Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Google Wants To Replace Your Passwords With Jewelry

Amazon Permanently Drops Price of 8.9″ Kindle Fire HD Tablets

Amazon just introduced new lower prices for the entire line of 8.9″ Kindle Fire HD tablets. They also finally released them in Europe and Japan. Clearly the larger Kindle Fires haven’t been selling as well as Amazon had hoped. Amazon never releases Kindle sales figures, but the bestseller lists don’t lie. Amazon’s 8.9″ Kindle Fire [...]

OverDrive Announces Library eBook Leaders

Last year, readers browsing OverDrive-hosted library websites generated 2.7 billion page views and checked out more than 70 million eBooks and audiobooks. Today, OverDrive announced Library eBook Leaders for 2012, recognizing the libraries achieving the greatest growth and exposure for their eBook and audiobook catalogs.

Public libraries lending the most eBooks and other digital titles from OverDrive-powered catalogs in 2012:

King County Library System, Wash. (1.3 million checkouts)
New York Public Library (1.1 million checkouts)
Toronto Public Library (900,000 checkouts)
Seattle Public Library (850,000 checkouts)
Hennepin County Library, Minn. (750,000 checkouts)

Public libraries recording the fastest growth for their eBook-lending catalogs in 2012:

Moreton Bay Libraries (Australia) (464% growth)
Mideastern Michigan Library Cooperative (370%)
Western Plains Library System (Okla.) (351%)
Up North Michigan Consortium (317%)
Northeast Texas Digital Consortium (300%)

OverDrive's 2012 Outreach Program Contest recognized the following partners for raising awareness for eBooks and audiobook collections through effective and creative community outreach campaigns:

Best Overall Campaign: Mid-Continent Public Library, Mo.
Best Online Campaign: Marion County Public Library System, W. Va.
Best Inside the Library Campaign: Sacramento Public Library, Calif.
Best Outside the Library Campaign: Kent District Library, Mich.
Best Use of Reading Devices: Lambton County Library (Ontario, Canada)

We selected Library eBook Leaders based on data available to all partner schools and libraries in Content Reserve,. Lending leaders recognized in this report reflect 2012 checkout data for standalone library systems (versus consortia), and growth is based on the rise in lending from 2011 to 2012. We'll present additional data examining book discovery trends in the digital library during Digipalooza '13, which takes place in Cleveland, August 1-4.

Michael Lovett in Public Relations and Social Media Specialist at OverDrive.

First Look: Excel 2013 Tutorial

Last week, we gave you Word—this week, we give you Excel! The first 12 lessons of Excel 2013 are now available. Check out the tutorial today.

Time lapse video, for art and for science

Dave Hunt (a familiar name in these parts) has been working on perfecting his Raspberry Pi-controlled camera time lapse rig. Before I go into any more detail, here’s some absolutely stupendous video resulting from his work on the setup. (I recommend you use HD when viewing this – and watch the video in a full-screen setting if you can.)

We’ve featured a few projects here which use the Pi to create time-lapse video, but Dave’s is the most sophisticated we’ve seen yet, adding features like a heater to evaporate dew from the lens and an ability to film rising or falling sequences. There are some great pictures documenting the build at his blog (we’re very impressed by the neatness of the construction work), along with some circuit diagrams and the Python you’ll need to create your own rig. Visit Dave’s site for a tutorial and discussion about construction.

We’re very encouraged to see so many artists using the Pi, in so many different ways; there have been a number of art installations featured here, and it’s really great to see the Pi driving the tools needed to create beautiful things. Computing is as much a creative discipline as it is a scientific one – that’s a message we at the Foundation are very keen to get through to kids, but it’s not one we’re seeing reflected in schools.

Science can be beautiful too, though. Over in the United States, SaratogaWeather has been using a static camera controlled by a Pi to take time-lapse video of the weather patterns over Mount Timpanogos, Utah. Dynamic systems like the formation of clouds are hard to appreciate and study at real-time speeds: but speed things up a bit, and patterns and structures become evident and much easier to analyse.

