I met my first drone playing Call Of Duty: Black Ops. In the game, you can control one of these unmanned flying vehicles to hover and fire missiles to destroy enemy territory. In real life we also associate drones with death from above. The news constantly reminds us of their destructive power, but at a recent Brains and Beakers, Youth Radio’s science-speaker series, Chris Anderson demonstrated how drones can be constructive too.
According to a new study by The Sentencing Project, “The Changing Racial Dynamics of Women’s Incarceration,” women’s incarceration rates have outpaced…
It’s easy to find alarming evidence that we’ve lost our way when it comes to civics in the US. But longtime global activist and MIT prof Ethan Zuckerman says there’s a lot to get excited about too, if we’re willing to think in new ways about what it even means to be civically engaged in the digital age.
Silicon Valley may be the financial center of the tech industry, but lately San Francisco is earning a reputation as the heart and soul of it. Tech workers who don’t want to live in the Valley’s sprawling suburbs have migrated northward. And hundreds of tech-related businesses have set up shop in San Francisco too. But the culture of tech that’s taking hold in the city hasn’t come without controversy.
For the first time, the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, has added a Gaming Expo. Since the 1980’s the city has been the spiritual heart of computer gaming. Austin’s strong ties to the $67 billion dollar video game industry are now being recognized by the festival. This puts the 7,000 game developers who work in Austin– according to the IRS by way of the International Game Developers Association — in the spotlight. While conventioneers have been gathering downtown to hear about the latest trends, I went in search of Austin’s burgeoning independent game scene.
“How Long Will I Cry: Voices of Youth Violence” is a new play at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. The play depicts young people who were involved with gangs, and participated in or were victims of street violence. It follows the true stories of young people in Chicago.
A recent New York Times article explained a program in Harlem and the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York called the Juvenile…
ProPublica is still the cool new kid in investigative journalism— less than five years in the game, and they’ve got the best toys, plenty of talent, and everyone wants to be their friend. And that doesn’t just apply to journalists. The investigative journalism outfit’s big data projects draw interest from programmers too. That’s why the Engineering and Computer Science departments at UC Berkeley asked Jeff Larson from ProPublica’s News Applications team, to talk about the new ways that coding is helping tell stories.
After school and evening are crunch time for most families. It’s when crucial decisions get made that affect kids’ fitness and weight—and that includes snacks. According to a poll done by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Harvard School of Public Health and NPR, most parents believe their children are eating healthy.
