Sunday, December 22

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Facebook’s Smart Glasses – Are They Smart About Security And Privacy?
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TECHNOLOGY

Facebook’s Smart Glasses – Are They Smart About Security And Privacy?

Apu Kapadia, Indiana University Facebook’s recently announced Ray-Ban Stories glasses, which have two cameras and three microphones built in, are in the news again. Facebook has kicked off a worldwide project dubbed Ego4D to research new uses for smart glasses. Ray-Ban Stories glasses capture audio and video so wearers can record their experiences and interactions. The research project aims to add augmented reality features to the glasses, potentially including facial recognition and other artificial intelligence technologies that could provide wearers with a wealth of information, including the ability to get answers to questions like “Where did I leave my keys?” Several other technology companies like Google, Microsoft, Snap, Vuzix and Lenovo have also been experimenting with version...
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For Low-Wage Women Of Color What About Work-Life Balance
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VIDEO REELS

For Low-Wage Women Of Color What About Work-Life Balance

October is National Work and Family Month, a designation that the U.S. Senate first marked in 2003. The struggle that workers face in balancing job-related responsibilities with family obligations became a signature issue for former President Barack Obama, who in a 2014 speech at the White House Summit on Working Families declared, “family-friendly policies are good business practices.” Today, government officials, corporate executives, and media outlets are increasingly calling attention to the importance of alleviating workplace stresses and promoting better “work-life balance.” But most of the rhetoric is directed at higher-income professionals such as managers and executives who tend to be largely White, and not low-wage workers of color, particularly Black and Brown women. During th...
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9/11 – What Schools Teach About War On Terror
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IN OTHER NEWS

9/11 – What Schools Teach About War On Terror

Jeremy Stoddard, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Diana Hess, University of Wisconsin-Madison The phrase “Never Forget” is often associated with the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But what does this phrase mean for U.S. students who are too young to remember? What are they being asked to never forget? As education researchers in curriculum and instruction, we have studied since 2002 how the events of 9/11 and the global war on terror are integrated into secondary level U.S. classrooms and curricula. What we have found is a relatively consistent narrative that focuses on 9/11 as an unprecedented and shocking attack, the heroism of the firefighters and other first responders and a global community that stood behind the U.S. in its pursuit of terrorists. This narrative is in official...
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For Millions Of Out-Of-Work Americans The Pandemic Hardship Is About To Get A Lot Worse
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Journalism, SOCIETY, WORK

For Millions Of Out-Of-Work Americans The Pandemic Hardship Is About To Get A Lot Worse

WORK Jeffrey Kucik, University of Arizona and Don Leonard, The Ohio State University Millions of unemployed Americans are set to lose pandemic-related jobless benefits after Labor Day – just as surging cases of coronavirus slow the pace of hiring. In all, an estimated 8.8 million people will stop receiving unemployment insurance beginning on Sept. 6, 2021. An additional 4.5 million will no longer get the extra US$300 a week the federal government has been providing to supplement state benefits. But with the pandemic still raging thanks to the rise of the delta variant, particularly in Southern states, the expiration of these benefits seems ill-timed. While some claim that the aid is no longer needed and doing more harm than good, we believe that the data tell another story. Benefits lo...
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What LaMelo Ball Got Right – And Wrong About Why Star Athletes Who Want To Play For The NBA Don’t Really Need College
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SPORTS

What LaMelo Ball Got Right – And Wrong About Why Star Athletes Who Want To Play For The NBA Don’t Really Need College

SPORTS John Holden, Oklahoma State University In a recent interview published in GQ, NBA star LaMelo Ball downplayed the importance of college for athletes who aspire to play professional basketball. When asked about his decision to forgo college and play professional basketball overseas before entering the NBA draft, Ball said: “You wanna go to the league, so school’s not your priority.” The then-19-year-old Ball, now 20, quickly clarified his quotes in GQ via Instagram, stating that he was only referencing his own situation and that while school is “not for everybody,” it is for many people. LaMelo Ball’s GQ interview is only the most recent point in a long-standing debate over the necessity of college for superstar athletes. Here are four points to help put Ball’s comments into shar...
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3 Essential Reads About The CDC’s Expiring Moratorium As Millions Of Renters Face Eviction And Homelessness
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Journalism

