AI has the potential to change almost every industry, and digital marketing is no different. Tom Welbourne, founder and director at The Good Marketer, looks at the evolution of AI and what marketers can do about it.
Huge growth is predicted in the global AI market over the next few years, with its value reaching $190.61 billion by 2025.
With this in mind, let's take a look at the impact AI is having on the digital marketing industry.
What impact is AI having on digital marketing?
With so much data involved in the digital marketing industry, the impact that AI will have is huge. Common marketing tasks that involve data such as customer segmentation, campaign automation, and A/B testing will all feel its impact. AI will be able to carry out these tasks more efficiently than humans.
AI is also causing areas of marketing such as SEO, email marketing, lead generation, content marketing and predictive marketing to change. These changes will be disruptive, but as long as digital marketers stay aware and have an open mind, there's no reason to fear them.
Continue reading: https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2022/02/16/how-ai-changing-the-role-the-digital-marketer

Love me some Minda Harts, speaker & Author at The Memo LLC, Check out this podcast episode where she talks about the trauma that women of color experience in the workplace, the role allies can play in the healing process, and how managers can reduce workplace trauma. https://changecatalyst.co/minda-harts/

For every dollar a white man in the tech industry was paid last year, a black woman in the same role made 90 cents, according to a new report from the tech job platform Hired. That’s an improvement. In 2019, she would have made 87 cents. Back in 2016, that would have been 79 cents. https://www.vox.com/recode/22443656/diversity-race-tech-pay-inequality

Impostor feelings are often racialized and linked to feelings of anxiety because of the stereotypes often associated with race. Impostor feelings can thrive in Black and Latina women in professional and academic settings when they do not see themselves represented in leadership positions. Only 58 Black women and 71 Latina women are promoted for every 100 men who are promoted to management positions. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/04/why-black-and-latinx-women-struggle-more-with-impostor-syndrome.html

We live in a highly connected world. There are already approximately 10 billion connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and their number is expected to grow to over 25 billion by 2030. They also vary across every conceivable industry; simple IoT sensors and consumer-focused smart home gadgets have been joined by sophisticated medical devices, next-generation automotive technologies, industrial IoT hardware, and so on.
While greater connectivity will unlock immense potential for technology innovators, it also creates increasing cybersecurity threats. According to Kaspersky research, the number of attacks on IoT devices more than doubled during the first half of 2021. Bad actors have increasingly targeted firmware, as it has historically been one of the most overlooked aspects of device security.
Last year, Microsoft noted that 83% of businesses reported a firmware attack in the prior two years – an astonishingly high rate!
Securing devices has become more complex
Three primary roadblocks now stand in the way of securing our highly connected world: increasing cybersecurity risks, a widespread scarcity of cybersecurity expertise, and the complex, ever-changing global regulatory landscape. For everyone in the ecosystem – device manufacturers, suppliers, systems integrators and other stakeholders at every level, from chip to cloud – the task of navigating compliance complexity while mitigating cybersecurity risks has become incredibly tough.
In the past, companies commonly shipped connected devices with barely sufficient security and left customers to handle the risks. Today it’s no longer sufficient to simply bring a quality product to market in a timely manner – organizations must ensure their products are secure at the core, so they can continue to operate safely in the modern threat landscape, where attacks on firmware are both foreseeable and common.
Continue reading: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/02/16/securing-iot/

Black women are now the most educated group in the United States, but they remain woefully underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. The COVID-19 pandemic is our chance to repair this gap. 
As a therapist and career coach working with adults throughout the pandemic, I have assisted people with a wide range of career concerns. I have worked with individuals who are reassessing their career goals in the context of the pandemic, looking for more flexibility as companies transition back to in-person workdays or languishing in their current role and looking to find fulfillment at work and in their personal life. Economists and workforce development professionals have been baffled by how to address the Great Resignation.  
Since the pandemic began, employees are leaving the workforce or finding new work opportunities en masse. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the U.S., more than 4 million Americans have left their jobs since September 2021. 
What does this mean for STEM industries, which have historically been in high need for skilled workers? Every year there are thousands of unfilled positions in STEM. It is estimated that more than 3 million jobs in STEM will need to be filled by 2025.  
The U.S. consistently lacks professionals in the STEM workforce and struggles with diversifying the STEM workforce. Specifically, the U.S. continues to lack Black women in STEM. The workforce gaps in STEM can be directly traced back to pipeline leaks in K-12 and post-secondary education. Beginning in high school, fewer women and racial minorities expect to have a career in STEM at age 30. Then, in college, significantly more men than women declare STEM majors and significantly more Asian and white students declare STEM majors when compared to their counterparts.  
Continue reading: https://msmagazine.com/2022/02/16/black-women-stem-gap/

