Random

Carriers should be context providers

in

Joi Ito has learned a lesson from his $3500 GPRS bill:

"I think that as broadband becomes a standard part of households, more and more people will fill up their iPods and mobile devices with all the content they need from their flat-fee low-cost pipe. Most content isn't THAT time sensitive. I don't see any reason to have to download content on-the-go over expensive gprs when devices can talk wifi or bluetooth and have enough storage to allow you to carry content around."

[by way ofMobitopia]

Frank Koehntopp Notes:

Operators have tried to get people to buy the idea that if only they have UMTS, their mobiles will be able to be used for huge amounts of data: music, video and pictures. That is just not true, at least with the current economics. I can see that in my own behaviour: before I leave the house to go somewhere where I can't access the net for a while (like a business trip), I'm making sure I got all my gadgets 'synced', i.e. I have the content that I need while I'm away with me.

I've been thinking about this and recently have begun to use Audio Hijack to pull off audio content and save it to my iPod. Things like segments of Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and specific radio shows. With Audio Hijack I can program it to record and save content for syncing with my iPod.

I'm also using Bluetooth on my Powerbook and my Nokia 3650 to connect my phone to the web via bluetooth and my laptop connection. Using the Opera browser, I save content on my phone, but do not go through AT&T's network to get the content. I save articles and such for later viewing on my phone. Comes in handy standing in line at the store or waiting around in a doctor's office.

Don't Leave Your Learning Objects on the Floor

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teachnology : news

I'm sorry but I just have to say this. I cringe every time I use the term "learning object." There, I feel better now.

Dan Mitchell and Will Richardson are talking about Learning Objects. As I read their posts I noticed that my son was actually using some real, tangible Learning Objects... As I looked around the living room floor, I also noticed that they were "distributed." Now we need an aggregator to help collect them. As for notification, the best method is to walk across the carpet barefoot. This method seems to be the best I've found when looking for distributed "learning objects" of this type.

VoIP: Clay Shirky

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Shirky: VoIP - Plan A vs Plan B

Plan B, however, is resistant to this strategy, because while it creates the same value as a phone call, it does so without any of the mechanics that regulation attaches to. No dialing, no phone numbers, no phones even, and, most ominously for the incumbents, no charge to the end user. Vonage may be competition, but they don't undermine the idea of charging the user the way Skype or Yahoo Instant Messenger do.

An interesting piece by Clay Shirky. As I read this, I kept thinking of the voice conversation that Tom Hoffman and I had recently using iChat and how well that worked. Could hear him clear as day. Also makes me think about my school and how all of our classroom lack telphone service. Some type of hybrid system that interfaces the building phone network with the our data network would go a long way to getting phones in our classrooms.

Build Your Own Supercomputer

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Hey, Gang, Let’s Make Our Own Supercomputer

Some class science projects get out of hand.

That is certainly the case with Patrick Miller's graduate course in do-it-yourself supercomputing at the University of San Francisco. On April 3, his students plan to assemble the first "flash mob supercomputer" in the school gym.

While brainstorming about how to build a home-brew computer powerful enough to be added to a list of the world's 500 fastest computers, Mr. Miller and his students, along with Gregory D. Benson, an associate professor of computer science, came up with the idea of an electronic barn-raising. They decided to build on the concept of flash mobs, the sudden Internet-organized gatherings with no particular purpose that became an unlikely fad last summer.

I like the fact that after they make their try to join the list of the top 500 supercomputers, the computer will be reorganized to serve as the host of a giant multiplayer video game tournament.

WaveBlog

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This is what I've been working on for the past several months. It's a combination of a custom J2ME based mapping client, weblog service and location alerting system. It's being sold to carriers, not to the general public, but you can play with the public weblog site above. This is the piece I developed. It still needs a lot of hardening and ever more features need to be added to keep up with the TypePads of the world, but in general it's your standard weblog service, but with the integration of location information and maps.

I have to admit... I'm a sucker for these type of phone applications.

DEMO2004

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DEMO 2004The DEMO2004 conference begins tomorrow in Phoenix. A weblog (DEMO 2004 Weblog) is in place for the conference.

DEMO is recognized around the world as the premier event that reveals the products and services poised to have the greatest impact on the technology landscape in the year to come.

Principal For A Day...

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Business leaders sent to principal's office - 2004-02-05 - The Business Journal of Portland

On Thursday, 115 community and business leaders are learning what real job stress is like: serving as "principals for a day" in Portland's public schools.

Lewis Elementary took part in this event. Our guest was Dan Williams, Comcast area director of communications for Oregon and Southwest Washington. He got to see a typical day at Lewis... This included visiting in classrooms, talking with parents, and helping to clean up a busted water fountain pipe which was spraying water all over a classroom...

GarageBand is as Important as Our SIS...

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Jon Udell: Turning consumers into producers

Pay close attention to the pivotal word "experience" -- as in, for example, "the user experience." It's the clue to understanding why Steve Jobs and John Mayer onstage at Macworld, mixing tracks in GarageBand, have more to do with IT's mission than you might think. The quality of experience that we deliver, through software and services, will depend on our ability to negotiate protocols and relationships in a fluid, rapidly-evolving environment. In short: to jam.

If only the folks in my IT department read Jon Udell...

I am constantly amazed at the lack of vision in most school district IT departments, and also in most cases in their curriculum departments. The thing that got me excited about the Internet in schools was not so much the ability to bring resources to the classroom. While that is a worthwhile enterprise, what really excited me was the ability for my students to share their work with others. In the 10 years that I have been publishing this is what has really excited me...

Speaking of user experience... this week coming up is going to be interesting. My teachers will be entering grades in our student information system for the first time. This is a Java based web application... As far as I can tell it was designed by frogs...