As a recent recipient of a Kindle birthday present I’m starting to like it. It is really convenient and perfect for a rabid reader such as myself. But is it ready for the classroom? Should we be moving wholesale to dump old fashioned print books and replace them with sexy new eReaders? A couple of thoughts: Read the rest of this entry »
In our household we subscribe currently to the daily New York Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New Yorker (weekly), the Atlantic Monthly and Wired. Like all publications, these guys need help — and they are not going to find many household like ours. Wireless reading devices, like Amazon’s kindle perhaps could help breath new life into these organizations, but first readers need to get the devices into their hands. One way to do it is to provide a reader free to subscribers of a digital edition. Here’s the math:
Some interesting developments coming in the eTextbook, eReader spaces. Will students appreciate less expensive books that can be views on a good quality electronic device? Maybe. But watch for the digital rights management stuff — I’d expect to be able to get the text and read it on my kindle or my computer or perhaps even my iPhone. An attempt to try to enforce too much control will just send them to file downloading services — learn from the music industry’s mistakes, please!
Did a little research on e-book readers in the Blackberry App store, but didn’t find much promising there. A Google search turned up this recent release from eBooks. Seeing as they are linked to Barnes & Noble I figured there would be a pretty deep selection, and so downloaded the app, signed up, and bought a copy of an Asimov book for $.69. I figured there’s no need to spend too much on an experiment — what with the economy and all.
An article in the New York Times ponders the question of what is lost when you can’t easily see what people are reading — a Kindle or Sony eReader looks the same whether you’re reading James Joyce or Stephen King. No more judging someone’s personality with a glance at the book under their arm. You know, its the same thing with music players — no more flipping through someone else’s albums. We’ll just have to find some other way to make shallow, snap judgements!
Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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