The End of the World

I loathe cell-phones, as anyone who tries to find me by calling soon finds out. I loathe other people's cell-phones more - the loud voices, collapse of personal space, ADD obsession, attention-span evisceration. (Do you have my RSS feed, by the way?) But this is truly dark news whatever way you look at it:

New software that flashes words on cell-phone screens has traditional publishing houses chasing young readers with renewed interest.

Launched in England less than a year ago, ICUE software lets users read novels on their cell phone without the irritation of constantly scrolling through blocks of text displayed on the small screen. Instead, the text is flashed on the screen one word (or short phrase) at a time.

...While Tappuni says the company plans to launch ICUE in the United States, it will only do so once it has cracked the more technologically sophisticated UK market. "The UK is 18 months to two years ahead of the US cellular market," Tappuni says. "Only 35 percent of Americans have sent a text message, as compared to almost 100 percent in the UK."

The end is nigh. By "nigh", I mean 18 months.