WACOM Bamboo Fun Small Tablet Review

Ian Alden Jones
I think physical books will still be around for a long while. Not to say that ebooks will not be the norm but think of records. Band all the time still release special edition vinyl records, this is because they hold a sort of nostalgia and can offer something that digital music can not. Mainly that would be their awesome layouts and analog sound. Also it allows for something collectable that can be shown off. People brag about really large mp3 collections or what not but its not much to show. Books can have that same sort of appeal; collections and layouts (maybe to a lessor extent because of the multimedia capabilities of ereaders/tablets). Finally, one big one for me is just the physical presence of the book, the feel of the pages, the new book smell, for me reading has always been more than just digesting words.

Ian Mankowski · Subscribe · CEO/President at Borne Proud Inc.
Books will get _expensive_. The world I see, is one where I get Game of Thrones on my eReader for cheap, and a limited edition of handcrafted leather bound hand stitched artisan embossed, signed and personalized tomes are sold for a mint. (Easily north of $100, and possibly north of $500 in some cases.) Essentially, I expect to see the artisan nature of books return as the purely informational aspect of books is championed by the digital format.

Yu Jin · Labuan
i agree with both of you. future: books will be expensive and limited. physical books will have their own market as people will still enjoy the touch and feel of every page, if a book business wanted to survive, they have to go with e-books as well. By sell only physical books, it will not be beneficial for a business unless they wanted to sell it to other developing countries, where physical books are more cherish there. (just a thought)

Shaun Connell · Top Commenter · Editor at Capitalism Institute
Physical books won't be completely destroyed in the future -- consumers will just buy them online rather than in person, and they'll buy less.

I know I like to keep a hard copy of all of my books, mostly because of that story of the Kindle deleting copies of 1984 from readers' devices. Talk about freaky. And yes, I'm a little paranoid.

Daniel Kay · Top Commenter
they never deleted 1984 from anyones kindle. you are conspiracy theorist. numbers of sold books go up because population of the world rises.

Shaun Connell · Top Commenter · Editor at Capitalism Institute
Daniel Kay, yes they did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

Larry Sanger · Director of New Projects at WatchKnow
Huh. I kind of like the old, basement-stinking copies of Moby Dick.

I've read quite a few ebooks, but I still like paper books more than using my iPad. I love the iPad's built-in dictionary feature for difficult chapter books to my son, but for almost all other purposes, I prefer my paper books. Maybe things would be different if my books were all magically imported into my iPad, and I had no paper books...would I still buy paper books then? I'm not sure. I very well might.

I'll continue to shop at Barnes & Nobel for a good while yet. Of course, I'm sure the money I plunk down there for kids' books on a regular basis pays the wages of a few of their cashiers, so I'm probably an outlier. On the other hand, I'm a very plugged-in outlier in many other respects, so...

Stephen R Malcom · Reisterstown, Maryland
One day we will turn around and physical books will be gone. At least for me, part of the pleasure of reading is the tactile and olfactory sensations of opening a brand new book. Another pleasure was finding a word or item I was of which I was unsure and having to look elsewhere to discover the meaning. Part of the process was going off on a tangent when I saw something else in my search (on-line or in another "book"). With an eReader just click and the definition or description is there. Just because it is not "cutting-edge" doesn't mean it should be discarded. We don't realize what we had until we lose it.

Deborah Well · Boston, Massachusetts
Big Book stores are doomed. I think small niche bookstores have a future for awhile - esp. if they do new and used books. There are plenty of great books out of print. And new authors will benefit from having somewhere to go to promote their books. And, much as their still is a cult of vinyl for records, there will, even into the next generation, be collectors who want premium things - like a hardcover signed by the author.

But in general - it is all ebook, and probably sooner than most think. I am hoping there will be a rise of small publishers that will publish ebooks of good authors, since the old guard in publishing certainly isn't interested in quality content - they are interested in marketability and saleability of the "product".

Scott Merrill
As a father to a toddler, I greatly prefer board books to e-books for fostering a love of reading with my daughter. The tactile experience of turning the pages back and forth at her own pace are important to learning. There's so much ancillary stuff involved with physical books and early development that e-books don't adequately address yet. Tactile and spatial learning, natural consequences (scrawling on the pages with crayons, or ripping out pages), and more.

I like that when we read a book together, it's just her, me and the book. I'm required to supply the sound effects and character voices. If we read an animated book on a tablet, we're at the mercy of the voice and art direction of that book, and can't adequately control the pace or the mood of the book. (I enjoy reading the same books with different inflections, to introduce variety. My daughter loves it.)

With a book, there's no interface to learn. My daughter knows that this book will "operate" just like every other book she owns. There's no friction to using any book, no learning curve (beyond vocabulary, eventually), no batteries to recharge. Basically, there's nothing to frustrate the reading experience.

Worse, what little I've seen of kids "books" on tablets is full of blinking and buzzing doo-dads that encourage "interaction", when really they're simply introducing distractions.

