Saturday, May 04, 2002

Foreign Policy Japan’s Gross National Cool

"Japan is reinventing superpower—again. Instead of collapsing beneath its widely reported political and economic misfortunes, Japan’s global cultural influence has quietly grown. From pop music to consumer electronics, architecture to fashion, and animation to cuisine, Japan looks more like a cultural superpower today than it did in the 1980s, when it was an economic one. But can Japan build on its mastery of medium to project an equally powerful national message?"

redux [03.31.01]
Guardian Unlimited Observer Modern boys and mobile girls

"Why Japan?' I've been asked for the past 20 years or so. Meaning: why has Japan been the setting for so much of my fiction? When I started writing about Japan, I'd answer by suggesting that Japan was about to become a very central, very important place in terms of the global economy. And it did. (Or rather, it already had, but most people hadn't noticed yet.) A little later, asked the same question, I'd say that it was Japan's turn to be the centre of the world, the place to which all roads lead; Japan was where the money was and the deal was done. Today, with the glory years of the bubble long gone, I'm still asked the same question, in exactly the same quizzical tone: 'Why Japan?'

Because Japan is the global imagination's default setting for the future."

redux [04.20.01]
Kyoto Journal Digital Dream or Digital Dystopia?

"How are we Asians, in this new global realm of the phosphor and the pixel, going to deal with the reality that 95 percent of the Asian populace has never used a computer and 98 percent has never been on the Internet? A populace for whom 1) family and wealth, or class and caste, define almost all relationships; 2) magic and myths born in the fears of the Stone Age are the roots of almost all the laws; 3) legend, not fact, is the wellspring of the public imagination; and 4) the future is something most people go to an astrologer for.

What have we to offer to 2 billion people who can't read? How will we reconcile the Asia around us with the fact that we represent a medium that is an imported sociology founded on the assumption that efficient commerce is the pinnacle of human achievement? How do we propose to guide the abyssal undercurrent of Asian tradition into a media-shaped future without losing what to most people is a precious mythical identity? How will the underclasses of Asia respond to a medium that does not reinforce the courtyard culture of old Asia but appears all too ready to cast it aside for something defined almost entirely in terms of a marketplace culture? And how, with an unclear new identity facing them, can Asians avoid the two calamities that have historically gone into defining who they are: reactionary nostalgia and the bloodshed of change?"

redux [05.14.00]
The New York Times Rising Internet Use Quietly Transforms Way Japanese Live
[requires 'free' registration]

""The use of the Internet here has started more as a social thing that in the end is going to have enormous implications," said Jiro Kokuryo, a professor at Keio University's business school, who specializes in e-commerce and information systems. "It is changing people's point of view and empowering them to challenge traditional ways of doing things."

Groups that have traditionally had little influence here are finding their voices and taking action on the Internet. Farmers like the Kimuras escape the huge, bureaucratic distribution system that has been sucking up their profits. Working mothers are banding together to form business ventures. Small companies are using the Internet to expand business and decrease reliance on a primary corporate customer. These are all revolutionary developments by Japanese standards, and not limited to marginal players."

Thursday, May 02, 2002

The New York Times Lessons Learned at Dot-Com U.
[requires 'free' registration]

""University presidents got dollars in their eyes and figured the way the university was going to ride the dot-com wave was through distance learning," said Lev S. Gonick, vice president for information services and chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "They got swept up.""

"In the process, the universities have come to understand that there is more to online learning than simply transferring courses to the Web."

redux [03.08.02]
Sp!ked-IT From ABC to ICT

"In contrast to the involved and transformative process of making a child literate, the use of [Information and Communications Technologies] is intuitive. Even my three-year-old nephew Stefan can turn a computer on, move in and out of computer programmes, including his parents' email programme, and send messages. He cannot write a message that makes any sense - but he knows which field the text should go in, how to move the cursor between fields, and that you fill the field with symbols by tapping the keyboard. He has learned this by watching his older brothers, by a lot of trial-and-error, and, no doubt, through intuition.

