Inquisiq R3 in Chief Learning Officer magazine

In a nice little write-up on "Five Emerging LMSs to Watch", our Inquisiq R3 gets a bit of a blurb, along with this quote from one of our long-time customers,

"Give people tools that are intuitive and similar to those they use every day on their computers, and you have Inquisiq."
-Kevin T.

We appreciate the recognition!

At the bottom of most all of our Inquisiq installations (unless the 'white label' option has been chosen), is the tagline, "Powered by Inquisiq". Conveniently, this provides a nice, consistent search term!

Enter that in your preferred search engine, or click here for the Google Inquisiq results. In either result you'll see a solid sampling of public LMS installations using our EX or R3 versions of the software. Some have a pretty small target and are minimally customized. Some have a very large audience and lots of customizations.

This is simply to show a sampling of our customers and ways Inquisiq has been used by a range of companies and organizations...
...which hopefully, in turn, demonstrates the viability and growth of our LMS product! Check it out!

Flash 10.1 Mobile

Ok, it seems Adobe has a 'roll it out' kinda strategy here instead of one massive celebratory release date. 10.1 has been released...again...but this time the mobile version is available.
(the previous release was apparently really just for 32-bit Desktops, so really just a security update)

Nothing new from the Adobe Flash Team Blog, but here's an 'official' release on 10.1 for mobile devices...all except the stubborn iOS devices, of course.

This is definitely a 'bigger deal' than the previous release with full mobile support, finally offering a 'real' Flash Player release to replace Flash Lite. Plainly, significant effort has been put into optimizing speed and resource-usage for these mobile devices...something desktop users should see as well.

Supposedly, compatible Android 2.1 devices can grab this update now from the related marketplace. A further-optimized player version will be released when Google has Android 2.2 (Froyo) ready.

mLearning moves ahead another step! We think this is great. While HTML5 has great promise, the tools and specs just aren't there yet. It will be far more efficient to continue Flash development over the next couple years, at least, and the expansion of the full Flash Player to (most) mobile devices sure helps!

Inquisiq Wins Gold

This news is a bit delayed as we just got the blog up and running, but back in late April Brandon Hall released the winners of the Excellence in Learning Technology Awards...
...and our LMS, Inquisiq R3, was awarded the coveted Brandon Hall Gold Award for Technology Excellence!

Competing in the "Best Advance in Learning Management Technology for Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses" category, Inquisiq R3 was recognized for its innovation, pricing, and overall 'user-friendly' approach to this complex LMS concept.

The Inquisiq R3 Learning Management System is the latest release in a full-featured, SCORM-compliant LMS line which ICS Learning Group has been committed to since 2004. Targeting the small to medium sized business, though with several large corporate customers, the Inquisiq LMS maintains a balance between function, ease-of-use, and affordability. See www.inquisiqR3.com for more information, a free trial account, and pricing.

The entries were evaluated by independent judges around the world.  “These outstanding tools and systems propel the learning profession forward,” said Brandon Hall, Ph.D., chairman of the Awards program. “These innovative products let customers make learning faster, better, and easier.”

ICS is proud to have its hard work and commitment to its product recognized by such an esteemed research firm. We will continue to improve upon the product and have some exciting plans over the next year. Maybe we'll win again in the next competition!

And we'd be remiss in not appreciating all the current and past Inquisiq customers for their support of the product.... Thanks!

Flash 10.1 update

Reading more on this 10.1 update over the weekend gained a bit more additional insight. Apparently this is not the much-anticipated 'Big' release. x64 players are still not available and the Android release is promised in a 'future' version.

It seems the primary purpose of this release, as nebulously hinted by Adobe's Flash Team blog, is to address security issues and improve Mac performance - even though video acceleration still isn't included. Admirable and necessary goals certainly, and internal testing shows Mac performance to indeed be well improved!

However, Adobe needs to do a better job with its PR. The 10.1 release promised big changes. This release does not meet all those promises and Adobe should ensure that's clear. Regardless, we greet the new release and look forward to continued improvements, especially the Android release to help clear the path for our mLearning initiatives.

Flash Player 10.1 Released!

Late on June 10th, Adobe released the much-anticipated Flash Player update. The 11th will be a busy day for upgrading our various workstations with the latest 10.1 player!
See the Adobe Flash Player Team blog announcement.

One feature we're particularly excited about for eLearning development is the ability to record microphone data from both local and web-based applications. Previous players allowed access to the user's microphone, but only for 'live' data for applications such as video conferencing. The (supposed) ability to record that data for later playback opens up a few possibilities for projects we have in the pipeline.
As experiments with that functionality begins, stay tuned for reports on our progress.

A few feature enhancements:

• A single runtime that works across desktops and devices.
• Vast performance and power improvements.
• AS3 VM optimizations
• Hardware-based h.264 decoding
• Application-level multicasting and increased buffer tolerance
• Multi-touch and gesture support (!)
• Many Mac-specific improvements (which were sorely needed)

So we eagerly await the internal roll-out of this latest player so we can start working with it. We've done limited experiments with the beta releases and were encouraged...now we'll see how well it works as an official release!

We'll also be moving our mobile (mLearning) R&D forward with this new player, though it'll take a bit for player release to work its way through the mobile device ecosystem...(and will this release make the cut for Apple to reconsider? We'll see!)

Inglorious Return

After a long hiatus from our blogging efforts, ICS returns with renewed commitment - and starting this new adventure with 'Blogger'.

We may not be able to post daily, but will try at least once a week. There's always something going on in the technology field that we have some thoughts about and, of course, we'll be staying focused in the eLearning and mLearning arenas most frequently.

If anyone has questions or seeks a 'professional' opinion on anything having to do with e/mLearning...or perhaps a question on the best ice cream flavors, best Baltimore-area pizza joints, or the overall health of the Chesapeake Bay - just drop us a line! Best address is [icsblog at icslearninggroup dot com] but you can find contact information on our company website as well, of course.

In our first bit of news, a few months ago we relocated from Severna Park to Pasadena. We're still here in our homestate of Maryland; we just moved north a bit to newer, expanded office space and to be a bit closer to the BWI airport. If ever in the area, come on by and check out our new space!

Otherwise, our Inquisiq LMS continues to gain market share...or, at least, sales continue to climb. That's a great testament to its functionality. Our custom content development continues as well, even in these harsh economic times, with recent projects for customers such as the US District Court system, the National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium, BoatUS, and Kiewit Corporation.

Stay tuned! We look forward to the discussions.