From advertising and food delivery to construction and agriculture, drones are increasingly being used across multiple industries.
The arrival of Drones
Drones first took to the skies at the start of World War I, when they were used for military attacks on enemies. The design and application of drones have dramatically evolved from the initial radio-controlled plane designs.
In 2013, Amazon announced their interest in using the tech, bringing it to a consumer audience. From then, drones became more and more popular. After their arrival, critics predicted that consumer drones would soon fade away and were merely a fun piece of technology that lacked longevity.
What are drones used for today?
But drones went through a renaissance when it was realised they could offer safety and efficiency to many industries. They now fly in all shapes and sizes supporting many sectors, such as agriculture, construction, emergency response and fire-fighting.
Rabih Bou Rached, Founder of FEDs Drones, told Euronews that drones are helping farmers to predict disease and calculate yield.
"When I start flying every season, I start getting actual data. So, we know, our control data was that this season, what is that next season? So, eventually, we can start predicting the yield and the spreading of disease because we have data that can be translated."
Continue reading: https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/01/31/day-of-the-drones-their-rise-across-multiple-industries

Cryptocurrency has been making headlines for some time now, and many have profited from the industry. However, due to its complexity, there are many myths and stigmas around cryptocurrency. People have been scrutinizing the ecological impact of crypto mining, as well as the potential for facilitation of illegal activity. On top of that, many don’t even believe cryptocurrency has any intrinsic value to begin with. Today, I am debunking these top three myths.
MYTH NO. 1
The most common myth is that cryptocurrency is only used by money launderers and drug dealers. Fact: While it’s true that the first use case was for a dark web market, cryptocurrency has shown its usefulness and potential to solve traditional banking problems across almost every segment. In fact, companies that do blockchain analytics, such as Chainalysis and CipherTrace, have proven that illicit activity in cryptocurrency today is equal to or even less than in traditional banking systems. Companies involved in cryptocurrency are held to the same regulatory standards as other financial institutions, and subject to all Bank Secrecy Act, Anti-Money Laundering (AML), and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulatory procedures. To ensure standards are in place, digital currency companies are independently audited by external companies and regulators, and so are we at CoinMover.
Approximately 2% to 5% of global GDP, or about $800 billion to $2 trillion, is used for illicit and criminal purposes globally according to the United Nations. According to Chainalysis, the top blockchain analytic firm used by the IRS, FBI, and DHS, the criminal usage of crypto is only 0.3% of volume or about $10 billion in 2020. While cash is anonymous, cryptocurrency can be tracked through blockchain analytics. It is becoming tougher for criminals to use cryptocurrency as an avenue for their illicit activities and this will only continue as new laws are implemented to keep everyone safe.
Continue reading: https://www.fastcompany.com/90715195/debunking-cryptocurrency-myths

An unprecedented surge in societal interest and institutional investment in blockchain occurred in 2021. The technology born of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency has evolved significantly since its inception over a decade ago. Current blockchain applications span sectors far beyond currency. The distributed ledgers and decentralized economics enabled by cryptocurrencies are an architectural paradigm for the next generation of the web.
Blockchain technology has also ushered in a host of security issues, however. More blockchain security incidents were reported in 2021 than any year prior, resulting in losses exceeding $9 billion. These exploits include traditional attacks, such as phishing or network attacks, as well as novel threats unique to blockchain infrastructure, including cryptojacking, rug pulls, 51% attacks and more.
Although blockchain technologies offer several security benefits, every technology represents new opportunities for malicious attackers -- not to mention user errors.
In a world of distributed record-keeping and decentralized applications, individuals must assume greater responsibility for their online security, and businesses must mitigate threats far beyond their own walls and proprietary assets. For both, this begins with a security mindset.
Continue reading: https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/tip/8-best-practices-for-blockchain-security

