| Google killed off the most popular RSS Reader on the web earlier this month. Google is always shedding old services, so it’s not a big surprise, but the fact that Google Reader was still being used by a lot people makes the loss questionable. It seems the real reason Google got rid of Reader was [...] |
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Now That Google Reader is Gone, Which RSS Reader Are You Using?
Sony’s Breaking Bad eBook Comes Exclusively to Apple
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To offer something more to fans, Sony Pictures is releasing a comprehensive, interactive ebook filled with interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and add-ons like the depictions of ill-fated characters and what went wrong for them. The book, titled Breaking Bad: Alchemy, is available exclusively through iTunes. "Breaking Bad: Alchemy is a comprehensive anthology that will allow viewers to experience and interact with the show in unprecedented ways," says Chris Van Amburg, Senior Vice President, Marketing for Sony Pictures Television, in a press release. "In the creation of the Breaking Bad book, we wanted to deliver to fans a unique and dynamic experience and unparalleled access into the production of the series that they will enjoy long beyond the final season." Taking advantage of the capabilities of a fully-interactive enhanced app book, the version that readers purchase now is not the final version. As the series wraps up its final season, new content will be added to the book, so that readers will simply download an update to their book, much as they would with any app or game. This content will focus on the material and concepts of the show that take place in the final eight episodes. Breaking Bad: Alchemy is not the first offering that the shows creators have made available to fans of the series. According to the press release, further content is available, including content directly related to the as-of-yet unaired episodes: “The digital book is the latest in exclusive offerings from Breaking Bad available on iTunes which also includes deluxe editions of TV seasons one through five featuring over 40 hours of bonus content. Fans can get a Season Pass for The Final Episodes now, plus music, podcasts, and apps. Visitors can access Breaking Bad: Alchemy and all things Breaking Bad at iTunes.com/BreakingBad.”
Sony’s Breaking Bad eBook Comes Exclusively to Apple is a post from: E-Reader News |
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Surface RT Price Slashed by 30% Indefinitely
| This should not come as a surprise. It is no secret that the Surface RT has not been selling too well, and the best option for Microsoft is to slash prices. This has been done by the sizeable margin of 30 percent. The basic 32 GB version of the Surface RT can now be picked up for a cool $349, down from the original $499. The same for the bigger 64 GB version now stands at $499, which originally was a quite hefty $649. Maybe these are the prices that the tablet should have launched with, though going by the demand the Surface tablet range is now experiencing, Microsoft could be even more ruthless in slashing prices. Microsoft had first embarked on an aggressive advertising campaign with the Surface RT, to no avail. The next target for Microsoft is to get rid of the unsold Surface tablet devices it has in its inventory, of which there seems to be plenty. Whether there will be another round of price cuts accorded to the tablet remains to be seen.
Surface RT Price Slashed by 30% Indefinitely is a post from: E-Reader News |
EDUCAUSE Report Shows Cost Is Primary Reason Schools Switch to Digital
| There are a wide variety of reasons that e-reading has enjoyed its recent growth. Reading consumers have cited factors such as convenience of instant downloads, the portability of bringing hundreds of books along at all times, and even the accessibility issues like the ability to manipulate the font and size of text. But a new report from EDUCAUSE shows that the single biggest factor for academic institutions who make the switch to e-textbooks comes down to price. The EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research (ECAR) released the findings of its recent pilot program, formed in partnership with Internet 2, publisher McGraw-Hill Education, and digital textbook developer Courseload, in which more than twenty colleges and universities took part. As part of the pilot, more than 5,000 students and faculty incorporated the e-textbooks into their programs. “This study demonstrates that institutions and the marketplace must first remove barriers that exist even in today's paper textbook market, most notably cost," said Susan Grajek, EDUCAUSE vice president for data, research, and analytics and report author, in a press release today. "Challenges innate to electronic content must also be addressed, including availability of materials where and when students need them, compatibility with the devices students own and prefer to use, and the kind of functionality that comes from good interface design. The solutions will come from many sources, but through this study students and faculty have clarified their needs." A variety of factors influenced the participants’ perceptions of the program, with the most important being the lower cost of course materials, which proved to be important to both the students and the faculty. Also, the variety of choices that digital offered, such as the ability to select print or digital and the option to take study materials virtually anywhere, were important to the participants. Representatives from the universities, EDUCAUSE, and Internet2 will discuss the Fall 2012 pilot and key findings at the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference on October 17.
