Weekly Research Index | February 19, 2010

Content Subscription | Containerless Education | Learning Distribution | DIY

Welcome to our Weekly Research Index, where we list links and summaries of the salient articles we have bookmarked this week. This list is culled and edited from our ongoing Delicious feed, which is also available via this blog. This Index is divided into broad categories based on our Education and Technology Trends for 2010.

Content Subscription

Can E-readers and Tablets Save the News? — Not unless the price is right and the product is significantly different than the current print versions.

Google book settlement draws fire in court | Media Maverick | CNET News — Detractors called the settlement unfair and focused on the fact that authors have to “opt out” if they don’t want their works included. They argued that an author should not have to go out of his/her way to keep rights from being violated.

Turf War at the New York Times: Who Will Control the iPad? — $30 per month for The New York Times on my iPad? No way. $10 per month? Still not likely. Welcome to the new world, my friends.

Create Your Own Cloud of Ebooks with Calibre + Calibre OPDS + Dropbox | Dear Author: Romance Novel Reviews, Industry News, and Commentary — This is a great DIY article on how to publish your own e-book cloud.

Video: Panel Discussion on Journalism at Paley Center in New York | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD — “Who’s going to bring you your news in a couple of years: The likes of the New York Times (NYT) and The Wall Street Journal? Or someone whose tweets have been picked up by Google News?” These are the questions in the roundtable video shown in this article.

Video: Wired Magazine on the Apple iPad | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD — The publishing industry is still working out some business details before everyone jumps aboard the iPad train, but this is good news for Wired and the iPad.

Amazon’s Share of the E-Book Market: From 90 Percent to 35 Percent in Five Years | John Paczkowski | Digital Daily | AllThingsD — From the article: “Amazon’s dominance of the fledgling e-book market will be relatively short-lived. For while sales of digital books are growing, so too are the devices on which to read them. And with Apple’s (AAPL) iPad headed to market this spring and a rumored Google (GOOG) tablet some time after that, Amazon (AMZN) is going to have a tough time holding on to the 90 percent share of the e-book market it currently claims. According to Credit Suisse analyst Spencer Wang, the retailer will likely see its e-book market share slip from 90 percent to 72 percent this year, and to 35 percent by 2015.”

Newspapers, magazines less keen on iPad than book publishers — From the article: “Though book publishers were more than happy to jump on the iBookstore bandwagon in order to give them leverage against Amazon’s $9.99 e-book prices, magazine and newspaper publishers have remained cautious. Apple’s 30 percent take of sale prices and historical practice of not sharing customer data seem to be sticking points that could hold up content deals for the upcoming iPad.”

With Some Worrisome Signs for Traditional Book Publishers, Record Turnout of Kindle Nation Citizens Votes Loud and Clear to Continue the Kindle Revolution | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home — Kindle owners, it turns out, are power users and may be a formidable force over time when it comes to book pricing.

B&T, Author Solutions Ink TextStream POD Deal | Publishers Weekly — Another indication of containerless media and education are the print-on-demand and custom publishing worlds. From the article: “Print and digital wholesaler Baker & Taylor has reached an agreement with self-publishing house Author Solutions to provide print services for its authors through TextStream, B&T’s print-on-demand and short-run printing service. Author Solutions has grown into one of the country’s largest self-publishing book operations with a catalog of more than 125,000 titles.”

Users will pay for content online, with a few catches — From the article: “Media research firm Nielsen has found from its latest 52-country survey that there are indeed opportunities to make money on content, but users can be choosy about what kinds of things they’re willing to pay for. The survey, which included more than 27,000 customers globally, found that consumers are (naturally) more inclined to keep already free things free. Still, things that people pay for offline—such as movies, music, and games—were the same things that people were most willing to pay for (or consider paying for) online.”

What To Expect From The Google Books Hearing Tomorrow — A nice preview of the issues pertaining to the Google Book settlement and the arguments to take place before the court.

