Spring 2015, issue 2

Winner of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Mark of Excellence award

The Florida Tech Crimson

Spring Issue 2 Jan. 27, 2015

IT discusses plans for wider Wi-Fi network coverage Photo by Ebube Ubochi Ebube Ubochi Sci/Tech Editor Ashley Montion Social Media Coordinator The number of communication devices that support Wi-Fi at Florida Tech has increased by 73 percent in the past three years, as of Jan. 2015.

Although there is no outdoor wireless at the moment, IT has been aggressively deploying devices, called access points, which can handle up to 30 wireless devices on average, according to Daniel Flores, IT director of infrastructure.

Flores predicts that Florida Tech will contain about 1500 access points by the end of 2015.

These points are pieces of equipment that allows wireless connectivity to a wired network.

Access points differ from routers because routers have ethernet capability, but access points are devices that give people the ability to connect to a wifi signal.

IT is working and allocating the resources necessary to reach that number.

“It’s a progression for our IT network. It started off as a nice and convenient add-on, whereas now everybody wants to have a wire-

less device,” Flores said. “People don’t want to plug into the wall anymore.”

Access points cost roughly $439,200 on their own. Once the cost of licensing has been included, the controllers cost about $100,000 each, with the support agreement for the system being valued at $60,000 a year.

Currently, the level of coverage varies in different areas on campus, and there are specific places that have been listed for proposed future coverage. Areas that have no coverage at the moment include sports fields and the parking deck behind Panther Dining Hall.

The Crawford Science Tower, the Gleason Performing Arts center and all residence halls have full indoor coverage. Buildings with partial indoor coverage are the Olin Physical Sciences Center, the Denius Student Center, second floor of Evans Library and the Harris Center for Science and Technology.

“The Wi-Fi slacks at times wherever you are, and it’s really frustrating,” said Kaleb Leach, a third year business and environmental science major. “I go to the library because I depend on it, especially during finals. I pay all this money to go to school here and areas like the library and my

dorm need to have Wi-Fi so I can do everything I need to get done.”

In IT’s latest online evaluation, students expressed a desire for complete outdoor coverage.

However, according to Flores, the department’s main concern is ensuring seamless connection in classrooms and student housing.

“I think it’s mainly a matter of expectation,” Flores said. “The truth is, we aren’t outfitted to do that today. If you get any signal outdoors, it’s just bleed-through from inside a building. I guess it was assumed that we have coverage outdoors.”

Currently, Florida Tech’s wireless network is operated with the state-of-the-art Aruba system, which has been in place for a relatively short time. Flores said Aruba has greatly simplified the management and maintenance of the system.

Sean Thompson, a first year astronomy and astrophysics major, said that he has experienced the most breaks in his connection when visiting video streaming sites and homework sites, as well as when checking his school email.

“I tend to lose connection a lot when going on anime sites: Netflix, Webassign, MasteringChemistry, MasteringPhysics and Florida Tech email,” he said. “I feel that

Harris’ $1 million contribution to provide facility for student work

they should add more hot spots for different residences so it goes more quickly than the whole school being on just PanthAIR.” At the moment, there is no discussion of adding other wireless networks on campus. Rather, the goal is to strengthen and improve accessibility to PanthAIR, the existing network.

Thompson believes that the strength of the wi-fi on campus has improved a bit this semester, based on the fact that he doesn’t experience as many failures. “Last semester, my Wi-Fi crashed at least once a month,” he said. Thompson believes that the Wi-Fi doesn’t live up to his expectations and can be improved substantially, citing Florida Tech’s status as a ‘tech school’ and its motto, ‘High Tech with a Human Touch.’

According to Flores, complete failure rarely occurs. “Now, there might be a certain area that’s overloaded or overwhelmed, especially in our partial coverage areas.”

The system itself can manage, even when the client connections are exhausted. The access points communicate and hand off to one another, but if there aren’t enough radios in that area, and there are more than 30 devices, the chances of getting on are limited.

Increasing number of students opt out of textbooks Fumiko Shinkawa Staff Writer

Photo courtesy of Florida Tech Newsroom

Alex Coultrup Campus Life Editor The Harris Corp.’s $1million gift will provide the funds necessary to build a Student Design Center on campus. The Design Center will be an upgrade from currently existing facilities and provide students with more opportunities for excellence.

