Showing posts with label eRevolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eRevolution. Show all posts
6/8/10
Displays that boggle the mind ...
Apple announced that its new cellphone screen will display over 300 dots per inch, or pixels per inch in electronics. Having worked in publishing, that’s extraordinary. I’m sure we never printed anything over 200 dpi. Publishers get ready.
5/28/10
Why Chris will want an iPad someday ...
and me too. When you purchase a show/movie on iTunes, you can play it at home or take it with you on the iPad. Nice. And Rome is great: BBC on steroids. As usual, the leaders of the filmic Roman Empire have the accents of the British Empire.
5/23/10
And what is Hufpo? ...
I’m not a frequent reader of the online Huffington Post, but look who it’s passing up. Everybody.
5/17/10
Taking "printed" out of print publishing ...
Or "Honey, I shrunk the bookcase!" This morning Don and Jack and I got to talking about a local music publisher and I trotted out my latest take on print publishing. (Credit to blogger Mike Cane. Be warned: Mike writes “explicitly.”) When I read his comment that publishers are ignoring technology, the idea sunk in. Unnerving in its implications. Really.
My rendering: Book publishers giving their content to the Amazons, Apples, and other hardware vendors of the world because they don’t know how to produce hardware is comparable to their handing over their content (and revenue) to book printers because they don’t know how to print books. The tablet is the new print delivery vehicle. So just as publishers go to China to print their books, they need to partner with Chinese hardware companies to produce their own inhouse tablets.
Of course scale will matter, and publishers like Hal Leonard, the largest music print publisher in the world with institutional buyers, get to be first. The Kindle will be just one of three or four tablets per household. One for music, one for Bibles, one for other books, one for cookbooks, and so on. Each tablet will have its own focus, features, and store.
And they will be free with a subscription to the publisher's wares.
[Mike Cane linked to this post. My apologies on edits to the quote he excerpted. Didn't change the substance of the thought, just the styling.]
My rendering: Book publishers giving their content to the Amazons, Apples, and other hardware vendors of the world because they don’t know how to produce hardware is comparable to their handing over their content (and revenue) to book printers because they don’t know how to print books. The tablet is the new print delivery vehicle. So just as publishers go to China to print their books, they need to partner with Chinese hardware companies to produce their own inhouse tablets.
Of course scale will matter, and publishers like Hal Leonard, the largest music print publisher in the world with institutional buyers, get to be first. The Kindle will be just one of three or four tablets per household. One for music, one for Bibles, one for other books, one for cookbooks, and so on. Each tablet will have its own focus, features, and store.
And they will be free with a subscription to the publisher's wares.
[Mike Cane linked to this post. My apologies on edits to the quote he excerpted. Didn't change the substance of the thought, just the styling.]
5/11/10
Its feats show it, they're iPads ...
Dunno what that means. Just to say, the iPad is a cool tool reading machine.
5/5/10
Where's my waldo-pod? ...
Cool feature. Find a computer’s location and wipe the memory if it’s been lost or ‘napped.
5/4/10
Up the Amazon without a paddle ...
Google does have a way of dismantling entire market sectors, in this case Amazon’s ebook business. Emphasis added to this item:
“Google says its new service--called Google Editions--will allow users to buy digital copies of books they discover through its book search service. It will also allow book retailers to sell Google Editions on their own sites, taking the bulk of the revenue.”
“Google says its new service--called Google Editions--will allow users to buy digital copies of books they discover through its book search service. It will also allow book retailers to sell Google Editions on their own sites, taking the bulk of the revenue.”
4/15/10
Woven words ... info as art
The previous post got me thinking about the visualization of information. Here’s a collection of fifty websites that use visual tools. Amazing and gorgeous. Very difficult to pick a best example, but check this out.
Detail:
Detail:
3/22/10
Will the real tablet stand up? ...
