I’m quite excited to see all of the advances in ebook technology being shown off at CES this week, especially since they stand to move us a lot further down the path of a paperless society. Personally, I wouldn’t mind never using paper again. I get bummed evry time I shop and am handed a receipt.
While I think Amazon has done an admirable job coming at the problem of digital reading from the purpose-built device side of the equation, it’s clear that current Kindle displays are inadequate for certain types of reading – comic books, textbooks, interactive content, magazines, etc. This is precisely who the new blio reader software backed by famous futurist Ray Kurzweil looks so promising. It comes at the problem from the side of massively available computers and because of that, I think it could really take off. Check out this demo of the software running on Windows.
The following concept video from Bonnier Research and Development is also exciting as it specifically lays out some very solid concepts for taking magazines digital. Watching videos like the ones in this post lead me to believe that we will be reading our periodical content much differently within the next 1-2 years.
Content providers, please adopt these so that we don’t have to use the horribly inefficient postal service to deliver dead trees end up being tossed into a recycle pile.
And finally, I can already hear some of the complaints from you cantankerous buggers about backlit screens and how it increases eye strain. On the one hand, I agree with you; I own a Kindle and I read on it whenever the format is suitable to that device. I also read A TON on my computers: RSS feeds, news sites, magazine articles, Wikipedia, etc. I just find the current crop of e-ink devices to not be entirely satisfying for these types of reading. Even this, however, appears about ready to change. Check out this demo of a new color reader technology, called Mirasol, coming to the market from Qualcomm.
Compelling several videos, aren’t they?
