iTunes U is a service, from the Apple iTunes Store, that provides access to a collection of educational course materials from hundreds of leading Universities across the world and is available to anyone with a Mac or PC (and of course iTunes). Users can download and play course content just like they do for music, videos and TV shows. Some of the courses are on-going and you can subscribe to automatically receive each new episode whenever it becomes available.

http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu_mobilelearning/itunesu.html

To date, this service has been used by many Universities in the US including Harvard, Stanford, and MIT, amongst many others, to provide course materials and lectures to students.

The UK’s Open University has recently added more than 300 items of video and audio course material to the iTunes U service.

http://www.open.ac.uk/itunes/

Professor Brenda Gourley, the Open University Vice-Chancellor said:

The iTunes U project is an exciting new opportunity for anyone, anywhere in the world to gain easy access to Open University courses. Our aim is to partner our established distance learning expertise with the power of the internet to provide as mobile, flexible and personalised learning as possible, whatever your current educational level, personal circumstances or technological abilities. We are delighted to be joining with leading institutions around the world to pool curriculum and content to suit your needs, and hopefully to offer you useful accreditation and recognition at every stage of your studies.

Other Universities to join iTunes U recently include University College London and Trinity College Dublin.

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Developed by Cooliris Inc, PicLens combines a “Cover Flow” style with a 3D Image wall to present a novel way for viewing photos and videos across the web via your web-browser.

Plugins are available for Internet Explorer and Firefox and PicLens works with a number of websites. A search feature is built-in to the viewer which allows you to easily search and browse for images on sites such as Flickr and Google Web Albums.

PicLens is a free download, free to use, quick and easy to install and contains no spyware, adware or malware.

http://www.piclens.com

Additional tools are provided that allow users to enable their own websites for Piclens and there is also a Wordpress plugin available - so watch this space, I’ll be experimenting with these tools on this blog in the near future.

Update 1: this blog is now enabled for PicLens

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Windows SideShow is a technology in Windows Vista that supports a secondary screen on your mobile PC. With this additional display you can view important information whether your laptop is on, off, or in sleep mode. Windows SideShow is available in Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, and Windows Vista Ultimate.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/sideshow.mspx

Wouldn’t it be great if you could read an e-mail message, confirm a meeting location, or check a flight reservation without turning on your computer? What if you could check the program guide in Windows Media Center by using a display that’s built into your remote control? Windows SideShow puts this information literally at your fingertips on a wide variety of devices that can retrieve information from your mobile PC or desktop computer.

Windows SideShow uses gadgets to extend information from your computer to other devices. Gadgets can run on a Windows SideShow–compatible device and update that device with information from your computer.

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Ricavision develops consumer electronic products with embedded Microsoft technology for the OEM, retail, custom integrators and hospitality markets.

The VAVE100 Universal remote control has a 2.4 inch color QVGA LCD display, features Class 1 SPP/A2DP Bluetooth and is upgradable through the built-in mini USB. It is combined with Microsoft SideShow to deliver digital information to your fingertips, and is due to be available in Summer 2008. The remote will control up to 20 different devices and has a built-in database of over 1500 brand names to simplify setting up the device.

The device has a dedicated button to activate and control Windows Media Center from Windows Vista.

Windows SideShow is technology from Microsoft that uses gadgets to extend information from your computer to other devices. Gadgets can run on a Windows SideShow compatible device (such as the VAVE100 ) and update that device with information from your computer. This enables you to view News Headlines, Weather details, email etc. directly on the VAVE100.

A white paper document introducing the Windows SideShow technology and the specification of the Windows SideShow module produced by Ricavision International Inc. is available at: WhitePaper.pdf

References

• http://www.ricavision.com/vave100.html
• http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/sideshow.mspx

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An old article, but I was interested to have a look a the inside of an iPod Touch.

Details at

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/First-Look/iPod/iPod-Touch