“This year’s predictions cover technologies and trends that would once be dismissed as science fiction but are now set to tip over into mainstream acceptance,” was the bold assertion of innovation charity NESTA as it launched its highly respected yearly report.

Yet as you read through, it’s hard not to agree with them. We’re definitely living in a brave new world, but who are likely to be the winners and losers of all this disruption? The report looks not only at the technology, but to its wider impact in society.

As their Director of Explorations (and can I just say that as far as job titles go, that is one of the coolest ones around) Celia Hannon, says, “Five years ago, you would have reacted with justifiable scepticism to suggestions that your gut microbiome could hold clues to treating health conditions, or that machines could handle your divorce and competently assess your child’s academic performance.”

As the old adage goes, the absurd does have an unnerving habit of becoming true (as I’m sure we’re all feeling in more ways than one). Yet Hannon goes even further, asserting that if a prediction doesn’t have a hint of outlandishness which means it feels foreign to us now, then it isn’t serving its purpose, which is to generate alternative visions of the future that can, in turn, change our perception of the present.

If a prediction doesn’t have a hint of outlandishness which means it feels foreign to us now, then it isn’t serving its purpose, which is to generate alternative visions of the future
Share on X

1 -RoboLawyers make legal services cheaper

Today, small businesses and individuals often steer clear of legal processes. They’re too expensive, too time consuming or too bureaucratic. As a result, money is left unclaimed, shoddy work left unpunished, and injustices left to fester. Yet low-cost, AI-driven legal services could radically open up access to the legal system for people and companies who are currently excluded.

Low-cost, AI-driven legal services could radically open up access to the legal system for people and companies who are currently excluded
Share on X

Olivier Usher and Chris Gorst predict that in 2019, the next big round of automation will be in the legal sector, with apps and web-based services replacing a visit to a local solicitor’s firm for many straightforward legal problems:

“Lawtech has the potential to change lives – not just by cutting back the cost of the law, but by broadening its reach at the same time.”

Artificial intelligences have already shown themselves to be better than lawyers at checking contracts for potential flaws, and over 60 million disputes are resolved by eBay’s automated processes every year, more than the entire legal system of England and Wales.

Artificial intelligences have already shown themselves to be better than human lawyers at checking contracts for potential flaws
Share on X

2 – A random approach to innovation

Humankind’s smartest thinkers are spending precious time on proposals that often go nowhere – time that could be better put to use doing actual research that can change lives. A 2013 study of a funding round for medical research in Australia, described by Shahar Avin, found that scientists spent the equivalent of four centuries writing applications that were eventually rejected.

Furthermore, the current way that research is funded is open to bias as female researchers receive less funding, for example. Funding innovation is also hard because breakthrough ideas often seem counterintuitive at first. Research suggests that peer reviewers who know a subject area well tend to mark down more novel proposals, while reviewers also mark down research in fields further from their own. This is bad news, especially at a time when good ideas seem to be getting harder to find.

A 2013 study of a funding round for medical research in Australia, described by Shahar Avin, found that scientists spent the equivalent of four centuries writing applications that were eventually rejected
Share on X

So in 2019, NESTA researchers Teo Firpo and Laurie Smith believe more organisations will come around to the idea of randomly-allocated research funding. In a partially-randomised system, proposals could be divided into three categories – a top category which are all funded, a bottom category which are never funded, and a middle category where funding is allocated by lottery. This might seem a surprising concept, but it’s one that’s gathering a number of prominent followers such as the New Zealand’s Health Research Council and the Volkswagen Foundation which are both already using a lottery to distribute funding.

More organisations will come around to the idea of randomly-allocated research funding
Share on X

3 – Follow your Gut

Scientists estimate that the human body is made up of over 30 trillion cells. But the bacterial cells in our gut outnumber our own by a factor of 10. These bacteria are referred to as the gut microbiome. The importance of this gut microbiome is well-recognised in the scientific community, and over recent years it has been linked to a range of diseases and conditions, from diabetes to autism and anxiety to obesity. Small changes in the microbes present (altered by antibiotics, diet, geographic region, and so on) may affect weight, likelihood of disease and even psychological factors like risk-taking behaviour.

2019 will see many of us turning towards personalised nutrition based on profiling our gut microbiome
Share on X

Sinead Mac Manus – a Senior Programme Manager for Digital Health in the Health Lab – believes 2019 will see many of us turning towards personalised nutrition based on profiling our gut microbiome. While a new focus on gut health will help us shift from generic healthy eating guidelines to personalised nutrition, most of the work is being done by start-ups and other private companies such as Viome and Atlas Biomed.

Many chronic diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's and obesity are rooted in inflammation of the gut, which is influenced by the foods we eat
Share on X

They have been promoting at-home gut testing for a couple of years as a way of finding out more about your gut and what to eat, and this year Carbiotix became the first company to release a low cost gut microbiome test. In 2019, Project Sapiens – a team led by geneticist Tim Spector and including some of the best artificial intelligence experts in the UK – will release a test that uses machine learning to help people understand how their body responds to specific foods.

The American Gut Project was started in 2012 to provide a means to collect a large set of data surrounding the microbiome. They used a citizen science approach where participants donate their gut data in return for insights on how their gut is compared to the rest of the population. The first results of the project were published this year in the journal mSystems and they reveal new relationships between health, lifestyle and diet. Many chronic diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s and obesity are rooted in inflammation of the gut, which is influenced by the foods we eat.

