It’s one thing to know whether an individual customer is intrigued by a new mattress or considering a replacement for their sofa’s throw pillows; it’s another to know to how to move these people to go ahead and make a purchase. When deployed strategically, artificial intelligence (AI) can be a marketer’s trusted customer experience ally—transforming customer data into actionable insights and creating new opportunities for personalization at scale. On the other hand, when AI is viewed as merely a quick fix, its haphazard deployment at best can amount to a missed opportunity and at worse undermine trust with an organization’s customers.
This phenomenon is not unique to AI. In today’s fast-moving digital economy, it’s not uncommon for performance and results to lag behind expectations. Despite the enormous potential of modern technology to drastically improve the customer experience, business innovation and transformation can remain elusive.
According to Gartner, 89% of companies now compete primarily on the experiences they deliver. As marketers and other teams turn to these systems to automate decision-making, personalize brand experiences, gain deeper insights about their customers, and boost results, there’s often a disconnect between the technology’s potential and what it delivers.
When it comes to AI, frequently, organizations fail to realize the full benefits of their AI investments, and this has real business repercussions. So how do organization ensure that their investments deliver on their promise for fueling innovation, transformation, and even disruption? To find success, it requires the right approach to operationalizing the technology, and investing in AI capabilities that can work together throughout the entire workflow to connect various thoughts and processes together.
Continue reading: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/02/02/1044237/turning-ai-into-your-customer-experience-ally/

There are few industries as old-fashioned as dairy farming, an ancient form of agriculture that can be traced back over 11,000 years, according to ThoughtCo. However, some agricultural artificial intelligence developers are hoping to modernize the milk industry with the help of a slate of futuristic tools that could change dairy farming forever.
How Artificial Intelligence Could Change The Dairy Farming Industry Bloomberg/Getty Images BY GILLIE HOUSTON/FEB. 2, 2022 1:22 PM EST There are few industries as old-fashioned as dairy farming, an ancient form of agriculture that can be traced back over 11,000 years, according to ThoughtCo. However, some agricultural artificial intelligence developers are hoping to modernize the milk industry with the help of a slate of futuristic tools that could change dairy farming forever.
Although the agriculture AI industry was valued at approximately $519 million in 2019, economists believe that high-tech farming is about to experience a major boom, estimated to grow into a $2.6 billion business by 2025 (via California Review Management).
Current and forthcoming AI-driven agricultural technology include futuristic farming tools like robot farmhands, which could help solve labor shortage issues by performing manual tasks; predictive software, which can help monitor and predict soil conditions, weather patterns, and other environmental elements; and data capturing drones that can pinpoint patches of diseased or pest-infested crops, making it easier to eradicate crop killers before they become an insurmountable — and expensive — problem.
While a large portion of the current farming AI has been focused on plant-based agriculture and crop production, companies like CattleEye, a U.K.-based cow monitoring company, intend to modernize the dairy industry one farm at a time using this sophisticated technology.
Continue reading: https://www.tastingtable.com/754854/how-artificial-intelligence-could-change-the-dairy-farming-industry/

We often think of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies as a gateway to a future written in chrome, operating on a virtual cloud. This techno-optimism underpinned FM Nirmala Sitharaman’s 2022 budget speech, where AI was described as a sunrise technology that would “assist sustainable development at scale and modernize the country.” While there is an allure to national dreams of economic prosperity and global competitiveness, underwritten by AI, there is an environmental cost and — like any issue at the nexus of technology, development, growth and security — a cost that comes with being locked into rules about said environmental impact set by powerful actors.
The “race” for dominance in AI is far from fair: Not only do a few developed economies possess certain material advantages right from the start, they also set the rules. They have an advantage in research and development, and possess a skilled workforce as well as wealth to invest in AI. North America and East Asia alone account for three-fourths of global private investment in AI, patents and publications.
We can also look at the state of inequity in AI in terms of governance: How “tech fluent” are policymakers in developing and underdeveloped countries? What barriers do they face in crafting regulations and industrial policy? Are they sufficiently represented and empowered at the international bodies that set rules and standards on AI? At the same time, there is an emerging challenge at the nexus of AI and climate change that could deepen this inequity.
Continue reading: https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/artificial-intelligence-technologies-have-climate-cost-7753829/

