Ask Slashdot: Do We Need Better Computer Programming Courses For Visual Learners?

Two-thirds of technology firms are experiencing a shortage of skilled workers, reports the BBC (citing a recent report from recruitment firm Harvey Nash).

But what’s the solution? In an article shared by Chrisq, the BBC’s business technology reporter field-tested some computer programming training:
I attended Teach the Nation to Code, a free one-day Python coding workshop run by UK training firm, QA… But when it works, there’s not much pay-off — just some lines on a screen. I also took classes with Cypher Coders and Creator Academy to teach me Scratch — a coding language for children with a simple visual interface… [I] found the step change from learning Scratch to Python similarly jarring in the children’s toys — you suddenly go from colourful blocks to an empty screen with no handholding. What could help bridge this gap from fun games for kids, to more professional level complex coding?

Garry Law, founder of Australian coding training firm, Creator Academy, says IT education needs to be better. “We need to teach kids coding with visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles, and we need to adapt this learning method for adults, to attract more people to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM),” he says….

Cost is also a big problem. According to Anna Brailsford, chief executive of social enterprise Code First: Girls, it typically costs £10,000 to learn coding and often there isn’t a clear link between what is taught and the jobs available.
Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo remembers that “the way I got started was by borrowing books from the library that contained example programs.”
Back then there were loads of books that were nothing but little BASIC apps for various machines. That got me started with a program that worked and often did something quite interesting or useful, like a graphical effect. Then I could tinker with it and learn that way.
But is that enough of a reward to attract new programmers — or should beginning courses target more learning styles? Share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments.

Do we need better computer programming courses for visual learners?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In High-Tech San Francisco, a Pilot Program Tries Guaranteed Incomes for Artists

In 2015 the San Francisco Arts Commission surveyed nearly 600 local artists. “More than 70% of them had either already left San Francisco or were about to be displaced from their work, home or both,” reports SFGate.com, adding “The pandemic has only intensified these problems. A report by Americans for the Arts found that 53% of artists have no savings whatsoever as a result of the pandemic.”

Would it help to give over 100 artists their own Universal Basic Income?

In an effort to mitigate what appears to be an existential threat to the arts, in March 2021, the city of San Francisco partnered with the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts [YBCA] to launch a guaranteed income pilot, called the SF Guaranteed Income Pilot for Artists, or SF-GIPA, that gives 130 local low-income artists who have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic $1,000 a month, no strings attached, for 18 months…. At the time, YBCA was planning to launch its own guaranteed income project for artists, and this allowed it to combine forces and take both projects further. The first six months of funding for the SF-GIPA project came from the Arts Impact Endowment, which is funded by San Francisco’s hotel tax and designated for underserved communities. YBCA extended the project by an additional 12 months with private funding from the Start Small Foundation, a philanthropic initiative by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey….

Though the additional income from SF-GIPA is a welcome relief, as the project moves past its halfway point, the question remains: Will 18 months be enough time to truly make a difference in these artists’ lives? YBCA is currently scrambling to find a way to continue supporting guaranteed income recipients after the project’s scheduled end in October 2023…. “It’s just so sad; people come to San Francisco because of the art and culture, but the art and culture makers can’t afford to live here,” says Stephanie Imah, who is leading YBCA’s pilot. “This is very much a rental problem. It’s really hard for artists living in San Francisco unless they work in tech. It’s clear we need long-term solutions.” For YBCA, that means advocating for big policy changes down the line.

“Our eyes are on the federal government,” YBCA CEO Deborah Cullinan explains in an interview with Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre. “We’d like to see guaranteed income programs across the country for all people.” For now, the organization is focused on collecting “university standard research” in order to make an irrefutable case for universal basic income as a viable long-term solution to poverty.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Streaming TV Shows on Twitch Attracts DMCAs and the TV Industry’s Eye of Sauron

The Washington Post reports that three of the world’s most prominent live-streaming stars “received notifications of copyright infringement after broadcasting TV shows to their millions-strong fanbases on Twitch.”

“The days that followed produced copious amounts of Twitch’s most common byproduct, online drama, but also focused attention on the murky and legally complicated question of what constitutes fair use of copyright materials such as TV shows and movies….”