The study revealed interesting connections between the composition of the gut’s bacteria and mental ill-health. These findings are supported by an emerging field of science that proposes that common mental health problems, particularly depression and anxiety, can be improved by caring for the intestinal microbiome. Medical researchers John F. Cryan and Ted Dinan have coined the term ‘psychobiotic’ to explain a targeted intervention for a healthy brain. Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London and the author of The Diet Myth, has also written about the link between gut health, sleep and depression. So letting your gut lead the way might not be such a bad idea after all.

Today, there are 13.9 million disabled people in the UK with a combined estimated household spending power of over £200 billion a year
Share on X

4 – Supercharging the Accessibility Revolution

Industry 4.0 signals a turning point in the development of accessible technologies, and the benefits will be felt not only by disabled users, but by everyone, as this will bring what NESTA describes as ‘spillover benefits’.

“Whoever you are, there’s a good chance that your daily life is made easier by technology that was originally developed for, or first used by, disabled people – from early versions of the typewriter, to the precursor to email. From eye-gaze technology that’s making driving safer, to the curb cuts we use everyday without a second thought. Even your mobile phone, now a ubiquitous part of everyday life, evolved from technology originally targeted at disabled people. Making mass market products easier and more intuitive to use benefits everyone, and the blurring of physical, digital, and biological spheres is a natural fit,” explains Charlotte Macken, Prize Design Manager in Nesta’s Challenge Prize Centre.

Today, there are 13.9 million disabled people in the UK with a combined estimated household spending power of over £200 billion a year. Those figures will increase in the coming years with the UK’s ageing population. People aged 65 and over are the fastest-growing age group, projected to grow by 20.4% over 10 years and by nearly 60% over 25 years in England. As the number of people in Britain who were either born with or have acquired an impairment grows, the demographic shift will create an increasingly attractive market opportunity and an incentive to ensure that they can fully participate in society and the barriers to innovation will fade.

Whoever you are, there’s a good chance that your daily life is made easier by technology that was originally developed for, or first used by, disabled people

5 – Knowing What Algorithms are Thinking

“In 2019, we’ll see the citizen’s “right to know” becomes the organisation’s “duty to inform”. In the US, California passed a law requiring bots to identify themselves online, although only in limited commercial and political circumstances. On this side of the pond, France’s Digital Republic Bill requires the government to publish source code for its algorithms, while we expect the European Commission to continue its world-leading fight for stronger data protection laws and more responsible technology,” says Matt Stokes, who contributed this prediction to the NESTA report.

In future we’ll demand to be told when decisions that affect our lives are being made, or informed, by algorithms and how those algorithms have reached their decisions.

We’ll demand to be told when decisions that affect our lives are made by algorithms and how those algorithms have reached their decisions
Share on X

6 – Weaponized Deepfakes

Data Scientist Katja Bego predicts that in the next 12 months, the world will see the release of a highly authentic-looking malicious fake video, which could cause substantial damage to diplomatic relations between countries.

Deepfakes - AI-based technology that makes it possible to create fake videos of individuals nearly indistinguishable from the real thing
Share on X

Deepfakes – AI-based technology that makes it possible to create fake videos of individuals nearly indistinguishable from the real thing – are edging closer to causing a major geopolitical incident. Though still a relatively new technology, they are evolving incredibly fast, making it harder and harder for the naked eye (or even digital forensics tools) to identify them. At the same time, they are also becoming ever easier and cheaper to create.

How do we, as a society, then help to protect the truth?

Many researchers are working on solutions that can spot AI-generated manipulated video, from universities to the military. Indeed, digital tools are already under development that can, for example, rapidly detect whether a video contains altered pixels or spot biological tells such as off-pace heartbeats or blinking patterns which suggest a video’s subject is not actually human. Yet merely focusing on potential technological solutions risks ignoring the deeper running issues that allow them to arise in the first place. As always, technology reflects and magnifies problems in society, and in order to find adequate long-term solutions, we must address both the problem and its roots. For better or worse, deepfakes are a perfect exemplar of our post-truth age, Bego concludes.

Many researchers are working on solutions that can spot AI-generated manipulated video
Share on X

7 – End of Exams

Recent advances make continuous assessment by AI not only possible, but practical on a large scale – even for subjects without binary “right” or “wrong” answers. Advances in natural language processing mean that AI can analyse the content, structure and style of prose in an essay. If done right, a shift to continuous AI assessment could allow us to reorganise schools around learning, not league tables, argue NESTA researchers Toby Baker and Laurie Smith

Normally we hear about AI in the context of driverless cars or Amazon warehouses, but AI in schools is already a reality
Share on X

Instead of examiners spending hours marking one essay at the end of the year, all essays throughout the year could be marked quickly and independently by AI. Already, 60,000 schools in China (a quarter of the country’s total) are part of an ongoing government-sponsored trial in which essays have been quietly marked by an AI algorithm. Normally we hear about AI in the context of driverless cars or Amazon warehouses, but AI in schools is already a reality. Adaptive learning platforms, such as Century Tech, use algorithmic decision-making to deliver lesson content based on a student’s ability and interests. Not only is AI-enabled assessment more flexible, it can be more helpful to students too.