Karin Fuentesová started off her career in the accounting sector, where she worked for 13 years. While working there, she observed how much time is wasted by people doing mundane tasks, such as manual data entry of invoices into accounting systems.
After taking notes, Fuentesová launched Digitoo, which automates manual bookkeeping processes. Founded in 2019, the founder struggled to find investors but in 2021, it raised €900k in seed funding from Czech investors Kaya VC and Nation 1.
For Fuentesová this was a huge success because only 46% of founders raise more than $250k in the pre-seed phase in Central Eastern Europe.
Her investment was reportedly the first pre-seed investment of this amount in a company led by a single female founder.
The conversation around ethnic diversity in European tech often centers on entrepreneurs in the UK.
But there are many Black and mixed-race founders, particularly women, in other parts of Europe that have often struggled to get funding, experienced media disparity, or much like women here in the UK have been sidelined for high-level opportunities.
So we’ve made a list of amazing founders across the continent who’re doing some pretty cool things that deserve recognition.
Continue reading: https://peopleofcolorintech.com/break-into-tech/outside-of-the-us-and-the-uk-here-are-the-black-and-mixed-race-female-tech-founders-raising-funds-and-leaving-long-lasting-impact/

Today’s Woman in Tech: Ruth Vela, Director of Technology Experience at Nextiva
Ruth Vela is the Director of Technology Experience at Nextiva and the country manager of Nextiva Mexico. Ruth is responsible for the Technology Experience program, which ensures a consistently positive experience and highly engaged workforce for the company’s global team of technologists. Additionally, Ruth leads end-to-end operations for Nextiva Mexico, where much of the company’s R&D is conducted.
Ruth combines her unique skills in engineering, leadership, and entrepreneurship with her passion for using technology to simplify the way we experience work. She is an advocate for expanding education and careers in STEM to women across the world.
When did you become interested in technology? What first got you interested in tech?
A middle school class in electronics sparked my interest to learn about the magic of how technology works. That class helped me realize how removed I was from understanding the way technology influences our daily experiences.
How did you end up in your career path? What obstacles did you have to overcome?
Early in my career, I was a founding member of a telecommunications startup. My initial role was as a telecommunications engineer, and I grew to become heavily involved in customer success and growth, which was key to the startup’s success. There, I began to understand how much work goes into making a business successful, and that the people you hire are your most important asset.
Continue reading: https://jaxenter.com/women-in-tech-vela-176624.html

Even as the price of Bitcoin rises and falls tumultuously, virtually no one believes any longer that media giants like Bloomberg will one day have to remove “crypto” sections from their websites. Meanwhile, blockchain, the technology powering such digital assets, has expanded far beyond cryptocurrencies or even their surrounding ecosystem; legacy industries are gradually beginning to eye blockchain for their own purposes, and there’s slim reason to think they’ll hesitate in adopting it.  
In fact, blockchain was always better positioned for mainstream adoption than the idea of decentralized money, which is a potential headache for economists working in traditional finance. The idea of a decentralized database or even a runtime environment, however, does not look as scary for the typical Wall Street type. Blockchain is, after all, a decentralized database that was first used to store transaction data, and now that it’s improving has the potential to hold pretty much anything else.
Blockchain is powering a revolution
Just as crypto made it from obscurity to riches, blockchain is powering an evolution, even if it’s happening at a slower pace than its most fervent advocates may hope for. And soon enough, it will prove to be powerful enough to change the entire paradigm of how we do business. 
Right now, there’s a budding industry focused on setting the stage for blockchain’s adoption in business. Its major promise in this respect (and keep in mind that this feature is not necessarily inherent to all blockchains) is a combination of the decentralized consensus mechanism and smart contracts. The former is an algorithm enabling all nodes to agree on the current state of the system (including the number of tokens in everyone’s wallets), while the latter are decentralized applications deployed on the blockchain as executable code.
Continue reading: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/414658

Without a doubt, blockchain technology has grown in popularity in recent years. Apart from its initial application in cryptocurrency, it is now being used in healthcare, real estate, smart contacts, and other fields.
Blockchain technology collects and stores data in groupings known as “blocks,” and each block can hold a set amount of data. When a block is full, it is chained to the previous full block, forming a data chain, hence the brilliant name “blockchain.”
The technology has been a great example of how security tenets in financial transactions and information transmission are transformed. It provides a one-of-a-kind data structure as well as built-in security features. Blockchain is based on the ideas of consensus, decentralization, and cryptography to ensure transaction trust.
However, many blockchain security issues have arisen due to faulty technology implementation.
BLOCKCHAIN SECURITY ACCORDING TO BLOCKCHAIN TYPE
To further explain blockchain security, it is necessary to first grasp the difference between public and private blockchain security. In terms of participation and data access capabilities, blockchain networks can have various effects. As a result, there are two forms of labeling for blockchain networks.
Continue reading: https://www.fastcompany.com/90722111/5-blockchain-security-issues-and-how-to-prevent-them

