It might seem counterproductive that a professor who researches the effects of technology on society would put his cellphone on mute.

Yet that's exactly what Simon Gottschalk, Ph.D., a professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, does during his time away from work.

Disconnecting from technology, says Gottschalk, allows him to do the things that really matter, like hanging out with his family, walking in the park, and sometimes, doing absolutely nothing.

Doing nothing, says Gottschalk, has benefits for productivity, health and forming true social connections.

“There's a lot of research that shows when the brain is at rest and is not distracted by so many different sources of stimulation, then new thoughts are possible. The brain starts thinking differently and starts focusing differently on one's environment," he says.

Doing nothing can seem counterproductive in our goal-oriented culture, but doing nothing isn't being lazy, says Gottschalk. In a recent study by the National Institutes of Health, improved memory and ability to learn a new skill were found to result from taking short mental breaks when learning new tasks.

“We're human beings and we need time to recreate and recharge ourselves," says Gottschalk. "It's not wasted time. It's time we really need to function and remain sane."

Some of the most productive people in history relied on down time to spark creativity.

“Einstein was known to stare into space for hours. What appeared from the outside as doing nothing was his mind working in different ways," says Gottschalk. “Because he was staring into space and his mind wasn't constantly distracted, then (he) could approach problems or approach questions completely differently."
Doing nothing can also prep us for better sleep, by reducing the external stressors of the day, says Gottschalk.

Different Approaches. Doing nothing means different things to different people. Meditation is one of the oldest forms of quieting your mind and body. And some things can interfere with our ability to zone out. Here are a few pointers for giving your mind a rest.

• Disconnect from technology. Before we can take a mental break, we need to unplug, Gottschalk says. “Disconnecting keeps us from trying to be involved in so many activities and being distracted all the time," he says. Gottschalk suggests turning off or muting your smartphone whenever possible.
• Let go after work. If you've had a rough day on the job, it's even more critical to decompress. If your boss or coworkers are negative or abusive, relaxing right after work can be the key to a better night's sleep, according to a study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. Those who could take their minds off the workday through relaxing activities such as yoga, walking or chilling to music, slept better than those who ruminated on workplace incivility.
• Doodle away. Remember that teacher who yelled at you for doodling in class? Well, he should've encouraged it instead. Doodling increases blood flow to the brain's medial prefrontal cortex, the area responsible for regulating our feelings, thoughts and actions, according to preliminary research by Drexel University. Doodling, and to a lesser extent free-drawing and coloring, activates the brain's reward circuit that controls emotion and motivation. These 15- to 20-minute art sessions also offer a confidence boost. In a post-study survey, participants perceived themselves as having good ideas and being able to solve problems.
• Skip the binge watching. While you may be tempted to tune out with your favorite show, marathon viewing isn't exactly doing nothing. A University of Michigan study found that young adults age 18 to 25 who binge-watched shows regularly suffered fatigue, insomnia and poorer sleep quality, even though they reported sleeping seven hours and 37 minutes on average. If you watch one episode, chances are you might keep going unintentionally. The researchers found that binge watching kept subjects mentally alert, which may have contributed to their poor sleep quality.
• Protect your private time. It's important to keep work separate from family time and leisure activities, says Gottschalk. Set boundaries with coworkers, family and friends about your availability. Disconnecting from technology comes into play here, too. “Research suggests, for example, that mere anticipation that you will receive work-related emails after work increases your stress level. And that will increase burnout and increase many physiological consequences of stress," says Gottschalk. His recommendation: Put your smartphone on mute and have an automatic response message that says you'll return the call or email during normal business hours.

Students will have to “learn how to learn” instead of focusing on skills and specific tools. Most content will become obsolete within two years, said Dr. Simon See, head of computing giant NVIDIA’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology center.

“Technology is moving so fast, and you have to keep adopting new skills. What you have to learn is the methodology of learning new things. You must learn how to learn new things,” he said.

Dr. See spoke in a panel discussion at the launch of Nanyang Technological University’s (NTU) Deep Learning Week (DLW) recently.

Minister-in-Charge of the Smart Nation Initiative Vivian Balakrishnan was the guest of honor.

In a video call to students, staff, alumni, and members of the public, Dr. Balakrishnan emphasized the need for university students to develop “deep technical skills” in areas such as data analytics, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI).

“You are the dynamos that will drive our transformation and push the boundaries of how we can leverage technology to transform our economy and make a real difference,” he said.

This is the second edition of NTU’s DLW, organized by the Machine Learning and Data Analytics Lab at the NTU School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE).

