EU copyright to drive book digitisation

EU commissioner in charge of information society and media, Viviane Reding, is rallying Europe in an effort to put in place a pro-competitive European book digitisation plan to become operational sooner than that envisaged by search giant Google, states Computing.co.uk.

Reding says Europe should seize this opportunity to take the lead, and to ensure book digitisation takes place on the basis of European copyright law, and in full respect of Europe's cultural diversity.

"If we act swiftly, pro-competitive European solutions on books digitisation may well be sooner operational than the solutions presently envisaged under the Google Books Settlement in the US," says Reding.

For the past month, some Mac OS X users have been reporting their personal data missing after logging into their guest accounts, and Apple now says it is working on finding a fix, reports CNET.

"We are aware of the issue, which occurs only in extremely rare cases, and we are working on a fix," says an Apple representative. It's the first time Apple has said it is looking into the issue. In early September, a handful of Mac users reported the issue on Apple's discussion boards.

The problem occurs when logging into the guest account on Mac first and then logging into a regular account. Some users are finding all their data to be missing and their accounts completely reset.

Dell and Salesforce.com are teaming up to offer a cloud-based CRM solution for SMEs, says CRN.

Subscriptions for the Dell-Salesforce.com solution will start at $9 per user, per month and are being billed by the companies as an out-of-the-box integration solution. The CRM solution will be delivered to customers from Salesforce.com, while Dell will provide migration for customers through Dell Integration Services.

"Dell and Salesforce.com are providing customers with an integrated and proven solution that we have been testing extensively in our own organisations," says Steve Felice, president of Dell's global small and medium-sized business operations.

LG is working on a solar-powered e-reader prototype, reports PCMag. The new reader features a solar cell measuring 10cm by 10cm, with an energy conversion efficiency rate of 9.6%. Four to five hours of sunlight should give about a day's worth of charge.

"E-books are attracting a lot of attention because they offer the advantage of storing thousands of books' worth of contents in an easy-to-carry device," says Ki Yong Kim, head of the solar cell office at LG Display.

"The idea of e-book combined with solar cell will offer users the added benefit of longer usage,” he explains.