Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

Daily Tech Digest - November 27, 2016

Stretching Agile in Offshore Development

Stretching Agile is not easy, especially when factors like distributed development and teams with different culture come in place. In my opinion, how you communicate with people is fundamental if there is a need to create awareness and self responsibility. Another advice is to put robust working agreements in place, created and reviewed with involved parties, not enforced or imposed, so everybody will understand their benefits. ... First I would say it is primordial to understand the culture and how other people behave, react and talk. Second, it is important to have frequent face to face meetings and trips between sites. After getting to know people we tend to work together in a more collaborative way, that’s how humans behave.

Not That Bright: Japanese Robot Fails Top-Ranked University Exam

It turns out the robot is not good at grasping "meaning in a broad spectrum," said Noriko Arai, a professor at the National Institute of Informatics, who heads the team behind Torobo-kun. Torobu-kun, for instance, did not perform well in English, where it had to link phrases to come to logical conclusions. It received scores of 36.2 in listening and 50.5 in written exams. "As the robot scored about the same as last year, we were able to gauge the possibilities and limits of artificial intelligence," she said. Torobu-kun received scores of 45.1, 47.3 and 57.8 from 2013 to 2015, according to the Asahi Shimbun. This year, the score was lower than last year. However, the machine showed progress in some areas, such as physics and world history.

What makes an awesome business analyst?

Awesome Business Analysts must learn how to operate well in the fog of projects. There’s always going to be ambiguity at the start of projects but it’s also the business analyst’s job to assist with removing ambiguity. Often ambiguity is hidden in project assumptions. Start by capturing an exhaustive list of all of the assumptions you’ve heard, both explicit and implicit, then attack them aggressively by doing what you can to clarify, validate and remove them. Project managers will be particularly happy if these investigations help to provide more clarity on the scope of the project. From the beginning of a project, it’s important to try to gain consensus around what success might look like. That way, when lost in the fog, there is a compass bearing that everyone knows so that they can course correct throughout the project to ensure that everyone is moving in the right direction.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Biotechnology: Striking a “Balance of Power”

Nations must not look upon AI as a novelty or an economic asset, but also as a central component to national security. Nations depending on Facebook and Google to prop up their IT infrastructure rather than brewing their own national alternatives are akin to nations during the age of empires inviting British gunboats into their harbors. Artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and other forms of emerging technology must be viewed by each nation, state, community, and individual not as a mere novelty or potential industry, but also as a potential means to grant those who develop and monopolize it economic, political, and even military superiority history has taught us they most certainly will abuse.

Is big data really the future of marketing?

Capturing all the data you need is great but what you do with it is far more important. Making your data work hard is not restricted to delivering campaigns. You now have the ability to extract that data to feed other elements of marketing; feed behavioural information to or from your mobile app, your email service provider or your corporate CRM in real time. By bringing these different elements together you will be one step closer to a single customer view, the Holy Grail for marketers. It would seem that the future for the marketer will continue to change and at a pace too. The challenge to make sense of the data you capture becomes increasingly difficult on relational databases as volumes and variety increase.

How machine learning can make humans better managers

Machine learning can help humans become better managers by removing any biases a manager might have. With machine learning, employee performance is backed up by raw, inarguable data that shows how employees are actually performing. By taking advantage of this rich repository of data, managers can better recognize which employees are achieving important goals. In turn, they can provide appropriate feedback without relying on their personal opinions. With its ability to eliminate bias and prompt a data-driven approach to feedback and recognition from managers, machine learning can completely transform the workplace by making coming to work an engaging experience for every employee — no matter their age, race or gender. Employees shouldn’t have to worry about the personal biases of their managers.

10 predictions for the Internet of Things and big data in 2017

“Test/dev and disaster recovery will be the main components of a company’s environment that will be moved to the cloud, and production continuing to remain on premises,” says Marc Clark, director of cloud strategy and deployment at Teradata. ... Deep learning is getting massive buzz recently. Unfortunately, many people are once again making the mistake of thinking that is a magic, cure-all bullet for all things analytics, according to Bill Franks, chief analytics officer at Teradata. “The fact is that deep learning is amazingly powerful for some areas such as image recognition,” says Franks. “However, that doesn’t mean it can apply everywhere. While deep learning will be in place at a large number of companies in the coming year, the market will start to recognise where it really makes sense and where it does not.”

Visibility into the DevOps Value Chain

The culture of the DevOps community seven to ten years ago was very motivated toward open source. Open source tools are almost, by definition, point solutions. I think a lot of the automation solutions, even the commercial automation solutions have been designed to solve a very specific or narrow problem. So there are tools that solve the deployment problem. There are tools that solve the configuration problem. There are tools that solve testing problems. And so on…There is no such thing as a standard DevOps tool chain. They’re like snowflakes. So developers gravitate toward their tool of choice and the DevOps culture encourages experimentation. Enterprises haven’t bought into the giant, does everything kind of tool. Instead enterprises are choosing very specific point solutions and then weaving them altogether to generate efficiencies across the value stream.

Underpinning Enterprise Data Governance with Machine Intelligence

One of the more valuable benefits of strengthening enterprise data governance with machine intelligence capabilities is an expeditious efficiency that is otherwise difficult to match. Semantic technologies allow for machine-readable data which can accelerate most processes involving those data, decreasing time spent on data modeling and other facets of data preparation. “The ability for data to be discoverable and linkable through an adoption of identifiers in a consistent way allows that data to move and to be reached more rapidly,” Hodgson said. “Whether you get the data into a machine learning environment is another matter. But at least you’re insured of its integrity, and that’s a big issue as well.”

How Business and IT Can Find Middle Ground for a Data Governance Framework

There’s great value in establishing a liaison and mediator between business and IT team leads. This helps business teams work with IT to maintain information protection, governance, and data quality while also working with business representatives to create value from data assets faster. The governance protocol then moves down the ladder to all aspects of the business where data is involved. Each business unit needs a representative to make sure that their team is up-to-speed on the process for inputting and drawing data and trained with the technology that enables them to do so. Data governance is not just about technology. It’s about key stakeholders and employees creating processes and best practices to properly organize, validate, and derive business value from their own information.

Quote for the day:

"The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there." -- John Buchan

Daily Tech Digest - November 26, 2016

Jim Jagielski: Open source pendulum will swing back towards community

“What’s very interesting now is that years ago you had to explain what open source was,” says Jagielski. “That’s certainly not the case anymore. “We never thought it would catch on as quickly or as deeply as it has,” he adds. “People who loved open source thought it had the potential to change the world – much of a cliché as that it – but never thought it would be realised.” In fact, these days every corporate entity – and his wife – is keen to stress its involvement with open source. All enterprise software is heading in this direction, one way or another, but in a lot of ways the flavour has changed and Apache is definitely part of the less commercial old guard. It has always attracted very loyal fans.

Artificial intelligence and Big Data to manage your wealth: robo-advisers in evolution

There are several reasons for this evolution. On top of some of the concerns we already mentioned it seems that robo-advisers are not as attractive as in the beginning when the robo-adviser offering was relatively straightforward and easy to understand but with ever more players hitting the market and various types of robo-advisers with various target groups and functionalities, the picture has become more confusing. Add to that reigning fears, glitches and, last but not least, challenges regarding customer and user experience plus too much focus on the costs (they are “cheaper” than human advisers) rather than on the overall benefit picture and the challenges become clearer.

