http://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Sweetcron therourke@gmail.com http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8367957.stm Not long ago Second Life was everywhere, with businesses opening branches and bands playing gigs in this virtual world. Today you'd be forgiven for asking if it's still going. Once upon a time Second Life had a Twitter level of hype. Even those without a cartoon version of themselves couldn't plead ignorance due to blanket coverage in newspapers and magazines. Second Life is a virtual world started by the US firm Linden Lab in 2003, in which users design an avatar to live their "second life" online. And everything about this world can be customised for a price - new… ]]> Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:20:00 -0700 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8367957.stm http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604-1,00.html Earlier this year I attended a daylong conference in Manhattan devoted to education reform. Called Hacking Education, it was a small, private affair: 40-odd educators, entrepreneurs, scholars, philanthropists and venture capitalists, all engaged in a sprawling six-hour conversation about the future of schools. Twenty years ago, the ideas exchanged in that conversation would have been confined to the minds of the participants. Ten years ago, a transcript might have been published weeks or months later on the Web. Five years ago, a handful of participants might have blogged about their experiences after the fact. (See the top 10 celebrity Twitter… ]]> Sat, 08 Aug 2009 16:41:00 -0700 http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604-1,00.html