Blogzene

Whatever the platform whatever the device, however mobile, however not, the trend has always been for ever faster graphics technology, ever higher resolutions, more and more colours; just more and more. However, a revolution has very slowly been creeping up on the unsuspecting digital world at least since the turn of the millenium. eReaders, using electronic paper for their displays, offering page refreshs of more than a second and anything up to 16-level grey scales, certainly no colour, are becoming a real commercial proposition. There are something like thirty of them currently on the market and eBook sales are the fastest growing sector of the publishing industry. Amazon’s Kindle seems to be the best selling.

eReaders do offer some advantages over traditional displays: they are easily read in bright sunlight; once a page is displayed they don’t consume any more power until the next page is required; one eReader can hold hundreds of eBooks for you at any one time. If you like books and reading and don’t want to play graphics intensive video games then they might be for you. Actually, that said, there are almost certainly hundreds of millions of people that have and will find them very appealing. eReaders are an example of slow technology: technology for reflection and contemplation, technology that slows time down, technology that won’t be rushed and, most importantly, technology that won’t rush you. This really is a revolution and it looks like it’s going to take hold.

As part of ongoing research, and for a future Blogzene article, I would be very interested to talk to any companies or freelancers who are developing content or applications for eReaders. I am interested in general ideas and motivations for exploiting the technology and not specific applications or IP. I would also be interested to talk to any of you out there who are eReader users and find out your opinions about them.

Please contact me, Clive Fencott, at p.c.fencott@tees.ac.uk if you would like to help me out here. Cheers.