On Thursday, Gov. Michael Parson (R) called a news conference to warn his state's citizens about a nefarious plot against a teachers' database by a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. From a report: "Through a multistep process," Parson said with great solemnity, "an individual took the records of at least three educators, decoded the HTML source code and viewed the Social Security number of those specific educators."

[...] The Post-Dispatch report explains what their reporter, Josh Renaud, did to view the Social Security numbers of Missouri teachers on a website run by the state education department. (The website has been taken down; you can view an old version of it at the Internet Archive.) "Though no private information was clearly visible nor searchable on any of the web pages," the Post-Dispatch's report stated, "the newspaper found that teachers' Social Security numbers were contained in the HTML source code of the pages involved." In other words, it seems, a search tool for teacher credentials responded to searches by including a bunch of information, some of which was embedded in the source code of the page but not visible when just reading the page.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Since 2017, Microsoft has pursued this goal under the name Project Turing, a team that's tasked with building these large language models and figuring out how they can be used in the company's vast suite of products. Project Turing might not be a visible name outside the company, its AI can already be found generating text inside Microsoft Office products and powering much of the curated information provided when searching with Bing. If Turing succeeds, the strategy could amplify the research dollars that Microsoft has poured into AI research over previous decades. Notably, Microsoft isn't only using Turing-NLG, the project's flagship model, internally: It's already begun selling the tech to select partners, hinting at the cloud giant's ambitions for the AI market. Insider spoke with AvePoint and Volume.ai, both of whom are using Turing in their own products.

"Our job is to further the frontier of AI innovation as much as possible," Ali Alvi, group program manager of Project Turing, told Insider. Alvi tells Insider that the Turing team was assembled from within the company by Microsoft chief technology officer Kevin Scott, in recognition of the ongoing deep learning boom. Scott encouraged the team to think bigger and work with the Azure infrastructure team to make the models exponentially larger. When CEO Satya Nadella saw the team's progress, he decided to get it into the hands of customers, Alvi says. AvePoint, a Microsoft partner that resells and builds applications on top of Microsoft products, has launched two products so far using the Turing model: An education platform for teachers that will automatically create quiz questions using material that's been uploaded for a specific course, and a corporate training platform that uses Turing to test employees on internal material.

Artificial intelligence expert Peter Norvig is joining the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI this fall as a Distinguished Education Fellow, with the task of developing tools and materials to explain the key concepts of artificial intelligence. From a blog post: Norvig helped launch and build AI at organizations considered innovators in the field: As Google's director of research, he oversaw the tech giant's search algorithms and built the teams that focused on machine translation, speech recognition, and computer vision. At NASA Ames, his team created autonomous software that was the first to command a spacecraft, and served as a precursor to the current Mars rovers. Norvig is also a well-known name in AI education. He co-wrote Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, an introductory textbook used by some 1,500 universities worldwide, and he's taught hundreds of thousands of students through his courses on online education platform Udacity. In this interview, he discusses his move to Stanford, building a human-focused AI curriculum, and broadening access to education. When asked why he's leaving Google, Norvig said: "Throughout my career I've gone back and forth between the major top-level domains: .edu, .com, and .gov. After 20 years with one company and after 18 months stuck working from home, I thought it was a good time to try something new, and to concentrate on education."

Deadly counterfeit versions of prescription medications are "widely available on social media platforms," reports NBC News, and "2 in 5 of those seized and tested in the United States contain enough fentanyl to kill, according to a warning issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration last month."

So now Snapchat "said it has improved the automated systems it uses to detect the sale of illegal drugs on the app, hired more people to respond to law enforcement requests for data during criminal investigations and developed an in-app education portal called Heads Up focused on the dangers of fentanyl and counterfeit pills." "We have heard devastating stories from families impacted by this crisis, including cases where fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills were purchased from drug dealers on Snapchat," said Snapchat's parent company, Snap, in a blog post. "We are determined to remove illegal drug sales from our platform."

The announcement comes less than one week after NBC News profiled eight parents whose children had died after taking a single fentanyl-laced pill purchased on Snapchat.

