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"AI analysis finds that in-app ad issues are fixed faster on Android than iOS | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/ai-analysis-finds-that-in-app-ad-issues-are-fixed-faster-on-android-than-ios"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages AI analysis finds that in-app ad issues are fixed faster on Android than iOS Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are app stores the only way to reach gamers? Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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A new study finds evidence that in-app ad issues are addressed more quickly for popular Android apps on Google Play than their iOS counterparts on Apple’s App Store. In what the researchers claim is a first-of-its-kind survey, they investigated the ads in 32 cross-platform apps that rank the top 100 lists from Google Play and the App Store. They say the results imply developers should pay attention to platform differences during ad design and consider ways to automatically customize and test apps to improve ad experiences.
The study is noteworthy for its use of supervised multi-label classification, an AI technique that predicts the labels of unseen instances (in this case ads) by analyzing labeled training data. The researchers say it enabled them to canvass and categorize far more information than in previous studies, laying the groundwork for automated analysis tools. Large-scale perceptual studies on mobile ads could help developers prioritize their work by, for example, spending more time fixing problems on iOS.
In-app ads are massive revenue drivers on mobile. In 2016, mobile ad revenue accounted for 76% of Facebook’s total sales in the first quarter. Many free apps, which make up more than 68% of the over 2 million apps on Google Play, leverage some form of in-app advertising for monetization. But previous research suggests users find these ads intrusive. Growth Tower reports that almost 50% of users said they would uninstall apps just because of mobile ads.
In selecting which apps to analyze, the researchers, who hail from the Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen, China), the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Singapore Management University, and Melbourne’s Monash University, looked at apps across 15 categories with over 100,000 reviews on both app stores. They built a simple web crawler to automatically scrape user reviews, downloading 3,243,450 reviews from Google Play and 1,840,349 reviews from the App Store published between September 2014 and March 2019. Using a filter and several post-processing steps, they isolated reviews containing keywords related to ads (e.g., “ad,” “ads,” “advert”), extracting 18,302 ad-related reviews in total.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! To determine how quickly developers addressed in-app ad complaints, the researchers recorded the number of versions of apps released between the time issues were reported and the time they were fixed. The coauthors report it took an average of 1.23 updates per app before problems were addressed on Google Play, while it took nearly two updates (1.78) per app on the App Store. But certain issues were fixed faster on iOS compared with Android. For instance, iOS developers were quick to address orientation, auto-play, and notification complaints. Android developers responded more quickly to orientation, volume, and non-skippable ad issues.
The researchers categorized each review into one or more ad issue types, using a combination of keyword matching and AI classifier models. They found that: 8.81% (1,613) of the reviews mentioned ad content as an issue.
25.02% (4,580) of the reviews mentioned ad frequency, or how often the ads appeared, as an issue.
13.52% (2,475) of the reviews took issue with the way the ads suddenly “popped up.” 45.51% (8,329) of the reviews mentioned there were too many ads.
3.84% (703) of the reviews complained about non-skippable ads.
12.11% (2,216) of the reviews said ads were too lengthy.
2.10% (385) of the reviews said the ads were too large.
6.47% (1,233) of the reviews complained about ad placement and position.
1.96% (359) of the reviews complained about auto-playing ads.
0.87% (159) of the reviews were frustrated about ad volume.
Interestingly, complaints varied across Google Play and the App Store. Security (i.e., unauthorized data collection or permission usage), orientation (the orientation of app screens impacted by ads), timing, and auto-play complaints were more common among iOS users, while Android users reported obtrusive notifications in the status bar, volume, and app slowdowns as top sources of frustration.
The researchers urge developers to prioritize ad issues on platforms differently and optimize ad display settings — like the number of ads, display frequency, and display style. They also suggest designing strategies to manage ads with a long display period. “Inappropriate ad design could adversely impact app reliability and ad revenue,” the coauthors wrote. “Understanding common in-app advertising issues can provide developers practical guidance on ad incorporation.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Apple hints at several week iPhone 12 delay during Q3 2020 call | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/apple-hints-at-several-week-iphone-12-delay-during-q3-2020-call"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple hints at several week iPhone 12 delay during Q3 2020 call Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A conceptual rendering of the iPhone 12 Pro by Ben Geskin and Aziz Ghaus.
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Apple’s fiscal Q3 2020 was another one for the record books , surpassing analysts’ expectations despite pandemic-related fears of a global recession. But the next quarter might not be as rosy, Apple CFO Luca Maestri hinted today on a conference call with analysts , as COVID-19-related delays could keep the company’s hugely important iPhone lineup from being updated with new models during the traditional September time frame.
“This is an immensely challenging moment,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts, noting that COVID-19 and racial justice issues loom large over the country, though he and Maestri spotlighted the company’s strong performance and financial resilience despite the troubled U.S. economy. But in subsequent comments, Maestri said the launch of new iPhone models would likely come a few weeks later than in the past, leaving the $399 2020 iPhone SE as the newest model until then. Asked for clarification, Maestri underscored that new iPhones had previously launched in late September and suggested that this year’s launch would be several weeks later.
Modem developer Qualcomm obliquely flagged the potential for a “partial impact” on upcoming quarterly earnings during a conference call this week, attributable to “the delay of a 5G flagship phone launch” by an unnamed OEM. Under U.S. securities laws, publicly traded companies are obliged to disclose advance knowledge of facts that might materially impact their financial performance in the upcoming quarter — an obligation that likely contributed to Apple’s decision to flag the issue today.
Rumors of delays for the new iPhones — believed to include iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max — have floated for months, though the specific reasons have remained unclear and the consensus time frame for the release has generally been “October.” Depending on whether Apple launches the phones in October or early November, the difference could be trivial or resemble late 2017’s famously odd iPhone X launch.
Early sales of new iPhones, including pent-up demand reflected in the first wave of preorders, are typically included in mid-to-late September revenues.
Apple’s CPU manufacturer TSMC has suggested that it’s on track to deliver 5-nanometer A14 processors for the new phones, which are also expected to use Qualcomm’s already released Snapdragon X55 modems rather than the newer but still unreleased Snapdragon X60.
It’s possible the delays are attributable to last-minute iPhone testing challenges, such as real-world trials of prototype devices during COVID-19 lockdowns and/or Apple’s decision to use custom Broadcom antenna and power amplifier components.
It remains to be seen whether Apple will hold a September event to introduce new iPhone and Apple Watch models, as it has done in the past, or will delay the announcements until October. The company notably turned its 2020 WWDC gathering into an entirely virtual show and pushed it back roughly two weeks from its traditional time. The company generally received praise for the new format, and its regular cadence of announcements has suffered little impact.
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"Amazon reports $88.9 billion in Q2 2020 revenue: AWS up 29%, subscriptions up 29%, and 'other' up 41% | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/commerce/amazon-earnings-q2-2020"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon reports $88.9 billion in Q2 2020 revenue: AWS up 29%, subscriptions up 29%, and ‘other’ up 41% Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The logo of Amazon is seen at the company logistics center in Boves, France, September 18, 2019.
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Amazon today reported earnings for its second fiscal quarter of 2020, including revenue up 40% to $88.9 billion, net income of $5.2 billion, and earnings per share of $10.30 (compared to revenue of $63.4 billion, net income of $2.6 billion, and earnings per share of $5.22 in Q2 2019 ). North American sales were up 43% to $55.4 billion, while international sales grew 38% to $22.7 billion.
The results were highly anticipated since they encompass Amazon’s first full quarter during the coronavirus pandemic, not to mention the company’s leadership position in online retail and the cloud. Last quarter, Amazon’s guidance for Q2 included a note for “$4.0 billion in costs related to COVID-19.” For Q3, Amazon expects another “$2.0 billion of costs related to COVID-19.” The company does not want to be seen as benefiting too much from the pandemic. (Amazon’s $5.2 billion in quarterly profit is the largest ever in its 26-year history.) Analysts had expected Amazon to earn $81.53 billion in revenue and report earnings per share of $1.46. The retail giant thus easily beat on both. The company’s stock was up less than 1% in regular trading and up 5% in after-hours trading. Amazon gave third-quarter revenue guidance in the range of $87.0 billion and $93.0 billion, compared to a consensus of $86 billion from analysts.
