Links: Second Lower Merion student sues over webcam, Peco to display digital artists and more

DEFINITE READS

• The Philadelphia Daily News reports that a second Lower Merion student has sued the school district over the webcam controversy.
• KYW reports on a Northern Liberties cell phone-photography art collection.
• ABC News reports on a trend of more websites selling class notes to students, including former DreamIT Ventures participant Notehall.com.

MIGHT BE OF INTEREST

• Washington Post tech columnist Cecilia Kang has a Q&A with University of Pennsylvania Professor Joseph Turow about online privacy.
• Society Hill’s own Science Cheerleader Darlene Cavalier guest blogs for Discover magazine on the origination of the BP oil leak cap.

GIVE A GLANCE

• The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that University City nonprofit biomedical research center Wistar Institute is planning a major new expansion.
• The Business Journal also reports that Peco and the University City Science Center are partnering to showcase digital artists on Peco’s Center City headquarters the first Friday of every month.
• The Business Journal also reports that CoverSports USA, the Kingsessing-based manufacturer of protective covers, has expanded — but is staying in Philadelphia with its 67 employees.

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn t miss anything with Friday Tech Links.

21st century Abraham Lincoln iPhone app and Web site

Updated 5/7/09 10:43 a.m.

The allure of Abraham Lincoln, graffitied brightly with wispy hair on a wall in Houston is startling.

The 16th president was born more than 200 years ago, but he continues to take new 21st century forms.

The Rosenbach Museum and Library has launched an Abraham Lincoln iPhone and iPod Touch application as part of its 21st-century Abe project, according to a press release from the half-century year-old historical organization in Rittenhouse.

The app is said to be the first by a Philadelphia cultural group.

The Bobble Abe app, which is available for free in the iTunes store, personifies old Abe as a bobble head that can be shook by users, along with humorous Lincoln aphorisms as recorded by Northern Liberties comedy theater company 1812 Productions, with actor Nathan Holt as the voice of Abe.

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Shop Talk: Philadelphia Weekly redesign with Keith McGinnis of Review Publishing

Update amended: 8:50 p.m. 4/19/09

From time to time in the recent past, one of the most trafficked Web sites in Philadelphia has gotten a major redesign.

Unfortunately, there was never one source that covered the whys and the hows. Now there is: Technically Philly.

So, here’s the first in an irregular series of our Shop Talk department, called The Redesign.

Both of Philadelphia’s big alternative-weeklies have changed their online looks in recent months. It just so happens that the one that came out last may have started first.

At the end December, CityPaper, founded in 1981 by Bruce Schimmel, went from this to this. And then, early last month, Philadelphia Weekly made its own jump from a cluttered display.

“We knew we needed to step up our platform online, not just re-skin the site,” says Keith McGinnis, the IT Web head over at Review Publishing, PW’s Samson Street-based parent company. “Now we have a platform that can help us rise to the occasion.”

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