Monday, January 8, 2007

Computers Join Actors in Hybrids On Screen. James Cameron will use the latest technology to direct the $200 million 3-D science fiction film "Avatar." By SHARON WAXMAN. [NYT > Technology] -- blurring the distinction between virtual on screen and as an avatar --BL 10:28:40 PM      Google It!.

Blackboard's Social Bookmarking Service.  http://www.scholar.com/ This looks to be a new social bookmarking service launched by Blackboard. The difference from existing services like del.icio.us? Well, not much, as far as I can tell, except that it is aimed solely at Blackboard and WebCT customers (non-customers can search the site and find links, but not contribute). So why would you use this? Presumably Blackboard had enough existing customers ask them for a social bookmarking facility that was integrated with their Blackboard accounts which they could "safely" use with their students. I am sure they will get demonized for this. Me, sure I'd love to see systems that instead of creating additional silos and enclaves allowed users to move in an authenticated form from the institution's systems to ones out on the general web, you know, have my cake and eat it too. But the customers (that's you, right) have got to demand this, not expect vendors whose whole business model is 'lock in' to simply just provide it. And the sad fact of the matter is that none of the internet-wide identity plays seem really up to this. Yet. This is one place where Open Source could make a huge difference, as introducing new features there does not have to be limited solely by the focus on profits. You'd think. Yet for some reason I still can't get a simple OpenID plugin for Wordpress. The pundits are right, identity will be big in 2007. But without the move of some major market shaker towards one of the 'open' approaches, don't be surprised if it's a continuation of the silo arms race between the bigs (read Google, Yahoo and MSN, not Blackboard) instead of a signle sign on paradise that results. - SWL [EdTechPost]  -- single sign-on in the era of a personal browser agent  is an appeal to the older generation -- the  real issues are personal privacy, authorized access, and identity theft.  Single sign-on compromises all three needlessly.  For productive cooperative work there needs to be some sort of "trusted zone" where identity is not at issue if even for a limited time.  This was sort of the notion of "secure computing"but never made it to the masses.  --BL 7:18:45 PM      .

GM Introduces Plug-In Electric Car . DETROIT, Jan. 7 -- General Motors Chairman G. Richard Wagoner Jr. on Sunday unveiled an innovative prototype, the Chevrolet Volt -- a plug-in vehicle that derives its power primarily from electricity rather than gasoline -- as the world's automakers take on global warming and U.S. dependence on foreign oil.... By Sholnn Freeman. [washingtonpost.com - Technology - Industry News, Policy, and Reviews] 6:52:43 PM      Google It!.

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog Update (1/8/07). The latest update of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog (SEPW) is now available, which provides information about new scholarly literature and resources related to scholarly electronic publishing, such as books, journal articles, magazine articles, newsletters, technical reports, and white papers. Especially interesting are: "Eliminating E-Reserves: One Library's Experience," "Jean-Noël Jeanneney's Critique of Google: Private Sector Book Digitization and Digital Library Policy," "Open Access in 2006," Our Cultural Commonwealth: The Final Report of the American Council of Learned Societies Commission on Cyberinfrastructure for the Humanities & Social Sciences, "The Research University and Scholarly Publishing: The View from a Provost's Office," "Self-Archiving and the Copyright Transfer Agreements of ISI-ranked Library and Information Science Journals," "Using the Audit Checklist for the Certification of a Trusted Digital Repository as a Framework for Evaluating Repository Software Applications," and "Why Digital Asset Management? A Case Study."   [EDUCAUSE CONNECT blogs] 6:51:17 PM      Google It!.

'Ethical' stem cells that arrive with baby. The discovery of versatile stem cells in the amniotic fluid surrounding babies in the womb could make it possible for all mothers to save the cells as "spares" for baby, according to Wake Forest University School of Medicine researchers.... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 6:47:01 PM      Google It!.

Researchers Use Wikipedia To Make Computers Smarter. Using Wikipedia, Technion researchers have developed a way to give computers knowledge of the world to help them "think smarter," making common sense and broad-based connections between topics just as the human mind does. The new method will help... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 6:45:54 PM      Google It!.

Second Life Open Sources Client. An anonymous reader writes "Just noticed that Second Life released their client under the GPL today, and that they're up to 2.4 million users. Article says that 15% of users contribute scripted objects."[Slashdot] -- this is a really big deal because it will enable game consoles to be powerful secondlife educational platforms with stunning realistic 3D graphics.  The upshot of this opening up will allow secondlife to become the marketing venue of choice for new games as well as the home of game historical sites.  The biggest benefit will be the portability and power afforded by the gaming platforms to put a "face" and "place" to the ethereal internet.  The other potential is for one of the open source players to build a firefox plugin for secondlife client so that the browser can truly become the virtual desktop even if it is hosted on the network and streams content to the "thin client" (wifi phone).  Over a few years of development time the static media (TV) can become simply the backdrop for interaction in secondlife clients.  Hopefully a few daring educational institutions will push the secondlife envelope with personalized clients optimized for knowledge transfer and multicultural communication. -- the reason why this open source development will have legs is because secondlife has already embraced the issue of economic exchange and sustainability.  I personally like the browser plugin vision because it enables a smoother transition for non-gamers into the virtual economy with personal agents/avatars and open pathways to the internet and on-demand media. -- BL 6:44:34 PM      Google It!.

TiVoToGo for Mac Announced. An anonymous reader writes "After much anticipation, some backpedaling, a bite of hope, and a delayed release date, TiVoToGo Mac Edition is here. While there have been some unofficial hacks, those solutions have not been ideal for everyone. With support for transferring shows and burning to DVD/iPod, TiVoToGo is bundled as a part of Roxio's Toast Titanium software that will be announced tomorrow at Macworld." [Slashdot] 6:16:04 PM      Google It!.

Pegasus and Mercury Circling the Drain. Daemon Duck writes "One of the web's oldest and most respected email clients is flickering out of existence. Pegasus mail and its companion SMTP server, Mercury32, have been discontinued due to lack of funding for the ongoing development. On the website, the author David Harris states that if some funding becomes available he would consider opening the source code or continuing the development."[Slashdot] 6:14:44 PM      Google It!.

Nano-Scale Optical Co-Axial Cables Announced. toybuilder writes "Reuters reports that scientists have published their work on nano-scale optical coax in the most recent issue of Applied Physics Letters. The coax cable is only about 300nm wide, and is able to transmit optical signals using a carbon center conductor, transmitting light at about 90% the speed of light." [Slashdot] 6:12:47 PM      Google It!.

Choose the New PBS Science Show. chinmay7 writes "PBS has posted three different pilots for a new science show, and they want viewers to weigh in and help choose one as the regular science feature. All three pilots are viewable as vodcasts. Wired Science aired on January 3rd. The pilot certainly is polished, as one might expect from Wired Magazine, and deals with interesting topics: 'Meet rocket-belt inventors, stem cell explorers and meteorite hunters.' Science Investigators (air date: January 10) seems to be the most 'science' show: 'The investigators examine 30,000-year-old Neanderthal DNA, vanishing frogs, mind-boggling baseball pitches and more.' 22nd Century (air date: January 17) is pretty gimmicky and loud for my taste, but delivers interesting content [~] 'In the coming decades will all our brains be wired together like networked computers?' So watch and vote."[Slashdot] 6:11:10 PM      Google It!.