Although in relative infancy, tools can analyse data collected by virtual learning platforms to measure students’ abilities in skills such as problem solving, teamwork and even tolerance
Share on X

As well as how we assess, AI tools could transform what we assess. School leavers need a wide range of knowledge, skills, and attributes. Exams only measure a narrow range of those things – how are parents, colleges, universities or employers to know if students are resilient, independent thinkers? Or if they can collaborate with colleagues, debate or create? Although in relative infancy, tools can analyse data collected by virtual learning platforms to measure students’ abilities in skills such as problem solving, teamwork and even tolerance. For example, last year’s PISA test results (the OECD’s global ranking of education systems) assessed collaborative problem-solving abilities based on how well students responded to questions when working collaboratively with ‘Abby’, a chatbot.

Recent advances make continuous assessment by AI not only possible, but practical on a large scale
Share on X

8 – The age of the Superbug

Today, due to the overprescription of antibiotics in both humans and animals, antibiotic resistance is a reality. Although multiple strategies have been put in place in the UK over the last decade, the number of drug-resistant infections in our communities and hospitals continues to grow at an alarming rate.

The number of drug-resistant infections in our communities and hospitals continues to grow at an alarming rate
Share on X

Over nine million surgeries are performed in the UK each year, with one in three of these operations requiring a preventive course of antibiotics. Should these antibiotics fail to work, the risk of dying from routine surgery such as a cesarean section would skyrocket, and common injuries could become life-threatening.

“Antibiotic resistance is a global issue and to tackle it we need global solutions,” argue Caroline Purslow and Daniel Berman.

78 teams from around the world are competing in Nesta’s Longitude Prize to reduce misuse and overuse of antibiotics by creating a fast and affordable test for bacterial infections. Successful implementation of such tests would mean that infections could be treated more quickly, unnecessary use of antibiotics would be avoided and people would receive more effective treatment.

78 teams from around the world are competing in Nesta’s Longitude Prize to reduce misuse and overuse of antibiotics
Share on X

9 – The rise of the ‘City Brain’

Various technologies are now coming of age, which bring the vision of a smart city closer to fruition, and China is in the forefront of that with its ET City Brain, argue Eva Grobbink ,Geoff Mulgan ,Vincent Straub. The country has hugely ambitious plans for AI, and the City Brain project overlaps with other high profile initiatives, like the country’s social credit system, which uses big data and artificial intelligence processes to rank citizens based on their social, political and economic behaviour.

First launched in September 2016, ET City Brain is a collaboration between Chinese technology giant Alibaba and several cities. The ET City Brain system gathers large amounts of data (including logs, videos, and data stream) from sensors. These are then processed by algorithms in supercomputers and fed back into control centres around the city for administrators to act on—in some cases, automation means the system works without any human intervention at all.

The speed at which this technology, and related projects like driverless cars, are advancing in China will come as a shock to the United States
Share on X

The speed at which this technology, and related projects like driverless cars, are advancing in China will come as a shock to the United States, which has long assumed that it leads the world technologically. It will also send a clear message to other countries seeking to lead the world in AI, including the UK—which recently identified AI and data as one of four ‘Grand Challenges’ in its Industrial Strategy.

How different cities apply this kind of technology will reflect their political and social value systems. The Barcelona Digital City project, for example, runs a sensor network developed with open source technology to compile and share data on air quality and noise levels. Not only can citizens access this data, and are free to use it (for example, to report antisocial noise in their neighbourhood), but they’re also given control over how their data is used. It will still take some time for the system to become a ‘brain’ that connects all public services in the city, but the first steps are being taken while still involving citizens and respecting their data rights.

ET City Brain is a collaboration between Chinese technology giant Alibaba and several cities
Share on X

In 2017, the City of Toronto handed over responsibility for parts of its infrastructure to Google’s sister company Sidewalk Labs. The smart city area created by the company is equipped with sensors and cameras which record pollution levels, traffic flow, weather, and more—but also the behaviour of its inhabitants. For the residents of this new urban area, the promise is a more pedestrian-friendly experience of city living, where smart traffic lights minimise traffic congestion and robots take care of rubbish collection. But Sidewalk Labs has run into serious problems of public trust—the project’s privacy expert recently resigned over the use of citizens’ data, dubbing the project a “Smart City of Surveillance”, and forcing Google to rethink its approach.

Various technologies are now coming of age which bring the vision of a smart city closer to fruition
Share on X

10 – Working Week, but Not as We Know It

A recent survey found that fewer than six percent of UK workers actually work nine-to-five, with 42 percent already working ‘flexibly’. But almost every aspect of our lives, from when trains run to when sports are broadcast, is built around the “workweek” model.

In 2019 it’ll be time to recognise that a fundamental shift is taking place in the pattern of our lives and our world, says Georgia Ward Dyer, a Researcher and Curation Assistant in NESTA’s Futures and Explorations Team.

A recent survey found that fewer than six percent of UK workers actually work nine-to-five
Share on X

The trends that drive this have been accumulating over years. Globalisation means that services or markets are always ‘on’; every hour a new time zone wakes up and another falls asleep. Smartphones are our constant companions. The impacts of emerging technologies have only accelerated this disruption. Platform working is on the rise and recent scandals around the treatment of Amazon workers reflect how fast the way we work is changing, and how unprepared we are to deal with the consequences. That’s before we even get to the much-heralded robots coming to take our jobs.

