Property in India’s Tier 2 cities has a bright future, presenting residents and investors with unmatched opportunities.  The global real estate market is changing dramatically, and new trends are changing the way cities expand and change. Greater infrastructure, faster urbanization, … Continue reading →

By 2026, the SM REIT market could be worth over $60 billion. Over 350 million square feet of commercial office space are ready for investment. Among the top cities, Mumbai leads with 75 million square feet of SM REIT-ready office … Continue reading →

Kyra Wilson, Aylin Caliskan, Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, Nov 13, 2024

The topic of AI-based recruitment and hiring has been discussed here before and research continues apace. This item (13 page PDF), despite the characterization in GeekWire, is a fairly narrow study. It looks at three text-embedding models based on Mistral-7B-v0.1, and tests for gender and racial bias on applications containing name and position only, and name and position and some content (the paper discusses removing the name but does do it). The interesting bit is that intersectional bias (ie., combining gender and race) is not merely a combination of the separate biases; while separate biases exaggerated the discrimination, "intersectional results, on the other hand, do correspond more strongly to real-world discrimination in resume screening." Via Lisa Marie Blaschke, who in turn credits Audrey Watters.

Paula MacDowell, Kristin Moskalyk, Katrina Korchinski, Dirk Morrison, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology, Nov 13, 2024

This paper reports on a process where thirty-five teachers enrolled in an elective three-credit multimedia design course "engaged in experiential activities focussed on developing artificial intelligence (AI) literacy, alongside a collaborative assignment to co-author an open-access textbook, Teaching and Creating With Generative Artificial Intelligence." In the process, "the Student Artificial Intelligence Literacy (SAIL) framework was developed (illustrated)." The paper concludes with the usual recommendations ('do no harm', 'develop communication skills', etc.). Each participant wrote a chapter, though a common template was used. I very much like the idea of producing a useful open resource as part of class activities. Oddly, the article doesn't provide a link to the textbook, but I found it here. It's a nice selection of 'how-to' articles that readers, I think, will find useful. One chapter (chapter 20 1/2?) is missing.

MIT, Harvard, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts announce the formation of a loose association of interested U.S. state and local governments to promote sharing of software under open source licenses.

The General Services Administration is now offering at their Section 508 site their free STEP508 software to help government agencies...

MIT, Harvard, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts announce the formation of a loose association of interested U.S. state and local governments to promote sharing of software under open source licenses.

In an unprecedented move some months ago, Ethiopia became effectively the first country in the world to ban the import of internal combustion engine vehicles. That ban was not some futuristic target for 2030 or 2035. It was an immediate ban on the import of ICE cars, with no exceptions. ... [continued]

The post Inchcape & BYD Partner In New Distribution Agreement For Ethiopia! appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Over the past three weeks, I’ve been assessing various aspects of the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium’s (CUTRIC) positions, research, and publications on transit bus decarbonization. I’ve published ten articles directly about CUTRIC’s material and reports, or closely related and with serious implications for their claims that both ... [continued]

The post Canadian Transit Think Tank CUTRIC Chooses Inaccuracy, Irrelevancy, & Attack appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The US Department of Defense is pursuing next-generation geothermal energy systems that can produce zero emission electricity and green hydrogen, too.

The post US Air Force Pursues Green Hydrogen Via Geothermal Energy appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Toyota is already complaining about the state of California and CARB as it seems an opportunity to shove its point of view down our throats.

The post Toyota Exec Says California ZEV Goal Is Impossible To Achieve appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Colombia’s EV market is booming. As I said a couple months ago, we’re not only seeing significant YoY (year over year) growth (as we are in several other markets, including Costa Rica, Uruguay, Mexico, and Brazil), but we’re also looking at “bursts” of demand that lead to significant MoM (month ... [continued]

The post Colombia EV Sales Report: 1000 Sales Surpassed in October, Country Reaches 6.4% EV Market Share! appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Weird things are happening in the Australian auto market at the moment. In recent weeks, we have seen the launch of several new electric vehicles: the BYD Shark EREV ute (see here), the fully electric Jeep Avenger, and the Deepal SO7 SUV made by Changan from China. Not only that, ... [continued]

The post Something Weird in the Neighbourhood — Australian & New Zealand EV Market October Update appeared first on CleanTechnica.

