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Our very own Jess McCulloch on wired.com ... "One of the most enjoyable games I've been a part of in recent times has been an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) being run by an innovative teacher from Australia. We usually think of ARGs as large scale, requiring lots of resources and being part of a marketing campaign for a new movie - or as some funky, alternative techy game that the cool kids play. But it doesn't have to be."

Quote "Rumors have swirled about Apple readying a new version of the iPod Touch with a camera and microphone, which, combined with a Skype account, would pretty much obviate the need for a home phone line once and for all."

Rumors have swirled about Apple readying a new version of the iPod Touch with a camera and microphone, which, combined with a Skype account, would pretty much obviate the need for a home phone line once and for all.

"Last winter, Thomas Valenty bought a MakerBot - an inexpensive 3-D printer that lets you quickly create plastic objects. His brother had some Imperial Guards from the tabletop game Warhammer, so Valenty decided to design a couple of his own Warhammer-style figurines: a two-legged war mecha and a tank. He tweaked the designs for a week until he was happy. "I put a lot of work into them," he says. Then he posted the files for free downloading on Thingiverse, a site that lets you share instructions for printing 3-D objects. Soon other fans were outputting their own copies. Until the lawyers showed up."

" I simply said that I had seen the number one reason why for this school and for our children a 1:1 iPad program was the way to go. That reason was because the teachers believed it was the way to go. And, we should back them."

"No matter how complex, no matter how unique, your passwords can no longer protect you."

"By all evidence, 3-D printing has reached its inflection point, when it moves from the sophisticated early adopters to people who just want to print something cool. Soon, probably in the next few years, the market will be ready for a mainstream 3-D printer sold by the millions at Walmart and Costco. At that point, the incredible economies of scale that an HP or Epson can bring to bear will kick in. A 3-D printer will cost $99, and everyone will be able to buy one."

There is a revolution upon us in the Maker community. Use of computer-controlled construction methods, such as CNC machines, laser cutters, and 3D printers is on the rise and the cost to build these machines from scratch or from a kit continues to come down towards the point where your average household will soon be able to readily download and print objects the same way we download and print off a document. A major jump in this trend comes from the creator of the Solidoodle.

Cheap Android tablets, namely from Amazon, could boost Android tablet sales numbers past the current dominating force known as the iPad, according to research firm IDC.

"Watching this amazing high-definition video of Curiosity's hair-raising landing on Mars will make you clutch at your armrest. Compiled from the probe's MARDI descent camera, it is the best landing video yet and gives you a chance to experience what it's like to ride along with the rover down to the Martian surface. "

This lab is in melbourne - cool

Google has released a completely visual programming language that lets you build software without typing a single character. Now available on Google Code - the company's site for hosting open source software - the new language is called Google Blockly, and it's reminiscent of Scratch, a platform developed at MIT that seeks to turn even young children into programmers. Like Scratch, Blockly lets you build applications by piecing together small graphical objects in much the same way you'd piece together Legos. Each visual object is also a code object - a variable or a counter or an "if-then" statement or the like - and as you piece them to together, you create simple functions. And as you piece the functions together, you create entire applications - say, a game where you guide a tiny figurine through a maze.

The web is being controlled - good for a podcast discussion.

"Parents across the globe today - from Lagos to Los Angeles and from Myanmar to Moscow - need to have a new conversation with their kids. No, it's not about how their kids are behaving in class, why they should never talk to strangers, or when they need to be home at night. It's not even the talk that parents usually brace themselves for, about sex. It's something new, something parents never considered as a critical issue 20 or 10 or even 5 years ago - but something that is just as pervasive as any of the other issues in their children's lives and, in so many ways, just as important. It's data permanence. How we can preserve our reputations in the digital era?"

"The desktop operating system is dead as a major profit center, and Apple just delivered the obituary. Amid a slew of incremental improvements to its iPad tablets and MacBook laptops, Apple today announced some landmark news about its oldest surviving operating system: It will not charge for the latest big upgrade, Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks, breaking from a tradition that goes back 16 years and shining a light on a long-unfolding reversal in how tech profits are made. Eighteen years ago, the tech industry's dominant company made nearly half its revenue selling OS licenses. Now, as Apple just confirmed, the prices of OS licenses are headed towards zilch."

"Stop. Put down this computer, go pick up your iPad and come back here. Now go get this app: Flipboard. Why? It's pretty awesome."

Amazing bit of software, awesome to read my social networks online as if they are an eBook or magazine! Has much in common with http://paper.li

Bad Apple!! Bad! "Apple's iPad delivers on the tablet part of that vision - but the company has blocked a kid-friendly programming language based on Kay's work from getting onto the iPad."

Apple fans have been clamoring for a Mac tablet for years, and year after year the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has disappointed them. Now a new report from Taiwan says the company plans to a release a $800 tablet in October.