Monitoring edge devices for latency enables you to track and identify issues before they become bigger problems. Most companies already have latency monitoring tools in place; it's just a matter of using them to track edge devices, too.
IoT technologies such as edge AI and fog computing enable you to support a more decentralized network and operating model. As you become more dependent on edge computing, however, you might notice issues with edge latency, especially for networks that use legacy technologies or those experiencing exponential growth of IoT devices. The network sometimes simply cannot handle the added work, so bandwidth and system performance suffer.
Remote and network monitoring tools can identify edge latency issues and help IT teams be proactive in fixing them.

Latency in edge devices
Generally speaking, latency happens due to the physical distance between devices. Some companies might have thousands of kilometers between an edge device at a manufacturing location and the system monitoring it. That's the double-edged sword of edge devices: You can deploy them easily, but they might be far away from the systems they send data to.
Other reasons for edge latency include:

• Data management bottlenecks as devices decide what data to keep, what to transmit and what to discard before sending it downstream. This can create latency if devices process massive amounts of data.

Continue reading: https://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/tip/Monitor-edge-latency-for-IoT-devices

Voice technology is one of the biggest trends in the healthcare space. We look at how it might help care providers and patients, from a woman who is losing her speech, to documenting healthcare records for doctors. But how do you teach AI to learn to communicate more like a human, and will it lead to more efficient machines?
Read more and listen in: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/12/08/1041544/podcast-how-ai-is-giving-a-woman-back-her-voice

Everybody has heard about drones by now, but there are several other oft-used terms like UAS and UAV that tend to confuse readers. So, what exactly is a drone and how is it different from these other commonly heard terms such as UAS, UAV, FPV, RPAS, and model aircraft?
Alina George, a project specialist in the Operational Programs Branch of the FAA’s UAS Integration Office, recently cleared the air about FAA’s preferred language when it comes to remotely piloted aircraft.
What is a drone?
According to the FAA, “drone” is the overarching colloquial term used for all remotely piloted aircraft. The FAA adopted this industry designation to describe any aircraft without a pilot onboard, regardless of size, shape, or capability. Beneath this umbrella term are several interchangeable terms (UAS, RPA, or UAV). Others denote categories, such as first-person view or model aircraft, each with slightly different use and connotation.
What is a UAS?
Although the term Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) is used interchangeably with “drone,” a UAS is a “system” of three parts, with “drone” referring to the aircraft itself. In addition to the drone (aircraft), the UAS includes the control station and the communication link between the control station and the aircraft.
 
What is a UAV?
The industry has been using the term Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) interchangeably with UAS. However, following the 14 CFR part 89 regulation, the FAA has chosen to define the term “unmanned aircraft” (UA) as the aircraft itself, to distinguish the system from the aircraft. As such, the industry’s UAV term and the FAA’s UA term are really just part of a UAS. Either term can refer to fixed-wing UAs or multirotor aircraft.
And even though UAV is mostly associated with military aircraft, it can be used for a variety of other functions. UAV can also be semi-autonomous, meaning that the aircraft performs using sensors, a ground control system, and specific software programming.
Continue reading: https://dronedj.com/2021/12/07/drone-uav-uas-difference-explained/

Using Smart Agriculture to Solve Issues
Agriculture × advanced technology = smart agriculture: Japanese agriculture is now attempting to open up a new model of agriculture with this equation.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), the number of self-employed farmers, decreased from approximately 4 million in 2000 to approximately 2.5 million in 2010. This number further decreased to 1.36 million in 2020. Those aged 65 years and older account for 950,000, or approximately 70%, of that group, with an average age of. Their average age is 67.8 years old. Given the significant decrease in this working population, In the face of this issue of aging with a significant decrease in the agricultural working population, there is an urgent need to make agriculture smart. MAFF started a smart agriculture project in 2019. The ministry has been conducting technology demonstration experiments in 148 regions throughout Japan. It has been using robots, AI, IoT, and other advanced technologies at production sites to ascertain the management effect in an integrated experiment from production to shipping. The ministry is hoping for this to lead to social implementation. Let’s have a look at some examples of smart agriculture.
Utilizing the IoT to Speed Up the Conversion to Selfdriving Tractors
A leading agricultural machinery manufacturer in Japan launched self-driving tractors and robot tractors. Introduced in 2018, both use satellites and fixed base stations. This manufacturer adopted a system in which these auto tractors verify their position with satellites to improve accuracy by adding corrected information from fixed base stations. These auto tractors realize self-driving (self-driving level 1) by automating some steering-wheel operations while the user is on board. This enables high-precision work regardless of the user’s skill level. Meanwhile, the robot tractors run autonomously (selfdriving level 2) under the supervision of the user, enabling unmanned independent work.
It is possible to realize collaborative work in which one person can handle the work of two people by combining this IoTequipped robot tractor (unmanned) with a manned tractor. Moreover, it is possible to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. It is also more efficient since work is not affected by the weather. The unmanned work area when this product was first released was 69% of a field area (range for crop cultivation), specifically 122 × 76 meters. However, this was raised to 72% by expanding the headland (space in which rice planters turn). Furthermore, an outer circumference process was added to boost this percentage to 88%. The manufacturer is striving to reach as close to 100% as possible.
Continue reading: https://www.bisinfotech.com/utilizing-iot-drones-on-the-frontline-of-smart-agriculture/

