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 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.

 

 

 
 

ngls-2017-conference

 

From DSC:
I have attended the Next Generation Learning Spaces Conference for the past two years. Both conferences were very solid and they made a significant impact on our campus, as they provided the knowledge, research, data, ideas, contacts, and the catalyst for us to move forward with building a Sandbox Classroom on campus. This new, collaborative space allows us to experiment with different pedagogies as well as technologies. As such, we’ve been able to experiment much more with active learning-based methods of teaching and learning. We’re still in Phase I of this new space, and we’re learning new things all of the time.

For the upcoming conference in February, I will be moderating a New Directions in Learning panel on the use of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). Time permitting, I hope that we can also address other promising, emerging technologies that are heading our way such as chatbots, personal assistants, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, tvOS, blockchain and more.

The goal of this quickly-moving, engaging session will be to provide a smorgasbord of ideas to generate creative, innovative, and big thinking. We need to think about how these topics, trends, and technologies relate to what our next generation learning environments might look like in the near future — and put these things on our radars if they aren’t already there.

Key takeaways for the panel discussion:

  • Reflections regarding the affordances that new developments in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) — such as AR, VR, and MR — might offer for our learning and our learning spaces (or is our concept of what constitutes a learning space about to significantly expand?)
  • An update on the state of the approaching ed tech landscape
  • Creative, new thinking: What might our next generation learning environments look like in 5-10 years?

I’m looking forward to catching up with friends, meeting new people, and to the solid learning that I know will happen at this conference. I encourage you to check out the conference and register soon to take advantage of the early bird discounts.

 

 

iphone7-9-7-16

 

 

watch-9-7-16

 

 

 

airpods-9-7-16

 

 

 

Here are the big announcements from Apple’s September 2016 event — from amp.imore.com

  • iPhone 7
  • Apple Watch Series 2
  • Apple AirPods
  • iOS 10
  • watchOS 3
  • iWork: Apple announced an update to its iWork productivity suite across iPhone, iPad, and Mac that allows for real-time collaboration within Pages, Keynote, and Numbers.
  • Super Mario Run

 

 

What Apple’s Dual Camera iPhone Means For Augmented Reality — from vrscout.com

Excerpt:

Although there weren’t drastic changes made to the physical design of the iPhone (minus that old thing called a headphone jack), Apple’s unveiling of a dual-lens camera points to a world where millions of consumers could one day put a powerful augmented reality device in their pocket.

 

 

 

Apple kills headphone jack (1878 – 2016). RIP. — from techcrunch.com

 

 

 

Apple Unveils Waterproof iPhone 7 with Dual Cameras — from interestingengineering.com

 

 

 

iPhone 7 FAQ: Everything you need to know!— from amp.imore.com

 

 

 

Apple adds real-time collaboration to iWork– from engadget.com
Apple is taking on Google Docs in the education market. (From DSC: I’d like to think so, but we’ll see.)

 

 

 

After 500 Million Downloads, ‘Pokemon Go’ Is Coming To Apple Watch — from uploadvr.com

Excerpt:

A brief demonstration of the game was featured on-stage. The watch edition of the game will place a bigger focus on player fitness, tracking the calories you burn in play sessions along with distance.

 

 

Apple Watch bands FAQ: Everything you need to know! — from amp.imore.com

 

 

 

 

 

The next battleground: The 4th Era of Personal Computing — from stevebrownfuturist.com by Steve Brown

Excerpt:

I believe we are moving into the fourth era of personal computing. The first era was characterized by the emergence of the PC. The second by the web and the browser, and the third by mobile and apps.

 

The fourth personal computing platform will be a combination of IOT, wearable and AR-based clients using speech and gesture, connected over 4G/5G networks to PA, CaaS and social networking platforms that draw upon a new class of cloud-based AI to deliver highly personalized access to information and services.

 

 

So what does the fourth era of personal computing look like? It’s a world of smart objects, smart spaces, voice control, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence.

 

 

 

 

Why IT leaders should pay attention to augmented reality — from gartner.com by Heather Pemberton Levy

Excerpt:

Business will be a leading use case for AR over the next several years. An example is DHL’s use of wearables and AR in a warehouse pilot program to achieve improvement in the picking process. Other AR apps allow for automatic sign translation, or in a hands-busy environment, technicians can get equipment maintenance instructions through their HMDs while keeping focused on the task at hand.

