Convergence Culture

Convergence Culture: "That’s the title of Henry Jenkins‘ new book. It’s one of the most important volumes in this space in a long time. Don’t miss it. "

Study shows modern families grappling with technology overload

Study shows modern families grappling with technology overload: "Modern families worldwide are striving for equilibrium in lives overloaded with technology, according to a study released by Internet search titan Yahoo and OMD media firm. The AFP reports. ... The online survey was conducted during the summer and involved 4,783 respondents in 16 countries in Asia, Europe, Australia and the Americas. Computing and communications devices had people cramming an average of 43 hours' worth of activity into a typical 24-hour day by 'multi-tasking,' the survey, released Tuesday, concluded. 'Family 2.0 isn't the Cleavers of the 1950s or the futuristic Jetsons,' Yahoo vice president Michele Madansky. said. 'Father doesn't always know best. He may not have a clue about what MP3 player is the best value, but daughter can be the expert because she spent time comparison shopping prices and features online.' Division of expertise in houses has resulted in family decisions regarding purchases and other matters becoming more democratic, the survey indicated. People credited e-mail, instant messaging and mobile devices with bringing fami"

US: Spokane “transparent newsroom” wins prize

US: Spokane “transparent newsroom” wins prize: "The Spokane Spokesman-Review has instituted a pioneering “transparent newsroom” that strives for a seamless integration between the newspaper and its community.  The paper won an award for its efforts on September 18 from the Institute for Interactive Journalism of the University of Maryland."

Define your collaborative project

Define your collaborative project: "(reblogged from Lifesized) A UK group called Involve do some great work on collaboration, the highlight being their publication of 'People and Participation'. This publically funded UK think-tank and research center, is another wonderful example of some of the good work coming out of Europe in this area. I used a lot of the concepts from within their document for a project i have been working on. It translated easily from a government focus to other sectors. Of particular strength was the unification of concepts with case studies in the field of participatory practise/ collaboration. 'People & Participation is the first publication of Involve, a new organisation focused on the practical issues of making public participation work. There have been many books and pamphlets about democratic reform. What is unusual about this publication is that it provides much needed practical detail, drawing on the experiences of over a hundred practitioners who have used new methods to involve the public in issues ranging from local planning to nanotechnology. Its starting point is that deepening and strengthenin"

Onto play

Onto play: "By nikolaj Justin Hall's Passively Multiplayer Online Game concept is an interesting spin on some of the issues with data ownership and the transparent society that we have been blogging about recently. Hall's point is that one of the reasons the web experience is not nearly as absorbing or fulfilling as playing games, is that the web is in fact not paying attention to what you do when you surf. It does not adapt to your experience of the web or your surfing habits. It's an interesting thought, even if there are some obvious counterquestions: If we always live in a world adapted to us, when will we ever meet other people in a meaningful way? Is game-like immersion really a good global goal? We all know that flow is a pleasing and important experience, but is it really the only experience we need? Some concrete ideas that touch on some of the same notions can be found in presentations by Matt Webb on ideas for a sensory web browser at reboot8 and 'a zoology for web applications' at EuroFoo. "

Wired News on future body hackers

Wired News on future body hackers: "David Pescovitz: Chris Oakes wrote an interesting feature for Wired News about state-of-the-art bionics and individuals who are itching to upgrade their own bodies whether they 'need' it or not. The article, titled 'What if Bionics Were Better' is the final part in Wired News's excellent series on artificial limbs and neuroprosthetics. From Oakes's article: Phillipa Garner is a self-described 'gender-hacker.' In 1993 at the age of 51, she underwent sex reassignment surgery. That was just the beginning of her quest for self-improvement. She followed the sex change with more modification: vaginoplasty, brow reduction, cheek implants, breast implants, lip augmentation and a face-lift. And she'd happily sign up for more, she says. 'I would be inclined to go through with some pretty radical conceptual self-improvement procedures,' Garner said. 'I think of cosmetic surgery as collaborative art.... And when I next have disposable income, I'll be back in the O.R...' To Garner, surgical enhancements fall right in line with her vocation. A freelance i"

Pluggd to make podcasts chunkier, searchable

Pluggd to make podcasts chunkier, searchable: "Seattle based podcast discovery and management service Pluggd is unveiling a major new feature at DEMO this weekend that combines speech recognition and semantic analysis to let users search for and skip to parts of an audio file that are related to topics of interest to them. It’s more than just speech recognition."

