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Software Freedom Day has been and gone and left a wake of open source excitement behind it!

The Unlimited Potential team (with of course help from us, Catalyst and many others) hosted the most excellent Software Freedom Day. There was a pretty amazing turnout, as Brenda’s photos show and I think just about everyone who attended enjoyed the conversations that resulted.

There were many highlights for me  - seeing the OpenSolaris Student Packs , a zsh(1) demo, and an excellent discussion about on NZOSS.  CWA New Media has been connected with the NZOSS for a while.

The Wellington Convention Centre was a pretty great place to host the event and the Havana coffee was wonderful.  The 150+ attendees from all round the country proved that Wellington really is the ICT capital and the fact that many stayed into the night, and kept going over curry afterwards was testament to the connections and collaborations going on all around me.

Thanks to Unlimited Potential, especially Jayne Wallis, and everyone who took part, for putting Open Source on the map and securing this event as an annual extravaganza on the ICT calendar.

CWA New Media is proud to be a key sponsor of New Zealand’s events around Software Freedom Day.  Check out the website for the programme of open source fun and geeky get togethers on September 20th.

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business — in short, everywhere!

This year we got together with

• Unlimited Potential,
• New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS),
• SuperHappyDevHouse,
• WellyLUG,
• Cafenet,
• Catalyst IT
• and Sun Microsystems

to organise a local event to be held at the Wellington Convention Centre - Civic Suites 1 & 2 in Wellington from 12pm - 6pm.

There are two main parts to the schedule- an opensource barcamp and a hackfest. 

Register here and come along and celebrate Software Freedom Day by taking part. There will be free wifi, coffee all day at the venue, and pizza and beer as things wrap up at 6pm.

It’s no secret that CWA is a company that loves connecting the dots between people, knowledge, information  and resources.   What may not be so well known is our ongoing commitment and work in ensuring that those who are making contributions to an open and connected learning world are acknowledged and have their rights communicated.

CWA’s long-standing relationship with New Zealand’s Council for The Humanities - and its associated initiative The Humanities Research Network - has recently enabled us to collaborate on bringing the Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand project (CCANZ) to life.   We worked with the team to communicate the arrival of New Zealand’s Creative Commons licences on the scene - participating in sector workshops earlier in the year, and building the newly launched CCANZ website

The international Creative Commons movement is about an internet-friendly, open copyright model and it is embraced in more than 40 countries.  Its generic licences are available to everyone, and New Zealand now has a set which reflects our legal jurisdiction.  New Zealand is among the first countries in the world to be using the new generation version 3 licence.

The Creative Commons Aotearoa site has been designed to enable our designers, artists, authors - in fact anyone who has something to share - to choose how they protect their work.  The site is the first stop for finding New Zealand’s Creative Commons contributions and includes case studies, information about the licences, and even a google map to help locate the contributions in cyberspace.

We like what Brian Opie, the Executive Director of The Council for The Humanities has to say about Creative Commons:

“Innovation societies depend upon open access to knowledge. Creative Commons is an important initiative, providing New Zealanders with a means of gaining recognition for their work while encouraging its use by others.”

I grew up with television as my window on the world. Now its the web. An example of the marvellous world of convergence is TED Talks - mini tv programmes, interesting topics, fascinating people - on the web, on tap and viewable when and where I want them.

I recently dropped into TED Talks to catch up on the status of the big and bold One Laptop Per Child project - two years on - with Nicholas Negroponte giving the update - you can view the video here.

I’m a convert to the iPhone having acquired one from eBay 6 months ago.   It’s the aesthetics of the device that won me over - good design is just so compelling and “must have”.   So I - along with the rest of the global fraternity of iPhone followers - now await with enthusiasm the distribution of the new 3G version, as discussed in this CNET  report.  Yum.

It is ironic, perhaps, that it is  the ‘happening right now’ sites that can lead to some of my most serious lost in time experiences when online.  Mysterious gaps can appear in my day if I drop in on Twittervision and watch the world fly back and forth to reveal the latest ‘what I had for breakfast’ type comments from people in faraway places.   And time seems to stand still as I await the  latest contribution to the modern day version of ‘photos from my holiday’ - as shared by the cyber-fuelled tourists of Flickrvision.

It definitely isn’t the content that holds my attention - it is the fascination of seeing the power of a web-enabled and connected world demonstrated in real time by these sites.

It is a little ironic, maybe, that it’s the “what’s happening right now’ services of the web are the ones that

The latest ICT in Schools Report is now available and online.

This authoritative 2007 report - the latest in a continuum of reports over the years - presents the latest picture of ICT in our schools. It includes, for example, findings that indicate that, in our schools today, there is likely to be one computer for every four primary school students and one computer per three students in secondary schools.

This research project was implemented by the New Zealand 2020 Communications Trust whose ongoing mission is … “to help ALL New Zealanders benefit from the opportunities of the new digital era - especially from the internet…”.

A topic that’s been bubbling up to the surface in the e-emedia world recently has been the cost of bottled water - not only in terms of the $2.00+ we’re willing to pay for it, but also its eco cost. This National Geographic site provides some interesting perspectives.

Having already confessed to being a gadgeteer, I share unashamedly my latest gadget discovery on the web - Smart Goggles.

This simple and brilliant idea could address the despair we feel when we plaintively call out to an uncaring universe - “where’s my phone”, “where are my keys”, “where’s my bag” We all know how that feels. The opportunities for using Smart Goggles in a learning context are very interesting too.

Here’s a quick extract from the UK’s Daily Mail.

Daily Mail article:

The Smart Goggles are the brainchild of Prof Kuniyoshi at the University of Tokyo. He believes they could revolutionise the lives of people who suffer from regular “senior moments”, as well as those suffering from serious memory problems caused by dementia.The Smart Goggles contain a compact video camera which films everything the wearer looks at - and a viewfinder which fits snugly in front of the right lens. The glasses are connected to a small, but smart computer processor worn on the back which can learn to recognise shapes extremely quickly.

To use the glasses, the wearer first wanders around a house or workplace for an hour or so, looking at the objects he or she may later want to find in a hurry. Each time the camera focuses on a object - such as a set of keys, a mobile phone or a purse - the wearer says the name aloud. The name is then recorded and stored into the memory.

Once the names have been programmed in, the glasses will try to find the right name for any object they come across. The names appear in small type on the viewfinder. If they are unable to recognise an object they make a guess and - if they get it wrong - learn from their mistakes. At some point in the future, if the wearer is trying to find their keys in a hurry, they simply name the object.

The glasses search its video memory and show its last known location on the display.

More …

Much to the delight of gadgeteers everywhere (of which I confess I’m one), the iPhone folks have just released an SDK (software development kit).

This means that thousands of people around the globe are, right now, busily finding new things to do with what has become the mobile icon of the new century. Expect to see some developments that are focused on the needs and interests of learning audiences soon.
http://www.apple.com/iphone/