In late September 2022, Crypto Punk #2924 sold for nearly $4.5 million. While inflated sales like this make headlines and focus the conversation on overpriced JPEGs, the big impact of NFTs and Web3 is often overlooked. Web3 is not just a new technology, it is an evolution of how brands and consumers interact.
We get lost in the dollar signs too much, which distract us from what is really going on. 
A radical technological shift (the mainstream adoption of blockchain technology) meets a cultural shift (the extremely online nature of everything around us), to create newly empowered consumers -- an inflection point that will significantly alter the relationships between people and brands.
This isn't the first time we've seen such a change play out; it's a cycle as old as the internet itself. The information superhighway gave consumers unprecedented access to information, shifting power away from brands to consumers. No longer did they rely on brand packaging as the only source of information. 
Now, they had infinite access to it, and with it their decision-making processes changed, meaning brands had to adapt as a result.   
Web2 gave us mobile and social, and consumers gained even more power. They became the media and could tell the world what they thought of your product, enshrining that information in ratings and reviews for others to find. As a result of these tech-fueled changes, brands now focus heavily on digital marketing, social media, and influencer marketing, and see customers as more than just consumers. 
Now, Web3 is enabling the next evolution of the empowered consumer, forcing brands to readjust their relationship with them once again. This evolution, and its implications, are highlighted in a new report from Media.Monks and Salesforce that looks at the future of customer engagement. 
Continue reading: https://www.zdnet.com/finance/blockchain/how-web3-is-driving-new-relationships-with-your-customers/

The idea of blockchain technology goes back to the early 1980s when David Chaum came up with the concept. Nowadays, you may know blockchain best for housing cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Blockchain technology records all transactions for Bitcoin in an effort of transparency. However, you can use blockchain tech for more than cryptocurrency. In today’s world, blockchain has many uses in finance because of its secure method of conducting transactions. Let’s take a look at some of these uses.
Blockchain Finance Use Cases
#1: International Transactions
As the world becomes more connected economically, the ability to carry out financial transactions overseas has become paramount across many industries. Because of regulations with banks and credit card companies, these matters can be difficult and time-consuming. They also risk fraud and cyberattacks because of their sensitivity. Blockchain technology can be a way to mitigate these financial issues.
#2: Insurance Claims
Insurance is one of America’s largest industries and one of the most significant beneficiaries of blockchain technology. Almost everyone you know has insurance, whether it is health, auto, life, home, or something else. With many different forms of insurance available, blockchain has uses across the industry with its ability to make processes more efficient and secure.
For example, blockchain benefits insurance companies greatly by reducing administrative costs. Administration can be time-consuming and costly, so organizing it with blockchain technology can make processes more efficient and save money. One of the most significant benefits of blockchain for insurance companies is reduced fraud. Using smart contracts will help customers make only one claim for an incident and save insurance companies the hassle of fraudulent claims.
Continue reading: https://www.iotforall.com/blockchain-for-finances-other-than-crypto

Women are heavily underrepresented in emerging professions and this is certainly true of the AI industry. And across all areas: recent estimates suggest that women make up just 22% of professionals in AI, authored less than 14% of AI papers and just 18% of leading AI conferences.  
That is why it is so important to celebrate the contribution of women to the technology industry, and particularly in particularly unrepresented areas like AI, on Ada Lovelace Day.  
I am not just an advocate for diverse workforces. I put my money where my mouth is. At Artificial Solutions, we are committed to improving diversity and equity throughout our organization. We have achieved a ratio of 38% women in managerial positions. However, our target stands at achieving a 50/50 ratio at the earliest opportunity, and we continue to push for diversity at all levels, across departments and functions, by valuing equity, diversity, and integrity. 
But we cannot rely on the commitment of individual companies to close this gap. We need to come together as allies to look at this problem and identify what we can do to close the gap, which is why we have brought together a number of senior female leaders in AI from Artificial Solutions’ AI Allies network to share their perspectives for Ada Lovelace Day. 
Continue reading: https://www.fenews.co.uk/exclusive/raise-up-why-we-must-celebrate-women-in-ai/

