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Submission + - SPAM: CS Now Counts as HS Math Credit in Most States - Is This a Good Idea?

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: In a widely-reprinted essay, Ohio State University Asst. Prof. of Physics Chris Orban ponders whether the tech world did students a favor or disservice by getting states to count computer science as high school math credit. Orban writes:

In 2013, a who's who of the tech world came together to launch a new nonprofit called Code.org. The purpose of the organization was to get more computer science into schools. Billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates donated millions of dollars to the group. According to the organization’s last annual report, Code.org spent more than US$91 million between 2013 and 2018. Of that amount, $6.9 million went to advocate for state legislation across the country. As part of the organization’s mission to "make computer science count" in K-12 education, code.org takes credit for having influenced graduation policies in 42 states. Today, 47 states and the District of Columbia allow computer science classes to count in place of math classes like Algebra 2. Prior to the organization’s work, only a few states allowed computer science to count for math credit. In addition, 29 states passed legislation allowing computer science to count in place of a science course. When computer science begins to count as math or science, it makes sense to ask if these changes are helping America’s students or hurting them.
[...]
I worry that students may take computer science just to avoid the more difficult math and science courses they need for college. Computer science could be a way for students to circumvent graduation requirements while adults look the other way.
[...]
Computer science advocates have created a kind of national experiment. The next few years will show if this was a good idea, but only if we’re looking at more than just the numbers of students taking computer science.

Orban may want to check out newly-released AP testing data, which reveals that nearly 11,000 high school freshmen took an exam for the friendlier new AP Computer Science Principles course (dubbed "Coding Lite" by the NY Times) in 2019, far exceeding the number of freshmen taking other STEM AP exams.

Submission + - Carriers Want To Hide Detailed 5G Maps From FCC and Public (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AT&T and other mobile carriers are trying to hide detailed 5G maps from the public despite constantly touting the supposed pace and breadth of their 5G rollouts. With the Federal Communications Commission planning to require carriers to submit more accurate data about broadband deployment, AT&T and the mobile industry's top lobby group are urging the FCC to exclude 5G from the upgraded data collection. "There is broad agreement that it is not yet time to require reporting on 5G coverage," AT&T told the FCC in a filing this week.

As evidence of that "broad agreement," AT&T cited comments by CTIA—the mobile industry lobby group that represents AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint. "[A]s CTIA points out, service standards for 5G are still emerging, precluding reporting of service-level coverage for 5G networks (other than the 5G-NR submissions already required)," AT&T wrote. That's a reference to 5G New Radio, the global standard for 5G. CTIA told the FCC in September that it doesn't object to the 5G-NR requirement because "the 5G-NR standards are technical ones; they do not establish what service level consumers should be able to expect when using 5G." But CTIA said requiring more than that would be "premature" because "industry consensus is still emerging around how best to measure the deployment of this still-nascent technology." Verizon also told the FCC in September that "adoption of standardized parameters is premature" for 5G.

Submission + - Randstad Targeted Black Homeless People for Google's Facial Recognition Tech (nytimes.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: Atlanta officials are seeking answers from Google after a news report said that company contractors had sought out black homeless people in the city to scan their faces to improve Google’s facial-recognition technology.

The New York Daily News reported on Wednesday that a staffing agency hired by Google had sent its contractors to numerous American cities to target black people for facial scans. One unnamed former worker told the newspaper that in Atlanta, the effort included finding those who were homeless because they were less likely to speak to the media.

On Friday, Nina Hickson, Atlanta’s city attorney, sent a letter to Google asking for an explanation.

“The possibility that members of our most vulnerable populations are being exploited to advance your company’s commercial interest is profoundly alarming for numerous reasons,” she said in a letter to Kent Walker, Google’s legal and policy chief. “If some or all of the reporting was accurate, we would welcome your response as what corrective action has been and will be taken.”

Google said it had hired contractors to scan the faces of volunteers to improve software that would enable users to unlock Google’s new phone simply by looking at it. The company immediately suspended the research and began investigating after learning of the details in The Daily News article, a Google spokesman said.

“We’re taking these claims seriously,” he said in a statement.

Google said it hired contractors from a staffing agency named Randstad for the research. Google wanted the contractors to collect a diverse sample of faces to ensure that its software would work for people of all skin tones, two Google executives said in an email to colleagues on Thursday. A company spokesman provided the email to The New York Times.

“Our goal in this case has been to ensure we have a fair and secure feature that works across different skin tones and face shapes,” the Google executives said in the email.

