Wolfram released Mathematica 9 yesterday. It doesn't take everyone's fancy but to a hack programmer like myself it is a revolution. I've been using Mathematica for 20 years and it is essential to my research. But I do not really know how to use Mathematica. That requires spending the time to learn programming syntax and …
Mario on other platforms?
Sega's games have been available on iPhones etc for some time. Microsoft's Smart Glass interface with the XBox 360 is also available on an array of mobile platforms. But one significant hangout is Nintendo. Nintendo are to app games like The Beatles where for iPods. They are sticking with their traditional distribution channels well beyond …
What an academic article of the future should look like
There is much discussion these days about the future of scholarly publishing. Much of this surrounds the value of traditional publishers. When challenged those publishers point to the value and potential value they create. Here is Elsevier responding to a recent boycott led by mathematician Tim Gowers: And we invest a lot in infrastructure, the …
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Does the app economy need institutions?
A New York Times piece on the app economy makes the point that very few apps make money and even fewer make lots of money. It is basically a cautionary tale that like everywhere else making money is hard. Like being in on the first days of a Gold Rush, having an app when there …
Bitcoin appears to be gaining traction
Bitcoin is touted as a virtual currency controlled by a peer-to-peer network that apparently places it out of the reach of traditional monetary authorities. I have to admit that when I first heard about Bitcoin I couldn't see the point. What BitCoin is — near as I can make out — is a token that …
What is the biggest load of drivel you'll read about books today?
That would be Andrew Piper whose book, Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times, was excerpted in Slate today. Actually I wouldn't recommend reading it. So let me save you the trouble by commenting on it. Piper's point is this: electronic reading sucks compared to physical book reading because with out the touch of a real …
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Accreditation and MOOCs: How about we just don't do it
Continuing on the MOOC discussion of this week, Tyler Cowen points me to this Inside Higher Education article about accreditation and MOOCs. The clearest path to college credit for massive open online courses may soon be through credit recommendations from the American Council of Education (ACE), which announced Tuesday that it will work with Coursera …
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What is good teaching?
Two posts came out in the last day on online education. One is by Clay Shirky and the other is by Alex Tabarrok. Both are worth reading. Both make a similar point although in very different ways. They argue that critiques of massively online open courses (MOOCs) are misplaced because they are comparing them to …
What are publishers afraid of with device restrictions?
These days publishers are moving towards DRM free options. This has the advantage of freeing customers from Amazon lock-in as well as just making it easier for them to control their content. So for consumers who want to pay, this makes their product more valuable and gives them a reason to pay. But for the …
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Digitopoly 