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Amazon Launches Big-Screen Kindle
Like Amazon's Kindle e-reader, but hate the size of the screen? Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has good news for you: the newest Kindle has a much bigger screen. You never have to pan, you never have to zoom, you never have to scroll, you just see the documents, he said when he unveiled the device at a lecture hall at Pace University. The venue emphasizes the target audience for this new device: readers of newspapers, magazines, and textbooks.
This means the new e-reader, dubbed the Kindle DX, could reach a huge market. With a screen twice the size of the original Kindle, and a built-in PDF reader, it could ease the load of students everywhere. Amazon's partners in this endeavor include textbook manufacturers Pearson, Cengage Learning, and Wiley. These three companies make up 60 percent of the market. Colleges launching Kindle DX pilot programs this fall include Arizona State University, Princeton, Reed College, the University of Virginia, and Case Western Reserve.
Not only students and textbook makers, but the newspaper industry could see a boost from the Kindle DX. The New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post plan to test out the device this summer, some starting in markets where home delivery of their paper is not available. Bezos noted that newspapers have done particularly well on the Kindle; users love having their paper automagically delivered overnight onto their device and that they can get their paper regardless of where they are, as long as they have their Kindle with them.
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Using Real-Time Web Activity to Predict the Future
Everyone knows that searching current activity on Twitter or other frequently-updated services can tell you what people are thinking about now. What isn't as well known is that studying these trends may actually give you a glimpse into future activity a glimpse that might even be more accurate than predictions made by those who do this sort of thing for a living.
Google researchers Hynyoung Choi and Hal Varian tested this possibility by combining data from Google Trends with models used by economists to predict trends in various areas, such as travel and home sales. The Google Trends data, which looks at the popularity of different search terms, actually improved almost all of the forecasts. As an example, economic models can predict the sales of cars and vehicle parts by looking at figures for the previous month and for the same month in the previous year but adding in Google's figures on auto-related searches cut the model's error rate by 15 percent.
Greater use of this resource could provide an early warning for various situations. For instance, Varian suggested that a surge in searches for unemployment insurance may hint of hard times ahead. Search data can also predict flu outbreaks (and possibly provide hints to public health officials as to where to concentrate their efforts). It's even been hinted that online services which specifically cater to the future like FutureMe, which lets you send yourself an e-mail scheduled to arrive on any date between now and 30 years in the future have the potential to predict future economic conditions.
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Bring on the Webbys
It's hard to believe it's been going on this long, but the thirteenth annual Webby Awards will be handed out this year. Rewarding online achievements in various categories, the Webbys have been described as the Oscar awards of the Internet. This year's batch of Webbys will be handed out in nearly 70 categories.
Not all winners this year are web sites. Trent Reznor earned a Webby Artist of the Year award for his album, The Slip, which debuted for free download in May 2008 on his web site. Jimmy Fallon won a Webby Person of the Year award for his enthusiastic embrace of the Internet to connect with his fans. Commedienne Sarah Silverman won a Webby Best Actress award for her YouTube performances.
If you're looking for new sites to investigate, the entire list
of Webby award winners and nominees is well worth browsing. There
are categories sure to cater to just about any interest, be it activism,
art, automobiles, beauty, copy/writing (you'll find some great news
sites here) and more. You'll also find sites that make especially
effective use of navigation, photography, typography, and video
(TED scores well on that last; it also has great content in general).
You'll certainly find blogs of many descriptions covering tons of
topics: business, culture, politics, and more. Celebrity and charitable
web sites are not forgotten either. Check it all out, and enjoy.
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