Brave new world

In the 24th century, Starfleet personnel will write up their reports, read books and do a host of other things on small devices known as PADDs - in the world of Star Trek, that is. Thanks to online bookseller Amazon, we are now a step closer to the world imagined by Gene Roddenberry.

Amazon’s version of an e-book reader, the Kindle, weighs only about 10 ounces and is as slim as a pencil. It can hold hundreds of books, newspapers, magazines and even blogs. Bestsellers are available for a special bargain price of US$9.99 a pop. War and Peace, so the promotional video on Amazon’s website claims, can be read on a single battery charge. Is there anything the Kindle cannot do, such as run my errands, wash my car or pleasure the wife?

You are most likely reading this article off a computer screen, unless someone was kind enough to make a multicoloured printout on glossy paper for you. You may therefore think that I have come to embrace this brave new world of online newspapers, blogs and YouTube videos. Well, you would be wrong. I publish my columns, editorials and articles online as a means to an end, and this website is merely that means, but not at all the end. Personally, I would be just as happy if you found this article printed in your local newspaper and enjoyed it with your morning coffee. Newspapers, however, pressed for cash flow as they are these days, are not prepared to pay for quality writing anymore - but I digress.

It may not be politically correct to say so anymore, but I love the feel of real paper between my fingers. No simulation, no matter how realistic, of a newspaper on a computer, or even the Kindle, can ever take the place of real newsprint’s feel and smell. That is why I, the politically incorrect wastrel, subscribe to three newspapers and have them dropped on my doorstep every morning - and that is in addition to a bunch of weekly newsmagazines.

As any avid reader will know, reading can be extremely hard even on the healthiest pair of eyes. You can take it only so long before you have to give your eyes some well-deserved rest - for example, by putting down your book or paper and reaching for the remote control of your high-def TV (kidding, of course). Reading text from a computer screen is even more strenuous, and it does not matter whether your screen offers the best resolution or whether the text has been designed and laid out in the most ergonomic manner - it will hurt your eyes more than reading printed text. The Kindle, judging from the aforementioned Amazon video, has a black-and-grey/silver screen, and no colours. In other words, forget about the colourful experience of reading the USAToday in print or in a web browser. Instead, it will be more like watching the mercury rise in a thermometer.

We cannot forget the blogs, of course. Most of the blogs come with great designs, colour schemes and fonts, all of which will be lost if read on the Kindle. What is more, Amazon expects you to subscribe to a bundle of blogs - yes, that is right: you will have to pay for what is normally freely accessible from any computer or even Blackberry. Heck, I would not want to pay for and read my own blog in such format.

Who are the people that visit and use the Amazon websites? Lovers of books, and what do lovers of books do? They have an entire area in their homes set aside for a nice wall unit of bookshelves, so that they can show off their treasures to visitors - and to have them all easily downloadable, er, accessible in a defined space. With the arrival of the Kindle, the question arises whether people will toss their books off their shelves and place a Kindle right smack in the centre of a full-room-length wall unit of shelves. I do not know, but it would look rather ... barren and sterile. It would get even worse if the newly emptied spaces on the shelves were filled with trinkets and knick-knacks of all sorts.

There is some wonderful stuff they can do these days with recycled and chlorine-free paper (certified!), so I certainly do not experience pangs of guilt or remorse for using actual paper products such as books, magazines and newspapers - and my eyes thank me for it every single day (it reduces the need for trips to the eye doctor and, thus, my carbon footprint). But the Kindle does open up a new world, a world where flight attendants ask passengers to turn off their books during takeoff and landing, where throwing the book at someone will take on an amazingly new meaning, and where a bookworm is no longer what your friends call you, but a well-planted virus that will make your Kindle self-destruct in thirty seconds if you dare access the site of Barnes & Noble.