But Stefan, or any other child his age, could never learn to read, write, divide and multiply through intuitive learning - because the manipulation of abstract symbols, whether the written word or numbers, does not make 'human sense'."

redux [02.13.02]
The Oregonian School in heart of tech country teaches without PCs

"Several of Swallowtail's high-tech parents say they didn't pick the school solely for its no-tech stance but support the philosophy behind it. The parents say they know computer skills are easy to learn because they work with technology all day.

"It's not rocket science to use a computer," says O'Mahony, a former Intel electrical engineer whose husband, Barry, is a senior engineer for the company.

The couple's children learn about computers at home from their parents, but, says O'Mahony, "We certainly can't teach them to paint.""

redux [11.06.01]
First Monday Computer-Mediated School Education and the Web

"The addition of the Web to the range of technologies which humans have used to mediate between themselves and the world has contributed to problems as well as advantages in the area of school education. Historical antecedents in areas such as writing, printing and industrialisation provide a context in which mediated experiences can be examined. In the 21st century, the availability of online education increases the possibility that virtual experience will be substituted for reality. There are also concerns that there will be a blurring of appearance and reality, and that cultural imperialism will continue to spread by use of the Web. Together with the observation that computer-mediation via the Web tends to reframe the central role of the teacher in the educational process, these factors are considered in terms of the need to establish future guidelines to reduce the adverse impact of the Web on school education."

redux [10.02.01]
MIT Technology Review Brave New World for Higher Education

"Sperling is the very model of an entrepreneur who has firsthand experience with the "inefficiencies" in the educational marketplace and knows how to exploit them. Sperling knows that quality education is often a secondary - or even a tertiary - concern of universities. After all, a university is not just a marketplace of ideas; it's a marketplace.

Will that marketplace be driven more by for-profit or not-for-profit sensibilities? (Or as Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman likes to put it, "tax-paying" versus "tax-exempt" sensibilities.) It's one thing for an MIT or a Stanford to benchmark itself against a Chicago or a Berkeley; but what does it mean to benchmark itself against a Phoenix or a DeVry? Or is that too ridiculous to even contemplate? Sperling has no (apparent) illusions about direct competition with the elite schools, because the fundamental missions are so different. But when it comes to opportunities in continuing education, distance learning and the Internet, he has no doubts about which kind of school is in the best position to profitably innovate."

redux [04.04.01]
The New York Times M.I.T. Course Materials Free Over Web
[requires 'free' registration]

"At a time when online knowledge can be a valuable commodity, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology plans to offer nearly all its course materials on the Internet for free."

"The plan counters a trend toward the "privatization of knowledge," where ideas are owned by companies or institutions, said professor Steven Lerman, chairman of the MIT faculty.

The school is still considering ways to use the Internet to generate revenue, such as selling research updates to alumni, said MIT President Charles Vest. But this venture is essentially altruistic, he said."

NPR: All Things Considered MIT Classes on the Web

"Linda Wertheimer talks with Charles Vest, president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about the school's offer to create a Web site for most of its classes and to post materials from each course. (4:30)"

redux [02.16.01]
The Economist Lessons of a virtual timetable

"Belief in e-learning, as it is often called, has so far weathered the downturn in the wider dotcom world. John Chambers, the influential CEO of Cisco, which supplies much of the Internet's hardware, asserts that the scale of network traffic generated by e-learning will make today?s exchange of e-mail messages look like a rounding error. But his firm's business depends on an ever-rising flood of electronic data passing over the connections which it makes for electronic networks. More disinterested voices caution against confusing the obvious need to learn computer-literacy skills with the less obvious need to learn everything else via a computer."

redux [12.04.00]
NPR: Morning Edition Higher Computer Education

"NPR's Ina Jaffe reports that more and more students are turning to computers rather than campuses to earn their college degree. This may make a college education possible for a wider range of students, but some in academia are concerned that internet degree programs only in it for the money will influence course curriculum for everyone. (7:30)"

Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks Higher Education in an Era of Digital Competition: Emerging Organizational Models

