AI’s strength is that it can think faster than a human can. As cyberthreats become more sophisticated, cybersecurity teams need all hands on deck to protect national security. That means recruiting AI as a teammate.
Melissa Chua, Head Capability Development (Cyber AI), Cybersecurity Program Centre, Defense Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) discusses how AI is boosting cybersecurity protections in the military. She also shares how tinkering with your mobile phone can ignite a passion in cybersecurity.
Tell us more about your role. How do you protect the digital realm and improve citizens’ lives?
I am currently Head Capability Development (Cyber AI) at DSTA’s Cybersecurity Program Centre, where I leverage cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) to develop robust cyber capabilities for the Singapore’s Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) and the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). In my day to day work, I lead a team to develop cyber solutions to monitor and detect potential threats in the cyberspace. We also develop in-house algorithms and analytics for custom solutions to suit the SAF’s unique requirements.
Continue reading: https://govinsider.asia/innovation/women-in-cyber-melissa-chua-dsta/

For enterprise IT, 2020 was a year defined by coming through in the clutch.
Most organizations successfully stood up with new ways for employees to work remotely or interact with customers far faster than previously thought possible.
But as we transition from focusing on maintaining business continuity toward driving growth, we should not lose sight of the forest for the trees.
The leaps forward companies made in response to the COVID crisis set them up to benefit from virtuous cycles that complement and reinforce each other to turbocharge growth.
This results in growing the scope and scale of digital interactions with customers that increases an organization’s ability to pervasively deploy “weak AI” to improve the top and bottom line. As more organizations do this, the cycle of innovation for relevant open-source tools and technologies accelerates. Most certainly, companies that will win the decade will make the most of this. Some are well on their way.
Continue reading: https://venturebeat.com/2021/10/11/harness-your-data-to-make-weak-ai-your-strength/

Government organizations around the world are continuing to invest in artificial intelligence technologies, in an effort to digitally transform their operations, but a majority of employees are skeptical about its impact, a study by Gartner has shown.
More than a third of chief information officers polled by Gartner plan to boost investments in AI and machine learning technologies in 2021, with chatbots the most widely deployed service.
However, these technologies are being viewed with a certain level of uncertainty, particularly their ability to be as effective as humans in completing tasks and the threat they pose to their roles, the Connecticut-based research company said in its report.
“Automation, insight and intelligence are all interconnected priorities for government leaders. But the operational and services delivery workforce are absolutely critical to the success of any attempts to automate or augment their ways of working," Dean Lacheca, senior research director at Gartner, said on Monday.
Continue reading:
https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/technology/2021/10/11/government-entities-boost-ai-investments-but-workers-remain-sceptical-about-the-impact/

Even if you're not familiar with artificial intelligence (AI), you probably know that it's a hot topic. You might have even seen some of your favorite brands testing out new ways to use AI in their products and services. 
In fact, there is so much interest in AI right now that most major companies have dedicated entire teams to explore how they can incorporate the technology into their business models. At its core, AI aims to make decisions based on data. 
Research from CB Insights shows that AI acquisitions saw a more than six times uptick from 2013 to 2018, and further analysis shows that AI startup funding has surged in Q1 of this year, surpassing $20 billion. The boom is clear -- AI is officially mainstream. So what does that mean for your business? 
Continue reading: https://www.inc.com/young-entrepreneur-council/why-no-code-artificial-intelligence-can-help-you-your-business-thrive.html

The shipping industry has started retrofitting vessels, exploring new fuel types and rethinking vessel design to help achieve ambitious environmental goals. Could artificial intelligence be the latest weapon in the fight against climate change?
The Covid-19 pandemic sent shipping sailing into uncertain waters from container shortages, port restrictions and problems surrounding crew changes. Now the industry is facing a new challenge: decarbonization.
The industry produces 940 million tons of CO2 annually and generates around 2.5% of global greenhouses gasses (sourced from Europa.eu). Shipping authorities including the International Maritime Organization and governments have set out decarbonization goals and strategies.
Predictive maritime intelligence company Windward is using artificial intelligence to offer the industry collaborative fuel and emissions monitoring to help drive data-driven business models to benefit carbon management.
We speak to Ami Daniel, co-founder, and CEO of Windward, to find out more about the AI technology assisting the industry on its decarbonization journey.
Continue reading: https://www.ship-technology.com/features/bringing-ai-onboard-to-support-shippings-decarbonisation-journey/

