Facebook users who recently watched a video from a British tabloid featuring Black men saw an automated prompt from the social network that asked if they would like to “keep seeing videos about Primates,” causing the company to investigate and disable the artificial intelligence-powered feature that pushed the message.
On Friday, Facebook apologized for what it called “an unacceptable error” and said it was looking into the recommendation feature to “prevent this from happening again.”
The video, dated June 27, 2020, was by The Daily Mail and featured clips of Black men in altercations with white civilians and police officers. It had no connection to monkeys or primates.
Darci Groves, a former content design manager at Facebook, said a friend had recently sent her a screenshot of the prompt. She then posted it to a product feedback forum for current and former Facebook employees. In response, a product manager for Facebook Watch, the company’s video service, called it “unacceptable” and said the company was “looking into the root cause.”
Ms. Groves said the prompt was “horrifying and egregious.”
Dani Lever, a Facebook spokeswoman, said in a statement: “As we have said, while we have made improvements to our A.I., we know it’s not perfect, and we have more progress to make. We apologize to anyone who may have seen these offensive recommendations.”
Google, Amazon and other technology companies have been under scrutiny for years for biases within their artificial intelligence systems, particularly around issues of race. Studies have shown that facial recognition technology is biased against people of color and has more trouble identifying them, leading to incidents where Black people have been discriminated against or arrested because of computer error.
Continue reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/technology/facebook-ai-race-primates.html

Two years ago, before Apple’s launch of the Apple Card, there was much discussion about how the no-fee credit card would enable the tech giant to storm into the financial services business. However, when people discuss the Apple Card today, it’s in part because of the glitches in Apple’s artificial intelligence algorithms that determine wannabe cardholders’ credit limits. 
In November 2019,  a Dane tweeted that while his wife and he had both applied for the Apple Card with the same financial information, he was awarded a credit limit 20 times higher than that of his wife—even though, as he admitted, his wife had a higher credit score. Adding fuel to the fire, Apple’s cofounder, Steve Wozniak, claimed that the same thing had happened to his wife too. The card had been launched in August 2019, and it was estimated that there were 3.1 million Apple Card credit card holders in the U.S. at the beginning of 2020, so this issue may well have affected tens of thousands of women. A spate of complaints resulted in a New York Department of Financial Services investigation, which recently cleared Apple of gender-based discrimination, but only after the digital giant quietly raised wives’ credit limits to match those of their husbands. 
As business sets about deploying A.I. at scale, the focus is increasingly shifting from the use of the technology to create and capture value to the inherent risks that A.I.-based systems entail. Watchdog bodies such as the Artificial Intelligence Incident Database have already documented hundreds of cases of A.I.-related complaints, ranging from the questionable scoring of students’ exams to the inappropriate use of algorithms in recruiting and the differential treatment of patients by health care systems. As a result, companies will soon have to comply with regulations in several countries that aim to ensure that A.I.-based systems are trustworthy, safe, robust, and fair. Once again, the European Union is leading the way, outlining a framework last year in its White Paper on Artificial Intelligence: A European Approach to Excellence and Trust, as well as its proposal for a legal framework in April 2021. 
Companies must learn to tackle A.I. risks not only because it will be a regulatory requirement, but because stakeholders will expect them to do so. As many as 60% of executives reported that their organizations decided against working with A.I. service providers last year due to responsibility-related concerns, according to a recent Economist Intelligence Unit study. To effectively manage A.I., business must grasp the implications of regulations and social expectations on its use even while keeping in mind the technology’s unique characteristics, which we’ve discussed at length in our recent Harvard Business Review article. Indeed, figuring out how to balance the rewards from using A.I. with the risks could well prove to be a new, and sustainable, source of competitive advantage. 
Continue reading: https://fortune.com/2021/09/03/artificial-intelligence-business-benefits-safety-risk/

