04.27.2K7: E-books: It'll never fly, Orville

I often find myself defending the idea of e-books and e-book readers, especially versus paper books. It often amazes me to hear the reasons why e-books and readers will never catch on, from high prices, lack of content or standards, to the need of "real readers" to enjoy the "look, feel and smell of wonderful, wonderful paper in their hands." To quote Mike Elgan, a technology writer for Computerworld magazine who insists that e-book readers will ultimately fail:

"So many predictions about the future have failed because futurists tend to overemphasize the possible over the desirable. They give too much weight to technology and not enough to human nature."

Well said, Mike.

Other such predictions:

• The paperback book will never be good for anything but smut.
• MP3s won't catch on because of their inferior sound quality to CDs.
• CDs will never catch on because of their inferior sound quality to LPs.
• Man will never be able to type on anything smaller than a standard keyboard.
• Man will never be able to survive travelling at speeds in excess of 30mph.
• The automobile will never replace the horse and cart.
• No colony will ever declare independence from its mother country.
• "It'll never fly, Orville."
• You can't sail around the world, you'll only fall off the edge.
• Man will never escape the Earth.
• Man will only ever need 3 computers. (Mike should at least know this one.)

Unfortunately, too many "futurists" tend to make absolute assumptions based on subjective data.

E-books have failed to "catch on" simply due to a lack of a compelling marketing program. They have a long way to go to improve, in battery life, display quality, price, and standardization... all of those things will be accomplished. But once a compelling marketing package is introduced to the public, e-book readers will ultimately be even more common than iPods.

People will see the value of carrying their entire library of books, magazines, newspapers, comic books and graphic novels in their hand, absolutely anywhere they might go. If people like Mike Elgan can't see it, rest assured, his children will see it, people who do not have the space to store books will see it, students whose textbooks break their collective backs will see it, and sensible people who don't see the need to level a forest in order to produce a few hundred books will see it.

04.12.2K7: Music industry decides DRM is out

Two recent events in the online music industry have one industry singing a new tune, and another industry looking forward to the echoes.

Following Apple CEO Steve Jobs' public proclamation that Digital Rights Management (DRM) was bad for the music industry, the iTunes music store has managed to secure the rights to offer much of the EMI music catalog without DRM, for a slightly higher price than for DRM'd material. Other labels are considering joining the move, which analysts say will make the online music service even more popular than it is now. Following that announcement, Microsoft announced that they would be removing DRM from its own online music service, clearly in a move to stay competitive with iTunes.

The fans of online music weren't the only ones to cheer. Fans of e-books also took note, since many of the strategies embraced by the publishing industry for e-books were developed from similar moves taken by the music publishers for MP3 music. If book publishers continue their previous methods, therefore, it is logical to suggest that they may consider dropping DRM from e-book sales in the near future.

There are a number of reasons why e-books have not made a bigger splash with the public, but DRM is one of the major contributors to the general malaise. DRM'd books require multiple authentication steps to allow a book to open, often including codes, passwords and credit card numbers, and if something happened to your e-book reader, or even to the vendor who sold it to you, you may not be able to open your e-book without purchasing it again. Not only is this a pain to average readers, it is downright disgusting to e-book aficionadoes, some of whom have vowed never to buy from DRM-supporting vendors. Removing DRM from the e-book equation would go a long way towards garnering public acceptance.

So far, there have been no announcements made by any publisher. But those potential e-book readers are hoping for the best. Stay tuned.

04.7.2K7: DST shift was a wasted effort

According to Reuters, sources at the US Department of Energy, and at a number of energy producers, have confirmed that there was no measureable energy savings as a result of shifting Daylight Savings Time ahead by three weeks.

The idea, originally hatched by Congress, was intended to reduce our energy consumption and save fuel resources and money nationwide. Most authorities, however, stated before the shift that it would likely have no effect on overall national energy use, based on a similar experiment in Australia that netted no significant energy savings. In fact, the added effort required to manually reset automatic clocks, and to write program patches to "fix" computer programs and jumpstart DST early, may have created a frustration factor that more than offset any savings made.

Daylight Savings Time is one of those ideas that worked much better a century ago, when people largely went to bed at night, and didn't get up until dawn the next day. Today, Americans routinely get up before dawn, and stay up well into the night, so any energy saved in the morning is lost again that evening. This is, in fact, exactly what happened during the DST shift, as it does every year during DST.

