Future Trends For Media Delivery - Where will RunRev Be?

[Sivakatirswami]

A bit OT here, but I like to query the group on future trends from time 
to time just to sound the waters, ""blue sky" "what do you think about 
it" ...

Discussions here about "where do we go from here" usually revolve around 
the new delivery channels for what was formerly ink on paper (books, 
lessons, magazine, flyers, small edu pamphlets etc.) Scribed, Amazon 
Books, etc.

The general sense is (and it is already happening) that users want to 
download a digital "product" and read it off line.   Or download a PDF, 
print it locally and read it physically, away from their computers. Our 
Hindu calendar which is calculated for nearly every time zone on earth, 
was downloaded nearly 800,000 times the last annual period.  It's free 
and that is going to change, and when we start charging for it (2.95 or 
so...) the downloads will drop of course, how much, we don't know, but 
the trend is obvious.

Now we have also

 iPhone apps
 Kindle
 Sony Ebook Reader

So where this all appear to be headed is that not only will print media 
"sales" drop, but also page views of the web via a browser on a PC, will 
fall off, while downloads of digital "products" that  can be accessed 
"locally"  will rise -- printed, or read or used on a small device that 
does not carry the big foot print of a Person Computer Where Even A 
LapTop Has A Big Foot Print and Price Tag....

So, while the new Revolution plug in is really super/hot and I can't 
wait to create things for it... Where will RunRev/stackware/xTalk be as 
a player in the field of digital products for small devices?

The really great break through would actually be more along the lines of 
the One LapTop Per Child model: where newer OS's will be created that 
can run entire "realms" of software on a small device. The iPhone would 
seem to be almost there, but it's locked up. I also think it's just a 
tad too small. The cell phone model is only one model, and lots of us 
(me included) get claustrophobic reactions working on my iPhone....hence 
the viability of Kindle like devices.

I envision some little gadget that has a complete Linux OS running on it 
that fits in the palm of your hand and can access the internet. You 
download little RunRev standalones and  use them in your "gadget" for 
all I know this is already happening and will roll over us before we 
know it. If the Chinese were to cook up such a tool then Microsoft-Apple 
will be looking at the Dust of The Dragon  out in front...or perhaps 
Google's new Haiku system will be such...
But the ultimate would be a full OS without contraints... our vision 
being very biased by the not-so-unconscious wish to be able to run 
RunRev apps on this futuristic device.

Of course the fundamental act of turning on a PC and going to the web 
browser will not go away, but whether people will be actually spending 
very much significant time [playing games, learning a subject, 
practicing art form, doing accounting, reading a book, practicing their 
music-singing] in that

 1-person-in-a-chair-looking-stuff-in-a-browser-on-a-PC-while-connected-to-the-internet 


 context... is the question....

 yet, if the substance of their reference material is "digital" (since 
we will no longer be using ink on paper and burning oil shipping books 
around the world...) then how will they be interacting with it, if not 
on a laptop? And will RunRev be there?

For those who have nothing better to do but try "scrying" the future, 
please share your thoughts, anything that comes to mind.

skts

p.s. Anyone know what Kindle uses to run it's ebooks?