"Rumors of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated!"...The Written Word

I have been discussing in numerous previous posts the new technologies causing the current upheaval in the publishing industry and it's old business model. Along with this comes the natural question of the fate of the written word on good old paper.

Here is an insightful article by Kelly Piercy on the wondrous written word:

"I am blind. I manage. I have a plethora of technologies to assist me in my daily interaction with the world. My computer recognizes text and reads to me. I get books on tape free from the Library of Congress through my local library. I can download books from the net. I can have others read to me at stores and restaurants. I have portable digital readers that read me human recorded books and books read by a rather flat mechanical voice. I have a portable bar code reader that scans labels and tells me what the item is. New technologies are developing that will allow me to use a cell phone to take a picture of a sign or menu, etc. and tell me what it says.

What has the greatest cost of losing my sight been? The simple act of sitting down with a book and losing myself in it."...Read more at http://alturl.com/tncy