Re: A School Without Books
- From: KMM <cantbe@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 05 Oct 2005 09:19:40 +0100
naebad wrote:
You need a book reading device - but who says it will be expensive? A Laptop certainly is but we are now hearing about the $100 laptop for Africa I think.
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=vn20051002103755443C677545
Still doesn't over come the practicalities, who wants to lug around anything bigger than a book everytime the want to read something.
Just a matter of time before we have the $50 book reader or maybe less. The more are produced the price comes down. We all have CD players now - probably several per houshold and ditto for DVD players. How much does a CD player for your PC cost now versus 10 years ago? They practically give them away now.
I wonder just how much books in other formats would come down in price. Big supermarkets churn out current paperbacks for about 2 quid off the price you would pay in a bookshop. Think of the iTunes setup, online books for download would not necessarily been much cheaper if we can use the online music download business as an example.
Then there is the cost to the environment - less trees being cut down. The fact that you are already doing something similar (sitting reading a screen) means it most certainly will happen. I could see in 1999 that CDs were on their way out though it has taken longer than I thought for the companies to catch on to online sales. I imagined a music shop where you would make up your own CDs but it has not worked out that way. At the time download speeds were so slow I was off on the wrong track.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4304466.stm
Sometimes technology is like that. I was working in electronic publishing through most of the 90s on the mythical theme of the paperless office. Some big companies with enough cash have some systems approaching it nowdays but what a time it has taken.
Soon TV will be on the net and you will download your program when you want it - its all changing and for the good of the consumer. Buying books direct is cheaper (well in most countries it is) as it cuts out the middle men. Buying just the s'oftware' will be even cheaper still.
TV on the net is not too far away. You can get TV programs on your PC just now if you want them, not on demand though. Its not a huge leap to go the extra step of enabling downloads of series 3 of whatever program. The technology exists.
Trust me - I'm a guru in these things!
Yet to be proven.
I have worked in electronic publishing and before broadband became an 'in' use of technology, digital telephony systems for triple play (voice, video, data) mainly for the consumer.
These things take a long time to mature. The one common factor in all the systems I have been involved in was how to make more money for the service provider. Nothing to do with access to cheap technology, saving the tress or anything else. The systems were being designed to deliver more products to service a growing consumer market to make more money for the companies involved.
Take online music stores as an example. iTunes is approx 79p per song, around 10 songs on a CD = £7.90. Compare that to walking in and buying a CD, its a saving but hardly "mass downloads lead to 50% cheaper albums"
Swings and roundabouts when you look at the cost alone. I'm digressing here as a true comaparison to books online would be buying a chapter of book X, a chapter of book Y which in reality is what online music stores are, a pick 'n' mix of songs.
.
- References:
- A School Without Books
- From: Real_McCoy
- Re: A School Without Books
- From: KMM
- Re: A School Without Books
- From: naebad
- A School Without Books
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