These days, even living under a rock might not be enough to avoid hearing about blockchain. The technology behind cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens, blockchain is being hailed by tech experts as everything from a useful tool for tracking assets to the inevitable replacement for the internet.
Blockchain seems to be an exciting tech opportunity for businesses - buy why? Here are a few ways business leaders can utilize blockchain to make their organizations faster, safer and smarter than other businesses.
The Benefits of Blockchain
In truth, the full scope of applications for blockchain technology is not well understood because the tech is relatively new. Though plenty of tech experts have experimented with blockchain, business leaders in other industries are only just beginning to consider how they might integrate blockchain into their existing systems and structures. As blockchain spreads, business leaders will undoubtedly discover more applications for the tech. To speed such innovation, leaders might spend time on an online blockchain course from a leading university, so they can learn how to apply blockchain to their business and better understand the tech and its benefits, which include:
Continue reading: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/268730/20211130/what-will-blockchain-do-for-business.htm

Artificial intelligence holds great promise for healthcare, and it is already being put to use by many forward-looking hospitals and health systems.
One challenge for healthcare CIOs and clinical users of AI-powered health technologies is the biases that may pop up in algorithms. These biases, such as algorithms that improperly skew results because of race, can compromise the ultimate work of AI – and clinicians.
We spoke recently with Dr. Sanjiv M. Narayan, co-director of the Stanford Arrhythmia Center, director of its Atrial Fibrillation Program and professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. He offered his perspective on how biases arise in AI – and what healthcare organizations can do to prevent them.
Q. How do biases make their way into artificial intelligence?
A. There is an increasing focus on bias in artificial intelligence, and while there is no cause for panic yet, some concern is reasonable. AI is embedded in systems from wall to wall these days, and if these systems are biased, then so are their results. This may benefit us, harm us or benefit someone else.
A major issue is that bias is rarely obvious. Think about your results from a search engine "tuned to your preferences." We already are conditioned to expect that this will differ from somebody else's search on the same topic using the same search engine. But, are these searches really tuned to our preferences, or to someone else's preferences, such as a vendor? The same applies across all systems.
Continue reading: https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/how-ai-bias-happens-and-how-eliminate-it

We use energy in many different ways in our lives, be it for lighting up our houses, running electronic appliances or as fuel in our vehicles. There are mainly two types of energy: renewable energy and non-renewable energy. Non-renewable energy includes fossil fuels like natural gas, petroleum and coal. However, these energy sources come from nature itself; it is impossible to renew them quickly. This means that these resources will become entirely exhausted in the upcoming years.
In addition, fossil fuels emit greenhouse gases that are responsible for global warming. According to the report published by the Global Carbon Project, carbon dioxide emissions reached an all-time high in 2018. On the other hand, renewable energy includes energy sources that are available in infinite quantities, such as sunlight, air and water. These resources are renewable and release very few harmful gases.
In the last decade, many developed countries globally have shifted their focus to producing renewable energy. Governments are planning to be dependent on green energy. It is nice to see the developments in the renewable energy industry. Still, the industry has its own set of challenges since we are dependent on getting energy from sources that are not in our control. Also, these resources are not available in the same amount in all different parts of the Earth.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/11/30/how-artificial-intelligence-and-machine-learning-are-transforming-the-future-of-renewable-energy/?sh=340902fd541b

Data labelling is a key process in machine learning. It facilitates in training machine learning models and accelerates the development of artificial intelligence. Data annotation is frequently outsourced to data labelling firms, which annotate images, videos, audios and text language. In addition to providing outsourcing data annotation services to firms, data labelling companies have also collaborated and partnered with firms to enable research and innovation in the field of data annotation and AI. This article presents the top five data labelling projects of 2021. 
Scale AI and Oxford University’s Reddit Data Set 
Scale AI, a data annotation platform, has collaborated with Oxford University to build a comprehensive dataset on online debates and discourse. Natural language processing is currently in its nascent stage, and NLP models often struggle with understanding the context of online exchanges. For example, the NLP models fail to process slang, sarcasm, context-specific jokes, and diverse online interactions by default. 
Scale AI and Oxford University created a dataset, ‘Debagreement’, containing comment-reply interactions across five subreddits: Democrats, Republicans, Black Lives Matter, Brexit, and Climate. Each comment-reply interaction is annotated with “agree,” “disagree,” “neutral,” or “unsure” labels by at least three raters, allowing the ML model to detect the stance of Redditors in online discourse. The collaborative project has been viewed as the first step in training socially aware language models. 
Continue reading: https://analyticsindiamag.com/5-data-labelling-projects-that-impacted-the-ai-industry-the-most/