If I were to ask someone why they chose a career in information technology, I doubt they would respond with “I love data entry!”, “I could debug code all day long!”, or “Handling tickets is so much fun, I’d do it even if I didn’t get paid for it.”
3 IT tasks that can be automated with AI
Fortunately, AI can help. Here are the top three ways AI can help automate manual IT tasks, thereby freeing up precious resources and benefiting your teams, businesses, and customers.
1. Debugging software
Grace Murray Hopper was a Navy rear admiral and computer programming pioneer who worked on the Mark II computer at Harvard in the 1940s. On September 9, 1947, Hopper traced an error with the Mark II to – of all things – a dead moth in the relay. The insect’s remains were taped in the team’s logbook with the caption, “First actual case of a bug being found.”
While Hopper and her team weren’t the first to use the term “bug” to describe a system glitch, they certainly helped popularize it. Of course, software bugs are decidedly unpopular. IT departments and software engineers have all felt the pain of toiling over lines of code trying to reproduce and locate problems.
To be as good as human engineers, an AI tool would need to possess levels of reasoning and creativity it simply hasn’t yet reached. But AI can still be tremendously effective in exception and anomaly detection. You train it on normal usage and it detects when something is off.
Continue reading: https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2022/1/artificial-intelligence-top-3-it-automation-tasks

Founders Tracey Welson-Rossman and Shelli Pavone dive into the journey of the female founder through the lens of guests, stories, advice, funding, and more.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/founding-women/id1607867553?ign-itscg=30200&ign-itsct=podcast_box_link

In its Digital Economy Index report released in March 2021, Adobe claimed that 2022 would be the first trillion-dollar year for U.S. ecommerce. The increased adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) fuels this rapid growth, which is reshaping the ecommerce experience of today’s consumers.
From subtle changes like reducing product return rates to more apparent ones like hyper-personalized shopper journeys, retailers across the globe are experimenting with AI for a variety of use cases.
Thanks to the high emphasis on customer centricity, the need for human-centric AI interaction has become a vehicle not just to outdo the competition but deliver in a more open and resilient marketplace. Studies show that 70% of American and European decision-makers in the ecommerce industry believe that AI is a significant change for their business. AI is transforming the ecommerce industry by predicting customer shopping patterns based on purchase history, products searched, and browsing habits, as personalized product recommendations increasingly influence customer choices.
By entering the realm of customer behavior, AI is already assisting ecommerce businesses in online searches, identifying prospective consumers, sensing customer interests, presenting relevant products at the right time, and implementing analytics to broaden reach and customer base. AI is helping global brands like Nike raise the bar when delivering exceptional customer experiences. The iconic brand uses AI algorithms to offer tailored workout regimens and product recommendations as part of its customer loyalty programs.
Continue reading: https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2022/01/31/how-mid-sized-ecommerce-businesses-use-ai-to-improve-their-retail-strategies/

Amid widespread anxiety about automation and machines displacing workers, the idea that technological advances aren’t necessarily driving us toward a jobless future is good news.
At the same time, “many in our country are failing to thrive in a labor market that generates plenty of jobs but little economic security,” MIT professors David Autor and David Mindell and principal research scientist Elisabeth Reynolds write in their new book “The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines.”
The authors lay out findings from their work chairing the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, which MIT president L. Rafael Reif commissioned in 2018. The task force was charged with understanding the relationships between emerging technologies and work, helping shape realistic expectations of technology, and exploring strategies for a future of shared prosperity. Autor, Mindell, and Reynolds worked with 20 faculty members and 20 graduate students who contributed research.
Beyond looking at labor markets and job growth and how technologies and innovation affect workers, the task force makes several recommendations for how employers, schools, and the government should think about the way forward. These include investing and innovating in skills and training, improving job quality, including modernizing unemployment insurance and labor laws, and enhancing and shaping innovation by increasing federal research and development spending, rebalancing taxes on capital and labor, and applying corporate income taxes equally.
Continue reading: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/why-future-ai-future-work