There’s a whole channel full of these videos, and cloud geeks like me will have great fun with them. I irritated everyone around by shouting “CAP AND BANNER!” at the top of my voice when I spotted one in another of these videos. (Once I nearly made Eben crash the car by screaming “Stop! KELVIN HELMHOLTZ!” while we were travelling at speed down the A14. I blame hanging out with fluid dynamicists. Kelvin Helmholtz instability produces a great and rather rare cloud formation, though – I’m still proud to have spotted one.)

What applications would you like to see time-lapse cameras being used for? Are you working on something yourself? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Reuters visits the Raspberry Pi factory

This piece of news footage is all about how the Raspberry Pi you own is made in the UK. It gives you another really close look at some of the processes in the factory – as well as some crystal-clear video of pick and place, you’ll see some of the ladies on the line doing hand placement of through-hole parts, and learn a bit more about plans for increasing production (even with a million sold in our first year, sales show no sign of slowing down). The video also discusses our plans to move all of the production (except the red boards for the Chinese market) to the Sony factory in Pencoed, S Wales, where Raspberry Pis are made for us under licence.

And Eben has a new t-shirt.

EL James to Publish Journal for Aspiring Writers

While critics may rightfully scoff at the writing quality of the 50 Shades of Grey series and jokes have flooded the internet about James’ audacity at helping aspiring writers, no one can argue with the financial and popular success of her three one-time self-published books. Growing out of what she saw as a very real need based on face-to-face interaction with her readers, James’ and her publisher are now releasing a writing journal for would-be authors.

Entitled 50 Shades of Grey: Inner Goddess, the leather-bound book will include a foreword from the author, writing prompts and tips, excerpts from the novels, and more.

A quote in an article for The Bookseller by James’s editor Anne Messitte at Vintage/Anchor explained the journal’s creation and purpose: “As E L James travelled and met with her readers, there was a great curiosity about how she got started writing. Her personal story as a writer is inspirational to many women, and journaling has been an important part of her creative process from the start.”

Viking writes, “Developed as a creative collaboration between EL James and her US publisher, the bonded-leather soft cover journal will offer readers and aspiring writers a place where they can record their innermost thoughts.

While the response to the news has been mixed, some outlets are not passing up the opportunity to poke fun at the author of what many have complained is barely-readable and barely-disguised fan fiction. Abbey Stone for Hollywood.com stated in her article, “… leave it to James to release a ‘book’ that consists mostly of empty, lined pages. Who knew that blank journals had authors? She really is revolutionizing the industry.”

James is currently at work on another novel, as well as collaborating on the much-anticipated 50 Shades of Grey screen adaptation. The journal is expected to be released on May 1st.

EL James to Publish Journal for Aspiring Writers is a post from: E-Reader News

ForeWord Reviews Names Its Book of the Year Finalists

As independently published authors continue to gain new ground with readers and retailers, they are also gaining new respect from the publishing industry as a whole. ForeWord Reviews, one of the premier entities for national reviews of independent works since 1998, has now announced its shortlist of finalists for its Book of the Year awards. Spanning sixty-two categories, the finalists were selected from over 1300 entries from small publishers and academic presses for the 2012 award.

While the award itself is a recognition of both the author and the publisher, it is actually librarians and booksellers who rely on the outcome of the judges’ decisions in order to find new authors whom they may have otherwise not discovered.

According to a press release yesterday from ForeWord Reviews, “Over the next two months, a panel of sixty judges, librarians and booksellers only, will determine the winners. Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards, as well as Editor's Choice Prizes for Fiction and Nonfiction, will be announced at the American Library Association Annual Conference (ALA) in Chicago, Friday, June 28th at 6pm at The Pop Top Stage. Winners will also be announced on the ForeWord Reviews website, on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and our weekly email newsletter, ForeWord This Week. The winners of the two Editor's Choice Prizes will be awarded $1,500 each. ForeWord's Independent Publisher of the Year will also be announced. More than 20,000 librarians and publishers attend ALA annually.”

For a complete list of the finalists for the upcoming award, visit botya.forewordreviews.com/finalists/2012/.

ForeWord Reviews Names Its Book of the Year Finalists is a post from: E-Reader News

Monday, March 11, 2013

Netflix Now Available for the Blackberry Z10

If you are a Blackberry Playbook or Z10 owner, the most sought after video streaming apps everyone wants is Netflix. It has not been possible until this point to even stream videos from the website because Netflix put a physical block on accessing the content. Today, Good e-Reader is proud to bring the only working copy of Netlfix, exclusively for the Blackberry Z10.

