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Amplify Tablet is an Android machine custom-built for education
News Corp rebranded its educational unit as Amplify in July. Since then the Joel Klein-headed company has been working with AT&T to develop a tablet expressly designed for the K-12 educational market. After months of testing the Amplify Tablet, an unspecified 10-inch Android slate loaded with custom software, is ready for its official debut. Lots of things have changed since we first caught a glimpse of the project many months ago. For one, the UI has been completely redesigned to be clean, modern and simple. The new look is much more inline with Google's Holo, with extensive use of action overflow buttons, the sharing menu and solid blocks of color-coded material. The default home page offers a grid of app icons, but it also displays student information and lists "notebooks" on the right hands side. Those notebooks deliver quick access to different subjects for students, but they also give teachers direct links to materials for their classes, categorized not just by subject, but also by period. Klein and company don't stop at simple organizational tools and reference materials, however. %Gallery-180689%
News Corp launches Amplify educational unit, with help from AT&T (video)
In light of recent scandals, it's hard not to see this as a bit of image rehabilitation, but we'll do our best to take it at face value. News Corp is bringing its 18-month-old educational division to the fore by rebranding it Amplify and teaming up with AT&T to put tablets in the hands of students. The unit will focus on developing products and services tailored for classrooms, ranging from kindergarten through high school. And, at the center of that ecosystem, will be the Amplify Tablet (which, judging from the video below, appears to be a modified Galaxy Tab). Videos, encyclopedia entries, books and even remote tutoring apps will all be just a tap away. The tablets will get their first trial run in the US during the 2012-2013 school year. With the phone hacking scandal behind him, former New York City school chancellor Joel Klein (who headed up News Corp's internal investigation), is free to focus on getting Amplify rolling and into classrooms across the nation. Before you head off, make sure to watch the clip from AT&T after the break.