DeepMind has made another impressive artificial intelligence announcement with AlphaTensor, a deep reinforcement learning system that discovers algorithms to make matrix multiplications much more efficient.
Matrix multiplication is at the heart of many computational tasks, including neural networks, 3D graphics, and data compression. Therefore, there are many immediate applications for an AI system that can improve the efficiency of matrix multiplication.
To create AlphaTensor, scientists at DeepMind used AlphaZero, the deep learning system that previously mastered board games like go, chess, and shogi. At first glance, it seems that DeepMind has managed to create an AI system that is general enough to tackle a wide range of unrelated problems. Given that AlphaTensor is finding faster matrix multiplication algorithms, you can even take a more ominous view of AI systems creating better AI systems.
But a deeper reality of AlphaTensor, which has been less highlighted in its media coverage, is how the right combination of human and artificial intelligence can help find the right solutions to the right problems.
Continue reading: https://bdtechtalks.com/2022/10/10/deepmind-alphatensor/

Bad actors have learned: The more data they’re able to harvest about you, the more likely they’ll be able to successfully phish you. Which is probably why this attack vector has never been more popular.
Proofpoint’s 2022 State of the Phish report revealed that 83% of organizations suffered a successful email-based phishing attack in 2021, a 46% increase compared to 2020. Seventy-eight percent of companies faced a ransomware attack that was propagated from a phishing email, while 86% of businesses experienced bulk phishing attacks and 77% sustained business email compromise (BEC) attacks.
Global phishing attacks climbed 29% over the past 12 months to a record 873.9 million attacks, according to the latest Zscaler ThreatLabz Phishing Report, and there was a record number of phishing attacks (1,025,968) in the first quarter of 2022, per the Phishing Activity Trends report from the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG). But things are getting even more complicated.
Scammers are now taking and ingesting every bit of breached data found on the internet and combining it with artificial intelligence (AI) to target and attack users. This practice has some of the largest companies in the world more worried than ever before as the level of sophistication in phishing attempts grows. The scary part? There’s an increase in successful phishing and ransomware payouts, and the AI being used isn’t even that smart yet. 
The evolution of phishing
At its core, social engineering is about tugging at a user’s emotional heartstrings to elicit a response that, ultimately, gets them to fork over personal information like passwords, credit card information and more.
Continue reading: https://venturebeat.com/ai/how-ai-machine-learning-changing-phishing-game/

More and more, companies are relying on artificial intelligence to carry out various functions of their business—some that only computers can do and others that are still best handled by humans. And while it might make sense that a computer can carry these jobs out without any sort of bias or agenda, leaders in the A.I. space are increasingly warning of that exact scenario. 
The concern is so prevalent that new responsible A.I. measures have been floated by federal government, requiring companies to vet for these biases and to run systems past humans to avoid them. 
The four pillars of responsible A.I.
Ray Eitel-Porter, managing director and global lead for responsible A.I. at Accenture, outlined during a virtual event hosted by Fortune on Thursday that the tech consulting firm operates around four “pillars” for implementing A.I.: principles and governance, policies and controls, technology and platforms, and culture and training. 
“The four pillars basically came from our engagement with a number of clients in this area and really recognizing where people are in their journey,” he said. “Most of the time now, that’s really about how you take your principles and put them into practice.”
Many companies these days have an A.I. framework. Policies and controls are the next layer, which is all about how you put those principles in place. The technology and platforms are the tools in which you implement those principles, and the culture and training portion ensures everyone at every level of the company understands their role, can execute it, and buys in.
“It’s definitely not just something for a data science team or a technology team,” said Eitel-Porter. “It’s very much something that is relevant to everybody across the business so the culture and training piece is really important.” 
Continue reading: https://fortune.com/2022/10/10/brainstorm-ai-artificial-intelligence/

Depending on who you talk to, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are either a godsend or a curse. They will either be the salvation of humanity or will lead us into a dystopian future, where machines and robots replace humans for everything.
The movie “I, Robot” highlighted some of the common fears that AI and automation may elicit. Robots took care of more and more functions such as cooking, cleaning houses, driving, garbage collection, and more. Eventually, a vast AI hive mind computes that humans are unnecessary and need to be killed.
An alternative future is posed by the movie “Surrogates,” where humans sit in their rooms plugged into a computer and run a robotic version of themselves in a world where there are no consequences. Suddenly people start turning up dead, and this brave new world shows its dark side.
But such visions miss the mark. For one thing, science fiction usually exaggerates the advances made in technology. By this time, we were supposed to all be driving flying cars, teleporting from one planet to another, and colonizing the galaxy. Instead, we are still taking baby steps in space flight.
AI, then, is getting there slowly. And automation is largely joined at the hip. Let’s look at what they both are, how they relate, and how they are different.
Continue reading: https://www.eweek.com/big-data-and-analytics/ai-vs-automation/

