What is artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence, also known as AI, involves using computers to carry out tasks that would normally require human intelligence, such as understanding natural language and recognizing patterns.
AI works by using a number of different methods to mimic human intelligence, including machine learning, natural language processing and artificial neural networks.
The benefits of AI for businesses
Reduce costs
Businesses can use artificial intelligence to reduce costs in a number of ways, including:

• Automating processes that would otherwise be carried out by human employees, such as customer service and accounting.
• Using artificial intelligence to improve decision-making, which can lead to increased efficiency and reduced wastage.
• Generating insights that can help businesses make better strategic decisions, such as where to allocate resources or how to price products.

Improve quality
Artificial intelligence can help businesses improve the quality of their products and services by:

• Automating quality control processes.
• Using artificial intelligence to develop new products and services.
• Using artificial intelligence to customize products and services to individual customers.

Continue reading: https://www.deseret.com/2022/9/29/23375540/what-is-artificial-intelligence

$4.35 million. That's the average total cost of a data-exposing cybersecurity incident, according to the Ponemon Institute's "Cost of a Data Breach Report 2022." That's an all-time high, up 12.7% from 2020.
Between the potential loss of trade secrets, reputational harm, and regulatory fines related to data privacy, data breaches can threaten an organization's very existence. And if you don't take proactive measures to prevent them, the circumstances that led to one breach can easily result in another. Eighty-three percent of breached organizations report having suffered more than one such event.
Data loss prevention, or DLP, refers to a category of cybersecurity solutions that are specifically designed to detect and prevent data breaches, leaks, and destruction. These solutions do so by applying a combination of data flow controls and content analysis. And in today's cyber-threat landscape, DLP has become a basic business need.
The Three States of Data and How DLP Protects Them
There are three main states in which data can reside within an organization:

• Data in use: Data is considered to be in use when it's being accessed or transferred, either via local channels (e.g., peripherals and removable storage) or applications on the endpoint. An example could be files that are being transferred from a computer to an USB drive.
• Data in motion: Data is considered to be in motion when it's moving between computer systems. For example, data that is being transferred from local file storage to cloud storage, or from one endpoint computer to another via instant messenger or email.
• Data at rest: Data is considered to be at rest when it's stored, either locally or elsewhere on the network, and is not currently being accessed or transferred.

Of course, most sensitive data will change between these states frequently — in some cases, almost continuously — though there are use cases where data may remain in a single state for its entire life cycle at an endpoint.
Similarly, there are three primary "functional" DLP types, each dedicated to protecting one of these states of data. Here are just some examples of how this can work:

• Data-in-use DLP systems may monitor and flag unauthorized interactions with sensitive data, such as attempts to print it, copy/paste to other locations, or capture screenshots.
• Data-in-motion DLP detects whether an attempt is being made to transfer (confidential) data outside of the organization. Depending on your organization's needs, this can include potentially unsafe destinations, such as USB drives or cloud-based applications.
• Data-at-rest DLP enables a holistic view of the location of sensitive data on a local endpoint or network. This data can then be deleted (if it's out of place), or certain users' access to it blocked depending on your security policies.

Continue reading: https://www.darkreading.com/cloud/plug-your-data-leaks-integrating-data-loss-prevention-into-your-security-stack

If we don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the Earth will likely reach the disastrous 1.5-degree warming threshold between 2030 and 2052, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). As the single largest producer of greenhouse gasses, the transportation sector is central to any effort to improve the situation. But how?  
 
No single technology is sufficient to avoid climate catastrophe, but cellular IoT can help reduce transportation’s carbon footprint in surprisingly powerful ways. If you work in transportation—from shipping to mass transit to personal mobility—think of IoT as a valuable part of your sustainability toolkit. But to get the most benefit, these systems must be sustainable across the whole lifecycle, starting with the production of IoT devices.   
How can IoT device manufacturers help transportation providers reduce emissions without creating too much waste of their own? One area of focus is a new generation of subscriber identity module (SIM) technology: the integrated SIM, or iSIM. In this article, we’ll explain how IoT supports greener transportation options. Then, we’ll explore iSIMs as the most efficient path toward IoT-driven sustainability in this sector. 
IoT’s Contributions to Sustainable Transportation Systems
The transportation industry includes every level of mobility, from passenger vehicles to freight carriers and agricultural equipment to e-scooters. Cellular IoT can help reduce emissions in each. Today’s IoT systems reduce transportation’s environmental footprint by: 
1. Reducing Inventory Waste Throughout the Supply Chain.
Medium- and heavy-duty trucks contributed more than a quarter of the broader transportation sector’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2020. When freight gets damaged in transit, shippers have to manufacture and deliver replacement orders, effectively doubling the shipment’s carbon footprint. Cellular asset tracking technology delivers real-time data on the state and condition of shipments throughout their journeys, so shippers can make changes before damage occurs—correcting temperature imbalances in containers, removing shipments from humid warehouses, and more. Such actions prevent waste and associated carbon emissions.
Cellular asset tracking also supports the reuse of materials. For example, shippers and carriers traditionally regarded shipping pallets and crates as disposable. That’s changing. With rising material costs and the need to reduce overall shipping expenses and environmental impacts, the reuse of pallets and crates is becoming imperative. With pallets made of resilient, lightweight materials, and embedded with cellular IoT tracking and content-monitoring devices, the value of these assets increases—further driving widespread reuse. 
With asset tracking driven by cellular IoT, haulers can locate and manage pallets efficiently, especially when they move outside the owner’s direct control.  
2. Enabling More Energy-Efficient Routes and Fleet Management Decisions.
Without big data, micro-mobility providers struggle to spot use patterns. That leads to a lot of unnecessary fleet transportation. Fleet management platforms use data supplied by cellular IoT features to help you deploy e-scooters and e-bikes where they’ll be used without unnecessary hauling.
Continue reading: https://www.iotforall.com/iot-isim-sustainable-transportation

