[technology and teachers]

I just glimpsed this ad. while waiting for an educational site to load. I love the tag line: "no teacher left behind." Precisely. If the educators don't know how to use new media technology, how can they help the students? Educators, in general, require more support from heads of institutions (and probably governments for funding assistance too).

Although, of course, I don't think we should be scared of technology as intimated in the above image.

[new media digest]

Want to do some thinking? Follow these links:

• Neuroplasticity: we can rewire the brain with the power of thinking and technology. Read Norman Doidge's The Brain that Changes Itself. A documentary will be aired on the 30th of July on CBC: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2008/brainchangesitself/
  
• Some suitable trending twitter topics today (nice alliteration eh?):
  

Apollo 11

Moon

Neil Armstrong

• Exercise, community participation and higher literacy skills mean less chance of cognitive decline with age. Read about the study here.
• Time people are spending on Facebook is up 700%
• Businesses going *online* and having a FB profile or tweeting isn't necessarily (the right kind of) participating...but putting thought into why the business is online and actually connecting with the audience/client is key. Read more about social business design.

[creative momentum]

Diversityworks in new Zealand have just launched Creative Momentum, a 'virtual movement around creative diversity'. Through an international website and local events they want to create more
awareness of creativity and diversity.

To begin with, they want to know what creative diversity means to you. Each month they will profile a featured creative and welcome you to comment, question and use this space to explore how creativity and diversity interact.

Visit Creative Momentum at http://www.creativemomentum.org

http://creativemomentum.wordpress.com

Join the virtual movement here: http://creativemomentum.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=060d69c34940f90bd7ae1fe0a&id=f59e1b6de5

[credit crunch craft]

I've heard of re-purposing record album covers as wall art. I suppose you could also use the smaller cardboard covers that come with cassettes (if anyone still has these kicking around). But what do with the actual tapes that remain?

Well, Mary over at the Audiobooker Blog links to an interesting idea by iri5. iri5 has a set of "ghost in the machine" flickr photos which show some excellent examples of eco-craft. I feel some creativity coming on....

[forecasting the future: newspapers "by" computer]

"The new tele-paper won't be much competition..." (says the news anchor in 1981):

[employment: head of department of media technology]

DMU has been undergoing some changes and one of them is the restructuring of various faculties. There is now a new faculty of technology that is divided into four different departments. The department of media tech. is looking for a head:

Head of Department of Media Technology

The salary will be commensurate with a senior academic appointment.

The Faculty of Technology offers a unique combination of professional focus and research excellence. It has recently been renamed and re-organised into a structure of four departments.

We seek individuals with proven academic and managerial qualities to lead the departments and develop plans for future growth in line with University strategy. You will bring both experience and vision to lead a dynamic, energetic community of academic staff. A major part of this role is to further develop areas of excellence and provide strategic leadership. You will be required to demonstrate the energy, experience and vision to translate strategy into real achievement.

Informal enquiries may be made to the Dean of the Faculty of Technology, Professor Adrian Hopgood, on
0116 257 7092 or aah@dmu.ac.uk.

Please include a personal CV as well as a completed application form. Applicants are asked to include a covering letter illustrating how their skills and achievements match the requirements of the job.

Closing date: Monday 16th February

Further details are available from our website; click here.

To apply, click here.
Please quote reference numbers above when applying for a job.

Alternatively telephone 0116 250 6433 (24 hour answerphone)

Or write to:
The Human Resources Team, De Montfort University,
The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH.

[new media, romance and evidence]

"Mobile phones, BlackBerrys, emails, social networking... Never before has it been so easy to cheat on a partner. But has technology made it simply too difficult for philanderers to cover their tracks?

*****

In today's world, to function as an effective member of 21st-century society, we have to engage with a bewildering array of electronic gadgets, few of which we fully understand. We stomp digital footprints all over the place, and the unforeseen result of engaging in the information age is that it is becoming harder to have secrets – and, as a result, it is harder to cheat on each other.

Day-to-day actions, such as taking the bus to work and buying a magazine on the way, used to be ephemeral. But today, every journey, every communication, every penny spent, is logged and stored. As we move through life, we leave millions of specks of electronic evidence. Stored on hard drives and mainframes, this data acts like specks of DNA sprayed across the bedsheet of cyberspace. It's all there waiting to incriminate us."

Read the whole article at the Independent.

[blackberry bold: i want it!]

It has a camera, gps (with turn-by-turn directions), music, video, wifi (!!), high-speed HSDPA and and and...I want one! annoyed that we're only getting it in November while in Canada they get it today!



competition for the iphone? i think so.

from the telegraph:

"iPhone 3g: If the iPhone had the ability to edit documents on the go, it would be the perfect business device. As it stands, it is probably better suited to consumers, but its ease of use, superb multimedia capabilities and the ability to add software make it one of the best all-round handsets on the market.

BlackBerry Bold:The BlackBerry Bold, quite simply, does more than the iPhone. It looks better than any of its predecessors, too, but email and professional uses are always going to be the priorities for this device. If they're your priority as well, then it's a superb machine - carrying it says you mean business."

job opportunity - lecturer media & communication

Lecturer in Media & Communication

Interactive Media team

A wholly owned subsidiary of Birmingham City University (Formerly UCE Birmingham), the Technology Innovation Centre (tic) is a national centre of excellence providing training and support for individuals and organisations to develop their capabilities within a rapidly evolving, technology-based society.

