Plastic Logic

Just saw some info on this new e-paper product from Plastic Logic.  This is good; a step in the right direction.  It seems like it has been years that people have been talking about e-paper and e-book readers, and there are several out there, but they are pricey and still don't seem to have great usability.  I'm going to keep an eye on this one (still some glitches apparent in the presentation in that company link).  If someone comes up with a good reader, I'll definitely look into buying on.  I do still love the physicalness of a real book, but this looks like a great way to carry around several, and to access other document types as well.

Here's some more video of the device at the DEMO convention earlier this week:

(remember to buy Brian's products from Zazzle!)

Current and recent inputs: books

Thought I'd go over some recent things I'm reading:

Books:

• The Fourth Bear is the second book in the "Nursery Crimes" series (and I'm currently reading it). It is good literary based humor about a detective agency that investigates crimes by nursery rhyme characters. So far it seems a little more busy and chaotic than its predecessor, The Big Over Easy (about Humpty Dumpty's murder).
• The Surrogates is an interesting graphic novel set 50 years in the future, where most people stay home and conduct their life through a robotic 'avatar' (like Second Life in a physical world). The main plot is a pretty simple detective story, but the book does a good job fleshing out the social and judicial aspects of a Surrogates based world.
• The Futurist is about a popular futurist that "comes clean" about how his work is all a guessing game, and it plunges him into turmoil and adventure. It's definitely not one of the best books I've read, but it provides some thinking material.
• Snow Crash is a classic cyberpunk sci-fi book that introduced a lot of concepts (like avatars, Second Life and The Surrogates owes it for this). While in the virtual world, hackers are getting infected with the Snow Crash virus, turning them into babbling fools or comatose victims. This is a rich and creative vision of the future, and I really enjoyed the out of the box portrayal.
  

Books and other links

Hi,
I'm giving an online site called LibraryThing a try. It is essentially a tag-based online cataloging tool for your books. You can then share links, review, get recommendations, and so forth. I've been plugging in my books (far from over) before realizing there is a 200 book limit for free accounts. If I like it enough, the lifetime membership only costs 25 bucks, so that's a pretty good deal. You can find my library by following this link.


Other stories:

• The big story today is Anna Nicole Smith's death, I guess. It's sad, but I'm not quite sure if I'm watching a soap opera or not at this point.
• The CSPI picks the best and worst fast foods. Bad news, Burger King. Not only is your mascot creepy, your food is dangerous too.
• Now that the Super Bowl is over, what happens to all those losing team championship shirts and hats? I've actually wondered about this in the past, so I was pleased to run across this article about it.
• And finally, for you deep thinkers, the 11 most important philosophical questions. Why eleven? Good question... think on that.