EDUCAUSE Report Shows Cost Is Primary Reason Schools Switch to Digital is a post from: E-Reader News |
MangaMagazine Launches New InkBlazers App for iOS
| MangaMagazine has just launched its new iPad app, giving comic fans access to the site's diverse range of titles anywhere, anytime. The app packages all MangaMagazine original content for easy, swipeable, page-turning functionality in a user-friendly layout. Founded in early 2012, MangaMagazine.net has amassed more than 55,000 registered users who are made up of both comic fans and artists. The site is different from most other manga services because it gives artists full control over the editorial direction and rights to their work, while also giving them the opportunity to monetize their content through revenue sharing and e-commerce. Fans can directly engage with their favorite artists, which puts a crowdsourcing spin on comic creation. The manga service offers both free and premium access; those seeking up-to-date access on premium content will be automatically charged $2.99 per month or $11.99 every six months. Free users will have access to any premium content uploaded after a two-month lapse. This really gives people with money a chance to get it right away, or if you are a freeloader you will have to wait! Premium content will be available for free to all users in the two weeks following the launch of the app. Every 5,000 downloads will extend the free access by another two weeks. To download the app, click here. "As a huge comics fan since childhood, I've always been frustrated by how difficult it was to engage with my favorite authors and discover new and exciting content," said Victor Chu, MangaMagazine.net CEO and co-founder. "Through MangaMagazine.net and our InkBlazers app, we are shaking up the publishing industry and helping fans explore countless new web comics and manga from some of the most talented artists on the Web." MangaMagazine Launches New InkBlazers App for iOS is a post from: E-Reader News |
Change.org Petition Seeks to Offer Bookstore Access to Self-Published Authors
| When Frank Bennett, self-published author of Quit School! The Only Lessons You’ll Need to Learn, returned to his childhood home of Bay Shore, Long Island recently for a visit with family, it seemed like the perfect time to arrange for some local book signing and speaking events. There are a small number of bookstores, including a major retail bookseller situated on heavily trafficked mall property. His childhood and the book were set in Bay Shore, and many of the characters in his memoir were well-known local personalities, so there should have been automatic interest. Unfortunately, his requests for permission to sign books went unanswered by the large retailer, and even the library in his hometown told him they were too busy to let him even sit at a table and sign his own books on a Saturday morning. The town newspaper that he had grown up with refused to review the book, despite the fact that it has a book review section; they have a policy against reviewing self-published books, even ones written by a local person. This is the scenario that indie authors face every day, but Change.org and ALLi are hoping to do something about it. ALLi, the UK’s Alliance of Independent Authors, started a petition that will hopefully demonstrate to booksellers just how serious self-published authors are about their craft, and ideally will pave the way for more stores to carry self-published works, especially in a time when bookstores are shuttering their doors due to their inability to compete with much larger book shopping opportunities. "While recognising that there are challenges in incorporating author-publishers, it has become a necessity, if book stores, libraries and literary festivals and events are to be inclusive of writers and properly serve readers," said ALLi founder Orna Ross in a press release. There was very little explanation in the press release of how this petition is supposed to bring about the welcome of self-published authors into one of the last holdouts in publishing, but at the very least the campaign stands to raise some much-needed awareness and lend credibility to the cause of authors worldwide.
Change.org Petition Seeks to Offer Bookstore Access to Self-Published Authors is a post from: E-Reader News |
Drumroll, Please: 2013 Digital Library Champions Contest Semi-Finalists!