After Parag Agrawal’s recent appointment as Twitter CEO, everyone is talking about the long list of Indian-origin CEOs who have headed large tech organizations and still are. The list is illustrious, no doubt, but there’s something stark that should catch your eye - the gender disparity.
The list of Indian-origin CEOs heading big tech firms in the US includes only three women - Vimeo’s Anjali Sud, Flex’s Revati Advaithi, and Arista Networks’ Jayashree Ullal.
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the tech industry is booming and the first quarter of 2021 saw global venture investments touch $125 billion, a 94 per cent year-on-year increase. And as a report from WEF points out - “If a rising tide lifts all boats, why has the inclusion and participation of women in tech not also shot up?”.
The latest Global Gender Gap Report states that it is going to take 135.6 years to cover the gender gap worldwide. The average distance completed to parity is at 68 per cent and this is a step back by -0.6 percentage points since 2020. “These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries,” the report explained.
As founder and CEO of FinMkt Luan Cox points out, it is important to get more women into tech and more women leaders in tech. “It needs to start with changing the perception of what qualifies ‘a founder’ within our global culture: This begins by teaching and coaching young people that successful entrepreneurs are not classified or limited by gender. If young males are taught early that females can be impactful leaders and entrepreneurs, they will be more supportive and better able to recognize success. Young women should learn that they are equal to men, and can and must dream big: women must know that they can be even better business builders (especially in technology, life sciences and finance),” Cox said.
Continue reading: https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/10-women-ceos-in-tech-who-are-working-to-bridge-the-pay-gap-313949-2021-11-30

What are the security risks to digital assets?
Any holder of digital assets must take steps to safeguard them, and there are a range of options with varying levels of security. Owners of crypto assets must also be as vigilant about scams and hacks that target them personally as they would be with traditional money. Best protection methods depend on how a user stores assets, and with which institutions, as both security and reliability differ widely in this burgeoning field. Over the past 10 years, there have been 126 big breaches, totaling $3.1bn, of crypto “wallets” (see below) and exchanges, according to data compiled by Crypto Head, an industry intelligence site. The average breach has cost about $25m. Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, remains the most targeted digital asset.
Where should I hold my digital assets?
Digital asset holders need their unique “private key”, a long password that serves a similar purpose to a bank-card PIN to unlock access to their crypto. It is vital not to lose or forget this private key. Decentralized digital assets are not guaranteed by banks and will not have a password reset hotline, meaning it is almost impossible to recover digital keys once lost. According to Chainalysis, a blockchain data provider, more than $100bn in bitcoin may have been lost in this way.
Continue reading: https://www.ft.com/content/6cea9227-aaa2-4850-ac7a-b2ca18cccbe3

Thanks to the networks and connectivity with IoT, we are now in the global village, the internet of things being in the center of its all. The internet is poised to connect people, but this new technology is for connectivity and things. This means both animate and inanimate objects can now relay information from set sensors, which cuts across healthcare, agriculture, finance, and other industries. Unfortunately, there are new security implications, such as a hacker potentially accessing your rooms if you have internet-connected locks or a hacker accessing private information from important facilities in the healthcare wing. It is a scare to not only homes but also industries. Despite the goodies that come with the internet of things, it is faced with many threats, and vital information can always land in the wrong hands, and all ends can break loose. The questions are then; how secure are we around the internet of things? And How can we stay safe from any malware or keep off the treats that come with our goodies?
This is where blockchain technology comes in. Like the gates in real life, a blockchain block is connected and contains information. In these blocks are financial value, user data, and messages. Why blockchain? Altering information from the blockchain is difficult, and information shared between the blocks must agree. A block has a harsh and a harsh can be equivalent to a fingerprint. It is a technique that guarantees security at all times. The harsh plays a major role in validating information running across the blocks. When the genesis block's hash disagrees with the next block, it will call for invalidation of the entire block. Blockchain technology uses the harsh and proof of work to secure the internet of things. To secure itself, the blockchain has a peer-to-peer network.
Continue reading: 
https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cryptocurrency/21/11/24335780/blockchain-the-solution-in-the-internet-of-things-iot-security

When the euphoria around a new technology hits a tipping point, such as with blockchain technology, it’s easy to miss the possible merits and disadvantages. It has the potential to play a critical role in cost reduction, particularly for financial companies. As a result, by the close of 2025, the blockchain’s corporate value-add will be worth billions. Furthermore, because blockchain technology offers significant benefits to the corporate sector, it is seen as a game-changer in a variety of industries.
It may be essential in terms of information security, but it isn’t a panacea for all business woes. If you’re going to embrace it, one should know everything there is to learn about blockchain’s benefits and drawbacks. Regardless of how beneficial it is, one must have a precise and successful approach whenever embracing innovations like Quantum Ai.
Let us take a closer glance at how blockchain technology may help with data protection.
Cryptography and Validation are provided: As everything that happens on the blockchain is encoded, there is no doubt that it allows for effective encryption. Similarly, tampering with the content on the network is impossible. To be secure, one may check document identities on all servers throughout all ledger accounts in the system to make sure they haven’t changed. The signature gets false if the technique is used to change the record.
Continue reading: https://defpen.com/blockchain-in-eliminating-security-threats/

