Daily Tech Digest by Kannan Subbiah

Daily Tech Digest - January 24, 2017

On Building a “Data Culture” in a Real Organization

What will vary from organization to organization will be the manner in which data governance and data analytics services are managed. The CDO has to have the authority, responsibility, and resources to manage all the necessary development, services, staff, and support associated with key points in the data supply chain. One important issue is what ongoing services have to be provided to make data and analytics useful, given the mix of analytical skills of those who can use the data. This should be driven by a consideration of what problems we are trying to solve with the help of data. As I suggested in How Much "Data Science" Do You Really Need?, ... Interestingly, the question of technology is not being raised in this discussion. Instead, we’re focusing on management, policy, and organizational issues.

Exploring the Intersection of Machine Learning and Analytics

All this machine learning gives us other great ways to interact with our data as well. With the SiSense chatbot, you can carry on a chat conversation from a messaging system like Slack or Skype, in which you engage in a natural language conversation with Sisense to get insights. You might type something like “Summarize sales by region for the fourth quarter of 2016” and Sisense will present you with a written response that might also be accompanied by a graph to further elaborate on the data provided. From this point, you have information to ask other questions, such as drilling down on a region to look at the store or salesperson performance. You could even do this while you’re on the run with the Sisense mobile app.

Technology continues to disrupt the marketing industry

It is evident from the research that customer experience and technology are still having a major impact on marketers. Marketers recognise that tech disruptors, such as Amazon and Uber, have raised the bar on customer expectation – with almost half (49%) of marketers surveyed feeling the pressure to reinvent customer experience just to keep pace. Customer experience is clearly moving up the business agenda, as it clearly should, with one in five respondents asserting that customer experience is now the primary focus for their organisation, and a further 15% saying they have gone through a major process of transformation in the past year to ensure they stay relevant.

What’s next for blockchain and cryptocurrency

Think of what’s happening in India, where the government recently scrapped 86 percent of cash in circulation, and in Venezuela, where currency is so devalued people now need to carry stacks of cash just to buy food. As a result, many retail investors are turning their attention to digital currencies, as well. Cryptocurrencies are free from government control. Governments can’t easily call in bitcoins or halt their movement across international borders without taking drastic actions. Financial institutions, bound by charters that describe the types of investments they can embark upon, have had few means of putting their money into bitcoins or other cryptocurrencies. But in 2017, we’ll see a greater push towards a diversity of cryptocurrencies as investments, and ETFs, hedge funds, and derivatives will start to act as conduits for institutions to gain exposure and get into the cryptocurrency game.

A CIO's role in 2017: Keep the lights on while planning for the future

Even with all the effort to digitally transform, there is an inherent tension between the past, or status quo, and future technology including either all the potential or complication it brings, depending on your view. But that tension can be eliminated if CIOs and IT organizations are conscious that the customer is their fellow employees. "If you pay attention to the concerns and to the people — [making] a cognizant decision that you're going to focus on making sure that the IT that they have is valuable to the company — and you're going to help them move into more current technologies without having them worry about their jobs, then they're going to continue to work well as a team," said Warren Perlman, CIO of Ceridian.

The Evolution of the 'Virtual Law Firm'

The biggest technological change around virtual law practice has been in cloud computing. Thirty-seven percent of all respondents to the 2016 ABA TECHSURVEY said that they used cloud technology, up from 30 percent in 2015. Cloud computing has especially caught in the small firm realm: 61 percent of small firms polled for the ILTA/Inside Legal Technology Purchasing Survey predicted that their firm’s software could be cloud-based in the next one to three years. “Core to a virtual law firm is going to be leveraging the cloud, using practice management software that’s in the cloud that you and your team can access from everywhere, using document storage where there’s collaboration there. It’s really focused around the cloud,” Burton says. The ABA’s TECHREPORT survey found that certain types of collaborative online client services haven’t really taken off, however.

Data science is easy; making it work is hard

With data science, it’s always smart to look backward from the point of action, from the decision being made to understand whether your systems are yet capable of handling the interaction. By focusing first on the decisions, and how they are being made, it becomes possible to understand where data science can truly add value. There are few things I find more frustrating than data scientists identifying value that could be delivered, but then realizing that there is no way to actually deliver it. Another common mistake is not identifying where inefficiencies are beyond your control — the delivery time from your logistics supplier, for example. No analytics will improve that. So data science is easy. Making it actionable is the hard part.

A star tech and media banker shares his thoughts on dealmaking in 2017

"The convergence of traditional and digital media will yield content synergies, advertising scale across several platforms and sales force efficiencies," Bourkoff wrote. He added that this convergence does not mean that we'll see more over-the-top streaming and skinny programming bundles. Demand for OTT falls sharply when prices rise, Bourkoff said, and the programming costs needed to create skinny bundles of channels will force prices so high that demand will ween. Bourkoff said his firm's deal pipeline included 50 mandated live deals at the end of the year. " As we build out LionTree in 2017, I firmly believe it has never been more important to take a long-term investment view as it is now," he said.

Why Slack, Chatbots, And Freelance Workers Have Your IT Department Freaking Out

Compounding these growing threats are a couple of workforce trends that make them more likely—namely, the rise of workplace collaboration tools. CompTIA’s report points out that as more workers take advantage of BYOD ("bring your own device") policies and use their own smartphones and laptops for work purposes, the use of project-management platforms and apps has risen in order to keep everybody connected. A new study from Okta, an identity and device management provider, based on data from its own customers who generate an estimated million+ logins, found that more than 50% of apps accessed through its service are not provided by IT departments. This means workers are using Okta to secure their personal apps and data as well.

How information security professionals can help business understand cyber risk

Business owners also do not like spending money on anything that does not make them money, says Holman, adding that even cyber insurance is a grudge purchase. “I’m never fond of paying a high premium, but I accept it if there’s a niggling feeling that I could lose my livelihood and house if I fail to get the right insurance cover,” he says. “And mitigating cyber risk is exactly the same. If companies don’t do it, they could go out of business.” But businesses tend to be overconfident in existing defences and often doubt they could be seriously affected by a cyber attack, leaving infosec pros with the challenge of persuading them there is a real need to mitigate security risks.

Quote for the day:

"A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study." -- Chinese Proverb

Daily Tech Digest - January 23, 2017

The rise of the machines: lessons from history on how to adapt

Although at different stages of development and adoption, as these technologies bed in, becoming more widespread and convergent, we will see a radical shift in the way that individuals, companies and societies produce, distribute, consume and re-use goods and services. These developments are prompting widespread anxiety about what role humans will have in the new world. As the pace of change accelerates, so the alarm levels ratchet up. A University of Oxford study estimated that close to half of US jobs could be lost to automation over the next two decades. In the opposite camp, economists like James Bessen argue that, on the contrary, automation and jobs often go hand in hand. It’s impossible at this point to predict what the overall impact on employment will be. Disruption will happen; of that we can be certain. But before we swallow all of the bad news, we should take a look at history.