Technological changes are evolving at an unprecedented rate – so why aren’t most network detection and response (NDR) solutions? NDR and network performance monitoring and diagnostic tools created 30 years ago can’t keep up with today’s complex, interconnected networks. With each new connection comes a possible vulnerability and a higher risk profile. Cybercriminals are always looking for corporate networks that are complex and filled with security gaps for them to sneak through unnoticed. This security challenge has persisted despite the many efforts of enterprise IT security teams.
The problem is one of pace; neither legacy solutions nor human analysts are able to keep up.
Enterprises need assistance from AI-based solutions to enable full visibility into their network. network detection and response (NDR) solutions derive particular benefit from AI. However, to implement NDR well, organizations need clarity on its key elements, both before and after implementation.
The need for AI assistance
With the increased complexity of networks and the increased volume of data, the reality is that human analysts are incapable of monitoring all of it, alone. To make matters worse, the industry is experiencing an estimated shortage of 2.72 million skilled cybersecurity professionals – there just aren’t enough skilled people to adequately defend organizations’ critical assets. Instead, the industry must learn how to use tools like AI and ML to supplement these skills gaps. The lack of capable and experienced cybersecurity talent can leave networks vulnerable to a myriad of threats.
Continue reading: https://solutionsreview.com/network-monitoring/how-ai-driven-network-detection-and-response-closes-security-gaps/

It’s February 2022, and the world looks a lot different than it did just a few years ago. A global pandemic that continues to ravage the world has fundamentally transformed just about everything, from the way we live, the way we connect, and the way we envision the future. No industry exemplifies these changes more than the blockchain space. A now decade-old technology has experienced tremendous growth and publicity in the past two years. Marketplaces selling digital assets (Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs) have exploded in popularity. Projects that promise to take power from the hands of Big Tech and give the internet back to the people (Colloquially known as Web3) have sprung up and made leaps and bounds. Venture capital is pouring into the space at unprecedented rates.
Meanwhile, in another corner of the universe, IoT companies want to fundamentally transform the way we connect with things and the world around us and promise us that the world, in the near future, will be more interconnected, more data-centric, and more informed than ever before. What happens when the blockchain industry, a seemingly unstoppable force, meets the immovable object that is the IoT industry?
They intersect. And it’s fascinating to watch.
To understand why these two technologies have so much overlap, it’s essential to understand what blockchain is as a technology, the properties that make it uniquely suited to tackle certain challenges, and the context that has made it such a promising field.
Continue reading: https://www.iotforall.com/iot-blockchain-revolution-is-here-heres-why-you-should-pay-attention

As people all over the globe have become increasingly aware of their privacy rights and how they are constantly being violated by various prominent social media platforms, the need for tangible, decentralized alternatives has continued to grow rapidly.
For perspective, in 2019, Facebook was ordered to pay a mind-boggling $5-billion fine by the United States Federal Trade Commission for improperly acquiring private data of up to 87 million of its users. Just a year later, the social media giant had to shell out another $550 million to settle a privacy lawsuit that suggested that the firm had illegally accrued customer data (including their biometric and personal details) without their explicit consent.
Such violations have helped spur the need for transparency-driven social media services, particularly decentralized messengers, that provide their users with a high degree of data security. In this regard, the new quantum-resistant, privacy-centric messaging app XX Messenger — developed by cryptographer David Chaum — recently made its way into the market. The app boasts a globally decentralized network of 350 nodes, with each operator earning the platform’s native XX Coin as an incentive for their efforts.
A quantum-resistant messenger would be able to resist most currently known methods of decryption, theoretically guarding against the possibility of a quantum computer used to crack into a user’s communications.
Continue reading: https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-based-decentralized-messengers-a-privacy-pipedream

Blockchain technology has been around since the early days of Bitcoin, which debuted in 2009 as the world’s first decentralized Cryptocurrency.
Yet, it is more than just digital currency. Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that can revolutionize modern business.
But how fast will blockchain technology make its mark on the business world?
According to Statista report, Blockchain will grow massively within the next few years. Currently, this industry is expected to reach $39 billion by 2025.
Blockchain Use Cases in Real Business
1. NFT Marketplaces Are Taking Over
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – sometimes called crypto-collectibles – are not a new idea, but they’re gaining steam. According to Google Trends, the interest in NFTs skyrocketed in 2021.
Non-fungible tokens are primarily used for video games. The most popular is CryptoKitties, which allows players to buy, sell, collect and breed virtual cats.
Each cat has unique features and looks, and players can even sell them for a profit.
Besides games, NFTs can be used for digital advertising, creating user rewards, digital ticketing, and more. Its market is distributed in different categories like Art, Sport, Utility, etc.
Continue reading: https://customerthink.com/blockchain-in-modern-business-adopting-real-cases-by-2022/

