It is a well-known fact that women are underrepresented in the global tech space. While more and more women are starting to build tech careers in a male-dominated field, women, nonetheless, do not get as much visibility as their male counterparts due to this underrepresentation.
For Vivian Agbata, being the Public Relations Officer of Zenithchain, a blockchain company, means she constantly has to make herself heard in places where conversations are steered by men. And in a video session with Tech Next’s Women in Tech series, she revealed that her journey into tech is a story of finding herself through grit and determination.
The Lagos-born graduate of Economics from the University of Port-Harcourt came back to base to hustle and get started with life. After a series of jobs in marketing, promotional and merchandising jobs, she made a decision to seek a career path in tech.
Her interest in tech stemmed from her undergraduate days when she watched her male friends code but felt it was something she couldn’t do. But she eventually decided to set her mind to it and with her background knowledge as an economist, she secured a job as a financial analyst with Zenithchain, a blockchain startup.
Continue reading: https://technext.ng/2022/01/24/women-in-tech-should-make-themselves-heard-zenithchains-vivian-agbata-talks-about-visibility-for-women/

A “digital-first” model is disrupting the fashion sector, as blockchain technology shows advanced capabilities in Web3 e-commerce and sustainability.
Nonfungible tokens (NFT) may be disrupting the trillion-dollar fashion industry, but NFTs are just one piece of a much larger puzzle that is revolutionizing this sector. Rather, blockchain technology as a whole continues to be a game-changer for the fashion industry. 
While blockchain-based supply chains served as some of the earliest use cases of how the technology could help detect fraudulent items, digital wearables being built on blockchain networks are now coming to play. Megan Kaspar, co-founder and managing director of Magnetic — a privately held crypto and blockchain investment and incubation firm — told Cointelegraph that digital fashion is a very powerful use case for blockchain technology. However, she noted that many brands remain unaware of the value that blockchain can provide in terms of creating new business models.
The rise of digital fashion and its impact
In order to explain the massive opportunities blockchain can bring to today’s fashion world, Kaspar noted that all brands will initially move to a “digital-first” model in the near future:
Continue reading: https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-enabled-digital-fashion-creates-new-business-models-for-brands

Given the recent release of the whitepaper from the Federal Reserve analyzing the pros and cons of a U.S. central bank digital currency (CBDC), it seems a good time to take a fresh look at this issue. Since multiple countries around the world have already launched, or are in the process of launching, CBDCs the question has to be asked; why does the United States seem to be behind in this area? The technological arguments have been addressed – blockchain and the cryptoassets that run on top of it do provide quantifiable savings and benefits – so why the hesitation?
There are any number of reasons why the U.S. might want to take its time with the issuance of a CBDC, but one is of paramount importance; the role of the dollar as the global reserve currency. Serving as the global reserve currency provides the United States, setting aside hyperbole or other machinations, provides the United States with an unparalleled economic advantage over every other nation. Such an advantage, however, is not guaranteed nor ensured going forward, and it is imperative that policymakers understand the pros and cons of a CBDC project, as well as the implications this will have for the broader economy.
Let’s take a look and dive into some of the factors that should be considered moving forward by the Federal Reserve, and any other policymakers seeking to integrate crypto and blockchain into the payment system.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/seansteinsmith/2022/01/24/crypto-has-arrivedwhy-the-us-needs-to-embrace-it/?sh=27abce711539

At this point, most people have at least heard of blockchain, but it’s become something of a running joke how complex the technology can be to understand. Chances are you associate the technology with Bitcoin, but while that was the first real-world application of blockchain technology, it’s far from the only use case.

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What Is Blockchain?
 
While some people equate the invention of blockchain with Bitcoin’s pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakomota, the concept has been around since 1991, first coined in a paper by researchers Stuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta called "How to Timestamp a Digital Document."
Also known as distributed ledger technology (DLT), the blockchain is a record that anyone can add to, that nobody can change, and that isn't controlled by any one person or entity. The core concept is a public ledger with copies spread out among multiple locations called nodes, which usually refer to individual computers with copies of the ledger. 
This is what people mean when they refer to the blockchain as decentralized. No one person or entity has control of the information kept in the record. Instead, it’s distributed among the many nodes that make up the network.
In order to change the ledger, those changes must first be verified by everyone on the network. As long as all copies of the record match, the system knows it can update the information. This increases the difficulty of changing anything stored within the blockchain while building trust in the information that’s recorded.
As journalist Mike Orcutt put it in the MIT Technology Review, "The whole point of using a blockchain is to let people—in particular, people who don’t trust one another—share valuable data in a secure, tamperproof way.”
Continue reading: https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/what-is-the-blockchain-and-whats-it-used-for

