voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces

“Utilize virtual showrooms | See stores in your living room.” DC: If this is how retail could go, what might be the ramifications for learning-related environments & for learners’ expectations?

On 12/21/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, education technology, emerging technologies, expectations, experimentation, formal learning, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, informal learning, innovation, K-12 related, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, online media, online tutoring, platforms, teaching & learning, teaching online, tools, training / L&D, trends, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Cisco:
“Utilize virtual showrooms | See stores in your living room.”

DC:
If this is how retail could go, what might be the ramifications for learning-related environments & for learners’ expectations?

See Cisco’s whitepaper and the vision that I’m tracking along these lines.

From DSC:
Looking at the trends below, again I wonder…how might learners’ expectations be impacted by these developments on the landscapes?

Also see:

The 10 Most Exciting Digital Health Stories of 2017 [Mesko]

On 12/21/2017, in 3D, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, health, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, Microsoft, robotics, technology (general), user experience (UX), vendors, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, wearables, by Daniel Christian

The 10 Most Exciting Digital Health Stories of 2017 — from medicalfuturist.com by Dr. Bertalan Mesko
Gene-edited human embryo. Self-driving trucks. Practical quantum computers. 2017 has been an exciting year for science, technology – and digital health! It’s that time of the year again when it’s worth looking back at the past months; and list the inventions, methods and milestone events in healthcare to get a clearer picture what will shape medicine for the years to come.

Excerpt:

Medical chatbots and health assistants on the rise
Chatbots, A.I. supported messaging apps or voice controlled bots are forecasted to replace simple messaging apps soon. In healthcare, they could help solve easily diagnosable health concerns or support patient management, e.g. general organizational issues. In the last months, several signs have pointed to the direction that a more widespread use is forthcoming.

Ada Health has been the fastest growing medical app in Europe in 2017. Over 1.5 million people already tried the health companion app, which is able to assess the user’s health based on the indicated symptoms using its vast, A.I.-based database. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) started to use a chatbot app for dispensing medical advice for a trial period in 2017, with the aim of reducing the burden on its 111 non-emergency helplines. The NHS is developing the app with Babylon Health, one of the new breed of paid, doctor-on-demand services. Although the initial results how patients utilize the new resource show somewhat mixed achievements, I believe, this is the way to go in the future.

Some predictions for 2018: Learning-wise & tech-wise

On 12/20/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, accessibility / UDL, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assistive technologies, Blockchain, bots, business, career development, change, CMS/LMS, collaboration, communications, corporate / business world, data related items, education technology, emerging technologies, future, future of higher education, Google, health, higher education, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, online learning, pace of change, robotics, social media, society, technology (general), trends, United States, universities, vendors, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

eLearning: Predictions for 2018 — from news.elearninginside.com by Cait Etherington

Excerpts:

The educational technology sector grew substantially in 2017 and all signs point to even greater growth in 2018. Over the past year, the sector was buoyed by several key factors, including a growing recognition that as big data restructures work at an unprecedented pace, there is an urgent need to rethink how education is delivered. In fact, there is now growing evidence that colleges and universities, especially if they continue to operate as they have in the past, will simply not be able to produce the workers needed to fill tomorrow’s jobs. Ed tech, with its capacity to make education more affordable, flexible, and relevant, is increasingly being embraced as the answer to the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s growing talent pipeline challenges.

…

K-12 virtual schools will become a preferred choice
Voice-activation will transform the Learning Management System (LMS) sector
Data will drive learning
Higher ed will increase online course and program offerings

12 tech trends that will define 2018 — from businessinsider.com by Chris Weller

Excerpts:

No one can predict how the future will shake out, but we can make some educated guesses.

Global design and strategy firm frog has shared with Business Insider its forecasts for the technologies that will define the upcoming year. Last year, the firm correctly predicted that buildings would harness the power of nature and that businesses would continue using artificially-intelligent bots to run efficiently.

Get ready to step into the future.

