Just a few days back I was in my pops basement, going through my old storage of books attempting to pick which ones I had more of an attachment too. I was moving across states with the help of a friend and his pickup, so I had to tame my inner pack rat and take just what I felt was critical, things I would actually remember not taking and regret it. Over my 20+ years I’ve collected a far amount of books, there was a point in my teen years where I could easily devour 2 or 3 a week. Such was the life of a lonely loser.
After I filled 2 card boxes with my most fave novels, I couldn’t help but think about my mates new “toy”-an Amazon ‘Kindle’. An Ebook rising in renown that downloads novels directly from Amazon’s Whispernet.
The most recent Kindle model, Kindle DX costs nearly $500, I couldn’t believe he was willing to drop that kind of scratch to read the same books he could buy for less than 1 / 4 of that price . 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 small surge in popularity in the early 2000’s, but many were only programed in one format. So if you were the owner of an Ebook, and your fave novel just came out on a competitors Ebook-you would just have to deal with it.
Because of the Kindle’s acceptance, many large firms decided to try to join the competition. Barnes & Noble introduced they’re “Nook”, which is the first to be primarily based on the ‘Android’ platform, and has a MicroSD growth slot for additional storage. Except for being much less expensive Kindle alternative, it can be hacked to add applications like Pandora, a twitter customer, Google Reader, Facebook, and a net browser.
In France, Bookeen released the ultra light Cybook Opus, featuring a paper-like high contrast appearance that can really be read in direct daylight. When the Cybook Opus is connected up to your PC it registers as a typical USB mass storage gizmo so that you can easily copy books without special drivers.
With the releasing of Apple’s iPad, came the releasing of the iBooks application. Aside from having all the features of the Kindle, it could also embed video. Still lacks USB ports, however.
While my mate raved about his expensive, little, electronic library, I couldn’t help but think how silly it was to think that a small, thin gizmo able to download books could ever replace hundreds of years of paper paged history. It only took up less room, you might download any book you wanted when you wanted, future generations will surely be less expensive and better quality…I stopped my train of thought and took a good look at my stacks of physical books, all together they weighed a ton and took up so much space. Will this generation see the demise of printed word? I am sure people in the sixties couldn’t imagine life without their favorite 12-inch vinyl records, now those self same people carry the entire discography of their favourite artist on an itty bitty iPod.
a decade back T.V’s were hulking monstrosities, now they’re paper thin with such amazing quality you can count the pores on somebody’s’s chin. A decade back video games were still pixelated and featured squat characters with jerky movements, now it’s basically interactive animation. In ten years, will my ‘bookcase’ just become ‘shelves’? Featuring one Ebook 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 ultimately closed the card boxes and pressed down the packing tape, I couldn’t help but think how convenient it might be to just slip my fave book ‘The Stand’ in my back pocket while having the rest of my library stored on my C : drive.
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