Prior to Firefox’s launch, though, Mozilla was mostly seen as an afterthought or, perhaps, some kind of crazy nonprofit group. This small group of open source hackers, known as Mozillians, were working on projects that virtually nobody thought they needed. The public certainly didn’t think it wanted a new browser. People were using Internet Explorer (IE), which Microsoft had bundled with Windows. In 2004, IE had approximately 95% of the web browser market.
I’m going to repeat that, because the number is ridiculously high: 95 percent.
.. The group that yesterday had been viewed as quixotic for attacking the 95% market share of Internet Explorer was suddenly lauded for having worked on the right problems, for the right reasons, even as the market told them those issues didn’t matter at all.
.. The Firefox success story was also an object lesson in how a small band of techies could take on giants such as Microsoft, which were thousands of times their size.
Stop Looking At Your Phones – A Lesson From The Britishes
So this is hilarious and done so well. A great video that shows how ridiculous we must all look as we constantly look at our phones all day. So great!
The Creepy New Wave of the Internet
Recent revelations from the journalist Glenn Greenwald put the number of Americans under government surveillance at a colossal 1.2 million people. Once the Internet of Things is in place, that number might easily expand to include everyone else ..
.. In other words, as human behavior is tracked and merchandized on a massive scale, the Internet of Things creates the perfect conditions to bolster and expand the surveillance state. In the world of the Internet of Things, your car, your heating system, your refrigerator, your fitness apps, your credit card, your television set, your window shades, your scale, your medications, your camera, your heart rate monitor, your electric toothbrush, and your washing machine—to say nothing of your phone—generate a continuous stream of data that resides largely out of reach of the individual but not of those willing to pay for it or in other ways commandeer it.
That is the point: the Internet of Things is about the “dataization” of our bodies, ourselves, and our environment. As a post on the tech website Gigaom put it, “The Internet of Things isn’t about things. It’s about cheap data.” Lots and lots of it. “The more you tell the world about yourself, the more the world can give you what you want,” says Sam Lessin, the head of Facebook’s Identity Product Group. It’s a sentiment shared by Scoble and Israel, who write:
The more the technology knows about you, the more benefits you will receive. That can leave you with the chilling sensation that big data is watching you. In the vast majority of cases, we believe the coming benefits are worth that trade-off.
Will MOOCs be Flukes?
The other major problem is that MOOCs tend to be set up in a way that minimizes frustration for students (who might drop out at any moment). There often aren’t pop quizzes or the kinds of challenges that can alienate students in traditional settings. The problem here is that easy learning does not make good learning. In fact, the very tools that we believe make for better education may also make students more likely to quit. More frequent testing, for instance, can improve memory, learning, and retention. And, sometimes, the best test of all is the test that you fail
.. The other major problem is that MOOCs tend to be set up in a way that minimizes frustration for students (who might drop out at any moment). There often aren’t pop quizzes or the kinds of challenges that can alienate students in traditional settings. The problem here is that easy learning does not make good learning. In fact, the very tools that we believe make for better education may also make students more likely to quit. More frequent testing, for instance, can improve memory, learning, and retention. And, sometimes, the best test of all is the test that you fail