Women entrepreneurs attending Huawei SA’s digital skills training course say they are now open to embracing cloud technology, according to the technology company.
This follows the three-day Women in Tech entrepreneur digital skills training program, showcasing the value of cloud for women-led SMMEs.
Now in its second year, Huawei’s free digital skills course provides an introduction to cloud computing and how it benefits SMMEs, digital marketing for business success, as well as leadership development.
It’s aimed at helping local women advance their skills and use new technologies to grow, improve, digitize their businesses, as well as give them an edge in the digital economy, according to Huawei.
For the cloud stream, some 100 women received training in the basics of cloud computing and how to leverage it in their businesses moving forward.
According to Huawei, at the start of the three-day session, delegates’ knowledge of uses and application of cloud computing revealed low scores, based on a survey.
However, by the end of the third session, the scores had soared, with many committing to join further Huawei training and accreditation opportunities.
Continue reading: https://www.itweb.co.za/content/mYZRX79ggrDqOgA8

Hey Tech Lady,
In efforts to help ease my transition from nonprofit & education to tech, I am reaching out to ask for some advice on how to make that leap? Any best practices, things to look out for or avoid? Ideas on where to find mentors (I have made some blind connections on LinkedIn, semi-fruitful). I have started applying for opportunities, and will be looking for internships as well as apprenticeships, but I find that first-hand advice is truly invaluable.
— Gabrielle Hodgson, Creative Director, via email submission.

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When I look back at my career path, it wasn’t a straight and easy trajectory. I tried a multitude of jobs on my way through the labyrinth that secreted my true calling writing code. Tons were epic fails that made me miserable, but a few were key steppingstones that led to the technical roles I loved, and ultimately, to where I am today as VP at Forbes. Before finding those techie roles I thrived on, I tried my hand as a server, bartender, house cleaner, administrative assistant, video store clerk, graphic designer, lifeguard, and swim instructor, to name a few. Navigating through is never perfect and you should expect to make a few mistakes along the way.
At first glance, this seems like a complex and highly specific question, but it can be simplified into something we can all relate to: how do I get where I want to be? There are obvious answers such as gaining expertise through training and certifications, but for me, networking has proved the most valuable of them all, though the approach may vary depending on where you are in your career.

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EARLY CAREER
If you’re just starting out as a professional, or you’re working towards a career change, but haven’t gotten your foot in the door quite yet, seek out connections via social media such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Connecting with individuals is a good idea, but also connect with organizations and companies you consider industry leaders. Look for those unicorns that celebrate a combination of both your field and something that makes you unique. Women in Tech (WIT) is an example for me, as someone in technology who identifies as female. A little looking and you’ll find your niche. If you get stuck, you can always write your favorite Tech Lady.
Look for either junior or intern opportunities you can apply to. Do your homework and figure out who the hiring manager or recruiter is and if possible, write them directly to express interest. It works, and to prove it, in recent weeks I passed on the names of several Jr Engineer candidates who pinged me on LinkedIn and they’re now setup with interviews. Hiring managers won’t curse you for contacting them, and if they do, you probably don’t want to work for them anyway. So don’t be shy.
Another perk you can take advantage of are organized mentorship programs. Just this past week, I saw Girls in Technology’s (GIT’s) Mentor-Protégé Program mentioned on Twitter and applied to be a mentor. Monitor relevant organizations that offer professional support and apply to be a mentee to gain individualized help.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katiedelgado/2022/10/08/hey-tech-lady-network-it-baby-and-how-to-do-it/?sh=2a5c86b94616

