"Kids don't want computers. That's one of several striking data points from worse-than-expected figures showing the global PC market is in decline. Since young people tend to drive technology trends, poor back-to-school sales of PCs say more than a drop in overall sales alone. We already know PCs aren't cool (are college freshmen more likely to show off their new iPads or their new Dells?), but it's starting to look like they're also not needed."

"tartups tend to be discreet when they're raising money. Often it's because entrepreneurs are universally paranoid about revealing any details of their business. But there's also a very real reason to keep things hush-hush: the Securities and Exchange Commission has a ban on "general solicitation," left over from the days when crooks would go door to door selling imaginary oil fields to the gullible and overly optimistic. The 30-year-old ban restricts startups, and other issuers of equity in exchange for money, from pitching to anyone but "accredited investors" who meet a magic combination of criteria. That ban is about to be lifted, however, thanks to the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) that passed in April. Soon, there will be no impediment to plastering "we're raising a $1 million seed round, invest in us" in the middle of a startup's homepage, and there's no doubt that some zealous entrepreneur will. The SEC was charged with hammering out specific rules and adding investor protections related to general solicitation, and it released a proposed rule at the end of August. But critics have joined voices in vehement dissent, saying the agency's proposal merely parrots the vague phrasing in the JOBS Act without adding in any protections against predatory pitching."

"duquer avec le numérique suppose aujourd'hui d'accepter des décalages. Ils s'imposent de plus en plus dans l'univers des adultes, jeunes ou moins jeunes, et en particulier ceux ayant fait des études. Car parmi les multiples fractures, celle de la capacité d'apprendre reste la plus difficile à dépasser. L'idéal des créateurs du web, leur utopie libertaire était bien séduisante, autant que celle des révolutionnaires de 1989 en France ou de 1918 en Russie, malheureusement, il est bien difficile de dépasser les ordres établis dans l'imaginaire de chacun de nous. Du coup l'accès aux savoirs, à la connaissance demande en permanence une vigilance sur les moyens comme sur les manières de faire. En voulant formater le numérique à l'ordre scolaire, nous faisons fausse route. Les ENT et autres outils numérique de ce formatage sont vite contredits par les usages réels et quotidiens. Même en donnant des tablettes ou des ordinateurs portables à tous on ne fera qu'entretenir une illusion de la toute puissance de la technique. Or la technique n'est rien sans ceux qui s'en servent, avant même ceux qui les conçoivent. Adapter l'école à l'humain, ce n'est pas adapter l'école à la société actuelle. C'est avoir le souci de permettre à l'humain de rester humain quelque soit la société dans laquelle il vit. Mais pour cela il faut voir l'humain tel qu'il est et non pas tel qu'on se le représente ou tel qu'on voudrait le voir devenir. Ce n'est pas non plus décider de la société bonne pour l'autre, surtout s'il ne sait pas… Décider, penser à la place de l'autre devrait être un interdit majeur de tout éducateur !"

"These examples bring me to the point of my story. It's not enough to drive system change through pedagogy and educational practices. System change is systemic. It starts with how we conduct our business, how nimble, creative and adaptive we choose to be, and how quickly we are able to modify what we do to take advantage of how to do what we do better. If the educational ship of state creaks along dragged down by the weight of outmoded business practices, then the result will be a weakened, badly positioned American higher education system. That outcome will diminish our productivity as citizens, workers and liberally educated thinkers. It will be bad economics, worse politics and a missed opportunity.  "

If you thought the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite e-reader was a great deal at $119, take a look at the Txtr Beagle Read|Only, undercutting it by more than a C-note - it sells for a mere $13. As you might expect, for such a rock-bottom price you're going to have to make some sacrifices. If you just want to read text and you can live without a touchscreen, 3G, a backlight and Wi-Fi - and you don't mind inserting three AAA batteries once a year - this 5-inch, 4.5-oz E Ink device with its 800×600 screen might be the e-reader for you. The Txtr Beagle's 4GB of storage will give you room for a boatload of books, and its 5mm thickness is almost razor-thin enough to give you a paper cut.

"Ce jour, mercredi 10 octobre 2012, une communication a été faite dans le cadre du Conseil des Ministres sur la stratégie du gouvernement pour le numérique. Ce point du compte-rendu du Conseil des Ministres peut donc concerner l'accès public à l'Internet : « Fleur Pellerin, ministre déléguée auprès du ministre du redressement productif, chargée des petites et moyennes entreprises, de l'innovation et de l'économie numérique, a présenté la stratégie du Gouvernement pour le numérique."

"À l'occasion de la présentation de son « Agenda digital », début octobre, la Commission européenne a annoncé qu'elle consacrera 9,2 milliards d'euros au développement du haut débit dans les Etats membres. Objectif : 30Mb/s pour tous d'ici 2020."

