New report lays out its 2040 vision of the workplace of the future — from workplaceinsight.net b

Excerpt:

By 2040 knowledge workers will decide where and how they want to work, according to a new report on the workplace of the future by Johnson Controls’ Global Workplace Solutions business. The Smart Workplace 2040 report claims that 25 years from now, work will be seen as something workers do, rather than a place to which they commute. According to the study, work patterns will be radically different as  a new generation of what it terms ‘workspace consumers’ choose their time and place of work. Most workers will frequently work from home, and will choose when to visit work hubs to meet and network with others. There will be no set hours and the emphasis will be on getting work done, while workers’ wellness will take priority. Technology will bring together networks of individuals who operate in an entrepreneurial way, with collaboration the major driver of business performance.

Also see:
Smart Workplace 2040: The rise of the workspace consumer — from JohnsonControls.com

SmartWorkPlace-2040-RiseOfWorkspaceConsumer-June2015

Executive Summary
Corporate organizations are still considering the workplace as delivering a strong identity and more than ever as a marketing weapon, creating and sustaining their corporate identity. The intensity of performance level improvements increased significantly over the past ten years, accelerating the pace of work through the combined power of technology and personalized, choice-based software solutions.

The presence of technology in every aspect of our life in 2040 is predominating our way of living. The workplace of 2040 is far more agile, the presence of technology is ultra predominant and human beings are highly reliant on it. Yet the technology is “shy”, not intrusive, transparent, and highly reliable – no failure is neither, not a possibility nor an option:

  • The home (the Hive) is a hyper connected and adaptive, responsive to the environment and its users, supporting multiple requirements simultaneously
  • Complex software applications will suggest to users what they should do to maximise performance, not miss any important deadlines, and make sure she allocates enough time for important tasks that are not necessarily urgent
  • End user services are autonomous, proactive and designed around enhancing the user experience
  • In an ubiquitously networked world, true offline time is both a luxury and a necessity. Being physically present is perceived as more authentic, a privilege
  • Adaptive white noise technology makes it possible to have a first rate telepresence session in an open environment
  • The whole DIY movement is experiencing a tremendous boost – people are literally building their own products, bought through their smartphones using mobile web applications, and printed on demand
  • Lower costs of energy and unmanned vehicles in combination with high costs of owning your own vehicle, plus high parking costs in densely populated megacities, benefits new sharing regimes.

In the context of the new world of work in 2040, we are contemplating a new world of work in an Eco Campus:

CHOICE: deciding where and how we want to work
ADAPTABILITY: adapting our working pattern to meet private needs and family constraints
WORK: entrepreneurship is the norm
LOCATION: deciding who we work with and how
WORKPLACE: access to “Trophy Workplaces” so going to the “office” is a luxury, a reward
SERVICES: offering real time services, catering to peak demands
WELLNESS: privileging wellness over work
NETWORK: reliance on an extremely wide network of experts to carry out our work

 

While Corporate Soldiers still remain major actors in organisations, we are seeing a significant rise of entrepreneurial behaviours, transforming employees into a new breed of workers focused on achieving great results through their work activities as well as achieving wellbeing in their private life. Going to “work” is therefore accessible through a complex model of locations, spread across an Eco Campus, accessible less than 20 miles away from home…

 

Google has shipped over 1 million Cardboard VR units — from techcrunch.com by Darrell Etherington

Excerpt:

Google revealed today that Cardboard has quietly become the leading VR platform in terms of platform reach – over 1 million Cardboard units have shipped to users so far, a 100 percent increase on the 500,000 milestone it announced in December last year.

Cardboard’s progression is a testament to Google’s approach, which favors simplicity and low barriers to entry instead of freaky real verisimilitude and expensive, high-powered hardware. Google first revealed Cardboard at last year’s I/O event, throwing it out there almost as an afterthought and a seeming subtle dig at Facebook’s high-priced acquisition of Oculus VR.

