digitization

With a nod toward the naming schema the company used in the late '70s when upgrading its popular ME film SLR to the ME Super, Pentax has announced its new K100D Super 6.1-megapixel digital SLR. An update to last year's K100D, this new SLR adds Pentax's Dust Removal system, as well as support for the company's high-end SDM lenses, to one of the more affordable digital SLRs on the market. Other than these additions, the K100D Super is essentially the same as the K100D, which included Pentax's sensor-shift Shake Reduction system, which helps reduce blur-inducing … Read more

Adobe's Digital Editions lets you manage your e-book collection with large icons taken from the book covers, an uncluttered interface, and the ability to create playlist-style "bookshelves." Released for both Windows and Mac, the iTunes-style management might just help make e-books the Next Big Thing.

In this First Look video, take a quick tour of the app from its unusual install process onward.

Portable DVD players seem to come in all shapes and sizes these days--and sometimes in pairs. Yes, the Disney dual-screen Mobile DVD player has arrived at our New York offices, along with one of Disney's new Pix Max digital cameras, which sports a "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme.

The idea behind the dual-screen DVD player ($180) is that two backseat riders can watch the same movie at the same time, with neither person having to deal with the perils of off-axis viewing. Both screens feature a 7-inch LCD display that straps onto the back of a headrest; … Read more

Textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin said Monday it signed a pact with Microsoft to develop a new digital education system for school districts. Under the deal, Houghton Mifflin will build its learning system with Microsoft technology, including the.Net framework 3.0 and its latest SharePoint servers.

In 2001, Houghton Mifflin, an American institution in education publishing, bought instructional technology from IBM. That technology became what it called Learning Village, a system for school administrators and teachers to access curriculum, among other features. Now used by 45,000 schools in roughly 30 countries, the software is due for an update, according … Read more

As it's Saturday here on The Digital Home and not too much is going on except sun bathing and lemonade sipping, I thought I would ask you, the loyal electronics lover, what you believe the Digital Home really is and what it means to you.

So, without further ado, fire away in the comments and let's try to get a discussion going. My favorite comments will be posted tomorrow.

Thanks!

Type the word "education" into Google and the search engine will spit up 690 million results, with top links to a U.S. government site, Wikipedia, the New York Times and Apple Computer.

For PTA types, that much information could be a curse. That's why a Silicon Valley upstart aims to cater to time-pressed parents with a new reference Web site that's all about child-age schooling.

The site, called Education.com, launched in beta Thursday. According to CEO Ron Fortune, the site is designed to be "the WebMD of education" for parents and teachers … Read more

Amazon.com's BookSurge subsidiary announced Thursday that it has partnered with book digitization company Kirtas Technologies on a project to archive and distribute hard-to-find books. This new initiative involves collaboration with public and university libraries to provide their collections of "rare and inaccessible" books; the titles will be digitized through Kirtas and then reproductions will be sold through Amazon through the BookSurge print-on-demand service.

In return, the partner libraries--initially consisting of Emory University, University of Maine, and the public libraries in Toronto, Ont. and Cincinnati, Ohio--will receive a cut of the revenue to fund further book preservation … Read more

Each Thursday here on The Digital Home, I will be discussing a current topic of interest that may have serious implications on your home in the coming days, months or years. The topics may range from groundbreaking new products to government legislation to adults only video games -- our topic of interest today.

In a setback for Take-Two Interactive, the company's Manhunt 2 video game has been banned from sale in the UK because of its ESRB Adults Only rating. Even worse for Take-Two, Best Buy and Wal-Mart -- two significant video game retailers -- have historically banned Adults … Read more

In a new series that will be featured each Wednesday here on The Digital Home, I will be interviewing industry experts and icons to talk about how they made their rise to the top and what The Digital Home means to them.

In the very first installment of the interview series, I had the opportunity to talk to "MAD's Maddest Writer" Dick DeBartolo. With a career that spans more than forty years of comedy, gadgets and TV, Dick the longest running writer for everyone's favorite comedy magazine, and is one of the most renowned gadget lovers … Read more