An academic reviews the iPad

Chronicle : In her review of Apple’s new iPad, Ann Kirschner, a dean at City University of New York, assesses the tablet computer’s use not only as an entertainment device, but also as a research tool. Although Kirschner is a historian, one of her insights into the iPad could be of use to other academics, including scientists:

Try sharing an iPad. It connects you to your physical and intellectual surroundings, rather than alienating you. Assuming your collaborator returns the iPad, you have executed a very different kind of exchange, one that seems oddly democratic and intimate, the same way you might share an album of family photographs. Only now imagine a doctor and patient sharing an MRI, an accountant and client reviewing a balance sheet, a choreographer and dancer discussing a dance notation.