The Week From Hell

Is now the winter of our discontent? Is it the best of times and the worst of times? Is the end nigh? Don't listen to the literary alarmists, it's not the end of days, just time to watch text go from page to screen. Time catch up on the state of technology after the Week From Hell Literary agent and blogger Nathan Bransford summed it all up for us as the week everything in publishing changed and stayed the same. He also unfortunately called dibs on all future puns on the Plastic Logic "Que" eReader, so I'll have to throw away that limerick I wrote. Ah well. NPR's "All Tech Considered" considered the eBook today. Robert Seigel described them (quite accurately, I think) as something that looks like "an etch-a-sketch for adults". The story is a thoughtful and thorough State of the Tech piece that I admired enough to repost in case you missed it. Unfortunately, the NPR media player cuts the story and the interview afterward with tech journalist Omar Gallaga. It's interesting to note Gallaga's summary that most eReader buyers are older "voracious" readers, which tips the "It will take a generational change" argument on it's ear. I'll see if I can track down those statistics.