A Better Way to Read News and Blogs

in Technology | April 24th, 2007


These days, if you spend enough time on the web, you’ll inevitably hear talk about RSS feeds, feed read­ers, and sub­scrib­ing to feeds – talk that can seem fair­ly obscure and off-putting if you’re not already famil­iar with these terms.

If this has been your expe­ri­ence, then you should real­ly watch this short video below. This instruc­tive, even amus­ing, video uses sim­ple lan­guage and images to demon­strate how to use feeds and feed read­ers. In a mat­ter of min­utes, all of this will be demys­ti­fied, and you’ll dis­cov­er a much quick­er, more effi­cient and pow­er­ful way to access news and blog con­tent, includ­ing sto­ries from Open Cul­ture. You can sub­scribe to our feed here. And if you’re look­ing for a good feed read­er, def­i­nite­ly give Google Read­er a look.

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How Web 2.0 Will Transform the Humanities

in Technology | April 19th, 2007

Digital_campus_2Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, there are a few pro­fes­sors out there who actu­al­ly have their own accounts on Face­Book, much to the hor­ror of their stu­dents. Now you can hear their take on new media and the uni­ver­si­ty in a biweek­ly pod­cast, Dig­i­tal Cam­pus.
The series fea­tures a pan­el of new media schol­ars at George Mason Uni­ver­si­ty dis­cussing how Web 2.0 techonolo­gies will change human­i­ties teach­ing and research. Top­ics so far have includ­ed Wikipedia, YouTube and this week’s episode on social net­work­ing (mp3 — feed — web­site). As the most recent show points out, Web 2.0 is rapid­ly mak­ing it to the aca­d­e­m­ic primetime–the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan now offers a mas­ter’s degree in social com­put­ing.

The flip side of new media tech­nolo­gies is how they will trans­form research into more tra­di­tion­al human­i­ties sub­jects. The Dig­i­tal Cam­pus crew are all involved in the emerg­ing field of dig­i­tal human­i­ties. On the pod­cast they dis­cuss many of the chal­lenges of trans­fer­ring old media knowl­edge to dig­i­tal archives and struc­tur­ing those archives to make search­ing easy. In addi­tion to air­ing these ques­tions in the pod­cast, Dig­i­tal Cam­pus is pro­mot­ing a new wiki designed for new­com­ers and vet­er­ans alike.


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25 Smart Video Podcasts That You Can Watch on Apple TV

in Apple, Technology, Web/Tech | March 29th, 2007

Apple_tv_4_3Ear­li­er this week, we dis­cussed the recent release of Apple TV, the new gad­get that lets you wire­less­ly down­load videos from iTunes to your cushy widescreen TV. For many con­sumers, the log­i­cal ques­tion to ask is whether there’s much to watch if they plunk down the $299 for the hard­ware. (Check it out in our Ama­zon store.) And our read­ers might par­tic­u­lar­ly won­der whether there’s much in the way of cul­tur­al video. With these ques­tions in mind, we’ve put togeth­er a sam­pling of worth­while video pod­casts (oth­er­wise called “vod­casts”) that you can imme­di­ate­ly start con­sum­ing with Apple TV. These videos can also be found in our pod­cast library.

