A new service from Google promises to help students find the right college or online course, along with a vast array of other information. The service, called Google Base, is something like a giant classifieds section where anyone on the Web can list information and notices free. In an announcement about Google Base on the company’s blog, CollegeBoard.com is listed as one of the first users of the service. The service has a section for "course descriptions" and another on "education."

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are set to unveil a laptop computer—meant for children worldwide—that will cost around $100, run on batteries that can be recharged by turning a crank, and connect to the Internet wirelessly by piggybacking on the connection of a nearby user. (The Chronicle, free link)

The popular peer-to-peer network that turned Internet2’s high-speed research infrastructure into a digital swap meet closed down on Monday after months of legal attacks from record companies and movie studios. (The Chronicle, free link)

Blogs penned by college freshmen have become popular with high-school students because, presumably, students deciding on a destination think it is valuable to read collegegoers in their own words. So why not go a step further, ask officials at Mansfield University of Pennsylvania, and let potential applicants hear students in their own voices? Mansfield is wooing high-schoolers with a new series of podcasts that feature interviews with students at the university. The podcasts—which are being advertised on local radio stations—offer weekly updates on how four freshmen are adjusting to college life. (Star-Gazette)

After getting hit with bad publicity for adding a type of copy-protection "spyware" to some of its music CD’s, Sony is now offering free software that will uninstall the unwanted program. But Ed Felten, a computer-science professor at Princeton University, has found that the uninstall software opens people’s computers to even greater security risks. In the mean time, Sony has recalled the tainted CD’s, which include releases by Van Zant, the Bad Plus, Neil Diamond, and Celine Dion. (Business Week)

Instead of sitting around and playing video games, students at the University of Oregon are trying to design one. The university’s Game Development Group, founded a few years ago by a doctoral student, brings together students versed in disciplines like computer science, graphic design, and music composition, and encourages them to work together on software development. (Oregon Daily Emerald)

College students want faculty members to use information technology, but only to a point: They also hunger for the human touch in their courses, according to a new survey. (The Chronicle, subscription required)

The Public Interest Research Group is asking students to post information about their expected educational debts in an online yearbook that it launched on Monday. The Web site is part of a campaign to call attention to the rising cost of higher education. (The Chronicle, subscription required)

With just over a year left in Kofi Annan’s term as secretary general of the United Nations, scholars at Yale University and the City College of New York are preparing to make the diplomat’s papers publicly available. The project will be headed by professors who helped organize the records of two previous secretaries general—Javier Perez de Cuellar, of Peru, and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, of Egypt.

When Mr. Annan’s papers do appear, they won’t just be sold as hard-bound books: The university team is planning to create a searchable CD-ROM and a Web database devoted to the diplomat’s documents.

Cases of academic misconduct are rising at the University of Alabama’s main campus, and students in computer-science courses appear to be doing most of the cheating. For campus officials, it is a chicken-or-egg question: Are computing courses attracting cheaters, or is unethical behavior in those classes just easier to spot? Computer-science students often turn in homework in the form of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, professors say, and it is not difficult to tell when data sets like those have been plagiarized. (The Crimson White)