Sony Finally Announces PlayStation 3's Online Features!

Sony Finally Announces PlayStation 3's Online Features!: "At the opening press conference of Tokyo Game Show, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Ken Kutagari finally revealed the unique features of the PlayStation 3's online functionality, including personalized shopping, networking, and something called a Global Mapping System. More details inside!"

Don't just play it, create it!

Don't just play it, create it!: "The McMaster University in Canada has designed an innovative program to train students who think their future is in game design. It has deployed a spaceship-like interactive motion simulator to teach them how to develop software for simulated flight or real-time game design. As the university explains in 'Virtual reality lands at McMaster,' the simulator technology is similar to the one used by the industry for product development. And you can earn a Bachelor Degree by spending some time in this space-ship-pod fiberglass simulator. But read more..."

The University of the Smart Mob

The University of the Smart Mob: "Earlier this week, spiked was invited to the Institute of Creative Technologies (IoCT), to write an exclusive report on its opening and to listen to the inaugural lecture by visiting professor, Howard Rheingold. Radical is not the keynote to Rheingold’s speech today; instead it’s cooperation. There is only a thin sprinkling of the ‘Smart Mob’ theory buzzwords on which Rheingold’s reputation has been built (see here for more on Smart Mobs). Rather, Rheingold’s attention is focused not on spontaneous social upswell, but on how to foster cohesion within established academic systems. It is centred on a ‘revival of the commons’: creating a fertile web territory in which scholars from a variety of different disciplines can read and respond to each other’s papers. It is hoped that encountering new ideas and perspectives will trigger new thoughts and further progress. Source: Emily Hill, spiked, London, September 21, 2006 Link: spiked"

P2P Governance for Sustainability

P2P Governance for Sustainability: "From commons-management scholar Elinor Ostrom: Policies That Crowd out Reciprocity and Collective Action “Thus, instead of proposing highly centralized governance systems, the best empirical evidence we can bring to bear on the question of building sustainable democratic systems for sustainable resource use is to design polycentric systems…. The essential elements of polycentric systems are mechanisms for generating information about patterns of interactions and outcomes and mechanisms for oversight and self-correction.” from her essay in Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life edited by Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd, and Ernst Fehr (MIT Press). "

Do Public Media Believe in the Public?

Do Public Media Believe in the Public?: "I spent part of yesterday at a small conference organized by WGBH, the huge Boston-based public broadcasting operation. The topic under discussion was “open media,” which means different things to different people. The ground rules were no blogging, which presumably meant not covering what other people said. A few thoughts, however, about what I told the group that consisted mainly of public broadcasting folks. I gave them my usual observations — that digital media are having a profoundly democratizing impact on both production and access. I also observed that access is not the same thing as distribution; we are not talking, or shouldn’t be, about “content providers’” ability to deliver media but about other folks being able to get what they want and need. It’s a crucial distinction, and not one that I think most traditional media people, much less the cable and phone duopolists, understand. In a world where consumers are producers, and vice versa, the traditional producers should be anxio"

User-generated content sites

User-generated content sites: "This MediaPost article reports 'a recent analysis, by comScore World Metrix, of UK Internet users' activity at user-generated content sites (UGC) showed significant traffic growth. Wikipedia was up 253 percent versus year ago, MySpace.com, up 467 percent, and Piczo.com, up 393 percent'.Further,'collectively, the leading UGC sites draw more frequent visits than non-UGC sites (4.2 vs. 3.5 average usage days per month), longer periods of engagement (79.9 vs. 33.2 average minutes per visitor), and more pages viewed (217 vs. 52 average pages per visitor). Users of the top social networking sites demonstrate particularly high levels of engagement, with visitors to MySpace.com and Bebo.com averaging at least 5 usage days, 2 hours of use, and 300 pages viewed per visitor during July'. UK User Generated Content Sites Growing Fast, Engaging More"

User-generated content sites

User-generated content sites: "This MediaPost article reports 'a recent analysis, by comScore World Metrix, of UK Internet users' activity at user-generated content sites (UGC) showed significant traffic growth. Wikipedia was up 253 percent versus year ago, MySpace.com, up 467 percent, and Piczo.com, up 393 percent'.Further,'collectively, the leading UGC sites draw more frequent visits than non-UGC sites (4.2 vs. 3.5 average usage days per month), longer periods of engagement (79.9 vs. 33.2 average minutes per visitor), and more pages viewed (217 vs. 52 average pages per visitor). Users of the top social networking sites demonstrate particularly high levels of engagement, with visitors to MySpace.com and Bebo.com averaging at least 5 usage days, 2 hours of use, and 300 pages viewed per visitor during July'. UK User Generated Content Sites Growing Fast, Engaging More"

