The Contra Costa County Library has been awarded a $60,000 Bay Area Library and Information Systems (BALIS) Innovation grant to create a mobile platform that will push new and existing library content and services into the hands of cell phone users.
The “Snap & Go” project will allow Contra Costa County residents with mobile phones and a library card to access library materials, enhanced content, and manage their accounts without having to visit a library building or gain access to a computer.
Of particular interest to me since I just heard of QR Codes is that the project will utilize them — a two-dimensional barcode technology to encode information and automatically launch web-accessible functions.
The library will develop a Mobile Patron Support System that will link customers with cell phones to library services and information through QR codes that are attached to library materials including books, DVDs, flyers, posters, library cards, and the catalog.
By taking a picture of the barcode, the phone will launch the library’s mobile website and provide access to three functional areas: detailed, dynamically generated information on titles scanned including reviews, first chapters, and read-alike information; links to library mobile web pages including hours and location information; and links to patron account functions. Find out more about QR Codes here. [via ResourceShelf ]
This is a nifty innovation. Are there other libraries out there doing the same or something similar? By the way, if you have a QR code reader (such as Barcode Scanner from the Android Market) on your phone, take a snap of the barcode on this post.
At paid.Content.org, there’s an article with predictions from Forrester Research for the E-Reader and the Ebook market in the coming year.
They note that this “has been a breakout year for e-readers and e-books—device sales will have more than tripled by the end of this year, and content sales are up 176% for the year. But next year will be anything but boring.” Here’s what they are saying:
E Ink will lose its claim to near-100% market share for e-reader displays. Competition will come in three forms: 1) cheaper substitutions for E Ink that use the same electrophoretic display technology; 2) dual-screen devices that have both an E Ink and an LCD screen; and 3) devices that use an entirely different display technology, such as transflective LCD or OLED.
Dual-screen mobile phones and netbooks will eat into e-reader demand. Consumer electronics manufacturers will tap into the growing digital reading trend by launching new versions of their devices with reading-optimized screens. For instance, mobile phones like the Samsung Alias 2 already have secondary E Ink screens, which could be repurposed for reading rather than typing or time-telling. Netbooks will also launch with dual E Ink/LCD screens, like the Asus EEE PC prototype that debuted at CeBIT in 2009.
Apps will make non-reading devices more e-book-friendly. Next year will see more e-book apps on more devices. These apps will make it easier to view reading content on non-reading-optimized devices, which will provide a “good enough” experience for the majority of consumers who don’t read enough to justify buying a single-function e-reader, and will provide multiplatform convenience for consumers who do own e-readers.
eReaders will get apps, too. As anyone with an iPhone knows, apps are where the magic happens: They make the device infinitely more useful.
Amazon will launch a suite of new touchscreen e-readers. Awkward Kindle keyboard, begone! We think 2010 will bring several entirely new e-readers from Amazon, featuring touchscreens, color (by the end of the year), and flexibility.
B&N will steal market share from Amazon and Sony. This year was a setup year for B&N, and 2010 will see its efforts start to pay off. In 2009, B&N acquired Fictionwise, launched its own eBookstore and reading app for mobile phones and PCs, announced partnerships with e-reader manufacturers Plastic Logic and iRex, and launched its own Nook e-reader (which it promptly sold out of). In 2010, B&N will rack up significant sales of Nooks and e-books, as some consumers look for an Amazon alternative. Sony will launch its own new devices, and will work on improving the software and book-buying experience. B&N will end up taking market share from both Amazon and Sony, but Amazon will retain its dominant position as market leader.
E-book content sales will top $500 million in the U.S.
E-textbooks will become more accessible, but sales will be modest.
Magazine and newspaper publishers will launch their own apps and devices. Magazine and newspaper publishers aren’t satisfied with the way their content looks and acts on the Kindle and Sony Readers—they want color, video, interactivity, the ability to sell ads and control the subscriber relationship.
China, India, Brazil, and the EU will propel global growth, but the U.S. will still be the biggest market. Right now, the U.S. is the biggest market for e-readers and e-books, and that won’t change in 2010. But the rest of the world will start to catch up.
Mix together bar codes, your mobile phone, and “Favorite Places on Google” to get a new way to window shop.
100,000 local businesses (and more in the future) have received window decals with QR bar codes that can be scanned by hundreds of mobile devices, including iPhone, Android-powered phones, BlackBerry and more, to take you directly to the business’s Place Page where you may find reviews or coupons, if they are being offered. See how it works in the video below.
This launch is part of Google’s overall effort to provide you with the best local business results whenever you’re trying to figure out where to go, “whether it’s a trendy Cuban restaurant in Philly, a comics shop in L.A., a hip hotel in NYC or a little bit of photographic history in Rochester, N.Y,” says The Official Google Blog.
They plan to periodically send out new waves of window decals to qualifying businesses. If you own or manage a business and weren’t selected in this round, your first step is to claim your listing with Google’s Local Business Center for free. That will help them determine that your business information is correct. Then, you can enhance your local business listing by adding enhanced content like photos and videos.
