When AI technology becomes an active player, the efficiency and potential of VoIP industries are going to soar high
Artificial intelligence (AI) which was once part of science fiction has become part of our day-to-day life. It has become a buzzword in this technology-driven world and its impact is expected to grow in the coming years. It is bringing a revolution across the different industries including voice over internet protocol (VoIP).
VoIP telecommunication with its multifaceted features is already changing the communication setup of various industries. Many multinational companies and other businesses are already benefiting from virtual phone number systems and VoIP. But when AI technology becomes an active player, the efficiency and potential of these industries are going to soar high. With time, AI technology is going to become crucial in business operations with its cost saving-potential, detects incorrect network configuration, and many more.
So, let us see how AI is going to transform and shape the future of VoIP and how they are going to be an indispensable part of all business operations.
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems
Interactive Voice Responses (IVR) are very popular in call centers and many other industries. They are designed to automatically respond to the caller and to promote solid customer support. They greet customers and clear their queries.
Continue reading: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/how-will-ai-shape-the-future-of-voip/

Can machines think? This is the opening question of British mathematician Alan Turing’s most famous paperExternal link. Published in 1950, it laid the foundation for the conception and definition of artificial intelligence (AI). To answer his question, Turing invented the “imitation game”, still used today to judge the intelligence of a machine.  
The game, which later became known as the Turing Test, involves three players: player A is a man, player B is a woman and player C, who plays the role of the interrogator, is of either gender. The interrogator is unable to see the two other players and poses a series of questions in writing, to determine which player is the man and which is the woman. The purpose of the male respondent is to deceive the interrogator by giving misleading answers, while the woman has to facilitate her correct identification.  
Now, imagine player A is replaced by a computer. Turing wrote that if the interrogator is not able to distinguish between a computer and a person, the computer should be considered an intelligent entity, since it would prove to be cognitively similar to a human being.  
Seventy years later the results to the test are astounding. “At the moment, there is not a single artificial intelligence system, and I mean not a single one, that has passed the first Turing Test,” says Hervé Bourlard, who directs IdiapExternal link, which specializes in artificial and cognitive intelligence. 
Continue reading: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/is-artificial-intelligence-really-as-intelligent-as-we-think--/47346680?utm_campaign=teaser-in-querylist&utm_medium=display&utm_source=swissinfoch&utm_content=o

Please could you introduce yourself and tell us what inspired your career into the life sciences?
I am Toby Blackburn and I am the head of Business Development and Strategy at Emerald Cloud Lab. I have always had a passion for science and how its ability to transform lives begins in the lab. I received my undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University and joined Biogen in Drug Development, working to scale processes up to manufacturing scale.
A few years later, I went back to school and received my MBA from Duke, and transitioned into an analytical development role. I managed a large CRO budget and a team of analytical scientists, which gave me the opportunity and insight to use tools to streamline lab work more efficiently. What drives me to this day is learning how something that seems so simple on the surface, such as how a laboratory operates day-to-day, can have a major impact on scientific research and discovery.
When I had the pleasure to tour ECL’s facility, I felt that the facility ECL’s co-founders built aligned with this passion and was the pinnacle of everything I was working on in my previous roles. DJ Kleinbaum and Brian Frezza closely examined every aspect of laboratory operations and either developed or found the tools needed to reduce friction in life science research as much as possible.
Continue reading: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220214/What-does-the-future-of-artificial-intelligence-look-like-within-the-life-sciences.aspx

Digital transformation efforts are reaching a new phase, where the focus is shifting from productivity enhancements to sustainability. A new report from ABB, the sustainability efforts of Bosch that have been on display at CES over the past two years, and broad conversations I’ve had with companies in the manufacturing sector are all examples of this new focus. As they make clear, we’ve moved from simply using IoT for efficiency to IoT as an enabler for sustainability goals.
Today, let’s look at the ABB report. 71% of the 765 industrial business leaders surveyed by the company were giving greater priority to sustainability objectives as a result of the pandemic. This is great news for people like me who have been tuning in to the potential of IoT to use new sensors or better data analysis to help fix big problems by making it easier to identify ways to solve them or ways that we’re currently contributing to them. And it’s a long time coming: I was writing about efforts by Schneider Electric to reduce the carbon impact of its manufacturing lines by using sensor data to shift its production back in 2018.

 
ABB’s report focuses on using the assets deployed for digital transformations to reduce carbon emissions. Image courtesy of ABB.
As the ABB report notes, almost three-fourths (72%) of respondents to its recent survey cite sustainability efforts as the reason they are increasing their spending on industrial IoT either somewhat or significantly. This jibes with a report that Vodafone put out last year, which notes how, in the UK, the biggest opportunities manufacturing firms have to reduce their carbon impact is to use the IoT to make higher-quality products and to make products more efficiently, both of which can reduce overall waste.
Continue reading: https://staceyoniot.com/sustainability-is-a-new-side-effect-of-digital-transformation/

