Much faster Wi-Fi coming soon — from CNN by David Goldman
A new, faster version of Wi-Fi was officially rubber-stamped Wednesday.

Excerpt:

The latest Wi-Fi technology, called “802.11ac,” offers speeds of up to 1.3 Gigabits per second. That’s fast enough to transfer an entire high-definition movie to a tablet in under 4 minutes, share photo albums with friends in a matter of seconds or stream three HD videos at the same time. It’s more than double the top speed of the previous standard, known as 802.11n.

Those speeds are theoretical maximums — very few people have anything close to 1 Gigabit speeds from their home broadband connection. Average speeds are less than 1% of that. But the faster speeds mean the new Wi-Fi standard will offer a much bigger pipeline for all those videos, songs and games that a growing number of people are streaming on multiple devices simultaneously.

 

Also see:

  • Apple adopts 802.11ac wireless standard quickly as new study forecasts the next standard to follow in 2015 — from patentlyapple.com
    Excerpt:
    According to a new report that was just released, the growth of 802.11ac and 802.11ad will occur in very different ways over the next few years. The adoption of 802.11ac is expected to explode into devices including smartphones right out of the gate this year while 802.11ad will see a more modest and staggered growth pace. 802.11ac is being pushed into smartphones by key carriers’ device requirements that are in sync with 802.11ac hotspot plans for more robust Wi-Fi offloading.
  • Wireless witch: Should you buy an 802.11ac router? — from pcmag.com by Samara Lynn
    802.11ac is all the rage among networking vendors, with all their 802.11ac routers touting incredible speeds. But is 802.11ac worth the investment?
    To Buy or not to Buy?
    So, what’s the short answer on upgrading to an 802.11ac router right now? If you’re an early tech adopter and Wi-Fi enthusiast, definitely check out 11ac. Everyone else is better off waiting until the technology matures. What if your old router dies and you’re not upgrading so much as replacing hardware? The same applies: if you’re comfortable with tweaking settings to get the most out of your router, by all means check out the 802.11ac routers on the market. At the the very least, you shouldn’t lose performance; in certain cases, you might see improvements. If you’re more of a plug and play user, however, stick with 802.11n, for now.

60 beautiful examples of websites with full-blown video backgrounds — from hongkiat.com by Nancy Young

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From DSC:
Yes, you read that right. Video-based backgrounds — motion pictures. Another great example of the convergence that’s been happening with the TV, the telephone, and the computer.

 

 

From DSC:

  • What if you want to allow some remote students to come on into your face-to-face classroom?
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  • What if you want to allow those remote students to be seen and communicated with at eye level?
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  • What if you want Remote Student A to join Group 1, and Remote Student B to join Group 2?
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Well…how about using one of these devices  in order to do so!


 

New video collaboration robot: TelePresence gets moving — from cisco.com by Dave Evans

Excerpt:

That is why Cisco’s new joint effort with iRobot—demonstrated publicly this week for the first time—is so exciting: We’ve created a mobile Cisco TelePresence unit that brings collaboration to you—or, conversely, brings you to wherever you need to collaborate. Called iRobot Ava 500, this high-definition video collaboration robot combines Cisco TelePresence with iRobot’s mobility and self-navigation capabilities, enabling freedom of movement and spontaneous interactions with people thousands of miles away.

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irobot-june-10-2013
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iRobot Ava™ 500 Video Collaboration Robot — published on Jun 10, 2013
iRobot and Cisco have teamed to bring the Ava 500 video collaboration robot to market. The robot blends iRobot’s autonomous navigation with Cisco’s TelePresence to enable people working off-site to participate in meetings and presentations where movement and location spontaneity are important. The new robot is also designed to enable mobile visual access to manufacturing facilities, laboratories, customer experience centers and other remote facilities.

