The Pitt News
The independent student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh | PIttnews.com | january 12,2017 | Volume 107 | Issue 101
Pitt names Cyber Institute Director
Ashwini Sivaganesh and Alexa Bakalarski News Editors
Pitt announced the director of the new Pitt Cyber Institute, which will focus on addressing and teaching issues of cyber security, Wednesday morning. The university appointed David J. Hickton as the head of the institute, a new interdisciplinary teaching and research facility that will work with the School of Computing and Information to combat cybercrime as well as address personal security and Internet security. Both are set to open in July. Before taking the position at Pitt, Hickton served as western Pennsylvania’s U.S. Attorney from 2010 until he stepped down in November of last year. The Post-Gazette reported Hickton was the first U.S. attorney to resign after Donald Trump became president-elect on Nov. 8, although Hickton didn’t comment on whether his resignation and Trump’s election were related. At Pitt, Hickton said he will work closely with faculty members who were recently associated with the new computing school to find innovative ways to approach the topic of cyber security, but hasn’t determined whether the Institute will offer new courses. In order to merge his cyber security
PITT PLAYS GAMES WITH NEW WI-FI NETWORK First-year students Cameron Kisailus (left) and Nathan Sugrue (right) play video games in Nordenberg denberg Hall using Pitt’s new gaming Wi-Fi network. Jeff Ahearn SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Ashwini Sivaganesh and Alexa Bakalarski News Editors
When they aren’t in class, some students spend their time trekking through the forest for lost treasure while others creep through cityscapes stealing expensive cars. Some brave dorm-dwellers slay demons while their neighbors steer rocket-powered buggies to score goals. Video games are a classic pastime — and in some cases lifestyle — for many students on Pitt’s campus. To accommodate their needs, Pitt created a gaming See Cyber Director on page 3 Wi-Fi network this semester that roughly
1,000 students are now using to connect their consoles in Pitt dormitories. Pitt’s Computing Services and Systems Development booted up the “Pitt Gaming Network” Jan. 2, to provide an easier way for Pitt students living in residence halls to connect their Smart TVs and gaming consoles to Pitt’s network, Pitt spokesperson Joe Miksch said. Previously, students had to connect their device to a laptop for Wi-Fi access and then connect the whole setup to the wall with an ethernet cable. Now, students can have a completely wireless connection, or with an ethernet cable to the wall without the laptop component.
Students can connect to the network after registering their device, by submitting a MAC Address Registration Request form to CSSD, and following instructions on Pitt’s technology website. Miksch said CSSD created the network based on student feedback from consultants who work in residence halls, Help Desk questions and the Wireless Feedback Survey on My Pitt. The new network doesn’t support functions that share network feed meaning people can’t track what is sent on the network and other advanced functions, See Gaming on page 2
News
A previous version of the story “SGB talks 2017 election, student involvement for future” published Jan. 11, incorrectly stated that a student must garner 20 signatures while running for Student Government Board president. The story has been updated to reflect that a student running for president must garner 250 signatures. The Pitt News regrets this error.
Gaming, pg. 1 such as screen sharing, and each student can register only one device because of “limited administrative resources,” according to Pitt’s technology website. “Limiting the number of devices connected to the Pitt Gaming Network helps ensure that people using that network have a good experience,” Miksch said in an email. He added that CSSD is going to monitor how well the policy is working throughout the rest of the year. Jared Klatskin, president of the Pitt Gaming Club, said he wishes that Pitt had this network while he was living in the dorms. In the past, the senior communication major required two ethernet cables and a USB and ethernet adapter to set up his console. “The steps on the website were super unclear,” Klatskin said. “And most kids I know decided to just give up on the instructions and figure it out themselves.” Klatskin said that fellow gamers found it a lot easier to follow the new instructions.
