EDUCATION NEWS
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SIM SOARS AS LEARNING TOOL
So, you want to learn how to fly a plane? No problem -- just find yourself a flight instructor and get ready to spend about $7,000 to get your private pilot certificate. Or you can go out and buy a copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator and a specialized controller for about $150, and learn on your PC.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60830,00.html
 
SCHOOL LAPTOPS LOSING LUSTER
Social studies teacher Eric Chamberlin clicks on a projector connected to a laptop computer, beginning a slide on how a bill becomes a law. His eighth-grade students flip open laptops, eagerly winding through the lesson on their screens. Chamberlin has seen a big change in his students since laptops were introduced into his Boothbay Middle School classroom. "Stuff will go wrong," he said, "but in the end ... learning is infinitely better than from a static page in a book."
http://www.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/10/23/school.laptops.ap/index.html
 
A REVOLUTION IN DISTANCE LEARNING
Students scurry to online courses as colleges respond to demand by adding offerings. In the world of distance education, course Web sites are virtual classrooms, one-stop portals where students interact with professors and each other. Assignments are posted, term papers e-mailed. Every day, Ordonez logs on to view graded homework, download reading material or send a message to the class discussion board. A typical deadline might be Thursday at midnight.
http://www.newsday.com/mynews/ny-ssdist3500374oct19,0,3335296.story
 
INSTANT MESSAGING – COLLABORATIVE TOOL OR EDUCATOR’S NIGHTMARE!
Today’s students have grown up with the computer; in fact many, if not most, are younger than the first microcomputer.  Students are more technology literate and Internet savvy than ever, and they use technology in ways that weren’t even thought of a decade ago. What impact does this have on educators today and for the future?
http://www.unb.ca/naweb/proceedings/2003/PaperFarmer.html
 
MAINE IS HANDING OUT LAPTOPS. WILL THEY MAKE ITS MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS SMARTER?
Yet middle schoolers across the state are toting their shiny new laptops from class to class, using them for a range of assignments and activities: At King Middle School in Portland, for example, seventh graders produced an interactive CD-ROM for a lesson on "fading footprints" that includes written descriptions and scientifically accurate illustrations of endangered species in Maine, videotaped field trips to coastal nesting grounds, and a narrative film on the learning process. "It is amazingly unlimited what can happen with these machines," says King teacher David Grant.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/elearning/articles/03computer.htm
 
U. OF ILLINOIS ADMINISTRATORS ASK PROFESSOR TO REMOVE WEB SITE ABOUT DIPLOMA MILLS
Under pressure from administrators at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a tenured physics professor has shut down a Web site he created to make information available about the unaccredited distance-learning institutions often referred to as "diploma mills."
http://chronicle.com/free/2003/10/2003101301t.htm
 

TECHNOLOGY NEWS
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TRASH YOUR DESKTOP
Mitch Kapor’s new, more intuitive computer interface puts all the information we need to manage our digital lives at our fingertips, no matter what form it’s in. Code-named Chandler, after the mystery writer (because, Kapor says, what they’re creating was something of a mystery even to them when the venture launched two years ago), the software promises to put all related e-mail messages, spreadsheets, appointment records, addresses, blog entries, word-processing documents, digital photos, and what-have-you in one place at one time: no more opening program after program looking for the items related to a specific topic. It takes the core functions of Microsoft Outlook, the Palm Desktop, and other personal information management programs and integrates them with the rest of your PC and the Internet.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/fitzgerald1103.asp
 
REVAMPED MS OFFICE MAY BE TOUGH SELL
Microsoft Corp. launched the newest version of its Office software, kicking off a $150 million ad campaign in hopes of convincing customers that the upgrade is worth the cost despite a skittish economy. Investing in the new Office software will help workers better collaborate on projects and increase business productivity without requiring serious hardware upgrades, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates said in an interview with The Associated Press.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/10/22/microsoft.office.ap/index.html
 
MACROMEDIA FLASHES $65M IN FRONT OF EHELP
Looking to expand its Web graphics empire, Macromedia Wednesday said it has inked a deal to acquire eHelp for about $65 million in cash and stocks. San Diego-based eHelp's is a privately-owned firm best known for its RoboHelp Web authoring tool and RoboDemo, a Flash-based software demonstration product. San Francisco-based Macromedia says it will combine the eHelp offerings with its own authoring family such as Macromedia Breeze and market the combined platform to developers who are building e-learning applications, online help desks, software simulations and/or tutorial sessions.
http://www.aspnews.com/news/weekly/article/0,2350,4271_3097491,00.html
 
ONE STATE ADOPTS OPEN-SOURCE MANTRA
With more than $32 billion in sales last year, Microsoft Corp. doesn’t usually worry about losing one customer. But this one may be different. In a memo sent last month, Massachusetts Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss instructed the state’s chief technology officer to adopt a policy of “open standards, open source” for all future spending on information technology.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/982392.asp
 
