Making a Digital Window Wall from TVs — from theawesomer.com
Drew Builds Stuff has an office in the basement of his parents’ house. Because of its subterranean location, it doesn’t get much light. To brighten things up, he built a window wall out of three 75? 4K TVs, resulting in a 12-foot diagonal image. Since he can load up any video footage, he can pretend to be anywhere on Earth.
From DSC:
Perhaps some ideas here for learning spaces!
Your iPhone Has 26 New Accessibility Tools You Shouldn’t Ignore — from ios.gadgethacks.com by Jovana Naumovski
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Magnifier has a new Door Detection option on iOS 16, which helps blind and low-vision users locate entryways when they arrive at their destination. The tool can tell you how far away the door is, if the door is open or closed, how to open it (push it, turn the knob, pull the handle, etc.), what any signs say (like room numbers), what any symbols mean (like people icons for restrooms), and more.
From DSC:
By the way, this kind of feature would be great to work in tandem with devices such as the Double Robotics Telepresence Robot — i.e., using Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications to let the robot and automatic doors communicate with each other so that remote students can “get around on campus.”
Along the lines of accessibility-related items, also relevant/see:
Microsoft introduces sign language for Teams — from inavateonthenet.net
Excerpt:
Microsoft has announced a sign language view for Teams to help signers and others who use sign language. The information on screen will be prioritised on centre stage, in a consistent location, throughout every meeting.
When sign language view is enabled, the prioritised video streams automatically appear at the right aspect ratio and at the highest available quality. Like pinning and captioning, sign language view is personal to each user and will not impact what others see in the meeting.
Can a Group of MIT Professors Turn a White Paper Into a New Kind of College? — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young
Excerpt:
A group of professors at Massachusetts Institute of Technology dropped a provocative white paper in September that proposed a new kind of college that would address some of the growing public skepticism of higher education. This week, they took the next step toward bringing their vision from idea to reality.
That next step was holding a virtual forum that brought together a who’s who of college innovation leaders, including presidents of experimental colleges, professors known for novel teaching practices and critical observers of the higher education space.
The MIT professors who authored the white paper tried to make clear that even though they’re from an elite university, they do not have all the answers. Their white paper takes pains to describe itself as a draft framework and to invite input from players across the education ecosystem so they can revise and improve the plan.
IDEAS FOR DESIGNING An Affordable New Educational Institution
The goal of this document is simply to propose some principles and ideas that we hope will lay the groundwork for the future, for an education that will be both more affordable and more effective.
…
Promotions and titles will be much more closely tied to educational performance—quality, commitment, outcomes, and innovation—than to research outcomes.
David Hockney exhibition to launch Lightroom immersive arts space— from inavateonthenet.net
Excerpt:
A David Hockney exhibition will mark the launch of Lightroom, a four-storey-high space in London that uses wraparound projection and audio to immerse visitors.
Virtual or in-person: The next generation of trial lawyers must be prepared for anything — from reuters.com by Stratton Horres and Karen L. Bashor
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Excerpt:
In this article, we will examine several key ways in which COVID-19 has changed trial proceedings, strategy and preparation and how mentoring programs can make a difference.
…
COVID-19 has shaken up the jury trial experience for both new and experienced attorneys. For those whose only trials have been conducted during COVID-19 restrictions and for everyone easing back into the in-person trials, these are key elements to keep in mind practicing forward. Firm mentoring programs should be considered to prepare the future generation of trial lawyers for both live and virtual trials.
From DSC:
I think law firms will need to expand the number of disciplines coming to their strategic tables. That is, as more disciplines are required to successfully practice law in the 21st century, more folks with technical backgrounds and/or abilities will be needed. Web front and back end developers, User Experience Designers, Instructional Designers, Audio/Visual Specialists, and others come to my mind. Such people can help develop the necessary spaces, skills, training, and mentoring programs mentioned in this article. As within our learning ecosystems, the efficient and powerful use of teams of specialists will deliver the best products and services.
Using Virtual Reality for Career Training — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Indiana have had success using virtual reality simulations to teach students about career opportunities.
Excerpts:
Virtual reality can help boost CTE programs and teach students about potential careers in fields they may know nothing about, says Lana Taylor from the Indiana Alliance of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
…
One of those other resources has been a partnership with Transfer VR to provide students access to headsets to participate in career simulations that can give them a tactile sense of what working in certain careers might be like.
“Not all kids are meant to go to college, not all kids want to do it,” Taylor says. “So it’s important to give them some exposure to different careers and workforce paths that maybe they hadn’t thought of before.”
AI interviews in VR prepare students for real jobseeking — from inavateonthenet.net
Digest #166: Perfectionism in Education — from learningscientists.org by Carolina Kuepper-Tetzel
“Perfection is the opposite of done!” I came across this statement recently and it made me think about how perfectionism really affects one’s work and studying. Growing up, I always thought of perfectionism as a good thing, as something to aspire to. However, more recently I am questioning this thought. It adds unnecessary pressure that it difficult to live up to and sustain. I see that many issues that my students are experiencing can be traced back to perfectionism. To incredibly high goals and standards that are impossible to achieve and that makes your work not being “good enough” – when it actually is. The consequences of high perfectionism can be manifold and in today’s digest, I’d like to offer an overview of resources on perfectionism in education.
