business

Alexa, Tell Me Where You’re Going Next — from backchannel.com by Steven Levy
Amazon’s VP of Alexa talks about machine learning, chatbots, and whether industry is strip-mining AI talent from academia.

Excerpt:

Today Prasad is giving an Alexa “State of the Union” address at the Amazon Web Services conference in Las Vegas, announcing an improved version of the Alexa Skills Kit, which helps developers create the equivalent of apps for the platform; a beefed-up Alexa Voice Service, which will make it easier to transform third-party devices like refrigerators and cars into Alexa bots; a partnership with Intel; and the Alexa Accelerator that, with the startup incubator Techstars, will run a 13-week program to help newcomers build Alexa skills. Prasad and Amazon haven’t revealed sales numbers, but industry experts have estimated that Amazon has sold over five million Echo devices so far.

Prasad, who joined Amazon in 2013, spent some time with Backchannel before his talk today to illuminate the direction of Alexa and discuss how he’s recruiting for Jeff Bezos’s arsenal without drying up the AI pipeline.

What DeepMind brings to Alphabet — from economist.com
The AI firm’s main value to Alphabet is as a new kind of algorithm factory

Excerpt:

DeepMind’s horizons stretch far beyond talent capture and public attention, however. Demis Hassabis, its CEO and one of its co-founders, describes the company as a new kind of research organisation, combining the long-term outlook of academia with “the energy and focus of a technology startup”—to say nothing of Alphabet’s cash.
…
Were he to succeed in creating a general-purpose AI, that would obviously be enormously valuable to Alphabet. It would in effect give the firm a digital employee that could be copied over and over again in service of multiple problems. Yet DeepMind’s research agenda is not—or not yet—the same thing as a business model. And its time frames are extremely long.

Artificial Intelligence: Silicon Valley’s Next Frontier — from toptechnews.com by Ethan Baron

Excerpt:

Silicon Valley needs its next big thing, a focus for the concentrated brain power and innovation infrastructure that have made this region the world leader in transformative technology. Just as the valley’s mobile era is peaking, the next frontier of growth and innovation has arrived: It’s Siri in an Apple iPhone, Alexa in an Amazon Echo, the software brain in Google’s self-driving cars, Amazon’s product recommendations and, someday, maybe the robot surgeon that saves your life.

It’s artificial intelligence, software that can “learn” and “think,” the latest revolution in tech.

“It’s going to be embedded in everything,” said startup guru Steve Blank, an adjunct professor at Stanford. “We’ve been talking about artificial intelligence for 30 years, maybe longer, in Silicon Valley. It’s only in the last five years, or maybe even the last two years, that this stuff has become useful.”

What Is The Difference Between Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning? — from forbes.com by Bernard Marr

Excerpt:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are two very hot buzzwords right now, and often seem to be used interchangeably. They are not quite the same thing, but the perception that they are can sometimes lead to some confusion. So I thought it would be worth writing a piece to explain the difference.
…
In short, the best answer is that:
Artificial Intelligence is the broader concept of machines being able to carry out tasks in a way that we would consider “smart”.
And,
Machine Learning is a current application of AI based around the idea that we should really just be able to give machines access to data and let them learn for themselves.

Why we are still light years away from full artificial intelligence — from techcrunch.com by Clara Lu

Excerpt:

Yet, the truth is, we are far from achieving true AI — something that is as reactive, dynamic, self-improving and powerful as human intelligence.
…
Full AI, or superintelligence, should possess the full range of human cognitive abilities. This includes self-awareness, sentience and consciousness, as these are all features of human cognition.

Udacity adds 14 hiring partners as AI, VR and self-driving talent wars heat up — from techcrunch.com by Darrell Etherington

Excerpt:

Udacity is positioned perfectly to benefit from the rush on talent in a number of growing areas of interest among tech companies and startups. The online education platform has added 14 new hiring partners across its Artificial Intelligence Engineer, Self-Driving Car Engineer and Virtual Reality Developer Nanodegree programs, as well as in its Predictive Analytics Nanodegree, including standouts like Bosch, Harma, Slack, Intel, Amazon Alexa and Samsung.

That brings the total number of hiring partners for Udacity to over 30, which means a lot of potential soft landings for graduates of its nanodegree programs. The nanodegree offered by Udacity is its own original form of accreditation, which is based on a truncated field of study that spans months, rather than years, and allows students to direct the pace of their own learning. It also all takes place online, so students can potentially learn from anywhere.

The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence – from livestream.com

The Great A.I. Awakening — from nytimes.com by Gideo Lewis-Kraus
How Google used artificial intelligence to transform Google Translate, one of its more popular services — and how machine learning is poised to reinvent computing itself.

Excerpt:

Google’s decision to reorganize itself around A.I. was the first major manifestation of what has become an industrywide machine-learning delirium. Over the past four years, six companies in particular — Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and the Chinese firm Baidu — have touched off an arms race for A.I. talent, particularly within universities. Corporate promises of resources and freedom have thinned out top academic departments. It has become widely known in Silicon Valley that Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook, personally oversees, with phone calls and video-chat blandishments, his company’s overtures to the most desirable graduate students. Starting salaries of seven figures are not unheard-of. Attendance at the field’s most important academic conference has nearly quadrupled. What is at stake is not just one more piecemeal innovation but control over what very well could represent an entirely new computational platform: pervasive, ambient artificial intelligence.

Microsoft bets on AI — from businessinsider.com

Excerpt:

On [December 12th, 2016], Microsoft announced a new Microsoft Ventures fund dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI) investments, according to TechCrunch. The fund, part of the company’s investment arm that launched in May, will back startups developing AI technology and includes Element AI, a Montreal-based incubator that helps other companies embrace AI. The fund further supports Microsoft’s focus on AI. The company has been steadily announcing major initiatives in support of the technology. For example, in September, it announced a major restructuring and formed a new group dedicated to AI products. And in mid-November, it partnered with OpenAI, an AI research nonprofit backed by Elon Musk, to further its AI research and development efforts.

The Growth of Artificial Intelligence in E-commerce — from redstagfulfillment.com by Jake Rheude

Excerpt:

Whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) is something you’ve just come across or it’s something you’ve been monitoring for a while, there’s no denying that it’s starting to influence many industries. And one place that it’s really starting to change things is e-commerce. Below you’ll find some interesting stats and facts about how AI is growing in e-commerce and how it’s changing the way we do things. From personalizing the shopping experience for customers to creating personal buying assistants, AI is something retailers can’t ignore. We’ll also take a look at some examples of how leading online stores have used AI to enrich the customer buying experience.

Will AI built by a ‘sea of dudes’ understand women? AI’s inclusivity problem — from digitaltrends.com by Dyllan Furness

Excerpt:

Only 26 percent of computer professionals were women in 2013, according to a recent review by the American Association of University Women. That figure has dropped 9 percent since 1990.

Explanations abound. Some say the industry is masculine by design. Others claim computer culture is unwelcoming — even hostile — to women. So, while STEM fields like biology, chemistry, and engineering see an increase in diversity, computing does not. Regardless, it’s a serious problem.

Artificial intelligence is still in its infancy, but it’s poised to become the most disruptive technology since the Internet. AI will be everywhere — in your phone, in your fridge, in your Ford. Intelligent algorithms already track your online activity, find your face in Facebook photos, and help you with your finances. Within the next few decades they’ll completely control your car and monitor your heart health. An AI may one day even be your favorite artist.

The programs written today will inform the systems built tomorrow. And if designers all have one worldview, we can expect equally narrow-minded machines.

“Wall Street jobs won’t be spared from automation” + 22 other resources containing predictions for our future

On 12/22/2016, in Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, biology, bots, business, career development, communications, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, data related items, design, emerging technologies, engineering, future, game-changing environment, Google, graphics, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, internet, IT in HE, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, multimedia, platforms, play, robotics, tools, trends, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, web design and production, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Wall Street Jobs Won’t Be Spared from Automation — from hbr.stfi.re by Thomas H. Davenport

Excerpt:

Some conference participants were concerned that this beleaguered region might grow. In fact, one attendee — an old friend who strategizes about technology for a big New York bank — commented that perhaps Wall Street would become “the new Rust Belt.” His concern was that automation of the finance industry would hollow out jobs in that field in the same way that robotics and other technologies have reduced manufacturing employment.

