Nova Launcher could soon introduce Nova AI, a built-in AI assistant complete with a chatbot, and a new Nova Plus subscription tier

It takes most college students at least four years to earn a bachelor’s degree. Christie Williams finished in three months.

The North Carolina human resources executive spent two months racking up credits through web tutorials after work in 2024, then raced through 11 online classes at the University of Maine at Presque Isle in four weeks. Later that year, she went back to earn her master’s – in just five weeks. The two degrees cost a total of just over $4,000.

Since then, she has coached a thousand other students on how to speed through the state college, shaving off years and thousands of dollars from the usual cost of a degree.

“Why wouldn’t you do that?” Williams asked. “It’s kind of a no-brainer if you know about it.”

Many U.S. schools have been experimenting with ways to speed up traditional college programs to reduce the burgeoning cost and help students move into the workforce faster. Some offer three-year bachelor’s programs, reducing the number of credits needed for a diploma by one quarter. Many more allow students to enroll in college classes while still in high school.

But the breakneck pace of the fastest online programs concerns some academics, who say there is a big difference in what students can learn in weeks or months compared with three or more years.

The phenomenon – sometimes referred to as degree hacking, college speed runs or hyperaccelerated degrees – has spawned a cottage industry of influencers making videos about how quickly they earned their degrees and encouraging others to follow suit.

Supporters of the approach tout it as an affordable, convenient way for people to earn credentials they need for their careers. Others, including some online students and academic officials, expressed concern about what the super-accelerated students are missing, and whether a quick path devalues degrees.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/1059200

Comments

cross-posted from: https://libretechni.ca/post/1263630

New York’s state budget could pass within days. Buried deep in the text is a provision that has nothing to do with balancing the books. Part C of the budget bill would require every 3D printer sold in New York to run surveillance software that scans every design file you create, and blocks anything an algorithm flags as a potential firearm component . A separate provision would expose researchers, journalists, and educators to felony charges simply for possessing or sharing certain design files.

Scientists in China have demonstrated a wireless power transmission system that uses a ground-based microwave emitter to beam energy to an antenna array mounted on the aircraft’s underside. Importantly, they were able to do this while both the drone and charging system were in motion.

In tests, the car-mounted system kept fixed-wing drones in the air for up to 3.1 hours at an altitude of 15 metres (49 feet). The key challenge that the team overcame was maintaining alignment between the emitter and the drone during flight, wrote Song Liwei, the project’s leader.

In december 2025, the author and activist Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr did a speech at the 39C3 called "post-American, enshittification-resistant internet"

He talks about AI, internet enshitification, anti-circumvention law. guilotine few technofascists...but he also talks about alliance and hope ! ✊

Here is the transcript : https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition

You can watch other of video from the chaos congress communication event here : https://media.ccc.de/