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We are excited to announce the 12 semi-finalists of this year's Digital Library Champions contest! Dozens of entries were submitted from library and school partners all over the world, including the U.S., Canada, Australia and South Africa. The final winners will be selected by members of the editorial staff at Library Journal, who have graciously partnered with us to help pick the best of the best for this year's contest. Thank you Library Journal for your involvement!
Winners will be revealed during this year's Digipalooza, our international user conference August 1st – 4th. We will notify via email and recognize the winners here on the Digital Library Blog on Monday August 5th.
Online
Inside the Library
Outside the Library
Test Drive
Excellent eBook Educator (K-12 Schools/Colleges)
OverDrive Allstar Award (Grand Prize)
We appreciate the time and effort we saw exhibited in all of the entries, highlighting a diverse range of marketing and outreach campaigns. Check out the Facebook photo album to take a look at the array of entries we received this year!
Thanks to everyone who entered. We look forward to sharing some of your ideas in the future and hope to see even more great entries in 2014!
Melissa Marin is a Marketing Specialist at OverDrive.
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How Book Covers Have to Evolve in the Digital Age
| As publishing adapts to changes in the technology of books, one area that still remains to adapt is the all-important cover art. Two unrelated articles today highlighted the serious considerations that authors and publishers need to make when designing the face that will ultimately help or hinder consumer purchases. The first post, a piece for The New Yorker by Tim Kreider, looked at the evolution of book covers from their days as jewel-toned illustrations to the current minimalist approach of formulaic designs. Kreider’s piece took a stab at what seems like a requirement in book cover design on a genre-by-genre basis. “The main principles of design—-in books, appliances, cars, clothing, everything-—are: 1. Your product must be bold and eye-catching and conspicuously different from everyone else's, but 2. Not too much!” Kreider wrote of the often frustrating experience of traditional publishing’s cover concepts. Apart from Kreider’s explanation, Alex Ingram wrote a more technologically-minded look at book covers for The Bookseller. In his explanation, the entire purpose of a book cover has changed, in accordance with the rise of digital publishing. Now, as consumers no longer have to rely on pacing the aisles of a physical bookstore and having a cover catch their eyes from a few shelves over, the artistic considerations of thumbnail-sized covers have to evolve as well. “Looking at the cover of an e-book, it is usually just that of the paperback or hardback, though audiobooks have long had covers tweaked to their packaging,” wrote Ingram. “Good cover design both front and back is surely about fitting a strong set of information into a template both to encourage purchase and to encourage people to read a book. Yet publishers are making little or no adjustment to the cover and copy they are feeding into the digital retailers.” Interestingly, as more authors begin to exert their control over their work by turning to self-publishing, cover design remains one of the areas where traditionally published authors often have little to no input. Author Polly Courtney actually cited her book covers as one of the reasons she returned to self-publishing, admitting that her traditional book covers that had been created by the publisher’s marketing team were “embarrassing.” “I had what we'll call a constructive dialogue with my publisher's editorial, design, and marketing teams, finding a balance between my personal vision and something people might possibly want to buy,” Kreider wrote. “For months we went back and forth: I'd send them several illustration options and they'd pick whichever one I liked least; they'd send me some design options, I'd pick the one that made me least unhappy, and they'd veto it. Book covers are an important sales tool, and the marketing department felt, quite reasonably, that the cover was very much their business. I also had a paranoid sense of shadowy, Olympian forces weighing in from farther above; I've been told that the most powerful figures in the current literary world, the buyers for the major national bookstore chains, have been known to offer to increase their orders for a book if its cover is changed.”
