Archive of ‘Digital literacy’ category
Polymer cables could replace Thunderbolt & USB, deliver more than twice the speed from r/gadgets
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/03/08/polymer-cables-could-replace-thunderbolt-with-105-gbps-data-transfers
Researchers are working on a cabling system that could provide data transfer speeds multiple times faster than existing USB connections using an extremely thin polymer cable, in a system that echoes the design path of Thunderbolt.
While the “increasingly bulky and costly” copper could be replaced by fiber optic cables, that introduces its own issues. As silicon chips have difficulty dealing with photons, this makes the interconnection between the cable and the computers more challenging to optimize.
The polymer can also use sub-terahertz electromagnetic signals, which is more energy-efficient than copper at high data loads. It is believed this efficiency brings it close to that of fiber optic systems, but crucially with better compatibility with silicon chips.
It seems plausible that such a system could be employed for a future Thunderbolt-style connection, allowing it to go far beyond the current 40Gbps upper limit.
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more on USB in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=usb
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more on Parler in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=parler
AI progress depends on us using less data, not more
A minimal-data practice will enable several AI-driven industries — including cyber security, which is my own area of focus — to become more efficient, accessible, independent, and disruptive.
1. AI has a compute addiction. The growing fear is that new advancements in experimental AI research, which frequently require formidable datasets supported by an appropriate compute infrastructure, might be stemmed due to compute and memory constraints, not to mention the financial and environmental costs of higher compute needs.
MIT researchers estimated that “three years of algorithmic improvement is equivalent to a 10 times increase in computing power.”
2. Big data can mean more spurious noise.
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more on infodemic in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=infodemic
https://www.facebook.com/groups/onlinelearningcollective/permalink/761389994491701/
“What the invention of photography did to painting, this will do to teaching.”
AI can write a passing college paper in 20 minutes
Natural language processing is on the cusp of changing our relationship with machines forever.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ai-can-write-a-passing-college-paper-in-20-minutes/
The specific AI — GPT-3, for Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 — was released in June 2020 by OpenAI, a research business co-founded by Elon Musk. It was developed to create content with a human language structure better than any of its predecessors.
According to a 2019 paper by the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence, machines fundamentally lack commonsense reasoning — the ability to understand what they’re writing. That finding is based on a critical reevaluation of standard tests to determine commonsense reasoning in machines, such as the Winograd Schema Challenge.
Which makes the results of the EduRef experiment that much more striking. The writing prompts were given in a variety of subjects, including U.S. History, Research Methods (Covid-19 Vaccine Efficacy), Creative Writing, and Law. GPT-3 managed to score a “C” average across four subjects from professors, failing only one assignment.
Aside from potentially troubling implications for educators, what this points to is a dawning inflection point for natural language processing, heretofore a decidedly human characteristic.
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more on artificial intelligence in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=artificial+intelligence
more on paper mills in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=paper+mills
https://sites.psu.edu/whatthedeck/
What the Deck is an exploratory, card-based game that aims to introduce students, faculty and staff of all ages and backgrounds to a wide variety of situations in which established and emerging technologies impact society.
It survived challenges from Trump’s DOJ, and now one from telecom industry too
https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/23/22298199/california-net-neutrality-law-sb822
Here’s the full text of the California Internet Consumer Protection and Net Neutrality Act of 2018, also known as SB-822. It contains a list of things that ISPs are not going to be able to do, including paid prioritization, “zero-rating” favorable content so it doesn’t count against your data cap (think of those bundled streaming services!), and failing to tell you fast service actually is and how their network management practices and speeds actually work
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more on net neutrality in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=netneutrality
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/23/970664967/al-jazeera-is-launching-a-right-leaning-news-outlet-called-rightly
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more on news literacy in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=news+literacy
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/24/sky-news-australia-is-tapping-into-the-global-conspiracy-set-and-its-paying-off
Jones uses segments from Sky News Australia in his program, particularly those from Sky’s Outsiders program, as “evidence” from mainstream media organisations to support his conspiracy theories.
The bite-sized videos carry advertising – and Sky shares the revenue with platforms like YouTube.
Last November, tech journalist Cam Wilson revealed in Business Insider that Sky News Australia had successfully built a Fox News-like online operation in Australia that dwarfs its terrestrial audience numbers. On YouTube, their videos have been viewed more than 500m times, more than any other Australian media organisation.
Wilson also reported that Sky’s Facebook posts had more total interactions in October than the ABC News, SBS News, 7News Australia, 9 News and 10 News First pages, and more shares than all of them combined.
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more on conspiracy theories in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=conspiracy+theories
UKSG webinar – The importance and use of digital primary sources in teaching and research
#UKSGWebinar
poll: do scholars in your institution have access to internal support or training for digital primary source research and teaching
Peter Foster with Wiley, facilitator
Hugh Murphy, Head of Collections and Content, Maynooth Univesity Library, Ireland
@hughtweet
what is a primary source.
Functionality (ability to access)
U collections as part of a larger U ecosystem. Conceptional change for Special Collections
Teaching Learning and Research: “digitally-enabled and technology-supported learning” – strategic planning
Research: digital humanties dhlag.yale.edu/project/vogue
Open Access (publishers ARE business). For a small country (university), how much will a publisher pay attention? Will a standard pay attention to OCR a 16th century document.
Sarah Evans, Research and Collections Engagement Manager, Royal Geographical Society with IBG
https://www.rgs.org/about/our-collections/
Collaborative Doctoral Program
WDA Research Fellowships
Kathryin Simpson, Lecturer in Information Studies, U of Glasgow
Hidden Voices: Using the digital archive to critically negotiate histories
digital environment is not just a PDF, but a whole new environment.
record open and accessible by these docs from Africa
Q&A: does the access to primary sources demand different approach to critical thinking.
UMN to pay Google $2.36M for new online learning platform
