Skype Adds Peer-to-Peer Prowess to Microsoft’s Code Base While Lync has peer-to-peer elements already, Microsoft’s strength—and occasionally Achilles heel—has been server-based software. While the Skype network has its occasional glitches, it’s about as close as it gets these days to an industrial-scale peer-to-peer platform. Its peer-to-peer nature means lower latency, and is the main reason…

First, if this injunction were adopted as proposed, it would enjoin everyone at Georgia State, including students, who would seem to largely lose their fair use rights by virtue of enrolling at GSU. It would apply to e-reserves, faculty web pages and any learning management systems in use or adopted in the future. It would…

Joshua Yaffa profiles Edward Tufte for The Washington Monthly. After the publication of Envisioning Information, Tufte decided, he told me, “to be indifferent to culture or history or time.” He became increasingly consumed with what he calls “forever knowledge,” or the idea that design is meant to guide fundamental cognitive tasks and therefore is rooted…

Academic libraries have been beset by changes that have led some observers to wonder whether they have a future at all. Their budgets have been hit hard even as the cost of buying and storing information—whether print monographs or journal databases—continues to climb. Search engines have replaced librarians as the go-to source of information for…

The way to get things done,” says Schwab, “is to stimulate competition. I do not mean in a sordid, money-getting way, but in the desire to excel. When nothing else works, try this

Still, after a few years, Capecchi had decided that Harvard was not for him. Despite great resources, inspiring colleagues and a supportive mentor in Watson, he found the Harvard environment demanded results in too much of a hurry. That was fine, if you wanted to take predictable steps along well-signposted pathways. But Capecchi felt that…