 

SWG_AR2-01

 

“Virtual reality (VR) and AR capabilities will merge with the digital mesh to form a more seamless system of devices capable of orchestrating a flow of information that comes to the user as hyperpersonalized and relevant apps and services,” said Mr. Blau. “Integration across multiple mobile, wearable, IoT and sensor-rich environments (the digital mesh) will extend immersive applications beyond isolated and single-person experiences. Rooms and spaces will become active with things, and their connection through the mesh will appear and work in conjunction with immersive virtual worlds. “

 

 

From DSC:
I would add those working in higher education to this as well — as well as vendors working on education-related solutions.

 

 

 

Per Jack Du Mez at Calvin College, use this app to randomly call on your students — while instilling a game-like environment into your active learning classroom (ALC)!

 

Randomly-App-May2016

Description:
Randomly is an app made specifically for teachers and professors. It allows educators to enter their students into individual classes. They can then use the Random Name Selector feature to randomly call on a student to answer a question by one of two ways: Truly random, where repeated names are allowed, or a one pass – where all students are called once before they are called again. The device you’re using will even call out (vocally) the student’s name for you!

This app can also be used to randomly generate groups for you. You can split your class into groups by number of groups or by number of students per group. It intelligently knows what to do with any remaining students too!

This app supports Apple Watch, so you can call on your students with the use of your Apple Watch!

 

From DSC:
In the future, given facial and voice recognition software, I could see an Augmented Reality (AR)-based application whereby a faculty member or a teacher could see icons hovering over the students — letting the faculty member/teacher know who has been called upon recently and who hasn’t been called upon recently (with settings to change the length of time for this type of tracking — i.e., this student has been called upon in this class session, or in the last week, or in the last month, etc.).

 

AR-based-call-on-me-DanielChristian-5-10-16

 

 

 

 

Internet of Things Landscape 2016 – In One Diagram — from Matt Turck

Excerpt:

Is the Internet of Things the world’s most confusing tech trend? On the one hand, we’re told it’s going to be epic, and soon – all predictions are either in tens of billions (of connected devices) and trillions (of dollars of economic value to be created). On the other hand, the dominant feeling expressed by end users (including at this year’s CES show, arguably the bellwether of the industry) is essentially “meh” – right now the IoT feels like an avalanche of new connected products, many of which seem to solve trivial, “first world” problems: expensive gadgets that resolutely fall in the “nice to have” category, rather than “must have”.  And, for all the talk about a mega tech trend, things seem to be moving at the speed of molasses, with little discernible progress year on year.

Just as for the Big Data world, the annual update to our Internet of Things Landscape (scroll below for the 2016 version) is a great opportunity to check in on the industry. In 2013, we were trying to make sense of the Internet of Things; in late 2014, it seemed that the IoT had reached escape velocity. In 2016, the IoT space continues to hold considerable promise, but equally, and unsurprisingly, there’s no shortage of obstacles – there is a long road ahead and this trend will unfold over many years, possibly decades.

 

IoT-Landscape2016-as-of-April2016

 
 

 

Unlocking the past: How wearable tech could help get us back to our roots — from wareable.com by Daniel Coughlin
A genealogy expert predicts the future of using wearables to see into your past

 

Could wearable tech unlock the past?

 

Excerpt:

Imagine if you could snap on a DNA-matching wristband that connects you with long lost cousins, or pick up a personalised VR headset game that could immerse you in the lives of your ancestors? “It’s simply a matter of time before we could see this sort of technology,” says genealogy expert Thomas MacEntee.

Known in the industry as ‘The Tech Guy’, MacEntee runs an online community of 3,000 family history bloggers called GeneaBloggers. He also heads up Hack Genealogy, a blog about “repurposing today’s technology for tomorrow’s genealogy”, as well as the consulting site High-Definition Genealogy. MacEntee is renowned in the industry for spotting emerging family history trends and innovations.

Wearable technology for genealogy research and exploration is currently in its very early days. Ancestry.com, the world’s leading genealogy website, has made the industry’s first foray with its Ancestry app for Apple Watch, which launched last April. The app offers speedy access to Ancestry.com’s 14 billion records and images, allows the user to edit their family tree in an instant and delivers regular family history-related notifications.

That’s pretty much it for the moment – but MacEntee, who has envisaged a number of exciting potential uses, believes that this is just the beginning.

 

 

The future of wearable technology is bright, here are some reasons why — from Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers

Excerpt:

For years now, wearable devices have promised to help us lead healthier lives, experience life in new ways, and become less dependent on our smartphones. 2015 was a very important year for wearables as the market took several important steps towards delivering on these promises. Apple released their much anticipated Apple Watch. GoPro launched a host of new action camera products. FitBit went public with a market cap of over $6B. And Oculus and Microsoft solidified their plans for Rift and Hololens, respectively.

