[Maggie Leung]

I don't think it will happen that soon, either. I don't need to smell or touch books. It's not personal.

There will be many instances when print will still be more practical for years to come. More important, schools will be the big bottleneck. Look how strapped state and local governments are. They're limping along. They will build momentum and move more toward digital, but look how long it takes for government and schools to change anything, even when money isn't as tight as it is now. Look at the jobless rate. Are parents going to be able to afford e-readers for multiple kids? How many of them aren't paying taxes, paying mortgages, paying rent, because they can't? Affluent districts can move more quickly, but that means many districts will straggle.

There are some groups of former educators and such that are working on free textbooks in digital form. They produce them, then offer for free. It will be interesting to see whether they get tied up with the religious right over science books and such.

By the way, Negroponte has been struggling with the one laptop per child project. They've made some progress, but I think he was too optimistic with that, too.