news

Ripping CDs may be made legal

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Here in the UK it is (still) illegal to rip a CD to your computer (so when using iTunes or Windows Media Player you are technically breaking the law if you import a CD).

Ripping CDs may be made legal

However the BBC reports that this may soon change…

Copying music from a CD to a home computer could be made legal under new proposals from the UK government.

Millions of people already “rip” discs to their computers and move the files to MP3 players, although the process is technically against copyright law.

This is of course of those things that we do on a regular basis, but is in fact still illegal, I would suspect most people don’t even realise it is illegal.

stuff

Blu-ray “wins” the HD format war

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Well if you read the BBC technology blog you will see that they are seeing the end of the HD (High Definition) format war and Blu-ray has won!

The HD DVD camp turned a crisis into a disaster when it cancelled its scheduled press conference at the show and then – perhaps unsurprisingly – cancelled all media interviews at the show. It’s left observers with the impression that the HD DVD group is in disarray and on the verge of collapse.

Where as Blu-ray

Blu-ray, on the other hand, is only to eager to parade spokespeople talking up its own format.

The BBC blog seems to indicate that the reason for the victory was the Sony PS3.

Blu-ray “wins” the HD format war

The PS3 comes with a Blu-ray player as standard unlike the xBox whose HD DVD drive was an additional extra and it was getting that Blu-ray player into people’s homes via the PS3 which has allowed Blu-ray to if not win the war certainly make that last march to victory.

I suspect if Apple release new Macs at MacWorld Expo with Blu-ray drives then this will be the final blow to HD DVD and Blu-ray will be declared the victor of the HD format war.

Then us consumers (and therefore our learners) can go out and buy the Blu-ray player knowing we are not buying the HD Betamax or MiniDisc.

It might be worthwhile looking at your institution, what is its plans for HD? Think about your institutional policy in relation to VHS video tapes and DVDs.

HD does allow for amazingly high quality video and also makes it much easier to watch video on a computer down to the fact that (LCD) computer monitors are generally a much higher resolution than your standard television or DVD resolution.

Photo source.

mobile, news

“Mobile devices will deliver a more personal internet” says Intel

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The BBC reports from CES that Intel see mobile devices as core to the future use of the internet.

Mobile devices will deliver a more personal internet within five years, using chips with the power of today’s desktop PCs, Intel’s head has said.

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show, Paul Otellini predicted mobile devices could soon “augment reality” by pulling data from the net in real time.

He said the industry was on the verge of creating a “new level of capability and usefulness to the internet”

google, news

An open source rival to Google?

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Today sees the launch of Wikia Search.

An open source rival to Google?

Wikia is a new search engine and unlike the closed Google system, the results are “created” by a community of users.

Wikia’s search engine concept is that of trusted user feedback from a community of users acting together in an open, transparent, public way. Of course, before we start, we have no user feedback data. So the results are pretty bad. But we expect them to improve rapidly in coming weeks, so please bookmark the site and return often.

As Wikia comes from Jimmy Wales (one of the names behind Wikipedia) you will have an understanding of the philosophy behind this new search engine.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

learning technologies, stuff

I just want to do my stuff…

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So there I was looking at my new Samsung Q1 Ultra and seeing how the graphics were working, working on a document and looking at a few things online, when I got called away. Knew I was only going to be a few minutes to just placed the Q1 on the desk and left.

I just want to do my stuff…

I came back to find that Windows Vista had decided (in my absence) to update Windows, restart, lose my wireless connection and then admit that it had lost the document I was working on and would I like to create a new one!

I do find this very frustrating, if I wanted the Q1 to run itself I would leave it switched on and never use it, however I want to use the Q1 to do stuff, create stuff, read stuff, reflect on stuff. I don’t want the Q1 to try and be nice and update itself in the middle of me doing stuff. I want to retain my wireless connection so I don’t lose my blog entry, or lose the thread of the online discussion I am involved in.

I don’t want software to continually nag me that I haven’t either set it up or registered it, or run it for a while, and I don’t want the software to do it in the middle of me doing stuff.

I don’t want the Q1 to download huge updates whilst I am trying to do stuff online, downloading will slow my internet connection, download updates while I am doing other non-online stuff such as making a cup of tea.

Please just let me do my stuff, don’t do your stuff and pretend mine isn’t important!

I just want to do my stuff…

news

Doesn’t surprise me…

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What with HMRC losing personal data, along with others, it doesn’t surprise me that next to be looked at is education.

Doesn’t surprise me…

The BBC is reporting how an IT firm believes that:

Sensitive information on school pupils is being put at risk by staff who take it home with them.

How often are teaching staff in your institution given proper training on how to deal with sensitive data?

This is an issue which doesn’t just affect schools, colleges and universities also have data protection policies, though a policy is only a statement, practice is another matter entirely.

If you take a computer from work home, you have to ask yourself is the data secure?

conference, e-book, jisc

Innovating e-Learning Conference e-Books

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One of the problems with being off work for a while is you do miss a few things, so catching up on the JISC website I was pleased to see that the e-Books from the 2007 Innovating e-Learning Conference had been published online.

‘Institutional transformation’ and ‘supporting lifelong learning’ were the themes of the JISC online conference held earlier this year and two conference e-books have been published today to reflect both of these themes.

You can download the books from this page (scroll down).

You can read the outcomes of the joint presentation I delivered and the discussion  that followed on Personal technologies and the future of learning in chapter five of book one.

Innovating e-Learning Conference e-Books

The books make for interesting reading if you missed (or even just missed parts of) the conference and are a useful reminder of what was discussed for those that took part.

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