Today Apple announced their new application called iBooks 2, which is really just an awesome refresh on their existing iBooks app.

What's so cool about this update?

First off, basically everyone can be an author.

Image: Mashable

Any 'ol Joe Smo will be able to write and publish iBooks to the iBookstore. My dream of becoming a published author will come true soon!

More importantly though, iBooks will (hopefully) revolutionize education.

Image: Mashable

These iBooks, digital textbooks, give the reader an interactive experience with their coursework. Apple's iBooks 2 app allows users to take notes, create study cards, search within text, and take quizzes, among other features that coincide with the traditional education process.

It will also pair with the iTunes U program with launched about four years ago that has been successfully integrated into 1,000 universities and is the largest catalog for free educational content.

Image: Mashable

iTunes U will help teachers reinvent their curriculum. Complete with audio and visual (video and text), teachers will be able to create complete, online curriculum and they can monitor their courses all from an iPad. This system will allow for course outlines with a complete syllabus, the addition of office hours and assignment postings (with notifications for students when new ones are added).

Apple announced that popular publishers, such as McGraw-Hill Cos., Pearson PLC and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, will make textbooks available for high school students first then expects to expand to every subject and grade level. The expected cost of these books is $14.99 or less.

This push by a giant like Apple is huge the mainstreaming of digital resources in education. This is going to force educational systems, including higher education, to consider the cost effective move to going digital. Sure the cost of an iPad is high, but does buying 6 or more expensive textbooks per student versus one iPad and "cheap" ebooks change the game?

How about college students? How much less loan debt would college students have if they were no longer buying multiple $200 and $300 textbooks a semester? This will also take a huge weight off universities for buying back, storing, and dealing with outdated textbooks.

To date, six universities have access to the new iTunes U and iBooks and have created over 100 full, online courses... all of it on iTunes U and all of it for free!

How exciting is that?!

Now that we understand how great this is but let's get to the point, how much will this update cost?

Nothing. No cost. That's right, it's free! Talk about changing the face of textbooks. By offering this application for free, Apple is almost guaranteeing widespread use over their cited 1.5 million iPads being used in education today.


This could also be the first step towards the Social Textbook that I presented as part of a graduate project.

A few months back I published a project called Social Textbooks, which are interactive and collaborative textbooks. This type of textbook would allow students to collaborating outside the classroom to discuss their reading material, which would cut down on in-class time that would have been spent clarifying ideas and themes from the assigned reading. Basically, if I didn't understand passage "X" from Chapter 2 of this week's reading, I could post a thread within my digital social textbook and my classmates or instructor could answer. Along with these collaboration attributes, these digital textbooks would consist of high resolution images, interactive graphs and maps, and wiki style linking.

Maybe me and my ideas should join the Apple team?

How do you feel about the reinvention of textbooks and the future of education?

Don't get me wrong, as an advertising major, I am all for creative and innovative ways of online advertising.  But these comment advertisements that are disguised as a person just carrying on a conversation about a product just kills me!

Not only does it just say to me "DISH is annoying" but it also says, "DISH employees can't spell and the entire corporation is entirely unprofessional."

This is a giant fail, right?

My podcast, Girly Nerdy Goodness, released an official apology for our overall suckyness over the last few months.


You can read the full apology here: A Formal Apology

When we started GNG it was a big part of our lives but as we've grown older, graduated from college and entered "the real world" we haven't been taking it as seriously as we should have been. We've been putting out unorganized and not quality content and therefor doing a disservice to our fans.

However, this break is only temporary. We are in the works of putting together new strategies and plans so we can come back better than ever! I'll keep you all updated on our progress.

Tomorrow, January 18, 2012, internet enthousiasts from near and far will be protesting in the name of "Stop SOPA" by "Going Dark" for the duration of the day.

SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is a proposed bill that, if passed, could lead to mass internet censorship.

The websites that will Go Dark tomorrow include both small and large.  From small Tumblrs to giants, like Wikipedia and Reddit, supporters from around the country will be dark in the  name of stopping SOPA. Although it will not be going dark, Google will also show support for the cause on their homepage.

Protesting websites will go dark tomorrow and only show the above image to it's visitors. Visitors will not be able to access any content of the participating website until after the protest. This protest shows a worst case scenario of what SOPA could do. Warning that if link heavy websites, such as Wikipedia, were to be shut down under SOPA the now millions of broken links would compromise the ability of any site that includes outside links to carry on current operations.

If you would like your website to Go Dark in protest tomorrow, you can pick up the Stop SOPA code here and apply it to your site.

For more information, visit the anti-SOPA website at AmericanCensorship.org.

Are you turning your website dark in protest? I'd love to hear your story.

The North American International Auto Show is an exciting time for the automotive world and for Detroit, who hosts the big event. I live in Detroit and I also work in the automotive industry (with a supplier that supplies to virtually every major automotive manufacturer and many of their Tier-suppliers).

I'm not so much of a car fan as I am a technology fan. But as it turns out, cars and technology go hand-in-hand -- from social media to energy sources to ....

Here are some of the "non-automotive" things I learned from NAIAS...

1.  High tech everywhere!  If you're a tech nerd and looking for employment, turn to the automotive industry. It doesn't matter if you're a car fan or not, they produce some seriously awesome technologies. From parallel parking assistance, to hands-free systems controls to this (concept) iPhone dock in a steering wheel. The possibilities are endless!

Photo courtesy of The Detroit News

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was this week in Las Vegas and companies pulled out all the stops to make sure this was an event to remember!

Most of the world is far too busy to keep up with CES. It's like a full-time job trying to keep up with who unveiled what and what is about to become the next big thing in technology! The news pours out faster than the technology becoming outdated. There's also a large chuck of people that don't care about CES because some very important, life-changing companies are not present at the event... like Apple (everything else is just a cheap knock off in comparison).