"Growing demand among learners for improved accessibility and convenience, lower costs, and direct application of content to work settings is radically changing the environment for higher education in the United States and globally. In this rapidly changing environment, which is increasingly based within the context of a global, knowledge-based economy, traditional universities are attempting to adapt purposes, structures, and programs, and new organizations are emerging in response. Organizational changes and new developments are being fueled by accelerating advances in digital communications and learning technologies that are sweeping the world. Growing demand for learning combined with these technical advances is in fact a critical pressure point for challenging the dominant assumptions and characteristics of existing traditionally organized universities in the 21st century. This combination of demand, costs, application of content and new technologies is opening the door to emerging competitors and new organizations that will compete directly with traditional universities and with each other for students and learners.

redux [05.09.00]
Netfuture Who's Killing Higher Education? (or is it suicide?)

"A growing consensus holds that new information technologies foretell the end of higher education as we have known it. I suspect this is true. Its truth, however, is not that the technologies are positively revolutionizing education. Rather, what we are watching is more like the end -- the final perfection and dead-end extreme -- of the old regime's shortcomings."

"All this worries a growing contingent of educators, who fear the corporation's "crushing solicitude". (The phrase is William F. Buckley's which he applied many years ago to the ministrations of centralized government.) I share this fear, but it seems to me that the more fundamental issue often goes unnoted: our changing notions about what education is make it inevitable that business and industry should step into the picture aggressively. If you want efficient delivery of effective facts and procedures, then business -- already attuned to such computationally rigorous training -- will far outperform the university.

In other words, having increasingly accepted their role as training grounds for business -- which is what the information-transfer model of education implies -- universities are now finding that business is better situated to train its own employees than schools are. At best the universities will simply hire themselves out to corporations.

redux [07.06.00]
First Monday Technology and Education: Between Chaos and Order

"Technology in all forms, young and old or simple and complex, can be potent tools that engage learners in meta-cognitive reflection. These tools engage learners to rethink their old beliefs, knowledge, and understandings. These tools might allow learners to compare new ideas with other individuals to assess whether new concepts and ideas are plausible and fruitful. Technologies can be educators' tools in finding creative ways that encourage students to self-test, self-question, and self-regulate learning in helping them to create solutions to complex problems. Educators need to help students realize that understanding about knowledge and beliefs are essential to human growth and development. Technologies should not estrange us from our humanity or the noble profession of educating competent citizens. We should not become "high-tech, self-driven slaves to technology.

"Protecting the embodiment of quality education encompasses learning to think, learning to teach, and learning to lead creatively, not only within the classroom (virtual and traditional) but also throughout all institutions of higher education."

Wednesday, May 01, 2002

Wired News Site Barks About Deep Link

"By his own proud admission, Avi Adelman is an irrepressible muckraker."

"Now Adelman is locked in a battle against the Belo media corporation, owner of The Dallas Morning News, which sent him a legalistic letter this week demanding that BarkingDogs.org remove all "deep links" to the DallasNews.com site."

Jim Romenesko's MediaNews Letters Deep-linking benefits

"From BEN SILVERMAN, Editor Dotcom Scoop: I wonder if it occurred to whoever made the decision to punish deep-linkers that websites are actually doing Belo's newspapers a favor by linking to their articles in the first place, thus driving traffic to Belo properties and putting advertising dollars in Belo's pockets. Deep-linking is probably the best thing that could ever happen to newspapers or content sites. It brings readers to a specific piece of content and to a website that they otherwise probably would not have visited. Links on this site (Media News) are a perfect example. I don't know how many times I've clicked on a story link and then decided to prowl around the linked website for awhile longer because I enjoyed the piece or saw links to other interesting stories. When a story of mine is linked on Media News, or in Yahoo's Full Coverage area for example, I notice a sharp increase in overall page views, not just visits to the page that has been linked."

redux [12.14.01]
The New York Times Experts Say Decision Could Undermine Online Journalists
[requires 'free' registration]

"Free speech advocates are worried that a recent federal appeals decision could have a chilling effect on online journalists who use hyperlinks to direct readers to relevant, newsworthy sites that contain illegal material.

