iTunes U now lets teachers invite students to lesson plans

Apple’s online educational catalog, iTunes U, updated its app and website on Wednesday by adding enhanced features to make it even more convenient for students and educators, Mashable reports. Now, educators have the ability to distribute courses privately and invite students to take them. Any teacher can signup to offer courses via iTunes U. Launched in 2007, iTunes U allows member educational institutions to manage and share content for students. Shortly after the new iPad was unveiled in March, the iTunes U app was touted as being able to bring online classes to mobile. Through the app, teachers can upload a course syllabus, arrange audio, video and iBooks onto iTunes U. Also introduced on Wednesday are “powerful new note taking features for audio and video let students easily search their notes.”

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Rumor: Apple developing smaller iPad while Amazon works on a bigger kindle

Apple is working on a smaller version of its iPad tablet, cheaper than the current model, the New York Times reports citing several people with knowledge of the project, says Mashable. The new, smaller iPad will have a 7.85-inch screen diagonal and will cost “significantly less” than the “regular” iPad, which starts at $499. Meanwhile, Amazon is working on a bigger version of the 7-inch Kindle Fire in order to compete with the iPad, claims a developer briefed on Amazon’s plans. Steve Jobs has famously claimed that the iPad has just the perfect screen size, and Apple hasn’t even hinted at a smaller version of the tablet yet, so the “iPad mini” stays deep within rumor territory. We’ll find out the truth soon enough, though, as NYT’s sources claim Apple is slated to announce the new, smaller iPad sometime this year…

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Infographic: College students and their smartphones

College students aren’t just concerned with getting good grades and finding the best parties. More than ever, they’re using theirs to navigate life on campus, Mashable reports. On the bus, waiting in line, in bed, on the treadmill and even while driving, college students can’t seem to put their phones down. Fifty-two percent say they often check their phones before getting out of bed in the morning, according to one study. Nearly half do so while in bed at night before they fall asleep. Thirty-five percent say they sometimes use their phones while driving but stopped at a red light, and nearly 20% say they sometimes use them while the wheels are even moving. But it’s not all addiction and danger. Forty-five percent of college students say smartphones frequently help with school assignments, and 46% say they’re often helpful for work-related tasks…

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Acer launches sleek Iconia tablet with HD display

PC manufacturer Acer launched on Wednesday its latest Android tablet to hit the market, boasting an HD display and a series of powerful specs, Mashable reports. The 32GB Iconia Tab A700 tablet — which is currently available for pre-sale in U.S. and Canada for $449.99 — runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, Google’s latest mobile operating system. Available in black and silver, the tablet features a 10.1-inch full HD 1080p backlit display that produces beautiful images and HD video, with 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution that’s 55% higher in pixel density than many other tablets on the market. Powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor, the sleek device caters to fast web-browsing. Other specs include an HDMI port, a micro-USB port for syncing and transferring files and supports up to 64GB MicroSD cards. The Iconia Tab A700, which comes with high-quality Dolby Mobile 3 sound, can also be connected via HDMI to an external sound system…

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Lenovo to spend $800M to develop mobile products

Lenovo, best known for its PCs, plans to get into mobile in a big way with an $800 million base in Wuhan, China, dedicated to developing mobile internet products, Mashable reports. The facility, set to open in October 2013 and house thousands of employees, is charged with developing and delivering “new mobile internet products and bring(ing) them to its customers even faster,” according to a company statement. Such products include smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices. The move comes as Lenovo continues to build market share in PCs, a tough segment. Last year, Lenovo surpassed Dell in sales to become the world’s number two player in the category next to Hewlett-Packard…

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Toshiba debuts monstrous 13-inch tablet

Up till now tablets have generally been in two size classes: smaller models like the Kindle Fire whose screens measure 7 inches or less, and large-size models like the iPad that are in the 10-inch range, Mashable reports. But the category has evolved. Now there’s a new giant-size species. Toshiba just unveiled its new line of Android tablets, called Excite, and one of them’s a doozy. If the iPad is a mid-size sedan in tablet world, the new Toshiba Excite 13 is an SUV: a 13-inch monster that makes other tablets look like pygmies. Why would anyone want a tablet that big? Toshiba has a couple of ideas…

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Mozy releases file-syncing for its cloud service

Online data storage service Mozy has unveiled a new file synchronization feature for consumers and businesses to keep data up to date across all devices, from smartphones and tablets to computers, Mashable reports. Called Stash, the feature allows Mozy users to backup and protect files against catastrophes, as well as give people a way to access their data anytime, anywhere. The beauty of Stash is that there’s not much that needs to be done to make use of it. After installing the platform on a computer, it links a local folder with your Stash online. You can then add files to the local folder and access it via Mozy’s site or mobile app. When it’s linked to a computer, any changes made are synched up to the rest of your devices. Photos and videos can also be uploaded to Stash from your mobile phone or tablet…

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Google joins anti-SOPA protest by “censoring” its logo

Although it didn’t black out any of its sites entirely, Google has joined the anti-SOPA protest by putting up a censored version of its logo, visible only to users from the U.S. Google’s David Drummond has explained the company’s views on SOPA/PIPA in an official blog post, Mashable reports. PIPA and SOPA will censor the web, stifle innovation and hurt web businesses, claims Drummond, and it won’t even help the fight against piracy.

“These bills would grant new powers to law enforcement to filter the Internet and block access to tools to get around those filters (…) These bills would make it easier to sue law-abiding U.S. companies. Law-abiding payment processors and Internet advertising services can be subject to these private rights of action,” writes Drummond…

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USB 3.0 is coming to smartphones and tablets

By the end of 2012 smartphones and tablet devices will sport a USB 3.0-based microUSB connector, which will allow speedier data transfer than the current USB 2.0 standard, Mashable reports. USB 3.0 theoretically allows for data transfer rates of around 625 MB/s, which is 10 times faster than USB 2.0, whose maximum data transfer speed is 60 MB/s. The USB 3.0 transfer speed on mobile devices won’t be that fast, but it will be much faster than now.

“What takes 15 minutes will roughly take 1 minute and 10 seconds,” said Rahman Ismail, CTO of the USB Implementers Forum at the CES trade show in Las Vegas…

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Google VP: Internet access not a human right

Internet access, while an enabler of basic human rights, is not itself a human right, says Google Vice President Vinton Cerf, Mashable reports.

“There is a high bar for something to be considered a human right,” Cerf says in an opinion piece in Thursday’s New York Times. But internet access, apparently, does not meet that threshold. Cerf calls it a “mistake” to include any piece of technology as a human right, because “over time we will come to come to value the wrong things.” He also argues that the exclusive category should be reserved for factors absolutely essential for human lives to flourish and have significance, offering as examples freedom of individual thought and freedom from torture. But, unlike those concepts, what guarantees them has the potential to change over time, Cerf says…

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