Communications Technology

Teachers looking for school excursion ideas are being offered an ”unforgettable learning experience” - a trip to the Apple store.

The technology company’s field trip program invites groups of 25 students, from kindergarten to year 12, to spend 90 minutes learning to work on projects using Apple products.

”Your class will experience the Mac, iPad and other Apple products as learning tools - and have fun to boot,” says the Apple website.

But not everyone is excited. Nick Broughall, editor of the technology and gadgets site Gizmodo, has concerns about excursions to retailers.

”There are plenty of really good educational programs and tools Apple has created that are perfect for school-age children … but trying to encourage it as a part of a school’s actual curriculum? No way. That’s stepping beyond the realm of education and dipping the toe in the murky waters of indoctrination,” he said.

Sharryn Brownlee, of the Federation of Parents and Citizens Association of NSW, said she supported links between businesses and schools as long as they were relevant to what students were studying. Excursions such as the Apple program could be ”useful for specific secondary student subject areas for retail or IT”.

An Apple spokeswoman said it was up to teachers to design a program for the excursion: ”A lot of these schools don’t have the technology - we’re providing a facility.”

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People surfing European websites will be able to turn off the cookies used to spy on their internet habits under rules hammered out by the region’s online advertisers, an industry body said yesterday.

The European web advertising industry’s self-regulation pledge comes a month before a European Union directive takes effect, requiring websites to obtain a user’s consent before installing a tracking cookie.

“It will change significantly how the internet will look and how people interact with ads,” said Kimon Zorbas, vice president of Brussels-based Internet Advertising Bureau Europe, the industry group that developed the new rules.

Web companies monitor people’s online activities through tracking software called cookies, so they can send targeted advertising based on their potential interests or previous site visits - a process called behavioral advertising.

Under the agreement, web ads will carry a clickable icon labeled “AdChoices” that will let users change their privacy settings so they are no longer profiled for advertising purposes.

Companies including Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and AOL are among those which have have agreed to use the icons on their online display ads in Europe.

Policymakers in the EU and elsewhere have been concerned users have little control over the use of cookies to track their activity — and are often unaware it is taking place.

Those involved in developing the code of conduct say it is not a response to the EU directive, but was inspired by a similar self-regulatory movement in the United States.

Zorbas said the industry body had made adjustments to the code based on feedback from the European Commission.

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Google might still be the leading search engine in the US by a large margin, but over the last six months, searches powered by Microsoft Bing are increasing at an impressive rate. So impressive, in fact, that if the trend line continues, there will be a real contest between Bing and Google next year — and Bing may just come out on top.

According to the latest data from Experian Hitwise, Google was responsible for 64.42% of searches in the U.S. in March, 2011. Bing-powered search — which includes both search.yahoo.com and bing.com — accounted for 30% of U.S. searches.

The fact that Bing has crossed the 30% mark in the U.S. is significant in and of itself. Looking back through Experian Hitwise’s archives underscores the tremendous amount of growth for Bing-powered search. The rate of growth appears to be increasing.

Last October, Experian Hitwise reported that Google controlled 72.15% of the US search market for September, 2010. Bing powered search accounted for 23.64%. In the last six months, Bing’s market share in the US is up to 30%. Moreover, Bing.com, which represented just 10% of searches in September 2010, represented 14.32% of searches in March, 2011.

Google still clearly leads Bing more than 2 to 1. But when you consider that that ratio was 3 to 1 last fall, the gap appears to be closing. Bing is growing by five or six percent each month, whereas Google is losing two to three percent.

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