  • Arts & Cul­ture Vod­casts
    • New York­er Car­toons iTunes Feed
      • Catch ani­mat­ed ver­sions of The New York­er’s famous car­toons.
    • Son­ny Rollins Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
      • A 12-part video pod­cast series (to be released in month­ly install­ments) that intro­duces Son­ny Rollins, one of our jazz greats.
    • Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val iTunes Web Site
      • Get behind the scenes cov­er­age at the lat­est stag­ing of the influ­en­tial Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val.
  • For­eign Lan­guage Lessons
    • MyGermanClass.com Ler­nen Wir Deutsch! iTunes Feed Web Site
      • A series of edu­ca­tion­al and enter­tain­ing video pod­casts that will teach you Ger­man.
    • Japan­ese Class iTunes Web Site
      • These video­casts from the Kyoto Japan­ese Lan­guage School use video to demon­strate how to writein Japan­ese.
  • News & Infor­ma­tion
  • Sci­ence
    • Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty Sci­ence Fes­ti­val iTunes Web Site
    • Dis­cov­ery Chan­nel Video Pod­casts iTunes Feed Web Site
      • A trove of video pod­casts from Dis­cov­ery. It includes Ever­est — Beyond the Lim­it (iTunes).
    • NASAcast iTunes Feed Web Site
      • A series of the lat­est videos from NASA.
    • Nation­al Geo­graph­ic’s Wild Chron­i­cles iTunes Feed Web Site
      • “See the nat­ur­al world like nev­er before through the eyes of Nation­al Geo­graph­ic adven­tur­ers, sci­en­tists, researchers, and the extra­or­di­nary Crit­ter­cam.”
    • NOVA iTunes Feed Web Site
      • A series of short vod­casts from NOVA.
  • Tech­nol­o­gy
    • Adobe Cre­ative Suite Video Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
      • Ter­ry­White teach­es you how to unlock the pow­er of Cre­ative Suite with visualex­am­ples. Empha­sis gets placed on inDe­sign and Pho­to­shop.
    • InDig­i­tal iTunes Feed Web Site
      • A pop­u­lar video pod­cast focus­ing on the lat­est gad­gets and high-tech prod­ucts.
    • GeekBrief.TV Video Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
      • Fea­tur­ing­Cali Lewis, this “fast, fun and flir­ty” vod­cast explores news­about tech toys and tools. Gen­er­al­ly very well reviewed by users.
    • Dig­gna­tion iTunes Feed Web Site
      • A week­ly web cul­ture pod­cast that focus­es on the tops sto­ries on Digg.com, the pop­u­lar social con­tent web site. Host­ed by Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht.
  • Uni­ver­si­ty
    • INSEAD­’s Lead­er­cast iTunes Web Site
      • A series of video pod­casts that come out of one of Europe’s elite busi­ness pro­grams.
    • Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty
      • Mod­ern The­o­ret­i­cal Physics: Quan­tum Entan­gle­ment iTunes Web Info
        • A cut­ting edge physics video course taught by Leonard Susskind, one of the lead­ing fig­ures in the field.
        • Host­ed by Ted Kop­pel, this pan­el dis­cus­sion focus­es on the glob­al chal­lenges that we’re fac­ing in this cen­tu­ry. Pan­elists include: Supre­me­Court Jus­tice Antho­ny Kennedy, for­mer Sec­re­tary of State GeorgeSchultz, for­mer Sec­re­tary of Defense William Per­ry, Yahoo co-Founder

          Jer­ry Yang, and Stan­ford Pres­i­dent John Hen­nessy, among oth­ers.

    • The Uni­ver­si­ty Chan­nel iTunes Feed Web Site
      • Prince­ton­has assem­bled a col­lec­tion of pub­lic affairs lec­tures, pan­els ande­vents from aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions all over the world. You can find

        lec­tures here from some of the world’s lead­ing thinkers.

    If we’re miss­ing any­thing great, please drop us a line.

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Apple TV: Turn Your TV into a Smart Box

in Apple, Technology, Web/Tech | March 26th, 2007

Appletv3_3When Steve Jobs announced Apple’s new line­up of gad­gets at Mac­world in Jan­u­ary (lis­ten on iTunes or stream it), all eyes were focused on the planned release of the iPhone. Rel­a­tive­ly lost in the com­mo­tion, how­ev­er, was Apple TV, which start­ed ship­ping this week. (Check it out in our Ama­zon store.) Despite the name, Apple TV does­n’t come with a TV. But, for $299, you do get a piece of hard­ware that lets you wire­less­ly sync your iTunes col­lec­tion to your widescreen TV. And, with that, you can watch down­loaded movies, TV shows, and video pod­casts in a much more suit­able and plea­sur­able envi­ron­ment. (Even­tu­al­ly, you’ll be able to watch videos via Apple TV in high def.) If giv­en the choice between watch­ing your video down­loads on a small iPod screen or a cushy plas­ma TV in your liv­ing room, the deci­sion becomes a no-brain­er. The new gad­get instant­ly makes Apple a cred­i­ble play­er in the video dis­tri­b­u­tion mar­ket, and it clear­ly fur­thers along the com­pa­ny’s trans­for­ma­tion into a more diver­si­fied con­sumer-elec­tron­ics and media com­pa­ny.

