score: 2

    Your velum from the 16C should be alright, some of the 19C stuff as well, if high quality, but when was the last time you looked at that precious first edition paperback of Dick's Martian Timeslip? The majority of books printed in the US in the 20C used cheap paper with a high acid content and these books are quietly composting on your bookshelf. It is unlikely your great-grandchildren will be able to read them, let alone your 23C Duncan Idaho.

    --
    illegitimii non ingravare
  27. Re:Printed media, e-paper and Star Trek by Motor · · Score: 2

    What foxed me, was that in one scene for example, Miles O' Brien takes a half dozen or so of these readers,

    That's nothing. Try the (semi-regular) scene where someone in on the bridge tells an ensign/flunky to "take these readings to engineering," and hands them a bunch of electronic pads.

    --
    We all know that crap is king
    Give us dirty laundry!
  28. No. DMCA. by yerricde · · Score: 2

    We don't need to put more books on these things than we will read between syncs.

    Except what if e-books have a bit set to self-destruct after being copied n times? You'll need to buy more expensive Palm memory. And you won't be able to back up that flash memory when it wears out (all flash memory wears out after about 10,000 or so writes to the directory block) because the book won't survive a restore thanks to its copy and access controls.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  29. 1923, perpetual copyright, and the next Chaucer by yerricde · · Score: 2

    I hope you will join the Project Gutenberg efforts, then.

    Project Gutenberg's goal is to place in electronic form every work that was first published on or before January 1, 1923, the effective date of perpetual copyright in the United States. When PG runs out of pre-1923 works, what will happen?

    Imagine if Shakespeare's works and the King James Bible were still under copyright. That's what the Bono Act amounts to in the long run, a situation where very few people can understand the language in public domain works because the English vernacular has evolved so far from 1923 to (say) 2400. (Works from before about 1500 are in Middle English, which sounds a bit like Dutch; see also The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.)

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  30. Sonny Bono killed preservation of literature by yerricde · · Score: 2

    IIRC, a sheet of common dead-tree printed paper should last ~70 years

    And copyright lasts 95. Therefore, the publishers have succeeded in making literature disposable by making the copyright outlive the paper the out-of-print book is printed on. Preservation societies such as Project Gutenberg are having a hard time with this fact.

    Write your representatives in your particular federal government and tell them that effectively perpetual copyright has got to go.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  31. Sheesh... by clary · · Score: 2

    ...you want it to wipe your butt, too?

    --

    "Rub her feet." -- L.L.

  32. Re:Regular books aren't going anywhere... by HuskyDog · · Score: 2
    Even if they stopped making regular books tomorrow, there are enough of them floating around in the world to keep me in reading matter for the rest of my life (I'm in my 30s).

    I agree that there may be a problem for time dependent books (e.g. computer textbooks), but unless ebooks are free of odious restrictions I certainly won't be buying any novels in that format.

  33. Read the article. by bcrowell · · Score: 2
    The article says the same thing about many kinds of books. However, it also discusses certain categories of books for which the electronic form is very successful, such as electronic encyclopedias, which have mostly replaced print encyclopedias. It also talks about electronic self-publishing, which is a lot easier to do than print self-publishing.


    The Assayer - free-information book reviews

    --
    Find free books.
  34. The future by YKnot · · Score: 2

    The near-term future of the book doesn't look to bad, but mid- to long-term, paper books will be an absolute niche product. What are the key arguments against electronic books?

    • Can't be read whereever you want, in bright daylight for example
    • Are heavier and less robust
    • They need a lot of battery power to work
    • Stupid licensing schemes scare readers away
    There are however important advantages to electronic books:
    • More compact if you need access to many conventional books' contents
    • Can be updated, which is an excellent feature for technical manuals or other rapidly changing content
    • Electronic books can contain active content. A dictionary could help reading foreign texts, for example.
    I'm not counting environmental aspects on either side, because it isn't obvious which side has the better balance in the long run.
    New display technologies like high resolution electronic paper will remove the bad readability, the high weight and energy consumption and probably the not-too-stellar robustness from the cons list. That leaves us with stupid licensing schemes to battle. I get the impression that more and more developers are jumping on the open hardware development train again, after that has been totally "out" for some time now. Microcontroller based this and thats spring up everywhere. And they are not left out in the cold by the software guys: Linux is running on anything from watches to gaming consoles to homebuilt mp3 players based on you-haven't-heard-of-that-one-before processors. I don't think it's too optimistic to say that should corporate marketing insist on pay-per-read, the "underground" will have an alternative ready, either in the form of selfmade machines or in the form of "debugged" firmwares for commercially available "books".
  35. Re:How long until this article will not be availab by YKnot · · Score: 2

    What good is a reference if you can't get the referenced text? There is not much difference between an out-of-print paper book and a moved website. If you really want the text, you can always ask the one who wrote it (or the publisher). You do of course need to give proper references, and that means to name much more than a URI.

