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Lakeway Publishers of Florida, Inc. and Independent Publications, Inc. today jointly announced the acquisition and sale of Sun Publications of Florida, Inc. Sun Publications has owned and published newspapers and shoppers in central Florida for 10 years.

Newspapers or shoppers included in the transaction are the Osceola News-Gazette in Kissimmee, Clermont News Leader, Four Corners News Leader, The Triangle News Leader, The Sumter Shopper and the Pasco Shopper. Sun Publications also publishes the Poinciana Pioneer and Harmony Notes, in conjunction with the homeowners associations in their respective communities and specializes in off set web printing for numerous customers throughout the region.

Lakeway Publishers, Inc. publishes newspapers, magazines, and specialty publications in Tennessee, Missouri and Virginia. R. Jack Fishman, president of Lakeway said, We are pleased that Independent Publications, Inc. selected our company to continue the traditions of community journalism in these communities. Each of the papers is dedicated to providing quality coverage of news and events that their readers are interested in. We hope to build on this record of success both in print, on the web and on mobile over the next few months. We believe people are what matter and we feel that the excellent staff at each of the properties is committed to this cause.

Dennis Wilkinson, vice president of Sun Publications said, We are excited about being a part of Lakeway Publishers. We look forward to growing and expanding under the Lakeway Group. It is important for us to continue our local coverage for our readers, and we think that this move will enable us to continue our progress.

Dennis Wilkinson will become vice president of Lakeway Publishers of Florida; Tom Kirk will continue to serve as publisher of the Osceola News-Gazette; Jodi Marano will continue to serve as publisher of The Clermont papers; Chris Tiffer will continue as financial controller of the Group; and Lisa Taylor will continue as human resource director.

Cribb, Greene & Associates of Bozeman, MT, and Charlottesville, VA, represented IPI in the sale.

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Lakeway Publishers, Inc. acquires Sun Publications of Florida Inc.

Students from Jefferson Middle School in Champaign created a project using Etoys, a free software program, and presented their projects at the Siebel Center for Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Students also saw a presentation of 3-D visualizations at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and participated in a CS Unplugged activity.

Jefferson students at NCSA and Siebel

Photographer: Robin Scholz

Nick Cole, a seventh-grader from Jefferson Middle School in Champaign, tries to grab objects on the screen during a presentation of 3-D visualizations at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications on Wednesday, May 1, 2013. The students also participated in a CS Unplugged activity at the Siebel Center for Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Students created a project using Etoys, a free software program, and presented their projects at Siebel.

Jefferson students at NCSA and Siebel

Photographer: Robin Scholz

Wearing special glasses, students from Jefferson Middle School in Champaign watch a presentation of 3-D visualizations at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications on Wednesday, May 1, 2013. The students also participated in a CS Unplugged activity at the Siebel Center for Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Students created a project using Etoys, a free software program, and presented their projects at Siebel.

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Jefferson students at NCSA and Siebel

Technology News

April 30, 2013 // Julien Happich

Vishay Intertechnology has released free Android software designed to simplify the use of its VCNL4020 and VCNL3020 integrated proximity and ambient light sensors in any mobile device running Android 4.0.1 software or higher.

The VCNLx020 Android software significantly reduces the time needed to program an Android device for use with the VCNL4020 and VCNL3020, eliminating the need for debugging and simplifying the overall adoption of Vishay's digital IC-enabled optical sensors.

In devices such as smartphones, ambient light sensors optimize the visibility of the LCD display by allowing the backlight to adjust its brightness automatically based on surrounding light levels. The proximity sensor is used to turn off the backlight of the display and disable the touch functionality when the phone is brought next to the user's ear, preventing his or her cheek from ending a call accidentally. Both types of sensors are designed to reduce power consumption and extend battery life in mobile electronics. For these devices, the Vishay Semiconductors VCNL4020 and VCNL3020 are fully integrated solutions, containing an infrared emitter and photo detector for proximity sensing, an ambient light sensor (VCNL4020), and signal processing, all in a single surface-mount package.

The VCNLx020 Android software package includes the documentation, source code, and patch files required to allow an Android-based platform to communicate with the VCNL4020 or VCNL3020. This communication follows the standard Android sensors framework. The supplied Android VCNL4020 driver consists of two parts: the kernel module responsible for the data control and acquisition from the VCNL4020 and the subsequent HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) module to link the kernel to the main Android framework, allowing the information supplied by the sensor to be used by Android applications. To demonstrate this, a demo Android app is included (VCNL40x0-DemoApp.apk), along with its associated source code, which can serve as a base for building user-specific Android applications.

