If Apple is to stay at the head of the pack, then the answer is to combine the wireless iPod, the vPod, and the iPhone into one ideal pod. In addition to having access to all your music, video and photos, you can surf the web, take movies and pictures, play video games, talk on the phone, watch films in letterbox format, and read various kinds of books - anything from novels, to newspapers, to websites, to manga or comics. IPod's signature scroll wheel would work wonderfully with text, paging through horizontally and preserving some semblance of a coherent page or panel, like the International Herald Tribune does on its elegant website. It could have a little stylus tucked away like tweezers in a Swiss Army knife, and a virtual keyboard that projects on surfaces. A month ago, I wrote about the need for a "paperback ebook" - a pan-media everything-pod, something that does for portable media what paperbacks did for books. Perhaps Apple will be the first to venture such a device.

Laptops are on a collision course with cell phones. Eventually they will converge in a single ideal device. Specialized devices like snapshot digital cameras, iPods, Game Boys, and ebook readers are exciting while they are relatively new, but they are ultimately impractical. Nobody wants a device that just does one thing. Everyday, you have to pack your pockets with various gadgets - you begin to feel like a slave to the so-called convenience of these things. Phones and computers, on the other hand, are indispensable, and can theoretically encompass all of these specialized devices. So it seems like just a matter of time until everything is packed into one ideal pod.

Posted by ben vershbow at 05:42 PM | Comments (1)
tags: Microlit , The Ideal Device?

polish poet pens for phone   03.21.2005, 2:27 PM

The Digital Museum of Modern Art, a virtual exhibition space, is featuring "Czolgaj Sie" ("Crawl"), verses by Polish poet Marcin Swietlicki, illustrated by fellow countryman Cezary Ostrowski. The poem is exhibited on the museum's website, and has also been optimized for reading on a mobile phone.

I'm not crazy about the poem, but it's an intriguing experiment. Is there a Flash plugin for phones so one can view dynamic text (like this)?

(via textually)

Posted by ben vershbow at 02:27 PM | Comments (0)
tags: Microlit

novels on your phone   03.19.2005, 8:31 AM

There was a great AP article yesterday on the recent boom in cell phone novels and serials in Japan. The top and bottom images here are pulled from "Bunko Yomihodai," or "All You Can Read Paperbacks" - a popular microlit site with over 50,000 subscribers, offering 150 titles written or adapted specially for reading on phones.

"In the latest versions, cell-phone novels are downloaded in short installments and run on handsets as Java-based applications. You're free to browse as though you're in a bookstore, whether you're at home, in your office or on a commuter train. A whole library can be tucked away in your cell phone — a gadget you carry around anyway."

True. Right now, the cell phone is the ultimate indispensable gadget. It's with us practically all the time. No wonder it's the first place that electronic books are gaining a foothold.

And the content is varied...

"Surprisingly, people are using cell-phone books to catch up on classics they never finished reading. And people are perusing sex manuals and other books they're too embarrassed to be caught reading or buying. More common is keeping an electronic dictionary in your phone in case a need arises."

Microlit hasn't really taken off here in the States, though there are a few signs that suggest a gradual movement in this direction. There was a bit of buzz about a month ago when Random House acquired a significant minority stake in wireless applications developer VOCEL. And more people seem to be using their phones and PDAs for reading - everything from websurfing, to RSS feeds, to downloaded books (or even raw text files of public domain literature - I tried this on my iPod with this fun hack). But we have yet to see any kind of full-blown lit phenomenon.

The breakthrough work in Japan was a serial called "Deep Love," the story of a teenage prostitute in Tokyo. It became so popular that it was published as an actual book, and spun off into a TV series, a manga (comics), and a movie. Now the author, named simply Yoshi, is trying his hand at thrillers. From the article:

"Another work by Yoshi, a horror mystery, has a cell-phone Web link that readers click. One pulls up a video clip of a bleeding face; another shows a letter that tells people to go on living.

"'It's like playing live music at a club,'" he said. 'You know right away if the audience isn't responding, and you can change what you're doing right then and there.'"

Remember that Dickens often wrote in this way. Perhaps we are witnessing the return of serialized novels.

Posted by ben vershbow at 08:31 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
tags: Microlit

l.i. library lends ipods   03.03.2005, 5:01 PM

Boing Boing points to a library in Long Island that has recently started lending mp3 audio books on iPod shuffles, even throwing in casette adapters and FM transmitters for listening in the car. The library claims that they are saving a lot of money in the long run, since mp3 audio books cost significantly less than books on cd.