When Jeffery Luttrell needed to spray fungicide on his corn this summer, he decided to take to the air himself.
However, he wasn’t piloting a typical crop dusting airplane but a $35,000 drone that he navigated from the ground with his laptop.
Before planting this spring, Jeffery Luttrell said he mapped out the fields with GPS coordinates that set the exact course, which includes avoiding obstacles such as power lines, for the drone.
“I just push a few buttons and it will take off and then come and land wherever it starts off at,” he said. “…I can control it if I have to but I prefer not to.”
Jeffery Luttrell, who farms in Ohio County with his father, Darren Luttrell, said he was looking for a way to spray the edges of his fields that were missed by traditional sprayers.
He said the more precise spraying and the overall cost savings compared to contracting a crop dusting service were what attracted the Luttrells to investing in the drone technology.
“…It’s cheaper for me to go do it than to hire an airplane,” said Jeffery Luttrell, who sprayed about 1,300 acres of corn with the drone this summer. “The airplanes can do more in a day than I can. But I figured us saving about $10 an acre doing it like this.”
Darren Luttrell added that crop dusters are limited when crops are surrounded by wooded areas.
“Airplanes, especially in the fields like we have around here with trees around them, they can only get about 80% of the crop,” Darren Luttrell said. “With this (drone), you can get 90 to 95% of the crop coverage.”
The Luttrells purchased what’s called an AgroDrone manufactured by Hylio — a Richmond, Texas-based agricultural service company.
Continue reading: https://www.messenger-inquirer.com/features/aerial-application-demand-for-drones-increasing-among-farmers/article_c698fb90-d7e0-5f3a-a641-e7a2fcb003d3.html

DJI is providing Lagoon with drones in order to measure plastic waste on beaches around the Caribbean. The drones will collect images for AnimaMundi’s automated processing to measure the scope of plastic waste pollution more efficiently. This data will offer evidence as to whether or not efforts to disrupt the flow of plastic into our oceans are resulting in a decrease in pollution on our coastlines.
With over 300 million tons of plastic produced each year, at least 8 million tons end up in our oceans, making up 80% of all marine debris, from surface waters to deep-sea sediment. However, there is currently no global data documenting the size, location, and evolution of the problem.
AnimaMundi has developed software that will automatically record, count, and register the presence and number of plastic bottles on our shores in real time, captured via an app using still photography and images from drones. The data is automatically uploaded, processed, and stored on the company’s servers and will be provided to those involved in ocean health projects, allowing for results-driven, measurable impact.
Continue reading: https://dronelife.com/2021/11/28/drones-combat-coastline-pollution-dji-teams-up-with-boat-owners/

Gamification is no longer just for kids. As democratization of modern finance enters its second and tertiary phases, the fintech revolution continues to adopt many of the techniques and designs popularized by video games to address the challenges of usability and access.  This phenomenon is accelerating since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the number of younger investors has grown exponentially.
Amid unprecedented unemployment rates, the U.S. stock market has become one of the most reliable sources of wealth with annual returns around 10 percent over the past century, according to Forbes. In fact, fintech gamification has become a nearly $200 billion global industry with about 3 billion consumers across all demographics. It’s burgeoning rapidly; it’s surpassing the entire film industry’s market size.
Making it more intuitive and fun, gamifying investing simplifies the process of selecting investments. It is more than just a dopamine booster; it makes investing more accessible to a new generation of investors who are just getting started.
Gamifying investing is so much more than simply introducing leaderboards and badges. When we think about gamification, we focus on how to borrow from concepts and techniques, which drive game design. You don’t need a tutorial to explore the level of that video game you are playing because you already intuitively know what to do. Imagine if you could apply that same logic and experience when you try to invest using your favorite mobile app? That is true gamification of investing.
Continue reading: https://news.crunchbase.com/news/ai-gamification-wealth-young-investors-stock-market/

The IoT presents a huge opportunity market. Every second, 127 new IoT devices are connected to the web, and experts predict that by 2025, that figure will equate to more than 75 billion connected devices overall. Unfortunately, this volume of connected devices brings inevitable security risks. With the passing of the IoT Cybersecurity Improvement Act toward the tail-end of 2020 and the latest executive order on improving the nation’s cybersecurity in May of this year, there has been an increasing emphasis on creating and systematically updating IoT security standards for government IoT devices, and in turn, private-sector enterprises.
Now more than ever, it is incredibly important that enterprises are employing IoT security that will hold up to new and changing IoT security guidelines. A 0G network can help enterprises ensure that their IoT devices and networks are secure, as well as how to limit the number of vulnerabilities and entry points for cybercriminals.
The Threat Connected devices are everywhere now – and the increased adoption by public and private organizations has introduced a plethora of cybersecurity concerns and hacking opportunities.
We see frequent headlines about network hacks and data breaches these days – and many organizations focus on how they can precent becoming one of those unlucky companies. IoT devices can be compromised in a network hack via the network to which they are connected. Once a hacker has access to the network, they can gain control of the IoT device and control its operations. Other security threats include DDoS attacks in which an IoT network becomes overwhelmed by too many messages and shuts down, and most commonly, RF (radio frequency) jamming, in which a wireless IoT device, like an alarm system, is jammed, blocked or interfered with, limiting its ability to communicate with the network.
While these vulnerabilities are not going away, and data via the internet or cellular need to be transmitted, they are not the end of the world. To limit hacker access, organizations can begin by looking at collected data, and how often it should be collected. For highly regulated industries with truly sensitive data, security is of the upmost importance.
Continue reading: https://securitytoday.com/articles/2021/11/29/taking-the-fear-out-of-iot-security-concerns.aspx

