Slashdot Mirror
The Future of Digital Books
Tabercil writes "The New York Times has an article about the mass scanning of books, which argues that actions such as Google's Book Search project are an inevitable outgrowth of the internet." From the article: "Scanning technology has been around for decades, but digitized books didn't make much sense until recently, when search engines like Google, Yahoo, Ask and MSN came along. When millions of books have been scanned and their texts are made available in a single database, search technology will enable us to grab and read any book ever written. Ideally, in such a complete library we should also be able to read any article ever written in any newspaper, magazine or journal. And why stop there?"
What I would like to see is academic books in an electronic format (on a disc distributed with the hard-copy perhaps) so that I could search the text for a phrase or quote that I did not get the page number for. This would make referencing much easier. Of course having a lot of newspapers and books online from other countries also aids academic researching.
I wank in the shower.
If anyone has the right plan for online digital book distribution, it is the folks at the IOCDP. Their plan is absolutely brilliant, involving many facets of academia and the internet backbone to make sure that digital content in the form of literary works is spread as efficiently and reliably as possible. If only ICANN could work out their problems with standardization as well as the IOCDP Digital Library Council has been able to, the Internet would be a better place for us and all of its netizens.
IANAL, but does anyone else think that some of these other new plans for e-books seem just a LITTLE bit in violation of fair use clauses found in many content treatises? I would like to see some of these issues dealt with in a court of law, just for the sake of getting a definitive ruling.
those who control energy would rule the world.
Welcome to Earth 2006.
I personally dont like to read from the screen, and LOVE reading or listening to books on tape but theres pretty good tools out there to read the text for you in english like openbook.
But I have a blind friend and certainly can see how something like this could help him, because I see how he struggles to find good books he can read and has to jokearound with his scanner just to read something that is not available electronically. He does good now, has two diplomas but he had his mom was scanning books for him like 24/7...
Think outside the box a bit...
If there became an online library consisting of most if not all books, I would be willing to pay for a subscription. I believe that there is a large market of people that want unusual or hard to find in print books. This would allow people to search for these books. Along with helping that niche market, there would also be the vast benefit to researchers and college students. Why buy a book for 20 dollars just for one paper because your library doesn't have a copy when you can use a service with all the books already there for a small set fee. Overall this would be cheaper for the end user of small print books. The only pitfall is in the major money makers of the publishing industry, bestsellers and textbooks. However, I don't think that having then in ebook form would greatly hurt their sales. Books, as in those on paper, have unique advantages. One they are highly and easily portable. I don't want to read on my laptop while taking a crap. I also use the margins in textbooks. There is nothing like having a real book in hand. But having the availability of books hard to come by along with books used infrequently or once briefly per person would greatly benifit all those literate.
The other problem is that no content provider, and few customers, actually benefits from this system. They use it at the carnival because they don't trust their minimum-wage employees with money and some other ancillary benefits of microcurrencies (makes you spend more than you intended, what have you). But for an online business, "what our customers buy" is not just useful, its their *lifeblood*. Take a look at the value Amazon gets out of cross-referencing buying habits, both in aggregate ("People Who Like Harry Potter like ...") and specific to you (recommenations, which are basically taking the aggregate data and splicing that with what they know about you from past purchases). Heck, their database is probably as important to them as their tech or brand name.
Nor do most customers care. There was never a golden age of privacy in commercial transactions, since you always have to arrange delivery of the goods and payments and that always leaves records (even if they're only memories). Even if there had been a golden age, hello, credit cards, supermarket value cards, and data mining software. Its dead and most people couldn't care less. Sure, you can scare people a little with "Dubya and the NSA can subpoena your library records" but that ceases to scare (mostly because the dangers of it are vastly oversold and the usual suspects warn about this every two weeks whether they need to or not -- see the +5 mods which are probably already above and below this comment).
