Waterfillz machines have been increasing in numbers on campus over the last three years. Although they allow students to fill up their water bottles for free, the machines cost around $20,000. Despite their popularity, and being installed in the SUB, West Mall Swing Space and MacMillan buildings, their value is being questioned, in the onset of costly repairs and leakages.

Associate professor Pierre Bérubé (CIVL), who specializes in water treatment, explained that tap water in B.C. undergoes a stringent filtration process and is already just as clean as filtered or bottled water.

“It’s been treated already, so the usefulness of refiltering it is very questionable,” said Bérubé. “In fact, if you read the fine print on most over-the-counter filtration systems, it says that the system is only valid if it’s being used on high-quality filtered tap water. So you have to ask yourself why you are using this product if it’s only valid or rated to be operated on water that’s always treated.”

A team of computer researchers at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UBC has found that hordes of social bots could spell disaster for large online destinations like Facebook and Twitter but also threaten the Web and have implications for our economy and society.

Four UBC scientists designed a “social botnet” — an army of automatic “friends.” These social bots masquerade as online users, adding posts that seem like they came from real people. But they secretly promote products or viewpoints, and some use their new connections to siphon off your private information. The social bots tested at UBC imitated people well enough to infiltrate social networks.