Group items tagged

0 July 2013 Last updated at 08:52 GMT Help 3D printing has been around for some time but now the technology is available for the same price as a top-end TV at shops. 3D printing has been hailed as the future of manufacturing. The technology works by building up layer upon layer of material - typically plastic - to build complex solid objects. The idea is that as the printers become cheaper, instead of buying goods from shops, consumers will instead be able to download designs and print out the items at home. Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones has been finding out what 3D print stores offer

Ossia: Trattato di Marrakech per facilitare l'accesso alle opere pubblicate per le persone cieche, ipovedenti o con altre disabilità che impediscono l'uso dei testi stampati" Pagina del sito dell'OMPI dal quale il trattato può essere scaricato in inglese, francese, spagnolo, arabo, cinese e russo.

Qualcuno avrebbe un suggerimento per rendere "print-disabled" più snellamente? Definizioni: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/print-disabled http://www.readingrights.org/definition-print-disabled Nelle traduzioni ufficiali del trattato (nelle lingue che capisco), per "otherwise Print Disabled": FR ayant d'autres difficultés de lecture des textes imprimés ES con otras dificultades para acceder al texto impreso In http://www.unipd.it/ilbo/content/accesso-ai-libri-i-non-vedenti-miracolo-marrakech Antonella De Robbio usa: "che non hanno accesso alla cultura nei supporti a stampa e in video" - "in video" è interessante perché si riferisce a una bozza anteriore che avrebbe incluso anche i sordi tra i benificiari (via la sottotitolazione), ma che ha attratto l'ira di Hollywood , rischiando di far naufragare l'intero trattato.

"By Harry Keller Editor, Science Education Despite plenty of nay-sayers, the textbook is dead. It just doesn't know it yet and continues on walking about as though alive. Textbooks have evolved considerably over the last fifty years and even somewhat in the previous fifty years. I even have one, A Text-Book of Physics, on my bookshelf beside me that was printed in 1891. It has some line drawings and no color. Its size is about 5"x8". Today, textbooks have lots of colorful images, plenty of side bars, and lots of engaging questions sprinkled about on their heavy-weight glossy paper stock. They also have tons of advice to teachers on how to use them effectively. They've gone about as far as they can go with paper as the medium. (...) You can learn faster and learn more than you think you can. Textbooks do not tap into our brains to realize that learning potential. New software that uses true active learning will. By so doing, it will eliminate textbooks of all forms, both printed and online, both passive and so-called interactive. Today, the textbook is a zombie. It's just waiting for that wooden stake or silver bullet to put it to a well-deserved rest."

Interessante la coincidenza con http://blog-micromega.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2013/07/22/boscaino-guastavigna-libri-di-testo-digitali-un-ragionevole-stop/ , già bookmarkato qui da Francesco Vallotto.

Analisi decisamente più interessante rispetto alle precedenti (citate) perchè vola decisamente più alta evitando di impantanarsi sulla falsa questione del formato dei contenuti per ragionare piuttosto di metodo. Ho condiviso filosofia e conclusioni

Pixlr Grabber Grabber 0.5 for Chrome The Chrome extension lets you capture the whole or parts of the browser content (Print screen), edit, share or save direct in the browser.  Grabber 2.0.3 for Firefox Grabber for Firefox let you right click on any image in a webpage and load it into pixlr for editing. The firefox add-on also lets you capture the whole or parts of the browser content (Print screen)

The Holy See delivered this statement on 18 June 2013 at the Marrakesh Diplomatic Conference on a WIPO Treaty for the Blind. Statement by His Excellency Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN and Other International Organizations in Geneva at World Intellectual Property Organization Diplomatic Conference to Conclude a Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities Marrakech (Morocco) "...Mr. President, The primary goals of the copyright system is the dissemination of creative works to enhance the common good. Copyright has never been an end in itself. Increasingly, technological developments have strained the capacity of copyright law to limit the ways in which the public accesses creative works. As stated by Jean Paul II, in his Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, "It would be radically unworthy of man, and a denial of our common humanity, to admit to the life of the community, and thus admit to work, only those who are fully functional. To do so would be to practise a serious form of discrimination, that of the strong and healthy against the weak and sick" [2] . Since all persons are called to contribute to society, it is fundamental to create an international instrument that could give even to impaired people a variety of opportunities to discover their potential, understand their environment, discover their rights and put to the best use their talents and resources both for personal fulfilment and for their contribution to society. This common good must be served in its fullness, not according to a reductionist vision subordinated only to the advantage of some people; rather, it is to be based on a logic that leads to the acceptance of a comprehensive responsibility. "The common good corresponds to the highest of human inclinations [3], but it is a good that is very difficult to attain because it requires the constant ability and effort to see

