Go Daddy reverses its feelings on SOPA

The Internet Wins: Go Daddy Flip-Flops On SOPA

Here is the full text of Go Daddy's press release:

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (Dec. 23, 2011) - Go Daddy is no longer supporting SOPA, the "Stop Online Piracy Act" currently working its way through U.S. Congress.



"Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better," Warren Adelman, Go Daddy's newly appointed CEO, said. "It's very important that all Internet stakeholders work together on this. Getting it right is worth the wait. Go Daddy will support it when and if the Internet community supports it."



Automatic power on your pc

Free Technology for Teachers: Tekzilla Counts Down Their Top Ten of 2011

As I've mentioned a bunch of times in the past, Tekzilla Daily is one of my favorite web shows. Everyday they have a helpful little tip. For the next two weeks they're counting down their most popular tips of the year. The first tip in the list is about Smart Power. Smart Power is a free Windows program that helps you manage your computer's power use. Learn more in the video below.

Chronicles of Narnia FREE as iPod download

http://ancientfaith.com/podcasts/series/the_chronicles_of_narnia

Wow.

Awesome web 2.0 Rubrics

Great web 2.0 teacher rubrics on evaluating blogs, wikis and websites.

http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/rubrics.cfm

Most Adults own a Smartphone

Most Adults Under 35 Own a Smartphone

The growth of smartphone adoption and associated mobile technologies has been staggering. As of the end of 2011, the majority of U.S. adults under the age of 35 now own a smartphone. Sixty-two percent of them have downloaded apps (mostly games), and mobile Web usage among these consumers has grown 45% since last year.

These are just a few of the stats in Nielsen's latest report on the state of mobile media and consumer behavior. Much of the data won't shock anyone. Teens text more than the rest of us, everyone is glued to Facebook, Android is the top smartphone OS and Apple is the top manufacturer.

nielsen-smartphone-adoption-android.jpg

Video is huge among smartphone owners, who watched about 35% more video content on their devices than they did last year. From the looks of Nielsen's list of top apps, most of that video is coming from YouTube.

MS has its own website dedicated to IE6's Death

VISIT: Internet Explorer 6 Countdown | Death to IE 6 | IE6 Countdown

"10 years ago abrowser was born.

Its name was Internet Explorer 6. Now that we’re in 2011, in an era of modern web
standards, it’s time to say goodbye.

This website is dedicated to watching Internet Explorer 6 usage drop to less
than 1% worldwide, so more websites can choose to drop support for
Internet Explorer 6, saving hours of work for web developers."

Roller Bot

The bot is still under development, but in its current form it's brought to life with 25 servos that let it walk, dance, and do everything but roll around when it's closed up into a sphere. That feature is hopefully coming soon, but even if this ever became a DIY kit, the custom electronics and components used means it wouldn't be cheap. So it will probably be marketed towards Galactic Empires looking to secure trade routes and quash rebellions, instead of kids too lazy to run down the street. [Zenta via Robot Dreams via The Verge]

Youtube/Schools - No related ads

This too shall pass - Creative Timing

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from tirolwild on Vimeo.

Check the rule of thirds

WE ARE FORGE - 2012 REEL from Forge Motion Pictures on Vimeo.

Elements of Design

The Fundamental Elements of Design from Erica Gorochow on Vimeo.

CSS PIE among others

Top Web Developer Tools of 2011

While browser-based operating systems haven't taken over the world, 2011 has been a pretty good year for Web developers. It's an exciting time to be working in Web development, and there's never been a better crop of tools to work with. Web standards are eclipsing proprietary toolkits, and the development community is creating its own set of open source tools to work with. Here's a look at some of the best we've seen in 2011.

Pointillism: 3M dots 210hrs

Hero from Miguel Endara on Vimeo.

Ballbot

Massive Online Collaboration

Do we need Code? Create an app in 3 minutes

Creative Acapella: 12 Days of Christmas

Straight No Chaser

Quadcopter Robotic Formations

400 Free University Courses

400 Free Online Courses from Top Universities | Open Culture

Get free online courses from the world’s leading universities. This collection includes over 250 free courses in the liberal arts and sciences. Download these audio & video courses straight to your computer or mp3 player.

