A combination of art performances including dance, music, visual arts and videography with commentary and discussion were integrated to create a compelling set of experiences.  The session included an overview of the multi-institutional activity involving students, faculty, and administrators. Classes of students from Florida State University, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Butler University, University of Calgary, University of Cincinnati and Indiana University Bloomington met in the months prior to the festival in order to plan and rehearse their respective performances online.

This session examined the presentation of telematic art to the general public via Internet2 at the downtown Indianapolis Public Library. This effort involved strategies to intermingle both high and low bandwidth venues into a seamless, integrated performance environment.

Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler has written a very comprehensive book to describe conflicts between analog and digital data creators in society and how internet based technologies are changing society and commerce.

It’s a good read but hard to grasp due to a focus on economics. Don’t be fooled the by title if your looking at computer networks….he has written it into the binding that ties his arguments together.  It is truly worth the read.

Benkler shares how technology has merged the professional and the consumer into a ‘prosumer’ due to low cost and high performing computers and robust networks have made distribution of information cheap enough that community is now empowered to drive change.

Take a look at how the internet has evolved.  The Akami to YouTube migration showed how multimedia has found a free, reliable distribution center.  When you also migrate 1st generation complex, large scale websites to new blogs and content management systems under the open source business model Benkler states that data is now a “non-rival” product that has democratized the digital workflow of data from brick and mortar to community, peer-developed content solutions.

Benkler suggests modern computing drives new, strong and deep collaboration that can have a large impact on the global economy and society.  Benkler also suggests that as more consumers embrace technology collaboration, change to our culture is possible due to engines of free exchange (wikipedia, creative commons, open source and the blogosphere) could be more efficient (when shared) than current models that are restricted by copyright and patents because the ability to duplicate (or reproduce digital content) makes little or no impact on business.

Tags: The Wealth of Networks, Social Technologies, economy, society, Yochai Benkler, education, change, reading, trends

Only 13 percent of the professors surveyed said they used blogs in teaching; 12 percent had tried videoconferencing; and 13 percent gave interactive quizzes using “clickers,” or TV-remotelike devices that let students respond and get feedback instantaneously. The one technology that most teachers use regularly—course-management systems—focuses mostly on housekeeping tasks like handing out assignments or keeping track of student grades.

The survey, answered by 4,600 professors nationwide and did not ask about PowerPoint, which anecdotal evidence suggests is ubiquitous as a replacement for overhead and slide projectors.

Emerging Technologies for Online Learning Symposium, held in San Jose, by the Sloan Consortium.

There seems to be a lesson for all those technology enthusiasts and “leaders” in k12 education:  Regardless of forcing faculty to utilize LMS, they are simply not using technology.

So is the technology investment paying off?  Universities have been investing millions into classrooms and lecture halls. With very tight budgets today I wonder if there is going to be a call for institutional reviews of technology spending.  Clearly the mantra of “build it and they will come” does not apply.

Outside of the mandatory use of LMS solutions (indicated above) faculty have clearly pushed back against technology while their students (paying customers) are eager to embrace the latest consumer electronic releases across the board.  This must be frustrating for IT, Academic affairs and the CFO’s office.

To no surprise BMW’s controller is called the iDrive….a perfect fit for Apple’s iProducts.  Drivers will be able to control music playback and browse playlists, podcasts, and Genius mixes.

Tags: BMW, Apple iOS4, innovation, product launch, interface, ideas, business, trends

Clearly the business model for ANY publisher to develop a tablet is a mistake with the marketplace is its infancy.  The internet forced computer companies to move faster in transforming their business.  Its simply smarter to drop SI into the iPad Store inside iTunes.  The RIO is much better.

And just six months later….SI has announced its coming to the iPad for the same price as the print version.  So much for their own hardware eh?

Time Inc, holds major content providers in business/finance, international, luxury/portfolio, lifestyle and style/entertainment media categories and with the initial wave of eBook publishing just beginning to hit a business sweet spot it should not be long before popular titles begin to appear alongside SI.

