Freedom Project expands to Meridian

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MERIDIAN With its expansion into Meridian formally announced Monday at the Phil Hardin Foundation offices on North Park Drive, The Freedom Project successfully added their first site to the newly formed Freedom Project Network.

Meridian Freedom Project founders joined supporters and dignitaries Monday at noon to welcome program to the area.

"This program will not only enrich the lives of the students who participate but also the community," said Robert Ward, president of the Phil Hardin Board of Directors. "We will be replicating the Sunflower program of the Freedom Project which has proven itself to be hugely successful."

In 1998, Sunflower County Freedom Project founders and Teach For America alumni Chris Myers-Asch, Shawn Raymond and Gregg Costa set out to establish a program to create more pathways to college for their students in Sunflower County. Fifteen years later, 100 percent of the students completing the Freedom Fellowship, a six-year-commitment to the Freedom Project, go on to attend four-year colleges and universities across the country.

The Meridian Freedom Project is a year-round after-school program for middle school and high school students in the Meridian Public School District. Slated to open in June 2014, the program seeks to build a corps of academically capable, socially conscious and mentally disciplined young leaders in Meridian.

"This is a great program and the district has always recognized the children need more than just the normal eight to three school curriculum," said Dr. Alvin Taylor, superintendent of the Meridian School District. "About ninety percent of the students are at poverty level and this program will enable them to take advantage of unique opportunities."

The Meridian Freedom Project will begin during the summer of 2014. The Freedom Projects are led by Teach For America Alumna who returned to their roots to teach in the Mississippi and Arkansas Delta. The Meridian Freedom Project is made up of board members, Amy Elliott, chairman; Dr. Bill Scaggs, president emeritus of Meridian Community College; and Flo Bradley, CEO of FloBradley.com, who established an administrative collaboration with The Montgomery Institute.

The Meridian Freedom Project is geared to students in grades sixth through 12th in the Meridian Public School District, beginning with those in grades sixth through eighth and progressing with them until they graduate from high school.

The Meridian Freedom Project is funded in part by The Phil Hardin Foundation, The Montgomery Institute, Parents for Public Schools and AT&T.

Anna Stephenson, who serves as program development director of the Meridian Freedom Project, has seen the project in Sunflower blossom to what it is today.

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Freedom Project expands to Meridian

Morning Report: Tito Ortiz says Ronda Rousey will always be No. 2 to Cris Cyborg

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Former UFC light heavyweight champion Tito Ortiz remains adamant his client, Invicta FC featherweight champion Cris Cyborg, will remain the No. 1 female fighter until UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey can prove otherwise.

"They pushed this fight of her and Ronda at 135 so much. The last time I saw Ronda call out Cris Cyborg, Ronda was actually at 145. So she cut down to 135 to stay avoid Cris," Ortiz told Fighters Only.

"Now the ball is in their court - if they want the fight to happen, they will let the fight happen. If not I guess Ronda is the number two pound-for-pound woman always and Cris will be number one."

"Nobody is going to beat {Cyborg} ever. She is going to do an Anderson Silva and go undefeated for a long, long time."

Ortiz, partnered with Cyborg's other management at Primetime 360, pressured the UFC to grant her release in February after failing to accommodate her requests to meet Rousey at a catchweight. Cyborg's team claimed cutting below 140lbs would endanger her, while Dana White and Zuffa affirmed she had no place in the UFC's ranks if not at bantamweight. Even with UFC offering to hire nutritionist Mike Dolce on her behalf, Cyborg and Co. decided to move on.

Now, Ortiz is left to ponder the what-ifs and snipe at Rousey from afar. Himself a two-time Ultimate Fighter coach, Ortiz sees Rousey cracking under the pressure of the cameras.

"I think her head is getting to her. I watched a couple episodes and she seems like a little brat, likes she's too good for everybody else. That's the attitude you don't want, especially as a coach. People see me on The Ultimate Fighter season three, season eleven, I never thought I was better than anybody else," he said.

"Is the popularity getting to Ronda's head a little too much? She hasn't had any huge fights, she hasn't fought any huge names yet. I guess its one of those things that, in time, she needs to be tested. She's being protected by the UFC and if she keeps being protected she will always be known as second-best.

"I haven't seen any great stand-up skills. I have seen her closing the gap and taking a girl down and arm-barring her. I don't think she even knows any moves other than an armbar."

Rousey defends her bantamweight title in a rematch to former Strikeforce champion Miesha Tate at UFC 168 on Dec. 28.

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Morning Report: Tito Ortiz says Ronda Rousey will always be No. 2 to Cris Cyborg

Cyborg Cockroach Company Sparks Ethics Debate

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At the TEDx conference in Detroit last week, RoboRoach #12 scuttled across the exhibition floor, pursued not by an exterminator but by a gaggle of fascinated onlookers. Wearing a tiny backpack of microelectronics on its shell, the cockroacha member of the Blaptica dubia specieszigzagged along the corridor in a twitchy fashion, its direction controlled by the brush of a finger against an iPhone touch screen (as seen in video above).

