en:ecrit:articles-en [2025/07/22 07:58] (current) – [Bald eagle's new status as the official US bird brings pride and hope to many Native Americans] natasha
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===== Why Choosing Something To Watch Feels So Difficult =====
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===== Rainbow armbands are dividing opinion at Euro 2025 =====
Too much of a good thing? Streaming service subscribers report that content overload and hidden fees are leading to frustration and subscription fatigue.
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Some captains are wearing them, some are not.
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In fact, the new survey of 2,000 American streaming service subscribers revealed that the average person spends 110 hours per year scrolling through streaming services, struggling to find something worth watching — a stark reminder of the "too much content, too little time" dilemma.
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Rainbow armbands at the Women's European Championship are proving more divisive than perhaps intended for a symbol promoting tolerance and inclusion.
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Commissioned by UserTesting and conducted by Talker Research, the study revealed one in five believe it's harder to find something to watch today than it was 10 years ago. According to them, the underlying cause comes from being overwhelmed by too much content.
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UEFA is giving team captains the option of wearing armbands with the bright colors of the rainbow flag or plain monocolored versions with the word "respect" when they play.
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Many struggled with having larger content libraries (41%) and feeling like there's too much original content being produced (26%).
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"Standard yellow and blue armbands are provided to all teams and rainbow armbands are available upon request," UEFA told The Associated Press.
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**Watch Recommendations: A Double-Edged Sword**
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Both versions have been worn so far at the tournament in Switzerland, with the captains' choices facing scrutiny for the meaning behind their decisions.
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And although 75% appreciate streaming service algorithms serving them accurate recommendations, 51% admitted the quantity of recommended content is also overwhelming, explaining they want to watch everything recommended to them.
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**What it means**
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Nearly half (48%) do not have traditional cable anymore. And those that choose streaming platforms do so because they like the variety (43%), the shows they want to watch are not on cable (34%), and they find streaming more convenient for on-the-go viewing (29%).
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The rainbow armband is intended to show solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, while it also stands for diversity.
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However, people are generally dissatisfied with the current streaming services available. In fact, 51% would rather have more streaming service options — even if those options included ads.
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"UEFA is committed to making football a safe and welcoming environment for everybody, independent of who we love, our gender identification or gender expression," the governing body said before the women's Euro 2022, where it also gave team captains the option of wearing rainbow armbands.
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When asked what their "dream" streaming platform would look like, top features included premium channels and networks for no added cost (40%) and an easy-to-navigate interface (39%).
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UEFA faced criticism the year before when it nixed Munich's plans to illuminate its stadium in rainbow colors for Germany's game against Hungary during the men's European Championship.
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Further, 52% said a platform's user interface plays a massive or significant role in their decision to subscribe.
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The Germans wanted to protest to a law passed by Hungarian lawmakers the week before that prohibited sharing with minors any content portraying homosexuality or sex reassignment.
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The average person said all of the above should be available for no more than $46 per month — although 11% admitted they'd willingly pay over $100 per month for the service.
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**Who's wearing the rainbow armbands?**
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"The streaming landscape has evolved from solving the problem of content access to creating a new challenge of content discovery," said Bobby Meixner, Senior Director of Industry Solutions at UserTesting. "Our research shows that despite advanced recommendation algorithms, viewers are spending nearly five full days each year just trying to decide what to watch–time that could be spent actually enjoying content."
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When Germany played France in their quarterfinal on Saturday, the German captain, Janina Minge, wore a rainbow armband while her French counterpart did not.
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The study also found a number of frustrations streaming subscribers have experienced.
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Switzerland captain Lia Wälti wore a rainbow armband in her team's quarterfinal against Spain the day before. Her opposite, Irene Paredes, did not.
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A substantial 79% expressed frustration with streaming services requiring additional subscription fees for select content.
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Norway captain Ada Hegerberg wore a rainbow armband, as did Wales captain Angharad James, Iceland's Glódís Viggósdóttir, England's Leah Williamson and others.
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When encountering those added fees, the majority (59%) are unlikely to pay and would instead look for content on a different platform they subscribe to (73%), give up and watch something else (77%) or consider canceling their subscription altogether (37%). Nearly one in five (19%) would sign up for a free trial of a platform to find a show they want to watch.
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England defender Lucy Bronze also wore a rainbow wristband during her team's quarterfinal win over Sweden, whose captain, Kosovare Asllani, also wore a rainbow armband.
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Respondents also showed disdain for platforms pulling shows without notice, which directly impacts loyalty.
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Elena Linari became the first to wear a rainbow armband for Italy when she captained the side against Spain, but Cristiana Girelli wore a plain one when she returned for the quarterfinal against Norway.
