Techno-News Blog

by Cyrus Farivar, ars technica

Goodreads, the literary social networking site, has just been acquired by Amazon for an undisclosed price. Users of the site share what they’re reading and discuss books with other users. In an announcement on Thursday afternoon on the Goodreads website, the small San Francisco startup’s founders gushed about the giant book retailer. “We truly could not think of a more perfect partner for Goodreads as we both share a love of books and an appreciation for the authors who write them,” wrote the company’s co-founder, Otis Chandler. “We also both love to invent products and services that touch millions of people.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/03/in-further-effort-to-conquer-the-literary-world-amazon-buys-goodreads/

By ROY FURCHGOTT, NY Times

Sometimes even a four-inch smartphone screen may not seem enough. If so, would 200 inches do? The iPower Sight can — according to the manufacturer, iPowerUp — take what is on your phone, tablet or computer screen and enlarge it, projecting an image up to 200 diagonal inches from a device that is itself pocket-size. Both measures may be a shade optimistic. No doubt the projector is small, at about 4 by 4 by ¾ of an inch and just over three ounces, but you would still need a pretty big pocket. And while it can project a focused image at up to 200 inches, you wouldn’t want to do that unless you had a completely darkened room and a nicely reflective projection screen. It was easy enough to watch an image enlarged to around 50 inches on a white wall on an overcast day. Considering the size of the projector, the quality was quite good.

http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/a-big-picture-from-a-small-projector/?partner=rss&emc=rss

by Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

Boing Boing is a co-signatory to an open letter (PDF) to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, calling on them to fix the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s ban on jailbreaking and unlocking your devices. This laudable effort was spearheaded by Public Knowledge: “It is important for Congress to remember that people are waiting on them to solve this problem once and for all. We’ve seen that Congress wants to ensure that consumers can unlock their phones, but consumers, entrepreneurs, academics, and public interest organizations all agree that we need lasting solutions to make sure that people can use their wireless devices without fearing copyright laws….”

http://boingboing.net/2013/03/29/groups-across-america-call-on.html

by Jeff John Roberts, GigaOM

FundersClub, a website that lets investors back start-ups for as little as $1000, cleared an important regulatory hurdle when the SEC said its model is legal, in part because it is consistent with the Jobs Act.

http://gigaom.com/2013/03/28/sec-ruling-gives-boost-to-online-funding-tool-for-startups/

by Derrick Harris, GigaOM

A new research paper shows just how easy it is to identify individuals based on supposedly anonymous mobile-phone data, and this isn’t the first time supposedly anonymous data really wasn’t. But how do we balance the need for privacy with the value of these datasets?

http://gigaom.com/2013/03/28/when-theres-no-such-thing-as-anonymous-data-does-privacy-just-mean-security/

Brian S Hall, ReadWrite

Firefox OS, the mobile platform being developed by Mozilla, is not something I’m not convinced will ever matter, although I could be wrong — and I kind of hope I am. After all, another platform, more developers, more competition and the promise of truly open web standards for mobile devices are all good things. The odds, however, appear stacked against its success. Presently, Google’s Android dominates the smartphone market, accounting for approximately 70% of all new smartphone sales. In its short life, Android has amassed 48% of the global smartphone market. Apple’s iPhone follows with 19%. Both platforms are supported by highly capable, deep-pocketed tech giants, and both platforms are growing their overall base. There may simply be no room for a viable third platform.

http://readwrite.com/2013/03/29/does-firefox-os-have-a-chance-maybe

by Keith Devlin, Huffington Post

One feature MOOCs offer, that is phenomenally powerful educationally, is to separate credentialing from the learning process. When the marks a student receives on each assignment or test count towards the final grade on which a credential is awarded, as familiarly happens in K-12, the awarding of course grades can no longer be used as an effective way for a student (and an instructor) to gauge progress. The grade becomes more important than the learning. But in a MOOC, the two can (and should!) be kept separate. Since a student can take a MOOC as many times as she or he wants, with the only cost being time (learning time!), the student can elect which iteration of the course to take for a credential.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-keith-devlin/massive-open-online-courses_b_2946591.html

by Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Diverse

At Oregon State University, students use a “virtual spectrometer” to measure the absorbance of different solutions in an online chemistry course that features a “virtual lab.” At the University of Central Florida, aspiring teachers practice their skills in a simulated middle school classroom that features digital avatars controlled by trainers who act like students. At Weber State University, students in an online marketing course issue time-stamped critiques of student presentations. These are some of the ways technology is transforming teaching and learning in higher education. And the trend is likely to continue.

