An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: With increased demand from the pandemic, Canalys reports that U.S. PC shipments were up 73% over the same period last year. That added up to a total of 34 million units sold. While Apple had a good quarter with sales up 36%, it was surpassed by HP, which sold 11 million units in total with annual growth up an astonishing 122.6%. As Canalys pointed out, the first quarter tends to be a weaker one for Apple hardware following the holiday season, but it's a big move for HP nonetheless. Other companies boasting big growth numbers include Samsung at 116% and Lenovo at 92.8%. Dell was up 29.2%, fairly modest compared with the rest of the group.

Overall though it was a stunning quarter as units flew off the shelves. Canalys Research Analyst Brian Lynch says some of this can be attributed to the increased demand from 2020 as people moved to work and school from home and needed new machines to get their work done, but regardless the growth was unrivaled historically. " Q1 2021 still rates as one of the best first quarters the industry has ever seen. Vendors have prioritized fulfilling U.S. backlogs before supply issues are addressed in other parts of the world," Lynch said in a statement. Perhaps not surprisingly, low-cost Chromebooks were the most popular item as people looking to refresh their devices, especially for education purposes, turned to the lower end of the PC market, which likely had a negative impact on higher-priced Apple products, as well contributing to its drop from the top spot. According to Canalys, Chromebook sales were up a whopping 548% with Samsung leading that growth with an astonishing 1,963% growth rate. "Asus, HP and Lenovo all reported Chromebook sales rates up over 900%," adds TechCrunch.

An anonymous reader shares a report from The Conversation: As people around the world escape poverty, you might expect their energy use to increase. But my research in Nepal, Vietnam, and Zambia found the opposite: lower levels of deprivation were linked to lower levels of energy demand. What is behind this counterintuitive finding? [...] We found that households that do have access to clean fuels, safe water, basic education and adequate food -- that is, those not in extreme poverty -- can use as little as half the energy of the national average in their country. This is important, as it goes directly against the argument that more resources and energy will be needed for people in the global south to escape extreme poverty. The biggest factor is the switch from traditional cooking fuels, like firewood or charcoal, to more efficient (and less polluting) electricity and gas.

In Zambia, Nepal, and Vietnam, modern energy resources are extremely unfairly distributed -- more so than income, general spending, or even spending on leisure. As a consequence, poorer households use more dirty energy than richer households, with ensuing health and gender impacts. Cooking with inefficient fuels consumes a lot of energy, and even more when water needs to be boiled before drinking. But do households with higher incomes and more devices have a better chance of escaping poverty? Some do, but having higher incomes and mobile phones are not either prerequisites or guarantees of having basic needs satisfied. Richer households without access to electricity or sanitation are not spared from having malnourished children or health problems from using charcoal. Ironically, for most households, it is easier to obtain a mobile phone than a clean, nonpolluting fuel for cooking. Therefore, measuring progress via household income leads to an incomplete understanding of poverty and its deprivations.

So what? Are we arguing against the global south using more energy for development? No: instead of focusing on how much energy is used, we are pointing to the importance of collective services (like electricity, indoor sanitation and public transport) for alleviating the multiple deprivations of poverty. In addressing these issues we cannot shy away from asking why so many countries in the global south have such a low capacity to invest in those services. It has to do with the fact that poverty does not just happen: it is created via interlinked systems of wealth extraction such as structural adjustment, or high costs of servicing national debts. Given that climate change is caused by the energy use of a rich minority in the global north but the consequences are borne by the majority in the poorer global south, human development is not only a matter of economic justice but also climate justice. Investing in vital collective services underpins both.

Jeff Bezos will go to space next month when his company, Blue Origin, launches its first passenger-carrying mission. From a report: The 57-year-old, who plans to travel alongside his brother, Mark, made the announcement in an Instagram post Monday. The scheduled launch next month will be about two weeks after the billionaire plans to step down as chief executive officer of Amazon.com. "Ever since I was five years old, I've dreamed of traveling to space," Bezos said in the post. "On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend."

