Google Plus: Is This the Social Tool Schools Have Been Waiting For? There seem to be three forces at play when it comes to education and social media. The first is a lack of force, quite frankly - the inertia that makes many educators unwilling and uninterested in integrating the technology into their classrooms. The second is the force of fear - the pressures on the part of administrators, district officials, and politicians to curtail and ban teacher and students' interactions online.
(See Rhode Island's recently passed legislation that outlaws all social media on school grounds as a case in point.) And finally, the third force is that of more and more educators who are embracing social media and advocating its use on- and off-campus - for student learning and for teacher professional development alike. I spent this past week with many of those teachers at the International Society for Technology in Education conference in Philadelphia, and when Google unveiled Google+ on Tuesday, most of us were otherwise preoccupied.
Plus Potentials for Schools. What's Buzzing? You Tell Us! Top News and More - Yahoo! Buzz. Buzz Drops Auto-Following, Won't Automatically Connect to Google. Buzz by Darrell Hudson from Google Reader. The Last Mile' Of Virtualization And Cloud Computing In Retail. Click Here To Download:•Guest Series Part 1: 'The Last Mile' Of Virtualization And Cloud Computing In Retail •Guest Series Part 2: Verizon, Tomax Speak On The Cloud By Don Gibson, Pippard, Inc. There is no question, virtualization is here to stay and it is one of the most significant enabling technologies for efficiently delivering cloud computing. "So what? " you might ask. Whether you are the consumer of, or a supplier of computing technology within retail, cloud computing is the most significant technology game changer to hit the industry since scanning, and you should care because it is going to change the way IT gets done in this industry.
You need to be ready. Quite a prediction. Enterprise cloud put to the test. Network World - The potential benefits of public clouds are obvious to most IT execs, but so are the pitfalls – outages, security concerns, compliance issues, and questions about performance, management, service-level agreements and billing. At this point, it's fair to say that most IT execs are wary of entrusting sensitive data or important applications to the public cloud. How we tested these cloud computing productsArchive of Network World tests But a technology as hyped as cloud computing can't be ignored either. IT execs are exploring the public cloud in pilot programs, they're moving to deploy cloud principles in their own data centers, or they are eyeing an alternative that goes by a variety of names – enterprise cloud, virtual private cloud or managed private cloud. We're using the term enterprise cloud to mean an extension of data center resources into the cloud with the same security, audit, and management/administrative components that are best practices within the enterprise.
Take Advantage of New Simplified Cisco Wireless Routers - PCWorl. Cisco today unveiled two new wireless router lines aimed at simplifying the process of configuring a wireless network for home, or small and medium office environments. The new wireless routers attempt to provide PC users with a wireless experience mirroring Apple's Airport devices. Cisco is an enterprise-grade company, with enterprise-grade equipment, and its used to working with enterprise partners. Its consumer offerings have left a little to be desired. After acquiring Pure Digital Technologies, makers of the popular Flip digital video cameras, Cisco has learned some new tricks for designing simplified, dummy-proof, almost automatic configuration--and it has applied those lessons to its consumer wireless routers. The Valet series of devices are aimed primarily at home users, but Cisco also developed the Linksys E-series wireless routers--combining the simplicity of the Valet series with some additional configuration options for more tech savvy customers.
Introducing Google Buzz. We've blogged before about our thoughts on the social web, steps we've taken to add social features to our products, and efforts like OpenSocial that propose common tools for building social apps. With more and more communication happening online, the social web has exploded as the primary way to share interesting stuff, tell the world what you're up to in real-time and stay more connected to more people. In today's world of status messages, tweets and update streams, it's increasingly tough to sort through it all, much less engage in meaningful conversations. Our belief is that organizing the social information on the web — finding relevance in the noise — has become a large-scale challenge, one that Google's experience in organizing information can help solve.
We've recently launched innovations like real-time search and Social Search, and today we're taking another big step with the introduction of a new product, Google Buzz. HTML 5: Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe Fight to Rule the We. Last Updated Mar 31, 2010 11:36 AM EDT Yesterday, I covered HTML 5 and how it will change the web. Many companies -- such as Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL), and Adobe (ADBE) â€" have strong financial interests in HTML 5's final form and when it eventually takes its place on the web. Other organizations and businesses have different interests, and they'll all throw elbows in a race to control what happens. As I mentioned in the previous post, HTML 5 is supposed to be the next version of the web language standard. It promises to do everything that Flash does, from delivering video and enabling slick user interfaces to providing a platform to develop small downloadable applications, without the need to download and install a browser plug-in.
But exactly how HTML 5 works, and how well sites adopt it, is a contentious issue. Here's a rundown of the major players in the coming tousle and what drives them: So when can I use all this stuff? © 2010 CBS Interactive Inc.. Location in the Cloud (Part 2) Location in the cloud (part 1) I’m a guest blogger this week at the 2010 Where 2.0 conference.
I’ve been working with mobile location services and systems since 2000. In lieu of a heavy focus on mobile at Where 2.0 this year, Brady Forrest invited me to write a few words and offer insights into a theme around two emerging areas of mobile location data access—Wireless Location in the Cloud and Social Location in the Cloud. This post is the first in a two-part series. Wireless Location in the Cloud Wireless location data and access to it has been a highly coveted wireless network asset since the early days of e9-1-1 in the late 1990s. Cross-Carrier Aggregation is Finally Real Veriplace is a new location aggregation service offering by Wavemarket. Two Concepts Supporting Location beyond the Smartphone With their location API, Veriplace introduced two concepts today: Ubiquity. The Veriplace Developer Contest.