Apple’s Prices for E-Books May Be Lower Than Expected – NYTimes.com — Remember all the talk about Apple being the publishers’ friend by letting them charge more for an e-book? Well, according to The New York Times, “Apple inserted provisions requiring publishers to discount e-book prices on best sellers — so that $12.99-to-$14.99 range was merely a ceiling; prices for some titles could be lower, even as low as Amazon’s $9.99. Essentially, Apple wants the flexibility to offer lower prices for the hottest books, those on one of the New York Times best-seller lists, which are heavily discounted in bookstores and on rival retail sites. So, for example, a book that started at $14.99 would drop to $12.99 or less once it hit the best-seller lists.”

BlackBerry users get Amazon Kindle app | Deep Tech | CNET News — Amazon continues to extend its Kindle brand via device-specific apps. This one is for the BlackBerry.

Apple to wrap digital books in FairPlay copy protection [Clarified] | Technology | Los Angeles Times — From the article: “When Apple launches its iBook store to sell titles for its new iPad device in March, many of its titles are expected to come with a set of handsome digital locks designed to deter piracy. Veteran iTunes customers will recognize the locks as FairPlay, a digital rights management software that once limited how many times digital songs can be copied onto different computers. (Apple phased out FairPlay for music a year ago, and now sells unfettered tunes.) Next month, Apple will be dusting off those digital cuffs for books, according to sources in the publishing industry.”

The Price Is Right | Publishers Weekly — This is an excellent discussion by Cory Doctorow on the pricing conflicts in the trade book publishing sector. He does a great job of explaining the financial, technological, and consumer pieces of the discussion. From the article: “Amazon has done an incredible job of figuring out how to cross-sell, upsell, and just plain sell books. They have revolutionized bookselling over the course of a decade. As a reader and a writer, and as a publisher and a bookseller, I am constantly amazed at how good they are at this. But I don’t believe in benevolent dictators. I wouldn’t endorse a lock-in program run by a cartel of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and Mohandas Gandhi. As good as Amazon is at what it does, it doesn’t deserve to lock in the reading public. No one does.”

Indigo 2.0 | Managing | Strategy | Canadian Business Online — A great article on Kobo and how this e-book seller intends to take on the Goliaths, like Google, Apple, and Amazon.

iPad’s Killer App: It Looks A Bit Like A Magazine | paidContent — According to the author, the best thing about the iPad is not the apps or any specific technology feature. Rather, the winning factor is simply its screen size and ability to deliver old-school media in… well… old-school formats.

A history of books – Home – Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog — I love the chart but like Doug Johnson’s quote a bunch, too. “Has anyone missed the scroll, the clay tablet; papyrus or sheepskin of the past couple hundred years? I am quite sure my great-grandchildren will laugh when told how people were reluctant to give up paper books for electronic ones.”

Zinio iPhone App – Mags On The Go – Review | Gear Diary — I like it when companies hone in on the problems they need to solve and execute on the plan. This is a great example from Zinio’s latest iPhone app. “Unlike the beta version that I saw months ago this version works beautifully. Zinio has figured out how to render text in an entirely readable manner on the small screen while still letting the reader have the the look and feel of a magazine if they like. They accomplished this by having a dual approach to rendering text. If you choose, you can see the magazine page as the editor intended. Or, if you like, you can see the text only and increase or decrease the size of the font in the same manner that apps like Instapaper strip off everything but the text and then let you format to your liking. This allows you to see and appreciate the text of the magazine the way that the publishers wanted it to look and feel OR read the text with the same ease that you, for example, read an ebook.”

App Store Now Has 150,000 Apps. Great News For The iPad: Paid Books Rule. — From the article: “Something else that’s very interesting is that the highest percentage of apps in the App Store are now paid book applications. In total, there are over 27,000 book apps in the store, and of those 92% are paid apps, according to Distimo’s data. That number bodes very well for Apple’s soon-to-be-released iPad, of which a big selling point will be the new iBooks application. There has been a lot of talk about how the iPad won’t hurt the Kindle because the Amazon device’s e-ink makes reading more enjoyable. And while it’s true that e-ink is easier on your eyes (thank a backlit screen), it seems that iPhone owners simply don’t care — again, great news for the iPad.”

