This Week in Tech with Jeanne Destro

Today, a special bonus edition of "This Week in Tech with Jeanne Destro" focused on two new programs in our community aimed at getting high school students excited about, and ready for careers in the tech industry. First, we'll be talking with the founder and CEO of information security consulting company, TrustedSec, headquartered in Fairlawn, and of the managed security service provider, Binary...

This week, news that Summit County's multi-million dollar, 125 mile fiber-optic cable ring project, is now in the process of growing and developing into something much bigger and better.   Originally conceived as a network that that would connect the County, through it's new data center, with 31 city, village, and township governments; now they're planning to bring more affordable, ultra high spee...

This week, we have more news about the federal government's efforts to both promote sustainable, energy-efficient technology, and to encourage manufacturing growth and job creation in Northeast Ohio. To further those goals, the U.S. Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), is investing more than $10 million dollars in a new program called “Manufacturing the New Energy Economy in Appalachia,” and $1....

The Biden administration continues its push toward both manufacturing growth in states like Ohio that have seen massive job blue collar losses over the past several decades, and the widespread expansion of sustainable green energy alternatives such as wind, solar, and just this week; an up to $8 billion dollar investment in clean hydrogen. As part of that push; Ohio was included in one of the seve...

Three years ago at this time, no one had ever heard of COVID-19. But since then, the world has changed, and so has education—in particular— online learning. Like everywhere else in the country, Akron Public School students were forced to stay home and do their lessons online. They had live teachers leading the virtual class sessions, but then once the COVID case numbers dropped enough; the vast ma...

CNN posted an intriguing story this week, about how several voting machine manufacturers are conducting "stress tests", to uncover possible flaws that might need to be fixed before the upcoming 2024 election. While that was of course, welcome news; it did make me wonder just how secure are voting machines really are, in general, and what cybersecurity experts do to ensure they stay in tip-top shap...

Because lithium-ion batteries are used to power so many of the electronic devices we find indispensable these days, including computers, mobile phones, and cars,  and because the materials used to make them can be both both scarce and difficult to obtain the federal government is keen on finding safe and inexpensive ways to recycle them. So, that's why the National Science Foundation (NSF) just ga...

The University of Akron NASA Robotics team made a good showing recently at a robotics competition at the University of Alabama, coming in eighth place overall, and first place, in the Project Management category. We talked to U-A Robotics team leader, Callie Lewis, about how their traditional focus on mining robots, will move in a new direction, as NASA starts looking at ways to build a base on th...

It's been a busy week for Federal law enforcement, which both brought down a huge Russian cybercrime botnet, and also indicted multiple Russian cyber criminals for spreading malware and ransomware that resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars from victims worldwide. The indictments out of three different jurisdictions; Northern Ohio, Middle Tennessee, and the Southern District of Ca...

Most people have figured out by now, that when you watch an opinion show on Fox TV; you get a right wing, conservative point of view, and the same thing goes on the left, for MSNBC. Social media has also been overtaken by spin, and whether you’re on Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), or Meta’s new X alternative; Threads; you just know you’re going to be frequently exposed to people with a pa...

Imagine driving down the road on a dark night. Suddenly; your car slows and rolls to a gentle stop, just before a big deer that had been completely hidden from sight in the woods, darts out onto the road exactly where you would have been, if advanced thermal imaging sensors hadn't saved you from a potentially fatal crash. Sound far-fetched? Well, according to researchers at Purdue University, that...

Most consumers know what it's like to feel cheated, scammed, and manipulated, and no one does it better, or on a bigger scale, than big tech. Old scams like "bait and switch", false promises, and teeny-tiny “gotcha” fine print, get new life on a much broader scale when millions of people worldwide find out  that without their consent; their private information has been harvested and sold, they've...

Last week, we focused on cyber defense of government networks; today, we're looking at what is going on in the private sector, and how business owners and managers can deal with new and emerging threats. This is a major issue, because the number and severity of cyber attacks and data breaches continues to rise. In fact, they have become so common; many people don't even pay attention to news about...