Artificial intelligence will inspire how products are designed
Other companies will join Google in the ‘Algorithm Hall of Fame’
Virtual and augmented reality will become communal experiences
Democracy will cozy up to the blockchain
Augmented reality will invite questions about intellectual property
Consumer tech will feel even friendlier
Tech will become inclusive for all
Anonymous data will make life smarter but still private
Ultra-tiny robots will replace medicine for certain patients
The way we get around will fundamentally transform
Businesses will use data and machine learning to cater to customers
Social media will take on more corporate responsibility

Alexa, how can you improve teaching and learning? — from edscoop.com by Kate Roddy with thanks to eduwire for their post on this
Special report:? Voice command platforms from Amazon, Google and Microsoft are creating new models for learning in K-12 and higher education — and renewed privacy concerns.

Excerpt:

We’ve all seen the commercials: “Alexa, is it going to rain today?” “Hey, Google, turn up the volume.” Consumers across the globe are finding increased utility in voice command technology in their homes. But dimming lights and reciting weather forecasts aren’t the only ways these devices are being put to work.

Educators from higher ed powerhouses like Arizona State University to small charter schools like New Mexico’s Taos Academy are experimenting with Amazon Echo, Google Home or Microsoft Invoke and discovering new ways this technology can create a more efficient and creative learning environment.

The devices are being used to help students with and without disabilities gain a new sense for digital fluency, find library materials more quickly and even promote events on college campuses to foster greater social connection.

Like many technologies, the emerging presence of voice command devices in classrooms and at universities is also raising concerns about student privacy and unnatural dependence on digital tools. Yet, many educators interviewed for this report said the rise of voice command technology in education is inevitable — and welcome.

…

“One example,” he said, “is how voice dictation helped a student with dysgraphia. Putting the pencil and paper in front of him, even typing on a keyboard, created difficulties for him. So, when he’s able to speak to the device and see his words on the screen, the connection becomes that much more real to him.”

The use of voice dictation has also been beneficial for students without disabilities, Miller added. Through voice recognition technology, students at Taos Academy Charter School are able to perceive communication from a completely new medium.

From DSC:

After looking at the items below, I wondered…

How soon before teachers/professors/trainers can quickly reconfigure their rooms’ settings via their voices? For example, faculty members will likely soon be able to quickly establish lighting, volume levels, blinds, or other types of room setups with their voices. This could be in addition to the use of beacons and smartphones that automatically recognize who just walked into the room and how that person wants the room to be configured on startup.

This functionality is probably already here…I just don’t know about it yet.

Somfy Adds Voice Control for Motorized Window Coverings with Amazon Alexa — form ravepubs.com by Sara Abrons

Also see:

Excerpt:

Artificial Intelligence has leapt to the forefront of global discourse, garnering increased attention from practitioners, industry leaders, policymakers, and the general public. The diversity of opinions and debates gathered from news articles this year illustrates just how broadly AI is being investigated, studied, and applied. However, the field of AI is still evolving rapidly and even experts have a hard time understanding and tracking progress across the field.

Without the relevant data for reasoning about the state of AI technology, we are essentially “flying blind” in our conversations and decision-making related to AI.

Created and launched as a project of the One Hundred Year Study on AI at Stanford University (AI100), the AI Index is an open, not-for-profit project to track activity and progress in AI. It aims to facilitate an informed conversation about AI that is grounded in data. This is the inaugural annual report of the AI Index, and in this report we look at activity and progress in Artificial Intelligence through a range of perspectives. We aggregate data that exists freely on the web, contribute original data, and extract new metrics from combinations of data series.

All of the data used to generate this report will be openly available on the AI Index website at aiindex.org. Providing data, however, is just the beginning. To become truly useful, the AI Index needs support from a larger community. Ultimately, this report is a call for participation. You have the ability to provide data, analyze collected data, and make a wish list of what data you think needs to be tracked. Whether you have answers or questions to provide, we hope this report inspires you to reach out to the AI Index and become part of the effort to ground the conversation about AI.

