textbooks
Latest
Textbook publishers dream of the tablet
One of the things Apple should do to achieve runaway success with the tablet is incorporate textbooks. The folks at Coursesmart, a joint venture of five publishers that sells college textbooks as ebooks, have produced a video demonstrating how it could work.* In the video, the user flips through available textbooks, makes a selection and begins reading. He also makes notes, views video of a lecture, adds an event to his calendar and searches the web for additional info, all while sipping a coffee. It's a neat idea, and just one of a slew of concepts that have recently surfaced. But why textbooks? There are several reasons. First, college students are young and tech-savvy. They're also light on the finances often times, and ebooks are cheaper than their paper counterparts. Also, they could connect to iTunes U to find the books they need and lighten the load of heavy backpacks. As for the publishers, this type of distribution would eliminate the school's resale of used books, which was a benefit for the students but did nothing for them. If the latest rumor is true, we only have a few more weeks to wait. *Note that the video is entirely Coursesmart's imagining and not based on an actual product from Apple ... real or otherwise. [Via MacDailyNews]
CourseSmart brings textbooks to an iPhone near you
The electronic textbooks pandemic, er, market, continues to spread its influence to handheld gadgets: PC World reports that CourseSmart, an e-textbook publisher, has created an iPhone application, eTextbooks for the iPhone [iTunes link], to make its entire 7,000+ title catalog available on your index card of a screen. CourseSmart, which does not publish books itself, sells downloadable electronic versions of textbooks through its website that can also be viewed online once they're purchased. The free iPhone application just adds an extra point of access, and falls on the "internet" side of the fence-you can't actually download the whole textbook to your phone, so the experience may be a bit shoddy when you're trying to flip through the pages during an exam in a basement classroom. The application is also continually advertised as allowing access to 7,000 titles, but it is important to note that you only have access to titles you have already paid for through their site (pedantic, I know, but I found myself wondering about this point after reading the announcement). A tiny LCD screen has little value for long library sessions, but the teeny version of your book should work in a pinch when you forget Gauss' Law right before your physics exam. Just hope that your classroom isn't underground. [PC World via Engadget]
CourseSmart releases eTextbook reader for iPhone
We have no idea who would choose an iPhone app over a real, honest-to-goodness textbook, but if you really want to spend marathon cram sessions hunched over a 3.5-inch display, a company called CourseSmart has just made its entire catalog available for viewing with its eTextbooks app. Certainly, it seems that the company's selection is nothing to sneeze at -- electronic access to over 7,000 titles from 12 publishers -- so if you're already using the service, additional on-the-go access to the books (as well as the handy search, notes, and bookmarks) might prove quite worthwhile. Keep in mind that you're not actually downloading the books -- so your mileage will vary, depending on the quality of your Internet connection. Maybe this device is actually marketed to students who need a helping hand (or, in this case, handheld) during finals? Regardless, this is further evidence that the electronic textbook market is one to keep an eye on -- if only someone could figure out how to do it right. Now, if you'll excuse us, we'd like to get back to Knife Music. Video after the break. [Via PC World]
Switched On: Big Kindle on Campus
Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Amazon's Kindle DX includes a few tweaks such as automatically rotating the orientation of the screen when it is placed in landscape mode and adjustable page margins because... well, CEO Jeff Bezos seems to like the feature. Literally, though, the biggest change is the new 9.7-inch electronic ink screen, which displays two and a half times more content than the 6-inch screen on the Kindle 2 and Sony Reader. The expanded display allows more detailed graphics to be seen without zooming or panning, and is better suited to a wide range of source material including maps, technical diagrams, and sheet music. But textbooks and newspapers were singled out as two printed sources that are particularly significant for the forthcoming device. These publications both benefit from the larger Kindle screen size, but each face different challenges in finding success on the Kindle DX. For newspapers, the Kindle DX cuts down on the costs of printing. Newspapers, though, are already struggling against competitors that did away with that expense years ago, including blogs that break stories and online entities such as Craigslist, eBay and Google that have siphoned away advertising revenue. Textbooks, on the other hand, have no major electronic competition, and print still retains advantages such as better readability and color. But digital textbooks must compete with used textbooks, a major market on college campuses, and likely will not be able to be resold if other digital content is a predecessor. At the Kindle DX launch, representatives from The New York Times Company and Case Western Reserve University both characterized their involvement with the Kindle DX as a trial or experimentation. What's behind the arm's length embrace?
