Incredibly enough, podcasting is already becoming passe at Princeton University. In an attempt to catch the attention of Web surfers sporting Apple’s new video-playing iPod, the university has started posting recordings of academic events as "vodcasts"—short for video podcasts—that can be automatically downloaded to the MP3-player. (The Daily Princetonian)

In a finding that could lead to more-powerful optical computer networks, researchers at Stanford University have shown that germanium, an element commonly used in semiconductors, might replace the more exotic materials now used for a key component in those networks. (The Chronicle, subscription required)

Blue Gene/L, the massive supercomputer running at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has once again broken its own speed record. In a test run yesterday, the machine managed to conduct just over 280 trillion calculations per second—or 280 teraflops, in supercomputing terminology. That’s more than double the previous high-water mark, which Blue Gene/L set in March when only half the machine had been installed. (CNET News)

A husband-and-wife team accused of running one of the nation’s largest online diploma mills has been granted bail, but the couple won’t be spending much time on the Internet while they await trial.

Dixie E. and Steven K. Randock Sr. were indicted this month on charges of fraud and money laundering after federal investigators tagged them as the masterminds behind Saint Regis, Robertstown, and James Monroe Universities—a trio of ersatz institutions that sold degrees to overseas students. As part of the terms of their release, the couple had to agree to limit their Internet use to work related to Ms. Randock’s real-estate business. (Associated Press)

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are unveiling an array of high-tech language-translation tools today, and some of the devices look like they’ve been lifted from the pages of a Philip K. Dick novel. There is a prototype for a pair of glasses that can turn speech streams into subtitles and then display them on a tiny LCD screen. And a device called the Muscle Translator uses an array of electrodes to interpret the facial movements of someone mouthing words and translate those motions into actual speech. (CNET News)

Thanks to ultraviolent titles like Quake and Grand Theft Auto, the video-gaming industry isn’t exactly known for its high-minded political insight. But Ivan Marovic, one of the founders of the influential Serbian student resistance group Otpor, is hoping to change that perception. Mr. Marovic is working to design a game—called A Force More Powerful—that teaches the tactics of nonviolent conflict, not the art of the shoot’em-up. (Wired News)

With a $5-million commitment, Microsoft’s MSN Search division is joining universities and its online-search rival Yahoo in a consortium dedicated to scanning millions of books in the public domain. The company’s pledge will pay for the scanning of 150,000 volumes. (The Chronicle, free link)

Two companies are offering a line of iPod-ready crib notes to such literary classics as The Great Gatsby and The Scarlet Letter. The study guides include both text and audio clips. (The Chronicle, free link)

The record industry continues to make campus file swappers the focus of its monthly antipiracy lawsuits. This month’s batch, filed against 745 people, included computer users at 17 colleges. As in recent months, many of the campus defendants are users of i2hub, a peer-to-peer network that lets users swap files on Abilene, the Internet2 high-speed research network.

At the League for Innovation in the Community College conference, many of the sessions deal with how to capture the attention of today’s students. College students these days want games, video, audio, and other bells and whistles, presenters say: Otherwise, they’ll spend their class time staring at the screens of their video iPods.

What are missing from most of these presentations are the opinions of actual students.

Bethany Perrin and Cathy Russell are students in the master’s program in educational technology at Texas A&M University at College Station. They also work as instructional designers for Blinn College on its campus in nearby Bryan, Tex., which is how they ended up at the conference.

They attend sessions and take notes, like everyone else, although Ms. Russell writes with bright green ink and Ms. Perrin scribbles on purple notebook paper.

But when attendees bragged ...