South Korean Textbooks to Go Digital by 2015

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South Korean Textbooks to Go Digital by 2015

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday July 3, 2011 @09:34PM from the all-in-one-place dept.

South Korea plans to spend $2.4 billion buying tablets for students and digitizing materials in an effort to go completely digital in the classroom by 2015. From the article: "This move also re-ignites the age-old debate about whether or not students learn better from screens or printed material. Equally important, there's the issue of whether or not devices with smaller form factors are as effective as current textbooks, which tend to have significantly more area on each page."

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digital rights by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-03 21:48 · Score: 2, Interesting

Right, that removes the only real reason to keep buying new textbooks every year - digital copies last in pristine condition even when handled by schoolkids (no guarantee about the reader devices though). But who wants to bet the textbook companies will saddle them with restrictive licenses and digital rights management so that the schools will actually be unable to reuse the digital textbook licenses they bought the previous year?
1. Re:digital rights by bloodhawk · 2011-07-03 22:00 · Score: 1
  
  In all fairness they would be morons if they didn't do that, book companies are there to make money just like any other business, if you take away the profit from publishing text books (which for many there isn't much profit in many of them to start with) then why would they continue to do it?
2. Re:digital rights by muuh-gnu · 2011-07-03 22:19 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  > digital copies last in pristine condition even when handled by schoolkids
  This problem could have been solved by handing out pdfs, which they can print out over and over again. They could make notes on them and still have the originals. They wouldnt have to carry the whole book around all the time, they could just take a few pages they need. They wouldnt have to take as care of them as of books, becouse they could always be reprinted when destroyed or lost.
  Why does the education system rely on overpriced commercial literature at all? Why doesnt it work to hire 1-2 experts per subject and let them write for hire definitive textbooks for the particular subject which then could be used without any royalties for years and decades by thousands of students? Why are they forced to buy new books over and over when everybody has a printer at home?
3. Re:digital rights by jpapon · 2011-07-03 22:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I find it hard to believe that "there isn't much profit in many of them to start with", when I have to pay $90 - $125 for a textbook. If there isn't much profit it's because they're using antiquated printing processes that require large runs to be profitable. Even given that, at $125, I have no pity for you if you can't turn a hefty profit.
  
  --
  -- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
4. Re:digital rights by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-03 22:35 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I am an expat who lives in South Korea. I have never seen a K-12 textbook which costs more than 8,000 won (~$8 USD). In fact, I have about five middle school textbooks on my shelf from the current year, and they only cost between 1,000 and 3,000 won each. Oddly, the "international" textbooks (read: American textbooks simply labeled as "Not for sale in the US.") actually cost about half of what they would back home.
  Sadly, you get outside of textbooks, and the prices for English books are pretty costly.
5. Re:digital rights by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-03 22:38 · Score: 0
  
  They'd continue for same reason people still publish music now it's drm free.Don't know what that reason is, mind.
6. Re:digital rights by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-03 22:43 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Korean public schools don't reuse textbooks. They are purchased new every year by the students. They're ridiculously cheap, too. They get filled with study notes over the course of the year. (I'm an expat teacher.)
7. Re:digital rights by meburke · 2011-07-03 23:00 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I think that e-books and digital PDF's are a good thing. I can see the day when a quality text on a technical subject will be priced at $3 -$4 and still make enough to cover editing and graphics, and still provide a good profit for the author. Everyone wins.
  Of course, I want my e-reader to allow me to highlight topical sentences, add notes to my text, create combination outlines and notes, fill in Toulmin tables, create repositories of practice exercises, do intelligent review planning and scoring, move with my fingers when I'm using my Evelyn Wood reading methods, and create mind maps (possibly in combination with my outlines like an old Mac program I had a few years back).
  
  --
  "The mind works quicker than you think!"
8. Re:digital rights by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2011-07-03 23:03 · Score: 1
  
  Vested interests and juicy juicy profit of course. I hope South Korea works with ebooks rather than tablets, but for me the most interesting part will be how they roll out the distribution network for the data.
9. Re:digital rights by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-03 23:14 · Score: 0
  
  The cost of the actual printing of a book is only a minor part of the cost, it is the proofing, graphics, layout and of course ensuring the author still gets something. Like it or not they are publishers, if you want them to handle and do everything to publish a textbook then they want to make a profit and no telling them after there outlay and risk of books not selling that they will get a few dollars a book for a textbook is not gonna cut it on something low volume. You can self publish books including printing costs for 5 or 6 bucks.
10. Re:digital rights by jpapon · 2011-07-03 23:35 · Score: 1
  
  Why does the education system rely on overpriced commercial literature at all? Why doesnt it work to hire 1-2 experts per subject and let them write for hire definitive textbooks for the particular subject which then could be used without any royalties for years and decades by thousands of students?
  
  I like the idea and all, but if they could do this, they probably would. The good textbook writers wouldn't sign a deal to write a textbook for you unless they got some royalties though. Then if you want printed copies, you need to get a publisher to print them for you... so you're back where you started anyways.
  It might be feasible once everything is electronic, but it would basically just be a way of cutting out the publisher, since good authors are still going to want royalties.
  
  --
  -- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
11. Re:digital rights by VortexCortex · 2011-07-03 23:36 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  This problem could have been solved by handing out pdfs, which they can print out over and over again.
  You are aware that printer ink is one of the most expensive commodities on Earth, right?
  However, You can do all those beneficial things WITHOUT INK or toner, if you just had a tablet PC... Make notes, "File -> Save As..."
  As for printing...WHY? Just call up the document from the wireless server if it's not in your course data package on your device for some reason.
  I had to buy all of my textbooks in Highshcool because of a car accident. The cost was over $500 -- That was one semester / one year, and get this -- now that I've long sense graduated: I can't refer to the books.
  However, when I taught myself to code in 1992 (age 12) I saved the example code that I had entered and some references and guides I downloaded from Compuserve and other BBSs -- Oh, look, it's on my local NAS, and my S3 storage, and I can pull it right up on my desktop, my netbook, my thinkpad, or my OLPC, from anywhere in the world, at any time (provided Internet access is available, or I've had the forethought to download it to the internal storage).
  You know, for a race that's actually got some amazing technology that we only dreamed of in the recent past, we sure are reluctant to use it...
12. Re:digital rights by drinkypoo · 2011-07-03 23:43 · Score: 1
  
