US Colleges are Looking to Install Location Tracking Apps on Students’ Phones

Supposedly an easier way to track attendance

As reported by The Verge: Barely over a year ago, we pointed out how dystopian it seemed when Chinese schools added “smart uniforms” to track their students’ attendance. But US colleges are already testing out a similar tactic with a location tracking app, which students are now apparently expected to install on their phones.

I say “apparently” because there’s some confusion over whether the schools are actually forcing this on their students. The Kansas City Star reported that at the University of Missouri, new students “won’t be given a choice” of whether to install the SpotterEDU app, which uses Apple’s iBeacons to broadcast a Bluetooth signal that can help the phone figure out whether a student is actually in a room.

But a university spokesperson told Campus Reform on Sunday that only athletes are technically required to use the app, and a new statement from the university on Monday not only claims that it’s “completely optional” for students, but that the app’s being piloted with fewer than 2 percent of the student body.

What the reports do agree on: the app uses local Bluetooth signals, not GPS, so it’s probably not going to be very useful to track students outside of school. “No GPS tracking is enabled, meaning the technology cannot locate the students once they leave class,” reads part of the university’s statement.

SpotterEDU isn’t just used at the University of Missouri, though — it’s being tested at nearly 40 schools, company founder and former college basketball coach Rick Carter told The Washington Post in December. The Post’s story makes it sound remarkably effective, with one Syracuse professor attesting that classes have never been so full, with more than 90 percent attendance. But that same professor attested that an earlier version of the app did have access to GPS coordinates, if only for a student to proactively share their location with a teacher.

And Spotter isn’t the only company marketing this idea to administrators: another startup, Degree Analytics, uses Wi-Fi signals instead of Bluetooth to serve an additional 19 schools, the Post reports. In September, The New York Times wrote about a similar app from a company called FanMaker that provides “loyalty points” to students who stick around to watch college sports games at the stadium instead of skipping out. That app is in use at 40 schools, the Times wrote.

It doesn’t seem like any of these specific systems are particularly invasive, and it currently sounds like (most) students will be able to opt out. But it also sounds like the idea of tracking students’ locations is being quietly normalized, in a way that smacks of surveillance (compare to how some previous pilot programs attempted to track students equipped with RFID-embedded ID cards).

It’s not unthinkable that future apps might tell schools more about students’ behavior, and that it may become harder to say no.

Intel announces AI breakthroughs at CES

As reported by IoT M2M Council: Intel CEO Bob Swann (pictured) kicked off this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by announcing breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) that pave the way for autonomous driving, a new era of mobile computing innovation, and the future of immersive sports and entertainment.

Intel demonstrated all these and more at CES by showing how the company is infusing intelligence across the cloud, network, edge and PC, and driving positive impact for people, business and society.
 
Swan shared updates from its Mobileye business, including a demonstration of its self-driving robo-car navigating traffic in a natural manner. The drive demonstrated Mobileye's approach to deliver safer mobility for all with a combination of artificial intelligence, computer vision, the regulatory science model of RSS (responsibility-sensitive safety) and redundancy through independent sensing systems.
 
Swan also highlighted Intel's work with the American Red Cross and its Missing Maps project to improve disaster preparedness. Using integrated AI acceleration on second-generation Xeon scalable processors, Intel is helping the American Red Cross and its Missing Maps project to build highly accurate maps with bridges and roads for remote regions of the world, which helps emergency responders in the event of a disaster.
 
"At Intel, our ambition is to help customers make the most of technology inflections like AI, 5G and the intelligent edge so that together we can enrich lives and shape the world for decades to come,” said Swan. “As we highlighted today, our drive to infuse intelligence into every aspect of computing can have positive impact at unprecedented scale."
 
Mobile computing was an area of emphasis, as Intel made announcements spanning products, partnerships and platform-level innovations to transform the way people focus, create and engage.
 


Intel executive vice president Gregory Bryant (pictured above) gave a first look and demonstration of the latest Intel Core mobile processors, code-named Tiger Lake. Tiger Lake is designed to bring Intel's people-led vision for mobile computing to lif.
 
