This must be a hoax, no? But a legitimate newspaper ran the story today as a real news item. Cannot be true. Must be early April’s Fools joke, no?
QUOTE: Picture a book lover in a Kamloops, Canada bookstore getting his favorite author to sign a book – from her home in Toronto. Sound like a science-fiction scenario? Perhaps it’s fitting then, that famous novelist Margaret Atwood, author of futuristic fantasies ‘‘The Handmaid’s Tale’’ and ‘‘Oryx and Crake’’, has invented a prototype remote autographing device that has the potential to revolutionize book signings.
It might be kindof fun to have a quick “video conference” with someone who’s autograph you want – but I’d always thought that meeting the person face to face was an important part of the reason people like getting autographs. But there are also the collectors to consider. If it is legit, I wonder if the memorabelia shops and other places that sell autographs will accept them as true originals or discount them somewhat. According to the article the quality of the signature would be identical to the original. If that’s true the appraisal people and other experts should, in theory, not be able to tell. I agree with you though, lane119: it seems a little hard to believe doesn’t it?
Another interesting “product” I see is getting some attention is the digitized silence being offered by the good folks over at iTunes. For 99 cents you can get yourself “One Minute of Silence” by Project Grudge (although the author points out that, for bargain hunters, TWO minutes of silence can be had for the same price by Bill Schaeffer).