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Artificial intelligence: its not just for tech experts anymore. Instead, a heaping helping of free online resources has emerged. These classes are specifically designed to welcome beginners into the world of AI, even if they possess little or no prior technical background. I selected these Coursera courses for their beginner-friendly approach, high ratings, and comprehensive coverage of foundational concepts and key AI domains. AI For Everyone If youre taking your very first steps into AI, “AI For Everyone” on Coursera is a great starting point. The course requires no prior experience in AI or programming, making it truly accessible to everyone, and its got a reasonable completion time of around six hours. The curriculum is structured into four modules: What is AI?, Building AI Projects, Building AI in Your Company, and AI and Society. Google AI Essentials Another good starting point for your AI journey is the “Google AI Essentials” course. It offers a unique perspective on Googles AI philosophy and features hands-on activities and real-world scenarios. Similar to “AI For Everyone” mentioned above, “Google AI Essentials” is designed to be accessible to individuals of all skill levels. The six-hour course is structured into five modules: Introduction to AI, Maximize Productivity With AI Tools, Discover the Art of Prompting, Use AI Responsibly, and Stay Ahead of the AI Curve. Introduction to Artificial Intelligence For a slightly more structured and in-depth introduction to the foundational concepts of AI, the “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” course offered by IBM on Coursera is an excellent option. This 12-hour course aims to equip beginners with a solid understanding of core AI concepts, and incorporates videos, readings, assignments, and even hands-on labs. The curriculum is divided into four modules that cover a range of essential topics: Introduction and Applications of AI; AI Concepts, Terminology, and Application Domains; Business and Career Transformation Through AI; and Issues, Concerns, and Ethical Considerations. Introduction to Generative AI Dont have 612 hours to get up to speed with the aforementioned courses? Skip right to the good stuff with the “Introduction to Generative AI” course, which offers an overview of . . . well, what most people are referring to when they mention AI nowadays (whether they realize it or not). The course defines generative AI, explains its underlying mechanisms, describes the different types of generative AI models, and discusses how the technology is used in the real world. It’s worth noting that this course is part of a larger “Introduction to Generative AI Learning Path Specialization,” so if you find the topic particularly engaging, youll be able to keep the good times rolling with additional courses.
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Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, his office said Sunday. Biden was seen by doctors last week after urinary symptoms and a prostate nodule were found. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone. While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management,” his office said. “The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians. Prostate cancers are given a score called a Gleason score that measures, on a scale of 1 to 10, how the cancerous cells look compared with normal cells. Bidens office said his score was 9, suggesting his cancer is among the most aggressive. When prostate cancer spreads to other parts of the body, it often spreads to the bones. Metastasized cancer is much harder to treat than localized cancer because it can be hard for drugs to reach all the tumors and completely root out the disease. However, when prostate cancers need hormones to grow, as in Bidens case, they can be susceptible to treatment that deprives the tumors of hormones. Many political leaders sent Biden their wishes for his recovery. President Donald Trump, a longtime political opponent, posted on social media that he was saddened by the news and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery. Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, said on social media that she was keeping him in her family’s hearts and prayers during this time. Joe is a fighter and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership, Harris wrote. The health of Biden, 82, was a dominant concern among voters during his time as president. After a calamitous debate performance in June while seeking reelection, Biden abandoned his bid for a second term. Harris became the nominee and lost to Trump, a Republican who returned to the White House after a four-year hiatus. But in recent days, Biden rejected concerns about his age despite reporting in the new book Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson that aides had shielded the public from the extent of his decline while serving as president. In February 2023, Biden had a skin lesion removed from his chest that was a basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer. And in November 2021, he had a polyp removed from his colon that was a benign, but potentially pre-cancerous lesion. In 2022, Biden made a cancer moonshot one of his administration’s priorities with the goal of halving the cancer death rate over the next 25 years. The initiative was a continuation of his work as vice president to address a disease that had killed his older son, Beau, who died from brain cancer in 2015. His father, when announcing the goal to halve the cancer death rate, said this could be an American moment to prove to ourselves and, quite frankly, the world that we can do really big things. ___ By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press Associated Press writer Jon Fahey in New York contributed to this report.