During the DLW, there were AI-related workshops as well as a virtual AI career fair for students, ending with a machine learning hackathon themed “AI in business and economics,” said NTU in a statement.

Along with Dr. See, the other panelists included Mr. Sim Kai, deputy director of the national AI office, Dr. Laurence Liew, director for AI industry innovation at AI Singapore, Ms. Jane Shen, chief scientist and managing director at Pensees, Dr. Pan Yaozhang, head of data science at Shopee, and Dr. Yap Kim Hui, associate professor at NTU’s School of EEE.

Distinguished panel members included Ms. Jane Shen, Dr. Laurence Liew, Dr. Pan Yaozhang, NTU EEE chair Tan Yap Peng, Dr. Simon See, NTU EEE student committee president Duan Jiafei, Mr. Sim Kai, Dr. Yap Kim Hui, and moderator Dr. Wesley Tan.

Moderated by Dr. Wesley Tan, senior lecturer at NTU’s School of EEE, the panel discussed the Covid-19 pandemic’s impacts on the economy and digital transformation.

Panel members concurred that while Covid-19 had forced companies to speed up digital transformation, most trends were already in motion since last year.

The panel also believed that passion was more important than academic background when pursuing a career in AI.

Dr. Liew said that computer scientists were a minority among the applicants in his organization’s AI apprenticeship program, with social scientists and many from other disciplines who had also applied and were doing well.

“A lot of the most successful tech people in the world do not come from a computer science background,” he noted.
​
“It doesn’t really matter what your first degree is in. As long as you are passionate, you can get into AI.”

​The coronavirus pandemic has forced everyone to get creative. 

Whether through Zoom meetings, online fitness classes, or take-out cocktails, companies in nearly every industry are pivoting to get through the crisis. 

But beyond short-term fixes, many innovative new strategies and business models have emerged that are likely to stick, even as many jurisdictions begin to reopen in some capacity. 

In many cases, these transformations are thanks to the increased adoption of technology and the digitization of businesses. Many of these changes were underway pre-coronavirus; the pandemic has just accelerated them. 

“What’s important to customers has changed,” John Roese, Dell Technologies chief technology officer, said. “We’ve broken through a bunch of psychological or sociological obstacles to embrace technologies such as video, bots, drones, and AI.”

Here are a few of the business concepts that have gained traction over the past several months thanks to the pandemic. 

People may be sheltering in place, but they haven’t stopped looking for love. Dating apps have reported an uptick in usage during the pandemic, including a 26% increase in the messages sent on Bumble. 

One appropriately named app, “Quarantine Together,” was created specifically for the COVID-19 Age. It asks users to verify that they’ve washed their hands that day before they can connect with someone. After 15 minutes of texting, matched users can choose to switch to video chatting. 

“Bumble users are increasingly taking advantage of video calling, and audio chat features to get to know each other better and build deeper relationships, rather than engaging in more regular, casual flings,” says Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd. 

She said she expects the behavior will continue, even after people return to in-person dating. 

As the coronavirus pandemic escalated, restaurants across the United States became delivery-only almost overnight.

Most are eager to get back to serving customers in-house. But some find the prospect of operating a kitchen without a dining room an attractive opportunity. 

So, diners may begin to see a growing number of “ghost kitchens” (also known as virtual kitchens), according to Aayush Gupta, a senior associate at Create venture studio in New York City. 

Ghost kitchens have normal branding and menus online and offer delivery, but they aren’t attached to a brick-and-mortar restaurant where people can sit and eat. Gupta said such restaurants are likely to manage better as uncertainty from the coronavirus continues because they don’t have to pay rent on a dining room space or hire wait staff. 

“Younger restaurants, if they don’t have a front-of-house, they’re likely getting through this a lot better, because they don’t have the fixed costs that they have to try to recover,” Gupta said. 

Some customers have noticed the phenomenon lately. A GrubHub user in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was surprised when the food she ordered from a restaurant called Pasqually’s Pizza & Wings tasted eerily familiar to food from Chuck E. Cheese. And no wonder – it was sort of. A Chuck E. Cheese spokesperson told CNN that Pasqually’s is a “delivery-only brand operating on its own, leveraging the operational infrastructure of Chuck E. Cheese kitchens across the nation.” 

The trend may also provide opportunities for startups like CloudKitchens, Uber Founder Travis Kalanick’s new venture that operates shared commercial kitchen spaces, and rents them out to delivery-only restaurants. 
After a few highly anticipated movie premieres were canceled this spring, some studios decided to forgo theaters altogether in favor of direct-to-consumer debuts. And it turns out that some people may not care to get out of their PJs and off their couch to catch a new flick on the big screen. 

