XplanaZine

Here’s our take on news that matters for Tuesday, January 24. Today’s theme is conforming and here are a some links to headlines about technology that is changing the way we live and learn.

• Gaming — Okay, so the Disney/Pixar deal is picking up steam. Disney has extended an offer of $7 billion. In an interesting development, Persuasive Games has announced a new game called Disaffected . Here’s a description:
  “a videogame parody of the Kinko’s copy store, a source of frustration from its patrons. Disaffected! puts the player in the role of employees forced to service customers under the particular incompetencies common to a Kinko’s store.” This is an interesting type of simulation that may even find its way into certain educational environments.

• Blogging, Podcasting, and Vodcasting — Now, TiVo has joined the fray of media companies supporting podcasts. The program, which began in November but was announced widely this week, gives TiVo users who also have broadband connections the ability to access any podcast on the Web, and play the audio on their TV sets. Also, you might be interested in this Houston Chronicle article on
  JuiceCaster — The World’s First Personal Broadcast Network.

• Handhelds – The big cell phone companies are banding together to support a standard for mobile TV. From the article: ”
  The Mobile DTV Alliance, with
  Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Nokia, Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) and Modeo among its founding members, announced support for Digital Video Broadcasting - Handheld (DVB-H), an open procedure standard for broadcast digital-TV reception on mobile devices.” Finally, in a not-too-surprising development, the U.S. Supreme Course declined to hear the RIM (Blackberry) appeal of lower court findings that it infringed on patents owned by patent
  holding company NTP.
• Social Networks – Research by a faculty member at Sacramento State shows
  that there can be fewer than three degrees of separation among the thousands of people here—making a big university seem much smaller and friendlier than might be expected.

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

• From Stephen Downes : Post on Facebook and a recent Chronicle of Higher Ed article.
• From Jesse Wilbur: Post on fair use of the networked book.
• From Michael Feldstein : Post of more corroborating information on the cost of selling LMS platforms.
• From Albert Ip : Post on a simulation for clinical practice.