Admins who oversee IoT devices use logging software to yield insights about device performance. The goal of using IoT logging software and devices is to ensure efficient, effective and safe operations.
Logging is a way for IT administrators who manage IoT deployments to use any collected data to gauge how the IoT deployments are running. For a successful logging workflow, IT teams should figure out what log types are the most important and how the log data should be used.
"Logging in IoT is the act of keeping a record of the various things and actions an IoT device does. A log can be nearly anything, including status changes, commands sent to the device, sensor readings, error codes, bugs, network changes, authentication attempts or configuration changes," said Geoff Weathersby, director for IoT at consulting firm Protiviti.
IoT log data collection and analysis can help admins better understand the health and performance levels of their connected devices and overall IoT deployments.
That work takes a strategy -- one where admins must identify what data they need and what purpose the data is for and then collect, manage and analyze the required logging data. Furthermore, admins must have tools to clean data before use.
Centrally managed logging systems for IoT devices help decrease downtime, troubleshoot fixes and identify general malfunctions of log connection issues, said Kateryna Dubrova, research analyst on ABI Research's IoT networks and services team.

Why logging data is important
IoT data logging is similar to non-IoT device logging, said Adonya Ourshalimian, vice president of product management at Theorem. Both can provide valuable insights that businesses can use to improve or optimize operations.
Just as other IT systems use different log types for specific data, IoT also has different types of data to log. These logs detail whether devices are on or off, connection status, or whether devices fail or experience errors.
Admins should pay attention to logging data because it provides insights into IoT deployment health, which can be hard to get otherwise.
"IoT devices are generally low-cost, low-power devices intended to be deployed in large numbers for long periods of time with minimal direct interaction. Practically, what this means is that you will want to maximize your access to the device's history and status without negatively impacting device performance, battery life or data costs," Weathersby said.
 
Continue reading: https://www.techtarget.com/iotagenda/tip/An-introduction-to-IoT-logging-types-and-practices

One of the world’s leading experts in drone technology, Robert Garbett, has called on the UK Government to support the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) plea for Britain to “rise up and act to protect the health of our most vulnerable people” by confronting the global threat of air pollution, which “is killing 7 million people per year and shaving over two years off the average life expectancy.”
Robert Garbett, Founder of Drone Major Group Limited, stated: “Lives can be saved, disease in the youngest reduced, the oldest and most vulnerable members of society protected, as well as saving the NHS millions by replacing many of our delivery vans, trucks and heavy goods vehicles with battery-powered drones.”
“It is glaringly obvious that the use of drones in the UK’s most polluted cities can rapidly and economically improve the quality of air we breathe and mitigate the lethal consequences of air pollution.”
“The UK has the knowledge to become the global driving force in drone technology, starting in our largest cities, potentially with a pioneering maritime drone initiative in London on the river Thames that would decarbonise the city’s logistics and freight industry. The technology is available now and the huge health, environmental and economic benefits to the UK and its public should be a priority.”
“This technology can be deployed in any city with a river in the UK, and beyond. Its adoption will dramatically reduce the number of delivery vehicles on our roads, massively improve air quality, reduce congestion, make roads faster and more efficient, and improve our wellbeing.”
 
