by Roopinder Singh

LIFE, the iconic American magazine, gained a new life after over 1,860 issues, covering the years 1936 to 1972, were digitised and put online. Computers and the Internet together have created an atmosphere where we expect knowledge and entertainment at our fingertips, not by turning pages, but by tapping at the keyboard. Increasingly, we see that this trend is impacting something that we have taken for granted for centuries – books, the traditional repositories of wisdom, and more.

Books … we love the content, the feel of the paper they are printed on, what they convey to us and how they enrich us. Yet, books in classical form have limitations imposed by the very factors that make them so alluring – they can get damaged, cost money to print and distribute and have to be physically taken from one person to another, etc.

A page grab of the Google Books home page

E-books, or electronic books, promise to transform the content into bits and bytes that can be freely transmitted to all the corners of the connected earth, and beyond, for that matter. You can read what you want, when you want to, and where, provided you have an e-book reader, computer or even a mobile phone handy. A universal e-book library seems within reach.

The Internet giant Google has been in news recently because it is engaged in litigation defending its right to digitise books, following an agreement it penned in 2004 with a number of top university libraries to scan their collections. Over one crore books have been scanned by Google Books and this has made it the owner of the largest collection of titles in an electronic format.

This very ownership has raised the hackles of communities that are defending the rights of authors and copyright holders, as a result of which Google has given full access only to those books whose copyright has expired, or those whose copyright it has bought.

Many books are out of print, but have valid copyrights, which are sometimes difficult to establish. Such books are called “orphans”. Google has made an agreement through which Book Search users can read, download and print out-of-copyright books, freely.

Those books that aren’t actively being published or sold, but are within the copyright period, would, under the latest agreement, be digitised and become available online for preview and purchase.

The income would be shared between various parties. Right now, Google has almost come out of a long and complicated legal battle. Its doggedness is about to pay it rich dividends, since no one can compare with Google Books in the sheer number of titles that they have online, whether in limited view or otherwise.

However, Google is not the first mover in this field, nor is it the only player. Long before Google came up with the idea, other digitisation endeavours were underway, including the Library of Congress’s American Memory project, Project Gutenberg, the Million Book Project and the Universal Library.

Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitise and archive cultural works and to “encourage the creation and distribution of e-books.” It was started by Michael S. Hart in 1971 and is considered the oldest digital library. Effort is made to provide these texts in standard, long-lasting, open formats that can be used on almost any device – computer, Kindle, Sony Reader, or iPhone. Although pioneering, the project has just over 30,000 free e-books to read.

Microsoft has been an also-ran in this endeavour. It started Live Search Books, a project similar to Google Books, in late 2006, but abandoned it in May 2008. All was not lost, since the scanned books are now available on Internet Archive, a non-profit organisation.

The Europeans digitised over 30 lakh objects, including video, photos, paintings, audio, maps, manuscripts, printed books, and newspapers from the past 2,000 years of European history from over 1,000 archives in the European Union. The French National Library’s Gallica links to about eight lakh digitised books, newspapers, manuscripts, maps and drawings, etc.

Lakhs of books to read, and how many readers? Well, lakhs, even crores. Just a day before this article was written, Project Guttenberg showed that 1,01,122 books were downloaded. And the most popular authors? No surprise there: In the last month, the top five downloads were Charles Dickens (48,591), Mark Twain (40,703), Jane Austen (30,929), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, (29,907) and William Shakespeare (28,163). Google, after digitising the Life magazine, has added many others to it its repertoire, and it is a pleasure to browse through them.

Amazon’s Kindle2 has triggered new interest in e-books and it has competitors like Sony nipping at its heels. What exactly is Kindle? Well, this e-book reader is lighter than an average paperback, while being as thin as a magazine. A wireless network connects it in over 100 countries. It can store over a thousand books and the new text-to-speech features reads out to you. As of now, 2,30,000 books and many newspapers and magazines are available. Incidentally, Kindle is also a software program that allows you to download book on to your computers or mobile phones.