Tags: Sports Illustrated, Time, Inc., iPad, Tablet, design, wireless, magazine, trends

It appears that Apple has produced a product that consumers have been wanting and are willing to pay quite a premium.  But at the same time Apple has cut into Amazon’s ownership of eBook sales.  The problem with both of the above devices – they are not color.  Think about purchasing a dedicated eReader that cannot produce color, and is only available for, well….reading….despite Amazon’s attempts to open the Kindle platform with an API and goals of an iTunes-like store.

Amazon left their newer Kindle DX at $500.00

Tags: iPad, Kindle, Nook, price war, ebook sales, reading, trends

As initial reports are indicate this is a new, in depth re-birth of magazines for the digital world.  By exploiting the iPad’s technologies the premier issue is loaded with interactive multimedia extras simply not available in print.

So now comes the business end of the release:  $5 an for each app issue while you can get a full year print subscription for just $10.
–Since I have a print subscription — can get all my back issues on the iPad?  Doubt it.  Lets not be foolish – publishers are setting elegant revenue models for their print to iPad app conversions…..

Reviews:
Wired’s internal review (duh) – Wall Street Journal review – Business Insider review – Gizmodo review

Tags: iPad, publishing, design, trends,

Tags: Google Wave, beta software, Collaboration, real-time, communication, test audience, limited preview, trends

Enjoy the ride – its the new era of print….as long as its done right.

Tags: iPad, publishing, design, trends,

Tags: iPad, magazine, Tablet, design, media player, innovation, trends

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tags: Apple, Inc., design, iPad, Penguin, eBook, education, trends

I have been following Larry Lessig‘s work on copyright and our digital culture for some time, reading his positions online, previous books and keynote addresses at TED, Wired and last week to Italy’s Parliament among others.  His work on Creative Commons is a direct action from the creative limitations of copyright.

His latest book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy is a very easy read for anyone who has also known his work.  He tells an important story about how new technology is clashing with old money.

Lessig illustrates how copyright’s old money (the big media empires) are clashing with today’s society and technology.  Old money is winning financial amounts here and there, but ultimately they are cutting their own throat as they can no longer control content.  Their motto: since we cannot have it our way anymore (due to the easy distribution of digital content) we are going to sue as many people as we can and take outrageous amounts of money along the way.

Lessig simply points out the two different camps: Read-only versus Read-Write.  Look at popular consumer phones and computers.  Today anyone can create a short video and post it to YouTube.  And by today’s “standard” in social networking — your somewhat expected to post multimedia content on Facebook and YouTube for example.

But post a 29 second video of a baby dancing to Prince’s Lets Go Crazy and Universal Music (they own Prince and his music) files a lawsuit claiming copyright violations.  Its old money trying to control society and Lessig points out it clearly no longer works.

He acknowledges great opportunities that permit art and commerce to thrive in our new hybrid economy.  Yet the RIAA continues to litigate, suing  individuals for monetary gain. YouTube is being forced to alter posted videos due to old-money ideas and their lawyers.

But with the unprecedented growth of the internet and YouTube which serves over 1 BILLION videos each day all the lawyers in the world will not be able to keep up to date.  In the US alone over 12 billion are watched everyday.  And after all the lawyers for the RIAA would rather sue wealthy people in America than say 1 BILLION poor people in China.  Its no wonder some internet media companies have their physical servers outside the US – since copyright is not equal under the law of every nation with a fast ISP.

Tags: Larry Lessig, Remix, art and commerce, copyright, creative commons, ReadWrite Culture, old money, Media Empires, YouTube, Change, control, trends

Tags: Blaise Aguera y Arcas, Seadragon, Photosynth, design, TED, Virtual Reality, imaging, trends

Tags: Visualization, information, Chart Wars, politics, trends

The TechMate video automatically starts when the page loads — and their embed tag does not permit a video to begin when triggered by the user…..so here is the link

Tags: Michael Copeland, Fortune, Tablet, Apple, TechMate, Newton, trends

Tags: Sports Illustrated, Time, Inc., Tablet, design, wireless, magazine, trends

Google has been helping K12 Schools and Colleges save money by giving free access to their powerful tools in an enterprise setting.  Google began offering Gmail and have continued to add more tools to their suite specifically tuned for schools.  Known as Google Apps for Education (GAE) this collection provides an excellent solution for schools just as most technology budgets are shrinking…or should I say…being slashed to the bone.

