The future of Books

Recently, a recent discussion on a net forum got me thinking wild. I repeat what I said there.

As I write this, I hold a tattered plastic book. Many children's books are being printed on plastic these days. Those who believe in the permanance of plastic books should see the status of the copy I have after it underwent material science tests conducted by my two sons.

With regard to the future of books, here is what I see with my pineal gland. In the near future, we must expect a digitized book stored on a holographic disc no larger than your eye lens. In fact, the transparent nature of the holographic eye lens would allow you to wear it right on your eye. A holographic reader will be embedded onto the plackets of eye glasses and your spectacle lenses will double up as a computer screen.

This technology is sure to arrive if it hasn't already. All you do is put the lens on your eye and start viewing it with voice commands. You can choose from a library which will consist of such holographic lenses stored in a cylindrical storage device similar to a fountain pen of yesteryears. If you think it's cumbersome, all you need to do will be to connect to the internet with voice commands again and see what you want to see and talk to whom you want to talk. It's the closest it will get to a brain transplant with existing technology.

Once you wear this stuff, it will be sufficient if you knew just one language. Voice recognition technologies would have advanced so much that words in all the world's languages would be stored in a similar device and all you need to plug in will be an earphone in the ear to hear a translation in a language of your choice. Danish will no longer be gibberish to people from Gannavaram.

With the spectacles, if you view a board in Chinese, you can view it in a language of your choice in your "spectovision". All this technology would be available for 200 USD in 2 decades from
now if not earlier. Any takers?

Satya [dreaming as always]