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
The real world introduction of replicators would see well-governed nations (which are mostly already rich) get even richer, and poorly-governed nations (which are mostly already poor) get even poorer as their governments confiscated their replicators and used them for the benefit of the power-elite (more phasers to oppress the masses and cheaper rates on ballots for one-party elections! Sweet!). And lots of Western academics would say "See, this is why we need socialism, look at how capitalism produces rich and poor people and inequitably distributes the wealth of the world", because academics who have never actually had their stuff ganked by a totalitarian mob have a very rozy view of the whole process.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
If we can get all of these things available for viewing, then overcoming the login will be the trivial aspect. We have a lot of anonymizing technologies and we have a lot of "convenience" techonologies such as "bugmenot" where you don't actually have to log in as yourself. This can eliminate the paper trail, obfuscate the paper trail, or reduce the trail to "there was some sort of file transfered, but it was encrypted".
.com and .org servers we could have psychology or physical sciences or music servers. They could tell you where to find the item in question and could index those works that are in their domain. (search.psychology.lib or maybe google.psychology.lib). A broad query could just hit multiple servers to look for the information. For our p2p model, we can use a central directory or a broadcast model for indexing.
In addition, once the content is available at all, it can easily be copied. (For the same reasons real DRM is impossible.) Then we can set up an encrypted p2p network and serve it up anonymously. In the case of pure text, the storage space required is incredibly small, less than 1 MB for an entire book. So I can store about 9,000 books on a single DVD and over 500,000 on a hard drive and share it on an anonymous, encrypted p2p network. The small size also means bandwidth isn't a big issue for text.
Bandwidth may be an issue for movies, but you can fit over 100 movies on a single hard drive, and as long as you don't want to watch the movie right at that moment, bandwidth for movies shouldn't be a problem either. (People download movies all the time over p2p.) With proper p2p, anonymizing and encryption, there is no information that can be gained about the actual information being transferred on the network.
Searching shouldn't be a problem since we could adopt a hierarchical system similar to DNS but based on some library category system. Instead of
Copyright would be a nightmare since the holder of the copyright is the one that sets rates, and can charge different rates to different people. However, since different countries don't have the same rules regarding copyrights, you could access the material from a country where it wasn't copyrighted or where it has expired. This really isn't a solution, but it is a workaround.
The biggest issue I see is that artists and authors have the rights to their own work and don't want to give it away - they like to get paid for what they have done. In addition, the storage cost for everything would be quite high. Maintaining petabytes of active storage is expensive and being able to serve it at a decent rate is also expensive, so there has to be some revenue model or at least public funding.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
What would the consequences of such a device be if we could replicate anything at no cost?
You're assuming we have limitless access to energy to power the thing, right?
Personally, I foresee a rampant culture of hedonists and drug addicts. There are plenty of people who, given the ability to replicate anything on a desk at no cost, will ask for heroin or coke or porn without even thinking twice.
Most of the rest will ask for bars of solid gold, because they're not smart enough to realize twelve million other people have already done the same thing.
C.S. Lewis - the guy who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia wrote a book that addresses this idea in the beginning of his book, The Great Divorce, which is an allegory for Heaven and Hell...sort of.
Anyway, his description of hell before judgement day is a place where people can make absolutely anything they want just by imagining it. People are imperfect, though, so their imaginings are also - and so nothing works great. Also, with no economic forces holding people together, bickering with neighbors drives people further and further away from each other (since they can always find a strech of land and think up a new house for it).
It's an interesting notion.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Perhaps the current trend will not hold in the long run. But it could still be very ugly for a while. As I see it, the fundamental problem is that no current economic system is designed to deal with goods that have no natural scarcity.
Capitalism is about competing to get a bigger piece of the pie, and letting this motivate the pie's production.
Communism is about distributing the pie evenly, with production being centrally planned and dictated.
Most economies in the real world have some elements of both.
All assume that there's either not enough pie to satisfy all desire, or at least that the cost of doing so is prohibitive. But when people can make for themselves all the pie they want at almost no cost or effort, the system breaks down. The problem is that while it may take practically no effort or expense to reproduce pie, it still takes considerable effort to develop new kinds of pie. Especially really good pie.
We need a different economic model. But in the mean time, we'll keep trying to force an increasing number of non-scarce goods into the existing scarcity-based models. Which is very unfortunate, as this simply cannot be done other than by reducing freedom.
Don't we have blogs for that already?
