E-books

Saturday January 21, 2006 - 11:40PM EDT

It is time e-books finally took off. With Sony's new reader that actuall comes extremley close to the resolutions of printed paper it is time. I like the library. But I'd love it even more if I could get any book I want from the net and not have to read it on the horrible resolution computer screens. No matter how high resolution your computer screens is it is only capable of producing resolutions that area about 100 dots per inch. Printed paper on the other hand comes in around 300 dots per inch.  Botton line is that, no matter how expensive of fancy the LCD display technology is, it isn't as good as printed paper. The new Sony e-book reader is different.  It is not an LCD, it is sort of like a really expensive exa-sketch. LinkZu e-ink for more info. Now here is the problem though. DRM. I'd love to be able to download whatever book I wanted whenever I wanted. But the economy isn't geared for that yet. Strangley enough though Libraries still exist. So while I can go to a building and get any book I can't download it without paying a fee probably. Its strange. How access is divided into different groups. So while going to a library and getting a book to read isn't frowned upon. Downloading an e-book to read without paying is. It is a gross system that restricts the flow of information for profit. It is a system everyone is used to and that is being slowly chipped away with the emergence of the Internet. So some try to use the internet to do the same as they have done with previous methods of information dispersal. But are finding that the flow on the Internet is nearly unstoppable and is extremely difficult to put a faucet on so that one can profit. There are success here and there but what will be the future. I'd hope it would be that most information does flow freely eventually. Economics of human society will hopefully restructure itself to allow this, or maybe not.
On episodes of Star Trek you used to see people reading books on things that look like the Sony e-reader. Not sure if Star Trek was the originator of that idea or form but either way looks like that is the direction we are headed.