This is a sobering prospect, but there is plenty of evidence that it’s a real possibility. Key aspects of the finance industry have already been automated to a substantial degree. Jobs in the New York finance field have been declining for several years. According to data from research firm Coalition Ltd., more than 10,000 “front-office producer” jobs have been lost within the top 10 banks since 2011. Coalition also suggests that global fixed-income headcount has fallen 31% since 2011.

Predictions for 2017: How Will the Digital World of Work Transform HR? — from hrdailyadvisor.blr.com

Excerpt:

According to a new report, organizations are moving away from hierarchies, focusing on improving the employee experience, redesigning training, and reinventing the role of HR.

Business and HR leaders should rethink almost all of their management and HR practices as the proliferation of digital technologies transform the way organizations work, according to predictions for 2017 from Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP.

This year’s report includes 11 predictions about rapid technological, structural, and cultural changes that will reshape the world of work, including management, HR, and the markets for HR and workplace technology.

Artificial intelligence has a big year ahead — from cnet.com by Stepehn Shankland
In 2017, AI won’t just be for the nerdy companies. Machine learning can help with mortgage applications and bridge safety, too.

Excerpt:

Get ready for AI to show up where you’d least expect it.

In 2016, tech companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft launched dozens of products and services powered by artificial intelligence. Next year will be all about the rest of the business world embracing AI.

Artificial intelligence is a 60-year-old term, and its promise has long seemed like it was forever over the horizon. But new hardware, software, services and expertise means it’s finally real — even though companies will still need plenty of human brain power to get it working.

AI was one of the hottest trends in tech this year, and it’s only poised to get bigger. You’ve already brushed up against AI: It screens out spam, organizes your digital photos and transcribes your spoken text messages. In 2017, it will spread beyond digital doodads to mainstream businesses.

2017 Design Trends: Predictions from Top Creatives — howdesign.com by Callie Budrick

Excerpt:

The design world has seen its own changes and updates as well. And as we know, change is the only constant. We’ve asked some of the top creatives to share what 2017 design trends they think will be headed our way.

MapR Executive Chairman and Founder John Schroeder Identifies 6 Big Data Predictions for 2017 — from businesswire.com

Excerpt:

SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The market has evolved from technologists looking to learn and understand new big data technologies to customers who want to learn about new projects, new companies and most importantly, how organizations are actually benefitting from the technology. According to John Schroeder, executive chairman and founder of MapR Technologies, Inc., the acceleration in big data deployments has shifted the focus to the value of the data. John has crystallized his view of market trends into these six major predictions for 2017…

The Most Exciting Medical Technologies of 2017 — from medicalfuturist.com

Excerpt:

2016 was a rich year for medical technology. Virtual Reality. Augmented Reality. Smart algorithms analysing wearable data. Amazing technologies arrived in our lives and on the market almost every day. And it will not stop in the coming year. The role of a futurist is certainly not making bold predictions about the future. No such big bet has taken humanity forward. Instead, our job is constantly analysing the trends shaping the future and trying to build bridges between them and what we have today. Still, people expect me to come up with predictions about medical technologies every year, and thus here they are.

2017 Predictions For AI, Big Data, IoT, Cybersecurity, And Jobs From Senior Tech Executives — from forbes.com by Gil Press

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence (and machine/deep learning) is the hottest trend, eclipsing, but building on, the accumulated hype for the previous “new big thing,” big data. The new catalyst for the data explosion is the Internet of Things, bringing with it new cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The rapid fluctuations in the relative temperature of these trends also create new dislocations and opportunities in the tech job market.

The hottest segment of the hottest trend—artificial intelligence—is the market for chatbots. “The movement towards conversational interfaces will accelerate,” says Stuart Frankel, CEO, Narrative Science. “The recent, combined efforts of a number of innovative tech giants point to a coming year when interacting with technology through conversation becomes the norm. Are conversational interfaces really a big deal? They’re game-changing. Since the advent of computers, we have been forced to speak the language of computers in order to communicate with them and now we’re teaching them to communicate in our language.”

Allen Institute for AI Eyes the Future of Scientific Search — from wired.com by Cade Metz

Excerpt:

Google changed the world with its PageRank algorithm, creating a new kind of internet search engine that could instantly sift through the world’s online information and, in many cases, show us just what we wanted to see. But that was a long time ago. As the volume of online documents continues to increase, we need still newer ways of finding what we want.

That’s why Google is now running its search engine with help from machine learning, augmenting its predetermined search rules with deep neural networks that can learn to identify the best search results by analyzing vast amounts of existing search data. And it’s not just Google. Microsoft is pushing its Bing search engine in the same direction, and so are others beyond the biggest names in tech.

3 Forces Shaping Ed Tech in 2017 — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser
Ovum’s latest report examines the key trends that are expected to impact higher education in the new year.

Excerpts:

Institutions Will Support the Use of More Innovative Tech in Teaching and Learning
Schools Will Leverage Technology for Improving the Student Experience
The Next-Generation IT Strategy Will Focus More on IT Agility

Virtual Reality, AI Top Predictions for 2017 — from techzone360.com by Alicia Young

Excerpt:

We’ve seen a lot of exciting new innovations take place over the course of 2016. This year has introduced interesting new uses for virtual reality—like using VR to help burn victims in hospitals mentally escape from the pain during procedures—and even saw the world’s first revolutionary augmented reality game in the form of Pokémon Go. The iPhone 7 was also introduced, leaving millions of people uncertain of their feelings regarding Apple, while Samsung loyalists just prayed that their smartphones would stay in one piece.

Undoubtedly, there have been quite a few ups and downs in technology over the past year. With any luck, 2017 will provide us with even more new innovations and advancements in tech. But what exactly do we have to look forward to? TMC recently caught up with Jordan Edelson, CEO of Appetizer Mobile, to discuss his thoughts on 2016 and his predictions for what’s to come in the future. You can find the entire exchange below.

The Fourth Transformation: Augmented Reality & Artificial Intelligence — from forbes.com by John Koetsier

Excerpt:

Since then, we’ve seen three transformations. The latest, augmented reality plus artificial intelligence, will change more than the previous three combined. At least, that’s what tech evangelist Robert Scoble and author Shel Israel say in their new book: The Fourth Transformation: How Augmented Reality & Artificial Intelligence Will Change Everything.

15 Virtual Reality Trends We’re Predicting for 2017 — from appreal-vr.com by Yariv Levski

Excerpt:

2016 is fast drawing to a close. And while many will be glad to see the back of it, for those of us who work and play with Virtual Reality, it has been a most exciting year. By the time the bells ring out signalling the start of a new year, the total number of VR users will exceed 43 million. This is a market on the move, projected to be worth $30bn by 2020. If it’s to meet that valuation, then we believe 2017 will be an incredibly important year in the lifecycle of VR hardware and software development. VR will be enjoyed by an increasingly mainstream audience very soon, and here we take a quick look at some of the trends we expect to develop over the next 12 months for that to happen.

Our Tech Predictions for 2017 — from medium.com

Excerpts:

Every December, we take a look back at big ideas from the past twelve months that promise to gain momentum in the new year. With more than eleven thousand projects launched between our Design and Tech categories in 2016, we have a nice sample to draw from. More importantly, we have a community of forward-thinking backers who help creators figure out which versions of the future to pursue. Here are some of the emerging trends we expect to see more of in 2017.

Everyday artificial intelligence
Whether chatting with a device as if it’s a virtual assistant strikes you as a sci-fi dream come true or a dystopian nightmare, we’re going to see an increasing number of products that use voice-controlled artificial intelligence interfaces to fit into users’ lives more seamlessly. Among the projects leading the way in this arena are Vi, wireless earphones that double as a personal trainer; Bonjour, an alarm clock that wakes you up with a personalized daily briefing; and Dashbot, a talking car accessory that recalls Kit, David Hasselhoff’s buddy from Knight Rider. One of the factors driving this talking AI boom is the emergence of platforms like Microsoft’s Cognitive Service, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google’s Speech API, which allow product developers to focus on user experience rather than low-level speech processing. For the DIY set, Seeed’s ReSpeaker offers a turnkey devkit for working with these services, and we’ll surely see more tools for integrating AI voice interfaces into all manner of products.

