Once in a while an entire community seems to be overrun by a buzzword or two. Such a time seems to be upon us and the buzzword these days is “innovation”. Without knowing what it really entails, every person wishes to be innovative and every company wishes to drive innovation.
When one sees such ambitions actually manifest themselves, it makes for some exciting times. Case in point: the Amazon Whispercast. It is a tool that allows organizations to manage and deploy material that can be used for Kindle devices and Kindle apps for other devices through a central interface.
What that means is that organizations can develop material that can be used on Kindles and Kindle-supporting devices and make it available to all who wish to have or need that have that information at the click of a single button. Think of schools where the teacher develops course material and makes it available for all students or of organizations where training material is developed and made accessible to all trainees. If used smartly, this means that very little paperwork is necessary and the overheads of distributing physical copies are completely eliminated. Perhaps we will soon see Amazon push software manufacturers to integrate development of Kindle-compatible documents from the commonly used applications themselves. Just wondering if we are too far away from a “Save as Kindle content” menu item.
In India, such applications can prove very useful in places such as schools, where, thanks to the low costs of Android-compatible smartphones, learning material can be easily disseminated, government offices where information about new legislations and rules can circulated, even in healthcare where important information can be circulated immediately. With a little imagination, the technology can be applied in many other situations thus making operations more streamlined and paperless. Since Kindle apps are free for almost every platform, the need to actually buy a Kindle is absent and other, cheaper, devices such as the government-promoted Aakash can be used for this purpose.
Something to think about!