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Saturday, 23 June 2012

Study: E-book library borrowing takes slow pace

E-book readers have been relatively slow to borrow digital works from the library, frustrated by a limited selection and by not even knowing whether their local branch offers e-releases, according to a new study.

The Pew Research Center published a survey Friday that reports around 12 percent of e-book users 16 years and older downloaded a text from the library over the past year. Earlier in 2012, Pew issued a study showing that around 20 percent of adults had read an e-book recently.

Simon & Schuster, the Hachette Book Group and other major publishers have limited e-book offerings to libraries or refused to make any available, citing concerns that the ease of free downloads would hurt sales. Lack of awareness may be another factor. Around 60 percent of those 16 and older couldn't say whether their libraries had e-books.

Pew's Internet & American Life Project study, conducted with nearly 3,000 respondents between Nov. 16 and Dec. 11, 2011, suggests that library patrons trying to borrow digital texts have been deterred by the selection and by not having the right e-book device. Just over half of respondents said their library did not have the book they were looking for and nearly 20 percent found that the device they owned could not receive a given title.

Nearly half of those who have not borrowed an e-book said they would be "very" or "somewhat" interested if they were lent an e-reading device with a book already downloaded.

Officials from the American Library Association have been meeting with publishers in an effort to work out a system that would satisfy both sides. On Thursday, Penguin Group (USA) announced a pilot program with the New York and Brooklyn library systems that will make e-books available six months after they first go on sale. Penguin had suspended its e-book program with libraries last year.

"I applaud Penguin's decision today to re-start e-book sales to libraries so that we may again meet our mutual goals of connecting authors and readers," library association president Molly Raphael said in a statement.

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Thursday, 21 June 2012

Now, iPhone app to give outfit advice based on weather

A new iPhone application gives customised outfit advice from one’s own wardrobe, based on the weather forecast for the day.

Cloth helps picky fashionistas photograph and catalogue different outfits from their wardrobe.
The most notable aspect of Cloth, however, is its ability to show you options of the best outfits in your image archive based on the temperature outside.

The makers of Cloth teamed up with Wunderground, a weather Web site, and released the new software update that adds weather data to each outfit, the Daily Mail reported.

To use it, you take a photo of yourself after you have pieced together an outfit, and then the app will automatically tag the picture with the current temperature.

The next time you are stuck for ideas, or debating pants or a skirt, you can select the weather tab, and it will display the best outfits to wear under that day’s weather conditions.

Generalised into sections like rainy, warm, freezing or hot, when those same conditions come up again, you can pull up combinations from your closet.

The app also tags outfits into categories, such as evening, work or vacation – finally taking all the guess work out of deciding if it will be too warm to wear that long-sleeve dress to a party later that evening.

Seth Porges, the app’s co-creator and a former Maxim editor, said that the app was inspired by his girlfriend, Wray Serna.

He told the New York Times that occasionally she would take a picture of herself whenever she put on a good outfit so that she could remember it, but the images would be scattered throughout her iPhone’s photo album.


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Tuesday, 19 June 2012

3G war rages on, Vodafone cuts rates again in less than a month

The price war in the third-generation, or 3G space, rages on with Vodafone India slashing price plans for a second time in less than a month on Tuesday. Its latest entry level plan offers 25MB of data downloads for Rs 25 while on the higher side, upto 12 GB of data downloads are available at a peak rental of Rs 1599.

The Indian arm of the British telco also claimed its new `pay as you go' (PAYG) price plan for prepaid users is the cheapest in the industry. At 2 paise/10 KB, it is an 80 per cent reduction from the existing rate of 10 paise/10 KB, making it a plan tailor-made for everyone".

"Our new PAYG price plan at 2 paise/10 KB is now the lowest in the industry, below the existing base rate of 3 paise/10 KB data plan," claimed a Vodafone India spokesman.

Last month, Vodafone had announced a mix of increased benefits and reduced rentals on data plans to remove imbalances between its 3G packs and its PAYG pricing. For instance, subscribers using the Rs 100 plan got a higher 300 MB data benefit instead of the earlier 200 MB. While heavy data users on the 1 GB and 2 GB plans saw their monthly rentals drop to Rs 250 and Rs 450 from Rs 375 and Rs 650 respectively.

But for usage levels beyond the stipulated data download quota on each plan, Vodafone India users will now pay Rs 2 paise/10 KB while there will be no additional charges for roaming. 





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