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“The Enterprise Gets Smart” + AI principles from the 2017 Asilomar Conference

On 03/24/2017, in 21st century, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, Asia, bots, business, Canada, career development, change, changing business models, communications, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, data related items, emerging technologies, ethics, Europe, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, India, innovation, intelligent systems, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, liberal arts, morals/values, reinvent, research, robotics, science, society, surviving, UK, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The Enterprise Gets Smart
Companies are starting to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to bolster customer experience, improve security and optimize operations.

Excerpt:

Assembling the right talent is another critical component of an AI initiative. While existing enterprise software platforms that add AI capabilities will make the technology accessible to mainstream business users, there will be a need to ramp up expertise in areas like data science, analytics and even nontraditional IT competencies, says Guarini.

“As we start to see the land grab for talent, there are some real gaps in emerging roles, and those that haven’t been as critical in the past,” Guarini says, citing the need for people with expertise in disciplines like philosophy and linguistics, for example. “CIOs need to get in front of what they need in terms of capabilities and, in some cases, identify potential partners.”

Asilomar AI Principles

These principles were developed in conjunction with the 2017 Asilomar conference (videos here), through the process described here.

Artificial intelligence has already provided beneficial tools that are used every day by people around the world. Its continued development, guided by the following principles, will offer amazing opportunities to help and empower people in the decades and centuries ahead.

Research Issues

1) Research Goal: The goal of AI research should be to create not undirected intelligence, but beneficial intelligence.

2) Research Funding: Investments in AI should be accompanied by funding for research on ensuring its beneficial use, including thorny questions in computer science, economics, law, ethics, and social studies, such as:

How can we make future AI systems highly robust, so that they do what we want without malfunctioning or getting hacked?
How can we grow our prosperity through automation while maintaining people’s resources and purpose?
How can we update our legal systems to be more fair and efficient, to keep pace with AI, and to manage the risks associated with AI?
What set of values should AI be aligned with, and what legal and ethical status should it have?

3) Science-Policy Link: There should be constructive and healthy exchange between AI researchers and policy-makers.

4) Research Culture: A culture of cooperation, trust, and transparency should be fostered among researchers and developers of AI.

5) Race Avoidance: Teams developing AI systems should actively cooperate to avoid corner-cutting on safety standards.

Ethics and Values

6) Safety: AI systems should be safe and secure throughout their operational lifetime, and verifiably so where applicable and feasible.

7) Failure Transparency: If an AI system causes harm, it should be possible to ascertain why.

8) Judicial Transparency: Any involvement by an autonomous system in judicial decision-making should provide a satisfactory explanation auditable by a competent human authority.

9) Responsibility: Designers and builders of advanced AI systems are stakeholders in the moral implications of their use, misuse, and actions, with a responsibility and opportunity to shape those implications.

10) Value Alignment: Highly autonomous AI systems should be designed so that their goals and behaviors can be assured to align with human values throughout their operation.

11) Human Values: AI systems should be designed and operated so as to be compatible with ideals of human dignity, rights, freedoms, and cultural diversity.

12) Personal Privacy: People should have the right to access, manage and control the data they generate, given AI systems’ power to analyze and utilize that data.

13) Liberty and Privacy: The application of AI to personal data must not unreasonably curtail people’s real or perceived liberty.

14) Shared Benefit: AI technologies should benefit and empower as many people as possible.

15) Shared Prosperity: The economic prosperity created by AI should be shared broadly, to benefit all of humanity.

16) Human Control: Humans should choose how and whether to delegate decisions to AI systems, to accomplish human-chosen objectives.

17) Non-subversion: The power conferred by control of highly advanced AI systems should respect and improve, rather than subvert, the social and civic processes on which the health of society depends.

18) AI Arms Race: An arms race in lethal autonomous weapons should be avoided.

Longer-term Issues

19) Capability Caution: There being no consensus, we should avoid strong assumptions regarding upper limits on future AI capabilities.

20) Importance: Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources.

21) Risks: Risks posed by AI systems, especially catastrophic or existential risks, must be subject to planning and mitigation efforts commensurate with their expected impact.

22) Recursive Self-Improvement: AI systems designed to recursively self-improve or self-replicate in a manner that could lead to rapidly increasing quality or quantity must be subject to strict safety and control measures.

23) Common Good: Superintelligence should only be developed in the service of widely shared ethical ideals, and for the benefit of all humanity rather than one state or organization.