Theater chains don’t love this – many want to preserve their exclusive rights to premiere movies, to give people an incentive to go out.

But consumers are into it. “Trolls World Tour” was an on-demand success, earning nearly $100 million in rental fees in the United States during the first two weeks after its release. And while studios and theaters typically split a film’s box office grosses about 50-50, studios make about 80% of the sales on digital releases.
​
Movie theaters aren’t going by the wayside just yet (release dates for major films such as Disney’s Mulan were moved so they can head to the big screen first), the trend of at-home premieres could continue, at least for certain genres. The latest test of the concept is the adult comedy film, “The King of Staten Island.” 
“Comedy has not really been a strong genre at the box office lately, so if ‘Staten Island’ is a digital hit maybe that sends a signal to the studios that this genre is better suited for the small screen in the future,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.

This week, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) unveiled the Endless Frontier Act (EFA).

This newsletter doesn’t usually cover new legislation, much less proposed bills. But EFA is an exception since it seeks to turbocharge American “discovery, creation, and commercialization of critical tech.” By that, the lawmakers mean every technology you read about in this newsletter. 

EFA’s core proposals. There are three principal parts to the proposed bill:

• Restructure the National Science Foundation into the National Science and Technology Foundation (NSTF)
• In the NSTF, stand up a Technology Directorate that receives $100 billion over five years and operates like DARPA
• Hand the Commerce Department $10 billion to invest across 10-15 regional tech hubs over five years

This is great news for U.S. universities and businesses because EFA would pad R&D budgets, establish new scholarships, and create cutting-edge labs and fabrication plants. 

What’s driving the frontier mindset? The private sector overtook Washington in R&D investment four decades ago. EFA’s sponsors want to expand the pool of capital so that all of Washington’s tech priorities are advanced in the U.S.

The other reason for EFA, which its sponsors explicitly call out: China. While Beijing’s bid for tech supremacy is better described as a “slow burn” rather than a “Sputnik moment,” the country’s tech industrial base is now a genuine contender with the U.S. There’s more to come: 

• China plans to invest $1.4 trillion in emerging tech over the next six years. 
• Chinese chipmaker SMIC recently announced a $2 billion investment from state-backed funds. 
• Tencent will spend $70 billion on tech infrastructure over the next five years. 
  ​
  

“The U.S. needs to pursue with all-of-the-above strategy and intensify efforts,” a person familiar with the legislation said in a recent interview.

As Bill of Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill” could tell you, EFA may never see the light of day. But adding $$$ to tech R&D and accelerating the U.S.-China tech decoupling are bipartisan priorities.

In today’s workplace, constant innovation makes it critical for employees to keep up with the latest technologies and applications. Want to excel at your job and lay the groundwork for future promotions?
Check out these five e-courses from LinkedIn Learning, part of the LinkedIn platform. Each course is available for a monthly site membership fee, with no extra costs necessary. I have been a loyal user of both LinkedIn Learning and its predecessor Lynda.com for over ten years and can personally attest to the quality of their educational offerings. So, with instruction on the blockchain, cloud computing, UX, and more, these five courses will help you fast-track yourself for future success!

1. Blockchain Basics
Instructor: Jonathan Reichental, Ph.D.
Do you work in business leadership positions, data science, or IT management? Curious about blockchain technology? This quick one-hour e-course will introduce you to the improvements in security and efficiency that blockchain databases represent. Learn about the history of blockchain technology, practical applications, and risks of blockchain innovation.

2. Learning Cloud Computing: Core Concepts
Instructor: David Linthicum, Deloitte Consulting
Looking to explore the potentialities of cloud computing? Take an hour and 44 minutes to watch this course, which will introduce you to the tools you need to take advantage of cloud computing opportunities. Find out what Saas, laaS, and PaaS are, learn about the data and applications necessary to move to the cloud, and explore the essentials of cloud monitoring, management, and security.

3.) Learning Data Analytics
Instructor: Robin Hunt, developer and educator
This 90-minute course introduces basic concepts to those who work with data, both analysts and non-analysts alike. It begins by defining data analytics and the role of data analysts. Following this, it teaches you how to work with data sets and follow best practices for data analytics projects. Finally, it covers advanced techniques for repurposing, charting, and pivoting data and top shortcut and troubleshooting tips.