  Why does the education system rely on overpriced commercial literature at all?
  Because it is one "system". We get mandates handed down From On High. Teachers must teach to [unfunded] NCLB mandates, which means they need a text which is suitable for this purpose. In higher education it is common for instructors to make agreements to use each other's textbooks to create a market for each. In essence, it's all the usual bullshit greed.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
13. Re:digital rights by rolfwind · 2011-07-04 00:00 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I think asian countries are a bit different. At least in Japan, they don't heft heavy tomes of text books around, but use 6-8 week pamphlet that have their lessons/content for that period of time in that subject. I'm under the impression that those are owned by the school system.
  If wikibooks or similiar took off, no reason that can't happen in schools. After all, there is no reason to really update algebra/calc books all that much. It was pretty much the same today as 100 years ago.
  http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page
14. Re:digital rights by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-07-04 00:05 · Score: 1
  
  In all fairness they would be morons if they didn't do that, book companies are there to make money just like any other business, if you take away the profit from publishing text books (which for many there isn't much profit in many of them to start with) then why would they continue to do it?
  Arguably, unless their lobbyists are good, the publishers would be very nervy to try too much: If the state has just announced a bold plan to move all K-12 students to a single e-text platform, guess what; the state is now by far your largest customer and the only one large enough to matter. Publishers, on the other hand...
  
  K-12 textbooks are arduous to write; but effectively interchangeable. A number of different publishers would be capable of offering something suitable. If they don't like your price, you'll be stuck with something that virtually nobody else will buy. Also, at that scale, the 'customer' isn't really a powerless retail peon. They could easily find that purchasing the rights, as a work for hire, would be more cost-effective than purchasing copies.
15. Re:digital rights by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 00:17 · Score: 0
  
  You would eventually find experts willing to work for a commission, not royalties - one large single-time payment for transferring all copyright to the customer (govt), no royalties past that (but a promise for update contracts on similar basis).
16. Re:digital rights by jrminter · 2011-07-04 00:19 · Score: 1
  
  The school districts and universities compensate faculty and a fraction of the revenue they pay for text books would pay for the compensation required to write the books and a support staff to help with figures. Books are revised more frequently than needed to get the revenue from a new edition rather than because of the need for new material at the level of most courses that have textbooks. The taxpayers (for school districts) and college students pay for much they don't need because of this racket. That said, the life of electronic devices may be really short in the hands of students. I always thought the solution would be to distribute PDF copies of all the texts on USB sticks and print out the pages they need for the day on grayscale high speed copiers. The students could mark up the copies and keep them in notebooks and use the PDFs at home. Inexpensive, recycled PCs would be sufficient to help low income students...
17. Re:digital rights by SharpFang · 2011-07-04 00:19 · Score: 1
  
  Toner, on the other hand, is pretty cheap. And if you intend to print a book, you're much better off picking some semi-bulk service like a print shop than trying to use your home printer.
  
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  45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
18. Re:digital rights by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 00:33 · Score: 0
  
  You can self-publish for 99 cents with Amazon. You keep 35% of that if I remember correctly. If you raise the price you get a bigger percentage.
  I taught in Korea last year. Text books are cheap. I was at a prestigious high school and we had chalk boards to write on. Koreans are big on face, so even if they switch to digital books, I doubt they'll be used much. They'll continue to learn by rote and will continue kicking American asses on their exams. They can't create their way out of a paperbag but we can't create jobs. Is the trade off worth it? I don't know.
19. Re:digital rights by TomHeal · 2011-07-04 01:15 · Score: 1
  
  Why does the education system rely on overpriced commercial literature at all?
  Good question. Perhaps we could start a Wikipedia style website for people to contribute educational material. This information could be organised textbook style and printed cheaply and easily for use in schools.
20. Re:digital rights by microcars · 2011-07-04 02:16 · Score: 1
  
  it is already being done.
  I'm in college right now and looked up what my options were for digital versions of my textbooks.
  A Microbiology textbook that cost $180 in hardcover was $84 "digital" but it was not a PDF. It was originally a PDF but converted to FLASH and only readable on a computer AND while connected to the internet.
  The license was only good for 180 days as well.
  There was an "option" to download a few chapters at a time to read offline, but the license to read those files expired after a week or so.
  
  Publishers already include a myriad of other digital options with the purchase of a new hardcover book. All the digital options have expiration dates and limit you to using them while connected to the internet.
  
  --
  I like microcars
21. Re:digital rights by TheRaven64 · 2011-07-04 02:23 · Score: 1
  
  My publisher claims that about 3,000 potential sales is enough to make a textbook profitable, factoring in the cost of proofreading, layout, technical review, as well as printing and distribution. If you're buying a license for every school child in South Korea, and there are no printing costs, and you're handling the distribution yourself, then I think they'd happily sell it to you with no DRM and a country wide perpetual license. That said, there's no real reason for the publisher to be involved at all. There educational system could quite easily pay textbook authors directly and own the copyright themselves.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
22. Re:digital rights by microcars · 2011-07-04 02:23 · Score: 1
  
  One of the reasons that new textbooks cost so much is that there is a huge secondary market (used textbooks) that removes the original publisher from the revenue stream.
  Every one of my classes requires a textbook, but the instructor will accept the use of previous versions.
  Out of 24 students in one science class, I would say 8 of them have brand new books, another 8 have used books, the rest have used previous versions of the book and there are always a couple of people that borrowed a copy and used a photocopier someplace to copy all 1000 pages....
  Students don't even have a textbook because the instructor will say that all the tests are based on lecture notes and PPT that are provided. When needed, they go to the library for the book.
  So the publisher is only getting money from 8 of those students.
  What they are trying to figure out is how to get revenue from ALL of them without giving them something they can copy and pass around.
  
  --
  I like microcars
23. Re:digital rights by TheRaven64 · 2011-07-04 02:25 · Score: 1
  
  The good textbook writers wouldn't sign a deal to write a textbook for you unless they got some royalties though.
  We wouldn't? I'd happily sign over all of the rights to a book that I'd written in exchange for an up-front payment. If I think a book will make $n over 5 years, and you offer me $n up front to release it under a permissive license, I'd be an idiot not to accept.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
24. Re:digital rights by Local+ID10T · 2011-07-04 02:28 · Score: 1
  
  This is why California created the Open Source Textbook Project several years ago.
  http://www.opensourcetext.org/
  
  --
  "You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
25. Re:digital rights by jpapon · 2011-07-04 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  You're right of course, but it seems unlikely that anyone would offer you $n up front.
  