With optimizations spanning the CPU, AI accelerators and discrete-level integrated graphics based on the Intel Xe graphics architecture, Tiger Lake should deliver double-digit performance gains, AI performance improvements, a leap in graphics performance and four times the throughput of USB 3 with the integrated Thunderbolt 4. Built on Intel's 10nm+ process, the first Tiger Lake systems are expected to ship this year.
 
 
 
Intel vice president of architecture for graphics and software Lisa Pearce (pictured above) provided insight into the progress on the Intel Xe graphics architecture, which will provide performance gains in Tiger Lake, and previewed Intel's first Xe-based discrete GPU, code-named DG1.

Updates were announced on Intel's Project Athena innovation program, including the first Project Athena-verified Chromebooks. Project Athena-verified designs have been tuned, tested and verified to deliver system-level innovation and benefits spanning battery life, consistent responsiveness, instant wake, application compatibility and more.
 
Intel has verified 25 Project Athena designs to date, and Bryant announced an expanded partnership with Google that has already resulted in the first two Project Athena-verified Chromebooks, the Asus Chromebook Flip (C436) and the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook. Intel expects to verify approximately 50 more designs across Windows and Chrome this year and deliver a target specification for dual-screen PCs.
 
Through deepened co-engineering efforts with OEM partners, Intel helps deliver category-defining devices based on Intel Core processors. This includes dual-screen and fold-able designs such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold, which leverages the Intel Core processor with Intel Hybrid Technology (code-named Lakefield) expected to ship midyear, and the Dell Concept Duet. Bryant also previewed the company's latest concept device, a fold-able OLED display form factor, code-named Horseshoe Bend.
 
 
 
The data center is the force that delivers intelligence to businesses around the world and Xeon scalable processors continue to be the foundation of the data center. Intel executive vice president Navin Shenoy (pictured above) announced that third-generation Xeon scalable processors, coming in the first half of 2020, will include DL boost extensions for built-in AI training acceleration, providing up to a 60% increase in training performance over the previous family.

Shenoy highlighted several ways Intel is threading intelligence into data platforms across cloud, network and edge and how this is transforming sports and entertainment. For example, Netflix has used the latest video compression technology, AV1, to enhance its media streaming services and bring content to life across the globe, with up to 60% compression efficiency over the previous compression technology.
 
Intel and Netflix's joint efforts continue with the development of an open-source high-performance encoder (SVT-AV1), optimized on second-generation Xeon scalable processors, that delivers quality and performance gains making it viable for commercial deployment.
 
A claimed first-of-its-kind in computer vision, 3D Athlete Tracking (3Dat) uses AI to enhance the viewing experience with near real-time insights and visualizations. 3Dat uses highly mobile cameras to capture the form and motion of athletes, then applies algorithms optimized with DL boost and powered by Xeon scalable processors to analyse the bio-mechanics of athletes' movements.
 
Shenoy announced that this technology would enhance replays of the 100m and other sprinting events at the Olympic Games in Tokyo later this year.
 
Intel and the sports industry are transforming the sports viewing experience with volumetric video, a progression towards enabling sports viewing without limitations. Intel True View synthesizes the entire volume of a stadium’s field to provide endless angles that allow fans to choose any vantage point and player perspective and stream from their devices.
 
Intel and the NFL showcased the power of streaming volumetric video with a play from the Cleveland Browns versus Arizona Cardinals game. The data produced from the first quarter of an NFL game alone reach beyond 3Tbyte per minute.

CES: Under the Mighty Propellers of Hyundai's Flying Taxi

As reported by Engadget: By law, an automaker must mention "mobility" during any press event. Hyundai knows this but instead of just talking about how their cars can be configured to drive us around in the future, they went full-on flying machine. In a partnership with Uber, they announced the SA-1 air taxi at a press event. Sadly, at said press gathering what we saw was a tiny model. Fortunately, the full-size model was in the booth and we checked it out.

The SA-1 is far larger than anticipated. The four-passenger mock-up vehicle is impressive in its size and thanks to redundant propellers, it seems like a viable air transportation system. While Hyundai is known primarily for its automotive manufacturing, the company seems keen to branch out into aircraft.

The issue is that the company is honing in on Bell and Airbus' turf. Both aircraft companies have air taxis in development. It's going to be tough to beat established players in the market but Hyundai looks like it's going to at least try.