Have you ever wondered how bees collect pollen? I did–until the other day.
Daily Archives: April 13, 2011
The Digital Public Library of America Project
From the The Harvard Crimson.
Harvard is solidifying plans to lead one of the largest national efforts to create a digitized public library.
The proposed Digital Public Library of America will serve as an open online collection of digitized books and texts that project leaders hope could one day incorporate every volume ever published.
Guided by a Steering Committee at the Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the project remains in its initial planning phase. But in the wake of a New York District Court’s ruling last month against the Google Books Library Project, citing concerns of monopoly power, the spotlight has fallen on the DPLA, which will allow free access to the volumes.
There is a “need to pivot very quickly from the discussion phase to the implementation phase,” said Harvard Law Professor John G. Palfrey ’94, a co-director of the Berkman Center and a leader in the DPLA project.
The DPLA will be the product of a collaboration between the largest library systems in the nation, already including Harvard, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and the Smithsonian Institution.
“The promise of the idea is attracting a lot of people at least to be involved even if they are skeptical of our ability to pull it off,” he said. “We have many of the biggest players at the table.”
If implemented successfully, the project will “make the cultural and scientific heritage of humanity available, free of charge, to all,” according to its online concept note.
Well, at least it gives the Crimson something to write about other than who’s suing Mark Zuckerberg at the moment.
From hero to zero in the blink of an eye: Cisco Shuts Down Flip
From today’s NYTimes.com.
It was one of the great tech start-up success stories of the last decade.
The Flip video camera, conceived by a few entrepreneurs in an office above Gump’s department store in San Francisco, went on sale in 2007, and quickly dominated the camcorder market.
The start-up sold two million of the pocket-size, easy-to-use cameras in the first two years. Then, in 2009, the founders cashed out and sold to Cisco Systems, the computer networking giant, for $590 million.
On Tuesday, Cisco announced it was shutting down its Flip video camera division.
Wow! I have a Flip. It’s a lovely gadget, and it came with quite elegant software. But I haven’t used it since I got an iPhone. Another illustration of the adage that the best camera is always the one you happen to have with you. It’s also a salutary lesson in how quickly this ecosystem can change.
Bet the guys who sold out to Cisco are laughing all the way to the bank.