The spread of Smartphones
April 8th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
Latest predictions on smartphone growth and operating systems as reported in the Guardiian
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Archive for the ‘uncategorized’ Category
Turn an iPad into an Interactive Whiteboard
April 8th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
this is almost enough to tempt me into getting an iPad. But also when talking to Jenny Hughes she pointed out a big flaw in Interactive Whiteboard design in that for younger kids many of them cannot actually reach the screen. they could of course, reach an iPad.
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Open Attribute
April 8th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
I have been looking for something like this for ages. If you use Creative Commons materials – and most bloggers do – this is a ‘must have; plug in.
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The future of universities
April 8th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
Another challenging post by Richard Hall about the future of universities and whether they offer any longer any spaces for dissent and resistance or have become merely “a functionary of neoliberalism within the social factory.”
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Breaking the silence
April 7th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
Interesting article by Sarah Amster asking why more academics are not speaking and acting against the destructive policies being enacted in higher education in the UK. She ends on an optimistic note – I hope she is right but am not so sure
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Apps overhyped? – I think so
March 14th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
I wonder if the current App craze has been overhyped. And as better mobile browsers come out – plus increased bandwidth and html5 – we may return to the open world of the web as the way of seeking and suing information and sharing knowledge. This report tends to suggest that the use of Apps and especially paying for information – may not be so popular as the mobile and media industries would like us to think.
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Journalism and blogging
March 13th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
This quote from the Guardian newspaper is of Jay Rosen talking at SXSF. I am not sure if it really gets to the point. It is not to me so much of a competition between blogging journalist or traditional journalists (surely we have convergence taking place) but rather of the existence of multiple information and knowledge flows through he ability of anyone to publish – even if they do not have the patronage of a newspaper proprietor.
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Open Data from Southampton University
March 8th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
Great step forward – lets hope more public bodies follow!
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Cultral globalisation and music, film and software piracy
March 7th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
I’ve not read this report. But it is certainly high on my list of reading. The report on ‘Media Piracy in Emerging Economies’ claims to be the first independent, large-scale study of music, film and software piracy in emerging economies, with a focus on Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa, Mexico and Bolivia. The report has been produced by the Social Science Research Council based in New York. As the report points out enforcement has not worked and commercial pirates and transnational smugglers face the same dilemma as the legal industry: how to compete with free.
Gilberto Gil, musician and former Brazilian minister of culture says “This remarkable study should be required reading for anyone concerned with copyright and enforcement, or with the challenges of cultural globalization.”
Gilberto Gil, musician and former Brazilian minister of culture says “This remarkable study should be required reading for anyone concerned with copyright and enforcement, or with the challenges of cultural globalization.”
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Trusted Data Hubs?
March 7th, 2011 by Graham Attwell
Interesting article on the use of data by newspapers. i am not sure if I agree with the thrust of the argument about trust. trust seems to me a rather nebulous concept in the way it is being used for web development initiatives.
But I certainly agree about the growing importance of data and sense making around such data.
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News Bites
Cyborg patented?
Forbes reports that Microsoft has obtained a patent for a “conversational chatbot of a specific person” created from images, recordings, participation in social networks, emails, letters, etc., coupled with the possible generation of a 2D or 3D model of the person.
Racial bias in algorithms
From the UK Open Data Institute’s Week in Data newsletter
This week, Twitter apologised for racial bias within its image-cropping algorithm. The feature is designed to automatically crop images to highlight focal points – including faces. But, Twitter users discovered that, in practice, white faces were focused on, and black faces were cropped out. And, Twitter isn’t the only platform struggling with its algorithm – YouTube has also announced plans to bring back higher levels of human moderation for removing content, after its AI-centred approach resulted in over-censorship, with videos being removed at far higher rates than with human moderators.
Gap between rich and poor university students widest for 12 years
Via The Canary.
The gap between poor students and their more affluent peers attending university has widened to its largest point for 12 years, according to data published by the Department for Education (DfE).
Better-off pupils are significantly more likely to go to university than their more disadvantaged peers. And the gap between the two groups – 18.8 percentage points – is the widest it’s been since 2006/07.
The latest statistics show that 26.3% of pupils eligible for FSMs went on to university in 2018/19, compared with 45.1% of those who did not receive free meals. Only 12.7% of white British males who were eligible for FSMs went to university by the age of 19. The progression rate has fallen slightly for the first time since 2011/12, according to the DfE analysis.
Quality Training
From Raconteur. A recent report by global learning consultancy Kineo examined the learning intentions of 8,000 employees across 13 different industries. It found a huge gap between the quality of training offered and the needs of employees. Of those surveyed, 85 per cent said they , with only 16 per cent of employees finding the learning programmes offered by their employers effective.
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