2016 October

First ever U.S. presidential/government bot: “Our Latest Way to Bring Your Government to You”

On 10/17/2016, in 21st century, bots, communications, Facebook / Meta Platforms, legislatures / government / legal, open courseware and systems, by Daniel Christian

Our latest way to bring your government to you — from whitehouse.gov
Why we’re open-sourcing the code for the first-ever government bot on Facebook Messenger.

Excerpt:

On August 26th, President Obama publicly responded to a Facebook message sent to him by a citizen—a first for any president in history. Since then, he has received over one and a half million Facebook messages, sent from people based all around the world.

While receiving messages from the public isn’t a recent phenomenon—every day, the White House receives thousands of phone calls, physical letters, and submissions through our online contact form—being able to contact the President through Facebook has never been possible before. Today [10/14/16], it’s able to happen because of the first-ever government bot on Facebook messenger.

Also see:

Anyone can chat with the White House… through a bot — from yahoo.com
With the new presidential “bot” on Facebook Messenger, users can send messages, 10 of which will be read each day by President Barack Obama

If you’re interested in the history of computing, AI, robotics, networking, and more, then you need to know about this site

On 10/15/2016, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Adobe, Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communications, computer science, convergence, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education technology, Google, graphics, history, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, internet, IT in HE, mathematics, media/film, Microsoft, mobile technologies, multimedia, Near Field Communication (NFC), open courseware and systems, platforms, programming, robotics, science, simulations, tablets, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, tools, universities, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, wearables, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Check out:
computerhistory.org/timeline/

For the history of AI and robotics, see:
computerhistory.org/timeline/ai-robotics/

Ephesians 3:20-21

On 10/15/2016, in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, society, by Daniel Christian

Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)

²⁰Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

55% of faculty are flipping the classroom — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser, Rhea Kelly
Our first-ever Teaching with Technology survey gauged educators’ use of the flipped classroom model, blended/online teaching environments and more.

Excerpt:

The majority of higher education faculty today are flipping their courses or plan to in the near future, according to Campus Technology‘s 2016 Teaching with Technology survey. The survey polled faculty members across the country about their use of technology for teaching and learning, their wish lists and gripes, their view of what the future holds and more.

From DSC:
Speaking of flipping the classroom…I’ve listed some ideas below for a recording studio for your college or university — with the idea to provide more choice, more control to faculty members who want to record their lectures.

A small recording booth with a Mac in it that has ScreenFlow loaded on it; alternatively, you could use a PC with a desktop recording app such as Adobe Captivate, Camtasia Studio, Jing, or something similar.

A larger recording room that has a LightBoard (NU) or Learning Glass (SDSU) in it:

Image result for lightboard

A larger recording booth that simply has some whiteboards and/or some easels with paper on them

A Microsoft Surface Hub, or a SMART Board Interactive Display, or perhaps an Epson BrightLink, or something similar for writing and capturing annotations, images, graphics, etc.

…and likely other booths with other options that faculty can walk in and use. Again, the idea is to let the faculty members choose what’s most comfortable/convenient for them.

MoreChoiceMoreControl-DSC

From DSC:
Here’s an idea that came to my mind the other day as I was walking by a person who was trying to put some books back onto the shelves within our library.

danielchristian-books-sensors-m2m-oct2016

From DSC:
Perhaps this idea is not very timely…as many collections of books will likely continue to be digitized and made available electronically. But preservation is still a goal for many libraries out there.

Also see:

IoT and the Campus of Things — from er.educause.edu by Jason O. Hallstrom

Excerpt:

