Quote:
Originally Posted by bigtext
My concern is that dedicated reading devices are going to go away because of all of this. Take a look at the news from B&N last week. Their sales were up, but these were sales for the color\tablet versions of their reader. They announced that the e-ink reader sales were below expectations. They manufactured too many. I would be curious to know what Amazon's numbers are because if they took a similiar hit and the Fire was selling well then there is a strong incentive for these companies to just produce one reader which is a color LCD. Sure you can read books on these devices, but not as comfortably as you can with e-ink.
There is another dimension here beyond eye strain or battery life that is discussed quite thoroughly in a book called The Shallows by Nicholas Carr. And that is immersing yourself in a book without distraction for a few hours really is training a type of focused flow state that is very desirable. This jumping all around with hyperlinks or videos or whatever creates a very distracted and unfocused mind. I used to be a big reader before the internet and computers, but got away from it from years. I'm convinced Carr's ideas are correct from my own personal experience and I've gotten back to reading with an improvement in some of my ability to stay focused and maintain attention. I don't think many non-readers whose only reading is on the internet can really appreciate the difference. But this is the majority of people and such people see little value in slow, black and white, e-ink displays. And I fear it is they who will ultimately set the market for what a "reader" is (i.e. Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet) |
Thanks for that! There is the Atlantic article here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...s-stupid/6868/