Johannes Gutenberg. With his invention of the printing press, Gutenberg was the first European to use movable type printing, in around 1439.
Among his many contributions to printing are: the invention of a process for mass-producing movable type; the use of oil-based ink; and the use of a wooden printing press similar to the agricultural screw presses of the period. His truly epochal invention was the combination of these elements into a practical system that allowed the mass production of printed books and was economically viable for printers and readers alike. Gutenberg's method for making type is traditionally considered to have included a type metal alloy and a hand mould for casting type.
The alloy was a mixture of lead, tin, and antimony that melted at a relatively low temperature for faster and more economical casting, cast well, and created a durable type. His major work, the Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible), has been acclaimed for its high aesthetic and technical quality. Legacy. Gutenberg's miscalculation: A lesson for big media?
In Clay Shirky's new book "Cognitive Surplus", he discusses a lesser-known aspect of the achievements of Johannes Gutenberg.
Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press, which changed the way that knowledge was distributed and forever changed education, religion, government and commerce. The Gutenberg Bible is by far his best-known work, but it wasn't his biggest, or even most important work. Prior to printing Bibles, Gutenberg received permission from the Catholic Church to print and sell indulgences on its behalf. (Gutenberg borrowed the money he needed to build and operate his printing press based on the anticipated revenues from selling indulgences.) Indulgences were a way for Catholics to "neutralize" their sins and thus move from Purgatory to Heaven much faster, or even skip Purgatory altogether. Printing press. Printing press from 1811, exhibited in Munich, Germany A printing press is a device for evenly printing ink onto a print medium (substrate) such as paper or cloth.
Amazon Stock Price 27/04/2012. Tablet Competition Heats Up: Kindle Fire Captures more than Half of U.S. Android Tablet Market. – April 26, 2012Posted in: Mobile, Tablet, Telecom, U.S.
The Kindle Fire, introduced to the market in November 2011, has seen rapid adoption among U.S. buyers of tablets. Within the Android tablet market, Kindle Fire has almost doubled its share in the past two months from 29.4 percent share in December 2011 to 54.4 percent share in February 2012, already establishing itself as the leading Android tablet by a wide margin. For more insights on the tablet market, please visit our latest report with insights from comScore’s Device Essentials service. Kindle Prices. Kindle Prices. What happens when you give Kindles to kids in Ghana? Nonprofit Worldreader gives Kindles to students in sub-Saharan Africa (and is working on a reading app for mobile phones).
The organization just published the results of iREAD, its year-long pilot program in Ghana, and many of the findings are promising: Primary school students with access to e-readers showed significant improvement in reading skills and in time spent reading, and the program is cost-effective. The theft rate was “near-zero,” but nearly half the e-readers broke. USAID funded the Worldreader Ghana study and independent firm ILC Africa did the research. iREAD “involved the wireless distribution of over 32,000 local and international digital books using Kindle e-readers to 350 students and teachers at six pilot schools in Ghana’s Eastern Region between November 2010 and September 2011.”
The full results are here (PDF). Some findings: Kids learned to use e-readers quickly even though 43 percent of them had never used a computer before. Kindle Fire taking over Android side of tablet market, report says. The Kindle Fire appears to be burning up its competition -- on the Android side, anyway.
Amazon.com Inc.'s tablet computer is catching on in a big way, having grabbed 54.4% of the Android tablet market by the end of February, the fourth month that it was on sale, according to new data from comScore Inc. That represented a near doubling of the Fire's Android market share since December, when it was at 29.4%. In a way, the Kindle Fire is gobbling up the small fish in the pond -- far outpacing Samsung's Galaxy Tab (15.4% of Android), Motorola Xoom (7%), the Asus Transformer (6.3%) and others by Dell, Lenovo and Sony. Chip Kidd: Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is. Jay Walker's library of human imagination. Does Amazon Really Sell The Kindle At Break Even Or a Loss? Barnes & Noble's Nook Unit Is Worth More Than Its Parent Company. Peter DaSilva for The New York TimesWilliam J.
Lynch Jr., chief executive of Barnes & Noble, with a wall full of e-readers.