Robots might not be taking over the world just yet, but they are becoming increasingly popular in our lives. Think about it, they clean our floors, make the products that we use everyday, mow our lawns and some of them are even serving as our pets! Robotics is a huge part of so many industries today from healthcare to manufacturing and logistics to construction. The industry has the potential to positively transform lives and work practices, raise efficiency and safety levels and provide enhanced levels of service across various different sectors. There has never been a better time to get involved in this field.

Even massive events like the 54th edition of Consumer Electronics Show (CES) have gone virtual due to the current pandemic. Since 1967, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which is the North American trade association for the consumer technology industry, has been organising the fair, and this year was not going to be any different--well, except they had to take the almost 300,000m${} 2$ from CES 2020 to the cloud. In this post, I mainly put the focus on current and future hardware/robotics trends presented at CES 2021 (because we all love to make predictions, even during uncertain times). "Innovation accelerates and bunches up during economic downturns only to be unleashed as the economy begins to recover, ushering in powerful waves of technological change"--Christopher Freeman, British Economist. With this quote, I start the first session on'my show' of CES 2021, 'Tech trends to watch' by CTA (see their slides here).

This week's curated content includes links exploring the following: This post examines a simple design technique that can help mitigate that risk: the bottleneck. How Big Data and Artificial Intelligence Will Go Hand in Hand? by Nitin Garg Big data and artificial intelligence are two major forces of change shaping the future of work. Understanding these technological advancements and how they will alter the future of our workplaces is important in order for learning professionals to support the workforce of the future. This post provides a great look at both trends, highlighting how they are changing the future of work and sharing examples of how these technologies will be used in workplaces. Ernest Hemingway's Top 5 Tips for Writing Well by Brian Clark Writing is a huge part of the elearning professionals skill set.

Artificial-intelligence chips are still growing to be large part of chipmaker Nvidia's business. Nvidia announced $2.9 billion in total revenue in its Q24 2018, with $9.71 billion in revenue over the entire year. The company reported $606 million of that revenue from hardware sold for use in data centers, meaning just over 20% of Nvidia's revenue now comes from AI-optimized data center hardware, up from 13% of its revenue this time last year. Graphics processing units (GPUs) for gaming still make up the most of the company's revenue, generating $1.73 billion this past quarter. Enterprise-grade chips, deemed useful for popular AI computations, have been big, steady business for the Nvidia--the sector's revenue has grown 524% over the last 4 years.

SHANGHAI-BASED online English learning platform Liulishuo said yesterday it has raised US$100 million from institutional investors and previous investors to fuel its future growth into artificial intelligence and tailor-made programs for English learners. China Media Capital and Wu Capital, as well as previous investors including TrustBridge, IDG Capital, GGV Capital, Cherubic Ventures and Hearst Ventures, have been announced as investors in the platform. Wang Yi, co-founder and chief executive officer of Liulishuo, said the company plans to hire more talent in the artificial intelligence field and to offer more AI-driven educational services besides its current AI-powered personalized interactive courses. "We hope to maintain our leading position in the artificial intelligence-backed online education field and to further enhance efficiency in English learning," he said, adding that they also hope to build an artificial intelligence learning research institution within two or three years. It will also provide AI-backed spoken English evaluating services for NASDAQ-listed TAL Education Group to integrate with TAL's current learning systems.

It's been a few years since the Harvard Business Review declared Data Scientist "The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century," so it seems like a good time to revisit the idea. With 250 petabytes of data created each day, there's no doubt that the big data trend is only accelerating. But as businesses try to figure out how to capture, store and, most importantly, get value from all of that data, some of the sheen of the big data revolution is beginning to wear off. After all, if we're collecting exponentially more data than ever before, but only making marginally better decisions than we did before, is it worth it? Part of the problem is undoubtedly due to the shortage of truly great data scientists that many of the field's pioneers predicted.

Self-learning, machine learning, and AI are all buzzwords in the tech field today. They all represent the next generation in software development and management. In this brave new world, programmers will often set up the application -- and the software will do the rest. Driven by big data, deep learning systems, and consumer demand, you may be investing in self-learning programs sooner than you think. Self-learning, often referred to as machine learning, is a form of AI.

Self-learning, machine learning, and AI are all buzzwords in the tech field today. They all represent the next generation in software development and management. In this brave new world, programmers will often set up the application -- and the software will do the rest. Driven by big data, deep learning systems, and consumer demand, you may be investing in self-learning programs sooner than you think. Self-learning, often referred to as machine learning, is a form of AI.