Individuals who belong to different minority groups go to their place of work expecting to be treated in the same way that everyone else is treated, but often the mistreatment they experience ends up making it hard to even be at work. That mistreatment is experienced for women in science, technology, engineering and mathematical (STEM) fields. The STEM field is male-dominated, making it challenging for women to gain any acknowledgment or recognition as they advance through their career, thus leading to even more negative impacts.  These challenges can make it hard for any woman to succeed in the STEM careers and may make them wonder if they should even enter a STEM field.
Tokenism
Many individuals in minority groups have felt the pressure of being a representative of the whole community that they are a part of, as if they are a token representative. In terms of women in STEM, the idea that STEM fields are only for men continues to result in the mistreatment of women and a decrease in the number of women who enjoy long careers in STEM.  This also leads to women becoming tokens across different STEM fields and STEM careers as a whole, and this underrepresentation then contributes to negative environments for women in STEM (Settles).
In male-dominated fields, women often view themselves as being underestimated by their peers, held to different standards, and being in a fishbowl, where everything they do is compared to everyone around them and evaluated more negatively. These beliefs and women’s status as tokens in the workplace often leads to demotivation, lower levels of performance and diminished aspirations for the future (Zimmer). To some, this might provide “proof” that women are not the ideal candidates for these careers. To others, this is evidence of the harm of believing that being a certain gender makes one better than anyone else.
Continue reading: https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/blogs/2022/gender-discrepancies-in-stem

Today’s Woman in Tech: Sally Sabet, Head of Consumer Goods Go to Market at Pitcher
Sally is the Global Lead of Consumer Goods Go to Market for Pitcher. She has a career spanning 16 years which includes previously working as a Principal Solution Strategist for Salesforce and at companies such as Service Now and Experian.
She is passionate about not only helping businesses grow and innovate but also championing women in technology. In 2020, Sally won the Women in Sales EMEA (WISA) Award, and was recently shortlisted for the Women In Tech Excellence Award and the Women in IT Award.
When did you become interested in technology? What first got you interested in tech?
I grew up in a family with two incredibly intelligent and successful brothers and a wonderful sister who has a range of hearing, speech, and learning disabilities. Those who are neurodiverse understand the kinds of challenges she faced, and the kinds of pressure she experienced trying to reach the bar set by society and family.
She was unable to finish high school, and struggled to keep internships and short-term jobs. She was becoming increasingly isolated the older we got. Then about 20 years ago, technology just completely transformed her life. She got a laptop and was able to engage with games and programs, and communicate with the external world in a way that had been impossible before, because of her hearing and speech disabilities.
Now, she’s a successful, confident saleswoman, who thrives because she’s authentic and because technology platforms have enabled her to communicate about the product and with customers. Watching her improvement was what led to my interest in technology. I wanted to invest the rest of my career and life in something that can genuinely transform people’s lives, like it did my sister.
At the end of the day, technology is used by companies and organizations to solve problems. I have always been very excited to be at the center of that process, where technology is making people’s lives better, and their working and personal lives easier.
Continue reading: https://jaxenter.com/women-in-tech-sabet-176548.html

Artificial intelligence is reshaping and improving business processes across industries. Learn what's in store for corporate learning with AI.
I’ve been in the education business for decades as a senior lecturer, trainer and CEO. When people ask me about the biggest challenge that learners face, the first thing that comes to mind is that learners see training as something they “have to do.” 
Now, let’s think for a moment about this. How did we get here? Why aren’t we talking about “want to do” or “happy to have the opportunity to do?”
The answer is multifaceted, but I’ll try to make it simple: Training can be demanding. For companies, it takes time to organize courses, curricula and other content; track progress; and demonstrate ROI. 
Plus, employees don’t tend to enjoy standardized training that fails to cater to their needs and takes time from their already busy schedules.
These arguably onerous tasks take a fundamental business process and turn it into something many people are reluctant to participate in — a disadvantage for any company. I strongly believe that great learning keeps organizations from stagnation and irrelevance. 
I’m also a firm believer that we can and should do something to make learning more valuable and less of a chore for employees and companies alike. Artificial intelligence (AI) is already shaping and improving many business areas today, and learning activities should be no exception. With the rapid ability to process and analyze vast quantities of data, improve decision-making and personalize learning journeys, AI can expedite and improve learning processes and results — at large and small companies alike.
Continue reading: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/413652