The industrial Internet of Things, protecting systems during the holiday season, and using encryption to help address cloud misconfiguration, are amongst the most recent insights from global technology firm Thales.
Industrial IoT
The industrial Internet of Things is coming and many believe it will be the catalyst for unprecedented productivity levels. 
However, according to Thales Group, it cannot happen without fast and reliable connectivity extending to even the remotest locations. 
"5G provides it. And it is already here," the company says. 
5G networks are now rolling out across the world. According to the GSA, there were 180 commercial services in 72 countries in September 2021. Meanwhile, 465 operators in 139 markets are planning live deployments.
"So, the conditions are in place for the Industrial IoT to flourish," Thales says. "Indeed, the first pioneering services have been built."
How to protect your systems from unauthorised access this holiday Season
Many retailers and shipping services are planning to hire temporary workers for the upcoming holiday season. Retailers, shipping and logistics companies, and other organisations can take multiple steps to mitigate the risks posed by seasonal workers by ensuring they have the right access security in place. 
How encryption can help address Cloud misconfiguration
Cloud service providers (CSPs) try to make it simple and easy for their users to comply with data privacy regulations and mandates. Still, as all of those who work in technology know, you reduce access to granular controls when you simplify a process. On the flip side, if you allow access to granular controls, the person setting the controls needs to be an expert to set them correctly. And, even experts make mistakes. 
New partnership between Thales and VNPT to accelerate digital transformation in Vietnam
Thales and the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore technical collaborations in telecommunications satellites, Smart and Safe cities, Digital Identity and Biometrics, 5G & Internet of Things and cybersecurity. 
Continue reading: https://itbrief.co.nz/story/how-the-5g-industrial-iot-will-change-different-verticals

The Internet of Things (IoT) is shaping how we interact with the world every day. This connected future is powered by sensors and actuators connected via the cloud to applications that serve us in ways that we never could have imagined just a few years ago. Standards such as IEEE 802.15.4 and ultra-wideband (UWB) enable devices to communicate with each other without the need for line of sight, which means IoT can finally become a reality in places other than our homes and offices.
Why Has Ultra-Wideband Been a Buzzword Lately?
Ultra-wideband was first seen in mobile technology with the premiere of Apple’s iPhone 11 launched back in September 2019. Since then, the state of the art sensing technology has gained traction and presence in the tech world, especially in the past year or so. In response to the rave reviews Apple’s latest model was getting, Android and Google phones quickly followed suit, and proceeded to incorporate the same UWB technology you can now find in the Samsung Galaxy Note20 Ultra and in the upcoming Google Pixel 6 phone.
You might be asking yourself what makes this latest development so remarkable that it is in such high demand now, especially if UWB is not the first communication protocol to offer spatial awareness. It seems that tech geeks and the general audience are particularly interested in UWB because of how it enhances preceding technologies, such as wifi and Bluetooth, with an additional layer of accuracy. UWB has a high advantage in this field, as it can provide accuracy levels of 5-10 cm between two devices, while Bluetooth and wifi can only reach up to 5m. 
How Ultra-Wideband Will Transform The IoT Industry
We cannot talk about UWB without acknowledging IoT. The concept of interconnected devices known as the Internet of Things continues to show promising advances, and now, with the reemergence of UWB technology, IoT devices requiring location and movement data will boast a stronger performance than ever before. 
Thanks to UWB’s interoperability, this communication protocol can be harnessed to build upon smart technologies such as BlueTooth, wifi, and yes, the Internet of Things. UWB can play a significant role in revamping IoT devices already available while introducing even more sophisticated networks of interconnected devices to the public in the future. 
UWB is quickly serving the needs of the numerous IoT applications in the market requiring precision location tracking and spatial awareness. According to Adarsh Krishnan, principal analyst at ABI Research, the incorporation of UWB in IoT applications improves accuracy even up to the millimeter level. ABI Research expects UWB to be present in over one-third of smartphones shipping out by 2025.  UWB’s inherently strong security will significantly boost IoT protections as well, offering more protections for transactions that involve sensitive or private information. 
Continue reading: https://www.iotforall.com/how-iot-and-ultra-wideband-go-hand-in-hand