How Book Covers Have to Evolve in the Digital Age is a post from: E-Reader News |
Lincoln University’s digital garden, and its gold medal
| At this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, Lincoln University’s digital garden, which changed the way it looked depending on what people tweeted, sent messages back to people interacting with it and did all kinds of interesting things with twenty servo motors and a lot of hinges, won a gold medal. See if you can guess what was powering it. We were sent some BBC news coverage, which, sadly, doesn’t actually mention the Pi behind the scenes (although it is beyond delightful for us to see Ringo Starr looking interestedly at it) – but you can read more about the Pi’s involvement, and the philosophy behind the garden, over at the Times Educational Supplement. It’s a nice reminder, though, that a single Raspberry Pi can be used to drive enormous projects like this garden as well as little things like the pile of toy cars and robots that are currently piled up on the desk I’m sitting at now. Well done, Lincoln techno-botanists. We loved the project, and we wish we’d been able to see it in person! |
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Disney Unveils New Augmented Reality Book Technology
| Disney Research labs in Pittsburgh have developed new augmented reality technology called Hideout, which could take books into an entirely new direction. HideOut explores how mobile projectors can enable new forms of interaction with digital content projected on everyday objects such as books, walls, game boards, tables, and many others. Disney elaborated on what their new technology brings to the table by saying “We enable seamless interaction between the digital and physical world using specially formulated infrared-absorbing markers – hidden from the human eye, but visible to a camera embedded in a compact mobile projection device. Digital imagery directly augments and responds to the physical objects it is projected on, such as an animated character interacting with printed graphics in a storybook.” It will be interesting to see if mobile projector technology will catch on. It is important that the technology run in concert with the hardware manufacturers and the big media companies. Disney is probably in the best position with their Marvel, Star Wars and Disney properties to make the entire concept work. Once Hideout is more refined, can you image how puzzle games and eBooks will be transformed? The video below shows that it is a proof of concept and fairly rough around the edges. Still, companies need to start focusing on other avenues for their digital properties, instead of just iOS and Android apps.  Disney Unveils New Augmented Reality Book Technology is a post from: E-Reader News |
eBook Industry Experiences a 5% Gain in Q1 2013
| The eBook industry has not exactly plateaued yet, but it seems to be holding relatively steady. The AAP released new data today to give us a sense of how the publishing industry fared in the first quarter of 2013. The overall eBook market increased their net worth by 5%, garnering $393.6 million from $374.8 million in 2012. Audiobook sales have also increased by 14% and raked in $28.3 million, compared to the $24 million in 2012. Sales of adult fiction eBooks increased by 13% but children’s digital editions declined by 30%. If we look outside North America electronic books now account for 14.5% of the entire publishing industries revenue. The top countries contributing to eBook sales were the UK, Australia, Germany, France, Norway and Switzerland. Germany showed the greatest year-on-year revenue gains while New Zealand, Spain, Italy, South Africa and Brazil also contributed significant eBook revenue gains. Many US publishers we spoke to are not surprised about these new industry figures. Ever since the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon has dissipated, we have not really seen any one title contribute generate a copious amount of sales. Publishers for the most part now have a dedicated infrastructure in place and sales have stabilized. Barnes and Noble may suffer the most from these new figures as the company puts a heavy emphasis on Nook Kids and this genre has seen the highest decline in sales. eBook Industry Experiences a 5% Gain in Q1 2013 is a post from: E-Reader News |
VIZ Media Graphic Novels Now Available at Kobo
| Kobo and Viz Media have signed a new deal that will bring 60 different series that includes over 500 editions. NARUTO, BLEACH, VAMPIRE KNIGHT and BLUE EXORICIST are among some of popular titles that will be available through this launch. Readers can use the Kobo Arc, a tablet device that is ideal for reading in full colour and or one of their many dedicated e-Readers, such as the Kobo Aura HD. Books can also be accessed using the official Kobo app for Android or iOS. Supporting Fixed Layout ePubs, Kobo provides comic-lovers with a responsive reading experience that allows users to zoom and pan into scenes and images effortlessly with a simple double-tap of the screen as well as seamlessly swipe through titles with no delays. With a highly responsive experience, Kobo is dedicated to providing Viz Media customers with the best platform for reading comics and manga. "Kobo users will be thrilled to have direct access to the world's most popular and acclaimed manga titles delivered through their family of sleek and compact e-Reading devices," says Gagan Singh, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, VIZ Media. "Manga continues to be one of the fastest growing and most popular segments of the digital publishing market and we are very pleased to continue to expand the range of integrated delivery models available to fans." "We're thrilled to bring VIZ Media titles to Kobo's growing catalog of manga and to be expanding our diverse content catalog for our most passionate Readers," says Nathan Maharaj, Director, Merchandising, Kobo. "Together with Viz Media's collection of titles and our crisp, dynamic and colorful reading experience, manga fans will fall in love with the digital reading experience." VIZ Media Graphic Novels Now Available at Kobo is a post from: E-Reader News |
