Author: Loknath Das

Following last summer’s series of attacks on universities, the Commons Education Committee is looking at value for money in higher education, and the Treasury Committee has an enquiry on student loans. Although the current funding system has increased the number of young students entering higher education, including from disadvantaged backgrounds, which is very much to be welcomed, it has also led to a catastrophic fall in the number of mature and part-time students which is a source of grave concern. At the same time, politicians of all stripes are realising that the harsh cuts the further education sector has suffered – between 2009 and 2015 colleges dealt with…

 When 32-year-old German teacher and academic book author Bahar Aslan took to Twitter last week to accuse authorities of not doing enough to investigate an alleged xenophobic murder potentially committed by police officers, she hardly assumed that in doing so she would soon be accused of having broken the law, too. After all, freedom of speech is enshrined in the German Constitution. But her tweet soon disappeared, and Aslan says Twitter later messaged her saying that she had violated Germany’s hate crime law. Aslan was not alone. She and hundreds of other affected social media users have voiced criticism and concerns about censorship over the controversial new…

One brave soul went ahead and distilled the United States’ new national pastime into a simple web game in which you slam dunk over President Donald Trump over and over again until you simply lose interest in the activity. Created by artist Jayson Musson, Dunk on Trump is about as simple as a game can get: you simply tap the space bar of your keyboard while a green-clad baller approaches the president, leaps up high, and scores two while posterizing Trump, who’s sent sideways offscreen. The experience isn’t a game so much as it is an interactive piece of art, and Musson says as…

PosiGen Inc. was close to finalizing terms on a $100 million financing deal. Then Congress passed President Donald Trump’s tax-reform plan. “We just lost $100 million in tax equity last week,” Thomas Neyhart, chief executive officer of the Louisiana rooftop solar installer, said in an interview. “Of course, they let us go because we’re relatively small.” He declined to identify the prospective U.S. investor.  PosiGen is one of many companies that are suddenly facing a new financing reality because of the tax overhaul, especially clean-energy developers seeking tax-equity deals. At least $3 billion in potential deals are on hold for this…

The Jammu and Kashmir government lashed out on Saturday at Indian Army chief Bipin Rawat over his remarks about schools in the state, saying the ‘well-decorated officer’ should not give sermons on issues that are not in his domain. The state government’s retort was in response to Rawat’s statement that schools in the state were teaching two maps — India’s and Jammu and Kashmir’s — to the students, which he said was radicalising youth. Rawat’s statement was criticised on social media with many pointing out that students in all schools in the country are taught two maps, the country’s and the state’s.…

The Jammu and Kashmir government on Saturday hit back at Army chief General Bipin Rawat over his remark that government schools in the state are spreading a “disinformation campaign” which is radicalising the youth, saying the Army’s “meddling” in the state’s affairs was unacceptable. Minister for Education Syed Altaf Bukhari denied reports that the education system of the state was driving students toward radicalisation. Mr Rawat, in a press conference held on Friday, said each classroom in government schools in Jammu and Kashmir has a separate map of the state besides that of India which sowed the seeds of thought…

While notebooks and TVs have been the primary mainstay of CES 2018, Nokia has ultimately stepped in with its unique heath product that it called Nokia Sleep. As its name suggests, the new device is a mattress pad that has an “advanced” sensor to help you monitor your sleep cycles as well as control the lights and thermostats available in your room – all without getting out of bed. The new Wi-Fi-enabled pad works with Nokia’s Health Mate app and also has an integration with automation app IFTTT. It will start shipping in the first quarter of this year with a price…

Kodak, which traces its roots to the early days of film-based photography, is getting into the digital licensing and cryptocurrency market as part of a partnership with WENN Digital. The companies are launching blockchain technology with KodakOne and KodakCoin. Blockchain is a ledger where transactions of digital currencies, like Bitcoin, are recorded. Rochester, New York-based Kodak, founded in 1880, is the latest company to enter the cryptocurrency market as Bitcoin makes gains. Bitcoin has surged from less than $1,000 (roughly Rs. 63,000) a year ago to more than $14,000 (roughly Rs. 8,91,000). Recently, Long Island Iced Tea said it plans to change its…

D-Link has announced the launch of a new range of routers and security cameras at CES 2018. The highlight of the announcement is the DIR-2680 Wi-Fi router that offers protection for IoT devices. Apart from that, D-Link has also unveiled other products such as two mesh networking systems, a couple of Ultra Wi-Fi routers, an LTE security camera, and other standard Wi-Fi cameras. D-Link DIR-2680 Router Developed to protect IoT products, the DIR-2680 router uses McAfee’s Global Threat Intelligence to scout for threats regularly. It also incorporates the Intel Home Wi-Fi WAV500 series to provide Wi-Fi connectivity for up to 128 connected…

Bugsnag, the cloud service that helps developers find bugs inside their software, announced a $9 million Series B today. They also released a new version of their dashboard that features a stability score than can give customers an unbiased grade of the current stability of their software. Let’s look at the funding first. Investors included first-timer GV (formerly Google Ventures) joining existing investors Matrix Partners and Benchmark Capital. Today’s investment brings the total raised to over $17 million, according to data on Crunchbase.The company’s Series A was $7.2 million in July, 2015. Bugsnag analyzes the code using a set of software development…