Stick it to the man with your very own RFID-Zapper - Engadget

An RFID zapper. Well if you follow my posts about RFID tags and the way they insinuate themselves into our lives, you will know this follows on the heels of the very slick RFID cloaking wallet fashioned of course, from duct tape. Are you wondering what an RFID tag looks like? Here is one I cut out of some clothing. I had to color it so it would show up in the scan. Next time you cut out one of those labelly things, hold it up to the light to see if its a circuit (rfid) or just a piece of cloth. Stick it to the man with your very own RFID-Zapper - Engadget RFID

Municipal WiFi coming onlne in Urbana

The Daily Illini: "nothing!' A couple of wireless laptops and they're in!' "

Wisconsin Paper Lets Readers Choose Page One Stories

So, will the readers put eyecandy on the front page or news that's fit to print? I go with wisdome of the crowds. Wisconsin Paper Lets Readers Choose Page One Stories: "James Baughman, director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the nearby University of Wisconsin-Madison, compared Journal editors to legendary baseball owner Bill Veeck, who once let fans of his St. Louis Browns vote from the stands on whether a batter should hit or bunt, and where fielders should play. " Ha ha, you know what? Veeck's team won. From baseball-statistics.com

Fans Managers' Night - August 24th, 1951: In another of Bill Veeck’s legendary PR stunts, "Fans Managers’ Night," the Browns defeated the Philadelphia Athletics 5–3. Manager Zack Taylor was outfitted for the game in slippers and civilian clothes, and sat at the top of the dugout in a rocking chair. Fans had been asked to pick the Browns' starting lineup from a ballot printed in a St. Louis newspaper. At each strategic juncture in the game, the Browns coaches and Veeck's publicity man (Bob Fishel) held up placards for 1,115 fans, who voted "yes" or "no" on the options given them - things like "SHALL WE WARM UP THE PITCHER?" or "INFIELD BACK?" The fans would decide, and a circuit judge would quickly tally the votes, relaying the instructions to Johnny Berardino in the third-base coach's box. Adding to the festivities was Max Patkin, the clown prince of baseball, who coached at 1B for several innings. Sherm Lollar, who was voted in behind the plate instead of Matt Batts, has three hits including a homer, and Hank Arft, also voted in, knocked home two. Gus Zernial's 28th HR, off Ned Garver, accounted for all the A's runs. When the stunt was announced on August 15th, A's GM Art Ehlers bitterly denounced it as "farcical."

wisdomofcrowds

Code of Conversations: managing online news comments | Civilities

This evolved from a discussion on ONA about software to facilitate discussions on the listserv. More about this when I have more than 4 sec. to postCode of Conversations: managing online news comments | Civilities

Car Wi-Fi? It's coming to a store near you

Erin Gwinn found WiFi devices at CES that can turn your care into a roving spot. It is pricey, at over $6000 but it kind of brings a future feature of our everyday lives into view. Imagine the Bedouins using this from their tents. McLuhan, global village is going WiFi.Chicago Tribune | Car Wi-Fi? It's coming to a store near you: WiFi "

Car Wi-Fi? It's coming to a store near you

Erin Gwinn found WiFi devices at CES that can turn your care into a roving spot. It is pricey, at over $6000 but it kind of brings a future feature of our everyday lives into view. Imagine the Bedouins using this from their tents. McLuhan, global village is going WiFi.Chicago Tribune | Car Wi-Fi? It's coming to a store near you: WiFi "

Citizen journalism & end of Bayosphere followup

This is an email from a list I'm on written by the publisher of Microenterprisejournal.com following the thread of the discussion about citizen journalism and who will write and how do you build a community around reporting. I couldn't have said it better myself.

