Google fellow, founder of Project X and self-driving car pioneerSebastian Thrun became the latest to publicly rock a Project Glass prototype (after company co-founder Sergey Brin) on a recent episode of Charlie Rose, and managed to show off a whole new side of the project in the process. While the 19-minute interview was mostly unremarkable product-wise with a focus on higher education and his Udacity project, we did get to see him take a picture of the host (about a minute in) by tapping it, then posting it on Google+ by nodding twice. Also, as Electronista points out, in a brief reverse shot (17:20) of Thrun we see for the first time what appears to be a small battery pack / transmitter portion lodged behind his ear. Of course, we're still not any closer to rocking the latest in bionic man-chic ourselves, but at least we can start getting fitted for one now.
DirecTV's still-in-beta "Everywhere" streaming package only arrived on the iPad a month ago, and now the company has updated its app for Android phones with access to the same set of video-on-demand streaming movies and TV shows for viewing wherever subscribers might be. Interestingly this feature is arriving on Google powered devices before it hits the iPhone (neither one so far has added the in-home live TV streaming feature from the iPad app, however the iPhone does have a player for the Nomad transcoder which Android and the iPad lack), in opposition to the usual trend of video streaming apps from cable and satellite TV providers, often for DRM and compatibility reasons. On Google Play the app was still installable on our various tablets and phones alike, although YMMV on what happens when you select the "Watch on Phone" tab to stream from HBO, Cinemax, Starz, Encore or DirecTV Cinema. Of course the usual DVR scheduling and remote control features are still present and accounted for, so hit the link below to grab the free app and try it out yourself.
Emily Maynard, the single mom who captured America's heart on The Bachelor, is back! She's The Bachelorette! In a newly-released promo for the new season (premiering Monday, May 14), we get our first look at the Southern Belle's reality TV return.
She may have to kiss a lot of frogs, but she will find her prince charming.
Or so we're told. The hometown dates are still filming and there's been no proposal made or accepted as of yet. For a look at who goes on those coveted dates, see The Bachelorette spoilers page on THG! Then take a look at ABC's promo below.
This season, evidently, will keep us guessing from the opening night. We're guessing that neither Brad Womack nor Bentley Williams arriving in the chopper, however. Crafty and misleading editing by the producers? Already in mid-season form.
"Small businesses are the jobs engine of this country", says House leader, Rep. Eric Cantor, (R-VA), discussing a new plan designed to jumpstart the U.S. economy and spur growth for small businesses and entrepreneurs.
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(Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/JPL/PSU/L.Townsley et al.)
Ever wanted to see a star factory in a new light? This fantastic multi-wavelength view of the highly productive stellar nursery, the Tarantula Nebula, combines data from the Spitzer, Hubble, and Chandra telescopes.
Despite residing in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy much smaller than ours, the Tarantula is notable because it spans a much larger distance than any known stellar nursery in the entire Local Group of more than 70 galaxies, which includes the Milky Way.
It's a mystery how a stellar nursery - a cloud of gas that churns out new stars - in a modest galaxy manages to outdo nurseries in giants like the Milky Way and Andromeda, but we can still enjoy this new, false-colour image.? Red shows infrared light, green shows visible, and blue shows X-rays. The latter arise from gas that gets heated by supernova explosions and stellar winds from hot young stars.
The spidery-looking Tarantula grabbed the spotlight recently when astronomers discovered that it hosts the fastest spinning normal star ever seen, with a rotation rate of 600 kilometres per second. It was also not far from the Tarantula that astronomers saw the famous supernova 1987A explode 25 years ago.
Fab has just released new figures on its growth in Germany and Austria, following February's acquisition of?Casacanda, a top flash sales site previously serving Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. And the news is good, it seems. As of today, the German vertical Fab.de has 500,000 users, having added 300,000 over the past month. And revenue per month is up by over half a million euro.
Sure, they may look the same, but Alienware's decided to give what's going on inside its glowing gaming laptops a thorough refresh. Starting with graphics support, the 2012 update of the M14x, M17x and M18x will all be able to handle NVIDIA's 600 series graphics with GDRR5 memory, bolstered by support for the new PCI Express 3.0 -- which Alienware reckons will give double the bandwidth seen on version 2.0. Memory has been given a kick with 1600MHz dual channel memory now the base standard on all three customizable machines, starting at 6GB, up from 4GB in the older models. Capacity for the smaller M14x is locked down at 16GB of RAM, while the large M17x and M18x will be able to utilize up to 32GB. Additionally, these freshened-up models will pack Intel Core i7 processors -- but it's the Sandy Bridge kind. While an Ivy Bridge version is logically the next step, it looks like we'll have to wait for Intel to let its new hardware out to play before we see it in these gaming laptops.
