http://technology.guardian.co.uk/onl...197495,00.html

does this mean paper books will be obsolete?

 

______nope

 

Hardly, offices use more paper with computers then they did 30 years ago. One of the main reasons the WTC towers went down so fast was because of the fires feed by the paperwork weakened the steel.

It might be a hit in Japan where they have to import the trees they need for wood, I do not think it will make much of a difference in other countries.

They have been predicting the end of paper and fossil fuels by the year 2000 since the 1960s. Still going strong with no end in sight.

 

WHOA!! Gotta question that statement!

The combination of over 10,000 gallons of jet fuel being sprayed into mutliple floors, the mechanical damage of the imacts, the damage to fire-retardant insulation (which was never applied consistently in the first place), and the gaping holes allowing massive amounts of air to fuel the fires, are what weakened the steel in key support columns and caused the towers to collapse.

A mess of inter-office memos on a lot of people's desks really had nothing to do with the Tower's demise.

There were over 300 fires in the WTC between 1970 and 2001 (in addition to a bomb in the basement), yet they stood tall and proud all that time, until the terrorists (my original word tripped language filter) committed this act.

There is some incredible reading in the following:

http://wtc.nist.gov/

But to say that burning paper was one of the main reasons the towers collapsed is not accurate.

But I digress from the topic at hand. E-ink...not for me.

 

Stephen King released a series of novels a couple of years ago -- only on the net. you had to download the book-- it was never set to print. Then they said it was the new way... I haven't heard of anyone else ONLY releasing a book on the net. But I know of a few that are ALSO released on the net.

 

I just think there will always be people who prefer an actual, hardcopy book which they can flip through, abuse, and read without thinking much about batteries, dropping it, or losing it, or malfunctioning.

 

The promise of ebooks has been spoken of & attempted numerous times throughout the past decade or so, but the various implementations just aren't convenient enough to make them readily acceptable.

One of the biggest hang-ups at present is in security management. Let's face it, it always boils down to the almighty dollar/pound/Euro/yen/etc. And I can respect that. After all, everyone wants to get paid. But the need for security creates some challenges that have yet to have viable solutions created for them.

If you release an ebook that is widely acceptable & useable--take an Adobe Acrobat file for instance (.pdf)--you have the virtual world at your fingertips. Mac, PC, Linux, Unix, Solaris, hell almost everyone with access to a computer can read your book, pamphlet or whatever, and it is a free download with support for all of these platforms & more (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html). Unfortunately, everyone can also e-mail it, FTP it, etc. So that leads to the need to secure it somehow. Prima (probably the hands-down leader in the game strategy guide market) uses a company & software application called FileOpen to secure their PDFs. Unfortunately, this also locks that ebook to the computer used to download the guide. So, you can't download an ebook to your PC, and then shuffle it over to your PDA for viewing while you are waiting on the local service station to change the oil in your truck. That's a pretty serious limitation!

On the other side, there have also been several companies that have tried launching their own proprietary, portable ebook readers throughout the years, but few people are willing to shell out the cash for a proprietary electronic device that has limited functionality. What are they going to do? Add a calculator, address book, and calendar to it? Hell, my cell phone does that. If they add too much to it, it becomes a debate between getting a laptop or a proprietary pseudo-laptop with limited interoperability & access. Which would you buy?!? But I digress...

While their proprietary nature allows for very structured copyright management (it can be virtually impossible to copy the ebook off and convert it to a more accessible & distributable format), it also makes them susceptible to obsolescence if they don't get widespread acceptance from John Q public, and that is exactly what has happened to every device to date.


And, then there are additional challenges that come up when you start looking into the convenience aspects. Another electronic device means more batteries or more AC adapters to drag around. Great! So now I've got my cell phone, iPod, laptop, and the new ebook reader to drag around. Oh! Let's not forget my portable satellite radio either! The bottom line is that most people already carry enough electronics around with them as it is, and are not very susceptible to adding another device to the list.

Then there is the question of what you do when you get mid-way through a chapter and the service station manager announces that your oil change is done? It is kind of hard to drop in a bookmark or fold the page over on an ebook. Hell, I don't know that I've seen ANY electronic translation of a book that offered that most basic function.

I'm a geek. I freely admit it. But, when it comes to my reading, give me a book.

 

We have a pulp and paper mill here that is closing down due to them not being able to sell as much paper as they used too. I think paper is getting to be a thing of the past.

 

...but sure wish he had...I got all absorbed in it and it stopped. I even send the money in as requested.

 

Quote:

One of the main reasons the WTC towers went down so fast was because of the fires feed by the paperwork weakened the steel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That would be the Hollywood version.

It was that special paper burning at 2400* fahrenheit that weakened the steel.



I concur with Don

 

> WHOA!! Gotta question that statement!

If you want the quick answer, then watch the PBS specials on the WTC. If you read enough of the NIST (about a 1,000 pages total) reports what happened is the impact and jet fuel started additional paper fed fires which weakened the core and floor trusses which hastened the collapse. I did a quick browse, if you go to the NIST link you posted and download the 480 page report, section 2 would contain the information. How about a topic in the FTE section about it instead?

 

rebo...I'd have nothing to add other than what's obvious in the NIST report, so I'll pass posting it in the FTE forum. Besides, I'm going outta town on biz and won't be by the computer, so I'd miss all the fun.

Thanks anyhow!!

 

Anyone know how strong those extremely tiny transistors can be? They are trying to make an "electric paper" where each pixel has a transistor and it must be must paper thin.

Currently they are having problem with the durability of the circuits. You flip the pages a few times and they break.

This is unlike a lcd screen where everything is flat and fixed. They are trying to replace regular paper with this.