Interactive Textbooks Headed to iPad, Report Says | PCWorld — This is a lightweight overview of the basic issues related to interactive textbooks and devices. However, it provides a good introduction to the players on the current horizon.

Google throws down gauntlet: no more book settlement changes — Google is taking a hard stance with regard to its proposed settlement around Google Books. I agree with the author of this article, however. From the article: “Nevertheless, there are a couple of things that Google could do that would probably get most of its opponents on board: change the agreement to opt-out, and turn its existing digital archives over to a third party. The fact that Google has decided to fight for the existing ASA shows that it’s not interested in either of these solutions, meaning the company definitely wants the rights to orphaned works, and it intends to leverage its digital collection in improving its data analysis capabilities.”

Containerless Education

Why serious games work – an over-simplified view ~ Stephen’s Web ~ by Stephen Downes — From the post: “By dividing the aspects of games into three major categories – motivation, simulation and narration – Patrick Dunn is able to draw out the different emphases of different types of games, such as branching story (all narration, little simulation) or quiz games (all motivation, not so much narration).”

State Universities Brace for Another Brutal Year | BusinessWeek — From the article: “The past year has been one of the most brutal for the higher education world in decades, with private schools struggling to stay afloat and even some of the most elite institutions suffering huge endowment losses and cutbacks. But state schools perhaps have been hit the hardest, with dwindling government support and increasing student demand casting their collective future in doubt. Already battered by the economic downturn, many are bracing for an even tougher year ahead.”

The Social Media Age Distribution [STATS] | Penn Olson — Fantastic information from Pingdom “with in-depth statistics that tell marketers the age distribution of 19 different social sites: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, Slashdot, Reddit, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, FriendFeed, Last.fm, Friendster, LiveJournal, Hi5, Tagged, Ning, Xanga, Classmates.com, Bebo.”

Study: Ages of social network users | Royal Pingdom — This is the actual Pingdom study and the statistics are excellent.

Social Networking Now More Popular on Mobile than Desktop — From the article: “A recent study from Ruder Finn revealed that Americans are spending nearly three hours per day on their mobile phones. And what are they doing there? Educating themselves, conducting business, managing finances, instant messaging, emailing? All of the above, as it turns out, and then some. But perhaps the most interesting finding from the new data is the fact that more people are using the mobile web to socialize (91%) compared to the 79% of desktop users who do the same. It appears that the mobile phone is actually a better platform for social networking than the PC.”

Moonshoot Raises $6.6 Million To Teach English Through Online Gaming — From the article: “Moonshoot, a startup with that aims to teach English to children globally through an online gaming experience, has raised a total of $6.6 million in funding led by Alsop Louie Partners and TL Ventures. The startup is also announcing that Tom Kalinske; former CEO & Chairman of Leapfrog, President of Knowledge Universe, CEO of Sega of America, and CEO of Mattel; is joining Moonshoot as Executive Chairman.”

ELI Session: Creative Collaboration and Immersive Engagement – The Hyperlinked Campus | EDUCAUSE – Podcast Description: “Emerging technologies for communication and creation of content afford the possibility of the connected, ‘always on’ educational environment. The Hyperlinked Campus is a model of open communication, transparency, social engagement, guided exploration, and creativity. This session, presented by Michael Stephens, Assistant Professor for the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University, explores how some tools can extend the classroom beyond physical buildings to engage learners with their peers and with the world.”

Nearly 75 Million People Visited Twitter’s Site In January (comScore) — After a lull, Twitter continues to soar. From the article: “After hitting a flat spot last fall, Twitter’s worldwide growth is pointing in the right direction again. According to worldwide comScore figures released today, Twitter’s own site attracted 73.5 million unique individuals in January, up 8 percent from December, 2009 (when it had 65.2 million visitors). Its annual growth rate is still a phenomenal 1,105 percent. A year ago, Twitter.com attracted only an estimated 6 million visitors.”