Autography, HarperCollins Partner on Digital Book Signing
| As the technology behind publishing continues to expand, so does the technology behind being a reader. There is no shortage of companies who offer similar digital experiences, but truly unique and innovative contributions to reading technology are not as plentiful. One technology, Autography’s ebook signing software, offers not only a new twist on the traditional book signing, but also creates that bridge between authors and readers that has become so much of the important branding work authors of any publishing model must do. Today, Autography and HarperCollins announced their collaboration that will make Autography’s ebook signing software available across every genre that the publisher puts out. This signing capability is especially important in light of recent news that stand-alone titles–even those traditionally published ones–have the potential to outsell their print counterparts, like Orion’s release of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. "We are thrilled to be the first major publisher to partner with Autography, and are especially excited to kick off our relationship by delivering this innovative and personalized experience to our authors' devoted fans at the Romance Writers of America Conference," said Angela Tribelli, Chief Marketing Officer, HarperCollins Publishers. "Partnering with Autography allows us to preserve the intimacy of an author signing while reaching readers around the globe." Autography has already clearly demonstrated the ability of this technology to bring together writers and fans. With its first online Spreecast event with romance author HP Mallory, hosted by GoodEReader, and its more recent event with And Then She Fell author Stephanie Laurens, the potential for virtual signing events is limitless and cost-effective. At the same time, live events, such as at this weekend’s RWA conference in Atlanta, authors can forge even greater connections with their readers by embedding a photo author page of the author and the reader, complete with a fully unique signature and dedication (as opposed to signing platforms that simply embed a pre-written signature). One of the obstacles publishers have faced in terms of embracing technology like Autography is the effort it takes to report sales of these signed editions in order to impact bestseller rankings. HarperCollins has been able to see past that barrier and focus instead on the ability of this option to reach out to readers.
Autography, HarperCollins Partner on Digital Book Signing is a post from: E-Reader News |
Kobo Aura HD Back In Stock
| Earlier in the week I posted about the Kobo Aura HD being out-of-stock at Kobo and several retailers. That made me wonder if Kobo was already discontinuing their 6.8″ limited edition ereader, but that was mostly because it had appeared to have been removed entirely from Kobo’s main ereader page on their website—but that just [...] |
HighWire, Tizra Collaboration Means Greater eBook Discovery for Scholarly Titles
| eBook discovery, or the ability to browse and find a title based on basic keyword searches at online booksellers, is one of the greatest obstacles for authors or publishers selling content. Academic publishing is no different. Although the audience for more scholarly works might be smaller and have unique needs, that same discovery issue hinders academic ebook discovery. “HighWire provides an advanced digital publishing platform to help industry-leading scholarly publishers innovate and thrive,” said Tom Rump, Managing Director of HighWire, in a press release today. “We considered many alternatives before selecting Tizra, but concluded that their nimble ebook tools best complemented the HighWire Open Platform, helping us expand our focus on discoverability and creating the most intuitive user experience.” HighWire, which was founded in 1995 and is a part of the Stanford University library system, partners with a variety of sources like universities, publishers, and professional organizations to publish scholarly journals, ebooks, and more, while Tizra’s web-based platform makes book discovery and book selling a more streamlined process. Under this collaboration, academic publishers and institutions will hopefully be able to more effectively market their titles. “Discovery in the ebook environment goes beyond search – it is the end to end path that a reader takes in finding, assessing, and making a decision to invest in a book, whether that investment is time or money,” continued Tara Robenalt, Director of Product Management at HighWire. “With the addition of Tizra’s ebook reader features, HighWire publishers can blend books alongside their e-journals, offering an integrated cross-content solution that falls into the reader’s natural workflow.” Tizra’s ebook development capabilities, coupled with HighWire’s e-journal options, will now offer features like social media sharing options by page, more flexible chapter navigation, increasingly focused search engine optimization, greater support for mobile device reading, and more.
