Category Archives: Technology

This commentary was written by Bill Driegert, co-founder of Uber Freight. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FreightWaves or its affiliates.

For as long as Ive been in freight, it has been an opaque industry. Carriers, brokers and shippers have always lacked information, as pricing and capacity data were historically gathered through brute force: lots of phone calls, emails and parsing through load boards. We are well into a technology revolution driving transparency and access to data in the freight markets. Before the pandemic, I wrote about how instant pricing and frictionless tendering would transform the logistics industry. At the time, I had no idea how 2020 would unfold or how dramatically the revolution would accelerate.

Uber Freights real-time pricing API was in its early stages when COVID hit, with only a handful of implementations. As the pandemic escalated, shippers and carriers were suddenly reacting to dramatic rebalancing of consumer demand within their networks, creating a highly volatile freight market. Accurate, real-time information became essential to ensure the right trucks found the right freight, and API adoption exploded twentyfold year-over-year.

Looking ahead to the rest of 2021, instant pricing and execution are top of mind for more and more providers and shippers. Innovators worldwide are finding new ways to simplify and disintermediate the execution layer of the supply chain, and providers like Uber Freight are meeting the challenge by powering one-touch booking with instant pricing and massive-scale API integrations across all major TMS providers. Weve extended our own solutions beyond instant spot pricing to instant short-term rates through our rate locking tool. This is a competitive market where both shippers and carriers demand competitive prices, but we can make it more resilient than ever if we prioritize a frictionless, insights-driven booking experience.

Its an exciting time for logistics. The entire ecosystem is building products to improve shipper and carrier experiences. While we are all hopeful this year will bring a return to normalcy, freight markets are never stable indefinitely. Outside of shocks to the system, like COVID or the electronic logging device mandate back in 2018, freight rates are always in flux due to seasonal cycles and the longer boom-bust cycles of capacity entering and exiting the market. No matter how the market plays out, instant access to information will continue to push the industry forward.

I have long advocated that better execution trumps better planning every time. We cant predict the future, but if we leverage instant information and execution to react and adapt, we can thrive.

When I last wrote about the RFP process, I explained how outdated and manual bidding and contracting processes slow down the industry, making shippers and carriers less responsive and less resilient. Thats even more true with todays unpredictable demand and supply patterns. Spot volume rose 250% when consumers first scrambled for medical and cleaning supplies in March. Supply networks rapidly shifted, and rates consistently rose through the rest of 2020 as carriers and shippers had to adjust to surging and shifting demand patterns. Rates rose 31% in June alone and an additional 8% in July.

To quickly navigate these market fluctuations, shippers leveraged pricing and tendering APIs to supplement their static routing guides and displace outdated spot tendering mechanisms. The bidding process enabled shippers to access prices and move loads in seconds, not days or weeks. That expectation has been normalized and more shippers turned to APIs for instant pricing and real-time capacity. API adoption increased dramatically over the past year, with every major TMS vendor announcing partnerships to launch new capabilities. Uber Freight saw API volumes grow 15% just from May to June, and scale up 150% overall versus pre-COVID volumes. Real-time contracting is the next frontier. With our rate locking tool, small shippers who historically had too little freight to warrant a full RFP but enough freight that continually spot quoting was tedious, now have an effortless option to contract on near-term commitments.

The rising need for instant visibility and pricing automation has never been clearer, and more providers are responding by launching new enterprise shipper products that enable easy-to-use priority controls and one-click access to real-time pricing. The industry is focused on ensuring both shippers and carriers of all sizes can benefit from the new era of transparency and end-to-end freight control. Looking ahead, API adoption and the transparency of up-front pricing will be table stakes, while creating a more adaptable and balanced market.

Real-time pricing not only improves the RFP process, but also shippers internal operations. By digitizing their pricing and contract decision-making, shippers can automate key touchpoints of both processes and reduce manual friction across the board. The traditional contracting process is incredibly burdensome, taking months and hours of analysis, carrier meetings and multiple rounds of follow-ups. The spot process isnt much better but happens daily, load by load.

The future is touchless for shippers, carriers and intermediaries. Just one month into the pandemic, providers like Uber Freight were announcing their commitment to moving tens of thousands of touchless loads.

Imagine freight being so automated that it feels effortless and out of mind. This may seem like a lofty goal, but at Uber Freight, we increased our own operational efficiency significantly throughout 2020, including driving full tracking automation to 78%, while also improving all core service and reliability measures.

As we head further into 2021, API adoption and internal efficiencies will be crucial for the entire logistics industry to prepare for and thrive in a post-COVID world.

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Viewpoint: The freight execution technology revolution is here - FreightWaves

Women and Technology & Data Awards 2021: All the Winners - WatersTechnology.com

Here are the 34 category winners from this years Women in Technology & Data Awards. The two highest-profile categories of this years awardsWatersTechnologys woman of the year and trailblazer (lifetime achievement) awardwent to Vrinda Menon (JP Morgan) and Linda Coffman (SmartStream Technologies),respectively. Another notable performance this year isMiranda Morads win in the legal/compliance professional of the year category, her third win in succession.

