IT Trends for Thursday, July 15, 2004 -- Campus Technology

This week I asked J'e St Sauver to give us his take on the implications of Google's Gmail for higher education institutions. He's done an excellent job of summarizing the pros and cons and suggesting some interesting twists to the implications.
----------------------------------------------------

J'e St Sauver, Ph.D. (j'[email protected])

The folks at Google have turned their eye to free Web e-mail accounts, and in typical Google fashion, they're making quite a splash: each Gmail user gets a 1,000MB worth of disk space. To put that in perspective, if you're at a typical college or university, your university e-mail account probably has a quota of 50 to 100MB. Under some circumstances, a "mere" 50 to 100MB quota may be more than enough. For example, if you routinely download your e-mail to a PC using POP3, 50 to 100MB will probably be more than enough space to act as a buffer in the interval between downloads-you can do the bulk of your long term e-mail storage on your PC's large hard drive.
Read more

IT NEWS

Community-College Computer Systems At Risk, Audit Shows

Another continuation of a trend regarding interaction between auditors and IT staff, North Carolina authorities are pressing hard on poorly-secured community college computer systems to do better.
Read more

E-Mail Down Since Memorial Day at Marshall University

Students who know how can have their e-mail redirected to an Outlook account, but most don't, so they're suffering as server problems with e-mail and calendaring plague Marshall U. (Registration required to read story)
Read more

OSU to Pay Texas Tech $40,000

Oklahoma State University will pay Texas Tech a fee of $40K to license software mistakenly thought to have been open source.
Read more

MSIE Loses One Percent Market Share Within a Month

This hardly dents MSIE's dominance, but the well-publicized security flaws could be pushing a trend that will shake up its market position.
Read more

Geolocation - Another Privacy Worry

It takes a lot of work, but that's what we have computers for, right. By tracing data packets as they zip around the Internet and through routers, companies (and governments?) can marry zip codes with census data with *your* IP address? Gasp!
Read more

Is Your Computer A Zombie?

Remember that old debate about whether to turn off your PC when you were using it, or not? Well, if you're a fan of SETI At Home and other similar distributed projects, you leave it on. But what if it becomes a zombie? Can you even tell?
Read more

A PC Pioneer Decries the State of Computing

Alan Kay says: "The sad truth is that 20 years or so of commercialization have almost completely missed the point of what personal computing is about.
Read more

"Cyber Corps" at Tulsa University

Tulsa University is one of 20 institutions offering Homeland Security-funded anti-cyberterrorism training, which comes with a $100k "full ride" for the students.
Read more

The Rightness of Lightness

Some feel that the entire concept of a "laptop" computer is being warped by the preponderance of huge desktop replacement machines. (Registration required to read story)
Read more

RESOURCES

Mega Video Enables Virtual Window

Researchers at NASA and others have put together a camera and display system that captures and displays video at nearly human-visual-system resolution - 30 frames a second at 8.3M pixels.
Read more

DEALS, CONTRACTS, AWARDS

Bladen Community College Library Gets Federal Tech Grant

Bladen's Community College Library was awarded $11,565 from a federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant by the State Library of North Carolina. According to the Bladen Journal, the federal LSTA funds will be used to upgrade computer workstations available for use by students, faculty and community patrons. A total of $4 million was awarded to libraries throughout North Carolina.
Read more

Sponsored by:

CDW·G
Workgroups small and large rely on automation because it offers increases in capacity over standalone tape drives, provides random access to several cartridges, and eliminates human intervention, the number one cause of data loss. The Quantum ATL ValueLoader provides all of these benefits at a price that is comparable to some standalone tape drives. This is an unparalleled value for reliable DLT automation. Now at CDWG!

Click here for details

Sponsored by:

Hewlett Packard
Introducing the HP Workstation xw4100: a top-of-the-line solution that delivers innovative technology at a low price. Designed to help you and your school operate as effectively as possible. And now, when you buy an xw4100 Workstation, you’ll save your school $656, for a limited time.

