Weekly Research Index | June 25, 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

App store’s most expensive software is a bargain for law students | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home — From the article: “Would you pay $1,000 for an e-textbook app for the iPhone? Odds are you wouldn’t, but enough people would that BarMax, a company that makes $999.99 California bar exam test preparation software, is in the process of expanding its offerings to cover other states. You might think that $1,000 is a bit much, but many prospective lawyers would disagree — especially since its best known competitor, BarBri, costs three to four times as much. TechCrunch reports that the California BarMax app has sold over 100 copies so far—which, at $1,000 each, equates to over $100,000, enough to be profitable. Thus, the company has just launched a New York bar exam app, and has Illinois, Texas, and Florida versions on the way.”

The battle lines are being drawn over fair use: Two POVs on the Barclays v. TheFlyOnTheWall.com case | Nieman Journalism Lab — From the article: “the case involving a website’s reporting on stock recommendations from Wall Street firms. The firms argue that they have a right to limit public dissemination of their ratings; the website argues that it’s discovering those ratings through original reporting and that it’s a matter of fair use and free speech. It’s actually, as you might expect, a lot more complicated than that. See Sam Bayard’s writeup for the detail. But in any event, it’s a critical case in determining how fair use and copyright match up with the new world of online sharing and aggregation. And the most recent ruling, by U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote, came down on the side of the firms, issuing a permanent injunction requiring the website to delay its reporting a set period after the research is issued.”

Mike Shatzkin: E-book market looking good for publishers | TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home — From the post: “He points out that the sales of 700,000 e-ink devices was dwarfed by the reported sales of 2 million iPads—so iPad readers only need to buy a third as many e-books to equal the sales revenue from those e-ink devices. (Actually, as of June 22, Apple announced that it had sold its 3 millionth iPad. Of course, the e-ink sales are estimated, since most e-reader sellers are keeping their real sales figures close to their chest.) And he mentions the recent round of price cuts on e-readers. In short, Shatzkin says, “a much more diversified marketplace is developing for ebooks than publishers would have dared hope for a year ago.” And even more diverse options are coming, which will give consumers more choices in how and where they read their e-book.”

Primal: Publishing at its Most Basic — This is precisely what textbook publishers need to be using. From the article: “Tomorrow at the 2010 Semantic Technology Conference, Primal will launch a new publishing platform. It’s grandly described as a “semantic synthesis platform,” but simply put it’s a publishing platform that automates the production of content. What’s more, the resulting web pages include no original content. It’s all aggregated from other sources. So in many ways this is reducing Web publishing to its most basic form, devoid of new content. Is this “automated content manufacturing,” as founder Paul Sweeney described it to me today, useful to people?”

Bing Entertainment Brings Full Music Streams To Search, Plus Games, Movies, And TV Shows — From the article: “One of the most noticeable changes will come in music. Music searches will now come back with lyrics and playable streams for 5 million songs, which have already been licensed through Microsoft’s Zune service. A full stream of each song will be playable once per person, and then 30-second clips will be available in subsequent searches. (In this regard, Bing is catching up to Google, which launched a similar music search late last year). The idea is to make it easier for people to discover music and sample them. There will also be links to Amazon, iTunes, and Zune to buy full downloads.”

Newspapers Are Still Dying, But the News Is Not Going Anywhere — From the article: “While many in the industry were hoping the decline in ads was cyclical, the ad rebound has skipped newspapers. As Alan Mutter reported last week, ad spending on newspapers was down 9.7% (magazines were down as well), while Internet ad spending had increased 7.5%, as did TV (up 10.5%) and radio ads (up 6%). The future doesn’t look any better for print, with Internet ad revenue set to overtake newspapers by 2014 or possibly sooner.”

