Microsoft

For those seeking to be better communicators/leaders/servants, you need to check out “Communicate Like a True Leader”

On 10/17/2017, in 21st century, Amazon, analytics, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Blockchain, bots, business, career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, engineering, ethics, Facebook / Meta Platforms, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, leadership, liberal arts, marketing/social marketing, Michigan, Microsoft, morals/values, organizational change, pace of change, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, professional development, relationships, robotics, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, United States, universities, writing, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I know Quentin Schultze from our years working together at Calvin College, in Grand Rapids, Michigan (USA). I have come to greatly appreciate Quin as a person of faith, as an innovative/entrepreneurial professor, as a mentor to his former students, and as an excellent communicator.

Quin has written a very concise, wisdom-packed book that I would like to recommend to those people who are seeking to be better communicators, leaders, and servants. But I would especially like to recommend this book to the leadership at Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Facebook, Nvidia, the major companies developing robots, and other high-tech companies. Why do I list these organizations? Because given the exponential pace of technological change, these organizations — and their leaders — have an enormous responsibility to make sure that the technologies that they are developing result in positive changes for societies throughout the globe. They need wisdom, especially as they are working on emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), personal assistants and bots, algorithms, robotics, the Internet of Things, big data, blockchain and more. These technologies continue to exert an increasingly powerful influence on numerous societies throughout the globe today. And we haven’t seen anything yet! Just because we can develop and implement something, doesn’t mean that we should. Again, we need wisdom here.

But as Quin states, it’s not just about knowledge, the mind and our thoughts. It’s about our hearts as well. That is, we need leaders who care about others, who can listen well to others, who can serve others well while avoiding gimmicks, embracing diversity, building trust, fostering compromise and developing/exhibiting many of the other qualities that Quin writes about in his book. Our societies desperately need leaders who care about others and who seek to serve others well.

I highly recommend you pick up a copy of Quin’s book. There are few people who can communicate as much in as few words as Quin can. In fact, I wish that more writing on the web and more articles/research coming out of academia would be as concisely and powerfully written as Quin’s book, Communicate Like a True Leader: 30 Days of Life-Changing Wisdom.

To lead is to accept responsibility and act responsibly.
— Quentin Schultze

Amazon and Microsoft announce Gluon, making deep learning accessible to all developers

On 10/13/2017, in Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, career development, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, computer science, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), Microsoft, platforms, programming, by Daniel Christian

AWS and Microsoft announce Gluon, making deep learning accessible to all developers — from news.microsoft.com
New open source deep learning interface allows developers to more easily and quickly build machine learning models without compromising training performance. Jointly developed reference specification makes it possible for Gluon to work with any deep learning engine; support for Apache MXNet available today and support for Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit coming soon.

Excerpt:

SEATTLE and REDMOND, Wash. — Oct. 12, 2017 — On Thursday, Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced a new deep learning library, called Gluon, that allows developers of all skill levels to prototype, build, train and deploy sophisticated machine learning models for the cloud, devices at the edge and mobile apps. The Gluon interface currently works with Apache MXNet and will support Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit (CNTK) in an upcoming release. With the Gluon interface, developers can build machine learning models using a simple Python API and a range of prebuilt, optimized neural network components. This makes it easier for developers of all skill levels to build neural networks using simple, concise code, without sacrificing performance. AWS and Microsoft published Gluon’s reference specification so other deep learning engines can be integrated with the interface. To get started with the Gluon interface, visit https://github.com/gluon-api/gluon-api/.

Microsoft and Amazon struck a brilliant partnership to take on Google in the next big thing for cloud computing — from finance.yahoo.com Business Insider by Julie Bort

Excerpt:

Microsoft and Amazon announced a surprise partnership on Thursday in which they were jointly releasing for free a new software tool for developers called Gluon.
Gluon makes it easier for developers to build AI/machine learning systems, aka apps that can learn.
But there’s another, more important reason this partnership is interesting: it challenges Google in its one big area of dominance.

For a long, successful career, LinkedIn says nothing beats a liberal arts major — from qz.com by Dan Kopf and Amy Wang

Excerpt:

“There is a real concern that these labor-market-oriented degrees that focus on specific technical skills are not as durable,” says Guy Berger, a LinkedIn economist and one of the researchers who worked on the report. Berger believes that “cross-functional skills” like management and analytical know-how are more adaptable across a range of work environments. As technology changes the nature of work across nearly every industry, it’s important to have a wide range of such talents, rather than a narrow subset applied only to a particular sector that may not look the same in the near future (or, indeed, exist at all).

Especially meant for students: The Unofficial LinkedIn FAQ: 50 Answers by Andy Foote

On 10/09/2017, in career development, Microsoft, professional development, social learning / networks, social media, by Daniel Christian

The Unofficial LinkedIn FAQ: 50 Answers by Andy Foote — from linkedinsights.com by Andy Foote

Excerpts:

If I had a dollar….my clients have asked a lot of the same questions over the years and I’ve been dying to write an unofficial FAQ type post to address these common questions in one swoop. Took me a while to put this 5,000 word guide together, if you find it useful, please share it.
…

(6) Should I only connect with people I know?
No. Though the LinkedIn User Agreement (8.2.g) states “You agree that you will not: Invite people you do not know to join your network” everyone knows this is both unenforceable and contrary to a major premise of LinkedIn. The big selling point of LinkedIn is the ability to grow yourself a network by connecting virtually with people you have not met and you don’t know, yet. Only connecting with people you know in real life is the equivalent of building an imaginary wall around your profile and ignoring all of the engagement and information sharing going on around you. Or you could just join MySpace.