Marketers are no exception to the relentless pace of organizational digital transformation and automation—especially by leveraging artificial intelligence. AI-powered automation doesn’t just make a firm’s marketing department faster, it also becomes smarter by leveraging data far more efficiently than through manual methods. It’s no surprise that many companies have already begun to adopt marketing intelligence in their digital marketing strategies, which can generally be broken down into three main areas: smarter customer interactions, personalization and risk assessment.
Smarter customer interactions
An increasing number of businesses have modernized their methods for customer communication by implementing predictive messaging tools such as chatbots and more. These automated communication instruments enhance the customer experience by opening rapid communication channels between interested buyers and sellers, bolstering the customer experience while simultaneously fostering brand loyalty. Younger customers especially have higher expectations for customer service innovation. 
In particular, the era of direct messaging has led to a boon for “smart” chatbots. They can be a powerful customer tool, cutting response times, saving costs and expediting customer interactions. These automated interfaces operate through several channels to streamline conversations with customers at any time and place, even outside regular working hours. Chatbots’ cousins, AI-powered phone agents, are also becoming customers’ everyday companions. Virtual assistants in general have grown in popularity, as they provide faster, more economical ways of encouraging online sales.
Smarter personalization
Another marketing area that AI transforms is personalization. According to data from dotdigital’s Global E-Commerce Benchmark Report 2020, only 5% of brands currently provide contextually relevant content. 
As businesses market across multiple channels, it is essential to utilize every piece of data collected to conduct smart outreach. Artificial intelligence enables businesses to predict consumer preferences by collecting and interpreting data to tailor messaging, products and recommendations accordingly across channels, from social media to email. For instance, web metrics, such as response and value indicators, will indicate what resonates with the targeted consumer. Sellers can then predict consumer wants and needs more accurately through AI-powered data mining. This allows businesses to personalize their content in terms of segmentation and targeting. 
Smarter risk assessment
Digital transformation, which has only been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic, opens the door even further to security risks. Hence, solutions that help businesses detect and prevent security risks are more needed than ever. 
Continue reading: https://adage.com/article/opinion/3-ways-artificial-intelligence-will-change-marketing-forever/2362516

Everyone agrees artificial intelligence is powerful technology. That’s why agencies across the government are looking at it to speed things up and improve mission delivery. But AI can be misused. Just look at the super-surveillance society that is communist China. For how federal agencies can keep AI honest, Federal Drive with Tom Temin turned to someone who’s done extensive AI research. She’s the program lead for the artificial intelligence security initiative at the University of California Berkley, Jessica Newman.
Listen in to the podcast: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/artificial-intelligence/2021/09/some-ways-agencies-can-keep-artificial-intelligence-from-getting-out-of-control/

Not only has demand for cryptocurrency- and blockchain-related expertise increased, but new data suggests that the kinds of roles being posted have shifted over time.
Gathering together the most recent data on the cryptocurrency and blockchain job market, a new report suggests that higher levels of institutional adoption have spurred greater demand for expertise in the sector.
According to the employment website Indeed — cited Thursday in Korea IT Times — as of mid-July 2021, the overall share of crypto and blockchain job postings on the platform has grown 118% compared with early September 2020. 
This solid growth has also come with a shift in the roles being sought after, with the share of management posts in crypto and blockchain increasing 29.87% year-on-year as of July 16. Human resource accounts have risen 200% over the same time frame, whereas software development jobs have dropped down to 29.7% of all crypto and blockchain posts compared with 34.8% the previous year. All data on the allocation of roles has reportedly been drawn from the crypto trading simulator Crypto Parrot. 
As the Korea IT Times observes, blockchain-related roles tend toward a higher salary range than other technology posts as they demand a strong knowledge of cryptography combined with expertise in ledger economics and object-oriented programming, among other areas. While crypto and blockchain — even DeFi— have gained traction in educational institutions steadily, the report alleges that many developers in the sector remain largely autodidact, suggesting that universities and programs are lagging. 
The report further claims that reliance upon remote workers during the pandemic may prove to be a good fit for an industry that prizes decentralization, encouraging core developers and researchers to engage with multiple partners and employers on different projects. 
While the report does not provide data on the share of public and private sector employers seeking crypto talent, this year has seen everyone from Israeli intelligence agency Mossad to the Bank of England advertise related roles.
Continue reading: https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-and-blockchain-jobs-share-grew-118-in-ten-months-new-data-shows

There is a lot of excitement around blockchain right now, for a good reason. Production use cases continue to emerge across sectors such as manufacturing, energy, air travel, insurance and finance. Gartner predicts that by 2023, organizations using blockchain smart contracts will see a 50% increase in their data quality.
Yet, Gartner also predicts that blockchain will reduce data availability by 30%. Before its use can reach ubiquity, blockchain-based application development has some hurdles to overcome. And if enterprises are to get on board, executives will need to see tangible proof of its value in the form of reduced expenses and increased profits directly correlated with blockchain adoption.
“Enterprises aren’t going to change their business model to adopt a new technology,” said CasperLabs CEO Mrinal Manohar. Just as it’s difficult to dramatically alter the UX for established products, it’s similarly difficult to change the developer experience for established software production routines.
I recently met with Manohar to discuss the limitations and the changes required to accelerate enterprise blockchain adoption. According to Manohar, much of it boils down to taking a DevOps approach—reducing energy use, enabling CI/CD, ensuring stable development environments and providing room for change and ongoing testing—will be critical to spur adoption. This could also mean abstracting complexity away from the developer and end users. However, once more production proofs are out there, the shift toward blockchain will be swift and it will be massive.
What’s Hindering Enterprise Adoption?
Enterprise adoption comes down to UI and UX, said Manohar. He predicts blockchain will follow a similar path as the internet. In its command-line days, the internet was only adopted by die-hard techies. But once visual-based actions were possible through the browser, consumer interest exploded.
Similarly, blockchain might see more production use once the complexity is pushed to the background. “A technology is awesome when it’s 99% invisible,” said Manohar. However, at the moment, blockchain is 99% visible, he adds. For example, it isn’t easy to spin up a node and test a blockchain app. Lowering the requirements to 50% with more abstraction, simulation and integration with cloud providers could help tremendously.
In general, Manohar believes that four key factors are hindering enterprise adoption:

