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Friday, February 01, 2002 |
I am utterly enthralled by the X Games, both summer and winter (which started today). Makes me wish I was 20 years younger.With the ReplayTV, I can tape hours and hours and hours of coverage for me and Brent to watch anytime.
9:42:49 PM Permanent link here
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Save our streams. Fix the DMCA. "The DMCA imposes punitive new fees on streaming Internet radio broadcasters, which have been driving educational and community stations into the ground. SOS contains information and action items that you can take to help save the community Internet radio movement." [via bOing bOing]
I know I go on and on about the DMCA, but it's because I honestly think it's bad legislation that's going to hurt consumers, programmers, educators, and libraries - pretty much everyone except the copyright holders. What will happen when libraries finally get themselves in the loop of transferring digital files within the "heavenly jukebox," for example, lending out MP3s or DivX video files directly through our online catalogs? Will we have to pay for access to the item (probably an ongoing fee for access) and then a per-use fee for each circ? And what if one of our patrons makes a copy of one of these files? Under the DMCA, librarians are not protected from criminal prosecution for crimes committed by others. There's just so much wrong with this legislation that we as a profession have to become active participants in the debate. You can learn more from the Anti-DMCA Web site.
8:51:25 PM Permanent link here
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Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation. The light bulb above my head first burned bright about the Net Generation when I was reading the book Growing Up Digital by Donald Tapscott I highly recommend this book, and I promise you many a-ha moments if you read it. In fact, I can't recommend it enough. Even though Tapscott wrote it in 1998, he hit the nail directly on the head and through the wall. The Web site gives you an excellent introduction to why I think it's so important for libraries to shift to meet these kids in their world. Daily life at home proves these points to me over and over and over.
BTW, if you're wondering why I focus so much on the Net Generation, here's why: "Eighty-eight million offspring produced by 85 million baby boomers have eclipsed their parents in size and impact. The youngest of these kids are still in their diapers, and the eldest are just turning twenty."
8:35:33 PM Permanent link here
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Professors Should Embrace Technology "But our students don't give a hoot about our history, our traditions, our culture, or our paranoias. Already, they want to know why our syllabuses aren't on the World Wide Web. In five years -- or sooner -- they're going to assume that all our courses will be online, in their entirety, complete with streaming audio and video. No, not as a substitute for face-to-face classroom interaction, but as another option in a flexible menu of ways that they can access information. They will want e-books and immediate delivery and the ability to get in touch with us 24/7, from wherever they are." [in SchoolBlogs]
Ditto. When you read this article, substitute "librarians" when you see the word "teachers." Then re-read it and figure out how your library will support these students.
7:39:02 PM Permanent link here
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The Trouble with TiVo "So if TiVo’s this terrific, why hasn’t it—or any of its competitors—taken off? Talk to people like Makely and you’ll hear nothing but accolades. But after two and a half years on the market, less than 300,000 TiVo systems have been sold. The company’s two main competitors, UltimateTV and ReplayTV, won’t even release sales figures (they’re estimated to have sold less than 100,000 units apiece)." [via Slashdot]
And of those 100,00 ReplayTVs, I own two of them. I agree with all of the owners quoted in this article. I love my Replays, and you'll take them away from me when you pry them out of my cold, dead hands. I hate watching live TV now, as does the rest of my family. Because it's so easy to "tape" programs, find them, and watch them, I tape a bajillion shows for the kids. They are growing up thinking that Batman, Between the Lions, Boy Meets World, Brady Bunch, Dragon Tales, Even Steven, Gunsmoke, Superman, and Zoom are on at any given time of the day. Even better, I can skip right through the commercials. In 3-5 years, everyone will own a piece of equipment that digitally rcords TV shows so that you can watch them whenever you want to. And I haven't even mentioned all of the shows I tape for the adults in the house. Go get yours now - I promise you won't regret it!
7:18:01 PM Permanent link here
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Project Weblogs. "My class and I spent yesterday morning creating 18 project weblogs. The students are in the process of creating their navigation links that correspond to the chapters of their projects." [in WeblogsInEducation, via CurryDotCom]
How cool is this - blogging a project on Chopin! I'll tell you... these kids today.... When I was a kid, we had to actually type our papers on a typewriter, and we walked ten miles through the snow to hand them in, and it was uphill, too. Both ways.