In a time of rapid innovation, customers are always wondering what the next big thing is. They're weighing how seriously they should take hype around new technologies. Personally, I have been wondering whether my next car should be an electric model. When U.S. automaker Ford announced over $10 billion investment in electric vehicle production, I’m listening — it tells me the technology is understood, stable and ready for mainstream production.
Blockchain has captured the imagination of enterprise strategists as a revolution in business operations — a new way to assure the secure and transparent movement of transactions and records. Will blockchain replace content management systems? Should it be in our technology roadmap?
When we deepen our understanding of what it can realistically do and what it will take to incorporate it into our business content landscape, then we can make informed decisions about this opportunity.
A Quick Explanation of Blockchain
Blockchain isn't well understood. It started out as the technology that supports the cryptocurrency, bitcoin. Unlike a bank that centralizes control of funds and transactions, blockchain is a distributed system of private computers across the world ("nodes"), where every step in the transaction journey gets a tag that is traceable and encrypted. Each node has a copy of the "ledger" file, a digital history of each transaction. It’s the same old ledger you find in any accountant’s office except it’s a bunch of them in the blockchain database. No one person or system controls them and — in theory — they’re tamper-proof.
The block is like a page in the ledger, building on the block before it, so forming a chain. Each block contains data describing transactions. You decide what data goes in when you make the blockchain. It can gather a number of records together into the block and then you can add a new block, containing another collection of "receipts." As changes are made, new blocks are added. Each block contains:

• Data: Record of what happened in the transaction
• Hash: A unique number signature that identifies the block and its content
• Hash of the previous block: Information about the previous block in the chain allowing you to backtrack in the chain to see what changed.

If you were to interfere with a block, then the hash would change, making all the following blocks invalid. To be added to the chain, the block has to be able to answer a complex mathematical problem.
Continue reading: https://www.cmswire.com/information-management/blockchains-promise-for-enterprise-content-management/

Ever since its creation in 2009, blockchain technology has proven to be a powerful and disruptive technology with applications that go beyond the realm of cryptocurrencies. The list of applications for blockchain technology keeps growing, and more and more organizations are choosing blockchain technology for their software applications.
What is blockchain technology?
A blockchain is a distributed record on a shared open database that is maintained by a network of computers, which are called nodes, and is secured through consensus protocols of encryption and cryptography.
What makes up a blockchain?
A blockchain is made up of a series of blocks in chronological order according to when each block was created. Blocks contain:

1. Data, also called a “payload”
2. A time stamp marking the creation of the block
3. An identifying hash value
4. The previous block’s hash value
   [/LIST=1]
   The payload can be any data, such as:
   • A list of transactions, as in the case of distributed ledgers
   • Code, as in the case of smart contracts
   • Inventory and stock lists
   • Music files
   • Text or documents
   • Images
   • Sensitive information such as health data or personal identification
   • Or nearly anything else.
   A hash value is a string of numbers with a predetermined length that acts as an identifier, or fingerprint, for the data in the block. The block’s hash value of each block is created when all the data in the block is inputted into a cryptographic hash function (CHF). If the data is altered by even one character, a different hash is produced.
   In the same way, if any of the data in the block is changed, even slightly, the hash value changes, and because each block must contain the previous hash value, all of the following blocks change as well.
   Continue reading: https://www.business2community.com/business-innovation/11-ways-a-software-development-company-can-use-blockchain-technology-02435157

Speakers and panelists provided insights into the value and ethics of blockchain systems and noted that anything can be represented as a token of the technology. The discussions took place Friday (Oct. 8) as part of a virtual event hosted by the University of Arkansas Blockchain Center of Excellence.
The 2021 Blockchain For Business Conference had more than 400 registrants and comprised five panel discussions and multiple breakout sessions regarding aspects of blockchain technology. According to Statista, blockchain is an electronic list of connected records and verified records and is known for its association with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
Mary Lacity, director of the Blockchain Center of Excellence and an information systems professor in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, explained that the future is not predestined, and she tells others she doesn’t know when asked about her outlook on technology. Lacity spoke about tech ethics in a panel with Cindy Moehring, who’s leading the business integrity leadership initiative at the Walton College.
“I believe we can come together as a community, and we can save the planet,” Lacity said. “What I’m really most excited about is we can have a world where power and control is decentralized and includes everybody. If you think about all of the technical capabilities that a blockchain enables, decentralization is the technical feature that inspires me and gives me the most hope.
“We can build a better world with technology if we build that world based on ethical principles,” she added. “Technology is not neutral. We can either use these technologies for malevolent or benevolent purposes. It all depends on whether that design is based on ethical principles.”
She pointed to the issues that social media has had on the confidence of young women or the use of fake news that’s undermining politics, health and wellbeing. She said those apps were made with an ethical void. But people can develop apps to make the world better, she noted.
“I believe we should build the world with user control,” Lacity said. “That means possession and control over their data… You actually possess it and control who sees your data.”
She explained that EY recently worked with Italian news organization Ansa to develop a blockchain solution used to verify that its content was not fake after stories on home remedies for COVID-19 were being posted as if Ansa had released them.
In March, Lacity said she started a project about digital health passes for those who have received the COVID vaccine. The Blockchain Center of Excellence is part of global consortium Good Health Pass Collaborative that developed ethical principles related to the use of vaccination credentials for international travel.
Continue reading: https://talkbusiness.net/2021/10/technology-can-build-a-better-world-ua-blockchain-leader-says/