NEW TYPEFACE TO HELP DYSLEXICS
Dyslexics who have trouble reading words online and in print may soon find relief in a new typeface being developed by a Dutch designer. Unlike traditional typefaces, which reuse the same forms for multiple letters -- such as b and d, or p and q -- the Read Regular typeface makes each letter significantly unique so that dyslexics can more easily distinguish one character from another.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60834,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5
 
APPLE UNLEASHES PANTHER
The wait is over for the relatively small, but faithful legion of Mac users, as Apple delivers the next generation of its OS X software to shelves during the "Night of the Panther." Among some 150 new features being touted by Apple are a Finder for one-click access to a user's favorite files and folders, the Exposé interface for viewing desktop windows and iChat AV, which enables video conferencing.
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22556.html
 
TABLET PC OEMS CHAFE AT LOW SALES, COSTLY WINDOWS
Microsoft has garnered an impressive range of OEMs for its
Tablet PC initiative, but they're not a happy lot. From Day One relationships have been fraught: the Tablet PC launch day was the occasion for one of Carly Fiorina's finest hissy fits. After winning a seat at the right hand of Bill Gates, HP's CEO refused to brandish her own Tablet PC--holding up what looked like a leather-bound paper organizer instead.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/51/33566.html
 
STARING DOWN LINUX
On a warm September day at Manhattan's upscale St. Regis hotel, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates stepped onto a makeshift stage with IBM senior VP Steve Mills to demonstrate what Mills would describe as a "breakthrough" in software engineering. With the Windows operating system and Microsoft's SQL Server database running on one computer and a Linux operating system and IBM's DB2 database on another, the competitors showed how Web services could be used to conduct secure transactions across their disparate systems. It was the culmination of two years of joint effort--and ended with handshakes and smiles.
http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=15202136
 
TELECOM'S HOTTEST TECH, COOLEST GADGETS
A nifty advanced handset, a GPS-wireless service, a SIMple fix to secure Net payments, and more--all at Telecom World 2003.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2003/tc20031015_0334_tc130.htm
 
OPEN SOURCE EVERYWHERE
Software is just the beginning … open source is doing for mass innovation what the assembly line did for mass production. Get ready for the era when collaboration replaces the corporation.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/opensource.html
 
DELL CUTS THE WIRES ON NEW AXIM X3 PDA
Dell Inc. formally introduced three versions of the new Axim X3 personal digital assistant (PDA), including a model with an integrated 802.11b wireless chip that costs less than comparable Pocket PC devices. For $379, Dell will sell the Axim X3 with a 400MHz XScale processor from Intel Corp., 64M bytes of RAM, 64M bytes of ROM, and an 802.11b chip.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/10/15/HNdellaxim_1.html
 
 
INTERNET/WIRELESS RELATED
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THE INTERNET REBORN
These predicted PlanetLab innovations can't be incorporated into the existing Net; that would be too disruptive. Instead, the PlanetLab researchers, who hail from Princeton, MIT, the University of California, Berkeley, and more than 50 other institutions, are building their network on top of the Internet.
http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/31917.html
 
GOOGLE FURTHER 'DEFINES' SEARCH
Baffled by bling-bling? Perplexed by prairie-dogging? Confused by carcooning? Google can help. The search engine powerhouse has introduced a glossary feature to troll the Web for definitions. The Mountain View, Calif., company says its particularly well-suited for slang and newer terms such as "search engine," that are likely to appear online before they do in print.
http://boston.internet.com/news/article.php/3096291
 
SENATE VOTES TO IMPOSE TOUGH LIMITS ON UNWANTED COMMERCIAL E-MAILS
The Senate agreed to impose tough new limits on the irritating but lucrative business of e-mailing unwanted sales pitches to millions of people in the United States.  Internet users have complained about mailboxes clogged with offers for prescription drugs, cheap loans, herbal remedies and pornography. The Senate voted 97-0 to approve the "Can Spam" bill. The measure outlaws the shadiest techniques used by many of the Internet's most prolific e-mailers, who pump out millions of unsolicited messages daily. Despite the vote, senators cautioned computer users not to expect an immediate end to overflowing inboxes.
http://www.detnews.com/2003/technology/0310/23/technology-305141.htm
 
AMAZON OFFERS LOOK INSIDE BOOKS FOR FREE
Amazon.com may have earned a page in intellectual history Thursday when it made the text of 120,000 books, with more than 33 million pages, fully searchable at no charge by anyone with Internet access, a Web browser and a credit card. But while educators, librarians and customers praised Amazon's new feature, dubbed "Search Inside the Book," as an important step toward the age-old goal of a comprehensive knowledge archive, the largest Internet retailer insisted it's just a way to build business. "I'd like to make an impact on history, but it's meant to help people discover and buy books they might not know about otherwise," said Udi Manber, Amazon's chief algorithm officer and the feature's primary developer.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/mercurynews/business/7092377.htm
 
