iTunes U Proves Better than Going to Class
Feb 25, 2009 Read/Write Web
pimg src=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/itunesu20081208.png”Skip the lecture, download the podcast. That’s probably not what university professors tell their students, but perhaps they should. a href=”http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16624-itunes-university-better-than-the-real-thing.html?DCMP=OTC-rssamp;nsref=online-news”New psychological research/a conducted by a href=”http://www.fredonia.edu/department/psychology/mcKinneyhp.asp”Dani McKinney/a, a psychologist at the State University of New York in Fredonia, shows that students who only listened to podcasts of lectures achieved substantially higher exam results than those who attended class in person. /p
p align=”right”emSponsor/embr /a href=’http://d1.openx.org/ck.php?n=13994amp;cb=13994′ target=’_blank’img src=’http://d1.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=11205amp;cb=13994amp;n=13994′ border=’0′ alt=” align=”right” //a/p
pTo find out how much students can learn from a podcast, McKinney’s team created one for a lecture from an introductory psychology course. The podcast contained both audio and video of the slides used in class. /p
pHalf the students (32 of 64) skipped the class and listened to the podcast only. The other half attended in person, where they also received a printed handout. A week later, the students were tested on the material. /p
h2Podcast Listeners Did Better/h2
pThe students who downloaded the podcast alone averaged a C (71 out of 100) but those who attended class averaged a D. And those who listened to the podcast and took notes did even better – their average was 77. /p
pBefore university classrooms empty out, it’s important to note that this is only preliminary research. McKinney’s study involved only a single lecture. Also, motivation may have come into play as well. Her experiment didn’t count for class credit, so students were encouraged to participate with iTunes gift cards. The high scorer from each group was awarded a $15 gift certificate for use in the online store. /p
pMcKinney now plans to further study podcasts in the classroom over the course of an entire semester, instead of just one class. She wonders if students might find podcasts more useful early on in a class, when the material is still new. Still, McKinney is a big believer in the power of technology and its impact on education. “I do think it’s a tool,” she says. “I think that these kids are programmed differently than kids 20 years ago.”/p
stronga href=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/itunes_u_proves_better_than_class.php#comments-open”Discuss/a/strong
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App Purchases Are Adding Up
Feb 25, 2009 Read/Write Web
emstrongpTake the Poll at the Bottom of the Post!/p/strong/em
pimg src=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/iphone.png”Recession? What recession? According to a survey from ABI Research, many U.S. consumers are spending hundreds of dollars per year on mobile applications. Over 15 percent of those surveyed had spent nearly $100 over the past twelve months and a surprising 16.5 percent had spent between $100 and $500 during that same time frame./p
p align=”right”emSponsor/embr /a href=’http://d1.openx.org/ck.php?n=13993amp;cb=13993′ target=’_blank’img src=’http://d1.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=11205amp;cb=13993amp;n=13993′ border=’0′ alt=” align=”right” //a/p
h2Apple’s Impact on Mobile App Sales/h2
pWith the high level of spending being reported, those unfamiliar with the mobile industry could easily be led to believe that mobile applications must cost a pretty penny. However, just the opposite is true – mobile applications are relatively inexpensive – often only a dollar or two on iTunes for example. That makes the amount of money being spent all the more telling – strongpeople aren’t just buying apps, they’re buying ema lot/em of apps./strong/p
pYet it’s those App Store prices that ABI analyst Jeff Orr claims are hurting the overall mobile industry. “If you exclude Apple from the mix, applications for other platforms cost about $7-25 each,” he says. “Many developers, lacking the resources to author applications for all available smartphone platforms, have to focus on one. That means they have a ‘margin vs. volume’ quandary: sell many copies for the iPhone at a very low price of which the developer receives 70%, or sell fewer via one of the other application storefronts, but charge a higher price and earn more per transaction.”/p
pOn the other hand, however, Orr notes that Apple did a lot for the industry with their marketing campaigns for mobile applications. Their efforts led to sort of a ‘halo’ effect that has positively impacted the sales of apps on non-Apple platforms. /p
h2Some Big Caveats About These Numbers/h2
pBefore everyone takes these survey numbers to the bank, though, it’s important to look at them a bit more closely. /p
pFirst of all, the sample size of this survey was far too small – strongonly 235 smartphones owners were involved/strong. That may be enough to hint towards a trend that requires further research, but it’s not large enough to drawn any concrete conclusions from. /p
pSecondly, smartphone users who didn’t install an application weren’t included in the survey so, obviously, the data is skewed here as well. The survey results seem to imply that application purchases are something all smartphone owners do, but that is not the case. We imagine there are probably tons of executives out there whose Blackberry devices are used for two things only: phone calls and emails. That said, it seems once you cross over to being an application buyer, the sky’s the limit when it comes to spending./p
pOne final note about the survey is that the findings are self-reported and most people don’t do very well at estimating how much they’ve spent over a period of time. We could probably ask our readers a similar question and report our findings as “research” too. /p
pHmm, let’s do that:/p
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Amazon Exposes 1 Terabyte of Public Data to Developers
Feb 25, 2009 Read/Write Web
