What WILL they think of next?

Via Tom Peters' post in the ALA TechSource blog, I learned about the phenomenon of cell phone novels in Japan. Some quotes for thought (from the New York Times article he cites, "Thumbs Race as Japan's Bestsellers Go Cellular," no-cost registration required):

"Of last year's 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels."

"Fans praised the novels as a new literary genre created and consumed by a generation whose reading habits had consisted mostly of manga, or comic books."

"Indeed, many cellphone novelists had never written fiction before, and many of their readers had never read novels before, according to publishers."

But is this phenom truly a genre?

"When a work is written on a computer, the nuance of the number of lines is different, and the rhythm is different from writing on a cellphone," said Keiko Kanematsu, an editor at Goma Books, a publisher of cellphone novels. "Some hard-core fans wouldn't consider that a cellphone novel."

Don't know what I think about this, except that neither my own thumbs nor my eyes could adapt to the medium.

On the other hand, other tech developments make much more sense to me. Much as I am against Internet filtering, the StupidFilter is one I could get behind. I read about it in a Fortune magazine article by Josh Quittner. The idea is that the filter would take those idiotic LOL!!!! and OMG!!! and ROFL!!! type online comments and relegate them to the equivalent of a spam file. My favorite bit comes from the company's FAQ page:

"Isn't filtering stupidity elitist?"
"Yes. Yes, it is. That's sort of the whole point."