Welcome to episode 213 (“Order Chromebooks NOW”) of the EdTech Situation Room from March 31, 2021, where technology news meets educational analysis. This week Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) and Wesley Fryer (@wfryer) discussed remote work post-pandemic, continuing electronic component shortages, proliferating firmware attacks, and President Biden’s new nationwide infrastructure package. AT&T’s lobbying efforts to perpetuate the digital divide (prevent a nationwide fiber rollout and keep “high speed Internet” definitions low at 10 Mbps), pundit dreams of a widened scope for Facebook’s Oversight Board, and Facebook’s proposed regulatory changes of Section 230 were also highlighted. The surprisingly small number of people responsible for most of the global anti-vaccination disinformation, the promise of USI styluses for Chromebooks, improvements to Google Drive search, and the challenges of long-term Android updates on smartphones were discussed as well. Google’s plans to refrain from April Fools Day video pranking for a second consecutive year, controversy over Amazon’s new biometric mandates for delivery drivers, and Parler’s recent user lessons on legal free speech, and a delightful Twitter bracket for “the greatest product of all time” (won by Google search) were topics rounding on the show. Geeks of the week included an article about The Louvre’s digitization of 482,000 Artworks, and the disturbing (but important) article by Lyz Lenz, “When The Mob Comes.” Our show was live streamed and archived simultaneously on YouTube Live as well as our Facebook Live page via StreamYard.com, and compressed to a smaller video version (about 100MB) on AmazonS3 using Handbrake software. Please follow us on Twitter @edtechSR for updates, and join us LIVE on Wednesday nights (normally) if you can at 10 pm Eastern / 9 pm Central / 8 pm Mountain / 7 pm Pacific or 3 am UTC. All shownotes are available on http://edtechSR.com/links.
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- Jason Neiffer (@techsavvyteach) – blog: blog.ncce.org
- Wes Fryer (@wfryer) – wesfryer.com/after
- Remote Work Is Here to Stay. Manhattan May Never Be the Same (NY Times, 29 March 2021)
- Apple supplier Foxconn warns that component shortages will last until 2022 (The Verge; 30 March 2021)
- Firmware attacks are on the rise and you aren’t worrying about them enough (ZD Net; 31 March 2021)
- Biden plans to connect every American to broadband in new infrastructure package (The Verge; 31 March 2021)
- AT&T lobbies against nationwide fiber, says 10Mbps uploads are good enough (arsTechnica; 29 March 2021)
- If Mark Zuckerberg won’t fix Facebook’s algorithms problem, who will? (Recode / Vox, 26 March 2021)
- Mark Zuckerberg proposes limited 230 reforms ahead of congressional hearing (The Verge, 24 March 2021)
- 12 people are behind most of the anti-vaxxer disinformation you see on social media (Mashable, 24 March 2021)
- The Current State Of USI Pens On Chromebooks (Chrome Unboxed; 30 March 2021)
- Google Drive Adds New Search Operators To Make Finding Specific Files Much Easier (Chrome Unboxed; 26 March 2021)
- Fairphone suggests Qualcomm is the biggest barrier to long-term Android support (arsTechnica; 25 March 2021)
- Google cancels April Fools (The Verge, 31 March 2021)
- Amazon driver quits, saying the final straw was the company’s new AI-powered truck cameras that can sense when workers yawn or don’t use a seatbelt (Business Insider; 19 March 2021)
- Amazon is asking drivers to sign a ‘biometric consent’ form — or lose their jobs (The Next Web, 24 March 2021)
- Parler explains ‘free speech’ to angry users after sharing Capitol riot posts with the FBI (Mashable, 28 March 2021)
- ‘Greatest product of all time’ bracket: Google Search beats Windows in finals [Updated] (9 to 5 Google)
- “When The Mob Comes” by Lyz Lenz (@lyzl)