Mattias Eriksson, co-founder and chief executive of UK-based C8 Technologies, talks to this news service about the impact that technology such as blockchain can have on the wealth sector. C8 is an investment platform that offers investor clients access to direct indexing and execution capabilities, end-to-end, across asset classes and investment styles. This news service is looking at how the world of digital assets, and the distributed ledger technology that underpins those assets, continues to evolve and affect wealth managers’ business. We examine how these technologies affect privacy, pricing, efficiency, regulation and customer service. (See this article for a previous example.)
In the broadest sense, how do you see distributed ledger technology affecting wealth management today and in the next few years?  Blockchain technology will make it possible to have more transparent, verifiable and rapid processes. Think how you transfer crypto between two individuals in seconds or minutes compared with international money transfers that take days and are costly and non-transparent. The under 30-year-old generation like crypto a lot as it signals a break with the old, stuffy world, controlled by central government. The wealth management industry has always struggled to hold on to the client asset as it is passed down to children. The development of digital offerings from wealth managers is designed to partially meet this key challenge, but the addition of crypto into the equation means that the goalposts are moving again and suppliers must continue to invest and adapt.
What potential does DLT have for enabling data privacy protection – an obviously important area for private banks, family offices and wealth managers? Where do you see areas such as know-your-client checks being helped, if at all, by this tech? Can blockchain provide any benefits for those trying to defeat hackers? Tedious KYC processes, for example, could benefit a great deal from blockchain development. If we look at a country like Sweden, we can see how things might change through blockchain use. Sweden introduced a digital banking pass for everyone which frees up its banking system, fosters fintech innovation, and simplifies processes such as switching accounts, onboarding, and empowering the client. It was no doubt easier for Klarna to enter the ecosystem there than in some other countries.
Continue reading: https://www.wealthbriefingasia.com/article.php?id=193690#.YgqPNOrMI2w

AI researchers are eager to leverage artificial general intelligence in the future
The world is changing at a fast pace and almost the entire credit goes to artificial intelligence. AI has penetrated our professional and personal lives in such a way that it becomes inherent for us to need more innovative and automated solutions for our daily activities. Advanced technologies like AI and machine learning have their own disadvantages and banes, including the potential for bias, exploitation, and such other misuses, nonetheless, it has opened unprecedented ways of approaching every facet of business and our daily lives. Researchers and scientists are relentlessly striving to mitigate all technological constraints and innovate new branches of artificial intelligence to seamlessly automate processes.
One such innovative branch of AI is artificial general intelligence (AGI). The primary functions of artificial general intelligence are to make artificial systems fully capable, train them to experience, adjust to new things, and perform human-like tasks efficiently. AGI offers more accuracy in imitating human tasks than any other technology. These systems can even perform tasks with greater efficiency than humans when the particular tasks are assigned to them beforehand. To simply put, AGI is a machine with general intelligence much like a human being, to solve any problem.
The Present State of Artificial General Intelligence
Currently, the industry possesses the tools to create AI systems that display remarkable levels of understanding. Some existing programs show much resemblance to human-level reasoning, performance, and control on specific tasks. Integrating AGI into advanced tech systems will enable them to combine human-like flexibility, and reasoning with computational advantages, such as near-instant recall and split second-number crunching.
Continue reading: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/artificial-general-intelligence-when-will-we-really-achieve-it/

We may think of Artificial Intelligence as some obscure, futuristic concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution that is associated with scenes from “out-there” sci-fi movies like Star Wars and Terminator. But AI is already here and being used in a wide variety of technological developments that make our daily responsibilities more efficient and convenient. In fact, scientists believe we are already ‘cyborgs’ because we already have a ‘digital self’, which lives into perpetuity. 
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines and contrasts with natural intelligence displayed by humans. Towards Data Science says “Artificial Intelligence is the ability of a computer program to learn and think. Everything can be considered Artificial intelligence if it involves a program doing something that we would normally think would rely on the intelligence of a human.”
Artificial intelligence is currently being used and employed in increasing measure across all spheres of business and industry. It is technology behind navigation and ridesharing apps you use when ordering a ride and the facial recognition functionality of digital banking. Digital assistants like Siri, Alexa and Google Assistance are all AI-powered and can take voice commands and translate them into actions. Incredibly, AI can also be used to do the chores we hate most: there is an AI-powered vacuum cleaner that scans a room, identifies things in its way and finds the quickest route to clean a space. AI is behind Netflix’s personalized ‘watchlists’ as well as driverless vehicles.
As we contemplate a future with AI in an African context, it’s interesting to consider the thoughts of prominent ex-South African, SpaceX and Tesla founder, Elon Musk. Musk is very close to the cutting edge of Artificial Intelligence, and he admits that ‘it scares the hell out of me’. 
Continue reading: https://www.africa.com/we-need-urgent-regulation-for-artificial-intelligence-in-an-african-context/

The Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (APWEN) has called for deliberate efforts to bridge existing gender gap at all levels of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) across the country.
APWEN said although, women have made tremendous progress towards increasing their participation in higher education, they are still under-represented in these fields.
The group also made case for adequate funding of water projects to ensure availability and eliminate spread of water-related diseases
APWEN President, Dr. Elizabeth Eterigho, who made the call at the lnternational Day for Women and Girls in Science, highlighted the role women and girls play in science and technology.
The day was adopted by the United Nations to promote equal access and participation for women and girls in science. To achieve the target of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, the United Nations at the General Assembly in 2015, set aside February 11, yearly to mark the day. The theme of the year is – ‘Equity, diversity and inclusion: water unites us’.
Continue reading: https://guardian.ng/property/women-are-still-under-represented-in-stem-field/

