Education digest: New degree program OK'd

Shippensburg University received approval to begin a new bachelor of science degree program in computer engineering on Thursday.
The Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education today approved the university's request to start the first such degree program among the 14 PASSHE universities.
"We're happy that we are now able to begin implementing a program that will benefit not only our students, but also the businesses and industries that need skilled people in the field," said university President Bill Ruud.
According to Doug Harbach, a member of the university's Council of Trustees and chair of the council's Academic and Student Affairs Committee, "This not only fills the need in the Commonwealth for a cost-effective option for students to seek a computer engineering degree, but also assists Pennsylvania's business community in its growing need for these types of professionals. It is also another way that Shippensburg University continues to serve our citizens and provide opportunities for young Pennsylvanians to remain in and contribute to the future of our state."
The program is in response to a growing need in Pennsylvania for individuals who can develop software and hardware for a class of computer systems known as embedded systems which include microcontrollers, custom embedded systems and mobile computers. Graduates will have the skills to build and develop software for these complex computing environments and to help meet

---

the demand for trained engineers in the region. The program also takes advantage of the nationally-accredited computer science program and its embedded systems concentration and the university's math and physics programs.
Approximately 15 students per year will be accepted into the program and it will use currently available resources with no need for increase in faculty or related resources.
------
Wilson history: "Wilson College: On the Books," a new exhibit at the C. Elizabeth Boyd '33 Archives, explores more than 100 years of Wilson's written record.
The exhibit which is housed in the college's Hankey Center is open through June 10.
Items on display include the student government association recording secretary's notebook containing minutes from a Feb. 19, 1979, emergency meeting called in response to the announcement that the college would close at the end of that academic year. Other materials of note include the first Wilson Board of Trustees minutes book and permanent record books from the early 1900

Key West Homes for Sale

Simple, php script to include new real estate listings from Key West, Florida into your existing website or blog. Listing includes lates propertis for sale, incliuding: Old town Key West, residential homes, waterfront properties, commercial properties, timeshare, condos, townhomes, multi-units, lots, boat-slips and more.

Key West Homes for Sale Information
Key West Homes for Sale Website	Download Key West Homes for Sale Sponsored Links
Version: 33040
Size: 0.03
Downloads: 1
Price: 0
Licence: Freeware
Key West Homes for Sale Screenshot
Share Key West Homes for Sale
OS: Win 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista/7
Usage Info: 0
Un/Install: Install Only
Requirements: http server, PHP
Reference Keywords: key west real estate, key west homes for sale, houses for sale key west, real estate key west florida, key west real estate for sale

Research more programs like Key West Homes for Sale

CleanStart CleanStart is a startup manager that will easily help you manager your startup items with one simple click! Manages services as well as startup items and gives full descriptions to help you decide what to keep and what to eliminate.

Advanced Vista Optimizer 2009 Advanced Vista Optimizer 2009 is a complete set of utilities and tweaks to manage all areas of Windows Vista/XP. This special product will allow you to perform all those operations on your OS which were impossible using Windows interface.

Corrupt Word Document Repair Tool SysTools Word Recovery software is one of the best Word Recovery tool to recover or repair Word Document. Doc Recovery tool helps you to recover and Repair Word Document. Software supports windows version of Microsoft Word 95/97/2000/XP/2003.

PC Brother System Maintenance Free PC Brother System Maintenance Free is an informative application that speeds up your system by optimizing the system and deleting redundant processes, keep your system secure by detecting system updates and antivirus.

Actual Invisible Keylogger Actual Invisible Keylogger is the most powerful stealth keylogger software. Actual Invisible Keylogger runs silently at the lowest level of windows capturing every keystroke typed including usernames and windows log-on passwords. Actual Invisible Key

Adobe launches Flex and Flash Builder software for cross-platform mobile apps

Adobe today announced software to develop, test and deploy mobile applications on devices running Android, BlackBerry and Apple's iOS.
Developers have been able to use Adobe products for more than seven years to build applications in desktop browsers and can soon use the new tools to apply their skills to various mobile platforms, Dave Gruber, group product marketing manager for Adobe, said in an interview.
"You'll leverage Adobe Air again, except across iOS, Android and BlackBerry," he said. "It's one tool and one framework and one code base."
Adobe's approach makes it possible to create common code that varies only in minor ways across the various mobile platforms; developers don't have to create totally different apps for Android and iOS, he noted.
Adobe's Flash runtime tool called Air 2.6 will use the new Flash Builder 4.5 and Flex 4.5, both available in May. Pricing for Flash Builder Standard starts at $249 per developer seat, while Flex 4.5 is free open-source software. An update to Flex 4.5 to support the Blackberry Tablet OS and iOS will be available in June.
The tools will allow developers to build applications and test them on a desktop emulator or an actual mobile device.
Standard Chartered, a UK-based bank, has used pre-release versions of Flash Builder 4.5 and Flex 4.5 to create an online banking application that works across desktop computers, tablets and smartphones, Gruber said.
Adobe provided a statement from the bank in which Aman Narain, group head of remote banking, said the new Adobe tools cut the time to bring the mobile banking applications to market by 40% and reduced investment costs by two-thirds compared to conventional development methods.
The Flex and Flash Builder tools are part of what Adobe calls Creative Suite 5.5, which supports Adobe's Flash runtime software and player technology. Adobe expects 131 million smartphones to have the Flash player installed by the end of the year, including Android, WebOS, BlackBerry Tablet OS, future versions of Windows Phone and more.
Apple has opposed including the Flash player, a software plug-in, in its iPhone, but Gruber said the Air runtime software can be compiled into iOS applications that will be installed in iOS devices to support animations and other design features.

Adobe speeds Creative Suite releases to catch tablets Aims at iOS, Tablet OS, Android

Adobe Software is accelerating the delivery of new versions of its popular Creative Suite, hoping to keep up with the ever-changing mobile computing market.
The company will introduce a mid-cycle update to the Creative Suite family that will ship every 12 months.

Mid-cycle releases will let Adobe bring new features to its software faster, the company said. It will help ensure in-demand features aren't held back until Adobe's next milestone release of the full suite.

In the past, milestones arrived every 18 months. But Adobe is now moving milestones to a two year release cycle.
The changes take effect with Creative Suite 5.5, announced today, which is aimed at mobile platforms from Apple, Research in Motion, and Google.
Adobe is making it easier to build, test, and debug mobile web apps built for iOS, BlackBerry Tablet OS (the software behind RIM's PlayBook, due on April 14), and Android.
Dave Burkett, Adobe's vice president and general manager of Creative Suite, said that Adobe has been thinking about making the change to its release cycle for "some time" but had finally acted in response to "a lot going on around mobile devices".
That includes not just rapid adoption of the iPhone and iPad, but the furious race to catch up among jealous OEMs, with different form factors running different operating systems.
"It's a flexible process that gives us the opportunity to react to issues customers would like us to be in market with," he said. Burkett would not elaborate on what kinds of features Adobe would introduce in a milestone release and how these would differ to a mid-cycle release. Adobe will not be prescriptive, he said.
In a further break with tradition, Adobe is offering the desktop Creative Suite under a subscription intended to catch casual users such as freelancers and those working on projects.
Creative Suite is usually priced beyond the means of anyone, but the serious professional with an expenses budget. CS 5.5 Design Standard starts at $1,299, but under Adobe's new subscription, you'll pay $35 per month for Photoshop and $95 per month for Design Premium.
With version 5.5, Creative Suite has been updated to capitalize on earlier HTML5 and CSS 3.0 capabilities. Features include auto-code complete, code hinting, and drag-and-drop for HTML5 and CSS3. You could already code using HTML5 and CS3 using tags in Creative Suite, but you did so by hand.
Dreamwaver, included in CS Design and Web Premium 5.5 editions, now comes with jQuery built in for mobile, so you can insert UI components and add jQuery without heavy coding. Dreamwaver also works with WebKit.
Flash Builder, version 4.5 in CS Web Premium 5.5, has been updated so you can share Flex and ActionScript files across different projects and then publish the application to work on the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry Tablet OS for RIM's PlayBook, and Android without needing to program individually to work on each device's screen. Debugging can also be done on each device via USB connection, saving time building the app. Code templates and code completion are also included, as elsewhere in the CS 5.5 suite. Flash Builder 4.5 is expected in June.
The changes are important to Adobe, because they bring Flex for building Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) to a broader range of mobile devices while, thanks to the many of the code-complete and automaton tools and debugging, making it easier to build the apps.
To get around the Jobsian bar on Flash on the iPhone and iPad, Adobe has included the previously separate Flash Packager with Creative Suite 5.5. ®

Microsoft Kinect gets a place at work with new software

So who says Microsoft's Kinect game accessory is all play and no work?

New software is coming out that can give Microsoft's popular motion-sensing device a place in the business boardroom.

The "Win&I" software from Evoluce allows a user to control a PC running Microsoft's Windows 7 through simple gestures up to four meters from the screen.

Evoluce said its software, which costs 19.90 euro (P1,238), can replace the computer mouse.

"The user points the palm of the hand toward the screen and moves the cursor by moving the hand. Users can move and walk around during the gesture control session without losing contact. Even other people in the room will not be able to interfere unless the user in control lets them take over," it said.

The company said that the Win&I Home Edition allows gesture control for the browser and several other applications.

Kinect for businesses

However, a more powerful Business Edition allows gesture control for Microsoft Office and allows one to present with PowerPoint, with special features like laser pointer mode.

"The interactive software will be used not only at home but also in environments like business and point of sale. Many applications created for WIN&I will be released by software partners in the near future," Evoluce said.

Another software company, So Touch, released the "So Touch Air Presenter Plus" that allows one to create "mind-boggling presentations that you can control moving your hands in the air."

The software likewise uses Kinect's depth sensor to let a user manipulate presentation content with natural multi-touch gestures.

Early student hacks

Earlier, a group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) hacked the Kinect to "enhance" distance-based Internet communication.

"The proliferation of broadband and high-speed Internet access has, in general, democratized the ability to commonly engage in videoconference. However, current video systems do not meet their full potential, as they are restricted to a simple display of unintelligent 2D pixels. We present a system for enhancing distance-based communication by augmenting the traditional video conferencing system with additional attributes beyond two-dimensional video," Lining Yao, Anthony DeVincenzi, Ramesh Raskar, and Hiroshi Ishii said in their paper.

"With Kinect camera and sound sensors, We explore how expanding a system's understanding of spatially calibrated depth and audio alongside a live video stream can generate semantically rich three-dimensional pixels containing information regarding their material properties and location," they added.

Using a Kinect camera and sound sensors, the students indicated at least four features that can enhance the videoconference: Talking to Focus; Freezing Former Frames; Privacy Zone; and Spacial Augmenting Reality.

Such a setup includes two networked locations, each with a video screen for viewing the opposite space; a standard RGB digital web camera enhanced by a depth-sensing 3D camera like the Kinect; and calibrated microphones. — TJD, GMA News

Google's $700 million entry into air fare search gets green light

Google's entry into the online travel sector was cleared for takeoff on Friday as the US Justice Department gave the green light to its $US700 million purchase of flight data company ITA Software.
The Justice Department's anti-trust division, however, extracted a number of concessions from Google and imposed conditions on the Internet search giant to allow the controversial acquisition to go ahead.
The proposed legal settlement, which will need the approval of a US District Court, requires Google to notably develop and license ITA's travel software to other companies.