The best of the Web2011

Top 10 Consumer Web Products of 2011

Our annual Best Of series continues with the top 10 Web products that revolutionized old services and created new ones this year. Yesterday, Richard MacManus rounded up the top 10 social Web products, featuring services that focus on social networking and community building. This round-up is about the Web products that changed the things we do online.

The categories vary here from browsers to cloud drives to mobile apps and more. But all of these services redefined a core use case for the Web, and some of them invented activities we didn't know we needed. Here are our top 10 Consumer Web Products of 2011:

Mobile payments up 516% on Black Friday

From Forbes:
1. Consumers crave mobility. Comparing Black Friday 2011 to Black Friday 2010, PayPal saw a whopping six-fold (516 percent!) increase in global mobile payment volume and a four-fold (371 percent) increase in the number of customers shopping through mobile.
The time for equivocation has passed. Mobile is now strategically important. (See this earlier post for steps to help you start winning the mobile wars.)

2. Customers want “couch commerce.” According to comScore, more than 50 million American visited online retail sites on Black Friday –up 35 percent compared to a year ago. Each of the top five retail sites achieved double-digit gains in visitors. (Amazon led the charge, followed by Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple.)
This “couch commerce” drove $816 million in online sales on Black Friday, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2011 and representing a 26 percent increase compared to Black Friday 2010.

Purify - Remove Youtube Ads

Awesome teacher tool: Remove ads from a Youtube Video with Purify.

Visit viewpure.com. It's easy, free and there's no signup.

NASA's 'Curiousity' rover

Robots as Prison Guards

South Korean Prisons Will Be Run By Robots Next Year

We all know that robots make everything better. Somehow, though, I'm not sure the inmates of a South Korean prison will agree when robot guards start appearing next year.

These new robotic guards, that measure 150cm in height, are to be introduced to a prison in the city of Pohang, South Korea, from March next year. The prison plans to introduce them properly if the month-long trial is a success.

The scientists behind the robot have spent $850,000 on the new robots, with the intention of allowing human guards to spend more time rehabilitating offenders as opposed to working on more menial tasks, like night patrols. A host of sensors on the robots let them keep an eye on the behavior of criminals, and even the conditions in cells.

Microsoft: $20k for Kinect Hacks

Have a Good Kinect Hack Idea? Microsoft Has $20,000 For You

Some large technology companies frown upon developers hacking and reworking their products. On the far opposite side of the spectrum, lies an unexpected organization called Microsoft. After some initial hesitation, the tech giant is now actively encouraging developers to tinker with its Kinect hands-free user interface accessory for the XBox 360.

Until now, those hacks have been encouraged for non-commercial purposes only. But the company took things to the next level this week when it announced the Kinect Accelerator, a program for startups who want to build creative uses for the Kinect into their businesses.

Mobile Black Friday purchasing up 516%

Black Friday Mobile Payments Up 516%

New data from PayPal shows a 516% increase in mobile payments on Black Friday 2011. The busiest mobile payments shopping time was on Black Friday between 1pm and 2pm PT. Data shows that Black Friday mobile payment volume was up 148% as compared to an average Friday. This year there was a 371% increase in the number of customers shopping on their mobile devices. Mobile purchases occurred the most in New York, Houston, Miami, Los Angeles and Chicago, respectively.

Do you REALLY know how to use Google Search?

It's here: Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

Well, pretty much.

Water Utility Hacked

Water Utility Control System Hacked Last Week

Last week the news blogs were filled with information about a second attack on a computer-based supervisory control system (SCADA) at the Curran-Gardner Township Public Water District based near Springfield Ill. The first was the Stuxnet malware targeted at an Iranian nuclear facility that was extensively covered. We wrote about how the Symantec anti-virus researchers decompiled the malware and demonstrated it to us here earlier this summer, and how variants on Stuxnet called Duqu were also found last month floating around European networks.

A second attack was reported by Computerworld last week based in a Houston utility.

12 Year old App Developer

TEDxManhattanBeach - Thomas Suarez - iPhone Application Developer... and 6th Grader - YouTube

Stanford offers FREE CompSci 101

CS101 teaches the essential ideas of Computer Science for a zero-prior-experience audience. Computers can appear very complicated, but in reality, computers work within just a few, simple patterns. CS101 demystifies and brings those patterns to life, which is useful for anyone using computers today.

