Not much time ago, a lecturer stated that handwriting would be forgotten in a near future. And he could not be too wrong. Computers and digital data will overcome pens and applications forms. The keyboard arrived to stay and voice recognition is surprisingly effective nowadays; penmanship is useless at that point.But, have you ever thought about the amount of people and information that everyday moves from here to there worldwide? Huge. As the video below will tell you, more than 300,000 sms are sent in Britain every minute. Can you imagine the number of planes that are flying right now over the Earth? More than a million people are in this precise moment.
The British BBC has produced a series of pretty nice movies dealing with such matter: mobility, information, digital data, and more. Do you want to see the ships crossing the Channel? Or perhaps a virtual representation of digital data moving through the British super highways of information? Now you can. Enjoy the wonderfully made videos the BBC offers in its webpage.
Air traffic over Britain
Ships crossing the Channel
Data and phone callings all over Britain:
Sorry for all those who cannot speak English. :P
Cheers,Mike.
9 comentarios:
just impressive =O
1abrazo! ;)
wow! mike these videos are simply stunning... great post!
cu soon!
loads of kisses 4 u!
I'm so sorry to disagree about one little thing... ink-books are not doomed to disappear at all. No matter how hard Sony tries to improve its sony reader, or amazon its kindle, physical books have something that e-books lack: smells, weight, touch.
Yes, it might sound a little bit romantic, i know, but just ask a reader, one of those who read 3-4 books per month. We'll all answer the same: traditional books wont dissapear 'cause we'll go on buying them.
I think it is more probable a pacific coexistance. E-books are nice for having tons of them in the pc, for quoting, etc. But physical books, u know, are too special to dissapear. ;) And i repeat: it may sound idealistic, but as far as we all hardcore readers think the same, we are a whole army ;)
Take care, man
J.
I do like traditional, paper books. I love the touch and the smell of old, almost rotten sheets but still full of knowledge and enjoyable opportunities. However we cannot close our eyes and say NO to what is evident enough: the world changes (evolves?) and so do the things surrounding us.
Juanlu, some years ago, when mobile phones were just in the cradle of their life (technologically speaking), I forecasted that they would eventually incorporate features dealing with pictures and video streaming, TV for instance. All the classmates around me laughed out loud. You see?
We’re so used to what we have right now that we cannot detach ourselves from the reality we’re living. But the future is out there, waiting for us. Vinyl records still exist, they can be played, bought, and sold… but to what degree if compared with CDs or MP3s? Traditional books might survive the digital era, to what extent I don’t know.
“I said I would tell you the truth; I never said it would be easy.”
Thanks you all for reading and commenting.
The main difference between the almost retired vinyls and paper books is that the alternative options for vinyls (CD, mp3, etc.) had (and still have) many important and evident advantages over the old black wheels: sound quality, size, price, etc. LPs are nowadays just used by DJs and sentimental collectors -even professional people, such as radio announcers, are recording their LP collections into CD or MP3-.
When dealing with ink books and e-books, the differences are evident, but advantages are not that clear. Yes, you can have tons of them in a CD or memory card, they are WONDERFUL for searching particular passages or words, and if the market evolves enough they will even be considerably cheaper.
However, traditional books still have many advantages that can not be beaten, and that, in my opinion, balance the whole thing on their favor:
- You can write on them just with a pencil by your side, so you don't need a keyboard. They are much more faster to be annotated.
- They are much more easy to be surfed -page forward, page 'rewind'-.
- They are physical and tangible things, which give you the feeling of property. It may sounds a little bit stupid and evident, but just think about your own music collection: you probably have mp3 and classic CDs, right? Do you feel the same about your CD collection than about your mp3 cds? I don't think so.
At least, if there is a fire at home and i have to save something, i will, by far, try to save my ink books and CDs before than e-things.
- Derived from the previous point, the materialism of ink books is much more secure than a 0-1 sequence.
Such an interesting topic to debate! ;)
J.
Indeed, pretty interesting for all those who love reading.
You've made very intelligent remarks on the favour of traditional books, but, in my humble opinion, you're not right in some aspects:
1) New e-book readers allow to write on the e-pages with the e-pen, in the same way you could do in a paper book. The commentary is saved in the memory card/file and it will be there the next time you open the book. Furthermore, they offer the possibility to directly link every word in a book to a bilingual/monolingual dictionary or the internet, for example, wikipedia. Imagine you come up with a word you can't understand, and just by clicking on it, a small window appears telling you the meaning, its uses, a picture and a link to diverse articles in the internet. I think this is obviously an advantage over traditional books.
2) Yes, traditional books are currently easier to page forward and rewind, but it won't take too long for e-book readers to incorporate faster and better firmwares. And you cannot forget that the electronic ink used in these devices is impressive, almost true ink-like.
3) Definitely; the sense of 'property' is higher with physical things, but... don't you think that a device containing 1000 electronic books in the seize of a single book is easier to save than those 1000 books in traditional paper-form? I would go for my HDDs, since I have more information on them than on the sheets that cover my furniture ;)
4)0-1 sequence? Juanlu, you just forgot to take your pills.
Mike ;)
mike, call me a romantic if u want, but i've been following ur discussion and i agree with abdul..
it's not only info what we need and dynamic and effective ways to get to it... sometimes we need to think, to caress pages, touch them and feel the step of other hands and other eyes over it... also the passing of the time on the object... the dedication on the first page of a second-hand book... be curious, surf the imaginary... feel other souls touching mine merging from the inside of the book... i refuse to lose books... i refuse to lose letters...
you want to recognise my writing on the note i left u that day in the future, don't u? and u want to feel my mood just by guessing how the stroke danced on the sheet when i drew the words on it...
will we stop interpreting reality on canvas and cardboard?
call me a romantic if u want...
but my soul still needs art... and books!
xxx
"u may say i'm a dreamer... but i'n not the only one..." lennon
;)
i know i forgot about capital letters, i'm a thoughtlees person sometimes, poor them!!
:P
If you are romantics because you love paper books, I am also one. I do like them, I said it before, but I cannot close my eyes to what is coming: the digital life of humans. Everything will turn into 0s and 1s, you like it or not.
May paper books still be produced in the future, but I am sure they will not in the current figures.
Que nooooooooooo! :D:D:D:D
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