Today, the IoT sits at the peak of Gartner’s Hype Cycle. It’s probably not surprising that industry is abuzz with the promise of streaming sensor data. The oft quoted “50 billion connected devices by 2020!” has become a rallying cry for technology analysts, chip vendors, network providers, and other proponents of a deeply connected, communicating world. What is surprising is that academia has been relatively slow to join the parade, particularly when the potential impacts are so exciting. Like most organizations that manage significant facilities, universities stand to benefit by adopting the IoT as part of their management strategy. The IoT also affords new opportunities to improve the customer experience. For universities, this means the ability to provide new student services and improve on those already offered. Perhaps most surprisingly, the IoT represents an opportunity to better engage a diverse student base in computer science and engineering, and to amplify these programs through meaningful interdisciplinary collaboration.
…
The potential benefits of the IoT to the academic community extend beyond facilities management to improving our students’ experience. The lowest hanging fruit can be harvested by adapting some of the smart city applications that have emerged. What student hasn’t shown up late to class after circling the parking lot looking for a space? Ask any student at a major university if it would improve their campus experience to be able to check on their smart phones which parking spots were available. The answer will be a resounding “yes!” and there’s nothing futuristic about it. IoT parking management systems are commercially available through a number of vendors. This same type of technology can be adapted to enable students to find open meeting rooms, computer facilities, or café seating. What might be really exciting for students living in campus dormitories: A guarantee that they’ll never walk down three flights of stairs balancing two loads of dirty laundry to find that none of the washing machines are available. On many campuses, the washing machines are already network-connected to support electronic payment; availability reporting is a straightforward extension.

Also see:

2016 Innovators Awards | A Location-Aware App for Exploring the Library — from campustechnology.com by Meg Lloyd
To help users access rich information resources on campus, the University of Oklahoma Libraries created a mobile app with location-based navigation and “hyperlocal” content.

Category: Education Futurists

Institution: University of Oklahoma

Project: OU Libraries NavApp

Project lead: Matt Cook, emerging technologies librarian

Tech lineup: Aruba, Meridian, RFIP

Somewhat related:

What is beacon technology and why it’s here to stay — from by sixteen-nine.net

From DSC:
Consider the affordances that we will soon be experiencing when we combine machine learning — whereby computers “learn” about a variety of things — with new forms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) — such as Augment Reality (AR)!

The educational benefits — as well as the business/profit-related benefits will certainly be significant!

For example, let’s create a new mobile app called “Horticultural App (ML)” * — where ML stands for machine learning. This app would be made available on iOS and Android-based devices. (Though this is strictly hypothetical, I hope and pray that some entrepreneurial individuals and/or organizations out there will take this idea and run with it!)

Some use cases for such an app:

Students, environmentalists, and lifelong learners will be able to take some serious educationally-related nature walks once they launch the Horticultural App (ML) on their smartphones and tablets!

They simply hold up their device, and the app — in conjunction with the device’s camera — will essentially take a picture of whatever the student is focusing in on. Via machine learning, the app will “recognize” the plant, tree, type of grass, flower, etc. — and will then present information about that plant, tree, type of grass, flower, etc.

Above image via shutterstock.com

horticulturalapp-danielchristian

In the production version of this app, a textual layer could overlay the actual image of the tree/plant/flower/grass/etc. in the background — and this is where augmented reality comes into play. Also, perhaps there would be an opacity setting that would be user controlled — allowing the learner to fade in or fade out the information about the flower, tree, plant, etc.

horticulturalapp2-danielchristian

Or let’s look at the potential uses of this type of app from some different angles.

Let’s say you live in Michigan and you want to be sure an area of the park that you are in doesn’t have any Eastern Poison Ivy in it — so you launch the app and review any suspicious looking plants. As it turns out, the app identifies some Eastern Poison Ivy for you (and it could do this regardless of which season we’re talking about, as the app would be able to ascertain the current date and the current GPS coordinates of the person’s location as well, taking that criteria into account).

easternpoisonivy

Or consider another use of such an app:

A homeowner who wants to get rid of a certain kind of weed. The homeowner goes out into her yard and “scans” the weed, and up pops some products at the local Lowe’s or Home Depot that gets rid of that kind of weed.
Assuming you allowed the app to do so, it could launch a relevant chatbot that could be used to answer any questions about the application of the weed-killing product that you might have.

Or consider another use of such an app:

A homeowner has a diseased tree, and they want to know what to do about it. The machine learning portion of the app could identify what the disease was and bring up information on how to eradicate it.
Again, if permitted to do so, a relevant chatbot could be launched to address any questions that you might have about the available treatment options for that particular tree/disease.

Or consider other/similar apps along these lines:

Skin ML (for detecting any issues re: acme, skin cancers, etc.)
Minerals and Stones ML (for identifying which mineral or stone you’re looking at)
Fish ML
Etc.

fish-ml-gettyimages

Image from gettyimages.com

So there will be many new possibilities that will be coming soon to education, businesses, homeowners, and many others to be sure! The combination of machine learning with AR will open many new doors.