Learnlets » Formalizing informal learning? — I really like Clark Quinn’s take on informal learning. “The Entreprise Collaborative has a new question, asking whether we can formalize informal learning. I have to say, I don’t get the question. That is, I understand what they’re asking, and like the response they give, but I really think it’s the wrong question. To me, it’s not about formalizing informal learning so much as explicitly supporting it versus ignoring it. Like the proverbial ’stuff’, informal learning happens. Period. To me, it is more a matter of providing infrastructure to support informal learning, and facilitating informal learning as well.”

Before we take the e-book plunge | Home | Doug Johnson’s Blue Skunk Blog – Doug Johnson asks two really important questions about implementing e-books in his school. “In order to avoid the ready-fire-aim approach to any technology implementation, I always look for two possible reasons we might decide to invest time, effort, credibility and money in a new thing: 1) Can I do the same thing I’ve been doing, but a significant cost savings? 2) Can I substantially improve learning opportunities for students and staff? (If Race for the Money Top gets implemented, the question may only be ‘Can I increase test scores?’)

iTunes and iTunesU in a Browser, via HTML ~ Stephen’s Web ~ by Stephen Downes — From the post: “Is it possible to view learning content from iTunesU in a web browser? Yes, according to Tony Hirst. Here’s an example of the application. Basically it takes the XML feeds offered by iTunes and renders them into (badly designed) HTML. The videos are then viewed directly from the providing institution’s website. I can’t imagine it will be around long – how dare people use a non-commercial means to access free educational content!”

Google continues to tweak Buzz settings | USATODAY.com — Google is discovering just how tricky the whole privacy thing can be with social networking.

The Simple Genius of Google Buzz – The Atlantic Business Channel — I agree with the author. If Google Buzz is successful it will be because of its attachment to e-mail. From the article: “The simple genius of Google Buzz (if you’re already a Gmail user) is also its location, directly under your inbox icon. This just makes sense. When users sign into Gmail they see two numbers in the top left corner: first, the number of unread emails, and second, the number of unread Buzz items. One number for the things other people want you to do, and one number for the things other people want you to read.”

A Dozen Great Free Online Video Lecture Sites | Emerging Internet Technologies for Education — This is a good list of open content resources focused on video lectures.

Decoupling Education: EduCon 2.2 Conversation | The Questions — This is a fantastic list of questions from Will Richardson’s EduCon 2.2 presentation Web site. The chat log and general feedback are also available on the site and worth reading.

Featured Session: The Genius of “And”: Reconciling the Enterprise and Personal Learning Network — This presentation contends that it is not an either-or proposition between PLNs and CMS platforms. Some great insights and statistics.

Learning and Content Distribution

iPad Apps May Be Megabyte Monsters | Technomix | Fast Company — From the article: “We suspected as much, but Apple’s just proved its iPad applications will be data monsters by upping the over-the-air 3G app download limit from 10MB to 20MB. Users and developers win, but is AT&T panicking? Applications written for the iPad were always likely to require more storage space than typical iPhone apps, partly because of the larger screen, which demands bigger and more complex graphics. But the iPad itself, by virtue of having a significantly more powerful processor inside and a larger form factor, enables far more sophisticated software–like the iPad-tweaked multitouch versions of the iWorks suite.”

Report: Jobs disses Adobe Flash as ‘CPU hog’ | Circuit Breaker | CNET News — Doesn’t sound like the iPad will be getting Flash. From the article: “People who were at a recent meeting Jobs had with some of the paper’s executives told the Gawker-owned site that Jobs dismissed Flash as ‘a CPU hog,’ full of ’security holes,’ and ‘old technology’ and would therefore not be including the technology on the iPad, or presumably, the iPhone. (Adobe did recently promise to make the Mac version of its browser plug-in faster.)”