RoboRoach #12 and its brethren are billed as a do-it-yourself neuroscience experiment that allows students to create their own cyborg insects. The roach was the main feature of the TEDx talk by Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo, co-founders of an educational company called Backyard Brains. After a summer Kickstarter campaign raised enough money to let them hone their insect creation, the pair used the Detroit presentation to show it off and announce that starting in November, the company will, for $99, begin shipping live cockroaches across the nation, accompanied by a microelectronic hardware and surgical kits geared toward students as young as 10 years old.

That news, however, hasnt been greeted warmly by everyone. Gage and Marzullo, both trained as neuroscientists and engineers, say that the purpose of the project is to spur a neuro-revolution by inspiring more kids to join the fields when they grow up, but some critics say the project is sending the wrong message. They encourage amateurs to operate invasively on living organisms and encourage thinking of complex living organisms as mere machines or tools, says Michael Allen Fox, a professor of philosophy at Queens University in Kingston, Canada.

Its kind of weird to control via your smartphone a living organism, says William Newman, a presenter at TEDx and managing principal at the Newport Consulting Group, who got to play with a RoboRoach at the conference. At the same time, he says, he is pleased that the project will teach students about the neuroscience behind brain stimulation treatments that are being used to treat two of his friends with Parkinsons disease.

The roaches movements to the right or left are controlled by electrodes that feed into their antennae and receive signals by remote controlvia the Bluetooth signals emitted by smartphones. To attach the device to the insect, students are instructed to douse the insect in ice water to anesthetize it, sand a patch of shell on its head so that the superglue and electrodes will stick, and then insert a groundwire into the insects thorax. Next, they must carefully trim the insects antennae, and insert silver electrodes into them. Ultimately, these wires receive electrical impulses from a circuit affixed to the insects back.

Gage says the roaches feel little pain from the stimulation, to which they quickly adapt. But the notion that the insects arent seriously harmed by having body parts cut off is disingenuous, says animal behavior scientist Jonathan Balcombe of the Humane Society University in Washington, D.C. If it was discovered that a teacher was having students use magnifying glasses to burn ants and then look at their tissue, how would people react?

Gage says that in his experience, working carefully and closely with insects and other animals in experiments can sensitize students to the fact that roaches are actually similar to us and have the same neurons that we have. He also notes that the company doesnt kill their own roaches after the experiments, but sends them to a retirement tank that the team calls Shady Acres. Although they may be missing legs or antennae, the insects tend to get on with their lives after the experiments, he says. They do what they like to do: make babies, eat, and poop.

I try not to downplay the fact that in science we use animal models and a lot of times they are killed, Gage says. As scientists, we do this all the time, but it happens behind closed doors. By following the surgical instructions, he says, all students learn that they have to care for the roachestreating wounds by putting a little Vaseline on them, and minimizing suffering whenever possible. Still, Gage acknowledges, we get a lot of e-mails telling us were teaching kids to be psychopaths.

The RoboRoach gives you a way of playing with living things, like a short-lived version of the forbidden Imperius Curse in the Harry Potter novels, says bioethicist Gregory Kaebnick of the Hastings Center in Garrison, New York. He finds the product unpleasant, but adds that he wont be calling for a boycott, either. Ill just be happy that I found a cleverly marketed consumer item that I am very happy not to own.

This story provided by ScienceNOW, the daily online news service of the journal Science.

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Shark activity closes EL beaches

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THE Orient and Eastern beaches in East London were closed yesterday after shark activity was reported.

Officials noticed the sharks soon after the carcass of a baby humpback whale was washed up on rocks near the Aquarium.

BEACHED WHALE The carcass of a young humpback whale along the East London beachfront forced the closure of the Orient and Eastern beaches yesterday. The carcass, which has been partly eaten, resulted in an increase of shark activity in the area. Picture: MARK ANDREWS

Chief marine services officer Siani Tinley said: Shark activity was seen around this carcass just before it washed up, so the beaches [Orient and Eastern] have been closed for a while until there is less shark activity in the area.

Beach staff will remove the carcass as soon as possible.

Tinley said the carcass was a few days old and had been fed on by a number of marine animals, including sharks.

She said humpback whales were not uncommon in the area at this time of year.

Humpback whales move along our coastline towards the Western Cape, which is their main feeding ground.

There is a lot of calving happening as well and this particular calf could have died for a number of reasons.

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Shark activity closes EL beaches

Playing a RPG game, resident evil (pt 3) using Human Artificial Intelligence – Video

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Playing a RPG game, resident evil (pt 3) using Human Artificial Intelligence
http://www.humanlevelartificialintelligence.com This video shows a robot playing a role playing game called Resident evil 2. There are no sound in the video ...

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Playing a RPG game, resident evil (pt 3) using Human Artificial Intelligence - Video

Smart Software Puts Artificial Intelligence at Your Fingertips

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Orlando, Florida (PRWEB) October 08, 2013

Many technologies have gone from science-fiction to reality, and now artificial intelligence will be in the hands of the public thanks to a recently launched smart software called EZ Troubleshooter.

