What a bore it is reading about all these ereaders. We have the super size Kindle; Apple is bringing out its Slate thing. Microsoft has done what it has historically done and stolen a march, announcing its HP slate device ahead of any Apple announcement. But really, is this it? Some kind of lidless laptop is where the past decade of computing innovation has been pointing?

It can only mean that in 2020 we'll all be getting excited about the lidded Slate with hard-keyed keyboard, and the mobi-Slate which has the battery life of a blue whale, but is still too big and ugly to use as a phone.

 What a revelation it was to be able to have a phone or a computer to carry with you. The Slate/Reader isn't. It's not a revelation to have a portable newspaper or magazine for a start.

I've spent enough money on gadgetry and whizzo stuff from the likes of Apple, Microsoft and HP to feel that when they tell me to start getting excited about their new life-changing products, they should have a bit more imagination than just pointing out two successful products and then doing something in the middle. It's the equivalent of promising the world they can do away knives and forks, as now you only need the kn-fork.

And so I turn, in my frustration, to cursory trawls of the Interweb, and stumbled across this fabulous collection of images on the history of books. Apropos of nothing, I simply offer it up in lieu of me banging on about technology any further.