DroneUp acquires AirMap: combining global airspace management with DroneUp’s network, fleet, and infrastructure.
Tom Walker, DroneUp’s CEO, doesn’t do things by halves. DroneUp has grown swiftly as a drone services provider; developing proprietary software, infrastructure, and a robust, well-trained pilot network.  They’ve been instrumental in defining the boundaries of what can be accomplished within the confines of existing regulations, showing value while flying within visual line of sight (VLOS).  With a major investment from one of the world’s largest retailers – Walmart – DroneUp has secured a place on the front lines of drone delivery, establishing the first multi-site Walmart drone delivery operation – and setting the stage for one of the first large scale drone delivery programs in the world.
Walmart presents an opportunity for drone delivery services on a huge scale in the U.S.  Walmart has unique advantages in the drone delivery realm.  Unlike Amazon drone delivery programs, which naturally struggle to reconcile the distance between warehouses and customers, 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart store.  And, as the pandemic shows, those customers are becoming more accustomed to ordering items for delivery or pickup, rather than shopping in the retail environment.  Now, as DroneUp acquires AirMap, the company is buying technology that will enable them to push rapidly forward toward expanding drone services beyond visual line of sight –  quickly.
Continue reading: https://dronelife.com/2021/12/07/droneup-acquires-airmap-another-move-towards-drone-ops-on-a-very-very-big-scale/

Join Dawn and Guest Miriam McNabb on Dawn of Drones this week. Miriam is CEO, SBS Drone Tech: and Editor of JobForDrones (JobForDrones.com), DRONELIFE (DRONELIFE.com), DroneRacing Life (DroneRacingLife.com) and DroneFlyers (Droneflyers.com), for this year-in-review podcast!
As Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE.com, Miriam has published more than 3,000 articles on the commercial drone industry, providing a balanced view of drone regulation, new products, and industry applications. She has been a speaker at countless drone industry events around the world and travels to find the latest innovations and drone industry news. This episode will involve an industry-wide lookback at 2021, and a forecast of 2022 from one of the world’s top news leaders – don’t miss it!
Read more: https://dronelife.com/2021/12/07/miriam-mcnabb-on-dawn-of-drones-this-week/

Industry (or Manufacturing) 4.0 started as a German government initiative in 2011. It refers to a Fourth Industrial Revolution characterized by smart factories using robotics, autonomous operations, the Internet of Things , big data, analytics, artificial intelligence, and a convergence of IT and OT. The goal is to create efficient, agile and intelligent manufacturing.
There wasn't a prescriptive Industry 4.0 methodology for manufacturers to follow, so early adopters tried various approaches to see which worked best. Now, 10 years later, we have reached an inflection point where Manufacturing 4.0 best practices are emerging, and big data, IoT, AI and automation are all playing critical roles.

"We focus on the capabilities that [Manufacturing 4.0] technology can deliver for our clients," said Stephen Laaper, principal and smart factory leader at Deloitte. "From this perspective, there are 
really four technology capabilities that are repeatedly identified across our research and implementation experience."
According to Laaper, where companies are focusing their Industry 4.0 efforts are in:

• Factory asset intelligence and performance management.
• Factory synchronization and dynamic scheduling.
• Quality sensing and detection.
• Engineering collaboration and the digital twin.

All of these initiatives involve big data, automation, AI and IoT. These technologies must also be integrated with existing corporate systems.
Complex integrations, and the need for robust security on edge networks and appliances, are likely two of the reasons 80% of respondents in a 2020 Deloitte-MAPI survey of 1,000 manufacturing leaders that Laaper cited said they were employing at least one of these four manufacturing initiatives, yet less than 40% had managed to fully operationalize their deployment.
Continue reading: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-integrate-iot-big-data-and-analytics-into-industry-4-0/

The world is evolving fast as well as the technology behind the music industry. In this field, blockchain is running the show thanks to its incredible features such as NFT, smart contracts, and more. A lot are the players that are pushing the boundaries in this incredible field but, in this article, we want to focus on two of them: Audius and Revelator.
Audius, the digital streaming service built on the blockchain.
Audius is a digital streaming service that connects fans with artists as well as exclusive new music. It accomplishes this by being completely decentralized: Audius is owned and operated by a thriving open-source community of artists, fans, and developers from all over the world. Audius empowers artists to share never-before-heard music and directly monetize streams. Audius allows developers to build their own apps on top of it, giving them access to one of the most unique audio catalogs available.
Audius was founded in 2018 and serves millions of users each month, making it one of the largest crypto applications ever built. It is backed by an all-star team of investors.
Audius has 7 million monthly active users, making it the largest consumer blockchain app.
Audius, a decentralized music app, now has five million users, making it one of the first truly successful consumer-facing Web3 apps. Audius has seen consistent organic growth since its launch in 2018, thanks to community-driven marketing.