On the storage side, Alienware's keen to trumpet new support for mSATA technology, with the new storage medium capable of acting as either a boot drive to optimize Windows or as a caching drive for improved gaming performance -- we reckon the latter sounds like more fun. In fact, with the options of standard SSD, mSATA and more pedestrian storage drives, there's up to 23 different HDD options on the M18x alone. Customization-wise, the M14x also gets the new option of a built-in Blu-ray drive. Audio hasn't been ignored either, with Creative's new Sound Blaster Recon3Di High-Definition hardware folded into each of the laptops, with the same built-in speakers that got the Klipsch seal of approval last time around. Overall, it looks like there should be plenty to chew over in benchmark comparisons between the 2012 update and the models it replaces. Still, we can't shake the feeling that Alienware must be at least planning to upgrade its laptops elsewhere -- perhaps its worth waiting a little bit longer.
Will Microsoft let owners of smartphones running Windows Phone 7.5, nicknamed "Mango," upgrade to WinPho 8, also known as "Apollo?" At this point, the answer appears very unclear. Controversy erupted when Nuno Silva, described as a Microsoft evangelist, said that all current smartphones running Windows Phone 7 will get the upgrade to WinPho 8.
Singer ventures into dance-music realm for the power track, which was created for Converse's 3 Artists 1 Song series. By Jocelyn Vena
Kimbra Photo: MTV News
Before Kimbra hooked up with Foster the People leading man Mark Foster and well A-Trak for "Warrior," she had just "dabbled" in the dance music realm. But on the new track, she plants all four firmly on the floor for the track.
"It's refreshing to kind of go into different genres, sometimes when you've been working on your own stuff for so long," Kimbra told MTV News recently. Currently riding high off the success of her Gotye collaboration, "Somebody That I Used To Know," the singer will release her album, Vows, Stateside in May.
She ended up with Foster and A-Trak at the request of Converse for their 3 Artists, 1 Song series, which brings together artists to work on music and a coinciding music video to help launch the brand's latest shoe line.
And it's not just the song that's big, but also the message of the song. Kimbra offers up a girl-power battle cry on the chorus, singing, "You're just pushing me down, pushing me down, pushing me down/(They tell you, 'Trust your head, be like men' but never feel like you're good enough)/You're just crushing me down, crushing me down, crushing me down/(They wanna take our light, make us fight, but never cry for the ones you love!)/(I'll be your warrior, warrior)."
That in-your-face feeling was actually made with very little face-to-face contact between the three artists, as they were all on separate continents when they mad the song.
"I think that was fun for us all to have boundaries in that sense and not be able to be in the same room," she told MTV News. "But it was kind of fun and we did get the chance to sit down together at one point and that was really great after talking on the phone for so long to finally be in the same room together."
The power of the song's lyrics is mirrored in the video, which features the trio as luchadores battling it out for supremacy. And, despite several shots where the trio is all together, Kimbra let us in on a big secret.
"So the video shoot was challenging because I couldn't be in L.A. for the time of the shoot," she said. "So I think I was in Europe at the time, so we organized for my shoot to be done to a green screen. There's a little bit of face replacement in there as well. I'm telling you all the secrets!
"But it's fun. It's cool that it all looked continuous enough," she added. "I'm a bit bummed I didn't get to do the round-house kicks. That was a stunt double. It was really fun. I always say to them, I could have done [the kicks]. They jumped to conclusions there."
What we're about to show you is decidedly low-tech -- it's essentially a projection screen with a sharp curve at the bottom -- but the resulting effect conveys a more realistic 3D image, for certain applications, at least. The Communications Research Centre of Canada was on hand at NAB to demonstrate a small variety of lab projects, with agency representatives hoping to make an impression on attendees, who will theoretically apply these concepts to actual products, with no licensing fee making its way back to the True North. This particular project employs an off-the-shelf Optoma 3D projector, active glasses and a white screen positioned with a dramatic curve, that essentially works to provide a platform for 3D subjects to stand on.
Believe it or not, the config really does make a difference, enabling a more immersive experience that makes 3D objects appear more realistic, assuming they're positioned in such a way that they're standing on the near-horizontal portion of the screen. Research Technologist Ron Renaud says that such a configuration would be ideal for video conferencing -- it's still no match for an in-person meeting, but it's certainly an improvement over the traditional approach. The demonstration projector wasn't configured to compensate for the curve, which theoretically makes it subject to warping, though we didn't notice any issues at the show. Like all 3D displays, you'll really need to see it for yourself to get an accurate impression of the experience, but jump past the break for an overview with Renaud, and a closer look at the screen.
Historically black colleges and universities may be more supportive of studentsPublic release date: 17-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Chuck Carney ccarney@indiana.edu 812-856-8027 Indiana University
VANCOUVER -- An Indiana University study that analyzed differences in practices between faculty at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and predominantly white institutions (PWIs) found that faculty members at HBCUs were more likely to engage students in certain "educationally purposeful" activities both in and out of the classroom.