On Sept. 27, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said social media companies were not doing enough to stop the sale of counterfeit pills on their platforms...

Snap said improvements to its proactive detection tools — which use artificial intelligence to identify pictures, words and emojis related to drug sales — have allowed the company to increase the number of accounts removed by 112% during the first half of 2021. For the last six months, it has also been using intelligence from public health data company S-3, which scours the internet for drug sellers, to identify Snapchat accounts that are potentially violating the rules. S-3 does not search directly on Snapchat, but instead looks for dealers elsewhere — on other social media sites or the dark web — who reference a Snapchat account in their advertisements.

Miami is a city "that unblushingly loves rule-breaking and money," according to a new article in New York magazine, wondering whether Miami could ever really replace Silicon Valley as "a more natural home — and maybe even an accelerant — for the next generation of disruption fiends." On December 4, Delian Asparouhov, a venture capitalist in San Francisco, posted, "ok guys hear me out, what if we move silicon valley to Miami," and Miami mayor Francis Suarez, lying in bed at home in Coconut Grove, replied, "How can I help...?" Ever since, Suarez has been on a mission to rebrand Miami — long a place to spend money, rather than earn it — as a haven for founders who feel underappreciated in more calcified urban climes. He bought (with money from a venture capitalist) billboards in San Francisco featuring his Twitter handle and an invitation to "DM me." As he put it, "I saw the tsunami coming, got out my surfboard, and started paddling."

The flood of new Miamians who have arrived, full or part time, during the pandemic includes tech investors (Peter Thiel, David Sacks), cryptocurrency bulls (Anthony Pompliano, Ari Paul), new-media tycoons (Bryan Goldberg, Dave Portnoy), start-up founders (Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, Steven Galanis), and many more who aren't yet billionaires but think the Magic City will give them their best shot... The boom is visible in the city's crane-spiked skyline, too, with deals for Spotify, Microsoft, Apple, and TikTok either signed or in the offing. In greater South Florida, a related incursion by the finance industry — Goldman Sachs, Citadel, Elliott — is in full swing... In July, according to Redfin, Miami was the top migration destination for home buyers in the U.S., while San Francisco had the largest homeowner exodus. Suarez told me about a playful text he recently received from the mayor there, London Breed: "Stop stealing my techies." He says he replied, "Sorry, London, I love you, but no."

Already, Suarez has made gains in turning Miami into the most cryptocurrency-friendly city in the U.S. In the past six months, the world's largest bitcoin conference happened here; a crypto exchange called FTX paid $135 million for the naming rights to the NBA arena (edging out the hometown porn studio BangBros); and a city-sanctioned currency called MiamiCoin debuted, generating millions in fees for municipal coffers. Suarez also accepts campaign contributions in bitcoin. He's running for reelection this November and looks certain to win, thanks in part to hefty donations and cheerleading from Silicon Valley eminences...

The tech case for Miami isn't wholly persuasive. (The most notable local start-up is a company that sells kibble.) But it is infectious.
The article notes, for example, that "For all his enthusiasm, Suarez acknowledges that a robust tech ecosystem needs one thing he can't simply market into existence: a standout university" (with a world-class engineering department to fuel startups). Suarez's solution appears to be offering Miami land parcels to Florida Polytechnic University for a possible satellite campus teaching DeFi/crypto/blockchain/NFT technologies.

The article also points out the possibility of global warming-induced hurricanes and rising sea levels, the city's widening income gap and rising cost of living, and Miami's record number of pediatric-ICU COVID admissions.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A London secondary school is trying to stop its pupils from using "basically" at the beginning of sentences and deploying phrases such as "oh my days" in a crackdown on "fillers" and "slang" in the classroom. Ark All Saints academy has produced lists of "banned" language which includes "he cut his eyes at me", which the Collins dictionary says originates in the Caribbean and means to look rudely at a person and then turn away sharply while closing one's eyes dismissively. Neither should they use "that's long," which can mean something that is boring or tedious, or "that's a neck" which indicates a comment or action is stupid. "Bare," "wow," "cuss" and "oh my God" are also out. The list -- which is intended to steer the language used in formal learning situations and exams rather than in the playground -- has drawn criticism from linguists who described it as "crude and shortsighted ... a disservice and discredit to young people."

