Internet guy wants to free USGS maps to "true public domain"

Internet guy wants to free USGS maps to "true public domain": "Xeni Jardin: BoingBoing reader Seth says, Jared Benedict is trying to get all the USGS public domain maps into the actual public domain so they are freely available for everyone to freely use. He's bought all the maps in digital form. Once he's recouped his costs they'll all be available via the Internet Archive. Link to project info. "

BookMooch: a gift economy for books

BookMooch: a gift economy for books: "David Bollier, who maintains one of the best blogs on the internet regarding Commons-related topics, has a great news and commentary item on a new service which allows you to exchange used books, i.e. BookMooch. I’m reblogging it at lenght, as it really important initiative. First of all, what is it? David explains:   “One of the great blessings of digital networks is their capacity to incubate and nourish gift economies of people. I’m excited to learn about a new experiment, BookMooch, which functions as a global gift economy of book lovers. We all have plenty of books that we don’t really want any more – and we all covet other books that may be a bit too expensive or difficult for us to acquire. Why not work out an exchange pool? That’s what BookMooch is — a vast international book exchange made possible by a software system that tracks its own BookMooch “currency” of points. (In this sense, it resembles the Time Dollars barter-exchange program – another i"

Thinking Beyond Web 2.0: Social Computing and the Internet Singularity

Thinking Beyond Web 2.0: Social Computing and the Internet Singularity: "'The idea that a deeper and tighter coupling between the online and offline worlds will accelerate science, business, society, and self-actualization.'"

Best Web 2.0 startups

Best Web 2.0 startups: "Business 2.0 picks the most influential and innovative Web 2.0 startups.... "

The All-Digital Diet

The All-Digital Diet: "Amy Webb, editor-in-chief at Dragonfire, the online magazine where I’m media critic, conducted an interesting experiment recently. She went 30 days without using any traditional media, and wrote about it for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Her thoughts at the end of the experiment: Day 30: Saturday, July 1 Made it. Conclusions: I’ve realized that I don’t need traditional, mainstream media. I’m getting the same information available to everyone else - getting more of it faster and more comprehensively. Better, I’ve created a virtual salon in which I can meet people, chat about the news and current events, share ideas on what else to read, and find meetings to chat with people in person. The last time I went to a bar in Philly and tried to have a conversation about the news, the woman next to me smiled, got up and walked away. I’ve concluded that the medium doesn’t matter after all. After a month without any print or broadcast media, I can say with confidence that I could easily live without ever "

NOAA in Second Life

NOAA in Second Life: "David Pescovitz: The US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has set up shop in Second Life. Their hang-out is called Meteroa, and if you visit you'll apparently find interactive educational demos about the oceans and weathers. Given that climate/weather researchers are always pushing the limits of scientific simulation, I find it, um, meta-interesting that they're now participating in the synthetic world of Second Life. From Second Life Insider: On this lovely island sim you can find fully interactive educational demonstrations about the ocean and weather. Examples include a sea life submarine ride created by The Magicians, and two different tsnuami demos by Aimee Weber Studios and Electric Sheep Company (seen here). Other fun stuff includes a demonstration of a real-time temperature map powered by Yahoo, narration by Exploratorium Chief Scientist Paul Doherty, an airplane ride into a hurricane, and a melting glacier demonstration. The NOAA's arrival may be a great sign of things to come. United States government agencies aren't exactly what you call flamboyant,"

Revealed: world's oldest computer

Revealed: world's oldest computer: "Machine found on ocean floor, dating back to 80BC has been declared the world's oldest computer, used to map the motions of the sun, moon and planets."

The Three Faces of Steve

The Three Faces of Steve: "By tim There's a very thought-provoking article on the O'Reilly Network's MacDevCenter, reading between the lines of Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote: After welcoming the audience of developers, Jobs let the audience know that others would help him on stage. This, in and of itself, was unusual. There are often supporting roles in the WWDC and MacWorld keynotes but only one featured artist. Not only did Jobs share the stage with Bertrand Serlet, Phil Schiller, and Scott Forstall, but he allowed them to make many of the morning's announcements. In a way, they represented the three faces of Steve. In his email newsletter, MacDevCenter editor Derrick Story expanded on this point: 'As these Apple heavy hitters made the various announcements that Steve often handles, I couldn't help thinking that Apple once again is planning ahead. Steve Jobs won't be CEO forever. Others are going to have to share the heavy lifting.' Thought-provoking. The article also had a couple of other tidbits that struck me: Continuing with my thoughts about application dialtone, the n"

