By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Towards a Trusted Framework for Identity and Data Sharing
Irving Wladawsky-Berger, 2016/11/14

Good article discussing the emerging distributed framework (a la resource profiles, now known as trusted data ecosystems) for digital identity. Two specific technologies are discussed: a blockchain enabled system called Enigma, and a lighter weight framework called OPAL. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Linked Research
Sarven Capadisli, 2016/11/14

Linked Research "is set out to socially and technically enable researchers to take full control, ownership, and responsibility of their knowledge, and have their contributions accessible to society at maximum capacity." The idea is to have open calls for publication and open reviews. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why do we test school kids anyway?
Finn Poschmann, Atlantic Provinces Economic Council (APEC), 2016/11/14

The Atlantic Provinces Economic Council (APEC) is an "independent think tank" that offers business-friendly advice to governments and lobbyists. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Meet the new IFTTT
IFTTT, 2016/11/14

IFTTT - which stands for "If This Then That" - has long enabled people to partner their services with each other. For example, when I post a new photo on Flickr, I use it to repost it to my art blog and send a notification to Twitter. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. You’ll Know the Drones Are Coming When…
Tony Hirst, OUseful Info, 2016/11/15

So, if a delivery bot using the sidewalk crosses the street at a crosswalk, does the driver have to give way and stop? This is the very relevant question asked by Tony Hirst as new technologies are forcing us to thing of devices as ethical objects. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Colossal
Colossal, 2016/11/15

Via Quartz I came across this excellent website devoted to what is best described as folk art. But what art. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Auckland Startup Launches Revolutionary eLearning Platform
Modlettes, 2016/11/15

I think the Modlettes product looks really interesting but it's quite expensive to get started (for me, at least) and the two-week trial doesn't really give me the capacity to try it out with a larger audience. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. YouTube has (apparently) reinstated RSS feeds
Brian Schrader, BiteofanApple, 2016/11/15

Brian Schrader writes, and I echo every word: "Well if there's something I wasn't expecting to find tonight, it was that apparently YouTube has decided to allow users to follow channels via RSS again, and unlike the last few years, this time it actually looks to be officially supported." More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Aaron Perzanowski: The End of Ownership
David Weinberger, Joho the Blog, 2016/11/15

Summary of a talk on the new state of 'ownership' in the digital age. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. On metadata
Daniel Lemire, 2016/11/15

Daniel Lemire is exactly right in this article, and we forget it at our peril: "Most metadata is unreliable. Maintaining high-quality data is simply hard work. And even when people have good intentions, it takes more mental acuity than you might think." And the system is not set up for it. More...