AI: Embracing the promises and realities — from the Allegis Group

Excerpts:

What will that future be? When it comes to jobs, the tea leaves are indecipherable as analysts grapple with emerging technologies, new fields of work, and skills that have yet to be conceived. The only certainty is
that jobs will change. Consider the conflicting predictions put forth by the analyst community:

According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, only 5-10% of labor would be displaced by intelligent automation, and new job creation will offset losses. (Inserted comment from DSC: Hmmm. ONLY 5-10%!? What?! That’s huge! And don’t count on the majority of those people becoming experts in robotics, algorithms, big data, AI, etc.)
The World Economic Forum27 said in 2016 that 60% of children entering school today will work in jobs that do not yet exist.
47% of all American job functions could be automated within 20 years, according to the Oxford Martin School on Economics in a 2013 report.
In 2016, a KPMG study estimated that 100 million global knowledge workers could be affected by robotic process automation by 2025.

Despite the conflicting views, most analysts agree on one thing: big change is coming. Venture Capitalist David Vandergrift has some words of advice: “Anyone not planning to retire in the next 20 years should be paying pretty close attention to what’s going on in the realm of AI. The supplanting (of jobs) will not happen overnight: the trend over the next couple of decades is going to be towards more and more automation.”30

While analysts may not agree on the timing of AI’s development in the economy, many companies are already seeing its impact on key areas of talent and business strategy. AI is replacing jobs, changing traditional roles, applying pressure on knowledge workers, creating new fields of work, and raising the demand for certain skills.

The emphasis on learning is a key change from previous decades and rounds of automation. Advanced AI is, or will soon be, capable of displacing a very wide range of labor, far beyond the repetitive, low-skill functions traditionally thought to be at risk from automation. In many cases, the pressure on knowledge workers has already begun.

Regardless of industry, however, AI is a real challenge to today’s way of thinking about work, value, and talent scarcity. AI will expand and eventually force many human knowledge workers to reinvent their roles to address issues that machines cannot process. At the same time, AI will create a new demand for skills to guide its growth and development. These emerging areas of expertise will likely be technical or knowledge-intensive fields. In the near term, the competition for workers in these areas may change how companies focus their talent strategies.

Now with over 24,000 skills, where might Amazon’s Alexa end up in our future learning ecosystems?

On 11/29/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, Google, ideas, innovation, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Natural Language Processing (NLP), voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

The Impact of Alexa and Google Home on Consumer Behavior — from chatbotsmagazine.com by Arte Merritt

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

2017 has turned out to be the year of voice. Amazon Alexa passed over 10 million unit sales earlier in the year and there are over 24,000 Skills in the store. With the addition of new devices like the Echo Show, Echo Plus, improved Echo Dot, and a new form factor for the Echo, there’s an option for everyone’s budget. Google is right there as well with the addition of the Google Mini to go along with the original Google Home. Apple’s efforts with Siri and HomePod, Samsung’s Bixby, and Microsoft’s Cortana round out the major tech firms efforts in this space.

Also see:

BBC Radio’s newest program, The Inspection Chamber, uses smart home devices to allow listeners to interact with and control the plot.

On 11/17/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, emerging technologies, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, interactivity, internet, smart/connected TV, storytelling, technologies for your home, tools, user experience (UX), vendors, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Creative voice tech — from jwtintelligence.com by Ella Britton
New programs from Google and the BBC use voice to steer storytelling with digital assistants.

Exceprt:

BBC Radio’s newest program, The Inspection Chamber, uses smart home devices to allow listeners to interact with and control the plot. Amid a rise in choose-your-own-adventure style programming, The Inspection Chamber opens up creative new possibilities for brands hoping to make use of voice assistants.

The Inspection Chamber tells the story of an alien stranded on earth, who is being interrogated by scientists and an AI robot called Dave. In this interactive drama, Amazon Echo and Google Home users play the part of the alien, answering questions and interacting with other characters to determine the story’s course. The experience takes around 20 minutes, with questions like “Cruel or Kind?” and “Do you like puzzles?” that help the scientists categorize a user.

…

“Voice is going to be a key way we interact with media, search for content, and find what we want,” said BBC director general Tony Hall. As describedin the Innovation Group’s Speak Easy report, the opportunities for brands to connect with consumers via smart speakers are substantial, particularly when it comes to education and entertainment. Brands can also harness these opportunities by creating entertaining and engaging content that consumers can interact with, creating what feels like a two-way dialogue.

