Category: News

Next Friday, the 30th (the Friday before finals for us college kids), the Spartan Dischords will take the stage again for our big end-of-the-year show: Eating Out! The show is at the Pasant Theatre. Tickets are only $5 for students and can be bought online here or at the Wharton Center Box Office.

Tickets are going fast so, when buying online, you may want to check the left and right sections of the Pasant for better seats! You have to click the grey left/right buttons in the box under the seating graphic to see them though. Tricky internets…

Talking Points Memo reports that Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, says Republicans are close to supporting Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform bill. “We’re very close to a deal and there will be a substantial number of Republicans that go along with it,” Shelby says. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had last week convinced all 41 Republican Senators to sign on to a letter opposing the bill on the grounds that it would create “perpetual bailouts” for Wall Street firms. It now seems Republicans will not filibuster the popular bill.

Additionally, the Senate Agriculture Committee passed Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s (D-Ark.) derivatives reform bill out of committee. All of the committee Democrats, plus Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), agreed to the plan, which Wall Street stringently opposes.

Gizmodo nearly broke the Internet with its exclusive review of a lost new iPhone. Is it possible that the Gawker Media technology blog also broke the law? Slate’s Brian Palmer says

Yes. California’s Uniform Trade Secrets Act
prohibits the theft or disclosure of legitimate commercial secrets. The
state law does not distinguish between rogue employees, corporate
spies, and the media, all of whom can be liable under the act. Nor does
it matter that Gizmodo obtained the information secondhand–what’s
important is the fact that the prototype was a secret and the tech blog
either knew or should have known that it was acquired improperly. Both
of these conditions seem to be satisfied, according to Gizmodo’s own account of what happened.

Here’s the story: Gizmodo’s source allegedly found the iPhone prototype at a bar, asked around to see if it belonged to somebody, called Apple HQ to leave a message, and then sold the device to Gizmodo for $5,000. He didn’t hand it to the bar tend. He didn’t tell the police. Gawker Media had a legal responsibility to ensure that the seller rightfully possessed the property. They did not. And if sued, they might have to pay, which would make this purloined iPhone the most expensive Apple product in history.

Daily Finance’s Jeff Bercovici concludes: “What Gawker Media did here was egregious. I doubt Steve Jobs will sue, but if he does, he will have justice on his side.”

[JURIST] Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Monday urged Kyrgyzstan’s interim government to begin a comprehensive investigation into the violence between April 6 and 8 that resulted in the overthrow of president Kurmanbek Bakiyev. After conducting witness interviews and examining photo and video evidence, HRW concluded that the violence was fueled by the actions of both security forces and demonstrators and called on the government to officially request assistance from the international community to “help to safeguard against accusations of bias” in the probe. HRW claims that authorities committed several violations of international law, which stipulates that lethal force may only be used as a last resort, citing in particular the alleged shooting of an unarmed man seeking to negotiate. The interim government is currently planning to try members of Bakiyev’s family and administration on charges that include corruption and human rights violations.
Kyrgyz interim leader Roza Otunbayeva said last week that Bakiyev should stand trial for the recent violence. Despite the pledge to bring Bakiyev and his allies to justice, so far only former defense minister Baktybek Kaliyev has been arrested. It is believed that Bakiyev is currently in Belarus, and interim officials have said they will seek extradition to bring him before their courts. The protests, prompted in part by a drastic increase in utility costs, led to at least 84 deaths and many more injuries. Earlier this month, Otunbayeva launched the interim government after the violence forced Bakiyev to flee the capital. The protests came just one week after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Kyrgyzstan to protect all forms of human rights, including “free speech and freedom of the media.”

David Letterman will drop in for a sit down with Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa on the April 30 edition of Live with Regis and Kelly. This will be the late night comic’s first visit to Live! since Reg returned to the air after heart surgery in April 2007.

A formal ceremony honoring a family that includes eight University of Colorado at Colorado Springs alumni and donated $1 million to a new campus events center is scheduled for 5 p.m. Wednesday on the campus of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Top University of Colorado officials, including members of the CU Board of Regents, will attend the ceremony at the Gallogly Events Center along with campus faculty, staff, students and alumni. The event will formally dedicate the events center in memory of Tommy M. Gallogly who earned two degrees at UCCS as a non-traditional student and later taught in Academy District 20. Seven of the ten children born to Tommy and Margery Gallogly graduated from UCCS.

“This is an outstanding Colorado Springs and UCCS story of success,” Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak said. “We will honor the memory of Tommy Gallogly and the legacy that his children and grandchildren continue.”

In January, James L. “Jim” Gallogly, a 1974 graduate, and his wife, Janet, on behalf of the Gallogly family, announced a $1 million donation to the CU Foundation. They requested the university name the events center in honor of Jim Gallogly’s father, Tommy, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from UCCS in 1970 and 1973.

