textbooks
Latest
Apple promises 'education announcement' in New York on January 19th
We'd heard it was coming, and for the second year in a row, Apple has disrupted the natural flow of CES by announcing an event of its own. Granted, this one -- slated to be held January 19th at the Guggenheim Museum -- is packing far fewer implications than the Verizon iPhone event of 2011, but suffice it to say, anyone who enjoys "learning" should be tuning in later this month. If you'll recall, it was reported by TechCrunch that the event would be entirely related to publishing, with no new hardware on tap; Fox's own Clayton Morris followed up to say that it'd have something to do with iTunes. We're guessing it'll link somehow to iTunes U, and considering that Apple hasn't made a major public push into the land of EDU since the eMac, perhaps it's time that the company got things like Reading Rainbow into the hands of dazed and confused grade-schoolers everywhere.
Apple event this month to focus on iTunes U and textbook initiative
Yesterday, TUAW reported on a rumored Apple media event to be held in New York City later this month. Shortly after that post blessed the Interwebs, TUAW followed up with further detail from sister site TechCrunch. The word from the TechCrunchers was that the January event will focus on iBooks and publishing. Now Fox & Friends anchor Clayton Morris is quoting "sources involved" and saying that the event will focus on iTunes University, education, and an electronic textbook initiative. Morris provided the following bullet points on his blog: This event will focus on iTunes University and Apple in education I learned of the event back in September when it was originally scheduled for late Fall in New York but it was eventually postponed. The event will be in New York rather than in the Silicon Valley because New York is more centrally located for textbook and publishing. This initiative has been in the making for years. The announcement will be small in size but large in scope: a big announcement in a demure space. I expect at least two large project announcements as they relate to Apple in education. Steve Jobs was intinimately involved with this project before his passing. He gave a hat tip to the textbook side of this project in the Isaacson biography. This will not be a hardware-related announcement. TUAW will be keeping an eye on the news about this event and we'll make sure you hear about as soon as we do.
Apple, Microsoft meet with Turkish minister, may bid to supply 15 million tablets to schools
When it comes to the economy, things appear to be pretty shaky in the land of feta and olive oil, but at least Greece's neighbor to the east is ready to spend, considering a very ambitious (and costly) investment in its education system. Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan just completed a tour through Seattle and Silicon Valley, making stops to meet with executives at Apple, Intel and Microsoft along the way. Caglayan's stateside mission was to discuss Turkey's FATIH Project, which somehow stands for "Movement of Enhancing Opportunities and Improving Technology" and aims to equip 15 million students with tablets within the next four years. The official seems to have left with a positive impression, telling the Turkish Weekly that "upon agreement, Microsoft teams will come to Turkey to cooperate with Turkish firms on the project." He went on to say that Apple executives expressed interest in having iPhone and iPad accessories manufactured in Turkey as well. Doesn't exactly sound like a firm commitment from either company, but 15 million tablets would be nothing to sneeze at, so we'd be surprised if the tablet makers didn't end up making formal bids. With South Korea and now Turkey making commitments to improving education, perhaps we'll see a similar plan hit stateside soon?
Trade textbooks with The Amazon Student
Since forever, college students have done the trade-in dance at the beginning and end of semesters to exchange unwanted textbooks for cash. Usually that cash goes back to the bookstore for the next round of textbooks (or a bit of end-of-semester partying), but it's a tried-and-true way of getting at least a few cents back on your hard-earned dollars. Amazon has just released The Amazon Student app (free) to let you do all of your textbook trading the easy way -- from your iPhone. As you're pounding down the end-of-semester celebratory tequila shots, you can use The Amazon Student to scan the barcodes on your textbooks, games, movies, and electronics to get a trade-in offer from Amazon. If you accept the offer, it's added to your trade-in list. When you're done scanning your roommate's books and games (he's passed out under the bed anyway), just sign into your Amazon account, tell 'em where you want to ship the books from, and submit. A few moments later, a pre-paid shipping label shows up in your email and you're ready to roll. Payment is through an Amazon Gift Card, suitable for buying any fun or, dare I say it, educational material from the Amazon store. By the way, I made $75 scanning some old reference and text books while testing the app for this post. Not bad!
