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Parents Can Read Bedtime Stories From Abroad With New Site

Growing up, there was no better way to ease into a good night of sleep than with Mom or Dad reading a bedtime story. But in today's fast-paced, mobile world, parents aren't always home to read to their children. According to Tech Flash, a new online service hopes to revitalize bedtime stories -- no matter how many miles might separate parents and kids.

For a fee of $6.99, 'A Story Before Bed' allows parents to record a video of themselves reading a story from the site's extensive library (from 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider' to 'Hansel and Gretel'), and then syncs the video with a digital version of the book onscreen. All you need is a computer, a webcam, and a copy of Adobe's Flash Player. Then, the child (presumably with help from an adult) can log on to the site and have a story read to him or her. It's the perfect way for that grandmother who lives on the West Coast or that dad who's overseas on business to stay in touch with the youngsters. Don't worry that you're too old to figure this out, either. The site's developers, Jackson Fish Market, even offer technical support between 1 p.m. and 10 p.m. Pacific Time.

It's not as good as reading 'Where The Wild Things Are' while sitting on the edge of your child's bed, but it's a lot better than the alternative for traveling parents. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have some reading to do. [From: Tech Flash, via Kotkke, via A Story Before Bed]

Editor's Picks, Interviews, Celebrities, BlackBerry, BlackBerry 101

Stewart Copeland Double-Fists the BlackBerry and the iPhone

Forever known for his role as the steady hand driving the Police's white-boy reggae (and the lanky American whose surfer-dude demeanor buoyed Sting's British flamboyance), Stewart Copeland has earned his place in the pantheon of pop music. Since those halcyon days, he hasn't exactly retired to the couch, having shared the stage with artists ranging from neo-proggers Oysterhead to alt. rock stalwarts the Foo Fighters. Now, the lauded drummer has added the vocation of author to his resume. This month, HarperStudio will publish his autobiography 'Strange Things Happen,' wherein he chronicles his life, from his beginnings as a CIA brat to his place on the drum throne with the Police's reunion tour. Finding time between his myriad projects, he found time last month to sit down with us and talk gadgetry.

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Audio/Video, Web

Hybrid 'Vooks' Brings Video to Books

Hybrid 'Vooks' Ask You To Read Video?book  /bʊk/
–noun
1. a written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers. -- Dictionary.com


Do you see anything in there about video? No. You know why? Because it's a book!

We're just getting used to the idea of e-books and the Kindle, and now publishers are trying to redefine what a "book" is again. Simon & Schuster is just one of many companies working on releasing "vooks" -- books with video elements. The "vooks" will be electronic publications, meant to be read online, or on an iPod touch or iPhone.

Some examples have already popped up that supplement or replace text with short video segments. 'Level 26: Dark Origins' (a classic, we're sure), by 'CSI' creator Anthony E. Zuiker, pointed readers to a Web site where they would watch short video segments that expanded on the plot. 'Embassy' (a thriller) reveals important plot points through mock news segments. "Vooks" aren't limited to fiction -- 'The 90-Second Fitness Solution' and 'Return to Beauty,' include short video demonstrations and an upcoming book on 18th-century French street music will include links to recordings of songs referenced in the book.

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Web

Disney Replacing Bedtime Stories (and Parents) With Digital Books?

Disney Wants to Replace Parents During Story Time
Is Disney trying to put the nail in the coffin of story time? It's not enough that adults have replaced actual paper books with e-readers like the Kindle, now Disney is trying to replace children's books (and parents) with laptops.

A new service, called Disney Digital Books, lets kids read what are essentially advertisements for Disney films on a computer screen. There are 500 books from which to choose, and kids can even assemble their own books. What's more, there is apparently a social aspect to the service, allowing kids to connect with other readers (great idea!) and Disney characters (e-maginary friends?).

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Web

Artist Illustrates Craigslist 'Missed Connections'

Part urban poetry, part pure comedy, there is something touching about Sophie Blackall's "Missed Connections NY" drawings. Like most of us urban dwellers, Sophie occasionally drops in on the Craigslist 'Missed Connections' section, which hopes that some lovelorn individual has a moment of reciprocation with a complete stranger. Sophie draws those moments, simply, in colored pencil, and describes the scenarios, which usually all start and end the same way: two people on the train, sharing a brief moment (maybe?), and neither getting up the nerve to say anything. Blackall's whimsical drawings capture both the romance and the awkwardness.