"Two more interesting analyses of the Google Fiber project (about which more here), following on from this previous post. An article in the Wall Street Journal ("Web rivals want what Google got") reports that rivals are seeking the same concessions Google obtained from Kansas City to support their network builds:"

"IBES is an interdisciplinary research institute that aligns research and industry interests to drive innovation in broadband applications for the benefit of society. A central feature of the Institute is the active involvement of industry through the Industry Partner Program."

If successful, the Kansas City rollout could set a benchmark for other companies to match

"For more on the potential of broadband in general and the National Broadband Network in particular, the Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society's Annual Report and Symposium presentation is well worth a look. Three slides from the presentation caught my eye. They capture the importance of concurrency (multiple simultaneous accesses to multiple applications, something I've discussed in this previous post) very well, and also nicely illustrate the wide range of applications that next generation access can support: "

"ne étude de l'OCDE démontre qu'Internet a été l'un des principaux moteurs de la croissance économique et de l'emploi ces deux dernières années, notamment en France."

" was particularly inspired by the lunchtime keynote - Dr John Moravec, who was kind enough to share his presentation with me… He introduced the idea of knowmads. They… Are not restricted to a specific age. Build their personal knowledge through explicit information gathering and tacit experiences, and leverage their personal knowledge to produce new ideas. Are able to apply their ideas and expertise contextually in various social and organizational configurations. Are highly motivated to collaborate, and are natural networkers, navigating new organizations, cultures, and societies. Purposively use new technologies to help them solve problems and transcend geographical limitations. Are open to sharing what they know, and invite the open access to information, knowledge and expertise from others. Develop habits of mind and practice to learn continuously, and can unlearn as quickly as they learn, adopting new ideas and practices as necessary. Thrive in non-hierarchical networks and organizations. Are not afraid of failure."

"la gamification est un formidable levier pour emmener les collaborateurs dans de nouvelles logiques. On aurait tort de la sous-estimer au prétexte qu'elle détonne un peu au milieu de pratiques plus anciennes et à l'apparence beaucoup plus sérieuse. Maintenant, il ne faut pas non plus tomber dans l'excès inverse : non seulement la gamification n'est qu'une mise à jour de pratiques plus ancienne mais, employée comme un cache misère plutôt que dans le cadre d'une refonte profonde des manières de faire elle peut, à terme, être perçue comme une pratique court-termiste, infantilisante et manipulatoire."

"Van Bo Le-Mentzel the inventor of the Hartz IV Möbel, is talking about his 7 steps of crowdbuilding at the Symposium for the DMY-Designfestival Berlin 2012 "

"The maker movement is gathering momentum. Slowly but surely people around the world are changing from passive consumer of the latest gizmo to active maker and modifier of existing designs. The promotion of an open source philosophy in the online era has given people access to myriad designs allowing them to make and modify almost anything. These days DIY not only applies to making simple home improvements, you can go online and learn how to build a robot if you feel up to the challenge! In America, MAKE magazine is the go-to publication for DIY and hack enthusiasts. Humans Invent spoke to MAKE's editor and overall hack guru, Mark Frauenfelder, to get an insight into how this movement is changing the nature of our consumerist culture."

""802.11ac is an extension for pure mainstream Wi-Fi," said Sean Coffey, Realtek's director of standards and business development. "It's evolutionary. ... You're not going to see dramatically new use cases." 802.11ac is a development of the current 802.11n standard, producing improved performance on the same 5GHz frequency bands. Some routers using the 802.11ac have already been deployed, and the experts on the panel agreed that it will become commonplace by early 2013. By contrast, 802.11ad adds 60GHz connectivity to the previously used 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies, potentially providing multi-gigabit connection speeds and dramatically broadening the number of applications for which wireless can be used."

""GIVE me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws." So said Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty. What would he make of Bitcoin, an online currency with no issuing authority whatsoever? Despite being written off following a speculative bubble and crash last year, the online cryptocurrency is still going strong, not least thanks to its ability to circumnavigate the law. Bitcoin was devised in 2009 by a mysterious figure known as Satoshi Nakomoto. It is the world's first, and so far only, decentralised online currency. Instead of a central bank, Bitcoins can be issued by anyone with a powerful personal computer: it mints them by solving extremely difficult mathematical problems. The problems are automatically made harder to ensure that the overall supply of Bitcoins cannot grow too fast. They are traded online, with transactions cryptographically authenticated."

Big data is getting personal. People around the globe are monitoring everything from their health, sleep patterns, sex and even toilet habits with articulate detail, aided by mobile technology. Whether users track behavior actively by entering data or passively via sensors and apps, the quantified self (QS) movement has grown to become a global phenomenon, where impassioned users seek context from their big data identities.

Microsoft's new project is able to detect hand positions in 3D and translate them into software commands - perhaps a user could swipe their hand to the side to turn a page in a book, or pinch their fingers to zoom in on a document. The device can also display a human hand on-screen when necessary.