To no surprise Gmail has been a hit with schools.  In 2006 Arizona State University was one of the first colleges to migrate to Gmail.  They moved 65,000 student email accounts saving over $400,000 in ANNUAL related email costs.  Since then more higher education institutions including Northwestern University (case study) and Notre Dame (moved 15,000 students and 150,000 alumni and saved $1.5 Million) have migrated to Gmail.

For Students, Faculty and Administrative staff, GAE has grown to include 7GB of individual email storage, integration with GoogleCalendar, GoogleDocs (word processing, spreadsheets and presentations) and GoogleSites (websites and wikis) for web publishing.  Google has even added 10GB of storage to their Google Video offering.  These tools provide a tremendous savings for schools who can retire in-house or expensive outsourced systems.

From Good To Great:
A necessary email-related tool schools need is anti-spam and anti-virus protection.  And Google has recently responded with an AWESOME offer for K12 Schools that’s too good to pass up:

Until July 2010 K12 Districts can migrate to Google Apps for Education AND receive FREE anti-spam/anti virus-protection via Postini

Postini is a popular (Google owned) industrial strength anti-spam & anti-virus solution.  And Google is even offering deep discounts on email archiving, malware protection and web filtering for K12 Districts as part of Postini.

In today’s economy hundreds of under-funded K12 school districts are moving to Gmail as a permanent replacement for those expensive, legacy solutions from companies like Novell and WorstClass FirstClass.  Google provides free GAE infrastructure tools for School IT Administrators and Google’s Sync is available to K12 IT Administrators to links contacts and calendars for popular mobile devices including Blackberry, iPhone and Android smartphones.

Still not convinced?  Take a moment and learn about ASU’s Gmail conversion:

Click here to view the embedded video.

How much does email cost your school?  Its expensive and ultimately costs are passed to taxpayers or student tuition.  By the way, what sliding scale fee does your school annually pay for a campus-wide Microsoft Office license?  GAE kills two birds with one stone as Google Docs is a free replacement for Office.

Act Now – Deploy later. Google’s offer ends July 2010

Related: Top Ten Reasons Schools should move to Google Apps.

Tags: Google, Google Apps for Education, education, Postini, anti-virus, K12, trends

Click here to view the embedded video.

Calatrava designed the Milwaukee Art Museum expansion.  This interactive movie will generate the same wings span.  After loading: Click and drag you mouse left and right to “open and close” the wings.  Have fun!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tags: BMW, Milwaukee, marketing, product launch, gran turismo, innovation, ideas, business, trends

BTW: The cover is not an actual photo rather a Photoshop’d image. However the image clearly represents his message.  The book is about Generativity impacting the internet.  Ultimately his argument is to place generativity at the core of all open technologies that tap into the internet.

Zittrain begins Part I in the book with a bit of historical reflection: The Battle of the Boxes, Battle of the Networks and CyberSecurity.  He followed on the impact of legal lessons learned from Wikipedia.  There are plenty of examples how open, generativity systems make the internet better.  Here are a couple of examples Zittrain addressed that do not:

Law enforcement agencies have used network devices to manually turn on OnStar (the in-vehicle security, communications, and diagnostics system from GM) to record and monitor conversations of unknowing passengers.  OnStar is installed in over 50 models of GM cars alone.

The FBI requested from a judge the ability to turn on the microphone of a unsuspecting cell phone owner allowing law enforcement to tap, track and record conversations.

Think about that for a moment. Ever take a picture with your digital camera or cell phone?  Millions of people do this everyday and upload content to photo-sharing websites like Flickr.  Can you imagine taking a series of photographs — only to later realize the camera (via remote commands) copied all your photos without your knowledge.  Zittrain addresses how your personal content can be affected by a judge in Texas while you live … say in Ohio.  Don’t believe it? Read Chapter 5: Tethered Appliances, Software as Service and Perfect Enforcement” to see how a judge in Marshall Texas did just that — regarding a copyright case involving TiVo.

