The Shifted Librarian - Shifting Libraries at the speed of byte
 Tuesday, December 10, 2002

Article Roundup

BusinessWeek has a ton of good articles right now, some of which comes from a special report examining Tinseltown, Hollywood, and Tech. A sampling:

Hollywood's Digital Love/Hate Story
While today's technologies of production and distribution threaten old powers and create new opportunities, the final scene is sure to be rendered in ones and zeros

Web Radio's Personal Edge
Stripping off the Top 40 straightjacket, online listeners enjoy their own playlists while hearing new music -- and many are buying what they hear

The Video-Game Wars Explode Online
Its Microsoft's deep pockets and Xbox' built-in capabilities vs. Sony's and Nintendo's add-ons. The prize: Potentially millions of new users

picture of the DigibonoThe Best Products of 2002
Their list includes the Lodis Sculptured Zipoff Overnighter, the OnKey Karaoke Microphone, and the Digibino DB 100 (binoculars with a built-in digital camera).

The Podunk Post on Sale at the Eiffel Tower
This article isn't available online for free, but it discusses PEPC's Presspoint newspaper kiosk. Here's the description of it from the PEPC web site.

picture of a Presspoint kiosk"PEPC has developed a self-contained, fully automated newspaper-vending unit, the PRESSPOiNT™. The PRESSPOiNT™ is capable of receiving files, processing payments and on demand printing of newspapers. As the point-of-sales unit, the PRESSPOiNT™ continuously receives publisher files through PEPC's Multicast Satellite Network.

Each PRESSPOiNT™ is equipped with a user-friendly touch screen. Customers are prompted through the menu in their native language....

The PRESSPOiNT™ prints the same-day edition - High Quality, 40 pages, stapled, unedited, black and white edition.

During print-idle time the screen displays commercial video content, to inform and entertain the customer."

If I remember correctly from the print version of the article, PEPC is putting these in hotels, and they use Adobe Acrobat PDF files to replicate the newspapers. The site says there are already 38 kiosks installed in the Americas, offering newspapers from 112 publishers in 28 different languages from 47 different countries.

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