 

 

Google’s Project Brillo is an OS for the home — and a lot more — from computerworld.com by Zach Miners

Excerpt:

Google has made a big play for the Internet of Things, announcing a new OS on Thursday that will connect appliances around the home and allow them to be controlled from an Android smartphone or tablet.

Dubbed Project Brillo, it’s a stripped down version of Google’s Android OS that will run on door locks, ovens, heating systems and other devices that have a small memory footprint, and allow them to communicate and work together.

 

Google takes another shot at mobile payments with Android Pay — from techcrunch.com by Kyle Russell

Excerpt:

At its I/O developer conference today, Google announced Android Pay, a new payments solution native to its mobile operating system. In addition to making it easier to pay at a merchant’s point of sale via NFC, the new system lets merchants integrate payments directly into their apps for selling physical goods and services using an Android Pay API rather than integrating a third-party provider like Venmo or PayPal.

 

Google launches Android M preview with fingerprint scanner support, Android Pay, improved permissions and battery life
— from techcrunch.com by Frederic Lardinois

Excerpt:

As expected, Google today announced the developer preview release of the next version of Android at its I/O developer conference in San Francisco. With Android M (which will get its full name once it’s released to users), Google focuses mostly on fit and finish, but the company also added a number of new features to its mobile operating system. It’s no surprise that Android M won’t feature any major new design elements. The last release, Android Lollipop, introduced Google’s Material Design language, after all, and there are still plenty of developers who haven’t even migrated their apps over.

 

Android M will be able to give you contextual info about what’s happening in your Android Apps — from techcrunch.com by Frederic Lardinois

Excerpt:

Google Now has long helped Android users get timely information about local traffic, movies that are playing locally and other information based on their commutes, browsing history and other data. With Android M, which Google announced today, the Now service is getting even smarter and more contextual. When you tap and hold the home button in Android M, Google will grab the information from the application you are using at that moment and Now will try to give you the right contextual information about what you are looking at in that app. Google Calls This ‘Google Now on Tap.’

 

Chromecast gets autoplay, queuing, second screen and multiplayer game powers — from techcrunch.com by Darrell Etherington

Excerpt:

Google’s Chromecast is a quiet little media secret agent turning the search giant into a big time home entertainment player. All told, users of Cast-enabled software have hit the little button to put their small-screen content up on the big screen a total of 1.5 billion times in the U.S. alone, and Chromecast floats other Google boats, too – users increase their YouTube viewing time by 45 percent on average once they start using the device, for instance.

Chromecast (and Cast-enabled devices, including the Nexus Player and the Nvidia Shield) is about to get more powerful, thanks to a handful of new features announced at I/O this year. These new abilities turn the streamer into a much more robust media device, making it easy to see how Cast could underpin the home theater or media room of the near future. Here’s what Chromecast developers and users can look forward to coming out of this year’s show:

 

Google Play gets more family-friendly with content ratings, filtering by age and interest — from techcrunch.com by Sarah Perez

Excerpt:

In April, Google announced a new developer-facing program called “Designed for Families” which allowed mobile app publishers the option to undergo an additional review in order to be included in a new section focused on kids’ apps within Google Play. Today, the company officially unveiled that section — or sections, as it turns out — at its I/O developer conference.

Parents searching Google’s mobile app store will now be able to tap on a new “Family” button indicated with a green, smiley faced star icon in order to find the family-friendly content across apps, games, movies and TV homepages.

There’s also a “Children’s Books” button on the Books homepage, where parents can also filter the selection by age range and genre.

 

Google’s new Cloud Test Lab lets Android developers quickly test their apps on top Android devices for free — from techcrunch.com by Frederic Lardinois

Excerpt:

Google launched a new project at its I/O developer conference today that will make it easier for developers to check how their mobile apps work on twenty of the most popular Android devices from around the world. Sadly, the service will only roll out to developers later this year, but if you are interested, you can sign up to join the pilot program here.