When Apple CEO Tim Cook made a rare appearance in London last month, he had one simple and very powerful message to share: we need more women in tech, and there is no excuse for failing to achieve gender equality.
Everyone wants a more diverse workforce and equity of opportunity, but there are some very specific reasons for requiring more women to join the sector. 
At the most basic level, it is a simple matter of understanding and respecting your customer base. At least 50 per cent of global consumers are women, so when new products are being developed it is essential that women are involved from the design stage right through the process.
I’ve seen some software teams that really have no clue about how women will interact with their systems, and it is easy to see how AI can go on to perpetrate unintentional bias if the data on which they act is incomplete or worse still incorporates stereotypes.
We also need more women starting businesses. That is true not just of tech but across the board. One of the issues is that women tend to be more risk averse, but we need to consider how to harness that. More encouragement would also be welcome. Women are often early adopters of products, whether they be new foods or new tech, so there is an opportunity to actively engage with women and support them as entrepreneurs.
Continue reading: https://futurescot.com/its-time-to-stop-making-excuses-getting-more-women-in-tech-must-underpin-efforts-to-create-an-inclusive-digital-economy/

Bitcoin, invented in 2009, has created a global market teeming with investors. Since cryptocurrencies are getting more valuable, hackers and scammers are getting more interested in them.
The bitcoin market has been hit by global volatility recently, but El Salvador passed a new Bitcoin law, Evergrande happened, and China promoted its cryptocurrency with fear and uncertainty. As an investor, you’re concerned about the number of checks and balances in place. The key is always to keep your digital currency under your control to avoid Crypto Fraud. 
Becoming a ‘hard target’ will make your digital currency less appealing to hackers. Having no global crypto regulation has its advantages and disadvantages. Crypto has innovated so fast because of it, but security hasn’t been standardized. You’re responsible for managing it as a user. So, you can take some steps to keep your cryptocurrency safe, including crypto-age precautions.
Here’s how to keep thieves, hackers, fraudsters, and scammers out:

1. Invest in reputable, safe exchanges
   [/LIST=1]
   Buying and selling cryptocurrencies takes place on exchanges, just like stock trading. There are many crypto exchanges with substantial trading volumes, and there’s always more. Kraken, Gemini, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and Binance are arguably the safest and best crypto platforms. Kraken covers 99% of the world and has a devoted cybersecurity team.
   Coinbase and Crypto.com are regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services, while the Federal Reserve regulates Gemini. Cryptocurrency exchanges like those above have solid cybersecurity infrastructure and store user crypto at geographically distributed, heavily monitored, and armed storage facilities.
   Continue reading: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/fear-of-fraud-here-are-five-steps-to-take-for-secure-cryptocurrency-investments/

The crypto industry seems like it's on the verge of collapse. Should businesses be thinking about abandoning it? No, but they should refocus their interest in crypto and its related technology.
Ever since the dawn of the cryptocurrency movement, its advocates have touted crypto's revolutionary promise for businesses and individuals alike. It would, they said, liberate capital from the clutches of government and institutions. It would bring financial services to the unbanked. It would eliminate national borders as barriers to trade. In short — it was going to change everything.
But that was over 15 years ago. Since then, the business world went through a cycle of rushing to accept crypto payments and then rushing to stop. And many of the businesses that couldn't stop talking about blockchain in the early days have since quietly abandoned their plans for the technology. Making matters worse, the crypto market itself is undergoing a correction that would give even seasoned Wall Street Brokers a serious pause.
All of this begs a particular question: At this point, should businesses wash their hands of crypto and move on?
The answer is not exactly. There are still plenty of aspects of crypto as a form of currency and as a technology that businesses should continue to explore. The trick will be to take a strategic approach to the situation to embrace the good parts of crypto while avoiding exposure to the risky or detrimental parts. Here are the three areas where businesses should train their forward-looking crypto focus.
Continue reading: https://www.entrepreneur.com/money-finance/is-it-time-to-abandon-crypto/435557

