Still doesn't flip pages

[nfotxn]

Reuters is running a story on a folding screen laptop.

Great design concept and it's certainly bringing computers closer to what is still the undisputeably sublime functionality of books and paper. It's still expensive, fragile and generally more clunky an interface than say a text book. You can't make notes, use a highlighter, use a bookmark or fold the pages. You can't rip out a page in a rush. At least, not in the physical equivalent, sure digital equivalents can be engineered. But anyone who's worked in the industry knows how hard that can be to standardize. "eBooks" require a total re-education of a society that still isn't even 80% literate let alone proficient enough that higher technology is required!

Can you tell I've been reading The Social Life of Information? Thanks goes to that there usablebear!

Comments

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

After ten years of hearing variously hyped stories about ebooks, I still have to wonder what the whole kerfuffle is. I have yet to meet a book that was fundamentally broken in some way that only an electronic version thereof could fix. I have also yet to meet a book that suddenly stopped displaying text due to lack of power, or a book that suddenly went blank when its printing referenced an invalid memory address.

So, I suppose my question is why would ebooks require a general reeducation of society, when the very need for them is as yet unproven?

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

Right, there is no need. Perhaps if you could have all the benefit of the printed word and stuff like hypertext integrated.. maybe then you'd have something. The concept of the eBook is pretty much science fiction and techno-fetishist fantasy. The printed word is so core to us culturally that, on second thought, it'd take more than re-education but a revolution.

New technology is not a replacement but a compliment to old technology. It's so friggin' obvious, I find it kinda a personal hit that I had to read a book to have that pointed out to me.

[notofthisworld.livejournal.com]

It's still expensive, fragile and generally more clunky an interface than say a text book. You can't make notes, use a highlighter, use a bookmark or fold the pages. You can't rip out a page in a rush.

Yep. Books already have a great user interface. And you can get books made out of cheap materials, suitable for reading amongst the salt and sand at the beach, or for throwing in your gym bag.

Sometimes the best design is not a technological one.

Now if they only made books which weren't so damn heavy, so they were easier to move on moving day.

[notofthisworld.livejournal.com]

Oh. And they look nice when displayed on a shelf, too.

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

That's one thing I don't think can be improved on with technology, the actual look and feel of certain books. For example, the Victorian state library, I think it is, currently has a special display of drawings of banksia done by an artist whose name escapes me at the moment. Her work is beautiful, but part of what's so appealing (to me, at any rate) is the way in which it was published. 3 volumes, incredibly thick, luxurious paper, oversize printing, etc., just over US $5,000 for the set. To hold something that rare and expensive, not to mention beautiful, can't really be approximated with a digital experience of any kind.

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on that. Everything is a commodity in the modern world, even art thanks to the likes of Warhol, Lietchenstein and especially Dali.

Rare artifacts of any description are more precious than ever.

Hi I'm looking for a copy of the Qur'an in PDF format on SD card format?

[nfotxn.livejournal.com]

They sure do. That's another importance of them. I mean, that's not an explicitly designed principal of books but a cultural developement. Books have a large visual implication about their owner. Somebody with lots of books is likely intelligent.

Printed books have univeral appeal that's core to culture pretty much around the world. I'm sure every religious text is available in book format.

Imagine that if you walk into somebody's house. There's some god awful barren post-modern minimalist interior and some sort of PDA device lying on a table. That tells you JACK ALL about that person. People, both the owner of the home and the visitor, are aware of this. The techno-fetishist style of living is ultimately unfulfilling. Just as an example.

Re: Hi I'm looking for a copy of the Qur'an in PDF format on SD card format?

[notofthisworld.livejournal.com]

Imagine that if you walk into somebody's house. There's some god awful barren post-modern minimalist interior and some sort of PDA device lying on a table. That tells you JACK ALL about that person. People, both the owner of the home and the visitor, are aware of this.

That's exactly what I was thinking.