In 2007 Viacom sued YouTube for copyright infringement. Though the court ultimately ruled in favor of YouTube, the suit paved the way for the “Content ID” system, which automatically identifies copyright content and aggressively polices the platform. While software that can scan Twitch already exists, Twitch has yet to create its own automated system, and it does not appear to be in the process of doing so, according to industry figures with knowledge of Twitch’s operations who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

Such an outcome becomes more likely, however, if advertisers start withdrawing from the platform for fear of being associated with risky content, something that’s already beginning to happen on Twitch according to Devin Nash, chief marketing officer of content creator-focused talent agency Novo…

The “react content” trend often hinges on broadcasting copyright material, like popular movies or TV shows, a practice which skirts the outer edges of platform rules. Earlier this month, Viacom and the History Channel/A&E (which is owned by Hearst and Disney) issued copyright claims — also known as Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown requests — to specific streamers…. The DMCA-centric discourse left streamers and viewers on Twitch with ample drama but no clear answer as to whether one of the platform’s go-to trends merely faces a few bumps in the road or an asteroid-sized extinction event. “Nothing could happen, or everything could happen,” Cassell added. “And it rests on the decisions of a handful of media rights holders….”

Some streamers, such as Piker and Felix “xQc” Lengyel, both of whom started reacting to clips from sites like YouTube long before the current react meta began, argue reaction content should be permitted since Twitch is essentially built on copyright infringement. Streaming a video game is technically a DMCA-able offense. The video game industry, however, has decided to allow the practice because the free publicity and resulting sales tend to outweigh any potential downsides. But television is a different beast, with its economics rooted in broadcast rights rather than individual unit sales….

This awkward and unceasing dance around the topic has been fueled in part by the fact that Twitch is incentivized to maintain its ignorance of copyright infractions taking place on their platform…. But the silence has added stress to streamers whose livelihoods could be impacted by decisions around the current DMCA practices….
The Post also spoke to game/esports/entertainment lawyer David Philip Graham, who believes copyright law itself is due for an overhaul. “Much of our current copyright regime isn’t really about authors’ rights or promoting the progress of science and useful arts, but about big businesses looking for easier routes to profitability,” Graham said.

He proposes shortening copyright term lengths — and also expanding permissions for derivative works.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Could Face Class-Action Lawsuit Over Free G Suite Legacy Account Shutdown

On Wednesday, Google announced that it is getting rid of the G Suite legacy free edition, “which allowed those that snuck in before 2012 to get free Google apps services tied to a custom domain rather than Gmail,” reports Android Police. Since a lot of people will be left “in the lurch” after the shutdown, attorneys at Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith are opening an investigating into the matter for a potential class-action lawsuit. From the report: No lawsuit has been filed yet; the attorneys involved are just collecting information for a potential lawsuit in the future once all the facts are straight (and Google has had time to reconsider its actions). When we covered the original news of the legacy G Suite shutdown, it seemed unreasonable to us, because customers using those legacy accounts are unable to transfer purchases or things like grandfathered subscription discounts to new accounts. When we asked if moving purchases between accounts might be possible, a Google representative confirmed it wasn’t. […]

That means years of purchases tied to Google Play — potentially hundreds to thousands of dollars of assets like movie and music purchases for a given customer, across thousands of affected customers — could be tied to broken accounts because of the transition. Google explicitly confirmed to us that was the case, though customers could elect to keep using their broken suspended account alongside a working one. In essence, everyone that migrated to one of these accounts while they were still offered (from 2006 at least until 2012, so far as I can tell) will have to pay extra money to keep their existing purchases tied to a fully working account, and we think that’s pretty ridiculous.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cryptocurrencies Tumble As Global Investors Reduce Risk

New submitter NoMoreDupes shares a report from CoinDesk: The crypto market was in a sea of red on Friday as bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, tumbled more than 10% over the past 24 hours. It appears that global investors have entered the year with a reduced appetite for risk, and so the correlations between speculative assets such as cryptocurrencies and equities have increased, which results in widespread losses. Bitcoin is down roughly 40% from its all-time high of almost $69,000, while the S&P 500 is down about 7% from its peak, compared with a 10% drawdown in the Nasdaq 100 Index.

Alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) led the way lower on Friday given their higher risk profile relative to bitcoin. Ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, was down about 13% over the past 24 hours, compared with a 14% drop in AVAX and a 16% drop in FTM over the same period. Despite the losses, some analysts still foresee a short-term bounce. “We expect BTC to find a bid around the $35K mark, close to 50% from the top. In the short term, we can bounce to challenge the $45K-$50K zone, but the overall outlook remains bearish as liquidity remains tight,” Pankaj Balani, CEO of Delta Exchange, a crypto derivatives trading platform, wrote in an email to CoinDesk.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hands-On Microsoft’s Canceled Andromeda OS

Windows Central got their hands on a pre-release build of Microsoft’s canceled Andromeda OS running on a Lumia 950. As noted in the article, “Andromeda OS was never intended to ship on the Lumia 950, or any Windows phone on the market at that time.” They’re using a 950 because Microsofted used them to help develop Andromeda OS internally. Also worth mentioning is the fact that Andromeda OS is no longer in development. Android is the OS that will be powering future Microsoft devices, such as the future Surface Duo devices. Here’s an excerpt from the report: Microsoft decided to do something rather unique with Andromeda OS, and build out OS experience around a journaling/inking experience. On the lockscreen, the user is able to begin taking notes directly onto the lockscreen UI just by putting pen to screen. You don’t have to initiate a special mode, or enter an app first, just take your Surface Pen and begin writing, and the lockscreen will store that ink for you to see every time you unlock your device. […] Unlocking the device would take you to your home screen, which on Andromeda OS is another inking canvas. This canvas is called the Journal (though this later became the Microsoft Whiteboard app) which acted as a digital notebook with the ability to take notes with a pen, add sticky notes, insert images and 3D objects, and more. The Journal experience would always be running in the background, with your phone apps running above it.

Andromeda OS was also gesture based. The on-screen Start and Cortana buttons would disappear when opening an app to provide a full-screen experience, so to access those areas, you’d swipe in from the left for Start, and from the right for Cortana, which is also where your notifications were stored. Yes, Cortana and your Notifications were one of the same on Andromeda OS, with Cortana becoming your “manager” of notifications missed or stored for dealing with later. A swipe down from the top would reveal the Control Center, which is feature that’s now shipping on Windows 11, but started life here on Andromeda OS. Feature-wise, it’s exactly the same, with the ability to control things like Wi-Fi, brightness, volume, and music playback. It also features Fluent Design acrylic blur effects, as do many other parts of the UI, even in this unfinished state.

[…] There was also an experimental “Radial UX Menu” mode, where instead of gestures swiping in things like Start and Cortana, swiping would present you with a UI full of circular buttons for things like Start, switching apps, and more. This may have been an alternative to on-screen navigation, as not everyone was familiar with full gesture navigation at the time just yet. Or, it could have been an alternative method of navigation for when you were using a pen. Who knows. One thing we’re not able to show you is the Continuum mode that Microsoft was also working on for Andromeda OS, as unfortunately it appears to be broken in the build we have. That said, we do know what it was going to be like. Essentially, Microsoft was building out Continuum to be a true desktop experience, with windowed app experiences, the ability to store icons on the desktop, and more. If you’d prefer to see Andromeda OS in action instead of read about it, you can watch Windows Central’s video here.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fed Releases Long-Awaited Study On a Digital Dollar

The Federal Reserve on Thursday released its long-awaited study of a digital dollar, exploring the pros and cons of the much-debated issue and soliciting public comment. CNBC reports: Billed as “the first step in a public discussion between the Federal Reserve and stakeholders about central bank digital currencies,” the 40-page paper (PDF) shies away from any conclusions about a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. The report originally was expected in the summer of 2021 but had been delayed. Instead, it provides an exhaustive look at benefits such as speeding up the electronic payments system at a time when financial transactions around the world already are highly digitized. Some of the downside issues the report discusses are financial stability risks and privacy protection while guarding against fraud and other illegal issues.

“A CBDC could fundamentally change the structure of the U.S. financial system, altering the roles and responsibilities of the private sector and the central bank,” the report says. One primary difference between the Fed’s dollar and other digital transactions is that current digital money is a liability of commercial banks, whereas the CBDC would be a Fed liability. Among other things, that would mean the Fed wouldn’t pay interest on money stored with it, though because it is riskless some depositors may prefer to keep their money with the central bank.

