libraries

Like bookmobiles? Try Japan's bullet train library

If you're a kid growing up in Japan, chances are you dig comic books and trains. In the western Tokyo city of Akishima, you can indulge in both by reading manga in a vintage bullet train that's now a kids' library.

The converted 0 series Shinkansen has been drawing kids to the Akishima Library since 1992. Little tykes can kick back on the carriage's 25 seats and read from a collection of some 10,000 books.

As seen in the video below, kids can also play engineer in the train driver's compartment. The library is popular … Read more

Aperture 3: Aperture videos not available in iMovie

Users may find that when working in iMovie and attempting to use videos stored in their Aperture libraries, they are not able to be used. This can be caused if the video files in your Aperture library are referenced files, stored in a location (such as an external hard drive) that is referenced and not managed.… Read more

The 404 564: Where we're DJing a Broadway musical (podcast)

Last night marked the New York premiere of Green Day's new musical "American Idiot," and no one is happier about a full choir performing "Time of Your Life" than The 404 Podcast. The three of us have mixed feelings, however, about some of the other "alternative musicals" that are popping up. Does the world really need a Broadway show based on a Web-slinging base jumper, or worse--a Harvard-grad prosecutor with daddy's credit card?

Contrary to the title of today's episode, you can't hire us to DJ your next party just yet, but we might know someone who can help you out. Our buddy Rana Sobhany is making headlines as the first DJ with only two iPads and a mixer in tow. Using a collection of free (or very cheap) programs likePianist Pro, Sonosaurus Rex, iDaft, and more, Rana proves that you can throw a fun party for under $2K without assistance from Serato or even actual turntables.

We have to bow our heads to Apple for raising the bar once again, this time with the purchasing of concert tickets. The company recently filed a patent for a virtual ticket kiosk running on iTunes and Apple hardware like the iPhone or iPad. The diagrams show a concept that would extend beyond just buying tickets, too. For example, an app could be used to purchase food, merchandise, and even exclusive audio content with an electronic ticket on a handset.

Most importantly, the patent lifts our spirits knowing that we'll finally have an alternative to Ticketmaster, which could potentially drive down ticket costs. At the very least, we won't have to swallow that awful "processing fee" that sometimes ends up costing more than the ticket itself!

The well of Calls and E-mails From the Public is running pretty dry this week, which means you listeners aren't doing your job! Leave a voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET or e-mail the404(at)cnet{dot}com to get on the show!

EPISODE 564 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Library of Congress to house your tweets

Put down that copy of Tiger Beat, Justin Bieber fans, for the teenage songster's Twitter musings soon will be a matter of public record. The Library of Congress announced today--via Twitter, no less--that is acquiring the Twitter's entire archive through donation. Now I feel a lot of pressure to make my tweets as witty as possible.

Exact details are to come, but the archive will include all public tweets since March, 2006. And with 55 million tweets per day from 105 million registered users, that's a lot of social blabbering to preserve. Just think, once Library … Read more

IBM BigSheets to preserve fleeting Web data

IBM announced Thursday that it is working with the British Library on a project that will preserve and analyze terabytes of information on the Web before it is lost forever.

Recent research estimates the average life expectancy of a Web site is 44 to 75 days. Every six months, for example, roughly 10 percent of Web pages on the U.K. domain are lost.

In most cases of personal sites, this is no big loss. But in the case of organizations attempting to archive and chronicle elections, news, media, and video, this data leakage presents massive challenges. And even if … Read more

Google book settlement draws fire in court

NEW YORK--The disparate and dissenting constituencies that showed up to federal court here on Thursday to comment on Google's plan to create a digital library illustrated just how polarizing and far reaching the effort has become.

The gallery at the federal court house here filled not one but two rooms (one room watched the proceedings via close-circuit TV). Foreign dignitaries squeezed onto benches with cane-wielding advocates for the blind, college professors, literary agents, authors of children's books, and, of course, lots and lots of lawyers.

The one thing that most in attendance shared was a passionate view of … Read more

Make slick-looking databases of just about anything

Bento is a database app from the makers of Filemaker offering plenty of great features, but its deliberate lack of focus may make it difficult for people to grasp its usefulness. Bento is loaded with templates to create databases of people, places, or things using nice-looking graphics. The interface takes some time to get used to, but with a little poking around (and once the major features become clear), the true power of Bento starts to materialize.

Bento can be used to catalog just about anything in any number of ways. Comic book collectors could use the program to catalog … Read more

Pride, Prejudice, and Kindles: Amazon offers classics for free

You've seen the film, probably with Helena Bonham Carter and Emma Thompson; now read the original book, on your Kindle, for nowt. The works of Dickens and Austen are among 65,000 classics of English literature digitized by the British Library and coming soon, for free, to Amazon's e-book reader.

The titles were scanned on Microsoft's dime as part of its now-defunct Live Search book search project. They're all from the 19th century and are out of copyright. Amazon will offer the e-books to Kindle owners through its Kindle store in late spring or early summer, … Read more

A library of errors

Absolute Media Library is a basic program for keeping track of all types of collections. Although it offers a lot of options for organization, its incessant error messages make it hard to like.

The program's interface is simple, and although it's not the most intuitive, it's easy enough to figure out. You can enter media of all sorts, specifying format, genre, value, and other details. In addition to keeping an inventory of items, you can create a database of borrowers and keep track of items that get loaned out, which is a nice feature to have in … Read more