COVID-19 impact on the quarter Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who testified during the virtual antitrust hearing yesterday , provided a longer-than-usual statement in Q1. He did the same again in Q2, which is no surprise, given the company’s role during the pandemic and the coronavirus’ impact on its bottom line. Bezos highlighted Amazon’s actions with regards to COVID-19 and talked up the company’s broader impact, including job creation: VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! This was another highly unusual quarter, and I couldn’t be more proud of and grateful to our employees around the globe. As expected, we spent over $4 billion on incremental COVID-19-related costs in the quarter to help keep employees safe and deliver products to customers in this time of high demand — purchasing personal protective equipment, increasing cleaning of our facilities, following new safety process paths, adding new backup family care benefits, and paying a special thank you bonus of over $500 million to front-line employees and delivery partners. We’ve created over 175,000 new jobs since March and are in the process of bringing 125,000 of these employees into regular, full-time positions. And third-party sales again grew faster this quarter than Amazon’s first-party sales. Lastly, even in this unpredictable time, we injected significant money into the economy this quarter, investing over $9 billion in capital projects, including fulfillment, transportation, and AWS.
Amazon said it increased grocery delivery capacity by over 160% and tripled grocery pickup locations in the quarter “to support customers during COVID-19.” Year-over-year, online grocery sales tripled in Q2.
The company’s release also stated it had donated more than $10 million in personal protective equipment, including 4.4 million masks and thousands of contactless thermometers, to Direct Relief and Feeding America. Amazon wants to be seen as spending money, not just making money, in response to the pandemic.
AWS sees sub-30% growth In Q1, Amazon Web Services (AWS) passed the $10 billion milestone, even as growth continued to slow. In Q2, AWS growth fell to 29% — the first sub-30% growth rate since Amazon started breaking out AWS numbers. The growth rate has been falling steadily for the past two years, but COVID-19 looks to be accelerating this trend.
$AMZN AWS revenue growth – Q1 2017: 43% – Q2 2017: 42% – Q3 2017: 42% – Q4 2017: 45% – Q1 2018: 49% – Q2 2018: 49% – Q3 2018: 48% – Q4 2018: 45% – Q1 2019: 41% – Q2 2019: 37% – Q3 2019: 35% – Q4 2019: 34% – Q1 2020: 33% – Q2 2020: 29% https://t.co/r0XghGABL2 — Emil Protalinski (@EPro) July 30, 2020 AWS is the cloud computing market leader, ahead of Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. High-percentage growth cannot continue unabated. For a market leader, growth of 29% in sales to $10.8 billion is still impressive. But it’s certainly not the good news Amazon was hoping for. AWS accounted for about 12.1% of Amazon’s total revenue for the quarter, which is on the lower end. AWS is “a $43 billion annualized run rate business, up nearly $10 billion in run rate in the last 12 months,” CFO Brian Olsavsky said on the Q2 earnings call.
Subscriptions and “other” (ads) Subscription services were up 29% to $6.02 billion. This segment mainly constitutes Amazon Prime and its 150 million paid members.
Amazon had two main talking points for Prime today: Camp Prime and Prime Video. The former is a partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of America to keep kids engaged during the summer. The latter gained features for interacting with friends via desktop chat (Watch Parties) and to manage multiple people on an account (Profiles).
Amazon’s “other” category, which mostly covers the company’s advertising business, was up 41% to $4.22 billion in revenue. The company knows plenty about what its customers want to buy, or don’t want to buy, and so its advertising business continues to pay dividends. On the Q1 earnings call, Olsavsky said Amazon saw “some pullback from advertisers and some downward pressure on price” in March. But he also noted that it wasn’t “as noticeable as maybe some others are seeing, and probably offset a bit by the continued strong traffic we have to the site.” It appears that all is well in ad-land for Amazon. Olsavsky didn’t talk much about ads on the Q2 call.
As always, Alexa was mentioned many times (10, to be exact) in the company’s press release, even though Amazon won’t break out the voice assistant in its earnings reports. In Q1, the company noted that Alexa “can now answer tens of thousands of questions related to COVID-19.” It didn’t say anything similar for Q2.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"The FI and fintech opportunity with open banking (VB Live) | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/the-fi-and-fintech-opportunity-with-open-banking-vb-live"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages VB Live The FI and fintech opportunity with open banking (VB Live) Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Presented by Envestnet | Yodlee The global open banking trend is changing the way financial data is accessed and shared in the U.S. Learn why this growing ecosystem offers numerous benefits for those positioned to leverage it with innovative apps and solutions, and more, in this VB Live event.
Register here for free.
Open banking is the notion that consumers should be able to access the information that institutions have about them, should be able to permission its use, and should be able to correct it, and that the institution holding that data has a right to protect it, says Brian Costello, VP of data strategy and strategic initiatives, Envestnet | Yodlee.
“Financial institutions should be paying attention to open banking because it’s an opportunity for them to have better engagement with their customers,” Costello says. “It’s an opportunity for them to gain more insight into their customers’ behaviors, and see how their products and services can best match the customers’ needs to create better and stronger relationships.” The rise of open banking The principles and tenets of open banking — consumer permissioned financial data sharing — have been around and used by many financial institutions for more than 20 years, Costello says.
What’s different now is that over the last two or three years the industry has come together to collaborate on evolving the ecosystem. One example is the formation of an industry group called the Financial Data Exchange. As a result, financial institutions, financial data aggregators, and related parties are developing standards for access, authentication, and transparency that will provide end-to-end governance to keep the ecosystem safe and fair, and consumer data secure.
The Treasury weighs in on the open banking model Broad sincere participation of all the stakeholders came after the U.S. Treasury published a report in 2018 that said the Treasury, and by extension the government, recognizes the power for good that consumer-permissioned data sharing can have to improve the financial well-being of consumers at all levels of financial health, needs, and capabilities across the country. And improving the financial wellness of individuals improves the financial wellness of their families, and of their communities. It ultimately has a positive knock-on effect to public policy issues, Costello says: Keeping people away from predatory lenders, avoiding dependence on social assistance, and offering better access to housing and education. And very importantly, solving the looming crisis of underfunded retirement, as well as optimizing fixed incomes for veterans and seniors.
“We believe in the power of consumer-permissioned data sharing,” Costello says was the message from the U.S. Treasury report. “We see what’s happening. We think the industry should solve this problem, or at least take the next crack at it.” The current state of open banking The CFPB has had rule-making authority to put in place an open banking regulation or open banking regime for ten years. They recently announced a forthcoming Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking after much consultation and consideration of how best to enact open banking in the U.S. The CFPB, the Treasury, and policymakers recognize that our current system of laws, both at the national and the state level, is so complicated that to do this right in a regulatory fashion would require an enormous amount of effort and time to meet the goals of open banking while avoiding unintended consequences.
Since the Treasury report and the formation of the Financial Data Exchange, activity to bring open banking to fruition has accelerated, Costello says. Yodlee and a number of forward-leaning financial industry companies have recently signed a number of bilateral agreements for data access, and will start migrating their client data APIs to the federated identity and authorization scheme that open banking requires.
However, even though the CFPB has rule-making authority to put in place an open banking regulation or open banking regime, they haven’t. The CFPB, the Treasury, and policymakers recognize that our current system of laws, both at the national and the state level, is so complicated that to do this right in a regulatory fashion would require an enormous amount of effort and time.
“Our consumers can’t wait any longer,” he says. “Our small businesses can’t wait any longer. So many people are vulnerable. As we’ve learned over the past few months, so many people are one step away from vulnerability.” Yodlee and other forward-looking financial institutions have their foot on the gas, and over the next year or two we’re going to see a massive uptick, he adds, not just for the main street banks, but making sure the community institutions, like community banks and credit unions and their customers, get the benefit of this as well.
The FI opportunity “Banks are looking for technology innovation to address both back office challenges, get faster and leaner, reduce costs, but also to increase engagement with their customers,” Costello says. “Certainly at times like this we see how important digital engagement is.” As some FIs are closing branches to reduce costs, digital engagement becomes essential. And if it’s done right, it works. And the opportunity for innovation abounds.
The better multi-factor authentication and authorization that comes with open banking means that the bank has a higher degree of confidence that the person with whom they’re engaging is the account holder. Now that they have a higher degree of trust, they can offer a higher degree of engagement.
Insight into customers’ financial data helps banks understand their behaviors, helps them identify more capacity for savings and ultimately more capacity for investment, to help them better qualify for lending products, to keep them away from insufficient fund fees.
It also can help customers avoid the vicious cycle of compounding interest accrual on credit cards, Costello says. “Over the long term we have to get rid of that,” he explains. “Our nation’s financial well-being depends on having more savers and investors than borrowers. And the banks know that. They’re using the data to make better, less risky, and ultimately more profitable customers.” Don’t miss out! Register here for free.
Attendees will learn about: The current open banking movement in the U.S.
