DRINKme-EATme-READme

This is a very clever piece of stop motion animation.  Don't give up on it as I almost did - its cleverness increases as it progresses (much like many books in fact).  And that's what it is all about - books - but also about emotion, about imagination and about the worlds which books allow us to enter and the ways in which we interract with those worlds in the twenty first century.

The stop motion action begins with a reader making her choice from a bookshelf - all very traditional you might think.  Yet this is also an animation very much of our time - you should not naturally assumed that the book itself is made of paper - or indeed that paper books have to behave in a manner which we might expect.  For that matter it pulls together the ways in which we read in this day and age in to a great composite so that in some ways you may not know (or mind) where the paper ends and where the electronic book begins.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable piece by animator Irina Neustroeva which manages to be paper light at the same time as offering up some really quite meaty food for thought.  Superbly done.

Kindle Launched in the UK

Image Credit Flickr User jblyberg

Eyebrows were raised by bibliophiles arriving on Amazon’s UK site yesterday.  Where had all the books gone?  Instead of the usual front page they were greeted with a possible vision of the future.  Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder had sent the readers of the UK a letter.  Not so much an ultimatum as an invitation. The Kindle had arrived in the UK. Or rather it will in late August.

Sales of digital books in the UK have been low since their inception.  Even last year the total sales of digital books accounted for less than one percent of the entire market, which is tiny if you compare it to the fact that in the UK out of five new books sold in the US, two will be hardbacks of the traditional variety.  The other three are all digital.

The Kindle has a few things going for it in the UK.  The most recent introduction to this marketplace was the iPad.  However, for most it proved to be too expensive, too big and way too heavy to be seriously considered as a reason to throw away a love affair with paper-based literature that goes back over a thousand years.  The Brits were not for turning.

However, the Kindle is cheaper.  Way cheaper.  Also it is lighter – it doesn’t even weigh as much as your average paperback.  Plus there are no distractions.  With the iPad there was the internet and those pesky applications to deal with – with Kindle it is just black text on a white background.  The simple aesthetics of the beast may well appeal to British readers.  With no distractions it will enable readers to do just – and simply – that.

Image Credit Flickr User Mike Licht

Is there anything else that Kindle has to attract the till now firmly traditional readers the the United Kingdom?  Anything to raise a smile upon the face of the ardent bibliophile? With access to a million titles free, gratis – for nothing, plus another four hundred thousand available to download (very easily) from the store the Kindle certainly offers the biggest bookshop in the world (probably). Plus its anti-glare screen makes it look like you are reading off a clean piece of card - its as close look to paper as you are likely to get on a screen.

There are downsides, of course, not least for the publishing houses which are being pressed for cheaper ‘product’ and are not in a situation to develop and introduce their own readers.  On the other hand, if it increases the demand for literature can it be that bad.  Of course, knowing the British they will have a (potentially luddite) trick up their collective sleeve.

Image Credit Flickr User Oskay

Additional Image Credits
Image Credt Flickr User GoxunuReviews - Girl Reading

Terms & Conditions - Cool Animated Film about Digital Rights Management

This is a very well put together animated short film about Digital Rights Management or DRM for short.  It was made by a group of students attending Vancouver Film School and outlines what publishers can do if they use DRM.

This is a term that is used when describing any technology that inhibits the use of digital content.  It involves direct modification of the file(s) and is used widely by such global brands as Sony, Microsoft, Apple and even Auntie (the BBC).

Amazon, for example was able to make two George Orwell books disappear from the files of Kindle users who had bought it from them. Without any irony whatsoever.

What does this mean for people who buy downloads?  You can’t share the book and you will most certainly not be able to keep the book forever.

It certainly does not seem like an enlightened move by publishers, particularly when it comes to reproducing and disseminating the work of long dead authors.

Take a look at the video and make up your own mind.

Tower Defence