From the category archives:

Books / Libraries

Analog to Digital Shift: Implications of Owning Vs Renting Books, Music, Movies etc

What happens to the concept of ownership of books, music, DVD Movie & TV series collections etc in the shift from Analog to Digital? As a journalist and keen observer of how technology affects society I see many upsides to digital content such as ease of use and the ability to carry around massive collections [...]

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Listen To Audible Audio Books Using Android App (Review GEARE #64)

If you spend your work hours staring at a computer screen, your eyes may be too tired to read a book after hours. But that doesn’t mean you have to be bored during the commute to and from work. Audible recently launched a free Audible Android app to simplify access to the world’s largest selection [...]

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eBook Readers and Book Publishing: Australia State of Play (GEARE #64)

Ebook readers are suddenly affordable, while the ebook market is gathering pace – even for previously poorly-served Australian readers. Read on as I turn the page on the future of literature. Think back just over three years. Amazon in the USA had just announced a new ebook reader product called the Kindle, to much excitement [...]

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I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett (Book Review)

Terry Pratchett has been my favourite author since childhood and I’ve bought almost all of his books over the years as you can see by the partial photo of my bookshelf below. I recently finished reading the review copy of his new book I Shall Wear Midnight sent to me by his publishers. Darker and [...]

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Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives (Book Review)

I recently read a very interesting book Internal Combustion: How Corporations and Governments Addicted the World to Oil and Derailed the Alternatives as part of background research into a feature article I was writing about Electric Cars for GEARE magazine. Black and his team of researchers painstakingly and thouroughly researched the history of fossil fuels [...]

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Ebook Readers Finally Affordable for Australians But Still Flawed

I’ve tried a *lot* of gadgets and devices recently which can be used to read Ebooks. The good news is that a decent basic ebook reader can be bought in Australia for as little as $150. All of the devices in the photo below (Amazon Kindle DX, Kobo reader, Sony Reader Touch Edition, Samsung Galaxy [...]

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Kobo eInk Ebook Reader Unboxing Video & Size Comparison With Paperback Book and Kindle DX

Video (2 minutes): Kobo eInk Ebook Reader Unboxing & Size Comparison With Paperback Book and Kindle DX Video Transcript: Earlier today, Borders Australia launched their eInk powered KObo eBook reader and associated eBook store with over 2 million ebooks for sale. This is a short unboxing video and size comparison with the Kobo eReader versus [...]

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Lesson from History: Todays Copyright Enforcer USA Was Yesterdays Biggest Pirate

Like me you’ll be familiar with American news stories like Justice Dept. Defends $1.92 Million RIAA Fine Against Minnesota Mom and MPAA Shuts Down Entire Town’s Wi-Fi Over Single Illegal Download Pirate Flag. photo credit: nickhumphries However I bet you don’t know that The United States of America (USA) was the biggest copyright pirate in [...]

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Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War by Michael Neufeld (Book Review)

During the weeks leading to the 40th Anniversary of NASA landing a man on the moon I’ve been reading the biography of Werner Von Braun, one of the key players who helped achieve that great success photo credit: jurvetson “Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War” is a hefty volume at almost 600 pages [...]

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Classic Black Comedy: The Far Side Comics by Gary Larson

From the mid 70′s to late 90′s Gary Larson drew over 4000 single panel comics in the Far Side series. It’s been a long time since he drew any new cartoons so why are his cartoons still regularly seen in calendars, birthday cards, stuck to refrigerators, desks and office walls around the world? One reason [...]

15 comments

What Is A Book? How Will We Read Books In the Future?

I’ve been wondering recently about what is a book and what are the defining characteristics of a book? How will we read books in the future? I’m very interested in new bleeding edge technologies and their impact on older forms of information storage, publication and dissemination like printed books. Reading books and engaging with technology [...]

19 comments

Encyclopedia Britannica: How the Mighty Have Fallen, Lessons For Market Incumbents

Organisations in the information industry such as Book Publishers and Libraries would do well to learn from Encyclopedia Britannica’s precipitous fall from grace. Formerly a powerful company that could demand and receive large payments for access to it’s storehouse of human knowledge, it’s now been reduced to near irrelevancy and suffers the ignoble fate of [...]

20 comments

Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe (Book Review)

I just read “Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business” by Jeff Howe “Crowdsourcing” describes the process by which the power of the many can be leveraged to accomplish feats that were once the province of the specialized few … during the last few years people from around the [...]

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Books to Read: Business, Globalisation, Economics, Internet/Information Industry, Big Picture Lateral Thinking

During the last few months I’ve made a list of Books to Read covering topics like Big Picture thinking, Business Ideas, the Internet & Information Industry, Economics, Lateral Thinking, Globalisation etc. This was prompted by suggestions of interesting books by several people I’ve met through Twitter & my blogs including: @edwardharran, @zebrabites, @scott_drummond, @scottpape, @kcarruthers [...]

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The Barefoot Investor: 5 Steps to Financial Freedom (Book Review)

Need to buy a present for a young person who owns every single consumer item known to mankind? Give them a hand to break the cycle of spending money like there’s no tomorrow and putting it all on their credit card by buying them “The Barefoot Investor: 5 Steps to Financial Freedom” by Scott Pape [...]

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