“Today, approximately 89% of all goods transported by land in Great Britain are moved directly by road transport, which is one of the UK’s most polluting industries. The exciting and necessary benefits of a drone initiative of this kind will reduce the logistics industry’s dependence on road travel through innovative, cleaner technology and will advance the Government’s bid to cut pollution in the UK’s most crowded and congested cities. The UK should become a world leader.”
“A maritime drone delivery system on the Thames would not require any new building infrastructure and would instead involve maritime drones carrying freight, to travel along the river to a series of pontoons equipped appropriately for lifting freight onto shore.”
99% of the global population breathes in polluted air every day. In September, a breakthrough study by the Francis Crick Institution in London found that air pollution uncovered the link between car fumes and lung cancer in non-smokers. Another study by Imperial College London proved that approximately 4,000 Londoners died prematurely in 2019 because of long term exposure to air pollution, with poor air quality found to cause permanently stunted lungs in children.
Continue reading: https://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/drones-the-end-of-britains-silent-killer/

After many mistakes and downfalls, technology experts have managed to make their way into still dominated by the industry, According to a study conducted by INEI in 2021, Less than 10% of women in the country work in the technology sector. In addition, only 8% of them choose to study a career related to the world of computing. This is not the case only in Peru, as women represent only 26% of the workforce in the information technology (IT) sector worldwide.
We spoke to Giuliana, who is in Spain, And told us how MIA has positioned itself in this field, the position of Peruvian women in technology, and their future plans for its application.
—How did the idea to make Mia come about?
I have been a coach for over 13 years and in my years of work I can tell you that 85% of my patients seek me for personal and professional growth and it has always been rooted in a sexual problem. I looked at myself in the mirror and said: ‘Wow, this happens to me too’. But it was a taboo subject.
In 2017, I decided to embark on a journey around the world to solve personal problems that I also had. Thus in this journey around the world, I searched for experts for three years, I worked on many aspects, I knocked on many doors and realized that the problem of sexuality is much bigger than I could have imagined.
I understood that I had to do something to solve this, that it cost me a lot and I wanted to shorten it for people. That’s how I more or less put Mia in the opening brushstrokes at the time.
“What technology does Mia use?” How does it work concretely?
Today Mia is a chatbot with Artificial Intelligence. You walk into Mia and it’s an avatar. Why and for what do we use artificial intelligence? Well, it is built with artificial intelligence because today there are many applications or startups that connect physical experts with people, for example.
Continue reading: https://worldnationnews.com/there-are-opportunities-in-technology-for-women-but-its-up-to-us-whether-we-want-to-take-them/

Banco Sabadell is leading its digital transformation and one of its captains is Monica Rafekas, the unit’s youngest manager and head of Cloud Office. His love for the game and technology has made him one of the best American football players in Spain and inspired him to successfully meet the challenges of Claude’s journey in the financial world.
One of his most “disruptive” moments was when, at age 11, he found what is now one of his passions: American football. A fairly minority sport in Spain, but even more so if you are a woman. “It’s a way of understanding life, of attitude, of what it means to me,” he explains.
With that fighting attitude and ready to break any barriers and disciplines, Monica Rafecus decided to start a double degree in Business and Computer Engineering. She says that very few women started studying but “only three completed it”. He also did this as part of the second part of his preaching. “There is no sport or boys’ race,” he claims.
With this background, Monica landed in Banco Sabadell 6 years ago. She began leading Azure’s landings, and shortly afterwards gained recognition for becoming the bank’s youngest manager and responsible for the financial institution’s cloud office.
Continue reading: https://worldnationnews.com/women-in-technology-at-the-forefront-of-banking-transformation/

Technology is core to CZI’s mission. Our technology teams harness the power of engineering to accelerate progress in science and education.
Women in Tech (WIT), one of our employee-led resource groups, brings women from across CZI’s tech teams into community together. The group’s collective goal is to support the advancement of women and non-binary people in tech — a critical effort given that these groups remain underrepresented within the technology industry.
We invited WIT members to reflect on their journeys in tech — sharing how they started their careers and are building tech now for a better future.
Get to know six trailblazing CZI women in tech below.
Jen Erickson – Technical Program Manager, Security
How It Started
I’m part of the third generation of technology workers in my family. My grandmother was a punch card operator in the ‘70s and would bring home old punch cards for me to draw on. My grandfather and my dad also worked in tech, and I vividly remember going as a kid to a product launch for Data General, one of the first minicomputer firms.
When I went to college, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I dropped out after a semester to rethink my education. I started attending community college and landed an internship at Adobe via a family friend. I would commute to class each morning, work at Adobe, and then return to school for night courses, three to four days a week.
My internship became a job, and I transferred to a degree program at the University of San Francisco. I continued to work during the day and pursue my degree at night, using a generous tuition reimbursement program. I’ve been in tech ever since.
Continue reading: https://chanzuckerberg.com/blog/celebrating-women-in-tech/

