A personal jet-pack for the 21st century

[james_davis_nicoll]

Shorter John Siracusa: e-books' coming domination of publishing is inevitable, do you hear me? Inevitable!

Nicked from Charles Stross, who pretty much would have to be more positive about e-books than I am.

Comments

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

You're missing most of my points, but thanks for the suggestion.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

No, just that I agreed with them mostly, DRM, not buying ovcerpriced unproven new tech, etc., except for I don't care about the used bookstore/resale thing, apart from liking used bookshops - but I'd rather have electronic access to huge numbers of books I'd never get otherwise than have used bookshops.

[schizmatic.livejournal.com]

Disagree. I will read fiction on a screen only if it's the only possible way to do so. I think the folks working on e-ink understand this phenomenon.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

I'll admit to being intrigued by the new Kindle.

I do keep a small slew of books on my phone, but while the phone is workable as a reading device, the screen just isn't big enough to make it really comfortable for me. It's not a matter of resolution or contrast, you just can't fit enough text on a screen that small for it to be a comfortable "page" size for me. I use the e-books as backup reading material when I happen to not have a physical book with me.

But my biggest problem with e-books is that I have trouble paying significant money for a wodge of data that I download over the net. This isn't an entirely rational dislike, I know; but on the other hand electronic data is rather transitory by nature -- hard drives fail, etc. -- and while I do do backups (not as religiously as I ought to), without some kind of "original media" it doesn't quite feel like I actually own the data. Whereas I have physical books I've owned for decades and comfortably expect to still own decades from now.

Also, as the article notes, the DRM is a big turn-off.

The result is that I'm reluctant to pay physical-book prices, or even most-of-a-physical-book prices, for e-books. Project Gutenberg and Baen provide me with a smallish library of free books, but beyond that I'm disinclined to go at present.

[mgedmin.livejournal.com]

Well, being a phone was not on roseembolism's spec, was it? I interpreted "5. Phone connection and Bluetooth" as being able to get online via Bluetooth dialup to a 3G/EDGE/GPRS phone, which the N8x0 does just fine.

[(Anonymous)]

Funny how none before remarked that Kindle is simply very ugly and unwieldy. As for me, I need all the PDA functionality on my e-book reader, so for a while I stick to my PDA (HP ipaq)...

Ewa Pawelec, Poland

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Tech boosters always do the market research on themselves first, and then the general market. Obviously Siracusa loves that type of technology, and just can't understand why the market can't get behind his love. And since this sort of product requires an economy of scale not to be orphaned, he's using all his powers of persuasion to convince a critical mass of people otherwise: by implying people are too slow for his cool, that skeptics should die first, that since people read a lot of text on screens for jobs they hate, they'll do it for pleasure at home, et cetera. Citing Cory Doctorow in support of an argument.

It might work for the Ars Technica readership. For genpop, though, I'm thinking not so much.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Okay, the HTC is smaller than a paperback.

Is this a theoretical requirement, or based on bad experience trying to read on real devices? For me, I find the smaller screen works fine, because "turning the page" is much easier and quicker; hence having to do it more often doesn't bother me (and I get a corresponding win from having a more convenient device size). (Font size is adjustable in the various software I've used; I end up picking smaller than paperback size, because the screen is self-lighting and much sharper than paperback printing.)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Ah, that could be what was meant.

[wintermuted.livejournal.com]

So, let it be written. So, let it be done!

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

I think the main reason that microfilm never took off is that it's an awkward tool for pleasure reading--just as the desktop computer screen is. Siracusa is right that people will read lots off of screens, even desktop computer screens, but he elides that into being willing to read many, many pages of the same work, in a row, on a desktop computer screen. It's not an accident that his preferred e-book reader form-factor is the handheld (first the Palm, now the smartphone).

[gohover.livejournal.com]

Did you see www.jetlev-flyer.com ? I'm going to hope this comment isn't annoyingly off-topic for this thread on the grounds that the JetLev is a personal jet-pack for the 21st century (despite its obvious limitations, you can fly from Florida to the Bahamas with it, which you couldn't say about any other jet pack), and because the first video has a nice use of Thus Spake Zarathrusta (2001 theme music = 21st century reference and ObSF).

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've only read 1.5 books on the desktop computer screen; all the rest of the dozens or very low hundreds have been on PDAs and sometimes a phone. I even read books on first-generation Palm Pilots.

[gohover.livejournal.com]

You can find the Thus Spake Zarathustra video here:
http://www.jetlev-flyer.com/en/6531-Training (the video on the left). It is much better than the video on the homepage!

[(Anonymous)]

Given I can't get a lot of out-of-print musical recordings and the whole iTunes thing has put a huge dent in the used CD stores (where I find the weirdest but coolest stuff along with the out-of-print stuff), I'd rather have the used bookstores than electronic access because anything in copyright yet out-of-print is not likely to be available.

Re: Water ??

[kayshapero]

Ya got a point - ebooks aside, what we really need is for someone to come out with books on plastic targeted for adults.

[kayshapero]

Agreed. Ugly I can live with. Unwieldy, no thanks. The TX is a PDA, which makes it all the better. :)