Friday, October 29, 2010

Thursday Open Thread: Are Cord Cutters Hip Or Poor? : Video «

There is discussion about cable dying off - everything TV will be at the TeeVee station or online. Interesting article link below from GigaOM.

Thursday Open Thread: Are Cord Cutters Hip Or Poor? : Video «: "A lot has been written about Comcast losing 275,000 of its cable subscribers during the third quarter. Our own Ryan Lalwer thinks this is clear evidence of cord cutting as a result of rising cable bills. Others disagree, arguing that customers are simply switching to other forms of pay TV."

Monday, October 18, 2010

Mobile Photo Bill Pay

Snap Pic of Any Invoice and the Bank Pays It

Mitek Systems will today introduce Mobile Photo Bill Pay, a system that allows snapping a photo of any bill and having it paid from customer’s accounts at participating financial organizations. The new smartphone method works similar to the firm’s photo deposit app that makes it easy to remotely make bank deposits from a photo of a physical check. The bill pay app will be available for the iPhone, followed shortly by versions for Android and the BlackBerry.

Taking a photo of a paper invoice is straightforward; the challenge is correctly interpreting the pertinent information in the bill to provide the correct information to the bank for payment. Invoices vary in layout and content, and Mitek’s system is able to interpret the picture taken of the bill and correctly determining the information needed by the bank’s e-pay system for payment. The app presents the interpreted information to the customer for verification and authorizes the bank to pay the bill by tapping the Pay button. The interpreted information is stored by the application to aid in the processing of future bills to the same payee.


Carolyn speaking: Not sure about this - I love the concept - but everything being virtual messes with my mind - I guess I need my senses used and actually touch my bills - that way when I pay them I can snack on my chocolate and tequila.............and get satisfaction!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Mark Your Calendars - TLA District 7 Meeting

TLA District 7 Meeting is November 13th at Trinity Valley School off of Bryant Irvin in Fort Worth. We have an amazing speaker for the day - Nicole Engard. She is from Pennsylvania and writes the blog What I Learned Today. We are very excited and want to wish her a BIG Texas Welcome. You won't be disappointed!

For complete information: District 7 Meeting

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

PubIt! Publish Your Own EBooks



Check out the Barnes & Noble Self Publishing PubIt - for emerging authors. I love the independence of this!

Friday, October 01, 2010

Texting Censorship Court Case

Texting censorship flap settled out of court
by David Kravets, wired.com | Last updated October 1, 2010 3:26 PM
A legal flap concerning whether wireless carriers may censor text messages was settled out of court Friday, leaving unanswered the highly contentious question of whether wireless carriers have the same “must carry” obligations as traditional phone companies.

The month-old New York federal case pitted T-Mobile against a texting service, which claimed the Bellevue, Washington-based wireless carrier unlawfully blocked its clients after the service sent messages on behalf of a California medical-marijuana dispensary listing site.

The full terms of the settlement were not disclosed. Lawyers involved said the agreement requires T-Mobile to stop blocking the New York-based EZ Texting service’s thousands of clients. These lawyers declined to say whether T-Mobile had to allow texts from the medical-marijuana info service, which used texts to tell its users where the nearest medical-marijuana store was.

The dispute comes as the Federal Communications Commission has been dragging its feet over clarifying the rules for wireless carriers. The FCC was asked in 2007 to announce clear guidelines whether wireless carriers, unlike their wireline brethren, may ban legal content they do not support. The so-called “network neutrality” issue made huge headlines earlier this year when Google, along with Verizon, urged Congress not to bind wireless carriers to the same rules as wireline carriers.

EZ Texting offers a short code service, which works like this: A church could send its schedule to a mobile phone user who texted “CHURCH” to 313131. Mobile phone users only receive text messages from EZ Texting’s customers upon request. Each of its clients gets their own special word.

T-Mobile wrote in a filing last month that it had the “discretion to require pre-approval (PDF) for any short-code marketing campaigns run on its network, and to enforce its guidelines by terminating programs for which a content provider failed to obtain the necessary approval.”

Such approval is necessary, T-Mobile added, “to protect the carrier and its customers from potentially illegal, fraudulent, or offensive marketing campaigns conducted on its network.”

A similar text-messaging flap occurred in 2007, but ended without litigation, when Verizon reversed itself and allowed an abortion-rights group to send text messages to its supporters.

Days ago, Congress shelved a last-minute attempt to pass net neutrality legislation, prompting its supporters to call for the FCC to act on its own.

World Digital Library

This is just a reminder about the World Digital Library - there are some amazing documents and drawings........

World Digital LibraryMission
The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.

The principal objectives of the WDL are to:

Promote international and intercultural understanding;
Expand the volume and variety of cultural content on the Internet;
Provide resources for educators, scholars, and general audiences;
Build capacity in partner institutions to narrow the digital divide within and between countries.