Machines are already superintelligent on many axes, including memory and processing speed. Unfortunately, those are the attributes our education system currently rewards, with an emphasis on learning by rote.

It doesn’t make sense to me. Part of my job as an investor is to attempt to predict the future – I need to make bets on the way we’ll be behaving in the next two, five, ten and 20 years. Computers already store facts faster and better than we do, but struggle to perfect things we learn as toddlers, such as dexterity and walking.

We need to rethink the way we teach our children and the things we teach them. Creativity will be increasingly be the defining human talent. Our education system should emphasise the use of human imagination to spark original ideas and create new meaning. It’s the one thing machines won’t be able to do.

We should aim to teach our kids about the power of creativity in every area. Science and maths, which are often considered uncreative, have shaped human history with huge creative leaps. It was creativity that allowed Newton to discover gravity while observing a falling apple as he was thinking about the forces of nature.

Any job that involves repetition, and no creativity, is at risk of disruption – from performing calculations to reviewing forms to sorting machine parts, and eventually driving. Such roles are the easiest for machines to do far more efficiently than us. We should prepare kids for roles that are tougher to automate – roles like artists, caregivers, entrepreneurs or theoretical physicists at the edge of science.

Often these valuable leaps of creativity require base knowledge. Newton would certainly not have been equipped to ‘discover’ gravity without a phenomenal foundation in physics and maths. And as technology accelerates, we will need to learn continuously in order to keep this foundational knowledge.

For this reason, we should no longer expect kids to have only one intense period of education to prepare them for the rest of their lives. They will, and we all, need to learn continuously throughout life. It’s more valuable to help children learn to love learning itself, to celebrate the journey rather than a single destination, than it is to force rote memorisation of information to be regurgitated in an exam and then forgotten.

It’s not even clear that it’s worth teaching kids how to code. Deep machine learning will likely automate the writing of code relatively quickly. While it’s useful to know what comprises languages or algorithms, I suspect most of the latter will be written by machine against a specific human (or eventually machine) query. Creativity is going to be far more important in a future where software can code better than we can.

Similarly, we should continue to value learning other human languages, but as neural nets improve, I expect earbuds will offer real-time translation that’s close to perfect within a decade or so. The real value of learning a second language will be more about understanding how people around the world think — a crucial responsibility for sharing the planet. Instead of glamorising memorisation and rote testing, we must place a greater emphasis on speed of learning, understanding context, being adaptable, and especially on how to frame the right question, whether as a search query, as a citizen in a democracy, or as a complex algorithm.

Machines only ever act on human instructions. Framing questions is therefore our opportunity to succeed or fail: ask a bad question, and you will get a bad answer. Ask a biased question, you will get a biased answer. Critical thinking and media literacy skills that help us to assess information sources should be embedded in school curricula.

We’ve seen the rise of filter bubbles and their effects, such as people socialising less with people unlike themselves. We are creating an empathy gap. The psychologist Carl Rogers said there are as many different perceptions as there are people in the world. And so the most important skill we can instill in our kids is empathy — a sense of shared humanity, and the ability to understand the needs and motivations of others. In an era when confirmation bias pulls us into homogeneous bubbles, it may be the toughest quality to nurture.

Empathy is critical to mitigating the negative impacts of all the technologies we currently rely on. It’s increasingly critical for our kids, who will need empathy to create products and services that are useful and desirable for a world of customers unlike themselves.

The good news is that digital tools can help immensely to free us from rote thinking. But we should not rely on them to dominate how we learn and live. Recently, it’s been reported that some expert technologists limit the time their kids use of digital devices. And it’s not only kids: the designer of the Facebook ‘like’ button revealed that at his request, his assistant installed a parental control on his phone — to stop him from downloading more apps.

I understand this desire to balance out our reliance on too much technology. Let’s take advantage of the remarkable capabilities in technologies we’ve developed — and at the same time, help ourselves and our kids strengthen and enhance our uniquely human qualities.

Updated 11.04.18, 13:10: The headline of this story has been altered

http://www.wired.co.uk/article/children-coding-education-change-machine-learning-ai-creativity?

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TBE Interview Debbie Waller Nafte Swift Momentum Jozi

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I may have some bias as the Just Being presenters and I have become close friends after this experience… but I’m pretty sure they’ll become your close friends too if you choose to go on the EQ Journey with them.

James, the pioneer of the course, has a very cool bio which actually ties into what he does and what I experienced: “we take borrowed truths to become knowledgeable but to be knowledgeable is not to know”. Why do I mention this? The reason I mention this is that there is no step-by-step process to building the perfect team. Someone else’s truth or what they experienced most likely won’t work for you.

Every single team is different and has different components and variables. You know your team best which is your truth or your experience and you know where it needs improvement and where it’s strong points are. Ultimately what James does is simply show you a way to communicate within a team or just human to human. You will then have clearer conversations with your team and in the end you will have real data, real insights and real thoughts from everyone involved which will put you in the best position to make the right decisions for yourself and for your team.