This working version of Netflix will only work on BB10 devices. One of the only drawback is because this is an Android port, it tends to take a longtime to load up and tends to lag. If you can get past all of this, you can install the BAR file on your Z10 today by clicking HERE. If you have no experience loading in your own apps on the Playbook or the Z10, you need to download the proper software HERE.

Netflix Now Available for the Blackberry Z10 is a post from: E-Reader News

Marvel’s Project Gamma Brings Adaptive Music to Digital Comics

Project Gamma adds sound to the comics experience—but it’s not a single soundtrack, nor is it simple sound effects. It is “a unique, immersive experience that brings fully adaptive music and sound together with digital comics to create an entirely new audio-visual event,” according to the Marvel website.

Unlike your standard audio comic, where a single soundtrack plays when the comic is opened or the reader taps a button, Project Gamma will tailor the sound not only to the action in the comic but also to the reader’s behavior. Here’s Peter Phillips, senior vice president and general manager of Marvel’s Digital Media Group said "The music will not speed up as you flip the page," he explains. "Its modulated in such a way that whether you're a fast reader or a slow reader, it will stick with you, it'll be by your side. This is embedded music to enhance the experience of what you're already enjoying. And it paces itself to how you're reading. So that's really the key.

"If there's a piano expected to be on there for 30 seconds and plays music for 30 seconds, after that time is over it's going to randomize in a way that's completely intuitive. As you're flipping back and forth throughout pages, it's not going to be buffering; the audio will enhance that experience and take you back to where you were. You're not going to hear any break in the music."

In addition, there will be similarities in the music across different comics that feature the same character.

Marvel will roll out Project Gamma later this year and will pair up the new system with comics that have “Big events, big characters—honestly, ones that really lend themselves to music,” according to editor-in-chief Axel Alonso, who also managed to articulate why, exactly, anyone would want this: "It's not unlike being in a video game, to be honest."

Marvel’s Project Gamma Brings Adaptive Music to Digital Comics is a post from: E-Reader News

Comixology Experiencing Massive Problems with Free Marvel Comics

Comixology announced that it would be giving away almost 700 free issues at the South by Southwest conference in Austin. In the last 48 hours since the comics have been available, the company’s systems have been crashing and many customers are unable to even log into the system. This normally wouldn’t be a big problem, but the free #1 issues are only available until March 12th 2013, which means the vast majority of comic lovers won’t be able to download anything at all.

The main idea behind the free first issues will be to encourage people to buy second issues. Most of the comics available are older, but you can find some great things if you can get to them. We have found through our own experiences that the app suffers the most on iOS and Android. The best solution is to directly access the webpage, get the goods from there, and it will then be automatically synced to your account. Unfortunately, due to the demand the company has paused the ability to download all the free issues, with no word on when they will reinstate it again.

David Steinberge, the CEO and co-founder of ComiXology, released the following statement just now: “It’s been a whirlwind weekend and comiXology is fresh from SXSW, where we talked about some exciting things. We had believed ourselves prepared—but unfortunately we became overwhelmed by the immense response. We’re still struggling to keep our systems up. The result is that you aren’t getting your comics when and where you want. We don’t like letting you down. Our teams are working around the clock to resolve these issues so that you can have the experience you’ve come to expect. We’ll be communicating with you as often as we can and deeply appreciate the outpouring of support we’ve seen from our customers while we right the ship.”

Comixology Experiencing Massive Problems with Free Marvel Comics is a post from: E-Reader News

Toronto Public Library Strikes Affiliate Deal with Indigo

The Toronto Public Library has implemented the ability for customers to buy eBooks via their website with a new affiliate program with Indigo Books. Users will be able to purchase the eBook that have borrowed from the library or if the book has a long wait list, they can just straight up purchase it. The Toronto Library will earn a paltry 5% commission on every digital variant they sell.

This new program marks the broader push to open TPL up to new revenue sources. In the near future the library will begin printing advertisements on the backs of its due-date slips, for a six-month trial period. The library is also investigating the possibility of running ads through its public wi-fi service.