Construction on the Student Design Center is scheduled to begin in February and will be completed in time for the Fall semester. The center will be constructed just west of the machine shop, which sits on the south side of campus.

The single-story building will include welding spaces, an overhead crane, a bay door 20 feet wide by 16 feet tall, and will cover 11,500 square feet.

Jim Tryzbiak, director of laboratories at Florida Tech, believes the new Student Design Center will provide a safer, more spacious environment for students to complete their projects. Currently, much of these projects’ design is done in assorted labs or other locations on campus.

Much of the construction of projects currently takes place in the machine shop.

“We have a monitoring system in place for when coverage fails in a certain areas. Switches are what power the access points, so if a switch fails or dies, that particular area loses power and we replace the dead switch after pinpointing its location,” Flores said. “So we do monitor all this, but there’s always the possibility for downtime in the hardware.”

Flores explained that outdoor coverage is part of their end goal.

“We will eventually work towards that, and we are aware that the majority of people want Wi-Fi outside,” Flores said. “We are planning to start deploying some time later this year.”

Constant complaints are directed toward the IT department regarding the connection speed and strength.“What most people forget is that it’s not as easy as deploying them,” he said of the access points. “We’ve had a delivery of 600 points come in and you need someone to run the wire and upgrade the switching equipment because it needs to be able to provide power, not just data.”

Flores said that all system failures of any extent are dealt with as swiftly and efficiently as possible, with a lot going on behind the scenes. “We work a lot harder at this than people see.” v

Many students know the dreadful, sinking feeling that innately comes with handing over hundreds of dollars to cover the new books for the semester. It seems that more and more students are finding alternate routes to obtain their textbooks or are opting out of that ritual, formerly seen as a necessary evil, entirely.

According to Ellie Turner, a manager at the campus bookstore who has seen students come and go for 26 years, sales at the bookstore have dropped because of other avenues through which students can get textbooks, or because students simply don’t get the books until they abso-

lutely need it when they’re usually in a frenzy.

However, Turner offered the bookstore’s rental program as an alternative and said that rentals are “almost 65 or 75 percent cheaper than buying the textbook.”

While the rental program is only a few years old, Turner said that, “once people got word of [the program] it did take off,” and she believed the numbers would continue to grow, despite the apparent popularity of eBooks.

“EBooks,” Turner said, “aren’t as big as people might think; most students don’t like the eBook.” Among the deterrents against eBooks, she

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Continues on page 4

Florida Tech announces affiliation with Larsen Motorsports: See back page

OPINIONS

2 - January 27, 2015

the Florida tech crimson

Game review

Dragon Age: Inquisition Fumiko Shinkawa Staff Writer Dropped lines of dialogue, broken cutscenes and constant freezing (usually while saving), requiring a forced shutdown and restart of the system; these were some of my experiences with Dragon Age: Inquisition.

It was one my most anticipated release of the year and one of the most disappointingly buggy experiences I’ve ever had, as far as triple A releases go.

The surprising part? It was worth every infuriating second I had to stare lovingly into Stroud’s befuddled, unspeaking face where important, plot-moving dialogue should have been.

Visually, the game is much prettier than Dragon Age’s previous installments, but that’s not saying much.

The character creation offers a depth that the previous games have not, but with its 4-axis sliders, “normal-looking” faces can be hard to create if you don’t have an eye for facial structure.

Additionally, the facial textures seemed unfortunately waxy,

at least on the PS3 version of the game — reminiscent of the PS3 port of the first installment of Bioware’s other giant, Mass Effect.

There isn’t much to say about the game’s graphics because, frankly, nothing is particularly notable for better or worse.

As far as gameplay, Dragon Age: Inquisition’s biggest sell was its “tactical mode:” Allowing players to issue commands to each party member and execute them simultaneously from an overhead camera position.

But this style of gameplay, which had been sorely missed in Dragon Age’s second installment, came at the cost of its extensive tactics system, which gave players the opportunity to “program” their party members’ actions using “If … then …” styled statements.

The new tactics (or behaviors) page has now been boiled down to disabling the use of an ability or setting the priority of an ability — the frequency they will use the ability.