1. Enterprises need a lower energy footprint. Attaining high throughput on a public network without sacrificing decentralization and security is tricky. If blockchain drains operations when scaled, organizations may simply opt for a centralized data store. Therefore, enterprises will require a blockchain with minimal energy requirements.
2. Large companies want developer environments that are similar to what’s already in place. In many ways, blockchain throws out the old playbook. But such a significant shift is a hard sell across multiple IT divisions. Large companies will require blockchain abilities that plug into the existing developer stack. Using a blockchain with familiar programming languages and plugins to popular IDEs like Visual Studio and IntelliJ will decrease onboarding effort.
3. They need more control. Blockchains typically use immutable contracts. This is great for sustaining a shared distributed history, but Manohar believes that contracts need to be more malleable to enable continual upgrades. Furthermore, there is the issue of privacy when adopting blockchain. Some implementers don’t want all 100% of data to be on the public chain. Having the ability to maintain both private and public nodes for smart contracts could help enable more flexibility.
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   Continue reading: https://devops.com/enterprise-blockchain-adoption-hinges-on-devops/

Like all other industries, fashion is hoping for a speedy recovery from the pandemic. More than any other, however, sector demands have changed. Today’s consumers expect brands to provide a friction free experience with transparent ethical standards in production. For these companies, there is hope from an unlikely saviour: Blockchain.
Supply chain issues are not a new problem. Unsustainable manufacturing, unethical labour practices, and overproduction are widely reported, and consumers have taken notice. Today, 64% of shoppers look for ethical or sustainable features when making a purchase. While the sector must meet demand, they must also drive ethical standards and meet sustainability commitments.
That’s where blockchain – a decentralised, chronological, and public ledger of transactions across a peer-to-peer network – comes in. Blockchain can track a garment’s full life cycle, from design through to sale to ensure transparency and traceability. The supply chain needs connectivity and accountability and blockchain can deliver it.
Traceability across the entire lifecycle
When a raw material leaves its place of origin, the lifecycle of a garment begins. Cotton for example, is made into a fabric, dyed, stitched together to make clothing, then mass produced for distribution. Manufacturers and suppliers must have full visibility into the production process, and this starts with having a permanent digital record of every step of the journey so consumers can understand the environmental and social impacts of the product. As well as providing greater insight to customers, retailers who gather this information can also become more efficient and less wasteful when designing garments.
Lenzing’s TextileGenesis™ platform is paving the way for retailers to utilise Blockchain. Blockchain assets called “Fibercoins” are issued to physical shipments of Lenzing fibres. Raw materials to finished goods are monitored in real-time and provides heightened transparency into the flow of physical goods.
One of the biggest behavioural changes in recent years is consumers becoming more conscious about their impact on the environment. To meet this demand and avoid criticism, fast fashion retailers have been entering the resale and rental clothing markets. The UK government recently unveiled plans to support sustainable fashion in a bid to tackle waste in the fast fashion industry and hold manufacturers to account. Such developments may ultimately see more brands enter the resale market and kickstart additional green initiatives. While this may be effective for high street brands, luxury brands are seeking new ways to maintain the value and longevity of their products. Again, blockchain is here to help.
Continue reading: https://internetretailing.net/views/guest-comment-blockchain-in-fashion-bringing-sustainability-and-transparency

Blockchain technology is one of the leading innovations in the finance industry, holding promise to reduce fraud, ensure quick and secure transactions and trades, and ultimately help manage risk within the interconnected global financial system.
Blockchain accomplishes this through advanced cryptography that is designed to be resistant to hacking, adding trust to the transaction ecosystem.
There are many financial uses provided by blockchain, not limited to keeping track of transactions and trades. As our global financial system becomes more connected in our age of digital transformation, investors would be well advised to learn about how blockchain is changing the system and how to gain and regulate exposure to this development.
Here's what investors should know about blockchain's growing role in financial services and the earning potential and risk factors it poses, from tech-oriented startups to traditional banks:

