New MapQuest Beta Version has a Cleaner, Simpler Look

"Starting Tuesday, the Denver-based mapping unit of AOL is testing a fresh look with features that some might say make it look a whole lot more like Google Maps."

Divorce Lawyers: Facebook Tops in Online Evidence in Court

"The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers says 81% of its members have used or faced evidence from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networking sites, including YouTube and LinkedIn, over the last five years."

Hulu Launches $10 Video Subscription Service

"Online video site Hulu has launched a $9.99-per-month paid section, under pressure from its media company parents to generate a profit."

Study Links Bee Decline to Cell Phones

"A new study has suggested that cell phone radiation may be contributing to declines in bee populations in some areas of the world."

Twitter Research

"Researchers are studying Twitter as communication medium and index of public opinion. Scott McLemee catches up on the scholarship."

Inaccessible E-Readers May Run Afoul of the Law, Feds Warn Colleges

"The Departments of Education and Justice are cautioning college leaders against the adoption of electronic readers that can't be used by blind people."

New Grant Program Seeks to Expand Free Online Courses

"A new program will give grants to a variety of high-tech teaching projects, with the hope of helping low-income students better succeed in their studies. Next Gen Learning Challenges, led by Educause, a nonprofit that supports education technology, is designed to find technology-based approaches to improve college readiness and completion among low-income students."

Free Online Textbook Project Gets Federal Money

"The University of Illinois system has received federal money to create an open-access textbook to be used on its three campuses, as well as the state's community colleges, and shared with colleges and universities around the country, said Charles V. Evans, the university's assistant vice president for academic affairs."

Springer Announces New Open-Access Journals

"The Springer publishing company today announced that it is setting up a new open-access journal program. Called SpringerOpen, the program will initially include 12 new online-only, peer-reviewed journals in science, technical, and medical fields."

Checking Out Digital Copies of In-Copyright Books

"Starting Tuesday, a group of libraries led by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library, are joining forces to create a one-stop website for checking out e-books...Only one person at a time will be allowed to check out a digital copy of an in-copyright book for two weeks. While on loan, the physical copy of the book won't be loaned, due to copyright restrictions."

E-books Pave Way For More Blockbusters, Serials

"Stieg Larsson copycats take note: The slow rise of electronic books is paving the way for more safe-bet fiction blockbusters and serial-type books, at least in the short term, according to some book experts."

Facebook Fuels Honesty, Unpredictability in Adoption

"As adoption becomes more open, social media present new questions."

Google's Next Search Foe: Facebook

"Facebook's search engine is now venturing beyond the walled gardens of Facebook.com to the greater web. Will its user-generated results give it an advantage over Google?"

Judge Sides with Google in $1B Viacom Lawsuit

"A federal judge in New York is siding with Google in a $1 billion copyright lawsuit filed by media company Viacom over YouTube videos."

What Is I.B.M.’s Watson?

"For the last three years, I.B.M. scientists have been developing what they expect will be the world’s most advanced 'question answering' machine, able to understand a question posed in everyday human elocution — 'natural language,' as computer scientists call it — and respond with a precise, factual answer."

Quantum Computing Moves Closer to Reality

"British and Dutch scientists say they have, for the first time, demonstrated the ability of an electron to exist in two places at once in silicon. . .The complex research is detailed in the journal Nature."

Historic Newspapers: Chronicling America Adds 275K Digitized Pages

The collection now has over 2.3 million pages of digitized newspapers.

Closing the Digital Frontier

"The era of the Web browser’s dominance is coming to a close. And the Internet’s founding ideology—that information wants to be free, and that attempts to constrain it are not only hopeless but immoral— suddenly seems naive and stale in the new age of apps, smart phones, and pricing plans. What will this mean for the future of the media—and of the Web itself?"

Academic Libraries Must Keep Redefining Themselves

"The libraries will have to continue expanding their virtual resources and devote physical space to support services, says a report."

The Librarian's Crystal Ball

"A major libraries association makes some bold predictions about the future of higher education."

E-reader Price War Breaks Out: Kindle, Nook Cuts

"As e-reader competition heats up, Barnes & Noble responded Monday by cutting the price of its flagship Nook to $199 and introducing a low-cost, Wi-Fi-only version for $149. Just hours later, Amazon hit back. It slashed the price of its popular Kindle to $189 -- a deep discount from the original $259."

Are Social Media Changing Religion?

"The boundary between private and public information is becoming murkier every day, a blurring that is perhaps inevitable in the world of online surfing and social networking. But how about religious communities? The boundaries are shifting there as well, because of a growing emphasis in congregations on honest and open sharing in small groups."

Supreme Court Rules Employers Can Read Employee Texts

"The Supreme Court has ruled that employers may monitor employee conversations made via an employer-issued cell phone if there is a 'legitimate work-related purpose' to do so."

Does the Internet Need a ‘Kill Switch’?

"Senator Joseph Lieberman has proposed the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA), a bill that would give the president the power to control or even shut down the Internet in emergency situations."

The Souls of the Machine

"Clay Shirky says the Internet revolution has only just begun."

Report: US Lacks Staff, Power to Protect Networks

"The federal agency in charge of securing the government's computer systems is unable to monitor the networks or analyze threats in real time, and it lacks the authority and staff it needs to do its job, according to an internal report."

