Current cite-ings from the Popular & Trade Computing Press

Article Type: Current cite-ings from the Popular & Trade Computing Press From: Library Hi Tech News, Volume 27, Issue 9/10.

It's the season for iPads, Droids, and eBook devices and a time to look forward to technology that keeps moving forward. This column will continue to keep you up to date on important trends and pearls of wisdom outside of the library field. Hopefully this sprinkling of articles will give you some ideas of how to take advantage of new technologies to support library resources and services in 2011.

Academic computing

Universities are developing technology-focused labs that offer students real-world hands-on experiences. Business schools have developed trading floors. Journalism schools have developed convergence newsrooms to give students experience in multimedia. Pharmacy schools develop practice labs for the experience of filling prescriptions and counseling patients. Wong recommends letting faculty take the lead on technology as they are the ones most knowledgeable of the tools and applications used in their field and to purchase high end PCs. Real-life experiences require information so maybe there is an important role for librarians to be embedded in courses such as these (Wong,2010a, b).

In general, students are expecting technology in the colleges they chose to go to. They expect smart classrooms, audience response systems, and interactive whiteboards. Colleges should offer technology-enhanced classrooms outfitted with a digital projector, computer, notebook VGA connection, DVD and VCR players, and network access (Hayes, 2010).

Cloud computing is growing in popularity at universities as it is more cost-effective than supporting software on-site. Some universities use a public cloud for hosted applications like email. Others take advantage of virtualization to build their own private clouds, which lets them have full control of their infrastructure. By building a private cloud, universities can offer computing power, storage, and access to a high-speed network as a hosted service. This lets individual departments deploy new applications quickly,without having to buy and install their own hardware (Wong, 2010a, b).

Meg Lloyd provides a good list of free or low-cost Web 2.0 apps to help with teaching. Among these are Magma for video aggregation, Flook for social networking linked to GPS data, Diigo for social bookmarking, Dimdim for small online meetings and Twitterfall for tracking and matching tweets (Lloyd, 2010).

Digital repositories have been a major focus for academic libraries and now that focus is being taken on in the press. Schaffhauser provides case studies of the HathiTrust, a shared repository, the Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Gauatemala which hosts a media repository and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln which has developed a repository of over 20,000 records from collections that include the Lewis and Clark journals and writings by Walt Whitman. Various issues are examined such as integrated copyright analysis, the need to keep up with video formats, and how to not duplicate efforts. (Schaffhauser, 2010).

iPads, tablets, and eBook readers

The iPad represents a new model of computing that is being embraced by Fortune 500 companies. Apple realizes this, and will be building a number of business-oriented features into its software (Evans, 2010). Mathis discusses many examples where businesses are using the iPad where laptops are too bulky,and smartphones are too small to be easily used in the field. Examples in business include paperless sales, delivery confirmations, and technical manuals(Mathis, 2010). For libraries there are probably many opportunities such as book inventories, classroom notes, one on one instruction outside of the library, and eBook demonstrations. I am sure you can think of many other examples! For other must apps for iPads see the article in MacWorld which reviews 20 apps for everything from Twitterific (manage tweet), Instapaper Pro (save online articles for later reading), and Things (managing contacts and to-do lists) to strategy games, TV and movie reviews, and recipes (20 Essential, 2010).

It has been found that reading for learning is not the same as reading for pleasure. Three schools piloted eBook readers. They ran the study without color graphics or complex illustrations. Students found that eBook readers were not ready yet to meet academic needs. Students found they needed to highlight, make notes in margins, and to quickly skim through passages to refresh and compare information. The article concludes that the iPad may become the device that works best. eBook readers still come out short in accessibility features needed by those that are blind (Demski, 2010).

For eBooks, Google has introduced Google Editions. Like the EPUB format,Google Editions is device independent. Publishers like Google Editions because it puts more power over pricing back in their hands. (Cramer, 2010a, b). Perenson predicts that the debut of the $139 Wi-Fi Kindle will out-compete the dozen or so lesser known eBook readers. They do not have the features that the Kindle has at that price. However, the author says tablets will challenge them.(Perenson, 2010a, b). Perenson also provides an excellent review of Kindle's third generation eBook reader which sells for $139 or $189 for the Wi-Fi only and Wi-Fi with 3 G versions (Perenson, 2010a, b).

Mobile computing

Google's Android has caught on in the mobile OS market. Verizon was the first to come out with a Droid smartphone. According to surveys, 67 percent of Droid users were satisfied with the product. It provides a physical keyboard, and can run multiple apps at once. The Gartner Group projects that sales of Android devices will exceed the Blackberry and the iPhone. This article also provides a nice history of Android from when Google purchased it in 2005 as a Linx-based mobile operating system (Reed, 2010).

Social phones are a new category of smartphones such as the Microsoft Kin One and Kin Two and the Nokia C3. These smartphones give users access to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and can be customized with RSS feeds. Analyst Peggy Ann Salz says the price makes them attractive, as well as the concept that a phone should focus on user behavior. These social phones are fare less expensive than full-featured phones with web interfaces and keypads(Schiller, 2010).