La difesa incondizionale da parte del Vaticano di un trattato OMPI per i ciechi e altre persone che non possono adoperare testi stampati è particolarmente interessante: in incontri precedenti su questo trattato - sotto il Papa precedente - il Vaticano si era allineato sui paesi ricchi del cosiddetto "Gruppo B" dell'OMPI nel chiedere di seppellire questo trattato.

"Livemocha is a social network service that supports language learning through audio-visual lessons and peer tutoring tools. Launched in September 2007, the platform has over 5 million registered members from over 200 countries. Lessons are provided for 36 different languages. While the standard lessons are freely accessible for registered users, the platform also offers "premium content" for a fee. Livemocha is more than just "Rosetta Stone on the Web." A unique selling point of the educational Web community is its collaborative approach to language learning: Members of the Livemocha community do not only learn a foreign language, they also tutor other community members in their native language. Users are encouraged to form learning tandems and offer feedback on their partner's speaking or writing exercises. The Livemocha platform supports this peer learning practice through comment features, voice recording and social awareness tools. For ETC Journal, I interviewed Clint Schmidt, Livemocha's Vice President of Marketing and Products. Clint has an impressive success record of developing marketing and product functions for a variety of high-growth Internet companies, including Half.com, eBay and ZoomIn.com, India's leading photo sharing and printing site. Clint holds a BSE in Entrepreneurial Management from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania."

"By Kimberly Kindy, Published: June 22 Hundreds of negotiators from around the world have descended on Morocco this week to finalize a treaty aimed at ensuring that millions of blind and vision-impaired people can get books in accessible formats like audio, Braille and large print. But the treaty, years in the making, could be in jeopardy because of unresolved differences between advocates for the blind and the Motion Picture Association of America, which says the accord could undermine protections important for filmmakers, publishers and other major industries."

Lungo pezzo seriamente documentato sulla proposta di un trattato OMPI che faciliti la condivisione tra paesi diversi di libri in formati accessibili ai ciechi - e sul lobbying accanito della MPAA e di altri grossi produttori di contenuti contro questo trattato. La corrispondenza e-mail tra i lobbyisti della MPAA e il rappresentante US all'OMPI citata verso la fine dell'articolo può essere scaricata da http://keionline.org/node/1759 . La traduzione italiana automatica dell'articolo con http://translate.google.com/ ha le sue pecche tipiche, però rende abbastanza il senso generale.

"ELAN is a professional tool for the creation of complex annotations on video and audio resources. With ELAN a user can add an unlimited number of annotations to audio and/or video streams. An annotation can be a sentence, word or gloss, a comment, translation or a description of any feature observed in the media. Annotations can be created on multiple layers, called tiers. Tiers can be hierarchically interconnected. An annotation can either be time-aligned to the media or it can refer to other existing annotations. The textual content of annotations is always in Unicode and the transcription is stored in an XML format. ELAN provides several different views on the annotations, each view is connected and synchronized to the media playhead. Up to 4 video files can be associated with an annotation document. Each video can be integrated in the main document window or displayed in its own resizable window. ELAN delegates media playback to an existing media framework, like Windows Media Player, QuickTime or JMF (Java Media Framework). As a result a wide variety of audio and video formats is supported and high performance media playback can be achieved. ELAN is written in the Java programming language and the sources are available for non-commercial use. It runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Main other features navigate through the media with different step sizes easy navigation through existing annotations waveform visualization of .wav files support for template documents input methods for a variety of script systems multi-tier regular expression search, within a single document or in a selection of annotation documents support for user definable Controlled Vocabularies import and export of Shoebox/Toolbox, CHAT, Transcriber (import only), Praat and csv/tab-delimited text files export to interlinear text, html, smil and subtitles text printing of the annotations multiple undo/redo Download ELAN"

Il software serve ad annotare video e audio: sembra piuttosto complesso ma è prodotto e offerto dal progetto The Language Archive dell'Istituto Max Plank dei Paesi Bassi, perciò sembra abbastanza sicuro. Ho installato la versione per Mac: poi provo e riporto