Both UBI and the four-day week call into question what our lives might look like if the ratio of work to life was rebalanced
Share on X

The shift towards more flexible work and the spectre of impending automation have also amplified conversation surrounding Universal Basic Income (UBI) – an idea where citizens of a country receive a regular sum of money from the government. Influential figures such as Elon Musk and Richard Branson are advocating for UBI as an option to head off the adverse effects of increasing automation. Several countries have also recently completed trials implementing UBI at various scales.

Both UBI and the four-day week call into question what our lives might look like if the ratio of work to life was rebalanced. With more time on our hands, what might we spend it doing?

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Report: 2019 Tech Breakthroughs appeared first on Tech Trends.

Hard-of-hearing and deaf students are, unfortunately, often left at a disadvantage as they have an extra set of challenges to contend with on top of the difficulties that come with adjusting to a classroom environment.

This extra work – keeping up with sign language interpreters while simultaneously reading course material and taking notes – often results in learning challenges and lower grades. However, as technology integration grows in schools, new ways to bridge classroom accessibility gaps emerge.

Prior to working with Verbit, the university was facing major challenges due to a lack of resources, a high demand for services and a large backlog of inaccessible content that required transcription
Share on X

And that’s where technology can really make a difference, according to Tom Livne, CEO of Verbit. His company has developed a cutting edge transcription process, powered by machine learning technology, that provide 99% transcription accuracy – which he claims is the fastest turnaround time in the industry at any volume.

“Our hybrid model fuses the latest AI technology as well as seasoned transcribers who edit and review each file to polish them to perfection. Our platform is the only solution on the market that incorporates contextual data, specific acoustic models and current events to provide each customer with a tailored model that keeps improving with time.”

Founded in 2016, Verbit has secured $11M in seed funding backed by several prominent venture capitalists. It is now being used by various institutions including Brigham Young University in Idaho, which has used their technology to provide fast and accurate transcripts and captions for their students, particularly those who are deaf or hard of hearing. Prior to working with Verbit, the university was facing major challenges due to a lack of resources, a high demand for services and a large backlog of inaccessible content that required transcription.

Keeping up with sign language interpreters while simultaneously reading course material and taking notes – often results in learning challenges and lower grades for deaf students
Share on X

This is part of a growing trend which we’ve been seeing at events such as this year’s Microsoft Build, where Satya Nadella launched their company’s AI for Accessibility program
Share on X

Deploying the technology resulted in a much faster turnaround without compromising on accuracy. Automation also allowed the services to be delivered at a much lower cost, which is of course a crucial issue for many education institutions trying to balance their budgets.

“We chose Verbit because, out of the multitude of companies on the market, they were a perfect fit for us. We stay with Verbit because the people are fantastic. The customer service has been incredible. The turnaround time, the accuracy, the editing time – all of those things are truly best- in-class.” Valerie Sturm, BYU-I Coordinator of Services for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

Prior to piloting the automation route, BYU-Idaho employed 11 transcribers on campus, tasked with covering over 500 hours of transcription per week. A high demand for services and too few people to provide them made it impossible to meet students’ needs and recover from a lengthy backlog of requests.

The system relied mostly on student transcribers, who would graduate in due course, meaning a constant need to re-train personnel from scratch, which was highly inefficient. The university found itself faced with a constant backlog of requests for content transcription, which they weren’t able to meet under the old system. At one point the institution had over 1,000 pieces of audio that were never transcribed or captioned. Activities like tutoring sessions or extra content that took place outside of the traditional classroom setting only added to this growing backlog.

Deploying the technology resulted in a much faster turnaround without compromising on accuracy
Share on X

This is part of a growing trend which we’ve been seeing at events such as this year’s Microsoft Build, where Satya Nadella launched their company’s AI for Accessibility program. There is little doubt that with the fast pace of innovation we’re seeing in fields such as machine learning, this type of capability has great potential for making society more inclusive for people with disabilities, and that has to be a good thing.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Tech Bridging the Accessibility Gap appeared first on Tech Trends.

As technological advances emerge more rapidly than ever, it’s essential that design takes disability into account.

By Simon Dermer co-founder and Managing Director of eSSENTIAL Accessibility

If the recent, updated 2.1 release of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) demonstrates anything, it’s that technology is swiftly changing, and keeping up with it from an accessibility perspective is an ongoing effort. But that’s only because the needs of people with disabilities typically aren’t heeded from the get-go.

Technology is swiftly changing, and keeping up with it from an accessibility perspective is an ongoing effort
Share on X

WCAG 2.1 is a set of technical requirements for ensuring that websites and apps are accessible and inclusive. It’s developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international group of experts in this area, and is recognized and used all over the globe.

Ideally, all design, whether digital or structural or procedural, would consider the needs of people with disabilities from the start, just as it systematically takes into account the safety needs of children, the language needs of a bilingual population, or the temperature conditions under which the design will be used.

WCAG 2.1 is a set of technical requirements for ensuring that websites and apps are accessible and inclusive
Share on X

What happens instead is that successive advances in web, mobile and other digital technologies affect the day-to-day function and performance of people with disabilities in ways that vacillate between two extremes. They can make these individuals’ lives vastly better, yet often make them vastly worse.

