DC: What doors does this type of real-time translation feature open up for learning?https://t.co/beOXFjGZs9#learningfromthelivingclassroom #education #K12 #highereducation #training #learning #lifelonglearning #globallearning #languages #translation https://t.co/TV5InkWHwn pic.twitter.com/MGblMzQbBL
— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) August 4, 2021
From DSC:
For that matter, what does it open up for #JusticeTech? #Legaltech? #A2J? #Telehealth?
Will AR glasses provide this type of information in real-time? #AI, #NLP, smartclassrooms #edtech [Christian]
.
DSC:Modified image which was originally from Minerva.com > Forum Learning Environment
11 Emerging Business Opportunities In The Internet Of Things Sector — from forbes.com by a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
With this increased revenue comes a number of new ways for businesses to leverage IoT technology. Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared some business opportunities they see emerging in the IoT sector. Keep an eye out for these 11 growing trends in the B2B IoT space.
1. Voice-Powered Technologies
With the growing popularity of IoT devices, the interaction of business with customers is also changing. Take for instance Siri, Alexa and Cortana — who are advanced voice technologies — to perform countless searches as the customer orders. This one area of IoT is going to expand gigantically in the future.
Google CEO Still Insists AI Revolution Bigger Than Invention of Fire — from gizmodo.com by Matt Novak
Pichai suggests the internet and electricity are also small potatoes compared to AI.
Excerpt:
The artificial intelligence revolution is poised to be more “profound” than the invention of electricity, the internet, and even fire, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who made the comments to BBC media editor Amol Rajan in a podcast interview that first went live on Sunday.
“The progress in artificial intelligence, we are still in very early stages, but I viewed it as the most profound technology that humanity will ever develop and work on, and we have to make sure we do it in a way that we can harness it to society’s benefit,” Pichai said.
“But I expect it to play a foundational role pretty much across every aspect of our lives. You know, be it health care, be it education, be it how we manufacture things and how we consume information.
AI voice actors sound more human than ever —and they’re ready to hire— from technologyreview.com by Karen Hao
A new wave of startups are using deep learning to build synthetic voice actors for digital assistants, video-game characters, and corporate videos.
Excerpt:
The company blog post drips with the enthusiasm of a ’90s US infomercial. WellSaid Labs describes what clients can expect from its “eight new digital voice actors!” Tobin is “energetic and insightful.” Paige is “poised and expressive.” Ava is “polished, self-assured, and professional.”
Each one is based on a real voice actor, whose likeness (with consent) has been preserved using AI. Companies can now license these voices to say whatever they need. They simply feed some text into the voice engine, and out will spool a crisp audio clip of a natural-sounding performance.
…
But the rise of hyperrealistic fake voices isn’t consequence-free. Human voice actors, in particular, have been left to wonder what this means for their livelihoods.
And below are a couple of somewhat related items:
Amazon’s latest voice interoperability move undermines Google — from protocol.com by Janko Roettgers
With a new toolkit, Amazon is making it easier to build devices that run multiple voice assistants — weakening one of Google’s key arguments against licensing the Google Assistant for such scenarios.
People should be able to pick whatever assistant they prefer for any given task, simply by invoking different words, Rubenson said. “We think it’s critical that customers have choice and flexibility,” he said. “Each will have their own strengths and capabilities.”
Protocol Next Up — from protocol.com by Janko Roettgers
Defining the future of tech and entertainment with Janko Roettgers.
Voice is becoming a true developer ecosystem. Amazon now has more than 900,000 registered Alexa developers, who collectively have built over 130,000 Alexa skills. And those skills are starting to show up in more and more places: “We now have hundreds of physical products” with Alexa built in, Alexa Voice Service & Alexa Skills VP Aaron Rubenson told me this week.
How to apply Midyear 2021 lawsuit data to make your digital content more inclusive. — from UsableNet
Redefining the Future of Law: Alternative Legal Service Models — from clio.com by Joshua Lenon; with slides of the recording here.
