By Cynthia Herbert :: 3:11 AM
Harvard University has admitted that it searched through the e-mail accounts and files of several employees last year while trying to discover who was leaking information to the media about a cheating scandal at the institution.
The University did not inform the employees that had their e-mail searched that it had done so until several months after the investigation had been completed. The search involved the e-mail accounts of 16 Harvard resident deans.
Resident deans serve a dual role on the Ivy League campus – both of University administrator and faculty member, as they have teaching responsibilities as well as administrative duties fulfilled by living in Harvard’s undergraduate dormitories and serving as student advisors. No resident deans, or any other employees, have been disciplined as a result of the cheating scandal.
In August of 2012, resident deans had been advised, through e-mail, how to counsel students who had been accused of cheating at the institution. Earlier reports claim that about  half of all students enrolled in a large government class in the spring semester of 2012 had cheated in some fashion. The students either worked in groups, collaborated on a take-home exam, or plagiarized some materials.
The news of the e-mail search will likely cause consternation with Harvard’s faculty. The search itself seems to have been done in violation of the University’s electronic privacy policy. Although the University retains the right to search e-mail and electronic files to fulfill obligations of legal proceedings and investigations, they may not do so unless the faculty member has been notified of the search ahead of time. None of the 16 involved had any prior knowledge of the search.
By Paul Thomson :: 1:55 AM
Samsung will unveil their new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy 4S on Thursday during an event that the company will broadcast live in Times Square.
The South Korean electronics company already sells more handsets than any other manufacturer in the marketplace, but up until now, hasn’t been able to touch Apple at the high end of the market.
Analysts with IDC are saying that the 4S could be the inertia that Samsung needs to take the number one spot away from Apple and the iPhone.
Quoted in The Guardian, IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo says, “Apple is not the one leading the market. I wouldn’t be surprised if the new Samsung device sells more than the new Apple device over the next two years.”
In the rumor mill department, leaks from a Taiwanese website seem to point to the S4 will shipping with a 5-inch full HD display with a 1920 x 1080 resolution – a display that would have a pixel density of around 440 pixels per inch (PPI), putting it well above Apple’s current Retina display technology.
By Gilbert Falso :: 10:42 AM
SimCity, the long-awaited game from Electronic Arts that was the modern-day update to the 80s original, has encountered much difficulty since its launch earlier this week, due to the game’s requirement of an always-on Internet connection for play.
The game, where the player is in control of a virtual city, building roads, providing municipal services, surviving disaster situtations, etc., relies on connecting to Electronic Arts’ servers for support of game infrastructure, and the company was not prepared on the back end of the popularity of the game at launch. The game relies on Electronic Arts’ content delivery network, Origin.
In a statement released yesterday, Electronic Arts acknowledged the problem and said that it is working to address it, but admitted that a fix will take some time. “We are aggressively undergoing maintenance on our servers to add the necessary capacity to meet the demand. Players may continue to play throughout the weekend but we want to note that performance will fluctuate during this time.”
Gameplay issues are so bad, that online retailer Amazon has added a disclaimer to the game
Some gamers who purchased the title directly from Electronic Arts have inquired about a refund of their purchase, due to the unplayable nature of the game. An Electronic Arts community manager initially stated that refunds would be possible, although a later Tweet from the company (below) seems to negate this fact.
Regarding recent confusion: In general we do not offer refunds on digital download games. Please review our policy help.ea.com/article/return…
— Origin (@OriginInsider) March 7, 2013
A selection of other Tweets below shows that many players are unhappy with the current status of SimCity playability:
A real shame that such a promising game in SimCity is being ruined by EA’s need to have DRM via a constant internet connection
— Ben Temple (@Trundlez) March 8, 2013
Well the new @simcity is awful! Paid for a game I can’t even play! Unbelievable, can’t believe I waited years for this! #wantmymoneyback
— Kai Shepherd (@TheQuillGuyKai) March 8, 2013
@simcity i can’t even get a game going this is ridiculous, you need to sort something out and fast, why not make an offline mode?
— THE CLONE (@TH3_CLONE) March 8, 2013
By Cynthia Herbert :: 1:33 AM
The Motorola Mobility unit at Google will shed some 1,200 jobs in an effort to constrain challenges at the company’s cell phone business.
Initially reported in the Wall Street Journal and confirmed in other outlets late yesterday, the cuts amount to a drop of about 10% in the division’s workforce.
A statement issued by Motorola confirms the job losses, saying, “these cuts are a continuation of the reductions we announced last summer.” Back in August, Google had said that at least 4,000 were in jeopardy.
Motorola’s Mobility division makes Android smartphones, Android tablets, Bluetooth accessories, set tops, DVRs, and an array of other mobile communications products.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 12:56 AM
Results of a long-term study from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have revealed that as Facebook has made changes to its privacy setting controls, users were sharing more private information with their friends and “others†than they realized.
The “others†category of information recipients includes Facebook itself, Facebook’s third-party application developers, and Facebook advertisers.
CMU researchers used data from over 5,000 Facebook users who were members of  the university’s network to examine how privacy and sharing evolved from 2005 through 2011.
The study examines Facebook’s departure from a public place to one that is more private, where users can choose their audience, Jules Polonetsky, director and co-chair of the Future of Privacy Forum told ABC news. “More people are being more active, but they’re doing it in a way that allows them to interact more directly with the audience they intend to.â€
In the years 2005 through 2009, users decreased the amount of information they shared publicly on Facebook, until 2009, when the social network changed how the default privacy settings worked – then, they saw an uptick in sharing, most likely due to confusion with privacy settings.
Researchers said the results of the study which used a data set mostly comprised of undergraduate college students, might not extrapolate the same to a larger segment of Facebook users.