Watch out Farmville, Kno's bringing Textbooks to Facebook
Now this is clever. Adorable education / tech company Kno may not have had the best start in life, what with its large (and largely unsuccessful) dual-screen tablet and the subsequent sell-off of its hardware division. Since those dark days, Kno has reinvented itself as a software company, bringing an educational e-book store to the iPad and now opening up the market by going for the big one: any student with a Facebook account. All you have to do is add the Kno app to your Facebook profile and you get full access to the store, including the option to rent rather than buy the textbooks you need (all of which must be read in-browser). At the moment the service lacks the more interactive features common to the iPad but they're said to be "coming." What's clear is the potential such a move has, now we have to wait and see if studying can actually trump watering your pretend broccoli.
South Korea plans to convert all textbooks to digital, swap backpacks for tablets by 2015
Well, that oversized Kindle didn't become the textbook killer Amazon hoped it would be, but at least one country is moving forward with plans to lighten the load on its future generation of Samsung execs. South Korea announced this week that it plans to spend over $2 billion developing digital textbooks, replacing paper in all of its schools by 2015. Students would access paper-free learning materials from a cloud-based system, supplementing traditional content with multimedia on school-supplied tablets. The system would also enable homebound students to catch up on work remotely -- they won't be practicing taekwondo on a virtual mat, but could participate in math or reading lessons while away from school, for example. Both programs clearly offer significant advantages for the country's education system, but don't expect to see a similar solution pop up closer to home -- with the US population numbering six times that of our ally in the Far East, many of our future leaders could be carrying paper for a long time to come.
Kno brings textbooks to iPad, millions of children now dread getting Apple tablet for Christmas
You know the old saying, right? If you can't beat them, license your designs to third-party manufacturers and develop an app for your competitor's hardware. Kno's dual-screen tablet had a pretty tough road since its debut last summer. The educational device was plagued by shipping delays and low pre-order numbers, and by February of this year, the company effectively threw in the hardware towel. A few months later, Intel plunked down a bunch of money, so that Kno's dreams might live on in the designs of other manufacturers. The company's software plans are becoming a reality now, as well, with the release of Textbooks, which brings some 70,000 discounted educational titles to the iPad. The free app lets students read and organize texts, affix annotations, and communicate with study partners, offering creative new ways to pass notes in class. Press release after the break.
Watermelon Express now BenchPrep, publishing academic prep texts to iPad
Educational app maker Watermelon Express has shifted gears and entered the electronic textbook market. The Chicago-based company, now known as BenchPrep, has over 75 educational apps in the App Store, most of which were interactive textbooks and test prep materials made for larger, more traditional textbook publishers, like educational publishers McGraw Hill and John Wiley. BenchPrep CEO Ashish Rangnekar told VentureBeat that a single, stand-alone free BenchPrep app made more sense than multiple educational apps, hence the shift in business to interactive prep textbooks for the iPad. Rangnekar also noted that the future of educational materials isn't limited to e-textbooks on the iPad. "Our definition of content is much broader than the textbook," he told VentureBeat; he said that in addition to books, BenchPrep will eventually branch out into other electronic educational materials, such as videos and presentations.
