Digital Trends
Launched yesterday at the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Long Beach, Singularity University is going to be an institution with a difference. Its chancellor will be futurist Ray Kurzweil, whose 2005 book gave the place its name.
It will be housed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, and Google has donated $1 million to help fund it, while other big companies have also given money. But the tuition for the nine-week course will be a very hefty $25,000.
Poor Dr. Tom McMaster. All the lecturer in business management at Salford University wanted to do was sail his boat to a conference in Galway, Ireland, rather than fly. Little did he imagine that it would all end up in court.
He had the university’s permission to travel that way, and so he submitted an expense claim for $360. But, according to Vnunet, the accounts department responded:
"Clearly the original claim was an attempted fraud and appropriately rejected.”
"Those who submitted and certified it should be ashamed of themselves."
If you’re a student at University College, London (UCL) or Trinity College, Dublin, a new academic service means you’ll be able to download lectures from iTunes, making the alarm clock a thing of the past.
They’re the latest addition to the so-called iTunes U, where lectures from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, UC Berkeley and MIT are all available for free. Video and audio recordings of the Trinity College and UCL lectures will be available. They’ll be joined by the Open University, which will have 300 audio and video files relating to current courses available.
You might like the idea of being a student at Liverpool Hope University in England. After all the city was home of the Beatles, and this year it’s theEuropean Capital of Culture. If the idea appeals, you can visit – well, visit a version of Hope, anyway – without even leaving your chair, for today media students at theuniversity are hosting an open day for visitors and prospective students on the virtual world Second Life. Those who visit can learn details of theuniversity, according to the BBC, and see student-designed university buildings, such as accommodation, as well as reproductions of real-life campus buildings likethe Sheppard-Warlock Library and the Gateway Building. Student ambassadors will appear as avatars to act as guides for visitors. University’s marketing director, John McCarthy, said, "Theaim of the virtual campus is to engage in a dialogue with students in a forum that they will not only enjoy, but will also provide them with opportunities for creativity. Whilst some of ourUniversity buildings are faithfully reproduced, others have been built that reflect our students’ ambitions and aspirations, where else can you find a student hall with a swimming pool!"
The future is in parallel computing. So say the CEOs of both IBM and Google, who are converting their shared vision into a huge investment in college campuses to strengthen student understanding of the technology.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the companies would sink between $20 million and $25 million into hardware, software and services in parallel computing resources for college campuses. The reason: both say computer science schools underprepare students for dealing with the technology, which they predict will become increasingly important.
After blanketing 25 American universities with pre-litigation letters in February, the Recording Industry Association of America announced late last week that it was launching a second round of letters. A total of 408 notices will be sent to a new batch of 23 separate schools, including:
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), famous for filing lawsuits against individuals it alleges are sharing copyrighted music files via peer-to-peer file sharing services, has stepped up its program of copyright infringement complaints directed at students at colleges and universities. So far for the 2006–2007 academic year, the RIAA has complained about the activities of nearly 15,000 students at just the 25 most-targeted schools. And, in a move to put pressure on those institutions, the RIAA has released the names of the 25 schools with the most complains to the Associated Press.
Let’s face it – college campuses and the students who inhabit them are bad places for those who fear for the copyrights of their music and videos. Is there a market here then to make money off of legal distribution of content to students? You bet says Ruckus, a company which is specifically dedicated towards bringing digital media and entertainment services to college campuses.
The official reponse by the RIAA:
“Scientists from Toin University of Yokohama in Japan have designed a single, compact device that can both convert solar energy to electricity and store the electricity. “We succeeded inincorporating both photovoltaic and storage functions in a single cell with a thin, sandwich-type structure,” said Tsutomu Miyasaka, a researcher at the University.
The researchers’ photocapacitor is also efficient at capturing energy from weak light sources like sunlight on cloudy or rainy days and indoor lighting.”
The new solar cell could eventually be used to power cell phones, digital camera’s and PDA’s making the new solar batteries a perfect item for those that spend a great deal of time outdoors.
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