  --
  -- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
26. Re:digital rights by TheRaven64 · 2011-07-04 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  $n is probably quite a lot less than they'd pay the publisher for the rights to a country-wide license for a book...
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
27. Re:digital rights by mercnet · 2011-07-04 03:18 · Score: 1
  
  All my engineering and aerospace books for school say "Not for Sale in US", do bookstores really think I am going to drop $1000?
28. Re:digital rights by tuppe666 · 2011-07-04 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  I am tired of these things are expensive because of a second hand market. What a load of crap! I bought several second hand games last week, because first hand was simply too expensive. Would I have loved new games in shiny packets in pristine condition. The resale value is PART of the cost of an many items, but models for items with artificial scarcity books/movies/games/music price most consumers out of the market, simply for the maximum profits made from the few privileged. Its disgusting.
29. Re:digital rights by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 08:25 · Score: 0
  
  Writing and editing for limited run publication is (at least partly) why textbooks are so expensive to produce. Sure once you have a manuscript that is nice and clean your marginal profit is obscene, but the upfront cost of ensuring that the error rate is sufficiently low is high. For novels a typo here and there doesn't really detract too much from the work, but for a history book, a wrong date can be a significant error. Also the $100+ books at the primary level are the big 600-1000 page hardbacks rather than the small dense college volumes that have even more limited runs.
30. Re:digital rights by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 08:37 · Score: 1
  
  A 1-year (or perhaps 1-student) license need not be a bad thing. For public schools at least, having a nice steady annual cost works rather well as their funding source also annual (taxes). If publisher A offered an eText for $10/student/year vs Publisher B offering a similar work for lifetime $60-80/copy I would think publisher A would still win most districts over. I think the life cycle is somewhere around 4-6 years for K-12 textbooks today. Even if the material in the books is unchanged, methods of presentation will improve - go look at the typesetting of books from the 60's and 70's vs today and there is bound to be some enhancement to diagrams in the future (animation of atoms, predator-prey interactions over time, etc). Even better could be an all you can eat site license - school has X students and uses the publisher's texts in Y% of courses, so all students at the school get access to all of the books but pay a rate based on XY rather than X.
31. Re:digital rights by EdIII · 2011-07-04 10:30 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  They could easily find that purchasing the rights, as a work for hire, would be more cost-effective than purchasing copies.
  I have this really crazy fucking idea. Totally nuts. But hear me out....
  How about you "crowd source" with a couple dozen university doctorates, psychologists, and those that study effective learning techniques... and I dunnnnoooo... maybe give something back to the world ?
  I'm sure that every engineer, scientist, and academic here realizes that their entire world is built on the efforts of others right? So why not contribute back to the environment that gave you the luxuries that you have? Why not become part of the foundation for the next generation of people that will push us ever farther forwards?
  Screw the publishers and the book writers. Nothing in life says that they should be guarnteed a job and huge piles of cash. Or that when presented with an environmentally friendly and effective tool with the new technology we created (which was created most likely taking for granted all the hard work before it) we would not use it to its full potential?
  I have nothing against people making money. However, if anything should follow the open source model, it is educational textbooks. If I really were smart enough and well respected enough in my field I would write a book if I thought it would help other people that do what I do. However, I doubt that I could create a book half as good as the programming books I have read anyways.
  There really are some things that we should just all altruistically create for the Public Domain.
32. Re:digital rights by gohmifune · 2011-07-04 12:08 · Score: 1
  
  Korean public schools don't reuse textbooks. They are purchased new every year by the students. They're ridiculously cheap, too. They get filled with study notes over the course of the year. (I'm an expat teacher.)
  That's interesting. What size are they. When I was in school, my text books where hundreds, approaching a thousand, pages.
33. Re:digital rights by gohmifune · 2011-07-04 12:11 · Score: 1
  
  I think this is the flaw. Digital copies of books generally don't out weight the cost of owning a book and being able to sell it. Reselling a used book means you almost break even, selling a new one, you can get half your cost back. Digital Renting uses a poor model.
34. Re:digital rights by WindBourne · 2011-07-04 14:50 · Score: 1
  
  who said that book companies will be the ones selling the text? I suspect that books companies are going to go the same way as buggy whip companies went.
  
  --
  I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
35. Re:digital rights by rubycodez · 2011-07-04 15:59 · Score: 1
  
  uh huh, and the same books that are $100 here in the US have "international version" for a third the price. Yes, I own some
36. Re:digital rights by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-05 05:48 · Score: 0
  
  I completely agree. And take it one step further: have the best professors from the best universities in the world produce video lectures on the subject they focus on. Distribute these for free to every public schoolin the U.S. (or other countries if they participate). Base classes around these. Why should teacher John Q. Disinterested get paid $100,000 a year to teach 10th grade calculus horribly, when you could have the world's best expert produce a video perfectly targeted at this age group. Or better yet, base the video content off of the expert's outline, but then have an actor or celebrity produce the course. Can't get all the 15 year olds to pay attention in math class? Maybe if Michael Jordan or Lady Gaga were giving them their lectures, with fun challenges and rewards built in, they would tune in!
37. Re:digital rights by EdIII · 2011-07-05 07:49 · Score: 1
  
  Hmmmmmmm....
  You know if Eva Mendes had attempted to teach me Quantum Physics I have a feeling that I might be working at the LHC right now.
  You may have something there. She would have to be clothed though, otherwise learning is impossible with erection. We don't need scientific studies to prove that either.
  Swordfish was full of shit as a movie simply because it tried to lead people to believe that a man could hack *anything* in less than 60 seconds while getting a sloppy one. I don't even care if he was gay.
38. Re:digital rights by The+Wild+Norseman · 2011-07-05 07:50 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, exactly! Or in addition, instead of "publish or perish," the profs and teachers should... I dunno... "edit or expunge" or whatever cutesy phrase strikes your fancy.
  In other words, in addition to having teachers writing papers in their field, they can also donate some time to editing the school text books.
  
  --
  "A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
39. Re:digital rights by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-07-05 13:22 · Score: 1
  
  I suspect, actually, that this would work substantially better at higher levels than at lower ones. Intro-level textbooks are weighty tomes, generally burdened with all sorts of pedagogical baggage; but far from the cutting edge of their fields(which means that you'll need to find experts willing to simplify their work, rather than working on it, and some poor bastards to reformat it every time a new fad concerning layout and graphic design 'to engage multi-sensory learners' or whatever the flavor of the month is emerges). Also, they are a comparatively large and potentially lucrative market. Now, I'm all in favor of the customers ganging up and using their market power to buy outright and end per-unit gouging once and for all; but I strongly suspect that they would(by way of their representatives hammering out a contract) have to pay for it. From what I've been told by friends who've had the misfortune to be involved, making textbooks is as distasteful, and about as exciting, as making sausage. Because they are fairly interchangeable, there is no reason to get shafted on them; but commissioning a work-for-hire and then releasing the results for free use by the public is likely the fastest, easiest, and still relatively inexpensive way to do it.
  
