Digital textbooks open a new chapter

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18 October 2011 Last updated at 23:00 GMT By Gary Eason  ­­­­­­ South Korea's classrooms will be switched to digital textbooks over the next four years South Korea, one of the world's highest-rated education systems, aims to consolidate its position by digitising its entire curriculum.

By 2015, it wants to be able to deliver all its curriculum materials in a digital form through computers. The information that would once have been in paper textbooks will be delivered on screen.

South Korea's Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Ju-Ho Lee, said that his department was preparing a promotion strategy for "Smart Education", focusing on customised learning and teaching.

The project, launched during the summer, will involve wireless networks in all schools to allow students to learn "whenever and wherever", as well as an education information system that can run in a variety of devices including PCs, laptops, tablets and internet-connected TVs.

He said the government would support an open content market containing a variety of learning materials, aimed at keeping up quality while keeping down costs.

"Smart Education will change how we perceive textbooks," said Mr Lee.

"The transfer from the traditional paper textbooks to digital textbooks will allow students to leave behind their heavy backpacks and explore the world beyond the classroom."

Tech-friendly teenagers

The intended benefits include extending the choice of subjects for students in rural areas who previously have lacked specialist teachers and to make it easier for pupils to study from home.

South Korea's teenagers should be particularly receptive to such educational technology.

Continue reading the main story South Korea is second in global rankings for reading, fourth for maths and fifth for scienceFamily spending on education is the highest in the world, as a proportion of household incomeIt has been among the most improved education systems in the world. In 1945, 78% of the population were illiterate. It now outperforms all European countries and the US at readingIn the 1980s, South Korea banned private tutoringThis year it introduced a ban on corporal punishmentAn Organisation for Economic Co-ordination and Development (OECD) international assessment found that 15-year-olds in South Korea were the most competent users of digital technologies in a survey of 16 developed countries.

They were best at evaluating information on the internet, assessing its credibility and navigating web pages.

South Korea's pre-eminence has not come about by chance.

Unesco has documented the way that South Korea has carefully controlled the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in education.

The government has understood the importance of having formal standards, so that systems can work with each other and quality can be assured.

The United States, alarmed by its relative international educational decline, is now also increasing the resources it devotes to digital learning.

But its move appears to be an acknowledgement of a lack of joined-up thinking in the past.

President Barack Obama's "Digital Promise", announced last month, involves a new national centre to advance technologies that can supposedly transform teaching and learning.

The remit is "to determine quickly what is working and what is not, and transform today's fragmented learning technology market, paving the way for the widespread use of learning technologies that deliver the best results for students, parents, and teachers".

Teaching gap

"With more than 14,000 school districts, and an outdated procurement system, it's difficult for entrepreneurs to break into the market, and it's also tough to prove that their products can deliver meaningful results," the White House said.

Continue reading the main story The Indian state of Tamil Nadu is giving 6.8 million free laptops to school pupilsUruguay plans to be the first country where all school pupils are given their own laptopApple says 600 US school districts are switching to digital textbooks on iPadsAmazon has launched a rental service in the US for digital textbooks for studentsGiven the way education in the US is so highly devolved there are bound to be continuing questions over how much the initiative can achieve.

Another question is whether technology in the classroom is what really makes a difference.

A study by the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University found that digital technology in the classroom might help to engage pupils in their learning and could save schools money.

But the Achilles' heel - commonplace with educational technology - was the teachers. They felt they needed far greater training in how to integrate the resources into their lesson plans.

"The sad truth is that students can learn just as badly with a class full of computers, interactive whiteboards and mobile technology as they can with wooden desks and a chalkboard," said science and ICT teacher David Weston, founder of the consultancy Informed Education.

There might be enormous potential for software or gadgets to engage and challenge students in new and imaginative ways.

"But unless there is a focus on developing the teaching expertise to support this then you run the risk of wasting time, money and opportunity," he said.

And it may be that technology is seen as a way to achieve cost savings by - to put it crudely - replacing teachers with robots.

Digital tutor

Setting out its Digital Promise ambitions, the White House said: "For years, researchers have been working on developing educational software that is as effective as a personal tutor."

Digital Promise has been launched by US President Obama to keep up with global competitors

Preliminary results from a US military "digital tutor" project suggested the time needed to become an expert in information technology could be reduced from years to months, said the White House.

"Achieving similar results in subjects such as math would transform K-12 [primary] education." It certainly would.

