CourseCast of the Week

Episode 0090, 02/28/2009

Title/Description: Elevate America, Privacy in the Balance Again, and Other Tech Headlines

Welcome to Course Technology's CourseCast of the Week, Episode 90, recorded February 28th, 2009. This is Ken Baldauf bringing you this week's technology news and information. This CourseCast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.cengage.com/coursetechnology for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions.

Story 1 - Elevate America

Microsoft has launched a new program to help strengthen America's work force. Elevate America is designed to work with private, public, and community organizations to offer free and low-cost IT training and certification. Microsoft's Elevate America hopes to strengthen the US economy and increase the country's global competitiveness. Elevate America's educational programs range from Digital Literacy, which includes computer basics, Internet and Web, Productivity Software, Computer Security and Privacy, and Digital Lifestyles and Media, all the way up to training students to be IT professionals like Web developers, support technicians, and Systems engineers. The program includes 14 professional certification programs.

In a somewhat related vein, Microsoft, in partnership with New York University and other colleges, has put up $1.5 million to launch The Games of Learning Institute. The goal of the institute is to study and develop the use of video games as tools for drawing students into math, science, and technology-based programs of study. The institute has begun lining up middle school students to use in its research.

Sources:
Microsoft Seeks To Elevate America with Tech Training [NewsFactor]
Give Microsoft Its Due for Addressing Tech Skills Shortage [ITBusinessEdge]
Microsoft Explores Educational Link to Video Games [NewsFactor]

Story 2 - Privacy in the Balance Again

A new Bill is being floated in both the House and the Senate proposing that all Internet use should be recorded and stored by those that provide access to the Internet. The act is called the "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act of 2009". What does it spell? SAFETY! Yes it's the Internet SAFETY Act of 2009. To privacy advocates its spells trouble and another attempt to spy on citizen's online behavior disguised as a fight against child pornography. The act requires Internet Service Providers, coffee shops, libraries, schools, businesses, hotels, airports, and other entities that provide Internet access to begin collecting logs of each users online activities and storing those records for the period of two years. Efforts in this direction occur almost yearly now, and not only in the US but all around the world. Usually they are defeated due to citizen concerns over privacy. Those interested in privacy and protecting children need to let you opinions be heard by those that represent you in government.

Source:
Feds Propose Storing Internet User Data for 2 Years [Wired]
The Internet Safety Act launches a new battle on privacy [Christian Science Monitor]
Proposed Child Pornography Laws Raise Data Retention Concerns [CNN]

And that brings us to News Briefs:

  • A survey of 945 individuals who were laid off, fired, or quit their jobs over the past year revealed that 59% left their office with stolen company data, many intending to use it to leverage a new job.
    Most fired workers steal data on way out the door, survey shows [Computerworld]
  • The University of Florida announced that it has suffered a major data breach in which private information on more than 97,000 current and past students, faculty, and staff was stolen. This is the third such incident at UF in as many months.
    Three months, three breaches at the Univ. of Florida-Gainesville [Computerworld]
  • You thought Netbook computers were small? Meet the plug computer! About the size of your fist, the "Plug Computer" from Marvell resides at a wall outlet, to act as a network attached storage device, or NAS. Just plug in an external drive or thumb drive, attach the plug computer to your wireless router, and share your files across your network. The Plug Computer does the job of a Windows Home Server, for $50, with essentially no learning curve.
    Marvell hopes $50 'plug computers' will Web-enable our hard drives [Computerworld]
  • Roughly a third of US states charge a sales tax for items purchased over the Internet. That number is expected to begin rising as states turn to the Internet sales tax as one way to help contend with economic hard times. A new Internet sales tax law in Wisconsin is expected to transfer $6.7 million a year from the wallets of Wisconsin residents into the state treasury.
    State to start charging sales tax on online digital purchases Oct. 1 [JSOnline]
  • A survey of 4,000 Web-using adults revealed that 80 percent value their online privacy more than targeted advertising. Web users concerned over data privacy [vnunet]
  • Facebook has become painfully aware of its users concerns over privacy. After the fiasco over it claiming to own its user's information forever, the popular social network reversed its decision and now is is asking its users take part in the design of its terms of use policy.
    Facebook Offers Members a Say in Setting Policies [NewsFactor]
  • Google made headline news this week, but it wishes it hadn't. Gmail went down Tuesday leaving millions of people without email access for several hours and making many wonder, "are we really ready for cloud computing?".
    Gmail Struck With Service Outage [PCWorld]
  • The Conficker worm, which has infected millions of Windows PCs in recent months, has received an upgrade from its author that allows it to bypass security measures to become even more effective and dangerous. Microsoft is offering a quarter of a million dollar reward for the arrest of the author.
    Conficker worm gets an upgrade [vnunet]
  • A recent study found that hackers aren't just in it for the money. 24 percent of Web sites hacked last year were for political or cultural reasons.
    Report: Hacking Not Always for Financial Gain [ITBusinessEdge]
  • Security firm McAfee warns that malware distributors are turning to Google's Trends service to discover which search terms are most popular, and then use those terms in Web sites designed to spread malware. Essentially, hackers are employing SEO,that's Search Engine Optimization, to get their dangerous sites to occur more frequently, and higher up the list, in Google search results.
    Malware Writers Take Advantage of Google Trends [ITBusinessEdge]
  • Google got a Twitter account! Its first tweet was "I Feel Good" spelled out in binary code. The company has tweeted on many Google topics, and within hours acquired tens of thousands of followers. Google's sudden, unexpected arrival on Twitter has generated rumors in the press about a possible acquisition of Twitter by the search engine giant.
    Google Tweets on Twitter Amid Acquisition Rumors [NewsFactor]

That's it for this week's CourseCast. Links to this week's stories and many more news and information resources are provided at the CourseCast Web site at coursecasts.course.com. E-mail us with your suggestions for the show at course.coursecasts@cengage.com. Until next time have a great week and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of Technology!