3 reasons 2017 is the year to develop a company chatbot — from thenextweb.com by Ellie Martin

Excerpt:

During Microsoft’s Build Conference earlier this year, CEO Satya Nadella delivered the three-hour keynote address, in which he highlighted his belief that the future of technology lies in human language. In this new wave of technology, conversation is the new interface, and “bots are the new apps.” While not as flashy as virtual reality nor as immediately practical as 3D printing, chatbots are nevertheless gaining major traction this year, with support coming from across the entire tech industry. The big tech enterprises are all entering the chatbot space, and many startups are too.

Out with the apps, in with the chatbots. The reason for the attention is simple: The power of the natural language processor, software that processes and parses human language, creating a simple and universal means of interacting with technology.

When kids toys come to life: How AR is transforming play — from thememo.com by Kitty Knowles
We asked three entrepreneurs to explain why AR toys are going to be the next big trend.

By 2030, this is what computers will be able to do — from medium.com by the World Economic Forum

Excerpt:

Developments in computing are driving the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance. In this interview Justine Cassell, Associate Dean, Technology, Strategy and Impact, at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, and co-chair of the Global Future Council on Computing, says we must ensure that these developments benefit all society, not just the wealthy or those participating in the “new economy”.

Artificial Intelligence will drive innovation and development in 2017, says Ericsson — from tech.firstpost.com

Excerpt:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an important development and consumers globally will see it playing a much more prominent role — both in society and at work — next year, a new report said on Tuesday. Ericsson ConsumerLab, in its annual trend report titled “The 10 Hot Consumer Trends for 2017 and beyond”, said that 35 percent of advanced internet users want an AI advisor at work and one in four would like AI as their manager.At the same time, almost half of the respondents were concerned that AI robots will soon make a lot of people lose their jobs.

21 technology tipping points we will reach by 2030 — from businessinsider.com by Cadie Thompson

Excerpt:

From driverless cars to robotic workers, the future is going to be here before you know it. Many emerging technologies you hear about today will reach a tipping point by 2025, according to a report from The World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Software & Society. The council surveyed more than 800 executives and experts from the technology sector to share their respective timelines for when technologies would become mainstream. From the survey results, the council identified 21 defining moments, all of which they predict will occur by 2030. Here’s a look at the technological shifts you can expect during the next 14 years.
…
The first robotic pharmacist will arrive in the US 2021.

The Chatbot Revolution: Rise of the Conversational User Interface — from tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com by Aakrit Vaish

Excerpt:

At Haptik, we have now been working on chatbots for over 3 years, and this post will attempt to make some sense of where we are as an industry.

AI, VR, Chatbots to Take Off in 2017 Microsoft Researchers Predict — from eweek.com by Pedro Hernandez
Prominent Microsoft researchers share their tech predictions for an AI-enabled future that blurs the line between physical and virtual experiences.

Excerpt:

A new year is quickly approaching and Microsoft Research is offering a glimpse at what the tech scene has in store for 2017 along with some hints at the Redmond, Wash., tech giant’s own priorities for the coming year. This year, the company gathered prominent women researchers to share their thoughts on what to expect next year. Surprising nobody’s who’s been following Microsoft’s software and cloud computing strategy of late, the company is betting big on artificial intelligence (AI).

11 IoT Predictions for 2017 — from ioti.com by Brian Buntz

Excerpt:

It’s still early days for the Internet of Things. As recently as 2014, 87 percent of consumers had never heard of the technology, according to Accenture. In 2016, and 19% of business and government professionals reported that they had never heard of the Internet of Things while 18% were only vaguely familiar with it, according to research from the Internet of Things Institute. Although the technology is getting the most traction in the industrial space, the most promising use cases for the technology are just starting to come to light. To get a sense of what to expect as we head into 2017, we spoke with Stanford lecturer and IoT author Timothy Chou, Ph.D.; Thulium.co CEO Tamara McCleary; industry observer and influencer Evan Kirstel; and Sandy Carter, CEO and founder of Silicon-Blitz.

Addendums:

The future of robotics: 10 predictions for 2017 and beyond — from zdnet.com by Bob Violino
DC: One of the items mentioned here was the emergence of the chief robotics officer…interesting.
.
15 tech trends in autonomous cars, artificial intelligence, and machine learning for 2017 — from venturebeat.com by John Brandon
Tech is about to change dramatically next year. Want to stay up to date? These predictions from the famed design firm frog spell things out for you. In each section, a designer explains all of the details. Which one is already on your radar?

From DSC:
Recently, my neighbor graciously gave us his old Honda snowblower, as he was getting a new one. He wondered if we had a use for it. As I’m definitely not getting any younger and I’m not Howard Hughes, I said, “Sure thing! That would be great — it would save my back big time! Thank you!” (Though the image below is not mine, it might as well be…as both are quite old now.)

Anyway…when I recently ran out of gas, I would have loved to be able to take out my iPhone, hold it up to this particular Honda snowblower and ask an app to tell me if this particular Honda snowblower takes a mixture of gas and oil, or does it have a separate container for the oil? (It wasn’t immediately clear where to put the oil in, so I’m figuring it’s a mix.)

But what I would have liked to have happen was:

I launched an app on my iPhone that featured machine learning-based capabilities
The app would have scanned the snowblower and identified which make/model it was and proceeded to tell me whether it needed a gas/oil mix (or not)
If there was a separate place to pour in the oil, the app would have asked me if I wanted to learn how to put oil in the snowblower. Upon me saying yes, it would then have proceeded to display an augmented reality-based training video — showing me where the oil was to be put in and what type of oil to use (links to local providers would also come in handy…offering nice revenue streams for advertisers and suppliers alike).

So several technologies would have to be involved here…but those techs are already here. We just need to pull them together in order to provide this type of useful functionality!

The freelance economy: Top trends to watch in 2017 — from blog.linkedin.com

Excerpt:

Freelancers now account for nearly 35% of the U.S. workforce and the trend is only picking up speed with more professionals opting to create their own jobs in lieu of more traditional full-time employment.

As we head into the new year, we want to shed a bit more light on this burgeoning sector of the workforce. What kind of location, industry and demographic trends are surfacing among the freelance professionals of 2016? You might not know, for example, that a whopping 40% of our freelancers are concentrated in just four states: California, Texas, Florida and New York. Or that more senior men are most likely to take the leap into freelancing.

The time is ripe to be a freelancer in America so we’re revealing insider insights like these to help you learn more about this trending profession. Check out the report below – gleaned from a survey of more than 9,500 of our ProFinder professionals – to see what we discovered.

From DSC:
Besides the workforce moving towards the increased use of freelancers, the pace of change has moved from being more linear in nature to more of an exponential trajectory.

Some important questions, therefore, to ask are:

Are our students ready to enter this type of workplace?
Can they pivot quickly?
Do they know how to learn and are they ready to be lifelong learners? (Do they like learning enough to continue to pursue it? Peoples’ overall quality of life would be much higher if they enjoyed learning, rather than be forced to do so in order to keep the bread and butter on their tables.)
Are they able to communicate in a variety of ways?
How are their customer service skills coming along?
How are their problem-solving skills coming along?
Do they know how to maintain their businesses’ books and do their taxes?
Are they digitally literate and do they have an appreciation for the pluses and minuses of technology?

I sure hope so…but I have my serious doubts. That said, many institutions/organizations representing K-12 and higher education are not doing a great job of innovating either. Though there certainly exists some strong pockets of innovation in some of our institutions out there — and the ability to pivot — taken as a whole, our institutions and organizations haven’t been as responsive, nimble, and innovative as our students need them to be.

After all, we are trying to prepare students for their futures (with the externality effect being that we, too, will also be better prepared for that future).

Today, we’re at the Windows Hardware Engineering Community event (WinHEC) in Shenzhen, China –where our OEM partners have created more than 300 Windows devices shipping in 75 countries generating more than 8 billion RMB in revenue for Shenzhen partners. We continue this journey with Intel, Qualcomm and hardware engineering creators from around the world. Together, we will build the next generation of modern PCs supporting mixed reality, gaming, advanced security, and artificial intelligence; make mixed reality mainstream; and introduce always-connected, more power efficient cellular PCs running Windows 10.

