The AndPlus Software Development Blog

Sup y'all Happy New Year! This is part 2 of a series of reflective posts. Missed the first part? No worries click here.

I've rounded out 2017 by finishing my first course with MIT's Executive Education program studying the Business Implications of Artificial Intelligence. I'm happy to continue my musings on what I've learned and the discussions that took place with my classmates. This 2nd module focused on Natural Language Processing. What is that? What the heck does it do and why does it matter?? Well let's talk... 

In the last couple of years, if you were asked to list the top augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) development companies, the list would have included names such as Google and Oculus, but probably not Apple. But with the recent release of ARKit in iOS 11, Apple is shrewdly making a bid to establish itself as a player in the AR space.

Many years ago, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, in his seminal I, Robot, proposed the Three Laws of Robotics:

Even before there were digital images and image editing software, graphic artists had an occasional need to extract an arbitrary shape (such as the outline of a human subject) from an image so that it could be placed in other images. In the days of chemical photography, this involved complex darkroom techniques or even painstakingly cutting things out of paper prints with scissors. Imagine fitting that into your schedule these days!

As a society, we have grown accustomed to straight-line trajectories for technology: from concept to practical application, relentless performance improvement, and finally to maturity. The internal-combustion engine, personal computer, and smartphone have all followed this path, and have consistently lived up to whatever hype has been generated around them. It’s so common that we forget that not every technology follows this trajectory.

In this new occasional feature in our blog, AndPlus Innovation Lead Abdul Dremali shares his thoughts on what he’s learning in the Executive Education courses he is taking at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.