Dec 31 2012
Monday News: Pearson buys 5% stake in Nook Media; NYTimes celebrates the deceased 2012 artists; Links about spiders
The Music They Made –NYTimes is experimenting with video, sound, and visual applications to move into the 21st century. This is a collection of music snippets celebrating artists who died in 2012. NYTimes.com
NOOK Media Announces Strategic Investment by Pearson – Pearson is investing $89 million in Nook Media, the digital media arm of Barnes & Noble in exchange for 5% equity stake. Microsoft owns nearly 17% of Nook Media and there have been rumors that Nook Media will spin off from Barnes & Noble.Business Wire
Pearson is also granted an option to purchase an additional 5%. Pearson’s investment is deemed to be one to expand its educational reach.
Pearson’s strategic investment in NOOK Media will accelerate customer access to digital content by pairing its leading expertise in online learning with NOOK Media’s expertise in online distribution and customer service. This will facilitate improved discovery of available digital content and services, as well as seamless access.
Maratus splendens – The back of this spider is raised during periods of courtship, like a peacock, and is known as the Peacock Spider. Flickr
Giant spider eating a bird caught on camera – I tweeted the picture of the peacock spider and received this link back from Maria (@ladyval75). This spider is the Golden Orb Weaver and normally only grows as big as a hand. Only. Shudder. Basically, as Shiloh Walker pointed out, this is Shelob. Telegraph
Spider That Builds Its Own Spider Decoys Discovered – If you aren’t freaked out by the previous links about arachnids, read this article about a new species of spiders that has been discovered in Peruvian Amazon. This spider is so smart that it is building decoys of itself out of debris and dead insects to fool its prey. Wired.com
Why all the stuff about spiders? It’s been a slow news cycle in publishing since Christmas.
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Dec 31, 2012 @ 05:04:25
OMG, the spider eating the bird is just wrong and yet I couldn’t stop myself from checking it out and shuddering.
Dec 31, 2012 @ 08:36:06
The only thing I care about the Nook media thingy is if I’m gonna now be allowed to read Kindle books on it. If not, I fail to see how this benefits me. And its ALL about me. :)
Dec 31, 2012 @ 08:42:13
Looks like someone is into “I Fucking Love Science.” She went on a spider binge a few weeks ago and hit on all these spider stories and had several different pics of the peacock spider.
Dec 31, 2012 @ 09:43:32
Geez, do I feel like a wuss, since I was worried about black widows in the backyard….