The Semantic Web, Today
Via elearningpost comes this short article describing the semantic web. The author should probably have taken a little time to draw out the concepts, but this is an excellent introduction. More...

Another Whack at Spam
That tired old proposal, to combat spam by charging an email tax, has surfaced again, this time thanks to Tim Bray. This is such a bad solution I cannot criticize it enough. More...

Click from Microsoft to Amazon
OK, leaving aside the implications this has with respect to large, overbearing software companies, open distribution systems, online commerce, and the like, let's focus on the strategy behind the deal which allows Microsoft to offer users of its software products access to Amazon's complete library through a feature in Office. More...

Seventh-Graders Learn to Build Robots With Legos
This is the sort of hands-on activity that will over time come to typify online learning (why do people think online learning is merely reading a computer screen?). Lego supports this sort of activity with its Mindstorms program, and modding has become a major driver for Lego. More...

Analysis of the MediaMax CD3 Copy-Prevention System
This report explains how to disable a copy-prevention method applied to an album released by BMG by simply pressing the shift key. DRM Watch gets the analysis right: "this is a superb example of what DRM Watch believes is inherently wrong with the anticircumvention provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Act allows technology that patently (pun intended) doesn't work - and SunnComm's MediaMax is hardly the only example - to be protected by the threat of criminal prosecution. Halderman's work is probably not criminally liable, because DMCA 1201 carves out circumvention for research purposes, but an ordinary consumer pressing Shift while inserting a CD into a drive may be breaking U.S. federal law. This is simply absurd. The law allows any technology marketed and sold as 'copy protection' to be shielded in this way." Now my own position, of course, is that unbreakable copy protection is overkill. More...

Matrix of Some Uses of Blogs in Education
This is a pretty nice start - be sure to click on the link in this post to the diagram - of a documentation effort to track the uses of blogs in education. Send your comments and suggestions to Scott. More...

NMC Online Conference on Learning Objects
I've signed up for the NMC Online Conference on Learning Objects (even though it costs money) partially because it's interesting to me but mostly because part of it trakes places across the hall from my office. OK, I'm kidding. More...