Starting Salary within the range £26,281 - £30,880
Permanent Post
Part Time - 18.5 hours per week

As a key member of our Interactive Media team, apply your skills and knowledge to develop, deliver and co-ordinate programmes of learning, technology transfer, applied research and business development.

Educated to Degree level or equivalent you will either hold a teaching qualification or be willing to study for one. With a good general skills and knowledge base of the overall television / new media production process you will have a particular demonstrable interest and experience in at least one and probably several of the following areas:

• Script development and screen studies
• Television Journalism
• Media and Communication Theory

Based at Millennium Point, Birmingham, the successful candidate will:

• Undertake responsibility for the development and delivery of undergraduate modules particularly in the TV Journalism, scripting and screen studies, Media and Communication Theory areas.
• Generate, support and supervise student projects and placements.
• Undertake appropriate quality assurance responsibilities for course delivery, assessment, evaluation and the students experience.
• Promote the Centre for Interactive Media and it's courses.
• Contribute to the development and delivery of short courses, consultancy and other income generating activities.
• Encourage, develop and sustain appropriate links with the Television industry.

tic offers employees private healthcare, childcare vouchers, a final salary pension scheme, flexible working and professional development.

For an application pack, please visit our website at www.tic.ac.uk/jobs. Alternatively, you can e-mail tic Human Resources at Jobs@tic.ac.uk quoting reference number T00154 or phone 0121 331 7502.

The closing date for receipt of applications is Monday 25th August 2008 at 5pm.

Further Details

[Future of Creative Technologies - new IOCT journal]

The Future of Creative Technologies is a new journal just launched by the IOCT at DMU. In the first 18 months of the IOCT's lifespan (yup, it's only been 18 months) the IOCT has benefited from a wide range of significant and fruitful partnerships. This first issue of the journal reflects on those relationships and includes "thought pieces" and articles from each of the keynote speakers. Authors include Howard Rheingold, Claudia Eckert, Bruce Mason and Sue Thomas, Wendy Keay-Bright, Pauline Oliveros and Martin Rieser. All the pieces are extremely interesting and as they've been pulled together into this publication you can really see how transdisciplinary the IOCT is.

In the opening editorial director of the IOCT, Prof. Andrew Hugill says:

"The diversity of the content is deliberate, and is intended to stimulate readers not only from the range of disciplines represented herein, but also as a way of exploring further a discussion which lies at the heart of the IOCT: what does it mean to be transdisciplinary? how can we foster good practice in transdisciplinary research? and, what outcomes might we expect from such research?"

These are similar questions which will be taken up in an academic context in the conference I'll be organising (provisionally slated for 2010) and out of which will grow an academic publication.

[andrea saveri at the ioct]

nb: live-blogged

Andrea Saveri at the IOCT on The Future of Work: Amplified Individuals, Jobs & Organizations

Institute for the Future - founded in 1968

• How to forecast the future, applied to business, government and non-profits

Think about the future though aware of the present

In terms of business there are 6 key themes that are changing/shaping the future. Accordingly there is a set of new jobs that are going to be important in the future

Collective intelligence officer - oversee the improvisation human resources for the company
Amplification Engineer - improve organization innovation by creating more flexible work styles
Chief Visualization Officer - of Data Whisperer, to devise new ways of visualizing our business
Data Ecologist - design and manage both private and public data clouds
Affinity Agent to build shared values and vision among highly divers collaborates
Junior Catalyst - spark new and experimental collaboration that emphasize diversity as source of innovation
Chief Wellness Officer - implement and oversee a culture of health
Biocitizen Liason - to serves as the primary point of contact between the senior management and individual members of the company's various social health networks
Senior Green Strategist - minimize organizations resource usage while maximising productivity and profit
Ecotect - for a complete and custom sustainability make-over of our work environment
Cognitive Resource Manager - coordinate and augment mental efforts at the workplace
Neurological Training Officer - improve cognitive fitness among employees

But what about the people?

Amplified Individuals - through their access to social media and their practises they are expanding the reach and effect of businesses - amplifying and challenging processes of business

How are they doing it?
Highly social - providing social filters to help process massive amounts of information (flickr - the photo becomes an artifact around which people comment, tag etc...)
classic fm, digg, delicious etc...

Amplified individuals are highly collective, they can tap into knowledge of a group and use it - wikis, twitter, prediction markets etc...

they are into crowd sourcing (see crowdspirit.com, innocentive)

lifehacker - software downloads that help keep you focused (see the anti-procrastination alert!)

cognitive interfaces - think ADHA drug provigil, tested in the military to enhance "alertness" and memory...uni students have been using it around exam time.
Raises the issue - what is "normal" performance
So here you might see the Amplification Engineer and the Chief Performance Officer come together to develop the intelligence of the organisation

Diversity Redefined - instead of diversity as something politically correct now something that is a core initiative, instead of thinking about it as race, income, age, ethinicity...now cognitive diversity, disciplinary styles that appear and add to the workforce. The whole way we describe and characterise people is expanding.

Surowiecki popularised idea of crowd intelligence and it's actually better when the group is diverse, spanning hierarchies etc...HP has used this kind of info when they do their sales forecasts, going across hierarchies in the organization, leverged the diversity of perspective on their question

What IOCT and Transliteracy is - disciplinary, multidisciplinary interdisciplinary to transdisciplinarity - a biologist who can speak math and the language of art. Can create a different perception and different frame of thinking. The is the key to innovation.

