Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was the victim of a practical joke, or “hoax,” on Tuesday.
Someone broke into the website of the Conservative party. (Harper is the leader of the Conservatives.) They posted a fake article about him.
The article said Harper had been rushed to hospital after he had choked on some hash browns at breakfast.
It said that his wife, Laureen, called 911 because the Prime Minister couldn’t breathe and that he was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Toronto.
Recently, Japan suffered the fifth largest earthquake in history. Although Japan is extremely well prepared for earthquakes, nothing could have prepared the country for something this big. And that’s not even counting the tsunami (giant wave) that was created by the quake.
You may be hearing news reports about “radiation” and “nuclear reactors.”
Normally, nuclear reactors are very safe. They supply clean energy and can create a lot of electricity. For a country like Japan, that is relatively small but uses a lot of electricity, nuclear energy has been important.
However, the buildings that house the reactors have been damaged by the earthquake and the tsunami.
The earthquake damaged four enormous buildings that supply power to Japan. They are called “nuclear reactors” and they supply nuclear power that creates electricity for the country.
Last year Apple invented an amazing new piece of technology, called the iPad. It was different from anything anyone had seen before. It is a slim, flat screen but it acts like a computer. And because it’s a “touch-screen,” you use your fingers to move and open files.
Last week, Apple announced the iPad 2, a new and improved version of the iPad.
The company was very excited about the iPad 2. In fact, the head of the company, Steve Jobs, has been away sick for a long time but he came back to make the announcement himself.
In 1997, there was a very famous chess match. The world champion chess player, Gary Kasparov, went up against a special challenger: a computer. The computer was called “Deep Blue” and it was built by IBM just to play chess. Deep Blue won the six-game chess match.
This year, IBM came up with a new challenge. They decided to build a computer that could match wits with two humans on a game show called Jeopardy!. The computer is called Watson, and its “brain power” is equal to thousands of home computers.
Playing chess is something computers can do very well because it relies on quickly deciding between different moves. However, answering questions and understanding English is not something computers do well. In Jeopardy!, the questions may include riddles, puns and cultural references. These are things humans are good at, but computers are not.
Restaurants are using iPads to let customers get information about their food and place their order.
An iPad is a flat, square computer – like a large iPhone but instead of making phone calls it displays information and can access the Internet. It has a touch screen, so people can use their fingers to work it.
Chicago Cut is a steakhouse in the U.S. They have 40 iPads in their restaurant so people can see their wine list and order a bottle of wine. They can also get information on the wine to find out what it tastes like before they order it.
Canada is leading the way in “barcoding” all animals on earth.
Scientists around the world are undertaking a massive project to help protect animals. And Canadians (in fact, Torontonians) are leading the way.
One day, the project will allow you to point your camera phone at an animal or a bug and a screen will pop up with the name of the species and a description of it.