Thanks to the networks and connectivity with IoT, we are now in the global village, the internet of things being in the center of its all. The internet is poised to connect people, but this new technology is for connectivity and things. This means both animate and inanimate objects can now relay information from set sensors, which cuts across healthcare, agriculture, finance, and other industries. Unfortunately, there are new security implications, such as a hacker potentially accessing your rooms if you have internet-connected locks or a hacker accessing private information from important facilities in the healthcare wing. It is a scare to not only homes but also industries. Despite the goodies that come with the internet of things, it is faced with many threats, and vital information can always land in the wrong hands, and all ends can break loose. The questions are then; how secure are we around the internet of things? And How can we stay safe from any malware or keep off the treats that come with our goodies?
This is where blockchain technology comes in. Like the gates in real life, a blockchain block is connected and contains information. In these blocks are financial value, user data, and messages. Why blockchain? Altering information from the blockchain is difficult, and information shared between the blocks must agree. A block has a harsh and a harsh can be equivalent to a fingerprint. It is a technique that guarantees security at all times. The harsh plays a major role in validating information running across the blocks. When the genesis block's hash disagrees with the next block, it will call for invalidation of the entire block. Blockchain technology uses the harsh and proof of work to secure the internet of things. To secure itself, the blockchain has a peer-to-peer network.
Trust is always earned, and before it is, two parties can always have a talk, and when they would love to transact, blockchain and the internet of things can easily be the intermediary to solve the puzzle. Take a case where things in a container are to be traded, tracking devices, and the conditions of these things have to have all its records correct. Blockchain technology can, in its best way, ensure that all is well.
Convenience and the security of our purchases are what we all need. We all go for these products when applications are installed in the things we purchase to guarantee security and convenience. These issues can be more pronounced as more technology is employed in the applications in the pings we purchase.
Continue reading: https://www.benzinga.com/markets/cryptocurrency/21/11/24335780/blockchain-the-solution-in-the-internet-of-things-iot-security

The growing Internet of Things (IoT) is connecting devices to a variety of sensors, applications, and other IoT elements to automate business processes and support human efficiencies in business and the home. 
IoT continues to change as engineers and companies discover new use cases and develop the infrastructure necessary to support more IoT networks. 
Read on to learn about some of the top Internet of Things trends of today and how they’ll impact the course of development in this field:
5 IoT Trends To Watch

1. IoT cybersecurity concerns grow
2. IoT advancements in health care
3. 5G enables more IoT opportunities
4. Demand for specialized IoT data management
5. Bundled IoT for the enterprise buyer
   [/LIST=1]
   Also read: Internet of Things (IoT) Market Size & Forecast
   1. IoT Cybersecurity Concerns Grow
   Internet-connected devices are growing exponentially, along with the number of users and use cases for those devices. But as these new IoT solutions develop at such a quick rate, who is taking responsibility for protecting users and their devices from cyber threats?
   Gabriel Aguiar Noury, robotics product manager at Canonical, publisher of the Ubuntu operating system, believes that as more people gain access to IoT devices and the attack surface grows, IoT companies themselves will need to take responsibility for cybersecurity efforts upfront.
   “The IoT market is in a defining stage,” Noury said. “People have adopted more and more IoT devices and connected them to the internet. However, they’ve also downloaded apps onto their phones to control these devices, without even reading the terms and conditions. They’ve also been providing passwords and more sensitive data without understanding where they will be stored and how they will be protected. And even more importantly, they’re using devices without checking if they are getting security updates. 
   “The Morris worm was the first computer worm that gained significant mainstream media attention after it infested millions of computers and paralyzed the internet for several days. It was because of this scandal that the U.S. took cybersecurity risks seriously. And now, just like in 1988, people are not thinking enough about security risks, so it is up to the IoT companies themselves to take control of the situation. 
   “In 2022, we predict that more and more governments will start demanding that IoT manufacturers declare how long IoT devices will keep receiving security maintenance to their customers up-front. The U.K. is one of the first countries that started working on such regulations, conscious of the interconnected risk that IoT devices bring.” 
   Ben Goodman, SVP of global business and corporate development at ForgeRock, an access management and identity cloud provider, thinks it’s important that we start thinking of Internet of Things devices as citizens and hold them accountable for the same security and authorization requirements as humans.
   “The evolution of IoT security is an increasingly important area to watch,” Goodman said. “Security can no longer be an afterthought prioritized somewhere after connectivity and analytics in the Internet of Things. Organizations need to start treating the ‘things’ in the Internet of Things as first-class citizens. 
   Continue reading: https://www.datamation.com/trends/internet-of-things-trends/