Also see:

The Race For AI: Google, Twitter, Intel, Apple In A Rush To Grab Artificial Intelligence Startups

Excerpt:

Nearly 140 private companies working to advance artificial intelligence technologies have been acquired since 2011, with over 40 acquisitions taking place in 2016 alone. Corporate giants like Google, IBM, Yahoo, Intel, Apple and Salesforce, are competing in the race to acquire private AI companies, with Samsung emerging as a new entrant in October with its acquisition of startup Viv Labs, which is developing a Siri-like AI assistant, and GE making 2 AI acquisitions in November.

New journal Science Robotics is established to chronicle the rise of the robots — from techcrunch.com by Devin Coldewey

Excerpt:

Robots have been a major focus in the technology world for decades and decades, but they and basic science, and for that matter everyday life, have largely been non-overlapping magisteria. That’s changed over the last few years, as robotics and every other field have come to inform and improve each other, and robots have begun to infiltrate and affect our lives in countless ways. So the only surprise in the news that the prestigious journal group Science has established a discrete Robotics imprint is that they didn’t do it earlier.

Editor Guang-Zhong Yang and president of the National Academy of Sciences Marcia McNutt introduce the journal:

In a mere 50 years, robots have gone from being a topic of science fiction to becoming an integral part of modern society. They now are ubiquitous on factory floors, build complex deep-sea installations, explore icy worlds beyond the reach of humans, and assist in precision surgeries… With this growth, the research community that is engaged in robotics has expanded globally. To help meet the need to communicate discoveries across all domains of robotics research, we are proud to announce that Science Robotics is open for submissions.

Today brought the inaugural issue of Science Robotics, Vol.1 Issue 1, and it’s a whopper. Despite having only a handful of articles, each is deeply interesting and shows off a different aspect of the robotics research world — though by no means do these few articles hit all the major regions of the field.

See also:

Excerpt:

Science Robotics has been launched to cover the most important advances in the development and application of robots, with interest in hardware and software as well as social interactions and implications.

From molecular machines to large-scale systems, from outer space to deep-sea exploration, robots have become ubiquitous, and their impact on our lives and society is growing at an accelerating pace. Science Robotics has been launched to cover the most important advances in robot design, theory, and applications. Science Robotics promotes the communication of new ideas, general principles, and original developments. Its content will reflect broad and important new applications of robots (e.g., medical, industrial, land, sea, air, space, and service) across all scales (nano to macro), including the underlying principles of robotic systems covering actuation, sensor, learning, control, and navigation. In addition to original research articles, the journal also publishes invited reviews. There are also plans to cover opinions and comments on current policy, ethical, and social issues that affect the robotics community, as well as to engage with robotics educational programs by using Science Robotics content. The goal of Science Robotics is to move the field forward and cross-fertilize different research applications and domains.

Amazon Opening Store That Will Eliminate Checkout — and Lines — from bloomberg.com by Jing Cao
At Amazon Seattle location items get charged to Prime account | New technology combines artificial intelligence and sensors

Excerpt:

Amazon.com Inc. unveiled technology that will let shoppers grab groceries without having to scan and pay for them — in one stroke eliminating the checkout line.

The company is testing the new system at what it’s calling an Amazon Go store in Seattle, which will open to the public early next year. Customers will be able to scan their phones at the entrance using a new Amazon Go mobile app. Then the technology will track what items they pick up or even return to the shelves and add them to a virtual shopping cart in real time, according a video Amazon posted on YouTube. Once the customers exit the store, they’ll be charged on their Amazon account automatically.

Amazon Introduces ‘Amazon Go’ Retail Stores, No Checkout, No Lines — from investors.com

Excerpt:

Online retail king Amazon.com (AMZN) is taking dead aim at the physical-store world Monday, introducing Amazon Go, a retail convenience store format it is developing that will use computer vision and deep-learning algorithms to let shoppers just pick up what they want and exit the store without any checkout procedure.

Shoppers will merely need to tap the Amazon Go app on their smartphones, and their virtual shopping carts will automatically tabulate what they owe, and deduct that amount from their Amazon accounts, sending you a receipt. It’s what the company has deemed “just walk out technology,” which it said is based on the same technology used in self-driving cars. It’s certain to up the ante in the company’s competition with Wal-Mart (WMT), Target (TGT) and the other retail leaders.

Google DeepMind Makes AI Training Platform Publicly Available — from bloomberg.com by Jeremy Kahn
Company is increasingly embracing open-source initiatives | Move comes after rival Musk’s OpenAI made its robot gym public

Excerpt:

Alphabet Inc.’s artificial intelligence division Google DeepMind is making the maze-like game platform it uses for many of its experiments available to other researchers and the general public.

DeepMind is putting the entire source code for its training environment — which it previously called Labyrinth and has now renamed as DeepMind Lab — on the open-source depository GitHub, the company said Monday. Anyone will be able to download the code and customize it to help train their own artificial intelligence systems. They will also be able to create new game levels for DeepMind Lab and upload these to GitHub.

Related:
Alphabet DeepMind is inviting developers into the digital world where its AI learns to explore — from qz.com by Dave Gershgorn

After Retail Stumble, Beacons Shine From Banks to Sports Arenas — from bloomberg.com by Olga Kharif
Shipments of the devices expected to grow to 500 million

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Beacon technology, which was practically left for dead after failing to deliver on its promise to revolutionize the retail industry, is making a comeback.

Beacons are puck-size gadgets that can send helpful tips, coupons and other information to people’s smartphones through Bluetooth. They’re now being used in everything from bank branches and sports arenas to resorts, airports and fast-food restaurants. In the latest sign of the resurgence, Mobile Majority, an advertising startup, said on Monday that it was buying Gimbal Inc., a beacon maker it bills as the largest independent source of location data other than Google and Apple Inc.
…
Several recent developments have sparked the latest boom. Companies like Google parent Alphabet Inc. are making it possible for people to use the feature without downloading any apps, which had been a major barrier to adoption, said Patrick Connolly, an analyst at ABI. Introduced this year, Google Nearby Notifications lets developers tie an app or a website to a beacon to send messages to consumers even when they have no app installed.
…
But in June, Cupertino, California-based Mist Systems began shipping a software-based product that simplified the process. Instead of placing 10 beacons on walls and ceilings, for example, management using Mist can install one device every 2,000 feet (610 meters), then designate various points on a digital floor plan as virtual beacons, which can be moved with a click of a mouse.

Google’s Hand-Fed AI Now Gives Answers, Not Just Search Results — from wired.com by Cade Metz

Excerpt:

Ask the Google search app “What is the fastest bird on Earth?,” and it will tell you.

“Peregrine falcon,” the phone says. “According to YouTube, the peregrine falcon has a maximum recorded airspeed of 389 kilometers per hour.”

That’s the right answer, but it doesn’t come from some master database inside Google. When you ask the question, Google’s search engine pinpoints a YouTube video describing the five fastest birds on the planet and then extracts just the information you’re looking for. It doesn’t mention those other four birds. And it responds in similar fashion if you ask, say, “How many days are there in Hanukkah?” or “How long is Totem?” The search engine knows that Totem is a Cirque de Soleil show, and that it lasts two-and-a-half hours, including a thirty-minute intermission.

Google answers these questions with the help from deep neural networks, a form of artificial intelligence rapidly remaking not just Google’s search engine but the entire company and, well, the other giants of the internet, from Facebook to Microsoft. Deep neutral nets are pattern recognition systems that can learn to perform specific tasks by analyzing vast amounts of data. In this case, they’ve learned to take a long sentence or paragraph from a relevant page on the web and extract the upshot—the information you’re looking for.

Deep Learning in Production at Facebook — from re-work.co by Katie Pollitt

Excerpt:

Facebook is powered by machine learning and AI. From advertising relevance, news feed and search ranking to computer vision, face recognition, and speech recognition, they run ML models at massive scale, computing trillions of predictions every day.

At the 2016 Deep Learning Summit in Boston, Andrew Tulloch, Research Engineer at Facebook, talked about some of the tools and tricks Facebook use for scaling both the training and deployment of some of their deep learning models at Facebook. He also covered some useful libraries that they’d open-sourced for production-oriented deep learning applications. Tulloch’s session can be watched in full below.

The Artificial Intelligence Gold Rush — from foresightr.com by Mark Vickers
Big companies, venture capital firms and governments are all banking on AI

Excerpt:

Let’s start with some of the brand-name organizations laying down big bucks on artificial intelligence.

