The universal translator from "Star Trek," the babelfish from "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" and a real human interpreter are a few of the things to which the Skype Translator has been compared. Released to a limited amount of users in December as a prototype, it provides instant audio translation between English and Spanish and text translation between over...

The proposal of a merit pay scheme for Occidental professors sparked debate at the annual faculty retreat Jan. 15 and inspired the creation of a new task force. The idea of giving raises to tenured and tenure-track professors based on individual merit—a combination of excellence in teaching, publication and service to the college—is controversial at Occidental, where they are generally...

Members of the Occidental community and professional architects, writers and art curators gathered in Choi Auditorium Thursday to attend the kick-off event of the Third Los Angeles project—an exploration of the cultural, political and structural changes influencing LA's evolution. Developed by Urban and Environmental Policy (UEP) Professor Christopher Hawthorne, the project encompasses five free events, including lectures and discussions, that...

Victor Narro, project director for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Downtown Labor Center, gave a talk Thursday titled "Spirituality, Self-Care, and Social Justice Activism." The event in Lower Herrick was the first of a three-part mindfulness series at Occidental, hosted by Politics Professor Thalia Gonzalez. In his talk, Narro aimed to provide attendees with a set of tools...

Occidental’s Communications, Marketing, & Community Relations department is in the preliminary phase of a conceptual and visual makeover of the college's image to bolster its reputation in the collegiate community and the general population.“We don’t really trumpet ourselves all that much,” Brett Schraeder, Occidental’s vice president for strategic initiatives, marketing and communications, said. “We have to be a little bit...

Vivid shots of the rust-colored ruins of Jewish-Moroccan villages lit up Choi Auditorium Tuesday, Feb. 10 as students gathered to view the documentary "They Were Promised the Sea." The barren images reinforced the emptiness pervading the film's environment and the loss of Morocco’s Jews, who answered the Zionists' call to return to Israel en masse. The documentary follows the story...

Easily overlooked at the busy intersection of Hollywood and Vermont in Los Feliz, architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House is a hidden gem within Los Angeles. Located atop Olive Hill in Barnsdall Art Park, the anonymity of the space works for the Wright House, as residents of Los Angeles often visit to seek refuge from the city below. But this...

Short films are short for a reason. They are to cinema what poetry is to literature; rather than delving into a complex narrative, they explore a simple concept in depth. This year's Academy Award nominations for the Live Action Short category represent the best fictional films under 40 minutes from 2014. The British short film "The Phone Call" portrays one...

China. The Cyberspace Administration of China is enforcing stricter regulations on dating websites to prevent prostitution and fraud. Among the increased controls is a push for real-name registration on matchmaking websites like Jiayuan.com. As of 2014, this website claimed to have 100 million registered users. Official regulators also expanded censorship and have made virtual private networks increasingly difficult to access....

There is nothing more satisfying than face-to-face smack talk. The rise of online gaming has made it easier than ever to play games with other people, but there will always be a space in gamers' hearts for the local multiplayer experiences we cherished as kids. Good news: local multiplayer is making a comeback. These cheap indie titles will scratch that...