As many faculty are already aware, there is a Blackboard Mobile Learn app available for iOS and Android devices. That isn’t news, as the app has existed for a couple years now. What is news relates to a change in the way that app is licensed. Previously the app was usable only by certain devices using certain connections, in a fashion that was confusing to explain. Unless, of course, the institution you were attending actually purchased a license, in which case everything just plain worked. That last is still true, that the institution can purchase a license to use the Mobile Learn app…...

Ever vigilant, here is the tech news lowlight roundup for the week of April 30, 2010. Controlled Fusion Redux All my life I have heard of the tantalizing dream of controlled fusion as the inexhaustible solution to global energy needs.  Lawrence Livermore National Labs to the rescue:  “Scientists at a government lab here are trying to use the world’s largest laser — it’s the size of three football fields — to set off a nuclear reaction so intense that it will make a star bloom on the surface of the Earth…If they’re successful, the scientists hope to destroy the...

We posted recently on an FCC report on those who have and have not adopted broadband access to the Internet:  who they are, how they can be classified, and what the plan is to ‘bring them onboard,’ as it were.  Because the Internet is so important to every aspect of every American’s life, “the Federal Communications Commission… is launching its much-anticipated National Broadband Plan next Tuesday, to lay out its strategy for connecting all Americans to fast, affordable high-speed Internet” (YouTube blog).  After the plan is announced, every American will have the...

Several news items this morning are worth blogging on. First, I noted a CNet news item that Bank of America’s web site was intermittently (?) unavailable last Friday and that the bank used its Twitter feed to let customer’s know that this was the case.  Coincidentally, last Thursday I was attending a largish committee meeting where Twitter came up (actually it was a reference to our department’s use of Twitter) and the reaction among those present was uniformly negative, even hostile.  One of those ‘I don’t know what it is–I’ve never used it–and I...

There was a day when Steve Ballmer’s keynote to the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show would have been truly exciting.  Now, it is just more stuff.  Do we really need the PC to take over the driving experience?  The range of computing devices is truly impressive, and the success of Windows 7 is well deserved, but what are people doing on those devices and this great OS?  Something they could just have easily done on the telephone two decades ago?  We still have phones.  The enabling technology is in place, and at no small cost, but what is being enabled? It’s true consumer electronics help...