Today at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, CA, CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo sat down with a panel including Bill Joy, Kevin Kelly, Nicholas Negroponte, and 
Willie Smits. The topic was basically the future of technology. And Negroponte had the most interesting (or at least the most controversial) thing to say.

The physical book is dead, according to Negroponte. He said he realizes that’s going to be hard for a lot of people to accept. But you just have to think about film and music. In the 1980s, the writing was on the wall that physical film was going to die, even though companies like Kodak were in denial. He then asked people to think about their youth with music. It was all physical then. Now everything has changed.

The biggest issue with this, and not that I dispute it's happening, is the tremendous potential for abuse of control of access to books. We all should have seen this coming, but when Amazon.com makes a deal with a large publisher that their books will only be available on the Kindle (http://mashable.com/2010/07/23/amazon-deal-threatens-ebook-market/) it's rather scary to follow that pattern to its logical end.

Unless we figure out how to address the rise of e-books from the standpoint of public libraries, this is absolutely horrible for society at large. If Amazon controls some books, you better believe Barnes & Noble, Sony, Apple, and other e-reader vendors are looking at doing the same thing.

People shouldn't have to have four different e-book readers to have access to all the books available in the world. And what about those who can't afford *any* e-book readers? Are they just out of luck?

Every time I go to my local library I'm always excited to see all the people there, particularly parents with young children who can't get enough of reading. If this all changes because greedy corporations make exclusive deals with all the world's publishers, we as a society have failed in a huge, huge way, and we'll absolutely have a day of reckoning at some point in the not-too-distant future.

New Features in the eSlick 2.0 Build 1130 Firmware Update

The free eSlick 2.0 Build 1130 Firmware Update includes some fantastic new features and has enhanced many of the features from previous firmware updates.

EPUB Support
Foxit eSlick now supports EPUB format, which is an XML-based format for reflowable digital books and publications. Now you can download EPUB eBooks onto your eSlick and the text will automatically display in an optimized format to fit the screen size.

PDB (commonly known as eReader) Support
Foxit eSlick now also supports eReader format, which is widely accepted by several software formats. eReader format is commonly used on mobile devices.

Image Support
Supports viewing image files in GIF, BMP, JPEG, and PNG format.

On-screen Virtual Keyboard
With this on-screen keyboard, you can use your navigation buttons to enter alphanumeric data in any text environment, including password entering and folder naming.

Working with Folders
eSlick now allows users to fully interact with a folder management system, enabling you to create a new folder as well as copy, move, and delete folders.

My Bookmark
A useful feature that empowers users to add customized bookmarks when reading PDFs, helping users to quickly return to marked pages to resume their readings.

Rendering Text in Landscape Mode
Now the text files can be rendered in landscape mode which allows you to view the screen horizontally.

Optimized Text-rendering Engine
An optimized text-rendering engine boosts the rendering speed for the text files dramatically.

Bug Fixes
Many bug fixes including a bug where reading history cannot be recorded when viewing a magnified TXT file.

If you've been looking at the eSlick as an alternative to the Kindle or Nook but you've been waiting for ePub and eReader format support, the wait is over. I've had an eSlick for a while and I love it, but I have to admit the PDF-only thing was a bit limiting.

eSlick also announced the eSlick Bookstore ( http://www.eslickbooks.com/ ) which is a partnership with Fictionwise, and it looks like a great way to get books for the eSlick.

No, the eSlick doesn't have wireless connectivity like the Kindle and Nook, but what it does have is a Linux-based GPL OS and a lot more freedom since you're not locked to a single vendor for all your books. There's also the lack of the Big Brother factor that's pretty appealing for tin foil hat wearers such as myself.

The preview edition of Gina and Adam's new book, The Complete Guide to Google Wave, is now available in PDF form for your offline, ebook-reading pleasure.

Google Wave is a young tool that's not terribly easy to understand for a lot of folks, but at least a couple of your Lifehacker editors are completely nuts for Wave and its potential. The DRM-free, 102-page personalized PDF of The Complete Guide to Google Wave is available for six bucks, but keep in mind that the content of our book will always be available for free at any time at http://completewaveguide.com/.

Maybe this will help me understand what Wave is actually good for!