iTunes U & What It Means For You

≡ Category: Apple |1 Comment

Here’s a logical follow up to our last post — 10 Free University Courses on iTunes.
It turns out that yesterday Apple nicely integrated iTunes U into iTunes. Now, you’ll probably ask what is iTunes U, and why should I care about this integration? So here is the simple answer:
iTunes U is essentially a non-commercial version [...]

10 Free University Courses on iTunes

≡ Category: Apple, Online Courses |2 Comments

We haven’t talked about the universe of university podcasts in some time. So let’s get back to it.Below, we have highlighted ten full-fledged courses from top flight universities. All of these courses can be downloaded to your iPod for free. That’s a price that you can’t beat. (You can see our complete collection of free [...]

Who Didn’t See This One Coming?

≡ Category: Current Affairs, Politics, Video - Politics/Society |3 Comments

America’s 42nd president spoke this weekend at Harvard’s Class Day, a traditional event held for graduating seniors. While Class Day often features pop icons and comedians — take this speech by Ali G from a few yeas ago — Clinton’s speech was a bit more serious and idealistic, and it reminds us that there may [...]

Talks from the 92nd Street Y

≡ Category: Uncategorized |Leave a Comment

If you’re not a New Yorker, the 92nd Street Y probably means little to you. But, if you’re a Manhattan dweller, you know that it is a cultural pillar of the city, a place where you can always find good talks being given by leading news makers, artists, authors and thinkers.
Having recently left NYC for [...]

French Lessons from the BBC and the Peace Corps

≡ Category: Language Lessons |Leave a Comment

Whenever traffic flows to to our Foreign Language Lesson Podcasts, one good outcome is that we almost always learn of new podcasts to add to the list. (Just as an fyi, we now have 64 individual podcasts that offer instruction on 22 different languages.) 
Last week didn’t disappoint. We learned of a few good new [...]

Weekly Wrap – May 19

≡ Category: Uncategorized |Leave a Comment

Another week, another wrap up:

100 Culture Blogs
Fonts of Fame
What Pirates Can Teach Us about Democracy
New Books on Mp3 (For Free)
YouTube’s Impact on the 2008 Election: The Hype and the Fact
Art Blogs – A New Addition to the Culture Blogs Family
Who Killed JFK? Two New Studies
New Online Writing Courses from Stanford
U2 Plays @ The Cannes Film [...]

Fonts of Fame

≡ Category: Art |Leave a Comment

What font do you write in? Do you have strong feelings about it? It turns out many writers do. Slate has a fascinating slide-show essay marking Helvetica’s fiftieth anniversary, celebrating the font “some have called the official typeface of the 20th century.” In an accompanying article the magazine surveyed a few famous writers and none [...]

What Pirates Can Teach Us about Democracy

≡ Category: Books, Film |1 Comment

I’ve always felt that pirates understood the good things in life. Fresh air. Rum. Interesting hats. It turns out we had more in common politically than I would have given them credit for. According to Colin Woodard, author of The Republic of Pirates, the “Golden Age” of Caribbean piracy wasn’t too shabby. Seamen and captains [...]

New Books on Mp3 (For Free)

≡ Category: Audio Books, Books, Literature |Leave a Comment

While our collection of foreign language lessons podcasts has been getting a fair amount of love and attention lately, we’ve been sprucing up our directory of audio book podcasts.
To this list of English-language classics, we’ve added three new classics by Jane Austen — Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and Northanger Abbey — all of which are byproducts [...]

YouTube’s Impact on the 2008 Election: The Hype and the Fact

≡ Category: Current Affairs, Google, Media, Politics, Video - Politics/Society |2 Comments

YouTube is a little more than two years old. It’s a mere toddler. But, it’s now owned by an overgrown, fully-bearded nine year old. Yes, that would be Google, and that means that YouTube is ready to storm its way into the media mainstream, pampers and all.
You can be sure that GooTube has already [...]

