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The winners of the "Badges for Lifelong Learning" competition were announced this past week at DML2012. It's hardly surprising, with it being the focus of the research competition, that much of the conference -- formal sessions and informal conversations -- was devoted to the questions surrounding badges: what are they for? what will they do? what practices will they reward? will badges change what we learn, what we value? how?

Institutional memory comes in two forms: people and documentation. People remember how things work and why. Sometimes they write it down and store that information somewhere. Institutional amnesia works similarly. The people leave and the documents disappear, rot, or just become forgotten (as it were).

Launched by two Stanford professors who left academia to create a new networked vision of education. 

I am a bit odd. I will rarely if ever answer a question on StackOverflow (SO). If I do its because I didn't have any other easy way of answering the question. This is entirely by design.

Could Anonymous be the next al-Qaeda? FBI Director Robert Mueller warned a group of cybersecurity experts on Thursday that online attacks will replace terrorism as the most serious threat facing the U.S., according to The Associated Press.

Can a person's Facebook profile reveal what kind of employee he or she might be? The answer is yes, and with unnerving accuracy, according to a new paper published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

There's a new adventure video capture company in town, and both Zeyez and GoPro would have good reason to be afraid. You may not have heard of Pivothead -- the company has had a remarkably quiet push to market over the last few months -- but the video recording eyewear startup could very well become a household name after its first products hit the market this April for $349. Aurora, Durango, Moab and Recon may offer distinct exterior designs, but they're virtually identical under the hood. Each model includes an eight-megapixel Sony sensor (that reportedly captures higher quality images than the iPhone 4S cam), a four-element glass lens, 8GB of built-in storage, a 440mAh battery (with about an hour of shooting time) and three video modes: 1080/30p, 720/60p and 720/30p. We had a chance to go hands-on with Pivothead earlier today, and took the glasses for a spin on the streets of New York City. You'll find that sample video, along with our impressions, just past the break.

 Ever since Rosie the Robot took care of "The Jetsons" in the early 1960s, the promise of robots making everyday life easier has been a bit of a tease. Enlarge This Image   Jodi Hilton for The New York Times, left; Hanna-Barbera With Ava, left, iRobot is trying to do Rosey the Robot of "The Jetsons" one better. Ava will have an iPad or Android tablet for a brain and Xbox motion sensors to help her get around. Rosie, a metallic maid with a frilly apron, "kind of set expectations that robots were the future," said Colin M. Angle, the chief executive of the iRobot Corporation. "Then, 50 years passed."

Two years ago this week, ThinkUp was born. Our first year we moved from alpha into beta, and our second year we graduated out of beta to great response. Today I'm thrilled to report that over 15,000 social media accounts are registered on over 5,000 ThinkUp installations around the web. ThinkUp's most well-known users include the White House, Martha Stewart, Steve Martin, Disney, and Pixar. Our birthday is as good a time as any to do an honest assessment of where the ThinkUp product, community, and code currently stands. Here's where we are.

Not long ago, Cory told you about how the Canadian government has been muzzling scientists-refusing to let them speak freely with the press and, thus, controlling what research the public gets to know about. Not surprisingly, it's research on topics that are politically inconvenient to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government-climate change, for instance-that end up getting frozen.

This handbook discusses the legal, social and technical aspects of open data. It can be used by anyone but is especially designed for those seeking to open up data. It discusses the why, what and how of open data - why to go open, what open is, and the how to 'open' data.

Caffeine will get you going during the day but could leave you tossing and turning at night  unless you're  a "night owl" to begin with, a new study suggests.

"The world is anxiously awaiting Cotton Candy's release," said Borgar Ljosland, CEO and founder of FXI. "We've had interest in the any screen computer for everything from portable set top box gaming and entertainment to mobile any screen computing, in addition to a host of specialized medical, automotive and other applications. The size, raw horsepower and combined HDMI, USB and MicroUSB connectivity bring unprecedented flexibility to the portable market.

The Smithsonian, the world's largest museum, is planning on producing 3D scans of its collection and making them freely available to the public to print out at home on their 3D printers (or incorporate into their virtual worlds). CNet's Daniel Terdiman has the story:

Water towers have been a common sight in cities, towns and villages all across the world since at least the Industrial Revolution. As certain towers fall out of use for one reason or another, they are often left standing thanks to their historical significance. But why leave these fascinating structures empty and languishing? These majestic homes were all once functional water towers but have since been converted into the type of home most of us can only dream about.

This week, I'm at TED, where I had the honor of curating a selection of books for the TED Bookstore around this year's theme, Full Spectrum. Here are my picks, along with the original text that appears on the little cards in the bookstore, and my blurb about the selection:

Our personal data is among today's most valuable information currency. It's often hard to determine what part companies own, what part the government owns, and what part, if any, is entirely our own - provided a third party hasn't already sold it to someone else.

The primary role that productivity plays in the network economy is to disperse technologies. A technical advance cannot leverage future opportunities if it is hoarded by a few. Increased productivity lowers the cost of acquisition of knowledge, techniques, or artifacts, allowing more people to have them. When transistors were expensive they were rare, and thus the opportunities built upon them were rare. As the productivity curve kicked in, transistors eventually became so cheap and omnipresent that anyone could explore their opportunities. When ball bearings were dear, opportunities sired by them were dear. As communication becomes everywhere dirt cheap and ubiquitous, the opportunities it kindles will likewise become unlimited.

Saylor.org is a free and open collection of college level courses. There are no registrations or fees required to take our courses, and you will earn a certificate upon completion of each course. Because we are not accredited, you will not earn a college degree or diploma; however, our team of experienced college professors has designed each course so you will be able to achieve the same learning objectives as students enrolled in traditional colleges. More Information