Idea - knitting dna and proteins so that scientists get a spatial perception of information

mChek - mobile payments
dispersed innovation networks start to become embedded in urban centres instead of a cloistered innovation park. Idea that innovation and diversity and urbanism combine = future. Here affinity agents and junior catalysts will come into play.

Visible World is changing - sensory perception, bio metric RFID, pedometres - people, places, things and processes are surrounded by this new layer of visible information

Every object and every interaction is really a data point - as we contribute to wikipedia and leave a trace of where we've been, using a thumbprint scanner at disneyworld...we're leaving trails of ourselves all over the place - see Kevin Kelly

What is important is the need for a new kind of literacy - how do we decode/translate all these different kinds and sources of information?!

Check out Intel Mash Maker which suggests kinds of mashups based on your web browsing (see also swivel)

Science at work - fMRI that scans people while tasks are undertaken (that's what I'll be exploring for part of my research fellowship at the IOCT)

biocitizen - people are designing ways to become the originators of good health so wellness programmes on the rise in the workplace, new media ecologies (see Daily Strength), biotechnology, risk society (Who is sick) - we are going to want to navigate a personal health geography

****
Discussion:
Andrea asked us which of these future jobs we'd each like to take on.
Talked about discrepancy between language, same words don't necessarily share the same values. A "pattern" for a scientist is very different to an artist.

Question of metrics and evaluating performance is a real challenge, especially for universities and hierarchical organisations.

Visualisation is is key - think of the prius which shows drivers exactly how fuel efficiency is going - also has a ludic quality. But in a general context what kind of data streams would you want to visualise?


My question: who is going to be the person to translate these very North American-sounding job titles into more culturally specific ones?
Also - these futuristic jobs might be important for us (UK, North America) but what about other countries? How will Ethiopia or Afganastan benefit from this...how will they even begin to implement it and is it right for them?

[mobile ink-free photo printing]

I am so going to get one of these! A way to print photos without a printer. Tools required: PoGo and a mobile 'phone.

According to Ken Sander at DVICE:

" PoGo, an inkless digital photo printer slightly bigger than a deck of cards that prints 2 x 3-inch snapshots. It uses Zink (no ink) technology, which uses heats dye crystals in paper to create prints. The prints don’t smudge, are water-resistant and are almost tearproof. The PoGo prints pictures from cellphones via Bluetooth in about a minute, with the paper costing about 33 cents a sheet. For digital cameras, it connects easily through USB PictBridge. The colors and clarity of the prints looked surprising good."

Read more at Dvice.

[lord judd & creative technologies]

(image from Sue Thomas)


Yesterday a few of the researchers involved with the IOCT were invited to a meeting with Lord Judd. Our brief: to give him an overview of our research and our findings.


Sascha Westendorf and Keno Buss kicked things off with an overview of their DMU Creativity Assistant:

"a tool designed to help develop creative ideas in a transdisciplinary multimedia context, based upon the thesis that "creativity is an emergent property". The intention is to first understand the stages that creative people move through in their journeys of exploration, discovery, innovation, and composition. The well-established path from preparation to incubation to illumination and verification is a good starting point, but more elaborate models are needed to guide software design for individual and social creativity support, and to deal with the controversial question of how such creativity support tools can be evaluated."

Next came Heather Conboy, E-Learning Co-ordinator for Faculty of Humanties at DMU she's also researching her phd on the impact of online environments on creative writers (a bit about a previous talk here). Heather showed us some interesting statistics including this one: 95% of UK higher education institutions have VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments). I wondered what that meant for the other 5%? Are they ahead of the game and using non-institution based systems like open source platforms or do they have class blogs and teach in Second Life? Heather did explain that these stats are from 2006...I wonder what the deal is now?

Also along the lines of creative writers, Anietie Isong shared with us his research on African Writers. Anietie is specifically looking at:

• How the internet is influencing writing from Africa
• The writers' attitudes towards their writing
• Burgeoning styles employed in their writing

Lord Judd asked if all the African fiction was...well, fiction...Anietie says that though it is mainly fictional there are deep political and relgious themes.

I was really interested in Anietie's research and wonder how concepts like "postcolonial" literature will appear (or not?) in African new media writing? What is the play between the marginalised and the privledged - especially when thinking about access to computers, internet, IT learning? I also wonder how the role of "native" might change as Anietie explained that some African writers are writing from the West (UK and USA were some examples).

See some of Anietie's own poetry here and a short story here.


I concluded the presentation segment with an overview of my ph.d research:

After my presentation we opened up into a more general discussion. Lord Judd (I just cannot say "Frank"!) raised some anxieties and concerns with which we agreed. I think this surprised him. In general I'd say that we all agreed that balance is the key to using new media. Though how MPs are to negotiate all the communication they receive and then have to respond to...I don't know. When I suggested just checking e-mail/letters etc...in the morning I was told that is near impossible; something really important might require feedback and can't just be left until the next morning. Sue suggested we have filters like already junk messages go into spam folders...but maybe we need intelligent agents (like PAs!) to sift through messages first? I didn't realise that MPs received so much communication? That's when the discussion turned to literacies...the literacy of navigating all the information available but also the literacy on the side of the people who write to MPs...do they realise (are they literate?) that they need not write for every small thing and are they sure they are writing to the right person?


