Study Reveals Changing Role of iPads, Tablet PCs

A new Nielson study shows that "70 percent of tablet owners and 68 percent of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television."

Textbooks Go the iTunes Route, but Buying by Chapters Might Not Save Students Money

"Now textbook publishers are offering an experimental form of price relief: The option to buy book chapters instead of the whole thing, in electronic versions with lower prices."

Google Ends Project to Digitize Newspaper Archives

"?Google is stopping the scanners on its ambitious project to build an archive of the world’s newspapers."

Why Are So Many Students Still Failing Online?

"Not all students should take online courses, and our collective failure to recognize that explains their high failure rate."

IBM Passes Microsoft's Market Cap After 15 Years

"International Business Machines surged past old rival Microsoft Corp in market value for the first time since April 1996, marking the latest twist in the fluctuating fortunes of two of the world's most storied technology companies."

How People Really Use The Internet For Health

"Eighty percent of adults who use the Internet have looked online for health info. Two-thirds have looked up a specific disease or medical problem. More than half have checked for info on a particular treatment, drug or procedure."

Hispanics Lead U.S. Embrace of Mobile Technology

"The report points out that Hispanics have been leading the U.S. population in terms of embracing mobile technology. For example, last summer Pew found that more than 87 percent of English-speaking U.S. Hispanics owned a cell phone, vs. 80 percent of non-Hispanic whites."

Study: Netflix is Biggest Source of Internet Traffic

"Move over, Web surfing. Netflix movies now take up more of the Internet pipes going into North American homes."

Apps Make College Easier to Access

"No time for class? Pull out your iPhone. A small but growing cadre of online universities is developing mobile apps to help students pursue their studies whenever and wherever they want."

Distance Education Teaching and Burnout

"Online faculty burnout may have more to do with a professor's personality than with the medium itself."

U. of Michigan Copyright Sleuths Start New Project to Investigate Orphan Works

"The University of Michigan on Monday announced a new project to identify orphan works among the millions of volumes in the HathiTrust Digital Library. The investigation is important because it may be a step on the path to broader access to these orphan books—copyrighted volumes whose owners can’t be identified or found."

Online Degrees Come of Age in Asia

"Open universities, or institutions that specialize in distance education, have long been part of Asia’s higher education landscape, but the number has grown rapidly in recent years, especially in China and India. . ."

Facebook Can Serve as Personality Test

"Companies who want to know more about prospective employees can learn a lot by checking their Facebook profiles, according to a new study that compares the ubiquitous social media site to users' scores on a standard personality test."

Speaking Up in Class, Silently, via Social Media

"A small but growing cadre of educators is trying to exploit Twitter-like technology to enhance classroom discussion and get students to shed inhibitions about voicing opinions."

PayPal is Top Brand for Mobile Payments: GfK Survey

"PayPal, the eBay-owned online payment system, could be set for a major boost as mobile payment systems start to take off over the next year, a survey by market research firm GfK suggests."

The Library of Congress Adds a Jukebox

"The new National Jukebox makes more than 10,000 early-20th-century recordings available for free streaming online."

Google's Stealth Multi-Billion-Dollar Business

"Google became a $30 billion company on the back of search advertising -- but the company thinks its other multi-billion-dollar advertising business will be its growth engine of the future. That other business is "display" advertising, which includes banner ads, video ads and in-app mobile ads."

The Rise of Teaching Machines

"Adaptive learning, the hot new concept in online education, is getting ready for its close-up at several colleges."

The Slow-Motion Mobile Campus

"Getting iPads and iPhones in the hands of college students is the easy part; rebuilding campus infrastructure to support mobile devices is expensive. And as Stanford's experience shows, getting professors, students, and staff to work together to explore the educational potential of mobile devices is a slow, uneven process, more suitable in some fields than others."

New Tech Could Power Cell Phones Through Sound

"Kim and his colleagues at Sungkyunkwan University's Institute of Nanotechnology in Seoul say they have developed a new method of converting sound into electricity. They say a cell phone could be charged simply by talking into it. . ."

YouTube Finally Admits It: They're Renting Movies

"After months of hints, YouTube has launched a movie-rental service that will make about 3000 titles available to rent online and on mobile devices."

Apple Usurps Google as World's Most Valuable Brand

"Apple has overtaken Google as the world's most valuable brand, ending a four-year reign by the Internet search leader, according to a new study by global brands agency Millward Brown."

Facebook Now Pays Users 10 Cents To Watch Certain Ads

"Facebook will now reward users who watch certain ads with Facebook Credits, which can be redeemed to purchase goods on Facebook Deals, the company’s new Groupon-like daily deals service. The incentive, however, is not huge. Initially, the average ad will yield one credit, which is equivalent to 10 cents."

Tablet Sales Could Beat Laptops in U.S. By 2012

"The tablet computer has altered the PC world and tablet sales could outpace laptops in the United States as early as 2012, retailers and manufacturers say."

Archiving the Web for Scholars

"As the Internet becomes an increasingly important source of material for academic research, librarians try to preserve 'ephemera of the Web.'"

Apple to Capture 76% of 2011 Mobile App Revenue

Apple will capture 76% of all mobile app revenues in 2011, according to a new report from IHS iSuppli.

Sony Declines to Testify Before Congress as $1 Billion Lawsuit Filed

"A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee is demanding answers from Sony after private information from some 102 million personal accounts was taken by hackers."

AT&T Starts Capping Broadband

"The days of all-you-can-surf broadband are vanishing. AT&T this week began capping its Internet delivery service for broadband and DSL customers. The move comes 11 months after it placed similar caps on its mobile customers."

Google Named Most Reputable Company in U.S.

"Google has topped a list of the most reputable companies in the U.S., according to a Harris Interactive poll."

Barnes & Noble College Bookstores Set Up Shop on Facebook, and Hope Students Will 'Like' It

"Using a new social-commerce platform, the more than 500 Barnes & Noble college bookstores across the country will be able to sell books and other merchandise through their Facebook pages, and allow students to 'like' books and other merchandise available at the bookstore."