The paper lists a checklist of 22 different items for which it is soliciting public feedback. There will be a 120-day comment period. Fed officials say the report is the first step in an extensive process but there is no timetable on when it will be wrapped up. The paper released Thursday notes that the Fed’s “initial analysis suggests that a potential U.S. CBDC, if one were created, would best serve the needs of the United States by being privacy-protected, intermediated, widely transferable, and identity-verified.” However, the report also states that it “is not intended to advance a specific policy outcome and takes no position on the ultimate desirability of” the digital dollar. The report notes that the speed of the project is not a top priority. Instead, the authors of the report are focused on getting it right. “The introduction of a CBDC would represent a highly significant innovation in American money,” the report says. “Accordingly, broad consultation with the general public and key stakeholders is essential. This paper is the first step in such a conversation.”

The Fed also said that it will not proceed without a clear mandate from Congress, preferably in the form of “a specific authorizing law.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Major Breakthrough As Quantum Computing In Silicon Hits 99% Accuracy

nickwinlund77 shares a report from SciTechDaily: UNSW Sydney-led research paves the way for large silicon-based quantum processors for real-world manufacturing and application. Australian researchers have proven that near error-free quantum computing is possible, paving the way to build silicon-based quantum devices compatible with current semiconductor manufacturing technology. […] [The researcher’s] paper is one of three published today in Nature that independently confirm that robust, reliable quantum computing in silicon is now a reality. This breakthrough is featured on the front cover of the journal.

[Professor Andrea Morello of UNSW, who led the work] et al achieved 1-qubit operation fidelities up to 99.95 percent, and 2-qubit fidelity of 99.37 percent with a three-qubit system comprising an electron and two phosphorous atoms, introduced in silicon via ion implantation. A Delft team in the Netherlands led by Lieven Vandersypen achieved 99.87 percent 1-qubit and 99.65 percent 2-qubit fidelities using electron spins in quantum dots formed in a stack of silicon and silicon-germanium alloy (Si/SiGe). A RIKEN team in Japan led by Seigo Tarucha similarly achieved 99.84 percent 1-qubit and 99.51 percent 2-qubit fidelities in a two-electron system using Si/SiGe quantum dots.

The UNSW and Delft teams certified the performance of their quantum processors using a sophisticated method called gate set tomography, developed at Sandia National Laboratories in the U.S. and made openly available to the research community. Morello had previously demonstrated that he could preserve quantum information in silicon for 35 seconds, due to the extreme isolation of nuclear spins from their environment. But the trade-off was that isolating the qubits made it seemingly impossible for them to interact with each other, as necessary to perform actual computations. Today’s paper describes how his team overcame this problem by using an electron encompassing two nuclei of phosphorus atoms. The three papers from the UNSW team, Delft team and RIKEN group in Tokyo can be found at their respective links.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

FAA Estimates 78% of US Planes Can Now Land At Airports With 5G C-Band

The FAA has announced that an “estimated 78 percent of the U.S. commercial fleet” have been cleared to land at airports with 5G C-band, even under low-visibility conditions. The Verge reports: The agency’s statement comes after a week of controversy surrounding the rollout of AT&T and Verizon’s upgraded cellular tech, which saw US airlines warning of “catastrophic disruption” to travel and shipping and some international airlines announcing they’d halt flights to some US airports. At issue are concerns that some radio altimeters won’t properly ignore signals from the new 5G transmitters. While there are precautions that should keep this from happening, including creating buffer zones around airports, an incorrect altimeter reading could cause real problems during a low-visibility landing.

Given the high stakes, the FAA has said that only planes with altimeters that it has tested and cleared will be allowed to land in sub-optimal conditions at airports where the new 5G tech has rolled out. […] On January 16th, the agency announced that it had cleared two altimeters, which it bumped up to five on Wednesday. It said the cleared altimeters were installed in “some” versions of planes like the Boeing 737, 747, and 777. The FAA changed that language on Thursday, saying that the 13 cleared altimeters should cover “all” Boeing 717, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777, 787, MD-10/-11, and Airbus A300, A310, A319, A320, A330, A340, A350, and A380 models. It also notes that “some” Embraer 170 and 190 regional jets are covered.

The FAA is still predicting that some altimeters won’t pass the test and will be “too susceptible to 5G interference.” Planes equipped with those models won’t be allowed to land at airports with the new 5G tech in low-visibility conditions — which could prevent airlines from scheduling any flights using those planes to airports of concern, given the unpredictability of weather and the disruption such a diversion would cause.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.