How to create work-life balance in tech: 7 tips from the C-suite

The overworked tech CEO is now a cultural trope for a reason: Only 65% of tech workers said they were satisfied with their work-life balance, according to a recent survey from Comparably. This is a problem, as constant work and the resulting stress can lead to health problems such as impaired sleep, depression, diabetes, and heart disease—which not only hurt the employee, but also the company, in terms of turnover and rising health insurance costs. Despite the pressure to be always on, finding the proper work/life balance is essential, experts say. "It's possible to be a tech leader and to make time for taking care of yourself," said William C. Fisher, president of Quicksilver Software, Inc. "But, it takes a willingness to make that a top priority and schedule the time."

Dublin, New York officials cite smart-tech challenges and successes

"We're on the verge of seeing smart city tech grow exponentially," he added, speaking during a visit last week to the Smart Cities Innovation Accelerator, sponsored by Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. Cudden joined about 50 CIOs and CTOs from other cities, mostly from the U.S., to share ideas on taking advantage of the latest smart city technology. "One thing I learned from the U.S. cities is to take an entrepreneurial mindset and to use startups to address problems in cities, with something like an entrepreneurship-in-residence program," Cudden said. "A lot of cities are dealing with the same problems, and one takeaway is there's very little difference in the challenges in European cities or U.S. cities."

Introducing the Open Process Automation Forum. Finally.

Here’s the big news: 2017 marks the kick off the Open Process Automation Forum, a working group within The Open Group, a vendor- and technology-neutral industry consortium. The new Open Process Automation Forum is focused on developing a standards-based, secure and interoperable process control architecture that can be leveraged across multiple industries including oil and gas, petrochemical, mining and metals, pulp and paper, food and beverage, pharmaceutical and utilities. The concept itself is not new, as it is already playing out in The Open Group’s IT4IT Forum that is building a vendor-neutral reference architecture for managing the business of IT. Similarly, The Open Group’s Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) is defining approaches for using open standards with avionics systems.

New game, new rules: 3 steps to secure your bank in the digital age

It’s no secret that the sheer volume of data being collected and stored is higher now than ever before. According to EMC, by the year 2020, about 1.7 MB of new information will be created every second for every human on the planet. The data boom isn’t any different for banks—as customers access their banking information across multiple channels and touch points, they’re able to capture new and unique information about customer habits, preferences and more. That information makes banks a goldmine for hackers. The number of endpoints and systems exposed to the outside world is increasing, which means data no longer remains locked inside a data center. Instead, it proliferates outside of the four walls of business, making it vulnerable to hackers and security threats.

Dive Deep Into Deep Learning

The most remarkable thing about deep learning is that we don’t program them to perform any of the acts described above. Rather, we feed the deep learning algorithm with tons of data such as images or speeches to train it, and the algorithm figures out for itself how to recognize the desired targets. The ability of Deep Learning methods to learn complex nonlinear relations by churning high amount of data, creating features by themselves makes it stand out from the other traditional Machine Learning techniques. To know how a standard Deep Learning algorithm works, we have to follow its predecessors, neural networks. Well, some practitioners also refer Deep learning as Deep Neural Networks, which is also a choice. In short, a neural network is a family of three layers — an input layer, hidden layer, and an output layer as discussed below.

Idempotent configuration management sets things right -- no matter what

As systems architects are not perfect, many systems end up woefully underutilized -- wasting hardware, power, licences and maintenance costs -- while others lack necessary resources -- leading to performance issues. Even with the elastic resources of cloud computing, systems administrators must still ensure that the operational environment is configured correctly to optimally host the workloads. This is where idempotency comes in. Based on a mathematical concept introduced by Benjamin Peirce in 1870, the term now applies in multiple areas of computing. This does lead to confusion, as idempotency within a database is different from that in a Java program, which is different again from idempotent configuration management, which concerns modern DevOps and IT administrators.

6 EMM predictions for 2017

MDM is quickly becoming old news. Instead, Gartner coined the term EMM, pointing to a shift in mobile management to complete suites that include multiple tools for device, app and software management. And as the line is starting to blur in what defines a mobile device, Silva says MDM solutions will have "an tough battle against more full-featured EMM suites." If anything, more businesses will embrace EMM platforms and continue to use familiar MDM tools that are included in the suite. EMM also helps businesses consolidate certain practices -- like compliance regulations for example -- and deploy updates and patches across a range of complex devices all at once. "Solutions that are seamlessly integrated across all existing enterprise systems and platforms will begin to increase in popularity due to their comprehensive visibility and ease of use," says Mitch Berry, vice president of EMM at MOBI.

Raspberry Pi rival: Asus launches Tinker Board

Much as is possible with the Pi 3, the Tinker Board can be used as a PC replacement or a media center, with Asus' board supporting a custom version of the Linux-based Debian operating system and the open-source media center software Kodi. However, it won't run Raspbian, the Raspberry Pi's official, Debian-based OS. Asus is also touting the machine as a board for makers, with the Tinker Board also packing a 40-pin header with 28 general-purpose input output (GPIO) pins. These GPIO pins allow the board to control a range of hardware, and in the Pi have allowed the board to be used in modding projects ranging from robots to book scanners. Another consideration for makers is battery drain, and the Tinker Board's max power consumption is five watts.

An Introduction to Differential Privacy

Differentially private algorithms are a promising technical solution that could ease this tension, allowing analysts to perform benign aggregate analysis while guaranteeing meaningful protection of each individual’s privacy. This developing field of technology is worth considering in any system that seeks to analyze sensitive data. Although the differential privacy guarantee was conceived of only ten years ago, it has been successful in academia and industry. Researchers are rapidly inventing and improving differentially private algorithms, some of which have been adopted in both Apple’s iOS and Google’s Chrome. This article discusses the historical factors leading to differential privacy in its current form, along with a definition of differential privacy and example differentially private algorithms.

Quote for the day:

"When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier." -- Roy E. Disney

Daily Tech Digest - January 22, 2017

Why software is like water, and what it means for global leadership

Software is the international language. It allows us to do everything from receiving instantaneous news out of Syria to hailing a ride in the rain via our smartphones. Both of these examples and more are accomplished by software. The theme for this year’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting is particularly timely and relevant. We need Responsive and Responsible Leadership as we all play witness to an earlier call by the Forum: the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, as the lines are blurred between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. For countries to survive and thrive in this era, software needs to play a central role. Agriculture, basic manufacturing, education, food production, and water filtration all require software to work well at scale. For companies and economies, software is key to sensing change and reacting to it.

