A sign-up interface created by Penn State researchers for Facebook apps could help members prevent personal information -- and their friends' information -- from leaking out through third-party games and apps to hackers and identity thieves. (more)
Flexible and printed electronics, and chemical linguistic analysis, are targeted to receive $1.25 million in research grants from the Dow Chemical Co. (more)
Brand names in online search engine advertising campaigns can attract more attention and encourage more sales than campaigns that use generic terms, according to Penn State researchers. (more)
Young adults who are Web-savvy but lack knowledge about federal government may struggle to use the Web for political participation, according to a team of researchers. (more)
All of those Twitter tweets and Facebook friends may have value after all, according to Penn State researchers. Updates on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other real-time content sites could be worth more than $30 million a day, or nearly $10.9 billion a year, to advertisers, said Jim Jansen, associate professor, information sciences and technology. (more)
Penn State's online campus, the World Campus, is the No. 1 online institution for 2011, and the University's portfolio of online information sciences and technology degrees also is No. 1 nationally among information technology (IT) degrees, according to The Best Colleges. A third online program, the MBA program (iMBA), ranks No. 9 among the 25 Best Online MBA Degree Programs. The Best Colleges produces independent evaluations of colleges and universities to aid prospective students. World Campus leads the Top 25 Online Colleges and Universities list, while Penn State's associate, bachelor's and master's degrees in information sciences and technology put the University in first place in the Top 10 Best Colleges for Online Information Technology Degrees list. (more)
Often portrayed as pawns of male-dominated terrorist organizations, female terrorists are actually motivated by more complicated and diverse reasons, according to a Penn State researcher. "It's true that some women are coerced, but the truth is that motivations vary from terrorist group to terrorist group," said Mia Bloom, fellow, International Center for the Study of Terrorism. "For example, of the women in the provincial Irish Republican Army group that I talked to, not one was coerced; they were enthusiastic about their roles." (more)
The United States' preoccupation with national security, including counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and cyber security, is also a concern of higher education, according to Graham Spanier, president of Penn State University. (more)
A computer program that automatically analyzes mounds of satellite
images and other data could help climate scientists keep track of complex, constantly changing environmental conditions, according to an international team of researchers. "All of the data and information that is continually collected by satellites and sensors can cause tons of problems for scientists, who simply don't have the time to analyze every pixel of every satellite image," said James Wang, professor of information sciences and technology at Penn State. "Our goal has been to provide a tool that would create useful information or knowledge from this large pool of data." (more)
Facebook's leaking of personally identifiable user information to advertisers through some of its popular applications is just the latest sign of the vulnerability of information in the age of social networking. To help address this and other emerging security risks, Penn State is offering an Information Security and Forensics Program that provides learners with the knowledge and skills to protect sensitive information and to determine the causes of security breaches. The program is part of Penn State's Master of Professional Studies in Homeland Security degree and is delivered entirely online. (more)
