News Report #5

“Cellphone Apps Challenge the Rise of E-Readers” by Motoko Rich and Brad Stone. The New York Times. November 17, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/technology/18reader.html?_r=1&ref=technology

“Cellphone Apps Challenge the Rise of E-Readers” talks about exactly what the title suggests, cellphone applications for reading e-books are challenging the sales of actual e-readers like the Kindle and the Reader. Many people are finding it unnecessary to have a separate device to read e-books when you can buy an app for it on your smartphone, these are phones like the iPhone. People think that spending another $250 to $350 for yet another gadget is not necessary when they already have a ‘gadget’ that does the same thing. Yet, there are still people out there that prefer the e-readers when reading for a long period of time because the screen of an iPhone is so small compared and puts a strain on the eyes when stared at for too long.

I found this article very interesting because the same companies that sell the Kindle (Amazon), the Reader (Sony) and the Nook (Barnes & Noble) are the same companies offering the e-reader apps for the smartphones. Coming from a business background, that seems like it would hurt the sales of your initial product a lot. Doing this only makes sense to me if they are making more money off selling the smartphone e-reader apps than they make of the actual e-readers. I also found it interesting that there are people that prefer to have two ‘gadgets’ that do the same thing, one for more on-the-go reading and the other for more leisurely, extended reading. Like many people, I also feel that it might be a little unnecessary, but understand the strain that a small screen puts on the eyes. I am very interested to see what happens with the e-readers in the future.

News Report #4

"End to a Fight Over Skype May Be Near" Brad Stone. The New York Times. November 3, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/technology/companies/04skype.html?_r=1&ref=technology

"End to a Fight Over Skype May Be Near" is about the recent litigation against eBay over Skype. The litigation seems to be close to being resolved. There is a proposed settlement "...between a consortium of private equity investors, who successfully bid for Skype in September, and the original founders of Skype, who have filed several lawsuits in an effort to scuttle the consortium's $1.9 billion deal to buy a majority of Skype from eBay" (paragraph 3). The article describes that Skype allows "...registered users to make free calls to one another using their PCs or mobile devices..." and charges low rates to call regular phones (paragraph 4). The proposed legal settlement would restructure the group buying Skype, leaving the two lead investors unsure of how much of the new Skype they would own. They have been guaranteed at least one Board set, though. The rest of the article talks about everything that has happened between eBay, the founders of Skype, and private equity investors that successfully bid on Skype in September.

I thought this article was kind of crazy. I was not really sure how all the lawsuits that the article talks about, came about. I also thought it was weird that the original founders that sold a majority of Skype in 2005 were getting involved in the deal between eBay and the private equity investors, but I think that I am missing a part of the story. Overall, I think it is great that this litigation is being resolved, but I am unsure of the fairness of the resolution.

Reading Response #5

“Information Navigation 101” by Andrea Foster presented surprising statistics about how information illiterate many college students are today. This is a result of the numerous ways students can access information, through online databases, through Internet search engines (i.e. Google), and through books at the library. Today students need to know how to evaluate all these sources. Foster talks about some of the things libraries are doing to help students overcome this problem. Libraries are providing seminars and classes on information literacy, while other organizations are releasing handbooks on information literacy. Other colleges and universities have begun testing their students as freshmen to see how proficient they are in finding and evaluating sources, then testing them again as juniors to see if they have become more proficient. Foster presents that: “Some anticipate that colleges would move away from standardized tests in favor of interpretive measures of students’ skills, like research papers, multimedia projects, and electronic portfolios” (paragraph 40). Foster also includes some of the history of information literacy.

I found this article to be very interesting. I definitely agree with the fact that most college students are information illiterate. When I came to college I did not know how to do good research and I certainly did not know how to evaluate the sources that I was using; I believed that pretty much anything I read was true. I would have also probably have been one of the many to fail an information-literacy proficiency test. I think that requiring freshmen to complete a class on information literacy would be a great idea and would prove to be beneficial when they began doing research. I believe requiring freshman to take a course of this nature would make doing good research easier for them and result in students finding and using better information for research assignments.

Reading Response #4

I found “The Infodiet: How Libraries Can Offer an Appetizing Alternative to Google” by Steven Bell to be very interesting. Bell writes about how many students today would rather use Google than library databases because Google is easier and faster. He also presents that most students do not know how to use aggregator databases appropriately and that is why they would rather use Google. One of the things the databases have started doing is to competing against each other, which has made the value of some of their articles questionable; this essentially is making the information from aggregator databases no better than the information students get from Google. Bell suggests database producers should move their focus to making databases easier to use. They should “Google-ize” their databases. Bell also states that “Academic librarians are not the only people responsible for reversing students’ declining research abilities; database producers and faculty members must work with us to solve the problem” (paragraph 10). Some faculty members already do this by requiring students to have scholarly resources for papers and projects. Bell concludes the article with telling the reader about RedLightGreen and ProQuest, two databases that are trying to make the information they offer easy to get to and easier to use. Also, with librarians, professors, and developers all working together, they “…can show students that research…requires careful reflection” (paragraph 16).