HighWire, Tizra Collaboration Means Greater eBook Discovery for Scholarly Titles is a post from: E-Reader News |
Top Five Kindred Classics for Teens
| Why read the classics? The classic works of literature are at their core simple stories about people, their predicaments, and the culture, time and place in which they lived. I believe a classic is deemed so because of its' unique storyline and writing style which earned praise from generations of audiences. If only Mary Shelley had known while she wrote 'Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus’ that her literary invention of a grotesque monster and the scientific experiment that created him, would brand itself into literature so deeply that we still see the allusions to it today.
Out of the mind and imagination of these classic authors readers see the same thread of wonderful writing, unique storylines, and characters who continue to travel through our literary world. Peruse each of the following titles who began with their predecessor, the literary classic, but also evolved into a new and modern story for our times:
Classic Modern
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn —> Finn: A Novel (Matthew Olshan)
Walden —> Being Henry David (Cal Armistead)
Hamlet —> Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard (Laura Bates)
The Great Gatsby —> The Summer We Read Gatsby ( Danielle Ganek)
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood —> Scarlet (A.C. Gaughen)
Renee Lienhard is a Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive
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Gone Girl eBook Sells in Higher Than Ever Ratio Compared to Print
| The digital book industry has come an unbelievably long way in a few short years. From the days when critics insisted ebooks were a flash in the pan and publishers refused to invest in a technology that obviously wasn’t going to pay off, to the years in between when numbers slowly trickled in that demonstrated a rise in popularity and wider adoption of digital reading, the concept of a book has made a quick evolution. But nothing may prove the strength of e-reading more than the current news for one of the most talked about books, Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. Today, the publisher, Orion, announced that ebook sales in the UK for 2013 have accounted for 60% of total sales, and that the ebook outsold print two-to-one in the US. In a statement to The Bookseller, Orion’s Managing Director Lisa Milton said: “Only a year ago it would have been impossible to believe a novel could sell over a quarter of a million e-books within a few months. As long as there are readers, how anyone chooses to read a book—whether hardback, paperback, audio or e-book—doesn't matter…After such phenomenal sales in the US last year we're thrilled that Gone Girl is such an incredible success in every format, finding new readers every day who love it as much as we do.” Gone Girl has stayed in the top ten for book sales for more than twenty-six weeks. Flynn is also the author of Dark Places and Sharp Objects.