Carson Stuart · Hardware Manager at Symmetricom
A potentially successful model of book selling would be to stock a small number of physical copes and provide electronic copies in the store. In the past 3 years I have bought 30-40 electronic books and 10-15 physical books from Amazon and their affiliated suppliers. Scrolling through Amazon looking for something to read is NOT equivalent to strolling through a bookstore and getting suggestions from a nearby clerk or even notes on the shelf. The Amazon website is great if you know what you want and are not is a hurry to receive the physical book but getting book suggestions from Amazon has not been satisfying.

Michael Berrier · Subscribe
I feel guilty when I sit in a B&N store and read on my Kindle, but I still do it. I have always loved physical books and I always will, and as an author I look forward to holding a paper book in my hands with my name on the cover, but the only paper books I now buy are ones I want for a collection. Future generations of readers will look at paper books the way we look at gramophones.

Marco Felici
I hate paper books. They're heavy, awkward and after some time are to throw away. Anyway they're still (mostly) cheaper than the respective ebook version and the current e-readers fall short when it comes to read PDFs and academic papers (except, maybe the giant Kindle DX). Not to mention the annoying screen refreshing.

Bhagwad Jal Park · Top Commenter · Freelancer at Self employed
Wait- when you say books, I take it to mean e-books as well. So your claim that the "love of books" is going to die means what? That people will stop reading completely or that only physical books are on their way out?
Reply · Like · Follow Post · 14 saat önce

John Biggs · Subscribe · Top Commenter · Gadgets Editor at TechCrunch
physical books. books as longform prose will exist forever

Sree Dev · Top Commenter · Developer at Moschip
I might not want to be sound so eco-friendly though, once these tablets goes to the more n more masses, at least a lot of wood be saved with e-books.

Personally , I would like 2 read a book on an iPad rather than the physical book.
Reply · Like · Follow Post · 14 saat önce

Ian Alden Jones
I would hazard to say the creation of tablets and ereaders is more environmentally degrading then the printing of books. Trees are at least a renewable resource, where tablets use all sorts of rare earth metals, heavy metals, and other crap that is both harmful to mine and harmful disposed of.

Garry McMahon
It isn't eco-friendly to save wood. By not allowing it to be used as bookshelves and paper, you're condemning it to eventually rot, which gives off carbon dioxide. The tree ends up being carbon-neutral. If you want it to be eco-friendly, you need to cut it down and lock that carbon away by ensuring it stays as wood or paper. Though, I love eBooks.

Thomas McGuire · Subscribe · Top Commenter
It is inevitable, Mr Anderson...
I agree with what you touched on, defenders of paper titles have grown up with them, following generations will not.

Sean Tetpon · University of Idaho
Ok, so any predictions on newspapers? Feels like we've been talking about paperless this and that for decades now, but even the Internet hasn't really killed off print yet....

Mark Zwinderman
Well, quite a few papers have gone out of business and many others are firmly on the way to oblivion. A few will survive i suppose.

John Biggs · Subscribe · Top Commenter · Gadgets Editor at TechCrunch
Mark Zwinderman Even the guys at the papers I talk to don't read the print version. I'm a newspaper hold out because I just like the format but give it a few years.

Len Norton
> a fairly interesting indicator that the old college book-selling racket is almost over.

Really? At least you could sell back used books. What happens when you have to rent the professor's DRM'ed textbook for $100 a semester?

Blake Kavanaugh · Subscribe · Emory University Goizueta Business School
I feel it's more likely small, niche coffee shops will take on those bibliophiles by offering some sort of instant printing system in store. You'll be able to browse on your computer, phone, iPad, or maybe even a collection in the store, and just print off your own copy while you drink your coffee.

That huge overhead of location, employees, utilities, etc. that B&N pays can easily be replaced. And who knows, maybe you can throw a bibliophile behind the coffee counter that can recommend your favorite book.

The future of bookstores will probably look a lot like the plot of "You've Got Mail" in reverse.

Blake Kavanaugh · Subscribe · Emory University Goizueta Business School
Example of printers like this already in use:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/google-books-publish-on-demand/

Gerald Kinsey
Scott Merrill said.
"As a father to a toddler:
-- I like that when we read a book together, it's just her, me and the book --
-- With a book, there's no interface to learn -- The tactile experience of turning the.
pages back and forth at her own pace are important to learning."
...See More
Reply · Like · Follow Post · yaklaşık bir saat önce

Pat McCarthy · Subscribe · Founder/CEO at Fantuition
You are a popular guy Lou!

Mehatem Ashenaffi · Top Commenter · Ecole des Roches
ebook itunes, we have gone from truly owning works that have a value to just renting them for a lifetime. The funny part is that they have not gotten cheaper on average.

Bishwajeet Mahato · Subscribe · Founder & CEO at Comptalks.com
In India, as there isn't too much penetration of ebook readers, people nowadays are preferring to buy books online.

Oye Aborishade · Subscribe · Keele University
I love the smell of new books.