Daily Tech Digest - November 27, 2017

Through the eyes of machines

‘Understanding of the environment by robotic systems will be a big game changer for the new industrial revolution,’ stated Puliš, of Photoneo. ‘Robots, as machines, are nearly perfect, being precise and robust, but they are blind. With 3D vision, they will get their eyes. Their usage will be much wider with improved flexibility. ‘The eyes and brains of robots will come in the form of new 3D cameras and deep learning systems that will not only be able to identify what has happened based on a past experience, but they will be able to predict what may happen in the future.’ Vision-equipped logistics robots are a potential example, offering the ability to pick up containers and move around a facility autonomously. Imaging in 3D would enable them to anticipate structures and objects, recognise where humans are, and understand where they are going and how to navigate around them safely.

UK only average in terms of digital public services

“The UK is undoubtedly a leader in terms of digital innovation and the design of user-centric services, so it might seem surprising that this year’s eGov Benchmark shows it slightly falling behind the group of the biggest European economies in terms of digitising its services,” said Niels Van Der Linden, principal Consultant at Capgemini Consulting. “The UK has developed a number of very smart digital initiatives, and is now working hard to implement these solutions across its entire public sector. The challenge for the UK in climbing up the ranks is to increase the availability of key enablers such as electronic identification and [authenticated sources of information so data can be reused], where other countries have already made steps forward.” To be pulled up on this, the UK must be doing badly, because the total use of electronic identification was only possible in one of two European public services (52%)

Raw data is like raw fish – refine it, or throw it back to sea

Any new insight creates an impact only when it is really applied. For some time the industry has been talking about “actions” as a key step to turn insights into value. But sometimes we have a tendency to look at actions as if they are some magical new capability we need to invent. In reality, we can take a more down-to-earth view. Every day operator teams and individual employees already make multiple decisions, take action, create change, implement procedures – all guided by different work processes. Operationalizing insights is about the ability to enrich these work processes with new intelligence from analytics. In simple terms – to help people to do their best work. Let me give you a real-life example. One Nokia analytics customer had a process of proactively reaching out to possible churners as a result of bad quality in their network home environment. 

Stephen Hawking says Artificial Intelligence could be our undoing

Hawking dropped this bombshell during a technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal. He says the only way we can prevent it is if we find a way to control computers. According to him, computers have the ability to “emulate human intelligence and exceed it.” And since we’re constantly looking for ways to improve AI it could be the best thing for society or the worst. “We just don't know,” he said. “So we cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI, or ignored by it and side-lined, or conceivably destroyed by it.” He admitted that AI does have the potential to reverse the damage done to the natural world or even eradicate poverty and disease, but it’s the uncertainty of the future that sets off alarms for him. And we have to be ready for a worst-case scenario. Hawking says we have to learn how to prepare for an avoid risk with AI as it can bring along new dangers and can disrupt the economy. Earlier this year, he said humans have about 100 years to leave Earth to survive as a species. He’s become more vocal about finding a new planet to live on. Why so? Mainly because we’re running out of room on the planet we’re on, and our natural resources are disappearing. And, you know, there is global warming to think about.

8 Low or No-Cost Sources of Threat Intelligence

While just about every security industry vendor website offers up information on the latest threats, some are better than others. Here, we 'll point out the sites that are the most informative and useful. We called on Roselle Safran, president of Rosint Labs, to work with us to build a meaningful list. Safran's extensive experience in cybersecurity includes several years of service in the Executive Office of the President and Department of Homeland Security during the Obama administration. Safran included some obvious choices from federal government sources, but she also struts her cybergeek sruff by offering up some lesser-known sites that track ransomware and malware. We combined forces with Safran to develop a list that will give novices the threat intelligence amuse-bouche they need while supplying some intel red meat for experienced security pros.

The multi-cloud/hybrid IT environment will come to dominate the enterprise

“Cloud buyers have access to more capabilities than ever before, but the result is greater complexity. It is a nightmare for enterprises to calculate the cost of computing using a single cloud provider, let alone comparing providers or planning a multi-cloud strategy,” said Dr. Owen Rogers, research director at 451 Research. “The cloud was supposed to be a simple utility like electricity, but new innovations and new pricing models, such as AWS Reserved Instances, mean the IT landscape is more complex than ever.” Flexibility has become the new pricing battleground over the past three months, with Google, Microsoft and Oracle all announcing new pricing models targeted at AWS. Analysts believe there will be a market opportunity for cloud dealers that can resolve this complexity, giving users simple and low-cost prices – similar to how consumer energy suppliers abstract away the complexity of global energy markets.

Four Secrets for Turning Insight into Execution

A well-designed leadership off-site is a great place to generate the big ideas that can take your business to the next level. You bring in a speaker, have an in-depth discussion, walk through an analysis, and suddenly, light bulbs go off. People see what they’ve been missing or what has been holding them back. Unfortunately, as soon as people leave the event the light often begins to fade, and even those who complete planned tasks can lose sight of the big idea. Managers may be rigorous about their vision for implementation, but still find that execution varies widely — putting their business at risk and damaging trust and confidence on the team. “Are we going to have another one of those meetings where everyone signs up for stuff, and then no one does anything?” becomes an all-too-common refrain.

Blockchain could be used for citizen identity services, says Reform

Reform suggests that a blockchain app is built across government departments such as HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), Home Office and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) which would act as a layer on top of current databases. ... “This means moving from siloed departments holding different and even contradictory versions of a person’s identity to a user-stored identity, in an identity app on a smartphone,” the report said. “User control will move from low to high, with blockchain providing the technology to achieve it. Unlike today’s identity management model, individuals will have access to their public service identity and will authorise who can see it, and in what form.” Reform said this could also include the use of biometrics to add an extra layer of security, where a citizen could scan their face or fingerprint to access and share identity data with government on their smartphone.

60 Cybersecurity Predictions For 2018

The following list of 60 predictions starts with three general observations and moves to a wide range of cybersecurity topics: Attacks on the US government and critical infrastructure, determining authenticity in the age of fake news, consumer privacy and the GDPR, the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a new tool in the hands of both attackers and defenders, cryptocurrencies and biometrics, the deployment of enterprise IT and cybersecurity, and the persistent cybersecurity skills shortage. IoT vulnerabilities will get more critical and more dangerous. Despite this, there will be no real changes in US law to regulate these devices. This isn't a very risky prediction; Congress is currently incapable of passing even uncontroversial laws, and any IoT regulation faces powerful industry lobbies that are fundamentally opposed to government involvement.

