Category Archives: Technology

BJ Miller: What Really Matters At The End of Life | TED.com #mortality #death #life

Posted on by

At the end of our lives, what do we most wish for? For many, it’s simply comfort, respect, love. BJ Miller is a palliative care physician at Zen Hospice Project who thinks deeply about how to create a dignified, graceful end of life for his patients. Take the time to savor this moving talk, which asks big questions about how we think on death and honor life.  Interactive Transcript

Related

For resources related to managing your digital afterlife: #Digital #Afterlife: Managing Memories of Loved Ones in the Digital Age | #death #socialmedia #memorials | infophile.ca

Video Games Have a #Diversity Problem that Runs Deeper than #Race or #Gender | The Guardian #tech #gaming #genres

Posted on by

Blockbuster releases are homogenising around a narrow range of experiences and it could be driving creative people out of the industry. READ: Video games have a diversity problem that runs deeper than race or gender | Technology | The Guardian

#Facebook Partners with #UN to Bring #Internet #Access to #Refugee Camps | CNET @Facebook #UnitedNations #refugees

Posted on by

Facebook is working with the United Nations to enable refugees from the Syrian civil war to access the Internet so they can more easily communicate while seeking resettlement. In a speech to the UN on Saturday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Internet connections in refugee camps will help refugees get better support from the aid community and maintain links to family and loved ones. Access to the Web is key to increasing quality of life, Zuckerberg added, saying it not only helps people communicate but can also help lift them from poverty. READ MORE: Facebook partners with UN to bring Internet access to refugee camps | CNET

Secret Confessions Being Displayed in Train Station + 9 #Innovative Methods for Modern #Storytelling | Mashable + Storytelling in the #Digital Age | TechCrunch

Posted on by

British people’s secret confessions are being displayed in a train station | Mashable
The deepest fears and emotional confessions of strangers are being anonymously displayed at a busy train station in the south of England. “The Waiting Wall” allows commuters travelling through Brighton train station to submit anonymous confessions that are then projected onto a large screen for fellow passengers to read. The display is running from September 21 to September 27 as part of Brighton digital festival.

9 Innovative Methods for Modern Storytelling | Mashable
When an author set out to tell a story in years past, he or she typically did so on paper, a typewriter or by typing at a computer.

But today, storytellers find imaginative ways to share their ideas with interactive and visual elements. On modern mediums like Twitter, Vine, YouTube and other mobile applications, storytellers are crafting tales in ways that would have been unfathomable a decade ago. Offline, too, authors have begun rethinking the traditional concept of the book in ways both innovative and unorthodox.

Storytelling In The Digital Media Age | TechCrunch
Recent studies have shown that attention spans for millennials – those who have grown up in a digital world – are 60 percent shorter than previous generations when it comes to media. They’ve essentially emerged from birth staring at smartphones and tablet computers – with endless entertainment options just a screen away. As this attention span continues to shrink, brands must identify new ways to break through the clutter and establish meaningful emotional connections with their audiences.

Related

The #Internet Is Failing The #Website #Preservation Test | TechCrunch #digital #content

Posted on by

If the internet is at its core is a system of record, then it is failing to complete that mission. Sometime in 2014, the internet surpassed a billion websites, while it has since fallen back a bit, it’s quite obviously an enormous repository. When websites disappear, all of the content is just gone as though it never existed, and that can have a much bigger impact than you imagine on researchers, scholars or any Joe or Josephine Schmo simply trying to follow a link.

Granted, some decent percentage of those pages probably aren’t worth preserving (and some are simply bad information),  but that really shouldn’t be our call. It should all be automatically archived, a digital Library of Congress to preserve and protect all of the content on the internet.

As my experience shows, you can’t rely on publishers to keep a record. When it no longer serves a website owner’s commercial purposes, the content can disappear forever. The trouble with that approach is it leaves massive holes in the online record.

Cheryl McKinnon, an analyst with Forrester Research, who covers content management, has been following this issue for many years. She says the implications of lost content on the internet could be quite profound. READ MORE: The Internet Is Failing The Website Preservation Test | TechCrunch

#Coding to Be Taught in Australian #Schools From Primary Age | Mashable #kids #education

Posted on by

Coding has replaced history and geography in Australia’s new digital technologies curriculum which was endorsed by education ministers on Friday. As The Australian reports, it ensures that 21st century computer coding will be taught in primary schools from Year 5, and programming will be taught from Year 7. READ MORE: Coding to be taught in Australian schools from primary age | Mashable

MUST READ: This #Free #Online #Encyclopedia Has Achieved What Wikipedia Can Only Dream Of | Quartz #websites #content #Internet #reference

Posted on by

Fantastic article relating to authoritative content on the web. Well worth the read start-to-finish.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy may be the most interesting website on the internet. Not because of the content—which includes fascinating entries on everything from ambiguity to zombies—but because of the site itself. Its creators have solved one of the internet’s fundamental problems: How to provide authoritative, rigorously accurate knowledge, at no cost to readers. It’s something the encyclopedia, or SEP, has managed to do for two decades. READ MORE: This free online encyclopedia has achieved what Wikipedia can only dream of | Quartz

What You Need to Know to Be Culturally Literate in 2016 | WIRED #science #culture #security #business #design #knowledge #literacy

Posted on by

THERE ARE LOTS of things they don’t teach you in school. How to mesh music with technology, the way Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre have managed to do. How to navigate a post-Snowden security landscape. Why Ebola can help us fight other diseases. When it comes to living in the here and now, your education is incomplete. Good news: We’re about to school you. We’ve assembled the ultimate cheat sheet for the worlds of security and government, business, science, design, and culture. You’ll learn about the core people and concepts, as well as the go-to Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr feeds that you absolutely must follow. Welcome to your crash seminar in the present. Feel free to take notes. READ MORE: What You Need to Know to Be Culturally Literate in 2016 | WIRED