It’s no secret that the diverse Android ecosystem makes life harder for developers, given that they can’t simply test their apps on a small number of popular devices and assume that everything will run smoothly for all users. Most developers keep a few phones and tablets handy to test their apps on, but few have access to a wide variety of recent devices to test every revision of their apps on.

 

google-io-20150241

 

 

Google Photos breaks free of Google+, now offers free, unlimited storage — from techcrunch.com by Sarah Perez

Excerpt:

Google officially announced its long-rumored revamp of its photo-sharing service, Google Photos, at its I/O developer conference in San Francisco today. The killer feature? Users can now backup up full-resolution photos and videos – up to 16MP for photos and 1080p for videos – to Google’s cloud for free. The service will roll out to Android, iOS and web users starting today, the company says.

The free storage option makes more sense for those with point-and-shoot cameras, and lets you keep a copy of your photos that’s good for your typical printing and photo-sharing needs. However, those with DSLR cameras or who want to store their photos and videos in their original sizes can choose a different plan which taps into your Google Account’s 15 GB of free storage. This is what was available before, and you can add to your storage quota as needed for a fee.

 

Android developer news from Google I/O 2015 — from lynda.com by David Gassner

Excerpt:

The keynote featured a smorgasbord of new technologies and additions/improvements to existing platforms. A stream of presenters followed each other across the stage, each talking about what was new for 2015. They covered Android, Chrome, and Chromebooks, virtual reality, 360-degree camera arrays, a stripped-down version of Android for the internet of things, and many other geeky new toys. Here’s what’s coming to an Android device or Android developer workstation near you.

Google I/O 2015: How context is slowly killing off the mobile app menu — from zdnet.com by Kevin Tofel
Summary: Google’s new Now On Tap feature, coming with Android M, shows a future where you don’t hunt through home screens and menus to find an app. The right apps come to you.

 
 

7 collaboration opportunities beyond the display — from avnetwork.com by Carolyn Heinze

Excerpt:

Traditionally—as in just a couple of years ago—collaboration was relatively limited to the display: from their laptops, participants in a meeting space could throw up documents and images onto a main display for everyone to see and, eventually, annotate. The prevalence of BYOD and scattered workforces brought mobile into the mix, enabling those who couldn’t physically attend a session to collaborate remotely, transforming smartphones and tablets into, if not primary, but secondary displays. As professionals grow increasingly comfortable incorporating these tools into their workflow, the concept of collaboration has expanded past the display and into the nitty-gritty of how organizations operate.
 

2015SpeakUp

 

Click here to download the PDF of the report.
Click here to view the report in HTML.

 

Also see:

Key findings from [the April 30th, 2015 Project Tomorrow] briefing include — from projecttomorrowblog.blogspot.com

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

  • When students have access to technology as part of their learning, especially school-provided or enabled technology, their use of the digital tools and resources is deeper and more sophisticated.
  • The availability of online learning continues to increase with only 27 percent of high school principals reporting that they are not yet offering any online courses for students. Interest among students continues to grow, with 24% of high school students saying they wish they could take all their classes online – a large increase from 8% in 2013.
  • Almost three-quarters of students with school-provided devices as well as students with limited or non-existent technology access at school agreed that every student should be able to use a mobile device during the school day for learning.
  • Students connect the use of technology tools within learning to the development of college, career, and citizenship skills that will empower their future capabilities.
  • Digital experiences for students in a 100 percent virtual environment are much different than those in traditional schools. For instance, 72 percent of high school students in virtual schools take online tests, compared with 58 percent of traditional students.
  • Students see the smartphone as the ideal device for communicating with teachers (46%) and classmates (72%) and for social media (64%).
  • A gender bias exists in STEM interest –middle school girls are 38% less likely and high school girls are 32% less likely than their male peers to say they are very interested in a STEM career.

