Your mistake here is assuming that libraries do not evolve and are all about books.

Been to your local library lately? You'll find it filled with much much more than books. Meeting rooms for public events. Study rooms for single or group study. Free public wireless for your wireless enabled equipment. Computers for those who don't have them at home. DVD's and BluRays for entertainment. Art for the masses. Databases for in library or remote access, including utilities to learn a new language, or get help with your homework. Video Games in a variety of platforms. Movie nights and zombie lock ins. Classes on Informational Literacy in the Digital Age. Full of vibrant people, and fantastic energy for folks of ALL ages.

Libraries are much MUCH more than just books. They're a community gathering place staffed by exciting professionals who's sole goal is to ensure your access to information, literacy, entertainment, history, and so very much more.

Chromebooks are actually quite good for newbs. As long as they have "one of us" to set it up, connect to their wireless (home or public), they are absolutely perfect for people who use computers for nothing for than web browsing, facebooking and email. The price point works for lower income users, and there is a growing movement to bring them into public/community service like libraries and schools. That's probably where the majority of sales are coming from.

The touch enable is probably just a "MS did it, so did we." type thing. The Chromebook is probably more usable than a Surface anyhow...

Of course, the building on this article would be minimally staffed, probably not offer storytimes, or other public gathering events... but it would be cheaper, and still fulfill the "basic" tenets of what a Library "was".

Cool. you have digital literacy.

Many people do not. Many people do not possess your skill set for finding relevant information using Google. You'd be amazed the number of people who can't tell the difference between a real information, and Wikipedia spam.

Librarians are TRAINED to find this information. Your questions ARE the type of questions we deal with every day. We do this for the people who don't have your level of digital and informational literacy. And when you're stuck? (if that ever happens?) Come to the Library. We'll help you too ;)

Haven't been to a public library lately, have you?

Libraries have moved FAR FAR beyond the staid old stereotype of "shh"ing school marms in reading glasses. I have worked in Libraries for over 20 years now, and I can tell you that we are busier now than we have EVER been. eBooks haven't been a negative to us, but the treatment of libraries by publishers has been a negative to ebook users. I'm really happy that someone is looking as far forward as this article, but I'd love to know more about how they expect it to work.

and negative viewpoints yours are normally the result of someone who hasn't used their public library in a long time. You can either ask Google and get a thousand answers, or you can ask a Librarian and get the right answer.

The big issues involve licensing for eBooks and the fact that publishers seem to engage in punitive pricing with Libraries. Example: One publisher declares that an ebook can only be checked out 27 times, then the license for that expires. Multiple publishers REFUSE to sell ebooks for Library use. Libraries are treated like pirates by many publishers.

Now, different companies are trying different models. Kansas libraries spearheaded a massive campaign to control their own ebooks licensing, and they succeeded with an unprecedented project of contacting hundreds of Publishers and finagling acceptable licenses for public usage. Will the San Antonio folks be doing this? Do they expect 3M, Sirsi, or Polaris to do this?

A tertiary issue is the license themselves. Typically in libraries, you cannot use a library owned computer to capture or transfer the license to an ereader device. This is because in the case of "USB required devices or items", the license exists on the COMPUTER itself. Downloading a license to a public computer currently violates all applicable copyright law for ebooks/eaudio materials because it makes the license available to all (or the license is lost when a computer reboots and doesn't save anything at all between sessions.)

Intriguing idea, but the article doesn't include any comprehension of the issues involved in this. Just because it sounds "cool", doesn't mean it's doable.

I think there is also an expectation that Microsoft will fix the Windows 8 flaws... because they have shown in the past the ability to react to negative feedback (i.e. Vista = BAD, Win 7 = GOOD, now Win 8 = CRAP, therefore... Win 9 = teh aw3s0me)

Windows 8, even in release mode, smells like beta testing. The general reaction has been very "ME/Vista"-like. So we expect them to improve it. Will they? That's the real question...

Almost every filtering system for the Internet is primarily based on blacklists... lists of URLs, lists of words... because there is no computer program capable of the morality required to filtering the Internet with any level of adequacy.

Until such a program, which requires no physical moving parts (unless you consider an automated head slapping device part of an effective filtering system), can tell what's obscene and what's no obscene... why would you expect a program to know why it should hit the sheep on the left instead of the 5 year old in a sheep costume trick or treating on the right when a squirrel chasing a RC car dashes into the road in front of the car?

Would these morality control systems be different by state? Likely, yes. Utah's morality code is drastically different than Alabama or Connecticut or Michigan or Wyoming even. Who's responsible for loading the latest morality code updates into your car (or internet filter) as you pass over state lines? And God forbid, what if you accidentally veer into Canada??!?

Is it technologically possible? yes.

Is it advisable? You got a LONG way to go, baby.