Group items tagged

Weird.

I think Scott has it on the nose. It's depressing that not even print format can save us from temporary content!

I think this highlights the ridiculousness of the ebook issue, but I actually think it's a great idea as it's being presented. "The book that cannot wait" just seems cool to me. Probably not as cool as the book of Snoop Dogg lyrics made out of rolling papers but hey - we can't all be as cool as the D-O-Double-G.

A A Here's a sign that e-readers are struggling in the U.S.: E Ink Holdings, the Taiwan-based company that makes e-reader screens for companies such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony, just had its worst quarter in four years. This article had some interesting points and the comments brought up some good questions as well. As a former B&N employee it will be interesting to see what they do in the next coming years with the e-reader/e-books.

Another article about what may be the short term existence of dedicated e-readers compared to tablets. Realistically an e-reader only offers a lightweight dedicated platform and for some models an e-Ink display that isn't practical for most tablets that do video and color.

A video about the EDUCE project to scan and read the scrolls from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. Herculaneum was the second and lesser known city that was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. The scrolls were in what is probably the only library from antiquity to survive "intact," but the volcanic ash carbonized the scrolls so they are essentially charcoal. Some have been "read" by unwrapping the scroll in segments and scanning in ultraviolet light detect the ink, this is the first time the scanning has been done non-invasively to read the scroll without destroying it.

An interesting article that may spell bad news for makers of e-readers and particular E Ink. I would tend to agree with the assessment that dedicate e-readers are transition devices--much the same as electronic PDA's have been almost entirely replaced by smartphones. However, I would go further and say it's a format issue; people would tend to devices that are multifunction more often than one dedicated to a single purpose.