The strange thing is James or the Just Being course doesn’t tell you what to do to build a better team nor does he give you any guidelines or direction. He simply guides you with how to engage with people and how to communicate clearly. This is ultimately the backbone of any strong team. Once you are all communicating clearly it’s up to you what you do from there.

Conflict Resolution – When we can discern people’s emotions and empathize with their perspective it’s much easier to resolve conflicts and possibly avoid them before they start. We are also better at negotiation due to the very nature of our ability to understand the needs and desires of others. It’s easier to give people what they want if we can perceive what it is.

Success – Higher emotional intelligence helps us to be stronger internal motivators which can reduce procrastination, increase self-confidence and improve our ability to focus on a goal. It also allows us to create strong networks of support, overcome setbacks and persevere with a more resilient outlook. Our ability to delay gratification and see the long-term directly affects our ability to succeed.

Leadership – The ability to understand what motivates others, relate in a positive manner and to build stronger bonds with others in the workplace inevitably makes those with higher emotional intelligence better leaders. An effective leader can recognize what the needs of his people are so that those needs can be met in a way that encourages higher performance and satisfaction at work. An emotionally savvy and intelligent leader is also able to build stronger teams by strategically utilizing the emotional diversity of their team members to benefit the team as a whole.

Emotions play a very critical role in the overall quality of our personal and professional lives, more critical than even our actual measure of brain intelligence. While tools and technology can help us to learn and master information, nothing can replace our ability to learn, manage and master our emotions and the emotions of those around us.

Thought I’d put a couple interesting facts down about EQ:
Emotions’ are the biggest motivator of human actions.
They make you survive, make love (reproduce), create social bonds and be moral.
If you want to strong team, then motivations are pretty critical.

EQ > IQ. 85% of your financial success is due to your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate and lead. Shockingly, only 15% is due to your IQ. FACT guys and girls!

Self-awareness is the key. The earlier you recognize an emotion the more choice you have in dealing with it. You gain more self-awareness through meditation.

70% of male leaders in top 15% in decision-making skills score highest in EQ!

I don’t want to give too much away but basically, if you’ve got a team I highly recommend doing it.

ADHD kicking in now… Oh look there’s a squirrel!

CIAO – David

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As they are on opposing teams in the Great Social Media Wars, it’s unlikely Instagram will start supporting Twitter Cards anytime soon, which is why Wired reporter Michael Calore generously shared his hack to get around it, which involves using Tumblr. But if you use a service called IFTTT, there’s an even simpler workaround than this.

Sign up for IFTTT

IFTTT (which stands for “If this, than that”) is a crazy wonderful service that helps you connect all the stuff you use on the Internet. It lets you create “recipes” to link up different services you use, and Instagram and Twitter are among these services. Some popular recipes include automatically backing up iPhone photos through email, and automatically cross-posting from Twitter to Facebook. Signing up is free, and just requires a valid email address.

IFTTT used to have a beef with Twitter, but that’s all done now. And an IFTTT user called djuiceman created a recipe that allows you to post your Instagram photos directly onto Twitter.

So once you sign up, go to djuiceman’s recipe and click “Use Recipe.”

If you haven’t already activated your Twitter and Instagram channels, you will need to go through that authentification process, which only takes a minute. Once you activate the recipe, a trigger will fire whenever you upload a photo to Instagram, automatically posting it to Twitter.

Upload your photos and be the envy of everyone who hasn’t figured this out yet

Now you have all your social media photo ducks in a line. Start using that Toaster filter. Every time you take an Instagram photo, IFTTT will activate its recipe to post them to Twitter. Boom. Your Instagram photo will be embedded on Twitter, caption and all.

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Here’s a photo of some of the team and Johnny!

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So we’ve been busy with our daily lives trying to explore every day and new happenings. While experiencing this journey it wouldn’t hurt to simply think about the benefits of eco-friendly life.

We’ve listed some environmentally conscious apps which don’t require extra efforts from you to lead a greener life. You will be inspired to live one after reading about them.

GoodGuide– Available on iOS and Android.

GoodGuide  allows you to scan the barcodes of more than 170,000 products to see if they’re safe, healthy, green and socially responsible. You can look up ingredients, nutritional value, animal welfare, human rights, energy efficiency and more. It also has various categories from food, to baby and kids, to household cleaners.

Green Power Battery Saver–  Available on Android.

The app provides more life to your battery by automatically turning Wi-Fi, bluetooth and mobile data on when you need them and off when you don’t need them.

 iRecycle– Available on iOS.

As the name suggests with iRecycle, you can know about more than 1 million ways to recycle along with tips for improving your own lifestyle and the latest in green news.

Green Kitchen– Available on iOS.

Green Kitchen is a treasure of organic vegetarian recipes that are handpicked and easy to follow. You will be able to cook sustainable food that require less energy consumption.

Green Genie– Available on iOS.

The app is “your complete guide to a sustainable lifestyle.” Developed by professionals, Green Genie offers huge database of green tips, sustainable projects and valuable resources.

