Microsoft

The skills companies need most in 2019 – and how to learn them — from linkedin.com by Paul Petrone

Excerpt:

To find out, we used exclusive LinkedIn data to determine the skills companies need most in 2019. These are the skills your boss and your boss’s boss find most valuable, but have a hard time finding – and the skills that’ll most help you better serve your clients and customers.

So consider this post your guide to the skills most worth learning in 2019.

The best part? We’ve unlocked LinkedIn Learning courses for all of January that teach these skills, so for a limited time you can learn them all for free.

Also see:

This is how you’ll look for a job in 2019 — from fastcompany.com by Lydia Dishman
Some brand new strategies and time-tested traditions dictate the way job seekers will conduct the hunt in 2019.

FDA approves HoloLens powered medical augmented reality system — from by Richard Devine
HoloLens might be about to make surgical procedures a whole lot different.

Excerpt:

From Healthimaging.com

OpenSight specifically utilizes the Microsoft HoloLens headset that allows simultaneous visualization of the 3D patient images in AR and the actual patient and their real-world surroundings. The technique may decrease operative times and improve surgical planning and the understanding of anatomic relationships.

Can virtual reality revolutionize education? — from cnn.com by Emma Kennedy

“Kids love to engage with [VR] lessons,” said Guido Kovalskys, chief executive and co-founder of US-based edtech company Nearpod. “One minute, they are learning about Roman history, and the next, they are transported to ancient Rome and are exploring the Colosseum.”

From DSC:
Ok, so the title is on the overhyped side, but I do think XR will positively impact learning, understanding.

University of Washington Researchers Demo Ability to Generate 3D Augmented Reality Content from 2D Images — from next.reality.news by Tommy Palladino

Age of Sail: Setting the course for virtual reality narratives in the future — from by Jose Antunes
The most ambitious project from Google Spotlight Stories is also the one that pushes the boundaries in terms of the creation of narratives in Virtual Reality: embark on Age of Sail.

Augmented Reality Remote Collaboration with Dense Reconstruction

Addendum:

VR & AR 2018: A year in review — from vrscout.com by Kyle Melnick
Excerpt:
If 2016 was the birth of modern VR/AR technology, than 2018 was its elementary school graduation. While this past year may have seemed like a quiet one when compared to the more exciting releases featured in 2017 and 2016, these past 12 months have been crucial in the development of the immersive entertainment sector.

Major hardware releases, vast improvements to software, and various other integral advancements have quietly solidified VR & AR as viable, long-term technological platforms for years to come. So while there may not have been any bombshell announcements or jaw-dropping reveals per sey, 2018 will still go down as a key, if not climactic, year for VR & AR technology regardless.

With a new year full of exciting possibilities ahead of us, let’s hang back a second and take a look back at 2018’s most pivotal moments.

The Social Media Universe: 2018 [visualcapitalist.com]

On 01/03/2019, in Asia, communications, design, Facebook / Meta Platforms, global / globalization, Google, graphics, Microsoft, platforms, social learning / networks, social media, society, tools, UK, United States, vendors, visualizing information, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Thanks to Mike Matthews for his item on LinkedIn for this.

Guide to how artificial intelligence can change the world – Part 3 — from intelligenthq.com by Maria Fonseca and Paula Newton
This is part 3 of a Guide in 4 parts about Artificial Intelligence. The guide covers some of its basic concepts, history and present applications, possible developments in the future, and also its challenges as opportunities.

Excerpt:

Artificial intelligence is considered to be anything that gives machines intelligence which allows them to reason in the way that humans can. Machine learning is an element of artificial intelligence which is when machines are programmed to learn. This is brought about through the development of algorithms that work to find patterns, trends and insights from data that is input into them to help with decision making. Deep learning is in turn an element of machine learning. This is a particularly innovative and advanced area of artificial intelligence which seeks to try and get machines to both learn and think like people.

Also see:

LinkedIn’s 2018 U.S. emerging jobs report — from economicgraph.linkedin.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Our biggest takeaways from this year’s Emerging Jobs Report:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here to stay. No, this doesn’t mean robots are coming for your job, but we are likely to see continued growth in fields and functions related to AI. This year, six out of the 15 emerging jobs are related in some way to AI, and our research shows that skills related to AI are starting to infiltrate every industry, not just tech. In fact, AI skills are among the fastest-growing skills on LinkedIn, and globally saw a 190% increase from 2015 to 2017.

