Google Data

Posted by Hicham Alaoui, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Google Books


Following our first announcement this week, here is the third and final set of winning entries for the 10 Days in Google Books contest. As a reminder, to enter the contest users had to submit a short essay describing what the experience of reading will be like in 100 years.

"Out jogging, Jim spied a news stand, its spire bright red. Looking at it, his ocular implant scrolled headlines about the stand. Seeing one that caught his fancy, a quick motion towards the stand debited his account, and brought the story scrolling over his vision as he continued."

"Well the problem with reading in the year 2109 is we will at that point in time just start creating paper once again, and then its about another 1000+ years till we invent the press again. What am I talking about? 21 Dec 2012! EVERYONE RUN!"

"One innovation of the future will be real time novelists who craft their stories online as readers interact with the writer and each other, commenting, questioning, and pleading for their favorite characters to achieve deserved greatness or avoid gruesome death."

"Now available in attractive spex, signet ring, wristband, or pendant! Our full-on interactive holographic projection readers connect you to a world of information. News from around the world, classic novels, instant info on any topic, presented in your personalized reading style: language, video, pictograms or symbols. No wireless fee!"

"Ah, but to have a book read to you. That will be one of the great advances. Imagine a mechanism which takes a sample of a voice, perhaps from your own memory, and extrapolates a narator's voice from the sample. Choose Grandpa or Winston Churchill to read to you."
"Libraries will become time travel portals, and readers will become adventurers, taking a trip to the time period during which the book was written. Immersion into the time period will allow readers to have a more connected experience, and to better grasp the context wherein the book was created."

"A grown man shrieks in horror! Frightened children cry throughout the museum as their teacher is carted off by paramedics. It was the first papercut this town has seen in decades. Horrible to think how just a century ago, children everywhere were being sliced daily in the pursuit of knowledge."

"Touch the bump behind my ear, images of words readily appear. Favorite books to my delight, all within my line of sight. I am traveling today, so I command, "Autosay"! The Literary visions fade, replaced by voice narration (as I bade). Reading, a century changed, unlocked using our brilliant brain!"

"For children, the pastime of reading is challenged by other forms of communication and entertainment. In 100 years, traditional reading material (e.g., novels, etc) will be incorporated into multi-media experiences like video games allowing for both classics and new literary works to compete using the latest pop culture preferences."

"In 100 years reading will be free. There will be no banned books and people of all ages will have access to the vast choices available. Currently taboo books will be discussed openly, and without hatred, amongst the literate."