Click here for details

Syllabus2004 July 18-22, San Francisco: Technologies to Connect the Campus

Events Calendar

Sponsored by:

Wide Range of Education Technology Providers to Exhibit at Syllabus2004
Syllabus2004 takes place July 18-22 in San Francisco and on the campus of UC Berkeley. In addition to cutting-edge keynotes, breakout sessions and panel discussions, attendees will see the latest products for campus technology in the conference Exhibit Hall. Companies exhibiting include: Sonic Foundry, a provider of rich media communications technology, including Mediasite, the first real-time recorder for automating the capture, management, and distribution of instructor-led presentations; rSmart, a leading full-service provider of open source solutions for education, and Xerox DocuShare, an intuitive and secure Web-based document and content management solution that enables organizations to easily capture, manage, retrieve and distribute content and information.

To view the entire exhibitor list, and to register for Syllabus2004, click here.

POLL

Would fee-based e-mail help stop spammers?
Yes
No

NEW PRODUCTS

New Toshiba Projector for Large Scale Presentations

Toshiba's new projector, TLP-X4500U, provides an advanced feature set and input flexibility that allows the user to configure the TLP-X4500U to suit the specific venue size or projection need, and management capabilities including a convenient top panel, providing easy access to the lamp. The TLP-X4500U boasts an impressive 4,500 ANSI lumens coupled with native XGA resolution and 750:1 contrast ratio to deliver an exceptionally high level of brightness and crisp, vivid images. In addition, the TLP-X4500U includes multimedia capabilities including integrated data, video and auto features to enhance any high-end multimedia presentations.

Sponsored by:

Syllabus2004: Only 3 Days to Conference Kick Off
Don't miss out on the opportunity to expand your knowledge of the latest technology for higher education at Syllabus2004, July 18-22 in San Francisco and on the campus of UC Berkeley. Thought-provoking keynotes, a day on campus at UC Berkeley, and plenary panels led by technology experts from campuses across the country are just a few of the conference highlights. Featured speakers at UC Berkeley include Kristine Hafner, Ph.D., on the role of IT at the University of California in turbulent times; Gary L. Baldwin, Ph.D., on the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), and Mark Kubinec on teaching with streaming media and electronic individual student response systems. Enjoy five session tracks on topics of critical importance in higher education technology, and network in Syllabus' traditional collegial atmosphere.

Click here for more information and to register.

The Impact of Wireless Network on Instructional Computing

Howard Strauss, manager of technology outreach as Princeton University

Despite the popularity of the technology, wireless is only beginning to show its potential uses for instruction. Howard Strauss comments about the use of the technology, both in the classroom and remotely.

Click Here to Listen

Discussion of the Week:

As academic budgets shrink, wireless access and mobile computing labs sometime appear to be attractive alternative to building and supporting fixed-station computer labs. What has been your experience with funding and mobile computing? Be sure include information about your campus to put your comments in context.

Posted by Kathleen Schwarz
Programmer/Analyst
UC Riverside Graduate School of Education

Join the discussion now!

Subscribe to Syllabus

E-Mail this page

Printable Format

Featured

California Governor Signs AI Content Safeguards into Law

California Governor Gavin Newsom has officially signed off on a series of landmark artificial intelligence bills, signaling the state’s latest efforts to regulate the burgeoning technology, particularly in response to the misuse of sexually explicit deepfakes. The legislation is aimed at mitigating the risks posed by AI-generated content, as concerns grow over the technology's potential to manipulate images, videos, and voices in ways that could cause significant harm.
NIST's U.S. AI Safety Institute Announces Research Collaboration with Anthropic and OpenAI

The U.S. AI Safety Institute, part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has formalized agreements with AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI to collaborate on AI safety research, testing, and evaluation.
Report: Use of Game Engines Expands Beyond Gaming

Game development technology is increasingly being utilized beyond its traditional gaming roots, according to the recently released annual "State of Game Development" report from development and DevOps solutions provider Perforce Software.
Cloud Security Alliance: Best Practices for Securing AI Systems

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), a not-for-profit organization whose mission statement is defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, has released a new report offering guidance on securing systems that leverage large language models (LLMs) to address business challenges.