Live Ink uses an algorithm to break blocks of text into a cascade that's more readable. [Link] (It obviously won't save any trees, though.)
Although Live Ink offers the potential to improve world wide literacy and support the growth of screen-based reading, it still faces the challenge of overcoming our entrenched reading habits. Since grade school, we were all taught to read block text. It’s not perfect, but it’s comfortable and familiar.Morville on "Miscellaneous"
Yet the Internet has a way of forcing rapid evolution of communication habits, especially when the communication methods are faster, easier and more direct. One only has to look as far as email, cell phones, or recent innovations such as texting and Twittering to understand that we humans crave immediate communication. If Live Ink is truly a breakthrough, those who use it will have competitive advantage over those who don’t. At a minimum, Digital Ink reminds us that as human evolution collides with Moore’s Law, we’re bound to learn more about ourselves.
Peter Morville reviews David Weinberger's new book, Everything is Miscellaneous. [Link]
...while I agree with David that "second-order organization is often as much about authority as about making things easier to find" and that all taxonomies embed bias, the same can be said of search engines, books, blogs, Amazon, eBay, and the Wikipedia. This doesn't negate the value and good intentions of librarians, information architects, authors, editors, designers, and users who labor to improve findability, accessibility, and understanding for all.
It simply suggests that we must all be more aware, as consumers and creators, of the incentives, biases, and weaknesses inherent in all sources and structures of authority and knowledge.
I'll be discussing the book with David W. for two weeks, beginning May 30, at the WELL, in the Inkwell forums.