How Architects Can Survive and Thrive in the Digital Era

So as the Architect, you’ve always done your projects, you’ve always carefully facilitated the discussions and guided decisions when defining solutions, and now you find yourself in a rapidly changing world where business people are building solutions themselves. You find yourself increasingly useless and no longer relevant. On the other hand, if you pick up a role that articulates the value of these new technologies in the new business contexts that are emerging, you really have to change your job a lot to become meaningful. The fundamental value of architecting has not changed, but the spectrum of choices, the moving parts, the building blocks have greatly increased and it is against a background where everybody wants things very quick and very cheap.

Data Infrastructure: Leveraging Information

As indicated in the five levels of data infrastructure, data infrastructure is a necessary component for business growth in a similar way to how physical infrastructure is necessary for the growth of a community. When an organization only has a few employees, word of mouth can be a workable solution for managing very rudimentary forms of data, such as whether a particular customer has paid its bill.The organization needs more definitive and easily accessible answers on more and more topics, which means it needs more efficient ways to gather, use, and disseminate data. This is what data infrastructure allows you to do. ... Data infrastructure can be roughly divided into four data infrastructure elements that will give the company access to the data it needs to solve customer and business problems.

Smart Cities and Linked Data

Over the last few years, LOD has slowly become an accepted way of exposing data to the internet. One could also say that LOD, together with the IoT is one of the key requirements for smart cities. If governments would open up their datasets, and in particular their sensor networks, over the internet using LOD, then this could ‘enable’ smart cities. The ‘things’, such as sensors, expose their data in a structured way and linked to other datasets. This in turn may lead to applications that are not yet foreseen as data is not yet available in this manner. For example, a traffic intensity sensor not only exposes the traffic intensity itself to the internet but also the information about the road on which it is located. Using that road location, the information can be combined with other data such as road maintenance information, an air pollution sensor in the vicinity and/or meteorological information.

Could your connected fridge be the newest cybercriminal recruit?

Cybercriminals harnessed the internet of things (IoT) to carry out the attack, highlighting the vulnerability of the billions of connected devices around the world. Recent attacks on Three Mobile, Tesco Bank, Yahoo, and TalkTalk prove that every company is a potential target, and should be a real wake up call to global business leaders. Whether you are a small, local business, or a multinational brand – the question isn’t “will you be attacked?”, because you probably have been already. With vast networks of connected devices plugged into global digital infrastructure, and business value increasingly defined by intangible assets, this is a threat that knows no borders, time zones, or limits. In the insurance business, it is classed as one of the most complex and challenging man-made threats out there.

Approaching (Almost) Any Machine Learning Problem

An average data scientist deals with loads of data daily. Some say over 60-70% time is spent in data cleaning, munging and bringing data to a suitable format such that machine learning models can be applied on that data. This post focuses on the second part, i.e., applying machine learning models, including the preprocessing steps. The pipelines discussed in this post come as a result of over a hundred machine learning competitions that I’ve taken part in. It must be noted that the discussion here is very general but very useful and there can also be very complicated methods which exist and are practised by professionals. ... Before applying the machine learning models, the data must be converted to a tabular form. This whole process is the most time consuming and difficult process and is depicted in the figure below.

Blockchain network disruption coming, and Australia among pioneers

The technology works to identify the ownership of energy as it is generated and then to manage multiple trading agreements between consumers who buy excess solar, ... Perth-based Power Ledger is testing various applications of blockchain across residential, retail and wholesale electricity markets in three different pilot projects across the country, and one in New Zealand ... “It’s a win for the people who have been able to afford to invest in roof-top solar, but also a win for customers who haven’t: they will be able to access clean, renewable energy at effectively a ‘wholesale’ rate. Everyone wins.” Well, perhaps not everyone. As the BNEF report notes, while most blockchain software and business models are currently at a proof-of-concept or trial stage of development, their potential to “rapidly disrupt traditional energy market structures” cannot be ignored.

Why digital transformation is forcing IT to evolve

IT organizations turn to enterprise vendors to help with the speed of innovation needed to support the business initiatives. In my discussions, IT organizations are finding a similar problem as the FANG group. Enterprise IT vendors are not positioned to innovate at the pace or the granularity of specific industry or organizational requirements. Out of necessity, IT organizations are beginning to embrace open source solutions to meet the challenge. Open source projects tend to move at the pace required by the project contributors. The contributors are starting to look much different than many traditional open source projects. Many forward-thinking end-user enterprises are dedicating developer resources to contribute to these projects directly, or take the base solution of a project and add capability.

Java Microservices: The Cake Is a Lie But You Can't Ignore It

“The microservice architectural style is an approach to developing a single application as a suite of small services, each running in its own process and communicating with lightweight mechanisms, often an HTTP resource API. These services are built around business capabilities and independently deployable by fully automated deployment machinery”. This post is not about the pros and cons of microservices and assumes that you’re simply interested in the underlying technology to support it. Another post worth checking out for those issues covers the main challenges in debugging microservices — which is a common pitfall that many don’t think of when considering microservice architectures.

Quote for the day:

"Don't envy what people have, emulate what they did to have it." -- Tim Fargo

Daily Tech Digest - November 25, 2016

Corporate governance is more than a good infosec policy

When it comes to governance, many CISO's begin with policy and procedures as their first action items. Undoubtedly, corporate security policies are “must have” pieces of any organizational security posture, and after all, most C-level executives pride themselves on their ability to communicate and convey important topics to an audience. As such, they feel policy is a great fit for them to introduce and remind employees about the importance of security. The policies might contain, for instance, rules about data storage / sharing, password complexity, access control permissions (who may access data, where they may access it from, and who manages the controls and data storage beyond them), and other items to which the consistent application or adherence is required to ensure that the IT infrastructure is kept secure.

7 open source security predictions for 2017

The flip side of the open source coin is that if you’re using open source, the chances are good that you’re also including vulnerabilities known to the world at large. Since 2014, the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) has reported over 8,000 new vulnerabilities in open source software. Vulnerabilities in open source are particularly attractive to attackers. The ubiquity of the affected components, the public disclosure of vulnerabilities (often with sample exploits) and access to the source code make the attacker’s job simpler. In addition, without a traditional support model, users are typically unaware of new updates and vulnerabilities in the open source they’re using. Putting on my prognosticators’ hat, here are some events around open source and open source security that I wouldn’t be surprised to see in the coming year.

The Open Group - A CIO-Level View of IT4IT

Dan Warfield, Principal, CC&C Europe.- A CIO-Level View of IT4IT™. Dan is an entrepreneur, strategist, innovator and enterprise architect, whose recent experience includes creating the IT4IT-based reference architecture / operating model for a Fortune 50 company. In more than 30 years of IT leadership experience, he has been a solution executive, innovation leader and product manager for five global IT software / services companies including IBM and CSC, and worked as an independent strategy adviser.

