| Baker & Taylor has been involved in the digital library space for many years. Their e-book lending solution has proved to be quite popular with users because their EPUB format worked on a myriad of e-readers such as the Barnes and Noble Nook and Kobo. This has all changed with the advent of the new 360 app, that now forces customers to use it and excludes all other devices. Yesterday Baker & Taylor released their next generation Axis 360 for Android and iOS. In order to read digital content you borrow from the library you need to download or update this app. Why? Well, B&T has suspended their licensing agreement with Adobe, which was costing them an arm and a leg in subscription fees. The lack of Adobe DRM means that you can no longer sideload e-books onto your favorite e-reader and its now cheaper to serve audiobooks and e-books within an app, because its more secure. The only silver lining to the enhanced 360 app is that users no longer need to have Acoustik, Blio or axisReader apps to experience digital audiobooks or ebooks, as all titles open directly in the new Axis 360 application. Users also have access to their bookshelf of borrowed material – "My Stuff" – seamlessly from all their devices – desktop, tablets and smartphones. |
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Axis 360 eBooks are no longer compatible with e-readers
Kindle Scout Launches in Canada and the UK – But Who Cares
| Amazon has announced that one of the worst publishing programs they have ever launched is now available in Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and India. The premise of Kindle Scout is reader-powered publishing for new, never-before-published books. It's a place where readers help decide if a book receives a publishing contract. Selected books will be published by Kindle Press and receive 5-year renewable terms, a $1,500 advance, 50% eBook royalty rate, easy rights reversions and featured Amazon marketing. The reason I have such as disdain for this program is because it gives self-published authors a reason not to evolve their craft and not contribute anything meaningful to the casual reader. Who really cares about an e-book only exclusive if the vast majority of people who read novels buy them from their local bookstore? |
Barnes and Noble Nook Sales Down 28%
| Barnes and Noble has just reported their fiscal earnings for the first quarter of 2016 and things look bleak for the Nook division. Digital content sales plunged 28% as revenue from Nook devices and accessories are at an all time low. The segment's loss more than tripled from the a year ago. Barnes and Noble has not released a new e-ink reader since 2013 with the advent of the Nook Glowlight. The companies chief competition, Amazon and Kobo continue to release multiple devices every single year and continue to innovate. Content sales, such as e-books have been suffering due to a Barnes and Noble website redesign and many customers are unable to purchase e-books with the Buy it Now button. Barnes and Noble also discontinued their Windows e-reading app all over Europe and is only now active in the US. In late 2014 the company also disabled the ability to download purchased e-books to your local computer for the purpose of using a 3rd party e-reading app or just to maintain proper backups. The Nations largest bookseller is hoping to turn their fortunes around with a new CEO Ron Boire, who starts this September. He will have his work cut out for him as the Nook brand has been trading water for a number of years and has lost close to a billion dollars since 2012. |
The New iPad Pro will be a Good e-Reader
| The mythical iPad Pro has finally been officially announced by Apple today, and it might be the best tablet e-reading device ever. It can run two iPad Air apps side by side and comes with many optional accessories such as a keyboard that can dock with it and a new stylus for taking notes and making annotations. The iPad PRO features a 12.9 inch display with a resolution of 2,732 x 2,048 and 264 PPI. It also features an A9X chip, Apple's 3rd generation 64-bit chip with 2 GB of memory and faster flash storage. Apple claims that it is faster than 80% of the portable PCs that shipped in the last twelve months. All of this crazy resolution and high specs will not effect the battery life, which clocks in at 10 hours. It is 6.9mm thick, a bit thicker than the 6.1mm iPad Air and weighs 1.57lb. This device will be perfect for reading news articles, e-books, digital magazines and newspapers. The extra large screen is totally indicative for long sessions of consuming written content. It also is great for editing PDF files thanks to a new stylus, dubbed Apple Pencil. Unlike the capacitive third-party styli for previous iPads, the Apple Pencil is truly pressure sensitive, behaving more like a Galaxy Note or a Wacom unit. It’s also got some sensors inside for detecting position, force and tilt. Additionally, the iPad PRO might be a good tool