News Briefs

UM ranks 18th among wireless campuses

Intel released its Most Unwired Cities survey, which is issued everywhere from airports to overall cities. As part of this year’s study, Intel also looked at the most unwired campuses in the country that offered the greatest wireless Internet access. UM came in as No. 18 in the nation. According to Intel’s Most Unwired College Campuses survey, the top five wireless campuses are Indiana University, Purdue University in Indiana, the University of Texas, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

Sigma Chi fraternity’s secrets offered on eBay before removal
Indiana Daily Student (Indiana U.)

Google announces Gmail, the searchable e-mail

Google announced on April 1 that it would launch a new e-mail service known as Gmail and will automatically organize e-mail according to topic and allow users to search all their e-mail – including sender, text and subject lines – in the same way they search the Web, Wayne Rosing, Google’s vice president of engineering, said Wednesday. (See more information at www.gmail.com.) Because of the statement that Gmail offers an entire gigabyte of storage, Google’s history for pulling April Fool’s pranks, and the comic nature of the press release issued on April 1, there has been some speculation that Gmail is a hoax. Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president of the products group at Google, assured that the Gmail announcement was genuine. He added that the company did get caught up in the spirit of April Fool’s Day in its press release.

UM professors to investigate Gravitron accident at fair

Two UM engineering professors, Ronald Zollo and Carol Hays, have been consulted to assist in the investigation of an accident that occurred on one of the rides, the Gravitron, at the Miami-Dade County Youth Fair last weekend. State regulators have banned the ride from fairs and carnivals across the state until the source of the problem is revealed. The accident caused three people to be catapulted from the ride when a technical malfunction occurred. According to investigators, a bolt seemed to have broken off and caused the panel to split open, but nothing has yet been determined.

UM professor and noted artist William Carlson will receive the 2004 Distinguished Educators Award from the James Renwick Alliance.

The deadline to apply for UMTV Leadership Positions is this Friday, April 9.