Page 8 - Campus Technology, March/April 2019

ROBOT DELIVERY. George Mason Universi- ty (VA) has what is easily one of the first large- scale college programs to use robots to deliver food on campus. The service was the brainchild of two companies, food service operator Sodexo and delivery robot company Starship Technolo- gies. Now, members of the Mason community can pull up an app on their iPhones and Android phones to order a number of food and drink options for delivery anywhere on the campus. READ THE FULL STORY ONLINE.
THE LANGUAGE OF VR. While virtual reality has proven useful in helping people explore physical realms they can’t visit, a study under- taken by a team of researchers at Penn State has found that it can also speed up second language learning among adults, as if they were immersed in the place where that language was natively spoken. The experiment, undertaken by scholars in the university’s departments of Psychology and Geography, tested participants’ knowledge of Chinese words by allowing them to interact with objects in a VR environment.
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TRAINING WOMEN IN CS. Google is helping people — especially women — who want to launch their computer science careers by deliver- ing a free machine learning “boot camp” at five colleges around the country. The 10-week inten- sive training program will use a hands-on project approach that also incorporates non-technical skill development in project management, opera- tions, self-presentation and leadership. Four out of the five participating institutions are women’s colleges — Mills College (CA), Scripps College (CA), Agnes Scott College (GA) and Bay Path Uni- versity (MA) — but both women and men are encouraged to apply for entry to the program. READ THE FULL STORY ONLINE.
CRYPTOJACKING TARGET. Education is among the top verticals affected by a newer form of nefarious cybercrime. Malicious cryp- tomining or cryptojacking, as it’s called, describes the theft of computer processing resources — electricity, cloud services and other digital assets — that are then exploited to do cryptocurrency mining without the owner’s permission or
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CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | March/April 2019