IBL News | New York This release was based on the code of the master software from May 27th, 2020. “Juniper” is the tenth Open edX version of the platform. Its name follows the adopted practice of picking botanical tree words and classifying them alphabetically. The next version will be named Koa. The past versions were: Juniper Ironwood Hawthorn Ginkgo Ficus Eucalyptus Dogwood Cypress Birch Aspen
Sony, Activision, Electronic Arts, Google, Cisco, and other high-profile companies announced today Tuesday their decision to postpone launch events until later in June, due to the civil unrest in the U.S. after the violent death of George Floyd–a 46-year-old black man who died in police custody a week ago when a white police officer knelt on his neck. Sony had set to unveil some of the games in development for its forthcoming PlayStation 5 on Thursday. In a statement, the company said, "we do not feel that right now is a time for celebration", adding it wanted "more important voices to be heard". Hours later, Activision delayed the release of the new Call of Duty content. The firm said "now is not the time" to launch new seasons for its online battle-royale first-person shooter Modern Warfare. Other technology firms have also canceled planned launch events. Game publisher Electronic Arts postponed its reveal event for its latest sports title, Madden NFL 21, issuing a statement saying "we stand with our African American / Black community… we'll find another time to talk football with you". Google had planned to show off new features of the Android operating system on Wednesday, as well as release a version for testers. On the Android Developer website, Google issued a similar statement saying: "Now is not the time to celebrate." Airbnb pulled a planned video message from its chief executive about the future of travel. The telecom firm Cisco canceled a two-day virtual conference hours before it was due to begin, and urged its followers to "use this moment to reflect and make progress towards a better, more inclusive world." The Cisco Live conference was postponed until later in June. "We don’t believe the time is right to host an event in the middle of this tragic moment in our history," said its CEO in a video statement. https://youtu.be/kcIUDwpI66Q
Coursera announced the launch of Guided Projects, a feature to gain job-relevant skills in less than two hours, with step-by-step guidance from an instructor. The educational portal now has over 150 Guides Projects, and it will release "hundreds more" by the end of the year. Examples include curated collections that focus on learning specific data science, business, or computer science skills, such as: Data visualizations with Tableau Creating an informative presentation with Google Slides  Using TensorFlow to classify images Acquire Business Skills with G Suite Apps Beginner TensorFlow and Keras Guided Projects Machine Learning Guided Projects with Scikit-Learn Software Development Projects for Beginners Android Development Projects for Beginners All Guided Projects Coursera described the learning experience of Guided Project this way: "First, you’ll read an overview of the project structure, get introduced to your instructor, and see your learning objectives. You’ll then be prompted to open a tool called Rhyme to work on the project. Rhyme is a hands-on learning platform that provides a unique, side-by-side learning interface where you complete each step in a virtual workspace as you watch video instructions from your instructor on the other side of the screen. After you complete the project, you’ll return to your course homepage and take a quiz to check what you’ve learned. When you pass the quiz, you complete the Guided Project and earn a shareable certificate that showcases what you’ve learned." Namit Yadav, General Manager at Rhyme Softworks–an online platform for hands-on projects acquired by Coursera last summer–wrote in a blog-post: "We’ll continue to add opportunities like these—both within courses and as standalone offerings—as well as explore new ways for you to learn skills through interactive formats." From now until June 12, 2020, Coursera offers a free trial of a Guided Project.
Forbes Media and Zovio (Nasdaq: ZVO) edtech company announced the launch of a free, AI-based career counselor tool to suggest personalized learning paths on their course subscription-based platform Learn@Forbes. Forbes SmartAdvisor utilizes three information points–users' personality, their current skills, and the skills necessary for the aspirational role they selected. "It is an online, three-minute assessment that combines neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to create personalized learning paths," say the authors. Forbes and Zovio offer at Learn@Forbes, at a pricing of $12.50 per month, 850+ self-paced, short courses, specializations, and Learning Pathways in marketing, human resources, leadership, finance and accounting, entrepreneurship, sales, communications, customer service, and project management. Dhiraj Bansal, chief operating officer of Learn@Forbes, said that this set of courses is a timely option for those whose employment has been affected by COVID-19.
Coursera's Co-Founder and former professor at Stanford, Daphne Koller, raised another $143 million for her AI-based startup, bringing the total amount of venture capital obtained to $243 million. The announcement of the funding was made this week after Forbes broke the exclusive. Andreessen Horowitz led the funding round, which included investors T. Rowe Price Associate, BlackRock, Casdin Capital, and CPP Investments. Current investors including ARCH Venture Partners, GV and Third Rock Ventures also participated. Investors agreed on the idea that Daphne Koller is the type of entrepreneur who can to bridge the world of biology and machine learner in the new pharma company called Insitro. San Francisco-based Insitro recently landed on Forbes’ inaugural AI 50 list last fall as one of the most promising artificial intelligence companies. The San Francisco-based company uses machine learning to figure out what the difference is between healthy cells and sick cells, in order to find the interventions that revert the disease state back to the healthy state. IBM Security BRANDVOICE | Paid Program SOARing Across Clouds: How Security Orchestration, Automation And Response Can Strengthen Your Hybrid, Multicloud Security Civic Nation BRANDVOICE | Paid Program The New Normal: Managing Anxiety During A Pandemic Grads of Life BRANDVOICE | Paid Program Rapid Innovation For A More Equitable Economy Insitro hasn’t discovered any new medications yet, but last year it inked a deal with Gilead to work on a drug for liver disease.