The Instructor

 Nick Parlante has been teaching Computer Science at Stanford for over 20 years, and teaches programming best practices at Google.

SOPA: What's your perspective?

PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Stop Online Piracy Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R.3261, was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011 by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. The aim of the bill is to help U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders fight online piracy of intellectual property. Introduced by the House Judiciary Committee as building on similar legislation, the PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the Senate's Protect IP Act of 2011, this bill “modernizes our criminal and civil statutes to meet new IP enforcement challenges and protect American jobs.”^[1]

The bill is divided into two Titles with the first focusing on combating "foreign rogue sites", websites outside U.S. jurisdiction that enable or facilitate copyright infringement, and the second focusing on increased penalties to combat intellectual property theft.

The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on SOPA for November 16, 2011.^[2][3]

Segway Flinging Robot

NXTs get WiFi

Now Your Lego Creations Can Tweet For You

Have you made something awesome with Lego Mindstorms NXT? A sweet walking robot, perhaps? Wouldn't it be cool if you could control it from work? Or to have it Tweet when something happens? Well, the future is now!

You can now get a Wi-Fi sensor for Lego Mindstorms NXT which means you can control your creation without wires on any end. Dexter Industries, who created the Wi-Fi kit, has already released instructions for how you can get your robot to tweet the temperature, and how you can make it ping a website. Why would you need a robot to ping a website? You wouldn't! Ever! It's pretty much the most boring use for a robot I've ever heard, but that's not the pont.

The Typical Person of 7 Billion

Google on Google Tailored Ads

Archiving Yourself for the FBI

Security Risks in Public Hot Spots

"Whenever you open a laptop or tap a mobile device in an area with a lot of people also using such equipment, you’ll invariably see a network named “Free Public Wi-Fi” or some variant. Such
networks are often the result of a quirk in Windows XP,3 which can be innocent (but annoying), but the networks can also be spawned by identity thieves looking to grab personal information from the unwary.
The urge to connect to “free” Wi-Fi is strong, but these networks are really computer-to-computer connections masquerading as an available network.

Understand Seucity Threats

If you ever needed ammunition for your management about getting better network-based defenses for your enterprise, a new study by F5 Networks should help you. Earlier this fall, the company asked 1000 IT managers from around the world about their existing security measures and the cost of various exploits that they have observed over the past year. Strikingly, 100% of them have observed DNS attacks and nearly as many have observed denial of service attacks, both of which are worrisome.
Don't know about DNS attacks? Here is an amusing video from F5 that explains the situation (and also pushes their own DNS server solutions, too.)

Global Population... In Water.

UJam: Sing and it does the rest

Kinect turns 1: Wow. When MS open sources, wow.

Student Work: Lindsay loves Photoshop Brushes

One of my students has taken it upon herself to experiment with brushes. The entire work is hers, a self-portrait, and the shadow a carefully drawn sketch in Photoshop. The background is a combination of brushes and effects. Fabulous.

Open Source Cancer Research: Yeah.

In 60 seconds on the web...

WWW Standards: 1962-2011

An Infographic outlining a history of Web Standard. Click for a larger version

Statistics: Live and easy to use

Best Stats website ever.  Wait for the load... it's worth it.

http://www.sacmeq.org/statplanet/StatPlanet.html

Moodle in your classroom

Robotics, Programming and Prosthetics

Chapter 3

Why use Blogger?

Understand Google search works - Matt Cutts

Unbelievable photography: Landscapes

Landscapes: Volume Two from Dustin Farrell on Vimeo.

Looking to inspire? Learn Blogger!

Father & Son & a balloon in space

Music at the Dry Cleaners

Diego Stocco - Music From A Dry Cleaner from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

Learn from the Pros: NG Unreal Videography

On Assignment from renan ozturk on Vimeo.

Unreal videography. Check out the Rule of Thirds here.

Wow: Check this stop motion

Sorry I'm Late from Tomas Mankovsky on Vimeo.

Be sure to watch the trailer for the how-to.

AlphaDog... Robotic, Smart Horse

This post is an excerpt from AlphaDog Is the New Generation of the Creepiest Robot Ever.

This is AlphaDog, the next generation of BigDog, the creepiest and most awesome quadruped robot of all time. The thing is now smarter and can stand up on its own when it's down. Like a real horse.

