A survey of 25 ed tech directors conducted by Piper Jaffray that is making the rounds in the tech blogosphere. Seems to fall in line with what we're learning and today's trends: all surveyed IT directors are interested in the iPad, not Android, they like the flexibility tablets would offer over computers, it's going to take some time for schools to achieve one tablet per child. Cost is an obvious concern, but so is device management.

just the latest developments in flexible display technologies that are coming. Looks like Samsung and Nokia are already demonstrating their implementations at trade shows, and we may begin seeing these as early as 2012

A hands-on report with the $35 tablet (Aakash). Interested that they call it a "leap frog" technology, in that it's a modern technology brought into a society that didn't have related legacy technologies to begin with. Relates to our class discussion of 'disruptive technologies'- if a group is starting with nothing at all, the bar can initially be set very low and it's still better than nothing. From there, the only direction to go is up (improvement). The article was also updated with a detailed use report w/ video: http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/28/aakash-35-android-tablet/

Relating to the discussion last class about potential directions AR and mobile apps may go -- this iPhone app allows users to experience a location (in this case, Rome) as it existed in the past.  Provides images and historical info for all users, but if the user is actually at the Coliseum, it uses the iPhone camera + gps and presents actual 3D renditions of the past of whatever is in the user's viewfinder

Tying into discussions this week about bringing access to mobile devices to all via non-prohibitive costs, while still reaching a set of bare-minmum technical specs for actual use: India's "$35 tablet" has been a pipedream in the tech blog-o-sphere for awhile now, but it's finally available (though for a price of roughly $60). Still though, as an actual Android color touch tablet, with WiFi and cellular data capability - I'm curious to see how it's received and if it's adopted in any sort of large scale

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jkCXZtzqXX87-pXex2nn23lWFwkw?docId=87163f29232f400d87ba906dc3a93405 A much better article that isn't so 'tech' oriented. Goes into the origin and philosophy of the $35 tablet, and future prospects

I think this is what they're aiming to do - all classrooms/students across the country having this particular tablet. They won't be able to do everything today's expensive tablets can do, but I think they'll still be able too to do plenty. This $35 tablet's specs are comparable to the mobile devices we had here in the US in 2008/2009. Even back then, we were able to web browse, check email, use social networking (sharing pics and video too), watching streaming online video, and play basic 2D games. But even beyond those basic features, I think this tablet will be able to do more than we expect from something at this price point and basic hardware, for 2 reasons: 1. Wide-spread adoption of a single hardware. If this thing truly does become THE tablet for India's students, it will have such a massive userbase that software developers and designers who create educational software will have to cater to it. They will have to study this tablet and learn the ins-and-outs of its hardware in order to deliver content for it. "Underpowered" hardware is able to deliver experiences well beyond what would normally be expected from it when developers are able to optimize heavily for that particular set of components. This is why software for Apple's iPhone and iPad, and games for video game consoles (xbox, PS3, wii) are so polished. For the consoles especially, all the users have the same exact hardware, with the same features and components. Developers are able to create software that is very specialized for that hardware- opposed to spending their resources and time making sure the software works on a wide variety of hardware (like in the PC world). With this development style in mind, and with a fixed hardware model remaining widely used in the market for many years- the resultant software is very polished and goes beyond what users expect from it. This is why today's game consoles, which have been around since 2005/6, produce visuals that are still really impressive and sta

an interesting writeup on on the basics of Khan Academy- including a couple of example teachers & classrooms. Also includes interview excerpts with Salman Khan.

Physical toys can be recognized by the iPad touch screen, utilized by free game app. The interaction (maybe requirement?) of physical toys, that must be purchased, in order to utilize a free app... curious to see if this kind of interaction will gain footing in education

Portal is a fun, innovative 3D first-person game known for its unique physics gameplay and sense of humor. It's over 4 years old now, but still enjoyable and clever. It's been used in education as a way for students to explore physics, and also as a gameworld ripe for student content creation. The game is available as a free download for PC/Mac through 9/20.

some more on Kinect and homebrew uses in education. read about a contest in progress, scroll down for video of current experiments.

For anyone who is intrigued by Xbox Kinect and potential applications in education, research, or anything beyond Xbox gaming, the peripheral is usable for developer's own projects, for free.

What's being done in the 'homebrew' community:
http://www.joystiq.com/tag/kinect-hacks/

Two ways these things are being done:

Microsoft's official Kinect for Windows SDK:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/kinectsdk/download.aspx

Homebrew / 'Hack' method to integrate Kinect with many different tools & programming languages:
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/01/13/kinect-hacks-flash-html-unity-and-silverlight-integration/