Innovation
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation
The Christian Science Monitor\'s innovation section.
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:21:30 +0000
http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3
en
This is a feed from The Christian Science Monitor that allows you to get automatic updates on the news published at csmonitor.com. There's a list of all RSS feeds from the Monitor at csmonitor.com/rss
Ancient geckos
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/29/ancient-geckos/
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/29/ancient-geckos/#comments
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:21:30 +0000
briefs
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/29/ancient-geckos/
It’s so simple a caveman could do it? How about: It’s so simple a prehistoric gecko could do it?Scientists at Oregon State University in Corvallis and London’s Natural History Museum report finding the oldest gecko yet – a 100-million-year-old specimen trapped in amber. The specimen, found in present day Burma (Myanmar), represents a new genus and species, which the researchers have named Cretaceogekko. Geckos are famous for their sticky toe pads, which allow the chirping lizards to scamper across ceilings in their hunt for bugs. The amber-encased specimen was incomplete – only the foot, toes, and part of a tail testifying to the lizard’s place in the food chain. But the researchers say its toe pads, covered in sticky hairs, are plainly visible. Based on the number of hairs, the team reckons that the gecko was a youngster that might have grown to 12 inches long as a adult.The lizard’s super-sticky feet have so far defied scientists and engineers’ attempts to make fully functioning artificial versions. The find suggests that nature had at least a 100-million-year head start on perfecting the “technology.” The results appear in the current issue of the journal Zootaxa.       ]]>
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/29/ancient-geckos/feed/
Horizon highlights – The stories behind OLPC, NASA shields, and where cellphones RIP
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/29/horizon-highlights-%e2%80%93-the-stories-behind-olpc-nasa-shields-and-where-cellphones-rip/
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/29/horizon-highlights-%e2%80%93-the-stories-behind-olpc-nasa-shields-and-where-cellphones-rip/#comments
Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:21:19 +0000
cgaylord
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/29/horizon-highlights-%e2%80%93-the-stories-behind-olpc-nasa-shields-and-where-cellphones-rip/
Our regular roundup of sci-tech stories from across the web includes: Can One Laptop per Child (OLPC) survive? What does cellphone heaven look like? And who’s watching over American innovation? Let’s kick it off:Space invaders – Computer viruses make it to orbit“A computer virus is alive and well on the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG.” [via BBC]Space defenders – Video: The Next Step in Heat Shields for Space“NASA’s come up with two materials to protect returning astronauts. And one of them’s been around for 40 years.” [via LiveScience]From the Monitor’s archive – Will US-Russia tensions extend to space?: “International cooperation in human spaceflight may be facing its toughest test since the cold war. The immediate concern: Will US astronauts be able to ride Russian rockets between 2010, when the last shuttle is retired, and 2015, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to launch a replacement?”Gadgetry – Where Cellphones Go to Die“More than half a billion cell phones were swapped for newer models in 2007, according to a study by the research firm Gartner. In the past, these phones might have been tossed in the garbage or just stashed in a drawer, but an increasing number of cellphone vendors are promoting take-back programs, which make recycling an easier option for consumers.” [via Technology Review]Backstory – OLPC Origin: Bittersweet Success and Future of the XO Laptop“Nearly every one of the original staff had abandoned the [One Laptop per Child] project by 2008, often in disgust. But Negroponte remains stalwart: ‘My elephant skin is the thickness of steel,’ he told me. Perhaps his resistance to criticism has been one of the project’s fatal flaws.” [via Gizmodo]From the Monitor’s archive – More computer brands chase the ‘$100 laptop’ : So while some PCs continue to bulk up and tout their speed and raw power, others represent a new trend: slimming down. Way down. These smaller, simpler machines are aimed at a potentially lucrative market: the next 1 billion PC users around the planet.Interview – Does the U.S. Need a CTO?“Mitch Kapor, a pioneer of personal computing, says the position is vital given the growing importance of technology.” [via Technology Review]       ]]>
