Category Archives: Technology

PHILADELPHIA -- Katie Fetterolf worked her way up from an internship with Temple University's Institute on Disabilities to becoming the Assistive Technology Lending Library Coordinator.

"It could take one little piece of equipment to change your whole outlook on your whole situation," said Fetterolf. "And that's basically what the library has done for me."

Within the Institute on Disabilities is Pennsylvania's Assistive Technology ACT Program known as "TechOWL." Funded by federal dollars, the program helps anyone in Pennsylvania acquire gizmos and gadgets geared toward their disabilities.

While TechOWL does not sell devices directly, they do offer to lend out assistive technology for nine weeks at a time. They can also distribute 3D-printed devices that people can keep for no cost.

Devices include a quirky bottle-opener, a utensil grip, a bag carrier, a button fastener and more.

Staff at TechOWL have recently been using social media to spark a conversation about assistive technology on the Internet. They produced a TikTok video explaining how individuals with disabilities would use them to accomplish everyday tasks. Now with more than eight million views, it has awakened awareness all across the world.

She also hopes her story inspires others with disabilities to conquer their challenges and achieve their dreams.

"It doesn't matter what type of disability you have, severe or mild," said Fetterolf. "It's always possible as long as you believe in yourself."

To learn more or to request a device in the state of Pennsylvania, visit their website. TechOWL can also help you connect with similar resources in neighboring states.

Continue reading here:

Temple University's TechOWL creates assistive technology to overcome disabilities - KFSN-TV

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) Norfolk State University (NSU) is partnering with Academic Partnerships (AP) to expand its online education and technology programs.

We are excited to collaborate with Academic Partnerships on this important effort as we work to provide more access to our academic programming to nontraditional students and professionals, said Norfolk State University President Dr. Javaune Adams-Gaston. As we expand our academic offerings, it is important to meet prospective graduate students where they are and that is definitely online.

NSU is set to expand programs such as their Master of Arts degrees in urban education and special education, as well as their Master of Science degrees in computer science, cyberpsychology and electronics engineering.

The new programs include:

NSUs partner, Academic Partnerships (AP), works with over 50 universities across the country to provide online programs. NSU is the first HBCU that AP has partnered with.

Academic Partnerships is thrilled to work with Norfolk State University to expand access to its well-regardedgraduate degree programs, said Rob Ganji, chief executive officer. NSU has such a strong legacy of serving their students in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Historically Black Colleges and Universities, like NSU, play such a critical role for the community, including serving many first-generation college students, and we are honored to partner with them to expand access to affordable, high-quality education to even more students.

Download the WAVY News App to keep up with the latest news, weather and sports from WAVY-TV 10. Available in both the Apple and Google Play stores.

Read more here:

Norfolk State expands online education and technology graduate programs - WAVY.com

Techs4Best reports that the concept of an automated smart home is not just a popular craze amongst homeowners, but that it is slowly but surely becoming the norm. Many renovators have home automation technology at the forefront of their home improvement or building projects; this smart technology can undoubtedly make life easier and more comfortable for homeowners in a multitude of ways. In order to enhance renovators' lives to the greatest extent, the technology chosen should reflect their lifestyle, schedule, hobbies and interests.

There is a wide variety of technology available to home builders and renovators, with new innovations popping up constantly. Smart TVs, high quality CCTV cameras, intricate security systems and more are all accessible for the average home buyer or builder. Techs4Best advises homeowners to think about what they really need out of a home automation system the key to integrating technology into a home renovation is to think about what works best for the individual homeowners.

The most advanced form of home automation technology on the market right now is Control 4, reveals Techs4Best. Control 4 brings together a variety of home automation innovations into one cohesive, easy to use system. This includes intelligent voice assistants, home theatre controls, smart lighting, security systems, universal remotes and much more. The Control 4 system is perfect for all types of homeowners, from those just venturing into the world of home automation to home automation enthusiasts.

From TV room upgrades to home alarm systems, Melbourne residents can rely on Techs4Best for the latest in high quality home automation technology.

This press release was issued through 24-7PressRelease.com. For further information, visit http://www.24-7pressrelease.com.

SOURCE Tech4Best

Home

Read the original post:

Why Homeowners Are Increasingly Interested in Innovation and Smart Technology, According To The Experts - PRNewswire

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Cognitive Informatics Market by Technology, Solution, Sector, Deployment Type, and Industry Verticals 2021 - 2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

This report assesses the cognitive informatics market including technologies, companies, strategies, and solutions. It includes analysis by industry sector and major industry verticals. It also evaluates the impact of 5G, edge computing, and IoT on the cognitive informatics market. All forecasts provide a market outlook from 2021 through 2026. The report also provides specific recommendations by application area and industry verticals.

Largely aligned today with biomedicine apps and the healthcare industry, cognitive informatics is poised to become an important aspect of every major vertical. The cognitive informatics market relies upon those technologies that improve human information processing.

