Authors and publishers have besieged Google’s plan to digitize the world’s books, accusing the company of copyright infringement. The legal limbo that has tied up a settlement of their lawsuits is hanging a question mark over universities’ plans to build centers for research on the books Google scanned from their libraries. Another complication: Worrisome questions…
“We’re trying to detect a crime before it has occurred.” OK, roll the sci-fi thriller “Minority Report,” in which Tom Cruise and other “pre-crime” cops use psychic visions to arrest murderers before they kill. Or maybe “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” a George Clooney comedy inspired by real military experiments with supposedly psychic soldiers.…
I’ve been using a Kindle DX for about a year, and an iPad for about a month, with both Amazon’s Kindle app and Apple’s iBook app. (Update, June 2: I posted about the Barnes & Noble iPad app, as well.) I’m excited that all full-time SHU students will have iPads next year, though I’m frustrated that…
Reblogging this excellent set of ProfHacker productivity tips on Evernote. Similar:In the Era of Fake News, Teaching Media Literacy is a Must My 13-year-old recently approached m…CyberculturePAC-MAN: The Untold Story of How We Really Played the GameA fascinating study of the thinginess of…Aesthetics"Syllabus Day": The Absolute Worst Way to Start the SemesterI’d rather blog about…
I am the opposite of a foodie. As I’ve aged, I have had to discipline myself to fill up with a plate of salad before I go through the buffet line, but if it stops me from being hungry, it’s good. Nevertheless, I did stop and look twice at this story. “The table is very…
After hearing that the 16th-century astronomer Copernicus was to be reburied with honors in a Polish ceremony, I checked the Wikipedia entry. Woah! Among the great polymaths of the Renaissance, Copernicus was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, quadrilingual polyglot, classical scholar, translator, artist,[3] Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat and economist. Among his many responsibilities,…
Using my iPad, I can’t seem to copy and paste an excerpt, so I’ll just recommend Ian Bogost’s essay. http://www.bogost.com/writing/we_think_in_public_1.shtml Similar:I am very happy for these folks, who spent 20 or so years tweaking an insanely complex, co… AwesomeCOVID denial: ‘You are welcome to leave, but you will be dead before you get to your…
The death of my father-in-law, a hard-working and devoted family man who dreamed of retiring near a Civil War battlefield. The leak in the roof. (The roof is still under warranty, but the roofer will have to climb into the crawlspace while it is raining in order to see what he needs to do.) Submitting…
Attending a memorial service for my wife’s aunt, Julia Young, whose backyard and swimming pool were the heart of my wife’s extended family. Visiting Bushy Run Battlefield with the family. My daughter falling in love with the Drawing Pad app, which costs about as much as a package of cheap markers. Waking up Sunday morning…
I’m still learning the quirks of the iPad, which has turned out to be mostly fascinating, and a little frustrating. Mike Arnzen sent me a link to Jakob Nielsen’s recent column on iPad usability. Yes, the iPad works intuitively, but each designer’s intuition is just a little different. With my brand new gadget, I don’t…
I just donated the cost of a cafeteria meal. I’d rather have my stomach be grumbling a little over a missed lunch than sick over the latest Facebook shenanigan. Similar:Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales wants new Facebook feature to burst 'filter bubble'It’s extremely important to understand w…CybercultureThank you, frog and friends, for reminding us all what…
Jason Scott continues teasing us all as we await the delivery of Get Lamp (and the inventory of goodies to be found within). Coin 0001 is about to be shipped to Don Woods. Similar:Want a tech job? Study this. Advice from Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr and moreStudents often say they hate group work….AcademiaFinished the female officers…
Burdened as they are with these “legacy” print costs, newspapers typically spend about 15 percent of their revenue on what, to the Internet world, are their only valuable assets: the people who report, analyze, and edit the news. Varian cited a study by the industry analyst Harold Vogel showing that the figure might reach 35…
From Thrilling Tales (where the future is retro). Ambushed in the Unknowable Vacuum Tube Preserved in the Ultimate Star The Women of Pohl’s Meteors The Satellite from the Equation Hovering Artifact The Poisonous Cat of Space The Comet of Gernsback’s Pool Captives of the Eldritch Behemoth Creature that Blasted Phobos Men of the Unlikely Doctor…
Matt McKeon has posted a striking series of images uses the changing default settings of Facebook to visualize the number of users who can see a Facebook user’s data. You can, of course, change the settings, but Matt’s charts remind us… we are the product Facebook is selling to its advertisers. http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/ Similar:I felt a…
Frank Rich takes TV journalism to task for fumbling its coverage of the Times Square bombing attempt. It seems the Big Media bigwigs were too busy at the White House Correspondents Dinner… so the media stars were covering their own schmoozefest, rather than real news. That MSNBC couldn’t be bothered to interrupt its two-hour coverage…
I don’t proclaim to be “holier than thou” by leaving Facebook. And I’m not a Luddite–I blog and make Flash videos and stay informed about the latest and greatest with my favorite gadgets. But I was there when Facebook fell apart in the face of its greed. I didn’t like what I saw and took…
The Crackberry-addict-in-chief warns graduates about a bunch of different, non-Crackberry gadgets, that are bad, apparently because they aren’t Crackberries. “With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than…
The task is simple: in eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top. —Marshmallow Challenge Kindergartners regularly beat business school graduates, in part because the suits spent time jockeying for…
Clearly Facebook has taught us some lessons. We want easier ways to share photos, links and short updates with friends, family, co-workers and even, sometimes, the world. But that doesn’t mean the company has earned the right to own and define our identities. It’s time for the best of the tech community to find a…