Even more troubling, the critics say, may be an emerging double standard in the way courts treat traditional print publishers and their online offshoots, especially when it concerns printing a controversial address in a newspaper vs. linking to it from a Web page."

Wired News Big Stink Over a Simple Link

"KPMG, an international services firm, prides itself on its "e-business" savvy, and it charges companies boatloads to improve their "new economy" businesses.

But this week several website owners were wondering whether KPMG's Internet acumen was really worth anything at all, as it announced a policy that seemed to breach the most basic freedom on the Web -- the freedom to link to any site you want to."

redux [06.16.00]
The New York Times Is Linking Illegal?
[requires 'free' registration]

"A crucial aspect of online journalism is the ability to garnish articles with hyperlinks that instantly refer readers to Web sites related to newsworthy issues."

But suppose one of those sites contains material alleged to be illegal--a pirated copy of an author’s book, perhaps, or an unlawful software program. Is the publisher who did the linking in hot water?

The answer, according to legal papers recently filed by eight motion picture studios in a closely-watched federal case in Manhattan, is sometimes yes and sometimes no."

Tuesday, April 30, 2002

Light Reading Telecom Downturn: Just Beginning?

"The carrier spending downturn could very well last another five to six years, according to Dr. John McQuillan, president of McQuillan Ventures. McQuillan, cochairman of the NGN Ventures conference here, sent a few attendees scrambling for their Maalox on Tuesday when he pointed out that, historically, capital spending downturns have tended to last for seven to eight years.

Since the telecom industry is only two years into its current downturn, McQuillan told attendees that they'd better just buck up and quit living in the past: "We need to stop telling ourselves that it’s a tough market and start telling ourselves that this is the market.""

The Washington Post AT&T Posts Nearly $1 Billion Loss

"Phone and cable carrier AT&T Corp. reported its loss widened to nearly $1 billion in the first quarter, blaming the performance on falling long-distance sales and a slide in the value of its investments."

redux [03.15.02]
MSNBC A telecom hangover ...that won’t go away

"After nearly $2 trillion of investment, the build-out of the information superhighway has run out of gas. The mountain of money invested by wannabe global telecom providers continues to go up in smoke. Though the smaller upstarts were first to pull the plug, major carriers like Global Crossing are now hitting bankruptcy court. And analysts say it could be years before the industry shakes off its debt hangover, absorbs a glut of capacity and begins to grow again."

redux [02.08.02]
BusinessWeek The Tidal Wave Bearing Down on Telecom

""Some of the more highly leveraged companies are really struggling. They don't have the cash flow to make their payments," says James Glen, a telecom economist with Economy.com."

Worse, Baby Bells such as Verizon (VZ ) and SBC (SBC ) continue to eat away at consumer long-distance monopoly of AT&T, Sprint, and WorldCom. That's on top of the woes the big three already face in operating backbone undersea and land-based networks, which they resell to other operators in some places. While Sprint, WorldCom, and AT&T don't face the type of imminent cash crunch as Global Crossing does, a consolidation among even the major long-distance providers is now a possibility."

DotComScoop Sprint CEO warns employees "there is no magic bullet"

"Sprint PCS stock hit a 52-week of low $10.00 on Wednesday after the company cut 2002 subscriber targets. Meanwhile, Sprint stock plummeted to an all-time low of $12.64 on Wednesday after the company posted a big loss and cut its 2002 outlook.

The telecom market has been rocked by the bankruptcy of Global Crossing and lingering doubts from last year. Sprint competitor WorldCom has seen its stock fall drastically this week while fears of more Enron-esque accounting problems plague the industry."