 

Excerpt from Press Release (emphasis DSC):

Students Report Digital Learning Supports Goals of Self-Directed and Collaborative Education, National Survey Finds
Nearly 60 Percent of High School Students Report Using Their Own Mobile Devices in School for Learning
Report Explores Differences Among Students in Blended Learning, Online Learning, STEM Learning and School-Sponsored Mobile Device Environments

Washington, D.C. – The ultimate learning experience for students is both highly collaborative and extremely personalized, supported by mobile devices and digital content, reports Project Tomorrow in their latest Speak Up report.

Over the last few years of the Speak Up survey, more students and administrators have signaled the importance of being able to access mobile devices in the classroom, whether through Bring Your Own Device policy consideration and implementation or through school-provided technology. This year, nearly half of teachers (47 percent) said their students have regular access to mobile devices in their classrooms. Among high school students, 58 percent said they now use their own mobile device at school to support learning activities.

 

From DSC:
This is a great pulse check on students’ use of ed tech — and on some things that they might be coming to expect.

 

Preparing for the Digital University: A review of the history & current state of distance, blended, & online learning - Siemens, Gasevic, Dawson

 

 Excerpt:

It is our intent that these reports will serve to introduce academics, administrators, and students to the rich history of technology in education with a particular emphasis of the importance of the human factors: social interaction, well-designed learning experiences, participatory pedagogy, supportive teaching presence, and effective techniques for using technology to support learning.

The world is digitizing and higher education is not immune to this transition. The trend is well underway and seems to be accelerating as top universities create departments and senior leadership positions to explore processes of innovation within the academy. It is our somewhat axiomatic assessment that in order to understand how we should design and develop learning for the future, we need to first take a look at what we already know. Any scientific enterprise that runs forward on only new technology, ignoring the landscape of existing knowledge, will be sub-optimal and likely fail. To build a strong future of digital learning in the academy, we must first take stock of what we know and what has been well researched.

During the process of completing this report, it became clear to us that a society or academic organization is required to facilitate the advancement and adoption of digital learning research. Important areas in need of exploration include faculty development, organizational change, innovative practices and new institutional models, effectiveness of teaching and learning activities, the student experience, increasing success for all students, and state and provincial policies, strategies, and funding models. To address this need, we invite interested academics, administrators, government and industry to contact us to discuss the formation of an organization to advocate for a collaborative and research informed approach to digital learning.

February 2015
George Siemens
Dragan Gasevic
Shane Dawson

 

New from Educause:
Higher Ed IT Buyers Guide

 

HEITBuyersGuideEducauseApril2015

 

Excerpt:

Quickly search 50+ product and service categories, access thousands of IT solutions specific to the higher ed community, and send multiple RFPs—all in one place. This new Buyers Guide provides a central, go-to online resource for supporting your key purchasing decisions as they relate to your campus’s strategic IT initiatives.

Find the Right Vendors for Higher Education’s Top Strategic Technologies

Three of the Top 10 Strategic Technologies identified by the higher education community this year are mobile computing, business intelligence, and business performance analytics.* The new Buyers Guide connects you to many of the IT vendors your campus can partner with in the following categories related to these leading technologies, as well as many more.

View all 50+ product and service categories.

 

DesignInTechReport-Maeda-March2015

Published on Mar 15, 2015

 

Description (emphasis DSC):

Design has become a game changer in Silicon Valley. Last year, John Maeda joined KPCB as the firm’s first Design Partner, joining from his role as the President of the Rhode Island School of Design. Now, in his inaugural #DesignInTech Report, Maeda highlights the rising importance of design in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Drawing on extensive research and his own conversations with hundreds of designers, Maeda examines the intersection of design and technology. The report covers trends ranging from the record amounts of funding flowing into design-led startups to M&A activity with major tech corporations. Beyond designers and technologists, the report will appeal to a broad audience. For all of us who use a computer or mobile device, great design is changing how we live and work. This report helps explain why.

 

Nine creative firms have been atypically acquired by companies known for tech like Facebook, Flextronics, Googe, and GlobalLogin; also Accenture and Capital One.