U.S., MICROSOFT FIGHT OVER ONLINE MUSIC
Nearly a year after Microsoft Corp. agreed to end its anticompetitive conduct, the government is raising concerns the world's largest software maker is trying to use its dominant Windows operating system to influence where customers buy their music online. Lawyers for the Justice Department and 19 state attorneys general have formally complained to a federal judge about a design feature of Windows that compels consumers who buy music online to use only Microsoft's Internet browser and steers them to a Web site operated by the company.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/7060791.htm
 
YAHOO LAUNCHES ANTI-SPAM E-MAIL DECOYS
Yahoo said it has seen a 40 percent jump in spam from January to August and now averages 700,000 spam reports a day. Some analysts estimate that spam totals one-third of all e-mail, costing corporations billions of dollars a year. Yahoo said its new AddressGuard feature would let users create a fictitious "base name" and then 500 variations on that name that they could give out when shopping, banking and joining communities online. If an address started to receive spam, the user could simply shut down the address and use another one.
http://news.excite.com/tech/article/id/281288%7Ctechnology%7C10-21-2003::00:04%7Creuters.html
 
A CONNECTION IN EVERY SPOT
If you spend enough time observing people near schools like MIT and Georgia Tech, you'll probably note a few solitary nerds roaming around campus, sniffing out wireless hotspots with their handheld PCs. Chances are that many of those loners are not Wi-Fi junkies on warchalking sorties, but students of "ubiquitous computing," a field that aims to free us from our gloomy, workaday PCs by weaving millions of tiny wireless nodes into private and public spaces. Engineers meeting at UbiComp 2003, a ubiquitous-computing conference in Seattle, believe that technology--rather than isolating people within virtual spaces--should be forming real-world connections amongst flesh-and-blood human beings.
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,60831,00.html
 
REPORT SLAMS WEB PERSONALIZATION
Companies trying to get personal with their Web site visitors in hopes of increasing sales are wasting more money than they're earning, warns a new report. The Jupiter Research report, "Beyond the Personalization Myth," assails as expensive and unproductive the practice of Web site personalization, which tailors pages according to information gathered about particular visitors. Instead of implementing personalization strategies, the report suggests, companies should concentrate on the basics, such as making their sites easy to search and navigate.
http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5090716.html
 
TRAFFIC OVERWHELMS NEW ONLINE SCIENCE JOURNAL
A new online science journal aimed at changing the paradigm of scholarly publishing has proved so popular it's been mired in a crush of traffic since its launch. The inaugural issue of the journal, called the Public Library of Science Biology, is the first journal to be published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), a San Francisco nonprofit that's backed by several highly regarded scientists who want to see scientific research freely distributed online.
http://news.com.com/2100-1032-5091337.html
 
AOL'S LOW-END PLAY
The Net giant is launching a cheaper, bare-bones service. With subscribers departing and ad rates taking a hit, it has no choice. America Online is taking the gloves off in the fight of its life. In addition to its $23.90-a-month premium service, early next year AOL will launch a $9.95-a-month, Netscape-branded service to compete toe-to-toe with dialup discounters such as NetZero and Juno.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2003/tc20031015_6201_tc020.htm
 
APPLE TEAMS WITH AOL FOR LEGAL MUSIC DOWNLOADS
Apple Computer is bringing legal music downloads to the masses. It said it would become the music download service for AOL, the No. 1 Internet service. As expected, it also said iTunes works now with Microsoft Window's-based PCs. Previously, only Mac users could use the service.
http://www.detnews.com/2003/technology/0310/17/technology-299983.htm
 
 
 
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[NOTE: The selections above are from the Academic ADL Co-Lab News Report, a limited-distribution, weekly executive summary of trends, strategies, and innovations influencing the future of learning and technology in higher education. It is prepared by the University of Wisconsin System Office of Learning and Information Technology (OLIT) in coordination with the Co-Lab. Collegebuys.org/schoolbuys.org is using these selections with permission. The selections from the weekly summaries were selected and edited by David Stuart of collegebuys.org/schoolbuys.org.]
 
[NOTE: This information is provided for information purposes only. Mention or discussion of a product, company, or person does not represent any official endorsement or criticism of the same. All authors and organizations retain complete copyright.]
 
[SOURCE MATERIAL: The reference as specific as possible is provided to a source for each summary. When using an online link, ensure the URL has not been broken with a carriage return.]
 
[ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Judy Brown is the Emerging Technology Analyst for the University of Wisconsin System, OLIT. Brown conducts research and consults for the 15-institution UW System. She is Director of the Academic ADL Co-Laboratory at The Pyle Center in Madison, WI. Until recently she coordinated the WTCS Hardware and Software Purchasing Consortium and other statewide technology initiatives for 16 technical college districts comprised of 47 campuses. Brown was named one of the Top 100 women in computing by McGraw Hill's Open Computing magazine (December 1994). She writes a business technology column for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and is the coordinator of eWEEK's Corporate Partner Program.]
 
[COMMENTS & CONTRIBUTIONS: If you want to offer material, or if you want to comment on the contents, contact Judy Brown at judy@academiccolab.org