Emerging Technologies E-Texts, Mobile Browsing, And Rich Internet Applications‪.‬

Online reading is evolving beyond the perusal of static documents with Web pages inviting readers to become commentators, collaborators, and critics. The much-ballyhooed Web 2.0 is essentially a transition from online consumer to consumer/producer/participant. An online document may well include embedded multimedia or contain other forms of invited user interactivity such as questionnaires, annotations, pop-up windows, or animations. Adobe's recently released Adobe Digital Editions illustrates the trend, moving from static PDF's (read with the Adobe Reader) to a Rich Internet Application (RIA) in which PDF's are just one possible resource alongside many others. Apple's new iPhone sets another interesting marker in terms of accessing online documents, as it forgoes entirely any type of local file access and relies on ubiquitous network access for retrieving documents. On the other hand, electronic devices dedicated to the reading of texts have recently been introduced, taking advantage of new technologies for an improved e-book reading experience. In this column we will be looking at these and other recent developments as they pertain to accessing and experiencing electronic texts, and what these developments might mean for language learning. WEB TEXTS