Consider the simple task of ordering a pizza online. Twenty years ago, if you wanted a pizza delivery, you’d leaf through a restaurant flyer, choose your options, pick up the phone and call in your order. Online ordering offers conveniences because you can choose toppings quickly from your screen. With a mobile app, you can order from your couch or your backyard. You don’t have to wait on hold. You don’t risk misunderstandings with your order.

Ideally, all design, whether digital or structural or procedural, would consider the needs of people with disabilities from the start
Share on X

If you have a disability, the potential for convenience is even greater. Online ordering eliminates the need to retrieve and handle paper if you have difficulty using your hands. You don’t have to decipher writing on a flyer if you’re blind. You no longer face the problem of communicating by phone if you can’t speak clearly or you’re deaf.

It’s a solution that increases your independence and control over your own life – or, at least, your dinner.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that people with disabilities account for 15 percent of the world’s population, accessibility has not traditionally been top-of-mind for many companies as they scramble to bring their products and services into the digital age. Instead of increasing the independence of people with disabilities, as technology has the capacity to do when it’s designed properly, digital barriers increase isolation, preventing people with disabilities from using a product or service that has been made available solely to the other 85 percent of the population.

Despite the fact that people with disabilities account for 15 percent of the world’s population, accessibility has not traditionally been top-of-mind for many companies
Share on X

It’s about much more than pizza, of course. It’s submitting job applications, it’s searching for information, it’s participating in an online class, it’s booking a flight, it’s reserving concert tickets. If these online activities are not barrier-free, then people with disabilities are completely shut out.

Just as a building must have certain features like stairs and doorknobs replaced or eliminated in order for it to be usable by people with disabilities, so too does digital technology. And what’s more, it is vastly less complicated to modify a website than install an elevator. WCAG 2.1 provides an easy-to-follow, thorough guide to ensuring that a web page follows the four principles of accessibility: perceivable (the information can be detected), operable (it can be used and navigated), understandable (this applies to both the information and the functionality) and robust (it will continue to work for different users with different devices).

If these online activities are not barrier-free, then people with disabilities are completely shut out
Share on X

The truth is, technology that follows the technical requirements of WCAG 2.1 will actually be more perceivable, operable, understandable and robust for everyone, not just people who have disabilities.

For instance, how often have you accidentally hit the wrong link on a touchscreen because the touch target was too small? One of the requirements of WCAG 2.1 is larger touch areas, to ensure that people with limited hand dexterity won’t make a mistake. That’s something all users can appreciate. Requirements that make a web page usable by someone with partial vision, such as text that can be increased in size without interfering with other content, are a boon for those who reach middle age and develop issues with smaller text. A requirement to provide transcripts for videos allows everyone, not just people who are deaf, to do a quick search for specific content.

The truth is, technology that follows the technical requirements of WCAG 2.1 will actually be more perceivable, operable, understandable and robust for everyone, not just people who have disabilities
Share on X

W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative has compiled research and case studies supporting the wide appeal of and business case for accessibility.

WCAG 2.1 stipulates that web pages follow four principles of accessibility: that it be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust
Share on X

As technological advances emerge more rapidly than ever, it’s essential that design takes disability into account. It’s the difference between being inclusive of everyone, regardless of ability – or cutting off access to over a billion people around the world.

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Expert View: How Technology Can Shut Out People with Disabilities appeared first on Tech Trends.

A new documentary explores how embodying digital characters in virtual worlds like Second Life empowers people of all abilities to find their voice and identity.

In Our Digital Selves: My Avatar is me! filmmaker Bernhard Drax travels from Los Angeles to rural South England to tell the stories of 13 ability-diverse people ranging from 24 to 92 years of age who find solace and inspiration in the user-created Metaverse that exists in their computers.

It’s a raw and intensely emotional investigation into the power of living vicariously through an avatar
Share on X

This is not escapism, it’s augmentation
Share on X

Drax sends his documentarian avatar Draxtor Despres into the virtual universe of Second Life (SL) as well as next generation VR platforms like High Fidelity and Sansar to find out why a 40-something disabled Chicago native feels best represented by a colorful superhero gecko but Cody LaScala – confined to a wheelchair his entire life and interacts with VR via a trackball and his foot – makes his avatar an exact replica of his physical self and asserts that he doesn’t see himself as disabled, but rather as someone with “different abilities.”

“In Second Life you can choose to be a refrigerator if you want, and that has really momentous implications for embodiment,” explains researcher Tom Boellstorff, who together with his colleague Donna Davis conducted a 3-year study entitled “Virtual Worlds, Disability and New Cultures of the Embodied Self” with funding from the National Science Foundation.

This movie makes me want to be a better person, a more responsible human - Deanya Schempp
Share on X

“This is not escapism, it’s augmentation,” says Boellstorff, whose research approaches the question from an anthropological perspective as a way to understand digital culture and how communities form and share information as social capital in the virtual world.

As Davis explains, virtual worlds like SL provide people with safe spaces where they can find and express their true selves: “People turn to Second Life to share very intimate conversations in a way they never would with a person in the physical world, because they feel they safely can.”

