U H ! >; : i i i\I.N! HI V, < - 5 \ FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2001 Today’s dorm rooms are filled with digital gadgetry by Julio Ojeda-Zapata Knight-Ridder Tribune February 14, 2001 ST. PAUL, Minn. Strolling through a college dorm in the late 1970 s or the early 1980 s, you weren’t likely to see anything more high-tech than an LP turntable, a color TV or, perhaps, a computer-science student communicating with a far-off mainframe computer using a primitive video terminal and a pokey modem. The personal-computer age had dawned, but relatively few students took their own MS-DOS PCs or Apple ma chines to school along with their electric typewriters and Led Zeppelin posters. Their main on-campus exposure to PCs, if they were lucky, involved communal labs where they wrote their papers and perhaps dabbled in a bit of number crunch ing or desktop publishing. Internet access? Forget it. How times have changed. Chat up stu dents today and you may get dizzy as they list their digital gadgetry, which they use for education and entertainment. From laptops and handheld organizers to portable MP3-music players and com plex dorm-room video gear, college kids are increasingly on the cutting edge of computer technology and consumer elec tronics. U. of Geoi£ia running back arrested for stalking by Matthew McGuire TMS Campus February 15, 2001 A University of Georgia football player was arrested Wednesday af ter a confrontation with the mother of his 17-month-oid child. Verron Haynes, 21, was released on $7,500 bond after police charged him with misdemeanor counts of simple battery, stalking, making ha rassing phone calls and criminal tres pass, police said. He will be ar raigned on formal charges April 18. A Georgia student told campus po lice that Haynes pushed her and threw her cell phone against a wall during a confrontation at her campus apartment Feb. 11, said Capt. Chuck Horton. Later that day, Haynes fol lowed her to a downtown hotel where U. of lowa officials allow pep band to go ahead with ‘Beer Song’ TMS Campus February 15, 2001 Let the good times flow. After a three-week hiatus, the “beer song,” a staple for more than 20 years at University of lowa sporting events, is back. University officials had previously asked the school’s pep band to ab stain from singing the lyrics to the polka song “In Heaven, There Is No Beer,” which contains references to alcohol use, so that they could review the merit of the song. But after reviewing the pros and cons of the song’s content, and after fielding scores of e-mails from stu- Take University of Minnesota student David Lindeman, whose high-tech arse nal includes a Power Macintosh G 4 Cube computer, a Sony MP3 Walkman, a Palm lllx handheld computer, a laptop, a pager, two digital-still cameras and a digital video camcorder. “I tend to like little gad gets and toys,” he says. So do a growing number of college stu dents, according to a recent SWR World wide study commissioned by the Best Buy electronics superstore chain, which com pared the technological tastes and habits of 1990 students to those of 2000. Find ings were based on a survey of 500 cur rent freshmen and 500 adults who were freshmen a decade ago. Among the find ings: - More than half of today's fresh men have brought a laptop or desktop computer to college, compared to only 13 percent in 1990. - About 24 percent of today's students said they plan to bring a laptop to class regularly, compared to just 4 percent in 1990. - Twenty percent use cell phones and 11 percent use pagers. - The use of CD players has risen from 20 to 44 percent. Thirteen percent of the students use portable CD players. - Fewer than one out of three incom ing freshmen waited in a registration line last fall, compared to nearly half in 1990. another physical and verbal confron tation took place, Horton said. Hotel security went to the room and held Haynes until police arrived. The Bulldogs policy calls for the automatic suspension of any player arrested for a felony charge but leaves disciplinary measures up to the head coach's discretion in cases of misdemeanor arrests. Head coach Mark Richt imposed “internal disci pline” on Haynes, which could range from community service to early morning running drills, said athletic department spokesman Claude Felton. Haynes, a junior, played in all 11 regular season games last season and started twice as a running back. He carried four times for 14 yards and scored a touchdown in Georgia’s Oahu Bowl victory. dents, officials decided that shelving the song’s lyrics was not necessary, spokesperson Linda Kettner con firmed. Kevin Kastens, the band’s direc tor, told the Daily lowan that the song is “a very harmless tradition and should continue.” The decision to halt the song stemmed from a complaint by one parent that the lyrics promoted “ex cessive drinking.” The song, which has undergone numerous renditions, includes the lines, “In heaven, there is no beer / That’s why we drink it here,” and has similar verses for wine, drugs and sex. NATIONAL CAMPUS NEWS About 17 percent of current freshmen registered via the Web or e-mail, compared to only 4 percent a decade ago. Most colleges either require or highly recommend computers. But new gadgets - including interactive Webcams, wire less PC mice, Palm organizers and even robotic miniature dogs - are new status symbols in lecture halls and cafeterias, if conversations with students are any indi cation. “We’re all into the MP3 stuff, Mini Disc players, Walkmans, boom boxes,” Tommy Singh, a student at Silicon Valley’s Foot hill College, tells the San Jose Mercury News. “Practically everyone I know has at least one of these things,” and he says most of his friends have more than a dozen digital devices crammed into their apart ments, dorm rooms or frat houses. The Mini Disc music-disk product line - which bombed when it was first intro duced in the early 1990 s - has grown nearly 50 percent since August 1999, ac cording to the EIA market-research firm. The leading musical technology maker, Sony, says its Mini Disc Walkman is fly ing off store shelves. Mini Disc is “now really big with Gen eration Y because it’s a way to make the ultimate music mixes on easily available and affordable media,” says Tracy Fairington, a Sony marketing director. Penn State design, market memorabilia by Margaret Hopkins Knight-Ridder Newspapers February 19, 2001 UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa.-Die hard Penn State football fans may be able to enjoy the blue-and-white rushing game from their front stoops if a group of engineering and business students have their way. The PSU Windrusher lawn orna ment, an 18-inch football player in running stance, is the brainstorm of five engineering students enrolled in Industrial Engineering 4971. Two students in Business Administra tion 497 C are developing a busi ness plan and marketing strategy for the ornament's future sale in local retail stores. The Windrusher, whose legs and possible stiff arm will move by the wind or batteries, isn’t the only item of Penn State memorabilia under design by students involved in this new engineering/business collaboration. Also in the concept stage are a bank in the shape of a Nittany Lion that will have electronics that keep track of the amount deposited; a lock box or combination safe in the shape of Old Main; and a rotating Penn State logo that produces the Penn State fight song. This is a textbook-perfect ex ample of a win-win for students, lo cal businesses and consumers. Engineering students gain real world experience solving design and manufacturing challenges. Business students develop hands on experience as they evaluate product competition, create mar keting surveys and develop an e commerce site. Also mirroring the workplace is the teaming of stu dents—each group includes electri cal, industrial and mechanical en gineers as well as business majors. For the student entrepreneur, the course work can turn an idea into a workable business ready for start up upon graduation or even earlier. Gadgets-about-college largely tends to be a guy thing. Male students are almost twice as likely to bring a pager to class, more than twice as likely to use a DVD player at school, and four times as likely to use a videogame console at school, ac cording to the Best Buy-sponsored sur vey. “You need a big-ass entertainment cen ter (that includes) loud speakers with a big TV and DVD player,” says Univer sity of Minnesota computer-science stu dent Joshua Walker. “This has nothing to do with being wired, or a student, but it really helps to relax from the hectic col lege life.” Oh, and “a good CD Discman is essential,” the senior adds. “Better yet is a Mini Disc player, or the new CD players that will read a writable CD filled with MP3s. That is a very cool toy.” The personal computer figures prominendy in dorm-room entertainment, too, says St. Olaf College student Rich ard Kurhajetz. He left behind much of his equipment last semester while studying mathemat ics and computer science at the Univer sity of Lancaster in England, but not his college-techie ways. “I (was) able to make free overseas telephone calls though the Internet with my microphone and head set to call family and friends on their regu lar telephones, as well as (use) chat pro- University class teams students to And lovers of Penn State memo rabilia will have first look at what will almost certainly be one-of-a kind collectibles. “Engineers should learn by do ing, and this is a perfect opportu nity to do that,” said Sanjay Joshi, one of five engineering faculty in volved in the two-semester IME Inc, course. Said Greg Pierce of the Smeal College of Business, “This col laboration gives our business stu dents the chance to learn about the challenges of taking a real-world “Engineers should learn by doing, and this is a perfect opportunity to do that.” product from idea to market in a way that a traditional classroom environment doesn’t allow.” From concept to application The collabo ration between the engineering and business colleges has its roots in a meeting last November when Pierce, who is director of the Smeal business school’s junior Core Honors Program, learned about IME Inc. and saw a poten tial fit for students in his two-se mester business course. “They were building products and we were building products,” Pierce said. A second meeting clarified what business students could provide their engineering counterparts: marketing surveys; target markets; supply-chain logistics; business plan preparation with five-year fi nancial projections. This week’s opening of the eßusiness Research Center’s e-In cubator Laboratory enables an- other real-life application: creation of a customized e-commerce site to market the product. The e-Incubator Lab will host the site that has to be functional by the end of April, said Christine Hofer, a member of the Windrusher team. “The eBRC lab offers software capabilities that we need,” said Hofer, who’s majoring in manage ment science and information sys tems. “It feels like we’re learning very practical applications.” Pierce and the engineering faculty ac knowledge there are some wrinkles still to be ironed out so that stu dents can most fully take advan tage of the collaboration. For one, the two courses don’t fol low the same semester schedule, with the engineering component running from January to Decem ber while the business class goes from August to May. grams to talk real-time to friends back in the states and send and receive pictures and video real-time,” he says. Not all college students are ga-ga over gadgetry, to be sure. Though Justin Coyne is a University of Minnesota computer-science major and part-time computer programmer, “1 really have no use for PDAs, cell phones or pages. I can’t understand why people would spend so much money on such de vices that would