Blockchain can do really amazing things for music. It can improve music fans’ experience and guarantee artists’ control over their valuable work. We have worked to create a strong, engaged community and an easy-to-navigate interface, and that’s what’s attracted and kept fans and musicians on Audius. – Roneil Rumburg, Audius co-founder and CEO

Click to expand...

Because Audius is a decentralized protocol, every user is also an owner. The utility token from Audius provides these owners with clear ways to influence and change the service to meet their needs. As a result, Audius has become a popular place for tech-loving artists such as deadmau5 and 3LAU to experiment, but it has also provided a much-needed haven for specialized scenes and cross-genre exploration, music that is frequently underserved by existing streaming music services and platforms. What happens and what takes off is determined by the community, which has grown to 7 million members.
The first streaming service to integrate with TikTok Sound Kit.
In August Audius has been the first DSP to launch with TikTok Sound Kit. Audius’ 100,000+ artists are now just one click away from reaching TikTok’s estimated 1 billion users. The entire process, which consists of simply uploading a track and clicking “Share to Tiktok,” takes under a minute. Tracks can then be played behind their own videos and chosen by the entire TikTok user community.
Audius Co-Founder Roneil Rumburg is named a member of the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Finance.
Continue reading: https://thegroovecartel.com/news/how-blockchain-technology-is-shaping-the-music-industry/

There’s nothing that the techies and crypto kings of Silicon Valley love more than a good buzzword, and they’ve got a new one going around that’s picking up steam: Web3. 
So what exactly does it mean? Is it akin to the meaningless “synergies” and “learnings” that make up the lexicon of corporatese, or is there some actual heft to the concept? 
Web3, or Web 3.0, is shorthand for what some tech people believe the next iteration of the internet will look like. We’re currently living in a Web 2.0 world, which is app-based and easy to use. We can talk to our friends and coworkers, purchase our groceries and clothing, and get our news. But in Web 2.0, our online lives are currently ruled by trillion-dollar companies like Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Google.
The promise of Web3 began as a way to decentralize how we function on the web and put some of that power back into the hands of users. The dream, according to people like Gavin Wood, the computer scientist who cofounded Ethereum, is that new social media platforms, search databases, and banking and e-commerce sites will replace the current major tech companies, becoming the new normal. Most important, instead of being powered by proprietary and secretive corporate algorithms, these new companies would run on blockchains, the systems upon which cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are built. 
The mechanics of blockchains prevent corporations from keeping proprietary data hidden, they are unable to block third-party sites, and the software is open source. 
Continue reading: https://fortune.com/2021/12/06/what-is-web3-investment/

Looking ahead to next year, major highlights will likely include the growth of the crypto industry, which is anticipated to be strong around metaverse gaming built on blockchains, the growth of Coinbase Global as a potential “super app” for a variety of services, and the concern of regulations that might come regarding crypto assets, reports Barron’s.
Blockchain-based gaming within the metaverse is anticipated to be one of the biggest areas of growth in the next year, believes BTIG’s Mark Palmer. Because of the decentralized structure of blockchain, metaverse gaming could allow for participants to use a variety of tokens and NFTs across the virtual landscapes created within the space.
Meta Platforms (FB) is pivoting to focus on creating a metaverse space that is centralized, but other decentralized options are also growing rapidly, with many companies within the space currently working to create the software that would allow for digital asset exchange between different blockchains. The metaverse is anticipated to create a whole new type of e-commerce that will be cross-transacting in a huge variety of digital assets and tokens, with some game-focused platforms such as Decentraland already experiencing rapid growth.
Coinbase Global could grow to become a “super app,” Palmer believes, as it is working to develop a specific NFT marketplace and is a major custodian and lender of digital assets. Coinbase currently makes the majority of its revenue from cryptocurrency trading from major tokens like bitcoin and ether, but it is anticipating diversifying the revenue base going forward.
“COIN’s planned NFT marketplace is only one part of what we view as an ongoing diversification effort,” said Palmer.
The looming potential of regulatory crackdown from the SEC has many potential investors hesitating, and it’s an unknown that will continue to hang over the space going into next year. So far, the Treasury Department has indicated that issuers of stablecoins should be regulated as banks, and the SEC’s Gary Gensler has indicated that some cryptos should be treated and regulated as securities.
Investing in the Future of Crypto With SATO
The Invesco Alerian Galaxy Crypto Economy ETF (SATO) invests across the crypto industry in a variety of crypto-related categories that are hiring to accommodate the rapid growth they are experiencing. The fund invests across all market caps and within developed and emerging markets.
The fund seeks to track the Alerian Galaxy Global Cryptocurrency-Focused Blockchain Equity, Trusts and ETPs Index, an index that is divided into two different security types: digital asset companies that are engaged in cryptocurrency or the mining, buying, and enabling technologies of cryptocurrency; and exchange traded products (ETPs) and private investment trusts traded over-the-counter that are associated with cryptocurrency.
To be considered for the index, a company must have a minimum full market cap of $50 million, a minimum float-adjusted market cap of $10 million, a minimum free-float factor of 20%, a minimum average daily trading value of $1 million over the last three months, and it must also be listed on a global exchange. This portion of the index is given an 85% weighting.
ETPs and private investment trusts must have a minimum market cap of $1 billion (or $500 million for current constituents), a minimum average daily trading value of $15 million over the last three months, and an open structure to be considered for the index. This portion of the index is given a 15% weighting.
Continue reading: https://www.etftrends.com/crypto-channel/the-metaverse-and-blockchain-are-just-getting-started/

