What's New 20 December 2011

Now Mapping the Indoors – Google Maps is Going Inside Google Maps is great for getting from Point A to Point B, but what happens after you get to Point B? Retailers, airports and transit stations in the U.S. and Japan are currently partnered with Google on the project. When you’re inside an airport, shopping mall or retail store, a common way to figure out where you are is to look for a freestanding map directory or ask an employee for help. With the release of Google Maps 6.0 for Android, that directory is brought to the palm of your hands, helping you determine where you are, what floor you're on, and where to go indoors.


ALIA Training - Love 2 Read!
 In support of the National Year of Reading 2012 campaign, the Love 2 Read online course aims to introduce participants to the wide range of literature in library collections and the ways libraries can promote its use to clients. This online course can be completed in 6 weeks (one topic per week) but as it is developed to be self paced, it can be finished earlier or later depending on your learning styles and needs. It runs from 21 February - 3 April 2012. Register by 7 Feb.

Library of Congress to receive entire Twitter archive 
The Library of Congress and Twitter have signed an agreement that will see an archive of every public Tweet ever sent handed over to the library’s repository of historical documents. Every public tweet since Twitter’s inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. The archives don’t contain tweets that users have protected, but everything else — billions and billions of tweets — are there.


Apple Updates iBooks with Night Mode & More, and Also Updates Cards 
Apple updated two of its own apps – iBooks and Cards. With iBooks users can read eBooks and documents which they load on their iPhone. The update includes the ability to read in a night-time mode with white text on a black background. There’s also a new full-screen mode that lets you only see the text of your book or document. A new set of fonts made into the iBooks update. They include Athelas, Charter, Iowan and Seravek. Public domain books get new covers and text highlighting was improved as well. Apple introduced Cards with the latest version of iOS 5 and the iPhone 4S. The app lets you send snail mail cards using your iPhone photos. The app’s improvements include “improved verification of postal addresses,” text entry improvements and a better checkout process.

Funky Photo
Funky Photo creates 6 different image effects. Simply upload a photo and then edit the effect.

Roamz: find things to do around you 
Be a local! Roamz is a location-based app that helps you find out what is happening around you. It shows you social content about places, events and activities that are relevant to you. It uses information from the networks you know and love - Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram and Twitter - and cuts through the noise to deliver you personalized and intelligent suggestions. It’s like having your best friend in your pocket, showing you things that you are actually interested in. The best part is, the more you use Roamz the smarter it gets, so no matter where you are you’ll always be a local. You can capture and share Roamz moments at places that you discover too, by connecting your Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare accounts.

National Broadband Network explained
NBN Co has released a series of short animated videos about the National Broadband Network project and the rollout process.
Watch the videos here:

• The NBN explained 
• The NBN – Your telephone 
• and the NBN - Property developers