From DSC:
More and more, our voices will drive the way we interact with computing devices/applications. This item was an especially interesting item to me, as it involves the use of our voice — at home — to steer the storytelling that’s taking place. Talk about a new form of interactivity!

2018 Tech Trends for Journalism & Media Report + the 2017 Tech Trends Annual Report that I missed from the Future Today Institute

On 11/08/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Augmented Reality (AR), bots, business, career development, change, changing business models, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, digital audio, digital learning, digital textbooks, education, education technology, elearning, emerging technologies, engineering, future, game-changing environment, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, internet, journalism, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, media/film, microlearning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new media literacies, online learning, organizational change, pace of change, personalized/customized learning, platforms, podcasting, political science, social learning / networks, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, trends, universities, user experience (UX), Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, workplace, by Daniel Christian

2018 Tech Trends For Journalism Report — from the Future Today Institute

Key Takeaways

2018 marks the beginning of the end of smartphones in the world’s largest economies. What’s coming next are conversational interfaces with zero-UIs. This will radically change the media landscape, and now is the best time to start thinking through future scenarios.
In 2018, a critical mass of emerging technologies will converge finding advanced uses beyond initial testing and applied research. That’s a signal worth paying attention to. News organizations should devote attention to emerging trends in voice interfaces, the decentralization of content, mixed reality, new types of search, and hardware (such as CubeSats and smart cameras).
Journalists need to understand what artificial intelligence is, what it is not, and what it means for the future of news. AI research has advanced enough that it is now a core component of our work at FTI. You will see the AI ecosystem represented in many of the trends in this report, and it is vitally important that all decision-makers within news organizations familiarize themselves with the current and emerging AI landscapes. We have included an AI Primer For Journalists in our Trend Report this year to aid in that effort.
Decentralization emerged as a key theme for 2018. Among the companies and organizations FTI covers, we discovered a new emphasis on restricted peer-to-peer networks to detect harassment, share resources and connect with sources. There is also a push by some democratic governments around the world to divide internet access and to restrict certain content, effectively creating dozens of “splinternets.”
Consolidation is also a key theme for 2018. News brands, broadcast spectrum, and artificial intelligence startups will continue to be merged with and acquired by relatively few corporations. Pending legislation and policy in the U.S., E.U. and in parts of Asia could further concentrate the power among a small cadre of information and technology organizations in the year ahead.
To understand the future of news, you must pay attention to the future of many industries and research areas in the coming year. When journalists think about the future, they should broaden the usual scope to consider developments from myriad other fields also participating in the knowledge economy. Technology begets technology. We are witnessing an explosion in slow motion.

Those in the news ecosystem should factor the trends in this report into their strategic thinking for the coming year, and adjust their planning, operations and business models accordingly.

2017 Tech Trends Annual Report — from the Future Today Institute; this is the first I’ve seen this solid report

Excerpts:

This year’s report has 159 trends.
This is mostly due to the fact that 2016 was the year that many areas of science and technology finally started to converge. As a result we’re seeing a sort of slow-motion explosion––we will undoubtedly look back on the last part of this decade as a pivotal moment in our history on this planet.
…
Our 2017 Trend Report reveals strategic opportunities and challenges for your organization in the coming year. The Future Today Institute’s annual Trend Report prepares leaders and organizations for the year ahead, so that you are better positioned to see emerging technology and adjust your strategy accordingly. Use our report to identify near-future business disruption and competitive threats while simultaneously finding new collaborators and partners. Most importantly, use our report as a jumping off point for deeper strategic planning.

