On 04/05/2017,
in faith, future, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, history, relationships, religion,
by Daniel Christian
On 03/27/2017,
in 21st century, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, bots, computer science, data related items, emerging technologies, ethics, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, internet, languages and translation, learning spaces, morals/values, Natural Language Processing (NLP), platforms, programming, robotics, smart classrooms, society, universities, vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration,
by Daniel Christian
59 impressive things artificial intelligence can do today — from businessinsider.com by Ed Newton-Rex
Excerpt:
But what can AI do today? How close are we to that all-powerful machine intelligence? I wanted to know, but couldn’t find a list of AI’s achievements to date. So I decided to write one. What follows is an attempt at that list. It’s not comprehensive, but it contains links to some of the most impressive feats of machine intelligence around. Here’s what AI can do…
Recorded Saturday, February 25th, 2017 and published on Mar 16, 2017
Description:
Will progress in Artificial Intelligence provide humanity with a boost of unprecedented strength to realize a better future, or could it present a threat to the very basis of human civilization? The future of artificial intelligence is up for debate, and the Origins Project is bringing together a distinguished panel of experts, intellectuals and public figures to discuss who’s in control. Eric Horvitz, Jaan Tallinn, Kathleen Fisher and Subbarao Kambhampati join Origins Project director Lawrence Krauss.
Description:
Elon Musk, Stuart Russell, Ray Kurzweil, Demis Hassabis, Sam Harris, Nick Bostrom, David Chalmers, Bart Selman, and Jaan Tallinn discuss with Max Tegmark (moderator) what likely outcomes might be if we succeed in building human-level AGI, and also what we would like to happen. The Beneficial AI 2017 Conference: In our sequel to the 2015 Puerto Rico AI conference, we brought together an amazing group of AI researchers from academia and industry, and thought leaders in economics, law, ethics, and philosophy for five days dedicated to beneficial AI. We hosted a two-day workshop for our grant recipients and followed that with a 2.5-day conference, in which people from various AI-related fields hashed out opportunities and challenges related to the future of AI and steps we can take to ensure that the technology is beneficial.
(Below emphasis via DSC)
IBM and Ricoh have partnered for a cognitive-enabled interactive whiteboard which uses IBM’s Watson intelligence and voice technologies to support voice commands, taking notes and actions and even translating into other languages.
The Intelligent Workplace Solution leverages IBM Watson and Ricoh’s interactive whiteboards to allow to access features via using voice. It makes sure that Watson doesn’t just listen, but is an active meeting participant, using real-time analytics to help guide discussions.
Features of the new cognitive-enabled whiteboard solution include:
- Global voice control of meetings: Once a meeting begins, any employee, whether in-person or located remotely in another country, can easily control what’s on the screen, including advancing slides, all through simple voice commands using Watson’s Natural Language API.
- Translation of the meeting into another language: The Intelligent Workplace Solution can translate speakers’ words into several other languages and display them on screen or in transcript.
- Easy-to-join meetings: With the swipe of a badge the Intelligent Workplace Solution can log attendance and track key agenda items to ensure all key topics are discussed.
- Ability to capture side discussions: During a meeting, team members can also hold side conversations that are displayed on the same whiteboard.
From DSC:
Holy smokes!
If you combine the technologies that Ricoh and IBM are using with their new cognitive-enabled interactive whiteboard with what Bluescape is doing — by providing 160 acres of digital workspace that’s used to foster collaboration (and to do so whether you are working remoting or working with others in the same physical space) — and you have one incredibly powerful platform!
#NLP | #AI | #CognitiveComputing | #SmartClassrooms
#LearningSpaces |#Collaboration | #Meetings
AI Market to Grow 47.5% Over Next Four Years — from campustechnology.com by Richard Chang
Excerpt:
The artificial intelligence (AI) market in the United States education sector is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 47.5 percent during the period 2017-2021, according to a new report by market research firm Research and Markets.
Amazon deepens university ties in artificial intelligence race — from by Jeffrey Dastin
Excerpt:
Amazon.com Inc has launched a new program to help students build capabilities into its voice-controlled assistant Alexa, the company told Reuters, the latest move by a technology firm to nurture ideas and talent in artificial intelligence research.
…
Amazon, Alphabet Inc’s Google and others are locked in a race to develop and monetize artificial intelligence. Unlike some rivals, Amazon has made it easy for third-party developers to create skills for Alexa so it can get better faster – a tactic it now is extending to the classroom.