Surprisingly, though, the tactical mode was entirely elective on the default, “normal” difficulty. Even dragons, so long as you faced them at roughly the

same level, fell easily and without much hassle. That is, if you can bear the unyielding stupidity of party members who cannot be managed except by being directly controlled, and because health potions are shared by the entire party, your party members’ wastefulness can quickly become the most difficult part of the game.

But on the whole, the combat of Inquisition is a pleasant combination of its predecessors, combining the speed and fluidity of Dragon Age 2 with the opportunity for skill and thought in the tactical view that was so wellreceived in Dragon Age: Origins.

So, what is it that makes Dragon Age: Inquisition so worth playing? As has become expected of Bioware, they truly deliver in terms of characters.

Unlike in Dragon Age 2, the characters feel organic and relatable — as you speak to them, you discover their interests outside of your adventure, learn their pasts and come to understand their viewpoints, even if you disagree with them.

When it came time for me to make difficult decisions that would affect the futures, or lack thereof,

of characters, I labored over the options. Who would I support as the next religious leader of Thedas? What was more important to me, a stable country or a competent leader?

But, most importantly, the decisions made in previous Dragon Age games seem important and weigh heavily on the events of Inquisition. The game tempts you into multiple playthroughs if only to see what can change.

For all that this game offers in story, it matches — or even surpasses — in filler. Each of the expansive areas has its share of fetch quests, items to search for and menial, annoying puzzles to solve. Each has its own rewards, but eventually no prize seems worth the monotony. Unlike the previous games, side quests introduce you to no memorable players.

While some minor characters from Dragon Age: Origins make a notable and exciting appearance in Inquisition, it seems that there are no characters from this game that I might recognize in future installments.

This lack of memorable stories and interesting minor characters is a real letdown for me and

will definitely discourage me from doing any unnecessary wandering in future plays of this game.

There aren’t enough hours to delve into this game for all of its hundreds of hours of gameplay, but what you should take away from this review is this: Inquisition tells a powerful and interesting story, filled with interesting and dynamic major players that will stick with you long after the story has been told.

Its combat is an adjustment that is, for the most part, faithful to its players’ complaints, but in some ways it feels like an unnecessary step backwards.

With many of the bugs fixed post-release, the game has become much more playable since my first experience with it, when it crashed pretty reliably with every other save.

If you’re interested in rich and interesting storytelling, this game is well worth your time and while I have heard of people playing this series purely for its combat, I think it would be an extremely dry experience. v

CAPS PSA: Relationship Nutrition Kendra Bartel CAPS Outreach Columnist Students are given a lot of information on how to eat healthy, keep their bodies healthy and even keep their mind healthy. You also need healthy relationships! Did you know relationships could be unhealthy? It’s hard to imagine that being with the one we care for and love could actually not be good for us. So, let’s look at just what this means and how we can find and maintain healthy relationships.

What is an unhealthy relationship?

Unhealthy relationships are often based on power and control rather than equality and respect.

This basically means that in an unhealthy relationship, one person has more control over another and they use that power against the one they are with. This power and control is not consensual, making it unhealthy and unsafe.

What might behaviors look like in an unhealthy relationship?

The best way to see if your relationship is based off power and control is to look at behaviors or actions of your significant other.

You can even look at your own behaviors or actions. Behaviors may include yelling, possessiveness, verbal insults, extreme jealousy, angry accusations or even humiliation. They may also include physical forms of control, such as hair pulling, pushing, hitting, and excessive rough housing. All of these things are ways that one person is using control over another person.

At first these things may not seem problematic, but over time it can become a dangerous problem.

What should healthy relationships have?

Communication: In a relationship, it is important that those invested talk to one another. This means expressing when you are happy, sad, angry or confused.

If those in a relationship do not talk to one another, it hinders the relationship from growing. Being able to have open and honest communication is one of the most important aspects to a happy, safe and healthy relationship.

Equality: Relationships should be equal! This means that both partners work together in discussing ideas and making decisions, as well as in expressing thoughts and feelings. No one should have more power or say than the other.

Mutual Respect: Both of those in a relationship should have respect for the other’s feelings and thoughts. It is also important to let your partner know that his/her feelings, thoughts, ideas, and emotions have value.