Mexico's Monterrey Tech Pushes E-Learning

"Over the past two decades, the university, which has 33 campuses scattered across Mexico, has seized on the Internet revolution to boost enrollment and slash costs. The institution's big push has allowed it to reach more than 35,000 new students and spurred others in the region to explore similar opportunities."

Regulators Take Step Toward Broadband Rules

"Communications authorities on Thursday took a small but significant step toward regulating high-speed Internet in a bid to reclaim oversight, setting the stage for an eventual legal showdown with industry heavyweights."

Student Smartphone Use Doubles; Instant Messaging Loses Favor

"Text messaging has become the main form of high-tech communication for nearly all students, a researcher at Ball State University found."

Large Gift Will Speed Digitization at Oxford's Bodleian Libraries

"A British philanthropist has given $2.2-million to the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries to expand efforts to digitize their vast collection of books and manuscripts."

In Your Facebook: Social Sites Are Everywhere

"As social networking gains in global popularity, each culture takes a different approach."

233 Million Chinese Use Mobile Phones To Access The Internet

"By the end of 2009 the number of Chinese netizens had reached 384 million, 618 times that of 1997 and an annual increase of 31.95 million users. In addition, the Internet had reached 28.9% of the total population, higher than the world average. At the same time, there were 3.23 million websites running in China, which was 2,152 times that of 1997. The number of IPv4 addresses approached 230 million, making China the second-largest owner in the world. Of all the netizens, 346 million used broadband and 233 million used mobile phones to access the Internet."

Review: Web Apps are Limited Free Taste of Office

"In particular, the Web Apps will be helpful for those who collaborate with people who have the full Office suite. You can open documents they send and modify text, spreadsheets and so forth. But the bulk of the formatting will still need to be done with the desktop application. The Web Apps can also be a standalone alternative to Google Docs, if your demands are low."

Pew Survey: Our Data is Headed to the Cloud

"By 2020, Internet users will keep their data 'mostly in the cloud,' using Web-based programs and remote servers, and not on their home or work computers, according to a new survey."

Scholars Compile Academic Book From Twitter and Blogs

"Two academics put out an online call for material. In one week, they had a book's worth. Hacking the Academy, an edited volume about academe in the digital age, was compiled from blog posts and Twitter messages posted during a single week."

JiWire Reveals Mobile Advertising Trends for the On-The-Go Audience

"JiWire, the leading mobile audience media company that reaches the On-The-Go Audience across its location-based media channel, today released its latest Mobile Audience Insights Report."

A History of Portable Computing

"From 'portables' that weighed nearly 30 pounds in the 1980s to the featherweight Apple iPad of 2010, portable computing has come a long way. Here's a look at some of the milestones."

Money Remains the Top Concern for Campus IT Leaders

"Information-technology leaders at American colleges face the same challenges as ever, but their top worry is money, says a report released today by the higher-education technology group Educause."

Impacts of Social Media on Admissions

"Here is a look at the impact at several institutions of the use of social networking sites in college admissions."

10 of the Top Data Breaches of the Decade

"The Internet cried foul last week when news broke that an AT&T security breach exposed the e-mail addresses of at least 100,000 owners of Apple's iPad 3G. But industry observers are quick to point out that this is hardly the first -- and hardly the worst -- data breach that the tech world has ever seen."

10 of the Top Data Breaches of the Decade

"The Internet cried foul last week when news broke that an AT&T security breach exposed the e-mail addresses of at least 100,000 owners of Apple's iPad 3G. But industry observers are quick to point out that this is hardly the first -- and hardly the worst -- data breach that the tech world has ever seen."

Important E-Reserves Lawsuit

"In a lawsuit against Georgia State University over e-reserves, scholarly publishing faces a defining moment."

Christian Colleges Flourish in Distance Learning Environment

"The question facing universities looking to compete in the booming market for online higher education is not so much how to do it, but how to distinguish themselves from the rest. In this, Christian universities appear to have a built-in advantage. And many are seizing the opportunity to expand their footprint."

Publishers See Signs the iPad Can Restore Ad Money

"Good news for the news business: Companies are paying newspapers and magazines up to five times as much to place ads in their iPad..."

U.S. Replaces China as Top Source of Malicious Servers

"Kaspersky Lab reports that 28% of 1.9 million servers it found distributing malware in the first three months of this year were located in the U.S. That compares to China as the source of 33% of 85.9 million malicious servers Kaspersky tracked down in the final quarter of 2009."

21st-Century Research Collections: Mostly Digital, Ever Larger

"Can a new research library be all digital? How much does it cost a library to preserve a codex? What do large-scale text-digitizing projects mean for scholarship in the humanities? Those are driving questions behind a new report, 'The Idea of Order: Transforming Research Collections for 21st Century Scholarship,' released today by the Council on Library and Information Resources."

The Shallows: This is Your Brain Online

NPR interviewed Nicholas Carr, author of the new book, The Shallows yesterday.

The End of Braille?

"A recent report by the National Federation of the Blind found that fewer than 10 percent of the 1.3 million legally blind Americans now read Braille. Half a century ago, half of America’s blind could run their fingers over coded bumps embossed on thick sheets of paper and understand their meaning."