I've been reading Kurzeil's books for a few years now. As a futurologist, his views fascinate me and he's often decades ahead of his time; something like a modern-day Nostrodamus.
The announcement that he's created Blio, a new eBook ready that maintains the format of the original, baffled me at first. What is a man so renowned for his views on technology (and even spirituality) doing dipping his toes in the muddy waters of paperback replacement? Well, it turns out that Ray has a lot of business dealings, such as FatKat investment software and Kurzweil Music Systems.
With the understanding that he's been something of an entrepeneur for a while now, I looked into Blio and what the intentions are. Check out the video below to hear from the man himself (skip to 2:50 for the interesting stuff):
So, what's the Blio system offering?
eBook readers are nothing new - so why is this special. Well, as Aaron Saenz in his Singularity Hub article puts it: "Integrating the ancillary media into the book itself is an amazing and necessary step". This really is the key. Imagine if the books you used at school had in-build video files, interactive quizzes to test and help you learn, and in-built audio. This could radically change the way books are used to learn. I've tried a number of digital book readers, and none has lasted with me for any length of time. There's something cold, and formulaic about it. It may be because I'm the last generation to grow up without eBooks being there when I was born, and thus I'm used to books as we know them. But I do think the Blio has the chance to be something unique and thus it may well succeed.
The announcement that he's created Blio, a new eBook ready that maintains the format of the original, baffled me at first. What is a man so renowned for his views on technology (and even spirituality) doing dipping his toes in the muddy waters of paperback replacement? Well, it turns out that Ray has a lot of business dealings, such as FatKat investment software and Kurzweil Music Systems.
With the understanding that he's been something of an entrepeneur for a while now, I looked into Blio and what the intentions are. Check out the video below to hear from the man himself (skip to 2:50 for the interesting stuff):
So, what's the Blio system offering?
- Preserved book formatting
- Incorporated animation
- High quality text-to-speech
- Synchronized audio with the printed pages
- Interactivity with the reader (see 4:15)
eBook readers are nothing new - so why is this special. Well, as Aaron Saenz in his Singularity Hub article puts it: "Integrating the ancillary media into the book itself is an amazing and necessary step". This really is the key. Imagine if the books you used at school had in-build video files, interactive quizzes to test and help you learn, and in-built audio. This could radically change the way books are used to learn. I've tried a number of digital book readers, and none has lasted with me for any length of time. There's something cold, and formulaic about it. It may be because I'm the last generation to grow up without eBooks being there when I was born, and thus I'm used to books as we know them. But I do think the Blio has the chance to be something unique and thus it may well succeed.
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