New FujiFilm FinePix F30 low light camera a technological miracle!

My new Fujifilm FinePix F30 low-light photography camera arrived yesterday and I tested it out. I turned the lights off in my office, had the blinds closed (the room was quite dark) and took a picture of a vase of roses I have on my desk. The picture looked like I had taken it with a flash. I used the “museum” shooting mode setting (one of the presets) which automatically suppresses the flash and turns off all of the audible sounds of shutter, etc. It automatically adjusted itself to an ISO of 3200 and an aperture setting of 2.8 with a shutter speed of 1/15 and I had zoomed to about 2X. Normally, hand holding at 1/15 second is pretty risky, even with my Panasonic FZ20 and its advanced image stabilization system. But the Fujifilm has an even more advanced image stabilization system and the shot was impressive.

Shooting with its intelligent flash is even better (when you’re permitted). I took a picture of the same vase of roses using the totally automatic setting and the resulting image was evenly exposed (foreground and background), the ISO adjusted automatically to 800, the shutter speed adjusted to 1/90, and I got an aperture setting of F4.

Another thing I like about this camera is the ability to switch from a displayed menu back to shooting mode by just touching the shutter. It also has a one touch Macro mode and a power save LCD adjustment that lets you change from standard LCD viewing to fine detail LCD viewing. Among its preset shooting modes is an underwater setting that I hope to use for aquarium pictures. Although I won’t be physically underwater, I will be shooting through glass at fish underwater so I’m hoping this setting will help to correct the color balance that is usually skewed a bit because of the tint of the glass and the water. It also has a special flower setting that is designed to capture true vivid flower petal colors, a text setting for taking clearer shots of letters, and a color mode menu option that lets you switch from standard contrast and color saturation to F-chrome with contrast and color saturation set to high for landscapes and flowers – sort of like in the old days when you would use Kodachrome film for better color capture instead of Ektachrome that often had a slightly bluish cast to it but was available in faster film speeds.

The camera also has a custom white balance mode where you can take a picture of a white sheet of paper in the existing ambient light and it will autoadjust the white balance setting accordingly. The battery is also recharged inside the camera by way of a very petite AC charger and, in fact, the camera itself fits in the palm of my hand so I can pack it right in the same case as my large Leica lens 12X zoom Panasonic FZ20 so I don’t have to add one more bag to sling over my shoulder. I hope to give it a real field trial over at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art next door before I go up to the Maryhill Museum of Art in Goldendale, Washington for a scheduled shoot in August.

Online Video Editing prompting people to switch to still camera video snippets

I found the following article very interesting. I knew that online video editing would soon follow online still image editing and online "photostory" editing but I was intrigued to note the observation that people are tending to switch from camcorders to still cameras capable of recording short video snippets. If you've ever paid close attention to professionally produced video or viewed it frame by frame you will note that it is usually a collage of short video segments switching scenes frequently. People seem to be catching onto this technique and like the more interesting results created by combining short snippets.

New York Times: "While sites like YouTube and Veoh have lately become popular for allowing users to share their self-produced videos, Jumpcut (www.jumpcut.com) is part of a new class of sites that also offer simple tools for stringing together video clips and then adding soundtracks, titles, transitions and unusual visual effects.

All of the sites, which include Jumpcut, Eyespot, Grouper and VideoEgg, have been introduced within the last year. This summer, they will be joined by another site, Motionbox, based in New York.

Their shared objective, the founders of the sites say, is to reduce the complexity of video editing and to reduce the cost to zero.

'We wanted to make video editing over the Internet faster than desktop editing,' said Jim Kaskade, co-founder and chief executive of Eyespot, based in San Diego. 'We think it will broaden the base of people who are creative, but may not have thought they were, by creating this tool kit for them. Editing video is eventually going to be as simple as sending e-mail.'"

All of the sites, except Grouper, require that video clips be uploaded to their servers before they can be manipulated. That can take a long time, and there are limits to the size of the files that can be sent. (For Jumpcut, the limit is 50 megabytes per clip.)

Users of Grouper (www.grouper.com) must first download a free piece of Windows-only software that works in tandem with the Web site. It permits users to trim and rearrange clips on their computer and upload only the finished product, in compressed form.

The sites make possible new kinds of collaborative editing. A group of parents attending a school play can upload all their video, and then edit a single version of the play that makes use of the best shots.

Many of the earliest users of the online editing services report two changes in the way they capture and assemble video. First, they tend not to use their camcorders as much, because the tendency with a camcorder is to record long, meandering stretches of birthday parties and parades, which are time-consuming to import to a computer and edit. Instead, they record more impressionistic scenes of a few seconds or a few minutes, using a digital still camera or a cellphone.

Second, even if they have experience using more powerful, PC-based editing software, they find themselves using the online services more often when they are working with the shorter snippets — and trying to assemble them quickly for a grandparent in a distant city."

Digital Camera Superheroes

New York Times: "THE SEE-IN-THE-DARK CAM Life is filled with beautiful scenes bathed in natural light — but most cameras muff the job either by blurring the shot (because the shutter must remain open a long time) or by nuking the whole affair with a flash.

Not the Fujifilm FinePix F30 (6.1 megapixels, $400). This camera's sensor is eight times as light-sensitive as most pocket cams. To put it in geek terms, its ISO (light-sensitivity) range goes to 3200 — a first for a consumer camera.

You can turn off the flash and still get amazingly clear, colorful, well-lighted shots, even at twilight, by firelight or indoors. At the highest ISO settings, a few digital colored speckles creep in, but only on shots you'd otherwise have missed.

As a bonus, this camera is an industry leader in battery life (500 shots); the electronics are quick; and the "intelligent flash" attempts to throttle back as necessary to avoid turning your friends' faces into overblasted bleached blobs. There's no eyepiece viewfinder but otherwise, this camera is a photographic knockout."

I was so excited about this camera that would be a perfect companion camera to my Panasonic DMC-FZ20 that I ordered one. I love my Panasonic's Leica lens and 12X zoom but when I am shooting pictures inside museums that are often poorly lit, even the Panasonic's ISO 400 setting is not enough. I also noticed in researching the Fuji camera on other websites that it has garnered a number of awards for innovation and technical excellence. I can hardly wait to try it out! I'm planning a photography shoot up at the Maryhill Museum of Art the second week of August so it should be a perfect opportunity to give it a real workout.

Why Web 2.0 will end your privacy

bit-tech.net : "So Murdoch knows everything about MySpace. The financial gurus at Yahoo know all about your personal thoughts, pictures and bookmarks. The guys at Google know everything about your search habits, and you can bet they want to link 'em up to your email and calendar and whatever else you end up using online. How much is that data worth? With marketing spends online going ever upwards, as more and more of the world 'logs on', you can bet that it's only going to get more and more valuable.

And where it's valuable, it will be bought and sold. Our social networks, searching habits, visual identifiers and personal preferences will be mercilessly sold to anyone who wants to get their hands on our particular demographic. And when your photos, your files, your email and your friends are all online, you'll have to be online - and thanks to net everywhere, like the Google San Francisco project, you'll always be able to be online. And as long as you're online, they can market to you.

When the Web 2.0 bubble bursts - when the massive buyouts are done, the millionaires are made and the sites we love today are in the hands of big business - the innovation will grind to a halt, and what's left will be the endless grinding of the marketeering machine.

But hey - at least you'll be closer to your friends. And you'll have free photo hosting, too."

I think this prediction is far too dour. Social computing, like any activity requiring interaction between two or more persons, by definition requires the loss of at least some of your privacy. But I think I would rather focus on the benefits to individuals and the facilitation of creativity than obssess over who may be able to profit from the knowledge of my individual preferences based on my public communications.

As someone who has worked in marketing in previous careers, I am acutely aware of the value of knowing what a customer wants. But as a customer, don't you think I would rather have someone offer me something related to my needs or interests instead of watching countless hours of commercials for products like Bowflex, Cialis, or Lexus automobiles (I find their ridiculous ads during the holidays particularly irritating - as if the average wife could afford to go out and SURPRISE her husband with a $50,000 car for a gift)? I may be a bit strange but I actually appreciate the targeted suggestions of books and movies I receive from Amazon based on my search and purchase history.