Which is exactly what it looks and sounds like. A robotic, creepy version of a horse that can be kicked and pushed without falling down.

Awesome mini robots on Youtube

This post is an excerpt from Robot Birds and Octoroaches On The Loose at UC Berkeley.

No matter how fancy and complicated we make robots, nature always has us beat. Is there anything more capable, more efficient, and more utterly indestructible than a cockroach? Of course not. Not yet, anyway.

UC Berkeley's Biomimetic Millisystems Lab is trying to harness all the cleverness of birds and insects to create an entirely new generation of little robots with insect-like capabilities, and one of their most recent creations is called "Octoroach." OCTOROACH!

Top Collaboration Tools for Everything

This post is an excerpt from My Favorite Collaboration Apps.

• Teamviewer
  tops this list because of its versatility in everything from desktop
  sharing (even through firewalls) to browser-based presentations. The app
  is free to all non-commercial users and well worth the cost (a one time
  fee for as low as $750) for many business users, considering it also
  provides simple click connections between team partners and secure
  instant messaging. A very comprehensive tool that's incredibly easy to
  use.
  
  
• Crocodoc
  allows you and your collaborators to add comments, drawings, doodles,
  highlights, and other markups to Word documents, PowerPoint
  presentations, images (photo or graphic), PDF forms and other documents.
  You can embed documents on a website or blog or simply share them
  privately. Documents are displayed in your browser and no Flash or
  plugins are required. Files can be password protected and encrypted, all
  free of charge.
  
  
• Creately makes
  online diagramming and design work easy. You and collaborators can use
  it for flowcharts, UI mockups, UML diagrams, network and rack diagrams,
  wireframes, mind maps, chemistry lab diagrams, fishbones, organization
  charts and SWOT tables, to name but a few. It has an extensive library
  of object sets and templates that make the highly intuitive effort even
  easier. The personal version is free for sharing up to five diagrams,
  and fees start for as low as $5 per month per user.
  
  
• Cozimo
  allows creative teams to collaborate on images, documents and videos.
  Its synchronized video feature keeps all the editors and collaborators
  perfectly synched in real-time. You can draw directly on the images,
  leave post-it like comments, and easily access the automated project
  tracking to stay up-to-date on changes and communications. It works in
  any flash-related browser. Its one of the few apps that allows you to
  work easily with multi-page PDFs and vector rendering for Adobe
  Illustrator and CAD files. The personal version is free, and paid
  versions start at $29 per month.
  
  
• Onehub is a
  great file sharing app that excels in sending, receiving and tracking
  large file transfers. Invitation and comment emails can be branded
  either to reflect the company or the project's name. The app sends email
  as directed by users to invite new collaborators, share comments on
  items, post a new message, or simply to disseminate daily notifications.
  Virtual workspaces can be easily customized. Users typically set up one
  work space pre project or department but workspaces can be used in any
  way that works for the user. The free version includes 2 GB of storage
  and paid plans start at $29 per month.
  
  
• Wizehive Project Management provides
  private workspaces, file sharing, and detail and activity tracking. It
  works very well with projects that have lots of participants and tons of
  details to worry about. Additional tools are offered to help with
  specific project verticals, i.e. contests, scholarships, and grants. The
  free version includes three workspaces, and paid plans start at $24 per
  month.

The state of Hacking & crime

Studio Schools: What a concept

Plagiarism Checker

http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/

PlagiarismChecker.com allows you to search for several phrases from a student's paper at the same time without having to type quotation marks or special operators, which most search engines require if you're trying to look for exact copies of a student's writing. This site automatically adds the quotation marks and special operators for you.
Other plagiarism detection services are available, but some only work if you buy subscriptions. Most of these services also require students to turn their papers in through a Web site, which is difficult for students who do not have access to the Internet. PlagiarismChecker.com is free and works on any papers, whether students e-mail them to you or turn in hard copies.

Genomics: Acceleration of Sequencing

Wow: Exemplary teacher videos FREE

This post is an excerpt from Teaching Channel.

Teaching Channel is committed to showcasing effective and inspiring teaching in public schools across America. Since our "beta launch" in early June, we have reached thousands of teachers in all 50 states. We thrive on your feedback as we rapidly grow our collection of videos and tools for online collaboration. Our mission is your mission: to improve the outcomes for all students in America.

