The Informed Collegiete: 5 Current Events from the Past 2 Weeks

1. Blackberry Shorts
 
A company called Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) makes Blackberry cell phones. Late last week there was news of a continent-wide Blackberry troubles in Europe. On Wednesday of this week (10/12) Blackberrys across the US had service disruptions, causing frustration for many who rely on their Blackberrys for work as well as professional communication. It is clearly a bad time for such disruptions as Apple just came out with their Iphone 4S and the other smartphones are already taking leads in the market. RIM is on the lookout for network hackers, but has found no evidence to support such a claim. The company is currently trying to remedy the problem and find its source. 
 
2. New Republican Presidential lead – Herman Cain
 
A new Candidate, Herman Cain has taken a 20% lead in the Republican polls. He’s the owner of a pizza company called Godfather’s Pizza. He has created a name for himself, showing his main concern to be the economy and having little concern for foreign policy. He also has a plan of eliminating many current taxation plans including the death tax, payroll taxes and he wishes to repeal “Obamacare.”
 
3. Radioactive “hotspots” found in Tokyo
 
Increased levels of radiation have been found in Tokyo neighborhoods. There is still question of whether this is from the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima. World News Australia says the raised levels of radiation are not connected to Fukushima but material in the basement of a house.
 
4. President Obama sends troops to Africa
 
President Obama sent 100 US troops to Uganda in search of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leaders. The troops were sent to provide assistance to regional forces.
 
5. Netflix continues to suffer from internal conflicts
 
For those of you in IS classes or who read headlines, here’s a bit of a back-roads story, or at least business news. Netflix recently attempted to split its DVD mail and online streaming services into two separate companies – Qwikster and Netflix, respectively. They were going to charge customers separately for the two services (which they have already slightly begun to do), but this caused much backlash from the customers. Because of customer response, the CEO is having to retreat. Services should remain or return to the way they were, but share price has dropped and this “sudden” decision, which the CEO calls acting too fast has hurt the company.
 
This is far from an exhaustive or “most important” list, just some personal picks.
 
Sources
Wall Street Journal
BBC.com
sbs.com