Researchers condemn unsubstantiated WhatsApp “Backdoor” story by Guardian

A group comprising of 30 security researchers have now co-signed an open letter to mount pressure on the Guardian so that it retracts the false story asserting that the paper is trying ‘very concretely’ to endanger public. The security researchers who have co-signed this open letter include salient bigwigs of the security industry including The Tor Project’s Isis Lovecruft, cryptographer Bruce Schneier, Mozilla’s Katherine McKinley, security research Thaddeus T’Grugq’, security researcher and author Jonathan Zdiarski and Open Crypto Audit project’s Kenneth White. Security researchers believe that the vulnerability pointed out by the Guardian is a minor one and poses an insignificant threat. It is related to the way WhatsApp handles essential retransmission for unread messages when the user changes SIM or phone card.

Digital Transformation Or Digital Free Fall: What Every CEO Must Know

Many leaders have fallen into the trap of believing digital transformation is like playing a game of technology catch-up. That if they can harness a bit of digital exhaust and turn big data into smart data, that somehow their business will transform itself. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the billions of dollars being spent chasing digital shadows won’t change a thing. Organizations whose business models are a few revolutions back on the digital curve cannot transform from lagger to leader by simply implementing blockchain or machine learning. Digital transformation is really more of a leadership, culture, strategy, and talent issue than a technology issue. Real digital transformation occurs when business models and methods are reimagined by courageous leaders willing to manage opportunity more than risk, focus on next practices more than best practices and who are committed to beating their competition to the future.

The Eye In The Sky Gets A Brain That Knows What It's Seeing

Crowdsourcing can also help with training and testing machine-learning algorithms, since human workers from around the world can be paid to quickly label features on satellite images or verify labels applied by machines, he says. And while both crowdsourcing and automation let DigitalGlobe and its customers extract more detail from satellite images than ever before, Har-Noy says the company takes steps to protect people’s privacy and safety. The resolution of commercial satellite images, regulated by the U.S. Commerce Department, means people aren’t recognizable at the level of detail the company releases, Har-Noy says. DigitalGlobe also doesn’t release images of active U.S. combat areas. "We take privacy very seriously with regard to the information we release, we make accessible, and also that other people derive," Har-Noy says.

Algorithm does real-time, city-wide ride sharing

The biggest part of that challenge is finding the optimal solution within that entire decision space; algorithms often get hung up on a local optimum or can't explore the entire space within a reasonable amount of time. Fortunately, the authors recognized that they don't need the global optimum. A reasonably good local optimum may not be the most efficient, but it's good enough to get people in cars quickly. A first round of trip assignments is done using what's called a greedy algorithm, which simply starts with the longest trips first and tries to minimize travel delays. From there, the algorithm attempts optimizations, but it's capable of producing an answer at any time if a decision has to be made. In addition, it's possible to make some optimizations like limiting the cars that are considered for servicing a trip.

IoT Seen as Weakest Link for Attacking the Cloud

'Not only are IoT devices an attractive target because of their inherent insecurity, but also for the role they play in some organizations, such as closed-circuit television cameras, which can provide real-time information about everything that is happening at a given location,' Fortinet said. But vulnerabilities are not the only issue. As IoT devices are being deployed, they must also be managed, and they are increasingly being managed by cloud solutions that require a communications channel between the IoT device and its master controller in the cloud. 'We expect to see attacks leverage this trust model in order to poison the cloud, and then use that beachhead to start to spread laterally,' Fortinet said. 'These end devices can then be exploited to misuse their trusted relationship to upload malware to, and distribute it from the cloud.

Securing a board appointment: CIO requirements and benefits

CIOs can become more attractive board candidates by developing a deep expertise in a particular area, such as digital transformation, experts said. "The best thing that people can do is to make a name for themselves and the work they're doing. To just have CIOs go out and try to market themselves to get on a board isn't how it happens. The best people are tapped on the shoulder for the work that they're doing," Gambale said. She noted that CIOs also might secure a board appointment by working with executive recruiters, as the firms they work in often also handle board of director searches. Meanwhile, Morris said serving on a nonprofit board first eventually could lead to serving on a company board of directors.

Should Banking Build an Internet of Things (IoT) Strategy?

Financial companies have prioritized customer and product monitoring in response to higher levels of online fraud, difficulty with identity verification and fears of hacked computer systems and networks. Banks are also using the IoT to monitor and collect data about their customers’ financial transactions, while lenders are exploring ways to finance and track assets and value collateral based on sensor data. More advanced IoT implementations include the ability to conduct basic banking using wearables (smart watches or fitness bands) and voice-first devices (Amazon’s Echo), the integration of invisible payments in transportation (Uber) and restaurants (Dine and Dash), and the leveraging of smart home appliances (Amazon Dash, Samsung Family Hub refrigerators). Additional tests are also beginning with the Amazon Go™ grocery and the inclusion of Amazon Echo capabilities in automobiles.

How to Resolve Competing Information Management Strategies

Political objectives can create an undercurrent of issues beneath the surface of recognizable business challenges. They can prove to be the largest detractor to gaining a truly cohesive vision and IM strategy. Like a fault line waiting to erupt, the negative whispers from this undercurrent can cause much damage and must be brought from the hallways to the table to be appropriately addressed by leadership. The best way to address political issues is to have leadership come together and lay the concerns on the table in order to find the high-stakes, high-emotion touch points. Work through the list of concerns to find logical, justifiable solutions. By bringing these issues to light and turning the focus to true business value and return on investment, you will find tensions ease and emotions dissipate. Such an exercise can be eye-opening and significantly improve communications in a highly volatile environment.

Report: AI adoption to create surge in revenue growth by 2020

According to the Infosys report, organisations which have fewer AI-related skills within their business are more likely to re-deploy workers impacted by AI adoption. However, those with more AI-related skills are more likely to re-train their employees. Leading industries which plan to re-train employees include: fast-moving consumer goods, aerospace and automotive, energy, oil and gas and pharmaceutical and life sciences. For instance, IBM’s Watson chatbot has been significantly deployed across banks, while hospitals have been leveraging its AI capabilities to diagnose rare diseases. Sandeep Dadlani, President & Head of Americas, Infosys said: “Artificial Intelligence adoption is on the rise and we are excited to see the investments in AI that businesses are gradually making to derive meaningful and creative change.

Quote for the day:

"What we actually learn, from any given set of circumstances, determines whether we become increasingly powerless or more powerful" -- Blaine Lee

Daily Tech Digest - January 21, 2017

New details emerge about Intel's super-small Euclid computer for robots

Intel announced and demonstrated the Euclid computer in a robot moving on stage during CEO Brian Krzanich's keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in August. The Euclid Developer Kit launch page is up on the website of Mouser Electronics. Intel didn't provide a specific launch date or pricing. Once the Euclid is placed in a robot, it can be operated remotely through a mobile device or PC. The Euclid has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity to communicate with the PC. The Euclid can also "serve as a full, autonomous brain with sensing capabilities, or as a smart sensor controlled by a more powerful computer," Mouser states on its website. The computer has GPS capabilities for navigation. ... The Atom CPU provides the horsepower to process and analyze the images collected by the 3D camera. The CPU will drive a robot's movement and help it complete tasks.

