82% of colleges use Facebook to recruit Students...!

Four out of five college admissions officers use Facebook to recruit students, according to last year’s survey by Kaplan Test Prep. “We found that 82 percent of admissions officers reported that their school is using Facebook to recruit students,” Russell Schaffer, Kaplan’s Senior Communication Manager, told All Facebook.

Now, I seriously doubt that the content of a prospective student’s Facebook profile is more important than their grades, extracurricular activities, or teacher recommendations, but it’s not that huge of a surprise that the social network is playing a role in the admission process. After all, if recruiters check Facebook when hiring future employees, there’s really no reason why schools can’t do the same for students. Sometimes your online profile can be the tiebreaker. It’s also important to note that the high number likely also includes college representatives finding interesting students online and encouraging them to apply to their school.

If you’re a student, there are two ways to take advantage of this information. On the one hand, you can try to make your Facebook profile as exemplary as possible. This is quite difficult given that you have to stay on top of what your Facebook friends tag you in and so on.

For more authorised info: ZDNet

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Now, protect your vehicle using passwords...!

Have you spent sleepless nights worried about the safety of your vehicle? Well, now you can be at ease. G Sankar Narayana, a technician in the Indian army and currently attached to the Queen Mary's Technical Institute (QMTI) at Khadki, has developed a security solution to prevent vehicle thefts.

The kit, developed by Narayana, has the facility to unlock and start the vehicle by entering a password which can prevent vehicle theft. The kit priced at Rs 270 has been developed using parts available in the local market. According to the police, on an average 3,000 cases of vehicle thefts are registered every year in Pune, which has a vehicle population of 20 lakh.
This kit is named as "security code engine starter".

If a thief tries to dismantle the kit or cut the wires to steal the vehicle, he will not be able to start the vehicle. But when the owner returns he can start the vehicle even if the kit is dismantled, with the help of the backup kit. It is a very low cost solution to prevent vehicle theft. If produced on a larger scale it can be even cheaper.
The kit could prove helpful in rural as well as urban areas. An option to change the password is available with the owner, making it more secure

For more Authorised info: Times of india

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Students who skip school are tracked by GPS..!

Skipping class, though frowned upon, is practically a rite of passage for young teens, but thanks to an elaborate system involving GPS being used by some school districts, it is practically being eliminated completely.

Basically any students in the seventh- or eighth-grade who have four or more unexcused absences over the course of a school year can be put into the Anaheim program. They will be assigned a GPS tracking device about the size of a cell phone, and they'll need to use it regularly
The newspaper said: 
    "Each morning on schooldays, [students will] get an automated phone call reminding them that they need to get to school on time.Then, five times a day, they are required to enter a code that tracks their locations – as they leave for school, when they arrive at school, at lunchtime, when they leave school and at 8 p.m.

The students are also assigned an adult coach who calls them at least three times a week to see how they are doing and help them find effective ways to make sure they get to class on time."

It's worth noting that while this anti-truancy program is very elaborate and almost invasive, it is also entirely optional. Students and their parents are offered the chance to voluntarily participate in the "monitoring as a way to avoid continuation school or prosecution with a potential stay in juvenile hall."

"The GPS devices cost $300-$400 each. Overall, the six-week program costs about $8 per day for each student, or $18,000. ... Because schools lose about $35 per day for each absent student, the program can pay for itself and more if students return to class consistently."

"Where the GPS technology has been implemented, average attendance among the chronically truant jumped from 77 percent up to 95 percent during the six-week program."

For more Authorised info: MSNBC

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Green Roofed Hillside Homes Blending Into their Environment...!

Austrian architects Tobias Weiss and Gernot Reisenhofer have designed a beautiful series ofterraced hillside homes that save energy by blending into their environment. Nestled against the surrounding hills, each green-roofed apartment takes advantage of passive solar design, rainwater recycling, and photovoltaic sunshades

Weiss and Reisenhofer designed their green hillside community with a variety of passive design features in mind. South-facing windows optimize daylighting and thermal gain in the cooler months, while natural ventilation and photovoltaic shading systems keep the interiors cool during the summer.
The community’s terraced layout ensures that each apartment has a beautiful view, complete with a stretch of green space out front that doubles as an insulating green roof for the unit below. The roofs are populated with local plants and feature rainwater recycling systems that help water the plants and provide greywater for use in the apartments. A series of pedestrian walkways winds between these rooftop parks, encouraging the use of sustainable transportation and creating a tightly knit community..

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