In Second Life you can choose to be a refrigerator if you want, and that has really momentous implications for embodiment
Share on X

By designing more inclusive technology the industry will also be making those experiences better and more meaningful for everyone
Share on X

For those that speculate about the potential of social VR, it is interesting to note how inhabiting a virtual world allows these people to form and maintain meaningful relationships and connections with others, as SL user iSkye Silverweb recounts:

“I don’t think my partner and I ever would have met in the physical world, even if we were in the same city, and it is because I am deaf.  Communication IS an issue for me; I would always be concerned about it, with meeting anyone.”

It’s a raw and intensely emotional investigation into the power of living vicariously through an avatar, and how this – as one user puts it – “provides her with sustenance” and helps people to cope with all manner of both mental and physical disabilities.

As the recent death of Anthony Bourdain so painfully highlighted, mental health issues often amount to an “invisible disability,” yet in SL, Jadyn Firehawk explains how she could make her avatar visually represent her bipolar condition: “I made something in Second Life, I call it a ‘brain sling’.  When somebody wears a sling on their arm, nobody asks them to lift a heavy object.  A ‘brain sling’ or some equivalent of it, it IS a way of wearing a sign,” she says.

Interestingly, however, doing that seems to also have empowered Jadyn to find a new freedom of expression and achieve more within that virtual world. In SL, Jadyn is a Master Builder who has come to embrace a whole new set of abilities and creative skills which she actively shares within the community.

I don't think my partner and I ever would have met in the physical world, even if we were in the same city, and it is because I am deaf
Share on X

Deanya Schempp, who collaborated with Director Drax on the project, explains that she volunteered to do the closed captions for this movie pro bono, as she felt that the subject, the people, and the research deserved to be heard. What she didn’t realize, however, was the impact that project would have upon her personally:

This movie makes me want to be a better person, a more responsible human. As I listen and watch, I come to understand that it is not these folks who are disabled: The disabled ones are the ones who will not be able to look beyond the cartoon appearance of virtual worlds, or even of this movie, to listen and learn from other human beings whose daily lives are so much different from their own. The disabled ones are those who cannot see beyond appearances to respect the human there.

“Disabled people just don’t think about their disabilities on a daily basis–or at least not until some insensitive blockhead points at us and reminds us we’re supposed to be this thing called disabled,” agrees Second Lifer Daisy Gator.

In Our Digital Selves: My Avatar is me! filmmaker Bernhard Drax tells the stories of 13 ability-diverse people ranging from 24 to 92 years of age who find solace and inspiration in the user-created Metaverse
Share on X

Over the course of the documentary, Drax and the various documentary protagonists also met (both virtually and physically) with technologists such as Philip Rosedale – Founder of Second Life who is now developing a new Virtual Worlds called High Fidelity – and Ebbe Altberg – Linden Lab’s current CEO – about how they intend to intend to design the future of social VR with disability in mind.

“We need to build highly extensible open-source systems that enable those who would provide varied forms of access and accessibility to the system to be at the table,” says Rosedale

By designing more inclusive technology, however, the industry will also be making those experiences better and more meaningful for everyone, as Boellstorff concludes:

“If there’s one thing you learn when looking at these things is that when you’re inclusive and accessible it benefits everyone, not just people with disabilities.”

This article was originally published on The Next Web

Exploring digital identity through avatars https://t.co/YqNTtckyOs

— TNW Contributors (@TNWcontributors) June 11, 2018

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Finding our True Selves in VR appeared first on Tech Trends.

Market Opportunity Meets Corporate Responsibility in Microsoft’s New Strategy.

With a Billion people worldwide living with some form of disability, there is tremendous scope for the development of assistive technologies – a market expected be worth over $26 Billion by 2024.

In the next 10 years, billions of IoT smart devices will be connected. AI will enable these devides to listen, see, reason and predict without a 24/7 dependence on the cloud (this physical interface between humans and machines is what Microsoft terms the “intelligent edge”) and the average smart home will generate around 50GB of data every single day.

In the next 10 years, billions of IoT smart devices will be connected. AI will enable these devides to listen, see, reason and predict without a 24/7 dependence on the cloud
Share on X

The AI for Accessibility program will provide seed grants of technology to developers, universities, nongovernmental organizations and inventors
Share on X

“AI can be a game changer for people with disabilities. Already we’re witnessing this as people with disabilities expand their use of computers to hear, see and reason with impressive accuracy,” explains Brad Smith, President and CLO at Microsoft.

This week at the company’s annual Build developer conference in Seattle, Microsoft announced the launch of AI for Accessibility, a new $25 million 5-year program aimed at accelerating the development of accessible and intelligent AI solutions. The aim is to enable disabled users to achieve more in three specific scenarios: Employment, Modern Life and Human Connection. The program comprises grants, technology investments and expertise, with innovations integrated into Microsoft Cloud services.

“Around the world, only one in 10 people with disabilities has access to assistive technologies and products. By making AI solutions more widely available, we believe technology can have a broad impact on this important community,” says Smith.

The AI for Accessibility program will provide seed grants of technology to developers, universities, nongovernmental organizations and inventors taking an AI-first approach focused on creating solutions in those areas.

It will also identify projects that show the most promise and make larger investments of technology and access to Microsoft AI experts to help bring them to scale, as well as working with external partners to incorporate AI innovations into platform level services.