12 Myths Of Data Analytics Debunked

“Nowadays there are so many open source as well as other tools available in the marketplace that can help you start to show the value of data analytics,” Varma says. “You need to have a good understanding of your internal data storage and what problem you’re trying to solve. Cloud is also making it easy to try analytics to solve a business problem.” Modern analytics “are based on cloud systems and big data architecture, which by definition are quite less expensive than traditional data warehouse systems,” adds Beatriz Sanz Saiz, global leader of analytics at advisory firm EY. “Also, data and analytics are typically applied to achieve three outcomes: improve process efficiency, revenue growth, and proactive risk management,” Saiz says. “So overall, the application of data and analytics drive significant [cost] benefits to any company.”

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Quote for the day:

"Humility is a great quality of leadership which derives respect and not just fear or hatred." -- Yousef Munayyer

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Daily Tech Digest - November 26, 2017

A Global Collaboration to Create “Artificial Organisms” Just Went Live

Many experts agree that the development of artificial intelligence will be a significant paradigm shift for humanity. Author James Barrat calls AI “our final invention.” Dr. Ben Goertzel, a robotics scientist and Chairman of SingularityNET, a private AI software company, echoes this sentiment, saying that the advent of AI will cause all human invention to become obsolete. Kaufmann likens true AI with the myth of Prometheus giving fire to humanity: the technology, he believes, will start a new chapter for human-kind. Even more, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that the country that leads in AI development “will be the ruler of the world.” Which is exactly what Mindfire is hoping to prevent. “Mindfire is not owned by a company, it’s not owned or triggered by a government, it is organized by the people and for the people.” 

High-flying cryptos: Digital currencies and the bubble question

The curiosity and openness is tempered by what Constantin Gurdgiev, an academic and economic researcher and advisor writing for financial analysis website Seeking Alpha, describes as "an unknowable bubble". He references the chart below, which has been doing the rounds in crypto circles recently. ... He argues cogently that, although it is difficult to judge whether the chart shows bitcoin to be in a bubble, "Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence. But, taken together with the general lack of credible fundamentals-linked modelling of the crypto-currency, this means that, at this point in time, Bitcoin price can be potentially driven solely by… err… expectations held by its enthusiasts, plus the incentives by the predominantly China-based investors to avoid extreme risks of capital controls and expropriations."

In These Small Cities, AI Advances Could Be Costly

“Big cities provide greater opportunities for synergies among creative, highly technical people, and that’s why they attract them,” explains Iyad Rahwan, an associate professor at MIT and the corresponding author of the paper. “The other dynamic is that cashiers and waiters are less idle in big cities than small cities, so large cities need fewer of them in proportion to their size.” As a result, he says, large cities have fewer routinized occupations that are more likely to be automated and relatively more technical and managerial occupations, which are less likely to be impacted by automation. ... The study is likely to draw comparisons to other recent high-profile economic analyses of automation and jobs. A 2013 University of Oxford paper estimated the susceptibility to “computerization” of more than 700 occupation types and forecast that 47 percent of U.S. employment was at “high risk” of automation

These 7 Disruptive Technologies Could Be Worth Trillions of Dollars

Scientists, technologists, engineers, and visionaries are building the future. Amazing things are in the pipeline. It’s a big deal. But you already knew all that. Such speculation is common. What’s less common? Scale. How big is big? “Silicon Valley, Silicon Alley, Silicon Dock, all of the Silicons around the world, they are dreaming the dream. They are innovating,” Catherine Wood said at Singularity University’s Exponential Finance in New York. “We are sizing the opportunity. That’s what we do.” Wood is founder and CEO of ARK Investment Management, a research and investment company focused on the growth potential of today’s disruptive technologies. Prior to ARK, she served as CIO of Global Thematic Strategies at AllianceBernstein for 12 years. “We believe innovation is key to growth,” Wood said.

The Next Frontier in Blockchain Technology: Scaling and Commercial Optimization

The architecture of the operating systems establishes a well organized “Central Business District.” In this business district each industry has its own dedicated side chain--a one to one scenario where specific issues and problems receive direct attention via the corresponding chain. The highly customizable platforms consist of one main chain, or kernel, that forms the minimum viable Blockchain. As the backbone of the operating system this main chain is used as the core from which custom operating systems can be developed. Developers can use the operating system to create specific configurations, providing adaptability that has so far eluded certain Blockchain projects. So how does this all impact scalability? In essence, a Blockchain-based operating system creates different streams (side chains) which handle very specific tasks.

What Is Blockchain Technology?

As discussed, Bitcoin’s “blockchain” allows for the creation of a unique and scarce digital asset where everyone knows the history of each bitcoin. A single bitcoin is not just a string of ones and zeros, but the first successful (at least so far) censor-proof, portable, easily transactable, durable, and secure digital asset. Bitcoin’s value is subject to the same supply-and-demand mechanics found in any marketplace. If investors find the above characteristics valuable and demand for bitcoin grows, bitcoin’s price rises and vice versa. Bitcoin’s supply is limited to 21M coins (although only about 17M have been mined so far). You can do the math, but as of this writing investors value bitcoin at upwards of $120B in aggregate. To give a sense of how the market values other cryptocurrencies, here’s some market information about some of the top ones

The Uncertain Future of Bitcoin Futures

There is a notion, popular in some circles, that the point of an investment bank is to sell people securities that will go up: that it has a duty to its customers to carefully curate its product offerings and sell them only the stuff that it personally believes in. This is not the point of an investment bank. JPMorgan sits between people who want to buy a thing and people who want to sell the thing, and it intermediates their trades. Diversity of opinion -- some people think the thing will go up, others think it will go down -- is what makes a market. If JPMorgan could only trade with clients after satisfying itself that they are right, it would never do any trades. ... Individuals and institutions who handle bitcoins, meanwhile, have been reduced to writing their private keys on scraps of paper and putting those scraps of paper in safe deposit boxes.