Since its inception in 1990, the internet has grown from Web1 — read-only static sites with little interaction between users — to Web2, dynamic read-write pages where advertising is revenue and user information is sold as a commodity.
However, times are changing, and more companies are choosing to operate remotely, data and privacy are becoming more of a concern and blockchain technologies are rapidly advancing. 
This is leading to a shift in how we use the internet and the development of a new and improved web: Web3. 
What is Web3, what role will blockchain play in its development, and what can we expect for the internet's future?
The internet of today
Web2 is what we know and use today. Social networks, blogs and dynamic content have become the norm. Content is distributed worldwide every second, and information is available at the touch of a button.
Although the past decade of growth has been undeniably exponential, many flaws are yet to be addressed. 
There is an over-reliance on large corporations that monopolize parts of the internet. Cloud storage companies and social networks own our data, which can be deleted at will or sold to advertisers. 
Global availability is a major concern, and corporations have chosen to favor profit over people. First-world countries take the internet for granted as a right rather than a privilege. However, over 1 billion people — upwards of 10% of the population — are without internet access.
Although a long road lies ahead and many issues remain unaddressed, a push toward a new and democratized internet is underway.
Continue reading: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/what-is-web3-and-how-will-it-change-the-internet-as-we-know-it

If you follow cryptocurrencies, you will have noticed the term web3 coming to prominence. Sometimes web3 is simply applied as a convenient synonym for cryptocurrency and works as a kind of rebranding. If crypto doesn’t hold the nuance your project is hoping to carry, then switch to web3 instead, which sounds more respectable and less risky.
However, applied more accurately, web3 has a distinct, specific meaning, and if we transition into web3, then new, crypto-native tech ventures may step up and play important roles.
What Exactly Is Web3?
The web3 descriptor refers to a proposed next iteration of the web which is in the process of being developed. Web1, the earliest version of the web, was for the most part read-only.
Web 2 followed and was allowed for reading and writing, or content creation. This is what we have now, whereby anyone (or in reality, anyone granted permission) can create blog posts, upload videos to YouTube, or post social media content, and users can establish their own online presence.
Web3 is similar to web2 but allows for ownership. Instead of relying on gated applications which, ultimately, control our content, on web3 we have ownership of our own digital property. Web3 utilizes blockchain technology to do this and is intended to be decentralized, meaning tech entities (or anyone else) cannot place restrictions on the online environment.
Will Web2 Giants Make the Switch?
Facebook has been the web2 powerhouse most explicit in its maneuvering, going as far as to rebrand itself as Meta (the metaverse is a web3-related concept), and releasing videos showcasing its pivot into metaverse development.
Continue reading: https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/who-will-dominate-web3/

The idea of Web3 has begun to take hold among business web developers in recent years. Modern business models emphasize the significance of moving beyond Web2 and discovering new ways to manage, organize and create meaning from the enormous volume of user-generated data, even though ideas about the current developments of the Web are still hazy and unclear.
The Semantic Web is frequently linked to the concept of Web3 as business strategies and web developers envisioned it. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, initially proposed the idea in 1999. He saw the potential for enabling robots to "speak to one another" and to comprehend and derive meaning from semantic data. 
However, corporations and computer scientists are creating more compact and portable applications that use crowdsourcing to organize data on the Web and the interactive features of Web2. As a result, the demand for Web3 and blockchain developers (devs) is rising in the cryptocurrency and Metaverse markets.
This article will explain what skills you should learn for Web3, why Web3 development is essential, how to learn Web3 development and throw some light on Web3 developer salaries.
Continue reading: https://cointelegraph.com/news/how-to-learn-web3-development-for-beginners

Blockchain technology is gradually but assuredly making its way to the banking and financial services industry and is capable of changing the overall security of the banking sector. From remittances to securities trading to cross-border payments, blockchain technology is designed to impact how global transactions are implemented, and digital assets are kept secure. 
Blockchain technology will change the future of the banking system in many ways. For instance, growing security, reducing fraud, human error, and charges for banks and clients, accelerating international transfers, potentially eradicating brokers and commissions, simplifying lending for lenders and borrowers, and through various use cases. 
Deepak Thapliyal is the CEO of Chain, a blockchain-based technology company to enable a smarter and more linked economy. They form cryptographic ledgers and cloud infrastructure that strengthen transformative financial products and Web3 services. Founded in 2014, Chain has raised above $40 million in financing from Khosla Ventures, Pantera Capital, Capital One, Citigroup, Fiserv, Nasdaq, Orange, and Visa. In 2018, Chain was acquired by Stellar to form Interstellar, a commercial arm of the Stellar Foundation. However, in 2020, Chain was re-acquired to continue its mission to form a more healthy global financial system through blockchain and cloud technology. 
Continue reading: https://wwd.com/business-news/business-features/deepak-thapliyal-banking-blockchain-1235381247/

