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It really only allows you to show and existing Prezi but it is a good start.
Breakthrough device of CES: Motorola Atrix = Phone PC | Tech Sanity Check | TechRepublic.com via kwout
I haven’t attended a Computer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas for almost 10 years now because you can see everything you want to see in more detail over the internet. OK–you loose the social aspect of CES but you save thousands of dollars and almost a weeks worth of time when you consider travel and catching up when you get back. I do however monitor the press releases from CES and one in particular caught my attention.
Jason Hiner the Editor in Chief of TechRepubic in his Tech Sanity Check blog points to a potential breakthrough device of CES. A breakthrough device according to Hiner is;
…the watershed product that we look back on a decade from now as the one that started a revolution in the way we think about and use our computing devices.
The Motorola Atrix is both a Phone and a PC and as demonstrated in the image above it can be docked and connected to a keyboard, monitor and mouse as well as other docking options. For those who have been dreaming about consolidating all their devices into one (phone, laptop, desktop, tablet etc.) this definitely shows that we are starting to get close. The Atrix uses a specialized Webtop UI that offers a optimized Web OS that offers a very satisfactory experience for the user who is already committed to working in the cloud. This OS combined with a dual core NVIDIA Tegra2 CPU mean that there is real computing power available for much more than just browsing. There is enormous potential in what Motorola is offering and even with its apparent limitations like the flimsy case, physical docking and limited carrier options with AT&T this should be the device of the show if not a true breakthrough device.
Whether we look back a couple of years to the release of the iPhone as the pivotal point when the mobile computing started to change the world or to the release of the Motorola Atrix there is no denying that we are seeing the computing world change before our eyes.
Clay sums up his argument powerfully with the following statement:
What’s going to make the difference here is what Dean Kamen said, the inventor and entrepreneur. Kamen said, “Free cultures get what they celebrate.” We’ve got a choice before us. We’ve got this trillion hours a year. We can use it to crack each other up, and we’re going to do that. That, we get for free. But we can also celebrate and support and reward the people trying to use cognitive surplus to create civic value. And to the degree we’re going to do that, to the degree we’re able to do that, we’ll be able to change society.
Death by Irony: How Librarians Killed the Academic Library – Commentary – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout
The title Death by Irony: How Librarians Killed the Academic Library is so appropriate that I simply had to repeat the Chronicle of Higher Education commentary post. Brian T. Sullivan is an instructional librarian at Alfred University and suggests that the Academic library has died and the autopsy report reveals the following factors that contributed to its death:
- Book collections became obsolete
- Library instruction was no longer necessary.
- Information literacy was fully integrated into the curriculum.
- Libraries and librarians were subsumed by information-technology departments.
- Reference services disappeared.
- Economics trumped quality.
Sulivan expands on these 6 points in the article. He also offers the following summary statement which is a very hard pill to swallow and even though Sullivan is an instructional librarian I am sure he has angered many of his professional peers:
…it is entirely possible that the life of the academic library could have been spared if the last generation of librarians had spent more time plotting a realistic path to the future and less time chasing outdated trends while mindlessly spouting mantras like “There will always be books and libraries” and “People will always need librarians to show them how to use information.”
PLEASE remember I am simply repeating what this library professional has written about.