Excerpts:
Creating human-level AI: Will it happen, and if so, when and how? What key remaining obstacles can be identified? How can we make future AI systems more robust than today’s, so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked?

Talks:
- Demis Hassabis (DeepMind)
- Ray Kurzweil (Google) (video)
- Yann LeCun (Facebook/NYU) (pdf) (video)
Panel with Anca Dragan (Berkeley), Demis Hassabis (DeepMind), Guru Banavar (IBM), Oren Etzioni (Allen Institute), Tom Gruber (Apple), Jürgen Schmidhuber (Swiss AI Lab), Yann LeCun (Facebook/NYU), Yoshua Bengio (Montreal) (video)
Superintelligence: Science or fiction? If human level general AI is developed, then what are likely outcomes? What can we do now to maximize the probability of a positive outcome? (video)
- Talks:
  - Shane Legg (DeepMind)
  - Nick Bostrom (Oxford) (pdf) (video)
  - Jaan Tallinn (CSER/FLI) (pdf) (video)
- Panel with Bart Selman (Cornell), David Chalmers (NYU), Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX), Jaan Tallinn (CSER/FLI), Nick Bostrom (FHI), Ray Kurzweil (Google), Stuart Russell (Berkeley), Sam Harris, Demis Hassabis (DeepMind): If we succeed in building human-level AGI, then what are likely outcomes? What would we like to happen?
- Panel with Dario Amodei (OpenAI), Nate Soares (MIRI), Shane Legg (DeepMind), Richard Mallah (FLI), Stefano Ermon (Stanford), Viktoriya Krakovna (DeepMind/FLI): Technical research agenda: What can we do now to maximize the chances of a good outcome? (video)
Law, policy & ethics: How can we update legal systems, international treaties and algorithms to be more fair, ethical and efficient and to keep pace with AI?
- Talks:
  - Matt Scherer (pdf) (video)
  - Heather Roff-Perkins (Oxford)
- Panel with Martin Rees (CSER/Cambridge), Heather Roff-Perkins, Jason Matheny (IARPA), Steve Goose (HRW), Irakli Beridze (UNICRI), Rao Kambhampati (AAAI, ASU), Anthony Romero (ACLU): Policy & Governance (video)
- Panel with Kate Crawford (Microsoft/MIT), Matt Scherer, Ryan Calo (U. Washington), Kent Walker (Google), Sam Altman (OpenAI): AI & Law (video)
- Panel with Kay Firth-Butterfield (IEEE, Austin-AI), Wendell Wallach (Yale), Francesca Rossi (IBM/Padova), Huw Price (Cambridge, CFI), Margaret Boden (Sussex): AI & Ethics (video)

From DSC:
Can you imagine this as a virtual reality or a mixed reality-based app!?! Very cool.

This resource is incredible on multiple levels:

For their interface/interaction design
For their insights and ideas
For their creativity
For their graphics
…and more!

VR First: Democratizing VR/AR Innovation

On 02/03/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, architecture, Asia, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), Canada, change, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, consortiums, convergence, creativity, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Europe, experimentation, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, health, higher education, history, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, India, innovation, interaction design, interactivity, media/film, Mixed Reality (MR), online learning, platforms, play, psychology, social learning / networks, social media, tools, UK, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), using teams, vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, wearables, by Daniel Christian

Some excerpts of this infographic:

From DSC:
The following questions came to my mind today:

What are the future ramifications — for higher education — of an exponential population growth curve, especially in regards to providing access?
Are our current ways of providing an education going to hold up?
What about if the cost of obtaining a degree maintains its current trajectory?
What changes do we need to start planning for and/or begin making now?

Links to sources:

The Periodic Table of AI — from ai.xprize.org by Kris Hammond

Excerpts:

This is an invitation to collaborate. In particular, it is an invitation to collaborate in framing how we look at and develop machine intelligence. Even more specifically, it is an invitation to collaborate in the construction of a Periodic Table of AI.

Let’s be honest. Thinking about Artificial Intelligence has proven to be difficult for us. We argue constantly about what is and is not AI. We certainly cannot agree on how to test for it. We have difficultly deciding what technologies should be included within it. And we struggle with how to evaluate it.

Even so, we are looking at a future in which intelligent technologies are becoming commonplace.
…
With that in mind, we propose an approach to viewing machine intelligence from the perspective of its functional components. Rather than argue about the technologies behind them, the focus should be on the functional elements that make up intelligence. By stepping away from how these elements are implemented, we can talk about what they are and their roles within larger systems.