To explore a gallery of several hundred Favorite Places in 20 U.S. cities, to learn more about how to use the QR codes and to find out how your business can get involved, check out Google’s Favorite Places. One of my Seattle favorites is seen in the image below.
In between — or to go along with — holiday shopping, we’re starting to see 2009’s “top” products, services, applications, etc. being touted.
Yesterday, ReadWriteWeb listed their top mobile web apps and have followed up today with their list of the top 10 consumer web apps of the year.
With regard to the consumer apps, they note that there are hundreds of new ones to choose from but “occasionally, we come across a service that stands out from the pack because it offers a novel solution, disrupts the way incumbent market leaders do business or changes the way we experience the Web.” Not all the apps are newly launched, but reached a mainstream audience this year.
The mobile web apps heavily feature those for the iPhone as one might expect, but there is a mix of others.
Briefly, the mobile group includes: Facebook 3.0 (iPhone), Tweetie 2 (iPhone), Twidroid – see image – (Android), Foursquare (Cross-platform), Google Voice, (Blackberry, Android), Spotify (Cross-Platform), Google Maps Navigation (Android), Layer (iPhone, Android), and a couple more. See the article for details.
Among the top consumer apps are 2 search engines, Bing and WolframAlpha. A couple of my favorites are included: light blogging site Posterous (here’s an example) and Tweetdeck, which I’ve recently posted about. Of course, RWW didn’t leave off huge favorites like Twitter and Facebook. See the article for more apps and information.
I was very excited to see Mashable’s post about Google Maps Navigation being available on nearly every Android-based phone.
When the Verizon Droid was released recently with the Android 2.0 OS and a new Google Maps Navigation system, I was jealous. Google’s Navigation app spells trouble for stand-alone GPS systems since it has nearly every desirable feature of them and is free on Android phones.
I bought the T-Mobile MyTouch phone with Android 1.6 OS when it was launched in late July. I really like Google Maps and used it and the “my location” satellite extensively on a recent trip in unknown territory. But it didn’t speak to me and give me turn-by-turn directions. Now it does!
I hadn’t received any indication that there was an update (usually I am notified when there is an update for software I have downloaded), but I went to the Android Market and looked at Google Maps. It looked like there were new features, including “Navigation, so I downloaded it and I now have Google Maps Navigation.
The upgrade includes most of the basic GPS navigation features of the new system: voice guidance, automatic route recalculation, business information, and traffic data, among other features. That’s along with Google Maps and Wikipedia information and, of course, Street View. However, the “navigate to” voice commands are missing. Hopefully, that and more will be coming in the future. Now if only I had one of those dashboard “car docks” that Droid has…
The Educause Center for Applied Research (ECAR) has published its 2009 study on the use of information technology by undergraduate students. This is part of a longitudinal study begun in 2004 aiming to “shed light on how technology effects the college experience.”
Students are asked about their skill level with technology, their preferences, and how technology affects their learning. The ultimate goal is to help colleges identify information technology environments that are a factor in student learning and overall satisfaction.
Briefly, the study found that college students want a balance between “real books and people” and the use of technology in the classroom. They see a disparity in teacher expertise with technology. They are comfortable with many technologies, but are more likely to identify themselves as not early adopters and prefer only a moderate amount of IT in their courses.
They are also heavy users of mobile technology. You can see in the image that 33% of students say they own and use an Internet-capable handheld device and another 11.8% plan to purchase one in the next 12 months. 18% own such a device but do not access the Internet with it. However, half of the students, particularly older ones, agreed that instructors should have the authority to ban cell phone and handheld device use during class because it is distracting.
Take a look at the key findings (PDF). Or find more information about the ECAR study and links to various reports here.
Called Google Maps Navigation (Beta), the app is a likely threat to stand-alone GPS navigation systems since it has “3D views, turn-by-turn voice guidance and automatic rerouting. But unlike most navigation systems, Google Maps Navigation was built from the ground up to take advantage of your phone’s Internet connection,” notes the Official Google Blog.
Since I just bought an Android-based phone in July (T-Mobile MyTouch), I’m both peeved that I won’t have this system right away, and hopeful that it will be available before too long on phones other than the Droid. I do love Google Maps for Mobile; it has helped me find my way around several new places, but is kind of hard to manage without voice features (reading your mobile phone while driving is a no-no).
Seven features coming to “Navigation” that I wish I had now:
Ever since I noticed that my library has a number of ebooks in Adobe formats (ePub, PDF) that can be downloaded to a computer and read with Adobe Digital Editions, I have been seriously considering getting a compatible eReader so I can take them with me. Unfortunately, the Kindle is not one of them.
The idea of an ebook reader is attractive to me for several reasons: 1) I like gadgets; 2) I like the idea of carrying around many books on one small device; 3) Every reader I have heard about lately has easy on the eyes eInk and you can adjust the font to suit your needs. The latter has become more appealing to me as I age. I can still read small paperback books but they strain my eyes and I much prefer a larger font. I often get “large print” books from the library when they are available.
