Three years have passed since the opening of Microsoft's School of the Future in Philadelphia, a high-profile pilot project designed to kick urban education up a few notches with learning strategies from the corporate world. Two years have passed since we wrote about this daring initiative. Now--if education experts at a recent American Enterprise Institute panel discussion are to be believed--the experiment is showing signs of stagnation.
For one thing, the School of the Future has suffered from a lack of stability. It's had four principals ("chief leaders") in only three years, according to an eSchool News report, and some attempted school-community partnerships have gone belly-up. Meanwhile, students' standardized test scores have been unimpressive to date, and in the midst of rapid administrative turnover, truancy rates have risen.
Still, Microsoft's Mary Cullinane, who supervises the project, thinks it's far too early to cry uncle. "To say this school is a failure is not correct. It's only in its
third year, and innovation always takes time," Cullinane told eSchool News. "We can't use a short-term
yardstick for a long-term journey; shame on us if we give up so easily,
and so quickly." Many educators will be watching, no doubt, to see if the much-vaunted School of the Future can turn things around.
We've written about Intralytix,
NovaBay, and Polymedix—companies developing drugs designed to
circumvent the growing problem of antibiotic resistance. Now a
hot-off-the-presses study from Nature suggests that anti-inflammatory
drugs may prove ideal for treating tuberculosis—one of the most
intractable bacterial diseases on the planet.
Instead of actively killing TB
bacteria, the Johns Hopkins scientists who conducted the Nature study
focused on reducing inflammation post-infection, which apparently
hinders progression of the disease. A non-aggressive approach to
controlling bacterial infection might seem like a contradiction in
terms, but hey, if it works, I'll take it.
Last year, I wrote about LS9, the scrappy Bay Area-based company that's engineering microbes to churn out transportation fuel. Now, LS9 has joined forces with Procter and Gamble--an upstart-titan partnership that could potentially speed the entry of LS9 products into the marketplace.
Can P&G take LS9's technology from promising concept to commercial reality without squelching the off-the-beaten-path spirit that makes LS9 unique? It's a safe bet the alt-fuel community will be watching closely to see what happens.
Last fall, when we visited Wyeth Biotech's campus in Andover, MA, we were blown away by the management's off-the-beaten-path approach to drug development and innovation. Now the storyline has hit an unexpected twist: Officials at Pfizer, the world's biggest drug company, are in talks to buy all of Wyeth -- including its rogue biotech division -- for around $60 billion. (So far, nothing is definite; reps from Wyeth and Pfizer are staying mum.)
If the deal does go down, Pfizer would acquire one of the world's best biotech operations virtually overnight without having to put in the grunt work of building a biotech brand from scratch, as Wyeth did. Pfizer's staked most of its fortunes these days on Lipitor, its wildly successful cholesterol drug, but buying Wyeth would enable the company to diversify and spread its bets a little. That may prove to be a critical move, especially since rumor has it Pfizer's research pipeline is starting to run dry. Stay tuned.
“Raise your laptops in the sky!” the announcer booms over the airplane loudspeaker. “Higher, higher, higher! Show us what you like!” Flashes wink as dozens of laptops rise in one swooping motion toward the cameras. This is Virgin America's in-the-clouds blowout bash to kick off its Gogo inflight wi-fi service—if the term “blowout bash” can be applied to a venue featuring oxygen masks and three-across seats bolted to the floor. Various YouTube personalities and a gaggle of press are on hand, squeezing their way up and down the aisles. (Rumor has it that Perez Hilton was supposed to be here, but he's MIA.)
Virgin's Gogo launch comes courtesy of some pretty hefty infrastructure upgrades. Virgin is collaborating with telecommunications company Aircell, which has put up a network of radio towers all over the United States that send out high-bandwidth signals. Three antennas on Virgin's planes (one on top, two underneath) pick up the signals and route them to the passenger cabin. I hit a small snag trying to redeem my promotion code as I sign in, but I'm soon able to blitz through a succession of my favorite sites—CNN, New York Times, Google Reader—and update my Facebook status. “Everything just works!” I hear the guy in the row behind me exclaim. “Hi, Mom,” someone else yells into his laptop mic. “It's me. I'm on a plane! I'm using the Internet!” Long-legged flight attendants pass out Karma Champagne cocktails to lubricate any technical snafus that crop up.
Virgin's not the first carrier to dabble in the world of in-air wireless. American Airlines and Jet Blue have already rolled out limited trials of in-flight broadband. But Virgin is the first airline to commit itself full throttle to on-board wi-fi—all 28 planes in Virgin's fleet will feature the service by the second quarter of 2009. Like so many in-flight trimmings these days, Gogo's not free: Virgin will be charging passengers $9.95 to use the service on flights up to three hours and $12.95 on longer ones. Still, that's little more than what you'd pay at your typical earthbound airport lounge—and the pending revenue boost from in-flight wi-fi might be just what the deep-sixed airline industry needs. $15 for your first checked bag stings, but an extra few hours of productivity while you're 35,000 feet up? Priceless.