Teaching Channel has been in the works since spring of 2010. A nonprofit, it has received seed funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Youtube: Edit your video Live Online

This post is an excerpt from YouTube Adds Video Editing Tools Right In the Browser.

YouTube just announced that users can now edit videos from within the browser and save changes. The editing tool enables rotation, stabilization, brightness, contrast and temperature controls, as well as adjustment of the start and end points. It also offers several color effects, which the YouTube team developed in collaboration with Google-owned photo editing site Picnik.

Great Sample Layout Designs (ISSUU)

http://issuu.com/

Some fabulous, professional design concepts.

WOW: They made a robotic flying bird

77 Resources for Teachers this Summer

77 Web Resources for Teachers to Try This Summer



From FreeTechnology4Teachers.com

Internet in a Suitcase: Stealth WWW

This post is an excerpt from U.S. Hopes "Internet in a Suitcase" Will Offset Internet Censorship.

The U.S. government has created what it is calling an "Internet in a suitcase" to cheat the switches on the filtering regimes of repressive countries. A kit of hardware, the suitcase creates a "shadow Internet" within a country that allows users to communicate with each other and the outside world despite electronic censorship.

The suitcase was funded by a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of State, according to the New York Times.
The Suitcase Nuke (Revisited)

"(T)he suitcase," the Times reported, "could be secreted across a border and quickly set up to allow wireless communication over a wide area with a link to the global Internet." It creates a mesh network of interconnected device, each acting as a sort of miniature cell tower.

The Future of Medicine: Robotics, CompSci and Data, data, data

Hackers are scary: Time for two-factor Authentication?

This post is an excerpt from Is it Time for Two-Factor Authentication?.

The recent security breach at Citibank, coupled with even RSA hiring what may be its first Chief Security Officer Edward Schwartz, point out that you can never be too paranoid about your personal and corporate data security. RSA was in the news earlier this year for an attach on its SecurID two-factor tokens, something that had been considered the ultimate in enterprise security.

It might be time to take another look at two-factor authentication, and see if it makes sense to implement this in your organization. Here are three basic steps to get started:

First, take a look at what Google and Facebook have done with adding two-factor authentication to their accounts. Both use somewhat similar systems, tying your account to your cell phone and sending you a text message that you have to enter as part of your login process. Google adopted two-factor authentication last fall and Facebook added two-factor to their accounts in May. And eBay/PayPal have had two-factor authentication for several years on its accounts, too. While these are all personal solutions, they help gain experience in using these two-factor solutions and give you some perspective before you want to implement these corporate-wide.

Google software structure obsolete?

This post is an excerpt from Ex-Google Engineer Says the Company's Software Infrastructure is Obsolete - ReadWriteCloud.

Yesterday former Google Wave engineer Dhanji R. Prasanna wrote on his blog about why he is leaving the company. It's an interesting look at Google's company culture, but there's also an interesting technical nugget in there. "Google's vaunted scalable software infrastructure is obsolete," Prasanna wrote. He emphasizes that the hardware infrastructure is still state of the art, "But the software stack on top of it is 10 years old, aging and designed for building search engines and crawlers."

Prasanna says software like BigTable and MapReduce are "ancient, creaking dinosaurs" compared to open source alternatives like Apache Hadoop.

Is this okay? Anonymous taking on countries?

This post is an excerpt from ReadWriteWeb.

Once Anonymous, the hacking collective, got the taste of blood on the world stage, credit card companies seemed to be less tantalizing. Some of these country operations have been more successful than others. Although the success may be more in focusing attention on the issues the citizens themselves are fighting for than any real damage against the repressive infrastructure.

So far we've seen Operation Tunisia, Operation Zimbabwe, Operation Egypt and Operation Iran. Now, Anonymous has turned its attention to the subcontinent in Operation India.

UN: Internet Access a Human Right

This post is an excerpt from United Nations Proclaims Internet Access a Human Right.

The Arab Spring has seemed to have inspired a death bed confession in favor of free speech on the part of the United Nations. After introducing and passing a resolution condemning blasphemous speech, the U.N. recently reversed that decision.

Now, the United Nations has proclaimed that Internet access itself is a human right.