Pitt students can now register their Smart TVs and gaming consoles with Pitt Gaming Network. Jeff Ahearn SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Ben Zak and Joe Wrona, first-year students living in Nordenberg Hall, said they had no issues setting up their consoles on the new network — the whole process took only a few hours. “The only thing I noticed was that
there is a lag when you try to just do it wireless,” Zak said. “I experience it while trying to play Call of Duty, so I just decided to use the [ethernet] cable, and that got rid of the lag.” Although he’s not a student in one of
Pitt’s dorms, Lorin Grieve uses games in the classroom. Grieve, a Pitt School of Pharmacy and School of Information Sciences professor, teaches pharmacy classes that incorporate games and an SIS course called Game Design. He hasn’t used the gaming network yet in his classes, but said the new network was great news. “There are so many console exclusive games I wanted to bring in and show my students as part of the class and couldn’t because of the hoops to jump through,” Grieve said in an email. “I will definitely be looking into the network for next year.” The Entertainment Software Association estimated that, in 2016, at least one person in 63 percent of U.S. households played video games for three or more hours a week. “I think gaming as an activity has been mainstream for a while, and this is an effort on Pitt’s part to enhance the quality of life for students who enjoy playing video games,” Grieve said. Video game columnist Thomas Wick reviews the new network on page 4.
Two thefts in Oakland continue crime streak Alexa Bakalarski
city police spokesperson Emily Schaffer told The Pitt News city police were also increasing patrols in the area, though she would not A home on the 300 block of Meyran Avedisclose details about the patrols because of nue was burglarized early Tuesday morning, officer safety. making it the second burglary this semester The Tuesday morning burglary is the secand the 25th this academic year. ond of the semester and one of more than According to a Pitt police crime alert, the 20 burglaries in South and Central Oakland burglary occurred sometime between 5:30 since the summer — the majority of which a.m. and 10:40 a.m. The burglar broke the occurred between October and December. front door, entered the apartment and stole a The most recent burglary before Tueslaptop. The resident — a Pitt student — was day’s occurred sometime over Pitt’s winter not home at the time, and there were no inbreak, between Dec. 22, and Jan. 4. A Pitt juries reported. student returned to his residence on Semple Pitt spokesperson Joe Miksch said Pitt Street to find his Xbox and television misspolice will assist city police in investigating ing. the burglary, and Pitt police will continue exIn December, city police arrested two tra patrols in South Oakland. In November, people — 18-year-old Jamal Kyte-Saverly Assistant News Editor
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and an unnamed 17-year-old man — in connection with a burglary on the 300 block of Meyran Avenue on Dec. 1. Kyte-Saverly was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit burglary and overnight accommodation with person present, one count of theft by unlawful taking, one count of burglary and four counts of receiving stolen property. There are no suspect descriptions for the other burglaries except for a Nov. 10 incident on the 3400 block of Ward Street. The crime alert described the suspect as a black male, 20 to 25 years of age with a slender build, about 6-foot and as having short, curly, dread-like hair. In the past, Pitt and city police have said they are investigating the burglaries separately.
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Pitt police and city police also responded to a report of an armed robbery at a business on the 300 block of Atwood Street on Wednesday evening. Victims reported the suspect came into the store, pointed a black and silver handgun at them and demanded cash. Once they had taken the money, the suspect fled to a nearby waiting vehicle on Atwood Street. Pitt police’s crime alert describes the suspect as a thin black male in his late 20s to early 30s. He was wearing a black coat, pants and jacket, with his face possibly covered with a black bandana. The police departments are asking that anyone with information regarding any of the incidents call the Pittsburgh Police Department at 412-422-6520 or Pitt police at 412-624-2121.