* From Wikipedia:

Horticulture involves nine areas of study, which can be grouped into two broad sections: ornamentals and edibles:

Arboriculture is the study of, and the selection, plant, care, and removal of, individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants.
Turf management includes all aspects of the production and maintenance of turf grass for sports, leisure use or amenity use.
Floriculture includes the production and marketing of floral crops.
Landscape horticulture includes the production, marketing and maintenance of landscape plants.
Olericulture includes the production and marketing of vegetables.
Pomology includes the production and marketing of pome fruits.
Viticulture includes the production and marketing of grapes.
Oenology includes all aspects of wine and winemaking.
Postharvest physiology involves maintaining the quality of and preventing the spoilage of plants and animals.

teachfastly.com — FAITH and SCIENCE activities for your classroom — designed by teachers for teachers

On 10/12/2016, in 21st century, ideas, K-12 related, Michigan, pedagogy, science, society, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

FAITH and SCIENCE activities for your classroom—designed by teachers for teachers

From the About Us > The FASTly Story page

Could there be a way forward, a way of exploring the intersection of faith and science that isn’t fearful but hopeful?

In early 2011, a group of high school teachers gathered in a backwoods lodge, talking about the challenges they faced as they tried to engage big questions about science and faith. Students came to them afraid of controversy; parents worried their teaching would present the wrong angle; administrators warned them not to “stir the pot.”

What does it look like, they wondered, to teach science well in a Christian context? How might they help students to trust that the Bible and science aren’t mutually exclusive? Could there be a way forward, a way of exploring the intersection of faith and science that wasn’t fearful but hopeful?

Out of this conversation—and many others like it—the FAST project was born. A broad team came together to create this resource that begins with the conviction that the classroom can be a powerful site for discipleship. Where faith and science are so often seen as a source of conflict, FAST creates a space in which teachers and students are invited to engage them as a fruitful opportunity to learn and grow. FAST explores hard questions with integrity, encouraging the very best teaching practices within the context of Christian faithfulness.

Led by The Kuyers Institute and The Colossian Forum, FAST is a collaborative endeavor, drawing on the expertise of high school teachers, scholars, writers, and web developers. It is made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

This site already includes a large collection of teaching activities, training materials, background essays, book reviews, and more. Click here to start exploring. By the end of 2017, thanks to the committed work of our project team and the ongoing support of the John Templeton Foundation, the number of Activity Maps on the site will nearly double. Sign up here for updates as teachFASTly.com continues to expand.

Affiliations:

Also see:

Teaching faith and science? This new website changes everything. — from colossianforum.org by Jennifer Vander Molen
Excerpt:
From TCF’s earliest days, our staff has worked closely with high school teachers to help students engage with difficult questions in the arena of faith and science. Young people so often feel the pinch of our culture’s inability to handle conflict well—but we’re convinced that the church can show them a better way. In order to help educators address these unique concerns, TCF has collaborated with the Kuyers Institute on the three-year FAST (Faith And Science Teaching) Project to create and launch teachFASTly.com.Designed by teachers for teachers, teachFASTly.com promotes an integrated, intentional, and creative approach to teaching and learning at the intersection of faith and science. The site offers hundreds of free, ready-to-use activities organized by subject area. It also features a robust resource section containing practical teaching strategies and conceptual resources.

Why Artificial Intelligence is the Future of Growth — from accenture.com

Excerpt:

Fuel For Growth
Compelling data reveal a discouraging truth about growth today. There has been a marked decline in the ability of traditional levers of production—capital investment and labor—to propel economic growth.

Yet, the numbers tell only part of the story. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a new factor of production and has the potential to introduce new sources of growth, changing how work is done and reinforcing the role of people to drive growth in business.

Accenture research on the impact of AI in 12 developed economies reveals that AI could double annual economic growth rates in 2035 by changing the nature of work and creating a new relationship between man and machine. The impact of AI technologies on business is projected to increase labor productivity by up to 40 percent and enable people to make more efficient use of their time.

Also see:

Artificial Intelligence Poised to Double Annual Economic Growth Rate in 12 Developed Economies and Boost Labor Productivity by up to 40 Percent by 2035, According to New Research by Accenture
Research released today from Accenture (NYSE: ACN) reveals that artificial intelligence (AI) could double annual economic growth rates by 2035 by changing the nature of work and spawning a new relationship between man and machine.

For those who like typography & art, you’ll be interested to see this mixed-reality-based installation!

