Monthly Archives: May 2017

How Trump Affected Political Correctness – The American Interest

Posted: May 28, 2017 at 7:46 am

A major themethe major theme?of Donald Trumps 2016 campaign for the presidency was his relentless assault on socially-enforced standards of speech and opinionthat those on the Right tend to refer to aspolitical correctness and those on the Left tend to refer to as politeness or propriety.And a new paper from the National Bureau of Economics Researchsuggests that thisassault was at least partlysuccessful: By updating peoples preferences about the popularity of anti-immigration views, Trumps unexpected victory made people more willing to express anti-immigration views publicly than they were before Election Day.

The authors (Leonardo Bursztyn of the University of Chicago, Georgy Egorov of Northwestern, and Stefano Fiorin of UCLA) summarize their methodology like this: In the run-up to the2016 election, they offered subjects a dollarif they authorized the researchers to make a donation to a strongly anti-immigration organization on their behalf. Some of the participants were told that their donation would be anonymous. Others were told that they researchers mightask them about their decision later. Those who thought their donation would be anonymous were significantly more likely to authorize it than those who thought they might need to discuss it in the future, suggest(ing) the presence of social stigma associated with the action.After the election, however, this social stigma disappeared; people were just as likely to authorize a donation to an anti-immigrant group even if they were not assured that the donation would be anonymous.

Its not that Trumps election increased anti-immigration sentiment, the authors sayit just made peoplealready inclined toward restrictionism feel less of a need to conceal their preferences.

Regardless of whether Trump actuallybuilds a wall or successfully gets his travelban through the court system, it seems that hisrhetoric has created a fundamental shift in the way Americans talk (or dont talk) about immigration policyand probably other sensitive issues, as well. That the president survived the Access Hollywood tape, the Megyn Kelly feud, and his remarks about the Khans (to give a few examples)might have also had anemperor has no clothes effect oncertain social taboos.

In some ways, the Trump effect on P.C. has probably been positive. To the extent that critiquesof the elite consensus on immigration and globalization and social liberalism had becomeoff-limits, creating a stifling and anti-democratic environment where people were afraid to even express their concernslest they be ostracized and condemned by their social betters, it is healthy that Trumps election loosened limitations on acceptable discourse.

At the same time, civilization rests on a certain set of social norms, which are far more powerful than laws in shaping behavior. If everyone made all of their private opinions publicif dinner guests always told the host how they really feltabout the food, if drivers always shared withpolice their opinions on being pulled over,if Supreme Court justices announced that their opinions were based as much on guesswork and intuition as the text of the Constitutionmany of our institutions would work less well. Moreover, when informal norms erode, blunter tools like laws and bureaucratic codes have a tendency of taking their place.

So even as Trump has made some debates more openby taking a wrecking ball to political correctness, there is also a legitimate concern thathis freewheeling rhetorical style hasunearthed some demons, as the Republican Rep. Mark Sanford put itto theWashington Post.Ive talked to a number of people about it back home. They say, Well, look, if the president can say whatever, why cant I say whatever? Hes given them license.That is not cause for celebration.The Presidents election was a sign that prevailing social stigmas and taboos were unsustainable. The solution isnt to tear them down altogether, but to build new ones that are more broadly supported and in line with the interests of an open society.

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Investigators say debit card-cloning ring was operating on South … – Enterprise News

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Neal Simpson The Patriot Ledger @nsimpson_ledger

BOSTON - Federal investigators say a major debit card-cloning ring operating in eight U.S. states and three countries was able to steal thousands of dollars from people using ATMs on the South Shore before it was shut down earlier this year.

In a federal indictment unsealed last week, investigators said a group dubbed the Hornea Crew had used skimming devices installed at ATMs in Quincy, Braintree and Weymouth to get access to peoples accounts and fraudulently withdraw their money. Fourteen people linked to the operation have been indicted on charges including identity theft, money laundering and racketeering, and investigators say more people were involved, including minors.