Women in Information Security: Jess Dodson

For women who are currently in the field or wanting to be in the field, it’s about flexible work arrangements, paid maternity and carer leave, and management that’s understanding. Because while it sounds so very “old school,” women are still the primary carers in families. Also, they’re the ones who have to carry around a baby for ten months and need time to recuperate after all that! But I think it starts much earlier than that. I think we need to get into schools. We need to teach young girls that computers and math and science aren’t just for boys. They’re for girls. They’re fun and cool, and if that’s what they like to do, then they should do it. I’m trying to find a way to become a mentor or a spokesperson locally for young girls to show them that you can be a girl and be good at computers.

What is Intercloud?

Intercloud, as the name suggests, is a network of clouds that are connected with each other in some form. This includes private, public, and hybrid clouds that come together to provide a seamless exchange of data, infrastructure, and computing capabilities. In many ways, it is similar to the Internet- the network of networks that power the world today. This concept of Intercloud was started as a research project in 2008 at Cisco, and it was later taken over by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It is based on the idea that no single cloud can provide all the infrastructure and computing capability needed for the entire world. Also, if a cloud does not have a presence in a particular geographic region, but gets a request for storage or computation, it should still be in a position to fulfill it.

Navigating legacy: Charting the course to business value

The CIO is well positioned to influence and support the whole digital iceberg and to help create the right strategy, platforms, and services to realize a holistic digital enterprise rather than a collection of disjointed departmental investments. If we are correct in our hypothesis that many business priorities are related to the digital agenda, then CIOs can be more responsive to bridging current gaps. ... Globally, CIOs as a group are surprisingly similar in many of their personality traits and working styles (figure 2). Some of the top seven traits among CIOs may seem counterintuitive if one views the CIO simply as a technology steward. But, above and beyond their role as IT leader, CIOs are business leaders, and all seven traits are important in helping them succeed in their business leadership role.

The Laws of Cyber Threat: Diamond Model Axioms

Many confuse the purpose of the Diamond Model. Most believe the Diamond Model exists for analysts, but that is an ancillary benefit. Instead, think of the Diamond Model like a model airplane used to study the principles of aerodynamics. It is not an exact copy but rather a good approximation of the full-scale airplane being studied. The model exposes elements to test and study in a controlled environment improving the performance of the plane in an operational environment. The Diamond Model does the same, except for cyber threat analysis. When describing the Diamond Model to others, I usually start with, “we didn’t create the Diamond Model, we simply expressed some fundamental elements which always existed.” Surprisingly, I learned while writing the Diamond Model how exposing this fundamental nature improved cyber threat intelligence.

The new cybersecurity war takes shape

The stakes could not be higher. With financial data, medical records, intellectual property, and even military information in constant motion around the globe, our entire way of life depends on the security of our data. The expanding internet of things opens a new realm of vulnerable systems, and raises for the first time the prospect that hackers and spies can inflict immediate physical damage on their targets. The news gives us little cause for optimism. Recent data breaches demonstrate the ability of hackers to steal information on hundreds of millions of people at once (Yahoo) and to compromise data with implications for national security (US Office of Personnel Management). Anyone with the right technical skills and an agenda—activist hackers, corporations, nation states, terrorist cells—has the potential to wreak havoc on a worldwide scale.

Data manipulation heralds a new era of hacking

The repercussions of this sort of hack can be devastating for a business. If future planning, investments or purchases are made based on incorrect information, then not only could those decisions be wrong for the business, but there may be legal and financial consequences if it appeared that fraudulent behaviour had taken place. An example of this would be if the data that farmers use to determine soil pH levels, and therefore which crops to plant, were to be manipulated. Investors and businesses spend considerable amounts of money supporting the forecasted crop yields and, should that be based on altered data, then it could be financially crippling for the farmer and local businesses – while hackers could use this to purchase stocks and make a profit.

Open source talent in Europe – in great demand, and hard to find

Europeans, it turns out, are even more confident than their global counterparts in the open source job market. Of over one thousand European respondents, 60 percent said they believed it would be fairly or very easy to find a new position this year – as opposed to only 50 percent saying it would be easy globally. In fact, half of the Europeans reported receiving more than 10 calls from recruiters in the six months prior to the survey, while only 22 percent of respondents worldwide reported this level of engagement. While worldwide, 27 percent of respondents received no calls at all from recruiters, only five percent of Europeans said the same. Companies and organisations know that that they need to establish, build and sustain open source projects; they also know that for such projects to be successful, they must possess a level of sophistication that solicits support from developers.

Quote for the day:

"Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will." -- Zig Ziglar

Daily Tech Digest - November 24, 2016

Is the speedy Surface Book i7 too expensive for IT?

This device is a workhorse wrapped up in an attractive design and it will undoubtedly serve anyone well in the enterprise. ... It's likely that this device will be cost prohibitive for businesses and reserved for those who run heavy software day in and day out, or work with video and photo editing software on a regular basis. It's a great alternative to the Apple devices that companies often turn to for creative workers, especially if IT wants to keep everyone in the same ecosystem. Even though the Surface Book i7 might not find massive popularity in the average workplace, Microsoft hopes it will find an eager audience in industries like engineering and design. The Performance Base was specifically built with these types of workers in mind and it can handle professional design and editing software, including 3D CAD software, which is typically used in engineering disciplines and architecture.

Behavioral threat assessment means real-time threat detection

BTA tools create a behavioral threat assessment by plugging into security information and event management tools, intrusion detection systems and intrusion prevention systems and others -- like firewalls -- and importing their log information. They then perform correlation analysis on that information to determine what behavior is normal for users, devices and systems. The next step for developing a behavioral threat assessment is additional analysis to determine whether anomalous behavior is just that -- anomalous, but harmless -- or represents a true threat. BTA products do all this by applying machine learning to the data streams so that security analysts don't need to program in rules about what comprises normal behavior.

Why CXOs should understand the assumptions behind predictive analytics

Proponents of predictive algorithms also argue that algorithms, ultimately a series of mathematical functions, are inherently unbiased. The designers of these algorithms may have included assumptions and shortcuts to model complex environments, or over or underrepresented some variables, but these can ultimately be tweaked and improved with relative ease. Like any system, a predictive algorithm is only as good as its model and the data that are available, once again validating the old computing axiom of GIGO. Proponents ultimately argue that any "bias" inherent in an algorithm is the fault of the creators, not the math itself. In the case of Chicago's gun violence predictive toolkit, proponents also argue that any flaws in the system are ultimately outweighed by the benefit of saving lives.

How security collaboration will prove vital in 2017

What’s needed is a platform through which the cybersecurity community can create and share vendor-neutral security orchestration models (defense strategies) which can then be internally rated by community members and updated as needed, rendering them ready for adaptation by organizations – no matter which security products they use. If an organization is lacking a security function that the model requires, the organization can be alerted and the gap filled. Orchestration models can also be created for specific verticals and tailored to the needs of specific organization types such as banks, retail, healthcare, or critical infrastructure, for example, or developed to specifically combat known hacker groups and their attack patterns, or both.