I can barely get through a slashdot briefing in a web browser, let alone war and peace.
Noone reads ebooks as it is now, because a screen is an impractical medium for books.
Indexing them all will be neato bambino for quick searches and whatnot, but most people don't want to be glued to a screen for that long. Besides, books smell cool and computers do not.
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
not that /. needs any more references to 1984, but this could make it a lot easier to alter the text. unless there were multiple databases controlled by sources with conflicting interests (some sort of checks and balances) or the database had some non-defeatable version tracking, how would you know that the content is genuine?
I have tons of online help BS on my computer but when I really need to figure something out, I still reach for Kerningham's C book or Knuth's Art of Computer Programming.
Sigh... I'm like sooo last century.
Is that a SCSI connector or are you just glad to see me?
Another issue that strikes home is the issue of DRM - not as much from publishers as from governments.
Digital format books are great in that many people can simultaneously view the same file at the same time; yet (not unlike the internet now), it wouldn't be too difficult for a government-librarian to selectively filter or block content. It's a little scary that if there was such a centralized database, it could be filtered and no-one would know. Still, such a library, even if filtered, could still benefit so many; it's hard to think of arguments in good conscience to contradict this idea.
(of course, like the internet now, those intent on getting around filters and blocks could probably do so, but it won't be the masses)
Same is true with greed story lines. No federation level race can have any desire to gain precious jewels because they can be easily replicated in any amount you want. So none of this gold pressed latinum nonsense.
The true concept of the replicator was rarely if ever used. In its full glory it would create a world without needs or wants. There would be no scarcity. Not of essentials and not of desirables. You could feed anyone and feed them on the finest foods.
99% of writers could never accept this. They had to introduce limitations or else their story telling techniques could not work. What is the point of sharing a rare bottle with someone. Rare? Just upload its pattern and anyone who wants to can have it.
So they introduced limits, like that it never tastes as good. HOW? Since replicators and transporters are similar technology either they create a perfect copy (and we been told time and time again that transporters do exactly that) or they do not and transporters would be useless.
In Star Trek the true replicators would ruin a lot of the stories because there would be no limit on resources, there would be no value to rare metals and precious stones, there would be no scarcity. Now check how many ST story lines respect the original vision of the replicator.
That is your clue as to the effect it would have on real life. All the current systems would collapse.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Have you noticed how Internet access makes smart people smarter and stupid people stupider?
The end result is a pretty distopian vision of the future. You walk around in this world where you are free to conjure anything you want out of thin air, but you are prevented from using the things you see around you as a base for your creations by absentee content owners.
Really? The game watches what you're creating, and if it's too similar to something somebody else has already created, you get banned?
Or is it rather that you can't take that other person's hard work, tweak it slightly, and call it your own? That if you want something that looks the same, you have to (gasp!) learn to create objects well yourself and build your own version?
Sorry, I don't see the problem. Second Life doesn't prevent you from copying what you see, and DRM doesn't prevent you from quoting a book or singing along to a song. If you want to attack an obnoxious law, attack the modern excesses of patents, where you can literally be sued for infringment over something that you have thought of, designed, and built entirely by yourself without reference to anyone else's work, simply because someone else had previously thought of and patented something similar. That's bad, and stifles creativity. Copyright doesn't.
Compared to a direct-light display such as an LED or CRT screen, perhaps, but I'd argue that the contrast is more than adequate. I personally find direct-light displays less comfortable to look at for long periods than reflected-light displays such as paper, but I suppose you can get used to either one; and I'll grant that the lack of a built-in light source can be a problem in dark areas, if you happen to read in such places frequently.
doesn't scroll, is unsearchable, is uncopypasteable,
Why would you need to do any of these? Maybe this is the generation gap, but at 28 and having read hundreds of paper novels, I've never once felt the need for any of those while reading. There have been a few occasions when I've wanted to go back and find a particular quote in a novel I read years ago, but that's a different usage pattern from ordinary reading--and incidentally, I've found that when I do need to search, my brain does a remarkably good job of finding the right place as I flip through the pages.
takes up physical space,
I guess if you've succumbed to the "gotta-get-em-all" Pokemon mindset, this could be an issue. I'm living in a 45m^2 apartment in Japan with two medium-size bookshelves, and already have plenty of books (around 150 at rough count) to occupy what free time I have--when I want more, I just sell some of the ones I already own.
and is a fire risk.
