The good thing about the U1 product is its potential to both adapt and provide flexible applications.

Another interesting concept is the 2 screen e-Book. I always wondered how writing an e-Book with links would work. Cynics suggest that it could limit the writing capability as the tapestry or mental images provided by great text will be compromised by a simple link. My view is that there is room for those that want an ascetic feel of a book and / or creative writing.

Take a look at the following. I wonder how many actual e-Books with interactivity are actually available yet?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Following on from my recent article, entitled: The future of News services where I discussed the potential of advertising and subscription funding journalism rather than making exclusive content chargeable, I came across this wonderful R&D work being performed by Bonnier and Berg (Designers and practitioners in electronic and mechanical engineering, industrial design, 3D, animation, videography, visualisation, data-mining, coding and technical development).

From a technical and commercial perspective:

1. The Radial menus provide a very innovative and intuitive way of navigation.
2. I like the idea of considering how the device should behave during idle time.
3. I guess we are so used to a magazine format it makes sense to innovate on a trusted layout.

There are of course the protagonists who will suggest that no one can beat the ascetic feel of paper. I read once that original typed manuscriupts could show the intensity of the writers thoughts as he/she banged away at their mechanical type-writers! It has also been suggested that hyper-linking contributes to laziness on the part of the writer and reader as they can simply place a reference to a location rather than use exqusite terms and phrases.

What devices of this type offer is the greater availability of knowledge. If you wish to enjoy a good book by the fireplace – that is fine too.
What will be great for us humans is the ability to develop a new genre of reading with interactivity and dynamic information facilitating the development of more imaginative/ inference based ideas.

I can see this as product a reality within the next few years. Interestingly, with Apple rumoured to bring out a larger tablet / i-phone device in Jauary 2010, could this help our economies to recover and provide greater content to enrich our souls and promote world harmony? The latter assumes that a more educated world leads to peace.

It will certainly bring about the potential for

1. A more comprehensive eBook
2. New field based applications
3. Collaborative working (inc: content sharing)
4. Greener apps – reducing paper
5. Colour for a A new type of interactive experience for content / articles/ ebooks.

If the latter is true, have publishers already started to develop books with on-line links to reliable references?

But what about basic issues such as:

• Accessibility
• Battery life
• Standards
• Interoperability both in terms of applications and different hardware (will there be a return to IBM VS APPLE)
• Secure information &
• Ensuring you don’t get mugged!

Could it become an interface for a surface computer? Now that would be something!