The Administration joined 12 international leaders for the launch of the Equal Futures Partnership, a new, multi-lateral initiative to break down barriers to women’s political participation and economic opportunity. The U.S. contribution to Equal Futures includes a renewed commitment to opening more doors to high-quality education and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for women and girls, who currently hold only one-quarter of all American jobs within these fields, despite making up nearly half of the total U.S. workforce. These efforts build upon the President’s and First Lady’s calls for an “all-hands-on-deck” effort to break down barriers to attracting girls and retaining women in STEM fields.
Among the steps that the White House announced in support of Equal Futures are improving data collection and dissemination on women in science and technology, bolstering the available pool of skilled STEM mentors, encouraging research-based STEM teaching, and helping to connect women to online and mobile skills training. Several leading businesses, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations have also made commitments to advance women and girls’ economic and political empowerment at home and abroad. They are dedicating themselves to launching new and innovative programs to support women and girls in STEM fields, connecting women entrepreneurs to markets and supply chains, and supporting research to advance girls’ leadership.
Tag: technology
NIST Cybersecurity Awareness Month
To cap Cybersecurity Awareness Month, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is offering its third annual National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Workshop, October 30-November 1 at its Maryland campus. NICE is focused on enhancing the overall cybersecurity posture of the U.S. by accelerating the availability of education and training resources designed to improve the cyber-behavior, knowledge, and skills of every segment of the population. The workshop will feature four tracks focused on NICE’s primary goals: Raising Awareness: Online Safety Starts with You!; Education, Professionalism, and Certifications; Training and Maintaining a Competitive Cybersecurity Workforce; and the Role of Cybersecurity in Competitions. Attendees will also observe students competing in a challenge. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE GO TO http://csrc.nist.gov/nice/2012workshop/.
Who Made That Escape Key?
The key was born in 1960, when an I.B.M. programmer named Bob Bemer was trying to solve a Tower of Babel problem: computers from different manufacturers communicated in a variety of codes. Bemer invented the ESC key as way for programmers to switch from one kind of code to another. Later on, when computer codes were standardized (an effort in which Bemer played a leading role), ESC became a kind of “interrupt” button on the PC — a way to poke the computer and say, “Cut it out.”
Why “escape”? Bemer could have used another word — say, “interrupt” — but he opted for “ESC,” a tiny monument to his own angst. Bemer was a worrier. In the 1970s, he began warning about the Y2K bug, explaining to Richard Nixon’s advisers the computer disaster that could occur in the year 2000. Today, with our relatively stable computers, few of us need the panic button. But Bob Frankston, a pioneering programmer, says he still uses the ESC key. “There’s something nice about having a get-me-the-hell-out-of-here key.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/magazine/who-made-that-escape-key.html?hpw
From: “Bob Frankston”
The real story is far more fascinating in how a key that happened to be there for other reasons got reused for unrelated purposes because of the accidental “ESC” inscribed. Had it been DLE (Data Link Escape) it might not have acquired its current use.
As an FYI the IBM 2741 did have an ATTN (interrupt) key. From http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/27xx/GA24-3415-3_2741_Aug72.pdf: The 2741 keyboard is physically identical to the standard IBM Selectric® typewriter (Figure 3). Functionally, one change has been made to the keyboard. The Selectric typewriter index key is now labeled ATTN (attention). The indexing (lines-pacing) function is initiated only by the computer. ‘
The IBM PC was modeled on the Apple ][ which was from the teletype heritage hence an ESC key.
Agency aims to rate mobile broadband service performance across the U.S.
Measuring Broadband America, that gauges residential broadband performance.
Agency aims to rate mobile broadband service performance across the U.S.
September 06, 2012
How fast is data access on your smartphone? The Federal Communications Commission wants to find out.
The agency announced plans Wednesday to measure the performance of wireless broadband services across the country. Under the program, called Measuring Mobile America, the FCC will work with major wireless carriers, research and public interest groups, and other parties to assess the performance of wireless services.
The program will be modeled after an existing initiative, Measuring Broadband America, that gauges residential broadband performance. In a report released in July, the FCC said consumers have used the data generated by that program for comparison shopping, leading to increased competition among service providers.
According to the FCC, the residential broadband survey has led to improvements in three areas: Internet service providers (ISPs) are making more accurate promises about network performance; ISPs are more consistent in delivering promised speeds; and consumers are subscribing to higher-speed tiers. [SNIP]
http://www.informationweek.com/government/mobile/fcc-to-measure-wireless-data-speeds/240006873