Technology has become one of the UK’s fastest-growing sectors, as demand for digital initiatives has heightened due to the pandemic.
As businesses hunt for the most talented professionals in a candidate-led market, they are increasingly offering flexibility, such as remote or hybrid working, and have been forced to increase salaries in order to stand out amongst competitors.
With a more flexible approach to working on the cards, women now have even more opportunities than ever before to progress in their technology careers, just like their male counterparts. The gender disparity in the sector – which is often widened due to lack of flexibility, especially for working mothers – at long last, could be consigned to history.
But is this still the case? Lessening the gender gap in the technology sector is so much more than offering remote work, especially for the next generation of technology experts. How can technology companies can support women in a currently male-dominated industry?
The current perceptions of women in technology
In a survey conducted by Reed of more than 500 UK parents of girls aged between five and 18 years old, half (51%) said that their daughters express a keen interest in technology both at home and in education, with three quarters (76%) reportedly feeling that technology is a good career for their daughters. Only 4% stated that they felt it was too male dominated.
This is indeed reassuring that perceptions of women in technology are changing, with the next generation having more support and guidance from their parents than previous generations may have done. To compare with the above, of those already taking part in the Reed Women in Technology Mentoring Program (i.e. women already working in the technology sector), nearly three quarters were over 18 years of age before considering a career in the sector, with 80% never thinking they’d end up working in technology.
Continue reading: https://edtechnology.co.uk/comments/supporting-women-in-technology-the-challenges-and-responses/

Language is the cornerstone of human intelligence.
The emergence of language was the most important intellectual development in our species’ history. It is through language that we formulate thoughts and communicate them to one another. Language enables us to reason abstractly, to develop complex ideas about what the world is and could be, and to build on these ideas across generations and geographies. Almost nothing about modern civilization would be possible without language.
Building machines that can understand language has thus been a central goal of the field of artificial intelligence dating back to its earliest days.
It has proven maddeningly elusive.
This is because mastering language is what is known as an “AI-complete” problem: that is, an AI that can truly understand language the way a human can would by implication be capable of any other human-level intellectual activity. Put simply, to solve language is to solve AI.
This profound and subtle insight is at the heart of the “Turing test,” introduced by AI pioneer Alan Turing in a groundbreaking 1950 paper. Though often critiqued or misunderstood, the Turing test captures a fundamental reality about language and intelligence; as it approaches its 75th birthday, it remains as relevant as it was when Turing first conceived it.
Humanity has yet to build a machine intelligence with human-level mastery of language. (In other words, no machine intelligence has yet passed the Turing test.) But over the past few years researchers have achieved startling, game-changing breakthroughs in language AI, also called natural language processing (NLP).
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robtoews/2022/02/13/language-is-the-next-great-frontier-in-ai/?sh=5cf43ac85c50

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Jie Mei has always been passionate about understanding how the brain works. Her interest in computer science, artificial intelligence (AI) and neuroscience was driven by her own curiosity.
“From an early age, I was really intrigued by the variety of people who think differently and act differently,” said Mei, a BrainsCAN postdoctoral fellow studying AI models of the brain. “I found if you want to know how your mind works, the best way to do that is to learn the biology and building blocks of the brain, translate them into a model and see how it learns.”
As part of Yalda Mohsenzadeh’s lab at Western University, Mei is working on AI models of neuromodulation to better understand and study the brain. With her experience and passion for the field, she’s hoping to inspire the next generation of young girls in AI and neuroscience.
Through her work as a researcher and educator, Mei is helping change the landscape in a profession that’s been traditionally dominated by men.
Data from Statistics Canada show in 2019, only 28 per cent of women are enrolled in mathematics, computer and information sciences in Canadian universities and colleges – and far less women are going on to establish a career in these fields of research. Beyond academia, women account for only 22 per cent of professionals in the AI sector, according to the United Nations.
To give women and girls the opportunity to fully participate in science-related programs, the UN has identified Feb. 11 as International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The day recognizes the role women and girls play in science, technology, engineering and math, while celebrating the crucial contributions they make to these fields. The hope is to give young girls the opportunity to find their passion and follow their dreams.
For Mei, her passion to understand the brain drove her desire to continue learning about neuroscience and AI.
“I didn’t have women role models when I was a kid,” she said. “And I had a bumpy road when I first entered research.” Now she wants to help pave a smoother path for young girls to pursue a career in science, particularly in AI.
The opportunity to do that came in 2020, when she received a message from Alicia Heraz, CEO of emotional analytics firm Emaww and chief scientist at the Brain Mining Lab, about volunteering for a program called CS01.io to teach AI to Canadian girls.
“There are many reasons why we should teach girls AI,” said Mei, who designed and ran a CS01.io course on deep learning and the brain. “This program helps girls know that they’re not alone in their interests.”
Continue reading: https://news.westernu.ca/2022/02/paving-a-path-for-girls-in-science/