After some recent contributions from Larry Evans and big news coming from BYD itself, I started digging into BYD’s monthly production and sales reports. The big business is the passenger vehicle business. However, BYD also reports production and sales of its buses (electric) and production and sales of its other ... [continued]

The post BYD Commercial Vehicle Sales Up 49% appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Most states currently do not provide constituent service blogs for their legislators. One reason is the fear that blogs can be misused. Legislative staff make every effort to offer non-partisan services and information and fear that blogs could be used as state sponsored tools for campaigning.

Most U.S. Representatives and Senators have both official governmental websites and private sites for operating campaigns. The question is, could state governments promote a similar dual model of separate sites/weblogs for constituent services and campaigning?

Elected officials and those running for office have seen how RSS news syndiction can help them spread their message. Howard Dean rose out of obscurity last year using a combination of weblogging and local web meetups to become his party's front runner in the presidential race. Dean and others learned that this technology can even the playing field and allow someone to rapidly organize a grass roots campaign. RSS syndication can help create a dynamic website and produce both email and online newsletters in the same process. With legislative staffs slow to offer the service, there is an inviting market niche for the private sector.

Recognizing this golden opportunity, LaVarr Web, Publisher of UtahPolicy.com today issued an "Invitation to Blog" to elected officials and party leaders wishing to communicate directly to citizens. Mr. Webb writes:

We would like to invite you to become a blogger. UtahPolicy.com is creating the Utah Policymaker Blog and we hope you will be part of it. It is an opportunity for you, as a Utah policymaker, to publish your opinions, thoughts and ideas to a wide audience of opinion leaders. It is an opportunity to participate in an exciting new high-tech communications medium that is becoming a powerful tool in politics, business and in every walk of life.

It's fun and exciting to be a blogger. You are probably aware of how bloggers are credited for toppling the powerful Dan Rather and CBS News. The phenomenon of blogging is growing rapidly and as a leader in Utah you ought to become familiar with this new method of communicating and use it to your advantage. In effect, Utah policymakers will have their own electronic publication in which to communicate with the public.

Some reasons UtahPolicy.com offers as to why elected officials ought to consider blogging include:

• You can communicate directly to citizens and other policymakers and opinion leaders without having your comments and opinions filtered by the news media.


• You can talk back to the news media. You can comment on news stories published by newspapers, and magazines and aired by television and radio. You can even link to the original articles.


• You can promote your pet projects, priorities, legislation, causes, and issues.


• You can respond to others' comments in the blog, creating a dialog.


• You can learn how to use an entirely new, and very powerful, communications channel. At some point you might want to create your own personal blog, and this will give you experience.


• You will be joining millions of other bloggers, some of whom have developed large followings.


• The Utah Policymaker Blog will become a very popular blog if enough policymakers participate. News reporters will read it for story ideas. It will help set the political agenda of the state. It will become a valuable forum for the exchange of opinions and ideas on public policy issues in Utah.

Utah policymakers interested in the offer should send an e-mail expressing their interest to daily@utahpolicy.com. While the general public will be able to read the blogs, only invited policymakers (i.e. elected and appointed officials and a few key opinion leaders) will be able to publish to it.

This is an example of the union of business and government to promote democracy and inform the citizenry using RSS news syndication. We wish them well in their efforts!

Government is already rife with chiefs, why not one more? HighBeam Research, Inc. has set the pace by announcing today the appointment of Christopher Locke as Chief Blogging Officer (CBO). Looks like the role of CBO is a pace setter who creates a buzz about the company products and enlists others to blog the cause. Ironically, the announcement came in the form of a (oh, so 20th century) press release.