Desperately seeking cybersecurity help

Security intelligence requires the real-time collection and analysis of massive amounts of information and it’s easy to miss clues. To take one example, a study by the Ponemon Institute, found that it took organizations an average of 256 days to detect advanced persistent threats already residing in their systems. ... Advances in the related domains of artificial intelligence, data mining, machine learning and cognitive computing are feeding new optimism about the battle against cybercrime. Earlier this spring, computer scientists demonstrated how adaptive cybersecurity technologies can filter through millions of log lines each day to flag only the suspicious items. Over the course of a recent three-month-long test, an MIT system logged data from an unnamed e-commerce platform and successfully detected 85 percent of the threats without even needing human assistance.

10 most difficult IT jobs for employers to fill

The breakneck pace of technological innovation in an era of digital transformation has made it difficult for companies to find and land talent with the right mix of cutting-edge skills and experience. ... "In IT, most mid- to senior-level folks currently in the market have advanced to where they are because of their technical skills, not based on their management and soft skills. What that means is that certain roles are incredibly hard to fill, as they need both the technical savvy, as well as domain- and industry-specific expertise and leadership skills. Whenever you're asking a candidate to wear two different hats -- in this case, technical and management -- you're inherently making these roles harder to fill as the pool of qualified candidates becomes smaller," Sigelman says.

How to get more from Windows Defender by using its command-line tool

Since Windows Defender has a Windows UI and performs most of its operations in the background, you may be wondering why anyone would want to use it from the command line. Well, the truth is that the command-line version is useful in situations where you want to be able to automate and customize Windows Defender's standard operations. Furthermore, as I mentioned, there are some advanced operations you can only perform from the command line-version. You may not use some of those operations often, but it's nice to know that they are available. To find the command-line version of Windows Defender, just open File Explorer and navigate to C:\Program Files\Windows Defender. When you get there, look for a file by the name of MpCmdRun.exe

Internet trust at all time low: 5 ways of regaining it

“Everyone knows that data security is a major issue for both consumers and businesses, yet companies are not doing everything they could to prevent breaches.” “According to the Online Trust Alliance, 93% of breaches are preventable. And steps to mitigate the cost of breaches that do occur are not taken – attackers cannot steal data that is not stored, and cannot use data that is encrypted.” “This status-quo isn’t good enough anymore. As more and more of our lives migrate online, the cost and risk of a data breach is greatly increased, and will lead to lost revenues and a lack of trust.” With a reported 1,673 breaches and 707 million exposed records occurring in 2015, organisations must change their stance.

The Uncertain Future of Fintech

Traditional financial institutions continue to face challenges, with less than half (44.0%) of executives at legacy financial firms confident in their fintech strategy. This is not surprising given only about one-third (34.7%) affirmed they have a well-structured or proactive innovation strategy in place that is embedded culturally. The risk-averse nature of traditional firms also makes it difficult for them to create cultures that prioritize innovation, and 40.3% of executives said that theirs is not conducive to innovation. “Financial services senior executives are seeing fintech firms in a whole new light as they see greater opportunities to collaborate, but are also making significant headways in building more agile, in-house fintech capabilities.” said Thierry Delaporte, Head of Capgemini’s Global Financial Services Business Unit.

Machine Learning: The More Intelligent Artificial Intelligence | Part 2

So, how smart is machine learning compared to AI? Baikalov insists that it is a lot smarter because science-fiction style AI, or the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior, doesn't exist. “Machine Learning is a subset of AI, along with knowledge, perception, reasoning, planning and other good stuff, says Baikalov, “And there's a lot to learn, and as the machine learns something, we say "Well, if the machine can do it, it doesn't require intelligence, and therefore it's not AI." “The core problem with AI is that it's defined relative to human intelligence, which in turn is not well defined,” explains Baikalov. “AI is created by humans, and if the humans don't understand what the intelligence is, how can they program the machine to imitate it? And does AI even need to imitate every aspect of human intelligence?”

Microsoft and Linux: Growing ties could benefit CIOs

Microsoft's ongoing cultural shift from Windows-everywhere monolith to a more open company suits Ted Ross, general manager and CIO for the city of Los Angeles. He said Microsoft has been seen as hostile to open source, but noted that the company is changing its propriety ways. The open source direction "reflects Microsoft expanding to an understanding of what the new economy looks like," Ross said. That new economy, he said, is "very API-driven" and characterized by a cross-platform approach in which CIOs select among numerous technology tools for the best option for a given IT workload. He said he can't rely on a single vendor, or a single operating system, to deliver the optimum digital services for his customers. He said the city's 41 departments use a number of operating systems, with Windows and Linux at the top of the list.

Quote for the day:

"Those not chasing their dreams should stay out of the way of those who are." -- Tim Fargo

Daily Tech Digest - November 23, 2016

What Are The Differences Between Python, R, and Julia?

Not only were they originally designed with statistical purposes in mind, but a broad developer ecosystem has also evolved around them. This means there are extensions, libraries, and tools out there for performing just about any analytics functions you might need. R, Python, and the relative newcomer Julia are currently three of the most popular programming languages chosen for Big Data projects in industry today. They have a lot in common, but there are important differences that have to be considered when deciding which one will get the job done for you. Here’s a brief introduction to each of them, as well as some ideas about applications where one may be more suitable than the others.

Millennials are twice as bored at work as baby boomers, report says

"Millennials report higher levels of boredom at work because they are the most disengaged generation in the workforce globally," said Dan Schawbel, research director at Future Workplace and author of Promote Yourself. "They require constant feedback, training, mentoring and new career opportunities. If they aren't challenged at work, they immediately start looking at new jobs and will continue to job hop until their needs are satisfied." ... "Millennials are the largest generation in the US workforce now," said Jason Dorsey, cofounder and researcher at the Center for Generational Kinetics. "Engagement is not just about more money or the latest tech or a new yoga room—it's about understanding what your employees want, and being able to give it to them in a feasible way that makes them feel valued."

5 ways physical security breaches can threaten your network

If someone has access to this room without authorisation, your network is extremely vulnerable. When there are layered security measures offering your server room further protection inside your business, it can be easier to see if the area is accessed. Without locks on the server room doors or surveillance footage, however, it will be difficult to know if the hardware was sabotaged. With physical access to the server room, criminals can do an immense amount of damage to the network. Remote access can be set up so that the criminals will have access to the servers and their information at any time; backdoors can be left for all types of remote viewing and even control; information can simply be loaded onto a third-party device.

The Fast-Moving CIO: A Race For Transformation

The rationale for bimodal IT is that change is hard. Well, so is losing. Adapting to a rapidly changing market is difficult and complex but necessary to compete and win when customer expectations are rising. More importantly, customer tolerance for sub-par experiences is declining. Customers expect experiences that enable them to easily transact when and how they want. Here are a handful of examples that are sure to frustrate your customers: Delays in product availability due to the inability of supply chain systems to keep up with changing SKUs; issues with new orders because customer information in the system of record did not appropriately sync or update; and the lack of integration across legacy systems causing customers to re-enter data.

“Would you like us to email you a receipt?”

On the surface it’s a simple question increasingly being asked by high street retailers. But sometimes this simple question doesn’t tell the full story. An e-receipt can be more convenient at times, but it is also a way for shops to collect personal data about their customers and send them marketing. In the run up to the busy Christmas season, the ICO is reminding retailers that people have the right to know what happens to their personal data. Retailers need to be aware of the obligations under data protection and privacy laws. Here are the key questions you need to be asking before you start to collect information.