This article really got me thinking about the first couple of times I used a library database and how frustrated I got when I could not search the articles like I searched in Google. I had so much trouble finding what I was looking for and had to ask for help several times. I have just recently become more at ease with searching these databases, but I would still rather search Google. I think that if students could search aggregator (library) databases like they can search Google, they would use the library even more. The next issue for libraries would be making students aware of this resource.

News Response #3

"The Future of Libraries" by Thomas Frey was very interesting. Frey talked about the evolution of technology, especially communication systems, throughout the years and how we have never settled down on the "ultimate form of communication." This leads to Frey bringing up that books and reading and writing are all technologies, and all technologies have a lifespan. He suggests that one day books will be nonexistent, as well as keyboards for computers. Frey also suggests that, like technology of the past, the technology gadgets we use today will be replaced by something new in the future. Frey talks about ten different trends, the first two I have already addressed the third is an even smaller particle for storage. The fourth is "Search Technology will become increasingly more complicated" due to the suggested fact that we will no longer be using text searches; we will be using other senses in our searches. Fifth, time, or lack there of, is already changing our lifestyles and will continue to do so. Sixth, we will eventually be a verbal society. "Dr. William Crossman, Founder/Director of the CompSpeak 2050 Institute of the Study of Talking Computers and Oral Cultures, predicts... that by 2050 literacy will be dead" (paragraph 33). Seventh, "The demand for global information is growing exponentially." Eighth, more global systems will emerge. Ninth, our wealth will no longer be based off of the amount of stuff we own, but the experience we have and experiences we have had. Finally, tenth, "Libraries will transition from a center of information to a center of culture." All of these trends will affect libraries and the importance of librarians.

Some of the trends that Frey listed I can see happening now and in the future, but there were a few I was a little unsure about. I do not know that I agree with Dr. Crossman when he suggested that literacy will be dead in essentially 40 years, that seems a little soon, especially since there are not too many signs of that happening right now. Also thinking about how big 'texting' has been over the past couple of years, I do not see that completely disappearing really soon. As for the ever growing problem of there not being enough time in the day, I can definitely see that affecting society even more than it already has. I also agree with the statement about librarians growing more and more important because with the more information that is being presented to us, as a society, in the various formats, everyday people are going to need help finding what they need.

News Report #3

"Will Amazon Open the Kindle to Developers?" Brad Stone, The New York Times, 9/25/2009.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/25/will-amazon-open-the-kindle-to-developers/?ref=technology

This article is about Amazon and their device the Kindle. As the holiday season approaches people are starting to wonder whether a new, updated version of the Kindle will come out and be available. The holidays is usually the time that many new technology gadgets come out because people want to give them as presents. It does not look like Amazon is going to make it out with any updates to the Kindle. Drew Herdener would not make a comment on whether or not Amazon will update the Kindle in time for the holidays, but "...according to a few analysts and Amazon watchers who are often prescient on these things, it seems the answer is probably not" (paragraph 2). A suggestion that has come out for Amazon is to "...release a software development kit and open up the Kindle to third-party applications..." (paragraph 3), but this would cause problems because the Kindle does not have fast refresh times, so putting many applications on the Kindle would be very hard.

For me I thought that it was interesting that the Kindle was not coming out with any upgrades for the holiday season (according to the analysts), I thought that was almost a standard for technology gadgets. I also found the types of upgrades that were mentioned interesting considering the Kindle is strictly an e-book reader, right now. I feel like it is a little unnecessary to put games on the Kindle because it seems like every other technology gadget we own has at least one game on it and the Kindle is essentially a book (sometimes a newspaper). How many books have games in them for entertainment? I hope that any upgrades that Amazon does decide to do to the Kindle pertain to books and the use of books.

News Report #2

"Web Censoring Widens Across Southeast Asia" James Hookway, The Wall Street Journal. 9/15/2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125288982580207609.html

Southeast Asian countries are trying to censor the Internet, specifically blog posts that are defaming the governments of these countries. These countries do not have the resources or technology that larger countries like China use to "police the Internet" (paragraph 2), in turn they have arrested people who have posted blogs that defame the government. The article tells about a rather famous Malaysian blogger, Raja Petra Kamarudin and his Web site, Malaysia Today. His Web site has gotten him into a couple of disagreements with the government; one in particular was that Raja Petra accused Prime Minister Najib Razek of being involved in the murder of a Monogolian model in 2006. He wrote this in an unpublished letter to prosecutors, in turn "Raja Petra was charged with sedition and went into hiding" (paragraph 9). There have been several other cases where bloggers have been arrested for things they have posted and Internet-freedom advocates are worried that the policing of the Internet will spread beyond the region of Southeast Asia. These countries are scared to censor the Internet too much because of the possibility that it will "scare off foreign technology companies, such as Microsoft Corp..." (paragraph 11).

This article made me think about whether or not the United States would ever move to arresting people for defaming the government on a blog, or anywhere else on the Internet for that matter. It also made me wonder if the United States would ever move to censoring the Internet. It is unfortunate that people of these countries cannot post what they think out in the open (on the Internet) without worrying if the wrong person will see it, if their post says too much, or if they are going to be arrested. After reading this article it made me very thankful that I have the right to say whatever I feel because I think that it is important to let others know your side of the story.