But there is more to CES then the competing superpowers, Microsoft and (the absent) Apple. Some of the coolest, strangest gadgets make their way into the mainstream by way of CES. So after asleepless night, I have compiled all the main highlights of CES.

Microsoft's flop.  Microsoft's keynote speech, which has been the opening CES spectacle since 1998, was entertaining but lacked the substance that the techies need to survive. Recently, Microsoft disclosed that they would not be a part of CES 2013, so this would be their last opening keynote.

From the host Ryan Seacrest to an on-stage choir singing tweets, Microsoft's show was incredibly entertaining... but none of it was technology news! This dog and pony show did nothing for the company's position in the marketplace and it definitely doesn't help to sell their products.

Microsoft pulling out of CES comes as no surprise to many. Apple doesn't participate in CES since they hold their own earth-shattering keynotes and events. Perhaps Microsoft will follow.

Justin Bieber likes robots.  It's safe to say that JB has had an awesome year. And what better way to start a new year then to endorse some robots...? Wait. What does Justin Bieber have to do with robots? No one knows. No one, including this Mashable reporter who just really wanted to see the robots but had to deal with the Biebers of CES.

I understand that the Biebs got his start through social media and technology (he was "discovered" on YouTube) but that doesn't really cross over to robots. However, someone thought that just because this robot dances, it's one in the same as JB.

And dance is all it does. The Tosy mRobo robot dances to the music that you upload to it. Lame. I want one that makes me a sandwich and does my laundry.

Waterproofing Tech Toys.  Liquipel debuted its revolutionary waterproofing process for your smart phones. This thin covering, which they claim "you'd need a powerful microscope to detect," protects your phone from spills and from being completely emerged without the need of a case. At this point, I'm sold! But some of you probably want to know what the price point is... the prices range (for the iPhone) from $59.99 to $79.99 depending on the type of skin. Not too bad! The only catch is that you have to cut ties with your device and send it to them. After they've received it, they'll have the job completed in about 3 days. Can you sacrifice these few days for a worry-free life where your phone and water can coexist in close proximity?

High Tech Baby Stroller. Not that I'm interested in stroller shopping but 4Moms has debuted the most sophisticated stroller on the market, the Origami. Origami is a power folding stroller in which the back wheels, when rotating, power a battery that can be used to charge and run plethora of gadgets. This high tech stroller comes with running lights, MP3 hookup, a LCD screen with tripometer, and, of course, a power folder. Perfect for the tech mom on the go.

iSpy the iPad 3 at CES.  According to iLounge, you may have been seen the iPad 3 at CES and not even have known it. That's right. According to their report, the next-generation tablet is almost unrecognizable unless it is compared side-by-side with the iPad 2. iLounge notes differences in:

• Body thickness - approximately 1mm increase
• Rear camera - larger than predecessor, silver ringed and similar to the iPhone 4s (minus the LED flash)
• Screen - rumors have suggested a smaller screen, however, nothing of the short was spotted at CES but it can still be expected

With these small of changes, I almost expect for this to be an iPad 2S. I feel as though we are in for another iPhone 5 deboggle where our expectations get so high then we are just left with a disappointing iPhone 4S at the unveiling.

However, the expected "unveiling" of the new iPad is between now and mid-2012 and a lot can change, pre-production wide. So who knows what the finished product will be!

What else did I miss? Did some of you have more time to follow the releases more closely than I did? I'd love to hear what excited you!

Is Siri, the Apple iOS personal assistant, the long lost Furby Translator? Was Jobs' last dying wish to unlock the long, lost language of Furbish?


I guess it turns out Siri doesn't understand... or does she?

Yes, I have indeed crossed over to the dark side of the literature world.

I have always been a fan of physical books. I like the smell, I like placing them on shelves and I like the anticipation that builds before turning the page.

Have you ever turned the page so quickly out of pure anxiety of what was going to happen next that you ripped the page?  I have. And I'm not sure I ever will again.

I have to admit, I'm not as avid of a reader as I was in the past. I'm more into reading tweets and blogs and getting my daily fill of breaking tech news these days. Also, my purse is heavy enough with everything I insist on keeping with me at all times. Plus I feel that if I brought a book I'd have to sacrifice my iPad in the name of space.

Leave my iPad at home?! I think not! So I decided to give this whole ebook thing a shot.

Using Apple's iBook application, I quickly got my hands on a copy of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, which my friends and I are reading for our newly founded book club.

1. I can read in the dark. No more choosing my place to relax and read according to the lighting quality.
2. I can multitask. With the press of a button I can take a break to check my email, tweet about how good the book is, or participate in my online book club.
3. I always have my iPhone with me. Even when I don't have room to carry a book or my iPad, I can still read on my iPhone because iBooks makes that super convenient. If I leave off on page 273 on my iPad, when I open the iBooks app on my phone it automatically advances me to page 273.
4. I can read when I'm supposed to be doing something else. I like to read on my lunch but for some reason people feel like it's okay to disturb you while reading a book. However if I'm reading on my iPad, everyone leaves me alone. It must look like I'm deep into through over an email or some kind of project.
5. Practice what I preach. I have been a huge advocate for digital books (most specifically, digital textbooks)  but I rarely ever use them. I'm not sure why. Probably because my life is so busy I just go with whatever is most convenient and I don't have time to deal with a dead battery when I just need to read. But it's time I make that leap. I can't be a tech junkie without with piece of the pie!
6. Reading books on it gives me another reason why justifying the iPad's hefty price tag.

The only downside is that the "library" I plan on building in my house won't have much on the shelves now...