This morning, my partner and I were chatting when he mentioned a new patent Apple applied for to disable recording functions on their devices at concerts and theaters. This article gives you a brief overview. I had been waffling between upgrading to a Droid or an iPhone, but after reading this I may have my decision made for me! The patent is still being processed, from what I understand, and no announcement has yet been made as to whether it will be included on future iterations of the iPhone, but the fact that it was applied for raises some important issues for me. I posted a link to the article in a tweet, and in minutes had a number of retweets and responses that sparked a vibrant discussion about DRM (digital rights management) in a number of devices and what our role is in encouraging producers (like Apple) to reduce restrictions.
>The Kindle for LIS Students
>A few months ago, I decided it was time to buy a 3G Kindle after hearing a few classmates rave about how useful it was for reading-heavy courses (and also because I wanted to load it up with fun books too!) I’ve been really impressed with it thus far, and have found it to be a big help for storing and accessing professional reading material. A number of folks have expressed frustration over Kindle’s lack of page numbers, but I like this author’s review because it acknowledges that these are shortcomings of e-readers in general. I’m a little bummed that I can’t easily use my Kindle to store articles for my research that I need to cite page numbers for (that would make me very happy), but I can still use it to read the articles and reference the ‘location’ later to get a general sense for where in the article the information is (it’s a little extra work, but a lot easier than hauling a ton of papers and books with me everywhere I go). The good news is that the lack of page numbers is causing discussion amongst academics, so hopefully new versions of style manuals will address this.
The Kindle, apart from being lightweight and user-friendly, has a few features that I think are especially useful to LIS students. In the ‘experimental’ settings users can find a browser, and with free 3G coverage for the latest generation, I can access what I need even when I’m outside of the range of wifi. I definitely recommend using Kinstant (a Kindle-friendly start page with links to social media, email, and news, with the option to add your own favorites). Even though it isn’t going to provide the same surfing experience you get with a color screen (the screen does take a little longer to load, and is black and white), the browser on the Kindle is actually quite good, especially if you’re only using it for short spurts.
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Julia C. Skinner 