Artificial intelligence (AI) burst onto the scene like a superhero trying out his first cape, accompanied by a loud and sustained PR ruckus. But the cybersecurity crowd's oohs and ahs soon began to fade into ums and uhs as the scoreboard ticked off more fails than wins for AI.
Don't expect any sympathy from the spectator seats. Industry observers are pulling back their cheers for the beleaguered tech star. For example, Gartner describes the state of cyber AI as immature and advises security analysts to "treat AI offerings as experimental, complementary controls."
My, what a long way we've come from fearing AI as mankind's overlord or a formidable adversary in the upcoming AI wars. To hear some folks tell it, AI is hardly fit to be the mastermind behind a Roomba.
But there are other perspectives to consider, too.
"Some would argue that those spectacular failings are proof that the AI engines are working as expected," says Aviram Jenik, co-founder and CEO of Beyond Security (acquired by HelpSystems). "The premise of AI is to create a more developed level of logic, and the fact that we can't immediately understand why an AI engine fails means it is already 'smarter' than the average human."
Continue reading: https://www.darkreading.com/dr-tech/where-ai-falls-down-in-cybersecurity

In today’s world, people rely on technology to simplify and assist with many aspects of their lives. This can range from carefully curated feeds on social media apps to your favorite digital assistant in charge of your smart home devices. The technology of modern society has advanced day-to-day activities and allowed people to be more efficient.
As someone who doesn’t love to vacuum, I am very thankful for my iRobot Roomba. I’m also someone who enjoys the ability to use a chatbot to get a simple question answered in a quick fashion, while not having to wait in a queue to speak to someone live. This is where society utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to its fullest potential when it comes to products and customer communications. In one McKinsey survey, only about half of respondents report using AI in at least one business function. This makes the field of AI poised for growth – and still somewhat new for many leaders.
How To Use AI For Maximum Efficiency 
One prediction for AI sees it powering 95% of all customer interactions by 2025. It is perfect for lower level repetitive or routine tasks. You already see the integration of call or chatbots by companies that rely on them to handle customer issues with automated responses before directing them to a human customer service associate for more difficult matters.
Continue reading: 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2022/02/16/artificial-intelligence-and-customer-communications/?sh=45a1fd834914

Acceleration of XIoT unlocked business opportunities and ignited security innovation
Most experts agree that over the past two years, COVID has accelerated digital transformation significantly – by five to 10 years – as has the convergence of physical and digital assets. Ransomware attacks against hospitals, oil pipelines, food supply chains, and other critical infrastructure brought into sharp focus the high criticality of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and their exposure to attacks. With more time, the security industry would have been better prepared to address the cyber risks of converged CPS. However, I’d like to argue that this acceleration and the functions it forced are the silver lining of the COVID pandemic. Here’s why.
Let’s start with defining what we mean by CPS. NIST defines CPS as “comprising interacting digital, analog, physical, and human components engineered for function through integrated physics and logic.” Other phrases include IoT, Industrial Internet, Smart Cities, Smart Grid and "Smart" Anything (e.g., cars, buildings, homes, manufacturing, hospitals, appliances). 
For simplicity, these categories can be referred to holistically as the Extended IoT (XIoT), with three main components:
1. Industrial IoT (IIoT) and operational technology (OT) are all the cyber-physical processes and equipment such as programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that support critical processes in industrial environments. These systems are connected internally to workstations that can typically be accessed remotely for maintenance; other cyber components include IIoT devices such as smart sensors. The 16 critical infrastructure sectors as defined by CISA – from manufacturing to energy to transportation – rely on these interconnected processes and systems. 
2. Healthcare IoT includes medical imaging equipment such as MRI machines and CT scanners, as well as internet of medical things (IoMT) devices such as smart vitals monitors and infusion pumps that support critical care delivery in healthcare environments. These systems are usually connected to organizations’ IT networks.
3. All other IoT devices used in smart cities, smart grids, Enterprise IoT, and smart “anything.” 
 
Continue reading: https://www.securityweek.com/covid%E2%80%99s-silver-lining-acceleration-extended-iot

AI could make our data privacy choices in the metaverse
Dense privacy policies and misleading website cookie notices are legacies of a bygone era. Today, data collection is becoming more ambient, and data is gathered in all sorts of places like virtually augmented environments and through IoT devices on city streets or in our homes.
To prepare, government and private-sector organizations want to update data privacy and management approaches. Some say data intermediaries are what could be next for managing data governance in Web3:

• Data intermediaries are third parties that would serve as links between people and entities collecting their data, or between businesses and their partners.
• They could take on many forms, from digital agents and fiduciaries to trusts.
• They could even make automated decisions using artificial intelligence.

