Tag Archives: Invention

Cheap Computers

Once these computers come online and you can actually buy one, I am getting a Raspberry PI for 25 bucks.  It appears that there are 100,000 or so back orders in the queue ( that is British for line ) so we may all be waiting for a good while to get one.  The 35.00 model has a few more features like a network connection, but either one would be fun to have in a Comp Sci class.  My students all thought this was awesome and they all want to buy one and think that everyone else needs to buy one as well.  Happy Hunting!

Software Allows Rover to Think

I have a fond appreciate for the Mars Rover program.  Way back in 2001 I was afforded the opportunity to work with JPL and IBM to test the first Mars Rover before it lifted off for Mars.  A group of my former students at Carroll High School in Southlake, Texas worked with several other schools from around the world to test a Rover which was situated in the Arizona desert.  We issued commands to the Rover using a control panel we accessed via the internet and were then able to watch the Rover move based on our commands.  It was amazing as we were using a very early video streaming technology.

Software Allows Rover to Think

This article sheds light on how far the technology running on the Rover has come.  Our tech was not able to think back in 2001 and barely did what we asked after waiting for what seemed like a couple days.  Playing Quake over the web was pretty slow back then as well, but we made do.

MIT Picks Up App Inventor

App Inventor Picked Up By MIT

Google handed off App Inventor to MIT.  This is a fitting football metaphor with Fantasy Football season about to kick off.  If you do not play FF, you should!  Anyway, App Inventor is a cool platform and it is great that MIT will continue to build on its success and keep the football rolling or tumbling or whatever a football does when you kick it.  With Scratch and App Inventor in hand, MIT will now be managing two of the most popular visual programming environments.

CS News – Is Software the Modern Language of Science?

Is Software the Modern Language of Science?

This article does attempt to make that point and provides some nice research and examples to back up the claim.
There are some nice links to sites with data that  suggest there is a stronger relationship between Science and Computer Science than at any point in the past.
It is shame that more high school graduates do not have access to this information as most of them do not see any connection between Science and Computer Science.

CS News – Lots of Jobs in Tech

Lots of Tech Jobs

According to the article and several others I have read lately like it, there is high demand for mobile app developers.

A few great quotes from the article :

“Because of the labor shortage, companies do some pretty incredible acrobatics to attract good talent. That means it’s a good time to be a graduating senior with a degree in computer science.”

“If you can develop software applications for mobile devices, you’re sitting pretty.”

I have quite a few students interested in developing apps and the Android platform seems to the most popular choice.  The environment is easy to use and apps can be developed quite quickly.