From DSC:
I was watching a sermon the other day, and I’m always amazed when the pastor doesn’t need to read their notes (or hardly ever refers to them). And they can still do this in a much longer sermon too. Not me man.

It got me wondering about the idea of having a teleprompter on our future Augmented Reality (AR) glasses and/or on our Virtual Reality (VR) headsets.  Or perhaps such functionality will be provided on our mobile devices as well (i.e., our smartphones, tablets, laptops, other) via cloud-based applications.

One could see one’s presentation, sermon, main points for the meeting, what charges are being brought against the defendant, etc. and the system would know to scroll down as you said the words (via Natural Language Processing (NLP)).  If you went off script, the system would stop scrolling and you might need to scroll down manually or just begin where you left off.

For that matter, I suppose a faculty member could turn on and off a feed for an AI-based stream of content on where a topic is in the textbook. Or a CEO or University President could get prompted to refer to a particular section of the Strategic Plan. Hmmm…I don’t know…it might be too much cognitive load/overload…I’d have to try it out.

And/or perhaps this is a feature in our future videoconferencing applications.

But I just wanted to throw these ideas out there in case someone wanted to run with one or more of them.

Along these lines, see:

.

Is a teleprompter a feature in our future Augmented Reality (AR) glasses?

Is a teleprompter a feature in our future Augmented Reality (AR) glasses?

 

How to Do Screen Recording with Just Your Browser — from Hongkiat.com

Excerpt:

Do you know you can perform screen recording without using any native tool provided by your operating system or any 3rd party screen recording app?

Here’s an awesome screen recording tool by Google that you need to know about if you haven’t already. And all you need is your Google Chrome browser.

To start, go to the Google Admin Toolbox website and click on Screen Recorder.

Speaking of applications and tools, also see:

xrai.glass

 

Welcome To Day One Of #Appvent22 — from ictevangelist.com by Mark Anderson

What is Book Creator? Tips & Tricks — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Book Creator is a free tool that allows users to create multimedia ebooks

Excerpt:

Book Creator is a free education tool designed to enable students to engage with class material in a direct and active way by creating multimedia ebooks with a variety of functions.

 Available as a web app on Chromebooks, laptops, and tablets, and also as a standalone iPad app, Book Creator is a digital resource that helps students explore their creative sides while learning.

The tool lends itself well to active learning and collaborative projects of all kinds, and is appropriate for various subjects and age groups.

 

The Top 10 Digital Health Stories Of 2022 — from medicalfuturist.com by Dr. Bertalan Mesko

Excerpt:

Edging towards the end of the year, it is time for a summary of how digital health progressed in 2022. It is easy to get lost in the noise – I myself shared well over a thousand articles, studies and news items between January and the end of November 2022. Thus, just like in 20212020 (and so on), I picked the 10 topics I believe will have the most significance in the future of healthcare.

9. Smart TVs Becoming A Remote Care Platform
The concept of turning one’s TV into a remote care hub isn’t new. Back in 2012, researchers designed a remote health assistance system for the elderly to use through a TV set. But we are exploring this idea now as a major tech company has recently pushed for telehealth through TVs. In early 2022, electronics giant LG announced that its smart TVs will be equipped with the remote health platform Independa. 

And in just a few months (late November) came a follow-up: a product called Carepoint TV Kit 200L, in beta testing now. Powered by Amwell’s Converge platform, the product is aimed at helping clinicians more easily engage with patients amid healthcare’s workforce shortage crisis.

Also relevant/see:

Asynchronous Telemedicine Is Coming And Here Is Why It’s The Future Of Remote Care — from medicalfuturist.com by Dr. Bertalan Mesko

Excerpt:

Asynchronous telemedicine is one of those terms we will need to get used to in the coming years. Although it may sound alien, chances are you have been using some form of it for a while.

With the progress of digital health, especially due to the pandemic’s impact, remote care has become a popular approach in the healthcare setting. It can come in two forms: synchronous telemedicine and asynchronous telemedicine.

 

How lawyers can unlock the potential of the metaverse — from abajournal.com by Victor Li

Excerpt:

One such firm is Grungo Colarulo, a personal injury law firm with offices in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Last December, the firm announced that it had set up shop in the virtual world known as Decentraland.

Users can enter the firm’s virtual office, where they can interact with the firm’s avatar. They can talk to the avatar to see whether they might need legal representation and then take down a phone number to call the firm in the physical world. If they’re already clients, they can arrive for meetings or consultations.

Richard Grungo Jr., co-founder and name partner at Grungo Colarulo, told the ABA Journal in December 2021 that he could see the potential of the metaverse to allow his firm to host webinars, CLEs and other virtual educational opportunities, as well as hosting charity events.

