computer science

From DSC:
The two postings below show the need for more collaboration and the use of teams:

The future of law and computational technologies: Two sides of the same coin — from legaltechlever.com by Daniel Linna Jr.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

An increasing number of lawyers today work with allied professionals to improve processes, better manage projects, embrace data-driven methods, and leverage technology to improve legal services and systems. Legal-services and lawyer regulations are evolving. And basic technologies and AI are slowly making their way into the legal industry, from legal aid organizations and courts to large law firms, corporate legal departments, and governments.

If we are to realize the potential to improve society with computational technologies, law, regulation, and ethical principles must be front and center at every stage, from problem definition, design, data collection, and data cleaning to training, deployment, and monitoring and maintenance of products and systems. To achieve this, technologists and lawyers must collaborate and share a common vocabulary. Lawyers must learn about technology, and technologists must learn about law. Multidisciplinary teams with a shared commitment to law, regulation, and ethics can proactively address today’s AI challenges, and advance our collaborative problem-solving capabilities to address tomorrow’s increasingly complex problems. Lawyers and technologists must work together to create a better future for everyone.

From DSC:
As with higher education in general, we need more team-based efforts in the legal realm as well as more TrimTab Groups.

What’s a lawyer now? Law’s shift from practice to skill — from forbes.com by Mark Cohen

Excerpts:

Why does this distinction matter? Because law—like so many industries—is undergoing a tectonic shift. It is morphing from a lawyer dominated, practice-centric, labor-intensive guild to a tech-enabled, process and data-driven, multi-disciplinary global industry. The career paths, skills, and expectations of lawyers are changing. So too are how, when, and on what financial terms they are engaged; with whom and from what delivery models they work; their performance metrics, and the resources—human and machine—they collaborate with. Legal practice is shrinking and the business of delivering legal services is expanding rapidly.

Law is no longer the exclusive province of lawyers. Legal knowledge is not the sole element of legal delivery—business and technological competencies are equally important. It’s a new ballgame—one that most lawyers are unprepared for.
…
How did we get here and are legal careers for most a dead end? Spoiler alert: there’s tremendous opportunity in the legal industry. The caveat: all lawyers must have basic business and technological competency whether they pursue practice careers or leverage their legal knowledge as a skill in legal delivery and/or allied professional careers.

Upskilling the legal profession is already a key issue, a requisite for career success. Lawyers must learn new skills like project management, data analytics, deployment of technology, and process design to leverage their legal knowledge. Simply knowing the law will not cut it anymore.

From DSC:
I really appreciate the work of the above two men whose articles I’m highlighting here. I continue to learn a lot from them and am grateful for their work.

That said, just like it’s a lot to expect a faculty member (in higher ed) who teaches online to not only be a subject matter expert, but also to be skilled in teaching, web design, graphic design, navigation design, information design, audio design, video editing, etc…it’s a lot to expect for a lawyer to be a skilled lawyer, business person, and technician. I realize that Mark was only saying a basic level of competency…but even that can be difficult to achieve at times. Why? Because people have different skillsets, passions, and interests. One might be a good lawyer, but not a solid technician…or vice versa. One might be a solid professor, but isn’t very good with graphic design.

Information Technology (IT) skills and jobs are widely misunderstood to be housed primarily in the tech sector, and they are also thought to be inaccessible to all but a small minority of people who have focused intently on computer science. Building on our prior research efforts and mining a database of more than 150 million unique online U.S. job postings, Oracle Academy and Burning Glass Technologies produce new evidence that neither of these perceptions are borne out by data. To the contrary, 90% of IT skills and jobs are concentrated in 10 non-tech industries, leaving only 10% in the tech sector. The rapid growth of IT jobs is more than 50% greater in non-tech industries than in tech industries.

For a look at how #AI is being integrated into various industries, check out this article from Forbes

On 09/23/2019, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, career development, computer science, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, engineering, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
For a look at how #AI is being integrated into various industries, check out the article below.

AI 50: America’s Most Promising Artificial Intelligence Companies — from forbes.com by Jillian D’Onfro

Excerpts:

Artificial intelligence is infiltrating every industry, allowing vehicles to navigate without drivers, assisting doctors with medical diagnoses, and mimicking the way humans speak. But for all the authentic and exciting ways it’s transforming the tasks computers can perform, there’s a lot of hype, too.
…
The inherently broad term gets bandied about so often that it can start to feel meaningless and gets trotted out by companies to gussy up even simple data analysis. To help cut through the noise, Forbes and data partner Meritech Capital put together a list of private, U.S.-based companies that are wielding some subset of artificial intelligence in a meaningful way and demonstrating real business potential from doing so.
…
The honorees span categories like human resources, security, insurance, and finance, with healthcare, transportation, and infrastructure startups best represented on the list.

Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech — from npr.org by Aarti Shahani

Excerpts:

Regulate us. That’s the unexpected message from one of the country’s leading tech executives. Microsoft President Brad Smith argues that governments need to put some “guardrails” around engineers and the tech titans they serve.

If public leaders don’t, he says, the Internet giants will cannibalize the very fabric of this country.

“We need to work together; we need to work with governments to protect, frankly, something that is far more important than technology: democracy. It was here before us. It needs to be here and healthy after us,” Smith says.

“Almost no technology has gone so entirely unregulated, for so long, as digital technology,” Smith says.

An artificial-intelligence first: Voice-mimicking software reportedly used in a major theft — from washingtonpost.com by Drew Harwell

Excerpt:

Thieves used voice-mimicking software to imitate a company executive’s speech and dupe his subordinate into sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to a secret account, the company’s insurer said, in a remarkable case that some researchers are calling one of the world’s first publicly reported artificial-intelligence heists.

The managing director of a British energy company, believing his boss was on the phone, followed orders one Friday afternoon in March to wire more than $240,000 to an account in Hungary, said representatives from the French insurance giant Euler Hermes, which declined to name the company.

From DSC:
Needless to say, this is very scary stuff here! Now what…? Who in our society should get involved to thwart this kind of thing?

Programmers?
Digital audio specialists?
Legislators?
Lawyers?
The FBI?
Police?
Other?

Addendum on 9/12/19:

Watch Out For That Email From Management: The Latest Scams Targeting Lawyers — from by Hannah Roberts
Several firms have been targeted by phishing scams in recent months, but why are cyber criminals so drawn to law firms and how can management safeguard their businesses?

DSC: Holy smokes!!! How might this be applied to education/learning/training in the 21st century!?!

On 07/30/2019, in 21st century, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assistive technologies, business, change, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Cost of legal services - including access, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, IT in HE, K-12 related, languages and translation, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), multimedia, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, presentations, social learning / networks, society, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

DC: Holy smokes!!! How might this be applied to education/learning/training in the 21st century!?!

“What if neither distance nor language mattered? What if technology could help you be anywhere you need to be and speak any language? Using AI technology and holographic experiences this is possible, and it is revolutionary.”

Also see:

Microsoft has a wild hologram that translates HoloLens keynotes into Japanese — from theverge.com by Tom Warren
Azure and HoloLens combine for a hint at the future

Excerpt:

Microsoft has created a hologram that will transform someone into a digital speaker of another language. The software giant unveiled the technology during a keynote at the Microsoft Inspire partner conference [on 7/17/19] in Las Vegas. Microsoft recently scanned Julia White, a company executive for Azure, at a Mixed Reality capture studio to transform her into an exact hologram replica.

The digital version appeared onstage to translate the keynote into Japanese. Microsoft has used its Azure AI technologies and neural text-to-speech to make this possible. It works by taking recordings of White’s voice, in order to create a personalized voice signature, to make it sound like she’s speaking Japanese.

Amazon pledges $700 million to teach its workers to code [Matsakis]

On 07/11/2019, in Amazon, career development, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, data related items, pace of change, platforms, programming, reinvent, robotics, staying relevant, surviving, technology (general), United States, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Amazon pledges $700 million to teach its workers to code — from wired.com by Louise Matsakis

Excerpt:

Amazon announced Thursday that it will spend up to $700 million over the next six years retraining 100,000 of its US employees, mostly in technical skills like software engineering and IT support. Amazon is already one of the largest employers in the country, with almost 300,000 workers (and many more contractors) and it’s particularly hungry for more new talent. The company currently has more than 20,000 vacant US roles, over half of which are at its headquarters in Seattle. Meanwhile, the US economy is booming, and there are now more open jobs than there are unemployed people who can fill them, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Against that backdrop, Amazon’s jobs skills efforts provide some reassurance that—in theory at least—you could be retrained into a new role when the robots arrive.

From the announcement:

Based on a review of its workforce and analysis of U.S. hiring, Amazon’s fastest growing highly skilled jobs over the last five years include data mapping specialist, data scientist, solutions architect and business analyst, as well as logistics coordinator, process improvement manager and transportation specialist within our customer fulfillment network.

