Over the years, many doomsayers have pronounced the end of books whether it was through T.V, video or the Internet. Today, the humble but long lasting book is supposedly under attack from a new pretender - the eBook.
Yawn, been there, done that, bought the T-Shirt.
Whilst eBooks have their place they are no match for the tactile experience and versatility of the paperback. However, it does seem to be true that our use of the internet is changing our behaviour, as highlighted in the following Colbert interview with Nick Carr [no longer available]
One particular phrase struck me, the throwaway line of "have you ever tried pushing parts of the book" as though it was a browser. I had to respond with a video of my own.
By the way, Manolis (the designer of the bLink interactive book) is looking for funding just in case any Angel out there wants to extend their portfolio into the digital / physical world.
-- Update 4th July 2014
Despite the often predicted death of books, guess what ... books are doing fine.
Also, these days people are becoming far more interested in the whole physical / digital interaction of systems. I've been particularly interested in Hiroshi Ishii's work on tangible bits / radical atoms.
One example that I discussed with Manolis (mentioned in the video) was the use of electroluminescence in a two way process to make libraries quickly searchable i.e. search for a term, all the books with that term glow back at you. Anyway, interesting times ahead.