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YouTube launches ‘Study Hall’ which will allow earning college credits online

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YouTube, Arizona State University, and Crash Course, the well-known YouTube channel of writers and brothers Hank and John Green, have announced an astonishing expansion of their accessible education programme Study Hall. 

According to YouTube’s announcement, the partnership is “a new approach that demystifies the college process while creating an affordable and accessible onramp to earning college credit,” outlining the chance for online learners to pursue transferable course credits with fewer restrictions than traditional college programmes.

In addition to being able to watch all Study Hall videos for free on YouTube, users can register for related courses developed by Crash Course and academics at Arizona State University in order to receive credits and compile a transcript. 

Beginning on March 7, 2023, the current lineup of four “College Foundations” courses will address postsecondary fundamentals including English composition, college math, American history, and interpersonal communication. Each course costs $25 to enrol in, plus an additional $400 registration fee to acquire credits. Prior to March 7, 2023, each course will cost $350 to enrol in.

When Study Hall is fully operational, the number of credits available will equal the whole first year of study at most institutions and the cost is “less than one-third of the typical course cost at a public four-year university,” according to YouTube.

Enrollment does not require a minimum GPA or even an application, and students are allowed to retake classes as many times as they need to. Any eligible student who wants to use their Study Hall experience toward a degree can apply for admission to Arizona State University through the Earned Admissions program or transfer to any school in the US that accepts ASU credits.

According to Katie Kurtz, head of learning at YouTube, the company wants to serve as a middleman between the general public and higher education.

“At YouTube, we want to empower learners to go further by breaking down barriers to high-impact learning experiences. Postsecondary education is still one of the best drivers of economic and social mobility, yet the path to higher education has too many barriers,” she explained.

“We want to help address this urgent challenge by tapping into our endlessly creative and passionate learning creator community. With 10 years of experience delivering compelling and engaging educational content, we knew Crash Course, paired with ASU’s world class faculty would be a dynamic partnership to address this challenge.”

The Green brothers, well-known for being early, influential creators on both YouTube and Tumblr, launched the Crash Course channel in 2012. The channel has produced a decade’s worth of educational material on a variety of topics linked to early college and Advanced Placement high school courses, including psychology, world history, and even intellectual property law. The Green brothers’ quick and easy educational videos have an even wider audience now that they are both regulars on the TikTok For You Page.

Hank Green discussed his most recent educational endeavour, writing, in a tweet: “Around 43 million Americans are saddled with 1.75 trillion dollars in student debt. This may sound bad, but it’s worse than it seems: 40% of those 43 million people do not have degrees and will not pursue them.”

The biggest obstacles to getting degrees in the hands of students, according to Green and his production firm, Complexly, included fees, the complexity of college admissions systems, and the difficulty of many college courses for people who didn’t acquire a thorough high school education. “With some funding and a lot of hard work, we started to build ‘Study Hall’ with the goal that it helps lower these barriers.”

Along with the new course options, Study Hall also offers educational material on comprehending and navigating the higher education landscape, including a Crash Course series on “How To College” and quick primers to popular ideas and subject areas, hosted by Green and other academics.

By January 2025, the programme is expected to have 12 courses accessible. On the Study Hall website, prospective students can sign up.

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WhatsApp rolls out new ‘text editor’ experience

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Meta-owned WhatsApp has announced back-to-back new features for its users and recently, the messaging app is rolling out a new text editor experience, WaBetaInfo reported. 

According to the app-tracking website, the new feature has been released to some of the beta testers as of yet and will be rolled out to more users in a future update. 

Through the revamped text editor, users will be able to edit images, videos, and GIFs with the help of new tools and fonts. The new feature is also being developed for the iOS version of the app. 

— WaBetaInfo
— WaBetaInfo 

The screenshot shows that users should open the text editor to check this feature is available in their accounts. If the new update is available, users will be able to use several features. 

Even though it was possible to change the font of a text, through this feature users will quickly be able to switch between different fonts by tapping one of the font options shown above the keyboard. 

Through this, users have more control over how to format text within images, videos, and GIFs as they will be able to align the text to the left, centre, or right. 

“Users can change the text background colour, which makes it easier for users to differentiate important text from the rest,” said WaBetaInfo

Some of the new fonts that have been released to beta testers include Calistoga, Courier Prime, Damion, Exo 2, and Morning Breeze. 

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Pakistan, China to deepen cooperation in meteorological science

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In a major development, time-tested friends Pakistan and China have agreed to strengthen cooperation in meteorological science and technology.

The development came during a meeting of meteorological officers and experts from China and Pakistan held in Beijing last week.

Both sides reviewed the cooperation in the field of meteorological science and technology, and consulted on topics like early warning supporting system, operational capacity building, and training, China Economic Net (CEN) reported on Thursday.

During the meeting, China Meteorological Administration (CMA) Deputy Administrator Zhang Zuqiang said that Beijing looks forward to promoting the construction of cloud-based early warning supporting system with Pakistan.

“Pakistan will continue to support CMA in international meteorological governance,” said Mahr Sahibzad Khan, Director General of Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) and permanent representative of Pakistan with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). “Pakistan is grateful for CMA’s technical support when Pakistan was hit by severe floods last year.”

Mahr Sahibzad Khan and the Pakistani delegation also visited relevant agencies under CMA to learn about the progress of the cloud-based early warning support system in Pakistan and discussed customized plans for Pakistan. “PMD and CMA will strengthen cooperation in monitoring, forecasting, hydrology and communication, and research & training,” he said.

China and Pakistan are important members of WMO Regional Association II. Bilateral cooperation between the two countries is of vital significance for meteorological development in Asia.

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Humanity at risk: Musk, others ring alarm bells over hasty ‘giant AI experiments’

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Hundreds of celebrated artificial intelligence (AI) researchers including Tesla owner Elon Musk have undersigned an open letter recommending AI labs to revisit gigantic AI systems, ringing alarm bells over the “profound risks” these bots pose to society and humanity.

According to the letter, published by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, AI labs are currently locked in an “out-of-control race” to develop and deploy machine learning systems “that no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict, or reliably control.”

“AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity,” said the open letter.

“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.

AI engineers around the world want to make sure that these powerful AI systems should be allowed to take logical time for the researchers to make sure they were safe.

Among the signatories of the letter are author Yuval Noah Harari, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, politician Andrew Yang, and several well-known AI researchers and CEOs, including Stuart Russell, Yoshua Bengio, Gary Marcus, and Emad Mostaque. 

The letter was mainly prompted by the release of GPT-4 from the San Francisco firm OpenAI.

The company says its latest model is much more powerful than the previous version, which was used to power ChatGPT, a bot capable of generating tracts of text from the briefest of prompts.

“Therefore, we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4,” says the letter. “This pause should be public and verifiable, and include all key actors. If such a pause cannot be enacted quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium.”

Musk was an initial investor in OpenAI, spent years on its board, and his car firm Tesla develops AI systems to help power its self-driving technology, among other applications.

The letter, hosted by the Musk-funded Future of Life Institute, was signed by prominent critics as well as competitors of OpenAI like Stability AI chief Emad Mostaque.

The letter quoted from a blog written by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, who suggested that “at some point, it may be important to get independent review before starting to train future systems”.

“We agree. That point is now,” the authors of the open letter wrote.

“Therefore, we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”

They called for governments to step in and impose a moratorium if companies failed to agree.

The six months should be used to develop safety protocols, AI governance systems, and refocus research on ensuring AI systems are more accurate, safe, “trustworthy and loyal”.

The letter did not detail the dangers revealed by GPT-4.

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