What Artificial Intelligence In Hands Of Adversaries Means For Cyber Defense

Security researchers have already demonstrated how AI can be used in cyberattacks. The Social Network Automated Phishing with Reconnaissance system, or SNAP_R, is a machine learning system that was as successful as a human when spear-phishing Twitter users. SNAP_R used a variety of AI-based approaches to suggest high-value targets and generate quality spear-phishing messaging based on the targets' previous tweets. Moreover, what makes SNAP_R noteworthy is the amount of phishing tweets it sent in the two-hour contest against a human. SNAP_R delivered more than four times as many spear-phishing tweets as the human did, suggesting future AI enabled cyberattacks could have a wider digital reach. AI tools can also generate fake messaging for spear-phishing attacks. SNAP_R demonstrates how these tools can accurately reflect a victim’s language patterns by monitoring personal data, such as social media accounts.

The Power of Self-Service Data Analytics in Financial Services

A self-service approach can help financial institutions break down siloes and connect data within. In the IBM report, only 53% of banking and financial markets set up their big data infrastructure to include information integration. As the use of analytics spread across organizations, particularly outside of IT, balancing governance and access becomes key for marketers to quickly acquire the trusted, accurate information they need for timely, personalized services and promotions. Sophisticated, user-friendly, self-service data analytics capabilities can also deliver untold benefits for risk management and compliance, enabling banks and financial institutions to assess and optimize risk exposure across business units. By empowering business people to analyze their own data, more people within the organization will be able to uncover hidden insights without relying on IT specialists or programmers.

Enterprise architecture and digital transformation: A framework for success

It’s important to note EA is no longer about modeling architecture, according to GCN. EA enables a common language for collaboration in digital environments. This language is a foundation for digital transformation for commercial and public-sector organizations alike. Different businesses have different technology needs and requirements. Thus, there’s more than one EA framework out there. For example, there’s the TOGAF EA model, which serves the needs of a variety of architectures. There’s also the NIST EA modeland federal EA, targeting the needs of government agencies. And though it’s an ambitious project for all but the largest organizations, there are proprietary EA models that aren’t available on the open market.

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Quote for the day:

"Successful leadership requires positive self-regard fused with optimism about a desired outcome." -- Warren Bennis

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Daily Tech Digest - November 25, 2017

It’s time to solve deep learning’s productivity problem

To achieve improved fast-model training, data scientists and researchers need to distribute deep learning across a large number of servers. However, most popular deep learning frameworks scale across GPUs or learners within a server, but not to many servers with GPUs. The challenge is, it’s difficult to orchestrate and optimize a deep learning problem across many servers, because the faster GPUs run, the faster they learn. GPUs also need to share their learning with all of the other GPUs, but at a rate that isn’t possible with conventional software. This functional gap in deep learning systems recently led an IBM Research team to develop distributed deep learning (DDL) software and algorithms that automate and optimize the parallelization of large and complex computing tasks across hundreds of GPU accelerators attached to dozens of servers.

7 types of malware you need to look out for

Bots drain the resources of the infected person’s systems, and they might be causing the computer to be part of a criminal enterprise. They are also commonly used for spambots (which spam computers with ads) and botnets (which are used for distributed denial-of-service attacks). Ransomware is quickly becoming the most notorious type of malware. It’s most famous iteration is WannaCry, which infected hundreds of thousands of organisations across the globe in May 2017, but it was unlike most ransomware in that its scope was massive (because of its worming capabilities). Most ransomware is spread through phishing emails, which offers a more controlled scope. A PhishMe report from last year found that ransomware was delivered in 97% of all phishing emails. Different types of ransomware can operate in slightly different ways, but they all encrypt files and/or lock computers until victims pay for a decryption key.

10 Ways AI and Chatbots Reduce Business Risks

Thanks to advancements in both these fields, AI-powered virtual assistants can now learn independently and provide assistance to consumers without any additional human intervention. Chatbots can also be used as fantastic internal-facing tools. Creating a quality chatbot to help your team is like providing everyone with an assistant. Although it will have limitations at first, using an internal-facing bot can help you speed up your internal processes and create an efficient communication network for all of your workers. The best part about implementing a chatbot is that you won't need to hire developers or cover expensive fees. Thanks to platforms like my company ChattyPeople, you can create bots for free and in a matter of minutes. Best of all, it uses a purely visual interface, so you won't need any coding knowledge to create an AI-powered chatbot. Plus, chatbots can be integrated into a huge variety of channels, including Facebook Messenger and Slack.

AI and IoT set to be major investment trends in 2018

More than half of the organisations surveyed expect to invest over £10 million in digital technologies such as AI, cloud, robotics, analytics, blockchain, the IoT and virtual and augmented reality. Across these technologies, seventy three per cent said they plan to invest in robotics, 63 per cent will invest in augmented and virtual reality, 62 per cent will invest in wearables, 54 per cent will invest in biometrics and 43 per cent will invest in blockchain.  The leader of UK digital transformation at Deloitte, Paul Thompson offered further insight on the firm's first Digital Disruption Index, saying:  “The first edition of the index shows that few UK businesses are successfully exploiting digital technologies and ways of working. Strategies are not coherent, investment levels are modest and the relevant skills are in short supply. As a result, the UK isn't living up to its digital potentional.”

Hadoop Security Issues and Best Practices

It wasn’t all that long ago that Hadoop in the enterprise was primarily deployed on-premise. As such, informative confidential data was safely confined in isolated clusters or data silos where security wasn’t a problem. But thatfastly changed as Hadoop developed into Big Data as-a-Service (BDaaS), took to the cloud, and became surrounded by an ever-growing ecosystem of softwares and applications. And while these innovations have served to democratize data and bring Hadoop into the mainstream, they have also created new security concerns for organizations that now struggle to scale security in step with Hadoop’s rapid technological advances. For many companies Hadoop has developed into an enterprise data platform. That poses new security challenges as data that was once siloed is brought together in a vast data lake and made accessible to a variety of users across the organization.

