Category — Computer and Video Games

The Web’s Best Interface Design — Business Logs:
The Web’s Best Interface Design

The amount of new web applications, features, and companies sprouting up is just astounding, and while some like to characterize “Web 2.0″ design as involving lots of cliché diagonal lines and shadows it still takes a lot of skill to execute an attractive user interface. I’ve been checking out new sites and web applications for many months now and I’ve put together my list of the best interface design examples I’ve found. Some companies/sites on this list may not be as “Web 2.0″ as others (and I purposely chose not to includes sites based on design or design firms) but they still deserve the same recognition.

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some of these are pretty good, some could use some improvement… but… for what they are… the arguments put forth for them being best are somewhat convincing, so check them out.

Vint Cerf: one quarter of all computers part of a botnet:
Cerf told his listeners that approximately 600 million computers are connected to the Internet, and that 150 million of them might be participants in a botnet—nearly all of them unwilling victims. Weber remarks that “in most cases the owners of these computers have not the slightest idea what their little beige friend in the study is up to.”

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I think it is actually quite likely that this is a higher number than that having experienced dealing with this at several institutions.

Springer Book on Wikis free to download:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-3-540-29267-8/

In English

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I’ve not read this yet, but it looks like a good howto-type outline.

Reality Bites: Worst Game Evar:
This is not a game, it is work. Games are supposed to be immersive and fun, SecondLife fails miserably at this. Most disappointing game ever, waste of downloading/patching time.I don’t care if Linden Labs sees this blog post and finds it offensive in some way, but instead of figuring out how to make it a COMMERCIAL success, they first need to make it enjoyable. If it wasn’t for school, I would have uninstalled it after five seconds.

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A nice critique of second life from a student trying to finish an assignment in world… I think he is spot on that it is closer to work… but then… what isn’t work, in nyc… play is some of the hardest work you’ll find.

I made it to newark airport… My only hangup of course is that is did something to my back yesterday afternoon and basically haven’t slept much, but eh, that only caused me to walk up and down 34th street for 10-15 minutes wondering where the heck the penn station door was, because I’d never been in before, eventually i just decided to walk against traffic and voila, it was at the end of stream of people. Beyond that, the symposium looks interesting, I’m really happy that I was invited even though… it means flying across the u.s. 2 times in 48 hours so that i can be back in time for the digital archives class.

Governance and conflict resolution in probably a better construct for the Linden Lab meeting, but I think that I’ll easily fit in, and make some of my points. The symposium is all day tomorrow. Tonight I’m trying to meet up with my friend and colleague David Silver, whose teaching until 8pm.

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Andrew Brown: on how much we divulge to Google & co :
Every time you use an internet search engine, your inquiry is stored in a huge database. Would you like such personal information to become public knowledge? Yet for thousands of AOL customers, that nightmare has just become a reality. Andrew Brown reports on an incident that has exposed how much we divulge to Google & co
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unfortunately, i don’t think the populace at large really cares…..

YouTube – The Death of The Internet?:
The Death of The Internet?

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worth watching…

now is the time to become involved.

MIT Media Lab Guru Says No Computers in Schools:

Michael Schrage of the MIT Media Lab wrote a piece for The Financial Times saying that there should be no computers in schools. He argues that billions could be saved by keeping useless technologies out of schools. As an educational technologist, I felt that I needed to address his critique.

 
I think his main argument is with educational software companies, but he fails to differentiate between them and between teachers using technology in the classroom. His article cites nothing other than his own opinions, but it is an interesting read nonetheless.

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No to computers in schools… but…. having the underfunded developing world pay for laptops from their national budget to the tune of ten’s of millions of dollars… that’s a great idea… Isn’t it? I’m not sure computers should be ubiquitous in education at all. I think that students need to experience diverse informational experiences, not just computer based, not just book based, but also oral traditons, etc.

yellowTAB – Makers of ZETA :

ZETA 1.0 goes golden!09. June 2005 While we had initially planned to release ZETA 1.0 at the beginning of May, we then decided to delay the release. We did this in order to make some major changes and additions so that we could be absolutely certain to release a ZETA truly worthy of the name 1.0.

cool….

FREE SOFTWARE, FREE SOCIETY
The Thiruvananthapuram Declaration
May 29, 2005

We are currently living in a world that is increasingly gettinginterconnected and the issues of our concern are becoming global.Along the way, new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)transformed the process of knowledge construction and dissemination inour society. This process is transforming other fields of humancreativity as well — including music, painting or writing. Humanhistory is calling us to take note of this change. Creative workstoday live in a digital world, travel at the speed of light, gettransformed in seconds, become part of several other creations, andgrow in a number of other ways.

As society transforms drastically, we — students, engineers, ITprofessionals, social activists, lawyers, elected publicrepresentatives, media persons, film-makers and concerned citizens —urge our world to take note of the immense potential opening up forhumanity, and to ensure that technology is harnessed in the needs ofthe time to tackle the wider concerns of our planet.

Free Software has convincingly demonstrated to the world we know thatknowledge building is enhanced by freedom, openness and socialconsciousness; and that such features are very effective in creating afairer society and enhance the cause of the social good.
In the new networked and digitized society, the intangible(non-materialistic) aspects of reality are becoming more important incomparison with the material ones. Several years of material-centereddevelopment has not helped humanity to create a better world for all;or even for the majority on this planet.

To face the challenges of the day, we need a new model of developmentcentered around non material aspects of life — includingcollaboration, sharing, and compassion. Such a society is evolvingtoday on the foundations of freedom, collaboration and sharedknowledge.

We call it the gnowledge society (see http://www.gnowledge.org).
In our view, the gnowledge society will and must prefer:

freedom over bondage; sharing over monopoly; public good over privateprofit; participation over exclusion; cooperation over competition;diversity over uniformity.

We find that patent, copyright and other legal and institutionalsystems related to human knowledge are not suitable for thedevelopment of the gnowledge society. These systems were createdduring the industrial revolution, and then continued in spite of majorchanges in how technology shapes our lives. These systems were notdesigned for, and therefore cannot cater to, the emerging gnowledgesociety. For the development of human society, it is imperative thatwe promote the collaborative development and free sharing ofknowledge.
Such principles are not only consistent with, but even mandated by,the spirit of human rights as defined by the present legal system.

We, the participants at the Free Software, Free Society conference inThiruvananthapuram underline the following:

We call upon the social and political institutions to eliminatesystems that hinder the development of the gnowledge society.

We demand that every human being works for a more fair distribution ofknowledge for all, and for a world based on knowledge sharing andcollaboration.

Agreed upon in Thiruvananthapuram, South India, amongst theparticipants at the Free Software, Free Society Conference, byparticipants from the countries of:Bangladesh,Brazil,India,Italy,NorwayUruguayVenezuela.

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Declaration: http://fsfs.hipatia.net/wiki
FSFS: http://fsfs.hipatia.net