Group items tagged

I had to post one more just for fun. The computers from Desk Set from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory thankfully made the list. And only one computer from a Kubrick movie made the list. I'll let you guess which one.

Because of Moore's Law - the decreasing costs of computing power, we've become a world of Big Data and are now consuming ever more computing power at a rate that exceeds Moore's Law.

"Since at least the 1990s, when personal computers first became commonplace, public policy experts have worried the ill effects of a Digital Divide. That is, a learning, socialization and economic gap across socio-economic status, race and gender caused by unequal access to computing resources."

Tynker is a new computing platform designed specifically to teach children computational thinking and programming skills in a fun and imaginative way. The cloud hosted system is now available to teachers, schools and districts

OH THANK GOODNESS

I admit that between the title and Justin's response, I laughed.

The FBI raided the Detroit Public Library over allegations a library official had ties to a contractor hired to update the library's computer systems and personally benefited from the contracts--which were in the $2 million dollar range. Interestingly the president of the Detroit Library Commission says the the issues were longstanding the raid was overdue in happening.

The second of four New York Times articles, written by a librarian and therefore supportive, but he made several good points. Most learning centers offer computer skills in only English, but to offer those in four foreign languages is impressive, along with the move to circulating digital media and devices.

An interesting article about some of the diverse offerings the Overland Park county library has begun to offer, including classes and seminars on Wii bowling and hog butchering, which has helped raise attendance 29% from 2004-2010. One comment does ring true, from Michael Gorman, former president of the ALA: "I hope the library doesn't turn into something that is a type of cooking-class meeting place with computers attached and no books."

An interesting technical development of a flexible "PaperTab" that allows both handling of documents like paper but also allows each "tab" (equivalent to a sheet) to to be used like a touchscreen and to share data by tapping them together. Intriguing, but I noticed a computer cable connected to each Tab which means several would require a mess of wiring, and the display contrast wasn't impressive.

"The nation's librarians will be recruited to help people get signed up for insurance under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Up to 17,000 U.S. libraries will be part of the effort to get information and crucial computer time to the millions of uninsured Americans who need to get coverage under the law."

Unbelievable. And probably delicious.

Oracle is suing Google over the use of their Java API's in Android. This should be an interesting case. Google argues that while you can copyright a finished product, you shouldn't be able to copyright the computer language used to build the product - just like a novelist can copyright a book but nobody can copyright English. Oracle disagrees and says that if the language is unique enough, then it should be protected. They cite Klingon as an example. I read through Oracle's filing and it actually looks pretty strong. I didn't bother reading Google's because it's pretty clear that Google is missing the point that Oracle isn't upset that they used Java, but that they bundled all the extra API's. I really feel for the judge and jury having to hear this case. Oracle's brief isn't exactly light on the technical details...

Librarians may find this paragraph interesting: The new divide is such a cause of concern for the Federal Communications Commission that it is considering a proposal to spend $200 million to create a digital literacy corps. This group of hundreds, even thousands, of trainers would fan out to schools and libraries to teach productive uses of computers for parents, students and job seekers.

The state budget for the upcoming year eliminates all funding for public libraries. Commissioner of administration Paul Rainwater stated the libraries could be supported by local, not state dollars. There are two Federal grants within the budget, but they do not cover things such as desktop computer support. Rural libraries with the least amount of property tax are going to be among those most hard hit.

The rack for the supercomputer has been built using Lego under the guidance of Professor Cox's son James Cox (aged 6).  In a press release Professor Cox said, "As soon as we were able to source sufficient Raspberry Pi computers we wanted to see if it was possible to link them together into a supercomputer." 

A 50-card M:tG combo for four players is demonstrated that is used to construct a simple Turing machine, performing arbitrary computations just by following the rules of Magic and card text thereafter.

An interesting survey where it shows younger readers 16-29 are more likely to use books, use traditional library services, and read e-books on an computer rather than an e-book reader than their older (30-49) counterparts.

Wile not particularly new, the gesture technology here uses ideas inspired by devices such as the Kinect motion capture for the Xbox. While interesting I agree with some of the comments that performing gestures for hours on end would be physically fatiguing, along with the impreciseness that a gesture will always be read by the machine correctly. What I would be more interested in seeing is interface design that would offer an improvement over how today's materials are organized on a computer's file system or desktop.

This was a concept that I wasn't too sure if it wasn't ready for prime time or was simply a bad idea. Library patrons could sign up for a "Cloud" account and be given a thin client laptop that would access a Windows 7 image via Citrix which is "their" computer to install programs on or use as needed. However the initial outlay was $300,000 with $5,000 a year ongoing maintenance costs and considerable bandwidth requirements to stream an HD Windows desktop. Further it was limited to only laptops used in the library with a maximum base of 160 users. I honestly couldn't see this as a good idea because of the cost and limited use. It would be cheaper to rent out laptops and re-image when they are returned.