mLearning, development and delivery : creating opportunity and enterprise within the HE in FE context

This research project was funded by ESCalate in 2006-7 to support Somerset College in developing the curriculum, as well as widening participation via the use of mobile communications technologies such as mp3 players and mobile phones. The Project represents a highly topical and timely engagement with the opportunities for learning provided by the burgeoning use of mobile computing/ communications devices. Activities bring together colleagues from Teacher Education and Multimedia Computing in an innovative approach to designing for and delivering the curriculum. The Project addresses pedagogic issues and also vitally involves current and future learners, providing them with a new context for skills development and entrepreneurship. Anticipated outcomes include informed development of new HE modules and professional CPD activities which address the skills and context of this emerging approach to delivering the curriculum. The Project also intends to trial and evaluate the use of mobile technologies to support a blended learning approach to programme delivery and the development of a FD module which could be delivered via a mobile computing device. An interim report and a final project report are available as Word and PDF file

BYOD: An Examination Of Bring Your Own Device In Business

There are security implications and hidden costsof Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). A recent study found that a companywith 1,000 mobile devices will spend an additional $170,000 average per year ifthey adopt the BYOD methodology. In addition, there is the increased complexityof supporting various types of devices running different operating systems ondifferent carriers. There is also a problem of legal liability and anorganization will also lose brand identity since the number belongs to theemployee and not the organization

Internet Valuations And Economic Sustainability

AOL bought the social networking site Bebo for $850 million in 2008 but sold it for pennies two years later. Recently the former premier social networking site, MySpace, reduced their staff by 47$80 billion valuation of the social networking site Facebook should therefore be looked at with caution

The Security Implications Of Ubiquitous Social Media

Social media web sites allow users to share information, communicate with each other, network and interact but because of the easy transfer of information between different social media sites, information that should be private becomes public and opens the users to serious security risks. In addition, there is also massive over-sharing of information by the users of these sites, and if this is combined with the increased availability of location-based information, then all this can be aggregated causing an unacceptable risks and unintended consequences for users

The Security Implications Of Ubiquitous Social Media

Social media web sites allow users to share information, communicate with each other, network and interact but because of the easy transfer of information between different social media sites, information that should be private becomes public and opens the users to serious security risks. In addition, there is also massive over-sharing of information by the users of these sites, and if this is combined with the increased availability of location-based information, then all this can be aggregated causing an unacceptable risks and unintended consequences for users

The Flash Crash Of May 2010: Accident Or Market Manipulation?

On May 6th., 2010, the Dow fell about a thousand points in a half hour and Wall Street lost $800 billion of value. Some claim that it was just an isolated incident and there was nothing nefarious but with the majority of trading being done by electronic exchanges and with the increase in High Frequency Trading, evidence is emerging that the crash just might have been a case of deliberate manipulations of the market

A Break in the Clouds: Towards a Cloud Definition

This paper discusses the concept of Cloud Computing to achieve a complete definition of what a Cloud is, using the main characteristics typically associated with this paradigm in the literature. More than 20 definitions have been studied allowing for the extraction of a consensus definition as well as a minimum definition containing the essential characteris- tics. This paper pays much attention to the Grid paradigm, as it is often confused with Cloud technologies. We also de- scribe the relationships and distinctions between the Grid and Cloud approaches

Ubiquitous Smartphones, Zero Privacy

If your smartphone has a GPS, your provider knows exactly where you are and where you have been as well as who you have contacted. In addition, tracking software which logs where you have been and what you did has been previously found on Apple's iPhone and just recently, Carrier IQ tracking software has been acknowledged to be on over 150 million smartphones. If this is combined with a recent government directive that no warrant is needed to access this information, then if you have a smartphone, you really have zero privacy

Finding A Recipe For Spam

The prevalence of unsolicited e-mail, otherwise called spam, continues to haunt every user of the Internet. The overwhelming response to the governments do-not-call registry in which persons could register their telephone numbers in a database that will restrict telemarketers from calling, is an indication that people are becoming increasingly resentful of unwanted intrusions into their personal lives. It is estimated that more than a half of all e-mail, or over one trillion pieces of spam will reach the inboxes of Internet users this year but the problems of controlling spam are many since:(a) spam is virtually free for the sender (b) the SMTP protocol which governs the transmission of e-mail on the Internet was not designed to handle the complexities of deception and mistrust on a large network and (c) many major corporations are surreptitiously involved in spam. Although the development of a social conscience might keep some large corporations from engaging in spam, but spam, as we know it, would cease to exist only if either the cost of sending e-mail increased or a new secure protocol to exchange e-mail was developed. Of the two options, the quickest and easiest remedy would be to eliminate the reverse economics of sending spam by introducing a computing cost for sending e-mail

Internet Capacity, Network Traffic And Net Neutrality

The majority of Internet traffic is exchanged directly on private lines through mutual peering agreements, and although bandwidth usage is growing by about 50% per year, content publishers have invested in services, such as Akamai to ensure online content is transmitted faster. This means some traffic is already being sent on less crowded connections, and some are cached downstream. So, what about Net Neutrality.  Is all Internet traffic really created equal, or is some traffic more equal than others