Also see:

Amazon to Invest $700M to Retrain 100,000 Workers for New Jobs — from pcmag.com by Michael Kan Icon
‘There is a greater need for technical skills in the workplace than ever before. Amazon is no exception,’ the company said. The goal is to ‘upskill’ one third of Amazon’s total work force by 2025 through free retraining programs.

Penn State World Campus Taps Google Cloud to Build Virtual Advising Assistant [Kelly]

On 07/10/2019, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business side of he, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, computer science, emerging technologies, Google, higher education, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, student-related, tools, United States, universities, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Penn State World Campus Taps Google Cloud to Build Virtual Advising Assistant — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

Excerpt:

At the start of the spring 2020 semester this January, Penn State World Campus will have a new artificial intelligence tool for answering the most common requests from its undergraduate students. A virtual assistant will help academic advisers at the online institution screen student e-mails for certain keywords and phrases, and then automatically pull relevant information for the advisers to send to students. For instance, the AI will be trained to assist advisers when students inquire how to change their major, change their Penn State campus, re-enroll in the university or defer their semester enrollment date, according to a news announcement.

“The world’s first full in VR semester course” — from VR First & Axon Park

On 06/28/2019, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, collaboration, computer science, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, global / globalization, graphics, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, multimedia, online learning, platforms, programming, society, student-related, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, tools, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

The World’s First Full in VR Semester Course Taught by Survios CTO — from medium.com by Rahel Demant

Excerpt:

VR First is excited to announce its strategic partnership with Axon Park?—?the world’s first educational campus in VR. To kick things off, they are running a full semester course taught in VR. Launching this fall, the course will teach expert-level Unreal Engine VR development, taught remotely by Survios CTO and Co-Founder Alex Silkin with support from the Unreal Engine team.

To enable Axon Park’s commitment to diversity and inclusion through immersive education, VR First has signed a strategic partnership with Axon Park, an organization which maintains the largest network of VR lab enabled universities and science parks internationally. Together, Axon Park and VR First are announcing a needs-based scholarship program that will provide students with low cost or free access to VR hardware and resources through their partner network of 850 universities. With their expertise in VR/AR workforce education and regional tech cluster facilities, VR First is the international distribution partner for Axon Park training solutions to universities, businesses and governments.

Also see:

From DSC:
I just ran across this recently…what do you think of it?!

From DSC:
For me, this is extremely disturbing. And if I were a betting man, I’d wager that numerous nations/governments around the world — most certainly that includes the U.S. — have been developing new weapons of warfare for years that are based on artificial intelligence, robotics, automation, etc.

The question is, now what do we do?

Some very hard questions that numerous engineers and programmers need to be asking themselves these days…

By the way, the background audio on the clip above should either be non-existent or far more ominous — this stuff is NOT a joke.

Also see this recent posting. >>

Addendum on 6/26/19:

Death by algorithm: the age of killer robots is closer than you think — from vox.com by Kelsey Piper
We have the technology to make robots that kill without oversight. But should we?

Experts in machine learning and military technology say it would be technologically straightforward to build robots that make decisions about whom to target and kill without a “human in the loop” — that is, with no person involved at any point between identifying a target and killing them. And as facial recognition and decision-making algorithms become more powerful, it will only get easier.

The new kind of warfare being waged amongst humankind. How far have we really come through the centuries? [Christian]

On 06/21/2019, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, computer science, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, ethics, future, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, platforms, programming, society, the downsides of how people use tech, trends, United States, by Daniel Christian

Russian hackers behind ‘world’s most murderous malware’ probing U.S. power grid — from digitaltrends.com Georgina Torbet

U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia’s Power Grid — from nytimes.com by David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth

DC: After seeing an article on how hackers/nations R looking 2cripple energy grids of other nations,this article strikes me as another piece of the new kind of warfare being waged amongst humankind.

AI-based malware will soon become a widespread plague.https://t.co/Y7Wu5o1aXx

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) June 15, 2019

DC: I’m struggling to see how far (or not) that humankind has come though the centuries…

Attached are 2 pics from a bookstore I visited in May plus an article I just ran across at https://t.co/aYSnq77tTv pic.twitter.com/zBkAJtRWRZ

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) June 15, 2019

9 amazing uses for VR and AR in college classrooms [Schaffhauser]

On 06/07/2019, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, adjunct faculty, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), colleges, community colleges, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, digital learning, education technology, engagement / engaging students, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, IT in HE, learning, learning ecosystem, mobile learning, mobile technologies, participation, student-related, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, United States, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

9 amazing uses for VR and AR in college classrooms — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser
Immersive technologies can help students understand theoretical concepts more easily, prepare them for careers through simulated experiences and keep them engaged in learning.

Excerpt:

Immersive reality is bumping us into the deep end, virtually speaking. Colleges and universities large and small are launching new labs and centers dedicated to research on the topics of augmented reality, virtual reality and 360-degree imaging. The first academic conference held completely in virtual reality recently returned for its second year, hosted on Twitch by Lethbridge College in Alberta and Centennial College in Toronto. Majors in VR and AR have begun popping up in higher education across the United States, including programs at the Savannah School of Design (GA), Shenandoah University (VA) and Drexel University Westphal (PA). Educause experts have most recently positioned the timing for broad adoption of these technologies in education at the two-year to three-year horizon. And Gartner has predicted that by the year 2021, 60 percent of higher education institutions in the United States will “intentionally” be using VR to create simulations and put students into immersive environments.

If you haven’t already acquired your own headset or applied for a grant from your institution to test out AR or VR for instruction, it’s time. We’ve done a scan of some of the most interesting projects currently taking place in American classrooms to help you imagine the virtual possibilities.

8 industrial IoT trends of 2019 that cannot be ignored — from datafloq.com

Excerpt:

From manufacturing to the retail sector, the infinite applications of the industrial internet of things are disrupting business processes, thereby improving operational efficiency and business competitiveness. The trend of employing IoT-powered systems for supply chain management, smart monitoring, remote diagnosis, production integration, inventory management, and predictive maintenance is catching up as companies take bold steps to address a myriad of business problems.

No wonder, the global technology spend on IoT is expected to reach USD 1.2 trillion by 2022. The growth of this segment will be driven by firms deploying IIoT solutions and giant tech organizations who are developing these innovative solutions.

To help you stay ahead of the curve, we have enlisted a few trends that will dominate the industrial IoT sphere.

5. 5G Will Drive Real-Time IIoT Applications
5G deployments are digitizing the industrial domain and changing the way enterprises manage their business operations. Industries, namely transportation, manufacturing, healthcare, energy and utilities, agriculture, retail, media, and financial services will benefit from the low latency and high data transfer speed of 5G mobile networks.

Survey: Students Choosing Online Programs Closer to Home — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Mentioned in that article:

ONLINE COLLEGE STUDENTS 2019: Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences — from learninghouse.com | Research Report | June 4, 2019

Also see:

Survey: Most students say online learning is as good or better than face-to-face
— from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

“It’s encouraging to see that a majority of students who are studying fully online are reporting great value and satisfaction with their online programs which are largely tied to ambitious career goals,” said Todd Zipper, president and CEO of Learning House, in a prepared statement. “With an increasing population of savvier consumers with high expectations, institutions need to do better at offering more quality, diverse programs that are sensitive to cost in order to keep up with the growing demands of online college students.”

From DSC:
If, in the year 2019, most students say online learning is as good or better than face-to-face, what will they say come 2025? 2035?

Many people will still prefer to have F2F-based learning experiences no matter what year it is. That said, as the innovation continues to occur mainly in the digital/online/virtual realms, F2F will likely find it harder and harder to compete. My advice to current faculty members? Get experience teaching online — and do so as soon as you possibly can.

From DSC:
I’m wondering to what extent artificial intelligence will be used to write code in the future…and/or to review/tweak/correct code…? Along these lines, see: “Introducing AI-Assisted Development to Elevate Low-Code Platforms to the Next Level.”

Excerpt:

Mendix was founded on the belief that software development could only be significantly improved if we introduced a paradigm shift. And that’s what we did. We fundamentally changed how software is created. With the current generation of the Mendix Platform, business applications can be created 10 times faster in close collaboration or even owned by the business, with IT being in control. Today we announce the next innovation, the introduction of AI-assisted development, which gives everyone the equivalent of a world-class coach looking over their shoulder.

Learning Ecosystems

The Rising Demand for IT Skills in Non-Tech Industries [Oracle & Burning Glass Technologies]

Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech [Shahani]

8 industrial IoT trends of 2019 that cannot be ignored [datafloq.com]

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