electro-textual

.. from multiple input screens, to this wafer-thin flexible mini-screen;
it’s great to see this kind of technology developing so fast – launched in Japan, of course!

Michael has been invited to represent PRACE, and speak at “The First CALL” in August. Should be a terrific event, with Uschi Felix opening, and James Farmer, of edublogs.org and The Age blogs, as a keynote. The “Inaugural CALL Symposium” hosted by the Monash University English Language Centre and the Pacific CALL Association: Saturday, 18 Aug from 12 noon – 4.30 pm, Monash University, Clayton Campus.

From the publicity: “CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) practitioners join global professional communities online, yet they often do not utilise the wealth of expertise and knowledge available at a local level. This Symposium plans to bring together the expertise of Victorian CALL teachers, researchers and leaders to provide a platform for networking and future collaboration. Its format will provide for an inspirational keynote speaker, panel session and two parallel workshops.” More information about the Symposium paccall.org/australia

An interesting idea from Google: they want to improve the quality of their knowledge about online images, so they create a game, the "Image Labeler". Could be difficult to play when people have serious spelling issues, but could be fun for others ..

Essentially the program matches you up with another person (you may play as a guest), and you both add words to describe each image, until you come up with a match. This gives the search engine more information about the pictures it has found. Matching two strangers is a way to ensure they get the right information, by drawing on people's competitiveness. Clever.

This is astonishing; i had no idea that the Australian Federal Government had handed over an Australian citizen to be tried in the USA. A member of the software-cracking group ‘drink or die’ which delighted in redistributing illegal working copies of US softwares, faces ten years in US prison plus fines of half a million US dollars.

Stephen told me, and he read it in The Age. Ouch!

This is after the same disturbingly reactionary government leaves David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay for Five Fears Without Charge. Has the Island Continent officially become the 52nd State of the USA? Do we not have copyright laws of our own?