Excellent work in getting a #WebXR build of Tilt Brush exported from Unity by @msub2official.
Lots of ripping out of SteamVR in order to get it to compile & you can see there some controller bugs from the port, but great progress.
More details over on @webaverse‘s #webxr Discord. https://t.co/e83hXC6FgW
— Kent Bye VoicesOfVR (@kentbye) January 28, 2021
https://www.forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2021/01/29/this-week-in-xr-quest-sales-boost-facebook-google-punts-vr-assets-shutterstock-eats-turbosquid/
Tilt Brush becomes open source. Google’s solution to Tilt Brush’s problems is to give away the source code on GitHub and torch its free 3D asset store Poly, the only asset store compatible with Tilt Brush’s animated brushes.
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more on Tilt Brush in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=tiltbrush
What Is Wi-Fi 6E?
https://www.pcmag.com/news/what-is-wi-fi-6e
Wi-Fi 6 vs. Wi-Fi 6E
Local police are often able to access very powerful surveillance tools — including cellphone tracking devices, automatic…
Posted by NPR on Wednesday, January 27, 2021
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/27/961103187/surveillance-and-local-police-how-technology-is-evolving-faster-than-regulation
On police use of automatic license plate readers, or ALPRs
invasive technologies
Stingray IMSI Catcher (international mobile subscriber information)
Citizen Virtual Patrol
Notifications
Term added.
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We See It All: Liberty and Justice in an Age of Perpetual Surveillance
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53402901-we-see-it-all
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more on surveillance in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=surveillance
An Intro Philosophy Course that Uses Podcasts Instead of Readings
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A Big List of Philosophy Podcasts
A Big List of Philosophy Podcasts (updated)
Apple AAPL is expected to launch its first virtual reality (VR) headset in 2022, which will be a forerunner of its much-anticipated augmented reality (AR) glasses
along with VR features like a completely simulated 3-D digital environment, the device might include limited AR functionalities.
Apple’s entry will intensify competition in the VR device market, which includes devices such as Facebook’s FB Oculus Quest 2, Sony’s SNE PlayStation VR, Microsoft’s MSFT Windows Mixed Reality and HTC’s Vive and Vive Pro.
global spending on AR and VR is expected to reach $72.8 billion in 2024 from $12 billion in 2020, reflecting a CAGR of 54%
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more on Apple Glass in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=apple+glass
WhatsApp loses millions of users after terms update from r/worldnews
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jan/24/whatsapp-loses-millions-of-users-after-terms-update
A poorly explained update to its terms of service has pushed WhatsApp users to adopt alternative services such as Signal and Telegram in their millions.
Apps like Signal, Telegram, Wickr, and WhatsApp offer privacy features ranging from end-to-end encrypted data transfer to ‘self-destructing messages’.”
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Fast-Growing Alternative To Facebook And Twitter Finds Post-Trump Surge ‘Messy’
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/22/958877682/fast-growing-alternative-to-facebook-twitter-finds-right-wing-surge-messy
MeWe markets itself as privacy forward. It doesn’t harness users’ data to sell ads or decide what content to show them. My note: but has to charge somehow, so, differently from FB Messenger, one needs to pay, in order to do audio call in MeWe.
MeWe’s Weinstein resists the comparison to Parler or Gab, which tout themselves as free-speech sites. For one thing, he says, MeWe is serious about putting limits on what people can say.
The tech website OneZero uncovered right-wing militia groups on MeWe as well as a “Stop the Steal” group that discussed shooting people. The company removed the groups after OneZero flagged them.
“I think we all still treat social media companies like they’re these inexpensive startups, but maybe they need to be treated more like starting an airplane company or a company that makes cars,” said Megan Squire, a professor at Elon University who studies online extremists. “You’ve got to think about seat belts.”
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more on social media in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=social+media
The decline in enrollment has been seven times as steep among men as among women.
Posted by The Hechinger Report on Monday, January 25, 2021
The pandemic is speeding up the mass disappearance of men from college
While enrollment in higher education overall fell 2.5 percent in the fall, or by more than 461,000 students compared to the fall of 2019, the decline among men was more than seven times as steep as the decline among women, according to an analysis of figures from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Women now comprise nearly 60 percent of enrollment in universities and colleges and men just over 40 percent, the research center reports. Fifty years ago, the gender proportions were reversed.
Despite the allure of a paycheck versus going into debt and spending years pursuing a degree, the reality is that “a lot of these young men at 17 or 18 years old end up working 12-hour shifts, getting married, buy a truck, get a mortgage, and by the time they’re 30, their bodies are broken,” Ponjuan said. “And now they have a mortgage, three kids to feed and that truck, and no idea what to do next.”
Not everyone has to go to college. Faster and less costly career and technical education can lead to in-demand, well-paying jobs in skilled trades, automation and other fields.
Graduates with bachelor’s degrees still generally make more than people with lesser credentials, however.
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more on male students in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=%22male+students%22
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/secretary-cardona-cancel-the-tests/
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more on NCLB in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=NCLB
https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/opinion-are-you-contributing-to-truth-decay/2021/01
Besides the algorithms that contribute to this truth decay, there is something equally as powerful that contributes to it as well. That other contributor is our confirmation bias.
“At its core, Media Literacy (ML) is made up of several specific competencies, such as the abilities to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate media messages in a variety of forms. Experts and organizations typically define media literacy using this or similar collections of competencies, which in the past two decades have evolved to focus more on the active construction of media and participation in the information ecosystem.”
Huguet, A.; Kavanagh, J.; Baker, G.; Blumenthal, M. (2018). Exploring Media Literacy Education as a Tool for Mitigating Truth Decay. Rand Corporation.
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more on fake news in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=fake+news