future of the book news

***paper Wiki: you heard it here first

"Wikipedia, the Print Edition: A major German publisher, Bertelsmann, has announced plans to print a book called "The One-Volume Wikipedia Encyclopedia," which goes on sale this September for 19.95 euros (around $32 U.S.). The book will feature some of the year's most popular articles. Says Dr. Varnhorn, the editor in charge of Bertelsmann's reference works, in a recent NY Times article, "We think of it as an online encyclopedic yearbook." A statement that foreshadows the possibility of this book becoming the first of many annually printed editions."

Being born digital is not important; everything is now born digital. How a conceptual work grows up is what counts.

comments

All 163 comments assume that paper and screen presentations are equivalent or, as they say, fungible. Is the FotB perspective, that they are different and complimentary, too weird? Be there and Be Square.

***ten days of silence

if:book

if:book has gone silent for ten days. For three years it has had tons of commentary on the future of the book. Meanwhile Teleread is in a frenzy to figure out why mimicry of physical books will just not convey to hand-held reading devices. And only its own title provides the centrifugal at print is dead.

***self-authentication

encountered

But another shift is about to occur. This will be a shift in which authentication will again be influential. Touch screen voting, census automation and many other automated tabulations from traffic control to genetic modification will require some self-authentication. Museums, established to study physical artifacts, have already encountered this constraint on the limits of digital simulation and libraries will follow. (more)

***e-book obsolescence

added Wiki reference

In another step of functional definition for the hand-held reading device, Google has added Wiki reference to Google Maps. Placed-based learning using cellular connectivity and a phone sized communication device appears to have malapropted Kindle as a print book simulator.