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/29/horizon-highlights-%e2%80%93-the-stories-behind-olpc-nasa-shields-and-where-cellphones-rip/feed/
Facebook, the movie: the Facebook group
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/facebook-the-movie-the-facebook-group/
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/facebook-the-movie-the-facebook-group/#comments
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:48:32 +0000
cgaylord
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/facebook-the-movie-the-facebook-group/
Aaron Sorkin is doing a movie about Facebook. The whole thing seems fake at first.The man behind “The West Wing,” “Studio 60,” and “A Few Good Men” has a history of unease with web culture – he even wrote a West Wing episode about it. So a bunch of bloggers scratched their heads when a seemingly legit Facebook group called “Aaron Sorkin & the Facebook Movie” popped up on the popular social network.Welcome. I’m Aaron Sorkin. I understand there are a few other people using Facebook pages under my name–which I find more flattering than creepy–but this is me. I don’t know how I can prove that but feel free to test me.This afternoon we found out that, yeah, it really is him – or at least his assistant. And, yes, he really is doing a movie about Facebook.The news is baffling on several levels: (more…)       ]]>
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/facebook-the-movie-the-facebook-group/feed/
Sign language via cellphone
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/sign-language-via-cellphone/
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/sign-language-via-cellphone/#comments
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:53:51 +0000
briefs
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/sign-language-via-cellphone/
For people diagnosed with hearing impairments, using a cellphone can be tough. Speed of communication depends on how quickly someone can send a text message. Researchers in the US, however, have devised a way for two people to use American Sign Language via video phones. It’s a work in progress, with a field test planned for next year involving 20 people. Even so, a research team from the University of Washington and Cornell University says it’s holding discussions with a major US cellphone service provider about the work.The big challenges are twofold: US cell data transmission networks crawl compared with their counterparts in Europe and Japan. And cellphones still use fairly slow microprocessors. Japan and Sweden reportedly have systems that would support video signing. But the US is playing catch-up. Still, the team reports it’s come up with ways of getting the most out of US cell networks. They compressed the video before it’s sent. And by having an individual sign at roughly face level, the team has developed a way to divide the image so face and hands have the highest resolution, while less important parts of the image go low-res. So far, the team is using phones from Europe, which can use the team’s software and have the right screen and camera configurations for a two-way visual chat.       ]]>
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/sign-language-via-cellphone/feed/
When radar doesn’t work
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/when-radar-doesnt-work/
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/when-radar-doesnt-work/#comments
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:49:40 +0000
at-a-glance
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/when-radar-doesnt-work/
Click on the thumbnail to see the full image......       ]]>
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/when-radar-doesnt-work/feed/
A blogger takes office in Malaysia
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/a-blogger-takes-office-in-malaysia/
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/a-blogger-takes-office-in-malaysia/#comments
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:44:43 +0000
editorial
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/a-blogger-takes-office-in-malaysia/