Technologies included within this interdisciplinary domain always include some degree of Artificial Intelligence and cognitive computing but are increasingly involving Internet of Things (IoT) enabled devices, networks, and systems. In fact, this multidisciplinary combination of cognition and information sciences includes the convergence of AI and IoT, which is also referred to as the AIoT market.

As human beings have cognitive limitations (such as attention, comprehension, decision-making, learning, memory, learning, and visualization), the cognitive informatics market seeks to provide human cognition augmentation and enhancement. Advancements in the understanding of human behavioral science, neuroscience, and psychology are combined with innovation in AI such as improved Natural Language Processing (NLP) mechanisms and linguistics processes.

Machine learning improvements to areas such as "what is said vs. what is meant" and context-based AI are leading to an overall improvement in man-machine interfaces critical to successful cognitive informatics market implementation. This will lead to substantially increased use cases with corresponding penetration into many new market segments and applications.

Select Report Findings

Key Topics Covered

1. Executive Summary

2. Introduction

3. Technologies and Applications

4. Company Analysis

5. Cognitive Informatics Market Analysis and Forecasts

6. Conclusions and Recommendations

Companies Profiled

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/xtyasa

See the article here:

Global Cognitive Informatics Market by Technology, Solution, Sector, Deployment Type, and Industry Verticals 2021-2026 - ResearchAndMarkets.com -...

POILO ISLAND, Guinea-Bissau As night falls, the only lights visible on uninhabited Poilo Island are the nearly full moon and the eerie red glow beaming from a few headlamps.

The soft spotlight of a headlamp occasionally falls on a sea turtle and gives the beach scene an other-worldly feel befitting the islands sacred status. Its one of a handful of sacred islands dotting the 88-island Bijags Archipelago off the coast of Guinea-Bissau in West Africa.

The turtles dig their nests, shoveling the beach with the same fore flippers they use to maneuver the ocean. The swoosh of flying sand harmonizes with the soft crash of waves to form the soundtrack to hundreds of sea turtles laying their eggs. Besides bridging the aquatic and terrestrial worlds, the turtles ancient physiology seems to bridge a time chasm between past and present. They have, afterall, been around for 120 million years.

I like the turtles, says Carlito Sedja, his headlamp lighting a rosy path on the beach. Its very nature fascinates me how it lives in water and at the same time on land.

Yet another gap is being bridged on the island between the sacred and science. Here on Poilo, workers from the Institute of National Biodiversity and Protected Areas (IBAP), residents of another Bijags island, and a handful of outside researchers say tradition and technology can work together to reveal the habits of endangered green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas). As part of a project to better protect the turtles by identifying where they forage outside of nesting season, IBAP employs local young men with GPS trackers to monitor the number of nests on the island as well as the movements of adult turtles once they leave Poilo.

Sedja and two other men in their late teens or early twenties step gingerly around a turtle the size of a coffee table as she lays her eggs. Two teams split monitoring of Poilos 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) beach tonight; Sedja and his team count more than 150 nesting turtles in less than half an hour on their 1-km (0.6-mi) stretch. The turtles nest on Poilo year round, but most come between June and December, with a peak in August and September.

Project researchers estimate that Poilo hosts around 20,000 nesting females, each of which lays three to five clutches of eggs every two to three years, making the island the most important green sea turtle nesting ground in Africa. Although the species population as a whole is decreasing, largely because humans overharvest eggs and turtles and accidentally catch them in fishing nets, IBAPs research shows the Poilo population is generally holding steady. Females have laid far fewer nests so far in 2021 compared to a record-breaking 60,000 nests in 2020; however, the number of nests has varied widely since IBAP began counting methodically in 2007, as is typical for the species.

Along with the green sea turtles, critically endangered hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) and leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) also nest on Poilo and other Bijags islands, albeit in lesser numbers. The vulnerable olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) nests on Orango Island in the archipelago.

Sedja bends over and clicks his handheld GPS device to mark the location where the big turtle is laying her eggs.

He and the other turtle monitors are all from four villages on Canhabaque Island, about a two-hour speedboat ride away from Poilo.

For centuries, residents of the four villages have considered Poilo and a few neighboring islands as sacred spaces. On these islands, the communities hold elaborate and secretive coming-of-age ceremonies that are essential to each communitys identity, hierarchy and social order. Until recently, only initiated men could visit Poilo, and even they could not stay long.

These rules preserved the islands pristine environment. Today, conservationists and scientists recognize Poilo as one of the worlds top five nesting sites for green sea turtles and the most important site in Africa. Around 5% of the global population nests on this tiny 43-hectare (106-acre) island, the southernmost in the archipelago.

Bijags [residents] have a special relationship with turtles, says Castro Barbosa, head of sea turtle monitoring at IBAP. Some of the important cultural events held on the island traditionally called for the killing of a sea turtle the way cultures around the world eat certain meats to celebrate certain occasions.

