Megatrends | September 25, 2022 — by Michael Moe, Tim Juang, Owen Ritz, & Kit Royce

“The trend is your friend.” – Martin Zweig

“Follow the trend lines, not the headlines.” – Bill Clinton

“In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.” – Coco Chanel

“I don’t set the trends. I just find out what they are and exploit them.” – Dick Clark

Megatrends are powerful technological, economic, and social forces that develop from a groundswell (early adoption), move into the mainstream (mass market), and disrupt the status quo (mature market), driving change, productivity, and ultimately growth opportunities for companies, industries, and entire economies.


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The metaverse is not a vertical trend; it’s a horizontal trend that will impact sectors ranging from healthcare, education, socialization, entertainment, commerce, and more.

 

This Uncensored AI Art Tool Can Generate Fantasies—and Nightmares — from wired.com by Will Knight
Open source project Stable Diffusion allows anyone to conjure images with algorithms, but some fear it will be used to create unethical horrors.

Excerpt:

Image generators like Stable Diffusion can create what look like real photographs or hand-crafted illustrations depicting just about anything a person can imagine. This is possible thanks to algorithms that learn to associate the properties of a vast collection of images taken from the web and image databases with their associated text labels. Algorithms learn to render new images to match a text prompt in a process that involves adding and removing random noise to an image.

Also relevant/see:

There’s a text-to-image AI art app for Mac now—and it will change everything — from fastcompany.com by Jesus Diaz
Diffusion Bee harnesses the power of the open source text-to-image AI Stable Diffusion, turning it into a one-click Mac App. Brace yourself for a new creativity Big Bang.


Speaking of AI, also see:

 

Keynote Wrap-Up: NVIDIA CEO Unveils Next-Gen RTX GPUs, AI Workflows in the Cloud — from blogs.nvidia.com by Brian Caulfield
Kicking off GTC, Jensen Huang unveils advances in natural language understanding, the metaverse, gaming and AI technologies impacting industries from transportation and healthcare to finance and entertainment.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

New cloud services to support AI workflows and the launch of a new generation of GeForce RTX GPUs featured [on 9/20/22] in NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote, which was packed with new systems, silicon, and software.

“Computing is advancing at incredible speeds, the engine propelling this rocket is accelerated computing, and its fuel is AI,” Huang said during a virtual presentation as he kicked off NVIDIA GTC.

Again and again, Huang connected new technologies to new products to new opportunities – from harnessing AI to delight gamers with never-before-seen graphics to building virtual proving grounds where the world’s biggest companies can refine their products.

Driving the deluge of new ideas, new products and new applications: a singular vision of accelerated computing unlocking advances in AI, which, in turn will touch industries around the world.

Also relevant/see:

 

From DSC:
The first item below is from Harsh Makadia — with thanks to educatorstechnology.com for mentioning Harsh on this posting.


Also see:

Great Tips for Using Chrome — from lawpracticetipsblog.com by Jim Calloway

…as well as the Tweet below


 

What if smart TVs’ new killer app was a next-generation learning-related platform? [Christian]

TV makers are looking beyond streaming to stay relevant — from protocol.com by Janko Roettgers and Nick Statt

A smart TV's main menu listing what's available -- application wise

Excerpts:

The search for TV’s next killer app
TV makers have some reason to celebrate these days: Streaming has officially surpassed cable and broadcast as the most popular form of TV consumption; smart TVs are increasingly replacing external streaming devices; and the makers of these TVs have largely figured out how to turn those one-time purchases into recurring revenue streams, thanks to ad-supported services.

What TV makers need is a new killer app. Consumer electronics companies have for some time toyed with the idea of using TV for all kinds of additional purposes, including gaming, smart home functionality and fitness. Ad-supported video took priority over those use cases over the past few years, but now, TV brands need new ways to differentiate their devices.

Turning the TV into the most useful screen in the house holds a lot of promise for the industry. To truly embrace this trend, TV makers might have to take some bold bets and be willing to push the envelope on what’s possible in the living room.

 


From DSC:
What if smart TVs’ new killer app was a next-generation learning-related platform? Could smart TVs deliver more blended/hybrid learning? Hyflex-based learning?
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The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

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Or what if smart TVs had to do with delivering telehealth-based apps? Or telelegal/virtual courts-based apps?