I also think the warning that our beloved Web 2.0 services will become stagnant pools of data without the benefit of future innovation is relatively baseless as well. The PC industry has always been user driven and I think the large media companies realize the continuing need to improve their users' experiences to keep them coming back to the wellspring. Articles have already appeared discusing the fact that these same media companies expect users to be a valuable source of creative content in the future. So I doubt that services such as Flickr and YouTube that facilitate content creation and sharing will become viewed as simply a drain on corporate profits.

The Shorter, Faster, Cruder, Tinier TV Show - New York Times

I found this article interesting in that it provides helpful insight into producing material for small display devices like cellphones and iPods. I'm in the process of writing a script for my first Podguide and plan to use some of the "Ken Burns" still image panning techniques so it will be interesting to see if slow image panning will be as effective on the small screen as it was on the large screen.

New York Times: "Shooting a show for a cellphone presents all kinds of technical problems for people used to conventional television production. That day in the Warner Brothers offices, I was already familiar with the drill about to follow, one that a producer described to me dourly as 'filming to the phone.' To be intelligible on screens sometimes smaller than 2 inches by 2 inches, most shots must be close-ups. Producers also have to limit zooming, panning and quick movement, which can blur because of slow streaming rates and because cellphones often deliver only 15 frames of video per second, compared with 30 frames per second on regular television."

Interns? No Bloggers Need Apply

Since I have worked in the private sector in several previous careers, I am well aware of tight-lipped corporate policies about sharing your work life with outsiders. But this article makes several important points about young bloggers' tendencies to "bare all" and what the employment consquences might be for doing so.


New York Times: "ON the first day of his internship last year, Andrew McDonald created a Web site for himself. It never occurred to him that his bosses might not like his naming it after the company and writing in it about what went on in their office.

For Mr. McDonald, the Web log he created, 'I'm a Comedy Central Intern,' was merely a way to keep his friends apprised of his activities and to practice his humor writing. For Comedy Central, it was a corporate no-no — especially after it was mentioned on Gawker.com, the gossip Web site, attracting thousands of new readers.

'Not even a newborn puppy on a pink cloud is as cute as a secret work blog!' chirped Gawker, giddily providing the link to its audience.

But Comedy Central disagreed, asking him to change the name (He did, to 'I'm an Intern in New York') and to stop revealing how its brand of comedic sausage is stuffed.

'They said they figured something like this would happen eventually because blogs had become so popular,' said Mr. McDonald, now 23, who kept his internship. 'It caught them off guard. They didn't really like that.'

This is the time of year when thousands of interns and new employees pour into the workplace from college campuses, many bringing with them an innocence and nonchalance about workplace rules and corporate culture.

Most experienced employees know: Thou Shalt Not Blab About the Company's Internal Business. But the line between what is public and what is private is increasingly fuzzy for young people comfortable with broadcasting nearly every aspect of their lives on the Web, posting pictures of their grandmother at graduation next to one of them eating whipped cream off a woman's belly. For them, shifting from a like-minded audience of peers to an intergenerational, hierarchical workplace can be jarring."

I am a staunch supporter of blogging because I believe blogs represent an important information sharing medium but I have never thought it ethical to divulge sensitive work-related information to the public at large. Although some of the bloggers in this article point to the importance of their blogs as a primary communication device for their families and close friends, they should keep in mind that a public blog is just that - public. Would they want their mistakes or lapses in judgment at work exposed to public scrutiny?

Of course I must admit I am a bit at a loss for understanding this new breed of bloggers that want to share every intimate detail about their lives anyway. Perhaps discretion is just something that a person learns to develop over time, unfortunately ,usually after being burned seriously first.

One-Button Data Backup in a Tiny Package - New York Times

One-Button Data Backup in a Tiny Package - New York Times: Hmmm...This looks promising. Now if I could just get users to store all their data under My documents! Otherwise even a 100 gigabyte version may not be large enough.

"The OneTouch III is less than an inch thick and 5.2 inches long. A 60-gigabyte version of the drive is available at www.maxtor.com and elsewhere online for $150, and a 100-gigabyte version for $200.

The drive comes with an instruction booklet and a U.S.B. cable. For PC users, setup is simple: Maxtor has included a full user's manual and backup software on the disk itself, which is preformatted using the Windows NT file system. Once you plug it in, the installation system asks for a few basic facts about your computer. When you're ready to back up, simply press the glowing white button on the front. (Mac users will have to reformat the drive.)

The drive has a built-in encryption program for protecting data, as well as software that will keep data on a PC and on the drive in sync. "

Can TV's and PC's Live Together Happily Ever After? - New York Times

New York Times: "David G. Sanderson, who heads the media consulting practice at Bain & Company, offers four reasons most people won't be downloading their favorite shows onto their TV's any time soon: limitations in broadband infrastructure, the degree of readiness among electronics makers to provide a product with mass appeal, the behavior of consumers and the agenda of the players in the TV ecosystem.

Mr. Sanderson's first two points — basically whether the Internet-based network and devices are ready for prime-time — are where most of the action is and where things could change if businesses keep investing and innovating. Still, for now, there are logjams associated with delivering large quantities of video over the Web and the unresolved 'net neutrality' debate over whether heavy users should pay more to telecommunications carriers for the large amount of bandwidth they use.

His second two points — about consumer behavior and the entrenched players — are actually more complex. The consumer question boils down to whether enough people want to give up access to the dozens or hundreds of channels they pay for through their cable providers to buy programs over the Internet. And that is closely related to his point about the industry structure, which is a function of the willingness of cable networks to risk giving up their guaranteed monthly subscription fees in favor of a free-wheeling Internet alternative.

'The reality is that I don't think you're going to see the current cable offering — hundreds of linear channels — replicated on the Internet,' Glenn A. Britt, the chief executive of Time Warner Cable, told me recently. 'One reason is the Internet isn't physically capable of handling that volume, but obviously, with a lot of money and time, that can be alleviated. But the second thing is that we actually provide a very important economic function in the TV distribution chain."

CABLE networks are not about to jeopardize the millions they receive from guaranteed subscription fees each month — and it is probably no coincidence that the versions of TV programs sold through iTunes or Google Video are inferior in picture quality to what is offered by cable companies (while the growing popularity of high-definition TV shows that viewers want higher quality). Even Sharp's new Japanese TV, the Internet Aquos, only accesses online video material from a closed-circuit service, and displays it at inferior quality."

As for the public being unwilling to give up the hundreds of channels it receives by subscription to obtain programming from the internet, I think industry analysts may be mistaken or overlooking the potential for a successful hybrid of the two. Instead of asking consumers to pay for numbers of channels (usually ridiculously overstated because they are counting a bunch of shopping channels and other "no cost to them" offerings), providers should offer subscriptions to thematic content libraries.

For example, at present I pay about $85 per month for Dish Network's Top 180 channel pack, local channels, PBS, and HBO/Cinemax including DVR and monthly magazine. Of those more than 180 channels, I watch less than 20, and its not unusual to cruise the guide and find nothing I want to watch at all. I don't listen to the myriad of music channels listed, I don't care to watch sports, and I could care less about home shopping channels or glorified advertising channels.

However, I would happily pay a subscription fee to have access to all programs in the libraries of the Discovery Channel, The History and History International Channels, BBC Channel 4, Canadian History Television, National Geographic, and PBS (both local and East Coast). I would continue to subscribe to HBO for new programming but be willing to pay an extra fee to have access to all existing programs in the HBO archives as well.

I would continue subscribing to local channels for local news and network offerings and would want to continue to subscribe to a news tier that contains CNN and Headline News. Then I would like to be able to pay for programs "a la carte" like you do with iTunes for the occasional program I may wish to see that may appear on a channel I don't currently subscribe to.

I think hybrid arrangements like this may actually result in more revenue opportunities for the providers while resulting in more satisfied customers.

Curiosoft Learning Games examined

I noticed that participants in a K-12 technology summit being held soon at Portland State University would be introduced to learning software from Curiosoft. I hadn't ever seen their software so I checked out their website and downloaded some of their demos. I selected the version for ages 8+. My initial reaction was that these games with their rather primitive animation would not satisfy any eight-year-olds I know who are already playing very graphically sophisticated video games by that age. Although they do include some educational information, I think they are just too basic for ages beyond about 5 - 6. I was also confused why the Jr. Vet demo required the child to engage in an "asteroids"-type arcade game when they selected the antibiotic to clean an animal's wound. It's as if the game developers decided they had better introduce a familiar shooter-style activity to keep the child interested. I realize it has been said that shooters improve eye-hand coordination but the activity seemed totally out of place in the scenario presented.