A reliable early warning system to detect tsunamis could be a step closer thanks to research from Cardiff University.
Researchers say their analysis of ocean soundwaves triggered by underwater earthquakes has enabled them to develop artificial intelligence (AI) that allow prediction of when a tsunami might occur. The results are published today in the journal Scientific Reports.
It is hoped this technology could assist experts in gaining accurate real-time assessments of these geological events.
Dr. Usama Kadri, from Cardiff University's School of Mathematics, said: "Tsunamis have a devastating impact on communities. Developing accurate methods to detect them quickly is key to saving lives.
Continue reading: https://phys.org/news/2021-11-artificial-intelligence-accurately-tsunamis.html

Artificial intelligence has probably already made decisions about your life.
It might have decided whether your insurance claim was accepted or rejected as fraudulent.
It may have assessed your credit score, predicting if you were worthy of a loan or deemed too high risk.
It could even have watched you drive, detecting if you are flouting the road rules and should be fined.
And if AI hasn't already made a decision that affects your life, it almost certainly will, whether that be shaping what you see on social media or keeping tabs on you while you work from home with tracking software or some other application.
So what do you need to know about automated decision-making and why should you care about it?
What exactly is AI again?
AI is a type of computer program that uses complex code and powerful processors to sift through massive amounts of data.
The software analyses all that information to make decisions and take actions.
There is not just one AI, but countless different systems being created for different purposes and applications.
Most people often only pay attention to exciting new uses of AI, like the "neural network" that creates bizarre artworks prompted by key words.
Or to scary warnings of an "AI apocalypse" where scenarios from movies like The Terminator or War Games seem to be becoming a reality.
But there are many everyday instances of AI that also deserve our attention.
Continue reading: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-30/why-you-should-care-about-artificial-intelligence/100591684

Nestled amidst cypress trees and a blanket of thick coastal fog lies an inconspicuous workshop where Parallel Flight drones are being tinkered with and tested. The "Firefly" — weighing 120 pounds — looks only faintly like its hobbyist cousins and more resembles a small aircraft. It stands roughly 3 feet tall and has a more than 5-foot wingspan. And here, form is function. The startup's drones are specialized to transport heavy loads: firefighting supplies, industrial packages and even human organs for transplants. "Drones are going to get bigger and we're leading the way," said Parallel Flight Technologies CEO Joshua Resnick. "We're building something that's an autonomous workhorse, that can actually carry big stuff around."
Helicopters and aircraft have long been used to fight wildfires and ferry crews to remote locations. But those resources are expensive, often in high demand during peak fire season, and can be limited by bad visibility. Parallel Flight aims to fill that gap. "What we don't have are essentially pickup trucks of the sky," Resnick said. "We don't have workhorses that can bring supplies to firefighters on the front lines or drop off payloads to do controlled burns, and we don't have drones that can put small fires out. Parallel Flight drones are equipped to fly from two to seven hours continuously. Most other industrial drones on the market take to the sky for 15 minutes to an hour.
Continue reading: https://www.governing.com/next/california-companys-heavy-duty-drones-to-help-fight-wildfires

Drones have only seen limited use in New York City for construction documentation and facade inspections due to restrictive local ordinances. But that may be changing with the release of a new report from the New York City Dept. of Buildings, which sees future potential for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), or drones, to be used in building facade inspections.
"Our report is the product of intensive research by DOB experts and finds that when combined with traditional hands-on examinations, the effective use of drones could potentially result in more comprehensive building inspections, resulting in reduced inefficiencies and a safer New York City,” said NYC Buildings Commissioner Melanie E. La Rocca in a press statement about the report's release.
Under current New York City regulations it is not legal to fly drones freely over the city. Drones can only land or take off from designated areas near airports, heliports and certain public parks, and visual line-of-sight is required for an operator to pilot a drone. These and other restrictions have meant that drones are only legally used in the city under specific circumstances or with prior approval.
In 2020, the city passed Local Law 102, which required the NYC DOB to study the use of drones to conduct facade inspections in conjunction with hands-on inspections.
Hurdles to Adoption
The resulting report, "Using Drones to Conduct Facade Inspections," outlines the current state of drone inspection technologies and the many hurdles to adopting them for facade inspections within New York City. Growing usage of drones in other industries in recent years has spurred the city to consider the issue, but the report found the available technology still falls short of meeting all the requirements for performing building facade inspections.
Specifically, the report highlights the limits of drone photography as a potential replacement for human vision. “The most common output format from drones is two-dimensional images, specifically photographs. High resolution images can still mask the extent of defects by flattening the viewpoint, and even videos may miss critical angles that an inspector may need to determine whether there is a significant defect and its extent or underlying cause,” the report states. In further examination of the topic, the report found that inspectors working off of drone imagery could potentially miss defects that were visible to inspectors working at street level or at height. Usage of LiDAR, laser-scanning or thermal-imaging devices mounted on drones is referenced in the report, but was not fully evaluated.
While the report doesn’t see drones replacing human building facade inspectors any time soon, it does see potential for the technology as a way to identify problem areas ahead of in-person inspections. One possible side benefit of using drones for a sort of “first-pass” facade inspection is reducing the amount of sidewalk sheds and scaffolding needed before in-person inspections. “For example, instead of providing a sidewalk shed at two faces of a building, the drone inspection, after being evaluated by the [facade inspector], may demonstrate that a shed is only needed at a portion of one face of the building,” the report states. While this is only a hypothetical situation, it does offer one way that drones could speed up inspections in the city, where erection and maintenance of sidewalk sheds and scaffolding have been a point of contention for years among safety advocates and building owners.
But despite the potential for drones to aid in facade inspections, the report concludes that there is simply not enough available data on drones being used for facade inspections to offer a judgement either way just yet. While there is some precedent established for drone use in construction, the report notes that “in construction, drones are most commonly used to gather data from large sites to assess progress and not necessarily to identify finer details.”
Continue reading: https://www.enr.com/articles/53115-new-york-city-dept-of-buildings-explores-drones-for-facade-inspections