  36. Re:How long until this article will not be availab by YKnot · · Score: 2

    I didn't mean to say that asking the author is the best option when an online document has moved. First you should of course try to find its new location. In the scientific field, which you mentioned, there is a good chance that the document has just moved instead of having been removed. References are not locators. They are sets of information which describe the cited text in enough detail, enabling the reader to find it. Maybe people need to be educated that removing something from the web is the equivalent of recalling every unsold printed copy and almost all library copies of a book. But it is important to see that this problem is not inherent to the medium. The problem is more likely to be noticed because most of the information on the web isn't indexed and archived externally. Part of that problem is the extremely fast growing pile of information. Another part is the lack of an "official" effort to provide such an index/archive.

  37. Re:Lending / Sharing ebooks ? by rpeppe · · Score: 2
    that's exactly what a large portion of the referenced paper is concerned with: the changes in the privacy, ownership and control of books that are likely to be inevitable companions to the rise of the e-book.

    the author came out on a positive note, but only just...

    [having just got to the end of the paper having been snatching excerpts from it all day between bits of program design. sometimes i wish there was a forced hiatus in between the posting of a /. article and people being allowed to post replies to it. (gap proportional to size of link pointed to). then one might get some interesting replies from people who'd actually read the article in question...]

  38. The book will never die by Jon+Erikson · · Score: 3

    In the race to computerize everything, we forget that the best solution is not always the most technologically advanced. I mean, we've got e-commerce, e-money and even e-toilets in Singapore! Dear Lord, what will they stick a computer in next?!

    A book is close to the ideal form for people to digest information from. It's portable, durable, and doesn't rely on the vast amount of necessary infrastructure that the net, or even just a single computer, does. Hell, in California at the moment, you'll be lucky to be able to read a book without some kind of powercut! :)

    And more to the point, people feel comfortable with books. They know where they stand. In America, where there is a very healthy streak of techno-skepticism amongst the general public, the book is what they want, not the latest fancy gadget from MIT that promises to "revolutinize" the way you read. And publishers and authors know where they stand when they produce a book - who gets paid and so on.

    No, the book is here to stay for a long time. As of yet, I have seen nothing that has any compelling reasons to change. Don't let a techno-fetish blind you to the obvious solution to such a non-problem.

    --

    Jon Erikson, IT guru

  39. An important reference ignored by abe+ferlman · · Score: 2

    I'm very surprised that this document was not referenced in the article. It makes a very similar point, but in a powerful and compact narrative format.

    --
    microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
  40. An e-book owner... by fleeb_fantastique · · Score: 2

    I own one of those 'early e-books' mentioned in the article. Specifically, I have one of the early Rocket e-Books. At least two or three other folks in my office also have them.

    One of the guys in my office used it to read children's stories to his kids. I've found it relatively handy when reading documents on a train (I can jump from book to book without having to carry all of them). And, of course, there's geek value.

    The early Rocket e-Books came with a 'publisher' that allowed you to take HTML content and turn it into e-Book content. It wasn't perfect (couldn't handle frames or tables, as well as some graphics), but was enough.

    The current generation of e-Books, as sold by NuvouMedia (sic) fail to give this option; you're stuck having to wait for whatever e-Books folks will make for you.

    Further frustrating matters, the library of free material that used to be available through www.Rocket-Library.com was taken off-line several weeks ago, supposedly because folks were publishing copywrited material. I didn't see any copywrited material on that site, but I can't say I was keeping up with the library, either... still, all-in-all, given this evidence, I can't help but believe that the current owners of the e-Book hardware intend to perpetuate the disadvantages of the book instead of siezing the advantages of an e-Book.