As a growing number of hotels, airlines, and restaurants announce their support for blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, the blockchain revolution is on its way. And as it enters more aspects of the travel industry, tech-savvy travelers will have more opportunities to use cryptocurrency in several industries around the globe. The blockchain is a digital ledger that can record cryptocurrency transactions. The blockchain is held and maintained by a network of computers, and these are usually in different locations. Blockchain allows travelers to exchange cryptocurrency with merchants anytime, anywhere. A travel marketplace with a decentralized platform featuring airlines, hotels, and other travel industry stakeholders can be set up using blockchain technology in the future. This is because blockchain provides transparency, accountability, and security when transacting in cryptocurrencies.
Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency will be the future of travel because travelers need more flexibility and convenience when booking flights and hotels, along with getting discounts on their trips. As the world is advancing to become a cashless society, cryptocurrency will gain a lot of popularity in the travel industry. Blockchain and cryptocurrencies also give benefits to stakeholders in the travel industry, including airlines, hotels, and restaurants. Airline companies will be able to reduce costs and improve their profits through blockchain technology. As most flights are usually delayed, using blockchain can make their operations more efficient by enabling them to fix delays and cancellations immediately.
How Can Blockchain Benefit the Travel Industry?
The travel industry is massive worldwide, and it’s no secret that the industry has adopted technology more rapidly than many other industries. With the recent surge in blockchain applications, which are being implemented across various sectors of society and business, blockchain has taken on a new meaning as well. We will be exploring how this technology can benefit the travel industry. We will explore how blockchain can benefit the entire industry, as opposed to just one or two specific sectors. It will also cover why these industries are likely to adopt it and how blockchain can assist.
Continue reading: https://www.wales247.co.uk/blockchain-and-cryptocurrency-in-travel-industry

Fractional reserve banking has existed throughout history, long before the creation of government currencies or central banks. Once monetary custodians realized that not all depositors would demand repayment simultaneously, the practice of lending out deposits in excess of reserves became commonplace. This raises the question of how a system of full reserves would operate in practice. Although authors have laid out plans for establishing a full-reserve banking system using gold or fiat currencies, the decentralized and digital nature of blockchain technology provides some inherent advantages in implementing a full-reserve system.
When Nixon officially ended the convertibility of the United States dollar into gold in October 1971, the dollar lost its last remaining tie to a commodity money. This ushered in the power of the central bank to create a near-unlimited amount of currency, since the dollar no longer faced redeemability into a scarce good. The danger of bank runs thus became virtually nonexistent, since more dollars could always be printed to meet outstanding withdrawals.
Fractional reserve banking is easy to operate in a system of pure fiat money with a lender of last resort in the form of a central bank, but fractional reserve banking was also common in the days of commodity money.
Continue reading: https://www.eurasiareview.com/31012022-could-blockchain-technology-help-end-fractional-reserve-banking-oped/

With the curtain down on 2021, Nigerian women operating in the tech industry have closed mouth-watering deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, started new ventures and promoted the cause of gender equality.
With just 22 per cent of the total number of engineering and technology university graduates each year in Nigeria, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigerian women have started to take charge of the critical technology sector.
THISDAY checks reveal that at least 10 individuals top the log of women in Nigeria and Africa doing wonders in the tech industry.
In sub-Saharan Africa, women constitute only 30 per cent of professionals in the tech sector. Checks revealed that only 12 per cent of global fintech founders and co-founders were women, and only six per cent of fintechs had female chief executive officers (CEOs). The industry has experienced a high influx of women breaking grounds and leveraging financial technology (Fintech).
According to the Fintech Association of Nigeria, foreign investors account for some 57 per cent of funding for Fintechs in the country. Furthermore, by increasing smartphone penetration, the association estimates that revenues in the space will reach $543 million this year.
Although not having a fair share in the tech industry, Nigerian women are making genuine impact globally. In this report, THISDAY unveils 10 of these young women who are shattering the proverbial glass ceiling and making their marks in the world of technology and innovation. Though this list is by no means exhaustive, it provides a guide for an excursion into the fast changing dynamics of women rising.
Continue reading: https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2022/01/31/2022-nigerian-women-in-tech-break-new-grounds/

Tech entrepreneur Corinne Vigreux — who co-founded global navigation company TomTom 30 years ago — is among the world’s top 50 women in tech (Forbes). She is also one of the most inspirational women in the European tech market (Inspiring Fifty). 
Interestingly, Corinne’s tech journey started because of a friend who was working at a computer gaming company, who inspired her to work at another similar firm. 

“In those days, computers meant anything to do with games. This was the late 80s, and I was 21 and discovering my bearings. And, the company sent me to the UK. With fluent French and German, and broken English, I landed in the UK,” Corinne recollects.