 

Radar Trends to Watch: September 2022 Developments in AI, Privacy, Biology, and More — from oreilly.com by Mike Loukides

Excerpt:

It’s hardly news to talk about the AI developments of the last month. DALL-E is increasingly popular, and being used in production. Google has built a robot that incorporates a large language model so that it can respond to verbal requests. And we’ve seen a plausible argument that natural language models can be made to reflect human values, without raising the question of consciousness or sentience.

For the first time in a long time we’re talking about the Internet of Things. We’ve got a lot of robots, and Chicago is attempting to make a “smart city” that doesn’t facilitate surveillance. We’re also seeing a lot in biology. Can we make a real neural network from cultured neurons? The big question for biologists is how long it will take for any of their research to make it out of the lab.

 

An AI-generated artwork’s state fair victory fuels arguments over ‘what art is’ — from theverge.com by James Vincent; with thanks to Paul Czarapata for this resource on Twitter
I’m not going to apologize for it,’ said the man who submitted the piece
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Excerpt:

A game designer has sparked controversy after submitting an image created by an AI text-to-image generator to a state art competition and taking home first prize.

Jason Allen entered the artwork titled “Theatre d’Opera Spatial” in the “Digital Arts / Digitally-Manipulated Photography” category of the Colorado State Fair fine arts competition but created the piece using a popular text-to-image AI generator named Midjourney.

 

Learning 3.0: A data-fueled, equitable future for corporate learning — from chieflearningofficer.com by Marc Ramos and Marc Zao-Sanders
Learning pedagogy, technology and practice inevitably draw on (but tend to lag behind) the developments of the web, the world’s main stage for advancement and innovation.

Excerpts:

Tomorrow could be extraordinary. Many of the crowning jewels of Web 3.0 and web3 have been designed to be open source, user-friendly and ship with APIs, such as OpenAI’s GPT3, which generates natural language to an expert human level, seemingly at will. This means that the time between the launch of cutting-edge technology and it reaching corporate learning will decrease substantially. Learning might finally advance from the back seat to a board seat. There is already a growing list of GPT3 content creation tools that will impact creators, publishers, academic and corporate education materials as well as the design process.

We’re less than five years from this. The technology is here already. What’s missing is the data.

 

 

How Neural Nets Are Liberating Legal Search from the Keyword Prison — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi

Excerpt:

Why does this matter? Because in legal search, we should be able to search concepts and circumstances. We should be able to search for legal holdings or fact patterns even when the words do not square up.

That is the keyword prison in which we remain locked.

Well, your liberator is here, and she comes in the form of the neural network. It is technology that enables search queries to find highly relevant results, even when the results contain not even one of the search terms.

Not only do neural nets free search from the constraints of keywords, but they also humanize it, making search operations function more like our brains – thus the “neural” moniker.

 

The Finalists of the American Legal Technology Awards Are…! — from artificiallawyer.com

Excerpt:

After receiving 225 submissions across eight categories, the American Legal Technology Awards have today announced the lucky finalists. They include a wide range of companies and individuals, ranging from judges, to law firms, to startups and larger legal tech businesses. So, without further ado, here are the finalists in the table below, with three finalists in each category.

Looking For Trouble And Finding It: The ABA Resolution To Condemn Non-Lawyer Ownership — from professionalresponsibility.fkks.com by Ron Minkoff

Excerpt:

At the ABA Annual Meeting last week, the Illinois State Bar Association (“ISBA”), the New York State Bar Association (“NYSBA”), and several ABA entities sponsored Local Resolution 402 (hereafter, the “ISBA Resolution”) in an effort to stop the entire ABA – if not the entire American legal profession – from permitting non-lawyer ownership of law firms, in any form.  The ISBA Resolution read as follows:

Teaching (and Pressuring) Law Professors to Teach Technology – Katie Brown (TGIR Ep. 171) — from legaltechmonitor.com by

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

In her view, law professors “are required to educate people so that they can go out into the practice and successfully do that. And so beyond just, rule 1.1 with legal technology and having that competency, for us as law schools, I think we have an ethical obligation to be teaching legal technology.” This approach needs to be embedded into the Law School’s culture, because it costs money, time, and effort to do correctly.

From DSC:
Agree. I completely agree.

Understanding The Justice Gap — from medium.com by Kevin Golembiewski

Excerpt:

The law is a language. Pleading, cause of action, discovery, hearsay, res judicata, statute of limitations, civil procedure. To understand and protect your legal rights, you must learn this language and the complex rules that govern it. Or you must find an interpreter — that is, a lawyer. No different than if you were in a foreign country without an interpreter, if you have a legal problem but no lawyer, you cannot advocate for yourself.