As Puerto Rico has been beset by corruption allegations, the island’s legislature will begin holding meetings on how to use the blockchain technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to reduce government graft. 
Puerto Rico House Speaker Rafael “Tatito” Hernandez said he will begin meeting with members of the island’s growing blockchain industry this month about creating “smart contracts,” on embedded computer programs in the protocols, that might bring more transparency and accountability to the public sector.
“We have a real credibility problem,” Hernandez told Bloomberg on the sidelines of a Puerto Rico Blockchain Trade Association conference. “And this might be part of the solution.”
The U.S. territory of 3.3 million has been rattled by corruption scandals in recent years. On Friday, the mayor of Catano pleaded guilty to accepting more than $100,000 in bribes and luxury watches in exchange for millions in municipal contracts. The local FBI office has suggested more public-sector indictments are in the works.
Hernandez said the industry meetings are also part of a broader effort to make Puerto Rico a hub for crypto-currency and blockchain innovation.
Continue reading: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-06/puerto-rico-lawmakers-want-to-use-blockchain-to-cut-corruption

Suppose you could buy a share of Tesla Inc. and send it to a friend in Shanghai as easily as sending an email. Or imagine placing a bet on the inflation rate at the end of President Joe Biden’s term, which would pay off in bitcoin if you were right.
All that could become reality thanks to a project backed by some of the world’s biggest quantitative and high-speed trading firms.
Pyth, the brainchild of Chicago-based Jump Trading Group, is a blockchain-based technology service that seeks to provide free, real-time data for a variety of crypto projects. It is loosely overseen by the Switzerland-based Pyth Data Association, whose members include heavyweights of electronic trading such as Jump, Jane Street Capital LLC, Susquehanna International Group LLP and Virtu Financial Inc. So far, they aren’t running Pyth to make a profit.
Collectively, the firms behind Pyth trade hundreds of billions of dollars of assets daily. Earlier this year, they began streaming price data from some of their trades in stocks, currencies, commodities and cryptocurrencies into Pyth’s network.
Pyth’s data is publicly available and developers from around the world can simply write code to connect to it. They can use the data to create new applications in the fast-growing area known as decentralized finance. DeFi, for short, encompasses efforts to take traditional financial activities—like trading and lending—and automate them with software, with no central intermediary overseeing transactions.
For DeFi to succeed, it needs data—and that’s where services like Pyth come in. The creators of Pyth hope to unseat rival services to become the leading source of financial data for DeFi projects. The idea is to provide fast, accurate data that could enable innovative mashups of traditional and crypto markets.
Proponents say DeFi will cut out middlemen and benefit the world’s unbanked population—1.7 billion people who lack access to financial institutions, according to the World Bank—by providing banklike services to anyone with a mobile phone. For instance, people seeking loans could turn to DeFi lending platforms. Like banks, such platforms take money from depositors and lend it out to borrowers. But instead of bankers approving loans, they have “smart contracts,” or computer code that authorizes transactions.
Continue reading: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-the-worlds-biggest-traders-are-betting-on-blockchain-data-11638803023

Women in the tech sector, both globally and in the UK, feel a lack of training opportunities is acting as a barrier for more diversity in the industry.
Research by Skillsoft found that 32% of women worldwide believe a lack of training it one of the biggest challenges they had faced throughout their tech careers, while 38% of women in the UK said they were worried about the lack of training opportunities in the sector.
Potoula Chresomales, senior vice-president of product management at Skillsoft, said: “Organisations around the globe are looking for ways to address their skills gaps, and in many cases, the answer lies within via their existing workforce.
“Women make up less than 40% of the global workforce, and for that number to increase, female employees must be empowered with continuous training, professional development and career advancement, as well as equal pay.” 
There are a number of reasons young girls and women choose to not go into tech careers, including a perception that technology roles are not for them, a lack of inclusion in the workplace, and a lack of accessible or visible role models to aspire towards.
A lack of skills training was not the only barrier Skillsoft found, with a quarter of women in the global tech sector saying that a lack of diversity had acted as an obstacle and 23% saying a lack of inclusion had affected their careers.
Just under 20% also said harassment is a challenge they have faced during their tech careers.
Women in the UK said they were worried by a lack of work-life balance, as well as a lack of equal pay – 32% of UK respondents said that a lack of equal pay is one the biggest barriers they face in their role. In 2016, a study found that women in the UK technology industry make on average 9% less than their male counterparts.
Almost 60% of respondents asked in the UK said that training and professional development are an important part of their roles and careers, but only 42% of women globally said they are offered these opportunities by their employers.
Continue reading: https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252510521/Women-in-tech-lack-training-opportunities-says-Skillsoft