>>Wired story

Posted by ben vershbow at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
tags: Libraries, Search and the Web , Microlit

paperback ebook   02.23.2005, 9:51 AM

Booktopia, a Korean ebook developer, is introducing a 29-title series for mobile users based on popular movie scenarios (article), including the recent Cannes hit Old Boy (thanks, textually.org). The books act as supplements to the films, with omitted material and glimpses behind-the-scenes, sort of like special features on a DVD (though it appears that they will be text-only). They also seem to riff on that weird tie-in genre of books adapted from the screen (I've always wondered who reads those books..).

So are phones the electronic book in embryo? If you are looking for innovation in form, what's happening on cell phones and mobile devices is far more interesting than what you'll find in the area of conventional "ebooks," which generally are the kind of pdf nightmare Dan decribes in his post yesterday. But so far, these kinds of mobile books, or mbooks, are to literature what ring tones are to music. The cell phone has become a kind of cud for the distracted brain to chew - I can't count how many people I see on the subway or waiting in lines simply fiddling with their phone settings. What seems to be developing on cell phones is a new kind of ephemera descended from the pamphlet, flyer, or broadsheet, which will be tightly interwoven with advertising (these Korean movie tie-ins do leg work for the actual films, just as the new 24 spinoff offered on Verizon plugs the Fox television series). But what about actual books? Serious reading to counterbalance all the fluff. Portable devices like phones and palm pilots lend themselves to the serial model. Their diminutive size makes them better suited to smaller chunks of material, and their access to networks allows them to constantly grab new chunks. But I don't see why quality has to be sacrificed. Perhaps, with time, the tradition of serialized narrative will be reinvented in meaningful ways. Many of Dickens's novels were published and written serially, and he was able to modulate the course of his writing according to reader response and sales. Digital content delivery over cell phones and the web could employ the same fluidity, delivering the book as it is becoming, and creating whole communities of readers on the web (see earlier post elegant map hack). An interesting prospect for writers as well as readers.

These literary experiments on the tiny screen are probably not trivial, even though the content may be. They seem to be saying "hurry up" to our more sophisticated but unwieldy reading devices like laptops and tablets. We need a kind of paperback ebook, in between a laptop and a smartphone - cheap and easy to tote. If I can comfortably read on this device in a crowded subway, then we might finally have something as handy as a paper book, conducive to any kind of content, with all the affordances of computers and the web. And ideally... I can write on it with a stylus, or on a keyboard that it projects on a tabletop, and I can dock it at a more powerful workstation in my office. I can plug in headphones or speakers and explore my music library, or surf satellite radio. I can watch a film that I made, or one that I downloaded, or I can flip through my photo album. If I'm lost, I can get a map with pictures of the place I'm trying to find. And at night, I can curl up with it in bed, reading by the light of its built-in candle. I may even have glasses I can plug in and read the book without hands, or look at images in 3-D like on a stereopticon. (Kim, I think I may have my fantasy ebook) Nothing could ever truly replace paper books for me, but a pan-media tablet - an everything device - might just become my everyday companion.

Posted by ben vershbow at 09:51 AM | Comments (2)
tags: Microlit , The Ideal Device? , the_form_of_the_book

big plans for the tiny screen   02.21.2005, 1:33 PM

Late last week, Random House announced it was making the microlit plunge, acquiring a "significant minority stake" in wireless applications developer VOCEL (AP wire story).

Says Random House Ventures president Richard Sarnoff: "You have a whole generation of consumers, perhaps more than a generation, who are never more than 10 feet from their cell phones, including when they shower. Increasingly, cell phones are becoming an appliance for entertainment and education."

But, despite the success of cell phone novels and serials in Japan, South Korea and Germany, Sarnoff insists that tiny screens have a potential for information, but not for narrative. "The screens are inappropriate for that kind of sustained reading. That's a `maybe, someday' discussion. We'll keep an eye on that area, and if something happens ... we'll certainly respond."

So for the time being, Random House will be testing mobile phones for language instruction, test prep, and other informational services.

In a related vein, textually.org, an invaluable resource for the microlit observer, recently posted about Radio Shack's plans to sell stand-alone virtual keyboard units the size of a "small fist." Virtual keyboards project a regular-sized typing area on a flat surface, registering keystrokes via Bluetooth onto a smartphone or personal digital assistant (PDA). VKB, the developer of the technology, recently announced its goal of making the virtual keyboard an embedded feature in mobile devices by next year. Further suggestion that cell phones and laptops are evolving into one another.

Posted by ben vershbow at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)
tags: Microlit , The Ideal Device? , the_form_of_the_book

it's mobisodic   02.15.2005, 7:30 PM

Teaming up with Verizon V Cast, a new spinoff of the popular Fox series 24 is beginning a high profile push into the fledgeling market of serialized mobile video. The show, 24 Conspiracy, will be available to subscribers in 24 sixty-second "mobisodes." This means the entire program is 24 minutes long - not much more than an extended commercial for Fox, and a gimmick for selling more expensive phones. But perhaps this could open the floodgates for longer, more varied programming for mobile users. If HBO wants to stay on the cutting edge, they should probably open up a mobile programming division. How long before John Grisham or Dan Brown writes the first big serial blockbuster for cell phones?

