From Google: New AR features in Search rolling out later this month.

 

 

Along these lines, see:

 

 

How the internet of things will change your life — from uk.rs-online.com

 

‘Internet of Things’ is transforming health care, Geneia president says — from unionleader.com by Kim Haas

 

What are the issues with Fog Computing? — from yourtechdiet.com by Brian Curtis

Advantages:

• It reduces the amount of data transferred to the cloud by having an edge location.
• Supports mobility and improves system response time.
• It minimizes network latency and conserves network bandwidth.
• Data can be processed with no bandwidth availability.
• Acts like an intermediate b/w IOT devices and Cloud computing infrastructure.

Disadvantages:

• It has some wireless security issues and privacy concerns.
• Authentication issues and trusted certificates concern

Fog computing helps in building some of the Smart Hi-Tech Cities, Buildings, Vehicle networks and Software Defined Networks (SDN).

 

Smart building complexity is creating dangerous new hacking opportunities — from techradar.com by Ian Heritage
Complex IoT environments can spell bad news for IT professionals

 

How 5G will fast track the internet of things — from .inkstonenews.com by Zheping Huang

Excerpt:

In Hangzhou, police officers are notified of major car accidents soon after they happen, traffic lights automatically adjust to changes in the volume of vehicles on the road and, in emergencies, fire trucks and ambulances are not stopped by a single red light until they arrive at the scene.

The city in eastern China’s Zhejiang province is one of the country’s major tech hubs. Its smart infrastructure powers the City Brain project, a cloud computing and AI-driven urban traffic-management system. It covers a total area of 162 square miles – that’s seven times the size of Manhattan.

When 5G mobile services start to roll out worldwide next year, smart cities such as Hangzhou will get even smarter as next-generation wireless technology helps industries realize the full potential of the internet of things (IoT).

“5G, from the beginning of its infrastructure design, has the internet of things in mind,” said Cui Kai, a Beijing-based IoT analyst with research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).

The stakes are high for industries around the world, as global spending on IoT is forecast to exceed $1 trillion in 2022, up from an estimated $745 billion this year, according to IDC.

 

With peak data rates up to 20 times faster than 4G, 5G will serve as “the connective tissue” for IoT, autonomous cars, smart cities and new mobile applications – providing the backbone for the industrial internet, according to a Deloitte report.

 

 

How the Internet of Things (IoT) can change the face of your business — from yourtechdiet.com by Brian Curtis

What is an IoT platform?
IOT platform is the support software which connects hardware, data networks and access points to other parts, i.e. to end-user application. Moreover, the IOT platform helps to automate their environment. So you can consider it as a middleware solution between data and the user.

Here are the five reasons why your business needs IoT.

  • Helps to know your customer better
  • Strengthen business operations
  • IoT can help to automate the jobs so your resource can work on what’s more required for your business.
  • Supply-chain analytics- IOT can manage your inventory so that you can save tons of time.

 

 

2019 State of Corporate Law Departments Report — from Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute, the International Bar Association (IBA), the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), and UK-based legal research firm Acritas

 

 

Because many corporate law departments are faced with dynamic and wide-ranging problems, the solutions require a highly diverse set of skills and capabilities. Teams of lawyers alone are no longer enough to solve all problems in optimal ways. That’s why law departments must provide legal support to corporations that not only enables them to maximize their competitive advantage, but also safeguards the organization against unnecessary risk.

The State of Corporate Law Departments 2019 — a new report that was recently published by Thomson Reuters Legal Executive Institute, the International Bar Association (IBA), the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), and UK-based legal research firm Acritas — examines the landscape for corporate law departments and explains that in order to maximize the value of legal services being delivered, corporate law departments must make their best efforts to improve the impact of those legal services while at the same time reducing the cost of those services.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

However, this report suggests that in order to maximize the value delivered, it’s time to pay as much attention to improving the impact of legal services the corporate law departments are delivering as it is to reducing the cost of those services.

Indeed, today’s legal problems are dynamic and wide-ranging, and the solutions require a highly diverse set of skills and capabilities. Teams of lawyers alone are no longer enough to solve problems in optimal ways. All types of professional need to work together collaboratively, often from different organizations, and they need the support of modern working processes and systems.

Innovative law departments and innovative law firms score significantly higher across all key performance areas, including the ultimate measures of quality and value.