In a recent review published in the journal of Nature Medicine, scientists discussed the results of a two-year weekly effort to track and communicate significant developments in medical (artificial intelligence) AI. They included prospective studies as well as developments in medical image analysis that have narrowed the gap between research and implementation. They also discuss non-image data sources, innovative issue formulations, and human-AI collaboration as prospective pathways for novel medical AI research.
As the medical AI community navigates the many ethical, technical, and human-centered issues required for safe and successful translation, the deployment of medical AI systems in routine clinical care presents an important but largely unrealized opportunity.
Recent advancements in the use of AI algorithms in medicine
Many randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have been used to assess the utility of AI systems in healthcare. An RCT evaluating an AI system for managing insulin doses, for example, measured the number of time patients spent within the target glucose range, and a study evaluating a monitoring system for intraoperative hypotension tracked the average duration of hypotension episodes. According to a 2020 study, the US Food and Drug Administration is rapidly approving AI, particularly machine learning technologies.
Medical AI research has exploded in fields like radiology, pathology, gastrointestinal, and ophthalmology, which rely primarily on image interpretation. For radiology activities such as mammography interpretation, heart function assessment, and lung cancer screening, AI systems have shown significant increases in accuracy, tackling diagnosis and risk prediction and treatment. One AI system, for example, was taught to predict 3-year lung cancer risk based on radiologists' computed tomography (CT) readings and other clinical data.
Continue reading: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220124/How-artificial-intelligence-is-poised-to-reshape-medicine.aspx

Large retail chains are seeking to enhance customer satisfaction by using artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as machine learning and computer vision to study consumer behavior online and in physical stores, in an effort to offer them the best products and experiences.
Bengaluru and San Francisco based AI solutions provider Algonomy has deployed an AI-based decision engine called Xen AI for Pantaloons, a multi-brand retail chain owned by Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd. Xen AI selects the most optimal experience for every interaction in real-time, based on the customer’s profile and stage in the buying journey. For instance, if a lady customer browses for a peach dress online and later visits the store to try it, a store associate uses an app to assist her better based on her preferences, behavioral data, searches and past purchases, said Bhavna Sachar, director, product marketing at Algonomy. The idea is to use AI-based personalization to offer tailored omnichannel experiences to customers, she said.
“There is a strong desire and action towards breaking down the artificial separation between stores and digital, that leads to broken journeys and fragmented experiences for the customer, and efficient operations for the retailer," Sachar said.
Continue reading: https://www.livemint.com/technology/tech-news/retail-stores-tap-into-ai-to-integrate-online-offline-buyer-experiences-11643050518573.html

For many, the mention of artificial intelligence conjures up images of robot arms performing surgery or one ubiquitous car brand that’s well on its way to developing self-driving vehicles. While these are certainly compelling examples, they don’t tell the whole story about artificial intelligence—which is that it’s already quietly powering many of the experiences we have every day.
For instance, artificial intelligence is thriving in the world of content marketing. But where exactly are content marketers already employing artificial intelligence? How do they see it developing in the near future? And what can your own business do to stay on top of this important shift?
Understanding AI in the Context of Content
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a term that describes the “simulation of human intelligence.” Machines and digital platforms can use AI to learn new functions (machine learning) automatically, read human languages (natural language processing), and even write or speak those languages (natural language generation).
In the context of content, AI brings a lot to the table. Artificial intelligence can process and identify patterns in vast volumes of data instantly. This gives content marketers the information they need to quickly understand how consumers respond to campaigns, what tweaks to make to improve performance, and which new marketing trends to pursue next.
Continue reading: https://www.devprojournal.com/technology-trends/ai/how-ai-is-changing-content-marketing/

Artificial intelligence (AI) is gaining a lot of traction lately. Apparently, the majority of AI services and products will be in high demand for the next few years. According to Gartner, worldwide AI software revenue is forecast to total $62.5 billion in 2022, and one-third of organizations with AI technology plans said they would invest $1 million or more in the next two years. 
And when we talk about AI, there is always another topic to discuss —machine learning (ML) methods. 
The upheaval of 2020 forced companies to be laser-focused on their most important priorities — among them, of course, are AI and ML initiatives. According to an Algorithmia report, 83% of organizations have increased AI or ML budgets year-over-year. It's no surprise when you consider ML models can generalize and perform complex tasks.
But businesses are struggling when it comes to building AI solutions that can quickly scale. When implementing ML models across different industries, they allow current businesses to scale even faster. ML helps to automate everything, including decision-making, pricing, customer support and more tasks.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/01/25/machine-learning-and-artificial-intelligence-implementation-in-practice/?sh=699adb855c89