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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. During the Pandemic Housing Boom, housing demand surged rapidly amid ultralow interest rates, stimulus, and the remote work boomwhich increased demand for space and unlocked WFH arbitrage as high earners were able to keep their income from a job in say, NYC or L.A., and buy in say Austin or Tampa. Federal Reserve researchers estimate new construction would have had to increase by roughly 300% to absorb the pandemic-era surge in demand. Unlike housing demand, housing stock supply isnt as elastic and can’t ramp up as quickly. As a result, the heightened pandemic era demand drained the market of active inventory and overheated home prices, with U.S. home prices rising a staggering 43.2% between March 2020 and June 2022. While many commentators view active inventory and months of supply simply as measures of supply, ResiClub sees them more as proxies for the supply-demand equilibrium. Because housing demand is more elastic than housing stock, large swings in active inventory or months of supply are usually driven by shifts in demand. For example, during the Pandemic Housing Boom, surging demand caused homes to sell fasterpushing active inventory down, even as new listings remained steady. Conversely, in recent years, weakening demand has led to slower sales, causing active inventory to riseeven as new listings fell below trend. Indeed, during the ravenous housing demand at the height of the Pandemic Housing Boom in April 2022, almost the entire country was at least -50% below pre-pandemic 2019 active inventory levels. BROWN = Active housing inventory for sale in April 2022 was BELOW pre-pandemic 2019 levels GREEN = Active housing inventory for sale in April 2022 was ABOVE pre-pandemic 2019 levels Of course, now its a different picture: National active inventory is on a multiyear rise. Not long after mortgage rates spiked in 2022causing affordability to reflect the reality of the sharp home price increases during the Pandemic Housing Boomand return-to-office gained a bit of momentum, national demand in the for-sale market pulled back and the Pandemic Housing Boom fizzled out. Initially, in the second half of 2022, that housing demand pullback triggered a “fever breaking” in a number of marketsparticularly in rate-sensitive West Coast housing markets and in pandemic boomtowns like Austin and Boisecausing active inventory to spike and pushing those markets into correction-mode in the second half of 2022. Heading into 2023, many of those same Western and pandemic boomtown markets (excluding Austin) stabilized, as the spring seasonal demandcoupled with still-tight active inventory levelswas enough to temporarily firm up the market. For a bit, national active inventory stopped rising year-over-year. However, that period of national inventory stabilization didnt last. Amid still slumped housing demand, national active inventory began to rise againand were now in the midst of an 18-month streak of year-over-year increases in national active listings. Where active inventory/months of supply has risen the most, homebuyers have gained the most leverage. Generally speaking, housing markets where inventory (i.e., active listings) has returned to pre-pandemic 2019 levels have experienced weaker home price growth (or outright declines) over the past 34 months. Conversely, housing markets where inventory remains far below pre-pandemic 2019 levels have, generally speaking, experienced stronger home price growth over the past 34 months. BROWN = Active housing inventory for sale in April 2025 was BELOW pre-pandemic 2019 levels GREEN = Active housing inventory for sale in April 2025 was ABOVE pre-pandemic 2019 levels As ResiClub has closely documented, that picture varies significantly across the country: much of the Northeast and Midwest remain below pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels, while many parts of the Mountain West and Gulf regions have bounced back. Many of the softest housing markets, where homebuyers have gained leverage, are located in Gulf Coast and Mountain West regions. These areas were among the nations top pandemic boomtowns, having experienced significant home price growth during the Pandemic Housing Boom, which stretched housing fundamentals far beyond local income levels. When pandemic-fueled domestic migration slowed and mortgage rates spiked, markets like Cape Coral, Florida, and San Antonio, Texas, faced challenges as they had to rely on local incomes to sustain frothy home prices. The housing market softening in these areas was further accelerated by higher levels of new home supply in the pipeline across the Sun Belt. Builders in these regions are often willing to reduce prices or make other affordability adjustments to maintain sales in a shifted environment. These adjustments in the new construction market also create a cooling effect on the resale market, as some buyers who might have opted for an existing home shift their focus to new homes where eals are still available. In contrast, many Northeast and Midwest markets were less reliant on pandemic migration and have less new home construction in progress. With lower exposure to that domestic migration pullback demand shockand fewer builders doing big affordability adjustments to move productactive inventory in these Midwest and Northeast regions has remained relatively tightwith home sellers retaining more power relative to their peers in the Gulf and Mountain West regions. While national active inventory at the end of April 2025 was still -16% below pre-pandemic April 2019, ResiClub expects national active inventory to surpass pre-pandemic 2019 levels later this year. Big picture: The housing market is still undergoing a process of normalization following the surge in housing demand during the Pandemic Housing Boom, when home prices went up too fast, too quickly. To date, that normalization process has pushed some marketsincluding Austin (mid-2022-present), Las Vegas (second half of 2022), Phoenix (second half of 2022), San Francisco (second half of 2022), Boise (mid-20222023), Punta Gorda (2022present), Cape Coral (2023present), and Tampa (2024present)into correction-mode. In some other areas, so far, it has caused home price growth to stall out. Meanwhile, some markets still remain tight and have only seen a deceleration in home price growth from the highs of the Pandemic Housing Boom. ResiClub PRO members can access my latest monthly inventory analysis (+800 metros and +3,000 counties) here, and my latest monthly home price analysis (+800 metros and +3,000 counties) here.
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