On 10/08/2019,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Amazon, ideas, innovation, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal,
by Daniel Christian
With IP Accelerator, Amazon edges into the legal services arena — from by Robert Ambrogi
Excerpt:
Online retailer Amazon has taken a step into the legal services industry, launching a curated network of IP law firms providing trademark registration services at pre-negotiated rates.
The goal of the new Amazon Intellectual Property Accelerator is to help companies more quickly obtain IP rights for their brands and access to brand-protection features in Amazon’s stores. It specifically targets small- and medium-sized businesses by making it easier and more cost effective for them to protect their ideas.
Also see:
On 10/07/2019,
in Amazon, business, career development, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, Cost of legal services - including access, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, Google, law schools, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, platforms, technology (general), tools, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Big money is betting on legal industry transformation — from forbes.com by Mark Cohen
Excerpts:
Law has been big business for decades, but only recently has significant venture capital, private equity, and entrepreneur money been pumped into the legal sector. Last year saw an eye-popping 718% increase in legal industry investment, and this year’s capital infusion through the third-quarter has already surpassed last year’s $1 billion total and could well double it. Capital is turbocharging customer-centric providers that are leveraging technology, process, new skillsets, and data to transform the legal function and the delivery of legal services.
…
Teaser alert: what’s to prevent Amazon, Google, or some other tech giant from entering the legal space, creating a global platform, injecting billions into infrastructure and talent, creating a global legal services hub that connects consumers with global legal delivery sources as never before imagined? Short answer: the inclination to do so.
Legal delivery has morphed into a three-legged stool supported by legal, technological, and business expertise.
On 10/01/2019,
in Amazon, engineering, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, platforms, policy, robotics, society, trends,
by Daniel Christian
UPS just beat out Amazon and Google to become America’s first nationwide drone airline — from businessinsider.com by Rachel Premack
Key points:
- The US Department of Transportation said Tuesday it granted its first full Part 135 certification for a drone airline to UPS.
- UPS currently conducts drone deliveries at a large hospital in Raleigh, North Carolina.
- It will now be able to operate drones anywhere in the country — an industry first.
- Another drone operator — Wing, owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet — also has Part 135 certification. But the scope of its operation is limited to Christiansburg, Virginia, about 210 miles southwest of the state capitol Richmond.
From DSC:
Add to that, these delivery bots, drones, pods, and more:
- Walgreens to test drone delivery service with Alphabet’s Wing — from cnbc.com by Jasmine Wu
- Autonomous robot deliveries are coming to 100 university campuses in the U.S. — from digitaltrends.com by Luke Dormehl
- Postmates Gets Go-Ahead to Test Delivery Robot in San Francisco — from interestingengineering.com by Donna Fuscaldo
- Amazon patents ‘surveillance as a service’ tech for its delivery drones — from theverge.com by Jon Porter
- This futuristic driverless pod will soon be delivering pizza in Texas — from digitaltrends.com by Trevor Mogg
- Amazon is creating detailed 3D models of suburbia to train its new delivery robots — from theverge.com by James Vincent
From DSC:
I wonder…will we be able to take a quiet walk in the future? That may not be the case if the building of these armies of drones continues — and becomes a full-fledged trend.
On 09/25/2019,
in 21st century, Amazon, dangers of the status quo, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, Google, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, platforms, robotics, society, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, United States,
by Daniel Christian
Walgreens to test drone delivery service with Alphabet’s Wing — from cnbc.com by Jasmine Wu
Key Points:
- Walgreens is working with Alphabet’s drone delivery service Wing to test a new service.
- The pilot program will deliver food and beverage, over-the-counter medications and other items, but not prescriptions.
- Amazon said in June its new delivery drone should be ready “within months” to deliver packages to customers.
Add that to these other robots, drones, driverless pods, etc.:
- Autonomous robot deliveries are coming to 100 university campuses in the U.S. — from digitaltrends.com by Luke Dormehl
- Postmates Gets Go-Ahead to Test Delivery Robot in San Francisco — from interestingengineering.com by Donna Fuscaldo
- Amazon patents ‘surveillance as a service’ tech for its delivery drones — from theverge.com by Jon Porter
- This futuristic driverless pod will soon be delivering pizza in Texas — from digitaltrends.com by Trevor Mogg
- Amazon is creating detailed 3D models of suburbia to train its new delivery robots — from theverge.com by James Vincent
From DSC:
Is a wild, wild west developing? It appears so. What does the average citizen do in these cases if they don’t want such drones constantly flying over their heads, neighborhoods, schools, etc.?
I wonder what the average age is of people working on these projects…?
Just because we can…
On 09/17/2019,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communications, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, digital audio, emerging technologies, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, Google, IBM, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, society, the downsides of how people use tech,
by Daniel Christian
Someone is always listening — from Future Today Institute
Excerpt:
Very Near-Futures Scenarios (2020 – 2022):
- Optimistic: Big tech and consumer device industries agree to a single set of standards to inform people when they are being listened to. Devices now emit an audible ping and/ or a visible light anytime they are actively recording sound. While they need to store data in order to improve natural language understanding and other important AI systems, consumers now have access to a portal and can see, listen to, and erase their data at any time. In addition, consumers can choose to opt-out of storing their data to help improve AI systems.