Blue Origin is one of several high-profile space-tourism companies backed by a wealthy entrepreneur, alongside Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies and Richard Branson-backed Virgin Galactic Holdings. Both of those companies are making plans to carry paying customers. Blue Origin is auctioning off a seat on its New Shepard rocket for the July 20 flight, an 11-minute trip to suborbital space that will reach an altitude of about 100 kilometers (62 miles). The spot will be the only one available for purchase on the flight, and the proceeds will go to a Blue Origin foundation that promotes math and science education.

An anonymous reader writes: This week the GitHub Yearbook went live, with 6794 "graduates" featured on a special web page showcasing "any student who has graduated, or plans to graduate, in 2021... This includes bootcamps, code camps, high school graduates, Master's graduates, Ph. D. Graduates, etc." (Students were added by submitting a pull request — as long as they'd also signed up for the GitHub Student Developer Pack.) The first 5,000 graduates received "swag," including a custom holographic card with their GitHub stats.

But Saturday sees a special ceremony where these students will "walk" the stage at GitHub Graduation (starting at 9 a.m. PST). "We'll be hearing from special guests, giving out exclusive swag, and highlighting student stories and projects from around the world," explains the event's web page.

Calling it "a day to celebrate our craft, our community, and how technology moves the world forward," a post on GitHub's blog invites viewers "to welcome them to a global community of innovative thinkers and impactful builders." It acknowledges the special challenges of 2021, saying "This year, thousands of students from around the world came together and redefined the world we live in, how we learn, and how we move forward," adding "We are honored to be part of the experience and eager to celebrate this milestone...."

"During a devastating year, these graduates shined a light on what is possible. We saw project after project showcasing not only their skills, but also their passion and perseverance. This class is unstoppable!"

The European Commission will on Thursday propose the introduction of so-called digital wallets that will offer access to a range of services across the EU for the bloc's 450 million citizens, in a further step toward closer integration in the aftermath of the pandemic. From a report: "Under the new rules, European Digital Identity Wallets will be available to everyone," according to a draft of the proposals seen by Bloomberg. The wallets will allow European Union citizens to digitally identify themselves, and store identity data and official documents such as driving licenses, medical prescriptions or education qualifications. Several member states already provide digital forms of identity, so the proposed new app would interact with existing systems while providing EU citizens with the right to a service that is recognized across the bloc. The wallet wouldn't be obligatory.

A plan to reimagine math instruction for 6 million California students has become ensnared in equity and fairness issues -- with critics saying proposed guidelines will hold back gifted students and supporters saying it will, over time, give all kindergartners through 12th-graders a better chance to excel. From a report: The proposed new guidelines aim to accelerate achievement while making mathematical understanding more accessible and valuable to as many students as possible, including those shut out from high-level math in the past because they had been "tracked" in lower level classes. The guidelines call on educators generally to keep all students in the same courses until their junior year in high school, when they can choose advanced subjects, including calculus, statistics and other forms of data science.

Although still a draft, the Mathematics Framework achieved a milestone Wednesday, earning approval from the state's Instructional Quality Commission. The members of that body moved the framework along, approving numerous recommendations that a writing team is expected to incorporate. The commission told writers to remove a document that had become a point of contention for critics. It described its goals as calling out systemic racism in mathematics, while helping educators create more inclusive, successful classrooms. Critics said it needlessly injected race into the study of math. The state Board of Education is scheduled to have the final say in November.

theodp writes: The U.S. isn't producing nearly enough students trained in computer science to meet the future demands of the American workforce," lamented Amazon in a Friday press release, adding that it is "urging Congress and legislatures across the U.S. to support -- and fund -- computer science education in public schools." Well, the 'urging' seems to be working. On Friday, Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN) reintroduced the Computer Science for All Act (Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft all lobbied for the bill's predecessor, the CS for All Act of 2019), which provides $250 million in new grants to support a diverse 'tech pipeline' in pre-K through grade 12 education.

