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University of Baltimore students won't have to pay for their last semester of school anymore, under one condition: They must finish on time. The program, called Finish4Free, is more than a nice gesture to cut students a break on their school debt. The university thinks that letting students finish their last semester for free will encourage more to finish on time.

""I mean, man, it's like not real life. Not. Real. Life. Why would you be on there when there's this," he gestured, with his chin, to everything around him, the bottleneck of teens, grouping off, chattering. Then he looked over at a small pack of guys dressed a little like him, ambling towards us. "Those are my boys," he said, then offered me his hand to shake. "Hope this helps," he said, adding, at the last moment, "Obviously, like, Facebook is not cool.""

"Part of what makes emotional content so susceptible to spreading is that emotions themselves are contagious. Researchers have long known that people can "catch" the emotions of someone around them, so to speak, through direct exposure to that person's expressions and tones and gestures. They also believe this process of emotional contagion can occur indirectly--say, by receiving a forwarded video clip or article."

Creating a workable Minority Report-like screen isn't very hard but what about an entire room or building that responds to touch, voice, and movement? Now that's hard. That, however, is the goal of OpenArch, a project by designer Ion Cuervas-Mons that uses projectors, motion sensors, and light to create interactive spaces.