Murdoch To Create Digital News-Paper

In news sure to astonish technology mavens everywhere, News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch has seized upon the idea of a "digital news-paper" which will directly compete with the assorted content already available on other computer devices.

"We'll have young people reading newspapers," the 79-year-old Murdoch said during the company's Aug. 4 earnings call. "It's a real game changer in the presentation of news."

No modern-day development escapes the canny Mr. Murdoch, whose publishing empire encompasses the entirety of our modern world. I invite you to gaze in wonder at yet another of his recent observations on our technological era:

Yesterday, I asked my man-servant Standish to bring forth the telephone-device, so that I could give my idiot spendthrift son G. Braintree a stern dressing-down.

After I was through with my call, I noticed that the telephone-device itself was unlike the ones to which I was accustomed. Instead of the usual brass mouth-piece and stained wooden-box exterior, this specimen was black and had an oddly smooth texture, as though carved from a block of soap, but harder and more durable. "What is this telephone-device made of, Standish?" I asked. "Basalt?"

Standish replied that it was made of a substance known as Bakelite, which could be fired and molded into multitudinous objects. "We often use containers made of Bakelite, or a kindred substance, to store various perishable food-stuffs in the larder," he explained.
(From Bakelite! Substance Of The Future!)


(T. Herman Zweibel, Onion Publisher Emeritus)

No wait, that's not Rupert Murdoch. That's a quote from the editorial output of T. Herman Zweibel, fictional publisher emeritus of The Onion, America's finest news source.

Anyway, the idea of a Newspad, a "foolscap-sized" tablet e-reader, is well-known to fans of Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote about it in his 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Via LA Times.

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