Analysis: Old Media Magazines Are Losing Their Share Online Despite Being Great Brands — From the article: “Despite their coveted value, the great brands of old media aren’t proving out to be much of an asset online. And to the extent old media is relying on the value of their brands to ensure a digital future, they are headed in the wrong direction. For this new analysis for Digital Quarters, we measured audience and visits (from comScore) for sites across the major media categories, comparing the metrics of sites operated under old media brands (e.g. ABC, Entertainment Weekly) in each category to those of new upstarts. Over the past year old media brands lost share of online audience to new media in nearly all of the traditional magazine categories (TV, entertainment, business, fashion, tech, and teens), while the offline brands in the News category grew share during that same period. Although total visits were up 5% for old media, new media visits grew far faster — 10% — from April 2009 to April 2010″

Open-sourced textbooks could ease college costs | NetworkWorld.com Community — The project will use open source software although will not be open source or free itself (apparently). From the article: “Charles Evans, the university’s associate vice president for academic affairs and project head, said Sen. Dick Durbin, R-Ill., who secured the grant for the university, had hoped the textbooks could be free to students. It appears that’s unlikely to be the case, but they will carry a minimal cost, he said, and will be available in printed and digital versions. Even better, the textbook could then be used by other universities, and adapted to their specialties. That textbook on sustainability could be used by Malcolm X. Community College in Chicago once chapters or assignments were added on its program on urban recycling. Each college or university interested in the book could take it, add what was appropriate, delete chapters it deemed unnecessary and add homework assignments or questions specific to its focus at the end of each chapter.”

Why Digital Music is Terrible Business That Google Should Embrace | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD — From the article: “As CNET reported last week (the Wall Street Journal followed up yesterday) Google (GOOG) has been talking to the big music labels about launching its own music service, and has floated a 2010 launch date. But music sources I’ve talked say the company doesn’t have any deals with labels yet, and that it’s still unclear exactly what kind of service the company would like to launch. My suggestion: Start simple. Copy iTunes’ pay-per-song model.”

Why Amazon’s Kindle Will Eventually Win the e-Book Wars — I happen to agree that Amazon is better positioned than others with regards to the e-book wars, for the very reasons mentioned in this article: 1) Buy once, read anywhere; 2) We go way back; 3) It’s always about the software.

Unboxed – Yes, People Still Read, but Now It’s Social | NYTimes.com — From the article: “If you happen to be reading the book on the Kindle from Amazon, Mr. Wallace’s observation has an extra emphasis: a dotted underline running below the phrase. Not because Mr. Wallace or Mr. Lipsky felt that the point was worth stressing, but because a dozen or so other readers have highlighted the passage on their Kindles, making it one of the more “popular” passages in the book.”

Scribd’s Decision To Dump Flash Pays Off, User Engagement Triples — From the article: “In early May, Scribd announced its plans to ditch Adobe’s Flash and began the arduous process of converting every document (of its “tens of millions”) to native, HTML5 pages. “We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5 because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash, “co-founder and CTO, Jared Friedman, told Erick Schonfeld. Although many documents on the web are still boxed into Flash players, the HTML5 format turns them into rich, interactive web pages. That gamble has paid off handsomely for Scribd. Although the number of unique visitors still stands at roughly 50 million per month, those users are spending significantly more time perusing documents and sharing with friends.That growth in user engagement has rapidly accelerated in the past month. On May 25, at TechCrunch Disrupt, Friedman said user engagement had doubled— implying strong acceleration in the last three weeks.”

Like E-Books? Amazon Sells More of Them, For Less, Than Apple. For Now | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD — From the article: “The introduction of the iPad and the iBooks store has lots of people forecasting doom for Amazon’s Kindle. And Citigroup’s (C) Mark Mahaney, an Amazon bull, acknowledges that Apple (AAPL) will eat into the Kindle’s share: He’s convinced, quite reasonably, that Amazon needs to overhaul the Kindle very soon, and cut its price below $200, to stay competitive. That said, Mahaney points out that Amazon (AMZN), with its long-established relationships with publishers, still offers book buyers a wider selection of e-books than Apple does. And it sells its books for less.”

Ray Kurzweil Vows to Right E-Reader Wrongs | Bits Blog | NYTimes.com — From the article: “Mr. Kurzweil argued that the existing e-readers and tablets had limitations in the text formats they support and the way they handle the original images and layouts in printed texts. Blio preserves the original formatting, making it particularly attractive to publishers of things like cookbooks, how-to guides, schoolbooks, travel guides and children’s books.”

