Category: Innovation

Latest Read: The Future Is Faster Than You Think

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 6, 2022

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler.

Peter is an engineer, physician, and entrepreneur. He founded The X Prize Foundation, and executive chairman of Singularity University. Steven is an American author and entrepreneur. He has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Los Angles Times, Wired, Time magazine, GQ, Discover, and Popular Science.

Together they have published a series of books Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World. The Future Is Faster Than You Think is the third and last of this series.

As usual, whenever predictions of the future are written, they are never accurate. It is somewhat difficult to believe it has been thirteen years since reading The Next 100 Years by George Friedman.We all know, somehow the future gets in the way of….their future. Peter and Steven’s book is not an exception.

So, reading this during the hopefully fading months of the COVID pandemic reveals so much of their hype (including dates) never materialized. It is a shame the published date of their book was less than 60 days before our country went on lockdown.

Tags forecasting, Peter Diamandis, Steven Kotler, Technology, The Future Is Faster Than You Think

3D Printing Blockchain Education Innovation IoT Network Reading Technology

Latest Read: The Internet of Things

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date February 28, 2022

The Internet of Things By Samuel Greengard. Samuel is a business and technology writer whose work has appeared in Wired, Entrepreneur, and other publications. He holds a degree in journalism from California State University-Northridge and is a past president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

This book is a very lightweight, suitable for a complete novice to technology. However, this content is outside previous MIT Press titles by select content experts. However, every book has an audience and this is perfect for anyone seeking to understand IoT

In fact, beginning with the example when a lamp was merely a lamp. This provides the backdrop to the integration of modern wifi and bluetooth technologies into devices like a lamp, providing lighting controls via a mobile app.

For this reason, Samuel provides how IoT is changing everything in modern society. He helps define the concepts and key terms with mobility as the baseline for all these technologies. However it is the area where he communicates the recent emerging digital technology has now defined IoT. This products now tie services, data, and people. Those models are outlined as Automation, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Edge AI, Analytics, Robotics, 3D Printing, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Blockchain.

Tags Internet of Things, IoT, Samuel Greengard

Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Metadata

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date February 22, 2022

Metadata by Jeffrey Pomerantz. Jeffrey earned his Ph.D. from the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University. He is Associate Professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and in addition a Visiting Professor at the University of Washington.

At first glance, one may consider this book is only for Library Science and Information Technology students and professionals. However, today internet publishing and content creators suggests you would be wrong.

In fact, this book is very essential. I found this a very welcoming and informative read. Above all, metadata is addressing traditional data elements: creator, created, modified, name, and related networks.

Jeremy elegantly explains what metadata is and why this is so critical to our society today. Twenty years ago the audience impact was considerably smaller. However, today we are an internet publishing society and this is now second nature to many social media content creators.

Jeremy introduces this key element via the Snowden revelations regarding PRISM. The collection of phone metadata reveals the NSA could identify quite a bit about each cellular call. This was certainly metadata’s aha moment on a global scale. However, this subject really shines in Bruce Schneier’s excellent book Click Here to Kill Everybody. I would also highly recommend reading Surveillance Valley by Yasha Levine.

Tags Dublin Core, Jeffrey Pomerantz, Metadata

Artificial Intelligence Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: Succeeding with AI

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date February 21, 2022

Succeeding with AI: How to make AI work for your business
by Veljko Krunic. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of Colorado Boulder. Today he is CEO of Health Saver AI and holds two AI patients.

Based upon the AI books I have been reading, none certainly addresses the business side of AI. Veljko is writing this book for business leaders. At first glance one may believe technology project managers would be a target audience. This is perfect for business leaders and analysts with no AI programming.

For any business seeking to define investments for data driven decision making, this is a worth title to read. The approach is completely a business approach to AI projects, how they are different and when to fail quickly early in a project.

In addition, Veljko’s underlying message for business teams is the profit is the resulting data outcomes, as it seems almost every business seeking to gain an upper hand have already kickstarted small AI projects. Veljko certainly helps leaders understand the foundation requirements (developers, and data scientists) required to succeed.

The hard requirements for AI if overlooked, will not be enough to prove a business case and result in wasted investments. This is along the lines of The Myth of Artificial Intelligence Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do by Erik Larson.

Tags Artificial Intelligence, Business AI projects, machine learning, Succeeding with AI, Veljko Krunic

Artificial Intelligence Education Innovation Network Reading

Latest Read: GANs in Action

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date February 8, 2022

GANs in Action: Deep learning with Generative Adversarial Networks by Jakub Langr and Vladimir Bok. Vladimir is a Data Product Manager at Intent. In addition, I really welcome his statement: Why I Donate All of My Book’s Proceeds to Girls Who Code. Jakub is Co-Found of Hypermile, a UK startup deploying AI across transportation solutions.

GANs in Action by Jakub Langr and Vladimir Bok

Jakub and Vladimir have certainly written a wonderful book on machine learning algorithms that generate realistic imaging. However, this book is really intended for readers who already have some experience with machine learning and neural networks.

Whereas many consumers view new imaging services as a kind of magic, super computing power delivered by AI. There are indeed large machine learning datasets in play that even make this imaging possible.

GANs in Action is a very worthy followup to John Kelleher’s Machine Learning, Melanie Mitchell’s excellent book Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans, and Sean Gerrish’s How Smart Machines Think. Each author is in fact, addressing in various scales, the introduction to Neural Networks and GANs. Thankfully, Jakub and Vladimir have taken the necessary next step in delivering a wonderful introduction and coding deep dive to GANs.

In fact, for many consumers the Grokking series of books are a must read. Grokking Algorithms: An Illustrated Guide For Programmers and Other Curious People by Aditya Bhargava and Grokking Artificial Intelligence Algorithms: Understand and apply the core algorithms of deep learning and artificial intelligence by Rishal Hurbans. Thus, both are wonderfully illustrated books to begin anyone’s journey into understanding Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning.

Tags Artificial Intelligence, deep learning, GANs in Action, Generative Adversarial Networks, Jakub Langr, neural networks, Vladimir Bok