Opening Remarks WIPO DIP Com 18 June 2013 By: Maryanne Diamond on behalf of the WBU [World Blind Union] "...I urge you to play your part in making a difference in the lives of these millions of people, by agreeing a treaty that is simple, usable and meaningful. We cannot accept a treaty which has no substance, nor, can we accept a treaty full of bureaucratic and cumbersome requirements. We cannot accept a trophy treaty that will not work in practice. When considering your proposals, changes or amendments to the text, please stop and think about what that change will make on the ground to the people this treaty is about. You have received copies of our positions on the key issues in the current text of concern to us. * Commercial availability in articles D and E will ensure the treaty fails * The treaty must allow for distribution to individuals * The treaty must not allow TPMs to be a block to access to a book by blind people Please ask us if you're not sure what the impact of text you are considering will be on the ground. We are here for the entire conference. ..."

"1 luglio 2013 Antonella De Robbio Soltanto il 5% dei libri pubblicati nel mondo - meno dell'1% nei Paesi in via di sviluppo - è disponibile in formati accessibili per gli oltre 287 milioni di non vedenti e ipovedenti - in termini tecnici, visually impaired persons, persone con danni visivi - che non hanno accesso alla cultura nei supporti a stampa e in video, essendo inabilitate alla lettura per disabilità fisica. A fare fin qui da ostacolo il numero relativamente ristretto dei potenziali fruitori e, soprattutto, i vincoli posti dalle leggi a protezione dei diritti di proprietà intellettuale. Ma la situazione potrebbe cambiare: contro ogni aspettativa, si è concluso positivamente in questi giorni lo storico trattato di Marrakech, in seno alla conferenza diplomatica Ompi (Organizzazione Mondiale per la Proprietà Intellettuale, Wipo) tenutasi dal 17 al 28 giugno 2013. Il lavoro di lobbing dei diretti interessati, appoggiati dalla Chiesa cattolica che si è ufficialmente schierata a favore del trattato, non ha precedenti in termini di efficacia. L'Unione mondiale dei ciechi (Wbu) denunciava il rischio che quattro anni e mezzo di negoziati su un nuovo trattato per le persone cieche o con difficoltà di lettura potessero concludersi con un vuoto accordo "di facciata" o con un nulla di fatto. "Un trattato per i non vedenti o per chi detiene i diritti?" ci si chiedeva anche tra le associazioni bibliotecarie, dopo la sessione informale e la sessione speciale del Comitato permanente per il diritto d'autore e diritti connessi dell'Ompi."

Descrizione di una ricerca sull'efficacia dei MOOC

(di Anna Lisa Bonfranceschi | Pubblicato il 22 Novembre 2013 . Alla fine: Via: Wired.it ( http://daily.wired.it/news/internet/2013/11/21/mooc-corsi-gratuiti-chi-frequenta-290384.html ) Credits immagine: World Bank Photo Collection/Flickr ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/ ) L'articolo di Wired.it è lo stesso per il testo ma le illustrazioni sono diverse. Inoltre è sotto una licenza Creative Commons BY-NC-ND, mentre quello di galileo.net è sotto copyright stretto. Per l'articolo di Ezekiel J. Emanuel su Nature, del 20 novembre 2013, vedi http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v503/n7476/full/503342a.html : abstract e possibilità di comprare la versione completa, oppure di visualizzarla gratuitamente). Annarita, scusa la parentesi aggiunta sopra: mi serve per un post che sto rimunginando sulla traduzione di ipertesti. Sul fondo: la cosa buffa è che Emanuel aveva scritto un ditirambo sui fondatori di Coursera ad aprile, http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/andrew-ng-and-daphne-koller/ , concludendo: "After I taught my first class through Coursera, I got this beautiful postcard from Sri Lanka in the mail, thanking me. I just thought that was crazy and amazing. There's no chance I would have reached that student just by what I was doing before." E quella cartolina di cui andava così fiero, cfr. anche http://www.post-gazette.com/news/education/2012/11/20/College-of-Future-Could-Be-Come-One-Come-All.print Per un'altra recensione di "Online education: MOOCs taken by educated few" di Emanuel , cfr. http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/moocs-are-reaching-only-privileged-learners-survey-finds/48567 di Steve Kolowich, 20 nov. 2013.