How banking apps and digital cash solutions are all the rage in India

The National Payments Corporation of India, the nodal agency for all retail payment systems in the country, is working with Visa and MasterCard to develop a common QR code to facilitate cashless transactions in shops. “It is a huge market. There are hundreds of mobile banking apps and hundreds of e-wallets. All of them serve the same purpose using different means,” said Sony Joy, chief executive officer of Chillr. “If there is any direct competitor of ours, it is cash.” Not surprisingly, at this juncture, uninitiated consumers are lost. Credit and debit cards have been the most used cashless payment systems in India for over a decade. Internet banking solutions such as NEFT (national electronic funds transfer) and RTGS (real time gross settlement) for corporate customers are in place. There are offline payment methods, eliminating internet security and malware threats.

How Android One could complete Google's grand Android plan

From the get-go, the whole point of Android One was to make inexpensive Android phones that didn't suck -- phones that were affordable but still decent to use, without all the asterisks that often accompany budget-level devices. Part of that means Google maintains tight control over the software and also guarantees the devices will get reliable and timely ongoing updates -- both security patches and full-fledged OS releases. Thus far, Android One has been limited to a small number of so-called "emerging markets" -- places like Pakistan and India, where it can be "hard for people" to "get their hands on a high-quality smartphone," as Google explains it. Bringing the program to America, though, would give it a whole new meaning. In short, it'd help Google move closer to its goal of "fixing" Android -- a goal that started in earnest with the Pixel but remains only half-complete.

How -And Why-You Should Use A VPN Any Time You Hop On The Internet

The good news is VPNs aren’t expensive. You can usually pay as little as $5 a month (billed annually or in blocks of several months) for VPN coverage. We won’t get into specific VPN service recommendations in this article; instead, here are some issues to consider when shopping around for a VPN provider. First, what kind of logging does your VPN provider do? In other words, what information do they keep about your VPN sessions and how long is it kept? Are they recording the IP addresses you use, the websites you visit, the amount of bandwidth used, or any other key details? All VPNs have to do some kind of logging, but there are VPNs that collect as little data as possible and others that aren’t so minimalist. On top of that, some services discard their logs in a matter of hours or days while other companies hold onto them for months at a time.

China Unveils Memory Plans

Although China’s domestic IC sector is moving at a fast pace, the Chinese government has been grappling with the same problem for years. It is behind in semiconductor technology. This is a complex subject, but one of the causes is export controls. Multinational companies sell products into China, but they must follow various export control policies. Originally hatched during the Cold War period in the 1950s, export controls were established to limit technologies that could have potential military use. As part of those controls, multinational fab equipment makers for years were prevented from shipping advanced tools into China (and other nations) that were capable of processing chips at 0.25 microns and below. On top of that, China also lacked IC know-how, so it fell behind in semiconductor technology.

Google Sets Out to Disrupt Curating With “Machine Learning”

A few other Experiments involve organizing the Google trove of art images into 3-D landscapes. “t-SNE Map,” for instance, gives you a view of a landscape of rolling hills, composed of points. Zoom in on the terrain, and you discover that the points are actually images of artworks. The topography is formed by how the computer has decided to sort and cluster artworks in relation to one another, based on its understanding of aesthetic similarities. “The algorithms only ‘looked’ at the artworks,” the description explains. “No meta data was used, the visual similarity was calculated with a computer image algorithm used in Google Search purely based on the images.”

Why Cyber-Security Strategies Are Falling Short

While organizations around the world are more confident than ever that they can predict and detect cyber-attacks, they're still falling short on investments and plans geared toward recovering from a breach. Such is the double-edged finding of EY's 19th annual Global Information Security Survey, "Path to Cyber-Resilience: Sense, Resist, React." EY surveyed 1,735 IT and IT security executives from organizations around the world to uncover the most compelling cyber-security issues facing business today, and what it discovered was a marketplace still struggling to keep up with a fast-evolving threat landscape. "Organizations have come a long way in preparing for a cyber-breach, but as fast as they improve, cyber-attackers come up with new tricks. Organizations therefore need to sharpen their senses and upgrade their resistance to attacks," said Paul van Kessel, EY's global advisory cyber-security leader.

Automated Traders Take Over Bitcoin as Easy Money Beckons

The nation’s central bank conducted on-site inspections at some of the biggest bitcoin exchanges this month, looking for evidence of violations including market manipulation and money laundering. Similar scrutiny of stock-index futures in 2015 led to trading restrictions that cut volumes by 99 percent. ... Rather than moving money out of the country, most automated traders in China are focused on cross-exchange arbitrage, said Arthur Hayes, a former market maker at Citigroup Inc. who now runs BitMEX, a bitcoin derivatives venue in Hong Kong. They can transact multiple times per second, reacting to price changes caused by individual investors and other speculators who often use technical patterns to guide their buying and selling decisions, Hayes said.

Half of work activities could be automated by 2055

Advances in natural language processing and machine learning produce a Cambrian crush of light AI technologies emerged in 2016. Chatbots have extended from messaging platforms to corporate IT departments while ecosystems are springing up around virtual assistants such as Amazon.com's Alexa. Roboadvisers, in which software assists with delivering financial advice, are increasingly becoming a standard offering in financial services. As a result, Chui says that it is tough to estimate AI’s potential as machines learn to process natural language more effectively. "It will unlock a lot of potential," Chui says. But most corporate IT departments are just beginning to figure out how to incorporate AI to better serve customers, according to Forrester Research. Despite strong interest in investing in AI technologies, many enterprises don’t understand how to apply AI to meet specific business objectives.

Do you have a cyber A-team?

Retained executive search firms are busy matching executive cyber A-players to support their forward-thinking clients. The largest companies and biggest brands can offer the seven-figure comp packages to the very best talent.... Smaller private companies find it difficult to compete for top talent in this elite pool. What these companies can’t offer in cash comp, they can make up in pre-IPO equity. ... Rapid technological advances are changing the game and your company’s crown jewels are too often accessible to the bad guys. Cybersecurity has fast become a top priority management challenge and finding best-in-class leaders to be part of your A-team to assess, manage and mitigate threats must be a key element of your company strategy. Previously siloed risk-management functions today must be reinvented, strengthened, and funded more aggressively.