Ransomware remains a massive problem for organizations and governments. It is growing in sophistication, frequency, and money demanded in ransom. Fleming Shi, CTO, Barracuda Networks, discusses how AI and ML can help combat ransomware and three things security teams should look for in AI/ML-powered email security solutions.
Ransomware continues to be a scourge for organizations worldwide, with the number of attacks increasing by 64% in 2021, according to one of our studies, heavily targeting municipalities, health care, education, and other businesses. These attacks can cripple day-to-day operations, sow chaos and result in financial losses from downtime, ransom payments, and recovery costs — unbudgeted and unanticipated expenses that can bring down large organizations. 
Ransomware even has the power to take down entire countries. The government of Costa Rica is locked in a struggle with Conti, a ransomware gang with ties to Russia that is demanding a $20 million payout. And Lincoln College — a 157-year-old institution in Illinois — had to shut its doors earlier this year because of the devastating impact of a ransomware attack. 
Not all is lost, however. As ransomware becomes even more disruptive and pervasive, advances in machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) may hold the key to more effective ransomware defense. 
Continue reading: https://www.spiceworks.com/it-security/vulnerability-management/guest-article/ai-powered-email-security-solution/

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the way industries operate. Because of the speed of AI adoption and  the technology’s ability to alter human and capital investment within a business, AI forces CEOs to make important decisions about where the people on their teams drive value.
Transitioning from traditional human-intelligence-driven methodologies can cause trepidation even among the most adventurous teams. Of course, like any new technology, there are always the risks that come with budget, deployment, integration and QA/QC to contend with. To prepare your organization for the coming changes, you must communicate your strategy and have pilot projects on deck that allow your teams to become familiar with the technology. These components are the keys to building momentum and trust in the AI system.
We saw AI move into the language industry about 2-3 years ago, and adoption has accelerated in a way few technologies have. It’s now used on more than 50 percent of translation projects, directly replacing the traditionally human work of translation. Ultimately, the industry has learned that AI provides significant benefits, but it hasn’t been an easy, or painless, path.
Putting AI to work is complicated by the fact that technology is constantly evolving and that its adoption speed is much faster than previous technology. Just as our human teams get close to “normalizing” an AI workflow, the technology changes. Additionally, for AI to be “intelligent,” the system needs to be trained, which means you need a strategy for data retention, security and application.
Continue reading: https://chiefexecutive.net/what-really-happens-when-ai-takes-over-your-business/

Over the last few years, artificial intelligence (AI) has worked its way into every area of our lives. If you’re a programmer, chances are you’ve started working with GitHub’s Copilot, an AI tool that turns natural language prompts into coding suggestions to expedite programming. If you’re a writer, you might have come across OpenAI’s GPT-3 or similar autoregressive language models that use deep learning to create human-like text. It was just a few years ago such AI programs were in their infancy. Now they are becoming ubiquitous tools in writing and coding.
As the founder of a technology investment firm, I’ve seen firsthand just how much AI has advanced in such a short period of time. The underlying building blocks of the technology are getting astonishingly better at an exponential rate, far outpacing our expectations. Techniques like deep learning allow us to run complex AI models to solve the most difficult problems. But while those who work in technology-centric careers are aware of AI’s explosive capabilities, the public at large is still largely unaware of the depth of AI’s potential.
The Growth Of AI
Many of us have spent a few hours playing around with DALL-E 2, the AI text-to-image generator that can create detailed images out of the most bizarre requests (think Obi-Wan Kenobi eating a hot fudge sundae). But how many of us realize the level of technology that goes into the creation of one of those images? This app doesn’t create images out of existing internet images but rather uses a complicated process called diffusion to refine a series of pixels until the visual rendering matches the text description. Not only is DALL-E 2 exponentially more powerful than its predecessor released the year before, but it has the potential to revolutionize the world of digital art.
Think about it—if you are a digital artist, illustrator or graphic designer, how much would your career change if you could use an app to create a realistic-looking image within seconds? These technologies tie to real-world applications with serious implications.
Continue reading: 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/10/07/recent-advancements-in-artificial-intelligence/?sh=2827581f7fa5