You know, I have a feeling that the biggest lesson to take away from Dan's Bayosphere experiment is that citizen journalism is real and will play an important part of the future of the media ... but not quite the way that many people currently envision. Maybe citizen journalism is already happening but its not happening in the form of community journalism (i.e., an entire community turns into part-time reporters). Sheila makes a very valid point here: "It's fun to spout off anonymously, and even more fun to read what's really going on in the heads of apparently civilized Rhode Islanders. But unless an issue affects or offends you personally, it's unlikely you've been dying to be an unpaid reporter and just had no place to put your work." On the other hand, there is participant journalism. The biggest difference between the MSM and what people like Ina and Jen and I do is that we aren't necessarily journalists (J-school grads) writing about subject X. Rather, we do X (whatever X is) or have done it and, for one reason or another, decided to launch some form of news publication in order to inform other people who are doing the same thing. That, in its way, IS citizen journalism and while there are plenty of people out there like us, there are a lot more people who might be willing to comment on a message board or a blog than there are people who have the whatever-it-takes to go chase down the stories and write them. The biggest challenge for the profession, I think, is once again to help the consumer to separate the gold from the dross. There ARE a lot of folks out there publishing this or that for this or that niche. Some of the care more about quality, credibility and professionalism than others. Since so many of us participant journalists are not journalists by trade (however much we may care about maintaining the standards of the profession), we need a framework and direction ... just like Dan wrote. Cheers! Dawn

citizenjournalism

The Center’s Mission(s) | Center for Citizen Media: Blog

I don't have time for the post I would like to write about the end of Bayosphere and Dan Gillmor's new effort. One thing I will say is it like an idea we are pursuing here at Columbia. Thus, the author of We the Media ends act 1 of his life after the day job. The Center’s Mission(s) | Center for Citizen Media: Blog Here is a great analysis by Sheila Lennon of the projotimes.

Inside Higher Ed :: Lèse-Majesté

Columbia College Chicago, my employer, finds itself in the news again. A satirical website called "Wacky Warrick" that pokes fun at the College president may have been "popular with students" but as a faculty, I had never bothered to look at it. No student nor other faculty had bothered to discuss it that I know of. Yet the administration with its keen sense of Public Relations (that is a an ironic remark which you might not "get" in an email if I didn't tell you) apparently organized a clandestine raid on the Science Institute computer lab to track down one of the website creators.Inside Higher Ed :: Lèse-Majesté Here is Wacky Warrick itself which ironically, I never bothered to check out until action by the administration itself drew attention to the site. Student satire transformed to national news -- by the site creators? No, by administrators whose sense of how to deal with the public may leave something lacking. I did not exhaustively study the site, but the parts I watched were pretty sophomoric. Why bother to bring this site to the attention of the world through clandestine and secret spy-like moves escapes me. But then I am in the Journalism department, not the P.R. department. It brings to mind an incident from the past. When Columbia College was just getting connected to the internet back in the early 1990s, I worked in Academic Computing. At Columbia, Academic Computing was not really an academic computing center, it was the Computer Science or in our case, Computer Art dept. While most colleges have separate IT and academic computing, Columbia has never really gotten this straight. We had a server that was the only one on campus not controlled by the IT folks. One day we were hacked by "warez" -- but so was DePaul and the University of Heidlberg. The IEEE and software associations say when you are hacked like this (our servers had been loaded with illegal software for downloads by pirates) the thing to do is immediately delete all the contraband, make sure you secure the system, and go on with your daily life. At Columbia the person in charge of this was an art professor who liked the internet. He got our head of security and they literally came to "arrest" the server. Yes, a person armed with a gun and accompanied by a team including a strong-arm guy, arrived and proceeded to actually take the SERVER into custody on a wheeled cart. Then they made an attempt to report themselves to the software piracy association. Finally they realized that what those of us who considered IT a profession and who had studied it or understood that it had codes of ethics were telling them -- just delete and secure the server-- was the right thing to do. We got our server back, but we laughed for weeks at the thought of our server being arrested by armed guards. Oh Columbia College Chicago, longing for greatness but suffering fools all too gladly... And just to have some fun, here is a link to a google search for "wacky warrick" and "chicago." At 7:30 AM it had 8 links, including one to an internet site in Germany. When will these folks get on the cluetrain?

t r u t h o u t - Ron Paul | Recurring, Constant, and Pervasive Corruption

A Texus Republican talks out and tells the truth. t r u t h o u t - Ron Paul | Recurring, Constant, and Pervasive Corruption Technorati tags: govtcorruption

TV channels devoted to gaming?