Facebook Said to Create Censorship Tool to Get Back Into China

Facebook does not intend to suppress the posts itself. Instead, it would offer the software to enable a third party — in this case, most likely a partner Chinese company — to monitor popular stories and topics that bubble up as users share them across the social network, the people said. Facebook’s partner would then have full control to decide whether those posts should show up in users’ feeds. ... A Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement, “We have long said that we are interested in China, and are spending time understanding and learning more about the country.” She added that the company had made no decisions on its approach into China. Facebook’s tricky position underscores the difficulties that many American internet companies have had gaining access to China.

Cerber Ransomware Expands Database Encryption Attacks

Overall the expectation from Trend Micro is that Cerber ransomware will continue to evolve as the attackers adjust their delivery methods, infection vectors and ransom demands. ... There are a number of things that organizations and end-users can do to help mitigate the risk of being the victim of a Cerber ransomware attack. Clay commented that as with most ransomware attacks, the missing piece appears to be an over-reliance on endpoint security to detect malware. "If endpoint security is utilized as a primary defense, then a cross-generational approach that includes both traditional and newer technologies like high-fidelity machine learning can improve detection of ransomware," Clay said.

Cognitive Hack: The New Battleground In Cybersecurity

The question of weighing the risks versus the rewards is an appropriate one. Consider this: The federal government has standards for regulating the food we eat, the drugs we take, the cars we drive and a host of other consumer goods and services, but the single most important tool the world increasingly depends on has no gatekeeper to ensure that the products and services connected to the Internet don’t endanger national security or pose a risk to its users. At a minimum, manufacturers of IoT must put measures in place to detect these threats, disable IoT devices once an attack starts and communicate the risks of IoT more transparently. Lastly, the legal community has also not kept pace with the development of IoT, however this is an area that will be ripe for class action lawsuits in the near future.

5 Technologies Your Business Should Adopt Right Now

Business technology is always changing, and if you don’t do your best to stay ahead of the curve you could find yourself playing a very dangerous game of catch-up. Automating business processes and incorporating new methods of payment and customer service are integral to staying competitive as a retailer and employer. Clients want to purchase from businesses that can respond to their needs quickly, and employees want to work in an environment that is efficient and secure. To continue to attract talented workers and retain tech-savvy clients, your business should incorporate these 5 business technologies as soon as possible

Docker Alternatives, Orchestration, and Implications for Microservices

Plenty of container alternatives and corresponding cloud services are available on the market that orchestrate microservices (and therefore the underlying containers). Container technologies and orchestration engines are usually used closely together. Often, they are built into the same tooling. Cloud offerings, where “users pay only for the resources - such as compute instances, load balancing and scheduling capabilities - that they use” are called CaaS (Container as a Service). The following list contains the differentiating container platform feature sets with different pros and cons. Also note that the following is – of course – not a complete list of container and orchestration offerings (but hopefully shows most of the currently relevant options):

Quote for the day:

"Integrity is built when you do what you promise to do." -- S. Chris Edmonds

Daily Tech Digest - November 22, 2016

Cyber Security Recommendations from the C-Suite

Security executives have a lot on their plate. They’re grappling with a new breed of cyber-attacks, financially-motivated cyber assailants, and a bevy of new, connected devices that bring unintended security risks to their organization. But it’s not all doom and gloom. C-level executives are relying on new technologies and best practices to fight fire with fire. They’re turning to former enemies for help, getting more bang for the buck, and relying on automation to safeguard their organization’s most critical information assets. To garner the best practices of security leaders, Radware conducted a survey of more than 200 C-level security executives from the U.S. and United Kingdom. The Security and the C-Suite: Threats and Opportunities Report unearthed a series of top recommendations that organizations should heed carefully.

Startups and enterprises can leverage Big Data Analytics to optimise workforce

There are several tools in the market that can take the hassle off for HR departments. Tools like AppDynamics and Workforce Analytics reduce the burden in several ways. They not only assess and predict whether a potential candidate would accept a job offer or if the prospect only in exploration mode, it would also track other significant feed such as social media. For example, culling information on the frequency of a potential candidate’s visits to LinkedIn, the frequency of LinkedIn page updates, whether the candidate is exploring different other options, whether he is asking for recommendations from other LinkedIn users. The tools also provide information on aspects like cultural fit of a candidate for the organisation, their personality with respect to organization values, etc.

The biggest threat to banks? Legacy systems, not fintech

While new financial technology (fintech) is permanently changing how financial institutions operate, it could very well be that the biggest threat to Canadian financial institutions is not fintech challengers, but the legacy systems that prevent them from adapting. In fact, this could be the next major problem that the Big Five banks have to tackle. Dave McKay, the CEO of Royal Bank of Canada, has publicly stated that the biggest threat to financial services is not from without, but from within: "Regulation is not the problem. The biggest barrier to adapting is the incredible legacy systems." The legacy problem becomes more confounding when you consider that banks have some of the smartest leaders, and some of the biggest budgets of any type of business in Canada. So what gives?

Are Humans Already Obsolete?

With intelligent services, the system knows how to react to this chain of events, and can even “recommend” other actions to take before the leave starts. HR is notified when the recruiting manager submits the leave request. With intelligent services, the SuccessFactors system will automatically reschedule the learning course after the recruiting manager returns, suggests to the recruiting manager to update their appraisals and goals, and reroute any pending job candidates to other members of the team. This is not just a win for the manager, her team and candidates, it’s a chance for HR to get out of the administrative and spend more time focused on the strategic.

Leveraging the power of nature to enhance Internet security

Quantum effects are being leveraged to generate random numbers at high rates and in ways that make guessing keys impossible, removing an important attack avenue for cyber criminals. Until this quantum effect was used, every other accepted method was not truly random, or was too slow to deliver the security really needed. This vulnerability has been the subject of years of research and community collaboration, including production of standards overseen by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST). Since 1997 NIST has coordinated community-wide participation in a Random Number Generation Technical Working Group to help improve the ability of encryption solutions to leverage increasingly hard-to-break keys.

For Healthcare Organizations, Futureproofing Is Possible — and Necessary

Hospitals and other large facilities, many of which shift computer equipment between rooms on a routine basis, could see particular benefits from this setup. Giving IT staff direct control of organization-owned machines without requiring physical access means making changes at the snap of a finger, relatively speaking; this could be a boon when updating against the latest malware or virus, or changing settings to reflect new rules and regulations. Best of all, desktop virtualization is the perfect compliment for an organization concerned with futureproofing. A growing facility could provision a new fleet of laptops in hours instead of days, easily push a new EHR system (with department-specific configurations) to remote and local devices across all its locations, and make compliance-related changes in the blink of an eye.

Partnering to shape the future–IT’s new imperative

IT organizations are under increasing pressure to deliver better performance—as the partners already do—partly because of the growing availability and capabilities of third-party services such as cloud computing, infrastructure as a service, and software as a service. About one-third of business executives see third-party providers as a significant or complete substitute for the IT function’s services. Another source of pressure is the expansion of digital programs. Nearly all respondents (91 percent) say their companies are already pursuing a digital agenda, suggesting that the partnership between business and IT will become only more important over time—especially with so many organizations in the early days of their digital efforts.