for indie authors. Not only will this device be perfect for e-reading, but also writing short or long fiction, including novels. This is all thanks to the Smart Keyboard, an accessory keyboard that has three circle connectors on the side called Smart Connectors which carry power and data and connects magnetically to keyboard. You can think of it as Apples answer to the Microsoft Surface dockable keyboard. There are many people who swear by their dedicated e-ink readers, such as the Amazon Kindle Voyage or Kobo Aura H2O. Equally, there is a large segment that employs a multipurpose tablet because of a wider array of e-reading apps that are customized for a specific purpose, such as reading manga or something that supports a ton of plugins such as Perfect Reader for Android. There is something strangely compelling about an Apple product that offers a tremendously large screen and has the ability to have two apps open side by side. The iPad Pro is going to be available in November — 32GB for $799, 64GB for $949 and 128GB for $1,079. The $1,079 comes with Wi-Fi and cellular. The keyboard is going to cost $169 and the stylus is going to cost $99 |
Kindle Scout Program Launches Internationally
| Today Amazon issued a press release announcing the expansion of their Kindle Scout publishing platform into international markets. Kindle Scout first launched back in October 2014 in the US. The way it works is authors submit previously unpublished ebooks, and the beginning few pages/chapters get posted on the Kindle Scout website for readers to nominate. […] |
The Raspberry Pi Guy interviews Eben
| A few weeks ago Matt Timmons-Brown, The Raspberry Pi Guy, visited Pi Towers to interview Raspberry Pi Trading CEO Eben Upton. Over the course of an hour and a half, Matt drew Eben’s detailed answers on some of the topics that hundreds of you put forward in response to a call for questions. When might we see an updated Model A and Compute Module? What’s next for the Raspberry Pi camera module and Pi NoIR? How will a Raspberry Pi look, ten years from now? Are there any plans to update Minecraft: Pi Edition for the Pi 2’s hardware? Watch Matt’s interview for the answers to these and many more. You’ll certainly learn things you won’t have seen elsewhere.
The post The Raspberry Pi Guy interviews Eben appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Kobo Touch 2.0 e-Reader Review
| The Kobo Touch 2.0 is an entry level e-reader that has just been released in Canada and should hit international markets shortly. It is retailing for $89 Canadian or $61 US, which will be quite appealing to people on a budget. This device was designed to battle the Kindle Basic Touch, and does a fairly adequate job. Today, we would like to give you our comprehensive hands on review of the Kobo Touch 2.0. Hardware The Kobo Touch 2.0 features an e-Ink Pearl display with a resolution of 800×600 and 167 PPI. It uses the same IR-based touch technology that’s found in the Nook Simple Touch and many other e-readers in the Kobo portfolio. It works well; the screen was generally responsive to my commands. In order to make this device has cheap as possible Kobo decided to forgo an illuminated screen, which has been a mainstay of almost every single e-reader for the last four years. The last Kobo model not have a front-lit display was the Kobo Mini, which was released in 2012. Underneath the hood is an 1 GHz Freescale i.MX6 Solo Lite Processor and 4 GB of internal memory. You can remove the angular back plate to reveal a hidden SD card that has the operating system and critical software features. You can swap this out to increase the memory further, but you need to have somewhat advanced knowledge of how to use cloning software. The Touch 2.0 uses the same shell housing as the Kobo Glo HD, which was released earlier in the year. The only difference is that the GLo has a perforated back panel, while this model has a smooth surface, with two angles on either side. I like this design a bit better, because it tends not to get food particles and is somewhat resistant to the oil from your hands. The big question with the hardware, is how does the resolution come into play when you are reading e-books, manga and PDF files? You have to admit that on paper, the specs are poor. Software The Kobo Touch 2.0 features the same operating system that has been a mainstay of the companies hardware portfolio from the past few years. The thing I really like about the home screen is that it dynamically changes based on the books you buy or functions you access such as the web-browser. This provides shortcuts to books you are currently reading or tasks you regularly access, which saves time on jumping through a few sub-menus. I noticed right away that with the diminished resolution that all of the UI elements are much larger than the Kobo Glo HD or the Kobo Aura H2O. The battery icon, settings menu and so on are much more pronounced. This is short of like your PC if you