Wow. This is an amazing video of a presentation at TED by Temple Grandin, who is an autistic scientist and the subject of an HBO movie.
The problem with feel-good tasks is that they often appear productive. It’s only when you really examine them that you realize they aren’t either necessary or directly helpful to your goal.
via If You Want to Be Fit, Don’t Buy New Running Shoes « Scott H Young.
Here’s one from the “Seriously, you didn’t think this was a bad idea?” files: the Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, has been accused of remotely activating the webcams in its students’ laptops issued through their 1:1 program without the students’ knowledge or consent. While the case has yet to see a courtroom, it looks to be ugly for the school district and potentially detrimental to other 1:1 programs nationwide.
via Webcams gone wrong: School sued for remote activation | Education IT | ZDNet.com.
DynamicBooks, a new subsidiary of Macmillan, unveiled today a new digital publishing platform that allows instructors to freely customize and modify some of today’s most respected textbooks. Using the DynamicBooks’ editing tools, instructors can tailor world-class content to suit their classroom needs by editing existing content or adding new text or media assets. Once instructors “publish” their custom book, their students can choose to purchase either a fully featured digital text or a printed version of the new book.
DynamicBooks was created in close partnership with Ingram Content Group Inc. and utilizes Ingram’s successful VitalSource Bookshelf platform and Lightning Source print-on-demand capability.
We made calls to universities that have been evaluating various e-readers and e-book formats and found that most expect to partner with Apple’s iPad in its e-reader initiatives.
This is because:
* Apple already has a massive infrastructure built to promote and distribute its products to universities and it will take time for its competitors to replicate that.
* Amazon and Sony have improved their devices in recent releases but universities are still not satisfied.
* The iPad appears to solve the portability issues and lack of features many universities have cited for not embracing Amazon and Sony readers.
via Here’s Why Apple Will Beat Amazon In The Battle For The E-Textbook Market.
Just saw this today – an Open Office for kids. Essentially, it looks like a slimmed-down set of features that would be simpler for kids to useL
Would be nice to see them go the extra mile and completely redesign the interface from the bottom up for kid friendliness. My company is currently releasing exactly that – more details later!
Check out the graph on the left. The curves represent different ideas and different starting points. If you start with 10,000 fans and have an idea that on average nets .8 new people per generation, that means that 10,000 people will pass it on to 8000 people, and then 6400 people, etc. That’s yellow on the graph. Pretty soon, it dies out.
On the other hand, if you start with 100 people (99% less!) and the idea is twice as good (1.5 net passalong) it doesn’t take long before you overtake the other plan. (the green). That’s not even including the compounding of new people getting you people.
But wait! If your idea is just a little more viral, a 1.7 passalong, wow, huge results. Infinity, here we come. That’s the purple (of course.)
via Seth’s Blog: Viral growth trumps lots of faux followers.
Recently, Google has been spotted moving ads closer to and mixed in with their “content,” or search results. This is the first I’ve seen Techmeme doing the same …
This is where sponsored posts usually live on Techmeme:
Just tonight, when checking if anything was new in the world of technology, I saw this:
Notice the difference? The sponsored post is right in the flow of all the new content.
Now, it’s entirely possible this has been happening for some time and I just haven’t noticed it. But I’ve been a regular Techmeme visitor over the past few months, and haven’t seen it before. Nor have I seen it in the past years that I’ve browsed Techmeme’s stories.
The story is marked as “sponsored,” which is a good thing. Interesting that it’s now in the regular flow of site content, however.
Windows Phone 7 utilizes a start screen built from tiles, all of which are dynamic and customizable. Tiles can be used as-is, as “glanceable” heads-up displays to the information you care about, or you can jump into specific topic areas, task-specific destinations, called hubs, by clicking on one. Some hubs include People, Music+Video, and Pictures. You can also promote (“pin”) apps and other things to your start screen. This means that a tile for that app will appear there, and you can of course move it around, positioning it wherever you like. The list of things you can promote is pretty vast. For example, Belfiore pointed out that you can even promote a playlist. And apps? They’re not really called apps. They’re called experiences.
via Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows: Windows Phone 7 Series Preview, Part 2.
As TechCrunch is reporting, touch computing is hot … but touch-free computing will soon be white-hot.
You’ve seen Minority Report. Here’s the reality:
g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.
Learn more about the gestural interface in this video:
oblong’s tamper system 1801011309 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.
. . . was interviewed on Global TV.
Geoff Squires talked about the practice, the touch skating conditions, and more:
Just for the record, I’m not one of the “figure skating friends.” I’m very definitely a hockey player, thank you very much!
(I’m in the photo they show of the Peaks of Endeavor cast for the Vancouver 2010 opening ceremonies: back row, far left.)
This video is a little slow and repetitive … but in 3 minutes it gets the message across: online learning is not correspondence learning on a computer.
(Or … it should not be!)
Interesting … people have always had this odd tendency to “remember” the “good old days” … and look forward to the future with pessimism:
“In 1848, writer Thomas Macaulay wrote in his “The History of England” that “In spite of evidence, many will still imagine to themselves the England of the Stuarts as a more pleasant country than the England in which we live. It may at first sight seem strange that society, while constantly moving forward with eager speed, should be constantly looking backward with tender regret.””
The mobile picture is now officially a three-way dance: Apple, Google, and Microsoft. The same people who dominate desktop computing. Everybody else is screwed. Former Palm CEO Ed Colligan famously said a few years ago: “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.” That’s precisely what’s just happened. Phones are the new PCs. PC guys are the new phone guys.
via Windows Phone 7 Series: Everything Is Different Now – Windows phone 7 – Gizmodo.
The day after Apple’s big iPad debut, Amazon reported stellar fourth-quarter results that included a 42% increase in sales and net income up a whopping 71%. Although Kindle and eBook sales still account for only a small segment of revenue — predicted to be about 5% in 2010 according to most analysts — its success continues to be a highlight.
In Amazon’s earnings release, Bezos threw a spotlight on the “millions of people” who own the e-Reader, adding, “When we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books.”
via Kindle vs. iPad: Far from over – Fortune Brainstorm Tech.
Welcome to Sparkplug 9, John Koetsier's blog on technology and social media.
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