Then I downloaded one of their "genius" thinking game demos, Think Like Einstein. The trainer level allows you to work with celestial bodies and experiment with moving them around to observe the effect they have on a light beam that you are trying to deflect into a capture box . More objects are introduced as the game progresses although, in the trainer level, the objects are not placed into particularly challenging arrangements. I also didn't take the time to figure out what changed if you put a bowtie on an asteroid. This introduction of an object totally out of context seemed rather strange. I think it would have been more realistic to have piles of different minerals that you could add to an asteroid that the child could then observe changed its behavior. Maybe that would not be fanciful enough. I did like the game's objective to emphasize the observation of cause and effect. I am still doubtful about the use of the game above the age of about 6 however.

Audio in connection installation in your car may be best iPod solution

Well, after talking with other iPod enthusiasts and family members I have just about come to the conclusion that having a simple audio-in jack installed in the factory stereo equipment in my 1995 Ford Explorer may be the best route to take to listen to books on my iPod while I'm commuting. My Ford tape deck with auto-reverse does not work with all the various cassette adapters I have tried and people who have tried the FM transmitters say they are not very reliable if you travel around areas that have lots of nearby FM channels. So I called Soundsations, a custom car stereo shop here in Eugene and they said they could install the jack for about $140.

Some of my electronically gifted friends say that the stereo unit I have probably has an audio-in jack already built into the back of it but the trick is getting to it. It was factory original in the car when it was assembled so you would have to remove it from the dash/console (it is a combination cassette/radio/6-disk CD changer unit with the cassette/radio in the dash and the CD changer in the console) to connect a patch cable. One friend pointed out that the wires to the CD player in the console should be the easiet to get to. So, I'll point this out before I plunk down the deposit and see what the shop says.

Ripping DVDs to iPods not foolproof

With the introduction of the video iPod, I have turned my attention to the production of downloadable educational material such as Podguides for museum and educational sites and exhibits that conforms to the iPod format. I began my exploration of the technologies used for iPod content development by familiarizing myself with the iPod itself and content delivery systems such as iTunes. After downloading a trailer for Battlestar Gallactica I was even more excited about the feasibility of video content delivery for this wildly popular device. So, I began investigating conversion tools. I learned that the most popular tool for the Mac was a freeware product called HandBrake. However, I could not find any free Windows utilities. I did find several low cost Windows products and downloaded one with a good review rating.

My first evaluation was a DVD Ripper utility named Jesterware. It was written by developers in the UK for the Windows platform. Installation of the product went well but when I ripped a commercial 2.5 hour DVD I discovered the process took over five hours. I consulted with a Mac-savy friend and he said the Mac tool could rip an entire DVD in a fraction of the time that it takes to actually watch the DVD. So, I continued my search for a comparable product for Windows and discovered Super iPod Video Converter 3.5. I tried using the trial product but it would not rip an entire DVD so I ponied up the $29.95. I was not disappointed. The product was easy to install and easy to use and ripped a 2 hr DVD in about 1.5 hours - much better than 5 hours using Jesterware.

More from the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference

Well, I sat in on some more eye-opening sessions again today. I began my day with a session on making online communities more productive. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting but it was still interesting. The presenter focused on the new emerging phenomenon of microwork and how organizations with online components can tap into this new type of outsourcing to get tasks done. Here at the conference a symbol that has been used over and over again is a device that was invented in the 18th century called the mechanical turk. The mechanical turk was promoted as an automated machine that could beat anyone at chess. The promoter (con artist) would open up the cabinet to the crowd and show an impressive complex array of gears and pulleys then close the doors and challenge all comers to a chess match. The mechanical turk would win every time. However, it was all a sham. Like the cabinet used by magicians for sawing people in half, the mechanical turk actually concealed a re! al human chess master that was secretly manipulating the chess pieces to win the games.

The reason this symbol is so significant is that now Web 2.0 companies are discovering that many tasks that complement their web services are best done by real humans instead of trying to develop pure software solutions to handle all their data needs. In many cases, their own site visitors can supply the labor, either as volunteers or paid "turkers".

One of the tasks that is particularly suitable for human intervention and can be parsed out to thousands of people as small incremental tasks is the categorization and tagging of data to make it more searchable. This is being accomplished by the implementation of tagging features in many Web 2.0 applications like Flickr, Delicious, Wordpress blogs (via Sxore), and social applications developed with such tools as Ning.

Because users of such services as Flickr and Delicious directly derive a benefit from properly categorized images, their microworkers are performing this service as volunteer users of these sites. Although people willingly perform this task as part of their use of these sites, the presenter also explained how a group funded by the National Science Foundation had used an online game tied to its database of images to obtain the free human labor of identification that it needed. In the ESP game, http://www.espgame.org/, players login and are connected to other players (anonymously) and shown images. Each player types in single words to describe the image as fast as they can. When one player enters a word that matches the other player, the match word is assigned as a tag to the image and the players are shown a new image. This simple fun activity has served to tag millions of images to date.

Amazon has implemented a more commercial approach to jobbing out its microtasks. Amazon launched a beta site called Amazon Mechanical Turk (http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome). There they explain to visitors that they need real people to perform Hits:

"HIT stands for Human Intelligence Task. These are tasks that people are willing to pay you to complete. For example a HIT might ask: "Is there a pizza parlour in this photograph?" Typically these tasks are extraordinarily difficult for computers, but simple for humans to answer.

How do I find HITs to work on?
Just click the "Get Started Now" button to browse thousands of available HITs, without any obligation."

Hits can pay as little as $.01 or $.02 or quite a bit more for more complex tasks.

Here is an example from one HIT request posed by Amazon itself:

"We are developing a new application for bloggers and their readers. For this HIT we want you to simply think about your daily experience as an author and/or reader of blogs. What is most annoying in this experience? What is most lacking? If you were to create the dream feature that would be so cool, and would so improve this experience, that you would use it everyday, what would it be? The successful HIT will describe the feature, the problem it solves, and the circumstances in which it would be used.

Approved answers will receive $0.02. Answers will be rated and the top 70 selected. An answer in the top 70 will receive $5. The top answer will receive $100."

Apparently, some people do these tasks for fun but others are using this new online opportunity to make money to supplement poor job markets in economically depressed areas. The presenter mentioned that some seniors now armed with computers are supplementing their retirement income this way. (Maybe I should write an article about it for Modern Maturity!)

Although at present this new employment model is in its infancy, the presenter said this type of contracting has enormous potential as a huge money saver for the requesting companies. This employment model is particularly suited for such tasks as transcription and translation. Companies are starting to offer a service where a user can request a human translation of a document with a click of an embedded web application for something like $.50. The work is performed by a turker and the web service company gets its share too (naturally). The presenter mentioned an interesting accessability application that would combine cell phone GPS capability with paid turkers. Theoretically, a visually impaired individual could travel around the world and call a turker to obtain a detailed descrption of the site he/she is visiting based on the GPS coordinates relayed by the cell phone - sort of like a cable channel's SAP for the real world.

The next session I attended dovetailed nicely with the previous one. Again, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting from the title but it was very interesting none the less. The topic of the presentation was pervasive gaming research conducted by the University of California. But pervasive games are not your typical video game. Pervasive games involve using technologies to enhance human interaction with the real physical world. One example is geocaching. However, it was an epiphany to see how this type of gaming could be used to promote a positive behavior to improve the health of children. I don't know whether the product has really been deployed or not or if it is still in development because now that my kids are grown and living clear across the country I don't have too many opportunities anymore to buy happy meals. Anyway, as an experiment to address the problem of the alarming rise in child obesity, a researcher suggested combining a USB-equipped pedometer with!
a virtual pet. The pedometer and special website code to access a specific virtual pet is included with happy meals. The kids then go out with their pedometer and run and play. Then they go home and connect their pedometer to their computer and login to the website to access their virtual pet. The pedometer uploads its accumulated data to the special pet that then grows and gets stronger with the more data it gets from the pedometer with the goal being to produce a pedomonster! I thought it was a wonderfully inspired application!

