OLDaily
by Stephen Downes
Jan 06, 2017
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Thanks to those who have lready donated in 2017 - I have raised approximately $1000 thus far.
Yes, it has only been a year, and I'm asking again. I have maintained OLDaily and the rest of this website at my own expense since 2001. It is not subsidized by my employer or anyone else. I've always been happy to do it, but now I need your help. Click here to Donate.
This site gets a lot of traffic - 400K unique viewers and almost a million page views in 2016. 2290.70 gigabytes of traffic. On average, it has cost $125 a month for the last ten years (currently, it's $US 140, or almost $200 Canadian, per month). Thank you to everyone who helped last year. I raised just over $3000, which paid for the server and the traffic.
I am committed to keeping all my services and resources free, and will not add a subscription to any part of my website, ever. That's a promise. So if you help me provide this service, I'd be happy to recognize your contribution, as thanks, on my Donation Page.
VRLearn: Virtual Reality and Learning
Bobby Carlton,
Masie Center,
2017/01/06
Elliott Masie still understands branding as this 'VRLearn' report shows. Do yourself a favour, skip the user-hostile web presentation (unless you like simulated paper (complete with page-turning sounds)) and go straight to the 12-page PDF. Virtual Reality has a lot of potential, writes Masie in the introduction, but it brequires three things to grow: authoring systems, a marketplace of VR/AR learning content, and an assessment focus. According to the report, applications exist in hands-on occupations such as aviation and space, medicine and health care, military, sports and even warehousing. Related: THE - VR in Education - Don't believe all the hype.
Norway to become 1st country to switch off FM radio
Thomson Reuters,
CBC News,
2017/01/06
OK, so there's dab, but there's also DAB, which is changing the face of radio. DAB stands for 'Digital Audio Broadcasting' and it's doing to radio what HD did for TV - switching from analog radio signals to video. It's controversial. As this article notes, Norway is switching from FM to DAB, a move opposed by many because it renders millions of radios (and especially car radios) obsolete. But proponents say the audio quality is better and more channels can be broadcast. The key issues are coverage (since DAB is little-used in many countries (and not at all in Canada)) and receivers (since DAB requires more power to receive). For more see WorldDAB.
Talk
Various authors,
The Coral Project,
2017/01/06
This is Talk, Mozilla's new open-source comment system. The link takes you to a working Alpha version. Be sure to explore the options in the left-hand menu to see the possibilities in the new system. It's coming together nicely, with a few special touches we know you'll like. The source is on GitHub. I can't wait to begin using it for OLDaily. Talk can be integrated with some other upcoming Mozilla tools such as Trust and Ask. Related: article on noxious online comments.
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