Mike McEnaney spent nearly 10 years working as both an editor and a publisher of B2B photography and digital photography magazines for North American Publishing Company (NAPCO), the same organization that owns and operates both TeleRead and the Technology Tell network of websites. Very recently, though, McEnaney struck out on his own. And somehow, along with fellow journalist Greg Scoblete, he has already managed to launch Your Digital Life, a website about the digital photography revolution. McEnaney and Scoblete's latest project, however, is an e-book, also about the world of digi-photography. From Fleeting to Forever: Enjoying & Preserving Your Digital Photos and Videos, as...

I wrote last year about a theory I had, namely that digitization was enabling a more minimalist lifestyle for people who wouldn't otherwise be minimalist. I could still have my books, music and movies, but they wouldn't take up space anymore. Well, I'm doing my annual March break spring cleaning this week, and I've found that a recent addition to my tech arsenal has enabled me to take it one step further. The tool? An iPhone 5 with a scanner-quality built-in camera, and the free Evernote app Evernote is my brilliant new discovery, and to my delight, I just found a 'doc scanner'...

I wrote a few weeks ago about the health unit I'm doing with my Grade 2 class, exploring technology and how we can use it safely in our lives. Well, our second lesson was delayed by a snow day, so I've only now gotten around to lesson two, and it was a doozy! In our previous class, we did some brainstorming about what sorts of technology the kids use at home. For homework, I had them keep a log for two days—a school day and a weekend day. In this week's lesson, the first thing we did was tabulate the results. The students averaged...

As my school's technology coordinator, part of my job is to explore the different ways our students use technology, and how that's working for us. Are there tools we are under-utilizing? Tools we are over-utilizing? Are there concerns parents have over how their kids are interacting with technology on a daily basis? I learned recently, not to my surprise, that the answer to the latter question was a resounding yes. Children are exposed to so much technology these days, and it is so compelling for them. How can we make sure they're using it responsibly? Most of my students have parents who...

Fresh off the heels of CES and the Polaroid Kids Tablet and the iThis and the iThat, I have a confession to make about technology in education. And here it is: We actually don't need any more technology. We don't, really! That might be a strange thing to say in this age of tech abundance, but the truth is, what we need right now is better content, not better gizmos to run them on. Let's do a roundup of the gadgets currently on hand in my school: Computer Lab This gets used—a lot—by teachers doing their prep. The older grades do have allotted...

An interesting article in The Toronto Star looks at young urbans who are embracing more minimalist lifestyles by cutting clutter and consumption in favor of more experience-based lives. The article points to several factors underlying this trend including health, economic factors and 'the disposal nature of fast fashion and cheap electronics.' But it fails to fully explore what the digital revolution has really done for the aspiring minimalist, and that's 'enable them to have all the stuff they want without requiring physical real estate for it to inhabit.' My Beloved and I lead a pretty simple life. We work; we relax at...

One of the funniest jokes in the “Internet Helpdesk” sketch by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie comes when the frustrated tech support staffer asks to speak to his client’s 9-year-old daughter, and proceeds to deliver in-depth instructions loaded with IT terminology—which the kid apparently completely understands. It’s a well-known cliché that kids are always more adept at using new technology than their parents, probably dating back to the era when all the cool cavekids were going around on wheels while all the adult cavemen were scratching their heads in confusion over just how those darned round things worked. ...

Is the youngest generation going to grow up thinking of books as digital objects first, and print relics a distant second? That's what Shane Richmond, the Head of Technology (Editorial) at the Telegraph, thinks. In an editorial published today he argues that print can't compete with digital when it comes to search, annotation and portability: My daughter’s generation will probably have ebook textbooks. They will never experience dog-eared, vandalised, outdated school books, shared one-between-two. They will enjoy books that are enhanced with video, interactive graphics and picture galleries. And they will see these things are the norm. Printed books will be...

Here's the first in a three part series from The Boston Globe about the evolution of text, from illuminated manuscripts to the latest thriller on a Nook Color. Part one imagines what the reading experience was like in previous eras, to set the stage for a forthcoming discussion of digital publishing and the modern reading experience; expect a comparison of attention spans then and now, as well as questions about how meaningful any modern work can be if people no longer treat reading as a contemplative event (assuming that's the case). As the screen overtakes the solid page, and the ground...

I know this is about a month old, but I only found it just now and the subject matter is really rather timeless. In January, the Technologizer had a great article looking at 15 inventions or ideas, mostly media-related, that were decades ahead of their time. The title of the piece, “Mr. Edison’s Kindle,” refers to Edison’s 1911 idea that books might one day be printed on hyper-thin, extremely durable sheets of nickel rather than paper. Today, of course, we have e-books that weigh even less per page. Other ideas include the 1928 “Telenewspaper and Electric Writer”...

Ars Technica has a report on a new form of e-paper that could offer the same low power consumption rate as the e-ink used in current e-readers, but at a much higher refresh rate and better screen reflectiveness. Gamma Dynamics’s e-paper screen uses layers of oil and pigment that can be induced to change places through an electrical voltage. It could offer a refresh rate of 50Hz, and possibly color eventually. (At the moment it works best in grayscale.) The screen will reflect 75% of ambient light, rather than the 40% of e-ink or 30% of electrowetting, making...

Back in January, I blogged on my personal journal about how “even in the information age, nothing beats getting carded.” I observed at the time that even in this age of digital bits freely flowing back and forth, when so many other paper forms of communication are beginning to be endangered by e-quivalents, and ten years after the Palm’s infrared beaming was supposed to supersede it, the humble business card continues to be extremely useful. Now the Washington Post has taken notice of the phenomenon, with an in-depth look at how business cards are still being used today....