Saturday, October 30, 2010

Web science: a new frontier presentations

Web science: a new frontier presentations
Organised by Professor Nigel Shadbolt, Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Professor James Hendler and Professor Bill Dutton
Video recordings of presentations from 27 and 28 September 2010

Introduction
Professor Nigel Shadbolt, University of Southampton, Web Science Trust

The structure of the Web
Professor Albert-László Barabási, Northeastern University and Harvard Medical School

Networks and webs in ecosystems and financial systems
Lord May of Oxford, OM AC FRS, University of Oxford

The mathematics of Web science: structure, dynamics and incentives
Dr Jennifer Chayes, Microsoft Research

Understanding social and information networks
Professor Jon Kleinberg, Cornell University

Programming the social computer: using computational logic to specify webs of interaction
Professor Dave Robertson, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

Towards a decentralised and personalised Web
Dr Anne- Marie Kermarrec, INRIA

Enhancing communication and creativity with structured data on the Web
Professor David Karger, MIT

The nature of collective intelligence
Professor Pierre Lévy, University of Ottawa

Social networks in the internet: what social research knows about it
Professor Manuel Castells FBA, University of Southern California

New models of government via the Web
Professor Helen Margetts, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford

Augmented intelligence: the Web and human computation
Professor Luis von Ahn, Carnegie Mellon University

The EventWeb: towards experiential computing
Professor Ramesh Jain, University of California, Irvine
Launch the player to watch The EventWeb: towards experiential computing

Developing Web Science to understand and enable 21st century multidimensional networks
Professor Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University and Web Science Trust

Will the Web break?
Professor Jonathan Zittrain, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University

Future hopes for the Web
Sir Timothy Berners-Lee OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, Web Science Trust

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Virtual communities - exchanging ideas through computer bulletin boards By Howard Rheingold,

Virtual communities - exchanging ideas through computer bulletin boards
By Howard Rheingold, UC Berkeley, Stanford
This is an essay originally published in Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1987.
Reprinted in the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, Vol.1, issue 1 by permission of author

Information Technology, Globalization and Social Development, by Manuel Castells

Information Technology, Globalization and Social Development
Manuel Castells

UNRISD Discussion Paper No. 114, September 1999

The Virtual Community: Chapter Ten: Disinformocracy, by Howard Rheingold

The Virtual Community: Chapter Ten: Disinformocracy, By Howard Rheingold

Manuel Castells, "The Network Society and Organizational Change" and "Identity in the Network Society"

Manuel Castells, "The Network Society and Organizational Change" and "Identity in the Network Society"

Postmodern Virtualities, by Mark Poster

Postmodern Virtualities, by Mark Poster

The Economy of Ideas Selling Wine Without Bottles on the Global Net by John Perry Barlow

The Economy of Ideas. Selling Wine Without Bottles on the Global Net
by John Perry Barlow

Free Culture By Lawrence Lessig

Free Culture, By Lawrence Lessig

Friday, October 22, 2010

Learning and Relationships in the Cyberspace

Learning and Relationships in the Cyberspace, by Gioacchino Lavanco, Viviana Catania, Anna Milio, and Floriana Romano.World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology 38 2008

Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Effect of Interactivity on Learning Physical Actions in Virtual Reality

The Effect of Interactivity on Learning Physical Actions in Virtual Reality, by
JEREMY BAILENSON (Stanford University), KAYUR PATEL (University of Washington),
ALEXIA NIELSEN (Stanford University), RUZENA BAJSCY (University of California at Berkeley), SANG–HACK JUNG (University of California at Berkeley), GREGORIJ KURILLO
(University of California at Berkeley)

Monday, October 18, 2010

Global Internet Freedom Consortium

Global Internet Freedom Consortium

The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace

The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace. Edited by Ronald J. Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain. Foreword by Miklos Haraszti. The MIT Press

opennet innitiative

The OpenNet Initiative

"is a collaborative partnership of three institutions: the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto; the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; and the SecDev Group (Ottawa).