The United Nations International Day of Women and Girls in Science today throws a spotlight on achieving full and equal access and participation for women and girls in science, citing the importance of this goal in global development. One critical area is artificial intelligence (AI) and how it affects financial decisioning. To make fair and accurate assessments, AI software needs to be reflective of the people it scrutinises and the best way to achieve this is to have a diverse team at work.
That's why it is crucial to make it easier for girls and women to enter the sector and further their careers, because one of the real challenges in AI is fighting the bias that can be coded into the models themselves.
Fighting Model Bias
All AI models are trained on datasets, and these datasets frequently have coded into them a level of bias. In fact, FICO Chief Analytics Officer Scott Zoldi says, "All data is biased." It's up to the data scientists to correct for this, and that is why it is so important to achieve more diverse teams building AI.
Recognising that we need diversity in innovation and teams is the first step. In many cases, AI learns from data generated by human actions. Left unchecked by data scientists, algorithms can mimic our biases, conscious or not. However, we can mitigate those biases by including people across race, gender, sexual orientation, age, and economic conditions to challenge our own thinking views. By bringing in people with different thoughts and approaches to our own, analytics teams will see a quick improvement in their code.
Big Opportunities for Women in AI
For any girl or woman thinking about data science as a career route, the opportunities are immense. Data scientists are a new breed of analytical experts, responsible for collecting, analysing, and interpreting extremely large amounts of data. These roles are an offshoot of several traditional technical roles, including business domain expertise, mathematicians, scientists, statisticians, and computer professionals. All these different jobs fit into the disciplines of a data scientist.
The insights that data scientists uncover should be used to drive business decisions and take actions intended to achieve business goals. While executives are generally smart individuals, they may not be well-versed in all the tools, techniques, and algorithms available to a data scientist (e.g., statistical analysis, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and so on). Part of the data scientist's role is to translate business needs into algorithms.
The magic is also in the data scientist's ability to deliver the results in an understandable, compelling, and insightful way, while using appropriate language and jargon level for their audience. In addition, results should always be related back to the business goals that spawned the project in the first place.
Continue reading: https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/FAIR-ISAAC-CORPORATION-5523345/news/Women-in-AI-Diversity-Can-Lead-to-Better-Models-37854555/

Natural calamities such as floods, earthquakes, diseases, severe temperatures, pest infestations, volcanoes, storms, and wildfires, to name a few, have a negative impact on many countries on a yearly basis. New technology-based disaster response & mitigation is being curated by IG Drones to improve the efficiency and efficacy of first responders’ aid in emergency response & disaster mapping. They’ve proved their mettle during various national disasters – Assam Floods, Amphan Cyclone, Fani Cyclone & Jajpur Flood in Odisha, Maharashtra Flood, Uttarakhand CloudBurst using drone & geospatial technology saving hundreds and thousands of lives.
From 2010 to 2019, there were 119 climate and weather events that cost $1 billion or more, causing an average of $80.2 billion in damage per year. The decade before that (2000–2009) saw only 59 billion-dollar events in India, at an average cost of $52 billion.
In light of high cost of operations of aircraft, a number of search and rescue organisations have begun to test the use of drone technology to aid both land and water-based rescues, likewise of which was carried out by IG Drones during Chamoli Disaster & Jajpur Floods by the help of the Thermal Imaging Camera Payload fitted on drones.
Furthermore, the recent development of a SaaS global platform designed by IG Drones for unmanned aviation has proven to be a boon for the disaster management society. The SaaS platform also performs a critical function: it aids in the interpolation of micro-level high-resolution drone data with low-resolution satellite imagery data. SaaS Platform for the analysed Drone data has helped various stakeholders in the pre & post-disaster ecosystem ranging from Disaster Management Authorities till Humanitarian Organizations, Growers and banking institutions to help bring all relevant players together in an integrated framework. It has crowned them as the India’s best Drone Consultant. They’ve developed a risk and damage assessment survey protocol in close assistance with top brass of various stakeholders, as communicated by officials from IG Drones.
Continue reading: https://edtimes.in/ig-drones-are-taking-to-the-skies-by-using-drones-in-disaster-management/

Scotland’s first drone port, Mercury Drone Ports, will begin working with the NHS for their first beyond visual line of sight drone trials next month.
Establishing Angus as a centre of excellence for the development of drone technologies in Scotland, Mercury Drone Ports will provide a trials airspace area to support drone companies and end-users conducting onshore and offshore drone flight trials.
Receiving funding from the UK Government’s £26.5 million Angus Fund, as part of the Tay Cities Region Deal, Mercury Drone Ports is a public-private partnership between Angus Council and DTLX, supported by a number of local and national businesses.
The first drone flight trials, beginning in March, will transport medical equipment, samples and medicine via an unmanned aircraft to and from multiple healthcare facilities between Angus and Dundee assisting with the response to COVID-19.
The new environmentally friendly and efficient mode of transportation will provide the NHS with an on-demand collection and delivery service, allowing samples to be collected from local medical practices for analysis at pathology laboratories at larger hospitals quicker and more reliably than current transport alternatives.
Angus Council leader, Councilor David Fairweather, said: “By introducing drone transportation services and working with the NHS we can play our part in transforming the health system in Angus. This level of improvement could potentially allow life-saving treatment to be able to commence earlier by reducing testing times, speeding up diagnoses for patients, all at a reduced cost to the NHS by reducing the reliance on expensive taxi transportation that currently exists.
“As the significant demands continue for COVID-19 testing, we are delighted to lead the way through innovative technologies to increase connectivity with our rural facilities, at a time that the NHS requires greater support.”
Continue reading: https://www.suasnews.com/2022/02/montrose-drone-port-takes-off/