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Over the past year, 69% have opened a streaming service at least once to find the show they were looking for is no longer there.
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**France chose 'respect' armband**
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Forty-four percent said they would likely end their subscription to a streaming service and subscribe to a new one just to continue watching a favorite show, and 56% would cancel that subscription as soon as they finish watching said show.
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France captain Griedge Mbock Bathy suggested the rainbow armband's message is too restrictive because of its focus on LGBTQ+ rights.
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**Challenges in Cancellation**
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"Highlighting a single issue also potentially excludes the others," she said. "We cannot champion a single cause through our diverse group because there are so many causes to defend."
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But when canceling, nearly a quarter (23%) have experienced difficulties, claiming it's hard for them to find the cancellation option on the platform's website (39%) or that the cancellation process was overly-complicated with multiple steps (36%).
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Mbock said the France team is "so diverse that we cannot highlight just one cause. I think that the armband with the word 'respect' really represents what we want to convey as a message and that is the most important thing."
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"We're seeing a fundamental shift in how streaming platforms need to approach user experience," continued Bobby Meixner. "With 52% of subscribers saying interface design significantly impacts their subscription decisions, and 79% frustrated by hidden fees, streaming services must balance content abundance with accessibility and transparency to maintain subscriber loyalty."
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When told that nine of the 16 countries participating at Euro 2025 wear the rainbow armband, France coach Laurent Bonadei defended his team's choice not to.
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Survey Methodology:
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"Our one has 'respect' written on it. Respect as a word gathers a lot of causes such as racism. I think the 'respect' one is really a nice one," Bonadei said.
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Talker Research surveyed 2,000 American adults who subscribe to at least one streaming service; the survey was commissioned by UserTesting and administered and conducted online by Talker Research between Nov. 2 and Nov. 7, 2024.
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**Controversy in Qatar**
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===== AI is a game changer for students with disabilities. Schools are still learning to harness it =====
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Swedish player Nilla Fischer, the former Wolfsburg captain, was the first in Germany to wear the rainbow armband in the women's Bundesliga in 2017. She inspired others to follow suit, both in women's and men's sports.
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Germany was a strong campaigner for rainbow armbands at the men's World Cup in Qatar in 2022. That developed into a showdown with FIFA over the compromise "One Love" campaign, which featured a rainbow-type heart design that was supposed to be a symbol against discrimination. It was still largely seen as a snub to the host nation, where homosexual acts are illegal and its treatment of migrant workers was a decade-long controversy.
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FIFA banned the armbands and threatened to book team captains who wore them, leading the German players to cover their mouths for the team photo before their opening game, suggesting they were being silenced.
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Germany's interior minister at the time, Nancy Faeser, who was also responsible for sports, wore a "One Love" armband in the stands beside FIFA president Gianni Infantino.
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Qatari supporters later hit back by holding pictures of former Germany player Mesut Özil while covering their mouths during Germany's match against Spain. They were referring to the racist abuse in Germany of Özil, a German-born descendant of Turkish immigrants, who became a scapegoat for Germany's early World Cup exit in 2018.
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Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann called for an end to political statements in 2024, saying they were too distracting for his players. The German men's team ultimately failed to deliver on the field.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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===== The risks and rewards of tokenization as crypto heavyweights push for it =====
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By ALAN SUDERMAN AP Business Writer
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As cryptocurrencies become more intertwined with the traditional financial system, industry heavyweights are racing for a long-sought goal of turning real-world assets into digital tokens.
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"Tokenization is going to open the door to a massive trading revolution," said Vlad Tenev, the CEO of the trading platform Robinhood at a recent James Bond-themed tokenization launch event in the south of France.
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Advocates say tokenization is the next leap forward in crypto and can help break down walls that have advantaged the wealthy and make trading cheaper, more transparent and more accessible for everyday investors.
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But critics say tokenization threatens to undermine a century's worth of securities law and investor protections that have made the U.S. financial system the envy of the world. And Robinhood's push into tokenizing shares of private companies quickly faced pushback from one of the world's most popular startups.
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**What is tokenization?**
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The basic idea behind tokenization: Use blockchain technology that powers cryptocurrencies to create digital tokens as stand-ins for things like bonds, real estate or even fractional ownership of a piece of art and that can be traded like crypto by virtually anyone, anywhere at any time.
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The massive growth of stablecoins, which are a type of cryptocurrency typically bought and sold for $1, has helped fuel the appetite to tokenize other financial assets, crypto venture capitalist Katie Haun said on a recent podcast.
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She said tokenization will upend investing in ways similar to how streamers radically changed how people watch television.