…

(15) What are Followers?
Hangers on. Followers dig what you have written or like the cut of your jib on LinkedIn. Following someone on LinkedIn does not mean that they will get notified when the person being followed writes/shares (that would be too logical). Followers were born after LinkedIn publisher launched (Feb 2014) in an effort to encourage budding authors to think of their network as a built-in audience for their content. When you connect with someone you automatically follow them too. Everyone who follows you is potentially interested in connecting with you. Ask them!

…

(16) How much space do I have in my Headline/Summary?
120 characters (headline) 2000 characters (summary). For a while you could get 220 characters if you edited your headline on the mobile app. Don’t feel you have to use all 2,000 characters for your summary. Here’s a link to 3 ‘stunningly good’ summaries https://www.linkedinsights.com/3-stunningly-good-linkedin-profile-summaries And another link to maximum character counts https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/maximum-linkedin-character-counts-2017-andy-foote

…

(37) What’s the quickest way to get LinkedIn support?
Tweet them @LinkedInHelp

Top 200 Tools for Learning 2017 [Center for Learning & Performance Technologies; Jane Hart]

On 10/06/2017, in 21st century, Adobe, adult learning, Asia, blogs / blogging / vlogging, bots, business, Canada, CMS/LMS, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, Europe, Facebook / Meta Platforms, global / globalization, Google, heutagogy, higher education, India, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, Microsoft, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, multimedia, online learning, online media, RSS, social learning / networks, social media, staying relevant, storytelling, streams of content, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, tools, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, vendors, wearables, web design and production, by Daniel Christian

Excerpt:

The Top 200 Tools for Learning 2017 (11th Annual Survey) has been compiled by Jane Hart of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies from the votes of 2,174 learning professionals worldwide, together with 3 sub-lists

Top 100 Tools for Personal & Professional Learning (PPL)
Top 100 Tools for Workplace Learning (WPL)
Top 100 Tools for Education (EDU)

Excerpt from the Analysis page (emphasis DSC):

Here is a brief analysis of what’s on the list and what it tells us about the current state of personal learning, workplace learning and education.

Some facts

The top 2 tools are the same as in 2016: YouTube and Google Search
PowerPoint moves up to #3, Word moves up to #6, Excel up 29 to #17
Twitter moves down to #5
66 tools moved up the list. Top 3 risers are Unsplash (up 71 places), Grammarly (up 70 places) and Snapchat (up 64 places
Messaging apps and team tools are particularly on the rise: Slack is now up 8 places to #12, Trello is up 21 places to #22, Microsoft Teams is another new tool in at #79
4 tools are BACK on the list: Google Alerts, IFTTT, Backpack and Hootsuite
52 NEW tools appear on the list this year – the highest entry is Typeform in at #55.
2 interesting new tools for augmented and virtual reality join the list – Aurasma, ENTiTi – as well as a chatbot system – Ultra Hal Assistant.

Some observations on what the Top Tools list tells us personal and professional learning
As in previous years, individuals continue to using a wide variety of:

networks, services and platforms for professional networking, communication and collaboration
web resources and courses for self-improvement and self-development
tools for personal productivity

All of which shows that many individuals have become highly independent, continuous modern professional learners – making their own decisions about what they need to learn and how to do it.

Check out these huge announcements from Microsoft’s Windows 10 Mixed Reality Event & Google’s Pixel 2 Event

On 10/04/2017, in A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, collaboration, communities of practice, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), multimedia, music, Natural Language Processing (NLP), technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, trends, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Before we get to the announcements in more detail….
can you imagine being a teacher, a professor, or a trainer — with all of the required applications
launched — if you were the presenter in this video at say the 12:45 mark?

If you are at all interesting in emerging technologies and what several pieces
of our future learning ecosystems — and meeting spaces — could easily look like,
you NEED to watch the entire presentation.

Also, they announced
Microsoft’s purchase of AltspaceVR…in virtual reality!
This clip shows them meeting in a virtual space.

The era of Windows Mixed Reality begins October 17 — from blogs.windows.com by Alex Kipman
Samsung unveils Windows Mixed Reality headset, AltSpaceVR joins Microsoft, SteamVR catalog coming to Windows Mixed Reality this holiday.

At an event in San Francisco we unveiled our vision for Windows Mixed Reality, announced SteamVR and AltSpaceVR are coming to Windows Mixed Reality, introduced the new Samsung Odyssey HMD, and kicked off the holiday shopping season by announcing the availability of pre-orders for Windows Mixed Reality headsets at the Microsoft Store.

Also see:

Mixed Reality at Microsoft’s site

Inside VR & AR

Oct 4th, 2017

Microsoft held its long-awaited launch of Windows 10 Mixed Reality yesterday, and while most of the new devices and products had been leaked earlier, there were still some big takeaways. Here are some of them:

Mixed Reality: Microsoft gave a demo of what its new platform will do, covering the AR/VR spectrum with games, apps, and experiences. One such experience is Cliff House, a virtual work space and entertainment room.
Altspace VR: When the pioneering social VR app shut down this summer and was rescued by a “third party,” people wondered who that was. Turns out it was Microsoft, which acquired Altspace VR for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was announced yesterday.
Steam VR and Halo: Microsoft had previously announced that its new Mixed Reality headsets would support Steam VR titles. Developers can now access that support, and consumers will be able to access it later this year. In addition to the hundreds of VR titles available on Steam, on Oct. 17, Microsoft will offer free downloads of Halo Recruit.
Odyssey and other headsets: The new Windows 10 platform is launching alongside a host of new headsets. In addition to the new Odyssey, which was made in partnership with Samsung, there are other headsets forthcoming from Acer, HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Asus.
2018 Olympics: This was announced previously in June, but yesterday Microsoft briefed the press that Intel is partnering with the International Olympic Committee to bring Windows Mixed Reality experiences to the 2018 games.