All over the world, governments, civil society, academia, industry, and citizens are trying to figure out the rapidly evolving technology changes occurring throughout society. Whether you call it the 4th Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0, or Society Next, only one thing is for certain; the impact of the technologies cannot be understated. Autonomous vehicles in the sky and on the ground, AI, Crypto, IoT, cloud computing, edge networks all share one similar trait; peoples all over the world are being challenged by rapid innovation occurring at a speed, scale, and scope never before seen. They are challenged to regulate, to maintain the public interest, to support where they can and protect where they must. It is not to be taken lightly. Too much oversight and innovation falters, not enough and you are left extremely vulnerable.
There are other places to explore the latest news in aviation, the newest record set by a flying car (congrats, Joby!), but this discussion will tend to focus on the larger vision and direction of the next generation of aviation. Think drones. Think flying cars. Think Artificial Intelligence in the Sky. Consider equity. Scale. Impact. Outcomes. Roadblocks and Enablers. This conversation is not just about technology, not just about aerospace, not just about drones. The hope is that we explore some of the bigger questions around policy, regulation, emerging technologies, and their overall effect on people and society.
All over the world drones are demonstrating their value. What began as a hobby, and then a small business opportunity, is now a multi-billion-dollar industry impacting logistics, surveying, supply chains, and disaster relief that has changed the balance away from enjoying leisure and toward providing great utility. Lives are being saved while regulation catches up; just not everywhere. Whether it’s a limited scale project in Malawi ferrying Tuberculosis and HIV samples for test, or the national scale automated supply-chain that leverages drones for COVID-19 vaccines in Ghana, drones are making a meaningful impact every day and beginning to be trusted.
We can’t ignore the huge changes brought on, or accelerated, by the COVID-19 Pandemic. For the last two-years society has had to reset and rethink some of the core assumptions upon which our economic and political models were built. The fragility of guaranteed goods, on time or at all, is laid bare for all to see; demonstrating the need for new ways for all of us to share resources. The pandemic has changed the question from, “Do we need drones in our supply chain?,” to “How do we safely scale drones in our logistics chain?,” Contactless delivery and on-demand access to any good, anywhere, has become the expectation rather than exception. And the lack of resilience in the traditional supply chains has become a glaring hole. So, let’s start there – drone delivery; a phenomenon that has captured the eye of the public ever since Jeff Bezos went on 60 minutes to declare that drones were just around the corner. In the decade since, countries across the globe (particularly in Africa) have implemented drone delivery into their national logistics systems – technologically leapfrogging their US, European, and UK peers in autonomous logistics just as they have with mobile telephony. Today, the real impact of drone delivery is finally coming to Europe and the US.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/harrisonwolf/2022/02/11/introducing-ai-in-the-sky/?sh=59302f287ec9

In the beginning — which is to say, the 1990s — there was Web1: the first iteration of the internet as we knew it, a vast virtual expanse sparsely populated with static websites that, for the most part, were good only for reading. Then came Web2: a far more interactive internet, networked by tech giants like Facebook and Google and Twitter and YouTube, that made content creators out of nearly everyone with a smartphone.
Now, supposedly, we stand on the precipice of Web3: a decentralized internet powered by blockchain, the technology that underpins cryptocurrency and NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, the techno-innovation sweeping the art world.
It’s a still-nascent, fuzzy idea, but if you squint, you can see it intruding more and more upon mainstream culture. Matt Damon is filming ads for Crypto.com. Gwyneth Paltrow is giving out $500,000 worth of Bitcoin to her social media followers. And Paris Hilton and Jimmy Fallon can be seen talking awkwardly on “The Tonight Show” about limited-edition digital cartoon apes they paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for.
Where, exactly, is this all going? Could Web3 really democratize the internet by eliminating its middlemen — the Big Tech companies and the banks and the regulators — as its boosters say, or is it a speculative bubble that’s about to burst? Here’s what people are saying.
Wait, what is blockchain again?
Blockchain is a cryptographic technology that allows for distributed record keeping, like a digital spreadsheet, that is virtually impossible to corrupt. Unlike conventional records kept by centralized institutions, the blockchain ledger uses networks of powerful computers racing to verify transactions that remain visible to, and trusted by, everyone.
Blockchain was introduced initially as the technology behind cryptocurrency, starting with Bitcoin in 2009. “With decentralized financial exchange based on the blockchain design, like what Bitcoin uses, you don’t have to trust an authority with your money,” The Times’s Nathaniel Popper explains. “Two people are automatically matched up through software, and they make the exchange directly with one another.”
NFTs are a newer use of blockchain that enables the buying and selling of digital assets, like images, GIFs, songs and videos. Because these files are typically too large to store in a blockchain token, most NFT purchases buy not the actual asset, but rather a receipt proving ownership. In effect, this creates a new kind of scarcity among digital goods where there was none.
Continue reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/10/opinion/nft-crypto-bitcoin-blockchain.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap

While the pressures of the Great Resignation and attendant labor shortage has wide implications for business in just about every industry, it's even worse for companies looking to hire highly skilled tech workers.
Prior to the pandemic, it was tough to fill specialized technology roles. Now, it's next to impossible. Nearly 50 percent of tech recruiters are currently struggling to fill jobs because they can't find enough qualified candidates, according to a recent hiring survey conducted by technical talent analysis platform CoderPad and training platform CodinGame. This has led tech salaries to increase 7 percent on average between 2020 and 2021 alone, according to a report from tech recruiting platform Dice.
Because A.I. and machine learning skills are so specialized, companies have a hard time finding enough qualified candidates to fill roles that require them -- and recruiting other engineers and developers still presents a challenge, as businesses face an overall tech worker shortage. "More recruiters are hiring for developers, and those recruiters are hiring more developers than ever," says Amanda Richardson, CEO of CoderPad.  
What's more, demand for tech roles is only expected to increase. The artificial intelligence software market could more than double in size over the next three years, according to data from Statista. That means companies that want to ride the A.I. wave need to build up their teams, stat.
Here, a few recruiting experts in the tech field share their trade secrets.
Give candidates the power to pick
It's an employee's market, so why not let them do the interviewing? That's the solution proposed by the recently launched San Francisco company Talent Service. When a recruiter reaches out to a candidate about a job, the candidate can send the recruiter a questionnaire, asking questions about the role and company, through Talent Service's platform. If candidates send the questionnaire to multiple recruiters, then Talent Service uses an algorithm to rank the opportunities presented to them, based on the candidate's input preferences. Recruiters don't necessarily have to wait for candidates to send them a questionnaire, however. Employers can create a profile on the platform to gain access to a network of candidates that may be a potential fit for their roles.
Simplify your interview process
When you find a candidate you like, speed is of the essence, Richardson says, though it's important to "give a bit of a warm up," by introducing your company and explaining what the role you're hiring for will entail. Then, Richardson recommends sending candidates a straightforward skills test, instead of a technical interview -- which she says can ultimately work more as a tool for intimidation and less as an actual proficiency check. Skills tests can also help hiring managers fill roles more equitably, without having to judge a candidate based off a cover letter or a résumé, Richardson says.
Continue reading: https://www.inc.com/rebecca-deczynski/hiring-artificial-intelligence-technologists-machine-learning-engineers-recruiting-strategy.html

Whenever a new wave of technology splashes onto the scene, managers face the same questions: Where do we start applying it first? Do we go after the “low-hanging fruit” that will produce quick wins and build the case for more ambitious projects? Or should we strategically focus, with no delay, on the applications that will give us a decisive edge over competitors?
Right now, with the arrival of a revolutionary set of technologies for automating knowledge work — artificial intelligence in particular — we see teams grappling with these questions at high levels in organizations. Intelligent automation (the term commonly used for robotic process automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in organizations) brings unprecedented speed, accuracy, and pattern-recognition power to business processes that routinely call for deciphering information, from fielding customers’ questions to complying with government regulations to detecting fraud and cyberattacks. Because that describes so much of the activity of modern workplaces, the deliberations about where to start and how to proceed are different than with other technologies. The same old answers don’t apply.
The potential to boost performance in the typical company with these tools is both broad and deep. In one company we know, a team was assembled to survey all of its operations, find areas where people’s time was being consumed by repetitive information-processing work, and come back with candidate tasks for automation. The list stretched to hundreds of things a smart machine could do to leverage workers’ creativity, increase speed to decision, improve accuracy, or enhance service to customers.
There are also strong competitive incentives: Because of this potential, companies are investing in these tools at blistering rates — according to Gartner, intelligent automation is the fastest growing area of enterprise tech investment. The pandemic gave the toolkit a giant shove forward as companies suddenly had to find new ways to perform mission-critical processes.
Whether driven by the opportunities or competitive pressure, your organization will likely soon be using intelligent automation in many, many corners of your operations. So, where should you start?
Instead of framing your goals in terms of quick victories (which won’t really move the needle) or major strategic applications (which require skills and foundations you don’t yet have in place), focus on how your first steps will advance capability-building in your organization. You should sequence the projects you take on — knowing you will ultimately take on hundreds — so that the early ones build the AI talents and put in place the AI tech infrastructure for the projects you will take on next, and next, and next.
Map Where You Want to Go
Capability-building — developing the strength of an organization to solve a class of problems it will keep facing in the future — is a challenge you might have tackled in other realms. In areas from strategy formulation to project management, teams recognize that they can and must get better by learning from experience. And because there are fundamentals that must be mastered before they can advance to higher-order capabilities — they have to walk before they can run — teams often take their guidance from so-called  maturity models, outlined by experts who have watched others travel the same path before. Given that your people will need to rise again and again to the challenge of implementing intelligent automation solutions, this is the approach that makes sense, but more of the thinking about the best sequence of steps will be up to you.
Continue reading: https://hbr.org/2022/02/how-to-pick-the-right-automation-project

