Link Smorgasbord, April 29-May 5

SOPA Creator Now In Charge of NSF Grants
Because nothing could go wrong with this idea ever.  Oh wait, what are his proposed guidelines?  Grants must "benefit 'national defense', be of 'utmost importance to society,' and not be 'duplicative of other research.'"  *headdesk*

Who Has Your Back? 2013 (EFF)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's 2013 report on how popular companies act to protect your data and respond to requests.  The EFF regularly does a fantastic job of presenting information and reports in a clear, concise, and generally comprehensible manner, something I always appreciate.  This year's report looks at Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Comcast, Dropbox, Facebook, Foursquare, Google, LinkedIn, Loopt, Microsoft, MySpace, Skype, Sonic.net, SpiderOak, Tumblr, Twitter, Verizon, WordPress, and Yahoo!.

Coursera to Offer K-12 Teacher Development Courses
Could be interesting.  I know that I use MOOCs to supplement my own professional development, however I've also found that the quality of the classes vary greatly.  I have found "introduction" courses that were highly advanced, and other courses that were so basic I was dumbfounded.

"Effective May 8, Hachette Book Group will make all its e-books available to nonprofit public and school libraries in the U.S. Under the new policy, new e-books will be released simultaneously with the print edition and sold for "an unlimited number of single-user-at-a-time circulations at an initial price three times the primary physical book price," the company said. "One year after publication, the purchase price will drop to one and a half times the primary book price. The primary book price will be defined as the highest-price edition then in print.""
It's a start, and the prices match up with the trends from the larger publishers.  Happily, there that there is no limit on the number of times the title can circulate.

International Day Against DRM
So I missed May 3rd on this one, but Defective by Design is still a great site about what is going on in the world of Digital Rights Management.

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