NYT: E-Textbooks Get a Lift From Publishers

[kjk]

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/0...om-publishers/

Two major publishers are trying a new tactic. They have invested in Inkling, a company that makes interactive textbooks available on the iPad. They have also agreed to make dozens of their titles available on Inkling’s service.

The investment by Pearson and McGraw-Hill, announced on Wednesday, is a major step for Inkling, a company founded in 2009. Inkling sells interactive textbooks that incorporate audio, video and interactive quizzes.

More here:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/...-breakthrough/

Inkling's app, which for now works only on the iPad, is the college textbook you wish you had in college. It's all digital but is more than a copy of a textbook page slapped onto a flat screen. The pages of the book scroll in a way that is optimized for a tablet, yet a feature allows the student to "jump to" a specific page number if, say, the professor says to do so. Interactive elements are seamlessly woven into the educational experience. In the venerable "Music: An Appreciation" by Roger Kamien, for example, a section on Beethoven allows the reader to listen to a symphony without leaving the text. While studying a graphic of the eyeball in Chapter 12 (on vision) in "Ganong's Review of Medical Physiology," a standard for medical students, the Inkling app allows the reader to use iPad's multi-touch functions to zoom in and see every last capillary.

[RainingLemur]

Now THIS is something I would love to see more of. This would've been incredible to have in some classes back in school. Hopefully, it makes its way onto other platforms, and not just iOS/iPad.

[MrsJoseph]

I'm just waiting...I'm sure they'll all be $200+ and short term rentals.

[SolRaven]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

I'm just waiting...I'm sure they'll all be $200+ and short term rentals.

The prices seem about the same as books, but you own them and unlike reg. books, they offer much more. I like the d/l a chapter option as well. I would definitely download a chapter on a subject that I was having trouble understanding, especially if they don't have my book available yet. Like if I was was having a problem visualizing and remembering cell structure. I could download a chapter on cell structure from a book other than the one I was assigned and have an interactive experience with it.

Inkling Anatomy chapter demo

[Giggleton]

To each their own, I like my walls of text thank you very much.

[wyndslash]

ooh this sounds like fun. but using this would require i have an ipad...which i do not :P