Customer Reviews

Technology Review

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just received my first issue dated April 1st, 2009. I was very interested in the cover article on "The 10 Emerging Technologies of 2009". But where is it? There is only the opening introduction and then nothing - not one of those top 10 technologies. After a couple days of searching the mag on the Kindle thinking "it must be here", I gave up. Upon going to the website for Technology Review, there it is again, but fully available. All 10 technologies with individual articles on each. I am not paying for a subscription to get a teaser to bring me to their website. I saw other articles in this months issue that were not available also, such "Electric Avenue" and "How Lasers Can Heal Surgeons' Incisions". I did see references to these articles in the "From the Editor" and "Contributors" sections.

This is not acceptable to me. I am paying for a product, the full magazine in this case and not teasers to get me to come to their website.

I've received two issues of this magazine so far and it's been good for the price. The content is varied and significantly more detailed when compared to similar magazines along the lines of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. The formatting, however, needs serious work as some articles can be difficult to read.

Examples of this are:

- Stray hyphens from the original magazine formatting (i.e., "tech-nology" on a single line and -significant -amounts -of -words -with -hyphens -in -front -of -them, even if they're in the middle of a line)

- Lines of text that reference non-existent pictures or graphics (should either be removed or reworded in proofreading if it's not possible to include the graphic)

- And finally, the strangest out of all of them, there's one word per issue that will always have an umlaut over one of it's vowels. This occurs on every incidence of that single word throughout the magazine.

Additionally, when graphics are included (usually graphs and charts) they're useless. Not because they're monochrome interpretations of a color image---no, there's a bigger problem that comes before that. The issue is that the images are merely thumbnails...even if you click on them to make the image full screen. Either way you have a useless image. The thumbnails are too small, and the expanded image is a mass of indistinct pixels through which you can scry only a blurry line (or bar) graph, or pie chart.

Back on the positive side, unlike the other magazines available for the Kindle, this magazine is more dependent on text than pictures. Therefore, any pictures typically are not an integral part of the article. Plus, it's cheap. (although, if I was picky, I'd say it should be cheaper since it's bi-monthly---Newsweek is only 24 cents more per month, and that's a weekly magazine)

I'll be keeping the subscription. The content is still very readable despite its flaws, and it makes for great reading when you've finished the daily newspaper but don't have enough time to read a chapter of a novel.

I drive quite a bit and so I use the text to voice option in order to keep up on my "reading". Granted, when the rare occasion presents itself, I prefer to actually read. But, like most, I'm very busy. This is one of the main reasons I purchased the Kindle and I'm so glad I did. While it isn't perfect, it is good enough that I get what I need.

That having been said; I know this isn't a review of text to voice, but it plays into my review of the Kindle version of Technology Review. The magazine itself is very good, but not great. The articles are well written and informative. Often I find them to be a little to light on detail, however. I prefer for them to delve into a subject more, rather than provide what feels more like a briefing or synopsis. The editing does leave a little to be desired due to the random hyphen that causes the speech to mispronounce words in the most peculiar ways. It would seem that using a simple spell-check program when authoring the thing would only add a couple minutes to the editing process. If I were reading most anything else this might be easier to overlook. But, this is called Technology Review and is from MIT. Maybe not the best foot forward.

That having been said, I'll definetly be keeping my subscription. I'll just hope they put a little more review in future issues.

Overall, despite my gripes, I think this is an enjoyable magazine IF you are not looking for a magazine that provides deep technical overview of the future technologies.

Most technology articles are 300 words or less and they seem to be geared towards the non-techies. At best, each technology article provide a very shallow overview of the foreseeable technology changes. Moreover, each issue is very short in content. I have counted 30 short articles (most of them fewer than 300 words) on each issue.

The magazine is published once every two months. Effectively, you are paying $2.50 per issue (as of 5/27/09) when you purchase the Kindle version.

I have, however, enjoyed reading this magazine as I usually do reading Popular Mechanics and[...] I think this magazine is worthwhile for its target (non-techie) audience.

I live very close to MIT, so I've had a good deal of exposure to the print version of this magazine, and I enjoy it. That said, I was hoping to like the kindle version, since I commute to work on public transit and would prefer to be able to read this on my kindle. The words were all there, and that worked fine for some articles, but others kind of lacked a soul without being in a magazine surrounded by graphics, pictures, and richer formatting. For example, the "from the labs" section felt like a chore to read on Kindle, due to the bland, often hard to follow, formatting.

Despite all that, it's still got a good amount of very interesting material and it isn't too long-winded or full of jargon. The price is small enough to barely be noticed too - though that kind of thinking can lead to a lot of small things adding up very quickly. If you want to read this magazine and can live without the convenience of kindle for it, I suggest the print version.

I love this publication from MIT. It clues you in to what's in the labs that will likely be mainstream in 3 to 5 years. It's important if your an investor, interested in technology, deciding on major purchases and whether there is a game changer on the horizon. You don't need to be in the tech field to appreciate how cool the articles are. And these are the smartest people on the planet (we are talking about world class MIT). For anyone who wants to know what's out there and what's coming straight from the most credible source, this kindle title is highly recommended. I genuinely look forward to seeing it every month. It is well written and a quick read. 5 stars!

I work with technology on a daily basis, and honestly it can become a little rote. What I like about this Kindle publication is that there are always different angles on both effects and uses for technology that help me think a little more creatively. Most "IT" publications turn out to be veiled sales brochures for something, often with little to no critical thought. Not to say this is a perfect magazine, I don't think one exists. There is a slightly NPR like flavor to some of the articles, but I think all authors have a certain viewpoint they're working from and I expect that. If they didn't have some opinion about a subject then it would lack flavor in my opinion.

So for the money and the convenience of being able to open this up at any time on my Kindle, I find Technology Review to be highly valuable to me as an IT professional. The variety of articles and authors gives me many different and often surprising views and technology implications to consider. The nice thing is that someone without a technology background can also read it and get similar take aways. To that end I think it is nicely edited and produced.

I get this from Amazon via my android tablet (a rooted Color Nook) and I really enjoy the magazine. Beautiful pictures and great articles.

I liked reading the articles, but found it difficult to follow the red, blue, and purple lines in the monochrome diagrams. This would be excellent in a color system.

ive read tech rev via paper a long time
this kindle version is better for travel
the content isalways top notch...especially the articles on the impications of technology