Also see this article, which contains the graphic below:

From DSC:
These graphics are helpful to me, as they increase my understanding of some of the complexities involved within the realm of artificial intelligence.

Also relevant/see:

Equipping people to stay ahead of technological change. “The classic model of education…is breaking down.” [The Economist]

On 01/13/2017, in 21st century, accreditation, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, business, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, economics, education, education reform, Europe, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, IBM, ideas, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, pace of change, professional development, real-world assignments, reinvent, robotics, society, sociology, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, technology (general), traditional / tradition, training / L&D, UK, United States, universities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Equipping people to stay ahead of technological change — from economist.com by
It is easy to say that people need to keep learning throughout their careers. The practicalities are daunting.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

WHEN education fails to keep pace with technology, the result is inequality. Without the skills to stay useful as innovations arrive, workers suffer—and if enough of them fall behind, society starts to fall apart. That fundamental insight seized reformers in the Industrial Revolution, heralding state-funded universal schooling. Later, automation in factories and offices called forth a surge in college graduates. The combination of education and innovation, spread over decades, led to a remarkable flowering of prosperity.

Today robotics and artificial intelligence call for another education revolution. This time, however, working lives are so lengthy and so fast-changing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough. People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.

Unfortunately, as our special report in this issue sets out, the lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers—and is therefore more likely to exacerbate inequality than diminish it. If 21st-century economies are not to create a massive underclass, policymakers urgently need to work out how to help all their citizens learn while they earn. So far, their ambition has fallen pitifully short.
…
At the same time on-the-job training is shrinking. In America and Britain it has fallen by roughly half in the past two decades. Self-employment is spreading, leaving more people to take responsibility for their own skills. Taking time out later in life to pursue a formal qualification is an option, but it costs money and most colleges are geared towards youngsters.

The classic model of education—a burst at the start and top-ups through company training—is breaking down. One reason is the need for new, and constantly updated, skills.

Lifelong learning is becoming an economic imperative — from economist.com
Technological change demands stronger and more continuous connections between education and employment, says Andrew Palmer. The faint outlines of such a system are now emerging

Excerpt:

A college degree at the start of a working career does not answer the need for the continuous acquisition of new skills, especially as career spans are lengthening. Vocational training is good at giving people job-specific skills, but those, too, will need to be updated over and over again during a career lasting decades. “Germany is often lauded for its apprenticeships, but the economy has failed to adapt to the knowledge economy,” says Andreas Schleicher, head of the education directorate of the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries. “Vocational training has a role, but training someone early to do one thing all their lives is not the answer to lifelong learning.”
…
To remain competitive, and to give low- and high-skilled workers alike the best chance of success, economies need to offer training and career-focused education throughout people’s working lives. This special report will chart some of the efforts being made to connect education and employment in new ways, both by smoothing entry into the labour force and by enabling people to learn new skills throughout their careers. Many of these initiatives are still embryonic, but they offer a glimpse into the future and a guide to the problems raised by lifelong reskilling.

Individuals, too, increasingly seem to accept the need for continuous rebooting.

Artificial Intelligence Ethics, Jobs & Trust – UK Government Sets Out AI future — from cbronline.com by Ellie Burns

Excerpt:

UK government is driving the artificial intelligence agenda, pinpointing it as a future technology driving the fourth revolution and billing its importance on par with the steam engine.

The report on Artificial Intelligence by the Government Office for Science follows the recent House of Commons Committee report on Robotics and AI, setting out the opportunities and implications for the future of decision making. In a report which spans government deployment, ethics and the labour market, Digital Minister Matt Hancock provided a foreword which pushed AI as a technology which would benefit the economy and UK citizens.

MIT’s “Moral Machine” Lets You Decide Who Lives & Dies in Self-Driving Car Crashes — from futurism.com

In brief:

MIT’S 13-point exercise lets users weigh the life-and-death decisions that self-driving cars could face in the future.
Projects like the “Moral Machine” give engineers insight into how they should code complex decision-making capabilities into AI.

Wearable Tech Weaves Its Way Into Learning — from edsurge.com by Marguerite McNeal

Excerpt:

“Ethics often falls behind the technology,” says Voithofer of Ohio State. Personal data becomes more abstract when it’s combined with other datasets or reused for multiple purposes, he adds. Say a device collects and anonymizes data about a student’s emotional patterns. Later on that information might be combined with information about her test scores and could be reassociated with her. Some students might object to colleges making judgments about their academic performance from indirect measurements of their emotional states.

