500 million Firefox downloads

Firefox the alternative browser of choice has reached the 500 million downloads milestone.500 million Firefox downloads

Firefox just reached 500,000,000 downloads. This is an absolutely phenomenal milestone for Firefox. It is sort of hard to imagine what that number means. For some perspective, that’s roughly the audience size of 10,000 Rome Colosseums combined. It would be the weight, in kilograms, of 8,500 Boeing 747 airplanes. In dollars, for $500 million you and 15 of your friends can fly to the International Space Station.

Read more.

Firefox is my browser of choice on the Windows platform and I use it all the time on my Mac alongside Safari.

Download Firefox.

Facebook on decline

The BBC reports on how the number of Facebook users in the UK declined by 5% in January.

Social networking site Facebook has seen its first drop in UK users in January, new industry data indicates.

Users fell 5% to 8.5 million in January from 8.9 million in December, according to data from Nielsen Online.

To be honest this doesn’t surprise me, my use of Facebook has declined. I use Facebookin order to engage with other e-learning colleagues and friends. There are various groups to which I belong and like to discuss work related issues with people I have met at conferences, events or have known for some time.

However the explosion of zombies, vampires, pointless quizzes, doughnuts, etc… has really put me off the whole Facebook experience. I guess some people find that aspect fun and enjoy and fair play to them, but in terms of social networking and engaging with others it I don’t want that. I have fun elsewhere.

Having said that 8.5 million users is a huge user base. So I won’t delete my account (partly because that can be difficult if nigh on impossible) and will pop in now and again.

Facebook on decline

For the moment I will stick to Jaiku and Twitter.

Order your Starbucks by iPhone

Imagine going to Starbucks having already ordered your drink from your iPhone?

Order your Starbucks by iPhone

Engadget reports on an application for the iPhone which allows you to place an order for a drink so it’s ready when you get there.

Quickorder, as you can probably imagine, would enable iPod touch users to swing by their local Starbucks, order up their favorite drink and avoid a good deal of that always questionable human interaction.

Just demonstrates how useful/useless an application for a mobile device can be.

If you can order coffee, there must be ways in which you can use similar technologies for learning.

The £99 UMPC

The £99 UMPC

Elonex who I remember as a manufacturer of high end laptops according to the Times will be releasing a £99 umpc laptop at the Education Show later this month.

…it includes a free word processor and spreadsheet, a free web browser and free e-mail software. It has a 7in screen, a rubbery little keyboard and no CD drive. And it all runs on an ageing chip that was designed before its target audience of seven-year-olds were even born.

Read more at the Times. Elonex’s website. The news has even reached Engadget.

Personalised Learning – a challenge

The US National Academy of Engineering asked eighteen influential thinkers what they thought were the great technological challenges facing humanity in the 21st century.Personalised Learning - a challenge

Now while the press like the BBC have focussed on the nanobots and artificial intelligence papers, the one that (obviously) interested me was the challenge of personalised learning.

Some learners are highly self-motivated and self-driven, learning best by exploring a realm of knowledge on their own or at least with very little guidance. Other learners prefer some coaching and a more structured approach; they are typically self-motivated when the subject matter appeals to their interests. Still another type is more often motivated by external rewards and may learn best with step-by-step instruction. Some may resist learning altogether and have little motivation or interest in achieving goals established by others.

These general categorizations provide a base for developing personalized instruction, but truly personalized learning could be even more subtly individualized. Within the basic types of learners, some prefer to learn by example, others by finding answers to questions, and others by solving problems on their own. Under different conditions, people might even switch their preferences, preferring examples in some contexts but questions in others.

Read the full article.

Apple iPhone’s Ease of Use Encouraging Mobile Internet Usage

Apple iPhone's Ease of Use Encouraging Mobile Internet Usage

Macrumors reports on how the fact that it is so much easier to use the internet on the iPhone that this is encouraging more people to access the internet on their iPhone.

Indeed, it appears that iPhone owners are using the internet many times more than their non-iPhone counterparts. Google revealed that there are 50 times more searches originating from the iPhone than any other mobile handset. The discrepancy was so great that Google initially thought it was a mistake. This finding has also been reported by O2 who found that 60% of U.K. iPhone users are sending or receiving more than 25 MB of data a month.

Read more.

You’re going to charge how much?

For the MoLeNET Podcasting event I decided it might be useful to have a 2GB Micro SD card for my personal LG Viewty mobile phone.You're going to charge how much

Now I know I can buy one for about £4 from Amazon but I wanted a card for the event and didn’t have the time to wait for Amazon to deliver, so popped to Cribbs Causeway near Bristol on the way home from work to get one.

Now I know that there was no way I was going to get one for £4 off the high street retailers, so I was willing to pay up to about £12 for one, thinking I am getting ripped off, but at least I will have the card in time.

Now what I couldn’t believe was how much some high street retailers can get away with charging.

O2 was the “cheapest” place at £19, but generally most of the other mobile phone stores were charging £30 and one store, Zavvi had the nerve to be charging £40!

£40!

How much!

Guess who went without and is now going to go to Amazon.

news and views on e-learning, TEL and learning stuff in general…