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Cyber Director, pg. 1 experience with the university, Hickton is working with faculty within the computer science, law and engineering schools as well as auditing classes to have a better sense of what the institute wants to do. “With the appointment of David Hickton, the University of Pittsburgh is poised to offer significant contributions to the national discussion on cyber-related issues affecting personal, national and global security and privacy,” Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher said in a press release Wednesday. Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor Patricia Beeson said Hickton will assemble thinkers in the cyber security field, enhancing Pitt’s research and learning environment. “We have an array of very talented and motivated faculty working in areas of cyber law, policy, security, and technology,
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and we believe the institute and the record of accomplishment David brings will offer opportunity for a vital synergy,” Beeson said in the release. Hickton served in the private sector for 25 years and assisted in the creation of legal practices for cybercrime investigation. He wants the cyber institute to be a platform for people to discuss cybersecurity and the digital age and provide solutions for cyber threats. “The challenges of the digital platform and cybersecurity are real,” Hickton said in the press release. “It is the crime paradigm of this era, and to defeat it, we must have the full participation of the public and private sectors, as well as the University community.” Hickton earned his bachelor’s degree from Penn State in 1978 and his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1981. His most notable accomplishments include indicting Evgeniy
Bogachev, a Russian cybercriminal, and breaking down Dark0de, a hacker forum used to sell, trade and share information. Bogachev worked in an administrative role in a scheme that installed malicious software known as “Zeus” on computers to find bank account numbers and other information needed to log into bank accounts. In addition, his firm indicted five members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army for cyber theft from the United Steelworkers of America. Hickton will take his experience with prosecuting cybercriminals to help students and faculty become leaders in solving problems and threats that the digital world presents to western Pennsylvania and the nation. “This is broader than just law enforcement,” Hickton said in the press release. “This is about applying law to digital space and developing laws and norms and rules to apply to this open enviDavid J. Hickton will be the first to head the Pitt Cyber ronment. Institute. Courtesy of the University of Pittsburgh
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Opinions
A previous editorial “Wolf should rethink Pittsburgh prison closure, make cuts elsewhere” published Jan. 11, implied Gov. Tom Wolf and the Department of Corrections had already reached a decision about which of the five prisons being considered would be closed. The decision has not been reached and won’t be until Jan. 26. The editorial meant only to advise Wolf to consider the ramifications of closing the Pittsburgh prison, should he decide to do so. The Pitt News regrets this error.
from the editorial board
Trump Administration a danger to journalism The past several days have been more than a little unnerving for many, but especially for American journalists. In Washington, D.C., Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., vehemently denied he would use the office of attorney general to remove the legal rights of women, members of the LGBTQ+ community and most prominently black Americans. But one group he refused to make such promises for has seen its fair share of scapegoating in last year’s presidential contest: the nation’s journalists. When asked straightforwardly whether his Department of Justice would “put reporters in jail for doing their job,” the Alabama senator replied that he “wasn’t sure,” and briefly floated a conspiracy theory that journalists might act as “a mechanism through which unlawful intelligence is obtained,” a dangerous idea echoed later this week by Sessions’ boss, Trump. At a press conference yesterday, the man who will inhabit the White House in a matter of days exploded at a reporter from CNN, calling his network “fake news” and refusing to take his question. Besides being the latest spate in a long-term feud between Trump and the news network, the outburst was in reference to an unverified story CNN originally broke that BuzzFeed later picked up and significantly expanded upon that Russia possessed compromising information about the reality TV star. In short, CNN’s report acknowledged that senior intelligence officials presented Trump with classified materials detailing Russian actors with compromising “personal and financial” information about the businessman. Shockingly, BuzzFeed chose to publish the content of these classified materials without verifying them first. What CNN did was important. What BuzzFeed
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did was undoubtedly irresponsible. Newspapers from the Guardian to the Washington Post condemned the online outlet’s leak as “ridiculous” and unethical. In a letter from BuzzFeed editor Ben Smith defending the post, he says the news organization has “always erred on the side of publishing,” whereas typical news outlets have always erred on the side of extreme caution. As the Washington Post editorial points out, BuzzFeed’s method of journalism seems to be throwing out information and letting the readers sort it out for themselves. But we are living — and writing — in a time when the readers, especially online readers, can’t seem to discern the fake from the real, and that’s exactly the issue. What BuzzFeed did, by not substantiating these claims before publishing them, was give Trump the ability to push the accusations off as “fake news” and point the finger back at the media — which is exactly what he did. But we need to stop looking where Trump points his finger and turn back to the matter at hand. We couldn’t agree more strongly with BuzzFeed’s intentions to get to the bottom of a story that could be fatal to our democracy. Donald Trump’s vitriolic attack on CNN’s Jim Acosta during a press conference Wednesday should be terrifying. He has reclaimed the term “fake news” to mean “news that doesn’t make Donald Trump look good” and used it to drive attention away from what should be serious concerns about his ability to lead. A DOJ that evidently doesn’t care about freedom of the press makes that threat even worse. A bad day for the journalism business is a bad day for the country as a whole, and we’ve had a lot this week. Whatever happens over the next four years, we can’t keep having days like these.