Inkling makes deals for e-textbooks with key publishers
While many companies are talking about making the iPad the platform for electronic textbooks, one San Francisco startup appears to be moving boldly into making the dream a reality. Inkling has announced that it'll be receiving financial backing from two of the largest names in textbook publishing -- Pearson and McGraw-Hill. What sets Inkling apart from other companies testing the textbook waters is its approach to creating truly interactive books that go beyond just making an electronic version of a book. Many e-textbook publishers simply make a PDF file of the content in an existing textbook and leave it at that. Matt MacInnis, founder and CEO of Inkling, noted in a MobileBeat post today that the company starts with existing textbook content as a framework, then adds interactive and multimedia content that is only possible on the iPad. One impressive feature is the addition of interactive quizzes to the end of each chapter of the iPad textbooks. Inkling only has 14 textbooks available at this time, but it's expected to have over 100 out by this fall. Not only is Inkling receiving funding from some big names, but it also has partnerships with John Wiley & Sons, Wolters Kluwer and W.W. Norton that give the company access to about 95 percent of available textbook content. There's a short video demonstrating one of Inkling's e-textbooks, Mader Biology 10th edition, on the next page. The company's free iPad app is available here.
Kno looking to sell off ambitious tablet hardware business, focus on software instead
Competition usually giveth, but sometimes it taketh away too. All Things D is reporting today that Kno, the company that aimed to deliver a most bodacious dual-screen tablet to students, is investigating the possibility of selling off its hardware venture and focusing exclusively on its software offering. Internal sources claim the "quicker-than-expected" move into tablets by big electronics makers has made the environment tougher for Kno, which is now said to be negotiating with a pair of companies about offloading its slate-selling business. Apparently, just a few hundred pre-orders of the Kno were fulfilled before the company stopped shipping them recently, which could be an indication that a deal may be close. We can only guess what a purchaser would want to do with the Kno tablet designs, but as for the company itself, it'll look to the iPad and Android-based tablets for its new market of opportunity -- no point in wasting all those textbook distribution partnerships.
Lego bot built to test Kno's tablet textbook, human overlords watch gleefully (video)
Just because the first few tablet textbooks have shipped doesn't mean that members of Kno's development team are resting on their laurels. Product testing on the Kno tablet continues -- and it looks like Lego is doing the heavy lifting. They've put our favorite plastic building blocks to work by constructing a Kno stress tester out of Lego Technic parts. The robot checks both the Kno's ambient light sensor and the ability of its touchscreen to accurately track the system's pen swipes and flicks. Though not as intricate as a Lego replica of a 2000+ year old mechanical computer, the robot -- with its hypnotic pendulum-like motion -- is still a sight to behold. Check the video after the break.
Kno single and dual-screen tablets hands-on (video)
You know about Kno right? Yep, it's that giant dual-screen tablet up there that's meant for students, and while we had seen an early version of it and its single-screen brother about six months ago, we figured we'd take a closer look at the shipping versions here at CES. Our first impression of the thing is that it's one awesome tablet for taking notes. Both the dual-screen and single-screen versions come with a magnetic stylus, which not only latches onto the side of the screen but provides an incredibly smooth inking experience. As you will see in the video below, you can write over text in a textbook and even create a Post-it note. The palm rejection is also top notch, and considering your entire wrist has to rest on the display to take notes at the top of the screen, it's pretty clutch. The rest of the hardware is equally as first rate -- the metal make obviously makes 'em both quite heavy (the single tablet is 2.6 pounds and the dual-screen one 5.6 pounds), but they feel very rigid and we really dig the etched edges, which were designed specifically to mimic pages in a textbook. The bright 1440 x 900-resolution IPS displays provide very wide viewing angles. So, how's the Linux-based software interface? Unlike the version we saw a while back, it was pretty responsive and intuitive. You've got the My Apps section, which contains links to web applications, and the My Library section, which is where you'll be able to purchase books and open them. The browser supports multiple tabs and the on-screen keyboard is obviously quite wide. At this point there's no way to convert handwriting to text, so you've got to use the keyboard within web apps. We've got to say, Kno has made a solid piece of hardware with an equally impressive textbook reading and note-taking experience, but we're still not convinced that anyone out there wants to carry around one, nevertheless two 14-inch touchscreens. (Kno claims that students actually carry more weight around than that between textbooks, laptops, etc.) But hey, the only way we know how to find that out is to get one of these, throw it in the backpack, and try using it in real life. Until that happens, hit the break for a hands-on video. %Gallery-113291%
Kno tablets start shipping this week: quick, make desk space!
