PlanetOU has become a FriendFeed Room. You can subscribe to updates there, or alternatively on Twitter by following @planetou or on Identi.ca, again by following planetou.
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The idea of PlanetOU was always to represent a community around an institution by aggregating blogs written by people connected to it (the idea is explained in full in my earlier post What planet are you from? PlanetOU of course!).
Ambient technology is definitely not about mood lighting, instead it is something far more interesting. It is a term which describes an idea that technology will adapt itself to your presence, performing the necessary reconfigurations and integration to meet your needs or simply increase your comfort. Typically it will do this without much of a need for human interaction, instead it just quietly gets on with its job.
All sorts of people connected with The Open University are blogging about their interests, experiences and knowledge they want to share with you. These people include not just academics but also librarians, tutors, techies and project managers all putting information out there and discussing ideas, it's a side of the OU that you might not have thought about, one that isn't immediately visible when you deal with the OU, or even work in the place, but it is quite an interesting side.