New era of ‘cut and paste’ humans close as man injected with genetically-edited blood – from telegraph.co.uk by Sarah Knapton

Excerpt:

A world where DNA can be rewritten to fix deadly diseases has moved a step closer after scientists announced they had genetically-edited the cells of a human for the first time using a groundbreaking technique.

A man in China was injected with modified immune cells which had been engineered to fight his lung cancer. Larger trials are scheduled to take place next year in the US and Beijing, which scientists say could open up a new era of genetic medicine.

The technique used is called Crispr, which works like tiny molecular scissors snipping away genetic code and replacing it with new instructions to build better cells.

Troubling Study Says Artificial Intelligence Can Predict Who Will Be Criminals Based on Facial Features — from theintercept.com by Sam Biddle

Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming as biased as we are — from thenextweb.com by Bryan Clark

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

Excerpt:

Can you be sexually assaulted in virtual reality? And can anything be done to prevent it? Those are a few of the most pressing ethical questions technologists, investors and we the public will face as VR grows.

Light Bulbs Flash “SOS” in Scary Internet of Things Attack — from fortune.com by Jeff John Roberts

How Big Data Transformed Applying to College — from slate.com by Cathy O’Neil
It’s made it tougher, crueler, and ever more expensive.

Not OK, Google — from techcrunch.com by Natasha Lomas

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

The scope of Alphabet’s ambition for the Google brand is clear: It wants Google’s information organizing brain to be embedded right at the domestic center — i.e. where it’s all but impossible for consumers not to feed it with a steady stream of highly personal data. (Sure, there’s a mute button on the Google Home, but the fact you have to push a button to shut off the ear speaks volumes… )

In other words, your daily business is Google’s business.

“We’re moving from a mobile-first world to an AI-first world,” said CEO Sundar Pichai…

But what’s really not OK, Google is the seismic privacy trade-offs involved here. And the way in which Alphabet works to skate over the surface of these concerns.

What he does not say is far more interesting, i.e. that in order to offer its promise of “custom convenience” — with predictions about restaurants you might like to eat at, say, or suggestions for how bad the traffic might be on your commute to work — it is continuously harvesting and data-mining your personal information, preferences, predilections, peccadilloes, prejudices… and so on and on and on. AI never stops needing data. Not where fickle humans are concerned.

Welcome to a world without work — from by Ryan Avent
Automation and globalisation are combining to generate a world with a surfeit of labour and too little work

Excerpt:

A new age is dawning. Whether it is a wonderful one or a terrible one remains to be seen. Look around and the signs of dizzying technological progress are difficult to miss. Driverless cars and drones, not long ago the stuff of science fiction, are now oddities that can occasionally be spotted in the wild and which will soon be a commonplace in cities around the world.

From DSC:
I don’t see a world without work being good for us in the least. I think we humans need to feel that we are contributing to something. We need a purpose for living out our days here on Earth (even though they are but a vapor). We need vision…goals to works towards as we seek to use the gifts, abilities, passions, and interests that the LORD gave to us. The author of the above article would also add that work:

Is a source of personal identity
It helps give structure to our days and our lives
It offers the possibility of personal fulfillment that comes from being of use to others
Is a critical part of the glue that holds society together and smooths its operation

Over the last generation, work has become ever less effective at performing these roles. That, in turn, has placed pressure on government services and budgets, contributing to a more poisonous and less generous politics. Meanwhile, the march of technological progress continues, adding to the strain.

10 breakthrough technologies for 2016 — from technologyreview.com

Excerpts:

Immune Engineering
Genetically engineered immune cells are saving the lives of cancer patients. That may be just the start.

Precise Gene Editing in Plants
CRISPR offers an easy, exact way to alter genes to create traits such as disease resistance and drought tolerance.

Conversational Interfaces
Powerful speech technology from China’s leading Internet company makes it much easier to use a smartphone.

Reusable Rockets
Rockets typically are destroyed on their maiden voyage. But now they can make an upright landing and be refueled for another trip, setting the stage for a new era in spaceflight.

Robots That Teach Each Other
What if robots could figure out more things on their own and share that knowledge among themselves?

DNA App Store
An online store for information about your genes will make it cheap and easy to learn more about your health risks and predispositions.

SolarCity’s Gigafactory
A $750 million solar facility in Buffalo will produce a gigawatt of high-efficiency solar panels per year and make the technology far more attractive to homeowners.

Slack
A service built for the era of mobile phones and short text messages is changing the workplace.