Cybersecurity must be open, replaceable

Assume that, if the price is right, your system will be hacked. Take a lesson from the Great Wall of China – eventually the invading hordes will get through. The only solution is to design the system so that the security can be replaced once it is hacked. For web-based systems, this is fairly easy, since the security algorithms exist in software on a central web server that you can easily update. For pay TV systems, security algorithms are encoded in hardware and software on a smart card that is inserted into the TV set top box. When the system is hacked, the broadcaster can simply replace the smart card, which sends the hackers back to square one, trying to break a brand new combination of security hardware/software.

Who Has The Most Impact In Driving Security?

"Most business directors would never dream of ignoring risk when it comes to funds, but there is a disconnect there in terms of data," Drystek continued. That's why the communication needs to happen directly with the risk owner. Those enterprises that understand that risk is directly connected to business are the ones that are paving the way with sophisticated security programs. ... Those layers of both formal and informal communication most often enable security teams to get information into the right hands. "What I use as a prod is data quality, both integrity and availability. Security risk is business risk. Compliance is a weak form of security where it becomes an insurance issue," Drystek said.

Half of surveyed U.S. businesses admitted to suffering a ransomware attack

Getting hit with ransomware would be bad enough, but imagine paying the ransom and then having the attacker come back and demand a second ransom? It happens; more and more people pay, but it’s not like a cybercriminal’s promise to decrypt upon receiving the first ransom is a sterling guarantee that the victim’s files will be decrypted. Grossman believes that unlockers – the decryption keys to unlock ransomware-encrypted files which are released to the public by security experts – may not be something people can hope for in the future. Right now, some crooks reuse the same key for all their ransomware infections; once a security researcher gets hold of the key, then they offer it to the public since it works for other victims of the same ransomware to decrypt their files.

Quote for the day:

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple." -- Dr. Seuss

Daily Tech Digest - November 21, 2016

Oracle acquires DNS provider Dyn, subject of a massive DDoS attack in October

Oracle plans to add Dyn’s DNS solution to its bigger cloud computing platform, which already sells/provides a variety of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) products and competes against companies like Amazon’s AWS. Oracle and Dyn didn’t disclose the price of the deal but we are trying to find out. Dan Primack reports that it’s north of $600 million. We’ve also asked for a comment from Oracle about Dyn’s recent breach, and whether the wheels were set in motion for this deal before or after the Mirai botnet attack in October, but our guess is that it was likely before. “We decline further comment,” is the response so far from a spokesperson to all our questions.

Getting a Competitive Edge from Comprehensive Data Analysis

It gets back to that idea of a common lexicon. If you think about evolution, you don't want a Madagascar or a Tasmania, where groups get cut off and then they develop their own truth, or a different truth, or they interpret data in a different way -- where they create their own definition of revenue, or they create their own definition of customer. If you think about it as orbits, you have to have a balance. Maybe you only need to touch certain people in the outer orbit once a month, but you have to touch them once a month to make sure they're connected. The thing about orbits and keeping people in the proper orbits is that if you don't, then one of two things happens, based on gravity. They either spin out of orbit or they come crashing in.

Cyber-security synchronisation key to mitigate business risk

Cyber security is not just a technology issue; it's a business risk that requires an enterprise-wide response. The cyber security is also a strategic risk for financial sector as it could create damage to organisation brand and reputation resulting in loss of share value and market confidence. It can also impact the financial and intellectual property resulting in loss of competitive edge and can cause system inoperability caused by a breach resulting in inability to execute trades and access to information. Hence the involvement of the company's board is required which should set the tone for enhancing security and determine whether the full board or a committee should have oversight responsibility.

Vendors push the 'private instance on a public cloud' proposition

A case in point is Alfresco, which today announced that its content management solution is now available on AWS. But rather than the usual multi-tenant public cloud offering, Alfresco is offering itself up as a single-tenant, managed services sitting within an AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). The pitch here is that the offering offers a kind of best of both worlds: a robust content-centric platform allowing users to collaborate on business-critical content, all with the network isolation and security of a dedicated AWS VPC and without the dedicated internal resources for ongoing Alfresco and AWS management. The offering, which is now available on an early-access basis, comes in a few flavors: either fully managed by Alfresco or available for customers to design, deploy and maintain under their own steam and leveraging the experience

IoT Security vs. IT Security: What’s the difference?

While CISOs are adept in dealing with IT security and employing the sophisticated tools to secure the perimeters of the enterprise, as well as the inroads to mission-critical enterprise systems, the nature of IoT devices and the scale of the IoT landscape presents even the most prepared IT organization with a multitude of unique threats, exposures and operational challenges. Before letting loose the IoT genie, a CISO will want to fully understand the risks and concerns associated with IoT solutions in advance of signing off on a deployment strategy. For this reason, it is imperative that development teams and business sponsors driving the development and adoption of IoT apps take pre-emptive measures to secure access to all IoT devices and related data.

Stay Safe from Cyber Crime - Top Ten Tips InfoGraphic

Given I am regularly asked to explain cyber attacks and then advise on how to protect against them, particularly to home users of late, I thought I would try my hand at creating a simple InfoGraphic to help. It was a challenge to create due to the limitation to the amount of space for text, which means you can't cover everything and you can't go into much detail. However concise messaging is kind of the point of infographics, especially when using them as awareness tools. This InfoGraphic is squarely aimed at the average "home user", it highlights what the bad guys are after, their most popular and most successful attack methods, and then provides 10 tips to help avoid and detect home user cyber attacks, simples.

Google Wifi wireless router: The smart person's guide

The Wifi units include software called Network Assist that makes sure you always have the strongest signal possible by constantly selecting the clearest wireless channel. When using multiple "points," Network Assist will seamlessly transition your device to the closest Wi-Fi point to ensure the best connection possible. The devices were also designed to meet the demanding needs of modern usage—that translates to streaming. Google's goal was to create a wireless router that could stream, download, and share from multiple devices simultaneously, without your network speed taking a hit. Another standout feature is the Google WiFi app. With this app, you can easily share your Wi-Fi password, see what devices are online, prioritize devices for increased performance, and pause your signal to specific devices (think parental control).

The changing face of cybersecurity – A look back at 2016 and a look forward to 2017

Cybersecurity has come a long way over the past five years. Controls have been invented to monitor a user’s every move without violating their privacy and the chief information security officer (CISO) is now a fixture in many modern organisations. With the last quarter of 2016 upon us and 2017 looming large, I've thought about look at what companies need to do as 2016 draws to a close, and what may be in store during 2017. Stay on top of vulnerabilities: Microsoft states that 41.8 per cent of vulnerabilities are given a highly severe rating these days. This is a three-year high! Ensure you’re prioritising and managing your vulnerabilities accordingly. Wean your people off of Flash: According to Microsoft, 90 per cent of malicious web pages contained Flash.

