Kjellquist Blog

Ok, here’s a test – Name the common device known to the entire world with the following characteristics.

It is a more reliable storage device than a hard disk drive, and it sports a killer user interface. (No instruction manual or “For Dummies” guide needed.) And, it is instant-on and requires no batteries. Many people think it is so perfect an invention that it can’t be improved upon, and react with indignation at any implication to the contrary.

Give up? It’s the book. Just the ordinary book!

BTW, if you missed one of the cutest YouTube videos on book “technology” check out my previous blog

In the Nov 26 issue of Newsweek Steven Levy addresses the Future of Reading in the Technology cover story. Much of the feature addresses the upcoming launch of the Amazon Kindle e-book reader.

Levy also quotes Bill Hill, Microsoft’s e-reading lead;

“There’s 550 years of technological development in the book, and it’s all designed to work with the four to five inches from the front of the eye to the part of the brain that does the processing [of the symbols on the page],” says Hill, a boisterous man who wears a kilt to a seafood restaurant in Seattle where he stages an impromptu lecture on his theory. “This is a high-resolution scanning machine,” he says, pointing to the front of his head. “It scans five targets a second, and moves between targets in only 20 milliseconds. And it does this repeatedly for hours and hours and hours.” He outlines the centuries-long process of optimizing the book to accommodate this physiological marvel: the form factor, leading, fonts, justification … “We have to take the same care for the screen as we’ve taken for print.”

The article contains lots of interest thoughts on the impact of the “always on” book defined as taking the reading experience directly and seamlessly to Internet connectivity.

Levy includes an interesting and somewhat disturbing quote on the number of book readers.

A 2004 National Endowment for the Arts study reported that only 57 percent of adults read a book—any book—in a year. That was down from 61 percent a decade ago.

Levy finishes the article with lots of speculation (though little new) on the future of books, authorship and publishing. Overall, an interesting read.