Daniel Tkacik Senior Staffwriter

Articles

• Researchers develop LightSIDE program for grading essays

  Can computers identify good writing as well as humans? According to a recent study, they can, and some researchers at Carnegie Mellon had a hand in it.

  SciTech | April 23, 2012
• Teams prepare mobots for Carnival

  Students were turning wrenches, twisting screwdrivers, and writing code this past week in preparation for the upcoming Mobot competition, the annual “mobile robot” contest hosted by the School of Computer Science. The activities coincided well with the fact that it was National Robotics Week, which celebrates robotics research in the United States.

  SciTech | April 16, 2012
• Wigle Whiskey restores Pennsylvania tradition

  It’s a sunny, warm Saturday morning. The streets of the Strip District are loud, lively, and bustling with hundreds of pedestrians buying wholesale meats, produce, and Penguins paraphernalia. Just a few blocks east, though, in the slightly quieter, more tranquil part of the neighborhood, a family gathers around a giant stainless steel pot — they’re making whiskey.

  Pillbox | April 9, 2012
• SciTech Briefs

  Charge your cell phone with a touch

  SciTech | February 27, 2012
• SciTech Briefs

  Texting affects ability to accept and interpret words

  A linguist at the University of Calgary in Canada claims that texting has a negative impact on a person’s linguistic ability to interpret and accept words. The linguist, Joan Lee, asked 33 university students questions about their reading habits, including text messaging, and presented them with both real and made-up words.

  SciTech | February 20, 2012