http://diverseeducation.com/article/52236/

by Molly McElroy, University of Washington

The University of Washington will offer a new low-cost online bachelor’s degree completion program in early childhood and family studies. Pending final approval, the program will start in the fall. “This is a very exciting development in the use of technology to meet critical educational needs that otherwise might be difficult to do in a more traditional educational setting,” said UW President Michael K. Young. “The country is moving towards better education, training – and certification – for the teachers of our youngest students. This is an optimal way to ensure they have access to high quality education in a place and at a cost that makes sense for them. We will be doing more of this.”

http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/03/27/uw-announces-new-low-cost-online-only-degree-completion-program-in-early-childhood-studies/

by Liz Gannes, All Things D

Google today called for San Francisco Bay Area residents to sign up for six months of free, unlimited same-day delivery of purchases from national and local retailers. The company is calling the program “a new experiment” — more specifically, it’s named Google Shopping Express. Users can browse in an online storefront and then select a delivery window for a “Google courier partner” to arrive at their home later that day.

http://allthingsd.com/20130328/google-wants-send-live-people-to-your-house-to-bring-you-stuff/

By Zach Miners, ComputerWorld

The growing use of handheld devices and social media among students is creating a technology tipping point for schools that could completely break down the barriers between teaching platforms within five to 10 years, Bill Gates said Thursday. Tablet computers, smartphones, e-readers, digital textbooks and the accessibility of digital video including YouTube are playing major roles in changing the way students are learning at both the K-12 and higher-education levels, Gates said during a Thursday keynote at the education arm of the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas. “Finally there are people looking at whether textbooks should be fully digital,” he said, speaking to an audience of teachers, administrators and representatives of educational technology companies.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9237429/Bill_Gates_Schools_are_at_a_technology_tipping_point_

by Martha Heller, CIO

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog rich with career advice from leading CIOs. The blog was a hit, so I am at it again. Herewith: round two of career advice from CIOs! IT is the place where everything comes together, so we see things through a different lens than other executives. From our unique vantage point, we are able to spot business opportunities, trends, and cultural issues that impact the organization, which other executives may not see. So, it is wise to remember, as CIO, that your influence expands way outside your functional area.

http://blogs.cio.com/cio-role/17911/words-wisdom-leading-cios

By Susan Young, Technology Review

A startup called IntelligentM wants to make hospitals healthier by encouraging workers to clean their hands properly. Its solution is a bracelet that vibrates when the wearer has scrubbed sufficiently, giving employees a way to check their habits and letting employers know who is and isn’t doing things right. Some 100,000 people a year in the United States alone die because of infections that arise from hospital visits, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a lot of these infections occur because doctors, nurses, and technicians don’t wash well enough. The problem has garnered more attention lately, in part because Medicare and other payers have stopped reimbursing hospitals for expenses related to treating hospital-acquired infections.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512471/are-your-doctors-hands-clean-this-wristband-knows/

by David Zax, Technology Review

In a salvo against Netflix, which has gained attention for its original series “House of Cards,” Amazon announced today that it would be producing a pilot for a TV series derived from “Zombieland,” the hit 2009 horror-comedy. What’s most interesting about Amazon’s announcement, though, is the revelation that it will only be ordering a full season of the series depending on customer feedback. What happens when viewers become the gatekeepers for entertainment? What happens when pandering to an audience and its dollars governs creative decision-making?