Click on this link for previous Women in Technology & Data Awards.

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Women and Technology & Data Awards 2021: All the Winners - http://www.waterstechnology.com

FAIRMONT, W.Va. (WV News) After years of recruiting federal agencies to the I-79 Technology Park in Fairmont, the High Technology Foundation has been able to successfully partner with Gov. Jim Justices office to further expand the recruitment process to encompass the entire state.

Jim Estep, president and CEO of the foundation, said the partnership has been a long time coming, and he hopes that other state officials get on board with the initiative.

We have, for the first time, been able to forge a partnership with the Governors Office to actively pursue additional federal operations not just to the I-79 Technology Park but also to the entire state, expanding our federal anchor model as more of a statewide economic diversification strategy, Estep said.

We are developing that partnership, called the Opportunity Move program, he said. Its being championed directly by Gov. Jim Justice, and were hoping that during this legislative session, theyre putting together funding resources so we can really ramp this effort up and make it a major component of the states economic development strategy.

Estep said hes been trying to bring the states attention to the idea of federal agency recruitment for a number of years, and now that he has it, he hopes to make it clear just how beneficial it would be to both the state and country to bring more federal agencies to West Virginia.

I really cant overstate how important it is that Gov. Jim Justice has embraced our federal anchor strategy, Estep said.

This is the first time that the state has really stepped up, and Im certainly very grateful for that, he said. Im also energized because of the potential. I think that this is actually a very opportune time, because the pandemic has emphasized the national security problems that Washington, D.C., has with so many federal operations clustered together.

In addition to that, we are in uncharted territory when it comes to our national deficit. We are simply never going to solve that problem by having so many federal operations actually operating in the Greater Washington, D.C., area. Its literally the worst place in the country to spend taxpayer money. With that motivation, its the ideal time for the state of West Virginia in an organized, systematic manner to recruit as many as we can to our state.

While Operation Move is a big program that Estep hopes will launch in full soon, he said recruitment efforts for the I-79 Technology Park are still going at full strength, as well, and he hinted that a deal could be signed with new agencies in a matter of months.

We have been working with a couple of potential new federal agencies who we think may be very close to coming to the park, Estep said. 2020 really slowed everything down, but it didnt totally derail everything. Were already seeing signs that things may start to pick up. Im hoping that, maybe by summer, well be able to announce that another federal anchor is coming to the park.

One of the largest federal agencies that Estep and the foundation have recruited to the park is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has grown its presence in Fairmont over the past few years.

Weve brought not only their supercomputing center, but two ground stations and cybersecurity, Estep said. That makes us one of the most massive data collection places in the country, but maybe one of the only in the entire country that combines both data collection with supercomputing computation.

Having this unique combination of NOAA assets also puts us at the potential epicenter of what could be a multibillion-dollar expansion of the private climate and weather industry, which is already like $7 billion or something like that.

Estep explained that the climate and weather industry is driven by the data that NOAA collects, and if access to that data could be increased, everyone would make more money.

Private companies take that data and do things with it and sell it, but anybody in that sector is going to tell you that getting access to that data and working with that data is pretty challenging, Estep said. NOAA and the U.S. Commerce Department believe that they can make double from this private climate and weather sector if they create a way where people, and entrepreneurs especially, could get access to data much more easily.

Estep said NOAA reached out to some cloud providers several years ago to ask if the agencys data could be stored in their clouds free of charge. Then, the cloud providers could sell the data to private entrepreneurs in the climate and weather industry.

Estep said the idea wasnt embraced that well, with Amazon, Microsoft and Google being the only companies to take NOAA up on the request, at least partially.

To increase interest in the idea, both for cloud providers and private entrepreneurs, Estep said the High Technology Foundation has partnered with Amazon, Microsoft, West Virginia University and others to hold a March 17 virtual conference where NOAA can talk about the advantages of storing and purchasing its data.

We could hold this event and follow it up with a series of business competitions and hack-a-thons and whatever to try and, for lack of a better word, harvest ... ideas for new companies or innovation that would drive customers to the cloud providers, which would then drive the demand for the cloud providers to put more of NOAAs data in the cloud, he said.

Estep said he plans on holding a series of similar conferences and events to further plant the seeds of innovation, and its possible that the climate and weather industry could mean huge things for West Virginias economy.

On a bigger picture, the question here from a vision perspective is, Is data the next West Virginian coal scene? Estep said. Youre basically mining NOAAs climate and weather data for economic value.

Fairmont News Editor John Mark Shaver can be reached at 304-844-8485 or jshaver@theet.com.

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High Technology Foundation partners with West Virginia governor's office to spur federal agency recruitment - WV News

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and East Tennessee State University have partnered to create the BlueSky Institute to address a shortage of technology graduates in the state.