Advantages of Automated and Bundled Legal Services — from clio.com
The Law Firm of the Future — from joetechnologist.com by Joseph Raczynski
The impact of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs on the legal industry with Joseph Raczynski — from the ABA Center for Innovation
Reimagining Law: The Importance of Law Librarians in a Digital World — from legaltechmonitor.com
AI CLM Company LinkSquares Raises $40M, Says It Will Soon Release First-of-its-Kind Product — from legaltechmonitor.com by Bob Ambrogi
“Today, we’re witnessing the next major step up in power, thanks to artificial intelligence software,” Sunak wrote. “AI is creating legal solutions that can outpace and outperform traditional software in the same way steamships and diesel-powered vessels could outperform even the most impressive wind-powered tall ships.” And just as the step up to power changed what boats could do, “Linksquares is changing what a legal software solution can do and be.”
From DSC:
AI has plenty of pitfalls, no doubt. But a range of AI-based technologies continues to move forward and become further integrated into numerous industries and disciplines. The legal realm is not only using AI-based applications already, but it will also need to have the knowledge to be able to support clients who bring cases involving AI (and other emerging technologies) to them.
The impact of blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs on the legal industry with Joseph Raczynski — from buzzsprout.com by the ABA Center for Innovation
Today we will discuss blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and NFTs and their impact on the legal industry. Joining us is an expert in all things blockchain and crypto, Joseph Raczynski. Joseph Raczynski is a Technologist & Futurist with Thomson Reuters.
Also see:
The Law Firm of the Future — from joetechnologist.com by Joseph Raczynski
Excerpt:
Attorneys look to precedent to solve today’s legal problems. “Steeped in tradition” is how we often describe the legal profession. As result, it’s no surprise that there is inherent tension between emerging technology and the legal profession. The American Bar Association’s 2020 TechReport, which surveys firms and tracks attorney use of technology in their practices, reported that only 7% of attorneys are using tech tools, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), for document review and research. Firms with more than 100 attorneys are more likely to use AI, as well as firms that engage in mass tort litigation. Despite promises of increased efficiency, productivity, and profitability, a significant number of attorneys cite distrust of the technology and underlying algorithms.
Even though the legal services market is estimated to be a $1T industry globally, Forbes reports that it is also one of the least digitized…
Japan Has Shattered the Internet Speed Record at 319 Terabits per Second — from interestingengineering.com by Brad Bergan
This could change everything.
Excerpt:
We’re in for an information revolution.
Engineers in Japan just shattered the world record for the fastest internet speed, achieving a data transmission rate of 319 Terabits per second (Tb/s), according to a paper presented at the International Conference on Optical Fiber Communications in June. The new record was made on a line of fibers more than 1,864 miles (3,000 km) long. And, crucially, it is compatible with modern-day cable infrastructure.
This could literally change everything.
Also see:
Japan Sets New Record for Internet Speed at 319 Terabits per Second — from singularityhub.com by Jason Dorrier
Excerpt:
To meet tomorrow’s demands, we have to start building a more capable internet today. And by we, I mean researchers in labs around the world. So it is that each year we’re duly notified of a new eye-watering, why-would-we-need-that speed record.
In August of last year, a University College London (UCL) team, set the top mark at 178 terabits per second. Now, a year later, researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) say they’ve nearly doubled the record with speeds of 319 terabits per second.
It’s worth putting that into perspective for a moment. When the UCL team announced their results last year, they said you could download Netflix’s entire catalog in a second with their tech. The NICT team has doubled that Netflix-library-per-second speed.
Need to Fit Billions of Transistors on a Chip? Let AI Do It — from wired.com by Will Knight
Excerpt:
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS now helping to design computer chips—including the very ones needed to run the most powerful AI code.
Sketching out a computer chip is both complex and intricate, requiring designers to arrange billions of components on a surface smaller than a fingernail. Decisions at each step can affect a chip’s eventual performance and reliability, so the best chip designers rely on years of experience and hard-won know-how to lay out circuits that squeeze the best performance and power efficiency from nanoscopic devices. Previous efforts to automate chip design over several decades have come to little.