Also see:

Emerging eLearning Tools and Platforms Improve Results — from learningsolutionsmag.com

Augmented and virtual reality offer ways to immerse learners in experiences that can aid training in processes and procedures, provide realistic simulations to deepen empathy and build communication skills, or provide in-the-workflow support for skilled technicians performing complex procedures.
Badges and other digital credentials provide new ways to assess and validate employees’ skills and mark their eLearning achievements, even if their learning takes place informally or outside of the corporate framework.
Chatbots are proving an excellent tool for spaced learning, review of course materials, guiding new hires through onboarding, and supporting new managers with coaching and tips.
Content curation enables L&D professionals to provide information and educational materials from trusted sources that can deepen learners’ knowledge and help them build skills.
eBooks, a relative newcomer to the eLearning arena, offer rich features for portable on-demand content that learners can explore, review, and revisit as needed.
Interactive videos provide branching scenarios, quiz learners on newly introduced concepts and terms, offer prompts for small-group discussions, and do much more to engage learners.
Podcasts can turn drive time into productive time, allowing learners to enjoy a story built around eLearning content.
Smartphone apps, available wherever learners take their phones or tablets, can be designed to offer product support, info for sales personnel, up-to-date information for repair technicians, and games and drills for teaching and reviewing content; the possibilities are limited only by designers’ imagination.
Social platforms like Slack, Yammer, or Instagram facilitate collaboration, sharing of ideas, networking, and social learning. Adopting social learning platforms encourages learners to develop their skills and contribute to their communities of practice, whether inside their companies or more broadly.
xAPI turns any experience into a learning experience. Adding xAPI capability to any suitable tool or platform means you can record learner activity and progress in a learning record store (LRS) and track it.

DevLearn Attendees Learn How to ‘Think Like a Futurist’ — from learningsolutionsmag.com

Excerpt:

How does all of this relate to eLearning? Again, Webb anticipated the question. Her response gave hope to some—and terrified others. She presented three possible future scenarios:

Everyone in the learning arena learns to recognize weak signals; they work with technologists to refine artificial intelligence to instill values. Future machines learn not only to identify correct and incorrect answers; they also learn right and wrong. Webb said that she gives this optimistic scenario a 25 percent chance of occurring.
Everyone present is inspired by her talk but they, and the rest of the learning world, do nothing. Artificial intelligence continues to develop as it has in the past, learning to identify correct answers but lacking values. Webb’s prediction is that this pragmatic optimistic scenario has a 50 percent chance of occurring.
Learning and artificial intelligence continue to develop on separate tracks. Future artificial intelligence and machine learning projects incorporate real biases that affect what and how people learn and how knowledge is transferred. Webb said that she gives this catastrophic scenario a 25 percent chance of occurring.

In an attempt to end on a strong positive note, Webb said that “the future hasn’t happened yet—we think” and encouraged attendees to take action. “To build the future of learning that you want, listen to weak signals now.”

Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2018 — from Gartner Research

Summary

The intelligent digital mesh is a foundation for future digital business and its ecosystems. To create competitive advantage, enterprise architecture and technology innovation leaders must evaluate these top trends to identify opportunities that their organizations can exploit.

Key Findings

Artificial intelligence (AI) delivers value to every industry, enabling new business models. It does so by supporting key initiatives such as customer engagement, digital production, smart cities, self-driving cars, risk management, computer vision and speech recognition.
As people, places, processes and “things” become increasingly digitalized, they will be represented by digital twins. This will provide fertile ground for new event-driven business processes and digitally enabled business models and ecosystems.
The way we interact with technology will undergo a radical transformation over the next five to 10 years. Conversational platforms, augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality will provide more natural and immersive interactions with the digital world.
A digital business is event-centric, which means it must be continuously sensing and adapting. The same applies to the security and risk infrastructure that supports it, which must focus on deceiving potential intruders and predicting security events.

Table of Contents

Analysis

Trend No. 1: AI Foundation
Today’s AI Is Narrow AI

Trend No. 2: Intelligent Apps and Analytics
Augmented Analytics Will Enable Users to Spend More Time Acting on Insights

Trend No. 3: Intelligent Things
Swarms of Intelligent Things Will Work Together

Trend No. 4: Digital Twins
Digital Twins Will Be Linked to Other Digital Entities

Trend No. 5: Cloud to the Edge
Edge Computing Brings Distributed Computing Into the Cloud Style

Trend No. 6: Conversational Platforms
Integration With Third-Party Services Will Further Increase Usefulness

Trend No. 7: Immersive Experience
VR and AR Can Help Increase Productivity

Trend No. 8: Blockchain
Blockchain Offers Significant Potential Long-Term Benefits Despite Its Challenges

Trend No. 9: Event-Driven Model
Events Will Become More Important in the Intelligent Digital Mesh

Trend No. 10: Continuous Adaptive Risk and Trust
Barriers Must Come Down Between Security and Application Teams

Gartner Recommended Reading

Also see:

AI, Merging of Digital and Physical Worlds Among Top 10 Tech Trends for 2018 — from campustechnology.com by Joshua Bolkan
Excerpt:
Gartner has released its list of top 10 strategic technology trends for 2018 with a focus for the coming year on technologies related to artificial intelligence and machine learning and those that blend the physical and digital worlds.

