Bill Gates has donated over $4 million to Code.org, while Mark Cuban has donated over $500,000. But long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes that they're now doing even more: As it strives to "teach your children at home while school is closed", tech-backed Code.org's efforts to engage students and their parents have included encouraging kids to email app pitches for Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban (AP CSP teachers were contacted and asked to make students aware of this "once in a lifetime opportunity") and join two-way Zoom meetings with Cuban and other celebrities like Bill Gates.
Gates called the health crisis "a bit like war, with all of humanity fighting the virus," and added that the internet was helping to "reduce the pain a little bit," according to Geekwire's report.

"Calling it a 'crazy time,' Gates said he is safe with his family at home and he's consuming endless information about what's happening with the pandemic in the United States and around the world...

"He said it will be interesting to see whether some students learn better, going at their own pace, digging online for more information, reaching out to friends who are good at particular subjects."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: A study released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that calls to poison hotlines this year for cases involving cleaners and disinfectants rose significantly compared with the same period over the previous two years, and charts a dramatic spike in March for both categories. Some of the physicians who collaborated on the research with the C.D.C. had discussed their observations with one another last month. "I was like: 'Am I the only one seeing a big increase in exposures to these disinfectants?'" said Dr. Diane P. Calello, the medical director of the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System, and one of the authors of the report.

Others saw the same trend, and wondered if the accidental poisonings were an insidious, secondary result of the coronavirus's spread. The group initiated the study to determine if there was a possible link between the rise in exposures and the recommendations from public health agencies to clean and disinfect as much as possible. From January through March, poison centers received 45,550 exposure calls related to cleaners (28,158) and disinfectants (17,392), the report said, representing overall increases of 20.4 percent compared with the same period in 2019 and 16.4 percent more than 2018. The authors warned that the actual number of exposures was likely even higher because the data only came from reported calls for help, and some people who were exposed probably did not report their cases to the hotlines.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: As schools across the country shut their doors indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, millions of students are now adjusting to online learning. But for low income families who may not have access to WiFi, this transition is a problem. That's why the Austin Independent School District (ISD) has deployed 110 school buses now equipped with WiFi to neighborhoods and apartment complexes where the district identified the highest need for internet access.

Starting on Monday, the district "strategically positions" the buses, which have WiFi capabilities up to a distance of 300 feet, every weekday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Students can connect to the WiFi using their school computers only, not personal devices, though they're not allowed to board the bus. While everyone is advised to stay inside, students may have to move closer to the bus to gain access to the WiFi, but must remain at least six feet apart from anyone else to follow social distancing guidelines. The WiFi equipped buses are funded through a $600,000 grant from Kajeet, an education technology provider. The district has also provided students in grades 3 to 7 who don't have computers with Chromebook laptops as well as WiFi hotspots if needed. Students in grades 8 to 12 have already been provided with devices from an existing school program.

An urgent call is to go out to children's television broadcasters this weekend, backed by major names in British entertainment, politics and technology. From a report: Writer and performer Stephen Fry, best-selling author Cressida Cowell and businesswoman Martha Lane Fox are joined by former children's television presenter Floella Benjamin as signatories to a letter, carried in today's Observer, that urges all leading streaming, network and terrestrial children's channels to make one simple change to boost literacy among the young: turn on the subtitles. If English-language subtitles were to be run along the bottom of the screen for all programming, they argue, reading levels across the country would automatically rise. Longstanding international academic research projects prove, they say, that spelling, grammar and vocabulary would all be enhanced, even if children watching TV are not aware they are learning.

The campaign aims to improve reading ability across the English-speaking world and has won backing from former President Bill Clinton, who said: "Same-language subtitling doubles the number of functional readers among primary school children. It's a small thing that has a staggering impact on people's lives." The drive is being run by a campaign group called Tots, or Turn On The Subtitles, and launches this week. The open letter to broadcasters from the organization, founded by old friends and entrepreneurs Henry Warren and Oli Barrett, draws attention to the benefits of featuring same-language subtitles as a default on programming aimed at children across the world -- almost a billion of whom are now being educated inside their own homes.

Python knocked C++ out of the top 3 on TIOBE's index of the most popular programming languages this month, while C# rose into the #5 position, overtaking Visual Basic.

But the biggest surprise was when last month's #26 most popular programming language suddenly jumped six spots into the #20 position, writes the CEO of TIOBE Software. "At first sight this might seem a bit strange for a programming language that is designed to teach children how to program." But if you take into account that there are in total more than 50 million projects "written" in Scratch and each month 1 million new Scratch projects are added, it can't be denied any more that Scratch is popular...