• What is blockchain?
• Benefits of blockchain in financial services
• Risks that blockchain and financial institutions face
• Blockchain investments to buy

What is Blockchain?
Blockchain is a digital collection of transactions that are tracked and recorded in a decentralized network. It is a distributed ledger, which means there is no central authority of the network, or no one person or entity in control with the ability to corrupt the network. The blockchain comprises individual blocks of data, each containing a record of information, that are linked together in chronological order. These links cannot be changed, which is what instills confidence in the network.
This revolutionary technology manages transactions of information by securing them as they occur. The purpose of blockchain is to lower the cost of transactions and make them more efficient and faster.
The technology has many applications that can be integrated into different industries, providing investors with many opportunities. For starters, it's one of the technological underpinnings of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
One industry with clear applications for the blockchain is financial services, where companies are in a perpetual race to reduce the costs and friction of transactions.
Benefits of Blockchain in Financial Services
Blockchain has the potential to make the financial services industry more transparent, less susceptible to fraud and cheaper for consumers.
Improving transparency. Blockchain can make the financial industry more transparent since users are performing activities on a public ledger. This transparency can expose inefficiencies like fraud, leading to problem-solving that could reduce risk for financial institutions.
Adding security. As consumers become increasingly active online, the digital universe is a breeding ground for scammers. With blockchain technology, this concern could be reduced. Payments and money transfers made on the blockchain are faster and more traceable than in traditional banking.
When information flows through different financial intermediaries, there is a risk of interception of that information, raising the possibility of fraud. This hole in oversight can be filled with blockchain's cryptographic algorithms that bring security in the exchange of information between parties.
Continue reading: https://money.usnews.com/investing/cryptocurrency/articles/how-blockchain-can-transform-the-financial-services-industry

Riverside County, Calif., is testing a proof-of-concept that uses blockchain to securely share digital official and vital records.
Currently, the county’s process is paper-based: Someone requests the record and the Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder Office makes a physical copy that it delivers either via mail or in person to customers who come into the office.
For the past six months, the office has worked with Infosys Public Services on a solution that would allow for a fully digital process. Through the web, customers can select the records they need, authenticate themselves, pay for the copies and digitally receive them within minutes through a government portal.
“We’re trying to become much more of a customer-centric organization,” said Peter Aldana, the county’s assessor-county clerk-recorder. “We felt like blockchain might be able to help us in particular areas of our processes, one of those being obtaining official and vital records,” he said. “Allowing our customers and citizens to do that digitally vs. the time and effort needed to do that in paper form would save citizens a lot of time and effort, as well as our own department.”
A crucial part of the effort is ensuring that the record has not been changed at any point along its journey from creation to delivery to a requester. That’s where blockchain comes in. It is a decentralized system of record, or ledger, that cryptographically stores every transaction happening in the network. As a result, data is encoded with an alphanumeric code, or hash.
The best way to maintain security speed processing and maintain trust “is not to take the whole record and store it on the blockchain, but take the hash that identifies a particular vital record and put that on the blockchain ledger,” Infosys President and CEO Eric Paternoster said. “Every time that the agency issues one of the vital records, a digital twin of that record in the form of another hash is stored on the blockchain ledger. And then only if the citizen wishes to share the record, which can be done as a PDF of a copy that they already had, with another agency for verification, then the entity will upload that document through a portal and then that portal will create a hashtag. The two hashes will only match if the record hasn’t been tampered with.”
Continue reading: https://gcn.com/articles/2021/09/03/blockchain-county-vital-records.aspx

Blockchain boosters have long touted cross-border remittances as a market that’s practically begging to be disrupted by their technology of choice, the public ledgers that underpin cryptocurrencies. 
But what if early blockchain proselytizers weren’t quite right? What if the biggest impact blockchains will have isn’t enabling overseas workers to send money back home cheaply and quickly (and thereby circumventing the steep fees levied by services such as Western Union’s)? What if the real innovation lay, instead, in people’s ability to earn a living wage…while working from home…playing video games?
That’s the dream offered by Axie Infinity, a video game developed by Sky Mavis, a Singapore-based development studio. The game recently blew up, attracting more than 1 million daily players in August, up from less than 500 in July of 2020. (Yes, that’s a 200,000% increase in usage, approximately.)
Axie is a bit like Hearthstone, the popular, phone-based collectible “card” game, which is itself sort of like a digital Magic: The Gathering. The difference is that Axie uses blockchain tech to let people buy, breed, and battle a race of chubby, fantastical beasts called Axies.
Through playtime and match victories, Axie players can earn SLP, or “smooth love potion,” an Ethereum-based crypto token. People make money exchanging the token on online crypto exchanges, for fiat currencies. Alternatively, people can “burn”—or spend—the tokens to create more Axies, fueling the in-game economy.
I recently spoke to Gabby Dizon, founder of Yield Guild Games, a company that invests in Axies, SLP, and other in-game assets in order to rent them out to prospective players in return for a share of their virtual proceeds. Since we chatted last month, the Guild raised $4.6 million in investment from a16z crypto, the crypto-focused arm of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, along with other investors. 
Axie is rolling in the crypto dough. SLP is now trading at $0.13, up from $0.02 in January—though down from an all-time high of $0.36 in May. Axie, itself, brought in $364 million in revenue last month, up from $196 million in July, according to data from the blockchain-tracker Token Terminal. In terms of revenue generation for a crypto project, that puts Axie second only to Ethereum, which brought in $670 million during the same period.
Third place at about $80 million went to OpenSea, a marketplace that sells NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, a technology that makes digital media—anything from artwork to pixelated profile pictures to virtual real estate—trackable and tradeable on blockchain.
Continue reading: https://fortune.com/2021/09/02/__trashed-2/

