Catch up on all the technology gossip without all the hype.

    You might be thinking that all this new buzz about the crazy new technology that tech giants such as Apple and Samsung that they are creating is fascinating and need to be examined immediately, well rethink that excitement. Stated in bold inside this article, “Apple’s wireless AirPods charger is coming in September and the iPhone X almost didn’t have a charging port at all” explains that Apple is not only late on its due dates and is releasing something that doesn’t seem appealing to most tech geeks. As we continue into the article, there are more accusations of why the iPhone’s new news about their devices are becoming less popular. The narrator constantly states that “The sources on his rumor ar anonymous and seem flimsy. It’s unlikely, but it’s not totally impossible.” It is fun to hypothesize about the future, but the reality is that what we are expecting, is not coming anytime soon.

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Blind Woman Sues 30 Websites over Handicap Accessibility

Have you ever considered how blind individuals navigate through the Internet? Although, it is not usually something that you just ponder on while eating your afternoon lunch, it is something to wonder about. Most commonly, they use the traditional text-to-speech software. These screen readers browse the website’s HTML to then convert it into sounds. Another example of assistive technology for the visually impaired is a refreshable braille display. The displays consist of raised dots to transport the websites text to the fingertips of the visitor.

Recently, a woman who is legally blind from Manhattan came forward claiming that there are websites which are discriminatory to the visually impaired. Maria Mendizabal is filing more than thirty individual lawsuits against companies known globally such as Nike, Barney’s, and Donna Karan. Her suit reads, “Useless websites are designed to be read by screen-reading software, blind and visually-impaired persons are unable to fully access websites, and the information, Products, and services contained thereon,” which is filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Reinforcement Learning

By experimenting, computers are figuring out how to do things that no programmer could teach them. Availability: 1 to 2 years

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603501/10-breakthrough-technologies-2017-reinforcement-learning/

         As technology keeps advancing daily, developers, and consumers become hesitant on the topic of one of the biggest issues regarding innovation, artificial intelligence. According to the Merrin Dictionary, “Artificial intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.” This sparks much debate that relates to this theory which is the approach known as reinforcement learning. All of us know the AlphaGo computer that was developed to master the impossibly complex board game Go which beat one of the best human players in the world in a high-profile match last year, which was programmed based on this approach of reinforcement learning. Stated by Knight, “reinforcement learning may soon inject greater intelligence into much more than games. In addition to improving self-driving cars, the technology can get a robot to grasp objects it has never seen before, and it can figure out the optimal configuration for the equipment in a data center.”

Why AI won’t Destroy the Human Race

In our digital age, a vast amount of information is at our fingertips. With a few keystrokes, we can know the answer to many, MANY questions and AI is helping to make it possible. A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload. In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data and that this overabundance was both “confusing and harmful” to the mind. The media now echo his concerns with reports on the unprecedented risks of living in an “always on” digital environment. It’s worth noting that Gessner, for his part, never once used e-mail and was completely ignorant about computers. That’s not because he was a technophobe but because he died in 1565. His warnings referred to the seemingly unmanageable flood of information unleashed by the printing press. If we let the fear of the unknown drive decision making, we would never have tamed fire. Societies would be at a standstill. The way we grow and develop is based on questioning the status-quo and yes, taking risks… calculated risks.

BXV Elementary School Coding Workshops

Last Thursday, the BVX Girls Coding Club organized an afterschool activity for second to fifth graders with the hope of creating more interest in STEM subjects, particularly with girls. With seven types of workshops, the elementary schoolers were encouraged to combine both programming and engineering concepts in their workshops. For example, the LittleBits station, which simulated a circuit formed of electronic building blocks, or the Makey-Makey station, which encouraged creativity by connecting common objects to computer programs. Younger students worked with Cubetto and Dash & Dot, two robots that demonstrate how computers (in this case the robots) took commands that were written into a program (which the students accomplished through basic block based coding). Exposure to such activities left the students excited to learn more, both on their own and in their technology classes.