2 Corinthians 1:3-4 New International Version (NIV)
Praise to the God of All Comfort
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
1 Corinthians 13:13 New International Version (NIV)
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
“In a decade, Hymnary.org has become the most complete database of North American hymnody on the planet, a rich resource now visited by more than 5 million people each year!”
Hymnary.org was founded by Calvin College Computer Science Professor Harry Plantinga and Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Music Associate Greg Scheer.
A world without work — by Derek Thompson; The Atlantic — from July 2015
Excerpts:
Youngstown, U.S.A.
The end of work is still just a futuristic concept for most of the United States, but it is something like a moment in history for Youngstown, Ohio, one its residents can cite with precision: September 19, 1977.
For much of the 20th century, Youngstown’s steel mills delivered such great prosperity that the city was a model of the American dream, boasting a median income and a homeownership rate that were among the nation’s highest. But as manufacturing shifted abroad after World War II, Youngstown steel suffered, and on that gray September afternoon in 1977, Youngstown Sheet and Tube announced the shuttering of its Campbell Works mill. Within five years, the city lost 50,000 jobs and $1.3 billion in manufacturing wages. The effect was so severe that a term was coined to describe the fallout: regional depression.
Youngstown was transformed not only by an economic disruption but also by a psychological and cultural breakdown. Depression, spousal abuse, and suicide all became much more prevalent; the caseload of the area’s mental-health center tripled within a decade. The city built four prisons in the mid-1990s—a rare growth industry. One of the few downtown construction projects of that period was a museum dedicated to the defunct steel industry.
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“Youngstown’s story is America’s story, because it shows that when jobs go away, the cultural cohesion of a place is destroyed”…
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“The cultural breakdown matters even more than the economic breakdown.”
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But even leaving aside questions of how to distribute that wealth, the widespread disappearance of work would usher in a social transformation unlike any we’ve seen.
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What may be looming is something different: an era of technological unemployment, in which computer scientists and software engineers essentially invent us out of work, and the total number of jobs declines steadily and permanently.
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After 300 years of people crying wolf, there are now three broad reasons to take seriously the argument that the beast is at the door: the ongoing triumph of capital over labor, the quiet demise of the working man, and the impressive dexterity of information technology.
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The paradox of work is that many people hate their jobs, but they are considerably more miserable doing nothing.
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Most people want to work, and are miserable when they cannot. The ills of unemployment go well beyond the loss of income; people who lose their job are more likely to suffer from mental and physical ailments. “There is a loss of status, a general malaise and demoralization, which appears somatically or psychologically or both”…
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Research has shown that it is harder to recover from a long bout of joblessness than from losing a loved one or suffering a life-altering injury.
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Most people do need to achieve things through, yes, work to feel a lasting sense of purpose.
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When an entire area, like Youngstown, suffers from high and prolonged unemployment, problems caused by unemployment move beyond the personal sphere; widespread joblessness shatters neighborhoods and leaches away their civic spirit.
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What’s more, although a universal income might replace lost wages, it would do little to preserve the social benefits of work.
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“I can’t stress this enough: this isn’t just about economics; it’s psychological”…
The paradox of work is that many people hate their jobs, but they are considerably more miserable doing nothing.
From DSC:
Though I’m not saying Thompson is necessarily asserting this in his article, I don’t see a world without work as a dream. In fact, as the quote immediately before this paragraph alludes to, I think that most people would not like a life that is devoid of all work. I think work is where we can serve others, find purpose and meaning for our lives, seek to be instruments of making the world a better place, and attempt to design/create something that’s excellent. We may miss the mark often (I know I do), but we keep trying.
Psalm 86:5 New International Version (NIV)
5 You, Lord, are forgiving and good,
abounding in love to all who call to you.
A school bus, virtual reality, & an out-of-this-world journey — from goodmenproject.com
“Field Trip To Mars” is the barrier-shattering outcome of an ambitious mission to give a busload of people the same, Virtual Reality experience – going to Mars.
