Month: May 2010
Do you care what happens to a baby’s blood sample? – New Scientist
Do you care what happens to a baby’s blood sample? – health – 21 May 2010 – New Scientist:
“In all 50 US states – as in many countries worldwide – newborns’ heels are pricked to collect spots of blood that are tested for inherited conditions such as cystic fibrosis and phenylketonuria, or PKU.
The screening is mandatory. Given the health benefits, that may be justified. But in some states, cards with dried blood samples are retained for years, and later used for a variety of research projects. This is where the debate about consent gets heated.”
Willow Garage Creates Awesome Open Source Telepresence Robots | Singularity Hub
Willow Garage Creates Awesome Open Source Telepresence Robots | Singularity Hub: “Willow Garage Creates Awesome Open Source Telepresence Robots”
Second Life Provides Real-World Benefits
Second Life Provides Real-World Benefits: “Second Life Provides Real-World Benefits”
“The Internet and immersive user-generated online worlds like Second Life are changing the way that college students gather and process information in all aspects of their lives. At a time when students will turn to Google rather than visit the library, or search Wikipedia instead of asking for a reference librarian, professors need to rethink how we use technology in our classrooms.”
Cellphones Now Used More for Data Than for Calls – NYTimes.com
Cellphones Now Used More for Data Than for Calls – NYTimes.com: “Cellphones Now Used More for Data Than for Calls”
eLearners.com Research Center
eLearners.com Research Center: “eLearners’ Research Center”
Latest data online education, distance learning and adult students
Plan B – Skip College – NYTimes.com
Plan B – Skip College – NYTimes.com:
“A small but influential group of economists and educators is pushing another pathway: for some students, no college at all. It’s time, they say, to develop credible alternatives for students unlikely to be successful pursuing a higher degree, or who may not be ready to do so.”
YouTube Introduces New Privacy Option for Videos
YouTube Introduces New Privacy Option for Videos: “YouTube has just introduced a new privacy option for videos uploaded to the site, Unlisted Videos. The new option lets users post videos to the site and mark them as €˜unlisted.'”
Hard Lesson Learned about reporting of research
Hard Lesson Learned about reporting of research:
By: Earle Holland
“And when it comes to scientists misjudging the importance of how they deal with the news media, those experiences can be painful indeed. An anthropologist at a North Carolina university just got a crash course on how quickly minor potholes in the road can become giant crevasses.”
Developing virtual worlds: The interplay of design, communities and rationality F. Ted Tschang, Jordi Comas
Developing virtual worlds: The interplay of design, communities and rationality
F. Ted Tschang, Jordi Comas
First Monday, Volume 15, Number 5 – 3 May 2010
Abstract
Developing virtual worlds: The interplay of design, communities and rationality
F. Ted Tschang, Jordi Comas
This paper examines the evolution of virtual worlds from the developer’s perspective. What are the motivations of developers? What are the specific challenges of the governance of user-generated content? User-created virtual worlds may be characterized according to their degree of design or emergence. On one end is the ‘the designer as god’ perspective and on the other is the unforeseeable and perpetually emergent ‘user creativity.’ Utilizing a theoretically derived sample of virtual worlds, we illustrate how governance is more complex as designers contend with three major issues. In general, across all three worlds, developers had to come to grips with the limits of their ability to design virtual worlds for premeditated outcomes. Secondly, communities forming within worlds, as opposed to atomized users, are central to the (creative) building, usage and governance of virtual worlds. Developers have a range of choices for how to interact with communities ranging from arm’s length monitoring to engagement. Thirdly, developers have to manage instrumentally rational aspects of their business which can lead to tensions with the design and community goals, and, ultimately, lead to the failure of a world’s business model. A fuller accounting of governance will have to accommodate the complex interplay between purposeful design, emergent community, and the logic of the marketplace..