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Thursday, December 31, 2020
Happy New Year! Wish You A Great 2021! | Helge Scherlund's eLearning News
Strategic makes artificial intelligence breakthrough | Public Companies - The West Australian
Matt Birney, Managing Editor of Bulls N Bears notes, Strategic Elements has upped the ante in the artificial intelligence technology race after releasing the latest test results from its “printable ink” technologies program.
Test work by the University of New South Wales, or “UNSW”,
appears to show the innovative product can be used to create a printable
chip which mimics some of the functions of neurons in the human brain.
Strategic Element’s printable ink technologies have facilitated a technological leap in AI.
Photo: File
The pioneering technology is the brainchild of a collaborative development program being advanced by the UNSW and Strategic Elements. The program is built upon the ethos that advancing computer memory chip technologies is not about increasing the components on the chip, but rather it is about changing how the component works...
The Nanocube technology had its origins in producing a transparent ink that contained billions of nanometre-scale cubes that can function as an electronic circuit or memory cell when sprayed onto a surface and assembled with electrodes. The circuits could be printed onto a flexible substrate and also contain wires that are 100 times thinner than a human hair, lending themselves to a range of applications outside the constraints of conventional silicon computing technologies which operate at high-temperature and require significant energy input.
Source: The West Australian
Here’s what happened in the world of artificial intelligence in 2020 | Tech - The Next Web
Tristan Greene, Editor at The Next Web summarizes, The year 2020 was long and treacherous, but the biggest bright spot for me was the official launch of Neural. That’s our AI sub-brand here at TNW and the section you’re reading this article in.
Here’s what happened in the world of artificial intelligence in 2020
Photo: The Next Web
More specifically, Neural is me (Tristan Greene), Thomas Macaulay, Ivan Mehta, and the contributors and colleagues who help us put out fresh, original, exciting content in the world of machine learning every day.
It was a tough year to be a reporter but Thomas and Ivan managed to exceed our expectations at every turn with incredible insight and consistent excellence. With that in mind, I’m proud to present some of my favorite articles from Tom and Ivan this year...
But first, here’s my contribution:
Source: The Next Web
Blame not the robot but the human behind it | Opinion - Financial Times
Building public trust in artificial intelligence systems is essential by The editorial board.
Timnit Gebru, Google's former ethical researcher, claimed she was dismissed after warning of the dangers of language programs that rely on data from the internet
Photo: © Kimberly White/TechCrunch/Getty
“F*** the algorithm!” became one of the catchphrases of 2020, encapsulating the fear that humanity is being subordinated to technology. Whether it was British school students complaining about their A level grades or Stanford Medical Centre staff highlighting the unfairness of vaccination priorities, people understandably rail against the idea of faceless machines stripping humans of agency. This is an issue that will only grow in prominence as artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous in the computer systems that power our modern world.
To some extent, these fears are based on a misconception. Humans are still the ones who exercise judgment and algorithms do exactly what they are designed to do: discriminate. Whether they do so in a positive or a negative way depends on the humans who write these algorithms and interpret and act upon their output. It may on occasion be convenient for a government official or an executive to blame some “rogue” algorithm for their mistakes. But we should not be fooled by this rhetoric. We should hold those who deploy AI systems legally and morally accountable for the outcomes they produce.
Artificial intelligence is no more than a technological tool, like any other. It is a powerful general purpose technology, akin to electricity, that enables other technologies to work more effectively...
Many tech companies publicly profess to take such data discrimination issues seriously and have published ethics codes governing the use of AI. But it is hard for outsiders to know how far they incorporate ethical considerations at the heart of their design and decision-making processes.
Source: Financial Times
Tips for Getting Started With Robotics | Science & Tech - Fiction Talk
Of the innumerable hobbies out there that you could enjoy, robotics
is one of the coolest by Y'berion.
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| Tips-for-getting-started-with-robotics Photo: Y'berion |
After all, mechanized characters and contraptions consistently pervade our media and video games. Lots of people dream of building and designing their own working robots, but only a few will transform that desire into reality. You can utilize these tips for getting started with robotics to make things less daunting.
Read Articles and BooksThe first step for starting most hobbies lies in finding inspiration and absorbing the basics of the craft. For this purpose, you may read online articles and full-fledged books on robotics. Through these, you can slowly ease yourself into pursuing your own creations. You may see the impressive accomplishments of others and want to work toward reaching their level. Articles and books for beginners can also introduce you to concepts and tools that you’ll need as you carry out projects later on.
Source: Fiction Talk
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Become An Expert In Artificial Intelligence With The Ultimate Artificial Intelligence Scientist Certification Bundle | Editor's Blog - IFLScience
Interested in the fast-growing field of Artificial Intelligence (AI)? by StackCommerce.
Become An Expert In Artificial Intelligence With The Ultimate Artificial Intelligence Scientist Certification Bundle
Photo: Stackcommerce
With so much under its umbrella, mastering the many aspects of AI can be cumbersome and even confusing. Truly understanding the vast world of AI means learning about its various subsets, how they are interconnected and what happens when they work together.
It’s an exciting idea, but where does one start? Take it from here: become a certified AI scientist with The Ultimate Artificial Intelligence Scientist Certification Bundle. The four featured courses are packed with 670 lessons covering Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Python and Tensorflow. Designed for all skill levels, the courses cover everything from the basics to real-world examples and projects. Over 1,000 students have already enrolled in this highly-rated bundle, which we break down below...
Right now, you can get The Ultimate Artificial Intelligence Scientist Certification Bundle for $34.99, down 95% from the original MSRP.
Source: IFLScience
You don’t code? Do machine learning straight from Microsoft Excel | Practitioner - VentureBeat
Machine learning and deep learning have become an important part of many applications we use every day, according to Ben Dickson, software engineer and the founder of TechTalks.
You don’t code? Do machine learning straight from Microsoft Excel
Photo: VentureBeat
There are few domains that the fast expansion of machine learning hasn’t touched. Many businesses have thrived by developing the right strategy to integrate machine learning algorithms into their operations and processes. Others have lost ground to competitors after ignoring the undeniable advances in artificial intelligence.
But mastering machine learning is a difficult process. You need to start with a solid knowledge of linear algebra and calculus, master a programming language such as Python, and become proficient with data science and machine learning libraries such as Numpy, Scikit-learn, TensorFlow, and PyTorch.
And if you want to create machine learning systems that integrate and scale, you’ll have to learn cloud platforms such as Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
Naturally, not everyone needs to become a machine learning engineer. But almost everyone who is running a business or organization that systematically collects and processes can benefit from some knowledge of data science and machine learning...
While I’ve been using Excel’s mathematical tools for years, I didn’t come to appreciate its use for learning and applying data science and machine learning until I picked up Learn Data Mining Through Excel: A Step-by-Step Approach for Understanding Machine Learning Methods by Hong Zhou.
Source: VentureBeat
Tuesday, December 29, 2020
How to change your career – A step-by-step guide | Employment - Big Issue
2021 offers an opportunity to build back better after the pandemic, and for many that might mean a career change, explain Jem Collins at Big Issue.
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| Photo: Katerina Holmes, Pexel |
Whatever it is though, you’re not alone. Almost 10 percent of the UK workforce change jobs in any given year, and more than half of us are planning to make a change within the next five years. So shifting careers is by no means uncommon.
Take a skills-focused approachWhen it comes to actually putting in job applications and CVs, if you’re looking to change your career, taking a skills based approach is vital. You want to make the best information about you as accessible as possible, so employers can see it at a glance.
For career changers, this means focusing especially hard on the skills you have which are relevant to your new job. This could mean designing your CV slightly differently, for example, putting a key skills section at the top, or using bold text to highlight specific focuses within particular elements of past employment.
Source: Big Issue
The Biggest Trends of 2021 and Free Courses to Get Ahead | Career success tips - Learning Blog
Dan Brodnitz, Global Head of Content Strategy, LinkedIn Learning (he/him) inform, This year, nearly every aspect of our lives was uprooted.
Woman sitting on her living room floor on her laptop
Photo: Learning Blog
From the time many of us began working from home in early spring, we've been creating new routines, adapting to uncertainty, and building resilience.
This shakeup in the labor market means that many workers are also looking for new jobs, and companies are hiring for new types of positions. Managers and leaders have been pushed to find new ways to motivate their teams during difficult times. Virtual connection is a part of everyone's lives from children to grandparents. And we've seen professionals invest in their own development by watching online learning courses 3x more than ever before!
As we all try to catch our collective breath at the end of this year-like-no-other, we’re also looking to better understand what 2021 has in store, including the trends expected to take root in the weeks and months ahead.
With this in mind, our friends at LinkedIn News set out to find the Big Ideas that global influencers and thought leaders predict will shape the year to come. We've pulled four of the most exciting and actionable ideas from the 2021 Big Ideas list and combined them with insights from some of our instructors to help you get started making 2021 the year you're hoping for...
Learn more about what it takes to be a leader today in Jeff’s course, On Leadership by Jeff Weiner -- always free.
Source: Learning Blog
Monday, December 28, 2020
The Game of Gaussian Elimination: An Introduction to Linear Algebra | Mathematics - Medium
Taking the jump from algebra to the land of matrices by Brett Berry in Math Hacks.
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| Follow Math Hacks on Instagram |
Now that may sound crazy, but hear me out.
This new land of matrices and vectors may look and feel intimidating, and for good reason: new notation, new rules, new properties. It’s all a bit different. But maybe viewing it as a puzzle will help you jump over that new notation hurdle.
Ready to give it a try?
Where to start?
I believe the best place to start with linear algebra is with solving systems of equations because it’s something you’ve probably learned already. Remember the substitution and elimination methods?? Do those ring a bell? If not, you can refresh your memory here. 🙂
Today we are going to take a new approach to solve systems of equations using a method called Gaussian Elimination.
What is Gaussian Elimination??
Gaussian elimination is a method where we translate our equations into a matrix and use the matrix to solve the system (i.e. find the solutions for each variable that make all the equations true).
Source: Medium
Study mathematics and statistics - Faculty of Science | Study areas - News - The University of Sydney
Develop skills in logical analysis, clear thinking and problem solving by Faculty of Science.
Maths and statistics underpins every part of our world, including science, technology, business, commerce, the environment and human nature. Wherever you go and whatever you do, these skills will be critical to your future success.
Source: News - The University of Sydney
UK's official statisticians had concerns over covid-19 survey bias | Coronavirus - New Scientist News
Adam Vaughan, chief reporter at New Scientist magazine notes, The UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) privately discussed concerns about the risk of its flagship covid-19 infection survey offering a biased picture of the country’s epidemic, according to documents from between May and July.
The ONS survey tracks the prevalence of covid-19 in parts of the UK
Photo: James Veysey/Shutterstock
The survey is considered one of the best insights into the prevalence of the disease, as it samples random households in the UK’s four nations. However, New Scientist has previously reported that the response rate has fallen as the survey has expanded.
Of the households in England invited to take part, the response rate dropped from 51 per cent in April to 5 per cent in October, raising fears that if only a certain group of people were completing the survey, it may become less representative of covid-19’s real prevalence in the community. In October, the ONS told New Scientist that the survey was weighted and continued to offer reliable estimates of the virus’s spread...
Contacted by New Scientist about the documents, the ONS said only some initial work was undertaken because the risks didn’t materialise, as shown by an October target of 150,000 unique fortnightly tests being reached early. After reaching a low of 5 per cent in October, the response rate has climbed in England to 12 per cent by 11 December.
Source: New Scientist News
It's Disappointing How Many People Can't Solve For X In These Simple Equations — Can You? | Trending Quizzes - BuzzFeed
C'mon, this should be easy by Ajani Bazile, BuzzFeed Staff.
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| BuzzFeed Quizzes |
For each of the following equations, find the value of X.
Source: BuzzFeed
Does Programming Depend More on Math or Language Skills? | Programming - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence
Neither, actually, say researchers. It’s a more global network by Mind Matters.
Researchers have discovered that learning to code software uses not
just math or language skills but rather a broader region of the brain
called the “multiple demand network,” which is active when we are solving complex problems:
Photo: cottonbro from Pexels
“Understanding computer code seems to be its own thing. It’s not the same as language, and it’s not the same as math and logic,” says Anna Ivanova, an MIT graduate student and the lead author of the study.
Anne Trafton, “To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language” at MIT News Paper. (open access) (December 15, 2020)...
So, if you want to learn to code, should you study math? Yes. Should you study language: Yes. Should you study any subject that causes you to use a wide variety of mental skills? Yes!...
Source: Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence
Making Students Love Math And Physics Through A Videogame? Here’s How An Italian Teacher Did It | Travel - Forbes
Irene Dominioni, Contributor - Forbes says, When one’s passionate about something, it tends to be contagious.
Enea
Montoli is 33 years old, he holds a PhD in Physics, he is a researcher
at a meteorological institution - the Fondazione Osservatorio
Meteorologico Milano Duomo, and works as a high school teacher in Milan.
For the past 1.5 years, he has been developing an educational videogame
for his students on the subjects of Maths and Physics. 
Enea Montoli, 33-year-old researcher and high school teacher in Milan, Italy.
Photo: Enea Montoli
A role-playing challenge
The game is called ‘Renovatio Quest’, and it can easily be played online on both phones and computers. The story is set in the year 2500 and the central character is a student, Nescio Nomen (literally meaning ‘I don’t know the name’ in Latin) coming from the ‘British archipelago’ - as climate change has modified the face of the Earth and left under water many parts of the world...
There is no such thing as being ‘gifted’ for mathematics, it’s only about the kind of teachers you had, namely those who don’t treat you like you’re stupid,” Montoli says.
With videogames, instead, teenagers find something close to them. Including girls: “There is a game called ‘Among us’ which they play during breaks, and both genders are equally involved,” Montoli says. The same goes for school results and study options: “In my experience, there are a lot of girls who undertake scientific paths at university. If there are any preconceptions, they must be within the families”.
rce: Forbes
Can you solve it? The count reaches 'twenty, twenty-one' | Mathematics - Guardian
Next year in numbers, as Alex Bellos, writes about mathematics reports.
Photo: ABC/Getty Images
Count von Count will be fizzing with excitement. For the first time since 1920, the coming year, 2021, consists of two ascending, consecutive numbers. Enjoy this ‘counting date’ while it lasts, people! It ain’t going to happen again for another hundred and one years.
Today’s puzzles reveal more arithmetical patterns concerning 2021.
Source: Guardian
Sunday, December 27, 2020
'We weren't meant to be an online store': Bookstores try to thrive in a COVID world | Local - WJLA
People like to say there are two sides to every story. If so, Allan Stypeck is experiencing both at the same time by Kristen Schneider, Digital Producer at WJLA-TV.
Old Town Books converted their space into a makeshift warehouse to fulfill more online orders. Now, they're opened for browsing again.
Photo: Old Town Books
Small businesses across the country have found themselves in tight spots during the coronavirus pandemic. When asked about the state his rare and used bookstore Second Story Books, Stypeck told ABC7, "They're kind of a contradiction."
Stypeck has owned the used and rare bookstore since 1973, with a location in Rockville, Maryland and the other in Dupont Circle, the latter considered a gem in the District. However, the store has struggled throughout the pandemic...
"We're basically a converted warehouse with 20,000 square feet of books which is open to the public," he said, adding that the large building makes it easy to keep customers five to 10 feet apart.
Second Story Books is also relying on the internet to supplement sales; Stypeck said the store already did business online, but he and his staff had to convert a lot of their business to flow with the current reality.
Source: WJLA
Has Thomas Becket's treasured 'little book' been found? | Stories - BBC News
Stephen Mulvey, assistant editor at BBC News writes, More has been written about Thomas Becket, the archbishop hacked to death in Canterbury Cathedral exactly 850 years ago, than any other non-royal English person of the Middle Ages.
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| Has Thomas Becket's treasured 'little book' been found? Photo: BBC News |
And yet it seems it's still possible to discover new things about his remarkable life.
Before dawn on 14 October 1164, Thomas Becket found an open gate in the city walls and rode out of Northampton with a servant and two guides, the sound of their horses' hooves masked by high wind and driving rain.
The archbishop was making a run for it after a week on trial in Northampton Castle. The initial charge had been a minor one, but King Henry II had added new and increasingly serious accusations, and a verdict of treason was looking likely.
Becket headed north, making it to Lincoln in two days, then put on the rough, dark woollen tunic of a local religious order, adopted the name Brother Christian, and turned south into the wilderness of the fens. His companions were genuine lay brothers, able to lead him through the marshes and waterways to isolated hermitages and priories, where he would be able to plan his next moves. Had he been caught, the leading Becket expert Prof Anne Duggan says, the king could have chosen any punishment he liked - castration, blinding, even death...
The book was "once that of N, archbishop of Canterbury [and] eventually came into the hand of Thomas Becket", it says. So who was N?
There is only one earlier archbishop whose name begins with N - Nothelm, in the early Eighth Century. And there is no way, de Hamel says, that this manuscript dates from that period. Judging from its style, it's generally thought to have been made in Canterbury around 1000.
Source: BBC News
'Our online orders went up overnight - we sold a lot of classics': How Covid-19 affected Irish book shops | Culture - thejournal.ie
Booksellers say that people turned to fiction in lockdown – and book sales are up 4% on last year by Aoife Barry, TheJournal.ie.
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| Photo: Shutterstock/Massimo Todaro |
WHEN THE THEN-TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar announced from Washington on 12 March that the country was going into lockdown to fight the spread of the coronavirus, most retailers had to close – including book shops.
But the temporary ending of life as we knew it forced people to think about how they wanted to spend their time, and it turned out lots of people wanted to do more reading. Book sales are up 4% on last year, driven in large part by online sales during the lockdowns.
To see what that meant for book shops, and how 2021 might look for the sector, we spoke to booksellers.
Source: thejournal.ie
2020 reading: The books that helped us through a tumultuous year | Books & Poetry - HeraldScotland
Covid-19 transformed every aspect of our lives during 2020 by Susan Flockhart, The Herald.
Woman Leaning On Bookshelf
Photo: Luriko Yamaguchi from Pexels
The closure of workplaces, cinemas, theatres, pubs and restaurants gave some people more time for reading yet with bookshops, libraries and book festivals radically curtailed, even that was affected. So which books did people turn to during the time of Coronavirus? We asked booklovers from across the cultural spectrum to reveal their favourite reads of the year.
Source: HeraldScotland
Saturday, December 26, 2020
Changing landscape – Seven online learning trends to watch out in 2021 | Opinion - YourStory
The digital learning landscape is undergoing rapid transformation as a consequence of the pandemic. Educational institutions are adopting hybrid models, video-based content and leveraging technology to make online learning more participatory and interactive for students, as Akhand Swaroop Pandit, founder and CEO of Catalyst Group reports.
Changing landscape – Seven online learning trends to watch out in 2021
Photo: YourStory
The digital learning landscape is undergoing rapid transformation as a consequence of the pandemic. Educational institutions are adopting hybrid models, video-based content and leveraging technology to make online learning more participatory and interactive for students.
This COVID 19 pandemic impacted education of 1.26 billion children worldwide as estimated by the UNESCO, with over 300 million children just from India. The sudden realisation of the need to be able to function remotely and to keep businesses, services, and systems running at all times have caused the online education sector to embrace the digital space swiftly.
As a response, the online and ed-tech industry has grown tremendously. Also, educational institutions have rapidly adopted digital technologies and increased the use of the Internet to impart learning digitally.
The change in digital learning landscape was already happening. As per Statista, today India has around 700 million internet users. This is expected to grow immensely in the next decade. Given the context, the online learning space is witnessing the following emerging trends...
Strengthening role of online learning in post-K12 sectorThe post-K12 sector includes higher education, technical skilling, test preparation for government and other professions. The importance of higher education degrees for better job roles has grown in the past decade. There is a lot of focus on both technical and non-technical skilling and upskilling.
Source: YourStory
A Guide to Preparing for the Future of eLearning | Online Learning & eLearning - The Tech Edvocate
Matthew Lynch, Author at The Tech Edvocate inform, If you are a part of the elearning and online learning community, then chances are you have spent some time contemplating what the future of elearning will look like.
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| A Guide to Preparing for the Future of eLearning Photo: Pexels |
If you have taken it that far, you also have thought about what you and your colleagues need to do to prepare for it. In this article, we will discuss just that.
Tip 1: Ditch the container concept
Stop thinking of an online learning class as a container that needs to be filled with content so that the more content you fit into the container, the more value it has. Focus on what people need to do differently to grow rather than on duplicating content, which may possibly be in the worst format for learning...
Concluding thoughts
We hope you enjoyed our overview of how you can prepare for the future of eLearning.
Source: The Tech Edvocate
Transforming the process of teaching and learning in the 21st Century | Education - India Today
Transformation in education happens along two lines, i.e. ,technology and pedagogy by India Today Web Desk.
.The world of education is in a perpetual state of evolution.
The forces of technology and reforms in pedagogy are transforming, for
the better, the process of 21st-century teaching and learning.
Transforming the process of teaching and learning in the 21st Century
Teaching and learning are at the core of human civilization. Even before the written word was invented, there were teachers and students around. The tradition carries on into the second millennium, but great innovations are being introduced to refine and transform the teaching and learning experiences.
This change is happening along two lines:.
Moving further into the 21st century, education has to become more
inclusive to incorporate the pressing global issues of climate change,
the environment, and biodiversity.
Source: India Today
Covid-19 Pandemic: Year 2020 was of struggle, innovation for teachers | Education - Hindustan Times
From turning walls of mud houses into blackboards to taking classes through loudspeakers on moving carts, from ‘mohalla’ classes to using public announcement system of panchayat bhawans, 2020 was full of struggle and innovation for teachers to ensure learning was not disrupted as schools remained closed due to COVID-19 by Press Trust Of India.
From turning walls of mud houses into blackboards to taking classes
through loudspeakers on moving carts, from ‘mohalla’ classes to using
public announcement system of panchayat bhawans, 2020 was full of
struggle and innovation for teachers to ensure learning was not
disrupted as schools remained closed due to COVID-19.
Online classes
Photo: Hindustan Times
The over 10-month-long shutdown inspired creative ways to teach thousands of students who could not log on to online classes because they did not have access to smartphones and computers in several villages across the country.
Government school teachers in Dumka’s Dumarthar village in Jharkhand found a new way to impart education to students who do not have access to smartphones. They created blackboards on the walls of students’ houses to teach them while maintaining social distancing. “We started with an initiative called ‘shiksha aapke dwaar’ (education at your doorstep) to provide education to children who did not have access to smartphones and internet. More than 100 blackboards have been created on walls to teach students at their houses,” said Tapan Kumar, a teacher in Dumarthar.
Every day, Indra Mukhi Chhetri, a maths and science teacher in Sikkim’s Ravangala, visited homes of several students she identified and reached out to around 40 students in a week from class 1 to 5...
The lockdown induced by COVID-19 in March prompted schools and colleges to move to the virtual world for teaching and learning activities and exposed the existing digital divide in the country.
Source: Hindustan Times
Next frontier in engineering learning – UK’s first university module taught wholly in VR | University - India Education Diary
The University of Nottingham is running the first and only virtual reality and simulation module in the UK taught to engineering students entirely in VR by India Education Diary Bureau Admin.
Each week, 50 students visit a virtual teaching island, called
Nottopia, for mini lectures and seminars to learn about using VR in
product and technology design.
Photo: by Darlene Alderson from Pexels
The teaching shift is partly a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, but primarily a way to offer students a more immersive and social learning experience. Students see it as an obvious way to learn about simulation and VR from within VR and much prefer the format to the conventional face-to-face lectures of years past.
The Simulation, VR and Advanced Human-Machine Interface course, which has run from September to December 2020, is open to final-year undergraduates in mechanical or aerospace engineering and product design and manufacture and postgraduates in human factors and ergonomics...
Topics covered in the course, include fidelity and validity of simulators, VR technologies, multi-modal VR, space perception, immersion and presence, natural language interfaces and VR sickness.
Source: India Education Diary
Gift from Tech grad puts 100 years of music history into students’ hands | Education - The News Star
M.E. (Davis Smart) Miller (English Education, '70; English, '73) recently donated a treasure trove of vintage popular and classical sheet music, books, and trade magazines dating back as far as the 1860s and up through the mid-1970s to the Louisiana Tech University School of Music by
Gift from Tech grad puts 100 years of music history into students’ hands
Photo: Louisiana Tech University Office of University Communications
This donation of over 1,300 items is now housed in the department of University Archives and Special Collections in Prescott Memorial Library. The collection features a wide range of music genres, including ragtime, vaudeville tunes, country and western, film music, jazz and the blues, patriotic music and war songs, Broadway classics (with a particularly large collection of works by Irving Berlin), and novelty tunes, such as “Oh! I Love No One But’er My Oleomargarine” (Gaskill and Leslie, 1926). Included among the donated items are very early editions of popular tunes appropriate for this time of year, such as “White Christmas” (Irving Berlin, 1942) and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” (Gillespie and Coots, 1934).
“The importance and value of having a collection like this on our own campus can’t be overstated,” said Michael Austin, Founding Director of the School of Music. “Music publishing is an important part of the music industry that often gets overlooked, and this collection represents a time in history when sheet music was the music industry...
With plans to digitize aspects of this collection, it also promises to become a valuable resource for music scholars, historians, and popular culture specialists around the world.
Source: The News Star
Friday, December 25, 2020
The 5 functions you need to know | Mathematics - Medium
Describe scalability, growth and income more precisely by Martin Thoma, Software Engineer with focus on Data Science, Machine Learning via Medium.
Three exponential functions — green has base 4, blue has base 3, red has base 2.
Photo: Martin Thoma
Knowing the following set of functions helps you to describe the change in income, the growth of your company, the number of COVID-19 cases, …
Summary and OutlookYou’ve just seen 5 classes of functions which are relevant when talking about growth. Logarithmic functions are always increasing, but very slow. Faster are linear and quadratic functions. Exponential growth is crazy and does usually only happen for a limited amount of time until a threshold is reached. Then the curve flattens and you see a sigmoid shape.
There are, of course, way more functions and more general properties.
Source: Medium
Why Do Robots Need to Learn Language? | Robotics - Analytics Insight
Vivek Kumar, Author at Analytics Insight reports, Could giving robots voice help them learn human commands?
Robots Need to Learn Language
Photo: Analytics Insight
Robots have become an integral part of human’s daily lives. They help us in numerous ways, from performing complex tasks to lifting heavy weights and assisting the elderly, playing with kids, and entertaining people at events. They can interact with people in any scenario. However, construing a human language still a challenge for robotic systems. Training them with real-world experiences and knowledge about the world could help robots understand natural language.
People use language to express emotions, direct behavior, ask and answer questions, provide information, and ask for help. Language-based interfaces for robots require minimal user training and expression of a variety of complex tasks.
In a paper, researchers from MIT describes a new way to train machines. They noted that children learn language by observing their environment, listening to the people around them, and understanding what they see and hear. With keeping that in mind, they created a tool called semantic parser that mimics the experience of children learning a language. Parsers are already being used for web searches, natural-language database querying, and voice assistants. The system observes captioned videos and links the words that speakers say with recorded objects and actions...
So, when robots and robotics systems are able to learn and recognize the human language, they will have a more emphatic impact on people’s lives.
Source: Analytics Insight
The built environment will be one of tech’s next big platforms | Machine Learning - TechCrunch
If the portfolio of a corporate venture capital firm can be taken as a signal for the strategic priorities of their parent companies, then National Grid has high hopes for automation as the future of the utility industry, observes Jonathan Shieber, editor at TechCrunch.
Photo: dowell (opens in a new window) / Getty Images
The heavy emphasis on automation and machine learning from one of the nation’s largest privately held utilities with a customer base numbering around 20 million people is significant. And a sign of where the industry could be going.
Since its launch, National Grid’s venture firm, National Grid Partners, has invested in 16 startups that featured machine learning at the core of their pitch. Most recently, the company backed AI Dash, which uses machine learning algorithms to analyze satellite images and infer the encroachment of vegetation on National Grid power lines to avoid outages...
National Grid started the year off slowly because of the COVID-19 epidemic, but the pace of its investments picked up and the company is on track to hit its investment targets for the year, Lambert said.
Modernization is critical for an industry that still mostly runs on spreadsheets and collective knowledge that has locked in an aging employee base, with no contingency plans in the event of retirement, Lambert said. It’s that situation that’s compelling National Grid and other utilities to automate more of their business.
Source: TechCrunch
How Artificial Intelligence is Enhancing Mobile App Technology | Artificial intelligence - RTInsights
Hardik Shah, Tech Consultant at Simform writes, Artificial intelligence is changing the way users are interacting with their apps offering numerous possibilities for innovation.
How Artificial Intelligence is Enhancing Mobile App Technology
Photo: RTInsights
Like smartphones, artificial intelligence (AI) has swarmed into our digital world. Long gone are the days when smartphones used to take leverage of cloud-based and internet dependent apps. Now mobile app developers are leveraging the power of AI to influence people’s decisions.
Smartphone app developers are adapting quickly to use AI in improving mobile app performances. Here are some of the real-life benefits of AI on mobile apps...
Conclusion: Artificial intelligence makes an impactAI is changing the way users are interacting with their apps. As such, when paired with AI, there are numerous possibilities for innovation in the mobile app industry. In the future, AI is bound to create an intelligent ecosystem to gather a massive pool of social, behavioral, and emotional data to provide more customized user experiences. Kindly let your thoughts flow freely in the comments section and let me know new possible innovation areas where AI can influence the mobile app industry.
Source: RTInsights
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