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Since then, there has been no looking back.  Corinne champions women in the workforce and advocates for improved social mobility through education — the main objective of the “Sofronie Foundation” she set up in 2006.
Moreover, she founded Codam — a not-for-profit coding college within the Ecole 42 network — to prepare the next generation of tech talent by offering high-quality software engineering education. 
At present, Corinne is the vice chairwoman of the supervisory board of Just Eat Takeaway.com N.V.  and chairwoman of the supervisory board of TechLeap. 
TechLeap — a non-profit publicly funded organization — focuses on accelerating the tech ecosystem of The Netherlands. She is also a supervisory board member of the Dutch National Opera and Ballet. 
In 2012, for her contributions to society, Corinne was made France’s Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur. She was also knighted in the Royal Order of Orange-Nassau in 2016 in The Netherlands. 
Continue reading: https://yourstory.com/herstory/2022/01/women-in-tech-corinne-vigreux-europe-woman-unicorn-founder/amp

At age 16, I took my first engineering class in high school. As one of only two girls, I was met with whispers of, "She only took this class to meet boys, and have the attention all to herself."
At age 17, I sought out an AP Computer Science class online and only made it halfway through. I was told that maybe programming wasn't for me, and I should explore other options.
At age 18, I applied to college for computer engineering, and I was met with questions like, "Are you sure you want to do this? It's going to be really hard — are you up for it?" and "You know you'll probably be the only woman in most of your classes, right?"
At age 20, I was told I could have any internship I wanted because, "All tech companies are looking to hire women."
At age 22, I drove 12 hours to Michigan to compete in an autonomous vehicle competition with a vehicle I had led the autonomous algorithm development of. Again, I was greeted with a myriad of "wows" — because no way was *I* in software.
At age 23, I was asked to work front-end development on a project because "I'd have a much better eye for it" than any of the men on the team, and the back-end development was "pretty complex."
At age 24, I was told our "this could have been an email" meeting had value because the only two other women on the call had "made a connection" and were now friends because they were the only two that spoke up.
At age 25, I removed my job title from my dating profile because I was sick of being told that I was too pretty to be an engineer or too smart and intimidating to be with.
At age 26, I have mentored dozens of female college students, interns, and new hires, and every single one of them has told me they have wanted to give up and have asked me how I handle it.
A few weeks ago, I was on a flight to a large tech conference, and the men next to me were not only surprised that I was attending but also that I was attending as a senior software engineer in server less and could hold my own in a technical conversation.
Continue reading: https://www.businessinsider.com/women-in-tech-how-to-support-us-2022-1

As per a study, 91.5 percent of the firms are reported to have an interest in investing in artificial intelligence technology. Growth in the use of automation, 5G, databases, cloud computing, and much more are driving the demand for artificial intelligence.
Various industries are incorporating AI in their processes to improve customer experience and business operations. Small and medium enterprises are utilizing this technology to optimize performance and functions at minimum costs.
The ability of AI to detect cyber threats is anticipated to drive its integration in the cybersecurity services. For instance, in August 2021, Stellar Cyber, a next-generation security platform collaborated with BlackBerry, the iconic smartphone brand, to accelerate the utilization of AI security solutions by MSSPs (Managed Service Providers) and enterprises. 
How AI is Used in Business Currently?
Key industry players such as Azure Cognitive Services, IBM, and Einstein AI platform are incorporating AI in businesses for optimized infrastructure, cloud tools, and to meet the demand for virtualization.
Manufacturing, retail, telecom and IT are businesses that can use AI in the future. The potential to enhance product quality, manage inventory, decrease downtime, and real-time forecasting by AI solutions is surging these businesses. Here are three ways in which businesses are using AI in today’s time. 
Continue reading: https://betanews.com/2022/01/29/artificial-intelligence-and-business/

Artificial intelligence (AI) is shaping entire sectors and industries within our economy. And it may be said that the most human of all industries, recruiting and talent acquisition, is one of the last places AI will touch.
However, AI is rapidly advancing—to the point where people's evaluation and placement at companies is being dramatically shaped by AI technology.
So, here are a few ways AI is changing the business of talent acquisition:
Smart HR for Sourcing Talent
One of the most common ways AI shapes talent acquisition is by sourcing and engaging candidates.
Companies use a variety of platforms to source talent—some traditional, such as LinkedIn or Indeed.com, and some more novel, like job boards that post openings on several sites simultaneously or niche sites focusing on a particular skill set. (Also read: College Grads Need These Data Science Skills.)
Continue reading: https://www.techopedia.com/smart-hr-how-ai-is-transforming-talent-acquisition/2/34667