Amazon and Amazon-funded nonprofit Code.org were cited as the bill's 'supporting organizations' and quoted in Lee's accompanying press release for the legislation, which aims to improve equity in CS education. "We look forward to working with Representative Lee and the bill's cosponsors to meet these objectives," said Brian Huseman, VP of Public Policy for Amazon, which in 2017 curiously broke from other tech giants and stopped releasing the gender and racial data on its workforce it's required to report to the federal government. "Right now, there are over 400,000 open computing jobs in the United States," added Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi. "Frustratingly, only 47% of our public high schools teach computer science.

it's high time for companies to start adding cybersecurity professionals to their teams, reports CNN. "The only hitch: There's a massive, longstanding labor shortage in the cybersecurity industry." "It's a talent war," said Bryan Orme, principal at GuidePoint Security. "There's a shortage of supply and increased demand."

Experts have been tracking the cybersecurity labor shortage for at least a decade — and now, a new surge in companies looking to hire following recent attacks could exacerbate the problem. The stakes are only growing, as technology evolves and bad actors become more advanced. In the United States, there are around 879,000 cybersecurity professionals in the workforce and an unfilled need for another 359,000 workers, according to a 2020 survey by (ISC)2, an international nonprofit that offers cybersecurity training and certification programs. Globally, the gap is even larger at nearly 3.12 million unfilled positions, the group says... The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects "information security analyst" will be the 10th fastest growing occupation over the next decade, with an employment growth rate of 31% compared to the 4% average growth rate for all occupations.

If demand for cybersecurity professionals in the private sector increases dramatically, some experts say talented workers could leave the government for more lucrative corporate jobs — a risk that is especially acute for smaller, local government agencies that manage critical infrastructure in their communities but have limited budgets. "Think of the criticality of what your local government does: water purification, waste treatment, traffic management, communications for law enforcement, public safety, emergency management," said Mike Hamilton, chief information security officer at Critical Insight. "But Amazon is out there waving around bags of cash to protect their retail operation." Hamilton — who was the former chief information security officer for Seattle, Washington, from 2006 to 2013 — added that local governments "cannot attract and retain these people when the competition for them is so high, which is why we've got to make lots of them."
The article notes educational training/up-skilling programs working to address the shortage, including GuidePoint, which helps train veterans leaving the military for cybersecurity careers. CNN also notes U.S. President Joe Biden's $2 trillion American Jobs Plan included $20 billion for state, local and tribal governments to update and improve cybersecurity controls for their energy systems.

"Still, experts say more needs to be done, suggesting a broad rethinking of education systems from elementary school through higher education to include more cybersecurity training."

Colorado has become the first state to ban "legacy" admissions, a practice that gives preference to certain applicants based on their familial relationship to alumni of that institution. "The governor also signed a bill that removes a requirement that public colleges consider SAT or ACT scores for freshmen, though the new law still allows students to submit test scores if they wish," adds NPR. From the report: Both moves are aimed at making higher education access more equitable. According to the legislation, 67% of middle- to high-income students in Colorado enroll in bachelor's degree programs straight from high school, while 47% of low-income students do. There are also major differences when it comes to race, with white students far more likely to enroll in college.

Legacy admissions have long been a target for reform. In a 2018 survey of admissions directors by Inside Higher Ed, 42% of private institutions and 6% of public institutions said they consider legacy status as a factor in admissions. Some of the nation's largest public universities do not consider legacy, including both the University of California and the California State University systems. However, private colleges in California have reported using legacy as a way to encourage philanthropic giving and donations.

During the pandemic, many colleges backed off on using SAT and ACT scores in admissions. Research has shown -- and lawsuits have argued -- that the tests, long used to measure aptitude for college, are far more connected to family income and don't provide meaningful information about a student's ability to succeed in college. Wealthier families are also more likely to pay for test prep courses, or attend schools with curricula that focus on the exams.

OpenAI is launching a $100 million startup fund, which it calls the OpenAI Startup Fund, through which it and its partners will invest in early-stage AI companies tackling major problems (and productivity). Among those partners and investors in the fund is Microsoft, at whose Build conference OpenAI founder Sam Altman announced the news. TechCrunch reports: In a prerecorded video, Altman explained that "this is not a typical corporate venture fund. We plan to make big early bets on a relatively small number of companies, probably not more than 10." It's not clear exactly how the $100 million will be divided or disbursed, or on what timeline, or whether this is part of a longer program. But it seems to be a limited fund, not just the 2021 round.