have a poor video card, or none at all. All of your icons are much bigger to make up for the lack of resources. One of the things I like about the Kobo Bookstore that is bundled on the device is the ability to recommend titles based on your past purchases. For example, our review unit came with the e-Book Girl on a Train and it gave about 10 recommendations, such as All of the Light we Cannot See. You can also access articles from your Pocket – Formally Read it Later account, to turn your Kobo into a virtual news reader. e-Reading Experience The Kobo Touch includes 10 fonts, such as Amasis, Avenir Next, Caecilia, Georgia, Gill Sans, Kobo Nickel, Malabar, Gothic, Ryumin, and OpenDyslexi. If you happen to have a favorite font, such as the new Kindle Bookerly, you can easily import the fonts into your Kobo. All Kobo e-Readers offer line spacing and margin adjustment for your digital books. There's also the option to choose full justification, left justification, and you can turn justification off. When you are reading an e-book and hold down on a specific word it opens a dictionary window. From there you can choose different dictionaries and translation dictionaries. 19 different dictionaries are available in the settings menu. You can also make notes or highlights and then share specific passages via Facebook. Reading e-Books is very solid, and unless you put the Touch 2.0 side by side against higher resolution models such as the Kindle Voyage, or Kobo Glo HD you don’t notice the diminished resolution. It is only apparent when you read image heavy content such as manga and PDF files. The overall reading experience when reading PDF files is utterly abysmal and is easily the worst thing about the Touch 2.0. When you are pinching and zooming there are big problems with the PDF rendering engine. Instead of being fluid, the entire screen gets pixelated and starts to flash uncontrollably. This occurs both with small files, around 1 MB and large ones. In the end, the biggest advantage of Kobo e-readers is the sheer multitude of formats that it reads. It directly supports EPUB, EPUB3, PDF, Adobe DRM; Images: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF; Text: TXT, HTML, XHTML, and RTF; Comic Books: CBZ and CBR. You are not limited either to buying books from Kobo, but you can easily load in your own. It has support for Adobe DRM, so you can easily shop at other bookstores. Wrap Up I would only recommend this e-reader if you are new to reading on an e-ink device or if you have an older Kobo model and are looking for a cheap upgrade path. PROS Affordable CONS Internet browser is woeful Rating: 6.5/10
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Houston Library Develops a Digital Library Card
| Thousands of libraries all over North America issue physical cards that patrons can use to checkout materials at the branch or to use online. In a world of e-readers, smartphones and tablets this is counterproductive and the Harris County Library in Houston Texas has just developed the first digital library card. The program is dubbed iKnow, doesn’t offer all of the amenities of a full-service library card. It only allows you to borrow audiobooks, e-books, music and video online via Overdrive and can’t be used to check out hard copies of books. Many people who want to use the library to read books, newspapers and magazines might not live close to a branch and if they do, parents are juggling a job or two. This iKnow program is perfect for the smartphone generation or kids who just want to read. Since the launch on September 1st, over 300 people have registered for a card, including 10 children. “The goal is more reading,” said Michael Saperstein, multimedia selection librarian with Harris County Public Library. “We really want to reach those residents who we know may not ever come into physical spaces by providing as many options as we can. Whether they’re accessing digitally or physically, they’ll still be using the library.” I think this iKnow program is very intuitive and makes perfect sense for the digital world we live in. It allows adults and children who live far away from a branch to be able to read e-books on demand and there is no excuses anymore to not read. |
Read an eBook Day Occurs on September 18th
| Overdrive, the juggernaut of the digital library space invented their own holiday last year called Read an eBook Day. The premise is to encourage the adaption of reading, while promoting their own services. This year, they are encouraging librarians to share graphics they have made for their own branches, which include flyers, stickers or handouts. The best of the bunch will receive free credits for the Overdrive Marketplace. If you are feeling especially creative or have a few interns who are footloose and fancy free, simply take a picture of your promotional content and share it with Overdrive on social media using the hashtag #eBookLove. They will be sharing some of their favorite submissions throughout the day on the OverDrive for Libraries Facebook and Twitter accounts. |