A new form of the internet called Web3 is being built right in front of our eyes. It’s being built on permissionless blockchains where anyone can deploy a smart contract they’ve written. Indeed, some of the greatest developers in this nascent industry are anonymous people – no college degree or corporate work experience is required here.
Perhaps you’re already a Web3 user, participate in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO), vibe in non-fungible token (NFT) communities and trade crypto. You’ve seen what it’s like and now want to take a step further to help build better stuff – you want to be a builder, or a dev (short for developer).
The other great thing about Web3 is that it welcomes autodidacts – those who eschew formal courses or training and learn on their own by doing. If you’re interested in becoming a blockchain dev, everything you need to get started is available online.
To help you get started, we’ve asked developers, teachers and learners for their best tips.
Understand what blockchain is and does
Start with the fundamentals and understand what blockchain is, and what it can do – also importantly, what it can’t do.
“I think it's important for everyone to realize that at the heart of a cryptocurrency there is a single database – account balances, smart contract code, etc. – and a ‘blockchain’ is just a cryptographic audit trail that allows anyone to compute a copy of the database,” Patrick McCorry, researcher at blockchain tool developer Infura, told CoinDesk.
McCorry started a cryptocurrency course “because there are bystanders who are willing to make the jump into our space, but they are lacking the mental models and wider context on how the technology works.” The course is sponsored by his employer Infura and is available for free.
CoinDesk also has articles to help get you started:
Continue reading: https://www.coindesk.com/learn/how-to-teach-yourself-blockchain-a-guide-for-budding-builders/

The past few months have been a rough awakening for many Web3 enthusiasts: the market prices of major cryptocurrencies have declined significantly, the trading volume of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has slowed, and, most importantly, some pioneers of the space have declared bankruptcy because of failed risk management and misuse of consumer funds. Yet even as the debris continues to fly, business leaders shouldn’t confuse market fluctuations or bad actors with the potential uses of digital assets and the technologies that underlie them.
While there are very real risks from this nascent technology and its uses, applications for the next generation of the internet continue to spring up in a growing number of industries with potentially transformative effects.
The financial-services industry has largely led the way in adopting some of these nascent digital technologies and assets—at its peak, the daily volume of transactions processed on so-called decentralized-finance exchanges exceeded $10 billion.1 Volume has since dropped to about $2 billion, largely in line with asset prices. Learnings from the financial-services experience—both the ups and the downs—are helping to inform usage in other sectors, which now include real estate, gaming, carbon markets, and art, among others.
How far and how fast these technologies and their uses will spread remains to be seen; the journey is proving bumpy, with ongoing challenges ranging from poor user experience to fraud. Crucially, the regulatory picture for Web3 remains unsettled, with calls for greater clarity on some assets and more consumer protection for funds held in custody. Yet understanding the core features of this new digital wave and the potential disruption it could bring remains important for business leaders in a wide range of sectors. To that end, this article is a primer on the fundamentals of Web3: what it is, the pillars on which it is built, what it can and cannot yet do, the significant risks and challenges it needs to overcome, and the implications for stakeholders as it continues to evolve. Future articles will look at more specific aspects and use cases in greater depth.
Continue reading: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/web3-beyond-the-hype

Artificial intelligence is becoming less of a futuristic technology and a more integral aspect of today’s business landscape.
The usage of AI across the business universe is revolutionizing every industry, and Gartner reports that at least 75% of organizations use deep neural networks today.
In financial departments, AI is automating menial tasks and reducing errors in traditional manual workflows.
AI’s unfounded fears
There’s no doubt that businesses utilizing the right AI for the right reasons are seeing exponential benefits. Unfortunately, not every business unit is as excited about the available AI solutions that finance departments are gifted with. Change management is a significant component of failure when implementing any transformative technology.
Many humans still have unfounded fears about it gaining sentience or replacing them, and workers are wary of becoming obsolete once their daily tasks are automated.
But that’s never been the point of AI, machine learning, and automation because they augment human intelligence.
Continue reading: https://readwrite.com/simplifying-ai-can-optimize-your-entire-business/

The United States is the third largest manufacturer in the world, trailing only China and the European Union. With hundreds of thousands of manufacturing businesses, the sector accounts for about 11% of America’s total gross domestic product and serves a vital role in the global economy.
Manufacturing yards serve as the lifeblood of this industry, but these properties pose unique security challenges. Companies want to protect their manufacturing operations, materials and intellectual property while ensuring employee safety and building an efficient operation.
With the sprawling size of some manufacturing yards, maintaining visibility in every aspect can prove difficult. However, artificial intelligence-powered yard management software has solved many of these challenges. Artificial intelligence (AI) goes beyond traditional security methods, leveraging historical data and insights to alert managers to potential safety hazards and security blind spots.
These yard management systems can provide functionality and customizable approaches to meet specific organizational needs. They often include tools like visualization through a facility’s live graphic and appointment and dock scheduling tools. With the proper solution, organizations can often find immediate places for improvement in their manufacturing structure.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/09/28/how-artificial-intelligence-can-impact-the-manufacturing-yard/?sh=57428cd6ca63

