THESE BOOKS LEARN FROM YOU: McGraw-Hill has acquired a 20 percent equity stake in Area9 Aps, a Denmark-based company that has worked with the publisher since 2007 on building the adaptive technology behind the LearnSmart platform and SmartBook series that was first introduced at CES. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. This move confirms one major product trend on our radar: the push for digital textbooks to offer more than interactive PDFs, and collect data about readers' actions and experiences to make personalized recommendations that inform their study habits. (Kno, coincidentally, also announced a similar product feature at CES.)