7:01:12 PM Permanent link here
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The labels still don't get it. This LA Times story .... "The labels still don't get it. This LA Times story is an excellent overview of the problems with the labels' music download services -- limited selections, horrendous abridgements of fair use, and high cost of use." [via bOing bOing]
There is just sooooo much wrong with these services that I don't even know where to begin. Clueless record companies alienating consumers and trashing what could be a decent service. Like this is going to stop file sharing. (Read this one fast, as LA Times stories disappear after a week.)
5:12:41 PM Permanent link here
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The I in K-Logs "Collaboration tools should provide content (raw fodder) that I can use in my K-Log. Right now, it's possible to forward e-mails to my desktop K-Log tool. A developer is working right now on sucking in IM conversations.... [John Robb's Radio Weblog]
That would be fantastic if I could save my IM chats with Rich in my k-log! Then Kate could have access to our chats about Oracle and PL/SQL, too.
1:31:07 PM Permanent link here
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TechSoup has opened its DiscounTech store for nonprofits only. Note that they don't count schools as nonprofits, they can't sell to folks in Washington State, and you can only buy one copy of each title per year. However, there are still some good deals here. For example, if you want to use FrontPage 2002 to create and/or maintain your Web site (I'm NOT endorsing this, I'm just noting it), it's only $30 through this site.
10:14:58 AM Permanent link here
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And finally from them, Camera-phone sales may outpace digicam sales. "'In a few years, the number of mobile phones with a camera will exceed the number of sold digital cameras,' Nokia's head of mobile phones, Matti Alahuhta, said in a speech at a the Comdex technology fair in the southern Swedish city of Gothenburg. Key to this will be the introduction of multimedia messaging (MMS), Alahuhta said, the service which will allow mobile phone users to send photographs, music as well as text in the same way they now send the hugely popular text-only SMS messages."
And you think you have trouble getting your teenager off the phone now!
9:02:54 AM Permanent link here
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More good stuff from USA Today: High school limits student cell phone use "Administrators say they have to draw the line somewhere to keep phones from becoming a distraction. By relaxing the rules, they say they're acknowledging that cell phones are an everyday part of life.... Students at Stevenson High School say they've seen some students breaking the new rules — using their phones in school bathrooms, for example. But they say phones that ring in classrooms more often belong to teachers. 'It's like the Internet — they wouldn't take away access to that,' says Stevenson senior Darren Nasatir. 'I e-mail my parents from school, and it's no big deal. Why should calling them be a big deal?'"
See how they equate cell phones and the Internet as communication mediums? For them, email is the same as calling someone. "Why would they take away access to that?"
8:59:31 AM Permanent link here
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Tech firms fiddle with tiny keypads "To use the Senseboard, you slip a rubber pad over each palm. Sensors track muscle movements in your hand and allegedly can tell when you reach up for a Y, for instance, or across for quote marks. It's amazing that something like that can work at all. But it doesn't work well. Reviewers at Comdex reported that its accuracy rate was zero percent, give or take a little. For Samsung's Scurry, you put a sensor on each finger. A tiny gyroscope measures movements in the air and figures out which key you hit. Reviewers reported that this works better than the Senseboard, getting only about 19 of 20 letters wrong." [USA Today Tech]
Sorry, Pamela and Kate. Guess I'll stick with my Stowaway keyboard, at least for now.
8:45:55 AM Permanent link here
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Bootylicious vs. Smells like teen spirit (MP3-link) Although it might be a little of the mainstream META-postings, I chose to post this piece of Soulwax music (MP3) because I really want to hear your reactions. The energy attained in this synergetic combination exceeds even math rock." [MetaFilter]
I l-o-v-e this! I've heard several of these types of mixes now, and I enjoy hearing the disparate songs folks put together, my favorite being the Enya-Eminem mix from a couple of years ago. Of course, copyright holders think this is illegal and I suppose technically it is, but to me it's like Andy Warhol using the Campbell's soup can to create something new. Definitely a new music genre we haven't seen before.
7:19:43 AM Permanent link here
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© Copyright 2004 Jenny Levine.
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