Another example is a game where players travel around leaving virtual birdseed at different locations based on GPS data from their cellphones. The web service company then sends out a virtual bird that targets different coordinates based on uploaded GPS data. If the bird targets your birdseed, you receive an animated message that you have "captured" a peacock or something. Then, of course, the bird is added to your birder inventory. Remember the power of the human desire to collect things that we learned about in our presentation on using game mechanics to enhance functional websites? Bingo! However, a few alterations could make this a fun educational activity. Instead of leaving your virtual birdseed anywhere, lets say that students study about bird habitat then travel to sites with the proper environment to attract particular bird species and leave their virtual birdseed there. If the students have studied their homework, their efforts will be rewarded by the "capt! ure" of an appropriate bird species.

I was sitting next to a researcher from New York University and he and I were talking about developing these types of experiences to introduce incoming students to particular disciplines either during IntroDucktion or as a freshman seminar. Although SSIL lab has a number of GPS devices, most students will have GPS-equipped cellphones in just a few years. A virtual geocaching exercise could be a fun introduction to GIS and technology literacy.

Next up was a presentation by a Yahoo research team leader on the importance of web-based social applications to promote communication, collaboration (and repeat site visits!). Yahoo jumped into the social web application delivery business just a year ago with its purchase of Flickr - touted at this conference as the model of a useful, valued, and successful social application. This was followed up by the purchase of del.i.cious. Now Yahoo has launched Yahoo answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/) to tap into the vast knowledge base of users around the world to help other users with problems. This is yet another example of microtasks that are being performed by users of the site itself. Yahoo says this is their effort to provide "Better Search through People".

Another presentation I was particularly interested in was delivered by the developers of Ning (http://www.ning.com/). I had tried out their rapid development tool for web social applications as a pre-conference exercise before I flew down here and found it very compelling. Ning has developed a website that provides modularlized tools to quickly develop collaborative web-based social applications like:

* Map Mash-Ups
* Media Sharing Apps
* Marketplaces
* Rating & Reviews
* Lists & Listings
* Social Networking
* Blogging & Discussion
* Fun & Games
* Web Services Skeletons

For example, they have a tool to develop a review site to collaboratively review anything specified by the application developer (you). In less than ten minutes of simply choosing feature options I wanted to include and uploading image and text to customize the look and feel I wanted, I created a website called Mary's Bookshelf (http://marysbooks.ning.com/) where I have begun to input the names of books I have read, the application makes a call to the Amazon API and returns a picture of the book and a synopsis, and provides a radio button for me to rate the book with the appropriate number of stars and enter a comment. I can then send the link to a select group (friends, discussion group members, etc.) who can register their own rating for the book and make a comment if they wish.

Ning also provides access to the source code to each application so you can custom script new features if you wish. All scripting is standard php. Ning is planning to provide the ability for user-developed additions to basic applications flagged as public to be then made available to other users of the site sort of like Firefox extensions or Greasemonkey scripts.

O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference Focuses on the Attention Economy

I'm getting some good leads on some new web applications here at O'Reilly's Emerging Technologies Conference in San Diego . I saw a demonstration by Ray Ozzie of Microsoft of a new web app that creates a "clipboard" for use with a web browser so you can copy and paste things like contact information presented on a web page into your Outlook address book or a schedule of events into your calendar of choice. It also has a secured items feature that lets you paste things like your mailing address or credit card information into a web page from your own personalized encrypted object library.

I also saw a demonstration of a touch screen input panel that can use multiple points of stimulation to manipulate objects. For example, you can have a screen full of images and you can rearrange them and size them by grasping the image with both hands and stretching it out to the size that you want. Very intuitive. It had the look and feel of sorting pictures on a real desktop. They also showed a mapping application where you have a globe of the earth and you use your hands to spin the globe around to the point you wish to see then zoom in moving your fingers in a "brushing sand away motion". You can even tilt it by using three fingers so you can get a topographical view.

Another synopsis of the presentation: "Jeff Han, a consulting research scientist, give a demonstration of his Multi-Touch display screen. Developed at NYU's Department of Computer Science as a part time project, this display screen allows users to control the computer by touching the screen. Unlike old single point touch-screens that we know now, the multi-touch interface allows the user to touch the screen at multiple points at the same time. Multiple touch points on the screen surface open up a world of possibilities where the user can manipulate objects with multiple fingers, and these can map to many more operations that a single point interface can. This new interface will require rethinking of many of the common user interface concepts that we all take for granted today.

Supporting multiple points at the same time allows the developers to break out of the current UI box and start thinking in new ways. For instance, using this screen with a new desktop system a user can control the desktop using simple hand motions to pan and zoom. With beautiful and smooth graphics we watched as Jeff dragged and zoomed dozens of pictures on a desktop, as if we were watching Apple's Expose features on steroids. If there wasn't enough space on the desktop, simply zoom out and find more space on the edge of the desktop and then move windows there. " - Robert Kaye

Of course the theme of the conference is the new attention economy so there is a lot of discussion on ways to datamine attention information. One company named lastFM.com offers: "You get your own online music profile that you can fill up with the music you like. This information is used to create a personal radio station and to find users who are similar to you. Last.fm can even play you new artists and songs you might like. It's addictive, it's growing, it's free, it's music." The company's web app actually runs as a background process with API hooks into your audio player (iTunes, RealPlayer, etc.) and invisibly records what songs you are listening to and how many times you listen to a particular song or artist. It not only uses this information to recommend new music but aggregates your information with the data from other lastFM users to provide data on the most popular music, artists, genres, etc.

At a presentation on Greasemonkey, a great Firefox extension that enables you to modify or augment your personal view of existing websites, I learned about another neat Greasemonkey script that automatically links any text on a website that has an entry in Wikipedia to the appropriate Wikipedia article.

I also saw an interesting presentation on a virtual world called SecondLife where users actually buy, develop, and sell virtual land and businesses for real money. I had a bit of trouble understanding what they meant so I went up to my room on the break and logged in and checked it out. Apparently, subscribers are given space on a server and tools to create virtual objects and services in their virtual world. Other users living in the virtual world then pay real money to obtain the virtual objects that have been created. I couldn't believe this would really work but at another presentation I attended, the speaker mentioned that secondary income derived from the sale of objects and services for use in virtual worlds is a multibillion dollar business. I went up on the site and looked at the type of services that are being sold and found things as diverse as a virtual pet groomer, a custom avatar creator, an interior decorator, a fashion designer, etc. What is really amazing is that some of these virtual providers have gone on to sell their creations to real world companies like clothing manufacturers, etc. I can usually get my mind around most concepts but this one is a bit mind boggling so I'm obviously going to have to do some more research.

I went to another presentation about using game theory mechanics to make functional services more engaging and satisfying. One of the strategies recommended is implementing a collection aspect to your online experience. The presenter, Amy Jo Kim, founder of Shufflebrain.com said that one GPS company in Japan has a website feature that enables users to run around Tokyo and "find" virtual objects by uploading their current location to the company website. The web application then populates their virtual collection exhibit with a picture of the virtual object "present" at that location - sort of like virtual geocaching. Another top strategy is to implement a means to rate things and gain points. The points could be redeemed for "easter egg" services that are not normally provided to less frequent visitors/users. One of the most important strategies she mentioned is to use feedback in some form to create positive reinforcement for the use of your web service. She mentioned a game that is extremely popular in Japan called BrainAge. The users login and perform a variety of mental exercises (math problems, etc) that stimulate different parts of your brain. The user has a profile that, based on how many brain exercises they do, keeps track of the age of their brain. The more mental exercises you do the younger your brain supposedly becomes. Health conscious users are now making a visit to the site part of their daily exercise routine!

A really interesting product I checked out at the exhibitors' fair was a free product called RSSBus. The RSSBus engine has the ability to essentially "scrape" XML namespaces for attributes then enable the user to specify search criteria in the attributes and convert the query response to an RSS feed that is then formatted as a constantly updated web page to display the results. For example, the developer demonstrated how to use RSSBus to create a live RSS feed of the traffic conditions for a particular location using Yahoo Traffic. RSSBus can detect the XML attributes of location and route on the Yahoo Traffic website and provides a popup box asking you for your criteria. When you submit your criteria, it performs the query and formats the results as an RSS feed. This feed is then incorporated into your RSS aggregator. Then each day when you get ready to leave work you glance at your news aggregator and quickly check the traffic conditions without having to go to Yahoo traffic and manually conduct a search.