Excerpt:
Inspiration was Lockheed‘s goal when it asked its creative resources, led by McCann, to create the world’s first mobile group Virtual Reality experience. As one creator notes, VR now is essentially a private, isolating experience. But wouldn’t it be cool to give a busload of people the same, simultaneous VR experience? And then – just to make it really challenging – put the whole thing on wheels?
“Field Trip To Mars” is the barrier-shattering outcome of this ambitious mission.
From DSC:
This is incredible! Very well done. The visual experience tracks the corresponding speeds of the bus and even turns of the bus.
Ed Dept. Launches $680,000 Augmented and Virtual Reality Challenge — from thejournal.com by David Nagel
Excerpt:
The United States Department of Education (ED) has formally kicked off a new competition designed to encourage the development of virtual and augmented reality concepts for education.
Dubbed the EdSim Challenge, the competition is aimed squarely at developing students’ career and technical skills — it’s funded through the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 — and calls on developers and ed tech organizations to develop concepts for “computer-generated virtual and augmented reality educational experiences that combine existing and future technologies with skill-building content and assessment. Collaboration is encouraged among the developer community to make aspects of simulations available through open source licenses and low-cost shareable components. ED is most interested in simulations that pair the engagement of commercial games with educational content that transfers academic, technical, and employability skills.”
Virtual reality boosts students’ results — from raconteur.net b
Virtual and augmented reality can enable teaching and training in situations which would otherwise be too hazardous, costly or even impossible in the real world
Excerpt:
More recently, though, the concept described in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics has been bolstered by further scientific evidence. Last year, a University of Chicago study found that students who physically experience scientific concepts, such as the angular momentum acting on a bicycle wheel spinning on an axel that they’re holding, understand them more deeply and also achieve significantly improved scores in tests.
Virtual and augmented reality are shaking up sectors — from raconteur.net by Sophie Charara
Both virtual and augmented reality have huge potential to leap from visual entertainment to transform the industrial and service sectors
Microsoft’s HoloLens could power tanks on a battlefield — from theverge.com by Tom Warren
Excerpt:
Microsoft might not have envisioned its HoloLens headset as a war helmet, but that’s not stopping Ukrainian company LimpidArmor from experimenting. Defence Blog reports that LimpidArmor has started testing military equipment that includes a helmet with Microsoft’s HoloLens headset integrated into it.
The helmet is designed for tank commanders to use alongside a Circular Review System (CRS) of cameras located on the sides of armored vehicles. Microsoft’s HoloLens gathers feeds from the cameras outside to display them in the headset as a full 360-degree view. The system even includes automatic target tracking, and the ability to highlight enemy and allied soldiers and positions.
Bring your VR to work — from itproportal.com by Timo Elliott, Josh Waddell 4 hours ago
With all the hype, there’s surprisingly little discussion of the latent business value which VR and AR offer.
Excerpt:
With all the hype, there’s surprisingly little discussion of the latent business value which VR and AR offer — and that’s a blind spot that companies and CIOs can’t afford to have. It hasn’t been that long since consumer demand for the iPhone and iPad forced companies, grumbling all the way, into finding business cases for them. Gartner has said that the next five to ten years will bring “transparently immersive experiences” to the workplace. They believe this will introduce “more transparency between people, businesses, and things” and help make technology “more adaptive, contextual, and fluid.”
If digitally enhanced reality generates even half as much consumer enthusiasm as smartphones and tablets, you can expect to see a new wave of consumerisation of IT as employees who have embraced VR and AR at home insist on bringing it to the workplace. This wave of consumerisation could have an even greater impact than the last one. Rather than risk being blindsided for a second time, organisations would be well advised to take a proactive approach and be ready with potential business uses for VR and AR technologies by the time they invade the enterprise.
In Gartner’s latest emerging technologies hype cycle, Virtual Reality is already on the Slope of Enlightenment, with Augmented Reality following closely.
