Facebook is paying much more for WhatsApp than it did for Instagram, but it’s getting more, too.

On Wednesday, Facebook announced the latest move in its quest for mobile social domination: it plans to buy popular messaging app WhatsApp for $16 billion in a cash and stock deal.

Many school districts up and down the East Coast and in the Midwest have been forced to cancel several school days this winter, and some districts in the Northeast have already announced students will forgo part of their spring breaks to make up for lost time.

Public Policy Professor and Graduate Program Director Dave Marcotte was cited in two recent articles in The Atlanta Journal Constitution and Bloomberg Businessweek for a study he did on the impact of winter weather on schools.

“Dave Marcotte, in a 2010 online article for Education Next, found that each additional inch of snow reduced the percentage of third-, fifth-, and eighth-grade students on math assessments by from one-half to seven-tenths of a percentage point,” reads the Bloomberg Businessweek article.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution article cites Marcotte’s research while examining the impact on learning a significant loss of time due to snow days can have on students.

“To put that seemingly small impact in context, Marcotte reports that in winters with average levels of snowfall (about 17 inches) the share of students testing proficient is about 1 to 2 percentage points lower than in winters with little to no snow,” the article stated.

You can read about Marcotte’s research in The Atlanta Journal Constitution here and Bloomberg Businessweek here.

Efficient Secure Multi-party Computing and Its Applications

Dr. Yan Huang
University of Maryland, College Park

1:00-2:00pm Monday, 24 February 2014, ITE 325b, UMBC

Secure Multiparty Computation offers cryptographically strong guarantees on the secrecy of data used in collaborative computing among untrusted parties. It has many important applications ranging from peer-to-peer secure auction to privacy-preserving data mining. In this talk, I will present my experience in making secure computation practical. I will also share my vision on how to blend modern cryptography, programming languages, and artificial intelligence research to solve interesting cyber-security problems.

Dr. Yan Huang is a research associate at the University of Maryland and the Maryland Cybersecurity Center. Dr. Huang is interested in developing secure protocols, with applications in private collaborative data mining, secure cloud computing, and cyber-physical systems. His research combines techniques from systems, cryptography, and programming languages to build secure systems. He is the creator of FastGC, a practical secure computation software framework, which has been downloaded more than 500 times and used in several research projects by both academia and industry labs world-wide. Dr. Huang graduated from University of Virginia with a Ph.D in Computer Science in 2012.

Political Science Professor Thomas Schaller writes in his latest op-ed published in The Baltimore Sun that while polls show Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown with a commanding lead in the Democratic primary for governor, continuing with a mistake-free campaign will be the key to victory in June.

Schaller writes Attorney General Douglas Gansler and Del. Heather Mizeur, Brown’s opponents in the race, haven’t gained traction statewide and are competing for votes in Montgomery County while Brown has gained widespread support.

“Mix in a string of union endorsements and the backing of Gov. Martin O’Malley, U.S. senators Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin, half of the state’s U.S. House delegation, and scads of state legislators and county officials, and there’s little doubt Mr. Brown is the party establishment’s choice,” Schaller writes.

In his column titled “Slow and steady wins the race for Brown,” Schaller argues even with strong backing from the Democratic establishment, Brown should focus on not making any major missteps in the months ahead.

“That said, and given the large chunk of undecided Democrats, Mr. Brown’s task is simple: Don’t blow it. As sometimes happens, being perceived as inevitable is no guarantee of inevitability,” Schaller added.

You can read the full op-ed in The Baltimore Sun here.

In an op-ed published February 17 in Fox News Latino, Justin Vélez-Hagan, Public Policy Ph.D. student and Executive Director of The National Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce, argues recent policies put forth by Puerto Rico’s government are not the solution for long-term economic growth and development.

Vélez-Hagan writes Puerto Rico’s “Jobs Now Act” was intended to grow the economy by offering tax exemptions and credits along with incentives for hiring underemployed groups, but the cost to hire and train new employees far outweighs the benefits of the new policy.

“It’s especially surprising given the latest employment numbers,” writes Vélez-Hagan. “According to the Government Development Bank of Puerto Rico, employment trends have yet to improve. While unemployment actually fell by a full percentage point in 2012, it completely reversed this trend in the first year of this administration, climbing from 14.6 percent to 15.4 percent by December.”

In the column, Vélez-Hagan offers alternative solutions for improving Puerto Rico’s economy and creating jobs.

“Even if they are finally able to balance their budget, the governor is going to have to push beyond his political limits to focus on incentives for growing businesses in Puerto Rico, such as rolling back the higher tax rates, expanding the incentive for foreign investment, and explicitly targeting companies in high-growth industries for residency in Puerto Rico,” he adds.

You can read the full article titled “Puerto Rico Still Doesn’t Get What Makes an Economy Tick” on Fox News Latino’s website here.

While most people hate to waste their hard earned money…EVERYONE hates to see someone else waste their hard earned money.

Take our government for example… and foreign aid.

What percentage of the budget do you think the United States spends on foreign aid? 15%? Maybe even 30%?

Try less than 1%.

For comparison’s sake, Social Security is 22%, Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) are 21%, and Defense is at 19%.

In a 2013 survey, Americans guess that 28% of the federal budget was used on foreign aid. With that, 61% surveyed thought we spent too much on foreign aid. This opinion dramatically shifted the other way when true percent spent was known.

So how is this 1% spent?

USAID, the United Staid Agency for International Development, has spent some of its 1% of the budget on providing food assistance in the war-torn Central African Republic (“Violence, Child Soldiers, Kony and CAR” or vaccination programs for kids affected by the Syrian crisis (“Syria: Already Forgotten?”)

There are arguments that foreign aid does not help and is a waste of American citizens’ tax dollars. Others argue that it is the moral obligation of the United States to help other countries in need.

Regardless of the view, no valid argument can be made until citizens are fully aware of where there money goes.

In a recent Reddit interview, Bill Gates ended with final question,

“How can we help more people understand that foreign aid isn’t 25% or even 10% of the U.S. federal budget, but less than 1%?”

Wednesday, February 19, 2014, 1:47pm EST

Six cyber firms compete for $100,000 InvestMaryland prize

Six cyber security startups in Maryland will vie for $100,000 as they advance to the semifinals of the second InvestMaryland Challenge.

Baltimore’s Integrata Security, Light Point Security and ZeroFox (formerly Riskive), as well as Bethesda’s IntrusionOnline Corp., Arnold’s ITNOVA and Frederick’s Luminal will meet face-to-face with cyber security judges from both the public and private sector on March 6 at the state’s Department of Business and Economic Development’s headquarters.

Each company will then make their elevator pitch as if they were talking to potential investors.

“I expect it to be very similar to when you meet any investor and explain your company and what your solution is solving and what the benefit to potential customers is,” Integrata Security CEO Mike Geppi said.

More than 250 companies across four industries entered this year’s InvestMaryland Challenge. The categories are information technology, cyber security, life sciences and general industry. One winner from each category will win $100,000. Some 41 startups remain across the four categories.

Zuly Gonzalez, chief operating officer at Light Point Security, was among the semifinalists in the IT category last year, and she said her and Light Point’s CEO Beau Adkins were given 15 to 20 minutes to pitch the company and participate with a question and answer with the judges.