Computers have come a long way. From punch-card behemoths to hand-held voice-activated smartphones, advances in miniaturization and computing power have supported the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) from smart marketing algorithms, incredible image recognition capabilities, operating within the global financial market, efficient search engines and achievements like beating humans at games, considered to represent the apogee of human intelligence like chess or Go. Despite these achievements, AI is falling short.
In 1950 Alan Turing threw down a gauntlet when he said, “Instead of trying to produce a program to simulate the adult mind, why not rather try to produce one which simulates the child’s?” In the seven decades that have passed since this challenge was issued, we have yet to build an artificial intelligence model that can rival the infant cognition of a typically developing 1-year-old.
One place where artificial intelligence has failed is in replicating an infant’s understanding of physics. We are not referring to the difficult physics questions about the nature of the big bang or black holes, but rather simple physics concepts like knowing that an unsupported object falls, knowing that a hidden object continues to exist and expecting that a ball rolling down a ramp will ricochet off a wall at the bottom of the ramp. This asks us to call into question when it was that learnt how objects behave and interact. Did anyone explicitly teach us these notions?
Continue reading: https://iai.tv/articles/why-we-have-the-future-of-ai-wrong-auid-2251

Thank you for welcoming this male to the AWIT networking event this morning! Kathleen invited me to share a bit more about my work, so doing that here. I hope it's valuable for you, and I welcome any reactions and feedback you have. Skeptics and contrarians help me improve the material! Just disagree with me - don't demonize me. Task conflict, good. Personality conflict, bad. 🙂
My work (upcoming book and preview blogs) proposes what's next for innovation methodology (after Agile winds its course). Jumping to the punchline of this post, I believe my work improves women's position to have a seat at the table, be more valuable to their team, be a competitive and collaborative advantage to their company, reduce being at the mercy of poor leadership/management, and raise your confidence that, with these tools, you can lead ANY change initiative. I'd like to think my material could make imposter syndrome a thing of the past.
Bold words, I know. I'm hoping to keep this post within the improv spirit of "Bring a Brick, Not A Cathedral," so one more set of consideration for you ... your team is an agreement factory (dysfunctional teams are disagreement factories), those agreements cannot merely reside in meetings and email (so you must know exactly what is worth documenting outside email). Manage this agreement factory with five verbs: Draft, Review, Revise, Approve, Distribute. It's *like* a RACI matrix, but with teeth (since assignments, durations, and percent complete endure the whole project). These documents are durable - not disposable. But since the five verbs is SO dry and robotic, look to the performing arts for some pizazz, empathy, forgiveness, and grace. Imagine emulating a symphony, a dance couple, a theater company, or an improv team. Holy collaboration, Batman. 🙂 The combination of uncommon discipline and empathy can be extremely powerful, fun, and profitable. Here is one blog example. Explore as you like, apply as you see fit, and get in touch with questions, concerns, feedback. Thank you!
 
P.S. The working title of my book is "Innovation Elegance: Transcending Agile With Ruthlessness and Grace." The edits are painstaking work at the moment!

The amount of women in the tech space are few and far between and it is the responsibility of the industry to prove that there is indeed a place for them. Clare Hickie, Chief Technical Officer for EMEA at Workday, explains how the technology industry can implement more effective DE&I strategies that drive real progress to close the gap.
Diversity in the workplace has improved in the past decade, with female representation largely on a forward trajectory. However, women have undoubtedly faced challenges in the workplace including glass ceilings and even glass cliffs. But, as progress is made towards Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) goals and more employees from Generation-X enter the workforce, many are shining a light for the next generation of women in tech to follow.  
There are reasons to be encouraged about the future of women in the industry. A study by McKinsey in 2020 found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile.
Anecdotally, many female leaders talk about having had to work twice as hard as their male counterparts just to get on a level playing field. I know from personal experience not only how dedicated women are, but how committed we are to achieving success.
Progress slowed by the pandemic
According to Deloitte, in 2022 the tech industry will close the gender pay gap by 2% on 2019’s figure, reaching 33% of female representation in the workforce by 2023. Even though this figure may seem low, it represents a significant stride forward when you take into consideration that the pandemic seriously damaged female employment rates. 
Continue reading: https://www.intelligentcio.com/eu/2022/09/27/breaking-the-bias-barrier-in-tech/#