Sony has its own readers which compete with Kindle. Sony has a good library also. Its readers have some special features that make them attractive. Other competitors include the iLiad, the Cybook Gen3, the Barnes & Noble nook and the Readius device from Polymer Vision.

Many people use personal digital assistants like Palm TX for downloading and reading e-books, but the main distinction that e-books have is the e-ink screen, a kind of electronic paper based on research started at the MIT Media Lab. The ultra-low power consumption screen is black and white and you can read without glare, even in bright sunlight. The image is stable, unlike computer or phone screens, it does not need to be refreshed constantly. It reflects ambient light rather than emitting its own light. Thus, it is much superior to other displays.

As we see a profusion of e-books and readers, the manufacturers will have to move towards universalisation of standards in technology and in ensuring that copyright violations do not take place. The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown’s latest book, can be downloaded free and publishers are up in arms against the distribution of pirated books through the Net.

This, however, is an old battle, albeit in a new form. Pirated editions of the book are available in Mumbai, Delhi and Chandigarh off the roadside stalls, in the conventional form. Technology is a tool, which can be used positively, or negatively.

As we move towards making books more accessible through digitisation, the idea of a universal library does not seem so utopian. The sheer reach of the electronic medium is staggering, and the written word continues to carry weight, whether it is printed on paper or read on screen.

This article was printed in The Tribune on November 27, 2009

Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World

By Don Tapscott.

Tata McGraw-Hill. Pages 368. Rs 595.

Review by Roopinder Singh

Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World

JUST replace ‘our’ in the headline with ‘my’ and you will have every parent agreeing to your statement, even as they despair about the fragmented attention spans, horrible music that they listen to and the inordinate time that they spend on digital devices—net books, cell phones, play stations and computers—that seem to become extra digits on their fingers.

Elders complain that teenagers and children are easily distracted, self-obsessed and have no work ethics and discipline. Don Tapscott, a Canadian who wrote Growing Up Digital in 1996, is a chronicler of the world of digitisation with many previously well-received works. This book is written by someone passionate about both the digital world and its users.

A sympathetic elder who seeks to understand the world evolving around him, Tapscott was given insights by his children, Alex and Niki, much as parents find their children teaching them how to use the latest gadget. Now, it so happens that this overturns the instruction model that was thought to be eternal—of elders passing on knowledge to the younger generations.

The Wellington Girls School in New Zealand acquired computers, but the teachers did not know how to use them—a familiar scenario. In 1990s, Margaret McLeod became principal and formed a team of Tech Angles, students who taught the teachers computer basics. It became a ‘revolutionary’ approach to education because it acknowledged that the kids were authorities in this particular field. For some time the role reversal worked, but teachers resented the erosion of their authority, and soon the system went back to normal, ‘broadcast’ model of teaching.

But broadcasting is so yesteryear. Anyone who used the Net realises that linear progression is antediluvian in the hyperlinked world of today. Interactivity is the key and the Net Generation is an expert at using it far beyond what the originators of the Internet envisaged, so much so that the Net itself has now evolved to Net 2.

As the author says: “Sure, you’re as cyber-sophisticated as the next person … . But young people have a natural affinity for technology that seems uncanny. They instinctively turn first to the Net to communicate, understand, learn, find and do many things.”

A $4-million study that Tapscott led and uses often in the book found surprising similarities among the 7,685 Net Geners in the 12 countries they studied. When we were introduced to the Net, we found it a remarkable medium to send across information across the world. Today, the study has found that the Net Geners are truly trans-national, they seek linkages, they work in partnerships.

As employees, the Net Geners are quick adapters, think out of the box but are easily bored. They expect work to be ‘fun’— can you imagine! So taping them requires a totally different approach—they want instant appraisals of their work, not yearly ones, they want everything customised and they value transparency.