Watch the Google Pixel 2 event in 19 minutes — from the verge.com by Natt Garun
The Google Pixel event has wrapped and we got a good look at a bunch of new hardware lineup this year: the second generation of Pixel smartphones, new Google Homes, a Pixelbook, and a surprise new Google camera that uses artificial intelligence to snap pictures and videos of your family. Is it as weird as it sounds? If you missed the keynote where Google presented everything, here’s a recap of everything Google announced in about two hours cut into a 19-minute video so you can see for yourself if these new products will make it to your shopping list this holiday season.
Google Upgrades Virtual-Reality Headset, Debuts Augmented-Reality Features — from bloomberg.com by Mark Gurman
Google is turning Stranger Things characters into adorable augmented reality stickers — from the verge.com by Adi Robertson
Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced with water resistance, ‘dual-pixel’ camera, and always-on display — from theverge.com by Jacob Kastrenakes
The 5 biggest announcements from Google’s Pixel 2 event — from theverge.com by Shannon Liao
Google Launches PixelBook Laptop Embedded With its Services — from bloomberg.com by Mark Gurman

100 Data and Analytics Predictions Through 2021 — from Gartner

From DSC:
I just wanted to include some excerpts (see below) from Gartner’s 100 Data and Analytics Predictions Through 2021 report. I do so to illustrate how technology’s impact continues to expand/grow in influence throughout many societies around the globe, as well as to say that if you want a sure thing job in the next 1-15 years, I would go into studying data science and/or artificial intelligence!

Excerpts:

As evidenced by its pervasiveness within our vast array of recently published Predicts 2017 research, it is clear that data and analytics are increasingly critical elements across most industries, business functions and IT disciplines. Most significantly, data and analytics are key to a successful digital business. This collection of more than 100 data-and-analytics-related Strategic Planning Assumptions (SPAs) or predictions through 2021, heralds several transformations and challenges ahead that CIOs and data and analytics leaders should embrace and include in their planning for successful strategies. Common themes across the discipline in general, and within particular business functions and industries, include:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a core business and analytic competency. Beyond yesteryear’s hard-coded algorithms and manual data science activities, machine learning (ML) promises to transform business processes, reconfigure workforces, optimize infrastructure behavior and blend industries through rapidly improved decision making and process optimization.
Natural language is beginning to play a dual role in many organizations and applications as a source of input for analytic and other applications, and a variety of output, in addition to traditional analytic visualizations.
Information itself is being recognized as a corporate asset (albeit not yet a balance sheet asset), prompting organizations to become more disciplined about monetizing, managing and measuring it as they do with other assets. This includes “spending” it like cash, selling/licensing it to others, participating in emerging data marketplaces, applying asset management principles to improve its quality and availability, and quantifying its value and risks in a variety of ways.
Smart devices that both produce and consume Internet of Things (IoT) data will also move intelligent computing to the edge of business functions, enabling devices in almost every industry to operate and interact with humans and each other without a centralized command and control. The resulting opportunities for innovation are unbounded.
Trust becomes the watchword for businesses, devices and information, leading to the creation of digital ethics frameworks, accreditation and assessments. Most attempts at leveraging blockchain as a trust mechanism fail until technical limitations, particularly performance, are solved.

…

Education
Significant changes to the global education landscape have taken shape in 2016, and spotlight new and interesting trends for 2017 and beyond. “Predicts 2017: Education Gets Personal” is focused on several SPAs, each uniquely contributing to the foundation needed to create the digitalized education environments of the future. Organizations and institutions will require new strategies to leverage existing and new technologies to maximize benefits to the organization in fresh and
innovative ways.

By 2021, more than 30% of institutions will be forced to execute on a personalization strategy to maintain student enrollment.
By 2021, the top 100 higher education institutions will have to adopt AI technologies to stay competitive in research.

…

Artificial Intelligence
Business and IT leaders are stepping up to a broad range of opportunities enabled by AI, including autonomous vehicles, smart vision systems, virtual customer assistants, smart (personal) agents and natural-language processing. Gartner believes that this new general-purpose technology is just beginning a 75-year technology cycle that will have far-reaching implications for every industry. In “Predicts 2017: Artificial Intelligence,” we reflect on the near-term opportunities, and the potential burdens and risks that organizations face in exploiting AI. AI is changing the way in which organizations innovate and communicate their processes, products and services.

Practical strategies for employing AI and choosing the right vendors are available to data and analytics leaders right now.

By 2019, more than 10% of IT hires in customer service will mostly write scripts for bot interactions.
Through 2020, organizations using cognitive ergonomics and system design in new AI projects will achieve long-term success four times more often than others.
By 2020, 20% of companies will dedicate workers to monitor and guide neural networks.
By 2019, startups will overtake Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft in driving the AI economy with disruptive business solutions.
By 2019, AI platform services will cannibalize revenues for 30% of market-leading companies. “Predicts 2017: Drones”
By 2020, the top seven commercial drone manufacturers will all offer analytical software packages.
“Predicts 2017: The Reinvention of Buying Behavior in Vertical-Industry Markets”
By 2021, 30% of net new revenue growth from industry-specific solutions will include AI technology.