In an affidavit filed with the indictment, investigators said the operation was run by two brothers, Constantin Denis Hornea and Ludemis Hornea, and included members of several other families, some of them linked by marriage. Investigators said the network had been active in states up and down the East Coast as well as in China and Romania.

Constantin Hornea and a woman believed to be his wife, Maria Lazar, were arrested in March after investigators said they used cloned debit cards to fraudulently withdraw money from several Bank of America ATMs, including at bank branches and vestibules in Hanover, Braintree and Weymouth. Investigators said the couple withdrew between $100 and $500 at a time.

At the time, investigators said they did not yet know who installed the devices that were used to produce the cloned cards, according to a complaint unsealed after the couples arrest. Investigators said the cards were produced with the use of two devices: A skimmer stalled in an ATM slot that reads the account numbers of cards inserted into it; and a camera that records ATM users entering their PIN numbers on the machines keypad. Investigators said one batch of cloned debit cards was made using skimmers installed at a Bank of America ATM at 1 Scammell St. in Quincy.

Hornea's alleged associates, including some charged with installing the skimmers and cameras, were indicted Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Boston. The indictment was unsealed Thursday after his brother, Ludemis Hornea, was arrested.

In the indictment unsealed Thursday, investigators said the banks targeted by the group include Bank of America, Citizens Bank, First Citizens Bank, SunTrust Bank and Wells Fargo. Investigators said fraudulent cards were used to withdraw money at ATMs across Massachusetts, including in Brockton, Hanover, Quincy, Rockland and Weymouth.

Constantin Hornea and Maria Lazar are due to be arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Boston. They have been in the custody of the U.S. Marshals since their arrest this spring.

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Iran’s Islamic Evolution – Bloomberg

Posted: at 7:46 am

Supporters of Iranian presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi at a campaign rally in Tehran on May 16.

Maryam was 22 days old when Iranians dethroned their king in 1979. The Islamic regime that followedwith its black and brown robes, covered heads, and dour religiositywas just a fact of life, she says. We never thought about anything different, because we hadnt seen anything else. Thirty-eight years later, that acceptance is wearing thin.

The May 19 presidential voteand the jubilant street celebrations that followed the reelection of President Hassan Rouhani, the nearest thing to a liberal allowed onto the ballotshowed an Iranian society much changed since the days of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeinis Islamic revolution and unwilling to turn back. One of my teachers used to tell us that if any strand of your hair showed, you would be hung up by it, says Maryam, who like others interviewed for this article declined to give her last name for fear of retribution. Now you can drive around in a car with your boyfriend, and no one says anything.

Khomeinis successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the coterie of clerics and unelected officials who hold most power in Iran see elections as a means to preserve and legitimize the Islamic revolution; many voters view them as a means to force the liberalization of the regime. Although those propositions are at odds, the shared belief that the ballot box is an important instrument has been a source of stability in a region where several recent experiments in democracy have flamed out.

Nobody interviewed on May 20 at the Tehran street parties celebrating Rouhanis victory said they had the stomach for another revolution. Memories of the brutal crackdown that followed the birth of the Green Movement in 2009in which Iranians challenged Mahmoud Ahmadinejads victory in an election many believe was riggedand of the Middle East bursting into flames in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings have damped Iranians appetite for revolt.

While Irans presidential elections offer a very limited form of democracy, the quadrennial ritual has been instrumental in moving the country in a more liberal direction. In every election aspirations and demands are expressed, and that gives them legitimacy. And what is ceded cant be taken back, says Saeed Laylaz, an Iranian economist who advised former President Mohammad Khatami.

Since a divide emerged between the regimes conservatives and reformists in the 1990s, a conservative candidate has claimed the presidency only twice: in 2005, when Ahmadinejad won amid record-low turnout, and in 2009, when he was returned to power in a poll marred by allegations of massive fraud.