The ability to compromise: When spending a lot of time with someone, disagreements are very likely to arise. No matter how much you care for someone you will not always be able to agree with him or her. Instead of fighting or allowing major conflict to happen between partners, a compromise should be made. This does not mean one person agrees or gives in to another, but that each party in the relationship agrees to meet in the middle. Sometimes you may even have to agree to disagree. This is not a bad thing, but a solution.

Support one another: It’s that simple: support the one you care for! Having support from the one you care for is one of the most important things. There should be encouragement given to one another in a relationship. A rela-

tionship should be about making one another feel good, rather than feeling beat down or upset.

Boundaries: These are not meant to be restrictions or guidelines that do not allow those in a relationship to enjoy life. Boundaries are ways to express what makes you feel safe and comfortable in a relationship. One of the most important boundaries you can have is knowing how to say no.

This could mean not wanting to go out or not wanting to engage in sexual intimacy. Some people may also need to set up a boundary of personal space. This does not mean those in the relationship do not care, but simply that they need personal time. This could be spending an hour a day working out alone, reading a book, or getting homework done. Sometimes people need to take time to think and regroup alone. Boundaries should never be taken personally or be harmful, but rather they are ways to build a deeper understanding of the relationship at hand.

Also, remember that boundaries should be set up together, because this will make them feel less like rules and also keep everyone informed! Boundaries will also give those involved mutual respect for one another.

What should I do if I think my relationship is not healthy?

Safety: You must think about your safety. If you are feeling unsafe or have been placed in unsafe situations, contact someone immediately. You must focus on your own needs, and this may mean speaking out and getting out.

Never hesitate to call 911, or campus security (321-674-8111) if you feel you need help immediately or have been hurt.

Reassess: Keep in mind your own needs, thoughts and wants.

What is making you feel like your relationship isn’t healthy? Think over your feelings and why you may be feeling that way. Remember that you always deserve to feel cared for, safe, and accepted in a relationship. If your needs are not being met or you are being hurt this is not a positive or healthy situation.

Reach out: Even if the situation isn’t dangerous, it is still important to reach out for support!

Talk to a friend or a family member about what you feel and what is going on. Even talk to your significant other about your feelings (if it is safe). You may also want to

try couples’ counseling to resolve any issues you may both be having.

Couples’ counseling is a great way to work through difficulties in a safe and supportive environment.

If you are struggling in a relationship, feel that it may not be healthy, or just want someone to talk to about your relationship, contact Counseling and Psychological Services. We realize it can be uncomfortable to reach out for help, but we hope you do contact us when you need us. CAPS is just one of many resources at Florida Tech that supports maintaining a happy and healthy you!v

3 -January 27, 2015

CAMPUS LIFE

The Florida tech crimson

Electronic sign to provide information, convenience for students

Photo courtesy of Marketing and Communications, Florida Tech

Alex Coultrup Staff Writer Electronic signage is frequent enough on freeways and in construction zones, but soon, it may have a home here at Florida Tech. Student Activities Funding Committee and other branches of

Student Government are working on a project to integrate a programmable screen into Panther Plaza.

The screen will be located above the west entrance to the Student Union Building, adjacent to Panther Plaza, and will serve to inform students about campus activities and events.

“It has been a goal of student government for the last three years

to try to get electronic signage up,” said Rodney Bowers, dean of students. The screen will receive funding from SAFC and other budgets, including Student Activities.

For some time, apprehensions by the administration put the plans on hold. Other universities installing screens similar to this one have encountered problems with visibility. However, Bowers

said, contemporary signage is very easy to see, even at a distance.

A large portion of the information displayed on the screen will come from the FIT Event Management System, a service currently accessible at the website, fit.edu.

The EMS is a system used to keep record of all the events that happen on campus.

In addition to advertising events, the electronic sign will provide information to students in the form of video footage, such as educational vignettes and campus informational videos.

The screen will be sophisticated enough to enable remote streaming of campus events. “If an event is happening like athletics in the Clemente center, graduation, or if there’s a concert in Gleason we can actually video stream it outside so you can relax and watch it in the plaza,” said Bowers.

Movie nights in the Plaza have also been among the suggestions for the screen’s other uses.

Bowers said that construction is scheduled for summer break, allowing the screen to become operational by the Fall semester.

The screen will be located on the SUB’s brick façade, a location typically used for large banners and posters about campus activities and upcoming events.

The introduction of this electronic screen means that the school will no longer need to routinely purchase and dispose of these banners.