…

Advanced Analytics and Data Science
Advanced analytics and data science are fast becoming mainstream solutions and competencies in most organizations, even supplanting traditional BI and analytics resources and budgets. They allow more types of knowledge and insights to be extracted from data. To become and remain competitive, enterprises must seek to adopt advanced analytics, and adapt their business models, establish specialist data science teams and rethink their overall strategies to keep pace with the competition. “Predicts 2017: Analytics Strategy and Technology” offers advice on overall strategy, approach and operational transformation to algorithmic business that leadership needs to build to reap the benefits.

By 2018, deep learning (deep neural networks [DNNs]) will be a standard component in 80% of data scientists’ tool boxes.
By 2020, more than 40% of data science tasks will be automated, resulting in increased productivity and broader usage by citizen data scientists.
By 2019, natural-language generation will be a standard feature of 90% of modern BI and analytics platforms.
By 2019, 50% of analytics queries will be generated using search, natural-language query or voice, or will be autogenerated.
By 2019, citizen data scientists will surpass data scientists in the amount of advanced analysis
produced.

By 2020, 95% of video/image content will never be viewed by humans; instead, it will be vetted by machines that provide some degree of automated analysis.

Through 2020, lack of data science professionals will inhibit 75% of organizations from achieving the full potential of IoT.

From DSC: Some reflections from the “2017 Workplace Learning Report ” from LinkedIn Learning

On 10/02/2017, in 21st century, bots, business, career development, change, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, elearning, future, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, Microsoft, online learning, online media, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, RSS, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, strategy, streams of content, student-related, surviving, tools, training / L&D, trends, ubiquitous learning, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Getting employees to make time for L&D needs to be based upon “what’s in it for them” — i.e., the main role of the L&D Team/Department should be to create the platforms and means by which employees can learn whatever they need to learn in order to do their jobs well (as well as to learn the skills necessary to move into those new areas that they’ve been wanting to move into). They’re going to find ways to do this anyway, why not give them the tools/knowledge of the tools and the platforms in order to better facilitate that learning to happen at a quicker pace?

An L&D Team could provide content curation services themselves and/or they could connect the employees with knowledgeable people. For example, give employees the key people to connect with who are doing their jobs really well.

For example, the L&D Team could maintain and provide a list of the top 10*:

Internal Sales employees to connect with and learn from, as well as the top 10 external Sales people to connect with and learn from (these people may or may not be in the same industry).
Internal Customer Service employees to connect with and learn from, as well as the top 10 external Customer Service people to connect with and learn from (these people may or may not be in the same industry).
Internal Marketing employees to connect with and learn from, as well as the top 10 external Marketing people to connect with and learn from (these people may or may not be in the same industry).
Etc.

* Or top 5, or top 50, or top whatever # that the L&D Team
thinks would be most beneficial to the organization

I think each employee in the workforce needs to know about the power of RSS feeds and feed aggregators such as Feedly. In fact, I advocate that same approach for most every student in middle school, high school, and college as well. We need to be able to connect with others and tap into streams of content being produced — as well as contribute to those streams of content as well. Blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, CMSs/LMSs, etc. can provide beneficial streams of content.

“And learners are evolving at a quicker pace than the learning programs that support them.”

Also, based upon the above image, I find it interesting that the corporate L&D teams are struggling with what higher education has been struggling with as well — i.e., predicting which skills will be needed and responding as quickly as possible in order to develop the necessary learning modules/RSS feeds/content/etc. to remain up-to-date. Actually, I suspect that it’s not that the learners are evolving at a quicker pace than the learning programs that support them, rather its the required skills and needs of the positions that are evolving at a quicker pace than the learning programs that support them.

Our institutions and our L&D Departments are simply not used to this pace of change. No one is.

We need better mechanisms of dealing with this new pace of change.

One last random thought here…perhaps a portion of the L&D department will morph into creating bots for internal employees, helping answer questions at the point of need.

Ginni Rometty on the End of Programming — from bloomberg.com by Megan Murphy
The IBM chief dares to imagine what Watson will be when it grows up, and reaffirms her pledge to hire 25,000 people over the next four years.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Do you feel we’re going to get to a point where AI will displace more jobs than it creates and we’re not doing enough to push forward with the jobs of the future?

I do believe that when it comes to complete job replacement, it will be a very small percentage. When it comes to changing a job and what you do, it will be 100 percent. “Whoa, different skills. Everybody is going to have to have a different skill because it’s going to be a threat in all our jobs.” Let me just park that thought. I want to come back to something I think that’s far more important and is related. The issue of skills is front and center in this country and many countries in the world right now without AI. We already have a world that’s bifurcating between haves and have-nots, and a lot of that is based on education and skills. This country has 5 million to 6 million jobs open. That’s about skill. This is not being caused by AI. We’ve got to revamp education for this era of man and machine. And that means you cannot insist that every person needs to be a university or a Ph.D. graduate to be productive in society. You cannot. It’s not true by the way. We’ve proven that.

You started a six-year high school program. This is a program where they take people through four years of high school, two years of a college equivalent, and then hopefully give them preference in getting into the workforce, again to work with IBM.

In the U.S., in 2015, half of our young people didn’t have an associate’s degree or a college degree. That’s the problem today: the number of people that need to be retrained. I’m far more optimistic that public-private partnerships can solve this dilemma. There will be a hundred pathways to technology becoming viral, driven by governors and states. I always remember when President Obama came to the first one, he goes, “Where are all the computers?” We’re like, “That’s not what we teach these kids.” We’re teaching them a skill about math and problem-solving that’s going to transcend any technology they deal with. The first part is a very simple formula: a curriculum of math, science. The second, give the kids a mentor and then you give them a chance at a job. We will be up to 50,000 kids, and 300 other companies have volunteered. I have a whole bunch of these kids over in Silicon Alley where we have our Watson headquarters.

