The distant future of the ebook

Submitted by cel4145 on September 18, 2005 - 11:29.

Over at IBM developer Works, Joshua Fruhlinger reflects on the future of books in the 21st century. As he points out, when it comes to ebooks,

Don't let anyone tell you different: the future is not here.

Fruhlinger goes on to cite many of the problems with ebooks in a conversational, entertaining tone that makes the text a pleasure to read. I especially enjoyed the section about RFID tags in libraries where Fruhlinger explains that we have to worry about the library police:

However, by convention we must accompany any discussion of RFID tags with one slightly paranoid concern about privacy, so here's one: What if you keep the book out past its due date and its RFID tag starts transmitting some sort of distress signal? You could find yourself surrounded by a SWAT team just because you took an extra week to finish the latest John Grisham novel.

Link via Slashdot.

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platypus matt's picture

Stallman on the Subject

Submitted by platypus matt on September 20, 2005 - 11:53.

Stallman has an interesting essay on ebooks on the GNU site. When I hear "ebook," I automatically think of this paragraph:

We still have the same old freedoms in using paper books. But if e-books replace printed books, that exception will do little good. With "electronic ink", which makes it possible to download new text onto an apparently printed piece of paper, even newspapers could become ephemeral. Imagine: no more used book stores; no more lending a book to your friend; no more borrowing one from the public library--no more "leaks" that might give someone a chance to read without paying. And judging from the ads for Microsoft Reader, no more anonymous purchasing of books. This is the world publishers have in mind for us.

Scary stuff, really. Still, I should probably RTDA, eh?