BBC reports that T-Mobile to open up iPhone sales.
T-Mobile is to start allowing German customers to buy Apple’s iPhone without a contract to its network, as it moves to comply with a court injunction.
However this is in Germany only and the iPhone will be twice as expensive as the contract version.
Legislation in the UK allows for locked phones, but you could import iPhones from Germany and then avoid the two year contract making it available for testing and usability.
The BBC is reporting that nine out of ten internet connections are broadband connections.
Almost nine out of 10 UK net users are connecting via broadband services, official figures reveal.
Information gathered by National Statistics (ONS) for September show that 88.4% of Britons are choosing to use broadband rather than dial-up.
This means that delivering e-learning content does not need to rely on the assumption that learners are on dial-up.
With broadband often cheaper than dial-up now, if learners wish to access e-learning from home rather than in college (or in their local library) then more than likely they will be choosing broadband.
Big news yesterday was the launch of Amazon’s digital book reader.
BBC reports that:
Online retailer Amazon has unveiled an own-brand wireless electronic book reader called Kindle.
The paperback-sized device is on sale immediately in the US for $399 (£195). It can store up to 200 books in its onboard memory.
Kindle does not need a PC to be loaded with books, blogs or papers – instead content arrives via wireless.
Amazon said 90,000 books, including bestsellers priced at $9.99, were available for Kindle at launch.
I wonder if you could load such a device with institutional learning content?
BBC reports how YouTube is trying to stop online or cyber bullying.
The first online anti-bullying channel has been launched to encourage young people to denounce the intimidation.
YouTube has set up a site where youngsters can post their own videos and messages.
It follows growing concern about the increase in persecution by e-mail, mobile phone and on social networking sites, known as cyberbullying.
James is currently off work, recovering from a leg operation.
As a result, there will be few if any updates to the blog. Check back in a few weeks.
The BBC News website is ten years old.
Happy Birthday.
I have been using the site for that long now, so it’s nice to see that not only is it still around and still very popular, more importantly, all the stories I was reading and using for learning back in the late 1990s are still available as well. For example this story about Sainsburys from 1999 is still online and the links still work!
Too often on the web sites will rebrand or rename and all their old links die or change or become redundant. At least with the BBC News it is possible to link stories from nearly ten years ago.
Becta have been complaining to the Office of Fair Trading about Microsoft.
The BBC reports that:
The UK computer agency Becta is advising schools not to sign licensing agreements with Microsoft because of alleged anti-competitive practices. The government agency has complained to the Office of Fair Trading.
Becta is advising schools not to move to Microsoft’s subscription licensing model. They are also advising schools to look at open source solutions as well.
There was an interesting article in yesterday’s (Tuesday’s) Guardian about how un-e-enabled a lot of FE colleges are in the UK.
While not unimpressed with these statistics, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) puts a different slant on the overall state of ICT in FE. By its reckoning, barely a quarter of colleges are “e-enabled”, to use the quango’s unlovely jargon. A further quarter, by contrast, are either not convinced about the need to sharpen up their ICT or are late-comers to it.
So where would you put your college?
Are you working in an e-enabled college?
This blog is not really new, I did blog about e-learning when I worked at the WCC, but I have reached a milestone with this blog, my 200th post (this one). The blog has also had over 4000 visits. Thanks for visiting and here’s to the next two hundred posts.
The BBC have come to a deal with The Cloud wifi service to offer BBC Online free at The Cloud’s thousands of wifi hotspots.
This means that if you are at a wireless hotspot you don’t need to pay anything to access the BBC News website for example. You can also download TV programmes (via iPlayer) as well.
I do wonder if there is potential in this kind of relationship between educational institutions and wifi hotspot providers. Could we see college websites and vles available for free at local wifi hotspots. Something I am certainly thinking about.