Acer’s Arduino-based Cloud Professor wants to get kids into the IoT | Ars Technica

Acer’s Arduino-based Cloud Professor wants to get kids into the IoT | Ars Technica: "How do you get a younger generation, one raised on a seemingly endless supply of smartphones, tablets, and PCs, into not just using such devices, but finding out how they work too? Small development boards like the Raspberry Pi have done wonders for getting kids (and curious adults) into creating all manner of interesting hardware and software. The upcoming BBC Micro:bit promises to go a stage further, too, by giving every Year 7 student in the UK—about a million kids aged 11 to 12—their own Micro:bit board to play with. But there's another take on the development board, and it's come from the unlikeliest of places: electronics giant Acer. Buried deep within its stand at IFA 2015 in Berlin is a unique development kit called Cloud Professor. It contains the obligatory Arduino board, as well as a variety of accessories, including a USB to GPIO adaptor, a control LED, and even a dust sensor. But rather than just offer yet another way to program things on an Arduino board, the Acer kit also contains a separate module that allows the board to talk to other devices over the Internet. Essentially, it's an Internet of Things development kit that links into Acer's cloud platform, allowing tinkerers to control various aspects of their connected device via a smartphone or tablet. Because that's often a complex task (particularly for the younger age group the kit is aimed at), Acer is providing a set of apps that automatically communicate with the Cloud Professor module. This lets users concentrate on creating cool stuff, rather than mucking about with cloud protocols."

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Louisiana School-To-Prison Pipeline Breaks, Spilling Hopeless Kids Into Swamp | THE PUSH POLE

Louisiana School-To-Prison Pipeline Breaks, Spilling Hopeless Kids Into Swamp | THE PUSH POLE: "America’s crumbling infrastructure took another hit today when the pipeline connecting Louisiana’s schools to its prison industrial complex busted, sending poor, under-educated teens sprawling into empty swampland in Avoyelles Parish."

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Oil caps biggest three-day gain since 1990 as OPEC ready to talk

Oil caps biggest three-day gain since 1990 as OPEC ready to talk: "Oil capped the biggest three-day gain in 25 years after OPEC said it’s ready to talk to other global producers to achieve ‘fair prices’ and the U.S. government reduced its crude output estimates. Crude traded in New York surged 27% in three days, the most since August 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Both West Texas Intermediate and Brent benchmarks have climbed more than 20% from their closing low on Aug. 24, meeting the common definition of a bull market. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, responsible for about 40% of the world’s supply, said in a monthly publication it’s willing to talk, “but this has to be on a level playing field.” Prices erased last week’s drop to a six-year low as the OPEC comments and signs that the U.S. shale boom is fading faster provided optimism that a global supply glut will evaporate sooner than estimated. A measure of oil-price fluctuations rose to a five-month high as traders sought protection from market swings. “The market turned around on two pieces of news,” Phil Flynn, senior market analyst for Price Futures Group Inc. in Chicago, said by phone. "The EIA cut its U.S. output estimates and OPEC says its ready to talk to others about cutting output.""

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Man Forced To Throw Back Bull Red That Self-Identifies As 11-Inch Speckled Trout. | THE PUSH POLE

Man Forced To Throw Back Bull Red That Self-Identifies As 11-Inch Speckled Trout. | THE PUSH POLE: "Unfortunately for Galliano angler Willie Bergeron, the mammoth fish he hauled in yesterday morning was actually a delicate 11-inch spec trapped inside the body of a 31-inch bull red. Stephanie Bergeron, his very intelligent and sunburned daughter, broke the news to him after netting the leviathan. It was their tenth redfish of the day, setting them at their limit. After pretending to hold a telepathic conversation with the gasping, flopping beast, she broke the news to her father, informing him that they have to release the fish or the game wardens would throw him into a FEMA camp for a hate crime."

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Flying robots replace oil roughnecks

Flying robots replace oil roughnecks: "Oil rig inspection is a dangerous business. Traditionally roughnecks dangled from a wire, in gale-force winds if needed, to manually log wear and tear on the girders. Assessments include giant chimneys—called flare stacks—that belch fire during million-dollar-a-day shut-downs. Increasingly, the industry has found that swapping abseiling humans for small drones equipped with high-definition and thermal cameras can save time, cut costs and improve safety. "These are large metal structures in a big pond of sea water. They will rust a lot, particularly in the North Sea where rigs designed to last 20 years are lasting more than 40. They are continually getting cracks and physical damage from the waves and need to be refurbished and fixed," explains Chris Blackford, Sky Futures' COO."

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Flying robots replace oil roughnecks

Flying robots replace oil roughnecks: "Oil rig inspection is a dangerous business. Traditionally roughnecks dangled from a wire, in gale-force winds if needed, to manually log wear and tear on the girders. Assessments include giant chimneys—called flare stacks—that belch fire during million-dollar-a-day shut-downs. Increasingly, the industry has found that swapping abseiling humans for small drones equipped with high-definition and thermal cameras can save time, cut costs and improve safety. "These are large metal structures in a big pond of sea water. They will rust a lot, particularly in the North Sea where rigs designed to last 20 years are lasting more than 40. They are continually getting cracks and physical damage from the waves and need to be refurbished and fixed," explains Chris Blackford, Sky Futures' COO."

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NEWS | Oil Tumbles Up To 6% To New Lows As China Fears Intensify Rout | Rigzone

NEWS  |  Oil Tumbles Up To 6% To New Lows As China Fears Intensify Rout  |  Rigzone: "Oil's weeks-long slump accelerated sharply on Monday with prices tumbling as much as 6 percent to fresh 6-1/2-year lows as a renewed dive in the Chinese equities market sent global financial markets into a tailspin. A near 9-percent fall in China shares roiled global markets and sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 1,000 points in early trading. Wall Street pared losses by mid-morning, briefly easing oil's slide, but a second wave of selling re-emerged in the afternoon. Oil's biggest one-day drop in nearly two months suggested that worst-case fears over the economic outlook in China, the world's second-largest oil consumer, have eclipsed immediate signs of persistent oversupply as the main motivator. "Today's falls are not about oil market fundamentals. It's all about China," Carsten Fritsch, senior oil analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, told the Reuters Global Oil Forum. "The fear is of a hard landing and that things get out of the control of the Chinese authorities." Brent October crude fell $2.77, or 6.1 percent, to settle at $42.69 a barrel, after plunging to a contract low of $42.51, the lowest front-month price since March 2009. Prices extended losses in after-hours trading, as the U.S. S&P Index fell by more than 4 percent at one point."

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