Mapúa University, one of the Philippines’ leading engineering and IT schools, has officially launched a BS AI Engineering degree program.

This milestone is part of a broader future-ready inter-campus Co-Intelligence strategy to integrate AI to the entire Mapúa Education Group.

The new bachelor’s degree program is the first of its kind in the Philippines. It aims to equip students with necessary skills to create and collaborate with AI systems.

In turn, graduates can help solve humanity’s greatest challenges and shape a future where AI and human intelligence work hand in hand.

Regular senior high school graduates may apply for the four-year program the same way they would do with other courses. In fact, Mapúa has already welcomed its first batch of enrollees.

The BS AI Engineering program focuses on foundations in the first year, core AI courses in the second year, specializations in the third year, and real-world applications in the final year.

Career opportunities at this day and age are plenty, including:

• AI Engineer
• Machine Learning Specialist
• AI Solutions Architect
• Robotics Engineer
• AI Ethics and Policy Advisor

Graduates may also pioneer emerging roles as the world continues to change and adopt AI.

Average incomes in several industries needing AI expertise are likewise projected to increase.

Mapúa Co-Intelligence strategy

Mapúa University is also integrating an educational institution-wide strategy. The goal is to infuse AI across the curricula of all program offerings. This is a collective response to global transformation, done through co-intelligence.

The strategy includes AI literacy training while still encouraging critical thinking. Practical applications include predictive analytics for teaching and non-teaching scenarios, as well as AI-powered tutors for personalized learning, helpdesk chatbots, and more.

This way, Mapúans will be able to work with AI across all programs offered by Mapúa for teaching, research, and other practical scenarios.

Harnessing AI and incorporating human thinking, judgement, creativity, and ethical reasoning is an integral aspect of the vision.

It will also allow Mapúa graduates to exlpore long-term opportunities for real world applications.

Mapúa University’s top officials reiterated throughout the launch that at the forefront of the strategy is still championing human intelligence and critical thinking, and encouraging responsible and ethical AI use.

This broad long-term strategy empowers Mapúans and Filipino citizens in general to thrive in the AI-augmented academic and professional world.

Ever since the popularization of the platform, Spotify’s free tier has always been defined by the experience of playing a playlist on shuffle, interrupted constantly by ads. Today, Spotify is drastically redefining its free tier by allowing users to finally pick and play individual songs.

Last week, Spotify vastly improved its Premium subscription by finally adding support for lossless audio. The long-awaited feature was first announced almost a decade ago. Now, the platform is getting with the times. Even better, lossless audio comes with a standard Premium subscription, rather than being introduced with a more expensive tier.

Because the Premium tier got an upgrade, Spotify is also improving the free tier. Now, free users will no longer be stuck in shuffle mode. The tier will now allow users to pick any song they want to listen to.

This is Spotify’s biggest update since… well, last week. It is, of course, fitting. Because the lossless audio update is so huge, the platform had to up the game for the free tier too. Outside of just playing music on YouTube, competing streaming platforms don’t really allow users to have as much control without paying a single cent.

That said, the free tier will still have a few limitations. It will still have ads and limited skips.

The new update is rolling out globally now.

SEE ALSO: Spotify is finally adding lossless audio

It’s been a while since we had a major launch for Amazon. Though the brand released a few updates over the years, both the Echo and the Kindle haven’t seen sweeping reinventions in a long time. This year, that might soon change. Amazon has announced an upcoming hardware event which might feature new debuts for the Echo and the Kindle.

The Echo and Kindle lineups are the bread and butter of Amazon’s hardware segment. The former, bolstered by Alexa, is the brand’s smart speaker lineup. Because of its ability to connect to so many services and hardware, it became a household name for an emerging smart home. The latter, as always, is one of the top options for e-readers.

Today, Amazon officially announced an event on September 30. The graphic includes the iconic blue ring of an Echo and a colored Kindle. It also has a TV, hinting at an involvement with Fire TV as well. Panos Panay, who heads Amazon’s hardware department, will be at the event.

All of these points to a massive hardware launch at the end of the month.

To note, the Kindle, as the invite indicates, recently featured major developments in the colored e-reader segment after subsisting in monochrome for so long. Though it’s an interesting development, both the regular Kindle and the widely popular Paperwhite haven’t seen newer editions in quite a while.

It’s the same story with the Echo. Though the Dot and the Show recently got updates, the regular Echo models haven’t received major refreshes in a while.

SEE ALSO: Next-gen Kindle leaks on UK retailer site