WiredPen

There’s a new blog on the block, Eyetools Research, brought to us by the folks who conducted eyetracker research for Poynter.org last year. Greg’s analysis of the Washington Post home page redesign not only illustrates what eye-tracking is, it shows how this tool can be used by web designers.

I was introduced  to Skype earlier this month. My class in Seattle, WA (USA) used it for a teleconference with students in Bejing, China last week.

I’ve installed it on my personal laptop (mac, with built-in mic) and plan on getting a mic for my home PC.

You can "phone" someone who has a Skype account for free. For the compter-phobic among our friends/family, we can "phone" them on their land- or wireless-line for about 2-2 cents/minute. Anywhere in the world.

See this commentary about Skype and that bastion of entertainment, TV:
The Skype-TV Connection: VoIP is forcing telcos to go Hollywood.

Since Skype invaded my life, I understand why the telcos are so desperate to take over my TV set.

My kids’ nanny makes one-hour phone calls for free every day to her family in Hungary. I myself plan to call my family and office in Los Angeles for free when I’m in France next week. And a buddy I told about Skype a week ago is already calling a Canadian business partner every day, for free.

Worldwide, about 67 million people have downloaded Skype. How long until one billion people realize that they can make unlimited free calls to their friends? How long until everybody does? One, two years?

Mobile PC has published its list of the top 100 gadgets of all time. Those that affect communications, IMO, include (yes, I’m lazy - I’ve left them in all caps):

93. COLUMBIA GRAPHOPHONE DICTAPHONE, 1907 - competition between Edison to Bell made personal recording possible
87. RADIO SHACK TRS-80 MODEL 100, 1983 - portable, simple, rugged and (relatively) cheap at $800
70. ATARI PONG C-100, 1976 - start of the gaming culture
60. ABACUS, 190 A.D. - first mechanical calculator
48. SONY DIGITAL MAVICA MVC-HD5, 1997 - first digital camera to record onto disks and have a "large" screen; at one time, accounted for half the digital camera market

Read the rest of this entry »

• Videoconferencing Cookbook : Provides a history of videoconferencing, info on technologies, best practices, etiquette (yes!), glossary.
• Internet2 Commons : “encourages the large-scale deployment of tools for one-to-one, one-to-group, and group-to-group collaborations”
• Internet2 Commons Portal : “‘ a framework for collaboration throughout the research and education community that will encourage interactive communication through large scale deployment of tools for one-to-one, one-to-group, and group-to-group collaborations.”
• Pre-Conference CheckList : Includes the disclaimer about being recorded for educational purposes.
• Video Development Initiative : ViDeNet, ViDe’s global video and voice over IP network test bed

My winter and spring digital content development classes are collaborating with students in China (and maybe South Korea) on a multicultural project coordinated out of Drexel University (Philadelphia). We’re using Internet2 and video conferenencing software (AccessGrid) that is under open source development.

Today has been a bit like Christmas as we’re getting our connection to the server in Philadelphia established. I’m finally getting around to doing some research on I2 itself and have starting compiling many links/resources for my student team.

The current question is this: set up a separate blog for the project or integrate it with this one?