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Wednesday, January 31, 2007

What Vista Wrought

Okay, I'll be getting my copy of Windows Vista soon -- on a new tablet PC and as a free upgrade to my desktop PC. And I've been going on and on about the tablet PC advances...but there's something else that I think most of us will find interesting.

Windows Presentation Foundation. Without getting technical (cause I can't), it means more fluid apps and better graphic control. And that's led to a couple fascinating eBook advances -- both of which are also available on Windows XP!

First, there's The New York Times Reader -- a free-flowing newspaper reader that updates itself in the background and makes reading on a computer screen not only practical, but fun.

The second is even cooler -- I saw a demo a while back, but it looks like it's now available. I'm gonna paste in the info I found on www.gottabemobile.com, the premier tablet PC site on the net!

 

A new book reader - Turning The Pages 2.0

- Rob Bushway

If you enjoy the New York Times reader, a Windows Presentation Foundation application, you are really, really going to enjoy this new WPF application  from the British Library - Turning the Pages 2.0. It'll run natively in Vista on the browser if your computer is premium ready. If you have XP, you'll need to install the application.

I just started playing with it and it is an awesome way to look at some ancient and historical books. Bill Gates demoed Turning the Pages 2.0 yesterday with his personal collection of Leonardo Di Vinci's notebook Codex Leicester. His collection is offered in Turning the Pages 2.0 as well as the Codex Arundel.

From PCPro.uk:

Researchers, academics, students and historians will soon have access to some of the most ancient and fragile historical documents and books hidden away in Britain's biggest and most important library.

The British Library has demonstrated a digital book application called Turning the Pages 2.0, that it has developed to run on Windows Vista, taking advantage of the enhanced 3D graphics capabilities of the new operating system.

The application can provide readers with a similar experience to reading a traditional and often fragile book. The book application contains exact scans of historical books and documents such as the Magna Carta.

'For us the real bonus is the simplification of the digitisation and the presentation of the books. We can now accelerate our plans to offer digital access to our books - it is a major step forward for the British Library and it is a real opportunity to transform the way people interact with historical material.' said Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library speaking to IT PRO at the UK launch of Windows Vista and Office.

Thanks for the link, Loren.

2 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I was so upset today. I went to pick up my new computer, with vista of course, and found out that part of my order had been stolen from the store and I couldn't pick anything up. I'm looking forward to exploring it's new capabalities. The reader stuff sounds great.

Sidney said...

I still don't have Vista fever. I was talking to a friend who said he was going to wait around until about Service Pack 2 to make a transition, but the reader capabilities really sound exciting.

That may be the first symptom for which a new operating system is the only cure.

It will be interesting to see the long-term impact on our reading behavior.

Thanks for the update, Cliff.

Charles, sorry to hear about the theft, I wondered why you hadn't said anything about your new computer yet. May the wait pass quickly.

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