The BlueSky Institute is an accelerated program in which students earn a bachelor's degree from ETSU in two years. The first cohort will be 15 to 20 students taught by two full-time faculty members on site, and the number of on-site faculty members is planned to grow to four by the second year.

Following a work-based model, students in the BlueSky Institute will be mentored one-to-one by a BlueCross employee. Students will also live together and begin classes on the BlueCross campus in Chattanooga in the summer of 2022.

The program comes as a response to the ratio of technology jobs to technology graduates in Tennessee, where there are 4,100 open tech jobs but 1,000 graduates to fill them, said Scott Wilson, corporate communications and community relations vice president at BlueCross.

Additionally, BlueCross has outsourced some jobs that the company is unable to fill locally because demand outpaces available talent. When they do hire employees, the company spends months training new hires on new skills as the field continues to rapidly change.

"It's really been about capacity more than anything else," said Roy Vaughn, senior vice president and chief communications officer at BlueCross. "We would prefer to hire them locally, but really it's more about capacity and the ability to scale up and back on projects that might be a priority in a given year."

The BlueSky Institute is not philanthropic, but aims to serve the community through recruitment of students in six priority high schools in Hamilton County Schools: Brainerd, East Ridge, Hixson, Howard, Red Bank and Tyner.

"We know from our work ... here locally that there is already a critical mass of qualified students if you look just in terms of GPA scores or ACT scores who are already coming out of those six schools," said JD Hickey, president and CEO of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. "But we also believe and this is one of the founding principles for us that any student that's had sufficient exposure and that's got the interest, no matter what the background is, can be capable of learning this skill set and succeeding in these jobs."

Working together

Tony Pittarese, senior associate dean at ETSU's College of Business & Technology, said the university first heard about the program when BlueCross put out a request for proposals laying out 51 areas in which they wanted student competencies.

BlueCross wanted skills in technology areas like database design, secure coding, cybersecurity and advanced computer science skills along with soft skills like communication and teamwork.

"As I looked how those pieces aligned with our portfolio that we offer in the department of computing, we could cover every one of those 51 areas," Pittarese said.

BlueCross met with eight different universities before deciding, Wilson said, and ETSU was the best fit.

"Everyone was excited about this idea, but why we're partnering with ETSU is the entrepreneurial nature of their program matched this idea," Wilson said. "It was easy to find people who liked this idea, but a university setting is not entrepreneurial and doesn't always fit, so ETSU has been extremely flexible, and we're following their lead, and it's really been a great partnership."

BlueSky Institute will be an extension of a degree program that exists on the ETSU campus. The degree is a bachelor of science in computing with a concentration in information systems and is already accredited, Pittarese said.

Since the degree program will be shortened to two years, adjustments will be made surrounding the length of semesters for some courses and the amount of time spent in tutoring sessions. With a bachelor's degree, students will be able to move into leadership positions at BlueCross in the future, Hickey said.

Looking ahead

The organizations are still working out the logistics of housing for students and the costs of the program.

Ideally, students will live together as a cohort, but they are still ironing out the details. Currently, the ETSU student housing team is in the process of contacting local brokers, said BlueSky executive director Brad Leon.

Academic costs for the program, including tuition and fees, are $47,000 for the full duration of the program, Pittarese said. While students normally spread those costs over four years, it will be shortened for this program. However, the partner organizations think most students will qualify for scholarships and financial aid, particularly if they are Pell Grant recipients.

Down the line, the program hopes to use the Hamilton County Schools' Future Ready Institutes as a foundation to build on, Hickey said. The program hopes to grow to 50 students per cohort, Leon said.

Contact Anika Chaturvedi at achaturvedi@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592.

Excerpt from:

BlueCross, ETSU create BlueSky Institute to address shortage of technology graduates - Chattanooga Times Free Press

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a lot ofchanges to restaurants. Since many casual restaurants had to close their doors and switch to take-out only, people were ordering fast food even more than usual. And because the "grab-and-go" factor is already a perk of fast-food restaurants, it was basically a no-brainer for those who hoped grab a meal and maintain social distancing.

Now, McDonalds, one of thepioneers of modern fast food, has decided to step it up when it comes to efficiency and consistent service. Somewhere in a Chicago suburb, an AI is currently taking drive-thru orders.

Somewhere in a Chicago suburb, an AI is currently taking drive-thru orders rather than a human employee. (iStock)

This could be the McFuture

The McDonalds app was supposed to help with convenience and shorter wait times, but it wasnt enough for the Golden Arches. There are over 14,000 McDonalds locations in the U.S. alone, and95% of those restaurants include a drive-thru lane, which means a lot of us are expecting to be able to drive-up and get our McNuggets, STAT.

The AI drive-thru may be able to help.The voice itself is described as female, similar to Alexa or Siri. Its connected to a digital menu, and can even suggest food if youre unsure about what to order.

It can be a bit unsettling to hear a robotic voice greet you instead of the voice of a human employee, but it might be something to get used to if McDonald's rolls this out to all locations. Just another bit of tech to add to the modern age.

