Thinking of the Boy Scouts brings up images of tents, hiking and campfires. But the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have a new emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). A new merit badge in Robotics is one of 31 STEM-related merit badges that Scouts can earn. The goals of the Robotics merit badge require a Scout to understand how robots move (actuators), how they sense the environment (sensors), and how they understand what to do (programming). Scouts spend approximately 14 hours to meet the requirements of this merit badge, including that they design a robot and demonstrate how it works. The Robotics merit badge is the first merit badge in the BSA interactive merit badge resource center at www.boyslife.org/robotics. Scout or not, you're invited to check it out!


According to Reuters, the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) has joined with the US Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) to explore ways to improve Internet freedoms and promote the free flow of information. This cooperation has led the US State Department to fund $22 million in "Internet freedom programming." Early applications under creation include a Panic Button for Android that wipes out all address book contacts and forwards an immediate cautionary alert if a handset is about to be confiscated. A Nokia version of the app will likely be developed. Invitations for any future proposals will be posted to www.grants.gov.
 

It has been widely reported that a Facebook page in support of the “Third Palestinian Intifada” was removed from the social networking site and that Facebook's co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook are being sued for $1 billion for not taking the page down fast enough. A new Facebook group with the same name has been started at www.facebook.com/third.palestinian.intifada. At the time of this writing it had about 6,000 supporters — a far cry from the 340,000 that had signed up for the previous group, but a situation that can be quickly rectified.