CHART OF THE DAY: Pandora Totally Owns The Internet Radio Market — Pandora owns the mind share at least. From the article: “We published a few charts yesterday from Edison Research’s report about on social networking. We’ve plucked this one from that mix. As you can see, Pandora is the only Internet music provider that anyone can really remember.”

Containerless Education

Ning Partners With Pearson To Sponsor Free Network Access For Educators — From the article: “When Ning shuttered its free service for creating social networks back in April, educators and schools who were using the platform expresses their concern at the company’s decision to include educations networks created by schools and colleges in this group. When Ning eventually rolled out its premium pricing structure in May, the company announced that it had partnered with an education company to sponsor networks for primary and secondary educators but didn’t reveal the name of the sponsor. Today, Ning is announcing that Pearson, a education-focused publishing company, is sponsoring network costs for Ning Mini platforms for educators come July. Ning says the partnership will extend for three years. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.”

Learning in Maine: Educational Publishing Oligopoly — In case you might not have noticed, a handful of major educational publishers now dominate the education market, being led by McGraw-Hill and Pearson. These same publishers had great influence in creating the Common Core State Standards.

Harold Jarche | Social Media and Learning: Implications — Harold Jarche ran an “open” style workshop using social media tools and records his discoveries. “I’m continuing on my theme of capturing what we learned during our Work Literacy online workshop in 2008, before Ning pulls the plug on us. Previous posts have discussed several aspects of what we learned and I’d like to review some of the summative commentary.”

Next Gen Learning Challenges Announced | iterating toward openness — A new program from EDUCAUSE.

1) Challenge 1: Open Core Courseware
Expand access to high-quality, openly licensed courseware for developmental and general education.
2)Challenge 2: Web 2.0 Engagement
Integrate interactive Web 2.0 approaches to stimulate deeper learning and ultimately improve college readiness and completion.
3) Challenge 3: Blended Learning
Expand the use of established, effective online and face-to-face learning models on a cost-effective basis.
4) Challenge 4: Learning Analytics
Foster the development and implementation of easily accessible learning analytics for those directly involved in student success.

Open Educational Resources infoKit / Purpose of the OER infoKit — Doug Belshaw points us to the new Jisc OER InfoKit. From the ‘About’ page: “Open Educational Resources (OERs) are increasingly being made available by Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) institutions. They are resources licensed in a way such that they can be re-used, re-purposed, re-mixed and re-distributed. There are a number of license options for individuals or organisations considering releasing OERs, perhaps the most common being various iterations of the Creative Commons license. This infoKit, as with the whole of the JISC infoNet website, is itself released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. There are a number of considerations to take into account when dealing with OERs. These range from specific technical issues to barriers and enablers to institutional adoption. This infoKit aims to both inform and explain OERs and the issues surrounding them for managers, academics and those in learning support.”

Babbel Adds Speech Recognition To Aid Language Learning — A nice advancement for Babbel, and more srength yet for the self-paced language learning industry. From the article: “Babbel, the language learning site, has added “realtime” speech recognition to enhance its practical application and enable users to fine-tune their pronunciation skills. This pits the service up against more traditional players such as TellMeMore or Rosetta Stone, says the company. The speech recognition functionality was built in-house – much of the team’s background is in audio technology – although it was realised with the latest 10.1 update to Adobe’s Flash plug-in, which enables developers to access audio data captured from the user on the client-side instead of streaming to a back-end server for analysis. For realtime feedback, local processing is preferable, says Babbel, and had Adobe not offered this option, the company would need to have built its own browser plug-in, which is hardly ideal.”

Cengage Launches Course System with Content — Campus Technology — From the article: “Cengage Learning has introduced Course360, a set of applications for running classes online. The new platform includes course content and works within major learning management systems. The company said it has 60 courses in five program areas, including business, criminal justice, general education, graphics, and medical reimbursement and coding. The courses are built in six-unit formats and include material equal to about a week’s worth of instruction and assignments. Seventy additional courses are expected in 2011.”

