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≡ Category: Apple, Most Popular, Technology | ≅ 41 Comments
New technologies often have unintended uses. Take the Ipod as a case in point. It was developed with the intention of playing music (and later videos), but its applications now go well beyond that. Here are 10 rather unforeseen, even surprising, uses:
1. Train Doctors to Save Lives: A new study presented at the annual [...]
≡ Category: Books, Google, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ 1 Comment
More good news for book fans: Google has launched a new collection of videos called Authors@Google. The videos feature talks by authors, writing across many genres (literary fiction to science fiction, sociology to technology, politics to business) who have made recent visits to Google campuses.You can access the talks via a new homepage, or just [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
Here’s a quick recap of features from this past week:
David Halberstam’s Last Speech and Supper
Richard Dawkins on Bill O’Reilly: How It Went Down
Rare Ezra Pound Recordings Now Online
A Better Way to Read News and Blogs
The Pirates of Silicon Valley Courtesy (?) of Google Video
Stanford Rolls Out Another Podcast Course and a New iTunes Look
See Open [...]
≡ Category: Media, Politics, Video - Politics/Society | ≅ 1 Comment
As many know by now, David Halberstam, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, was killed in a car accidenton Monday just a few short miles from the Stanford campus. As the obits were all quick to point out, Halberstam made his name during an era that paralleled our own, during the Vietnam War. And he did it [...]
≡ Category: Religion | ≅ Leave a Comment
Whenever you put atheism’s most prominent spokesperson on Fox News, you’d expect the fur to fly. But that’s not how it turned out. The fur ended up staying on the cats when Bill O’Reilly interviewed Richard Dawkins, author of the bestselling The God Delusion, this week, as you can see below.
Tell a Friend About Open [...]
≡ Category: Literature | ≅ Leave a Comment
Here’s a quick fyi for poetry fans: PennSound has released on its site
rare audio recordings by modernist
poet, Ezra Pound (October 30, 1885 – November 1, 1972) and, along with them, a helpful essay called The Sound of Pound: A Listener’s Guide by Richard Sieburth. The audio clips largely come out of two major [...]
≡ Category: Technology | ≅ 2 Comments
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 [...]
≡ Category: Google, Media, Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Leave a Comment
One of the most bookmarked items this weekend on del.icio.us was a streamed version of The Pirates of Silicon Valley. It’s a well-regarded television movie, based on the book Fire in the Valley, which looks at the early days of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, the respective founders of Microsoft and Apple Computer. The video [...]
≡ Category: Stanford | ≅ Leave a Comment
Stanford re-launched its iTunes site last week, rolling out a new sleek look and a host of new podcasts.
Among the new releases, you’ll find the latest in a series of full-fledged courses ready to be downloaded to your iPod for free. (See the previous courses we’ve mentioned here, here and here.) This time [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
Here’s a quick recap of pieces from this week and last:
How to Learn 21 Languages with Your iPod
Where the American Press Went Wrong on the Iraq War: Bill Moyers Returns to TV Next Week
How Web 2.0 Will Transform the Humanities
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Play Ready to Download and Sync
2007 Pulitzer Prizes Announced
Podcasts [...]
≡ Category: Most Popular | ≅ 8 Comments
As we’ll mention in an upcoming piece, European languages dominate the list of most popular educational podcasts. So we thought that we’d highlight the key podcasts that will teach you the major European languages — Spanish, French, Italian and German. Meanwhile, if you want to learn English through podcasts, please see our piece below. Bonne [...]
≡ Category: Video - Politics/Society | ≅ Leave a Comment
Next Wednesday, at 9 pm, respected journalist Bill Moyers will return to PBS and air a 90-minute presentation called Buying the War. Along the way, he’ll look at how the mainstream American press wound up cheerleading for the Bush administration’s drive toward war in Iraq rather than doing their real job — asking tough questions [...]
≡ Category: Technology | ≅ Leave a Comment
Contrary 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 [...]
≡ Category: Theater | ≅ Leave a Comment
When you think Broadway, you don’t necessarily think first about plays that make science its point of focus. Or at least
you didn’t before Copenhagen hit the stage in 1998 and dramatically told the story of Niels Bohr’s shadowy meeting with Werner Heisenberg back in 1941. Since then, science plays have been going strong. Just [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
Here’s the list in Letters, Drama and Music (see full list here):
FICTION –The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Alfred A. Knopf)
DRAMA — Rabbit Hole by David Lindsay-Abaire
HISTORY — The Race Beat by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (Alfred A. Knopf)
BIOGRAPHY — The Most Famous Man in America by Debby Applegate (Doubleday)
POETRY — Native Guard by Natasha [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
Somewhat unexpectedly, the proliferation of audio podcasts has been a boon for book lovers and writers. Looking around the digital landscape, you’ll discover a number of podcasts that enhance the experience of reading good old fashioned books. Let’s quickly have a look at the lay of the land.