In the 1990s, IBAP officials and the Canhabaque communities began negotiations toward establishing the Joo Vieira-Poilo Marine National Park, which now encompasses Poilo and three other islands, all of which hold sacred spaces for ceremonies, plus three islets. The parties discussed both the killing of turtles and access to the sacred areas. IBAP officials and conservationists hoped the communities could compromise on these points, so they could launch efforts to learn more about and protect the sea turtle population. The negotiations lasted years, says Barbosa, who assisted at the beginning, and they were often difficult because the communities were reluctant to allow outsiders to enter the sacred spaces.

Eventually, the communities agreed to increase access, permitting a small number of workers from the Canhabaque communities that traditionally took care of the islands, as well as park officials, researchers and a limited number of tourists onto the islands. They also agreed to reduce the number of sea turtles used in ceremonies.

In exchange, IBAP officials agreed to hire young men from these communities to monitor the turtles on a part-time basis, an element that was crucial to reaching a deal in an area where paid employment is scarce.

Young women from Canhabaque are traditionally barred from the sacred islands where male coming-of-age ceremonies take place; they have their own sacred areas for performing female rites of passage. This rule still holds. Barbosa jokes that not allowing women on Poilo for centuries kept the ecosystem from being spoiled by would-be settlers from Canhabaque, because no men would have wanted to live there without women.

The negotiations were beneficial to both parties, Barbosa says, and the park opened in 2000. Our intention was to protect, and that is in the interest of the community, but we must make the people understand [our work] so that they can help us protect what is theirs, he says.

Barbosa, along with researchers from other institutions, completed the first nest survey that same year, and GPS-tagged 10 female turtles after they nested in 2001. Between 2018 and 2020, researchers from IBAP and Portugals ISPA University Institute satellite-tagged a total of 45 female turtles.

Since the parks founding, researchers and park officials have worked in tandem with local residents. This began with food subsidies to compensate residents for work identifying and outlining local sacred spaces and ceremonies. Then, in 2010, IBAP began regularly employing Canhabaque youth to count nests and monitor the sites.

The tracking studies showed that the females forage in three main areas: some stayed in the Bijags, while others went north to the Banc dArguin in Mauritania and the Saloum Delta in Senegal.

For the first time this year, the team tagged males as well.

The females are often easier to tag, because they come up on land to nest, whereas the males tend to stay in the water. This year, the researchers relied on fishermen from Canhabaque to gently catch the male turtles so they could place the GPS tags, says RitaPatrcio, a sea turtle researcher with ISPA and the University of Exeter in the U.K. who has been working with IBAP for more than a decade. The team managed to tag 12 male turtles, and the fishermen gave them each a name.

One they called Mint, which means Where are you from? in the Bijags language.

Another was Mennei, or Where are you going?

And another they named Poor Thing because its shell was slightly wounded.

Data from the tags will help identify where the male turtles are traveling to feed. We know where the breeding females are going, but we didnt know where the males were going, Patrcio says. This part of the population is particularly important because in the future with climate change there will be less males being born. Sea turtle gender is determined by the temperature of the sand in which the eggs are incubated; rising temperatures mean warmer beaches, and hence fewer males.

One of the most surprising recent findings from the tagging studies was that a third of the females are nearly resident, venturing only as far as 90 km (56 mi) from Poilo and remaining within the Bijags.

That makes the Bijags even more important. We already knew Bijags was really important as a breeding space for this species, but now we know it is important year-round as foraging, as well, Patrcio says.

Information about where the turtles travel after breeding and nesting allows researchers and activists to asses threats to the turtles in their foraging grounds, and to determine where protection is needed. The point is to provide the scientific basis for defining the limits of marine protected areas and supporting regulations if needed in the future.

Barbosa says the new data are helping not only scientists but also local residents understand the behavior of the sea turtles. Traditions have often provided the how when it comes to conservation methods in the Bijags, by protecting the spaces from development and the destruction of plants and animals and by teaching the natural value of plants for traditional medicines. Now technology is helping answer the question of why conservation is important.

Seeing maps showing how some of the turtles travel to other countries to forage when they are not nesting on Poilo gives people a broader understanding of the connectedness of sea life beyond the islands borders, Barbosa says. Now the people can understand the importance of their island and the turtles even more, he says. In the village they talk about that.

The maps are especially helpful for the residents back on Canhabaque who may not get the chance to work with the turtles, Sedja points out. There is an evolution, he says.

Sedja, who says he hopes someday to undergo his initiation ceremony, is confident that tradition and technology can co-exist.

Back on Canhabaque, Sana Man, the head of the village that traditionally protects Poilo, says he agrees that the opportunity for both increased knowledge and employment for local youths is worth the price of opening access to the sacred island.

Really I am OK with changing the attitude and the tradition a little bit in search of good things, he says.

On Poilo, researchers and monitoring teams are limited to the beach. Their camp is a few meters inland, but no one ventures beyond into the sacred forest, where the ceremonies still take place to initiate some young men.

The people of Canhabaque have made compromises, but some secrets remain worth keeping.