Embrace your inner nerd.
Befriend the uncomfortable.
That was just some of the advice a panel of speakers gave to a roomful of Grand Canyon University students on Saturday for the academic year's first Coding with My Girls, presented by the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the Technology Club and Women in Cybersecurity (WiCys).
Niya Patterson, Women in Tech Committee Lead for the Technology Club, and Adrianna Ruby, Project Engineer for the Society of Women Engineers, with help from K-12 STEM Outreach, hosted panelists from a variety of technology companies that sponsored the event.
Coding with My Girls also included a coding session using Arduino controllers to make light-show lanterns.
Technology Associate Dean Dr. Pam Rowland welcomed GCU students, and Megan Fitzgerald, Public Safety/Cybersecurity/Military Advisor to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, introduced the panelists — all female leaders in the cybersecurity and technology industries.
The panelists spoke about the importance of mentorship, maintaining confidence and more. They included Stacy Wallace, Chief Information Security Officer of the Arizona Department of Revenue; Marnie Wilking, Global Head of Security & IT Risk Management, Wayfair; Seema Seewell, Maricopa County Deputy CISO; Tina Shakour, AWS Security Success Manager and the U.S. Department of State’s Techwomen Program delegate; and Ngan Pham, Arizona Department of Homeland Security Enterprise Security Advisory Council Program Manager.
Continue reading: https://news.gcu.edu/campus-life/coding-with-my-girls-forges-new-connections/

Apple CEO Tim Cook wants to see more diversity in the tech industry, saying there are “no good excuses” for the continued lack of women in the world’s tech firms.
Diversity is good for business
This is not an outlier position. Cook is making what is becoming a widely accepted argument that diversity within a business makes that business better. Decisions made and executed by diverse teams deliver better results, as many surveys, such as this one and this one, have found.
“I think the essence of technology and its effect on humanity depends upon women being at the table," Cook told the BBC. "Technology’s a great thing that will accomplish many things, but unless you have diverse views at the table that are working on it, you don’t wind up with great solutions."
Apple opens UK scheme for female developers
Cook's comments came as Apple introduces its App Store Foundation Program to the UK for the first time. Designed to help build future developers, Apple is paying particular attention to female developers in the first iteration of the scheme.
Continue reading: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3674840/apple-ceo-tim-cook-wants-more-women-in-tech.html

Blockchain – a type of shared but incorruptible ledger technology – is helping businesses up their game when it comes to data management. Security, data transparency, traceability, and organizational efficiency can all be improved when these systems are implemented – clear benefits for pharma. So why are some companies so slow off the mark in using the technology? Here, Jonathan Bywater from full-service law firm VWV makes the case for blockchain and outlines how it can help support supply efficiency.
As supply chain security and visibility become increasingly important to pharma companies, what role will blockchain play?  
Distributed ledger technology’s most attractive use in supply chains is its ability to verify authenticity. In other words, it can provide a means for anyone to screen for counterfeit medicines to an extremely high degree of certainty because it’s highly unlikely for the database to be corrupted. Provided the manufacturer places their products “on chain” and their movements are logged, you have an immutable source telling you the quantity of medicine manufactured, where they’ve been distributed, and if the end users accept them. 
An additional benefit is that this timestamped log is impartial, showing whose custody shipments are in at any time. Companies can even rely on the technology to facilitate payments via smart contracts. So, the advantages are not limited to one specific area.
Continue reading: https://themedicinemaker.com/business-regulation/blockchain-an-immutable-future

The financial services industry (FSI) is increasingly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) in recent years. The results of a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit show that 85% of the respondents (banking IT leaders) have a “clear strategy” for using AI in product and service development. This is also evident in recent hiring trends in banks for AI-related jobs. It’s great to see AI adoption at this scale, but this also makes it crucial for FSI leaders to watch for and avoid some of the following leading pitfalls in AI initiatives.
1. Technology Rabbit Hole
It may be tempting to start an AI use case purely based on technology availability. And one can be easily convinced that a certain solution can solve all their natural language problems. AI teams often fall into this trap by hiring machine language (ML) experts who build a proof of concept without knowing what actual business problems the tech can solve.
Instead, AI teams should focus on top-down buy-in from executive sponsors in the business before researching Python packages. And they should understand the value of AI before choosing solutions.
2. Lack Of Domain Expertise
Technical roles such as data engineer, ML engineer and data scientists make up part of the core on-the-ground AI team. Once executive sponsorship is obtained, AI teams immediately dive into solution mode. But without having deep domain expertise in the business line, these teams often quickly turn to develop a solution that’s technically enticing but doesn’t solve the business problem.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/09/27/the-five-pitfalls-of-adopting-ai-in-financial-services-and-how-to-avoid-them/?sh=2d99bac126ad

