Today’s gadget story: Amazon released the Kindle, which will let folks browse online e-book offerings and download titles in about a minute. The target niche and Amazon’s attempt to capitalize therein is tidily encapsulated in Saul Hansell’s NYT blog:

Amazon is trying to do for books what Apple has done for music. It has linked its device tightly to its own online bookstore, just as the iTunes music store is tied into the iPod. Amazon has 90,000 titles for sale at launch, including books from all major publishers.

Of what else is Kindle kapable?

It apparently can also wirelessly access newspapers, magazines, and blogs. The screen technology is breakthrough-cool; that’s real ink, suspended with some kind of crazy contemporary Etch-a-Sketch mojo!

Still, here’s a reality the Kindle will have to overcome: According to the US Census Bureau, Americans buy something like 2.4 billion books every year. Great stuff! But when I browse the stacks at B&N or Borders, I see a heck of a lot of big-picture folios of cats in trees, WWII fighter planes, and the history of Harley Davidson. Those novelty titles have to be gumming up the works, to say nothing of all the self-help schlock and celebrity-cookbooks-of-the-instant in the mix as well.

Jeff, here’s the deal: I read about three or four books a month, and to sound unashamedly snobbish, they’re real doggone books. Right now I’m re-reading No Country for Old Men (in preparation for the film) and working through Heat by Bill Buford, All the King’s Men (because it just keeps getting better), and a book of essays by British philosopher A.C. Grayling. I clock an even 50 blogs using Google Reader and subscribe to the daily and Sunday Washington Post, the New Yorker, and National Geographic. I also pick up the Sunday New York Times most weekends, and am prone to snag The Atlantic, Harper’s, The New Criterion, and Ultimate Grappling (props always to Royce Gracie).

My point? Bez, I’m a reader. And not no Little Book of Moving Cheese and Making Chicken Soup or whatever. I’m talking stuff that doesn’t belong anywhere near the back of a toilet tank. Now, you turn me loose on this gizmo, and if I dig it, why, then you’ve done something truly wonderful.

What worries me is that while plenty of people buy books, not too many of those books seem to get read. And the ones that do often have somebody like Jeff Foxworthy on the cover. I just hope you know what you’re doing. I’m rooting for you.

Suggesting that technology should be used to further governmental transparency, presidential candidate Barack Obama explained his plan to appoint a Chief Technology Officer. As detailed on VentureBeat:

The CTO’s mandate would be quite different from the Cybersecurity czar appointed under the Bush Administration. Bush’s czar helped defend against cyberattacks. Obama’s CTO, by contrast, would ensure government officials holds open meetings, broadcast live webcasts of those meetings, and use blogging software, wikis and open comments to communicate policies with Americans, according to the plan.

Government 2.0? Imagine the visibility and accountability. Now imagine trying to explain it all to this guy:

The trouble with passwords is that they’re either tough to remember or all-to-easily divulged:

The folks across the pond must know how hard it is for me to remember the 345 passwords I have created for my ever-expanding list of online bank accounts, music accounts, podcast memberships, e-zine of the week, Amayahgoogle portals, etc.

I say this because Newcastle University has created a software using Draw a Secret (DAS) technology that allows you to draw your password instead of typing text. This has proven easier for test users to remember and in the long run harder for hackers to steal.

The technology is first being tried with handheld devices. It provides the user with a background to choose from, say stars, for example. You draw a flying saucer each time in the same to similar method or contact motion and voila! Open sesame.

Because it annihilates text generations, the device also has great benefits for those with dyslexia, not just brain-cluttered clods like me.

Well done, lads!

Cheers! Have a Smithwick’s on me.*

*Does not constitute true offer to purchase Smithwick’s, or any other Guinness beverage and/or product, much as I’d like to. If, however, you find yourself stateside, look us up and we’ll work it out.

No need to pay those pesky late book fees: introducing the World Digital Library.

Kudos to the Library of Congress for exponentially expanding the Web’s cultural depth and breadth. The WDL initiative definitely makes the Internet feel a little more global. It
gives users the ability to search for information in seven different languages and narrow searches by parameters such as geographic area, historical era, and type of media.

If I needed to do a book report on the history of commodes, I can tell you what kind of “throne” a Roman might be sitting on and show you the blueprints in the original Latin. Brilliant bathroom reading!

I recently read about the legal action taken by the National Federation of the Blind against Target for having an inaccessible website. Web accessibility refers to the practice of making webpages understandable to people with disabilities. They have to use a wide range of user agent devices instead of standard Web browsers. This case has been with the California District Court for more than a year, and was recently granted class-action status.

The World Wide Web revolutionized how people get information—but it doesn’t always work well for everyone. As Communication Architects, we need to be sensitive to the needs of those with disabilities—and respond with various techniques that make our websites more accessible.

With our government clients, Web accessibility isn’t just an option—it’s the law.

In 1973, Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act, which guarantees:

No qualified individual with a disability in the United States…shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance or under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency or by the United States Postal Service.

Section 508 is a 1998 amendment to the Workforce Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requiring electronic and information technology developed or purchased by the federal government be accessible by people with disabilities. This amendment created binding, enforceable standards that were incorporated into the Federal Procurement procedures complete with compliancy procedure and reporting requirements.

While accessibility tends to get attention in the government world—via Section 508—it should be on every organization’s mind.

The ruling by the California District Court has made it painfully obvious for Target! Making sites accessible takes more time and effort, effort that is often not seen in the final site, but is still important for all audiences.