A recent survey by Feedzai, the world’s leading cloud-based financial crime management platform, has released its most recent Quarterly Financial Crime Report. The report analyses financial crime and consumer spending trends from more than 1.5 billion global transactions from April to July this year.
According to the data, eighteen months after the pandemic first hit, there has been a 146% increase in P2P payments, a 44% decrease in cash transactions, and a 109% increase in online transactions, to nearly double the number of card-present or in-person transactions. As a result, financial criminals have also shifted their targets online. The number of online card fraud attempts increased by 23% in this time period.
It's more imperative than ever that secure solutions can be found. Blockchain technology seems to offer the much-lauded light at the end of the tunnel. But even so, it's not unbreakable. We spoke to Vadim Kulik, CTO of VTB Bank and Russia’s second-largest retail bank, to find out more.
Blockchain is becoming the go-to solution for digital payments. How will this affect centralised, mainstream providers?
Blockchain has several undeniable advantages. Tokens on the distributed platform, for example, are an excellent technology for storing and instantly transferring digital value. Without exception, all centralised, mainstream providers are studying or already using blockchain platforms in their innovative solutions. On the other hand, the distributed registries technology allows you to take a close look at current business processes, increasing their efficiency, speed, and the security of transactions. We cannot ignore the opportunities that this modern technology opens up, if we do we’ll simply be left behind by emerging players. 
How safe is blockchain, and what are its vulnerabilities? 
Here, it’s better to compare classical information systems and decentralised systems based on a distributed registry platform. The security of blockchain solutions is embedded in its architecture. For example, to hack the classic centralised information system of an organisation, it’s enough to gain access to the server. For a decentralised system, access must be obtained across 30% - 50% of the nodes of the system, at least, depending on which consensus the blockchain uses.
An attacker who has gained access to the node, or the owner of the node themselves, can adjust the information in their favour – for example, canceling the transaction, but thanks to the consensus mechanism, these changes will be ignored and will not get into the blockchain. The more decentralised the system, the safer it is. 
The second factor of blockchain security is that all transactions are only made using the digital signature of an account holder. In this case, the owner’s signature is verified directly within the blockchain. On the other hand, insecure storage or use of a private key may be a vulnerability, not for the entire system, but for the individual. If your private key is compromised, the account owner may lose their digital assets. In most known cases, vulnerability is the smart contract code and cause of asset losses. One of the most famous attacks in Ethereum in 2016 used a vulnerability in the DAO smart contract; several million dollars was withdrawn from the smart contract that managed the assets. 
Continue reading: https://fintechmagazine.com/fraud-and-cybersecurity/defi-defense-and-better-blockchain-security

Talking about gender inequality is difficult enough as it is. Add the pandemic into the mix, and the voices of some of the most marginalized women in the world are stifled more than ever, getting lost in the sea of the latest health scares and COVID-19 updates. In the quiet background and at the most chaotic front lines, women are facing old challenges in a new light. 
The health crisis has already presented issues for women in the workplace, at home, and in academia. Every part of the world is experiencing these issues to varying degrees. 
In underdeveloped countries, existing healthcare limitations are exacerbated by the pandemic. In the most well-developed and advanced parts of the world, everything from spousal abuse to corporate inequality seems to be getting worse. Some brands and organizations are doing their part in empowering women, but we have yet to see significant, meaningful changes taking effect.  
Childcare and household chores
Work-life balance, anyone? If the notion seems impossible in regular circumstances, try imagining what that looks like for a modern-day woman with a family and her own home. Now that remote and home-based work are the norm, women, and especially single moms and mompreneurs are facing immense challenges due to the pandemic. 
Most of them cannot rely on elderly parents to take over childcare, since that exposes them to a greater risk of catching the virus. They are on their own, taking care of their children and their professional duties, without the ability to balance their lives, not to mention the lack of proper financial support. 
Continue reading: https://womenlovetech.com/why-the-covid-19-pandemic-is-a-major-challenge-for-gender-equality/

