e-Clippings: "Legero. Cogito. Scribero."
6.04.2003

Musings from the Editor's Desk: First, I thought I'd drop off
a little weekend reading for you. I knew I would have to dig through
a lot since I hadn't looked in a while but I actually found a ton
of good stuff too. Second, in doing this digging, I've engaged in
the simplest form of trend tracking – which section of the
newsletter is biggest? Actually its not the overall size that matters
<no snickering> but the number, so we are looking for activity. I
have just never seen such a disparity between sections such as
Emerging Tech and Trends as exists in this issue. Jumping to
conclusions I would proffer that maybe hardware development is in one
of those underground phases while lots of new thinking about currently
deployed technology is surfacing. Hmmmm…..

Have a great weekend!
Mark Oehlert, Editor
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Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the
Cyberian Frontier by EDWARD CASTRONOVA, California State University,
Fullerton - Department of Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic
Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=294828
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This email is provided for information purposes only. Mention or
discussion of a product, company or person does not represent any
official endorsement or criticism of the same. All authors and
organizations retain complete copyright.
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The Future of e-Learning Models and the Language We Use to Describe
Them:
The objectives of this study are to establish a baseline of current
e-learning models from all sides of the equation – producer,
purchaser and consumer. The research will explore:
How valid are our current models of e-learning and how do they
limit/enable us in thinking about the future?
Based on those models that are valid – what are some models we
can expect to be prevalent in 3-5 years?
Where are the connections and gaps in our current set of language
that we use to describe the overall environment of e-learning?
http://www.masie.com/researchgrants/#future
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Event: Online Educa Berlin 2003
"Among this year's themes are Learning in Enterprises, E-Learning
Policies in Practice, New Roles for Teachers and Trainers and Future
Technologies for Learning. The conference will be accompanied by an
exhibition featuring many of the companies active in e-learning."
http://www.online-educa.com/en/
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NEWS

CIT's New President: Peter Jobse discusses his goals for Virginia's
Center for Innovative Technology.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49566-2003May28.html

Adopting E-Learning: Lessons From the Government: May 2003: Dorman
Woodall: The use of e-learning within government agencies is one area
where the government leads much of Corporate America in widespread
adoption, the development of innovative applications and its
incorporation as an essential component in agency-wide learning
initiatives. In fact, discussions with eight different agencies
revealed significant successes that serve as powerful examples of
e-learning's potential. In many cases, these successes
demonstrate how organizations can maximize dollar investments and
learner value by working cooperatively with other units within their
own walls, as well as with partner agencies and affiliates.
http://www.clomedia.com/content/anmviewer.asp?a=166&z=30

Video games boost visual skills: Helen R. Pilcher : The brain changes
as a result of visual training. Playing video games could be good for
your vision. A new study suggests that action games might help to
rehabilitate visually impaired patients or train military personnel.
http://www.nature.com/nsu/030527/030527-5.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/science/29VIDE.html
http://wired.com/news/games/0,2101,59016,00.html

Lieberman Rolls Out Tech-Centric Economic Plan: Democratic
presidential candidate calls for additional tax cuts for tech
investments, increased IT R&D funding and accelerated broadband
deployment.
http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/2213291

Congress Splits on Defense IT Spending: House wants $1.7 billion in
cuts to force spending below 2003 levels. Senate, Bush push for full
funding.
http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/2212251

Powerful House Leaders Join Anti-Spam Crowd: Tauzin, Sensenbrenner
file legislation to allow consumers to opt-out of any commercial
e-mail they choose not to receive.
http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/2211871

Unlimited cuts all staff, shuts down: Unlimited, one of the veterans
of Ireland's e-learning sector and a tenant in the Digital Hub, has
ceased trading, resulting in the loss of nearly 30 jobs.
http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9362121

**Does this news give anyone else a thoughtful pause?
Microsoft, AOL Plan To Forge Alliance: Microsoft Corp. Thursday
agreed to pay $750 million to AOL Time Warner Inc. to drop an
antitrust suit against the software giant, in a deal that turns
one-time rivals into partners.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55960-2003May29.html


TRENDS SECTION

Darwin: The Measure of Success: "Many corporations substantiate their
e-learning initiatives after the fact by eliminating related jobs or
reducing travel expenditures for training. Although these are viable
cost savings, they should not be the sole motivation for an
e-learning initiative. E-learning must demonstrate that employees are
learning more efficiently and retaining more of the curriculum
compared to in-class training. The bottom line is: Is e-learning
improving employee productivity?"
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/050103/learn.html