    I doubt anyone here has heard of it, but if you could ever get hold of an old Hold Paperback called Guerrilla television, you'll find one of the best descriptions of the evolution of information that I've ever had the joy of reading. In it, print is described as a media of control by its very nature. In the evolution of information, control has increasingly been lost to the few to be gained by the many. Consider that Gutenburg's press took control away from priests to give to publishers (or kings, if you will). Similarly, television's centralized control has been usurped by the ubiquity of cameras. And, ultimately, the internet has given the greatest measure of control to the masses.

    If the e-Book doesn't permit the kind of freedom found with the internet (or at least approaching such), it will very likely fail.

    --
    And so it goes.
  41. All For The Love of Tree Meat by tenzig_112 · · Score: 2
    When my first novel, The Narcoleptic Dialactic was serialized on The Baltimore Sun's web site, I was sure that my hunt for a publisher would soon be over. After a nearly 200 ding letters, I realized this was not to be. Back in 1996, the industry was much more interested in new books about cats than some unvetted bit of web fiction.

    After spending years selling Kinko's-generated copies of the book on Amzon, I decided to post the book for free on my web site- hoping that I might do better selling t-shirts with the logo on them than the books themselves.

    Clearly, the publishing game is changing in a way the industry itself does not understand and cannot control. With the increasing popularity of digital books, donation-supported web content, and fan fiction, publishing is becoming faster, more responsive, and much more exciting (and perhaps confusing) for consumers.

    I can only hope this means fewer books about cats in the best sellers lists.

  42. The masses aren't always correct by kubla2000 · · Score: 3
    This is quite an interesting and well written article. Indeed, given yesterday's /. posting, there's little doubt that there will be some dramatic changes in the very near future.

    However, why is taking the printed word off dead-trees necessarly equivelant to the end of the 'printed' book?

    The process of 'printing' has changed dramatically over the years. Once, scribes copied from a master by hand. Then, Gutenberg brought the press. Then, we got automated typesetting. Then the dot-matrix printer. Then, bubble, laser and thermal. Now we're talking about 'setting' pixels on flexible digital LCD-like displays. But how is this step any different from those we've seen thus far? This is not a paradigm shift, it's the reflection of the impact of technology and innovation on a process. Just as books today aren't hand-written on parchment, books a few years down the road will not be printed on pulp.

    Also, the leading paragraph sets up a straw-man. So what that Star Trek has embedded images of paper books as rare collectors items in the public's mind? The public's mind is generally vacuous and what's been impressed upon it is no more permanent than what's been drawn on an etchasketch (sp?).
    1. Re:The masses aren't always correct by hillct · · Score: 2

      This was a vary interesting piece, however Lynch could have explored further the transition of human knowlege to a far more dynamic digital form as an overlay of his discussion of the demise of printed books. Lynch seems overly focused on the method of ppublication rather than the nature of the information provided.

      Human knowlege has become much less statis with the introduction of these technologies. e-books and web publishing have made it far easier to publish information, however that information, once published, is far less static. First, the content must be sponsored in perpetuity, rather than the up front cost of publication, there are continuing costs of content delivery. For this reason, knowlege has become a sponsored comodity. If an academic paper is published in digital form, it is only afailable at the whim of the sponsor who published it on the web, or provides it as an e-book. Once the author dies, or if the information is considered to be of little value when it is published, it will not be available to an audience, and will not have any static physical presence in the future. What would happen if Galileo, or Aristotle had not writen their works in printed books (and instead published it in some digital form...). Their ideas were haracy, and considered to be of no value, durring their lives, and yet today, their works are of great scientific and historical significance. Information in a digital age has become transient. If it does not reach an audience imediately, it is discarded. What will historiens find of modern thought, 1000 years from now? Will it be the fringe thinkers who expressed ideas decades ahead of their time, or will it be a plethora of popular cultural iconism... ?

      Ok, I'm done ranting, back to Lynch's paper...
      On a more humerous note, I also vary much enjoyed the introduction witch mentioned the technology known as Napster, which I guess ranks up there with the Operating System known as RedHat.

      --CTH

      ---

      --

      --Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
  43. On this tangent by ackthpt · · Score: 2
    If you have ever read on the beach or in the park on a sunny day then you know what I mean.

    Whatever attempts to replace the printed book must be rugged enough to withstand

    Cold

    Heat

    Water

    Various food like substances

    Being dropped

    Time (once set in this format, readers must ever be backward compatible to it)

    Any form of physical neglect

    The humble book, and I've got a few which can testify, withstands some pretty harsh treatment, same for newspapers, which makes them very convienient, not to mention they don't run out of power (unless you want to read in the dark and don't have a light) It'll probably come to pass, but these things will probably be with us (unless we continue along the lines of the disposable society and get a new model every 9 months) for years and look like something dragged behind a jeep for a few miles.

