Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/20/2012
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SOPA blackout: Bills lose three co-sponsors amid protests - latimes.com
How the tide turns. Just take away wikipedia and blackout google and this is what happens. This was the topic of conversation at school yesterday. Major websites may have just realized the power of those eyeballs on their site.
"Three co-sponsors of the SOPA and PIPA antipiracy bills have publicly withdrawn their support as Wikipedia and thousands of other websites blacked out their pages Wednesday to protest the legislation.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) withdrew as a co-sponsor of the Protect IP Act in the Senate, while Reps. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) said they were pulling their names from the companion House bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Opponents of the legislation, led by large Internet companies, say its broad definitions could lead to censorship of online content and force some websites to shut down. -
Apple says iBooks 2 app reinvents textbooks - latimes.com
Ah, epaper. Digital books. They started as barely a blip but now have become the battleground for the next all out war between tech giants.
"The app update -- which Apple is calling iBooks 2 and is already released to the iOS App Store -- will allow for textbooks to be sold through the popular app, which in the past sold novels, nonfiction and poetry, but not textbooks.
All textbooks sold through the free app, which is available only to Apple's i-devices, will be priced at $14.99 or less -- a stark contrast to the high-priced paper books that fill college bookstores.
But the main allure might not be the price as much as the interactive features iBooks textbooks can offer.
Apple, which announced the iBooks update at a press event in New York at the Guggenheim Museum, said the iBooks textbook exceeds paper texts in terms of engagement, calling it a durable, quickly searchable book that offers easy highlighting and note-taking as well as interactive photo galleries, videos, and 3-D models and diagrams. -
A First Look at Apple's iBooks Author - The Next Web
iBooks Author is a Mac only app that lets you create interactive textbooks for iBook 2. Here is the first review I have seen by someone who has actually used it.