  At the higher levels, by contrast, the texts are much closer to the actual state of the field(and thus something that actual experts might want to write about) and it is already the case that professors and researchers do a great deal of publishing, for essentially zero money on top of their day job, because that is just how the game is played. Journal articles often demand handover of copyright, or page-fees, or even both, so Dr. Somebody isn't exactly growing fat on those terms, and a substantial percentage of the stuff printed by academic presses, even if the author is entitled to royalties and so forth, appears in relatively tiny runs, for a relatively small audience. Not really something that you do for the money. As long as there were some mechanism for allocating prestige points, which are the currency that most high level academic stuff is really published for, I suspect that the body of academic experts would hardly notice a change to open distribution(if anything, the money that the university libraries saved on crazy-expensive journal subscriptions could be moved elsewhere and make the situation a net win. Right now, academics write the stuff, hand it over, and then pay to read it. At least the public would be tasteful enough to only free-ride on the reading part.)
Oh Yeah? by WrongSizeGlass · 2011-07-03 21:49 · Score: 4, Funny

South Korean Textbooks to Go Digital by 2015
Oh yeah? Well in North Korea our textbooks will go digital by 2014! We'd do it even faster except we can't get enough parts to build our nkPads. Damn you Apple!

North Korea still the best Korea!
1. Re:Oh Yeah? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-03 21:55 · Score: 0
  
  Meanwhile, the United States tries to move to digital books, but lobbyists and obstructionists makes it easy to make a spineless president compromise, so every child gets a digital photo frame filled with JPEG photos of paper books instead. And the chapters on evolution? Oh someone corrupted those JPEGs!
  Happy 4th of July!
2. Re:Oh Yeah? by WrongSizeGlass · 2011-07-03 22:01 · Score: 1
  
  Meanwhile, the United States tries to move to digital books, but lobbyists and obstructionists makes it easy to make a spineless president compromise, so every child gets a digital photo frame filled with JPEG photos of paper books instead. And the chapters on evolution? Oh someone corrupted those JPEGs!
  That's because you're doing it wrong! By missing those chapters on evolution you miss reading about how North Korea evolved into the best Korea!
  
  Remember, you can't spell 'Nook' without 'NK'!
3. Re:Oh Yeah? by antifoidulus · 2011-07-03 22:09 · Score: 2
  
  You REALLY don't think lobbyists were involved in this decision at all? Hmmm.... lets think, now I wonder what company will be providing every single student in Korea with a tablet computer...hmm....thats a tough one, but I'm sure such a huge Korean company had NO influence on this decision. Nope, none at all.
  
  --
  Monstar L
4. Re:Oh Yeah? by blippo · 2011-07-03 22:24 · Score: 2
  
  hm? Soomsung? Saamsoong? SumSang? Nope totally blank, can't come up with anything.
5. Re:Oh Yeah? by Robert+Zenz · 2011-07-03 23:46 · Score: 1
  
  You missed that on all those Frames is either iOS or Windows installed because the Software to show the jpegs is only available on that OS and it was "the cheapest offer"TM.
6. Re:Oh Yeah? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 00:13 · Score: 1
  
  North Korea already has gone digital, at least in their universities. This was on a Google Tech Talk from a US Nuclear Energy Expert who has visited North Korea many times to view demonstrations (and receive political messages through backchannels to the US).
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIdRSl7Dc88.
  E-books are really cheap when you don't have to license them. A lot cheaper than a large library of dead trees. It's a no-brainer for a not-as-poor-as-you-think country outside the reach of international copyright to go digital. And with Chinese tablets going for US$50 or less, it's not unlikely that they have already started deploying tablets in schools.
7. Re:Oh Yeah? by Ricwot · 2011-07-04 00:21 · Score: 1
  
  ?, Though it could always be LG.
8. Re:Oh Yeah? by Half-pint+HAL · 2011-07-04 00:26 · Score: 1
  
  All the cheaper competitors have a security flaw that allows unsecure files. It's called "PNG support", and you get porn in .PNG format -- won't somebody think of the children!!
  
  --
  Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
9. Re:Oh Yeah? by Ricwot · 2011-07-04 00:33 · Score: 1
  
  Oh, wait, Slashdot doesn't do Korean text.
10. Re:Oh Yeah? by tehcyder · 2011-07-04 01:32 · Score: 2
  
  All the cheaper competitors have a security flaw that allows unsecure files. It's called "PNG support", and you get porn in .PNG format -- won't somebody think of the children!!
  Yeah, because you can't find any porn jpegs on the internet. Well, apart from the millions of porn jpegs, I suppose.
  
  --
  To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
11. Re:Oh Yeah? by Robert+Zenz · 2011-07-04 02:24 · Score: 2
  
  I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I think HAL tried to be sarcastic. There are many big companies and even politician which would try to tell us such a nonsense to support their decision, just think of the following statements: "Torrent is only used to copy music", "We need to stay open and compatible in the future, we're going with Microsoft" or my personal favorite "Nobody uses Linux".
Open Distance Learning by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-03 21:57 · Score: 0

I am studying towards a BSc Honours (Computer Science) at the Universtiy of South Africa (UNISA) and this is an Open Distance Learning university. It is one of the worlds mega universities. For majority of our modules we get 4 assignments and a prescribed textbook. Theory subjects are easy to learn this way, we don't get a lecturer and don't need one. However, the computer science subjects (Formal Logic, AI - Prolog, Computer Graphics) are almost impossible to learn out of a textbook. I've found that electronic media is perfect for teaching. Videos on You Tube have been invaluable for learning formal logic and AI. The animation in video beats reading 4 pages of theoroms and the videos give examples of how to answer problems where my textbooks are an epic fail.
1. Re:Open Distance Learning by cranil · 2011-07-03 22:06 · Score: 1
  
  I found Formal Logic easier to read from a textbook (I guess it wouldn't matter if it was an electronic one). I was actually an old book which my uncle had used during his college days.
2. Re:Open Distance Learning by Half-pint+HAL · 2011-07-04 00:29 · Score: 1
  
  That's not about e-textbooks, though, that's a completely new teaching paradigm. Several people are doing good things with it, but most people are making a hash of it and simply adding "interactive" exercises to a straight scan of the book, and some of the exercises don't even mark themselves. There is some truly woeful e-learning out there....
  
