Beyond Blogs

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_22/b4086044617865_page_4.htm

A Prototype for Digital Education

In this recent article from the Pulpit, by Bob Cringely, (http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/) Bob discusses Education and Technology in his own inimitable way.

“Every generation disapproves of the one that follows and barely claims to understand the generation that follows that. It's the way we are, simply because we tend to see everything in the context of our own experience -- an experience that is changed by age, the times we grew up in, and yes by technology.”

“I'm from the Baby Boom generation and we, by our sheer numbers, have had an inordinate effect on what it means to be "perfect in every way." But our time is passing quickly just as technology explodes after 50 years of Moore's Law. The result is technology that will shortly be beyond us but not beyond the generations that follow. Our grandchildren will run a world very different from the one we ran and many institutions will simply have to adjust or die.”

Having set a nice foundation, Cringely then gets into the nitty-gritty of his analysis.

“Parents who are today in their 20s -- parents of the kids who go to school with my three sons ages 6, 3 and 1 -- grew up with personal computers, mobile phones and video games. More importantly, THEIR PARENTS did, too.”

“This new generation of parents lives in a digital world and has little patience with analog traditions. Where we (Baby Boomers) think of bricks and books they think of electrons and photons. Where we remember what time the library opens, they wonder why it should ever close. The world will shortly be more theirs than ours and they'll be calling the shots with the result that many aspects of life, including education, will change forever. This is inevitable and can't be halted.”

He’s got a point. Once the Baby Boomers leave the scene, as they are beginning to do, the entire notion of education is likely to change just as much as the notion of work is predicted to change.

“This emerging world will be very different in many ways. How many of these kids expect to someday earn a pension? Surveys show that few of them expect Social Security to even survive until their retirement -- if they can ever retire at all.”

“Where we went through a couple career changes they'll go through half a dozen or more in a life that will outlast ours by 20 years. Growing up is changing from becoming what you will be to becoming what you will be for a while, and that has a huge impact on the educational requirements placed on our society. If you expect to start your career over half a dozen times, how do you prepare for careers 2-6?”

Perhaps the more relevant question here is: Does anyone want to rely on a social security pension? One of the potential bonuses of changing jobs a half-dozen times is that many of those changes are likely to result in a “trading-up” situation, where a new position is accepted because it is more attractive than the previous position. This certainly isn’t the case for all workers, but knowledge workers stand to gain handsomely from the situation.

“It's easy for old farts like me to assume everybody will learn the way we did, but that's unlikely simply because the underlying assumptions are changing.”

“When I was a kid human labor was cheap and technology was expensive. Today technology is cheap and getting cheaper, while human labor is expensive and becoming more so. Yet our model of education technology is still so defined by that remembered Apple IIe in the corner of the classroom that is it difficult for many to imagine truly pervasive educational technology.”

“This is in large part because there is no way that Apple IIe or any PC is going to somehow expand to replace books and teachers and classrooms. For education, the personal computer is probably a dead end. It's not that we won't continue to have and use PCs in schools, but the market and intellectual momentum clearly lie elsewhere.”

“So forget about personal computers: the future of education probably lies with digital games.”

There’s no doubt that technology has yet to be “embraced” with zeal in education circles as it has been in other sectors, such as government and commerce. Perhaps it’s because those who make the decisions about curriculum (ie hold the purse strings) are Baby Boomers (or older), and really don’t understand the total potential of all the educational possibilities born of technology. Let’s not forget that many teachers are in the same boat as the administrators, technology-wise.

Digital games eh… hmm.

“I say "digital games" rather than "video games" or "PC games," or "handheld games," because the platform doesn't matter as much as the application. Whether it is a PC or Mac, xBox or PS3, PSP or Nintendo DS, gaming has done an excellent job of proving that the application is more important than the platform on which it runs.”

He’s right on point here; it’s the software, not the hardware, where the value lies.

“Stories came out this week from the NPD Group announcing that 72 percent of Americans play PC or video games with 58 percent of those played online. Those numbers -- which apparently don't include kids, by the way -- are HUGE and explain all by themselves much of what is happening to traditional mass media like TV, magazines and newspapers.”

“We're spending so much time playing games that we don't have as much time for those older pursuits. Only drive-time radio thrives and that's just because we don't have a practical model for playing games while driving.”

“Digital games are a bigger business than Hollywood movies, than book publishing, than television, than music.”

Wow, that last point is persuasive in its own right, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a correlation to education.

“Clearly the best instructional platform is one that already attracts users to spend countless hours in its mastery. At this point it is a relatively simple matter to bend some games to the will of education and training.”

“I am not saying schools will disappear. I AM saying that new modes of instruction will emerge and they will inevitably involve processing power and context. We took our kids to Washington, D.C. for Spring Break and I would have loved to outfit them with MP3 players loaded with age-appropriate descriptions of what we saw. That's just scratching the surface.”