The unnamed person who told The Daily News that Randstad sent the contractors to Atlanta to focus on black homeless people also told the newspaper that a Google manager was not present when that order was made. A second unnamed contractor told The Daily News that employees were instructed to locate homeless people and university students in California because they would probably be attracted to the $5 gift cards volunteers received in exchange for their facial scans.

Randstad manages a work force of more than 100,000 contractors in the United States and Canada each week. The company, which is based in the Netherlands and has operations in 38 countries, did not respond to requests for comment. Google relies heavily on contract and temporary workers; they now outnumber its full-time employees.

Submission + - EU can now dictate what the rest of the world sees on Facebook (apnews.com)

Submitted by sysrammer
sysrammer writes: AP and Reuters, etc., are reporting that "The European Union’s highest court ruled Thursday that individual member countries can force Facebook to remove what they regard as unlawful material from the social network all over the world — a decision experts say could hinder free speech online and put a heavy burden on tech companies." (google "eu court facebook")

“The ruling essentially allows one country or region to decide what Internet users around the world can say and what information they can access,” said CCIA Europe senior manager Victoria de Posson.

“What might be considered defamatory comments about someone in one country will likely be considered constitutional free speech in another. Few hosting platforms, especially startups, will have the resources to implement elaborate monitoring systems.”

Another turn of the screw in the interaction between privacy and free speech.

Submission + - Facebook Says Libra Is Out Of Its Control (cnn.com)

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: CNN reports: In its effort to bring the Libra cryptocurrency to life, perhaps the biggest hurdle for Facebook is a lack of trust and opposition from regulators around the world, who are concerned about Libra's potential implications for privacy and financial stability and Facebook's role in managing it. Facebook's (FB) answer to those criticisms is the Libra Association, a group the company says is an independent, Switzerland-based organization that will govern the digital currency. The organization is a coalition of companies and nonprofits and is designed as a sort of buffer between Facebook and the project it developed. Facebook says it will ensure neither it nor any other company has an outsized influence over the new currency. The group has 28 "founding member" organizations but plans to grow to 100. But many of those founding members have close personal, professional and financial ties to Facebook and one another, calling Facebook's characterization of the Association into question. Those links reach the group's top leadership. Experts say the connections raise questions about Facebook's ongoing influence over the project and whose values will be applied to Libra. "When the white paper said Facebook will be just one of 100 members, you can see with your own eyes that's not quite true," said Katharina Pistor, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert on corporate governance and finance. — Many experts and lawmakers believe Facebook's billions of users will make Libra the most widely used cryptocurrency and could make it big enough to rival government-backed currencies like the dollar, potentially threatening the stability of traditional financial systems. The Libra Association would be responsible for overseeing that currency: ensuring it retains value, determining how to work with regulators and how users' privacy will be protected. That's why regulators are particularly worried about Facebook wielding significant influence over the Libra Association. Some don't trust the social media company to steward such an ambitious project because of its history of privacy violations and having its platform co-opted by foreign trolls most notoriously aiming to interfere in US elections. Many US lawmakers repeated such concerns at two hearings on the project before the House Financial Services and Senate Banking committees in July. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg "and his executives have proven over and over that they don't understand governing or accountability," said Sherrod Brown, a Democratic Senator from Ohio, during one of the July hearings. The fight over Libra comes as Facebook and other big tech companies are also facing bipartisan probes over antitrust concerns.

Submission + - Microsoft's Chief Environmental Officer Wants to Optimize the Earth (ieee.org)

Submitted by the_newsbeagle
the_newsbeagle writes: Lucas Joppa runs Microsoft's AI for Earth program, a $5-million and 5-year effort that seeks AI-powered solutions to global problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss. He spoke with IEEE Spectrum about the "ultimate optimization problem" of determining how best to use every square meter of the Earth's surface — and his long term goal of creating an AI-powered optimization engine that can help humans with those decisions.

Submission + - Amazon Is Writing Its Own Facial Recognition Laws To Pitch To Lawmakers (vox.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says his company is developing a set of laws to regulate facial recognition technology that it plans to share with federal lawmakers. In February, the company, which has faced escalating scrutiny over its controversial facial recognition tech, called Amazon Rekognition, published guidelines it said it hoped lawmakers would consider enacting. Now Amazon is taking another step, Bezos told reporters in a surprise appearance following Amazon’s annual Alexa gadget event in Seattle on Wednesday.