  --
  Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Good by symes · 2011-07-03 22:14 · Score: 1

I hope this catches on more generally - I am currently sick of the amount of paper that academia churns through. Books, photocopies, papers, it is endless. It kind of feels like we are moving in the right direction...
1. Re:Good by jpapon · 2011-07-03 22:27 · Score: 2
  
  While Academia does churn through a lot of paper, in my experience they are also very good at recycling it.
  Not to mention that while it may seem like a lot, I bet business goes through significantly more. This is because the majority of pages printed/used in academia are actually read by someone (putting a limit on the number of pages used, since we can only read/write so fast). In business vast quantities of pages are printed that are read by someone once, then printed and used over and over again without reading (contracts or other forms for instance).
  
  --
  -- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
2. Re:Good by FhnuZoag · 2011-07-03 23:58 · Score: 1
  
  Personally, I detest this idea. Tablets are good for some things, sure, but you can't beat the leaf-ability and easy replaceability of books. My experiences with ebooks for academic work have really not worked out well.
3. Re:Good by rdnetto · 2011-07-04 00:23 · Score: 1
  
  I wouldn't be so eager if I were you...
  Benefits:
  -green
  -lighter
  -dynamic content
  Disadvantages:
  -harder (impossible?) to annotate
  -can't resell
  -DRM - probably only available in a proprietary format for a fixed period of time
  -more costly for students & schools (ongoing costs: hardware support + power supply)
  
  --
  Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
4. Re:Good by MikeBabcock · 2011-07-04 02:07 · Score: 1
  
  E-book readers really need to catch up in these regards.
  Some of my pet peaves include writing in the margins, including doodles, quickly earmarking pages, and being able to grab text with proper reference for use in quoting.
  That last one is really annoying -- if I'm reading a book to be used in a paper, and I want to quote a paragraph, I often have to completely retype the paragraph instead of copy and pasting it because they don't want people to copy the whole book.
  Here's a clue: you can limit copy and paste features to small (legal) subsets of the text. Anyone who bothers copying the whole book could have done so with a photocopier as well.
  
  --
  - Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
5. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 03:23 · Score: 0
  
  Doesn't anyone see the downside to this plan? Where everyone's knowledge-base requires electricity to access and greedy corporations require you to re-purchase a yearly "license" to be able to read a particular text you've already paid for? Knowledge should be for everyone, not just those who can afford to pay money for it.
Cost of Electricity by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-03 22:26 · Score: 0

How much will this cost in electricity each year and who is going to foot the bill?
It's possible to learn on a computer by iampiti · 2011-07-03 22:29 · Score: 2

In my opinion, the debate is not screens vs paper its distracting environments vs non-distracting. If you try to do serious work/learning and you've got apps open for email,im,facebook etc. you're going to be interrupted every few minutes and each interruption breaks your concentration which is difficult and time consuming to regain later. I even close all distractions when I try to concentrate at work (the most important is email). So, it's possible to learn using a computer you just have to close everything not related to the task at hand.
1. Re:It's possible to learn on a computer by satuon · 2011-07-03 23:36 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, and Linux has a strength here - you can remove the browser from the OS. One employer who moved to Linux had productivity go up after he removed the browser from the computers of clerks who didn't need to surf the web (but who might have needed to use network printers and email).
2. Re:It's possible to learn on a computer by couchslug · 2011-07-04 01:34 · Score: 1
  
  tl;dr (runs)
  
  --
  "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
3. Re:It's possible to learn on a computer by TheRaven64 · 2011-07-04 02:31 · Score: 1
  
  If they don't need access to the Internet, then their computers should be blocked by the firewall, not by the lack of a browser. You don't need access outside the local network for email or network printers, you just need to be able to connect to the print and mail servers.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
4. Re:It's possible to learn on a computer by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 03:29 · Score: 0
  
  --dport 80 -j DROP
  But I'm sure it was way cheaper to migrate every desktop to Linux and uninstall browsers rather than keeping it on the server where it succeeds.
  Sounds like a Linux blowhard with a solution in search of a problem.
New excuse by Errol+backfiring · 2011-07-03 22:31 · Score: 3, Funny

I did not do my homework because my batteries ran out.

--
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
1. Re:New excuse by dolmen.fr · 2011-07-03 23:34 · Score: 1
  
  I did not do my homework because my tablet has been stolen.
2. Re:New excuse by Rogerborg · 2011-07-03 23:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I did not do my homework because the publisher revoked a book that I foolishly thought that I owned.
  
  --
  If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
3. Re:New excuse by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 00:15 · Score: 0
  
  I did not do my homework because windows was installing updates.
4. Re:New excuse by Shoe+Puppet · 2011-07-04 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  I did not do my homework because the dog ate my tablet.
  
  --
  (+1, Disagree)
5. Re:New excuse by gsslay · 2011-07-04 04:47 · Score: 2
  
  I did not do my homework because stuffing my tablet into my school bag, kicking it along the corridor, striking my fellow students with it and having it hurled from the school bus window, broke it.
  This never happened with previous books.
  I think it also has a virus.
6. Re:New excuse by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 05:46 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah. If you thought you can "own" information, you're definitely a fool.
  And the "publisher" (What's a publisher? Something from the past?) will find out how much of a fool he is, when you pull the unencrypted file from one of your peers, like a grown-up.
7. Re:New excuse by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 07:19 · Score: 0
  
  While that's a possibility, the optimist in me is hoping that open/free courseware will develop in time. It might not be as good as current textbooks to begin with, but community efforts (from the Linux kernel to Wikipedia) show what we can produce for "free" consumption.
  When a grade school, high school, or university curriculum can be taught without the students (or tax payers...) having to fork over money year after year for textbooks, it removes one more middle-man job from our society and makes us all more efficient.
8. Re:New excuse by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 07:32 · Score: 0
  
  I couldn't do my homework because I do not have the right to read the book anymore. It only allows for 1-time read - that's all I could afford.
  But then I guess, the world needs people doing menial labor. The poorer, well, no more books for them!
  obligatory,
  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Cartelized education by srussia · 2011-07-03 22:35 · Score: 1

This is why you get pedagogical experiments being carried out in a wholesale manner, rather than innovation in education being driven by diversity and competition.

--
Set your phasers on "funky"!
1. Re:Cartelized education by Rogerborg · 2011-07-03 23:41 · Score: 1
  
  Big words, small view. Diversity and competition are doing just fine in the international market, rather than inside isolated states.
  
  --
  If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
2. Re:Cartelized education by Errol+backfiring · 2011-07-04 01:23 · Score: 1
  
  Which means they don't. If only megacorps can compete, something's awfully wrong with the market.
  