Bruce Sterling story: How kids' lives will be ruined by Internet control

Bruce Sterling story: How kids' lives will be ruined by Internet control: "Cory Doctorow: Bruce Sterling's uproariously funny story 'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Google' has just been published in the New Scientists -- it's a short short story about the life of a teenager when today's tools of ubiquitous computer control and surveillance are perfected. Like all great science fiction, this doesn't so much predict the future as it predicts the present: I tried hard to buy us another spray can. I'm a street poet, so really, I tried. I walked up to the mall-store register, disguised in my Dad's business jacket, with cash in hand. They're cheap, aerosol spray cans. Beautiful colours of paint, just screaming to get sprayed someplace public where everybody has to see what's on our minds. The store wouldn't sell me the can. The e-commerce system simply would not allow that transaction. The screen just went gray and stayed gray. That creepy 'differential permissioning' sure saves a lot of trouble for grown-ups. Increasing chunks of the world are just... magically off lim"

Entrevista com um videojornalista

Entrevista com um videojornalista: "INTERSSANTE entrevista na Online Journalism Review: Q&A with Travis Fox, video journalist for washingtonpost.com."
-- via Ponto Media

Barking Up the Right Tree

Barking Up the Right Tree: "I’m just back from The Future of Web Apps, an inspirational conference in San Francisco about the technology that’s the backbone of what many refer to as Web 2.0 — shorthand for community rich, user-driven, and, one hopes, more economically grounded than the last boom (Flickr is a great, oft-cited example). For folks like us trying to create a new kind of magazine — one that’s community driven yet still guided by professional editors — it was pure manna. A personal highlight was seeing my old friend Ted Rheingold deliver a presentation on building passion-centric communities, like the one he founded, Dogster.com (which was followed by Catster.com), as well as places like Deviant Art, Craftster and Cats That Look Like Hitler (always a crowd pleaser). People who know me know that I believe in my friends. When their projects are smart, fun and heartfelt there’s no chance you can get me to shut up about them. This means, for one, I wear my Dogster shirt all the time. As such, people are pron"

YouTube, And A Lack Of Common Sense

YouTube, And A Lack Of Common Sense: "Seems everyone’s getting into the act — from Newsvine comes a report that the government plans to upload anti-drug advertisements to YouTube. The decision to distribute anti-drug, public service announcements and other videos over YouTube represents the first concerted effort by the U.S. government to influence customers of the popular service, which shows more than 100 million videos per day. The administration was expected to announce the decision formally on Tuesday. It said it was not paying any money to load its previously produced videos onto YouTube’s service, so the program is effectively free. “If just one teen sees this and decides illegal drug use is not the path for them, it will be a success,” said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the drug office. Just one problem — it’s already been proven that these ads, when they appeared on television, didn’t work, and were in fact counterproductive. Oops. Tags: smithmag, YouTube, viral, video, anti-drug, government, harmless, idiot Read"

FOX Providing Shows for Multiple Web Sites

FOX Providing Shows for Multiple Web Sites: "While NBC boldly promotes its new programs through avenues like Netflix and AOL Video and streams shows through its own site, CBS enters in deals with Comcast to air episodes for a month after their initial shows through VOD, and ABC provides many of its top episodes through its site and free iPod downloads, Fox is trying a pervasive multi-platform release campaign of its own to try and garner as many new viewers as they can for programs early in the season. Just a few weeks ago, Fox tried an initial campaign like this, making the first three episodes of its popular show Prison Break, as well as the first three episodes of Vanished, available across several Web platforms. Based on the initial success of that campaign, the network has now decided to extend this promotion to an extensive distribution campaign for the first three episodes of new series Happy Hour, Justice, and 'Til Death. One episode of Justice will be provided and two episodes of the other two shows. These will be made available through more than 40 different onlin"

Germany: A newspaper for the people, by the people.

Germany: A newspaper for the people, by the people.: "Netzeitung, Germany’s revolutionary “paperless newspaper,” has taken yet another step toward the future. Their ‘Readers-Edition.de’ is a unique example of citizen journalism: an online publication written entirely by non-professional journalists."

