Saturday, December 21

Tag: explain

Media And Information Experts Explain – What Is The Metaverse?
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IN OTHER NEWS, VIDEO REELS

Media And Information Experts Explain – What Is The Metaverse?

The metaverse is a network of always-on virtual environments in which many people can interact with one another and digital objects while operating virtual representations – or avatars – of themselves. Think of a combination of immersive virtual reality, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game and the web. The metaverse is a concept from science fiction that many people in the technology industry envision as the successor to today’s internet. It’s only a vision at this point, but technology companies like Facebook are aiming to make it the setting for many online activities, including work, play, studying and shopping. Facebook is so sold on the concept that it is renaming itself Meta to highlight its push to dominate the metaverse. Metaverse is a portmanteau of meta, meaning ...
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Looking Through History May Help Explain Why People Of Color Have Been Missing In The Disability Rights Movement
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IN OTHER NEWS

Looking Through History May Help Explain Why People Of Color Have Been Missing In The Disability Rights Movement

Jennifer Erkulwater is a professor of political science at the University of Richmond. Her scholarship focuses on the politics of poverty, Social Security and disability rights. Below are highlights from an interview with The Conversation. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity. Jennifer Erkulwater speaks on her research about people of color and the disability rights movement. What is your research focused on? Erkulwater: My current work involves trying to understand why people of color seem to be missing in debates about disability rights. People of color, especially African Americans, are more likely to report medical impairments than whites, and yet popular media tends to showcase largely white people with disabilities. It’s an absence that’s been critiqued on social media ...
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Yep Smart Devices Do Spy On You – 2 Computer Scientists Explain How The Internet Of Things Can Violate Your Privacy
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IN OTHER NEWS, TECHNOLOGY

Yep Smart Devices Do Spy On You – 2 Computer Scientists Explain How The Internet Of Things Can Violate Your Privacy

Have you ever felt a creeping sensation that someone’s watching you? Then you turn around and you don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Depending on where you were, though, you might not have been completely imagining it. There are billions of things sensing you every day. They are everywhere, hidden in plain sight – inside your TV, fridge, car and office. These things know more about you than you might imagine, and many of them communicate that information over the internet. Back in 2007, it would have been hard to imagine the revolution of useful apps and services that smartphones ushered in. But they came with a cost in terms of intrusiveness and loss of privacy. As computer scientists who study data management and privacy, we find that with internet connectivity extended to devices ...
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Two Waste Experts Explain What Wishcycling Is
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ENVIRONMENT

Two Waste Experts Explain What Wishcycling Is

Wishcycling is putting something in the recycling bin and hoping it will be recycled, even if there is little evidence to confirm this assumption. Hope is central to wishcycling. People may not be sure the system works, but they choose to believe that if they recycle an object, it will become a new product rather than being buried in a landfill, burned or dumped. The U.S. recycling industry was launched in the 1970s in response to public concern over litter and waste. The growth of recycling and collection programs changed consumers’ view of waste: It didn’t seem entirely bad if it could lead to the creation of new products via recycling. Pro-recycling messaging from governments, corporations and environmentalists promoted and reinforced recycling behavior. This was especially true for ...
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Media And Information Experts Explain – What Is The Metaverse?
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TECHNOLOGY, VIDEO REELS

Media And Information Experts Explain – What Is The Metaverse?

Rabindra Ratan, Michigan State University and Yiming Lei, Michigan State University The metaverse is a network of always-on virtual environments in which many people can interact with one another and digital objects while operating virtual representations – or avatars – of themselves. Think of a combination of immersive virtual reality, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game and the web. The metaverse is a concept from science fiction that many people in the technology industry envision as the successor to today’s internet. It’s only a vision at this point, but technology companies like Facebook are aiming to make it the setting for many online activities, including work, play, studying and shopping. The best-selling science fiction novel ‘Snow Crash’ gave the world the word ‘m...
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Two Philanthropy Experts Explain – What Is Unrestricted Funding?
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MONEY

Two Philanthropy Experts Explain – What Is Unrestricted Funding?

Genevieve Shaker, IUPUI and Pamala Wiepking, IUPUI Unrestricted funds are grants or donations nonprofits get to spend any way they believe is appropriate to further their mission. Unrestricted funding can also come with some limitations. Donors might, for example, designate the money for operating expenses like rent or to help strengthen the organization through support for leadership development. However, only about 20% of U.S. funding for nonprofits has any degree of flexibility, the Center for Effective Philanthropy has estimated. More often, nonprofits get money for a specific project in exchange for agreeing to several conditions and a specific timeframe. For example, someone might give a museum or a hospital US$20 million to spend building a new wing within three years. Starting...
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Scholars Explain – Why The US Rejoining The Paris Climate Accord Matters At Home And Abroad
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SCIENCE, VIDEO REELS

Scholars Explain – Why The US Rejoining The Paris Climate Accord Matters At Home And Abroad

The United States helped bring the world into the Paris climate accord, the groundbreaking global agreement reached in 2015 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to slow climate change. Under Donald Trump, the U.S. became the only country to withdraw. Now, the U.S. is coming back. On his first day as president, Joe Biden formally started the 30-day process to rejoin the Paris Agreement, effective Feb. 19. We asked five scholars to describe what U.S. involvement in the Paris Agreement means for the nation and the rest of the world, and for food security, safety and the future warming of the planet. What rejoining Paris means for America’s place in the world Morgan Bazilian, Public Policy Professor and Director of the Payne Institute, Colorado School of Mines Amanda Gorman, the ...
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Yes, kids can get COVID-19 – 3 pediatricians explain what’s known about coronavirus and children
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COVID-19

Yes, kids can get COVID-19 – 3 pediatricians explain what’s known about coronavirus and children

We are three pediatric infectious disease specialists who live and work in West Virginia. The West Virginia University health system serves 400,000 children and according to our internal data, to date, 2,520 children up to 17 years of age have been tested for the coronavirus. Sixty-seven of them tested positive and one became sick enough to be admitted to the hospital. We are asked almost daily about children and COVID-19: Do they get COVID-19? Should they attend day care or school, play sports, see friends and attend summer camps? What are the risks to themselves and to others? Based on current research and our own experiences, it would seem that kids 17 years old and younger face little risk from the coronavirus. Nearly all children have asymptomatic, very mild or mild disease, but a s...
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