Weblogg-ed | New Assessments for New Learning — Great post by Will Richardson. From the post: “Two depressing facts about assessment keep weighing me down in all of this. First we teach what we assess, and second, we get the assessments we can afford (both in time and in money.) Neither of those two facts gets us very close to a much needed, systemic upgrade of assessing learning. And as Reeves notes, a third depressing fact is that this will require us to be able to step out of our own school experience, to be willing to define success in ways that are unfamiliar and more nuanced. That may be the biggest barrier of all.”

Online Learning May Slightly Hurt Student Performance | Stephen’s Web | by Stephen Downes — From the post: “The Chronicle prints another blatantly misleading and misrepresentative depiction of online learning. In this post titles “Online Learning May Slightly Hurt Student Performance” the author concludes, “The study found that students who watched lectures online instead of attending in-person classes performed slightly worse in the course over all.” As Matt Crosslin says, “That sound you hear is the collective world of EduGeeks around the world firmly planting their palm to their forehead.” Because there is probably not any person, anywhere who thinks that watching lectures online constitutes online learning. Mistaking lecture videos for online learning would be like mistaking the Chronicle for, well, journalism.”

dy/dan » Blog Archive » This Has Come Up A Lot Lately — Great diagram on priorities in curriculum/product development. From the post: “I have received more criticism of my curriculum design theories in the last four months than I have in the last four years combined. Much of it has been useful, especially insofar as I’m able to notice common questions and then formulate clear responses. If I’m then able to summarize those responses visually, all that’s left is for me to track down those critics one by one and shake their hands.”

WordPress.com Passes 200 Million Blog Posts — From the article: “The installable version of WordPress just reached version 3.0, but the hosted version –- WordPress.com — has its own milestone to report today: 200,000,000 blog posts on the platform since its inception. That total comes from 11.4 million blogs that are hosted on the site, and in all, WordPress (WordPress) reports the site is seeing more than 260 million people visit its blogs every month (according to data from Quantcast).”

Latest comScore Stats Show Twitter Growth Is Still Strong — From the article: “Online analytics firm comScore has released its latest batch of data, and this month’s results show that Twitter is still exhibiting strong growth. According to comScore’s numbers Twitter grew from 83.8M unique visitors in April to 90.2M in May worldwide — an increase of 7.6%. By comparison, there was 5.5% growth between March, when Twitter had 79.4M, and April’s 83.8M. To give some perspective, a year ago comScore showed that Twitter had 37.3M million uniques.”

Half an Hour: A Series of Questions — Amen! “What is wrong with the idea of “instead of paying thousands of dollars can I pay 199 for iCollege” is not that you can’t get a course for that kind of money – you can – but rather the concurrent acceptance of a model that has been developing for decades to the effect that one’s education, one’s self, is something that is consumed, passively, rather than created actively. And even that’s not quite it, because people who are listening to Dreyfus every morning on their iPod are actually actively engaged in supporting their own learning.”

Instructional-Design-Live#22 2010-06-18 E-Portfolios | EdTechTalk — From the description: “Dr. Helen Barrett, recipient of the EIFEL lifetime achievement award for her contributions to e-portfolio research and development, joins us this week to put a firm emphasis on having students control their learning through e-portfolios. In addition to highlighting the ‘two faces of e-portfolios’, Helen makes the case that universities have been placing too great an emphasis on e-portfolios for summative learning.”

Learning and Content Distribution

Linden Lab CEO Kingdon Quits | paidContent — From the article: “Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon has resigned two weeks after the Second Life parent cut 30 percent of its staff. Kingdon was a big name hire for the company when he was brought on two years ago to replace founder Philip Rosedale; he had previously been the CEO of Omnicom digital agency Organic. Kingdon was tasked with helping “the company scale—to thousands of people and tens of millions of users of Second Life,” but while Second Life has managed to hold on to its members, it hasn’t been able to regain the buzz it once had and has been surpassed by a series of newer social sites.”

