HAMBURG, GERMANY - DECEMBER 28: Participant hold their laptops in front of an illuminated wall at ... [+] the annual Chaos Computer Club (CCC) computer hackers' congress, called 29C3, on December 28, 2012 in Hamburg, Germany. The 29th Chaos Communication Congress (29C3) attracts hundreds of participants worldwide annually to engage in workshops and lectures discussing the role of technology in society and its future. (Photo by Patrick Lux/Getty Images)Getty ImagesA few weeks ago brought an announcement from Google that over 25% of all new code created within the company is generated by AI. This is a notable statement from a company that creates some of the most advanced software on the planet - suggesting that AI has much to add to streamlining and accelerating code written by career professionals. But what does this mean for the student in school today (whether it is K-12 or university)? What will the landscape look like when they look for a job? Should they learn to code? If not, then what should they learn? What does it mean for Computer Science education in the age of AI?Differentiating Code And SoftwareI believe the key lies in the difference between code and software. Till now, the distinction between these was not always explicit, largely because it did not need to be. However, with the current developments of AI, this distinction is becoming more critical. So what is the difference?Code is the artifact of a computer program. Residing in one or more files, with some number of lines per file, the code is the set of instructions that the program executes.Software, usually made up of code, is the end product that is used for some purpose.Why is the distinction important? Dont they sound basically the same? The distinction is the difference between the steps needed to execute some function and all the work that goes into making the set of steps a usable product.Common software packages such as word processing, mobile applications, or databases, contain thousands to millions of lines of code, often written by hundreds of programmers. Each unit is code. The product we use is the software that gets created when all that code is integrated, often with older code or with other services, tested, packaged, and delivered to us in some form. The process that creates such software products is called software engineering. Software engineering contains many practices and skills beyond code writing. For example, integrations, release management, updates, system level tests, etc.are all part of software engineering.Why Does This Matter For Computer Science Education?K-12 education in computer science almost always focuses on coding (that is the syntax, language structure and other details that are required to create correct computer programs). This type of knowledge is reinforced in standardized tests (such as AP Computer Science A) which assesses a students rigorous understanding of these details. In universities, and in some high schools, one can find courses on applied topics of how coding is used to create systems - courses like bioinformatics (applying software and algorithms to understand biological systems), compilers (the structure of complex programs whose task is to process other programs to be ready for hardware) and so on.MORE FROMFORBES VETTEDAs AI tools become proficient in the details of code generation (creating often syntax-perfect and logically acceptable code to implement a well defined task), the first set of courses becomes less critical than the second (in my opinion). Students need to be able to read, update, modify, and extend code, but it may no longer be so important that they can write it from scratch with perfect correctness.Why Do They Even Need To Read Code?Experts who have used AI coding have commented that their development cycle is now about prompting and editing, with 80% of the code generated by AI. This form of prompt driven programming leverages a combination of human skill to read, understand and improve code, and the AI to generate syntax correct code for specific tasks. Being productive in this style of software development requires human proficiency in reading and understanding code, as well as sufficient knowledge to assess and request corrections (or make them directly if necessary).How Can You Learn To Read Code If You Cannot Write It?This is in my view a key element and challenge of this new process. I have personally found the prompt-driven programming model to be very effective. That said, I learned to code by writing code from scratch in many languages. It is hard to assess how well I would be able to read code today if I had not been forced to write code with no assistance. There are no simple answers here. Some amount of code writing is required to develop the necessary software development skills and work effectively with AI code generators. However, the previous model of heavy focus on code creation skills is no longer a good fit for the current landscape. While the calculator analogy to AI is both liked and derided depending on who you ask, there may be a parallel here. We now teach students how to solve higher level problems using calculators, but also have exam sections where calculators are not allowed. A similar kind of balance may need to be struck here.What Does This Mean For Computer Science Education And AI Education?At a base level, the trends suggest that students should be learning a collaborative model of software development where a human and an AI assistant work together to generate code. However, there is a larger issue of whether computer science skills as we define them today are even suitable for the future workforce. Evidence is growing of fresh tech graduates struggling to find entry level jobs. A larger shift within computer science and computer science education may be to move from a heavy focus on coding to skills that are required in corporate software engineering, such as quality assurance mechanisms, continuous integration, collaborative work on large codebases, and so on. In any case, indications are that AI could (and should) drive fundamental changes in computer science education as we seek to empower the next generation of the human workforce.