New Smart IoT Devices are awesome but at the same time put our lives at high risk
As mobile software components fall in price, more and more “Smart IoT Devices” and “connected gadgets” are dominating the market. Internet of Things (IoT) devices allow the expansion of internet connection beyond the usual standard smart devices like computers, laptops, smartphones, etc. These IoT devices are thoroughly embedded with high-definition technology which allows them to communicate or interact over the internet smoothly and can also be managed and controlled remotely when required. Part of the Internet of Things, these questionably intelligent devices claim everything from improved physical fitness to entertaining your children to energy conservation. Not long ago, crowdfunding campaigns for products such as “smart beer mugs” and “smart leggings” have come to light and many well-established companies like Phillips and Samsung have released smart light bulbs and smartwatches. While many connected devices make life easier but what’s more is many of even the most useful IoT devices come with a ton of unintended security and privacy consequences due to a lack of security by design, poorly secured connections, and a lack of consideration or care over how the data produced by them is used and shared.
Continue reading: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/these-smart-iot-devices-are-dumb-and-making-everyone-cringe/

The pandemic, while disastrous for businesses and economies alike, was also a massive enabler for cloud and digital transformation initiatives in every industry in SA.
However, to optimise the usage of digital solutions, decentralising structures and organising workloads according to business demands through edge computing is key, as the edge reduces the distances travelled by data, which, in turn, shrinks latency to the minimum and greatly enhances network stability.
This is driving a rapid growth in hybrid architecture, central to which are colocation data centre facilities, as these data centres are closer to organisations and are providing the modern infrastructure needed to realise these productivity gains.
To unpack what is happening in this area in SA,  Dr Ayotunde Coker, CEO of Open Access Data Centres, will be presenting on the core-to-edge opportunity in South Africa, at The ITWeb Cloud & Data Centre Summit 2022 to be held on 1 November.
This session will cover client demand for colocation and other data centre services in South Africa, as well as challenges with existing data centre deployment models.
Continue reading: https://www.itweb.co.za/content/G98YdMLGGbZ7X2PD

Barrie Mullins, vice president of product at Flex Logix, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about how a programmable accelerator chip can simplify semiconductor design at the edge, where designs need to be high performance as well as low power, but where developing everything from scratch is too expensive and time-consuming. Programmability also allows these systems to stay current with changes in algorithms, which can affect everything from an end device to the system that interoperates with that device.

In Asia-Pacific (APAC), edge computing is rapidly developing into an important frontier for enterprise innovation and competitive differentiation. Across the region, adoption is rising and usage will only grow moving forward, as consumers, businesses and governments continue to embrace Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices.
Edge computing refers to a distributed computing framework that brings enterprise applications closer to data sources. Unlike traditional models where computing power is centralized at an on-premise data center, edge brings computing closer to where data are being generated, enabling processing at greater speeds and volumes, and allowing for greater action-led results in real time.
For users, this means a faster and more consistent experience. For enterprises and service providers, edge means low latency, ultimately leading to reduced transmission delays, lessened bandwidth constraints, limited service failures, highly available apps and real-time monitoring capabilities.
Other benefits of edge computing include the ability to conduct on-site big data analytics and aggregation, which allows for near real-time decision making. Enterprises also benefit from reduced risk of exposing sensitive data since all of that computing power is kept locally. This implies better enforced security practices and easier regulatory compliance.
And since companies no longer need to take data back and forth between core and regional sites, edge computing allows companies to cut down bandwidth costs and increases their resilience as regional sites can continue to operate independently from a core site.
Today, edge computing is in use across many industries with most of its applications revolving around use cases that need low latency and fast response time, and which benefit from real-time analytics.
For example, in manufacturing, edge computing is used to monitor manufacturing processes and apply machine learning (ML) and real-time analytics to improve product qualities and detect production errors. In the construction industry, edge computing is mainly used for workplace safety to collect and analyze data taken from safety devices, cameras and sensors. And in transportation, edge computing allows autonomous vehicles to collect and analyze data while they are moving, in real time.
Continue reading: https://fintechnews.sg/64749/digital-transformation/rising-adoption-of-iot-devices-pushes-usage-of-edge-computing-upward/