Rouhanis 19-point victory margin, despite rising unemployment and stagnant living standards, underscores the widespread support that opening up the economy and expanding personal freedoms enjoy across generations of voters. Turnout reached 73 percent not because the incumbent is hugely popular, but because reform-minded Iranians worried that high levels of absenteeism would hand victory to a hard-liner, turning the clock back toward 1979. The conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi, who was widely perceived to have Khameneis backing, drew just 38 percent of the vote.

Among those 16 million Raisi voters are many who support a more Islamicized country; many Rouhani voters also back the system. Mahdi, 28, voted for Raisi, and Iman, 25, for Rouhani, yet both regard the revolution as sacred. The young men, who are members of the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary group, view the Islamic Republic as having a unique form of religion-infused governance in which elections play a supporting role. There may be two candidates, but they are part of the system, Mahdi says. Neither is operating outside this framework.

If most Iranian youth are conservative by Western standards, their outlooks and lifestyles are also becoming more diverse. Hanging out at a Tehran skateboarding park in a baseball cap and T-shirt, Arshia, 19, says he listens to rap and trap, a subgenre of American hip-hop. At home, he watches The Walking Dead on satellite TV. We get our ideas from Instagram and social media, he says. If it wasnt for them, Id probably be like my grandfather and pray.

Arshia is unimpressed with Irans politicianstheyre all clericsbut he voted for Rouhani because he says life has improved under him. Skateboarding was frowned upon just a few years ago, when a policeman once stopped him riding home from school to ask if he thought he was living in America. Says Arshia: For me the revolution represents mass stupidity. Only people who are brainwashed talk about it.

Iman, a 33-year-old born at the height of the 1980s baby boom, which has contributed to a youth-unemployment rate that averaged 26 percent last year, voted for the first time on May 19. The owner of a music store in central Tehran that sells tars, setars, and other traditional Persian instruments says he feared that a Raisi win would bring back the bans on broadcasts of Western music and limits on live concerts that Ahmadinejad instituted during his eight-year rule. Conservatives hate music, Iman says, because if music becomes more popular, no one will listen to the imams.

Rouhanis strongest support came from the over-60s, according to a pre-election poll by the Washington-based Ippo Group. Already adults at the time of the revolution, they remember how things were before 1979, when they lived in an autocracy but had fewer religious and social restrictions. Farah, 55, who joined the post-election celebrations on Valiasr Street, the 12-mile artery that cuts through Tehran, along with her sisters, age 50 and 60, says she has no connection to the Islamic ideals of the regime.

All three took part in the demonstrations that set the stage for the Shahs overthrow, but they supported the secular government that initially took power. Khomeinis Islamists, who wrested control, cheated us, Farah says. We were looking for more political freedom, but instead we lost all our freedoms.

Maryam says her mother and five aunts were ardent, educated, young revolutionaries. I learned a lot from them, but I missed out on other things, she says. Like, I didnt know how to dance. I still dont. Nightclubs, like alcohol, are banned in Iran, yet private dance parties are now ubiquitous.

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The revolution was quickly followed by an eight-year war with Iraq, in which at least half a million Iranians died. It was a time of sacrifice and privation, Maryam recalls, in which the only clothes available for women were dark, full-length robes. Dissent was put on hold until the conflict ended, in 1988. We had to fight for everything, even things that todays children take for granted, like wearing colored clothes, she says. The 1997 election of Khatami, a reformist, ushered in what Maryam says was a golden age for personal freedoms. I saw the change in my aunts, she says. They used to be very strict, but they came to see it was a mistake.

Her own crisis of faith was triggered by the brutal crackdown on the Green Movement protests. An observant though not devout Muslim, Maryam says she gave up religion when security forces killed protesters in the streets on Ashura, the holiest day in the Shiite calendar.

Despite this history of repression, Maryam appreciates Khameneiwhos led Iran as president and then supreme leader for 36 yearsfor his ability to keep the country safe from the surrounding turmoil. It is not easy, she says, to run such a country, in such a region, with such a people.