The World Economic Forum published a report on Tuesday overviewing various types of data intermediaries.

• The WEF report follows similar work from the UN, EU and U.K.
• In general, all these groups are in evaluation mode, assessing a variety of models for enabling secure and trustworthy data connections and sharing as the digital landscape evolves.
• The EU passed the Data Governance Act in November, establishing a framework for data sharing, data management and consent controls using data intermediation services like data wallets.

Still, it’s early days and there are lots of open questions at this point. For one, could — or should — AI play a role?

• Some anticipate AI models could learn from people’s previous data choices and then take over to automate future decisions.
• But once deployed, these models risk drifting away from their original state, making decisions in ways that were not intended.

Continue reading: https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/protocol-enterprise/data-privacy-web3-intermediaries?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2

Data is critical to enabling developer productivity, building powerful customer experiences, and driving revenue. But many of the enterprise technology leaders I speak with face the same obstacle when it comes to harnessing their data: complexity.
Data is often locked away in multiple mismatched technologies scattered across the organization. As a result, enterprises can’t access and leverage the data with the speed or at the scale needed to accomplish their goals.
So how do you solve for data complexity? Standardize your data.
How did we get here?
Enterprises understand the importance of data. To try and harness it, many have invested in a variety of point technology solutions. This might work for one team, one project, or one application, but the reality is it locks data in silos across the organization.
These silos make it hard for developers to be agile, and they prevent enterprises from getting the big picture about their customers. When data is fragmented, organizations get stuck in what I call the “Innovation Stalemate”—without data standardization and modern, cloud-native technologies, it’s almost impossible to bring new innovations to market quickly.
Cost becomes a major challenge, too. With all these different technologies and data silos, enterprises have to maintain too many products and skills. Managing the costs of scaling data becomes a challenge. This is the “TCO Death Spiral.”
Real-time data
Data complexity prevents an enterprise from getting the most value out of all their data – especially their real-time data. Real-time data represents the current state of the business (a customer profile, or a process state) or a change in the business (a customer action, a transaction moving forward, or sensor data capture). This data should be instantly available and accurate, ready to power the most critical business applications.
Real-time data drives user experiences, protects customers and enterprises from fraud and cyberthreats, and drives critical supply chain and inventory management processes. In other words, it directly impacts customer satisfaction, revenue, and innovation.
With real-time data locked away in silos and managed in varying technologies, enterprises and developers cannot drive business transformation. The data availability needed to fuel critical applications is significantly reduced.
How do we fix it?
What’s the opposite of data complexity and fragmentation? Simplifying data environments and standardizing the data that matters most in a unified stack.
We’ve thought a lot about this at DataStax as we’ve been supporting developers and enterprises with an open data stack to serve real-time applications. Our database-as-a-service Astra DB makes the infinitely scalable open-source database Apache Cassandra® easy to use, build on, and afford. This instantly available “data at rest” is critical to many use cases (customer profile, session information, etc.).
But it’s not everything. The world operates in real time, and streaming “data in motion” captures changes on the fly. Only a stack that unifies both real-time data at rest and in motion can deliver the data standardization needed to solve for data complexity and deliver a new level of digital excellence.
You need several elements for a successful standardization. Streaming and messaging technologies like Apache Pulsar allow real-time data to be acted upon as it’s generated. (For example, when FedEx sends a notification to the buyer that their package is being delivered). It’s one of the reasons DataStax Astra Streaming, which is built on Pulsar, is a key component of the open stack we deliver for enterprises and developers.
Continue reading: https://www.cio.com/article/305012/hello-simplicity-goodbye-complexity-standardize-the-real-time-data-that-matters.html

