Apple Releases Free 'iTunes U' Software to Colleges for Coursecasting (Chronicle.com)

Apple Computer will allow any college or university to set up a customized portion of the iTunes Music Store to distribute course content and other audio and video material. The free service will let institutions limit use of some materials to certain people and make other content available to all.

The service, called iTunes U, will allow colleges to set up collections of materials that can be accessed using the free iTunes software, but that can be customized with the college's colors, logos, and photographs. The service was announced late Monday.

Colleges that participate will be given software tools that will make it easy for professors or students to upload content to iTunes, the company said in a statement about the service. The files themselves will be stored on servers run by Apple, but college administrators will have control over who can see the files. Colleges will be able to integrate the system with their existing network software so that students can log into the iTunes store using their campus user ID's and passwords.

The service's Web site notes that participating colleges "must enter into an iTunes U Service Agreement before being eligible to use the iTunes U service," and that "Apple reserves the right to determine eligibility." Apple officials could not be reached on Tuesday to provide details.

(more...)

podcasts, podcasting

SCOTUS Declines to Hear Blackberry Appeal

CNN - Monday, January 23, 2006; Posted: 11:49 a.m. EST (16:49 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from the maker of the BlackBerry in the long-running battle over patents for the wildly popular, handheld wireless e-mail device.

The high court's refusal to hear Canada-based Research In Motion Ltd.'s appeal means that a trial judge in Richmond, Virginia, could impose an injunction against the company and block BlackBerry use among many of its owners in the United States.

E-read all about it (The Observer)

The world of publishing stands on the cusp of the greatest innovation since Gutenberg. With cheap, portable electronic readers just around the corner, what is the future of the printed book?

Robert McCrum
Sunday January 15, 2006

Every year at the Booker Prize, there's an odd little ritual in which six 21st-century writers come face to face with the art and craft of the book as Caxton and Chaucer knew it. Before the winner is announced, each writer is presented with a sumptuous, hand-tooled, hardback edition of their novel. Once a reaffirmation of a venerable, but vital, tradition, in years to come this ceremony may seem as quaint as the presentation of Maundy money. All the signs are that the book as we know it may be going the way of the codex and the illuminated manuscript.

This is paradoxical. Rarely in Britain has the book trade seemed so vigorous. In 1990, 65,000 new titles were published here. Last year, the total had risen to a staggering 161,000, far greater, pro rata, than France, Germany or even America. Never mind the figures. Britain's literary microclimate is tropical in its fever and Elizabethan in its profusion. Book festivals from Folkestone to Edinburgh heave with visitors; book clubs and reading groups have become middle England's bingo; book prize news breaks ceaselessly. And that's not to mention the broadcasters, from The South Bank Show and Richard and Judy to Book at Bedtime. No genre of contemporary writing escapes the programmers.

If, on this evidence, you were tempted to call this a golden age of publishing, you should first talk to the publishers. To them, the IT revolution cuts both ways. It has inspired a boom, but it also threatens to turn the book world upside down. As Richard Charkin, president of the Publishers' Association, told The Observer: 'I spend four-fifths of my time worrying about technology.' In the near future, Charkin believes that book publishing will be unrecognisable.

The future might already be here. Microchips have transformed the music business (iTunes) and film and TV (DVDs). 'It's only a matter of time,' says Paul Carr, editor in chief of web-to-print publishing house the Friday Project, 'before this same type of functionality comes to the book world. The moment someone invents a portable electronic reader that looks [and reads] like paper and that allows books to be downloaded on to it, there will be an explosion of e-books.'

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Sony Portable Reader System

Thanks to Damon Hickey, Director of Libraries, The College of Wooster
for posting this to the Collib-L list:



If you have trouble getting to the Sony web page (see below) because
of the length of the URL, try the following instead:
http://tinyurl.com/a9wjd



For years we've been hearing about a new technology supposedly in the
works to produce an electronic-book handheld reader that would offer
print on a screen without backlighting. The backlighting of a
computer screen is tiring to the human eyes and brain, and is the
major reason why many people say they don't like to read for a long
time on the computer. These new technologies would arrange
microscopic black and white balls on a screen to simulate print.
Ambient (room or sun) light would be reflected off the screen just as
it is off the page of a printed book. Thus, the ebook could be read
more easily in bright than in dim light--just the opposite of current
LCD-type computer screens, which wash out in direct bright light.
Power would be needed only to "turn the page" (i.e., to rearrange the
dots).

On January 4, Sony announced that it is putting into production such
a device, with a screen about the size of a paperback book, this
April. The Sony Portable Reader System PRS-500 will cost $349.00.
Most impressive, perhaps, is that Sony (like Apple before it with the
iBook) is lining up major publishers, several of which have already
committed to digitizing their entire print runs, including backlists,
for viewing on the PRS. The price of a recent book in PRS format is
expected to be about the same as that of a paperback book. For more
information, see

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/%20INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=PRS500&Dept=audio&CategoryName=pa_pdr

Click on "Explore the Portable Reader" for a fascinating tour. The
fact that the reader can display conventional pdf files does not
require frequent charging of the battery, synchronizes with a
computer using a standard USB connection, and takes a standard Sony
Memory Stick of SD (Secure Digital) memory card gives it added
flexibility.

All the elements seem to be in place for this technology to take off
in a way similar to Apple's iPod (adjusting for the fact that reading
may not be as popular as listening to music!). The PRS-500 will
undoubtedly be upgraded quickly, with a corresponding drop in its
cost, and competitors are already poised to enter the market with
their own versions. We may finally have reached the point where
"nothing will ever replace the printed book" will sound as quaint as
"nothing will ever replace the horse and buggy" did a century ago.

For further information, see the recent article in Business Week:

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2005/tc20051229_155542.htm

Join WebJunction!!!

I just wanted to mention a great forum for librarians that I have started to participate in by providing content from my old Wireless Librarian website. Below is the link to the opening page. Many of you have probably already heard of it.

WebJunction