SMART Letter The Enronization of Telecom

"The fundamental health of the [telecom] sector is likely to get worse before it gets better . . . The combination of: the sector's anemic growth outlook, the cannibalizing competitive mega-trends of wireless substitution, voice to data migration, Bell entry into long distance combined with local competition, and the bubble-induced excesses in debt and over-capacity, all create a powerful wealth destroying dynamic. Telecom's 'debt spiral' has gotten so bad that even the relatively strongest players who are still able to raise significant capital (VZ, SBC, and BLS) don't want to assume any more liabilities or business risk. Consequently, Precursor is reversing its long held view that consolidation can help improve the sector from excess capacity and debt any time soon."

David Isenberg and David Weinberger The Paradox of the Best Network

"Despite the darkened outlook, new communications capabilities are within reach that will make the current Internet look like tin cans and string. The technical know-how exists. Radically simplified technologies can blast bits a million times faster than the current network at a millionth of the cost. These are sitting in laboratories undeveloped, in warehouses undeployed, and in the field underutilized.

It's not even that the communications revolution has been derailed by inept or self-aggrandizing behavior by incumbent telephone companies and their government regulators. Something more fundamental is at work."

Monday, April 29, 2002

Newsbytes Online Newspapers Top Local News Source On Web

"This just in: Web surfers looking for local news on the Internet are most likely to visit online newspapers, beating out Yahoo, local television sites and America Online".

"But what is it that drives Internet users to a newspaper's online edition? Among those interviewed by telephone, 38 percent go to the Net for breaking news, 34 percent search archives and classified ads, 32 percent look for greater detail of a story in the paper's printed version, and 31 percent are trying to find information not available in print."

redux [02.14.02]
Media Life 20-somethings fleeing papers for the web

"Among internet users in their twenties, the ritual of sitting down with the morning paper is gradually being displaced by a new routine: logging on for news.

People in the 20 to 29 age bracket are bypassing print newspapers for their online editions, according to a recent study from Forrester Research.

"There’s a new wave of consumers that are coming up the pike, and these consumers have been introduced to the web at a much younger age," says Christopher M. Kelley, the analyst behind the report."

redux [10.19.01]
The Christian Science Monitor Is the Internet now our most serious communications medium?

"As the days and the weeks pass after the attacks of Sept. 11, an interesting development is taking place: American media is being beaten, and beaten solidly, by foreign competitors in the hunt for the stories of the new war against terrorism. This is particularly true of electronic media, whose shortcomings -- especially in terms of international coverage -- are on view for all to see. While American media seems fixated on the anthrax threat, the rest of the world is receiving better information about the larger, more complex issues."

"The limitations of other media -- time, space and depth, in particular, in various quantities -- mean that the Internet is becoming the one medium where Americans who are interested in getting the 'real facts' of the story can go to find them. Even most American media also recognize this -- witness the regular exhortations to audiences and readers to 'go to the Web to get more on this story.'"

ABCNews.Com Internet Grows as News Source

"A new ABCNEWS poll finds that nearly half of Americans now get news over the Internet, up by 11 points - perhaps 22 million individuals - since mid-1999. And just over a third of Internet news consumers say they've been going online for news more often since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

redux [06.13.00]
Freedom Forum Web news scores above print, broadcast on credibility

"The most-credible Internet news sources are Web sites run by network or cable TV outlets or national newspapers, according to a new survey. Such well-known Internet names as America Online, Netscape and Yahoo! ranked higher on credibility than lesser-known sites."

"Among news media, continuing a trend, the Pew poll found key segments of the nation's news audience, particularly younger and better-educated Americans and those seeking financial information, are turning increasingly to the Internet."

""Increasingly, news organizations that are going to be successful have to offer news on a 24-hour basis..."

redux [04.20.00]
The Round Table Group America's Young Adults Turning to Internet

"Young adults say the Internet, not newspapers or television, is their number one source of information, a Round Table Group survey has found.

Fifty-nine percent of Internet users in the 18- to 24-year-old age group say that their household gets more "useful information" from the Net than from newspapers; 53 percent say they receive more information from the Internet than from TV.

Fully 84 percent say that their household is more likely to use the Internet to find useful information than to go to the public library. For specific questions, 68 percent are more inclined to consult the Internet than turn to a newspaper and 67 percent are more likely to go to the Net than rely on television."