On 10/11/2016, in A/V -- audio/visual, art, creativity, design, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
For those who like typography & art, you’ll be interested to see this mixed-reality-based installation!

Holographic Type Sculpture with Typography Insight for HoloLens — from medium.com by DongYoon Park

Excerpt:

Recently, I visited Bellevue Arts Museum http://www.bellevuearts.org/ and conceived of a ‘Holographic art sculpture’ for installation in the museum’s beautiful atrium. Using my app Typography Insight for HoloLens, http://typeinsight.org/hololens.html, I created a ‘Holographic Type Sculpture’ and placed it in Bellevue Arts Museum’s atrium and rooftop sculpture garden (coincidentally, its name is ‘Court of Light’). You can experience the Mixed Reality Capture below.

See also:

Duolingo introduces chatbots to hone your conversational skills [Starr]; From DSC: This could be huge!

On 10/11/2016, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, assistive technologies, bots, communications, digital learning, education, education technology, emerging technologies, languages and translation, learning, learning ecosystem, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Duolingo introduces chatbots to hone your conversational skills — from cnet.com by Michelle Starr
The free language-learning app is now letting you practise your conversational skills on real live bots.

Excerpt:

Free app Duolingo is a great way to learn the basics of a new language, with small daily lessons that gradually increase your skills, with rewards for progressing. Now the service has added a new feature that’s a little different from the back-and-forth translation — text-based chatbots.

These are aimed at helping you improve your conversational skills and skills you might use in real life, such as ordering food, visiting a tourist attraction, shopping for clothing or catching a cab. A variety of scenarios will see you learning how to follow a set of directions, or talk with a doctor. According to the Duolingo chatbot Web page, these bots are programmed to react to thousands of different responses.

Also see:

Duolingo’s new chatbots help you brush up on your foreign language conversation skills — from techcrunch.com by Anthony Ha

Also see:

A Neural Network for Machine Translation, at Production Scale — from research.googleblog.com, posted by Quoc V. Le & Mike Schuster, Research Scientists, Google Brain Team
Excerpt:
Ten years ago, we announced the launch of Google Translate, together with the use of Phrase-Based Machine Translation as the key algorithm behind this service. Since then, rapid advances in machine intelligence have improved our speech recognition and image recognition capabilities, but improving machine translation remains a challenging goal. Today we announce the Google Neural Machine Translation system (GNMT), which utilizes state-of-the-art training techniques to achieve the largest improvements to date for machine translation quality. Our full research results are described in a new technical report we are releasing today: “Google’s Neural Machine Translation System: Bridging the Gap between Human and Machine Translation” [1].

Apple prepares to open an academy of 200 pupils in Italy (increasing to 400 pupils next year)

On 10/10/2016, in Apple, computer science, Europe, experimentation, platforms, programming, universities, by Daniel Christian

Silicon Valley comes to Naples: Apple prepares to open Italian academy — from theguardian.com by Stephanie Kirchgaessner
With 200 pupils set to start training, the mood is high in the unlikely suburb chosen for tech giant’s latest venture

Excerpt:

And yet it is this spot – a corner of the sprawling city of Naples that never quite recovered after a major food-packing factory shut its doors in the 1980s – where the Apple chief executive, Tim Cook, and the Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi, hope the best and brightest young minds in the world will come to develop into leaders in the new app economy.

This week, Apple, the biggest technology company in the world, will open a new academy here – the first of its kind – that will teach 200 mostly southern Italian students how to write code and launch apps on Apple technology by the end of the year.
Apple moves UK HQ to Battersea power station boiler room in London
Read more

Each student at the iOS Developer Academy will be handed the latest iPhone, iPad and Macbook at the start of the nine-month course, which is being offered free of charge following a joint investment of about €10m by Apple and University of Naples Federico II, one of the oldest universities in the world, which is hosting the tuition.

Addendum on 10/12/16:

Coorpacademy, founded by former Google execs, raises $11 million to expand its edtech platform — from venturebeat.com by Chris O’Brien

“Amazon is winning the race to the future” plus 9 other items re: AI, personal assistants, chatbots, & more

On 10/10/2016, in Amazon, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, bots, emerging technologies, experimentation, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, intelligent systems, interactivity, internet, machine-to-machine communications, Near Field Communication (NFC), tools, trends, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Amazon is winning the race to the future — from bizjournals.com by

Excerpt:

This is the week when artificially intelligent assistants start getting serious.