Will this hel with drive-thru times?

The idea is that the AI will take care of the orders and allow human employees to focus on accuracy and quality of the food items. Fast-food places arealwayslooking to speed up their service to contend with their competitors, and McDonald's is hopingan AI drive-thru will help with this, even if its just a minute or two of difference. It can also be a great outlet for those who suffer social anxiety and find it difficult to speak with human employees.

Link:

New McDonald's drive-thru is using AI technology to take orders, make suggestions - Fox News

A bipartisan Senate bill aims to counter the influence of authoritarian nations such as China on artificial intelligence, 5G and other emerging technologies by creating an international partnership led by a new State Department office.

The Democracy Technology Partnership Act, introduced Thursday, describes a China that is using investment and coercion to instill emerging technologies with authoritarian principles and a U.S. that is failing to lead when it comes to technology governance. To mitigate this gap, the bill requires the secretary of state to build an International Technology Partnership Office focused on setting global technology standards.

The bill also authorizes the allocation of $5 billion for a technology trust fund to support research projects and other technology investments. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the lead sponsor for the bill, said the U.S. needs a strategy grounded in the strength of U.S. partnerships to prevent China from surpassing the U.S. in technology.

This bipartisan legislation will help foster partnerships among the U.S. and like-minded democratic countries to better protect and compete against China in critical emerging technologies while helping set global rules, standards, and protocols for the market, Warner said in a press release announcing the legislation.

Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., Michael Bennet, D-Colo., John Cornyn, R-Texas, Marco Rubio R-Fla., Ben Sasse R-Neb., Todd Young, R-Ind., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. co-sponsored the bill. Four prominent former government officialsMadeleine Albright, former secretary of state, Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser, Ambassador Marc Grossman, former undersecretary of state for political affairs, and Adm. William McRaven, former commander of U.S. Special Operations Commandall endorsed the bill in the press release.

Albright called the partnership a powerful diplomatic tool to counter authoritarian influence.

It would also promote new avenues of cooperation between democratic nations to secure a better future for us all, she said.

The key technologies listed in the bill include AI and machine learning, 5G and other advanced wireless telecommunications technologies, semiconductors, biotechnology, quantum computing, surveillance technologies like facial recognition, and fiber optic cables. The bill also stipulates the partnership should work to provide alternatives to countries at risk of getting technologies from authoritarian regimes.

Read more:

Bill Aims to Counter China with International Technology Partnership - Nextgov

Original article published by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Eight-year old Aseel had a surgery when she was a baby that left her partially paralyzed. She has spent most of her life finding ways to adapt and experience a normal childhood in a refugee camp in Jordan. Being a refugee hasnt made her life easier. Until recently, Aseel used a stroller as a makeshift wheelchair and struggled to get around and stay engaged in the classroom because the stroller hurt her back.

Thanks to WHOs work on globalizing wheelchair guidelines and UNICEFs disability-focused programmes, a wheelchair of appropriate size and design was provided to Aseel to help her be included in school activities and move around more easily.

Like Aseel, many people in the world today lack access to appropriate assistive technology. WHO estimates that out of the one billion people needing at least one assistive product, nine in ten go without. Children with injuries living in low- and middle-income or fragile countries mostly depend on donated wheelchairs, which are often of poor quality and inappropriate for the user or their environment.

The barriers are manifold, but mostly they have to do with the cost and availability of assistive products, the lack of harmonized specifications, broken supply systems, and the fact that society is still not as inclusive of persons with disabilities as it needs to be. The result for many people in low- and middle-income countries: either no access or only access to low-quality, inappropriate products.

To address some of those barriers, WHO has created the Assistive Products Specifications (APS) a guide-book with specs for 26 prioritized assistive products that describes the minimum quality requirements for manufacturing. Funded by UK Aid under Global Disability Innovation Hubs AT2030 programme, the APS supports a focus on innovative products, new service models, and global capacity to drive disability innovation for a fairer world.

This first compilation of the APS includes products selected from the Priority assistive products list and covers mobility, hearing, vision, communication, cognition and self-care. The products range from clubfoot braces and wheelchairs to hearing aids, alarm signalers and audio-players.

The main aim of the APS is to ensure countries get supply of good quality and affordable assistive products for all who need them. Each APS in the compilation describes the functional and performance requirements that can be used as a model to guide manufacturing and procurement.

This year, WHO and UNICEF will issue a joint tender for wheelchair and hearing aids and will ensure the products reach those who need them. The two agencies have already identified and are working with assistive technology manufacturers to ensure the specs are followed and that production and supply can be cost-effective for both bulk buyers and individuals. Both organizations will also support countries with training to adapt their national standards to improve access to quality, life-changing health products.

Appropriate assistive technology can have a direct impact on the well-being of children and adults of all ages by supporting their functionality and inclusion into society, thereby increasing the opportunities for education, employment and social engagement.

