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Domain: therecord.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to therecord.com.
Stories · 5
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Teen Discovers Plastic-Decomposing Bacteria
ganelo writes to tell us that 16-year-old Waterloo Collegiate Institute student Danel Burd has made quite a stir with his plastic-eating bacteria discovery. For his efforts Burd won top prize at a Canada-wide science fair claiming a $10,000 prize and a $20,000 scholarship. "Tests to identify the strains found strain two was Sphingomonas bacteria and the helper was Pseudomonas. A researcher in Ireland has found Pseudomonas is capable of degrading polystyrene, but as far as Burd and his teacher Mark Menhennet know -- and they've looked -- Burd's research on polyethelene plastic bags is a first." -
Blackboard Wins Patent Suit Against Desire2Learn
edremy writes "Blackboard, the dominant learning management system (LMS) maker, has won its initial suit against Desire2Learn. Blackboard gets $3.1 million and can demand that Desire2Learn stop US sales. (We discussed Blackboard when the patent was issued in 2006) This blog provides background on the suit. Blackboard has been granted a patent that covers a single person having multiple roles in an LMS: for example, a TA might be a student in one class and an instructor in another. You wouldn't think something this obvious could even be patented, but so far it's been a very effective weapon for Blackboard, badly hurting Desire2Learn and generating a huge amount of worry for the few remaining commercial LMSs that Blackboard has not already bought, and open source solutions such as Moodle (Blackboard's pledge not to attack such providers notwithstanding)." -
Robotic Presence For a Telecommuter
McGregorMortis writes "Ivan lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and telecommutes to work in Waterloo, Ontario. But in meetings, speaker-phones suck: can't hear everybody, can't move around, no visual contact. So Ivan made an IvanAnywhere robot to give him a physical presence in the office. If Ivan wants to talk to a coworker, he just steers radio-controlled IvanAnywhere into that person's office for a chat." -
MS/Waterloo Curriculum Deal On Hold
Plummer writes "After announcing a recent deal with Microsoft that would see C# become a mandatory portion of first year electrical and computer engineering, the University of Waterloo has backed off and asked for a year to evaluate the proposal. The year will be used to evaluate the merits of the language and ensure that any curriculum changes made, will meet the standards UW engineering is known for. The full story here and here." -
Spheral Solar Technology Approaching Reality
CactusMan writes: "A technology previously owned by Texas Instruments and then Ontario Hydro, Spheral Solar Technology is 'a low-cost alternative [to conventional solar cell technologies] involving flexible, lightweight solar cells comprised of thousands of tiny silicon spheres in an aluminum foil, which can be "formed and applied to virtually any curved or flat surface."' Automated Tooling Systems has just received $29.5 million (Canadian) to bring the technology to commercial viability. Read the article here or go directly to the Spheral site."