Our aim is to investigate, expose and analyze Internet filtering and surveillance practices in a credible and non-partisan fashion. We intend to uncover the potential pitfalls and unintended consequences of these practices, and thus help to inform better public policy and advocacy work in this area. To achieve these aims, the ONI employs a unique multi-disciplinary approach that includes:

Development and deployment of a suite of technical enumeration tools and core methodologies for the study of Internet filtering and surveillance;
Capacity-building among networks of local advocates and researchers;
Advanced studies exploring the consequences of current and future trends and trajectories in filtering and surveillance practices, and their implications for domestic and international law and governance regimes.

Social Media Filtering Mapp

Acces Denied:The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering.

Ronald Deibert, John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, Jonathan Zittrain, eds., Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, (Cambridge: MIT Press) 2008.
Online Version

2010 Circumvention Tool Usage Report, by Hal Roberts, Ethan Zuckerman, Jillian

2010 Circumvention Tool Usage Report (October, 2010), by Hal Roberts, Ethan Zuckerman, Jillian. Berkman Center for Internet and society.

"All circumvention tools use the same basic method to bypass this sort of network filtering: they proxy connections through third party sites that are not filtered themselves. By using this method, a user in China who cannot reach http://falundafa.org directly can instead access a proxy machine like
http://superproxy.com/, which can fetch http://falundafa.org for the user. The network filter only sees a connection to the proxy machine (superproxy.com), and so as long as the proxy itself remains unfiltered, the user can visit sites through the proxy that are otherwise blocked by the network filter. Some, but not all, tools also encrypt traffic between the user and proxy, both so that the traffic between the user and proxy is much more difficult to surveille and so, that filtering triggered by the content of the traffic (instead of merely the destination of the traffic) will not work. Despite this core similarity, circumvention tools differ significantly in many implementation details. We break circumvention tools into four large categories based on their proxy implementations. Each category of tool is distinguished from one another also by virtue of each being closely associated with a single model of financial support. The four categories of tools are:

• blocking-resistant tools
• simple web proxies
• VPN services
• HTTP/SOCKS proxies

"Be cunning and full of tricks. Innovative Learning in Second Life and Beyond", by John Lester

"Be cunning and full of tricks. Innovative Learning in Second Life and Beyond", by John Lester. The Prospects of Learning in Second Life. Abo Akedami University, Turku, Finland, October, 14-15, 2010.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Improving three elements involved in the learning process of a language by using tools designed for Second Life (SL Languages 2010)

From today SL Languages 2010 begins at Second Life. We encourage you to take a look into the schedule SL Languages Schedule.

Saturday 16 October 2010. 7am PDT (SL Time)/2pm GMT / 10pm CST (China Standard Time)
(See in this link (The Fixed Time World Clock) what is the time of the presentation, depending on where you are.)

In the parallel session 5.1. Parallel session 5.1 Akemi Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion avatar)and me will present:

"Improving three elements involved in the learning process of a language by using tools designed for Second Life. Grammar, Vocabulary and Use in context: Word Puzzle Ball, Dracy Crossword (type 5 and Making Panel) and Brainflowing"

Abatract
Second Life is an adequate environment for learning languages not just because allows to join individuals from several places, facilitating the exchange of ideas between them but also because of the immersive character of this virtual environment, which permits people to share a common space where they can interact with ease and where they feel comfortable. Even without the need of using tools, Second Life, understood as an space is a very adequate place for practicing languages but it is mainstream taking advantage of the easiness that we experiment in this Virtual World for designing and creating intelligent tools oriented to achieve specific objectives involved in the process of learning a language. Therefore, in this demonstration, we will introduce tools focused on practicing three main issues that take part in the learning process of a language:

Word Puzzle Balls
and Dracy Crossword (type 5 and Making Panel) are created by Draceina Pinion and aim to help people to improve grammar and vocabulary in many languages. Thus, Word Puzzle Balls can be used for learning and teaching the grammar of all the languages which can be used in Second Life and Dracy Crossword can be applied for learning and teaching vocabulary of English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Hirigana, the first of all the writing systems taught to Japanese children. Brainflowing, created by gloriagdiagoGalicia and Draceina Pinion is a tool intended on facilitating the brainstorming activity in Second Life. It permits to brainstorm, by using several languages, being very adequate for practicing a language in context. Furthermore, because permits people to brainstorm by anonymity, the learners, will be not afraid of committing mistakes when writing and the teacher could correct them without referring to the persons who have done.