I also learned about a search engine for open source developers named Krugle. "Krugle makes it easy for developers to find source code and technical information—fast! Krugle enables you to quickly find and review source code, find code related technical information, save, annotate and share your search results with others...all from within a single, easy-to-use, web application."

Could I Call You Later? My Trainer's on the Phone - New York Times

Who knows? Maybe we'll start having asynchronous marathons?

The New York Times:"If you have a cellphone with a Global Positioning System receiver, BiM Active, a new service from Bones in Motion, can turn the phone into a pocket-size personal trainer. BiM Active uses data from G.P.S. satellites and local cellphone towers to plot your location during a walk, jog or bicycle ride. With that data, it generates highly accurate route maps, speed calculations, changes in elevation and other information.

The software can also combine elevation data with local weather conditions to calculate the level of difficulty for each trip - enabling competitions among far-flung athletes.

All the data appears on the phone and can be uploaded to a Web site. Athletes can even publish Web logs with detailed statistics on each trip."

From Blogger to Published Author, for $30 and Up - New York Times

Now this is an interesting development in the blogsphere! I doubt at $33 per volume or thereabouts, the average author is going to start using a blog for a novel or textbook development environment to access publication services, however.

New York Times: "Though not all blogs may aspire to literary permanence, they can achieve it through the new Book-Smart software from Blurb, a publish-your-own-book service. The software, which is expected to be available free later this month at www.blurb.com, features a 'Slurper' tool that automatically downloads and reformats the contents of a Web log into a book that bloggers and their admirers can purchase online.

Slurping is not all BookSmart has to offer. It simplifies the layout process by providing design templates for various kinds of books, including cookbooks, photo books, portfolios and volumes dedicated to pets and babies. The software guides users through design decisions like choosing text styles and how many photos will appear on each page.

Pricing for printed versions of your book from Blurb starts at $30 for an 8-by-10-inch full-color hardcover volume with dust jacket and up to 40 pages. A book of up to 80 pages is $3 more. (Blurb plans to eventually offer paperback editions selling for about 30 percent less than hardcover.) Authors will also be able to set up online bookstores through Blurb's Web site."

ITSC conference packed with ideas and hands-on activities

I just returned from the Instructional Technologies Strategies Conference and it was one of the most productive conferences I have attended in quite some time. Although I am using a number of Web 2.0 emerging technologies such as Flickr, blogging, RSS, etc. I learned about how I could extend the features of these products with a little open-source scripting tool called "Greasemonkey" at the Emerging Technologies Workshop. The feature I was most anxious to learn about was the ability to add geotags to my collection of online images up at Flickr. The researchers working on the Nolli Map Project wish to use a number of my images of Rome for a new image layer they will be adding and it will help them immensely if I have all of my images tagged with map coordinates. Installing Greasemonkey was a snap as it is an extension for Firefox and I only had to select it from the list of extensions up at the Firefox website then click Install Now. Then I had to find the GMIF Greasemonkey script and simply click on its link and Greasemonkey popped up a window and asked if I wanted to install it.

Then I logged in to Flickr and selected an image and a new action button appeared to the right of the regular Flickr command buttons named GMap. I click on it and it takes me to Google Map where I can zoom, scroll, and place a stick pin in the location where I took the picture. Then I can right-click on the stick pin and select Add Geotags. The latitude, longitude and geotagged tags are then added to my picture's list of tags.

For countries outside the US, I found I could use Multimap. I also installed a Greasemonkey script for Multimap but it cannot run while the GoogleMap script is enabled. So, I simply used Multimap to locate the coordinates of my picture location then copy and pasted their Latitude, Longitude and geotagged tags that are listed under the map where you have placed your stickpin into the tag field on the photo's Flickr page.

Another easy to use product I saw demonstrated at the conference was Microsoft's Photostory 3. I was particularly interested in it because it could be used to make the video podguides I would like to produce. It's also a free download from Microsoft so the price is certainly right. Photostory has the capability to import still images, arrange their sequence, attach transitions including the panning effect that you see on the History Channel all the time, overlay music, and add voice narration to produce a Windows Media file. Although I will have to use a utility to convert the Windows Media file to a file that can be viewed on a Video iPod, Photostory has all the basic functionality I need to produce a nice presentation. My first project is a non-gambler's Guide to Las Vegas! I've been there four times attending Comdex and have a wealth of images of educational activities to do when you don't like to gamble and end up in Las Vegas for a conference.

The presenters demonstrating Photostory also conduct a Tech Camp for Middle and High School students each summer and it was quite interesting to see some of the projects the kids have produced. They passed around quilts, pillows, lampshades, pamphlets, and framed three-dimensional art produced by printing images four and five times then cutting out sections of the images and layering them on top of the original image with little spacers available at craft stores. The result is a very sophisticated, professional-looking piece of art. I'm going to have to give that one a try myself.

I also attended a presentation about Moodle. I thought Moodle might be related to text-based gaming environments (Moos) but I learned that it is an open-source content management system that was created to provide a free alternative to WebCT and Blackboard. In addition to the usual CMS tools like assignments, discussion forums, basic quizzes, gradebook, and chat, Moodle incorporates

Choices:

Here a teacher asks a question and specifies a choice of multiple responses. This can be useful as a quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic; to allow the class to vote on a direction for the course; or to gather research consent.

A Choice with anonymous results

A Choice with non-anonymous results

A Choice that allows you to update anytime

A Choice with a limited number of responses allowed Glossaries This activity allows participants to create and maintain a list of definitions, like a dictionary.The entries can be searched or browsed in many different formats. Teacher-Defined Glossary Learner-Defined Glossary A glossary of common terms

HotPot

This module allows teachers to create multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill quizzes using Hot Potatoes software.

Newton's 2nd and 3rd Laws Quiz

Crossword Puzzle with Timer

Lessons

A lesson delivers content in an interesting and flexible way. It consists of a number of pages. Each page normally ends with a multiple choice question. Navigation through the lesson can be straight forward or complex.

How to use the Lesson Module

Surveys

The Survey module provides a number of verified survey instruments that have been found useful in assessing and stimulating learning in online environments.

Critical Incident Survey

Constructivist On-line Learning Environment Survey

Attitudes to Thinking and Learning Survey

Wiki A wiki is a web page that anyone can add to or edit. It enables documents to be authored collectively and supports collaborative learning. Old versions are not deleted and may be restored if required.

Workshops

A Workshop is a peer assessment activity with a huge array of options. It allows participants to assess each other's projects, as well as exemplar projects, in a number of ways.

Our university is heavily invested in Blackboard already so I doubt that the course management folks here would consider a different product at this late date but Moodle seemed very powerful and flexible.

The best part of the conference was talking with other educators who are as excited as I am about instructional uses of technology!

Students use claymation to bring Greek mythology to life

"Here's an interesting juxtaposition of ancient history and modern technology going on in Deb Canton's sixth-grade classroom at South Middle School, where students are telling mythology stories using clay figures, cameras and computers.

So, where 3,000 years ago the poet Homer wandered from city to city to tell the story of the Trojan War, today Canton's students are making clay animation movies (sometimes called Claymation) to do the same thing.

Of course, Homer never had to worry about the clay arms and legs and heads of his figures falling off between shots. Students Briana Bridgeford, Chad Loeffler and Joshua Saunders said they struggled to keep their clay figure of Hera, queen of the gods, intact as they posed her to bend over and pick up an apple.

'It was really hard because Hera's back kept breaking in half,' Loeffler said.

The sixth-graders venture into Greek mythology began in the library, Canton said, where they read stories like the one about the Greek prince Theseus, who braved the labyrinth to kill the half-man, half-bull minotaur, and about the fabled musician Orpheus and his trip to the underworld to rescue his beloved wife, Eurydice.

Carla DeHaaven, South's curriculum technology partner, had received two grants $180.60 from North Dakota Arts Council and $405 for Grand Forks Foundation for Education to purchase clay and a camera and other equipment to make the movies.

From there, the class was split into groups of three to four students. Each chose a story to tell. They wrote a script, made a story board, designed clay figures, built sets of cardboard boxes and then starting taking the still photos they needed to make their movies.

'We've kind of run the gamut from ancient history to modern technology,' Canton said Thursday as the students kept rearranging their clay figures and shooting photos with small digital cameras perched on six-inch tripods. '"They like it."