Banner image: A team of green sea turtle monitors from Canhabaque Island rides out to the islands where they will complete 12-day shifts. One group will go to the island of Meio and the other to Poilo. Image by Ricci Shryock for Mongabay.

Citations:

Catry,P., Barbosa,C., Indjai,B., Almeida,A., Godley,B.J., & Vi,J. (2002). First census of the green turtle at Poilo, Bijags archipelago, Guinea-Bissau: The most important nesting colony on the Atlantic coast of Africa.Oryx,36(04). doi:10.1017/s0030605302000765

Godley,B.J., Barbosa,C., Bruford,M., Broderick,A.C., Catry,P., Coyne,M.S., Witt,M.J. (2010). Unravelling migratory connectivity in marine turtles using multiple methods.Journal of Applied Ecology,47(4), 769-778. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01817.x

Patrcio,A.R., Varela,M.R., Barbosa,C., Broderick,A.C., Catry,P., Hawkes,L.A., Godley,B.J. (2018). Climate change resilience of a globally important sea turtle nesting population.Global Change Biology,25(2), 522-535. doi:10.1111/gcb.14520

Patrcio,A.R., Barbosa,C., Catry,P., & Regalla,A. (2021). Ecology and conservation of green turtles in Guinea-Bissau.Testudo,9(3), 102-114. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355477921_Ecology_and_conservation_of_green_turtles_in_Guinea-Bissau

FEEDBACK:Use this formto send a message to the editor of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.

Read the rest here:

Technology and tradition team up to watch over a sacred island's sea turtles - Mongabay.com

Here at Zacks, we offer our members many different opportunities to take full advantage of the stock market, as well as how to invest in ways that lead to long-term success.

The Zacks Premium service makes this easier. It features daily updates of the Zacks Rank and Zacks Industry Rank; full access to the Zacks #1 Rank List; Equity Research reports; and Premium stock screens like the Earnings ESP filter. All of these can help you quickly identify what stocks to buy, what to sell, and what are today's hottest industries.

It also includes the Focus List, a long-term portfolio of top stocks that have all the elements to beat the market.

Breaking Down the Zacks Focus List

Building an investment portfolio from scratch can be difficult, so if you could, wouldn't you take a peek at a curated list of top stocks?

That's what the Zacks Focus List, a portfolio of 50 stocks, offers investors. Not only does it serve as a starting point for long-term investors, but all stocks included in the list are poised to outperform the market over the next 12 months.

Additionally, each selection is accompanied by a full Zacks Analyst Report, something that makes the Focus List even more valuable. The report explains in detail why each stock was picked and why we believe it's good for the long-term.

The portfolio's past performance only solidifies why investors should consider it as a starting point. For 2020, the Focus List gained 13.85% on an annualized basis compared to the S&P 500's return of 9.38%. Cumulatively, the portfolio has returned 2,519.23% while the S&P returned 854.95%. Returns are for the period of February 1, 1996 to March 31, 2021.

Focus List Methodology

When stocks are picked for the Focus List, it reflects our enduring reliance on the power of earnings estimate revisions.

Brokerage analysts are in charge of determining a company's growth and profitability expectations, or earnings estimates. These analysts work together with company management to evaluate all factors that may affect future earnings, like interest rates, the economy, and sector and industry optimism.

Story continues

What a company will earn down the road also needs to be taken into consideration, and this is why earnings estimate revisions are so important.

Stocks that receive upward earnings estimate revisions are more likely to receive even more upward changes in the future. For example, if an analyst raised their estimates last month, they're more likely to do it again this month, and other analysts are likely to do the same.

Utilizing the power of earnings estimate revisions is when the Zacks Rank joins the party. A unique, proprietary stock-rating model, the Zacks Rank uses changes to quarterly earnings expectations to help investors create a winning portfolio.

Four primary factors make up the Zacks Rank: Agreement, Magnitude, Upside, and Surprise. Each is given a raw score that's recalculated every night and compiled into the Rank, and with this data, stocks are then classified into five groups, ranging from "Strong Buy" to "Strong Sell."

The Focus List is comprised of stocks hand-picked from a long list of #1 (Strong Buy) or #2 (Buy) ranked companies, meaning that each new addition boasts a bullish earnings consensus among analysts.

Because stock prices react to revisions, buying stocks with rising earnings estimates can be very profitable. Focus List stocks offer investors a great opportunity to get into companies whose future earnings estimates will be raised, potentially leading to price momentum.

Focus List Spotlight: Adobe Systems (ADBE)

San Jose California-based Adobe Inc. is one of the largest software companies in the world. Adobe picks up licensing fees from customers, which form the bulk of its revenue.

Since being added to the Focus List on March 13, 2020 at $285 per share, shares of ADBE have increased 135.42% to $670.96. The stock is currently a #3 (Hold) on the Zacks Rank.

Nine analysts revised their earnings estimate higher in the last 60 days for fiscal 2021, while the Zacks Consensus Estimate has increased $0.27 to $12.46. ADBE also boasts an average earnings surprise of 7.5%.