This session lasts for 120 minutes and takes place in AVALON Learning Sandbox

VENUE: AVALON Learning Sandbox
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/AVALON%20Learning/101/65/36

Note: all the tools are available in Dracy´s virtual shop, at Second Life.
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Zerelia/233/98/74

Outcomes obtained after brainstorming at ISTE by using Brainflowing

Note: photos taken by Akemi Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion avatar)




Yesterday, Akemi Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion avatar) and me enjoyed a very nice time presenting and using Brainflowing at ISTE. We thank all of them for their collaboration and engagement and we also thank to Terra Sieberman (Louise Borgnine avatar), who is Membership Development at ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education)

Brainstorming about advantages of Second Life

Participants identified, among others, the following ones:
- global connections,
- collaboration personal
- learning network
- professional opportunities
- meeting people
- Kurka-licious fun
- collaboration
- personal learning network
- professional opportunities
- museums
- art shows
- beauty
- imagination
- creativity


Brainstorming about alternatives to Second Life.

All Participants agree about the bad consequences that the elimantion of spetial prices for educational and non profit places in Second Life not just for these Institutions but also for the users who were atteding the events they organize. We were sharing about the best alternatives to this Virtual World and the following virtual environments were cited:

- Reaction Grid
Based on Unity3D combined with custom software and inworld scripting it is quickly
becoming a hit for high concurrency-easy to login to use cases. System
Architecture PDF. Highlights:Cross Platform Windows & Mac, Browser plugin, Game
Console Ready Iphone/Ipad/Ipod Touch capable, Android Ready, Standard 3D Mesh/CAD
Import, C#/Javascript/Boo Inworld Scripting, Concurrency to 1000+ Per Level, Vivox
Voice

Opensimulator is open source software that is a favorite for educational users on ReactionGrid.
GaiaOnline
World of Warcraft
Blue mars
The Blue Mars Virtual World Platform is made up
of the Blue Mars Client, the Blue Mars Sandbox Editors, BlueMars.com, and the Blue
Mars Servers.

Eve Online
- Wonderland
Open Cobalt Alpha
Open Cobalt Alpha is the first step in a long term
project to make available to all people a free and open source platform for
constructing, accessing, and sharing virtual workspaces for research and
education. This 3D multimedia wiki technology makes it easy to create deeply
collaborative and hyperlinked multi-user virtual workspaces, virtual exhibit
spaces, and game-based learning and training environments that run on all major
software operating systems. By using a peer based messaging protocol to reduce
reliance on server infrastructures for support of basic in world interactions
across many participants, Open Cobalt makes it possible for people hyperlink their
virtual worlds via 3D portals to form a large distributed network of
interconnected collaboration spaces. It also makes it possible for schools and
other organizations to freely set up their own networks of public and private 3D
virtual workspaces that feature integrated web browsing, voice chat, text chat,
and access to remote desktop applications and services
.
Croquet
Croquet is a powerful open source software
technology that, in the form of the Croquet Software Developer's Kit (Croquet
SDK), can be used by experienced software developers to create and deploy deeply
collaborative multi-user online virtual world applications on and across multiple
operating systems and devices. Derived from Squeak, the Croquet system features a
peer-based messaging protocol that dramatically reduces the need for server
infrastructures to support virtual world deployment and makes it easy for software
developers to create deeply collaborative applications. Cobalt is a National
Science Foundation-sponsored effort to develop an open source virtual world
browser and authoring toolkit application based on the Croquet technology.

Science Sim
The 3D Internet refers to a currently disparate
but rapidly converging set of 3D technologies used for visualizing 3D information
on the web. This convergence promises to provide a new set of collaborative tools
with application in collaborative visualization, education, training and scientific
discovery. As part of the Supercomputing Conference this year working with
supporters in the community we have made available a virtual world based on the
open source package OpenSim

Jokaydia
The Islands of jokaydia Project is facilitated by
Jo Kay aka jokay Wollongong. It was launched in September 2007 and aims to provide
a space to explore the uses of virtual worlds in education, the arts and social
change. We are a community of practice, and have homes in various virtual worlds
including our very own jokaydiaGRID running on Opensimulator, along with presence
in Second Life, Jibe and Reaction Grid. We are also exploring BlueMars, World of
Warcraft, Aion and a number of other virtual worlds and gaming platforms.


