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Old 01-01-2005, 10:20 AM   #3
Bob Russell
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This Get's You Thinking About Futuristic Things!

Exciting news every time we hear about getting closer to mainstream acceptance.

But I have a theory... Exploding ebook production, lower prices, and general acceptance won't come on the current path. Barring a spectacular piece of hardware by a famous maker and lots of advertising, I expect ebook adoption to continue fairly slowly as a ground swell from the hobby/techie crowd and pass by word of mouth.

The giant leap will probably come when important niche markets create instant demand.... say an educational supplier packages something really nice for schools to integrate into curriculum in a way that provides cost benefit, simplicity and answers all the support and how-to questions for the schools.

Same idea for corporate users, for manual replacements and intranet content on the go. I suspect that we will see either bluetooth phone connectivity or docking stations or built-in smartphones along with e-book reader hardware. That will mean that a company can get current into into the hands of field personel efficiently. And it should be easier to use than a laptop for those that only need read-only kinds of devices.

Two-way devices will probably fall into the tablet pc or laptop category, so ebook readers won't exactly take over the world, but there's a lot of smart people out there who can find even better ideas and make them work now that the technology is close. There's a lot of money to be made, and a lot of benefits to be gained.

If nothing else, just think of how many bookshelves there are out there. I have hundreds of physical books myself, and I look forward to a day (probably after I'm dead and gone, though) when all this content is in electronic form.

Instead of all those shelves of books, imagine a vsingle shelf of ereader devices in each home. One for novels, one for newspapers, one for cooking, etc. And when doing research, why not a bunch of devices used all at once to emulate a deskfull of books and journals spread out for study.

Or even better, how about when desk surfaces themselves are ebook displays and the surface can display all that content in whatever style you desire.

And then continuing the futuristic thoughts, maybe even 3-D holographic ebooks that hover in the air before you, but look just as solid and real as the old fasioned book. No tired arms from holding it up!

Or the displays might be used as a sort of private command center display that you interact with... Kind of like that movie. Can't think of the name, but I think it was with that guy from Top Gun. He has all these screens up on displays all over the room and is speaking and pointing and waving this way and that to get just the right material displayed on command to solve some crime!

Whether these ideas are on the right track or not, there's good stuff coming!
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