The Three Faces of Steve

The Three Faces of Steve: "By tim There's a very thought-provoking article on the O'Reilly Network's MacDevCenter, reading between the lines of Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote: After welcoming the audience of developers, Jobs let the audience know that others would help him on stage. This, in and of itself, was unusual. There are often supporting roles in the WWDC and MacWorld keynotes but only one featured artist. Not only did Jobs share the stage with Bertrand Serlet, Phil Schiller, and Scott Forstall, but he allowed them to make many of the morning's announcements. In a way, they represented the three faces of Steve. In his email newsletter, MacDevCenter editor Derrick Story expanded on this point: 'As these Apple heavy hitters made the various announcements that Steve often handles, I couldn't help thinking that Apple once again is planning ahead. Steve Jobs won't be CEO forever. Others are going to have to share the heavy lifting.' Thought-provoking. The article also had a couple of other tidbits that struck me: Continuing with my thoughts about application dialtone, the n"

AdSense Expert Launches Interactive Game

AdSense Expert Launches Interactive Game: "Joel Comm has released an online game to help players similate various conditions of an AdSense website. The game lets you pick your website type, how you plan to build the site, type of marketing, ad types and ad placement. The game then lets you see your results day-by-day. Players can simulate their AdSense sites"

What kind of value is created in networks: symbolic value

What kind of value is created in networks: symbolic value: "symbolic value’ = a form of value that is produced by immaterial labour and not measured in forms of money, but can be appropriated and capitalized as well.This concept is discussed by Christopher Spehr [edit] “The symbolic value of virtual and global networking consists in recognition, centrality and representation. Recognition means that others positively acknowledge what you do, that you ‘get a name’ by it, that you are seen as a person, group, movement, organisation that does important work and shows relevant skills. (The notion of the internet as a place of ‘recognition economy’ has been used before. I owe a lot of these ideas to the essay of Francis Hunger, ‘Computer als Männermaschine’, and his creative use of the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Roswitha Scholtz.) In the internet, recognition value e.g. may be measured in links that go to this site. Centrality means that others may find you, that you control a space or structure that is visited by"

What kind of value is created in networks: symbolic value

What kind of value is created in networks: symbolic value: "symbolic value’ = a form of value that is produced by immaterial labour and not measured in forms of money, but can be appropriated and capitalized as well.This concept is discussed by Christopher Spehr [edit] “The symbolic value of virtual and global networking consists in recognition, centrality and representation. Recognition means that others positively acknowledge what you do, that you ‘get a name’ by it, that you are seen as a person, group, movement, organisation that does important work and shows relevant skills. (The notion of the internet as a place of ‘recognition economy’ has been used before. I owe a lot of these ideas to the essay of Francis Hunger, ‘Computer als Männermaschine’, and his creative use of the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Roswitha Scholtz.) In the internet, recognition value e.g. may be measured in links that go to this site. Centrality means that others may find you, that you control a space or structure that is visited by"

We are the media: how to participate in autonomous media production?

We are the media: how to participate in autonomous media production?: "If you are familiar with the resources that we are collating at the Wiki of P2PFoundation.net, you know that the middle column is dedicated to topical pages. One such new page is one P2P Audiovisual Concepts and is maintained by Valentin Spirik. He has done an absolutely marvelous job of collating the best how-to resources. Here’s his own description of the project: P2P Wiki: readers/contributions welcome to the new Audiovisual Concepts section! This is just a short announcement to let everyone know that the new Audiovisual Concepts section in the P2P Wiki now already offers a couple of introductory articles and resources that might be worth a visit if you are interested in online audio and video. We have a Beginner’s Guide to the AudioVisual P2P Net, a list with free (and mostly open-source) software that should help with empowering anyone to access/produce/publish online media and we’ve also started a list with (free) online videos that are of interest to the audiovisual section of the Wiki, e.g. We Are The Media "

Playing Games For College Credit

Playing Games For College Credit: "The UNCG Division of Continual Learning today announced it has developed a groundbreaking new video game for college credit that is scheduled to launch this fall. Called ECON 201, the game teaches the principles of microeconomics by following an alien species that must learn how to survive after crash-landing in a post-apocalyptic earth."

