iPods and educational applications have Minnesota students giddy about learning

For fourth-grader Gabe Rivera, running vocabulary drills and solving mathematical problems on his classroom iPod Touch is a fun way to learn, in part because it's "something that is more newer than paper."

The student at Somerset Elementary School in Mendota Heights is one of many enthusiastic about the Apple touch-screen media players and handheld computers. The devices are becoming fixtures in U.S. schools as educators become aware of the various applications that can be installed on the gadgets to help students learn.

At Somerset and other schools in the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan district, for instance, the iPod Touch has taken classrooms by storm.

http://www.twincities.com/ci_14045406?nclick_check=1

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2008

With politics and the economy foremost on the minds of many, it is no wonder that bailout—a word ubiquitously featured in discussions of the presidency and fiscal policy—took home honors as Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2008.

Bailout, defined in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition as "a rescue from financial distress," received the highest intensity of lookups on Merriam-Webster Online over the shortest period of time. As evident from the 2008 Word of the Year contenders list below, the presidential campaign and financial issues factored heavily in the concerns of our online visitors throughout the year.

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Consequences to Plagiarism

Neale Donald Walsch, best-selling author of "Conversations with
God," said Tuesday that he unwittingly passed off another writer's
Christmas anecdote as his own in a recent blog post.

As a result,
Walsch's blog on the spirituality Web site Beliefnet.com has been shut
down. The Web site said in a statement that Walsch had failed to
properly credit and attribute material from another author.

Article Here

Beware "Experimental" Firefox Add-ons

Mozilla's open source Firefox browser can be augmented with add-ons --
miniature programs from third-party developers that change its
functions. Add-ons can be fun and useful, but Mozilla has warned
against using ones still considered "experimental." For example, one
called "China Channel" gives users a taste of what it's like to surf on
China's censored Web. Some users say they can't turn the thing off.

Full story here

Why veins could replace fingerprints and retinas as most secure form of ID

Forget fingerprinting. Companies in Europe have begun to roll out an advanced
biometric system from Japan that identifies people from the unique patterns
of veins inside their fingers.

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Real Estate Prices

Real Estate Prices

Google's Bots Cause United Stock Slump?

On Tuesday, Google spokesperson Gabriel Stricker said the episode began because the story did not have a date on it when the Google News search program came across it early Sunday morning.

"We indexed the story in Google News," Stricker said. As part of that process, the Google search program assigns a date to a story.

Tribune Co.'s spokesperson, in turn, argued that the key event was when Google's "bot" put a Sept. 6, 2008, date on the story. That date made the story appear fresh when it was accessed through Google News, the spokesperson said.

"After the story appeared on Google News, traffic went through the roof," said Gary Weitman, a spokesperson for Tribune Co.

Details here

New kid in town

Chrome is a challenge to Microsoft's browser, used by about three-quarters of Web surfers. But it could equally be called a challenge to Microsoft's Office software suite, because what Google really wants to do is to make the browser a stable and flexible platform that can do practically everything we want to do with a computer, from word processing and e-mail to photo editing.

To strengthen that effort, Chrome was designed to improve on the way other browsers handle JavaScript, one of the technologies used to make Web pages more interactive and more like desktop software applications. Google's online word processing and spreadsheet programs use this technology, but it's also very widely deployed on Web pages to do less sophisticated things, like drop-down menus. More here

Cell Phones Make Headway in Education

The iPhone and other smartphones are gaining the attention of education professionals for their potential as learning tools. Cell phones have long been considered classroom distractions, but the ability of smartphones to run a wide variety of applications opens the door to greater possibilities.

So-called smartphones -- such as the iPhone, which in the U.S. is authorized to run on the AT&T (NYSE: T) Latest News about AT&T network New HP LaserJet P4014n Printer Starting at $699 after $100 instant savings. -- offer myriad new capabilities, including Web access, e-mail and access to educational software. "The time is approaching when these little devices will be as much a part of education as a bookbag," write the authors of a report last year by the nonprofit New Media Consortium, which studies emerging technologies likely to have an impact on teaching.

A well-equipped cell phone with a foldout keyboard could even supplant a laptop in classrooms, says Bill Davidson, senior vice-president for global marketing at Qualcomm, which makes cell-phone software and chips.

Full story here

Ohio Voting Machines Contained Programming Error That Dropped Votes

voting system used in 34 states contains a critical programming error
that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically
transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point, the
manufacturer acknowledges.



