Theodore Gray, on Future of Text Book, iPad, Education 📺 (2011)
Theodore Gray, co-founder of Wolfram Research, gives a extremely interesting point of view about electoric books. The video is 33 minutes long, but worth every minute of it.
- https://youtu.be/0rMiEzF2x1E
- Theodore Gray, Wolfram Research - Learning Without Frontiers
In first 15 or so min of the vid, he discusses some of his experiences in producing ebook in early 1990s, and also his widely popular project about building a actual wooden table containing all elements in the periodic table. See his websites here:
It's enjoyable to see him talk. He's always very funny.His remarks on the exorbitant prices of textbooks today also hits the spot.
In later half of the vid, his talk gradually ascended onto the issues of education, electronic books, publishing, and the impact of iPad, ebook's future.
A most enjoyable talk to listen to.
video summary (by ai)
- The speaker discusses the evolution of electronic books and publishing, highlighting the challenges of early attempts due to technology limitations and the prevalence of free online content (0:56-1:37).
- They then share their success with the "Elements" iPad app, emphasizing how Apple's App Store created an environment where people would pay for digital content, making it economically viable for creators (10:13-13:13).
- The speaker explains that this success led to the founding of Touch Press, a company dedicated to exploring the format and economics of interactive electronic books (13:30-14:11).
- For successful interactive publications, they identify three key needs:
- A talented author who can tell a compelling story (15:21-16:00).
- Skilled software developers (16:03-16:43).
- The experience and perspective of the film and television world for visual and interactive media (16:48-17:11).
- Finally, the speaker clarifies that Touch Press focuses on "enrichment materials" rather than traditional textbooks, believing that the textbook market is unsustainable due to high costs and the rise of free, open-source educational content (20:15-22:04).
- They aim to create engaging, inspiring content that people will pay for because they find it interesting and valuable (22:40-23:16).