That is the reality for millions of low-income Americans, according to a recent study by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC). About 50 million Americans have household incomes below 125% of the poverty threshold, and 92% of them do not have any, or enough, legal help for their civil legal issues — issues that range from eviction to domestic violence to disability benefits. Those Americans are stranded in the land of the law without an interpreter.

Litera releases The Changing Lawyer Report 2022 at ILTACON — from legalitprofessionals.com

Key takeaways

The five trends to watch, with some representative data points from the report include:

  1. Allied professionals (process managers, technologists, data analysts, etc.) play a more significant role in supporting law firms and lawyers and enhancing legal service delivery. 83% of lawyers believe that allied professionals make their job easier.
  2. Automation is everywhere, as law firms turn to AI and other technologies to enhance the speed and accuracy of legal processes across all practice areas. 91% of lawyers expect AI-based document review to become a standard part of most M&A due diligence processes.
  3. Technology and data improve client service delivery by providing real-time insights about law firm performance, pricing and budgeting, and work allocation. 78% of lawyers agree that technology helps them offer a better client experience.
  4. Cloud-based solutions are taking over, driven partly by the obvious need for remote and blended workplace access to law firm applications that arose during the pandemic. Leading types of cloud applications that have been moved to the cloud include financial and practice management (64% of firms), document management (53%), portals and intranets (35%), and business intelligence platforms (31%).
  5. Changing work expectations are a significant driver of technology adoption when lawyer recruitment and retention are challenges for law firms. A new generation of lawyers sees technology as a path to better work/life balance. 53% of lawyers ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ with the statement technology makes my job more enjoyable.
 

McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2022

Excerpt:

Which technology trends matter most for companies in 2022? New analysis by the McKinsey Technology Council highlights the development, possible uses, and industry effects of advanced technologies.

McKinsey Technology Trends Outlook 2022

 

#ILTACON22 Day One Roundup: News from DISCO, Docket Alarm, LexFusion, Relativity and Reveal — from legaltechmonitor.com by Bob Ambrogi

Excerpt:

[8/22/22] kicks off the first full day of ILTACON22, the annual conference of the International Legal Technology Association. Already, the day has brought a slew of news announcements from legal technology companies.

Here is a roundup of news announced this morning.

 

You just hired a deepfake. Get ready for the rise of imposter employees. — from protocol.com by Mike Elgan
New technology — plus the pandemic remote work trend — is helping fraudsters use someone else’s identity to get a job.

Excerpt:

Companies have been increasingly complaining to the FBI about prospective employees using real-time deepfake video and deepfake audio for remote interviews, along with personally identifiable information (PII), to land jobs at American companies.

One place they’re likely getting the PII is through posting fake job openings, which enables them to harvest job candidate information, resumes and more, according to the FBI.

The main drivers appear to be money, espionage, access to company systems and unearned career advancement.

 

Third edition of Teaching at a Distance is now published — from tonybates.ca by Tony Bates

Excerpts:

The book has been up-dated to take account of the impact of the pandemic on teaching and learning, and with more emphasis for those in k-12 education to balance the post-secondary focus.
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20 Things To Remember About Forgetting — from theelearningcoach.com by Connie Malamed
What Causes Us To Forget

Excerpt:

Even though we use it all day and night, we are usually not aware of our memory’s processes until they fail. Yet remembering and forgetting are crucial aspects of learning. In learning design, it’s important to know what causes us to forget. Here are some key facts about the forgetting process that relate to learning, instruction and creativity.

Jigsaw Explorer — Free Online Jigsaw Puzzles for Students — from educatorstechnology.com by Med Kharbach, PhD

Excerpt:

Jigsaw Explorer is a website that offers a wide variety of online jigsaw puzzles that you can use with kids and students in and out of class. Jigsaw Explorer also allows you to create your own puzzles based on your photos and you can share these puzzles with others via email or through social media websites.

Help All Students Be Seen: Five Tips for Stronger Connections — from blog.edmentum.com by Amy Collins

Excerpt:

I began to challenge myself to set aside my preconceived boxes for them and see each one as a person—complex, with parts they reveal to the world easily and parts they hide. As I did this more and more, I was amazed at how my strategies needed to change in order to truly see each student and make those strong connections that lead to more effective learning. In this blog post, I hope to share some thoughts on how to adjust your own thinking to see the true student within.