Five years of blogging has brought Jeff Ooi a measure of notoriety. His biting posts on Malaysian politics sparked police investigations.A pro-government newspaper sued him for libel. A prominent politician compared bloggers to monkeys in a lawless jungle.In January, as Malaysia braced for national elections, a new banner went up on his blog (www.jeffooi.com): Get a Blogger Into Parliament. Fueled by donations and manpower, Mr. Ooi easily defeated a ruling-party candidate to win a parliamentary seat on Penang Island.The cyberspace critic turned lawmaker is part of a wave of fresh faces on Malaysia’s opposition bench after March’s upset election, many of them driven by a desire for reform. On Thursday, former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was sworn in as opposition leader following a landslide by-election win that has rattled a shaky ruling coalition.Ooi has no regrets about his career switch from IT consultant. “The keyboard is mightier than the sword…. Even a blogger can no longer tolerate the quality of governance that the country is having now,” he says.Other first-time opposition members in the 222-seat parliament include human rights activists, professors, nongovernmental organization workers, and an entrepreneur who secretly videotaped a lawyer allegedly brokering judgeships. His tape triggered an outcry last year and an official inquiry into judicial corruption.Many of the newcomers are relatively young, underscoring a generational shift in politics here after decades of leadership by an entrenched elite. One in three MPs in the Democratic Action Party, a coalition partner of Mr. Anwar, is under 40. By contrast, the youngest divisional chief in the ruling United Malays National Organization is 43, says Liew Chin Tong, a DAP lawmaker.“A lot of people have come alive in the last 10 years. They’re the ‘reformasi’ generation, and they think about politics in fundamentally different ways,” says Bridget Welsh, a politics professor at Johns Hopkins University, using the Malay word for reform. Young MPs and party workers are the “glue” in Anwar’s coalition as they can cross the ethnic lines that define Malaysian politics, she says.These politicians are likely to be online, as Malaysian cyberspace has emerged as an effective counterpoint to mainstream media that are either state-run or owned by government loyalists. About 52 percent of Malaysians are Internet users, compared with 71 percent in the US.Online news outlets have exposed several scandals involving abuses of power that played out in March’s election, to the dismay of politicians who had written off the influence of such media. Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi later said his campaign hadn’t done enough to get its message out via the Internet to young voters.Online fame certainly helped Ooi’s campaign: He raised $25,000 in 11 days after posting an urgent appeal, though he also trod the traditional path of making speeches, handing out leaflets, and knocking on doors.Entering politics hasn’t stopped him from blogging, though the pace has slowed. Ooi says he used to average six hours a day on his website, often rising before dawn to post his first entry. Like most bloggers, it was a labor of love. Ad revenue brought in $200 a month – which covered the cost of his bandwidth.Ahirudin Atan, a veteran newspaper editor and codefendant in the lawsuit against Ooi, says he supported Ooi’s entering politics but believes it has cost him in online credibility, because he might be compromised by party loyalty. “I think a lot of people feel that Jeff Ooi’s following has diminished because of his direct participation in politics,” he says.Ooi claims to be uninterested in climbing the party hierarchy and says he earns less now than in the private sector. “What I find exciting is to experiment with political thinking,” he says.       ]]>
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/a-blogger-takes-office-in-malaysia/feed/
US Air Force uses new guided bomb in Iraq
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/us-air-force-uses-new-guided-bomb-in-iraq/
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/us-air-force-uses-new-guided-bomb-in-iraq/#comments
Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:35:03 +0000
editorial
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/us-air-force-uses-new-guided-bomb-in-iraq/