We all scroll through the M.C.s, from time to time, looking through our respective train routes, half-hoping to see a description of ourselves. Mostly, the posts are funny, like "Are you scared of birds or something? Well, whatever the case...it was cute," but some are outright charming, like "I bought you that milkshake...you just didn't realize it." If anyone sees a description like, "Lost-looking blogger-type covered in coffee stains, most likely late for work. Too involved in her DS to pay attention, but was alluring underneath the un-brushed hair," send us a tip. Could lead to something interesting. [From: Missed Connections via: Apartment Therapy]

Celebrities, Web

Donald Rumsfeld Mixes Up Internet and Muppets, Book Reveals


Who doesn't love a good political tell-all? While it may be a while before we get our first truly insightful or embarrassing look at the Obama administration, books exposing the inner workings of the Bush era have become somewhat of a cottage industry.

The latest tome, 'Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor,' comes from Matt Latimer, a speechwriter for the White House during Bush's later years. Among the revelations included in the text is one saying that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is so technologically inept that he makes Joe Biden looks like a regular Web guru. According to Latimer, Rumsfeld had to be talked out of editing his entry on "Wikipedia," which he apparently confused with a line from Fozzie Bear and called, "Wika-wakka." The book also says he would watch YouTube videos that mocked his famously schizophrenic press conferences. Though it's not clear if he was laughing or crying.

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Web, Social Networking

New Twitter Book Reimagines Literary Masterpieces in 140 Characters


After successfully redefining journalism as we know it, Twitter-mania has its eyes set on its newest target: the entire canon of Western literature. Sort of.

In a forthcoming book titled 'Twitterature,' authors Emmett Rensin and Alexander Aciman survey over 60 classic works, from Goethe to Kerouac, and "twitterize" them, whittling them down to several series of 140-character tweets. The book isn't slated to be published in the U.S. until December, but the Guardian got its hands on an advance copy, and has released some titillating excerpts.

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Web

AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com to Become Book

Anyone interested in Net entrepreneurship, tapping into current memes, or just quick and easy money has dreamed of making some big bucks by inventing a unique and creative site. While Web accomplishments may inspire book deals and instant fame, the success rarely, if at all, results in a coffee table book.

But if any site's format will translate successfully into a crowd-friendly, conversation-inspiring gallery of pictures, it's definitely AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. The New York Observer writes that Three Rivers Press, which is a member of the Random House family, bought the rights to the site created by Mike Bender and Doug Chernack, and now plans to publish the tome (Photoshopped concept at right) of uncomfortable hilarity in May of 2010

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Web

'Awful Library Books' Blog Showcases Absurd Texts

Awful Library Books Showcases Absurd TextsThere are tons of one joke blogs out there, but most of them are a tad low brow. It's a relief, then, to see Awful Library Books marry our love for quick, cheap laughs with something a little more sophisticated than stripper moms.

Awful Library Books was started by Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, a pair of Michigan public librarians who have taken it upon themselves to point out some of the outdated and absurd tomes clogging up library shelves across the country. The blog features scans of the covers of books like 'Dee Snider's Teenage Survival Guide' and the 1985 computer program guide, 'Star power: Mastering WordStar, MailMerge, SpellStar, DataStar, SuperSort, CalcStar, InfoStar, StarIndex, CorrectStar, StarBurst, ReportStar & PlanStar.'

Yet, if this blog becomes popular, it may drive interest to some of these obscure and ridiculous titles, annulling at least part of their argument for retiring these texts. [From: Boing Boing]

Celebrities, Web

'Obama Time Capsule' Book, Authored by You, Online

Customizable Obama Book Lists You as Author
Look out respectable citizens, because here comes 'The Obama Time Capsule.'

What is it, you say? Well, 'The Obama Time Capsule' is a $35 coffee table photo book, available through Amazon, that can be customized with images and words of your choosing. It's like some bastard love child of Web 2.0, grassroots politics, and those cheesy 'put-your-kid-in-a-story-book' carts at our local mall.

The 200-page book is filled with over 140 professionally shot photos, and includes essays from Colin Powell, Joe Klein, Arianna Huffington, and quite a few others. So why do we care about a politics book? After ordering it, you'll get an e-mail with a link to the book's Web site, where you can customize your copy. You can write the dedication, have your name listed as an author on the cover, and upload your own images to put in the book.

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Cell Phones

Man Writes 400-Page Novel on Cell Phone


You know how you spend your commute alternating between sleeping, daydreaming, and refreshing your Facebook feed? Well, Peter Brett does something else: he writes novels... on his smartphone.

It's okay, we feel lazy too.