Gaming, by console or online or on handhelds is big business. Spot On: Tuning in to what's on in South Korea, Japan - News at GameSpot: "For now, game-focused TV from the Far East will find its way West through Web casts, illegal bootleg recordings, and niche cable channels. But as the popularity of gaming competitions continues, and the acceptance of Asian pop-culture grows stronger, TV viewers and gamers around the globe may not have to wait too much longer for the arrival of Asia's video game TV revolution--on major networks, and smack in the middle of a prime time schedule." Well, it's funny how there can be things you just didn't know about. These gaming networks and how popular they are in Korea. Will the US go in this direction? More from Korea Times. Related links: Starcraft and Ongamenet from Australia.

Green Bay Press-Gazette - Barely clothed PETA protester braves cold

Good protest, bad location choice, IMHO. "Men in the crowe snapped pictures of her with their cell phone cameras/" Those men.Green Bay Press-Gazette - Barely clothed PETA protester braves cold

Chicago Blogger Meetup

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Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Teacher Ants Show Students the Way to Food

Well, as a lifelong teacher, I will say no more than...

Biologists have a definition of a teacher in the world of animals: any individual who sacrifices some potential gain in order to educate a naïve counterpart. In a report published today in Nature Franks and Richardson argue that true teaching also requires feedback between teacher and student.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Teacher Ants Show Students the Way to Food

U.K. judge frowns on software patents | CNET News.com

Copyright and intellectual property rights are an area my students and I discuss. Here is refreshing news from the U.K. and Europe where some of the patent and copright madness evident in the US is being questionned.U.K. judge frowns on software patents | CNET News.com: "'IP rights themselves may have reached a bit of a swing of opinion. One is detecting public disquiet in a number of areas of intellectual property, asking: Are we going too far? There's a serious worry about patent offices and how you stop them from granting pretty ropey patents,' he said." copyright

DIY: A wallet to keep your RFID cards private. Featuring ducktape!

This is a great story because he lays out the risks of various cards you might routinely carry in your wallet. Risks in the sense that the card is broadcasting, albeit over short distances, your private information, to anyone who can pick up a wireless signal in the RFID range. The wallet is a total geek job, as it is DIY ducktape and aluminum foil. You can achieve protection via saltwater, but that solution seems a bit less portable. The photos complete the charm of the story.RFID

The Korea Times : Goh With Decades of Experiences in Officialdom

In the U.S. some pols are using the internet, but I don't think any of them have their own page like former Prime Minister Goh Kun of So. Korea. Here is Goh's bio and a suggestion he is thinking of running again. The Korea Times : Goh With Decades of Experiences in Officialdom Here is what Goh's mini homepy looks like though please note that I can't read Korean, so I could be wrong. I can hardly wait until we have Geo. Bush, Denny Hastert, Dick Durban, and Al Gore minihomepys. Tag: cyworld

Blogs can be frustrating

Need I say more? I am trying to get my feed working. The day goes. The feed doesn't.