For example, a proper use of hearing aids leads young children to improved language skills. Or, an appropriate wheelchair - like the one given to Aseel - can increase the chances of people completing their education, finding employment and engaging in social activities.

The APS is the first global guide for quality-assured assistive products and will be updated on a regular basis. Quality assistive technology for all is the ultimate aim of this guide-book, and improved well-being for millions of people.

WHO works to change the landscape of access to assistive technology through a multi-pronged approach based on human rights, universal health coverage and the realities of low- and middle-income countries. In 2016, it issued the Priority assistive products list, a compilation of the 50 most essential assistive products, selected based on a survey done with persons living with disabilities and their carers. WHO has been active in wheelchair provision since 2004 and introduced the Wheelchair Guidelines, training and wheelchair provision standards.

UNICEF focuses on three key activities to ensure disability-inclusive supplies are available and accessible worldwide. First, the organization is analyzing and updating its products in the UNICEF Supply Catalogue to ensure they are disability-friendly. Second, UNICEF is introducing new assistive technology to programmes worldwide, such as the new disability-friendly latrine. This work involves collaborating with WHO and partners to develop guidance for AT suppliers who produce products and humanitarian staff who procure the products. Finally, UNICEF is increasing advocacy efforts to gain a global consensus for assistive technology.

More information: UNICEF webpage on assistive technology

To improve access to assistive technology for everyone, everywhere, on 28 July 2020, WHO and UNICEF signed a Joint Action Plan on Assistive Technology and included provision of assistive products under the Strategic Collaboration Framework between The World Health Organization and the United Nations Childrens Fund to bring a catalytic impact and provide quality assistive products to the 900 million people that are lacking it.

More information: WHO page onAssistive technology

AT2030 tests what works to improve access to AT and support solutions to scale. With a focus on innovative products, new service models, and global capacity support, the programme aims to reach nine million people directly and six million more indirectly to enable a lifetime of potential through life-changing assistive technology. GDI Hub is a research and practice centre driving disability innovation for a fairer world. Operational in 35 countries, the GDI Hub develops bold approaches, partnerships and ecosystems to accelerate change.

More information: AT2030

Excerpt from:

First ever global guide for assistive technology to improve the lives of millions - UNICEF

Janet Coats has a daunting task as the first managing director of theConsortium on Trust in Media and Technology at the University of Florida: helping to mend the deep woundsin our civic life and head off the next pandemic of disinformation.

An interdisciplinarygroup of scholars have been studying these issues:how media and technology can become more trustworthy,and develop programs for the application of new knowledge and toolsand the creation of new policy and law, as its website frames the mission.

Coats has been on the job for less than three months. A former editor at the Sarasota Herald Tribune, more recently director forthe Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, and dean of faculty at Poynter, Coats brings more real-world experience and less of an academic background to therole.

Despite the dire circumstances for trust in media and technology, or perhaps because of this,the consortium has beenbuoyedbysome recent news beyond the arrival of its new director: a $2million gift from Gainesville developers Linda and Ken McGurnthat aligns with the fight against disinformation, and HiPerGator -- a supercomputer that has come online to providethe fastest artificial intelligence tool in higher education.

With all of that, Coats sat down for a Zoom conversation recently from her office at the UF College of Journalism and Communications where a new dean, Hub Brown, is set to over next month.

What is themission of the consortium?

To some degree,we are enteringa new phase to the consortium. There hasnt been apermanent.managing director.Sopart of my job is to figure out where we go from hereand how to build on the work of the people associated with the consortium to date.

There is so much conversation going on around trust. A lot of it is focused on things like media literacy and the platforms like Facebook and Twitter. That will be part of what werelookingat, but Im really trying to push us forward into things like artificial intelligence.

UFs new supercomputer gives an opportunity to look at AI and large data sets that other universities and journalism programs dont really have.Sotrying to think about how technology is moving, where its moving and what some of the new issues of trust might be.

It really feels like an inflection point, where some of theconversations about trust may be shifting.Theres certainly going to be more conversation about what regulation and access mean.And I also think theres going to be a different conversation about AI, machine learning and things like that. Both as ameansof surfacingmore factual information, and alsoas away of understanding where things are coming from.

My goalsright noware to look at those places where theuniquecapabilitieswe have with our research and our access to computing can help fill in the gaps.

Some of the things I was working on with my colleagues at Arizona State, we have aprogramthere on media literacy. I believe that is a really important element of this, but we are now where people can be reading from the same book, but theirinterpretation of it is completely different depending onwhereyouarecoming from

Jan. 6 is a great example of this. We call be sitting and watchingwhat isunfolding in front of us on the television screen, and the literacy people are bringing to this is very much informed by beliefsand peer groups, associations, where you are in the social media sphere. It is such a challenge to think we are all watching the same thing but seeing so differently.

How can the consortium address some of these challenges to civic trust?

