Google, antitrust, and the ‘Copygate’ hypocrisy
(theregister.co.uk): Google recently made (countless) headlines when, after an intricate "sting operation", it accused Microsoft of "copying" its search results. Many missed the irony of "Copygate", but others quickly picked up on what can only be described as painfully obvious. Read More
Rethinking Copyright: Letting Free Be Free
(techdirt.com): Lots of folks have been rethinking copyright lately. Michael Scott points us to an interesting piece by someone at the Yale Law & Technology blog arguing that copyright only works for big companies and does more harm than good for "smaller" artists. Read More
No Weight Off Your Shoulders:eReaders might not replace traditional textbooks…yet
(falconaire.monmouthregional.net): The average college student will spend somewhere between 700 to 1,100 dollars on textbooks every year. That means by the end of four years of college, you could have spent as much as $4,400 on textbooks alone. A solution may be around the corner. New products such as the… Read More
One billion subscribers to own smartphone devices in 2013, says research
(mobileeurope.co.uk): The number of smartphone users is expected to grow very rapidly within the coming years to exceed the one billion mark by 2013, according to the latest forecasts from Informa Telecoms & Media. The growth will be driven by the ongoing competition between top tier OEMS and challengers such… Read More
E-readers, tablet devices contribute to gold usage
(commodityonline.com): In a short time, tablet-type mobile devices like Apple’s iPad and standalone e-readers Amazon’s Kindle have seen great consumer growth, with millions of these devices sold. These devices rely on semiconductors, which in turn use gold bonding wire. Thus growth of these mobile machines could mean a pickup in… Read More
Call for lecturers to share resources
(jisc.ac.uk): Contributing to open repositories helps resources to be discovered more widely. Currently over 80 UK universities are involved in the pilot open educational resources programme run by JISC and the Higher Education Academy with all outputs made available via JorumOpen. 1At the start of a new academic year, JISC… Read More
In a Tough Market, University Press Aims to Streamline Production
(cornellsun.com): Several University divisions took the first step in May in a three-year project to develop a book publishing model that will sustain academic research and publishing in an increasingly turbulent market. The Cornell University Press, Cornell University Library, and the German Studies department collaborated to publish a book series… Read More
Google Seeks Allies Against Censorship
(informationweek.com): A new online transparency report shows which Google services are being blocked in different countries. Whether the U.S. will use this information to challenge censorship as a trade barrier remains to be seen. Read More
Google Reader’s Web Page Monitoring to Be Disabled
(googlesystem.blogspot.com): Google Reader's blog announced that the feed generator for pages that don't have feeds will no longer be available starting from September 30. Google says that not many people used this feature, which is not surprising, considering that it's quite difficult to find it. Read More
U.S. bookworms continue to embrace eReader devices
(thetechherald.com): A new Harris Interactive poll released this week shows that more and more traditional bookworms are embracing the portable convenience of electronic reading devices. The poll, which was cast across 2,775 adults in the United States, showed that eight percent of book lovers currently use electronic readers such as… Read More
