engineering

From DSC:
After checking out the following two links, I created the graphic below:

Readability initiative > Better reading for all. — from Adobe.com
We’re working with educators, nonprofits, and technologists to help people of all ages and abilities read better by personalizing the reading experience on digital devices.
The Readability Consortium > About page

Also related/see:

Microsoft Education Unveils Expanded Literacy, Accessibility Tools for Students and Teachers — from thejournal.com by Kristal Kuykendall
Announcing an expanded literacy portfolio to reach every learner — from educationblog.microsoft.com by Paige Johnson
What Kids Are Reading — from renaissance.com

“Vastly improving the life quality of the visually impaired” — a couple from Barcelona creates a solution that leverages AI and AR

On 03/02/2022, in 5G, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assistive technologies, Augmented Reality (AR), emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, Europe, experimentation, future, health, ideas, innovation, neurodivergent/special needs, society, youth, by Daniel Christian

A couple from Barcelona built A.I. smart glasses to help their son see — from interestingengineering.com by Chris Young
Showing visually impaired people the way with their A.I. smart glasses.

Excerpt:

He and his wife, Constanza Lucero designed a pair of smart glasses that use artificial intelligence and augmented reality to indicate oncoming obstacles to wearers.
…
The couple drew from their respective fields — Puig is an electrical engineer and Lucero a doctor — to build smart glasses that overlay text and graphics over the real-time video feed of their users’ surroundings. They use A.I. algorithms that detect obstacles, signaling them to the wearer as they approach. Users gain added independence, and parents’ and loved ones’ peace of mind.

SLICK! –> AR object recognition can give you superpowers [Roettgers & Statt]

On 02/19/2022, in Augmented Reality (AR), Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, engineering, platforms, play, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

AR object recognition can give you superpowers — from by Janko Roettgers and Nick Statt

Excerpt:

Making sense of AR, one Lego brick at a time
Singulos Research CEO and CTO Brad Quinton poured a bunch of Lego bricks onto his desk during a recent Zoom call. Then, he picked up an iPad, fired up a demo app and opened the app’s camera mode. Immediately, the app began to identify individual bricks, counting and cataloging them by shape and color, and then suggesting different animals he could build with those specific bricks.

The playful and fun demo was meant to show off the capabilities of the Perceptus Platform, an AR object-recognition technology Singulos has been building in stealth over the past three years. The platform could soon help developers build smarter AR apps and services. “It gives AR applications the visual context of what’s around them,” Quinton said, and that could be key to building AR glasses people will actually want to wear.

From DSC:
This is a great use of Augmented Reality (AR)! Very slick! It’s beneficial, practical, and likely an example of what is to come.

Turning Girls Loose to Build in STEM [Rieder]

On 02/04/2022, in education, education reform, engineering, experimentation, face-to-face, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, Learning Experience Design, robotics, society, STEAM-related, by Daniel Christian

Turning Girls Loose to Build in STEM — from innotechtoday.com by Katherine Rieder

Excerpt:

To elementary-school science teachers and nostalgic postsecondary STEM students, it sounds like a dream. Yet the refrain resounding through the room is one of “this isn’t fair,” or “it’s too hard,” often accompanied by low grumbles and furrowed brows. This reaction to a relatively unstructured learning activity where the learning process takes priority over finding a concrete and “correct” answer is, in fact, typical with this age group and gender.

It results from the mutually reinforcing combination of girls’ decreasing confidence in their innate intellectual ability and the fixed mindset many develop as they move through the early years of their formal education. These same factors are incredibly detrimental to a young woman’s engagement with STEM and a future career in the field.

The US is testing robot patrol dogs on its borders. Should we worry? [Papadopoulos]

On 02/04/2022, in 21st century, engineering, legislatures / government / legal, platforms, policy, the downsides of how people use tech, United States, by Daniel Christian

The US is testing robot patrol dogs on its borders. Should we worry? — from interestingengineering.com by Loukia Papadopoulos
Bow-wow just got darker.

However, we can’t shake the feeling that their deployment is creating a dystopian future, one we are not sure is a completely safe one especially if the dogs are trained to operate autonomously. That is a capability we are not sure the robots yet have. Will this be the next stop for border control? If so, how can we trust machines with rifles? Time will tell how this situation evolves.

Tech & Learning Magazine Names the Winners of the Best of 2021 — from techlearning.com
Tech & Learning’s judges deemed these products as standouts for supporting teaching and learning in 2021

Excerpt:

Tech & Learning magazine has named the winners of the Awards of Excellence: Best of 2021 contest, which recognizes educational technology that exceptionally supported teachers and students last year.

The contest focused on outstanding products that supported education this past year no matter the learning environment, whether face-to-face, remote, or anything in between. Eligible products included hardware, software, curriculum, and more, all divided by grade levels to make it easier to find the solutions you need.

Each nominee answered the following questions: What specific problem does this product solve? How did your product exceptionally support teaching and learning in 2021? How does your product address the challenges facing education today?

Exemplar of successful implementation of tech in schools — from donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com by Donald Clark

Excerpts:

It was impressive to find a school network that took technology as seriously as Curro, in South Africa. They had invited me to give a keynote on AI for Learning, based on my book and experience but I hung around as the teacher sessions were so damn good. This is what I learnt, as I think it is a recipe for success.
…
This was the big surprise. There were glowing testimonials from teachers about the power of adaptive learning, using AI, to personalise learning for students. It was described as a ‘gamechanger’ by the teacher who presented, with clear targeting, so that efficient and relevant, individual interventions could be made for students. It was clear that they knew why they wanted this technology, had implemented it well and were using teacher feedback to spread the word internally.

I was giving a talk as part of that process. The day’s activities were under the banner of ‘Imagining 2022’. It’s hard enough to Imagine what any year will bring these days but it was clear that this was a learning organisation, willing to learn from their mistakes and make the effort to plan forward.

Also see:

Curro

CES 2022 [digitaltrends.com]

On 01/07/2022, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, engineering, innovation, internet, machine-to-machine communications, robotics, smart/connected TV, STEAM-related, technologies for your home, technology (general), television, tools, vendors, by Daniel Christian

https://t.co/MmTGlgxPuG

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) January 7, 2022

Addendum on 1/10/22:

Robotics innovation infiltrates 2022 Consumer Electronics Show — from robohub.org

Cisco and Google join forces to transform the future of hybrid work [Ganta]

On 12/09/2021, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, assistive technologies, Augmented Reality (AR), corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, digital audio, digital video, education technology, emerging technologies, engineering, experimentation, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, interface design, telelegal, telemedicine / telehealth / virtual health, telepresence, ubiquitous learning, United States, user experience (UX), vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual courts and law firms, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, vocational / trades, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, wearables, web-based collaboration, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

Cisco and Google join forces to transform the future of hybrid work — from blog.webex.com by Kedar Ganta

Excerpts:

Webex [on 12/7/21] announced the public preview of its native meeting experience for Glass Enterprise Edition 2 (Glass), a lightweight eye wearable device with a transparent display developed by Google. Webex Expert on Demand on Glass provides an immersive collaboration experience that supports natural voice commands, gestures on touchpad, and head movements to accomplish routine tasks.

NVIDIA OMNIVERSE: Creating and Connecting Virtual Worlds

A NEW ERA OF 3D DESIGN COLLABORATION AND SIMULATION
NVIDIA Omniverse™ is an easily extensible, open platform built for virtual collaboration and real-time physically accurate simulation. Creators, designers, researchers, and engineers can connect major design tools, assets, and projects to collaborate and iterate in a shared virtual space. Developers and software providers can also easily build and sell Extensions, Apps, Connectors, and Microservices on Omniverse’s modular platform to expand its functionality.

Also see:

Nvidia Stock Leaps After Unveiling Metaverse Software Platform At Annual Tech Conference — from thestreet.com by Martin Baccardax
Nvidia unveiled its ‘Metaverse’ software platform late Monday as it looks to leverage its powerful AI chips into the multi trillion dollar development of the new virtual world.
Nvidia seeks to lead gold rush into the metaverse with new AI tools — from marketwatch.com by Wallace Witkowski
Nvidia Stock Soars as GTC Conference Gets Under Way. The Metaverse Is Growing. — from barrons.com by Jack Denton
As Facebook Changes Name to Meta, Company Wants to Pull Education Into Its ‘Metaverse’ — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

STEM lessons: Make learning engaging in any environment [Ofgang]

On 10/12/2021, in 3D, attention, content development, aggregation, repositories, education, educational games / serious games, engagement / engaging students, engineering, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, STEAM-related, student-related, teachers, by Daniel Christian

Make learning engaging in any environment – from issuu.com [Tech & Learning Oct 2021 issue] by Erik Ofgang

Excerpt:

Artificial Intelligence: Should You Teach It To Your Employees?— from forbes.com by Tom Taulli

Excerpt:

“If more people are AI literate and can start to participate and contribute to the process, more problems–both big and small–across the organization can be tackled,” said David Sweenor, who is the Senior Director of Product Marketing at Alteryx. “We call this the ‘Democratization of AI and Analytics.’ A team of 100, 1,000, or 5,000 working on different problems in their areas of expertise certainly will have a bigger impact than if left in the hands of a few.”

New Artificial Intelligence Tool Accelerates Discovery of Truly New Materials — from scitechdaily.com
The new artificial intelligence tool has already led to the discovery of four new materials.

Excerpt:

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have created a collaborative artificial intelligence tool that reduces the time and effort required to discover truly new materials.

AI development must be guided by ethics, human wellbeing and responsible innovation — from healthcareitnews.com by Bill Siwicki
An expert in emerging technology from the IEEE Standards Association describes the elements that must be considered as artificial intelligence proliferates across healthcare.

Amazon — you need to listen up and shape up!

On 07/05/2021, in Amazon, business, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, engineering, geography / geology, health, society, UK, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Amazon Contractors Are Revolting, Here Are Their Demands — from interestingengineering.com by Loukia Papadopoulos
Two major delivery partners announced they chose to shut down rather than keep sating Amazon’s draconian demands.

Excerpt:

The firms essentially offered Amazon an ultimatum to either agree to a set of conditions that they said would improve driver safety, or they would shut down — well, Amazon is their only client. Amazon refused, and the two companies actually followed through with their ultimatum.

From DSC:
Our son, who is college age, worked at an Amazon distribution center last summer. He is typically a healthy person. But his back and knees did not do well over the summer. After just a few weeks of having to meet an aggressive (and constant) quota of items being shipped, pains and issues started appearing. I don’t know how some of their employees keep up the pace that they are required to maintain…hour after hour after hour after hour…day after day, month after month.

Also see:

Amazon is destroying millions of unsold goods, from smart TVs to laptops — from fastcompany.com by Lucy Wishart
An Amazon warehouse exposé in the UK underscores a larger problem with how goods are treated as disposable.

Excerpt:

A recent undercover investigation in an Amazon warehouse in Dunfermline, Scotland, reported the disposal of more than 130,000 “new or lightly used” objects in a single week in just that one location. Public outrage was clear. Questions were asked about how Amazon could be so wasteful and why weren’t the usable objects sent to those in need?

Exclusive: Amazon is destroying millions of items of unsold stock in one of its UK warehouses every year, an ITV News investigation has uncovered.

Many of the products – including smart TVs and laptops – are often new and unused. https://t.co/OJjexB0YQd #AmazonWaste pic.twitter.com/UR7XrLWvIM

— ITV News (@itvnews) June 21, 2021

Papercraft Heidelberg Letterpress [Ji-hee]

On 07/02/2021, in art, creativity, engineering, entrepreneurship, Europe, reading, writing, by Daniel Christian

Papercraft Heidelberg Letterpress — from theawesomer.com by Lee Ji-hee
Korean artist Lee Ji-hee created this incredibly intricate papercraft replica of the original Heidelberg Letterpress. She made the sculpture from paper and corrugated cardboard…

Learning Ecosystems

SLICK! –> AR object recognition can give you superpowers [Roettgers & Statt]

The US is testing robot patrol dogs on its borders. Should we worry? [Papadopoulos]

Cisco and Google join forces to transform the future of hybrid work [Ganta]

NVIDIA OMNIVERSE: Creating and Connecting Virtual Worlds

Amazon — you need to listen up and shape up!

Papercraft Heidelberg Letterpress [Ji-hee]

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