April 9, 2002

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    The Rag


     I grew up in a hodgepodge American neighborhood—virtually the quintessential melting pot.  Well, given the times, it was a segregated, hence, a white-only melting pot (but that’s another story).  Irish, Italians, Poles, Slovaks, HillWilliams—you name it.  But, at that time, the melting pot had not yet melted.  There were still some old immigrant types about who brought there quaint old ways along with them and stuck to them.  We called the old, quaint ones “DPs”—uncomplimentary slang for *deported persons*.  In any case, I well remember my childhood summertimes when just about twice a week in the late afternoon or early evening I’d hear the slurred beckoning of an old Jew coming up the street as he pulled his collection cart: “Papa rwags”  “Papa rwags”.  Paper.  Rags.  He’d just call out as he’d pull his wooden cart down the street and wait for peeps in the neighborhood to emerge from their houses with the appropriate refuse which he’d collect.  As a child, I always thought the guy was a big loser.  But now I realize he was a futuring recyclist.  It seems as if Paper/Rag is the most pivotal dirty-able commodity indispensable to civilization.


     


    On the Rag, Baby


     


    A couple of years ago, when Bill Gates touted the comeuppance of the eOffice, or totally electronic workplace, ePaper was supposed to supplant wood-pulp paper to such an extent that filing cabinets and document racks would become atavistic.  The electronic document as ePaper compiled into eBooks would liberate the workplace of that *dirty-able commodity* and introduce a new pristine efficiency that would save innumerable trees from unnecessary slaughter.  Right.


     


    Of course, this vision went askew as mutantly-articulated computerized half-eOffices found ways to generate more, not less, typical paperwork than ever before.   Think of a high-tech lawnmower that, as it mows, also furtively fertilizes the grass with a hyper-isotope of radioactive Miracle Grow setting the stage for more frequent and more aggressive mowings in the future. 


     


    Where We’re At


     


    Although a lot of local bookstores have taken a hit from the online sales of books, the books that are sold by the bookselling dot.coms are still largely the traditional paper/rag book and not books in an eBook format.  Oh, the eBook readers are available, the two most popular being the Microsoft Reader and the Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader.  But don’t expect to download these, go out to Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble online and buy any book in a virtual instant.  Nope, the offerings as eBooks are still slim pickings.  Why?  That, of course, is the challenging befuddlement for many e-marketeers.  But, if you ask me, people still prefer and will continue to prefer to handle a dirty-able, tactile, luggable commodity.  Hence, with a relatively small demand for eBooks, the variety in their supply is quite constraining.


     


    Yet despite their limited selection, eBooks are not just a fad.  They can offer certain readers advantages that traditional tomes will never incorporate.  Such as:


     



    • external html linking using the web as an information resource
    • built-in dictionaries to assist the terminologically-challenged
    • adjustable font size to assist with acuity issues
    • entire text search of the book for any word or phrase
    • colorful bookmarking, highlighting, and notes that don’t deface the text
    • text-to-speech capabilities so you can listen to your book if so desired or necessary.

     


    There are also a few “marketed advantages” provided to make eBooks more attractive:


     



    • activation on 4 devices (at least, Microsoft Reader) –you could actually buy the book once and share it with three other friends with the eReader anywhere in the world.
    • sometimes, a price discount below the traditional book cost
    • earlier release (sometimes up to several months) than the traditional first edition date.
    • availability of new selections anytime and anyplace downloading is possible.

     


    These advantages clearly are not trivial, and for some, in certain situations, may be critically convincing.  And yet… And yet… I want the feel of a good book in my hands !  is the continuing lament.


     


    So What’s Next?


     


    eFabrics!  I blogged about them just a while back.  Hot damn, we done going someday to build ourselves a dirty-able eRag that, with embedded microchips, will accommodate all the features above (and more) in serving as a malleable, reprogrammable display yet retain the tactility, thumbability, and creature-ness of a good old Gutenberg typecast. 


     


    You know that book you love?  The one with the leather cover that you’ve been reading while commuting back and forth to work on the bus? Would you love it more or less, if you were able to program it instantly as The Hobbit, The Bible, or A Beautiful Mind?


     


    eFabrook!

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