Intelligent automation adoption has soared since the start of the pandemic. Pre-Covid, organizations were inexorably moving from a digital strategy to an automated or algorithmic one. In the realization that new variants of Covid-19 are likely to (repeatedly) cause disruption, organizations have continued to accelerate their investments in more advanced automation to smooth out the bumps.
Intelligent automation is a subset of artificial intelligence (AI). It is the computerization of processes traditionally carried out by people. Moving beyond current automation technologies (such as robotic process automation), intelligent automation replicates more complex processes — especially those that involve human decision-making.
It gives organizations the opportunity to increase efficiency, improve customer experience and generate new revenues through automated digital products and services.
But organizations that take to the sky with intelligent automation programs — without properly understanding the success factors — risk dropping quickly back down to Earth.
Regulatory Headwinds
As François Candelon, Rodolphe Charme di Carlo, Midas De Bondt and Theodoros Evgeniou wrote in Harvard Business Review, "For most of the past decade, public concerns about digital technology have focused on the potential abuse of personal data." But now, "attention is shifting to how data is used by the software."
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/02/01/four-principles-every-organization-implementing-intelligent-automation-must-live-by/?sh=6f22b7f430ba

The Regional Transportation Authority of Northeastern Illinois (RTA), faced with sweeping shutdowns due to COVID-19, announced that its workforce would be fully remote after March 13, 2020, until further notice.
Everyone, that is, except for its call center staff. While the rest of the agency settled into home offices, call center staffers went into the office to retrieve voicemails and return messages.
“We were able to manage,” says Gerry Tumbali, engineering and technology division manager at the RTA. “But, obviously, our customer service interaction suffered.”
By June 2020, the agency was able to replace its legacy on-premises Cisco unified collaboration system with cloud-based Cisco Webex. Once that was in place, the RTA’s call center staff was finally able to work from home.
Regions and municipalities around the country in recent years have been moving to the cloud and using Internet of Things sensors to boost efficiency and improve transportation safety. Some agencies froze those plans to respond to pandemic-related crises. For others, such as the RTA, the pandemic accelerated the urgency of modernization.
“It was more or less a natural disaster that didn’t end,” Matt Arcaro, next-generation automotive and transportation research manager at IDC, says of the COVID-19 crisis. The length and severity of the pandemic gave agencies a chance to step back and look at existing challenges, as well as opportunities, through a new lens.
“There’s a better way to do this besides the traditional example of more traffic, therefore more traffic lanes,” says Arcaro. “That’s a paradigm that we know is broken.”
Municipalities Start to Rethink Transportation
One community in Florida is in a unique position to build forward-thinking systems from the ground up. Lake Nona, a 17-square-mile district in Orlando, has spent the past 15 years growing its reputation as a living lab.
“I’ve seen some incredible ideas from a smart city perspective that stay on paper,” explains Juan Santos, senior vice president of brand experience and innovation at Tavistock Development, which develops and manages the 18,000- resident master-designed community. “This is a place where you can take great ideas and see them realized very quickly.”
Continue reading: https://statetechmagazine.com/article/2022/01/cities-adopt-cloud-computing-and-iot-smarter-transportation

A couple of ice ages ago, when I started writing about technology, personal computing was shorthand for computers used by enthusiasts. Such machines were eons away from becoming the personal computers that now sit on our desks and in our backpacks. In the post-PC age, personal computing means tablets and smartphones. After all, these always-on mobile devices are our constant companions. We are now glued to their screens, and more importantly, they are personalized to serve our every need.
Going forward, however, personal computing will become something else thanks to the growing number of connected devices — what readers of this newsletter affectionately call the Internet of Things. Indeed, in looking around my apartment recently I realized just how many of these devices had entered the most personal of my spaces: my home.
The list is long. Philips Hue for mood lighting. An Aura digital frame to display pictures of my family and friends. Samsung’s Frame TV to show off my landscape photographs. Plus a HomePod in my office, SyngSpace speakers in my bedroom, a connected streaming amplifier, and a few other bits and bobs. It’s not quite the Sharper Image showroom, but you get the drift.
And whenever I visit the standalone homes of my friends, I see a proliferation of security cameras, doorbells, nanny cams, and baby monitors, among other devices. That’s in addition to the photo frames, speakers, and of course, cleaning robots. This wave of connected devices is clearly not ending anytime soon. The recently concluded CES even had companies showing up with connected personal robot assistants, such as the Retriever from Labrador Systems. Most of these devices are packed with sensors — cameras, microphones, and motion sensors, to name just a few.
Continue reading: https://staceyoniot.com/were-entering-the-age-of-very-personal-computing/