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"You used to have to sit there on a Thursday night and watch Seinfeld," Haun said. "You tune in at a specific time, you don't get to choose your program, you couldn't be watching a program like Squid Games from Korea. Netflix was market-expanding. In the same way, I think the tokenization of real-world assets will be market expanding."
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By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH Associated Press
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**Growing momentum**
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For Makenzie Gilkison, spelling is such a struggle that a word like rhinoceros might come out as "rineanswsaurs" or sarcastic as "srkastik."
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Robinhood began offering tokenized stock trading of major U.S. public companies for its European customers earlier this month and gave away tokens to some customers meant to represent shares in OpenAI and SpaceX, two highly valued private companies.
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The 14-year-old from suburban Indianapolis can sound out words, but her dyslexia makes the process so draining that she often struggles with comprehension. "I just assumed I was stupid," she recalled of her early grade school years.
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Several other firms are diving in. Crypto exchange Kraken also allows customers outside the U.S. to trade tokenized stocks while Coinbase has petitioned regulators to open the market to its U.S. customers. Wall Street giants BlackRock and Franklin Templeton currently offer tokenized money market funds. McKinsey projects that tokenized assets could reach $2 trillion by 2030.
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But assistive technology powered by artificial intelligence has helped her keep up with classmates. Last year, Makenzie was named to the National Junior Honor Society. She credits a customized AI-powered chatbot, a word prediction program and other tools that can read for her.
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**Crypto's golden age**
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"I would have just probably given up if I didn't have them," she said.
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The push for tokenization comes at a heady time in crypto, an industry that's seen enormous growth from the creation and early development of bitcoin more than 15 years ago by libertarian-leaning computer enthusiasts to a growing acceptance in mainstream finance.
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Artificial intelligence holds the promise of helping countless other students with a range of visual, speech, language and hearing impairments to execute tasks that come easily to others. Schools everywhere have been wrestling with how and where to incorporate AI, but many are fast-tracking applications for students with disabilities.
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The world's most popular cryptocurrency is now regularly setting all-time highs — more than $123,000 on Monday — while other forms of crypto like stablecoins are exploding in use and the Trump administration has pledged to usher in what's been called the "golden age" for digital assets.
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Getting the latest technology into the hands of students with disabilities is a priority for the U.S. Education Department, which has told schools they must consider whether students need tools like text-to-speech and alternative communication devices. New rules from the Department of Justice also will require schools and other government entities to make apps and online content accessible to those with disabilities.
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Lee Reiners, a lecturing fellow at Duke University, said the biggest winners in the push for tokenization could be a small handful of exchanges like Robinhood that see their trading volumes and influence spike.
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There is concern about how to ensure students using it — including those with disabilities — are still learning.
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"Which is kind of ironic given the origins of crypto, which was to bypass intermediaries," Reiners said.
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Students can use artificial intelligence to summarize jumbled thoughts into an outline, summarize complicated passages, or even translate Shakespeare into common English. And computer-generated voices that can read passages for visually impaired and dyslexic students are becoming less robotic and more natural.
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**Trump bump**
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"I'm seeing that a lot of students are kind of exploring on their own, almost feeling like they've found a cheat code in a video game," said Alexis Reid, an educational therapist in the Boston area who works with students with learning disabilities. But in her view, it is far from cheating: "We're meeting students where they are."
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Interest in tokenization has also gotten a boost thanks to the election of President Donald Trump, who has made enacting more crypto-friendly regulations a top priority of his administration and signed a new law regulating stablecoins on Friday.
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Ben Snyder, a 14-year-old freshman from Larchmont, New York, who was recently diagnosed with a learning disability, has been increasingly using AI to help with homework.
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"Tokenization is an innovation and we at the SEC should be focused on how do we advance innovation at the marketplace," said Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins.
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"Sometimes in math, my teachers will explain a problem to me, but it just makes absolutely no sense," he said. "So if I plug that problem into AI, it'll give me multiple different ways of explaining how to do that."
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**Is it legal?**
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He likes a program called Question AI. Earlier in the day, he asked the program to help him write an outline for a book report — a task he completed in 15 minutes that otherwise would have taken him an hour and a half because of his struggles with writing and organization. But he does think using AI to write the whole report crosses a line.
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Securities law can be complex and even defining what is a security can be a hotly debated question, particularly in crypto. The crypto exchange Binance pulled back offerings of tokenized securities in 2021 after German regulators raised questions about potential violations of that country's securities law.
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"That's just cheating," Ben said.
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Under Trump, the SEC has taken a much less expansive view than the previous administration and dropped or paused litigation against crypto companies that the agency had previously accused of violating securities law.
