8 ms·
The 'Future Book' Is Here, but It's Not What We Expected (2018)
- dredmorbius 7y agoI'm reaching the conclusion that thinking the future of the book would be a different product is hugely flawed. Books, or reasonably static electronic equivalents -- PDFs and ePubs -- suit the process of immersive long-form content assimilation. Spastic UI/UX does not. But as with quipu, cuneiform, papyrus, the codex, moveable type, and its manifold enhancements over the past two centuries (the preceding 350 years saw virtually none to the press itself, though book-form itself advanced markedly), the biggest differences have come in the process of creating, publishing, duplicating, archiving, and propagating texts. Not, for the most part, accessing them. Starting about 1880, a number of changes to text development and distribution began, with typewritten "manuscripts", loose-leaf bindings (enabling updating of already-published texts), databases, digital text storage, digital typesetting (roff and kin, early 1970s), version control systems, online and hypertext systems, wikis, and distributed version control. (We might push that back slightly further as well to Carl Linnaeus and index cards.) The ability of many people to collaborate, or compete, in developing a collective narrative, with instantaneous typeset updates is truly novel. It's also to a large degree independent of and agnostic to end-point consumption -- desktop, laptop, mobile, TTS, and hardcopy are all reasonably equivalent from the perspective of the txt. (Text discovery, recommendation, and popularity are another matter, McLuhan's observations re: medium are relevant.) We should pay far more attention to process rather than product.
- netman21 7y agoEverything this article pines for is in modern video games. Story, interaction, jumps out at you (just add VR).
- bernardlunn 7y agoFor Fiction I totally agree. Although I am a bit Luddite about paper, I like the break from screen time
- aidenn0 7y agoI'm sure there are some non-fiction mods for various games out there... Though interactivity is more straight forward in fiction because if you can freely modify the virtual world around you it rapidly becomes fiction.
- glangdale 7y agoI find myself frustrated by a different way in which the "Future Book" is slow to arrive - specifically, the glacial pace that e-Ink displays are improving. I bought each generation and found them better and better, and yet... every generation seems further apart and slower and slower to finally close in on the ideal: black ink on a white, non-glowing background. The. Background. Is. Still. Gray. Dammit! So frustrating - I'm an enthusiast for these (for travel). I love owning physical books, but would happily cull all but my top books (you know, 60-80 linear meters of shelf space) and keep a lot of things on e-books. But only if e-Ink displays can finally get to a white background!
- spookybones 7y agoI'm still waiting for decent note-taking. I like marginalia in physical books. I own the latest paperwhite, which is supposed to have the best note-taking capabilities, and typing is excruciatingly slow.
- glangdale 7y agoThere were a couple things on the market that were claiming this (the ReMarkable and one other new one) as a feature. To me the note-taking would be pretty good also, but the fact that it's black-on-gray is the full-on deal-breaker (or at least, I already have a latest-gen display in the current shade of gray and until it improves, I'm not getting another one, even if it's bigger or good for note taking).
- Tepix 7y agoeBooks displays appear to be getting faster. The main problem is that large eInk displays are still very expensive. An eBook reader with a DIN A4 (14.32 inch diagonal) screen costs around $800 or so. There aren't many to choose from. They would be extremely useful to read (and annotate) scientific papers. Perhaps the next version of the reMarkable ebook reader will feature a backlight.
- criddell 7y agoOther than Kindle, which e-Ink devices have you tried?
- pcmaffey 7y agoThat was refreshingly good. I’m in the testing phase of an interactive kids’ “future book” series. If you’re into this kind of thing / have kids, would love to hear thoughts. Pilot episode is live at https://www.featherbubble.com https://www.featherbubble.com.
- undershirt 7y agoThat’s really cool. Nicely done. I couldn’t find anything in the bear’s fur though.
- pcmaffey 7y agoThanks... what device? (the thing should be in the upper right quadrant of screen...)
- undershirt 7y agoOn a macbook. Ah, I found it
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- coldtea 7y agoYeah, we have those "future books". They're called webpages. As for actual books (ebooks or physical), they have their own unique advantages and use cases compared to something with animations, superfluous effects, link jumping, and so on which sounds like a children's pop-up book and less something for focused study.
- village-idiot 7y agoEven then, webpages are a dim shadow of what was promised for future books.
- coldtea 7y agoWho promises it and when? I see webpages being able to do almost anything nowadays...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- olah_1 7y agoReminds me of Matthew Butterick's article on why he didn't make an ebook version of Practical Typography. https://practicaltypography.com/why-theres-no-e-book-or-pdf.html https://practicaltypography.com/why-theres-no-e-book-or-pdf....
- chubot 7y agoI appreciate someone taking a principled stand with regard to closed ecosystems / file formats. It's weird that the future turned out this way...
- inflatableDodo 7y agoI got the hell out of corporate web design after getting bored shitless fighting against recreating magazine publishing circa 1992, but with links.
- GoodJokes 7y agoThis is a sponsored article/ad if I ever saw one. Ew
- bubblewrap 7y ago"email has yet to be usurped by algorithms" Unfortunately, that isn't true. Many people use apps like GMail for Email, which does filter with algorithms. And many people complain about their emails not getting through. I find that worrying especially with sight on the social media bans of unwanted people. You'd think they could at least resort to email newsletters, but email is controlled by the same corporations that just banned them.
- Dowwie 7y agoAs Summer is arriving, if you haven't chosen a fun science fiction book yet and are interested in the subject of this article, you may enjoy Neal Stephenson's book, "The Diamond Age". A tablet-like "book" plays a central role in the story.
