1/14/2010

Searching the Web Through Pictures

If you've ever visualized something in your head but couldn't think of its name, you might appreciate a new method of online discovery: visual search. | 0 Comments

1/13/2010

Caught in the Web

Ever since the Internet began to make its way into everyday life-beginning roughly in the early 1990s-commentators have worried over its cultural effects, fearing isolation, regimentation, a loss of privacy or a loss of sustained thought. Back then, Jaron Lanier was one of the pioneers of immersive virtual worlds and helped to popularize the term "virtual reality." Those were the days when the Web's promise seemed bright and limitless. Mr. Lanier was one of its champions. Now, as experience has set in, his outlook is decidedly gloomier. In "You Are Not a Gadget," he sounds an alarm about the social-media technologies of the so-called Web 2.0, arguing that they reduce individuals to mere cogs in a mob-based, crowd-sourced apparatus. "Technology criticism," he says in defense of his own role in this debate, "shouldn't be left to the Luddites." | 0 Comments

1/11/2010

Colleges Lag in Technology and Teaching Quality

"Getting technology tools into the hands of every student and family should be standard practice. It isn't now," said the U.S. under secretary of education, Martha J. Kanter, addressing a mix of technologists and educators at the HigherEd Tech Summit here, part of the giant salute to gadgetry known as the Consumer Electronics Show. Nor are best practices for professors to use technology to improve learning standard, Ms. Kanter said: "We are losing ground. We have a lot of work | 0 Comments

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