This is a great step for electronic publishing and writers everywhere. Carina Press allows for more unknown writers to reach so many different types of readers throughout the world. The downfall of not having any DRMs can be a very big set back because it can deter writers from submitting their hard work on to the site. Well, we'll just have to see how Harlequin's new venture plays out when it launches in the Spring of 2010.
link: Quill & Quire
- Users have no patience.
- It's all about the experience.
- Progressive enhancement is good.
- Minimize learning curve by including tutorials.
- Keep the interface as simple as possible.
- Don't rely on graphics alone.
I believe pc has responded with the ad campaigns of people from all over the world saying they're pcs (heart warming) or someone visiting an electronics store to discover that pcs are cheaper and just as reliable as macs. Obviously, the Hodgeman/Long ads are more memorable, but are they any more true because of that?
Will consumers do more research when it comes to making a new computer purchase, or will they go with a more convincing ad? This could also be asked of e-readers, especially after we looked at the websites for amazon kindle verses sony reader in class. One might be a better product, but we would have no way of knowing outside of the success of an ad campaign.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind this. But will it work?
If Google had the power to make calling less expensive and carried through with their plan successfully with advancing their "Google Voice," then yeah! Who wouldn't want their phone calls to be more affordable? I noticed on the comments below this article on CNN that the majority agreed to having "Power to Google," and carrying through with their new technology with the best of luck.
"Communication and Cable companies already charge way too much for their services. I wish Google the best in making communication more affordable," one user says.
Some, however, are critical thinkers and have a different viewpoint on the Google efforts.
"Too bad the phone companies also have a stronghold in many areas on Internet connectivity as well. If they lose phone service business, they can just increase the cost of their Internet, be it Cable, DSL, or if anyone on the planet is still using dial-up. Google, will you offer cheap Internet access too?"
Others also wrote how they simply use MagicJack and will never change their method, for its already cheap and they don't need to have a mobile or land line in order to use it. Apparently with MagicJack, you simply "plug a little device called MagicJack into a PC, then connect your telephone, and get unlimited calls throughout the United States for $20 a year."
Neat.
I don't really know what the deal is with these technologies, but they're advancing at a faster speed than my mind can fully comprehend them. My phone with 1000 minutes and unlimited texts works well enough with me!
According to Wikipedia, to lifelog is "to capture continuous physiological data together with live first-person video from a wearable camera." Lifelogging has been around for quite some time; and we've seen this theme explored in various films, including Ed TV and, to a sinister sci-fi extent, The Truman Show. Lifeloggers walk around with cameras strapped to their person, or cameras embedded ala James Bond in sunglasses frames. A Canadian film-maker/lifelogger is trying to fit a video camera into his prosthetic eye, so followers of his "lifestream" can experience the visual world directly from his perspective.
Previously, lifelogging was the pursuit of the tech-savvy alone - notice how all the dudes on the Wikipedia page wear MIT sweatshirts. However, this article, published in October, suggests that the release of a commercially-available, wearable camera (intended to help Alzheimer's patients) could bringing lifelogging to the everyman. Including your mom, your little cousin, your freaky neighbor you never wanted to know about, etc.
What does this have to do with the publishing industry? Well, bringing an arcane avocation to the doorstep of the average citizen is exactly what blogging did for publishing: everyone became an author, and a publisher. Along the same lines, blogging is in and of itself a form of lifelogging - we tweet daily text updates of our lives from Twitter, post visual peaks into our day on Flickr, and upload real-time narratives on Youtube. In this sense, the wearable camera will bring a new level of immediacy and intimacy to the blogosphere, reducing the wait-time between action and the narration of that action in the Web. The democratization of lifelogging will only further blur the line between professional and novice.
This is definitely a step in the right direction for being able to read on mobile phones. Giving users options will ensure them to want to read on the go via their phones. Hopefully Mozilla and Blackberry can work something out in the near future because I'd love to get my hands on the PocketFox.

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