- bradleyhb 7y agoNot to mention printing on paper is a terrible idea in 2019.
- bernardlunn 7y agoWhy? trees are renewable and our eyes need a break from screens
- marvindanig 7y agoTrees may be renewable but the arable land belongs to the forest.
- RandomBacon 7y agoIn the US, there are more trees now than 100 years ago. I believe the law is for companies that cut trees for products, to plant two for every one they cut down. Now there are problems in the rest of the world with deforestation, and hopefully we can fix that.
- marvindanig 7y agoThe negative impact of pulping isn't limited to just deforestation and loss of uncommercialized land. I think wikipedia does a fine job to explain the impact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_paper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_paper
- astazangasta 7y agoIf you've ever been to Maine, where the paper industry is important, you'll know there are further effects from "sustainable" planting. The trees are all young; there is no possibility of a high forest developing. The stench of chlorine is everywhere.
- mark_l_watson 7y agoThat was a good read. I wrote 10 books for conventional publishers (Springer-Verlag, McGraw Hill, Morgan Kaufman, J Riley) but burned out on writing. What made writing new and fresh for me was a few years later starting to self publish. I sell far fewer books but I find it much more satisfying writing exactly what I want, not what publishers’ market research dictates. I stopped publishing physical books, via the excellent Lulu service, because a physical book freezes what I can do with the content. I use leanpub now to publish eBooks and I can effortlessly fix small errors, add examples, and sometimes declare a new edition by adding material and removing out of date material. The platform lets readers get the updates for free. I also started releasing my eBooks with a Creative Commons share with no modifications or commercial reuse license - I encourage readers to share my books with their friends. The author of this article makes a good case for using an email newsletter. I generally only spend about two hours a day writing and I am not sure if I want to spend some of that time on a newsletter.
- mettamage 7y agoHa! Your story fits neatly within the self-determination theory of motivation [1]. You clearly tweaked your autonomy to be higher. I'm a big fan of the theory, but I almost never see clear cut examples like this in the wild. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory
- Bartweiss 7y agoHuh, nice observation! I usually shrug at that sort of theory because the terms are too fuzzy to put to a test, but this is a very nice example of the idea.
- theNJR 7y agoIs writing your primary source of income? What sort of things do you write?
- mark_l_watson 7y agoWriting is a very minor part of my income. I have done work for SAIC, Capital One, Google, Disney, etc. - I write mostly because I meet interesting people and I enjoy the process a lot.
- 52-6F-62 7y agoI really like the article, but I have a different point of view when it comes to the ideal "future book". They seem to carry on the assumption that a book didn't already exist in an ideal format. I'd posit that what we've learned is too many features is actually a bug. Reading can be a silent, remote activity that coerces you into reflection without the distraction of immediately commenting and joining a community to battle out barely-set thoughts. A younger me might have said "well a future book according to this person is a web page—capable of almost anything". Now, however, I think a plain transmission in static form (whether read or dictated) is an ideal form unto itself. Such a static transmission must be worked on, edited, scrutinized. If it isn't, it won't be well-regarded and it can't just go away. I really like having my collection of paper books. I also really like my Kindle (and I'm so glad there's no community or comment option). Just to stamp some book-nerd credentials on the end of this—I'm currently working on software in publishing, took a "Book History" course at U of T (Why?), and I'm rarely gifted things, but my sister bought me a first edition of 1984 for a birthday and for some reason my girlfriend decided to buy me an old box set of Azimov's Foundation series (well, the first three) just last week. So there!
- inflatableDodo 7y ago>They seem to carry on the assumption that a book didn't already exist in an ideal format. I think you are in very good company with that opinion. >"Books are sharks... because sharks have been around for a very long time. There were sharks before there were dinosaurs, and the reason sharks are still in the ocean is that nothing is better at being a shark than a shark." - Douglas Adams.
- 52-6F-62 7y agoBrilliant! Thank you. I knew I loved Douglas Adams.
- pier25 7y agoA book is (generally) an idea expressed in long written form. It doesn't matter if it's goat skin or e-ink. The medium is pretty much irrelevant. This is why the form hasn't changed in thousands of years and why we don't need interactive features in books. There are exceptions to this such as recipes books, but these are collections of somewhat unrelated smaller pieces of content which actually work better in other forms such a blog, wiki, etc.
- falcor84 7y agoOne way in which the medium matters is the duration of an average reading session. After installing kindle on my phone, I found myself enjoying reading in very short sessions, e.g. while queueing for coffee. This different interaction with a book makes me choose books with shorter sections on my phone, than I would on the Kindle device I use before bed. In particular, I found some textbooks with short sections to be excellent for this kind of short reading.
- pier25 7y agoNot sure if it's really the medium instead of the situation. You could also use your kindle, tablet, or paper book while queueing for coffee.
- miki123211 7y agoIMO we will see the biggest change in how books are written after copyright abolition. We sort of kind of do already, with the big titles like Harry Potter, Star Wars (I know, it started out as a movie) etc. We have the canonical, original books, but we also have a lot of fan-made titles. Some of them create a specific narrative based on the original work, i.e. Harry Potter and the Medhods of Rationality[1], and then people create other fanfiction based on that. 99% of it is fourteen-year-old girls with no writing skills, but there are nuggets that could make great money if not for copyright. I think living, breathing universes made by fans, possibly coupled with chapters released as they're being written, fan voting etc. is the future. Even post copyright, it could make authors money, think crowdfunding or "Character x will either murder y or have sex with y, depending on what option gets more money". [1] hpmor.com [2] se [1] or https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12461030/1/The-Tinkerer https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12461030/1/The-Tinkerer