Innovation incorporates a whole host of different areas, such as embracing legal technologies, utilizing expert professionals holistically with lawyers, overhauling work processes and pricing models, and building collaborative partnerships between in-house teams and their outside law firms and alternative legal services suppliers.

To that end, the report identified a number of key levers that corporate law departments can use to create a higher performing legal function and enhance the impact that their departments makes on the overall success of the organization.

The solution to this challenge reinforces the key findings of this report as a whole — the need to tap into a diverse range of skills beyond legal expertise, to access new technologies, and to report on the progress made.

 

 

Blockchain stats, facts, & trends in 2019 and beyond — from yourtechdiet.com by Brian Curtis

Blockchain Predictions for 2019 & Beyond

  • Market value projection of the blockchain industry will be $60 billion by 2020.
  • By the end of 2019, global spending on blockchain solutions is projected to reach about 2.9 billion U.S. dollars and also projected to reach 11.7 billion by 2022.
  • In 2022, the U.S’ expenditures on blockchain solutions is projected to reach 4.2 billion U.S. dollars, thus making it the largest spender.
  • Finance is the biggest Blockchain value sector with a market share of 60.5 percent.
  • The market value of blockchain in the food and agriculture market, globally, is projected to climb 1.4 billion U.S. dollars by 2028.
  • In a research, 30 percent of respondents considered China to be the territory leader in blockchain technology development from 2021-2023.
  • The blockchain spending of China is forecasted to grow to 1.42 billion U.S. dollars by 2022.
  • The blockchain market value in South Korea is forecasted to reach 356.2 billion by 2022.
  • It is projected that, by 2025, 55 percent of healthcare applications will adopt blockchain for commercial deployment.

 

Also see:

 

 

What if the future of work starts with high school — from gettingsmart.com by Heather McGowan
The work of the future will require a robust system of lifelong learning and high school may just be the fulcrum in that system, best positioned to make the necessary profound changes across the system.

Excerpts:

Many have approached the challenge of rethinking high school and the imperative to do so continues to grow. There are a number of efforts now underway that look promising because they are not simply about what is taught but how. These efforts put the student at the center with the responsibility for his or her own learning.

Whatever we decide to call it,  to thrive in this fourth industrial revolution, where technology can assume many of our routine cognitive tasks, we need a robust system of life-long learning that begins with a reimagined high school to establish a strong foundation of learning agility and adaptability.

 

 

 

 

 

Lawmakers want to stop a future filled with smart devices and bad security — from cnet.com by Alfred Ng
“Unsecured IoT devices will be like the new asbestos.”

Excerpts:

Before smart devices fill up millions of homes, a Senate hearing on Tuesday looked to figure out how to keep them safe from hackers.

“Sound security practices must keep pace with the expansion of the internet of things in order to mitigate these threats,” Sen. Dan Sullivan said in his opening statement. Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, is chairman of the commerce committee’s subcommittee on security.

“While IoT holds a promise of revolutionizing the way we live and we work, we should also be wary, because IoT also stands for the internet of threats,” said Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts.

“Unsecured IoT devices will be like the new asbestos,” Geiger said. “We will build them into our environments, only to have to rip them back out years later, and wonder why our predecessors did not have the forethought to ensure basic security from the start.”

 

Report: Over 60% of college students face hunger or housing insecurity — from educationdive.com by James Paterson

Excerpt:

Seven out of 10 students at two-year colleges and six out of 10 students at four-year colleges indicated that they faced food or housing insecurity sometime in the last 12 months, according to The Hope Center’s latest #RealCollege report, which surveyed almost 86,000 students last fall.

 

Also see:

  • Tuition or Dinner? Nearly Half of College Students Surveyed in a New Report Are Going Hungry — from nytimes.com by Kaya Laterman
    Many routinely skip meals and take ‘poverty naps’ because they cannot afford groceries. Campus food pantries are helping, but are they enough?
    Excerpt:
    Although the college food-pantry movement is well underway, as there are now over 700 members at the College and University Food Bank Alliance, efforts have recently expanded to include redistributing leftover food from dining halls and catered events, making students eligible for food stamps and other benefits, and perhaps most important, changing national and state education funding to cover living expenses, not just tuition.
 

This will be the biggest disruption in higher education — from forbes.com by Brandon Busteed; with thanks to Mr. Reid Gough for his posting this on LinkedIn

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

Instead of going to college to get a job, students will increasingly be going to a job to get a college degree.