Did you happen to pre-order a single- or dual-screen 14.1-inch Kno tablet textbook? Alright, we're assuming that schools and wealthy students were the only ones that actually did, but regardless, the monster-sized tablets are starting to ship out this week. According to the press release after the break, both the single- and dual-display versions are being boxed up and will be sent out to those early pre-orderers over the next couple of weeks. However, if you were hoping that this would mark the launch of the general availability of the enlarged tablets, that's just not the case yet -- you still have to receive an "invitation" and complete a "request for purchase" form on its website. That means even we'll be waiting longer to get one of these our hands, but if you're one of the lucky ones to receive one of these bad boys this week, let us what you think of it in the comments!
Textbooks for iPad progress with Inkling
As we said last year, long before the iPad became public, whichever ebook manufacturer nails the textbook market will have a distinct and serious advantage. Inkling (free) represents a huge step forward. It's a "textbook platform" for the iPad that uses social connectivity and the features of the iOS in a unique and interesting way. Once you've created a profile,* the app will load The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. as demo content. Inkling calls pages "Cards," and you can jump to any one easily, either by swiping, entering a number or dragging across the digital "spine." A unique feature lets you highlight text and create notes which can be shared over the air with fellow students or teachers. Once a note is displayed on another person's iPad, s/he can respond to the note's author. There are a number of books available and we assume there are more to come. Check it out for yourself and explore the demo content. We'll have a full exploration of this interesting app soon. [Via Daring Fireball] *You'll be asked which college or university you attend. If you're not in school, select "Unaffiliated" to gain full access to the app.
Barnes & Noble Nook Study now available to download, just in time for fall semester
Take heart, freshmen -- six months from now, you'll be kickin' it on holiday break, while the rest of us working folk glare angrily and curse the wasted chances that haunt us still today. Positive thinking goes a long way, right? At any rate, Barnes & Noble has made sure that its newly announced Nook Study is live prior to the start of most fall semesters and as of today, both Windows and OS X users can head to the source link to get those bits a-flowin'. We'll be interested to see just how many students take advantage of the portal -- not everyone's keen on digital textbooks, you know -- but hopefully it'll have a better go at things than did the Kindle DX.
Kno dual-screen tablet appears at D8, we go hands-on
Kno promised to launch a double-screened Linux-based e-reader designed for students at D8, and the undercover startup didn't disappoint -- believe us when we say it came out in a big way. That's big as in freaking big: the Kno reader features dual 14.1-inch capacitive IPS displays (1440 x 900 each), weighs 5.5 pounds, and offers six to eight hours of battery life, all in a package that's so comically large we thought it was a joke when we first saw the press shots. Kno says it'll offer both pen and touch support, and it'll come with a stylus out of the box. Under the hood, it's running a Tegra 2 chip with 16GB of storage, and the entire experience is essentially a WebKit instance. Yes, it's sort of like the Courier, but larger -- much, much larger. We had a chance to go hands-on with the device as well as speak to some members of the team developing the Kno, and while it's clear that there are major bumps in the UI and user experience, it seems like the company is aware of them. What we saw today was clearly unfinished, with a lot of laggy, stuttery behavior in the interface, a crash or two, and some very inaccurate finger tracking, but Kno says it's hard at work on eradicating those issues. Even with the UI fixes, it's a hard sell at "under $1000," but Kno is putting together partnerships with publishers to make that a little easier to swallow, as they say ultimately it will be less expensive than buying regular old text books. It's an audacious idea, for sure... and we're still completely confused by one of the company's press pics featuring a bunch of dudes running around in their underwear, but we digress. Check out some shots from the demo, PR pics, and our hands-on with the device below. %Gallery-94223% %Gallery-94217% %Gallery-94219%
Kakai developing a Linux-based e-book reader? Wouldn't you like to know!
