Saturday, December 14, 2024
Archived Post

Degreed: Lifelong learning in a free iOS app

Education has certainly changed since those days in the 70s and 80s when I spent my days (BSCE) and nights (MBA) in stuffy college classrooms with one goal — to get a degree. Now people learn a variety of skills from a number of sources, everything from conferences and video podcasts to online courses and informal group experiences. Degreed is a new free app that is being released today for the sole purpose of bringing together the new ways of learning with the need to standardize and quantify what’s been learned in order to fuel careers. 

Degreed started life as a web app, and it’s still a powerful online resource. But now it’s possible to get use your iPhone to “discover, track, utilize and share learning from any source.” Key features of the app include:

  • Personal Degreed Profile: Connect your mobile learning seamlessly to your online Degreed profile, where you’ll see analytics and insights into your learning habits and can display a lifelong record of your learning.
  • Curated Learning Content: Daily personalized playlists of videos, articles, podcasts, and various other learning content delivered daily, based on your interests, preferences and social network.
  • Instant Capture: Seamlessly add all of the content you’ve learned while on-the-go directly to your Degreed profile.
  • Saved Content: Save articles, videos, etc. to review later on the app; instant & automatic transfer from desktop to mobile.
  • Learning Network: Build a community and socialize (via Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, SMS) with people who are learning the same things you are and are interested in the same topics.

New features in the expanded 802.11ac standard include:

  • MU-MIMO: Networks with MU-MIMO are capable of multitasking by sending data to multiple devices at once rather than one-at-a-time, improving overall network efficiency and throughput
  • 160MHz channels: Wi-Fi Certified ac increases the maximum channel bandwidth from 80 MHz channels to 160MHz channels, potentially doubling transmission speeds
  • Four spatial streams: Device speeds are proportional to the number of spatial streams. Wi-Fi Certified ac now includes support for four spatial streams, up from three spatial streams.
  • Extended 5GHz channel support: Wi-Fi Certified ac encourages device support for a greater number of available channels in 5GHz.

The features are designed to improve the efficiency of network traffic and ensure consumers can access the 1.3 Gbps top speed that the 802.11ac protocol can provide. For example, efficiency is particularly important in situations where the number of devices handled by one Wi-Fi access point increases exponentially (e.g. sports events, live concerts, LAN parties, etc.)

Wi-Fi Certified ac was the first version of Wi-Fi to break the gigabit barrier, accelerating the shift to greater utilization of the 5 GHz band. Now, more than 65 percent of devices are dual-band, operating in both 2.4GHz and 5GHz.


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Dennis Sellers
the authorDennis Sellers
Dennis Sellers is the editor/publisher of Apple World Today. He’s been an “Apple journalist” since 1995 (starting with the first big Apple news site, MacCentral). He loves to read, run, play sports, and watch movies.