SophiaTX Integrates Blockchain Technology With SAP

A proof of concept (PoC), recently demonstrated to a select group of attendees in Zurich, shows how businesses can use blockchain technology to transparently and reliably exchange information between their enterprise systems in real time, with a customer invoice directly created in one SAP system automatically transferred via the SophaTX testnet to another company using a different SAP system. ... “It became apparent to us that, in order to adopt blockchain [technology] into various industries and connect to the enterprise applications, we needed to provide common building blocks across all modules of ERP, SCM and CRM systems. This led us to the concept of establishing a platform, as a key infrastructure for peer-to-peer smart transactions, prior to building industry specific solutions.” Kacina explained that different types of cross-industry scenarios have been worked out.

Weigh vendors, tools in software-defined storage products

SDS covers a huge spectrum of software offerings, from hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) or virtual storage area network stacks to new file system approaches and object stores. Soon, we'll see specific services for point application to data flows, too. Don't ignore the option to buy prebuilt appliances. If you are thin in bare-metal integration skills, it makes sense to use third-party integrators that may be the original equipment suppliers. Ultimately, buying from the large established vendors is a low-risk approach, but it will come at a price. With any purchasing decision, avoid vendor lock-in -- especially for drives -- since there can be significant markup when compared to distribution pricing. Ask the vendor upfront whether they allow you to add third-party commercial off-the-shelf products to the appliance, especially for drives and memory.

Are AI Learning Scenarios Unpredictable Enough?

The core of the problem is transparency — perfect information versus imperfect information. When thinking about interplay between humans and machines from a game-theory perspective, information changes games radically. The prisoner’s dilemma is only interesting if both prisoners don’t know what the other will do — that is, both have imperfect information. If one prisoner doeshave perfect information — that is, knows what the other prisoner will do — then the dilemma no longer exists. Similarly, if humans know what AI will do, but AI systems have imperfect information, then we are creating a scenario that plays to AI’s weaknesses. Consider human resources analytics. Once job applicants figured out that automated systems were looking at keywords, they got creative and included every possible keyword in their resume — but in white font and tiny letters. Or consider customer service. An equivalent to the first law of robotics in the customer service context might be the bromide that the “customer is always right.”

Integrating IT with Business and Society

The digital technologies go hand in hand with new approaches to development and operations. “Agile” methodologies result in projects that deliver value continuously from their early stages and evolve through user feedback. “DevOps”, by combining development and operations, ensures that developers know how customers use their systems, and understand their needs. The digital practitioner is emerging as a new professional that can help enterprises harness digital technologies and methods to gain business benefit. The exact role is still evolving. As Forrester’s Charles Betz points out in his book on Digital Delivery, “Digital investments are critical for modern organizations and the economy as a whole. . . Now is an ideal time to re-assess and synthesize the bodies of knowledge and developing industry consensus on how digital and IT professionals can and should approach their responsibilities.”

Asimov’s 4th Law of Robotics

Historically, the human/machine relationship was a master/slave relationship; we told the machine what to do and it did it. But today with artificial intelligence and machine learning, machines are becoming our equals in a growing number of tasks. I understand that overall, autonomous vehicles are going to save lives... many lives. But there will be situations where these machines are going to be forced to make life-and-death decisions about what humans to save, and what humans to kill. But where is the human empathy that understands that every situation is different? Human empathy must be engaged to make these types of morally challenging life-and-death decision. I’m not sure that even a 4th Law of Robotics is going to suffice. A difference engine is an automatic mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. The name derives from the method of divided differences, a way to interpolate or tabulate functions by using a small set of polynomial coefficients.

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Quote for the day:

"Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines." -- Robert Schuller

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Daily Tech Digest - November 24, 2017

Improve your chatbot's performance with Google's Chatbase analytics platform

The Chatbase dashboard displays a variety of top-level statistics that can be drilled down into to get detailed information. Active users, user engagement statistics, and optimization suggestions appear on the landing page. One of the most useful features for managing bots is the Session Flow and Not Handled Messages reports—both show how users are moving through the bot's menus and when they arrive at a point where the bot can't respond properly to a request. Google says both of those screens are designed to eliminate much of the tedium of combing through bot logs for critical information. The screens enable companies to find "user messages that aren't handled well, identifies opportunities to answer more requests, and offers paths to easy optimizations that address both."

A multi-tenant data center offers SDN challenges, benefits

Traditionally, an admin that adds a network device or a new server to a network would need to set aside a significant amount of time for network configuration. Dropping new network devices into a network often had a ripple effect. But with SDN, the controller can figure out how to integrate a new device into the network. While this is a huge advantage for organizations that attempt to be agile, it can cause problems with visibility. When admins add or remove multiple devices, networking or otherwise, it can be difficult to maintain real-time awareness over the networks, which can lead to significant security issues. For example, it may be easier for hackers to add devices to an SDN-enabled network if there's a lack of proper network monitoring.

9 Ways You're Failing At Business Intelligence

No technology professional looks forward to dealing with angry users. System failures and frustration points will happen. Your response to those issues will influence whether your BI initiative succeeds or fails. “The two biggest mistakes I see BI novices make is focusing too much on delivering requests and not involving end business users in the project,” explains Doug Bordonaro, chief data evangelist at ThoughtSpot. ... “When customers are yelling at you about long delivery times and service level agreements being missed, it's the obvious place to focus. Getting too involved in daily delivery misses the larger BI picture. Are you giving your customers what they need to make decisions? Do you understand what data they need? Is there a better solution to the actual problem than another report?”

Understanding Monads. A Guide for the Perplexed

With the current explosion of functional programming, the "monad" functional structure is once again striking fear into the hearts of newcomers. Borrowed from the field of category theory in mathematics, and introduced into programming languages in the 1990s, monads are a fundamental construct in pure functional languages like Haskell and Scala. Here's what most newcomers know about monads: A monad is useful for doing input and output; A monad is useful for other things besides input and output; and A monad is difficult to understand because most of the articles about monads go into too much detail or too little detail. The third bullet motivates me to write this article -- the hundredth (or maybe even the thousandth) article that introduces readers to monads. With any luck, you'll finish this article feeling that monads aren't so scary.