It’s an exciting time to be a vendor delivering data governance solutions. Every enterprise recognizes the challenges: too much data from too many sources on-premises, in multiple clouds, in motion and at rest; an unprecedented level of cyberattacks seeking to steal data, expose intellectual property, scam users and extort money; an expanding number of complex and overlapping privacy regulations around the world; hybrid work environments that have employees moving between home and office, between personal and work devices, making managing user access more difficult than ever.
Things won’t get any easier in 2022 when new governance and compliance demands will transform the what, when and where of data governance. Companies that have been complacent about implementing data governance controls — and even many of those that think they are making decent progress — will fall further behind if they don’t respond decisively. 
The What: The Scope Of Data Governance Will Expand To All Data 
Historically, data governance has been mainly applied to structured data. However, as new use cases demand insights from semi-structured and unstructured data sources, the scope of data governance will expand to include batch and streaming data originating from IoT devices, 5G, logs and clickstream data.
According to Gartner, data and analytics budgets are continuing to see large increases, and we expect a significant portion of these budgets to be applied directly to data governance practices. This will require businesses to transition from the haphazard and reactive way budgets were shifted to accommodate data initiatives during the peak of the pandemic to a coherent, rigorous and standardized approach to governing all data. This will be key to enabling reusability and automation to increase productivity and agility. 
The When: Governance Goes Real-Time
Most likely, regardless of what data governance solution you have today, you can apply a policy (governing who can access what data) to a particular dataset. However, some regulations now have geography-based requirements. For example, an employee in Germany may have the right to access a particular dataset, but only when that employee is in Germany, not while traveling abroad, even for work.
This places a new layer of requirements on governance systems, as the policy enforcement mechanism must be capable of reacting in real time to variables associated with each request across the entire application infrastructure. In 2022, we expect regulators to put increasing pressure on enterprises — and enterprises to put increasing pressure on vendors — to enable compliance with this requirement. 
The Where: The Supply Chain Is Compelled To Transform
The attack on the Colonial oil pipeline and a slew of successful ransomware attacks have made cybersecurity a tangible issue for business leaders in every industry. This is especially true in supply chain management, an industry built on data sharing. In 2022, we expect manufacturing supply chain partners to take a hard look at their data management, data security and data privacy practices to understand how they can protect themselves and each other. Government agencies and public utilities, such as water and power companies, will also begin to address in a more serious way the threat to their data and processes. If nothing else, this will be the year when having a data governance plan becomes a requirement for these organizations, and those without one will begin to face backlash. 
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/02/16/the-what-when-and-where-of-data-governance-gets-transformed-in-2022/?sh=78881eb85453

Moving data (and databases) to the cloud can be stressful. Datometry’s CEO, Mike Waas, explains what you need to think about, explains the pros and cons of three different approaches, and offers best practices to make the move less taxing.
Upside: There’s been an increasing movement of data management from on-premises environments to the cloud. What do you see driving your customers to make the move? What benefits are they expecting?
Mike Waas: We see primarily two driving forces. First, many companies are executing on a C-level mandate to become cloud-native, often on an accelerated timeline. In this case, moving all data management to the cloud is part of a larger initiative. Second, IT relocates data assets into the cloud independently to overcome limitations of on-premises systems and lower their operational expenses.
Underlying either path is a careful cost-benefit analysis that has to justify what is often the single most complex transformation project within the organization.
Not surprisingly, the primary benefit is the anticipation of drastic savings. Compared to an on-premises data warehouse appliance, cloud-native systems can achieve a cost reduction of up to 75 percent. The savings are a combination of lower fees and a reduction in personnel because managed cloud systems liberate enterprises from having to staff large support teams.
A close second when it comes to benefits is the prospect of generating new revenue. In the cloud, companies expect to be able to tap into a bevy of integrated processing capabilities, ranging from flexibility and rapid scaling to complete vertical-specific solutions.
What are the biggest problems when adopting a new data management strategy in the cloud?
Understanding which type of cloud database is the right fit is often the biggest challenge. It’s helpful to think of cloud-native databases as being in one of two categories: platform-native systems (i.e., offerings by cloud providers themselves) or in-cloud systems offered by third-party vendors.
Platform-native solutions include Azure Synapse, BigQuery, and Redshift. They offer deep integration with the provider’s cloud. Because they are highly optimized for their target infrastructure, they offer seamless and immediate interoperability with other native services.
Platform-native systems are a great choice for enterprises that want to go all-in on a given cloud and are looking for simplicity of deployment and interoperability. In addition, these systems offer the considerable advantage of having to deal with a single vendor only.
Continue reading: https://tdwi.org/articles/2022/02/16/diq-all-data-management-and-the-cloud.aspx