pimg src=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/aws_nov_08.jpg”Amazon.com changed the retail world. In the process the company built up so much surplus computing power that it started a dirt cheap “computing in the cloud” business that changed the computing world. This week the company’s newest project a href=”http://aws.amazon.com/publicdatasets”Public Data Sets on Amazon Web Services/a began offering more than 1 Terabyte (1000 GB) of fascinating public data for developers to access on the fly through Amazon’s cloud computing service./p
pWe’re talking about an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences, including the Human Genome, huge amounts of chemistry data, machine readable encyclopedic entries about millions of different topics and an entire dump of Wikipedia. US Census data, data from the US Department of Transportation and more. It’s all accessible by web applications in no time at all. What do you think emthis/em is going to change?/p
p align=”right”emSponsor/embr /a href=’http://d1.openx.org/ck.php?n=13992amp;cb=13992′ target=’_blank’img src=’http://d1.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=11205amp;cb=13992amp;n=13992′ border=’0′ alt=” align=”right” //a/p
pThe company made a href=”http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2009/02/new-aws-public-data-sets-economics-dbpedia-freebase-and-wikipedia.html”a blog post last night/a announcing the availability of four new public data sets./p
pimg alt=”aws350.jpg” src=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/aws350.jpg” width=”350″ height=”238″ align=”right”This includes data from:br /
ulli The a href=”http://www.bts.gov/”Bureau of Transportation Statistics./a/libr /
lia href=”http://dbpedia.org/”DBPedia Knowledge Base/a – which “currently describes more than 2.6 million things including 213,000 people, 328,000 places, 57,000 music albums, 36,000 films, and 20,000 companies.” All in handy semantic markup./libr /
liThe a href=”http://download.freebase.com/datadumps/”Freebase Data Dump/a – the giant collaboratively build semantic database on a wide variety of topics, data that high profile startup Metaweb has spent millions of dollars assembling./libr /
liThe entire English section of Wikipedia, dumped into a machine readable format./libr /
liA number of large genetic and scientific databases./li/ul/p
pWe counted all the databases up and it passed 1 TB of available data. The company says that accessing this data is “trivial” for developers. /p
pWhat are developers going to do with this data? We can’t wait to find out. The prospect of mashing up, cross referencing and user interfacing with this amount of data is nearly unfathomable. Really. This data will be leveraged by all kinds of different web applications, for a long time./p
pYou’ve read, or can imagine, the impact that the first Public Libraries had on human culture. Now imagine the opening up of not just this, but other libraries of data, so huge that economies of scale blast the project off beyond any analogy that could be drawn with our everyday experience or historical memories. It won’t just be Amazon that offers up this kind of data – it will be relatively commonplace soon, we imagine. /p
pIt will be like a network of libraries – for robots. Robots that go to the library frequently, read very fast and make serious use of what they’ve learned./p
pCongratulations, Amazon, on passing 1 TB of public data made available. May all our robots of the future please live in peace./p
stronga href=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/amazon_exposes_1_terrabyte_of.php#comments-open”Discuss/a/strong
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Republic Project: Reinventing the Box Set for the Digital Age
Feb 25, 2009 Read/Write Web
pimg alt=”republic_project_logo.jpg” src=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/republic_project_logo.jpg” /The a href=”http://www.republicproject.com”Republic Project/a, a new online music business, officially launched its service this morning. At its core, the Republic Project reinvents the special edition music box set for the digital age. Users who pre-order albums on the service will get access to exclusive behind the scenes video shot by the band while recording the new album, access to artist blogs, as well as additional ‘fan only’ content like live chats and access to rare tracks. The albums on the Republic Project will be available as DRM-free MP3s./p
p align=”right”emSponsor/embr /a href=’http://d1.openx.org/ck.php?n=13989amp;cb=13989′ target=’_blank’img src=’http://d1.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=11205amp;cb=13989amp;n=13989′ border=’0′ alt=” align=”right” //a/p
pThe first artists to sign on with the Republic Project are a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Myers”Tim Myers/a, Dexter Freebish, Steriogram, and Still Time./p
pFor artists, the Republic Project offers a full range of services, ranging from the in-house design of the artists’ web pages on the site, to reputation management and regular updates of the artists’ presence on social media and video sharing sites. The Republic Project will not manage tours or sell merchandise, however. /p
h2Focus on Video/h2
pIn order to produce the artists’ behind the scenes videos, the Republic Project has teamed up with a href=”http://www.theflip.com/”Flip/a, which will provide participating artists with its MiniHD camcorders. The Republic Project puts a strong emphasis on the video production and will edit the artists’ video in-house. Only those customers who pre-order the artists’ albums (or buy them after they are finished) will get access to the full-length videos, while the Republic Project will put teasers on publicly available video sites like YouTube or Vimeo. /p
h2Sounds Like a Good Deal/h2
pRyan Swagar, the Republic Project’s CEO and Co-Founder told us earlier this week that he believes that his company offers a better deal for both artists and consumers. The Republic Project keeps 30% of the revenues from all sales, which is similar to the cut that Apple takes for a href=”http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/30/technology/itunesthreat.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2008093014″songs sold on iTunes/a – though most of that money tends to go to the labels and not to the artists. /p
