BBC to give out one million 'Micro Bit' computers to get kids coding

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/12/bbc-micro-bit-coding/

It's the first year of a major new coding curriculum in the UK, and now the BBC wants to play its part in training the next generation of star programmers. The broadcaster is developing a spiritual successor to the BBC Micro, called the Micro Bit, which will give students a physical companion in their path to coding competence. It's going to be a small, standalone device with an LED display that children can carry around with them and plug into a computer to continue their work. The hardware will be basic, as the BBC calls it a "starting point" for "more complex" devices such as the Raspberry Pi and Kickstarter-funded Kano kits. The project is still in a prototype phase, but the BBC claims it'll be ready to give away one million of the new microcomputers to year 7 students this autumn.

The Micro Bit is just the tip of the BBC's new initiative, however. The organisation is developing classroom resources under its Bitesize and School Report brands, as well as a slate of events to inspire would-be coders. Under a new 'Make it Digital' campaign, the BBC is also pulling on some of its biggest TV shows, including Doctor Who, EastEnders and The One Show, to create new programming that will promote technology-fuelled creativity. BBC Three will be launching a talent show called 'Girls Can Code' and there will even be a drama about the making of Grand Theft Auto. Yes, you read that correctly. Grand Theft Auto. While some of this content will be available straight away, the BBC says it's working towards a "big audience moment" in September, when the kids go back to school.

The BBC has teamed up with a ton of companies to make all of this happen, including Google, Microsoft and Samsung, as well as Code Club, the British Computing Society and Tech City UK. At a time when the licence fee is being scrutinised yet again, such an ambitious project is a timely reminder of the BBC's public service contributions.

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Source: BBC

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MacBook Air's superfast disk speeds come from Samsung SSDs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/12/macbook-air-samsung-ssd/

Lost in the news of Retina-equipped, 12-inch MacBook was the arrival of all-new MacBook Air models with the latest Intel HD6000 graphics and CPUs. Apple also boasted that the 13-inch version has disk speeds "up to two times faster" than the last generation, and thanks to iFixit, we now know why. The bigger model packs a brand new 128GB M.2 x 4 SSD from frenemy Samsung -- which owns the PCIe SSD market at the moment -- giving it a stellar max read speed of 1,285 MB/s.

That's twice as fast as the SanDisk-equipped 11-inch MacBook Air, which still cooks along at a mere 668MB/s. The good news is that the SSDs are one of the few replaceable parts, and you could actually swap in the faster part on the smaller Air. That's assuming you're feeling brave -- the MacBook air only rates 4 out of 10 on iFixit's repairability scale.

[Image credit: iFixit]

Filed under: Laptops, Apple

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Source: iFixit

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This chart shows the number of colleges that have closed over the past 25 years

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/college-closings-chart-2015-3

With the closing of Sweet Briar College last week, many people in higher education fear this is a sign of what's to come, with more and more schools potentially shutting their doors for good.

However, even if several colleges close this academic year, it still wouldn't be unusual. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, we've put together a chart showing how many four-year colleges have closed over the past 25 years.

The numbers appear to fluctuate year to year, from a high of 10 closings to a low of zero.

Check out the chart below:

Most of the schools included here are private, nonprofit four-year colleges, although a handful are public four-year colleges. The chart does not includes mergers between two or more colleges — just colleges that have closed.

While there doesn't appear to be a visible trend in the above chart, a 2013 Vanderbilt University study found that the average number of private four-year colleges that have closed or were acquired every year had recently doubled, according to Bloomberg.

It's also important to note that while the chart currently looks like this, with no clear trend, this could change in the next few years. If enrollment trends and high deficits cause more colleges to close, there may be higher numbers of schools shuttering their doors than ever before.

SEE ALSO: MARK CUBAN: This is just the start of the college implosion

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NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do

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Sketchy crowdfunded privacy router gets a new corporate master (update)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/11/sochule-buys-anonabox/

Remember Anonabox, the internet privacy router that was outed as a rebranded Chinese device and booted off of Kickstarter for fraud before it headed to Indiegogo? Well, it's getting another lease on life. Sochule, which is best known for its social hotel app HelloTel, tells us that it has snapped up the Anonabox team. The new parent company won't say much about what's happening next until a South by Southwest event on Friday. However, it's stressing that Anonabox founder August Germar is maintaining a similar role -- it apparently doesn't mind the controversies surrounding Germar and his networking gadget.

The Anonabox crew is promising to clear the air surrounding its "issues" at the event, by explaining why Kickstarter cancelled its campaign and showing off real live demo units. Indiegogo orders are already shipping, the company says. It's good to see the company taking those concerns head-on rather than staying silent on the matter. With that said, it's not certain that you'll get straightforward answers. Germar was caught claiming to be more involved in Tor (the anonymizing network that makes Anonabox possible) than he actually was, and this was after the Kickstarter fiasco -- it's not certain that he and his team are ready to tell the whole story.

Update: We've since been in touch with Sochule, which claims that it conducted "thorough vetting" before the acquisition. It also maintains that Tor executive director Andrew Lewman confirmed Germar's role at the privacy project.

Filed under: Networking, Internet

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Source: Anonabox

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Article: After 3 Years And $64M In Seed Funding, Onshape Launches The Mother Of All Products

Behind every product is a product, almost invariably a computer-aided design (CAD) software package known as Solidworks. If you are a designer and want to draft a belt buckle for a new handbag, you have to use this software to carefully extrude the metal contours so that it is ready for manufactu...

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/09/onshape-launches-mother-of-all-products/

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