The Textbook Industry is Screwing Students. Period. End of conversation... well kinda...

The textbook industry is bloated and screwing students in so many areas:

1. Updating versions with minimal text & graphics changes, then…
2. Charging out the ass for a single textbook.
3. They are using a 27,000,000 TPY (trees per year).
4. Traditional textbooks aren’t using current technology to it’s fullest potential. I’m sorry, PDFs & ePub are 1990’s standards.

We at TRImagination believe there is a better solution and we are working on it! We are building a digital textbook & mini-guide publishing/distribution application.

Our goals are as follows:

1. Digital textbooks don’t need different versions, they can be updated like your anti-virus program.
2. Make quality textbooks that affordable.
3. No trees will be harmed in the creation of our digital textbooks.
4. Make them engaging (audio, video and other interactive content and features).

Our story began when a student (Lee Graham) and his former professor (Dr. Harry Sova) met to catch up on the stairs of a university. One thing led to another, and next we are talking about a new vision for textbooks that would provide real interest to students, as well as save them in their wallets. They ended the conversation with a handshake and that was the beginning of our story.

Today, we have several mini-guides in the works and building the infrastructure to support full digital textbook creation. This infrastructure will eventually be available on every computer, mobile & tablet device. The first that we will be releasing shortly is called TheProducer (Desktop Version).

Let us know if you have any questions.

Well we've decided to swap TRImagination's blog from Tumblr over here to Posterous for two reasons:

1. Posterous is faster than Tumblr
2. Posterous is simpler than Tumblr

For us, we use the blog as a communication tool and we don't have a bunch of extra time to fiddle around with this feature or wait for a page to load. I've been using Posterous for my personal blog (L33.me) since October 2009 and have just been blown away by how Posterous just works.

Cheers to the ladies and gents at Posterous for making an amazing tool!

-Lee

TheProducer is currently featured on Adobe.com: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air2/android/#examples

TheProducer (Blog | Video)

TheProducer (AIR for Android) on the Nexus One

As many have heard & we have noted here (How Apple Sucker Punched Us…), it appears Apple is going to block the development of iPhones with Flash CS5. We believe where one door closes, another one will always open. Adobe has opened that door with AIR for Android. Just like you could have created apps with the Flash CS5 iPhone Packager, they’ve built “AIR for Android”! It allows developers to create native Android apps using Adobe technology. We will fill you in on more details about the technology soon, but for now…. it is with great pleasure we present our first preview of TheProducer Android App, developed with Adobe’s AIR for Android technology!!!

Long live Android! Long live Adobe!

Hi, this is Harry. I’m a co-founder along with Lee here at TRImagination. My primary responsibility is working with authors and users within the publishing platform, along with the collaborative work of exploring the next stage of media technologies and culture.

Just Imagine…..

• A publishing platform that is fully interactive with users
• In multiple languages focused in on regional cultural differences
• Content that is uniquely designed for each user
• On any screen, anywhere (Apple not so much—see below)
• Running on the upcoming, truly fabulous Adobe AIR 2 platform
• User customized templates and features

Coming in July: TheProducer

• A mobile guide to storytelling, shooting, audio recording, lighting, editing, and social marketing/distribution
• With interactive Q&A, MediaToday, and late-breaking production news
• In English and Spanish for starters

Coming this fall:

• Books covering a wide range of topics
• All interactive and available anywhere on the planet

Just imagine…

Well, things are certainly heating up around here…

1. My Google Nexus One is being delivered tomorrow
2. We’ve set up our Google Android Market Developer Account
3. TheProducer is pretty much ready to go for testing on Android 2.1

A special thanks goes out to the engineers at Adobe. We are using Flash CS5 / AIR 2.0 Android Packager (currently in private beta) to develop our apps. Hats off to those ladies and gents for spending countless hours building such a powerful software!

More to come in the next couple of a day… including a video!

Android Invasion… Coming Soon!

We are working on an Android version of TheProducer & TheProducer (Lite Edition) debuting next week. Stay tuned!!!

Hi this is Lee checking in…. We’ve been really busy working on new features and dealing with a political war that we got caught in.

First things are first… FEATURES!

1. Revamped Q&A - Screenshots coming soon… 
2. More Apps… We are working on a couple of new publications/apps. More details from Harry coming soon…

The Unrighteous War… Over the last two weeks I’m sure most have heard about Apple’s rampage with their new iPhone OS 4.0 SDK Agreement. If not, basically they are saying they will be blocking any new app that are created with 3rd party tools (i.e. Unity3D, Appcelerator’s Titanium, Adobe’s Flash CS5 / AIR 2.0, etc…). If that was not enough, reading VentureBeat yesterday, it appears Apple will potentially block 3rd Analytics and Advertising as well.

How Apple has screwed us… This adversely affects the direction in which we were heading. I’ve been a part of the Adobe Flash CS5 & now the Adobe AIR 2.0 beta testing. Our first app, TheProducer (Lite Edition), was built using Flash CS5 and is live in the iTunes App Store. Shortly before the iPad was announced, we submitted the full edition of TheProducer for approval, and there she sits, “In Review” for nearly three weeks. We had almost finished an iPad version as well, that was, by the way, running very nicely on my iPad. My guess for the delay is probably because of Apple’s war on Flash and other 3rd party tools.

Needless to say, we are no longer developing any more iPhone / iPad apps anytime soon because of Apple’s close-minded, my-way-or-the-highway, stance towards developers. We like the highway. In fact, that highway has led us to start developing for the fastest growing mobile platform… Google Android OS!

Full speed ahead… From what it looks like, there is nothing we can do to change Apple’s mind. What they are doing now, will hurt their developer community down the road. For us, we are pursuing a NEW direction… Google Android!!! There is a plethora of Android OS devices (Motorola Droid, HTC Hero, etc…) currently on the market and in a couple of months the Android Tablets will arrive.

So far, I’m most impressed with the demo and specs of Notion Ink’s ADAM:

• Android OS 2.0
• 10.1” Pixel Qi touch screen
• Dual-Core ARM CORTEX-A9 MPCORE
• 1080p Video / 3.2 MP Camera (the camera swivels front/back… Skype!)
• 16 hour battery for video playback

Now… just to get my hands on one of these ADAM’s or another Android device so I can test the Android version of TheProducer.

Stay tuned… more info coming shortly…

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

Albert Einstein