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The Coalition's mission statement says, "Sadly, the Authors Guild does not support equal access for us. The Guild has told us that to read their books with text-to-speech we must either submit to a special registration system (that not all may qualify for and that would expose disability information to all future eBook reader manufacturers) and prove our disabilities -- or pay extra." (...) The Guild issued a statement following the protests, explaining its position: "The Authors Guild will gladly be a forceful advocate for amending contracts to provide access to voice-output technology to everyone. We will not, however, surrender our members' economic rights to Amazon or anyone else. The leap to digital has been brutal for print media generally, and the economics of the transition from print to e-books do not look as promising as many assume. Authors can't afford to start this transition to digital by abandoning rights." If the guild is trying to gain sympathy, it will have a very difficult time when it pits "economic rights" against civil rights.

1.1: Purpose and Scope In order for electronic-book technology to achieve widespread success in the marketplace, Reading Systems need to have convenient access to a large number and variety of titles. The Open Publication Structure (OPS) Specification describes a standard for representing the content of electronic publications. Specifically: * The specification is intended to give content providers (e.g. publishers, authors, and others who have content to be displayed) and publication tool providers, minimal and common guidelines that ensure fidelity, accuracy, accessibility, and adequate presentation of electronic content over various Reading Systems. * The specification seeks to reflect established content format standards. * The goal of this specification is to define a standard means of content description for use by purveyors of electronic books (publishers, agents, authors et al.) allowing such content to be provided to multiple Reading Systems and to insure maximum presentational equivalence across Reading Systems.

The blind and other readers have the right for books to be presented to us in the format that is most useful to us, and we are not violating copyright law as long as we use readers, either human or machine, for private rather than public listening. The key point is that reading aloud in private is the same whether done by a person or a machine, and reading aloud in private is never an infringement of copyright. Amazon has taken a step in the right direction by including text-to-speech technology for reading e-books aloud on its new Kindle 2". More details are available on the Forbes website.

"Amazon has taken a step in the right direction by including text-to-speech technology for reading e-books aloud on its new Kindle 2," Dr. Maurer [President of the National Federation of the Blind] continued. "We note, however, that the device itself cannot be used independently by a blind reader because the controls to download a book and begin reading it aloud are visual and therefore inaccessible to the blind. We urge Amazon to rectify this situation as soon as possible in order to make the Kindle 2 a device that truly can be used both by blind and sighted readers. By doing so, Amazon will make it possible for blind people to purchase a new book and begin reading it immediately, just as sighted people do."

As some of you may already know, this week we received a DMCA take-down notice from Amazon requesting the removal of the tool kindlepid.py and instructions associated with it. Although we never hosted this tool (contrary to their claim), nor believe that this tool is used to remove technological measures (contrary to their claim), we decided, due to the vagueness of the DMCA law and our intention to remain in good relation with Amazon, to voluntarily follow their request and remove links and detailed instructions related to it.

All you really need to know about the dangers of digital commodification you learned in kindergarten.\n\nThink back. Remember swapping your baloney sandwich for Jell-o pudding? Now, imagine handing over your sandwich and getting just a spoon.\n\nThat's one trade you'd never make again.\n\nYet that's just what millions of Americans are doing every day when they read "books" on Kindle, Amazon's e-reading device. In our rush to adopt new technologies, we have too readily surrendered ownership in favor of its twisted sister, access.

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

"Ning announced repeatedly that it would delete free networks whose creators had not paid for one of its new pricing plans by midnight Aug. 20. On Aug. 21, however, Ning extended this deadline to August 30. Here's the announcement of this extension on its Help page: Deadline for Selecting a Ning Plan Extended to August 30, 2010 A number of Network Creators, particularly those based outside the United States, have requested more time to arrange for payment and make the right decision on a plan for their network. As a result, we have extended the deadline for selecting one of the three new plans (Ning Mini, Plus and Pro) to August 30, 2010. Beginning on this date, we will block access to any free Ning Network that isn't subscribed to one of the three plans. Please let us know if we can help, or if you have questions or comments. Thank you!"

"It therefore seems advisable to protect your data by unjoining Ning networks whose creators do not intend to pay for a Ning plan. This includes talketc.ning.com, the Ning network for ETC Journal. Moreover, when you unjoin a Ning network, you have the option to delete everything you contributed to it - you might wish to do that too. "

To pay so much attention to Bill Gates' retirement is missing the point. What really matters is not Gates, nor Microsoft, but the unethical system of restrictions that Microsoft, like many other software companies, imposes on its customers.

CoSN.org site with news feeds and guest bloggers.

I think we should permanently cut off the internet access of any company that sends out three erroneous copyright notices. Three strikes and you're out, mate.

I keep waiting for someone to tell the young mayor, and Miss Rhee that to be a teacher in the District of Columbia is a very hard job shaped by all kinds of outside forces. I think about my three years I which I spent all of my savings contributing to the school system. I taught across from a large welfare housing in southwest Washington DC. The school is still there. They called me the pied piper of SW. I took children on field trips, taught them to use the museums on the mall to learn, did NASA Marsville with them and had wonderful reading scores. It was not appreciated. I was making trouble. That's why I left. Children followed me in the SW mall. Children in trouble slept at my doorstep. There was never enough time or money to address all of their needs.

A site advocating use of Open Source Solutions in UK Schools

Open Source Schools is here to share information about open source software in schools. Our aim is to help you decide whether open source software might offer benefits for learning, teaching, engaging pupils and parents, managing information and resources, or school administration. The website provides information and articles about open source software, advice on getting started, case studies of its adoption in schools, a directory for exploring what is available, and a glossary.

Every legislative and normative proposal recapitulates the worst mistakes of the spamfight: from Viacom's demand that Google automatically detect copyright-infringing videos while they're being uploaded; to the three-accusations-and-you're-offline proposal from the BPI; to the notion in the G8's Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement of turning copyright holders into judge, jury and executioner for what content can travel online and who can see it.

Listing of open source alternatives to Norton Ghost for easy machine restoration.

Cory Doctorow's column on DRM Cory Doctorow is a digital activist, science fiction author and co-editor of the popular blog Boing Boing. Each fortnight he writes about copy protection, digital rights management (DRM) and the entertainment industry.

This conference has been designed by school leaders and others in the Open Source Schools' community to showcase to school leadership teams the best of educational free and open source software whether used alone or blended with proprietary software.