We've started to see the impact AI can have accelerating accessible tech
Share on X

The aim is to enable disabled users to achieve more in three specific scenarios: Employment, Modern Life and Human Connection
Share on X

The Program will be run by Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Microsoft’s Chief Accessibility Officer, who has been credited with achieving a cultural change change within the company. Lay-Flurrie, who is deaf, was named a “Champion of Change” by the White House for her work and created a hiring program through which the company identifies and trains people with autism.

“We have started to see the impact AI can have in accelerating accessible technology. Microsoft Translator is today empowering people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing with real-time captioning of conversations. Helpicto, an application that turns voice commands into images, is enabling children in France with autism to better understand situations and communicate with others,” says Smith.

How that works in practice was poignantly showcased during Monday’s keynote, where Eric Bridges, CEO of the American Council of the Blind, talked about using the Seeing AI talking camera app on a daily basis to help his three-year-old son, Tyler to complete his schoolwork. Eric now uses the app to scan Tyler’s work so he can review it, but just two years ago, that same interaction would have required the assistance of a sighted person. Technology has, quite literally, removed that barrier so that a father can interact directly with his child, and that’s the fundamental call to action that the program is putting out for developers, NGO’s, academics, researchers and inventors – to accelerate their work for people with disabilities as they develop new technology products.

But while all this brings enormous possibilities for supporting vulnerable people and assisting disabled users in their everyday lives, Smith stresses that by innovating for people with disabilities, they are better innovating for us all – something that Engineer Katie Sullivan helped to demonstrate on stage at Build.

The Microsoft Build demo showcased how AI would help facilitate better collaboration and efficiencies in the workplace, using features such as facial recognition, live caption and translation technology
Share on X

The live demo involved showcasing how AI would help facilitate better collaboration and efficiencies in the workplace, using features such as facial recognition, live caption and translation technology. Sullivan joined the meeting with her sign language interpreter at a later stage, and remarked that the fact that the meeting was being captioned allowed her to participate more fully as she didn’t have to worry about constantly taking notes. Although that might prove more difficult for someone with a disability such as hers, it is certainly something that most people would find rather useful in such a scenario.

“By ensuring that technology fulfills its promise to address the broadest societal needs, we can empower everyone – not just individuals with disabilities – to achieve more,” Smith concludes.

Can AI make the world a more inclusive place? https://t.co/nUEd8z6bjg

— TNW Contributors (@TNWcontributors) May 10, 2018

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post AI for Accessibility appeared first on Tech Trends.

Live from Seattle, Tech Trends scoops up all the tastiest bites from the #MSBuild2018 developer’s conference.

“We need to ask ourselves not only what computers can do, but what they should do,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in his opening keynote at Build.

The era of the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge is upon us
Share on X

Addressing an audience of over five thousand developers in Seattle’s Washington Convention Center, Nadella struck a soberly optimistic note; on the one hand insisting on the message he delivered last year about the great transformative power of technology, but also highlighting the monumental challenges that come with its rapid development.

“These advancements create incredible developer opportunity and also come with a responsibility to ensure the technology we build is trusted and benefits all.”

With customers in control, privacy is preserved
Share on X

It was clear that the Facebook scandal was top of mind here, even if (unsurprisingly) it wasn’t directly referenced as Nadella advocated for the need to put customers in control and safeguard privacy, or said that “GDPR is good, solid regulation and we’re working hard to build the compliance infrastructure.” He stressed, however, that it was just the beginning, as the work was never going to be done: “we’re going to continuously work to preserve privacy, this is just the starting point.”

As cloud based applications scale and power AI experiences, we have come to a place where you need data at planet scale and performance
Share on X

Ethical AI

By 2020, the average person will generate 1.5GB of data a day, a smart home 50GB and a smart city, a whopping 250 petabytes of data per day. This data – as the Cambridge Analytica debacle proved all too painfully – gives developers a tremendous amount of power, and responsibility.

The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of our daily lives
Share on X

Microsoft sees the “intelligent cloud” as the backbone of this revolution. In the next 10 years, billions of everyday devices will become “smart” – being able to see, listen, reason, predict and more, without a 24/7 dependence on the cloud. This is what they call the “intelligent edge” – the interface between computers and the real world. Within that vision, Azure is being built as “the world’s computer,” a ubiquitous computing fabric that would allow Microsoft to meet the digital sovereignty and regulatory needs of their customers while delivering the benefits of innovation.

“Artificial intelligence has truly replaced Windows as Microsoft’s key platform for developers,” says Nick McQuire, VP of Enterprise Research at CCS Insight. “The majority of developer focus will shift from operating systems to artificial intelligence platforms as they increasingly look to intelligence services that span all devices including Internet of things. Its intelligent cloud and intelligent edge strategy is a much more compelling proposition for developers which will continue to define its corporate strategy for the next several years.”

McQuire points to the fact that this follows similar moves made by Amazon Web Services over the past 12 months, and sees it as a clear statement of intent at gaining developer mindshare against Google ahead of its own developer event, Google I/O which also happens this week.

It’s all about putting people – rather than devices – at the centre
Share on X

Kinect gets a Second Life

The Kinect was the first commercial device to integrated speech, gaze and vision, and since its launch a broad range of industrial applications – from security to manufacturing and healthcare – have been developed for it, and the technology has also been incorporated in devices such as the HoloLens.