At the girls’ rescue house down the quiet end of a dusty road in Narok County, Kenya, there are girls who are friends, and then there are Purity and Lucy. Sisters, they both say. Purity is 17; Lucy, 19. Where Purity is soft-spoken and shy, Lucy is gregarious and funny, with expressive eyebrows and a sardonic affect. When she smiles—and she smiles a lot—the corners of her mouth turn almost vertical, and her cheeks, still freckled with teenage acne, go full and flush. Purity is slender as tall grass, with glowing skin and a gap in her lower teeth that she habitually pokes her tongue through. Both grew up in traditional Masai communities, in different areas that are within striking distance of Masai Mara National Reserve, a game park that, in normal times, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. Neither one’s parents went to school; Purity and Lucy were set to be among the first generation of girls in their communities to graduate from high school, maybe even from college.
Lucy wants to study the moon and become an astronaut. Purity has dreams, too, but she doesn’t talk about them much anymore. Both girls left their homes years ago, fleeing forced marriages and, for Lucy, the genital mutilation that traditionally precedes matrimony in their communities. Purity was cut when she was 10. (For privacy reasons, I’m identifying them and some others in the story only by first name or a pseudonym.)
When Covid-19 led the Kenyan government to shutter schools and ban large gatherings, the operators of the rescue house—a nonprofit shelter that offers girls a base where they can live and from which they can go to school—had little choice but to comply. The risk that a deadly disease could rip through the crowded dormitories and infect scores of girls with little access to health care was too high to do otherwise. The operators secured promises from the girls’ families that they would be treated well and sent them home. Purity and Lucy left in March 2020, returning to homes where their fathers drank heavily, often became violent, and routinely kicked them out, forcing the girls to sleep in the bush. Each felt lucky when a man from the community approached her, offering a little food, shelter, and money. Almost a year after leaving the rescue house, Purity and Lucy returned, both just weeks away from giving birth.
Continue reading: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-01-06/how-covid-is-impacting-young-girls-and-women-around-the-world

The ability for computers and other machines to understand what we say, and reply to us in a useful way, has improved immeasurably over the past decade. This is thanks to advances in conversational AI – the machine learning-powered language processing algorithms we’ve become used to living with, thanks to the likes of Siri and Alexa.
Today, as well as the general-purpose voice AIs that live in our smartphones and digital assistants, businesses are deploying specialized voice AI across many different industries and applications. They are built into banking apps, fitness trackers, and delivery services like Hermes – whose Holly chatbot can be used to track and schedule deliveries and reroute packages if you're not going to be home.
In retail, they are quickly becoming widely used to provide more efficient, personalized customer service and smoother customer engagement. In fact, researchers predict that 70% of chatbot conversations will be related to retail by 2023. Often this is because they can be used to provide product recommendations and guidance in a more sophisticated, friction-free, and personalized way than a simple website search box.
Kmart Australia, for example, has developed an AI-powered digital assistant called Kbot that integrates with the augmented reality (AR) functionality on its website. It lets customers interact with products such as furniture and see what they will look like in their homes. Once they have found a product they're interested in, they can use voice to ask questions about the product, such as where it's in stock and when it can be delivered.
Retail chatbots are also used for post-sales support, and here they can also have the capability to remember previous interactions. So, if a chatbot has previously managed to diagnose and fix a technical issue for a customer who then comes back with a different issue, it will already have an understanding of some of the issues affecting that person and should be able to find the relevant solution with less friction.
Chatbots and conversational AI apps aren’t limited to online retail. An increasing number of offline retailers are integrating functions that allow us to check inventory and check opening hours before a visit. Once we arrive, we can ask questions about where we will find the products on the shelves.
Continue reading: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-conversational-ai-retail-bernard-marr/

AirCar the dual-mode car-aircraft vehicle has been issued the official Certificate of Airworthiness by the Slovak Transport Authority, following the successful completion of 70 hours of rigorous flight testing compatible with European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) standards, with over 200 takeoffs and landings.
The challenging flight tests included the full range of flight and performance manoeuvres and demonstrated an astonishing static and dynamic stability in the aircraft mode. The takeoff and landing procedures were achieved even without the pilot’s need to touch the flight controls.
It took a team of 8 highly skilled specialists and over 100,000 manhours to convert design drawings into mathematical models with CFD analysis calculations, wind tunnel testing, 1:1 design prototype powered by electric 15KW engine to 1000kg 2-seat dual-mode prototype powered by 1.6L BMW engine that achieved the crucial certification milestone.
“AirCar certification opens the door for mass production of very efficient flying cars. It is official and the final confirmation of our ability to change mid-distance travel forever,” said Professor Stefan Klein, the inventor, leader of the development team and the test pilot. “50 years ago, the car was the epitome of freedom,” says Anton Zajac, the project cofounder. “AirCar expands those frontiers, by taking us into the next dimension; where road meets sky.”
“Professor Stefan Klein is the world leader in the development of user-friendly Flying Cars. His latest (fifth) version is the pinnacle achievement in the new category of flying cars!” said Dr. Branko Sarh, Boeing Co. Senior Technical Fellow. “The automated transition from road vehicle into an air vehicle and vice versa, deploying/retracting wings and tail is not only the result of pioneering enthusiasm, innovative spirit and courage; it is an outcome of excellent engineering and professional knowledge,” he noted after AirCar’s first intercity flight last year.
Continue reading: https://www.suasnews.com/2022/01/aircar-flying-car-certified-to-fly/