How open banking enables innovation Ways to manage data security, privacy, and risk The benefits of API-based data-sharing How to assess your technology for open banking-readiness Panelists: David Nohe , CEO, FinGoal Susan French , SVP, Head of Product and Client Operations, BBVA Open Platform Brian Costello , VP, Data Strategy and Strategic Initiatives, Envestnet | Yodlee Evan Schuman , VentureBeat (moderator) The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"The DeanBeat: Did gaming peak in Q2? Nope. Maybe it just got started. | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/the-deanbeat-did-gaming-peak-in-q2-nope-maybe-it-just-got-started"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The DeanBeat: Did gaming peak in Q2? Nope. Maybe it just got started.
Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn 24% of gamers play with other family members.
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The NBA is back. So is Major League Baseball, sort of. Other sports may find their way back as well. As these demands on our entertainment time return, does it follow that video games that profited during the pandemic will hit their peak and start to go back down? I don’t think so. I think gaming is just getting started.
Companies such as Electronic Arts are noting this phenomenon in their earnings calls this week, but they’re also wondering aloud how long the good times will last, or if we’ve crossed a bridge to a society where everybody plays games.
But it’s a crucial debate for the entire game industry. After all, everybody has to plan ahead. Macroeconomics and micro-level behavioral changes will have an impact on whether the mainstream will continue to embrace the entertainment value of console, PC, and mobile games.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! During the second quarter, in the height of the coronavirus lockdown in the United States, more people turned to video games than ever before as a salve or a social outlet or a distraction or a newfound passion. And these new people are on top of the 64% of U.S. adults who are gamers.
Maybe gaming doesn’t shut off Above: FIFA keeps on growing in 2020.
Electronic Arts said Thursday it beat its earnings targets in its best second calendar quarter in history because tens of millions of new people started playing its video games during the pandemic. Heck, even my wife played a video game recently.
“This is off the charts,” said Blake Jorgensen, the chief financial officer at EA, in an analyst call, regarding FIFA monetization. “It just continued to get stronger and stronger. We’ve hit the right tone with consumers. We’re delivering for consumers what they want.” Now people are starting to go back to work and watch sports as they return to television or online. EA CEO Andrew Wilsion argued that this could be more than a one-time blip. In the analyst call, he said, “Social interactions in our world are moving from physical to digital, and … the consumption of sports and entertainment is moving from linear to interactive.” Normally, EA and other game companies would have seen the summer doldrums. That should have been doubly true in a console transition year, as everybody normally waits and saves their money to buy new systems and the new games that go with them in the fall.
But this year, there is no down cycle.
“It is still well above what we’ve normally seen, particularly at this time of the year, which is the slowest time as we move from one sports season to the next,” said Jorgensen. “A lot of people are engaging in FIFA Ultimate Team in the sports franchises. And we don’t think that shuts off overnight and maybe never shuts off.” He noted that Star Wars fans still play Star Wars games even when there isn’t a Star Wars movie to get excited about. That goes for sports fans, too. If the NFL doesn’t have a season this fall, NFL fans will still play Madden so they can get their football fix. Either way, games are part of the entertainment diet.
During the EA earnings call, some of these questions came up. What if the gains in new gamers are temporary? Will those new gamers go back to doing other things when the pandemic is over? Of course, we may also wonder if the pandemic will ever be over, and if behavior will be permanently changed so that we’ll do more things remotely and digitally from now on. And if people continue to be out of work, will they stop buying even video games as they run out of disposable income? There’s a lot riding on these questions.
“It’s all about the economy at the end of the day,” Jorgensen said. “Are you confident the economy’s going to be strong for the next six-to-12 months? I just don’t know. That’s the thing that weighs on us the most. And yet at the same time, we know that the engagement in our games has never been higher.” What if it’s full steam ahead for games? Above: Work at a Pizza Place has been played 1.9 billion times on Roblox.
But maybe there’s another possibility.
“The unbelievably high monetization we saw in Q1 does not drop off a cliff,” Jorgensen said. “It will slowly decline as we all go back to a normal life. But if you ask many of us, that might be six months, nine months, or two years.” Maybe it’s time to think about the economy and how games can help it. Companies might aggressively pour their energy into making the Metaverse , the universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, like in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One.
That would be a virtual world that would ease the burdens of the pandemic.
Rather than plan for down cycles, game developers and publishers might think about a world where everybody plays, like the world of the upcoming game Cyberpunk 2077, except maybe in 2027 instead. Maybe we can create jobs with a Leisure Economy , where people make a living playing games, as we’ve seen with modders, streamers, cosplayers, esports athletes, and user-generated content creators.
I don’t want to discount the fact that we’re living in a tragic time with unprecedented hardships and challenges that are demanding our attention, like the #MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter. But maybe the way out of this mess is not to take us back to the way things were. Maybe the way out is to embrace the digital world and make it happen even faster and sooner, and make it happen everywhere around us.
Sure, companies might have to plan for the bad economy and a decline in demand. But they might also plan for the contingency that video game demand takes off and takes over.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"ProBeat: Slowing AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud revenue growth is a good thing | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/probeat-slowing-aws-microsoft-azure-and-google-cloud-revenue-growth-is-a-good-thing"
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COVID-19 means work, learning, and life in general are increasingly happening online. Shouldn’t that mean more cloud usage and thus more cloud revenue ? Yes, and it does. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to more cloud revenue growth for the three tech giants. Microsoft reported its fiscal Q4 2020 earnings last week, while Amazon and Alphabet reported their respective Q2 2020 earnings yesterday. We thus now have a full quarter of results for the three biggest cloud providers during the coronavirus pandemic.
The good news is that they’re all still generating more billions of dollars than ever. The “bad news” is that growth slowed more quickly than before. All sorts of industries rely on the cloud, from keeping their websites up to using the latest cutting-edge machine learning models. The slowing cloud revenue growth doesn’t mean any of that is going away. It’s a sign that businesses are sagely cutting costs and driving for efficiency.
Amazon Web Services Amazon is the market leader and also the only one that properly breaks out its cloud revenue number. In Q1, Amazon Web Services (AWS) passed the $10 billion revenue milestone. In Q2, AWS growth fell to 29% — its first sub-30% growth rate since Amazon started breaking out AWS numbers. The growth rate has been falling steadily for the past two years, and COVID-19 didn’t help: $AMZN AWS revenue growth – Q1 2017: 43% – Q2 2017: 42% – Q3 2017: 42% – Q4 2017: 45% – Q1 2018: 49% – Q2 2018: 49% – Q3 2018: 48% – Q4 2018: 45% – Q1 2019: 41% – Q2 2019: 37% – Q3 2019: 35% – Q4 2019: 34% – Q1 2020: 33% – Q2 2020: 29% https://t.co/r0XghGABL2 — Emil Protalinski (@EPro) July 30, 2020 VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! A four percentage-point drop is significant, but as you can see, AWS has seen such declines twice before.
The concern is, given the current environment, whether this decline will continue. On the Q2 earnings call, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky was asked about today’s pace of IT decision making and whether AWS is being impacted by some clients that are more highly exposed to challenged verticals. Here was his response: So in AWS segment revenue, what we see is companies working really hard right now to cut expenses, especially in the more challenged businesses like hospitality and travel, but pretty much across the board. We’re helping them. We’re actively, with our sales force, looking for ways that we can help them save money. This includes things like scaling down the usage where it makes sense or benchmarking their workloads against our architectural best practices. So that’s not going to help our usage growth in the short run, but it’ll help those customers save money, and we think that’s the right thing to do, not only for their success, and so they can come out of this at a better shape, but also for the long-term health of our relationship with them as an AWS provider.
But we’re also seeing a lot of companies that are really wishing that they had made more progress on the cloud because they’re seeing how companies that are on the cloud can turn into a variable cost and scale up or scale down, depending on their particular situation. They realized their on-premises infrastructure is not really flexible to go up or down. And especially in the time of sinking demand, it’s a big fixed cost for them. So, we expect — we’re seeing migration plans accelerate. That’s certainly not going to happen overnight, but we see companies moving more in that direction. We think that will be a good long-term trend. And there are certainly winners in this area right now. Things like videoconferencing, gaming, remote learning and entertainment, all are seeing usage growth. And it’s a bifurcated world out there.
So Amazon is helping its AWS customers cut expenses, but it’s also still seeing enterprise interest in migrating to the cloud. This was the most succinct response of the trio.
Microsoft Azure Cloud growth has been slowing at Microsoft for years as well. In the most recent quarter, Azure growth fell to 47%. Like with AWS, slowing growth is normal at Azure’s size, but again COVID-19 didn’t help: $MSFT Azure revenue growth – Q1 2018: 90% – Q2 2018: 98% – Q3 2018: 93% – Q4 2018: 89% – Q1 2019: 76% – Q2 2019: 76% – Q3 2019: 73% – Q4 2019: 64% – Q1 2020: 59% – Q2 2020: 62% – Q3 2020: 59% – Q4 2020: 47% https://t.co/wJNRYep9CB — Emil Protalinski (@EPro) July 22, 2020 A 12 percentage-point drop is the first double-digit decline for Azure.
