The Perfect Video for a Backwards Winter — Snowboarding in the Dark Wearing an LED Light Suit
An eye-popping and eerily beautiful set of images of an LED-adorned snow boarder shredding in the dark.
The Approaching Golden Age of Long-form E-content — Coming Soon to a Reader Near You
Judging from the frenetic pace of developments around e-reading and e-writing, the golden age of the e-book may be just around the corner. After that, what e-books evolve into remains to be seen.
The Bookstore of Last Resort
When on-demand systems for bookselling, such as patron-driven acquisitions, are set up, they create an unexpected problem: How do you know the book will still be available when you finally get around to ordering it? The bookstore of last resort is a preservation-based commercial venture to ensure that books are always available.
Criss-cross Applesauce — Multiplication in Japan
A fascinating video showing another way to multiply moderately big numbers, courtesy of Japan.
The Kodak Moment — Unleashed from Scarcity, Editing Becomes More Important
Scarcity limited the amount of material, hence the amount of editing necessary to make sense of what we had. Now, with more information than ever, the value of editing should be increasing. Perhaps we’re just not as aware of it as we should be.
Experiments in Free Education: The Audacity of Udacity
A new education initiative seeks to shift students away from academia. Is this the shape of things to come?
Big Ideas in the OSTP RFI Comments
Responses to the OSTP’s RFI are in and available. Some big ideas exist. Can the Scholarly Kitchen’s audience help us discover the best?
Glass in the Information Age — Corning's Vision of a World It Helps Create
A vision created by corporate scientists — of a future filled with their products — proves arresting and inspiring.
Apple and Textbooks: A Second Look
Apple’s move into the education market may be just a bare-knuckled move designed to sell more iPads. Does Apple truly support the education market? Or is it hoping the education market will support Apple?
Size and Discipline Bias in F1000 Journal Rankings
The rankings of journals based on F1000 scores reveals a strong bias against larger journals and those with little disciplinary overlap with the biosciences.
The End of the Salad Days — Where Is Google Headed Next?
Google once represented the spirit of Internet optimism distilled into a successful company. Now, with more cynical plays and shuttering experiments, what does Google’s new approach tell us about the Internet of tomorrow?
Why E-books Are Turning the Library and Publishing Worlds Upside Down
Old intersections of libraries and book publishers don’t work in the e-book era, and the rapid adoption of e-readers has shown that new bargains are inevitable. Whether libraries and publishers belong together in that future isn’t clear.
The Research Works Act: Is It Time For a Rally To Restore Sanity?
When it comes to discussions about access, the silent majority focused on doing science is presented with real choices, not all of which square with the scorched-earth rhetoric that too often dominates.
Devices and Shopping — New Trends, New Potential, and New Perils for Retailers
As customers become facile with a new level of information infrastructure, what will that mean for us over the next few years?
Wordnik, the Online Dictionary — Revisiting the Prescritive vs. Descriptive Debate in the Crowdsource Age
Can an online dictionary combining wiki and search do better? In some ways, yes. In others, there’s still the intractable problems of English to solve.