Creative Destruction and Disruptive Innovation
I'm still at AACE in Phoenix. Web access has been a bit spotty, especially in my hotel room. So the newsletter may be disrupted a bit. More...

HarperCollins Exec: Format War Hurts E-books
There is discontent in the world of ebooks and the pattern is familiar to those of us working in other areas. As summarized in Slashdot, TeleRead's David Rothman is calling for [here and here] the replacement of the Open eBook Forum by "an honest trade association" and a related standards body to create an open standards ebook format at the consumer-level. More...

Three Legal Setbacks for Media Industry
More coverage of the setbacks faced by the music industry last weekend. The three judgements combined created what the author called a 'perfect storm' of setbacks for publishers. More...

Saba Licenses Suite of Patents From IpLearn
IpLear, readers may recall, is a two person outfit with no products and some patent lawyers. This press release sees Saba cave early to the arm-twisting. For Saba, no doubt, the fee was cheaper than the fight, and in any case, accepting the patents shifts the burden to other companies. More...

Don't Bother Me With Objects! I've Got a Course to Teach!
Scott Leslie calls this the best learning object presentation of the last 18 months, but having seen Willie Horton present once or twice in the past, I am not really surprised. Too bad this presentation is in PDF (the one way worse than PowerPoint for presenting slides). More...

Happy Festivus, Everyone
For some reason the news seems to get slower around this time of year. I guess it's just the Festivus season, or any of the other half dozen or so holidays centered around the last week of the year (though I wonder whatever happened to Saturnalia - it just seems a natural for today's age). Anyhow, because it's so slow, I'll send a newsletter only if there's news, which means you may get one tomorrow, you may get one Friday, or you may not. More...

RIAA: Shot Through the Heart?
The music industry had a bad weekend, but for the rest of us it was good news for a change, as a court in the United States ruled that internet service providers (ISPs) do not have to reveal the names of alleged file sharers, a court in Holland ruled that Kazaa is legal, and Jon Johansen, accused of illegally cracking DVD encryption, was once again acquitted. More...

The Lesson Colleges Need to Learn
Those of us steeped in learning object theory and design will find this column (and the associated chat transcript a bit odd, as the author calls on major universities to videotape lectures and make them available for sharing. But the article is worth a read if only to demonstrate the state of mind of those on the outside who are not steeped in the new technology. More...