I do believe that when it comes to complete job replacement, it will be a very small percentage. When it comes to changing a job and what you do, it will be 100 percent.

The new Autonomous SmartDesk 3 has a built-in touchscreen and AI software — from imore.com by Tory Foulk

Excerpt:

Can your desk encourage you to stand, remind you to drink water and order you a pizza? No? Well SmartDesk 3 can.

Autonomous announced the launch of the newest iteration of its SmartDesk in a press release today, and is claiming it’s “the world’s most powerful AI-powered standing desk.”
…
The embedded tablet has a 7″ display and is powered by Autonomous’ own OS platform, and has both Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities so it can interact with the apps on your phone. It features many of its own shortcuts, too – you can make coffee, order food, check the weather, play Spotify playlists, and even request a ride from Uber. Because the tablet syncs with Google Calendar, it will remind you of any meetings you might have throughout the day. And in addition to all of that, SmartDesk 3 monitors how long you sit or stand and reminds you to either stretch your legs or take a break to relax when it feels you need it. After using the AI for a week or so, it will learn your habits – say, when you usually start getting hungry – and begin to anticipate your needs.

Autonomous' SmartDesk 3 in white

Unity Technologies unveils AI toolkit for training machine learning ‘agents’ — from therobotreport.com by Alex Beall

Excerpt:

Unity Technologies released the open beta version of its Unity Machine Learning Agents, an artificial intelligence toolkit developers and researchers can use to virtually train agents —whether video game characters, autonomous vehicles or robots.

“Machine learning is a disruptive technology that is important to all types of developers and researchers to make their games or systems smarter, but complexities and technical barriers make it out of reach for most,” vice president of AI and machine learning Danny Lange said in a press release. “This is an exciting new chapter in AI’s history as we are making an end-to-end machine learning environment widely accessible, and providing the critical tools needed to make more intelligent, beautiful games and applications. Complete with Unity’s physics engine and a 3D photorealistic rendering environment, our AI toolkit also offers a game-changing AI research platform to a rapidly growing community of AI enthusiasts exploring the frontiers of Deep Learning.”

How Chatbot Tech Takes Customer Service to the Next Level — from nojitter.com by Yaniv Reznik
A chatbot’s combination of personalized service and quick, efficient answers perfectly fits the needs of today’s digital consumers.

Excerpts:

Rather, today’s connected consumers want a seamless online experience that immediately allows them to self-serve when they have a quick question or choose a hybrid approach when they need that personal touch from a live representative.

Chatbots empower consumers to take charge of their own brand experience and efficiently get the answers they need. Consumers demand accuracy and convenience, and chatbots provide the perfect balance of speed, personalization, and human touch necessary for improved customer experiences.
…
The key to implementing chatbots that go beyond scripted responses is Natural Language Processing (NLP). Chatbots equipped with this advanced technology can understand situational context and can therefore get to the root of customer questions without putting customers on hold or redirecting them.

Addendum on 9/25/17:

One year later, Microsoft AI and Research grows to 8k people in massive bet on artificial intelligence — from geekwire.com by Todd Bishop

Excerpt:

One way to measure Microsoft’s AI bet: In its first year of operation, the AI and Research group has grown by 60 percent — from 5,000 people originally to nearly 8,000 people today — through hiring and acquisitions, and by bringing aboard additional teams from other parts of the company.

The creation of Microsoft AI and Research also underscores the intense competition in artificial intelligence. Microsoft is gearing up to compete against the likes of Google, Amazon, Salesforce, Apple, and countless AI startups and research groups, all of them looking to lead the tech industry in this new era of artificial intelligence.

Ikea’s New App Flaunts What You’ll Love Most About AR — from wired.com by Arielle Pardes

Excerpt:

Tap through the app’s catalogue of over 2,000 products—nearly the company’s full collection of umlauted sofas, armchairs, coffee tables, and storage units—then hold up your phone and use the camera to place the digital furniture anywhere in a room. Want to see how the Strandmon winged chair looks by the window? Done. Can you really squeeze in that 7-foot-long area rug? Open the app, point your camera at the floor, and watch it appear at scale. You can even place a futon where it would go in the guest room, then see what it looks like when it unfolds into a bed.

Ikea built the app with Apple’s ARKit, a developer toolkit created to usher in the augmented reality revolution on iOS devices. The app is free and available now, as long as your iPhone is updated to iOS 11.

.

Every ARKit app you can install right now — from imore.com by Russell Holly

Excerpt:

One of the biggest features to come to iOS 11 is ARKit, enabling developers to open up your world to a whole new kind of gaming and discovery system. Instead of being limited to the screen, you can play on surfaces big and small and you can play with others. The only thing limiting you right now is not knowing which ARKit apps are out there right now, so you can dive in and see which apps are your new favorite.

Searching Apple’s massive App Store can take a long time, so we’ve compiled a big friendly list for you to pick out the real winners!

Everything You Need to Know About Augmented Reality Now That It’s Invading Your Phone — from fieldguide.gizmodo.com by David Nield

Excerpt:

The majority of these apps are still at the demo stage for now, but it’s not difficult to see the potential. Games can take place in the real world, whether that’s on your living room floor or around your neighborhood, while you’ll be able to imagine anything from a new sofa to a new house extension through your phone’s camera.

