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"Hoping to give its users a more intimate way to stay in touch, Facebook on Wednesday introduced video chatting inside its online social network through a deal with Skype, the Internet calling service. "

Interesting partnership between two communication giants. Much of the rest of the article discusses this as a counter-attack on Google+. Honestly, this must have been in the works for a while, but it's also okay if it is true. When companies feel the need to innovate to stay competitive, users win.

Good editorial on large class size and disengagement across large institutions. A very student-centered piece that rings true on a lot of fronts.

Good article. You know CHAT (the learning theory), right? I like it because it considers our tools and environment as part of how we (collectively) learn. Our cell phones and laptops and Google are part of the equation. So yes, Allan's brain may remember less at a given time, but Allan+iPhone+Google remembers many orders of magnitude more and with much more accuracy.

We talked about this quite a bit in our Disruptive Technologies course with Cole and Scott in terms of distributed intelligence, which is similar to what you're saying in that the tools we use are extensions of our minds. Maybe it's because I'm a SciFi geek and have read so many post-apocalyptic books, or perhaps it's just that I know technology too well to trust it, but my biggest fear about what this research is suggesting is that, should our technology disappear, we'll all turn into gibbering idiots because half our mind has been turned off, literally. Realistically, I know that the human brain is much more plastic and our memory would reconfigure itself eventually. And the benefits of extending ourselves like this probably outweigh the risks. But it still gives you pause for thought..

Right now, our dependence on instant gratification knowledge isn't too bad, I'm sure we'd have a feeling of disconnection and lots of frustration. I'd consider buying a set of encyclopedias again. I worry more about a scenario like running out of fuel without energy alternatives. The human race is so dependent on fuel for food production and transportation that we'd run into a starvation issue very quickly. We've lost our survival skills and there are just too many of us.