The next step will be the computer work of using the still photos to make animated iMovies and adding dialogue and voices.

In addition to the stories of the Trojan war, Theseus and Orpheus, students were making movies about Phaethon and the horses of the sun and the tragic nymph Callisto and her son Arcas.

Through their work, the students are learning about history, mythology, art, technology and storytelling, and about collaborating and problem solving, their teachers said. And they're learning about how the lives of the ancient Greeks, their politics and stories, remain relevant today."

Of course, once they have an iMovie they can easily create a podcast as well and share their efforts with other history enthusiasts all over the world!

iPods offer way more than just music

I stopped by the University bookstore last Friday and they had a previously opened 60GB video iPod for 20% off. So, I couldn't pass up a deal like that. Yesterday, I spent quite a bit of time getting to know my new iPod. It was recognized by my Windows workstation as soon as I plugged it in and I could see the iPod's drive from "My Computer" but it did not show up in my latest version of iTunes. A call to Apple tech support resolved the issue. Apparently, in Windows 2000 and Windows XP, there is sometimes a problem with iTunes recognizing an iPod that has mapped itself to a drive letter adjacent to a mapped network drive. The Apple technician had me remap the iPod to another drive letter and soon had me downloading files without a problem.

Then I set about downloading the Rome travel guides I had found on the web. I have a PDA so I was used to simply creating a folder on the PDA's hard drive and dragging files into it. However, even though I could access the iPod's hard drive in the same way and create a folder and drag a file into it, I could not access the file from the available menu folders using the iPod's built-in interface. Another call to tech support confirmed that, although the iPod allows you to copy files to its drive using this method, the files cannot be browsed by the iPod once they are copied to it. I learned that I really need to unzip the files onto my hard drive, then import them into iTunes and use it to transfer them to my iPod. Apparently, sometimes having knowledge of similar devices is not necessarily helpful.

I also learned that the hold button controls the use of the smartwheel. At first I couldn't figure out why I couldn't navigate the menu but the hold button was in the locked position. Just a few minor technicalities!

After downloading the guides to Rome, I discovered that these guides were audio only. As I have thousands of pictures that I took when I visited Italy last spring, I called to see if there was a way I could take an existing audio guide and add images to it.

Podguides highlight the glories of Rome

I found a website the other day that is really fascinating. It is called Virtual Rome and it is very well done, employing some of the latest technology. I really enjoyed their Panoramic videos. I particularly enjoyed looking around the Baths of Caracalla because I didn't have time to visit them when I was in Rome last spring.

Another new feature that is really wonderful is a selection of free iPod guides. I don't know if Apple iPods are as popular in other countries as they are here. I just know that here you don't hardly pass a college student that doesn't have iPod earphones in their ears. Anyway, these little mini-guides include pictures and audio information keyed to a little map of the site or building you are visiting. Because of their video component they are much better than the typical audio guides you rent at museums and some "hosts" can be quite funny as well as informative.

I found another website, PodGuides.net that hosts free iPod guides created by anybody. They have easy instructions on how to create a PodGuide using an MP3 audio file and pictures you have taken with your digital camera and even have a free PodGuide generator available for download. I think it would be great fun to build up a library of guides of Roman sites around the world. It looks like I'm going to have to get an iPod before I leave for London next month! My friends there are planning to show me some great Romano-Britain sites while I am there and another friend in Fleetwood is taking me to York and Chester too so I would have a lot of raw material for some PodGuides!

New Digital Camera "Smarts" sound exciting

I was just reading David Pogue's interesting overview of new digital camera features.

"They may include global positioning system receivers, so that, as you browse your photos in iPhoto or Picasa, you'll know not only when you took them, but where."

What I would like to see is a camera with a built-in barcode scanner. Then, if museums and tradeshow vendors would include a barcode providing details of individual exhibits, I could just scan the bar code rather than my current technique of photographing the exhibit labels. Photographing the labels not only takes up as much space as a regular picture but can be quite tricky in low light conditions trying to get sharp focus to enable me to read it afterwards.

"Some of Nikon's CoolPix models already contain face-recognition software, a feature that supposedly assists focus by scanning the scene for human facial features. And Canon is working on even more sophisticated recognition software. One, called Blink Shot, would prevent the camera from taking the picture when your subject's eyes are closed. A companion feature, called Smile Shot, waits to fire until your subject manages a grin."

Of course batteries are getting better.

"According to Mr. Westfall of Canon, however, the future is hydrogen fuel cells, which will provide far longer-lasting power. "This technology is already in development," he said. "They'll probably make their debut in laptop batteries first, and then make their way into cellphones and digital cameras."

There's the predictable push for bigger and brighter viewing screens as well.

"Unfortunately, the bigger the screen, the greater the power drain. The buzz among camera designers these days, therefore, is OLED screens (organic light-emitting diode), which offer much better brightness but much lower power consumption. You can expect to see such screens within the next year."

New liquid lenses are predicted to replace the heavy glass lenses and lighten the load (and improve camera stability) as well.

"When an electrical charge is applied to a liquid lens, the droplet changes shape. Apply the charge in just the right way, and you can make the droplet change focus, or even zoom. Although liquid-lens technology is only in its infancy, it could one day replace the huge, heavy discs of glass that weigh down the digital S.L.R."

David says the megapixel race is finally coming to an end with the current 8 megapixel range. ( Personally, I stopped worrying about megapixels at 5).

The one thing he didn't mention that is important to me is an improvement in ISO range. My Panasonic FZ20's ISO range of 400 is really nice but would be even better at 800 or even 1200 without the introduction of unacceptable noise levels. I prefer never to use a flash if at all possible so I can retain as much original color depth as possible (I shoot a lot of museum exhibits for educational use). Camcorders seem to have conquered the low light issue. I would like this issue more seriously addressed in digital still cameras as well.

Will Smartboards Live Up To Their Full Potential

Here at the University, we belong to a technology buying consortium to enable us to purchase products based on an overall economy of scale. In the consortium's newsletter this month was an article about the integration of Smartboards in various educational settings. I was surprised to read that the devices are so popular in the Overland Park, Kansas school district that Bob Moore, executive director of IT for the district says they are adopting a policy of installing nothing but Smartboards, like those produced by Smart Technologies, in any new schools slated for construction.

Five years ago when I attended one of the last Comdexes I evaluated and was impressed by a Smartboard adapter device called Mimio. It had the capability to convert any exisiting Whiteboard into a Smartboard for around $500. I thought it would be a good addition to the Dean's conference room equipment since the dean was always scribbling on large paper pads then tearing them off, folding them up, then stashing them in various corners of his office. With the Mimio device, he could use the special pens to write on one of our existing whiteboards then capture his notes to a file on the connected laptop computer. The file could then be retrieved for future viewing, sent by e-mail to interested people, or included in other presentations at a later date. I excitedly brought one back to the office. I found the setup to be relatively easy and the product performed as promised. However, because the product required connection each time it was used (a relatively easy task as well), I found that, despite my efforts at familiarizing the dean's executive staff with the device and configuring the presentation laptop with the drivers so it would be automatically detected when it was connected, no one seemed to remember to (or to want to) check out the equipment and connect it if no technology assistant was available. So, a powerful piece of equipment has sat virtually unused for the last five years.

A few months ago, one of our professors with grant money decided to purchase a regular portable Smartboard to provide it to faculty wanting to integrate technology into their classes. I commented at the time that I hoped he was planning some type of introductory training for faculty wishing to use the device since I had my doubts of their willingness to use it after my experience. Unfortunately, it appears that it, too, is collecting dust. Yesterday, I spoke with the director of the Center for Educational Technology for the university and asked if he had any inquiries about Smartboard use. He said he didn't but didn't know we had one available for demo purposes either. He said he would like to demonstrate the product at a Teaching Effectiveness program later this year. I told him I was sure it would be okay to borrow ours since it wasn't getting much (and when I checked the reservation log - any) use.

It really is an excellent technology but I'm afraid it will take replacement of the blackboards before the faculty will invest their time in learning to use the new device.

Missed It in the Theater Today? See It on DVD Tonight

I see the independent film channel is leading the charge for offering films on demand the same day they are released in theaters. It makes perfect sense with art films and foreign films since they are screened in so few theaters anyway. The simultaneous release should boost early revenues and provide a stronger funding stream for new works in production.

