Open source build your own robot

Meccano, the French toy manufacturer, has announced an open source, build your own robot project. Details here. As far as I can tell from the website, it isn’t yet available to buy.

I havent had a play with a real one, but I am excited. A robot you can build and adapt, using open source software (which i guess reflects the nature of Meccano, which is a bunch of pieces which can be assembled and re-assembled in any way you can imagine – similar to Lego for the unfamiliar), is a big deal in my world.

There are two versions of the robot, I link above to the larger one of the two. The massive social change around a robot in every home is coming and while the Honda Asimo is the early runner, there are so many players in this arena it is certainly unclear who will end up being the Microsoft, Google, Amazon or Apple of this brave new world.

#meccanoid

 

 

Digital publishing – price is stalling the revolution

Digital publishing should be leading a revolution in publishing bringing great books to the masses – but this is stalling due to price.

Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin, introduced paperback novels in 1935 with the intention that books should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes.

I don’t buy cigarettes, but my friend Google tells me in the UK they cost a bit less than £6.50 for a pack of 20.

Second on the Amazon best selling book as I write is by Bradley Wiggins, the paperback costs £7.19 from Amazon (RRP £7.99)  while the Kindle edition costs £6.29 (and the reason I have selected 2nd on the best seller list is because first doesnt appear to have a Kindle edition thanks Jamie Oliver)

So the paperback costs more than the cigarettes, while the digital edition costs marginally less than they do.

Let’s think about this for a minute – the difference between a paperback and the Kindle edition is 90p.

That 90p must account for the cost of printing, the cost of paper, the cost of shipping, the cost of storage and possibly other costs I am not factoring in. And bearing in mind publishers sell to retailers at least 50% discount for paper books, then we should be looking at 45p as being the cost of each of those things.

While the Kindle edition is some data uploaded to Amazon who then download it after the customer purchases. Quite often the data is a couple of megabits which if it costs anything at all to store and transmit, cannot be more than a few pence.

So why does a couple of MBs of data cost not much less than a paperback (with all the costs of printing, transporting and storing) ????

I don’t know what is going on in the offices of big publishing houses across the planet, so I hesitate to say this is all about profiteering – they may have a legitimate reason – which I would really like to hear (feel free to comment to explain yourself if you work at a big publishing house).

However, what I do know is I have four books available on Amazon* – three are almost out of print as paperbacks (and the publisher doesn’t plan to print anymore as they will be available forever on Kindle) – but all are available in Kindle.

The paperback prices are in the range you would expect as compared to books from other publishing houses. But, the Kindle editions all retail at £1.92 (which is based on the US price of $2.99 which I understand is the minimum price you can put on a Kindle book). 

I mention the prices of my books primarily to make the point I am practicing what I am preaching (and if Amazon removes their minimum price I think they would go down again – publishing to a literate world should be about volume of sales not price per unit – the industry values best sellers (not highest priced sellers) after all.

Market forces will win out and the big publishing houses will flourish or not in the digital era. But keeping prices more or less the same for paper objects compared to couple of MBs downloads is probably not sustainable – look at what Apple has done to CDs with iTunes at 79p a track. Look at what Netflix and others are doing to movie and box set DVD sales.

The digital revolution is here and if the old publishers cannot change the price then new ones who will change the cost and the business model to compete will rise up and take their place – it is how the market works.

 

*My books available on Kindle:

The Joy of Ex

Fragments

UHF Shadow

The Great Wide Open

The web is forever

I found this page while Googling a while back.

I kind of like it, as it feels like a really private frozen moment in someone’s life. Maybe they have forgotten the page is there… I don’t know.

What it reminds me is what we put online is permanent – apparently if you try to stop your Facebook account and then log back into an account you think you have deleted it is still there, frozen in time, like the page I link to. (someone I know gave up on Facebook and then went back to discover his pages mothballed rather than deleted).

 

Google doing good…

This is an interesting article about what Google are doing for the good of mankind.

I heard about its work to tackle flu pandamics too.

But, if they can use Google trends to predict the spread of disease, how are they harnessing this knowledge of interpreting search terms to sell me stuff I neither want nor need.

 

Robot space craft flies itself to ISS

An unmanned (robot) spacecraft, named Johannes Kepler, has completed an eight-day mission to fly itself from Earth to the International Space Station, docking itself accurately.

If we have robots that can do that, how long before the Google cars are out and about on our roads?

The rise of ebooks

Was sent this link about the rise of ebooks and its effect on Google search…

Google Books has landed

The publishing game has changed this week.

Google launched its rival to Amazon on Monday.

Google tends to be a game changer in whatever it does.

An indepth look at what has happened can be found in this article.

Only time will tell exactly what this means for ebooks and publishing.

Watch this space I guess…

More about those robots

The world is changing and what we have seen in sci-fi movies will become reality soon enough.

How many times have we seen on-screen cars which drive themselves?

Well our friends at Google have been experimenting with one on the roads of California.

I have mentioned robots before and how they are set to change our lives for the better – in ways beyond which cars / phones / PCs and the internet have already.

When my solar-powered car will drive me about and I can read or sleep en route I will be a happy man.

Right Google, what about a teleport?

The web and real life converge

Imagine a world where you approach a landmark and its local webpage pops up in front of you (broadcast from its local server) explaining the history of the place, outlining key facts and generally being your local tourist guide.

There is also a visitors book page where you can read what others have said and leave your own message – either by voice or thru the kep pad of your mobile device (cell phone / laptop / iPad – like device).

Buildings will have their own local pages, telling you what their function is, what historic value they have, where the main entrance is, who built it, where the baby change facilities are, what phone number to use to call in.

You’ll also be able to join its Facebook page, subscribe to its Twitter feed. If you are in a shopping mall, the stores will be able to give you details about their special offers (altho you may have to opt in to these – kind of like leaving your Bluetooth on).

Bus stops will offer traffic info and current bus locations (via GPS) and ETAs in real-time.

If you want directions, you only need to know the postcode and arrows will point you in the right direction – like existing sat nav, but without the physical device in your car. It’ll be like in a video game when arrows in the sky point when you are going the wrong way. Instead of making devices, sat nav companies will just release apps (unless Google maps has already made them redundant by then).

This meshing of the web and the real is something I am looking forward to.

Recently, one of the key bits of tech to make this happen was shown off. There is no date for release yet – and no idea yet when the rest of the infrastructure will be in place to make it all work, but it isn’t that far away.

Google Books – wtf does this mean for publishing?

Google, the web giant, have an application called Google Books.

There was a court case not so long ago. And read what Google say about the court case too.

What long-term effect this will all have on publishing remains to be seen, but I am sure there will be changes. Google are the kings of free content are they not?

At present, copyright holders can upload their work and limit access to bits of the material. They can choose to allow access to all of the material if they wish and restrict download, again if they wish.

Google Books then links to places such as Amazon where you can purchase the book you have tried out on their site.

I imagine, the book sellers linked to from the Google Books page pay some commission to Google for the sales made via these links.

I assume, at some point Google will also (if it hasn’t already) further monetize this section of its empire through some kind of advertiser paid search facility.

I am not sure exactly how Google Books will change the publishing industry, as I have mentioned before there is so much else already happening in the industry. Is this the most significant change, or is it just one of many, many changes that will add together to change the industry?

Right now, I am not sure any of us can answer with that much certainty.

What I can say is, at present, I see no reason to be against what Google are doing.

You can have a read of extracts of my books using Google Books and if you like what you see click the link and buy it.