It is critical that girls receive the education they deserve and are aware of the opportunities available in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. 
That is the goal of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, observed on February 11, which strives to highlight and educate people about the importance of women in science, not only as beneficiaries but also as change agents, especially in light of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals.
Previously, women were not sure about career growth in the STEM industries for myriad reasons - family support, work-life balance, and most importantly, the confidence to lead and achieve professional success. Now, this situation is changing, thanks to more and more companies evolving to provide flexible working conditions, introducing supportive and career-defining policies and initiatives, and building a cultural foundation where every employee can bring their whole self to work.
People Matters spoke to women tech leaders in the industry about the opportunities that exist for women in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) which has seen immense growth in the last decade.
Evolving AI & ML Space
Significant technological advances and innovation over the past decade have undoubtedly changed the way people live, work, and interact with each other. However, a lot more than just technology has evolved over the last two years due to the pandemic.
The pandemic era has forced organisations to move into an innovation mindset and have disrupted long-lasting, tested, and preferred business models for most organisations, while increasing the technology adoption rate by almost 5X.
One of the technologies that has gained popularity in recent years and seems to have profound future implications is AI.
“Today, most organisations generate consumer benefits and business value by leveraging 70 to 80% AI-led operations and creating AI-infused products and applications. Businesses are now reimagining their operations via a human-AI collaboration,” says Saraswati Kadel, Associate Director, CSS Corp Innovation Labs.
“The AI space has seen immense growth in the last decade - which is also the span of my career in the industry. When I first began, AI was just a research field surrounded by buzz from academia and select quarters of industry. I was always intrigued by AI and experiencing its growth and implementation across domains has been exhilarating,” adds Shraddha Surana, global data community lead, lead data scientist at Thoughtworks.
She says that today, AI concepts are extensively accessible via online courses that increase awareness and build the emerging tech’s global community.
“Take for instance, the boom in Artificial Neural Networks (or Deep Learning). Factors contributing to AI’s explosion include an increase in compute power, technological development, open-source contributions and an awareness of AI's impact on social and economic life,” she adds.
Continue reading: https://www.peoplematters.in/article/diversity/entering-and-staying-resilient-in-an-innovating-industry-women-tech-leaders-on-opportunities-in-ai-ml-sector-32692

Is there a trend for hybrid IoT, to marry together different radio technologies to serve different use cases? Well, yes there is; but, then, there always has been. Because the internet of things (IoT) is a broad church so far as its congregation goes – and many, sometimes, worship together in order to get their messages across. “There is no one-size-fits-all connectivity solution to serve every use case; IoT is an all-for-one discipline, and not one-for-all.”
It is a recurring line in this parish; here it is voiced by Henri Bong, co-chief and co-founder at Singapore-based IoT production house UnaBiz, a one-time Sigfox practitioner that has reinvented itself as a “multi-tech” IoT solutions provider, also offering LoRaWAN and cellular IoT among low-power wide-area (LPWA) networking protocols, plus all the inbetweener tech that goes into its own version of hybrid IoT. But others say the same, almost exactly.
“The reason there is such a proliferation of wireless technologies is because no one technology perfectly serves all use cases. And hybrid approaches are a natural reflection of this fact,” remarks Svein-Egil Nielsen, chief technology officer, at IoT chip-maker Nordic Semiconductor, a business based originally in Bluetooth (and Zigbee, and proprietary 802.15.4 short-range tech) that has crossed into cellular IoT for precisely the same ends.
He adds: “In some cases, combining two technologies [delivers] a result that is technically and/or commercially superior to either technology when used in standalone mode. In fact, I see hybrid IoT becoming very common.” But we should probably consider who is on the line here; because Nordic, trading in hybrid cellular, has a reputation for premium IoT gear, compared with, say, UnaBiz, even despite the latter’s new adventures in NB-IoT and LTE-M.
Indeed, a split can be perceived in the IoT market between amped-up cross-breed systems and stripped-back pure-breed solutions. “The range of IoT applications is so vast that multiple radio access technologies (RATs) are needed, from RFID all the way to 5G-UWB,” responds Christophe Fourtet, co-founder and chief technology officer at France-based Sigfox, arguably promoting the lowest-end single-mode functionality of any LPWA tech.
Continue reading: https://enterpriseiotinsights.com/20220210/internet-of-things/the-trend-for-amped-up-cross-breed-iot-and-tension-with-stripped-back-pure-breed-iot

Australian UAV delivery company Swoop Aero has added another impressive item to its “drones for good” list, thanks to its life-saving work delivering vaccinations and medical supplies to distant, often difficult-to-access destinations in central Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Due in part to its vast size – second largest in Africa and 11th globally – the DRC has relied on use of small aerial craft in its efforts to extend access to healthcare to the remote places that often need it most. Toward the end of 2020, authorities in the northeast Équateur province tapped Swoop Aero as a partner in a two-way drone medical delivery network it launched soon thereafter. The success of that operation gave rise to a targeted campaign to vaccinate 90% of Équateur’s population aged one to 60 against yellow fever. The results of that were as remarkable as the effort that obtained them.
In addition to Swoop Aero, Équateur’s yellow fever medical drone delivery effort was backed by UNICEF, the World Health Organization, healthcare nonprofit VillageReach, and others. It spanned 21 fast-paced days in October and November, 2021, operating six drones that flew 7,363 km – or 185 flights – to five provincial vaccination centers. In addition to the 32,460 yellow fever doses transported, 19,520 diluents and 15,000 vaccination cards were also hauled. Over 27,780 people received the shot during the campaign, many of whom were in areas difficult to access – except by UAV.