Microsoft want to enable developers to reach customers in a multi-sense, multi-device way
Share on X

Sensor technology has come a long way since then, however, and Microsoft now wants to combine those capabilities with Azure AI services such as Machine Learning, Cognitive Services, and IoT Edge. Project Kinect for Azure will be a package of sensors – with extra wide field of view – capable of inputting fully articulated hand tracking and high-fidelity special mapping. It will include a next-generation depth camera, with onboard compute designed for AI on the Edge, what Microsoft calls “ambient intelligence,” meaning the device’s ability to scan and make sense of its surroundings by contextualizing cloud and spatially scanned datain real-time. Which is all incredibly exciting, but as a Mixed Reality fan, they frankly had me at “Extra wide Field of View”.

Microsoft had me at ‘extra wide FOV’
Share on X

Lorraine Bardeen, GM Studio Manager, also introduced two new Mixed Reality Products during the keynote: Microsoft Remote Assist – which allows customers to better collaborate remotely with heads-up, hands-free video calling, image sharing, and mixed-reality annotations – and Microsoft Layout, which lets you import 3-D models to create room layouts in real-world scale, experience designs as high-quality holograms in physical space or in virtual reality. With a potential market of 2 billion first-line workers, this is a huge opportunity, Bardeen told developers.

Alexa+Cortana = BFFs

Microsoft was keen to show how it’s been fostering collaborations across the board in an effort to make its platform play nicely with pretty much anyone. It announced that the open-sourcing the Azure IoT Edge to allow developers to develop more easily for it, and then went on to treat us to a very well-choreographed demo introduced by Nadella, who said they’d been working with “their friends across the lake” to bring Alexa and Cortana together.

The whole world is becoming a computer
Share on X

Tom Taylor – SVP of Amazon Alexa, then came on stage together with his Microsoft counterpart to show how Cortana and Alexa could be “intelligent friends,” helping their users with different sorts of tasks and collaborating seamlessly with each other as well as their humans. As always you have to wonder how consistently and smoothly these things would work day-to-day, but it did make the audience giggle and in a divided world, all this talk of friendship and collaboration gives you a warm fuzzy feeling…

We’re ready and comfortable for the #msbuild2018 keynote from @satyanadella pic.twitter.com/x7fVQi2Hoo

— TechTrends (@techtrends_tech) May 7, 2018

Main #Build2018 announcements

• Following last year’s announcement of AI for Earth – a program to apply artificial intelligence towards unlocking solutions to climate, water, agriculture, and biodiversity issues facing the planet – Microsoft is now expanding that model with a new $25 million 5-year program called AI for Accessibility, aimed at accelerating development of accessible and intelligent AI solutions to benefit over one billion people around the world who live with disabilities.
• The world’s biggest drone company, DJI announced a commercial partnership with Microsoft to co-develop solutions leveraging Azure IoT Edge and Microsoft’s AI services across new scenarios such as agriculture, construction and public safety. They will create a new SDK for Windows 10 PCs to bring full flight control and real-time data transfer capabilities to nearly 700M Windows 10 connected devices globally.
• A joint effort with Qualcomm to create a vision AI developer kit running Azure IoT Edge which makes available the key hardware and software required to develop camera-based IoT solutions. The camera can also power advanced Azure services, such as machine learning, stream analytics and cognitive services that can be downloaded from the cloud to run locally on the edge.
• Speech Devices SDK delivering audio processing from multichannel sources for more accurate speech recognition, including noise cancellation and far-field voice. With this, developers can build a variety of voice-enabled scenarios like drive-thru ordering systems, in-car or in-home assistants, smart speakers, and other digital assistants.
• A preview of Project Brainwave – an architecture for deep neural net processing – is now available on Azure and on the edge, and makes it the fastest cloud to run real-time AI.
• Azure Cognitive Services updates include a unified Speech service with improved speech recognition and text-to-speech, which support customized voice models and translation.
• New updates to Bot Framework and Cognitive Services will power the next generation of conversational bots enabling richer dialogs, and full personality and voice customization to match the company’s brand identity.
• Azure Search with Cognitive Services integration – combining AI with indexing technologies so it’s possible to quickly find information via text or images.
• Partnership with GitHub that brings the power of Azure DevOps services to GitHub customers, including integration with Visual Studio App Center.
• The Microsoft Azure Blockchain Workbench makes it easier to develop blockchain applications by stitching together an Azure-supported blockchain network with cloud services.
• Power BI Visualizations makes it possible for developers to extend the custom visuals created for Power BI to Excel.

• A new way to connect your phone to your PC with Windows 10 that enables instant access to text messages, photos and notifications – imagine being able to quickly drag and drop your phone’s photos into a document on your PC in one swift movement — without having to take your phone out of your pocket.
• Microsoft 365 currently has 135M commercial monthly active users and nearly 700M Windows 10 connected devices. The suite of new features announced at Build are aimed at better blending between web and application environments for end users and developers and enabling developers to create experiences

Technology can be a force multiplier is unlocking solutions for some of the biggest challenges facing society
Share on X

Remember you can find out more about Build and watch the live keynotes here and play the Microsoft Build announcements bingo with the card below!

The world is a computer, filled with an incredible amount of data
Share on X

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Power and Responsibility: Highlights from Microsoft Build appeared first on Tech Trends.