There is growing concern about the threat of drones flying in the path of aircraft. 8 On Your Side found the agency in charge of catching violators had seven local enforcement cases in the past year, so how do we decrease the risk in our skies? We talked with aviation experts to find answers.
Right now, there are 868,000 drones registered in the U.S. Countless drones are not registered. Just one agency is in charge of making sure every single operator follows the rules.
It’s one of the very few increasing risks in aviation: the threat of drones striking aircraft. For years, pilots have described close calls and near misses.
In the Tampa Bay area in the past 12 months, there’s been more than 40 sightings reported to the FAA and many more reported to other agencies during live events, including nearly 30 during Super Bowl week earlier this year.
The agency solely in charge of regulating airspace has had seven local enforcement cases against drone violators.
Aviation expert Captain John Cox says keeping our skies safe will take more than pure enforcement.
“There’s always a challenge for resources, FAA has to prioritize and they are pursuing enforcement against the egregious cases,” Captain Cox said.
So how do we keep more drones out of unauthorized airspace? Captain Cox says one option is to focus on the drone’s technology.
“One of the solutions that we’re seeing with the larger drones is geofencing and that is where the drone using GPS knows where its position is and it knows where it’s not allowed to fly,” said Captain Cox. “It’s been increasingly used and increasingly effective.”
Another potential solution would focus on the operator.
Right now, to fly a drone as a commercial pilot in Florida, you need to be certified. Recreational users do not need a license
“I think that may end up being necessary to increase the requirements for drone licensing because most of these intrusions have been people flying drones where they shouldn’t,” said Captain Cox.
Captain Cox says larger, heavier drones are required to transmit their position. However, only certain aircraft can receive that transmission and warning.
Continue reading: https://www.wfla.com/8-on-your-side/aviation-expert-weighs-in-on-how-to-decrease-drone-dangers-to-aircraft/

Sugar cane responds well to a ripening spray at about eight weeks before harvest. But Tim Wise, who grew up on a sugar cane farm in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), remembers how his family struggled with uneven and inaccurate delivery of this spray by crop-spraying aircraft.
Sugar cane in South Africa is usually cultivated on hilly terrain with steep gradients, and the average field size is small, at around 6ha. These factors, combined with coastal winds and obstacles such as electricity pylons, natural bush lines and cell phone towers, make low-level flying difficult and dangerous.
To make matters worse, the ripening spray is often essentially a low-concentrate herbicide, so it is crucial to prevent spray from drifting onto other crops or neighbouring cane fields at a different growth phase.
Together, all these factors frequently result in inaccurate application by aeroplane, and hence failure to achieve full and even coverage over the crops requiring ripening.
The problem led a group of KZN farmers to fund a world tour in 2016 to investigate drone technology as an alternative to aircraft for crop spraying.
“In China, we met with DJI, the largest manufacturer of consumer drones in the world,” recalls Wise.
“Initially, we were disappointed by the lack of functionality and efficiency of their first-version drones, as these had been developed largely to service the local subsistence rice industry. They were designed to work on small, flat, symmetrical fields.”
Designing an appropriate drone DJI then asked the farmers to provide the functionality required to unlock the sugar cane-spraying market in South Africa. A trained IT business analyst, Wise set to work upon his return.
“I drafted and sent a specification document for a drone that would be capable of spraying effectively in our challenging KZN conditions. I didn’t expect to have an influence on the research and development (R&D) of a major company like DJI, so at that stage my company, Precision Agricultural Systems (PACSys), was still planning on developing and building our own spray drones to our specifications.
“I was stunned, therefore, when DJI invited us back to China only six months later and presented us with their newly designed spray drone, incorporating most of the functionality we’d proposed.”
This, he says, was when he realised it made sense to negotiate the DJI Agriculture distribution agency for Southern Africa.
Continue reading: https://www.farmersweekly.co.za/agri-technology/machinery-equipment/new-generation-crop-spraying-drones/