  --
  Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Hopeful by edcs · 2011-07-03 23:04 · Score: 2

I used an ebook version of my history text book last year, and it worked relatively well. Other than a few formatting issues, I found it pretty easy to highlight things and make notes on my kindle. The only problem was that since it didn't retain the page numbers of the print edition it was next to impossible to reference in essays (in the end I had to use Google Books find the location of quotes in the print edition), but if they lean into this properly then they'll probably be more open to adapting the current referencing systems to be more up to date.
1. Re:Hopeful by drinkypoo · 2011-07-03 23:40 · Score: 1
  
  The only problem was that since it didn't retain the page numbers of the print edition it was next to impossible to reference in essays
  It's impossible to omit the page number and provide a chapter number? Are you using an app to structure your essays, too?
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
2. Re:Hopeful by perryizgr8 · 2011-07-03 23:53 · Score: 1
  
  i find ebooks to be much more cumbersome than printed ones. i prefer ebooks as reference material, of course. but actually learning about a new subject is (for me) much easier with proper books i can hold, fold, throw around, and write on with a pencil. imo, the best way would be to somehow make printed books searchable.
  
  --
  Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
3. Re:Hopeful by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 00:24 · Score: 0
  
  > and write on with a pencil.
  The real question is why ebook readers (software) are so brain damaged that they don't allow this basic functionality. It would be trivially simple to save the annotations as PNG, ZRLE or something in a database along with the PDF/EPUB/whatever, that it just seems the developers of reader software are retarded. I had to get Acrobat Professional just so I could write simple scribbles and annotations on MY copy of the document, and even then some documents are "SECURED", and it won't let me alter them, despite them being MINE.
  Even more retarded is that I can't just edit or write on the HTML documents as they appear in my browser, I have to save them and open them in a separate editor, because no one in the history of the web thought of the mind numbingly obvious idea to just let you edit the text in front of you. I'm not talking about changing the web page as it appears to others, just editing MY copy of it that the server has sent me. I mean seriously.
  This sick idea that Americans have that information can belong to someone even after they've sold or given it away is just fucked, and probably the cause of everything wrong with computers today.
4. Re:Hopeful by Sinthet · 2011-07-04 00:41 · Score: 1
  
  I agree. If the current "ebook" format doesn't allow for scribbling on top of it, it's just laziness. I can't imagine it would be too difficult to implement something like layers in GIMP or photoshop, and just leave the top one open to editing. Then again, most ebooks cover the entirety of the screen, so you may have to zoom out to have enough room to write anything.
5. Re:Hopeful by TheRaven64 · 2011-07-04 02:36 · Score: 1
  
  My eBook reader is an iRex iLiad. It has a built in Wacom tablet and allows you to draw on PDFs. Each page of doodles is saved as a PNG and you can merge them with the original PDF with some software on the computer (or just discard them). iRex went bankrupt, so the intersection of the people wanting this feature and the people willing to pay for it is apparently quite small.
  Oh, and the ability to edit web pages and even the integration of a web server in the browser was one of the original design goals of the web. Somehow it got lost in the rush to turn web users into consumers.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
6. Re:Hopeful by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 04:01 · Score: 0
  
  Open two books at the same time.
7. Re:Hopeful by Shoe+Puppet · 2011-07-04 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  I had to get Acrobat Professional just so I could write simple scribbles and annotations on MY copy of the document, and even then some documents are "SECURED", and it won't let me alter them, despite them being MINE.
  The software you're using is to expensive. With Okular you can add notes and in its preferences dialog it has a checkbox à la "ignore DRM". It's note-taking functionality might be a bit limited, though.
  
  --
  (+1, Disagree)
8. Re:Hopeful by perryizgr8 · 2011-07-04 05:10 · Score: 1
  
  how could i have overlooked this?? ok folks, you simply CAN'T replace books with ebooks. when i am studying, reading about something or even solving problems, i have at least two (often more) books open and usually the laptop is also displaying related info (although it would be kept at a further distance than the books).
  
  --
  Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
9. Re:Hopeful by ColdWetDog · 2011-07-04 07:44 · Score: 1
  
  i prefer ebooks as reference material, of course. but actually learning about a new subject is (for me) much easier with proper books i can hold, fold, throw around, and write on with a pencil. /p>
  
  I bet your librarian hates you.
  
  --
  Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
10. Re:Hopeful by perryizgr8 · 2011-07-04 15:25 · Score: 1
  
  i usually buy my own books. second hand books are ultra-cheap and no library limitations!
  
  --
  Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Anyone thought of the enviroment costs.. by Viol8 · 2011-07-03 23:13 · Score: 1

... or having millions of netbooks or pads requiring constant charging compared to a book which requires - none.
1. Re:Anyone thought of the enviroment costs.. by drinkypoo · 2011-07-03 23:37 · Score: 2
  
  The environmental cost of that fancy, glossy paper is enormous, and textbooks are reprinted every few years either for political reasons or simply to keep the pocketbooks of the publishers padded.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
2. Re:Anyone thought of the enviroment costs.. by rolfwind · 2011-07-03 23:56 · Score: 1
  
  If the students would have the same devices anyhow, probably negligible. If it's e-ink, also negligible. If neither, then it will come at a cost.
  But imagine if all newspapers/magazines/etc were now delivered digitally. What a savings in gas, ink, and paper! Plus recycling is energy intensive too.
  But yeah, I agree, this should be quantified.
3. Re:Anyone thought of the enviroment costs.. by Viol8 · 2011-07-04 01:13 · Score: 1
  
  The cost of mining the metals and recovering the oil to build a netbook will be orders of magnitude more enviromentally damaging than simply pulping wood to make a book. Not forgetting than most paper comes from managed woodland which absorbs CO2 as it grows anyway and is replanted.
4. Re:Anyone thought of the enviroment costs.. by Viol8 · 2011-07-04 01:27 · Score: 2
  
  If the devices are intended to be used for something like 10 years then you might have a point. But lets be honest - they'll be "out of date" in 3 or 4 years and will be replaced.
5. Re:Anyone thought of the enviroment costs.. by drinkypoo · 2011-07-04 01:51 · Score: 1
  
  Most timber for paper is clear-cut, leading to soil loss among other problems. This can be done a finite number of times before the only thing you can grow is pines. You can only do it with pines so long before you end up with soil that will only sustain a small handful of plants that can handle highly acidic conditions... or on bare rock, because of the soil loss.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
6. Re:Anyone thought of the enviroment costs.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 04:47 · Score: 0
  
  but how many times do you need to purchase e-books? How long do they last under school conditions? My books got pretty scuffed up after 1 year. How long before the technology gets updated too? I somehow doubt it would be more than 4-5 year life span.
7. Re:Anyone thought of the enviroment costs.. by drinkypoo · 2011-07-04 12:42 · Score: 1
  