Amazon, Rivals’ E-Reader Prices Have a Bottom: Analyst | Mobile and Wireless from eWeek — From the article: “Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble may be engaged in an intensifying price war for their respective e-readers, with prices for the Kindle and Nook dropping, respectively, to $189 and $199. While some pundits have predicted that prices could drop even further, pressured by the companies’ competition with each other and the Apple iPad, one analyst suggests that e-reader prices can only fall so far, and the technology’s slow evolution might inhibit increased sales. Stripped-down e-readers currently sell for just under $150.”

Fans scramble for Apple’s iPhone upgrade | Reuters — From the article: “It sold a record 600,000 in pre-orders in a single day last week and analysts expect upwards of a million sold in 24 hours: a record for a consumer electronics company and easily outstripping the pace of the last iPhone. In midtown Manhattan, Apple employees and eager shoppers cheered as the doors of the flagship store allowed the first buyers in at 7 a.m. EDT. About 1,000 people thronged Apple’s Santa Monica store.”

RIM: Sales and profits on the upswing | Wireless | CNET News — From the article: “Research in Motion on Thursday reported first-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates but missed the analysts’ targets on revenue. The company also announced a share repurchase plan. (Statement, in PDF.) For the quarter, the company reported revenue of $4.24 billion, up 24 percent from the year-ago quarter. Net income came in at $768.9 million, or $1.38 per share, up from the $1.12 per share reported in the year ago quarter. Analysts had been expecting earnings of $1.34 a share on revenue of $4.36 billion.”

CHART OF THE DAY: iPad Is On Track To Be The Fastest Selling Mobile Device Ever — From the article: “When the iPad first hit the market, we asked “How will the iPad sell compared to other mobile gadgets?” We now have our answer. After less than 80 days on the market, Apple has sold 3 million iPads and according to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, it’s on track to be the fastest selling mobile device in history. Assuming an average selling price of $650 per iPad, Apple just generated $2 billion in sales. That’s better than iPod sales from the March quarter, which according to Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty only totaled $1.5 billion.”

Analyst estimates 16.5 million iPads sold by 2012 | Apple | CNET News — 3 million iPads in 80 days translates to approximately 37,500 devices per day. This has led Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Minster to revise his sales estimates for the device. “Munster is also raising his estimate for iPads for 2010 and 2011. He originally estimated that Apple would sell 6.2 million iPads in 2010 and 8.2 million in 2011, giving Apple 14.4 million iPads by 2012. Munster now says Apple will sell 7.5 million in 2010 and 9 million in 2011 for a total of 16.5 million iPads by 2012.”

Apple Sold 3 Million iPads In 80 Days; 11,000 iPad Apps Now Available — From the article: “Apple has sold 3 million iPads in 80 days, according to a release issued by the company today. The statement also reported that there are 11,000 iPad apps available for the device. On May 31, Apple reported that it had sold 2 million iPad, showing that the company has sold one million more tablet devices in less than a month. The company only started shipping units to customers in countries outside the United States in late May, which could account for the faster growth in sales.”

Hands-on with the Dell Streak. | dougbelshaw.com/blog — Doug goes hands-on with the Dell Streak and lets us know why he thinks it’s a great device.

Global e-book reader shipments reach 740,000 units in April-May, says Digitimes Research — From the article: “Global e-book reader shipments from manufacturers to vendors in April-May 2010 reached 740,000 units, with Barnes & Noble’s nook accounting for 37% and Amazon’s Kindle trailing at 16%, according to Digitimes Research. “Amazon is reducing its Kindle inventory as it prepares for the launch of a new version of its e-book reader in July-August, Digitimes Research explained. The new Amazon e-book reader will still use E-Ink solutions, but picture quality will be better than the present Kindles. Production cost and street prices will also be lower.” Sony is also expected to launch a new e-book reader in July, while Barnes & Noble will add one to two new models to its e-book reader lineup this year, Digitimes Research said.

