Comments on: We were looking for the Future Book in the wrong place

By: Albion

Albion — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 10:31:31 +0000

The ‘future book’ may well be letters printed on paper.

The assumption that electricity will always be available is not guaranteed, and the fact that digital media can be wiped out at the whim of the suppliers and subject to various politicised interference puts digital content at risk. Some illuminating material on various websites has been lost/removed because someone didn’t keep up their subscriptions.

You don’t have to ‘download’ a book or ‘sign in’ with a password. Nor does the book start trading your data and information away without you knowing.

Also, the written word invites re-reading and contemplation that youtube videos and the like never can. For the more aesthetically inclined, there is an art to print and book form that a spotty nerd mooning at a camera in their bedrooms can’t match.

Best not to get giddy about the non-paper future, I find.

By: Harry Jones

Harry Jones — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 03:36:55 +0000

I don’t want to have to choose between audio and text. Give me a reader with decent speech synth and I’ll be content.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 02:12:20 +0000

Audio is still inferior to the printed or digital medium, and always will be. Except for those who are dyslexic or otherwise unable to read at speed, the recorded voice is neither fast enough, or dense enough to compete. By the time you get done listening to even those “accelerated recordings”, you can read and comprehend vastly more of the written word.

Of course, that’s if you’re fully literate. Most kids graduating today aren’t, thanks to idiocies like “whole language”.

By: Faze

Faze — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:59:20 +0000

The future book is the audio book. The popularity of this medium has not yet peaked. Audible is good, but it’s not the killer audio book app. I’m still waiting.