“Our public policy team is actually working on facial recognition regulations; it makes a lot of sense to regulate that,” Bezos said in response to a reporter’s question. The idea is that Amazon will write its own draft of what it thinks federal legislation should look like, and it will then pitch lawmakers to adopt as much of it as possible. “It’s a perfect example of something that has really positive uses, so you don’t want to put the brakes on it,” Bezos added. “But, at the same time, there’s also potential for abuses of that kind of technology, so you do want regulations. It’s a classic dual-use kind of technology.” He did not provide details on what’s in the proposed legislation.

Submission + - Facebook Confirms Its 'Standards' Don't Apply To Politicians (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook this week finally put into writing what users—especially politically powerful users—have known for years: its community "standards" do not, in fact, apply across the whole community. Speech from politicians is officially exempt from the platform's fact checking and decency standards, the company has clarified, with a few exceptions. Facebook communications VP Nick Clegg, himself a former member of the UK Parliament, outlined the policy in a speech and company blog post Tuesday. Facebook has had a "newsworthiness exemption" to its content guidelines since 2016. That policy was formalized in late October of that year amid a contentious and chaotic US political season and three weeks before the presidential election that would land Donald Trump the White House.

Facebook at the time was uncertain how to handle posts from the Trump campaign, The Wall Street Journal reported. Sources told the paper that Facebook employees were sharply divided over the candidate's rhetoric about Muslim immigrants and his stated desire for a Muslim travel ban, which several felt were in violation of the service's hate speech standards. Eventually, the sources said, CEO Mark Zuckerberg weighed in directly and said it would be inappropriate to intervene. Months later, Facebook finally issued its policy. "We're going to begin allowing more items that people find newsworthy, significant, or important to the public interest—even if they might otherwise violate our standards," Facebook wrote at the time.

Submission + - Graphics Programmer Demos Incredibly Advanced Voxel Destruction Physics (youtube.com)

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: Physics and graphics programmer, game developer Dennis Gustafsson has begun showing a Voxel based game ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) that features incredibly advanced destruction physics — everything and anything is destructible in a very physically realistic way, dynamic smoke and fire interacts naturally with destroyed environments — as well as raytracing that doesn't need an RTX GPU, and does 60 FPS on a midrange Nvidia 1070 GPU. The game engine looks like Minecraft with much smaller cubes or voxels, but the engine tech, particularly the physics, is far more advanced than Minecraft's. Gustafsson has a Twitter feed ( https://twitter.com/tuxedolabs ) where he posts demo videos and explains where he is trying to take his Voxel based technology. The game doesn't have a name yet, but some people think that it may very well become the next Minecraft. A lot of comments on the new engine state that "it does pretty much what we hoped the new Battlefield games would be able to do in terms of destruction".

Submission + - 3 Reasons Why Microsoft Needs 3 Surface Tablets (informationweek.com)

Submitted by CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: It's looking like Microsoft is planning to replace its underachieving Surface tablet with two new products, but it may need three to finally have success with the Surface. 1) Three tablets would provide an entry point and an upgrade path. 2) Multiple Surface RT models would help Windows RT survive OEM skepticism. and 3) Microsoft needs device fanfare to accompany Windows 8.1, and to coincide with enterprise hardware upgrades. If the company releases one of the models before the end of the year, the device would arrive in time not only for the holiday season, but also to cash in on user interest in Windows 8.1, which will be released later this fall. Surface devices released next year, meanwhile, could capitalize on enterprise hardware upgrades, which are expected to pick up as Windows XP's April 8, 2014 end-of-service date nears.

Submission + - Royal Navy Deployed Laser Weapons During the Falklands War (gizmag.com) 1

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Despite recent demonstrations by the US Navy, we still think of laser weapons as being things of the future. However, previously-classified British documents prove that not only were the major powers working on laser weapons in the 1970s and 80s, but that they were already being deployed with combat units in war zones. A letter from the Ministry of Defence released under the 30-year rule reveals that laser weapons were deployed on Royal Navy ships during the Falklands War in 1982, and that the British government was concerned about similar weapons being developed behind the Iron Curtain.

Submission + - Apple Next iPhone Release Date is September 10 (fliqolet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As per reports, Apple may release the next iPhone on September 10. It s not clear whether iPhone 5S will release on that date or iPhone 5C. Apple may equip iPhone 5S with fingerprint sensor technology and iPhone 5C is rumored to be launched in the emerging markets

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