College Athletics Are Beginning To Broadcast Over Internet Instead of TV

College Athletics Are Beginning To Broadcast Over Internet Instead of TV: "Ever wanted to see a game, but it wasn't on tv? Now, even smaller, less dominant college athletic teams have the chance to let the world see what they've got. Also, it gives these smaller schools a chance to earn some money to support their sports - they sell advertising and charge a subscription fee. Sounds like a new beginning to me."

Live Motion 3D Video Camera

Live Motion 3D Video Camera: "By tim The other day, Noel Gorelick of Arizona State University and Google Mars fame gave me an amazing demo of images taken with a very cool new 3D live motion video camera that uses LIDAR technology to get a range-finding for every pixel. Advanced Scientific Concepts, the company that built the camera, is so young that they don't have a website up, but here's one of the images: Imagine how a camera like this could be used to populate Second Life or Google Earth! The creators of the technology did a Google Tech Talk about the 3D camera. I haven't watched it yet, but someone who was there said that the last 30-40 minutes are better than the beginning, so if it doesn't catch your attention, skip ahead. "

Live Motion 3D Video Camera

Live Motion 3D Video Camera: "By tim The other day, Noel Gorelick of Arizona State University and Google Mars fame gave me an amazing demo of images taken with a very cool new 3D live motion video camera that uses LIDAR technology to get a range-finding for every pixel. Advanced Scientific Concepts, the company that built the camera, is so young that they don't have a website up, but here's one of the images: Imagine how a camera like this could be used to populate Second Life or Google Earth! The creators of the technology did a Google Tech Talk about the 3D camera. I haven't watched it yet, but someone who was there said that the last 30-40 minutes are better than the beginning, so if it doesn't catch your attention, skip ahead. "

Live Motion 3D Video Camera

Live Motion 3D Video Camera: "By tim The other day, Noel Gorelick of Arizona State University and Google Mars fame gave me an amazing demo of images taken with a very cool new 3D live motion video camera that uses LIDAR technology to get a range-finding for every pixel. Advanced Scientific Concepts, the company that built the camera, is so young that they don't have a website up, but here's one of the images: Imagine how a camera like this could be used to populate Second Life or Google Earth! The creators of the technology did a Google Tech Talk about the 3D camera. I haven't watched it yet, but someone who was there said that the last 30-40 minutes are better than the beginning, so if it doesn't catch your attention, skip ahead. "

Live Motion 3D Video Camera

Live Motion 3D Video Camera: "By tim The other day, Noel Gorelick of Arizona State University and Google Mars fame gave me an amazing demo of images taken with a very cool new 3D live motion video camera that uses LIDAR technology to get a range-finding for every pixel. Advanced Scientific Concepts, the company that built the camera, is so young that they don't have a website up, but here's one of the images: Imagine how a camera like this could be used to populate Second Life or Google Earth! The creators of the technology did a Google Tech Talk about the 3D camera. I haven't watched it yet, but someone who was there said that the last 30-40 minutes are better than the beginning, so if it doesn't catch your attention, skip ahead. "

BBC viewers have their say with mobiles and webcams

BBC viewers have their say with mobiles and webcams: "Audience invited to join Question Time and other shows using 3G and internet video link-ups"

Google Video is the Future of Google

Google Video is the Future of Google: "In-depth overview of why Google video is the future of Google. The article also goes into detail on some of their recent changes and why."

Social Media and the Networked Public Sphere

Social Media and the Networked Public Sphere: "An excellent analytic post by Ulises Mejias explores the question of whether social media (such as blogs, wikis, online discussions) can increase and prove civic participation. My own belief is that the strong potential for such improvement has been demonstrated (for example, the use of MySpace by high school students to organize street demonstrations, and the many instances of political smart mobbing noted in this blog, but that the success of a mediated public sphere depends upon whether a sufficient number of people an activate this potential to achieve real ends. The story is still unfolding, in my view. Mejias' analysis is well worth reading by those interested in this question. Can social media increase and improve civic participation? If so, in what ways? There's a lot being said and written about the subject these days, but it is difficult to get a clear overview of the opinions. I attempt here to collect viewpoints both for and against the premise that social media is creating a better public sphere, and analyze them in the context "

MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, banned from schools?

MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, banned from schools?: "MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Bebo and other social networking sites would be banned from schools and libraries in the U.S., if a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives becomes law."

MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, banned from schools?

MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, banned from schools?: "MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Bebo and other social networking sites would be banned from schools and libraries in the U.S., if a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives becomes law."