Explore Breakthroughs in AI, Accelerated Computing, and Beyond at NVIDIA's GTC -- keynote was held on March 21 2023

Explore Breakthroughs in AI, Accelerated Computing, and Beyond at GTC — from nvidia.com
The Conference for the Era of AI and the Metaverse

 


Addendums on 3/22/23:

Generative AI for Enterprises — from nvidia.com
Custom-built for a new era of innovation and automation.

Excerpt:

Impacting virtually every industry, generative AI unlocks a new frontier of opportunities—for knowledge and creative workers—to solve today’s most important challenges. NVIDIA is powering generative AI through an impressive suite of cloud services, pre-trained foundation models, as well as cutting-edge frameworks, optimized inference engines, and APIs to bring intelligence to your enterprise applications.

NVIDIA AI Foundations is a set of cloud services that advance enterprise-level generative AI and enable customization across use cases in areas such as text (NVIDIA NeMo™), visual content (NVIDIA Picasso), and biology (NVIDIA BioNeMo™). Unleash the full potential with NeMo, Picasso, and BioNeMo cloud services, powered by NVIDIA DGX™ Cloud—the AI supercomputer.

 

14 charts this year that helped us better understand COVID’s impact on students, teachers, & schools — from the 74million.org by  Kevin Mahnken

Excerpt:

By the end of last year, a steady trickle of research had already begun to reveal the harm wrought by prolonged school closures and the transition to virtual instruction. But this fall brought the most definitive evidence yet of the scale of learning lost over more than two years of COVID-disrupted schooling: fresh testing data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, sometimes called the Nation’s Report Card, pointing to severe declines in core subjects.

From DSC:
While not minimizing the impact of the “learning loss” that is often written about, I do wonder if maybe the types of learning going on during the pandemic weren’t captured on a standardized test. Maybe the types of learning that our youth and families learned about help set them up for our present VOCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) world. And for a future where change doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

Some of the types of learning that might not show up on the standardized tests include:

  • Dealing with life’s challenges and tumultuous changes
  • Being flexible
  • Adapting
  • The importance of having sufficient Internet connections and the corresponding hardware and software to keep on learning remotely
  • Where or to whom does one go to for help?

Also, as has been said elsewhere, bashing online learning or virtual instruction is often unfair. The remote learning that teachers and faculty members were thrust into lacked appropriate instructional design. Many teachers and faculty members hadn’t yet been trained on how to put together solid online-based courses and/or to use the tools that are required to offer such courses. Also, many in society didn’t have Internet access (or insufficient access), a quiet place to study and/or participate in online-based learning.

 

What does the ‘metaverse’ mean for education? — from hechingerreport.org by Javeria Salman
Experts warn educators to think twice before jumping on new technologies

Excerpt:

Sometime in the past year or two, you’ve likely heard the word “metaverse.” It’s the future, the next big frontier of the internet, if you ask technology CEOs or researchers.

While the term has become the latest buzzword in education circles, what it means for teaching and learning largely remains to be seen. Experts say much of what we see marketed as the metaverse from education technology companies isn’t actually the metaverse.

In a true metaverse experience, your digital identity travels between the physical and virtual worlds, Platt said. With the help of blockchain technology, that identity — your preferences, your achievements, your educational records, other elements of who you are — is maintained across platforms and applications.

 

What if smart TVs’ new killer app was a next-generation learning-related platform? [Christian]

TV makers are looking beyond streaming to stay relevant — from protocol.com by Janko Roettgers and Nick Statt

A smart TV's main menu listing what's available -- application wise

Excerpts:

The search for TV’s next killer app
TV makers have some reason to celebrate these days: Streaming has officially surpassed cable and broadcast as the most popular form of TV consumption; smart TVs are increasingly replacing external streaming devices; and the makers of these TVs have largely figured out how to turn those one-time purchases into recurring revenue streams, thanks to ad-supported services.

What TV makers need is a new killer app. Consumer electronics companies have for some time toyed with the idea of using TV for all kinds of additional purposes, including gaming, smart home functionality and fitness. Ad-supported video took priority over those use cases over the past few years, but now, TV brands need new ways to differentiate their devices.

Turning the TV into the most useful screen in the house holds a lot of promise for the industry. To truly embrace this trend, TV makers might have to take some bold bets and be willing to push the envelope on what’s possible in the living room.