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL — Smartphones and GPS have made paper maps virtually obsolete and put the power of navigation in our pockets. But now, engineers are working on a high-tech update for another directional tool that could revolutionize how we find our way around.
The first street signs date back hundreds of years. They help you figure out where you are and where you’re going.
But what if they could be updated throughout the day, hour by hour to keep you informed about what’s happening around you?
“This is a fully-functioning street sign that allows you to essentially market, advertise and communicate out to the public,” Michael Ottoman said, showing off a hi-tech version of the old street sign.
Ottoman is the president of Points Lab, LLC., the makers of a hi-tech smart sign known as the Points Sign, and it could be the future of street signs.
It looks simple enough from the outside, but it’s actually very complex.
“It allows municipalities to speak to the community,” said Ottoman. “It allows the local shops to speak to the community and allows the community to come in and get directions for information itself.”
The smart sign is essentially a stationary robot driven by artificial intelligence that can provide real-time, up-to-date directional information to help you get to where you want to be.
Three fins rotate about the pole as information is fed into the Points Sign.
“If you're at an amusement park and you want to go on a ride, it can tell you what direction the right is, but also can tell you what the wait time for that right is as well,” said Sajid Patel, CEO and co-founder of Optimal Design.
Continue reading: https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/artificial-intelligence-drives-next-generation-street-sign

Every five years, a team of researchers and industry leaders with expertise in varying fields tied to artificial intelligence come together to create a report on the most significant questions and developments around AI as part of the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence. “Gathering Strength, Gathering Storms” — the latest report and second edition of AI100 — aims to capture a growing sense of responsibility in how to proceed with AI.
The report reflects a shift in public conversation from excitement around the technology to concerns regarding how it is and will be used equitably and ethically, said Michael Littman, professor of computer science and chair of the study panel. 
The main takeaway is the “mixed reception that AI is having in society,” said Steven Sloman, a member of the study panel and professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences. “On one hand, it’s making our lives easier and doing some work to (improve) judgments and decisions we make, but, on the other hand, it’s creating dangers that we haven’t faced before,” he said. 
Shifting perspectives on human vs. machine intelligence
Over the last five years, the view that human intelligence is collective — that individuals are just a part of a greater intellectual machine — has gained prominence, the report found. 
“AI started out as a field that was very closely related to cognitive science,” with the “common goal of trying to understand intelligence,” Sloman said. “There was this underlying assumption that humans were the intelligent agent, and so, if we tried to make computers smart, we would necessarily be learning something about people.”
“As the fields have evolved, it's become clear ... there are kinds of intelligence that machines have that humans don't,” Sloman said. 
Contributions of individual humans to the collective intelligence will differ from those of machines due to their different strengths, according to the report.
“Machines have bigger memories and faster processing speeds, and in some ways, they have more sophisticated learning algorithms that don’t suffer the intrusions of other human demands, like the need to deal with our emotional reactions,” Sloman said. These forms of intelligence allow machines to be better chess players than any human being, for instance, because it involves “skills that it turns out humans aren't the best at,” he added.
Continue reading: https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2021/12/ai100-report-hones-in-on-latest-social-ethical-issues-around-artificial-intelligence

In the late 18th Century, an automaton chess master known as the ‘Mechanical Turk’ toured Europe and the US. Designed in 1770 by the inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen, the machine appeared to be able to defeat any human player.
It later turned out the Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion. A puppet dressed in oriental garb, it concealed under its fez and robes a human chess master. The American poet Edgar Allen Poe was so convinced of the Turk’s fraudulence that he wrote an essay to draw attention to the hoax.
A predetermined mechanism beating a human mind at chess was impossible, Poe claimed, for “no one move in chess necessarily follows upon any one other. From no particular disposition of the men at one period of a game can we predicate their disposition at a different period.”
Today, artificial intelligence allows computers to make just such predictions, so it might be fair to assume that such naive illusions are behind us. After all, computers now exist that can beat any human at chess.
But a similar illusion characterises the artificial intelligence industry. On Amazon Mechanical Turk, an online platform owned and operated by Amazon since 2005, human activity is supposed to take the appearance of mechanical activity. The premise of Amazon Mechanical Turk is simple. The site hosts contractors, often large tech companies, which outsource short data tasks to a crowd of workers.
The workers fulfil the tasks that machine learning algorithms are not yet able to complete.  Because the work is supposed to appear as if artificial intelligence is doing it, the former Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, referred to the platform as “artificial artificial intelligence”. The contractors tend to interact only with the platform, which hosts the tasks and sources the workers. Having little to no direct contact with the workers, contractors experience the process as if it were entirely fulfilled by computers.
Continue reading: https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/artificial-intelligence-quietly-relies-on-workers-earning-2-per-hour/

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a big buzzword with companies throwing the word around to impress investors and customers. ThePrint's Regina Mihindukulasuriya looks at what counts as real AI and why sometimes conventional computing methods are better than AI.
Learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTes8o_lkwY

Officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs are looking to increase efficiency and optimize their clinicians’ professional capabilities, featuring advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.
In a November presolicitation, the VA seeks to gauge market readiness for advanced healthcare device manufacturing, ranging from prosthetic solutions, surgical instruments, and personalized digital health assistant technology, as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. 
Dubbed Accelerating VA Innovation and Learning, or AVAIL, the program is looking to supplement and support agency health care operations, according to Amanda Purnell, an Innovation Specialist with the VA
“What we are trying to do is utilize AI and machine learning to remove administrative burden of tasks,” she told Nextgov. 
The technology requested by the department will be tailored to areas where a computer can do a better, more efficient job than a human, and thereby give people back time to complete demanding tasks that require human judgement. 
Some of these areas the AI and machine learning technology could be implemented include surgical preplanning, manufacturing submissions, and 3D printing, along with injection molding to produce plastic medical devices and other equipment. 
Purnell also said that the VA is looking for technology that can handle the bulk of document analyses. Using machine learning and natural language processing to scan and detect patterns in medical images, such as CT scans, MRIs and dermatology scans is one of the ways the VA aims to digitize its administrative workload.
Staff at the VA is currently tasked with looking through faxes and other clinical data to siphon it to the right place. AVAIL would combine natural language processing to manage these operations and add human review when necessary. 
Purnell said that the forthcoming technology would emphasize “streamlining processes that are better and faster done by machines and allowing humans to do something that is more kind of ‘human-meaningful,’ and also allowing clinicians to operate to the top of their license.”
She noted that machines are highly adept at scanning and analyzing images with AI. The VA procedure would likely have the AI technology to do a preliminary scan, followed by a human clinician to make their expert opinion based on results. 
Continue reading: https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2021/12/va-aims-reduce-administrative-tasks-ai-machine-learning/187310/

The concept of robots taking our jobs goes far beyond comic books and sci-fi movies. From the first textile machine in the 18th century, to the internet in the 1990s, machines have been making our professions obsolete for centuries.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest technology on the block threatening to replace human labor. Whether it’s self-checkout systems in supermarkets, or customer service chatbots, AI has already replaced a number of highly repetitive jobs. Despite promising a more streamlined and efficient workforce, the more immersive this emergent technology becomes, the greater the undercurrent of distrust.
Indeed, if this accelerates, robots could replace over two million workers in manufacturing alone by 2025, according to a study by economists at MIT and Boston University. But as this technology becomes increasingly intelligent, there is a higher chance for AI to outsmart humans and make even the highest-skilled professions obsolete.
But would that really be the end of the world? In fact, might emerging technologies unlock a potential future that leaps beyond the status quo?
In a future where machines could replace our need to contribute to the labor market, there is potential for us not to be defined by our jobs, but by a newer purpose to enhance humanity and the planet.
History tells us that industrial revolutions are always met with trepidation. Workers revolted against the emergence of steam power in the 18th century, whereas internet skeptics were innumerate thirty years ago. Whenever groundbreaking new technology or processes come along, it is natural for people to fear for their livelihoods.
But as technology evolves, our role on this planet evolves with it. We have already adapted and developed in tandem with emergent AI systems and embedded these into our daily lives. Take the driverless transportation systems shuttling us between airport terminals, or the dating algorithms helping us find ‘the one’.
Continue reading: https://www.fastcompany.com/90702904/instead-of-taking-our-jobs-what-if-ai-just-lets-us-give-our-lives-more-purpose

Kevin Cowley remembers many things about April 15, 1989. He had taken the bus to the Hillsborough soccer stadium in Sheffield, England, to watch the semifinal championship game between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool. He was 17. It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon. The fans filled the stands.
He remembers being pressed between people so tightly that he couldn’t get his hands out of his pockets. He remembers the crash of the safety barrier collapsing behind him when his team nearly scored and the crowd surged.
Hundreds of people fell, toppled like dominoes by those pinned in next to them. Cowley was pulled under. He remembers waking up among the dead and dying, crushed beneath the weight of bodies. He remembers the smell of urine and sweat, the sound of men crying. He remembers locking eyes with the man struggling next to him, then standing on him to save himself. He still wonders if that man was one of the 94 people who died that day.
The Trevor Project, America’s hotline for LGBT youth, is turning to a GPT-2-powered chatbot to help troubled teenagers—but it’s setting strict limits.
These memories have tormented Cowley his whole adult life. For 30 years he suffered from flashbacks and insomnia. He had trouble working but was too ashamed to talk to his wife. He blocked out the worst of it by drinking. In 2004 one doctor referred him to a trainee therapist, but it didn’t help, and he dropped out after a couple of sessions.
But two years ago he spotted a poster advertising therapy over the internet, and he decided to give it another go. After dozens of regular sessions in which he and his therapist talked via text message, Cowley, now 49, is at last recovering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder. “It’s amazing how a few words can change a life,” says Andrew Blackwell, chief scientific officer at Ieso, the UK-based mental health clinic treating Cowley.
What’s crucial is delivering the right words at the right time. Blackwell and his colleagues at Ieso are pioneering a new approach to mental-health care in which the language used in therapy sessions is analyzed by an AI. The idea is to use natural-language processing (NLP) to identify which parts of a conversation between therapist and client—which types of utterance and exchange—seem to be most effective at treating different disorders.
The aim is to give therapists better insight into what they do, helping experienced therapists maintain a high standard of care and helping trainees improve. Amid a global shortfall in care, an automated form of quality control could be essential in helping clinics meet demand. 
Continue reading: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/12/06/1041345/ai-nlp-mental-health-better-therapists-psychology-cbt/