Google Glass wasn’t a failure. It raised crucial concerns. — from wired.com by Rose Eveleth

Excerpts:

So when Google ultimately retired Glass, it was in reaction to an important act of line drawing. It was an admission of defeat not by design, but by culture.

These kinds of skirmishes on the front lines of surveillance might seem inconsequential — but they can not only change the behavior of tech giants like Google, they can also change how we’re protected under the law. Each time we invite another device into our lives, we open up a legal conversation over how that device’s capabilities change our right to privacy. To understand why, we have to get wonky for a bit, but it’s worth it, I promise.

But where many people see Google Glass as a cautionary tale about tech adoption failure, I see a wild success. Not for Google of course, but for the rest of us. Google Glass is a story about human beings setting boundaries and pushing back against surveillance…

IN THE UNITED States, the laws that dictate when you can and cannot record someone have a several layers. But most of these laws were written when smartphones and digital home assistants weren’t even a glimmer in Google’s eye. As a result, they are mostly concerned with issues of government surveillance, not individuals surveilling each other or companies surveilling their customers. Which means that as cameras and microphones creep further into our everyday lives, there are more and more legal gray zones.

From DSC:
We need to be aware of the emerging technologies around us. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. People need to be aware of — and involved with — which emerging technologies get rolled out (or not) and/or which features are beneficial to roll out (or not).

One of the things that’s beginning to alarm me these days is how the United States has turned over the keys to the Maserati — i.e., think an expensive, powerful thing — to youth who lack the life experiences to know how to handle such power and, often, the proper respect for such power. Many of these youthful members of our society don’t own the responsibility for the positive and negative influences and impacts that such powerful technologies can have.

If you owned the car below, would you turn the keys of this ~$137,000+ car over to your 16-25 year old? Yet that’s what America has been doing for years. And, in some areas, we’re now paying the price.

The corporate world continues to discard the hard-earned experience that age brings…as they shove older people out of the workforce. (I hesitate to use the word wisdom…but in some cases, that’s also relevant/involved here.) Then we, as a society, sit back and wonder how did we get to this place?

Even technologists and programmers in their 20’s and 30’s are beginning to step back and ask…WHY did we develop this application or that feature? Was it — is it — good for society? Is it beneficial? Or should it be tabled or revised into something else?

Below is but one example — though I don’t mean to pick on Microsoft, as they likely have more older workers than the Facebooks, Googles, or Amazons of the world. I fully realize that all of these companies have some older employees. But the youth-oriented culture in American today has almost become an obsession — and not just in the tech world. Turn on the TV, check out the new releases on Netflix, go see a movie in a theater, listen to the radio, cast but a glance at the magazines in the check out lines, etc. and you’ll instantly know what I mean.

In the workplace, there appears to be a bias against older employees as being less innovative or tech-savvy — such a perspective is often completely incorrect. Go check out LinkedIn for items re: age discrimination…it’s a very real thing. But many of us over the age of 30 know this to be true if we’ve lost a job in the last decade or two and have tried to get a job that involves technology.

Microsoft argues facial-recognition tech could violate your rights — from finance.yahoo.com by Rob Pegoraro

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union provided a good reason for us to think carefully about the evolution of facial-recognition technology. In a study, the group used Amazon’s (AMZN) Rekognition service to compare portraits of members of Congress to 25,000 arrest mugshots. The result: 28 members were mistakenly matched with 28 suspects.

The ACLU isn’t the only group raising the alarm about the technology. Earlier this month, Microsoft (MSFT) president Brad Smith posted an unusual plea on the company’s blog asking that the development of facial-recognition systems not be left up to tech companies.

Saying that the tech “raises issues that go to the heart of fundamental human rights protections like privacy and freedom of expression,” Smith called for “a government initiative to regulate the proper use of facial recognition technology, informed first by a bipartisan and expert commission.”

But we may not get new laws anytime soon.

