The “Gang of 8” bipartisan group of Senators introduced immigration reform legislation last week that, after a time, would theoretically allow people without legal status in the U.S. to gain access to a path to citizenship that would take 13 years. There are many caveats in the bill, as you can see from this infographic put together by Quartz. There are caveats if you committed crimes, what dates you arrived to the U.S. and more. Check out this infographic from Quartz and let us know what you think about immigration reform.… more

By Eduardo Stanley, www.eduardostanley.com FRESNO, California — On April 2, 2013, the Associated Press (AP), perhaps the biggest news agency in the world, announced it would no longer use the word “illegal” when referring to immigrants without legal residence or working permits. The announcement was made by Kathleen Carroll, Vice President and Executive Editor of AP, who explained that the change will be reflected in the organization’s influential “manual of style” — a must-have book in any news room and for any journalist.… more

Sabio is an organization that aims to help unemployed women and minorities become tech workers through an intensive boot camp and targeted networking with tech professionals. Currently the group is competing in the LA2050 challenge in an effort to seek funding. Co-founder Gregorio Rojas worked 14 years programming in a variety of fields, from e-commerce to social networking, and said that the lack of diversity in tech was one of the main drivers for him to found Sabio. “The technology sector has so much opportunity and potential for those that decided to be a part of it — but we struggle to find people to get involved in building and creating technology,” Rojas said.… more

By Lois Beckett, ProPublica The Republicans have admitted it: They need to get serious about collecting and analyzing voter data. Well, you can’t get much more serious than talking to Teradata, the “data warehousing” company that helps Wal-Mart, Apple and eBay store massive amounts of information about the behavior of their customers.

An interesting cultural development on the Internet in China is the “human-flesh search engine.” It’s a site notorious for ripping apart people, spreading gossip, and being part of the nature of the Internet. However, is the human search engine ever going to come to the United States and other regions of the Internet? This isn’t Google-powered by corpses or anything as grotesque as it sounds. The engine is merely crowd-sourcing to acquire and disseminate information. Its functions have been numerous, with strong repercussions in the real world.… more

A new study published in Psychology of Women Quarterly found that Latino and African American males scored the lowest on 10th grade math and science tests while Asians, particularly male Asians, scored the highest. The study examined 10th grade year-end tests in math and science at five Philadelphia, Pennsylvania high schools with diverse populations. According to a report:

The researchers took family income and education levels into account, finding that white students in the sample were much more likely to come from higher-income families with greater parental education and more books in the home, despite living in the same neighborhoods and attending the same schools as their peers from other ethnic groups.

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A study from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) in the United Kingdom titled, “Who Matters Online: Measuring influence, evaluating content and countering violent extremism in online social networks” has examined the problem of extremists using social media. Utilizing white supremacists in the United States as an example, the study isolated several factors that people can use to measure who is worth “keeping an eye on” when it comes to extremism on social media.… more

Games are notorious for breeding racism. Not so much through in-game content, but through the charming player base. This is commonly looked down upon by computer players as a console player phenomena, but it is equally as common on computer games. A big part of it are national attitudes on race, given that game users can customize appearances in the games. Even if you don’t play video games much, the phenomenon of vicious gamers isn’t hard to get. Plenty of YouTube videos document it — the face of it often being a high-pitched, usually underage voice screaming homophobic slurs, or insulting your mother.… more

Sofia Vergara isn’t necessarily a name commonly associated with technology, but last week she, along with her business partner Luis Balaguer launched NuevoWorld: a social platform in Spanish aimed at helping Latino celebrities monetize their online presence. According to Forbes:

The NuevoWorld social network launched this week and has positioned itself as the platform that will “redefine the celebrity, fan and brand relationship worldwide” by connecting Spanish-speaking celebrities with over 50 million fans on social media.

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The National Science Foundation recently released a report titled, “Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2013” with some interesting data about Latinos and Latinas in STEM fields. Data in the report covers the participation of women, minorities, and persons with disabilities in science, engineering education and employment. Specifically: enrollment, field of degree, employment status, occupation, academic employment, and persons with disabilities.… more