AT&T Finally Gets Android: Motorola Backflip Arrives March 7 | Motorola backflip | Gizmodo — Even AT&T, the iPhone carrier, is jumping on the Android bandwagon. The Backflip looks like a cool phone, but the price may throw some people off.

Skype & Verizon’s Fear of the iPhone | GigaOM — There are some pieces of this that aren’t as great as they might have been but, overall, I like this deal for the same reason the author does. It gives users access to their IM and Skype contacts via their cell phone. From the article: “As Skype CEO Josh Silverman said, with this new client, your Verizon phone address book becomes more useful and makes inbound Skype calls easier. It makes using Skype IM and Skype Status messages more useful. I especially like this because it gives Skype a new opportunity to grow its revenues and bump up its profits. ‘I think we have seen an attitude change amongst operators and they are open to forming more relationships,’ said Silverman, noting that his company was talking to other operators as well.”

There Are 6.5 Billion People and Almost 5 Billion Cellphone Subscriptions In This World – Cellphone subscriptions | Gizmodo — Important statistics. “Reaching 4.6 billion at the end of 2009, the number of cell phone subscriptions across the globe will hit 5 billion sometime in 2010, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The explosion in cell phone use has been driven not only by developed countries, but by developing nations hungry for services like mobile banking and health care. … Along with the surge in cell phones, demand for mobile access to the Internet has skyrocketed. The ITU expects the number of mobile broadband subscriptions to surpass 1 billion around the world this year, a leap from 600 million at the end of 2009. The organization predicts that within the next five years, more people will hop onto the Web from laptops and mobile gadgets than from desktop computers.”

Blogging Innovation: How Profitable are the iPad and Kindle? – Innovation blog articles, videos, and insights — Some good estimates on the cost and profitability of the iPad and Kindle devices. From the article: “Some wonder how much money Apple can make with the iPad. Obviously the higher end models are usually more profitable for Apple, and the iPad is no exception. I’ve done some quick and dirty research with OEM suppliers and whipped up some estimates. The high-end iPad model with 3G and 64 GB of storage will retail at $829 and produce a profit of $455 for Apple (and retailers), while the low-end iPad model with 16GB of storage (and no 3G) will retail at $499 and bring a profit of $213. My assumptions for marketing and customer support costs total $15. I have not included in the calculations any volume discounts that Apple might grant to corporate or educational buyers.”

5 Things That Will Make E-Readers Better in 2010 | Gadget Lab | Wired.com — Touch, color, flexibility, better software, more contrast.

Android Dominates MWC as Carriers Quiver | GigaOM — From the article: “Android has quickly become a force to be reckoned with in mobile, as anyone following Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week can tell you. Google has recognized that the future growth engine of the Internet is the mobile web — and the ad revenues that it generates — and it’s effectively laying the foundation for those revenues with the growth of its mobile operating system. And that’s making carriers very nervous.”

VTech Flip: The Ebook Reader Your Kids Never Knew They Wanted | Vtechflip | Gizmodo — First we had the Fisher-Price iXL and now the VTech Flip. And you think there isn’t change afoot?

PC Makers Ready iPad Rivals | WSJ.com — Let the games begin. “In the next few weeks, executives from Hewlett-Packard Co. will meet in the U.S. and Taiwan to tweak prices and features on an upcoming keyboardless computer dubbed the Slate, said two people familiar with the matter. H-P has discussed selling a version of the Slate—similar to the iPad in size and features, and including a cellular connection—for a price below the $629 Apple charges for an equivalent iPad, one of these people said.”

Barnes & Noble Nook review – eBook Reader Reviews by Mobile Tech Review — This is, perhaps, the best in-depth review of the Nook I have seen, and it appears that the device is making good headway after its second firmware update. The real gem here, however, is the DRM comparison chart at the bottom of the article.