The problem was identified after complaints from Ohio elections
officials following the March primary there, but the logic error that
is the root of the problem has been part of the software for 10 years,
said Chris Riggall, a spokesman for Premier Election Solutions,
formerly known as Diebold.

More here

Wind POWER!

Info, photo and another video here

Beloit College Mindset List Class of 2012

This month, almost 2 million first-year students will head off to college campuses around the country. Most of them will be about 18 years old, born in 1990 when headlines sounded oddly familiar to those of today: Rising fuel costs were causing airlines to cut staff and flight schedules; Big Three car companies were facing declining sales and profits; and a president named Bush was increasing the number of troops in the Middle East in the hopes of securing peace. However, the mindset of this new generation of college students is quite different from that of the faculty about to prepare them to become the leaders of
tomorrow.

http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2012.php

Welcome to the 2008-2009 School Year

Microsoft Eyes the Night Skies With Virtual Telescope App

Technology News: Web Apps: Microsoft Eyes the Night Skies With Virtual Telescope App

Star gazers and astronomers now have a powerful new tool that will allow them to surf the skies from their desktop. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Free Trial. Security Software As A Service From Webroot. Latest News about Microsoft unveiled the public beta of its WorldWide Telescope (WWT) Web application Monday.

The software Blackberry Professional Software from AT&T. Save up to 57% until June 6th. Click to learn more. creates an experience that users of all ages will find captivating, said Frank Reddy, a senior editor at Astronomy Magazine.

"There are other tools that can teach you the constellations, but WorldWide Telescope is an immersive environment that basically throws you into space and allows you to navigate very easily and smoothly. It can be both a teaching platform, a research platform and even an entertainment platform," he told TechNewsWorld.

Internet Archive Wins David-and-Goliath Privacy Tussle With FBI

The government has gone too far in its use of National Security Letters, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues. There are likely countless groups who receive National Security Letters and don't put up a fight -- like the Internet Archive did -- against releasing data to the feds.

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Free Tibet' Message Masks Rootkit Malware

Watch out if you receive an e-mail with a Flash animation ridiculing a Chinese gymnast and calling for a free Tibet. It's likely the entertaining little clip is hiding a piece of malware that will log your keystrokes. Security experts are warning that malware creators are taking advantage of the news coverage of the Tibet freedom protests to get you to let your guard down.

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CNN Web site targeted

CNN was targeted Thursday by attempts to interrupt its news Web site, resulting in countermeasures that caused the service to be slow or unavailable to some users in limited areas of Asia.

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Who's Watching You at Work?

Even if you think you've mastered the art of minimizing your browser
the second your boss rounds the corner, every click you make may be
monitored by your employer. In fact, most businesses say they do
monitor workers' use of the office's Internet access, phone systems,
etc. Whether or not that means trouble is all a matter of context, of
course, but what constitutes reasonable use is sticky question.

"Surveillance is now routine
business practice among American employers, both large and small, as
the cost and ease of introducing have dropped. You leave your rights at
the office door every day you go to work. Most surveillance is
conducted without any individualized suspicion, and personal as well as
business-related information is routinely collected," explained Jeremy
Gruber, legal director at the National Workrights Institute.

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Espionage Against Pro-Tibet Groups, Others, Spurred Microsoft Patches

SAN FRANCISCO -- Computer intruders targeting pro-Tibetan groups,
U.S. defense contractors and government agencies slipped in through
previously unknown security holes in Microsoft Office, prompting
Microsoft to issue a flurry of patches to the popular software suite in
2006 and 2007, according to computer security experts.

These attacks, which appeared to have originated in China, began in
early 2006 when the attackers started sending e-mails to victims with
booby-trapped Word documents and Excel spreadsheets attached.

"We are seeing more and more spying done with Trojans, a shift that has
happened in the last two years," Mikko Hyppönen, the chief research
officer for software security vendor F-Secure, told RSA conference
attendees Thursday morning.

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Where's Wally? for the Google Earth generation

The striking young man - never without his red-and-white-striped top, bobble hat, walking stick and glasses - had a habit of turning up in the most unlikely and crowded of places, from ancient Aztec kingdoms to medieval battlefields.

But now a Canadian artist has brought the game into the 21st Century, by painting an enormous Wally that can be seen by Google Earth satellites.

The 55ft figure was installed on an undisclosed rooftop in Vancouver last month, sparking a flurry of interest among internet users keen to be the first to spot this Web 2.0 Wally.

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