And this is how it is likely to develop too, one application at a time. You begin with a podcast for museums, and you end up with a revolution in education.

“My vision for future digital education has a key difference from traditional 20th century education. A fundamental aspect of education has always been that it comes to abrupt and quite specific endpoints associated with various cultural rites of passage. We graduate. There is a first day of school and a last day of school. At some highly specific and anticipated moment we disconnect from the education mother ship and go off on our own, often never to return.”

“Why?”

“Well to make room in school for someone else, of course.”

“Why?”

“In my future model the "school" is only a PC/game machine/mobile phone/headset thingee that clues me in about everything around me and helps me learn what I need to know. Why would I ever give that up?”

“The truth is we won't. If we have more students, we just build more devices. Classrooms aren't absolutely necessary, nor will location even matter.”

Pervasive life-long learning, ubiquitous connectivity, commodity electronic devices, are we back in 1998? Certainly, ten years later, all of this is much more tangible, and indeed possible, whereas in 1998, it was still only a twinkle in Web 1.0’s eye.

It’s a good bet that 10 years hence, education will have evolved toward his analysis, and it will probably also be true that his vision will not be completely manifested due to itinerant, pervasive and unavoidable human factors that are not solved by computing power, and software alone.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080404_004650.html

Disruptive Technology Combinations

http://www.pcworld.ca/news/column/5cb5d2a00a01040801dd6a6733b97879/pg0.htm

The Open source 'Brotherhood'

In this recent article from Silicon.com, Martin Brampton discusses the open source software and the reality of the people who comprise the open source software community.

“We all know IT is inclined to favour the young. But people working on open source projects are much more dramatically grouped than IT as a whole. Studies over the past few years have shown that three-quarters of the participants were less than 30 years old. A clear majority were single and most had no children. But the most extreme characteristic was that almost all open source developers are male. In short, open source software is largely written by young men with no family ties.”

Finally, the truth is out.

Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, we can get down to business...

“Open source projects can be split into at least three different business models. One is based on making software freely and openly available because it will enable the sale of related services - a model used by IBM and many others on numerous occasions.”

“Another is where commercial organisations see a need for software to exist but do not seek direct financial benefit from it. A prime example of this is Google's support for the development of the Firefox browser.”

“The third model is the host of projects that are wholly reliant on volunteers. Generally, only the largest of these achieve any significant income, and many do not seek any.”

Paradoxically, Brampton continues by stating that open source actually prohibits cooperation.

“The whole thrust of the open software movement was originally based on an attempt to sustain the culture that existed in earlier days, when algorithms were freely published and code swapped between developers.

“Despite this background, which should be reinforced by the legal situation that entitles anyone to use parts of an open source work for non-commercial purposes, projects seem extremely reluctant to utilise the work of other groups, or to agree common standards”

"Unfortunately, this lack of co-operation, endemic in the general run of open source projects, is one of the factors that leads to inefficiency and waste. At the best of times, most projects fail, maybe in the region of 95 per cent. One reason for this is there are too many projects and too few volunteer developers. A more co-operative approach would utilise the available effort more effectively.”

Certainly Brampton provides an interesting analysis here, but with the last paragraph above, we can detect that he is an outsider looking in to the open source community. Perhaps the open source community (ie those actually creating the code) is actually very happy with its level of efficiency. Indeed, it is probably misguided to even apply the corporate laurel of efficiency to a community not organized for such purposes. Maybe the open source community gathers primarily for creative reasons using software coding as a social conduit for interaction and expression?

http://software.silicon.com/applications/0,39024653,39182126,00.htm?r=1

Windows collapsing under own weight

This recent article from ZDnet discusses a Gartner report purporting the end of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

“Microsoft's Windows juggernaut is collapsing under its own weight, as it tries to support 20 years of applications and becomes more complicated by the minute, according to analyst firm Gartner.”

“Speaking at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Las Vegas…, Gartner analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald asked the audience whether Microsoft needed to radically change its approach to Windows; around half of the managers and executives gathered in the room raised their hands. "Windows is too monolithic," said Silver.”

There is no doubt that in the OS world, MS Windows is a dinosaur.

The Gartner analysts raise an interesting point by highlighting the fact that Windows is saddled by 20 years of legacy code and interoperability standards that may no longer be relevant in a world quickly adopting the cloud computing model.

When does Microsoft reach the tipping point, where they benefit more from starting over then they do by maintaining and updating outdated code?

Now that Google is overtly targeting MS Office for extermination by offering free, web-based apps such as Google docs, Microsoft may be faced with the reality of a need for a serious self-reinvention. Perhaps Microsoft should look in the direction of the Salesforce.com “Platform as a Service” model, as their next sortie in the software wars. Or maybe, just maybe, the gang up in Redmond has a little more up its sleeve with the proposed Yahoo purchase, than everybody has thus far imagined.

