Author Neal Stephenson has been credited for inspiring today’s virtual world startups with his novel  Snow Crash. Now he’s launching a startup himself: Subutai, where he is co-founder and chairman.

The company, based in Seattle and San Francisco, has developed what it calls the PULP platform for creating digital novels. The core of the experience is still a text novel, but authors can add additional material like background articles, images, music, and video. There are also social features that allow readers to create their own profiles, earn badges for activity on the site or in the application, and interact with other readers.

Art: Splashlight. Source: Klaus Lackner, Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy, Columbia University

Scrubbing the Skies

Pulling CO2 back out of the air might be easier
than building jets and cars that don’t emit it.

Every time you drive to work, or worse yet, fly on a plane, the vehicle emits carbon dioxide that will stay in the atmosphere, warming the planet for thousands of years. Does it have to? Trees can take CO2 back out again—but even covering the planet with forests wouldn’t solve our problem, and there would be an awful lot of wood to preserve. (If allowed to rot or burn, trees release their carbon again.) Physicist Klaus Lackner thinks he has a better idea: Suck CO2 out of the air with “artificial trees” that operate a thousand times faster than real ones.

They don’t exist yet, and when they do, they probably won’t look like real trees. But in Lackner’s lab at Columbia University he and colleague Allen Wright are experimenting with bits of whitish-beige plastic that you might call artificial leaves. The plastic is a resin of the kind used to pull calcium out of water in a water softener. When Lackner and Wright impregnate that resin with sodium carbonate, it pulls carbon dioxide out of the air. The extra carbon converts the sodium carbonate to bicarbonate, or baking soda.

Mike Rowe celebrates dirty jobs

Great example of story telling and presentation skills.

Google Wave, a product once heralded by many as a massively disruptive communication tool (heck, invites were even selling for $70 on eBay), is no more.

In a blog post this afternoon, Google () says they “don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product,” though the code for it will remain available as open source.

Career colleges do not receive a "disproportionate" share of student aid. Eligible students receive aid and determine where to spend it. Many choose focused, flexible and student-centric career focused institutions. Aid percentage distributions reflect that career colleges educate a larger percentage of federal aid eligible students.

Taxpayer subsidies for traditional colleges and universities constitute far higher levels of support than for private sector schools. The difference is more than 13-to-1 for public colleges and universities, and 7-to-1 for private non-profit colleges and universities.

Higher education is regulated so that student outcomes trump the bottom line. Some areas require tightening, such as ending high school diploma mills. Transparency for prospective students about educational outcomes and the consequences of borrowing must be paramount. Misleading promises or recruiting practices are unacceptable.

Percentages spent by traditional and career institutions for education are not much different. Career colleges spend substantially on student support, counseling and placement, unlike their traditional counterparts. Marketing costs per enrollment among all types of schools are equivalent.

Lower-income students default on their loans at higher rates than traditional students, according to the Government Accountability Office, regardless of the type of institution they attend. Default rates at minority-serving institutions, community colleges and career schools are similar.

Private sector colleges and universities know it is all about the students. The additional opportunities they are providing millions should be praised, not pilloried.

The nonprofit Curriki fits into an ever-expanding list of organizations that seek to bring the blunt force of Internet economics to bear on the education market. Even the traditional textbook publishers agree that the days of tweaking a few pages in a book just to sell a new edition are coming to an end.

Obviously, this toaster is a concept (and an impractical one at that), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome. Basically, the Toaste/E/R from designer Shay Carmon combines bread toasting with a defibrillator to “revive your old bread.”

That might work for dry old bread, but what about mold? It’s like the plague. I guess someone is going to have to come up with a complete first aid kit for bread.

High school students place a high priority on colleges that mix technology into their instruction, according to a report released today. And college campuses are trying to meet that demand by adding digital content, virtual learning and online collaboration software to their toolboxes.

An online survey of 1,019 college students, faculty and IT staff*, called the CDW-G 2010 21st-Century Campus Report, shows that colleges are creating interactive learning experiences with these tools. The report also compares this survey's findings with those of the 21st-Century Classroom Report released last month.
 

Student college selection criteria

• 63 percent of current college students say technology on campus was important in their college search.
   
• 93 percent of today's high school students say campus technology is important in their college criteria.
   
• 95 percent of today's high school students expect to use technology in their college classes.

David Willetts said a private sector in higher education would create a 'dynamic and flexible degree system'. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Britain is to have its first new private university for more than 30 years, it was announced today.

BPP, which offers business and law degrees at 14 sites across the country, will become a university college with immediate effect.

The title is awarded to smaller higher education institutions that deliver a limited range of degrees and qualifications.

The move – approved by the universities minister, David Willetts – signals the government's desire to expand the number of profit-making private sector institutions in higher education.

A new player entered the field of open online education last week: Nixty, a Web site that allows any user to take and create courses for free.

The new learning platform started up with over 200 course offerings culled from open-source content already available online, such as courses from the Khan Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's OpenCourseWare Project. Nixty's users have begun developing about 120 new courses since its launch, said Glen Moriarty, the company's chief executive.