It is estimated that 80 percent of smartphones will have GPS next year. Application developers are quickly developing services that are tied to location data. For example, FourSquare and Gowalla allow users to check in to a favorite restaurant or retailer, and these businesses will send them an automatic coupon. Geospatial data are the next frontier (Feldman, 2010). Location-specific resources could have many applications for libraries in assisting on-site users to the resources and services within the library. Microsoft introduces "hubs "on its Windows Phone 7 release. This user interface brings together related application on live tiles. The strength is that the phone will be able to interface with various Windows programs such as Office but has a long way to go in competing with the Iphone and smart phones using Google Android (Cox, 2010).

Technology Review has an excellent feature article on how mobile computing is transforming the microprocessor industry. A growth rate of over 22 percent is expected in the number of internet capable mobile devices through 2013. Compared to this, there is a dwindling global market share of desktop PCs. The public and private companies that manufacture these microchips are reviewed in regard to the technology they employ, market penetration, strategies, and challenges (Cass et al., 2010).

The web

Web 2.0 is changing the way books get published. In Web 2.0, an author may not need to manually send a script to a literary agent, editor, or publisher. Authonomy is a site that allows members to be talent spotters and recommend books. At the end of a month, the top five books on the site are selected for the editors desk. There is also self-publishing such as Lulu.com. Elsewhere,there are online communities for writers, such as Webook, where feedback is given for a manuscript. Rough Cuts allows readers to help with manuscript content development. Finally, online book publishing services can help with talented copy editors, graphics specialists, and indexers (Cramer, 2010a, b).

A feature article in a recent issue of Wired magazine declares the web is dead. As the web moved from the desktop to the pocket, the nature of the net has changed. The article explains that more people are spending time on the web using apps, and not spending time surfing or using the broader web. There is less browsing, and more getting. The applications that account for more of the internets traffic include peer-to-peer transfers, email, company VPNs, the machine-to-machine communications of UPIs, Skype calls, online games, Xbox Live,iTunes, voice-over-IP phones, iChat, and Netflix. Many of the newer net applications are closed, often proprietary, networks (Anderson, 2010).

Limiting access to the web is both an issue in companies and in the case of China and other countries, a national policy. Poulin makes a good case for companies to block access to social media sites. He says access may lead to malware. He recommends limiting access to social network sites that are specifically designed for business and professional use such as LinkedIn. LinkedIn has a low tolerance for unsolicited contacts, and has mechanisms in place to vet relationships before allowing communications to go forward (Poulin,2010).

China has one of the most extensive firewalls but at the same time the growth of the web is exploding. It is estimated that the number of internet users will hit 900 million by 2014 along with a logarithmic number of webpages that will exceed 33 billion (Talbot, 2010). Currently, Baidu is the number one search engine in China. Google is number one for English language searching in China. Baidu is trying new ventures in social networking, and purchased QiYi, an online video site. Baidu also has an e-commerce partnership with Japanese retailer Rakuten. Baidu has 220,000 advertisers, a fraction of the potential market of 40 million small and medium sized businesses, and thus more room for growth(Einhorn, 2010).

Nick Mediati discusses dangerous websites and the importance to stay safe online. Threats can occur from using some websites with Flash, malware hidden in video, music, or software downloads, or search engines where results take you to malware-containing websites. Even your smartphone with geolocation can get you into trouble as other parties know where you are. Not to be an alarmist, there are precautionary measures such as be smart about passwords, use security software, and if it sounds too good to be true… (Mediati, 2010).

It has been found that internet use, with all of its' links, does not promote comprehension. Research continues to show that people who read linear text remember more and learn more than those who read text peppered with links (Carr,2010). Leiberman reviews seven recommended sites to search for your family history. They are Ancestry.com, OneGreatFamily.com, FamilySearch.org,MyHeritage.com, ProGenealogists.com, USGenWeb Project, and CyndisList.com(Leiberman, 2010).

Misc computing E-content

A document management system is a collection of integrated tools that convert paper documents into electronic formats that are more easily stored, accessed,and managed. DMS technology falls into three categories. Document imaging systems such as scanners are one category. Another is electronic document management systems such as IBM's Filenet. Lastly are integrated document management systems such as Filemaker Pro that allow centralized uniform control of databases (Rockwell, 2010).

Networking

Cisco has predicted that by 2014, video applications will surpass everything else that is integrated on a network. Network managers have to analyse which video format to use UDP or TCP. If packets drop off is an issue, UDP would not be appropriate. (Heinze, 2010).

Networking

802.11n is now the best wireless standard. It is ten times faster than 802.11 g. It provides twice the range of other protocols. It is completely backward compatible. Most new digital devices come with this standard built in (Peterson,2010).

Operating systems

Jones and others describe what they would like to see in Windows 8. They feel a shift is needed from system-based computing to user-based computing. Some leaked documents at windowsette.com give us a peak at some upcoming features such as sensors and being connected to the Microsoft Cloud (Jones et al.,2010).

Webcams

Yamshon compares high definition webcams on the basis of video and sound quality, adjustment settings, and overall video-chat performance with chat clients Skype and G-Chat. The top webcam recommended was the Logictech HD Pro Webcam C910 at a cost of $100. (Yamshon, 2010).

Unified communications

Unified communications is being adopted by more enterprises. It combines email, voicemail, instant messaging, phone calls, faxing, and even video. Most enterprises only use what they need (Rash, 2010).