Further down the line you’ll be able to point your phone at anything and get information overlaid about what you’re seeing with a whole new level of accuracy—the distance to the pin on a golf course, the current stats for players out on a baseball field, or precise directions to the store you need in the mall you’ve just got lost in. You can measure distances, land a rocket in your backyard, and so much more.

Of course AR (or “mixed reality”) headsets are going to provide a much more immersive experience and are a more natural fit than having to hold your phone or tablet in front of you to see anything in AR land. Until those headsets hit the mainstream though, ARKit and ARCore are about to introduce millions of people to the potential of augmented reality. Instead of looking down at your phone you’re going to be holding it up to access all the information of the internet with a swipe.

Amazon working on Alexa-powered smart glasses, says report — from theverge.com by Sam Byford
And a home security camera

Excerpt:

Amazon’s first wearable device will be a pair of smart glasses with the Alexa voice assistant built in, according to a report in the Financial Times. The device will reportedly look like a regular pair of glasses and use bone-conduction technology so that the user can hear Alexa without the need for earphones or conventional speakers. It won’t, however, likely have a screen or camera, although Google Glass founder Babak Parviz has apparently been working on the project following his hiring by Amazon in 2014.

What does Google want with HTC’s smartphone business? — from theguardian.com by Samuel Gibbs
Google is acquiring a $1bn chunk of HTC’s smartphone arm, including 2,000 employees and access to intellectual property, as it bets big on hardware

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Google has announced it’s acquiring a $1.1bn chunk of HTC’s smartphone business, and with it providing the once leading Taiwanese phone brand a much needed lifeline. But what does Google want with part of a smartphone business?

Google isn’t buying the whole of HTC, just a relatively large part of the Taipei-based company’s smartphone business and not its Vive virtual reality headset business. Google gains half of HTC’s research and development team – about 2,000 people – and a non-exclusive license for HTC’s intellectual property, allowing it to take advantage of some of HTC’s advances in smartphone technology.

HTC gets a cash injection, which will help it survive in some very competitive markets, and Google gets to continue its “big bet on hardware” according to Rick Osterloh, the company’s senior vice president for hardware.

It’s “a business decision to have access to one of the best R&D teams”, said Neil Shah, research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research. But it’s also “a sort of emotional decision to save its close partners”.

The Washington Post enhances in-app augmented reality experience — from washingtonpost.com

Excerpt:

The Washington Post today announced the launch of its first embedded augmented reality story. The Post built an industry-first embed code that lets users trigger an augmented reality experience with 3D visuals and audio narration.

“We were excited to be the first news publisher to support augmented reality in a news application, but for our second iteration in our iconic building series we needed to make augmented reality even simpler,” said Jeremy Gilbert, director of strategic initiatives at The Post. “We’ve been working to reduce the friction to make augmented reality as easily accessible as a photo gallery or a video—those are played inline and augmented reality should be too.”

After Successful Pilot Testing Ford Is Expanding Its HoloLens Program — from uploadvr.com by Jamie Feltham

Excerpt:

You can get a sense for what this expansion means in the video below. Ford has already been using HoloLens to help design new cars; bringing 3D models into the real world using the augmented reality headset. Now, however, the company is introducing new processes, like overlaying new features onto existing car models and creating guided tours of cars using voice recording. The company also says it’s developing new apps for better collaboration in AR.

Microsoft is now bringing blockchain mainstream for the financial industry.

On 09/12/2017, in Blockchain, change, Europe, future, game-changing environment, health, Microsoft, platforms, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Microsoft Enters Into Blockchain Contract with Hapoalim — from finance.yahoo.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Microsoft Corp. is fast gaining traction in blockchain technology. The company has made impressive progress in recent times through its deal with Accenture Plc ACN and the launch of Coco Framework for making blockchain-based systems faster and secure.

Microsoft is now bringing the technology mainstream for the financial industry. The company is reportedly collaborating with an Israeli lender, Bank Hapoalim for blockchain technology based digital bank guarantees.

Bank guarantees are a declaration of assurance from a bank that a debtor’s liabilities will be met if an obligation is not fulfilled. Notably, this combination of blockchain with bank guarantee will be the first of its kind in the Israel banking sector. This application, once deployed, will not require clients to visit the bank physically. The documentation process will be less time consuming and secure.

Also see:

Blockchain technology is moving into the shipping industry — with Microsoft and Maersk on board — from finance.yahoo.com by Ryan Browne

Excerpt:

The distributed ledger will be used to capture information about shipments, risk and liability, and to help firms comply with insurance regulations.It will also ensure transparency across an interconnected network of clients, brokers, insurers and other third parties. EY explained that its decision to secure marine insurance data with blockchain was due to a “complete inefficiency” in the sector.

Who Will Build the Health-Care Blockchain? — from technologyreview.com by Mike Orcutt
Decentralized databases promise to revolutionize medical records, but not until the health-care industry buys in to the idea and gets to work.

From DSC:
When you read the article below, notice how many times these CIO’s mention that they’re tapping into streams of content

How to stay current with emerging tech: CIO tips — from enterprisersproject.com by Carla Rudder
CIOs from Target, CVS Health, GE, and others share strategies for keeping up with the latest technologies

Excerpts:

I spend a fair amount of time looking at LinkedIn and Twitter. I’m particular about what I subscribe to. I see what people are interested in, so these social networks are good sources of information.
…
First, I set up Google alerts on topics that are of interest to me. I can skim these daily to keep abreast of what’s happening.
…
On the top-down side, I employ some different tactics. For example, I love using the Flipboard app to find relevant technology new stories targeted to my preferences. Also, I enjoy reading as much as I can about management and macro trends in technology and society.
…
First, pick some new media and follow it regularly. Examples that come to mind are Quartz, Vox, and Slate. Then, seek a balanced perspective from traditional media like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Economist.
…
When I can’t get out to conferences, I watch TED Talks. In fact, I watch a lot of talks that have nothing to do with IT, but they certainly help with leadership.