Hedge in the cloud: funds outsourcing computing power step into unknown

"If you're storing someone else's data, you'd think there'd be hacks on that but that's not something we've seen," Garry Liburn, detective inspector for the Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit, said at an event in Mayfair last month. Under the FCA's new guidelines, which only took effect in July, firms should tell the regulator if they experience a breach. The watchdog declined to comment on whether any had reported incidents. "I am sure there have been hacks of the cloud ... no one is reporting them," said Viktor Ula, managing partner at investment consultant PivotalPath. "If a cloud reported a hack, it would halt their growth. The risk that everyone believes exists out there would then be perceived to be even higher and folks would probably revert to having systems internally."

Are regulations the answer to better Internet of Things security?

There’s a relatively easy way to get the industry to move faster on improving IoT security: enforcing or updating federal and industry regulations and standards to help safeguard the IoT revolution (and, in fact, compel companies to better protect their web infrastructure overall). No one likes red tape, and regulation for the sake of regulation is silly, but the fact is there are two main drivers that the corporate C-suites is waiting for devoting more budget to IoT and mobile security: headline-grabbing attacks and regulatory obligations. Regulations, whether or not anyone likes it, can be a very effective hammer for greater good. From improved health monitoring to safer highways to smart homes, IoT has already begun to touch the lives of millions of Americans and will become truly transformational in the years to come.

Quote for the day:

"The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us." -- Voltaire

Daily Tech Digest - November 20, 2016

What is the future of SMS and USSD in Africa?

“USSD can become a container for many things,” Muhanga says. “For example, you can run a website on USSD only. Your whole system can be accessible anywhere in the world. And it is very secure.” With USSD users do not store any data on their handsets. This is quite secure in terms of mobile banking transactions that rely on the technology. “You can get sensitive messages like in health or financials that you do not want to store in your phone,” Muhanga explains. Even in the face of OTT services, SMS is not dead. According to the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA), more mobile phone subscribers use text messaging. In its quarterly report for the year 2015 to 2016 ending June this year, there was almost double the number of SMS’s used.

What is Big Data Analytics and Why is it Important in Fintech?

Data sets grow very fast because they are gathered using many information-sensing mobile devices, cameras, software logs, aerial, wireless sensor networks, radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers and microphones. Since the 1980s and the boom of the internet, the amount of data that is being generated and kept on a global level is inconceivable, and it keeps growing. The global technological per-capita capacity to keep information doubles every 40 months. Since 2012, 2.5 Exabyte of data is generated every day. A question for big enterprises is deciding who should be the owner of big data initiatives that affect the whole organization. Relational database management systems and some data visualization software have difficulty in dealing with Big data.

Everything you need to Know about Scaling MySQL

Although both sharding and replatforming enhance the performance of MySQL, they are complex processes that consume a lot of time in addition to being costly. Even then, the good news is that they are not the only options. It is not surprising that MySQL technology that dates back to more than two decades ago is struggling to stay abreast with the latest developments in the digital world today. While MySQL databases will do for those companies that do not foresee much growth, companies that are keen on growth need to consider scaling their MySQL databases even though achieving scale is no mean feat. It is possible to encounter problems when scaling MySQL despite having all the financial resources. For instance, Google has built its own database which is a huge undertaking as opposed to if the company had explored modern solutions.

Cyber security experts warn firms about dark side of social media use as hackers hunt data

"Cyber criminals know that the easiest way to penetrate a system is to go after the user, not the computer, so they target vulnerable users with 'spear phishing' emails that are crafted to look like they come from someone known and trusted. The messages might also appear to come from banks or businesses, and can include full names, usernames, and other personal details," he said. "It's an old-fashioned confidence trick," said Harris, "but cyber attackers are deploying it with more sophistication. "For example, imagine I send you a fraudulent email. You might work in the finance department and I send you an email that looks like it comes from your boss requesting you to make a payment urgently into a certain bank account.

Five strategies to unlock smart city potential

Smart city technologies hold the promise of improving the sustainability and liveability of our urban centres, and according to one industry executive, there are five ingredients needed to unlock their potential. “The smart cities movement is a global one. There are no boundaries in the smart cities movement, and that in particular provides a lot of challenges and opportunities,” said Adam Beck, executive director at the Smart Cities Council Australia and New Zealand. ... “Technology isn’t a barrier anymore, and I don’t think funding and finance is a barrier. The barrier now is probably the level of creativity we apply in trying to access that finance and funding,” Beck said. Beck outlined five strategies which he said “establishes the conditions in which we can accelerate the smart cities marketplace.”

Forget wearables. In the future, your clothes will connect to the internet

What Avery Dennison is trying to do is bring these experiences outside the store and expand their possibilities. Sidahmed says the company has no exact roadmap for hitting 10 billion connected items, but the project is underway. “The first collaboration is here with Rochambeau,” she says. “Now the conversation is starting.” The endeavor has obstacles to overcome, however. For one thing, RFID tags aren’t something you can just throw in the laundry and expect to keep working. Washable versions do exist, but Sidahmed admits they’re too expensive at the moment to be widely used. For now, they have to be removable so you can launder the garment, though Sidahmed says companies are working on the problem.

Big data can’t bring objectivity to a subjective world

What’s more, the implications of this weakness extend far beyond the social sciences. There are some, for instance, who think that big data will “revolutionize” advertising and marketing, allowing these two interlinked fields to reach their “ultimate goal: targeting personalized ads to the right person at the right time.” According to figures in the advertising industry “[t]here is a spectacular change occurring,” as masses of data enable firms to profile people and know who they are, down to the smallest preference. Yet even if big data might enable advertisers to collect more info on any given customer, this won’t remove the need for such info to be interpreted by models, concepts and theories on what people want and why they want it. And because these things are still necessary

Internet of Things Messaging, Part 1: Introducing MQTT

MQTT implementations are excellent choices for endpoint devices such as Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, smart phones OSes, and pretty much any platform that can benefit from simple and low overhead messaging. The MQTT protocol is, as of writing, at version 3.1.1 and has become an OASIS standard although there are still many implementations in the market that support version 3.1.0 . The latest specification has major improvements over the previous spec and also mandates that MQTT “brokers” should now be called MQTT “servers”. IANA has reserved TCP/IP port 1883 for use by MQTT brokers, er … servers, along with port 8883 for MQTT over SSL (note that using SSL introduces an additional communications performance overhead). Many MQTT server implementations also support WebSockets.

Physicians Say Blockchain Healthcare Ideas in Need of Exam

“The attention is on these big issues because everyone loves the sexiness of solving a big problem,” said Mathew Rose, a practicing junior doctor in Ireland and co-founder at Saavha. “But if you think throughout history, anything that was an immense problem, it was easier to solve the little problems inside that big problem.” Look at the development of medicine, for example. Part of the reason medical science has advanced so far is because every medical researcher works on a part of the problem, Rose said. In cancer research, some doctors focus on practices for removing tumors, while others focus on inhibiting blood supply, while still others investigate what role proteins play. In Saavha’s implementation, a hash of the appointment data is stored on the blockchain so it can be proven that the data wasn’t changed retrospectively.

Why Top Executives Do Not Get Innovation – and What to Do About It

There simply is no room in this equation for CEOs to put their necks on the line and support investments in innovation efforts that won’t produce near-term results, or may even have a negative impact on the bottom line for some period of time. Thus we find ourselves in a world where companies put too much focus on incremental innovation. In an ideal world, boards would demand that investments in innovation are made on a widely accepted norm of 80% incremental and 20% radical to assure the long-term health of the organization. But few organizations have metrics for measuring innovation, and boards don’t pay executives based on innovation objectives. Dynamic values such as entrepreneurship, creativity, and risk-taking are not measured, let alone valued at bonus time. This lead to an over emphasis on incremental innovation.