Kobo Touch 2.0 Review and Video Demo
| Review Date: September 2015 – Review unit purchased from Chapters.Indigo Overview The Kobo Touch 2.0 is Kobo’s latest entry-level ebook reader. It’s very similar to the Kobo Glo HD, but it lacks a frontlight and it has a lower resolution screen. As the name implies, the Kobo Touch 2.0 is a second generation model. It […] |
Waterproof Kindle Paperwhite From Waterfi Now Selling on Amazon
| I came across a new listing for a waterproof Kindle Paperwhite over at Amazon today. The product isn’t new but it’s the first time it’s been available from Amazon’s website, and there are a few things you should know before buying. The waterproof Kindles aren’t sold by Amazon. They are an aftermarket product sold by […] |
The Eagerly Awaited Raspberry Pi Display
| You’ve been incredibly patient: thank you. The official Raspberry Pi touch display is on sale today, priced at $60 (plus local taxes and shipping): you can buy it at the Swag Store, at RS Components/Allied Electronics and at Premier Farnell/Newark. Other sellers will be receiving stock later this week. We gave one to Alex Eames of RasPi.TV a couple of weeks back so that he could give us one of his famously clear video introductions: Two years ago, I began the process of looking for a simple, embeddable display for the Raspberry Pi. I honestly believed it would only take us six months from start to end, but there were a number of issues we met (and other products diverted our attention from the display – like Rev 2.1, B+, A+, and Pi 2). But we've finally got there, and I thought you might be interested in learning about our journey. Display Technology First of all, here’s an overview of the technology involved in the different types of display that the Raspberry Pi can support. Currently the Raspberry Pi can support the following display interfaces: HDMI
DPI
DSI
DBI
So our solution to this problem was to employ both DSI (to avoid using up all the GPIOs) and DPI (easily available screens in suitable resolutions) and a bridge chip/conversion board to convert between the two. We got in touch with many display manufacturers to try and get a display that would tick the following requirements:
Of course lifetime is one of the most important requirements, because if a display only has a lifetime of a few months (or the manufacturer is uninterested in guaranteeing a minimum lifetime), we would have to repeat the whole development cycle once more. So we can't just buy a display that's used in your standard iDevice, because it is likely to be cancelled when the iCompany decides to move to another manufacturer! When looking for a device, we needed to look for what are termed 'Industrial' LCD displays. These tend to have better-quality metrics and guaranteed availability. In the end we chose an industrial-quality display from our friends at Inelco Hunter based in the UK, who were able to create something very special:
Our first PCB to do the DSI to DPI conversion was completed back in mid-2013. The board used a Toshiba bridge chip to convert the DSI signals to DPI ones. I spent quite a bit of time getting the Raspberry Pi to talk to the bridge device, and then got it working and displaying an image (yay). We then took it to our local EMC test facility to investigate how easy it would be to pass CE and FCC electromagnetic compliance. A little word on compliance… When electrical currents flow around a circuit board, they create electro-magnetic fields, which can be picked up by other electronic devices. Maybe you remember what used to happen to your CRT television when your mum turned on the hoover (sorry for those of you without any experience of analogue television). This was becoming a problem for television and radio receivers; when I was a kid and plugged in my Spectrum 48K, the radio wouldn't work properly any more. So the powers that be introduced new rules about the amount of energy a device can output at various frequencies from 25MHz up to a couple of GHz. You have to make sure your electronic devices do not cause interference, and are not susceptible to electronic interference. The best way to reduce electromagnetic interference (EMI) is to keep your high-frequency signals short and close to a nice continuous ground plane, reduce the frequency and drive of the signals (reducing the high frequency components), and reduce the maximum swing of the signals to reduce the signal power. Looking at modern communication systems, that's exactly what they do: for example, DSI has a signal swing of only 0.2V and only has two or four actual signal lanes. Unfortunately, DPI is 1.8V signal swing, and although much slower, it needs 28 signal wires, meaning 28x more paths with the same edges switching up and down at the same time. This gives us an output looking something like: The green line is the class A line, and the black is class B (we need to reach