The insurance industry is one of the largest in the world and has been around for hundreds of years, making it ripe for transformation by newcomers in the space. Over the past five to ten years, technology has pushed the frontier of what’s possible, making way for a new breed of digital-first insurance companies to come to life. The use of technology, data, artificial intelligence (AI), and modern design has created a powerful combination, changing what was once a very policy-centric industry to one that’s customer-centric.
I recently had the chance to speak to Daniel Schreiber, co-founder CEO of Lemonade, the digital insurance company powered by social impact with a mission dedicated to building the “most loveable insurance” available. During our conversation, he spoke about the company’s use of AI and big data, how it impacts the customer experience, and the opportunities (and, at times, challenges) it brings to the industry.
Gary Drenik: Can you share more on how Lemonade is using AI?
Daniel Schreiber: We describe Lemonade as being built on behavioral economics and artificial intelligence, which has been true since Lemonade was founded. As a new company looking to disrupt what’s been the go-to model for a centuries-old industry, we wanted to harness the power of AI and big data to not only power our own product but encourage the industry to do the same. In an ideal world, this would lead to insurance becoming fairer, cheaper, and faster. No two people are entirely alike; different people should be treated differently—this should be reflected in how insurance assesses risk and prices policies in a world of individuals.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/garydrenik/2022/09/27/how-ai-is-changing-the-game-in-insurance/?sh=1c1995a251bf

Computers are solving problems no human could ever decode — and in ways that feel distinctly nonhuman to us. Should we embrace or rethink the strange intelligence of machines?
In 2019, five of the top poker players in the world sat down in a casino to play poker against a computer. Over the course of the game they lost big — some $1.7 million (€1.77 million) — to a poker bot called Pluribus.
It was the first time an artificial-intelligence (AI) program beat elite human players at a game of more than two players.
In a post-game interview, the players were asked how they felt about losing to a computer. Pluribus, they said, ʺbluffed really well. No human would ever bet like that.ʺ
One player said the bot played like 'an alien', betting hundreds of times more than human players did, even when it was bluffing.
How a bot learned to play poker
ʺWhy was it so alien? It's because Pluribus learned how to play poker completely differently to how humans do," Eng Lim Goh, Chief Technology Officer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, told DW.
When a human learns to play poker, Goh explained, they learn two main skills: How to make superior mathematical decisions, and how to read their opponents.
But Pluribus didn't learn this way. Instead, it got incredibly good at one aspect of poker — bluffing — through trillions of games of trial and error.
ʺThey trained the machines how to bluff by pitching two machines against each other over trillions of games,ʺ said Goh. ʺAt the end of the training, a bot emerged that was an expert at bluffing.ʺ
This method of learning is called reinforcement learning. It's a unique way to learn one task by repeating the task over and over again until it finds the best methods.
ʺIt explored more spaces of probability than humans ever have since the game was invented. It found different ways of playing,ʺ said Goh.
Continue reading: https://www.dw.com/en/no-human-could-do-that-is-ai-becoming-too-alien/a-63253727

“Eighty five percent teacher talk for me—even for an interview that makes me think: yikes!”
Jamie Poskin was referring to the TeachFX analysis of the interview he’d just completed with Forbes. According to the app, he spent 85% of the call talking—which seems appropriate when answering a reporter’s questions. But had he been teaching English to a class of ninth graders, that figure would be higher than it should be, according to decades of research on student learning.
Poskin is the founder and CEO of TeachFX, an artificial intelligence-powered app that records teachers’ lessons and gives them personalized feedback about what they do well and where they could improve. How much time did they spend talking compared with their students? Did they ask too few open-ended questions? Did they use too many academic or technical words? Did they pause for an adequate amount of time after posing a question? TeachFX will tell them.
A former high school English and math teacher, Poskin, 38, started the company in 2016 and signed on his first customers during the 2018-19 school year. Like many fledgling businesses, TeachFX was nearly snuffed out by the Covid-19 pandemic, but today the company is partnered with about 70 school districts and is on track to book about $2.5 million in revenue this year. Last week, TeachFX announced it raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Reach Capital.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawhitford/2022/09/27/this-artificial-intelligence-app-wants-to-make-you-a-better-teacher/?sh=35184fa71873#open-web-0