And although children tend to be quicker on the uptake than their teachers where anything with a screen is involved, this cannot be taken for granted.

The OECD's study of the technology-friendliness of 15-year-olds highlighted crucial differences between printed and digital texts, with their non-linear navigation.

"Individuals who develop the skills needed to use these texts efficiently and effectively will be at an increasing advantage in accessing higher education, finding and succeeding in a well-paid job, and participating fully in society."

So policy makers must guard against creating a new "digital divide" between those who could and who could not use these new technologies, it warned.

Big Brother?

But is there a bigger, darker concern about such a centralised digital curriculum? If you put all your educational eggs in one digital basket you might hatch a monster.

An unscrupulous government could relish the fact that everything a child learns is controllable through one, easily manipulated, digital portal.

Do we trust the written word in digital books in the same way as the traditional printed editions?

Such fears have been examined in the novel, The Book, by M Clifford. The US author presents a dystopian civilization in which all information is accessed through an e-reader. The people discover that the digital content has been subtly altered by a corrupt government.

"There is something about paper that commands trust," Mr Clifford said. "And reading is very personal. A bonfire of books used to make us cringe because it represented the destruction of that trustworthy bond."

In an increasingly paperless society, we can trust the technology, but questions need to be raised when governments are involved, he says.

"The scare for me was always the subtlety. The delicate manipulation, one word at a time, to alter someone's perception of the truth.

"Not only is there a fear of changing historical record, but of tailoring someone's perspective on the world. If you think that what you are reading is authentic, then your guard is lowered and you accept it as reality."

He debunks his own dark scenario - but has doubts. "As we've seen, the world is becoming more interconnected on an individual level and so it is unlikely that factual information could be so widely altered. We are probably safe.

"But the fact that it could happen without anyone knowing is the real nail-biter."

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Divide of India's $35 trays to bridge the digital?

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The Indian government recently launched the world's cheapest tablet computer, which will be sold to students at a subsidized price. Michel Martin speaks with Columbia University Digital Media Professor Sree Sreenivasan about whether the world's largest democracy — with more than half its population living below the poverty line — can bridge the digital divide.

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MICHEL MARTIN, host: Switching gears now, we'd like to take a look at the global frontier of the digital divide. India, the country that launched the world's cheapest car, is now bringing the world's cheapest tablet computer to market. The Aakash will first be given to students, some 100,000 students, and then sold at a subsidized price of $35 each with the explicit goal of bringing technology to that nation's poor.

This is Kapil Sing (ph), India's information, technology and human resources development minister.

KABIL SIBAL: This is for all of you who are disempowered. This is for all of you who have no access. This is for all those who are marginalized.

MARTIN: It's a bold idea, but will it work? We've called on Sree Sreenivasan for his take. He's a digital media professor and dean of student affairs at the Columbia Journalism School in New York. Welcome back to the program. Thanks so much for joining us.

SREE SREENIVASAN: Great to be here.

MARTIN: So you are, if you don't mind us pointing out, of Indian heritage and you do travel there often. Can you give us a sense of how vast is the digital divide in that country?

SREENIVASAN: Well, India is a place where there are 1.2 billion people and about 100 million have access to the internet. That means that they don't all have home computers. They have access either in cyber cafes or at work and places like that, in some schools.

But what's also interesting at the same time is that there are hundreds of millions of cell phones that people are using and they use text messaging for the most part, but as those phones get more sophisticated, maybe some of that divide will be lessened. That's at least the hope and then this effort is part of that.

MARTIN: You know, countries often subsidize essential goods for political reasons as well as for the social good, you know, essential food stuffs, for example, in lots of countries are heavily subsidized. What's your sense of why this and why now?

SREENIVASAN: Well, Kabil Sibal is one of the technocrats who is helping run India and he - that's the gentleman whose voice we just heard - really believes in the importance of technology and he thinks that having the ability for Indians to be part of the digital conversation and the digital landscape is going to be very important. And so you can see there is some definitely political aspect of this, but also getting more kids online and having access, and not just kids, but others as well, having access to information is going to be very important.

But we have seen how the cell phone has changed India. Poor farmers, workers are able to use the information that the cell phone provides to find work, to find better prices for their goods, all kinds of things. So if they can do that with just SMS, maybe there's more potential with more sophisticated programs and services.

MARTIN: I was going to ask - what is the potential if first there's the device and then there's the operating system, there's the Internet access or the Wi-Fi access to actually utilize the device - is that actually available?

