If you are worried that there is a lot of work with Instructional Design between curriculum and presentation development, there’s no reason to be! Just like with any other process today, there is a plethora of software and technology to help shorten the production of ID. Specifically for the field, there are quiz generators, storyboard development, and video production. Learning Management Systems (LMS), such as Canvas, are some of the most prominent tools for designers to use. This is because a lot of these programs have their own “course authoring software”.

Here’s a link below about how to find the perfect software for you to use!

https://elearningindustry.com/instructional-design-software-101-choose-right

Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool, and the same way scientists have used it to discover plenty of technological advances, people with bad intentions are using it to their advantage as well.

According to this article, spear-phishing is on the rise thanks to artificial intelligence. Unlike normal phishing, spear phishing is designed to target specific individuals by making the scam (usually emails) more personal. For hackers, it is impossible to personalize each email they send, but not for AI. This increases the probability of the user falling for the scam.

Read more about how hackers are using AI here: https://www.timesofisrael.com/ai-a-new-and-frightening-battlefield-in-cyber-war-experts-warn/

When Virgin Airlines made their assistive site in 2015, it gathered a lot of flack. It was ugly – but worse, it was useless. Karl Groves, a self-proclaimed accessibility expert, discussed his thoughts on the topic.

First, Karl Groves goes into the topic “What is accessibility?”. To him, accessibility means that people with disabilities can use it. He mentions that making a text-only website isn’t very helpful – this is because people who will need help reading one website will need help reading all websites; therefore, they will have the technology to do so, negating the need for individual websites to do so. He also mentions that the money spent on making the assistive site could have gone towards improving the current site for the technology there.

The next part delves into the mistakes made by the airline: essentially, in their assistive version, they included all the features of assistive technologies. He describes that these are useless. I never thought of it that way before – of course those with disabilities would have a way to read things on all websites because not all websites are accessible. This is something I take for granted – I am able to access any website with ease and do not have to rely on developers who may not consider my needs a priority to make the website usable to me.

One of the most important parts of the article, I feel, is the part where Karl Groves goes into the types of disabilities – hearing and visual impairment are not the most common disabilites, cognitive impairment is. Also, about half of those with disabilites have multiple disabilities. The statistics mentioned in the article were mindblowing. UX developers tend to develop for visual and hearing impaired people (if they do so) and forget about the many other types of disabilities when they do so.

Overall, I thought the article was very informative. I learned a lot by reading it and I would suggest anyone new to the realm of ux design read this article and the ones he linked in it. Karl Groves does a good job of making sure that the articles are understandable and interesting. My only complaint with the article is that there weren’t more subheadings to divide the content – it came across as one long rant instead of an article. This is fine, as it is his own personal site, but it looks less official.

https://bit.ly/38zhdbB

Analytics are growing exponentially in the sports marketing industry although there are still challenges that sports franchises, leagues, and brands face. Some of those problems include having so much social media data but not enough time and “the never ending battle to put people in seats”. Sports brands don’t simply have customers. They have fans, and those fans are actively, passionately engaged with the content their favorite brands produce across all channels and platforms, especially social media. https://alightanalytics.com/alight-insights/marketing-analytics/3-reasons-marketing-analytics-different-sports-brands/

The beggining of the new decade is upon us, and with it comes another presidential election. This years elections are surrounded with mentions of foreign interference, and with good reason. Last presidential election was stained as the CIA, FBI, and NSA jointley stated “with high confidence” that the Russian Government had lauched a complex campaign intended to interfere in our elections. This direct challenge to our democracy has left many of our representatives and their constituents on high alert. Coming into the new ellection, many are calling for solutions to secure our voting process from foreign interfierence.

Unfortunately, flaws in a new bloackchain app several states plan on using in the upcoming election allow bad actors to interfere; altering or canceling someones vote, or even exposing their private information. A team of security researches at MIT released an audit of Voatz, the blockchain app intended for use in the next election, and said that it strengthens the case against internet voting, citing voting transparency as the only way to ensure legitimacy.

