By Bree Fowler, Technology Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --Teaching kids to code is just as important as teaching them any other language. And the younger they start learning it, the better, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Wednesday.
Cook spoke to a group of New York third graders who visited a Manhattan Apple store for an "Hour of Code" class. In an interview afterward, he said that schools aren't putting enough emphasis on computer-science education, but he has "great hope" that will change and coding will ultimately become a required class for all kids.
"From an economic standpoint the job segment itself today is huge, but it's going to become even larger," Cook said.
And if the concepts are introduced at a young age, in a fun way, it's more likely that kids will find them cool and stay interested as they grow older, hopefully resulting in a larger and more diverse tech workforce down the road, he said.
Cook added that even if kids don't grow up to get a lucrative job in the tech industry, they'll discover a new way to be creative and pick up important problem-solving skills along the way.
The kids at Wednesday's event played with a Star Wars-themed game created by the non-profit group Code.org in partnership with Disney. On iPad Minis, they used basic drag-and-drop commands to program their droid to do things like pick up scrap metal and evade Stormtroopers.
Their teacher, Joann Khan, said Wednesday's introduction to coding was probably a first for most of her students, noting that her school, located in Manhattan's East Harlem neighborhood, no longer has a computer lab.
She said the lessons taught through the game bring to life some of the math skills the kids are learning in her classroom, something she planned to point out to them when they returned to school.
The "Hour of Code" workshop was one of many held by Apple Inc. and a slew of other technology companies around the world this week as part of a Code.org push to introduce as many kids as possible to computer science through a one-hour class.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More