SREENIVASAN: Well, you know, we're talking about a country where a lot of people have, even in big cities have problems with electricity and water, and this is what a government has to kind of decide. Where do we put our resources? We have seen criticism of this already, saying, you know, throwing a bunch of computers at kids is not the answer when there's a shortage of teachers, for example.

So what we're looking at, you know - there's an expected growth of the total number of Internet connections in India. It's expected to go up from 100 million now to about 300 million in the next couple of years, but we're talking about still a slice of a much bigger country.

MARTIN: You know, this is one of the interesting dilemmas of the modern age. If you compare India to China, which people often do, and you know, 40 percent of Chinese have access to the Internet. And is this in part a kind of - how can we put this? A kind of geopolitical competition to see whether these two, you know, populous and rising countries can equalize, you know, in that way?

SREENIVASAN: Yeah. It's a comparison that's constantly made and this is one of many examples where India is lacking, when you make the comparison. But China is able to also - because it is not a democracy - be able to put, you know, emphasis on infrastructure, technology and do things that, in a country like India, which is a very messy democracy, it may not be possible to just kind of force things that might be possible in China.

MARTIN: And I'd also mention that India is also the home of the world's cheapest car, the Nano, which was also an effort to bring something that many people in the West value and consider, you know, essential to economic growth, you know, to the masses. How is that experiment going?

SREENIVASAN: Well, so far, it's a mixed situation. You know, we're talking about a $2,000 car, roughly, as a price. And what has happened with that is that there, the idea that people would jump to buy this car has not completely panned out. They have obviously been selling, but there's - Indians have a great sense of aspiration and you don't really aspire to be in the world's cheapest car if that's all it's known for. And you might say, well, maybe I can buy something that's a little bit more expensive, but it's not known as being so cheap.

So that's one of the concerns, also, people have with this laptop. I was emailing with someone who is looking at this kind of technology and saying that, you know, this is fine, but maybe for a few dollars more the computer might get better, so that might be part of something that people are considering when they decide to deal with this technology.

MARTIN: My final question in the 30 seconds we have left, how is this playing in India? Are people excited about it or do you think it's suffering from a branding problem that you've identified, which is people saying, maybe I'd kind of not want to be the cheapest, I'd like something a little bit nicer?

SREENIVASAN: As you know, also, you know, with anything that's the first version, there are going to be issues with it. Even with iPad, there were issues, so I think that it depends on which section or sector of society you're talking to, but there's certainly some excitement that the prices are coming down. That's going to be important. Whether people say this is the solution, we don't know yet.

MARTIN: All right. Sree Sreenivasan is a professor of digital media. He's also dean of student affairs at Columbia Journalism School in New York and he was kind enough to join us from the studios there. Professor Sreenivasan, thank you so much for joining us.

SREENIVASAN: My pleasure.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

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Did Steve Jobs Narrow Or Widen Digital Divide?

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Technology pioneer and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died Wednesday at age 56. Michel Martin and technology contributor Mario Armstrong look at Jobs' legacy and review tributes to him that have come from various social media platforms and all around the world.

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MICHEL MARTIN, host: Now, we'd like to take some time to remember another pioneer, one from the tech world. Steve Jobs, the cofounder of Apple Computers, died yesterday at the age of 56. He had long suffered from a rare form of pancreatic cancer.

Tributes have poured in from around the world, including on Twitter. Our senior social media strategist, Andy Carvin, sent a few our way. The Saudi Arabian women's rights activist Manal al-Sharif is a leader of the hashtag, Women to Drive Movement in Saudi Arabia. She was recently briefly imprisoned for driving. She tweeted, hashtag Steve Jobs, the man who changed our little ones and our life, RIP.

La il Gonin(ph) was one of the leaders of the Egyptian uprising, tweeted, he was truly inspiring. His company helped change the world. Goodbye, Steve Jobs. And from Bahrain, Batar Kamal(ph) said this: I dedicate our last Apple event, Geekup in Bahrain, to Steve Jobs.

To talk about his global legacy, we've called upon technology reporter Mario Armstrong. Mario, thanks for joining us once again.

MARIO ARMSTRONG: Thanks for having me in, Michel.

MARTIN: I think one of the things that we're most interested in is the question of whether Steve Jobs narrowed the digital divide or did he widen it? As we all know that his products are amazing, but they're also expensive. So what's your take on that?

ARMSTRONG: This is a true point. They believe in their products so much so that they charged a premium price for that and people found ways to acquire that technology because the devices really democratize how we could create content and how we could contribute to society. But I do think...