Since computers are getting more and more an integral part of life, it is actually quite logical that languages to teach children programming are getting popular.
TIOBE notes that Scratch is sponsored by major tech companies like Google and Intel (as well as the Cartoon Network and LEGO Foundation). But Jaxenter also applauds how the Scratch interface lets users remix or comment on existing projects in addition to sharing their own: The community not only introduces children to teamwork, creative problem solving, logical thinking, and collaboration, but it also introduces concepts such as open source communities and code review. They will learn concepts that might later become useful in Agile software development and DevOps.
TIOBE bases its rankings on the number of search engine results for courses, third party vendors, and programmers -- making the programming news site DevClass wonders if the spike came from "school aged children...stuck at home while schools are closed."

TIOBE still shows Java as the #1 most popular programming language (followed by C, Python, and C++). And this month's index also shows PHP rising into the #9 position -- overtaking SQL.

And COBOL is now #26 on the list, making it more popular than Rust.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The coronavirus crisis has forced the closure of libraries around the world, depriving the public of access to millions of printed books. Books old enough to be in the public domain may be available for free download online. Many recent books are available to borrow in e-book form. But there are many other books -- especially those published in the mid-to-late 20th century -- that are hard to access without going to a physical library. A consortium of university libraries called HathiTrust recently announced a solution to this problem, called the Emergency Temporary Access Service. It allows participating HathiTrust member libraries to offer their patrons digital scans of books that they can "check out" and read online.

HathiTrust has a history of pushing the boundaries of copyright. It was the defendant in a landmark 2014 ruling that established the legality of library book scanning. At the time, HathiTrust was only allowing people with print disabilities to access the full text of scanned books. Now HathiTrust is expanding access to more people -- though still with significant limits. The program is only available to patrons of member libraries like the Cornell library. Libraries can only "lend" as many copies of the book as it has physical copies on its shelves. Loans last for an hour and are automatically renewed if a patron is still viewing a book at the hour's end. If you want to read a book that's currently in use by another patron, you have to wait until they're finished. The service differs from the Internet Archive's National Emergency Library in that it limits the "lending" of copies to how many physical copies there are available on its shelves. "During the pandemic, the Internet Archive isn't limiting the number of people who can 'borrow' a book simultaneously," reports Ars.

"Cornell University legal scholar James Grimmelmann tells Ars that the limits on the HathiTrust program will put the group in a stronger position if it is ever challenged in court," the report adds. "The same fair use doctrine that allows HathiTrust to scan books in the first place might also justify what the organization is doing now -- though that's far from certain."

BuzzFeed News has learned that Google has banned the popular videoconferencing software Zoom from its employees' devices. From the report: Zoom, a competitor to Google's own Meet app, has seen an explosion of people using it to work and socialize from home and has become a cultural touchstone during the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, Google sent an email to employees whose work laptops had the Zoom app installed that cited its "security vulnerabilities" and warned that the videoconferencing software on employee laptops would stop working starting this week.

"We have long had a policy of not allowing employees to use unapproved apps for work that are outside of our corporate network," Jose Castaneda, a Google spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News. "Recently, our security team informed employees using Zoom Desktop Client that it will no longer run on corporate computers as it does not meet our security standards for apps used by our employees. Employees who have been using Zoom to stay in touch with family and friends can continue to do so through a web browser or via mobile.â Earlier this month, Elon Musk's SpaceX also banned employees from Zoom, citing "significant privacy and security concerns." And on Monday, New York City's Department of Education urged schools to abandon Zoom and switch to a service from Microsoft.

Taiwan's cabinet has told government agencies to stop using the Zoom conferencing app due to privacy and security woes. Reuters reports: Zoom's daily users ballooned to more than 200 million in March, as coronavirus-induced shutdowns forced employees to work from home and schools switched to the company's free app for conducting and coordinating online classes. However, the company is facing a backlash from users worried about the lack of end-to-end encryption of meeting sessions and "zoombombing," where uninvited guests crash into meetings. If government agencies must hold video conferencing, they "should not use products with security concerns, like Zoom," Taiwan's cabinet said in a statement on Tuesday. It did not elaborate on what the security concerns were. The island's education ministry later said it was banning the use of Zoom in schools.