    --
    All your .sig are belong to us!

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  44. Regular books aren't going anywhere... by GrandCow · · Score: 5
    Microsoft has produced a software product called Microsoft Reader, which turns a PC into an e-book reader, and Dick Brass, the Microsoft executive in charge of the product, is making predictions (supported by a rather flamboyant marketing videotape) that publishing will shift rapidly to electronic formats.

    Can I toss an ebook reader in my pocket without worrying about sitting on it and breaking something? With books I own, they get torn up... They're bent, torn in places, the spine is messed up. Can I do that with an ebook? What happens when the power goes out and I don't have any charge left in the tablet or whatever I'm using to view the digital text? Can I dogear parts of a digital book and go back to them by simply picking it up and opening it? Will I be able to read an ebook for hours like I can do with regular books and not have any form of eye strain?

    And I guess the most important question on my mind:

    If I like the book enough that I loan it to friends or family, will they all have to pay additional licenses or transfer fee just to read it?

    I think for now, you can count me out for electronic books

    -C

    --
    "Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
    1. Re:Regular books aren't going anywhere... by Pogue+Mahone · · Score: 2

      Also, let it cost nothing (my current paper book reader costs exactly that), let it be completely self-powered (my current paper-book reader does that - OK, I have to feed it from time to time, but it doesn't stop working just because the power supply is a bit low).

      Let it not become obsolete in the next 1000 years.
      (current paper book readers have been around at least that long, as have some of the books)

      Let the electronic books give me exactly the same freedoms as the paper editions - freedom to lend it to friends, to read it as many times as I like without paying additional fees, freedom to copy parts for reference and or research, (and the ability to copy the whole thing when allowed by copyright). Oh, and the freedom to start and stop reading it whereever I choose, without having to skip past loads of adverts first.

      Let it be as light as a single paper book, and not
      stop working if I drop it, or if it gets slightly
      wet, or if I accidentally sit on it. And if I should lose my reader, make sure that I don't lose my entire library along with it.

      When electronic books can do all that, then, and only then, will they be the equivalent of paper books - and only then will I even consider buying one. And then they'll have to have a price advantage over the paper version.

      Just let me know if it ever happens.

      --

      --
      Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
    2. Re:Regular books aren't going anywhere... by ma_sivakumar · · Score: 5

      This reminds me of one of my co-worker, who was against using the PC for customer order maintanance. His argument was "Can I add comments to an entry using a pencil?" "Can I access any entry just by turning a few pages?" "Can I carry it to meetings with customers? "What about when I travel?"

      This was a few years back. Today with the availability of PDAs he can do almost everything he wanted. The issue is not the idea itself, but the format in which it is available now.

      Just imagine a device which is as big as a paper back novel of present time, which can hold a few hundred titles in it and display the text with the printed quality of today's books? Let it come with an idiot proof outer cover!

      Even today's e-book readers have the option to mark where you left reading and go back to it at a latter time. If I recall correct, you have the option of picking from any page, furthest read page, last read page etc

      You want to lent it to someone? One solution will be to connect your reader to their's ---SWISH ---the copy of the book your are lending goes through to your friend's machine and your machine loses the copy. It is a move rather than a copy action. When your friend is finished you move it back into your reader. Pretty close to what you have with the print books! eh?

      Eye strain? When there were no books, and knowledge were transmitted orally you never strained your eyes by reading, and I am sure one of the argument against the first written word would have been the eye strain! :-) Be open to new ideas! Come on!!

      Look at the millions of inventory in each book store, consider the amount of paper each avid reader is holding, e-book will be a great leap forward for man kind in terms of dissemination of knowledge in the most efficient form.

      If you further read in the article, it talks about books talking to each other (reminds one of MS "smart tags" :-). I would love that feature. When you read 'A Brief history of Time" you can flip into parts of John Gribbin's "In Search of Schroedinger's Cat". Will be really cool!!

      In my opinion, what we need is a good medium and format for accessing e-books and it is a matter of years before we can all enjoy the ultimate reading pleasure.

