We have been  reading postings and briefings on all sorts of touch pads and e-Reader recently, be it the Amazon Kindle or much disputed Apple’s iPad. But apart from usability and innovation involved in developing the product one feature that inspired me to write this post is  its long term affect on existing Carbon Di Oxide emissions when adopted and accepted globally.

I still wonder if in a hypothetical scenario when every book and publication is digitized into an e-book and every reader only uses his gadgets to read the digital content instead of having a printed version on a paper. Will this be a much Greener situation to one we have right now? There are  views and opinions prevalent in media which are more of equivocal nature. E-readers aren’t typically marketed as environmentally sound, but their environmental impact is now becoming a topic of discussion and research.

Point of Views : Expert’s View on e-Readers

At least Don Carli doesn’t thinks so, according to him e-Readers aren’t Greener than print (which is a common view held by consumers who don’t know the backstory of evolution of an e-Reader ). Actually few days back I had an opportunity to read an interview with Don Carli on News Media Innovation, Convergence and Sustainability.

As far as print media is concerned it could do a better job of managing the sustainability of its supply chains and waste streams, but it’s a misguided notion to assume that digital media is categorically greener. Computers, eReaders and cell phones all have a cost of operation, cost of manufacturing and cost of disposal. When Compared directly to the book, a Kindle produces 168 kilograms of carbon dioxide compared to 7.46 kilograms for a book.

Making a computer typically requires the mining and refining of dozens of minerals and metals including gold, silver and palladium as well as extensive use of plastics and hydrocarbon solvents. To function, digital devices require a constant flow of electrons that predominately come from the combustion of coal, and at the end of their all-too-short useful lives electronics have become the single largest stream of toxic waste created by man. Until recently there was little if any voluntary disclosure of the lifecycle “backstory” of digital media.

Point of Views : CleanTech Research based on Scientific Evidences.

Another interesting survey report from CleanTech Group which published the report based on life cycle analysis of a Kindle e-Reader. The research and media company drew on existing studies to do a lifecycle analysis and found that the carbon emissions from electronic books are far lower than traditional book publishing.

As reported  in the analysis, “The roughly 168 kg of CO2 produced throughout the Kindle’s lifecycle is a clear winner against the potential savings: 1,074 kg of CO2 if replacing three books a month for four years; and up to 26,098 kg of CO2 when used to the fullest capacity of the Kindle DX. Less-frequent readers attracted by decreasing prices still can break even at 22.5 books over the life of the device,”.

Finding a conclusion to this article seems difficult:

eReaders are capturing media attention and there appears to be significant latent demand for gadgets that can replace printed media, but mainstream adoption still remains years away. E-reader device sales and eReader content revenues are still rounding error in relation to print media revenues. In a survey of attendees at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair 40% predicted digital book content sales would overtake traditional printed book sales by 2018, but over 30% said digital content would never surpass traditional books sales, and 66% said they expect traditional books to dominate the market for the next decade.

With universities like Princeton and six others already testing the technology in a pilot, I hope e-Readers will make their way to schools and workplaces  replacing traditional paper books. Ultimately, it comes down to how an e-reader is used. If a person continues to buy books and print periodicals and doesn’t recycle the product, the environmental impact could potentially be negative.

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My sentiments about online media aside (I think it’s despicable the way media-companies treat consumers, particularly outside of the US), it has always bothered me to use Last.fm for a number of reasons. Here they are:

1. Last.fm, apart from being happy to pull my listening data into their site, does not integrate with my listening habits Whats.O.Ever. My method for managing music, perhaps determined by owning an iPod, is entirely dominated by iTunes and the usage of the device itself.
2. Last.fm does not play on the road (let’s ignore the iPhone radio app and that eventually all devices will be connected to the internet)
3. Last.fm does not acknowledge that I give different stars (= degrees of love) to songs (instead I have to “love” a song manually).
4. Discovering new music through Last.fm’s radio does not easily lead me to purchase the actual song
5. One cherry on top is that Last.fm now wants to charge me for using the radio, even though I add to it by playing my songs.
6. A second cherry on top is that Last.fm is now, indirectly through CBS, giving information about what we listen to and who we are, to the RIAA, a US organisation that probably also shares that information with other international organisations.
7. The only use Last.fm seems to have is vanity, in the sense that you can see what songs I loved (when I love them) and I can make pretty graphics of my listening habits (makes for an interesting poster).

So, as of this week, I am deleting my Last.fm account.

That doesn’t change that I am a fervent listener of music and it also doesn’t change that I believe deeply in the concept of sharing music. I like finding nice tracks to play at parties and equally I like finding tracks for some of my friends that I can only connect to online. There is no legal service that allows me to do this. As a matter of fact, in the Netherlands, I should even be paying a licensing fee if I play music in public or for too many people at once!!!

In comes Drop.io, a file-sharing service that recently added Facebook Connect as a way to share stuff only with your friends. Drop.io fills the void that Last.fm leaves in the following ways:

1. It has an integrated player that is very elegant and can also be accessed and added to via many different devices.
2. I can restrict access to my files to my Facebook friends only (evil internet lawyers can get lost).
3. It’s free for using 100 MB storage and charges a very fair $10 per gigabyte per year.
4. Any loss in statistical “vanity” data can be compensated by using iTunes and starring / sorting your files accordingly.

That’s it. Of course I will not be sharing songs that are copyright protected (and, of course, if we’re not Facebook connected, you will never know for sure )

Vincent

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