Teachers say it guides pupils to use language that fits more formal situations and helps them succeed. The school said the specific words and phrases on the list were selected because they were "showing up a lot in pupils' work" and it stressed the importance of pupils expressing themselves "clearly and accurately." Expressions that must not be used at the beginning of sentences include: "ermmm," "because," "no," "like," "say," "you see," "you know," and "basically." "The development of reading and speaking skills is a central part of what drives our school to help our students learn effectively and fulfil their potential in academic and non-academic ways," said Lucy Frame, the principal at the school in Camberwell, south-east London. "None of the words or phrases listed are banned from general use in our school or when our students are interacting socially. But this list is used in some formal learning settings to help students understand the importance of expressing themselves clearly and accurately, not least through written language in examinations."

The intervention may reflect a widening gap between language that is accepted by examiners and that used day-to-day by pupils in some areas of the UK. External examiners have noted pupils nationwide using "unnecessarily rude and strident vocabulary" in weaker answers. Bridging the gap between what is normal language for pupils and what is acceptable for exams is a challenge for teachers. A 2019 survey of 2,100 tutors found that "slanglish" was the most common reason for English GCSE failures. Yet, as a subject of study, "code-switching/style-shifting, youth slang ... and use of accent and dialect" is increasingly of interest to English language A-level students, according to the AQA exam board. [...] Some fear such moves could alienate some pupils. Dr Marcello Giovanelli, a senior lecturer in English language and literature at Aston University, said: "Slang has always been at the forefront of linguistic innovation." He described "he cut his eyes at me" as a "wonderfully creative example" and said "dismissing students' home or own use of language may have negative effects on identity and confidence."

Tony Thorne, a language consultant at King's College London and the director of the Slang and New Language Archive, said: "It shouldn't be about good or bad language, it should be about appropriate language for the context."

"You don't want to make them feel they have to reject the cultural aspects of their own language," said Dr Natalie Sharpling, who teaches applied linguistics at Warwick University. "We should celebrate the different ways language is being used and concentrate on the content of what is being said." Sharpling said she had observed an increasing trend in schools to police language and said "it would be a shame if it becomes a case of if you want to be successful, this is the way you have to speak."

skam240 writes: California has just become the first state to add Covid-19 vaccination to its list of required vaccines for in-school attendance. "The requirement will go into effect at the start of the term that follows the FDA's full approval for that grade group -- either January 1 or July 1," reports CNN, citing a release from Gov. Gavin Newsom's office. For grades 7-12 the requirement is expected to begin on July 1, 2022. Newsom's office said independent study is an option for unvaccinated students. "This will accelerate our effort to get this pandemic behind us," Newsom told CNN's Ana Cabrera minutes after making the announcement. "We already mandate 10 vaccines. In so many ways... it's probably the most predictable announcement."

"I have four young kids. I can't take this anymore. I'm like most parents, I want to get this behind us, get this economy moving again, make sure our kids never have to worry about getting a call saying they can't go to school the next day because one of the kids or a staff member tested positive," the governor added.

It turns out school reopenings are disrupting the cash flow of industrious teenagers who spent the pandemic scooping up in-demand products via bots and reselling them for a hefty profit. From a report: "Yes, I am back in school. Yea, it's very annoying," said one US high school student named Dillon, who regularly buys video game consoles and graphics cards with automated bots. "I am sitting in math class and drawing class with my computer open, and I get told to shut it down during a [product] drop sometimes," he told PCMag in an interview. Dillon may be young, but he's among the legion of online scalpers who spent the pandemic at home buying and reselling the tech world's most-wanted products. "I would say around $10,000 to $12,500 average a month," he told PCMag. "Some months it would be exponentially higher, some would be lower."

