The American Library Association’s (ALA) Banned Books Week runs from September 27 through October 4.

Banned Books Week “celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them,” ALA states as it marks the 27th anniversary of the event.

“Free access to information is a core American value that should be protected,” said Judith F. Krug, director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. “Not every book is right for each reader, but an individual’s interpretation of a book should not take away my right to select reading materials for my family or myself.”

The following books were the most frequently challenged in 2007:

1. “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
2. “The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
3. “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes
4. “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
5. “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain
6. “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker
7. “TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle
8. “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
9. “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris
10. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky

For those who purchased the Roku, Netflix’s streaming video player, a few months ago, the potential usefulness of the product just got better.  Roku is seeking deals to gets its set-top box working with any content provider over the next few months, reports Cnet News

“We’re opening up the platform to anyone who wants to put their video service on this box,” said Roku CEO Anthony Wood. “We’re going to release the software developer kit, so anyone can publish any channel, and users can access Web content on their TVs.”

Netflix’s “Watch Now” base of videos has been criticized as too small and limited. The company has been slow to expand but has just announced deals with CBS and the Disney Channel that will allow streaming of current season episodes.

Google Book Search has developed new tools and partnerships that promise to make books more discoverable on the Web, whether it is from Google search results, bookstores, publisher and author websites, online library catalogs, or social networks.

Retailers, publishers and anyone with a web site can embed books from the Google Book Search index.

“We are also providing new ways for these sites to display full-text search results from Book Search, and even integrate with social features such as ratings, reviews, and readers’ book collections.  By providing tools that help sites connect readers with books in new and interesting ways, we hope publishers and authors will find even wider audiences for their works,” says Inside Google Book Search.

You will be able to preview online up to 20% of a book’s contents, much as if you had it physically present in your hands, when using partner sites or web sites with the embed code.  But it isn’t just book sellers using these tools.

“It is now possible to preview books—including a huge number of works in the public domain—right from the online catalogs of the University of California and the University of Texas, as well as through OCLC’s WorldCat.org, a service that lets you search across the collections of more than 10,000 local and institutional libraries worldwide.”  Author and publisher sites will find the preview functionality useful as well.

Try the embedded viewer API, which also has a link to the Preview Wizard, a tool built atop of the embedded viewer.

Find out who is currently using the Book Search API here.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies on September 18 on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the “illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records”.

The five individual plaintiffs are also suing President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington, former Attorney General and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and other individuals who ordered or participated in the warrantless domestic surveillance.

The lawsuit, Jewel v. NSA, is intented to end the NSA’s dragnet surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans and to hold accountable the government officials who illegally authorized it.  Evidence in the case includes “undisputed documents provided by former AT&T telecommunications technician Mark Klein showing AT&T has routed copies of Internet traffic to a secret room in San Francisco controlled by the NSA,” says EFF.

Read the complete complaint in Jewell vs NSA here (PDF).

Thanks to a new partnership with Rhapsody, Lifehacker notes, Yahoo has added playable music clips to their search results.

When you search for and find a popular artist, you can play full-length tracks and/or music videos without leaving the search results.

I had good luck with singers Norah Jones, Alicia Keys, Sinead O’Connor, and even an oldie, Dusty Springfield, but didn’t turn up playable results with a few othes.  Try your favorite artists.

In the “you gotta love it” category, Google Lat Long blog announced the inclusion of helpful new features in Google Maps for Mobile.  Now you can get Street View (in available cities), directions (including walking), and business reviews right on your phone.  Check out the post for a video on the new features.

The recent My Location software update also improves search speeds.

I was intrigued by the Onion Map site that Amit Argawal posted about since I have a fascination with maps.  These maps of a selection of the world’s popular cities feature an interesting, tourist-centered point of view of the central part of the city and its major attractions.  Don’t expect to see the environs as well.

I checked out London, Chicago and Seattle — three places I am relatively familiar with — to get an idea of how the maps might best be used and how they differ from other map sources such as Google Maps.

In Chicago, for instance, I noticed that 3D images of buildings of interest to tourists, such as the Water Tower Place, stand up tall.  What is missing to those familiar with the territory are all the other sky scrapers around it such as the many condo towers and other businesses.  This view might not work as well as Google Maps 3D views to help people identify one place from the other.

But for the tourist wanting the major attractions, these maps are full of information.  In Seattle, for instance, you can see in the image below that one can search for a place then access information about it such as address, hours of operation, fees and so forth.  I wouldn’t rely entirely on this information, however.  I checked Onion Maps visitor fee information to the Space Needle with the latter’s own web site and found that Onion Maps was inaccurate.  In the second image below, you can get an idea of the complete scope of information available to select.

