CourseCast of the Week

Episode 0064, 08/28/2008

Title/Description: Northwestern Fights P2P, Kindle Textbooks

Welcome to Course Technology's CourseCast of the week, Episode 64, recorded August 28th, 2008. This is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information. This CourseCast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.cengage.com/coursetechnology for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions.

Story 1 - Northwestern Fights P2P

Northwestern University has come up with a simple solution for complying with government mandates to curb illegal P2P file sharing on campus: e-mail! The University developed software that uses deep packet inspection to identify internet packets involved in uploads on P2P networks. As soon as an upload is discovered, an e-mail is automatically sent to the student stating, "Be aware, you are uploading" and providing information on using P2P file sharing safely and appropriately. No more than one such e-mail notice is sent in a 24-hour period, and students are able to opt out of the notification system if they wish to.

The system was installed after discovering that students implicated in illegal file-sharing typically stated that they were not aware they were uploading files. The University has seen a marked decline in P2P network use on campus. It sees the system as an easy to implement solution that saves students from RIAA law suites, reduces network traffic, and demonstrates to regulators and legislators that the university is taking the problem seriously.

Northwestern has made the software open source and available to other schools that might wish to try it.

Source: Northwestern fighting campus P2P use with... e-mail? [Ars Technica]

Story 2 - Kindle Textbooks

Amazon's Kindle e-book reader may have found a way to gain widespread public acceptance. Analysts are speculating that a new larger version of the Kindle coming later this year may be designed for the college textbook market. The device would allow students to carry all their textbooks in one lightweight digital package. Another big advantage would be that e-textbooks would likely be more affordable than bound textbooks. If Amazon could win over the college textbook market, it would likely spread to K-12 textbooks as well. And with e-books in the hands of students, the popularity of the Kindle --- and e-book readers in general --- would spread to the entire population.

Source: Amazon may enter college textbook market with new Kindle [Ars Technica], New, Larger Kindle Could Appeal to Textbook Market [NewsFactor]

And that brings us to News Briefs.

  • After both Hasbro and Mattel have threatened copyright law suites, the Scrabble knock off on Facebook, Srabulous, has been removed from the site. [Ars Technica]
  • There have been several complaints to Google about their "Street View" cameras making their way up driveways that have "No Trespassing" signs posted. The complaints have sparked online debate about whether or not privacy still exists in our Satellite-watched, highly-connected society. [Ars Technica]
  • Malware in Space! NASA has discovered a computer virus on notebook computers aboard the International Space Station. [Computerworld]
  • After reporting on the Boston Subway hack last week, this week Technology Review reported on hackers in California, cloning other driver's FasTrak transponders to fly through toll gates on someone else's dime. [Technology Review]
  • This week, four and a half years after its initial launch, Facebook registered its 100 millionth user. Competitor MySpace took three years to register 100 million users. [Read Write Web]
  • Internet Explorer 8 is in its 2nd Beta release. The new version of the popular Web browser features new setting that allow users to better control private information in cookies and browsing history. [NewsFactor]

That's it for this week's CourseCast. Links to this week's stories and many more news and information resources are provided at the CourseCast Web site at www.course.com/coursecasts. E-mail us with your suggestions for the show at course.coursecasts@cengage.com. Until next time, have a great week and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of Technology!