Continue reading: https://dronedj.com/2022/02/10/swoop-aeros-medical-drone-delivery-work-in-drc-hailed-as-life-saver/

The Transportation Ministry certified the Elbit defense contractor’s StarLiner drone to fly in civilian airspace, making Israel the first country in the world to allow unmanned aerial vehicles of this type to do so, the company said Wednesday.
The Civil Aviation Authority of the State of Israel issued its permit in late December after a more than six-year evaluation period, though the company only announced the regulation change on Wednesday.
“We are proud to issue the Type Certificate to the Hermes Starliner UAS, approving it to fly in civilian airspace as any other civil aircraft. As far as CAAI is aware, this is a world-first,” the head of Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority, Joel Feldschuh, said in a statement issued by Elbit. UAS stands for unmanned aircraft system.
Most currently available UAVs lack the necessary sensors to operate in civilian airspace without interfering with other aircraft. As a result, many countries have laws forbidding powerful drones that reach high altitudes from flying in civilian airspace.
Elbit’s StarLiner drone is a modified version of its Hermes 900, which is used by militaries around the world, that was made to comply with civil aviation requirements by installing sensors to identify other aircraft and avoid collisions with them, an additional warning system to prevent it from approaching or crashing into the ground, autonomous takeoff and landing systems in no-visibility conditions, and other modifications.
Continue reading: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-becomes-1st-country-to-allow-large-high-flying-drones-in-civilian-airspace/

Edge computing technology in business is catching up dominance like wildfire
Edge computing is a component of a distributed software topology in which information processing is positioned near the edge. It is where objects and people produce or absorb information. It exemplifies Infrastructure-Led Disruption since it permits numerous new business outcomes.
To remain competitive, Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) leaders must get ahead of this trend by speeding the enterprise’s efficient deployment of an expanding spectrum of edge computing use applications.
What Is Edge Computing?
Understanding what the edge entails is the first move in developing your own edge strategy. However, the notion of edge computing is somewhat ambiguous, with enterprises frequently determining exactly what forms ‘the edge’ based on their own computing systems and specific organisations.
Having said that, the core premise of edge computing remains the same: bringing compute and data storage closer to datasets, which in turn accelerates processing time and enhances data-related output.
Edge Computing in Business
Identify Edge Computing Use Cases
Edge computing applications are tremendously diverse, occurring in many regions of the company and with various goals. An awareness of edge computing drivers, objectives, and existing deployments should be part of an edge computing framework.
It should also have a mechanism for proactively identifying possible applications and appropriately recognising existing use cases.
Identify the precise enterprise requirements that edge computing can address in terms of latency, information, semi-autonomy, and privacy. Determine which existing technologies and installations should be incorporated in the edge computing plan. Identify possible edge computing use instances that can be handled proactively and jointly with business units.
Focus on Edge Computing Challenges
Edge computing introduces new hazards that must be mitigated as well as new obstacles that must be conquered. An edge computing approach must keep these in mind. Different industrial verticals may face distinct edge difficulties or hazards that must be addressed.
However, the great majority of companies face four edge computing hurdles: distributed computation, privacy and security, distributed data, and flexibility.
Identify the risks, obstacles, and impediments that must be overcome and mitigated, and spend specific attention on those challenges in the areas of management, investment, and capabilities on a continuing basis.
Continue reading: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/embracing-edge-computing-technology-in-business-in-2022/

The advancement of edge AI hardware and software presents a significant opportunity to improve the accuracy and security of biometric identification technologies. How? The simplest answer is that edge computing can help by processing data closer to where it is created. 
Edge computing can improve application performance of video analytics and other services by reducing latency. For biometrics, data management and privacy are equally important reasons to employ edge computing. The question then becomes where to deploy the application; while the answer is increasingly “on the device itself,” it is still useful to understand how cameras, voice and hand recognition systems will interact with nearby systems to provide advanced functionality and improve accuracy. 
This white paper from Biometric Update, written by EdgeIR.com editor Jim Davis, is intended as a primer for understanding edge computing basics and where it will impact biometric identification systems. 
The paper examines the architecture of edge computing (where edge computing is being used) and then applies this framework to contextualize use cases for biometrics and edge computing such as: 

• Biometrics at the Smart Device and On-premise data center edge
• Retail
• Warehouses/Manufacturing
• Automotive/Transportation
• Biometrics at the Access and Regional edge
• Smart City

Read more: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202202/how-edge-computing-ai-will-benefit-the-market-for-biometric-identification-technologies