Over the years, the cost of smart technology has gone down and more people are adopting the Internet of Things (IoT). With IoT, anyone can enjoy the convenience of smart homes and generate valuable insights from data collected by IoT devices.
Combined with other disruptive technologies such as AI, machine learning (ML), and augmented reality (AR), IoT can be a powerful business intelligence tool and help any business automate its processes and operations, optimize and save costs, and significantly improve top-line growth.
Custom AR IoT solutions by software houses like rinf.tech can transform your business by enabling more efficient data collection and management which, in turn, fosters informed decision-making and a greater level of customer experience personalization.
Here are some ways IoT can transform your business and give you an edge over your competitors.

 
1.   Deeper Insights Into Your Consumers
Collecting data for your business isn’t always easy, but IoT has made the process simpler by providing access to consumer data. IoT devices record and track patterns of how a consumer interacts with the devices. As a business, you can use the data collected for growth and improvement.
With the data, you can find out more about your consumer needs, their buyer cycle, the marketing methods to use, and how you can improve on areas that are lacking in your sales funnel.
Continue reading: https://www.imcgrupo.com/how-the-internet-of-things-can-transform-your-business/

In the late 1480s, Leonardo da Vinci sketched out a clever design for a one-person helicopter propelled by an "aerial screw." You may have seen his drawings and wondered whether one of the choppers could ever take flight. 
Now we know the answer. The Italian genius was right. 
Starting in 2019, a University of Maryland engineering team designed and tested the underlying technology as part of a design contest. Then over the last year and a half, team member Austin Prete built Crimson Spin, an unmanned quadcopter drone using da Vinci's screwlike design, and flew it on several brief journeys.
"I was absolutely surprised it worked," said Prete, a graduate student in the university's aerospace engineering department who built the aircraft for his master's degree. He and other team members were Initially skeptical but grew more excited by da Vinci's design after some computer simulations and 3D-printed screw prototypes showed promising trends. 
He presented his results -- and the first video of the aircraft flying -- at the Transformative Vertical Flight 2022 conference in San Jose, California, last week.
Continue reading: https://www.cnet.com/news/this-drone-flies-using-da-vincis-530-year-old-helicopter-design/

Drone enthusiasts dreaming of the day when Tim Cook and his band of Mac and iPhone innovators produce an equally slick UAV may assuage their impatience (a little) by reading about a veritable apple drone already at work around select orchards of the world.
Israeli startup Tevel Aerobotics Technologies is marketing a tethered drone system that takes the toil out of apple picking at a time when farmers are finding laborers willing to undertake the exacting burden harder to find, and funds to pay salaries ever tighter. The company’s solution to cultivators facing that situation is the Flying Autonomous Robots (FAR) platform, which fast and effectively performs cultivation work in orchards using artificial intelligence-enhanced tech capable of differentiating fruit ripe for picking from those needing more time on the tree.
Though the system may lack a catchy name like iPlucker or AirPick, Tevel’s apple drone innovation does mark another step forward in agricultural tech. While existing aerial and robotic applications facilitate and improve planting, pollination, treatment, and cultivation work, FAR adds a new dimension to the harvesting process. 
Central to that is a ground vehicle that slowly advances between rows of fruit trees while connected to a series of tethered drones whose arms and articulated grippers pick mature apples. The grabby quadcopters deposit those on QR coded spots on a tarp below, which feeds the plucked goodies into crates. The AI-enhanced program running the platform identifies and directs the drones only toward apples ready for picking – evaluation which under previous robotic systems usually requires on-site human appreciation.
Continue reading: https://dronedj.com/2022/01/31/apple-drones-are-now-reality-in-orchards-cultivating-fruit/

