Tag: Amazon

Posted on

Ecuador must reverse its illegal dissolution of Fundación Pachamama

On Dec. 4, the government of Ecuador arbitrarily dissolved the non-profit organization Fundación Pachamama, the Ecuadorean contingent from the San Francisco-based Pachamama Alliance. Pachamama, which looks to give voice to indigenous communities whose ancestral homelands are being devastated or laid waste by industrial exploitation, has been supportive of the Achuar people and their non-violent resistance against expanded oil drilling in virgin Amazon rainforest.

The government of Ecuador is now mired in what appears to be yet another round of dealmaking, which would see the government handing over vast swaths of protected land to oil drilling and other forms of fossil fuel exploitation. The record, to date, is atrocious: Ecuador is possibly home to the worst planned environmental disaster in world history.

Continue reading “Ecuador must reverse its illegal dissolution of Fundación Pachamama”

Posted on

Borders Closure is Green Light for Bookstore Innovation

Borders Books and Music was a place of pilgrimage for book lovers, music lovers and people who loved to sit with coffee and read, chat or peruse magazines they might or might not buy. It has played a vital role in the distribution of books of both wide and narrow market interest, and has driven the cathedral-warehouse paradigm of big bookstore chains. Its failure, however, opens the field for more innovative, more reader-friendly experiments in book selling.

Some have argued that Barnes and Noble was changed by its competition with Borders. Barnes and Noble has long been a leader in the big bookstore sector. But Borders, in many places, went bigger. It stocked everything that might fit into the mainstream book, magazine and music market, and was aggressive in putting full-size cafes in its bookstores, where patrons could sit and read books, whether they bought them or not. Continue reading “Borders Closure is Green Light for Bookstore Innovation”

Posted on

Page-perfect Touchscreen e-Reader will Revolutionize Mobile Computing

Media_httpwwwcasavari_mffmq

The Amazon Kindle is a nice device, and it handles its job well, but it is just a very clumsy start to what will be a technological convergence few in mainstream media (and publishing) are anticipating, though it may not be far off. The page-perfect, for lack of a better term, e-reading device will make portable electronic reading easier and more comfortable than ever, packing huge amounts of data, as well as wireless downloading and even browsing capability, into an ultrathin tablet touchscreen.

The device may, after one or two initial iterations, come to have the computing power of today’s less expensive laptop computers, and will capitalize on the great discoveries in user-interface technology that have emerged from the introduction of the iPhone into the mainstream consumer market.

Continue reading “Page-perfect Touchscreen e-Reader will Revolutionize Mobile Computing”