Tim Manley, a 27 year old high school teacher in New York City, has created a Tumblr site called “Fairy Tales for 20-Somethings” where he reimagines the stories of these aged characters in the voice of a 20-something. Some of the stories he’s satirised are Snow White, who dreams of Ryan Gosling; Rumpelstiltskin, who starts wanting kids of his own and Thumbelina, who gets her own reality show.

Manley says that as a child, fairy tales helped him make sense of the world so it seemed logical to him to use them to make sense of life in the 20s. As an added bonus, they’re pretty fun to write as well.

Fairy Tales for 20-Somethings Tumblr.

The study consisted of interviewing 1,575 students, teachers and parents in the United States, China and Germany. All those involved were questioned about their options and the role of technology in education and learning.

Some of the key findings from the study were:

• More than 8 in 10 agree that technology makes learning easier.
• 71% say students have access to more advanced technology at home than they do at school.
• 53% say that we use too much technology in our daily lives, but 82% agree that there should be more technology in the classroom.
• 83% of respondents globally believe technology gives students a more personalised learning experience.
• 71% of respondents believe that learning outside of the classroom and beyond the school year is important.
• 1 in 4 students say they access social media in the classroom on at least a daily basis.
• About 6 of 10 U.S. respondents say they disapprove of students using social media in the classroom to share what they are leaning, while most Chinese respondents say they approve of social media for this purpose.

You can find the full study available as a PDF located at Dell’s site here.

The full trailer is set to be released on Tuesday but already there is debate surrounding the teaser as fans are either excited for the third movie in the franchise or expressing cynicism over how much longer it continue.

Color and Airtime both managed to see early investments of tens of millions of dollars, mainly thanks to the clout of Nguyen and Parker. This fits with the results from studies which show that serial entrepreneurs are able to raise funds in 21 months as opposed to first time entrepreneurs who require about 37 months, a time period many of them don’t have.

While it’s certainly true that there are many venture capitalists out there who are more than willing to put their money into first timers, it’s a sad fact that serial entrepreneurs are a statistically safer bet for investors. In a study conducted at Harvard, it was found that entrepreneurs who had already taken a company public have a 30% chance of succeeding a second time, while first timers only have an 18% chance of success.

Color and Airtime may both be considered to be flops considering the decreased value of Color when acquired by Apple and the stagnant user base of Airtime, Nguyen and Parker are still looking like a safe investment thanks to their track records. One of Nguyen’s companies sold out for $850 million in stock and Parker founded Napster and went on to be Facebook’s first president. Even now, Color managed to gain back the majority of money invested.

This might not be a bad thing for first timers though and goes back to the fat versus lean startup debate. While some believe that starting off fat may be the best way for a startup to succeed, New York based financier Fred Wilson says, “I have never, not once, been successful with an investment in a company that raised a boatload of money before it found traction.”

Greenhow said, “Tweeting can be thought of as a new literary practice. It’s changing the way we experience what we read and what we write. The students get more engaged because they feel it is connected to something real, that it’s not just learning for the sake of learning.”

This study comes a short time after another Michigan State University study about how communication has changed amongst college students and how texting has become a more valuable form of communication for them than any other writing style.

In a statement issued by Knott-Craig Jnr he said, “While the shareholders and I share the same vision, we differ on how to get there. Therefore I agreed to go my own way. I wish them all the best for the future. Mxit is Africa’s biggest tech success story, and can be a global success story.”

Many people were shocked by the announcement as it has always been believed that Knott-Craig Jnr was emotionally invested in Mxit, and truly believed in its potential. All that’s left for everyone to do now is to speculate as he added in his statement that he would not discuss the issue any further, suggesting to some that he is under a confidentiality clause.

Speculations are certainly running wild. While it can’t be denied that Knott-Craig Jnr did good things for the company – he was strongly focused on building a powerful team to make it a world class platform – the company’s failure to attract advertising revenue and failure to boost its subscriber base may not have been enough for investors.

Mxit is looking at apparent stagnation, and right now it’s that stagnation and a bottom line that may not have satisfied investors who would have decided to look for someone else who could change that.

In her book, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, Chrystia Freeland, Global Editor-at-Large of Reuters,  examines the wealth disparity, income inequality and the new global elite in the 21^st century.

A large part of Freeland’s examination includes holding a mirror up between the economy today and that of the late 19^th century when the most powerful men around were ‘robber barons’ like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. During that time, much like ours, innovations in technology and new emerging markets created an unprecedented amount of wealth for a few people, people who used that wealth to exercise power in their countries.