Due to the upcoming fourth industrial revolution, it is essential to understand the basics of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Its main goal is to provide smart solutions to manufacturing industries. IIoT offers a range of benefits for manufacturers that include innovation, maintenance cost reduction, improved efficiency, and lower unproductive periods. IoT devices can significantly help companies improve their operations. There are numerous applications of this technology, and it is constantly evolving.
If your business relies on smart tracking devices, it can improve operations by keeping track of goods in transit. These tools can even track customer satisfaction by monitoring their location, status, and condition. And if you’re a rental company, you can automate the self-return of equipment. Many global companies have already started using IoT-connected devices. For example, Ericsson has collaborated with an outdoor power tool manufacturer and equipment rental service to create a proof-of-concept device. In the long run, industrial IoT helps manufacturers increase efficiency in production and maintenance processes.
Besides providing more information about product performance, IIoT also improves operational efficiencies. Rather than relying on human labor, IIoT allows people and technologies to communicate and cooperate. It can make manufacturing faster and more cost-effective. It can also improve the security of production facilities. Finally, it can lead to substantial savings for companies. Smart devices can be used in factories worldwide, providing an ideal space for developing the Industrial Internet of Things.
What Is IoT?
IoT is a growing technology in the industrial sphere. It connects everyday objects to the internet, allowing them to communicate and operate from anywhere in the world. It is becoming possible for appliances and other devices to be programmed through the internet. Connected home devices can also cut monthly expenses. Adjusting the temperature based on the weather can save a lot of money. This technology will also reduce energy costs.
How Does Industrial IoT Work?
You may be curious about what industrial IoT is and how it works. Generally, industrial IoT is an ecosystem of connected objects and computing devices. Everything can connect to a network to exchange collected data. It’s pretty easy to connect multiple devices to an IP network and set the regular data analysis. This allows real-time data to be shared easily with other users involved in industrial processes. It also helps manufacturers reduce their costs and improve the quality of their products. Manufacturers can significantly benefit from the benefits IIoT technologies can bring.
Industrial IoT is a network of connected devices that connects machines. It connects machines and sensors in high-risk industries. What is more, the Industrial Internet of Things technology is becoming an essential part of the modern manufacturing industry due to its energy efficiency, remote access, and advanced analytics.
Continue reading: https://www.iotforall.com/industrial-iot-understanding-the-basics

Would you share a bank account with people you have never met in person? People with whom you have only chatted online and may not even know their real names?
If you answered no, then you are probably not part of a DAO.
A DAO, or decentralized autonomous organization, is a group of people who have entered into a contract with one another to reach a coordinated goal. It can be anything from collecting rare NFTs, to predicting stock market moves. And it usually exists to raise money for a specific purpose. 
A DAO distinguishes itself from traditional business arrangements in two big ways. First, DAOs are exclusively online, with members rarely if ever interacting with one another in real life. And second, they operate with rules and targets informed by blockchain technology, a permanent record of digital information that is not run or managed by any central authority, and acts as a ledger of digital transactions online.
Members of a DAO have a shared mission but do not have a leader who directs the group. Instead, decisions are made collectively, informed by the community rather than a single figurehead, hence the “decentralized” part. 
DAOs can be involved in any kind of mission or endeavor. FlamingoDAO and PleasrDAO are groups of crypto investors who have teamed up to purchase and collect rare and expensive NFTs. Komorebi Collective is a DAO that finances women and LGBT crypto users. And Friends With Benefits is an online social club DAO with nearly 2,000 members that is turning into a blossoming media empire through its music discovery platform, startup incubator, and online crypto news publication.
Advocates for DAOs believe that they are the long-awaited replacement for centralized corporations. But critics have pointed out that there are many unknowns about the new trend and the implications behind being a part of one, warning that its unregulated nature could cause more harm than good.
Flat hierarchies
DAOs are seemingly flat hierarchies, with no central leader or figurehead, relying on the entire community to make decisions instead. However, even though every DAO member has a say in how the organization is run and its direction, some have more say than others.
When someone becomes part of a DAO, the person buys into the group’s specially made crypto tokens. The more tokens a member owns, the more votes they have to cast.
Continue reading: https://fortune.com/2022/02/15/what-is-a-dao-explaining-decentralized-autonomous-organizations/

In today’s world, devices are more connected than people. Whether it’s the smartwatch on your wrist, or the voice assistants that we are becoming highly dependent on, the gadgets around us make our lives easier by working coherently. This is all possible due to the concept known as IoT, which can greatly impact procurement teams.
The internet of things, or IoT, is a network of interconnected computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, and people with unique identities (UIDs). This offers the capacity to transfer data without needing human-to-human or human-to-computer contact. Instead, this communication is possible via networks and cloud-based systems.
An IoT ecosystem is made up of web-enabled smart devices that gather, send, and act on data from their surroundings using embedded systems such as CPUs, sensors, and communication hardware. 
By connecting to an IoT gateway or other edge device, IoT devices may exchange sensor data that is either routed to the cloud for analysis or examined locally. In addition, these gadgets sometimes connect with other related devices and act on the information they receive from one another. Although individuals may engage with the devices for the initial setup, give instructions, or retrieve data, the gadgets perform most of the work without human involvement.
The Role of IoT in Procurement
Procurement acts as an integral part of business. It necessitates the procurement teams to implement new technologies in order to boost productivity, improve customer service, and save costs. From trends shifting to automation in procurement, IoT in procurement is the next big thing in the era of digital transformation.
The Internet of Things will bring greater spend visibility and a better understanding of supply and equipment utilization for procurement. By understanding precisely what is being utilized and what is required, your procurement team will be able to optimize catalogs and manage spending. The capacity to foresee demands more precisely through analytics can significantly improve budget and contract management. Moreover, data generated through IoT sensors and other devices can help make informed decisions. 
Let’s look at several ways in which IoT works in procurement.
Continue reading: https://www.iotforall.com/how-procurement-teams-can-benefit-from-iot

The aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the technology environment. Automation, data mining, and machine learning (ML) are being used by businesses more than ever before, and the convergence of several technologies is causing a surge of innovation. Against this backdrop, the Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining traction, offering real-world competitive advantages to enterprises in a variety of industries.
Here are some IoT forecasts for the year 2022, according to industry experts.
Remote SIM provisioning is a paradigm transformation
SIMs are being digitized for IoT deployments, allowing enterprises to remotely activate SIMs implanted in their endpoints. Without needing to order and swap physical cards, users may install global SIM profiles into compatible devices in seconds. This greatly simplifies and shortens the provisioning process, while also avoiding shipping expenditures and putting delivery issues in the past.
Also Read:
Companies should combine it with an embedded universal integrated circuit card (eUICC) and a remote SIM provisioning platform, whether it’s a compatible pluggable SIM or an embedded SIM card. Even large-scale worldwide deployments can use a single SKU strategy and switch profiles later if necessary. Roaming limitations are removed, and carrier profiles can be changed remotely.
IoT and the metaverse are inextricably linked
Digital twins are not a new concept, but the nomenclature is starting to make its way into common tech jargon. The ability to translate physical objects into digital form and overlay data to create a digital twin enables very complex simulations. However, when this digital representation is entrenched within the metaverse, the business benefits multiply enormously.
A company can now digitally reproduce anything from a single endpoint to a complete factory or ecosystem. And embedding the digital twin in the metaverse, complete with live feeds, enables everything from more precise predictive maintenance to increased productivity based on nearly infinite scenarios. Smart cities, too, can be successfully, precisely, and in real-time modeled.
Sensor data takes on a whole new dimension when IoT and the metaverse are merged. The puzzle pieces are starting to fit together, and the new reality is not far away.
Continue reading: https://enterprisetalk.com/predictions-2022/internet-of-things-iot-predictions-to-foresee-in-2022/

We live in a highly connected world. There are already approximately 10 billion connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and their number is expected to grow to over 25 billion by 2030. They also vary across every conceivable industry; simple IoT sensors and consumer-focused smart home gadgets have been joined by sophisticated medical devices, next-generation automotive technologies, industrial IoT hardware, and so on.
While greater connectivity will unlock immense potential for technology innovators, it also creates increasing cybersecurity threats. According to Kaspersky research, the number of attacks on IoT devices more than doubled during the first half of 2021. Bad actors have increasingly targeted firmware, as it has historically been one of the most overlooked aspects of device security.
Last year, Microsoft noted that 83% of businesses reported a firmware attack in the prior two years – an astonishingly high rate!
Securing devices has become more complex
Three primary roadblocks now stand in the way of securing our highly connected world: increasing cybersecurity risks, a widespread scarcity of cybersecurity expertise, and the complex, ever-changing global regulatory landscape. For everyone in the ecosystem – device manufacturers, suppliers, systems integrators and other stakeholders at every level, from chip to cloud – the task of navigating compliance complexity while mitigating cybersecurity risks has become incredibly tough.
In the past, companies commonly shipped connected devices with barely sufficient security and left customers to handle the risks. Today it’s no longer sufficient to simply bring a quality product to market in a timely manner – organizations must ensure their products are secure at the core, so they can continue to operate safely in the modern threat landscape, where attacks on firmware are both foreseeable and common.
Without sophisticated security expertise in-house, many companies are seeking guidance and best practices so they can move quickly to meet heightened customer and regulatory demands. Of course, organizations can always use tactical tools to remediate identified vulnerabilities. However, as NIST research shows security flaws continue to pile up, this haphazard approach will surely catch up to teams who rely exclusively on responsive rather than proactive security strategies.
Continue reading: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2022/02/16/securing-iot/