3rd Rock Grid
Within the virtual world you will find houses,
businesses, music clubs, role playing areas, parks, museums, whatever the community
decides to build or develop, either collectively on community property or
individually on your own property. You will also meet and talk to other
individuals, Americans, Canadians, Australians, Europeans, and others from all
corners of the globe.You are represented by a three dimensional “avatar” that you
control , you control the looks, the clothes, and its movement throughout the
virtual world. The possibilities are endless and completely up to you - the
creator! You will find individuals from 18 to 70 and beyond in world, it is not a
predetermined game, with your interaction with the other individuals your world
becomes what
you make it.
SpotOn3d
potON3D's ™ 3DWeb Systems empower Internet users to break out of the flat 2D web
page, and GO TO A PLACE on the web – 3DWeb Worlds - where they can experience much
of the same functionality & experience they enjoy in the real world without having
to spend the time or money get to there.

Participants also pointed the fact that there is an HyperGate, teleporter system between worlds which permits to walk to one place to another.Other issue that was pointed out is that OpenSim is much less expensive in comparision with Second Life and in some ways much easier to change.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Brainstorming with Brainflowing at ISTE (strengths of Second Life and current alternatives to this Virtual Environment)

Thursday, October 14, 2010, 6-7 PM SLT (that's 9PM EST)
ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Educators Social Events at Second Life

Facilitator: gloriadiago Galicia & Draceina Pinion
Location: ISTE Island Campfires http://slurl.com/secondlife/ISTE%20Island/182/91/23

Gloria Gómez-Diago (gloriagdiagoGalicia SL) and Akemi Mochizuki (Draceina Pinion SL) will introduce Brainflowing, a device for brainstorming in Second Life, and for transferring the outcomes generated to other contexts. After explaining how the tool works, two brainstorming will be held with all the participants. First we will be focused on identifying tasks which can be undertaken in this Virtual World for achieving objectives involved in a teaching/ learning process. Then, taking in mind the removal of the educational/non-profit discount in Second Life_ issue considered worthy of attention_ we will brainstorm about the current alternatives to this Virtual Environment. Therefore, by sharing experiences about the use of other platforms, we will to seek their salient advantages and failures.
Brainflowing has a symbolic price of 1000 linden Dollars, which are equivalent to $3.64, £2.34 or €2.76, and it is available at Dracy´s Virtual Shop.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Zerelia/240/105/74

NOTE: Take note of the time of the event depending on your localization by seeing "Worldwide GMT Fixed Time"

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Monday, October 11, 2010

Web 3.0 and beyond: the next 20 years of the internet

Web 3.0 and beyond: the next 20 years of the internet, by Jonathan Richards

The Web Wide World -- The Web Spreads Into the Physical World

The Web Wide World -- The Web Spreads Into the Physical World

Internet of things

Internet of Things"(wikipedia)

Digital Life

Digital Life


"Utilising cutting edge techniques and taking advantage of market-leading expertise, Digital Life offers both a lens on the digital world and the frameworks required to make actionable business decisions within it. It can be used to drive global strategies or inform local tactics (...)Interviewing almost 50,000 consumers across 46 countries, including all BRIC and most N-11 markets, Digital Life is the largest, most comprehensive study of the Global Digital Consumer, ever. These markets represent 88% of the global Digital population; we cover markets from where Digital is close to ubiquitous to those beginning their digital journey whether through PC at home, mobile or internet cafés"

Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information through Social Media

"Streams of Content, Limited Attention: Thedanah boyd. Flow of Information through Social Media", by danah boyd.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

How Handwriting Trains the Brain

How Handwriting Trains the Brain. Forming Letters Is Key to Learning, Memory, Ideas
By GWENDOLYN BOUNDS. The Wall Street Journal

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Internet 2009 in numbers

Internet 2009 in numbers. Royal Pingdom

2010 Rankings: Doctoral Programs in America

2010 Rankings: Doctoral Programs in America

About 5,000 university doctoral programs, in 59 fields of study, have been ranked in terms of quality by the National Research Council. To see how a particular program fared, start by clicking in Column 1, "Choose a Broad Field," and proceed through the next two columns. You will then be able to explore 21 features of that program, such as the average annual number of publications per faculty member, or the percentage of students with financial support. You can then compare the program with others in the field. And you can see how the program ranks on the NRC scale based on criteria like those.

