Science, Culture and Integral Yoga :: COMPUTERS, INTERNET

Shri Arjun Singh, Minister of Human Resource Development (HRD) has said that the Government of India is committed towards Education For All (EFA) and has been making strenuous efforts to increase domestic funding of its core programmes. Addressing the 34th session of the General Conference of UNESO, the Minister has said that the General Conference must set the tone for the discussions of the High Level Group on EFA in December 2007. He said, "We are targeting to increase Gross Enrollment Ratio for higher education from the present 10% to at least 15% in the next five years. We are also working towards increasing the public expenditure on education to the level of 6% of GDP over this period. We have in recent years taken several affirmative actions to extend the benefits of education to the underprivileged and deprived sections of the society..."

[He also said] "May I thank UNESCO and its Executive Board for the support it has given to India’s initiative to strengthen UNESCO’s association with Auroville in the context of the commemoration of its 40th Anniversary. UNESCO has been involved from the very inception with Auroville, including the founding ceremony in February 1968, when youth of 124 Member States participated in this ceremony by depositing soils from their countries in the foundation urn to symbolize the coming together of the nations of the World. ..." more »

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Wednesday, October 10

Virtual worlds catching on in workplace

by ronjon on October 10, 2007 10:40AM (PDT)

... Advocates say virtual worlds offer new ways for people to collaborate and foster workplace interaction in an age of dispersed employees. Companies can also save on travel time and cut down on the greenhouse gases fueling global warming...

Most corporations have yet to take the first few steps. Even consumer sites such as Second Life that have attracted a lot of press attention see relatively low traffic... just 340,000 unique visitors from the United States in August, a relatively small number compared with other big-name Internet sites. ...

"In virtual worlds, we notice people mingle like they do in real life," said Hughes. "The pre-event mingle gets to be very important."

Sun Microsystems has a project it began in January entitled MPK20, a name that refers to the first virtual building. It's an addition to 19 real buildings at Sun's Menlo Park campus. MPK20 has about seven rooms and is being used by its developers for team meetings. Other small groups will be invited starting in November. -- In the "team room," workers post documents they are working on and can speak to one another. Nicole Yankelovich, principal investigator, said the benefit is the serendipitous social interaction employees in different locations can share. On any given day, more than 50 percent of Sun's personnel work remotely, and employees say they miss person-to-person exchange, Yankelovich said. After virtual meetings, small groups form spontaneously to continue discussions. ... more »

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Monday, October 8

Laptop With a Mission Widens Its Audience, by David Pogue, NYT

by ronjon on October 8, 2007 06:52PM (PDT)

Wearing a new hat in Galadima, a hamlet in Abuja, Nigeria [photo added by ronjon]

In November, you’ll be able to buy a new laptop that’s spillproof, rainproof, dustproof and drop-proof. It’s fanless, it’s silent and it weighs 3.2 pounds. One battery charge will power six hours of heavy activity, or 24 hours of reading. The laptop has a built-in video camera, microphone, memory-card slot, graphics tablet, game-pad controllers and a screen that rotates into a tablet configuration.

And this laptop will cost $200... It’s an effort by One Laptop Per Child (laptop.org) to develop a very low-cost, high-potential, extremely rugged computer for the two billion educationally underserved children in poor countries...

OLPC slightly turned its strategy when it decided to offer the machine for sale to the public in the industrialized world — for a period of two weeks, in November. The program is called “Give 1, Get 1,” and it works like this. You pay $400 (www.xogiving.org). One XO laptop (and a tax deduction) comes to you by Christmas, and a second is sent to a student in a poor country. ... more »

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Tuesday, October 2

Herbie Hancock On Breakdancing, Zen Buddhism, and Apple

by ronjon on October 2, 2007 03:59PM (PDT)

In the following (extended) interview, Herbie Hancock talks about serving on the board of a synthesizer company with Steve Wozniak [and how he loves his new Apple iPhone - Ed.], how he keeps his music fresh, what it was like to have released the biggest breakdancing hit ever, and his use of mental imagery techniques to record his latest album, River: The Joni Letters, featuring guest vocals from Norah Jones, Leonard Cohen, Tina Turner, Joni Mitchell, and others. ... more »

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Universities moving to endorse Apple exclusively?

by ronjon on October 2, 2007 03:43PM (PDT)

For the past while, evidence has been popping up hither and thither that Mac usage at universities and college campuses is starting to snowball; a recent image from the University of Missouri’s school of journalism shows an astounding number of students with Macs. With safety and ease of use becoming of paramount importance to university network security, could it be that colleges will move to endorse Apple products exclusively?

Past evidence suggests that graduate schools have seen the most vivid change from Windows-centric machines to Macs, but University of Missouri’s School of Journalism computing page reveals some very interesting facts:

“Students are encouraged to acquire wireless laptop technology from Apple, which the School has designated as its preferred provider, but students also will have a choice of a Windows-based alternative. Last year, 99.5 percent of incoming students chose the Apple option.” ... more »

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