1,600 donated Echo Dots say hello to Arizona State engineering students [Lestch]

On 10/09/2017, in A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, colleges, communications, community colleges, digital audio, education technology, emerging technologies, engineering, human-computer interaction (HCI), student-related, tools, United States, universities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

1,600 donated Echo Dots say hello to Arizona State engineering students — from by Corinne Lestch; with thanks to eduwire for their posting on this
ASU says the voice-controlled Amazon devices aren’t just for campus questions — they’re preparing students for future technologies, too.

Excerpt:

ASU students have set up Echo Dots, a hands-free, voice-controlled device the size of a hockey puck, in engineering residence halls.

Students can ask questions about topics ranging from the weather to campus sporting events to library hours to exam schedules.

“We’re continuing to add content as we’re learning what students want to learn about,” Rome said. “So there’s this feedback loop of what students want, and we monitor what questions are being asked.”
…
Amazon donated about 1,600 Dots to engineering students at ASU, so the technology belongs to the students, not to the school. The students can choose to use them or not, said John German, director for media relations and research communications.

“We have the largest engineering school in the country, and one of the things we’re trying to do is teach students the most advanced technology, the kinds of technology that are going to make them competitive in the job market when they get their degrees,” German said. “And voice technology is a field that’s growing. It’s going to play a role in the future.”

“Voice is becoming the new mobile of 10 years ago,” Rome said. “We’ve decided to be an early adopter of this technology.”
…
“There’s going to come some day when students can interact [with ASU’s student portal] via webpage or microphone on their mobile phones,” he said. “We think that’s inevitable.”

Check out these huge announcements from Microsoft’s Windows 10 Mixed Reality Event & Google’s Pixel 2 Event

On 10/04/2017, in A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, collaboration, communities of practice, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), innovation, machine-to-machine communications, Microsoft, Mixed Reality (MR), multimedia, music, Natural Language Processing (NLP), technologies for your home, tools, training / L&D, trends, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, web-based collaboration, webinars, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Before we get to the announcements in more detail….
can you imagine being a teacher, a professor, or a trainer — with all of the required applications
launched — if you were the presenter in this video at say the 12:45 mark?

If you are at all interesting in emerging technologies and what several pieces
of our future learning ecosystems — and meeting spaces — could easily look like,
you NEED to watch the entire presentation.

Also, they announced
Microsoft’s purchase of AltspaceVR…in virtual reality!
This clip shows them meeting in a virtual space.

The era of Windows Mixed Reality begins October 17 — from blogs.windows.com by Alex Kipman
Samsung unveils Windows Mixed Reality headset, AltSpaceVR joins Microsoft, SteamVR catalog coming to Windows Mixed Reality this holiday.

At an event in San Francisco we unveiled our vision for Windows Mixed Reality, announced SteamVR and AltSpaceVR are coming to Windows Mixed Reality, introduced the new Samsung Odyssey HMD, and kicked off the holiday shopping season by announcing the availability of pre-orders for Windows Mixed Reality headsets at the Microsoft Store.

