educational

The tale of the Arkyd telescope is like that of the "little engine that could."

What seemed like a difficult task -- raising $1 million from a Kickstarter campaign to launch the world's first public space telescope -- was overcome on Monday as the crowdfunding goal was met with more than $1.5 million in pledges.

Not only did asteroid mining company Planetary Resources achieve its goal, it surpassed it, which means that the extra money can be used to add even more features to the telescope.

More than 17,600 people backed the Kickstarter campaign -- … Read more

Mutant Muensters are on the loose! Who do you turn to for help when killer cheese aims to destroy San Francisco? That is the question Genentech poses on the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the DNA double helix by Dr. Francis Crick and James D. Watson.

In Ralph's Killer Muenster (available for iPad) the game charges you, the user, to track down the runaway mutant cheese that escaped containment. The twist is the devious muenster is quickly spreading and mutating into different strains. Solve puzzles using genetic methods and scientific processes (Read: match symbols and shapes) to track … Read more

With iOS 7 still taking shape, Apple's already begun making the pitch to schools and businesses to use it.

In two new pages that went up on Apple's Web site Wednesday, the company highlights, for both groups, some of the changes and new features in the upcoming software, even though iOS 7 is still in development.

One of the main focuses of the new documents is how schools and businesses can roll out apps to users through the App Store, which comes pre-installed on all of Apple's devices.

The company also highlights single sign-ons for apps, new … Read more

Should you have ever posted an image of yourself in a bikini on Facebook, it is likely that you are not entirely ashamed of your features.

Should that image also include a cardboard Snoop Dogg, you are perhaps aiming for a touch of humor, or a hope that, one day, Snoop sees it and favors you with his patronage.

However, should you be 17 and a school administrator uses your Facebook bikini image to tell a story of how photos live online forever, you would surely sue for $2 million.

This, at least, is the decision of Chelsea Chaney, who … Read more

There's a lot of language Web sites out there. Some are definitely more well-known than others, but what if you want something that works really well on your device? That's when it's time to use an Android app instead of just a Web site. Here are three of the top language-learning apps on Android.

Most of Babbel's language packs feature 3,000 vocabulary words (though you'll need to download more data to complete the language pack). The vocabulary is divided into categories, so if you need to learn words related to … Read more

Kids, you know that studying is boring.

Now I can tell you that it's useless, too. Oh, of course I always knew this deep down inside, but I was waiting for the one thing that would confirm this: data.

My eyes and ears are bathing in the finest and most accurate data money can buy: data from Google.

The quote that Google's Laszlo Bock -- who enjoys the stunningly human title of senior vice president of people operations -- emitted to The New York Times is joyous: "GPA's are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and … Read more

There's a quaint concept that seemingly every technology company dismisses as outdated.

It's called opting in.

Should you not be familiar with it, it's the notion that you ought to choose before, say, all the people in your address book are contacted by a company they've never heard of.

And wouldn't it be lovely to have a choice over whether your kids should have their irises scanned, as they get on their school bus?

The parents of around 750 kids in several Florida schools never got that choice -- because of what might be politely … Read more

Who understands the importance of performance better than an engineer?

Yet the pressures that come with performing to perfect levels can cause some engineers to cut corners, even obfuscate.

How tragic, then, that three apparently bright (or not quite so bright) young things studying engineering at Purdue University have been charged with using their skills to artificially jack up their grades.

I am not sure how sophisticated this alleged scheme was.

It all began to allegedly unravel at the end of 2012 when an engineering professor was suddenly struck by suspicion that the password on his computer kept changing. He … Read more

Our children constantly need to be rewarded.

Poor things, they're growing up in a world in which they don't know what will happen tomorrow and whether the things they want to do in life will suddenly be automated by a couple of fluff-chinned hipsters sitting in a hotel foyer.

It makes them wonder whether going to school is worth it all. Instead, go to work, get your Series A funding by the time you're 19 and hope that you can take it easy by the time you're 25.

One L.A. schools district is conscious of … Read more