It seems that Osman Rashid, the guy behind Chegg (an online textbook rental service, sort of like a boring Netflix) has decided that he's going to follow the likes of Kindle and iPad into the untested (well, somewhat tested -- and somewhat reviled) e-textbook space. Details are scant -- and it's this fact, really, that's captured the imagination of tech wonks on a slow news day like today. According to Kara Swisher of All Things Digital, Rashid's start-up, Kakai, is "in the deepest of stealth modes, despite a panoply of high-profile players involved." That's right -- despite having almost fifty employees and almost $10 million in venture capital, no one is really sure what these guys are trying to do! No one, that is, except Swisher, who's apparently received reports of a demo video that targets potential investors, describing a Linux-based, dual-display, Courier-like device aimed at the educational market. Which sounds great, as far as that goes -- but we're waiting for some specs, or blurrycam pics, or for someone to leave one at a bar somewhere before we get too excited.
Major textbook pubs partner with ScrollMotion for iPad development
Putting traditional print publication on an iPhone screen is old hat for ScrollMotion, and now it's taking that know-how to a larger screen. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Kaplan, Pearson Education, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt K-12, and the educational sector of McGraw-Hill have all made deals with the company to develop textbook apps and test-prep / study guide apps for the Apple iPad. No other details are given and we unfortunately lack any timeline. It certainly makes the machine more classroom-viable, but we'll hold judgment until we see what actually comes of this partnership -- your move, Kindle.
Publishing different: What the tablet brings to the table
Like newspapers before them, traditional book publishers are facing the reality of the new digital world. With Apple's much anticipated tablet expected to debut within the next few months, they're under more pressure than ever before to "Think Different". Moving from print to digital isn't a smooth or easy path, despite the fact that most authors are working digitally in the first place. As early experiences with the Amazon Kindle have shown, digital tablets are not geometric or mental equivalents of the printed page. "You've got to think beyond the page," says Chuck Toporek, my editor at Addison Wesley/Pearson, "because the page no longer exists -- there is no page number, or page to flip." Book content has to adapt and flow to on-device presentation. Like the HTML revolution of the '90s, publishers will need to rethink how their content can adapt to changes in font size, and "the page" is more driven by screen dimension and resolution than a piece of paper is. "[Interaction styles like] pinch and zoom should not hinder the user," Toporek adds.
WSJ: Tablet confirmed, Apple to reinvent old media
All of their information is centered on the alleged mystery device that will allegedly be announced at a now official event next week. Here are some of the juicier tidbits they passed on from those mysterious people "familiar with" what's happening on Inifinite Loop: Always partial to the education market, one thing this device might be used for is e-textbooks, presumably including the sort of multimedia content that goes beyond the printed page. Textbook publishers aren't the only publishers Apple has been talking to. They're chatting up Conde Nast, Harper Collins, The New York Times, and even CBS, Walt Disney Co, and Electronic Arts (for games). A "Best of TV" service is possible, with a subscription to a set of on demand programs chosen by the consumer. Those same people are also reporting there is a revamp of iTunes coming, which would separate the purchase of iTunes content from the iTunes application. The device will have a 10 or 11 inch screen, a virtual keyboard, and "sharing" is mentioned -- two ideas being thrown around are the ability to leave sticky notes on the device or even have the camera recognize faces of those using it. Price is expected to be around $1000, and they'll be selling it to people who already have iPhones and laptops as well. Of course the piece itself doesn't have a full confirmation from Jobs, so we'll have to wait until next Wednesday for that: Apple's invitation to the media event on January 27th is titled "Come see our latest creation", and is generally considered to be the public debut of a tablet-style device. But when the Wall Street Journal says there's a tablet coming, there's very likely a tablet coming, and if everything they're saying about this device is true (which would make sense -- we've heard most of it before in rumor form), look out world.