Google Buzz Privacy Reset Coming Tomorrow. In an effort to address mounting criticism of the privacy issues surrounding Google Buzz, the search giant is going to ask all Buzz users to confirm or change their privacy settings tomorrow. In an announcement that will be coming soon, Google will admit that they "didn't get everything right," which has resulted in serious privacy tweaks since its launch.
However, many users weren't affected by these changes because they had activated Google Buzz before the privacy updates. Now in a renewed effort to correct its gaffs, the search company is going to ask all Google Buzz users to confirm (or change) their Buzz settings. This will be gradually rolled out tomorrow, but the result will be that every user will be prompted with a confirmation page the next time they click the Buzz tab. It will look something like this: The page isn't anything new — it's really just the Google Buzz settings page.
Twettle: The Story of a Tweeting Kettle | Gadget Lab. Two London designers decided to come up with a get-rich-quick scheme whilst waiting for a bartender to mix their drinks. The result? A kitchen appliance which could communicate through Twitter. And what kitchen appliance would any self-respecting Englishman choose? An electric kettle, or the Twettle. When we first saw Tweeting appliances, they were a laughable novelty: a Twittering toilet designed to show up the banality of most Tweets, for example. Designers Ben Perman and Murat Mutlu decided to put their circuitry inside a kettle, because a) tea is “the cornerstone of British culture” and b) an actual working product is a lot more sexy than a circuit board and a bundle of wires. The Twettle’s production story is long and fascinating, and as far from a cable-sprouting Arduino hack as it could be. The Twettle works via WiFi, connecting directly to the internet and tweeting when it has boiled. But putting WiFi into a dumb appliance isn’t easy.
Twettle. See Also: The future of gaming: up the beanstalk and into the cloud. Many non-gamers and casual gamers who've heard the cloud computing hype might be surprised to learn that the cloud is actually changing the way we play games. From the ever-evolving Steam and Impulse to upcoming services like OnLive, the cloud has already had a serious impact on the games industry, and with a slew of new services on tap for later this year and next, that impact is slated to grow enormously.
This shift to the cloud has implications far beyond the gaming experience—every aspect of the multibillion dollar business of gaming will be affected, from distribution and sales to quality assurance to anti-piracy controls. Steam releases the Cloud The gaming world got its first major taste of cloud-based gaming on November 18, 2008. Alongside the release of the highly anticipated co-op zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead, developer Valve also rolled out a brand new service: Steam Cloud.
This concept has been very well received by gamers—it was one of our favorite tech trends of 2008. The web is a kid’s game and the big boys can’t have Chatroulette. Vietnam Rebuffs Hacking Claims From Google - PCWorld Business Ce. Vietnam tersely rejected charges from Google that tens of thousands of Vietnamese-speaking PC users around the world were targeted by hackers. The country's Foreign Ministry published a statement on Saturday after fielding a question from the press about Google's blog post, which was published on its online security blog on March 30.
"Such comments are groundless," said Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nguyen Phuong Nga. "We have on many occasions clearly expounded our view on issues relating to access to and use of information and information technology, including the Internet. Vietnam law puts in place specific regulations against computer virus and malware as well as on information security and confidentiality.
" A Google security official, Neel Mehta, wrote that the company had discovered a type of malicious software that was disguised as Vietnamese keyboard language software. Why SMBs Should Consider Server Virtualization - www.smallbusine. Until recently, server virtualization was thought of as something that only larger companies -- with dozens or hundreds of physical servers -- needed and could afford. But times, technology and the cost of virtual servers have changed, and today mid-sized and even small businesses with just a few servers stand to benefit from going virtual.
What is Server Virtualization? A virtual server consists of software called a hypervisor running on a physical server, which allows you to partition that one server into many virtual machines and manage them all through a single interface. "Server virtualization enables companies to run many applications on fewer physical servers without having to worry about application incompatibilities and support issues,” explained Mark Bowker, a senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group.
Moreover, he said, “server virtualization allows IT to improve asset utilization and potentially lower IT operation costs.” Can Migrating to a Virtual Server Damage Data? Mon virtualization gotchas when joining an external network | Ne. Quake II Ported to HTML5. In November last year I stated that it would only be a matter of time before it happened.
Also in November Joel Webber, a Google engineer had the inspiration to port Quake II to HTML5 from Jake2--a Java port of Quake II--using Google Web Toolkit; the same toolkit used for writing Google Mail | Maps | Wave in Java and compiling into JavaScript. With the help of two other Google engineers (Ray Cromwell and Stefan Haustein) in "20% time", it works! Just! How Does It Work? “GWTQuake” took Jake2, and run it through Google’s Web Toolkit (a framework and compiler for writing web apps in Java) to convert it to a collection of HTML5 Canvas / Audio / Video and JavaScript. Jake2 however relies upon various Java interfaces that are not present directly in GWT or the browser, for example the networking, keyboard and file IO. Joel had to implement new mappings to get the Java code to correspond to browser technologies.
Another interesting HTML5 technology used is WebSockets. How Can I Play It? 9 Weird Places to Find Linux - PCWorld. Buzz by Darrell Hudson.