2010 Rankings: Doctoral Programs in America. The Cronicle of Higher Education

Monday, October 4, 2010

The Democratization of Online Social Networks

Tracking online life: How women use the Internet to cultivate relationships with family and friends May 10, 2000

Tracking online life: How women use the Internet to cultivate relationships with family and friends, Pew Research Center, May 10, 2000

The Online Male Takes a Licking and Keeps on Clicking

The Online Male Takes a Licking and Keeps on Clicking By Delphine Schrank
Washington Post Staff Writer .Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Top Countries according to their Internet speed

Top Countries according to their Internet speed

Users Over 50 Double Social Networking Use in a Year

Users Over 50 Double Social Networking Use in a Year

Strong Growth for Twitter's Mobile Audience, Jack Marshall. September 10, 2010.

Strong Growth for Twitter's Mobile Audience, by Jack Marshall. September 10, 2010.

Internet Traffic Report

Internet Traffic Report.

"The Internet Traffic Report monitors the flow of data around the world. It then displays a value between zero and 100. Higher values indicate faster and more reliable connections."

Sunday, October 3, 2010

BlogPulse

BlogPulse

Email Statistics Report, 2009-2013”

Email Statistics Report, 2009-2013, by the Radicate Group

Internet world stats

Internet world stats. Usage and Population Statistics.

Domain Name Industry Brief, by VeriSign

Domain Name Industry Brief, by VeriSign

September 2010, web server survey, by Metcraft

September 2010, web server survey.

The Mobile Communication Society.

The Mobile Communication Society. A cross-cultural analysis of available evidence on the social uses of wireless communication technology, 2004. By Manuel Castells, Mireia Fernández Ardavol, Jock Linchuan Qiu and Araba Sey (USC)

Abstract
This research report offers an analytical overview of existing research on the social uses of wireless communication technology. It seeks to provide a solid empirical basis for an informed discussion of the social uses and social effects of wireless in Europe, the Asian Pacific and the United States. Major themes explored include the deep connection between wireless communication and the emergence of youth culture, the transformation of language by texting and multimodalty, the growing importance of wireless communication in socio-political mobilization, and changes in the practice of time and space resulting from wireless communication.

(...)

"The structure of the research report presented here is straightforward. We start with a statistical overview of diffusion of wireless communication in the last decade in different areas and countries of the world. Afterwards we provide the aggregate data on patterns of social differentiation in the diffusion of the technology. Then we present an analysis of the social uses and social effects of wireless communication in different domains of human activity, differentiating our synthesis of evidence in the three areas of our study: Europe, the Asian Pacific and the United States. We then enter into the specific consideration of some major themes that have appeared as clearly essential in the course of our research. The first one is the deep connection between wireless communication and the emergence of a youth culture (that leads to what we call a mobile youth culture) in all areas under
our observation. The second is the process of transformation of language by texting and multimodality. The third, is the growing importance of wireless communication in the processes of socio-political mobilization, particularly outside formal politics, a topic that we have considered by focusing on case studies of mobilization in a variety of contexts. The fourth theme, on which we have only limited information but seems to be worth of exploring refers to the changes in the practice of time and space resulting from wireless communication. Finally, we have attempted to summarize
the main trends resulting from our observation in a concluding section that, deliberately, raises more questions than it answers" (9)

Friday, October 1, 2010

Mathematical Theory of Communication,by Klaus Krippendorff

Mathematical Theory of Communication,by Klaus Krippendorff, in Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, S.W. Littlejohn & K.A Foss (Eds)Los Angeles: Sage, 2009.pp 614-618.

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