3 Essential Reads About The CDC’s Expiring Moratorium As Millions Of Renters Face Eviction And Homelessness

Bryan Keogh, The Conversation The White House and city officials across the country are scrambling to avoid an eviction crisis. The federal housing eviction moratorium that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put in place in September 2020 expires on July 31, 2021. After that, millions of Americans who owe tens of billions of dollars in unpaid rent will lose that protection and may face eviction and a loss of their homes. Meanwhile, a group of landlords is suing the U.S. government to recover damages it says its members suffered from not being able to evict tenants who didn’t pay rent. Although Congress allocated more than $46 billion for emergency rental aid, most of it hasn’t reached many of the people who need it as state and local governments struggle to distribute the mo...
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Having A Chilling Effect On How Educators Teach About Racism – Bans On Critical Race Theory
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EDUCATION

Having A Chilling Effect On How Educators Teach About Racism – Bans On Critical Race Theory

Nicholas Ensley Mitchell, University of Kansas Perhaps no topic has dominated education news in 2021 like the debate over whether or not critical race theory should be taught – or whether it is even being taught – in America’s schools. Critical race theory is an academic framework that holds that racism is embedded in American society and its institutions. The debate about whether K-12 students should be exposed to this theory has prompted some Republican-controlled state legislatures to pass laws to make sure that never happens. As of early July 2021, six states have passed laws that seek to ban instruction on critical race theory in K-12 schools, although the laws rarely mention critical race theory by name. The new laws in Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, New Hampshire and Tennessee al...
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Reparations – Why Are They About More Than Money
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IN OTHER NEWS

Reparations – Why Are They About More Than Money

Kerry Whigham, Binghamton University, State University of New York Between 1904 and 1908, German soldiers and settler colonists killed about half of all Nama people and over 80% of the Herero ethnic group. On May 28, 2021, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas acknowledged that Germany committed genocide in what is today Namibia. Maas’ statement was Germany’s first official description of these events as “genocide.” Maas also announced that Germany would pay Namibia roughly US$1.3 billion to answer for these crimes. Many refer to this gesture as reparations. Meanwhile, in the United States, reparations to Black Americans for slavery are gaining traction. A growing number of universities, including Georgetown and Virginia Theological Seminary, along with a few cities such as Asheville, North...
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Talking About Racism With Kids Most White Parents Don’t
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SOCIETY

Talking About Racism With Kids Most White Parents Don’t

Though race and racism are at the top of Americans’ public discussion, most white parents don’t talk about those issues with their kids. Research on how white parents discuss race with their children is sparse. However, past research has shown that conversations about race, much less racism, are rare, even when these issues are highly visible – for example, during the Ferguson protests in 2014. One study found that even though 81% of white mothers believed it was important to have such discussions, only 62% of them reported actually doing so. Of those who said they did, however, fewer than one-third of those people could actually recall a specific conversation. Teaching generations To understand the issue more deeply, we examined surveys of more than 2,000 adults ages 18 and older, colle...
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To Create A Buzz About Mosquitoes And Ecology I Have City Kids Make Comic Books
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ENVIRONMENT, VIDEO REELS

To Create A Buzz About Mosquitoes And Ecology I Have City Kids Make Comic Books

Katherine Richardson Bruna, Iowa State University If humans and mosquitoes had a battle at the end of the world, who would win? That’s the question I pose to 30 young kids each summer during a two-week camp called “Mosquitoes & Me” in Des Moines, Iowa. The ‘Mosquito and Me’ summer camp in Des Moines, Iowa. I am an educational anthropologist who studies the cultural dynamics of science education. Along with my colleagues Lyric Bartholomay and Sara Erickson, who help run the camp, we have the young camp participants explore the “end-of-world battle” question as they learn about mosquito biology, ecology and disease transmission. Based on what the kids learn from their hands-on activities, they design a mosquito comic book character that is either a hero or a villain. Since this approac...
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