The study was conducted by Tom Nelson Laird, associate professor in the higher education and student affairs program in the Indiana University School of Education. Nelson Laird also works on the National Survey of Student Engagement and its related surveys. Co-authors include higher education doctoral students Mahauganee Shaw, Eddie Cole and Cameron Harris.
Educationally purposeful activities, those that lead to deep levels of learning and the production of enduring and measurable learning gains and outcomes, are part of the basis for the highly regarded National Survey of Student Engagement. The more that students are engaged with educationally purposeful activities, the better the quality of the institution.
Nelson Laird said studies based on the National Survey of Student Engagement have documented similar differences between HBCUs and PWIs from the students' perspective but until now, no studies have examined faculty differences.
"Faculty differences largely confirm what has been found among students," Nelson Laird said. "Compared to their counterparts at the PWIs in this study, faculty at HBCUs viewed their campuses as more supportive of students, used active classroom practices more, placed greater importance on reflective learning, and placed greater emphasis on personal and social responsibility."
Other findings included HBCU faculty viewing student relationships with each other, faculty, administrators, and staff less positively than faculty at PWIs. The faculty at HBCUs were disproportionately African-American, with larger proportions of Asian and Asian-American faculty compared with PWIs. A larger proportion of the HBCU faculty were from the hard sciences.
"These differences in who teaches at HBCUs contributes to the differences found between teaching practices and the view of student relationships between HBCUs and PWIs," Nelson Laird said.
He said the work is important for confirming evidence previously coming only from students. The findings also support the notion that diversifying faculty at PWIs would positively influence teaching and learning.
"This work also supports the idea that there is something particularly supportive about HBCUs," Nelson Laird said. "It likely has more to do with their approach to teaching and support and is not all about students relationships with others on campus."
###
"Patterns in Faculty Teaching Practices on the Campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Predominantly White Institutions" will be presented at 5:15 p.m. EDT Tuesday at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting in Vancouver.
To speak with Nelson Laird, contact Chuck Carney at 812-856-8027 or ccarney@indiana.edu.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Historically black colleges and universities may be more supportive of studentsPublic release date: 17-Apr-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Chuck Carney ccarney@indiana.edu 812-856-8027 Indiana University
VANCOUVER -- An Indiana University study that analyzed differences in practices between faculty at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and predominantly white institutions (PWIs) found that faculty members at HBCUs were more likely to engage students in certain "educationally purposeful" activities both in and out of the classroom.
The study was conducted by Tom Nelson Laird, associate professor in the higher education and student affairs program in the Indiana University School of Education. Nelson Laird also works on the National Survey of Student Engagement and its related surveys. Co-authors include higher education doctoral students Mahauganee Shaw, Eddie Cole and Cameron Harris.
Educationally purposeful activities, those that lead to deep levels of learning and the production of enduring and measurable learning gains and outcomes, are part of the basis for the highly regarded National Survey of Student Engagement. The more that students are engaged with educationally purposeful activities, the better the quality of the institution.
Nelson Laird said studies based on the National Survey of Student Engagement have documented similar differences between HBCUs and PWIs from the students' perspective but until now, no studies have examined faculty differences.
"Faculty differences largely confirm what has been found among students," Nelson Laird said. "Compared to their counterparts at the PWIs in this study, faculty at HBCUs viewed their campuses as more supportive of students, used active classroom practices more, placed greater importance on reflective learning, and placed greater emphasis on personal and social responsibility."
Other findings included HBCU faculty viewing student relationships with each other, faculty, administrators, and staff less positively than faculty at PWIs. The faculty at HBCUs were disproportionately African-American, with larger proportions of Asian and Asian-American faculty compared with PWIs. A larger proportion of the HBCU faculty were from the hard sciences.
"These differences in who teaches at HBCUs contributes to the differences found between teaching practices and the view of student relationships between HBCUs and PWIs," Nelson Laird said.
He said the work is important for confirming evidence previously coming only from students. The findings also support the notion that diversifying faculty at PWIs would positively influence teaching and learning.
"This work also supports the idea that there is something particularly supportive about HBCUs," Nelson Laird said. "It likely has more to do with their approach to teaching and support and is not all about students relationships with others on campus."
###
"Patterns in Faculty Teaching Practices on the Campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Predominantly White Institutions" will be presented at 5:15 p.m. EDT Tuesday at the American Educational Research Association annual meeting in Vancouver.
To speak with Nelson Laird, contact Chuck Carney at 812-856-8027 or ccarney@indiana.edu.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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(Image: X-ray: NASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/JPL/PSU/L.Townsley et al.)
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Public release date: 17-Apr-2012
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