The minimum size of the screen will match the size of the double glass doors of the SUB. “We’re thinking at least eight by eight feet,” said Bowers, “but the larger we go, the more costly it becomes.”

The exact cost to initially install the screen is not yet known.

Student Affairs met with the company supplying the screen early in January and should receive quotes in the future, said Financial Coordinator of Student Affairs Joanne Green in an emailed statement.

Regarding long-term operation of the screen, Bowers said that cost would be minimal. “There’s a maintenance fee we’ll have to pay, and a long-term contract that will all be built into the cost.” These fees will cover repairs and weather damage.

Current banner purchases can cost the school anywhere from $250- $600 depending on size and the number of colors used.

“I’m excited about it,” Bowers said. “This is something we’ve been trying to get done.” v

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Harris’ $1 million contribution to provide facility for student work Continued from page 1 Alex Coultrup Campus Life Editor “Right now, the space we use for projects is limited,” said Tryzbiak. “So, the Design Center will give a lot more indoor workspace. A lot of time in the past, students have had to work outside on their projects.” Students often work in teams of up to ten people per project.

With proper electrical outlets, tools and storage space accommodated for in the Design Center, students will be able to work more efficiently and safely in the future.

This donation continues a tradition of Florida Tech’s relationship with Harris Corp. “I’ve been in this job a little over a year,” said Tryzbiak, “and I’ve already accepted three or four donations.”

Tryzbiak explained that Harris often donates mechanical parts to the school. “Generally, it’s a lot of recently obsolete things that they can’t use,” he said. “The parts, however, are useful for educational purposes. A lot of it is material

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campus life

that we can use for senior design projects and things like that.”

“Harris has been good to us; we have a good rapport with them,” Tryzbiak said. The parts donated by Harris Corp. are all top quality items that cost a lot of money to build. Florida Tech receives the parts for free instead of having to use money from a project fund. With the donations provided, Florida Tech has been able to give students experience working with the latest materials at no extra charge.

“We are fortunate to have a top technological university such as Florida Tech so close to our world headquarters,” stated William M. Brown, president of Harris Corporation, according to a release by the Florida Tech Newsroom.

Brown expressed that the Harris Corp. is pleased to provide equipment to promote active learning at Florida Tech.

“Today’s students are our employees of tomorrow,” Brown said. “It’s exciting to continue the long-standing, unique relationship we have with Florida Tech and build the advanced workforce we will need in the future.” v

Professor arrested A Florida Tech faculty member was arrested on Jan. 23.

John Paul Holmquist, a visiting assistant professor for the Nathan M. Bisk College of Business, was arrested for an out-of-county warrant on Friday.

Holmquist has several previous infractions in Brevard County, including traffic infractions and mortgage foreclosures, dating from 2003 to 2009.

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Increasing number of students opt out of textbooks

Photo courtesy of Fumiko Shinkawa

Story from page 1 Fumiko Shinkawa Staff Writer said, “if there’s an open book test, [students are] not allowed to take an electronic book in.”

Of the six students spoken to, three didn‘t prefer eBooks.

Russell Smith, a junior majoring in business, was the only one that strongly preferred digital copies, having only bought one of his six books in print.

According to Ellie Turner, 80 percent of the books in the store are available for rental, 35 of the 53 (66.4 percent) Florida Tech students polled said that they had never rented a book from the campus bookstore.

The campus bookstore is not the students body’s only rental option.

Brad Bunk, a senior in software engineering, said that he had never rented from the bookstore because, “they’re more expensive than other places to rent.”

Gonzalo Rivera, a junior in aeronautics engineering, also said that he usually rented his textbooks from Amazon or purchased Kindle eBooks.

Though he usually purchased all of his books, like 39.62 percent of the students surveyed, he usually waited until the last possible moment to purchase his books to try and determine

whether or not they were necessary.

This sentiment was common among both the students surveyed and those that were interviewed.

Brad Bunk said he never bought all of the recommended readings for his classes, “because they’re expensive, also [because] you don’t use them in half your classes, especially not in computer science,” Bunk said.

“Google solves all problems.”

Pratik Sarkar, a chemical engineering major, said that he usually set aside as much as $400 per semester for books and said, “everyone needs them, but even the small books are $100.