On last week’s earnings call, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was asked about the net impact of the current environment on Azure, including lower consumption growth among highly impacted industries, acceleration in digital transformation more broadly, and pay-as-you-go type arrangements. Here was his response: Even in industries that have been impacted, say, economically, getting to the new efficient frontier of cloud economics is one way for them to in fact do better as they get into recovery. Right. So one of the things that we’re seeing in fact is some acceleration even of getting rid of the old and getting to the efficient frontier, so that then they can recover faster.
That doesn’t mean that some places where there is absolute real shutdown of economic activity, there isn’t a slowdown. But where people are looking to using that as an opportunity to come out stronger, we do see that. For sure, pay-as-you-go on Azure is going to increase and is increasing, and we are fundamentally focused on wherever people want to have this long-term commitments as well as pay-as-you-go customers. So we don’t in some sense discriminate between the two. What we want to be able to stay focused on is quarter over quarter, consumption growth by adding value to customers’ digital transformation projects.
That’s a lot of flowery language that amounts to “ yes, our customers are looking to cut costs and/or pay only for what they use.
” Google Cloud We don’t have the same historical data for Google Cloud because Alphabet began breaking it out only two quarters ago. We have three data points: Google Cloud revenue was up 53% in Q4 2019, up 52% in Q1 2020, and up 43% in Q2 2020.
Somehow I doubt a nine percentage-point drop for Google Cloud in the same quarter that AWS and Azure also slowed is a coincidence.
In fact, it could have been worse. Google’s cloud division includes revenue from Google Cloud Platform as well as G Suite, making the comparison with other public cloud providers difficult. Google has consistently said that GCP growth tends to be higher than the cloud division overall, meaning G Suite’s growth is lower. On the Q2 earnings call, Google CFO Ruth Porat said that G Suite brought in more money because of a price increase: Overall, the lower Google Cloud revenue growth in the second quarter relative to the first quarter reflects the fact that G-Suite lapped a price increase that was introduced in April last year. G Suite maintained a healthy growth in average revenue per seat as well as in seat growth, which does not include customers who took advantage of our free trials as they shifted their employees to work from home.
Also on the call, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai was asked about the change in pace of customers migrating workloads to the cloud given COVID-19. He dodged the question: Overall, from my vantage point, obviously with Google Cloud, we’ve been investing to scale up, especially on the people side, on engineering, go to market, and then obviously on our investment side with datacenters, cloud regions, and so on. So for me it’s been good to see as we are scaling up, we are executing more effectively. I’ve been personally involved in many, many conversations last quarter. We had many large customers come on to Cloud, big telco deals and banking deals, Deutsche Bank as an example. So overall I felt the momentum was strong, generally felt like things were continuing well through the course. Felt like more a secular interest in our digital transformation. Companies are deeply thinking long-term and planning for it. So overall I felt that the momentum was there, and I felt our execution as we are scaling up, obviously we are scaling up a lot, and so, the combination is working well.
Your second question in terms of puts and takes. Overall, I don’t know whether there’s anything significant worth me highlighting. Obviously you are right to point out that it doesn’t affect everyone the same, but nothing significant for me to highlight here today.
Again, Pichai had less to answer for than his counterparts at Amazon and Microsoft. To investors, Google Cloud is still a new line item. Plus, they were probably more concerned with Alphabet’s first revenue decline since going public.
The positive cloud figure was the saving grace.
Putting it all together Cloud revenue growth was already in decline. It declined further in the first full quarter under the coronavirus pandemic because some businesses are using the cloud less, and while many are using it more, everyone is trying to cut costs.
Businesses figuring out which cloud services are critical to their operations is a good thing. It’s a very healthy exercise for businesses to examine their costs so they only pay for what they actually use.
Amazon, Microsoft, and Google should not be concerned. If the growth suddenly flatlined, that would be a different story. Growth may have slowed to its lowest rate yet, but Q2 2020 was still the best quarter for cloud revenue to date. No one in their right mind would complain about a billion-dollar business that grows 29%, 47%, or 43% in these crazy times.
ProBeat is a column in which Emil rants about whatever crosses him that week.
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"Niko Partners: Esports generated $519 million in Asia in 2019, growth continues in pandemic | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/niko-partners-esports-generated-519-million-in-asia-in-2019-growth-continues-in-pandemic"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Exclusive Niko Partners: Esports generated $519 million in Asia in 2019, growth continues in pandemic Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Niko Partners sees growth for esports in Asia.
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Esports generated $519 million in revenue in 2019 in Asia, making it the No. 1 region in the world for such revenue, according to a report by market researcher Niko Partners.
The growth continues in 2020 despite the pandemic, though Niko does not have a specific forecast for this year.
Overall, Niko found that Asia generated nearly half of all global esports revenue in 2019, hosting big events like Riot Games’ League of Legends Championships. Niko said that there are 510 million esports fans (defined as those who watch at least once a month) in Asia, with 595 million esports players. Mobile esports games in Asia generated $13.3 billion in 2019, 68% of global mobile esports games revenue.
But COVID-19 has slowed esports’ rapid expansion as in-person tournaments have moved to online-only or been put on hold. However, these setbacks have been offset by a significant increase in esports viewership and time spent gaming during the pandemic.
Overall, esports streaming viewership increased by 75% to 100% in Asia, and 50% to 75% of gamers are spending more time playing games during the pandemic.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Alexander Champlin, Niko’s senior analyst of esports, said in an email to GamesBeat that the future of esports is playing out across Asia with respect to esports tournaments, esports tourism, mobile esports, government support, and the development of esports infrastructure. And while the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly impacted the industry, the ways that Asia is managing and moving past these roadblocks can serve as a roadmap for the rest of the world, he said.
China is the largest esports market, in terms of both revenue and fans. China also has the most developed infrastructure for esports. South Korea is the birthplace of esports, as games like StarCraft took off there first. A major force in the industry for over a decade, South Korea continues to be one of the largest esports markets in terms of earnings, industry development, and revenue per capita.
In Vietnam, like many other Southeast Asia countries, mobile esports is where Niko sees growth and the reach into the mass market. Big games include League of Legends, Free Fire, Arena of Valor, Hearthstone, StarCraft 2, and Clash Royale.
Niko’s research methodology includes gamer surveys and focus groups, trends analysis on key topics such as esports, leading games and game company market share estimates, review of regulations and policy plus interviews of game publishers, analysis of drivers and inhibitors for growth, review of distribution, hardware, payments, internet cafes, and more.
Niko said that it defined esports revenue as that generated by elements of the esports ecosystem, including sponsorship, media licensing and team franchising, ticketing, merchandising, and livestreaming income for tournaments. Esports revenue excludes esports game revenue generated by esports game sales, in-app purchases, and other microtransactions.
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"Huawei has the same app problem that doomed Windows Phone | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/huawei-has-the-same-app-problem-that-doomed-windows-phone"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Opinion Huawei has the same app problem that doomed Windows Phone Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A Huawei Mate 30 Pro smartphone on display in a Huawei brand store at the Aviapark shopping mall, Moscow.
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Huawei is now the world’s biggest smartphone maker in terms of shipments, according to Canalys data , which suggests the Chinese tech firm surpassed rival Samsung in Q2 2020, albeit mostly due to its domestic sales in China. This is the first time in nine years that a company other than Samsung or Apple has led the market.
Huawei was quick to pounce on the news, particularly given the turbulent 14 months it has endured since the U.S. issued an embargo forcing it to stop using Google’s flavor of Android in its new handsets. But despite Huawei’s glee at surpassing Samsung, its future in the global smartphone arena looks bleak, due in large part to the app restrictions enforced by the U.S. ban. The crux of Huawei’s problem, as most people by now know, is that buyers of its newer phones can’t access many big-name apps without having to jump through gargantuan hoops. In many ways, Huawei’s predicament is similar to that Windows Phone faced a decade ago.
Like Windows Phone Above: Windows Phone 8 launch (2012) At the time of its launch, Microsoft’s mobile operating system was often packaged with some of the best hardware the market had to offer, and Nokia’s devices in particular offered superb cameras. But Windows Phone just couldn’t ditch the “lack of apps” tag around its neck , though Microsoft did spend considerable resources convincing developers to build for Windows Phone, even holding developer competitions.
In the end, Microsoft managed to persuade some companies to build for its platform, but the apps were often not as full-featured as their iOS and Android counterparts, and a fair chunk of them were rarely updated.
Similarly, Huawei devices are widely lauded for features like AI-infused chips and quality cameras.