While public agencies continue to deploy chatbots and other artificial intelligence tools, confusion about the technology abounds, according to new survey findings from Gartner, and the pandemic has provided little fuel for its growth. The research agency found that 36 percent of survey respondents plan to increase AI and machine learning (ML) investments this year. Even so, proponents of AI and ML have significant work to do, said Dean Lacheca, Gartner’s public-sector research director, in an email interview with Government Technology.
“What was striking is the fact that leveraging of AI within government had not really advanced during the period of the pandemic. It hasn’t really slowed but it has not accelerated either, especially if we exclude chatbots from consideration,” he said. “There is still a lot of talking about the impact it will have and some experimenting and some great point solutions, but adoption is still not widespread. The research points to the use of ML ramping up in the coming couple of years.” That’s not all that faces backers of the technology. Gartner found that while 53 percent of government workers who have used AI tools say the tech “provides insights to do their job better,” only 34 percent of workers unfamiliar with AI said the same.
“I think there is still more work to be done to demystify the technology. There remains a lot of misunderstanding and generalization of the technology,” said Lacheca.
TECH CONFUSION
Part of the problem stems from a lack of specificity, he said. “The more that government technology leaders start to identify specific and narrow use cases and then link them with the specific, readily adoptable technologies like ML, computer vision and natural language processing, rather than the generic AI terminology, the more likely the government leadership will be to understand the potential of the technology,” Lacheca said. The Gartner findings stem in part from a global survey that attracted 166 responses from all levels of government, with 27 percent coming from state and provincial governments, and another 27 percent from local governments, as well as some respondents from counties. The findings also come from a separate Gartner survey of 258 government employees working for public agencies around the world.
Continue reading: https://www.governing.com/next/what-obstacles-does-government-ai-still-have-to-overcome

The Biden administration is exploring a "bill of rights" to govern facial recognition and other potentially harmful uses of artificial intelligence, but the problems AI poses are much bigger than figuring out how to regulate a new technology.
The big picture: There's no good way to regulate AI's role in shaping a fair and equitable society without deciding what that society should look like, including how power should be balanced among individuals, corporations and the government.
Driving the news: The White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy launched a fact-finding mission yesterday that will ultimately result in a "'bill of rights' to guard against the powerful technologies we have created," OSTP director Eric Lander and his deputy Alondra Nelson wrote in an op-ed published by Wired yesterday.
What they're saying: "It’s important to start the conversations about what’s acceptable — and unacceptable — regarding AI and our personal data now, before it is too late," says Sanjay Gupta, global head of product and corporate development at Mitek Systems, a leader in digital identity verification.

• "Companies will find agreeable ways to still innovate with and integrate these technologies," he said.

Continue reading: https://www.axios.com/white-house-ai-bill-of-rights-1b318b62-88e9-4369-9233-c611692bbd27.html

Terms like artificial intelligence and machine learning are often used interchangeably, but they refer to slightly different technologies. Specifically, machine learning is a subtype of artificial intelligence.
In this Backstage Pass video, which aired Sept. 27, 2021, Motley Fool contributors Toby Bordelon, John Bromels, Jose Najarro, and Trevor Jennewine share their thoughts on machine learning and how it differs from artificial intelligence.
Toby Bordelon: A lot of people lump this in with artificial intelligence. You'll hear a lot of discussion about artificial intelligence and machine learning, maybe being one of the same. I think there's a little bit of nuance here. What do you think, guys? Let's go round again. I'll just go in the same order because it will be easy. Let's start with Jose. Jose, what do you think of when you think of machine learning?
Jose Najarro: When I think of machine learning, I think it's more of a subset of artificial intelligence. It's just the ability of that. I guess the word I used previously of learning was the wrong one, it's more like critical thinking within artificial intelligence. The machine learning is more of a subset where it allows that artificial intelligence to learn, either being some way a supervised or unsupervised method.
Toby Bordelon: Cool, thanks. All right, John, what are your thoughts? Machine learning.
John Bromels: Seeing an after all of that, I was leaning more toward that Jose was right on the last one. I think Jose and I are moving toward one another in terms of settling on a definition. But yeah, I feel machine learning is more of that learning processing, self-correcting idea, whereas artificial intelligence, yes, definitely has an iterative, figuring things out step but I feel like machine learning has this critical aspect of being able to either guided by a human or just self navigate through a learning process, I guess is a good way to put it.
Toby Bordelon: Okay. Thank you. What about you, Trevor? Machine-learning, what do you think?
Trevor Jennewine: I think they had it. I think this is where the learning comes into play. I kind of picture it as software that gets smarter over time, either by human example or just of its own accord. It's able to rewrite itself and make itself more precise over time.
Toby Bordelon: Okay.
John Bromels: Whether it get's smarter over time is a great concise way of putting that. I wish I had that power of gravity.
Continue reading: https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/10/09/what-is-machine-learning/

What does our planet look like from the sky?
The winning images of this year's Drone Photo Awards capture a dizzyingly fantastic view of the world. From high above, a field of bright green grass in Vietnam looks like faux fur – and a frozen reservoir in Kazakhstan resembles shards of broken glass.
The awards, in their fourth year, received entries from 105 countries and 2,900 professional and amateur photographers, says Luca Venturi, contest founder and art director of Siena Awards, a group based in Siena, Italy, that organizes international photo competitions.
The availability of cheaper and better drones over the past few years have helped popularize this style, especially among amateurs, says Ken Geiger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and one of this year's judges for the awards. Not only is drone photography "fabulously fun," he adds, "it's an avenue of expression helping us learn things about our planet that we never knew before."
The contest is open to all kinds of aerial photography, not just taken with drones but also blimps, kites, parachutes, helicopters and even hot air balloons.
Read more and view the images: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/10/09/1041867593/drone-photo-award-winners-capture-a-dizzyingly-fantastic-view-of-the-world

