Boston Dynamics Is Selling its 70-Pound Robot Dog To Police Departments

The New York Times reports on what the city’s police department calls Digidog, “a 70-pound robotic dog with a loping gait, cameras and lights affixed to its frame, and a two-way communication system that allows the officer maneuvering it remotely to see and hear what is happening.”
Police said the robot can see in the dark and assess how safe it is…

Our interview with 5-time NBA All-Star Chris Webber about his Sports Activism online course, new on Coursera

By Shantelle Williams-Valadié, BOLD ERG Chair and Associate Director, University Partnerships, Coursera In the 1968 Olympics, medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos punched defiant fists into the summer air, decrying oppression of Black communities in the country whose colors they wore on their tracksuits. The act seized the world of sports and was widely condemned […]
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Welcoming Morehouse College to the Coursera partner community

Morehouse College launches sports activism course taught by NBA All-Star Chris Webber By Betty Vandenbosch, Chief Content Officer at Coursera I’m excited to announce our partnership with Morehouse College as we continue to expand our engagement with leading institutions, including historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the U.S. Morehouse College, a leading producer of […]
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Best Story Wins

Morgan Housel, on the art and power of storytelling: C. R. Hallpike is a respected anthropologist who once wrote a review of a young author’s recent book on the history of humans. It states: “It would be fair to say that whenever his facts are broadly correct they are not new, and whenever he tries to strike out on his own…

Despite Funny Name Ideas, US Space Force Has a Serious Mission

Friday the U.S. military released 400 other names it considered for Space Force’s soliders (before settling on the word “guardians.”) Politico writes that the names were “crowdsourced” from the U.S. military’s space workforce, and “Troops clearly had fun with their submissions, which included Space Cadet, Spacies, Anti-Gravity Gang, Homo Spaciens and Spacefolk.” But the Space Force had more science fiction-inspired names…

Myanmar Blocks Facebook as Resistance Grows To Coup

Myanmar’s new military government blocked access to Facebook as resistance to Monday’s coup surged amid calls for civil disobedience to protest the ousting of the elected government and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. From a report: Facebook is especially popular in Myanmar and is how most people access the internet. The military seized power shortly before a new session of…

How to prevent crashes between orbiting satellites

Thousands more satellites will soon orbit Earth. We need better rules to prevent space crashes. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/satellites-prevent-space-crashes…

The Ethical Source Movement Launches a New Kind of Open-Source Organization

ZDNet takes a look at a new nonprofit group called the Organization for Ethical Source (OES): The OES is devoted to the idea that the free software and open-source concept of “Freedom Zero” are outdated. Freedom Zero is “the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.” It’s fundamental to how open-source software is made and used… They…

Biden Sworn In as 46th President

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday, taking office at a moment of profound economic, health and political crises with a promise to seek unity after a tumultuous four years that tore at the fabric of American society. New York Times: With his hand on a five-inch-thick Bible that has been…