Handwriting on the wall dept. for educators

Online classes are not big on or off Columbia's campus, though we have a few. I had a grant in the late 90s to introduce internet and digital communications into college teaching, and as I saw how you could hook up students and teachers via e-tools, I began to envision new organizational patterns for higher education. The valuable parts of the college learning environment involve interacting with others -- fellow students or teachers. Why not off-load rote learning and the passive parts of classroom life (the "lecture" beloved by teachers and often dreaded by students...) to online situations. Make face to face time in class a social setting with an emphasis on problem solving and talking about the concepts students could read about out of class. At the time, my ideas were not taken seriously. Now the trend is for online classes offered by colleges for distance learners to be taken more and more by on campus students. In Arizona, 11,000 students take online classes exclusively. Hmmm, isn't that the size of my college. Now what if students came to class every couple of weeks for debriefing and discussion sessions. Let's say they had to sucessfully complete a series of online readings and assignments to be eligible for the F2F meetings. Wouldn't this save on gas and other energy costs both for students and for the college? That's something to think about for sure. onlineeducation

PBS to Launch Blog Examining How New Forms of Media Are Transforming Our Lives

Mark Glaser who writes for OJR.orgis going to be blogging for PBS. He says PBS to Launch Blog Examining How New Forms of Media Are Transforming Our Lives: "'I'm thrilled to be working with pbs.org, one of the most trusted names in media, to cover the topical subject of how technology and the Net are transforming the media,' said Glaser. 'After writing about blogs and new media as an observer for so many years, I'm finally walking my talk by writing a blog, and actually practicing what I've preached for so long. I'm looking forward to writing about new forms of journalism and media while also submerging myself in this world even more -- and letting my audience participate in new ways.'" This link is to the press release. Mediashift is at http://www.pbs.org/mediashift

from iPod clothing, to iPod content that isn't music to the ears

At the Online News Association conference in New York in October, there was a session describing how to create podcasts and also an audio podcast tour of historic news-related sites in NYC. I did the tour and really enjoyed it. I guess the only downside is it favors a solitary person, unless everyone in the party has an MP3 player. As long as I was talking about the frivolous side of iPods in my post about the sundry clothing items to complement one's iPod, I thought I would note the growing supply of podcast tour that are available. Some are produced with music and sound like NPR programs, and some are one voice talking. They do often border on oral history, but that might just make your tour of Williamsburg or anywhere more enjoyable. To young entrepreneurs--go for this before it gets overdiscovered. My students and I will have our loop tours online this semester. Soundwalkfeatures MP3 and CD versions of its tours. One reviewer calls them "oral histories" as much as tours. From the Bronx to Benares, India, these seem lush and very produced. They are $24.95 each and you can find them on amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com

Art Mobs has produced (unofficial) audio guides for MoMA, and we're making them available as podcasts. We'd love for you to join in by sending us your own MoMA audio guides, which we'll gladly add to our podcast feed. Why should audio guides be proprietary? Help us hack the gallery experience, help us remix MoMA!

Talkingstreetprovides tours of Boston, New York and Washington, with new cities coming. Your tour guide is a celebrity like Larry King or Steve Tyler. All the tours have free preview and cost $5.95. Audiostepstours are done by a couple of women. The New Orleans one isn't done yet (or maybe it has to be revised drastically?) but the one for Bath in the U.K. is $14.95. audioblogs

Software start-ups feel the pinch - page 2 | CNET News.com

Turning business on its head story. I think the OS idea will come to education and when it does, things will change. More about this in a upcoming paper I am working on. Software start-ups feel the pinch - page 2 | CNET News.com

Reporters--Facebook is for more than dissing.

Stanford Daily Online Edition

My Intellectual Hero

Can you identify this man? I think he will be remembered as one of the great philosoper-scientists of the 20th century. If you know who is, and why he is in the news, add a comment. I will write about him as one of his most famous projects comes to the forefront of technews in the coming weeks.121704stallman_r.jpg (JPEG Image, 100x126 pixels)

iPod-compatible jeans almost ready to wear | CNET News.com

I have written about "tech clothes" for years. There is the men's suit with built in camera, there are fabrics with threads that are wires, now we see the rise of "iPod" clothing. The jeans are coming from Levi Strauss, which is kind of a milestone because they are not some new start up kind of place. They will feature retractable headphones!iPod-compatible jeans almost ready to wear | CNET News.com There is more. There are shirts with see-through iPod pockets. There are cases and jackets for iPod users. And don't forget your iPod socks.

