So, how often have you wanted to make a short screen recording with audio?  or maybe take a snapshot of a page and mark it up to email to somebody?

Maybe you are experiencing a problem, and you are having trouble explaining it to support?  Perhaps you are support and you are having trouble explaining the solution?  Perhaps you are collaborating with people and you need a way to express your thoughts.  Well, enter Jing..  Check it out here:

www.jingproject.com/ 

There are some that think robots are going to be taking over our chores, working in our factories, etc.  While robots have made a lot of progress working on the assembly line, it looks like it may be a while before they do more than sweep our floor and cut our grass.  But I think there may be an intermediate development between now and the robot future.  Let’s run thorough some observerations:

1)   Computers are cheap, fast, and widely available

2)  High speed networks reach into most homes in the US and Europe and span into developing countries like India and China

3)  Having real time global conversations on the phone is an everyday occurrence.  And you can tell little difference between a call to India from the US and a call within the US.  The quality is very good.  Just look at the call centers that have been out sourced.

4) Streaming video around the world in real time is also a common occurrence..  Look at live news broadcasts.  Look at live, two way video conversations you can have over the Internet.

5) Our ability to create cheap, widely available machines that can move objects is developing quickly.  Look at the toy robots, remote control cars, etc.

6) It is very difficult for a computer to “recognize” objects and reliably move things around.  This makes it very difficult to create robots to fold your laundry, clean your dishes, pick up around the house, etc.

7) Humans, even the lowest skilled human, is very capable about recognizing objects, adapting, and learning.

8)  The amount of low skill, cheap labor looking for work that is within the reach of the Internet is increasing.

All of this adds up to tele-presence  is step between here and a robotic future.  I see a cheap, widely available tele-presence device being created within the next decade.  And I see a lot of manual labor being perform remotely.  You will have machines around your house to do your laundry, cook your food, pick up that will all be controlled by low skilled labor in Asia, Africa, and South America.

OLPC deployed to a school in India… worth looking at

wiki.laptop.org/go/Khairat_Chronicle

Class assignments that matter:

www.physorg.com/news113071167.html

Instead of giving people an assignment that is just going to be graded and thrown away, get students to do things that keep giving. Write wikipedia articles, document software, create a web application, moderate a news group, etc. The article linked above tells about one such experience with assigning wikipedia articles to written as an assignment.

Google OpenSocial is live:

mashable.com/2007/11/02/opensocial-now-live/
code.google.com/apis/opensocial/code.google.com/apis/opensocial/docs/

code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/firstgadget.html
code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/tutorial.html
code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/bestprac.html

code.google.com/apis/opensocial/articles/readwrite.html
code.google.com/apis/opensocial/faq.html

20+ Tools To Sell Your Photos and Templates Online
mashable.com/2007/11/02/sell-your-photos/

9 Great tools for achieving your goals
mashable.com/2007/11/02/achieving-your-goals/

10 Effective Ways to Increase Your Energy Levels
www.dumblittleman.com/2007/11/10-effective-ways-to-increase-your.html
Actually, the Dumb Little Man , looks like a good self help site… I’ll have to check back on it…

Open Hardware
www.buglabs.net/
Modular, open hardware platform…worth looking into if you like to build electronic things…
Look like their products page:
www.buglabs.net/products

Free classes on starting a small business from the SBA
www.sba.gov/services/training/onlinecourses/index.html

Free Audio Books online
www.podiobooks.com/index.php

236 Open Courseware Collections, Podcasts, and Videos

www.dumblittleman.com/2007/09/236-open-courseware-collections.html

80 Sites to Help you Live Green
www.dumblittleman.com/2007/08/80-sites-to-help-you-live-green.html

Instant domain search (trying to find the new name for that site… use this!!!)
instantdomainsearch.com/

Disposable Phone Numbers
www.dumblittleman.com/2007/06/free-disposable-phone-numbers.html
numbr.com/

Disposable email addresses
www.dumblittleman.com/2006/06/disposable-email-addresses.html
www.pookmail.com/

Here is the toastmaster speech I gave today.

adventuresinindia.wav

mashable.com/2007/10/13/70-online-language-communities/

www.domystuff.com/

mashable.com/2007/10/23/social-networking-god/

“Some residents of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey who live inside the boundaries of Verizon’s FiOS network will be the first to be able to take advantage of Verizon’s new 20/20 FiOS service. As the name implies, 20/20 FiOS is a symmetrical 20Mbps connection (same speed in both directions), and it’s one of the first symmetrical services to target the consumer market.”

arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071023-verizon-discovers-symmetry-offers-2020-symmetrical-fios-service.html

Humm… I wonder if I should move to New York, Connecticut, or New Jersey?

Laptop With a Mission Widens Its Audience

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