Also, story in today's NY Times..

Posted by ben vershbow at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)
tags: Microlit

incredible shrinking book   02.02.2005, 6:05 PM

A couple morsels today on textually.org lending credence to our theory that cellphones/PDAs are the incubation niche for the eventual widespread adoption of ebooks. One on fashionable new casings Nokia is bringing out for mobile devices (re Kim's leather-bound fantasy ebook). Another on plans by Chinese tech giant Lenovo to embed "mobile book software technology" into phones, allowing users to read fully illustrated books, as well as watch movies, listen to audio, play video games, and browse periodicals. Mobile phones are emerging, at least in China, as the ultimate mass-consumer media processor - affordable and eminently portable. And each year, notebook computers become lighter, sleeker, and easier to tote around. Are they just shrinking into palm pilots? How much serious work can you get done on a palm pilot?

Posted by ben vershbow at 06:05 PM | Comments (3)
tags: Microlit , The Ideal Device?

email mystery novel and remix reading   01.23.2005, 9:01 PM

Just back from the wonderful Decade of Web Design conference in Amsterdam - more to come on that soon. Catching up now on reading and turned up two interesting links on Boing Boing... First is a mystery novel that you read in email installments over a 3-week period. It's not free - costs $7.49 - but I figured I'd give it a try. I should receive the first part tomorrow.

The other thing is an exciting collaborative writing project in Reading, UK. From their site:

"Remix Reading is an artistic project based in Reading, UK. It's aim is to get artists (working with music, video, images and text) to come together and share their work, be inspired by each others' work, and ultimately to create "remixes". All material on the web site is released under a Creative Commons license, which allows you to customise your copyright so others can use, copy, and share your work as you choose."

Posted by ben vershbow at 09:01 PM | Comments (0)
tags: Microlit , Remix

city chromosomes - an sms chronicle   12.20.2004, 1:29 PM

Found this on textually.org. The City Chromosomes project is a sort of scrapbook of the city of Antwerp made entirely from text messages beamed in from mobile phones. Further evidence of the new genres emerging from this technology. An english version has just been published under a Creative Commons license.

Also take a look at this sister project, CityPoems, from Leeds. Posts from the Leeds project are interspersed through the english version of "Chromosomes."

From the introduction to "City Chromosomes":

"The city of Antwerp is full of writers. And many of these writers describe their city, often in splendid stories, novels and poems that gain a wide readership. In this way, they determine a large part of our image of the city. But what about the people who only readers, or even those who do not care for reading, what do they think of the city? And would it not be possible to persuade them to write this down?

"This was the point of departure for the City Chromosomes project. We got the idea of gathering sms messages. Nearly everybody has a mobile phone. Everybody has a moment to spare to type in a message. This was the ideal way to make the project accessible to everybody. The people of Antwerp, and anyone else with something to say about city, could submit their impressions anonymously. We established 25 text sites across the city, and the contributors could indicate with a simple code to which part of the city their message applied. By means of posters, flyers and ads, we asked people for their impressions. The only restriction: the messages should not be longer than 160 characters."

Posted by ben vershbow at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)
tags: Microlit , SMS , Social Software , antwerp , cellphone , experiment , locative , mobile , text_messaging , the_networked_book , txt , ubiquitous_computing

microlit looms large   12.08.2004, 8:28 AM

We've been hearing more and more about the phenomenon of books downloaded to a cell phone screen, so much so that even the mainstream press has been talking about a resurgence of e-books - a topic they almost entirely dropped after the efforts of Microsoft and Gemstar failed to take off a couple years back. And people are doing more than simply reading books on their phones - they can surf the web, watch soap operas and, of course, play video games as they throttle through the subway or break for lunch.

Perhaps most interesting is that while many cell phone readers are downloading conventional print texts - novels, popular nonfiction etc. - there are many more, especially in Asia, who are downloading literature that is being written exclusively for this new medium, particularly serialized novels. These stories are intended for bite-sized consumption, peppered throughout the day, week or month. And they often employ the new technology as literary device - SMS romances, mysteries spun from a single errant text message. Once again, the medium proves to be the message..

It's hard to tell where this is going, but it's certainly more interesting than the prefab model promoted in the first generation of e-books. There is something totally original, totally native, about this new wave of digital reading.

Take a look at this piece from yesterday's New York Times...

Posted by ben vershbow at 08:28 AM | Comments (1)
tags: Microlit , SMS , cellphone , e-publishing , ebook , ebooks , keitai , publishing , reading , social_software , technology