HighBeam is looking for bloggers interested in exclusive use of its new "blog this document" tools and free access to the company's premium archives of over 3,000 print publications for adding depth and historical background to virtually any subject. HighBeam, under the direction of Chairman and CEO Patrick Spain, is the recent amalgamation two paid content sites (eLibrary and Encyclopedia.com) and a meta-search site, Researchville.com.

Locke says, "The HighBeam database of 33 million articles going back almost 25 years is the best resource I've found for adding historical depth of focus to the sort of stuff I write about. Any blogger who wants to get at the trends and issues underlying today's headlines will immediately see the same benefit I did. And their readers will too. I'm turned on at the prospect of making the HighBeam Research content and tools more accessible to the blogging world."

I don't think Highbeam will need to look too far for volunteers. Chris' own Chief Blogging Officer blog, offers a preview of how you can turn your own ordinary blog musings into a Blogipedia.

According to ClickZ News, HighBeam plans to begin offering its new blog content tool in late January or early February for $19.95 a month or $99 a year.

State CIO J. Clark Kelso wants to make government more accessible to the citizens of California. In an interview with Information Week's Eric Chabrow, (Nov 22, 2004), Kelso announced, "We need to start changing the inefficeinent way we provide services." The state spends between $2 billion and $4 billion annually on IT.

Kelso is the author of the "California State Information Technology Strategic Plan" (PDF), a 5-year plan presented this month to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Plan follows a more lengthy report issued in August by the California Performance Review Commission. The Commision was charged by Gov. Schwarzenegger with figuring out how to make state government work better and cheaper. Among the ideas in the panel's $32 billion cost-cutting recommendations: favoring open-source software over proprietary alternatives for new IT purchases.

The report, titled Government for the People for a Change, is a 4-volume study with recommendations including recommendations to "Explore Open Source Alternatives." "The state should more extensively consider use of open source software," it recommends, "which can in many cases provide the same functionality as closed source software at a much lower total cost of ownership."

The CIO's most recent plan to bring efficiency to California Information Technology promotes six strategic goals including three that could be facilitated by open source RSS syndication:

• Make Government services more accessible to citizens and State clients.


• Implement common business applications and systems to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness.


• Lower costs and improve the security, reliability and performance of the State's IT infrastructure.

Unfortunately, there is no mention of RSS news feeds or xml syndication anywhere in the plan.

California prides itself as the world's fifth largest economy, but in the world of providing syndicated news and services, it lags behind Rhode Island and Delaware. Social Commentator Jamais Cascio writing in WorldChanging wryly observes, "Some states that you'd think would be technologially on the ball (California, for example) have few if any feeds, while other locations are swimming in them."

The State of Virginia was recently recognized by the Center for Digital Government with a third place ranking in the Best of the Web and Digital Government Achievement Awards. The recognition came largely for Virginia's new syndication and alert services. In accepting the award Governor Mark Warner said, "Our real-time online live help customer service continues to set the pace for the nation, and the portal's desktop alerts via live RSS feeds ensure that Virginia.gov users always have access to the most current information." The VIPNet portal and its RSS feeds are managed by the Virginia Information Providers Network. There are currently at least 34 feeds. Virginia uses RSS feeds not only for alerts, but also as a monitoring service that keeps citizens informed of new resources and services added to the portal.