In termsifwhat the consortium is focusedon,Iwant to be sure were not fighting the last battle. We did not see the kind of power and influence the platforms were going to have when they were first emerging. When I first went onto Facebook, it was cool to see my high school friends and what was going on with them. But it has morphed into this political and social firehose, commentary, and means to spread a lot of information and disinformation.

Some of our scholars are looking at things like interaction with political news and the psychology of how you come to information. We have to grapple with how traditional news coverage re-enforcessome of thedisenfranchisementof voices.The news is not reflective of a lot of peoples reality. Not only does it notreflectit, it suppresses it.

Its more than a common set of facts, its also about experiences. For instance, trust about health information. Some of that is based on very legitimate experiences with the medical system. We think about distrust of media, but there is a lot of institutional distrust that underpins thatthat is separate from news coverage.

Its not just in the media that things are moving so fast. Its in science and medicine.You think about the evolution of the vaccine.When the pandemic first began, the conversationwas that this can take years as you go through all the testing and safety procedures. And then for it to come so quickly.Just reading how scientists talk about that: in the last few years, in ways that werent obvious to people others than scientists working on this,the process hadaccelerated.Expectations about what waspossiblechanged even within the science community in ways the rest of us had not caught up to.

Trust is broken in our elections in ways that may be hard to fix within an election cycle.

"Were Floridians, so weve been living with can you trust an election, now for 20 years. Im still traumatized by hanging chads. Even the machinery of elections, the process, has all kinds of ways people mistrust things beyond the political information.

"Theres the how we convey information, and then trust in the institutions themselves. Theres interplay between those things of course."

Are you optimistic about where things are headed and the impacts the consortium can have?

"I have to be optimistic or I wouldnt do this. For me, this is theculminationof years and years of work as a journalist. Issues of trust are not new. We could see diminished trust in our work andpolarization. Thats picked up speed in thedigital age.

"I do think that intervention can make a difference. In one sense, I think an era ended (on Jan. 6), the first 20 years of being in a truly connected world. For a lot of people, the flaws in social media, the echo cambers, really became stark.

"Soin one way, Im optimistic that this is a chance to engage the conversation in a different way. And in a way thatreally gets into the rights andresponsibilitiespieces of this. For social media platforms, what should that look like in a regulatory environment?

"When the president getsdeplatformedon Twitter, different people look at that, some with cheers and some with arguments about taking the voice of the president out of the public square, or at least a corner of the public square.No matterwhere youcome down on that, the implications are broad and the conversation is one that is ripe."

Will that conversation happen in academic papers, in classroom lectures or in ways that are somehow more direct outreach to the community?

"One of the advantages of a college of journalism is that we can do all those things. Because it is interdisciplinary, were able to have collaborativerelationshipswith scholars all over the university.Sowe have that rigorous scholarship. We can take the current moment that were studying into the classroom. The students are teaching us. They are living in this world in a very different way than I do.

"Those of us who grew up with three channels on the television are never going to be native to this digital world. These young people will shape the dynamic. And the public scholarship is something that journalism educators do particularly well because were used to writing in the mainstream media.

"One of the things that Im eager to do is to get the consortium in that broader trust dialogue that is going among researchers and the broaderconversation among people who are navigating this world and wanting help with that.

What are the goal posts that will help you know youre heading in the right direction?

"Im still trying to find out where light switches are over here. There is a body of work to draw from, from what the scholarshave been pursing in their research, and I'm having conversations with them on what theyre learning and where we think we should go.

"Part of my job as managing director is to be just that, to manage consortium. I would never hold myself up to be an expert in this, certainly not in a scholarly way in understandingtrust. A lot of my job is bringing together the thinking of others and facilitating collaborations within UFand the business world too.The KPIs are going to come.

"As someone who watched the internet change the world inwayswe were slow to understand in the 90s, AI is that force now. The resources and commitment of UF has in place make that a real opportunity. The consortium stands right at the intersection of that: AI and technology, and how information is moving, and what that means for trust, and what that means for ways people communicate, share information and collect information. That is exciting to me."

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Trust, media and technology: A conversation with Janet Coats at the University of Florida - Gainesville Sun

Edmonds School District Automotive Program Teacher Bryan Robbins gives instructions to students in an online video.

Members of the Edmonds School Districts Automotive Training Program recently defended their title as the top program in a Puget Sound-area competition for high school students.

The SkillsUSA automotive service technology competition, held virtually this year at the end of January, has two different skills divisions automotive service and automotive maintenance.

During the competition, students conducted various types of tests and diagnosed problems with both individual auto parts and vehicle systems. Participants perform these independently to demonstrate their understanding and application of automotive knowledge. During this years competition, students used an online training platform to complete the various tests and tasks from their own computers.

Students in the districts program swept the top four places for the automotive service contest Max Bird took first place, Cameron Skinner finished second, Marcus Coyle placed third and Izaha Bart finished fourth. This was the second consecutive year that participants in the school districts program took home all four top spots in the region.