 


From DSC:
What if smart TVs’ new killer app was a next-generation learning-related platform? Could smart TVs deliver more blended/hybrid learning? Hyflex-based learning?
.

The Living [Class] Room -- by Daniel Christian -- July 2012 -- a second device used in conjunction with a Smart/Connected TV

.

Or what if smart TVs had to do with delivering telehealth-based apps? Or telelegal/virtual courts-based apps?


 

The Metaverse Is Not a Place — from oreilly.com by Tim O’Reilly
It’s a communications medium.

Excerpt:

Foundations of the metaverse
You can continue this exercise by thinking about the metaverse as the combination of multiple technology trend vectors progressing at different speeds and coming from different directions, and pushing the overall vector forward (or backward) accordingly. No new technology is the product of a single vector.

So rather than settling on just “the metaverse is a communications medium,” think about the various technology vectors besides real-time communications that are coming together in the current moment. What news from the future might we be looking for?

  • Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality
  • Social media
  • Gaming
  • AI
  • Cryptocurrencies and “Web3”
  • Identity

#metaverse #AI #communications #gaming #socialmedia #cryptocurrencies #Web3 #identity #bots #XR #VR #emergingtechnologies

 

Online Learning, From the Margins to the Center — from insidehighered.com by Ray Schroeder
Online learning has evolved over the past 25 years from a niche position on the margins of higher ed to the leading driver of growth in enrollment and innovation.

Excerpt:

Online learning has grown from a marginal niche of higher ed to the largest provider of postsecondary learning in the world. We are now on the cusp of yet another technological evolution in the delivery of online learning. The advent of the metaverse in higher education is closer than many casual observers may think. By 2025, we will begin to see significant numbers of offerings using avatars and immersive technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality and extended reality engaging learners at a distance.

Do you have developmental immersion laboratories for your faculty and staff to prepare for 2025? Who at your university is advocating for the integration of VR, AR and XR into online delivery? Are you already collaborating with industry and business in developing the most effective and relevant technology-enhanced online programs that will meet their needs? Those who lead in these ventures will set the standards and gain the recruiting advantage in higher education.

 

From DSC:
Is the use of virtual instructors going to be used more to fill vacancies within K12? Hmmm…time will tell. 

By the way, I think online-based learning works for many people, but certainly it isn’t for everyone (even with the likely unfair assumption that everyone has Internet access and the equipment/setup that they need). From what I’ve observed, it works best for very disciplined, motivated students — they need to be a bit more independent in their learning. But school systems should have backup plans in place if the exodus continues.



Education tech companies bring virtual teaching to the table as solution to teacher shortage — from thedenverchannel.com by Chloe Nordquist

Excerpts:

Education technology companies like Elevate K-12, which is a live streaming instruction platform, are growing. Especially in areas where hiring a teacher can be tough.

The company is seeing more interest from teachers in joining their platform. One is for schedule flexibility.

 
 

The Metaverse in 2040 — from pewresearch.org by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie
Hype? Hope? Hell? Maybe all three. Experts are split about the likely evolution of a truly immersive ‘metaverse.’ They expect that augmented- and mixed-reality enhancements will become more useful in people’s daily lives. Many worry that current online problems may be magnified if Web3 development is led by those who built today’s dominant web platforms

 

The metaverse will, at its core, be a collection of new and extended technologies. It is easy to imagine that both the best and the worst aspects of our online lives will be extended by being able to tap into a more-complete immersive experience, by being inside a digital space instead of looking at one from the outside.

Laurence Lannom, vice president at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives

“Virtual, augmented and mixed reality are the gateway to phenomenal applications in medicine, education, manufacturing, retail, workforce training and more, and it is the gateway to deeply social and immersive interactions – the metaverse.

Elizabeth Hyman, CEO for the XR Association

 


 

The table of contents for the Metaverse in 2040 set of articles out at Pew Research dot org -- June 30, 2022

 


 

Meet the metaverse: Creating real value in a virtual world — from mckinsey.com with Eric Hazan and Lareina Yee

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Welcome to the metaverse. Now, where exactly are we? Imagine for a moment the next iteration of the internet, seamlessly combining our physical and digital lives. It’s many things: a gaming platform, a virtual retail spot, a training tool, an advertising channel, a digital classroom, a gateway to entirely new virtual experiences. While the metaverse continues to be defined, its potential to unleash the next wave of digital disruption is clear. In the first five months of 2022, more than $120 billion have been invested in building out metaverse technology and infrastructure. That’s more than double the $57 billion invested in all of 2021.

