As kids get ready to head back to school, and as college students get ready to move back to their dorms and apartments, Consumer Reports has published an article discussing whether an e-reader is the right student purchase to make.  The exciting part is they base the entire article around our study of e-reader usage among grad students. Two things in this article are exciting to me. First, they quote Professor Charlotte Lee making a pretty clear statement about whether…

This column in today’s Chicago Tribune theorizes about what will happen to printed books and physical bookstores in the coming years.  I have to say that I agree with many of the points made, particularly when Keilman talks about printed books having a future. He also rightly points out that big-box bookstores may not be around forever, or at least competing big-box bookstores (Borders’ demise is sort of the premise/focus of the column). The column is exciting, however, because Keilman…

Earlier this week, Amazon announced that they would begin renting out textbooks on Kindle devices.  What’s cool is that two of the articles (on CNET and GeekWire) cite our research on e-reader use among university students. The CNET article in particular has some actual commentary on elements of our findings, particularly cognitive mapping; it’s nice to see at least one comment lauding the CNET article for bringing this up. It’s particularly fun to see your academic research get referenced in…

As we reported last month, our accepted paper “The Imposition and Superimposition of Digital Reading Technology: The Academic Potential of E-readers” won an Honorable Mention award at CHI 2011.  On Monday, we issued a press release through the UW that described the highlights of our research. Happily, that press release was picked up by a number of other folks that very same day: PCMag – Study: E-Readers Need Work Before Schools Toss Out Textbooks GeekWire – UW study of Kindle usage…

Apparently the Apple iPad stands to become the replacement for those bulky printed textbooks that kids have to lug around. This New York Times article has some particularly interesting and illuminating quotes on the benefits of the iPad as a textbook replacement. For example: “The iPads cost $750 apiece, and they are to be used in class and at home during the school year to replace textbooks, allow students to correspond with teachers and turn in papers and homework assignments,…

Some people think so…of course, not everyone is the Mayor of New York City with a staff of employees, so your mileage may vary.

I found this story interesting but not necessarily visionary when it comes to seeing the future(s) of the paper book.  For example, I still think hardcover books will go the way of vinyl records in terms of finding a niche audience willing to collect them and pay for their intentional scarcity.  The article is worth reading regardless….

Buried deep in this article, which mainly discusses how iPhones can be legally unlocked, was this tidbit: “In addition to jailbreaking, other exemptions announced Monday would…allow blind people to break locks on electronic books so that they can use them with read-aloud software and similar aides.” I find this quite interesting, in part because the government is recognizing that some of the copyright protections that companies have put in place actually hinder legitimate uses of content.  Similarly, this tidbit also…