So I’ve been reading a lot about ebook apps as of late. And no, I’m not talking about apps within which you download and read books (i.e. Kindle and iBook). Many publishers are bypassing the Amazon Kindle Store or the iBook market, and are creating their own apps! The first one I discovered about six months ago was an app created by Moving Tales, Inc. entitled The Unwanted Guest – a well-known Jewish folk tale. It was the first time I’ve heard of the story, and was intrigued by the style of the app that included narration, animation, and really neat graphics.

Other apps are even going beyond the single ebook (which is probably smart considering I don’t want to download an app for each book that I want to buy). I read this article about the app Papercut that topped the charts in the App Store for a period of time. The app boasted to integrate narration, video, and text to tell its stories in a whole new way. And instead of publishing a single story or book, the app developer (London-based Ustwo) worked with Shortfire Press to interpret stories by selected authors under the publisher’s umbrella. As of now, you can enjoy stories from Richard Beard, Nadifa Mohamed and Laura Dockrill.

And by the way, it’s really darn cool! I’ve always been a “real book” kind of girl, but I don’t see why my bookshelf favorites can’t be accompanied by some really awesome interactive story-telling!

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Rachel Yeomans Categories: Gadget

Amazon’s family of Kindle devices has been leading the pack of e-readers for some time now, currently followed by Barnes & Noble’s Nook.  In previous breakdowns of device market share, the distinction has been made between e-readers and tablets, such that the iPad and Android tablets were not factored in as direct competition to Kindle and Nook.  The main distinguishing factor for e-readers is the use of so-called e-ink technology, which allows for text to be rendered onscreen in a way that is easier on the eye, without backlighting.  However, and although R&D is bustling in this area, there is no such thing as a color e-ink screen on the market yet today.

As far as I can tell, Amazon’s new color Kindle Fire doesn’t really seem like anything revolutionary.  In fact, Barnes & Noble released their Nook Color a year ago, with the main difference in the Fire appearing to be more processing power and some new cloud storage offerings from Amazon. Barnes & Noble is now also about to release their Nook Tablet, which seems primarily like a hardware upgrade to the Nook Color.  None of these devices are yet bringing color e-ink displays to consumers, but rather taking the booksellers’ existing e-book distribution technologies to their own proprietary tablet devices.  They are starting to look almost like iPads or Android tablets, but especially the latter as they are all created from stripped-down versions of the Android OS.

So what’s the attraction?  Well, they are significantly cheaper than iPads and popular Android tablets like the Galaxy Tab, although you can find other Android tablets closer in price.  Other than that I’m having a hard time seeing the value.  I would personally rather have an older Kindle with e-ink, or a more fully-featured iPad.  Or, perhaps someday, a full color e-ink Kindle.

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Andrew Crowe Categories: Gadget, Mobile, Technology

A few weeks ago I was standing on the sidelines to cheer on a couple of friends running the Chicago Marathon. They both did very well!

While I was waiting for them to pass, I snapped this photo on my iPhone 4 of a guy wearing a tutu, which just seemed comical in the context of the race.

I uploaded it shortly thereafter from my iPhone to Facebook. Within minutes, a friend of mine spotted my Facebook post and commented, “I know him! That’s awesome!!!”

She tagged him in the photo, which notified him instantly. He responded, “I would have stopped to pose if you asked. What mile were you at? Thanks again for getting it. It’s fantastic.”

We had a bit of conversation and are now friends. This breaks my rule of Facebook friendship, which requires that I have spoken to you in person for at least 60 minutes, but I felt like making an exception.

I have to say as long as I’ve been on Facebook, this is one of the crazier small world moments I’ve had. With more than 45,000 people running, I took four photos and got one of someone two degrees of separation from me. And with Facebook, in a matter of hours I was connected with him.

Maybe oddballs just run in similar circles and another oddball caught my attention.

As we enter an age of facial recognition technology, things like this will become more commonplace. In this case, however, I’m not sure what tech could have recognized the tutu guy.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Fun, Mobile, Social Media, Technology

I was recently given a season subscription to the Joffrey Ballet. Naturally I began clicking around on their website to try and figure out where my seats were, and lo and behold, a new variation on social media integration smacked me in the face: seat tracking!

By linking to your facebook profile you can view where your friends who have already bought tickets are sitting and choose your seat accordingly! How cool is that?!

Of course each person has to link to their Facebook profile to activate the feature, but that is hardly a deterrent in today’s über-linking state of mind. I am curious to see if this will become standard practice for entertainment venues. It certainly is one step towards connecting their audiences.

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Sara Gorsky Categories: General