5 characteristics of AI technologies worth investing in

Machine learning and artificial intelligence are timely subjects that spark the public imagination. In 2016, between $26 billion and $39 billion was invested in AI, according to recent estimates from the McKinsey Global Institute, a leading private-sector think tank. That number is three times the amount spent just three years prior, an increase driven by entrepreneurial activity and technological advancements. Although thousands of venture firms are investing in sexy machine learning projects, there are very real benefits that machine learning and AI are realizing now, not in a future timeline of self-driving cars and full home automation. Smart investors and observers should consider following companies that are solving these five issues.

How Mercedes Is Preparing For The 4th Industrial Revolution

In an era of great uncertainty and disruption for automotive manufacturers, Mercedes and its parent company Daimler are jumping in full throttle as leaders of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Not only are they designing new vehicles, but their services, influence in the transportation industry and factories are transforming to embrace the new opportunities and demands of their customers. Other companies should follow their lead to thrive in the new industrial revolution. ... Not only is this revolution possible due to new technology, but it combines the physical, digital and biological worlds. There are great opportunities as well as tremendous risks within this transformation, and there will be no industry or organization who won’t be impacted in some way.

Hyper-convergence + backup software = scale-out backup nodes

The next step in the hyper-convergence process has been to collapse backup software and scale-out storage into a single product to create hyper-converged backup. A hyper-converged backup solution consolidates backup storage and software into a scale-out architecture that encompasses all the features of a backup platform. Solutions are deployed as a cluster of servers or nodes, across which the functions of metadata management, data storage and scheduling are implemented. In common with many hyper-converged infrastructure offerings, hyper-converged backup solutions implement a distributed scale-out storage layer across the cluster of nodes/servers. This provides a landing zone for backup data that can be used for recovery or “instant” restores. As hyper-converged backup products are essentially scale-out storage in their own right, many offer the ability to act as a hypervisor to a data store.

New Google Play Store malware highlights disturbing trend of multi-stage Android attacks

When the app is initially installed from Google Play it doesn't even request any suspicious looking permissions. All its nefarious work is done invisibly in the background as it decrypts and runs its first payload, which in turn decrypts and runs the second one. The second-stage payload reaches out to the malware-hosting website and downloads the third-stage payload. It's at this point that the malware prompts the user to accept an installation of what seems to be a benign update—either to Flash Player, something Adobe related, or even an Android system update. If at this point the user questions the install, the whole process can be stopped without further harm—multi-stage Android attacks are literally asking you to install malware. If the install request is accepted the third payload decrypts and runs its contents: the actual malware.

2 big innovations that made Amazon's Kindle a success

Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos was heavily involved in the process and challenged the team to find a way to create that wireless connection, insisting it's what customers wanted. They pulled off the feat by adding into the device a phone modem, jury-rigging the chip for downloads instead of voice calls. They partnered with Sprint, which provided the wholesale cell service. As the Lab126 team prepared to launch the new device, they joined Bezos for a two-day offsite meeting. Bezos, currently the richest person in the world but also a fan of frugality, invite the team to his parents' house in the Seattle area while his parents were on vacation in Italy, Tritschler said. Ten years later, Tritschler said tens of thousands of people still use the original Kindle device. "I smile everytime I see one on a plane," Tritschler said.

Ready For More Secure Authentication? Try These Password Alternatives

“The problem with the password isn’t the password itself. It can be hardened in certain respects,” says Heywood. “The crux of the issue is that the password is a shared secret. People reuse passwords between sites, so you’re relying not just on the security of the site you’re working with, but the security of every site you’ve ever used that password. Secrets always need to be rotated.” Passwords are transformed using a hashing algorithm that is hard to reverse. Heywood says that too many sites are using hashing algorithms that are decades old and known to be compromised. Using today’s high-speed computers, it’s relatively easy for a black hat to reverse password hashes stolen during a breach. “There are now frameworks where we can quickly validate those credentials against other website breaches or even in real time against other websites.”

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Quote for the day:

"Big data is at the foundation of all of the megatrends that are happening today, from social to mobile to the cloud to gaming" ~Chris Lynch

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Daily Tech Digest - November 23, 2017

Five Big Data Trends To Influence AI In 2018

The age of Big Data has reached an all new high as disruptive and innovative digital technologies push businesses to adapt quickly in a rapidly changing consumer market. The capabilities and agility of big data combined with the scale of artificial intelligence is helping businesses across industries to understand evolving consumer behaviour and preferences, gain business intelligence and apply valuable insights when creating strategies. The convergence of big data and AI is the most significant development for businesses across the globe, enabling them to capitalise on hitherto unexplored opportunities. A major factor accentuating the importance of big data is also the massive volume of, and speed at which data is created through digital technologies and devices, providing businesses with real-time access to information from far more number of sources than ever before.

What CIOs can learn from investors when assessing fintech startups

Whether they understand the inner workings of a fintech, those in charge of the money want a return on their investments – and margins for investors in fintech can be low compared to other segments such as e-commerce, media and software. This means fintechs need a large volume of business to become profitable. However, it is possible to see these investments under a different light. To start with, investors need to consider that the dynamics of customer relationships are often different in financial services, says Degnam. “What’s attractive about financial services is that the scale of the markets is often significantly larger – sometimes in the trillions of dollars – and the customer relationships are generally longer lived. “Where it’s pretty easy for someone to shop at a different retailer, it’s much more difficult for a person to switch providers of their financial products, both in consumer and business markets,” he says.

How to better manage mixed data center environments

The paradox is that many businesses recognize the gains associated with moving to public or hybrid cloud models, but often do not fully appreciate the strategy necessary to optimize their performance. Fortunately, there are methods to help IT teams better understand how their cloud infrastructure is performing. Cloud infrastructure tools provide IT staff with greater visibility and real-time insight into power usage, thermal consumption, server health and utilization. The key benefits are better operational control, infrastructure optimization and reduced costs, no matter the shape of an organization’s cloud. So as the clouds part, let’s look at some of the ways cloud infrastructure tools can help IT teams in their transition from private to public or hybrid clouds.