Quote for the day:

"Life passes most people by while they're making grand plans for it." -- George Jung, Blow

Daily Tech Digest - January 19, 2017

Meet Me In The Parking Lot: Walking Meetings Hit Their Stride

“Walking meetings are preferable for one-on-ones because it actually gives you a break from staring at a computer screen,” says Lan, a software engineer at Sift Science, which develops machine learning technology to detect fraud. “I walk with either a manager or a peer, usually when we talk about high-level things.” A walking meeting is just what it sounds like: a meeting that takes place during a walk rather than in a conference room or office. People can hold walking meetings on sidewalks and park trails or inside shopping malls and convention centers if the setting isn’t too noisy. “All of our employees to some extent use walking meetings to break out of the sedentary lifestyle,” says Robert Manigold, a partner at web and app development agency Code Koalas in Kansas City, Mo.

New study details the effectiveness of Security Operation Centres

Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s State of Security Operations Report 2017 looks at the increased pressure organisations are under in the face of rapid innovation in the cyber threat and how they can align security initiatives with business goals. ... Findings from this year’s report show that the majority of SOCs are falling below target maturity levels, leaving organisations vulnerable in the event of an attack. The methodology for assessments were based on HPE’s Security Operations Maturity Model (SOMM), which focuses on multiple aspects of a successful and mature security intelligence and monitoring capability including people, process, technology, and business functions. The SOMM uses a five-point scale – a score of “0” is given for a complete lack of capability while a “5” is given for a capability that is consistent, repeatable, documented, measured, tracked, and continually improved upon.

Infographic: Car Hacking Is Not A Thing Of Future

You may not realize it, but your car probably already has some self-driving technologies—even basic ones. For example, many of the newest cars have lane assist or park assist, which can help you avoid unintended lane violations or better ease into parking spots. But those car assistance technologies depend on the internet and computers, and those are at risk of hacking. In fact, that’s one of the biggest concerns with the continued development of self-driving cars: how can thieves access them, and what will they do with the data? Vound Software compiled a detailed infographic to get you all the details.

Update On The Megatrend of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is the discipline of thinking machines. The field is growing dramatically with the proliferation of high powered computers into homes and businesses and especially with the growing power of smartphones and other mobile devices. Artificial intelligence software is assisting people in most every discipline. The many functions of AI are considered by many to be threatening many human jobs across multiple industries, but others consider it a great producer of jobs since it will help create entirely new industries and free more humans to innovate and create. You can see our reference to Truly Useful AI You Can Use Right Today. Follow this link to track the highest ranked, enterprise ready Artificial Intelligence Companies.

Smile! Hackers Can Remotely Access Your Samsung SmartCam Security Cameras

It's not necessary to break into your computer or smartphone to spy on you. Today all devices in our home are becoming more connected to networks than ever to make our lives easy. But what's worrisome is that these connected devices can be turned against us, anytime, due to lack of stringent security measures and insecure encryption mechanisms implemented in these Internet of Things (IoTs) devices. The most recent victim of this issue is the Samsung's range of SmartCam home security cameras. Yes, it's hell easy to hijack the popular Samsung SmartCam security cameras, as they contain a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability that could let hackers gain root access and take full control of these devices.

Attackers Start Wiping Data From CouchDB And Hadoop Databases

According to Merrigan's latest count, 126 Hadoop instances have been wiped so far. The number of victims is likely to increase because there are thousands of Hadoop deployments accessible from the internet -- although it's hard to say how many are vulnerable. The attacks against MongoDB and Elasticsearch followed a similar pattern. The number of MongoDB victims jumped from hundreds to thousands in a matter of hours and to tens of thousands within a week. The latest count puts the number of wiped MongoDB databases at more than 34,000 and that of deleted Elasticsearch clusters at more than 4,600. A group called Kraken0, responsible for most of the ransomware attacks against databases, is trying to sell its attack toolkit and a list of vulnerable MongoDB and Elasticsearch installations for the equivalent of US$500 in bitcoins.

How AI Can End Bias

AI has the potential to help us avoid bias in hiring, operations, customer service, and the broader business and social communities—and doing so makes good business sense. For one thing, even the most unintentional discrimination can cost a company significantly, in both money and brand equity. The mere fact of having to defend against an accusation of bias can linger long after the issue itself is settled. Beyond managing risk related to legal and regulatory issues, though, there’s a broader argument for tackling bias: in a relentlessly competitive and global economy, no organization can afford to shut itself off from broader input, more varied experiences, a wider range of talent, and larger potential markets. That said, the algorithms that drive AI don’t reveal pure, objective truth just because they’re mathematical.

Gaining Confidence In The Cloud

Security in the cloud refers to the security of systems built on top of it. Whilst the private cloud providers will offer simplified systems for administrators to both implement and audit standard security measures, these by no means replace the traditional measures, nor does they guarantee the security of your systems. Just as in a traditional datacentre or a private cloud, the security of your system is mainly your responsibility. ... The point at which the responsibility passes from your organisation to your supplier is known as the ‘trust boundary’ and it occurs at different points for the different types of cloud e.g. IaaS, PaaS and SaaS. You will need to verify the security status and resilience of the Cloud Service Providers (CSP) you chose and you should also review and understand their Data Protection Act obligations. From 2018,

4 Reasons You Need Developers With Cybersecurity Skills in All Tech Teams

According to a recent study, the global demand for cybersecurity professionals will create more than one million unfilled cybersecurity positions by 2019, with one of the most desired skills being secure software development. No wonder, that entrepreneurs and companies are having increasingly hard time finding the security talent they need to build reliable services and keep the data of their users safe. One way to bridge the skills gap and create more secure products is to train and hire more engineers specialized in cybersecurity. However, it is equally important to improve the cryptography and security skills of all developers working in your company, beyond those sitting in dedicated cybersecurity teams. Here are some thoughts on the reasons.

Close The Gap Between IT & Security To Reduce The Impact Of Cyber Threats

There are many advantages to having separate IT and security teams, with the most important being that it allows experts in both groups to hone specific skill sets that make them more effective at their jobs. But that doesn't mean that each must operate within a silo. Combining security and IT operations can be as simple as encouraging more communications and providing tools that give them visibility into areas supervised by the other group. In security, having a deeper understanding of how systems within the network are designed to perform would help them to better spot and stop threats. Modern advanced persistent threats that use tools like Hammertoss, ... Attacks that leverage native capabilities in the operating system or whitelisted websites/applications (such as tech support) would not be so invisible to those on the security team if they knew what day-to-day operations of those systems looked like from an IT perspective.

Mini PC invasion: These radically tiny computers fit in the palm of your hand

Some of today’s desktops can make even the sleekest of laptops seem downright bulky. Computers have been shrinking for years, and the revolution has only accelerated in recent times. As chipmakers focus on creating processors that sip power without sacrificing performance, thermal concerns have largely been alleviated in modern CPUs. Because of that, today’s pint-sized PCs offer enough performance to play HD video and satisfy Office jockeys, the opposite of the janky, compromised experience of yesteryear’s microcomputers. From PCs-on-a-stick to discreet boxes no larger than a deck of cards, let’s take a look at the wide range of computers available that can fit in the palm of your hand—starting with the one that brought teeny-tiny PCs to public attention.