Retreating insurgents will have a harder time escaping US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan now that the United States Air Force has begun using the next generation of guided bombs designed specifically to destroy moving targets. While guided munitions have been key to air operations for years, most were developed to hit stationary targets.On Wednesday, Air Force officials announced that F-16s had dropped the guided bomb unit-54 (GBU-54) in combat for the first time, destroying a moving insurgent truck in Iraq’s Diyala Province on Aug. 12.Designed largely to meet the battlefield needs of commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, the new bomb shows how the Air Force has begun adapting its arsenal to conduct counterinsurgency missions where accuracy is critical.“In COIN [counterinsurgency operations] we’ve got to be more precise,” says Brig. Gen. Brian Bishop, 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing commander stationed in Balad, Iraq. “Hitting moving targets has always been very, very difficult, and I would say that it’s not until recent years that we’ve been able to truly have technology that allows us to do that with a pretty good degree of certainty.”Created by Boeing Company, the GBU-54 works by combining Global Position Systems (GPS) targeting capabilities with a laser guidance system in a 500-pound bomb, a standard piece of ordnance that most airplanes can carry. The pilot sets an initial GPS coordinate as the target and then releases the bomb. He then follows the target with a laser and the bomb continually updates its GPS destination until it makes contact.Prior to the GBU-54, most bombs intended for vehicles or other moving targets were meant for tanks, which move more slowly and cannot access many of the back roads used by insurgents in civilian vehicles. To take out many militants on the run, pilots had to improvise with existing weapons platforms, adjusting their techniques to make the bomb delivery fit the mission requirements.Consequently, it was easy for pilots to miss their target, and strikes lacked the necessary element of precision required in a counterinsurgency. Often times insurgents got away because commanders had to abort an airstrike to avoid potentially unacceptable levels of collateral damage.“One of the things we noticed here is how many targets that we didn’t hit because we didn’t have a weapon that was designed to go after a mover,” says Lt. Col. Dave Lujan, 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group deputy commander who also helped leverage the development of the new weapon. “It became an urgent operational need to have a weapon that would be able to engage a mover.”In early 2007, Boeing began developing the GBU-54 in conjunction with the Air Force and the Navy. Traditionally, designing a new weapon can take up to 10 years, depending on the requirements, but engineers managed to deliver a completed product to airmen inIraq and Afghanistan only 17 months later. Air Force officials attribute the rapid turnaround to the intense operational demand for the system in Iraq and Afghanistan.Ultimately, Lieutenant Colonel Lujan says that the GBU-54 will allow for a more efficient Air Force. “It’s a very flexible weapon,” he says, “especially in an urban warfare environment where you need that flexibility.”       ]]>
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/28/us-air-force-uses-new-guided-bomb-in-iraq/feed/
TiVo and Entertainment Weekly team up, but who’s helping whom?
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/27/tivo-and-entertainment-weekly-team-up-but-who%e2%80%99s-helping-whom/
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/27/tivo-and-entertainment-weekly-team-up-but-who%e2%80%99s-helping-whom/#comments
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:12:21 +0000
cgaylord
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/27/tivo-and-entertainment-weekly-team-up-but-who%e2%80%99s-helping-whom/
With so many new TV shows debuting each fall, it’s hard to keep on top of what’s worth watching. If you choose poorly, you could wind up wasting time on shows doomed to cancellation while falling weeks behind on a decent series. Well, TiVo users will soon get a little extra help. The company has teamed up with Entertainment Weekly to allow TiVo subscribers to automatically record the magazine’s regular list of must-see TV.Most analysis paints this EW deal as a desperate push by TiVo. The company, which pioneered digital video recorders a decade ago, has lost considerable ground to DVRs offered by cable companies. TiVo “has only 1.7 million subscribers out of an estimated 26 million DVRs in the US at the end of the first quarter,” reports the The Wall Street Journal.To remain relevant, TiVo has signed scores of deals with media companies and taste makers. They’ve dabbled in downloads, YouTube videos, even product deals with Amazon that let users buy items advertised on shows. The hope: Enough bells and whistles will solidify TiVo as a premium brand – something people will seek out instead of settling on package deals from cable providers. (more…)       ]]>
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/27/tivo-and-entertainment-weekly-team-up-but-who%e2%80%99s-helping-whom/feed/
Will lasers brighten nuclear’s future?