Tesla Autopilot
The electric-vehicle maker sent its cars a software update that suddenly made autonomous driving a reality.

Power from the Air
Internet devices powered by Wi-Fi and other telecommunications signals will make small computers and sensors more pervasive

The 4 big ethical questions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution — from 3tags.org by the World Economic Forum

Excerpts:

We live in an age of transformative scientific powers, capable of changing the very nature of the human species and radically remaking the planet itself.

Advances in information technologies and artificial intelligence are combining with advances in the biological sciences; including genetics, reproductive technologies, neuroscience, synthetic biology; as well as advances in the physical sciences to create breathtaking synergies — now recognized as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
…
Since these technologies will ultimately decide so much of our future, it is deeply irresponsible not to consider together whether and how to deploy them. Thankfully there is growing global recognition of the need for governance.

Scientists create live animals from artificial eggs in ‘remarkable’ breakthrough — from telegraph.co.uk by Sarah Knapton

Robot babies from Japan raise questions about how parents bond with AI — from singularityhub.com by Mark Robert Anderson

Excerpt:

This then leads to the ethical implications of using robots. Embracing a number of areas of research, robot ethics considers whether the use of a device within a particular field is acceptable and also whether the device itself is behaving ethically. When it comes to robot babies there are already a number of issues that are apparent. Should “parents” be allowed to choose the features of their robot, for example? How might parents be counseled when returning their robot baby? And will that baby be used again in the same form?

Amazon’s Vision of the Future Involves Cops Commanding Tiny Drone ‘Assistants’ — from gizmodo.com by Hudson Hongo

DARPA’s Autonomous Ship Is Patrolling the Seas with a Parasailing Radar — from technologyreview.com by Jamie Condliffe
Forget self-driving cars—this is the robotic technology that the military wants to use.

China’s policing robot: Cattle prod meets supercomputer — from computerworld.com by Patrick Thibodeau
China’s fastest supercomputers have some clear goals, namely development of its artificial intelligence, robotics industries and military capability, says the U.S.

Report examines China’s expansion into unmanned industrial, service, and military robotics systems

Augmented Reality Glasses Are Coming To The Battlefield — from popsci.com by Andrew Rosenblum
Marines will control a head-up display with a gun-mounted mouse

———-

Addendum on 12/2/16:

Regulation of the Internet of Things — from schneier.com by Bruce Schneier

Excerpt:

Late last month, popular websites like Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit and PayPal went down for most of a day. The distributed denial-of-service attack that caused the outages, and the vulnerabilities that made the attack possible, was as much a failure of market and policy as it was of technology. If we want to secure our increasingly computerized and connected world, we need more government involvement in the security of the “Internet of Things” and increased regulation of what are now critical and life-threatening technologies. It’s no longer a question of if, it’s a question of when.
…
An additional market failure illustrated by the Dyn attack is that neither the seller nor the buyer of those devices cares about fixing the vulnerability. The owners of those devices don’t care. They wanted a webcam — or thermostat, or refrigerator — with nice features at a good price. Even after they were recruited into this botnet, they still work fine — you can’t even tell they were used in the attack. The sellers of those devices don’t care: They’ve already moved on to selling newer and better models. There is no market solution because the insecurity primarily affects other people. It’s a form of invisible pollution.

“At this year’s WIRED conference, technology entrepreneurs were dialed in to how they might tackle world issues.” [jwtintelligence.com; Jade Perry]

On 11/11/2016, in 21st century, art, change, education, education reform, education technology, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, ethics, future, global / globalization, society, technology (general), UK, user experience (UX), Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

Tech for change – from jwtintelligence.com by Jade Perry

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

At this year’s WIRED conference, technology entrepreneurs were dialed in to how they might tackle world issues.

Over two days of sessions in London, speakers celebrated technology’s latest developments in fields ranging from healthcare to finance, from energy to art. Throughout the event, the notion of ‘humane tech’ emerged to describe the ways in which technology is being used to improve the state of the world. Increasingly, technology startups are harnessing the latest advances, including virtual reality and mobile technologies, to solve societal problems and tackle real issues.

Alexandra Ivanovitch, founder of Simorga, presented the company’s mission to develop VR apps that combat prejudice. The work follows research from BeAnotherLab which demonstrated that racial and gender biases can be reduced using virtual reality. When a user experiences the world as someone else, essentially swapping their body for a different one, empathy increases and bias decreases. Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab has created a similar experience in which participants encounter racism while embodying someone else. The project’s mission is reminiscent of Sandy Speaks, the chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to educate people about the Black Lives Matter movement.

