Updated (4:00 p.m.): The invitation is finally out for the latest hotly anticipated Apple announcement in New York City, rumored to be iBooks-related and definitely education-oriented. The event is scheduled for January 19 at the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan, pretty close to a lot of fancy private schools as well as standard public schools. We're going to go out on a limb and suggest that Apple might just want a slice of the highly lucrative textbook business. Remember: nobody ever knows what Apple's going to do, but the company's been working hard to position itself, especially its beloved iPad, as a pro-education company. Last year, the company partnered with Teach for America in an iPad donation program that helped put thousands of the devices in classrooms around the country. And if you've ever played with that constellation app, you'll know that the interactive experience on the iPad is much, much better than the old ink-and-tree things that probably helped you learn about the world. Not long after the invitation went out, however, an anonymous source for The New York Times's Bits technology blog confirmed,"The event will showcase a new push by Apple into the digital textbook business, but will not feature any new devices."

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Adam Clark Estes