Grungo joined the ABA Journal’s Victor Li to talk about how lawyers can use the metaverse to market themselves, as well as legal issues relating to the technology that all users should be aware of.

From DSC:
I post this to put this on the radars of legal folks out there. Law schools should join the legaltech folks in pulse-checking and covering/addressing emerging technologies. What the Metaverse and Web3 become is too early to tell. My guess is that we’ll see a lot more blending of the real world with the digital world — especially via Augmented Reality (AR).

We need to constantly be pulse-checking the landscapes out there and developing scenarios and solutions to such trends

 

What might the ramifications be for text-to-everything? [Christian]

From DSC:

  • We can now type in text to get graphics and artwork.
  • We can now type in text to get videos.
  • There are several tools to give us transcripts of what was said during a presentation.
  • We can search videos for spoken words and/or for words listed within slides within a presentation.

Allie Miller’s posting on LinkedIn (see below) pointed these things out as well — along with several other things.



This raises some ideas/questions for me:

  • What might the ramifications be in our learning ecosystems for these types of functionalities? What affordances are forthcoming? For example, a teacher, professor, or trainer could quickly produce several types of media from the same presentation.
  • What’s said in a videoconference or a webinar can already be captured, translated, and transcribed.
  • Or what’s said in a virtual courtroom, or in a telehealth-based appointment. Or perhaps, what we currently think of as a smart/connected TV will give us these functionalities as well.
  • How might this type of thing impact storytelling?
  • Will this help someone who prefers to soak in information via the spoken word, or via a podcast, or via a video?
  • What does this mean for Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), and/or Virtual Reality (VR) types of devices?
  • Will this kind of thing be standard in the next version of the Internet (Web3)?
  • Will this help people with special needs — and way beyond accessibility-related needs?
  • Will data be next (instead of typing in text)?

Hmmm….interesting times ahead.

 
 

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

Excerpt:

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

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

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

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

 

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

Excerpt:

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

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

 

How will the Metaverse Influence Business and Legal Processes? — from jdsupra.com

Excerpt:

While some will be hesitant to use the metaverse and adoption is difficult to predict, it is not going away and will undoubtedly affect internal processes, business dealings, case strategy, and more. Organizations should start thinking about the possibilities now to be better prepared for future challenges. Below are some predictions on how the metaverse will influence operations, strategy, and investments across different areas of the enterprise.

Lawyers & the Metaverse — from joetechnologist.com by Elizabeth Beattie and Joseph Raczynski

Excerpt:

In a new Q&A interview, Thomson Reuters’ technologist and futurist Joseph Raczynski offers his insight about the Metaverse and how it will impact the legal industry.

I have likely spoken to thousands of lawyers over the last several years. They are extraordinarily bright, but with one limiting factor — their dedication to their craft. This means that they do not have the time to lift their heads to see what is coming. All these emerging technologies will impact their practices in some way, as well as the business of law. At a minimum, lawyers need the opportunity to focus on the big four: AI, blockchain, workflow, and the grab bag of general emerging technology. There are a multitude of places to learn about these things, but I would include some of the classics such as Google Alerts, Twitter threads on these topics, and magazines like Wired, which should be a staple for everyone.

These legal issues should be on college business officers’ radars — from highereddive.com by Rick Seltzer
A panel at the National Association of College and University Business Officers’ annual meeting covered legal questions spanning many offices on campus.

Let’s not presume that virtual hearings are the best solution in family law — from canadianlawyermag.com by John Silvester

Excerpts:

Proponents argue that virtual hearings are less expensive for clients, leading to enhanced access to justice for those who cannot afford to pay for their lawyers to travel to a courthouse and then sit and wait for hearings to commence. Sounds reasonable, right?

Not so fast.

Virtual hearings are advantageous in some scenarios, but there are at least three reasons why moving to an almost entirely virtual legal world may prove problematic.

LawNext Podcast: CALI Executive Director John Mayer on Using Tech to Advance Legal Education and Access to Justice — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi and John Mayer

Excerpt:

In this episode of LawNext, Mayer joins host Bob Ambrogi to discuss the history and mission of CALI and to share his thoughts on the use of technology to enhance legal education. They also talk about how and why A2J Author was developed and how it is used by courts and legal services organizations to help those who are without legal representation. Mayer also shares his thoughts on the future of innovation in law and on the future of CALI.