I was particularly excited to note the mention of foreign films. The US does not have a monopoly on cinematic creativity and its time the large mainstream US market had access to the works of non-US filmmakers. I know I have totally enjoyed such works as "Hero" - a visual feast as well as riveting drama. I think Hollywood totally underestimates the willingness of US audiences to accept subtitles if the drama is engrossing.

"Hollywood will inch further toward making movies simultaneously available in theaters, on DVD and on home television screens at the Sundance Film Festival this week, as IFC Entertainment unveils a plan to release 24 films in theaters and on cable at the same time this year.

Beginning in March, the initiative, which the company is calling First Take, will place films in independent theaters while also making them available over a new video-on-demand service that will be carried by all the major cable companies, said Jonathan Sehring, IFC Entertainment's president. The company, which includes a film production and distribution arm, is expected to make the announcement at a news conference on Monday.

"So much great film has fallen by the wayside," Mr. Sehring said. "The studios are collapsing the window between the theatrical release and the DVD. We're taking that one step further."

The company named six films it had scheduled for simultaneous release, including "CSA: The Confederate States of America," a dark, faux documentary that envisions the United States if the South had won the Civil War; "I Am a Sex Addict," a semiautobiographical comedy about a young man who becomes addicted to prostitutes; and "American Gun," a series of stories about the proliferation of weapons across the country, starring Donald Sutherland and Forest Whitaker.

The main idea, Mr. Sehring said, was to respond to the pent-up demand for art house-style films that are usually shown only in a few theaters in major cities, and even then only for a week or two.

"Foreign films are not being released," he said, "aside from Sony Classics. And low-budget American films - they're nonexistent. It's left to the really small companies, and they can't afford to take on a lot of films and get them played outside of New York and L.A."

The rise of specialty divisions at major studios like Fox Searchlight and Focus Features has reduced the opportunities for art-house films, he said, because they now specialize in medium-budget, serious films for adults, once the purview of their parent studios.

The IFC service will ramp up to making 10 to 15 films available a month, including some from other distributors, at a cost of $6.95 a month for subscribers or $5.95 per film."

Serious Games

Serious Games: Yesterday, I attended a meeting of our Faculty Instructional Technology Training committee and in the course of our discussion about potential in-class laptop activities, we began discussion the potential for games to provide a dynamic learning environment. One of my fellow committee members mentioned the Serious Games Initiative.

I have been a proponent of the use of games and simulations for learning envirnoments for a number of years but somehow missed any references to this new special interest group. So I looked them up on the web after I returned to my office and was quite pleased to review a list of their showcase projects. Under their link labeled Games for Change, I found The United Nations World Food Program’s (WFP) FoodForce Game.

I also read the absolutely inspiring keynote address delivered by Adam Singer, Group Chief Executive, The MCPS-PRS Alliance at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival in August 2005. Some particularly striking points:

"The games industry is facing an opportunity to be more than entertainment, and more than education. It has the opportunity to be a medium.

Games are currently not a medium.

A medium makes you laugh, cry, aroused, gives knowledge, induces epiphany, and creates excitement. When you can do all of these you are a medium.

Film can do this, television can do this, radio can do this, print can do this, and even comics, graphic novels and Manga can do this, but can games?

I see no reason why games shouldn’t be a major medium: that can convey all moods and emotions, and why games should not be the equal of movies, not just in terms of image quality, or box office takings but in terms of art and emotional catharsis...

Education has traditionally been about preparing you to win at the game Who Wants To Be A Millionaire by stuffing your head with just-in-case-you-need-it knowledge, for that left of field question: In 2015 would Chris Tarrant get any viewers if every contestant had access to Google and the net?

In a network world the traditional education of just-in-case-you-need-it knowledge, combined with the necessary tribal information (i.e. knowing the date of the Battle of Hastings) no longer makes sense.

All video games teach, as a metaphorical and collateral act, how to gain knowledge in an electronic world.

This is why Educational games are gaining momentum.

...games can be the equivalent of Documentaries on television. You can have games doing current affairs, you can have a game showing what it is like to be an oppressed minority, or how Enron-like corporations can stray into corruption, you can have games that deal with difficult issues like AIDs, or where you learn compassion by suffering loss.

There is no subject a book cannot tackle, and all novels are simulations and, likewise, there is no subject too big for games, there are only gamers not big enough for the subject.

There is no reason why we cannot have the equivalent of public service gaming. As the gaming generation goes forward does the license fee just fund TV programmes or does it fund interactive information?

Ofcom is talking about a new service, the Public Service Publisher, and if it gets through Government, it has a faint chance of being in action by 2010. Surely by then we don’t need more TV programmes, we will need pubic service games."

"The Serious Games Initiative is focused on uses for games in exploring management and leadership challenges facing the public sector. Part of its overall charter is to help forge productive links between the electronic game industry and projects involving the use of games in education, training, health, and public policy."

Fiddling with Tiddly Wikis

While reading my Hot Potatoes interactive online development discussion group today, I noticed a reference to a new blog technology called a Tiddly Wiki.

"A TiddlyWiki is like a blog because it's divided up into neat little chunks, but it encourages you to read it by hyperlinking rather than sequentially: if you like, a non-linear blog analogue that binds the individual microcontent items into a cohesive whole." - Jeremy Ruston

That's the developer's official line! Jeremy points out that it is easier for people to remember things better if the information is presented in little bites. That is why advertisers use sound "bites" instead of a long narrative when they want you to remember their products.

I think the TiddlyWiki concept would be even more valuable if it is used by educators to create adaptive learning materials for classes composed of students with a broad range of learning experiences. With its internal hyperlinks, a Tiddly Wiki provides an environment that allows knowledgable students to forge ahead while allowing students who require more background material to drill down to obtain a comprehensive overview of key concepts.

The "tiddler", as the microcontent object is called, could be as simple as a word definition or as complex as a multilayered secondary article complete with inline images and animation.

Another unique aspect to a Tiddly Wiki is that it is a simple javascript-enhanced HTML file that provides the entire functionality for creation, dating, tagging, threading, and customizing the journal. It does not require a separate blog application server or central administration to function. You simply go to the main Tiddly Wiki site and click on the download link and select Save Target As and point to your hardrive folder and give it a name. Then, you can open your local file, click on the options link and enter your preferred posting name and you are ready to create your first tiddler.

An internally-linked "tiddler" is created by using the WikiWord format of two words run together with the first letters of each word capitalized or by enclosing a word you wish to link with two square brackets [[link this]]. When you save your first post you can then click on the link and you will be presented with an entry that says the linked tiddler does not exist and give you a chance to edit it to add the related content.

If you wish to embed HTML within a tiddler you enclose the HTML code with the tags [html] [/html].

If you wish to embed a linked URL you enclose the URL with double brackets and precede the URL with the word you wish to use for the link separated from the URL with a pipe. Example: [[Technology Times and Trials|http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~mharrsch/techtimes.html]]

If you wish to embed an image you can use the syntax [img[title|ImageURL.jpg]]

Example: [img[Mary|http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~mharrsch/maryborgblog.jpg]]

The new features also list the ability to embed Outlook or Gmail items but I haven't tried to do that yet. Tiddly Wiki is designed to accept plugins so there appears to be a wealth of other features you can add as well.

The Main Tiddly Wikis site:

http://www.tiddlywiki.com/

My first Tiddly Wiki:

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~mharrsch/Marystiddler.html

10 Greatest Gadget Ideas of the Year

I regularly check out David Pogue's column in the New York Times to see if he discusses some technology I am unfamiliar with and in today's column he listed the folding memory card as one of the ten greatest gadgets of the year. Somehow this new product from SanDisk had passed under my radar. Of course, many workstations now come with ports for a variety of different storage devices including the standard SanDisk memory chip so this product represents a different take on a common problem for computers without the new multiple device ports.

"After taking a few digital photos, the next step, for most people, is getting them onto the computer. That usually involves a U.S.B. cable, which is one more thing to carry and avoid misplacing.

SanDisk's better idea is to take the memory card out of the camera and stick it directly into your computer's U.S.B. port.

That's possible with the SanDisk Ultra II SD Plus card. It looks just like any other SD memory card, except that it folds on tiny hinges. When you fold it back on itself, you reveal a set of metal contacts that slide directly into the U.S.B. jack of your Mac or PC. The computer sees the card as an external drive, and you can download the photos as you always do - except that you've eliminated the need to carry around a cable."