It is the first full UCCS building named in honor of a campus alum.

Tommy Gallogly died in 2000. Seven children of Tommy and Margery Gallogly earned degrees from UCCS and all ten children graduated from college. More than 47 family representatives, including Margery Gallogly, Buena Vista, are expected to attend the Wednesday ceremony and will assist in the unveiling of the Gallogly Events Center nameplate and a plaque that tells Tommy Gallogly’s personal story.

“We are pleased to name the new event center in honor of our father, Tom Gallogly, one of the early graduates of UCCS. He would be extremely proud of how his alma mater has grown and prospered through the years,” stated Jim Gallogly.

Jim Gallogly is the chief executive officer of LyondellBasell in Houston, one of the world’s largest polymers, petrochemicals and refining companies. He previously held executive positions with ConocoPhillips, ChevronPhillips and Phillips Petroleum dating to 1980. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from UCCS in 1974 and a law degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1977. Jim and Janet Gallogly have three daughters, Kelly, Kasey, and Kimberly Gallogly, and maintain a residence in Colorado Springs.

A graduate of Wasson High School in Colorado Springs, Jim Gallogly followed in his father’s footsteps to UCCS along with six of his siblings: Mary Gallogly DeSantis, 1977; Tony Gallogly, 1983; Nicholas Gallogly, 1985; Andrew Gallogly, 1987; Paul H. Gallogly, 1988; and Thomas Gallogly, 1990.

In addition to being home to the NCAA Division II and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference-member UCCS Mountain Lions, the Gallogly Events Center serves as a multi-purpose venue for all-campus events. The 27,000 square foot center features high-tech sound, lighting and high-speed data capability. Plans call for the center to be a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Efficiency-certified green building.

Jennifer Schonberger at Motley Fool interviews Professor Robert Shiller: Shiller: The Housing Recovery Could Be on Shaky Ground.

A couple of comments from Shiller, first on house prices…

Keep reading at Calculated Risk >

Join the conversation about this story »

Typing is hard. I hardly ever type unless I have to. In fact, roughly 80% of MobileCrunch’s operating bills go towards paying a full staff of invisible underlings to write what I say and censor my vulgarity.

Unfortunately for the livelihood of the aforementioned underlings, they’re now replaceable by a BlackBerry.

Following up on the launch of Dragon Dictation apps for the iPhone, Nuance has just launched their first venture into the world of BlackBerry. Unlike the iPhone releases (a Search app, and a sort of generic notepad meant for copying-and-pasting transcribed text to other apps), the focus here is e-mail. The image up top wraps it up pretty well: press a button, talk a bit, and it’ll make a valiant effort to transcribe everything you’ve said. Processing generally takes about 5 seconds, with accuracy ranging from spot-on to “Oh god, how did it think I said that?” depending on your accent and rate of speech.

The Dragon Dictation for E-Mail app is available now on BlAppWorld for free. They say the “free” part is only for a limited time — but they said the same thing about the iPhone release, and thats been out for months now and is still free. Regardless, probably better to grab it up quick.

Privacy issues. I consider privacy the big bugaboo of cloud computing in general, and the simple nature of Google’s Chrome operating system and the company’s penchant for (really its corporate raison d’etre) data mining the potential for serious abuse of user data is there.

I don’t have a problem with all data mining and I certainly understand what Google does and why. I absolutely love the Chrome browser and recommend it for everyone, and I use Gmail for a number of secondary email accounts, but I’m not even close to ready to trusting all my data by a cloud controlled by Google, or any other entity for that matter.

From the link:

The naming scheme is no accident. It reflects Google’s ambition to create an operating system that is all but indistinguishable from the browser. Gone will be the normal files, directories, and applications. Instead, Chrome OS will put Google’s cloud computing infrastructure–services and applications delivered over the Internet from its vast array of servers–at the heart of practically everything you do. Within a few years, Chrome OS could become the planet’s simplest, fastest, and safest environment for personal computing. But there’s a catch: it will also make Google the gatekeeper of your personal information. It could let Google delve further into your data to make its online advertising business more profitable than ever.

There is one upside — your “backup” data is located in your computer, so when it craps out the real data still resides on Google’s servers and isn’t lost. That alone might make the Chrome OS attractive to some people.

Also from the link:

Google’s engineers have explained that Chrome OS will use your computer’s hard drive as a cache, making copies of whatever you’re working on so that you won’t burn up your netbook’s wireless data plan (or your batteries). All that personal data will be encrypted, so you won’t need to worry if you happen to lose the machine. And if for some reason your computer gets corrupted–perhaps by a virus–you’ll be able to wipe it and start over without losing any work at all, since your data is stored in the cloud.