VR’s higher-ed adoption starts with student creation — from edsurge.com by George Lorenzo
Excerpt:
One place where students are literally immersed in VR is at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC). ETC offers a two-year Master of Entertainment Technology program (MET) launched in 1998 and cofounded by the late Randy Pausch, author of “The Last Lecture.”
MET starts with an intense boot camp called the “immersion semester” in which students take a Building Virtual Worlds (BVW) course, a leadership course, along with courses in improvisational acting, and visual storytelling. Pioneered by Pausch, BVW challenges students in small teams to create virtual reality worlds quickly over a period of two weeks, culminating in a presentation festival every December.
Apple patents augmented reality mapping system for iPhone — from appleinsider.com by Mikey Campbell
Apple on Tuesday was granted a patent detailing an augmented reality mapping system that harnesses iPhone hardware to overlay visual enhancements onto live video, lending credence to recent rumors suggesting the company plans to implement an iOS-based AR strategy in the near future.
A bug in the matrix: virtual reality will change our lives. But will it also harm us? — from theguardian.stfi.re
Prejudice, harassment and hate speech have crept from the real world into the digital realm. For virtual reality to succeed, it will have to tackle this from the start
The latest Disney Research innovation lets you feel the rain in virtual reality — from haptic.al by Deniz Ergurel
Excerpt:
Virtual reality is a combination of life-like images, effects and sounds that creates an imaginary world in front of our eyes.
But what if we could also imitate more complex sensations like the feeling of falling rain, a beating heart or a cat walking? What if we could distinguish, between a light sprinkle and a heavy downpour in a virtual experience?
Disney Research?—?a network of research laboratories supporting The Walt Disney Company, has announced the development of a 360-degree virtual reality application offering a library of feel effects and full body sensations.
Literature class meets virtual reality — from blog.cospaces.io by Susanne Krause
Not every student finds it easy to let a novel come to life in their imagination. Could virtual reality help? Tiffany Capers gave it a try: She let her 7th graders build settings from Lois Lowry’s “The Giver” with CoSpaces and explore them in virtual reality. And: they loved it.
James Bay students learn Cree syllabics in virtual reality — from cbc.ca by Celina Wapachee and Jaime Little
New program teaches syllabics inside immersive world, with friendly dogs and archery
VRMark will tell you if your PC is ready for Virtual Reality — from engadget.com by Sean Buckley
Benchmark before you buy.
Forbidden City Brings Archaeology to Life With Virtual Reality — from wsj.com
Will virtual reality change the way I see history? — from bbc.co.uk
Scientists can now explore cells in virtual reality — from mashable.com by Ariel Bogle
Excerpt:
After generations of peering into a microscope to examine cells, scientists could simply stroll straight through one.
Calling his project the “stuff of science fiction,” director of the 3D Visualisation Aesthetics Lab at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) John McGhee is letting people come face-to-face with a breast cancer cell.
Can Virtual Reality Make Us Care More? — from huffingtonpost.co.uk by Alex Handy
Excerpt:
In contrast, VR has been described as the “ultimate empathy machine.” It gives us a way to virtually put us in someone else’s shoes and experience the world the way they do.
Stanford researchers release virtual reality simulation that transports users to ocean of the future — from news.stanford.edu by Rob Jordan
Free science education software, available to anyone with virtual reality gear, holds promise for spreading awareness and inspiring action on the pressing issue of ocean acidification.
The High-end VR Room of the Future Looks Like This — from uploadvr.com by Sarah Downey
Excerpt:
This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, but if I missed something major, please tell me and I’ll add it. Also, please reach out if you’re working on anything cool in this space à sarah(at)accomplice(dot)co.
Hand and finger tracking, gesture interfaces, and grip simulation:
AR and VR viewers:
Omnidirectional treadmills:
Haptic feedback bodysuits:
Brain-computer interfaces:
Neural plugins:
3D tracking, capture, and/or rendering:
Eye tracking:
VR audio:
Scent creation:
The speakers — and the topics that they’ll be discussing — for the 2017 January Series have been announced. As you can see, very knowledgeable, talented speakers are planning on covering a variety of meaningful topics such as:
You don’t have to physically attend these presentations in order to benefit from them, as the majority of these presentations will be streamed live over the Internet (audio only). So plan now to attend (physically or virtually) one or more of these excellent talks.