further clutter up their ul ready-hectic lives. “I do have a computer,” Coyne hastens to add, "since it is almost necessary in today’s college life. Everything from regis tration, assignments and grades here (are) done on the Internet. But beyond that, I try not to let technology run my life ” Likewise, “I don’t have a PDA of any kind, and I don’t plan on getting one,” says University of Minne sota sophomore Nathan Hemming. “A few of my friends have them, and their utility seems ni1...1 (do have) Also unsolved are questions of li censing, trademark and intellectual property of students' products in cluding the 40 aluminum, analog Nittany Lion clocks produced last fall and programmed with Penn State trivia. (Who is the 16th president of Penn State? Answer: Graham Spanier.) Answering those is the bailiwick of the business students. Local links Along with intra-uni versity collaboration, the IME Inc. project has tie-ins with the business community. -Sanjay Joshi, one of five engineering faculty involved in the two-semester IME Inc. course. Last semester, engineering stu dents designing the Nittanv Lion trivia clock visited Polestar Plastics, a State College company in the plastic injection molding industry, Joshi said. Those students ended up using aluminum for their final prod uct only because the university doesn’t have the machinery to do injection molding. This past week, the Lion Bank ers—the group developing a bank that will keep a running tab of its dollars and cents--went to the Donsco foundry in Belleville to learn firsthand whether the product idea can be cast in aluminum. “We want students to realize the more they talk to the experts in their fields, they more they can learn,” Joshi said. “These people can be come their contacts, their mentors.” Business students have expanded their circles as well. For market re search, they visited downtown re tailers to check out memorabilia prices and competitive products. This past week, several went to the intellectual property office to re search licensing fees and agree ments, Pierce said. In the future, students may travel to a regional machining shop to see how that business operates. Business students also are tap ping the expertise of Penn State alumni at corporations including Appleton Papers, Arthur Andersen and Merrill Lynch as part of the cor porate mentor program. “As students write their business plan sections, they are sending them to their corporate mentors for com ment,” Pierce said. In the works are face-to-face meetings between students and mentors during Mentoring Day in March. “Mentor contact and company visits give students the chance to get a laptop computer, but I do not intend on bring it with me to campus each day.” University of Minnesota sophomore Alex Anderson also has resisted buying a current-model PDA to replace his old Apple New ton, but he says "this might all change if some company starts making a cheap and compact handheld cell phone/ PDA/MP3 player/book reader/GPS unit/ kitchen sink with a rubberized exterior and a good screen, please! But that would make too much sense. "Then again. I'd also need a reason to use such a thing,” Anderson adds. "I like technology., .but it is not w ho I am." KRT PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BILL ALKOFER Like many college students these days, Dave Lindeman of the University of Minnesota is wired and tech-savvy and owns many high-tech gadgets. into the real world,” Pierce said. "This will be their method of op eration when they graduate, and we’re giving them experience with that." Researching South Beach Miami Another group of business students will get experience in "real-place” market research when they travel to South Beach Miami in April. Those students, working on a business plan for a clicks-and bricks salon/spa, will collect data on existing Miami salons, South Beach culture and demographics, said Jesse Peles, junior finance major and aspiring salon/spa entre preneur. Peles, whose parents operate a salon in Johnstown, plans upon graduation in May 2002 to inte grate Internet technology with the salon/ spa experience, possibly in Florida. “I want to converge Web technol ogy with the salon environment, so the site will be tied into an actual location," Peles said. “E-commerce is relatively unstable without a physical backup.” Peles knows his idea won't fly just anywhere, so he and the group plan to check out what’s in the market as they draft and hone their own ideas inti' a workable business plan The group also is projecting expenses and sales and figuring out financial op tions for when the company starts up. Essential for the development of the salon/spa’s e-commerce site is the new e-Incubator Lab. “The e-lncubator Lab offers me a virtual playground to learn how to run an e-cotnmerce site and ex periment with ideas and concepts,” Peles said. From ivory tower to work place Judy Olian, dean of the Smeal Col lege of Business Administration, said courses such as IME Inc. and the honors business class enable students to "roll up their sleeves and experience the Teal work’ situ ations they’ll encounter as they make the transition into the work force.” Larry Kreger, an industrial engineering student on the Windrusher team, has already be gun to experience that transition. In the few weeks since the IME Inc. course began, Kreger has learned that ideas that fascinate engineers may not be suitable and appropri ate for the marketplace. He’s also gaining an appreciation for how to communicate engineer ing concepts to vendors, marketers and even consumers. “We’re gaining experience in how to take an idea, assess its mar ket and develop it for that market and then cross the bridges to pro duce it, market it and distribute it,” Kreger said. If Kreger and his group can navi gate that crossing, the PSU Windrusher may score big in the or namental lawn art playing field.
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