4.) Artificial Intelligence Foundations: Machine Learning
Instructor: Doug Rose
As one of the most promising fields in artificial intelligence, machine learning can be beneficial in interpreting and organizing data, programming computers, and even discovering new frontiers in science. This 77-minute course teaches you how to work with data and apply machine learning principles, as well as identify different types of machine learning and machine learning applications.

5.) Getting Started In User Experience
Instructor: Chris Nodder
Want to improve the customer experience on your e-commerce website or web interface? This 41-minute micro-course introduces you to the elements of user experience (UX) – including design, research, strategy, development, interactive and visual design, content, accessibility, localization, and data science. Learn about various UX career paths, the practical skills required by employers, and typical job profiles.

Here are the steps to set yourself up with LinkedIn Learning:

1. Go to the LinkedIn Home Pag
   
2. If you are not a LinkedIn member, click on the “Join Now” button in the upper-right of the screen, and set up your membership.
   
3. If you are a member, sign in, and on the Account & Settings page, click the yellow “Upgrade” button to bring up the premium account options.
   
4. Click the “Sign Up” button for the premium level to which you want to upgrade.

You can now bring your old whiteboards into the 21stcentury with Rocketbook Beacons. These four restickable, reusable Beacons convert your writing surface into a smartboard by integrating with popular cloud services in the free Rocketbook app. 

Brainstorm the next great mission with your crew, capture and share your ideas, and then take your Beacons with you to your next adventure. The Beacons Go-Pack is $15.
​

• Set of 4 Beacons
• 2.5-inch triangles
• Fluorescent orange
• Restickable Yupo adhesive 
• Wash with soap and water
• Free Go-Pack carry case

Rocketbook Beacons allow you to capture, organize, and broadcast important notes, diagrams, and big ideas on any whiteboard or wall surface in real-time. Just four restickable "beacons" for any sized surface and one smartphone app that connects with many of the popular cloud services you already use.
Using Beacons involves four easy steps:

1. Place the four Beacon quadra-triangles in each corner of a whiteboard or your preferred writing area. Do your best to make it straight, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. Now document your ideas and discussions on the whiteboard the way you usually would.
2. Got an iPhone or Android? Use the free Rocketbook app to configure popular cloud services as your scan destinations. Rocketbook has partnered with some of your favorite services, such as Evernote, One Note, Dropbox, and Google Drive. You can also use regular email if you wish.
3. For crucial missions with scattered participants, you can stream your whiteboard in real-time. Switch to “Snapcast” mode, share the unique URL, and collaborate with your team anywhere in the world. Your private, real-time page is updated every time you scan your whiteboard. Or prop your phone facing your whiteboard and set the app to auto-scan every 5 seconds. 
4. Is your next mission destined for a different whiteboard? No problem. Peel the Beacons off of the board and prepare for your next voyage. Beacons have a space-aged micro-suction surface that can not only be reused over and over but even cleaned with soap and water.

If you haven’t heard, universities around the world are offering their courses online for free (or at least partially free). These courses are collectively called MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses.

In the past six years or so, over 800 universitieshave created more than 10,000 of these MOOCs. The people at Class Centralhave been keeping track of these MOOCs ever since they rose to prominence.

In the past four months alone, 190 universities have announced 600 such free online courses. Class Central has compiled a list of them and categorized them according to the following subjects: Computer Science, Mathematics, Programming, Data Science, Humanities, Social Sciences, Education & Teaching, Health & Medicine, Business, Personal Development, Engineering, Art & Design, and finally Science.

If you have trouble figuring out how to signup for Coursera courses for free, don’t worry — here’s an article on how to do that,too.
​
Many of these are completely self-paced, so you can start taking them at your convenience. Here is the list of courses.

Ever since the beginning of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom in the early 2010s, there’s been a corresponding drought in talented AI developers and researchers. The way to fix this is to educate more of them, and last week, MIT announced a $1 billion initiativeto do exactly that: it will establish a new college of computing to train the next generation of machine learning mavens. 

Importantly, the college isn’t just about training AI skills. Instead, it will focus on what MIT president L. Rafael Reif calls “the bilinguals of the future.” By that, he means students in fields like biology, chemistry, physics, politics, history, and linguistics who also know how to apply machine learning to these disciplines.

Two-thirds of the planned $1 billion commitment has been raised so far, with $350 million coming from Stephen A. Schwarzman, CEO of the private equity firm Blackstone. The new college will be named after Schwarzman, and it will include 50 new faculty positions, half of which will focus solely on computer science, while the rest are jointly appointed by the college and other MIT departments. The college is scheduled to open in September 2019, and its new building is planned to be completed in 2022. 