In a world where 26% of countries are described as ‘not free,’ technology is increasingly coming into play to empower citizens.
…
Another human rights issue that technology can seek to tackle is access to education. With approximately 250 million children globally failing to learn even the basics, there is scope for teaching through a range of technologies.
…
In addition to social issues and human rights, technology is being used on a broader scale to fight climate change…
…
Renewable energies that transform the everyday were another key focus.

Incredible! “A school bus, virtual reality, & an out-of-this-world journey.” Plus numerous other excellent items re: AR, VR, & MR

On 11/08/2016, in Apple, Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), Canada, computer science, digital learning, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, geography / geology, health, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, legislatures / government / legal, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile learning, platforms, programming, relationships, science, society, student-related, trends, UK, United States, user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

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 by Edwin Smith
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.

Relive unforgettable moments in history through Timelooper APP. | Virtual reality on your smartphone.

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

holo.study

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:

Manus VR: https://manus-vr.com
Neurodigital: http://www.gestigon.com/
Leap Motion (we’re an investor): https://www.leapmotion.com
Gestigon: http://www.gestigon.com
Handpose: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/fully-articulated-hand-tracking/
Usens: http://www.usens.com
Dexta Robotics: http://www.dextarobotics.com
Minority Report (film)

AR and VR viewers:

HTC Vive (VR): https://www.htcvive.com/us/
Oculus Rift (VR): https://www.oculus.com/
Google Cardboard (and the upcoming Daydream) (VR): https://vr.google.com/
Samsung Gear (VR): http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-vr/
Playstation VR (VR): https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/playstation-vr/
Magic Leap (AR): https://www.magicleap.com/#/home
Microsoft Hololens (AR): https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us
Meta (AR): https://www.metavision.com
Snow Crash (novel)

Omnidirectional treadmills:

Virtuix Omni: http://www.virtuix.com
Cyberith Virtualizer: http://cyberith.com/product/
Infinadeck: http://infinadeck.com
Ready Player One (novel)

Haptic feedback bodysuits:

Teslasuit: http://teslasuit.io/
Nullspace VR (hand, arm, and chest coverage): http://nullspacevr.com/
The Three Body Problem (novel)

Brain-computer interfaces:

Neurable (our program Boston Syndicates is an investor): http://neurable.com
Mindmaze: http://www.mindmaze.ch
Emotiv: https://www.emotiv.com/
Accelerando (novel)

Neural plugins:

The Matrix (film)
Sword Art Online (TV show)
Neuromancer (novel)
Total Recall (film)
Avatar (film)

3D tracking, capture, and/or rendering:

Paracosm (we’re an investor): https://paracosm.io
8i: http://8i.com/
PrioVR: http://www.priovr.com/
Uncorporeal: http://www.uncorporeal.com/
Otoy: https://home.otoy.com/
Matterport: https://matterport.com/
Snapchat (we’re an investor): www.snapchat.com
Star Trek (TV show)

Eye tracking:

Fove: http://www.getfove.com
Eyefluence: http://eyefluence.com/
Tobii: https://tobiigaming.com/
SMI: http://www.smivision.com/en/gaze-and-eye-tracking-systems/products/eye-tracking-hmd-upgrade.html
Bladerunner (film)

VR audio:

Scent creation:

Cyrano/ONotes: http://www.onotes.com/
FEELREAL: http://www.feelreal.com/

Announcing the “Top 200 Tools for Learning 2016” — plus Jane’s “Best of Breed 2016” [Jane Hart]

On 10/03/2016, in adjunct faculty, adult learning, animation, blended learning, CMS/LMS, collaboration, 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, distance education, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, engagement / engaging students, flipping -- inverted learning, global / globalization, Google, graphics, hybrid learning, instructional design, interaction design, interactivity, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, microlearning, mobile learning, mobile technologies, multimedia, productivity / tips and tricks, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, UK, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Top 200 Tools for Learning 2016: Overview — from c4lpt.co.uk by Jane Hart

Also see Jane’s:

TOP 100 TOOLS FOR PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL LEARNING (for formal/informal learning and personal productivity)
TOP 100 TOOLS FOR WORKPLACE LEARNING (for training, e-learning, performance support and social collaboration
TOP 100 TOOLS FOR EDUCATION (for use in primary and secondary (K12) schools, colleges, universities and adult education.)

