Don’t Blame the Papers: the declining political influence of the printed press tells the sad story of the decline of the printed press as the principal source of news in the UK. Sad only because TV is the new main source.
Engaget makes a sensible argument that e-readers won’t be with us very long, as the readability improvements they bring will be ported to other, more versatile formats such as tablets. That needn’t worry us, as dead media technologies appear to live far longer than you could possibly imagine.
One idea was the Telharmonium, a 200-ton electric organ located in a concert hall in New York City, with enormous tone wheels that produced loud sounds that could be used to recreate symphonies. In effect, Brunton said, it was the first synthesizer, and the service was an early example of music streaming.
Finally, Kevin Kelly looks at what a book that linked up its readers rather than being a link solely between writer and reader might look like. Think “of the book as a process rather than an artifact.”