Taiwan would be the first government formally advising against use of Zoom, although some U.S. schools districts are looking at putting limits on its use after an FBI warning last month. Taiwan's cabinet said domestically-made conferencing apps were preferred, but if needed products from Google and Microsoft could also be considered.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Tuesday he will set aside $1 billion in his Square equity to support relief efforts for COVID-19 and other causes once the pandemic is over. In a series of tweets, Dorsey said that after the pandemic is over, he will dedicate the money to causes like universal basic income (UBI) and girls' health and education. He said he's pulling the shares from his stake in Square instead of Twitter because he own more stock in the Square. Dorsey said he'll cash in the shares over time.

"The impact this money will have should benefit both companies over the long-term because it's helping the people we want to serve," Dorsey said on Twitter. Dorsey said that he wants to see the impact of his donation during his lifetime, and that "the needs are increasingly urgent." He also said he hopes it will inspire others to "do something similar." Dorsey also tweeted a link to a public Google Doc where people can track which organizations the fund's money will go to. Dorsey isn't the only technologist to support relief efforts for COVID-19. Yesterday, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said his foundation will spend billions of dollars on coronavirus vaccine development.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos said he's donating $100 million to U.S. food banks. And Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan donated $25 million toward creating treatments for coronavirus through their philanthropic organization.

Teachers at some schools across the country report that fewer than half of their students are participating in online learning. From a report: Chronic absenteeism is a problem in American education during the best of times, but now, with the vast majority of the nation's school buildings closed and lessons being conducted remotely, more students than ever are missing class -- not logging on, not checking in or not completing assignments. The absence rate appears particularly high in schools with many low-income students, whose access to home computers and internet connections can be spotty. Some teachers report that fewer than half of their students are regularly participating.

The trend is leading to widespread concern among educators, with talk of a potential need for summer sessions, an early start in the fall, or perhaps having some or even all students repeat a grade once Americans are able to return to classrooms. Students are struggling to connect in districts large and small. Los Angeles said last week that about a third of its high school students were not logging in for classes. And there are daunting challenges for rural communities like Minford, Ohio, where many students live in remote wooded areas unserved by internet providers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: Surveys conducted by scientists at Australia's James Cook University and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority show that a summer of extreme heat has caused the reef, which is a World Heritage Site, to suffer a mass bleaching of unprecedented scale. Corals from the far north to the southern tip of the 1,400 mile-long ecosystem are experiencing severe impacts. It was also one of the reef's worst mass bleaching episodes in terms of intensity, second only to 2016, which killed half of all shallow-water corals on the northern Great Barrier Reef. Unlike the summer of 2016, when an intense marine heat wave coincided with one of the strongest El Nino events on record, this past summer brought a bleaching event without any assistance from the Pacific climate oscillation.

As heat built across the reef in February, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority began reporting pockets of bleaching in the far north toward the end of the month. By early March, vast swaths of the ecosystem had accumulated eight or more "degree heating weeks," a metric scientists use to describe recent cumulative heat exposure. At this threshold, reef scientists expect to see widespread bleaching and mortality from thermal stress, according to NOAA. Researchers decided to conduct aerial and waterborne surveys to assess the extent of the damage. The surveys, which took place during the last two weeks of March, quickly confirmed the reef has undergone its third mass bleaching event in the past five years. "This year, some 35 percent of the 1,036 reefs the scientists surveyed experienced moderate bleaching, while a quarter were severely bleached," the report adds. "Scientists saw severe bleaching on coastal reefs from Torres Strait in the far north to the southern border of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, at levels only eclipsed during 2016."

What's troubling to see is bleaching in the south, which has managed to escape the previous two events. "In the northern and central Great Barrier Reef, these corals were largely annihilated by bleaching in 2016-17, transforming vast swaths of the reef into a 'highly altered, degraded system,'" reports The Washington Post, citing a 2018 paper in the journal Nature. "Now the south seems poised to slide into a similar ecological disrepair."

After many schools adopted Zoom to conduct online lessons during the coronavirus lockdown, concerns about security and privacy have led to a ban on the video conferencing software across the U.S. BetaNews reports: The chancellor of New York City's Department of Education Richard A Carranza sent an email to school principals telling them to "cease using Zoom as soon as possible." And he is not alone; schools in other parts of the country have taken similar action, and educators are now being trained to use Microsoft Teams as this has been suggested as a suitable alternative, partly because it is compliant with FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act).

