Ramblings, citations and "brainwaves" of a college librarian in Toronto. 475 square feet refers to the size of my home, not the size of my office or library.



Apple Blocks Google Voice App for iPhone


It is time to re-regulate the phone companies.

C|NET News


Reverse Image Search Lookup



Great Quote


Nicholson Baker

"reading on an iPhone to reading on a Kindle was "like going from a Mini Cooper to a white 1982 Impala with blown shocks."




Pay Per View Gains Traction




One user per eBook has got to be the dumbest idea ever foisted on the public. Now Amazon.com, goes and uses their DRM to remove George Orwell's Books from Kindle, without end user consent, due to a contractual hick-up/copyright issue. Just because you can does not mean you should. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Ditto, cut off your access with billing disputes, etc. You pay the same as print to rent with a nasty landlord?

There goes the trust consumers were gaining.







NYTimes

“It’s clear that the model of the large entertainment specialist working in a large space is not going to work in the future,” said Simon Wright, the chief executive of Virgin Entertainment Group, North America.

What about research specialists? Libraries?
What is the canary in our coal mine? Falling circulation? Falling service desk stats?


Renting Textbooks



Blog, Wiki Use in Organizations


The IntranetBlog publicizes a report of a survey of "561 organizations of all sizes from across the planet that participated in the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey:

47% have intranet wikis (17% enterprise deployment); 10% have no plans or interest
46% have intranet discussion forums (19% enterprise use); 9% have no plans or interest
46% have intranet instant messaging (29% enterprise use); 21% have no plans or interest
45% have intranet blogs (13% enterprise deployment); 11% have no plans or interest
37% have intranet RSS (13% enterprise use); 12% have no plans or interest
23% have intranet podcasts (6% enterprise deployment); 30% have no plans or interest
19% have intranet social networking (6% enterprise use); 20% have no plans or interest"

A free summarized version of the report.


BN.com


Barnes and Noble is pushing big into the ebook business, via multiple platforms.

Bn.com

Here is a great piece on the ebook war shaping up in the marketplace: Fast Company entitled, “Amazon Taps Its Inner Apple,” It looks at the past, present, and future for Amazon and the effect that Apple could have on the company’s plans to control the e-book market. The article notes that Jeff Bezos’ initial strategy seems to be working. Bezos watched Apple establish a virtual monopoly over online music and is emulating those tactics to gain control over digital content distribution. By introducing the Kindle, Bezos “propelled the e-book concept from mere curiosity to full-fledged consumer item” and to control digital distribution Amazon is losing money on many titles in an effort to entice readers.


Millenials Not So Tech Savy


I have been saying it, but nobody seems to believe me. More shots across the bow of the millennial hype boat:

A Comparison of Student Perceptions of their
Computer Skills to their Actual Abilities


New Neilson report debunks many teen myths



The University of Michigan is teaming up with Amazon.com to offer reprints of 400,000 rare, out-of-print and out-of-copyright books from its library. Amazon's BookSurge unit will print the books on demand in soft cover editions at prices from $10 to $45.

Siliconvalley.com


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