The bottom line: Despite a paucity of reform-minded candidates, many Iranians are committed to voting: They see it as the best way to force change.

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Iran's Islamic Evolution - Bloomberg

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Don’t blame Darwin, says anti-drowning project leader – Bloomington Pantagraph

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BLOOMINGTON A director of a group working to prevent drowning in the Great Lakes area says stigmatizing drowning hampers such efforts.

People blame the victim, blame the parent or caretaker or blame Darwinism, said Dave Benjamin, executive director of public relations and project management for the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project.

But doing that gives people a false sense of security that it wouldn't happen to them or their loved ones, said Benjamin.

In fact, it can happen to anyone and it can happen quickly.

Part of the problem, according to Benjamin, is that people don't know what they don't know.

Few people know that swimming ability alone might not be enough in a water emergency, he said.

Sixty-six percent of all drowning victims were good swimmers, he said.

But factors such as cold water, waves, underwater hazards, dangerous currents and disorientation following unexpected immersion can limit swimming effectiveness and affect how quickly fatigue can set in.

About half of drowning victims never intended to be in the water, he said. They may have fallen off a boat or pier or were washed off by waves.

A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said males are three times more likely to die from drowning than females.

Males tend to be greater risk takers, more susceptible to peer pressure and more likely to overestimate their swimming ability, said Benjamin.

Do not dare your friends to jump off the pier. Do not dare your friends to swim to the buoy, he said.

Rather than saying, You can't fix stupid, Benjamin advocates fixing misconceptions through education.

Schools have fire drills, tornado drills, active shooter drills and earthquake drills, yet students are more likely to die of drowning than those causes combined, he said.

Follow Lenore Sobota on Twitter: @pg_sobota

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Snap recently acquired Ctrl Me Robotics, an LA-based drone company – The Verge

Posted: at 7:45 am

Late last year, Snap acquired LA-based drone company Ctrl Me Robotics, according to Buzzfeed. Recent reports indicate that the maker of Snapchat and Spectacles intends to develop a drone of its own as it looks to push beyond developing apps and into hardware.

Snap reportedly acquired Ctrl Me Robotics for less than a million dollars last last year, in a deal that included some of the companys equipment and assets, as well as its founder, Simon Nielsen. Ctrl Me Robotics described itself as a company that built and developed custom drones, with a particular focus on drones that carried cameras for local film studios, according to a 2014 video released by the company. According to Buzzfeed, its not clear if Ctrl Me Robotics reached the point where it was developing drones of its own.

Snap has been eyeing the drone market and looked into acquiring now-defunct Lily Robotics, as well as other camera-related businesses last year. This acquisition could help give Snap some expertise when it comes to developing its own equipment.

Last September, Snapchat announced that it was moving into hardware and rebranding itself as a camera company called Snap. Its not clear if the pivot will be enough to save the company, however. Snap Inc. went public in March with a $30 billion IPO, but its revealed in its first earnings reports that its growth as slowed and that its a long way from profitability, and that of the $150 million it earned in its first quarter this year, just $8 million came from its camera-equipped glasses, Spectacles.

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Academic All-Stars: Mentor helped Chen in robotics, life – Appleton Post Crescent

Posted: at 7:45 am

The 2017 Academic All-Stars share what they think of when they think of the future and have a little fun, too. Jen Zettel/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin (May 26, 2017) Wochit

Evans Chen, Appleton East High School(Photo: Courtesy of Evans Chen)

A robotics mentor helped influence the direction Appleton East senior Evans Chen would take in life.

Nick Luther helped the students on the East robotics team, but also taught Chen important life lessons.

Luther encouraged Chen to visit his teachers to get help when he missed classes for robotics competitions or Advanced Placement tests.

He also pushed Chen to keep looking for a solution until he solved a problem in robotics.