MIT is also angling the college as an ethically minded enterprise; one of its stated aims is to research “ethical considerations relevant to computing and AI.” It’s a frequent criticism of contemporary AI efforts that researchers sometimes ignore the history and lessons of the fields they are trying to “disrupt.” More collaboration should help. 
​
“As computing reshapes our world, MIT intends to help make sure it does so for the good of all,” said Reif in a press statement. “The MIT Schwarzman College of Computing will constitute both a global center for computing research and education and an intellectual foundry for powerful new AI tools. Just as important, the College will equip students and researchers in any discipline to use computing and AI to advance their disciplines and vice-versa, as well as to think critically about the human impact of their work.”

Thirty years ago, it was a big deal when schools got their first computers. Today, it's a big deal when students get their own laptops.

According to Thomas Frey, the senior futurist at the DaVinci Institute think tank, “In 14 years it'll be a big deal when students learn from robot teachers over the Internet.”

It's not just because the technology will be that sophisticated, Frey says, but because the company responsible for it will be the largest of its kind.

"I've been predicting that by 2030 the largest company on the Internet is going to be an education-based company that we haven't heard of yet," Frey said.

Frey's prediction comes amid a boom in artificial intelligence research. Google is developing DeepMind; a complex piece of machine-learning software and IBM is developing Watson-powered robots.

"Nobody has quite cracked the code for the future of education," Frey contends.

His vision for 2030 includes a massively enhanced version of today's open online courses – the kind of instruction you may find with Khan Academy, Coursera, or MIT OpenCourseWare. Only, the instructors won't be humans beamed through videos. They'll be bots, and they'll be smart enough to personalize each lesson plan to the student sitting in front of the screen.

Frey suspects that a new kind of efficiency will allow students to learn at much faster rates than if they had to compete with 19 other students for the teacher's attention. Students will breeze through their material at four or 10 times the speed, completing an undergraduate education in less than half a year.

"It learns what your proclivities are, it learns what your idiosyncrasies are," Frey explains. "It learns what your interests are, your reference points. And it figures out how to teach you in a faster way over time."

He uses the example of Google's DeepMindlearning to play the Atari video game "Breakout." Not only did it quickly pick up on the rules, but within a half hour it figured out a way to achieve incredibly high scores – all with little human input.

Machine learning will accelerate similarly in the education space, Frey says. Online bots will pick up on a student's strengths and weaknesses and use a series of algorithms to tailor the lessons accordingly. Research suggeststhis personalized method is among the most effective at raising kids' overall achievement.
Frey doesn't go so far as to argue education bots will replace traditional schooling outright. He sees them more as a supplement or a kind of tutor. If a child struggles with algebra, a bot may be able to offer some help during homework time or over the weekend.

It's up for debate whether AI can master the subtleties of language, thought, and reason all within the next 14 years. One of the most significant hurdles for machine learning is grasping social interactions. Many AI systems today are still less capable cognitively than a 6-year-old.

Frey trusts 14 years isn't too generous a timeline for the technology to ramp up, given how quickly technology innovation builds on itself. The Internet was beginning to enter a lot of people's homes 14 years ago. But by 2007 people were already surfing the Web on their iPhones, and today the Internet is almost omnipresent in daily life.
​
Frey predicts that artificial intelligence will have the same trajectory in the education space. By 2030, DeepMind's ability to master "Breakout" could seem as quaint as dial-up modems do today, and what seemed like a massive library of online content in 2016 could look to future students like a skimpy collection that hardly does anything.

Last Monday was the first day that French schoolchildren under 15 could not use their cellphones at any point during the school day, thanks to a new nationwide law.

The ban, passed in July following a campaign pledge made by French President Emmanuel Macron, will affect elementary and junior high schools across the country as they return from the summer break.

The new law, which went into effect on August 5, bans all types of cellphones, as well as tablets and smartwatches.

While a ban on cellphones during class hours was already in place since 2010, the new law extends to breaks and mealtimes.

Schools are free to choose themselves if they implement the ban for students over 15. There are also some exceptions to the prohibition, such as for students with disabilities.

Under the new law, students have to turn their phones off during the day or put them in lockers. Schools will independently deal with the logistics of how students will be kept away from their phones.

The law was introduced amid fears that students were becoming too dependent on and distracted by their smartphones.
​
Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer in June hailed the legislation as "a law for the 21st century," and said it would improve discipline among France's 12 million schoolchildren.