Documents seen by Chalkbeat show that principals in NYC have been told: "Based on the DOE's review of those documented concerns, the DOE will no longer permit the use of Zoom at this time." The Washington Post quotes Danielle Filson, spokesperson for the NYC Education Department, as saying: "Providing a safe and secure remote learning experience for our students is essential, and upon further review of security concerns, schools should move away from using Zoom as soon as possible. There are many new components to remote learning, and we are making real-time decisions in the best interest of our staff and student. We will support staff and students in transitioning to different platforms such as Microsoft Teams that have the same capabilities with appropriate security measures in place." Clark County Public Schools in Nevada, as well as schools in Utah, Washington State and beyond are looking into Zoom alternatives.

Fast Company's technology editor harrymcc writes: When the Spanish flu struck in 1918, the U.S. reacted in ways that sound eerily familiar, by closing public places and telling people to stay at home. The one technology that promised to make isolation less isolating was the telephone, which was used for commerce, education, and even news distribution. But the phone itself got caught up in the flu's damaging impact on society, and AT&T ended up running ads asking people not to make calls if at all possible. I wrote about this little-known tale of technology's promise and pitfalls for Fast Company.
The article shows some strange glimpses of a very different time.

"A New York Telephone ad even warned that operators might inquire about the nature of a call to ensure that it was truly necessary."

Zoom is making some much-needed changes to prevent "Zoombombing," a term used to describe when someone successfully invades a public or private meeting over the videoconferencing platform to broadcast shock videos, pornography, or other disruptive content. The act was recently mentioned on the Department of Justice's website, warning that users who engage in this sort of video hacking could face fines and possible imprisonment. TechCrunch reports: Starting April 5th, it will require passwords to enter calls via Meeting ID, as these may be guessed or reused. Meanwhile, it will change virtual waiting rooms to be on by default so hosts have to manually admit attendees. [...] Zoom CEO Eric Yuan apologized for the security failures this week and vowed changes. But at the time, the company merely said it would default to making screensharing host-only and keeping waiting rooms on for its K-12 education users. Clearly it determined that wasn't sufficient, so now waiting rooms are on by default for everyone.

Zoom communicated the changes to users via an email sent this afternoon that explains "we've chosen to enable passwords on your meetings and turn on Waiting Rooms by default as additional security enhancements to protect your privacy." The company also explained that "For meetings scheduled moving forward, the meeting password can be found in the invitation. For instant meetings, the password will be displayed in the Zoom client. The password can also be found in the meeting join URL." Some other precautions users can take include disabling file transfer, screensharing or rejoining by removed attendees.

Nikon USA is offering 10 classes from the its online school for free during the month of April. Engadget reports: The courses range in length from 15 minutes to well over an hour, and all are taught by pro photographers and often Nikon ambassadors. Each class runs between $15 and $50, so Nikon is offering $250 worth of photography training for free. The courses run a wide gamut from landscape photography, macro photography, fundamentals by Reed Hoffman and even "The Art of Making Music Videos" with Chris Hershman. Several others are camera-specific, like a Z50 video course from Kitty Peters and a hands-on course with Nikon's SB-5000 speedlight. You do have to give Nikon your name and address, but the value of the courses is easily worth that -- to check them out, go here.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Google will offer 100,000 free Wi-Fi hotspots and will donate 4,000 Chromebooks to students across the state of California, governor Gavin Newsom said during a news conference Wednesday. The internet access points are supposed to help improve broadband internet in rural households across the state where internet access is either limited or very slow. Students will get access to the free Wi-Fi for a minimum of three months.There are still many parts of the state that do not have access to high-speed internet, however. "This was a substantial enhancement that came just at the right time," Newsom said. "We need more Googles," he added. The latest move comes as Newsom announced that California schools will remain closed for the remainder of the school year with many classes switching to online learning.

Microsoft President Brad Smith took a break from responding to the COVID-19 outbreak this week to praise Washington state's landmark facial recognition regulations. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill Tuesday that establishes rules specifically governing facial recognition software. From a report: Smith called the law an "early and important model" and "a significant breakthrough" in a blog post published Tuesday. Some cities have enacted their own facial recognition rules, but Washington is the first to establish statewide regulations. "This balanced approach ensures that facial recognition can be used as a tool to protect the public, but only in ways that respect fundamental rights and serve the public interest," Smith said. The new law requires public agencies to regularly report on their use of facial recognition technology and test the software for fairness and accuracy. Law enforcement agencies must obtain a warrant before using facial recognition software in investigations unless there is an emergency. The bill also establishes a task force to study the use of facial recognition by government agencies. Under the bill, public entities using facial recognition software to make decisions that produce "legal effects" must ensure a human reviews the results. That category includes decisions that could affect a person's job, financial services, housing, insurance, and education.

