marientina

This month's Communications of the ACM has a nice collection of articles about RFID. And just last night, I saw a commercial that bragged the RFID-tagged boxes knew that the truck they were in was lost which was a bit funny.

For those of you who don't already subscribe to ACM, especially new students, I highly encourage you to follow the trends publications of ACM and IEEE as a good way to keep up with scholarly research and events. Student rates are pretty low and the subscriptions are partially tax deductible. I am sure the library allows online access from oncampus surfing and I would be glad to loan out any issues you maybe interested in. There are several other publications to look into but this is a good start.

Computers in Entertainment seems to be a good must read for our division and for all of you 3rd students who have to look into a potential outlet for publishing, this may be suitable. I know that we all go gaga over Siggraph and E3 for the show value but keep in mind there is lots of other stuff out there.

Posted by marientina at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

From today's NY Times, Opinion Section, "The Latest Rumbling in the Blogosphere: Questions About Ethics"

"As blogs grow in readers and influence, bloggers should realize that if they want to reform the American media, that is going to have to include reforming themselves."

So apparently many blogs are drafting their own ethical conduct bylaws...The 'ethos' part focuses on journalistic conduct and fact-checking rather than monitoring 'sex, drugs and rock'n roll-type' content, but how long will it be before the question of ethics permeates to the next level? Practicing critical readership is all about doing your own fact-checking. Isn't that why many blogs got started in the first place?

The next generation faces a new cosmos of information that we didn't have: google. A greater investment shall be in finding ways to sharpen minds and encourage critical thinking. Scepticism is feared because it questions stability, but if scepticism were to be a constant state of mind, wouldn't that be a stable state?

Posted by marientina at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. Everything China
This month, I have noticed that most of my magazines and journals from cooking to tech writing to science all focus on doing business in China. If you don't subscribe to IEEE, ACM or STC, or even Wired, you can borrow some of these issues to read up on the trend if you have interests in the far east.

2. Shifting funding needs: the gravy train ride is over on agencies that previously funded lots of innovation in the field. An overview of the current state of affairs (DoD, NSF, DARPA, NSA, NIH and others) is reviewed in several articles falling in my lap this month, including the NY Times discussing the Pentagon's shifting gears.

Posted by marientina at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)