Louisiana Approves Virtual Custody Services and Proposes Virtual Currency Business Licensing Rules — from natlawreview.com by Moorari Shah and A.J. S. Dhaliwal

Excerpt:

Recently, the Louisiana lawmakers and regulators have taken steps to legalize operations in the state involving virtual currencies. On June 15, the Louisiana governor signed a bill that, effective August 1, 2022, will allow financial institutions and trust companies to provide virtual currency custody services to their customers as long as they satisfy certain requirements on risk-management and compliance. On June 20, the Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions (OFI) published proposed rules on licensing and regulation of virtual currency businesses in the state pursuant to the Louisiana Virtual Currency Business Act, which went into effect on August 1, 2020.

 

The Metaverse Will Reshape Our Lives. Let’s Make Sure It’s for the Better. — from time.com by Matthew Ball

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

The metaverse, a 30-year-old term but nearly century-old idea, is forming around us. Every few decades, a platform shift occurs—such as that from mainframes to PCs and the internet, or the subsequent evolution to mobile and cloud computing. Once a new era has taken shape, it’s incredibly difficult to alter who leads it and how. But between eras, those very things usually do change. If we hope to build a better future, then we must be as aggressive about shaping it as are those who are investing to build it.

The next evolution to this trend seems likely to be a persistent and “living” virtual world that is not a window into our life (such as Instagram) nor a place where we communicate it (such as Gmail) but one in which we also exist—and in 3D (hence the focus on immersive VR headsets and avatars).

 

Matthew Ball on the metaverse: We’ve never seen a shift this enormous — protocol.com by Janko Roettgers
The leading metaverse theorist shares his thoughts on the sudden rise of the concept, its utility for the enterprise and what we still get wrong about the metaverse.

Excerpts:

What are the biggest misconceptions about the metaverse?
First, the idea that the metaverse is immersive virtual reality, such as an Oculus or Meta Quest. That’s an access device. It would be akin to saying the mobile internet is a smartphone.

We should think of the metaverse as perhaps changing the devices we use, the experiences, business models, protocols and behaviors that we enjoy online. But we’ll keep using smartphones, keyboards. We don’t need to do all video conferences or all calls in 3D. It’s supplements and complements, doesn’t replace everything.

Also relevant/see:

A former Amazon exec thinks Disney will win the metaverse — from protocol.com by

Excerpt:

This month, Ball is publishing his book, “The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything.” The work explains in detail what the metaverse is all about and which shifts in tech, business and culture need to fall into place for it to come into existence.

How will the metaverse change Hollywood? In his book, Ball argues that people tend to underestimate the changes new technologies will have on media and entertainment.

  • Instead of just seeing a movie play out in 360 degrees around us, we’ll want to be part of the movie and play a more active role.
  • One way to achieve that is through games, which have long blurred the lines between storytelling and interactivity. But Ball also predicts there will be a wide range of adjacent content experiences, from virtual Tinder dates in the “Star Wars” universe to Peloton rides through your favorite movie sets.

Addendum on 7/24/22:

Neurodiversity, Inclusion And The Metaverse — from workdesign.com by Derek McCallum

Excerpt:

Innovation in virtual and augmented reality platforms and the vast opportunities connected to the metaverse are driving innovation in nearly every industry. In the workplace, future-focused companies are increasingly exploring ways to use this nascent technology to offer workers more choices and better support for neurodiverse employees.

It would be nearly impossible to list all the challenges and opportunities associated with this technology in a single article, so I’ll keep things focused on an area that is top-of-mind right now as many of us start to make our way back into the office—the workplace. The truth is, while we can use our expertise and experience to anticipate outcomes, no one truly knows what the metaverse will become and what the wide-ranging effects will be. At the moment, the possibilities are exciting and bring to mind more questions than answers. As a principal and hands-on designer in a large, diverse practice, my hope is that we will be able to collectively harness the inherent opportunities of the metaverse to support richer, more accessible human experiences across all aspects of the built environment, and that includes the workplace.


 

The Restaurant of Mistaken Orders: A Tokyo Restaurant Where All the Servers Are People Living with Dementia — from openculture.com

Whole towns have already begun to structure their services around a growing number of citizens with dementia. But dementia itself remains “widely misunderstood,” says Restaurant of Mistaken Orders producer Shiro Oguni in the “concept movie” at the top of the post. “People believe you can’t do anything for yourself, and the condition will often mean isolation from society. We want to change society to become more easy-going so, dementia or no dementia, we can live together in harmony.”