When asked about a potential new pathway for their children to get a college degree, 74% of all parents of K-12 students would consider a route where their child would be hired directly out of high school by an employer that offers a college degree while working. (Nearly four-in-ten gave the strongest level of endorsement saying they would “definitely” consider this.)

 

From DSC:
Here’s a ~4 minute piece from CBS News re: student loan debt.

Here are two excerpts from that video:

the cost of higher ed is out of control; 43 million borrowers now owe 1.5 trillion

the cost of higher ed is out of control; average household with student loan debt = $47,671

 

From DSC to potential college students:
You need to know that the ramifications of this type of debt can last for decades! Do everything you possibly can to either not borrow anything or to minimize these types of loan amounts.

This is another reason why the United States desperately needs a ***next generation learning platform*** — one that’s convenient, very inexpensive, and one that can also help people quickly reinvent themselves! One that is highly social, features human Subject Matter Experts (SME’s), and is backed up by #AI – based apps/features as well.

Along these lines…no longer are we running sprints (i.e., get a 4-year degree and you’re done). We’re now all running marathons (i.e., we’re now into lifelong learning in order to stay relevant and employed).

 


Also, the following item was announced today:

  • Cengage and McGraw-Hill to Merge, Providing Students with More Affordable Access to Superior Course Materials and Platforms — from businesswire.com
    Excerpt:
    NEW YORK & BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–McGraw-Hill and Cengage today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to combine in an all-stock merger on equal terms. The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies, will bring together two premier learning companies that will deliver significant benefits for students, educators, professionals and institutions worldwide.“The new company will offer a broad range of best-in-class content – delivered through digital platforms at an affordable price,” said Michael E. Hansen, CEO of Cengage. “Together, we will usher in an era in which all students can afford the quality learning materials needed to succeed – regardless of their socioeconomic status or the institution they attend. Additionally, the combined company will have robust financial strength to invest in next-generation products, technology and services that create superior experiences and value for millions of students.”

Also see:

 

From DSC:
Along these lines, I don’t think Cengage/McGraw-Hill will be the largest company on the Internet by 2030 as predicted by Thomas Frey (a prediction I think he’s right on with…by the way). They were on watch when the prices of learning-related materials soared through the years. As such, they’ve likely burned through a great deal of good will…but we’ll see. They might be able to persuade myself and others that they’re the platform of choice for the future. Time will tell I guess.

 


 

 

From DSC:
Through the years, my mom was an incredible person — in a variety of ways. She was a wonderful mother to us, as well as a spouse to my dad. But she was also a wonderful daughter, aunt, grandma, friend, teacher, counselor, investor, and more. She was a philosophical, deep thinker and a person of action — often doing several things at a time (from the moment that she woke up until the time that she finally called it quits at the end of a long day). Amongst other things, she was an incredible musician. After graduating from college, my mom taught classical piano (to kindergarten through 12th graders) decade after decade…well into her 70’s.

But then, like her mom, she developed Alzheimer’s Disease and as things go with Alzheimer’s, things got progressively worse. Fast forward to today, and her short-term memory is now completely gone and the person who she once was continues to increasingly leave us. She lives with my dad in a memory care unit. (My dad has also experienced physical and cognitive decline…though not nearly as much as my mom.)  My mom will ask you the same question many times over, as she can’t remember asking you the question before and she can’t recall your answer (for but a moment). She still recognizes us — though for how much longer that will be the case, we’re not sure. She doesn’t use our names nearly as much as she used to.

Below is a picture of my mom at her memory care unit…and, by the way, she didn’t recall that the piano that she was playing on was actually the exact same piano that she used for years to teach kids how to play classical piano.

 

Mom at the piano - 1

All that said — and as you can tell from watching the video below — she can STILL:

  • Sight read music (i.e., recognize notes, rhythms, dynamics, etc.) 
  • Play songs she remembers from long ago
  • Sing along to songs/hymns from years ago
  • Recognize and/or recall many of the lyrics from songs that she once knew

Wow!

The human mind is absolutely incredible to me! Scary and tragic when it stops working as it once did — but incredible nevertheless.

Glory to GOD in the highest! 

 

 

Also see:

Facts and figures regarding Alzheimers

 

 

 
© 2024 | Daniel Christian