Also see Jane’s “Best of Breed 2016” where she breaks things down into:

Instructional tools
Content development tools
Social tools
Personal tools

A new “MicroMasters” online learning program offered by major universities — from hechingerreport.org by Nichole Dobo
From Hong Kong to Holland, 14 institutions join MOOC partnership

Excerpt:

A new kind of credential has entered the crowded market for online learning.

EdX, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that provides online courses, announced last week the creation of 19 “MicroMasters” courses, a new type of online educational program. These courses are tailored master’s degree-level classes that can help students hone skills that will be immediately useful in the workplace.

“I think the MicroMasters is a big next step in the evolution of education,” Anant Agarwal, the CEO of edX and an MIT professor, said in an interview last week.

These courses – offered through 14 universities including Columbia, Arizona State University and the University of Michigan, as well as some in Australia, Europe and India – are open to anyone who wants to take them. No transcripts or prerequisites required. Students don’t even need a GED to enroll.

Anyone can learn in the MicroMasters program for free, although those who wish to receive a certificate of completion must pay a $1,000 fee. That money gives the student more than a piece of paper; it also pays for extra services, such as more attention from the instructor.

Also somewhat related/see (emphasis DSC):

An Online Education Breakthrough? A Master’s Degree for a Mere $7,000 — from nytimes.com by Kevin Carey
Excerpt:
Georgia Tech rolled out its online master’s in computer science in 2014. It already had a highly selective residential master’s program that cost about the same as those of competitor colleges. Some may see online learning as experimental or inferior, something associated with downmarket for-profit colleges. But the nation’s best universities have fully embraced it. Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, U.S.C. and others have also developed online master’s degrees, for which they charge the same tuition as their residential programs.Georgia Tech decided to do something different. It charges online students the smallest amount necessary to cover its costs. That turned out to be $510 for a three-credit class. U.S.C. charges online students $5,535 for a three-credit class. (Both programs also charge small per-semester fees.)

With one of the top 10 computer science departments in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report, Georgia Tech had a reputation to uphold. So it made the online program as much like the residential program as possible.

“10 Incredible Uses of Virtual Reality” plus 7 other items re: AR, MR, and VR

On 09/26/2016, in A/V -- audio/visual, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), computer science, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, education technology, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, future, Google, health, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, interactivity, journalism, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), mobile technologies, online learning, online media, programming, society, story, storytelling, UK, user experience (UX), vendors, virtual field trips, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

10 Incredible Uses of Virtual Reality — from fortune.com by Rose Leadem
It’s not just for video games.

Excerpt:

Virtual reality technology holds enormous potential to change the future for a number of fields, from medicine, business, architecture to manufacturing.

Psychologists and other medical professionals are using VR to heighten traditional therapy methods and find effective solutions for treatments of PTSD, anxiety and social disorders. Doctors are employing VR to train medical students in surgery, treat patients’ pains and even help paraplegics regain body functions.

In business, a variety of industries are benefiting from VR. Carmakers are creating safer vehicles, architects are constructing stronger buildings and even travel agencies are using it to simplify vacation planning.

Check out these 10 amazing uses of VR.

Visit the U.K. Prime Minister’s Home in This Virtual 10 Downing Street Experience — from uploadvr.com by

Excerpt:

Google has unveiled a new interactive online exhibit that take users on a tour of 10 Downing street in London — home of the U.K. Prime Minister.

The building has served as home to countless British political leaders, from Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher through to Tony Blair and — as of a few months ago — Theresa May. But, as you’d expect in today’s security-conscious age, gaining access to the residence isn’t easy; the street itself is gated off from the public. This is why the 10 Downing Street exhibit may capture the imagination of politics aficionados and history buffs from around the world.

The tour features 360-degree views of the various rooms, punctuated by photos and audio and video clips.

Microsoft’s HoloLens Now Helps Elevator Technicians Work Smarter — from uploadvr.com by Charles Singletary

Excerpt:

In a slightly more grounded environment, the HoloLens is being used to assist technicians in elevator repairs.

Traversal via elevator is such a regular part of our lifestyles, its importance is rarely recognized…until they’re not working as they should be. ThyssenKrupp AG, one of the largest suppliers for elevators, recognizes how essential they are as well as how the simplest malfunctions can deter the lives of millions. Announced on their blog, Microsoft is partnering with Thyssenkrupp to equip 24,000 of their technicians with HoloLens.

Insert from DSC re: the above piece re: HoloLens:

Will technical communicators need to augment their skillsets? It appears so.

