Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
October 5, 2009

Firefox 3.6 Aims to Bring Fullscreen, Open Source Video to the Web
Open video could be a gamechanger. To date, video has been fairly tightly controlled, because most of it resides on large hosting sites like YouTube or Blip, and these respond very quickly (and without question) to takedown orders or regional blocking. But give video to the masses, and it gets a lot harder to control, especially if net neutrality means that the average user pays the same rate as a large producer, and not a whole lot more, as would otherwise be the case. Scott Gilbertson, Webmonkey, October 5, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Video, YouTube] [Comment]

FTC to Fine Bloggers up to $11,000 for Not Disclosing Payments
One wonders what impact this law, if obeyed, would have on the education blogosphere, especially if bloggers disclose funding from lobbying or interest groups. "The FTC has updated its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising for the first time since 1980, and among the changes, a requirement that 'bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.' Fines for violating the new rule will run up to $11,000 per post." Adam Ostrow, Mashable, October 5, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Blogger, Online Learning, Google, Web Logs] [Comment]

It's The End of the World as We Know It
These are the times the privatizers have long been waiting for. "Building on the chaos still churning from our big reorganization this year, we now have dire warnings of even more extreme budget cuts than we got this year." How will public education survive in an era of massive budget cuts? Tim Stahmer, Assorted Stuff, October 5, 2009 [Link] [Tags: RSS] [Comment]

99 Awesome Firefox Add-ons for Educators
Extensions can be a mixed blessing - they can really improve functionality, but I've had more than my share become unavailable when Firefox upgrades, this too often for me to depend on extensions for anything critical. That said, here's a hundred of them you can depend on for fun, non-critical browsing. The original is here. Zaid Ali Alsagoff, ZaidLearn, October 5, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Disney Launches Subscription E-Book Service
I have in the past alluded to the sceptre of Disney taking over e-learning if traditional educational institutions fail to fill the role. Now we are getting a glimpse of Disney's version (in addition to Disney eXtreme Digital) of e-learning. "The site charges users US $80 per year for access. The user interface is browser-based and resembles so-called digital editions of magazines: it is based on the Flash format and includes visual "page-turning" effects. The reader also includes educational features for children, such as click to hear words aloud, dictionaries, and trivia facts." Bill Rosenblatt, Copyright and Technology, October 5, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Online Learning] [Comment]

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