On February 21st, WCPO ran a story on a new app developed by undergraduates at Ohio State. Called the SOAR Initiative, the app offers users a safe way to report batches of illegal drugs laced with deadly ingredients, like fentanyl, without contacting the police directly.
Around Christmas of last year, Cincy Magazine published a story about a pilot program that the Kroger chain of grocery stores had unveiled in Centerville. The Centerville Kroger Marketplace began using drones to deliver grocery orders in July of 2021. The chief technology officer of Drone Express; a drone manufacturer out of Monroe, Ohio, which has partnered with Kroger; had this to say about the program: "'Autonomous drones have unlimited potential to improve everyday life, and our technology opens the way to safe, secure, environmentally friendly deliveries for Kroger customers,...The possibilities for customers are endless—we can enable Kroger customers to send chicken soup to a sick friend or get fast delivery of olive oil if they run out while cooking dinner.
On Friday of last week, as reported by WCPO, a Zoom panel led by Mason High School's Black Student Union was Zoom bombed with "hate speech and disturbing images." Zoom bombing occurs when a Zoom (or similar platform's) video conference is disrupted by someone who was not invited to the meeting.
In January, Spectrum News 1 explored issues surrounding the recruitment of IT professionals in Ohio on the their Dear Ohio podcast. The program interviewed three people: Ohio General Assembly representative Mark Frazier (R-Newark); Lisa Chambers, National Executive Director of Tech Corps, a company that provides technology training for a variety of age groups; and Nick York, president of the Ohio Innovation and Technology Association.
This week, AT&T announced its new AT&T Access Plan, which would provide assistance to low-income families to pay for high-speed internet. As reported by The Verge, "eligible customers get 'up to 100 Mbps of symmetrical speeds' for $30 per month — a big upgrade from where the 10 or 25 megabits per second for $10 per month the plan used to max out.
Note: copy edits made 02/10/22 at 12:33 pm
In 2019, WCPO ran a story about a special event that took place just outside of the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal. Sponsored by Proctor & Gamble, the event drew female STEM students from schools around the tri-state to compete in a rocketry competition.
EDIT: The original version of this post stated that there had been no power outages in Texas at the time of publication. This was not accurate. We have changed the relevant lines to reflect the truth. We apologize if this caused any confusion.
-- 6:12 pm, 02/03/22
The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous winter weather warning for the Cincinnati area until 7:00 am on Friday, February 4th.
It's no secret that the last few years have been especially dire when it comes to cybercrime. Several large scale ransomware attacks, in which cyber criminals use advanced encryption to lock a person or organization out of their own data until they pay a ransom, have rocked the country.
Quick Announcement: We're changing gears today. Moving forward, we'll be focusing on general IT issues as they relate to the local Cincinnati, tri-state area. Stay tuned.
Marc Saltzman, in a special column for USA Today, recently explored different methods for getting rid of old hardware.
Quick announcement: The day after we published our post on the chip shortage, Intel unveiled plans to build a new chip manufacturing facility in Ohio, which they claim will be the largest in the world. For more information, check out this story in City Beat magazine.