The WebMD skill for Amazon’s Alexa can answer all your medical questions — from digitaltrends.com by Kyle Wiggers
WebMD is bringing its wealth of medical knowledge to a new form factor: Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant.
Excerpt:
Alexa, Amazon’s brilliant voice-activated smart assistant, is a capable little companion. It can order a pizza, summon a car, dictate a text message, and flick on your downstairs living room’s smart bulb. But what it couldn’t do until today was tell you whether that throbbing lump on your forearm was something that required medical attention. Fortunately, that changed on Tuesday with the introduction of a WebMD skill that puts the service’s medical knowledge at your fingertips.
Addendum:
- How artificial intelligence is taking Asia by storm — from techwireasia.com by Samantha Cheh
Excerpt:
Lately it seems as if everyone is jumping onto the artificial intelligence bandwagon. Everyone, from ride-sharing service Uber to Amazon’s logistics branch, is banking on AI being the next frontier in technological innovation, and are investing heavily in the industry.That’s likely truest in Asia, where the manufacturing engine which drove China’s growth is now turning its focus to plumbing the AI mine for gold.
Despite Asia’s relatively low overall investment in AI, the industry is set to grow. Fifty percent of respondents in KPMG’s AI report said their companies had plans to invest in AI or robotic technology.
Investment in AI is set to drive venture capital investment in China in 2017. Tak Lo, of Hong Kong’s Zeroth, notes there are more mentions of AI in Chinese research papers than there are in the US.
China, Korea and Japan collectively account for nearly half the planet’s shipments of articulated robots in the world.
Artificial Intelligence – Research Areas
On 03/27/2017,
in 21st century, adult learning, Blockchain, career development, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, emerging technologies, funding / grants, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, ideas, learner profiles, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, microlearning, new business models, online learning, online media, student-related, traditional / tradition, universities, vision/possibilities, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
The Blockchain Revolution and Higher Education — from er.educause.edu by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott
The blockchain provides a rich, secure, and transparent platform on which to create a global network for higher learning. This Internet of value can help to reinvent higher education in a way the Internet of information alone could not.
Excerpt:
What will be the most important technology to change higher education? In our view, it’s not big data, the social web, MOOCs, virtual reality, or even artificial intelligence. We see these as components of something new, all enabled and transformed by an emerging technology called the blockchain.
OK, it’s not the most sonorous word ever, sounding more like a college football strategy than a transformative technology. Yet, sonorous or not, the blockchain represents nothing less than the second generation of the Internet, and it holds the potential to disrupt money, business, government, and yes, higher education.
The opportunities for innovators in higher education fall into four categories:
- Identity and Student Records: How we identify students; protect their privacy; measure, record, and credential their accomplishments; and keep these records secure
- New Pedagogy: How we customize teaching to each student and create new models of learning
- Costs (Student Debt): How we value and fund education and reward students for the quality of their work
- The Meta-University: How we design entirely new models of higher education so that former MIT President Chuck Vest’s dream can become a reality1
The blockchain may help us change the relationships among colleges and universities and, in turn, their relationship to society.
Let us explain.
What if there was an Internet of value — a global, distributed, highly secure platform, ledger, or database where we could store and exchange things of value and where we could trust each other without powerful intermediaries? That is the blockchain.
From DSC:
The quote…
In 2006, MIT President Emeritus Vest offered a tantalizing vision of what he called the meta-university. In the open-access movement, he saw “a transcendent, accessible, empowering, dynamic, communally constructed framework of open materials and platforms on which much of higher education worldwide can be constructed or enhanced.”
…made me wonder if this is where a vision that I’m tracking called Learning from the Living [Class] Room is heading. Also, along these lines, futurist Thomas Frey believes
“I’ve been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven’t heard of yet,” Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, tells Business Insider. (source)
Blockchain could be a key piece of this vision.
![The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV](http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-Living-Class-Room-Daniel-S-Christian-July-2012.jpg)
On 03/24/2017,
in 21st century, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, bots, business, Canada, career development, change, changing business models, communications, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, data related items, emerging technologies, ethics, Europe, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, India, innovation, intelligent systems, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, liberal arts, morals/values, reinvent, research, robotics, science, society, surviving, UK, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
The Enterprise Gets Smart
Companies are starting to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to bolster customer experience, improve security and optimize operations.
Excerpt:
Assembling the right talent is another critical component of an AI initiative. While existing enterprise software platforms that add AI capabilities will make the technology accessible to mainstream business users, there will be a need to ramp up expertise in areas like data science, analytics and even nontraditional IT competencies, says Guarini.
“As we start to see the land grab for talent, there are some real gaps in emerging roles, and those that haven’t been as critical in the past,” Guarini says, citing the need for people with expertise in disciplines like philosophy and linguistics, for example. “CIOs need to get in front of what they need in terms of capabilities and, in some cases, identify potential partners.”
Asilomar AI Principles
These principles were developed in conjunction with the 2017 Asilomar conference (videos here), through the process described here.
Artificial intelligence has already provided beneficial tools that are used every day by people around the world. Its continued development, guided by the following principles, will offer amazing opportunities to help and empower people in the decades and centuries ahead.
Research Issues
1) Research Goal: The goal of AI research should be to create not undirected intelligence, but beneficial intelligence.
2) Research Funding: Investments in AI should be accompanied by funding for research on ensuring its beneficial use, including thorny questions in computer science, economics, law, ethics, and social studies, such as:
- How can we make future AI systems highly robust, so that they do what we want without malfunctioning or getting hacked?
- How can we grow our prosperity through automation while maintaining people’s resources and purpose?
- How can we update our legal systems to be more fair and efficient, to keep pace with AI, and to manage the risks associated with AI?
- What set of values should AI be aligned with, and what legal and ethical status should it have?
3) Science-Policy Link: There should be constructive and healthy exchange between AI researchers and policy-makers.
4) Research Culture: A culture of cooperation, trust, and transparency should be fostered among researchers and developers of AI.
5) Race Avoidance: Teams developing AI systems should actively cooperate to avoid corner-cutting on safety standards.
Ethics and Values
6) Safety: AI systems should be safe and secure throughout their operational lifetime, and verifiably so where applicable and feasible.
7) Failure Transparency: If an AI system causes harm, it should be possible to ascertain why.
8) Judicial Transparency: Any involvement by an autonomous system in judicial decision-making should provide a satisfactory explanation auditable by a competent human authority.
9) Responsibility: Designers and builders of advanced AI systems are stakeholders in the moral implications of their use, misuse, and actions, with a responsibility and opportunity to shape those implications.
10) Value Alignment: Highly autonomous AI systems should be designed so that their goals and behaviors can be assured to align with human values throughout their operation.
11) Human Values: AI systems should be designed and operated so as to be compatible with ideals of human dignity, rights, freedoms, and cultural diversity.
12) Personal Privacy: People should have the right to access, manage and control the data they generate, given AI systems’ power to analyze and utilize that data.
13) Liberty and Privacy: The application of AI to personal data must not unreasonably curtail people’s real or perceived liberty.
14) Shared Benefit: AI technologies should benefit and empower as many people as possible.
15) Shared Prosperity: The economic prosperity created by AI should be shared broadly, to benefit all of humanity.
16) Human Control: Humans should choose how and whether to delegate decisions to AI systems, to accomplish human-chosen objectives.
17) Non-subversion: The power conferred by control of highly advanced AI systems should respect and improve, rather than subvert, the social and civic processes on which the health of society depends.
18) AI Arms Race: An arms race in lethal autonomous weapons should be avoided.
Longer-term Issues
19) Capability Caution: There being no consensus, we should avoid strong assumptions regarding upper limits on future AI capabilities.
20) Importance: Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources.
21) Risks: Risks posed by AI systems, especially catastrophic or existential risks, must be subject to planning and mitigation efforts commensurate with their expected impact.
22) Recursive Self-Improvement: AI systems designed to recursively self-improve or self-replicate in a manner that could lead to rapidly increasing quality or quantity must be subject to strict safety and control measures.
23) Common Good: Superintelligence should only be developed in the service of widely shared ethical ideals, and for the benefit of all humanity rather than one state or organization.
Excerpts:
Creating human-level AI: Will it happen, and if so, when and how? What key remaining obstacles can be identified? How can we make future AI systems more robust than today’s, so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked?
- Talks:
- Panel with Anca Dragan (Berkeley), Demis Hassabis (DeepMind), Guru Banavar (IBM), Oren Etzioni (Allen Institute), Tom Gruber (Apple), Jürgen Schmidhuber (Swiss AI Lab), Yann LeCun (Facebook/NYU), Yoshua Bengio (Montreal) (video)
- Superintelligence: Science or fiction? If human level general AI is developed, then what are likely outcomes? What can we do now to maximize the probability of a positive outcome? (video)
- Talks:
- Panel with Bart Selman (Cornell), David Chalmers (NYU), Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX), Jaan Tallinn (CSER/FLI), Nick Bostrom (FHI), Ray Kurzweil (Google), Stuart Russell (Berkeley), Sam Harris, Demis Hassabis (DeepMind): If we succeed in building human-level AGI, then what are likely outcomes? What would we like to happen?
- Panel with Dario Amodei (OpenAI), Nate Soares (MIRI), Shane Legg (DeepMind), Richard Mallah (FLI), Stefano Ermon (Stanford), Viktoriya Krakovna (DeepMind/FLI): Technical research agenda: What can we do now to maximize the chances of a good outcome? (video)
- Law, policy & ethics: How can we update legal systems, international treaties and algorithms to be more fair, ethical and efficient and to keep pace with AI?
- Talks:
- Panel with Martin Rees (CSER/Cambridge), Heather Roff-Perkins, Jason Matheny (IARPA), Steve Goose (HRW), Irakli Beridze (UNICRI), Rao Kambhampati (AAAI, ASU), Anthony Romero (ACLU): Policy & Governance (video)
- Panel with Kate Crawford (Microsoft/MIT), Matt Scherer, Ryan Calo (U. Washington), Kent Walker (Google), Sam Altman (OpenAI): AI & Law (video)
- Panel with Kay Firth-Butterfield (IEEE, Austin-AI), Wendell Wallach (Yale), Francesca Rossi (IBM/Padova), Huw Price (Cambridge, CFI), Margaret Boden (Sussex): AI & Ethics (video)
On 03/24/2017,
in Daniel S. Christian, faith, global / globalization, relationships, religion, society,
by Daniel Christian
Psalm 25:1-15 New International Version (NIV)
Of David.
1 In you, Lord my God,
I put my trust.
2 I trust in you;
do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.
3 No one who hopes in you
will ever be put to shame,
but shame will come on those
who are treacherous without cause.
4 Show me your ways, Lord,
teach me your paths.
5 Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.
6 Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old.
7 Do not remember the sins of my youth
and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me,
for you, Lord, are good.
8 Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
9 He guides the humble in what is right
and teaches them his way.
10 All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful
toward those who keep the demands of his covenant.
11 For the sake of your name, Lord,
forgive my iniquity, though it is great.
12 Who, then, are those who fear the Lord?
He will instruct them in the ways they should choose.
13 They will spend their days in prosperity,
and their descendants will inherit the land.
14 The Lord confides in those who fear him;
he makes his covenant known to them.
15 My eyes are ever on the Lord,
for only he will release my feet from the snare.
On 03/20/2017,
in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, history, relationships, society,
by Daniel Christian
Romans 15:4 New International Version (NIV)
For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
On 03/17/2017,
in Asia, Australia, Canada, change, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital learning, emerging technologies, Europe, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, geography / geology, global / globalization, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, interaction design, political science, trends, UK, United States, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, visualizing information,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
Can you imagine this as a virtual reality or a mixed reality-based app!?! Very cool.
This resource is incredible on multiple levels:
- For their interface/interaction design
- For their insights and ideas
- For their creativity
- For their graphics
- …and more!
On 03/15/2017,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adult learning, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), Blockchain, bots, business side of he, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, CMS/LMS, colleges, communications, community colleges, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, credentialing, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, education, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, immersion, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, internet, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Near Field Communication (NFC), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, online tutoring, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, robotics, RSS, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, trends, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
At the Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference, held recently in San Diego, CA, I moderated a panel discussion re: AR, VR, and MR. I started off our panel discussion with some introductory ideas and remarks — meant to make sure that numerous ideas were on the radars at attendees’ organizations. Then Vinay and Carrie did a super job of addressing several topics and questions (Mary was unable to make it that day, as she got stuck in the UK due to transportation-related issues).
That said, I didn’t get a chance to finish the second part of the presentation which I’ve listed below in both 4:3 and 16:9 formats. So I made a recording of these ideas, and I’m relaying it to you in the hopes that it can help you and your organization.
Presentations/recordings:
Audio/video recording (187 MB MP4 file)
- Presentation in 4:3 format/aspect ratio — slides only, no audio/video
- Presentation in 16:9 format/aspect ratio — slides only no audio/video
Again, I hope you find this information helpful.
Thanks,
Daniel
On 03/14/2017,
in data related items, entrepreneurship, global / globalization, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, technology (general), wearables,
by Daniel Christian
SXSW Announces Winners for 2017 Accelerator Pitch Event — from prnewswire.com
Pitch competition showcased global startups featuring cutting-edge innovation in 10 technology categories
Excerpt:
The winners of the 2017 SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event are:
- “Augmented & Virtual Reality”: Lampix
- “Enterprise & Smart Data”: Deep 6 Analytics
- “Entertainment & Content”: Laugh.ly
- “Health & Wearables”: Sound Scouts
- “Innovative World”: Thimble.io
- “Payment & FinTech”: CNote
- “Security & Privacy”: UnifyID
- “Social & Culture”: Lily
- “Sports”: Brizi
- “Transportation”: SPLT
On 03/08/2017,
in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, society,
by Daniel Christian
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 New International Version (NIV)
Praise to the God of All Comfort
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
On 02/23/2017,
in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Augmented Reality (AR), business, collaboration, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, tools, user experience (UX), vendors, web-based collaboration,
by Daniel Christian
The 10 Best Augmented Reality (AR) App Development Companies in the World
Excerpt:
Finding the best way to position and utilise your business when you’re dealing with future technologies like AR can be a difficult proposition. The skill set required is a relatively new thing, and the mobile developers who can do it, and are good at it, are likely to already be seeing offers from other companies. All of this adds up to mean that finding new talent to drive your AR business forward isn’t easy, and this is compounded if you’re new to the game and haven’t established a foothold. In an attempt to make it easier for you, we’ve already covered the top 10 IoT (Internet of Things) developers – and 3 ways to overcome your app backlog before that – and this week we’re looking at AR developers. Using our number crunching based on Alexa rankings, here’s who came out on top.
The example images below were taken from this video clip from eonreality.com
On 02/23/2017,
in Asia, Canada, Daniel S. Christian, education technology, Europe, global / globalization, Google, ideas, India, learning ecosystem, microlearning, pace of change, productivity / tips and tricks, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, teachers, technology (general), tools, training / L&D, trends, vendors,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
Given the exponential pace of technological change that many societies throughout the globe are now on, we need some tools to help us pulse-check what’s going on in the relevant landscapes that we are trying to scan.
Below, I would like to suggest 2 methods/tools to do this. I have used both methods for years, and I have found them to be immensely helpful in pulse-checking the landscapes. Perhaps these tools will be helpful to you — or to your students or employees — as well. I vote for these 2 tools to be a part of all of our learning ecosystems. (And besides, they also encourage micro-learning while helping us spot emerging trends.)
On 02/18/2017,
in 21st century, Amazon, business, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, experimentation, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, innovation, new business models, pace of change, reinvent, society, staying relevant, surviving,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
Hmmm…how true: “…the digital age rewards change and punishes stasis.” (source)
Which reminds me of a photo I took just yesterday morning at one of the malls in our area, where a local Sears store is closing.
It made me wonder…if Sears could do it all over again, what would they do differently? If they had a time machine, would they go back in time and work to become the new Amazon.com?
By the way, this picture is for those people who continue to dismiss the need to change and to adapt. Surveying the relevant landscapes is an increasingly important thing for all of us to do, especially given that we are now on an exponential pace of technological change.
Companies must be open to radical reinvention to find new, significant, and sustainable sources of revenue. Incremental adjustments or building something new outside of the core business can provide real benefits and, in many cases, are a crucial first step for a digital transformation. But if these initiatives don’t lead to more profound changes to the core business and avoid the real work of rearchitecting how the business makes money, the benefits can be fleeting and too insignificant to avert a steady march to oblivion.
Addendum on 2/10/17
- Macy’s earnings: Shifts in retail are hurting major players — from marketwatch.com by Tonya Garcia
Macy’s has assets like real estate and brand identity, but shifts in the sector are putting pressure on earningsExcerpt:
Even a major player like Macy’s M, +1.51% isn’t immune to retail’s struggles. The sector is experiencing a dramatic shift to e-commerce and changes in consumer tastes and shopping behavior that have put pressure on department store earnings, and on the industry as a whole. Macy’s has already announced 100 store closures and thousands of job cuts, in addition to a reassessment of its real-estate assets. Now there’s buzz from reports about buyout talks with Hudson’s Bay Co. HBC, parent to Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue.
On 02/13/2017,
in faith, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, relationships, religion, society,
by Daniel Christian
1 Corinthians 13:13 New International Version (NIV)
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.