Zittrain accurately addresses how generativity (on the internet) will impact how we engage data — regardless if the task is email, video streaming, blogging or accessing robots over a wireless network via smartphone.   He uses the example of two products from Apple that were developed in opposite directions exactly 30 years apart:  The Apple II and the iPhone but missed out on Amazon’s Kindle.  The Apple II fit the idea of generativity perfectly.  It was an “open” desktop computer and the world began to tinker, develop, push and ultimately secure the product’s success.

Zittrain compares this approach to the 1st generation iPhone.  Zittrain recently blogged about a bizarre copyright conflict between an iPhone application that clearly reinforces his position: Apple has the ability to control application distribution.  This means you can purchase an application at Apple’s iTunes store, download it and use it on your iPhone but Apple can remotely kill that program at any given point in the future.

To be fair: At the time of his writing the 1st generation iPhone was selling for $500.  Today we have the iPhone 3GS, OS 3.0, The App Store and Apple’s road-map for iPhone developers. The most change has been the highly successful App Store on iTunes with over a billion apps downloaded.
Yes – BILLION.  Profit gets in the way too.

To see another example of Zittrain’s idea substitute TiVo or Amazon’s Kindle and you’ll get his message. Remember TiVo tipped its hand revealing it tracks what users watch? That came as a bit of a surprise to many  unaware their viewing habits were tracked.

Even though Amazon recently updated their Kindle ebook reader to support users adding PDF files, the Kindle’s generativity score (this might be a new blog all by itself) would be very low due to its lack of open standards.  Amazon has run into issues due to remotely crippling installed ebooks due to copyright and DRM.

There is also a copyright issue with the new Kindles.  The new model has the ability to read ebooks aloud.  Publishing companies began suing Amazon over this “feature” on the bigger Kindles.  Publishers want to sell you an Audiobook version of the eBook loaded on your Kindle.  So in the end you pay twice for the same digital product!  Publishers argue eBooks legally cannot be read out loud.  Amazing.  For all the technology advances, profit still drives old school publishing companies to sue Amazon.

I found his conclusion powerful.  He shares the impact of Generativity on the OLPC project.  I am a fan of the One Laptop Per Child project.  As he suggests Generativity is really at the core of this product.  It has changed the world and can be viewed (in a limited way) as a path for future internet generativity.

Tags: Jonathan Zittrain, Future of the Internet, Generativity, copyright, internet, Network, Apple II, iphone, TiVo, onstar, amazon, OLPC, reading, trends

adobe presentations

At first glance you may ask is this Adobe’s PowerPoint Killer?  Actually the real competition is with SlideRocket, a strong online presentation tool that has been online for a couple of years and gathering high praise. Both Keynote and SlideRocket take a strong visual approach to authoring slide presentations.

Look at Photoshop.com to see how powerful visual tools can be migrated from the desktop to the internet.  In the end desktop competitors PowerPoint and Keynote along with online competitor SlideRocket are much more robust presentation tools.

Throw in Google’s presentation tool and Adobe’s product looks childish by comparison.  This is “Adobe” we are talking about: Photoshop, Illustrator and now Flash.  FYI: This tool is a flash-based online technology.  Adobe offers only eleven designs that look, well…by Adobe’s standards rather boring:

Adobe master themes

Slide masters click for larger image

When you switch between themes you discover the number of  layouts to be limited to 6 or 8 per theme.  Not very flexible. At the same time there is no intuitive interface for simply linking content (photos or example) from Flickr.  Limiting indeed and really not thinking about the impact of social media.  Adobe bills this as “create stunning presentations with others online” but nothing could be further from the truth.

FWIW: Keynote provides 44 default themes, some include 20 different slide layouts.  With a wide audience the more visual options the better.  Keynote even supports HD themes.  Microsoft offers PowerPoint templates.  3rd Party slide vendors really offer PowerPoint and Keynote “power presenters” real, visually rich choices.  For example Keynotepro offers a 72 slide master theme.

One of the biggest problems for slideware websites including SlideShare is analytics.  Whether you like it or not, today we are all competing on analytics.  Sliderocket provides visitor traffic analytics for each presentation.  Not only is this lacking with Adobe Presentation its a bigger issue with branding any organization’s communication over the internet.  Maybe the most important issue overall.  If you have no way of knowing if anyone has watched your presentation … what is the point?