Locavore– Available on iOS and Android.

Locavore finds farmers and farmer’s markets in your areas with in-season, local food for you with your phone’s GPS. The app also gives you directions, lists of what’s in season and recipes.

Brain Cafe GeoQuiz– Available on iOS and Android.

This app not only tests you on your geographical knowledge, from capital cities to natural extreme but also provides fun information about the planet — and learning about what needs to be done for it.

UNEP Carbon Calculator– Available on iOS.

Everyone knows about the dangers of Greenhouse gases and the effects they have on global climate change. UNEP Carbon Calculator lets you calculate how much CO2 is emitted when you travel and what can you do to help.

Wunderlist– Available on iOS.

Is your desk or refrigerator loaded with post-it notes? Wunderlist will help you replace them by keeping online track of your to-do list thus increasing your productivity.

SOLARCHECKER– Available on iOS.

This app provides information about solar radiation at your exact residence or office location, and helps you set up solar panels for alternative energy if required.

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Apparently according to recent data, this year’s class of top public-company CEOs are definitely being compensated like royalty.

So who’s on the big hitter list from the tech sector, you ask?

Larry Ellison, of course. The Oracle CEO and co-founder topped the entire list of 200 with a compensation package worth a invredible $96.2 million, a bump of $18.6 million from his 2011 take. Others rounding out the tech high end are Activision’s Robert Kotick ($64.9 million), Salesforce’s Marc Benioff ($22.1 million) and outgoing Intel CEO Paul Otellini ($18.9 million).

Nuance Communications chief Paul Ricci did quite well with a $37.1 million package, as did James Crowe of Level 3 Communications at $40.7 million.

The most noteworthy newcomer is a familiar face: Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer. She took home a package worth $36.6 million in 2012, a number that falls at the upper end of the middle for the 30-odd technology CEOs who made the list.

Most of the folks included boasted packages in the $10 million to $20 million range; HP’s Meg Whitman clocked in at $15.4 million, as did IBM’s Virginia Rometty. Intuit’s Brad Smith hit $12.26 million, while AOL chief Tim Armstrong took home $12.1 million.

The lowest of the tech group? That went to Sprint’s Dan Hesse, whose total compensation was worth $11.1 million.

Keep in mind that these packages include base salary, cash bonuses, stock and options, as well as other forms of compensation (benefits, perks). And the bulk of these millions aren’t usually from salaries or in cash, but rather the stock options that are included. Ellison received about $90 million of his total $96.2 million package in options; Kotick’s options comprised 86 percent of his package’s value.

Not too bad for just a handful of years after America’s Great Recession. I have to wonder, though, whether the shareholders are cool with these CEO pay packages.

The post What are the Big Tech CEO’s getting paid? appeared first on Swift Momentum.

Facebook will pay $500 for the discovery of most website flaws, such as XSS, or cross-site scripting errors. For some specific bugs, the company may pay more and to qualify for the reward, the reporter must be the first person to privately report the bug and he must reside in a country which is not under any current US sanctions.

This news has come as a good one for many of the researchers who spend considerable time and expertise finding and reporting serious vulnerabilities in the websites and softwares. Most of the software manufacturer companies including Microsoft and Oracle refuse to pay the private bug reporters, although they know the benefit from such initiatives.

The first software maker to offer a reward for bug reporting was Mozilla; years ago they began offering $500 rewards for reporting bugs. Later, Google followed them and started to pay their bug reporters. One of the Google spokesmen said, “We’re very happy with the success of our vulnerability reward program so far.”

In order to qualify for the cash rewards, the researchers have to privately report the company and the company will take a reasonable time to respond before publicly disclosing the flaws. Denial-of-service vulnerabilities, spam, social engineering techniques, bugs in third-party apps, websites and in Facebook’s corporate infrastructure don’t qualify.

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South Korean mobile operator SK Telecom launched an advanced LTE  version of Galaxy S4. The speed of this handset can go up to 150Mbps. SK Telecom also said that the service is the first in the world and it went live in Seoul with 42 other cities and 103 universities. SK Telecom has plan to extend this service to another 84 cities. Currently Galaxy S4 is the only compatible hand set to receive this service but the operator said that they will bring another 7 handsets by the end of this year to allow more options to consumers.

This speed is twice as fast as its existing LTE network. They are planning to use this speed to launch full HD video streaming service and it will be available to go live next month. They will use their paid TV service, “Btv mobile.” They used Carrier Aggregation to combine different frequencies on a mobile network to stabilize 20MHz spectrum band by combining two different smaller channels.

LTE advance is still a open field for developers. With time more speed will come into use. LTE advance has become the industry standard and researchers will bring out more ways to get more speed. NTT DoCoMo a Japanese carrier says that they will launch a 1Gbps LTE advance service in some point of 2015. They already have a download speed of 112.5Mbps. Samsung Galaxy S4 in this variant is similar to the original one but bit faster with Qualcomm 2.3GHz quad-core processor. It also has some extra features related to pictures and videos.

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