Textbook Evaluator [a new blog]

For those of you who simply cannot get enough of textbooks ... textbooks ... textbooks there are actually a number of blogs dedicated to the subject (on the web - there is no accounting for taste!) Anyway ... the site has its share of reviews, complaints, studies, interesting bits and pieces and more. The site also includes - from the About This Blog page:

The focus of this blog is on the use and abuse of textbooks in our public schools. We discuss the following topics:

• The textbook publishing industry
• Textbook adoptions by states, districts and schools
• Textbook evaluation criteria
• Evaluation processes
• Research on the effectiveness of textbooks and other instructional programs
• Independent ratings or reviews of textbooks in all disciplines

What the world needs now -- is OCR ... sweet OCR....

The uber-geeks of Google have announced their intention to release (re-release?) Tesseract OCR. Interesting, but nothing to get very excited about at this point - unless you are truly into the whole open-source/linux movement. There may be promise here one day - especially considering that everything Google touches tends to turn to gold. The Google team brings to mind a slew of Indiana Jones types scouring the digital-Amazon (the river, not the shop-at-home site) for lost relics of a bygone era.

Outside of the announcement by Google I had a hellava time finding anything on "Tesseract OCR". Plenty of neat stuff on Tesseracts, but not much on the OCR namesake - and I have the library resources of a major university to play with. I am actually suprised I did not find more flash based sites with Tesseracts - it would seem that math types would spend more time creating little tessies and releasing them into the wild - but they are all probably playing with SodaRace.

I finally found something on Linux.com that provides a fairly decent overview of the program (history, what it does, tech notes, etc.). This article puzzles me as it seems like these folks have been hiding in a server closet for years having never heard of some of the exceptional commercial OCR programs available in 2006 instead of harkening back to a program that was "one of the top-tier performers at UNLV's OCR competition in 1995"

NINTEEN-NINETY-FIVE!!! Are you sh**ting me?!?! And there are people out in the world excited about resurrecting this thing. What - I ask - is the point! I remember OCR technology in 1995 and it sucked compared to what we have today. Give me my Abbyy Fine Reader and a sweet scanner anyday over some long forgotten OpenSource OCR program.

The SourceForge.net dowload site provides merely a one-line description: "A commercial quality OCR engine originally developed at HP between 1985 and 1995. In 1995, this engine was among the top 3 evaluated by UNLV. It was open-sourced by HP and UNLV in 2005." Of course it was open-sourced by UNLV - they were probably cleaning out old storage and figured something this good should not be tossed. Hey, I know - let's give it to Google (he, he) they'll take anything! After all - it did win their in-house competition more than a decade ago. And, of course, we all know how well things are going over at HP - they have bigger things to worry about then where UNLV tosses their trash. [off the record - UNLV will only acknowledge a long-term platonic relationship with Tesseract].

Thanks Google - but I'll pass. Please bring us more nifty stuff like the Google Personalized HomePage. I have basically shunned all other options and am working on moving several years worth of PDA dated into the trusted hands of Google. If you have not yet discovered the tabs in the GPHP you are truly missing out! I am also very much looking forward to where Google Scholar is headed - even the reference librarian for my program is excited.

Samsung introduces working prototype of PRAM

For the Uber-Geeks out there and this ties in nicely with my Flash-Drive addiction!

Samsung introduces working prototype of PRAM
Sean Shim
EE Times
(09/11/2006 5:02 AM EDT)

SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. announced Monday (Sept. 11) it has completed the industry's first fully working prototype of a 512-Mbit Phase-change Random Access Memory (PRAM), what the company claims is expected to become the main memory device to replace high-density NOR flash memories within the next decade.

Samsung said at a news conference here that its PRAM has been developed by adopting the use of vertical diodes with the three'dimensional transistor structure that it now uses to produce a DRAM. The PRAM has the smallest cell size of any working memory that is free of inter-cell noise, allowing virtually unlimited scalability, the company said. The PRAM features the fast processing speed of RAM for its operating functions combined with the nonvolatile features of flash memory for storage, giving it the nickname of 'Perfect RAM', Samsung said.

As the PRAM can rewrite data without having to first erase data previously accumulated, it is effectively 30-times faster than conventional flash memory. It is also expected to have at least 10-times the endurance of the conventional flash memory, Samsung added. Samsung claimed the PRAM would become a competitive choice over NOR flash, with availability beginning sometime in 2008.

Samsung also said the PRAM's cell size is only half the size of NOR flash memory. In addition, its PRAM requires 20 percent fewer process steps than those for the manufacturing of NOR flash, making it cheaper to produce. Adoption of PRAM is expected to be more popular in the future designs of multi-function handsets and for other mobile applications, where faster speeds translate into immediately noticeable boosts in performance. High-density versions will be produced first, starting with 512 Mbit, according to Samsung.

The TEMO Talking Microwave

With students moving into dorms and apartments for the coming year, here is a post courtesy of [cut 'n pasted from] the National Association of Blind Students listserv:

Our microwave just died so we had to go out and buy a new one. We just happened to find one at Best Buy that talks, and it is great. It is a HamiltonBeach TEMO. It was only $94, which is less than a talking one we thought we were going to end up getting from Maxi Aids. But so far we're loving it. Its apparently a brand new model with unique features that include:

• Instructive Talking Programmable Feature
• Interchangeable Voice Language Feature (English/Spanish)
• Eight Instant Settings for Common Foods
• Five Express Cook One-Touch Settings
• Five Memory Setting Buttons
• Remind Signal

The buttons are totally accessible. They're easy to feel, and are much like the buttons on any other appliance or remote control. It also has a little knob that you turn to set the cook times, with a little notch you feel [tactile] each time you turn it so you can easily tell how far to turn it.

You push a button on the knob and it'll ask you to set the minutes, then when you set the minutes you push the button again and it'll ask you to set the seconds. After you do that you push the button again and it starts. It is really easy to use.

The student who posted this to the listserv commented that they were planning to purchase a second one for reserve as it seems that everytime something like this comes on the market it does not sell well and it quickly unavailable. Something tells me that won't be the case here - and into the future for products such as this. With the boomers getting older we are seeing an emerging market for standard applaines with accessibility features. Even if this particular items does not sell well, others will surely follow.