[guide.chat] Information form the matilda magazine
- From: "Carol O'Connor" <missbossyboots33@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "guide Chat List" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2011 11:52:30 +0100
Contributor Terri Winaught - Bookshare and Humanware Simplify Access
to Bookshare Books
Humanware and Bookshare recently announced a new version of the free
Humanware Companion Software that simplifies finding, downloading, and
transferring Bookshare books to the Victor Reader Stream digital
talking book player.
Now, Companion users can not only transfer their Bookshare book to
their Stream, but they can go online to find and download the book
through the Companion software as well.
"An interface has been developed that connects to Bookshare from
within devices and applications precisely for these purposes, making
it easier to find and read books," said Betsy Beaumon, Vice President
and General Manager of the Literacy Program at Benetech, the company
which founded Bookshare.
Bookshare members who use the Companion software with their Stream
will have direct access to the online book collection of more than
114,000 DAISY digital talking books.
With the latest version of the free Humanware Companion software,
version 3.4, Victor Reader Stream users can now select the Bookshare
Web Service from the Online Books menu, log into their Bookshare
account, and search by title, author, or ISBN. Simply select the
desired title from the search results list and the Companion will
download it, and transfer the book to the Stream.
This new software update will streamline the entire process and allow
users to search for and download books within one convenient
application. Anything that makes obtaining books on these great
players even easier is a step in the right direction.
Victor Reader Stream users can obtain the Humanware Companion version
3.4 by visiting
http://visit.humanware.com/e/3332/tream-software/7RFW6/216896492
Users who already have Companion version 3.3 can just use the Check
for Updates item of the Help Menu.
To learn more about the popular Victor Reader Stream DAISY MP3 player
and recorder visit:
www.humanware.com/stream
For more about Bookshare visit:
www.bookshare.org
###
Contributor Valerie Moreno - Blindness Is Fitting
I've often thought that, as different as our views on blindness are,
a funny experience is universal.
I'm a totally blind lady who never uses color tags on clothing. One
reason is my wardrobe consists of pants and tops with neutral colors.
I am casual to a fault, but have no trouble distinguishing items by
feel--that is, until a month ago.
Eagerly anticipating a Sunday meeting with a special church group, I
was up, showered, and done with breakfast way ahead of my ride. I
sauntered in to the bedroom, humming a song as I reached for the
slacks I set out.
This was my one clean pair--everything else was at my daughter's
house since she'd offered to help with laundry.
Unfolding the pleasant-scented item, I cried in alarm as two
sleeves-not pant legs-dangled in my hands. I was going nowhere! The
blouse I'd mistaken for pants (made of like material) erased my happy
mood instantly.
"Um...Dolores?" I began, my embarrassment giving way to exasperation.
"I can't go out! My one clean pair of pants turned out to be a blouse!
I must have put it in the wrong drawer."
There were low chuckling sounds, then she said, "I understand, but
you know, that's funny!" Truly, it was!
No, I haven't gotten color tags as a result. I'll just double-check
the laundry from now on. Fitting solution, I say!
###
News - A Ton of Data
I'm a sucker for statistics, especially when the information provided
really paints a vivid picture. In this case, I've come across an
interesting study done to give the amount of data that humans will
create this year some sort of context.
The amount I'm talking about is simply huge and is measured in
zettabytes. Now, a zettabyte means next to nothing on its own because
it's a number that's so imperceptivity large. It's like trying to
conceptualize distance through space in light years. For reference, a
zettabyte is equal to one billion terabytes. One terabyte is equal to
one thousand gigabytes. To add even more scale, the hard drives in
most personal computers are probably, on average, about 250 gigabytes
in size.
Now that zettabytes have been defined, take into account that in this
year alone, humans will create roughly 1.8 zettabytes of data. What
follows is an effort to give that gargantuan number some kind of
context.
To reach 1.8 zettabytes of data, every single person in the United
States would have to produce 3 tweets on Twitter per minute, non-stop,
for 26,976 years. It's also the equivalent of 200 billion HD movies,
each 120 minutes long. It would take one person--watching 24 hours a
day, seven days a week--47 million years to watch every one of those
movies.
Moving on to the storage sizes of popular devices, it would require
57.5 billion iPads with a 32 gigabyte hard drive to store all of that
data. With that many iPads, you could build a mountain roughly 94,400
meters tall--25 times larger than Mount Fuji. Those iPads would also
cost about $34.4 trillion dollars, the equivalent of the GDP of the
United States, Japan, China, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and
Italy combined.
So, to sum it up, we produce a ridiculous amount of information. It
also makes you feel rather small in the grand scheme of things. Just
think; every weekly edition of this magazine combined would be like a
period in one book against all of the text present in the Library of
Congress.
To take all of the things you produce in a given year and realize
it's just a drop of water in the ocean gives true meaning to how big
our world really is.
Source: http://mashable.com/2011/06/28/data-infographic/
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