New Details on Microsoft’s Cute Little ProjectWho said Apple gets to have all the fun? Rumored to be coming out late this year, Microsoft’s Courier will be a dual screen, folding tablet, sized roughly five by seven inches and less than an inch thick. It will be the same operating system as the Zune HD and Windows Phone 7, and will include an e-book reader as well as an e-book store. According to videos that popped up online, text will be entered by handwriting. Microsoft gave no indication of how much consumers will have to fork over to become the proud owners of the Courier, but we shall wait, and we shall see. Legal Weed-Like Substance Lands Teens in HospitalsA new substance is sweeping the nation. The active ingredient in K2, or “fake weed,” is about 10 times stronger than THC, which is the active ingredient in marijuana, and its side effects include but are not limited to hallucinations, vomiting, accelerated heartbeat, and elevated blood pressure. John Huffman, an organic chemist at Clemson University, first concocted K2 for scientific use in the mid 1990’s. He believes that his recipe got picked up for recreational use in Europe soon after he published sections of it in a book. In 2006, US stores started selling K2 as incense or potpourri for around 30 dollars for a three-gram bag. With an increase in reported cases of teen use across the country, some resulting in hospitalizations, many say that K2 is wreaking havoc on America’s youth. In an interview with LiveScience.com, Huffman warned that the substance is more dangerous than the name “fake weed” suggests. “It’s like playing Russian roulette. You don’t know what it’s going to do to you,” he said. No Decision Yet on .xxx Domain for Adult WebsitesThe Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has a porn problem. The controversial proposal to introduce .xxx as a top-level domain for adult content has been on and off the table since 2000, and this month ICANN once again postponed a decision. Opponents of the idea expressed concerns that countries like China might force some online content into the .xxx domain in order to block it from their users. Others argue that .xxx would make it easier for parents to monitor and restrict their children’s exposure to inappropriate content online. A final decision is expected by ICANN’s 38th international meeting in Brussels this summer. Photoshop Celebrates 20-Year AnniversaryBefore 1990, editing an image at home required scissors, glue and a ruler, and then Adobe Photoshop 1.0 came along. In 1987 Thomas Knoll, then a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan, began writing a program to enable monochrome screens to display grayscale images. His brother, John Knoll, liked the idea and suggested to expand the program with editing functions, and the rest is history. Photoshop was not the first photo-editing program, but it was the first to be marketed and priced as a tool for everyone, not just for graphic design professionals. Version 3.0 introduced layers, a feature that changed the world over. Today we can thank Photoshop for almost every magazine cover, every ad, and any image that looks too beautiful to be true.
Sci/Tech Tidbits
March 25, 2010
About the Contributor
Shira Kaminsky served as the following positions for The Mass Media the following years
Editor-in-Chief: Spring 2012; 2012-2013
Managing Editor: Fall 2011
Arts Editor: Fall 2010