Amazon: Sells the successful Echo home speaker, which comes with the personal assistant Alexa.
Alphabet (Google): Uses deep learning technology to power Internet searches and developed AlphaGo, an AI that beat the world champion in the game of Go.
Apple: Developed the popular virtual assistant Siri and is working on other phone-related AI applications, such as facial recognition.
Baidu: Wants to use AI to improve search, recognize images of objects and respond to natural language queries.
Boeing: Works with Carnegie Mellon University to develop machine learning capable of helping it design and build planes more efficiently.
Facebook: Wants to create the “best AI lab in the world.” Has its personal assistant, M, and focuses heavily on facial recognition.
IBM: Created the Jeopardy-winning Watson AI and is leveraging its data analysis and natural language capabilities in the healthcare industry.
Intel: Has made acquisitions to help it build specialized chips and software to handle deep learning.
Microsoft: Works on chatbot technology and acquired SwiftKey, which predicts what users will type next.
Nokia: Has introduced various machine learning capabilities to its portfolio of customer-experience software.
Nvidia: Builds computer chips customized for deep learning.
Salesforce: Took first place at the Stanford Question Answering Dataset, a test of machine learning and comprehension, and has developed the Einstein model that learns from data.
Shell: Launched a virtual assistant to answer customer questions.
Tesla Motors: Continues to work on self-driving automobile technologies.
Twitter: Created an AI-development team called Cortex and acquired several AI startups.

IBM Watson and Education in the Cognitive Era — from i-programmer.info by Nikos Vaggalis

Excerpt:

IBM’s seemingly ubiquitous Watson is now infiltrating education, through AI powered software that ‘reads’ the needs of individual students in order to engage them through tailored learning approaches.

This is not to be taken lightly, as it opens the door to a new breed of technologies that will spearhead the education or re-education of the workforce of the future.

As outlined in the 2030 report, despite robots or AI displacing a big chunk of the workforce, they will also play a major role in creating job opportunities as never before.In such a competitive landscape, workers of all kinds, white or blue collar to begin with, should come readied with new, versatile and contemporary skills.

The point is, the very AI that will leave someone jobless, will also help him to re-adapt into a new job’s requirements.It will also prepare the new generations through the use of such optimal methodologies that will once more give meaning to the aging and counter-productive schooling system which has the students’ skills disengaged from the needs of the industry and which still segregates students into ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Might it be that ‘bad’ students become just like that due to the system’s inability to stimulate their interest?

“Learning Themes” – A free, new eBook that curates the content from the Learning 2016 Conference [Elliott Masie]

On 11/30/2016, in 21st century, business, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital storytelling, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, microlearning, story, storytelling, tools, trends, United States, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Learning Themes
Curated Content from Learning 2016
Open Source eBook – No Cost
http://www.masie.com/eBookL16

From an email from Elliott Masie and the Masie Center:

This 35-page eBook is packed with content, context, conversations, video links, and curated resources that include:

Learning Perspectives from Anderson Cooper, Scott Kelly, Tiffany Shlain, George Takei, Richard Culatta, Karl Kapp, Nancy DeViney, and other Learning 2016 Keynotes
Graphic Illustrations from Deirdre Crowley, Crowley & Co.
Video Links for Content Segments
Learning Perspectives from Elliott Masie
Segments focusing on:
- Brain & Cognitive Science
- Gamification & Gaming
- Micro-Learning
- Visual Storytelling
- Connected & Flipped Classrooms
- Compliance & Learning
- Engagement in Virtual Learning
- Video & Learning
- Virtual Reality & Learning
And much more!

We have created this as an open source, shareable resource that will extend the learning from Learning 2016 to our colleagues around the world. We are using the Open Creative Commons license, so feel free to share!

We believe that CURATION, focusing on extending and organizing follow-up content, is a growing and critical dimension of any learning event. We hope that you find your eBook of value!

Explosive IoT growth could produce skills shortage — from rtinsights.com by Joe McKendrick

Excerpts:

CIO’s Sharon Florentine took a look at data from global freelance marketplace Upwork, based on annual job posting growth and skills demand. The following are leading IoT skills Florentine identified that will be demand as the IoT proliferates, with level the growth seen over a one-year period:

Circuit design (231% growth): Builds miniaturized circuit boards for sensors and devices.

Microcontroller programming (225% growth): Writes code that provides intelligence to microcontrollers, the embedded chips within IoT devices.

AutoCAD (216% growth): Designs the devices.

Machine learning (199% growth): Writes the algorithms that recognize data patterns within devices.

Security infrastructure (194% growth): Identifies and integrates the standards, protocols and technologies that protect devices, as well as the data inside.

Big data (183% growth): Data scientists and engineers “who can collect, organize, analyze and architect disparate sources of data.” Hadoop and Apache Spark are two areas with particularly strong demand.

“How chatbots will change the face of campus technology,” + “The Ultimate Guide to Chatbots” + other items re: bots, chatbots, AI

On 11/02/2016, in 21st century, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, communications, emerging technologies, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, Microsoft, user experience (UX), vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

How chatbots will change the face of campus technology — from by Jami Morshed

Excerpt:

In the first few months of the new semester hubbub, what if there was an assistant at the beck and call of students to help them navigate the college process? While the campus faculty and staff are likely too busy during those first few days to answer all the questions on students and parent’s minds, chatbots – akin to Siri, Cortana, and Alexa – could provide the ideal digital assistant to make not only these first few days run smoothly, but also the student’s entire time on campus.
…
From applying to college, to arriving on campus, declaring a major, signing up courses and eventually graduation, there are a multitude of ways bots can help to streamline the process, maybe as soon as next semester.
…
For example, during the application process, a bot could send push notifications to students to remind them about upcoming deadlines, missing documents, or improperly submitted data, and would be available 24/7 to answer student’s questions such as “Am I missing any documents for my application?” or “What’s the deadline for submitting the application fee?”.

The Ultimate Guide to Chatbots: Why they’re disrupting UX and best practices for building — from medium.muz by Joe Toscano

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The incredible potential of chatbots lies in the ability to individually and contextually communicate one-to-many.
…
Right now contextually communicating with bots isn’t something that’s reasonable to ask across the board but there are a few that are doing it well, and I believe this type of interaction will be the standard in the future.

While chatbots are still in their infancy in terms of creative potential, it’s still a very exciting time for creatives trying to understand the best way to use this new technology and how to build the best bot possible.
…
Stop wasting money trying to pull people into your ecosystem. Push your content where your users are already active.

Google Assistant bot ecosystem will open to all developers by end of 2016 — from venturebeat.com by Khari Johnson

Excerpt:

Developers and the rest of the world will soon be able to make bots that interact with Google Assistant and new Google devices made public, the company said today in a special presentation in San Francisco.

“The Google Assistant will be our next thriving open ecosystem,” said Scott Huffman, lead engineer of Google Assistant.

The creation of bots for Google Assistant will be possible through Actions on Google, which is due out by early December. A software development kit (SDK) that brings Google Assistant into a range of device not made by Google is due out next year.

First Computer to Match Humans in Conversational Speech Recognition — from technologyreview.com
Human-level speech recognition has been a long time coming.

Chat bots: How talking to your apps became the next big thing — from zdnet.com by Steve Ranger
Apps that can mimic human conversations are one of the hottest technologies around right now. Here’s why.

Excerpt:

Bots are applications that are designed to respond to conversational language. The aim is to create services — whether that’s the ability to order a pizza or to enter a meeting in a calendar — where the dialogue with the app is as natural and apparently unscripted as an interaction you might have with a human.

Chat bots are like narrow versions of digital assistants like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant, designed to perform specific tasks. Interest in bots has rocketed recently and developers are racing to incorporate them into services built on popular messaging apps and websites to create a form of virtual customer services.

“Disney, yes Disney, becomes blockchain’s biggest proponent” plus 3 other items re: blockchain

On 11/01/2016, in 21st century, Blockchain, business, change, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, IBM, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Disney, yes Disney, becomes blockchain’s biggest proponent — from zdnet.com by Joe McKendrick
Walt Disney Company releases blockchain platform, now what are they going to do with it?

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The Walt Disney Company is embracing blockchain in a big way, and not just for accepting cryptocurrency at its parks.

