The Future of the Book
October 21, 2005
The publishers’ big blunder 0
by C. Max Magee
On Wednesday, five publishers, McGraw-Hill Cos. Inc., Pearson Plc’s Pearson Education and Penguin Group (USA) units, Viacom Inc.’s Simon & Schuster and John Wiley & Sons Inc., filed suit for copyright infringement against Google’s Google Print service. What is Google Print? Google has scanned the full text of thousands of books and made [...]
March 1, 2005
Hardcover, Softcover… iPod Shuffle? 0
by C. Max Magee
Yesterday, Scott posted the good news that six Bay Area libraries are making audiobooks available as downloads that readers can listen to on their digital devices. At least one other library appears to be jumping on the digital download bandwagon, but this one is providing the mp3 player as part of the deal. [...]
December 14, 2004
Will Google Reinvent the Book? 0
by C. Max Magee
You may have heard the news that Google is embarking on a new venture to digitize the collections of several university libraries. According to Google this venture “a part of our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Though I have heard some naysayers discussing this on [...]
October 12, 2004
Books Online 0
by C. Max Magee
You may have heard. Google has just launched a service called Google Print. Like Amazon, Google’s service allows people to search through books. Google announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair that are adding a lot of major publishers and they will be adding many titles. As with Amazon, there is a [...]
May 7, 2004
Big Brother or the Wave of the Future 0
by C. Max Magee
There’s been much discussion lately, some of it bordering on hysterical, about radio-frequency identification devices or RFIDs. The idea is that the barcode will be replaced by a tiny radio transmitter that will allow computers to monitor inventory in real time as it sits on the shelves. It would also make things more [...]