When we think of operating costs for medium and large businesses, we immediately think of heavy-expense line items like payroll, commercial real estate, vendors and suppliers. Over the past decade, however, another form of (costly) expense is on the rise — data management. A recent study by McKinsey found that "a midsize institution with $5 billion of operating costs, spends more than $250 million on data across third-party data sourcing, architecture, governance and consumption." In fact, the annual cost of data consumption alone (report generation, business and marketing intelligence, data analysis, distribution) for a midsize organization can be as high as $90 million.
Why the massive investment? Because inaccurate data loses companies money.
Back in 2016, IBM had already estimated (via Harvard Business Review) that "the yearly cost of poor-quality data, in the U.S. alone" reached an astonishing $3.1 trillion, and in 2018, Gartner, Inc. found that "organizations believe poor data quality to be responsible for an average of $15 million per year in losses." Now, with increased reliance on data, we can only imagine the macro impact that bad data is having. With all this in mind, organizations are looking to invest more in good data management to drive good business decisions. This trend becomes apparent when looking at the rapid growth of the data management market, which is projected to increase by nearly 60% from 2020 to 2025, from $78 billion to $123 billion.
The rise of bots, fake users and invalid traffic is jeopardizing that investment.
It's no secret that a great portion of today's web traffic is driven by crawlers, scrapers, automation tools, fake accounts, proxy users, malicious botnets, hackers, fraudsters and click farms. In 2017, The Atlantic cited an Imperva report claiming that bots accounted for 52% of all internet traffic, while some estimates go even higher than that.
For a truly data-driven organization, this poses a strategic threat. If a large percentage of all site visits, ad clicks, form fills, sign-ups, chat requests and page engagements are coming from bots and fake users, then the data that BI and marketing intelligence teams are looking at is completely skewed. Just this past Black Friday, we found that over one-third of all online shoppers were fake. Think what that means if you're running analytics for a large e-commerce site and you're not aware that one in every three site visitors isn't real.
Cotninue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/01/24/the-great-contamination-how-bots-and-fake-users-can-skew-an-organizations-data-and-analytics/?sh=a09fdbb2572d

If you work in marketing, you know this already: We’re all drowning in data. It’s a maelstrom of fast-changing consumer profiles, fragmented media impressions and very diverse business outcomes. Over the years, we’ve come up with numerous water metaphors for customer data management, from data streams to data islands and data lakes. It makes it seem very peaceful, but the reality is much more chaotic. It’s a deluge, and data is spilling over the levees.
While that’s happening, consumers are also gaining tools to stand up for themselves: ad-blocking technology, paid subscriptions and, perhaps most importantly, robust privacy protections. 
Does that mean that the marketing industry should pack it in and revert to the way things were before the digital era? Absolutely not. The pressure of using data to accommodate major shifts has created important breakthroughs before: market segmentation, marketing mix, customer lifetime value and eventually cross-channel attribution. I think we’ve reached another one of those key transitions. But before I reveal what it is, let me offer some context.
Data Chaos: A Four-Headed Monster
To carve a path forward, it’s important to first understand that data chaos today is a four-headed monster:
• Data quality: Much of the data in your customer relationship management (CRM) platform is likely incomplete. Wharton professor Peter Fader described the situation in these terms: “If you’re going to be customer-centric, CRM is a really critical step ... Unfortunately, CRM has taken on a life of its own. Instead of it being just a tool that helps you achieve customer centricity, it becomes a massive system — or set of systems — that gets embedded in a company and becomes a huge operational challenge.” And that was 10 years ago.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2022/01/24/data-chaos-is-a-four-headed-monster-how-can-marketers-vanquish-it/?sh=27381a527100