Psalm 40:5 New International Version (NIV)
Many, LORD my God,
are the wonders you have done,
the things you planned for us.
None can compare with you;
were I to speak and tell of your deeds,
they would be too many to declare.
From DSC:
The second part of verse 5 here reminds me of a reflection from long ago, where I personalized this:
Like trying to see all of the stars in the sky, were I to try and thank the LORD for all of the things that He has done for my family and me, I would be able to see some of them, but certainly not all of them. So thank you LORD — whether I can see the works of your hands in our lives or not!
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Proverbs 27:1 New International Version (NIV)
Do not boast about tomorrow,
for you do not know what a day may bring.
Proverbs 27:17 New International Version (NIV)
As iron sharpens iron,
so one person sharpens another.
Proverbs 27:19 New International Version (NIV)
19 As water reflects the face,
so one’s life reflects the heart.
Established to study and formulate best practices on AI technologies, to advance the public’s understanding of AI, and to serve as an open platform for discussion and engagement about AI and its influences on people and society.
GOALS
Support Best Practices
To support research and recommend best practices in areas including ethics, fairness, and inclusivity; transparency and interoperability; privacy; collaboration between people and AI systems; and of the trustworthiness, reliability, and robustness of the technology.
Create an Open Platform for Discussion and Engagement
To provide a regular, structured platform for AI researchers and key stakeholders to communicate directly and openly with each other about relevant issues.
Advance Understanding
To advance public understanding and awareness of AI and its potential benefits and potential costs to act as a trusted and expert point of contact as questions/concerns arise from the public and others in the area of AI and to regularly update key constituents on the current state of AI progress.
From DSC:
The articles listed in this PDF document demonstrate the exponential pace of technological change that many nations across the globe are currently experiencing and will likely be experiencing for the foreseeable future. As we are no longer on a linear trajectory, we need to consider what this new trajectory means for how we:
One thought that comes to mind…when we’re moving this fast, we need to be looking upwards and outwards into the horizons — constantly pulse-checking the landscapes. We can’t be looking down or be so buried in our current positions/tasks that we aren’t noticing the changes that are happening around us.
Psalm 19:1-4 (New International Version)
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.
Virtual reality: The hype, the problems and the promise — from bbc.com by Tim Maughan
It’s the technology that is supposed to be 2016’s big thing, but what iteration of VR will actually catch on, and what’s just a fad? Tim Maughan takes an in-depth look.
Excerpt:
For Zec this is one of VR’s most promising potentials – to be able to drop audiences into a situation and force them to react emotionally, in ways that traditional filmmaking or journalism might struggle to do. “We really cannot understand what the people [in Syria and other places] right now are going through, so I thought maybe if we put the viewer inside the shoes of the family, or near them, maybe they can feel more and understand more rather than just reading a headline in a newspaper.”
The aim of Blackout is to challenge assumptions New Yorkers might have about the people around them, by allowing them to tap directly into their thoughts. “You’re given the ability to pick into people’s minds and their motives,” says co-creator Alex Porter. “Through that process you start to realise the ways in which you were wrong about all the people around you, and start to find these kind of exciting stories that they have to tell.”
From DSC:
Virtual Reality could have a significant impact in diversity training. (I don’t like the word diversity too much; as in my experience, everybody in the Fortune 5oo companies where I worked belonged in the realm of diversity except for Christians, but I’ll use it here anyway.)
The point is…when you can put yourself into someone else’s shoes, it could have some positive impact in terms of better being able to relate to what that person is going through.
Star Trek in VR – Why can’t we do this with VR in education? — from digitalbodies.net by Maya Georgieva
Excerpt:
What if there was a new way to start this journey? What if you walked into the room and boarded a starship instead? What would a school experience be like if we sent our students on a mission, joining a global team to learn and solve our world’s most pressing problems? What if they met in Virtual Reality? For example, literally experiencing the streets of Paris if they were studying French culture or urban planning. Examining first hand the geology of volcanoes or building the next generation transportation? What would happen if they are given a problem they could not answer on their own, a problem that requires collaboration and teamwork with colleagues to find a solution?
