All Entries Tagged With: "STEM"
Grant Supports Undergraduate Research in Brazil
Oswego students Earl Bellinger ’12 and Janet Buckner ’12 eagerly tell how their summer 2010 work at the college’s global laboratories in Brazil studying the stars and surveying wildlife has opened opportunities for them as future scientists.
Alumna Shares Photos of Chimps
Chimpanzees are a lot like humans, sharing 98 percent of the same DNA and many personality traits. That fact was in evidence in a special multimedia presentation on campus in February by wife-and-husband photography and video team Kristin Mosher ’89 and Bill Wallauer.
‘Gorilla’ Marketing: Bocko helps change the way we view the world
If you are one of the 100 million Americans with smart phones, chances are you are holding the work of a fellow Oswego alumnus.
Peter Bocko ’75, chief technology officer for Corning Glass Technologies, a business within Corning Inc., driving new glass opportunities, has spent his career developing and bringing to market glass used in cutting-edge high-tech devices like these. His latest project is Corning Gorilla Glass, a super-tough, ultra-thin product used in some of the hottest electronic devices on the planet.
Changing Minds, Changing Lives
Yvonne Spicer ’84, M ’85 loves changing minds.
So when skeptical teachers walk away from her institutes inspired, it inspires her. That’s how she knows her mission to elevate high technology in American classrooms is headed in the right direction.
Faculty fellow Kanbur enhances Possibilities
Shashi Kanbur has a yearlong Faculty Fellowship through the President’s Office in support of two key initiatives: the Possibility Scholars and Global Laboratories programs.
Researcher to design X-ray detector
Marianne Hromalik, a new computer science faculty member, completed her post-doctoral work at Cornell University last spring, but the “homework” has kept right on coming.
Grant supports Professional Science Master’s
SUNY’s Professional Science Master’s Program — which aims to increase the flow of scientific skills and innovation into the business-industry arena in New York state — got a boost with a $350,000 grant from the Sloan Foundation.
Science sage Hyde retires after 43 years
After four decades in Snygg Hall, Kenneth Hyde, distinguished teaching professor of chemistry, traded in his course notes for a hammer and level. Retiring after a 43-year career in the classroom, he has a new avocation: fixing up an old camp on the south shore of Skaneateles Lake, where he and his wife will spend time in retirement.
Three things you can do to make your kids more tech savvy
Try an at-home science project. The Discovery Center at the Museum of Science, Boston, has many activities to choose from, including copter engineering, bridge building and paper recycling. Visit mos.org/discoverycenter/aotm for ideas.
Take a “tech walk” around your home or school. Make a list of everything that is engineered by humans. Make another list of things that are not (Hint: there won’t be many).
Watch TV. Well, particularly shows that have an element of engineering, like Design Squad Nation on PBS. The hosts work with kids on an entertaining variety of challenges.
Visit pbs.org/designsquad for details.
SOURCE: Museum of Science, Boston
Your Next TV
Ed. Note: In January, at a session titled “In Search of TV’s Next Big Thing” at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, Peter Bocko ’75 and four other industry executives debated trends in hardware, software and the sociology of future TV. Here, Pete shares some highlights of their discussion.
Are there big differences between brands of flat panel display?
I prefer the efficiency and look of LCD over plasma displays especially in normal room lighting. Among LCDs, there is little on-screen difference between TV brands when watching conventional HDTV. Specs, although improving continually, are past the point of diminishing returns. A 1,000,000-to-1 dynamic contrast ratio may be important to video engineers skulking in a dark room filled with $200,000 worth of measurement equipment but not to the normal consumer.
Today, one should buy a 120- or 240-hertz LED backlit LCD (LED makes a big difference in color reproduction and motion rendering). Focus on your personal preferences for the “look” of the TV picture, ease of use of the remote and overall set style. Many showrooms have their LCDs set to “showroom mode” in which the picture is amped up. Ask the salesperson to set it back to “normal viewing” to see what it will look like in your living room. If the salesperson doesn’t know what you are talking about, buy your TV elsewhere.
In terms of style trends, check out the new slim “borderless” designs in which an additional piece of glass protects the screen and creates a futuristic look. I think we have come a long way from the days where the TV set is a living room eyesore.
What is the status of 3-D TV?
Although strides have been made, 3-D technology is still in its infancy and many may find themselves disappointed by the lack of quality content. Bad 3-D is worse than no 3-D: Poorly rendered 3-D sometimes makes people (including me) queasy. Gamers get value out of 3-D TV now; a compelling 3-D experience requires both advanced 3-D TV technologies and improved 3-D video production.
What is Internet TV?
This is the most compelling trend in TV today. Some new flat screen TVs allow transparent access to online content and social networking. A modern Internet-enabled TV is potentially never obsolete, because its onboard software can be updated with new capabilities. The cable box will become a thing of the past as content will be highly personalized and increasingly from “the cloud”. Viewers will be accessing “their TV” anywhere — not just their living room — using a variety of portable devices that fit with their lifestyle.
But Internet TV also creates the potential for your TV to be watching you. Imagine your TV processing and collecting information from your Web browsing and viewing history to customize what commercials are directed to you when watching “free” content. Won’t that be just a little creepy?
What comes next? Will the Web beam TV directly to your brain?
I was asked a number of years ago whether “retinal injection” of images might obsolete the need for big screen TV. I thought then and still believe, new technologies notwithstanding, TV is still fundamentally a social activity. New gadgets and content are important but secondary to the fact that we mostly watch video with friends and family. It is not what we watch so much as with whom we watch that makes the experience enjoyable. All my HDTV big screens and surround sound still cannot improve upon watching Planet of the Apes on an 11-inch B&W Emerson TV in my Riggs Hall dorm room late one Friday night in 1973 with my roommate Lynn Stone ’75.
— Peter Bocko ’75