Of the 48 students polled, sixteen of them said that they typically spent between $100 and $200 on books per semester, while twelve estimated slightly higher at $201 to $300. Estimations went as high as $800 or $1,000.

While some students come out of the first week of classes relatively unscathed by the prices of textbooks, 83 percent of students are still turning out their pockets, be it at the campus bookstore, or hunched over their laptops. v

7 - January 27, 2015

SCI/TECH

The Florida tech crimson

Google’s Project Zero Announces Security Bugs in Windows and OS X Chris Pangalos Staff Writer Mid last year, Google announced their “Project Zero” which, according to Google, attempts to make the internet safer by minimizing zero-day vulnerabilities. Project Zero is composed of a team of Google researchers that search for security bugs in not just Google software, but any software depended upon by large numbers of people, and announces them to the manufacturer.

“Zero-day” vulnerabilities refer to exploits that the developers have not yet had a chance to patch, which in many cases may be sold

to government agencies or hacker groups to be used in cyber attacks.

While Google says that Project Zero’s purpose is to give manufacturers the heads-up and prevent these bugs from being exploited by criminals, the catch is that Google gives a 90-day disclosure deadline. If the manufacturer fails to patch the bug within 90 days, it is announced to the public on code.google.com and is readily accessible by anyone, from a cyber terrorist to an unsuspecting 10 year-old.

In a way, this system forces manufacturers to keep their software secure and up-to-date instead of ignoring problems. On the other hand, however, it may cause more damage by giving

the public access to bugs that they otherwise wouldn’t have known about. While it may show how irresponsible the software manufacturers are, in many cases it is going to be the users who suffer the most.

Although one would expect manufacturers to rush to fix these bugs as soon as they’re reported, that hasn’t always been the case and there have been multiple cases of Google announcing unpatched bugs in Windows and recently OS X. On Dec. 30 and Jan. 11, Google announced several bugs in Windows 8.1 and included sample attack code. According to The Register, Microsoft asked Google to withhold the information until a fix was released on Jan. 13, Google refused to change their deadline

and Microsoft Security Response Center director Chris Betz stated in a blog, “the decision feels less like principles and more like a ‘gotcha’ with customers the ones who may suffer as a result”.

According to Computerworld, Microsoft and Google have argued over conflicting disclosure policies since 2010 when Microsoft called for Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure, meaning researchers should not disclose vulnerabilities until a patch is made, while Google instead called for a 60 day deadline to patch bugs.

Apple’s OS X has recently run into a similar issue after failing to meet Project Zero’s 90 day deadline. According to CNET, Google announced three major

vulnerabilities in OS X that could allow an individual with access to a computer running the operating system to elevate their privilege level and take over the system.

They also included a sample exploit showing how to do it.

Again, this raises the question of whether more users will suffer from hackers knowing how to create bugs, or benefit from manufacturers being forced to patch them. v

Gadget Corner Joseph Stoltz Staff Writer

Continuing the gadget coverage on this year’s CES event in Las Vegas, I bring you a couple more gadgets whose developers seek to make a place for them in the world, a place that will allow their devices to grow in popularity and become tools that make our lives easier. Who am I kidding? These gadgets won’t get farther than pizza at a college party.

Lamborghini decided it wasn’t enough to have extremely expensive cars, for now the company seeks to stick their luxurious money-sucking vampire fangs further into your wallets with the introduction of their smartphone known as the 88 Tauri.

According to ZDNet, the 88 Tauri comes equipped with a nice 20-megapixel camera which is better than the cameras on the flagship phones for both Samsung and LG. The phone has a 5-inch display with a resolution of 1080p, but considering the that cell phone manufacturers are beginning to use displays with Quad HD displays, 1080p is becoming somewhat outdated. Overall, there is nothing really special about the phone other than the fact that it sports the Lamborghini name.

If you’re a Lamborghini fan, but don’t have a trust fund, then prepare for a letdown since the 88 Tauri will set you back a hefty $6,000. For that price, the gold trim on the phone had better be actual gold, but somehow I have the feeling it’s sadly not.

The next gadget I bring you makes as much sense as a cat wearing nail polish and is probably just as useful. Making the situation even worse, the creators named the gadget Ring; they must have had a really hard time coming up with that name since it’s so creative.