The Internet of Things (IoT) is bringing new efficiencies to the way businesses across industries operate, adding new conveniences to people’s lives and improving the way our cities and governments function.
When applied correctly, IoT devices can be used to connect systems and improve processes, from something as ordinary as managing a thermostat to something as complex as remote asset monitoring and maintenance or full process automation. And it’s only getting started. McKinsey estimates that the use of IoT devices could add as much as $12.6 trillion of value to the global economy by 2030.
From global manufacturers and critical infrastructure providers to enterprises looking to manage and optimize office or retail network connections, all are looking to expand their use of IoT to develop new business models, control security and ensure a competitive edge to service delivery.
IoT can unlock efficiencies to ensure a positive customer experience, which drives stickiness into brand and product loyalty, ultimately resulting in increased revenue. The advantages of the IoT explosion are undeniable and too compelling to ignore.
So, what’s the problem? With at least 20 billion connected devices already in play worldwide and growing at a rapid clip, IoT is taking over the network, literally. 
IoT proliferation brings new challenges: Enterprises are struggling with security breaches, poor performing headless devices and the added complexity of managing hundreds or thousands of new devices. With the number of IoT devices expected to soar to 27.1 billion devices by 2025, successfully managing these within the network — all without leaving even one easily hackable device unsecured — is the hidden cost of the rush to the IoT goldmine.
Getting it right is critical for enterprises’ success.
Continue reading: https://thenewstack.io/enterprise-challenges-for-the-internet-of-things/

Just about every surface in the material world, or environment in the digital world, is being fitted with a form of data emission to describe itself and its behavior. This includes but is not limited to cars, software applications, factories, 400-ton mining trucks, financial markets, power grids, ice caps, satellites, apparel, appliances, phones, bodies, brains, jet engines—the list goes on. If the ripening of your apples isn’t already being tracked by line graphs in a cloud-based app, it may be soon. 
It’s no surprise, then, that data is growing exponentially. By 2025, the world will be fitted with 41.7 billion IoT devices that transmit 73.1 zettabytes of data. The importance of data rises as businesses increasingly use it to make business-altering decisions, and more data means instrumenting things that previously went uninstrumented.
This expected ballooning of data is a good thing for us data nerds, but it comes with an infamous set of complications. As it stands, hundreds of vendors and thousands of individually contributing community members are responsible for the instrumentation of the world. But this network of contributors is far from a well-oiled machine; disparate technologies deal with disparate data communication all over the world. What’s needed is a set of IoT interoperability standards across data collection, stream processing, visualization, alerting, and machine learning and AI frameworks.
Dissecting one of IoT’s biggest challenges
A quick look at the IoT landscape shows how quickly the complexity can grow. There are multiple variables in play, and there is a potential for issues at every level of IoT architecture.
Take instrumentation as one example. If a device vendor writes metric emission into the firmware, the instrumentation is typically unchangeable to users; if you’re lucky, the target systems where these devices send data may be configurable. Meanwhile, purpose-built sensors are designed to fit equipment to gather their respective signals, but efficiently collecting the data can again be hampered by vendor firmware. You could deploy third-party services to pull or “scrape” data from data sources, but this requires that the data sources actually allow it.
After instrumentation, the next thing to consider is the architecture of the pipeline from the data source to where that data is ultimately analyzed—a convoluted space to say the least. The moment you begin to think about agents, gateways, message queues, and streaming engines, the questions pour in. Which do you use? One? Some? All? Which of each do you use? How many? Where do you put them? What order do they go in?
To complicate matters further, the answers to these questions depend on your answers to all the other questions—a Cartesian product of possible solutions. They’re all interdependent decisions, so the technologies you use need to be both evaluated and decided on essentially simultaneously. Is your head spinning yet? It’s no wonder digital transformation has felt more like a lifestyle than a step toward progress.
Continue reading: https://www.infoworld.com/article/3649795/overcoming-the-iot-interoperability-hurdle.html

There is one question that will assuredly be asked during the planning of every tactical operation. It does not matter if the operation is a probation search, parole search, a search warrant or a SWAT deployment. It is only a matter of time until the question of “Who’s on point?” or “Who has eyes on?” will make its way to the forefront.
Law enforcement has incorporated robots in tactical environments for years. Robots have given SWAT operators and bomb technicians the ability to make entry into structures, clear rooms and communicate directly to individuals within the structure, as well as to deliver various payloads to address problems encountered or overcome resistance. The ability to achieve these goals remotely has drastically increased safety during some of the most highly volatile situations encountered daily across the nation.
But robots are often large, cumbersome and difficult to maneuver in confined spaces, which hamstrings their full tactical application from being truly realized. I can tell you that it is very easy (and embarrassing) to get a robot stuck in a cluttered urban environment. It can also be very difficult to free it. Avoiding unnecessary problems, like very expensive entry team roadblocks or trip hazards, is a necessity, especially in a high-risk situation.
Having accurate, real-time information on the target or the target location is vital to minimizing risk to the safety of all involved (citizens, officers and suspects) while maximizing the likelihood of mission success. The law enforcement community at large quickly integrated the technological advancements of unmanned aerial vehicles (better known as drones) to achieve this, essentially dedicating an unrelenting, ever-vigilant electric eye that cannot be distracted and is only limited by its battery life.
Continue reading: https://www.police1.com/police-products/police-drones/articles/operators-this-is-not-your-average-drone-Z7QJhO54pdP64CXO/