E-readers race to the bottom as tablet market solidifies – From the article: “You must have heard that the Nook and the Kindle, two of the world’s best-selling e-readers, have dropped their prices to below $200 — down to $149 for the Wi-Fi Nook and $189 for the Kindle. It’s bad news for e-readers that recently placed themselves at low price points to compensate for fewer features (like the Kobo I just reviewed), but of course good news for everyone planning on buying an e-reader soon. When I considered secondary features and the possibility of “bulk” e-readers, I concluded that these devices would survive but find themselves marginalized both in price and market share. That seems to be just what’s happening, though of course the tablet market is still emerging, and Google may have a few cards up its sleeve. The brief age of “premium” e-readers is ending.

It’s an E-Reader Price War! Amazon Trumps Barnes & Noble With $189 Kindle | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD — From the article: “This morning, Barnes & Noble (BKS) dropped its low-end Nook e-reader to $149 and its 3G model to $199, giving it an edge (price-wise, at least) over Amazon’s Kindle (AMZN). Not any more — Amazon just cut the price of its 3G Kindle model from $259 to $189.”

E-reader Price Cuts Put Pressure on Amazon’s Kindle | Peter Kafka | MediaMemo | AllThingsD — From the article: “The Kindle goes for $259. But I bet if you wait a few weeks, you’ll be able to pick one up for less than $200. Amazon’s competitors are certainly doing their best to push the Kindle’s price down. Last month, Borders (BGP) introduced the Kobo e-reader at $149; now Barnes & Noble (BKS) is pushing the base price for its Nook to the same level.”

Dell Takes a Look at Google Chrome OS for Laptops — From the article: “With Google gearing up to launch Chrome OS, a big hardware partner is reportedly taking a look: Dell. According to Reuters, the computer manufacturer is currently talking to Google about including its new operating system on laptops, though no specific devices are yet to be announced. Dell and Google have already teamed up on a number of devices, so Chrome OS laptops wouldn’t be a huge stretch. Earlier this year, Dell brought its first smartphone to the U.S. –- the Aero –- which runs on Android. The Android-based Dell Streak tablet is also expected to debut next month.”

10 Ways Google Can Build A Better iPad — Good set of features/prescriptions for Apple competitors and for future iPad development. From the article: “Google’s Android software is coming to tablet computers in the near future, but unless Google and its hardware partners do something to differentiate it from the iPad, these tablets will flop. That would be bad for software developers seeking an alternative to Apple’s draconian rules, wireless carriers looking for leverage with Steve Jobs, and consumers seeking cheaper gadgets.”

$149.99 WiFi-only Nook confirmed (update: official) | Engadget — From the article: “Turns out all our snooping was spot on with this one. We first spotted a simpler, cheaper Nook making its way through the FCC late last month, and then only last night we got tipped off to a $150 price point for the e-reader sans cellular connection. Now Best Buy has confirmed the whole thing with its listing of the BNRV100 model, which comes in over $100 cheaper than Barnes and Noble’s original ($259), although Best Buy has seen fit to give that a price trim as well. We like where this is going, especially if it triggers B&N’s competitors to lower their own fees.”

Toshiba Libretto W100 is a Dual-Screen Answer to iPad — From the article: “As a part of the 25th anniversary of Toshiba’s laptop business, the company unveiled a dual-screen laptop concept named the Libretto W100. Although Toshiba calls it a concept PC, it looks very finished and ready for market release, which Toshiba claims will be later this summer, albeit in a limited capacity (the price is reported to be $1099). As far as specifications go, one thing definitely stands out: dual 7.0-inch multi-touch displays with 1024×600 pixel resolution, together with a virtual keyboard with haptic response.”

Android Keeps Growing, But iPhone Remains King with Developers [REPORT] — Interesting. More devices and more user choices but the developers evidently see the iPhone as where the money is. “While more mobile developers are looking at designing for more than one platform, in practice — at least according to Millennial’s figures — 90% are still focusing on just one platform. This makes sense if you consider that most mobile development companies are still comprised of small teams, or often a single developer. The mobile app development world is moving at a breakneck pace and its difficult to justify the time required to adapt an app for another platform if you have a limited number of resources — especially for developers who don’t have a solid revenue strategy.”

Mobile Learning – SMS Can Get You Started | Upside Learning Blog — SMS may be limited, but it’s easy and everyone knows how to do it. This makes it perfect as an entry-level mobile learning tool.