As more companies embed artificial intelligence in their products, services, processes, and decision-making, the definition of what AI is and where it can be most effectively applied is evolving as rapidly as the techniques themselves. What started out as algorithms used to determine loans, select new hires, and empower chatbots (with mixed success), is now deeply embedded and used in everything from predicting climate risks to picking sales leads. The question is no longer if a company should use AI — but where it brings the greatest competitive advantage.
In our work with companies, we see three areas where AI has now shifted from a “nice-to-have” to a “must-have” technology. Companies that push the boundaries of AI to sharpen predictions, boost efficiencies, and optimize the real-time pricing or stock control of their products are moving faster and further than rivals still conservatively wavering over the wisdom of using AI for these purposes.
Predictions
Over the past few years, AI has migrated from a technology that finds relationships in data and predicts existing trends more accurately to a technology that spots future shifts in everything from leisure spending and travel patterns to company credit worthiness by analyzing preferences and sentiments in vast quantities of data including text, voice, images, digital news feeds, and social media.
AI can now recognize disruptors on the horizon by making connections between embedded characteristics, allowing companies to prepare more effectively for disruptive events. Early AI warning systems for fraud can now detect bots, making them increasingly essential to get ahead of evolving tactics of hackers, nation-state actors, malware, and ransomware. Market shock-adaptive machine learning algorithms help leading banks predict not just the performance of their investments, but also potential vulnerabilities caused by disruptors such as Covid-19.
This helps banks and larger companies mitigate the impact and potential bankruptcies in their investment portfolios. For example, one bank was able to predict in weeks, instead of months, which loans would be unlikely to be paid off and reduced their number by 70 percent, boosting the returns on its overall loan portfolio by tens of millions of dollars. Similarly, AI enabled an aerospace parts distributor that suffered from excess inventory and cash flow shortages during industry downturns to forecast more accurately how much demand for its parts would fall when Covid-19 hit. As a result, the company was able to reduce its working capital by hundreds of millions of dollars and double its on-time deliveries.
Continue reading: https://hbr.org/2021/12/3-areas-where-ai-will-boost-your-competitive-advantage

When passengers board an Alaska Airlines flight, most don't know it but that plane is lighter than other Boeing 737s or Airbus A320s, according to the airline.
That's because during the COVID-19 pandemic, the airline used the slowdown in travel to develop, test and introduce new products to replace plastics on board.
Gone are plastic water bottles and plastic cups. Lighter alternatives are being used. Food containers have been redesigned. It not only allows the airline to cut the use of plastics, which can take over 400 years to decompose in the environment, but the airline says less weight onboard means it is burning less fuel, saving money and reducing carbon output.
Airlines and plane manufacturers have a fairly new and very honed focus on going green. United Airlines is promising to go carbon neutral by 2050. Alaska Airlines says it will go carbon neutral by 2040. Other airlines promise to pay to offset their carbon output.
Last week, United flew the first commercial airliner with passengers onboard using 100% sustainable fuels made of sugar water and corn. The fuels output far less carbon but cost much more than traditional fuels. United’s Boeing 737-Max 8 demonstration flight flew from Chicago to Washington D.C.
Onboard efforts like those at the airlines combined with attempts from plane maker Boeing are leading to a seismic shift in the airline industry. It wasn't that long ago that the smell of jet fuel was just a normal part of the airport experience. Between utilizing sustainable fuels, electric and hydrogen airplanes that are in development and reducing overall fuel use, the industry vows it is trying to cut the exhaust that comes out of a plane's engines and goes into the environment.
Continue reading: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/us-airline-ai-guide-planes-eliminates-plastic-reduce/story?id=81279464

