reverse-engineering the e-book
Well, that’s not exactly what I mean.In a “Room for Debate feature at NYTimes.com called “Does the Brain Like E-Books?”, computer scientist David Gelertner praised the codex as “the best of all word-delivery vehicles,” asserting that “technologists have (as usual) decreed its disappearance without bothering to understand it.” He then goes on to limn a compelling picture of an e-book in reverse:
I assume that technology will soon start moving in the natural direction: integrating chips into books, not vice versa. I might like to make a book beep when I can’t find it, search its text online, download updates and keep an eye on reviews and discussion. This would all be easily handled by electronics worked into the binding. Such upgraded books acquire some of the bad traits of computer text — but at least, if the circuitry breaks or the battery runs out, I’ve still got a book.Many books already have such electronics on board, in the form of RFID tags worked into the binding or slipped among the pages. These tags serve the simple function of security, but also carry enough unique data to make the book identifiable by title and individual copy to networked systems. But of course much more could be done.
With Gelertner’s post as a goad, I wonder what electronic functions would be desirable as “enhancements” to the traditional book. Twitter friend (and Infinite Summerer) @WaltPascoe imagines “walking up to any web node w/ my copy of Infinite Jest and having pertinent links firing up automatically, or maybe get a little warm when other copies are nearby! Alert(ing) me to presence of other DFW fanatics.” What else could be done? Could little piezoelectric sensors be incorporated in the binding to furnish a digital “bookmark”? Would it be useful to store the resulting data somewhere to track how quickly you read the book? How could the digitized text of a bound book be linked to/accessed/interacted with, within the confines of the codex, to enhance the reading experience?
The steampunk e-book! Please comment with suggestions (or tweet me, @mbattles).
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