Blog U.: Laptop Requirements and the Downside of Choice – Technology and Learning – Inside Higher Ed — From the article: “In places I’ve taught without a standard laptop requirement (and a rule that laptops need to come to class), doing in-class “instant” research or analysis projects is much more difficult. Time that could have been spent collaborating around and working on projects is instead spent troubleshooting laptops or coming up with work-arounds for students who don’t have the right equipment or software. Giving students the freedom to purchase Macs or PCs, or come to campus with whatever computer they have, does increase choice – but it comes with a significant penalty for in-class learning productivity. I’m not sure if the tradeoff is worthwhile. I’ve been surprised that laptop requirements have not become universal, and I’ve seen some indications that the trend towards requiring a uniform student laptop has slowed. Does anyone know where to find the data on laptop requirements?”

DIY

Smarter Than You Think – Computers Make Strides in Recognizing Speech | NYTimes.com — From the article: ““Our young children and grandchildren will think it is completely natural to talk to machines that look at them and understand them,” said Eric Horvitz, a computer scientist at Microsoft’s research laboratory who led the medical avatar project, one of several intended to show how people and computers may communicate before long. For decades, computer scientists have been pursuing artificial intelligence — the use of computers to simulate human thinking. But in recent years, rapid progress has been made in machines that can listen, speak, see, reason and learn, in their way. The prospect, according to scientists and economists, is not only that artificial intelligence will transform the way humans and machines communicate and collaborate, but will also eliminate millions of jobs, create many others and change the nature of work and daily routines.”

Skype Opens Up SkypeKit SDK To All Devices And Desktop Apps — From the article: “Today, Skype is releasing an open software development kit (SDK) for developers called SkypeKit which will allow Skype calls, instant messaging, video chat and other features to be integrated into consumer electronics and computers. For the past few years, Skype has found its way into a variety of devices from cordless phones and mobile phones to TVs through direct partnerships with device manufacturers. But with SkypeKit, the SDK is now available to all developers.”

Google Voice Blog: Google Voice for everyone — Google Voice is now available to everyone. From the Google Voice Blog: Google Voice is “our web-based platform for managing your communications. We introduced one number to ring all your phones, voicemail that works like email, free calls and text messages to the U.S. and Canada, low-priced international calls and more—the only catch was you had to request and receive an invite to try it out. Today, after lots of testing and tweaking, we’re excited to open up Google Voice to the public, no invitation required.

The Big Shift: The Rise of Cloud Computing — A good infographic on the rise of cloud computing and possible implications.

Smarter Than You Think — I.B.M.’s Supercomputer to Challenge ‘Jeopardy!’ Champions | NYTimes.com — From the article: “With Watson, I.B.M. claims it has cracked the problem — and aims to prove as much on national TV. The producers of “Jeopardy!” have agreed to pit Watson against some of the game’s best former players as early as this fall. To test Watson’s capabilities against actual humans, I.B.M.’s scientists began holding live matches last winter. They mocked up a conference room to resemble the actual “Jeopardy!” set, including buzzers and stations for the human contestants, brought in former contestants from the show and even hired a host for the occasion: Todd Alan Crain, who plays a newscaster on the satirical Onion News Network.”

Everything you need to know about the internet | Technology | The Observer — 9 things we need to know. From the article: “A funny thing happened to us on the way to the future. The internet went from being something exotic to being boring utility, like mains electricity or running water – and we never really noticed. So we wound up being totally dependent on a system about which we are terminally incurious. You think I exaggerate about the dependence? Well, just ask Estonia, one of the most internet-dependent countries on the planet, which in 2007 was more or less shut down for two weeks by a sustained attack on its network infrastructure. Or imagine what it would be like if, one day, you suddenly found yourself unable to book flights, transfer funds from your bank account, check bus timetables, send email, search Google, call your family using Skype, buy music from Apple or books from Amazon, buy or sell stuff on eBay, watch clips on YouTube or BBC programmes on the iPlayer – or do the 1,001 other things that have become as natural as breathing.”

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