Art Blogs – A New Addition to the Culture Blogs Family

≡ Category: Art |2 Comments

 
 
 
We now serve you 25 art/visual art blogs, all of which have also been folded into a larger list of 100+ culture blogs. We’re now calling it The Big List of Culture Blogs (pretty creative, eh), and we’ll add to it over time.
As always, please email us and let us know if we’re missing [...]

Who Killed JFK? Two New Studies

≡ Category: Books, History, Politics |2 Comments

Whether you think John F. Kennedy was a great president or just a guy
who enjoyed sultry birthday
serenades (see clip below), you have to admit
his hold on America’s cultural imagination is still powerful four
decades after his assassination. Two major new works of history tackle
the question and, predictably, come down on opposite sides of it. David
Talbot’s Brothers: [...]

New Online Writing Courses from Stanford

≡ Category: Uncategorized |Leave a Comment

Just a quick heads up: Starting today, you can sign up for online writing courses from Stanford. Offered by Stanford Continuing
Studies and the Stanford Creative Writing Program (which is one of the
most distinguished writing programs in the country), these online courses give
beginning and advanced writers, no matter where they live, the chance
to refine their craft [...]

U2 Plays @ The Cannes Film Festival

≡ Category: Film, Music, Video - Arts & Culture |1 Comment

The 60th Cannes Film Festival is in full swing. It’s all film for ten plus days. But last night, music – or really U2 – took center stage. Before the midnight screening of their new rockumentary, U23D, the Irish band played a two song set (Vertigo and Where the Streets Have No Name) [...]

Weekly Wrap – May 19

≡ Category: Uncategorized |Leave a Comment

Here’s a quick recap of features from the past two weeks:

Serving Up 25 Music Blogs
25 Blogs for Movie Buffs
20+ Great Book & Literature Blogs
John Stewart: When Comedians Start Asking the Tough
The Great God Debate
Spiderman 3: Web Roundup
The Skinny on Second Life
The Portable University
The Book World Goes Sensibly Digital
Smart Links
Climate Crisis, the Happiness Conundrum [...]

The Book World Goes Sensibly Digital

≡ Category: Audio Books, Books |2 Comments

There are some early signs that publishers and booksellers may be seeing the light.
Until recently, the book world applied an irrational logic to downloadable audiobooks and podcasts. As we noted back in February, the paper version of the bestselling business book, The Long Tail, ran consumers $16.47 on Amazon. And yet the cheaper-to-produce audio version [...]

Smart Links

≡ Category: Uncategorized |Leave a Comment

Here are some links that our kind readers sent our way this week. Enjoy:

Be Jackson Pollock: A fun little site. Start with a blank canvas, swirl your mouse around, click to change colors, and see if can paint like Pollock.

Brilliant Ideas in Everyday Language:

FORA.tv puts out a great collection of videos featuring prominent thinkers [...]

A Little Lifehacker Love

≡ Category: Uncategorized |1 Comment

Our foreign language lesson podcasts got a little love yesterday from the great Lifehacker site. Many thanks to them. For any visitors who aren’t familiar with our other podcast collections, here’s a list that you’ll want to peruse.
Arts & Culture – Audio Books – Foreign Language Lessons – News & Information – Science – Technology [...]

The Skinny on Second Life

≡ Category: Media, Technology, Web/Tech |2 Comments

Ever wondered what Second Life is and if you should care about it? Imagine a 3-D immersive game where you control an avatar and travel through constructed environments–and now take away the game part. What’s left is a fairly wide-open creative space where users can create and sell in-game stuff–houses, objects, clothing, etc–or engage [...]

Climate Crisis, the Happiness Conundrum & the Evolution of Religions: TED Talks on YouTube

≡ Category: Psychology, TED Talks, Video - Arts & Culture |10 Comments

Once upon a time we told you about TED Talks, the annual conference that brings together the world’s “thought-leaders, movers and shakers.” These talks have been available on iTunes in both audio (iTunes – Feed) and video (iTunes – Feed). And now you can apparently find some on YouTube. Below we highlight a few.
First up, [...]

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  • About Us

    Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best educational media. He finds the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & movies you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.

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