- Pragmatic: Big tech and consumer device industries preserve the status quo, which leads to more cases of machine eavesdropping and erodes public trust. Federal agencies open investigations into eavesdropping practices, which leads to a drop in share prices and a concern that more advanced biometric technologies could face debilitating regulation.
-
Catastrophic: Big tech and consumer device industries collect and store our conversations surreptitiously while developing new ways to monetize that data. They anonymize and sell it to developers wanting to create their own voice apps or to research institutions wanting to do studies using real-world conversation. Some platforms develop lucrative fee structures allowing others access to our voice data: business intelligence firms, market research agencies, polling agencies, political parties and individual law enforcement organizations. Consumers have little to no ability to see and understand how their voice data are being used and by whom. Opting out of collection systems is intentionally opaque. Trust erodes. Civil unrest grows.
Action Meter:
Watchlist:
- Google; Apple; Amazon; Microsoft; Salesforce; BioCatch; CrossMatch; ThreatMetrix; Electronic Frontier Foundation; World Privacy Forum; American Civil Liberties Union; IBM; Baidu; Tencent; Alibaba; Facebook; Electronic Frontier Foundation; European Union; government agencies worldwide.
On 09/16/2019,
in 21st century, Amazon, analytics, Apple, business, computer science, dangers of the status quo, emerging technologies, engineering, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, ideas, internet, law schools, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, policy, political science, society, technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, United States, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech — from npr.org by Aarti Shahani
Excerpts:
Regulate us. That’s the unexpected message from one of the country’s leading tech executives. Microsoft President Brad Smith argues that governments need to put some “guardrails” around engineers and the tech titans they serve.
If public leaders don’t, he says, the Internet giants will cannibalize the very fabric of this country.
“We need to work together; we need to work with governments to protect, frankly, something that is far more important than technology: democracy. It was here before us. It needs to be here and healthy after us,” Smith says.
“Almost no technology has gone so entirely unregulated, for so long, as digital technology,” Smith says.
On 08/27/2019,
in 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, emerging technologies, ethics, face-to-face, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, Google, hearts -- matters of the heart, intelligent systems, internet, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, morals/values, platforms, policy, political science, privacy, society, surviving, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
Uh-oh: Silicon Valley is building a Chinese-style social credit system — from fastcompany.com by Mike Elgan
In China, scoring citizens’ behavior is official government policy. U.S. companies are increasingly doing something similar, outside the law.
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
Have you heard about China’s social credit system? It’s a technology-enabled, surveillance-based nationwide program designed to nudge citizens toward better behavior. The ultimate goal is to “allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step,” according to the Chinese government.
In place since 2014, the social credit system is a work in progress that could evolve by next year into a single, nationwide point system for all Chinese citizens, akin to a financial credit score. It aims to punish for transgressions that can include membership in or support for the Falun Gong or Tibetan Buddhism, failure to pay debts, excessive video gaming, criticizing the government, late payments, failing to sweep the sidewalk in front of your store or house, smoking or playing loud music on trains, jaywalking, and other actions deemed illegal or unacceptable by the Chinese government.
…
IT CAN HAPPEN HERE
Many Westerners are disturbed by what they read about China’s social credit system. But such systems, it turns out, are not unique to China. A parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and in part by surveillance of social media activity by private companies.
Here are some of the elements of America’s growing social credit system.
If current trends hold, it’s possible that in the future a majority of misdemeanors and even some felonies will be punished not by Washington, D.C., but by Silicon Valley. It’s a slippery slope away from democracy and toward corporatocracy.
From DSC:
Who’s to say what gains a citizen points and what subtracts from their score? If one believes a certain thing, is that a plus or a minus? And what might be tied to someone’s score? The ability to obtain food? Medicine/healthcare? Clothing? Social Security payments? Other?
We are giving a huge amount of power to a handful of corporations…trust comes into play…at least for me. Even internally, the big tech co’s seem to be struggling as to the ethical ramifications of what they’re working on (in a variety of areas).
Is the stage being set for a “Person of Interest” Version 2.0?
On 07/06/2019,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Blockchain, business, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Cost of legal services - including access, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, disruption, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, Facebook / Meta Platforms, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, Google, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, law schools, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning preferences, lifelong learning, love of learning, microlearning, more voice more choice more control, online learning, open courseware and systems, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, reinvent, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, telecommunications, tools, training / L&D, trends, TVs, UK, United States, universities, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, web-based collaboration,
by Daniel Christian
Clay Shirky on Mega-Universities and Scale — from philonedtech.com by Clay Shirky
[This was a guest post by Clay Shirky that grew out of a conversation that Clay and Phil had about IPEDS enrollment data. Most of the graphs are provided by Phil.]