NASA has partnered with other US agencies and a Colorado-based drone manufacturer to create a UAV-based system to observe volcanoes for indications of what otherwise might be unexpected, catastrophic eruptions for local communities.
NASA has long been interested in deploying drones to replace human monitors and small aircraft habitually used for near-range examination of volcano activity and for gathering evidence of approaching eruptions. Tipped off to those by data collected with sensors on the craft, scientists could issue advance warnings when craters are getting ready to blow, as Cumbre Vieja on Spain’s La Palma, Karkatau in Indonesia, and Hawai‘i Island’s Kīleaua all did last year.
Though the tech presumably wouldn’t be applicable to the underwater explosion of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai that produced a calamitous tsunami for the people of Tonga, it would allow researchers to predict other looming eruptions – allowing local communities to prepare or evacuate beforehand.
NASA’s first efforts to develop UAVs for that purpose date back to 2013, when a small craft was used to overfly the Turrialba Volcano in Costa Rica. The agency later struck up a long-running partnership with Black Wing Technologies, which produces drone systems for rugged enterprise and research applications. Their work eventually led to the creation of the S2 fixed-wing, fully autonomous plane that was prepared for data collection flights above the Aleutian Islands’ Makushin Volcano. 
Along the way, the project was joined by the US Geological Survey (USGS), which provided additional sensors to capture visual and thermal images, and detect a fuller range of volcanic gases. The S2 took to the air in a series of missions above Makushin last September.

“We needed it to be really rugged, to withstand flying in the turbulent conditions and corrosive gases around volcanoes,” said Florian Schwandner, director of the Earth Sciences division at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “We also developed a gas-sensing payload the UAS could carry to look for signs of volcanic unrest.”

Click to expand...

To make the ground-breaking Makushin flights possible, however, the team had to convince the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to grant beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) exemptions to enable the S2’s 15-mile flights to the cone. 
Continue reading: https://dronedj.com/2022/01/31/nasa-developing-drones-to-monitor-potential-volcano-eruptions/

A company owned by Google parent Alphabet that is revolutionising “last mile” delivery services for fast food, coffee and even items tradies is expanding in Australia this year.
Drone delivery service Wing has taken off in Queensland and the ACT over recent years, starting out in Canberra in 2019 in a world-first.
Homes and commercial premises across the ACT have been able to have curries, burgers, ice cream, groceries, office supplies, pharmacy items, hardware products and even pet treats flown straight to them, with Vietnamese food chain Roll’d last week added to Wing’s delivery network.
The company has been in the sunshine state for two years and in another world first in August, began operating a drone delivery “nest” on the rooftop of Grand Plaza in Logan, south of Brisbane, sending out goods on-demand from a range of businesses at the shopping centre to surrounding suburbs within a 10km radius.
The business boomed last year as the pandemic raged on, with deliveries rocketing more than 600 per cent compared to 2020.
“It’s usually young families who take to the service pretty quickly. When Covid started and people were isolating at home, all of a sudden we saw a big uptake in our service from more elderly people,” spokesman Jesse Suskin told NCA NewsWire on Monday.
“Every lockdown in Canberra and Queensland, of which there were quite a few, we were having hundreds more people sign on to the service.”
Wing has very specific criteria for where it chooses to operate: fast growing, “urban sprawl” areas where residents don’t live within walking distance from their local shops and spend a lot of time in their cars.
Continue reading: https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/drone-delivery-business-to-expand-in-qld-and-eyeing-off-other-states/news-story/9894919aefa95c6f5910e293a4ae2c41

It has become apparent that the use of drone technology to identify faults in the shipping industry is on the rise. This innovative method allows the Port to obtain photographs of the facilities taken underwater, providing many advantages for facility maintenance. 
Sohar Port carries out its inspections using this cutting-edge technology throughout its processes, ensuring the safety of staff and reliability of its facilities. The port is the first in Oman to start incorporating this technology in its monitoring system.
Jasleen Mann speaks to senior asset management engineer at Sohar Port, Sufyan Al Mamari, about the use of underwater drones in the shipping industry and the advantages of the technology.
Jasleen Mann (JM): What is the reason behind the development of this technology?
Sufyan Al Mamari (SA): The use of technology has become essential to Sohar’s growth. We rely on precise measurements and cutting-edge equipment to assist tenants at the Freezone to become more efficient and vessels in the port load and unload goods to maintain effective supply chains. This extends to the maintenance of the port.
We use unmanned vehicles as an integral part of the port’s monitoring system. Underwater drones are used to perform tasks from essential inspections to the routine observation of the port and logistic infrastructure. The technology can detect and remedy defects where it is difficult or unsafe for humans to venture, ensuring structural integrity and durability. This is especially important when surveying berths and the breakwaters.
Continue reading: https://www.ship-technology.com/features/what-is-driving-the-demand-for-underwater-drone-detection/