For Open Cul­ture read­ers, Apple TV has some ben­e­fits on the near hori­zon. Over the past sev­er­al months, we’ve noticed more pod­casts com­ing out in a video fla­vor. (See our pod­cast library.) And that trend should only pick up over time. (Indeed, Robert X. Cring­ley, the astute observ­er of tech trends, fore­sees a video glut this year that could over­whelm the cur­rent capac­i­ty of the Net.) Thanks to Apple TV, you might soon be able to use your tele­vi­sion as much as your iPod to con­sume high qual­i­ty cul­tur­al con­tent. And this may become all the more true if the rumors pan out that Apple and Google have been talk­ing about dis­trib­ut­ing Google Video through iTunes. Just think of the pos­si­bil­i­ties that lie ahead.

For more infor­ma­tion on Apple TV, you can vis­it Apple’s site, check out the cov­er­age on Engad­get and CNET, or watch the Wal­ter Moss­berg video below.

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Pluggd’s State of the Union Address

in Technology | January 25th, 2007

Pluggdbloglogo_1
We’re not here to write about the State of the Union speech per se (enough oth­er blog­gers have done that), but rather to men­tion a cool new tech­nol­o­gy that’s been applied to the Bush speech. A com­pa­ny called Plug­gd, using “HearHere tech­nol­o­gy,” now gives you the abil­i­ty to search audio and video files just like you would the web. Con­fused? Let us explain. Take a look at Plug­gd’s State of the Union SMACKDOWN! and you’ll see what looks like a stan­dard, web-based audio/video ver­sion of the speech. So far, no big deal. Now, type the word “edu­ca­tion” in the search box and look at the col­or meter that sits next to the play but­ton. The orange/red col­or indi­cates the most rel­e­vant moments when the pres­i­dent deals with edu­ca­tion. Sim­ply click on “hot zones” and you’ll cut right to the chase.

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Steve Jobs Presents the iPhone and the Podcast World Reacts

in Apple, Technology | January 12th, 2007

Each year, Steve Jobs kicks off Mac­World with a big address, which either con­firms or quash­es all the rumors and spec­u­la­tion about the new wave of Apple prod­ucts. It’s usu­al­ly a big deal, and this year did­n’t dis­ap­point. Jobs deliv­ered with flair the iPhone, which Apple hopes will rev­o­lu­tion­ize the cell phone mar­ket as the iPod did the portable music play­er mar­ket, if not the entire music mar­ket itself. And then there is Apple TV, which will let you wire­less­ly play your iTunes con­tent (movies, TV shows, music, pho­tos and pod­casts) on your widescreen TV.

If you have some down­time, you can check out the video of Jobs’ speech on iTunes or via Quick­Time. For ini­tial thoughts on the iPhone, you may want to read David Pogue’s and Wal­ter Moss­berg’s ear­ly reviews (and also Pogue’s iphone FAQ), and for com­men­tary across the pod­cast world, you can lis­ten in on:

  • GeekBrief.TV’s quick sur­vey of announce­ments iTunes Feed
  • Engad­get’s pod­cast com­men­tary of new prod­ucts iTunes Feed
  • Mac­World’s review of the keynote and new prod­ucts iTunes Mp3 Stream
  • Robert X. Cring­ley’s take on Apple’s trade­mark con­flict with Cis­co iTunes Feed
  • MacBreak Week­ly iTunes Feed
  • Forum on Tech­nol­o­gy & Soci­ety — A pan­el dis­cus­sion on the new gad­gets and how they affect our soci­ety iTunes Feed

Also see Open Cul­ture’s Tech­nol­o­gy Pod­cast Col­lec­tion.

