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"“The book will never die. But the textbook probably will,” says Inkling CEO Matt MacInnis. Inkling is working directly with textbook publishers. First, they’ll port their existing tomes onto Apple’s iPad as interactive, socialized objects. Then, they’ll create all-new learning modules — interactive, social, and mobile — that leave ink-on-paper textbooks in the dust."
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"Inkling makes it easy to bring rich, interactive learning content to tablet devices like iPad."
Entries from January 2010
30 January 2010
29 January 2010
27 January 2010
26 January 2010
23 January 2010
21 January 2010
Back to the future: Mag+, BERG, and hypercard
If 2009 was the Year of the Netbook, it's getting to be pretty clear that 2010 is the Year of the Digital Book Reader.
The Kindle and Nook are simple readers with whole bookstores inside them. Indeed, the Kindle has hit on a formula that I think everyone will riff off of (as opposed to exploring other potential biz models).
Now we hear of big magazine publishers exploring layouts that are digital reader friendly. And the amazing BERG worked on a project called Mag+ (video below), showing the future of digital magazines.
It's been really interesting to see the traditional publishing industry drooling at a way out of their downward spiral (being drawn down by their 20th Century biz models). Equally interesting is to see that what was old is new again.
I'm reminded that the early days of the Web was about converting traditional print publications into digital facsimiles. And stretching my memory pre-Web, all this digital book reader talk reminds me of Alan Kay's Dynabook, Jack Scully's Knowledge Navigator, and, my favorite, Hypercard.
So, we're back to creating digital facsimiles of print pubs (albeit better than before). But, when viewing Mag+, I think we could go a wee bit further.
Nah, I don't think we need to turn digital book readers into full-fledged, 'net-connected, hyper-linked information devices (can you say "tablet"?). I'd like to see traditional publishers extend into a third hyper-linked dimension to take advantage of digital formats, rather than just a flat, though pretty, book or magazine. Mag+ does show that, but I am left wanting a tad more.
Yeah, print pubs are mostly flat, but let's not reproduce that flatness in a digital world.
What do you think?
Image from TheCreativePenn
UPDATE 29jan10: Here we go again. The iPad was announced on 27jan. And Venture Beat writes about a company, inkling, that is taking the textbook into the 21st century. Very exciting.
20 January 2010
19 January 2010
12 January 2010
09 January 2010
08 January 2010
An author ID system is essential to the future of science publishing
Nature recently wrote an article on a proposed Author ID system. I find this momentous.
In my vision of the Future of Science Publishing, which is highly based on the way we currently use the Social Web, one of the key sticking points was the need to authenticate authors. By authenticating authors in a kind of OpenID way, authenticity, reputation, citations, publications, and activity streams could be automatically managed.
What really excited me is that this author ID system, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID), is backed by 23 organizations, including Thomson Reuters, Nature Publishing Group, Elsevier, ProQuest, Springer, CrossRef, the British Library and the Wellcome Trust. In short, those most threatened by the dismantling of the science publishing system are taking an active role in reforming it.
Furthermore, these companies recognize that this system not only brings recognition to authors in huge multi-author projects, but "could also be assigned to data sets they helped to generate, comments on their colleagues' blog posts or unpublished draft papers, edits of Wikipedia entries and much else besides."
That's brilliant.
They also mention the Digital Object Identifier (DOI), a unique indetifier for papers, books, and "scholarly publication." An ORCID and a DOI (and an immutable time stamp) is all that's need to release science publication from its current story-contained-in-single-paper so that each morsel of info can be labeled with a OCID/DOI/Time stamp and be linkable, comment-able, embed-able, feed-able, and search-able. Just as Tim Berners-Lee intended.
While this is a promising direction, I think the current edifice of science publishing is still going to be around for a while, so outfits like Mendeley will still add a layer of value for some time to come.
So, what do you think of this development? Do you think ORCID will radically change the way we share science information?
06 January 2010
05 January 2010
Institutional science needs to change
I was having lunch with some old ex-lab friends. Unlike me, who left the lab at the end of the 90s, all three of them have kept on doing research and medicine and have their own labs with students, post-docs, and techs. The good news is that their research is progressing, the bad news is that funding is tighter than ever.
I had asked them who was writing a grant (of course, knowing that one always is writing some grant). There was an awkward pause as all three of them seemed to be lost in their thoughts, then they gave me an update of where things were at, since last I was in science, listing some stats to show how things were getting tighter.
When I left research, I had the naïve idea that I would no longer need to hustle for money. But, we all know, the biz world is just the same. Yet, for sure, the biz world seems to have a multitude of revenue and funding options that don't seem to be available to institutional scientists.
I feel that the whole endeavor of Science (I come from a biology background, so my thoughts are around that area, really) has been stuck in the 60s - the way we fund science, the expectations of the apprenticeship (PhD and Postdoc), the publishing and reputation cycle, the job progression - all seem to have been built in a model that came into being in the science boom of the 50s and 60s and really hasn't changed.
Am I missing something? I've been out 10 years, but it seems like nothing has improved. Funding is tighter, people still can't get academic jobs, and publishing is getting more onerous.
How do I envision the future of institutional science?
I'm not sure.
I've mentioned how science publishing could change, taking cues from the current way we use the Social Web. I think DIYBio points to how science could change how we explore the natural world and who does it. And, brilliant folks, like at Biocurious and Pink Army Coop, are looking at ways to diversify how we fund and participate in funding the future of science.
In summary, the business of institutional science is sclerotic and the clues to how we move forward are right in front of us. And, as usual, institutional culture is in the way of this change.
Do you think the way we do science should change? Can it? Will it in our lifetime? How do you envision the future of science or are we fine the way we are?
Image by caterina
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