Are you one of those people who have a list of must-read books but never actually gotten around to reading them? And the list becomes longer and longer over time? Then here’s a clever solution for you book enthusiasts who feel they just don’t have enough time to finish a novel, let alone start one. …

2 FREE Tools to Read Your Way in Doses via eMail Read More »

The Debian project has announced its latest point release for Debian Linux 12, codenamed “bookworm,” marking the eighth update to this stable distribution. This 12.8 update primarily addresses security issues and fixes various critical bugs, enhancing the reliability and security of the system. Importantly, this release is not a new version but an update to existing packages within Debian 12. Users who routinely update via security.debian.org will notice only minimal changes, as most updates are rolled into this point release. There is no need to replace existing installation media for bookworm; a simple upgrade through an up-to-date Debian mirror suffices… [Continue Reading]

A new report finds that 75 percent of the 100 most visited websites in the US and Europe are not compliant with current privacy regulations. The study from privacy solution provider Privado.ai shows despite stricter privacy enforcement in Europe a surprising 74 percent of top websites do not honor opt-in consent as required by Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Although top websites in the US have a similar non-compliance rate of 76 percent for not honoring opt-out consent as required by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), Privado finds the median volume of compliance risks to be three times… [Continue Reading]

The National Association of Legislative Information Technology (NALIT) will be sharing "Web Tips, Tricks and Techniques" for building Legislative RSS feeds at their 2004 Professional Development Seminar in beautiful Burlington, Vermont, September 8-11, 2004. Panelists include key IT players from Virginia, Nevada, and Utah. Several states are now using RSS to provide users with notices of new Web content or to distribute newsletters. At least two states are now generating legislative feeds directly from databases. This article previews some of what they'll be showing from the states of Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island.

Building a social media presence is perhaps the most common advice given to brands that have just begun building their online presence, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Social media has become so ingrained in our culture that it touches every corner of our lives, both personal and professional. Even those who don’t consider themselves […]

The post Five Tips for Creating a Hot-Shot Social Media Strategy From Scratch appeared first on The Design Inspiration.

Are you looking for an online editor that offers free templates for commercial use? If so, you...

This EMF Radiation Blocking Hoodie from Bon Charge looks like it’s just the ticket for these warm winter nights. And when we say warm, you know we’re not just referring to the temperature, right? According to some very sensible people, over exposure to high levels of electromagnetic radiation can be a very not good thing. Now before we all head off and find a deep bunker somewhere, it’s not just the levels, but also the type of radiation that matters....

The post EMF Radiation Blocking Hoodie Keeps You Safe. Maybe. appeared first on The Red Ferret Journal.

A new system called Pomelo has been developed to estimate population densities during emergencies with unerring accuracy using artificial intelligence. The system has been designed to provide a fast and accurate mini census in times of emergency, such as natural disasters or war. Pomelo, created as a joint venture between the International Red Cross, Lausanne Polytechnic and Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, uses large sets of data from remote sensing systems, and uses a neural network to identify likely population...

The post Pomelo – New AI System Offers Benefits For Humanitarian Relief appeared first on The Red Ferret Journal.

After close to 2000 podcast episodes, Joe Saul-Sehy knows a thing or two about growing an audience.  In fact, his finance podcast, Stacking Benjamins, has amassed a massive following of 180k listeners, with shows averaging around 40k listens/episode. Joe’s no…

The post How Joe Saul-Sehy Grew His Financial Podcast to 180k Listeners appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

If you sell your own products or promote affiliate products on your website, then you know that links to those products are critical to your bottom line. What if I told you that with AI you can now detect which…

The post How to Detect Your Missing Product and Affiliate Links with AI appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

Vinny DelGiudice first dove into blogging to pass the time when he moved to Nevada by himself just out of grad school. Although that blog never really took off, he did learn a lot from the process. A few years…

The post How Vinny DelGiudice Grew His Italian-American Food Blog to +100k Page Views a Month appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

March Madness is a big deal, and not just for student-athletes. 

¿En qué momento la influencia se convierte en una falta de influencia?

Festival season kicked off as revelers from around the globe flocked to the small town of Indio, California for The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2023.

The Met Gala once again took over NYC - and our social feeds. This year’s theme, “Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty”, paid homage to one of fashion’s greatest designers on one of fashion’s biggest nights.