Class B). You need to be below the black line if you want to sell the device to be used in the home. Back to the drawing board The next step was to understand why the EMI is so bad, so we tried redesigning the board so it looks like a HAT (it's not actually a HAT because there is no EEPROM for device tree information), and added an Atmel device to control the power/reset and PWM for the backlight. We also went through three different iterations of adding chokes to improve the noise conducting down the power supply cable, and manipulating the route of the DPI signals to improve the path of the ground return. In the end we did reach our goal of a class B EMC pass which is a great achievement considering where we started! Building the display from scratch The first displays are supplied as a kit which requires some initial construction. Alex Eames from RasPi.TV has helpfully provided a video showing how to do it. Connecting the display The display module integrates the LCD display with a conversion board that should be plugged into the Raspberry Pi through the display connector. Be aware that the connector is the same as the camera connector, but the two are not compatible, so be careful to correctly identify the display connector first. The 15-way FPC connector should already be plugged into the display conversion board with the silvered contacts face-up. You can then plug the connector into the Raspberry Pi with the silvered connectors inboard (facing towards the USB connectors). Powering the display There are three options for powering the display: 1) Separate power supply Just add a separate uUSB power supply rated for at least 500mA, and plug into the display board where it says "PWR IN". 2) USB link Attach an official 2A Raspberry Pi power supply to the display board "PWR IN" connector, then attach a standard uUSB connector from the "PWR OUT" connector to the Raspberry Pi. 3) GPIO jumpers Attach two of the supplied jumpers to connect 5V and GND from the Pi. Using the display To use the display the user just needs to do the following: $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get upgrade $ sudo reboot The Raspberry Pi will now automatically detect the display and use it as the default display (rather than HDMI), although HDMI will still be initialised. If you'd prefer for the HDMI display to stay as default then add: display_default_lcd=0 to the config.txt file. Dual display usage It is possible to use both display outputs at the same time, but it does require software to choose the right display. Omxplayer is one application that has been modified to enable secondary display output. To start displaying a video onto the LCD display (assuming it is the default display) just type: # omxplayer video.mkv To start a second video onto the HDMI then: # omxplayer --display=5 video.mkv Please note, you may need to increase the amount of memory allocated to the GPU to 128MB if the videos are 1080P, adjust the Display numbers are: DISPMANX_ID_FORCE_LCD 4 DISPMANX_ID_FORCE_TV 5 DISPMANX_ID_FORCE_OTHER 6 /* non-default display */ Touchscreen The Raspberry Pi display has an integrated 10-point touchscreen (a bit of an overkill, but it does seem to work well). The driver for this touchscreen outputs both standard mouse events and full multi-touch events, and therefore can work with X as a mouse (although not brilliantly – X was never designed to work with a touchscreen!). Kivy Kivy is a Python GUI development system for cross-platform applications. It is designed to work with touchscreen devices (phones and tablets), but also runs on the Raspberry Pi. To install Kivy onto your Pi follow the instructions at http://kivy.org/docs/installation/installation-rpi.html I'm fairly sure that these are the instructions that worked for me, although I make no claims that it's an easy task! This short, soundless video shows off the possibilities of Kivy with multipoint touch nicely. Raspberry Pi’s Matt Richardson has been experimenting with using Kivy to allow the touchscreen to control Raspberry Pi’s GPIO, and vice versa: From the videos you can see how capable the interface is. I'm in the process of developing a touchscreen application for an installation at home to control a safety and heating monitoring system, so you’ll probably hear more about that at some point! Last of all, if you’d like a stand for your display, you could do a lot worse than to take a look at the 3D-printed one that Matt Timmons-Brown has designed; we like it a lot. You’ll find his model on Thingiverse. Have fun, and make something awesome! Gordon The post The Eagerly Awaited Raspberry Pi Display appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Monday, September 7, 2015
Meghan’s 10 deserted island books
| Ed. Note: This is the 6th in our series of books we'd take with us on a deserted island if we could only pick ten. Today's list comes from Meghan Volchko, a librarian and Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive.