Researchers from the College of Engineering at Villanova University are behind a blockchain project that will be launched into space Thursday night to test the viability and trustworthiness of the technology and its transactions in orbit.
Adjunct Professor of Engineering Hasshi Sudler is behind the project, and has been working on space-related projects since his time at the university as an undergrad. But the launch Thursday will be his — and the university’s — first time completing a trip to space.
Sudler is working with grad student Alejandro Gomez on the project. The pair will be testing a recent consensus protocol known as proof of authority, a means of confirming transactions on the blockchain through validator nodes that store data, securing the network. Villanova is working with Teachers in Space, a nonprofit that developed the Serenity educational CubeSat satellite that will launch on the Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha vehicle Thursday night from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Serenity will carry a suite of data collection sensors and provide its data in response to requests by amateur radio operators. The experiment uses a private Ethereum blockchain, and the satellite will remain in low Earth orbit for about a month. Blockchain experiments will take place for the first 15 days. The satellite will be destroyed on its return to earth, but Sudler said they’ll have all the data they need collected and stored on earth.
Continue reading: https://technical.ly/philly/2021/09/02/villanova-blockchain-space/

A new market study published by Global Industry Analysts Inc., (GIA) the premier market research company, today released its report titled "Commercial Drones - Global Market Trajectory & Analytics". The report presents fresh perspectives on opportunities and challenges in a significantly transformed post COVID-19 marketplace.
FACTS AT A GLANCE Edition: 18; Released: April 2021 Executive Pool: 13472 Companies: 13 - Players covered include AeroVironment Inc.; Agribotix, LLC; Airware; Cyberhawk Innovations Ltd.; CyPhy Works Inc.; Draganfly Innovations Inc.; Drone Aviation Holding Corporation; DroneDeploy ; EHang Inc.; Intel Corporation; Lockheed Martin Corporation; Parrot SA; PrecisionHawk; Skycatch Inc.; SZ DJI Technology Co. Ltd.; Yuneec International Co., Ltd. and Others. Coverage: All major geographies and key segments Segments: Segment (Commercial Drones) Geographies: World; United States; Canada; Japan; China; Europe (France; Germany; Italy; United Kingdom; and Rest of Europe); Asia-Pacific; Rest of World.
Complimentary Project Preview - This is an ongoing global program. Preview our research program before you make a purchase decision. We are offering a complimentary access to qualified executives driving strategy, business development, sales & marketing, and product management roles at featured companies. Previews provide deep insider access to business trends; competitive brands; domain expert profiles; and market data templates and much more. You may also build your own bespoke report using our MarketGlass™ Platform which offers thousands of data bytes without an obligation to purchase our report.
Continue reading: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/valued-15-4-billion-2026-144000938.html

Assess Your Knowledge and Awareness of Drone/UAS Standards and Best Practices As use cases for drones and other Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) become more prevalent in businesses of all sizes and industries, it’s more important than ever for service providers and other professionals to learn and understand best practices and guidelines for drone operations. To help, CompTIA’s Drone Advisory Council developed the following quiz to drive education and awareness of the (UAS) industry. The quiz complements the Drone Standards and Best Practices guide previously published by the Council and is intended to help users achieve a better understanding of the UAS industry and identify areas where they may need more help. (63 questions).
Take the Quiz: https://surveys.comptia.org/s3/Drone-Quiz-2021