And the company is also trying to incentivize developers to join its platform, recently launching a $1 million contest that builds on its $1 billion Shining Star developer program.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! In the year or so since the U.S. embargo came into effect, Huawei has doubled down on its development of Huawei Mobile Services (HMS), its own version of Google Mobile Services (GMS) designed to replace Google’s ecosystem and provide developers with tools to create apps for the Huawei platform. In a press briefing earlier this week, Jaime Gonzalo, VP of Mobile Services Europe for Huawei’s consumer business group, touted progress the company has made in the last year, revealing that it now has 1.6 million developers on board, an increase of 76% year-on-year, and more than 80,000 apps that now use elements of HMS.
But such growth metrics don’t really matter to most people. All they care about is whether they can readily access all the tools and services they want, something Huawei has attempted to address.
“In reality, there are 3 million apps out there, so this [81,000 apps] is less,” Gonzalo said. “[But] the thing is, it’s not about volume of apps, it’s about the pertinence and the services that these provide. So we evaluated our users, how many apps they use on their phones, and we found that no matter which country, the average number of apps is about 80 … what is the point of offering 3 million apps if many of them are clones of one another or bloatware?” Although Huawei’s case for quality over quantity is valid, the real problem is that a vast number of the world’s most popular apps are simply not available through its AppGallery app store.
Delayed problem In the immediate aftermath of the U.S. embargo, most Huawei phone users saw no difference in their app selection because the restriction only affects newer Huawei and Honor-branded handsets.
Huawei has often downplayed the changes during recent product launches.
Without access to Google Play Services, anyone buying a new Huawei or Honor device today cannot easily access WhatsApp, Instagram, Uber, Uber Eats, Airbnb, Facebook, Google Maps, YouTube, Netflix, Twitter, Dropbox, Slack, Amazon Prime, Spotify, eBay, Strava, or many others.
In certain cases, it is possible to access some of the aforementioned services through a browser, though often with less functionality. Huawei also recently introduced a new service called Petal Search , which enables users to search for the .APK files of Android apps either through the companies themselves (e.g. Facebook makes its Android apps available to download directly from its own website) or from third-party .APK libraries.
But this solution is unwieldy and deviates wildly from people’s expectations. Moreover, it’s not easy to provide timely, automatic updates when companies refresh their apps — a core function served by Google and Huawei’s respective mobile services.
Above: Huawei’s Petal Search links to .APK files of popular apps There aren’t any barriers stopping companies — in the U.S. or otherwise — from adding their apps to Huawei’s AppGallery. Amazon, Microsoft, and Snap have already embraced AppGallery, which points to one of the key differences between the situation Huawei faces today and the one Microsoft faced with Windows Phone: Huawei devices are still based on Android, which makes it much easier for developers to get their apps into its ecosystem.
But Huawei is now racing against the clock. The majority of its devices are currently in the hands of millions of people globally who can still access Google’s Android. Now the company is trying to get its house in order before those consumers begin upgrading to new devices. As people transition from older Huawei or Honor handsets to the fresh crop of devices, many won’t realize they’re buying into a completely different version of Android and will be left bitterly disappointed.
A decade ago, many less tech-savvy consumers were similarly impacted when they bought new Windows Phones for the camera only to discover they couldn’t access most of the apps their friends had on Android or iOS.
Online retailers are taking note this time. Some are posting prominent warnings next to new Huawei devices to ward off a backlash from confused consumers who can’t figure out how to install WhatsApp, Instagram, or Uber.
Above: Huawei smartphone for sale on U.K. website Such websites also provide detailed guides for customers, explaining the various processes they can go through to bridge at least part of this Google-sized gap. But people don’t like workarounds and they don’t like friction, which is where Huawei’s rivals stand to benefit.
Indeed, Huawei may have surpassed Samsung as the top dog in global smartphone shipments, but Samsung could be the big winner when Huawei’s customers look for brands unencumbered by app restrictions. Huawei can probably achieve some success in markets that are less reliant on apps and services from Google and other U.S. companies, such as Russia, but the company’s chances of remaining a global powerhouse are slim if it can’t make core apps easily available to its users.
Sure, there will always be some users willing to try alternatives to market-leading apps, but not at any meaningful scale. In the end, it doesn’t matter how good your on-device AI is or how amazing your camera is. That is the painful lesson Microsoft and Nokia learned with Windows Phone all those years ago.
* Article updated 08/12/2020 to confirm that Tinder can in fact be accessed through Huawei’s AppGallery.
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"How Xsolla provides developers with a game business engine | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/how-xsolla-provides-developers-with-a-game-business-engine"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages How Xsolla provides developers with a game business engine Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Xsolla has 700 different payment solutions worldwide.
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Xsolla is a video game powerhouse, but chances are you haven’t heard of it. That’s because the company stays behind the scenes as it provides what it calls a “business engine” for game developers, and it has done so for 15 years.
Xsolla handles more than 700 different payment systems around the world. And it works with more than 1,500 game companies and 2,000 games. While other payment companies focus on larger industries, Xsolla has thrived by focusing mainly on games. That has helped it figure out what developers need to run their businesses and provide the payment and backend services that can make the difference. To date, the company has helped its game partners generate more than $3 billion in revenue across 3,400 games.
Chris Hewish is a veteran in the game industry (most recently with Skydance Interactive), and he joined Xsolla four months ago as president. Aleksandr Agapitov started the company in 2005 to provide resources and tools for smaller developers who needed to access the same kind of services that big game publishers could provide. That includes anti-fraud efforts and user acquisition.
Hewish said the idea is to democratize the business side of games. The company is hiring, and it continues to come up with new services every quarter during the pandemic. I spoke with Hewish about the business. As a developer, he has designed and produced over 50 games generating more than $1 billion in sales. Now he says he enjoys being on the other side of the business, making lives easier for developers.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Here’s an edited transcript of our interview. (I’m going to moderate a webinar with Berkley Egenes of Xsolla on August 13 on the topic of subscriptions and lifelong relationships with gamers.) Above: Chris Hewish is president of Xsolla.
GamesBeat: What’s a good way to explain Xsolla for people who don’t know about it? Hewish: We like to call ourselves the “video game business engine.” You already, if you’re making games, have game creation engines, like Unreal or Unity or any number of others. But nobody out there is providing a business engine. The engine that provides all the tools to run your own games business. We do that. We provide a set of tools and services that help our customers operate and sell games globally.
One of the cool things about us, there’s an analogy that some people use internally. We’re the Shopify of games. We provide all these tools and services, but we’re focused only on the games industry. That’s the key differentiator for us. There are other options for some of what we do. Nobody does everything that we do. But with our competitors, none of them are focused just on games. We know the games space. We know gamers and game makers. We cater our tools to their needs.
GamesBeat: How long have you been at Xsolla now? Chris Hewish: We’re going on my fourth month. Fifth since I started talking with them, but fourth actually working here. It was crazy. It all came together the week that all the voluntary lockdowns were starting. I was in the office for four days before everything got locked down, the mandatory lockdowns. It’s an interesting way to start.
GamesBeat: What was interesting to you about the job itself? Hewish: I’ve always been on the content creation side. I’ve been doing that for 20-plus years in a variety of roles. This was the first time I jumped over to the B-to-B side, more of a tools and business focus. What was interesting about that is it opened up a whole new section of the industry to me. I’m not going to say I know everything, because nobody does, but I know a lot about developing content, working with dev teams, publishing, all of that, on the individual projects side of things. But the opportunity to work on a much larger scale with all the backend tools and the things that help you run your business is pretty cool. This is the stuff that, in the past, I had worked with vendors on. Now I’m going over to the other side and doing that at scale.
We work with more than 2,000 games and more than 1,000 different companies. That’s a kind of scale and exposure that I never had access to before, when I was on the content side. Maybe I had a slate of a dozen games back at Dreamworks, at any given time. This is a much different insight into the industry.
Above: Xsolla provides a game business engine for developers.
GamesBeat: What kind of tasks and responsibilities do you have? Hewish: One of the big things, and one of the reasons I was brought in, was coming in to help with internal communication. The company is a multinational with three different offices at the moment, in three different countries. All those offices have grown. The company has seen quite a bit of growth over the past few years. They were getting to a point where the management team, the executive team, needed someone to come in and help them bridge all the communication gaps between the offices, whether it was cultural, or even departmental.
You have a lot of people that have been doing great work, but they’ve been doing it on their own. Now that there are departments building up around them, there’s a natural change in the type of communication, a light touch of structure and process as you go from operating as more of a small, entrepreneurial environment to more of a mid-size company. There is some structure that needs to come into place.
