edu: MOOCs => Degrees

MOOCWatch #16: MOOC Providers Target Degrees — Class Central

"In the past year there has been a flurry of MOOC providers announcing online degrees or their plans for online degrees.

EdX announced their first online degree with Georgia Tech in January. Coursera announced two more online degrees (taking the total to four) in March, along with plans to offer up to twenty degrees by the end of 2019.

Udacity Official Declares MOOCs ‘Dead’ (Though the Company Still Offers Them) | EdSurge News

MOOCs Are Dead? | eLearningInside News
"Coursera, one of the first MOOC providers to switch to a more aggressive, for-profit model, found that, by charging for their courses, completion rates jumped from 10% to 60%. Udacity’s premium courses include a hiring guarantee. If students don’t land a job after six months of completing a course, the company will refund their tuition."

Counterpoint: MOOCs are neither dangerous nor dead (opinion)
"...today’s 7,000 MOOCs sweep a landscape that includes 700 universities and 60 million participants worldwide. Coursera, one of the leading MOOC providers, just raised $64 million for an overall $800 million valuation, putting it in “unicorn territory” of $1 billion. Grow with Google recently invested $1 billion to provide digital skills, part of which will be through Coursera certificates."

technology: Covered Bridges

"Technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born." - Alan Kay 

Now it is "effective AI" (Andrew Ng: "Why AI Is the New Electricity")
100+ years ago it was electricity (and cars, airplanes, telephone...)
200+ years ago it was "Covered Bridges"

On a beautiful autumn day we visited some nearby "covered bridges",
a standing testament of continuous usefulness of technology from many years ago.
But why they are built that way? Is it just to protect from snow and ice?

It is engineering craftsman solving technical challenges:

• make a strong structure longer than available materials (wood beams) : Truss
• protect the wood structure from degrading after 10-15 years
• protect horses from being scared of large water below :)

Covered bridge - Wikipedia

Truss bridge - Wikipedia

Covered Bridge Map

Many "wood frame" houses are still build by using those simple techniques, despite all more advanced technology available today. It works and is reasonable affordable, but it does look like covered bridge compared with Golden Gate Bridge.

What should the technology of houses be now, at the age of effective AI?

  
List of highest bridges - Wikipedia

Qualcomm IoT for Printers / security

A clever way to expand market for mobile ARM CPUs...
Next stop: PCs... Microsoft is already on board with ARM version of Windows...

Connected Cloud Printer Solutions | Print Management | Qualcomm

"Make anywhere printing a reality with smart printers and scanners that seamlessly connect to a variety of smartphones and tablets. Our system controller solutions make it easy for original equipment manufacturers (OEM) to build leading smart printer products. An effective print management solution, connecting printers and scanners to the Internet offers users the freedom and flexibility to print from across the room or across town and addresses the hassle of relying on a fixed computer for printing."

Printers - Imaging SoC - Products - Marvell

Hewlett-Packard Designates Printing A First-Class IoT Security Platform

This Teen Hacked 150,000 Printers to Show How the Internet of Things Is Shit - Motherboard

Hacker hijacks thousands of publicly exposed printers to warn owners | PCWorld

"Stackoverflowin claims to be a high-school student from the U.K. who is interested in security research. He said that for the most part he simply sent print jobs using the Line Printer Daemon (LPD), the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and the RAW protocol on communications port 9100 to printers that didn't require authentication."
Microsoft claims Windows 10 ARM battery life will be a ‘game-changer’ for laptops - The Verge