Altman did say that they will be looking for companies that are taking on serious issues, like healthcare, climate change and education, where AI-powered applications or approaches could "benefit all of humanity," in keeping with OpenAI's mission statement. But it would also consider productivity improvements as well, presumably like the GPT-3-powered natural language coding Microsoft showed off yesterday. Companies selected for funding will receive early access to new OpenAI systems and Azure resources from Microsoft, which hopefully would allow them to spring fully formed and ready to scale from the program. OpenAI would not elaborate on the equity agreement, expectations for startups, other partners or any further details. It's entirely possible that the $100 million figure is the only thing they've actually settled on.

In late 2019, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 8c and 7c, a pair of affordable chips for always-on Windows 10 PCs and Chromebooks. Today, the company is updating the latter of those two SoCs to improve performance. Engadget: The Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 features a Kyro CPU that can achieve clock speeds of up to 2.55GHz. The company claims it delivers 10 percent faster performance than "most competing platforms." Qualcomm likely has processors from Intel's Gemini Lake family in mind here. The company also claims the 7c Gen 2 can deliver up to two times the battery life of its competitors. Outside of the faster CPU, the 7c Gen 2 is more or less the same chip Qualcomm announced in 2019. It features an Adreno 618 GPU and Snapdragon X15 LTE modem. The latter allows the 7c Gen 2 to hit theoretical download speeds of 800 Mbps. As with its predecessor, the chip is designed for education and price-conscious customers. According to Qualcomm, we can expect the first Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 laptops to arrive this summer, with the first models coming from Lenovo.

Last year author Sonia Shah predicted that after pandemic-induced lockdowns finally ended, "The hype around online education will be abandoned, as a generation of young people forced into seclusion will reshape the culture around a contrarian appreciation for communal life."

This week the Atlantic's technology staff writer is now suggesting that "As the stress of the pandemic is beginning to recede, our relationship with the internet might be renegotiated..." As vaccination rates tick up, and IRL social life resumes, it's getting easier to imagine that we're on the brink of something big: a coordinated withdrawal from swiping and streaming, a new consensus that staying home to watch Netflix is no longer a chill Friday-night plan, but an affront. Could this be real? Are we about to start the summer of a Great Offlining...?

A few signs that this movement could be upon us: Netflix reported its worst first quarter in eight years, after seeing historic growth in 2020. Tinder conceded that more than half of its Gen Z users have no intention of using its videochat features ever again. Clubhouse downloads dropped significantly in April, prompting worry that the app was always just "a temporary salve to being stuck inside."

On The Cut, Safy-Hallan Farah has predicted a post-pandemic future in which our culture prioritizes, among other things, "earnestness," "communism," and "being extremely offline." The writer Luke Winkie forecasts a 10-week period of everyone abandoning the internet, adding that "offline is going to hit like a drug." Discourse's Patrick Redford put it best, writing that "the idea of further screen-only interaction with my friends and loved ones after a year overstuffed with them makes me want to toss my phone into the Pacific Ocean...."

[B]ut it's hard to imagine that a Great Offlining is really in the cards. Instead, we could be heading for a Great Rebalancing, where we reconfigure how we do our work and how we organize our time on the internet. We've grown more aware of how we rely on one another — online as well as off — and of the tools we have or could build for responding to a crisis. The biggest tech companies' accrual of power remains one of the most serious problems of my lifetime, but I no longer talk about the internet itself as if it were an external and malignant force, now that I've lived in such intimate contact with it for so long.

A user quotes Gizmodo: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is facing a million-dollar lawsuit for allegedly stealing the idea to create a Woz-branded tech school, according to a weekend Insider report.

Connecticut business professor Ralph Reilly claims he and Wozniak agreed to establish a "tech university" and sealed the deal with an on-camera handshake in 2011. The educational platform, which was aimed at teaching adults computer and other technical skills, would lean heavily on Wozniak's name and reputation as a key engineering force in Apple's early days for branding purposes. However, the partnership never got off the ground, Reilly said in court filings reviewed by Gizmodo and Insider. Wozniak went on to launch virtually the same idea under the name Woz U in 2017 after partnering with the code-learning firm Coder Camps. In response, Reilly reached out to Wozniak via email asking to be a part of the venture, according to court filings. "It's exactly what I envisioned for Woz Institute of Technology when I first approached you with the idea," Reilly wrote at the time.