Ransomware is one of the biggest threats and challenges facing organisations today. A simple online search will reveal hundreds of high-profile attacks and scary statistics around the acceleration of ransomware incidents and the costs involved.
Mitigating this threat has become essential to survival in a digital world, but this is about more than just security. Data management plays a core role in minimising the risk of ransomware, protecting data, detecting threats, and recovering fast, as well as in delivering critical insight into data and tools to enable you to respond to threats and continuously improve security stature.
The state of ransomware
Ransomware is accelerating and showing no signs of slowing down. Every time new statistics are released, they show record highs in the number of attacks and the financial implications and collateral damage, including ransomware pay-outs, critical downtime, and costly reputational damage.
Many businesses are simply not adequately prepared to handle a ransomware event because the attack types have become increasingly sophisticated, with purpose-built ransomware tools that are being leveraged at scale by organised groups.
Added to this is the recent migration to a remote workforce which has driven more data to the edge, and growing cloud transformation and Software as a Service (SaaS) adoption, which has vastly increased the attack surface. It has never been more critical to shift mindsets and adopt a strategy that incorporates measures to not only prevent attacks but also give business the tools to properly recover when an attack does hit.
Proactive data recovery strategy
One thing that all organisations need to do is adopt global best practice standards around cybersecurity, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework. This framework offers guidelines to help today’s organisations become ransomware ready and deliver a repeatable structure to enable the effective response to a breach. This in turn helps businesses to better understand, manage and reduce cybersecurity risk.
It is a broad guide that covers multiple aspects of cybersecurity. However, data protection and data management play a critical role in establishing this framework. Effectively, data protection forms an organisation’s last line of defence against a ransomware attack, enabling you to reduce downtime, fully recover and effectively minimise the impact of a data breach.
A multi-layered approach to data protection
Continue reading: https://it-online.co.za/2022/10/10/data-management-at-the-core-of-ransomware-readiness/

How improvements in data security and governance are helping heavily regulated industries make the move to the cloud.

• By Nong Li
• October 10, 2022

All too often, companies looking to leverage the cloud and its inherent benefits quickly find themselves at a crossroads. Despite predictions that moving data, applications, and/or other business elements to a cloud computing environment would become the norm across industries, more than half (52 percent) of companies reported that the majority of their applications and data workloads are still residing in on-premises data centers.
For fear they may not have the tools or strategy in place to move sensitive data to a public cloud infrastructure, executives in deeply controlled sectors such as finance, healthcare, insurance, and government began to reconsider earlier plans to migrate sensitive data and workloads to public cloud infrastructures due to compliance concerns and overall risk.
Although those concerns are justified, the reality is that these same organizations still must complete their cloud migrations to leverage their data assets and identify new opportunities. Failure to do so has its own risks and can prevent an organization from capitalizing on the benefits of modern data management approaches, infrastructures, and analytics capabilities.
Moving to the Cloud Is Not Without Its Challenges
Aside from achieving a digital transformation, businesses are also moving to the cloud to conduct analytics at speed, quickly scale artificial intelligence and machine learning initiatives, and reduce CAPEX on hardware. However, migrating to the cloud has created a new set of critical issues, such as how to ensure data security at a fine-grained level to protect personally identifiable information (PII), manage data access and control to ensure only the right people can see certain assets, and remain in compliance with the ever-growing list of global mandates.
Typically, an organization opts to leverage the cloud by applying one of the following migration approaches:

• Cloud only: a company commits to having all of their applications and data in one particular cloud offering
• Multicloud: organizations select the cloud providers based on which are best suited for their architectural, regulatory, and geographic needs
• Hybrid IT: cloud management platforms, private clouds, and remote services are used in coordination with public cloud clusters and enterprise systems

Regardless of the approach taken, transitioning to the cloud has created difficulties that challenge security- and privacy-focused executives, as business leaders too often are left wondering where data is, how well it’s protected, and how they can access it.
Continue reading: https://tdwi.org/articles/2022/10/10/diq-all-migrating-sensitive-data-workloads-to-the-cloud.aspx