From DSC:
Somewhere along the lines, I heard that if an interviewer asks you to state a negative characteristic, choose something like perfectionism — to turn something that could be a negative into a positive. And back in my earlier days, I thought that made sense.
But I have to agree with Carolina here. The older I get, the more my empathy levels would rise if someone gave me that answer today. I’m a perfectionist and I can truly say that perfectionism is a joy-robber! It can destroy a good day. It can destroy a good mood. It can destroy joy. I don’t recommend it.
How lawyers can unlock the potential of the metaverse — from abajournal.com by Victor Li
Excerpt:
One such firm is Grungo Colarulo, a personal injury law firm with offices in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Last December, the firm announced that it had set up shop in the virtual world known as Decentraland.
Users can enter the firm’s virtual office, where they can interact with the firm’s avatar. They can talk to the avatar to see whether they might need legal representation and then take down a phone number to call the firm in the physical world. If they’re already clients, they can arrive for meetings or consultations.
Richard Grungo Jr., co-founder and name partner at Grungo Colarulo, told the ABA Journal in December 2021 that he could see the potential of the metaverse to allow his firm to host webinars, CLEs and other virtual educational opportunities, as well as hosting charity events.
Grungo joined the ABA Journal’s Victor Li to talk about how lawyers can use the metaverse to market themselves, as well as legal issues relating to the technology that all users should be aware of.
From DSC:
I post this to put this on the radars of legal folks out there. Law schools should join the legaltech folks in pulse-checking and covering/addressing emerging technologies. What the Metaverse and Web3 become is too early to tell. My guess is that we’ll see a lot more blending of the real world with the digital world — especially via Augmented Reality (AR).
7 Technologies that are Changing Healthcare — from digitalsalutem.com by João Bocas
In this article we are going to talk about the seven technologies that are changing healthcare:
This startup 3D prints tiny homes from recyclable plastics — from interestingengineering.com by Nergis Firtina; with thanks to Laura Goodrich for this resource
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Satellite Billboards Are a Dystopian Future We Don’t Need — from gizmodo.com by George Dvorsky; with thanks to Laura Goodrich for this resource
Brightly lit ads in orbit are technologically and economically viable, say Russian scientists. But can we not?
South Korea to Provide Blockchain-based Digital Identities to Citizens by 2024 — from blockchain.news by Annie Li; with thanks to Laura Goodrich for this resource
Excerpt:
South Korea plans to provide digital identities encrypted by blockchain with smartphones to citizens in 2024 to facilitate its economic development., Bloomberg reported Monday.
The South Korean government stated that with the expansion of the digital economy, the ID embedded in the smartphone is an indispensable emerging technology to support the development of data.
From DSC:
Interesting to see blockchain show up in the first item above on healthcare and also on this item coming out of South Korea for digital identities.
The Bruce Willis Deepfake Is Everyone’s Problem — from wired.com by Will Bedingfield; with thanks to Stephen Downes for this resource
There’s a fight brewing over how Hollywood stars can protect their identities. But it’s not just actors who should be paying attention.
Excerpts:
Yet the question of “who owns Bruce Willis,” as Levy put it, isn’t only a concern for the Hollywood star and his representatives. It concerns actors unions across the world, fighting against contracts that exploit their members’ naivety about AI. And, for some experts, it’s a question that implicates everyone, portending a wilder, dystopian future—one in which identities are bought, sold, and seized.
“This is relevant not just to AI contracts [for synthetic performances], but any contract involving rights to one’s likeness and voice,” says Danielle S. Van Lier, assistant general counsel, intellectual property and contracts at SAG-AFTRA. “We have been seeing contracts that now include ‘simulation rights’ to performers’ images, voices, and performances. These contract terms are buried deep in the boilerplate of performance agreements in traditional media.”
Addendum on 10/26/22:
Live from #GartnerSYM | Building a Digital Future: The Metaverse with Marty Resnick, Gartner VP Analyst. Follow the thread for highlights ?? pic.twitter.com/k1zpjzqJXw
— Gartner (@Gartner_inc) October 18, 2022
6 trends are driving the use of #metaverse tech today. These trends and technologies will continue to drive its use over the next 3 to 5 years:
1. Gaming
2. Digital Humans
3. Virtual Spaces
4. Shared Experiences
5. Tokenized Assets
6. Spatial Computing
#GartnerSYM
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“Despite all of the hype, the adoption of #metaverse tech is nascent and fragmented.”
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Also relevant/see:
According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the Next Internet Revolution Is Not the Metaverse. It’s This — from inc.com by Nick Hobson
The metaverse is just too wacky and weird to be the next big thing. Tim Cook is betting on AR.
Excerpts:
While he might know a thing or two about radical tech, to him it’s unconvincing that the average person sufficiently understands the concept of the metaverse enough to meaningfully incorporate it into their daily life.
The metaverse is just too wacky and weird.
And, according to science, he might be on to something.
