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Lyon's 1:1 Laptop Program Aims To 'Level the Playing Field' for Students

6/26/2008

This fall Lyon College, a four-year liberal arts school in Arkansas, will join the elite ranks of post-secondary institutions offering laptops to all incoming freshmen. The program is part of a larger initiative, called "The Lyon Experience," which aims to bring "additional value to the education" the school provides. How can a small college roll out such an ambitious technology program? It's all a question of priorities, according to Lyon College President Walter Roettger.

Mobile Security To Surface in Sybase iAnywhere Suite

6/25/2008

Sybase announced that by the end of June its mobile device management suite will be enhanced with antivirus and firewall technology. These new security components will appear in the company's iAnywhere Afaria management and security software. Combined with Afaria's mobile device authentication and encryption technology, the enhanced software is intended to provide protection for Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Blackberry mobile devices from viruses, data compromise, hackers and the effects of mobile device loss or theft.

Loyola, NOBTS Use Tech To Return to Pre-Katrina Numbers

6/18/2008

A huge increase in freshman enrollment numbers for the fall semester has Loyola University in New Orleans pleased with its efforts to rebuild its student body after Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) is also looking at strong enrollment numbers, three years after the hurricane and its aftermath of flooding devastated New Orleans.

Mac OS X 'Snow Leopard' Previewed at WWDC

6/9/2008

At its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) being held this week in San Francisco, Apple released preliminary details of "Snow Leopard," the forthcoming successor to Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard") and the next major revision to the Mac operating system. The next revision will focus on performance, according to Apple, "rather than focusing primarily on new features."

iPhone 3G, New Mobile Apps Debut at Apple WWDC 2008

6/9/2008

During his keynote address at Apple's annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) Monday, CEO Steve Jobs debuted the company's new iPhone 3G, an update to the popular mobile phone and computing device set for delivery July 11. Developers also took the stage during the keynote to show off new technologies arriving for the platform.

Northeastern Cell Phone Study Draws Anger; University Defends Researcher

6/9/2008

Looking for a little privacy in your life? If so, you might want to leave that cell phone behind. Research released last week by Northeastern University showed not only how easy it is to track individuals by their cell phone usage, but how easy it is to track massive groups of people as well--all without their consent. The research has drawn the ire of those both inside and outside academia for the act of breaching these individuals' privacy and for the implications for further enabling the surveillance culture. But Northeastern is defending the research, saying that the privacy of those studied was of the utmost concern.

HP Awards $7 Million in Technology for Teaching Initiative

6/4/2008

HP this week announced the recipients of its 2008 HP Technology for Teaching grant program. Thirty-nine colleges and universities and 110 K-12 schools will be receiving more than $7 million in cash, gear, and professional development.

Live@edu Integrates Exchange Labs

5/27/2008

Microsoft's Live@edu, a suite of online tools focused specifically toward education, has now been expanded to include Exchange Labs, which is similar to a hosted Exchange service but with prototype features that are not yet available to the general public. The move brings expanded e-mail options to campus IT departments, including 10 GB of space per account, as free added features.

Stanford Laptop Orchestra Performs Virtually with Beijing Musicians

5/1/2008

This week, Stanford University's Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk) gave its first public concerts at the school. Founded this year by Department of Music assistant professor Ge Wang, the orchestra has 20 laptops played by human performers, as well as controllers and custom multi-channel speaker arrays.

Conference Focuses on 'The Mobile Future'

4/23/2008

Carnegie Mellon University's West Coast Campus and UC Berkeley's Fisher IT Center at the Haas School of Business partnered to hold a conference Tuesday of this week in Santa Clara, CA, on "The Mobile Future: Technology Revolutionizing Our Lives." CT talked with James H. Morris, dean of CMU West and a professor of computer science, about the unique conference that brings together both academics and industry leaders.

Johns Hopkins Goes Mobile on uPortal

4/23/2008

Johns Hopkins University has chosen Unicon to develop and deploy the school's new mobility theme based on uPortal, the open source enterprise portal for higher education. The mobility theme is designed to enhance the functionality and content of Johns Hopkins' campus portal to make it accessible by mobile devices such as cell phones, smartphones, and PDAs.

Mobile Learning in Higher Education

4/23/2008

The term "Nomadic" has been used to describe current college students' culture of wireless and mobile connectedness in the sense that they are not "rooted" but incredibility flexible and fluid when it comes to their social connections and their virtual life culture. This refers not only to their uses of social networking tools but also to the reality that they are connected wirelessly in any situation and for any reason. They are essentially nomads when it comes to their life "space."