That was a big part of bringing me in. Face-to-face communication has changed. I was initially brought in to do a lot of going to conferences and helping to talk about Xsolla. Not the products, not a sales pitch guy, but how are we positioned as a thought leader in the space? How can we start sharing a lot of insights and learnings that we’ve gained? Part of the company’s goal is to democratize gaming, meaning we’re providing all these tools and resources that often are only available to the biggest publishers. We’re providing them to all game developers.
GamesBeat: What do some of those tools include? You started with payments, but what have you grown into? Hewish: We started in payments, and we’re now integrated with more than 700 payment methods from around the world, including cashless payments, credit cards, all that stuff. There’s a whole anti-fraud component that goes with that. We’ve also expanded with a partner network, which is a way for you to partner up with influencers, distribution sites, all kinds of stuff, and run different campaigns.
Developers can generate performance-based campaigns with influencers and distribution outlets, so they get paid based on how they’re performing with you. We have a network of around 11,000 influencers integrated, and we’re plugged into some other networks. We’re currently focused on Twitch, but we’re expanding to other platforms as well.
We have a site builder, which is what it sounds like. It allows games to quickly throw up a website and pull from their Steam page or other platforms that they may already be active on to get all the assets into the website quickly, so that you can start managing your own game site. Then you can sell directly to your players.
We have the Xsolla store. There’s the store on the website, but there’s also the in-game store. You can use us to plug in and stand up your own in-game store, where you can sell whatever you want. Recently, just in the past two weeks, we released an update that allows you to sell virtual items and virtual currency from your store and your website for your game.
Above: Xsolla offloads business matters from developers.
We have a secure login system, so that players can create their own accounts. You can develop that one-to-one direct relationship with your players. Then we also have a launcher, just what it sounds like. You can build your own game launcher with all the cool bells and whistles integrated, such as access to your store, videos, and other games. If you have multiple games you can do a game launcher or a company launcher.
That’s it in a nutshell. We have a lot of subdivisions within there, how these different products turn into solutions for you. We did just release, on the Unreal store and the Unity store, the SDKs for our in-game solution, as well as a plug-in for subscriptions and preorders.
Preorders is a great one. We worked with PUBG back in the day on their preorder campaign. We work with a lot of big partners as well as a lot of small ones. They were able to set up their preorder campaign in less than a day using our plug-in.
Market focus GamesBeat: All of this is still pretty complicated for small game companies to do. It sounds like there’s still enough complexity in the business that you really do want to offload this from the people who are just making games.
Hewish: Definitely. There are two parts to it. It takes time and resources, and developers are usually strapped for both of those just getting the game itself done. And then there’s the factor of, even if you could do it yourself, keeping it updated post-launch as things change, which they always do, whether it’s new payment systems coming online, or anything that could be changing on the backend in regards to managing your login with your customers, the database side of it — we handle not just that up-front piece, but also the maintenance. That becomes a big cost and time savings for developers. Our goal is to help developers and publishers focus on making great games and providing great experiences to their players. We’ll handle the rest of it.
GamesBeat: Are you limited by territories still, or have you gotten to the point where it’s global? Hewish: Yeah, we’re worldwide. We can operate in China.
GamesBeat: The 2,000 developers, how does that break down? Are there a lot of companies with just one person that can tap into you, or do you have to be bigger than that to make use of Xsolla? Hewish: No, anybody can work with us. We do a fair amount of custom work as well for some of our partners, and when you get to that level, that’s more driven by the opportunities. If you’re a solo developer, you can grab our SDKs from Unity or Unreal to get started. You can create a publisher account with us and start integrating a lot of our products off the shelf. When it comes to a lot of the custom work, we have a large team in Russia, where the company was founded. We have engineers over there that do a fair amount of not just new development, but also custom development with some of our big partners.
GamesBeat: As some of these companies grow up, like Unity, are they moving into competition with you? Hewish: Not yet, knock on wood. Who knows what will happen in the future with those companies? But there so far has been a fairly clean divide where they’re focused on just the tools to make the games, and we’re focused on the tools to do the business side, to sell the games, get them into players’ hands. We’re not exclusionary. Even things like our login system, the launcher, selling your own games, those all happen alongside whatever other business you’re doing. We encourage partners to be as agnostic as they want to be when it comes to their channels. We just give them the ability to create their own direct channels.
GamesBeat: How do you spread across mobile, PC, and console? Hewish: We’ve been primarily PC-based. We also work with some console partners now. Maybe if they have games that are cross-platform. That’s been a big push recently. Our tools allow you to go cross-platform with all three consoles. We’ve been doing some work with mobile, working with Epic on the mobile front. That’s been good. We have a number of other partners. We haven’t announced it yet, but we’re doing some work with other mobile companies. That has been an area of recent growth for us. We’re primarily PC, then console, and then mobile has been the recent growth after that.
Above: Xsolla handles payments in more than 200 countries.
GamesBeat: What kind of trends do you see? What insights do you get from being in this position? Hewish: It’s interesting. This something we’ve talked about a lot. We do have a lot of data that flows through the company, but one of the — it’s good for the company, but it makes it hard to directly answer the question. I’m a context guy, so I’ll give you a context.
Some of the trends that we’re starting to see from a macro sense, through our network, it’s much more of a shift to going cross-platform. That’s been the PC domain for a while. You develop a PC game, and then PC developers have been more likely to push cross-platform into console and mobile. Console developers have been in the middle. But the new thing we’re seeing is mobile companies starting to make that shift.
Whether they’re maxing out the market, the market’s maturing, whatever it might be, or they have games that are getting more mature in their life cycle, we’ve seen much more interest from mobile-first companies on, how can they get their games onto PC? How can they migrate over? That’s something where we’re working with some pretty good partners. That’s been a big recent trend.
This has already been talked about in the industry, but we’re certainly seeing another trend in the feature requests we’re getting. Games are expanding to become more of a social network. That’s obviously an already documented trend, but what we see from our partners also supports that. They’re looking at how to get that direct relationship with their players, not just so they can upsell them from a business standpoint, but keep them in their ecosystem and treat it much more like a social network. Keeping players more engaged.
The Netflix of gaming? GamesBeat: On the subscription side, I’ve heard interesting theories there about the discovery that happens as a result of having the marginal cost of playing a new game at zero. The player behavior changes. They start playing a lot more games, trying out things they would never have otherwise spent money on. That discovery and improved usage then turns into a big benefit of subscription for companies like Microsoft, with Game Pass. Do you see benefits accruing for the game companies that are using subscriptions? Hewish: We do. The big takeaway, the big data point on that is we’re seeing that people who are subscribers, if you get someone to purchase a subscription with your game, they buy twice as much other content as non-subscribers. That’s interesting to me, because I had initially been thinking — I was with a lot of people in the mindset that subscriptions are a nice ancillary revenue stream, a way to reach part of your player base that isn’t spending, and maybe it’s a part of your player base that doesn’t have the $20 or $30 at any point in time to buy discretionary items. Maybe they have $5 a month they can commit to a subscription. We’re seeing that if you do get somebody to subscribe, and it’s not just your VIPs, but if any player can get in, then they’re much more likely to turn into spenders down the road.
That was the big thing I learned back in the mobile space, when I was doing games there. Once you cross that initial piece of friction, getting somebody to spend in your game, it unlocks the ability for them to spend much more on an ongoing basis. It’s a convoluted way of saying it, but to loop back, subscriptions are another way that developers or publishers can cross that divide from non-spender to spender. However you get someone to be a spender, whether it’s through a low initial purchase or a special offer or a subscription, once they cross over, they’re much more likely to keep spending.
GamesBeat: On cross-platform, I remember the Dauntless people saying that it’s still pretty complicated to pull it off. Sony will let someone buy credits on their platform, but they can’t be spent in the same game on another platform. They don’t want you buying something on their platform and consuming it somewhere else. The rules are still difficult for them to implement.
Hewish: The platforms still have some control over some of these things, but it is coming down. One of the cool things we have is you can offload those purchases outside of the platform. That potentially helps. For the platform holders, you’re right. If you purchase credits, Microsoft doesn’t want to redeem them if the revenue is going to Sony. If it’s items or assets the players already have in their accounts, those are able to travel.
Above: Some of Xsolla’s vital stats.
GamesBeat: Are you still doing investments in indie games through your capital fund? Hewish: We have what we call Funding Club now. The capital fund went away. It’s a free matchmaking service. We work with a number of different investors, whether they’re individuals or companies or funds or whatever it might be, publishers even, that are looking for games. We work with a lot of developers. We can prescreen stuff for investors and developers. We can give developers advice on how to put a pitch together, what kind of things investors would want to see. Anything we then put into the Funding Club, the partners, our friends in there, they know we’re only going to surface stuff that’s worth taking a look at. It’s a service we don’t charge for.
