Technical publisher O’Reilly has been one of the most inventive and aggressive adopters of “e-book” technology. This excellent slide deck shows many of the myriad ways they have rethought their mission as one whose dedication is not to sell rectangular blocks of dead tree, but as a “Diversified media company that focuses on emerging technology communities and what we can do for them”. O’Reilly is willing to be flexible on format, pricing, delivery mechanism, and any orthodoxy that keeps them from their mission. A “Book” could as easily become a service or a conference as a codex.

Amazon is similarly disrupting the publishing industry, but in ways that seem more like traditional discounting. Their new tablet the fire has become the #2 tablet, a feat that neither Google or HP could match, in under a month based on the strength of their media library. They are working directly with authors, cutting out publishing houses, and are trying to change the pricing standards in the industry.

And big thinkers like Peter Meyers are trying to predict what the future of the “book” is in a digital age.

Publishing probably hasn’t seen as much upheaval since the dawn of Gutenberg so I wanted to think a bit about what common traits of books (non-fiction in this case) from the wood block era persist in the e-reader epoch. These are just some first thoughts and please correct me or add to these as you see fit in the comments!

Limited scope – By scope I mean a balance between subject matter covered and time needed to consume/process. Stephen Hawking can give you an overview of the history of the universe in 2 hours while you could spend 2 years on blogs learning about a trivial technical matter and not clearly understand the boundaries of the technology.

Self-contained – Books have “links” in terms of footnotes, bibliography, citations, etc., but any good book is self contained. Blogs often rely to a much greater degree on linkages, often obscure in their nature.

Written by a person with “expertise” – Shelves of self-help books written by scam artists would seem to contradict this, but even those modern day snake oil salesmen have a special formula or plan they are trying to sell.

Editorial voice – In order to limit scope you need to cut things and handle things in a certain way. This may be the ecclectic curation of McSweeny’s or the dour reticence of the Webster Dictionary, but there is a pronounced human element.

Substance – This is a bit ambiguous in my mind, but a “book” builds on its predecessors and hopes to make a contribution to intellectual discourse where a webpage might just hold a map, list of directions, or other flat, factual data.

Means of navigation – Chapters, table of contents, and pagination aren’t necessary, but some way of pointing to a certain section is, even if it’s just a hyperlink.

This is just a first pass and I think there is a whole other list of what a book should do for the user beyond a description of it’s attributes, so fire away below!

Sears has released a garage door opener technology called “AssureLink” that allows you to remotely check to see if your garage door is open or closed and to change the state via your iPhone.

This is pretty cool technically and even more amazing when you consider it is Sears that released it. I wouldn’t think to even buy anything technical from them, never mind think that they could innovate in any way.

Chalk up another example in favor of Marc Andreessen’s “Software is Eating the World” thesis.

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• Craftsman AssureLink redefines remote garage door opener [w/video] (autoblog.com)

I’m in Germany for a business trip and I was walking around the central square when I saw an outpost of New England institution Dunkin Donuts. The fonts and colors were all the same and it was heartening to see the bulbous font even if the words it spelled out were foreign to me.

The most fun part of the trip was the selection of donuts on hand. There were some classics like the chocolate sprinkle, some obvious local favorites like the Bavarian Creme, but some that seemed entirely bizarre e.g. Pflaumenmus Donut. The name sounds like a particularly nasty chest infection, but the purple icing is something I’ve never seen in the US. Nor the alcohol infused Kirsch-Banae with a smiley face piped on top. All these flavors and colors seemed bizarre to me, but obviously please the local market’s taste and traditions.

This confectionary interlude got me thinking about personal fabrication. All these sweets are variations on a simple theme, but reflect the stories of chefs over hundreds or thousands of years. Currently, we are segregated by geography, but with a new generation of fabrication tools and ways to share, these “Stories” will become ever easier to share, remix, and advance. A baker in Boston could see a post like this, look up a “heidlebeere” recipe, have it translated automagically by Google translate, bake it up, and sell it from their bakery in a couple days. It is a small example, but I look forward to the cultural exchange and innovation which will surely spring from it.

There are a lot of products I have thought about combining with the iPhone and other tablet computing devices. Medical devices, toys, scientific equipment, robots, consumer electronics, but never, ever locks. I am wildly behind the curve, because there have been at least 2 high profile stories about companies or individuals doing just that.