Quote for the day:

“Never underestimate the power of dreams and the human spirit. The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” -- Wilma Rudolph

Daily Tech Digest - January 18, 2017

Robots are evolving so quickly that the big concern may be how much we don't know about AI

Maybe it will be the the time when change happens so quickly, and is so profound, that the technophiles will be wondering why we didn’t listen to Elon Musk back then. Or Bill Gates. Or Steve Wozniak and the 1000 other science and technology leaders who are so worried about the rise of AI they wrote a letter to the United Nations about it. The UN is listening, because the argument against AI goes far deeper than robots putting us all out of work. Just before Christmas, at the International Convention on Conventional Weapons in Geneva, the 123 participating nations voted to look at the possibility of banning autonomous robots that can select targets without human control. Yes, there are countries that want robots to not only fight the wars, but also have the power to choose who dies and when.

Analysis and Mitigation of NoSQL Injections

Like almost every new technology, NoSQL databases lacked security when they first emerged3–5. They suffered from a lack of encryption, proper authentication, role management, and fine-grained authorization6. Furthermore, they allowed dangerous network exposure and denial-of-service attacks. Today, the situation is better, and popular databases have introduced built-in protection mechanisms. NoSQL databases use different query languages, which makes traditional SQL injection techniques irrelevant. But does this mean that NoSQL systems are immune to injections? Our study shows that although the security of the query language and drivers has largely improved, there are still techniques for injecting malicious queries. Some works already provide reports of NoSQL injection techniques.

Wearable technology in investment banking: watch your money on your watch

As of now, a trading watch-based app is working as an extension of mobile app and to take any further action a trader is required to use their mobile or iPad. In future, wearable devices should allow traders or advisors to take action based on the notification received and initiate next steps using call, SMS, email and other features designed for trading (such as buy/sell touch buttons). Key focus should not be on offering everything on a watch but instead a set of limited action-based features that are simple and urgent. Two versions of a smartwatch trading app can be created: one for advisors to manage client accounts, and the other for individual traders and investors who manage their own accounts.

16 Stunning Statistics that Forecast the Future of the Internet of Things

Everyone’s talking about the Internet of Things, even the “things,” which can now request and deliver customer support, tell if you’re being as productive as you could be at work, let your doctor know if you’re following orders (or not), reduce inefficiencies in energy consumption, improve business processes, predict issues and proactively improve or resolve them based on data received. The Internet of Things (IoT) is just getting started. These forecasts below show why organizations need to get started too (if they haven’t already) on leveraging and responding to the Internet of Things:

Beware This New Gmail Scam That Is Tricking Even Tech-Savvy Users

Hackers who have breached someone's email account look through the emails in it for correspondence containing attachments. They then send emails from the compromised account -- impersonating the account's owner -- with each email leveraging similarities to prior correspondence, so as to make the new messages seem legitimate and familiar. For example, the phishing emails may use a subject line that was used in the past. The hackers embed an image of an attachment used in the past into each phishing email, but configure the image to open not the attachment but, rather, a phishing page that looks like a Google login. Because the user is opening a Gmail attachment, the presentation of a phony Gmail login page does not seem alarming -- especially when the person opening the attachment feels that he or she has been viewing a "safe and familiar" correspondence.

IT Teams Can Influence Culture Across Campus

Do campus users view IT as the department that enables them to work smarter, better and faster, or do they view IT processes as a hurdle to overcome? Certain solutions — collaboration systems, virtual desktop infrastructure, mobile devices, the cloud — support the anywhere, anytime approach that many staff and students have come to expect. Yet as much as IT strives to make this approach possible, it also seeks to manage risk and keep users — and institutional resources — safe from cyberthreats. Balancing these two concerns is a perennial and central IT function, but how IT leaders communicate related initiatives to users can go a long way in shaping culture. When IT can’t accommodate users’ requests, or can’t accommodate them quickly, do staff explain the rationale or the reasons behind a delay? Does IT have a positive track record of collaborating with outside departments to identify ways that IT services can enhance productivity while maintaining security?

Key Data and Analytics Trends Everyone Should Watch in 2017

It’s estimated that between 35 and 50 percent of jobs that exist today are at risk of being lost to automation. Repetitive, blue collar-type jobs might be the first casualties to robotic automation, but with sophisticated AI even professionals — including paralegals, diagnosticians, and customer service representatives — could be at risk. As with most advances in technology, there are pros and cons to this rise in automation. On the one hand, companies will be able to automate repetitive jobs, reduce associated costs, and increase productivity. On the other hand, the elimination of low-skilled or low-education jobs will hurt some of the most vulnerable populations already struggling to find jobs that provide a living wage. The jobs that will remain will require high levels of education and creativity, and there will be fewer of them to go around.

Here's how millennials are impacting the future of communication

Several trends that have emerged over the past 18 months or so point to the decline of email as the primary mode of communication in the workplace. These range from an overall shift in user behavior to the widespread adoption of chat apps, which boast a growing list of functions and capabilities. The emergence of less formal, more engaging modes of workplace communication is most obvious in the adoption apps like Slack and the growing trend in using social networking apps such as Facebook Workplace. Chat apps are proving successful in the workplace for several reasons: Chat apps are convenient. Chat apps support quick and easy-to-access communication, and enable businesses and users to communicate with those who may not have an email address. For instance, many doctors in Brazil use WhatsApp to converse with patients, schedule appointments, and share test results.

What Does "Being Digital" Actually Mean?

Being Digital is the re-imagining of business processes to be by default a fully online, fully automated process from end user interaction to back office processing, with no need for human intervention. This really should be the first question any organisation should ask. The path to being digital is not free…investment is needed and therefore the benefits of being digital needs to be understood by those putting in the investment. Return on Investment is an extremely difficult thing to calculate and it can only be measured on a company by company basis. I could give you a bullet point list of the reasons why – however, you’re about to get your fill of lists plus you can boil it down to one thing: If you don’t become digital, your business will die. And if you don’t take being digital seriously, your competitors will and they will do it better…and your business will die. Ever heard of Blockbusters?