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column
New pitt wi-fi boosts gamers to next level Thomas Wick Columnist
For a full report on the network see page 1. Pitt’s new Wi-Fi network is a generous gift to gamers. Now that the holiday season has passed, most people who enjoy gaming have gotten the newest installments in venerated series like “Titanfall 2,” “Battlefield 1,” “Final Fantasy XV,” “The Last Guardian” or “Pokémon Sun” and “Pokémon Moon.” If they’re lucky, they might even have a brand new console to play on. And now Pitt is making strides to be more accommodating for gamers with its new “Pitt Gaming Network.” But — as is typically the case with technological advancements — there’s still more the University can do to make sure that students can efficiently use the new network. As an avid gamer myself, I applaud Pitt and was excited about the prospects of being able to game wirelessly in my dorm. Immediately upon hearing about the new network, I attempted to connect my Nintendo 3DS, but was confused when it did not connect immediately. As it turns out, the network’s capabilities are exclusive to Apple TVs and consoles such as the Xbox and PlayStation systems. When I asked the Pitt Technology Help Desk about this issue, they advised me that the network can connect to any device that has a MAC
Raqa Sarkar SENIOR STAFF ILLUSTRATOR address, but connecting a device requires going through a series of steps that can be followed on their website. What’s more, security protocols only allow Pitt gaming to connect with one gaming console at a time. This means that a student would be unable to connect both an Xbox One and a PlayStation 4 at once, an unfortunate and annoying quirk for students who want to hook up multiple gaming consoles. Even with this limitation, the new network was put in place to allow more students and more devices to connect to Pitt’s Wi-Fi. In the past, certain security protocols in the University network prevented several gaming consoles from being hooked up to the “WirelessPittnet” Wi-Fi network. According to the desk, certain gaming device networks didn’t have the data for a See Wick on page 9
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The Pitt News SuDoku 1/12/17 courtesy of dailysudoku.com
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Culture
who’s the father? tv’s tumultuous history James Evan Bowen-Gaddy Staff Writer
Who Was the True Father of Television? James Evan Bowen-Gaddy When it comes to the origin of the television, there are two competing storylines. One story begins with Russian-born Vladimir Zworykin, lying sick in bed in his family’s mansion, staring out the window. The other begins in Utah with Philo Farnsworth, working on his family’s ranch, plowing a field of sugar beets. In between, there are stops in Paris, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Camden, New Jersey. But both tales end in 1939, in a United States patent courtroom and depending on who you ask, one of these two men — now both deceased — is the “Father of Television.” The Origins: Vladimir Zworkyin Frederick Olessi of Lawrence, New Jersey, met Zworykin in 1968. Olessi, now 83, was
working as a technical writer at Radio Corporation of America in Princeton, New Jersey, and eventually became Zworykin’s close friend and biographer. Zworykin, born in 1889 in Murom, Russia, was 6 years old when a serious illness catapulted his vision for television, according to Olessi. The Zworykin family — wealthy compared to the rest of the city — used their money to give their son the best care they could afford. His father built a small infirmary for him in the top floor of their mansion, and Zworykin would spend his days looking out of his window — often through the lens of a telescope. “He was watching, always, the moon,” Olessi said. “And he asked, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if something could be created
[so] that we could see the dark side of the moon?’” After recovering from his illness, Zworykin proved to be an apt scientific thinker and eventually attended the Saint Petersburg Institute of Technology. As Russia headed into a civil war, Zworykin began to realize it was no place to continue his research. So he prepared to leave his homeland in 1918, looking instead to Pennsylvania. “When he escaped from Russia, he knew two English words: Westinghouse and Pittsburgh,” Olessi said. With his wife, Zworykin made his way across the world to Pittsburgh, where he was hired in 1920 as an engineer at Westinghouse Research Laboratories. During this time, he also started his Ph.D. in physics at the University of Pittsburgh, which he completed in 1926. As Zworykin moved across the world and began his research in earnest, a Mormon farm boy, Farnsworth, was cultivating a similar vision. The Origins: Philo Farnsworth Born in Utah in 1906, Farnsworth split his time growing up between high school classes and his family’s ranch. Paul Schatzkin — author of “The Boy Who Invented Television” and a staunch supporter of Farnsworth as the “Father of Televi-