Windows Phone 7 Is Impressive, But 3 Challenges Remain for Microsoft | GigaOM — Windows Phone 7 has people talking, but the market is hyper-competitive. From the article: “Windows Phone 7 Series, as the new OS is dubbed, is built on the Zune HD interface and enables users to navigate the device via a series of integrated ‘hubs’ (Office, pictures, games, music and video) and widgets. And Microsoft has wisely enlisted the help of industry heavyweights such as Qualcomm and AT&T to help it regain its lost relevance in the ultra-competitive smartphone space.”

Fisher-Price iXL is a tweener that no kid needs convincing of | Engadget — Kids who use devices like this will be more comfortable with tablets and e-readers than they are with paper books. Interesting possibilities.

What we still don’t know about new Windows phones | Beyond Binary | CNET News — Microsoft has launched its new mobile operating system, and even critics are mildly impressed. This is definitely a new approach. From the article: “What Microsoft has shown of its new mobile operating system looks nothing like the tired Windows interface of old; instead it looks like the much more enjoyable Zune HD. The idea of putting people and photos in one place where one can do multiple things is a good one. The connection to Xbox Live could help Microsoft appeal to a whole new area, while a pervasive connection to social networks like Facebook is also a key advance.”

Adobe bringing AIR to smartphones–Android first | Deep Tech | CNET News — From the article: “‘AIR leverages mobile-specific features from Flash Player 10.1, is optimized for high performance on mobile screens and designed to take advantage of native device capabilities for a richer and more immersive user experience,’ Adobe said in a statement. Specifically, AIR for mobile devices will support multitouch interfaces, gesture inputs, accelerometers for motion and device orientation, and geolocation for detecting position.”

Intel and Nokia Team Up on Mobile Software | Bits Blog | NYTimes.com — Nokia and Intel are introducing a competitor to the Android mobile platform. From the article: “The technology heavyweights joined forces on Monday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to unveil MeeGo, a software platform designed to run on just about any computing device you can imagine, from cars and home phones to computers and cellphones. MeeGo represents an attempt to merge two flavors of the Linux operating system — Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo — into one. And, if you didn’t catch it, MeeGo also stands as a primary competitor to Google’s Linux-based Android software and as a rival to Apple’s iPhone software and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.”

AIR For Android, And Adobe’s Plan To Deliver Apps Across All Mobile Devices — From the article: “AIR is currently used to create desktop applications, but it will soon be used to create Android and Blackberry apps as well. These mobile AIR apps will be able store data locally on the phone, access other data on the phones such as photos, and be distributed as regular apps in the Android and Blackberry app stores. With the upcoming Flash 10.1 player—which Adobe is publicly saying will come out in the first half of the year via an over-the-air update, and privately telling developers to expect by the end of April—it will extend the Flash runtime to mobile browsers. The Flash 10.1 player will run consistently across both the desktop and many mobile browsers (except the iPhone). No more Flash Lite (except for Windows Mobile, which initially won’t support Flash 10.1 but is working on a mobile browser plug-in).”

Sony Ericsson shows love for Android | 3GSM blog | CNET Reviews — Sony Ericsson is jumping on the Android bandwagon. From the article: “It’s clear that Sony Ericsson has been swayed by Google’s growing popularity. Many handset makers are turning toward Google to help them build competitive smartphones. Motorola, which is also struggling to regain its footing in the handset business, is betting big on Android. The company expects to have at least 20 Android devices on the market by the end of 2010.”

Notion Ink Adam Tablet Caught On Video, Specs Finalized | ADAM | Gizmodo — This is the first, formidable Android-based tablet and should get some market play (depending on its distribution strategy). Its PixelQi display, superior battery life, camera, support for multiple browsers, and support for extra memory via an SD card make it a strong competitor to the iPad in terms of technology.

Samsung Teases 10-Inch Chrome OS Netbook for Sometime In 2010 | NetBooks | Gizmodo — Not much here yet except the announcement that Samsung will indeed release a Chrome OS-based netbook in 2010. The partnership with a mobile provider simply validates the categorization of netbooks as mobile devices.

