And everyone else - maybe including parents, teachers, and librarians who worry that students have forgotten about libraries and media other than the Web! At least there will be more good material to find on the Web, with Google's announcement today. Google is adding some of the world's best libraries to its database, bringing them "to life online," as CNET put it. "Google itself was born out of a … [Read more...] about Good news for young researchers
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Blending free and fee in P2P
Here's a twist - sort of like iTunes and Kazaa in a single package. "While the music industry attempts to shutter peer-to-peer services in court and in Congress, one company is using P2P networks to promote and pay artists," Wired News reports. It's called Weed and it allows file-sharers to download a song and play it three times for free. The fourth time, they pay a dollar (iTunes-style pricing). … [Read more...] about Blending free and fee in P2P
Tracking students with tech
Whether they're mere photo IDs students wear, fancy ones with computer chips, or digital IDs to plug into computers, tracking students is a growing phenomenon - as well as public debate. In Poplar Bluff in southeastern Missouri, many of the 1,300 students in that town's high school are upset about having to wear ID cards to school every day, and there isn't even any technology involved, the … [Read more...] about Tracking students with tech
MPAA’s ‘favor’ to parents
To enlist parents' help in discouraging kids' file-sharing, the film industry will offer free software that detects "P2P files," CNET reports. The Register goes a bit far in its assessment that the Motion Picture Association of America's move "is designed to split families right down the middle. The MPAA hopes that new software will encourage parents to turn their children over to the authorities … [Read more...] about MPAA’s ‘favor’ to parents
Net music’s next step
To file-sharing kids, a CD that tells you to go ahead, "rip, sample, mash, and store" these tunes to your heart's content, should be no big deal. In fact, the new, "100% legal" Wired CD, bundled into Wired magazine's November issue, is an anomaly - and an important next step for the online music scene. You can copy, share, remix, build on, do anything noncommercial that you want with the music on … [Read more...] about Net music’s next step