New Ways to Learn

COVID-19, though, showed us that sometimes we might need to rely completely on teaching virtually, and in Chapter 9, Vision Seven – Real-Time Learning, we talk with educators and others who are using technology aggressively to make learning more virtual. It isn't only for kids, either. Soon, because of automation, we'll need to retrain millions of adults around the world, and schools and universities are responding with new curricula, new learning programs for Virtual and Augmented Reality, and new support systems to enable even truck drivers to change careers. Speaking of careers, already at companies like Caterpillar, it is using Augmented Reality glasses to train workers to fix their expensive tractors in real time. Many new VR-based training systems are being developed, from simulators to help police learn how to deal with terrorist situations to ones that show quarterbacks how to perform better, to training at Walmart that shows retail workers how to manage stores better. Verizon even trained its retail store workers on what to do if they are being robbed using VR-based training. What if, though, the system could do even more, we asked, and predict what we might do next and assist us with that?

How can computers predict our next move? Well, truth be told, we are somewhat predictable. We buy groceries at the same store every week, visit the same gas stations, go to the same churches, schools, offices, movie theaters, laundries, and head home at pretty much the same time every evening.

Watching our friends, we can usually predict what they will order from menus or how they will complain when we try to get them off pattern. Ever try to take someone who prefers steak and potatoes to a sushi restaurant ? Can't we predict that they will have the same preferences tomorrow night? Yes, and so can computer algorithms, but Spatial Computing systems could soon know a lot more about us than even our best friends do, since they could watch every interaction, every product touched, every music song picked, and every movie watched. In Chapter 10, The Always Predicted World, we show how that data will be used in each of our seven disruptable industries to serve users in radically new ways.