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Schools have been trying to balance the technology's benefits against the risk that it will do too much. If a special education plan sets reading growth as a goal, the student needs to improve that skill. AI can't do it for them, said Mary Lawson, general counsel at the Council of the Great City Schools.
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Hilary Allen, a professor at the American University Washington College of Law, said crypto companies have been emboldened by Trump's victory to be more aggressive in pushing what they can offer.
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But the technology can help level the playing field for students with disabilities, said Paul Sanft, director of a Minnesota-based center where families can try out different assistive technology tools and borrow devices.
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"The most pressing risk is (tokenization) being used as a regulatory arbitrage play as a way of getting around the rules," she said.
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"There are definitely going to be people who use some of these tools in nefarious ways. That's always going to happen," Sanft said. "But I don't think that's the biggest concern with people with disabilities, who are just trying to do something that they couldn't do before."
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However, the SEC has struck a cautionary tone when it comes to tokens. Shortly after Robinhood's announcement, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who has been an outspoken crypto supporter, issued a statement saying companies issuing tokenized stock should consider "their disclosure obligations" under federal law.
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Another risk is that AI will track students into less rigorous courses of study. And, because it is so good at identifying patterns, AI might be able to figure out a student has a disability. Having that disclosed by AI and not the student or their family could create ethical dilemmas, said Luis Pérez, the disability and digital inclusion lead at CAST, formerly the Center for Applied Specialized Technology.
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"As powerful as blockchain technology is, it does not have magical abilities to transform the nature of the underlying asset," Peirce said.
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Schools are using the technology to help students who struggle academically, even if they do not qualify for special education services. In Iowa, a new law requires students deemed not proficient — about a quarter of them — to get an individualized reading plan. As part of that effort, the state's education department spent $3 million on an AI-driven personalized tutoring program. When students struggle, a digital avatar intervenes.
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**All eyes on private companies**
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More AI tools are coming soon.
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One of the most closely watched areas of tokenization involves private companies, which aren't subject to strict financial reporting requirements like publicly traded ones.
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The U.S. National Science Foundation is funding AI research and development. One firm is developing tools to help children with speech and language difficulties. Called the National AI Institute for Exceptional Education, it is headquartered at the University of Buffalo, which did pioneering work on handwriting recognition that helped the U.S. Postal Service save hundreds of millions of dollars by automating processing.
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Many hot startups are not going public as often as they used to and instead are increasingly relying on wealthy and institutional investors to raise large sums of money and stay private.
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"We are able to solve the postal application with very high accuracy. When it comes to children's handwriting, we fail very badly," said Venu Govindaraju, the director of the institute. He sees it as an area that needs more work, along with speech-to-text technology, which isn't as good at understanding children's voices, particularly if there is a speech impediment.
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That's unfair to the little guy, say advocates of tokenization.
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Sorting through the sheer number of programs developed by education technology companies can be a time-consuming challenge for schools. Richard Culatta, CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education, said the nonprofit launched an effort this fall to make it easier for districts to vet what they are buying and ensure it is accessible.
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"These are massive wealth generators for a very small group of rich, well-connected insiders who get access to these deals early," said Robinhood executive Johann Kerbrat. "Crypto has the power to solve this inequality."
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Makenzie wishes some of the tools were easier to use. Sometimes a feature will inexplicably be turned off, and she will be without it for a week while the tech team investigates. The challenges can be so cumbersome that some students resist the technology entirely.
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**"Please be careful"**
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But Makenzie's mother, Nadine Gilkison, who works as a technology integration supervisor at Franklin Township Community School Corporation in Indiana, said she sees more promise than downside.
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But Robinhood's giveaway of tokens meant to represent an investment in OpenAI immediately drew pushback from the company itself, which said it was not involved in Robinhood's plan and did not endorse it.
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In September, her district rolled out chatbots to help special education students in high school. She said teachers, who sometimes struggled to provide students the help they needed, became emotional when they heard about the program. Until now, students were reliant on someone to help them, unable to move ahead on their own.
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"Any transfer of OpenAI equity requires our approval—we did not approve any transfer," OpenAI said on social media. "Please be careful."
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"Now we don't need to wait anymore," she said.
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Public companies have strict public reporting requirements about their financial health that private companies don't have to produce. Such reporting requirements have helped protect investors and give a legitimacy to the U.S. financial system, said Allen, who said the push for tokenized sales of shares in private companies is "eerily familiar" to how things played out before the creation of the SEC nearly a century ago.
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This story corrects that Pérez works for CAST, formerly the Center for Applied Specialized Technology, not the Center for Accessible Technology.
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"Where we're headed is where we were in the 1920s," she said. "Door-to-door salesmen offering stocks and bonds, half of it had nothing behind it, people losing their life savings betting on stuff they didn't understand."
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The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.