Quotes of the Day:
When I introduced myself to him as Jess, he responded with: "I'm Frank." (not "Lord Judd")
When told of my recent phd award he said: "So you're a *real* doctor" (!!!)
When beginning the discussion he exclaimed: "I am not a Luddite. I am NOT a Luddite."

********************************************

Thanks to Sue Thomas for organising the interesting tête - à - tête and thanks to Lord Judd for sharing his time.

NB If you'd like to keep up with Lord Judd's speaking arrangements, you can sign up to an e-mail alert here or subscribe to the rss feed here (who said MPs aren't digitally literate?!)

Sue has blogged about the day over at PART.

[DMU leading 3D gaming and gaze software]

In the technology section of the most recent online New Scientist I see that De Montfort University's Stephen Vickers, is leading the research on gaze technology - a type of assistive technology.

"Users typically guide a cursor with their eyes, staring at objects for a time to emulate a mouse click. But that is too laborious to let users to match the speed and accuracy of real-time 3D games, says lead researcher on the project, Stephen Vickers, of De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

His team is developing the software as part of the EU-funded project Communication by Gaze Interaction (COGAIN).
Gaze gaming

"Even though a user in, say, Second Life might look as if they are able-bodied, if they can't operate and communicate as fast as everyone else, they could be perceived as having a disability," he told New Scientist, adding that there is a privacy issue for players who may prefer not to reveal their disability in the virtual world.

In virtual worlds, gamers need to perform a whole suite of commands including moving their character or avatar, altering their viewpoint on the scene, manipulating objects and communicating with other players.

Eye-gaze systems bounce infrared light from LEDs at the bottom of a computer monitor and track a person's eye movements using stereo infrared cameras. This setup can calculate where on a screen the user is looking with an accuracy of about 5 mm.

Vickers' software includes the traditional point and click interface, but includes extra functions to speed up certain commands."

Read Vickers' paper here.

Watch a video:

I wonder how this kind of literacy - using one's eyes in a *very* different way - plays into the concept of transliteracy...something to think about.

[blog portfolio]

I've been thinking about other ways to use blogs in the classroom - other than as a way of getting students to participate, answer/ask questions, review books/lectures etc... I've just seen Kim Middleton's idea for a blog portfolio:

"The portfolio should consist of three parts:

1) A numbered list of all of your blog posts, with titles and dates of the post.

2) a numbered list of all of your comments with the title of the post on which you commented, the name of the person’s blog to whom it was posted, and the date.

3) A short (5-7 page) reflective essay based on your posts and comments.

What kind of a reflective essay, you ask? Your reflective essay assignment is designed to surface and articulate what you’ve learned over the course of the semester by looking back on and analyzing your own writing during this time. Your essay should answer the question: how have I learned to situate myself as a reader/writer/English student/literary type (pick one or more of these) in the information age?

To answer this, your primary texts should be the writing that you’ve done over the course of the semester—I’m particularly interested in your posts and comments, but your drafts, your expertise projects, etc. are fair game. With the above question in mind, read back over your writing and locate particular sentences and passages that attest to your learning. In your paper, you’ll quote these and analyze them. In what ways do they show what and how your ideas have changed? What terms, concepts, and phrases provide evidence of the complex ways that your thinking has progressed and shifted over the course of the semester? How do they provide evidence that you can use to answer the questions above? Essentially, you’re going to close read your own writing for evidence of how you’ve come to terms with the ideas we’ve discussed in class. I’m looking for a deep engagement with your own writing here.

You may, of course, use the “I” voice in your paper—in fact, you must! Please provide an introduction that contains your main idea(s)—you should be able to make an argument about where you are now and how you got there, with reference to particular terms that you see yourself working with throughout the course of the semester. You may feel free to use a chronological approach (ex., “when I first started this class, I thought digital culture was ____. My first blog post contains this comment: “______.” Here, you can see the ways that I was dedicated to x idea. All I could associate with that x idea was___. In a blog post three weeks later, however, there is a marked shift in my language and tone. “______.”). You may also choose a different kind of structure if it makes sense to you (you could arrange it by theme: “these three quotes show the ways that my thinking changed about digital culture. These two show the ways that I am a writer that needs a number of drafts to shape a complicated argument”.)"

Jeremy Hiebert's model of an e-portfolio though over two years old will serve an a helpful visual model of what students will be working on:

Why create an e-portfolio? Well it helps students:

1. document the journeys of preservice teachers

2. promote or market preservice teachers for employment

3. guide them toward meeting the requirements of certification programs.

(see New Literacies)

[critical and digital literacy]

via Thinking 2.0:

"Helping students take control of their own learning is one of the most important challenges facing teachers. The (inquiry or constructivist) approach is based on providing students with opportunities to formulate their own research and create “artifacts” or “products” that demonstrate their understanding and skill development. However, it often becomes glaringly obvious that “research” to many students involves taking the information from the first couple of web sites that appear from a google search, cobbling it together and “voila” - there it is. This is a long way from the goal of students as knowledge “producers”. Teaching students how to evaluate the reliability of information remains one of the most important literacy skills.
The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus site is useful to show just how easily students can be manipulated by a professional “looking” web site.