Quote for the day:

"Leaders lead. They don't divide; they don't create a climate that is poisonous." -- @JebBush

Daily Tech Digest - November 19, 2016

Key trends in machine learning and AI

If your company isn’t using machine learning to detect anomalies, recommend products or predict churn, you will start doing it soon. Because of the rapid generation of new data, availability of massive amounts of compute power and ease of use of new ML platforms, we expect to see more and more applications that generate real-time predictions and continuously get better over time. Of the 100 early-stage startups we have met in the last six months, 90+ percent of them are already planning to use ML to deliver a better experience for their customers. ... Several high-profile experiments with ML and AI came into the spotlight in the last year. Examples include Microsoft Tay, Google DeepMind AlphaGo, Facebook M and the increasing number of chatbots of all kinds. The rise of natural user interfaces (voice, chat and vision) provide very interesting options and opportunities for us as human beings to interact with virtual assistants.

Rise of the drones: from policing the streets to painting your house

Little surprise, then, that some of the world’s biggest tech companies are testing their drones elsewhere. Last month, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos told a conference in Seattle: “We’re getting really good cooperation from the British equivalent of the FAA, the CAA [Civil Aviation Authority]. It’s incredible. It’s really cool.” Amazon is developing and testing its Prime Air delivery drones in the fields around Cambridge. Despite the UK’s enthusiasm for Amazon, and similarly permissive test flights elsewhere in Europe, Canada and Australia, “no single country stands out as being aeons ahead of everyone else,” says Holland Michel. “Though they may vary on the details, all countries are grappling with the same concerns. The deciding factor will be how flexible and responsive their regulations are.”

Why Human Baby Brains Are Smarter Than AI

“The amazing thing about babies is they can see something once or hear a new word for the first time and they already have a good idea of what that new word could mean and how they could use that new word,” says Gopnik. “So these kind of Bayesian approaches have been good in explaining why children are so good at learning even when they don’t even have much data.” Babies use the probabilistic model to create a variety of hypotheses by combining probabilities and possibilities to draw conclusions. ... Older learners develop biased perspectives as they learn more about the world and strengthen certain neural connections, which hamper their ability to form out-of-the-box hypotheses and abstract theories based on little information. This is where babies and children under the age of five thrive.

Blockchain - It has the potential to transform our lives

There are so many possible applications of blockchain. You can literally transact anything. It could be used for welfare distribution, or for secure voting, land title transfer, music, movies, you name it. One good example that we are looking into is in vaccine distribution. There is a certain percentage of vaccines that get lost on their way to distribution, for numerous reasons. Where blockchain can be helpful is simple supply chain management. We could use blockchain to create an immutable record which is translated along the Bitcoin blockchain. Even if your merchandise got lost, you would know where you lost it. And while we are in the process of fixing a huge problem that impacts millions of people – especially children – around the world, we are also solving a problem that any company throughout the world grapples with on a daily basis.

APIs Blurring The Competitive Advantage Between Banking and Fintech

Fintech startups are interested in APIs from banks and vice versa. What’s more, consumers are embracing this unity on a greater and greater scale. As a result, it’s no longer a matter of whether fintech startups or banks will win a fight against each other. Instead, it’s a matter of which companies will use the right combination of APIs to create something that consumers really want. Some argue that sharing of APIs may cause an unbundling of the legacy banking industry supply chain, allowing aggregators to select products and services to be reassembled in new ways. While that potential exists, others, like Ron Shevlin, believe traditional financial services firms hold the cards because of their existing customer relationships. He believes that the opportunity for platformification™ is powerful.

14 Signs Your Smartphone or Tablet Has Been Hacked

Today's smartphones are powerful computers that allow us to perform tasks that only a generation ago would have been considered science fiction. The devices also often contain a tremendous amount of confidential information, including the contents of our text and email communications, as well as access to various accounts via pre-logged-in apps. It is imperative, therefore, to keep the devices safe from hackers, and to take immediate corrective action if one's phone is breached. But how can you tell if your smartphone has been compromised? Below are some symptoms to look out for. Please keep in mind, however, that none of the clues that I discuss in this article exists in a vacuum, or is, on its own, in any way absolute. There are reasons other than a breach that may cause devices to act abnormally.

Illuminating the dark world of Shadow IT

Most of the time, employees using Shadow IT applications don’t think they are doing any harm and that the apps themselves couldn’t possibly interfere with officially sanctioned IT products or company policies. But all too often Shadow IT apps don’t measure up to corporate standards for data protection and encryption. They can also consume a large amount of bandwidth which in turn can slow the network. In addition, Shadow IT can cause issues when it comes to compliance with data protection laws and sharing data directives. If that wasn't bad enough, the presence of Shadow IT apps on a corporate network dramatically increases the risk of security breaches and data loss that can hurt the company from a financial and reputational perspective.

How Data Virtualization Promotes Governance, Risk and Compliance

Data virtualization enables unified data governance by creating a Virtual Data Services Layer across internal and external data sources, while leaving the source data where it is. A strong data management function sponsored centrally by the chief data office builds guiderails of standards, access control, certified provisioning points, and strong data governance. However, access to data is decentralized in a self-service model for business users, reporting and regulatory interface teams. This approach minimizes replication saving millions of dollars, but more importantly reduces the time and complexity to reach the objective of enhanced GRC. Industry leaders in every field are adopting data virtualization in the context of GRC to tackle the challenges of internal risk management, regulatory reporting, and enhanced agility in the face of changing business needs.

Panel discusses ransomware disease sweeping Asia-Pacific

Sadly, Australia has turned into a huge target for ransomware; as Mr. Dillon pointed out, in terms of reported incidents, “Australia is currently ranked third and last time it was fifth, so it’s in a worsening position.” Lack of education is a cause, but it’s not the only one: “From an enterprise perspective, there is a skills shortage in Australia,” he said, adding, “I know a professional services organization that has just spent 18 months trying to fill a security application position.” And that leads to successful attacks, explained Ms. Boo, referencing one small business owner she talked to. “What happened is that he got exploited by ransomware. He did whatever people always asked him to do, always made sure he had a backup on his data. So what happened was he thought what he had was safe so when he got attacked, he refused to pay the ransom.

Getting started with Machine Learning

How could the computer learn to identify if a recorded voice is from a male or female? Well, if we want the computer to help us, in this case then we need to speak its language: numbers. In the machine learning world this means extracting features from the data. If you followed the Kaggle link above you can see that they already have extracted lots of features from the speech signal. Some feature examples are: mean frequency, median frequency, standard deviation of frequency, interquartile range, mean of fundamental frequency, etc. In other words, instead of having a time series showing the voice pressure signal, they extracted characteristics of this signal that may help us identify if the voice belongs to a male or female- this is called feature engineering. Feature engineering is a critical part of most machine learning processes.

Quote for the day:

"Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie." -- Russian Proverb