What remains to be seen is how this case will affect the future of Web accessibility. Will accessibility get the attention it deserves in the corporate world, or will it go into settlement without a final court decision?

Let me know where you think this will go and what you think needs to be done to bring more attention to the world of Web accessibility and 508 compliancy.

Sony has recently announced that they plan to sell the first OLED TV during the holiday shopping period this year. OLED stands for Organic Light-Emitting Diode. That’s right, I said organic! This new technology uses a film of organic compounds that emit colors. The new technology doesn’t require back-lit LED and uses way less power.

Will Wheaten, my buddy from Star Trek: TNG (although I liked him better in Stand By Me), explains it better than I can:

It’s not all sunshine, though. OLEDs have limited lifetimes and are easily damaged by water. But maybe the coolest thing about OLED TV is you can bend it like Beckham! Get ready to trade in that old plasma screen. That’s already old school compared to the emerging OLED world.

Of course you do. And like us, you spend a fair amount of them online.

Now, it looks like passing fixation is evolving into full-tilt addiction. Reuters reports that we’re sacrificing real-world relationships, interaction—even intimacy—for the sake of our virtual existence. According to a recent JWT survey:

More than a quarter of respondents—or 28 percent—admitted spending less time socializing face-to-face with peers because of the amount of time they spend online.

It also found that 20 percent said they spend less time having sex because they are online.

Pathetic? Perhaps to some, but also unshakable justification for building and maintaining a strong online presence, and for embracing the Web’s increasingly social nature. As one expert explained:

…online and offline lives are co-mingled and [many] would chose a Wi-Fi connection over TV any day…[t]his is how they communicate, entertain and live.

And it’s all about reaching people where they live, isn’t it?

A few weeks ago I took a jab at Google for diluting their brand. In that post I alluded to Yahoo!’s similar moves that came years before Google’s. In this month’s Fast Company, Robert Scoble starts off recalling how Yahoo!’s VP of communications admitted, about a year ago, that the company had a “thin layer of investment spread across everything we do, and thus we focus on nothing in particular.”

Scoble continues by describing how Yahoo! is trying to right the ship. Jeff Yang is back as CEO and focusing on, as Scoble writes it, filling the “cool stuff supplier” role he once did. That new focus is good. Sure, they once concentrated on searching, but now they seem high on Web applications. Give search to Google and rebuild around Web apps if that’s what’s cool today.

Scoble mentions three Yahoo! applications specifically, all centered on community building and content sharing. What I like about the applications he describes is that they are not locked to a particular site.

All three—Flickr (photo sharing), del.icio.us (Web bookmark storage and organization), and Upcoming.org (a calendar of events tool)—offer a way to syndicate content to other locations, like to your blog or organization’s website.

Die, static website, die!

Big-budget organizations may certainly buy applications like those for the sake of customization, privacy, and accountability, as part of a larger content management system install or whatever.

But what gets me excited is how these free applications can help the small-budget folks. Imagine you’re leading a little nonprofit running long on cause but short on funds. With these three applications as part of your site, you can very easily keep your calendar of events up to date, promote other sites/pages, and publish photos—AND you can make all of that content available to others via syndication.

And you can get free help. With the Flickr app, your supporters can populate your Flickr application by tagging their pix with a tag you specify. Del.icio.us and Upcoming let you create networks that promote and syndicate content from your supporters. Let the people talk for you!

Yahoo! fearlessly continues to revise its brand, which can help you build yours.

This had to happen sooner or later. Try to keep up:

An unhappily married couple separately seek solace in cyberspace and end up falling for each other’s online alter ego. When they meet in the real world and realize who each actually is, they file for divorce.

The couple met on an online chat forum while he was at work and she in an Internet cafe, and started chatting under the names Sweetie and Prince of Joy.

They eventually decided to meet up—but there was no happy ending when they realised what had happened.

Now they are both filing for divorce—with each accusing the other of being unfaithful.

Hey, you crazy kids, can’t you work it out in a chatroom?

 

Move over, solar, there’s a new power source in town.

Most of us feel naked if we don’t have our cell phones, PDAs, laptops, mp3 players, and cameras. We can’t stand being without them for a second—even when they need to be charged.

Thanks to the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in Germany, those charge-up delays may be a thing of the past. Forget looking for a plug. A new power supply—our own body heat—could be all we need to keep our gear going. Give your portable devices some love from your warm hands and they’ll be charged and ready to go. As detailed in the Discovery article:

The technology has already been shown to work on a wireless sensor that could be used to constantly monitor a patient’s temperature and send the information to a nurse’s station. It could also be used to power a hearing aid or to supplement the battery power on larger electronic devices, such as a sports watch or a mobile phone.

And because the circuit essentially converts waste heat into energy, it could have applications outside the body. For example, it could be used to convert the heat from radiators, refrigerators, or air conditioning systems into energy that can be reused by a building.

How does it work? The difference between the body’s surface temperature and the surrounding environment is typically only a few degrees. According to electrical engineer Peter Spies, this can produce 250 millivolts. A typical electronic device needs one to two volts in order to operate, so a charge pump stores our body-heat millivolts until they build up enough potential energy to activate a transistor and provide power!

So, an ultra-efficient way to create energy, or another reason for us to sit on our butts?

Wife of the future: “Honey, will you please walk the dog?”
Husband of the future: “Can’t, babe, I’m storing energy!”

You decide.