AfterEd Video(Teachers’ College, Columbia University) discusses the importance of providing students with “educated guidance on how to use new media” and helps debunk the assumption that buying lots of computer hardware will meet students’ 21st century literacy needs.
Some key “critical literacy” questions it advocates include:How was this text contructed?What are its underlying values?What are the conventions it uses?Who is the intended audience?Who owns and who benefits from this?

Video via: Multiliteracies

This Department of Education Tasmania site also has activities and work samples "

[superfast internet]

From the Times

"The internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.
At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.
The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.
David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise” society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.
The power of the grid will become apparent this summer after what scientists at Cern have termed their “red button” day - the switching-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe. The grid will be activated at the same time to capture the data it generates.

[...]

That network, in effect a parallel internet, is now built, using fibre optic cables
that run from Cern to 11 centres in the United States, Canada, the Far East,
Europe and around the world. One terminates at the Rutherford Appleton
laboratory at Harwell in Oxfordshire. From each centre, further connections
radiate out to a host of other research institutions using existing high-speed
academic networks. It means Britain alone has 8,000 servers on the grid
system – so that any student or academic will theoretically be able to hook up
to the grid rather than the internet from this autumn.

[...]

“Holographic video conferencing is not that far away. Online gaming could evolve to include many thousands of people, and social networking could become the main way we
communicate."

[grading digital storytelling]

For ages now I've been on the hunt for some rubrics geared towards grading digital stories...I mean, how do we mark for both narrative (and all the aspects including point of view, plot, character, language etc...) AND the digital medium (images used, html, sound, user-interaction etc...). Bryan Alexander has been keeping track of web 2.0 storytelling and education and he also wonders whether there are any rubrics out there tackling both the medium and the content. I've found Meg Ormiston's rubrics at tech teachers and another rubric at the bottom of the "Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling" page. The latter is based on rubrics found here, Dr. Helen Barrett's work and Scott County, Kentucky Schools.









Does anyone know of any more?

[ha ha!]

Via Gawker.

[new technologies always pose a challenge]

I've just come across Julie Lindsay's slideshare presentation: "Digital Literacy: E-Learning ideals in the 21st century." She has some fantastic quotes on reactions to technologies that were *new* at one time:

*note to self*: wouldn't Julie be a great participant in the iTeach Inanimate Alice project?

[3d tv interaction]

Interaction with tv looks set to change. Now, instead of the usual remote, tv watchers can interact with their shows (though who will support this and how hasn't yet been explained) with a wii-like object:

The Hillcrest Labs Home Interactive Media System combines a graphical, zoomable interface for television with a patented motion control technology called Freespace which senses movement in three dimensions and translates it into on-screen interaction.



Hillcrest has developed a prototype ring-shaped Loop remote control that is held like a handle. It takes some getting used to, but allows multidimensional on screen navigation by waving it in the air, rather like a Wii game controller.

“Hillcrest Labs has created an entirely new and potentially game-changing platform for television and other forms of home entertainment,” said Jamie Kiggen of AllianceBernstein, the firm leading the funding round, in which existing investors also participated. “By combining pointing with a graphical, ‘zoomable’ interface, their technology holds the promise to alter fundamentally how consumers interact with their TV and digital media.”

For more info see the original article on informitv and Hillcrest Labs here.

[i want one of those...]

the dell xps one....nice....


The Wall Street Journal says this:

"Something interesting is going on at Dell. The Texas personal-computer behemoth, long associated with boxy, boring machines, has started emphasizing industrial design. And the company, which in recent years seemed to care only about corporate customers, techies and hard-core gamers, appears once again interested in average, mainstream consumers who value simplicity.

The most tangible example of this new approach is Dell's XPS One desktop -- an elegant, handsome, cleverly designed one-piece computer. If it didn't have the Dell logo on it, the XPS One might be mistaken for a product of the PC industry's design leaders, Apple or Sony.

Like Apple's iconic iMac, the XPS One looks like it's simply a sleek, flat-panel monitor. The guts of the computer have been stuffed into the back of the screen.

But this new Dell is no mere iMac clone. It makes its own style statement, even though it shares the same 20-inch widescreen display and a similar Intel dual-core processor with the base-model iMac. Where the iMac is squarish and silver, the XPS One is all black and rectangular, with speakers attached to the sides and a wide glass base. It looks more like a small TV set than a computer and, in fact, comes with a built-in TV tuner.

In my tests, I found the XPS One to be much better designed and equipped than Gateway's iMac competitor, also called the One. In fact, the Dell XPS One is the first Windows all-in-one desktop I've tested that I believe matches or exceeds the iMac in hardware design. That's no small feat, especially coming from Dell."

[bah: facebook]

[android: google goes robotic]

From Google:

"The Open Handset Alliance, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies, is developing Android: the first complete, open, and free mobile platform."

Cool apps that surprise and delight mobile users, built by developers like you, will be a huge part of the Android vision. To support you in your efforts, Google has launched the Android Developer Challenge, which will provide $10 million in awards -- no strings attached -- for great mobile apps built on the Android platform.

How It Works
The award money will be distributed equally between two Android Developer Challenges:

Android Developer Challenge I: We will accept submissions from January 2 through March 3, 2008
Android Developer Challenge II: This part will launch after the first handsets built on the platform become available in the second half of 2008

In the Android Developer Challenge I, the 50 most promising entries received by March 3 will each receive a $25,000 award to fund further development. Those selected will then be eligible for even greater recognition via ten $275,000 awards and ten $100,000 awards.

