Date: 20 February 2006
To: All Participants
From: Arthur Harkins and John Moravec
Subject: Supporting the University’s Strategic Vision
Our Basic Concerns
The University of Minnesota is at a crossroads in its path for success in the 21st century. With a goal to become one of the top three public research universities in the world within a decade, the University [...]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Minneapolis, February 20, 2006) – Arthur Harkins and John Moravec today released action steps they believe the University of Minnesota should take to become one of the world’s top three public research universities within the coming decade.
Their effort is independent of the University’s official strategic repositioning process.  It is intended to provide [...]

The Savvy Technologist recorded a podcast interview with Ray Kurzweil and notes:
One of his main points was that most people don’t appreciate the exponential nature of technological advancement. Most change appears linear in the near term, but the linear model breaks down once the timeframe gets out beyond a few years.

Link to the blog post.

(Cross-posted from the ULA blog.)
Our workshop with Verna Allee on February 1 was a great success!
If you registered for the workshop and would like an electronic copy of the handout materials, please send a request by email to ula@umn.edu.

Victoria News recently published an interesting article on Singularitarians in Canada whcih compared Singularitarianism with religion:
At first blush, Singularitarianism may seem like a religion and has even earned from critics the label “Rapture of the Nerds.” But Singularitarianism differs from religion in one crucial aspect: its belief doesn’t depend on a supernatural power influencing human [...]

While the “dot edu” bubble has generated much interested in pedagogical technologies, issues of how the technologies are implemented and integrated into the curriculum typically do not enter the discussion. Poor implementation is perhaps a leading reason for why the dot edu boom has done little to actually improve student learning.
LiveScience.com reports on a [...]

Solution Watch writes about coComment:
The way it works is very simple. When you signup to coComment, you are given a bookmarklet that you are asked to add to your browser. Then, the next time you come across a blog post that you want to comment on, click on the bookmarklet before commenting. You will then [...]

The Ottawa Business Journal reports that Google,
is poised to replace email as the most-used digital thanks to higher-speed connections and the ever-growing mountain of digital data. The company predicts the scope of search, while still based on text-based key words, will expand to include digital data held on devices such as PCs, mobile phones, digital [...]