UN seal photo by Julian Rotela Rosow

un building.jpgLast Friday, the United Nations released a report entitled "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression."

Its author, Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue, wrote:

"Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress, ensuring universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all states. Each State should thus develop a concrete and effective policy...to make the Internet widely available, accessible and affordable to all segments of population."

Build a Car for the Blind: Not an autonomous Car

Controversial: The DinoChicken

Computer Science Challenges

Want a list of questions that will help you solve Computer Science related problems?

Check out Project Euler's Problems Page.

UK: Cyber Soldier Recruitment

This post is an excerpt from U.K. to Recruit "Cyber-Soldiers".

At the same time as the U.S. military is preparing to release a policy qualifying cyberattacks as acts of war, the military of the United Kingdom is engaging in a large-scale recruitment drive. Called "Operation Cupcake"

Following from last year's "National Cyber Security Programme," this recruiting initiative will attempt to attract hundreds of computer experts to the British armed forces. Part of a £650,000 cyber-security budget will be devoted to the program.

So Cool: Tour a museum with a LIVE guide ONLINE.

This post is an excerpt from Museum Offers Real (Human) Guides Online.

Museum aan de stroom - a brand-new city museum covering the art, shipping and folklore of Antwerp, Belgium - is offering web visitors real, real-time guides. Through June 7, visitors to the museum's website can interact with, and direct, flesh-and-blood guides through their Discover the MAS Live program and website.

Using your computer, you "capture" a live guide and, your arrow keys, direct him or her to explore the museum for you in real time.

Sony: Hacked again... Yikes.

This post is an excerpt from Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Water... Sony Pictures Hacked.

On the heels of a Memorial Day weekend hack of the PBS website - an act of retribution for an unflattering Frontline report on Wikileaks, the prankster-hackers LulzSec have found their next target. And it's a target that's just recovering from another security breach, namely Sony.

LulzSec claims to have broken into the Sony Pictures website and compromised over a million users' accounts.

According to the group's statement, this includes "users' personal information, including passwords, email addresses, home addresses, dates of birth, and all Sony opt-in data associated with their accounts." The group also says that it's breached the site's administrative security and has passwords, 75,000 music codes and 3.5 million music coupons.

The group claims to have accomplished this via "a very simple SQL injection, one of the most primitive and common vulnerabilities, as we should all know by now." Indeed.

Protect yourself: PDF hacks come to light

This post is an excerpt from Anatomy of a PDF Hack.

By Tomer Bitton, security researcher, Imperva

PDFs are widely used business file format, which makes them a common target for malware attacks. Because PDFs have so many "features," hackers have learned how to hide attacks deep under the surface. By using a number of utilities, we are able to reverse engineer the techniques in malicious PDFs, providing insight that we can ultimately use to better protect our systems. We'll take you through the process that a hacker uses to insert a piece of malware into a sample PDF.

Yikes: What's an 'Act of War'?

This post is an excerpt from Pentagon Declares Cyberattack an Act of War.

Cyberattacks are part of the defense landscape and have been for a while. Among the more high-profile instances in the last year are the Stuxnet attack by the U.S. and Israel on Iranian nuclear facilities, the attacks by the Chinese government on Google and even a hack of a Pentagon project.

Now, the Wall Street Journal says a soon-to-be-released Pentagon policy document will announce officially that a cyberattack can be a jus ad bellum, or act of war.

Technology and Teaching: Where are we in the Matrix?

This post is an excerpt from Technology Integration Matrix.

The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells as illustrated below.

Video Conversion software

This post is an excerpt from Educational Technology Guy: Free Video Format Conversion Software (3 of them).

WM Converter - another easy to use video converter. Converts from almost any format to almost any other format. You can also convert multiple files in the same session, so you can "set it and forget it" (sorry Ronco).

Free Video Converter = MPEG Converter + AVI Converter + FLV Converter + YouTube Video Converter + MP4 Converter
Any Video Converter - simple, easy to use, powerful video conversion.This one can also clip, sort, and merge video clips to create a new movie and can also crop the frame. This has saved me a few times when other converters just wouldn't convert a file. It also can convert with better quality many times.

Archaelogists use Google Earth & Discover tonnes

This post is an excerpt from Archaeologists Find 17 Pyramids, 1K Tombs, 3K Settlements Using Online Satellite Images.

