New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

Apple’s textbooks – too cool for school?

.ibooks is Apple’s proprietary ebook format based on the EPUB standard, created with the free iBook Author layout software for publishing ebooks. Due to some dissimilarities between CSS tags used in the iBooks format file, it isn’t compatible with...

By Vicentiu Dinga on 03/04/13 Comments Off

EPUB – A Book Pirate’s Go-To Format

EPUB, short for “electronic publication”, is a free and open e-book standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It was initially developed in 2007 as a way to streamline digital publishing. What the IDPF didn’t consider back then, is the...

By Bozhan Chipev on 03/03/13 Comments Off

School is Cool: iPad’s in classrooms

“It was absurd (…) that American classrooms were still based on teachers standing at a board and using textbooks. All books, learning materials, and assessments should be digital and interactive (…).” (Isaacson,2011, p. 264) This is a quote from...

By Jeroen Rademakers on 10/17/12 5

App Review: The Fancy

“Fancy is part store, blog, magazine and wishlist. It’s a place to discover great stuff, to curate a collection of things you love, to get updates on your favorite brands and stores and to share your discoveries. We built...

By Jeroen Rademakers on 10/03/12 Comments Off

iPad for dinner?

The iPad is an all purpose tool. It is ideal to surf on the Internet, play games or other entertainment purposes. However, Apple’s Tablet PC is also capturing more and more restaurants all over the world as an interactive...

By Jesse Oyegbesan on 10/31/11 1

A corporate view on mobile app development – interview with BM&FBOVESPA’s Web Projects Coordinator, João Magalhães Lima.

BM&FBOVESPA is the Brazilian stock exchange, and one of the largest in the world. Headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil, it has offices in Rio de Janeiro, New York, Shanghai and London. João Magalhães Lima is the Web Projects Coordinator...

By Daniel Luiz dos Santos on 10/31/11 Comments Off

How to make beautiful music (audibly & visually) without being a musician

Composing and representing music visually has traditionally been through music notation. Using a 5 lined “staff” or “stave” as a framework, black circles with lines are drawn to represent pitch and length of notes with other markings such as...

By Janice Wong on 05/10/11 1

Why the iPad will change the e-reader

E-readers are on the market for a while but the digital version of the book never got really popular. Readers were slow, dull, and not sexy at all. The image of the e-reader changed a couple of months ago...

By Mathijs Voordenberg on 10/21/10 3

Alice in iPad, the New Wonderland.

Will fairy tales live happily ever after in the digital publishing era? Once upon a time, electronic signatures didn’t designate us as individuals, passwords didn’t determine if we would be denied or not the access in data and emoticons...

By Ilektra Pavlaki on 10/20/10 Comments Off

A Clay Tablet Is Not a Book

Mcluhan believed the medium to be the message. When we are trying to understand the effects of the medium, we ought to analyze the medium. And when the medium changes, the message is bound to transform. Who’s utopian vision...

By Mareline Heijman on 10/19/10 Comments Off

Booklistening

Late November this year Folium Partners, LLC will launch the world’s first automated audiobook and app-creation service under the name ModernBookFactory.com. The service will give the opportunity to independent digital publishers, authors and copyright owners to upload their manuscripts,...

By Jidi Guo on 10/18/10 1

E-books Should Take a Page Out of The Internet

Being a student of New Media, people I know who are less involved in the world of new media sometimes turn to me with questions on the latest technological developments that are being covered in the news. As if...

By Erik van Bemmelen on 10/18/10 4

Wired on Wired

Caution: this article is not meant for people who don’t like Wired. Offline: The Magazine I am and always have been a big fan of Wired. I like their “Californian Ideology”, their almost child-like enthusiasm and optimistic view on...

By Sander Jansma on 10/18/10 3

The BeBook Blues

Last years have been devout to digital publishing and the e-readers. The media made it seem that it was the new big thing and even my mother was considering an iPad. Because I was always annoyed by the enormous...

By Fei An Tjan on 10/18/10 Comments Off

Digital Comics: Not as Invincible as They Could Be

As a Toronto born comic book fan, I’ve probably visited my local comic book shop, Cyber City Comix, once a week for the last fifteen years. Every Wednesday I would go by and pick up the latest issues of...

By Ronen Shay on 10/18/10 Comments Off

Electronic Paper to the Rescue!

Digital publishing is trying to replace centuries of ink printed publishing, however many people are still skeptical to this idea of digital publishing, and remain loyal to the ‘old’ book, mostly because they...

By Bob Nefkens on 10/17/10 1

iPad Challenges Authentic Bed Time Stories

When I saw my little niece getting read aloud by my uncle’s iPad, I wondered how this could affect the way she is being raised. If iPads and other digital devises take over the task of parents, would it...

By Jorien De Wandeler on 10/17/10 Comments Off

Will our gadgets ever really converge?

Yo dawg, I heard you like e-mail, so we put e-mail on your Macbook, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, so you can e-mail while you e-mail! Substitute the word e-mail with, music, movies, chat, e-reading, calling and video recording,...

By Cendy Calis on 10/17/10 Comments Off

iPad vs. e-reader

Since 13 juli in the Netherlands the battle between the long expected iPad and several e-readers has started. But what are actually the downsides of the iPad as an e-reader or the downsides of an e-reader as an iPad?...

By Xander Stolwijk on 10/17/10 2

If it Looks Like a Book, and Reads Like a Book, is it a Book?

The death of the book has been foreseen: Several sources have predicted the demise of the book as we know it, like a modern Nostradamus. However, this is not the first time in history that we have heard this...

By Marte Lindstrom on 10/17/10 2

Out with the bookcase: More living space, even more books!

Let me tell you a story about my sister. Isn’t that a good introduction to a blog, share a story with complete strangers online involving private family matters? Though she may not like it, I won’t give her name...

By Hans Terpstra on 10/16/10 3

E-readers and e-books for education

Firstly, I need to say that I love to read and I love technology. So isn’t an e-reader the perfect combination of both? Isn’t it the perfect compromise between the small screen of an iPhone or iPod Touch and...

By Anne Lukas on 10/16/10 7

How do you like them Apples?

Apple is back from the dead. How does Apple try to get on top of Microsoft? How do they take this advertising war and how are they promoting...

By Frank Molenaar on 09/12/10 5

Remediation: Will new media eat older media alive?

In their book Remediation Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin argue that new visual media achieve cultural significance by refashioning earlier media. New media define themselves in relationship to older media. Remediation operates in two directions: older media tries...

By Suzanne Schram on 09/04/10 3