Modern civilization runs on software. The availability of data in nearly every aspect of life coupled with the sophistication of artificial intelligence techniques have increased the opportunities for improving both public and private life. Given this reality, technical skills and analytical skills are very important in the age of AI, big data, and automation - but this doesn't mean that we should ignore the non-technical side. Human work contains skills in areas that robots cannot answer upon in an acceptable way, if at all.
Therefore, as the nature of the work develops and as the machines maximize their relevance in the workforce, I believe the following five soft skills are integral to employees’ success. The bottom line, human work is going to become even more, well, human.
Creativity: Robots and machines can do many things, but they struggle to compete with humans when it comes to our ability to create, imagine, invent and dream. With all the new technology coming to us, the workplaces of the future will continue to require innovative ways of thinking - making creative thinking and human creativity an important asset.
Continue reading: https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3928280,00.html

The World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2022 was released last week, revealing cybersecurity is the biggest worry for business leaders in Australia in 2022. 
And with good reason. 
2021 saw a maelstrom of high profile attacks, most notably Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods in the USA, with Australian businesses suffering more than $33 billion in total losses from cybercrime, according to the Australian Cyber Security Centre. 
We sat down with three leading experts on cybersecurity for their take on what businesses should be keeping front of mind and how they can mitigate security risk in 2022.
Unification of OT and IT security 
According to Qualys A/NZ chief technology security officer Rahn Wakeley, one of the most important things organisations can do in 2022 to help mitigate risk is to simplify the management accountability of OT and IT security under the CISO role.
"The risk to physical equipment has been apparent for years, but the Colonial Pipeline attack has acted as a wake-up call and a salutary lesson to organisations that use any solution that exposes physical machinery to the internet," notes Wakeley.
He is a firm believer that 2022 will be the year when a single CISO becomes responsible for OT and IT security. "As we move further along the path of the fourth industrial revolution, it's inevitable that we must think of OT and IT under the same risk domain."
Wakeley also predicts a rise in ransomware related to OT assets in 2022 and notes that as cyber insurance providers are scaling back coverage on ransomware attacks, now isn't the time to sit back and hope a breach won't occur.
Critically, he is concerned that it isn't just the financial impact that businesses must consider. "Last year Gartner predicted that we'll see cyberattackers weaponising operational technology (OT) environments to successfully harm humans by 2025, so ensuring critical OT systems are protected really could be a matter of life or death."
The development of new strategies as cybercrime grows 
Leaders in unified physical security software Genetec are all too familiar with the problem caused when OT and IT security are out of synch.
Genetec A/NZ general manager George Moawad notes that this can often lead to the simplest yet most important part of cyber hygiene – ensuring that all IoT devices and on-premise servers are running the most secure version of the firmware that is available – being overlooked.
According to Moawad, new models for cybersecurity will emerge. "As more devices come online and data processing becomes central to operations, businesses will need to remain agile and responsive to the evolving threat landscape. At the same time, their customers will also demand greater transparency about how they are keeping data secure and private," says Moawad.
Continue reading: https://securitybrief.com.au/story/new-year-new-rules-understanding-the-cybersecurity-danger-areas-in-2022

• Cybersecurity issues are widely seen as the greatest risk to company growth in the next three years.
• There is a global shortage of suitably trained and qualified people to work in cybersecurity.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) could improve cybersecurity by identifying suspicious behavior, predicting cyberattacks and keeping data secure.

According to the World Economic Forum Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2022 report, 48% of executives believe that artificial intelligence (AI) will influence cyber transformation in the next two years. AI is a powerful tool for both cybercriminals and cybersecurity experts. Hackers are using AI to make their attacks more sophisticated and harder to detect, while cybersecurity specialists are finding ways of integrating AI into corporate cybersecurity systems to minimize financial and reputational losses.
A survey of the CEOs of the world`s 500 most influential companies across 11 industries found that cybersecurity issues will be the greatest risk to company growth in the next three years. This is unsurprising, given the broader threat landscape and the global lack of cybersecurity staff, as well as the increasing frequency and severity of cyber attacks. In the face of such challenges, AI could be a game-changer.
Here’s how AI could improve cybersecurity:
Continue reading: https://europeansting.com/2022/01/31/3-ways-artificial-intelligence-could-boost-your-cybersecurity/