Exceeding the discovery of 2,000 new archaeological sites using Google Earth, scientists have now found 17 Egyptian pyramids, 1,000 tombs and 3,000 Nile Delta settlements previously lost to sand and time.

The tech-happy group from the University of Alabama purchased imagery online from orbiting satellites and used image-filtering software to identify the locations, which they spot-checked and test-excavated in person.

Youtube Infographic - Wow.

Teachers: Google & Bloom's Taxonomy

Click to englarge.

Gel: Gotta share! | Video on TED.com

Sony Compromised (again)

It looks like the problems still aren't over for Sony, which finally began bringing its Playstation Network back online over the weekend following a massive hack that exposed the information of millions of subscribers and left the company's online gaming network offline for almost a full month. News broke this morning that the email and password reset, aimed to help get players back online, has been compromised.

Click here to read the full story.

Sony back online

This post is an excerpt from Almost 1 Month Later, Sony Playstation Network Coming Back On Line.

The Sony Playstation Network was taken offline on April 19 when hackers compromised the database. The episode has been disastrous for Sony PR, which took several days before admitting there'd been a security breach and revealing that its 77 million users' data had been stolen. The network has remained offline since then.

It's hard to say what's worse for gamers: this lengthy outage - one of the worst on record - or the compromise of their personal data. Either way, Sony will have a long road ahead to win back the trust of gamers, who have a wide variety of options for other console or handhelds games.

Indeed, even before this recent attack on Sony, the company had lost the favor of many with its decision to sue hacker George Hotz for jailbreaking the PS3. Hotz and Sony recently settled, but not before what Electronista described as Sony's "scorched earth attitude," in which it had demanded access to the records of anyone who had viewed or commented on the jailbreak video on YouTube. Sony also requested that Twitter provide the identities of those who revealed the hack there.

$25 Computer the size of a USB Stick

Modern smartphones are often dubbed ‘PC’s in your pocket’ but its the recently unveiled ‘Rasberry Pi’ that can truly make a stake to that claim.

The micro-sized PC, which is targeted at a £15/$25 price point, is made up of:

• 700MHz ARM11 processor
• 128MB of RAM
• USB 2.0 ports
• Card reader
• 1080p HDMI video out
• Ubuntu 9.04

And that’s it! You need to bring your own keyboard, mouse and display. Oh and Wifi dongle, too.  But the Raspberry Pi does boast an I/O slot for further expansion – such as with a 12MP camera, demoed on the picture below.

Click here for more.

Understanding Google Searches

Classroom posters

Want to help out students and colleagues with handy tips on improving search results and using popular Google products like Google Earth? Click here for more information for Educators.

Google Search Tips 8.5"x11" PDF 17"x22" PDF	Google Web Search 8.5"x11" PDF 17"x22" PDF	Google Book Search 8.5"x11" PDF 17"x22" PDF
Google Quiz Quiz	Google Quiz Answers Quiz Answers	Google Earth 8.5"x11" PDF 17"x22" PDF

Push, Pop, Press: First interactive Book

Google releases http://music.google.com/about/.

Tailored Results: The web is out of control

OCT: Social Media in the Classroom

OCT encourages its members to consider using Social media appropriately in the classroom.

Yale and IBM team up: Jobs are in Analytics

Why laptops?

This post is an excerpt from A talk to parents: Why laptops? | Dangerously Irrelevant | Big Think.

You’re about to hand laptops over to their 12– and 13–year-old children. What do you tell your school’s parents? Here are some excerpts from what Rob McCrae, ICT Director for the Diocesan School for Girls in Auckland, New Zealand, told his…

“Most of us went through school and, by and large, succeeded. When we had education done to us, we experienced what I call the "just in case model" of education. We learned things just in case they might be useful. Just in case they might be on the test. Just in case we might look for a job in that area. Just in case you might study physics later on.

Video Conversion software

This post is an excerpt from Educational Technology Guy: Free Video Format Conversion Software (3 of them).

WM Converter - another easy to use video converter. Converts from almost any format to almost any other format. You can also convert multiple files in the same session, so you can "set it and forget it" (sorry Ronco).