Also see:

Mixed Reality at Microsoft’s site

Inside VR & AR

Oct 4th, 2017

Microsoft held its long-awaited launch of Windows 10 Mixed Reality yesterday, and while most of the new devices and products had been leaked earlier, there were still some big takeaways. Here are some of them:

Mixed Reality: Microsoft gave a demo of what its new platform will do, covering the AR/VR spectrum with games, apps, and experiences. One such experience is Cliff House, a virtual work space and entertainment room.
Altspace VR: When the pioneering social VR app shut down this summer and was rescued by a “third party,” people wondered who that was. Turns out it was Microsoft, which acquired Altspace VR for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was announced yesterday.
Steam VR and Halo: Microsoft had previously announced that its new Mixed Reality headsets would support Steam VR titles. Developers can now access that support, and consumers will be able to access it later this year. In addition to the hundreds of VR titles available on Steam, on Oct. 17, Microsoft will offer free downloads of Halo Recruit.
Odyssey and other headsets: The new Windows 10 platform is launching alongside a host of new headsets. In addition to the new Odyssey, which was made in partnership with Samsung, there are other headsets forthcoming from Acer, HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Asus.
2018 Olympics: This was announced previously in June, but yesterday Microsoft briefed the press that Intel is partnering with the International Olympic Committee to bring Windows Mixed Reality experiences to the 2018 games.

Watch the Google Pixel 2 event in 19 minutes — from the verge.com by Natt Garun
The Google Pixel event has wrapped and we got a good look at a bunch of new hardware lineup this year: the second generation of Pixel smartphones, new Google Homes, a Pixelbook, and a surprise new Google camera that uses artificial intelligence to snap pictures and videos of your family. Is it as weird as it sounds? If you missed the keynote where Google presented everything, here’s a recap of everything Google announced in about two hours cut into a 19-minute video so you can see for yourself if these new products will make it to your shopping list this holiday season.
Google Upgrades Virtual-Reality Headset, Debuts Augmented-Reality Features — from bloomberg.com by Mark Gurman
Google is turning Stranger Things characters into adorable augmented reality stickers — from the verge.com by Adi Robertson
Google Pixel 2 and 2 XL announced with water resistance, ‘dual-pixel’ camera, and always-on display — from theverge.com by Jacob Kastrenakes
The 5 biggest announcements from Google’s Pixel 2 event — from theverge.com by Shannon Liao
Google Launches PixelBook Laptop Embedded With its Services — from bloomberg.com by Mark Gurman

100 Data and Analytics Predictions Through 2021 — from Gartner

From DSC:
I just wanted to include some excerpts (see below) from Gartner’s 100 Data and Analytics Predictions Through 2021 report. I do so to illustrate how technology’s impact continues to expand/grow in influence throughout many societies around the globe, as well as to say that if you want a sure thing job in the next 1-15 years, I would go into studying data science and/or artificial intelligence!

Excerpts:

As evidenced by its pervasiveness within our vast array of recently published Predicts 2017 research, it is clear that data and analytics are increasingly critical elements across most industries, business functions and IT disciplines. Most significantly, data and analytics are key to a successful digital business. This collection of more than 100 data-and-analytics-related Strategic Planning Assumptions (SPAs) or predictions through 2021, heralds several transformations and challenges ahead that CIOs and data and analytics leaders should embrace and include in their planning for successful strategies. Common themes across the discipline in general, and within particular business functions and industries, include:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a core business and analytic competency. Beyond yesteryear’s hard-coded algorithms and manual data science activities, machine learning (ML) promises to transform business processes, reconfigure workforces, optimize infrastructure behavior and blend industries through rapidly improved decision making and process optimization.
Natural language is beginning to play a dual role in many organizations and applications as a source of input for analytic and other applications, and a variety of output, in addition to traditional analytic visualizations.
Information itself is being recognized as a corporate asset (albeit not yet a balance sheet asset), prompting organizations to become more disciplined about monetizing, managing and measuring it as they do with other assets. This includes “spending” it like cash, selling/licensing it to others, participating in emerging data marketplaces, applying asset management principles to improve its quality and availability, and quantifying its value and risks in a variety of ways.
Smart devices that both produce and consume Internet of Things (IoT) data will also move intelligent computing to the edge of business functions, enabling devices in almost every industry to operate and interact with humans and each other without a centralized command and control. The resulting opportunities for innovation are unbounded.
Trust becomes the watchword for businesses, devices and information, leading to the creation of digital ethics frameworks, accreditation and assessments. Most attempts at leveraging blockchain as a trust mechanism fail until technical limitations, particularly performance, are solved.