World’s first AR messenger; the top 5 VR and AR apps for architects; Dell makes a VR Visor

On 08/28/2017, in A/V -- audio/visual, architecture, Augmented Reality (AR), collaboration, communications, ideas, innovation, learning spaces, Microsoft, platforms, smart classrooms, social media, tools, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, visualizing information, by Daniel Christian

Augray, An Augmented Reality Company Has Launched World’s First AR Messenger — from tada-time.com; with thanks to Mr. Woontack Woo for this resource

Excerpt:

Never before has there been a messenger app based only on AR.

Just by downloading the app with a selfie, you will get your avatar and up get to customize them! There are many clothing and style options to fit your personality and mood. Don’t worry, you can change their appearance at any time. Once you create your digital you, you will place them in any environment around you, with the default animation’s audio or with your own voice, you really make your avatar come alive. You can record the actions in the real world, record, and chat with your friends and family or post them in the inbuilt social media for everyone to see your creative recording or the to experience your digital you in their world! This app will change your social life for the better.

The Top 5 Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Apps for Architects — from archdaily.com by Lidija Grozdanic for Archipreneur.com; again, with thanks to Mr. Woontack Woo for this resource

Excerpt:

Virtual reality and augmented reality tools for the AEC industry are getting increasingly better and more optimized. As prices keep dropping, there are fewer reasons why every architect, engineer, contractor, and owner shouldn’t use some form of VR/AR in bringing their projects to life.

From being a novelty a few years ago, VR/AR solutions are slowly becoming a medium that’s transforming the way professionals in the AEC industry communicate, create and experience content. Offering a more immersive experience of architectural designs, but also products and areas related to space building, VR and AR tools are becoming an industry standard that offers rapid iterations and opportunity to refine designs in collaboration with clients and colleagues.

Dell makes a VR Visor to go with its Alienware laptops — from engadget.com by Andrew Tarantola
It’ll retail for $349 when it goes on sale in October.

Addendums:
Microsoft’s new partnership with Valve looks like a win-win — from businessinsider.com by Matt Weinberger

Excerpt:

Cheap VR headsets, priced at around $300, are coming to Windows 10 later this year
Microsoft just announced those headsets will support apps and games from the Steam platform, which will greatly expand selection. Plus, Microsoft says it’s working on “Halo” content for virtual reality.
The VR headsets will work with less powerful computers, potentially expanding the market.

Virtual reality, real rewards in higher ed — from universitybusiness.com by Jennifer Fink
Using augmented and virtual reality to attract students and engage donors

5 items re: blockchain — which could be key for business, lifelong learning, & higher education as well

On 08/16/2017, in 21st century, Blockchain, business, change, computer science, corporate / business world, emerging technologies, Microsoft, platforms, programming, society, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Microsoft and Intel unite to bring blockchain to businesses with Coco Framework – from digitaltrends.com by Lulu Chang

Excerpt:

You still may not know what bitcoin is, but soon, you could be working with the technology that powers the cryptocurrency. Intel and Microsoft are working together to bring blockchain into the workplace, and it’s all contingent on a new framework they’re calling Coco. Heralded as a first-of-its-kind innovation, the goal is to jumpstart widespread adoption, particularly among businesses, of blockchain technology. After all, blockchain allows for secure and speedy transactions, which are key to many modern businesses.

As Microsoft noted in a news release, the Coco Framework is meant to reduce the complexity currently associated with blockchain protocol technology. As such, the company notes, the framework could pave the way for “more complex, real-world blockchain scenarios across industries — like financial services, supply chain and logistics, healthcare and retail — further proving blockchain’s potential to digitally transform business.”

Blockchain technology may seem a bit foreign to most, but Microsoft and Intel are hoping to bring it to businesses around the world.

The Platform Chronicles: 10 Questions with Phil Komarny, Chief Digital Officer at the Institute for Transformational Learning at UTx — from medium.com by Bruce Richardson
On the first blockchain app on Salesforce and the pursuit of lifelong learning

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Welcome to the The Platform Chronicles, a new publication designed to introduce readers to some of the most innovative partners that have developed applications on the Salesforce platform. This issue focuses on Phil Komarny and UTx’s plans to dramatically change Higher Ed.

Question #1
Phil, Can you tell us more about the University of Texas’ Institute for Transformational Learning and its relationship with Salesforce?

At the Institute for Transformational Learning we are charged with developing technologies that will power the delivery of educational experiences for our 215,000 students. Though this work we have created a platform that leverages a persistent profile of each of our learners. The platform, Totelic, also has the potential to integrate with each of our 14 campuses student information and learning management systems.

Thinking deeply about the learner’s lifelong journey, we also created a data model that places the learner at the center of the experience. Using Salesforce as our CRM we are afforded a 360-degree view of each learner. The data that resides in many siloed data stores on every campus today has now been wrapped around each learner to create a digital reflection of their abilities and goals.

A quick insert of a graphic from DSC:

…

Instead of replacing the ERP systems, we enhance them with our integrations so that each of our campuses has an innovation engine at their disposal. Creating new experiences for learners like modular certificates that stack toward a larger credential over time is now a reality for our campus partners.