Although Congress may have managed to look like they were trying to save us energy, they would be much better suited to work on more substantial activities, actions that can be implemented right now, like:

• Updating the CARB standards and forcing automakers to build vehicles that get better than the 28MPG fleet average that hasn't changed for 20 years;
• Standardizing and implementing the telecommuting initiatives already being tried by many government departments, and applying them to the corporate world;
• Speeding up the slow transition from energy-wasting incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent and LED light sources; and
• Giving the public concrete examples of ways they can personally conserve and save energy, right now.

Or better yet, all of these. Any one of these measures alone would save the US significantly in energy use, not to mention cleaning up our environment. Combined, they would take a bite out of our energy usage that would surprise even ourselves.

04.2.2K7: Next X Prize- 100MPG cars

In 2 days, I was treated to 2 unexpected events related to cars.

I'll tell you about the second one first: An announcement from the X Prize Foundation—yes, the same guys that put up $10 million to see who could fly a commercially-built tourist craft into Earth orbit—that their new contest will be to see who can create and drive the first mass-produceable 100MPG car.

The key here is "mass-produceable," as many carmakers and individual inventors have created 100MPG cars. But without exception, those were built with specialty components, and could never have been converted to a mass-production vehicle at an affordable price. The X Prize plans to have each contestant prove that their vehicle can be mass-produced at a reasonable cost, otherwise, going 100MPG or more doesn't really matter.

Their goal? To give automakers concrete, viable examples of vehicles that they can start building for the rest of us, right now. Presently, the average car mileage in the industry is about 20MPG, where it has remained for over 20 years. Despite cries for more efficient vehicles, the major automakers have demonstrated very little innovative development, and have yet to improve fleet MPG in a significant way. "The industry is stuck, and we think a prize is perfect to disrupt that dynamic," said Mark Goodstein, executive director of the Automotive X Prize. Of course, just because someone demonstrates a mass-procuceable 100MPG car in a year, doesn't mean an automaker will sell it in 2 years. But if, at least, we see that it is possible, maybe public upswell of support could lead to government mandates that the industry cannot ignore for another 20 years.

Which brings me to the first event, when I picked up my March issue of Scientific American (which came in February... I'm actually way behind in my reading right now) and read an article about recent innovations in diesel engine technology. The article described new combustion chamber designs, the advantages of using low- to no-sulfer fuels, and multiple-stage exhaust scrubbing technology, all of which combine to reduce the emission of nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and the lung-damaging soot that is trademark of older diesel systems. Honda (surprise, surprise) seems to be making the most impressive strides, having invented an exhaust catalyst system that seems to be as clean as it is practical, yet simpler than other companies' systems.

Actually, the one thing that was more notable to me than this diesel revelation, was the fact that I was reading about it in Scientific American, and not Popular Science magazine. Traditionally, PS would have been the first place to detail major innovations in auto technology. However, PS has also demonstrated a recent trend towards actual, buyable car tech as opposed to automotive research efforts... unless, of course, they are particularly sexy ideas like GM's particularly impractical "Skateboard" concept, or flying cars. Given that market research suggests that Americans are not interested in diesels in any way, shape, or form, clearly, diesel research doesn't cut it with the PS editors. SA, on the other hand, couldn't care less how popular an idea is... they are interested in science, just science. I guess I can expect Popular Science to finally discuss the new diesels, once they've been installed into a Mustang that still performs as well as on an internal combustion engine, but gets twice the mileage (because "twice the mileage" or its corollary "half the gas" are particularly sexy headlines).

Could these two items someday combine? I don't see why not. We've seen examples of cars that run exclusively on electric motors, and those motors would be charged by combustion engines that generate only electric power, not drive power. Such a combustion engine can be much smaller than a drive-powering engine, because it only runs a generator, and it is more efficient because it only has to run at one speed, its most efficient setting. A small and highly efficient diesel engine, generating electricity for an electric motor (or maybe four motors, one for each wheel, which has been shown to be even more efficient), could make for a very good over-100MPG vehicle.

Of course, it still has to be practical for mass-production, which is the hard part. But if mass-production can be cracked, there may also turn out to be a way to mass-produce components that can be retrofit into existing vehicles, too. As it historically takes about 20 years for old car technology to be retired and replaced by the new, a retrofit package that could be applied to existing vehicles could result in major decreases in auto pollution now, and not sometime after 2030.

In fact, by 2010, my car will be 10 years old and past warranty, and I'd be first in line to retrofit a hybrid power plant into my ride. Especially if it means contributing to less pollution, preserving my old car, and saving me money in gas.