From drones being deployed high in the sky for surveillance in sensitive and important land areas in Ladakh to futuristic cellphone towers in remote areas mounted on these flying machines, India is at the cusp of a drone revolution.
Categorised as one of the 'essential eight' emerging technologies with huge potential by PwC, 'Eye in the Sky: What a drone revolution can do for India' was the topic of discussion at the 19th Edition of India Today Conclave.
On the backdrop of the Galwan tragedy that happened last year, Ankit Mehra, co-founder & CEO of ideaForge Technology Pvt. Ltd. started the conversation stating the biggest reasons for not being able to predict such instances were the extreme, harsh environments with no availability of intelligence unless there is technology to aid and support.   
There are a certain set of systems that can keep an eye on those areas but, typically, these larger systems are limited in number. And at the same time it is also difficult to create the infrastructure required to deploy such systems. The Indian Army, which has been looking at drone technology for a long time now has decided to induct systems, which are more in numbers, distributed surveillance, to look at the precious areas of our country.  
herefore, they decided to go for purchasing systems that can help us keep that eye at that altitude in those harsh environmental conditions.  
"Today, the systems that we are delivering to them, are helping them keep those eyes on those areas to give them unprecedented views of what they never saw was even existing on the other side or had already been done to. And finally be able to get more familiar with the terrain that while we are intimate with, but we only see the ground view of it, not the god's view," said Ankit Mehra.
While on one hand drones are facilitating the military with its operations, the technology is also being misused that poses a threat to national security. Sameer Joshi, CEO & Director, NewSpace Research & Technologies Pvt Ltd. said, "Countering drones is a humongous task. And let's be very honest about it, no nation in this world has that capability to counter drones 24x7, coming from any direction, at any place. To address this, the first thing needed is to control the inflow and outflow of drones, the major components used, and have policies in place." 
Continue reading: https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/news/story/eyes-in-the-sky-drones-for-national-security-308851-2021-10-08

Welcome to this final installment of Drone Disruptors. So far, Modern Shipper has sat down with four CEOs from four of the most dynamic startups in the drone delivery space. Each brings something unique to the industry: Flytrex wants to bring drones to your backyard; Volansi envisions being a fly on the wall; Matternet seeks to fly in cities; and Elroy Air prefers to fly between them.
All of those companies have one thing in common – they produce their own drones. But for this week's installment, we take a look at a company that's disrupting drone delivery not with its drones, but with ... a mailbox?
"I just think that people are gonna be amazed how they ever got by without a DroneDek because of all the functionality that we're going to deliver," Dan O'Toole, chairman and CEO of DroneDek, told Modern Shipper.
DroneDek's so-called "mailbox of the future" is equipped with security, communication, heating, and cooling technology and a host of other features to give drones the thing they need most – a good place to land. This week, Modern Shipper sat down with O'Toole to talk residential deliveries, hot wings, and the iPhone.
David Versus Goliath
To get to where they are today, O'Toole and DroneDek had to fend off some of the most powerful and influential companies and organizations in the U.S. It all started when O'Toole was driving through rural Indiana on the way home from a business trip in Chicago. He looked out his window and saw a drone hovering over a cornfield on the side of the road.
"I was daydreaming and I just started thinking about drone delivery. And then I thought, OK, the drone's the easy part, the glamorous part, right? But where's all this stuff gonna end up?"
By this point, O'Toole only had about 30 minutes left on his drive, and he frantically tried to latch onto the ideas floating around in his head. As soon as he got home, he got to work.
"By the time I walked in my house, my wife was there and I just ran by her going, ‘I gotta get to my office real quick.' So I ran down there and I just started debriefing myself on my computer," he recounted.

The drone's the easy part, the glamorous part, right? But where's all this stuff gonna end up?
Dan O'Toole, Chairman and CEO, Dronedek

Click to expand...