Free Video Converter = MPEG Converter + AVI Converter + FLV Converter + YouTube Video Converter + MP4 Converter
Any Video Converter - simple, easy to use, powerful video conversion.This one can also clip, sort, and merge video clips to create a new movie and can also crop the frame. This has saved me a few times when other converters just wouldn't convert a file. It also can convert with better quality many times.

Talk to your Browser: Chrome goes Text to Speech

This post is an excerpt from Talk to Your Computer: Chrome Listens and Translates (Through HTML).

The latest stable release of the Chrome browser today contains a cool new feature: speech input through HTML. This means that you can talk into your computer's microphone, and your recorded audio will be translated to text and typed out for you.

That's great for speech-to-text input in general - for the purposes of dictation and transcription. But as Google demonstrates, there are a number of other ways in which this can be utilized, including in Google Translate.

The text-input box for Google Translate now accepts voice input. Simply speak the word or phrase you'd like translated - no typing necessary. (You can also hear the translation spoken aloud too.)

Hacked: 70M Users' Accounts compromised

This post is an excerpt from Update: Personal Data of 70 Million Sony Customers Exposed in Hack.

The hack that has plagued the Playstation Network for the last week is much worse than simply taking down the platform. Sony reports on its Playstation Network blog that personal data of its 70 million users has been exposed by the hacker, including the possibility of credit card numbers.

According to the Playstation Network blog; "we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birth date, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained."

Sony has said that credit card information may have been obtained but they cannot be sure.

Data Visualization - Making numbers REAL.

This guy isn't a cyber-nerd. He's a real person using visual tools to give meaning to numbers.

We know 4% of the Universe - Wow.

How Secure is Google?

Award Winning Yearbook design spreads (from pg 71 on)

Hacking Kinect: Awesome.

This post is an excerpt from Here's What You Can Build With Kinect: Custom Statues, Training Simulations, Noise Ink & More.

November: Kinect Drivers Hacked, Early Experiments Begin

Kinect's original purpose was to enable gamers to control Xbox games through a natural user interface, using gestures and spoken commands. However, speculation is already rife that Kinect may be a key component of a future Windows OS release. Gestures may become as important a user interface in future computers as the mouse is nowadays.

Wayyy too cool: User controlled Tax Data Visualization

This post is an excerpt from Visualize Your Taxes: Grand Award Winner | DataVizChallenge.org.

The Data Viz Challenge was a call to designers and developers to visualize how our federal income taxes are spent. Created by Eyebeam and Google. Read more.

Be sure to check out the many project examples at the bottom of that page.  The McDonald's one is awesome.

5 Free ebooks on learning Php

From the ReadWriteWeb:

As high performance languages and frameworks like Node.js and Scala become more popular, is it even worth learning a seemingly old school language like PHP? Considering the persistent demand for PHP developers, and the fact that the language is in use as sites like Facebook and Wikipedia, I'd say so. ChartBoost recently posted an article called "Running a Modern Startup on PHP" on its blog.
Furthermore, popular platforms like WordPress, Drupal and Joomla are all based on PHP. If you want to want to customize these applications, or build plugins, you'll need to know PHP. And though you don't have to build Facebook applications with PHP, it's helpful know it when developing on that platform anyway.
Here are some resources to help get you started.

Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL

Sitepoint's Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL by Kevin Yank is a lucid introduction to both PHP and MySQL for the non-programmer. The full book costs money, but Sitepoint offers the first 168. You'll have to fork over your e-mail address to get it, though.
However, you can much of the material on the Web in this series of tutorials by Yank.

Zend's PHP 101

Zend, makers of the popular Zend Engine back-end for PHP, offer one of the most popular tutorials for PHP beginners: PHP 101: PHP For the Absolute Beginner by Vikram Vaswani.

Webmonkey's PHP and MySQL Tutorials

Another popular resource is Webmonkey's PHP Tutorial for Beginners. This can be followed by its PHP and MySQL Tutorial.

Practical PHP Programming

Practical PHP by PHP in a Nutshell author Paul Hudson is a free e-book for PHP beginners. A programming background is helpful, but not necessary, for readers of this book.

PHP 5 Power Programming

PHP 5 Power Programming by Andi Gutmans, Stig Bakken and Derick Rethans is not a beginner's book, but we're including it here for those looking for a next step. It's available in print or as a free PDF download here.