This book is about you. Are you, as a customer, as an entrepreneur, as an individual, ready for the Internet and e-business? Do you see the possibilities and do you actually use these? Do you have an idea of where it will end? Did you ever list how the Internet changes your life as an entrepreneur? And, do you make the next move or do you let it all happen to you? About the fact that the Internet is much more than e-mail, shopping, chatting and searching. About how the Internet as a driver of e-business changes the set-up of your company or educational institution and maybe your very business in a very positive and still “e-secure” way: marketing & sales, operations, purchasing, recruitment & selection, e-HRM. We go through six related trends with you, without pretending to be complete.
Since the late 1990s, city councils have become increasingly aware of the potential for information technologies (ICTs) to improve the management of cities and as an instrument for economic and social policy. This has resulted in a wave of urban ICT strategies and policies, such as the adoption of ICTs within the city administration itself, projects that facilitate access to ICTs by weaker social groups and policies to improve the urban electronic infrastructure. By comparing eight cities - Barcelona, Cape Town, Eindhoven, Johnnesburg, Manchester, Tampere, the Hague and Venice - this book examines a range of innovative urban e-governance strategies and develops a framework of analysis that permits a common approach. Throughout the book, a distinction is made between access policies (aimed at improving access to ICTs for all citizens), content policies (directed to improve the use of ICTs in the city administration and semi-public domains) and infrastructure policies (to improve the provision of broadband infrastructure). For each of the cities, e-strategies and policies are critically reviewed and compared. The book reveals that urban e-strategies have evolved from an internal and technology-centred orientation to a more outward-looking approach.
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The authors compared three methods of reading and learning by using paper, as well as a variety of interactive study forms. Thier work is part of the large Amsterdam E-Boekenstad (E-Book city) research project (www.e-boekenstad.nl and http://e-boekenstad.wikispaces.com/). They investigate to what extent the materiality of a book determines the usability of the book form. Their tests were conducted in 2010 and 2011. They compared; 1.learning from paper, a laptop and an e-ink e-reader 2.paper with reading from web pages 3.paper and material presented into a digital mind map. As it turns out, in a study situation, electronic reading can only beat reading from paper when it offers real added value. For example, by providing a better overview and shorter comprehensive texts, like they did in their second study. The most important conclusion from all tests is that a simple translation from paper format to electronic format is not enough. Publishers should take advantage of the possibilities new techniques offer, and perhaps discard ‘traditional thinking’ in terms of linear essay-type books and paragraphs.