All Posts Tagged With: "Research in Motion"
What students are talking about today (November 12th edition)
Elmo scandal, Concordia on homestays, a regrettable tattoo
Kevin Clash (Bill Thompson/Wikimedia)
1. Concordia University has responded to complaints by Chinese students about homestays advertised through a link on its website. One student told CBC News that she hadn’t been fed enough, losing weight as a result. “While Concordia is not involved in providing homestay services, it has undertaken a careful review of the allegations,” reads Concordia’s statement.
2. Kevin Clash, the 52-year-old puppeteer behind Elmo, has been accused of having a sexual relationship with a man who was 16 at the time, according to a statement from Sesame Street. Clash denies the boy was underage, but he has taken a leave of absence and has been disciplined for inappropriately using work computers.
3. The Fiscal Cliff, a Jan. 1st deadline of doom that the U.S. economy faces if Congress doesn’t amend its agreed-upon package of tax hikes and spending cuts, is apparently a subject of interest for Star Wars fans. They took to Twitter with the hashtag #StarWarsFiscalCliff. Here’s one such missive from Tweeter John Podhoretz: “Ben Bernanke? That wizard is just a crazy old man.”
Continue reading What students are talking about today (November 12th edition)
What students are talking about today (Sept. 21 edition)
Most-liked video ever, Waterloo sex crime & Montreal pride
1. I didn’t want to bore you with another story about Gangnam Style so consider this a YouTube story. Psy’s music video with his horse-man dance moves is now YouTube’s most liked video of all time with 2.2 million thumbs up, way more than LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem, which slips to second. Don’t get too excited. Everyone knows the more important record is total views. At 200 million, Gangnam Style has a long way to go to reach Justin Bieber’s Baby with 780 million views.
2. In a bizarre twist, Waterloo Regional Police say that a sexual assault alleged to have occurred on Monday did not actually happen. “It has been determined that the female’s initial allegations to police were not true,” they wrote in a release.
3. That’s great news, especially considering how such disturbing news could have detracted from today’s celebration. Prof. Stephen Hawking, physics superstar, is in Waterloo today to help open the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre, a $160-million facility that will allow for atomic-scale experiments. It’s named for a donation from the Research in Motion (RIM) co-founder.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Sept. 21 edition)
What students are talking about today (Sept. 17 edition)
Occupy, a campus caffeine ban, campus radio and the NHL
j.dubb/Flickr
1. Ryerson lost its radio station CKLN for good last week after the CRTC denied an application to bring it back. “There were feminist programs, LGBT shows, even a series on prisoners’ rights. There was a lot of lefty politics and a lot of loopy politics. Not all of it was good, but you would struggle to hear it anywhere else,” recalls The Ryersonian. The station was shut down after years of fighting between the students’ union and non-students on the board, partly over the question how much airtime students got.
2. It’s officially one year since the Occupy Wall Street movement began. See Twitter for the latest action under #OWS, #OCCUPY and #S17.
3. One of the enduring scenes from Occupy was when University of California Davis students and alumni were violently pepper-sprayed by campus police at a peaceful protest following an eviction in November. The university just announced a settlement with 21 victims. UC spokesperson Jonathan Stein told the L.A. Times, “we did an injustice to our students that day at Davis.” Yes they did.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Sept. 17 edition)
What students are talking about today (Aug. 17 edition)
Guns on campus, a Bar Mitzvah video, teacher’s college…
nukeit1/Flickr
1. The University of Colorado Boulder announced it will require students who live in undergraduate residence halls to forgo bringing handguns to campus. That may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s a bold step for Boulder in light of a Colorado Supreme Court decision in March that affirmed students’ rights to handguns on campus. The rule does not apply to graduate students. Let it be noted that James Holmes, the man who killed 12 and wounded 58 others at The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado in July, was a graduate student.
2. A new $100 bank note with an Asian-looking woman peering into a microscope was deemed too controversial by a focus groups. Instead of simply rolling their eyes, the Bank of Canada purged the note in favour of a “neutral” Caucasian-looking figure. To quote from the report received by The Canadian Press: “Some believe that it presents a stereotype of Asians excelling in technology… Others feel that an Asian should not be the only ethnicity represented on the banknotes.”
3. Research In Motion is laying off so many people right now that it isn’t even bothering to meet with all of them in person. The BlackBerry maker dumped 100 workers in Halifax this week by herding them into a room and then showing them a teleconference link with someone at Waterloo, Ont. headquarters. One worker called it “inhumane,” because she couldn’t even ask questions.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Aug. 17 edition)
Lazaridis donates $21 million to Waterloo
RIM founder’s gifts now total $123 million
The founders of Research In Motion (RIM), the Waterloo, Ont. based produce of BlackBerry products, have fallen. But one of them, Mike Lazaridis, is ready to make a new investment. He and his wife Ophelia pledged $21 million to the University of Waterloo on Wednesday. “History has shown us that a relatively small investment in fundamental research in physics and in science today can lead to huge innovation tomorrow,” Lazaridis said. The money will fund chairs in condensed matter and astrophysics, a new science building and scholarships for mathematics students. The couple have donated $123 million in total, after funding the Institute for Quantum Computing and the soon-to-open Quantum Nano Centre. To get a sense of how big those donations are, consider that only one gift to a Canadian university exceeded $20 million last year, reports Academica.
U Calgary gets funding from BlackBerry’s RIM for GPS
Team will try to enhance satellite signal reception in hard-to-reach places, like buildings
Ontario-based technology giant Research in Motion (TSX:RIM) is putting up more than $300,000 to allow a team from the University of Calgary to explore how to improve the performance of wireless global positioning systems.
The team, from the university’s Schulich School of Engineering, will investigate ways to enhance the performance of GPS systems in environments where it’s tough to get satellite signals, including inside buildings.
Gerard Lachapelle, the university’s Canada research chair in wireless location, says wireless technology is becoming more widespread and such navigational features will become more common in the future.
The three-year $1.3 million project will also be cost-shared by the federal and Alberta governments.
Research In Motion is the technology firm behind the popular BlackBerry wireless device.
- The Canadian Press
RIM CEO donates $25m to quantum research centre
Couple’s total donations to the Institute for Quantum Computing now at $101 million
Mike Lazaridis, the co-CEO of Research in Motion Ltd. (TSX:RIM), and his wife are donating $25 million to the University of Waterloo.
The donation from Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis to the Institute for Quantum Computing brings their total donations to the centre to $101 million.
University of Waterloo president David Johnston says the donations have helped make the school one of the world’s best in the field of information processing research.
In a statement, Mike Lazaridis says he and his wife are excited to support what is becoming the epicentre of quantum research and experimentation.
The couple’s previous donation went toward the Quantum-Nano Centre, which will accommodate the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology and Waterloo’s undergraduate program in nanotechnology engineering.
- The Canadian Press