So what is best part?  With the shortcomings listed above the best part is the price.  Free.
But remember you get what you pay for.

The worst part is actually your internet connection.  Adobe’s sees this is a collaboration tool for building presentations with others.  When your internet connection is slow your workflow experience will be just as slow. Over cable (roadrunner download speed >6MB/s) my presentation playback was stalling.  I can only imagine its worse over DSL or a saturated connection at any business or school.  Try editing slides with co-workers in real-time over slow bandwidth? No Thanks.

You may want to consider a bandwidth upgrade as part of this product’s requirements.

Tags: adobe, network, Presentation, Slideware, PowerPoint, Keynote, Sliderocket, education, technology, trends

who controls the internet

On the surface you may believe — even in 2009 that you can still say anything, do anything or hack any computer around the globe without impunity because you can hide inside the internet.

Goldsmith and Wu challenge Tom Friedman’s (The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century) position that globalization is opening up communication in countries that have long suppressed their citizen’s ability to speak freely.

China for example. Or think about the European Union.  Is the EU able to dictate how Microsoft releases software?  Think again.  When Microsoft published it’s passport technology it was rejected by the EU.  Rather than pay a fine Microsoft added the tougher security standards dictated by the EU for all customers worldwide.  Those standards are even tougher than those used in America.

Can France tell Yahoo or eBay what products to sell?  They can and they already do.  This book is written from a legal standpoint since both teach at the Law Schools of Harvard and Columbia respectively. Is it strange to see government control over the internet?  Would this be different if today was September 10 2001?  Goldsmith and Wu share their insight to the way Law helps and hinders the internet.  From simply selling memorabilia to cybercrime you learn gaping holes exist even today to prosecute offenders and criminals.

The “I Love You” virus that cost US companies millions of dollars originated in The Philippines, but since there is no law against this type of crime in the The Philippines the US was unable to arrest the known hacker.  Similar rules apply in Russia. When the FBI arrested a hacker who extorted millions from US companies, Russia did not acknowledge this type of crime and did not agree to extradite, so the FBI was forced to release the criminal.

Goldsmith and Wu share the legal case between Yahoo and the country of France that forced Yahoo’s online store to pull Nazi related memorabilia even though Yahoo is an American based company.  But Yahoo’s remote offices in France proved to the key error Jerry Yang overlooked.  Yahoo has stumbled a lot lately.

Control over the internet extends to US K12 School Districts who filter web content to protect minors from material that is deemed to be offensive, sexual or drug related.  But many in America may find that the country of Australia has been trying to impose the same type of filtering for the whole country.

As the internet has grown in popularity and extending access to schools, banks, companies and financial firms the need to protect assets against cybercrime has also grown.  To no surprise the US and foreign countries have begun to establish laws to protect citizens and business.

Finally Goldsmith and Wu show how companies eager to enter China’s vast market have been answering to the communist party vs. individual freedoms.  Yahoo provided the strongest example when they give Chinese authorities the identity of a blogger who wrote “controversial” posts about the Chinese government and leadership.

Who Controls the Internet is a valuable read to understand that governments can control access and at the same time acknowledge some laws are not enough when hunting cyber crime.

who controls the internet

I have been impressed with the book, including a new preface to the paperback release.  But guys, seriously….why did you ditch the original hardcover visual? The typography on the updated paperback is terrible in comparison. Looks like someone forgot to ftp the master cover art to the book publisher.

Goldsmith and Wu also trace the history of DNS and ICANN regarding the recent discussions about moving control of the internet to the UN or to other countries, both friend and foe.  There is a lot to be considered if giving up control of a democratic tool to the Chinese or any non-democratic country including Russia.

There are plenty of examples of how the net began as a US defense department project and has revolutionized the world.  But they also do not acknowledge any issue with ICANN and the role of spam.  Since many spam servers sit outside the US there is little the government can do to stop this threat.  Ditto for identity theft.

Tags: internet, Legal, China, Cisco, Tom Friedman, filtering, European Union, Microsoft, trends,