SXSW Interactive — Where the Geeks (and Geek Watchers) Go
SXSW 2013 is heavy on hardware, invention, lessons about taking risks and exploring, usability, and discussions about how best to achieve authority and credibility.
Stick to Your Ribs: Skeuomorphic Publishing — How to Fit a Square Peg Into a Round Hole
Digital publishing continues to borrow its shape from its predecessors in print. Truly creative individuals are necessary to work with new media on their own terms.
Whoops! Are Some Current Open Access Mandates Backfiring on the Intended Beneficiaries?
OA mandates like the RCUK mandate seem to have aspects that actually put the burdens of OA on the academics, universities, taxpayers, and scientists they were meant to help.
Welcome to the Surveillance Society of Google Glass — Should We Be Worried or Relieved?
Google Glass has the potential to transform personal, social, and political relationships dramatically. Is this increased surveillance in the hands of Google an improvement? Or is it just another sign of problems ahead?
The RCUK Open Access Policy Is Revised — Complexity, Confusion, and Conflicting Messages Abound
After a great deal of public and political resistance, the RCUK revises its OA policy. Unfortunately, the revisions only highlight the same problems, sow more confusion, and reveal how central the issue of academic freedom is to this approach.
A Thousand Posts — A Milestone or a Millstone?
When your blog lets you know it’s impressed with your production level, you know you’ve done something that’s both impressive and regrettable.
Copyright Transfer As a Click-through – It’s So Easy to Sign Away Your Rights
Click-through agreements are efficient for publishers and software companies to offer, but is it right for this efficiency to cloud the rights picture? Can’t we create systems that are slightly more subtle and customized?
The Digital Publishing Revolution Is Over
While many technologists continue to demand a publishing revolution, the precepts of such a revolution are already incorporated into the strategic thinking of most publishing companies. To further the adoption of more digital practices, what is needed are practical solutions that are expressed in dollars and cents.
Walter Cronkite Tours the Home of 2001 — Complete with the Information Console
What an idea! Information consoles in the home of the future. They only missed the existence of wi-fi and cellular, and how those made everything portable.
Rediscovering Stephen King — Two Thousand Pages of Exhilaration
Rediscovering the master of suspense and a superb writer again brings immersive joy to this reader.
Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is — Is Gold OA Just a New Frontier for Nature?
Nature (the journal) announces unwavering support for Gold OA on the same day Nature (the company) announces a major Gold OA partnership. But Nature (the journal) doesn’t itself adopt Gold OA. Why not?
The eLife Story Continues — Evasions Seem the Best We Can Expect
The continued silence from major funders involved in the eLife-PubMed Central scandal is creating a noise all its own.
Is It a Tablet? Is It a Laptop? Digging Into the Microsoft Surface RT
Microsoft’s Surface RT marks the software stalwart’s entry into the hardware and tablet market. Too bad it’s late and awkward.
Tesla, Journalism, and the Limits of Data — A Lesson in Context and Interpretation
An electric car’s data versus a journalist’s experiences — and neither proves sufficient for the task of telling us exactly what happened.
Confusions in the OSTP OA Policy Memo — Three Monsters and a Gorilla
The OSTP public access memorandum provides flexibility across many US federal agencies. The possible complexities combined with current budget realities mean there is much to tame and little to spend doing it.