The Future Becomes Present

[Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 1:26 AM Eastern on 25 Jan. See below.]

Culture journalist and blogger Terry Teachout of About Last Night writes in his latest Wall Street Journal "Sightings" column:

The e-book is back. So are the technophobes who swear it'll never catch on. They were right last time, and they might be right this time, too. Sooner or later, though, they'll be wrong -- and when they are, your life will change.

Yes indeed. I couldn't agree more. The eBook is the book of the future. The near future. No, make that, the very near future. As I wrote in a blog post on 8 December 2003 (on a now deceased prior incarnation of this blog):

Today's conventional wisdom is that while the eBook (especially the fiction eBook) is essentially a dead-in-the-water concept at present, it will not always be so, but even when that future time arrives, the ink-on-paper volume will still reign supreme because one will never be able to snuggle up with cold, phosphor type on a glass or plastic screen in a hard plastic or metal portable case, like one can with a bound, ink-on-paper volume.

Well, I'm here to tell y'all that's a crock; one perpetrated by whomever to make all you ink-on-paper-book-loving Luddites and semi-Luddites feel more comfortable about the future of your beloved ink-on-paper volumes. Just one development is necessary for the eBook to replace almost totally the bound, ink-on-paper volume forever: a proper display screen; a screen where type and images will display in a way indistinguishable, except by physical touch, from ink-on-paper. Or display in a way perhaps even more vivid and warmly intimate.

You perhaps doubt my word on this. If so, do this little thought experiment.

Think of a paper-thin sheet of plastic on which appears a page of text (or text and images), the plastic sheet of the same size as a typical size ink-on-paper trade hardcover volume, and the page of text displayed indistinguishable in appearance from the ink-on-paper book page. Now affix that sheet of plastic to any substrate of your imagining; say, something an inch-thick, and about the same shape and weight as a standard size trade hardcover paper volume of the same thickness, and made of just about any material you like. Now place a rigid, thin, side-hinged cover on top of the whole thing.

There you have your eBook of the future. As cozy and cuddly a thing to snuggle up with as any ink-on-paper book you ever owned. Except it's not a book. It's a dozen (two dozen; ten dozen; whatever) books. And not just a certain, unchanging dozen, but a dozen that can be exchanged with any other dozen at your pleasure, one by one, by the simple expedient of plugging in the appropriate credit-card size memory module, and in a flash (PI) copying its contents into your eBook. Or be exchanged by connecting your eBook to your computer wherein is stored your complete library of hundreds or thousands of e-volumes, all of which were previously downloaded from the Web. Or be exchanged by logging onto the Web directly with your eBook, and downloading whichever volumes you desire.

And you can do this 24/7 without leaving your home, and have the volumes in your eBook in a matter of minutes. And I here make no mention at all of the other benefits of digital text such as the invaluable search function, integrated dictionary, note taker, highlighting and annotating functions, etc., etc. Nor do I make any mention of the production advantages over ink-on-paper for publishers, the inventory advantages for booksellers, online or off. And I haven't even touched on the myriad advantage for authors, and the rewards of self-publishing which with this technology will be a virtual snap.

How far off in the future is that sine qua non display technology that will replace almost totally the ink-on-paper volume forever? I of course don't really know, but I'd be willing to bet, giving odds, that less than five years out is not over-optimistic. I mean, we're talking here about a multi-billion-dollar consumer market for eBooks (machine and texts), and when a market of that dollar size is at stake amazing things can and do happen. All that's required is a recognition by the industry that such a market is for real, and here right now, not a blue-sky, if-come affair.

Well, even though those who make up that vast consumer market (that's to say, you) may not know it, that market is very much for real here and now, and waiting. Waiting for the proper display technology to make its appearance. As I said, you may not know you're waiting for it -- until you actually see it, that is -- but the industry does know, and so it won't be long now in coming.

Trust me.

From Mr. Teachout's article, and from my prior reading in other sources, that "proper display screen; a screen where type and images will display in a way indistinguishable, except by physical touch, from ink-on-paper" has apparently arrived, courtesy of a new display technology called E Ink; a display technology utilized by Sony Corporation in their soon-to-be released new eBook reader, the Sony Reader.

As much as Mr. Teachout and I agree in this matter, however, I see an immediate problem of which Mr. Teachout has taken no notice.

If you read Mr. Teachout's above linked piece, you'll see that the Sony Reader pictured there — the magic device that Sony is betting will jump-start the mass migration to the eBook — has a cardinal design error: it's not configured to present a simulacrum of an ink-on-paper book.

Why is that a cardinal design error? Well, ultimately it's probably not. But for the immediate present — the "transitional present," so to call it — a mass-market-successful eBook reader will need that familiar ink-on-paper book look and feel so that the initial transition for present book lovers will be as painless and as natural as possible.

A small detail, no doubt. But as we're all aware by now, it's in the details that God and the Devil reside.

If the E Ink display technology is everything it's cracked up to be, and Sony makes that single design change to the Sony Reader, then the eBook future will, in very short order, become the eBook present.

Once again, Trust me.

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Update (1:26 AM Eastern on 25 Jan): Now, this soon-to-be-released E Ink-equipped eBook reader looks more like (but still not quite) what a properly configured eBook reader should look like.