Verizon and AWS Expand Locations: Easy Aerial Tests Advantages for Drones and Mobile Edge Computing
by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby
Verizon and AWS are expanding their mobile edge computing service, Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength, to Charlotte, Detroit, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. The real-time cloud computing platform brings AWS compute and storage services to the edge of Verizon’s wireless network and minimizes the latency and network hops required to connect from an application hosted on the platform to the end user’s device. Launched in 2020, 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength enables developers and businesses to create and deploy a range of applications including machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and video and game streaming. Mobile edge computing is available in 17 locations in the U.S. via AWS Wavelength zones.
Fermata Energy, a Verizon Ventures company, and Easy Aerial, a leading provider of drone-in-a-box-based monitoring and inspection solutions, rank among the participants in the 5G Studio, a collaboration between Verizon and Newlab, to develop transformative technology solutions that make use of Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network technology and Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength at Newlab
The low end-to-end latency provided by Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength enabled Easy Aerial to collect and transfer live drone video for near real-time object detection and telemetry data for rapid processing and analysis. 5G and mobile edge computing also allowed for the removal of costly computers from the drone, reportedly saving roughly 10% in drone costs and increasing flight time by approximately 40%.
Continue reading: https://dronelife.com/2022/01/23/drones-and-mobile-edge-computing/

IoT technology is being utilised by Auckland community housing provider Community of Refuge Trust (CORT) to help 550+ of its tenants receive better, healthier homes.
CORT has selected Tether's EnviroQ solution, which encompasses battery-powered devices and powerful analytics software, allowing it to improve IAQ and ventilation by monitoring temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels along with a variety of other building health-related factors.
The data from the smart IoT devices is communicated across Thinxtra's 0G Network, which uses Sigfox's low power wide area network (LPWAN) technology. Both of these integrations will work in conjunction with each other to achieve the best results.
With more than 400 medium density dwellings and over 100 more under development, the company's fast-growing expansion requires more innovative solutions for its customers. CORT operations manager Stephen Hart says this was the perfect opportunity to leverage low cost, low power and sustainable tech and the data it offers.
"The NZ Building Code outlines regulatory requirements to maintain safe, healthy and durable dwellings, but the framework alone doesn't ensure these conditions are actually met in the real world," he says.
"With Tether and Thinxtra's combined IoT technologies, we are increasing the depth of our knowledge of the living conditions in each home, far beyond that which we could glean from only observing and speaking with tenants."
Hart says the new technology allows for better communication and stronger partnerships with clients, creating better outcomes for those in need.
"That information is also passed back to the occupants of our buildings, fostering a partnership where we have a chance to proactively discuss improvements should there be a need."
Continue reading: https://itbrief.co.nz/story/iot-technology-set-to-help-provide-safer-community-housing

This Report gives information about the security of Internet of Things devices and their implications on businesses. There are three main topics discussed in this article – the opportunities for embedded security, the product improvements, and how consumers perceive these changes. In this report, we will discuss how the internet of things is changing and how security will be a crucial focus.
Introduction
The embedded security market is growing rapidly and not just in terms of technology adoption. This is due to the increased demand for security in new devices, applications, and services to protect personal data, intellectual property, and privacy. Embedded security is primarily defined as the defensive approach to securing any connected device and has computing power. This includes devices enclosed in a secure device, such as a smart door lock or a washing machine. In addition, the Internet of things market is predicted to grow at an impressive rate over the next decade, which means many more devices will be connected and sent to others. With so many devices to secure, there’s no better time than now for companies and product makers to start embedding security in their products.
Major dynamics driving the growth of the Industry
The Internet of Things (IoT) market is estimated to reach a staggering $1.7 billion by 2020. This is mainly because the demand for embedded security solutions increases as IoT devices become more popular. The use of these devices, including sensors and actuators, has increased by about 18% annually over the last three years, with an expectation for continued growth.
Key players in this market
Today, the internet of things market is dependent on a wide range of electronic devices that create a significant security risk. To enable the IoT, an embedded system is required. However, device manufacturers must integrate the embedded system into their devices, and security must be an integral part of its design. Not only this, but with the increasing number of cyber-attacks and DDoS attacks, it seems more imperative than ever for IoT manufacturers to focus on security.
Continue reading: https://womenschronicle.com.au/2022/01/24/embedded-security-for-internet-of-things-market-know-what-major-dynamics-are-driving-the-growth-of-the-industry/

