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"The Open Access Button is a browser-based tool that lets users track when they are denied access to research, then search for alternative access to the article.  Each time a user encounters a paywall, he simply clicks the button in his bookmark bar, fills out an optional dialogue box, and his experience is added to a map alongside other users.  Then, the user receives a link to search for free access to the article using resources such as Google Scholar. The Open Access Button initiative hopes to create a worldwide map showing the impact of denied access to research."

"The 17 Designs That Bell Almost Used for the Layout of Telephone Buttons"

"Facebook "likes" are being added to webpages even if a user has not clicked a like button, or even visited the page in question, the company has admitted. A US security researcher found that simply sending a web address to a friend using Facebook's private messaging function would add two likes to that page. "

"These children have grown up with digital technologies, but in a very limited way. They know a few things quite deeply, but they - as we did at their age - have no great appreciation of the subtleties of the tools. The expanse and use of the tools. The possibilities for tools that don't yet exist. They can push buttons, but they can't make them."

Which ultimately does more good-an article or monograph that is read by 20 or 30 people in a very narrow field, or a blog post on a topic of interest to many (such as grading standards or tenure requirements) that is read by 200,000? What if the post spurs hundreds of comments, is debated publicly in faculty lounges and classrooms, and gets picked up by newspapers and Web sites across the country-in other words, it helps to shape the national debate over some hot-button issue? What is it worth then?

"Technology is evolving us, says Amber Case, as we become a screen-staring, button-clicking new version of homo sapiens. We now rely on "external brains" (cell phones and computers) to communicate, remember, even live out secondary lives. But will these machines ultimately connect or conquer us? Case offers surprising insight into our cyborg selves."

"Hapkit is an open-hardware haptic device designed to be very low-cost and easy to assemble. Hapkit allows users to input motions and feel programmed forces in one degree of freedom. This enables interactive simulation of virtual environments that represent realistic physics (such as springs and dampers) and creative new touch sensations (like textures and buttons). The Hapkit can be assembled using household tools, costs less than $50 for all components, including the microcontroller board, and is easily set up and programmed by novices."