No Library For You: French Authorities Threatening To Close An #App That Lets People Share Physical #Books | Techdirt #libraries

Posted on by

[O]ver in France, they really are taking the idea of attacking new forms of libraries to incredible new heights. There’s a French startup called Booxup that is taking the above personal lending library concept and making it digital. You get an account, scan your books, upload a list of those you’re willing to lend to others, and the service connects willing lenders with willing borrowers, putting books that would otherwise be collecting dust on shelves to good use actually being read and educating and entertaining the public. Neat. Except… not so neat, according to French authorities who are claiming the whole thing could be illegal: READ MORE: No Library For You: French Authorities Threatening To Close An App That Lets People Share Physical Books | Techdirt

32 #Makerspace and #Arduino Stories to Spark Your Imagination and #Creativity | #RaspberryPi #microcomputers #makerspaces #DIY #robotics

Posted on by

Makerspaces

  1. MakerBot Offers 3-D Printing Resources, Ebook for Educators | School Library Journal
  2. New Minecraft Mod Teaches You Code as You Play | WIRED
  3. A Kids’ Book Where Every Character Can Be 3-D Printed | WIRED
  4. 8 experiences you should try on Google Cardboard right now | CNET
  5. Documentary ‘Print the Legend’ Goes Inside the World of 3D Printing | Mashable
  6. BBC launches Technobabble tool for children to make their own games  | The Guardian Site is aimed at 7-14 year-old digital makers: ‘The only requirements are access to the web, a willingness to experiment and an idea’
  7. Animation Made Easy: The best tools for student projects, from stop motion to GIFs | School Library Journal | The Digital Shift
  8. Free Photo Editing Software Lets You Manipulate Objects in 3D | Reframe | Gizmodo
  9. Pixar’s Powerful 3D Rendering Software RenderMan Is Now Free to Use | LifeHacker
  10. 3D sketching system ‘revolutionizes’ design interaction and collaboration | KurzweilAI
    University of Montreal researchers present their Hyve-3D system at SIGGRAPH 2014 conference.
  11. Turn Your iPhone Into a Crappy 1985 Camcorder With This App | Gizmodo
  12. Researchers create a virtual screen with touchable objects | Engadget
  13. With the new 3Doodler pen, drawing in midair isn’t just make-believe | Mashable
  14. MIT unveils 3D printing with glass breakthrough | Mashable RELATED: MIT scientists make it easy to tweak designs for 3D printing | Engadget

Arduino & Robotics

  1. How to Make Your Own Homemade Clock That Isn’t a Bomb | WIRED
  2. This Arduino Basic Kit has everything a newbie maker could ask for | Engadget
    It’s easy to think about tinkering around with Arduino, but take more than 30 seconds to look at the platform, and suddenly it becomes daunting: not only do you need an Arduino itself, but to get started you need resisters, wires, LEDs, screens and a host of other components that are almost always sold separately. Have no fear, newbies: there’s a new Arduino Basic Kit in town, and it has all the spare parts a beginner could want.
  3. Acer’s Arduino-based Cloud Professor wants to get kids into the IoT | arstechnica
    Educational dev kit tries taking sting out of programming cloud-connected devices.
  4. Build Like Ahmed with These Awesome Electronics Projects | LifeHacker
  5. A Kit To Build Your Own Computer Controls | FastCompany
  6. This Tech Giant Taught 3,000 Kids to Build Robots in a Year | WIRED
  7. Skechers stitched the Simon memory game into its new kids’ sneakers | Engadget

Raspberry Pi & Microcomputers

  1. Raspberry, Shmazberry, There’s A $15 Single Board Computer Called The Orange Pi | TechCrunch
  2. Raspberry Pi gets an official touchscreen display | Engadget
  3. Seven Ready-Made Raspberry Pi Projects You Can Install in a Few Clicks | LifeHacker
  4. RetroPie 3 Lets You Play Old Games On Your New Pi | TechCrunch
  5. Now Kids Can Build Their Own HD Display With The Kano Screen Kit | TechCrunch
    Kano‘s crazy cool educational PC is about to get a bit more visual. Kano CEO Alex Klein tweeted out that the company has launched a pre-order for an HD display kit. The Raspberry Pi based platform is a great, affordable way to show kids some of the bare basics of computers and is a great DIY project for hobbyists as well.
  6. The BBC Is Giving Away 1 Million Hacking Kits To Kids | FastCompany
    This fall, every 11- and 12-year-old school kid in the U.K. will be given a BBC Micro:bit, a tiny pocket-sized computer with no screen, no keyboard, nothing that most people would recognize as a computer. Until you program it, it sits there as dead as a circuit board ripped from any other electronic device. But hook it up to the world with clips and cables and sprinkle on a little code and it can turn into a guitar, an automatic plant-waterer, a loudspeaker, a games console, or almost anything a kid can dream up.
  7. This Tiny Computer Stacks Into a Colorful Lego Brick | Gizmodo
  8. Build an Automated Birdwatching Camera with a Raspberry Pi | LifeHacker
    If you have a birdhouse in your yard, you could spend days sitting around with binoculars waiting to see what cool little inhabitants come by. Or you can take Instructables user Sebelectronique’s lead and build a Raspberry Pi-powered camera inside a birdhouse. RELATED: Teach Kids Tech And Life With A Pi-Powered DIY Camera Trap | TechCrunch
  9. Back Up And Sync Your Files Inside A Mason Jar With Raspberry Preserve | TechCrunch
    An innovative DIYer has figured out a way to skillfully merge a Raspberry Pi running BitTorrent Sync with a traditional glass Mason jar. The result is a homemade service that keeps files in sync between all of your devices.