Libraries are building more synergy with selling eBooks, rather then just lending them out for free. In essence, libraries don’t make any money from loaning out eBooks and the investment for a solid catalog often run upwards to $20,000. This is also the first time Indigo has partnered with a library and makes sense they selected the one they did, because Indigo has their headquarters in Toronto.

Toronto Public Library Strikes Affiliate Deal with Indigo is a post from: E-Reader News

Floating mouse helps prevent injury

A team of European designers has a plan to help save your wrists from injury when using the computer. It's a floating mouse that reduces the chance of repetitive stress injury

See more at:

http://www.komando.com/coolsites/index.aspx?id=14172&utm_medium=nl&utm_source=notd&utm_content=2013-03-11-article_6-img

10 Ways to Make a School Librarian’s Job Easier

It's not easy being the school librarian. Tasked with fostering learning, encouraging library use, and instilling a love of reading among students, school librarians are often in high demand and short on time. We asked some of OverDrive's school library partners to share tips for making the most of your digital collection while balancing an ever-expanding to-do list.

Train students using hands-on demonstrations
Respondents agreed: there's no better way to teach students how to use a digital collection than by having them do it themselves. Try hosting one class at a time and supervising students as they access your school's digital collection, borrow a book, and—if they're using devices—install OverDrive's mobile app and authorize it with an Adobe ID. Once students try it out for themselves, our librarians reported, they'll continue to use the digital collection on their own.
Kids and teens love technology—harness that interest!
Show students how eBooks and audiobooks from your school library work with the devices they already know and love.
Train parents of young students
If you're catering to students in the lower elementary grades, focus training efforts on the parents, who are often in charge of devices at home.
Take advantage of time-saving tools in Content Reserve
Content Reserve offers features to help you save time and ensure that you never miss titles that fit your needs. Try saving your popular searches (basic or advanced) in the Content Reserve marketplace, or check out the automated collection development tools located under the Select Express tab.
Designate in-house experts to help with collection development
Consider designating one or two "collection experts" per grade from your school's library or teaching staff. These experts can help pinpoint the wants and needs of their designated age group and bounce ideas off one another to arrive at the best possible collection for your school.
Partner with teachers
Demonstrate how to use your digital collection to teachers—or better yet, supervise as they do it themselves—so they can promote the service to their students and make use of it in their classrooms.
Implement fun incentives to encourage use of your digital collection
Prizes are popular, but incentives can be cheap or free, too. As one of our contributing librarians shared, "I had a contest this year—if students increased the use of the e-library by a certain percent, they got to 'pie' me in face during the pep rally! Also, I had our counselors dress up as superheroes if this percentage was raised."
Use holidays to promote your titles
Create promotions centered around holidays, celebrations and commemorations. In March alone, Women's History Month, March Madness, and the first day of spring (to name a few) provide opportunities to showcase related titles from your digital collection.
Get ahead of the technology game
As digital learning tools become more and more popular, say the librarians we surveyed, it pays to be proactive and anticipate the needs of your school. Cultivating a digital collection now lays a good foundation for future endeavors.
Enjoy the perks of your OverDrive collection
With your OverDrive collection, there's no need to deal with overdue fines or lost or damaged books. We hope you can take a second to sit back, relax and enjoy!

Thanks to Paige Jaeger (Washingon-Saratoga Board of Cooperative Educational Services, N.Y.), Tana Penn (Taylor County School District, Ky.), Ann Terry (Frisco Independent School District, Texas) and other OverDrive school library partners for sharing ideas. For additional outreach ideas, take a look at these printable bookmark templates, sticker and shelf-talker templates, and more on our digital library blog.

If your school is interested in OverDrive, but hasn't signed up yet, check out our free school trial.

Carrie Smith is a Technical Writer at OverDrive.

Marvel Giving Away 700 #1 Issue Digital Comics for Free

Yesterday Marvel Comics announced that they are running a temporary promotion where they are giving away 700 first-issue digital comics for free to anyone who can get through the download process using the Marvel Comics apps or Marvel Comics Digital Comics Shop. Unfortunately they are having trouble sustaining the massive download attempts, and neither are [...]