Using automated bots he purchased and installed on his computer, and intel from other online resellers, Dillon scooped up products like the PlayStation 5 ahead of other consumers and sold them off at inflated pricing. But lately, Dillon's reselling hit a snag. After months away from high school because of the pandemic, he's now back in the classroom, where computer use can be strictly controlled. "When everything closed [during the pandemic], I could do whatever I wanted because I was doing my school from home," he said. But with the return of in-classroom teaching, Dillon says his profits have now fallen by about 25%.

A computerized neural network has spoken: central banker Elvira Nabiullina needs to use simpler language if she wants more Russians to believe she can really reduce inflation. From a report: A study conducted by a pair of the Bank of Russia's own researchers came to the perhaps less-than-shocking conclusion that figuring out central bank statements takes a degree in economics. "All the main communication on monetary policy is accessible to only a professional audience right now," Alina Evstigneeva and Mark Sidorovsky, researchers at the bank's monetary-policy department wrote in an article published on a bank-sponsored website. "The potential for qualitative improvement in the language of communication is vast." The communications breakdown has important real-world implications, they argued. Ordinary Russians continue to be deeply skeptical of the central bank's commitment to keep inflation to its 4% target, with polls showing most expect price growth over the next year to be about triple that. That doubt helps keep inflation high, according to the central bank. Market professionals, who presumably have the economics education needed to understand the bank's words, are much more likely to expect inflation to be closer to target.

University students in courses from engineering to physics are having to be taught what files and folders are, The Verge reports, because that's not how they've grown up using computers. Whenever they need a file, they just search for it. PCGamer summarizes the findings: "I tend to think an item lives in a particular folder. It lives in one place, and I have to go to that folder to find it," astrophysicist Catherine Garland said. "They see it like one bucket, and everything's in the bucket." Strange as it may seem to older generations of computer users who grew up maintaining an elaborate collection of nested subfolders, thanks to powerful search functions now being the default in operating systems, as well as the way phones and tablets obfuscate their file structure, and cloud storage, high school graduates don't see their hard drives the same way.

"Students have had these computers in my lab; they'll have a thousand files on their desktop completely unorganized," Peter Plavchan, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at George Mason University, told The Verge. "I'm kind of an obsessive organizer ... but they have no problem having 1,000 files in the same directory. And I think that is fundamentally because of a shift in how we access files." As The Verge points out, "The first internet search engines were used around 1990, but features like Windows Search and Spotlight on macOS are both products of the early 2000s [...] While many of today's professors grew up without search functions on their phones and computers, today's students increasingly don't remember a world without them."

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, or a reason to recoil in horror because how dare the youth of today do things differently, why the very idea. "When I was a student, I'm sure there was a professor that said, 'Oh my god, I don't understand how this person doesn't know how to solder a chip on a motherboard,'" Plavachan said. "This kind of generational issue has always been around." And Garland, the astrophysicist teaching an engineering course, has started using her PC's search function to find files in the same way her students do. "I'm like, huh ... I don't even need these subfolders," she said.

DesScorp writes:

ellithligraw writes: Last month a Stanford research paper coauthored by dozens of Stanford researchers which terms some artificial intelligence models "foundations" is causing a debate over the future of AI. A new research facility is proposed at Stanford to study these so-called "models." Critics call these "foundations" will "mess up the discourse."
The debate centers on what Wired calls "colossal neural networks and oceans of data." Some object to the limited capabilities and sometimes freakish behavior of these models; others warn of focusing too heavily on one way of making machines smarter. "I think the term 'foundation' is horribly wrong," Jitendra Malik, a professor at UC Berkeley who studies AI, told workshop attendees in a video discussion. Malik acknowledged that one type of model identified by the Stanford researchers — large language models that can answer questions or generate text from a prompt — has great practical use. But he said evolutionary biology suggests that language builds on other aspects of intelligence like interaction with the physical world. "These models are really castles in the air; they have no foundation whatsoever," Malik said. "The language we have in these models is not grounded, there is this fakeness, there is no real understanding...."

Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor at Arizona State University [says] there is no clear path from these models to more general forms of AI...