Visit Vishay at http://www.vishay.com/optical-sensors

Embedded tools,Optoelectronics,Sensors & Conditioning

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Free Android software eases ambient light and proximity sensors integration

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

JAMF Software has announced significant new classroom management capabilities with Casper Focus, enabling teachers to unlock the full potential of iPad in the classroom. Casper Focus allows teachers to ensure that all students are engaged, on the same activity, and using their iOS devices in the ways the technology was intended.

Using the Casper Suite, educators are able to distribute content and apps directly to any iOS device, ensuring a consistent and standardized method for delivering educational content to students. With the release of Casper Focus, teachers gain the ability to leverage the Casper Suites powerful classroom management tools, without requiring interaction from their IT departments. The end result is that educators have granular control over the devices in their classroom, able to focus all students on the same curriculum at the same time or work with subgroups and individuals as they progress through curriculum at different paces.

A focused and consistent learning experience

Casper Focus introduces capabilities tailored to the specific needs of the classroom, developed with feedback from teachers and their experience using Apple technologies.

For instance, a teacher may limit students exclusively to the content that they are teaching or assessing, ensuring that students attention is focused on the curriculum. Student devices can be focused on a single app so that students do not wander to other apps or reference unauthorized materials during exams.

Previously, many of these capabilities would have required significant manual work to implement, while relying upon an informal combination of unsupported or disparate technologies. Casper Focus consolidates these features into a single interface boasting significant customization options, meeting the wide variety of needs for educators leveraging Apple technologies on a daily basis.

We couldnt be more excited to provide tools that improve the ways educators share the best educational curriculum with students, said Nick Amundsen, Developer Manager, R&D at JAMF Software. We have long had the opportunity to work with System Administrators behind the scenes, building enterprise tools that power widespread use of Apple technologies in education organizations. Now, with Casper Focus, weve placed these powerful technologies directly into the hands of the teachers that work with students every day.

New frontiers of Apple technology in education

JAMF Software technologies enable many of the largest one-to-one programs and deployments of Apple technologies around the world, including 7 of the top 10 universities and many of the top 100 school districts.

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JAMF Software Releases Casper Focus, a Powerful Classroom Management Tool for iPad in Education

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There is a perception in some tech circles that older programmers aren't able to keep pace with rapidly changing technology, and that they are discriminated against in the software field. But a new study from North Carolina State University indicates that the knowledge and skills of programmers actually improve over time and that older programmers know as much (or more) than their younger peers when it comes to recent software platforms.

"We wanted to explore these perceptions of veteran programmers as being out of step with emerging technologies and see if we could determine whether older programmers are actually keeping up with changes in the field," says Dr. Emerson Murphy-Hill, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research. "And we found that, in some cases, veteran programmers even have a slight edge."

The researchers looked at the profiles of more than 80,000 programmers on a site called StackOverflow, which is an online community that allows users to ask and answer programming questions. The site also allows users to rate the usefulness of other users' questions and answers. Users who are rated as asking good questions and providing good answers receive points that are reflected in their "reputation score." The higher an individual's reputation score, the more likely it is that the user has a robust understanding of programming issues.

For the first part of the study, the researchers compared the age of users with their reputation scores. They found that an individual's reputation increases with age, at least into a user's 40s. There wasn't enough data to draw meaningful conclusions for older programmers.

The researchers then looked at the number of different subjects that users asked and answered questions about, which reflects the breadth of their programming interests. The researchers found that there is a sharp decline in the number of subjects users weighed in on between the ages of 15 and 30 but that the range of subjects increased steadily through the programmers' 30s and into their early 50s.

Finally, the researchers evaluated the knowledge of older programmers (ages 37 and older) compared to younger programmers (younger than 37) in regard to relatively recent technologies meaning technologies that have been around for less than 10 years.

For two smartphone operating systems, iOS and Windows Phone 7, the veteran programmers had a significant edge in knowledge over their younger counterparts. For every other technology, from Django to Silverlight, there was no statistically significant difference between older and younger programmers.

"The data doesn't support the bias against older programmers if anything, just the opposite," Murphy-Hill says.

Explore further: Apple blocks Java on Macs due to vulnerabilities (Update)

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Study shows software developers' skills improve over time