GamesBeat: I wonder if we’ll get to some kind of next level of payments when things like cryptocurrency and blockchain hit maturity. Do you foresee that happening and changing the business in some way? Hewish: We already work with cryptocurrency. That’s part of our payments integration. We could easily roll that blockchain support to integrate into things like our stores and the site builder and the launcher. If there are new blockchain products it would make sense to create, and I can think of a few off the bat, in regards to how you handle assets and things like that, we’re positioned to do that. We haven’t at the moment, though, just because there’s no real demand from the market. What demand there is has been satisfied by existing blockchain companies themselves.
Company culture Above: Xsolla helps developers fight fraud.
GamesBeat: Is there anything else you wanted to talk about today? It’s the 15th anniversary coming up here.
Hewish: It is. We just had it. July 15 was the actual date, 15 years ago. Our founder, Aleksandr, he set up the company in Russia to address what he personally had as a pain point, being able to pay for stuff in games, to buy games. It was painful to do that from where he was in Russia, so he created the first version of our payment system and it took off from there.
I could certainly go into some of the things that, as a company — the things that we’ve learned and applied to our business. Not from a product standpoint, but more like, here are some business values or lessons that guide us, that have helped us succeed. I will say, on the success side of it, since we were founded we’ve had close to — it’s a ridiculous number, something like 200,000 percent growth. It’s been a pretty massive scaling over the years.
GamesBeat: Tell us about it.
Hewish: There are five things that we base ourselves on when we work with our partners today, things that work for us and might be helpful to other companies. The first thing is, be one with your customer. What I mean by that is, as more and more companies move to a digital-first strategy, it’s more important than ever, and you have more opportunity than ever, to develop a direct relationship with your customers. Using data, behavioral analytics, all that stuff has been useful.
We have a real high-touch kind of relationship with our partners. Anybody that works with us, we have account managers. We stay in contact regularly. Be one with your industry. This goes in with that. Not only understanding our customers, but understanding the industry. You asked about why I came over to Xsolla. That was another one of the reasons that there was interest on the Xsolla side, to have me come over.
Invest in your employees. This is something I like about the company, that it takes an approach where — it’s the idea that not only are you benefiting from your employees, what they can provide to you, but what can you provide to your employees? Go with your gut. We also trust our team. If somebody is passionate about an idea, something that they want to do to drive the business forward, then we’ll support that.
These are all very supportive and intertwined with one another, but the fifth thing for us is having solid relationships with our partners. Not just providing value to them, but having good relationships with them. That’s where all of our new products come from.
GamesBeat: How many people are with the company now? Hewish: We’re around 400 worldwide. We have about a dozen in our office in Seoul, in Korea. We’re close to 50 in Los Angeles. The rest, more than 300, are in Russia at the main office in Perm. We’re expanding. We haven’t announced specifics, but we’re expanding in other places as well.
Managing in the pandemic Above: Xsolla helps customers generate more revenue through subscriptions.
GamesBeat: Has there been any change in how things get done because of the pandemic? Hewish: Yeah, for sure. The shift to digital, first of all, went smoother than I expected it would, which is great. The company was supportive and jumped on it quickly.
We had a fair amount of online production and performance-related tools that were up and running. We were in a good place. The elements for us that have required a bit of adjustment are just the face-to-face communication, the brainstorming with the team — that part had to go over to digital. The whiteboarding, the ideation, sharing knowledge, mentoring, whether it was with business development teams or production teams, that stuff all has been impacted.
We’re starting to get into a good groove with it. We went through a bit of a pain point, like a lot of people did, finding that right balance of — initially there were just way too many video calls that took way too long.
GamesBeat: How do you manage it? Hewish: One of the cool things we do is these asynchronous drive meetings, where we’ll designate different days of the month to focus on different business lines or different initiatives. We create a drive repository of the latest information and materials for that topic, and then people know on that day — they’re part of that project, and they asynchronously, throughout the day, leave comments, leave notes, shoot emails or messages to one another to try to work on whatever that topic is.
The hardest thing for us has just been the loss of real-life conferences. When it comes to the business development side of it, how do you — that’s been a hard thing to replace. We’ve tackled that in a few different ways. One of the things I’ve been working with our business development team on is getting involved in more online social experiences. There’s a lot of Zoom happy-hour things or Facebook groups or whatever it might be. We’re looking for more of these social engagements with people in the games industry, where you’re not even selling to them. You’re just making those connections, developing relationships, and that can lead to business down the road.
We have also been doing our own digital conference. We did Game Developer Carnival. We’re now doing something this week, Indie Craft, which is based in South Korea, where we have our own virtual conference. It’s actually a 3D world you go into. We built it on Unreal. It’s a theme park environment with booths from all the different exhibitors. You can watch video, chat with people, move your avatar around the environment. We’ve created our own solutions to hold conferences virtually, and we’re going to build on that as well.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Healright Launches Groundbreaking Micronutrient-dense Food Solutions for Serious Health Conditions | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/healright-launches-groundbreaking-micronutrient-dense-food-solutions-for-serious-health-conditions"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release Healright Launches Groundbreaking Micronutrient-dense Food Solutions for Serious Health Conditions Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn More Than 75,000 People Signed Up For Launch Of Transformational Healright Squares At Healright.com ORLANDO, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–July 30, 2020– Healright announced today that its groundbreaking micronutrient-dense food-based solutions for serious health conditions are now available for pre-sale at Healright.com and will begin shipping to consumers in early August. Healright is a leader in the “Food As Medicine” revival, an ancient approach to wellness using food to treat serious health conditions.
In the pre-launch phase of Healright, more than 75,000 people have signed up with serious interest to subscribe to Healright programs. Healright uses a non-prescriptive, patent-pending formula to improve microbiome health and metabolic dysregulation, targeting the root cause of serious health conditions like obesity, heart disease, insulin resistance and digestive health. The Healright formula is science-based, clinically tested, and developed into Healright squares that target four health conditions, and are available in four delicious flavors.
Healright is not available in stores but is exclusively available at Healright.com in 8-week, 6 month and 12 month subscription programs. Healright subscription programs start as low as $6 per day, about the cost of coffee and a muffin. No lifestyle changes are necessary and Healright programs are easy-to-start, maintain, and help to achieve health goals. Participants simply eat one or two servings of delicious Healright squares each day depending on the program in which they are participating.
The 8-week Healright Reset, which is the starter program for all Healright subscriptions, is based on the 8-week clinical studies. In 15 separate human clinical studies, participants enjoyed two servings per day of the Healright formula for 8 weeks. Successful health outcomes included an increase of HDL cholesterol by up to 25%, overall reduction in LDL and triglycerides, improvements in insulin resistance, improvements in gut barrier functions, decreased waist circumference and visceral fat. The science behind Healright, including published studies on successful outcomes can be found at Healright.com/science.
The Healright formula was developed by a group of esteemed University of California, Berkeley-trained scientists at the USCF Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI), in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). It is backed by 15 years of research and development and 15 separate human studies.
Healright combines building blocks of metabolic and microbiome health, including: Micronutrients missing from the average modern diet A proprietary blend of vitamins and minerals Fruit antioxidants rich in polyphenols DHA, proteins and amino acids Dense prebiotic fibers Healright has been specifically formulated with fortifications to target four health conditions: Metabolism & Weight, specifically developed to normalize metabolic dysregulation, improve healthy inflammatory response, decrease waist circumference and visceral fat and naturally calm the appetite.
Heart Health, specifically developed to promote heart and circulatory health, increase HDL by up to 25% and reduce LDL and triglycerides, lower C-reactive proteins and may be helpful to statin drug users.
Insulin Resistance, specifically developed to maintain healthy insulin responses, manage glucose efficiency, improve metabolic dysregulation and boost the body’s healthy inflammatory response.
Digestive Health, specifically developed to improve gut barrier functions, combat leaky gut at the cellular level, lower C-Reactive proteins and relieve signs of gastric distress.
