gintt:

Several apps will be demonstrated at the show, including Twitter client Twittle, interactive map MyFestivalGuide, entertainment app SmartGrooves, frequent flyer app MileBlaster, real-time audience feedback app Live TalkBack, and many more.

Adobe is also announcing support for HTTP streaming and several new mobile-ready features, including multi-touch, gestures, accelerometer, and screen orientation.

In the last two decades, more than a million families around the country have invested in state funds that pledged to cover the cost of attending their state’s public colleges and universities, regardless of how much tuition increased.

But in the last year, the stock market slump and rising college costs have combined to drive all but two of the nation’s 18 such funds, known as prepaid college savings plans, into the red, jeopardizing those pledges.

Seen at The New York Times (free subscription may be required)

Not long ago, a mother blogged about her visit to a newly opened public library in Darien, CT. Though she appreciated its soaring ceilings, the fireplaces and cozy nooks, the presence of a café, and state-of-the-art technology, what really excited her was the way the books were organized. “The books everywhere, but especially in the children’s room, have been shelved, labeled, and organized in a way that makes me feel less like a moron and more empowered to find what I’m looking for on my own.” She went on to say, “the Library, which in my mind used to be a little intimidating and kind of like a disapproving Mother, is reaching out to ME. ‘Library’ is saying to ME that she wants to be like ME and doesn’t expect me to be like her anymore.”

It’s not often that patrons express such strong enthusiasm for shelving systems, but in recent years librarians have been embroiled in a classification struggle. The first skirmish occurred in Maricopa County, AZ, when the new Perry Branch Library, Gilbert, opened in 2007 with nonfiction books shelved using a system adapted from the book industry, BISAC (Book Industry Standards and Communications). Unlike Dewey, which categorizes related knowledge systematically, BISAC is an alphabetical list of categories ranging from Antiques and Collectibles to True Crime. Many librarians feel BISAC’s relative simplicity and user-friendly language have an advantage over Dewey’s complexity.

Seen at Library Journal

Most institutions we spoke to are not yet feeling the ‘pinch’ of the recession on their services, which may be due in part to the fact that this research was conducted early in terms of the budgeting year. There is also a strong sense that both the library and IT departments occupy a protected place as central and essential services, and most report that the impact of the recession on budgets has currently been contained to small, easily managed cuts – for now. That being said, many institutions are anticipating deep cuts starting next year and are attempting to plan for reduced budgets now.

For most universities the 2009/2010 financial year is not of great concern. Even those libraries and IT departments that have been instructed to deliver 5% efficiency savings and believe they can meet the challenge of reducing costs without impacting services.

2010/2011 could see deep budget cuts, competition over fewer students, and a change in government 2010/2011, on the other hand, is anticipated to be harsher with deep budget cuts, competition over fewer students, and a change in government all increasing the pressure to deliver real savings over maintaining service delivery. Many universities are already adopting a more private sector/commercial approach to the business of the university as a whole and believe that ‘no institution has the right to exist anymore. We’ve got to prove our worth.’

Seen at JISC

shawnyeager:

Ethan Zuckerman:

Herkko [Hietanen of the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology] sees a near-fatal embrace between content providers and cable companies. They’re co-dependent, and scared of alienating one another. But this dependency can limit innovation in services. We’ve seen less development around on-demand video, the ability to watch on demand than we might expect than we might expect. Instead, we’ve seen “enhancements” like DRM and the broadcast flag, and heavy litigation against anyone entering the markets. Basically, we see a lot of intelligence added at the center of a network, with dumb, constrained edges that are prevented from innovating.

This is the most succinct analysis of the current state of television that I’ve seen in some time, and describes precisely why I no longer participate as a TV “viewer.” Those exceptional few shows that I simply love I’ll acquire via iTunes or, failing that, BitTorrent, with no ads, no hassles and relatively good portability, so long as I can connect the display to my laptop.

In short, I’ll pay you for good content if you get out of my way and let me. For the rest, I just don’t bother any more.

How to avoid repeating the Napster experience on campus with e-books:

1. Work With the Academic Libraries: Partnering with academic libraries holds the key to turning college students into responsible e-book buyers as opposed to e-book pirates. Libraries can be an unbeatable asset in socializing students to the benefits of working within the legal book acquisition framework. Do the major publishers and Amazon have policies to make electronic and audiobooks available to library collections? Students will bring the devices, the e-book readers and the iPods. College libraries need to supply the digital and audio books for these devices. However, college libraries cannot supply these digital books if Amazon and the publishers do not have programs to facilitate this. If a student can get her digital book, in the format she wants and readable on the device she has, from her college library then she will not resort to pirated downloads. She will not develop the habit of illegal book file downloading, and the culture around illegal downloading will not develop. However, if the e-books are not available from her college library then download she will!

Amazon and the publishers:

How to avoid repeating the Napster experience on campus with e-books:

1. Work With the Academic Libraries: Partnering with academic libraries holds the key to turning college students into responsible e-book buyers as opposed to e-book pirates. Libraries can be an unbeatable asset in socializing students to the benefits of working within the legal book acquisition framework. Do the major publishers and Amazon have policies to make electronic and audiobooks available to library collections? Students will bring the devices, the e-book readers and the iPods. College libraries need to supply the digital and audio books for these devices. However, college libraries cannot supply these digital books if Amazon and the publishers do not have programs to facilitate this. If a student can get her digital book, in the format she wants and readable on the device she has, from her college library then she will not resort to pirated downloads. She will not develop the habit of illegal book file downloading, and the culture around illegal downloading will not develop. However, if the e-books are not available from her college library then download she will!

Humans instinctively sort and classify things. It’s how we make sense of a complex world.

So when companies develop innovative products and services that don’t obviously fit into established categories, managers need to help people understand what comparison to make. Without that step, potential customers might just walk away wondering, “What is it?”

Humans instinctively sort and classify things. It’s how we make sense of a complex world.

So when companies develop innovative products and services that don’t obviously fit into established categories, managers need to help people understand what comparison to make. Without that step, potential customers might just walk away wondering, “What is it?”

In the most recent stable release of Google Chrome, we looked at ways to make a snappy, simple browser even more customizable, and we’re happy to hear that you’ve enjoyed personalizing Google Chrome’s look and feel with a few of our early themes for the browser.

Today, we are introducing Artist Themes for Google Chrome. We invited leading artists, architects, musicians, illustrators, filmmakers and fashion and interior designers from across the globe to create artwork for an unusual canvas: the modern web browser. The result is a vibrant fusion of art and technology, with a hundred Artist Themes that we hope will add a touch of inspiration and delight to your web browsing experience with Google Chrome.

Seen at Google Chrome Blog

I had a rare chance to hear the creator of Google News, Krishna Bharat, this weekend explain how the service’s algorithm picks the topics and stories on its home page. While he didn’t give away all his secrets, the Google principal scientist did outline why certain articles get higher placement than others.

Generally, he said, articles are ranked based on originality, freshness, quality, expertise of source and whether a lot of other sources around the Web are pointing to a particular article. Of course, what’s of interest to those of us hoping to get our stories into Google News (as opposed to folks like Associated Press who are trying to keep their content out) is how the algorithm makes those determinations.

Seen at Computerworld