Subscribe to this blog in Radio:
Didn't find what you were looking for?
E-mail this blog's author, Bruce Umbaugh:  |
|
 |
Tuesday, August 16, 2005 |
Three Benton Headlines:-
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, PUT YOUR CELL ON ICE
A movement is underway to turn the ubiquitous cellphone into a source of
information for paramedics and other emergency personnel who respond to
accidents, crimes and disasters. A British paramedic came up with the
idea
of asking cellphone users to add an entry into their cellular phone book
called ICE for ^?in case of emergency.^? Accompanying that acronym
would be
the name and phone numbers of the person who should be called if
something
has happened to the owner of the phone. The ICE campaign was launched in
Britain in April, but people really started paying attention after the
London terrorist bombings in July.
[SOURCE: USAToday, AUTHOR:]
-
BLOGGING TO BE FREE
[Commentary] In addition to bringing the word to other bloggers and to
the
wired in general, the blogosphere has become one of the primary cues of
standard media. If something gets big in the blogosphere, it later will
be
covered in the newspapers and TV. The electronic tricks of the human
rights
trade provide amplification. Software like Adam Globus-Hoenich's
ActivePetition software allows our supporters to swamp an unlimited
number
of recipients with personalized messages. Newspapers, even individual
Web
sites, are relatively easy to shut down. But what can't be shut down is
a
self-perpetuating system like the blogosphere. What our experience has
shown is not that a single organization, the Committee to Protect
Bloggers,
is a threat to tyrants, but that blogging itself is. Blogging's culture
of
sharing, quoting and linking has created a radical redundancy for
powerful
ideas. Blogging is so decentralized that the complete suppression of
dissent is becoming increasingly impractical. Will that lead to a
messianic
age of liberty and justice for all? I think that's unlikely. But there
are
14 million other bloggers out there, and they've all got their opinions.
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Curt Hopkins, Committee to Protect
Bloggers]
-
ONLINE TUTORING PART OF GROWING TREND
Once a dot-com pipe dream, online education is now maturing into a
viable
market. More than 2.6 million students in the United States were
expected
to study online through courses and tutoring last fall, up from 1.9
million
in 2003, according to the Sloan Consortium, an online research group.
What's fueling the growth? An increase in the number of non-traditional
students who don't have a lot of time to look for on-campus resources, a
more competitive educational landscape in which colleges and schools are
trying harder to attract students with additional services and students'
greater familiarity with the Internet.
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Mark Chediak]
5:51:10 PM 
|
|
Google Print Is As Google Print Does (Donna Wentworth).
Michael Madison offers his .02 on the still-raging Google Print library debate:
In response to Siva’s post about Google Print and fair use, Laura Quilter weighs in, hoping to push the definition of "library" in Google’s direction — and toward a more expansive view of fair use.
Google's best case, it seems to me, is that it's hoping to provide "meta-information" about the underlying copyrighted works. Google has a few appellate cases in its corner — Kelly v. Arriba Soft to start with, then Ty v. Publications International, and (I'd say) Sony v. Bleem, and Triangle Publications v. Knight-Ridder. But Google has to deal with the scope of its project — which invites comparisons to less favorable opinions, like A&M Records v. Napster and UMG Recordings v. mp3.com (a district court case) — and it needs to couple its Kelly argument with leverage from cases approving "intermediate" copying under certain circumstances (e.g., Sega v. Accolade). The opt-out option makes Google look less like the bad guy, but it may not help the fair use claim — which I think is plausible but novel, and far from a slam dunk.
So, Laura suggests, Google should draw on the beneficence associated with "libraries" (think of George Carlin's description of baseball, which is all about going Home). Even fair use skeptics have to agree: libraries do and should get a lot of slack under copyright law.
Is Google a library? Is there an "essence" of library — a definition — that Google can meet? Or can we say that Google is a library even if Google doesn't? Or what if Google says that it’s a library, but "we" (perhaps a court) say otherwise? Whose analysis gets deference? What if Google and a "real" library (Harvard? Stanford?) sign an agreement in which the contract specifies, whereas, Google and Stanford agree that Google provides library services via Google Print? Or should we simply conclude that Google should be characterized as a library because Google is doing something noble, and we all know that libraries are in the nobility business?
All of which is a roundabout way of suggesting that we should be focusing more on what Google does than on what Google is.
By the way, what if the service were named "Microsoft Print"? Or (since that sounds unfair to Microsoft) "Dr. Evil Print"?
[Copyfight]
7:18:27 AM
|
|
Creepy Cams Abound in NYC. The New York Civil Liberties Union finds that surveillance cameras in Manhattan are multiplying like gangbusters. The group says the cameras should be regulated to preserve privacy and guard against abuses like racial profiling and voyeurism. [Wired News]
7:17:49 AM
|
|
Fields of Bio-Engineered Dreams. The debate over gene-altered rice has a certain urgency in the United States Farm Belt, where finding new products will help reduce reliance on commodity crops. By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO. [NYT > Technology]
7:17:16 AM
|
|
No Emotion Left Behind. Promoting students' social and emotional skills plays a critical role in improving their academic performance. By TIMOTHY P. SHRIVER and ROGER P. WEISSBERG. [NYT > Opinion]
7:14:26 AM
|
|
Playing Flickr!.
Monique van Dusseldorp illustrates on Poynter Online some personal publishing options using Flickr. She reveals that Flickr was originally developed as a massive multi-player online game, as explained in a recent interview by Eric Costello.
Monique wrote Smartmobs that the best Flickr game of them all will be played for the second time in Amsterdam in September, in the building where she happens to have her office as well.
(Thank you Monique for letting us know !!!)
Developed by Dutch new-media developers Mediamatic, Playing Flickr lets visitors of Club/Restaurant 11 in Central Amsterdam call up pictures by sending in SMS (text) messages on their phones. The pictures in Flickr with matching tags are immediately shown on the giant screens that adorn the restaurant. [Smart Mobs]
7:10:38 AM
|
|
|