Passwords: A Long Goodbye

Don’t hold your breath. Brett McDowell, executive director of the FIDO (Fast IDentity Online) Alliance, is as passionate an advocate of eliminating passwords as anyone. He says that day is coming, given the creation of a, “new generation of authentication technology” largely based on biometrics, and a “massive collaboration among hundreds of companies” to define standards for that technology. ... There are a number of reasons for that, even though the security problems with passwords are well known and well documented. As Phil Dunkelberger, CEO of Nok Nok Labs, put it, “the username and password paradigm is fundamentally broken. It was never designed for, and is inherently incapable of addressing, the use cases of modern society. “

Quote for the day:

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." -- Nelson Mandela

Daily Tech Digest - January 17, 2017

Turn Your Organization into an Idea Factory: Part I

If there is a perception that the employee suggestion box is a black hole and a waste of time, employees will quickly stop submitting new ideas. I say perception because sometimes ideas are being looked at and evaluated, but communication and transparency around this process is missing or takes too long. The interesting thing about feedback is that it does not need to be positive. It just has to exist. ... Even when a suggestion is turned down, the feedback is seen as positive if there is a proper explanation provided. Another important element of trust is the participation of leadership within the program. There is considerably more success with programs when leaders are active in commenting and responding to ideas, and reinforcing the usage of the program and celebrating success in communications.

Self-Service Business Intelligence is Big, but is it for Everyone?

While business users represent one pocket of parties interested in Self-Service Business Intelligence, another important user segment is the IT department itself. A survey of IT pros from real-time IT management vendor ManageEngine – which this past summer unveiled a self-service solution to help enterprise IT staff gain insights from the data generated by its network monitoring, applications monitoring, and customer support tools – shows that these experts want Self-Service Analytics tools as much as their business counterparts. Forty-two percent of respondents want to create reports on their own, a win for Self-Service Analytics over traditional reporting – and on-demand, with ad hoc reporting being key for more than one-third so that they can get answers to specific questions and analyze specific data.

McKinsey sees blockchain technology reaching full potential in 5 years

The McKinsey report’s time estimate for full blockchain adoption is about half that of similar estimates. The World Economic Forum released a report in October 2015 about the tipping point of disruptive technologies, and included predictions about blockchain in it. Governments, the report claimes, would reach their tipping point for using blockchain technology by 2023, and people would reach their tipping point for using “bitcoin and the blockchain” in 2027. ... However, over the next one to two years startups and standards for the space will rise, as well as “niche applications that will define new markets that do not exist today.” In another three to five years, they predict that the majority of large players will use blockchain technology. Global business consulting firm Accenture has a similar timeline, with a two year shorter timeframe.

Machine Learning – An idea whose time has come

The increasing availability of Big Data from ever-expanding sources, including IoT sensors, digitized documents and images, has made machine learning more relevant than ever before. The data is constantly being used to ‘train’ machines and enable them to make accurate predictions and recommendations. As data continues to proliferate, the ability of our computers to process and analyze that data will also increase. Not only that, computers will also increasingly learn from that data. ... The adoption of Machine Learning in organizations is bound to face some challenges. For instance, computation of data, sourcing talent in large numbers, and creating the requisite infrastructure are going to be major tasks that will need attention and resources. Besides, uncertainty, ethical issues, outcome metrics, logistics, budgeting computational resources, training and testing of data sets all pose challenges.

Data Science of Variable Selection: A Review

One of the biggest problems in predictive modeling is the conflation between classic hypothesis testing with careful model specification vis-a-vis pure data mining. The classically trained can get quite dogmatic about the need for "rigor" in model design and development. The fact is that when confronted with massive numbers of candidate predictors and multiple possible targets or dependent variables, the classic framework neither works, holds nor provides useful guidance – how does anyone develop a finite set of hypotheses with millions of predictors? Numerous recent papers delineate this dilemma from Chattopadhyay and Lipson's brilliant paper Data Smashing: Uncovering Lurking Order in Data who state, "The key bottleneck is that most data comparison algorithms today rely on a human expert to specify what ‘features’ of the data are relevant for comparison.

Online Or Offline, Ransomware Will Find You

Professional ransomware authors typically use online Command & Control centers for their campaigns as they provide multiple benefits, including the ability to track affiliate campaigns, use unique keys created for victims, and alter campaign specifics on the fly. The old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" method has served them well for the longest time, but everything has to change eventually, and even malware makers have to adapt with the times. The reason for this shift in attack strategy is that not all computers are online, which represents a blip in the ability of bad actors to make as much money as humanly possible. If ransomware can't “phone home” when it's time to begin infecting the target, then no encryption can take place and their efforts are wasted. To get around this, it's becoming more common to see offline features built into more traditional packages.

Automate systems and server documentation tasks to boost IT efficiency

You don't need an outside tool, but writing and modifying scripts takes time and effort that can be better spent on other IT projects. Scripts are usually best for smaller organizations with limited IT deployments. When an IT environment includes too many diverse systems to document with a single or even a suite of related scripts, or you must include non-Windows systems in the server documentation process, invest in a third-party tool such as ManageEngine's Device Information tool or CENTREL Solutions' Network Documentation tool. These tools are designed for inventory/configuration discovery, recording and reporting. Implement an outside tool to provide better reporting and free IT staff from time-consuming script maintenance.

Data Theft Trends to Watch in 2017

Mishandling of data by (trusted) third parties will be a prime source of data leaks again in 2017, as it was in 2016. Third party breaches are among the most vexing because business partners and contractors – or even customers – often have access to our most sensitive IT assets and data, but are the hardest to police. We’ve noted the trend of third party breaches before. But expect it to get stronger in 2017 rather than weaker. The reason? More reliance on hybrid products and services that mingle on premises devices and clients with a wide range of cloud based services. Longer and more complex supply chains compound risk. Consider the recent news about wholesale transmission of mobile phone users’ text data and contacts by firmware from the Chinese firm ADUPS to company servers in China.

Five Google Assistant integrations we want to see

Smart conversations need smart partners. The Google Assistant can improve in the near-term very quickly with a larger team of buddies that specialize in different tasks. For example, currently I can ask Google for the score of the latest Golden State Warriors game or when they play next. Down the line, perhaps I’d be able to invoke an agent from ESPN or another sports provider who would be able to answer more detailed questions about a player’s performance, read out relevant news stories, or even participate in a trivia game. When developers get on board, the actions could look very much like this, according to Google: These type of interactions at a deeper level shouldn’t all be handled by Google’s algorithms. News providers and third-party apps and services can offer a larger bank of specialized knowledge for their areas of expertise.

Digital Transformation Forces Businesses To Rethink Cybersecurity

"The big change that's accelerating this trend is that shift to modern architectures," Downey adds. "Sixty-nine percent of executives were saying this digital transformation is creating fundamental changes to their security strategies." Bill Berutti, president of Security and Compliance at BMC, says that cybersecurity is now a critical initiative across the board. Companies, governments and society as a whole are facing increased cybersecurity threats including phishing, ransomware and known vulnerabilities. "Businesses need to tear down security and operations walls — or keep getting hacked," he said in a statement Wednesday. Allison Cramer says many BMC customers are responding by bringing together security professionals, operations professionals and developers into teams focused on particular mission-critical assets.