As is that CPU you're overclocking. No, seriously--the chance of a fire actually starting from or due to a book is probably about the same as, if not less than, the chance of a fire starting from your PC or other electronic equipment. If your apartment or house is stacked from floor to ceiling with paper books, maybe you'd have something to worry about if a kitchen fire or the like spread, but in ordinary circumstances it's really not something that merits particular concern.
I'd also add that aside from having resolution that exceeds that of electronic displays, paper books don't need electricty to read, don't suffer from bugs or require updates, and survive ordinary wear and tear much better than electronic readers (I've got a book on Japan dating from 1907--a few photograph pages are no longer glued in they way they should be, but on the whole it's in fine shape).
Whats really missing here is a 'killer' product that allows one to 'curl up in a sofa' and read, laptops are too cumbersome, e-book readers and tablet pcs are akward as well, sure a laptop on a coffe table is great for 'curling up' to watch video but, text which needs to be aligned to the way your head is pointing for maximum decypherability doesn't work so well.
You say it's a generation gap, but honestly, you're a geek or a nerd, not a 'normal' gen 'Y'er. Normal kids are using their computers to play video games, or get porn, and are doing a lot of other things and when they do 'read' it's for school, and primarily with paper books and magazines. It is true the Gen Y geeks and nerds have become accustomed to using screens as reading interfaces, but the norms couoldn't care less. and in the terms of publishing the norms are the target audience. Norms even in gen Y have limited capabilities with computer, they know what google is, but if they can't find stuff on the first few links they give up. actually using computers to find and download texts? the norms would give up so quickly they'd find it much more useful to go to a book store or a library and have someone who can 'do the grunt work for them.'
So unless someone designs a 'paper book' killer app and hardware set (basically an ipod+i-tunes music store) they way apple did for digital music gen Y simply won't pick up on digital reading. They will want something easy, sleek and stylish, that they can feel comfortable using for reading.
One thing that could really make digital books take off with gen Y is a portal site that works off the same principal of Netflix, you go through a list of books you've read, rate them from 'hated it' to 'loved it' and the site starts reccomending books you might like the way a bookstore employee could. basic search functionality is useless to the average gen Y er without reccomendation functionality even if they find 'curling up' in front of the pc relaxing they would still need the basic funtionality of someone to give them really accurate advice whos reccomendatiosn they go 'wow i never would have know i loved book p!'
then there needs to be a digital device, as convenient to carry around as a psp, that can access this site, and easily be used to curl up and read the books... otherwise gen Y even with their accostomedness to digital screens will find that 'googling' for books is clucky andand hard, and they'd rather just go to a bokstore.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
The blessing of electronic media is also it's curse: Instant modification of documents, or outright deletion of the undesirable.
There is still plenty of need in the world for hard copy.
Physical, leather bound, acid free paper.
Stone tablets. Microfilm copies.
'1984' had it's ministry of truth, 2006 has the ministry of fog - an internet clogged with countless documents.
The Right to Read has never been greater.
Ebooks died when the publishers missed the point. Buying an e-books is one thing. Buying an ebook for the price of a hardback is quite another.
I dunno about your claim that you can store 100 movies on a drive. Maybe if you have a really big drive or you compress your movies down to some shitty quality. My experience is that a 300GB drive can hold about 43 DVD-quality movies ripped in their full glory. At an average size of around 7GB each they aren't especially small files for transmission over the shitty slow Internet most of us Americans have even if we have broadband. Maybe you could get the average size down to around 5GB if you stripped out all the non-movie parts of the DVD rips.
Wow, you *are* an idiot.
Hint: Not all codecs require the same bitrate to achieve the same quality.
Most MPEG4 codecs outshine MPEG2 while using only 1/4 to 1/8 the bitrate that MPEG2 requires. A DVD MPEG2 is generally 4-6Mbps while the equivalent MPEG4 codec would only require 0.5-1.0Mbps for the same quality.