Tech companies, and investors, are increasingly seeing the value of designers who know how to work with and within the constraints of the tech industry.

Design in VC is not about pretty — it’s about relevance.

 

Technology predictions for the second half of the decade — from techcrunch.com by Lance Smith

Excerpts:

  • Big Data and IoT evolve into automated information sharing
  • Self-driving vehicles become mainstream
  • The appearance of artificial intelligent assistants
  • Real-time agility through data virtualization

 

 

EdTech trends for the coming years — from edtechreview.in

Excerpts:

EdTech is about to explode. The coming technology and the new trends on the rise can’t but forecast an extensive technology adoption in schools all around the globe.

Specific apps, systems, codable gadgets and the adaptation of general use elements to the school environment are engaging teachers and opening up the way to new pedagogical approaches. And while we are scratching the surface of some of them, others have just started to buzz persistently.

  • Wearables + Nano/Micro Technology + the Internet of Things
  • 3D + 4D printing
  • Big Data + Data Mining
  • Mobile Learning
  • Coding
  • Artificial Intelligence + Deep Learning
    • Adaptative learning: based on a student’s behaviour and results, an intelligent assistant can predict and readapt the learning path to those necessities. Combined with biometrics and the ubiquitous persona (explained below) a student could have the best experience ever.
    • Automatic courses on the fly, with contents collected by intelligent searching systems (data mining).
    • Virtual tutors.
  • The Ubiquitous Persona + Gamification + Social Media Learning
  • Specialised Staff in Schools

 

 

Phones and wearables will spur tenfold growth in wireless data by 2019 — from recode.net

Excerpts:

Persistent growth in the use of smartphones, plus the adoption of wireless wearable devices, will cause the total amount of global wireless data traffic to rise by 10 times its current levels by 2019, according to a forecast by networking giant Cisco Systems out [on 2/3/15].

The forecast, which Cisco calls its Visual Networking Index, is based in part on the growth of wireless traffic during 2014, which Cisco says reached 30 exabytes, the equivalent of 30 billion gigabytes. If growth patterns remain consistent, Cisco’s analysts reckon, the wireless portion of traffic crossing the global Internet will reach 292 exabytes by the close of the decade.

 

 

9 ed tech trends to watch in 2015 — from the Jan/Feb edition of Campus Technology Magazine

  1. Learning spaces
  2. Badges
  3. Gamification
  4. Analytics
  5. 3D Printing
  6. Openness
  7. Digital
  8. Consumerization
  9. Adaptive & Personalized Learning

 

 

 

Even though I’ve mentioned it before, I’ll mention it again here because it fits the theme of this posting:

NMC Horizon Report > 2015 Higher Education Edition — from nmc.org

Excerpt:

What is on the five-year horizon for higher education institutions? Which trends and technologies will drive educational change? What are the challenges that we consider as solvable or difficult to overcome, and how can we strategize effective solutions? These questions and similar inquiries regarding technology adoption and educational change steered the collaborative research and discussions of a body of 56 experts to produce the NMC Horizon Report: 2015 Higher Education Edition, in partnership with the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). The NMC Horizon Report series charts the five-year horizon for the impact of emerging technologies in learning communities across the globe. With more than 13 years of research and publications, it can be regarded as the world’s longest-running exploration of emerging technology trends and uptake in education.

 

 



From DSC:
Speaking of trends…although this item isn’t necessarily technology related, I’m going to include it here anyway:

Career trends students should be watching in 2015 — from hackcollege.com by

Excerpt:

Students Need to Pay Attention to Broader Trends, and Get Ready.
For better or worse, the post-college world is changing.

According to a variety of analysis sites, including Forbes, Time, and Bing Predicts, more and more of the workforce will be impacted by increased entrepreneurship, freelancing, work-from-home trends, and non-traditional career paths.

These experts are saying that hiring practices will shift, meaning that students need to prepare LinkedIn profiles, online portfolio, work at internships, and to network to build relationships with potential future employers.

