One eReader to Rule Them All?

TechCrunch reporting on a tablet geared toward college students: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/08/kno-raises-46-million-more-to-build-most-powerful-tablet-anyone-has-ever-made/

We’ve talked about the textbook market on the podcast in the past… think this device will have a prayer?

FM in all mobile devices? Public safety

FM in all mobile devices? Public safety or ridiculous mandate? http://ow.ly/2rk7g

Twitter: A Waste of Time for the Masses?

We’ve talked quite a bit on the show about Twitter, what it’s good for, what it’s not, what it means, and what it doesn’t– today, I came across this interesting (and somewhat surprising) piece from the How-To Geek on how Twitter kills productivity unless you’re building a brand.

Keep in mind, he’s not saying that people who aren’t “building a brand” shouldn’t be ON Twitter, only making a correlation between following Twitter and being productive.

What do you think?

The Wave Is Dead

GigaOM on Aug 5, 2010 11:19:09 AM

Google has decided to pull the plug on Wave, its innovative collaboration and communication tool. That’s a shame, because it can actually be a pretty useful product — as long as you can actually figure out what to use it for — and it showcased some big, ambitious ideas.  I think that the main reason …  Sent from gReader (Android)

Net Neutrality on Life Support?

Google and Big Red are close to reaching consensus on this issue, according the the NY Times.

A little background on net neutrality, for those of us that haven’t thought about it in a while.

Are we reaching a regressive stage of Internet development and innovation, or are we bound by the limits of our economic principles to run in cycles around any new business form?  That is to say, will capitalism always force new forms of information delivery into this model?  Good or bad?

Green gone

Green will be leaving WTMJ at the end of the year, when his contract is up.

Will WTMJ be better for it?  It depends on who replaces him, I suppose.  I’m stretching on these topic ideas…can you tell?

America: Are you happy?

Yet another useless use for Twitter?

BBC – dot.Maggie: America: Are you happy?.

What would an actual scientist think about analysis like this?  Do they think it’s brilliant or crazy?

Quote: “”It was a really neat visualization that followed the whole game and let you learn a lot about America at the time.”

“Neat”…yes, it’s “neat”.

Is it anything else?

What do we need to do to get people to care about space?

You find stories like this all the time…

BBC News – Urgent spacewalks to fix ISS pump.

…buried.  Does science need a PR boost, or are we all too dumb to care?  Perhaps space exploration needs to be more like NASCAR?  Would more accidents get people to watch?

Would Lincoln Have Tweeted From the Bathroom?

One of the leading issues that I hear from people who do not use and have not tried to use Twitter is, “What the hell is it good for?”  This complaint is typically followed by a derogatory comment like, “Why should I care what Ashton Kutcher had for breakfast?”

I often have trouble explaining Twitter to a newbie, because the flexibility of the platform is pretty extreme.  You can do things as simple and (relatively) useless as pushing out a stream of consciousness with your daily minutiae, or you can do the sort of thing that Tom Caswell started at Utah State University last year.

TwHistory uses the Twitter service to “re-enact” historical events by tweeting in the voices of key figures who were involved.  They’ve covered Gettysburg, the Cuban Missile Crisis, plans are in the work for the sailing (and sinking) of the Titanic, and they link out to others.

From now on, when I am introducing someone new to Twitter, I’ll still try to generalize and explain the basic purpose; but I’m going to mention this, too.

BBC News – Russia to kick off construction of a new spaceport

BBC News – Russia to kick off construction of a new spaceport.

First we find spies, and now this?!

The port is actually meant for civilian use, but it’s nice that the Russian government is providing the infrastructure for it.

Perhaps we could redirect all the revenue Americans are spending on gourmet food for their pets to keep up with these folks.