I like the experimental nature of all these ideas and products. What I don’t like is the thought of those who don’t have the means to participate in the gadget/ gimmick landscape. It’s incredibly expensive.

Being cut off from “print” (ie: newspapers) seems borderline unconstitutional, particularly for elderly. My 80-year-old neighbor asks what happened to America and I can’t even tell her because the words don’t make sense. It’ll have to be radio all the way for her!

a fairer comparison than that neat 70′s ‘time-calling’ thingy (i’d forgotten about that, can you believe it?) might be to consider where all the phone booths went. in a world in which there is more than one technological solution to a problem or need, the winning technology may turn out to be the better, or even the best one; but not necessarily. it might just prove to be the best-marketed one. it is enormously hard to predict onto which side of the fence the reading-format marble will drop. there are too many changing variables at the moment. this is a fascinating process to (try to) observe.

The car/horse analogy is not a fair one. I could just as easily substitute clocks and the wonderful 1970′s innovation of calling a number to hear the correct time. Because of that technological breakthrough, we no longer use clocks, right? Some designs are so good they last a really, really long time, and books fall into that category. The kludgy, limited, impractical and expensive e-book solutions currently offered are not yet ready to knock it out of usage. It may be coming soon, but a $359 device with no color is not the answer.

5 or 6 years, these things will be as common as the iPod, although probably nowhere near as popular.