Build Your Favorite Mobile Application
We welcome all types of applications but are looking to reward innovative, useful apps that make use of Android's capabilities to deliver a better mobile experience. Here are some suggested areas of focus to get you started:

Social networking
Media consumption, management, editing, or sharing, e.g., photos
Productivity and collaboration such as email, IM, calendar, etc.
Gaming
News and information
Rethinking of traditional user interfaces
Use of mash-up functionality
Use of location-based services
Humanitarian benefits
Applications in service of global economic development
Whatever you're excited about!

How cool is this idea?

Christeene Micona wonders: "the big question is - is the so-called Google Phone still to come, or will Android just assimilate existing hardware manufacturers?

Read about Dick Wall's first "useful" application created for Android.

Read wizardbt's view that "Android gives more power developers to create new services as it provides an extensive API to manage different aspects of the mobile's capabilities. This is a serious limitation in today's J2ME-enabled phones, and as a consequence you have to deal with different and sometimes erratic implementations of the same API. J2ME was built as a restricted subset of the main J2SE classes with "portability" in mind, however we cannot say that this was accomplished flawlessly."

[nothing like the smell of more hacking]

ahhhh more hack attacks but this time (luckily) norton caught it...

[smaller than a smart car]

"The City Car is a stackable electric two-passenger city vehicle. The one-way sharable user model is designed to be used in dense urban areas. Vehicle Stacks will be placed throughout the city to create an urban transportation network that takes advantage of existing infrastructure such as subway and bus lines. By placing stacks in urban spaces and key points of convergence, the vehicle allows the citizens the flexibility to combine mass transit effectively with individualized mobility. The stack receives incoming vehicles and electrically charges them. Similar to luggage carts at the airport, users simply take the first fully charged vehicle at the front of the stack. The City car is NOT a replacement for personal vehicles, taxis, buses, or trucks; it is a NEW vehicle type that promotes a socially responsible and more effective means of urban mobility.
The City car utilizes fully integrated in-wheel electric motors and suspension systems called, "Wheel Robots." The wheel robots eliminate the need traditional drive train configurations like engine blocks, gear boxes, and differentials because they are self-contained, digitally controlled, and reconfigurable. Additionally, the wheel robot provides all wheel power and steering capable of 360 degrees of movement, thus allowing for Omni-directional movement. The vehicle can maneuver in tight urban spaces and park by sideways translation. This technology is patented-pending and under design development at the MIT Media Lab."

Source

As requested Paul:

I wonder if the IOCT needs one....

[diy 3D printing]

"Hod Lipson didn’t set out to revolutionize manufacturing. He just wanted to design a really cool robot, one that could “evolve” by reprogramming itself and would also produce its own hardware—a software brain, if you will, with the ability to create a body. To do this, Lipson (below, center) needed a rapid-prototyping fabrication, or “fabber.” Picture a 3D inkjet printer that deposits droplets of plastic, layer by layer, gradually building up an object of any shape. Fabbers have been around for two decades, but they’ve always been the pricey playthings of high-tech labs—and could only use a single material.

“To really let this robotic evolutionary process reach its full potential,” says Lipson, a Cornell University computer and engineering faculty member, “we need a machine that can fabricate anything, not just complex geometry, but also wires and motors and sensors and actuators.” Lipson and his grad student collaborators, Dan Periard (right) and Evan Malone, decided to put the problem to the people. They developed a low-cost, open-source fabbing system—Fab at Home—and encouraged experimentation by starting an online wiki for hobbyists. People report printing with everything from food (Easy Cheese, chocolate), to epoxy, to metal-powder-impregnated silicone to make conductive wires.

A Fab at Home kit costs around $2400. Lipson compares it to early kit computers such as the MITS Altair 8800, which democratized computer technology in the 1970s. At-home fabrication, Lipson says, “is a revolution waiting to happen.” As for that robot? Wait a year, he says, and it really will walk out of the machine."

video of 3D printer

[transliteracy and us]

I've just been reading Sue Thomas's post over at PART on how (and whether) the bbb.co.uk is meeting their targets:

1 Sustaining citizenship and civil society
2 Promoting education and learning
3 Reflecting the UK's nations, regions and communities
4 Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence
5 Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK
6 Emerging communications

Initially I began to think of discussions I've been having with my students in my new media seminars. We've talked about the potential to contribute to the bbc.co.uk via comments on photos and stories and the ability to write one's own reflections (more so on the bbc.co.uk local sites). On that level it would seem that the bbc is participating in the digital world and allow us to participate alongside it.

But, then I saw this video:




How far is the bbc (among other institutions) really going to involve and collaborate with this kind of user? (See Euan Semple on the BBC and web 2.0). With Facebooking and IMing etc..., collaborating and satisfying targets like the bbc's can't be a product, something that is *done.* It's got to be more about a *becoming;* a constant evolving process. I don't have any answers but I think that's the trouble with asking that kind of question. There are no single answers out there. I'd suppose we all (as businesses, teachers, parents, schools, universities, libraries, museums, etc...) want/need to be part of the process... but that also means having access and we know that's not something everyone shares.

