Revisiting digitization
In a post from last month (http://www.ctwatch.org/blog/archives/digital-monographs), the digitization of books by Google was mentioned. Amazon and Microsoft are both in the picture as well. Bringing information to the masses, especially in the form of published material, is taking on new levels of salience with many web-based businesses (especially the book publishing industry). This article on book digitization revisits the issue. What’s not being mentioned much is the role of the hardware in the effort. E-books aren’t new nor are the technologies created to view them. But e-books have never really caught on, and a big reason is the display technology. Palm, Sony, and Philips Electronics are just three players who have tested the e-book waters, but the display technology still can’t compensate for the high contrast of print, at least not that’s widely portable and affordable. And haptics still hasn’t produced a replacement for people’s comfort with paper.