Researchers from the College of Engineering at Villanova University are behind a blockchain project that will be launched into space Thursday night to test the viability and trustworthiness of the technology and its transactions in orbit.
Adjunct Professor of Engineering Hasshi Sudler is behind the project, and has been working on space-related projects since his time at the university as an undergrad. But the launch Thursday will be his — and the university’s — first time completing a trip to space.
Sudler is working with grad student Alejandro Gomez on the project. The pair will be testing a recent consensus protocol known as proof of authority, a means of confirming transactions on the blockchain through validator nodes that store data, securing the network. Villanova is working with Teachers in Space, a nonprofit that developed the Serenity educational CubeSat satellite that will launch on the Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha vehicle Thursday night from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Continue reading: https://technical.ly/philly/2021/09/02/villanova-blockchain-space/

As the nation approaches the 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001, in commemoration of the sacrifices made by first responders on that day, Connecticut-based Aquiline Drones is offering its Flight to the Future drone training program free to all interested police officers and firefighters.
The hybrid online and in-person training program, which instructs its trainees in how to earn a Federal Aviation Administration Part 107 certification as well as gives instruction in setting up a drone-related business, normally costs $1,299.
Barry Alexander, Aquiline Drones’ founder and CEO, said the company is offering the complimentary program to first responders in recognition of all they have done for their fellow citizens from 9/11 through to the present day.
“We thought that they should be equipped with the best tools to help them do their jobs efficiently, but also to keep them out of harm’s way as much as possible,” he said. “This program is designed to provide them with a superlative skill set, but also to celebrate what first responders do for us as a society every day.”
The course teaches everything from Federal Aviation Administration regulations, to drone hardware and software, to cloud technology. Most of the instruction is conducted online, with a hands-on training component offered at the end of the remote instruction.
Most of the hands-on portion of the course is currently conducted at Aquiline’s headquarters in Connecticut, “but we are setting up training facilities across the country that will allow groupings of individuals within close proximity of the training to attend for a couple of days,” Alexander said.
Continue reading: https://dronelife.com/2021/09/02/drone-training-for-first-responders-aquiline-drones-flight-to-the-future-program/

It sounds kind of like 500 buzzing wasps moving at 100 miles an hour.
You’ll notice these small, quick racing drones, but they’re not as loud as people might think, said Vicki Felmlee, one of the organizers for Drones in the Desert, a drone racing competition.
Now in its fifth year, Drones in the Desert has a new home and if you haven’t had the chance to check out this competition yet, this is a good year to do so.
You can come and go as you please, be amazed at the technology and speed and even take in a night race.
Drones in the Desert is set for Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 4–5, at Colorado Mesa University’s track and field complex at Ninth Street and Orchard Avenue.
This spot means that for the first time, the race will take place over a grassy field instead in the dirt lot east of 32 Road that was provided by the Grand Junction Modeleers, one the groups that hosts Drones in the Desert.
“We were on dirt and it worked,” Felmlee said.
Continue reading: https://www.gjsentinel.com/accelerated-racing-drones-in-the-desert-gains-new-home-racing-recognition/article_d2a5e602-0b37-11ec-befe-b7e3000c41f7.html

During hurricanes, flash flooding, and other disasters, it can be extremely dangerous to send in first responders, even though people may badly need help.
Rescuers already use drones in some cases, but most require individual pilots to fly the unmanned aircraft by remote control. That limits how quickly rescuers can view an entire affected area, and it can delay aid from reaching victims.
Autonomous drones could cover more ground faster, especially if they could identify people in need, and notify rescue teams.
My team and I at the University of Dayton Vision Lab have been designing these autonomous systems of the future to eventually help spot people who might be trapped by debris. Our multi-sensor technology mimics the behavior of human rescuers to look deeply at wide areas and quickly choose specific regions to focus on, examine more closely, and determine if anyone needs help.
The deep learning technology that we use mimics the structure and behavior of a human brain in processing the images captured by the 2-dimensional and 3D sensors embedded in the drones. It is able to process large amounts of data simultaneously to make decisions in real time.
Continue reading: https://www.fastcompany.com/90671042/hurricane-ida-search-and-rescue-drones

A s the United States emerges from the pandemic, many state and local government agencies are struggling to hire and retain workers. Not only have many retirement-age employees decided to accelerate their plans to retire, but agencies face stiff competition for workers from the private sector. As a result, for a number of key positions, especially those in IT, many government agencies are receiving fewer qualified applicants than the number of jobs available. To address this challenge, government agencies should start making use of AI tools to improve how they acquire and retain workers. A growing number of tools make use of AI to help organizations recruit and hire talent more effectively. First, AI can help candidates and employers find one another. Job boards like ZipRecruiter and LinkedIn use recommendation algorithms to suggest candidates and job openings, and services like Textkernel can parse resumes with natural language processing to build semantic search engines that allow recruiters to search for concepts like “IT security” rather than specific keywords or job titles. For example, the U.S. Departments of Labor, Defense and Veterans Affairs worked with the private sector on an AI challenge to help employers hire veterans who have valuable skills but whose profiles might not show up on a typical search based on their previous job titles. Agencies can also use applicant tracking systems, such as those offered by Oracle, SAP and Workday, to help recruiters and hiring managers be more efficient by digitizing the hiring process. These systems can help manage job postings, sort and rank candidates, and automate many routine tasks such as scheduling interviews. Some even offer chatbots, providing job seekers with immediate feedback on the status of their application or answering questions about the employer or position. The result is that hiring managers can move faster, increasing their productivity, making offers to qualified candidates sooner and obtaining higher acceptance rates.
Continue reading: https://www.govtech.com/opinion/the-case-for-artificial-intelligence-in-recruiting-it-talent

