36096295
submission
coastal984 writes:
I coordinate a high school web design competition for a national Career & Technical Student Organization. The competition is weighted towards content and presentation, with the content being an annually changing topic. Past topics were, for example, Future of NASA Manned Space Exploration, Web Accessibility for the Visually Impaired, Open Source Software Alternatives, and "What Will Web 3.0 Be Like?".
I've been spinning ideas around for a new topic, but they all seem bland and uninteresting (This past topic on NASA wasn't exactly a thriller. The Accessibility, Web 3.0, and Open Source ones received far better responses and deep thinking/research.) What might the Slashdot crowd suggest for a competition topic for high schoolers?
35848937
submission
coastal984 writes:
The ACLU is questioning the usage and retention of data by the Virginia State Police and various local police agencies in the Commonwealth as part of a 35-state inquiry into license plate scanners.
"ACLU chapters in 35 states announced Monday that they are querying law enforcement agencies through Freedom of Information Act requests about how they are using the scanning technology and about the extent to which the information may be used to compile "movement histories" of people. "Automatic license plate readers make it possible for the police to track our location whenever we drive our cars and to store that information forever," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project.
34527079
submission
coastal984 writes:
Facebook has rolled out a sweeping change to profiles few have noticed, without users' permission: Your email listing has been changed from whatever you had posted to an @facebook.com address. You have to go and change it back manually to undo the change. One would have thought Facebook would have learned it's lesson by now, but apparently they have not.
18797558
submission
coastal984 writes:
Verizon wireless service is experiencing a complete outage across the state of Virginia this afternoon. (wtkr.com). No word yet on when service may be restored. A "master ticket" has been issued.
Did the iPhone get released in Virginia early?
350447
submission
coastal984 writes:
NBC12 in Richmond, Virginia recently reported how officials from the Department of Game & Inland Fisheries, in a first-ever test of crashing two full-sized boats into each other, accidently hit the wrong boat — instead of the two remotely controlled vessels colliding, they missed, and one veered off and hit a manned chase boat. From the article: "At first the two [remote control] boats were heading straight at each other. Then something went wrong." No people were hurt, but a 225 horsepower engine is a new reef for the fishies at the bottom of the James River.
The article has video showing the crash from two different angles.
37686
submission
coastal984 writes:
CNN is covering the announcement of talks between Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics and Cisco to build "The Stadium of the Future". The ballpark will pack one wireless technology feature after another, namely through the use of Smart Phones. From the article, "Fans will swipe electronic tickets stored on cell phones. Bleacher bums will view instant replays at their seats with laptop computers. And digital advertising displays will be able to switch images based on the buying habits of the people walking by through data embedded in their cell phones." Fans could also order pictures of themselves from crowd cameras, and pay to have those pictures shown on stadium jumbo screens. At the earliest, the ballpark could open by the 2011 season.
My question is this: Is technology invading things it shouldn't? Arn't there some areas of our culture that arn't meant to be exploited by technology? Shouldn't these areas be left pure, to preserve the experience of old?
4356
submission
coastal984 writes:
Facebook, the college (and now, high school & professional) networking site originally started as a small, one school site which has expanded to nearly every college and university in the United States, launched changes to their web site this morning, provoking a massive and immediate response, and not the one they had hoped. Hundreds of "Groups" formed, the largest of which have between 2,000 and 15,000 members, and sites like this student portal have put up pages detesting the recent changes. What do the college members not like? Alot of things, but the main issue is the new "News Feed" on every page which tracks recent changes, activities, and comments made by everyone the user is connected to, such as a change in a users relationship status.