A year ago I found out, from one of my direct reports, that I had apparently resigned. I had just been fired from Google in one of the most disrespectful ways I could imagine.
Thanks to organizing done by former and current Google employees and many others, Google did not succeed in smearing my work or reputation, although they tried. My firing made headlines because of the worker organizing that has been building up in the tech world, often due to the labor of people who are already marginalized, many of whose names we do not know. Since I was fired last December, there have been many developments in tech worker organizing and whistleblowing. The most publicized of these was Frances Haugen’s testimony in Congress; echoing what Sophie Zhang, a data scientist fired from Facebook, had previously said, Haugen argued that the company prioritizes growth over all else, even when it knows the deadly consequences of doing so.
I’ve seen this happen firsthand. On 3 November 2020, a war broke out in Ethiopia, the country I was born and raised in. The immediate effects of unchecked misinformation, hate speech and “alternative facts” on social media have been devastating. On 30 October of this year, I and many others reported a clear genocidal call in Amharic to Facebook. The company responded by saying that the post did not violate its policies. Only after many reporters asked the company why this clear call to genocide didn’t violate Facebook’s policies – and only after the post had already been shared, liked and commented on by many – did the company remove it.
Other platforms like YouTube have not received the scrutiny they warrant, despite studies and articles showing examples of how they are used by various groups, including regimes, to harass citizens. Twitter and especially TikTok, Telegram and Clubhouse have the same issues but are discussed much less. When I wrote a paper outlining the harms posed by models trained using data from these platforms, I was fired by Google.
When people ask what regulations need to be in place to safeguard us from the unsafe uses of AI we’ve been seeing, I always start with labor protections and antitrust measures. I can tell that some people find that answer disappointing – perhaps because they expect me to mention regulations specific to the technology itself. While those are important, the #1 thing that would safeguard us from unsafe uses of AI is curbing the power of the companies who develop it and increasing the power of those who speak up against the harms of AI and these companies’ practices. Thanks to the hard work of Ifeoma Ozoma and her collaborators, California recently passed the Silenced No More Act, making it illegal to silence workers from speaking out about racism, harassment and other forms of abuse in the workplace. This needs to be universal. In addition, we need much stronger punishment of companies that break already existing laws, such as the aggressive union busting by Amazon. When workers have power, it creates a layer of checks and balances on the tech billionaires whose whim-driven decisions increasingly affect the entire world.
Continue reading: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/06/google-silicon-valley-ai-timnit-gebru

Just as there often exists an urban-rural divide in political and environmental landscapes, urban and rural education systems share the common issue of being under-resourced, especially for science education.
Kristine Callis-Duehl, the Sally and Derick Driemeyer director of education research and outreach at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, and her collaborators at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation and University of Illinois Extension were awarded a three-year $685,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create a synergistic partnership between urban and rural communities in southern Illinois to establish a cross-regional curriculum that introduces bioengineering and plant monitoring technology to middle school aged youth in summer programs.
Young people at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation in East St. Louis, Illinois, and at the U of I Extension program in Waterloo, Illinois, will monitor corn growth in both regions by using in-demand technology including drones and a microclimate field monitoring system developed by Danforth Center scientist Nadia Shakoor.
By growing and comparing sweet corn, GMO commodity corn and non-GMO commodity corn, students will see firsthand how bioengineering improves plant health and crop yield.
By conducting joint fieldwork and presenting their ideas at a mini-conference, urban and rural youth will establish a collaboration that generates culturally mindful activities, as well as authentic data that can help shed light on the impact of climate change on corn harvests.
This collaboration will allow rural students to experience FarmBot robotics at work in smaller, urban plots and allow urban students to experience the use of drones used in precision agriculture on larger, rural farms.
Ultimately, through this informal authentic research experience, participants will help develop a culturally informed curriculum that can be launched nationwide to establish a network of urban-rural authentic research hubs for non-formal summer programs.
Continue reading: https://www.agrinews-pubs.com/news/science/2021/12/07/collaboration-aims-to-shrink-the-urban-rural-divide/

Today satellite imagery in agriculture directs to fresh and efficient Industry growth. Agricultural methods are becoming more predictable and seamless and it is further improving the farm planning method with accurate forecasts further enhancing decision making.
Precision agriculture operations benefit from the integration of technological solutions such as IoT devices and determining appropriate agro-chemical requirements. Satellites and remote sensors continuously monitor farms and enable farmers and agribusinesses to examine data and receive real-time updates to understand and know their precise harvesting time.
Increasing the Sustainability Of Agricultural Methods
Today with the looming threat of global warming, water management and sustainable farming practices have become inevitable. Water management can be cost-effective if paired with the right technology. Farmers and agri-businesses can use satellites to monitor big crop regions in real-time giving them an estimation of water requirements and demand across the field. This further helps conserve water most effectively and assists in better irrigation management and effective farm management.
Climate Resilience And Satellite Images
Famine, droughts, floods and unpredictable weather conditions have all been exacerbated by global warming. Experienced farmers can foresee such issues and treat them in time. However, the problem lays when one might not have the correct information to tackle an issue of this caliber or might not have the experience to foresee disasters. Satellite images can not only aid in such situations with their constant weather monitoring and prediction but can also help by providing the correct and relevant information required to tackle an issue like this. Using technology can help establish a cost-effective strategy and ensure the long-term viability of agriculture.
Growing Healthier Crops In a Futuristic Fashion
For farmers and agribusinesses, pest infestations and crop diseases can be a big source of anxiety. Farmers use insecticides, fertilisers, and herbicides to keep these yield-depleting pests at bay. Spraying the same amount of pesticides across the field is one of the most common blunders farmers unconsciously make. Each plot's and crop's requirements may differ greatly and this piece of information is commonly missed by agri-stakeholders. Over-spraying chemicals can reduce crop quality and affect the soil's nutritional value. Agro-chemical requirements for specific portions of a field can be determined using satellite data. This guarantees that each crop receives only the amount of chemical it requires and nothing more, reducing crop failures and alleviating important food security concerns.
Continue reading: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/401120