The logistics industry is seeing a big opportunity in the future use of drones within their operations. While some companies are targeting last-mile deliveries from businesses to consumers, others are looking towards the often overlooked middle-mile logistics. 
Middle-mile logistics refers to deliveries that occur from business to business such as seaports to a distribution center or distribution centers to stores. 
According to an analysis in a 2020 white paper from Levitate Capital, the value proposition for using drones within logistics chains will have to weigh the speed and availability drones can offer with the cost savings of traditional route density and batched deliveries. While last-mile delivery drones are competing with courier delivery services that will have an advantage in cost savings, middle-mile deliveries will be competing with semi-trucks and intermodal freight networks. 
“Whereas last-mile delivery drones compete with courier-owned delivery vans and crowdsourced delivery models, middle-mile drones will compete with semi-trucks and intermodal freight networks,” Dario Constantine, a senior associate at Levitate Capital focused on drone technology companies, writes in “The Future of the Drone Economy.”  
The report states that the cost of logistics is dependent on the amount of freight moved at one time. The lowest cost options in this chain are ships and trains and as freight in transferred along its journey, the cost increases as the vehicle that carries it gets smaller. 
Continue reading: https://www.aviationtoday.com/2021/09/01/drone-companies-see-opportunities-b2b-middle-mile-logistics/

Cellular technology is driving innovation across diverse industries, and now enterprises are on the brink of new realities. In this blog post, we’ll discover new industry trends and find out how drones are being used to completely change the way we tackle challenges and make business operations more efficient. It’s about much more than the present, we’ll look at what the future could bring once drones are powered by 5G. Currently, drones are reliant on Wi-Fi, and are effective for certain needs in ports, mines, agriculture, airports, utilities, and inshore and offshore drilling. But once drones make the move to 5G, we’ll see them reach their potential for improved efficiencies, visibility, and safety. One thing’s for sure, there’s so much more to come.
Today I sat with Pooja Jetley, Enterprise Marketing Director at Ericsson, to talk about drones in industry and why we are seeing more and more of them being used by businesses across various sectors/industries. Below is a transcript of our conversation
Natasha: Hi Pooja. So good to have a chance to talk to you about industry trends. Can you tell me how industry needs, and pain points are being addressed by cellular these days?
Pooja: Businesses across multiple industries, from manufacturing to mines to ports, are embracing digital transformation but working at a frantic pace to keep up with emerging customer demands and survive in the face of their future realities. No matter what industry, this high-paced digital transformation will only be realized with high-quality cellular connectivity that enables a countless number of capabilities; getting the business operations up to par, if not ahead, when compared to the competition. Greater safety, scalability and high performance are just a few of the things that cellular connectivity brings. And these use cases delivered by cellular, are literally transforming operations toward efficiencies we would not have imagined only a few years ago.
Continue reading: https://www.ericsson.com/en/blog/2021/9/future-of-drones-in-industry-environments

In 2013, while working in the Bahamas, I observed what is now called a drone. As a security practitioner, my ‘paranoia propeller’ on my tin hat really started spinning. Later that year, I asked my wife to purchase a DJI Phantom FC40 drone with a Wi-Fi-enabled camera that worked with an iPhone 5. Like most men, when I received my new gift, I tore into it like the kid from "A Christmas Story" opening his Red Ryder BB gun.
Who needs instructions, I thought? However, I needed the instructions, and soon found a quick start guide, which instructed me to toggle the switches back and forth and listen for tones and lights. While I did that, I needed to rotate the drone on a vertical and horizontal axis. Once the ceremonial process was complete, the light on the drone turned green and the propellors pulled the machine into the air. The first thing I did was to push this thing as high as possible and within seconds I no longer could distinguish the drone from the clouds. Throttling back, I brought the drone to about 20-feet and pushed it forward horizontally.
Soon, I realized how hard it was to control the drone because it really does not have specificity to its directional travel, and there is the real possibility that turning left could be straight and vice versa. Within minutes, I no longer could see or hear the drone, and was startled by my wife who said, “You did not lose the $800 drone, did you?”
With my fingers off the controller, I walked toward the last sighting of my drone, hoping to hear the reverberation of the propellers. Nothing, and it became apparent that I lost this device. After searching for 10 minutes, I was losing all hope, when suddenly and faintly I heard the “buzz” of the propellors, which then became louder. I was excited but then upset, as the drone flew over me and headed back towards my house. Running frantically after the device, I wondered, did someone hack it? Why is it doing this? On the precipice of a heart attack, I watched the drone stop, hover and slowly descend to exactly where I previously launched it. That’s when I knew that this was not an IKEA build and that I would need to read the instructions fully.
Continue reading: https://www.securityinfowatch.com/perimeter-security/robotics/unmanned-aerial-vehicles-drones/article/21236703/the-status-of-drone-technology-in-security

