Electronic Words: The Future of Reading
Only one or two days gone I was in my pops basement, going thru my old storage of books making an attempt to pick which ones I had more of an attachment too. I was moving across states with the aid of a chum and his pickup, so I had to tame my inner pack rat and take just what I felt was critical, things I might basically remember not taking and regret it. Over my 20+ years I have picked up a far amount of books, there was a point in my teen years where I could devour two or 3 a week. Such was the life of a lonesome loser.
After I filled 2 card boxes with my most favourite novels, I could not help but think about my friends new “toy”-an Amazon ‘Kindle’. An Ebook rising in renown that downloads novels straight from Amazon’s Whispernet.
The newest Kindle model, Kindle DX costs just about $500, I couldn’t believe he was ready to drop that kind of scratch to read the same books he could buy for slightly less than a quarter of that cost. How could it most likely mimic the intimate connection you can get with a good paper paged novel? Particularly older ones, with yellowed pages and a thick, musty smell.
Ebooks had a tiny surge in appreciation in the early 2000’s, but many were only programed in one format. So if you owned an ebook, and your favourite novel just came out on a competitors Ebook-you would just have to handle it.
Due to the Kindle’s acceptance, many big companies decided to attempt to join the competition. Barnes & Noble introduced they’re “Nook”, which is first to be primarily based on the ‘Android’ platform, and has a MicroSD enlargement slot for extra storage. Apart from being much cheaper Kindle alternative, it can be hacked to add applications like Pandora, a twitter customer, Google Reader, Facebook, and a web browser.
In France, Bookeen released the ultra light Cybook Opus, featuring a paper-like high contrast appearance that can basically be read in direct daylight. When the Cybook Opus is connected up to your personal computer it registers as a typical USB mass storage gadget so you can easily copy books without special drivers.
With the release of Apple’s iPad, came the release of the iBooks application. Apart from having all the features of the Kindle, it can also embed video. Still lacks USB ports, however.
While my pal raved about his dear, miniscule, electronic library, I could not help thinking how silly it was to believe that a little, thin gizmo able to download books could ever replace centuries of paper paged history. It only took up less room, you could download any book you wanted if you wanted, generations yet to come would certainly be cheaper and better quality…I stopped my train of thought and took a close look at my stacks of physical books, all together they weighed a ton and took up so much space. Will this generation see the passing of printed word? I’m sure folk in the sixties couldn’t imagine life without their favorite 12-inch vinyl records, now those self same folks carry the entire discography of their favorite artist on an itty bitty iPod.
10 years back T.V’s were chunky monstrosities, now they’re paper thin with such superb quality you can count the pores on somebody’s’s chin. Ten years ago Nintendo games were still pixelated and featured stocky characters with jerky movements, now it’s basically interactive animation. In a decade, will my ‘bookcase’ just become ’shelves’? Featuring one PDF and whatever knick knacks I throw on there to get rid of the empty space? What will happen to libraries? My fave used book store?
As I eventually closed the cardboard boxes and pressed down the packing tape, I could not help but think how convenient it’d be to just slip my fave book ‘The Stand’ in my back pocket while having the remainder of my library stored on my C : drive.
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