Several other district students also placed highly in the automotive maintenance portion of the competition Jonah Peterson (second), Britain Smith (fourth), Muhenad Al-Haddad (fifth), Corey Hawkins (seventh).

Their instructor, Bryan Robbins, said the automotive service competition is designed for more advanced students who have already completed at least one year in the program. Its sort of the difference between like you need an oil change done (maintenance) versus your check engine light comes on (service), he said.

Robbins noted that students in his automotive program have now taken first place at the regional competition three times in the past five years. Hes proud not only of those individual results but also the programs overall continued success.

Meadowdale High School senior Marcus Coyle, who is president of the schools automotive performance club, said the biggest challenge compared to last years competition was having to perform tasks within a software simulation. Rather than being able to provide a diagnosis of actual physical components, it was a lot of the knowledge and the kind of mindset behind everything, not really the hands-on, he said.

As an example, he said, when it came to using tools in the simulation, participants would move a slider representing a wrench until they heard a click, which was meant to represent that the correct foot-pounds of torque had been applied. Coyle said it paled in comparison to the actual feeling and full experience of how to properly use and handle the tools themselves.

Robbins actually took the same auto shop classes he now teaches, back when he was in high school and first participated in the SkillsUSA competition as a student in 2003. He also has a family connection to the school district program because at that time his father, Dave Robbins, was teaching its automotive technology classes.

The experience of being a student in this program and then becoming the teacher, far and away thats why we do so well in SkillsUSA every year, he said.

The events organizers change the specific skill tests involved every year and then keep those secret until the actual day of the competition. Typically my students come in just as nervous as everyone else, but Ive spent so many years both as a competitor and a coach that they end up really well prepared for what tasks may be thrown at them, Robbins said.

Preparation before the competition this year was quite different from what Robbins was used. Rather than doing hands-on reviews involving vehicles and equipment in the shop, Robbins instead spent time with students online training them how to use the contests website and software. His predictions about the specific tests required at each individual station in the competition were also almost entirely wrong under the new format, he said.

Coyle said he felt that getting familiar with the new platform before this years contest was still a helpful training experience. He added that throughout his four years in the automotive technology program, Robbins has always put together an amazing class.

Robbins, who has been the instructor since 2014, said he typically eschews software programs and is instead heavily dedicated to hands-on performance training in the programs auto shop facility which has nine vehicle work stations. In addition to providing pupils with an explanatory foundation of repairs, it makes a lot more sense for them to physically know how to fix a car, he said.

Then classes had to suddenly pivot to a virtual format last March due to the pandemic. I was completely technologically backward before all this, Robbins said. I was one of the teachers that fought against actually having all the students being one-on-one with Chromebooks. And woo am I ever happy that I got voted down on that one, because those things have saved our lives this year.

Beginning last April, he started preparing curriculum and content, including 80 textbook chapters, that could be delivered online an undertaking Robbins soon found to be both large and taxing. Its more work than I have ever put into anything else, he said. I thought being a mechanic was the hardest that I had ever worked in my life. Then I found out that no you can stare at a computer screen and physically youre not doing anything but mentally it is taxing.

Robbins created a YouTube channel to show various shop tools and large equipment and to demonstrate tasks that would normally be done during in-person classes at the shop. To mix things up, he put together various quizzes, slide show-type presentations and lined up guest speakers from college programs and professional auto shops. But he said that it was important to also provide some hands-on experiences for his auto shop classes.

Robbins worried that if students were only given online lessons, they might grasp the vocabulary terms, theories and principles involved with the course material but still lack in practical applications of that knowledge. Youre going to end up with a kid who knows the names of all the parts, who knows how they work, how they function together, but tightens a bolt to take it off, he said.

Last fall, students in the program were given special kits, that included a 364-piece set of Kobalt tools, courtesy of the foundry10 educational philanthropy organization. These enabled them to participate in remote auto repair activities from home. Each month, students picked up mechanical projects that focused on a different aspect and would then return those to the auto shop for grading after completion.

Those assignments included working on drum brake assemblies, rebuilding a single-cylinder engine and constructing a wire harness to test its electrical circuits for faults. All students will be allowed to keep their tool sets, in order to help jump start a career in the automotive industry, after completing the course which is certified by the Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) organization.

Coyle said that even though he has participated in the automotive classes all throughout high school, it was a little scary going into this year knowing that it would involve remote learning. He missed being around the shop and cars but appreciated having projects to take home and said overall the class went great for him personally. As a senior, I do have a good understanding of the automobile and how it works, but all the incoming freshmen it was saddening to hear that they werent going to get the full experience, he said.

Mountlake Terrace High School junior Matthew Lentz, who participated in the automotive program for the first time this year, said he found it somewhat frustrating at times attempting to learn and comprehend the material delivered by recorded video rather than through in-person classwork. But he appreciated the instruction and feedback received from Robbins during class meetings on Zoom. He also enjoyed the hands-on aspects provided by take-home projects which were, he said, fun just taking apart and putting back together a few times.

