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ICYMI: The NYPL's book train and better-bouncing 'bots
Today on In Case You Missed It: The New York Public Library will unveil a brand new "book train" at its Bryant Park branch that will ferry research materials up 11 floors from a subterranean storage vault to a newly refurbished reading room. Also, MIT's CSAIL lab has developed a 3d-printed, "tuneable" shock absorber that can protect anything from autonomous drones to cellular phones from violent impacts. Finally, we bring you the mesmerizing aerial ballet that is the world indoor skydiving championships. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd. try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}
Library app lets you check out 'The Walking Dead' and other digital comics
Before it was a TV show and video game, The Walking Dead was a comic book from publisher Image Comics. It's a great series and if you're interested in catching up on the source material for the TV show, you might be in luck. The public library app, Hoopla announced today that it was partnering with Image Comics to bring The Walking Dead, Spawn and Saga to its service. Hoopla partners with local libraries to give library card holders the ability to check out digital copies of books, music, videos, audiobooks and comics. the amount of titles available for check during the month depends on the deal between Hoopla and the library. But when your check out period is up, the title automatically disappears from your iOS, Android device or Kindle tablet. It recently added a bunch of DC titles including a whole slew of Dark Knight graphic novels to its roster. So if you're library supports Hoopla and you want to supplement your watching of Fear the Walking Dead you can do so without spending any money.
Daily Update for September 22, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes, which is perfect for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Publisher starts annual e-book licensing for libraries, attempts blood extraction from stone
Public libraries are en vogue again now that e-readers and e-books are so popular, and publishers are wary of the trend. To the dismay of many and the surprise of few, HarperCollins Publishers has set its e-books to expire after 26 rentals -- effectively giving them around a one-year shelf life (assuming 2 weeks per rental x 26 = 52 weeks). So now cash-strapped public libraries have to pony up license fees on an annual basis because the publisher is concerned that "selling e-books to libraries in perpetuity, if left unchanged, would undermine the emerging e-book ecosystem." In other words, HarperCollins thinks lending e-books is costing the company money it could make selling them. The publisher is the first to treat library e-books differently from hard copies, and the policy change has caused some librarians to stop purchasing HarperCollins e-books. Should the new licensing scheme become a trend, we shall see if libraries are forced to stop the electronic lending party. [Thanks, Scott]
Blu-ray Discs sliding into public libraries -- has yours made the move?
We figured it would happen sooner or later, but quite honestly, we never imagined we'd see a public library stocking Blu-ray Discs this soon. A vigilant tipster has pointed out that the Washington Centerville Public Library in Ohio now has BDs for patrons to check out, though his own observances have revealed that the general public is still having a hard time understanding that these discs cannot be played back on standard DVD players. And yes, that's despite the dozen signs informing them of that little fact. In order to make them easily identifiable, all BDs in the library are kept in their iconic blue cases, and as the collection grows, guests are allowed to check out a limit of two at a time. Has your library jumped on the Blu-ray bandwagon? Give it a call and find out.[Thanks, Ryan]
Xbox 360 to promote reading?
After a nice round of torque bowing, chainsawing, and grenade tagging some grotesque underground dwelling beasts, don't you just want to sit back, and curl up with a nice Mark Twain novel? Public libraries across Canada seem to think so, as they try to reach out to teens by adding cafes, karaoke and open mike nights and even Xbox 360s to their outlets. So, would you consider hitting the library to get your Crackdown on if 360s showed up at your local library, or does reading and hunting for green orbs at the top of sky scrapers sound like polar opposite activities? Maybe if they held some LAN parties, tournaments, or had a better broadband connection than you do at home, because you're bound to find more people to play videogames with on Xbox Live then at the library. Although you could play same Halo, then go read one of its novels. [Via GameStooge]