sion” — said that Farnsworth first conceptualized an electrical television in the summer of 1919, when he was just 13 years old. “[Farnsworth] was plowing a sugar beet field, and he looked behind him and he saw all the rows that he had plowed,” Schatzkin said. “And that was the moment that the inspiration struck him to use a cathode ray tube to create an electrical image and then scan that row by row just like the rows in his field.” Farnsworth presented the idea to his mentor and chemistry teacher at Wrigby High School, and his teacher asked him to sketch a schematic design of the concept, which the teacher would hold onto for 10 years. “Every bit of video technology on the planet today can trace its origins to that drawing,” Schatzkin said. The Patents Zworykin worked tirelessly at Westinghouse on a device that would eventually become the “iconoscope.” Zworykin’s device used cathode ray tubes to receive an input and then shoot electrons to recreate an image on a fluorescent screen. Zworykin applied for patents for his design of a “Television System” in 1923 and 1925. Just before submitting these patent applications, in the summer of 1923, Olessi See TV on page 7
Graphic by Sean O’Conner and John Hamilton
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TV, pg. 6 said Zworykin demonstrated the device to his superiors at Westinghouse. “It was an extremely crude image of a train coming up the Monongahela on that screen,” Olessi said. “His boss didn’t know what the hell he was seeing and said, ‘Can’t you put him to work on something more interesting?’” Schatzkin sees this as evidence that Zworykin’s 1923 iteration of the iconoscope was bogus. In Schatzkin’s online publication, “The Farnsworth Chronicles,” he disagrees with the interpretation that the Westinghouse executives were “too shortsighted” to appreciate Zworykin’s work. “It seems more plausible to conclude that what they saw showed little promise because it simply didn’t work,” Schatzkin said. Farnsworth, at this point, had moved to San Francisco and was working out of his own laboratory at 202 Green St. In 1927, while Zworykin’s patents for the iconoscope were still pending, Farnsworth applied for his own patent for his design of a “Television System.” The most important element of this patent application was its “image dissector,” an element that would create an “electron image” within the television that could then be scanned by an electron beam and presented on a Part of Zworykin’s 1923 patent. Courtesy of United States screen — a different technology than Zworykin’s invenPatent Office tion.
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After three years in limbo, Farnsworth’s patent was awarded in 1930 and Zworykin still hadn’t heard back about his. Zworykin accepted a job opportunity from David Sarnoff — the head of RCA — and moved to Camden, New Jersey, to continue his work on the electronic television. Through Sarnoff, Zworykin heard about Farnsworth and his work on television systems on the West Coast. Zworykin traveled to Farnsworth’s lab to see his work in 1930. Both Olessi and Schatzkin corroborated a famous sentence that Zworykin uttered in the Green Street laboratory that day: “What an interesting idea. I wish that I might have invented it.” Schatzkin sees this statement as Zworykin admitting defeat. Olessi says it was just an example of Zworykin’s “encouraging” personality. The Courtroom What followed was a bitter battle in U.S. appeals court between RCA and Farnsworth. With television on the brink of becoming marketable in 1934, RCA’s attorneys challenged Farnsworth to prove that his design was paramount to the development of the electronic television. Dan Michelson is the project archivist for processing the Sarnoff Collection — a body of artifacts and papers surrounding RCA’s history — at Hagley Museum and See TV on page 9
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Sports Artis’ career-high 43 not enough in 85-80 loss at Louisville Steve Rotstein Sports Editor