Note from Meghan: This was really hard. I regret everything. Can I just bring my iPad and some kind of solar charger and get OverDrive books from CCPL? A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway Hemingway is my favorite American author, and as a recovering English major, I need to have this book. Hemingway's own experiences in World War I lead to this beautiful story of love and pain and the horrors of war. I am in awe of his succinct writing style, so unlike my own. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo I have never read this book, but I figure what better time to read an epic novel then when you are abandoned on an island? Also, I think that it will answer lots of the burning questions I have from the musical (like whatever happened to Jean Valjean's sister after he was sent to prison for stealing bread for her), and give me a chance to belt out all of the songs with no one around to judge me. The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor If you have never read Flannery O'Connor, you are missing out on one of the most unique voices in American literature. She captures modern Southern gothic, and I challenge you not to enjoy these dark tales, honest and full of life. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides This book, and how it looks at gender, is almost more relevant today than it was when it came out in the mid-2000s. The story of a multi-generational family of Greek immigrants in Detroit, it shows the American dream and all of the skeletons in the closet that can come along with it. This is a book that stays with you long after you are finished. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon Confession 1: I am a sucker for time travel romance (especially when it is a well written and researched as this book); Confession 2: I have read this book at least 6 times; Confession 3: I have read no other books in the series (but one of these days, I will, just not on a deserted island). Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm Who doesn't love a book of fairy tales? Princesses, frogs, fire-hot iron shoes that an evil queen must dance in until she dies, these are the original versions of the tales that we knew and loved as children, not knowing how dark and creepy they really were. While these would have frightened me as a child, as an adult, I find them fascinating (and still frightening). Bel Canto by Ann Patchett You can hear the music in this book. Patchett weaves song through this story of terrorism and survival, and it really is a masterpiece of a story. If you are a character-driven reader, which I am, you will love all of the stories of all of those involved in this story of a prolonged hostage situation in South America. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz This book… I barely even know where to start, but this story of an outcast Dominican American super nerd growing up in New Jersey and trying to fit in is one of my favorite books ever. The amount of "Easter eggs" of science fiction and fantasy are impossible to catch in one reading, and Oscar's family requires an additional visit as well. Plus there are footnotes! All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot My parents introduced me to James Herriot at a young age, both in book form and the amazing BBC series (which I used to binge-watch in the dark days of VHS). His stories of being a young veterinarian in Yorkshire, England in the 1940s are a must-read for any animal lover. This book is close to my heart, as will all of the quirky townsfolk and their furry family members be to you after just a few chapters. Illustrated Guide to Edible Wild Plants by Department of the Army I like to eat. I also know that I would totally end up like Foxface from The Hunger Games if I was left alone to try to survive by foraging for my own food, so if I have the opportunity to have some survival tools, I'm going to take them.