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique identifier that can cryptographically assign and prove ownership of digital goods. 
As NFTs for digital artwork have sold for millions — sometimes tens of millions — of dollars, to say they're popular could be an undersell. In the first half of 2021, NFT sales hit $2.5 billion. 
However, once you understand how NFTs work, you'll see there are additional use cases for this technology.
What is an NFT?
NFT stands for "non-fungible token." At a basic level, an NFT is a digital asset that links ownership to unique physical or digital items, such as works of art, real estate, music, or videos. 
NFTs can be considered modern-day collectibles. They're bought and sold online, and represent a digital proof of ownership of any given item. NFTs are securely recorded on a blockchain — the same technology behind cryptocurrencies — which ensures the asset is one-of-a-kind. The technology can also make it difficult to alter or counterfeit NFTs.
To really get a handle on NFTs, it's helpful to get familiar with the economic concept of fungibility.
Continue reading: https://www.businessinsider.com/nft-meaning

What are the Benefits of Blockchain Technology?
Blockchain technology is set to revolutionize the world of online transactions. It is a decentralized, secure, digital ledger that's used to record the history of transactions. It's not controlled by any government or central organization, making it ideal for use in places where corruption is rampant.
It provides an open platform where all parties are aware of each transaction and no one can change the ledger without everyone else knowing
The Best Reasons Why You Should Use Blockchain Technology
Blockchain technology is the new kid on the block, and it brings with it a great deal of confusion. However, blockchain can be understood by looking at how it's similar to the internet in both its potential and its current limitations. Blockchain networks offer a way to make transactions or store information without needing a central authority to validate those transactions or information.
Continue reading: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-blockchain-future-benefits-technology-vincent-rey-vicente-md/?trk=articles_directory

As more and more of our lives are spent online and the physical world grows ever more digital, the very notion of identity is changing dramatically. Authentication of who we are and how we are represented online has become paramount to both individuals and organizations. People want power over their identities and control over how and with whom their information is shared. Organizations face heightened security threats, alongside demands to compete in the digital economy, optimize workflows and improve customer and employee experiences. Constant retooling and uncertainty around identity only slows broader strategic innovations.
Identity and access management (IAM) has become a core building block for managing and authenticating digital identities. However, organizations face challenges with the design and security of IAM processes, prompting them to consider new technologies. Distributed ledger technologies (DLT), frequently referred to as blockchain, are different from existing IAM architectures as they are inherently decentralized. DLT enables shared recordkeeping, where transactions, authentications and interactions are recorded across and verified by a network rather than a single central authority.
With the surge in cybercrimes, threats, fraud and asset breaches, organizations play a crucial role in safeguarding sensitive data, securing IT and operational infrastructure (OT), and protecting peoples' identities. Many enterprise IAM leaders and IT professionals are questioning the relevant benefits and risks of DLT and consensus technologies:
Continue reading: https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/Blockchain-for-identity-management-Implications-to-consider

Make blockchain a part of your digital transformation in the right way. 
Blockchain technology is a revolutionary decentralized, distributed ledger system that records the transactions made via digital assets. Since the technology became mainstream, blockchain has shown the tech world its potential to transform industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and logistics. Businesses are keen to adopt this technology and leverage their business. But until organizations pick the right kind of blockchain, the work will not be perfect. Depending on the operating model, there are two types of blockchain businesses can opt for, public blockchain and private blockchain.
What is Public Blockchain?
A public blockchain has an open network and all the information is available in the public domain. As this blockchain is not bound by any rules and permissions, any party can view and write data on the blockchain, making the data is accessible to all. Public blockchains are also decentralized and immutable. Once an entry is made on the blockchain, it cannot be altered or deleted after the entries are validated. 
Continue reading: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/public-vs-private-blockchain-what-does-your-business-need/