Barenaked Ladies go remix crazy

Barenaked Ladies go remix crazy: "Cory Doctorow: Toronto copyfightin' band Barenaked Ladies have gone remix crazy, inviting fans to remix their music, make their own t-shirts, and generally be as creative as they want with BNL's stuff. They call this 'shifting the focus to the fan and letting them decide how they want to consume the music,' which is such a radically sensible idea. I loved these guys when they were performing at the Scarborough Town Centre, up the street from my parents' place -- I love them even more now. The band will re-package five of the best remixes in one CD, with proceeds going to charity. The band has a new 13-song CD out, but had too many tracks for it and didn't want to toss the ones that didn't make the CD. The 16 songs that didn't make it will be sold online. Consumers can download the songs, buy a deluxe CD package or get a USB stick containing all 29 songs. 'People will not often even listen to a record anymore. They might download the songs and just listen to it on shuffle with all your other music or "

Why You Should Delete Your MySpace Page

Why You Should Delete Your MySpace Page: "Here are a few simple reasons why you should reconsider having a MySpace page. Although geared towards young professionals, the tips apply to anyone who might apply for a new job in the future."

Illicit Drug Use Up Among 50-59 Year-Olds, Mostly Weed

Illicit Drug Use Up Among 50-59 Year-Olds, Mostly Weed: "While drug use among teens is slightly down, drug use among older adults is definitely up. This is defiantly a sign of the times."

Television Goes Multiplatform

Television Goes Multiplatform: "I originally posted this on my blog, but I thought it would also be of interest to C3 readers because of the heavy focus here on multiplatform television extensions: It's hard to believe that it was less than a year ago that Apple launched the video Ipod and the ABC television group was the first to announce a serious commitment to make its top rated television shows accessible to consumers via legal downloads. Within a few weeks time, the other networks were forced to cut their own deals with Apple paving the way of a new era of rerun on demand. A document shared with me recently from one of our corporate research partners gave me a glimpse into just how dramatically the landscape of American television has changed, providing a breakdown network by network of the various platforms through which one could access their content."

Expert tips for journalists working in a visual, multi-media world

Expert tips for journalists working in a visual, multi-media world: "Bloggers posted a great deal of expertise on visual journalism this week directed at helping prepare journalists for dealing with new media, in summaries of presentations they attended at the Society of News Design's annual workshop in Orlando, Florida.  Topics covered in the blogs include: changing media priorities, news story packaging, working with Flash, Photoshop do’s and don’ts, and the future of infographics.  "

Gaming Generation Have Different Approach to Learning

Gaming Generation Have Different Approach to Learning: "There’s an old anthropologist’s quote that goes along the lines of “show me how the children played and I’ll tell you how the society worked”. The point being that play is a form of learning and the forms that play takes are intertwined closely with the way society/culture functions."

America to US gov't: kill the Broadcast Treaty!

America to US gov't: kill the Broadcast Treaty!: "Cory Doctorow: An incredibly diverse coalition of high-powered public interest groups, industry associations, and corporations have signed an open letter to the US Patent and Trademark Office rejecting the 'Broadcast Treaty,' a US-led UN initiative that could do untold harm to artists, tech and telecoms companies, scholars, and people with disabilities. Under the Broadcast Treaty, fair use, Creative Commons and the public domain would be trumped by the 'broadcast right,' which would be owned by the broadcaster of works. If you got a copy of a work over the air or over the Web that copyright would let you use (because it was in the public domain, because it was factual, or even because the creator had granted you permission), you'd still need to seek permission from the 'caster,' who would get a 50-year monopoly over the re-use of copies of the works it transmitted. The proposal to extend this to the Web could put YouTube, Google Video, and innovative podcaster services out of business, by banning or restricting"

MySpace users tell marketers get out!