Additionally, ADBE's earnings are expected to grow 23.4% for the current fiscal year.

Reveal Winning Stocks

Unlock all of our powerful research, tools and analysis, including the Zacks #1 Rank List, Equity Research Reports, Zacks Earnings ESP Filter, Premium Screener and more, as part of Zacks Premium. You'll quickly identify which stocks to buy, hold and sell, and target today's hottest industries, to help improve the performance of your portfolio. Gain full access now >>

Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free reportAdobe Inc. (ADBE) : Free Stock Analysis ReportTo read this article on Zacks.com click here.Zacks Investment Research

Follow this link:

New to Investing? This 1 Computer and Technology Stock Could Be the Perfect Starting Point - Yahoo Finance

In recent months, energy shortages in China have disrupted manufacturing and resulted in rolling blackouts in parts of the country. Meanwhile, electricity costs are skyrocketing in Europe and U.S. gas prices have more than doubled. The effects of these rising prices and energy shortages are rippling across the world, sparking fears of an escalating global energy crisis just in time for winter.

China has already sold some of its oil reserves to reduce prices and the U.S. could make a similar move, but we would like to have solutions that are not going to make greenhouse gases worse. And thats a much trickier proposition than just solving an energy supply crisis, says Amy Myers Jaffe, the managing director of the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts and a research professor at The Fletcher School. Shes the author of Energys Digital Future, a book released earlier this year about the promises and challenges of a post-oil era.

Tufts Now spoke with Jaffe to understand how the transition to cleaner energy could help stabilize energy prices and prevent shortages in the futureand what hurdles we still have to clear to make that possible.

Tufts Now: Were seeing energy shortages and rising costs around the world. Can you explain how we got here?

Amy Myers Jaffe: Its important to understand what a huge shock the economic setback of COVID in 2020 was in all kinds of ways that affect energy, whether that's energy investment, energy choices, or energy habits. We've had an event that has no historical precedent when it comes to energy.

And that event takes place within the context of normal cyclicality in traditional industries like oil and gastypically when prices are falling and supply is abundant, companies stop investing. And when demand rises with economic growth, and we have higher energy prices and shortages, that signals companies that they need to invest more. Were used to the up and down in oil and gasoline pricesas Americans, it seems like weve seen that story a million times. Those of us who watch the energy markets have also seen a lot of up and down in natural gas and very recently, in Texas, even some shocking up and down in electricity prices.

In 2020, the pandemic shut down huge swaths of the global economy. Energy investment and production had to be sharply curtailed because we basically had no place to put the fossil fuels. We didn't need them. No one was flying anywhere. No one was driving anywhere. There were places where people weren't manufacturing anything. All of that caused this huge shock to the energy system.

And nowas we had a recovery in the United States, and we were having some more movement in Europe, and some economic activity and growth in Asiaall of that cut in investment in oil and gas from 2020 is making potential fuel shortages worse in 2021, and presumably into 2022.

Is the transition to renewable energy sources like solar and wind exacerbating the current energy crisis?

In the political arena, a lot of people would like to tell the average layperson that this is all the fault of renewable energy because it's not produced in a constant waythe sun isn't shining at night, sometimes you have periods of time, like this summer in the U.K., where the wind is not blowing.

But really, had we not had any renewables, we would still be in the same place when it comes to the 2020 shock and after-effect. In fact, we would probably be in a worse place.

Its very easy to blame renewables, and while there were some disruptions to wind power in Europe this summer and unexpected limitations to hydro power in China this year, that doesnt account in large measure for the market power of OPEC, or the sustained leverage Russia has on natural gas in Europe, or the boom-and-bust oil and gas investment cycle, or how we're using energy differently because of COVID.

Can transitioning to renewable energy sources help us avoid similar situations in the future?

As we shift to renewable energy, eventually it will weaken the oil and gas boom-and-bust cycle and maybe even make it disappear over time, because fossil fuels will be a much smaller piece of the global economy. But for now we need to develop the right regulations and combinations of technologies to build resilience in our energy distribution system.

For example, the state of Vermont relies on almost 100% renewable energy. But that doesnt mean the state is entirely powered by renewable energy made in Vermont. Vermont is importing hydroelectric power from Canada, and that helps balance any intermittency that they might experience from the concerted effort they've made to shift to renewables. If you can trade electricity across state and country borders, you can solve temporary problems caused by weather or other events. Texas learned the hard way last winter that going it alone can be problematic when the unexpected happens.

The other thing is that as we integrate more electricity storagewhether that's batteries, or hydrogen systems, or backup generationit's going to become easier to balance changes in supply when we have weather-related surprises.

In Australia, they have put in a set of battery systems, aggregated in a highly usable way, in the western part of the country that has gone a long way to eliminating historical brownouts. They've come up with these really great renewable energy solutions to solve the problem that it is not commercially viable to build a giant natural gas pipeline from the eastern part of the country.