EZ Troubleshooter is the first smart software that imitates how experts solve technical problems, without its users having to learn any new material.

The newly released platform currently provides solutions to computer problems ranging from any software, hardware, internet or networking problem, including peripheral devices such as printers, scanners, webcams and many others.

Founder Hector Sierra was tired of depending on computer repair technicians. Aiming to empower people to fix their own technical problems and free themselves from depending on technicians, he teamed up with experts in computer repair, user interface design, programming, pedagogy and psychology to create EZ Troubleshooter.

Sierra stated, We live in a world saturated with information, but what we need more than ever are instant solutions that make a difference in peoples lives.

Beginning October 15th, the public is invited to watch a demo of their software and get more information about their Indiegogo campaign at http://www.eztroubleshooter.com

About EZ Troubleshooter EZ Troubleshooter is an interactive troubleshooting software which allows its users to troubleshoot and fix their computer hardware, software, or networking problems.

For more information, please contact: Nicole Maxwell :: (727) 209-7337 :: press(at)eztroubleshooter(dot)com :: http://www.eztroubleshooter.com :: @troubleshootEZ

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Smart Software Puts Artificial Intelligence at Your Fingertips

I2BF Global Ventures Invests $20M in Dauria Aerospace

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NEW YORK, Oct. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --I2BF Global Ventures, a leading global technology investment firm, today announced a $20 million Series B investment in Dauria Aerospace, a global satellite services company involved in the manufacturing of micro and nano satellites and the development of machine-to-machine wireless communication and earth observation technologies.

Dauria Aerospace was founded in 2011, by experienced entrepreneurs and industry experts with backgrounds from NASA, RapidEye and the Russian space program, with the aim of developing low-cost infrastructure for rapid monitoring of ground assets and activity. It integrates low-cost satellite constellations with a unique cloud-based platform called CloudEO that provides an advanced framework and easy access to GEO-application developers. The production start of the first satellite is due this year with support from Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency.

I2BF Global Ventures' $20 million investment will be used for working capital to serve existing contracts, technology development and new satellite platforms.

"I2BF sees a rising opportunity for scarce resources management and discovery through innovative space applications. Our investment in Dauria Aerospace reinforces our intention to grow our exposure to this exciting new frontier," said Ilya Golubovich, founding partner of I2BF Global Ventures. "The aerospace sector is ripe for brilliant entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists to build off the foundation that national programs have put in place. With facilities in California's NASA Ames Research Park, DLR incubator in Munich, Germany and in Innograd Skolkovo Moscow, Russia, Dauria represents the next generation of global aerospace startups, collaborating and working across borders with applications that can directly benefit areas such as agriculture, disaster prevention, water control and resource management."

In 2012, the global satellite industry saw $190 billion in revenue, broken down by satellite services, launch industry, satellite manufacturing and ground equipment all of which are subsectors that Dauria Aerospace's operations touch upon.

"In the two years since Dauria Aerospace was founded, we've reached several key milestones in technology development and have successfully secured contracts and established our global presence," said Mikhail Kokorich, president of Dauria Aerospace. "We are confident that with our new partnership with I2BF Global Ventures and the invested capital, we will succeed in reaching our amplified goals in the next few years."

About I2BF Global Ventures Established in 2005, I2BF Global Ventures is an international technology focused venture capital firm with a global investment mandate. The mission of I2BF Global Ventures is to seek out innovative and competitive companies, targeting sectors and technologies it believes can lead the path to a "Brighter Future". Since the first portfolio company investment in 2006, I2BF Global Ventures has successfully completed 24 transactions, and manages over $195 million across four venture capital vehicles.In keeping with its worldwide investment focus, further to the team in New York, I2BF Global Ventures retains a team of technology and sector experts in London, Moscow, Dubai and Astana to ensure a truly global venture capital strategy and a hands-on management approach. Visit http://www.I2BF.com for more information.

About Dauria AerospaceDauria Aerospace develops and manufactures the new generation of low cost, small satellites. The deep reduction of costs combined with the enhanced performance capabilities offered by the new product makes constellations of many satellites financially viable, thus enabling operational services and creating new applications. This has been achieved by utilizing the state of art terrestrial microelectronic and micro-system-technologies.

Based on Dauria's satellite technologies, the company is planning to deploy constellations of various earth observation and communications satellites to provide frequent vegetation monitoring for precision farming, traffic management, dynamic urban management and polar broadband services. The company works closely with the national governments on the joint financing of these space projects making it possible for the private seed investment to cover a significantly larger range of services. These services will be further enhanced by making them available in a unique service eco-system where they can be combined with other satellite resources and advanced software applications through a cloud based platform - CloudEO. This will foster a new era where space applications enter humans' daily lives. Visit http://www.dauriaspace.com for more information.

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I2BF Global Ventures Invests $20M in Dauria Aerospace