Excerpts:
Were half a dozen institutions to dominate the online learning landscape with no end to their expansion, or shift what Americans seek in a college degree, that would indeed be one of the greatest transformations in the history of American higher education. The available data, however, casts doubt on that idea.
Though much of the conversation around mega-universities is speculative, we already know what a mega-university actually looks like, one much larger than any university today. It looks like the University of Phoenix, or rather it looked like Phoenix at the beginning of this decade, when it had 470,000 students, the majority of whom took some or all of their classes online. Phoenix back then was six times the size of the next-largest school, Kaplan, with 78,000 students, and nearly five times the size of any university operating today.
From that high-water mark, Phoenix has lost an average of 40,000 students every year of this decade.
From DSC:
First of all, I greatly appreciate both Clay’s and Phil’s thought leadership and their respective contributions to education and learning through the years. I value their perspectives and their work. Clay and Phil offer up a great article here — one worth your time to read.
The article made me reflect on what I’ve been building upon and tracking for the last decade — a next generation ***PLATFORM*** that I believe will represent a powerful piece of a global learning ecosystem. I call this vision, “Learning from the Living [Class] Room.” Though the artificial intelligence-backed platform that I’m envisioning doesn’t yet fully exist — this new era and type of learning-based platform ARE coming. The emerging signs, technologies, trends — and “fingerprints”of it, if you will — are beginning to develop all over the place.
Such a platform will:
- Be aimed at the lifelong learner.
- Offer up major opportunities to stay relevant and up-to-date with one’s skills.
- Offer access to the program offerings from many organizations — including the mega-universities, but also, from many other organizations that are not nearly as large as the mega-universities.
- Be reliant upon human teachers, professors, trainers, subject matter experts, but will be backed up by powerful AI-based technologies/tools. For example, AI-based tools will pulse-check the open job descriptions and the needs of business and present the top ___ areas to go into (how long those areas/jobs last is anyone’s guess, given the exponential pace of technological change).
…
Below are some quotes that I want to comment on:
Not nothing, but not the kind of environment that will produce an educational Amazon either, especially since the top 30 actually shrank by 0.2% a year.
Instead of an “Amazon vs. the rest” dynamic, online education is turning into something much more widely adopted, where the biggest schools are simply the upper end of a continuum, not so different from their competitors, and not worth treating as members of a separate category.
Since the founding of William and Mary, the country’s second college, higher education in the U.S. hasn’t been a winner-take-all market, and it isn’t one today. We are not entering a world where the largest university operates at outsized scale, we’re leaving that world;
From DSC:
I don’t see us leaving that world at all…but that’s not my main reflection here. Instead, I’m not focusing on how large the mega-universities will become. When I speak of a forthcoming Walmart of Education or Amazon of Education, what I have in mind is a platform…not one particular organization.
Consider that the vast majority of Amazon’s revenues come from products that other organizations produce. They are a platform, if you will. And in the world of platforms (i.e., software), it IS a winner take all market.
Bill Gates reflects on this as well in this recent article from The Verge:
“In the software world, particularly for platforms, these are winner-take-all markets.
So it’s all about a forthcoming platform — or platforms. (It could be more than one platform. Consider Apple. Consider Microsoft. Consider Google. Consider Facebook.)
But then the question becomes…would a large amount of universities (and other types of organizations) be willing to offer up their courses on a platform? Well, consider what’s ALREADY happening with FutureLearn:
Finally…one more excerpt from Clay’s article:
Eventually the new ideas lose their power to shock, and end up being widely copied. Institutional transformation starts as heresy and ends as a section in the faculty handbook.
From DSC:
This is a great point. Reminds me of this tweet from Fred Steube (and I added a piece about Western Telegraph):
Why would anyone need a telephone when we already have the telegraph? [Western Telegraph] https://t.co/s6Rm67NAB0
— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) May 23, 2019
Some things to reflect upon…for sure.
On 06/28/2019,
in 21st century, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, change, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, game-changing environment, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, platforms, robotics, society, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
First of all, a couple of articles:
This futuristic driverless pod will soon be delivering pizza in Texas — from digitaltrends.com by Trevor Mogg
Excerpt:
Global pizza purveyor Domino’s is planning to use self-driving pods to deliver its cheesy meals to hungry customers. The food company is partnering with California-based tech startup Nuro for a trial service in Houston, Texas later this year.
Amazon is creating detailed 3D models of suburbia to train its new delivery robots — from theverge.com by James Vincent
‘Eventually, we’ll be delivering around the world.’
From DSC:
Instead of Amazon having their army of robots/drones, Domino’s having their army of driverless pods, etc…perhaps we should think about how we want this all to unfold in the future — especially with an eye on what the world will be like for future generations.
“The company won’t say where or when it plans to expand these tests…”
From DSC:
It should NOT be Amazon’s decision (nor Domino’s decision, nor any other company’s decision) to expand any tests here! It should be up to citizens to weigh in on what we want our future to look like before any such endeavors are allowed to move forward another inch.