EDAD660 (2009)

Hey Mallorca 2009 folks … hope that things are going well by you!  I just wanted to let you know that I’m teaching another section of EDAD660 this Winter in Cairo, Egypt.  I’m going to be posting new content up on that blog from this point forward.  If you’re interested please feel free to check out the new site!

Bad news everyone!  It looks as though there may be a limit to how fast we can perform calculations using physical media. Scientists now predict that Moore’s Law, which states that computing power doubles every 18 months or so, will reach its upper limit by about 2085.

Read the full article here: http://www.insidescience.org/research/computers_faster_only_for_75_more_years

Yet another amazing thing you can find on Google Maps. After redesigning their logo, KFC decided to celebrate and construct a copy of it using 1′ x 1′ tiles in the middle of the desert. Amazing!

View KFC Logo in the Desert in a larger map

The Open Clip Art Library is an open-source project that aims to categorize, manage and distribute royalty free clip art.  The site offers a wide range of files, including a whopping 377mb ZIP download that is filled with 12,337 freely accessible clip art images.  Download your copy here.

While not a strictly educational application of Google Maps, this collection of geo-alphabetical formations is really amusing.  The full article can be found here.

Learn your ABC's from 10,000 feet above sea level

We’re all familiar with CAPTCHAs, those weird little word identification puzzles that are plastered on thousands of different websites.  If not, familiarize yourself with the image below and read on.

reCAPTCHA in action

When you think of CAPTCHAs, think of them as tiny “gatekeepers” designed to prevent non-humans from accessing certain parts of the Internet.  That’s right, I said non-humans.  Right now there are thousands, if not millions, of automated computer programs trolling around on the Internet gathering information, posting SPAM, and generally making things slower for the rest of us.

CAPTCHAs attempt to thwart these programs from accessing these protected areas of the Internet by relying on a simple concept – it’s very hard to write a computer program that can understand and decypher an image.  By presenting the user with a slightly off-centered, grainy image, CAPTCHAs make it easy to determine whether a human is on the other end of the keyboard or if it’s an automated bot trying to poke its nose where it doesn’t belong.

The biggest player in the CAPTCHA is a company by the name of reCAPTCHA, which was developed at Carnegie Mellon University.  The amazing thing about reCAPTCHA is that it harnesses the power of us decyphering images on a web page for good – all of the decyphered text that we help to identify is sent back to a main server that is tasked with digitizing text books and other print-based materials so that they can be easily delivered in an online environment.  The reCAPTCHA project is currently in the middle of digitizing the entire print archive of the New York Times, and over 100,000 diferent websites use reCAPTCHA’s free software, including Facebook, Tickemaster and Twitter.

reCAPTCHA basically works as follows:

1. Two automated programs run on the reCAPTCHA server trying to digitize a page of text.
2. After each word they compare their results.
3. If they realize that they have come to different conculsions about the word they will put it out for a “vote” on the Internet via reCAPTCHA.
4. A reCAPTCHA panel will display two words – one word is already known by the system, the other is the one that was disagreed upon in step 3.
5. If the human on the other end guesses the known word correctly, the program assumes that they have also guessed the disagreed upon word correctly as well.
6. Every time the word is identified in a particular way by a human that word is given 1 point.  It takes 2.5 points for a word to be considered “solved” (each time the automated programs in step 3 identify a word they are given 0.5 points to start off with)

In Web 2.0 news, Google announced today that it has acquired reCAPTCHA.  This has the potential be huge – Google already has access to the largest database of digitized information in the world.  Imagine what it can do with a robust network of reCAPTCHA users helping to digitize the remainder of the world’s knowlege.

More inforamtion about the acquisition can be found here.

Interesting news out of the world of Facebook – according to the company the number of active users has surpassed 300 million, and the company has finally begun to turn a profit.

Read more @ CNN.

Two of my favorite things, wrapped up into one package of awesomeness!  The newly released Scratch for Second Life takes the easy, intuitive programming environment of Scratch and applies it to the 3D virtual world of Second Life.  Now you can make your 3D creations come to life by snapping together blocks of instructions just like you would in the 2D world of Scratch.   More information on the project can be found here.

In addition, the OpenSimulator project really seems to be taking off.  OpenSimulator is an open-source virtual world that is compatible with the Second Life software – this has incredible potential for educators, as it means that you can now create your own private 3D virutal worlds for you and your students.  This will make using virtual worlds in the classroom a lot more feasible, as the relatively safety of being in a virtual world such as Second Life has always been the major drawback of using it in a K-12 classroom setting.

Another amazing development in the world of projector technology!  Imagine being able to show models in full 3D in your classroom!  Texas Instruments has developed an upgrade to the DLP (Digital Light Processing) chip that allows just that.  Used in combination with inexpensive 3D glasses, these projectors can switch from 2D to 3D projection on demand and bring a richer, more immersive experience to your students.  And the cost appears to be relatively minimal.  Look for this to be a standard feature on projectors that you purchase over the next few years.  Full article.

Remember the Interactive Whiteboard that we built using the Nintendo Wii mote?  Here’s a new projector technology from Texas Instruments that does the same thing without needing the Wiimote or any special software – everything you need to create an interactive surface is built into a small DLP projection unit.  Amazing!  When released, this may have the ability to seriously compete with existing Smartboard technologies and ultimately drive down prices for schools who want to use this kind of technology in their classrooms.  Check it out: