5G and the tactile internet: what really is it? — from techradar.com by Catherine Ellis
With 5G, we can go beyond audio and video, communicating through touch
Excerpt:
However, the speed and capacity of 5G also opens up a wealth of new opportunities with other connected devices, including real-time interaction in ways that have never been possible before.
One of the most exciting of these is tactile, or haptic communication – transmitting a physical sense of touch remotely.
Is your college future-ready? — from jisc.ac.uk by Robin Ghurbhurun
Excerpt:
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly becoming science fact rather than science fiction. Alexa is everywhere from the house to the car, Siri is in the palm of your hand and students and the wider community can now get instant responses to their queries. We as educators have a duty to make sense of the information out there, working alongside AI to facilitate students’ curiosities.
Instead of banning mobile phones on campus, let’s manage our learning environments differently
…
We need to plan strategically to avoid a future where only the wealthy have access to human teachers, whilst others are taught with AI. We want all students to benefit from both. We should have teacher-approved content from VLEs and AI assistants supporting learning and discussion, everywhere from the classroom to the workplace. Let’s learn from the domestic market; witness the increasing rise of co-bot workers coming to an office near you.
Stanford team aims at Alexa and Siri with a privacy-minded alternative — from nytimes.com by John Markoff
Excerpt:
Now computer scientists at Stanford University are warning about the consequences of a race to control what they believe will be the next key consumer technology market — virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant.
The group at Stanford, led by Monica Lam, a computer systems designer, last month received a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant is for an internet service they hope will serve as a Switzerland of sorts for systems that use human language to control computers, smartphones and internet devices in homes and offices.
The researchers’ biggest concern is that virtual assistants, as they are designed today, could have a far greater impact on consumer information than today’s websites and apps. Putting that information in the hands of one big company or a tiny clique, they say, could erase what is left of online privacy.
Amazon sends Alexa developers on quest for ‘holy grail of voice science’ — from venturebeat.com by Khari Johnson
Excerpt:
At Amazon’s re:Mars conference last week, the company rolled out Alexa Conversations in preview. Conversations is a module within the Alexa Skills Kit that stitches together Alexa voice apps into experiences that help you accomplish complex tasks.
Alexa Conversations may be Amazon’s most intriguing and substantial pitch to voice developers in years. Conversations will make creating skills possible with fewer lines of code. It will also do away with the need to understand the many different ways a person can ask to complete an action, as a recurrent neural network will automatically generate dialogue flow.
For users, Alexa Conversations will make it easier to complete tasks that require the incorporation of multiple skills and will cut down on the number of interactions needed to do things like reserve a movie ticket or order food.
Excerpts:
From DSC:
That last one reminded me of why I think the Living from the Living [Class] Room vision is so powerful…
Are we there yet? Impactful technologies and the power to influence change — from campustechnology.com by Mary Grush and Ellen Wagner
Excerpt:
Learning analytics, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and other new and emerging technologies seem poised to change the business of higher education — yet, we often hear comments like “We’re just not there yet…” or “This is a technology that is just too slow to adoption…” or other observations that make it clear that many people — including those with a high level of expertise in education technology — are thinking that the promise is not yet fulfilled. Here, CT talks with veteran education technology leader Ellen Wagner, to ask for her perspectives on the adoption of impactful technologies — in particular the factors in our leadership and development communities that have the power to influence change.
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.
10 things we should all demand from Big Tech right now — from vox.com by Sigal Samuel
We need an algorithmic bill of rights. AI experts helped us write one.
Excerpts:
This raises the question: Who should be tasked with enforcing these norms? Government regulators? The tech companies themselves?
Watch Salvador Dalí Return to Life Through AI — from interestingengineering.com by
The Dalí Museum has created a deepfake of surrealist artist Salvador Dalí that brings him back to life.
Excerpt:
The Dalí Museum has created a deepfake of surrealist artist Salvador Dalí that brings him back to life. This life-size deepfake is set up to have interactive discussions with visitors.
The deepfake can produce 45 minutes of content and 190,512 possible combinations of phrases and decisions taken by the fake but realistic Dalí. The exhibition was created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners using 6,000 frames of Dalí taken from historic footage and 1,000 hours of machine learning.
From DSC:
While on one hand, incredible work! Fantastic job! On the other hand, if this type of deepfake can be done, how can any video be trusted from here on out? What technology/app will be able to confirm that a video is actually that person, actually saying those words?
Will we get to a point that says, this is so and so, and I approved this video. Or will we have an electronic signature? Will a blockchain-based tech be used? I don’t know…there always seems to be pros and cons to any given technology. It’s how we use it. It can be a dream, or it can be a nightmare.
From DSC:
Re: the Learning from the Living [Class] Room vision of a next gen learning platform…
…wouldn’t it be cool if you could use your voice to ask your smart/connected “TV” type of device:
“Show me the test questions for Torts I from WMU-Cooley Law School. Cooley could then charge $0.99 for these questions.”
Then, the system knows how you did on answering those questions. The ones you got right, you don’t get asked to review as often as the ones you got wrong. As you get a question right more often, the less you are asked to answer it.
You sign up for such streams of content — and the system assesses you periodically. This helps a person keep certain topics/information fresh in their memory. This type of learning method would be incredibly helpful for students trying to pass the Bar or other types of large/summative tests — especially when a student has to be able to recall information that they learned over the last 3-5 years.
Come to think of it…this method could help all of us in learning new disciplines/topics throughout our lifetimes. Sign up for the streams of content that you want to learn more about…and drop the (no-longer relevant) subscriptions as needed..
After nearly a decade of Augmented World Expo (AWE), founder Ori Inbar unpacks the past, present, & future of augmented reality — from next.reality.news by Adario Strange
Excerpts:
I think right now it’s almost a waste of time to talk about a hybrid device because it’s not relevant. It’s two different devices and two different use cases. But like you said, sometime in the future, 15, 20, 50 years, I imagine a point where you could open your eyes to do AR, and close your eyes to do VR.
…
I think there’s always room for innovation, especially with spatial computing where we’re in the very early stages. We have to develop a new visual approach that I don’t think we have yet. What does it mean to interact in a world where everything is visual and around you, and not on a two-dimensional screen? So there’s a lot to do there.
A big part of mainstream adoption is education. Until you get into AR and VR, you don’t really know what you’re missing. You can’t really learn about it from videos. And that education takes time. So the education, plus the understanding of the need, will create a demand.
— Ori Inbar
The Common Sense Census: Inside the 21st-Century Classroom
Excerpt:
Technology has become an integral part of classroom learning, and students of all ages have access to digital media and devices at school. The Common Sense Census: Inside the 21st-Century Classroom explores how K–12 educators have adapted to these critical shifts in schools and society. From the benefits of teaching lifelong digital citizenship skills to the challenges of preparing students to critically evaluate online information, educators across the country share their perspectives on what it’s like to teach in today’s fast-changing digital world.
A growing repository of useful design tools, from accessibility and AR to wireframing and 3D modeling software.
? Awesome Design Toolshttps://t.co/qo5wAU9D4d pic.twitter.com/THIYPLmH0c
— Smashing Magazine (@smashingmag) April 10, 2019
From LinkedIn.com today:
Also see:
From DSC:
I don’t like this at all. If this foot gets in the door, vendor after vendor will launch their own hordes of drones. In the future, where will we go if we want some piece and quiet? Will the air be filled with swarms of noisy drones? Will we be able to clearly see the sun? An exaggeration..? Maybe…maybe not.
But, now what? What recourse do citizens have? Readers of this blog know that I’m generally pro-technology. But the folks — especially the youth — working within the FAANG companies (and the like) need to do a far better job asking, “Just because we can do something, should we do it?”
As I’ve said before, we’ve turned over the keys to the $137,000 Maserati to drivers who are just getting out of driving school. Then we wonder….”How did we get to this place?”
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