Tuesday, November 16, 2010

E-Reader and E-Books

It is sad we lost over 30 year a futile war and we are still spending more for defense budget. In the process we cutting our budget for education. If that is not enough we got a Minister who instills fear on students who tend to disagree with his views.

All this is enough for young ones to go abroad and see how education is done in the rest of the world.


If we take Singapore they have developed their own e-reader and over 900,000 books in the Library are converted to e-books and could be accessed free on the e-reader.

They do not boast that they give free textbooks but make available all the resources for young people to learn.

One can see young Singaporeans studying in the University (their
accommodations are not as spacious like in our country) do their home work at the airport lounge.


The e-readers available there include Kinder 2 which is driven by Linux kernel (Amazon device). That is the very reason I wanted to write about it. It is black and white and has wireless connectivity and a browser.

I believe all the other devices are also using Linux kernel.

Then there is another called Nook which is available in both colour and black and white.
I would like to see our kids also get a chance to use them.
This in only a wishful thinking.
Our educators go on holiday just before their retirement wasting out resources.
I wonder how many of them have at least seen a e-reader at least in the airport.
Mind you one need not go there, just browsing the web is enough to see an array of devices.