Ross Dawson

2009 State of Canada's Broadband Infrastructure

by Federal Communications Commission

The whole system is set up to make the big five rich. I guess national communications companies in other countries envy our no-competition environment....

Library Journal

Googe Editions aims to sink the DRM device ebook models of Amazon and Sony. I hope they win the war.

"Google's e-books will be accessible through any Web-enabled computer, e-reader, or mobile phone instead of a dedicated device. This will allow content to be unchained from expensive devices such as Amazon's Kindle e-book reader."

"Under Google's payment scheme, publishers will receive about 63 percent of the gross sales, and Google will keep the remaining 37 percent.

Google also hopes to offer Editions titles through other online book retailers. In this scenario, online retailers would get 55 percent of revenues minus a small fee paid to Google, and publishers would get 45 percent."

Google will essentially shun the ePub and PDF formats.

Bezos must be freaking now that his iTunes/iPod dream for books is under siege.

There is a great piece in the NYTimes about books starting to become "Napsterized".

"With the new devices in hand, will book buyers avert their eyes from the free copies only a few clicks away that have been uploaded without the copyright holder’s permission? Mindful of what happened to the music industry at a similar transitional juncture, book publishers are about to discover whether their industry is different enough to be spared a similarly dismal fate."

Currently, Apple has more than 85,000 applications for the iPhone. More than 10,000 applications are available for cellphones running on Android, Google’s mobile operating system. Palm has about 100 apps for its Pre and Pixi smartphones.

NYTimes