17371528
submission
gollum123 writes:
THE numbers keep rising, the superlatives keep glowing. Each year, selective colleges promote their application totals, along with the virtues of their applicants. For this fall’s freshman class, the statistics reached remarkable levels. Stanford received a record 32,022 applications from students it called “simply amazing,” and accepted 7 percent of them. Brown saw an unprecedented 30,135 applicants, who left the admissions staff “deeply impressed and at times awed.” Nine percent were admitted. Such announcements tell a story in which colleges get better — and students get more amazing — every year. In reality, the narrative is far more complex, and the implications far less sunny for students as well as colleges caught up in the cruel cycle of selectivity. To some degree, the increases are inevitable: the college-bound population has grown, and so, too, has the number of applications students file, thanks in part to online technology. But wherever it is raining applications, colleges have helped seed the clouds — by recruiting widely and aggressively for ever more applicants. any colleges have made applying as simple as updating a Facebook page. Some deans and guidance counselors complain that it’s too easy. They question the ethics of intense recruitment by colleges that reject the overwhelming majority of applicants. Today’s application inflation is a cause and symptom of the uncertainty in admissions. As application totals soar, colleges struggle to predict yield — the number of admitted students who actually attend — leading to longer wait lists and other competitive enrollment tactics. Students hedge against the plummeting admissions rates by flooding the system with even more applications.
17089744
submission
gollum123 writes:
Law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, citing lapses in compliance with surveillance orders, are pushing to overhaul a federal law that requires phone and broadband carriers to ensure that their networks can be wiretapped, federal officials say. The officials say tougher legislation is needed because some telecommunications companies in recent years have begun new services and made system upgrades that caused technical problems for surveillance. They want to increase legal incentives and penalties aimed at pushing carriers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to ensure that any network changes will not disrupt their ability to conduct wiretaps. An Obama administration task force that includes officials from the Justice and Commerce Departments, the F.B.I. and other agencies recently began working on draft legislation to strengthen and expand the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act, a 1994 law that says telephone and broadband companies must design their services so that they can begin conducting surveillance of a target immediately after being presented with a court order. The push to expand and the 1994 law is the latest example of a dilemma over how to balance Internet freedom with security needs in an era of rapidly evolving — and globalized — technology. The issue has added importance because the surveillance technologies developed by the United States to hunt for terrorists and drug traffickers can be also used by repressive regimes to hunt for political dissidents.
17008840
submission
gollum123 writes:
The level of background noise affects both the intensity of flavour and the perceived crunchiness of foods, researchers have found. Blindfolded diners assessed the sweetness, saltiness, and crunchiness, as well as overall flavour, of foods as they were played white noise. While louder noise reduced the reported sweetness or saltiness, it increased the measure of crunch. It may go some way to explaining why airline food is notoriously bland — a phenomenon that drives airline catering companies to heavily season their foods. In a comparatively small study, 48 participants were fed sweet foods such as biscuits or salty ones such as crisps, while listening to silence or noise through headphones. Also in the group's findings there is the suggestion that the overall satisfaction with the food aligned with the degree to which diners liked what they were hearing — a finding the researchers are pursuing in further experiments.
16543190
submission
gollum123 writes:
The Texas school board is set to vote on a resolution urging publishers to keep "pro-Islamic/anti-Christian" language out of textbooks in the state. Among other complaints, the non-binding decree says some textbooks devote more lines to Islam than to Christianity and print "whitewashes" of Islamic culture. Critics say it relies on a flawed reading of books that are out of use. Supporters say the resolution is needed to warn textbook publishers not to print "anti-Christian" books if they want to sell them to Texas schools. The measure, on which the Texas Board of Education will vote on Friday in the state capital of Austin, is drafted by Randy Rives, a businessman and former school official in the Texas city of Odessa. "We're teaching double the beliefs and specifics about another religion than we are about Christianity, which is the foundation of our country."
16232090
submission
gollum123 writes:
The French senate approved Tuesday a law banning any veils that cover the face — including the burqa, the full-body covering worn by some Muslim women — making France the first European country to plan such a measure. The law passed by a vote of 246 to 1, with about 100 abstentions coming essentially from left-leaning politicians. The legislation was overwhelmingly approved by the lower house of parliament in July and will go into effect next spring. A panel of French lawmakers recommended a ban last year, and lawmakers unanimously passed a non-binding resolution in May calling the full-face veil contrary to the laws of the nation. The law imposes a fine of 150 euros ($190) and/or a citizenship course as punishment for wearing a face-covering veil. The French Council of State has warned that the ban could be incompatible with international human rights laws and the country's own constitution.
16022128
submission
gollum123 writes:
The booming Chinese clean energy sector, now more than a million jobs strong, is quickly coming to dominate the production of technologies essential to slowing global warming and other forms of air pollution. But much of China’s clean energy success lies in aggressive government policies that help this crucial export industry in ways most other governments do not. These measures risk breaking international rules to which China and almost all other nations subscribe, according to some trade experts interviewed by The New York Times. Barely a player in the solar industry five years ago, China is on track to produce more than half the world’s solar panels this year. More than 95 percent of them will be exported to countries like the United States and Germany that offer generous subsidies for consumers who buy solar panels. China is also on track to make nearly half of the world’s wind turbines this year. China offers financial incentives for utilities to use wind power, which is less costly than solar power, and the country passed the United States last year as the world’s largest wind turbine market. Meanwhile, China itself imports virtually no wind turbines or solar panels, instead protecting those developing industries. China’s expansion has been traumatic for American and European solar power manufacturers, and Western wind turbine makers are now bracing to compete with low-cost Chinese exports.
