Are Social Networks Making Students More Narcissistic?

"College students say social networking makes them more narcissistic, a national survey reports today — and they also believe their generation is the most narcissistic of all."

Twitter Being Used to Deliver Medical News

"Twitter, the social networking tool, is emerging as a potentially valuable tool of real-time, healthcare information and medical alerts, U.S. researchers say."

Holy Tweet: Twitter Site Offers Visitors Direct Line to God

"An Israeli university student has opened a Twitter site where visitors can tweet private prayers to be placed in the crevices of Jerusalem's Western Wall, a Jewish holy site that faithful believe provides a direct line to the Almighty."

Nearly Half of Employers Screen Social Media Profiles

"A recent survey found that 45% of human-resource departments search the social-media profiles of prospective employees, with another 11% planning to institutionalize a social-networking screen in the near future. And recruiters don’t always like what they see: 35% had disqualified an applicant over objectionable content."

Forecast: Cost Cutting Will Drive Open Source Growth

"Expenditures by enterprises on open source software jumped 34 percent last year, and spending in 2009 is on pace to increase at least another 24 percent, according to a forecast released last week by IT market researcher IDC."

7 Textbook Publishers Move to Electronic Format

"Several textbook publishers have recently joined the ranks of publishers offering their works in electronic format. Last week, seven, including Elsevier Science and Technology, SAGE, and Taylor & Francis signed on to offer their higher education textbooks through CourseSmart's eTextbooks service."

Study on Twitter

"Just how effective is communication on Twitter? About 40 percent of Tweets are actually useless babble, but if you want to get your messages noticed, might want to log on early in the week, according to data released Wednesday."

Judge Orders Microsoft to Stop Selling Word

"A federal district court judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling Word in the U.S. — and the tiny company behind the lawsuit is digging in for a David vs. Goliath showdown."

Sony Plans to Adopt Common Format for E-books

"On Thursday, Sony Electronics, which sells e-book devices under the Reader brand, plans to announce that by the end of the year it will sell digital books only in the ePub format, an open standard created by a group including publishers like Random House and HarperCollins. Sony will also scrap its proprietary anticopying software in favor of technology from the software maker Adobe that restricts how often e-books can be shared or copied."

Microsoft to Launch Office on Nokia Phones, Says Report

"Microsoft is expected to launch mobile version of its Office suite software for select model Nokia phones today, a person with knowledge of the agreement told the New York Times."

Google Caffeine Gets Two Thumbs Up

"Google's new "Caffeine" search platform is drawing rave reviews from testers who say it yields more results, with better accuracy, than the company's existing search page. The positive feedback could help Google maintain its lead over rival Microsoft, which recently unveiled a number of new search initiatives of its own."

'Facebook Lite' Gets Public Debut

"Facebook Lite appears to be a cut-down version of Facebook and is aimed at countries where broadband is limited. The site is currently on trial in India and it is thought there are plans to extend this to China and Russia."

Neilson Research: Teens Don't Tweet

“'Teens Don't Tweet; Twitter's Growth Not Fueled By Youth,' the Nielsen Company reported in a finding. . .Nielsen based its claim on data from a panel of 250,000 U.S. Internet users. People under 25 make up 'nearly one quarter of the active U.S. Internet universe,' but in June of 2009 that age bracket accounted for just 16 percent of Twitter.com Web-site users, the market-research firm reported."

Web-Savvy Transforming American Higher Education

"Today, 'open content' is the biggest front of innovation in higher education. The movement that started at MIT has spread to more than 200 institutions in 32 countries that have posted courses online at the OpenCourseWare Consortium. But, as Wiley points out, there's still a big gap between viewing such resources as a homework aid and building a recognized, accredited degree out of a bunch of podcasts and YouTube videos. 'Why is it that my kid can't take robotics at Carnegie Mellon, linear algebra at MIT, law at Stanford? And why can't we put 130 of those together and make it a degree?' Wiley asks. 'There are all these kinds of innovations waiting to happen. A sufficient infrastructure of freely available content is step one in a much longer endgame that transforms everything we know about higher education.'"

Google Allows Public to Test Improved Search Engine

Google's "new engine, available at a separate address, looks the same as the current one but ranks results differently, which could affect businesses who rely on Google results to drive traffic. In a blog posting late Monday, Google Inc. says the new engine, code-named "Caffeine," will be faster, more accurate and more comprehensive."

Sony Unveils Two New E-readers, One With a Touchscreen

"Sony announced two new e-readers on Tuesday, a full-featured touchscreen edition and a smaller, portable e-reader that costs $100 less than Amazon's popular Kindle."

New Open-Access Monograph Series Announced

"Open Humanities Press (OHP) is joining the University of Michigan Library's Scholarly Publishing Office (SPO) to create five new open-access monograph series with a focus on critical and cultural theory. 'All of the books will be freely available in full-text, digital editions and as reasonably priced paperbacks,' according to a statement released today, and they will be subject to 'the highest standards of editorial vetting and peer review.' The series include New Metaphysics, Critial Climate Change, Global Conversations, Unidentified Theoretical Objects, and Liquid Books, a series in which readers are invited 'to annotate, tag, edit, add to, remix, reformat, reversion, reinvent, and reuse, the material.'"

As eBook Readers Heat Up, Standardization Will Be Critical

"Ultimately, the success or failure of the eBook and eBook reader market is going to depend on establishing a standard format. If the industry can establish a diverse, device-agnostic marketplace then consumers can embrace the technology with some degree of confidence that their investment won’t become obsolete and suffer an ironic fate as a glorified paper-weight."

New Software Can Delete Emails Permanently

"Email is inherently insecure, because it has a long shelf-life—even deleted messages can be stored infinitely on the email service of the sender or recipient. Now a team of scientists is poised to unveil software later this month to make them disappear for keeps, reports the Economist. “Vanish” uses the ephemeral nature of P2P networks to render messages unreadable after a set amount of time. Essentially, they self-destruct."

Web Site Tracking Online Censorship Worldwide

Herdict.org is "a new Harvard-based Web site that tracks online censorship" all over the world. The article on it is located here.

New Sony e-book reader $100 cheaper than Kindle

"Electronic books are often mentioned in the same breath as Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle digital reader. Now e-book rival Sony Corp. is determined to recapture consumers' attention with a smaller reader that's also $100 cheaper."

Microsoft's Bing Gains Another 1 Percent of U.S. Search

"Microsoft increased its share of the U.S. Internet search market by another 1 percentage point in July, taking its combined share with new search partner Yahoo to 20.36 percent, according to data released on Monday."

Poll: Adults Prefer Face Time to Facebook

"Nearly 90 percent of U.S. adults prefer dealing with people face-to-face, not through high-tech ways, a market research survey indicated Monday."