iTunes 9.1 has now launched, bringing with it the e-book-related matters I mentioned yesterday. I have not had a chance to take a look yet, but Gizmodo reports that all it does is keep track of e-books rather than read them. It does not seem there is a lot of point without an iPad. (Hopefully there will be an iPhone iBooks application as well, but since such a thing has not been mentioned, this is by no means assured.)
Pennsylvania-based Seton Hill University, enrollment 2,100, has announced that all enrolled students there will receive an iPad as part of a new technology program that begins with the forthcoming fall semester.
Of course, the iPad will not be “free”, strictly speaking, as the cost for it will be included in the college’s tuition (as with the 13” MacBook laptops they will also receive, and which will be replaced every two years). But the devices will belong to the students, meaning they can take them with them after graduation.
When Mary Lou Jepson developed the technology for the Pixel Qi screen, she was working at the One Laptop Per Child Foundation, so there was initially some confusion over who owned what intellectual property. However, the two organizations have resolved their differences by agreeing to cross-license all screen technology developed at either place—including the Pixel Qi dual-mode displays.
Remember how I mentioned Amazon UK was imposing new restrictions on Marketplace retailers, insisting that Amazon get “most favored nation” status in terms of price and customer service offers? Now the Booksellers Association of England and Ireland is asking the British Office of Fair Trading to investigate. An OFT representative said, "We are considering all complaints received and will be responding in due course."
Just in time for the iPad’s launch, the iTunes App Store now has its own Facebook page. There’s not a great deal extremely new about this; it shows much the same thing one could see simply by going to the store in iTunes or on an iPhone, but it’s now in Facebook.
Digital textbook company GetYa Learn On LLC has released a white paper purporting to show that its “Mobile Learning Platform” app significantly increased the understanding of statistics of students who used it in a statistics class. (Press release, white paper (PDF)) “Out of the 36 students in the class, virtually all students reported a heightened motivation to study because of the mobility and convenience of having quick access to information on their iPhone.”
Have you ever wished that your paper book automatically remembered where you stopped reading, just like your e-book? Now it can. The Page Chaser bookmark automatically keeps track of what page you are reading so you do not have to remember to put it in place before you close the book. What won’t they think of next?
Chris, it’s Seton Hall, not Seton Hill. Cheers.
Sorry, you’re right, my mistake. Cheers again.