But recent advances in AI have made it possible for algorithms to learn some of the dark arts involved in chip design. This should help companies draw up more powerful and efficient blueprints in much less time. Importantly, the approach may also help engineers co-design AI software, experimenting with different tweaks to the code along with different circuit layouts to find the optimal configuration of both.
Zoom will have automatic translation in real time to videoconferences after buying the company Kites — from entrepreneur.com
Video calling platform Zoom bought a German startup specializing in language translation using Artificial Intelligence.
Excerpt:
Through its official blog , Zoom announced that they are in negotiations to acquire the company Karlsruhe Information Technology Solutions , abbreviated Kites . It is a German startup dedicated to the development of real-time machine translation solutions or MT, for its acronym in English.
Also see:
Nvidia builds AI LaunchPad in the cloud with Equinix — from fierceelectronics.com by Dan O’Shea
Excerpt:
If we fail to evolve to a point where almost everyone in the world relies on AI in some fashion, it won’t be for Nvidia’s lack of commitment to that vision. The company continues to hammer away at the notion of democratizing AI so that a broader array of businesses can leverage the technology.
Its newest offering, announced today, is a comprehensive AI platform made available for easy consumption through hybrid cloud providers. This platform, AI LaunchPad, initially will be available through Nvidia cloud partner Equinix. Nvidia explained that as AI proliferates through enterprises and their applications, companies will need to access application resources that might be distributed across public and private clouds. AI LaunchPad via Platform Equinix will allow them to access those resources in minutes for an hourly fee and deploy them to distributed locations…
Watch a Drone Swarm Fly Through a Fake Forest Without Crashing — from wired.com by Max Levy
Each copter doesn’t just track where the others are. It constantly predicts where they’ll go.
From DSC:
I’m not too crazy about this drone swarm…in fact, the more I thought about it, I find it quite alarming and nerve-racking. It doesn’t take much imagination to think what the militaries of the world are already doing with this kind of thing. And our son is now in the Marines. So forgive me if I’m a bit biased here…but I can’t help but wondering what the role/impact of foot soldiers will be in the next war? I hope we don’t have one.
Anway, just because we can…
The Future of Social Media: Re-Humanisation and Regulation — by Gerd Leonhard
How could social media become ‘human’ again? How can we stop the disinformation, dehumanisation and dataism that has resulted from social media’s algorithmic obsessions? I foresee that the EXTERNALTIES i.e. the consequences of unmitigated growth of exponential digital technologies will become just as big as the consequences of climate change. In fact, today, the social media industry already has quite a few parallels to the oil, gas and coal business: while private make huge profits from extracting the ‘oil’ (i.e. user data), the external damage is left to society and governments to fix. This needs to change! In this keynote I make some precise suggestions as to how that could happen.
Some snapshots/excerpts:
From DSC:
Gerd brings up some solid points here. His presentation and perspectives are not only worth checking out, but they’re worth some time for us to seriously reflect on what he’s saying.
What kind of future do we want?
And for you professors, teachers, instructional designers, trainers, and presenters out there, check out *how* he delivers the content. It’s well done and very engaging.
10 AI tech trends data scientists should know — from by Lisa Morgan
The rising environmental and monetary costs of deep learning are catching enterprises’ attention, as are new AI techniques like graph neural networks and contrastive learning.
Excerpt:
AI adoption is accelerating across industries, driven by a combination of concrete results, high expectations and a lot of money. Among the many new AI concepts and techniques launching almost daily, 10 AI tech trends in particular grab data scientists’ attention.
Microsoft President Warns of Orwell’s 1984 ‘Coming to Pass’ in 2024 — from interestingengineering.com by Chris Young
Microsoft’s Brad Smith warned we may be caught up in a losing race with artificial intelligence.
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
The surveillance-state dystopia portrayed in George Orwell’s 1984 could “come to pass in 2024” if governments don’t do enough to protect the public against artificial intelligence (AI), Microsoft president Brad Smith warned in an interview for the BBC’s investigative documentary series Panorama.
During the interview, Smith warned of China’s increasing AI prowess and the fact that we may be caught up in a losing race with the technology itself.