A national symbol in Hungary since it was built, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge spans the Danube River and links the downtown area of Buda and Pest, the two parts of Budapest. Opened in 1849, the bridge has become a symbol of connection and advancement for the entire country, underscoring why an effort to improve the 380m-long, 14.8m-wide suspension bridge was so carefully considered.
Upgrade work began in June of 2021 but the opportunity to capture this cultural icon and preserve it as a digital twin was recognized by the team at Ventus Tech, given their commitment to capturing reality above ground and underwater. Offering 13 different types of output data for their projects, the team puts in a real effort to capturing and delivering what engineers can immediately utilize without having to work through a steep learning curve. While they can capture and provide something as simple as a raw pointcloud or orthophoto, the highest level of processing requires the most complex data capture process, which was the case with data that needed to be captured to create a digital twin of the Széchenyi Chain Bridge.
Under a tight deadline and working together with BIMFRA on a pro bono basis, since the creation of a digital twin of the bridge was not built into the budget, the team had to work quickly to scan, fly and model the bridge using ground surveys, aerial scans and even boats. To operate the drone, airspace regulations in the city and country had to be considered but the proximity of various governmental offices, including the Presidents’ office and the Prime Minister's office, required special permissions.
“We had to secure 8 different permits from National Security, Aviation authorities, etc. before we could fly, said Bálint Vanek, CTO at Ventus Tech. “We also wanted to survey the underside of the bridge, so we modified our autonomous boat to mount a camera rig and special GPS equipment on it to capture the data. The river was flooding at the time, so maneuvering in it with the remotely operating boat was a challenge.”
The tight time constraints because of the construction also meant it was not possible to go back and repeat some of the measurements so the team had to make sure they got everything they needed the first time. That meant their choice and use of which drones to deploy needed to be carefully considered.
“We had multiple payload configurations on our DJI M600 Pro - nadir and oblique photos and airborne LIDAR,” Vanek told Commercial UAV News. “The flights had to be conducted from a small takeoff/landing area and the pilot needed special help (extended visual line of site) when flying from one side of the bridge to the other and circling around the piers/columns of the bridge. We had to monitor the protection zones from the important buildings and some part of the flight plan was flown manually while the other with waypoint navigation mode.”
Continue reading: https://www.commercialuavnews.com/infrastructure/how-did-data-captured-by-drones-help-create-a-digital-twin-of-the-sz-chenyi-chain-bridge

Two firms exchange tools and tactics in the global effort against rogue drones and evaluating the effectiveness of the systems that counter them. Nexus Nine and DroneSec are delighted to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two companies. The partnership brings complementary capabilities to both parties, further strengthening their combined offer to the global marketplace. The MoU provides a joint-curriculum catalogue of training courses and improved UAS Threat Intelligence monitoring which, when combined, enable the training provision to remain fresh and relevant. Nexus Nine will be using the DroneSec Notify UAS Threat Intelligence Platform to keep their customers informed and alert, whilst contributing to the global threat operating picture. DroneSec will be using the Nexus Nine’s experienced staff, doctrine and unique C-UAS Operational Analysis and Requirements Generation tool, “SCAR”, to enhance C-UAS protection and understanding, and to provide next-generation training to new and existing customers. Together, the alliance will generate over one thousand graduates versed in UAS Cyber-security, Counter-Drone Test and Evaluation Operations, and deploy real-time UAS intelligence and Operational Analysis to more than two hundred organisations across the globe. With the increasing impact COTS drone attacks and the need for robust countermeasures, the partnership seeks to solve these industry challenges. DroneSec CEO, Mike Monnik said, “Nexus Nine has exceptionally skilled operators who deliver specialised work on systems that are meant to protect and save hundreds of lives. Combining their knowledge with the DroneSec reach and technology will remove information silo’s and empower our customers. We’re excited to provide this joint-capability, along with world-class intelligence, to our customers in 2022.”
Continue reading: https://www.suasnews.com/2022/01/uplifting-the-state-of-drone-security-nexus-nine-and-dronesec-a-united-front/

