Technologie

Extending RSS
Another article on extending RSS beyond a simple descriptions of links on blogs. This article is a bit technical, but it shows in detail how the simple syndication standard can be used to distribute all kinds of information. For example, suggests the article, a company could use RSS to list its product offerings by defining two new RSS terms, 'product' and 'version'. More...

Redefining the Role of Computers in Education, The Vendors' Curricula
The interesting bit in this story it the little chart in the middle matching specific vendor websites to subjects. The idea, writes the author, is that vendors are finally matching online learning content to curricula. More...

Cocoon
Following up from some of the work I'm doing in Edmonton this week: readers may be interested in this Apache project called "Cocoon." The purpose of Cocoon is to provide XML data handling capacities. Based on a "pipeline" model, it takes web content expressed in XML and provides output in a variety of formats, including HTML, PDF and RTF. More...

MPAA Spurns Digital Copyright Plans
Technology vendor groups and the recording industry have reached an agreement in the United States. The recording industry as agreed that it will not lobby for legislation requiring that digital rights be enforced in all new technology. More...

Beyond the Blackboard
Keeping things traditional and in-class, today's whiteboard is depicted in this article as an alternative not to the blackboard, but to the laptop. More...

Winter Mist
So it has been a pretty slow news week, and today's newsletter reflects that, which some off topic but interesting items. Begin your vacation browse with this collection of photos, taken at my home in Moncton, where the weather and the melting snow produced an unusual winder fog on Christmas Day. More...

Real Networks Announces Helix DRM

This was announced as being in the works when Real Media released Helix and now is available: digital rights management (DRM) for multiple media formats. More...

Retinal-scans to Remove Social Stigma From English School

There's nothing like announcing, "I'm poor!" every time you line up for lunch in the school cafeteria. More...

Where oh Where is Plug & Play?
"A layman reading the sales literature from major suppliers of e-learning courseware, authoring tools, and LMS systems might be excused for assuming the industry already has arrived at plug-and-play... That layman, however, would be wrong." Yup, that's about the size of it. So what has gone wrong? Here's my take. More...

SURA Optical Networking Cookbook
From the website: "The SURA Optical Networking Cookbook is a practical resource that details the ingredients required for optical networking and offers "recipes" in the form of case studies that illustrate a variety of optical networking implementations. More...