———-

 

Addendum on 3/6/15:
Self-driving car technology could end up in robots — from pcworld.com by Fred O’Connor

Excerpt:

The development of self-driving cars could spur advancements in robotics and cause other ripple effects, potentially benefitting society in a variety of ways.

Autonomous cars as well as robots rely on artificial intelligence, image recognition, GPS and processors, among other technologies, notes a report from consulting firm McKinsey. Some of the hardware used in self-driving cars could find its way into robots, lowering production costs and the price for consumers.

Self-driving cars could also help people grow accustomed to other machines, like robots, that can complete tasks without the need for human intervention.

Addendum on 3/6/15:

  • Top 5 Emerging Technologies In 2015 — from wtvox.com
    Excerpt:
    1) Robotics 2.0
    2) Neuromorphic Engineering
    3) Intelligent Nanobots – Drones
    4) 3D Printing
    5) Precision Medicine
 

MicrosoftProductivityVision2015

 

Example snapshots from
Microsoft’s Productivity Future Vision

 

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision2-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision3-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision5-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision6-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision7-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision8-2015

 

MicrosoftProductivityVision4-2015

 

 

 

MITTechReview-10Breakthroughs-2015

 

 

Excerpt:

Not all breakthroughs are created equal. Some arrive more or less as usable things; others mainly set the stage for innovations that emerge later, and we have to estimate when that will be. But we’d bet that every one of the milestones on this list will be worth following in the coming years.

 

 

MITTechReview-2015-magic-leap

 

 

 

Internet access as vital as devices to boosting the learning experience — from thejournal.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

The project reported five key findings:

  • Access to a computing device and the Internet resulted in “greater student engagement in learning.” Eighty percent of the students said having the tablet “made learning more fun and interesting”; 72 percent reported they “were more engaged in their lessons.”
  • Sixty percent of students said they did more reading and writing during the school year because of having a tablet. In fact, teachers assigned more reading and writing homework because they knew home Internet access was available. “This resulted in increased reading and writing fluency, which is especially important for English Language Learners,” the report noted.
  • Internet access shot up. Nearly 80 percent of students reported accessing the Internet on a daily basis in fifth grade, up from 4 percent in fourth grade.
  • Students became more independent learners. Almost all said they “used their tablet regularly to look up information on the Internet when they had a question about something.”
  • With professional development, teachers changed their instructional practices. According to the report, this was evident “by the level of integration of the tablets into everyday instruction” and by “the new project based learning orientation within the classes.”

But the greatest difference overall, the researchers stated, occurred because students could access online information anytime, anywhere. That access “transformed the classroom environment by allowing both students and teachers to bring additional resources into the learning process, at just the right moment to have the greatest impact on learning.”

 

Internet of Everything: 2015 [slide deck] — from businessinsider.com

Excerpt:

BI Intelligence has created a slideshow highlighting the most important ways the Internet of Everything market will develop, the benefits newly connected devices will offer consumers and businesses, and the potential barriers that could inhibit growth.

 

 

BI-SlideDeck-IoE-Jan2015

 

 

NumberDevices-BI-SlideDeck-Jan2015

 

 

 
 

6 things you can learn from LeWeb Day One — from nextberlin.eu by Adam Tinworth

Excerpt:

1. The sharing economy is bigger than you think
2. The secret of wearable will be simplicity
3. We all wear clothes, but we don’t all wear jewellery or watches
4. Yandex started life searching floppy disks
5. The clock is ticking on the classic office suite of software
6. Games make you a cognitive superhuman

 

What is LeWeb?

Excerpt:

LeWeb in a nutshell
Founded in 2004 by French entrepreneurs Loïc and Geraldine Le Meur, LeWeb is an internationally-renowned conference for digital innovation where visionaries, startups, tech companies, brands and leading media converge to explore today’s hottest trends and define the future of internet-driven business.

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian