Techno-News Blog. On March 23, ClickZ Intelligence held the webinar ‘The State of Social 2017’ in association with Tracx. As part of the presentation, a huge number of stats and facts were shared about social media, both as a whole and in relation to individual networks. More...

Techno-News Blog. Now we are on the cusp of a new grand leap thanks to the democratization of machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence that enables computers to learn without being explicitly programmed. As recently as 2015, only large companies like Google, Amazon and Apple had access to the massive data and computing resources needed to train and launch sophisticated AI algorithms. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. The metamorphosis of the OLPC programme
Gitura Mwaura, The New Times, 2017/04/21

This is an account of how the One Laptop Per Child evolved over time in Rwanda. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. xAPI Profiles
Data Interoperability Standards Consortium, 2017/04/21
Background information and updates on the xAPI profiles project. Follow the orientation link to the background document on Google Docs. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Analyze your videos in a few lines of code
Sara Robinson, HackerNoon, 2017/04/20
More analytics for the masses. This application takes video that you upload and extracts content, then presents the content for different segments in a plain-text JSON file. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Lessons from Chicago: How to Hook Up Every Teen with a Tech Job
Jen Curtis, EdSurge, 2017/03/21
A long time ago I offered my own version of 'School 2.0' in which placement in the community was a core concept (that's it, pictured in the image). The current article describes an instantiation of that sort of vision. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Google Scholar is a serious alternative to Web of Science
Anne-Wil Harzing, LSE Impact Blog, 2017/03/21
I agree with this assessment. "Commercial databases such as ISI and Scopus have systematic errors as they do not include many journals in the social sciences and humanities, nor have good coverage of conferences proceedings, books or book chapters." They are, in a word, biased toward traditional scientific publications. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Virtual Reality: The next big storytelling medium?
Stephanie Chan, Cisco | The Network, 2017/03/21

Would I pay money to see a movie in virtual reality (VR)? Oh my yes I would. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Why VR Is Failing
Rob Enderle, E-Commerce Times, 2017/04/14

It might be a bit early to say that virtual reality (VR) is "failing" but the arguments in this article are sound. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Toyota says it is ready to mass produce robots
Jayson MacLean, Can-Tech Letter, 2017/04/13

Let us welcome our new robot overlords. More...