Nick Offin, head of sales, marketing & operations at Dynabook, discusses how smart glasses powered by mobile edge computing are driving value for field workers
With assisted/augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies making inroads in the enterprise market, many organisations are finding ways of incorporating it into their everyday practices, to create more immersive and engaging work environments. Industries from healthcare, to manufacturing and construction, are finding these increasingly sophisticated technologies a big aid in improving processes, connecting field workers, enhancing safety and delivering training.
Unsurprisingly, it was 2020 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that sped this up. As companies implemented digital transformation initiatives to support business continuity, the use of AR and VR also ramped up, suited as it was to enable remote working and cross collaboration. Today, this adoption is expected to continue to accelerate, particularly as users grow more comfortable with these technologies, the increased convergence of physical assets into digital assets and the integration of 4G/5G connectivity.
Enterprise smart glasses adoption is not only predicted to grow in the coming years, but that growth will accelerate as spending starts to transition away from mobile augmented reality and towards head-worn, hands free, augmented reality. This statement from ARtillery is supported by our research, which found that 63% of organisations expect to deploy smart glasses within the next three years.
Continue reading: https://www.information-age.com/value-of-mobile-edge-computing-smart-glasses-for-field-workers-123498655/

Traditionally, the purpose, vision, and mission of a data warehouse have been driven by what, in most organizations, constitutes a relatively small set of users: the data engineers, data scientists, and business analysts interested in complex analytics. However, as the power of a data platform capable of running not just in the data center but also in the cloud or at the edge becomes more accessible, it will invariably attract a broader base of business users who want to use it to run queries and perform analytics to inform different operational decisions.
To satisfy this ever-expanding user base and their different requirements, organizations need to reconsider the purpose, vision, and mission of a data warehouse. In this new world, what purpose does the data platform serve? What should it deliver? What is its mission (and how will it achieve the vision)? Many aspects of the data warehouse’s purpose and vision will still apply to the data platform, but they will expand to encompass more strategic, tactical, and operational opportunities. The mission, though, must include a focus on data democratization, which requires a far different approach than was required of legacy data warehouse architectures.
New Purpose
Until recently, the data warehouse served as a central repository of historical data to help users analyze different time periods and trends. Data was consolidated from many sources to avoid impacting the performance of operations systems, improve data quality, optimize query performance, and provide a business representation of data that made it easier for users to access information.
A data warehouse’s ability to provide historical analytics will continue to be valuable, but capturing and understanding critical events in real time -- to improve operational decision making and response times -- will continue to grow in importance. True, a complementary operational data store (ODS), with its snapshot of transactional data that is often more current than that in the data warehouse, has provided additional support for operational decisions. However, even an ODS does not provide the real-time access required when decisions must be made in minutes, or perhaps even seconds. Examples include personalized e-commerce, supply chain optimization (scheduling, inventory, equipment use, etc.), credit and loan approvals, investment portfolio decisions, and many more use cases. Data fabrics and data meshes are emerging data architectures that can make data more accessible, available, and discoverable for real-time data ingestion (through built-in data warehouse integration) than a singularly-focused semantic layer can.
Continue reading: https://tdwi.org/articles/2022/01/31/dwt-all-find-new-purpose-vision-mission-for-your-data-warehouse.aspx

