"The Sleep Cycle alarm clock is a bio-alarm clock that analyzes your sleep patterns and wakes you when you are in the lightest sleep phase. Waking up in the lightest sleep phase feels like waking without an alarm clock - it is a natural way to wake up where you feel rested and relaxed. Since you move differently in bed during the different phases, Sleep Cycle uses the accelerometer in your iPhone to monitor your movement to determine which sleep phase you are in. "

Now here is an innovative application for an iPhone accelerometer.

"But what convinced me that I truly was wrong about the iPad and its prospects for the future weren't the reports coming in about its tremendous retail success. That could still be accounted for by initial fervor for a new product by Apple, which, few will argue, has become the "it" company of late. No, it was a few select apps that convinced me that the iPad was here to stay, and that that was a good thing. Below are those apps, along with why I think they're serious game-changers. "

Air Video is great, this is an awesome app. I have used it to share videos off my laptop for students to view on the iPad. Nice summary of cool iPad Apps that are serious game-changers.

Smokescreen is a cutting-edge game about life online. We all use Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and MSN to keep up with our mates - and we've all heard the stories about parties on Facebook being mobbed, or people getting stalked on MSN. The question is, what would you do if it happened to you?

"The software that provides it, called AudioFeeds, announces Facebook updates such as friend requests with watery sounds like drips, bubbles and splashes. Bird calls are reserved for Twitter, while musical sounds such as a didgeridoo or wind chime alert you to news stories. It achieves the 3D effect by adjusting the phase, or timing, of the sounds delivered to your left and right earphones."

Here is a thought, what if we had something similar in the classroom to provide audio feedback to the teacher. Fascinating thought.

Name: Team Fortress 2 Release date: October 10, 2007 Platform(s): PC, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Publisher(s): Valve Developer(s): Valve

"K12 Online Conference 2010 Schedule - All times are GMT. Direct links to presentations will be added as the presentations are published each day at 12:00 pm GMT. Presentations links will also be published to Twitter, Facebook and our conference video podcast channel and audio podcast channels."

My session is on last, phew ... that gives me time to prepare. :-)

Clean up and manage who you follow. Find out who isn't following you back. Find out which inactive accounts you follow. Easily search inside your Twitter stream.

Your iOS device is a killer pocketable computer; your desktop is more powerful with a bigger screen. They need to play better together. Here's how to break down the barrier between the two and shuttle text, files, media, and more seamlessly between your desktop and iPhone.Two-Way Tools: iPhone to Desktop to iPhone The following tools push information and data in both directions-back and forth between your desktop and iOS device.

"One Laptop Per Child project founder Nicholas Negroponte said that the organization is accelerating its development of the XO-3 tablet computer and will have a working prototype by December 2010, two years ahead of projections. Negroponte said the final product would cost US$75."

The XO-3 OLPC laptop will be released two years ahead of schedule and cost about $75 US. Amazing to see all this techology come together. Tony and I are working with what we can do with the Sugar interface in the classroom.

"The move toward a self-evident user experience is going to have several natural consequences for the technology professionals who work with these products on a daily basis. In many ways, these IT pros have benefited from the overly complex and sometimes convoluted technology products because they were the ones who helped sort everything out for the users. That won't be the case for much longer."

Interesting to read about the shift to better and more intuitive interfaces for users.

"Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education -- the best teachers and schools don't exist where they're needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching."

Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments examine what students can self learn with computer technology.

"The days of shackling your business to a brick and mortar office are over .. We asked people who work from home, from coworking spaces, in coffee shops, on the road and in offices to share their secrets for a productive day no matter where they're working. The following are the highlights of their collective advice."

Some interesting strategies and net management ideas that even educators can benefit from when working at school or from home.

"Japan will soon start trialling electronic textbooks in primary schools, enhancing the role of IT in the classroom for a generation of "digital natives" born in the wired age. Under the "future school" project, 10 elementary schools will give all their under-12 pupils tablet PCs and fit their classrooms with interactive electronic blackboards starting as early as next month."

Interesting development in Japan with a pilot Tablet computer project.

I presented twice at a great two day conference in Melbourne called 'Arresting Audiences'. The irony of the title not lost on this writer as the real intention of the event run by Film Victoria (a traditional film funding organisation) was commendable - finally focus on 'users', 'watchers', 'participants' aka as old school 'audiences'. Most of the talks explored new marketing, basic demography and obligatory future trends with a couple of inspirational 'write for your inner audience' highlight talks from the likes of Jane 'buffy/BSG' Espenson, but I was asked to look at the social and transmedia aspects that affect and impact on audiences/communities so below is:

"An Australian teen has caused havoc on Twitter by discovering an "exploit" that hit thousands of users, including US President Barack Obama's press secretary, and resulted in the tweets of a former British PM's wife linking to hardcore porn."

Interesting to consider how this student reacted when he found the exploit and what he then did (and didnt do). Great discussion for the IT classroom.

"I've often said, "The iPad is only good for two things: Reading and Scrabble. Well, I've now come to some longer-term conclusions about the iPad. In truth, reading covers a lot of stuff, and the iPad is great at those reading and viewing tasks. The fact that it's instant-on and you can flip the screen around to show a colleague a web page, a chart, or a document just like you would a piece of paper gives the iPad a much more natural feel and a huge advantage over a traditional laptop for those business professionals who spend a lot of time in meetings."

Interesting review. Of course we must not discount the power of just giving a student "instant on" access to web based resources, accessable and portable reading. The new dimension of using a multitouch interface offers some interesting social collaboration angles for schools.

We're surrounded by gadgets that demand our attention, constantly fragmenting our ability to properly focus on the task at hand. Living with technology doesn't mean we have to live with an addiction, however. Here's how to beat tech burnout.

Widespread Wi-Fi coverage, smart phones, ultra-portable computers, and other technological marvels of the 21st century blur the line between work and play more than ever. Here are a few tricks for reclaiming your time by setting boundaries between work and play.

"Still trying to get your employees to embrace the company wiki and other recent collaboration tools? Sorry, the world has moved on. Four years since the birth of "Enterprise 2.0", many wikis have been abandoned, as companies find it takes more to enthuse staff to share than just building a platform and expecting them to come."

Intesting refection about enterprise applications of web2.0 tools that could be applied to the Ultranet.