Immediately, he began putting ideas into words and images: a heating and cooling cargo area, a notification system, a charging station, a motorized sliding door.
In the past, O'Toole had been beaten to the punch by some intimidating competition. He was shut out of one product idea by General Motors, which filed for a patent several months before he did, and Sony undercut him on a second idea by just a month. This time, though, O'Toole wanted to taste victory. He didn't conduct a patent search or file a provisional patent – within one week of coming up with the idea for DroneDek, he had filed for the real deal.
Fast-forward three years and O'Toole got a call from his patent attorney. Bad news, the attorney told him; he'd have to write a check because his patent had been approved. Eureka! But once it was issued, O'Toole discovered something even more remarkable. He had beaten Amazon to the patent by just nine days and the Postal Service by just two weeks. O'Toole had taken a risk rushing his creative process to get the patent filed, but he had finally gotten his win.
Continue reading: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/drone-disruptors-dronedeks-mailbox-future-163859642.html

One of the most prevalent areas for drone use is within the agricultural industry, in which drones offer the potential to address several major challenges. Recently, Global Market Insights predicted that the agricultural drone market will surpass $1 billion by 2024. What drives that growth? Most likely it is the increasing technological advancements that are focused on enhancing quality farming techniques, and the increased need for automation due to the lack in skilled labor in that space.
Drones can improve many different aspects of the agricultural industry. For example, drones can carry out crop monitoring, soil assessment, review of plant population, irrigation and drainage, fertility and crop protection, spraying of fertilizer and pesticides, and harvest planning.
One specific example: a drone can fly over a farm property to take aerial images of the crops using red, green, blue, red edge, near-infrared, and thermal image bands. With those images, the farmer can then create normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) maps. Then these NDVI drone-created mapscan be used to help analyze and assess whether the target crop or area being observed contains live green vegetation or not. Digital surface maps, thermal maps, and other types of maps can also be generated using the images gathered by the drone. This information can increase crop production, lower water usage, and uncover many other types of issues, such as the presence (and prevalence) of pests. The infrared images can also help determine the health of crops. All of this can be done with the push of a button using a drone.
Continue reading: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/drones-in-agriculture-may-keep-the-farm-4404144/

Many of the people moving to Northwest Arkansas are going to need jobs.
Mike Harvey with the Northwest Arkansas Council said the new jobs may come from companies branching out. Companies such as Tyson Foods, J.B. Hunt and Walmart have shown a willingness over the years to be out front, early adopters of cutting-edge technology in their specific industries, he said.
"I think from an economy perspective, we obviously want to support and nurture what is here, the folks that got us here, those big sectors like retail, food logistics, education and I'd add health care to that. Obviously, it's going to be very different-looking 25 years from now," Harvey said.
Logistics and supply-chain management may become even more important to the region, he said. Northwest Arkansas could also become a center for supply-chain technology, autonomous vehicles or air mobility, such as last-mile delivery by drones or electric vehicles.
The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville also influences job sectors.
"There are so many potential pockets of innovation down there from the agricultural sector, the food science, animal science, over into the areas of tech transfer and commercialization at the tech park, like electric propulsion and battery tech and medical diagnostics," Harvey said.
Washington and Benton counties have long been strong in agriculture, usually leading the state in the value of farm products.
Wayne Miller, professor and economist with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, expects fewer acres to be used for agriculture as the region and its land prices grow.
Miller said farmers are going to have to look at higher-value crops to maintain their profitability when the cost of land goes up, to get more revenue per acre and per farm.
Planning and zoning are going to be key to agriculture in Northwest Arkansas, he said. Towns will need to keep some land zoned for agriculture if they want to preserve the industry, he said.
"If there really is no zoning, the demand for that land -- the value of that land for developing subdivisions -- will be much higher than you can grow beef cattle on," he said.
Poultry is the largest sector of agriculture in Arkansas. Northwest Arkansas, particularly Washington and Benton counties, produces the most poultry in the state. Production could increase if poultry houses are built close together, Miller said.
Continue reading: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/oct/10/mixture-of-traditional-industry-new-technology/

Ten years ago, only 6% (three) of Etsy’s software engineers were female.
Two years later, the company increased the percentage to 22%.
Today, more than 30% of Etsy’s engineering team is female, almost double most industry benchmarks.
This is quite an impressive feat, given the fact that women today hold fewer jobs in the tech industry than women did in the 1980s. Even amidst the Global Resignation and exit of women from the workforce last September, Etsy has managed to retain its female software engineers.
Raina Moskowitz, Etsy’s Chief Operations, Strategy, and People Officer explains how the company mission is illustrated through its engineering team.
“Etsy’s mission is to ‘Keep Commerce Human’ and an integral part of that mission is our commitment to fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. This incorporates gender inclusivity, including for women and all people who are from marginalized genders. Our company remains a long-time leader in gender diversity, with women making up half of our executive team, nearly half of our company, and nearly 44% of our senior leadership.”
According to Etsy’s 2020 Global Seller Census 81% of their sellers around the world also identify as women, creating jobs and incomes for themselves while adding value to their communities. “As a workplace of choice for women, we’re able to create a foundation of support and empowerment for the community of female entrepreneurs on our platform,” Moskowitz adds.
She believes the organization has been able to attract and retain female talent amidst a global pandemic, great resignation, and in a predominantly male industry because all employees can make an impact. “Etsy empowers employees to work on high-impact projects that positively affect the millions of creative entrepreneurs who sell on our platform.”
The Role of Competitive Benefits
Moskowitz also credits Etsy’s competitive suite of benefits for retaining their female engineers. Offerings include (but aren’t limited to) backup child care with local partners and personal networks, a 26-week gender-neutral parental leave policy, adoption and surrogacy assistance, mental health days, and a new parent support credit. The credit allows new parents to trade in up to 14 weeks of parental leave in exchange for a cash payment that can be used to assist with childcare, or other forms of support, as they transition back to work.
“We’re also excited to offer a new perk next year called ‘30 Days Away,’ our temporary relocation policy where employees will be able to work from anywhere they choose for up to 30 consecutive days per calendar year,” says Moskowitz.
The Role of Learning and Development
Moskowitz explains that Etsy develops rigorous processes and programs to mitigate bias to ensure fair hiring processes, performance evaluations, promotion decisions, pay equity, and more. The company provides managers with unconscious bias training and training to hire with diversity in mind. They also focus on ensuring diverse candidate pipelines during the recruitment process.
“We invest in management training programs and learning and development opportunities to ensure that employees of all backgrounds come, stay, and thrive at Etsy,” Moskowitz adds. “As an example, this fall we are offering training and tools for managers and teams to evolve their practices for a hybrid world, exploring new ways to build connections, foster inclusivity, implement equitable collaboration practices, and bring out the best in our people in a blended work environment.”
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2021/10/05/how-etsy-has-retained-its-female-software-engineers-for-the-past-10-years