pAccess to a band’s site, with video updates and blog posts during the production of the album, as well as a download of the finished product will cost between $9.99 and $14.99. This is also similar to what other online music stores charge, though that obviously only includes access to the songs and doesn’t include the ‘box set material’ that the Republic Project plans to offer./p
pWe like the ideas behind the Republic Project: connecting artists and fans directly, providing DRM-free music, and helping artists to develop their digital footprint, while also allowing these musicians to bypass the trappings of traditional music deals. In the end, the marketplace will decide if this is something that users want – and that bands want to sign up for – but to us, it looks like the Republic Project has put together a very interesting package. Because of its emphasis on pre-orders, however, its appeal might currently be limited to bands that already have a strong, dedicated fan-base. /p
stronga href=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/republic_project_launch.php#comments-open”Discuss/a/strong
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Orkut User Loses in Indian Supreme Court
Feb 25, 2009 Read/Write Web
pimg alt=”orkutlogo150.jpg” src=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/orkutlogo150.jpg” width=”150″ height=”70″The Supreme Court of India has denied legal protection to a 19 year old computer science student facing a lawsuit for comments left on a group page he created on the Google owned social network a href=”http://orkut.com”Orkut/a, according to a href=”http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Bloggers-can-be-nailed-for-views/articleshow/4178823.cms”The Times of India/a. Local press has identified the young man by the name Ajith D (a common name) and report that his alleged offense was creating a group page where other visitors left “libelous” comments critical of militant right-wing political party a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiv_Sena”Shiv Sena/a./p
pIndians around the internet are condemning the ruling as a blow against freedom of speech and democracy. It certainly appears to be a dangerous misunderstanding of the nature of the internet on the part of the court and a bad precedent in the most populous democracy in the world./p
p align=”right”emSponsor/embr /a href=’http://d1.openx.org/ck.php?n=13991amp;cb=13991′ target=’_blank’img src=’http://d1.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=11205amp;cb=13991amp;n=13991′ border=’0′ alt=” align=”right” //a/p
pThe a href=”http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Bloggers-can-be-nailed-for-views/articleshow/4178823.cms”Times of India/a quotes the court as having offered the following statement to the young man. “You are a computer student and you know how many people access internet portals. Hence, if someone files a criminal action on the basis of the content, then you will have to face the case. You have to go before the court and explain your conduct.” /p
pWe’re not sure what the number of potential readers has to do with anything and we find it pretty frightening that a court that would say “you’re a computer student so you know how many people use the internet” had any say at all in such matters. /p
pAccording to reports the comments in question were left by anonymous users and the group’s owner claimed they were legitimate exercises of free speech. The youth arm of the political party facing criticism apparently filed suit under a law pertaining to “hurting public sentiment.”/p
pThere are more than 1,000 groups on Orkut that show up in a search for “Shiv Sena,” some for and some very much against the party. We’re writing based on relatively light local reporting, so it’s possible that the group started by Ajith D was particularly heinous. On principle, though, we presume that the young man should not face legal charges for anonymous comments left by others – no matter what those comments were. /p
pimg alt=”orkutgroup.jpg” src=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/images/orkutgroup.jpg” width=”609″ height=”365″/p
pLate last year Facebook a href=”http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_shuts_down_pro-genocide_group.php”shut down a group on that site/a that appeared to be celebrating acts of genocide against Bosnian Muslims. People lost their Facebook accounts and the group was closed due to violation of the site’s Terms of Service against advocating violence – but filing legal charges against the group’s admin would have been an entirely different matter./p
pIndia’s Supreme Court ruling that the Orkut group owner could be sued for anonymous comments sounds like a terrible ruling to us and the kind of thing that web users all around the world should be concerned about. India is the world’s second most populous country and its largest democracy. It’s a large and complicated country, though. While the recent rise of the Indian middle class and tech sectors have received substantial attention, the country still has one of the highest child malnutrition rates in the world – twice that of Sub Saharan Africa according to the World Bank. /p
pDemocracies are complicated; the United States has one of the highest rates of imprisonment of any industrialized countries in the world, holds a shockingly disproportionate number of its young black men in prison and was founded on an experiment in ethnic cleansing. Who has the moral high ground? /p
pWhile big picture questions are important, this particular case is as well. Will Google intervene in defense of Ajith D’s use of its website? Will the US government, now more than ever advocating the use of free-flowing information technology to advance human well being, have anything to say about this potentially terrible precedent being set? We suspect neither will occur./p
pIt’s a good idea for us as individual web users to remember that even as new internet technology sets so much information and so many voices free, even in a celebrated democracy – online freedom may be one repressive legal ruling away from being put at serious risk. No matter where you might live – do you trust that your local judiciary would understand the issues in a case like this? We don’t./p
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