This year will tell the tale: Will tablets replace laptops? (And aren’t tablets the real laptops, while laptops are always used on tabletops, which means they are more tabl-ets than laptops?) My playing around with the “mini tablet” iPod Touch tells me they will. Once folks get a look at the astonishing apps available and a safe and simple touch-screen operating system and a larger screen, the game is over.
And replace printed books also? Amazon thinks so. Or at least it’s hedging its bets.
And replace printed books also? Amazon thinks so. Or at least it’s hedging its bets.
3/17/10
Tracking the next great web trend ...
TOKYO, March 16, 2010—Canon Inc. announced today that it will begin the acquisition process for the top-level domain name ".canon," based on the new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) registration system.
2/28/10
Enjoying Benjamin Franklin lecture on iTunes U ...
I am continually amazed what’s available online for free. Anyone on a computer can access the iTunes U lectures series below, from Oxford, Cambridge, UC Berkeley. And many more.
2/20/10
2/17/10
Following Christopher Fowler ... through peculiar times ...
Christopher Fowler is a favorite crime writer of mine. His “Peculiar Crimes Unit” series, now relabeled “Bryant & May” is blend of great characters, tight plots, and lots of tidbits of London history.
“In the last few years, the role of the writer has changed. It’s no longer something you get around to doing when things are a bit quieter, it’s not enough to write a book and send it off to a publisher. You are required to play a complicated game with the media that involves a lot of planning and projections, because the ground is shifting. Publishers do a lot of things for me, but the thing they do most these days is apologise. ‘We can’t', ‘we wish’, ‘it’s not cost effective’, ‘it’s an uncertain climate.’ That’s fine, they try to help get me published and it’s all you can hope for. In England there was a long tradition of the Actor-Manager, and now there are Writer-Managers, but here’s the thing – the more a good writer does that isn’t actually writing, the worse s/he gets.”
“In the last few years, the role of the writer has changed. It’s no longer something you get around to doing when things are a bit quieter, it’s not enough to write a book and send it off to a publisher. You are required to play a complicated game with the media that involves a lot of planning and projections, because the ground is shifting. Publishers do a lot of things for me, but the thing they do most these days is apologise. ‘We can’t', ‘we wish’, ‘it’s not cost effective’, ‘it’s an uncertain climate.’ That’s fine, they try to help get me published and it’s all you can hope for. In England there was a long tradition of the Actor-Manager, and now there are Writer-Managers, but here’s the thing – the more a good writer does that isn’t actually writing, the worse s/he gets.”
2/15/10
Post once, publish everywhere ...
I mess around with the various publishing platforms available. You can take the editor out of publishing, but you can’t ...
The newest publishing platform this week is Google’s Buzz. It could be a dilly. It links in nicely to my micro publishing flow:
* I like to keep my content on my computer, not residing on the web. So I use a journaling app, MacJournal, to create a post, which I upload to my blog.
* I like to use images often, so I make a blog app, Blogger, my primary online posting site.
* When I post to my blog, snitsbits, the header and blog link are automatically reposted to Twitter.
* From Twitter, the same info is reposted automatically to Facebook, Linkedin, and now Buzz.
The flow goes from Twitter to the rest because not all these kids want to play together; Twitter won’t currently receive posts from Buzz, for instance. And Buzz doesn’t want to post to Twitter because Twitter only handles a line or two of text, not pics. Who cares? This works for me.
The newest publishing platform this week is Google’s Buzz. It could be a dilly. It links in nicely to my micro publishing flow:
* I like to keep my content on my computer, not residing on the web. So I use a journaling app, MacJournal, to create a post, which I upload to my blog.
* I like to use images often, so I make a blog app, Blogger, my primary online posting site.
* When I post to my blog, snitsbits, the header and blog link are automatically reposted to Twitter.
* From Twitter, the same info is reposted automatically to Facebook, Linkedin, and now Buzz.