      PS: I really think that the original poster read till the Microsoft part and posted his comment! It is a pretty lengthy article. To read and digest it will take the best part of an hour. I am one quarter of the way into it :-)

      --
      yAthum UrE yAvarum kELir All the places are our place, everybody is our kin. (A Tamil Poet - 2000 years ago)
  45. I'm genuinely interested! by Fatal0E · · Score: 4

    (at 4.30am no less)

    My company publishes PDF's. Me and some of the sales guys are tight and they tell me that they suspect a lot of clients are sharing their publication with the rest of their network effectively pirating our materials. We're relatively small with only about 100k readers so every buck counts. The future of secured (notice I didnt say secure) text would be of a lot of use for me and other small publishers like mine.

    Novelists IMO have nothing to worry about, no one likes to curl up to a laptop/e-book when they can't sleep. Besides, if ain't disposable for us, it ain't profitable for them.


    --

    BOSTON SUCKS!
    1. Re:I'm genuinely interested! by Sven+Tuerpe · · Score: 4

      My company, a research agency, has an inhouse library. We buy books and let everyone read it. As a further service, the library staff even borrows books from other libraries, again for everyone in the company.

      What do you think, who is going to ruin whom? And who do you think will design your next copy protection scheme if R&D has died because of every single bit of thought being licensed material without any option to share it with others?

      Oh, BTW, every buck counts for us, too. To us scientists, pay per view would mean we had to fill in a form for every access to any publication, calculate the number of readings needed in a project in advance, and being unable to work if the planned amount had been spent.

      Now research is much older than your business, as are old-style publishing companies, who survived it. Did you ever consider the possibility of your business model being seriously flawed in that it relies on people who paid you to enforce your rather arbitrary do-not-look-over-my-shoulders rules?

      --
      http://erichsieht.wordpress.com/category/english/
  46. Why would the industry want to digitize books? by BuddyPacer · · Score: 2
    In order to successfully pull off the ebook effort, they'll first have to pull a coup in changing millions of peoples habits from reading dead-tree format to reading off a computer screen (with associated annoyances: have to have power, might not work so well in sunlight, can be dropped and your $99 reading unit is broken). Probably this will require a relentless marketing campaign, although the web helps a lot, they can maybe do it in a generation for really wired countries.

    Of course, they'll have some sort of SDBI for it, but once that's cracked by a bored teenager in Toledo, all those secure books will be downloadable and swapped around with free reign. And there'll be high demand for those, because everyone will be used to reading off an lcd screen. And the industry won't see any money from it (the Grateful Dead argument for pro-copying could be made, sure, but my intuition is that since books take so much time and effort to digest compared to bootlegs played in the background of a friend's crash pad, you won't get the same results).

    Instead of an ebook initiative, from the book industry's point of view, I don't understand why they don't do everything possible to make sure people stay extremely comfortable with the quaint, warm, style of reading. They should pay big attention to cool cover art, print on the most tactile-pleasing type of paper they can find, and lace books with pheromones.

  47. Electronic Paper by markmoss · · Score: 2

    Numerous people have commented on the problems with presently available hardware (display quality and lighting, breaks if you bend it, battery life). But these problems are going to be solved within a few years. A quite likely replacement is "electronic paper", discussed yesterday on /. This is apparently close to giving you the same contrast under ambient light as ink on paper. It should eventually be possible to make it flexible (sharp creases would break electrodes and pigment capsules, but gentle bends should be OK). It doesn't require power to hold a picture, just to erase and write. It does have the disadvantage for many computing applications of being very slow to change (about 1/2 second to rewrite the entire display), but for reading it sounds ideal. And the slow display speed means a slow, tiny, low-powered CPU board would do just fine.

    The other question is how the text is distributed and stored. Until we get a dramatic cost decrease in solid-state storage, that's probably going involve CD's or something similar. Three inch CD's would hold any book, and allow a drive (including batteries and tiny CPU board) that measures about 3.5 x 5 x 1 inch. That is just a bit large for "pocket size", but you could clip it on your belt with a wire to the flexible e-paper display. I think first we'll see a paperback-sized unit with the (inflexible) e-paper on the top cover; this would allow the larger batteries or AC supply you would need to download books and write them to CD-R/RW.