Pitt senior point guard Jamel Artis nearly had a record-setting night Wednesday. If he had just a bit more help from his teammates, his historic performance would also have been enough to pull of a win. Artis racked up a career-high 43 points on only 22 shots, going 15-for-22 from the field and 7-for-13 from the 3-point line. His performance marked the second-highest point total in school history, as well as the Panthers’ first 40-point game since Jason Maile dropped 40 on Villanova in February 1997. But it wasn’t enough, as the rest of his Pitt teammates combined to score only 37 points on 11-of-36 shooting in an 85-80 defeat. For most of the night, the Panthers (12-5 overall, 1-3 ACC) appeared to be headed for their second straight blowout loss. They entered the game having lost eight straight games against Louisville (14-3 overall, 2-2 ACC), dating back to an 82-77 overtime win on Jan. 16, 2010. When they fell behind by 20 in the first half, a ninth straight defeat seemed imminent. And when that deficit grew to 26 early in the second half, it seemed inevitable. But Artis singlehandedly made it into a competitive game, as he led the comeback charge for Pitt with a barrage of 3-pointers and 3-point plays on tough, contested layups. The Panthers cut the gap to five with 44 seconds left, but that was as close as they would come. Although the start of the game was promising for Pitt, the Cardinals quickly took control with a dominant first half. The Panthers came out determined to shoot the 3-pointer, with Artis draining his first attempt of the night to give them a 3-2 lead. They missed their next two attempts from deep, but Artis added a pair of jumpers to give Pitt a 7-4 lead less than five minutes into the game. Louisville scored 10 of the next 11 points before a dunk by sophomore guard Cameron Johnson temporarily stopped the Cardinals’
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points to only six for Pitt. The Cardinals then scored the first five points out of the break to build their largest lead of the night at 52-26. The Panthers put together a brief 9-0 run, but Snider nailed a 3-pointer to silence Pitt’s momentum and make it a 20-point game again. Louisville forward Jaylen Johnson then added a tip-in and a layup to make it 59-35 with 13:56 to play. The Panthers received a 3-point play from Artis and a 3-pointer from senior forward Michael Young to cut the gap to 18, then Young buried another three to make it 61-44 with just over 12 minutes remaining. Pitt narrowed the deficit to 14 at 63-49, but a defensive breakdown led to an uncontested dunk for the Cardinals. Louisville forward Deng Adel followed with a layup to make it 6749 at the under-eight media timeout. Just as they did while trying to surmount a 28-point deficit Saturday against Syracuse, the Panthers kept fighting through the beatdown. This time, they almost pulled off the comeback, putting together a 15-4 run to shrink the Cardinals’ lead to single digits at 71-64 with 3:15 to play. But mistakes and missed free throws continued to plague them in the final minutes, and the 26-point deficit proved too much to overcome as Louisville pulled out the 85-80 win. Despite his late threes, Young was the main culprit, as he couldn’t seem to find a rhythm for the second game in a row. Jamel Artis scored a career-high 43 points in Pitt’s 85-80 loss at Louisville. Young tallied 17 points against Syracuse, Meghan Sunners ASSISTANT VISUAL EDITOR but nine of those came in the final six minutes with the game already out of reach. This run. Louisville then added a 3-pointer by guard lead to 16 midway through the first half. Senior forward Sheldon Jeter hit a pair of time, Young — the ACC’s leading scorer at 22.3 Donovan Mitchell to take a 17-10 lead into the 3-pointers for Pitt, but the Panthers couldn’t points per game entering the matchup — again second media timeout. The Panthers continued to fire up 3-point- come up with a stop on defense and struggled finished with 17 points, but was only 5-of-14 ers to no avail, missing seven in a row from just to pull down a rebound. The Cardinals from the field and an abysmal 4-of-11 from the downtown after Artis’ opening shot. Mean- stayed hot from beyond the arc, shooting 71.4 foul line. Not surprisingly, both games resulted in while, the Cardinals caught fire from deep, as percent from 3-point range en route to a 47-26 losses for the Panthers. guard Quentin Snider drained back-to-back halftime lead. Pitt will return home to the Petersen Events Pitt’s lack of a true big man played a key role 3-pointers to make it 24-11 Louisville. The Cardinals then added a 3-point play in the first half, as Louisville outrebounded the Center coming off back-to-back setbacks to from center Mangok Mathiang to stretch their Panthers 22-14 and scored 12 second-chance host the Miami Hurricanes at noon Saturday, Jan. 14.
