Pattern Recognition

Libraries & the Post-PC Era

griffey — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:58:16 +0000

My talk from VALA2012 is now up and online! Please take a look, and let me know what you think. I’ll have the slides up separately, but the live show is a better way to get a feel for the presentation.

StoryBundle

griffey — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:52:33 +0000

Very interesting announcement today from Jason Chen, tech blogger of Lifehacker and formerly of Gizmodo. He’s getting out of the tech blogging business and launching an ebook startup, StoryBundle. From the StoryBundle site:

You know those indie video game bundles where you pay what you want for a batch of quality titles? We’re like that, but for ebooks.

We give you a handful of ebooks (about five or so) for a low price that you choose, all DRM-free, delivered to your ereader.

We only choose quality independent authors so you can be sure what you’re buying is good. Plus, you decide how much these books are worth. Great reads delivered cheaply without killing a single tree? That’s something everybody can feel good about.

Very, very interesting. I have a huge number of questions, mainly: how can he possibly hope to compete against Amazon in this space? I suppose the idea is that DRM free and name-your-price luring readers, but I’m not sure why that will lure authors. I can’t imagine that it’s a better deal for authors in terms of either reach or profit. But it’s a really interesting experiment, and we all know that we need more models for this stuff. I’ve got a request for an interview out to Jason…I’m very curious as to how this model might work with libraries.

Bre Pettis, Libraries, and 3D Printing

griffey — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:33:46 +0000

At CES 2012, I had a chance to talk with Bre Pettis, CEO of Makerbot Industries, about how libraries and 3D printing can be a really, really great match. Take a look at the video…I’ll be writing a LOT more about 3D printing in the near future, or you can go back and see some of the stuff I’ve already written.

Improv Electronics Boogie Board – CES 2012

griffey — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:56:03 +0000

Here’s a product that intrigued me, but I can’t really nail down why. It’s not immediately apparent what sort of problem this solves. But it was interesting enough that I’d love to see if anyone out there sees a use for libraries. I’m going to see how it works for writing practice with my daughter, so there could be an instructional use for toddlers…

Color eInk demonstration from CES 2012

griffey — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:23:24 +0000

Here’s a look at color eInk, the next generation of the technology currently found in just about every eReader on the market. This particular screen (the eInk Triton display) is good for just over 4000 colors, and certainly isn’t the fastest page-turn we’ve seen…but the display is very, very pretty. Great contrast, sharp lines, and the color really adds a lot to the feel of the thing. Check it out:

InFocus Mondopad from CES 2012

griffey — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:55:47 +0000

Some more video from CES 2012, this time a new presentation/smartboard from InFocus with some interesting features, the best of which didn’t make the video. I was told after I stopped filming that the software that drives it can use the Windows web tools/IIS to make the display publicly available to the web…so with just an IP address, you could share everything that was happening on the board to the world. That’s pretty cool!

OLPC XO Tablet

griffey — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:13:48 +0000

Really slick design, and SugarOS is awesome for kids. Bad news? They don’t have any retail plans nor a manufacturer.

CES 2012

griffey — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 04:31:23 +0000

On Sunday, I leave for CES 2012 in Las Vegas and will be reporting from the show as I go. My current plan is to use a combination of Ustream and YouTube for video content, SoundCloud for audio-only content, and everything important will end up here on my blog. If you want to try and catch any live broadcasts, I’m going to have the channel embedded right here for you to watch, and if you follow me on Twitter you’ll get a message the second I go live with anything.

What am I likely to see at CES that would be interesting to libraries? I would argue that nearly everything I see should be interesting at some level, but I’m betting on a lot of Android and Windows tablets (hopefully a Windows 8 tablet will make an appearance), a lot of cheap video cameras, and ridiculously nice 4K displays among the thousands and thousands of gadgets on the show floor. I’m looking forward to meeting with Barnes & Noble as well as hopefully getting a chance to talk with the Makerbot guys, and I’m probably too excited about seeing the first demo of the OLPC XO 3.0 Tablet.

Lots, lots more once I hit Vegas. Stay tuned!

Mineways – 3D printing from Minecraft

griffey — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 03:09:48 +0000

Mineways is a program that translates Minecraft models into object files that can be printed on 3D printers, resulting in you being able to hold in your hand something that you designed in a game. This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has been available…one of the very first instances of 3D printing that I reported on (way back in 2006!) was the ability to print your character from Second Life. In 2007 I had a chance to hold my first 3D printed object that I designed…my Mii from my Nintendo Wii system.

So printing from games isn’t new, but the popularity of Minecraft and the free-form creativity of it is certain to lead to some really interesting stuff. How can you incorporate this into what you offer to patrons?

January Apple Event – Education/Textbook related?

griffey — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:21:51 +0000

Multiple industry sources are reporting that Apple plans to have an announcement event in New York sometime in January, most likely featuring something new in the Media space. Most interestingly for libraries, Clayton Morris is reporting that his sources tell him:

This event will focus on iTunes University and Apple in education

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.

Anything involving Apple, textbooks, publishing, and education is something that libraries should be paying attention to. This isn’t going to be a hardware announcement, but given that it seems to revolve around iBooks and iTunes U, I’m guessing it’s a publishing/distribution deal with textbook publishers…or maybe a new publishing platform specifically for textbooks? We’ll see as the month rolls along.