Author Archives: Atlanta B.A.

Linked In and Me

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I just tried to access my Linked In profile for the first time in probably a year and it wasn’t under the email address I thought it was. So I searched via my name.

Apparently I have THREE accounts with them and can’t remember a single password. I guessed one of the emails but it’s to an email account I haven’t used in 10+ years and have no clue what the password might be.

So… don’t bother looking for me on Linked In. Besides, I drew up a fake account to see if I can get a clue on my real one and it looks like everything is now a pay feature. Pass.

Rethinking the Throne

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I’m fascinated by all things usability and it’s harder to think of anything the user interacts with more than the toilet… but I’m still trying to wrap my head around a “wireless and water-free” toilet. Isn’t that basically a Port-A-Potty?

Katie Fehrenbacher's avatarGigaom

Over time, networks often trend toward becoming more decentralized, more mobile, and less capital intensive to build out. Telecommunications did this with cell phones, and Skype laptop calls; the architecture of the Internet is like this; a future of solar rooftops could do the same thing for the power grid. Is it time for the humble toilet to get reinvented by applying these same principles to the sanitation network?

That’s one of the themes behind some of the toilet innovation that just emerged from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Reinvent the Toilet Challenge. The year-long challenge asked universities and entrepreneurs to develop next-generation toilets for the 2.5 billion people that don’t already have them in developing countries like India. The toilets in the Challenge needed to be able to function without piped water and electrical connections, and also needed to reuse the waste in some way.

The first…

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Tablet Prices Dropping

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The line at the end: “Prices are plummeting because tablet makers want you hooked on their apps, e-books and other content, and they’re willing to sacrifice hardware profits to claim your future business. With new competition from Google — and possibly more pressure from Apple — Barnes & Noble and Amazon have nowhere to go but down.” just saved me from spending too much on my daughter’s Christmas present.

Google says book scanning didn’t cost authors a single sale

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Not sure how I feel on this one. The idea that it won’t cost authors any sales seems ludicrous, but being able to do a search and find passages from any number of books sounds VERY useful. What I really want to know is: Where was this tool when I was in high school?

Jeff John Roberts's avatarGigaom

Google (s goog) cites everything from Mad Men to minority rights in a fresh attempt to bolster its claim that the scanning of millions of books qualifies as a “fair use” under copyright law. The arguments, set out in court filings submitted on Friday, come as Google’s long-running dispute with the Authors Guild heads toward an end game.

According to Google, its massive book scanning project is fair use because the scanning has delivered many public benefits without harming authors. The company claims that its creation of full-text book searching is “the most significant advance in library search technology in the last five decades” and that the Authors Guild has shown “no evidence that Google Books has displaced the sale of even a single book.”

The new filing (embedded below) is in response to Judge Denny Chin’s deadline for Google and the Authors Guild to submit arguments on why the case can be…

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Hallelujah, Christians get their own e-reader

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I’m not the audience for this device, but I did find the quote “It’s been rewarding to tell my friends and family that I have a Christ-centered tablet” strangely amusing.

Clever marketing… take a Nook, slap a Bible app on it, install Net Nanny, call it Christian. Rake in the cash.

Laura Hazard Owen's avatarGigaom

You may not be the audience for Family Christian Stores’ new color-screen e-reader, the edifi. But with religious ebook sales surging, the chain hopes that special religious features will entice shoppers to choose its device over others.

Family Christian Stores, which has nearly 300 locations throughout the U.S. and calls itself the country’s leading provider of Christian books and supplies, just launched the color-screen Android edifi for $149.99. It’s available online and in Family Christian stores. The company also offers a free Family Christian Reader app for iOS (s AAPL) and Android (s GOOG).

Like a low-end version of Barnes & Noble’s $169 Nook (s BKS) Color, the edify is essentially a 7-inch WiFi e-reader with some tablet functions. It’s preloaded with a Family Christian Reader app and includes a “suite of family-friendly features” including safe-search Web browsing, Christian radio and English Bible translations. It has a touchscreen…

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