MARTIN: Talk more about the point you just made, though. You said that he democratized technology. Tell a little bit more about that.

ARMSTRONG: Well, because, you know, technology for communities of color has been so inaccessible for so long. Beyond the economics of it, let's just get into how you can develop and create and how that has transformed industries. In other words, we now have filmmakers that can realistically create a film. When you buy a computer, for example, you get iMovie. That program is substantial enough to create shorts and to create feature films if you wanted to.

So when you are a musician or an artist or trying to create a score for a soundtrack, you could be using Garage Band, another piece of software, or Pro Tools, which so many radio stations across the country use as the de facto standard for making and creating and editing music and sound.

MARTIN: I just want to play a short clip from Steve Jobs himself. This is from a 2005 commencement speech at Stanford. I just think it speaks to the point that you just made about his desire for people to use the technology and own it and put it to their own uses. Here it is.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED AUDIO)

STEVE JOBS: Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

MARTIN: When you think of Steve Jobs, what is it that you think you will think of the most?

ARMSTRONG: What I'm going to latch onto and use as inspiration and try to continue to keep his memory and legacy going is to embrace his mentality of innovative thought and vision and sticking to his ideals in the toughest of times. And if I could sum it up in one phrase or one word, I think it would be his quote: I want to put a ding in the universe. Now, your universe can be your family. Your universe could be your community or your nonprofit organization or your child's school or your universe can be an international business that you want to create and take over the world. I want to be able to put a ding in the universe much like Steve Jobs did.

MARTIN: Technology reporter Mario Armstrong is host of Digital Cafe on member station WYPR. He joined us from Baltimore. Mario Armstrong, thanks so much for joining us.

ARMSTRONG: Thank you, Michel.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

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Old-Fashioned Letter Writing Meets Digital Age

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In so many ways, the Internet has shoved aside old-fashioned letters, the kind written on stationery or letterhead. But lettersofnote.com serves as a bridge between the new technology and the old. Shaun Usher edits the site that's filled with correspondence written or received by people whose names you know. Michele Norris talks to Shaun Usher about gems from Marilyn Monroe, Roald Dahl and Johnny Cash.

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MELISSA BLOCK, host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

MICHELE NORRIS, host: And I'm Michele Norris.

In so many ways, the Internet has shoved aside old-fashioned letters, the kind written on stationery or letterhead. Email, texting, Twitter, Skype and social media have also overshadowed faxes, postcards and telegrams. But there's a website that serves as a bridge between the new technology and the old. It's called LettersOfNote.com.

On it, you can see and read correspondence written or received by people whose names you know: Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Charles Darwin, John F. Kennedy, and the list goes on and on.

Shaun Usher came up with the idea for LettersOfNote.com, and he joins me now from Manchester, England.

Welcome to the program.

SHAUN USHER: Thanks for having me on.

NORRIS: Where do all these letters come from? I look at the site almost every day, and I'm always amazed at the stuff that seems to come in over your transom.

USHER: The majority come in from - they're already on the Internet. I mean, there's so many archives on the Internet, but they're not very accessible to the layperson. So it's just a matter of navigating these educational websites to find the gold, as it were.

>NORRIS: Let's mine through some of this gold.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

NORRIS: Let's tick through some of the letters. I want to begin with a letter that's just so sweet. It's written by JFK, and he's asking his father for a raise.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

USHER: That's one of my favorites, actually. That was in 1927; I think he was 10 years old. You can see the effort he's put into writing it - like literally, you can see the shaky handwriting. If I could read the whole thing, if you'd like?

NORRIS: Oh, let's hear it.

USHER: (Reading) Dedicated to My Mr. J.P. Kennedy. My recent allowance is 40 cents. This I used for airplanes and other playthings of childhood. But now I'm a Scout, and I put away my childish things. Before, I would spend 20 cents of my 40 cents allowance, and in five minutes I would have empty pockets and nothing to gain, and 20 cents to lose.

When I, a Scout, I have to buy canteens, haversacks, blankets, searchligs(ph), poncho things that will last for years - and I could always use it while I can't use a chocolate marshmallow sundae with vanilla ice cream. And so, I put in my plea for a raise of 30 cents for me to buy Scout things and pay my own way more around Philly.

(Reading) John Fitzgerald Francis Kennedy.

NORRIS: And you know that he got that raise...

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

NORRIS: ...in his allowance. How can you say no?