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Podcasts to Hit Inflection Point in ’07

in Podcasts, Technology | January 12th, 2007

Dur­ing a radio inter­view yes­ter­day (iTunes — mp3), Jon Gor­don, the host of Future Tense, asked me

whether uni­ver­si­ties will con­tin­ue pour­ing con­tent into their iTunes troves in 2007. The answer boiled down to this: Pod­cast­ing stands poised to pro­lif­er­ate in ’07, much like the web did back in ’95 and ’96. Just a year ago, the New Oxford Amer­i­can Dic­tio­nary select­ed “pod­cast” as the “Word of the Year.” The buzz is out there. But how many peo­ple have ever lis­tened to a pod­cast first­hand? It turns out not too many. In a recent sur­vey, the Pew Research Cen­ter found that only 12% of web users have ever worked with pod­casts (as com­pared to 7% one year pri­or), and only 1% down­load them dai­ly. These num­bers are part­ly a reflec­tion of sup­ply and demand. Not too long ago, pod­casts were fair­ly lim­it­ed in num­ber. But, dur­ing the past 12 months, many uni­ver­si­ties (see our full col­lec­tion) have carved out some space on iTunes and devel­oped sub­stan­tial col­lec­tions. Some­where in ’07, we should hit an inflec­tion point. Sup­ply will increase demand. Demand will trig­ger more sup­ply. We’ll see expo­nen­tial growth and nev­er look back. The days where you could per­son­al­ly keep tabs on all the great new pod­casts will sim­ply be over, although we’ll sift through them and high­light what’s worth your time.

Resources Men­tioned in Inter­view:

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Making Your Own Podcasts: Resources to Get You Started

in Podcasts, Technology | December 31st, 2006


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With all the recent talk about pod­casts, you may have won­dered how you can cre­ate your own. How can you record and dis­trib­ute via pod­cast what­ev­er valauble things you have to say? We have recent­ly come across some help­ful mate­r­i­al that seemed worth high­light­ing for you.


Pod­cast Acad­e­my
At Boston Uni­ver­si­ty, Pod­cast Acad­e­my recent­ly held a two-day sem­i­nar, led by sea­soned tech­nol­o­gy vet­er­ans, that offered a very com­pre­hen­sive overview of the craft. The top­ics cov­ered here ranged from get­ting start­ed with record­ing, edit­ing and pub­lish­ing pod­casts; to devel­op­ing a per­son­al style; to work­ing with the right equip­ment; to know­ing how to get pod­casts list­ed in search engines and also mon­e­tize them. You can review and stream all of the pre­sen­ta­tions in video from this page. Plus you can also find here copies of the PDFs used in these talks. This is an excel­lent resource for start­ing out.

Apple’s Pod­cast Recipe
Giv­en that Apple helped more than any­one to give life to pod­cast­ing, it only makes sense that they would offer some primers. You can find here a three-part sem­i­nar cre­at­ed by Apple experts, who offer their wis­dom on how to cre­ate a great-sound­ing pod­cast, pro­duce a pro­fes­sion­al show, and then pro­mote it. These pre­sen­ta­tions are also avail­able in video, and they are free. How­ev­er, you do need to reg­is­ter with Apple before you can start watch­ing the pre­sen­ta­tions.

Nuts and Bolts Primers
The mate­ri­als above don’t real­ly walk you through the actu­al tech­ni­cal mechan­ics of cre­at­ing a pod­cast, so we have added here a few primers that will real­ly give you the real nuts and bolts.

If you close­ly review all of these mate­ri­als, you should soon be ready to devel­op your first pod­cast, cre­ate a pro­fes­sion­al sound, and bring it to lis­ten­ers who will ben­e­fit from what you have to say. If you know of any oth­er great resources that should be added to this col­lec­tion, feel free to let us know.

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