On Tuesday, Google is expected to announce the final details for Home, its connected speaker with the new Google Assistant built inside.

But first Amazon, which surprised everyone last year by practically inventing the AI-in-a-can platform, will release a new version of the Echo Dot, a cheaper and smaller model of the full-sized Echo that promises to put the company’s Alexa assistant in every room in your house.

The Echo Dot has all the capabilities of the original Echo, but at a much cheaper price, and with a compact form factor that’s designed to be tucked away. Because of its size (it looks like a hockey puck from the future), its sound quality isn’t as good as the Echo, but it can hook up to an external speaker through a standard audio cable or Bluetooth.

100 bot people to watch #BotWatch #1 — from chatbotsmagazine.com

Excerpt:

100 people to watch in the bot space, in no order.

I’ll publish a new list once a month. This one is #1 October 2016.
…
This is my personal top 100 for people to watch in the bot space.

Should We Give Chatbots Their Own Personalities? — from re-work.com by Sophie Curtis

Excerpt:

Today, we have machines that assemble cars, make candy bars, defuse bombs, and a myriad of other things. They can dispense our drinks, facilitate our bank deposits, and find the movies we want to watch with a touch of the screen.

Automation allows all kinds of amazing things, but it is all done with virtually no personality. Building a chatbot with the ability to be conversational with emotion is crucial to getting people to gain trust in the technology. And now there are plenty of tools and resources available to rapidly create and launch chatbots with the personality customers want and businesses needs.

Jordi Torras is CEO and Founder of Inbenta, a company that specializes in NLP, semantic search and chatbots to improve customer experience. We spoke to him ahead of his presentation at the Virtual Assistant Summit in San Francisco, to learn about the recent explosion of chatbots and virtual assistants, and what we can expect to see in the future.

How I built and launched my first chatbot in hours — from chatbotsmagazine.com by Max Pelzner
From idea to MVB (Minimum Viable Bot), and launched in 24 hours!

Developing a Chatbot? Do Not Make These Mistakes! — from chatbotsmagazine.com Hira Saeed

This is what an A.I.-powered future looks like — from venturebeat.com by Grayson Brulte

Excerpt:

Today, we are just beginning to scratch the surface of what is possible with artificial intelligence (A.I.) and how individuals will interact with its various forms. Every single aspect of our society — from cars to houses to products to services — will be reimagined and redesigned to incorporate A.I.

A child born in the year 2030 will not comprehend why his or her parents once had to manually turn on the lights in the living room. In the future, the smart home will seamlessly know the needs, wants, and habits of the individuals who live in the home prior to them taking an action.

Before we arrive at this future, it is helpful to take a step back and reimagine how we design cars, houses, products, and services. We are just beginning to see glimpses of this future with the Amazon Echo and Google Home smart voice assistants.

Artificial intelligence created to fold laundry for you — from geek.com by Matthew Humphries

Excerpt:

So, Seven Dreamers Laboratories, in collaboration with Panasonic and Daiwa House Industry, have created just such a machine. However, folding laundry correctly turns out to be quite a complicated task, and so an artificial intelligence was required to make it a reliable process.

Laundry folding is actually a five stage process, including:

Grabbing
Spreading
Recognizing
Folding
Sorting/Storing

The grabbing and spreading seems pretty easy, but then the machine needs to understand what type of clothing it needs to fold. That recognizing stage requires both image recognition and AI. The image recognition classifies the type of clothing, then the AI figures out which processes to use in order to start folding.

2 days of global chatbot experts at Talkabot in 12 minutes — from chatbotsmagazine.com by Alec Lazarescu

Excerpt:

During a delightful “cold spell” in Austin at the end of September, a few hundred chatbot enthusiasts joined together for the first talkabot.ai conference.

As a participant both writing about and building chatbots, I’m excited to share a mix of valuable actionable insights and strategic vision directions picked up from speakers and attendees as well as behind the scenes discussions with the organizers from Howdy.

In a very congenial and collaborative atmosphere, a number of valuable recurring themes stood out from a variety of expert speakers ranging from chatbot builders to tool makers to luminaries from adjacent industries.