    1. Re:Electronic Paper by markmoss · · Score: 3

      E-books _could_ have several real advantages:

      1. Cost: Stamping a CD costs a few cents, less than the cost of shipping it by US mail. Downloading it (if available on-line) and burning your own CD also costs less than a dollar. Printing, binding, and shipping a book costs a few dollars. (Authors only get about 10% of the cover price, the rest is expenses, advertising, and profit to the publisher and bookstore.) Of course, you also have to figure the cost of the reader--but in 20 years that should be about $10.

      2. Availability of unusual editions: Specialized books such as college texts often cost around $100 if you can get them at all; a large part of that is the cost to the printer of setting up for a short run, and to the stores of storing less-popular books. On-line, these could be distributed at the cost of download & burn, plus maybe a couple of dollars for the author. Writing stuff like this is motivated more by "professional standing" (ego?) than by financial considerations, so the authors might be happy to give their book away if they know no one else is going to make money off of it. And once a book is on-line, it costs nothing to keep it there even if only one person a year downloads it.

      3. Searching. In any electronic text format, you are no longer dependent on the author to anticipate what you want to look up and put it in the index.

      4. Readers for the blind.

      5. Storage space: I've got a whole room overflowing with printed books. A stack of CD's would be much tidier--and I suspect the cheap paper on a lot of those books is not going to last as long as a good CD-R.

      Against this, of course there are several obvious disadvantages: battery or power cord, less portability, and (for at least a few more years) lower readability. But if with e-books I can find more books meeting my particular tastes and spend less....

  48. Irony? by screwballicus · · Score: 2

    A paper on the death of print media? Why not just have web news story on the survival of newsprint dailies?

  49. Cutting Down Trees = Toxic Computer Parts ??? by BIGJIMSLATE · · Score: 3

    This makes me wonder though.

    Are the environmental hazards of disposing an obsolete electronic device (such as a laptop, a palm, or an ebook) equal to, or greater to that of the loss of a few dozens of trees to produce the paperback books?

    I'm all for doing most things to help the environment, but with computers filling up landfills at record numbers, along with the toxic chemicals that they and their monitors contain, it makes me wonder if the ebook is really an environmental solution, since that would just cause consumers to purchase more electronic devices to use them on. Which ALSO implies that they'll junk the product in about 4 or 5 years for a "better" model.

    Tress grow back. Lead stays in the water.

  50. On Razorblades and Concerted Pirating by zauber · · Score: 3

    This is a great overview, and it goes in some interesting directions. I think it is right to look at the copyright issues as being of primary interest. (Multimedia books: yeah, in limited instances. In most cases, narrative text is still the way to go!)

    There is a model, still prevalent in IT, of giving away the razor (hardware) and making money on the blades (software/content). The early stages of radio took the opposite approach: commercial-free radio was supported by the manufacturers of the radio sets.

    Hardware is never going to be free, but I think we need to make content free. MIT's efforts to open up course materials are a good step in this direction. There really isn't a good middle ground. We need to recognize that any limits to copying screw things up. And we need to fight to un-screw them.

    We need to do what with books what has already happened with genetic foods and with music. We need to scan and release as many books as possible in order to make it a technological imperative. We need to push the genie out of the bottle.

  51. E-Books are hopelessly inadequate. by Flying+Headless+Goku · · Score: 2

    There are certain things that E-Books will have to do before I'll even consider touching one:
    - Can you throw one you don't want to read again at a noisy cat?
    - Can you use one of your collection to prop up the desk, while still being able to read all the others?
    - Can you rip pages out and use them during a toilet paper shortage?
    - Can you impress strangers with shelves and shelves of them?
    - Can you drop them in the bath tub and have them emerge an unreadable glob of pulp?
    - With a collection of several hundred, can you light them on fire to keep yourself warm for a few days?
    - Will a library with the same number of them still be heavy enough that it's foundation doesn't begin to rise and destabilize?

    Where these narrow-minded technocrats fail is in focusing on the words contained within the books. This is obviously ridiculous, as books spend 99.95% of the time with nobody looking at the words in them, and any one word spends 99.99995% of the time not being looked at. This means the words play an insignificantly small role in the use of a book, more a rationalization of why to keep the book around than a real rational reason.

    Let's be reasonable, here. The only way for E-Books to succeed is to give up on the content, and concentrate on duplicating the physical existence of paper books. While simple enough to do, I can't see these eggheads ever recognizing the obvious necessity.
    --

    --
  52. books will stay by Ubi_UK · · Score: 3

    I can still read paper written on 2000 years ago. Try and do that with *any* digital technology...