Where in the world have books gone?

I am writing this post to voice my displeasure with what reading has become today. With the advent of e-books, e-readers and even apps designed to enhance one’s reading experience, readers can now read entire publications all on gadgets, with a few tweaks .

An e-book is a full length publication in digital form, consisting of text, and images made readable on computers or other electronic devices. Many e-books are adapted from printed books but some can also originate entirely without having the printed equivalent. Some e-books also come packed with pop-up advertisements.

There is even an ipad app that adds soundtracks to these e-books. The app, booktrack, also has a little animated arrow that makes it easier to keep pace with the music and sound effects as you read. There are also different tones of music that claim to cater to the different tones of a story.

While this may sound like an incredibly enticing idea to some, it sounds completely ridiculous to me. The whole point of reading a book is to read without any extraneous noises, allowing the reader himself to bring the story and universe of the book to life, with his or her own imagination. You can only truly immerse yourself into the story and see the book’s world for what it is and what the author intended it to be when you do so with your pace, not with a soundtrack or arrow setting the pace and tone for you. If readers want to do that, they might as well just go to the cinema. Intrusive pop-up advertisements that aim capitalise on your reading journey do not help too.

Finally, an e-book or app can never, and should never triumph over the novelty of holding a printed book, with the soft pages clasped gently in your hands while you read on a lazy Sunday afternoon sipping your ice-tea.

The "Minority Report" Report

Minority report was a neo-noir film from 2002 starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg. The movie is set in the near future where murders can be predicted before they happen and John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is the head of the special crime division that prevents these murders. During the course of the film, he gets framed for the murder of a man he has never even met and the movie depicts him trying to solve the reason of the framing while on the run from his very own policemen.

While a review on the story of Minority Report alone will prove a hearty one, I am writing this as a review on the new communication technologies found in the film instead which will prove equally hearty.

The best aspect of the film is how ironic and accurate many technologies in the movie came to pass in reality, as if the movie was predicting what life would be like in the future, just as the mutated humans, precogs, as they were called in it, predicted murders in the future.

An example of a science-fiction tech which has become reality is personalised advertising. In the film, through facial recognition gadgets (another piece of tech that has become reality), advertisements on billboards and walls can instantly recognise someone’s face and tailor the message and advertisement to the passer-by’s needs and tastes. Japanese company NEC have been developing these amazing billboards. The billboards can even recognise age and gender and deliver demographic appropriate messages.

Another instance of Minority report realistically simulating gadgets of the future is the e-paper or electronic paper. e-paper is a type of display technology designed to mimic the likeness of ordinary ink on paper. e-paper reflects light like ordinary paper, can hold static test and images without using electricity. E-paper is not to be confused with digital paper, like the type you see in ipads today, which can create handwritten digital documents with a digital pen.

The most prominent e-book reader which utilises e-paper today is the Amazon Kindle. It uses wireless connectivity which enables users to shop, download, browse and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, en cetera. In the last three months of 2010, Amazon publicised that in America, their e-book sales had exceeded sales of paperback books for the first time.

Moving on to my favourite illustration of new communication technology in the film and one I feel that reality has actually surpassed what was presented in the movie; the multi-touch interface. Multi-touch refers to a touch sensing surface’s ability to identify the presences of two or more points of contact with the surface. It has evolved to the point where the user does not require any type of physical surface, just like in the movie. The best example is of course, Microsoft’s Kinect. It is a motion sensing input device designed for, but not limited to, the Xbox 360 video gaming console.

In Minority report, the John Anderton uses several muti-touch interfaces which have since become the daydreams and fantasies of IT professionals around the world. But he requires a physical, tangible controller to do so, in the movie’s case, gloves. This is where the Kinect’s magic comes into play, it does not. The sensor itself scans the user’s body, and the user himself becomes the controller, transforming not only his hands into controllers, but his entire arms and legs. There is even voice control. Interfacing with the Xbox 360, the user can play entire games without the need of something tangible and browse through content such as upcoming games, videos and websites with the flick of a hand. After selling a total of 8 million units in its first 60 days, the Kinect holds the Guinness World Record of being the "fastest selling consumer electronics device".

This brings me to the end of my review of the new communication technologies in Minority Report. Next time you think Sci-fi only exists in Sci-fi, think twice.