And mentioning the library — that is the biggest draw. I read, or start to read, hundreds of books a year. Inevitably, some just don’t appeal and I return them partially read to the library. I really don’t want to buy all the books I think I might want to read. Owning a book I am sure I want to read and keep is another matter.
TechCrunch notes that Google is challenging the proprietary Amazon Kindle line through several partnerships. The most recent is with British Interead, bringing the same amount of ebooks to an online store outside the U.S. for the first time (where close to half a million of them are available for free). Interead is behind the COOLERBOOKS ebook store. The company also manufactures COOL-ER eReaders, “small, elegant ebook readers that kinda look like giant iPods and cost $249 in the United States.”
The COOL-ER uses E InkR, which gives a “like paper” display, replicating the experience of reading a book. The reader uses power only for “page turns” which means that a “single charge lasts for 8000 pages and unlike a book, the electronic display allows you to change the text size to suit you!” The Cool-ER has a bookstore with more than 750,000 titles and supports Adobe Digital Editions. You can view the specs here.
Google first teamed up with Sony, adding about 1 million public domain books to the technology giant’s eBook Store which has both free and low-cost books. Sony has several ebook readers that support the books I can download from my library, the newest one being the Reader Touch Edition ($299.99) which is “temporarily out of stock”. It has a touch screen which is appealing to me. There is a brief video on the site showing how it works.
Google Maps will now show you live traffic conditions on arterial roads when that information is available. I count myself fortunate to live in one of those ciites because I have just about given up on freeway travel and regularly use arterials to get around in Seattle.
Just go to Google Maps (which is free), zoom-in on the city you’re interested in, and click the “Traffic” button in the upper-right corner of the map. As you zoom in closer to an area of interest, both arterial roads and highways will show current traffic conditions through color-coding. The colors correspond to the speed of traffic relative to the speed limit of the road. “Green is free sailing, yellow is medium congestion, red is heavy congestion, and red/black is stop-and-go traffic.”
How does Google Maps know about traffic conditions? They use anonymous data from those who have Google Maps for Mobile and turn on the “my location” feature of of their GPS-enabled mobile phones. If you’ve heard of “crowdsourcing,” this is an example of it in action. Read more about how this works here. Increasingly mobile phones either come with the feature built in (such as the T-Mobile MyTouch) or it can be downloaded and used.
If you have Google Maps for Mobile, you can see the same traffic data while you’re on the road (stuck in traffic?) and add to it, too. The information could improve your morning commute, your trip through town when major sports or other events are scheduled, or just help get you to the airport on time.
“Your phone sends anonymous bits of data back to Google describing how fast you’re moving. When we combine your speed with the speed of other phones on the road, across thousands of phones moving around a city at any given time, we can get a pretty good picture of live traffic conditions. We continuously combine this data and send it back to you for free in the Google Maps traffic layers. It takes almost zero effort on your part — just turn on Google Maps for mobile before starting your car — and the more people that participate, the better the resulting traffic reports get for everybody.”
I was attracted to this Mashable post about how to update Facebook from other sources.
Although I’ve had a Facebook account for quite awhile, I pretty much ignored it until recently. Neither had I felt any compulsion to get on the Twitter bandwagon. Then, in circumstances I won’t bother to describe, I started to get interested in both. Now I have incorporated both sites into my routine, although I don’t necessarily update or tweet on a daily basis.
I’m finding that many of my Facebook friends are sharing interesting experiences and photos these days, and people whose daily activities I like to hear about are using Twitter; some are doing both. Combined with my recent acquisition of the MyTouch and some future travel plans, I had reason to begin looking for alternative ways to use both Facebook and Twitter when I am away from my home computer. Enter Mashable.
The post includes ways to update Facebook from Firefox, from Twitter, using text messaging, and from several Facebook-provided mobile options. Depending on how you look at it, you have multiple options to keep up your social connections, or, you will find it even harder to break away from them.
They note that this “has been a breakout year for e-readers and e-books—device sales will have more than tripled by the end of this year, and content sales are up 176% for the year. But next year will be anything but boring.” Here’s what they are saying:
With regard to the consumer apps, they note that there are hundreds of new ones to choose from but “occasionally, we come across a service that stands out from the pack because it offers a novel solution, disrupts the way incumbent market leaders do business or changes the way we experience the Web.” Not all the apps are newly launched, but reached a mainstream audience this year.
I was very excited to see Mashable’s 
Ever since I noticed that my library has a number of ebooks in Adobe formats (ePub, PDF) that can be downloaded to a computer and read with 
The COOL-ER uses E InkR, which gives a “like paper” display, replicating the experience of reading a book. The reader uses power only for “page turns” which means that a “single charge lasts for 8000 pages and unlike a book, the electronic display allows you to change the text size to suit you!” The Cool-ER has a bookstore with more than 750,000 titles and supports Adobe Digital Editions. You can view the specs 
I was attracted to this