A recent article in The New Yorker, “The Programmer’s Price,” described a new business model in the tech world: programmers are working with agents to find business opportunities and negotiate contracts. This demonstrates a shift in how the tech world and other industries view programmers – no longer are they hired to sit in a →
MIT Researchers have released a prototype for the FingerReader, a wearable device that assists the visually impaired in accessing printed text. Consisting of a ring the user wears on her/his finger, the FingerReader’s internal camera scans text off a printed page and gives immediate audio feedback – that is, it reads the text out loud. →
In our rapidly evolving technology environment, the agile approach to proprietary software development can yield great results for publishers. As with most technology projects, the single greatest challenge to this radical approach remains the people and politics (the wetware) involved, not the software technology itself. This challenge involves not only everyone understanding, but capitalizing on the →
Earlier this month the Apple iBookstore launched Breakout Books, a new category of the online store which features self- and independently-published books. Although the iBookstore has always accepted self-published titles, Breakout Books highlights the increasing market share of the independent author and gives added support in terms of marketing and promotion. To give an idea of →
Back in 1996, the Weld-Cellucci Administration in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts signed Executive Order 390 – The Affirmative Market Program in Public Contracting. The idea behind this order was to ensure a commitment to incorporate minority and woman-owned businesses into the public sector marketplace. Now, over 15 years later, OBS is proud to announce our →
While digital subscriptions to online magazines have soared in the past year – the fall 2012 Survey of the American Consumer, conducted by research group Growth from Knowledge (GfK), reports increases of nearly 50% for online magazine subscriptions – major newspapers such as the New York and Los Angeles times are reporting losses in digital subscription revenues. One survey →
The release of the iPad Mini as a dedicated e-reader device suggests that e-readers are following a technology trend set by laptops and cell phones: the smaller, the better. At the same time, legibility on an e-reader screen is instrumental to its functionality. With the iPad Mini, Apple is delicately toeing the line of streamlined technology →
September 2012—Reaching out to the academic market in time for the new school year, the Library of Congress and Copia Interactive has announced the free eBook release of Jefferson’s Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress, the Library’s hallmark publication, as well as a collection of rare lectures. Readers can now visit the Library’s page at Copia →
(Reuters) An ongoing antitrust investigation of Apple’s pricing negotiations with European publishers in December 2011 may be coming to a close, though not in Apple’s favor. The four publishers – Simon & Schuster, News Corp (HarperCollins), Hachette Livre and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck (owner of Macmillan in Germany) – made deals that allowed Apple to →
Many publishers we have talked with this year understand the import of making their content digitally available, but don’t know how to go about it. Low ebook prices dominate the market, so costs to convert and distribute will not be immediately earned back through ebook sales. So what’s a publisher to do? With a little →