More blog writers than readers-- Doom or a Natural Development?

This is a good look at blogging from a non-USA centered point of view. The part that hit me hardest was the factoid that there are more blog WRITERS than blog READERS today. I would be discouraged, except that I have witnessed this phenom previously. In the early 1990s when "interactive multimedia" was a cool Director or Authorware piece burned to CD, there was a similar flowering of creative energy in the production of media that had a small audience. To my way of thinking, this led to the wonderful worlds that are created inside video games today. They had only a sliver of an audience at one time, but they are doing okay now. Some of this is an issue of literacy. Think about the world when Gutenberg ran out with his first hundred copies of the Bible. Great, he hits the street, yelling "Bibles, read the Bible>" How many READERS were there at that time? So for years there must have been more writers and printers than there were readers. It caught on and it just needed to reach some kind of tipping point. The Japan Times Online

MySpace rebellion slows Murdoch down

Slashdot noted a disturbance in that huge part of "the force" called Myspace.com and the Independent has more about it. Seems that when their posts were censored, they threatened to boycott or switch to another service. If Cyworld play their cards right, I see an opening with this crowd. Independent Online Edition > Media

ContraCostaTimes.com | 01/05/2006 | Blogging finds its audience in 2005

Here is an end of year/beginning of the new year overview of blogs. Dan Rubin covers most of the possible indicators of interest and tells us how blogs fared. From a comparison of "Blogs" to "Jesus" and "sex" at least insofar as what folks Googled during the year -- "blogs" topped the others, to when "blogs" entered the language, to how blogs and advertising converged, he's got the scoop. Here are some of his facts:

• Nine percent of American adults who surf the Web write blogs(13 million people)
• 27 percent of Internet users read them -- 39 million Americans.
• 30,000 to 70,000 new ones blogs each day
• 20 million to 23 million total worldwide
The blogosphere is doubling in size every five months for three years now.

Read the article for even more goodies about blogs as we make the 2005/2006 yearly transisition. ContraCostaTimes.com | 01/05/2006 | Blogging finds its audience in 2005

ContraCostaTimes.com | 01/05/2006 | Blogging finds its audience in 2005

Here is an end of year/beginning of the new year overview of blogs. Dan Rubin covers most of the possible indicators of interest and tells us how blogs fared. From a comparison of "Blogs" to "Jesus" and "sex" at least insofar as what folks Googled during the year -- "blogs" topped the others, to when "blogs" entered the language, to how blogs and advertising converged, he's got the scoop. Here are some of his facts:

• Nine percent of American adults who surf the Web write blogs(13 million people)
• 27 percent of Internet users read them -- 39 million Americans.
• 30,000 to 70,000 new ones blogs each day
• 20 million to 23 million total worldwide
The blogosphere is doubling in size every five months for three years now. Read the article for even more goodies about blogs as we make the 2005/2006 yearly transisition. ContraCostaTimes.com | 01/05/2006 | Blogging finds its audience in 2005

Board of Advisors Named | Conversations in Citizen Media

Interesting. Sort of a "who's who" of citizen media as we begin 2006.Board of Advisors Named | Conversations in Citizen Media

NETGEAR, Skype to Connect on Family of Innovative Products Including World's First Skype WiFi Mobile Phone