In a sign of the times, doctors are effectively waging a two-pronged fight against coronavirus: one part takes place in overcrowded hospitals and the other takes place on noisy social media platforms as they work to combat what the World Health Organization has declared an infodemic with accurate, authoritative voices. From a report: All of that means doctors, some of whom were once reluctant to embrace social media, are wading deeper into platforms that are rife with fake news, unproven medical advice and mass panic. "Social media is the disease and the cure. It is responsible for the dissemination of misinformation as much as it needs to be a tool for repairing that," said Rick Pescatore, an emergency room physician and public health expert in the Philadelphia area, who is active on Twitter and Facebook and has treated Covid-19 patients. "It's incumbent upon physicians, who want to get real information out there, to meet these patients where they are -- and that's social media."

Perhaps nowhere is this shift more striking than on TikTok, a short-form video platform beloved by teens that is best known for lip syncing, dance routines and comedy skits. In one TikTok video viewed more than 416,000 times, a registered nurse named Miki Rai does a choreographed dance involving a lot of hand motions as facts about Covid-19 flash on the screen, such as how long the virus stays on different surfaces. In another TikTok video, set to soothing elevator music, Dr. Rose Marie Leslie demonstrates proper handwashing: Wet hands. Lather up. Start washing for 20 seconds. Scrub under your nails and between fingers. Rinse. Leslie, a resident physician specializing in family medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School, created a TikTok account about a year ago, with the aim of reaching a younger demographic with health education information. Soon after coronavirus cases started emerging, she began creating TikToks about the issue. Now, she works to debunk myths about the virus for her more than 500,000 followers.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The day before University of Pennsylvania students were told that their college commencement would be held online, junior Andrew Guo thought of an alternative to holding the address over Zoom. Students could have a "Hey Day" and graduation inside Minecraft, just as a Japanese elementary school had organized days earlier. Quickly, "Penncraft" students began to recreate dormitories, food trucks, and local sculptures in-game. Makarios Chung, an early builder, measured buildings' dimensions and streets positions constantly to ensure their scale was as accurate as possible. The first day of building, students took an hour to decide the placement of one street. Their main goal was to have a completed campus, specifically Locust Street, for graduating seniors to walk down in-game now that COVID-19 ensured they wouldn't return to campus and complete this UPenn tradition.

Students from Boston University to UCLA, from South Louisiana Community College to Northwestern University, have recently created or resurrected Minecraft servers and shared their creations on Discord chats, in Facebook meme groups, and on Reddit threads. The boom of college Minecraft servers has begun. These servers have the express purpose of bringing students together and building, oftentimes focused on recreating their college campuses. Searches for Minecraft server hosting have peaked to unprecedented levels in the last few weeks, and thousands of students are discussing college servers, most notably on the Facebook group "Zoom Memes for Self Quaranteens." Smaller groups and clubs, like Bowdoin College's men's ultimate frisbee team or University of La Verne's debate team, have found ways to bond in survival mode servers after their practices and championships were canceled. Zoom isn't nearly enough, and it doesn't carry the ten years of memories that Gen Z has for Minecraft. "Come May there will be in-game graduations," writes Pearse Anderson. "Inspired by the aforementioned Japanese elementary school, Boston University seniors Rudy Raveendran and Warren Partridge created 'Quaranteen University.' This is a new server specifically made to host a Class of 2020 graduation for students from hundreds of different universities. 706 students from 278 institutions have signed up in the last week, and one mom has already emailed Raveendran asking how she can get an in-game seat to this massive ceremony on May 22nd."

theodp writes: The LA Times reports that controversies over grading are roiling universities and colleges, as the coronavirus outbreak prompted them to shift to online learning and send most students home to disparate circumstances. Some students and faculty believe that normal grading practices during these times are deeply unfair, while others feel students should be able to choose between a letter grade or pass/fail, arguing that earning high marks can distinguish them for jobs, scholarships or graduate school.

At Harvard, all undergraduates will receive grades of either "Emergency Satisfactory" or "Emergency Unsatisfactory" in their spring classes. Faculty may supplement this terminology with a "qualitative assessment of student learning."

The coronavirus situation has also prompted grading changes at the high school level. The College Board announced that all AP exams will be streamlined and only include questions on material covered thru early March. Students taking the AP Computer Science Principles course will not even be subjected to an AP exam in 2020 but can still earn college credit.