This past April, in her first oversight meeting before the U.S. House of Representatives, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Chair Charlotte Burrows was asked whether the EEOC intends to return to its brief and controversial practice of collecting pay data from employers. She hedged her answer, refusing to give an outright “yes.” She explained the commission would wait to hear from the National Academy of Sciences on the topic before coming to a decision.
However, Burrows talked at length about the significance of pay data for closing the wage gap for minorities and women, giving the overall impression that pay data collection will soon return. In her view, pay discrimination is easier to identify and combat when wages are made public in some fashion.
State Legislation
Unsurprisingly, legislators at the state level share Chair Burrows’ enthusiasm for tackling the wage gap through pay transparency. Yet newer pay transparency state laws and legislation go far beyond what the EEOC would require by mandating public disclosure of pay information in job postings.
In Washington, legislators recently amended the state’s existing pay transparency law to require that employers disclose a wage scale or salary range along with benefits information in all job postings. The prior iteration of the law had entitled applicants to salary information only after a job offer was extended. The job posting requirement will go into effect January 1, 2023.
Microsoft has already announced it will include salary ranges in all its job postings countrywide by that date. Similarly, the New York Legislature passed S9427 on June 3. Provided the bill is signed by Governor Kathy Hochul, it will require job postings to contain “the compensation or a range of compensation for such job, promotion, or transfer opportunity.” A similar law was already enacted by New York City and will go into effect in the fall.
Interestingly, legislation proposed in California combines the pay range disclosure requirements for job postings with EEOC-style pay data reporting requirements. Employers with 100 or more employees would need to file annual pay data reports with the agency disclosing “the number of employees by race, ethnicity, and sex, whose annual earnings fall within each of the pay bands used by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Occupational Employment Statistics survey” and the median and mean hourly rate “within each job category, for each combination of race, ethnicity, and sex.” This may be predictive of the next generation of bills.
Latest Pay Equity Litigation
While the states move on pay transparency, a number of recent pay equity settlements reflect the ongoing focus on pay discrimination in the courts.
The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team, which had settled its equal pay lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation for $24 million, achieved a much more significant victory in its collective bargaining agreement. In a deal announced on May 18, 2022, the U.S. Soccer Federation agreed to pay its men’s and women’s players equally. As part of the equal pay agreement, the federation will give the men’s and women’s teams the same quality of venues, hotel accommodations, staffing, and other resources but will also include childcare for the women’s teams.
Continue reading: https://compensation.blr.com/Compensation-news/Compliance/FLSA-Fair-Labor-Standards-Act/Wage-Gap-Continues-to-Drive-Pay-Transparency-Initi/

There has never been a better time to be a CIO. In today’s challenging macro-economic environment – with high inflation, constrained supply chains, talent shortages and hybrid work among other challenges – the technology strategy drives the business strategy. Hence, the role of the CIO is essential to every organization's success. 
With companies facing multiple challenges in today’s economy, it’s crucial they uphold customer loyalty at a time when so many other uncertainties threaten business growth. CIOs will need to make the most of emerging technologies in the enterprise, such as artificial intelligence (AI), to maintain loyalty and enhance the customer journey – especially when consumer expectations remain high. 
One focus area is utilizing AI to enable account teams to make more informed decisions. Customer-facing staff have traditionally relied on past experiences and instincts to help manage expectations. However, connected AI models can make predictions to power decision-making capabilities internally, and these powerful insights deliver value for clients and employees alike. For instance, a ‘decision-assist’ approach uses AI to give staff recommendations on how to optimize each customer’s user experience.
Let’s say a business hires a new account executive in the sales team and they manage some of the key accounts. At any point in time, there are hundreds of actions they could perform on the customer to change the trajectory of the relationship. For example, they could fix an implementation issue, suggest tactics to increase product usage, encourage the client to take a training course, or fix a support issue. 
Continue reading: https://erp.today/artificial-intelligence-will-revolutionise-the-customer-journey/

In today’s $200 billion gaming industry, game developers are continually searching for new concepts and ways to keep players engaged and playing. In such a competitive and fast-moving industry, developers are obligated to closely monitor the marketplace and analyze player behavior within their games. Left to humans, that’s extremely manual and time-consuming work.
But left to technological solutions that can recognize patterns and adapt to their environments, developers can focus on the more creative aspects. AI, in particular, is already showing developers how to create better in-game experiences and develop their games more efficiently.
As gaming becomes more immersive and realistic, and as community and interaction become more important, users are increasingly looking for ways to feel connected to each other within a game.
AI is a tool that many game developers are using to build those connections, deepen engagement and generate new content and interactive stories. They’re able to do this by collecting opted-in data from users and analyzing user behavior to understand how gamers play, where they are most deeply or most frequently engaged and what factors lead them to stop playing. Those insights allow developers to fine-tune gameplay and locate new opportunities for monetization.
AI is also valuable for improving gameplay, not only in terms of realism in design and avatar interactivity but also suiting the gamer’s specific skill level and method of play. Think of enemies and obstacles within a game. NPCs (non-player characters) must be trained to move around obstacles, and AI can facilitate that training. It can also facilitate better pathfinding by detecting the shortest path between two points that any characters need to traverse.
Continue reading: 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/09/26/artificial-intelligences-transformative-effect-on-the-gaming-industry/?sh=364ada7f345c