Disney recently released a platform called Dragonchain, described in an announcement as “a distributed crypto ledger framework protocol that makes it easy to create cost-efficient business networks where virtually anything of value can be tracked and traded–without requiring a central point of control.” The platform is provided with a modified Apache 2 open source license. A small team at Disney developed the blockchain platform internally in 2016.

The Dragonchain release notes that blockchain “will make all kinds of transactions transparent, more reliable, and easier to audit without centralized processing,” providing “support for a smart contract language within a hybrid permissioned and public ledger network using a unique consensus algorithm with context based verification.”

Blockchain technology to advance most quickly in manufacturing, government, healthcare and education sectors: Gartner — from econotimes.com

Excerpt:

Gartner Inc has released a new report that identifies three distinct technology trends that are poised to be of the highest priority for organizations facing rapidly accelerating digital business innovation.

The report “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2016” categorizes the three trends as transparently immersive experiences, the perceptual smart machine age, and the platform revolution. Gartner says that these trends will create new experiences with unrivaled intelligence and offer platforms that allow organizations to connect with new business ecosystems.

Blockchain beyond Bitcoin — from raconteur.net
Infographic outlining what blockchain adoption could look like, the 10 key hurdles to adopting blockchain in financial services and more

Blockchain will be used by 15% of big banks by 2017, says IBM Report — from coinspeaker.com by Tatsiana Yablonskaya
The US-based multinational technology company has studied and announced the benefits and prospects of blockchain use in banking and financial markets spheres.

Addendums on 11/2/16:

China Pushes for Blockchain Cooperation With New Research Report — from coindesk.com by Stan Higgins
Excerpt:
The Chinese government has released some of its first research findings on blockchain technology.China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has published a new white paper that explores various applications of the technology. Its release this week coincided with a forum on blockchain hosted by the Chinese government aimed at encouraging cooperation among industry stakeholders and members of the country’s business community, according to a speech by Ministry Secretary Xie Shaofeng.The white paper provides a broad overview of the technology and its development both within and beyond China. Specific items include how bitcoin transactions work, for example.
.
Financial Institution MasterCard Releases Blockchain APIs — from news.bitcoin.com by Jamie Redman
Mastercard Joins Distributed Ledger Race

From DSC:
We are hopefully creating the future that we want — i.e., creating the future of our dreams, not nightmares. The 14 items below show that technology is often waaay out ahead of us…and it takes time for other areas of society to catch up (such as areas that involve making policies, laws, and/or if we should even be doing these things in the first place).

Such reflections always make me ask:

Who should be involved in some of these decisions?
Who is currently getting asked to the decision-making tables for such discussions?
How does the average citizen participate in such discussions?

Readers of this blog know that I’m generally pro-technology. But with the exponential pace of technological change, we need to slow things down enough to make wise decisions.

Google AI invents its own cryptographic algorithm; no one knows how it works — from arstechnica.co.uk by Sebastian Anthony
Neural networks seem good at devising crypto methods; less good at codebreaking.

Excerpt:

Google Brain has created two artificial intelligences that evolved their own cryptographic algorithm to protect their messages from a third AI, which was trying to evolve its own method to crack the AI-generated crypto. The study was a success: the first two AIs learnt how to communicate securely from scratch.

IoT growing faster than the ability to defend it — from scientificamerican.com by Larry Greenemeier
Last week’s use of connected gadgets to attack the Web is a wake-up call for the Internet of Things, which will get a whole lot bigger this holiday season

Excerpt:

With this year’s approaching holiday gift season the rapidly growing “Internet of Things” or IoT—which was exploited to help shut down parts of the Web this past Friday—is about to get a lot bigger, and fast. Christmas and Hanukkah wish lists are sure to be filled with smartwatches, fitness trackers, home-monitoring cameras and other wi-fi–connected gadgets that connect to the internet to upload photos, videos and workout details to the cloud. Unfortunately these devices are also vulnerable to viruses and other malicious software (malware) that can be used to turn them into virtual weapons without their owners’ consent or knowledge.

Last week’s distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks—in which tens of millions of hacked devices were exploited to jam and take down internet computer servers—is an ominous sign for the Internet of Things. A DDoS is a cyber attack in which large numbers of devices are programmed to request access to the same Web site at the same time, creating data traffic bottlenecks that cut off access to the site. In this case the still-unknown attackers used malware known as “Mirai” to hack into devices whose passwords they could guess, because the owners either could not or did not change the devices’ default passwords.

How to Get Lost in Augmented Reality — from inverse.com by Tanya Basu; with thanks to Woontack Woo for this resource
There are no laws against projecting misinformation. That’s good news for pranksters, criminals, and advertisers.

Excerpt:

Augmented reality offers designers and engineers new tools and artists and new palette, but there’s a dark side to reality-plus. Because A.R. technologies will eventually allow individuals to add flourishes to the environments of others, they will also facilitate the creation of a new type of misinformation and unwanted interactions. There will be advertising (there is always advertising) and there will also be lies perpetrated with optical trickery.

Two computer scientists-turned-ethicists are seriously considering the problematic ramifications of a technology that allows for real-world pop-ups: Keith Miller at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Bo Brinkman at Miami University in Ohio. Both men are dismissive of Pokémon Go because smartphones are actually behind the times when it comes to A.R.
…
A very important question is who controls these augmentations,” Miller says. “It’s a huge responsibility to take over someone’s world — you could manipulate people. You could nudge them.”

Can we build AI without losing control over it? — from ted.com by Sam Harris

Description:

Scared of superintelligent AI? You should be, says neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris — and not just in some theoretical way. We’re going to build superhuman machines, says Harris, but we haven’t yet grappled with the problems associated with creating something that may treat us the way we treat ants.

Do no harm, don’t discriminate: official guidance issued on robot ethics — from theguardian.com
Robot deception, addiction and possibility of AIs exceeding their remits noted as hazards that manufacturers should consider

Excerpt:

Isaac Asimov gave us the basic rules of good robot behaviour: don’t harm humans, obey orders and protect yourself. Now the British Standards Institute has issued a more official version aimed at helping designers create ethically sound robots.

The document, BS8611 Robots and robotic devices, is written in the dry language of a health and safety manual, but the undesirable scenarios it highlights could be taken directly from fiction. Robot deception, robot addiction and the possibility of self-learning systems exceeding their remits are all noted as hazards that manufacturers should consider.

World’s first baby born with new “3 parent” technique — from newscientist.com by Jessica Hamzelou

Excerpt:

It’s a boy! A five-month-old boy is the first baby to be born using a new technique that incorporates DNA from three people, New Scientist can reveal. “This is great news and a huge deal,” says Dusko Ilic at King’s College London, who wasn’t involved in the work. “It’s revolutionary.”

The controversial technique, which allows parents with rare genetic mutations to have healthy babies, has only been legally approved in the UK. But the birth of the child, whose Jordanian parents were treated by a US-based team in Mexico, should fast-forward progress around the world, say embryologists.

Scientists Grow Full-Sized, Beating Human Hearts From Stem Cells — from popsci.com by Alexandra Ossola
It’s the closest we’ve come to growing transplantable hearts in the lab

Excerpt:

Of the 4,000 Americans waiting for heart transplants, only 2,500 will receive new hearts in the next year. Even for those lucky enough to get a transplant, the biggest risk is the their bodies will reject the new heart and launch a massive immune reaction against the foreign cells. To combat the problems of organ shortage and decrease the chance that a patient’s body will reject it, researchers have been working to create synthetic organs from patients’ own cells. Now a team of scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School has gotten one step closer, using adult skin cells to regenerate functional human heart tissue, according to a study published recently in the journal Circulation Research.

Achieving trust through data ethics — from sloanreview.mit.edu
Success in the digital age requires a new kind of diligence in how companies gather and use data.

Excerpt:

A few months ago, Danish researchers used data-scraping software to collect the personal information of nearly 70,000 users of a major online dating site as part of a study they were conducting. The researchers then published their results on an open scientific forum. Their report included the usernames, political leanings, drug usage, and other intimate details of each account.

A firestorm ensued. Although the data gathered and subsequently released was already publicly available, many questioned whether collecting, bundling, and broadcasting the data crossed serious ethical and legal boundaries.

In today’s digital age, data is the primary form of currency. Simply put: Data equals information equals insights equals power.

