Another alternative to physical printing would be online display. Despite advances in display technology, the very best monitors, costing thousands of dollars, still do not approach the quality of the printed page. Visionaries like Kurzweil see the inevitable march of technology providing answers to these problems. Magnetic and optical disk technologies continue to advance rapidly, in terms of miniaturization, capacity, and cost. Display technology, such as active matrix liquid crystal displays, will offer higher resolution and lower power requirements.
Battery technology continues to improve.
This line of thinking argues that we will see notebook computers with sufficient computing power, display quality, storage capacity, and battery life to serve as a viable replacement to the printed book within a few years. At that time the electronic distribution component of the virtual library can become a reality. The issue of compensation of authors for their creative efforts becomes even more important in an environment where an entire book can be downloaded to a hand-held digital display device, and when that technology becomes an accepted alternative to reading traditional bound paper books. The techniques for protection of documents discussed earlier must mature in order before authors will relinquish their works for distribution via the virtual library. When those technologies are in place, and when acceptable global catalogs are in place, libraries can cease the practice of ordering books for their inventory.