If you wish to learn more about this, please follow the link below:

Hackers Can Seize Control of Ballots Cast Using the Voatz Voting App, Researchers Say

In recent news, the ICO will be launching a protection code for children to have online in order to protect them in Fall of 2021. This code has fifteen measures that it has in order for the completion of the code. These fifteen measures include; best interests of the child, data protection impact assessments, age-appropriate applications, transparency, detrimental use of data, policy and community standards, default settings, data minimisation, data sharing, geolocation, parental controls, profiling, nudge techniques, connected toys and devices, and online tools.

According to Elizabeth Denham, an information commissioner, told sources that she believes the implementation of this code will be transformative. I agree as well with this statements, when reading this article it discussed many beneficial resources this code will contain not only for a child but for their parents as well. This code will protect children and will relieve stress for a parent in worrying if their child is being safe on the internet or not. One of the fifteen measures I found most beneficial was data sharing, this measure will protect children from sharing their personal information. Children are very vulnerable when it comes to sharing their own information because they do not know any better. With this code it will help protect children from various dangers of the internet world.

To read more on this topic, click the following link. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/online-safety-children-ico-social-media-age-appropriate-kids-a9296261.html

With the increasing use of smart home and smart devices in our everyday lives, the question on whether or not our lives are really private has been a long debate. Many people believe we are constantly being listened to or spied on, and wonder if the upgraded technology is worth it. That is a major concern but what many people do not think of is that this smart technology could save lives, or provide justice.

In 2015 after someone was found dead in their friends home the police saw an Amazon Echo. Due to the fact that this technology has access to the microphone in order to perform task, the police believed that there could be important dialogue stored; that could give more information on the case. After getting a search warrant they were able to go through the voice recordings from that night. It was never revealed if they found anything incrimnating from that night, but that is not the point. Having this smart technology can allow law enforcement to have another way to provide justice. So, would the little amounts of eavesdropping be worth it to you?

It is important to remember that law enforcement cannot get these records whenever they please, they have to go through a search warrant. As it said in the article if you do not do anything illegal in your house to being with than it doesn’t really matter if it is recording you, but for that rare instance it could save a life.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/26/smart-talking-are-our-devices-threatening-our-privacy

One of the most popular uses of AI has undoubtedly been within the facial recognition industry. The police force use it to identify criminals, border control uses it to confirm people’s identities, and even our own phones use it to recognize us and grant us access with ease. The issue at hand is that these AI systems have been falsely identifying people of Asian, African-American, or Native American descent.

This is especially concerning because in the police force, AI facial recognition is used to determine criminals from camera footage or photos. African American women had some of the worst rates for false-positives in the facial recognition system, which is largely concerning due to the fact that this could lead to even more falsely accused of crime. In a world where minorities are already held back to some extent in terms of equality, especially in the justice system, AI facial recognition could be worsening this issue for innocent people.

It is now in the hands of policymakers to figure out how to correctly and appropriately implement facial recognition, and to decide whether or not it is harming or helping these institutions.

https://www.technologyreview.com/f/614986/ai-face-recognition-racist-us-government-nist-study/

Julia Riccio, jmr17e

Seeing as how drone racing is a very fast and intense sport I wonder how long AI will be beaten by humans. It seems like everything is just a wait against time for AI to out perform us, kind of makes you wonder if there are some things that humans might just be better at. It’s interesting to think about what our future is going to look like with all of these technological improvements.
https://artificialintelligence-news.com/2019/12/10/humans-beating-ai-drone-racing/

Do you ever wonder how much tech companies profit off them accessing our private information? it’s crazy to me how far tech companies will go for all the privacy they violate. In 2018, the number of consumer complaints about privacy issues sent to the Federal Trade Commission jumped by more than 14 percent to 8,000 since 2018. The article clearly break down what they technology companies are doing with the private Information they’re violating.