An app marketed towards "females" has faced a barrage of online criticism for excluding transgender women with its use of artificial intelligence.
Giggle, which first launched in early 2020, according to The Verge, uses facial recognition to determine if new users are male or female. 
"The way the app works is when you install it, you have to take a picture of yourself and it uses AI to analyze your face," said Jenny, a 23-year-old trans woman from California. "And if it decides you're a woman, it will let you in. If it decides you're a man, it will reject you. But if it rejects you, you can just submit another picture." 
Giggle's founder and CEO, Sall Grover, has brashly pushed back against online criticism, including claims that the app uses technology that has failed to properly identify women of color, while publicly embracing an ideology that's considered harmful to trans people. 
"This particular combination of gender categorization and facial recognition and race is something that we absolutely know is a problem," Casey Fiesler, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who studies technology ethics, told Insider.
The issue, however, has gone beyond the platform's questionable AI practices. Grover, who has embraced being called a "TERF" — trans-exclusionary radical feminist — told Insider that she decided to exclude trans women from the platform once trans activists began using it.
According to Giggle's website, the app sends a new user's selfie to the facial-recognition AI company Kairos, which analyzes the photo.
"Through computer vision and deep learning, they recognise females in videos, photos, and the real world," according to Giggle. If the Kairos AI is 95% certain the person is female, the person is allowed to create an account, Giggle says. Kairos did not return Insider's request for comment.
Continue reading: https://www.businessinsider.com/giggle-app-uses-ai-to-exclude-trans-women-ceo-says-2022-1

With over 1.3 billion people employed in the agriculture sector worldwide, this $5 trillion industry is the 2nd largest employment generator in the world accounting for more than 28% of the global employment. Being around 12, 000 years old, it is the primary source of living for almost 58% of India’s population. 
It is estimated that the world’s population would reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and the supply side could face constraints due to an increase in demand for food, requiring at least 70% increase in production. And the applications of Artificial Intelligence and ML in the agriculture industry is estimated to improve the industry by at least 7 to 9% by adding a value of another $500 billion by 2030 to the GDP. There are several applications of this advanced connectivity in the agriculture industry.
Field conditions management  
Determining the soil conditions and its complex processes are done by the use of these connectivity technologies. The right conditions for the crop to grow, identifying the nutrient deficiencies in the soil, and enabling image recognition technology to improve the harvest quality are done by the use of AI applications in fields.
Machine learning algorithms analyse the soil by examining the soil moisture, temperature, evaporation processes, to understand the mechanisms of the entire ecosystems and find ways to restore the soil and produce healthy crops.
Livestock management 
As Artificial intelligence and machine learning have become easily available now, the use of applications pertaining to this technology has benefited the farmers greatly to manage their livestock efficiently. AI technology has revolutionized the farming by using applications like robots, drones and smart monitoring systems. Apart from this, technologies created to monitor the health of farm animals, to detect injuries and illness saves the time and effort of the farmer.
Continue reading: https://techgraph.co/opinions/top-4-applications-ai-machine-learning-in-agriculture/

In a major boost to promote precision farming in India, the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has issued guidelines to make drone technology affordable to the stakeholders of this sector. The guidelines of “Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanization” (SMAM) have been amended which envisages granting up to 100% of the cost of agriculture drone or INR10 lakhs, whichever is less, as grant for purchase of drones by the Farm Machinery Training & Testing Institutes, ICAR institutes, Krishi Vigyan Kendras and State Agriculture Universities for taking up large scale demonstrations of this technology on the farmers’ fields.
The Farmers Producers Organizations (FPOs) would be eligible to receive grant up to 75% of the cost of agriculture drone for its demonstrations on the farmers’ fields.
A contingency expenditure of Rs.6000 per hectare would be provided to implementing agencies that do not want to purchase drones but will hire drones for demonstrations from Custom Hiring Centres, Hi-tech Hubs, Drone Manufacturers and Start-Ups. The contingent expenditure to implementing agencies that purchase drones for drone demonstrations would be limited to Rs.3000 per hectare. The financial assistance and grants would be available until March 31, 2023.
In order to provide agricultural services through drone application, 40% of the basic cost of drone and its attachments or Rs.4 lakhs, whichever less would be available as financial assistance for drone purchase by existing Custom Hiring Centers which are set up by Cooperative Society of Farmers, FPOs and Rural entrepreneurs. The new CHCs or the Hi-tech Hubs that will be established by the Cooperative Societies of Farmers, FPOs and Rural entrepreneurs with financial assistance from SMAM, RKVY or any other Schemes can also include Drone as one of the machines along with other agricultural machines in the projects of CHCs/Hi-tech Hubs.
Agriculture graduates establishing Custom Hiring Centers would be eligible to receive 50% of the basic cost of drone and its attachments or up to Rs.5 lakhs in grant support for drone purchases. Rural entrepreneurs should have passed class tenth examination or its equivalent from a recognized Board; and should have remote pilot license from Institute specified by the Director General of Civil Aviation(DGCA) or from any authorized remote pilot training organization.
Continue reading: https://www.geospatialworld.net/news/indian-government-to-promote-drone-use-in-agriculture-financial-support-being-extended-under-sub-mission-on-agriculture-mechanization/