Technology is advancing at an unprecedented rate — along with data creation and collection. But where should the line be drawn? Where do basic principles come into play to consider the potential harm from data’s use?

“Data Science Ethics” course — from the University of Michigan on edX.org
Learn how to think through the ethics surrounding privacy, data sharing, and algorithmic decision-making.

About this course
As patients, we care about the privacy of our medical record; but as patients, we also wish to benefit from the analysis of data in medical records. As citizens, we want a fair trial before being punished for a crime; but as citizens, we want to stop terrorists before they attack us. As decision-makers, we value the advice we get from data-driven algorithms; but as decision-makers, we also worry about unintended bias. Many data scientists learn the tools of the trade and get down to work right away, without appreciating the possible consequences of their work.

This course focused on ethics specifically related to data science will provide you with the framework to analyze these concerns. This framework is based on ethics, which are shared values that help differentiate right from wrong. Ethics are not law, but they are usually the basis for laws.

Everyone, including data scientists, will benefit from this course. No previous knowledge is needed.

Science, Technology, and the Future of Warfare — from mwi.usma.edu by Margaret Kosal

Excerpt:

We know that emerging innovations within cutting-edge science and technology (S&T) areas carry the potential to revolutionize governmental structures, economies, and life as we know it. Yet, others have argued that such technologies could yield doomsday scenarios and that military applications of such technologies have even greater potential than nuclear weapons to radically change the balance of power. These S&T areas include robotics and autonomous unmanned system; artificial intelligence; biotechnology, including synthetic and systems biology; the cognitive neurosciences; nanotechnology, including stealth meta-materials; additive manufacturing (aka 3D printing); and the intersection of each with information and computing technologies, i.e., cyber-everything. These concepts and the underlying strategic importance were articulated at the multi-national level in NATO’s May 2010 New Strategic Concept paper: “Less predictable is the possibility that research breakthroughs will transform the technological battlefield…. The most destructive periods of history tend to be those when the means of aggression have gained the upper hand in the art of waging war.”

Low-Cost Gene Editing Could Breed a New Form of Bioterrorism — from bigthink.com by Philip Perry

Excerpt:

2012 saw the advent of gene editing technique CRISPR-Cas9. Now, just a few short years later, gene editing is becoming accessible to more of the world than its scientific institutions. This new technique is now being used in public health projects, to undermine the ability of certain mosquitoes to transmit disease, such as the Zika virus. But that initiative has had many in the field wondering whether it could be used for the opposite purpose, with malicious intent.

Back in February, U.S. National Intelligence Director James Clapper put out a Worldwide Threat Assessment, to alert the intelligence community of the potential risks posed by gene editing. The technology, which holds incredible promise for agriculture and medicine, was added to the list of weapons of mass destruction.

It is thought that amateur terrorists, non-state actors such as ISIS, or rouge states such as North Korea, could get their hands on it, and use this technology to create a bioweapon such as the earth has never seen, causing wanton destruction and chaos without any way to mitigate it.

What would happen if gene editing fell into the wrong hands?

Robot nurses will make shortages obsolete — from thedailybeast.com by Joelle Renstrom
By 2022, one million nurse jobs will be unfilled—leaving patients with lower quality care and longer waits. But what if robots could do the job?

Excerpt:

Japan is ahead of the curve when it comes to this trend, given that its elderly population is the highest of any country. Toyohashi University of Technology has developed Terapio, a robotic medical cart that can make hospital rounds, deliver medications and other items, and retrieve records. It follows a specific individual, such as a doctor or nurse, who can use it to record and access patient data. Terapio isn’t humanoid, but it does have expressive eyes that change shape and make it seem responsive. This type of robot will likely be one of the first to be implemented in hospitals because it has fairly minimal patient contact, works with staff, and has a benign appearance.

Established to study and formulate best practices on AI technologies, to advance the public’s understanding of AI, and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society.

GOALS

Support Best Practices
To support research and recommend best practices in areas including ethics, fairness, and inclusivity; transparency and interoperability; privacy; collaboration between people and AI systems; and of the trustworthiness, reliability, and robustness of the technology.

Create an Open Platform for Discussion and Engagement
To provide a regular, structured platform for AI researchers and key stakeholders to communicate directly and openly with each other about relevant issues.

Advance Understanding
To advance public understanding and awareness of AI and its potential benefits and potential costs to act as a trusted and expert point of contact as questions/concerns arise from the public and others in the area of AI and to regularly update key constituents on the current state of AI progress.

IBM Watson’s latest gig: Improving cancer treatment with genomic sequencing — from techrepublic.com by Alison DeNisco
A new partnership between IBM Watson Health and Quest Diagnostics will combine Watson’s cognitive computing with genetic tumor sequencing for more precise, individualized cancer care.

Addendum on 11/1/16:

An open letter to Microsoft and Google’s Partnership on AI — from wired.com by Gerd Leonhard
In a world where machines may have an IQ of 50,000, what will happen to the values and ethics that underpin privacy and free will?

Excerpt:

Dear Francesca, Eric, Mustafa, Yann, Ralf, Demis and others at IBM, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon.

The Partnership on AI to benefit people and society is a welcome change from the usual celebration of disruption and magic technological progress. I hope it will also usher in a more holistic discussion about the global ethics of the digital age. Your announcement also coincides with the launch of my book Technology vs. Humanity which dramatises this very same question: How will technology stay beneficial to society?

This open letter is my modest contribution to the unfolding of this new partnership. Data is the new oil – which now makes your companies the most powerful entities on the globe, way beyond oil companies and banks. The rise of ‘AI everywhere’ is certain to only accelerate this trend. Yet unlike the giants of the fossil-fuel era, there is little oversight on what exactly you can and will do with this new data-oil, and what rules you’ll need to follow once you have built that AI-in-the-sky. There appears to be very little public stewardship, while accepting responsibility for the consequences of your inventions is rather slow in surfacing.

Why deep learning is suddenly changing your life — from fortune.com by Roger Parloff

Excerpt:

Most obviously, the speech-recognition functions on our smartphones work much better than they used to. When we use a voice command to call our spouses, we reach them now. We aren’t connected to Amtrak or an angry ex.

In fact, we are increasingly interacting with our computers by just talking to them, whether it’s Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, or the many voice-responsive features of Google. Chinese search giant Baidu says customers have tripled their use of its speech interfaces in the past 18 months.

Machine translation and other forms of language processing have also become far more convincing, with Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Baidu unveiling new tricks every month. Google Translate now renders spoken sentences in one language into spoken sentences in another for 32 pairs of languages, while offering text translations for 103 tongues, including Cebuano, Igbo, and Zulu. Google’s Inbox app offers three ready-made replies for many incoming emails.
…
But what most people don’t realize is that all these breakthroughs are, in essence, the same breakthrough. They’ve all been made possible by a family of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques popularly known as deep learning, though most scientists still prefer to call them by their original academic designation: deep neural networks.

Even the Internet metaphor doesn’t do justice to what AI with deep learning will mean, in Ng’s view. “AI is the new electricity,” he says. “Just as 100 years ago electricity transformed industry after industry, AI will now do the same.”

Graphically speaking:

“Our sales teams are using neural nets to recommend which prospects to contact next or what kinds of product offerings to recommend.”

One way to think of what deep learning does is as “A to B mappings,” says Baidu’s Ng. “You can input an audio clip and output the transcript. That’s speech recognition.” As long as you have data to train the software, the possibilities are endless, he maintains. “You can input email, and the output could be: Is this spam or not?” Input loan applications, he says, and the output might be the likelihood a customer will repay it. Input usage patterns on a fleet of cars, and the output could advise where to send a car next.

The speakers/topics for the upcoming 2017 Calvin College’s January Series

On 10/27/2016, in business, career development, change, Europe, faith, global / globalization, health, higher education, history, Michigan, music, psychology, real-world assignments, relationships, religion, society, sociology, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The speakers — and the topics that they’ll be discussing — for the 2017 January Series have been announced. As you can see, very knowledgeable, talented speakers are planning on covering a variety of meaningful topics such as:

500 Years Later: Why the Reformation Still Matters
Poverty and Profit in the American City
Race, Trauma, and the Doctrine of Discovery
Closing the Gender Gap in Technology
Tinkering in Today’s Healthcare Factories: Pursuing the Renewal of Medicine
Until All Are Free: A Look at Slavery Today and the Church’s Invitation to End It
I’ll Push You: A Story of Radical Friendship, Overcoming Challenges and the Power of Community
The EU and Global Governance
The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right
How Did We Get Here? A Historical Perspective on Our Wild 2016 Election
How to Find and Live Your Calling: Lessons from the Psychology of Vocation
The World is a Scary Place, Love Anyway
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American Violinist in Concert
Overrated: Are We More in Love with the Idea of Changing the World than Actually Changing the World?