 

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Double Robotics Double

http://www.doublerobotics.com/img/use-office.jpg

 

 

MantaroBot™ TeleMe

 

 

 

From Attack of the Telepresence Robots! — from BYTE  by Rick Lehrbaum

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Kubi

http://twimgs.com/informationweek/byte/reviews/2013-Jan/robotic-telepresence/kubi.jpg

 

 

MantaroBot “TeleMe” VGo Communications “VGo” Anybots “QB” Suitable Technologies “Beam”

 

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RP-7i ROBOT

RP-7i Remote Presence Robot

 

Also see:

 

AppleWWDC-June10-2013

 

Also see:

 

  • The Best Features Of iOS 7 — from techcrunch.com by Sarah Perez
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  • Everything You Need to Know about iOS 7 — from hongkiat.com
    Excerpts:
    iBooks is now available on the Mac, giving users access to 1.8 million books including interactive textbooks.
    .
    AirDrop Sharing Between iOS Devices <– potential uses in the Smart Classrooms…?
    AirDrop is now available for transfers between iOS devices via peer-to-peer WiFI connection. Turning on the Share Sheet on an app, you can find users who are nearby and tap items to share. A notification will appear on their device and when they open it, it will open to the relevent app and show the content that you shared.
    .
  • Apple’s WWDC 2013 Keynote: Highlights, Summary & History — from hongkiat.com by Singyin Lee
    Excerpt:
    Multiple Display <– potential uses in the Smart Classrooms…?
    Multiple Display support allow you to work on, multiple screens, even though only one device is physically connected, even if it means you are using Apple TV as one of your screens. Full screen spaces can be pulled from one display to the next and the dock and other menus will be displayed on each connected screen as well.
    .

 

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Nuance: Virtual Assistants will work across platforms within two years (video) — from allthingsd.com by Ina Fried

Excerpt:

Siri is good at predicting the weather on your iPhone. And Google Now can tell you a few interesting things.

But within two years, virtual assistants will be able to do a wide range of tasks from handling all types of media to making reservations to offering full control of devices. More importantly, they will work across tablets, televisions and phones.

“I think we will see virtual assistants within two years that are quite robust,” Nuance CEO Paul Ricci said, speaking at D11. “I also believe that within two years we will see that virtual assistants will work across platforms.”

Tagged with:  

First a definition:

A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic system designed solely or primarily for recording, editing and playing back digital audio. DAWs were originally tape-less, microprocessor-based systems such as the Synclavier. Modern DAWs are software running on computers with audio interface hardware.

Secondly, some items from Adam Dachis on LifeHacker.com:

 

 

From DSC:
For those who want to dip their feet into the pool quickly to see what it’s like, I would recommend checking out Garageband — it’s a powerful tool that can give you some nice results — and the learning curve is far better/easier than the more complex tools out there.

 

 

 

Mezzanine-from-Oblong-May2013

 

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Mezzanine2-from-Oblong-May2013

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From the Oblong.com website:

Mezzanine™ is a collaborative conference room solution that introduces multi-user, multi-screen, multi-device collaboration. This is next-generation communication: share any content from any device with anyone, anywhere.

Mezzanine transforms creative teamwork, executive meetings, and sales presentations into real-time, collaborative work sessions. Mezzanine expands on existing telepresence technology by providing what we call InfoPresence™—the incorporation of multiple users, multiple devices, and multiple streams of information in the collaboration environment. The future of conference room collaboration is here.

A Mezzanine workspace lets any person on a network bring their own device and share content and applications with any colleague, anywhere in the world, interactively. Mezzanine is a collaborative conference room solution combining presentation design and delivery, application sharing, whiteboard capture, and video conferencing, all within a framework of multi-participant control.

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Also see:

  • Oblong Technovates with LA High School
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  • Oblong at OME
    Oblong Industries recently participated at OME, a summit hosted by UC San Francisco.  The two-day summit focused on charting the future of precision medicine—an emerging field combining big data with clinical research and patient care to deliver insights and advances in treatment that is more targeted and enables improved patient outcomes.

 

IT does not love iPads — from by Michelle Fredette
Students and faculty may love them, but IT personnel get a major headache when they try to integrate Apple tablets–and the company’s TV technology–in an enterprise setting.