Addendum:

The Alexa Prize (emphasis DSC)

The way humans interact with machines is at an inflection point and conversational artificial intelligence (AI) is at the center of the transformation. Alexa, the voice service that powers Amazon Echo, enables customers to interact with the world around them in a more intuitive way using only their voice.

The Alexa Prize is an annual competition for university students dedicated to accelerating the field of conversational AI. The inaugural competition is focused on creating a socialbot, a new Alexa skill that converses coherently and engagingly with humans on popular topics and news events. Participating teams will advance several areas of conversational AI including knowledge acquisition, natural language understanding, natural language generation, context modeling, commonsense reasoning and dialog planning. Through the innovative work of students, Alexa customers will have novel, engaging conversations. And, the immediate feedback from Alexa customers will help students improve their algorithms much faster than previously possible.
…
Amazon will award the winning team $500,000. Additionally, a prize of $1 million will be awarded to the winning team’s university if their socialbot achieves the grand challenge of conversing coherently and engagingly with humans on popular topics for 20 minutes.

Virtual Reality in the Classroom [Sahm]

On 10/06/2016, in 21st century, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, future, history, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, K-12 related, virtual field trips, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

Virtual Reality in the Classroom — from usnews.com by Charles Sahm
Using virtual reality as an educational tool could transform the American high school experience.

Excerpt:

Listening to Andrew describe the potential of virtual reality tools to improve education is thrilling. He talks about the evolution of a student reading about France in a textbook, to watching a YouTube video about France, to, via virtual reality, being able to walk the streets of Paris. He imagines students not only being able to read about the Constitutional Convention, but to actually be in “the room where it happens.” (Andrew, like many, is enamored of the musical “Hamilton.”)
…

Andrew acknowledges, however, that virtual reality as an educational tool is still in the very early stages. Washington Leadership Academy intends to develop a number of programs and then share them with other schools. It is exciting to consider what could be accomplished if the power of virtual reality were harnessed for education rather than gaming; if developers turned their resources away from creating games that teach children how to steal cars and kill people and toward allowing them to explore history, science, art and other subjects in innovative new ways.

Today’s announcements from Google. VR, AI, cognitive computing, & developments in HCI continue their march forward.

On 10/04/2016, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, bots, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), productivity / tips and tricks, tools, trends, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

Google welcomes the future of mobile VR with its $79 Daydream View VR headset — from techcrunch.com by Lucas Matney

Excerpt:

Today at its October hardware/software/everything event, the company showed off its latest VR initiatives including a Daydream headset. The $79 Daydream View VR headset looks quite a bit different than other headsets on the market with its fabric exterior.

Clay Bavor, head of VR, said the design is meant to be more comfortable and friendly. It’s unclear whether the cloth aesthetic is a recommendation for the headset reference design as Xiaomi’s Daydream headset is similarly soft and decidedly design-centric.

The headset and the Google Daydream platform will launch in November.

Here’s the Google Pixel — from techcrunch.com by Brian Heater

Excerpt:

While the event is positioned as hardware first, this is Google we’re talking about here, and as such, the real focus is software. The company led the event with talk about its forthcoming Google Assistant AI, and as such, the Pixel will be the first handset to ship with the friendly voice helper. As the company puts it, “we’re building hardware with the Google Assistant it its core. ”

Google Home will go on sale today for $129, shipping November 4 — from techcrunch.com by Frederic Lardinois

Excerpt:

Google Home, the company’s answer to Amazon’s Echo, made its official debut at the Google I/O developer conference earlier this year. Since then, we’ve heard very little about Google’s voice-activated personal assistant. Today, at Google’s annual hardware event, the company finally provided us with more details.

Google Home will cost $129 (with a free six-month trial of YouTube red) and go on sale on Google’s online store today. It will ship on November 4.

Google’s Mario Queiroz today argued that our homes are different from other environments. So like the Echo, Google Home combines a wireless speaker with a set of microphones that listen for your voice commands. There is a mute button on the Home and four LEDs on top of the device so you know when it’s listening to you; otherwise, you won’t find any other physical buttons on it.

Google Working with Netflix, HBO & Hulu for Daydream Content— from vrfocus.com by Kevin Joyce
#madebygoogle reveals services ready and on the way to support Google Daydream

Excerpt:

Google’s #madebygoogle press conference today revealed some significant details about the company’s forthcoming plans for virtual reality (VR). Daydream is set to launch later this year, and along with the reveal of the first ‘Daydream Ready’ smartphone handset, Pixel, and Google’s own version of the head-mounted display (HMD), Daydream View, the company revealed some of the partners that will be bringing content to the device.

