Paper Supercapacitor Powers Paper Electronics
Electronic devices were taking the place of paper and now paper electronic devices may be taking the place of electronics and paper. That is one crazy logic statement.
Paper Electronics = ! Electronics and ! Paper
That is just wacky, but it looks really cool.
I would love to have an electronic paper book that could make me a sandwich!
Is the iPhone Bad for Computer Science?
This article asks some great questions. Is the closed system of the iPhone bad for Computer Science? I guess it depends on how you look at it. My students really enjoy writing phone apps and the iPhone has only increased their interest. Yeah, it would cool to tinker more with the iPhone system without having to “jail-break” the phone as they say, but writing apps for a few bucks creates quite a bit of interest as well. I see this iPhone situation as being similar to working on your automobiles before computer controls took over. Back in the day, you could pop the hood and get a few wrenches and start tearing your engine apart. This was once no big deal. Now, you have to have a degree in Computer Science to deal with the high tech computer systems under the hood or you might cause the reactor to melt down. Today, to beef up your engine, you have to buy a book and figure out how to overclock your car engine so to speak with chips and such. Sounds an awful lot like a Computer Science problem. I think the iPhone situation is similar as well. The more high tech the gadget, the more high tech the tinkers have to become or they will just tinker on something else.
That is just my 10 cents! the 10 is in binary
Floppy Disks Sentenced to Death
Gasp! The Horror!
What shall we ever do with no floppy drives and floppy disks?
I really was unaware that companies were still making floppies, but apparently they are still being produced.
I took my Computer Science team to a UIL Regional Computer Science contest and we had to submit our solutions on floppy disks. I was quite appalled to say the least and I had to search for days to find floppies and drives. It was like going back in time. The contest was held at a University which made it even more ironic. None of my laptops or PCs have floppy drives.
For those hosting high school contests, PC^2 is the only way to go. Forget the disks and USB drives and use a Computer Science solution to solve a Computer Science problem. We host a contest here in the Houston area and we use PC^2. The UIL State Computer Science meet here in Texas will use PC^2 this year and we are all very happy about that.
So – glad to see the floppies are being killed off. It is a long overdue death!
Undersea Robots Powered by Ocean Temps
Robots are really cool and new types of robots seem to show up every day. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for robotics. I think I am going to go watch Forbidden Planet.
AP CS Principles Website The AP CS Principles course website is now up and running. Information regarding the work of the commission has been posted as well as some general information on the AP Computer Science Principles course.
As as member of the commission, I think the course is coming along nicely and that it will be a course that will convey to everyone the coolness, power, and relevance of Computer Science.
The course will include programming as programming is a very fundamental component of Computer Science, but not focus only on programming.
Alfred Thompson has some cool reflections on his blog about the AP CS Principles course. His blog is a very good one to check out for all sorts of Computer Science information.
Yoda knew this was coming. This will be interesting to watch over the next few years. The Broadband issue seems to be quite important to lots of folks, especially some very big companies.
The Female Perspective of Computer Science
This blog looks pretty cool and provides a different view of Computer Science education. I like the fact that there are some very interesting and hard questions being asked as well.
Learning Computer Science does not have to be hard and painful for the teacher or the student, but it often is painful for both. Something is going wrong if this is the norm.
There is some pretty cool stuff in this article.