"Though he always knewthe solution to a problem in robotics, he taught me an incredible amount by letting me figure it out on my own," Chen said. "He is a wonderful person and definitely has greatly influenced me in my four years of high school."

RELATED:Pomp and Circumstance: 2017 Academic All-Stars

RELATED:Meet the 2017 Academic All-Star nominees

Other defining moments: Chen said he was most proud of the Appleton East math team's growth while he was in high school. When he first joined the team, there were only a few dedicated students, and he said it was hard to imagine them ever beating a team from Appleton North or Appleton West.

That started to change later in his high school career.

"More people started joining the math team, and by my senior year East was able to win its first math team event in a very long time," he said. "Going through my four-year journey, seeing East's math team rise has been extremely satisfying."

Learning highlights: 11 AP courses, 2 CAPP course, 4 courses from Lawrence University, 3.9 grade-point-average, 35 composite on the ACT exam, National Merit Scholarship finalist.

In school:Robotics team;varsity swimming;pit orchestra; student council; math team,captain, all-conference honors.

In the community: St. Elizabeth Hospital volunteer, Heart of the Valley YMCA lifeguard, Fox Valley Wave Swim Team, Wisconsin State Music Association Honors Orchestra.

Future plans: Chen will attend UW-Madison to study math and computer science.

Jen Zettel: 920-996-7268, or jzettel@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @jenzettel

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Robotics Competition Aims to Increase Investment in Africa – Voice of America

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Several hundred students spent last week building robots in Dakar, the capital of Senegal.

The students are from middle schools and high schools in Senegal and neighboring countries.

The robotics competition takes place once a year. Contest organizers say their goal is to urge governments and private donors to invest in science and mathematics education throughout Africa.

Teams of young people gathered in Dakar for the Pan-African Robotics Competition. The theme of this year's competition was Made in Africa.

The sound of machinery could be heard during the event. The students built small robots and used them to search for natural resources in the ground.

Sidy Ndao created the competition. He says the students were asked to show how robotics developed in Africa can help local economies.

We have noticed that most countries that have developed in the likes of the United States have based their development on manufacturing and industrialization, and African countries, on the other hand, are left behind in this race. So we thought it would be a good idea to inspire the kids to tell them about the importance of manufacturing, the importance of industry and the importance of creation and product development

During the week, the students were separated into three groups. The first group created robots that would work in and organize storage centers. The second group created machines that would mine natural resources. The third one was asked to create an African product and tell how to build it.

Seventeen-year-old Rokyaha Cisse is from Senegal. She helped her team develop a robot that sends sound waves into the ground to search for metals and then begins digging.

She says it is very interesting, fun, and they are learning new things, as well as having their first chance to operate robots.

Aboubacar Savage from Gambia was part of a younger team. He said his teams robot communicates with computers.

It is a robot that whatever you draw into the computer, it translates it and draws it in real life. It is kind of hard. And there is so much competition, but we are trying. I have learned how to assemble a robot. I have learned how to program into a computer

Seventeen-year-old Marieme Toure and her team built a robot that would be able to work in a mine.

She said, this helps us get more involved in science. Learning to program robots allows us to develop a certain aptitude in robotics that will serve us in the future.

Ousmane Lo competed against Toure. He is also from Senegal. He says robots could solve agricultural problems in Africa.

Right now, its machines that dominate. What we cant do, machines can do, Lo said.

Sidy Ndao, who is from Senegal, is now a professor at the University of Nebraskas Lincoln College of Engineering.

I have realized how much the kids love robotics and how much they love science, and you can tell because when it is time for lunch, we have to actually convince them to actually leave, and then [when] it is time to go home, nobody wants to leave...

Ndao said he hopes the event will persuade African governments and private individuals to invest in science and mathematics education, especially in universities.

He said, the idea is that we would have African universities that have similar or perhaps better standards than European and American universities so that the students who -- the thousands or the millions of them in Africa -- have the chance to have a higher, state-of-the-art education in the continent.

