#59 - Updates galore!

Lots of activity this past week or two from all the AI's - features dropping so thick and fast it's easy to miss them and then overlook possibilities that might help you in your own uses of AI. So, enjoy the sm?rg?sbord of possibilities below!

Claude can now process images in PDFs

Claude has an option in the settings called Feature Preview where they offer new options before they become fully integrated with the main tool. One released recently is Visual PDFs - letting Claude analyse charts and images in PDFs of up to 100 pages in length. Great for academic papers!

Google Learn About

Google have had a slow start with a few mis-steps in the AI space (Remember Bard?). But they're too big to discount and they seem to be gathering momentum - this new tool is magic (currently only available to US users but if you use a VPN and connect to a US server it'll work from outside the US).

It's a bit like Perplexity Pages - it creates interactive articles with graphics, quiz questions and lets you dive deeper and deeper into topics - very cool...

Gemini now has memory...

Google's Gemini chatbot now has a memory feature like ChatGPT's, so it can now remember personal preferences and context, making conversations more relevant and tailored. Subscribers to Google's Google One AI Premium plan can access this feature.

Gemini can now remember details about your life, work, and personal preferences. This feature adds context to conversations, similar to ChatGPT's memory.

So if you tell Gemini you like vegetarian food, it will tailor its restaurant recommendations accordingly. This makes interactions more personalised and useful.

The memory feature is currently limited to the web client and supports only English-language prompts.

ChatGPT superpowers

1) The advanced voice option for talking to ChatGPT is rolling out this week to the web client - it's already in the installable app. I would encourage you yo try it - it's light years ahead of the old version - very little lag, much more expressive voices - almost like having a conversation with a real person...

2) There's now a (beta) version of ChatGPT that anyone can use that has a superpower - creating highly detailed prompts that you can then use in this or any other chatbot tool.

Check out the video here, and access the prompt creator tool at https://platform.openai.com/playground/chat?models=gpt-4o - you have to sign in or create a free account).

Self-Updating Courses?

Here's something I'd never even considered - but now the idea's been planted, there's clearly no reason why this shouldn't become a reality... The computers really are coming for us...

Brilliant conversion trick here...

Great tip here for pasting ChatGPT tables into Google Docs and preserving the formatting.

I checked to see if Word has an option to paste as markdown, but it doesn't :((

Music creation...

New kid on the block Mureka is giving Suno some competition. Check it out - lots of capabilities here - the YouTube video below gives you some great ideas to get the most out of it.

Suno

Suno isn't being left behind though - their latest version introduced Personas, so when you get a song you really like you can create a Persona based on that song and then have new songs that match the same style and vibe.

Claude identifying safety issues on building sites

New episodes from ILOTA Things podcast

The ADCET ILOTA Things podcast that I co-host with Elizabeth Hitches & Darren Britten was joined for a special 2-parter by the UDL guru Dr. Thomas J. Tobin - catch these episodes here:

OK, enough for today, see you next time!

EPALE - The European Adult Learning Network

Do you know about EPALE - the European Adult Learning Network? I'm one of the Irish Ambassadors for EPALE, and you can join over 100,000 educators across Europe in a free online community - it's a great way to get different points of view, participate in training from across the continent and stay up to date on educational thought. Create your free account at https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/user/login

Affiliate Links (stuff I use and recommend)

Perplexity AI - Best search and my go-to AI now... Uses the latest top AI models from ChatGPT, Claude et al, innovates constantly - give it a try!

https://perplexity.ai/pro?referral_code=VYD33BFN

Unriddle AI is a research site that lets you upload docs and then interrogate them.

https://www.unriddle.ai//?ref=JH

Check out Humata - it's another AI that let's you work on your own documents and interrogate them. https://www.humata.ai/?via=joe-houghton

My tool of choice for serious AI image creation is Leonardo. The user interface is easy and very powerful, enabling you to create just what you want in any style really quickly. https://app.leonardo.ai/?via=joe

Notion

This is my tool of choice now for collecting all the bits'n'pieces of information I squirrel away for talk, articles and presentations. I can then generate webpages in a snap and share them, and they update in real-time as I add new info to them! There's so much you can do in Notion - well worth a look:

Joe Houghton is an Assistant Professor at UCD Smurfit Graduate School of Business where he directs the MSc programmes in Project Management. After a career in IT in multinationals, Joe switched into a portfolio career of University teaching, management coaching and training.

He has authored 7 books to date including "Innovative teaching with AI: Creative approaches to enhancing learning in education", "Project Management made easy...: the ECCSR approach" & "Applying Artificial Intelligence to Close the Accessibility Gap: A practical handbook for educators & students!" His latest release "Study Smart with AI - 150 essential apps "is now available on Amazon! More on this in a future edition...

Contact Joe on email at [email protected] for any requests for training, seminars, workshops or keynote speaking.