Web search with My Location (Google)
As a long-time user of Windows mobile devices, I was interested in the news about Google’s use of the Gears Geolocation API to get an approximate ID on where you’re located when you search.  The API uses the same Cell ID technology Google uses for Google Maps on mobile devices.

So if you are out of your home territory and searching for a local place, Google will find both your results and your location.  You don’t have to type in your location as you travel around.

At this time only a handful of devices are supported.  “To check and see if your device is supported, head to ‘www.google.com’ on your mobile web browser.  A ‘My Location’ link should be available right under the search box.  You may have to refresh the page to see the link.  If refreshing doesn’t help then your device probably isn’t supported at the moment.  My Location is a small, but more than welcomed feature for Google Local search,” says Read/WriteWeb.

Artweaver free Windows download alternative to Photoshop
Artweaver may lack the polish and advanced features sets of Photoshop, says Lifehacker, but it is so much like Photoshop that folks familiar with that software will find Artweaver easy and intuitive.

Artweaver is a robust photo editing software package that includes layer management, image cloning, and many common filters available in Photoshop.  Best of all, it’s a free download (Windows only) and is available as a full install or in a portable version.

Where is your name most common?
This is a interesting find from Lifehacker.  At World Names Profiler, you enter your last name and it will show you a world map of countries where that name is most common.  It was fun to find my name appearing commonly in New Zealand, one of my favorite countries, as well as the U.K.  I got some “page under development” messages when I clicked on Area Search and Ethnicity Search.  Try it out!

Back to school with new Google Docs features
New in Google Docs are a Dictionary & Thesaurus.  Just highlight a word and look up its definition and synonyms (English only) using Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.  You’ll find the feature in the Tools menu, just below the Spell-check and Word Count.  Encyclopedia Britannica is also available within Docs.

Google Image Search allows you to find and insert images into your documents with you just highlighting a word or phrase.  Once you find the right image, you can drag-and-drop that image directly into your document.

New in Labs: 3 experiments with labels
Gmail Labs has some new features that continue to make Gmail more useful.  To turn on these Labs features and more, just go to the Labs tab under Settings and enable the ones you are interested in.

If the 24 standard color choices aren’t enough for your Labels, you can create your own custom color combinations.  Click “add custom colors” and “apply.”

Another new feature allows you to use a keyboard shortcut to get a “Go to label” pop-up.  Just press “g” then “l,” start typing, and your labels will be filtered as you go. You can use the arrow keys to select a label and hit “Enter” to select one.

Finally a powertip: “The pop-up searches each word in your labels for a match, so if you have multiple labels with the same prefix, simply add a space, dash or slash after the prefix and search for the second word.” For example, typing “labs” will display labels named “gmail labs,” “gmail-labs,” or “gmail/labs” but won’t display “gmaillabs.”

Wired Blog Network posts about a new digital-book reader that was unveiled Monday, calling it super thin and attractive and seemingly capitalizing on the flaws of Amazon’s “bulky and hideous” Kindle.

Plastic Logic unveiled its digital reader Monday at the DEMOfall 2008 technology convention.  The reader, which has yet to be named, will display various types of media such as newspapers, e-books and magazines using the E Ink electronic-display technology seen today in similar devices.

Plastic Logic’s reader is a typical page size (8 1/2″ x 11″), longer, wider and thinner than comparable devices, potentially making it easier to read and carry around.

Its flexibility depends on third-party manufacturers adapting their electronics to sustain bending, Plastic Logic officials told Wired.com.  On the front, the device features a touchscreen for turning pages, menu navigation and typing notes with a virtual keyboard.

Plastic Logic’s reader is not yet Wi-Fi-enabled, definitely putting it at a disadvantage compared to the Amazon Kindle (click on the Kindle box in the right hand column for more information).  The demoed reader currently features a Micro-USB port and Bluetooth connectivity to sync media from your computer, but the company said it has plans to eventually implement Wi-Fi features.

The reader’s battery life lasts about a week because there is no backlight: What you see on the screen is a reflection, so you’d have to read off this during the day or with a light turned on; the only time the device would draw power is when you load a new page or fiddle with the touchscreen menu, says the company.

Neither a release date nor a price has not been announced, but it may appear in early 2009 with a price competitive with other ebook readers.  This is not the first ebook reader I’ve seen that proposes to be flexible.  The Readius is also expected in early 2009.