For developing the report “Geospatial AI/ML Applications and Policies: A Global Perspective,” WGIC conducted one-to-one interviews with more than thirty AI/ML experts in the geospatial industry, including WGIC Members. Here is the list of GeoAI Trends – five critical developments in GeoAI that we will witness as per the experts.
1. Increased Automation
Many of the current geospatial AI/ML tasks require human intervention to get adequate results. Advances in AI/ML techniques will allow for full automation in areas like mapping, object identification, feature/attributes extraction in the objects identified, e.g., number of lanes in a road, or condition/ damages in the street or building.
2. Better Natural Resource Management
With advances in deep learning techniques and easy access to satellite imagery and remote sensing data, geospatial AI/ML will find greater adoption in industries like agriculture, forestry, climate change, etc., e.g., those that involve tracking and managing natural resources.
3. Real-time Applications
Current geospatial AI/ML techniques require days, weeks, or even months to turn geospatial data into actionable results. Increasing computing power, edge computing, better algorithms, and ML support in-field equipment will allow for developing real-time and near real-time geospatial AI/ML applications.
Continue reading: https://www.geospatialworld.net/blogs/top-5-geoai-trends-for-the-year-ahead/

Edge, like many other complex applications and systems, needs more than traditional monitoring and performance management tools.
Edge deployments and applications are on the rise. From an operational perspective, edge applications have some of the most stringent availability and performance requirements. Yet, the blending of many elements that go into end-to-end solutions makes them incredibly complex. Traditional management solutions fall short. What’s needed is something that goes beyond traditional management solutions that simply monitors aspects of an edge application. Increasingly, the best fit is an observability solution that uses AI and continuous intelligence to deliver performance insights in real time.
To put the management burden issue into perspective, one need only look at the expected adoption of edge in the coming years. Worldwide spending on edge computing is expected to be $176 billion this year, an increase of 14.8% over 2021. Enterprise and service provider spending on hardware, software, and services for edge solutions is forecast to sustain this pace of growth through 2025 when spending will reach nearly $274 billion, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Edge Spending Guide.
“Edge computing continues to gain momentum as digital-first organizations seek to innovate outside of the data center,” said Dave McCarthy, research vice president, Cloud and Edge Infrastructure Services at IDC. “The diverse needs of edge deployments have created a tremendous market opportunity for technology suppliers as they bring new solutions to market, increasingly through partnerships and alliances.”
And therein lies the reason more sophisticated management capabilities are needed to keep pace with edge’s growth.
First, the companies that are embracing edge tend to be digital-first. As such, customer and user expectations are high. All edge applications and systems must be highly available and very responsive. Any outages or instances of poor performance will lead to problems. In many cases, poorly performing systems will lead customers to take their business elsewhere, publicize their problems on social media, or both. In some cases, safety issues may arise, such as with edge applications for autonomous systems. A fraction of a second delay in an image analysis application in a moving car could have dire consequences.
Continue reading: https://www.rtinsights.com/are-your-management-capabilities-keeping-pace-with-edge/

Verizon and AWS Expand Locations: Easy Aerial Tests Advantages for Drones and Mobile Edge Computing
by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby
Verizon and AWS are expanding their mobile edge computing service, Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength, to Charlotte, Detroit, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. The real-time cloud computing platform brings AWS compute and storage services to the edge of Verizon’s wireless network and minimizes the latency and network hops required to connect from an application hosted on the platform to the end user’s device. Launched in 2020, 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength enables developers and businesses to create and deploy a range of applications including machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and video and game streaming. Mobile edge computing is available in 17 locations in the U.S. via AWS Wavelength zones.
Fermata Energy, a Verizon Ventures company, and Easy Aerial, a leading provider of drone-in-a-box-based monitoring and inspection solutions, rank among the participants in the 5G Studio, a collaboration between Verizon and Newlab, to develop transformative technology solutions that make use of Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network technology and Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength at Newlab
The low end-to-end latency provided by Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength enabled Easy Aerial to collect and transfer live drone video for near real-time object detection and telemetry data for rapid processing and analysis. 5G and mobile edge computing also allowed for the removal of costly computers from the drone, reportedly saving roughly 10% in drone costs and increasing flight time by approximately 40%.
“Being able to utilize the high bandwidth for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that Verizon 5G Edge with AWS Wavelength provides is a game changer,” said Easy Aerial CTO Ivan Stamatovski. “It shifts the paradigm on what is possible to achieve with airborne sensors by processing data at the edge of the network in near real-time.”
Continue reading: https://dronelife.com/2022/01/23/drones-and-mobile-edge-computing/