Stay tuned…

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39384073,00.htm?r=2

Google to be aggressive in tChina

This article from the Silicon Alley insider, by way of the Wall Street Journal, tells us of Google's plans for the burgeoning Chinese web market. Google has made significant gains on the Chinese search leader Baidu, however Baidu still owns 60% of the market, although Google plans to overtake it within 5 years.

“Google accounted for 26% of China's Internet-search revenue in the fourth quarter, up from 17% a year earlier, according to Beijing research firm Analysys International. Market leader Baidu.com's share of the market rose to 60% from 58%.”

"Many Internet users in China are more familiar with Baidu, which started earlier in the country and which attracts users in significant part by facilitating easy access to free music."

"Eric Schmidt said last year that Google would be the China market leader within five years. At a conference in Boao, China, this week, the president of Google China, Kai-Fu Lee, appeared to agree with Eric--sort of. Certainly, we would like to aspire to be a market leader in five years," Mr. Lee said Monday on the sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia.

Perhaps this is Google's preferred method of single-handedly combating the encroachment of Chinese Sovereign Wealth funds into the US market :) (http://globaleconomicpulse.blogspot.com/)


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120819705705713365.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/google_we_re_going_to_crush_baidu_in_china_we_think_

EU votes against disconnecting file-sharers

Some snippets from recent European IT news, by way of ZDnet.

"On Thursday the parliament voted through two reports on the cultural industries. Both contained amendments that were directly related to the ongoing argument between the content industry and internet service provider (ISPs)."

"In this conflict, the ISPs are claiming that they should not have to disconnect those users who are persistent filesharers, but the content industry is calling for a "three strikes and you're out" rule in order to protect intellectual property."

"One of the reports urged the European Commission and member states to avoid allowing measures that are in conflict with civil liberties, human rights and the principle of proportionality. The other, which passed with a much thinner majority, specifically called for the Commission to "rethink the issue of intellectual property in order to assure solutions that are equitable for both big and small actors and strike a balance between the respect of intellectual property and the access to cultural events and content"."

""[The European Parliament] underlines that on the battle against digital piracy, the solution should not be to criminalise consumers who do not intend to make profit out of their actions," a parliamentary statement read."

“The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) was quick to react on Thursday, saying that the European Parliament's recommendations on filesharing were "badly drafted [and] rushed through".”

“However, IFPI has welcomed the news from France that filesharers of copyrighted material there may soon be thrown off the internet. The organisation called the French move "the single most important initiative to help win the war on online piracy that we have seen so far".”

It looks like the battle lines are being drawn in Europe in the “IP-holder vs filesharer” battle of legalities.

The news from France is very alarming though. Could you imagine being “banned” from the internet?

One would think that it could be successfully argued in this day and age, that Internet access is indeed a civil liberty.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39384074,00.htm

Google prevails, US Treasury wins

A recent article from MIT discusses the repercussions of the recent US telecom spectrum auction, and informs us of “What the FCC's Auction Means”.

It appears that Google Inc. is very satisfied with the results of the auction, as its participation in the process ensured open-access conditions for the winning bids.

“Google came away empty handed, but the company succeeded in pushing open-access conditions for the winning bids. These conditions, which affect the part of the spectrum that Verizon now owns, require that the frequencies be accessible to devices and networks from other companies--a requirement that could result in innovative new mobile phones and services, says David Reed, professor at MIT's Media Lab.”

Google Inc. ensured this result by participating vociferously in the process, and by bidding-up the price along the way. Ultimately, Google Inc. did not “win” a license to any piece of the spectrum, but it wins what is most important, without having to fork-over billions of dollars to the US Treasury.

Speaking of the US Treasury, it walks away as perhaps the biggest winner in the entire process. The FCC, on behalf of the US Treasury, re-assigned what we currently know as Channel’s 60-67 (in the 700 megahertz band) to Telecom industry.

For its part in re-assigning this part of the aether, the US Treasury picks up a cool $19.6 billion dollars. The hand-over of the spectrum takes place in February of 2009, and should serve to spur innovation in the industry as a whole.

Google Inc., for one, has already been rumored to have a “G-phone” in the works. You can say that you heard it here first, when they launch into the Telecom space next year. Considering the competitive weapons that Google Inc. has at its disposal:

- A large Gmail user-base
- Google Earth
- Google search
- Adsense & Adwords
- A huge private IP network
- Cloud-computing expertise

It is perhaps only logical then, that the mobile industry would be next.

I, for one, won’t be surprised when Google Inc. launches an IP-based, Adsense supported, communication device in the near-future. Think Skype meets IPhone meets Adsense meets Blackberry. If Google Inc. isn’t thinking in this direction, they need to inquire after my services pronto.

Either way, consumers should be the greatest benefactors.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20457/?nlid=958

http://globalitandbusinessnews.blogspot.com/