Talisman Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 Clearly there has been considerable changes in transfer of ideas/thoughts going through cave drawings, monks, printing press, radio, television and computer. It is real science fiction to wonder where it will end. Many people will have preference for one platform or another but my view is that the ultimate will be thought transference such as that done by professor Dumbledore in the Harry Potter saga. Interesting thought Aralia, and one that I would also tend to agree with. It may not be such a leap to suggest that this has been done before, in ancient civilisations that we know nothing or very little about. At the church I used to go to (I use the term church very loosely here) one of the guardians once commented to me that he had had a vision whereby people would file into the Sanctuary and the one who was taking the service would sit there without saying word, transferring his thoughts into the minds of those who sat there. They do say that we only use 10 percent of our brain, so who knows what we are capable of. As fo wives having minds of their own - don't we all ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyzenthlay Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 Thought transference.... Oh how I wish I lived in the future. It's hard to imagine what will and won't be possible. I do believe, however, that at some point or another we will create biological technology. Living breathing robotics, in a sense. I really think that's the way forward. And possibly some kind of transference of the mind to a virtual reality would be cool... Although it would make video games rather frightening. Especially silent hill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BookGeek20 Posted July 3, 2011 Share Posted July 3, 2011 This topic makes me sad as an avid reader. I buy books all the time either occasionally from HMV or from an independent bookstore, I really don't think this will mean the end of the book. It's been around too long for it to die out as it were. I have an eReader myself with plenty of books on it, but I hardly use it unless I am travelling somewhere. I just love holding a physical book in my hand and turning the pages as I read. I am a real sucker for car boot sales and local events where books are sold second hand or charity shops, I just know that on Monday I will be coming back home with plenty of second hand books from a local event that I intend to go to! I really hope the book continues to live on, and one of my earliest memories is my mum reading me and my brother a bedtime story, and if I have children one day, I will do the same! My mum has many books and loves reading as much as I do, we often swap books all the time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wickedvoodoo Posted July 7, 2011 Share Posted July 7, 2011 I'm pretty sure that paper books will always be around, but that eventually the situation will be somewhat akin to that of vinyl records. Nowadays there's still a lot of music gets released on vinyl, but it's sold in specialist shops and is generally for collectors and the die-hards. Print-on-demand is becoming very popular and may go some way towards keeping paper books in the fight though. What I think we will see a lot less of are reprints. You know the stuff, sci-fi masterworks, greatest horror novel collection etc. These kinds of titles will be rather freely distributed in electronic format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris2 Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 Reliability is the issue here IMO. I work with computers (I make books into games), and everything is so temporary. Nothing stands still. But a physical book will still be here in a hundred years, despite power cuts, licensing issues, upgrades or operating systems. You actually OWN a book. It's reliable, permanent. You can trust it. You still can't say the same for computers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MountainGirl Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 Ebooks will probably also be a part of school life in the future. My son has already expressed the wish that some of his textbooks were available as ebooks, and he could use them at school, instead of carting around his very heavy school bag every day. Although this is probably a long way off, I think there will come a time when such options will be available, and more and more people would opt for this option. This is already happening to one school near me. In september this year each kid will be issued an Ipad. I suppose heavy books will be eliminated. I don't even need an Ipad.. not sure that a third grader needs one either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyzenthlay Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 As a student, I would love to buy books for a kindle or whatnot. Not only would the search function be massively helpful, but I just loathe those big volumes of text and how they weigh down my bag and don't leave room for lunch. It would just be so incredibly helpful. Gah. I want it so bad! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleW Posted July 11, 2011 Share Posted July 11, 2011 Hard to guess, what the future will bring. I don't have an eBook reader yet, for I lend most of my books from the library. And I think, libraries will stay quite long. How long we will buy "real" books just for ourselves will be a question of the demand. If it will be nearly equal, the prices should nearly stay the same. If mostly eBooks will be sold, paper books will become very expensive and thus, demand for them will go further down. It could also happen, that eBooks will be less popular.... We are not so far with eBooks in Germany. Nobody is thinking of taking schoolbooks into computers yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kazee Posted July 13, 2011 Share Posted July 13, 2011 Non-fiction books with diagrams/glossaries would probably be a good "physical-seller". Fiction books without any glossaries is deemed to be best in e-format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 Hard to guess, what the future will bring. I don't have an eBook reader yet, for I lend most of my books from the library. And I think, libraries will stay quite long. How long we will buy "real" books just for ourselves will be a question of the demand. If it will be nearly equal, the prices should nearly stay the same. If mostly eBooks will be sold, paper books will become very expensive and thus, demand for them will go further down. It could also happen, that eBooks will be less popular.... We are not so far with eBooks in Germany. Nobody is thinking of taking schoolbooks into computers yet. Every time I go into my local library there are less and less books in there....last time I went up to what I thought was the information desk and found out it was the Inland Revenue !! The tax office in our town has closed to cut costs so they have moved some personnel into the library. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleW Posted July 30, 2011 Share Posted July 30, 2011 Where is that being? It's not that bad in our library. They even told me, they had no space, when I asked them if they needed used books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talisman Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 Reliability is the issue here IMO. I work with computers (I make books into games), and everything is so temporary. Nothing stands still. But a physical book will still be here in a hundred years, despite power cuts, licensing issues, upgrades or operating systems. You actually OWN a book. It's reliable, permanent. You can trust it. You still can't say the same for computers. Maybe not, but then again how much of life is permanent? Very little, as everything changes. Change is as they say the only constant and the only thing upon which we can rely, and personally I think that's a very good thing as without change there would be evolution and growth and everything would forever remain stagnant. As much as we get attached to things (books included), at the end of day it is just stuff. We may lose the ebooks that we 'own' through any number of different reasons, but the stories will remain with the impact they have had upon our lives. That at the end of the day is what matters. But of course, if we really want to, we can replace them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LittleW Posted July 31, 2011 Share Posted July 31, 2011 To be honest, most of what I'm reading are novels. And I don't read them a second time, anyway. So, being permanent for most of the books, except for non-fiction or classics or our favourite authors, isn't that much of an advantage, I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vinay87 Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 Even if all the trees in the world were declared untouchable, I'm pretty sure there'll be alternatives. There's nothing like a solid book in your hand. Even if the words are etched onto rock, I'd pick it up and shout yabba dabba doo if I have to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chesilbeach Posted August 18, 2011 Author Share Posted August 18, 2011 Vinay, I was a sceptic too, in fact I been extremely resistant to the idea of having one, but from the very first day of having an ereader, I was a complete convert. If I'm honest, I don't even miss the trip to Waterstone's that much, as I use the time I would have spent browsing, having a coffee and a read! I don't have any independent bookshops in my local town or the nearest city, so it's only if a make a trip somewhere further abroad that I visit an independent, but when I do, I make sure I browse and find something to buy. Often this is easy because they have a more unusual selection of books so there's plenty to spark my interest that isn't always available in ebook format, but I'm keen to support them whenever I can get there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nollaig Posted August 18, 2011 Share Posted August 18, 2011 I agree that it is very difficult to say. I have no real way of gauging it, I know very little about this stuff. I certainly HOPE physical books don't become a thing of the past. I do not have a Kindle, nor do I want one. I have read books on my laptop (free classics from Project Gutenberg and the like) and I detest reading anything that isn't a physical book. And I know, the Kindle is designed for reading books unlike laptops, but I don't care. I've read many a book in e-format and they never feel like books. In fact, if I'm really enjoying an e-book, I will actually have to stop reading it and purchase a hard copy, or I simply won't enjoy it as much. I love the texture of the paper, the font, the dustcovers, the artwork, everything tangible about books which you lose in ebooks. While I'd be happy enough to read books I was relatively indifferent to in an ebook format, the ones I love most will always have to be hard copies. When I recall a book I love, I recall when I read it, where, the cover, the pages, the page numbers I stopped at, cracks in the spine, stains on the pages. When everything is text on a screen, there's nothing to distinguish between the memories of reading individual novels. I don't think books will become a thing of the past too quickly - I think if anything it might be a case of the younger generations growing up with ebooks, kindles and ipads much the way my generation grew up with cds and scoffed at vinyl. Personally I now adore vinyl, and have a record player on which to play old records I collect. I also hear older people (by which I mean, my parents generation and older) talking about how tragic it is that young people are content to digitally buy entire albums and listen to them on a palm-sized device, with no regard for the crisp crackle of a record, or even the cover art of a cd if nothing else. You don't hear people saying that to other people within their own generations, they say it to younger generations. I think if books go, that's how they're going to go. And I do think they'll stay around, but I agree they may well go the way of cds and vinyl. You still get people who really appreciate the art of the entire product, and therefore continue to buy records and cds, and similarly real book lovers will continue to buy hard copies of books. But they could well be the only ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.