This document summarizes the history of reading and the development of technology related to reading over thousands of years. It touches on the evolution of written languages from Sumerian logographs to the Greek alphabet. It then focuses on the development of e-readers and digital reading technologies from the 1970s to present day. It raises issues about how technology is changing reading behaviors and the publishing industry. The document advocates that while technology changes how we read, the act of reading and culture will continue to exist in new forms.

1. The extroverted
reader 2.0
Mathias Klang @klang67

2. Sumerian Logographs
(c.a 4000bc)

3. “fndtlvsnvrydctngvrytmsmbdytrnsn
thstgntththrrmndrdbk”
Phoenician alphabet only consonants (2000 BC).

4. “ifindtelevisionveryeducatingeverytime
somebodyturnsonthesetigointotheothe
rroomandreadabook” Greeks added vowels (1000 BC)

5. “ifindtelevisionveryeducating.everytim
esomebodyturnsontheset,igointotheot
herroomandreadabook.”
Aristophanes’ plays have punctuation (200 BC)

6. “Ifindtelevisionveryeducating.Everytim
esomebodyturnsontheset,Igointotheot
herroomandreadabook.” case appears c:a 700 AD
Lower

7. Spaces between
appear about 900 AD
“I find television very educating. Every time
somebody turns on the set, I go into the
other room and read a book.”

8. The silent voids

9. An unchanging
millennium

11. Screens, battery life, weight,
1970s Xerox develops e-paper

12. 1993 2004 2010
1999 2002 2007 2009 2011

13. Only technology
(spot the ethical dilemma?)

14. Control in
digital world
Law
Contextual &
programmed social
rules
Architecture
Control in
analogue world

15. What do we own?

16. Pushing connectivity

17. Blogger 1999
Google 1999
End of communications monopoly

18. Social reading

19. To be social is to share…

20. The problem with
stimuli

21. What
technology
wants

22. Pinch & swipe

23. if you're not
paying for
something,
you're not the
customer;
you're the
product being
sold

24. What do the people who control what
we can do, think?

25. Radical Transparency: A manifesto of militant nudists?

26. A Squirrel Dying In
Your Front Yard May
Be More Relevant To
Your Interests Right
Now Than People
Dying In Africa
Mark Zuckerberg

27. The bling factor

28. “My fear is that these
technologies are
infantilising the brain
into the state of small
children who are
attracted by buzzing
noises and bright
lights, who have a
small attention span
and who live for the
moment.”
Prof. Susan Greenfield

29. Back to books:
the e-reader

30. Cloudreading: Readability & Evernote… (&
books)

31. Wonderful!!! But…

32. Life without serendipity?

33. The end of Swedish?

34. What about Book design?
Essay: Craig Mod - Hack the Cover
http://craigmod.com/journal/hack_the_cover/

38. Changing the marketplace

40. More information

41. User generated content

42. Personal data & walled gardens

43. Pricing models & purpose of
copyright

44. Alternative marketplaces

47. Endless personal library

48. The social reader: can the infinite be shared?

49. Changing the writer

51. The Gutenberg Parenthesis

53. The conservative illusion

54. Hello to
Jason Isaacs
"I have never renounced the old ways.” Lucius Malfoy

55. The Semmelweis reflex

56. There is no book… there are still
readers

57. Culture is inevitable,
copyright is not

58. THANKS!

59. Mathias Klang
klang@ituniv.se or @klang67
www.digital-rights.net
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