It’s been a busy day and a busy week here at Ashton. Spent 90+ minutes on a podcast this morning (first one I’ve ever participated in- clips to come when the host gets everything edited down) and another hour on a call with our web developer as we build out a new website. We co-hosted a cybersecurity webinar yesterday with our friends from Sophos, and as a sales team, we’ve been to numerous networking events and prospect meetings throughout the week. I’ll give it a 10 of 10 for effort. Even with all that, I put together a ton of stuff for this week’s edition, and had to leave a great deal on the cutting room floor so as not to overwhelm you. Scroll on down for homework help, driveless cars, jackpotting, and hockey (including one of the most iconic sports photos in recent memory). Enjoy!
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AI For Homework
In recent months we’ve had pieces about college students using AI to write papers for them, and professors fighting back with tools to determine if AI was used. Now, a new AI tool claims to be able to attend lectures, join in conversations, and handle all of a student’s homework, while they never lift a finger (not even copying/pasting from AI to their assignment).
If that’s truly the case, how will students ever be graded again? I would imagine the only way would be for all grades to be based on in-class work (without the use of a laptop), whether those are quizzes,papers, or tests. How can one trust if any work they receive was actually done by the student?
Helpful Hints
Had a handful of helpful hints in the inbox this week… If you’re looking to optimize the use of your Apple watch, click here. If you can’t remember when all of your favorite tv shows start back for a new season, try this website (Your Friends and Neighbors and Mobland, along with any Taylor Sheridan shows are on my list). If you’re looking for a great club sandwich, here’s a list of five places to try. And if you want a fun game that’s quick to play, see how well you can remember colors. a kid from Edina, MN.
Taiwanese Chips
90% of high end computer chips are made in Taiwan… so what if China throws a blockade up, preventing those chips from getting out to the rest of the world? According to this NYT article (hoping it doesn’t get stuck behind a paywall), US economic output would decline by 11%. And China’s would drop by even more, at 16%. If that’s really the case, why would China take the risk?
Jackpotting
Ever heard of jackpotting? It’s when cyber criminals break into ATMs (either physically or digitally) for the benefit of cleaning them out of all their cash. While it doesn’t have a direct effect on end consumers like card skimmers do, it’s still pretty interesting to see how it works. And to know that jackpotters scored more than $20 million last year.
Driverless Cars
The first time we saw a Waymo driverless car was in Scottsdale, AZ, a year ago. Took us awhile to figure out exactly what it was, until we saw four or five more, and we put two and two together. Waymo now has 3,000 “driverless” cars, but they’re not truly driveless. It turns out there’s a team of 41 driver assistant types, some of whom are here in the States, while others are based in the Philippines. Personally, I don’t like being a passenger in anybody’s car- I’d much rather be the driver. And I definitely don’t want to be the passenger in a car that’s being guided by somebody on the other side of the world.
I’ll stick to Uber or driving myself.
Uber Parking
Speaking of Uber, they just announced that they’re buying a car parking app that allows users to reserve spots in advance (in both garages and surface lots). Their goal is to make users even stickier in their app…. No car? We’ll drive you. No food? We’ll deliver it. Got a car and need to pay for parking to grocery shop? All good.
Memory Prices
We’ve seen our cost on PCs and laptops increase by more than 30% over the past couple of months, and that’s been due primarily to the increase in cost of memory (RAM), as its shortage has continued to be an issue. While we sell nothing but Dell products, the price issue effects every manufacturer… In this case, HP, which has seen RAM go from being 15% of their cost on a device to 35% of the cost.
One thing we would most definitely not recommend is to buy a device with less RAM to save cost. All that does is to slow your device down, make for a more miserable user experience, and lead you to having to replace that device sooner than you would if it were properly configured.
That’s all for this week. No Olympics, no football (not that I care that much about the NFL anyway)… guess I need to finish the chainsawing I started last weekend when we lost a 60′ black cherry tree (which missed the car in the driveway by just a few feet). Maybe some skiing on Sunday (fingers crossed).
Have a great weekend!
Abbey