The flow goes from Twitter to the rest because not all these kids want to play together; Twitter won’t currently receive posts from Buzz, for instance. And Buzz doesn’t want to post to Twitter because Twitter only handles a line or two of text, not pics. Who cares? This works for me.
2/11/10
Thinking about the Times ... and Mores ...
Today the New York Times made its historical archives available to subscribers. Nice. Here’s the front page for March 5, 1861, the first of Lincoln’s inaugurations. Probably not readable here. The inset is the text of the article. Nice again. The NYT is making a push to secure paid subscriptions by leveraging several new services. My best wishes.
Speaking of best wishes: The term inauguration* caught my eye. It’s that extra “u.” I’m presently reading a historical novel about Cicero, Conspirata, in which the auguries are part of the political rituals of transition.
*ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from Latin inaugurat- ‘interpreted as omens (from the flight of birds),’ based on augurare ‘to augur.’
SOURCE: New Oxford Dictionary
Speaking of best wishes: The term inauguration* caught my eye. It’s that extra “u.” I’m presently reading a historical novel about Cicero, Conspirata, in which the auguries are part of the political rituals of transition.
*ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from Latin inaugurat- ‘interpreted as omens (from the flight of birds),’ based on augurare ‘to augur.’
SOURCE: New Oxford Dictionary
2/10/10
Move over Twitter ... What's the Buzz?
Google is offering an alternative to Twitter and Facebook both, called Buzz. This is the “phone” version of the web app. It’s mighty purty. In fact, looking at the desktop and phone versions, it’s been built for mobile use primarily.
Image at 3x. Don’t I wish the screen was this size. Hmm.
Image at 3x. Don’t I wish the screen was this size. Hmm.
1/31/10
Probably projecting from my past ...
Post-iPod, Apple looks to huge content areas to run through its hardware. With the just announced iPad, there is a confluence of content that Apple has already secured: music, apps. But Steve Jobs knows that new hardware must be matched and mated to new gigantic, coherent content sectors. The last slide in his presentation (below) says it all: Steve is going after education as a market. The whole enchilada of educational publishing.
The hardware is spot on: Simple, safe, small, light, cheap (or soon will be) exactly right for students from grade school to grad school. The software provides the creativity/research tools students need. The iWork apps are astonishingly lovely, creative, and fun software.
It will not mean all printed books be damned but it will mean printed textbooks be damned. Maybe it will be textbooks be damned: I’m guessing it’s the creativity tools that Steve really cares about. Ten years out, every student will have an iPad or something just like it. Finally. Except Apple will be there first and foremost. That’s a done deal as of last Wednesday.
Everything about the iPad says that Steve Jobs wants to be remembered as the guy who revolutionized schooling if not learning. Take a look at the mission at the OLPC site. That’s Jobs’s kind of language and vision, except he not only thinks bigger than most of us, he thinks better.
SOURCE: Apple Inc.
The hardware is spot on: Simple, safe, small, light, cheap (or soon will be) exactly right for students from grade school to grad school. The software provides the creativity/research tools students need. The iWork apps are astonishingly lovely, creative, and fun software.
It will not mean all printed books be damned but it will mean printed textbooks be damned. Maybe it will be textbooks be damned: I’m guessing it’s the creativity tools that Steve really cares about. Ten years out, every student will have an iPad or something just like it. Finally. Except Apple will be there first and foremost. That’s a done deal as of last Wednesday.
Everything about the iPad says that Steve Jobs wants to be remembered as the guy who revolutionized schooling if not learning. Take a look at the mission at the OLPC site. That’s Jobs’s kind of language and vision, except he not only thinks bigger than most of us, he thinks better.
SOURCE: Apple Inc.
1/28/10
Looking at the iPad applications ...
What it took to bring the word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps from the Mac OS to the iOS is an effort not to be sneezed at. What doing means is the shift to multitouch based apps on all the Apple products. Spectacular.
SOURCE: Apple Inc.
SOURCE: Apple Inc.
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