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

USHER: He must have. You couldn't say no to that.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

NORRIS: Some of these letters take you deep inside the world of the people who wrote them, or the people who received them. I was struck by the correspondence that you have either to or written by Marilyn Monroe - and in particular, a letter that she received just after she had admitted herself for psychiatric treatment.

USHER: Yeah, there's quite a few Marilyn Monroe letters. But yeah, this particular one, Marlon Brando wrote to her, basically telling her to stay strong while she was in the institute. It's a tragic thing to read - especially now, knowing how she ended up. But that's one of the great things about this site. It's a whole range of emotions you go through, reading these letters.

NORRIS: There's also a wonderful letter about receiving champagne from a German, where you see a much more playful and coquettish Marilyn Monroe.

USHER: To be honest, I don't know much about it. It was written to a member of the German Consulate. It simply says: Dear Mr. Von Fuehlsdorff(ph) : Thank you for your champagne. It arrived. I drank it and I was gayer.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

USHER: Thanks again. My best, Marilyn Monroe. And that's it. So simple but it was just Marilyn Monroe.

NORRIS: I love the love letter from Johnny Cash to June Carter Cash.

USHER: It's beautiful.

NORRIS: Isn't that lovely?

USHER: Mmm.

NORRIS: It's a short letter that reads: You got a way with words, and a way with me as well - he writes like he's writing a song.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

NORRIS: You can almost hear him singing this.

(Reading) The fire and excitement may be gone now that we don't go out there and sing them anymore. But the ring of fire still burns around you and I, keeping our love hotter than a pepper sprout. Love, John.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

USHER: Amazing. Amazing.

NORRIS: Thanks for the Dream - what's that letter about?

USHER: Thanks for the Dream is a letter from Roald Dahl. A little girl - she'd been reading "The BFG"; it was her favorite book. And in "The BFG," they bottle up dreams. So she decided to make her own out of glitter and the little bottle and some oil. And her dad helped her to make this little bottle. And she sent it to Roald Dahl and said, here's one of my dreams for you - really lovely.

So he wrote back and he said, thanks very much for your dream. I'll go into town later tonight and blow it into the rooms of some children.

NORRIS: Yeah.

(Reading) Tonight, I shall go down to the village and blow it through the bedroom window of some sleeping child, and see if it works.

USHER: It's lovely, a perfect reply.

NORRIS: Do you do this in part to help keep the art of letter writing alive, to help people understand that it really is an art to actually write something down, as opposed to just pounding out a message via email?

USHER: Yes. But to be honest, I would be quite a hypocrite if I said that too much, because personally I've not written letters for quite a few years. The last letter I wrote was a complaint letter - not the nicest. I just haven't got the time.

But there is a glimmer of hope. I think there will always be people that will write letters. Some people will just never come around to using technology, like the Internet. But if there is a part of it that touches people in that kind of way and reminds them that letter writing is, indeed, an art and should be carried on, then that's got to be a good thing.

NORRIS: I've been talking to Shaun Usher. He's the editor of Letters of Note. That's an online archive of correspondence. He's currently compiling a book about the project.

Shaun, it's been great to talk to you. Thanks so much.

USHER: Thank you very much.

Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

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Going Digital and Clicking my fingers

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Click radio celebrates 10 years on air with the help of a live studio audience

By Bill Thompson
BBC World Service

This week Click - the BBC World Service's weekly technology programme - marks its 10th anniversary. Bill Thompson reflects on a decade of the internet on the radio.

During June and July 2001, I helped some friends in the BBC's radio science unit with 'Go Digital', a new technology programme that had been commissioned by the BBC World Service for their English language service, where it would sit with programmes on health and science as part of the broader non-news coverage.

Working with Tracey Logan, the presenter, we made some pilot programmes that were not intended to be broadcast. Fine-tuning the balance of packages, presenter introductions and conversation with the 'studio expert' or 'presenter's friend' who was supposed to turn up each week and offer commentary, background information and - where necessary - a translation of any obscure technical terminology from the interviews and reports that made up the bulk of the show.

It was a role I described as 'Well, Tracey', since after each interview or pre-recorded package she would turn to me and I'd go 'Well, Tracey', and say something I hoped was helpful.

The show was first broadcast in August 2001 and I agreed to take part in the first four or five programmes, while things bedded in, but it was made clear that once Tracey had found her feet there would be a different guest each week to provide some variety and ensure that the commentary wasn't limited to one person's perspective.

