Photo: Douglas Adams by Chris Ogle.Some golden oldies: Douglas Adams on how we lost interactivity a hundred years ago, and how we have finally gotten it back, and how that is a good thing (1999); and on electronic publishing (1998). These two essays contain one good idea after another, so it would be hard to summarize them here. Nevertheless, a few quotes: What should concern us is not that we can't take what we read on the internet on trust – of course you can't, it's just people talking – but that we ever got into the dangerous habit of believing...

Elizabeth Mackey is the new vice president and general manager of the Motricity's eReader division. From a news release: Mackey brings a wealth of experience as a former executive of several leading publishers and media companies, including audio-book leader Audible, Inc. and Franklin Electronic Publishers. Her appointment is directly related to Motricity's ongoing investment in strengthening its business-to-consumer market channel... ...

The Sony Reader now has a $350 price tag at the SonyStyle store--the same as the earlier figure on the store site, the number the company temporarily took down. (Via Engadget.)...

The Origami rumors are heating up. CNet reports: With a screen bigger than that of a handheld but smaller than a notebook PC screen, Origami devices won't fit in the pocket, but they'll make it into purses and even the smallest of backpacks, sources said. Microsoft's goal is to create a blueprint for devices that could sell for $600 or less, although the actual prices will depend greatly on what manufacturers decide to include. Origami is capable of supporting features like GPS, Bluetooth, 3G cellular technology and Wi-Fi, though each of these adds to the cost of the device. I wonder how...

Talk of the Nation audio--from NPR, via the Free Range Librarian. Guests came from the Denver and Charlotte, N.C., Libraries, as well as from the future-oriented DaVinci Institute. Jo Haight-Sarling, a Denver staffer, said users of e-books and audio books were still relying on in-library services. Meanwhile DaVinci Director Thomas Frey, shown here, predicted searches based even on smells. My big question: Will there be a major divergence between the institutional preservation and libraries' traditional mission as encouragers of literacy and written culture? I'm all for multimedia in libraries. But if they don't watch out for the written word, or, yes,...

I begged. I phoned. I e-mailed. I blogged. But with a few much-appreciated exceptions, supposedly progressive Chapel Hill is letting Law Prof. John Edwards off the hook on matters of copyright law. This possible Presidential candidate remains stubbornly mute on such issues as the anti-culture Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act despite his having served on a copyright-related Senate committee. Down at the University of Florida, Gavin Baker (left), photographed with another student and Larry Lessig, might provide a good role model for the University of North Carolina and many other campuses. Cyber rights is a major issue of his campaign...

News release: Advanced Reader Copies, those unproofed bound copies that used to be called galley proofs, sell for hot prices on eBay. Jim Baen, the legendary science fiction and fantasy publisher, has been selling electronic Advanced Reader Copies of his new fiction offerings through his Webscriptions service for over a year. Using the same idea, members of the Jim Baen's Universe readers' club, the Universe Club, will be receiving electronic advanced reader copies (eARCs) of the first issue (June 2006) of the magazine beginning March 1st. The eARC version will be essentially the same as the magazine, but three months early, and...

Next week Margaret Atwood will be signing books at the London Book Fair ... from the comfort of her Canadian home. That's London, United Kingdom; not London, Ontario. So says Mobuzz TV. Atwood, author of The Handmaid's Tale and of The Blind Assassin, will be using a telautograph, a device that sounds absolutely space age, but actually precedes the fax machine and was invented in the nineteenth century. Talk about steam punk! ...

Scifi author and long-time blogger John Scalzi (Whatever) made my day with the announcement that his titles Old Man's War and Ghost Brigades will soon be released as e-books from Tor. I've been waiting for my paper copy of Ghost Brigades at the library, but think I'll wait for the e-version. Why? Because Tor gets e-books in the way that Baen does, and I want to give hearty support to clueful publishers. Scalzi quotes Tor's Patrick Nielsen Hayden: We've tested a lot of e-book waters, including various cockamamie schemes involving overpriced e-books laden with DRM.Oddly enough, a...

A yawner of a story about the Sony Reader. When will the newsies tire of the obvious? "The Walkman in 1979 changed the way we listen to music, but it has lost out to Apple's iPod," says the Australian IT section of NEWS.com.au, "and now Sony wants to do for books what Apple did for music." Oh, wow, does this mean that the noble-spirited Sir Howard is the new Mother Teresa or Andrew Carnegie? ...

Is a handheld wireless tablet with a touch screen on the way from Microsoft? And if so, will it be e-books-capable, not just multi-media-capable? Links: John Markoff's New York Times story. Speculation from Newsome.org. The inevitable Scobleizer tease. Tech.memeorandum. "Origami" Web site mentioned with rumors--shown above and correctly regarded as Space Odyssey Retro. Some Big News is supposed to come on March 2. Hmm. If the rumors pan out, what might be the price and the impact on the market for the Nokia 770 or the Pepper Pad? And will a replacement or update of Microsoft Reader show up in the near future? Oh...

If you've wondered about the need to get books optionally on computer screens--a major goal of the TeleRead plan--check out this UK-related BBC item. Schools spend more than five times as much on computer-based resources as on books, an analysis suggests. Primary schools spent £70m on books in 2004-05 and secondary schools £80m, whereas all schools spent £426.3m on ICT resources not including computers. (Via LISNews.)...