Google officially unveils $649 Pixel phone with unlimited storage; $129 Google Home — from cnbc.com by Anita Balakrishnan

Google Unveils ‘Home,’ Embraces Aggressive Shift To Hardware — from forbes.com by Matt Drange

Excerpt:

You can add to the seemingly never-ending list of things that Google is deeply involved in: hardware production.

On Tuesday, Google made clear that hardware is more than just a side business, aggressively expanding its offerings across a number of different categories. Headlined by the much-anticipated Google Home and a lineup of smartphones, dubbed Pixel, the announcements mark a major shift in Google’s approach to supplementing its massively profitable advertising sales business and extensive history in software development.
…
Aimed squarely at Amazon’s Echo, Home is powered by more than 70 billion facts collected by Google’s knowledge graph, the company says. By saying, “OK, Google” Home quickly pulls information from other websites, such as Wikipedia, and gives contextualized answers akin to searching Google manually and clicking on a couple links. Of course, Home is integrated with Google’s other devices, so adding items to your shopping list, for example, are easily pulled up via Pixel. Home can also be programmed to read back information in your calendar, traffic updates and the weather. “If the president can get a daily briefing, why shouldn’t you?” Google’s Rishi Chandra asked when he introduced Home on Tuesday.

A comment from DC:
More and more, people are speaking to a device and expect that device to do something for them. How much longer, especially with the advent of chatbots, before people expect this of learning-related applications?

Natural language processing, cognitive computing, and artificial intelligence continue their march forward.

Addendums:

9 Best Augmented Reality Smart Glasses 2016 — from appcessories.co.uk

Excerpt:

2016 has been promoted as the year of virtual reality. In the space of a few months, we have seen brands like Facebook, Samsung and Sony have all come out with VR products of their own. But another closely related industry has been making a growing presence in the tech industry. Augmented reality, or simply AR, is gaining ground among tech companies and even consumers. Google was the first contender for coolest AR product with its Google Glass. Too bad that did not work out; it felt like a product too ahead of its time. Companies like Microsoft, Magic Leap and even Apple are hoping to pick up from where Google left off. They are creating their own smart glasses that will, hopefully, do better than Google Glass. In our article, we look at some of the coolest Augmented Reality smart glasses around.

Some of them are already out while others are in development.

The holy grail of Virtual Reality: A complete suspension of disbelief — from labster.com by Marian Reed

Excerpt:

It’s no secret that we here at Labster are pretty excited about VR. However, if we are to successfully introduce VR into education and training we need to know how to create VR simulations that unlock these new great ways of learning.

Computer science researchers create augmented reality education tool — from ucalgary.ca by Erin Guiltenane

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Christian Jacob and Markus Santoso are trying to re-create the experience of the aforementioned agents in Fantastic Voyage. Working with 3D modelling company Zygote, they and recent MSc graduate Douglas Yuen have created HoloCell, an educational software. Using Microsoft’s revolutionary HoloLens AR glasses, HoloCell provides a mixed reality experience allowing users to explore a 3D simulation of the inner workings, organelles, and molecules of a healthy human cell.

Upload, Google, HTC and Udacity join forces for new VR education program — from uploadvr.com

Excerpt:

Upload is teaming up with Udacity, Google and HTC to build an industry-recognized VR certification program.
…
According to Udacity representatives, the organization will now be adding a VR track to its “nanodegree”program. Udacity’s nanodegrees are certification routes that can be completed completely online at a student’s own pace. These courses typically take between 6-12 months and cost $199 per month. Students will also receive half of their tuition back if they complete a course within six months. The new VR course will follow this pattern as well.

The VR nanodegree program was curated by Udacity after the organization interviewed dozens of VR savvy companies about the type of skills they look for in a potential new hire. This information was then built into a curriculum through a joint effort between Google, HTC and Upload.

Virtual reality helps Germany catch last Nazi war criminals — from theguardian.com by Agence France-Presse
Lack of knowledge no longer an excuse as precise 3D model of Auschwitz, showing gas chambers and crematoria, helps address atrocities

Excerpt:

German prosecutors and police have developed 3D technology to help them catch the last living Nazi war criminals with a highly precise model of Auschwitz.