How to print from Android

http://www.techhive.com/article/2027751/answer-line-how-to-print-from-android.html

REPORT: Apple's Thinner, Lighter iPad 5 Could Be Here In April

RUMOR CONTROL TO EARTHLINGS:Here We Go Again...iPad 5 "Possibly" ApriliPhone 5S "Maybe" August

Publishers and eBook Stores File Complaints Against Amazon’s New Domains

Amazon has petitioned ICANN for some new top-level domain names such as .book, .author, and .read. These are the new breed of internet extensions that will go live this April and will replace the standard .com and .net we all know and love. Amazon’s plans to dominate the book portion of the new domain names have incurred the wrath of the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers.

In a letter to Icann, Scott Turow, the novelist and president of the Authors Guild, wrote: “We strongly object to ICANN’s plans to sell the exclusive top-level domain rights for generic book-industry terms, such as .book, .author, and .read. Placing such generic domains in private hands is plainly anti-competitive, allowing already dominant, well-capitalized companies to expand and entrench their market power. The potential for abuse seems limitless.”

Barnes & Noble also filed its own protest in the last few days that said “Amazon would use control of these TLDs to stifle competition in the bookselling and publishing industries.”

The Digital publishing industry is seeing unparalleled revenue growth in the last few years and major publishers, such as Penguin, see 22% of their global book sales stem from digital. Amazon is thought to control at least 60% of the global ebook market and controlling popular brand extensions would be a savvy move. It is thought that the company has spent well over 10 million dollars in filing applications for different top-level domain names in the last year.

Publishers and eBook Stores File Complaints Against Amazon’s New Domains is a post from: E-Reader News

3D parametric plotter

This video from Benedek93 is a little slow to get going, but it’s well worth watching all the way through for a really tight demonstration of what you can achieve with OpenGL ES on the Pi.

Benedek says:

Recently I’ve started going through a tutorial for modern OpenGL programming again (I can recommend it:http://arcsynthesis.org/gltut/ ), and on the way I decided to re-do that function plotter program I have showed off in one of my videos (“OpenGL Shaders and Shadow Maps”).

First I wrote it using the old, fixed-pipeline OpenGL specification so that I could run it on my laptop which didn’t support the newer versions. You can download it here and play with it on a PC: https://bitbucket.org/benedek/simple-…

At the same time I was also messing around with OpenGL on the Raspberry Pi and I was impressed seeing how smoothly you could make it draw simple but pretty 3D graphics. So I started porting that program to the RPi, adding the boilerplate code necessary to set up a GL context on it and changing the graphics code to use modern OpenGL ES.

In the end, the results were just as pretty as in my old shadow-mapping plotter program (except for the shadows), and the RPi was able to draw models smoothly at the same triangle counts as my laptop.

Here’s the download link: https://bitbucket.org/benedek/rpi-sim…

Finally, a Tablet Built Exclusively for Women

Eurostar Group, a Dubai based tech firm has designed what it is proudly calling the world's first tablet device that has been built entirely for women. Named the ePad Femme, the tablet looks exactly like any other currently available device, except for its branding and the choice of apps the device comes pre-loaded with. Some sources pointed out the ePad Femme is also available in a pink color scheme, though none seem to be available online. Anyway, the tablet does sport a light pink wallpaper.

Coming to specs, the ePad Femme sports an 8 inch display and is built around a 1.5 GHz chip. The tablet runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and offers 16 GB of internal memory. There is also an SD card slot should one need more storage. What makes it even more attractive is its price tag of $190, making the ePad Femme even more affordable than the Nexus 7.

The manufacturer is attempting to increase the tablet’s appeal to women through a chauvinistic selection of pre-loaded apps. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the ePad Femme comes pre-installed with the predictable and stereotypical apps for cooking, yoga, weight loss, shopping, clothing size conversions, and such.

However, while Eurostar probably meant well by building a tablet marketed to women, it remains to be seen if this device will have any appeal among its targeted demographic. It’s not like women were holding off on buying a tablet, impatiently waiting for something like the ePad Femme. Maybe it will have some success in the middle east and other such markets where women are forced to have a separate, secondary identity.

Finally, a Tablet Built Exclusively for Women is a post from: E-Reader News

Linebaugh Library Techblog

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