Go Digital was well-received, and celebrates its 10th anniversary this week with a special live broadcast from the Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House. Gareth Mitchell took over as presenter in 2004, it was renamed 'Digital Planet' in 2005 and became 'Click' (the radio version of the TV programme) earlier this year.

It has changed time slot and duration, had many wonderful producers (including some who may not have understood anything about computing or technology but tried very hard), moved from its original home in the basement of Bush House, and travelled the world from Nairobi to Venice.

A decade in digital

Much has changed since 2001. When we launched there was no Facebook, no YouTube and no Twitter, while Google was only three years old. The Code Red worm was attacking computers running Microsoft's IIS Web Server, and I was using a Sony Vaio laptop with 128 megabytes of memory and a massive 20 gigabyte hard drive. My mobile phone was a phone, although it did send and receive text messages.

Over the years we have covered the technology landscape, from AI to Zero-day vulnerabilities, with a lot of attention paid to progress outside the developed economies, and a constant focus on people rather than the computers, phones or networks.

The pace of change means that we are never short of topics - whether it's the use of social media to provoke political change, the challenges to our ideas of privacy, or the importance of digitally transmitted information services in transforming the lives of the world's poor and deprived.

In 2009 Click reported on the digital divides affecting Kenya's economy

It's a testament to the BBC World Service that the programme has remained a key part of the science offering, and that talking about digital technology is still seen as worth doing, but that may be because we're not really a technology programme at all.

Tracey, Gareth and I have always been more interested in the people than the technology, and we try hard to avoid simply holding up shiny toys and going 'ooh' and 'aah', even though I'm an avowed technophile.

And now we're in the midst of a revolution in human capabilities caused by the emergence of a new class of intelligence-amplifying tools - that will be as profound in their impact as the invention of stone tools, fire or print proved to be.

A smartphone and Google-equipped teenager today, able to tap into much of the world's knowledge and their entire social network without a thought, is a very different person to me at 18, and they are going to build a different world to live in.

I hope that we get to report on it, for at least a little while longer.

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TECHNOLOGY, Lego Combines the Digital and Physical in iPhone Game

Danish toy company Lego is pushing its toys into the mobile age with the Life of George iPhone app, which combines a digital and physical gaming experience.
The new Lego game consists of a free iPhone app, a set of bricks and a play mat that acts as a green screen. The goal is to build the image shown on the screen as fast as possible in real life. When players finish building the model they have to take a photo of the structure with their iPhone or iPod Touch to see if they succeeded. The app will calculate a score based on accuracy and speed.
Life of George is a 12-level game built around the Lego character George, who is a software engineer by day and an adventurer by night. Each level consists of 10 models and the game can be played alone or against a competitor. There is also a mode called "my life" that allows players to come up with their own designs. The self made models can be stored in the app's virtual scrapbook.
The company was looking for "a fun way to combine both physical and virtual play into one product," Paal Smith-Meyer, head of new business at Lego, explained in a statement. George has his own Facebook page where gamers can follow his endeavors and pick up hints to new game levels and app updates.
The game is exclusively sold in the U.S. and will remain available on iOS for now. Apps for other mobile OSes are likely to appear in the future, said Amanda Santoro, assistant brand relations manager at Lego. She could not say if there are any other Lego app games planned.
Life of George hits the shelves of Lego stores at Oct. 1 and will also be available online. The set costs $22.99.

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Amazon in talks to launch the digital library of the book: WSJ

Ben VanderWerp demonstrates the capabilities of a nook e-reader for a client in a Barnes and Noble store in Boston, March 18, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder

NEW YORK | Sun 8:19 pm EST September 11, 2011

NEW YORK (Reuters)-the Amazon.com Inc is in talks with publishers of books on the launch of a media library service similar to Netflix Inc for tablets and other digital books, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

Seattle-based Amazon, which makes the popular Kindle electronic reader, is also expected to release a tablet to rival Apple iPad in the coming weeks, reported the newspaper.

On a proposal of a digital media library, customers would pay an annual fee to access a content library, reported the newspaper, citing people familiar with the matter.

It is unclear how much traction given the talks, reported the newspaper, citing people familiar with the matter.

Several unnamed publishing executives said they are not enthusiastic about the idea because it would be possible to reduce the value of books and can stretch their relationships with other retailers that sell his books, reported the newspaper.

An Amazon spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

(Reports by Nadia Damouni; Edited by Leslie Adler)

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