The State of Ohio is stepping up to help local government guard against, and recover from cyber attacks. The new Ohio Persistent Cyber Improvement (O-PCI) program will guide local agencies through three cybersecurity preparedness levels. Each level will consist of a five-step process for cybersecurity advancement: education, training, exercising, mentoring, and improvement. We talked about how tha...

We've got big news about big tech projects in Ohio, including the Intel Semiconductor plant, Amazon's planned data center expansion, new highway EV charging stations, a high school tech internship program, and a new center for Advanced Air Mobility, at Kent State University. Listen now, for more.

Wouldn't it be great if you could endlessly recycle an enormously useful resource, do it for less money than it takes to make it brand new, keep tons of waste out of landfills, and reduce air pollution all at the same time? Well, yes. Yes it would be. That's why we're talking to a Chemistry Professor at Bowling Green State University, who is pretty sure he's got that all figured out, with a new, p...

What if farmers could produce more food, generate clean energy, and make more money all at the same time? Well, it turns out that they can, through a process called "Agrivoltaics". It involves "planting" solar panels in fields, and both sheltering animals from the sun, and cultivating crops underneath them. Those who have tried it are calling it a win-win, for farmers who are increasingly stretche...

Imagine some teeny-tiny little scissors. Now, imagine them snipping out "bad" genes that cause disease, and leaving only the good ones behind. Sound farfetched? Well, actually, it is not. In fact, that's exactly what they're doing at Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital, where a Sickle Cell Disease clinical trial involving gene editing and stem cells is now underway. We talked about it, with Dr. R...

Everybody knows that insualting your home is a good way to cut down on heating and cooling costs, but what if you could turn your entire home into a giant insulated cooler? Well, it turns out you can, and some people in Europe are doing just that; building new walls several feet outside their existing homes, cladding them with a layer of insulated foam, and then extending their roof out over the n...

A federal judge in New York is considering sanctions against an attorney who used the ChatGPT artificial intelligence tool to draft a legal brief that was presented as evidence, but contained case citations that were completely untrue; fabricated by the AI tool. In a court hearing yesterday, the New York Times reports, Judge P. Kevin Castel, grilled attorney Steven A. Schwartz, about why he used r...

This week, we're talking about newly discovered, extremely sophisticated cyber threats that pose real dangers to consumers, and to our national security. Although we've tackled some of these issues before; it seemed like it was worth a closer look at some new threats that came to light just this week. They include a pre-installed Android exploit that consumers can't detect, and is nearly impossibl...

You see them on TV all the time; images of dramatic car crashes, fires, and disasters, beamed down to viewers from helicopters.  So, one would just kind of naturally kind of assume police have all that same kind of technology at their fingertips all the time, and that they can use it to fight crime whenever they want. But they can’t —at least not yet—here in Ohio. However, thanks to a $6 million d...

Imagine being able to fly to LA for lunch, have a business meeting, and then be back home in time for dinner. It could happen, if a research project currently underway at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland is successful in demonstrating that a new, high tech airplane can break the sound barrier without causing the noisy and destructive sonic booms that helped end commercial supersonic air tra...

Cutting edge, life saving technology that could one day revolutionize healthcare worldwide, is in the spotlight today, and it's being used and tested right here in Northeast Ohio. Our featured guests today are Pediatric Surgeon, Dr. Lorena Floccari, who directs the Akron Children's Hospital Spine Center, and Dr. George Muschler, who directs the Cleveland Clinic's Orthopaedic and Rheumatologic Rese...

EV batteries, and the demise of the Chevy Bolt. That's what we're focusing on this week, as we discuss how companies making electric batteries for carmakers including Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota, and BMW are increasingly building plants in Southern states. We wanted to know what that might mean for traditional auto industry strongholds like Ohio and Michigan, where EV battery plants are also being bu...