Should Students Take Notes on a Computer? - Edudemic

Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for instructors to include notes regarding laptop and internet use in their course syllabi. Many instructors ban the use of electronics, including laptops, due to the assumption that these machines may be more distracting than helpful during class time. However, students often argue that they can take better notes on their laptops rather than on paper. Oftentimes, out-of-class assignments are done electronically, further encouraging students to rely on their computers to complete all of their coursework. So today’s educators must now question whether or not taking notes on a laptop has a detrimental effect on student performance.

There are now more people on this Chinese platform than on Twitter

You've probably never heard of this platform, but it's already surpassed Twitter in terms of users. 

According to Weibo's first quarter results, it has a whopping 340 million active monthly users, a 30% increase from its previous year. 

Twitter has around 328 million active monthly users in comparison.

Of course, it doesn't help that Twitter is blocked in China, along with other social media giants like Facebook. 

Some 154 million people each day use Weibo, which has been deemed China's equivalent to Twitter — 91% of which access the website from their phones. Read more...

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Microsoft is trying to make passwords obsolete, and it might succeed - BGR News

Passwords are annoying, clumsy, easily beaten (for the most part), and an absolutely antiquated form of security. They also happen to be the primary way we secure our most precious information today. Microsoft wants to change that with a new app feature that basically removes passwords from the equation entirely. It’s part of the Microsoft Authenticator app, and it just might work.

The app’s new ability essentially enables the second layer of a two-factor authentication system, but instead of signing in with a password and then confirming your identity via an app prompt on your smartphone, the password isn’t used at all.

Once you have Microsoft Authenticator installed, you can opt to use it as the primary sign-in option for any of the supported logins. Then, when you need to sign in, an app alert will pop up on your phone asking you to approve the action. Tap to approve and that’s it, you’re in, password free.

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Abu Dhabi firm wants to tow iceberg to the UAE

Is it feasible to tow an iceberg from Antarctica ? Image Credit: CC BY-SA 2.0 Liam Quinn

An impending water shortage in the United Arab Emirates has called for a rather extraordinary solution.

It might sound like a ludicrous proposition, but the fact remains that an iceberg holding 20 billion gallons of fresh water would be enough to sustain more than a million people for up to five years.

Currently, water is a major problem for the country, not least because the typical Emirati uses 80% more water on a daily basis than the global average.

A large number of desalinization plants have been deployed to try and meet this demand however this is a particularly costly solution and, according to the UN, within 20 years there are likely to be 600 million children living worldwide without sufficient access to clean drinking water.

But is towing an iceberg from the Antarctic really a viable solution ? 

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Man Pays 200 Strangers to Act as Guests at His Wedding, Ends Up in Jail

What was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives turned into a complete nightmare for a young couple in China, after it was revealed that the groom had hired 200 random people to act as his friends and relatives at the wedding.

The groom, known only by his surname, Wang, and his fiancee, Xiaoli, were supposed to tie the knot on Sunday, April 30th, during a big wedding banquet at a hotel in Xian, China’s Shaanxi Province. Everything was going according to plan up to the point when the family of the bride noticed that half of the tables reserved for the groom’s guests laid empty. Wang kept telling them that they were on their way, but the bride and her parents really became suspicious of him after talking to the few guests that were seated at his tables and noticing that while they all said that they were Wang’s friends, they couldn’t really say how they knew him.

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Dressed for death: the women Boko Haram sent to blow themselves up - The Guardian

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Friday 5 May 2017 13.55 BSTLast modified on Saturday 6 May 2017 00.05 BST

Two of the women who survived Boko Haram’s attempts to have them carry out ‘suicide missions’. Photograph: Ruth Maclean for the Guardian

When Boko Haram fighters kidnapped 17-year-old Nadia and took her to their camp, their commander noticed her straight away. She was squatting with dozens of other abducted women in front of him, listening to his lecture.

When, a few minutes later, the commander ordered his men to take Nadia to his house, she asked: “Why only me?” But she went with the men and waited.

The commander, whose name she never learned, “was dirty, ugly, dark-skinned and had a beard. He had a lot of hair on his head like a madman,” Nadia remembered. He looked mean. And he wanted her as a second wife.

Three months later, Nadia woke up one morning to find her body strapped with explosives. She had been drugged the night before. The commander’s men pushed her on to a motorbike, and dropped her and two others near Gamboro, a town in Borno, the Nigerian state hit worst by the Boko Haram insurgency.

The mission they had been given: to blow themselves up in as big a crowd as they could find.

Police arrest driver for supplying fuel, food to Boko Haram insurgents

The Police Command in Borno said on Sunday that it had arrested a driver, Malam Modu Mustapha, suspected to be purchasing fuel and food items for Boko Haram insurgents.|

Mr Damian Chukwu, the Commissioner of Police in the state, said this in Maiduguri that the suspect was arrested after a tip-off by members of the public.

“The Police have received information that one Modu Mustapha of Jumptilo village was a terrorists’ collaborator, who buys fuel and food for them, at Alagarno and other hideout.

“The Police descended on the suspect, who has confessed to the crime,’’ he said.