This is your brain. This is your brain on Super Mario 64. See how the gray matter is increased? A new study published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry suggests a whole lot of benefits to playing video games.
The study concludes that “video gaming causes increases in the brain regions responsible for spatial orientation, memory formation, and strategic planning, as well as fine motor skills.”
Read: Video gaming boosts certain brain regions, study says | Crave – CNET.
Construction on a desperately needed library and learning centre at Mount Royal University is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2014 following an $85.8-million commitment from the Alberta government and an undisclosed donation from Calgary’s Riddell family.
Staff are elated that construction will soon begin on the four-floor, stand-alone library, which, at 16,000 square metres, will be four times the size of the institution’s existing library.
Read: Alberta commits $85.8M to new library for Mount Royal University | Calgary Herald.
CALGARY, Alberta, Nov. 5, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The search for an architectural team is over, and the design of Calgary’s much-anticipated New Central Library is set to begin.
Following an exhaustive search that explored expressions of interest from as far away as Copenhagen and Tokyo, Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC), together with a Selection Committee consisting of members of the Calgary Public Library, City of Calgary and independent architectural consultants, Ian Chodikoff (former editor of Canadian Architect Magazine) and Jim Barnes (Foster + Partners) have selected an architectural team to design Calgary’s New Central Library in East Village.
Since issuing a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) in May 2013, CMLC – the developer City Council has entrusted to manage, coordinate and supervise design and construction of the New Central Library – has worked diligently through a two-stage procurement process that first narrowed 38 international submissions to a shortlist of four firms and then selected the prime design consultant from those immensely qualified finalists.
The current Central Library was built in two phases in 1963 and 1974, when the population of Calgary was less than 400,000. Now, nearly 50 years later, the building is stretched beyond capacity to support the growing operations of the Calgary Public Library. As the New Central Library renews its commitment to community service and enrichment in its second century, it welcomes all Calgarians to a physical and virtual space that’s friendly, trusted and non-commercial. To bring a new vision to life through powerful, enduring architecture and place-making, CMLC’s Selection Committee has chosen the team of Snohetta (an international architecture firm with offices in Oslo and New York) and DIALOG, a Canadian firm with locations in Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Toronto.
“Our rigorous selection process left nothing to chance, so we are entirely confident that Snohetta and DIALOG are exactly the right architectural team to design a New Central Library for our city,” said Michael Brown, President & CEO, Calgary Municipal Land Corporation. “I am very grateful for the scrupulous efforts of the Selection Committee, who were unwavering in their commitment to find the right team for this important civic project”.
Beyond installing Snohetta and DIALOG as the design brain trust for the project, CMLC has engaged MHPM as Project Managers and Stuart Olson Dominion Construction to round out the powerhouse project team that will bring the new library to fruition. In addition to creating a landmark that embodies the New Central Library’s vision, this team will need to creatively address some sizeable design challenges – including the need to build around the existing LRT line.
“We’re ready and incredibly excited to get going,” said Craig Dykers, Founding Partner, Snohetta, New York. “With our local partner, DIALOG, we bring a unique set of local, national and international experiences which will guide our thinking for Calgary’s New Central Library.”
Planning for this project has been in the works since 2004, when City Council committed $40 million toward the project. In July 2011, the City committed an additional $135 million from the Community Investment Fund and earlier this year CMLC received Board approval to contribute the balance of funds required to complete the $245 million project – an investment that marks CMLC’s foray into vertical development. Construction of the New Central Library is expected to begin in early 2014 with site preparation work; the facility is anticipated to open by 2018.
“The City of Calgary is thrilled to be collaborating with CMLC and Calgary Public Library to deliver a library that will serve Calgarians for generations to come,” said Councillor Druh Farrell. “Great libraries are hallmarks of thriving communities that embrace ways to connect citizens to one another and to the world. The New Central Library is a landmark project for Calgary and represents the single largest investment in a public cultural facility since the 1988 Olympic Games.”
The location of the New Central Library, adjacent to City Hall, will strengthen the fabric of community life by weaving East Village, the original heart of Calgary, back into the story of Centre City. From this prime location, the New Central Library will not only serve Calgary’s growing population but also the 140,000+ workers and students who travel downtown every day. To ensure the new library meets citizens’ needs, The City of Calgary, in collaboration with the Calgary Public Library, ran a robust 6-month public engagement program through which more than 16,500 Calgarians shared their ideas, aspirations and hopes for the New Central Library online and in person at over 150 events and public forum opportunities. Equipped with this input, Snohetta and DIALOG are getting a great jumpstart in the process of designing and delivering a great library.
“Calgarians responded with enthusiasm, passion and pride,” says Janet Hutchinson, Calgary Public Library Board Chair. “They clearly see their libraries as essential parts of a complete community, and their collective input will be a rich source of inspiration for the project team. The Calgary Public Library is grateful to every citizen who participated in the process and provided such thoughtful input.”
In response to this input from the public as well as from library customers and staff and The City of Calgary, the New Central Library will be designed with spaces that are flexible, specialized and community-oriented in a building that’s 66% larger overall than the existing downtown library. This multi-faceted family destination and gathering place will include a physical collection of approximately 600,000 books, special programs and spaces for children and teens, a technology commons and laboratory for innovation, a centre that supports inclusive community integration and advancement through skills development, and much more.
