Modern digital tools have brought about new conveniences, enabling many to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. But despite our countless ways to connect with each other, studies increasingly show that people are more isolated, more depressed and less empathetic than before. In this episode of Big Tech, co-hosts David Skok and Taylor Owen speak with Douglas Rushkoff (SHS 1979) about the internet’s evolution from an emerging technology to the monopolistic system we have today. Rushkoff is a professor of media theory and digital economics at Queens College, City University of New York and author of Team Human, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus and more.

Ten years ago, Dan Rosensweig (SHS 1979) made a bet on higher education and the Internet. The whole college system, he decided, was ridiculously outdated. Universities would have to modernize and embrace online teaching sooner or later. The former COO of Yahoo and CEO of Guitar Hero took on the role of CEO and president of Chegg, an online tutoring and student services company. 

Dream of dining and discussing space travel with former NASA astronaut and MIT Aerospace Engineering Professor, Jeffrey Hoffman (SHS 1962) Want to grab a sandwich and talk sports analytics with Ben Shields, former ESPN executive and Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan? Perhaps you'd like to break bread and ponder the future of nanomedicine with Paula Hammond, the head of MIT's Department of Chemical Engineering.

Greenwich Entertainment has acquired the North American theatrical and select home entertainment rights for Barbara Kopple’s (SHS 1964) documentary Desert One. Greenwich will release Desert One on a to-be-determined date followed by a broadcast on History.

The docu from the two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker, which debuted at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, revisits April 1980 when the military participated in a rescue operation known as Operation Eagle Claw, whee they rescued 52 U.S.

Earl Graves Sr., the founder and publisher of Black Enterprise magazine and iconic entrepreneur in the black community, has died.

Graves' son, Earl "Butch" Graves Jr., confirmed his father's passing in a post on Twitter, saying he died after a long battle with Alzheimer's. According to Black Enterprise, Graves Sr. was 85.

With theaters around the world dark and the transition of live entertainment to online platforms, Temple Emanuel Streicker Center will commemorate Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) with the PBS/WNET film of Jeff Cohen's acclaimed drama The Soap Myth. The staged "concert reading," starring seven-time Emmy Award and five-time Golden Globe Award winner Ed Asner and four-time Tony Award and two-time Emmy Award nominee Tovah Feldshuh, is available now to stream for free via WNET's ALL ARTS platform.

When we started our first business in 2001, we were 16-year-old high school students and had no idea what it takes for a business to be successful. We just knew we were solving a problem that was acutely painful for us. In our case, we found the process of creating bibliographies awfully tedious, so we developed a website called EasyBib that would create citations by entering the name of the book or website you were using in your research. 

Fast-forward 15 years and EasyBib, along with our other portfolio sites, were reaching more than 30M students yearly. Collectively, they became one of the largest education assets on the Internet. 

Sturm und Drang, a solo show from Nicole Eisenman that’s on view at The Contemporary Austin through August 16, features representative examples of her art. You’ll find a mix of paintings, sculpture, and works on paper ranging in size from a room-filling grouping to individual pieces you can hold in your hand. Almost everything is of recent vintage, with three exceptions dating from the 1990s.

LAST SUNDAY WEEK, we brought you 10 of the best sports films to watch on Netflix. We’re aware that, by now, there is every chance you have exhausted those options. And so we embark upon the Wild West that is YouTube in search of our sports fix.

We’ve included links to the full films below.  Consume them at your own leisure and be sure to share them with sports-mad loved ones in order to protect them from the crushing low of finding yourself watching re-runs of Friends on Comedy Central.

Sugar Ray Robinson and The Bright Lights and Dark Shadows of a Champion by Ross Greenburg (SHS 1973)

The maker of Chernobyl will be in charge to build up the TV adjustment for HBO, close by The Last of Us imaginative executive, Neil Druckmann.A TV adjustment of the widely praised endurance game The Last of Us is headed to HBO. Neil Druckmann, imaginative executive and VP at Naughty Dog, is banding together with Craig Mazin, the maker of HBO’s Chernobyl, to build up the adjustment, as per The Hollywood Reporter. HBO’s Carolyn Strauss (SHS 1981) and leader of Naughty Dog Evan Wells are additionally ready to deliver the arrangement.