Here is how VR and AI can empower the future of learning. The Star Trek: Bridge Crew VR Game gives us a glimpse of how we can engage with our students. Or, as Levar Burton (Geordi La Forge from Engineering) in the video trailer puts it:
There is something different being in a shared virtual environment . . . The team does not succeed unless everybody does their job well.
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In the true spirit of Star Trek it is through cooperation rather than competition that we learn best. In VR, you can sit on any of the crew chairs and be the captain, engineer, or doctor and experience events from very different point of views. In Star Trek: Bridge Crew, you are flying the ship but have to work collaboratively with your team. You have to work with your crew to reach goals and accomplish the mission as this is virtual reality as a social experience. It demands that you be fully engaged.
Not just for gamers: CSU launching Virtual Reality Initiative — from source.colostate.edu by Lauren Klamm
Excerpt:
Think “virtual reality,” and it’s probably video gaming that comes to mind. CSU is looking to expand the breadth and depth of this emerging technical field with a campus-wide Virtual Reality Initiative, launching this semester.
The initiative will give students and the science community hands-on experience with virtual reality, for research and educational applications.
Virtual reality (VR) is a way of experiencing virtual worlds or objects – the cockpit of a spaceship, an anatomy lesson, a walk through a historical building – through devices like computers, goggles or headsets designed to immerse someone in a simulated environment. VR touches fields ranging from design to art to engineering.
VR Learning: How Virtual Reality Will Democratize Learning — from iamvr.co
Excerpt:
In case you haven’t heard, there is a lot of hype right now about virtual and augmented reality. Three months into 2016, investors have already spent 1.1 billion dollars to get a piece of the action.
Still, I am confident that virtual reality will revolutionize how we learn, and the reason is simple. Virtual reality is not just a technology, it’s a medium. And I’ve seen how powerful that medium can be.
A Chinese surgeon has discovered a practical application for augmented reality in the medical field. Using the same technology by which a Pokemon character is layered onto a real-life setting, two surgical images can be combined into a single view, eliminating the need for surgeons to watch two separate screens simultaneously.
Catherine Chan Po-ling, a surgeon in Hong Kong and co-founder of MedEXO Robotics, says that the use of augmented reality technology in keyhole, or minimally invasive, surgery can solve one of the biggest problems for surgeons performing these procedures.
Currently, surgeons in keyhole procedures must create and view two images simultaneously. In Chan’s example, when checking for cancerous cells in the liver, the surgeon operates a regular camera showing a view of the surface of the liver, and at the same time operates an ultrasound probe to check beneath the surface of the liver.
Stanford Journalism Program’s Guide to Using Virtual Reality for Storytelling — from storybench.org by Geri Migielicz and Janine Zacharia
Excerpt:
Given the explosion of interest in virtual reality among media organizations, we sought in January to establish best practices and ideal scenarios for using the technology in storytelling through our inaugural immersive journalism class at Stanford University.
During the 10-week course, 12 undergraduate and graduate students evaluated a range of virtual reality experiences published by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ABC News and others. We compared commercially available virtual reality headsets (Google Cardboard, HTC Vive, Samsung Gear/VR and Oculus Rift) for ease and quality as well as virtual reality cameras — the (more expensive but expansive) GoPro and the (more affordable) Ricoh Theta S.
12 ways to use Google Cardboard in your class — from ditchthattextbook.com
Excerpt:
Virtual reality used to be the thing of science fiction books and movies. Now, it’s inexpensive, works with the technology we carry in our pockets, and can transform us to real and imaginary places.
These 5 Incredible HoloLens Videos Will Make You A VR/AR Believer — from uploadvr.com
Upload And Make School Graduate Their First Class Of VR Developers — from uploadvr.com
