By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Paper Battery Offers Future Power
You have to admit, this is pretty cool. "Flexible paper batteries could meet the energy demands of the next generation of gadgets, says a team of researchers. They have produced a sample slightly larger than a postage stamp that can store enough energy to illuminate a small light bulb". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Research and Guidelines On Online Social - and Educational - Networking
I've been working all day on code, trying to speed up some functions (my website has been staggering under the load recently) and also to implement OpenID (which crashed my server this afternoon - it's frustrating to work with very badly documented pre-alpha modules). So I'm a bit hesitant to put too much into today's newsletter. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. New Establishment Rising? The End Of the Flat Blogosphere
I personally don't think we've ever had a 'flat blogosphere' - from the beginning, there were A-list bloggers, and though they may have more readers - and make more money - today, the nature and the number of them hasn't really changed. Still, this article tries to make the opposite case, that "the 'short head' of the progressive, political blogosphere has undergone a transformation from a loose collection of small, independent, solo projects into a sophisticated media and activist structure driving the national political scene," a trend that, presumably, generalizes. A pretty good case, documenting things like group blogs, institutional blogging, professional blogging, and blogging communities. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Hey Web 2 Teacher -- Do You Want $100,000?
I'm not so ken to mention competitions, but this one - for obvious reasons - caught my eye. The MacArthur Foundation is providing the grants. "Awards will be made in two categories, Innovation Awards and Knowledge-Networking Awards. Innovation Awards ($100,000 and $250,000) will support learning pioneers, entrepreneurs, and builders of new digital learning environments for formal and informal learning. Knowledge-Networking Awards ($30,000-75,000) will support communicators in connecting, mobilizing, circulating or translating new ideas around digital media and learning". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Curverider Secures Investment
Congratulations to Dave Tosh, Ben Werdmuller, and the rest at Curverider as the company behind Elgg has secured "investment from a group of Business Angels that will provide it with the financial ability to substantially develop its business and further invest in the development of its open source social framework, Elgg". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Proposal to Cut Costs and Increase Efficiency in Online Programs
The suggestions (such as "partner with textbook companies to develop custom texts / workbooks, with a guaranteed edition life of 3 years") aren't really my cup of tea ("more radical" suggestions are promised in future installments) but I think people will find this to be sound and practical advice. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Four Slide Sales Pitch: Final Entries
Dan Meyer ran a fun contest on his blog, inviting people "to see how well you can sell yourself in four (4) picture-only slides. No audio, no video, no hyperlinks, no multimedia miscellany. Just pictures and text." And good for Neil Winton for retracting his first place entry after judges praised the composition of his slides - which turned out to be Apple Keynote slide templates. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Google Selleth Then Taketh Away, Proving the Need for DRM Circumvention
One thing Google's commerical video service had was DRM, meaning essentially that your computer would call (Google) home every time you watched one of the videos you purchased. This week, Google shut down the service, leaving the people who (thought they) had bought videos high and dry. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. 10 Top Tips for Unplanning the Perfect Unconference
I put Ewan McIntosh's name in my slides today but never inserted the link. This is the link, from his post today on how to plan unconfereces. Also worth reading is Dave Winer on unconferences in 2004 and a video to show unconference participants. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Thread of Real-World Critique
I thought this was a great example that combined communication and community, learning, the open market, and collective wisdom - all centered around the design, production and sale of t-shirts. Do take a look - in my view, some of these designs are amazing. Christian Long writes, "Wanna know why it matters that our kids/students 'test' their best ideas on the open market? Because they get legitimate feedback and not a single cute 'atta-boy' pat on the head. It's not about the grade". More...