inda Alvarado wends her way, politician-style, to her seat at Major League Baseball’s 2021 All-Star Game, pausing to hug or chat up everyone from Roy working the concession booth to Colorado Rockies CFO Hal Roth. As a pregame tribute to Hank Aaron begins, she pulls up on her phone a photo of herself with the late Hall of Fame slugger. “Baseball is in my blood,” she declares. Dressed in a purple suit that matches the Rockies’ dominant uniform color, Alvarado is more than just another uberfan. At the request of Colorado’s then-governor, Roy Romer, she became part of the team’s original investor group in 1991. Her stake was a tiny 1%, but significant: She was the first Latino owner in MLB, and the first self-made female owner. “It wasn’t my husband,” she says. “It was me. My money.” 
Since that time, Alvarado’s influence—and money—have only grown. Today, her touch can be seen all over Denver. Her wholly owned Alvarado Construction has had a hand in building the city’s Mile High Stadium, the arena where the Denver Nuggets play and Denver International Airport, among other landmarks. It has also built most of the 258 Yum! Brands restaurants (Taco Bells, Pizza Huts and KFCs) operated by Palo Alto Inc., a franchise company owned 51% by Alvarado and 49% by her husband, Robert. It’s that last business that accounts for most of her $230 million fortune, which makes her one of the nation’s 100 richest self-made women. 
Alvarado says she has succeeded by not being distracted by “conventional thinking.” That’s what has led her to experiment with a series of innovations, including a new Taco Bell design for tight urban spaces that puts the kitchen on the second floor, with a conveyor belt system robotically loading trays and delivering them to the floor below. 
Alvarado’s backstory is anything but conventional. She started life in 1951 as Linda Martinez in a two-room adobe house outside Albuquerque, New Mexico; it had no running water except when it flooded every summer. “I thought everyone went to the Red Cross for summer vacation,’’ she quips. 
Alvarado’s parents were builders by nature. Her father, a Protestant minister from Mexico who worked security at Sandia National Laboratory, had built that adobe house himself. Her mother would often recite, almost as a mantra: “Empieza pequeño, pero piensa muy grande” (start small, but think very big). 
Rarer than their immigrant drive was the Martinezes’ determination to spare their daughter from “women’s” household chores so she could focus on academics. As the youngest of six siblings, and the only girl, Alvarado was expected to play sports with her brothers. “You got six kids, you got a team,’’ her father would say. When a high school coach told Alvarado that girls couldn’t compete in the high jump, her mother went to school to demand change. Alvarado won the high jump and the Girl Athlete of the Year award—a tribute to her performance in many sports, including softball. 
Such physicality led Alvarado to take what turned out to be a crucial step toward a construction career: While studying economics on scholarship at Pomona College in California, she rejected an administrator’s suggestion that she work in the library or cafeteria and asked to join the grounds crew instead. She says she explained her choice this way: “I don’t have to wear these painful girl shoes. . . . I’m gonna get a tan, and you’ll pay me to work with all these single men.’’ 
The groundskeeping experience opened the door for Alvarado to land a job at a Los Angeles construction management company after she graduated in 1973. That, and a little subterfuge—she figures she got an interview because she used only her initials on the application, disguising her gender. It’s a method she’d use later when signing construction bids. 
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mariaabreu/2021/10/01/how-linda-alvarado-went-from-manual-labor-to-becoming-one-of-americas-richest-self-made-women-construction-magnate-taco-bell-franchisee