(Editor’s note: Totelic was created by the UTX Institute for Transformational Learning, and is a “Learner Relationship Management” (LRM) system?—?that is basically a learning environment-agnostic dashboard that monitors a learner’s progress through any connected learning experience, e.g., a 3-credit course taught in Blackboard or a Salesforce Trailhead module. It normalizes the data stream and feeds a few algorithms that provide motivational guidance and track pace, progress and overall performance. It also has an integrated service model that leverages Salesforce communities to provide connection for everything from mentoring to events.)

…
Blockchains are being used for many things today. From crypto currency to tracking shipping containers and diamonds, the immutability, security and validity of this distributed data store create a new way to think through our current business process, policies and laws of any enterprise.

At a recent event at MIT, The Business of Blockchain, I was stunned to see each vertical represented with one omission?—?education.

After reading Phillip Schmidt’s Medium post about work they were doing at the MIT Media Lab that would effectively store any fellow’s digital credential to a blockchain, I envisioned how that approach might work for our platform.

While on a hike, I was pondering the application and the ChainScript was born. This application would be able to provide every learner in our system a way to own, manage and share a record of their academic accomplishments by storing their information on a blockchain.

To validate this approach we have created our proof of concept as private blockchain to allow us to focus on the different applications of the technology before we take the solutions to a different fabric.

Microsoft is working on its own commercial blockchain framework, expected to arrive in 2018 — from geekwire.com by Tom Krazit

Excerpt:

Starting next year, Microsoft plans to release an open-source framework that will allow businesses to implement blockchain technologies as part of their business processes.

The project, known as the Coco Framework, aims to help companies use blockchain ledger technologies to facilitate transactions between customers, suppliers, or anyone with whom they do business. Coco Framework will work with any ledger protocol and can run on any cloud provider’s services or on on-premises servers, Microsoft representatives said. The company plans to release more details on its approach later on Thursday.

Blockchain is the underlying technology behind the Bitcoin digital currency, but it has lots of other potential uses that have technologists and venture capitalists excited. It allows users to keep a record of transactions (or really anything that transpires between different entities) in a secure, decentralized “ledger.” Think of it like a database that isn’t tied to a server or public cloud, but rather a cascade of data points that work together to continuously update and verify a record of activity.

The Truth About Blockchain — from hbr.org by Marco Iansiti and Karim Lakhani

Excerpt:

The parallels between blockchain and TCP/IP are clear. Just as e-mail enabled bilateral messaging, bitcoin enables bilateral financial transactions. The development and maintenance of blockchain is open, distributed, and shared—just like TCP/IP’s. A team of volunteers around the world maintains the core software. And just like e-mail, bitcoin first caught on with an enthusiastic but relatively small community.

TCP/IP unlocked new economic value by dramatically lowering the cost of connections. Similarly, blockchain could dramatically reduce the cost of transactions. It has the potential to become the system of record for all transactions. If that happens, the economy will once again undergo a radical shift, as new, blockchain-based sources of influence and control emerge.*

* From DSC:
“What if…?” comes to mind here…

In a blockchain system, the ledger is replicated in a large number of identical databases, each hosted and maintained by an interested party. When changes are entered in one copy, all the other copies are simultaneously updated. So as transactions occur, records of the value and assets exchanged are permanently entered in all ledgers. There is no need for third-party intermediaries to verify or transfer ownership. If a stock transaction took place on a blockchain-based system, it would be settled within seconds, securely and verifiably. (The infamous hacks that have hit bitcoin exchanges exposed weaknesses not in the blockchain itself but in separate systems linked to parties using the blockchain.)

Microsoft Is Working to Make Blockchain Faster and More Popular — from finance.yahoo.com and Reuters

Excerpt:

Microsoft is working on technology that it believes can make blockchain-based systems faster and more private, as it looks to speed up use of the distributed database software by enterprises.

The company said on Thursday that it had developed a system called Coco Framework, which connects to different blockchain networks to solve some of the issues that have slowed down their adoption, including speed and privacy concerns.

Coco, whose names stands for Confidential Consortium, will be ready and made open source by 2018, Microsoft said.

It is currently compatible with Ethereum, one of the most popular types of blockchains and can make it roughly 100 times faster, Microsoft said.

Addendum on 8/17/17:

Augmented Reality Technology: A student creates the closest thing yet to a magic ring — from forbes.com by Kevin Murnane

Excerpt:

Nat Martin set himself the problem of designing a control mechanism that can be used unobtrusively to meld AR displays with the user’s real-world environment. His solution was a controller in the shape of a ring that can be worn on the user’s finger. He calls it Scroll. It uses the ARKit software platform and contains an Arduino circuit board, a capacitive sensor, gyroscope, accelerometer, and a Softpot potentiometer. Scroll works with any AR device that supports the Unity game engine such as Google Cardboard or Microsoft’s Hololens.

Also see:

Scroll from Nat on Vimeo.

Addendum on 8/15/17:

New iOS 11 ARKit Demo Shows Off Drawing With Fingers In Augmented Reality [Video] — from redmondpie.com by Oliver Haslam |

Excerpt:

When Apple releases iOS 11 to the public next month, it will also release ARKit for the first time. The framework, designed to make bringing augmented reality to iOS a reality was first debuted during the opening keynote of WWDC 2017 when Apple announced iOS 11, and ever since then we have been seeing new concepts and demos be released by developers.

Those developers have given us a glimpse of what we can expect when apps taking advantage of ARKit start to ship alongside iOS 11, and the latest of those is a demonstration in which someone’s finger is used to draw on a notepad.

Learning Ecosystems

Microsoft is now bringing blockchain mainstream for the financial industry.

5 items re: blockchain — which could be key for business, lifelong learning, & higher education as well

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