Under a new service offered by Perseus Book Group, hundreds of small, independent publishers will have easier access to digital book technology. The new service is called Constellation and will allow independent publishers to make use of electronic readers, digital book search, print-on-demand and other digital formats at rates negotiated by Perseus. Small publishers tend to lack the resources to use digital technology and often bypass it altogether.

By using Constellation, independent publishers could make their books quickly available in several digital formats, allowing them to compete on the same technological level and with the same speed and flexibility as larger companies. Digital technology is seen by many publishing analysts as one of the few major growth areas in the book industry. Both Amazon and Barnes and Nobles allows customers to read or search inside a book – these tools are known to improve sales.

Digital printing technology also allows publishers to produce books when they become suddenly and unexpectedly in demand. Publishers using the new service can provide a single digital book file to Constellation and specify how they would like it to be used. This may result in more obscure, esoteric books becoming available in digital formats.

While television is still the most popular news source, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center for the People, online news consumption is growing. According to the United States report, the amount of people who go online for news three or more days a week has increased from 31% in 2006 to 37% in 2008. Since 2006, daily online news use has grown from 18% to 25%.

“Net-newsers,” individuals who turn to the Web for news, account for just 13% of those surveyed compared with 46%, who rely heavily on TV news and rarely view news online. People regularly watching cable TV news rose from 34% in 2006 to 39% in 2008 while regular watchers of local TV news fell from 54% to 52%. A newspaper readership study showed a 6% drop in the number of respondents who had read a newspaper on the previous day – from 40% in 2006 to 34% in 2008.

While online news consumption is growing, the research said that the number of online readers of newspapers was not growing at the same rate as the decline of print readers. This is not good news for the point industry which is already suffering steadily declines in readership and ad revenues. Online reading is more appealing as a result of the faltering economy and advertisers are following.

At the current growth rate of online publishing, in ten years time, a monthly magazine subscription will turn up in your email inbox as well as on your doormat. Initially, printers were fearful of the emerging technology, but many have since recognized the added value it can give to clients.

For example, Pensord prints specialist magazines, but in June it unveiled a new online magazine division designed to allow publishers to develop brands outside their traditional readership. They made this move in order to offer an added-value service and the opportunity to increase the relationship with their publishing clients. Digital editions provide a small and profitable revenue stream. Online publishing has been around for years but it was two years ago that it seemed to turn a corner in its evolution. Dennis Publishing launched Monkey, an online-only title, while NatMags unveiled Jellyfish, an Internet magazine aimed at teenage girls. Even though Jellyfish folded last August, the market is maturing.

Monkey is still going strong and Dennis launched online gadget magazine iGizmo in March of this year and an automotive title called iMotor last month. What all of these examples have in common is that they turned to Ceros to implement their digital publications. The company is a subsidiary of Fresh Media Group and has developed clickable page-turning technology to replicate the look of a magazine. However, online interactivity needs to be provided in order to have a compelling product.

A couple of days ago, Absolute Software, the leading provider of laptop theft recovery, announced that it is to begin using GPS features on correctly enabled laptops. This will allow them to track laptops within a range of 10 metres. Not only the current location, but the history of where the laptop has been as well.

According to the press release, “IT Asset Managers and compliance personnel can:

* Track and manage computers on the LAN or in the field
* Remotely delete sensitive information for regulatory compliance
* Easily inventory all computers regardless of their location
* Remotely inventory software licenses
* Detect hardware changes or prohibited software installations”.

At first you may be taken aback by this technical idea, which may help you to find a stolen laptop, but is this software really a helping hand, or is it a watchful eye?

The software tracks your every move. What if somebody happens to gain access to your account? The hacker then has the location of a potentially expensive laptop, and even worse, you. Obviously, this information could be used to carry out a theft or other crime. To me, that seems like quite a dangerous aspect of this service.

Two IT-themed projects shared the $25,000 runners-up award in the Australian National University’s Innovation ANU program – a staged business and commercialization development program for ANU staff and students. The winner of the Innovation ANU was a start-up pharmaceutical company called Cardishield, which is re-developing an existing drug for treating heart attacks.

The program also provided a sneak peek at Australia’s first local challenger to the very popular and lucrative online photo sharing sites like Flickr and Photobucket. Innovation ANU provided participants with seminars and workshops on commercialization and business planning, mentoring and guidance from professionals, and opportunities to collaborate with in an interdisciplinary team. The competition was designed to “transform the talent, creativity, and energy into tomorrow’s leading business and commercialization ideas with two top proposals receiving $25,000 financial, legal and patent advice from top local firms.

Photos Inkorporated and One Corp were announced joint runners-up at an awards ceremony dinner at ANU in Canberra. Photos Inkorporated will be a freely participatory community photo-sharing Web site deriving revenue from subscriptions, printing, photo storage, stock photo sales, and advertising. The One Corp project is a company proposing a revolutionary concept of providing a free online system that instantly retrieves and organizes consumers’ transaction records.