**Maybe Kevin Kelly was right…
(http://www.wired.com/wired/5.09/newrules.html?pg=6&topic=)
Rhapsody Slashes Download/Burn Price: RealOne's Rhapsody digital
raises the stakes in the online music wars by lowering its download
prices.
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/2213011

Free vs. fee: Underground still thrives: CNET News.com: Mark Ishikawa
was eating dinner at the Los Angeles Hilton a few weeks ago when he
overheard a couple discussing the virtues of downloading music using
free services like Kazaa.
http://news.com.com/2009-1027_3-1009541.html

Court divided on posting DVD codes on Internet: San Jose Mercury News
The California Supreme Court appeared divided Thursday on whether
courts can block computer users from posting on the Internet the
computer codes to copy DVD movies.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/5975757.htm

So Much for the Freelance Economy: Guru.com will join the growing
ranks of sites for freelancers that have shut down. Seems predictions
that a big portion of U.S. workers will become free agents won't pan
out. By Amit Asaravala.
http://wired.com/news/business/0,1367,59003,00.html

Stanford Business: Innovators Navigate Around Cliques: Looking at
entrepreneurs' social networks and their career histories to see what
the connection is to innovation, Martin Ruef, assistant professor of
strategic management, concludes that the most creative entrepreneurs
spend less time than average networking with business colleagues who
are friends and more time networking with a diverse group that
includes acquaintances and strangers. "Contrary to common assumptions,
" says Ruef, "the evidence suggests that in many cases strong social
ties do not provide significant new information, so it helps not to
be as embedded in them."
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0305/ideas_ruef_networking.
shtml

Microsoft brings Office to business IM
http://cl.com.com/Click?q=d0-vjDhQWWlQ2L40LN-Nv7u-KghkMFR

Google could be five times faster
http://cl.com.com/Click?q=e5-9Z7OQgyVlCbTOwGCKGruoTQX9KsR

WHY THE FCC IS WRONG ON MEDIA OWNERSHIP: By David Coursey
NEW MEDIA: On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission is
expected to make it easier for a handful of companies to control what
we read, watch, and listen to. I don't think that's a good thing.
Here's why.
http://cl.com.com/Click?q=08-IFoQIRjlZPe_08GeFc8eQtzSisFR

Is this the end of Netscape?
http://cl.com.com/Click?q=5d-JN-bIK0y8sp9OC3fi7Pmvn2JMVyR

This article from George Siemens:
"I've posted a new article: Why We Should Share Learning Resources.
Basic point I make is:
Foundational principle of progress: Ideas build on other ideas
To preserve this foundation, we need to promote the following
freedoms
for learning material:
Freedom to use for any purpose
Freedom to improve and extend
Freedom to build on and make new
Comments on the article are appreciated. It's not intended to be a
final draft... " is a nice critique (in part) of the current
direction of copyright creep and the danger it poses to educational
content. I agree and contend that copyright restrictions are the
greatest danger to the future educational environment we all envision.
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/why_we_should_share.htm

(NY Times requires free registration)
Home Schooling in Cyberspace By BONNIE ROTHMAN MORRIS
Some parents seeking home schooling are enrolling their children in
schools that exist only in cyberspace.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/technology/circuits/29clas.html

IBM: Tackling "messy knowledge": Combining the best of
Knowledge Management with Learning and Development
"Having knowledge on demand – precisely what's needed, when
it's needed – is critical for firms to function optimally in a
demanding business environment. The overall economic objec tive is to
get work done faster and more accurately, with individuals and groups
making decisions more quickly and with better insight. Messy
knowledge is perishable, inaccessible and not usable by the person
performing work. Organizations seeking to overcome these problems
have
often met with mixed results: out-of-date, out-of-reach, and
out-of-touch."
http://www-1.ibm.com/services/insights/ibv_messy.html

Darwin: Are You Ready for Social Software?
"Traditional software approaches the relationship of people to groups
from a top-down fashion. In the corporate setting, its hard to
imagine a person existing without being specifically assigned
membership to top-down groups: your team, your division, the budget
committee and so on. Over time, more sophisticated social software
will exploit second and third order information from such
affiliations — friends of friends; digital reputation based on
level
of interaction, rating schemes and the like."
http://www.darwinmag.com/read/050103/social.html