Lockitron – YCombinator Lock Startup

Lockitron is a YCombinator startup that is replacing physical locks & keys with smartphones. The process looks super simple and the app UI is comprised of just two buttons. My first thought was that it was cool tech, but didn’t have many useful applications until I remembered that almost every corporate office with more than 30 people has an badge system to open doors. It would also be an awesome product for hotels.

The downside is that the smartphone UI is a little less convenient than having a dedicated “key”, but there are probably some other good use cases this technology enables.

Lockitron Demo from Daniel R. Odio on Vimeo.

Foursquare Door Unlock Demo

Web development firm Apartm.net also developed a way to unlock a door via Foursquare check in. They seem less commercially focused, but have shared more details about how their systems works (if you want to find a way to make Foursquare even more useful to potential thieves).

The big lesson from both of these companies is that we shouldn’t underestimate how pervasive smartphone technology will become and how many aspects of our lives it will touch. If your iPod touch can replace a key, what chance do other consumer electronics devices possess?

The iPad has been called a “Yuppie Content Consumption Machine” and will certainly have difficulties with traditional content creation. The lack of a real keyboard is going to make blogging and email conversations difficult. However, I think new modes of content creation, or at least productivity may be possible.

Take a use case like planning vacation travel. Current sites like Vacation.com or Virgin Vacations are well optimized for the keyboard and mouse, but leave something to be desired in terms of UX. Compare that to the excellent travel guides produced by DK. The content is beautiful and engaging, but static.

The iPad seems to be able to bridge both experiences. The beautiful graphics of the DK guides could be simulated with a CMS and content pulled from sites with CC attribution or created specifically for the app.

A couple could plan a trip organically, passing the device back and forth on a couch, sharing pics, keeping notes of places to visit, compiling a list of “must see” destinations on top of a Google map. You could build an itinerary that updates cost and travel data as you plan. As you travel pictures can be associated with places, shared on Facebook, or printed into books when you arrive home. Translations can be provided as needed.

A laptop could do the same things, but even the best and smallest versions would be an inconvenience. Tablets, the iPad in particular, will be able to fit into special moments the way a camera does.

This travel example is yuppie glamorous and I have a tendency towards tech based Utopian visions. Even so, if you examine your daily routine you can easily start to pick out scenarios where access to the web and all it offers would be valuable even without the benefit of a physical QWERTY keyboard.

I read a great tweet via Erik Price that summed up my feelings on tablets: “The biggest promise of tablets is that they can make people realize they can get the benefit of software without the pain of computers.”

The reaction to the iPad has been wildly varied. It has been criticized widely as being a blown up iPod. Antonio provides a more nuanced view with his chief critique being that it is a content consuming device, rather than a content producing devices. One of Apple’s biggest critics is excited about the device’s potential. My take is similar to O’Reilly editor Edd Dumbill who calls it “Real Life Social“.

The iPod touch changed computer usage by making it fit in the hand and by proxy the couch, bed, bathroom, and many other places 1 and 0′s were never intended to go. This trend is going to continue and explode as entrepreneurs continue making software, but more importantly, develop accessories for the iPad and its tinier cousin. I look at the iPad less as a stand alone device and more as a computational module that can be inserted into a variety of environments. Accessories might be simple holders or electronics that augment the iPad’s capabilities, but the computer is going to become integrated in places that were impossible with previous form factors.

The Kitchen

Photo Credit: LifeHacker

A computer that works in the kitchen has been the subject of many weekend projects/concepts that painfully port the keyboard and mouse experience into a bustiling and dirty environment. The iPad will be a smooth solution. Imagine being able to watch cooking instruction videos in context. Cookbook creators, gourmet food retailers, and culinary content providers all have a new opportunity for interaction.