Robbins said the online lessons and video tutorials put together for this year will continue to provide supplemental teaching dividends to his classes in the future. But he also looks forward to when students will be allowed back in the auto shop again for instruction. There are currently 50 students in the programs two classes. Beginning March 29, groups of 10 individuals at a time will be able to go to the facility for in-person learning activities one day per week.

There will be a statewide virtual SkillsUSA competition in April pitting those who advance from the different regional contests against each other. This Januarys Puget Sound regional contest was the first one in the nation to be held online after many of last years events were cancelled due to the pandemic.

The automotive technology classes are open to all high school students in the Edmonds School District through its Career and Technical Education program.There is an inter-district bus available to bring students who take an auto shop class back and forth to the facilities at Meadowdale High School. Classes in the program last two periods a day for the full school year.

By Nathan Blackwell

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Edmonds School District automotive technology students continue their winning ways - My Edmonds News

Ive been reading and rereading novels of the great writer Ursula K Le Guin over the past year, and they have had me thinking about the difficulty of writing about technologies that will (or wont) be in use in ones imagined future worlds.

Much has been written about the influence of science fiction on eventual science fact. Although writers and filmmakers create fanciful worlds, many of their tech fictions have shaped the actual technologies we end up with years later.

The topic even features in serious academic work. One 2018 study examined how often science fiction has been referenced in papers presented at a top international conference on human-computer interaction, noting: Sci-fi movies, shows or stories do provide an inspiration for the foremost and upcoming human-computer interaction challenges of our time, for example through the discussion of shape-changing interfaces, implantables or digital afterlife ethics.

When science fiction creates particularly compelling representations of future technologies, people remember them. Later on that fictional tech can seem an obvious way of realising the possibilities of real-world technologies when technical capabilities advance.

Star Trek is regularly referenced in this connection, and little wonder: the technologists designing the first 20th century iterations of personal tech were the 1960s kids who grew up with TV Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

No surprise then that mobile handsets might seem an obvious step along the way towards Trekian communicators, with the mid-90s Motorola flip clamshell model paying obvious homage in its StarTAC name.

Then there were the Enterprises touchscreens and its speaking computer. iPads and iPhones and Alexa and Siri, anyone?

Many years ago I interviewed a number of leading voice technology experts and every one referenced Star Trek and 2001 as inspirations. New generations of technologists will have a further half century of screen and fiction technologies to inspire tomorrows devices.

And yet it can take time for us to adapt to new technologies even when weve been given them in fictional format. Again take mobiles. For a lot of us (okay, me) who became the first generation of untethered mobile phone-users in the 1990s, a mobile sure didnt seem like an obvious mass market device.

Which brings me back to Le Guin. Ive been reading her novel The Lathe of Heaven, considered one of her best. Written in 1971 and set in Portland, Oregon, its a dystopian tale set (then) in a future in which climate change and overpopulation has created a bleak, impoverished world.

The climate element is eerily spot on. So-called cli-fi, a term coined in 2007 for climate-related fiction, might seem a more recent invention but step aside Al Gore Le Guin pretty much nailed the how and why of the reality we are living through. Her overpopulated earth is trying to accommodate seven billion people, a number weve surpassed.

The reader eventually discovers that events are unfolding in 2002. Yikes: in what is now our own past.

A minor detail has preoccupied me. On her future earth there are phones. But, jarringly, there arent mobile phones. Characters use landlines. They do not even have anything like an answering machine connected to the phone.

Plot elements involve people not answering their landlines. And yet there are other advanced technologies, such as a device that enables a researcher to manipulate the brain during sleep.

This landline-only futurescape creates an odd feeling of anachronism. By the 1980s the first mega-brick mobiles were in use by shouty financial sector yuppies. By 2002 about half the US population had a mobile phone.

Noticing this is not to critique Le Guin. Id wager science fiction writers do at least as well in guessing what might come next as professional futurologists, the people paid to apply their noggins to this task.

Instead what really intrigues me is how this case of the missing mobile phones exemplifies how hard it can be for any of us, much less the finest of science fiction writers, to imagine the mundanities of how long-standing technologies might morph into something utterly new.

Add in uncertainty about what the general public might want and use. And, of course, what technologists think people will use a device for is often not what it gets used for as writer William Gibson famously noted in a novel, the street finds its own uses for things.

In retrospect, the incremental microchip-enabled changes that replaced landlines with powerful pocket computers, where the ability to make a phone call is now a minor if useful feature, were neither obvious nor a foregone conclusion even in the 1990s, much less the 1970s.

Its the very human flip-side of the supposed science fiction predicts our future technologies truism. Sometimes futuristic fiction later foregrounds how hard it can be to see what is wrongly believed to be the obvious.

In this sense Le Guin makes me (as always) feel a bit more human this time (like the 1990s me) in really not having seen that amazing phone revolution coming at all.

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Technology really can be stranger than fiction at times - The Irish Times