McGovern co-director is back on National Radio talking to Jim Mora every fortnight or so. His latest chat was on Wednesday 9th December, where they talked about OLPC - the upcoming Apple Tablet, and three sites that had caught our eye here at McGovern.
OLPC - One Laptop Per Child
A revisit to the OLPC project, which Paul and Jim first talked about about earlier in the year, and promised to come back to.
Australia now has a OLPC project. It currently involves 1000 children with a target of 4000 more next year, most of whom are in remote rural Australian communities. The long term goal is 400,000 children. There is a fantastic video about it on their web site - also on You Tube where the teacher talks about the effect the project has on the childrens learning.
There has been a lot of progress - with many of the island nations now backing the project, including the latest, Fiji. They now have a very useful blog covering their work
OLPC - not just a laptop
OLPC isn't just a cheap laptop - it uses an entirely different operating system and is premised on an educational model which encourages online collaboration. This means they are developing new applications all the time. Some of these are explained on the site here
New Zealand connection
Though NZ doesn't have an OLPC project - there is a very well respected testing team who test new applications etc in their own time. Very geeky crowd but hugely impressive - and a good example of how code guys are often ragged trousered philanthropists in their own time. See OLPC Friends
Google
Google Real Time search
This just happened - rolls out in NZ over 'the next few days'. Purports - don't you love that word - to give immediate access to new posts including Twitter - and FaceBook
Google's Year?
Are they still the big bad guys determined to steal all our data - not so according a major spokesperson at the Battle of Ideas conference in London Session - Rethinking Privacy in an age of Disclosure and Sharing
The whole session is on line.
2010 - Apple Tablet
Apple Tablet - all the smart money says January 19th for the launch, and that includes New Zealand. What is it? A cross between a net-book and an iphone - size of a proper paperback - content deals being pursued and agreed as we speak.
Three sites that interest
Building a market place for new writing .
Local journalist and online news legend Julie Starr (who helped set up the Telegraph in the UK ) now has a new venture where both professional and emerging journalists (including newbies - amateurs etc) can put up a story - and then see if it is picked up by the main stream guys - who of course will pay for the privilege.
www.allaboutthestory.com
We love this to bits - an online place where a creative - artist - musician - writer - filmmaker - inventor - explorer (don't you love the last one!) can write up their planned project and then seek some money - goods - whatever to make it happen.
Making a blog out of the last journal of Captain Scott.
http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/diaries/scottslastexpedition/