  4-5 years of books is at least six or seven books per student. If they can last as long as a student is in a particular school and then get surplus'd for a few bucks at the end of its lifecycle then I suspect it could end up financially ahead, in this country anyway. Not sure about the energy consumption but paper is worse than most people imagine.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Evolution by pmontra · 2011-07-03 23:20 · Score: 1

Textbooks (and books in general) evolved to the current set of form factors. We can think of them as some local maxima of the convenience vs effectiveness vs weight (vs other factors) tradeoff function. A digital reader changes something (weight, batteries, readability of the screen vs paper, etc) but the size of the page is still important especially if you have lots of pictures to show, which is common in textbooks. It will be a challenge for everybody to match in a few years (even counting the past) what's the results of thousand of years of research and adaptation to industry and customers needs. And don't forget the ease and immediacy of annotating a paper book with a pencil and reading those notes afterward. On the other side I think of how many times I wanted to grep a university textbook (didn't know of grep before then, I'm that old).
1. Re:Evolution by rubycodez · 2011-07-04 16:14 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure the same arguments have been made about e-mail vs. snail mail, or reading a news site rather than a news paper. Sorry gramps, but printed matter for most applications including textbooks is a waste of trees. Electronic textbooks can certainly not only handle scribbled annotations, but links to further materials or youtube lectures, student's photographs or recordings, and a dozen other things that would make a much richer learning experience than a mere pulped dead tree.
2. Re:Evolution by pmontra · 2011-07-04 17:33 · Score: 1
  
  I read books almost only on my phone (4“display) and that made me appreciate both the convenience of linking and constant availability of my library and the occasional discomfort of not being able to see enough content. E-readers are larger than my phone but some paper books are larger than any e-reader. We'll see what happens. PS: I'm another ruby coder:-)
Par for the course by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-03 23:59 · Score: 1

. Oddly, the "international" textbooks (read: American textbooks simply labeled as "Not for sale in the US.") actually cost about half of what they would back home.
No, it's not odd, The pharmaceutical companies do the same thing. US based businesses think we're an upwardly mobile society that can continually afford to be gouged by them.
In meantime, as our standard of living continues to go down as our wages come more in line with the rest of the World, foreign businesses who know how to sell a decent product for much less are going to come into this country and eat their lunches.
It'll happen. Then those US companies are going to cry and scream at Congress about "unfair" competition and "dumping" and how they need "protection" from such "unfair" business practices. In the end, we the little people get it up the ass as usual.
1. Re:Par for the course by WindBourne · 2011-07-04 14:55 · Score: 1
  
  Amazingly, these American 'global' companies do not realize that most of the none American nations WILL be protecting their own industry and are going to resort to more of that as the global economy dies. Basically, these idiots are transferring tech so quickly and will lose all of their precious abilities here. The good news for America is that these companies will die with us.
  
  --
  I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Not so sure about this... by Sinthet · 2011-07-04 00:37 · Score: 1

I always thought digitalizing my schoolwork would make me more productive, since I spend tons of time on my laptop anyway, it removes the necessity to lug around large bags filled with books, and it seems like it could be made cheaper.
However, I doubt I could focus on schoolwork when a million more exciting and enticing uses for the machine are available. I already have a class where I have to complete homework over the Internet, and its certainly not any easier than on paper. If anything, I'm just more tempted to open a new tab and read the latest slashdot post. Maybe its just a transitional thing.
My other concern is that it'd be wasting perfectly good technology. These devices will have to be locked down so that students don't goof around on their tablets rather than stick with the program. However, you're basically taking a perfectly good computer, capable of performing multiple functions, and limiting it to just one. I'm sure someone, somewhere, will root these things, but thats besides the point.
I think a better approach would be to simply let the students decide on an individual level whether or not they want paper books. If they want to go digital, they should be allowed to, and I believe within a few years we'll be left with a decent dataset which can more effectively gage how digital books effect learning, if at all.
Age-old debate? by antonyb · 2011-07-04 01:06 · Score: 1

"This move also re-ignites the age-old debate about whether or not students learn better from screens or printed material"
I think Aristotle first raised this question; several thousand years later Descartes weighed in too, but he was a luddite.
Open Text Books by mspohr · 2011-07-04 01:06 · Score: 1

Google it... there are lots of free open text books.
One example: http://www.collegeopentextbooks.org/

--
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
There are more important issues by devent · 2011-07-04 01:36 · Score: 1

There are more important issues, like do the pupils need to buy all iPads now? Do they need to buy e-book-reader from only one vendor? Can they lend the books to classmates? Do they need to buy the e-Books but can't give them later to their brothers/sisters/cousins?
If S-Korea would do it right they would get the books as DRM free PDF or Pub files, nationwide, with the explicit right to copy the books and share it for free with other (future) S-Korean pupils, where the publishers are only paid for updates on the books. If the publishers don't like it, the S-Korea government is a very big customer, I think they will find a publisher under such terms.
That would do a government that actually wants to benefit from digital books. But I think they will just get one publisher, DRMed e-books and only one e-book-reader vendor.

--
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
1. Re:There are more important issues by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 05:49 · Score: 0
  
  Is it good for eyes(kids) especially this Ipad with TFT screens.
Industrial lobby in action by stoev · 2011-07-04 01:56 · Score: 1

The question is not only about children, green... etc. Korea is one of the main producers of LCD and related technologies. The company Saaamsooong ;-) is practicaly governing the country and they need reliable buyers of their tech to ramp up the volumes. Check who will be the main supplier of the tech and who will profit most from government money.
It's a Samsung subsidy by shikaisi · 2011-07-04 02:34 · Score: 1

You can bet your bottom dollar these will not be iPads. It looks to me like a piece of South Korean government pork to try and provide Samsung with sufficient user base to reach economies of scale where they have a chance of competing with Apple in the global market.

--
No left turn unstoned.
1. Re:It's a Samsung subsidy by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 03:00 · Score: 0
  
  Exactly, ever tried to find an Apple Store in Seoul ? Or see people with iPhone in the streets ?
  Or people driving ANYTHING but a korean car (Hyunday/Samsung/... whatever) ?
  These people are fanatics, their government teaches them from school days that they HAVE to buy Korea, that Japan is EVIL, ...
  See what happened with Apple and Samsung case ?
  Do you seriously believe younger people should continue to complain about what Japan or any country did during WWII ?
  Do you see many Europeans demonstrating against Germany's acts of war during WWII ?
  There's a time where people should look forward and stop blaming their misfortune on the past.
  Korea's economy is terrible but they still try to put on the blame on other countries, go figure...
2. Re:It's a Samsung subsidy by John+Saffran · 2011-07-04 18:33 · Score: 1
  
  Quite an obvious japanese troll, I shouldn't be responding to this slanderous drivel but I'll bite ..
  
