Why Wall Street thinks the metaverse will be worth trillions — from fortune.com by Bernhard Warner; resource from Ori Inbar on Twitter
Also from Ori Inbar:
Wiki Loves Monuments 2021 winners — from commons.wikimedia.org
Excerpt:
Below are some of the pictures from Greece.
Concentric Vessels Nest Within Larger Forms in Matthew Chambers’ Perplexing Ceramic Sculptures — from thisiscolossal.com by Grace Ebert and Matthew Chambers
Sunlight Caps the Snowy Meili Mountain Range in a Majestic Photo Series — from thisiscolossal.com by Grace Ebert & Rainlook
Royal Portuguese Reading Room, Brazil. pic.twitter.com/AJir344WCY
— 3:00am (@3hr00am) December 15, 2021
In ‘Two Worlds,’ Split-View Photos Frame the Dual Environments Above and Below the Water’s Surface — from thisiscolossal.com by Grace Ebert
Artist Spotlight: Sara-Vide Ericson — from booooooom.com
Black Sand Beach — from 500px.com by dronographer
Amazing Paper Art Made for Different Medias — from fubiz.net by Reina Takahashi, aka Reinasaur
Feds’ spending on facial recognition tech expands, despite privacy concerns — from by Tonya Riley
Excerpt:
The FBI on Dec. 30 signed a deal with Clearview AI for an $18,000 subscription license to the company’s facial recognition technology. While the value of the contract might seem just a drop in the bucket for the agency’s nearly $10 billion budget, the contract was significant in that it cemented the agency’s relationship with the controversial firm. The FBI previously acknowledged using Clearview AI to the Government Accountability Office but did not specify if it had a contract with the company.
From DSC:
What?!? Isn’t this yet another foot in the door for Clearview AI and the like? Is this the kind of world that we want to create for our kids?! Will our kids have any privacy whatsoever? I feel so powerless to effect change here. This technology, like other techs, will have a life of its own. Don’t think it will stop at finding criminals.
This is a snapshot from the series entitled, “Person of Interest.“
Will this show prove to be right on the mark?
Addendum on 1/18/22:
As an example, check out this article:
Tencent is set to ramp up facial recognition on Chinese children who log into its gaming platform. The increased surveillance comes as the tech giant caps how long kids spend gaming on its platform. In August 2021, China imposed strict limits on how much time children could spend gaming online.
Inside Higher Ed Acquired by Times Higher Education — from insidehighered.com by Scott Jaschik and Doug Lederman
Our editors Scott Jaschik and Doug Lederman explain how this combination of publishing companies will improve global coverage of postsecondary education and better serve the higher ed community.
Excerpt:
As journalists, we often say that we want to report the news, not be the news. We are making an exception [on 1/10/22] to announce that Inside Higher Ed has been acquired by Times Higher Education (THE), the world’s leading provider of higher education news, data and insights.
Global EdTech Venture Capital Report – Full Year 2021 — from holoniq.com
$20.8B of EdTech Venture Capital Investment in 2021 through more than 1,500 Funding Rounds.
Excerpt:
EdTech Venture Capital reached 3x pre-pandemic investment levels in 2021, accelerating startups around the world with over $20B of funding. Fueled by a massive US and EU investment surge and India’s growth charging onwards, collectively global growth covered an $8B investment collapse from China and managed to set record growth for the sector.
Heart of the Forest — from 500px.com
Dezeen’s top 10 Chinese architecture projects of 2021 — from dezeen.com
????? by ??? https://t.co/x2akypEnXI #Photography pic.twitter.com/TJpqTudQyW
— #LuxuryTravel (@ZaibatsuPlanet) December 18, 2021
4 shades of blue. pic.twitter.com/88LBwKD1qX
— 3:00am (@3hr00am) December 18, 2021
Yosemite National Park pic.twitter.com/KTRkCAUhkl
— On the Road (@OnTheRoad34) December 20, 2021
Autumn morning — from 500px.com by David Dai
Desert Camel by Xiao Yang — from 500px.com
Discover by Reacto Carbon — from 500px.com
The next age of the internet could suck power away from Big Tech while living on the same backbone as cryptocurrencies. Here’s what to know about Web3. — from businessinsider.com by Katie Canales
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
…
One aspect of the metaverse is that users will hopefully be able to go virtually from platform to platform with one single account — just like we will in Web3.
And NFTs, one-of-a-kind tokens representing your ownership of a virtual good, could be more easily bought and sold with cryptocurrencies within a space like Web3.
From DSC:
How might “Web3” translate into the future of lifelong learning? Here’s one vision/possibility:
Each person would have a learner profile/account that could seamlessly log into multiple education/training providers’ platforms and services. The results of that learning could be stored in one’s cloud-based learner profile. This type of next-generation learning platform would still need subject matter experts, instructional designers, programmers, and other team members. But the focus would be on building skills — skills that an artificial intelligence-backed interface would demonstrate are currently being requested by the modern workplace. This constantly-being-updated list of skills could then link to the learning-related experiences and resources that people could choose from in order to develop those skills.
The following vision/graphic also comes to my mind:
Top Resources For Students To Discover Real World Problems & Issues — from edtechreview.in by Saniya Khan
Are you looking for ways to help students learn about world issues: climate change, cultural diversity, biodiversity, education, water crisis, [homelessness] and more to build awareness about global issues and develop global competence?
The State of Student Success & Engagement in Higher Education — from instructure.com (authors of the Canvas LMS)
Our 2021 Global Student engagement and success study uncovers vital stats and key trends to help education institutions thrive through today’s education challenges.
Excerpt:
Nvidia’s New Supercomputer Will Create a ‘Digital Twin’ of Earth to Fight Climate Change — from singularityhub.com by Vanessa Bates Ramirez
Excerpt:
But according to Nvidia, to really know where and how to take action on climate change, we need more data, better modeling, and faster computers. That’s why the company is building what it calls “the world’s most powerful AI supercomputer dedicated to predicting climate change.”
The system will be called Earth-2 and will be built using Nvidia’s Omniverse, a multi-GPU development platform for 3D simulation based on Pixar’s Universal Scene Description. In a blog post announcing Earth-2 late last week, Nvidia’s founder and CEO Jensen Huang described his vision for the system as a “digital twin” of Earth.