NY Times: Business Is Toying With a Web Tool: "The creative anarchy
of the wiki is the philosophical inverse of conventional corporate
groupware software. Groupware's highly structured rules and processes
do not always reflect the way people really work. Employees often
ignore costly corporate-sanctioned software and revert to informal
social networks — whether simply e-mail or impromptu water-cooler
discussions."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/19/technology/19NECO.html

From CETIS:
Three Objections to Learning Objects: A thoughtful and thorough
critique of the learning object concept. Particularly notable about
it is Norm Friesen's tracing of the learning object's provenance in
the training and military world. i.e. context is demonstrated to be
the problem at two levels: that of a learning object itself, as well
as the concept of them. Also notable is his contrast between the
specifity of the technical domain from which the 'object' concept
came, and the inherent ambiguity and vagueness of 'learning' or
'pedagogy'. The paper does not outline an alternative to replace
learning objects, however.
http://phenom.educ.ualberta.ca/~nfriesen/


EMERGING TECH SECTION

DoCoMo To Trial 4G System: Japanese cell phone operator NTT DoCoMo
has announced plans for a field trial of a fourth-generation (4G)
mobile communications system in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, where a
DoCoMo R&D center is located.
http://www.thinkmobile.com/Content/Detail.asp?CTID=1&ID=6747

Telecoms in Accord on Data Network
Three local telephone companies have settled on a common set of
standards for a new super-high-speed data network that could deliver
Internet access, telephone service and dozens of television channels.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55680-2003May29.html


MOBILE COMPUTING SECTION

Electronic Order in the Court: By SHERRI DAY
Courtrooms have been among the last workplaces to embrace technology,
but courts are now taking their place in the wired and wireless
worlds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/technology/circuits/29cour.html

Snap, Store, View, Hum: A Portable Memory Bank
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/technology/circuits/29flas.html

BBC: Mobile gadgets offer new lessons: "The aim of the project is to
see how mobile devices can be used to teach basic numeracy and
literacy skills to young adults that have dropped out of the
education system."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2940936.stm

CNET: Will Wi-Fi lower nurses' blood pressure?
"The devices could be a perfect fit for hospital nursing, a truly
on-the-go profession. Besides using the phones to make or receive
calls, nurses can use the high-speed connection to transfer records
when within a 300-foot radius of a Wi-Fi access point. Wi-Fi
technology lets people access a network wirelessly and share
resources on that network."
http://news.com.com/2100-1039_3-1009555.html?tag=fd_top

Wired: Why Voice Over Wi-Fi Has Telcos Dialing 911
"When patients at Anne Arundel Medical Center need a dose of morphine
or an extra helping of Jell-O, they don't just buzz a nurse - they
call one directly over the hospital's Wi-Fi network. Old-style page
buttons have been retooled to ring the wireless handsets of staff
anywhere in the building..."
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/start.html?pg=8

From PocketPCThoughts:
"Outlook Reminders Via SMS or Email: Posted by Ed Hansberry
There are two add-ins, priced at $7.50 each, that will either send
your Outlook reminders to you via SMS or email. The SMS application
actually just captures the reminder event in Outlook and hands it off
to another third party application that will send the message. I am
not sure how it works in Europe, but with my T-Mobile account, I can
send an SMS message via email by setting up an email account at My
T-Mobile. I already do this to get SMS/MMS messages autoforwarded by
rules when I am out. However, my solution doesn't capture reminders.
Desktop requirements are Outlook 2000, 2002 (XP) and 2003 Beta 2.
This site is run by Ricardo Silva, an MVP for Microsoft Outlook, and
contains lots of advice and add-ins for Outlook."
http://www.rsoutlook.com/us/software.htm


GAMING SECTION

Game Theory: From Hot Rods to Racehorses, It's All in the Bonding
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/technology/circuits/29game.html

Sorenstam's Got Game, in Reality and Virtually
Sid Meier, the creator of SimGolf, designed a virtual course that
pits Vijay Singh against Annika Sorenstam.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/25/weekinreview/25MIER.html


SECURITY SECTION

Kazaa to patch 'serious' vulnerability
http://cl.com.com/Click?q=a6-9zw4QCUELIh8RCWut-Ic07bYstcR


HUMOR AND MISC. SECTION

There's Something About Rummy: Donald Rumsfeld may have his share of
critics, but Bruce Sterling isn't one of them. The president's gnomic
futurist, the outspoken defense secretary, knows what's right for
America, Sterling writes in a commentary from Wired magazine.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/view.html?pg=4

Funny game stuff --
http://www.redvsblue.com/
**Site tip from Cub reporter Richard Boyd at 3D Solve
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