1. Apple's iPad helped students score 23% higher on exams
2. New Jersey firefighters sworn in on iPad Bible app
3. Why Japanese readers don't like e-books
Apple's iPad helped students score 23% higher on exams
A report by Daniel Eran Dilger in AppleInsider say, "After launching a new iMedEd initiative built around Apple's iPad, the University of California at Irvine reports that students in the program have now scored "an average of 23 percent higher on their national exams" than previous classes, "despite having similar incoming GPAs and MCAT scores."
Wow! This is better than those useless 'brain enhancements tablets' parents spend so much money on. Under this Apple Distinguished Program, "incoming UC Irvine medical students receive iPads that provide digital copies of all textbooks, along with access to podcasts of all lectures and other instructional materials. The iPads also provide secure access to patient records and recorded data from "digital stethoscopes, bedside diagnostic ultrasound units and a variety of other medical devices."
Guess it makes a lot of sense. Students can listen to a lecture (especially a bad one) several times at home to understand what he or she is saying. (Students can even skip classed entirely and listen to the lectures!) How I wish I had them when I was in Engineering school.)
New Jersey firefighters sworn in on iPad Bible app
From another AppleInsider report. According to an NBC 40 newscast, officials at the Atlantic City Fire Department had scheduled a ceremony to promote several firefightes to Battalion Chief and Fire Captain, but upon commencing the proceedings they noticed that no one had a bible. One person, however, had an iPad, and the owner pulled up -- or downloaded -- a bible app. The firefighters then swore their oaths, each placing his hand on the iPad with the bible app open.
God moves in mysterious ways.
Why Japanese readers don't like e-books
A CNN Money report. The Japanese have always been regarded as a people living on the cutting-edge of technology. Sci-fi writer William Gibson considered Japan as a country with a "default-setting-for-the future".
The report says, "Japanese consumers still seem dead set against adopting e-books, showing less interest in them than even the print-worshipping French. According to an R.R. Bowker study, 72% of Japanese consumers said they had not tried e-books and did not want to try them. That compares with 66% of French respondents polled. Overall adoption rates in Japan remain the lowest in the developed world. Only 8% of Japanese readers have downloaded and paid for an e-book compared with 20% in the US."
Tokyo based e-publisher Robin Birtle notes, "The Japanese do like to have something physical."
Boy, does the Luddite in me want to cheer. E-books are such poor second cousins.