Also see:

How Technology Can Improve Elder Care — from digitalsalutem.com by João Bocas

In this article, I talk about:

  1. The growth of the aging population
  2. The future of elder care is already here
  3. Smart homes, augmented and virtual reality, and wearables as potential solutions
  4. How these solutions can help providers deliver elder care
  5. The benefits of using these solutions

The world is changing. The way we live, the way we work, and the way we age are all being transformed by technology. In fact, some experts say that by 2030, more than half of the world’s population will be over 50 years old.

This is a new phenomenon for humanity. With this shift comes a need for new approaches to healthcare that are better suited to an aging population with increasingly complex needs.

 

Apple Starts Connecting the Dots for Its Next Big Thing — from nytimes.com by Tripp Mickle and Brian X. Chen
The company has enlisted Hollywood directors like Jon Favreau to help its effort to create products that blend the physical and virtual worlds.

Excerpt:

Nearly 15 years after the iPhone set off the smartphone revolution, Apple is assembling the pieces for what it hopes will become its next business-altering device: a headset that blends the digital world with the real one.

The company has enlisted Hollywood directors such as Jon Favreau to develop video content for a headset that it is expected to ship next year, according to three people familiar with that work. Mr. Favreau, an executive producer of “Prehistoric Planet” on Apple TV+, is working to bring that show’s dinosaurs to life on the headset, which looks like a pair of ski goggles and aims to offer virtual- and augmented-reality experiences, these people said.

Speaking of the future, here’s another item regarding what’s coming down the pike:

 

Defining Futures Thinking — from foresightpresent.foresightfutures.net by Maree Conway
It’s not easy to define futures thinking and foresight because it seems to be the norm in this field to re-invent definitions on a regular basis.

Excerpt:

The terms we use to describe the study of alternative futures is important. Disciplines and discourses do not emerge from a vacuum but have a history and a cultural context; and their names can hide as much as they reveal.

Speaking of the future…here’s a somewhat related item:

What should be the biggest change to wearables in the next five years? — from protocol.com by various
A greater emphasis on recommendations, better clinical integration and more accessibility are the changes that ought to be in store, the experts say.

Excerpt:

What makes wearable technology great is the opportunity to actually change lives by improving health, increasing fitness and enhancing performance. Whether we actually see it or not over the next five years, the change we should see is a greater emphasis on the insights and recommendations generated by wearable technology, rather than ever-larger piles of charts and graphs.

 

The amazing opportunities of AI in the future of the educational metaverse [Darbinyan]

The amazing opportunities of AI in the future of the educational metaverse — from forbes.com by Rem Darbinyan

Excerpt:

Looking ahead, let’s go over several potential AI-backed applications of the metaverse that can empower the education industry in many ways.

Multilingual Learning Opportunities
Language differences may be a real challenge for students from different cultures as they may not be able to understand and keep up with the materials and assignments. Artificial intelligence, VR and AR technologies can enhance multilingual accessibility for learners no matter where they are in the world. Speech-to-text, text-to-speech and machine translation technologies enrich the learning process and create more immersive learning environments.

AI can process multiple languages simultaneously and provide real-time translations, enabling learners to engage with the materials in the language of their choice. With the ability to instantly transcribe speech across multiple languages, artificial intelligence removes any language barriers for students, enabling them to be potentially involved, learn and communicate in any language.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education Market size exceeded USD 1 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 40% between 2021 and 2027. (source)

Along the lines of innovation within our educational learning ecosystems, see:

3 Questions for Coursera’s Betty Vandenbosch & U-M’s Lauren Atkins Budde on XR — from insidehighered.com by Joshua Kiim
How might extended reality shape the future of learning?

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

[Lauren Atkins Budde] “Being able to embed quality, effective extended reality experiences into online courses is exponentially a game-changer. One of the persistent constraints of online learning, especially at scale, is how do learners get hands-on practice? How do they experience specific contexts and situations? How do they learn things that are best experienced? XR provides that opportunity for actively doing different kinds of tasks, in various environments, in ways that would otherwise not be possible. It will open up  Lauren Atkins Buddeboth how we teach online and also what we teach online.”

These courses are really exciting and cover a broad range of disciplines, which is particularly important. To choose the right subjects, we did an extensive review of insights from industry partners, learners and market research on in-demand and emerging future-of-work skills and then paired that with content opportunities where immersive learning is really a value-add and creates what our learning experience designers call “embodied learning.”

Addendum on 5/1/22:
Can the Metaverse Improve Learning? New Research Finds Some Promise — from edsurge.com by Jeffrey R. Young

“The findings support a deeper understanding of how creating unique educational experiences that feel real (i.e., create a high level of presence) through immersive technology can influence learning through different affective and cognitive processes including enjoyment and interest,” Mayer and his colleagues write.

 
© 2022 | Daniel Christian