The Game Room

Smart toys like Lego Mindstorms are handicapped by the realities of retail. $300 is the upper boundary for a toy. The retailer needs ~$150 of that, and the manufacturer has marketing expenses and margins to maintain, so the costs are driven down leading to crappy products like those made by Wowee. The “iPlatform” has the capability to change this equilibrium. By utilizing the computational power of an iPod or iPad, toy manufacturers could forgo the need for embedded electronics and focus on accessories that tap into the pre-existing hardware. Instead of buying the Mindstorms with their expensive processing brick, you can buy the wheels, sensors, and structural elements which are far cheaper and pair them with an iPod. Parents can amortize one electronic device purchase over several toys

The Art Studio

Some frustrated and talented designer is going to make a pen accessory that gives the iPad true tablet capabilities. It will transmit pressure data via Bluetooth or dock connector and then it is game time for artists/designers. Stand by apps like Brushes or Sketchbook Pro will be fine, but we will also see instructional apps that teach people to draw, or animate, or paint. They will create on the iPad and share to the web. A simple input device could lead to a Renaissance in artistic instruction.

The Workbench

Crafts and hobbies are a $30B market in the US, compared to retail sales of music which are worth ~$9B. We have hundreds of start ups and purpose built devices dedicated to  listening/storing/enjoying music. The iPad is the iPod for the workbench. Instead of having a wrench laid across an issue of Make: or a laptop open to an Instructable, now you can have a special screen for displaying content in a dynamic fashion. This will be the perfect platform for companies like 5Min or HowCast. Laptops and television are both imperfect solutions for this opportunity, but the iPad fits perfectly.

The really exciting opportunity will be hooking the iPad up to popular personal fabrication devices like CNC sewing machines that are driven by digital designs. The iPad will enable a true meeting of bits and atoms.

The Gym

FitBit, Nike+, WakeMate, and many others are trying to augment exercise with contextual data and instruction. While each has a proprietary dongle to collect data, there needs to be a central dashboard. The small (and easily cleaned) iPlatform is the best solution available.

The Classroom

The iPad is going to allow publishers to reinvent books. The first wave will be simple translations with some embedded video in place of a static picture. However, think of what the possibilities are just a few years on. Text books created with open ended curriculum in mind could be incredibly powerful tools. Apply the editorial guidance of professional publishers and the hypertext capabilities we love from the web and there is tremendous opportunity for learning.

The Doctor’s Office, The Trade Show Floor, Training Programs…

There are dozen of other markets that the iPad could serve. Any interaction not yet mediated by the computer is fair game. Wherever there is paper or a sales brochure the iPad can probably improve the experience. The device has a lot of intrinsic faults, but luckily they are less bothersome than the  annoyances and missed opportunities found in the physical world.

People interested in Mass Customization tend to have utopian visions of factories on desktops that can print household products with the click of a mouse. Hopefully this vision will come to fruition and we will all have affordable 3D printers on our dinner tables soon. In the mean time, custom manufacturing technology like 3D printers and laser cutters are creating a new kind of entrepreneur. The product designer hobbyist.

A friend of mine has recently commercialized a project called the Lime Tree Cove BarMaid. It’s a device that puts the perfect amount of salt or spice on your mixed drink of choice. It looks like something you might see at Crate & Barrel or give as a wedding gift and it was designed and commercialized on nights and weekends.

It’s an exaggeration to call a project like this a hobby, but it is still less than a full time job. I think we are still a decade a way from people producing novel products at home, but right on the cusp of semipro product design. Small groups or individuals can create products that look and work as well as those released by consumer product companies for the same dollar and time commitment as restoring an old car.

Ultimately I think we will see a landscape much like we have in journalism. Time, Newsweek, and the Economist are still the publications of record, but ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch have built nice businesses filling a large niche market. I think OXO will still dominate the cooking tool market, but companies like Lime Tree Cove will be able to address smaller, but still lucrative, opportunities.

This slide show illustrates the process from sketch to manufactured article. It leaves out some key phases including using a 3D printer to validate the mechanical design, but it shows that you don’t need a sophisticated R&D program to commercialize a product.

George Washington was a masterful general, exemplary president, noted truth teller and a passionate interior decorator. That last accolade is often missing from shorter biographies, but David McCullough in his book “1776” reveals Washington as an amateur artificer:

He had an abiding dislike of disorder and cared intensely about every detail — wallpaper, paint color, ceiling ornaments — and insisted on perfection. He hated to be away from the project. Even at the distance of Cambridge, with all that weighed on his mind he worried that things were not being handled as he wished at Mount Vernon and filled pages of instructions for his manager, Lund Washington.