Progress and Poverty

During this Gilded Age of the 19^th Century, there was at least one economist who saw the problem, Henry George. George has become one of the most famous Americans in history. His most important book, Progress and Poverty sold over three million copies at the time and was translated into a variety of languages. He was admired by many, including men like Albert Einstein and it was his work which influenced those who came after him like George Bernard Shaw.

Henry George was thrilled with the progress that was made during the 19^th century; it was an era of amazing transformations. Despite the industrial revolution and the reality that it was delivering, George was perplexed by the fact that it wasn’t delivering completely. The economic prosperity that came with the revolution simply funnelled to a small percentage of people while many were battling to make a living at all. His response wasn’t like Marx; he did not want a communist utopia. George believed in capitalism but he wanted to take it from the hands of the ‘robber barons’ and return it to “the democracy of Thomas Jefferson.”

It was his ideals that made George so popular. Much like the Occupy Wall Street movement of today, he won support among the working class voters and small businessmen thanks to his line of thinking and it was this line of thinking that nearly won him the Mayorship of New York when he ran in 1886.

One 21^st century Henry George Required

According to Freeland, this is what America needs now: a 21^st century Henry George. The U.S. is facing a dangerous future and Freeland says that a thinker who embraces the possibilities of capitalism, but also faces the inequity of its current state is what can drive the country forward.

George helped influence powerful men during his time; he helped bring about social and political change which would go on to serve the whole of the U.S. society and not just a 0.1% at the top. Freeland says this is what we need today – new social and political institutions to make this new crippled economy work for everyone.

Google launched this site on their data centers which reveals photos of their facilities in locations as far flung as Belgium and Finland, as well as information on how they keep the data safe and secure. Along with the launch of the site, they also released a guided Street View tour of one of their data centers in Lenoir, North Carolina.

The Lenoir center is the same one which will be featured in Wired magazine’s November issue after senior writer Steven Levy was given an exclusive tour of the facility. Levy said that the most striking thing about the facility is the scale of everything. At Lenoir alone, Google has 49,923 servers.

Levy explained that even though he saw specific technology at the Lenoir center, it’s likely to differ elsewhere as Google takes into account the local resources and geography when designing each center.

The video for their latest single ‘Fatty Boom Boom’ off of Die Antwoord’s second studio album, Ten$ion has lashed out at superstar Gaga and her recent headline making weight gain.

While the song was written months ago and most likely not with Gaga in mind, the video depicts a male Gaga lookalike first arriving in Africa wearing the meat dress which Gaga wore to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. The lookalike then gets put through the ringer and is hijacked, shot at, gives birth to a leech and eventually eaten by a lion.

One viewing of the video leaves you with no doubt as to how Die Antwoord feel about Lady Gaga, but is she really going to pay much attention to it when her tour is selling out venues around the world?

Obama and Romney both performed aggressively during the debate, criticising and attacking each other continuously throughout. Whether it was economic policy, immigration, gun control, each man seemed to differ in opinion over every topic raised by the members of the audience where the debate was held at Hofstra University in New York.

While both did their best to prove their point, most of the attention was on Obama and the stark difference between his performance during the second debate and the disastrous showing he put on at the first.

How Obama Came Back Swinging

For the second debate, Obama was obviously more prepared. He came to the podium ready to defend his own policy and attack Romney at every opportunity. The President remained focused throughout, seeming eager to deliver.

Obama tried to cement his position as a man of the people, especially among women as he frequently spoke of the Planned Parenthood programme and contraception.

Romney tried to defend himself against Obama’s attacks by taking the best form of defence, his own attack. At one point he suggested Obama check the investments his pension fund is making, to which Obama replied, “I don’t look at my pension, it’s not as big as yours.”

Romney Focuses on Failures

While Romney did put forward enough attacks of his own, he spent a lot of time pointing out Obama’s failures.

Two-thirds of the way into the debate, Romney launched into a list of problems that have occurred during Obama’s term as president such as high unemployment, an increase in poverty and a lack of a plan to combat illegal immigration.

“The middle class is getting crushed under the policies of a president who has not understood what it takes to get the economy working again. The policies he’s put in place, from Obamacare to Dodd-Frank to his tax policies to his regulatory policies…these policies combined have not let this economy take off and grow like it could have,” Romney said.

There was at least one thing that both candidates could agree on though, the importance of education.

Unfortunately for the candidates though, many voters remain undecided, and unhappy. One questioner, Michael Jones, told Obama that while he had voted for him in 2008, he want’s sure where his vote would lie this time around as he could barely afford most day to day expenses.

The third, and final, debate will occur next Monday where the main topic for the candidates will be Foreign policy, a topic which is sure to be a controversial one as Romney has been very critical of Obama over the events of the last month at the U.S. consulate in Libya.