He also mentioned a front-side connector offered on Hewlett-Packard's latest rear projection TV sets. I whole-heartedly endorse this feature but I must tell David it is not entirely a new concept. My Mitsubishi rear projection TV that I have owned for something like eight years features AV jacks in the convenient drop down control panel on the front of the set. Like the home theater setups David describes, my system's rat's nest of cables lies between the big screen on one side and an entertainment center/display cabinet on the other. If I must manipulate the wire connections, I must remove the smaller television in the entertainment center on the dining room side and crawl through the hole to get to the back of the big screen on the living room side - not my favorite activity.

Wednesday night I came home from work only to find that my three-month old DVR had had a melt down. Instead of thrashing around behind the big screen to unhook the other devices so I and the Dish network technician could trouble shoot the receiver without other components attached, I unhooked the output cables from the DVR receiver then simply used a set of patch cables to plug it directly into the front AV jacks on the big screen to test its behavior without intervening devices - sweet!

A Chance to Meet the Author Online

When I was at the Historical Novel Society national conference last spring I talked about the importance of an author blog for marketing purposes at a general session. Either someone was listening or understands the value of blogs in communications and marketing as I do.

"Shoppers looking to pick up Meg Wolitzer's latest novel, 'The Position,' on Amazon.com last week found the usual readers' comments and excerpts from reviews. They also found something unexpected: posts on the subject of literature from Ms. Wolitzer herself.

"The program gives people who are interested in a particular author a way to get new insights into them, and gives the authors a way to develop more of a one-on-one relationship with readers," said Jani Strand, a spokeswoman for Amazon. The authors write on "anything they'd like their readers to know about them," Ms. Strand said, including what inspired their books and details about their experiences. Authors are free to update their blogs as often or as little as they like, and a linked profile page has information about other books, reading recommendations, personal information and, in some cases, e-mail addresses."

Simultaneous Release of DVDs with feature films an adventure in marketing

I'm so glad to hear that the film industry is considering simultaneous release for movies and DVDs. I always believed it would not really hurt theater sales because I think a theater experience is usually a social event for the younger audiences more than the preferred viewing environment for older audiences. Many older film enthusiasts have added home theater systems (at least surround sound) to their home viewing environments and feel more comfortable there without the distractions of other people hopping up and down to use the restroom or going to the concession stand. In addition, many of us, although we enjoy immersive sound, can hardly bear the volume that is used in many commercial theaters. We also appreciate the ability to pause a film to answer nature's call, often a more frequent requirement with age, without missing any of the action.

So, I applaud Todd Wagner, the CEO of 2929 Entertainment, the company, cofounded by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, that's experimenting with the "simultaneous release" program who was interviewed in this piece by David Pogue that appeared in the New York Times Circuits section.

"Simultaneous release," or "day and date," means releasing a new movie on TV, on DVD, and in the theaters all on the same day--a radical proposal that could shake up the movie industry...."

"This idea has been perceived as an attack on the exhibition [movie-theater] industry. It is not.

It was designed to try to increase DVD sales. It was designed to try to reach the kind of folks who are not gonna go to the movie theater on a regular basis. And that is an enormous percentage of the population.

I'm supposed to assume that they'll still be interested in my movie five months from now [when the DVD comes out]? I would argue that might be a dangerous assumption.

So our argument is that there is potentially this impulse buy. These people in their 30s and 40s and 50s, wife, kid, may not go to the movie theater. But they would pay a premium to have first-run, theatrical-quality movies that they can either watch on T.V., be downloaded, be delivered to their doorstep on a DVD or eventually HD-DVD, et cetera, et cetera. And let's see if we can go after them.

Look at Russia. In Russia, 99 percent of the DVDs are pirated. You walk in the subway system, there's all the movies--before they're even in the theaters.

That's not even simultaneous release; that's "DVD first," if you will. And yet the theater industry in Russia is doing very well."

Wagner also pointed out the current expense of two advertising campaigns, one for the film and one for the DVD.

"Advertising, as you well know these days, has gone from one big spends to two big spends. A spend to try to get people to go to the theater, a spend in another five months to try to get you to buy the DVD.

In the world today of information clutter, to get the public excited, for the second time, about that movie that they heard about five months later -- wow, that's really hard. So if you could do it once and have an efficient advertising spend, perhaps that's not so bad.

We've seen the lessons of the music industry. We know how technology is today. We know that this generation wants things now. We know it's a digital world. By the way, the day-and-date thing could also reduce piracy, because everything is available simultaneously everywhere in every medium. Maybe it's worth thinking about."

Take Your Cable Channels With You on the Road

Take New York Times: I found the following article quite interesting. Just the other day I was reading about the new PocketDish accessory available from Dish Network which allows you to download DVR content from your satellite receiver, as well as photos, MP3 files, and games to a 4" x 3" pocket device. This product seems to take the technology a step further by facilitating direct streaming from your cable or satellite's receiver.


"In 2002, Blake Krikorian and his brother Jason were beside themselves. Their beloved San Francisco Giants were in a pennant race, yet Blake and Jason, two Silicon Valley engineers, were traveling so much that they missed many of the games on television.

Desperate, they signed up for a service that offered live audio and video of the games over the Internet, only to find that subscribers from San Francisco could not watch Giants games because of blackout restrictions.

The idea for Slingbox was born. The Krikorians decided to find a way to let cable and satellite television customers watch what was on their home televisions while they were on the road. After several years developing the product, their company, Sling Media, released its first boxes in July.

Just as TiVo and other digital video recorders ushered in the concept of 'time shifting' a few years ago, the Slingbox promises to make 'place shifting' a reality for households. By letting consumers connect with their cable or satellite hookups when they travel, Slingbox has the potential to splinter further the way television is watched."

Wikipedia scandal reopens the academy vs. open source debate

"...Rather than throw things on the Web and let a consensus emerge, in other words, researchers prefer having a few known authorities inspect the work before it's published by a known press. The credibility of authority, both the reviewer and the journal, are seen as more valid than the credibility of consensus."

The report made a big issue that almost half of those academics polled thought open access publishing would undermine the current system of academic publishing, but 41% said it would be a good thing.

"The fact is that while 'open source has no quality control,' as the headline writer put it in David Coursey's recent column, authority is no longer all it's cracked up to be. Authority can be corrupt. Authority can be an excuse for not thinking. Authority may say there are weapons of mass destruction or that oral sex isn't sex."

I didn't realize until recently that academics, particularly those in the sciences, actually pay journals to publish their articles. I spent many years as a freelance writer and editor and, in my publishing experience, that practice is called subsidy publishing. The quality of subsidy publishing has always been suspect because the goal of the publisher is to make money from the writer, as well as from the sale of the publication, so quality control is sometimes quite lax. I would tend to agree with this writer that "authority" is definitely not what it's cracked up to be.

MP3 Fm Modulator W/ USB Port And Audio Input

Cyberguys.com:I had lunch with a friend today and we discussed products designed to work with audio devices like the iPod. He told me that a friend of his gave him an MP3 Fm Modulator that plugs into your car's cigarette lighter. It has a USB input that you can use to plug in a variety of USB devices whose contents are then broadcast over one of seven FM radio frequencies (87.7, 87.9, 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, 88.7, 88.9) through your car's stereo system.

Before Audible.com introduced the ability to download their audio books and burn them to CD, I had attempted to use several different cassette to MP3 adapters with my MP3 players in an effort to listen to their contents with my car's stereo instead of using earphones (which I think is illegal in this state). None of the brands I tested would work. So I tried an adapter that used the AM radio frequency to broadcast music from a connected player but I couldn't get it to work either.

Part of the problem I had was the inability to set my radio to a particular frequency. The model I have in my Ford Explorer autoscans for broadcasts and apparently did not receive a signal of sufficient strength from the adapter to lock in on the required frequency. I might have the same problem with this device but at least it gives you more frequencies to try.

"Play music from a USB thumb drive or from almost any portable CD, DVD or MP3 player right through your car's radio with the FM audio modulator. It has convenient Play, Stop, and Track selection controls as well as 7 LCD indicators for preset FM frequencies. The wireless modulator lets nearly any USB thumb drive function like an MP3 player and the 3.5mm stereo input jack is great for your iPod or other portable audio devices."