XplanaZine

Here’s our take on news that matters for Monday, January 13. Today’s theme is new evolution and here are a some links to headlines about technology that is changing the way we live and learn.

• Gaming –A new player has enetered the MMORPG space.
  IPVG Corp., a publicly listed firm with business interests in media and IT, has added RAN Online as the latest MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) to be hosted locally. RAN Online, developed by e-games of South Korea, is a popular online game in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and was recently introduced in Thailand. IPVG acquired exclusive rights to distribute the game in the Philippines through its gaming arm, IP Interactive. MMORPGs will continue to be imported at a more rapid rate than they are cerated in North America. They will also continue to ooutpace the rest of the video gaming worldsd in terms of growth. Hmmm… education anyone?

• Blogging, Podcasting, and Vodcasting — A new search engine for podcasts, Podzinger, launched today.
  PodZinger announced the launch of its podcast search engine which is
  based on 30 years of speech recognition research and development from
  BBN Technologies. PodZinger is touted by the company to be the fastest, easiest, and most reliable way for users to find information in podcasts. Two unique features of PodZinger make it exceptionally powerful and user-friendly: it displays the text surrounding the search term, so users can skim results the same way they skim text search results to assess relevance quickly; and it allows users to listen to the most relevant sections of their search results by simply clicking on any word in the search result and beginning audio playback from there.

And, we talk a lot about blogging in politics and education, but there is increasing discussion regarding blogging in business. Like IM software, there is lots of concern in businesses about security, control, etc. A bit antithetical to the whole design of blogging but, where there’s money, there’s legs on the trend.

• Handhelds – Research in Motion announced yesterday that it’s new handhels will include the Google Talk instant messaging and VoIP service. A special version of Google Talk for BlackBerry will launch this spring. The software will be included with new BlackBerry devices, and available as a free download for existing models. On a more serious note, CBS is working on a soap opera that will be released exclusively on cell phones.
• Social Networks –
  Of course, it was bound to happen. Social networking sites have gone to the dogs, literally.
  A site called Dogster gives our furry friends the opportunity to post photos, share their personalities, make new friends and even maintain blogs. On Dogster, which won the 2005 Webby Award in the community category, Web savvy humans take a back seat to their lovable companions.

Now, here’s a recap of our favorite posts from the edublogging community from the past 48 hours.

• From Brian Lamb : Post on how RipMixBurn si coming into focus.
• From D’Arcy Norman : Post on teaching dossiers.
• From FLOSSE Posse : Post on how learning nodes are here — still and again.
• From Ben Vershbow : Post on ESBNs and the end of cyberspace.
• From Will Richardson : Post on PLEs and learning vs. education.
• From James Farmer : Post on Personal Learning Environments.
• From Albert Ip: Post on whether or not an interactive program really fails the reading test.
• From Stephen Downes: Post on Personal Learning Environments and Virtual Learning Environments.