The future of artificial intelligence in data centers

AI and ML have the capability to transform how data centers are run. Increasingly, the move toward virtualized and cloud-based platforms means that administrators are struggling to deal with issues. For example, the root cause could be down to any of several items, and the curing of one issue can just shift a problem to a different area on the platform. AI and ML can work from the creation of a known baseline operating condition for a platform and can then monitor any significant change to this -- and can see exactly what has caused that change. Based on empirical knowledge of the multiple different workloads concerned, the system can then automatically decide whether the change requires intervention or whether it should just wait to see if the event calms down and the platform reverts to normal conditions.

How GDPR will impact data management practices

To put the provisions of the GDPR in context, I should note the United States and Europe have very different views of data privacy. In the US, we tend to put greater value on free speech—and the right to evidence in litigation—than we do for data privacy. In fact, contrary to what many Americans think, there is no specific right to privacy in the US Constitution. American courts have interpreted certain privacy rights from amendments to the Constitution, including the first 10 amendments, known commonly as the Bill of Rights. However, the original document is silent on the issue of privacy, and it wasn't until 1965 that the US Supreme Court articulated an individual right to privacy when it overturned a state law on contraceptives in Griswold v. Connecticut.

Government urged to improve redress for mass data breaches

Despite a commitment that the government would use the Data Protection Bill to make it easier for those affected by data breaches to have a clearer right of redress, the letter claims that the bill currently fails to deliver the provisions that are needed.  The letter suggests that implementing Article 80(2) of the GDPR would create a collective redress regime for breaches of data protection law. “This would complement the existing collective redress regime introduced under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA) which applies to infringements of competition law,” the letter says, arguing that the courts have procedures and practices in place for the CRA, including ensuring only cases that have merit proceed, which could be adapted to apply to an Article 80(2) regime.

Will the end of net neutrality crush the Internet of Things?

Attempts to leverage the new rules might not have be so blatant, though. A carrier might simply tell a company like GE that if it wants guaranteed prompt delivery of the data from its industrial IoT devices, it will have to upgrade to a higher — read, more expensive — tier of service to ensure the required service levels. Given the high stakes, a company the size of GE might be willing go along. But smaller businesses — especially those upstart IoT startups with the cool new ideas might — not be able to afford to pay the freight for premium net access. So, the data from its IoT devices might not be delivered for analysis in a timely fashion … or at all. For enterprise IoT users, the initial effect is likely to be higher costs to ensure access and greater uncertainty about the best ways to connect IoT devices.

3 ways to consolidate data security and disaster recovery strategies

For years, many IT leaders have outlined and executed security and disaster recovery plans as two separate programs. Now as IT evolves in a cloud era, this approach is beginning to cause serious issues for organizations. The original rationale for separating plans is founded on the idea that security prevents man-made disasters from occurring, with zero focus on recovery. This approach was in no way coordinated with the recovery plans. While the protocols for each might be unique unto themselves, it’s risky to keep security and disaster recovery as separate entities. Even with the best preventative security technology, man-made disasters can and will happen. We see examples of this time and again as major brands are headlined across the globe from widespread outages or ransomware, leaving CIOs scrambling to regain true IT resilience by combining cybersecurity with disaster recovery.

Enterprises must address Internet of Identities challenges

Active Directory came in through Windows servers, VPNs and VLANs came via Cisco, authentication technologies like RSA SecureID were procured and managed by security teams, etc. As a result, everyone has a piece of IAM, but no one owns it across the enterprise.  ESG research indicates that IT infrastructure operations (49 percent) bear the majority of IAM responsibility, but security (31 percent), app management (10 percent), app development (5 percent), and mobile app management (4 percent) teams are leaning in on IAM activities. Yup, when it comes to IAM, many organizations could be considered a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none. IAM is a prisoner of the cybersecurity skills shortage. Security teams will be responsible for Internet of Identities policy enforcement, controls and end-to-end monitoring, but this oversight may be impacted by the global cybersecurity skills shortage.

Business Transformations caused by Business Intelligence

For us to understand the influence of business intelligence in today’s world, we need to understand the meaning of the term itself. When we separate the words, ‘business’ is defined as trading activities that involve buying and selling goods or services. ‘Intelligence’ is seen as a ‘collection of information which is perceived to be of certain value,’ in this case, economic and financial value. Combining both words gives us a clear definition of what business intelligence is about, but with a slight catch -the collection PLUS analysis of information, strategies, and software that is perceived to be of great economic and financial value for those who are at their receiving end. This collection of valuable information is subject to modifications with time as software get more efficient and better ways are discovered to enhance smooth trading transactions.

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Quote for the day:

"Open Leadership: the act of engaging others to influence and execute a coordinated and harmonious conclusion." -- Dan Pontefract

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Daily Tech Digest - November 22, 2017

The code of ethics for AI and chatbots that every brand should follow

The topic of chatbot ethics is complex and spans a wide area including privacy, data ownership, abuse and transparency. Rob High, CTO of IBM Watson was recently featured in an article on Forbes.com titled “Ethics And Artificial Intelligence With IBM Watson’s Rob High.” In the article, Rob talks about how in order to keep AI ethical, it needs to be transparent. Rob advises that when customers interact with a brand’s chatbot, for example, they need to know they are communicating with a machine and not an actual human. Ethics form the foundation of how a bot is built, and more importantly, they dictate how a bot interacts with users. How a bot behaves has the potential to influence how an organization can be perceived and unethical behavior can lead to consumer mistrust and litigation issues. Ethical bots can promote brand loyalty and help boost profit margins.

Machine learning can cure your terrible data hygiene

Data hygiene isn't easy. You can't hire enough interns to even come close to rectifying past mistakes. The reality is enterprises haven't been creating data dictionaries, meta data and clean information for years. Sure, this data hygiene effort may have improved a bit, but let's get real: Humans aren't up for the job and never have been. ZDNet's Andrew Brust put it succinctly: Humans aren't meticulous enough. And without clean data, a data scientist can't create algorithms or a model for analytics. Luckily, technology vendors have a magic elixir to sell you...again. The latest concept is to create an abstraction layer that can manage your data, bring analytics to the masses and use machine learning to make predictions and create business value. And the grand setup for this analytics nirvana is to use machine learning to do all the work that enterprises have neglected.

What’s Keeping Deep Learning In Academia From Reaching Its Full Potential?