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/27/will-lasers-brighten-nuclears-future/
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/27/will-lasers-brighten-nuclears-future/#comments
Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:17:17 +0000
editorial
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/27/will-lasers-brighten-nuclears-future/
Inside a bland industrial building in Wilmington, N.C., an experiment is in the works that could vastly reduce the cost, time, and space needed to make fuel for nuclear power plants and, some nonproliferation experts say, for nuclear bombs as well.In that building, secret uranium-enrichment technology licensed by GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy is nearing a pilot test. If successful, the new technology will enable the company to supply low-cost nuclear fuel to power reactors worldwide, officials say.Only broad outlines of the “Separation of Isotopes by Laser EXcitation,” or SILEX technology, are public. Most details are classified under the Atomic Energy Act.But it would not take much – just a signal from Wilmington of SILEX’s success in the months ahead – to unleash a global push by companies and nations to develop similar laser-based technology, nonproliferation experts, scientists, and US government studies warn.“The threat is there,” says Edwin Lyman, a nuclear nonproliferation expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a research and advocacy group in Cambridge, Mass. “If [GE-Hitachi] succeeds in overcoming remaining technological hurdles, the resulting laser-enrichment would be extremely vulnerable to proliferation. It’s also a technology that several countries would likely pursue.”Henry Sokolski, director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, is worried about SILEX too. “If it works, it has enormous industrial implications with the US perhaps bringing back all the enrichment services it has lost to Europe and Russia,” he says.“But how long can you keep this process secret and out of the hands of proliferators? That’s the real question.”The US Department of Energy, which oversees nuclear power, is not worried.“Any program to build additional enrichment facilities in the United States will be evaluated for its safety, environmental, and nonproliferation characteristics before it is licensed to operate,” the DOE said in a statement responding to Monitor queries.Still, SILEX’s success is hardly guaranteed. Laser isotope separation, or “laser enrichment,” is not new. It has a reputation as a fiendishly difficult technology that has defied researchers for decades. Most of the 18 countries that once pursued it have given up.Jeffrey Eerkens, a laser expert in northern California, is one of the few researchers familiar with many aspects of the SILEX technology. One of the key hurdles has always involved the infrared laser, he says.“For 20 years, everyone has been trying to find a good 16-micron laser to do uranium enrichment,” he says. “We know how to do the harvesting [of enriched uranium], now it’s the laser.”Beyond a few trade reports, little attention has been paid to SILEX development, and there seems scant awareness of it in Congress. The US Department of Energy appears bullish on SILEX’s potential to lower the amount of uranium fuel US nuclear power reactors purchase from overseas firms. “Any increase in domestic enrichment capacity will increase US energy self-reliance,” the DOE said in its statement.While the State Department was unable to provide an official to speak about SILEX, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is familiar with the technology, having approved the first-step SILEX “test loop” this spring.SIDEBAR: How SILEX worksIf all goes according to plan, sometime in the next few months a powerful infrared laser will fire into a chamber containing uranium hexafloride gas, according to a description of the laser-isotope-separation (LIS) process in a 2001 analysis by a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The beam will excite U-235, the uranium isotope used to make nuclear fission reactions, and enable them to be separated out.As the gas is cycled through the beam, the process steadily boosts the concentration of U-235. In the end, what precipitates out is a substance with 3 percent or higher U-235 concentration, enough to qualify as fuel for commercial nuclear power plants.But with minor modifications, such a system could produce the highly enriched uranium used in nuclear weapons. Because of its relatively low power use and compact space requirements, the technology is a threat, says nonproliferation experts.The NRC’s primary role is to make sure the process “meets all the health and safety requirements,” says Timothy Johnson, a senior project manager at the NRC’s enrichment and conversion branch. He doesn’t know if SILEX technology has yet been reviewed to assess its “proliferation resistance.”GE-Hitachi, through its public relations firm, declined to make a spokesman available for this article. But officials have in the past been optimistic about the technology licensed in 2006 from Silex Systems, Ltd., the Australian company that originally developed it.