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Author: Steve S.

About the Author

Steve S.

Steve Sharer is a Security and Risk Analysis major and an overall good guy. He brings Onward State readers enticing posts such as "Question of the Day" and "Campus Explorer" and will continue to do so until he becomes the President of the United States of America in 2024.

Question of the Day: Sweet Mobile Apps

AT&T is sponsoring a pretty cool competition in which entrants can win $10,000 cash in scholarship money for creating a mobile device application. Teams of up to four people can enter a custom-built application for the purpose of e-learning.  The rules state that the "innovating e-learning mobile app" should be functional across multiple platforms. Submissions are due by September 15, 2010 and so far there are only ten teams signed up. So my question for you is:

If you could develop a mobile device application, what would it do?

SRA Club’s Counter-Terrorism Panel

If you're interested in how terrorists are making use of technology to carry out their illicit activities, you're in luck.


On Wednesday, April 7th at 8:00 pm the Security & Risk Analysis Club will host its bi-yearly Counter-Terrorism Panel. The event, held in IST's Cybertorium (113 IST), will bring together experts in terrorism from across the University.


This semester's Counter-Terrorism Panel will shift its focus to "Technology Enabled Terrorism"; more on what your can expect at the event after the jump!

IST Set to Host Girls’ Tech Camp

Let's face it. The College of Information Sciences and Technology lacks a significant female population. Thankfully, the College recognizes that fact and is continuing its highly successful technology summer camp for middle school girls.


This year's camp, from June 21 to June 25, is titled "Tech Savvy Girls Summer Camp". It's a free camp and features two programs for attendees. The first section is all about making a 3D animations with readily available (read: free) software. The second program teaches attendees how to make video games by serving as programmers, artists, designers, and producers.


Read on for details on how to sign up.

A Social Network for Generation Y

If you are reading this, chances are that you're one of 80 million people of Generation Y. More specifically, Generation Y describes the group of people born between 1980 and 1995. Some of us Gen Y'ers remember a world without widespread internet use, but we really grew up as digital natives. And as digital natives, we're clamoring for the new cool way to communicate or to get our hands on the next raddest hottest piece of technology.


Studies confirm what we already know. We don't want to use Facebook to interact with professors or with possible employers. Social networks like LinkedIn are chunky and, in my opinion, not versatile enough for our generation. Among the hordes of social networking services, one service carefully toes the line between your personal and working world.


The Brazen Careerist, started in part by Penn State grad Ryan Paugh (a member of Sigma Alpha Mu here at Penn State and a former THON dancer), sets out to fill the gap left by major social networks. It represents a new way for Generation Y'ers to share ideas, share advice and network with their peers. Paugh says that the Brazen Careerist is targeted primarily towards college and graduate students with a particular focus in mind:

We built the network to help you guys avoid the mistakes that we made during our transition into "the real world." Brazen Careerist is a place to build a professional network before you find yourself in a situation that you don't want to be in. Example: Getting stuck in a job that you really hate. Even worse, getting stuck in your parent's basement without a job.



Read the rest of this piece after the break.

Google Buys Onward State

Last night, leadership of Onward State met with senior Google Executives Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt to close a deal many months in the making.


Google approached Onward State in December with an offer of $1.2 million in cash and an additional $3.7 million in shares of the technology giant. After much wheeling and dealing, Onward State staff convinced Google to also implement their new 1GB high speed internet project in State College.


Dorm residents will unfortunately continue to face slower-than-molasses internet speeds and the same download/upload limits as you did before. Only residents of State College will benefit from incredible internet speeds.


Read statements from Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Onward State Publisher Davis Shaver after the jump.

University Libraries Website Redesign

Library Website Gets a Facelift

Keeping track of 5.4 million books, some 46,000 online journals and 100,000 e-books is no easy task. Luckily, the Penn State University Libraries website exists to deliver that mind-boggling volume of content to Penn Staters on demand. There's just one problem: the current website isn't exactly the most user friendly. It gives me the same feeling of information overload in my junior year as it did when I was a freshman.


Enter the redesigned, beta test version of the University Libraries website. Declaring it a mere improvement over the previous version would be a serious understatement.

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