Amusing video on how to avoid plagiarism.
Apple announce new 3G iPhone
Apple announced iPhone 3G yesterday in a keynote by Steve Jobs at the WWDC in San Francisco. It will be available in the UK on the 11th July.
New features include:
- 3G-capable. 2.8 times faster than EDGE.
- GPS built-in
- Thinner
- Better battery life – 300 hours of standby, 2G talk-time 10 hours (as opposed to 5), 5 hours of 3G talk-time (competition is 3 hour 3G talk time), 5 to 6 hours of high-speed browsing, 7 hours of video, 24 hours of audio.
- Flush headphone jack
Other new features are:
- contact searching
- complete iWork document support
- complete Office document support (now includes PowerPoint)
- bulk delete and move for Mail
- save images you receive
- scientific calculator in landscape mode
- parental controls
- language
I wonder if the Keynote (iWork) and PowerPoint support also allows you to show the presentation via an AV cable in the same way you can do at the moment with video and images.
It will be interesting to see also if iWork (or even Office) support includes editing and creating support, or is it just going to be reading, I suspect the latter.
Of course there are also all the features announced when the iPhone SDK was released earlier this year which include:
- Exchange and ActivSync support
- Applications
- VPN
I do like the fact that an educational institution can put apps on the iPhone (or the iPod touch) without needing to go through the Apple checking process and the iTunes App store.
Downside is that you now need to activate the phone in store, so now unlocking just became a lot more expensive as you will have to buy into a phone plan as well as the phone.
Really, you can use a typewriter to blog….
Earlier I posted a blog entry on how people are still using typewriters.
At the end of the entry I wrote.
It’s difficult to blog with a typewriter mind you!
It’s difficult, but not impossible.
Monda wrote to my blog about her blog on typewriters and yes you guessed it she does type some of her blog entries on a typewriter.
So the age of the typewriter is not yet dead.
Virtual Windows
If you want to run Windows on your Mac, you have had up until now four main choices, Boot Camp, Parallels, VMware and Crossover.
Now there is a fifth (free) choice, Virtualbox from Sun.
VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See “About VirtualBox” for an introduction.
Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.
I have downloaded it, but not yet installed it or tried to run Windows on it. Certainly looks like it could be useful for a whole range of virtualization solutions.
A lot of people say I can’t buy a Mac as I need to run Windows, well it’s never been easier to run Windows on a Mac these days, and with virtualization you can run both OS X and Windows XP (and Ubuntu. Vista, even Windows 3.1!) on a single computer.
Learning from digital natives: Integrating formal and informal learning
The HE Academy have published an interesting report into research into integrating formal and informal learning.
Formal and informal learning have been viewed as competing paradigms. However, students are increasingly adopting the tools and strategies for informal learning within formalised educational settings.
Potential affordances of this integration have been largely unexplored and there is little evidence base to draw upon. This project will address this issue by providing an educational rationale for integrating formal and informal learning supported by electronic tools.
iPod nano on the big screen
Now and again I will watch video on my iPod, but the iPod nano screen is rather on the small side for me, so prefer using other things for video (such as my Mac or my Archos device).
However I have been experimenting with an AV cable for the iPod nano and it works well on my TV. Battery life is ample for a whole movie.
Only downside is pausing or rewinding the movie is a little more complicated than using the remote.
You can also connect the iPod nano to a projector, if the projector has a video input.
Though you can only show videos and images in this way.
Buzzword
So I decided to create a quick video on how to use Buzzword, this time it worked.
Check out Buzzword.
Adobe Buzzword, well trying to use Buzzword
So I decided to create a quick video on how to use Buzzword… well not everthing went to plan!
I am guessing it is proving popular (as American wakes up) and it is causing a little strain on their servers.
Adobe launches Acrobat.com
Though I mentioned Adobe’s ConnectNow earlier today, it is just one part of a larger community release based at Acrobat.com.
The BBC reports:
Adobe has made a move into online document sharing with the launch of the Acrobat.com community site.
It allows people to create, store and share documents online, and hold web conferences to discuss changes.
Whilst there is a nice review of all the services on the ReadWriteWeb blog:
Acrobat.com is the new entry point to Adobe’s suite of online services. Available now as a public beta, from here you can utilize the Adobe web office tools all from one cohesive and integrated suite that allows for anywhere access and online collaboration. At Acrobat.com, you have access to the following web office tools: Buzzword, ConnectNow, Share, My Files, and Create PDF.
This is another version of the online document collaboration services which have been springing up around the web.
Great for learners who want to work on documents at home, in college and/or at work.
Great for learners who want to work in groups of a group assignment.
Great for anyone who doesn’t own a computer, and wants to write stuff.
Microsoft to move into social bookmarking
According to Mashable, Microsoft will be moving into social bookmarking.
According to Microsoft Evangalist John Martin, the company is set to release a product called “Social Bookmarks” this week. The product sounds a whole lot like del.icio.us, and will initially be deployed on MSDN and TechNet, so look for it to be mostly hardcore techie bookmarks for now. Features include bookmarking (presumably via a bookmarklet), tagging, and a web-based account where your bookmarks are stored.
Social bookmarking as seen on sites such as Del.icio.us, Digg and Stumbleupon allow users to collect (or bookmark) their favourite sites online and share those bookmarks with their friends and others.