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From DSC:
The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) train has arrived.   As such, this is a huge issue and as you can tell from reading Michelle’s article, there is no silver bullet out there (at least not as of 5/9/13).  I sure wish all of the relevant vendors could get behind a secure, efficient, reliable standard here…or at least have Apple come up with something that would get past the multi-cast issues for wireless networks (i.e. what works great for the consumer at home doesn’t work well on a campus or throughout an enterprise). It also adds to the already difficult job we in IT have when the targets are constantly moving — and moving faster than ever.  Add to that the need to consider entire ecosystems/platforms these days.

 

Tagged with:  

Everything you need to know about the new Internet — The ‘Internet Of Things’ — from businessinsider.com by Julie Bort

Excerpt:

On June 6, 2012, a brand-new version of the Internet was turned on.

Chances are you didn’t notice anything different that day, as we switched over to Internet Protocol Version 6, or IPv6. Engineers worked for years so the new Internet could be turned on without causing problems.

But in the coming years, this new Internet will change your life dramatically. It will lead to the realization of a concept called “The Internet of Things,” where everything—not just computers—gets connected.

Defiance-FirstVideoGameTVShow-Feb2013

 

Excerpt:

It’s not unusual for a science fiction television show to spin off a video game. What is unusual is linking the show and the game together on an ongoing basis, with plot elements and characters from each crossing over to the other. In April, gaming company Trion Worlds and the Syfy cable television channel will unveil Defiance, the first such crossover massively multiplayer online game (MMO) and TV show.

 

From DSC:

Transmedia.

Multimedia.

Interactivity.

Participation.

Gamification.

Sounds like there must be something here for the next gen of learners — and learning from the living room.

 

 

Also see:

From DSC:
Below are some reflections after seeing these items:

Image1

 

 

  • Watson supercomputer goes to college, Revenge Of The Nerds style antics imminentnot an exemplary article from geekosystem.com, but the underlying topic has enormous implications
    Excerpt:
    …the team developing Watson is sending the computer to college, where it will bone up on coursework in English and math.

    While the original Watson will be staying put at the IBM research center it calls home, the hardware to run the program is being installed at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York, where researchers and grad students will be spend the next three years teaching Watson all they can while also hoping to learn more about how the software learns and make it more effective.

 

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Watson-MOOCs-NewTypesCollaboration-DChristian-2-14-13

 

From DSC:
The current set of MOOCs are very powerful, but, like a bush that needs pruning, they can become unwieldy and hard to control.  Not only do the current set of MOOCs help me to see the importance of instructional design, but trying to drink from the firehose often presents problems (i.e. wading through thousands of tweets, hundreds of blog posts, etc.).  How can we still provide openness and yet provide people with better methods/tools for setting their desired level of drinking from this firehose? Tags are helpful, but for most people, they are not doing enough to filter/curate the content at this point.

Enter the technologies being developed in IBM’s Watson, Apple’s SIRI, or in Knewton’s product lines. End-user controllable setting might include:

  • Full throttle — like current form of MOOCs — thousands of tweets, hundreds of blog posts, etc.
  • IBM Watson-enabled curation/filtering only — each individual adjusts how many items they want to see in the various portions of the interface (see above); these settings control how many items and/or streams of content get presented to you

The ideas involving learning agents, artificial intelligence, intelligent tutoring, intelligent systems and more seem to get roped in here…hmm…just thinking out loud and sharing potentially-useful ideas.

 

2nd Screen Society announces definitive Second Screen market research study — frpom digitalvideospace.blogspot.com

Excerpt:

The 2nd Screen: Transforming Video Consumption” written and produced by The Intersection
LAS VEGAS   — At the 2nd Screen Summit at International CES today, 2nd Screen Society Chairman Chuck Parker introduced data and details from his new research study: “The 2nd Screen: Transforming Video Consumption.”  The 250-page document details the current state and five-year projections for this emerging marketplace, which the researchers estimate as a $490 million market today and expect to reach $5.9 billion by 2017.

 

2ndscreensociety-research-jan2013

 

 

Also see:

 

ParksAssociates-Jan2013

 

From DSC:
This relates to my earlier posting/suggested experiment.

 

 

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