Emily M. Bender, a professor in the linguistics department at the University of Washington, says she worries that the idea of foundation models reflects a bias toward investing in the data-centric approach to AI favored by industry... "There are all of these other adjacent, really important fields that are just starved for funding," she says. "Before we throw money into the cloud, I would like to see money going into other disciplines."

jyosim summarizes an article at EdSurge: edX, founded by Harvard University and MIT a decade ago as a nonprofit alternative to for-profit online education providers, has agreed [in June] to sell its operations to a for-profit company, 2U. Exactly what that means is only now becoming clear, but many observers have noted that in the end, 2U bought a giant source of leads for students that it can upsell graduate degrees to from its partner colleges. But turning edX into a marketing vehicle is a far cry from the high-minded language used when the nonprofit was founded to bring education to underserved students around the world.
In the article edX CEO and co-founder Anant Agarwal acknowledges there were tough questions after the initial announcement: But he says that the vast majority of college presidents, provosts and professors he's spoken with have been reassured by the details of the arrangement. He listed those details: that 2U has committed to continue the key mission of edX, including continuing to offer free versions of courses; that the sale price of $800 million will all go to a new nonprofit entity that will advance equity in education; that "not a single penny of the $800 million will [go] to either me or MIT or Harvard or the employees"; and that the open-source platform that edX courses run on, Open Edx, will be maintained by the new nonprofit rather than by 2U.

But there are many critics of the deal. And the positive message of Agarwal and 2U CEO and co-founder Chip Paucek doesn't square with some vocal protests of the arrangement. A dean of digital learning at MIT, Krishna Rajagopal, resigned in protest, telling colleagues in an email that he had "serious continuing reservations" about the proposed direction.
IBL News reported this week that 2U CEO Paucek "asked edX partners to give his company a shot." "All we need is an opportunity to prove that the future of edX will grow; the brand will grow," he said during an interview with EdSurge.com... "You will see us begin to advertise edX outright and grow the learner base. And I think that'll be good for everybody."
Paucek also mentioned plans to incorporate into edX's courses a 2U job placement tool (developed by a coding bootcamp 2U acquired) which charges businesses to reach prospective employees.

"China fired a fresh regulatory shot at its tech giants on Monday," writes Reuters, "telling them to end a long-standing practice of blocking each other's links on their sites or face consequences." The comments, made by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) at a news briefing, mark the latest step in Beijing's broad regulatory crackdown that has ensnared sectors from technology to education and property and wiped billions of dollars off the market value of some of the country's largest companies.

China's internet is dominated by a handful of technology giants which have historically blocked links and services by rivals on their platforms. Restricting normal access to internet links without proper reason "affects the user experience, damages the rights of users and disrupts market order," said MIIT spokesperson Zhao Zhiguo, adding that the ministry had received reports and complaints from users since it launched a review of industry practices in July. "At present we are guiding relevant companies to carry out self-examination and rectification," he said, citing instant messaging platforms as one of the first areas they were targeting.

He did not specify what the consequences would be for companies that failed to abide by the new guidelines.

Treehouse, which launched in Portland a decade ago in an ambitious effort to teach software development online, plans to lay off most of its staff by the end of the month. Oregon Live reports: CEO Ryan Carson didn't answer emailed questions about the cutbacks, but said in a brief reply Tuesday that "we are going to continue to serve our students and customers." Carson, who moved to Connecticut last month, said Treehouse is no longer based in Portland and that its remaining staff now works remotely. In an announcement sent last week over the company's internal Slack messaging channel, later viewed by The Oregonian/OregonLive, Treehouse notified employees that their jobs and benefits would end on Sept. 30, without severance. "A small team will be remaining, along with Ryan, to continue to support students," the company wrote to staff.

Workers later posted an online spreadsheet with the names of 41 employees looking for new jobs. Treehouse has a geographically distributed workforce and the company's employees live in cities across the country. Treehouse attracted national attention in 2013 and 2015 with two unorthodox management strategies: The company eliminated all layers of management and it moved to a 32-hour-work week. Neither experiment worked. [...] It's not clear what triggered this week's cutbacks. Online education has been booming during the pandemic.