MySpace users tell marketers get out!: "You cannot disrupt social network spaces where the large majority of people share as authentic users with corporate profiles only wanting to sell. This is the clash between dolphins and sharks again. It must hard for MySpace to regulate what goes on with so many users, while keeping things open. “Yes, it’s happening as we said it would from the start. MySpace users are complaining about the proliferation of corporate profiles created by marketers eager to tap into the 100 million people on MySpace. Of corporate profiles on MySpace, one person tells MediaPost, “Frankly, I think that’s going too far.” Frankly, we agree. While for a marketer, it’s impossible to ignore the allure of 100 million people, the proliferation of advertising on MySpace is akin to Coke placing it’s logo behind the cross in churches across the country. The two just don’t go together.” via Adrants "

Odd Wiki SocialSynergy: WiredNewsWiki

Odd Wiki SocialSynergy: WiredNewsWiki: "Link: Odd Wiki SocialSynergy: WiredNewsWiki. Wired News has teamed up with Social Text to create WikiNews site. Quoted from Wired Wiki: In an experiment in collaborative journalism, Wired News is putting reporter Ryan Singel at your service. This wiki began as an unedited 1,059 word article on the wiki phenomenon, exactly as Ryan filed it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do the job of a Wired News editor and whip it into shape. Don’t change the quotations, but feel free to reorganize it, make cuts, smooth the prose, or add links – whatever it takes to make it a lively, engaging news piece.
-- hum, a glipse of things to come?

Odd Wiki SocialSynergy: WiredNewsWiki

Odd Wiki SocialSynergy: WiredNewsWiki: "Link: Odd Wiki SocialSynergy: WiredNewsWiki. Wired News has teamed up with Social Text to create WikiNews site. Quoted from Wired Wiki: In an experiment in collaborative journalism, Wired News is putting reporter Ryan Singel at your service. This wiki began as an unedited 1,059 word article on the wiki phenomenon, exactly as Ryan filed it. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do the job of a Wired News editor and whip it into shape. Don’t change the quotations, but feel free to reorganize it, make cuts, smooth the prose, or add links – whatever it takes to make it a lively, engaging news piece.
-- hum, a glipse of things to come?

Google Image Labeler, the ESP Game, and Human-Computer Symbiosis

Google Image Labeler, the ESP Game, and Human-Computer Symbiosis: "By tim In comments on my previous entry, Stephen Rondeau pointed out that Google Image Labeler appears to be based on the ESP Game developed by Professor Luis von Ahn of CMU. An anonymous commenter pointed to the video of Luis von Ahn's tech talk at Google on July 26, 2006. The tech talk was fascinating, both because there was no hint in it that Google was about to announce something based on von Ahn's work -- the talk is all about his previously published games -- and for the actual thought-provoking content, which gives a lot of background on the design of this kind of game, and in general, the idea of harnessing humans to work as program components via games. Luis started out his talk by looking at Captchas. Most of this was familiar material, although he has a great definition of a Captcha: 'A program that can generate and grade tests that most humans can pass, but that current computer programs cannot pass.' (This is an interesting variation on the Turing test, in which humans g"

MySpace driving more retail traffic than MSN search

MySpace driving more retail traffic than MSN search: "New Hitwise findings indicate that MySpace drove more US traffic to online retail sites last week than MSN search, the third largest search engine on the web. That's big news, as it's tangible evidence that youth oriented online social networking is a market driver of serious proportions."
-- hum???

New phones run Skype without PC

New phones run Skype without PC: "Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV has announced a new phone that allows users of Skype Ltd.'s Internet telephony service to make calls without having to boot up their PCs."
-- another nail in the cofin...

Web 2.0 documentary: is it a bubble?

Web 2.0 documentary: is it a bubble?: "Web 2.0. CEO’s in a 24 documentary on whether Web 2.0. is a deep trend or a bubble? Worth watching. For a written exploration see here. "
-- is it a bubble? perhaps, but boy what a bubble it is...

Star Trek 40th anniversary: Wired News wants your photos

Star Trek 40th anniversary: Wired News wants your photos: "Xeni Jardin: Next week marks four decades since the birth of Star Trek, and Wired News wants evidence of Trekkie life in our galaxy: Any homemade homage to the Star Trek universe, any snapshots of you with the stars, anything that shows your devotion to this one of a kind phenomenon: if we like it, we'll post it in a front page photo gallery on Thursday, Sept. 8. We've set up a group on Flickr called Wired News: Star Trek Submissions. All you have to do is join the group and add appropriate photos. Please include a description of the photo and the name you want us to use when crediting the images. Alternatively, you can simply tag your photos with 'wirednewsstartrek' and we'll be able to find your submission(s) that way. Link. (Thanks, Leander Kahney) Image: a still from one my favorite Star Trek episodes, 'The Way to Eden.' Here, Spock approaches some dirty hippies on their way to Burning Man, and asks them if their cupcake artcars are powered by bad trance music. "
-- check Henry Jenkins

Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water house in Half Life 2

Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water house in Half Life 2: "Cory Doctorow: Here's a YouTube walk-through of an incredibly detailed model of Frank Lloyd Wright's legendary Kaufmann/Falling Water house built in Half Life 2. Kasperg, the creator, is a gamer with an interest in using game engines for architectural visualization, and has published his Half Life 2 maps for you to play with. Apropos of this, Alice notes 'I've had the security permissions to map the BBC's Television Centre for a while, but I haven't ever found anyone local to do it. If you're near London and a dab hand with the HL2 engine, plus you fancy mapping out the Blue Peter garden and other such luminous landmarks, drop me a line...' Link (via Wonderland) "

Virgin Mary in a tree

Virgin Mary in a tree: "David Pescovitz: Antonia 'Toni' Filipertis, 84, of Lockport, NY, discovered images of the Virgin Mary in a maple tree outside her house. From the Niagara Gazette: “The voice, she told me to look on your tree,” she related in a Polish accent. “I come out and parked the car in the front and I look on the tree and I don’t see nothing.” Filipertis said that Mary’s voice was very soft. “She said, ‘Look at your tree. I’m in three places,’ and she was in three places .... And I look in this branch and she was very clear.” Three stubs of three branches had pictures on them... It is the second time members of the family have seen a vision. Twins James Filipertis and Dorothy (Filipertis) Fitzgerald saw the Holy Family — Mary, Joseph and Jesus — in the sky on a clear night in 1960 when they were 7 years old. Link (via Fark) "
-- say what??? olha este a pensar que é um pastorinho...

New from Google: Google Image Labeler

New from Google: Google Image Labeler: "'Welcome to Google Image Labeler, a new feature of Google Image Search that allows you to label random images to help improve the quality of Google's image search results.' This is the new tagger that they had in mind!"
-- yeeeeeeeessssssssss!!!!

Wikipedia founder Wales responds to BBC story about changes

Wikipedia founder Wales responds to BBC story about changes: "Xeni Jardin: The BBC ran an item last week about changes planned for Wikipedia's German-language Wikipedia site, and much discussion followed, including follow-up comments by the BBC article's author, tech critic Bill Thompson. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales argues that Thompson's analysis for the BBC was less than clear, and Wales shared a rebuttal with Slashdot. Snip: * PROTECTION - NO ONE can edit, NO ONE can affect the public version * SEMI-PROTECTION - all except new users and anons can edit, all except new users and anons can affect the public versions * VERSION FLAGGING - ANYONE can edit, all except new users and anons can affect the public versions As you can see, each step of this chain allows MORE people to do MORE things, rather than less. Each step of this chain is becoming MORE wiki, not LESS wiki. The news media has an unfortunate temptation to follow a story arc that goes something like this. 'Open editing is impossible. It worked for a little while at Wikipedia, but now even Wikipedia"

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."

Content Nation Speaks Out

Content Nation Speaks Out: "Robin Good's Latest News labels the main feature of blogging as 'Helping Others See Beyond The Surface.' According to Robin this 'Makes Blogs True Digital Weapons Of Mind Change.' Changing other people's minds, launching small and large Calls To Action, influencing and persuading others, providing insightful tools and pointers to facilitate self-discovery and personal understanding: these are the most powerful applications that individuals, small online publishers and passionate researchers can make of blogs today. Helping others see things from new and unconventional viewpoints. Also read at Shore Content Nation, a commentary of John Blossom on 'A World of Personal Publishers Declares Their Influential Citizenship'"

Want to get good at videogames? Hire a kid

Want to get good at videogames? Hire a kid: "By tim Brian Jepson pointed to an article about the use of remote tutoring to teach videogame skills. The article (which originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal but has since been syndicated), was hung on the dual hooks of gaming and the age of the teachers: ''When David Estalote wanted to learn to play the piano, the 27-year-old New Yorker sought out a teacher at a local music college. To learn to play golf, he took lessons from a pro at his grandfather's country club. When he recently decided he needed coaching to play a videogame better, he turned to a teenager who lives 1,200 miles away in Florida.   One afternoon recently, his 18-year-old tutor, Tom Taylor, slouched in front of a television set connected to a Microsoft Corp. Xbox machine running 'Halo 2,' a popular combat videogame. Mr. Taylor, through an Internet phone strapped over his head, snapped commands at Mr. Estalote back in New York. Mr. Estalote, a computer programmer, pays Mr. Taylor $45 an hour for help improving"

