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CourseSmart Looks Ahead at eTextbooks on Apple's Tablet

Tuesday January 5, 2010 5:49 am PST by Eric Slivka

The Wall Street Journal reports on eTextbook publisher CourseSmart, which is looking ahead to the release of Apple's much-rumored tablet and is using this week's CES conference in Las Vegas to show off its thoughts on how its content could be offered on the new device.

However, Coursesmart Executive Vice President Frank Lyman has a very different take on the potential of tablet computers for reading. Tablets could include the ability to look at color graphics and integrate other sources of information such as video and outside links, he said.

"The key is that with multifunction devices, you can do more than just read the textbook. You can interact with the content," he said. It is all about having your textbooks integrated with other tools and resources that you use for learning."

In order to promote its vision, CourseSmart has developed a preview video demonstrating eTextbook usage on a concept Apple tablet. While the company has no inside knowledge of the device, it has clearly paired its ideas of how the tablet might function with Apple's existing software design aesthetics.

CourseSmart already offers its library of thousands of textbooks for the iPhone and iPod touch and is obviously looking to take advantage of the advanced capabilities of the tablet to move beyond existing offerings to more powerful and interactive implementations for its content.