Computing in the News
Tips and Options for Using Computing News in Class
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- Present a current news story about a computing innovation (including a video if there is one), then ask the students what they think about it, what computer science concepts are involved, and what the positive and negative implications are.
- Once you’ve modeled the process several times, you can ask students to bring stories to the group.
- Can be used as a five-minute bellringer every day, or save news for Fridays and give it more time.
- If the discussion is going well, let it continue!
- It can be easy — maybe a little too easy — to highlight the positive elements of a new innovation (especially when news stories are based on press releases!). So it’s important for students to see the negative (often unintended) implications as well — and to put some thought into how potential negative consequences could be prevented or mitigated.
Why Use News?
Highlights from the news make a great attention-grabber at the beginning of class, and provide handy concrete examples for thinking about the global impacts of computing. (In fact, there’s a move to use news in all undergrad CS classes at UC Berkeley!)
Three Ways to Find Computing News
News Stories Curated for CSP by TGI (this page)
2016-17 news highlights that demonstrate computing impacts. Each one lists relevant CSP learning objectives and essential knowledge, along with suggested discussion questions. Scroll article snippets or search by CSP framework tag.
Ongoing TGI “Computing in The News” Forum
Uncurated news spotted by our site users, and comments on our curated news articles. Peruse, or join in and share a story! (Forum RSS feed)
Current Uncurated News from Other Sources
Some of our favorite live news feeds: ACM Tech News, MIT News, Science Daily.
News Stories Curated for CSP by TGI
2016-17 Highlights
(Team TGI: Anna Clark, Tyler Daniell, Michael Morguarge, Nnamdi Onwumere, and Jonathan Corley at University of West Georgia and Julia Bernd at ICSI)
Ongoing TGI “Computing in The News” Forum
Uncurated news spotted by our site users, community contributions, and comments on our curated news articles. Peruse or join in and share a story!
Current Uncurated News from Other Sources
Some of our favorite sources for computing news!
From ACM Tech News
- Report: Machines to Handle Over Half Workplace Tasks by 2025Associated PressUnderscoring how rapidly the labor market will change in the near future, the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Monday released a report showing more than half of all workplace tasks will be completed by machines by 2025. The WEF estimates that machines will be responsible for 52% of the division of labor as a […]
- Making Algorithms Less BiasedNextGov.comIn an effort to help government officials eliminate bias in algorithms that make automated decisions on significant legal and other issues, Johns Hopkins University's Center for Government Excellence (GovEx) on Monday released a toolkit to help assess data science projects. The project evolved from academic and nonprofit discussions about how to address the problem of […]
- New Photonic Chip Promises More Robust Quantum ComputersSciMexA team led by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology's (RMIT) Alberto Peruzzo has developed a topological photonic chip to process quantum information, a breakthrough that could serve as a more robust option for scalable quantum computers. In addition, this research could lead to the development of new materials, next-generation computers, and deeper understandings of […]
From MIT News
- Reducing false positives in credit card fraud detection September 20, 2018Model extracts granular behavioral patterns from transaction data to more accurately flag suspicious activity.Rob Matheson | MIT News Office
- Machine-learning system tackles speech and object recognition, all at once September 18, 2018Model learns to pick out objects within an image, using spoken descriptions.Rob Matheson | MIT News Office
- Helping computers fill in the gaps between video frames September 14, 2018Machine learning system efficiently recognizes activities by observing how objects change in only a few key frames.Rob Matheson | MIT News Office
- Artificial intelligence system uses transparent, human-like reasoning to solve problems September 11, 2018Model from MIT Lincoln Laboratory Intelligence and Decision Technologies Group sets a new standard for understanding how a neural network makes decisions.Kylie Foy | Lincoln Laboratory
From Science Daily
- Nerve cells in the human brain can 'count' September 20, 2018How do we know if we're looking at three apples or four? Researchers were able to demonstrate that some brain cells fire mainly for quantities of three, others for quantities of four and others for other quantities. A similar effect can be observed for digits: In humans, the neurons activated in response to a '2' […]
- Mathematics meets biology to uncover unexpected biorhythms September 20, 2018A novel mathematical approach has uncovered that some animal cells have robust 12-hour cycles of genetic activity, in addition to circadian or 24-hour cycles.
- Widely used nonprofit efficiency tool doesn't work September 20, 2018A recent study finds that the tool most often used to assess the efficiency of nonprofit organizations isn't just inaccurate -- it is negatively correlated with efficiency.