Despite the positive momentum, the expectations of the market have not yet been met, as many of these wearable devices will be found tucked away in a drawer or a nightstand after only a few weeks of use. Fortunately, technology can and will solve the majority of shortcomings associated with wearables today. To use a baseball analogy, we are only in the third inning, and there is still a lot of ballgame to be played. Several of us got together in the podcast studio at KPCB to discuss our thoughts on the future of wearable technology – above is our discussion some of our takeaways.

 

 

Also see:

 

 

 

10 promising technologies assisting the future of medicine and healthcare — by Bertalan Meskó, MD, PhD

Excerpt:

Technology will not solve the problems that healthcare faces globally today. And the human touch alone is not enough any more, therefore a new balance is needed between using disruptive innovations but still keeping the human interaction between patients and caregivers. Here are 10 technologies and trends that could enable this.

 

 

How the ‘Internet of Things’ will affect the world — from businessinsider.com by John Greenough and Jonathan Camhi

Excerpt:

Here are some key points from the report:

  • In total, we project there will be 34 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020, up from 10 billion in 2015. IoT devices will account for 24 billion, while traditional computing devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc.) will comprise 10 billion.
  • Nearly $6 trillion will be spent on IoT solutions over the next five years.
  • Businesses will be the top adopter of IoT solutions. They see three ways the IoT can improve their bottom line by 1) lowering operating costs; 2) increasing productivity; and 3) expanding to new markets or developing new product offerings.
  • Governments are focused on increasing productivity, decreasing costs, and improving their citizens’ quality of life. We believe they will be the second-largest adopters of IoT ecosystems.
  • Consumers will lag behind businesses and governments in IoT adoption. Still, they will purchase a massive number of devices and invest a significant amount of money in IoT ecosystems.

 

 

 

 

As IoT emerges, UX takes on greater urgency within enterprises — from zdnet.com by Joe McKendrick
User experience isn’t just a luxury — emerging Internet of Things, wearable, mobile, and virtual reality-based computing make it essential.

Excerpt:

Perhaps the renowned techno-futurist Mark Pesce said it best in a recent tweet: “I’d like to point out that [virtual reality] is the only display layer with profound UX implications. Fundamental ones. Ponder that,”

Pesce is spot on, of course, but we need to take his argument for heightened, immersive and interactive user experience a step further — not only is VR bringing it to the fore, but there is also the intense emphasis on connecting things — including wearables and mobile devices — into the emerging Internet of Things, as well as the ongoing challenges of the consumerization of IT, to make enterprise computing as intuitive and satisfying as consumer-based computing.

A recent survey of 7,725 executives and professionals shows that interest in UX — and UX testing — is on the rise. As summarized by Dennis McCafferty in CIO Insight, “respondents say that multi-device interaction–a.k.a., machine-to-machine tech–will greatly influence UX over the next five years. Which means CIOs and their tech teams should expect to devote more attention to UX for the indefinite future.”

 

 

 

The Internet of Things: It’s not quite here yet, but it’s definitely coming — from edtechmagazine.com by Nicci Fagan
Colleges and universities should take steps now to prepare for the impending barrage of connected devices and for the rise in IoT data.

 

 

 

Gartner warns of coming IoT data management overload — from readwrite.com by Donal Power

Excerpt:

The growth of Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly increasing the amount of data generated, and industry experts warn that the current river of unstructured data will soon turn into a flood. Alarmingly, a recent study highlighted concerns that most proposed approaches could lead to data management overload ineffective for the coming torrent of data.

Enterprise Tech cited a recent Gartner report that examined the impact IoT will have on enterprise infrastructure. The report warned that “due to a lack of information capabilities adapted for the IoT” an estimated 25% of attempts to utilize IoT data will be abandoned before deployment ever occurs.

 

 

 

Mobile World Congress 2016: Event Highlights

Excerpts:

  • Over 100,000 attendees came to Mobile World Congress 2016: nearly 101,000, in fact. Attendees from 204 countries and territories were present, and was covered by more than 3,600 members of the international press and media.
  • More than 2,200 companies participated
  • Everything from virtual reality, new handsets and ingenious app ideas, to 3D printing, privacy protection and backend solutions were on display.
  • 5G & NFV, mobile apps, retail & digital commerce, mobile media, IoT and security
  • 374 speakers from consumer brands, mobile organisations, mobile operators and industries touched by the mobile market — including advertising, banking, health, NGOs, entertainment and education.

