New Technology Reviews!.: library

How would you change Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play?

<div><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/26/how-would-you-change-sony-ericssons-xperia-play/"></a></div> <img alt="" border="1" height="216" hspace="4" src="http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/3434/playphone.jpg" style="margin: 4px; border: 1px solid black;" vspace="4" width="360" /> It came with a bang, but even Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play seems to have already become yesterday's treasure in a world swamped with dual-core superphones. Still, the Play remains the only Android phone on the market with a full-on slide-out gamepad, and while the library's still lacking, there's oodles of promise here. And that, friends, is where you come in. For those that forked over whatever it took to snag one, we're anxious to know how you'd do things differently. We're guessing that SE didn't sink an absurd amount of resources into this thing without a successor in mind, so what are you hoping to see in Revision B? A higher-res display? A few more buttons to mash? Ice Cream Sandwich? Get as crazy as you wanna be in comments below, won't you?

How would you change Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play?

It came with a bang, but even Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play seems to have already become yesterday's treasure in a world swamped with ...

Darwin's library goes digital, annotations and all

Charles Darwin's personal library is being digitised and put online by Cambridge University. The digitisation includes all of Darwin's own annotations and notes in the margins, with 330 of the most heavily annotated books already posted online for universal access. Aside from making the works available to everyone everywhere, what's really impressive about the online library is that you can actually search for a keyword within Darwin's annotations, rather than trawl through hundreds of thousands of pages for his relevant thoughts. Digital Darwinism Quite the bibliophile, Darwin had over 1480 books in his personal library, of which 730 have comprehensive notes scribbled in the margins; all of these annotated books will eventually end up in the online database. University librarian Anne Jarvis classes these annotations as important as Darwin's letters and manuscripts: "The Darwin collections are among the most important and popular held within Cambridge University Library. "While there has been much focus on his manuscripts and correspondence, his library hasn't always received the attention it deserves – for it is as he engaged with the ideas and theories of others that his own thinking evolved." It's been quite a good week for antiquated books and written works; yesterday the British Library also announced a deal with Google which will see a number of 18 and 19th century works made scanned and added to the Google Books library. <a href="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/106215389713/u/49/f/9809/c/669/s/160e8b11/a2.htm"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/9877/13045304.gif" /></a><img alt="" height="1" src="http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/3167/77769859.gif" width="1" />

Darwin's library goes digital, annotations and all

Charles Darwin's personal library is being digitised and put online by Cambridge University. The digitisation includes all of Darwin...

Could Google Books provide a national digital library?

<img src="http://cdn.mos.techradar.com//classifications/images/sony-reader-october-200-200.jpg"/>Google has come under fire from numerous detractors for its Google Books mass book digitisation programme.Publishers and writers are cautious about Google's objectives with <a href="http://books.google.com/">Google Books</a>, with the more extreme antagonists seeing the longer term outcome as little less than mass piracy. Numerous authors have already <a href="http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/6-500-authors-opt-out-of-google-books-service-672987">opted out of the service</a>.Mass philanthropy or book piracy?For its part, Google sees Google Books as an act of mass philanthropy, bringing the world's libraries to our fingertips, offering instant, free and easy access for everybody that has an internet connection or access to the web.The truth of the matter, as ever, lies somewhere in between these two extremes, as the Observer's literary editor, Robert McCrum agreed this week: "something constructive could come from this chaos."US historian Robert Darnton points out in the latest New York Review of Books, citing Thomas Jefferson's "Knowledge is the common property of mankind," that Americans "can close the gap between the high ground of principle and the hardscrabble of everyday life ... by creating a national digital library"."The vexed question of copyright"Darnton's goes on to discuss that "vexed question of copyright" in pointing out that Japan, France and the Netherlands all have plans for a national digital library, calling for the US to do the same.And, as McCrum points out in the Guardian this week, "why can't Britain?" noting that, "Google has simply demonstrated from a corporate and commercial point of view what should be possible for a national culture."McCrum makes an impassioned call to arms for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to work to bring together the many seperate digitisation programmes already under way, across a number of publishing houses, libraries and archive collections, an "archipelago of common knowledge" which "needs to become federated, within national boundaries for the common good." Perhaps Google Books could prove to be the cement that helps to tie these many book digitisation projects together?

Could Google Books provide a national digital library?

Google has come under fire from numerous detractors for its Google Books mass book digitisation programme. Publishers and writers are cautio...