“GE’s agreement with Silex comes at an ideal time, just as the global nuclear industry is preparing to build new reactors around the world,” Andy White, then president and CEO of GE Energy’s nuclear business, said in a 2006 statement after the rights to the technology were acquired. “We expect the SILEX technology to help us fulfill the industry’s growing fuel demands.”But all enrichment systems can be altered to produce bomb-grade uranium, something that has worried every US president since the 1960s.Currently, the dominant method to enrich uranium involves centrifuge technology. Iran’s development of centrifuge enrichment has drawn condemnations from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the US, and European nations.But in the US, anticipating a renaissance in nuclear power, two new centrifuge-based enrichment facilities are under development in Ohio and New Mexico.If SILEX is successful, GE-Hitachi could produce low-enriched uranium fuel for power plants at half the cost of centrifuge-based technology, Dr. Eerkens says.While a boon to the struggling US nuclear fuel enrichment industry, a SILEX success would press other nations to seek laser enrichment, often called LIS, to stay competitive, nonproliferation experts say.“Once you’ve solved the problem, everyone knows it can be done,” says Charles D. Ferguson, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, who has studied SILEX. “France and Russia will pay particular attention because they are competing with the US in fuel services.”But industry experts dismiss the idea that other countries will ramp up research if the “test loop” sees success.“Just because it’s been done doesn’t mean another country can do it if they have a few extra dollars,” says Julian Steyn, president of Energy Resources International, Washington-based nuclear-fuel consultants. “I don’t think it’s a major proliferation-prone technology in the right hands.”Six nations beside the US were reportedly still pursuing laser enrichment: Brazil, China, Germany, India, Iran, and Israel, according to a 2005 study by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.“Once LIS is known to work on the pilot-plant scale, research and development can be expected to intensify in several technically advanced countries,” a 1977 report on nuclear proliferation by the US Office of Technology Assessment found. “Some of these countries would probably develop LIS 5 to 10 years after a US demonstration.”SILEX’s development has been long and tortuous. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the US spent about $2 billion trying but failing to develop an LIS system, Mr. Ferguson says. In 1999, however, President Clinton signed an agreement with the Australian government to bring SILEX technology developed there to the US. In 2001, the US Department of Energy declared certain SILEX information to be “restricted data.”Then, in October 2006, GE Energy’s nuclear business announced it had reached a deal with Silex Systems to develop the technology.“Government authorizations” were obtained when GE-Hitachi licensed the technology in 2006, the company said. This week it reiterated that SILEX, which it has dubbed Global Laser Enrichment, has federal clearance and oversight.“Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) has obtained the required security clearance from the NRC, which dictates a security program to safeguard information,” the company said in an e-mailed statement.As SILEX moves into its testing phase, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is confident its procedures will keep vital data safe. Marvin Miller is less certain of that. A retired MIT researcher, he prepared classified government studies in the 1980s about the proliferation threat posed by the same type of laser-enrichment process now coming to fruition as SILEX.“Laser isotope separation has not been a proliferation threat because it hasn’t worked before,” he says. “Now, if you can get SILEX to work, it would indeed be a proliferation concern.”Eerkens, who has pursued similar laser-enrichment technology, is concerned about SILEX or other laser technology as a proliferation threat.It would, he says, obviously be “easier to hide 20 or 30 lasers than 10,000 centrifuges.” One thing he is certain about: In coming months, every scrap of information about SILEX will get plenty of scrutiny from outside US borders. If GE-Hitachi moves ahead with a commercial-scale SILEX plant as the company says it wants to do next year, it will be a sure sign the test was a success.“The Russians, the French, the enrichment companies – they’re all watching to see if SILEX is working,” Eerkens says.       ]]>
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/27/will-lasers-brighten-nuclears-future/feed/
Kindle is the new backpack
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/26/kindle-is-the-new-backpack/
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/26/kindle-is-the-new-backpack/#comments
Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:33:01 +0000
cgaylord
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/26/kindle-is-the-new-backpack/
There are several rumors bouncing around the web that Amazon is putting the final touches on a new model of its Kindle ebook reader. The target audience: students.Just as college kids played a huge role in the success of the iPod – and many iDerivatives – Amazon is banking on them ditching hardcovers and adopting E Ink textbooks. At least that’s what the “confirmed” reports say.The new line of Kindle “is significantly thinner, has a better screen, is more stylish, and includes fixes to some of the user interface annoyance with the first version,” says Business Week’s Peter Burrows. He compared this college-bound Kindle to Apple’s purse-friendly iPod Mini – take the bulky original and shave it down to something a teen-age girl would proudly bear.The rumors differ over whether the new model is due out in September or October. (Either way, Amazon would seem to miss the back-to-school shopping sprees.) They also don’t get into whether the redesigned gadget will be marketed as a way to read Stephenie Meyer or science homework.Horizons has talked a lot about etextbooks before (here and here), but this product news arrived the same day I learned about (more…)       ]]>
http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/26/kindle-is-the-new-backpack/feed/
|
|