How would you define the metaverse?
Lareina: What’s exciting is that the metaverse, like the internet, is the next platform on which we can work, live, connect, and collaborate. It’s going to be an immersive virtual environment that connects different worlds and communities. There are going to be creators and alternative currencies that you can buy and sell things with. It will have a lot of the components of Web3 and gaming and AR, but it will be much larger.

Also relevant/see:


Also relevant/see:


 

Slido Lesson Plan — from techlearning.com by Stephanie Smith Budhai, Ph.D.
This Slido Lesson Plan is designed to help educators implement the digital tool into their instruction

Excerpt:

Slido is an exciting online engagement edtech tool that can be used to connect all students with academic content while getting them involved in the lesson.

While Slido is often used to incorporate polling into virtual workshops and presentations, there are a wide range of student engagement features within the Slido platform that can be used by teachers during lessons.

Also see:

Slido -- your go-to interaction app for hybrid meetings

 

We need to use more tools — that go beyond screen sharing — where we can collaborate regardless of where we’re at. [Christian]

From DSC:
Seeing the functionality in Freehand — it makes me once again think that we need to use more tools where faculty/staff/students can collaborate with each other REGARDLESS of where they’re coming in to partake in a learning experience (i.e., remotely or physically/locally). This is also true for trainers and employees, teachers and students, as well as in virtual tutoring types of situations. We need tools that offer functionalities that go beyond screen sharing in order to collaborate, design, present, discuss, and create things.  (more…)

 

The best lighting for video conferencing, according to experts— from blog.webex.com

A home office lighting setup for video conferencing.

Contents:

  • What is the best lighting for video conferencing?
  • Where should the light be for a video call?
  • What kind of lighting is best for video meetings?
  • What are the best lighting products for a video conference?
  • What is the best lighting for video conferencing on-the-go?
  • Good lighting means good communication:
 

Why the World’s First Virtual Reality High School Changes Everything — from steve-grubbs.medium.com by Steve Grubs

Excerpts:

The recipe required key ingredients to happen. In addition to an accredited school to manage students, admissions and the for-credit learning, it also needed a platform. That’s where EngageVR comes in. There are other platforms that will ultimately host schools, perhaps AltSpace, Horizon or others, but the first is on Engage.

The bottom line is this: creators, coders, educators, entrepreneurs, investors, corporations, parents and students all played a role in finally bringing the first global virtual reality high school to life. It won’t be the last school to open in the metaverse, but to all those involved in this inaugural launch — the Neil Armstrongs of your age — a special tip of the hat today for having the vision and the willingness to launch a better and more equitable era of education.

Also see:

This is a snapshot from the Geo Guesser VR game

 

Holograms? Check! Now what? — from blog.webex.com by Elizabeth Bieniek

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Two years ago, I wrote about the Future of Meetings in 2030 and hinted at an effort my team was building to make this a reality. Now, we have publicly unveiled Webex Hologram and brought the reality of a real-time, end-to-end holographic meeting solution to life.

With Webex Hologram, you can feel co-located with a colleague who is thousands of miles away. You can share real objects in incredible multi-dimensional detail and collaborate on 3D content to show perspective, share, and approve design changes in real-time, all from the comfort of your home workspace.

As the hype dies down, the focus on entirely virtual experiences in fanciful environments will abate and a resurgence in focus on augmented experiences—interjecting virtual content into the physical world around you for an enhanced experience that blends the best of physical and virtual—will emerge.

The ability to have curated information at one’s fingertips, still holds an incredible value prop that has yet to be realized. Applying AI to predict, find, and present this type of augmented information in both 2D and 3D formats will become incredibly useful. 

From DSC:
As I think of some of the categories that this posting about establishing a new kind of co-presence relates to, there are many relevant ones:

  • 21st century
  • 24x7x365
  • 3D
  • Audio/Visual (A/V)
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Cloud-based
  • Collaboration/web-based collaboration
  • Intelligent tutoring
  • Law schools, legal, government
  • Learning, learning agents, learning ecosystems, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning spaces/hubs/pods
  • Libraries/librarians
  • K-12, higher education, corporate training
  • Metaverse
  • Online learning
  • Telelegal, telemedicine
  • Videoconferencing
  • Virtual courts, virtual tutoring, virtual field trips
  • Web3
 
© 2022 | Daniel Christian