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James Love 2011-06-14 Huffington Post "In 2008, the Bush administration opposed a treaty for the blind. In early 2009, the Obama administration also opposed a treaty for the blind. But by December 2009, the Obama administration seemed to have changed its mind, and announced it was "open" to a treaty. But since 2009, three key treaty supporters left the Obama administration -- Susan Crawford and Andrew McLaughlin in the White House and Arti Rai at USPTO. Since the departure of Crawford, McLaughlin and Rai, the USPTO has been aggressively but quietly trying to kill the treaty, and pressuring treaty supporters, including both NGOs and governments, to settle for a soft recommendation as a "first step" and to wait several more years before taking the treaty proposal up again. Europe is divided on the treaty. Some countries, such as the UK and a few northern European countries support the treaty, and the European Parliament recently voted to support the treaty. But France and Germany oppose the treaty, and so has the European Commission. At this point, the fate of the treaty is largely in the hands of David Kappos, the former IBM executive now running the USPTO. If Kappos supports the treaty, opposition will fade, and the treaty will move ahead to a diplomatic conference. For a detailed history and background on the negotiation, see: Background and update on negotiations for a WIPO copyright treaty for persons who are blind or have other disabilities."

June 17, 2011, 11:00 am By Jason B. Jones "[My Online Summer is a weekly series chronicling my first effort at teaching a class entirely online in our campus's LMS. Read previous installments here.] Most of the early adjustments to teaching online ranged from disconcerting to irritating to anxious. But this week, I wanted to mention one thing that has been infinitely better in an all-online course: grading. It has been much easier for me to grade the work of online students than those from a conventional class."

"Kara Swisher August 2, 2011 at 11:08 am PT According to multiple sources close to the situation, Ning has been talking recently to a large pool of companies about selling itself, including Google and Groupon, as well as to a number of private equity companies. Interest has been both incoming to and outgoing from Ning. The talks around the fate of the high-profile social networking platform - co-founded by Silicon Valley icon and investor Marc Andreessen - are still early and might not result in a sale, although a number of sources said the company was being valued at up to $150 million. That price is well below previous loftier valuations for Ning and would mean only a break-even for investors, who have put close to $120 million into Ning since it was founded in 2004."