Safety questioned in hands-free texting apps An article in the November issue of Scientific American revealed a surprising twist to the popularity concerning hands-free texting apps, such as Voice Text Pro and DriveSafe.ly. Developers assumed that, since drivers would not need to take their eyes off the road to use[Read More…]
Science & Technology
The latest in science and technology.
BBM for smartphones receives unexpected hype
After firing 4,500 employees due to sales losses and signing an agreement to sell the company to FairFax Financial for $4.7 billion USD, what could BlackBerry Ltd. possibly do to regain its momentum in the smartphone industry? Perhaps releasing its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service for free to Android and iPhone users[Read More…]
Research briefs
Technology and medicine join forces through an in-home HIV test Despite approximately 2.5 million new cases of HIV each year worldwide, six out of 10 go undiagnosed. Dr. Nitika Pant Pai and her team at the Royal Victoria Hospital of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) hope to address this[Read More…]
What’s the science behind werewolves and zombies?
The legend of a howling man who shape-shifts by the light of the full moon strikes a particular chord come Halloween, as do the sunken eyes of flesh-hungry zombies that populate contemporary horror fiction. Both of these creatures stem from a long line of folklore, but like most myths, these[Read More…]
Montreal’s maple trees: where monoculture meets bigotry
If you take a walk up Mount Royal, you may notice that about a third of all the yellow leaves have peculiar black spots. These spots are caused by Rhytisma, a black tar fungus which lives parasitically in the leaves of deciduous forest species, and is killing Montreal’s maple trees.[Read More…]
WildCard app acquires an academic spin
When does add/drop end? When will the finals schedule be released? These are all questions many McGill students struggle to find the answer to online, and that is where WildCard comes in. Tom Zheng and Randeep Singh started WildCard with a simple concept in 2011. According to Zheng, “It started[Read More…]
McGill alumni foster budding entrepreneurs on campus
It started with an email and ended with a company. For two McGill alumni, Brian Luong and Sepand Norouzi, the Next 36 program was the perfect opportunity to kick-start their entrepreneurial careers. Founded in 2010, the Next 36 is an entrepreneurial and leadership program that helps develop Canada’s 36 most[Read More…]
Ask Scitech
Perhaps the easiest lie to detect is when someone says they have never lied. From social fibs, in which a person lies in order to protect someone else’s feelings or to benefit others, to self-enhancement fibs, in which a person lies to save face or avoid consequences. In a nutshell,[Read More…]
McGill Hackers battle it out in 30-hour MIT ‘hack-a-thon’
Thirty hours, more than 1,000 hackers and over $10,000 in prizes—this was HackMIT. Hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the picturesque town of Cambridge, Massachusetts, HackMIT brought programmers from every level to participate in a ‘hack-a-thon.’ The purpose of the event was to create a product or[Read More…]
Midterm season app reviews
Study Blue StudyBlue is one of several flashcard apps available online and for iPhone and Android. The app allows you to make digital flashcards and flip through them while keeping track of your progress. You can also share flashcards with peers. Each flashcard can contain text and pictures, and the[Read More…]
