School is out. At least in the way we used to know it. Blackboards, pencils and slates are already becoming museum pieces. Soon textbooks might follow. Technology plays a key role in a radical transformation of education and a fiery debate is going on about whether this is for good or for bad. Is this new technology being used wisely, is it to save and cut cost or to improve quality? The common ground is that we are already in a situation where education does not need schools, it could be anywhere, anytime.

Cover Story: Gandhi revisited

Cover photo

Western development models are not sustainable, scalable or desirable, says Sam Pitroda, the man who brought telephones to rural India, essentially connecting India to itself. A policy maker who rose from rural poverty to great power and influence, he has now transformed himself into a tireless visionary. This vision is based on the democratization of information through connectivity.

Lo-tech hi-tech communication

The Photo

During World War II, German communications were encrypted on the Enigma cipher machine, which has now gained cult status. While original models fetch very high prices at auctions, there is also a healthy market for replicas and online simulators. The one pictured here is a three-rotor model made around 1937, and is still in working order. When sold by Rau Antiques in 2010, the asking price was USD 112,500.

As the moving rotors and wheels in the Enigma produced ever-changing alphabetic substitutions, the secret codes were supposed to be unbreakable, even by someone in possession of the machine. Breaking the codes or ciphers did present a formidable challenge. In fact, they had to be broken afresh over and over again. The results of these eff orts laid the groundwork for modern computing and artifi cial intelligence.

The British mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing was recruited to work at Bletchley Park, Britain’s code-breaking center, devising techniques for breaking German ciphers. It is now widely accepted that Turing was the father of theoretical and practical computing, although he died in 1954 – just as developments in the fi eld of computing were getting underway.

After the war, he talked about the prospect of a machine "learning" and even "building a brain." He wrote algorithms for chess-playing programs and regarded these as examples of what computers might eventually be able to do. In his 1946 report on the new opportunities that computers represented, he made his fi rst reference to machine "intelligence" in connection with chess.

Previous issues

Issue 1 2012 (pdf)

Issue 1 2011 (pdf)

Issue 2 2011 (pdf)

Issue 3 2011 (pdf)

Issue 1 2010 (pdf)

Issue 2 2010 (pdf)

Issue 3 2010 (pdf)

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