The New York Times now notably puts [...]
≡ Category: Apple | ≅ Leave a Comment
Here’s a quick heads up: TUAW.com (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) posted a nice feature that offers a new slant on what we often do here at Open Culture. They scanned the different international iTunes stores and identified free music, video, and audio books available to users in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Britain and New [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
A faithful reader sent in lyrics that seemed quite apropos to Ed’s piece yesterday on free music in the subway. Let’s post them. (Thanks John.)
Real Good for Free©1974 by Joni Mitchell
I slept last night in the Fairmont HotelI went shopping today for jewelsWind rushed around in the dirty townAnd the children let out from the [...]
≡ Category: Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Leave a Comment
Recently a Washington Post staff writer, Gene Weingarten, decided to conduct an usual experiment about high culture. He talked one of the world’s finest violinists, Joshua Bell, into taking his multimillion dollar fiddle to the Washington D.C. metro and playing incognito for commuters during the morning rush hour. The result? Hardly anyone slowed down, let [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
Each October, Pop!Tech brings together 550+ leaders in science, technology, business, social
entrepreneurship, the arts, culture and media to "explore the social impact of innovative technologies, breakthrough scientific discoveries and original approaches to tackling humanity’s toughest challenges." And quite nicely some of the major talks are captured and made available to you via video podcasts [...]
≡ Category: Science | ≅ 1 Comment
The narrative of Albert Einstein’s life provides hope to every underachiever out there. Einstein was slow to start speaking. His teachers predicted early on that he’d never amount to much. When he completed his graduate work, he was the only student in his cohort who couldn’t land a university position. And so he wound up [...]
≡ Category: Music | ≅ 4 Comments
We’ve previously put you in touch with great classical music podcasts (here and here). Now it’s time to
focus on jazz. Today, we’re highlighting 16 podcasts that will keep you current on today’s jazz scene. You’ll know what’s happening in Chicago, Detroit, New York and beyond. You’ll also find some podcasts that explore some jazz [...]
≡ Category: Foreign Language | ≅ 1 Comment
We have recently updated our collection of Foreign Language Lesson Podcasts, and it seemed like a good time to highlight some of the latest additions (see below). Overall, the collection now covers 21 different languages and includes 52 individual podcasts. This means that you can learn most any major language you want with the help [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
The Smithsonian
has come out with a nice photo essay looking back on the legendary escape artist Harry Houdini. It begins:
Harry Houdini freed himself from chains after jumping off a pier into Boston’s Charles River, wiggled out of a strait jacket while hanging upside down in Times Square and appeared alive and well after [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
It’s been more than a month since we last updated our iTunes list of top educational podcasts. A quick glance reveals that language-focused podcasts continue to dominate. Almost all of the top podcasts are dedicated to helping folks learn Spanish, French, German and Italian, and also some Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. Meanwhile, Grammar Girl’s [...]
≡ Category: Apple | ≅ 4 Comments
Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Computer, delivered this speech at Stanford’s commencement ceremony in June 2005. I’ve watched it a couple times now, with about 6 months in between viewings, and each time it has struck me as worth watching every now and again to keep focused on what matters. I somehow doubt that [...]
≡ Category: Video - Arts & Culture | ≅ Leave a Comment
We’re not exactly breaking news here today in mentioning that author Kurt Vonnegut has passed away. (Get the NY Times obit here.) In memory of the writer, we thought that we’d present a fittingly unconventional interview that was conducted last year in Second Life. (And, by the way, the irony of talking today about a [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ Leave a Comment
The iPod is not just for grooving to music anymore. Museums are using podcasts to help visitors better explore their
art collections (See our related article). Universities are doing the same for their campuses (see UC Berkeley’s tour on iTunes). Doctors are now using iPods to improve their stethoscope skills. And, travelers can now use [...]
≡ Category: Uncategorized | ≅ 1 Comment
We live in a moment when everything — including sometimes thinking itself — gets done fast and on the cheap. The Long Now
Foundation hopes to change all of that, to encourage "slower/better" thinking that fosters more responsibility. To fulfill this mission, the foundation runs a monthly speaking series hosted by Stewart Brand, creator of [...]
≡ Category: Online Courses | ≅ Leave a Comment
Online learning — or e-learning — has gone from being fairly uncommon to fairly widespread over the past five years. But, a quick look at the list of universities offering online courses reveals that it’s mostly second and third tier schools that have entered the online market, and generally not leading colleges and universities. At [...]
