Cesar Torres's Blog, page 19
July 1, 2010
Content's Future: Not Science Fiction
What's in a book? Language, ideas, narrative? Is that inherent to the binding and to the paper? No.
What's in a musical recording? The experience of the music? Does it matter if it's on vinyl or MP3? No, it doesn't. Not when it really comes down to it. The audiophile gentleman in the back of the room — please sit down.
Same with movies. Do you really care if the movie you see lives on DVD or if it streams into your house or your iPad?
So here we have it. The day in which content lives not just i...
June 29, 2010
June 16, 2010
Kevin Rose: You Know, Wouldn't It Be Cool If…?
In the world of interaction design and also in the world of software development, it can be a dreaded phrase.
Wouldn't it be cool…?
Features added for the sake of being cool features can make a system or an application indeed cool, but often useless. After all, it's cool that an e-book can have color, but can we determine if it's useful?
Digg creator Kevin Rose has just posted a really neat video begging the Bezos and the Jobs of the world to incorporate certain features into ebooks. I first...
The Act of Reading in the 21st Century
The 21st century is an age of literacy. As computer and Internet technologies continue to grow, more of our daily lives are dependent on being able to read to interface with these systems. During this time of change, technology is also facilitating the migration of paper-based records into digital storage and implementation. If we are implementeing more technology into the reading of text, it is worthwhile to investigate ideas about the act of reading itself, and how reading works on a...
June 15, 2010
Summer Hours and New Blog Categories
How can I tell you the story of what happened to me in that wide space between the blizzards of winter and the storms of spring? We can say this: I was once a boy who worked hard at feeling balanced, at finding the fulcrum in life. I slept regular hours, I worked hard during the day, I exercised every day and I enjoyed going out at night. I also felt like balancing work, graduate school and an the infancy of a writing career were something I could tackle. Fellow colleagues and friends had...
June 8, 2010
Jaysus! Somehow I did it.
I finished an arduous, burnout-inducing, but rewarding school year. DISHES ARE DONE, MAN.
Coming up: Some true, time off. I'll be back the week of June 22. This summer I'll be blogging word counts on the novel I have neglected, and I'll be expanding this here blog to include new posts on usability, digital reading experiences and elements of cognitive science related to books and reading.
Like Omar Little would say, "Indeed."
DISHES ARE DONE, MAN!
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May 25, 2010
May 21, 2010
Forgive Me for a Few Days
I like to tend well to this blog.
And I apologize for the gap in posts lately. I'm at the end of my quarter at school, and I've got two classes wrapping up.
When I finish all this work I will provide you some more words.
In the meantime, I'm posting a scary video. I am not sure what it is exactly that drew my attention to this video, but I find the whole thing surreal, comical, frightening and ominous, at the same time.
I'll try to post more videos during this finals time, since they are quick...
May 10, 2010
E-Book Talk: iPad Usability, Google Books
It's easy to dismiss the iPad as a giant iPhone, and it's certainly easy to find fault in Apple's growing might as a mega-tech company. In other words, Steve Jobs is kind of crazy lately.
What we can't deny, though, is the significant change that the iPad heralds in usability. The fact that the device is the size of a book, and sits in the hands in similar ways to a closed book, is of note. And yes, incidentally, you can also read a book on the iPad. You can also do thousands of other tasks...
May 9, 2010
Jorge Luis Borges: 'Sabados'
There's times when you are struck by the fact that some writers truly have a gift for words. I may not be that writer, but I know one who did.
Jorge Luis Borges, one of my personal heroes, couldn't have expressed beauty better than in the poem below. I couldn't find an English translation. When I do, I'll post it here, as well. For those of you who can read Spanish, take a look.
Sábados
Afuera hay un ocaso, alhaja oscura
engastada en el tiempo,
y una honda ciudad ciega
de hombres que no te vieron.
L...
