The World Behind the Glass

October 30, 2005

What makes ebooks work

A couple weeks ago I was talking about ebooks with some folks, including Bill mcCoy who also posts here.

What intrigues me is what it will take for ebooks to catch on. I think some very important aspects of books were ignored by previous attempts to bring out ebooks.

Here's a thought: ebooks get adopted in education because of the presence of guns in the schools.

How's that work? Guns led to no lockers...no lockers led to back packs...back packs led to back problems in children...and this leads to ebook adoption.

I do not know if that is accurate, per se...but it illustrates the chain of unintended consequences which lead to the adooption of new technologies at a social level.

Other things are important if they are to be accepted:
First...I have two rocket ebooks, but I never use them anymore. One is for me and one is for my wife. The problem I encounterd was that I could not give her a book.

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October 16, 2005

Associative Indexing in the Brain

Leipzig, Germany:
Last night I flipped on the hotel TV...all stations, essentially are in German which i do not speak. I channel surfed for a moment, then stopped.

Scene: Night. Two men in suits and hats at the bottom of a plane stair. In the background, another man is helping a gentleman into one of the black sedans pulled up. They are 1960's cars. A fourth man is standing with his back to the camera on the plane steps. No dialog, maybe a little background music.

My brain IMMEDIATELY fired off the words "FANTASTIC VOYAGE"

I was correct, of course. I have seen this movie perhaps 3 times since 1966. Usually, I miss the begining and pick up after the old man is already in the operating room.l

Now THAT'S Associative Indexing. Every frame of that movie must have the metadata "FANTASTIC VOYAGE" stamped on it SOMEWHERE in my head. The speed with which I made that association from literally thousands of other films i have watched in my 50 years was scary!

Bill

PS
I grabbed my laptop and went out to IMDB. Almost every actor in that movie is dead now except Raquel Welch. most died in their fifties and Arthur Kennedy who played Duvall, the brain surgeon with the laser, died of a brain tumor. IMDB.com is incredible!

Bill

October 13, 2005

Ambient Intelligence

I am at the Ambient Intelligence conference this week in Grenoble, France. There are some very interesting papers on what happens when you have intelligence in things around the home or office.

Emile Aarts of Philips presented a view of the future that is remarkably in sync with my own thoughts. I have to say, that, while he may be overly optimistic about timeframes for e-ink, intelligent textiles, and many other things that are coming out of Philips, Sony, nd other companies soon (just as I probably am) he does 'Get It'. I recommend his books too.

Many of the presentations, though, have to do with interactions with common objects and i have noticed a common theme. Most of these objects are actually surfaces...that is, many of the papers are about interacting with horizontal or vertical surfaces that can connect to computing resources in some manner.

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October 01, 2005

Fantastic Movie - Serenity

I just watched a fantastic movie. Serenity is Joss Whedon's latest effort. He managed to ressurect a fascinating TV show (Firefly) that was only on for 11 out of sequence episodes a few years ago.

For those who are not followers of Whedon's work, more information about the story and characters can be found at: http://serenitymovie.com/nonflash_site/index.html but beyond that, the movie is incredibly well acted, the story deep and multi-layered, and the writing, as usual in Whedon's work, is incredible.

Have a fun couple of hours watching a story about heroes. We need more movies like this