Meghan Volchko is a librarians and a Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive  |
Amazon to release a $50 Fire Tablet
| Amazon is gearing up to release a Fire Tablet this Fall that will carry a very economical price point of $50 US. This will be the first time that the Seattle company has ever devised a throwaway gadget that will likely appeal to people who want to use it in the kitchen or bring it out into the rigors of the world. Aside from the new six inch tablet, Amazon also has plans to release a new seven and ten inch tablet. This should round off their new portfolio of devices, but it remains to be seen if they will be accepted by customers. Outside of the US, the Fire line of tablets does not have the footprint that Amazon would like, because the market is too saturated. |
These are the Most Popular Books in US Libraries
| Public libraries in the United States are the destination of choice to checkout new books, without breaking the bank. Titles like Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman and Paula Hawkins' novel The Girl on the Train have huge waiting lists and this has prompted people to take a gander at new material. Today, lets look at the top books all over the US, mapped by city excluding the two above titles. The time period for the checkout lists varied by library, but all were each library's most recent figures. Most of this data comes from reports from July, others for August, and some spanned multiple recent months. |
10 Free Kindle eBooks for Labor Day
| Here’s a roundup of ten free highly-rated Kindle ebooks for Labor Day 2015, along with some Kindle book deals. Please note that the free Kindle ebooks are free as of September 7th, 2015. Most of these titles are free for a limited time only; most will expire in a few days or less before going […] |
DJ MistaJam and Sam Aaron compose using code
| Live coder, researcher, MagPi contributor and creator of the music live coding platform Sonic Pi, Sam Aaron has recently found the time to teach BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra DJ MistaJam how to code music. Sam and MistaJam look at Bizet’s Carmen before working their magic on updating it and creating a new arrangement through live coding. If you are based in the UK then you can watch their session on the BBC website here. Live coding masterclass for DJ MistaJam from Sam Aaron with Sonic Pi If you are unable to watch the video there is no need to feel left out, Sam has provided the code from the session for you to play in Sonic Pi and experiment with yourself. This session is part of the BBC’s Ten Pieces initiative for schools which aims to open up the world of classical music to children and inspire them to develop their own creative responses to the pieces through music, dance, digital art and performance poetry. It includes teaching resources for both primary and secondary and officially launches in October 2015 with free screenings of a brand new cinematic film featuring stunning footage of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra performing a new selection of orchestral music, representing a wide range of styles and eras relevant to the Key Stage 3/3rd Level music curriculum. Benton Park Primary have featured on our blog for their Sonic Pi Orchestra and were in fact one of last year's Ten Pieces finalists! Sam is a regular at Picademy helping to train and inspire teachers Teaching music and teaching computer science have been at the heart of Sonic Pi development over the past few years. We have an entire Key Stage 3 Sonic Pi scheme of work containing lesson plans for computing in our free resources and as part of the Sonic Pi Live and Coding Project there is a scheme of work for teaching Key Stage 3 Music too. Sam often speaks about Sonic Pi in education as well as seeing programming as a performance like in his TEDxNewcastle talk: Outside of the curriculum, Sonic Pi is a fantastic way to unleash your creativity and learn how to code. We always include the latest version of Sonic Pi on our operating system Raspbian, and we have resources to get you started dropping your first beats. Sam is also a regular contributor to The MagPi, our official Raspberry Pi magazine. In issue 37 Sam introduces us to beat stretching, filtering and slicing with Sonic Pi v2.6 as he continues to push the boundaries of music creation with his free and open source software. So what are you waiting for? Why not use Sonic Pi to create your own creative responses to one of the Ten Pieces and let us know how you get on. The post DJ MistaJam and Sam Aaron compose using code appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
Sunday, September 6, 2015
How Much Money do Libraries Spend on e-Books?