So we know what can work. It's just a question of building the right infrastructure and having the right software solutions.

You talk about this in your book, Energys Digital Future. What do countries need to do to facilitate these solutions?

I have a chapter in my book called Alexa: Beam Me Up Clean Energy. Its about how, with all these devices and machines that talk to each other, we could use those technologies to burn less energy without changing our quality of life. Goods could be 3D printed locally on-demand, our smart devices could turn off machines were not using, and our homes and vehicles could feed excess energy back to local utilities to balance the grid.

But that is only going to work if we have the regulatory framework to make those technologies work for us instead of against us.

If I am going to give my electricity company the right to turn off all my non-essential appliances, because I indicated on my smart application that Im in my office, I have to be confident that that information is going to be held privately. We need protections for my energy usage data and also I need to know that my home energy supply cannot be hacked and cut off via the internet.

Youre imagining a world where wed have this technology to help us use less energy, as well as getting more energy from renewable sources. It seems like an overwhelming task. What makes you optimistic that we can do it?

COVID was a terrible shock, but it was also an opportunity. All around the world, we were forced out of our usual practices. And the question now is, what are we going to go back to? Could we look at lifestyles that take into account climate change, and optimize our activity to lower the amount of waste, and the amount of energy we use, and the amount of things we buy?

In the context of global climate negotiations, it seems very overwhelming to think about how you would go about doing that. But when I think about new digital technologies like automation, artificial intelligence and the internet of things, and how to use them for both convenience and the environment, then it becomes a little bit easier.

We have much more cost-effective renewables than we had in the 80s and 90s. We have put the time and effort into developing these digital and other kinds of solutions that make deploying renewables easier and more reliable. We have come a really long way.

There is this sense of urgency that we havent come far enough, fast enough. But were in a better position to move fast today than we've ever been. And thats really what we need to focus on, and think about how to enable that last, big push to net zero energy.

Visit link:

With Gas Prices and Power Blackouts on the Rise, is Green Technology the Solution? - Tufts Now

November 19, 2021

Arizona State University completed over 160 projects totaling more than $60 million ahead of the fall 2021 semester. Facilities Development and Management collaborated with several departments and partners to provide a supportive and welcoming environment across all ASU campuses and locations. Upgrades included the opening of four large buildings in Tempe, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

These projects support the tremendous growth trajectory the university has been on for over a decade, said Alex Kohnen, Facilities Development and Management interim vice president. By adding these facilities, we continue to provide the necessary support to enable our faculty, staff and researchers to serve our community and our students.

Along with new buildings, personnel improved and repaired facilities and completed critical enhancements to university buildings and common areas. Following are details about several recently completed construction projects.

The Herald Examiner Building, a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument constructed in 1914 for William Randolph Hearst, re-opened its doors in the heart of Downtown LA with adaptive reuse of the former newspaper-printing facility.

The interior of the Harald Examiner Building in Los Angeles.

The building showcases ASUs global visionby providing students access to higher education in the area and job and internship opportunities. Major ASU programs that benefit from the Southern California location have a presence in the building:

The first floor features the historic east lobby and a special event space scaled to accommodate 250 people and associated support spaces, along with a large classroom and breakout rooms. The buildings second floor provides additional classrooms and breakout spaces.

The remaining three floors include seminar and conference rooms, entrepreneurship and innovation space, an open office, lounge areas, a local newsroom, a creative media center and two media production studios, including virtual reality and editing studios.

The newly opened Fusion on First residence hall offers students a unique urban environment with cutting-edge facilities supporting the popular music and fashion industry programs on the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus.

Student housing in Fusion on First includes a mix of four-bedroom, two-bedroom and studio apartments.

The first three floors of this 16-story, 283,000-square-foot building are dedicated to academic programs, including student entrepreneurship projects and presentations, maker labs, fashion design studios, and ensemble and individual music practice rooms.

A fully equipped, state-of-the-art recording studio was installed for the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts new popular music program. A food service area, which opens onto a street-level park, provides a venue for student performances.

A 13-story tower above delivers housing for 532 residents in a mix of four-bedroom, two-bedroom and studio apartments.

The unique faceted facade, along with floor-to-ceiling glazing, captures the best of the natural diffused lighting as it deflects the heat of direct sunlight. ASU has targeted the building for LEED Silver certification, as it does at minimum for all new construction projects.

The new headquarters for the Thunderbird School of Global Management reinforces ASUs commitment to providing world-class educational opportunities in downtown Phoenix.

ASU's new Thunderbird building in downtown Phoenix.

The 111,000-square-foot facility houses graduate programs and include new classroom space of different modalities, conference rooms, faculty offices, hoteling space and ancillary support space.

The building also provides an Innovation Center, which includes virtual reality suites to prepare students for fieldwork. The rooftop features the Thunderbird Pub evoking the spirit of Thunderbirds founding in 1946.