Windows 11 IoT Enterprise is now  generally available, Microsoft announced this week.   
The new operating system will be "delivered as an upgrade to eligible devices running Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, beginning on October 5, 2021," Microsoft explained in a "What's New" document. Arrival of Windows 11 IoT Enterprise is controlled through tools such as "Windows Update for Business and Microsoft Endpoint Manager," but the OS will arrive via the Windows Update service for eligible unmanaged devices, the document indicated.
Nothing was mentioned in Microsoft's announcement about a Windows 11 IoT Core product. Microsoft had released its Windows Server IoT 2022 product last month.
The IoT (Internet of things) products previously were known as Microsoft's "Windows Embedded" operating systems. These OSes are typically used by software and original equipment manufacturing (OEM) partners to build specialized devices.
Continue reading: https://rcpmag.com/articles/2021/10/06/microsoft-releases-windows-11-iot-enterprise.aspx?m=1

Technical standards organization, GlobalPlatform has launched its free beta manufacturer usage description (MUD) File Service to simplify and secure IoT device network onboarding and management. The service helps manufacturers to easily share the intent, capabilities and requirements of their devices. With simple access to this information, network managers can automatically accept or reject access, to ensure devices can function effectively and securely. This will solve scalability issues in IoT, helping network managers to manage the rapidly growing number, and types, of IoT devices in their environments safely and efficiently.
“The deployment of IoT devices is increasing rapidly, along with the number of different device types, each of which has unique network access requirements,” said Tim Polk, Senior Computer Scientist, NIST. “To maintain security, it is vital that networks are able to distinguish device requirements to ensure the correct levels of access are given. We are excited to see industry-driven solutions like GlobalPlatform’s MUD File Service establish options for device makers and network managers looking to streamline connectivity while improving security.”
Continue reading: https://www.iotforall.com/press-releases/globalplatform-simplifies-and-secures-iot-device-network-management-with-free-mud-file-service

In recent years, we've seen a drastic increase in smart technology aimed at making our lives easier. These innovations focus on improving our physical health, public safety, environmental conditions and more. From smartphones and appliances to smart grids, consumers and businesses today are leveraging the newest technologies to add convenience and efficiency to their daily routines.
Overall, digital transformation isn’t necessarily new, it represents a major shift in the way a company or a consumer engages with technology, and in recent years the rapid adoption of technology has become standard practice. In 2022, spending on digital transformation is projected to reach 1.78 trillion U.S. dollars, while between 2020 and 2023, direct digital transformation investments are forecast to amount to almost 7 trillion U.S. dollars.
As consumers and companies alike continue to bring in more technology, smart hub devices are only becoming more essential with every passing day. A smart hub is hardware or software that connects devices on an automation network and controls communications among them. Smart hubs, which connect either locally or to the cloud, are useful for internet of things (IoT) devices that use the Zigbee or Z-Wave protocols or Bluetooth, all of which are in demand with the growing adoption of technology.
Continue reading: https://www.iotevolutionworld.com/iot/articles/450224-small-the-new-big-faster-smarter-connectivity-compute.htm

AWS has several operator partners, including Verizon, Dish Network, Vodafone and KDDI
Speaking at the Connectivity Expo in Orlando, Florida, AWS’ Industry Solutions Technology Leader for Worldwide Telecom Robin Harwani detailed the company’s telecom strategic focus, supported by what it’s hearing from its operator partners and with an emphasis on edge computing.
Harwani said that, after speaking with its telecom customers and partners, it became clear that telecom providers are first and foremost interested in partnering with AWS because they want to serve the company’s end customers.
“It can be our public sector customers, our enterprise customers, as well as our customers within the national space,” he continued. “That is where all the things from SD WAN solutions […] to edge solutions have helped them.”
Continue reading: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20211007/5g/aws-edge-is-not-about-compute-its-an-ecosystem

Nick Barendt, executive director of the Institute for Smart, Secure and Connected Systems (ISSACS) at Case Western Reserve University, illustrates the challenge of protecting Internet of Things devices by comparing them to more traditional IT assets.
“It’s still hard to, say, secure a web server, but it’s a limited scope of work,” Barendt notes. “I have to worry about a few ports, and I can control ingress and egress for those ports. I also control the physical device in a data center. The issue with IoT is that it spreads your surface area of attack infinitely. Anyone can walk up to a device, if they can access it, and either brute-force attack the device or use the compromised device to launch other types of attacks.”
As a result, Barendt says, many IoT vendors have begun to take security more seriously, building cybersecurity solutions into their products and eliminating risky practices such as shipping all devices with the same default password. Higher education institutions can further protect themselves, he says, by using zero-trust networking methodologies, storing passwords securely and encrypting traffic to and from IoT devices.
Continue reading: https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2021/10/colleges-secure-iot-proactive-solutions-and-strategies