Getting the most out of machine learning or deep learning frameworks requires optimization of the configuration parameters that govern these systems. These are the tunable parameters that need to be set before any learning actually takes place. Finding the right configurations can provide many orders of magnitude improvements in accuracy, performance or efficiency. Yet, the majority of professors and students who use deep learning outside of computer science, where these techniques are developed, are often using one of three traditional, suboptimal methods to tune, or optimize, the configuration parameters of these systems. They may use manual search–trying to optimize high-dimensional problems by hand or intuition via trial-and-error; grid search–building an exhaustive set of possible parameters and testing each one individually at great cost

How Will Blockchain Disrupt Insurance?

When you consider the characteristics of the blockchain in the area of claims, the far reaching effect of this innovation start to become clear. An important element of blockchain technology that is worth mentioning here is smart contracts. These are lines of code that contain rules and regulations for actions that need to be taken in the event of certain things occurring, as well as the mechanism for executing these actions. In essence, they are digital contracts that are unambiguous in their design and don’t need any human administrator to action. Therefore, instead of waiting days or weeks to settle a claim, the introduction of smart contracts could mean that claims are settled instantaneously and without the need for transmitting paper documents. Our own work with a major global insurer showed what improvements can be made. The personal injury insurance app we collaborated on allowed someone to buy an insurance policy and have it issued on the blockchain.

Technology dominates Autumn Budget as key to UK’s growth

To meet the challenge of tomorrow head on, “we need the skills,” said Hammond. In a range of initiatives, he announced three million apprenticeships to start by 2020, the introduction of the much-anticipated T-levels and a further £20 million for FE colleges to help them to prepare for this. “Knowledge of maths is key in hi-tech, cutting edge jobs,” continued Hammond. To help entice more students into maths, the Budget will help extend maths initiatives to 3,000 school and commit 40 million to train math teachers across country. Computer science is also at heart of the impending revolution, and Hammond announced that every secondary school pupil can now take this, with his plan was to triple the number of trained computer science teachers to 12,000.

The current state of Apache Kafka

The upside is that it lets you move fast. It adds a certain amount of agility to an engineering organization. But it comes with its own set of challenges. And these were not very obvious back then. How are all these microservices deployed? How are they monitored? And, most importantly, how do they communicate with each other? The communication bit is where Kafka comes in. When you break a monolith, you break state. And you distribute that state across different machines that run all those different applications. So now the problem is, ‘well, how do these microservices share that state? How do they talk to each other?’ Frequently, the expectation is that things happens in real time. The context of microservices where streams or Kafka comes in is in the communication model for those microservices. I should just say that there isn't a one size fits all when it comes to communication patterns for microservices.

How Artificial Intelligence is changing the world

If we go through the definition of Artificial intelligence, it will be a type of intelligence that is displayed by Machines and Devices in contrast with the Natural Intelligence i.e. displayed by Humans or other Animals. In this process, Machines and Devices are programmed in such a way that makes them capable to learn and change reaction to environment depending upon the outer Environment and Situations. In early fifty’s People believed that Artificial Intelligence, AI is nothing other than imaginary Creation of the Hollywood. But with the extent of time, progress in the science and technology leads AI to come out of the virtual world. The term is Artificial Intelligence, also known as Machine Intelligence is first coined by John McCarthy for the Dartmouth Conference. From the First Discussion, this term looks catchy and occupied the mind of teach geeks and the Imagination of People ever since.

State Bank of India's blockchain smart contracts, ID verification could boost banking security

"Smart contracts can be used for simple things like non-disclosure agreement... rather than signing forms. A lot of internal processes can be contracted," Baraokar told the Times. "We do a lot of IT procurement, a lot of it can be implemented using blockchain." The blockchain-enabled Know Your Customer (KYC) will help banks verify a customer's identity, with document requests from the bank when opening a new account. This can reduce the human and financial costs of such verification. State Bank of India is also currently designing an innovation center in Navi Mumbai, which will research emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, robotic process automation, and predictive analytics, and their potential use for making banking easier.

C-suite execs investing heavily in blockchain technology to remain competitive

The boardrooms of the private mid-market firms that took part in the survey not only understand blockchain technology, but also see the real value in implementing it within their day to day operations. The survey found that 34% of respondents plan to use blockchain for storing and securing digital records, 24% said they will use it for executing smart contracts, and 19% said they will use it to exchange digital assets. ‘The shared-ledger technology known as blockchain is making business more efficient and transparent for companies of all sizes,’ writes the report. ‘If credit scores have long determined the terms of certain financial transactions, blockchain-based solutions will raise the stakes even more for reputation and digital identities by adding a higher level of trustworthiness to digital interactions.’

Only half of business leaders viewed as digitally literate

The global findings were released today and paint a concerning portrait for the progress to date, and future of digital transformation across the globe. The Digital Transformation Barometer data delves into digital transformation and digital literacy within leadership, as well as emerging and disruptive technologies across the globe within several industries. “With this research, ISACA’s global membership provides a digital transformation reality check that assesses actual technology adoption plans, levels of sentiment of support and concern, and monetary commitments to deploy emerging technology by geography and industry,” said ISACA CEO Matt Loeb, CGEIT, CAE. “The resounding message from our research is clear: senior leadership needs to invest in increasing its digital fluency. Organisations with digitally fluent leadership are more clearly recognising the benefits and risks of emerging technologies.”

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Quote for the day:

"Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day." -- Jesse Jackson

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Daily Tech Digest - November 21, 2017

Consumers Want IoT Toys Regardless of Security, Survey Finds

Keeper Security's finding that consumers don't care as much as they should about IoT security is consistent with other recent studies. On Nov. 14, McAfee released its annual Most Hackable Holiday Gifts list, which reported that 20 percent of consumers would buy an IoT device with known security risks. Consumers often expect the things they buy in stores to be safe, which is not necessarily an incorrect assumption, according to Guccione. He noted, however, that consumers still need education when it comes to IoT security.  "I think [consumers] are just assuming these products are safe," Guccione said. "IoT manufacturers won't begin to take security vulnerabilities and concerns to heart until consumers demand it from them or the government enacts regulations that force them to make them safe."