The storage management function has shifted heavily of late. Instead of managing internal systems, capacity, and arrays, it has morphed into a hybrid function. Storage managers now must span between on-premises storage and cloud storage. Not only that, they must be able to move data around from cloud to cloud.
Here are some of the top tips to keep you ahead of the trends related to the storage management job market:
1. Embrace All Storage
Storage managers are being forced to embrace the entirety of the enterprise storage universe wherever it may lie. Increasingly their leaders are asking them to generate both deeper and more abundant information on their organizations’ data estates. As data is increasingly sprawled across on-premises infrastructure, dozens of software-as-a-service SaaS applications, multiple cloud services, and hundreds, if not more, of employee endpoints, IT leaders are recognizing they do not now have a full understanding of their organization’s data landscape.
“Storage management professionals who can provide these leaders with this understanding will enable their organizations to implement stronger security postures, improve data privacy and other types of risk management, and enhance their organization’s cloud storage and other resource utilization,” said Don Foster, global VP of sales engineering at CommVault.
“They will also pave the way for strategic digital transformation projects that analyze their organization’s data for insights on how to increase customer engagement, streamline their supply chains, automate business processes, and improve other business outcomes.”
The good news is that data management tools, including new data management-as-a-service (DMaaS) applications, are making it possible for storage professionals to achieve a clear understanding of their data estate, despite expanding data sprawl. Those with the knowledge and skills required to use these tools to provide visibility on their organizations’ continuously evolving and growing data estates will find themselves at the center of their organizations’ digital transformation and modernization initiatives.
2. Forward Digital Transformation 
Rather than sticking rigidly to old ways, a better approach is to align with strategic initiatives. A big one currently is digital transformation. Anyone engaged in it needs all the help they can get on the storage management and integration side. After all, exponential data growth combined with today’s work-from-anywhere paradigm and the rampant ransomware threat have driven increasing challenges as well as an ever-increasing demand for storage management professionals. 
In fact, storage management has been experiencing a progression from the back office to the front and garnering more and more face time with not just the CIO, but the entire C-suite. This is because the C-suite now recognizes that the many challenges being faced are not just IT issues, but can have a very direct impact on the business and are tied into digital transformation. 
Continue reading: https://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/management/data-storage-management-job-trends/

Soybean checkoff-funded research is finding ways to help farmers use new technologies to ultimately improve productivity. United Soybean Board Director and North Dakota Farmer Matt Gast says research on drones helps farmers be more productive in the field.
“That’s become the new big thing with the technology. There’s different projects, one is at Iowa State University. They are using high resolution aerial imaging to help map soybean protein, the oil content, yield. It’s a unique way of measuring field variability compared to what we’ve seen in the past, but it can really help the farmers better understand how to grow things more profitable and to market their grain a little better by knowing what their yields may be early on in the season.”
Another study seeks to help farmers create tailored fertilizer application plans.
“Got a study at Clemson University, they’re using it to help recognize poorly nodulated soybeans. The goal is to be able to convert those maps into customized fertilization plans to help protect the farmer’s yield. There’s another one at Louisiana State University to determine how farmers can see crop variants with lower cost drones.
Continue reading: https://hoosieragtoday.com/soy-checkoff-drone-research-helping-farmers-in-the-field/

Rapidly spinning propellers created a low humming sound as a drone prepared for flight Friday.
The unmanned aircraft flew up about 60 meters to document the debris and devastation the white snow almost hid from sight.
The drone moved back and forth, capturing images of the rubble where homes once stood.
The drone is a key tool experts from the University of Colorado Boulder, Oregon State University and Purdue University are using to study the Marshall Fire burn site. The project is a co-led study by CU’s research group, Resilient Infrastructure With Sustainability and Equity, and the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance. The study and the GEER team are both sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
The project started Thursday and will go through Monday, said Brad Wham, an assistant research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering Department. Wham is part of the RISE group as well as the GEER team.
After all five drones being used for the project have finished photographing areas in the Marshall Fire burn site, the pictures will be pieced together to create a 3D image of the burn site.
“You follow an overlapping pattern, circle around and come back the other way to be able to build a mosaic of the area with a high-quality image,” Wham said.
Researchers with GEER have studied earthquakes, floods and tsunamis for years. This is the first time GEER has deployed researchers to study a wildfire, said Erica Fischer, civil and construction engineering assistant professor at Oregon State University. Fischer was deployed to Colorado as part of the research team.
Continue reading: https://www.dailycamera.com/2022/01/30/marshall-fire-the-university-of-colorado-boulder-co-leads-aerial-drones-project-to-study-impacts-of-fire/

The Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) industry has become a massive technological playground worldwide. Their extensive applications make UAS very popular for the public and the private sector. Armed forces, agricultural industry, law enforcement, meteorological agencies, medical services, environmental companies, and oil refineries are but a few out of the excessive list of UAS users. UAS manufacturers spend a significant amount of money to research and develop high-tech and smart systems from aircraft-size military UAS to hand-size mini drones.
The use in almost every aspect of human activity adds value to the need of UAS evolution, but it also increases security risks. Imagine what can happen when smart and cheap drones that anyone can easily purchase from a local hobby store become weapons at the hands of adversaries and cyber criminals.
From that perspective, are drones a major threat when it comes to cybersecurity? And if so, what measures should be taken to counter them?
Drones Evolve
If I discussed drones with my friends a few decades ago, they would probably say that I was watching too many sci-fi movies. Today, drones are part of our lives. U.S. Federal Aviation Association (FAA) based on survey trends, overall market growth, and operational information forecasts an outbreak of drone registrations in the forthcoming years.
When we talk about drones, we need to consider two factors:

• Not only do they consist of the airborne platform, but they also include the control station that’s necessary for safe and efficient operation communication links.
• They have become numerous, cheaper, and more complex.