Net Geners are essentially collaborators, and their games and skill sets tell them that there are many solutions to a problem and they get results faster if you work with others. They are making corporations to rethink their management models and even work cultures, and those that do so benefit handsomely

Tapscott examines how family dynamics have changed now, and again, the old orderly world of authority flowing from the top has been turned upside down. Not that Net Geners want to be totally free, they actually want love, affection and even limits, but also to have their say in family affairs.

The picture that Tapscott paints is not all rosy. He takes a sharp look at how the Net Geners reveal too much of their lives online, oblivious of the impact such indiscretions will have at a later stage. There have been many cases of employers rejecting potential employees after checking out their profile on social networks like Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, etc. He is also concerned about the inadequacy of the education system worldwide to use the Net and thus enrich student’s lives.

Net Geners’ voices figure prominently and give an interactive subtext. As expected in this fast evolving world, Tapscott’s latest book needs an update, since it talks of Candidate Barack Obama and so on. Well, he has a website dedicated to it. There is also a blog—the writer practices what he preaches, and those who read his book will find many echoes of their experiences and perceptions in what he and thousands who corroborated (most electronically through Facebook, online questionnaires etc.) in the writing of the book.

The book review was published in The Tribune on Sunday, October 11, 2009

As friends are aware, the cyber world continues to be an enduring passion. US President Barak Obama’s election was the coming of age of the Internet in the American electoral process and he is certainly the most tech-savvy head of state the US has ever had. I wrote  Obama enters cyber world, which was published in The Tribune on January 29, 2009. Please click here to read the article. Coincidently, exactly a month before that, I has written about serious security concerns for the Government of India and privacy issues for Net users. This article, Cyber security should safeguard privacy, was published in The Tribune on December 29, 2008. Please click here to read the article.

A new MMS scandal has erupted in Noida, and a girl’s intimate moments have become public, thanks to an estranged lover, who posted them on the Net. The Internet is a tool, and it is also being increasingly used for criminal activities. While on the one hand, the nation should be justifiably be proud of having an IT law and upgrading it, unfortunately the Bill was not even discussed when it was presented to Parliament, as has been the fate of most of the bills in the 14^th Lok Sabha, which just finished its term. Please click here to read my article on strengthening the IT law.

The most common complaint of Internet users in India is that their broadband connection is not delivering what was promised to them. Finally there is some hope for all of us, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has given guidelines to ensure that ISPs and telecom operators will provide the minimum required broadband speed to their customers. Please click here to read my article.

We all know that what we post on the Internet is not private. We post it to share information with others. We all had no idea about who Ms Ashley Alexandra Dupre was, but now the lady who brought down the New York Governor, Mr Eliot Spitzer, is well-known because of the information that she posted on the social networking sites MySpace and Facebook. Please click here to read what happens when the media gets access to your profiles.

IT is more about innovation, rather than mergers and acquisitions. I felt so strongly about this shibboleth that an article came out of Microsoft’s recent aggressive bid for Yahoo!

Microsoft and Yahoo! both reigned supreme because they were built around innovative ideas. Google has seized the initiative now and who knows what the future will bring. My article was printed in The Tribune on the OpEd page today. Please click here to read Trying to deal with future.

An unfortunate fallout of globalisation and the life in the fast lane has been the strain that family life has come under in the recent past. Children are the most vulnerable members of our society and become the victims of a lifestyle that sacrifices the time parents spend with them.

My article, published on the OpEd page of The Tribune today, was prompted by the death of Adnan Patrawala, a teenaged boy who lived in Mumbai…please click here to read the article.

Have you noticed how today’s mobile phone has evolved into a handheld computer? Please click here to read an article I wrote on this, which was published in the Science and Technology page of The Tribune on May 25, 2007

Net result

Utility, not novelty, helping Internet growth
by Roopinder Singh

MORE Indians are accessing the Internet than ever before, but the nation is way down the list in the number of users internationally. The US is the leader by far, followed by China, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, Korea. India is now the ninth in terms of overall online population internationally, according to a survey by comScore World Metrix, a US-based company that compiles data on the Internet and its users’ behaviour. Click here to read more