Disrupt, transform or die. It’s time to enjoy the digital ride

Even among those businesses who have modernised their IT infrastructure, there are a whole new set of challenges to overcome, notably a lack of available skills in key areas such as DevOps delivery and agile development. Demand for IT skills is currently outpacing the worldwide growth in this talent pool. That imbalance will change over time as the greater focus on STEM subjects in schools begins to pay off, and younger, more digitally minded employees enter the workforce. In the meantime, a majority of organisations are looking to specialist services providers. According to our report, just over half (51%) of all large organisations will look for help to implement robotic process automation, while even more still will rely upon third parties for the added complexities of intelligent (63%) and cognitive (64%) automation.

CXOs: Get ready for augmented and virtual reality technology

Kai Goerlich, SAP's chief futurist at SAP's Innovation Center Network, believes that the first benefits of AR/VR for companies may well be in the areas of remote inspection and plant and equipment maintenance and in product design and simulation. "A building inspector can walk through a house with a set of AR glasses, see the blueprint of the structure overlays at the top of his AR glasses, and physically inspect the premises for smoke alarms," Goerllch said. "On the spot, he can verify if all smoke alarms are properly placed and installed, and he can note any exceptions." A second use for AR/VR inspection and maintenance involves sites that are inherently dangerous for humans to visit, such as certain areas with nuclear reactor plants or remote geographic areas that mining companies are considering for exploration.

Tips to Protect the DNS from Data Exfiltration

The most insidious path for criminals to mine data is via the Domain Name System (DNS). The DNS protocol is manipulated to act as a "file transfer" protocol and by default is seen as legitimate. Most businesses don't even know that data is being exfiltrated until it is too late. A recent DNS threat report from EfficientIP revealed that 25% of organizations in the US experienced data exfiltration via DNS, and of those, 25% had customer information or intellectual property stolen. The average time to discover a breach was more than 140 days. Considering that hackers can silently drain about 18,000 credit card numbers per minute via DNS, that's a customer database many times over. In addition, businesses aren't installing the required patches on their DNS servers, either (86% applied only half of what is necessary, according to our report), which makes sense in the case of Equifax, where apparently only one employee was responsible for patches.

Mastering change management to drive digital transformation

When faced with the task of altering the entire digital infrastructure of an organization, CIOs should adopt a mission-oriented mindset. Enacting transformational change across an entire organization requires a leader capable of engaging all departments. The ability to see the entire forest without getting hung up on each individual tree is essential to getting the job done. This perspective lends itself to an operational, rather than technological approach. My previous experience made me an unlikely candidate to lead a mid-sized city’s digital transformation efforts, if you still believe that a CIO’s day-to-day responsibilities are tech-saturated. But if “change management officer” is the new “chief information officer,” I may be a better fit. From February 2016 to February 2017, I was deployed with the US Navy; my third deployment overseas.

IoT needs to be secured by the network

The network, Utter said, is the key battleground for future IoT security, largely because of economics – some endpoints simply aren’t able to be secured sufficiently without an unreasonable investment of money. If shipping crates with highly secure IoT endpoints attached to them cost too much, for example, that throws off a company’s entire business model.  “We need to start framing IoT in a slightly different way,” he said. “Everyone focuses on the endpoint … but I believe the network can actually be an enforcement point for IoT, because some devices will never be appropriate to have high-level security, it’s just not right in the economic model.” Major mobile data carriers, Utter argued, have a substantive part to play in keeping IoT secure. Given that an increasing number of IoT devices use LTE, LoRaWAN and even 3G to connect, the carriers can make a contribution by scrubbing data, blocking malicious devices and other active security measures.

Exploring the future of retail technology

Digital advertising can already target certain people depending on their interests and demographics via social media, but imagine if consumers could be served ads on the go based on their location. Geolocation would allow retailers to send promotions to customers’ smartphones as they pass their brick and mortar locations to offer individual promotions based on products the user had previously viewed online. Abundant internet connections will also allow store owners to quantify the in-store experience more easily. For example, it could allow customers use their smartphone to navigate the store and find items they want, or prompt them offer immediate feedback on their shopping experience. Retailers could then use this data to implement changes to store layout, staff numbers, and the availability of specific products.

Dropbox CIO Sylvie Veilleux on taking IT from 'good to great'

In many technology companies, before they hire a CIO, there's a very solid corporate infrastructure team. That team existed here and served the organization. And there were pockets of teams building applications and providing services; we had people on different teams who did that. So, it's not like there was no IT happening, but they were in different lines of business, so they weren't working as a whole. But now it's about how you take good to great. There were groups -- our product engineering team, the finance team, the HR team -- and we brought them together to see what we had for capabilities then identified the gaps. So, as part of my first few weeks, I did some assessment, looking at capabilities and infrastructure and our weaknesses and thought about how we'd build our team and address the gaps.

Challenges in HoloLens Application Development

In a nutshell, HoloLens can create hologram objects which are made of light and sound. It projects 3D holograms which are intangible and can be placed in the real world. The holographic shellrepresents a 'Mixed-Reality World' which is a combination of real-world objects and the holograms created by the system. HoloLens can create 3D holograms which can be placed alongside with real world objects, and the user can interact with them. Holograms can be attached to horizontal or vertical planes, such as room walls or floors. For example, movies can be played on the wall, internet browsers mounted on the walls, or Skype calls follow you as you walk around the space. Interactive object models can be created using Holograms to demonstrate proofs of concept. HoloLens recognizes the room model with its geo-coordinates which helps us to create location-aware applications.

The dangerous data hack that you won’t even notice

More broadly, data manipulation breeds uncertainty. When a hacker’s goal is to leak stolen information or hold data for ransom, their success depends on their ability to prove the information they hold is real. But with data manipulation, the goal is to call the underlying information into question. And uncertainty is its own weapon. Ten years ago, an announcement by the banking group BNP set the 2007 financial crisis in motion because they said they didn’t know what securities linked to subprime mortgages were worth. In today’s data-driven markets, the consequences of uncertainty for the financial industry might be far greater. Admittedly, data-manipulation hacks are not as easily monetizable as ransomware, nor do they produce as much buzz as the public release of sensitive data. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have serious financial repercussions.

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Quote for the day:

"Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny." -- C.S. Lewis

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