Also related to this:

Auschwitz war criminals targeted with help of virtual reality — from jpost.com by

Excerpt:

German prosecutors and police have begun using virtual reality headsets in their quest to bring the last remaining Auschwitz war criminals to justice, AFP reported Sunday.

Using the blueprints of the death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland, Bavarian state crime office digital imaging expert Ralf Breker has created a virtual reality model of Auschwitz which allows judges and prosecutors to mimic moving around the camp as it stood during the Holocaust.

How the UN thinks virtual reality could not only build empathy, but catalyze change, too — from yahoo.com by Lulu Chang

Excerpt:

Technology is hoping to turn empathy into action. Or at least, the United Nations is hoping to do so. The intergovernmental organization is more than seven decades old at this point, but it’s constantly finding new ways to better the world’s citizenry. And the latest tool in its arsenal? Virtual reality.

Last year, the UN debuted its United Nations Virtual Reality, which uses the technology to advocate for communities the world over. And more recently, the organization launched an app made specifically for virtual reality films. First debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, this app encourages folks to not only watch the UN’s VR films, but to then take action by way of donations or volunteer work.

Occipital Wants to Turn iPhones into Mixed Virtual Reality Headsets — from next.reality.news by Adam Dachis

Excerpt:

If you’re an Apple user and want an untethered virtual reality system, you’re currently stuck with Google Cardboard, which doesn’t hold a candle to the room scale VR provided by the HTC Vive (a headset not compatible with Macs, by the way). But spatial computing company Occipital just figured out how to use their Structure Core 3D Sensor to provide room scale VR to any smartphone headset—whether it’s for an iPhone or Android.

‘The Body VR’ Brings Educational Tour Of The Human Body To HTC Vive Today — from uploadvr.com by Jamie Feltham on October 3rd, 2016

Excerpt:

The Body VR is a great example of how the Oculus Rift and Gear VR can be used to educate as well as entertain. Starting today, it’s also a great example of how the HTC Vive can do the same.

The developers previously released this VR biology lesson for free back at the launch of the Gear VR and, in turn, the Oculus Rift. Now an upgraded version is available on Valve and HTC’s Steam VR headset. You’ll still get the original experience in which you explore the human body, travelling through the bloodstream to learn about blood cells and looking at how organelles work. The piece is narrated as you go.

Virtual Reality Dazzles Harvard University — from universityherald.com

Excerpt:

For a moment, students were taken into another world without leaving the great halls of Harvard. Some students had a great time exploring the ocean floor and saw unique underwater animals, others tried their hand in hockey, while others screamed as they got into a racecar and sped on a virtual speedway. All of them, getting a taste of what virtual and augmented reality looks like.

All of these, of course, were not just about fun but on how especially augmented and virtual reality can transform every kind of industry. This will be discussed and demonstrated at the i-lab in the coming weeks with Rony Abovitz, CEO of Magic Leap Inc., as the keynote speaker.

Abovitz was responsible for developing the “Mixed Reality Lightfield,” a technology that combines augmented and virtual reality. According to Abovitz, it will help those who are struggling to “transfer two-dimensional information or text into “spatial learning.”

“I think it will make life easier for a lot of people and open doors for a lot of people because we are making technology fit how our brains evolved into the physics of the universe rather than forcing our brains to adapt to a more limited technology,” he added.

Addendum on 10/6/16:

PS VR Review Roundup: Great Design And Price Is Marred By Poor Tracking And Content — from uploadvr.com
4 types of augmented reality for events — from bizbash.com

Learning Ecosystems

First ever U.S. presidential/government bot: “Our Latest Way to Bring Your Government to You”

Ephesians 3:20-21

55% of faculty are flipping the classroom [Schaffhauser & Kelly]; DC: Plus ideas for your recording studio(s)

Why Artificial Intelligence is the Future of Growth [accenture.com]

For those who like typography & art, you’ll be interested to see this mixed-reality-based installation!

Duolingo introduces chatbots to hone your conversational skills [Starr]; From DSC: This could be huge!

Apple prepares to open an academy of 200 pupils in Italy (increasing to 400 pupils next year)

“Amazon is winning the race to the future” plus 9 other items re: AI, personal assistants, chatbots, & more

Today’s announcements from Google. VR, AI, cognitive computing, & developments in HCI continue their march forward.

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