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Wick, pg. 4
TV, pg. 7
and were more vulnerable to security breaches. Since the University network uses a username and password for security, gaming consoles such as the Xbox and Playstation couldn’t connect. The higher detailed technical aspects are beyond my knowledge, but according to the desk, most video game consoles can connect now, with common examples being the Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One. The network’s purpose, according to the Tech Help Desk, is to limit the amount of traffic in the standard Pittnet Wi-Fi. Gaming consoles that are compatible with the standard Wireless-Pittnet network were creating a lot of traffic and clogging up the network on campus for other students also using the internet to study, chat with friends or stream music and movies. Of course, some of the gaming consoles that are compatible with the Pitt Gaming WiFi network are still compatible with the standard Wireless-Pittnet, but the new network provides a more intuitive and streamlined process of connecting gaming consoles than the Pittnet Wi-Fi.
Library in Wilmington, Delaware. According to Michelson, Sarnoff and RCA went through many “patent battles” similar to the one between Zworykin and Farnsworth. RCA argued that research from Zworykin’s team in 1930 formed the most crucial part of the electronic television. Farnsworth, meanwhile, went back to his high school teacher and retrieved the 1919 sketch of the image dissector. With this and his patent in hand, Farnsworth argued that his 1927 “image dissector” was the true pivotal element and that the technology from Zworykin’s 1923 patent application could not successfully create an electronic image as his could. The patent investigators seemed to agree with Farnsworth and asked RCA to show documentation of Zworykin producing an electronic image prior to Farnsworth’s patents. Unfortunately for Zworykin and his attorneys, only anecdotal evidence existed of the 1923 demonstration of the train puffing along the Monongahela river. Without any evidence, patent investigators declared in 1935 that Zworykin’s original patent could not successfully produce an electron
Read the rest online at Pittnews.com.
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image as RCA had claimed. But the battle raged on. RCA had enough money and attorneys to keep the appeal process going. The patent office decided in 1938 to retroactively award RCA and Zworykin a patent for their 1923 patent application. In addition, RCA offered Farnsworth a license so it could lease his patents and use them alongside Zworykin’s. “In 1939, Farnsworth was exhausted and accepted a license from RCA,” Schatzkin said. “RCA persisted and continued to have the power and the influence to tell whatever story they wanted.” Zworykin, on the other hand, led a large team of RCA engineers who all worked on different elements of the television system. “Zworykin wasn’t the sole inventor. He would agree, there were many other people involved,” Gross said. Olessi said the desire to view Farnsworth as the creator is just a temptation to fit an underdog narrative — to believe that the modest farm boy could win out over the aristocrat. “It sounds good as poetry, but not as prose,” Olessi said. The Dark Side of the Moon Today, the debate hinges not on royalties, but on who deserves credit as the inventor, the
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visionary, the Father. Michelson called this ongoing debate “arbitrary” because a large number of people were involved in the creation of the television. “In any sort of modern technology like this, there’s hardly ever one person who’s responsible,” Michelson said. “Neither of them could have done anything on their own.” Aside from all the controversy, there was one moment that both scientists got to experience and, in a sense, share. It was 1969, and Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. The landing was broadcast to the world late at night, but both Zworykin and Farnsworth stayed up to watch in their respective homes. In a 1996 interview conducted by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Farnsworth’s wife Elma “Pem” Farnsworth relayed what he had to say about the moon landing: “Phil turned to me and said, ‘Pem, this has made it all worthwhile.’” Zworykin, too, watched the moon landing, with Olessi by his side. “It was my incredible honor to drag [Zworykin] out of bed that night,” Olessi said. “And sit with him so he could see, on a device that he created, the dark side of the moon.”
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