This is the title of a Chronicle of Higher Education commentary by Marc Prensky, in which he suggests the first university to literally replace all books with electronic readers and ebooks will make history and usher in a new era of education. Why, in a world in which choice and personal preference are highly valued, would any college want to create such a mandate? Because it makes a bold statement about the importance of moving education into the future. It is, in a sense, only a step removed from saying, "We no longer accept theses on scrolls, papyrus, or clay tablets....

The consensus prediction in the tech industry is that tablet computer sales will swamp sales of ebook readers. The Huffington Post is taking bets on which e-readers are dead meat (link), and Informa predicts that e-reader sales will start declining in 2014 as tablets out-compete them (link). I've seen similar (and more pessimistic) private forecasts from other analysis firms. They all argue that it's just a matter of time until general-purpose tablet computers displace more limited e-readers. Yes and no. I think tablet features will eventually take over, but it would be very premature to assume that tablet computer companies will be...

In January 1773, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart placed advertisements asking patrons to "subscribe" to the three piano concertos he was writing. If he received enough support, the concertos would be finished by April, and subscribers would receive beautifully copied manuscripts. More importantly, they would have the pleasure of supporting the creation of a great work, which would be performed around the world. The resulting concertos, K413-415 are today considered important works, but it took quite a long time for Mozart to gather enough subscribers. This old model for publishing was modernized with the addition of cryptographic assurance layers by cryptographers John...

Editor's Note:  I'm pleased to welcome Eric Hellman to TeleRead.   Eric is a technologist, entrepreneur, scientist and writer. After 10 years doing research at Bell Labs, he founded Openly Informatics, a linking technology business that was acquired by OCLC in 2006. Over the last year, he has been blogging about ebooks, libraries, and technology at Go To Hellman. PB Online piracy of ebooks has been a persistent worry for book publishers who look at the successes and failures of other media that have moved to digital forms. A surprising number and variety of ebooks are easily availabile on file sharing websites...

Kurzweil is a legend and it was fascinating to listen to him. The reality of information technology is that its growth is exponential. But our intuition about the future is linear in nature. This causes us problems in predicting the future accurately and being able to prepare for it. We’re at a point where eBooks in libraries are real. We will experience 20,000 years of progress in the 21st century, if today’s rate of information technology change continues. Information technologies double their price performance over a single year. Moore’s Law, baby! Communication technologies, biological...

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In Italy, newspaper sales have been constantly decreasing during the last years, and it is quite discouraging to observe that public funding actually keeps the great majority of newspapers alive. If it did not exist, then most of them could only work at loss, with advertising revenues getting smaller and readers decreasing as well. The subscriptions for iPad launched by La Repubblica and Il Corriere della Sera (to only mention the firsts) represent a publishers’ attempt to explore a new market, trying to gain new readers by taking advantage of the commercial potential of this touch tablet. That...

My autumn Levenger catalog was received with bright-eyed fanfare this week and borne with anticipation over to ‘the writing couch‘. I reserve a few quiet moments each season to drool over the immaculately-designed, perfectly-balanced pens and muse inwardly on the various notebooks and book bags for which I harbor strong inclinations of purchasing. This particular catalog is always so craftily put together… and so in a way that lifts it out of the ‘everyday’ category into the realm of Elegant Enticement Merchandise. The layout folks garner a good chunk of my respect as...

The digital world has substance in its own right, but we invented digital technology to enhance our physical world. It’s funny how we forget that sometimes. Take ereaders. Ereaders like the Kindle, Nook, and Kobo are popular right now. They are nifty. You can download books, you can click from one page to the next using buttons instead of fingers. They are lightweight if you’re the sort to carry a library with you. But is that it? I found the Kindle’s note-taking functions disappointing, especially when I wanted to transfer my notes to my computer. Turns out, proprietary concerns over copying...

Donna Fasano’s first novel was published by Harlequin Silhouette in 1990, and it was chosen by the Romance Writers of America as a finalist for its Golden Hearts Award. In the twenty years that followed, Fasano–sometimes using the pen name Donna Clayton–published over 30 novels via the traditional publishing route, won the HOLT Medallion three times, and sold over 3.5 million copies worldwide. In December 2009, however, she tried something different: she self-published her new book The Merry-Go-Round, which had at one time been in the hands of a large publisher (more on that below), through Amazon’s Kindle Store. Now it’s...

Special to TeleRead The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights just finished meeting in Geneva. One of the main topics of discussion was a treaty proposal that would standardize copyright exceptions around the world to benefit blind readers. While there was strong support for the treaty by NGOs and many national governments, there were also competing initiatives put forth by the US and the European Union. Apparently the meeting ended in something of a stalemate. While the stated goal of the treaty is laudable – readers with disabilities should have equal access to the written word...

The promise of the digital era lays in its growing ability to shed old limitations and obstacles. However, there are many problems which must be addressed as our societies enter this new epic period. I have recently finished reading William Easterly’s excellent book “The White Man’s Burden.” In it he argues that foreign aid must take on a more decentralized form in order to allow for verifiable results. At this point you may be asking yourself: how does this all tie in with e-books? I believe that e-books are a rare combination of traditional media with its depth and substance...