The second phase of the Durham Hall renovation addresses maintenance issues while modernizing the space at one of ASUs highest-use academic buildings on the Tempe campus.

Phase 2 of the Durham Hall construction includes open work areas.

A complete upgrade of the six-story, 52,000-square-foot tower was finished with new brick veneer and energy-efficient windows.

Phase 2 includes four new classrooms with advanced audiovisual technology, new office space for the School of International Letters and Cultures, open work areas, conference space and a renovated main-entry lobby with an additional elevator.

In addition to these improvements, the last phase of Durham Hall construction is scheduled to conclude in December 2021 with new east and west entries, 13 additional classrooms and landscaping and exterior improvements.

In addition to many capital projects, Facilities Management completed numerous infrastructure projects electrical, paint and maintenance on classrooms, laboratories and offices across all ASU campuses.

These projects are only part of existing ASU capital projects currently in planning, design or construction phases, including:

Learn more aboutASUs past, present and future construction projectsand follow Facilities Management on Twitter at@ASUfacilities.

Top photo:The newly opened Fusion on First residence hall is located on the Downtown Phoenix campus.

Communications program coordinator , Facilities Development and Management

480-727-5833 Tyler.J.Williams@asu.edu

Visit link:

Engaging the public in science and technology studies - ASU Now

The Gartner Hype Cycle is a visual representation of the maturity and adoption of emerging technologies. Gartner has used it since 1995 to help clients understand how new developments in IT affect their business.

The cycle includes five phases: Innovation Trigger, Peak of Inflated Expectations, Trough of Disillusionment, Slope of Enlightenment, and Plateau of Productivity. Companies need to know where they are on this curve as it will offer insight into what opportunities exist now and what challenges may arise if they wait too long before implementing changes.

Below are six emerging technologies from the current hype cycle.

If you arent very familiar with the Hype Cycle, here is a quick primer. The Hype Cycle attempts to show the development of technology in terms of several phases described as follows:

Over time, the Gartner Hype Cycle has provided critical insights into how new technologies will develop and has, more importantly, given decision-makers essential information such as:

The most recent Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies is the 2021 model. In this model, Gartner identified six key emerging technologies to watch.

In simple terms, NFTs are cryptocurrencies or digital assets that cant be replaced by another token and have individual identities and value. This means theyre not interchangeable like most tokens today. Instead, each one has its own set of rules and applications within blockchain-based environments. These include video games, decentralized marketplaces where buying/selling goods occur without an intermediary, or even artwork on the Ethereum network used to prove ownership rights to creative works, among other use cases.

Just like cryptocurrencies, NFTs can be used to transfer value between parties anywhere in the world without bank accounts or high transaction fees. As time goes on, we will see more widespread adoption of this technology due to its ability to provide greater security than current physical assets with digital tokenization where authenticity is recorded, and ownership transfers are made official by integrating blockchain into our daily lives.

Also read: Potential Use Cases of Blockchain Technology for Cybersecurity

Machine learning (ML) has been around for a while now, but getting results from it has always been difficult as it tends to require large sample sizes, which means companies need lots of data. However, what happens when you dont have that much available dataif your company is a startup, for example?

This is where Quantum ML comes in. Machine learning, on some level, has been around since the 1950s, but only recently, with the development of quantum computers, have we seen companies start to think about how to use this technology from an AI perspective, and its looking very promising indeed.

Already, the current version of OpenAIs Codex program automatically generates accurate software code 37 percent of the time. However, machine-written programs need scalable methods for building applicationssomething Quantum ML provides as it allows them to improve accuracy over time at scale, while still delivering results faster than traditional algorithms.

Also read: How Quantum Computing Will Transform AI

Today were starting to see the rise and benefit of generative models in many areas such as text, speech, and even music, where they can be used to create content based on pre-existing data. This is significant for companies looking to scale their ML efforts by not relying so much on human coders but using generative AI, which is generated automatically through neural networks with minimal input from humans.

It offers enormous benefits that include:

Today, we can encrypt data in such a way that it cant be decrypted without being given specific conditions. The problem with current forms of encryption is that you have to decrypt data to work with it. In the process, you expose the data to the risks you were trying to protect it from in the first place.

The solution is homomorphic encryption. With homomorphic encryption, you can analyze and manipulate data without compromising security. This will allow companies to save time and money by not transferring data back and forth between networks or worrying about it being copied for nefarious purposes.

When it comes to critical personal data, such as financial services or healthcare, homomorphic encryption has a lot of promise. When individuals privacy is important, homomorphic encryption can safeguard the actual data while allowing it to be analyzed and processed.

Also read: Enterprise End-to-End Encryption is on the Rise

Cloud computing is a growing trend that has been around for a while now, and its going to continue expanding over time, but one of its biggest issues at present is data regulations which vary from country to country. This can be problematic when companies have customers based in multiple jurisdictions as they need to adhere to each respective law or risk being prosecuted under them, which means some may choose not to do business with those countries.