Want to get good at videogames? Hire a kid

Want to get good at videogames? Hire a kid: "By tim Brian Jepson pointed to an article about the use of remote tutoring to teach videogame skills. The article (which originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal but has since been syndicated), was hung on the dual hooks of gaming and the age of the teachers: ''When David Estalote wanted to learn to play the piano, the 27-year-old New Yorker sought out a teacher at a local music college. To learn to play golf, he took lessons from a pro at his grandfather's country club. When he recently decided he needed coaching to play a videogame better, he turned to a teenager who lives 1,200 miles away in Florida.   One afternoon recently, his 18-year-old tutor, Tom Taylor, slouched in front of a television set connected to a Microsoft Corp. Xbox machine running 'Halo 2,' a popular combat videogame. Mr. Taylor, through an Internet phone strapped over his head, snapped commands at Mr. Estalote back in New York. Mr. Estalote, a computer programmer, pays Mr. Taylor $45 an hour for help improving"

Wal-Mart Garners Attention with Social Networking Site

Wal-Mart Garners Attention with Social Networking Site: "Wal-Mart has gotten some attention this week with the launch of a social networking site loosely based on social phenomenons like MySpace. The site--called The HUB--School Your Way--focuses on the impending back to school season and coincides with the launch of the store's school clothing lines. Many responses to the release of the School Your Way site is based on Mya Frazier's scathing review of the site in Advertising Age. Among Frazier's gripes were the inauthenticity of the kids in videos on the site, the sanitzed and censored replica of MySpace that would not appeal to kids, and the focus around a clothing line that kids just don't see value in. Considering the strong degree of corporate backlash against Wal-Mart, especially by those that consider the low prices retailer as censors selling lower-quality wares, the response in the blogosphere is not surprising, and several bloggers have continued with Frazier's line of attack. Particularly, these folks are attacking the idea of trying to copy the success of a major social phenomenon in a watered-down pro"

HP Develops New Passive RFID

HP Develops New Passive RFID: "HP Labs has developed a prototypical passive tag that's long on memory and short on range, for which it has identified suitable business and consumer apps."

Jay Rosen:The People Formerly Known As "The Audience"

Jay Rosen:The People Formerly Known As "The Audience": "I 've got a new post up at P2P Foundation blog that covers quite a few Smartmobby subjects. Namely, the idea that control of media content is shifting: We really are currently witnessing an emerging change in the way people interact with “media” content. This change actually reflects the nature of the digital medium that it is taking place in: * The networked digital medium allows us to emulate and even improve on technology that previously was cost prohibitive for most people. So, publishing text, audio, and video is accessible to anyone with a computer and an internet connection. * The networked digital medium also gives us the potential for more equalized access to all content, and it gives each creator the potential for more control over what they create. Yet, it also gives the user more control over their attention. It also gives the peer production communities more control over their collective output."

Picking the energy of crowds

Picking the energy of crowds: "When we walk, we produce energy which disappears into the ground. Would it be possible to harvest this wasted energy? An architectural firm in the UK wants to use crowds as a source of renewable energy. And don't think it's a joke: controlling our indoor environments could save annually $200 billion in energy bills in the US alone. Links: Primidi, ZDNet"

YouTube Jr. w/ Profit Sharing (YouTube Killer?)

YouTube Jr. w/ Profit Sharing (YouTube Killer?): "This new site is like YouTube (and ImageShack, AlbinoBlackSheep, Google Video) etc, except we share ad revenue with content submitters. So if you upload a video and it's real popular, you'll be getting monthly kickbacks on the ad revenue the site makes. Could this be the new trend in user-submitted content sites?"

Supposing ... I'm too old for MySpace

Supposing ... I'm too old for MySpace: "Great article describing the confused state and older geek falls into......"

Advertisers challenged by consumer-created content

Advertisers challenged by consumer-created content: "Consumer-created content has simultaneously drummed up tremendous support from Internet users and provoked anxiety among traditional forms of media struggling to adapt to the online grassroots movement. But it’s also worrying the media’s source of revenue: advertisers."

Handheld for travelers (Sony PSP)

Handheld for travelers (Sony PSP): "Lonely Planet and Sony have teamed up to create Planet PSP. Sony's versatile PlayStation Portable handheld is fast becoming a must-have accessory for travelers. People will be able to surf the net, check email, use interactive maps, view city guides, call friends and family, and translate foreign languages."