Defiant Imagination » Science and Tech

Reading with the Kindle

Flavie — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:30:27 +0000

Have you heard of the Kindle? This little e-book reader launched by Amazon in November 2007 has been making a lot of noise. Of course, the main question everyone is asking is whether it will ever replace actual books. In the May/June issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, Ezra Klein wrote extensively about his experience with the Kindle. (A video is also available on CJR’s website.) Klein comes up with this interesting idea that the Kindle might actually change the way we read an exchange ideas with authors. By eliminating printing and distribution fees, books could be updated more often and in direct reaction to the readers’ feedback.

The possibilities are endless, and many are obvious. Currently, authors are hampered by the nature of the publishing process. Books are begun years before their publication date, and finished months before they will ever reach readers … With electronic text, however, the original “book” could be just the first step in an ongoing relationship between author and reader. In the most simple form, the book could be updated with new chapters and commentary …

This could profoundly alter the relationship between authors and their audiences. One of the finest bloggers around is The Atlantic’s Matthew Yglesias, who’s also the author of the new book Heads in the Sand, an examination of the politics of American foreign policy. Currently, his blog is supported by The Atlantic. But what if readers of his book were offered the opportunity to subscribe to his commentary for $5 a year? Imagine that some thirty thousand copies are sold, and half those readers decide to pay for Yglesias’s further thoughts. That’s now a yearly income of $75,000, flowing directly from readers to author, unmediated by ads or institutions.

I don’t think that e-books will ever replace paper, they could just very well evolve into something different. But people’s fears that paper might one day disappear seem unjustified to me. They’re scared to abandon paper because they’re scared to adopt a new technology, just like the church was scared when the printing press was invented (I guess the monks weren’t too happy to see their jobs being suppressed.) We now think of that attitude as being reactionary, and therefore we should be wary of our own reactions.

The next-gen operating system

Flavie — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:50:09 +0000

I’ve recently discovered eyeOS, an open-source operating system accessible online. All data is stored in eyeOS’s servers, including files and applications, which means that it is accessible from anywhere where Internet is available. Company or individuals can also use it with their own server. There’s really no big difference with other operating systems. You just have to go online to use this one.

Online OSs and applications seem to be the next big thing. It is so convenient not to have to rely on your computer to access your data if it crashes or if you have to be away for a while. Microsoft is currently working on its “Midori” project, which according to rumors will be one of its next-generation OSs and would be based on the same principles. And tons of online softwares and storage space services are already available. Apparently this could lead to the creation of very basic computers that would only contain a web browser — and would therefore probably be very cheap, a great solution for developing countries.

The big question about this is security. How would you feel about having your data stored who knows where?

I’m really tempted to subscribe to eyeOS. It’s convenient, it has a great design, it’s open-source, it’s free and it reminds me of Linux without its downsides (I gave up on Ubuntu when it crashed while I was updating it on my Mac, it was too much work.)

Another great misallocation of resources

Flavie — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:31:04 +0000

IBM and the Los Alamos National Laboratory unveiled yesterday the most powerful supercomputer in the world. Roadrunner, as it was nicknamed, is able to perform the same tasks as 100,000 laptops combined. But its main applications will be in the military—the New York Times even chose to directly call it a “military supercomputer”—it will be used by the National Nuclear Securtity Administration for nuclear research, although it could very well be used in various other fields in desperate need of such technology, from medicine to environmental engineering.

Source: The Globe and Mail