Conference Focuses on 'The Mobile Future'

4/22/2008

Carnegie Mellon University's West Coast Campus and UC Berkeley's Fisher IT Center at the Haas School of Business partnered to hold a conference Tuesday of this week in Santa Clara, CA, on "The Mobile Future: Technology Revolutionizing Our Lives." CT talked with James H. Morris, dean of CMU West and a professor of computer science, about the unique conference that brings together both academics and industry leaders.

BizTalk RFID Mobile Unveiled

4/18/2008

Microsoft Thursday described its new platform to help developers more easily create mobile applications that make use of radiofrequency identification (RFID) technology. The company unveiled BizTalk RFID Mobile, a solution designed to work with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 and other Microsoft products.

Will the CafeScribe Acquisition Give a Boost to Electronic Textbooks?

4/16/2008

The digital textbook is one of those technologies that seem obvious but can take a long time to gain traction. In March, the concept got a boost when long-time textbook distributor and retailer Follet Corp. acquired Salt Lake City-based Fourteen40, and, along with it, CafeScribe, a Web site in its beta phase of offering electronic textbooks.

AT&T Calls on Higher Ed To Develop Mobile Apps

4/2/2008

AT&T this week kicked off its first-ever Big Mobile On Campus Challenge, a competition that calls on college and university faculty and students to develop apps for mobile devices (yes, including the iPhone). The top prize includes $10,000 and a trip to Educause 2008 for the winning individual or team.

Microsoft Unveils Mobile Solutions at CTIA

4/2/2008

Microsoft unveiled three additions to its mobile product lines at the CTIA Wireless 2008 event Tuesday, with much of the emphasis being placed on enabling custom mobile solutions for the enterprise.

Solano CC Implementing Trapeze Wireless Network

4/1/2008

Solano Community College in Northern California has selected products from Trapeze Networks for its wireless LAN infrastructure. The network serves 12,000 students and 700 faculty and staff in 20 buildings across three locations.

Utah State University Blankets Campus with Wireless Coverage

3/27/2008

Utah State University has blanketed its 400-acre campus with wireless coverage for 25,000 students, faculty and staff using wireless LAN equipment from Meru Networks. The Logan, UT school has installed 700 Meru wireless access points in 150 of 200 buildings on campus, including all academic facilities and residences. It has also installed the access points at a number of remote sites across the state.

Mesh Devices Get Smaller To Increase Wireless Reach

3/20/2008

An associate professor and a team of researchers at the Graduate School of Information Science and Electrical Engineering at Kyushu University in Japan have developed a prototype of a "micromini" wireless mesh station, under the MIMO-Mesh project. The technology, which is small enough to fit on a person's palm, acts as an access point to increase the reach of wireless networks without the need for additional infrastructure.

Microsoft and Adobe Agree on Mobile Flash Licensing

3/19/2008

Microsoft licensed two of Adobe's software products for use with smartphones that run Microsoft Windows Mobile operating systems, according to an announcement issued by Adobe Monday.

Microsoft and Aspect Team on Unified Communications

3/19/2008

Microsoft and Aspect Software Inc. this week initiated a global strategic alliance focused on better enhancing communications between contact centers and the broader enterprise. Under the agreement, Chelmsford, Mass.-based Aspect will integrate its contact center software into Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, a unified communications platform that supports instant messaging, voice over IP (VoIP) and Web conferencing for the enterprise.

Vanderbilt Optimizes Web Site for iPhone

3/17/2008

Vanderbilt University has released a version of its homepage designed for the Apple iPhone. The site was created by the Vanderbilt News Service's Office of Web Communications, which is working to optimize the university Web site for other mobile devices.

Research Has Chilling Effect on Hard Drive Encryption

3/14/2008

Since you've encrypted the data on your laptop, it's safe even if your laptop is stolen, right? Wrong. Researchers at Princeton have demonstrated ways to hack your encrypted data using your own DRAMs against you.

Engineering Collaboration at Virginia Tech

3/12/2008

What does it take to convert a soon-to-retire engineering professor enamored of the chalkboard into someone who loves a technology tool? For Virginia Tech Alumni Distinguished Professor Charles Bostian, it took a collaborative teaching tool that he is using in engineering classes as large as 180 students.