Gone Girl eBook Sells in Higher Than Ever Ratio Compared to Print is a post from: E-Reader News |
JK Rowling: The Importance of Brand and What’s Wrong with the Industry
| First, I want to say that I have absolutely no gripe with JK Rowling. In fact, I even support and applaud her decision to publish a book that she wanted to write without all of the fanfare and hype. Remember Rowling’s first foray into expanding her reach as a writer? By 9:00am Eastern on the morning that her title A Casual Vacancy hit stores, it already had over 300 reviews on Amazon for an average of only three stars. Reviewers, it would seem, couldn’t get past the fact that it was not another Harry Potter book. We’ll never know how the book would have been received had it been written under a secret pseudonym. But now we do know how a book written by a talent like Rowling gets received when it’s written under a pseudonym. Thanks to her desire to simply write and publish a book without all of the attention and accusations of it not being like her other books, Rowling released a book that very few people were talking about before this week. In fact, only 1,500 copies were even sold that first month. Who’s fault is that? Do we blame the author for not doing her legwork and establishing an “online presence” and building a fan base? Do we blame the traditional publisher for what was obviously an epic marketing fail? Do we blame the readers for not racing out and taking a risk on an unheard of author? Why are we blaming anyone at all? Where the naysayers are accurately speaking out this week is to the rabid response once Rowling’s secret identity was leaked, something that she claims she wished had not happened, especially in light of the fact that there is a second book coming in her crime series, again under her pen name, Robert Gilbraith. Now that the secret is out, will the industry respond as favorably–albeit quietly–to this second book as they did to the first? Or will there be comparisons and sneers for Rowling’s constant attempts to be something other than the author of the Harry Potter series? Now that the secret is out, bookstores can’t stock copies of this first book fast enough. Message boards are lighting up with names of locations that still have copies of the print edition. Records have been set, broken, and set again for the ebook sales, and I have to wonder. Where were all these fans when the book was just a quiet, great crime novel? Where were the reporters waiting to interview anyone connected to the publication of the book? Why did poor debut author Robert Gilbraith not get the attention that literary icon JK Rowling is getting? Because the book wasn’t good enough when it was written by a nobody. Now that there’s a famous name behind it, we care. This hype proves that it is still not enough to write a great book or share a well-crafted story, and that a book is only as worthy as how much attention you can throw its way.
JK Rowling: The Importance of Brand and What’s Wrong with the Industry is a post from: E-Reader News |
The GWR Locomotive Sketchpad
| The what, you say? Easy. It’s a sketchpad. For Great Western Railway locomotives. Alec Bray built the GWR Locomotive Sketchpad to allow you to design and mock-up steam locomotives based on the design principles of the Great Western Railway. (Not the most unexpected use of a Pi we’ve come across yet, but it’s right up there.) It’s a graphics-intensive, interactive program using the Lazarus IDE and the Free Pascal Compiler downloaded onto the Raspberry Pi and compiled natively. Here’s a video about what the GWR Locomotive Sketchpad does. When I passed it around the office, Emma probably put it best: “It's a bit like one of those tours that you get in National Trust properties: it’s really interesting to listen to. It’s not so great to watch.” Hang on in there. The static image changes about a minute and a half in. Alec says:
If you’re ever around kids, you’ll be aware that for a lot of them, trains hold a strange fascination. It’s always been this way: hands up if you wanted to be a train driver when you grew up. Eoin, the son of our indefatigable trademark compliance elf Lorna, shamed me recently when I brought him a Babbage Bear and a book as a gift. I came into their house bellowing: “Hello Eoin! I have a present for you!” Eoin replied: “Is it a train?” and then cried when it wasn’t. Alec has designed the Sketchpad so that young computer users like a slightly older version of Eoin (who doesn’t have the motor skills to type yet, let alone code, but as soon as he can reliably use a mouse you can bet he’ll be dragging and dropping bits of trains around with the best of them) can also construct data files using any appropriate language, including Python, Perl, C, Visual Basic and others, and then their constructed files can be run through the GWR Locomotive Sketchpad to see what sort of locomotive they have made. Alex says that the trick here is to include sanity-checking in their code for the various dimensions and shapes. So kids are developing their programming and gaining an understanding of basic principles of physical engineering at the same time. The GWR Locomotive Sketchpad application is available through the Retail shop at the Great Western Society at Didcot – you can email the shop manager if you click on “Sales” and request a copy (e-commerce has not really hit Didcot yet). Alec says that although this is a commercial application in one sense, all the money raised apart from materials costs goes to support the Great Western Society in its work in preserving our steam locomotive heritage. Didcot Railway Centre is an accredited museum and the GWS is a charity. This project has a wonderful air of English eccentricity about it: it’s not one of your polished, super-commercial pieces of software, and it won’t be for everybody. But I know that for some people, the GWR Locomotive Sketchpad is the sort of sandbox you’ll happily play in for hours at a time. Let us know what you think if you order a copy. |
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