Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Nicholas Carr stated why he thinks paper will survive for a long time in his article titled Paper Versus Pixel . He points out something that never occurred to me, that the PC did not reduce the use of paper: “The initial arrival of the personal computer and its companion printer had us tearing through more reams than ever before” But once the pixel could be exchanged is when it became a true threat to paper: “The rise of the Internet as a universal communication system seems to be having the opposite effect. As more and more information comes to be stored and exchanged electronically, we’re writing fewer checks, sending fewer letters, circulating fewer reports, and in general committing fewer thoughts to paper.” The rest of Carr’s article is his belief that just because a medium becomes popular does not mean the end of paper. And while his data on the share of e-books seeming to stagnate must be correct, I think the reason for that isn’t only due to the fact that pages in...

Teddy Wayne described one of the attractions of a physical book over an e-book : “there’s something irreplaceable about a printed book: the heft of it in your hands, the striking cover, and, most important to me, its  smell .” Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s boss, agreed with that sentiment. Which is why he said: “…we have to look for things that we can do that you can never do with a paper book.” Features like the ability to write reviews for everyone else to see and to search for information as you read your e-book. Now contrast all of those Amazon features with a patent the same Amazon filed some time back about resale of e-books. See, e-books don’t degrade over time unlike their “dead-tree brethren”. So unlike physical books that can’t be sold an infinite number of times because of all the wear and tear, an e-book could be resold forever. Not very good news if your business is selling e-books, is it? So here’s the gist of Amazon’s patent: add a (digital) counter in the e-bo...