Journalist and broadcast Adam Boulton speaking to Zoom Rockman, the director of the animated short ... [+] film Survivor, and its real life protagonist, Ivor Perl at the Curzon Bloomsbury.BHEA few months back, the BFI presented a series of events to celebrate hand-drawn animation, with an exhibition on the works of animation studio Laika, director talks from the likes of Henry Selick and Guillermo del Toro, and showings of films such as Coraline and Pinocchio.As film critic Mark Kermode recently commented, this BFI series demonstrated that animation is enjoying something of a golden age and this thought resonated with me after seeing a short-film earlier this week on the most difficult of subjects.Survivor uses simple hand-drawn puppet animation techniques to depict the true story of 92-year-old Holocaust survivor Ivor Perl. It tells the story of how in 1944, a 12-year-old Perl and his family were taken by the Nazis from their home village in Hungary to forced labor camps and a ghetto. Eventually, brought to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, the film depicts the horrors of what Ivor and his brother experienced in the camp and how, unlike most, they were able to survive and come to England.Directed by Zoom Rockman, an award-winning cartoonist and puppeteer, the almost entirely handmade film was completed in less than a year and features music by composer Eran Baron Cohen.Even if less sophisticated than major animated feature films, Survivor emphasizes how effective animation is as a story-telling medium for even the most difficult of subjects.Following the screening, the journalist and broadcaster Adam Boulton led a Q&A with Rockman and 92-year-old Ivor Perl. Rockman told Boulton that he hand-drew all the characters, which were then animated as puppets and then captured in-camera as live action. (Disclaimer: this writers son worked as a camera assistant on the film for one day).MORE FROMFORBES VETTEDRockman explained that as well as Perls book, he researched the events to ensure their accuracy by cross-referencing with descriptions by other sources such as Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi. Rockman also made research trips to the camp at Auschwitz to ensure that the depictions of the buildings represented in the film were spatially accurate.Watching the child-like animation in Survivor made me recall the sweet, simple style of the TV show Ivor the Engine that I watched as a child: a comparison that made the terrible setting of Survivor even more brutal.However, that very same simplicity demonstrated how animation can be so effective in presenting terrible events in a way that makes it resonate even more powerfully than even live action, and that can only inspire artists to do similar work and ensure that the medium continues to thrive.

Retro reconnaissance: It's a piece of news that would have been unthinkable a decade ago, but it's happening: Vinyl record sales are poised to eclipse CDs in the near future. And in an even more surprising twist, the music industry as a whole has leapfrogged the movie business to become the bigger breadwinner. These revelations come courtesy of a new report on Pivotal Economics authored by Will Page, Spotify's former chief economist who has been tracking the value of the music business for the past ten years.Page's findings paint a vivid picture of vinyl's renaissance. His data indicates that in the US alone, vinyl sales are projected to bring in a staggering $1 billion for record labels in 2024. This means that vinyl revenues will soon surpass those of CDs, a feat that will be replicated globally.Vinyl's unit sales already exceed those of CDs. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, people bought 43 million vinyl records in 2023, which is 6 million more than the number of CDs sold in the same year. This is actually the second time this has happened since 1987.So far, vinyl sales have been held back due to supply constraints. That's changing quickly, though, with the report attributing it to the entry of major European players like Record Industry (Netherlands), GZ (Czech Republic), and Pressing Business (Poland) into the vinyl manufacturing arena. Their increased production capacity and streamlined international shipping processes are eliminating bottlenecks.However, vinyl's comeback is just a tiny part of the music industry's wider resurgence. Page's analysis also reveals that the value of music copyrights and performing rights the royalties generated from record sales, streaming, radio plays, and live performances has nearly doubled from $25 billion in 2014 to an impressive $45.5 billion today.In contrast, the movie industry, once the undisputed king of entertainment, has seen its fortunes dwindle, with global box office revenues falling from their 2019 peak of $41.9 billion to $33.2 billion. // Related StoriesThe report also highlights that streaming, unsurprisingly, has eclipsed radio and other broadcasting platforms as the primary revenue driver. This is a reversal from "a decade ago" when traditional radio accounted for over 50% of music income compared to streaming's meager 5% share.Meanwhile, live music performances have overtaken public performance licensing (the fees paid by commercial establishments to play music) as a top earner.Image credit: Pivotal Economics