“If we don’t enact the laws that will protect the public in the future, we are going to find the technology racing ahead, and it’s going to be very difficult to catch up,” Smith stated.
From DSC:
This is a major heads up to all those in the legal/legislative realm — especially the American Bar Association (ABA) and the Bar Associations across the country! The ABA needs to realize they have to up their game and get with the incredibly fast pace of the twenty-first century. If that doesn’t occur, we and future generations will pay the price. Two thoughts come to my mind in regards to the ABA and for the law schools out there:
Step 1: Allow 100% online-based JD programs all the time, from here on out.
Step 2: Encourage massive new program development within all law schools to help future lawyers, judges, legislative reps, & others build up more emerging technology expertise & the ramifications thereof.
Google’s plan to make search more sentient — from vox.com by Rebecca Heilweil
Google announces new search features every year, but this time feels different.
Excerpt:
At the keynote speech of its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Google revealed a suite of ways the company is moving forward with artificial intelligence. These advancements show Google increasingly trying to build AI-powered tools that seem more sentient and that are better at perceiving how humans actually communicate and think. They seem powerful, too.
Two of the biggest AI announcements from Google involve natural language processing and search.
…
Google also revealed a number of AI-powered improvements to its Maps platform that are designed to yield more helpful results and directions.
Google’s plans to bring AI to education make its dominance in classrooms more alarming — from fastcompany.com by Ben Williamson
The tech giant has expressed an ambition to transform education with artificial intelligence, raising fresh ethical questions.
Struggling to Get a Job? Artificial Intelligence Could Be the Reason Why — from newsweek.com by Lydia Veljanovski; with thanks to Sam DeBrule for the resource
Excerpt:
Except that isn’t always the case. In many instances, instead of your application being tossed aside by a HR professional, it is actually artificial intelligence that is the barrier to entry. While this isn’t a problem in itself—AI can reduce workflow by rapidly filtering applicants—the issue is that within these systems lies the possibility of bias.
It is illegal in the U.S. for employers to discriminate against a job applicant because of their race, color, sex, religion, disability, national origin, age (40 or older) or genetic information. However, these AI hiring tools are often inadvertently doing just that, and there are no federal laws in the U.S. to stop this from happening.
These Indian edtech companies are shaping the future of AI & robotics — from analyticsinsight.net by Apoorva Komarraju May 25, 2021
Excerpt:
As edtech companies have taken a lead by digitizing education for the modern era, they have taken the stance to set up Atal Tinkering Labs in schools along with other services necessary for the budding ‘kidpreneurs’. With the availability of these services, students can experience 21st-century technologies like IoT, 3D printing, AI, and Robotics.
Researchers develop machine-learning model that accurately predicts diabetes, study says — from ctvnews.ca by Christy Somos
Excerpt:
TORONTO — Canadian researchers have developed a machine-learning model that accurately predicts diabetes in a population using routinely collected health data, a new study says.
The study, published in the JAMA Network Open journal, tested new machine-learning technology on routinely collected health data that examined the entire population of Ontario. The study was run by the ICES not-for-profit data research institute.
Using linked administrative health data from Ontario from 2006 to 2016, researchers created a validated algorithm by training the model on information taken from nearly 1.7 million patients.
Project Guideline: Enabling Those with Low Vision to Run Independently — from ai.googleblog.com by Xuan Yang; with thanks to Sam DeBrule for the resource
Excerpt:
For the 285 million people around the world living with blindness or low vision, exercising independently can be challenging. Earlier this year, we announced Project Guideline, an early-stage research project, developed in partnership with Guiding Eyes for the Blind, that uses machine learning to guide runners through a variety of environments that have been marked with a painted line. Using only a phone running Guideline technology and a pair of headphones, Guiding Eyes for the Blind CEO Thomas Panek was able to run independently for the first time in decades and complete an unassisted 5K in New York City’s Central Park.
Deepfake Maps Could Really Mess With Your Sense of the World — from wired.com by Will Knight
Researchers applied AI techniques to make portions of Seattle look more like Beijing. Such imagery could mislead governments or spread misinformation online.