You don’t have to physically attend these presentations in order to benefit from them, as the majority of these presentations will be streamed live over the Internet (audio only). So plan now to attend (physically or virtually) one or more of these excellent talks.

IBM’s Watson makes further inroads into higher education as well as into other industries; posting includes several recent announcements from IBM

On 10/26/2016, in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, computer science, data related items, digital learning, education technology, emerging technologies, Europe, future of higher education, game-changing environment, health, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, learner profiles, learning agents, learning ecosystem, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, personalized/customized learning, platforms, programming, United States, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

IBM Watson Education and Pearson to drive cognitive learning experiences for college students — from prnewswire.com

Excerpt:

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Pearson (FTSE: PSON) the world’s learning company, today announced a new global education alliance intended to make Watson’s cognitive capabilities available to millions of college students and professors.

Combining IBM’s cognitive capabilities with Pearson’s digital learning products will give students a more immersive learning experience with their college courses, an easy way to get help and insights when they need it, all through asking questions in natural language just like they would with another student or professor. Importantly, it provides instructors with insights about how well students are learning, allowing them to better manage the entire course and flag students who need additional help.

For example, a student experiencing difficulty while studying for a biology course can query Watson, which is embedded in the Pearson courseware. Watson has already read the Pearson courseware content and is ready to spot patterns and generate insights. Serving as a digital resource, Watson will assess the student’s responses to guide them with hints, feedback, explanations and help identify common misconceptions, working with the student at their pace to help them master the topic.

ibm-watson-2016

Udacity partners with IBM Watson to launch the AI Nanodegree — from venturebeat.com by Paul Sawers

Excerpt:

Online education platform Udacity has partnered with IBM Watson to launch a new artificial intelligence (AI) Nanodegree program.

Costing $1,600 for the full two-term, 26-week course, the AI Nanodegree covers a myriad of topics including logic and planning, probabilistic inference, game-playing / search, computer vision, cognitive systems, and natural language processing (NLP). It’s worth noting here that Udacity already offers an Intro to Artificial Intelligence (free) course and the Machine Learning Engineer Nanodegree, but with the A.I. Nanodegree program IBM Watson is seeking to help give developers a “foundational understanding of artificial intelligence,” while also helping graduates identify job opportunities in the space.

The Future Cognitive Workforce Part 1: Announcing the AI Nanodegree with Udacity — from ibm.com by Rob High

Excerpt:

As artificial intelligence (AI) begins to power more technology across industries, it’s been truly exciting to see what our community of developers can create with Watson. Developers are inspiring us to advance the technology that is transforming society, and they are the reason why such a wide variety of businesses are bringing cognitive solutions to market.

With AI becoming more ubiquitous in the technology we use every day, developers need to continue to sharpen their cognitive computing skills. They are seeking ways to gain a competitive edge in a workforce that increasingly needs professionals who understand how to build AI solutions.

It is for this reason that today at World of Watson in Las Vegas we announced with Udacity the introduction of a Nanodegree program that incorporates expertise from IBM Watson and covers the basics of artificial intelligence. The “AI Nanodegree” program will be helpful for those looking to establish a foundational understanding of artificial intelligence. IBM will also help aid graduates of this program with identifying job opportunities.

The Future Cognitive Workforce Part 2: Teaching the Next Generation of Builders — from ibm.com by Steve Abrams

Excerpt:

Announced today at World of Watson, and as Rob High outlined in the first post in this series, IBM has partnered with Udacity to develop a nanodegree in artificial intelligence. Rob discussed IBM’s commitment to empowering developers to learn more about cognitive computing and equipping them with the educational resources they need to build their careers in AI.

To continue on this commitment, I’m excited to announce another new program today geared at college students that we’ve launched with Kivuto Solutions, an academic software distributor. Via Kivuto’s popular digital resource management platform, students and academics around the world will now gain free access to the complete IBM Bluemix Portfolio — and specifically, Watson. This offers students and faculty at any accredited university – as well as community colleges and high schools with STEM programs – an easy way to tap into Watson services. Through this access, teachers will also gain a better means to create curriculum around subjects like AI.

IBM introduces new Watson solutions for professions — from finance.yahoo.com

Excerpt:

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — IBM (NYSE:IBM) today unveiled a series of new cognitive solutions intended for professionals in marketing, commerce, supply chain and human resources. With these new offerings, IBM is enabling organizations across all industries and of all sizes to integrate new cognitive capabilities into their businesses.

Watson solutions learn in an expert way, which is critical for professionals that want to uncover insights hidden in their massive amounts of data to understand, reason and learn about their customers and important business processes. Helping professionals augment their existing knowledge and experience without needing to engage a data analyst empowers them to make more informed business decisions, spot opportunities and take action with confidence.

“IBM is bringing Watson cognitive capabilities to millions of professionals around the world, putting a trusted advisor and personal analyst at their fingertips,” said Harriet Green, general manager Watson IoT, Cognitive Engagement & Education. “Similar to the value that Watson has brought to the world of healthcare, cognitive capabilities will be extended to professionals in new areas, helping them harness the value of the data being generated in their industries and use it in new ways.”

IBM says new Watson Data Platform will ‘bring machine learning to the masses’ — from techrepublic.com by Hope Reese
On Tuesday, IBM unveiled a cloud-based AI engine to help businesses harness machine learning. It aims to give everyone, from CEOs to developers, a simple platform to interpret and collaborate on data.

Excerpt:

“Insight is the new currency for success,” said Bob Picciano, senior vice president at IBM Analytics. “And Watson is the supercharger for the insight economy.”

Picciano, speaking at the World of Watson conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, unveiled IBM’s Watson Data Platform, touted as the “world’s fastest data ingestion engine and machine learning as a service.”

The cloud-based Watson Data Platform, will “illuminate dark data,” said Picciano, and will “change everything—absolutely everything—for everyone.”

See the #IBMWoW hashtag on Twitter for more news/announcements coming from IBM this week:

Previous postings from earlier this month:

IBM Watson’s latest gig: Improving cancer treatment with genomic sequencing — from techrepublic.com by Alison DeNisco
A new partnership between IBM Watson Health and Quest Diagnostics will combine Watson’s cognitive computing with genetic tumor sequencing for more precise, individualized cancer care.

IBM launches industry first Cognitive-IoT ‘Collaboratory’ for clients and partners
Excerpt:
IBM have unveiled an €180 million investment in a new global headquarters to house its Watson Internet of Things business. Located in Munich, the facility will promote new IoT capabilities around Blockchain and security as well as supporting the array of clients that are driving real outcomes by using Watson IoT technologies, drawing insights from billions of sensors embedded in machines, cars, drones, ball bearings, pieces of equipment and even hospitals. As part of a global investment designed to bring Watson cognitive computing to IoT, IBM has allocated more than $200 million USD to its global Watson IoT headquarters in Munich. The investment, one of the company’s largest ever in Europe, is in response to escalating demand from customers who are looking to transform their operations using a combination of IoT and Artificial Intelligence technologies. Currently IBM has 6,000 clients globally who are tapping Watson IoT solutions and services, up from 4,000 just 8 months ago.

People Analytics: A Cognitive Approach to HR: How Capgemini Leverages Watson for Recruitment and People Development — by Capgemin, posted 10/19/16

By 2021, digital agents will be a 15.8 billion market. #chatbots #ibmwow pic.twitter.com/KFLqLkpnG8

— IBM Watson (@IBMWatson) October 25, 2016

Learning Ecosystems

New journal Science Robotics is established to chronicle the rise of the robots [Coldewey]

“Learning Themes” – A free, new eBook that curates the content from the Learning 2016 Conference [Elliott Masie]

“Disney, yes Disney, becomes blockchain’s biggest proponent” plus 3 other items re: blockchain

The speakers/topics for the upcoming 2017 Calvin College’s January Series

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