It’s too bad that Huntington University has to make budget cuts. Great university with great faculty and staff.

All of the footage in this story was from the Friends, Tweets, & Change J-Term class from 2010. They came and covered the students incredible efforts to raise over $5000 through social media for earthquake victims in Haiti. Must have been the only b-roll at the news station.

Great story of not only how Twitter helped connect family members but about an organization using social media for social change.

We’re not necessarily putting our investment in the ties that bind; we’re putting our investment in the ties that preoccupy.

via “Alone Together”: An MIT Professor’s New Book Urges Us to Unplug | Fast Company.

Seems like a fascinating book.

Online privacy is at worst an illusion, and at best harder to come by than ever–and its making headlines every day.

via Online Privacy: Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself | Fast Company.

Augmented Reality, Occupy Wall Street, And Fostering Democracy In A Digital World | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation.

The Fine Art of a Proper Powerpoint – Megan McArdle – Business – The Atlantic.

Nowadays, when Edward McLaughlin is paying for aspirin at the Walgreens drug stores in New York, he just has to tap his Nexus S mobile phone on a terminal device. He not only avoids having to fumble through his wallet and hold up the line, but the tapping also automatically adds loyalty points to his Walgreens’ loyalty card, also stored in his phone, and can help him redeem any coupon he might have downloaded from the Internet.

Soon, he will be able to do the same for his favorite sandwich at Subway.

Mr. McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer at Mastercard, has been one of the first to try out the Google Wallet mobile pay system introduced by the Internet giant in May in partnership with Citigroup and Mastercard Worldwide.

via Mobile Wallet Gaining Currency – NYTimes.com.

We had a lot of fun in class this past week talking about all things mobile. There is probably several weeks, if not an entire semester, that could be spent working on these topics. So, the conversations were an introduction to the main tools and concepts/examples of how they’re being put into practice.

The students finished the class with some quick brainstorming on an app and a location based game using Foursquare around campus. There were quite a few good ideas revolving around incentives for checking in and apps to help students access important class/system data.

Several of my students are supporters of this organization working to stop child soldiering in Uganda and surrounding countries. Check it out and get involved if you’re looking for a cause that’s worth getting involved in.