"You are right on the mark," Wozniak responded. "You had the right idea... I doubt it would have happened without your initial idea!"

But when Reilly pushed back asking for partial ownership in the project, he was met with radio silence. Reilly went on sue Wozniak for alleged intellectual property theft and copyright infringement. He's seeking at least $1 million in relief and damages. Other accusations Reilly's brought against Wozniak such as breach of contract have already been dismissed by a judge...

For his part, Wozniak's team claims the two never reached a real deal on the proposal and the aforementioned on-camera handshake was just one of countless photo-ops he regularly conducts with fans.

CalMatters writes: At least six Cal State campuses and nearly all of the University of California campuses have created esports programs since 2015, in which students host and compete in live tournaments, sometimes funded by corporate sponsors. Both Cal State Dominguez Hills and UC Irvine offer certificates in esports, which means students can earn credit for, yes, playing video games.

Educators who support the trend point to the jobs available in gaming and other forms of digital media, while students say esports clubs and classes have given them another way to connect virtually during the pandemic. "Higher ed needs to evolve or die," said Dina Ibrahim, the academic advisor of the SF State esports athletic club and a professor of broadcast journalism. "We need to be teaching students relevant skills, that's going to get them jobs in a rapidly changing landscape...." Ibrahim shared the syllabus for her live stream broadcasting class, which she created after she noticed the effects esports and gaming were having on the field of digital media. In the course, students learn how to market a brand, monetize it, and develop live streamed events using Twitch — an entertainment site mainly aimed at gamers — and other platforms. For their final project, they help organize and market a live-streamed tournament featuring games like Overwatch, Valorant and League of Legends. "What I wanted to do was just provide a venue for students who are doing it anyway, to get credit," said Ibrahim. "And also not just focusing on the gaming community; it's really gaming, plus content creation."

Those skills could help students land their first media jobs, said Mark "Garvey" Candella, director of student and education programs for Twitch... "All the skills that you're learning and using while you participate in gaming and esports are highly transferable and valuable skills in emerging new and digital media," said Candella, who has helped universities establish esports curriculum that uses gaming as a vehicle to teach branding, management and hardware and software knowledge. At Cal State Dominguez Hills, esports academic advisor Ruben Caputo says he's seen 37 students obtain internships based on their work in the program this past year alone... Like other collegiate esports programs, the one at Dominguez Hills started as an informal student club and is now a thriving organization that has obtained sponsorships with companies such as Microsoft and Level Up Esports Apparel. The university is building a new $750,000 esports lab in the campus library, according to the student-run newspaper, The Bulletin. It will be divided into three sections: a classroom, an incubator and a competition area with rows of PCs...

More than 170 schools across the country have varsity esports teams, according to the National Association of Collegiate Esports, but the number with academic programs is much smaller — and students and professors involved in them say they still encounter skepticism from colleagues who see gaming as just a mind-numbing hobby. At UC Irvine, the first California college to pioneer an esports program, students can earn a continuing education certificate but there are no plans to develop a major in the field, said assistant director Kathy Chiang.

"We don't think that there's enough content for that," she said...
Ibrahim argues that gaming "is a huge, profit-churning component of the entertainment industry that can no longer be ignored," adding that gaming students "are getting skills that are going to prime you to work in a very significant industry that's only growing post pandemic."

"All over the world, countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history..." reports the New York Times.

There's already been some surprising results: Maternity wards are already shutting down in Italy. Ghost cities are appearing in northeastern China. Universities in South Korea can't find enough students, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of properties have been razed, with the land turned into parks. Like an avalanche, the demographic forces — pushing toward more deaths than births — seem to be expanding and accelerating. Though some countries continue to see their populations grow, especially in Africa, fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere else. Demographers now predict that by the latter half of the century or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first time.