[nothing like a virus in the morning]

[machinima = storytelling]

After welcomes and introductions to the event, Paul Marino, Executive Director of the Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences, shared with us his presentation, "commemorating the first ten years of the use of game engines in real-time for the creation of Machinima." For me, this was an excellent presentation as it really gave me a sense of how machinima began and the stages through which it has been evolving. What I found most exciting about Marino's presentation was his recurring statement that machinima is about telling stories (woo hoo go narrative!):



Watching Marino's chronology of machinima not only reflected the development of technology and skill but also the greater expertise or craft of storytelling. (here is a list of his machinima selections) Marino, as well as other speakers on the day, reminded us that *anyone* can create machinima stories but then I wondered if that were true why are so few women (seemingly and please let me know if this is way off) are involved? Judging from the audience not many women are interested in machinima. Judging from the entries DMU received, not many women are making machinima. Judging from the films viewed at the festival, not many women are playing parts in machinima in terms of characters (there were a couple but not exactly positing *contemporary* views of women...) or production. Is this really the case or are women presenting their machinima work in other arenas and following different avenues? (perhaps Sims99.com might be such a place) The seeming lack of women was highlighted for me during an afternoon panel which included Ricard Gras, Xavier Lardy, Friedrich Kirschner and Klaus Neumann. Interesting as it was to hear the speakers' thoughts on distributing and promoting machinima as well as the variety of links Friedrich and Klaus zoomed through, I was left a bit surprised - given the perceived accessibility of machinima - that no women were represented in that session. I wonder if this gender imbalance grows out of the fact that machinima originated with gaming? How many women play Quake and Halo etc...? However, maybe this is changing already with Sims and SL game engines?





Food for thought I think.



~~~~~

"When a guy can show a machinima vid and proudly announce 1996 as the date of origin for that art form, he’s eliding decades of female vidding history. And that’s very, very wrong. (Harvard 2005)"

~~~~~

[machinima festival at dmu]

woo hoo! tomorrow I'm heading over to the machinima festival at dmu.

Check out the small print...guess who was one of the judges:

[nano technology]

I was reading an article on the super conductor/layered oxide NaxCoO2 that, through various "conducting probe-mediated reversible electrochemical sodium intercalation/deintercalation reactions" information can be written and then erased (I'm sure I'm over-simplifying). In awe of the words used (oxidated, intercalated, superconductivity, nitrogen flux, nanolithographic) and wondering what this might mean for us, the end users of technology led me - via a google search - to a whole new world. A world of a thinking so different from my current, humanities-based research. (it's invigorating to be reminded how we can (or is it just me) get very focused one something which is just a tiny part of a bigger everything) In this world where one can measure conductivity (among a myrid of other things so different from my current examination of multi-mimesis and transliteracy in women-authored web fictions), language and story and critique have the privilege of ephemerality, rather this seems to be a world where experiments are necessary and quantifiable results are produced. One such product is the 3D Atomic Holographic Optical Data Storage Nanotechnology. It is a rewritable holographic removable disk.

"An Atomic / Photonic / Molecular / Quantum / Spintronic / Holographic Switch is the method of using a UV laser atom nanoparticle optical switch defined by a non-contact terahertz nano/microwave electric field modulator using attosecond, femtosecond, terahertz UV photons (electromagnetic radiation) simultaneously to alter properties of ferroelectric molecules for data and light expression. Through the use of UV photon induced electric field poling and dynamically changing the internal geometry of individual ferroelectric atoms in a 3 dimensional optical crystal coated on a high / low velocity substrate.
The UV laser diodes and electric field transducers of the Integrated Read/Write Head can be used in any combination or sequence to control the molecules which include UV/blue photon frequencies and quantum energy level as well as Nano/Micro electro static field strength (voltage) and switching field densities (frequency).The only rub is the cost per bit will be cheaper, faster to access, and faster to store for a much longer time uneffected by many environmental conditons." (see here for more)

[if ET had the iphone he wouldn't have made it home]

Two weeks (or there about) after people were seen running to the nearest store only to stand in a queue for hours in order to pay over a week's rent (400 pounds for 4 gig) for a 'phone (albeit a super pretty one), they're seen running right back to return them.

As Cade Metz explains

"Let's be honest here: The iPhone's all-finger, no-stylus interface is a beautiful thing. With the exception of the on-screen keyboard - which isn't
quite up-to-snuff if your hands are any larger than a twelve-year-old's - this
is pretty close to the ultimate UI, an interface you can use without a second
thought. From the get-go. But $541.42 is too much to pay for an interface. UI
aside, the only real reason to buy an iPhone is peer pressure."

He ends his musings with this one-liner:

"More importantly, if you carry an iPhone, what happens to your self-worth? I can assure you: It plummets. Carry an iPhone, and you're just one of the lemmings."

As for technical issues, well, here are 28!


I think I'll stick to my Blackberry. So it doesn't have a 5mp camera but it has a fast web connection (Edge is soooo 2005...), security, loooong battery life, and loads of other businessey-type apps (the iphone doesn't let you edit Word of Excel files?!) that Apple doesn't seem to want to provide (yet).

Plus there's a major security flaw with iphone technology:

"Hackers could take control of an iPhone if its owner visits a doctored Web site or Internet hotspot, security researchers reported Monday.

