Reading Net: Catch of the Day, Bookworms

If you’re filthy rich and happen to have a huge expansive library in your very own home, then you might have some use for this reading net. Otherwise, all you can do is stare at it longingly like the rest of us. Because while the net itself probably isn’t expensive, what’s the use if you don’t have a library to hang it in and complete the concept?

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As you can see, the reading net is exactly what its name implies it is: it’s a net where kids can lie on while they do some reading. What makes it extra special is the fact that it’s meant to be hung over the first floor of the library.

[The Reading Net is] a meshed fabric suspended from the architecture of a family library, that acts as a second-level reading range. the hanging web is tautly attached to the railings of a lofted path, and — as both children and adults climb onto the woven expanse — they can both lounge and learn on the buoyant surface.

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The reading net was designed by Playoffice.

[via Boing Boing via designboom via Geekologie]

Amazon’s bookish top-level domain hunt irks publishers, Barnes & Noble

Amazon's bookish domain name hunt irks publishing groups, Barnes & Noble

Publishers represented by the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers have filed objections to Amazon’s pursuit of new generic top-level domains “.book,” “.author” and “.read.” While some of those gTLDs have already come under fire from entire countries, the influential book groups told gatekeeper ICANN that “placing such generic domains in private hands is plainly anticompetitive,” adding that it would allow “already dominant, well-capitalized companies” to abuse their market power. ICANN plans to assign rights to organizations or companies to manage domain suffixes like the current “.com” or “.org” and firms like Google, Microsoft and Amazon have sought names like “.app” and “movie,” often in competition with each other. Competitor Barnes & Noble filed its own protest, saying that Amazon “would use control of these TLDs to stifle competition in the bookselling and publishing industries.” If such protests are persuasive enough, companies could lose not only the domain name in question, but 20 percent of the $185,000 application fee — admittedly pocket change for outfits like Amazon.

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Via: WSJ (subscription)

Source: ICANN (1), ICANN (2)