Phiona: A Virtual Reality Portrait of ‘Queen of Katwe’ — from abcnews.com by Angel Canales and Adam Rivera

Get a front-row seat in Harvard’s largest class, thanks to virtual reality — from medium.freecodecamp.com by Dhawal Shah

Intro video here: This is CS50 2016

The future of mobile video is virtual reality — from techcrunch.com by Mike Wadhera

Excerpt:

But in a world where no moment is too small to record with a mobile sensor, and one in which time spent in virtual reality keeps going up, interesting parallels start to emerge with our smartphones and headsets.

Let’s look at how the future could play out in the real world by observing three key drivers: VR video adoption, mobile-video user needs and the smartphone camera rising tide.

Now, a virtual reality programme to improve social skills in autistic kids — from cio.economictimes.indiatimes.com by
The VR training platform creates a safe place for participants to practice social situations without the intense fear of consequence.

Excerpt:

“Individuals with autism may become overwhelmed and anxious in social situations,” research clinician Dr Nyaz Didehbani said.

“The virtual reality training platform creates a safe place for participants to practice social situations without the intense fear of consequence,” said Didehbani.

The participants who completed the training demonstrated improved social cognition skills and reported better relationships, researchers said.

Also see:

The Top 10 Companies Working on Education in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality — from touchstoneresearch.com by Drew Lewis

If you doubt that we are on an exponential pace of change, you need to check these articles out! [Christian]

On 09/22/2016, in 21st century, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, Asia, Australia, business, Canada, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, computer science, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, disruption, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, ethics, Europe, experimentation, faith, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, Google, health, hearts -- matters of the heart, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, India, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, internet, K-12 related, leadership, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, marketplaces, Microsoft, mobile technologies, Near Field Communication (NFC), new business models, organizational change, pace of change, platforms, political science, professional development, psychology, reinvent, relationships, religion, research, robotics, society, sociology, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, the downsides of how people use tech, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

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:

Educate and prepare our youth in K-12
Educate and prepare our young men and women studying within higher education
Restructure/re-envision our corporate training/L&D departments
Equip our freelancers and others to find work
Help people in the workforce remain relevant/marketable/properly skilled
Encourage and better enable lifelong learning
Attempt to keep up w/ this pace of change — legally, ethically, morally, and psychologically

PDF file here

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.

Jane’s Top 10 Tools for Learning 2016 — from c4lpt.co.uk by Jane Hart

Excerpt:

On Friday 23rd September, voting closes in the 10th Annual Survey of Learning Tool – so it’s not too late to vote!

You can find out how to do so HERE – essentially it involves sharing your own Top 10 Tools for Learning – privately or publicly.

Anyway, as we reach the final few days of voting in 2016, I thought it was time to share my personal top 10 tools – so here they are:

Also see:

Evidence linking classroom design to improved learning mounts; study finds impact can be as much as 25%/year [Fabris; UK]

On 09/15/2016, in architecture, design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, smart classrooms, student-related, UK, by Daniel Christian

Evidence linking classroom design to improved learning mounts — from bdcnetwork.com by Peter Fabris
A study finds the impact can be as much as 25% per year.

Excerpt:

A new study backs up the notion that classroom design has a significant impact on the academic performance of primary school children.

Researchers at the University of Salford in the U.K., and architects, Nightingale Associates, found that the classroom environment can affect a child’s academic progress by as much as 25% in a year. The year-long study took place in seven Blackpool, England primary schools in 34 classrooms. The rooms had differing learning environments and several age groups were represented.

Also see:

Study proves classroom design really does matter — from salford.ac.uk

Excepts:

New research reveals that classroom design has significant impact on the academic performance of primary school children. In a pilot study by the University of Salford and architects, Nightingale Associates, it was found that the classroom environment can affect a child’s academic progress over a year by as much as 25%.

The year-long pilot study was carried out in seven Blackpool LEA primary schools. 34 classrooms with differing learning environments and age groups took part.

Also see:

Back to school: Design lessons from the world’s smartest education centers — from cnn.com by Georgia McCafferty

Learning Ecosystems

Very well done! Can you imagine this as a VR or MR-based app?! Also, check out these ideas about what our lives — & world — might be like in the future!

“At this year’s WIRED conference, technology entrepreneurs were dialed in to how they might tackle world issues.” [jwtintelligence.com; Jade Perry]

A new “MicroMasters” online learning program offered by major universities [Dobo]; plus “An Online Education Breakthrough? A Master’s Degree for a Mere $7,000” [Carey]

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