Just because we can…

Addendum on 12/27/18: — also related/see:

‘We’ve hit an inflection point’: Big Tech failed big-time in 2018 — from finance.yahoo.com by JP Mangalindan

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

2018 will be remembered as the year the public’s big soft-hearted love affair with Big Tech came to a screeching halt.

For years, lawmakers and the public let massive companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon run largely unchecked. Billions of people handed them their data — photos, locations, and other status-rich updates — with little scrutiny or question. Then came revelations around several high-profile data breaches from Facebook: a back-to-back series of rude awakenings that taught casual web-surfing, smartphone-toting citizens that uploading their data into the digital ether could have consequences. Google reignited the conversation around sexual harassment, spurring thousands of employees to walk out, while Facebook reminded some corners of the U.S. that racial bias, even in supposedly egalitarian Silicon Valley, remained alive and well. And Amazon courted well over 200 U.S. cities in its gaudy and protracted search for a second headquarters.

“I think 2018 was the year that people really called tech companies on the carpet about the way that they’ve been behaving conducting their business,” explained Susan Etlinger, an analyst at the San Francisco-based Altimeter Group. “We’ve hit an inflection point where people no longer feel comfortable with the ways businesses are conducting themselves. At the same time, we’re also at a point, historically, where there’s just so much more willingness to call out businesses and institutions on bigotry, racism, sexism and other kinds of bias.”

The public’s love affair with Facebook hit its first major rough patch in 2016 when Russian trolls attempted to meddle with the 2016 U.S. presidential election using the social media platform. But it was the Cambridge Analytica controversy that may go down in internet history as the start of a series of back-to-back, bruising controversies for the social network, which for years, served as the Silicon Valley poster child of the nouveau American Dream.

AI Now Report 2018: 10 Recommendations for AI [AI Now Institute]

On 12/07/2018, in 21st century, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, ethics, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, internet, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, morals/values, pace of change, platforms, programming, society, sociology, surviving, technologies for your home, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

AI Now Report 2018 | December 2018 — from ainowinstitute.org

Meredith Whittaker , AI Now Institute, New York University, Google Open Research
Kate Crawford , AI Now Institute, New York University, Microsoft Research
Roel Dobbe , AI Now Institute, New York University
Genevieve Fried , AI Now Institute, New York University
Elizabeth Kaziunas , AI Now Institute, New York University
Varoon Mathur , AI Now Institute, New York University
Sarah Myers West , AI Now Institute, New York University
Rashida Richardson , AI Now Institute, New York University
Jason Schultz , AI Now Institute, New York University School of Law
Oscar Schwartz , AI Now Institute, New York University

With research assistance from Alex Campolo and Gretchen Krueger (AI Now Institute, New York University)

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Building on our 2016 and 2017 reports, the AI Now 2018 Report contends with this central problem, and provides 10 practical recommendations that can help create accountability frameworks capable of governing these powerful technologies.

Governments need to regulate AI by expanding the powers of sector-specific agencies to oversee, audit, and monitor these technologies by domain.
Facial recognition and affect recognition need stringent regulation to protect the public interest.
The AI industry urgently needs new approaches to governance. As this report demonstrates, internal governance structures at most technology companies are failing to ensure accountability for AI systems.
AI companies should waive trade secrecy and other legal claims that stand in the way of accountability in the public sector.
Technology companies should provide protections for conscientious objectors, employee organizing, and ethical whistleblowers.
Consumer protection agencies should apply “truth-in-advertising” laws to AI products and services.
Technology companies must go beyond the “pipeline model” and commit to addressing the practices of exclusion and discrimination in their workplaces.
Fairness, accountability, and transparency in AI require a detailed account of the “full stack supply chain.”
More funding and support are needed for litigation, labor organizing, and community participation on AI accountability issues.
University AI programs should expand beyond computer science and engineering disciplines. AI began as an interdisciplinary field, but over the decades has narrowed to become a technical discipline. With the increasing application of AI systems to social domains, it needs to expand its disciplinary orientation. That means centering forms of expertise from the social and humanistic disciplines. AI efforts that genuinely wish to address social implications cannot stay solely within computer science and engineering departments, where faculty and students are not trained to research the social world. Expanding the disciplinary orientation of AI research will ensure deeper attention to social contexts, and more focus on potential hazards when these systems are applied to human populations.

Also see:

After a Year of Tech Scandals, Our 10 Recommendations for AI — from medium.com by the AI Now Institute
Let’s begin with better regulation, protecting workers, and applying “truth in advertising” rules to AI

Also see:

Excerpt:

As we discussed, this technology brings important and even exciting societal benefits but also the potential for abuse. We noted the need for broader study and discussion of these issues. In the ensuing months, we’ve been pursuing these issues further, talking with technologists, companies, civil society groups, academics and public officials around the world. We’ve learned more and tested new ideas. Based on this work, we believe it’s important to move beyond study and discussion. The time for action has arrived.

We believe it’s important for governments in 2019 to start adopting laws to regulate this technology. The facial recognition genie, so to speak, is just emerging from the bottle. Unless we act, we risk waking up five years from now to find that facial recognition services have spread in ways that exacerbate societal issues. By that time, these challenges will be much more difficult to bottle back up.

In particular, we don’t believe that the world will be best served by a commercial race to the bottom, with tech companies forced to choose between social responsibility and market success. We believe that the only way to protect against this race to the bottom is to build a floor of responsibility that supports healthy market competition. And a solid floor requires that we ensure that this technology, and the organizations that develop and use it, are governed by the rule of law.

From DSC:
This is a major heads up to the American Bar Association (ABA), law schools, governments, legislatures around the country, the courts, the corporate world, as well as for colleges, universities, and community colleges. The pace of emerging technologies is much faster than society’s ability to deal with them!

The ABA and law schools need to majorly pick up their pace — for the benefit of all within our society.

Teachers across America are obsessed with Google products — here’s how Apple and Microsoft plan to win them back [Premack]

On 11/30/2018, in Apple, digital learning, education, education technology, Google, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Microsoft, platforms, student-related, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, youth, by Daniel Christian

Teachers across America are obsessed with Google products — here’s how Apple and Microsoft plan to win them back — from businessinsider.com by Rachel Premack

Excerpt:

Google has taken over technology in the classroom from education stalwarts Microsoft and Apple.
That’s a valuable market to dominate. Ed tech is expected to hit $43 billion in value by 2019, just under half of which is based in K-12.
Chromebooks are cheaper than hardware from Microsoft and Apple, and Google’s classroom management software is a teacher favorite because of how easy it is to use.
Here’s what the two plan to do to take back some market share from Google.

100 voices of AR/VR in education — from virtualiteach.com

Ambitious VR experience restores 7,000 Roman buildings, monuments to their former glory — from smithsonianmag.com by Meilan Solly
You can take an aerial tour of the city circa 320 A.D. or stop by specific sites for in-depth exploration

Excerpt:

Ever wish you could step into a hot air balloon, travel back in time to 320 A.D., and soar over the streets of Ancient Rome? Well, that oddly specific fantasy is achievable in a new virtual reality experience called “Rome Reborn.”

The ambitious undertaking, painstakingly built by a team of 50 academics and computer experts over a 22-year period, recreates 7,000 buildings and monuments scattered across a 5.5 square mile stretch of the famed Italian city. The project, according to Tom Kington of the Times, is being marketed as the largest digital reconstruction of Rome to date.

VR Isn’t a Novelty: Here’s How to Integrate it Into the Curriculum — from edsurge.com by Jan Sikorsky

Excerpt:

While the application of VR to core academics remains nascent, early returns are promising: research now suggests students retain more information and can better synthesize and apply what they have learned after participating in virtual reality exercises.

And the technology is moving within the reach of classroom teachers. While once considered high-end and cost-prohibitive, virtual reality is becoming more affordable. Discovery VR and Google Expeditions offer several virtual reality experiences for free. Simple VR viewers now come in relatively low-cost DIY cardboard view boxes, like Google Cardboard, that fit a range of VR-capable smartphones.
…

Still, teachers may remain unsure of how they might implement such cutting-edge technology in their classrooms. Their concerns are well founded. Virtual reality takes careful planning and implementation for success. It’s not simply plug-and-play technology. It also takes a lot of work to develop.

From DSC:
Reduced costs & greater development efficiencies needed here:

“In our case, to create just 10 minutes of simulation, a team of six developers logged almost 1,000 hours of development time.”

Unveiling RLab: the First-City Funded VR/AR Center in the Country Opens Doors at Brooklyn Navy Yard — from prnewswire.com
New York City’s Virtual and Augmented Reality Center Will Fuel Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Education, While Creating Hundreds of Well-Paying Jobs

Excerpt:

BROOKLYN, N.Y., Oct. 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME), the NYU Tandon School of Engineering and the Brooklyn Navy Yard today announced the launch of RLab – the first City-funded virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) lab in the country. Administered by NYU Tandon with a participating consortium of New York City universities, including Columbia University, CUNY and The New School, RLab will operate out of Building 22 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and will cement New York City’s status as a global leader in VR/AR, creating over 750 jobs in the industry.

New virtual reality lab at UNMC — from wowt.com

This VR-live actor mashup is like your best absinthe-fueled nightmare — from cnet.com by Joan Solsman
Chained, an immersive reimagining of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, weds virtual reality with a motion-capture live actor. Could it be the gateway that makes VR a hit?

Also see:

…and this as well:

See the results of a months-long effort to create a HoloLens experience that pays homage to Mont-Saint-Michel, in Normandy, France, in all its forms – as a physical relief map and work of art; as a real place visited by millions of people over the centuries; and as a remarkable digital story of resilience. In this three-part Today in Technology series, they examine how AI and mixed reality can open a new window into French culture by using technology like HoloLens.

K-12 2018 Readers’ Choice Awards — from “The Journal’s” October/November edition

On 11/26/2018, in A/V -- audio/visual, Adobe, Apple, Augmented Reality (AR), CMS/LMS, collaboration, communications, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, formal learning, Google, innovation, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning spaces, mathematics, media/film, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile learning, mobile technologies, multi-touch, multimedia, online learning, online media, platforms, play, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, reading, robotics, science, smart classrooms, storytelling, student-related, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, United States, vendors, videoconferencing, virtual field trips, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, web-based collaboration, XR - extended reality, youth, by Daniel Christian

K-12 2018 Readers’ Choice Awards — from The Journal’s October/November edition

Also see:

https://thejournal.com/Articles/2018/10/29/2018-THE-Journal-Readers-Choice-Awards.aspx

Reflections on “Is Amazon’s algorithm cashing in on the Camp Fire by raising the cost of safety equipment?” [Chapman]

On 11/26/2018, in 21st century, Amazon, business, Daniel S. Christian, economics, ethics, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, ideas, Microsoft, morals/values, society, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Is Amazon’s algorithm cashing in on the Camp Fire by raising the cost of safety equipment? — from wired.co.uk by Matthew Chapman
Sudden and repeated price increases on fire extinguishers, axes and escape ladders sold on Amazon are seemingly linked to increased demand driven by California’s Camp Fire

Excerpt:

Amazon’s algorithm has allegedly been raising the price of fire safety equipment in response to increased demand during the California wildfires. The practice, known as surge pricing, has caused products including fire extinguishers and escape ladders to fluctuate significantly on Amazon, seemingly as a result of the retailer’s pricing system responding to increased demand.

An industry source with knowledge of the firm’s operations claims a similar price surge was triggered by the Grenfell Tower fire. A number of recent price rises coincide directly with the outbreak of the Camp Fire, which has been the deadliest in California’s history and resulted in at least 83 deaths.

From DSC:
I’ve been thinking a lot more about Amazon.com and Jeff Bezos in recent months, though I’m not entirely sure why. I think part of it has to do with the goals of capitalism.

If you want to see a winner in the way America trains up students, entrepreneurs, and business people, look no further than Jeff Bezos. He is the year-in-and-year-out champion of capitalism. He is the winner. He is the Michael Jordan of business. He is the top. He gets how the game is played and he’s a master at it. By all worldly standards, Jeff Bezos is the winner.

But historically speaking, he doesn’t come across like someone such as Bill Gates — someone who has used his wealth to literally, significantly, and positively change millions of lives. (Though finally that looks to be changing a bit, with the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund; the first grants of that fund total $97 million and will be given to 24 organizations working to address family homelessness. Source.)

Along those same lines — and expanding the scope a bit — I’m struggling with what the goals of capitalism are for us today…especially in an era of AI, algorithms, robotics, automation and the like. If the goal is simply to make as much profit as possible, we could be in trouble. If what occurs to people and families is much lower down the totem pole…what are the ramifications of that for our society? Yes, it’s a tough, cold world. But does it always have to be that way? What is the best, most excellent goal to pursue? What are we truly seeking to accomplish?

After my Uncle Chan died years ago, my Aunt Gail took over the family’s office supply business and ran it like a family. She cared about her employees and made decisions with an eye towards how things would impact her employees and their families. Yes, she had to make sound business decisions, but there was true caring in the way that she ran her business. I realize that the Amazon’s of the world are in a whole different league, but the values and principles involved here should not be lost just because of size.

To whom much is given…much is expected.

Also see:

GM to lay off 15 percent of salaried workers, halt production at five plants in U.S. and Canada — from washingtonpost.com by Taylor Telford

Wall Street applauded the news, with GM’s stock climbing more than 7 percent following the announcement.

From DSC:
Well, I bet those on Wall Street aren’t a part of the 15% of the folks being impacted. The applause is not heard at all from those folks who are being impacted today…whose families are being impacted today…and will be feeling the impact of these announcements for quite a while yet.

LinkedIn Learning Opens Its Platform (Slightly) [Young]

On 11/09/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business side of he, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, digital learning, disruption, education technology, elearning, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, internet, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, marketplaces, microlearning, Microsoft, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, online tutoring, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, professional development, social learning / networks, social media, society, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, training / L&D, trends, United States, universities, using teams, vendors, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

LinkedIn Learning Opens Its Platform (Slightly) — from edsurge by Jeff Young

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

A few years ago, in a move toward professional learning, LinkedIn bought Lynda.com for $1.5 billion, adding the well-known library of video-based courses to its professional social network. Today LinkedIn officials announced that they plan to open up their platform to let in educational videos from other providers as well—but with a catch or two.

The plan, announced Friday, is to let companies or colleges who already subscribe to LinkedIn Learning add content from a select group of other providers. The company or college will still have to subscribe to those other services separately, so it’s essentially an integration—but it does mark a change in approach.

For LinkedIn, the goal is to become the front door for employees as they look for micro-courses for professional development.

LinkedIn also announced another service for its LinkedIn Learning platform called Q&A, which will give subscribers the ability to pose a question they have about the video lessons they’re taking. The question will first be sent to bots, but if that doesn’t yield an answer the query will be sent on to other learners, and in some cases the instructor who created the videos.

Also see:

LinkedIn becomes a serious open learning experience platform — from clomedia.com by Josh Bersin
LinkedIn is becoming a dominant learning solution with some pretty interesting competitive advantages, according to one learning analyst.

Excerpt:

LinkedIn has become quite a juggernaut in the corporate learning market. Last time I checked the company had more than 17 million users, 14,000 corporate customers, more than 3,000 courses and was growing at high double-digit rates. And all this in only about two years.

And the company just threw down the gauntlet; it’s now announcing it has completely opened up its learning platform to external content partners. This is the company’s formal announcement that LinkedIn Learning is not just an amazing array of content, it is a corporate learning platform. The company wants to become a single place for all organizational learning content.

LinkedIn now offers skills-based learning recommendations to any user through its machine learning algorithms.

Is there demand for staying relevant? For learning new skills? For reinventing oneself?

Well…let’s see.

From DSC:
So…look out higher ed and traditional forms of accreditation — your window of opportunity may be starting to close. Alternatives to traditional higher ed continue to appear on the scene and gain momentum. LinkedIn — and/or similar organizations in the future — along with blockchain and big data backed efforts may gain traction in the future and start taking away some major market share. If employers get solid performance from their employees who have gone this route…higher ed better look out.

Microsoft/LinkedIn/Lynda.com are nicely positioned to be a major player who can offer society a next generation learning platform at an incredible price — offering up-to-date, microlearning along with new forms of credentialing. It’s what I’ve been calling the Amazon.com of higher ed (previously the Walmart of Education) for ~10 years. It will take place in a strategy/platform similar to this one.

Also, this is what a guerilla on the back looks like:

Also see:

Meet the 83-Year-Old App Developer Who Says Edtech Should Better Support Seniors — from edsurge.com by Sydney Johnson
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Now at age 83, Wakamiya beams with excitement when she recounts her journey, which has been featured in news outlets and even at Apple’s developer conference last year. But through learning how to code, she believes that experience offers an even more important lesson to today’s education and technology companies: don’t forget about senior citizens.Today’s education technology products overwhelmingly target young people. And while there’s a growing industry around serving adult learners in higher education, companies largely neglect to consider the needs of the elderly.

Microsoft to tackle AI skills shortage with two new training programs [Heath]

On 10/31/2018, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, career development, computer science, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), Microsoft, platforms, programming, tools, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Microsoft to tackle AI skills shortage with two new training programs — from zdnet.com by Nick Heath
The tech giant reveals two new training programs to boost AI-related skills in business and in universities.

Excerpts:

The first of the two programs, Microsoft AI Academy, will run face-to-face and online training sessions for business and public-sector leaders, IT professionals, developers, and startups.
…
Microsoft is also funding a program to help train the next generation of data scientists and machine-learning engineers. Professor Chris Bishop, director of Microsoft’s Research Lab in Cambridge, said the Microsoft Research-Cambridge University Machine Learning Initiative is designed to address the stream of leading machine-learning researchers moving from universities to the private sector.

Reflections on “Are ‘smart’ classrooms the future?” [Johnston]

On 10/31/2018, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, adjunct faculty, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, blended learning, bots, Bring your own device (BYOD), cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital learning, distance education, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty, future, future of higher education, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, internet, IT in HE, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, learning spaces, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, mobile technologies, multimedia, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Near Field Communication (NFC), personalized/customized learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, second screen apps, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, technology (general), tools, trends, United States, usability, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, wearables, web-based collaboration, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

Are ‘smart’ classrooms the future? — from campustechnology.com by Julie Johnston
Indiana University explores that question by bringing together tech partners and university leaders to share ideas on how to design classrooms that make better use of faculty and student time.

Excerpt:

To achieve these goals, we are investigating smart solutions that will:

Untether instructors from the room’s podium, allowing them control from anywhere in the room;
Streamline the start of class, including biometric login to the room’s technology, behind-the-scenes routing of course content to room displays, control of lights and automatic attendance taking;
Offer whiteboards that can be captured, routed to different displays in the room and saved for future viewing and editing;
Provide small-group collaboration displays and the ability to easily route content to and from these displays; and
Deliver these features through a simple, user-friendly and reliable room/technology interface.

…

Activities included collaborative brainstorming focusing on these questions:

What else can we do to create the classroom of the future?
What current technology exists to solve these problems?
What could be developed that doesn’t yet exist?
What’s next?

From DSC:
Though many peoples’ — including faculty members’ — eyes gloss over when we start talking about learning spaces and smart classrooms, it’s still an important topic. Personally, I’d rather be learning in an engaging, exciting learning environment that’s outfitted with a variety of tools (physically as well as digitally and virtually-based) that make sense for that community of learners. Also, faculty members have very limited time to get across campus and into the classroom and get things setup…the more things that can be automated in those setup situations the better!

I’ve long posted items re: machine-to-machine communications, voice recognition/voice-enabled interfaces, artificial intelligence, bots, algorithms, a variety of vendors and their products including Amazon’s Alexa / Apple’s Siri / Microsoft’s Cortana / and Google’s Home or Google Assistant, learning spaces, and smart classrooms, as I do think those things are components of our future learning ecosystems.

Global installed base of smart speakers to surpass 200 million in 2020, says GlobalData

The global installed base for smart speakers will hit 100 million early next year, before surpassing the 200 million mark at some point in 2020, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The company’s latest report: ‘Smart Speakers – Thematic Research’ states that nearly every leading technology company is either already producing a smart speaker or developing one, with Facebook the latest to enter the fray (launching its Portal device this month). The appetite for smart speakers is also not limited by geography, with China in particular emerging as a major marketplace.

Ed Thomas, Principal Analyst for Technology Thematic Research at GlobalData, comments: “It is only four years since Amazon unveiled the Echo, the first wireless speaker to incorporate a voice-activated virtual assistant. Initial reactions were muted but the device, and the Alexa virtual assistant it contained, quickly became a phenomenon, with the level of demand catching even Amazon by surprise.”

Smart speakers give companies like Amazon, Google, Apple, and Alibaba access to a vast amount of highly valuable user data. They also allow users to get comfortable interacting with artificial intelligence (AI) tools in general, and virtual assistants in particular, increasing the likelihood that they will use them in other situations, and they lock customers into a broader ecosystem, making it more likely that they will buy complementary products or access other services, such as online stores.

Thomas continues: “Smart speakers, particularly lower-priced models, are gateway devices, in that they give consumers the opportunity to interact with a virtual assistant like Amazon’s Alexa or Google’s Assistant, in a “safe” environment. For tech companies serious about competing in the virtual assistant sector, a smart speaker is becoming a necessity, hence the recent entry of Apple and Facebook into the market and the expected arrival of Samsung and Microsoft over the next year or so.”

In terms of the competitive landscape for smart speakers, Amazon was the pioneer and is still a dominant force, although its first-mover advantage has been eroded over the last year or so. Its closest challenger is Google, but neither company is present in the fastest-growing geographic market, China. Alibaba is the leading player there, with Xiaomi also performing well.

Thomas concludes: “With big names like Samsung and Microsoft expected to launch smart speakers in the next year or so, the competitive landscape will continue to fluctuate. It is likely that we will see two distinct markets emerge: the cheap, impulse-buy end of the spectrum, used by vendors to boost their ecosystems; and the more expensive, luxury end, where greater focus is placed on sound quality and aesthetics. This is the area of the market at which Apple has aimed the HomePod and early indications are that this is where Samsung’s Galaxy Home will also look to make an impact.”

Information based on GlobalData’s report: Smart Speakers – Thematic Research

NEW: The Top Tools for Learning 2018 [Jane Hart]

On 09/29/2018, in A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, Adobe, adult learning, animation, Apple, Asia, assistive technologies, Australia, blended learning, blogs / blogging / vlogging, Canada, career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), e-readers, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, Europe, Google, graphics, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, India, instructional design, internet, IT in HE, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, media/film, microlearning, Microsoft, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, multimedia, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, platforms, podcasting, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, society, story, storytelling, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, tools, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, videoconferencing, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, web design and production, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

The above was from Jane’s posting 10 Trends for Digital Learning in 2018 — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart

Excerpt:

[On 9/24/18], I released the Top Tools for Learning 2018 , which I compiled from the results of the 12th Annual Digital Learning Tools Survey.

I have also categorised the tools into 30 different areas, and produced 3 sub-lists that provide some context to how the tools are being used:

Top 100 Tools for Personal & Professional Learning 2018 (PPL100): the digital tools used by individuals for their own self-improvement, learning and development – both inside and outside the workplace.
Top 100 Tools for Workplace Learning (WPL100): the digital tools used to design, deliver, enable and/or support learning in the workplace.
Top 100 Tools for Education (EDU100): the digital tools used by educators and students in schools, colleges, universities, adult education etc.

3 – Web courses are increasing in popularity.
Although Coursera is still the most popular web course platform, there are, in fact, now 12 web course platforms on the list. New additions this year include Udacity and Highbrow (the latter provides daily micro-lessons). It is clear that people like these platforms because they can chose what they want to study as well as how they want to study, ie. they can dip in and out if they want to and no-one is going to tell them off – which is unlike most corporate online courses which have a prescribed path through them and their use is heavily monitored.

5 – Learning at work is becoming personal and continuous.
The most significant feature of the list this year is the huge leap up the list that Degreed has made – up 86 places to 47th place – the biggest increase by any tool this year. Degreed is a lifelong learning platform and provides the opportunity for individuals to own their expertise and development through a continuous learning approach. And, interestingly, Degreed appears both on the PPL100 (at 30) and WPL100 (at 52). This suggests that some organisations are beginning to see the importance of personal, continuous learning at work. Indeed, another platform that underpins this, has also moved up the list significantly this year, too. Anders Pink is a smart curation platform available for both individuals and teams which delivers daily curated resources on specified topics. Non-traditional learning platforms are therefore coming to the forefront, as the next point further shows.

From DSC:
Perhaps some foreshadowing of the presence of a powerful, online-based, next generation learning platform…?

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