OLDaily

By Stephen Downes
May 3, 2005

Authentication and Identification
On the one hand, we have the assertion that I am a certain person. That is 'identification'. It is the specific process of attaching an identity of a presence - either a physical presence, or in the context of our current enquiry, a virtual presence. And on the other hand we have the verification - the means of proof that what I say is true, that there is sufficient evidence for my claim. That is 'authentication'. In this paper I argue that we we don't need authentication, that authentication won't work, and that people don't want it. What will work? What do people want? Identification. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, May 3, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Bill Gates' "America’s high schools are obsolete" Speech to the National Governor's Association
The title says it all; Mark Oehlert reprints the famous Bill Gates speech. By Mark Oehlert, e-Clippings, May 3, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Flickr's Creative Commons Area Back
Despite all the flack it has taken this week, Creative Commons can still dish out some good news. And it's this: "Flickr has reopened the area of their site devoted to Creative Commons licensed images.... (it) has gone way beyond our expectations to nearly 1.5 million photos licensed for reuse." Well, cool. By Matt Haughey, Creative Commons, April 29, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Backpack
Nifty. Launched today, Backpack will let you "plan a personal/business trip, keep track of what your competitors are doing, plan a home improvement project, collaborate on a new business idea, keep track of houses you're considering buying, gather information for a research project, keep a list of gift ideas for friends and family, brainstorm product/company names, build a list of recommended restaurants, and plenty more..." Via Rik Abel. By Various Authors, May 3, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

SkillSoft Launches Next-Generation Open Architecture Initiative
SkillSoft makes news again with the launch of its new open architecture initiative. I haven't looked at it personally (why don't they ever put URLs in press releases?) but according to the statement, the initiative is "a service-oriented architecture that leverages existing learning system standards, XML and emerging Web Services standards." The statement also drops some tantalizing hints about a "mix and match" approach to e-learning systems. By Press Release, SkillSoft, May 3, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

SPARC Open Access Newsletter, issue #85
This month's issue of the newsletter has, in addition to its usual wealth of resources, two articles worth a read. The first recommends that authors of articles self-archived on their own site include any publication information on the article page itself. Good point. The second article looks at the problems publishers have tracking readers of self-archived articles and looks at a (bad) solution offered by Adobe whereby the PDF would report back to the publisher whenever a document was opened by a reader. "If other users object as much as scholarly users to the prospect of malign scripts in PDFs, then this prospect could kill the format. Adobe can avert this risk by giving users an effective OFF switch." By Peter Suber, SPARC Open Access Newsletter, May 1, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

Macromedia Breeze
Macromedia has launched a new version of Breeze. "Breeze 5 includes... features such as Voice-over-IP, on-demand video, and real-time, multipoint video conferencing." Robin Good gives it a positive review. By Press Release, Macromedia, May 2, 2005 [Refer][Research][Reflect]

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