An excerpt from Eva Keiffenheim’s recent Learn Letter| learning science to make the most of your mind

Resources for Evidence-Based Teaching
Are you an educator who wants to improve teaching? This website can be a great help. You can access proven, practical and free educational articles on psychology, assessment, behavior, and social-emotional learning. One of my favorite articles include 6 high-impact teaching strategies.
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This YouTube Star Says AI Will Become a Creative ‘Collaborator’ With Students — from soundcloud.com by Jeff Young and Taryn Southern

Description:

Taryn Southern is a pioneering YouTuber who these days experiments with how cutting edge tech might transform human expression. She’s recorded a pop album that she co-wrote with some AI code, for instance, and she’s created a digital clone of herself that she can use to make videos for her popular YouTube channel. Here’s what she sees coming for education.

#convergence #AR #VR #MR #AI #blockchain #HCI #Metaverse
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Teacher shortage? Here’s one way around it — from edcircuit.com by EdCircuit Staff

Excerpt:

After seeing the teacher shortage first hand in China, Jessie Sullivan and Isla Iago launched an innovative new start-up that teaches children how to read and write through YouTube – without the need for adult expertise or attention. Since the release in July, the start-up called See Say Write is already being used by schools, homes, and children’s charities in seven different countries.

[Administrator Tips] Sharing the Benefits of Virtual Learning with Homeschooling Families — from blog.edmentum.com

Excerpt:

One of the long-lasting results of the pandemic is the number of ongoing virtual learning programs that have been created, allowing schools to retain students who found that they need or prefer to learn in a virtual environment. Another segment of students who have been increasingly turning to online learning is homeschoolers.

Virtual learning programs offered through the school district have a great deal of benefits to offer homeschooling families. Promoting these benefits and showing families that a district virtual program offers the best of both worlds can help bring families back from independent homeschooling.

While there certainly are differences between traditional homeschooling and online schooling, it is helpful to point out the similarities and benefits so that homeschooling families can make an educated decision about the options available to them.


Addendums on 8/22/22:


 

Dive Into AI, Avatars and the Metaverse With NVIDIA at SIGGRAPH — from blogs.nvidia.com

Excerpt:

Innovative technologies in AI, virtual worlds and digital humans are shaping the future of design and content creation across every industry. Experience the latest advances from NVIDIA in all these areas at SIGGRAPH, the world’s largest gathering of computer graphics experts, [which ran from Aug. 8-11].

At SIGGRAPH, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang Illuminates Three Forces Sparking Graphics Revolution — from blogs.nvidia.com by Rick Merritt
NVIDIA unveils new products and research to transform industries with AI, the metaverse and digital humans.

NVIDIA AI Makes Performance Capture Possible With Any Camera — from blogs.nvidia.com by Isha Salian
Derivative, Notch, Pixotope and others use NVIDIA Vid2Vid Cameo and 3D body-pose estimation tools to drive performances in real time.

How to Start a Career in AI — from blogs.nvidia.com by Brian Caulfield
Four most important steps to starting a career in AI, seven big questions answered.

As Far as the AI Can See: ILM Uses Omniverse DeepSearch to Create the Perfect Sky — from blogs.nvidia.com by Richard Kerris
Omniverse AI-enabled search tool lets legendary studio sift through massive database of 3D scenes.

Future of Creativity on Display ‘In the NVIDIA Studio’ During SIGGRAPH Special Address — from blogs.nvidia.com by Gerardo Degaldo
Major NVIDIA Omniverse updates power 3D virtual worlds, digital twins and avatars, reliably boosted by August NVIDIA Studio Driver; #MadeInMachinima contest winner revealed.

What Is Direct and Indirect Lighting? — from blogs.nvidia.com by JJ Kim
In computer graphics, the right balance between direct and indirect lighting elevates the photorealism of a scene.

NVIDIA Studio Laptops Offer Students AI, Creative Capabilities That Are Best in… Class — from blogs.nvidia.com by Gerardo Degaldo
Designed for creativity and speed, Studio laptops are the ultimate creative tool for aspiring 3D artists, video editors, designers and photographers.

Design in the Age of Digital Twins: A Conversation With Graphics Pioneer Donald Greenberg — from blogs.nvidia.com by Rick Merritt
From his Cornell office, home to a career of 54 years and counting, he shares with SIGGRAPH attendees his latest works in progress.

 
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