Florida District Deploys 7,000 Netbooks | THE Journal — This is why netbooks remain a part of the conversation. It will be interesting to see the effect of Chrome OS with regard to these devices.

TED: Future of Mobile With Henry Tirri, Head of Nokia Research [INTERVIEW] — This is a great discussion on the current landscape in mobile technology and what may be coming in the future.

DIY

VoxOx Universal Translator makes multilingual communication a breeze | Engadget — From the article: “Despite being launched at Mobile World Congress, VoxOx has yet to make a mobile version of its Universal Translator. That said, the desktop version is still quite useful for those with Windows or OS X-based rigs who attempt to communicate with friends — particularly with friends who speak a different native language. The new software build enables real-time language translation for SMS chat, social media and email, and so long as the VoxOx client is pulled up, you can send and receive any of those messages in your own tongue while receiving translated messages in return. Granted, we get the idea that some phrases will be quite literally lost in translation, but this sure beats accessing Google’s Language Tools for each questionable phrase.”

Long Tail Inventory Boosts Other Sales: Yahoo | GigaOM — It seems the long tail has other benefits than the ones we already knew about. From the article: “The benefits of the long tail may go beyond selling large quantities of niche items. Having a comprehensive inventory makes your customers more satisfied and more likely to patronize you again, according to a new paper from Yahoo presented earlier this month at a web search and data mining conference.”

Study shows why over 30 percent of USA never uses ‘Net’ — From the article: “Over a third of people in the United States do not access broadband at home, and nearly the same percentage ‘do not use the Internet anywhere,’ according to a new survey released by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration. That’s ‘not anywhere’ as in not at home or work—no Facebook, no texting, no tweets, no e-mail, nothing. It’s a six percent drop from two years ago, but still a big chunk of America.”

Researchers hope to make texting by voice a safe alternative — From the article: “Sending text messages is more popular than calling in the US, though there is no definitive answer why. ‘The simple answer is we don’t really know why,’ Dr. Juan Gilbert, director of Clemson’s Human-Centered Computing department, told Ars. ‘What we do know is that users don’t want to call, but want to text.’ Gilbert and his team have developed a technology called VoiceTEXT to address that concern. The system works by connecting a cell phone to an in-car hands-free system and setting it to ‘vocal’ mode. This will connect the phone to a central server, which can then record and send messages. Depending on the status of the receiving phone, the message will be transmitted as a voicemail message, an e-mail with a link to the message audio file, or transcribed using speech recognition software and sent as an SMS message. Text messages sent to the phone in ‘vocal’ mode can be read aloud to the driver using text-to-speech software.”

Two Minute Survey on What’s Happening in Virtual Worlds | NMC — It’s interesting to note that the biggest barriers to adoption of virtual worlds are 1) the learning curve; 2) the lack of pedagogical models. These are the same two barriers for most new or innovative technologies in education.

Reporters’ Roundtable Podcast: HTML 5 vs. Flash | Reporters’ Roundtable Podcast | CNET Blogs — Here is an overview of the issue discussed in this roundtable. “One of the biggest criticisms of Apple’s new iPad, and of the iPhone, is that it does not support Adobe’s Flash, a system that lets Web developers code streaming videos and interactivity into Web pages. Steve Jobs is reported to be a big booster for HTML 5, a new extension of the HTML standard that all Web pages are encoded in. HTML 5 will allow Flash-like features without relying on Flash, which is a proprietary system. Meantime, users are caught in the middle. Only a few browsers support HTML 5, and there are countless Web pages, videos, and games written in Flash already. Not to mention a legion of developers accustomed to creating media in Flash. At stake in this battle: the future of interactive content on the Web.”

Cisco Sees Mobile Data Doubling Annually | Digits | WSJ — From the article: “Wireless-data traffic is expected to double every year through 2014, driven by a sharp increase in the volume of handheld devices as well as mobile video content, according to a Cisco report. Data use will surge as cellphone makers produce more Web-enabled handsets. Cisco says there could be more than five billion such devices connected to mobile networks in four years.”

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