Quote for the day:

"If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it." -- William James

Daily Tech Digest - January 16, 2017

Windows 10 Build 15007 boosts Edge browser

For PCs, the 15007 build's revised Edge application makes it easier to bring data like favorites, browsing history, and saved passwords from another browser when switching to Edge, said Dona Sparker, software engineer in Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group. The revised Edge can also share tabs with compatible Windows apps. XAML scrollbar improvements for Universal Windows Platform, for both the PC and mobile versions of the OS, ensure the scrollbar's availability when needed while taking up less space. The panning indicator now appears when the user mouses over a scrolling region, and the full scrollbar appears when a user wants to directly interact with it. This improvement will be visible in apps using the Windows 10 Creators SDK.

Expect trouble as Shadow Brokers retire, give away hacking tools

“The economics of the dark markets is mainly based on un-exclusive, common, and low priced tools for lower end cyber criminals that look for low hanging fruit. The more sophisticated hackers prefer to roll their own toolset and thrive on their own research to make exclusive and untraceable exploits. They are patient, as to the point they can stay for years in hiding, timing their actions well before making their ‘coup de grace',” he said. “But it is not improbable that the freebie left by Shadow Brokers will be picked up and used by the lower end of opportunistic cyber criminals in campaigns to extort victims for easy money,” he added. More than half of the windows tools are already known and detected by most anti-malware tools, so it is only a matter of time before security analysts close the gap and provide protection against all the threats in the toolset.

Tech's assault on (obliteration of?) consumer privacy

Some of the societal benefits and consumer privacy risks of these new technologies are similar to ones we already know about, Ramirez said. Geolocation data, for example, can help ease horrendous traffic jams on morning commutes, but it should not be collected or used without a person's consent. Risks from unauthorized geolocation information include stalking; exposure of political, health and religious affiliations; and burglary. But there are new challenges, Ramirez said, among them the number of actors "collecting, compiling, interpreting and using data in a world that operates on big data, IoT and AI." The expanding list ranges from consumer-facing companies, device manufacturers and publisher websites to behind-the-scenes software vendors that connect IoT products to the internet to advertisers and analytics providers. "This vast array of entities makes it difficult to provide consumers with informed choices," she said.

Op-Ed: Blockchain - Innocent Until Proven Guilty

This system of multi-member consensus clearing ensures that each member, on an automated basis, applies the same diagnostic approach to the verification of information against the same record, irrespective of the internal processes of each member. Accordingly, each member of the chain is always cognisant of the acquiesced process adopted in determining whether a block should be added to a chain. This system affords transparency to transactions processed through a Blockchain, bearing in mind that due to the flexibility of Blockchain, the system can be restricted depending on the particular needs and purpose of the Blockchain network. The built-in transparency feature of the Blockchain network arguably negates the need for the regulator to administer and enforce further transparency requirements. The regulator should rather focus on the members of the Blockchain network and not the technology itself.

Ericsson CTO on 5G Standards, the WiFi Angle, and Connected Cars

There is going to be a more distinct separation between the services and the cloud. You asked about car makers and the 5G Automotive Association. We launched that association based upon the idea of a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). An automotive maker would rather think: OK, why go to one service provider? Why not create our own platform and then buy the network piece from all of them? They might want to buy service from three or four networks. Why not have the best coverage and pay per bit? We are going to see more model development over the next few years. If we look at 5G now, I see three phases of the business: First, there is basic connectivity. That is coming now. We are building base stations. Second, we will see transformation of core networks triggered by this access. I believe in 2019 and 2020 we will see a big focus on making a high-performance core. Now we have a radio with almost no latency.

AI Technology Takes Center Stage At Retail Convention

At the National Retail Federation event in New York technology vendors are be showcasing some of the most cutting edge technologies for retailers, including chatbots, artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and more. Are retailers ready? It depends. There's really a range of experiences across companies. Analytics can offer retailers value across many aspects of their businesses, from supply chain optimization to workforce management to understanding consumer behavior. Yet many retailers are still struggling to get their siloed data integrated. It's one thing to offer a retail app to your customers if you've been a brick-and-mortar retailer. It is a more daunting challenge to integrate customer data from mobile apps, the web, physical stores, catalogs, social media, and any other channels to create a comprehensive picture of consumer behavior that can inform your own business decisions.

Here’s What’s Next for CenturyLink’s Data Center Business

There are some big differences between the two big data center deals that came at the tail end of 2016, however. The assets Equinix cherry-picked in its deal with Verizon will be integrated into an already massive global portfolio, while CenturyLink’s colocation business will become the foundation of a whole new company’s business. The name of the company has not been announced. What we do know is that it is a joint venture between Medina’s tech-focused private equity firm Medina Capital and the 30-year-old European buyout investor BC Partners. Its plan is to use the technologies of four of Medina’s previously acquired cybersecurity companies to provide a range of infrastructure products with emphasis on security, all running on top of the data center platform acquired from CenturyLink.

Coding school graduates: Are they worth hiring?

Coding bootcamps are an attractive educational option for certain populations, according to Kevin Kinser, department head of education policy studies at Penn State University. "They are one of the examples of new ways of thinking about providing access to education that is focused on providing marketable job skills," Kinser said. However, bootcamps are not accredited institutes of higher education. Therefore, a problem—such as a student not believing that the program lived up to its promises—would likely lead to a complaint to the Better Business Bureau, unlike at an institute of higher education, which has multiple layers of oversight. "You have to be assured based on your own understanding of the industry that what you're getting is going to have a return on investment," Kinser said. Longevity is an important factor to consider: If a coding school is not reputable, it's likely that they will not be around for long, Kinser said.

When Real-Time Threat Detection Is Essential

While organizations always want to find threats as quickly as possible, that ideal is far from being met. On average, dwell times last months and give cyber criminals all the time they need to peruse a network and extract valuable information that can impact a company, its customers and its employees. There are times when an organization will be especially vulnerable if they don’t have real-time detection capabilities, and in preparation for these events it’s a good idea to reevaluate tools and strategies. Mike Paquette, director of products, security market at Elastic, identifies some of the most common events that can leave an organization vulnerable, and offers advice to successfully navigating them.

IBM’s Watson Joins the War on Cybercrime

Network defenders are facing a constantly increasing number of alerts and anomalies every day. They have a huge workload screening and prioritizing these threats. Watson is trained to automate the typical duties of security analysts. Relying on machine learning and natural language processing, Watson for Cyber Security decides if a certain anomaly is a malicious threat or not. The system will use its vast amount of data to decide whether a specific security offense is related to a known malware or cybercrime campaign. Moreover, it will determine the potential vulnerabilities as well as the scope of the threat. Watson will also serve up a background about a user’s previous activities. For example, in the case of repeatedly failed log-in attempts, the system can make guesses about whether the event is simply related to an absentminded user or if it's a break-in attempt.

Quote for the day:

"Analyze your mistakes. You've already paid the tuition, you might as well get the lesson." -- Tim Fargo