The pandemic has been causing us all to take stock of our lives. That’s also true in the workplace and as we look ahead the pace of digital change continues to be transformative
In an increasingly competitive jobs market, job seekers want roles with companies they connect with. From my perspective it’s very much about understanding worker needs and considering the employee experience.
This is certainly true when considering how to attract more women into tech jobs. According to statistics from WISE around 24% of those employed in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) industries are women.
When you consider that the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation – increasing both customer expectations and reliance on digital channels – these skills are in demand and it’s clear we need to do more to persuade women to take up these roles.
So, what are employees looking for and what will be the key considerations in the months ahead?
Continue reading: https://technative.io/will-we-see-workplace-trends-emerge-that-can-encourage-more-women-into-digital-roles/

• Women in tech are still underrepresented, underpaid, and often discriminated
• The lack of women in the industry can be attributed to many reasons, including scarcity of female role models and toxic workplace culture
• Despite women’s qualifications, companies and investors will often choose to invest in male founders

Since the dawn of time, an old saying has been around – “behind every great man, there’s a great woman.” This phrase could not be truer than in the tech industry.
As we all know, there are many diverse types of tech jobs: networkers, cybersecurity specialists, programmers, website developers and managers, IT technicians and hardware engineers. But one thing is for sure – women are underrepresented in these careers. 
This is not a new problem – women have been, and are still, underpaid and often discriminated against in the tech industry.
Women are still underrepresented, underpaid, and often discriminated
A 2020 study by the AnitaB.org Institute found that women make up 28.8% of the tech workforce compared to 26.2% in 2019, which means that out of every four people working in IT, only one is female.
The statistics are mind-blowing: women hold about 14% of software engineering and a quarter (25%) of computer-science-related jobs. Moreover, studies show that female software engineers have only increased by 2% in 21 years. And these sparse numbers are not by accident. 
Continue reading: https://techhq.com/2022/02/women-in-tech-pushing-for-inclusivity-and-diversity/

Blockchain is not a new technology despite much of the hype about it in recent months. What is somewhat new is what's behind the hype. It's being driven not by the technology itself, but rather its applications and the digital workplace tools it enables.
For example, we have seen the key role that blockchain technology is playing in the enablement of Web3. But it is also playing a major role in the development of the metaverse and defining new ways to manage data, too. All of this has been facilitated by the evolution of blockchain technology itself.
Blockchain in the Digital Workplace
Enterprises have been quick to see the benefits of blockchain beyond its role with bitcoin. Last year, for example, India-based Tanla Platforms launched a new communications platform-as-a-service with Microsoft which was blockchain enabled and built on Microsoft Azure. 
Others have turned to blockchain to support some of the elements of enterprise content management systems. While it can't manage content the way a content management system can, it can be used to do things like authenticate records and provide an audit trail of authorized interactions. 
Continue reading: https://www.cmswire.com/information-management/how-blockchain-is-enabling-digital-transformation/

A forest restoration project using XAG Agricultural Drones has been initiated in Brazil, which is a pioneer in experimenting the scope of planting seeds of native tree species by drone. The trial will help demonstrate the effectiveness of drone to boost forest growth, paving the way for the autonomous technology to be used in large-scale planting of Brazilian forests.
This drone seeding application is part of the Arboreto Project, carried out by the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), Brazil’s oldest university, in collaboration with Timber, XAG’s local partner and a supplier of autonomous agricultural machinery. It aims to help speed up the process of forest restoration through planting tree species with commercial interest and environmental adaptation.
During the field experiment, different amounts of seeds were weighed and sorted into the smart container onboard the drone. After the pilot entered all the operation parameters into the mobile APP, such as waypoints, flight speed, and spray volume, the XAG Agricultural Drone with a spreading attachment was planned to run along target lines, evenly distributing seeds from different forest species native to the region.
Compared to planting trees by manual labor, drone with full automation can improve the productivity of the restoration work, especially in terrains that is difficult to access. It is expected that agricultural drone can serve as a cost-effective tool to facilitate the replanting of native trees by governments and companies.
Continue reading: https://www.suasnews.com/2022/02/brazil-introduces-agricultural-drones-from-xag-to-plant-trees/