For example, the digital and cloud technology and services market is currently controlled by a handful of American and Asian firms. Consequently, many European businesses store their data in these locations, spawning political tension and worries about data sovereignty and compliance with local rules.

A sovereign cloud solves this, allowing countries to secure their digital and data sovereignty, which will enable them to create and enforce laws around data protection, intelligence gathering, residency requirements, and protectionism.

Finally, were starting to see the benefits of software and hardware becoming more intertwined as they share their data, a feat which has been made possible thanks to composable applications and networks that work together seamlessly. This is significant for companies as it means they can move faster when building their platforms since theres no need to wait for compatibility between different systems like theyve had to do in the past.

Composable networks also allow us to change the way we work and live by allowing people (and machines) to collaborate and automate their processes without needing a central hub for data storage. It does this using decentralized applications where anyone can contribute while still maintaining an uncompromised record of transactions.

Companies that adopt composable applications and networks will pivot and adapt quickly to business disruption and crises.

Gartners Hype Cycle is a popular framework for understanding the various phases of new technology adoption. Over the next few years, many technologies will be emerging from their peak of inflated expectations phase into full-on mainstream adoption and transformational change. However, it is important to mention one key criticism of Gartners Hype Cycle. It cant predict which technologies will survive and which will become extinct. When considering adopting new technologies from the Gartner Hype Cycle, be critical of their use cases and how they can best suit your business needs.

Read next: Edge Computing Predictions for 2022

Read the original here:

6 Emerging Technologies to Watch from the Current Gartner Hype Cycle | ITBE - IT Business Edge

Tallinn, Estonia--(Newsfile Corp. - November 19, 2021) - Viblos is a promising blockchain-based platform that combines the elements of centralization and decentralization to solve the existing issues in the social network platforms. The leading social media networks like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have several drawbacks that Viblos Ecosystem initiative seeks to solve.

Viblos

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/8203/104343_e94c6ef7c4512a34_001full.jpg

Traditional social media platforms have emerged as industry leaders and provide content for free. However, not all content creators are able to earn from the material they create via these platforms. Other platforms do not pay much to the creators, while some are very strict with their policies, which change depending on their region. These centralized platforms hinder and punish many times some users' from sharing their opinions.

Another common issue that existing social media platforms do not pay attention to is that only a small group of users with extraordinary qualities to be content creators or influencers are financially benefitting from these platforms when the rest of the users do not have the choice to make money.

Viblos is the single solution for all these problems, which can be countered using democracy, decentralization, and blockchain technology. The platform is not governed by any centralized authority, and only the content creators and users are authorized to make decisions on the content. It does not exploit its users by not compensating them financially for the use and commercialization of their data as the traditional social media giants do. The essence of the project is that users have complete control to change, improve, and charge the existing content.

Also, the platform does not display any advertisements unless the user wants to see them, for which they'll be rewarded. Unlike many famous platforms, users won't be bombarded with ads without consent and not be paid for the same.

Story continues

The mixed social media platform is the first democratic/DeFi project where the network's creators do not have direct access to the token supply, which proves its dedication to the Viblos ecosystem's security and robustness. This prevents price manipulation and implementation of classic rug pull tactics.

Viblos won't punish creators for having different views, and every decision related to the content will be decided democratically since the platform is democratic and decentralized.

Another benefit of Viblos is that users can rent out their data to earn rewards. This exclusive feature can help generate additional passive income when they are not uploading some fresh content.

Viblos is a much better alternative than conventional social networks since it not only provides all the advantages of these but also offers new business models for its users as well as it does not demonetize, abuse, or invade the privacy of the participants. Using Viblos, users can earn income in several ways by renting content or staking the tokens to create and share NFTs on the platform.

A notable component of the Viblos Ecosystem is the governance token of the platform, the VIBLO token. With a supply cap of $3 billion tokens. The token is built on the Binance Smart Chain.

Also, content creators will directly get rewarded in VIBLO tokens when they share their content with the world.

The possibilities are endless, and with NFT integration and licensing deals, the platform safeguards the efforts and creativity of the content creators. The Viblos Ecosystem is simple to use and seeks to remove the complex hindrances present in the traditional social media sector.

"The progress we are making is impressive. We have decided on a totally organic strategy for our growth, which gives us incredible results. We believe that a lot of this is due to being one of the few real projects in the crypto world and the way we take care of our communities," said the founder and CEO of the Viblos, Carlos Prez.

Viblos is highly committed to protecting the oceans and has created a funding model based on VIBLO tokens. It provides a constant source of funding to those who are working for marine conservation.

For more details, check out the website and whitepaper of Viblos Ecosystem.

https://www.viblos.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Whitepaper-Viblos-English.pdf

Contact:Juan Carlos Prez and Daniel Schabron info@viblos.orgViblos O Tartu mnt 83-701 10115, Tallinn, Estonia

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/104343

Continued here:

Viblos Is Revolutionizing Traditional Social Networks Using Blockchain Technology - Yahoo Finance