The Wall Street Journal reports an interesting observation about America. "Men are abandoning higher education in such numbers that they now trail female college students by record levels."

Slashdot reader Joe_Dragon shared their report: At the close of the 2020-21 academic year, women made up 59.5% of college students, an all-time high, and men 40.5%, according to enrollment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research group. U.S. colleges and universities had 1.5 million fewer students compared with five years ago, and men accounted for 71% of the decline.

This education gap, which holds at both two- and four-year colleges, has been slowly widening for 40 years... In the next few years, two women will earn a college degree for every man, if the trend continues, said Douglas Shapiro, executive director of the research center at the National Student Clearinghouse.
But numbers can be misleading. New York Times reporter Kevin Carey points out that more American men are going to college now than they were decades ago — but the percentage of women now going to college has just increased even faster, "more than doubling over the last half-century." Because of the change in ratio, some selective colleges discriminate against women in admissions to maintain a gender balance, as The Journal reported... In a New York Times essay in 2006 titled "To All the Girls I've Rejected," the dean of admissions at Kenyon College at the time explained: "Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive."
The Journal even reported that a former admissions officer at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon "said this kind of tacit affirmative action for boys has become 'higher education's dirty little secret,' practiced but not publicly acknowledged by many private universities where the gender balance has gone off-kilter."

But even with more women in college, the Times argues that "The raw numbers don't take into account the varying value of college degrees." (And not just because "The female-to-male gender ratio is highest in for-profit colleges, which often overcharge students for worthless degrees.")

"Men still dominate in fields like technology and engineering, which offer some of the highest salaries for recent graduates..." Women surged into college because they were able to, but also because many had to. There are still some good-paying jobs available to men without college credentials. There are relatively few for such women. And despite the considerable cost in time and money of earning a degree, many female-dominated jobs don't pay well...

The fact that the male-female wage gap remains large after more than four decades in which women outnumbered men in college strongly suggests that college alone offers a narrow view of opportunity. Women often seem stuck in place: As they overcome obstacles and use their degrees to move into male-dominated fields, the fields offer less pay in return.

Long-time Slashdot reader phalse phace quotes NBC News: Most don't have bank passwords. Few have credit scores yet. And still, parts of the internet are awash in the personal information of millions of schoolchildren.

The ongoing wave of ransomware attacks has cost companies and institutions billions of dollars and exposed personal information about everyone from hospital patients to police officers. It's also swept up school districts, meaning files from thousands of schools are currently visible on those hackers' sites.

NBC News collected and analyzed school files from those sites and found they're littered with personal information of children. In 2021, ransomware gangs published data from more than 1,200 American K-12 schools, according to a tally provided to NBC News by Brett Callow, a ransomware analyst at the cybersecurity company Emsisoft.

Some schools contacted about the leaks appeared unaware of the problem. And even after schools are able to resume operations following an attack, parents have little recourse when their children's information is leaked. Some of the data is personal, like medical conditions or family financial statuses. Other pieces of data, such as Social Security numbers or birthdays, are permanent indicators of who they are, and their theft can set up a child for a lifetime of potential identity theft.

theodp writes: On Monday, tech-bankrolled Code.org announced the CS Journeys program, which the nonprofit explains is designed to help teachers "excite, encourage, and empower your students to continue their CS journeys in and beyond your class." Besides live, virtual field trips to Amazon's Fulfillment Centers, kids aged 5-and-up will also participate in live, weekly classroom conversations with professionals from the likes of Google and Amazon, where they "will learn about a number of ways they can use computer science to have a positive impact, as well as different journeys that people have taken to get to meaningful careers and achieve their goals." A Googler will speak to kindergartners and other younger students about Developing responsible artificial intelligence on Sep. 22nd. Teachers are also being asked to show students inspiring Careers in Tech videos featuring employees from Facebook/Instagram, Microsoft, and Google.