A new crop management drone can tackle labour shortages in farming, its manufacturers claim.
ZenaDrone — planned for launch in Ireland early next year — uses advanced camera and computer vision to monitor and treat crop plantations.
Described as an “octocopter drone” by Canadian firm ZenaTech, it has eight propellers.
The two-metre-wide device has a maximum flight time of one hour. A full charge takes an hour.
The drone can monitor plant health and potential problems using a multi-spectral sensor; it is hoped that this will enable farmers to reduce the use of pesticides.
The drone is also capable of spraying and removing diseased crops from the field.
At top speed, it can manage 100ac per hour, with potential to cover 1,000ac in a day, weather permitting.
The technology is patent pending in the US.
Farmers interested in the technology to their farm will have to buy €35,000-worth of hardware and software, which includes the drone, charging pad, base station, initial set-up and training — in line with guidelines set out by the Irish Aviation Authority.
Ongoing support from ZenaDrone will cost an additional €6,000 per year.
Founded in 2018, ZenaTech’s initial products were aimed at marijuana and hemp-related businesses.
Founder Dr Shaun Passley aims to create up to 30 new jobs in Ireland next year.
Continue reading: https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/machinery/the-35000-drone-that-can-monitor-spray-and-weed-1000ac-a-day-41101358.html

As Bronwyn Morgan prepared for her first takeoff, she recalls being frightened to death of losing her aircraft — even as she was watching from below, safely on the ground.
“I did not want this thing to get away from me. You lose a drone, and you just pray it comes back to you,” Morgan said. “But I found it very liberating. It was my chance to fly, but I didn’t have to be in the sky to do it.”
While Morgan considers herself first and foremost an innovator, she’s also a geospatial entrepreneur. She founded XEO Air in 2017, a company that collects data for other businesses using drones. She keeps it simple in her definition of geospatial technology: “It’s all just about the place and space that something exists.”
“This is new. The whole idea of aerial data use for industries that really hadn’t even thought about it. Mixing this geospatial data in with business intelligence and now artificial intelligence becomes a game changer. I think that geospatial is the future,” Morgan said.
As for XEO Air’s future, Morgan aims to take on a very strong presence in the market as a leader in geospatial data in the next few years. She is situated well to achieve that goal, as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency builds its new west headquarters just north of downtown St. Louis and expects to be fully operational by 2025.
In the years since XEO Air’s founding, Morgan has in fact continued to build up her company’s presence and impact on the St. Louis geospatial community. This summer she launched the Airversity Drone Academy Center of Excellence, a 40-acre space for professional drone pilots to complete flight training, prepare for their FAA exam, take geospatial science classes and more.
Morgan plans on opening other locations throughout the country beginning in 2022.
She also was awarded a $20,000 grant from T-Rex’s GeoSeed Grant Program, which targets research partnerships between local universities and companies. With the money, Morgan will create a mixed-reality interface that helps streamline the process of bridge inspections through collaborating with University of Missouri Science and Technology.
Continue reading: https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/inno/stories/partner-content/2021/11/29/st-louis-entrepreneur-bronwyn-morgan-brings-drone.html

As noted in the first two parts of this series, few things are hotter in today's tech world than edge computing. Companies of all types are seeking to bring powerful Internet functionality as close as possible to users at the edge of their service delivery networks. That's not surprising, because edge computing offers huge potential to transform the entire underlying structure of the Internet – from massive, centralized data centers to a highly distributed storage and computing ecosystem.
Edge computing seeks to achieve this by placing the huge processing power of computers and the Internet right where the decisions need to be made in real time or near-real time. The technology aims to bring intelligence all the way to the devices at the network edge almost instantly, rather than spend precious milliseconds on round trips to the cloud or a data center.
As a result, the cable and broadband industry is exploring edge compute's potential as it looks to develop and deliver such next-gen, low-latency connectivity services as augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR), cloud gaming, holographic video, light-field displays, smart homes, 5G mobile, autonomous vehicles and others.
To learn more, Heavy Reading recently teamed up with four leading tech vendors to conduct a comprehensive study of cable operators' edge computing views, plans and strategies. In this series of sponsored blog posts, we present the results of that study, discuss the implications and share conclusions about cable's edge computing efforts.
Driving factors to implement edge cloud solutions
Among other things, the Heavy Reading study delved into the edge cloud strategies of cable operators and other wireline service providers. This section started off by examining the driving factors for operators to implement edge cloud solutions for broadband service delivery.
Factors such as flexibility and resiliency emerged as the biggest driving factors. But other factors, such as latency improvements, scalability and opex reduction, also proved to be critical.
Specifically, nearly two-thirds (64%) of survey participants checked off flexibility as a driving factor, making that the top choice. Resiliency came in a strong second, logging 51%. Close behind were latency improvements, scalability and opex reduction, all of which clocked in between 46% and 49%. Security lagged well behind at 17%, as can be seen in the chart below.
Continue reading: https://www.lightreading.com/the-edge/what-cable-wants-from-edge/a/d-id/773759