Advertisement: Story continues below

Several online travel sites, including Expedia, Kayak and Travelocity, had sought to block the Google-ITA deal, claiming it would give Google too much control over the lucrative online travel market and lead to higher prices.
The Justice Department agreed that unless modified, the acquisition "would have substantially lessened competition among providers of comparative flight search websites in the United States."
But US deputy assistant attorney general Joseph Wayland said the proposed settlement "promotes robust competition for airfare websites by ensuring those websites will continue to have access to ITA's pricing and shopping software.
"(It) assures that airfare comparison and booking websites will be able to compete effectively, providing benefits to consumers," Wayland said.
ITA, a 500-person firm founded in 1996 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer scientists, specializes in organizing airline data, including flight times, availability and prices.
ITA flight data software is used by many US airlines and a number of leading online travel sites, including Expedia's Hotwire and TripAdvisor, Kayak, Orbitz and Microsoft's Bing search engine.
Under the settlement, Google agreed to let ITA customers extend their contracts into 2016 and to let new customers license ITA's QPX software on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms" into 2016. Google also must offer ITA's next generation InstaSearch product to the sites.
Google is also barred from entering into agreements with airlines that would restrct sharing of seat and booking class information with its competitors.
In addition, Google will be required to build a "firewall" that will prevent it from gaining access to competitors' proprietary software which runs on ITA servers.
Google senior vice president Jeff Huber welcomed the approval of the deal and said "by combining ITA's expertise with Google's technology we'll be able to develop exciting new flight search tools for all our users."
FairSearch.org, a coalition of opponents of the acquisition which includes Google rival Microsoft, welcomed the conditions imposed on Google.
"By putting in place strong, ongoing oversight and enforcement tools, the department has ensured that consumers will continue to benefit from vibrant competition and innovation in travel search," FairSearch.org said.
Another group, Consumer Watchdog, expressed concern that even with the conditions on the deal, Google will "ultimately win control of the travel search industry, driving ticket prices up for consumers."
Google has said the ITA acquisition will help it create new tools that will make it easier for consumers to search for travel, compare flight options and prices and drive more customers to online travel agencies. Google has said it has no plans to sell airline tickets or set airfare prices.
Google has drawn increasing government scrutiny as it has grown from a scrappy startup into the dominant player in Internet search and the ITA settlement marks the first time it will be subject to anti-trust supervision.
The US Federal Trade Commission reached a settlement with Google last week over Google Buzz, the social networking tool rolled out last year which spawned a slew of privacy complaints.
Under the settlement announced by the US regulator, Google is required to implement a comprehensive privacy program and will be subject to independent privacy audits every two years for the next 20 years.
Last month, a US judge dealt a setback to Google's plans for a vast digital library and online bookstore, rejecting a copyright settlement hammered out by the Internet giant with authors and publishers.

Casino Software: It’s All About the Bonus

Many new customers wonder how casino software and bonus credits work for new players. The betting software is programmed for certain bonus amounts, and requires obligations on the gamblers part.
Each casino software is of course different, but the general idea for most is, the bonus cash out requirements are usually around 5 to 10 times the deposit and the bonus, depending on the bonus given. That means the bettor must risk his original deposit by 5, and the deposit. A $100 dollar deposit with a $25 dollar bonus would require a rollover of $525.
That may seem quite high, but since most casino softwares pay back around 97%, it is quite easy to accomplish.
Many casino softwares require a minimum deposit to qualify for the bonus, usually $50 or $100. Remember they are looking for your business just as much as you are looking to win.
Once all of these requirements have been fulfilled, then the customer will be eligible to withdraw the bonus along with his deposit.
But where do players find the bonuses? There are many casino forums that specialize in finding bonuses for players. They often allow players to chat about what they have found and how good the customer service is and how fast the payouts happen.
This network is crucial to the avid betting software fan, helping to eliminate time going to sites that are a waste of time.
A lot of advisor sites, as they are generally called, review casinos and give them ratings based on wide variety of things such as types of games, speed of payout and overall experience.
The sites often include news stories close to the casino software, such as new innovations, international legislation and US regulation attempts.
Some bonuses are attached to certain casino software machines, such as certain types of high risk slots for at least one spin of the wheel, so pay attention to the fine print. You wouldn’t want to go through the whole thing only to find out you missed a crucial step.