Editor's take: In our ongoing exploration of the business of selling compute systems, we found that there is a giant blind spot in how the sales process actually works. Sales support engineers, sometimes also called Field Application Engineers, can be an incredibly valuable resource for any company selling technical products. Unfortunately, many companies fail to fully appreciate their importance. Picture this: A chip vendor has a shiny AI accelerator, but how do they actually get that into the hands of their shiny hyperscaler customer? A key part of that process is the Sales Engineer. These people go by many titles Field Solutions Engineer or Sales Support Engineer, but we have always known them as Field Application Engineers (FAE).These are engineers deeply immersed in the intricacies and configurations of the chips their company sells. They do not design the chip but help customers make the most of those chips.Editor's Note:Guest author Jonathan Goldberg is the founder of D2D Advisory, a multi-functional consulting firm. Jonathan has developed growth strategies and alliances for companies in the mobile, networking, gaming, and software industries.Getting a new chip to work is always a challenge for a customer. Spend some time building a PC, and the problem becomes obvious very quickly. Now subtract a common firmware system and 1,000 how-to YouTube videos to walk through every bug, and multiply the complexity by a few orders of magnitude.The role of Field Application Engineers is to solve those problems to provide software tools, configurations, and bug fixes that get systems up and running. Longer-term, they help customers design methods for scaling those chips into complete systems and then racks and rows of compute. This is an invaluable resource to customers and can make the difference between a busted demo and a committed purchase order.Today, every hyperscaler hardware team is bombarded by literally dozens of AI chip solutions. Everyone on the team has a friend, cousin, or former roommate pitching them on some new chip. As such, these teams are loathe to let another salesperson in the door. They do not need any more PowerPoint presentations showing all the ways some chip is 30% more power efficient or 10x better on some random benchmark.But a knowledgeable FAE who can solve actual problems is always welcome. The biggest value the FAE can bring a chip company is the fact they will always be welcome for customer visits. // Related StoriesTo say this value is not always appreciated is a major understatement. Few outsiders are even aware of the role. More problematic is that most chip companies do not fully value FAEs or really understand their role.A big part of the problem is that FAEs do not fit neatly into company org charts. There is considerable conflict within organizations. Every engineering team is chronically short-staffed, so it is painful to see talented engineers "wasted" on sales.In fairness, organizing an effective sales support team is a complicated balance. For an FAE to be effective, they need to understand the inner workings of the chip almost as well as the engineers who design the chip. The only way to achieve that is for the design engineers to spend time educating the FAEs (or at least closely document their work for later reference). That, of course, takes time away from them actually designing the chip.There is no easy way around this trade-off, and management teams just need to make the strategic calculation around FAEs' value. On the other hand, FAEs need to be motivated to direct their efforts in the right direction. Often FAEs end up getting pulled in every direction at once. Here, at least, there is a solution FAEs need to participate in sales quotas and share in commissions. For what it's worth, this is often a great career move for FAEs, positioning them to move into sales, into engineering, or often a move to the customer.We have recently been doing a lot of work around this area and on this role. While few companies have perfected it, the good news is that there is significant flexibility in how it can be approached. There may not be a single perfect way to structure this role, but companies have ample opportunity to develop a model that works best for their specific needs.

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" Table of ContentsTable of ContentsWhy you should buy the Hisense U8N SeriesBlack Friday may be over but the sales are still flying every which way! Weve been seeing a lot of best Amazon deals on everything from soundbars and Bluetooth speakers to 4K TVs, and theyre still live. As a matter of fact, one of our favorite offers of the day comes to us from Hisense. When you purchase the 55-inch Hisense U8N Series 4K TV on Amazon, youll only end up paying $650. At full price, this model sells for $1,099. We tested this TV earlier in the year, and our editor at large, Caleb Denison, proclaimed the following: The Hisense U8N is one of the best TVs of the year especially if you dont want to pay OLED prices.Why you should buy the Hisense U8N SeriesHisense has garnered quite a reputation in the world of TVs over the last few years. Praised for a budget-friendly lineup that looks and sounds like QLED and OLED sets. By the way, those cost double (or triple) the price. The Hisense U8N Series is one of the brands 2024 premium TVs. It utilizes mini-LED lighting combined with quantum dots to deliver breathtaking picture quality.We measured incredible peak brightness levels and were impressed at the TVs wide color gamut and HDR performance. Of course, no modern 4K TV is complete without a boatload of gaming optimizations. In the case of the U8N Series, Hisenses Game Mode automatically kicks in whenever a console is detected, ensuring youll get as little input lag as possible when indulging in your next round of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.RelatedWere not sure how long this awesome discount is going to be around, but theres a good chance itll be gone once Black Friday 2024 is no more. So, today could be the only day for you to save. Take over $400 off the Hisense 55-inch U8N Series 4K TV when you purchase on Amazon, and be sure to check out our roundup of the best Black Friday 55-inch TV deals before you head out. We also have a full list of QLED TV deals to peruse.Editors Recommendations

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" This years Black Friday deals may technically be over, but a few of the discounts are sticking around. If you want to buy something interesting during the shopping event, we highly recommend going for the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer. These smart glasses are currently on sale from Meta at 20% off, lowering their price from $299 to $239. Youre going to have to act fast if youre thinking of taking advantage of this offer though, as the $76 discount may disappear at any moment.From afar, the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer look like the popular Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses, but upon closer look, youll see that theyre equipped with cameras on either side. These 12MP ultra-wide cameras are capable of capturing photos and videos, and with the smart glasses built-in microphones, hands-free operation is possible with the help of Metas voice assistant. You can also livestream using the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer, with the video shared to Facebook or Instagram.The Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer provides access to Meta AI, so you can get quick answers to any questions you may have while youre on the go, and it also enables voice commands for various functions. You can also use the smart glasses to make hands-free calls through Messenger and WhatsApp, while the Meta View app lets you import, auto-fix, and share the photos and videos that you took with them. The Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer comes with a sleek charging case the smart glasses can last up to four hours on a single charge, and up to 36 hours if you include the juice from the charging case.RelatedIf you think smart glasses are among the best gifts to buy on Black Friday for a loved one or even for yourself then you wouldnt want to miss this opportunity to get the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer at 20% off. Theyre available from Meta for only $239 instead of $299, and with the $60 discount, we think a lot of shoppers will be interested in this bargain. That means you need to be quick with your purchase if you want to buy the Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer smart glasses for a more affordable price than usual, as Black Friday is behind us. That means the deal could end at any time.Editors Recommendations

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