The vulnerability of the vaunted device, Apple Inc.'s first cell phone, is only theoretical for now. There are no reports of criminals actually taking advantage of the security glitch to remotely access an iPhone. But if it were exploited, hijacked iPhones could be very useful to the same gangs that take over personal computers and use them to disseminate spam, said Charlie Miller, principal security analyst at Independent Security Evaluators, which discovered the flaw. "You could have a million iPhones dialing the company's main line and overwhelm it that way," Miller said."

For more ranting check out anti-ipod.

[the semantics of the web]

In an interview published yesterday in IT World, the creator of the web talks about how he envisions the future of the semantic web. Here is a sample of the interview, the full text is here.

Berners-Lee: (Laughs) No, I don't do that. I think about real technology. I didn't invent the term "Web 3.0." The Web is constantly developing. If you want to see what's happening that I am interested in now, there are several technologies laced together. In Web 2.0 there are some technologies like JavaScript and others that are all standards that came out of allowing people to do things. Most standards are coming out now that will have a good push towards the mobile Web initiative, which is the use of the Web on lots of different devices.
In the future we will have the Semantic Web that will allow a whole lot of other things. One of the powerful things about networking technology like the Internet or the Web or the Semantic Web, one of the characteristics of such a technology is that the things we've just done with it far surpass the imagination of the people who invented them. Take for example the inventors of TCP/IP, the original protocols for communication between computers over the Internet, created by Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn in 1974.
When I invented the Web, I thought of it as an infrastructure; I designed the Web as a foundation for many things. With Web 2.0, social networks and all kinds of things happen on top of it. When the Semantic Web arrives in the next few years, things will be using it in a way we cannot know yet. So, in a way, it's foolish to try to imagine what Web 4.0 will be like when we still don't know what will be done with 3.0.
For Web 3.0 to succeed, the people who are studying it at this moment will have ideas which will enable the new technology. They will design fantastic things just like people with Web 2.0 are designing fantastic things right now. People working with the Semantic Web will make much more powerful things. We can't imagine what they will do. But we have to build the Web to be an infrastructure. It shall never be used for particularized purposes but just to be a foundation for future developments.

[Renewals: Reading in Slow Motion]

Caveat: Blogged Live

Plenary at the Renewals Conference

Professor Richard E. Miller - Rutgers University - Reading in Slow Motion: The Humanities and the Work of the Moment

(He begins by warning us of a technical glitch)

A technological change appeared at Rutgers and the teaching of writing which he fought tooth and claw

Credentials for technology: played games as a kid. His concern about the future of humanities is centrally focussed on the interface between people who are trained to work with words, and images, and the tech interfaces that now define our lives

The National Education Association Report "Reading at Risk" - lit. reading in the U.S. - attempt to study changing reading habits in the U.S: reading habits not cause for celebration, over the past 20 years, young adults (18-34) have declined from being those most likely to read lit. to those least likely.

Our target population are those who do not read

Says every single age group has declined in reading, i.e. not active readers (6 or more fiction "books") BUT does this study look at reading web pages, playing games, reading comics, texting, facebooking, etc...

Why the "precipitous decline"? - tv not at fault, rather the "internet very likely a cause of the decline". The greatest percentage of internet use are those who "formerly were most likely to be literary readers."

The only place that there's been growth in the U.S. is in creative writing - "nearly 30% growth in the number of adult creative writers." (does that include blogging?)

By 2075 no more literary reading.

"We are a nation of writers without a readership": this is a reality that we have to confront as teachers, nature of literacy, expression is being transformed before our eyes. What we know mean by composing is not that you have your own printing press but your own movie software etc...but who's watching it? There's a lot of stuff on youtube that has not viewers.

BUT: how do we understand this disjunction?

"Books remain the foundation of the humanities...its embodied, visceral..." even the most techy people he knows don't settle down with a book (he hasn't met my brother)

Maybe what's important about the humanties and reading is training to focus, how do you focus "in the age of distraction"? How do you get kids to turn off "all that noise" so that they can experience that simple humanizing effect of focusing their mind?

Maybe the growth of creative writers is merely the desire to feel creative?

He wants to celebrate "amateur" readers - if his students can only take one thing away with them after class, it's the desire to feel creative (not take Middlemarch away with them though he wishes this were the case)



Miller goes on to talk about requirements of education:
to go into business - no title, not time for degree (says it's not necessary)
to declare oneself a poet, painter, writer, etc... no title and no need for a degree (uses example of Stephen King)
to become a lawyer - 3 years, then bar exam
to become a doctor - 4 years then internship, residency
an English prof - average ages of grad. 37, 11.3 years of study and then? - why does it take that long? Is that "that" hard?

People are stalled. How do we get "passion" back? Why does it matter? It matters to me and I'm going to convey to you why it matters. It's human to "make a connection."

On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry:
"What is the felt experience of cognition at the moment one stands in the presence of a beautiful boy or flower or bird?"


We need to spend time with ideas we don't agree with - this is what the humanities are good for - ambivalence, ambiguity, a state of mind that acknowledges the complexity of the world (I'll remember that one - I'm very complex)

If your only way of joining thoughts is through the word "and" you don't really *think*, you need a conjunction: *BUT* - if you cannot qualify your thought you're not really an academic.

Miller looked at all the references Scarry made in her first three pages, read slowly, make connections. He made a collage of Scarry's references - what a great idea to use in all learning environments.



TIP: Slow down, pay attention, then ideas come.


[Producing "mineable information" - role of universities]