Taking the above into consideration, it is obvious that drones are a serious risk for flight safety and security. We have discussed in a previous blog the threat that drones pose to flight safety. To minimize the risk, software applications have been developed to manage and organize drone flight traffic. Besides a major flight safety concern, drones can become a serious cybersecurity threat.
The Cybersecurity Threat of Drones
Apart from airworthiness and flight safety issues, drones affect the cyber domain and the security of data. Forbes points out that the malicious use of these platforms in the cyber domain is an inevitable fact, and it can no longer be pushed aside. Last Christmas, we witnessed U.S. government posing export restrictions to one of the largest drone manufacturers in order to protect national security and foreign policy interests.
Since drones are remotely controlled, they can be hijacked by bad actors. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated, “Given their rapid technology advancement and proliferation, the public safety and homeland security communities must address the fact that drones can be used nefariously or maliciously to hurt people, disrupt activities, and damage infrastructure.”
Continue reading: https://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/security-data-protection/cybersecurity-and-drones-how-to-address-the-security-threats/

For industrial inspections, data is king. Drones, equipped with a variety of sensors, can gather an overwhelming amount of it. Businesses don’t just need any data. They need the right data at the right time. Qii.AI, a Toronto, Ontario Canadian startup, helps companies hone in on what is important and relevant to them, and then to sort through it all.
Qii.AI’s artificial intelligence (AI)-machine learning (ML)-enabled platform coalesces mission-specific drone visual and digital inspection data into actionable intelligence for decision makers by providing targeted reports and 3D digital twins and disseminating them to all relevant stakeholders in near real time.
“Our mantra at Qii.AI is ‘Label, Train, and Manage’,” explained the company’s CEO Michael H. Cohen, a 20-year commercial pilot and former Boeing airline Captain, who initially started the company in 2014 to perform building inspections in Canada.
This initial use case employed drones with thermal cameras to image buildings at night for energy loss. Cohen’s team was the first to obtain waivers for tablet-driven autonomous night flights in both Canada and the United States.
“We were collecting about three to five gigabytes for each building,” Cohen recalled. He and his partners soon realized that they had an internal business need for data management and data analytics in these remote digital inspections – and that their clients did too.
“If you have 5000 photographs, the user just wants to see the best ones. How do you sort through those? You create ways in which algorithms can look at camera position, the lighting and various attributes to narrow those 5000 images down to the 20 that provide a holistic, 360 degree view of the asset,” he said.
Those algorithms require accurate comparable data-sets to narrow outputs to relevant images. Uniquely, Qii.AI engages their customers in the AI process, putting AI at the edge and allowing users to label the data. Cohen and his team call this “user-defined” labeling.
Continue reading: https://dronelife.com/2022/01/29/qii-ai-platform-for-drone-inspection-data-label-train-and-manage/

Researchers have found over 20,000 instances of publicly exposed data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software that monitor devices, HVAC control systems, and power distribution units, which could be used for a range of catastrophic attacks.
Data centers house costly systems that support business storage solutions, operational systems, website hosting, data processing, and more.
The buildings that host data centers must comply with strict safety regulations concerning fire protection, airflow, electric power, and physical security.
Years of pursuing operational efficiency have introduced "lights-out" data centers, which are fully automated facilities managed remotely and generally operate without staff.
However, the configuration of these systems isn't always correct. As a result, while the servers themselves may be adequately protected from physical access, the systems that ensure physical protection and optimal performance sometimes aren't.
Multiple cases of unprotected systems
Investigators at Cyble have found over 20,000 instances of publicly exposed DCIM systems, including thermal and cooling management dashboards, humidity controllers, UPS controllers, rack monitors, and transfer switches.
Continue reading: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/over-20-000-data-center-management-systems-exposed-to-hackers/