Explaining that "students who hear from parents that they would be good at computer science are 2-3 times more likely to be interested in learning it," Code.org urges teachers to also "connect with parents and recruit their help in encouraging students to learn and continue on their computer science journey." Code.org even provides teachers with talking points to include in emails and letters home. A sample: "Computer science teaches students critical thinking and problem solving. In fact, studies show that students who learn computer science do better in other subjects, excel at problem solving, and are more likely to go to college. [...] Parent/guardian encouragement is critical to student success and interest in learning and success. So ask your student to see something they created in class."

The launch of CS Journeys comes less than a year after Google VP Maggie Johnson -- a long-time Code.org Board member -- reported that a Google-commissioned Gallup report showed that "students are generally unconvinced that computer science is important for them to learn," adding that "Interventions from parents, educators, community leaders, policymakers, nonprofits and the technology industry are needed to encourage girls, Black students and Hispanic students to take computer science courses. These students also need to be shown how CS knowledge can help them meet their goals in a variety of fields including the humanities, medicine and the arts." According to the report, only 22% of boys and 9% of girls "believe it is very important to learn CS."

Amazon said Thursday it will offer to pay 100% of college tuition for its 750,000 U.S. hourly employees. From a report: The e-commerce giant is following the lead of other large U.S. companies who are dangling perks like education benefits or more pay to woo workers in a tight job market. Starting in January 2022, Amazon said it will cover the cost of college tuition, fees and textbooks for hourly employees in its operations network after 90 days of employment. It will also begin covering high school diploma programs, GEDs and English as a second language certifications for employees. Operations workers include employees in Amazon's sprawling network of warehouses and distribution centers.

The benefit will apply to hundreds of education institutions across the country, Amazon said. Amazon previously offered to pay for 95% of tuition, fees and textbooks for hourly associates through its career choice program. Rival retailers, including Walmart and Target, have also beefed up their education benefits in recent months. Target in August rolled out a program that covers the cost of associate and undergraduate degrees at select schools. Walmart in July said it would pay 100% of college tuition and books costs for associates of Walmart and Sam's Club.

A robot called CIMON-2 (short for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion) has received a software update that will enable it to perform more complex tasks with a new human crewmate later this year. Space.com reports: The cute floating sphere with a cartoon-like face has been stored at the space station since the departure of the European Space Agency's (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano in February 2020. The robot will wake up again during the upcoming mission of German astronaut Matthias Maurer, who will arrive at the orbital outpost with the SpaceX Crew-3 Dragon mission in October. In the year and a half since the end of the last mission, engineers have worked on improving CIMON's connection to Earth so that it could provide a more seamless service to the astronauts, CIMON project manager Till Eisenberg at Airbus, which developed the intelligent robot together with the German Aerospace Centre DLR and the LMU University in Munich, told Space.com.

"The sphere is just the front end," Eisenberg said. "All the voice recognition and artificial intelligence happens on Earth at an IBM data centre in Frankfurt, Germany. The signal from CIMON has to travel through satellites and ground stations to the data centre and back. We focused on improving the robustness of this connection to prevent disruptions." CIMON relies on IBM's Watson speech recognition and synthesis software to converse with astronauts and respond to their commands. The first generation robot flew to the space station with Alexander Gerst in 2018. That robot later returned to Earth and is now touring German museums. The current robot, CIMON-2, is a second generation. Unlike its predecessor, it is more attuned to the astronauts' emotional states (thanks to the Watson Tone Analyzer). It also has a shorter reaction time.

Airbus and DLR have signed a contract with ESA for CIMON-2 to work with four humans on the orbital outpost in the upcoming years. During those four consecutive missions, engineers will first test CIMON's new software and then move on to allowing the sphere to participate in more complex experiments. During these new missions CIMON will, for the first time, guide and document complete scientific procedures, Airbus said in a statement. "Most of the activities that astronauts perform are covered by step by step procedures," Eisenberg said. "Normally, they have to use clip boards to follow these steps. But CIMON can free their hands by floating close by, listening to the commands and reading out the procedures, showing videos, pictures and clarifications on its screen." The robot can also look up additional information and document the experiments by taking videos and pictures. The scientists will gather feedback from the astronauts to see how helpful the sphere really was and identify improvements for CIMON's future incarnations.