One of the funniest jokes in the “Internet Helpdesk” sketch by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie comes when the frustrated tech support staffer asks to speak to his client’s 9-year-old daughter, and proceeds to deliver in-depth instructions loaded with IT terminology—which the kid apparently completely understands. It’s a well-known cliché that kids are always more adept at using new technology than their parents, probably dating back to the era when all the cool cavekids were going around on wheels while all the adult cavemen were scratching their heads in confusion over just how those darned round things worked. ...

Is the youngest generation going to grow up thinking of books as digital objects first, and print relics a distant second? That's what Shane Richmond, the Head of Technology (Editorial) at the Telegraph, thinks. In an editorial published today he argues that print can't compete with digital when it comes to search, annotation and portability: My daughter’s generation will probably have ebook textbooks. They will never experience dog-eared, vandalised, outdated school books, shared one-between-two. They will enjoy books that are enhanced with video, interactive graphics and picture galleries. And they will see these things are the norm. Printed books will be...

Here's the first in a three part series from The Boston Globe about the evolution of text, from illuminated manuscripts to the latest thriller on a Nook Color. Part one imagines what the reading experience was like in previous eras, to set the stage for a forthcoming discussion of digital publishing and the modern reading experience; expect a comparison of attention spans then and now, as well as questions about how meaningful any modern work can be if people no longer treat reading as a contemplative event (assuming that's the case). As the screen overtakes the solid page, and the ground...

I know this is about a month old, but I only found it just now and the subject matter is really rather timeless. In January, the Technologizer had a great article looking at 15 inventions or ideas, mostly media-related, that were decades ahead of their time. The title of the piece, “Mr. Edison’s Kindle,” refers to Edison’s 1911 idea that books might one day be printed on hyper-thin, extremely durable sheets of nickel rather than paper. Today, of course, we have e-books that weigh even less per page. Other ideas include the 1928 “Telenewspaper and Electric Writer”...

Ars Technica has a report on a new form of e-paper that could offer the same low power consumption rate as the e-ink used in current e-readers, but at a much higher refresh rate and better screen reflectiveness. Gamma Dynamics’s e-paper screen uses layers of oil and pigment that can be induced to change places through an electrical voltage. It could offer a refresh rate of 50Hz, and possibly color eventually. (At the moment it works best in grayscale.) The screen will reflect 75% of ambient light, rather than the 40% of e-ink or 30% of electrowetting, making...

Back in January, I blogged on my personal journal about how “even in the information age, nothing beats getting carded.” I observed at the time that even in this age of digital bits freely flowing back and forth, when so many other paper forms of communication are beginning to be endangered by e-quivalents, and ten years after the Palm’s infrared beaming was supposed to supersede it, the humble business card continues to be extremely useful. Now the Washington Post has taken notice of the phenomenon, with an in-depth look at how business cards are still being used today....

CNBC’s Fast Money has more good iPad news: Bernstein Research reports that the iPad is becoming the fastest-adopted non-phone consumer technology ever, selling three million units in the first 80 days and now about 4.5 million units per quarter. For comparison, the DVD—previously cited as one of the fastest-adopted consumer tech items—sold 350,000 units in its first quarter. The iPhone sold one million. The report notes that the iPad is not only cannibalizing notebook and netbook sales, but could also be affecting sales of other big-ticket items like TVs and digital cameras—not many households can afford to buy...

Mike Masnick on TechDirt links to a Slate review by Jack Shafer of an interesting-looking book: I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain are Being Creatively Disrupted, by Nick Bilton. (We’ve mentioned Bilton a few times in the past, such as when he was told he couldn’t read an e-book at a a coffeeshop, or when he got into a discussion with fellow writer George Packer about whether the Internet affects attention span.) The review, and Masnick’s review of the review, focuses on predictions of techno-apocalypse throughout history: ...

Within the last 60 days there has been a bevy of announcements of new ereading devices. Amazon announced what is popularly called the Kindle 3 and Sony has announced 3 new models — the 350, 650, and 950. How far behind other makers will be is hard to tell, but the upcoming holiday season should be a good one for device buyers. So the question is this: Is this the time to take the plunge and buy a dedicated ereading device if you don’t already own one? The companion question, of course, is if you own one that is more than...

It's been a big news week in Australia in the world of ebooks - as it has overseas. But, for this much-overlooked corner of the world, ebooks have started to take their first tentative steps into the mainstream, and the logjam of rights, content and device issues has started to free up. In short, some important players in book publishing and selling here have evidently been looking at the whole "ebook thing" and decided that rather than a fad, it's the inevitable direction of the book industry. To be fair, I'm sure this happened a while back but, aside from one major...

 + Textbooks Up Their Game (by Jeffrey Trachtenberg via Wall Street Journal) Although electronic book sales have exploded, digital college textbooks have been slow to get off the ground, in part because of high prices and hardware concerns. Now, a former Apple Inc. employee, Matt Mac Innis, is trying to shake up the market with a new approach that taps into the iPad’s strengths. His tech start-up, Inkling, is introducing its first four full-length interactive college textbooks using its software platform, which is designed specifically for Apple’s iPad—a marked departure from e-textbooks that are almost...

 + The Legendary Ray Bradbury Says No to E-Books, Tells Yahoo to “Go to Hell” (by Susan King, LA Times) + Sony ‘plans two new ebook readers’ (via The Telegraph) See Also: New Sony Reader eBook Devices Coming Soon (via Sony Insider) + E-Readers are Dead. Long Love E-Reading! (by Harry McCracken, Technologizer.com) + A Very Brief Intro: Digital Rights Management (via Computeractive) + Digital books are changing our reading patterns (by Jeremy Wagstaff, Jakarta Post) + eBooks – Year Two (by Kenneth C. Green, Inside Higher Ed) Green identifies three critical issues re: e-books in higher-ed: 1) Price 2) Features and Functions Although they are “Digital...