A planet with fewer people could ease pressure on resources, slow the destructive impact of climate change and reduce household burdens for women. But the census announcements this month from China and the United States, which showed the slowest rates of population growth in decades for both countries, also point to hard-to-fathom adjustments. The strain of longer lives and low fertility, leading to fewer workers and more retirees, threatens to upend how societies are organized — around the notion that a surplus of young people will drive economies and help pay for the old. It may also require a reconceptualization of family and nation. Imagine entire regions where everyone is 70 or older. Imagine governments laying out huge bonuses for immigrants and mothers with lots of children. Imagine a gig economy filled with grandparents and Super Bowl ads promoting procreation.

"A paradigm shift is necessary," said Frank Swiaczny, a German demographer who was the chief of population trends and analysis for the United Nations until last year. "Countries need to learn to live with and adapt to decline...." The ramifications and responses have already begun to appear, especially in East Asia and Europe. From Hungary to China, from Sweden to Japan, governments are struggling to balance the demands of a swelling older cohort with the needs of young people whose most intimate decisions about childbearing are being shaped by factors both positive (more work opportunities for women) and negative (persistent gender inequality and high living costs)... As women have gained more access to education and contraception, and as the anxieties associated with having children continue to intensify, more parents are delaying pregnancy and fewer babies are being born. Even in countries long associated with rapid growth, such as India and Mexico, birthrates are falling toward, or are already below, the replacement rate of 2.1 children per family.

The change may take decades, but once it starts, decline (just like growth) spirals exponentially. With fewer births, fewer girls grow up to have children, and if they have smaller families than their parents did — which is happening in dozens of countries — the drop starts to look like a rock thrown off a cliff... Some countries, like the United States, Australia and Canada, where birthrates hover between 1.5 and 2, have blunted the impact with immigrants. But in Eastern Europe, migration out of the region has compounded depopulation, and in large parts of Asia, the "demographic time bomb" that first became a subject of debate a few decades ago has finally gone off...

According to projections by an international team of scientists published last year in The Lancet, 183 countries and territories — out of 195 — will have fertility rates below replacement level by 2100...
The article asks us to imagine a world where now-empty homes become "a common eyesore," noting that in regional towns in Korea, already "it's easy to find schools shut and abandoned, their playgrounds overgrown with weeds, because there are not enough children."

An Atlanta newspaper tells the story of 11-year-old Malachi Battle, who's been suspended from school for the rest of the year after being accused of "repeatedly trying to log into Zoom classes with threatening phrases" in lieu of his name (according to documents shared by the family's lawyers, in a story shared by Slashdot reader McGruber).

The student says they're innocent: Malachi's lawyers say Gwinnett County Public Schools accused him based on an inaccurate list of students' Internet Protocol addresses from Zoom, a problem that could repeat elsewhere since the company's online sessions are replacing classrooms for millions of students amid the coronavirus pandemic... Chris Gilliard, a fellow with the Technology and Social Change Project of the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, had not heard of a situation similar to Malachi's but said "it's hugely unlikely that this is the first time" a student had been disciplined based on questionable data from Zoom...

During the "Zoom bombing" attempts, Malachi had already logged into the classes under his regular name, according to his appeal. The school district retrieved from Zoom a list of the names and IP addresses in each waiting room, Malachi's legal team said. The Zoom bombers' public IP addresses matched Malachi's — but four other students who did not appear to be Zoom bombers were also listed as having Malachi's public IP address, an impossibility since they were not in the same house, said Scott Moulton, a Woodstock-based forensics expert hired by the attorney working on Malachi's case. Moulton said the school district's technology employee who investigated should have been able to tell that many of the IP addresses in the Zoom report were wrong. "I would have at least picked up the phone and called Zoom before hanging the life of an 11-year-old kid based on a log that looks like an error," Moulton said.

The Zoom bombers' local IP addresses, which identify the exact device being used, did not match Malachi's, according to the log his attorneys provided. Nor did the local IP addresses match any of the possible sequences available under the configuration of the router in Malachi's house, Moulton said. There were no other routers or devices in the house that could have used those local IP addresses, Moulton said... Teachers also said Malachi's camera was on and he did not appear to be doing anything unusual...