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512876/the-data-driven-artist/

By Katherine Bourzac, Technology Review

Caltech researchers have demonstrated a complex integrated circuit that survives substantial damage by reconfiguring the way it processes information. The chip does not physically repair flaws; it uses a second processor to come up with new ways to perform a task in spite of the damage. The chip can also be programmed to prioritize energy savings or speed. Ali Hajimiri, the Caltech professor of electrical engineering who led the work, says chips that tune their own performance on the fly could also perform better under ordinary circumstances.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512776/microchip-adapts-to-severe-damage/

By Paul McCloskey, GCN

A group of ex-Google employees has started a company that wants to expand the use of big data to spot fraud — a blight that costs taxpayers over $125 billion a year, and affects public-sector agencies involved in payments, collections and benefits — before it occurs. San Francisco-based Sift Science says it has developed an algorithm that uses machine-learning techniques to stay ahead of new fraud tactics as they are introduced into its customers’ networks. “Many anti-fraud technologies follow a set number, maybe 175 to 225 rules, against which to measure user behavior,” Sift Science co-founder Brandon Ballinger told GigaOm. “The problem is fraudsters don’t follow the rules and change all the time.”

http://gcn.com/articles/2013/03/26/sift-science-machine-learning-anti-fraud.aspx

By Libby A. Nelson, Inside Higher Ed

In a place whose name means “Nowhere” in Swahili, a small group of students — refugees from several neighboring African countries, including Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia — are enrolled in online courses taught by 28 Jesuit colleges, mostly in the United States. The courses are part of Jesuit Commons, a project that seeks to bring courses from the order’s universities to refugee camps worldwide. So far, the program has enrolled about 225 students at three camps in a diploma track that will eventually lead to a credential from Regis University, a Jesuit college in Colorado with a well-established online presence; more than 350 students have participated in service learning courses intended to give them knowledge they use while still at the refugee camps. The program is eyeing a major expansion — and perhaps, in the coming years, the creation of an online-only Jesuit university that would issue degrees of its own.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/27/jesuit-universities-offer-online-courses-refugee-camps

By Times Herald

California’s budget crisis has had many terrible consequences, but one of the most troubling has been the erosion of access to college courses. This past fall, for example, about 400,000 community college students — nearly a quarter of the student body — were on a waiting list to get into a class. Online education holds great promise to help alleviate this problem. A bill by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, aims to begin bringing it to scale as a means of improving access while maintaining California’s reputation for quality higher education — a real concern, particularly with classes provided through for-profit companies.

http://www.timesheraldonline.com/opinion/ci_22880312/online-classes-future-college-education

By Katherine Bourzac, Technology Review

A new kind of three-dimensional display developed at HP Labs plays hologram-like videos without the need for any moving parts or glasses. Videos displayed on the HP system hover above the screen, and viewers can walk around them and experience an image or video from as many 200 different viewpoints—like walking around a real object. The screen is made by modifying a conventional liquid-crystal display (LCD), the same kind of display found in most phones, laptops, tablets, and televisions. Researchers hope these 3-D systems will enable new kinds of user interfaces for portable electronics, gaming, and data visualization. The work, carried out at HP Labs in Palo Alto, California, relies on complex physics to make 3-D displays that are as thin as half a millimeter.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512716/new-3-d-display-could-let-phones-and-tablets-produce-holograms/

By Rachel Metz, Technology Review

Assistant apps that can mine data on our smartphones are likely to be the next big wave of digital helpers. Mountains of data: Sherpa looks at your e-mail, calendar, and location to figure out when and where to present you with useful information. Google Now, an app for Android smartphones that serves up useful information such as flight details when it thinks you need it, is getting some competition from a former Googler. Sherpa, a free smartphone app, mines your e-mails, calendar, and location data to determine the best time and place to let you know something like your flight information and help with next steps, such as getting a cab to the airport.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512781/predictive-smartphone-assistant-gives-you-a-heads-up/

By Kevin Bullis, Technology Review

The unusual optical properties of nanowires could lead to cheaper, more efficient solar panels, new research suggests. Researchers in Denmark and Switzerland have built solar cells from individual nanowires, and showed that the nanowires absorbed far more light than expected based on their size. The solar cells behaved as if they were gathering light from an area eight times larger than their physical size, the researchers write in the current issue of Nature Photonics. This property could lead to solar cells that use less material than conventional ones, yet convert more of the energy in sunlight into electricity, reducing the cost of solar power.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/512786/nanowires-suck-up-light-from-around-them/