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Education
Significant changes to the global education landscape have taken shape in 2016, and spotlight new and interesting trends for 2017 and beyond. “Predicts 2017: Education Gets Personal” is focused on several SPAs, each uniquely contributing to the foundation needed to create the digitalized education environments of the future. Organizations and institutions will require new strategies to leverage existing and new technologies to maximize benefits to the organization in fresh and
innovative ways.

By 2021, more than 30% of institutions will be forced to execute on a personalization strategy to maintain student enrollment.
By 2021, the top 100 higher education institutions will have to adopt AI technologies to stay competitive in research.

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Artificial Intelligence
Business and IT leaders are stepping up to a broad range of opportunities enabled by AI, including autonomous vehicles, smart vision systems, virtual customer assistants, smart (personal) agents and natural-language processing. Gartner believes that this new general-purpose technology is just beginning a 75-year technology cycle that will have far-reaching implications for every industry. In “Predicts 2017: Artificial Intelligence,” we reflect on the near-term opportunities, and the potential burdens and risks that organizations face in exploiting AI. AI is changing the way in which organizations innovate and communicate their processes, products and services.

Practical strategies for employing AI and choosing the right vendors are available to data and analytics leaders right now.

By 2019, more than 10% of IT hires in customer service will mostly write scripts for bot interactions.
Through 2020, organizations using cognitive ergonomics and system design in new AI projects will achieve long-term success four times more often than others.
By 2020, 20% of companies will dedicate workers to monitor and guide neural networks.
By 2019, startups will overtake Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft in driving the AI economy with disruptive business solutions.
By 2019, AI platform services will cannibalize revenues for 30% of market-leading companies. “Predicts 2017: Drones”
By 2020, the top seven commercial drone manufacturers will all offer analytical software packages.
“Predicts 2017: The Reinvention of Buying Behavior in Vertical-Industry Markets”
By 2021, 30% of net new revenue growth from industry-specific solutions will include AI technology.

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Advanced Analytics and Data Science
Advanced analytics and data science are fast becoming mainstream solutions and competencies in most organizations, even supplanting traditional BI and analytics resources and budgets. They allow more types of knowledge and insights to be extracted from data. To become and remain competitive, enterprises must seek to adopt advanced analytics, and adapt their business models, establish specialist data science teams and rethink their overall strategies to keep pace with the competition. “Predicts 2017: Analytics Strategy and Technology” offers advice on overall strategy, approach and operational transformation to algorithmic business that leadership needs to build to reap the benefits.

By 2018, deep learning (deep neural networks [DNNs]) will be a standard component in 80% of data scientists’ tool boxes.
By 2020, more than 40% of data science tasks will be automated, resulting in increased productivity and broader usage by citizen data scientists.
By 2019, natural-language generation will be a standard feature of 90% of modern BI and analytics platforms.
By 2019, 50% of analytics queries will be generated using search, natural-language query or voice, or will be autogenerated.
By 2019, citizen data scientists will surpass data scientists in the amount of advanced analysis
produced.

By 2020, 95% of video/image content will never be viewed by humans; instead, it will be vetted by machines that provide some degree of automated analysis.

Through 2020, lack of data science professionals will inhibit 75% of organizations from achieving the full potential of IoT.

Amazon and Codecademy team up for free Alexa skills training [Khari Johnson]; 20,000+ “skills” now exist in Alexa Skills Store

On 09/26/2017, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, change, computer science, game-changing environment, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, Natural Language Processing (NLP), platforms, programming, usability, user experience (UX), vendors, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

Amazon and Codecademy team up for free Alexa skills training — from venturebeat.com by Khari Johnson

Excerpt:

Amazon and tech training app Codecademy have collaborated to create a series of free courses. Available today, the courses are meant to train developers as well as beginners how to create skills, the voice apps that interact with Alexa.

Since opening Alexa to third-party developers in 2015, more than 20,000 skills have been made available in the Alexa Skills Store.

Learning Ecosystems

DC: How soon before teachers/professors/trainers can quickly reconfigure their rooms’ settings via their voices?

BBC Radio’s newest program, The Inspection Chamber, uses smart home devices to allow listeners to interact with and control the plot.

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