Teachers also said unknown people had tried to enter their virtual classes using false names before the day Malachi stayed home sick.
Wild theory: pranksters spoofed Malachi's address.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Mercury News: Instead of learning a foreign language, Michigan students could take computer coding classes to replace the high school graduation requirement, under a bill that passed the state House Tuesday. Currently, the Michigan Merit Curriculum, which dictates the state's academic standards for graduation, requires students to take two world language credits to receive a high school diploma. Before the bill passed a vote, bill sponsor Rep. Greg VanWoerkom spoke about the value of coding in Michigan's prominent auto and tech industries, as well as it being a good alternative for those kids who struggle with traditional language classes.

"Besides being a hard skill, that employers actually want, coding. helps build soft skills. Coding promotes the use of logic, reasoning, problem solving and creativity," the Norton Shores Republican said. "Any professional coder will tell you that to be fluent in coding takes years of practice and a deep understanding of the language." In opposition to the bill, Rep Padma Kuppa said though she understands the importance of adding more technology education to curriculums, having had a career as a mechanical engineer, coding is not a foreign language. Students need both computer and tech skills and foreign language skills. "As technology helps the world become more interconnected, our ability to understand and work with others on technical projects around the globe is not only related to the ability to code, but to understand one another," the Troy Democrat said.

Microsoft today acknowledged that the company isn't going to release its Windows 10X operating system variant, as reported more than a week ago. Mary Jo Foley, writing at ZDNet: Don't be surprised if you missed the acknowledgement, as Microsoft buried it in its blog post about the rollout of the Windows 10 21H1 feature update -- which it published at the start of the Google I/O keynote. Toward the end of the post, under the "Our customer first focus" subheading, officials said Windows 10X wouldn't be coming to market in 2021, after all. Instead, Microsoft will be integrating some of the 10X "foundational" technologies into other parts of Windows and other products. Windows 10X was supposed to be Microsoft's answer to Chrome OS -- a simpler Windows 10 variant that was slated to debut first on PCs for education and the first line-worker market.

Delaware State University -- also known as DSU -- "is cancelling more than $700,000 in student loans for recent graduates hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic," reports CNN: DSU will cancel $730,655 for more than 220 people, the school announced this week...

"Too many graduates across the country will leave their schools burdened by debt, making it difficult for them to rent an apartment, cover moving costs, or otherwise prepare for their new careers or graduate school," said Antonio Boyle, DSU's Vice President for strategic enrollment management. "While we know our efforts won't help with all of their obligations, we all felt it was essential to do our part."

DSU is paying for the expenses through the federal American Rescue Plan for COVID-19 relief, university officials said in the statement Wednesday.
The school says that the average eligible student will qualify for about $3,276 in debt relief, according to a Delaware newspaper. They quote a statement from the School President that "Our students don't just come here for a quality college experience. Most are trying to change the economic trajectory of their lives for themselves, their families, and their communities.

"Our responsibility is to do everything we can to put them on the path."

Lambda School -- incubated at Y Combinator -- raised $130 million in venture funding from several investors including Google Ventures. Its original business model involved six-month virtual computer science courses for $30,000, remembers TechCrunch, "with the option of paying for the courses in installments based on a sliding scale that only kicks in after you land a job that makes at least $50,000."

But this week three former students "filed lawsuits against the company in California, claiming misleading financial and educational practices." The suits — which are being brought by the nonprofit National Student Legal Defense Network on behalf of Linh Nguyen, Heather Nye and Jonathan Stickrod — go back to a period of between 2018 and 2020, and they focus on four basic claims.

First, that Lambda School falsified and misrepresented job placement rates. Second, that Lambda School misrepresented the true nature of its financial interest in student success (specifically, there are question marks over how Lambda handles its Income-Share Agreement contracts and whether it benefits from those). Third, that it misrepresented and concealed a regulatory dispute in California that required the school to cease operations. And fourth, that it enrolled and provided educational services and signed Income-Share Agreement contracts in violation of that order...

Some of the issues that are raised in the lawsuits have also been resolved since then. For example, the prominent display of over 80% of students finding jobs can no longer be found on the Lambda site, and in California you no longer get an Income-Share Agreement but a retail installment contract (similar but different). But as is the way of litigation, lawsuits based on past issues from people who were impacted by them when they were still active, are, in many ways, the next logical, unsurprising step.