On a sunny day at the beach there is a bikini-clad blonde sunbathing while staring at her jewel encrusted iPhone. On the couch at home your brother is staring at a tablet-looking piece of equipment, utterly enthralled, but seemingly doing nothing. In bed at night you find yourself holding a small piece of technology and glancing at the screen for hours. Your grandma is up late staring at her computer monitor, pouring over the words laid out in front of her.
What do these scenarios have in common?
All these people are all reading. But where have all the books gone?
The future of print literature is shaky at best. Today’s technology puts millions of books in the palm of your hand, without you ever having to moisten your fingers to turn a page. Ebooks, phone applications, and tablets provide for new ways to get people to put down their books, and pick up a bit more of technology.
Simply put, ebooks are electronic devices that are used for the purpose of reading literature and publications. They have taken the bookstore and put it literally in the palm of your hands. You can have millions of titles at your fingertips in a matter of seconds with an ebook. Some of the most popular devices are the Kindle that is manufactured by Amazon, and the Nook which in by Barnes and Noble Booksellers.
Kindle was first introduced only to the United States back in 2007. When Kindle was first introduced, the device sold out in about five hours, and it remained on back order well into 2008. The original price of a Kindle when it was first released was $399, which Kindle in turn reduced to $359.
More recently they have extended their products to three hardware devices, and as of 2009 they started apps for the iPhone users. So now the books can be carried with you anytime, stored and read right on your mobile phone. Just this week, they now offer an app for the Droid market. Not only do they have mobile phone apps, but you can download a free PC version.
The Nook was introduced in late 2009, and it provides the reader with Wi-Fi, and AT&T 3G wireless connectivity. Users are able to read their books without the Wi-Fi, and if they disconnect from it, the battery life can reach up to 10 days. The Nook also provides readers with a few extra features including a built-in dictionary, web browser, some games, audio player and speakers, as well as a headphone jack. On June 21, 2010 Barnes and Noble was able to introduce a new model, and a new Wi-Fi only model that knocked the original price down from $259 to $199, and the Wi-Fi only one costs just $149.
With the number of ebooks rising, it has become clear that the future of reading is all in the technology. So seeing people reading a newspaper over a cup of coffee at the local café will become something of a rarity. Seeing people reading their favorite novels while catching some rays by the ocean will become a thing of the past. And reading children’s books to kids may even start to fade a way.
The truth is in the technology.