 Click to Enlarge A staggering 95% of all libraries in the United States have an e-book collection. Sometimes we take this granted and get irked that there is a long waiting list for a New York Times bestseller. Why can’t libraries simply have enough titles to meet the demand? The answer, is that libraries are gouged on the price for digital content from the publishers. This might surprise a fair amount of people, but the average library paid six times the consumer price for e-books on the USA Today bestseller list. This is not greed due to distributors such as 3M, Baker & Taylor or Overdrive, but the publishers. When a bookstore orders a hardcover or paperback book they normally get it for 45% less than the sticker price. This gives them the ability to make a small, but meaningful profit. Libraries on the other hand are paying $72 for Between The World And Me: Notes On The First 150 Years In America by Ta-nehisi Coates, whereas Amazon charges the reader $9.99. I talked to the American Library Association recently about their about their efforts to get more favorable e-book pricing and they told me that "the reason why publishers are so hostile to libraries is because the e-Books are loaned out to people who might otherwise be customers, the publishers need to compensate for those perceived losses." James Larue of the Douglas County Library system recently said “libraries and taxpayers who support libraries are being ripped off in ways that not only outrageously inflate the payment to publishers (surely their costs are not three times greater to provide the book to us than to the consumer), they also greatly reward distributors. The result? At a time when about half of our patrons use e-readers, we barely offer 10% of our collections to them in their preferred format. When does a vicious price become complicity between publisher and distributor, to the detriment of the public?” |
Today is National Read a Book Day
| There are few mainstream reading holidays in North America and Europe. The main one is April 3rd, World Book and Copyright Day where old copyrights expire. Today though, is the second biggest day of the year, National Read a Book Day. It is time to turn off the television and other electronics and enjoy the relaxation of reading. You may have young children or elderly in your home, if so, then you can spend quality time together by reading them a book or two. Do you intend on visiting a bookstore, library or have a literary themed date today? You can use the Twitter hashtag #NationalReadABookDay and keep the world informed your plans. |
Saturday, September 5, 2015
The National Federation of the Blinds War Against Amazon
| Amazon has been trying to make inroads in the educational market for the last six years and they have been consistently been stymied by the National Federation of the Blind. The organization has done everything from staging protests outside the Amazon Seattle headquarters and filing petitions to United States Departments of Education and Justice. Over the course of the month Amazon won a $30 million dollar bid to provide the The New York City Department of Education to create a single, massive e-book marketplace for the city's 1,800 public schools. The National Federation of the Blind has been sending the Educational Department over 10 different emails, trying to persuade them to cancel the deal and even threatened to stage a protest. The campaign worked and 24 hours before the final vote to approve the Amazon contract the Education Department officials issued their decision to postpone the initiative. The National Federation of the Blinds biggest concern with Amazon trying to break into the e-book market in New York is the lack of MathML. The Kindle format for e-readers and tablets does not support complex mathematical formats, but EPUB3 does. The NFB also has concerns that the Fire line of tablets does have audio capabilities to read text aloud, vision impaired people need assistance to set it up. The organization is trying to convince New York to employ Vitalsource technology because they use the evolving standard MathJax javascript framework to render MathML. MathJax fully supports accessibility including ChromeVox, Texthelp, JAWS, MathPlayer with more player support planned. Amazon and the National Federation of the Blind have been at war with each other since 2008. Amazon originally tried to enter the educational market in 2009 and the NFB immediately filed a lawsuit and filed complaints against several of these institutions. These claims prompted a June 29, 2010, Joint Dear Colleague Letter from the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice warning educational institutions not to purchase inaccessible technology. A follow-up FAQ from the Department of Education made it clear that the prohibition against the purchase of inaccessible technology also applied to libraries and K-12 schools. In a May 2013 letter, the Department of Education affirmed its position that a school would be in violation of federal law if it adopted technology that offers the features of Whispercast. Everyone needs an arch-nemesis. He-man has Skeletor, Tigra has Mumra, GI.Joe has Cobra and Amazon has the National Federation of the Blind. |