The East Village redevelopment is being stewarded by Calgary Municipal Land Corporation, a company of passionate, experienced placemakers who bring new energy to old neighbourhoods, create credibility and confidence, and inspire communities to build, grow and believe.
A photo accompanying this release is available at:
http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=22046
Susan Veres, VP Marketing and Communications Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) E: C: 403.807.1007; O: 403.718.0300
A Website Designed is an infographic of the average website’s creation. via A Website Designed Infographic | The Simple Square Blog | Simple Square.
Our classroom glows with activity. One kid drafts a how-to article in which he explains the steps involved in wiring a cardboard Minecraft controller. Another writes a branching-path, choose-your-own-adventure story in Twine, a free, downloadable interactive fiction app. A student who’s claimed throughout his middle-school career that he isn’t a writer leans close to his laptop screen, finding and fixing coding errors. He composes, compiles, and debugs more than 100 lines of code to light up a three-by-three-light LED display plugged into his laptop.
A pair of especially curious students sits huddled around our newest computer, an exposed-faced circuit board smaller than a paperback book. It’s called a Raspberry Pi. They’re watching how the code they write in one window changes the course of a game in another. They may not know it yet, but these kids are playing with an open-source computing platform that just might change the way we teach young people how to interact with computers.
Read: Life with Raspberry Pi: Sparking a School Coding Revolution | The Digital Shift.
Books & Publishing
Jeff Bezos’ Wife And Co-Workers Call Out Brad Stone’s Amazon Book As Inaccurate…On Amazon | TechCrunch
In what can only be seen as a moment of delicious cyclical irony, a new fairly negative review of the book has been posted by none other than Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos’ wife, MacKenzie Bezos. We’ve confirmed the identity of the reviewer, the only peson to leave a one-star reaction so far.
Readmill is my new Favorite eBook Reading App [Review] | Beautiful Pixels
One of the biggest problems faced while upgrading to the paperless world — at least when it comes to reading ebooks — is that the system is horribly fragmented. Some ebooks are available on one platform while some on others. Keeping track of all your purchases and syncing them with different devices is always a pain. Readmill wants to take some of that pain away from you.
New E-Book Services Borrow a Page From Netflix [Review] | AllThingsD
Review of Oyster and Scribd e-book subscription services.
Music & Film
Education, Technology
Affordable mini Raspberry Pi monitor smashes funding goal | theguardian
HDMIPi Kickstarter project for affordable 9in high-definition monitors for the Raspberry Pi took just 50.5 hours to hit target
Google to Launch ‘Helpouts’ on Monday | The Wall Street Journal
A new video service from Google aims to connect people with teachers, personal trainers, doctors and other experts is expected to launch Monday evening, according to a recent planning email. The new service, called “Helpouts,” has been in quiet testing for months. There are few restrictions on who can sign up to offer services, though Google has been reaching out to professional organizations such as the language-learning company Rosetta Stone to fill in the ranks of experts.
Google Wants The Government’s Data On You | Forbes
Google’s president for the Americas urged government officials Friday to open all municipal data so Google can use it to become everyone’s perfect personal assistant—an invisible entity that knows what you want before you do.
Libraries, Librarians
OCLC and ProQuest work together to automate e-book collection management | OCLC
Collaboration will help library staff keep e-book information current, offer library users quick and easy access to e-books from ebrary and EBL.
State Library of South Australia to create new technology hub to attract more users of its resources | news.com.au
Will embark on an ambitious program of events and create a university-style hub in a bid to arrest a fall of almost 200,000 visitors last financial year.
Net neutrality is a dead man walking. The execution date isn’t set, but it could be days, or months (at best). And since net neutrality is the principle forbidding huge telecommunications companies from treating users, websites, or apps differently — say, by letting some work better than others over their pipes — the dead man walking isn’t some abstract or far-removed principle just for wonks: It affects the internet as we all know it.
Once upon a time, companies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and others declared a war on the internet’s foundational principle: that its networks should be “neutral” and users don’t need anyone’s permission to invent, create, communicate, broadcast, or share online. The neutral and level playing field provided by permissionless innovation has empowered all of us with the freedom to express ourselves and innovate online without having to seek the permission of a remote telecom executive.
But today, that freedom won’t survive much longer if a federal court — the second most powerful court in the nation behind the Supreme Court, the DC Circuit — is set to strike down the nation’s net neutrality law, a rule adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2010. Some will claim the new solution “splits the baby” in a way that somehow doesn’t kill net neutrality and so we should be grateful. But make no mistake: Despite eight years of public and political activism by multitudes fighting for freedom on the internet, a court decision may soon take it away.
Read the full story: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality — And the Internet as We Know It | Wired Opinion | Wired.com.
Kinsa wants to change how we glean information about our health, starting with the world’s most common medical device.
Quotable: “There’s a bigger picture: Like the Scanadu Scout, Kinsa is part of a larger tapestry of data companies, fitness wearables, and health gadgets that want to empower us to start owning our own data. Sensors give us on-demand insights into our health, whereas a doctor’s office means tests and a wait time for a phone call.”
Read: This Tech-Enabled Thermometer Tracks More Than Just A Fever | Co.Design | business + design.
Check out EW’s bracket game to vote on the best young adult novel of all time.
We’re pitting 64 young adult books against each other in a March-Madness style game to determine which you think is the best of all time. Check out the full bracket and vote!
Vote: What is the best YA novel of all time? Round one | PopWatch | EW.com.
Also see: EW asks: What’s the best YA novel of all time?
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