iBooks Textbooks - On January 19th an Apple press release stated:

"Apple® today announced iBooks® 2 for iPad®, featuring iBooks textbooks, an entirely new kind of textbook that's dynamic, engaging and truly interactive. iBooks textbooks offer iPad users gorgeous, fullscreen textbooks with interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, unrivaled navigation and much more. iBooks textbooks can be kept up to date, don't weigh down a backpack and never have to be returned. Leading education services companies including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw-Hill and Pearson will deliver educational titles on the iBookstore℠ with most priced at $14.99 or less, and with the new iBooks Author, a free authoring tool available today, anyone with a Mac® can create stunning iBooks textbooks." You can read the whole press release here.

iBooks Author

To make these interactive books Apple released iBooks Author new app that allows anyone to create beautiful Multi-Touch textbooks or just about any other kind of book  for iPad. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could. And to top it off this App is available free from the APP store. You can read more about it here. 

As my focus is on developing and evaluating emergency management and business continuity programs, I tend to look at these new advances from that perspective. I realize the new technology is in its original version but already I can envision easier to use and better documented emergency plans which can be readily available on an iPad instead of a 4inch binder. I can envision new ways to deliver training material and new ways to conduct emergency exercises. 

If you have any thoughts on how these technology advances can help emergency management and business continuity programs I would appreciate you sharing them in response to my article.