15979582
submission
gollum123 writes:
For years the technology sector has been considered the most dynamic, promising and globally envied industry in the United States. It escaped the recession relatively unscathed, and profits this year have been soaring. But as the nation struggles to put people back to work, even high-tech companies have been slow to hire, a sign of just how difficult it will be to address persistently high joblessness. The disappointing hiring trend raises questions about whether the tech industry can help power a recovery and sustain American job growth in the next decade and beyond The chief hurdles to more robust technology hiring appear to be increasing automation and the addition of highly skilled labor overseas. The result is a mismatch of skill levels here at home: not enough workers with the cutting-edge skills coveted by tech firms, and too many people with abilities that can be duplicated offshore at lower cost. In the past, the American jobs most susceptible to being shipped abroad were lower-skilled positions. But now emerging economies have been harvesting their long-term investments in math and science education and attracting high-tech firms — and not just textile factories or call centers — to their shores. In addition to lower wages, developing countries offer significant consumer growth, giving businesses a reason to make more products closer to the buyer, and hire locally. And increasingly, these new, lower-cost research centers, while perhaps initially intended to adapt products for local use, are becoming sources of innovation themselves.
15789216
submission
gollum123 writes:
Amazon's now offering 99-cent rentals purchases of various ABC and FOX shows, making this a much better deal than Apple's rental model for tv shows. This means which means a whole host of Amazon VOD-compatible devices just got some cheaper streaming options as well ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html//ref=bt_atcg_dv-momtcg_mm?ie=UTF8&docId=1000577021&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1D6CT7JWD4DDFPJ22DZ6&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1273958402&pf_rd_i=16261631 ).
14784028
submission
gollum123 writes:
A joke making the rounds online involves a pair of red and green glasses and some blurry letters that say, “If you can’t make it good, make it 3-D.” While Hollywood rushes dozens of 3-D movies to the screen — nearly 60 are planned in the next two years, including “Saw VII” and “Mars Needs Moms!” — a rebellion among some filmmakers and viewers has been complicating the industry’s jump into the third dimension. Several influential directors took surprisingly public potshots at the 3-D boom during the recent Comic-Con International pop culture convention in San Diego. Behind the scenes, however, filmmakers have begun to resist production executives eager for 3-D sales. For reasons both aesthetic and practical, some directors often do not want to convert a film to 3-D or go to the trouble and expense of shooting with 3-D cameras, which are still relatively untested on big movies with complex stunts and locations. Tickets for 3-D films carry a $3 to $5 premium, and industry executives roughly estimate that 3-D pictures average an extra 20 percent at the box office. Filmmakers like Mr. Whedon and Mr. Abrams argue that 3-D technology does little to enhance a cinematic story, while adding a lot of bother.
14683218
submission
b0bby writes:
Bloomberg reports "Amazon.com introduced two new versions of the device, including a $139 model that works with Wi-Fi. A second version, with 3G mobile technology as well as Wi-Fi to download books, costs $189. ...The latest Kindles are thinner and lighter than previous versions and feature faster page turns and sharper resolution. They’re also designed for easier reading in sunlight and have batteries that will last for a month on a single charge — two weeks longer than the previous model."
14683084
submission
gollum123 writes:
Earlier today we published an analysis of the top traffic drivers in social media, based on data from Web analytics company Woopra. The biggest traffic driver was StumbleUpon (51%), followed by Digg (30%), Hacker News (12%) and Reddit (5%). Surprisingly, tech news community Slashdot was not in the list of top referrers. In fact, according to Woopra CEO John Pozadzides, Slashdot "drives close to 0% of traffic to the sites Woopra measures." (emphasis ours). Why is Slashdot almost irrelevant to the social media community? It used to be the biggest driver of traffic to tech web sites, but now it hardly delivers any traffic at all to them. We explore some of the reasons, including input from our own community.
12599804
submission
goG writes:
Google unveiled new technology on Thursday that it hopes will unite the Internet with channel surfing as it vies to move itself into living rooms. The company's new "Google TV" will give watchers a search box directly on their screens, allowing them to traverse through broadcast channels and the Internet.
12599704
submission
crimeandpunishment writes:
Web surfing + channel surfing could equal huge revenue for Google. Today the company, along with three other giants.....Sony, Intel, and Logitech....took the wraps off their long-awaited plan for a "smart TV".....turning televisions into giant monitors for Web surfing, which would let Google make more money selling ads. The TV's are expected to hit the market in the fall....no word yet on what they'll cost.
12499270
submission
gollum123 writes:
A small group of economists and education experts argue that college is overrated. They say that many students who go to college today should not be doing so. An article in The New York Times on Sunday laid out the case ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/weekinreview/16steinberg.html?pagewanted=all ). All of these people though conveniently do not talk about the most straightforward data of all the relative pay of college graduates and everyone else. Imagine for a minute that the gap between the pay of college graduates and everyone else had been shrinking in recent years. In that case, you can be certain that Professor Vedder and the other skeptics would be pointing to these numbers as a sign that college degrees were losing their value. But the skeptics tend not to talk very much about the pay gap. the real pay of college graduates has risen over the past 25 years. The real pay of every other group has dropped.
Relative to everyone else, college graduates have never done better than they are doing right now. It’s theoretically conceivable that these trends have nothing to do with the actual education that college students receive. To put it another way, if you were an 18-year-old trying to decide whether to go college in the fall, would you be willing to bet your future on the idea that the charts above are simply reflecting a big coincidence?
