Technology

For an entire school year Hillsborough, New Jersey, educators undertook an experiment, asking: Is the iPad really the best device for interactive learning?

It's a question that has been on many minds since 2010, when Apple released the iPad and schools began experimenting with it. The devices came along at a time when many school reformers were advocating to replace textbooks with online curricula and add creative apps to lessons. Some teachers welcomed the shift, which allowed their students to replace old poster-board presentations with narrated screencasts

Don't look now, but textbook publishers are trying to become software companies. And tech startups are trying to outmaneuver these giants to win the future of educational content and tools. It's one of the big trends in edtech and digital media.

Indeed, digital publishing has "fundamentally changed every aspect of what we are doing with our content," says Michael Hansen, the CEO of Cengage Learning, an education publisher that recently moved headquarters from Connecticut to Boston, while also opening a new office in techie-rich San Francisco.

After nearly 2 years of waiting and being told the release was just around the corner, the E-ink Smartphone is finally about to arrive. The Polish ereader distributor Arta Tech revealed on Wednesday that they have put the Midia InkPhone up for pre-order. Based on the Onyx E-ink smartphone some of us have been lusting after for the past 21 months, the InkPhone sports a 4.3″ E-ink screen.

The retail price is 121 euros plus tax and shipping, and Arta Tech expects to ship after 4 July.

We're not even going to suggest that you pretend to act surprised, but Amazon on Wednesday finally took the wraps off of one of the worst kept secrets in the industry: the Fire Phone. The phone has been in development for years and rumors have been bouncing around since 2012. Then, BGR blew the lid off the handset beginning in April, when we gave the world its first look at the device and reported several key specs.

Starting with courses for nursing and health professions students, Elsevier will use Knewton's infrastructure to power personalized digital solutions that continuously adjust to each individual's unique learning needs. "Today, the demand for health and medical professionals around the world is growing rapidly, and higher education institutions need the best materials to help students prepare for careers in the health industry," John Danaher, President, Elsevier Education, said in a statement. "Our Knewton-powered solutions will help transform health science education for professors and students, inside and outside the classroom.

Hold the phone: Amazon wants to burrow even deeper into your life.

The retailer is expected to introduce a smartphone on Wednesday at an event in Seattle, a long-rumored project that aims to close any remaining gap between the impulse to buy and the completed act.

Amazon has spent the last several years furiously investing billions of dollars on multiple fronts: constructing warehouses all over the country to deliver goods as fast as possible, building devices as varied as tablets and set-top boxes, and creating and licensing entertainment to stock those devices.

Although much of BookExpo America's discourse seemed colored by the ongoing Amazon-Hachette dispute, there were a number of events that exuded optimism and excitement for the future. Among these was the Startup Challenge, a competition that highlighted the innovation of 18 startups hoping to make their mark on the publishing industry.

Amazon.com is holding an event in Seattle later this month where it could reveal its long-awaited smartphone, possibly with a 3D interface.

The e-commerce giant is inviting press and customers to an event June 18 in its hometown of Seattle for a "new device unveiling." In a video on its site, actors are seen surprisingly reacting to something held off-screen in their hands.

The Book Business Buyer's Guide is a technology primer for book publishers: It's not meant to be comprehensive but rather offer a reference on significant and emerging technology that is paving the way for the future of the book industry. The guide is broken down into four major categories that increasingly require publishers' attention: Ebook & App Solutions, Digital Conversion & Workflow Services, Marketing Automation & Analytics Tools, and Ecommerce Solutoins.

irebrand Technologies, a leading publishing industry technology services company, announced today that its eBook Architects team has released a new EPUB quality assurance tool, FlightDeck, into a 2-month open beta. FlightDeck gives publishers and authors clear and actionable information on the quality and salability of their EPUB 2 and EPUB 3 files.