  Exactly, ever tried to find an Apple Store in Seoul ? Or see people with iPhone in the streets ?
  Nobody's stopping anyone from building an Apple Store (or a store for any foreign company/franchise, which there are plenty of). The fact remains that Apple simply isn't in sufficiently high demand in Korea, PCs dominate.
  
  In regards to iphones, they're not actually unpopular, depite your allegations, but oddly enough smartphones live and die through their apps and iphones have no advantage in that regard. If anything they have a disadvantage because korean language resources are more extensive for smart phones made by korean companies (surprise! surprise!)
  
  Or people driving ANYTHING but a korean car (Hyunday/Samsung/... whatever) ?
  Oddly enough cars made in korea are cheaper in korea, just like cars manufactured in the US are cheaper there .. which is exactly why most cars in the US (regardless of brand) are made in the US in actuality.
  
  Another factor is that if you look closely you'll find that most korean car manufacturers have significant foreign ownership .. far more than japanese car companies in fact, but you're obviously not going to complain about that.
  
  See what happened with Apple and Samsung case ?
  You mean how Apple started a litigation war against Samsung? What does apple being dicks have to do with koreans?
  
  Now we reach the crux of what your slandering was setting the stage for, spreading misinformation in regards to japan's past and present behaviour ..
  
  Do you seriously believe younger people should continue to complain about what Japan or any country did during WWII ?
  All right-minded and moral people, regardless of age or ethnicity, should condemn japan.
  
  The red herring in your comment (and that of many japan fanboy trolls) is that it's implied that japan of now is somehow different from the japan of WW2. It is not, let me quote a few examples:
  
  - Discrimination for those not seen to be "japanese": This includes both 4th-generation-born-in-japan koreans as well as ethnic japanese that are foreign born, eg. brazilian japanese. To give you an example, zainichi were strongly discriminated against for even using their korean names.
  
  Basically this image of what constitues "japanese" recalls the "true" german being tall, blonde, and blue eyed that the Nazi party espoused.
  
  FUKUOKA, Yasunori of Saitama University is a specialist on the systematic discrimination of Zainichi (koreans born in japan), and David Suzuki co-authored "The Japan we never knew" to bring light to the discrimination that non-"japanese" face.
  
  - Imperialistic policies and historical revision: Japan itself has not repented their imperialistic actions in WW2, indeed it continues to laud them through their constant visits to Yasunuki shrine and their textbook revisions
  
  In April, which marked the 62nd anniversary of the start of the only ground battle in Japan’s main islands during World War II, the education ministry directed publishers of history textbooks to alter descriptions of the mass suicides, specifically eliminating references to the Imperial Japanese military’s direct role.
  
  Such editing would eliminate accounts that soldiers gave civilians hand grenades and instructed them to kill themselves rather than submit to the Americans.
  
  Hirishi Matsuda, chairman of the union, said the teachers want original descriptions of the suicides left in the textbooks.
  
  Matsuda said that the petition drive has received support throughout Japan. Of the 70,000 signatures, 53,000 were from the mainland.
  
  Earlier this month, about 1,000 people staged a rally in Naha sponsored by th
Very convenient by paiute · 2011-07-04 02:40 · Score: 1

Now the Ministry of Plenty only has to do one find on "decreased rations" and one replace with "increased rations".

--
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
some instructors / professors get a part of cost by Joe_Dragon · 2011-07-04 04:17 · Score: 1

some instructors / professors get a part of cost of the books they write some to point of checking books in class to see that they are new and not old used ones.
By LAW DRM can not block screen readers and E-book by Joe_Dragon · 2011-07-04 04:20 · Score: 1

By LAW DRM can not block screen readers and E-books can also make big print / zooming at lot easier then with the old textbooks.
Florida too by microcars · 2011-07-04 04:29 · Score: 1

but not 100% yet.
Apparently Florida voted to require 50% of their textbook budgets on digital materials by 2015: LINK

I personally don't think that "digital textbooks" have to look and feel like "printed textbooks."
Why does it have to be a replication of a printed book?

--
I like microcars
Well by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 05:14 · Score: 1

You realize how easy it will be to change the content of textbooks, with just a simple button. Any government that does not want something can simply change the e-book in the next update. Books have a permanence that e-books do not. Imagine if the Church had access to the Principia, or The Origin of Species
1. Re:Well by rubycodez · 2011-07-04 16:18 · Score: 1
  
  no problem, I can make a CD-ROM of information the government can't alter, or have a "data haven". What's important is open format so I can always read it later. Books can be banned, burned, edited.
Propaganda by LordAzuzu · 2011-07-04 06:59 · Score: 1

Am I being paranoid or...
Being "files" and not printed paper... they could change it's content easily....
In the years being story could be modified...
Wikipedia by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-04 23:20 · Score: 0

You know, I've heard of this thing called Wikipedia that sounds a lot like what you're suggesting here..
1. Re:Wikipedia by EdIII · 2011-07-05 07:45 · Score: 1
  
  Wikipedia is alright for a cursory examination of the facts and to get a general idea of what you should be researching.
  What I am proposing is crowdsourcing people that "speak from authority". Not some geek in a basement with tremendous insight into the feelings of some Japanese Anime school girl character.
  In general, educational text books are written by authorities on the subject, and I was not proposing that I myself get to write any part of it, or an AC for that matter either.
  Wikipedia is great, just don't take it as 100% factual all the time, especially for articles that are contentious.
Free school books are not just a dream by dolmen.fr · 2011-07-07 04:24 · Score: 1

While that's a possibility, the optimist in me is hoping that open/free courseware will develop in time. It might not be as good as current textbooks to begin with, but community efforts (from the Linux kernel to Wikipedia) show what we can produce for "free" consumption.
We already have that in France for mathematics for 6th to 3rd grades: some french professors decided to share their works and built a serie of high quality books distributed under a free license. The books are available both in an electronic media and as old school paper. The books are so good that their market share is the best. And better : the books are updated often instead of every 10 years.
http://manuel.sesamath.net/
One example:
http://mep-outils.sesamath.net/manuel_numerique/index.php?ouvrage=ms6_2009