I held off on any personal predictions for 2006, but this WiFi phone with Skype software on it seems like it will do some disruption to big telcos and will change many calling patterns, possibly for the worst. I see this tool as one that could end up creating a big constituency for free, fast, municipal broadband in lots of cities that either didn't have municipal WiFi or weren't thinking about it. Look for the telcos to work hard against free WiFi especially in the face of this Skype phone. NETGEAR, Skype to Connect on Family of Innovative Products Including World's First Skype WiFi Mobile Phone : "The NETGEAR WiFi phone will make mobile Internet telephony a reality for Skype users. Unlike other devices that must connect with a PC, NETGEAR's Skype WiFi phone will work wherever a consumer is connected to a wireless Internet access point -- be that in a home, office, cafe, open public hotspot, or any open municipal wireless access point being deployed worldwide. The Skype experience remains the same, in that users can make free domestic and international calls, as well as host conference calls and chat, with other Skype users anywhere in the world, and to non-Skype users for a small fee. With this device, headphones or USB phones plugged into a laptop or PC are not required."

Twin Cities Daily Planet | Local News For Global Citizens

Citizen Journalism in action from the Twin Cities. Twin Cities Daily Planet | Local News For Global Citizens

Tipping Points in real life

This media ad guy tells a story that brings abstract stats about broadband penetration and internet use into a human scale. When your dad and uncles are chatting up a Thanksgiving about Google Maps, it is a sign of ubiquity.MediaPost Publications - 2006: Past The Tipping Point - 01/04/2006

Payback time for ex-treasurer Santos?

Here is a story for Chicagoans. Vic Crown is someone who is always around and he always has something going on. Looks like this time he might be onto something, though the courts could just throw the cases out. This is Victor's bio from Medill:

Victor Crown (MSJ85), assistant editor of Illinois Politics Magazine, has won the 2001 Ethics in Journalism Award from the Chicago Headline Club for his coverage of the tension between Illinois Gov. George Ryan and Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, R-Ill., surrounding the nomination for U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

When Vic began looking into the Santos matter, who would have thought that Reyes or anyone else in the Daley cadre could ever be touched by the law? Vic was written off for tilting at windmills. It will be interesting to see if he ends up getting the last laugh. Russ Stewart has some more details about the whistleblower case in this blog. Payback time for ex-treasurer Santos? : "The driving force behind it is a 47-year-old muckraker and gadfly by the name of Victor Crown."

Didn't you just expect this to be on the 2006 WiFi horizon?

Massport is trying to glom onto WiFi at Logan. They charge for their hook-ups. Many folks have encountered this in airports across the country. I usually pay so I can surf and not be bored. The wrinkle to this story is that Massport is telling any other WiFi (which you will recall is an UNLICENSED spectrum...) providers to butt out. So Starbucks or whoever can't have a network set up in the airport. Who cares you say--well imagine that your condo association decides to set up a mesh net or other WiFi network. Then they say they are going to charge for it. Then they tell you and the rest of the resident/tenants that you can't have your own WiFi. See why it is a big deal? wifimuni

Stamp of approval - Technology - smh.com.au

What a great idea that isn't available commercially...Stamp of approval - Technology - smh.com.au

Tech tunes into TV at CES | CNET News.com

Watch is going to be the watchword of 2006 as television content spews out as digital files. Want to watch Kojak on your phonecam? Here it comes. It is noteworthy to remember George Gerbner, a media researcher extraordinaire who charted our culture through television since the 1960s. He talked about the "mean streets" effect that occurs because violence is presented on television so much more frequently in news and entertainment than it occurs in real life, so that frequent viewers come to think the world is very dangerous. He bemoaned the fact that as humans we have given over all of our storytelling and mythmaking to television and let it replace church, family and other person to person ways of learning what the world is. Tech tunes into TV at CES | CNET News.com

National, World and Business News | Reuters.com

Iran cracks down on publishing. National, World and Business News | Reuters.com

The influence of South Korea on modern China

China gets Cyworld. Cyworld is the South Korean social networking software with its own currency (in English, called "acorns") and millions of users, is advertising in China. Between Cyworld and South Korean television, it seems that South Korean goods and fashions are popular with the Chinese, too. Apparently American TV is too much, but the Korean versions of Friends or Sex in City are addictive to Chinese viewers.