By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Wikipedia - Hypocritical?
I think Sean FitzGerald has a point here. As Wikipedia has suffered more and more criticism (criticism with is, I might add, for the most part reactionary and baseless) it has felt itself pressured to be 'more authoritative'. But this has been in turn defined as 'based in traditional media' with increasing frequency. The most recent case - where a hugely popular video has been removed from the 'movie' listing because it has not been reviewed by nationally-known reviewers - is a case in point. The movie has been widely viewed and widely reviewed. But it's a web-only phenomenon - probably because it's not generating megabucks for some studio. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Blackboard Unveils Plagiarism Prevention Service
Blackboard has launched a plagiarism detection service. It compares submitted work to a database of 2.6 million papers along with articles submitted by institutions and 'voluntarily' by students. The company is also up to its old tricks - despite the longstanding (and controversial) existence of TurnItIn, Blackboard does not even blush when it claims that "SafeAssign is a unique plagiarism prevention service because student and/or faculty papers are included." It's hard not to see the irony in the copying of an anti-plagiarism service. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The Quest for Sustainability in Open Courseware
I want to be sympathetic, because the author is working with limited information (specifically, his Oxford background, Chris Anderson's book on the long tail, and a podcast on OpenCourseWare). So I'm supporting of his working through the ideas that might lead to something like sustainable open educational resources. But I fear a paradigm shift might be in order. He writes, "the professor is the academic authority who should drive the decision-making subject to the authorisation of the institution." We already know what happens if we allow the professors to drive the decision-making: nothing. That's why Open Access advocates like Peter Suber and Stevan Harnad argue for open access mandates. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Twitter Aladdin
Yes I created a Twitter account. Purely by coincidence. I needed the account to fill out by Ning Edubloggers profile. But don't expect much in the way of tweeting. I don't see Twitter as being even remotely convenient to use (it behaves like Ning and Facebook and Explode and all the rest - it tells me something has happened (a message, a follower, whatever) and then I have to go to the site to find out what it was... sigh). More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The $300 Linux-Powered iPhone Killer Arrives
They don't have a gazillion dollars to launch a mass media marketing campaign, so I'll note their launch here. "The first version of the NEO 1973 mobile phone, which carries the Linux kernel inside and is not locked to a specific network, is available for purchase... It's not as jaw-droppingly pretty as the iPhone, but it shares a design philosophy -- no buttons, just a screen -- and it's ready to be loaded with any number of open-source software applications". More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Training Blogs...All in One Place
Pageflakes has been around for a while but this Training Blogs page is relatively new. I aggregate something like 400 blogs, so I would say that Karl Kapp's use of the word "all" is a bit different from mine. But it does point to a weakness in the PageFlakes model of information display - when you array blogs for scanning, the upper limit is maybe 20 on a page (I'm sure a usability study could pin that down to 18.37 but you get the idea). Another problem is currency - I found myself clicking on a post from last April - because the scanning display doesn't disappear posts when they get old. I also don't like the constant pop-ups displaying feed text - you can't move your mouse at all without hitting a half dozen of them. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Intel, OLPC Come to an Accord
According to the Associated Press article, "Intel will join One Laptop Per Child's board and contribute money and technical expertise to the project." Intel's press release. Andy Carvin responds, "Hallelujah." Well maybe. But, "without a doubt, Intel would love to oust AMD as the processor supplier. After all, that is Intel's core business - not selling little computers." It's good to see companies like Intel and Microsoft and others finally get interested in the other two thirds of the world. But it's also hard not to see them as being a little crass. Like, what is this? "Intel and One Laptop Per Child might seek ways to package their computers together. For example, Intel's Classmate, which has to be plugged in, might be an option for governments to deploy in urban schools, while the XO laptops, which use very little power and can be mechanically recharged by hand, could go into rural districts." What about the wireless? The student centered design? The open source? Does Intel buy off all this, for a board seat and some cash? E-Commerce Times calls it a merger. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. MUD Creator Richard Bartle On the State of Virtual Worlds
I have always had - in the context of our online community - a unique perspective on things like Second Life because of my history working with Multi-User Dungeons (or Domains, MUDs). So I was especially pleased to encounter this excellent interview with the creator of the first MUD, Richard Bartle as he discusses, among other things, 3D virtual worlds like Second Life. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Miro
Released last night, Miro - formerly known as the Democracy Player - is now available. "The only video player you need. Free and open-source, because open media matters.... The app lets you subscribe to RSS channels, download in the background via BitTorrent, and view most video formats in full-screen resolution." Play video and HD, internet TV, download YouTube, and use BitTorrent. I'll be playing with it this evening. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. A Recipe for OpenID-Enabling Your Site
Kind of a surprising place to find a useful article on OpenID, but if Plaxo is ever going to redeem itself (I received far too many Plaxo 'information requests' over the years) this is it. Of course, the stumbling block for many will be "Step 0: Install an OpenID consumer library". The site recommends the JanRain libraries; I can't speak for the other languages, but the JanRain Perl version involves a lot of grief. More...