Julie Snell, Chair of Scotland 5G Centre, believes that influential women in the digital sector can create transformational change.
Over the last 35 years working in the technology sector, I have often been one of only a small number of women in the room. So, I was particularly pleased to chair an all women panel at a TechEx event in Amsterdam recently.
All held senior management positions from the banking, health and aerospace technology sectors. Each is responsible for changing customer experiences through digital innovation.
This experience was heartening against the backdrop of the recent statistics from the Office of National Statistics. Although showing an upward trend, women are still under-represented in the sector, with only 24% of women working in technology across the UK and around 20% in Scotland.
In my role as Chair of the Scotland 5G Centre, I lead, manage, and support the governing board. Supporting the CEO’s delivery of the Centre’s business growth plan, ensuring a visionary strategy and creative initiatives to strengthen the Centre’s reputation as a key member of Scotland’s innovation system.
I am also part of a group of women in leading positions moving the needle in Scotland’s digital technologies sector. This includes my fellow board member Sarah Eynon, Associate Director Scottish Futures Trust and Claire Gillespie, Chair of S5GC Strategic Advisory Group and Digital Technologies Sector Skills Manager at Skills Development Scotland and Lara Moloney Head of S5GConnect.
At the TechEx conference the women on the panel all talked about the need for collaboration to share new innovations and skills across sectors to drive change for good.
In the banking sector, Samaneh Khaleghi spoke about the technology of application programming interface (API) allowing access to customer data in a safe and secure way.
Continue reading: https://www.digit.fyi/women-and-digital-tech-transformational-change/

A "widespread hunger" for technology professionals has seen the average salary for technologists in the US hit a record high of $104,566 in 2021 – and yet, nearly half of tech workers feel they are underpaid.
The latest Dice Tech Salary Report found that 61% of technologists received a salary increase last year, up from 52% in 2020. Web developers saw the biggest increase in pay, shooting up by more than a fifth (21.3%) to $98,912, while the highest salaries were demanded by IT management, whose pay rose 6% to $151,983 between 2020 and 2021.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these pay increases translate into greater satisfaction amongst tech workers. Of the more than 7,200 technologists who responded to Dice's survey, 67% reported being either 'very satisfied' or 'somewhat satisfied' with their salary – up from 55.5% in 2020. At the same time, the proportion who reported feeling very or somewhat dissatisfied with their pay dropped from nearly a third (30.2%) in 2020, to just 10.2% last year.

 
But despite rising salaries and greater satisfaction with their pay, tech workers do not feel they are being adequately compensated for their time: 47.8% of survey respondents felt they were underpaid – a marginal increase of nearly 2% compared to 2020.
Continue reading: https://www.zdnet.com/article/tech-salaries-just-hit-record-highs-but-nearly-half-of-workers-still-feel-underpaid/

A little about myself...
I transitioned into the technology industry from a non-technical background 12 months ago. I am now a Globant Rising Star in Tech U.K. winner, a Junior Software Engineer / Blockchain Developer, an Engineering mentor, a Co-Founder of an EdTech platform, and in the process of launching my own Blockchain Startup from 7th February 2022.
I love learning and focusing on self-development through reading, meditating, prayer, seeking knowledge, attending the gym daily and so much more. I really believe "You are who you are in this world, you're either somebody or nobody." It is so important for me to build and inspire others to leave their comfort zone and achieve whatever they set their mind to.
My journey into tech so far as a self-taught engineer...
I actually come from a sales and fundraising background, I don’t have a degree; In fact, I dropped out of law school during the second year of university funnily enough. During the pandemic, I decided to change careers because I wanted to be part of the future and also make a huge impact in the world. I could see that technology was ever-evolving and it would allow me to grow to lengths I never thought was possible.
I remember making LinkedIn and started messaging anyone who had ‘software engineer’ or ‘blockchain engineer’ as their job title, due to the fact I was obsessed with blockchain technology at the time and I really wanted to get into it. After 100s of messages, I met some amazing people who directed me in the right direction and provided me with some great resources.
This led to a lot of self-learning and boot camps, In 12 months I completed a few Udemy courses on Python programming, Web Development, and Ethereum Development. I completed the Sky Software Engineering Academy May 2021, CodeFirstGirls Software Engineering Nanodegree January 2022, and Consensys Blockchain Development Academy recently. I landed my first Software Engineering role at a leading bank in the U.K. and I have been accepted onto an accelerator program starting the 7th of February which will aid in the launch of my own Tech Startup.
What I am trying to say is anything is possible. I set a goal to become an award-winning engineer by the end of 2021 and a woman of inspiration in technology and become part of the 0.1% of the world who code, and I did that in less than 12 months.
No degree. No handout. Just a foster kid who believed in herself. I just decided to use my mind and have faith in God and myself.
Continue reading: https://medium.com/@asiasharif12/tech-newbie-to-an-award-winning-engineer-in-less-than-12-months-8aa162f3d8f4