 

Also see their blog.

 

 

 

Holograms are coming to a high street near you — from telegraph.co.uk by Rebecca Burn-Callander
Can you tell what’s real and what’s not?

Excerpt:

Completely realistic holograms, that will be generated when you pass a sensor, are coming to the high street.

Some will be used to advertise, others will have the ability to interact with you, and show you information. In shops, when you find a shirt you like, the technology is now here to bring up a virtual clothes rail showing you that same shirt in a variety of colours, and even tell you which ones are in stock, all using the same jaw-dropping imaging we have previously only experienced wearing 3D glasses at the cinema.

Holograms, augmented reality – which superimposes technology over the real world – and virtual reality (VR), its totally immersive counterpart, are tipped to be the hot trends in retail next year. Pioneers of the technology are set to find increasingly entertaining, useful and commercially viable ways of using it to tempt people into bricks-and-mortar stores, and fight back against the rise of online shopping.

 

 

 

 

WaveOptics’ technology could bring physical objects, such as books, to life in new ways

 

 

Completely realistic holograms, that will be generated when you pass a sensor, are coming to the high street.

 

 

From DSC:
What might our learning spaces offer us in the not-too-distant future when:

  • Sensors are built into most of our wearable devices?
  • Our BYOD-based devices serve as beacons that use machine-to-machine communications?
  • When artificial intelligence (AI) gets integrated into our learning spaces?
  • When the Internet of Things (IoT) trend continues to pick up steam?

Below are a few thoughts/ideas on what might be possible.

A faculty member walks into a learning space, the sensors/beacons communicate with each other, and the sections of lights are turned down to certain levels while the main display is turned on and goes to a certain site (the latter part occurred because the beacons had already authenticated the professor and had logged him or her into the appropriate systems in the background). Personalized settings per faculty member.

A student walks over to Makerspace #1 and receives a hologram that relays some 30,000-foot level instructions on what the initial problem to be solved is about. This has been done using the student’s web-based learner profile — whereby the sensors/beacons communicate who the student is as well as some basic information about what that particular student is interested in. The problem presented takes these things into consideration. (Think IBM Watson, with the focus being able to be directed towards each student.) The student’s interest is piqued, the problem gets their attention, and the stage is set for longer lasting learning. Personalized experiences per student that tap into their passions and their curiosities.

The ramifications of the Internet of Things (IoT) will likely involve the classroom at some point.  At least I hope they do. Granted, the security concerns are there, but the IoT wave likely won’t be stopped by security-related concerns. Vendors will find ways to address them, hackers will counter-punch, and the security-related wars will simply move/expand to new ground. But the wave won’t be stopped.

So when we talk about “classrooms of the future,” let’s think bigger than we have been thinking.

 

ThinkBiggerYet-DanielChristian-August282013

 

 

 

Also see:

What does the Internet of Things mean for meetings? — from meetingsnet.stfi.re by Betsy Bair

Excerpt:

The IoT has major implications for our everyday lives at home, as well as in medicine, retail, offices, factories, worksites, cities, or any structure or facility where people meet and interact.

The first application for meetings is the facility where you meet: doors, carpet, lighting, can all be connected to the Internet through sensors. You can begin to track where people are going, but it’s much more granular.

Potentially you can walk into a meeting space, it knows it’s you, it knows what you like, so your experience can be customized and personalized.

Right now beacons are fairly dumb, but Google and Apple are working on frameworks, building operating systems, that allow beacons to talk to each other.

 

 

Addendum on 1/14/16:

  • Huddle Space Products & Trends for 2016 — from avnetwork.com by Cindy Davis
    Excerpt:
    “The concept is that you should be able to walk into these rooms, and instead of being left with a black display, maybe a cable on the table, or maybe nothing, and not know what’s going on; what if when you walked into the room, the display was on, and it showed you what meeting room it was, who had the meeting room scheduled, and is it free, can just walk in and I use it, or maybe I am in the wrong room? Let’s put the relevant information up there, and let’s also put up the information on how to connect. Although there’s an HDMI cable at the table, here’s the wireless information to connect.
 

Predictions on the future of digital media — from techcrunch.com by Peter Csathy

Excerpt:

It’s pundit time — this time, digital media style.  Last year I predicted challenges to YouTube’s dominance in online video, a beginning of cord cutting and the unbundling of video services, and an explosion in short form video content. This year the media landscape will continue to shift as VR grows up and consolidation takes over.

 

VR-HeadlineStory-Jan2016

 

 
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