Technology
Public school students in Oakland now have one more way to let authorities know if something is making them feel unsafe on campus: texting. Beginning last Thursday, a new program at the six major high school campuses in town—Oakland Tech, Skyline, McClymonds, Fremont, Castlemont and Oakland High—allows students to send anonymous text messages to Oakland Unified School District police about anything that worries them, from rumors of a fight on campus to concerns that a weapon has been brought to…
Circled by three freeways, scattered with industrial factories and a stone’s throw from one of the largest ports in the United States, West Oakland has a high pollution rate. That’s why this neighborhood has become the centerpiece of a new partnership between a local environmental justice group and a high-tech research company to develop a cell phone that can measure pollution.
“You want to opt-out?” the TSA officer asked incredulously. I was standing in a newly implemented Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) machine at the Oakland airport. Passengers are randomly selected as they pass through security to enter the AIT machine, which looks like an oversized metal detector and projects an image of a person’s unclothed body on a screen for TSA officials to review. Those selected have the choice to opt-out of the full-body scan, but must then submit to a thorough pat-down, a procedure that some have called a violation of privacy.
Despite cell phones’ distracting effect on students, and the nuisance they present to teachers, efforts around the country to ban the phones in schools have been met with resistance and even lawsuits from students and parents.
About 200 people attended the long delayed launch celebration for the Africa Channel-a digital station that focuses entirely on Africa programming- Tuesday night at Oakland’s Chabot Space Center. At the event, an Africa Channel executive announced the results of DNA tests revealing the ancestries of three African-American attendees.
Computer animation sprang into public consciousness in 1995 with Pixar’s film, Toy Story. Fifteen years later, the studio has turned out nearly a dozen feature length films from its East Bay headquarters, and now kids at an Oakland middle school are getting a chance to get in on act of animating. Listen to the full story on Oakland North Radio.
Today would have been Nicholas Rotolo’s 24th birthday. Rotolo, a Berkeley High School student and club hockey player, stood a brawny 6’2″ tall, weighed 220 pounds, and had no apparent health issues. But on February 5, 2004, the 17-year-old suddenly collapsed on the rink at Sharks Ice in San Jose while competing in an exhibition for his San Jose Junior Sharks team.
There’s nothing finer on a Saturday afternoon then a garden full of toilets.
A coalition of law enforcement agencies has arrested four Nuestra Familia gang leaders and 30 gang members. Several of those caught were allegedly given orders to commit murder and other violent crimes by imprisoned gang leaders who sent them encrypted messages via cell phones.