Im Phil Dierking.

Ricci Schryock reported this story from Dakar for VOANews.com. Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted her report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

______________________________________________________________

natural resources n. natural materials or substances that can be used for economic gain

theme n. a subject of a musical or artistic work; the main subject being discussed

focus v. to direct ones attention on something

inspire v. to influence

translate v. to change words into ones own or another language

assemble v. to put something together

aptitude n. the ability to learn something

dominate v. to have power over; to be the most important part of something

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Celina Junior High robotics team makes it to state – Star Local Media

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This year marked the first year for any school in Celina ISD to have a robotics team. Last weekend, the team, which is comprised of seventh and eighth grade students from Celina Junior High, traveled down to Austin for the statewide robotics competition.

The group is led by math and STEM teacher Walker Plagge. You can hear the pride in his voice when he talks about his students.

These are very intelligent students and very good problem-solvers, he said.

The state competition featured 60 teams from across Texas. The objective was to have the robot pick up wiffle balls. The team of five created a robot with color sensors that would be able to tell where the balls were. Unfortunately, their sensor was set to white, the standard for most wiffle balls, but the competition balls were orange. Despite the setback, Plagge said the students remained positive.

All in all, they walked away with their heads held high, he said. While the robot did not perform as we had planned, they still walked away knowing that what they had accomplished was amazing.

Even though they did not place in the top three, the fact that the team made it to state in its first year is quite the feat.

It was fun, Plagge said. It was a learning experience for them, and for this being their first year of having a STEM program, much less making it to a state competition, I think that theyre walking away feeling pretty accomplished.

Plagge is a Celina graduate. When he started teaching, he made it his goal to return and teach in Celina. When he was approached by John Mathews, assistant superintendent of administrative services, to start a STEM program at the junior high school, he jumped at the opportunity.

John Matthews knows that Im kind of a nerd, Plagge said. So he said, Ive got this idea. Why dont we start a STEM program and Ill give you a couple of STEM class and a budget, and you can run with it.

While the classes and robotics team is currently limited to the junior high school, Plagge said he is confident Celina ISD will do what it can to foster the learning started in seventh and eighth grades.

We want to make sure that their education with robotics and engineering doesnt stop here, he said.

The group also competed in the Collin County Betterment of Engineering Sciences and Technologies (CoCoBEST) competition. Plagge described this as a nine-week gauntlet with crowds akin to those at a high school football game. The competition doesnt stop at building a robot. Students have to make a booklet showing their processes, set up a booth and essentially create a mock-company based on the years theme.

Every time they bring their robots to competitions, they get oohs and ahhs from other schools that have been doing this for a long time, Plagge said. I think for our students it wasnt about how they could win, it was about what they could do to challenge themselves. It ended up putting them in state.

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Virtual Reality helps lure Finland’s biggest tire maker to Dayton – Chattanooga Times Free Press

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Ronnie Rahn, principal at TWH Architects, explains the benefits of virtual reality renderings Wed., May 24, 2017, from TWH Architects in the University Tower building in Chattanooga, Tenn. Virtual reality can help sell ideas to clients and help clients better envision each room within a property they've had commissioned.

Ronnie Rahn, principal at TWH Architects, explains the...

Photo by Erin O. Smith

Dennis Tumlin was looking for a way to quite literally level the playing field when he pitched a hilly industrial site north of Dayton, Tenn., to Finland's biggest tire maker in March.

"We knew we were competing against a flat site in Georgia, and our property still had a slope and was harder at first glance to visualize how a major factory might look [there]," said Tumlin, the executive director for the Rhea County Economic and Tourism Council.

Sam Wills, the Southeast Tennessee regional director for the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, suggested the industrial prospects be shown a 3-D view of what the factory could look like in a finished, flattened version of the Rhea County Rail Hub South industrial park.