Getting straight to the point, the Ring is a device that the reads gestures of your finger to perform preset tasks assigned through your cell phone. These tasks can range from making phone calls to taking pictures simply by drawing random signs in the air that will probably have people on the street question your sanity. I think ZDNet puts it best with “What’s the point? Nobody knows.”

If you’re interested in possibly getting your finger broken off for pointing it in the wrong direction or making random gestures at the wrong person, the Ring will set you back its currently set price of $130; if this was made by Lamborghini, it would probably be priced at $6,130.

The next gadget I have for you is more of a novelty, but it can serve to help you remember that there’s always electricity running when a cable is left plugged into the wall. This supposedly will help prevent wasting electricity, hence its name: Power Tap. Power Tap looks exactly like a water spigot, complete with a movable knob to allow or prevent electricity to flow to its single USB port located at the end of the “spout.” According to CNET, when the handle is turned to the off position, the gadget will use 85% less power compared to when it’s turned on; the remaining 15% is used to power the lights used to show the device as being on or off.

If you’d like your own novelty Power Tap, it will run a steep price considering the fact that there’s not really much to it. Currently, it’s only available through Aeropostale and will cost you $27.50, which is a premium price for a wall USB adaptor.

Photo by cnet.com

Panasonic recently unveiled their new Smart Mirror in hopes of revolutionizing one of the most common and handy objects in our daily lives.

The mirror uses cameras to display an image as a mirror normally would, but where the Smart Mirror differs is the fact that it has many options to adjust the cosmetic image of yourself.

In a demo reaching out to women, Panasonic used its mirror to show women how it can be used to adjust their image with almost any form and shade of makeup imaginable.

All that has to done is to simply move through the mirror’s many options and select what looks best; the mirror even has the ability to adjust the image of finer features such as eyebrows.

In an attempt to show the uses of the Smart Mirror for men, Panasonic gave a demo of facial hair adjustments enabling a man to see how he’d look with that mustache or beard which he always thought about, but didn’t want to spend time growing.

While there isn’t much information about Panasonic’s mirror, some luxury clothing stores are making plans to install similar mirrors to allow customers to view how they’d look in different clothes and colors without actually changing clothes. However, what I’d personally like to see the most out of these mirrors are some good old fashioned pranks, such as hacking into the machine so every woman had her own mustache, and every man would be in a dress. v

Photo by cnet.com

SPORTS the Florida tech crimson

January 27, 2015

University announces new affiliation with Larsen Motorsports

Photos courtesy of Larsen Motorsports

Rebekah Duntz Editor-in-Chief Florida Tech is now partnering with Larsen Motorsports, a jet-car racing company, and students should expect to see some changes in the Fall 2015 semester.

On Jan. 29 at 2 p.m., Florida Tech and Larsen Motorsports will announce and unveil the Florida Tech Jet Dragster car at the Panthereum.

Elaine and Chris Larsen, founders of Larsen Motorsports, said that they’ve been looking to partner with Florida Tech for a long time. Most of the

people on Larsen teams have aerospace or engineering backgrounds, and the team of racers is all-female.

“Florida Tech has always been on our radar, and for the past six years we’ve paid very close attention,” Chris Larsen said.

Larsen Motorsports has been looking for a place to move its base of operations, and looking for a partner that fit well with what they do. They will now occupy the Florida Tech-owned Intersil building on Palm Bay Road, using it as their main building of operations, which includes five race teams.

“By coming here and occupying

this amazing space that you have down in Palm Bay road, we’re going to be able to enhance what you’re already great at,” said Elaine Larsen. “We’ll be taking students and make a better person for the real world.”

Since Florida Tech is an engineering-based school, the opportunity to partner with turbine-powered race teams seemed like a perfect fit for Larsens Motorsports, said Elaine Larsen.

As part of the affiliation, students will receive an exclusive opportunity to intern with Larsen Motorsports, working with real life engineering applications. Students will have the opportu-

nity to work on the jet cars.

“We give you guys a chance to be a part of our company. When we work on these cars and they go down the track, it has my drivers’ lives in their hands,” said Elaine Larsen. “If they have a misstep, it could mean a disaster for the car, a disaster for the driver. It’s real world, life and death.”

Internship opportunities do not include driving positions, but will be available exclusively to Florida Tech students of all majors. v