Brett wrote the majority of his first novel, "The Warded Man," on his phone during trips between his Brooklyn, NY home and his job in Times Square, across the East River in Manhattan. In total, he estimates writing over 100,000 words on the train over two years. The book finally hit shelves last month and is on best-seller lists in Poland and England (it has sold 2,500 copies in the US).

He began using the phone to take notes, and his thumbs eventually got quick enough to write large chunks of text -- soon he was averaging about 400 words each morning and evening. Brett listened to music on his iPod to block out distractions.

"I trained myself that at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. every day when I got on the train, that was my writing time," Brett told the Daily News. "I had about 45 minutes each way, and everyone who takes the F [subway train] knows that 45 minutes can turn into an hour and a half."

No mention of what phone he uses in the article, but a glance at Brett's Web site reveals that it was an HP iPaq smartphone. We figured, with all that typing, that it wasn't an iPhone. [From: Daily News]

Computers

Bookstores, Publishers Suffer as Enthusiasts Exchange Online



Facing record lows in sales recently, bookstores and publishers cannot place blame squarely on the shoulders of the economic crisis, the New York Times reports. The real culprit? Web sites like ViaLibri.net, where readers the world over meet to buy and sell books, often for little more than shipping costs.

In the wake of these Web sites' successes, publishers have been instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees. Publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the Times tells us, are, in a truly bizarre turn of events, no longer accepting manuscripts.

Just as the well is dry, so is the bucket. Used and new bookstores alike are currently suffering; such institutions as Cody's in Berkeley, California and Robin's in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania have called it a day. Even the owners of Powell's -- the monolithic new and used store in Portland, Oregon -- have encouraged their employees to take unpaid leave from work.

Meanwhile, those online book-trading sites see more and more traffic, very much akin to online music stores, where folks not only find products to be less expensive than those in the store, but much easier to find in the first place. Generally, the books go for a dollar or less, often in quite good condition.

Unlike that of the music industry, though, the mood in the book camp seems to be one of melancholic resignation rather than angry denial. Buying books online, former owner Andy Ross told the Times after locking the doors of Cody's for the last time, "was not morally dubious, but it is tragic." [From: New York Times]

Computers

Famous New York Hotel Offers Kindle During Your Stay


Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel has a long tradition of nurturing the literary-minded -- Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, even Harpo Marx hung out there in its heyday. Keeping up with the times, the folks running the Algonquin today apparently still have literature on their minds, and are offering Amazon's Kindle pre-loaded with a book of their choice for guests of the hotel during their stay. If they don't have all seven volumes of À la recherche du temps perdu loaded up and ready for us when we get there we're totally heading to the Holiday Inn. [Via Kindle Boards]

Video Games

Nintendo Bringing Classic Books to DS Handheld

Nintendo Bringing Classic Books to DS Handheld
Think your kids aren't getting enough culture when they're squinting away at Mario or Donkey Kong on long car rides? Rather they got to know Romeo or Macbeth? Despite being the source of those digital distractions, Nintendo apparently shares your opinion, creating a new bundle of 100 classic books for its DS handheld in the hopes of getting more kids to read.

The collection, which as of now is only slated for release in the U.K., comes in partnership with publisher Harper Collins. It will contain works from Shakespeare, Dickens, and Jane Austin, among others. The console's touch functionality will be used to allow gamers to turn the page with a sweep of the finger, but we're inclined to think that the tiny 3-inch screens will not be particularly well-suited for reading text. While the screens on Amazon's Kindle or Sony's Reader are perfect for long stares as you absorb chapter after chapter, the DS's LCDs aren't quite so readable. Still, if it gets your kids into the classics a little younger, it's worth a shot. [From: Telegraph.co.uk]

Computers, Google

Google to E-Publish Out-of-Print Books Online

Google Strikes Deal to Sell Out of Print Books Online
Google Book Search, while an impressive tool, has faced numerous roadblocks and lawsuits that have prevented it from reaching its full potential. Many books that have no existing copyright are available from the search giant's library, as are textbooks from many universities.

Things may finally be turning around for the company, which has a stated goal to index all of the knowledge in the world. Last month, Google settled its long-standing lawsuit with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers for $125 million. Now, Google has struck a deal to offer electronic versions of copyrighted books that are out of print.

This means that the contents of the New York Times Best Seller List still won't be available for free perusal via Google, but many hard-to-find books that have fallen out of print will once again be available for sale.

The landmark deal is still awaiting approval from the courts, but seemingly overnight Google Book Search has gone from a good (if naive) idea, to what Neill Denny (editor of trade publication The Bookseller) called the largest bookstore in the world. [From: New York Times]

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