In only 10 days, the architects and technology team at TWH Architects in Chattanooga, a division of the Michael Brady Co., created the images that allowed top executives from Nokian Tyres to visualize their 830,000-square-foot plant on the site by looking in virtual reality headsets.

Two months after the site visit, Nokian Tyres announced it had picked the 330-acre industrial site north of Dayton for a $360 million tire production plant the biggest private investment ever in Rhea County.

"Did virtual reality alone seal the deal?" Tumlin asked. "No. But it was very effective in showing what we can do and what could be done with this site. I think it was a real help."

The virtual reality (VR) headsets allow users to see and walk through buildings and properties in the virtual world created by the new 3-D design equipment. They can move through the space with a controller and, wearing the headset, get a full 360-degree view.

Although still relatively new, VR proponents think it could gain widespread use by architects, designers and real estate agents trying to show houses, rental properties or office layouts even if the viewer is not on site or before anything is ever built.

The Michael Brady Co., which last year merged with TWH Architects, was one of the first architectural firms in the region to begin widespread use of 3-D modeling of its building projects nearly a decade ago.

"We're actually building 3-D modeling in our computers for building design, which helps us as designers and engineers to not only visualize how a project will look but also to be more precise in our drawings and to work out and detect in advance any conflicts or clash of things like duct work and support beams," said Ronny Rahn, principal architect at TWH Architects Inc. "But in the past couple of years, virtual reality headsets have taken that to a whole new level and really give our clients a chance to immerse themselves in whatever facility we are designing."

TWH uses building information technology developed from the Revit autodesk software. The technology not only helps designers and clients to visualize buildings before they are erected, it also offers a cheaper and quicker way to make changes.

"One of the great things about doing everything in 3-D is we get better feedback from our clients," Rahn said.

Virtual reality can replace costly artist renderings, which can run $2,500 a pop and are outdated as soon as a client asks for a change. And virtual reality headsets are getting cheaper Facebook's Oculus Rift ships for $599, $200 less than rival HTC Vive and could become ubiquitous in coming years as prices fall more.

"We think there's a tremendous potential to help both us and our clients with virtual reality," Rahn said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340.

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How Virtual Reality Could Help Midwives Deliver Babies – Fortune

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Virtual reality has made inroads into several industries, and now it's coming to the delivery room.

The University of Newcastle in Australia has launched a new virtual reality project that aims at teaching midwives how to safely deliver babies in a "life-or-death situation." The virtual environment, which was announced on Friday, places midwifery students in a "real-world delivery room" and requires them to act quickly to resuscitate a newly born child. It depicts a child that needs resuscitation, tools that can be used to revive the child, and more. It also asks students to answer questions as they're dealing with the situation.

With 15% of births in Australia and New Zealand requiring some form of resuscitationa number even higher in premature babiesit is imperative our students feel comfortable and confident applying their experience in a time-critical, emergency environment, co-project leader Jessica Williams said in a statement.

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Virtual reality and augmented reality are widely considered useful tools for teaching people in the corporate and medical worlds important aspects to their jobs. Microsoft's HoloLens headset, for instance, is designed for corporate use and provides users the ability to see virtual elements overlaid on the real world. Virtual reality headsets, on the other hand, place users into a completely virtual world they can interact with.

The Newcastle project, which was earlier reported on by CNET, is using Samsung ( ssnlf ) Gear VR and HTC Vive virtual-reality headsets for its project. But the university also created an app that can run on iOS, Android, and the PC, so students can test themselves on the devices of their choosing. Newcastle is testing some midwifery students with the virtual reality headsets and some without. It plans to compare those results to determine whether the virtual option is worth using into the future.

In addition to its midwifery project, Newcastle is separately using Microsoft's ( msft ) HoloLens headset to teach students about the human body with software that projects different body parts and their functions for students to explore.

"We hope these key educational projects will progress health and medicine education in ways that havent been explored before," the university's innovation manager Craig Williams said in a statement.

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