Each Healright condition is available in four delicious, gluten-free flavors: Lemon blueberry Peanut butter banana Caramel apple fig Chocolate cherry pomegranate Jonathan Smiga, Co-Founder of Healright and Managing Partner of KEEN Growth Capital said, “KEEN Growth Capital and Advanced Micronutrition are thrilled to launch Healright, which is the culmination of 15 years of research and development that brings micronutrition that heals the microbiome and help individuals who are at risk or suffering from chronic disease. Healright science points to the fact that non-pharmacological food solutions can prevent and combat severe health conditions, including chronic disease.” Jerry Bello, Co-Founder of Healright and Managing Partner of KEEN Growth Capital said, “Healright is a life-enhancing and transformational micronutrient food solution to the world’s serious health conditions. The ‘food as medicine’ approach allows for wellness to be achieved without a pharmacological intervention. Healright is a champion of this concept through its product lines of delicious Healright squares. We are excited to see how Healright improves health outcomes and lives for people facing severe health conditions like obesity, high cholesterol and heart disease, insulin resistance, and moderate to severe digestive health issues.” About Healright & Advanced Micronutrition Healright is wholly-owned by Advanced Micronutrition, which is a portfolio company of KEEN Growth Capital, an impact investing venture capital firm. Advanced Micronutrition believes that a life without the burden of disease is attainable, through science-backed foods that improve health and longevity. Healright Squares are an effective non-prescription, micronutrient-rich alternative that heals the human gut, thereby mitigating the causative effects of multiple diseases. Follow Healright on social media and sign up for more information or subscribe to a transformative health program at Healright.com.
About KEEN Growth Capital KEEN Growth Capital invests in early stage food-related companies that generate meaningful social impact in addition to above market financial returns. KEEN has particular focus on healthy snacking, functional foods and patented, science backed companies that positively impact consumer health, environmental and community wellness, and long-term disease mitigation. Keen’s infusion of intellectual and financial capital delivers enriched outcomes for all stakeholders while creating a healthier world. KEEN is based in Orlando. Ideas welcome everywhere. Visit KEENGrowthCaptial.com for more.
Statements regarding Healright foods have not been evaluated by the FDA, and these foods are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. Customer results may vary and results may not always reflect the outcomes published in clinical studies on the Healright Formula. Healright is not a medical organization and our staff cannot give you medical advice or diagnosis and no content in any form on this website should be construed as medical advice or diagnosis.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200730005159/en/ Addison Ames VP, Marketing [email protected] 917.721.2961 VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Google's TF-Coder tool automates machine learning model design | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/googles-tf-coder-tool-automates-machine-learning-model-design"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google’s TF-Coder tool automates machine learning model design Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Researchers at Google Brain, one of Google’s AI research divisions, developed an automated tool for programming in machine learning frameworks like TensorFlow.
They say it achieves better-than-human performance on some challenging development tasks, taking seconds to solve problems that take human programmers minutes to hours.
Emerging AI techniques have resulted in breakthroughs across computer vision, audio processing, natural language processing, and robotics. Playing an important role are machine learning frameworks like TensorFlow, Facebook’s PyTorch, and MXNet, which enable researchers to develop and refine new models. But while these frameworks have eased the iterating and training of AI models, they have a steep learning curve because the paradigm of computing over tensors is quite different from traditional programming. (Tensors are algebraic objects that describe relationships between sets of things related to a vector space, and they’re a convenient data format in machine learning.) Most models require various tensor manipulations for data processing or cleaning, custom loss functions, and accuracy metrics that must be implemented within the constraints of a framework.
The researchers’ TF-Coder tool aims to synthesize tensor manipulation programs from input and output examples and natural language descriptions. Per-operation weights allow TF-Coder to enumerate over TensorFlow expressions in order of increasing complexity, while a novel type- and value-based filtering system handles constraints imposed by the TensorFlow library. A separate framework combines predictions from multiple independent machine learning models that choose operations to prioritize during operations searches, conditioned on features of the input and output tensors and the natural language description of a task. This helps tailor the searches to fit the particular synthesis task at hand.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! TF-Coder considers 134 tensor-manipulation operations of the 500 in TensorFlow including reshapes, filters, aggregations, maps, indexing, slicing, grouping, sorting, and mathematical operations. It’s able to handle problems involving compositions of four or five different operations and data structures of 10 or more components, which have little room for error as the shapes and data types must be compatible throughout.
The coauthors say that in experiments, TF-Coder achieved “superhuman” performance on a range of real problems from question-and-answer site StackOverflow. Evaluated on 70 real-world tensor transformation tasks from StackOverflow and from a production environment, TF-Coder successfully synthesized solutions to 63 tasks in 17 seconds on average and led to “significantly” faster synthesis times (35.4% faster on average) compared with not using models. Remarkably, TF-Coder also produced solutions that the coauthors claim were “simpler” and “more elegant” than those written by TensorFlow experts — two solutions required fewer operations than the best handwritten solutions.
“We believe that TF-Coder can help both machine learning beginners and experienced practitioners in writing tricky tensor transformation programs that are common in deep learning pipelines,” the coauthors wrote a preprint paper describing TF-Coder. “Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from this work is simply the fact that a well-optimized enumerative search can successfully solve real-world tensor manipulation problems within seconds, even on problems that human programmers struggle to solve within minutes.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Google's $2.1 billion Fitbit deal faces full EU antitrust probe | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/googles-2-1-billion-fitbit-deal-faces-full-eu-antitrust-probe"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google’s $2.1 billion Fitbit deal faces full EU antitrust probe Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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( Reuters ) — Google’s $2.1 billion bid for fitness tracker maker Fitbit will face a full-scale EU antitrust investigation next week, people familiar with the matter said today.
Alphabet unit Google this month offered not to use Fitbit’s health data to help it target ads in an attempt to address EU antitrust concerns. The opening of a full-scale investigation suggests that this is not sufficient.
The deal, announced last November, would see Google compete with market leader Apple and Samsung in the fitness-tracking and smart-watch market, alongside others, including Huawei and Xiaomi.
The European Commission, which will launch the probe following the end of its preliminary review on August 4, is expected to make use of the four-month-long investigation to explore in depth the use of data in health care, one of the people said.
The Commission declined to comment. Google reiterated previous comments, saying the deal is about devices and not data.
“The wearables space is crowded, and we believe the combination of Google and Fitbit’s hardware efforts will increase competition in the sector, benefiting consumers and making the next generation of devices better and more affordable,” a spokesperson said.
Google’s data pledge has drawn criticism from health care providers, wearables rivals, and privacy advocates for not addressing their concerns that the deal would boost its dominance in the online search market and its trove of data.
News agency MLex was the first to report the imminent EU investigation.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, editing by Jason Neely.) VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Facebook beats Q2 estimates with $18.69 billion in revenue and 2.7 billion monthly active users | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/facebook-beats-q2-estimates-with-18-69-billion-in-revenue-and-2-7-billion-monthly-active-users"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Facebook beats Q2 estimates with $18.69 billion in revenue and 2.7 billion monthly active users Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A woman looks at the Facebook logo on an iPad in this photo illustration.
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(Reuters) — Facebook beat analysts’ estimates for quarterly revenue on Thursday, as businesses used its digital advertising tools to tap a surge in online traffic during the coronavirus pandemic even as they slashed marketing budgets elsewhere. Shares of the world’s biggest social network jumped 7% in extended trading. Revenue growth was its slowest ever as a public company, reported at 11%, although it beat analysts’ expectations that it would sink to 3%, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Ad sales, which contribute nearly all of Facebook’s revenue, rose 10% to $18.3 billion in the second quarter. Monthly active users rose to 2.7 billion ahead of estimates of 2.6 billion. Facebook projected that ad revenue for the third quarter is likewise expected to grow faster than Wall Street estimates, despite an unprecedented ad boycott in July that drew the support of companies such as Unilever, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola. Only about 1,100 companies joined the boycott to pressure the social network to take more action against hate speech, out of millions of Facebook advertisers. Although some were among the company’s biggest individual spenders, the bulk of Facebook’s ad revenue comes from small businesses.
The company’s ad sales in the first three weeks of July grew 10% year-over-year, in line with the rate for the second quarter, it said. It forecast ad revenue growth in the third quarter would be consistent with that July performance. Investors were bracing for difficulties in the second quarter, which was the first to reflect the full impact of virus-related lockdowns. Facebook said in April it was seeing signs of stability for sales in the first three weeks of the quarter after a plunge in March.
Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst at eMarketer, said she believed Facebook unit Instagram played a “major role” in helping the company withstand the effects of the pandemic. “Facebook has successfully attracted digital-native businesses to its platform, especially those that market products or services that can be used or consumed by people staying at home,” she said. “Although Facebook doesn’t release details about Instagram’s revenue, we believe that Instagram has been a rapidly growing contributor to the company’s total revenue, and that its success is helping to buoy Facebook as a whole.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Revenue growth at Facebook, the world’s second-biggest seller of online ads after Alphabet’s Google, had been cooling even prior to the pandemic as its business matured, although it still came in at more than 20% throughout 2019. Alphabet shares were up 1% after the company posted revenue and profit that beat expectations but not by a fantastic amount. Its quarterly sales fell for the first time in its 16 years as a public company.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in April that Facebook would somewhat control costs this year in response to the pandemic, without “slamming on the brakes” on strategic investments. Total costs and expenses increased 4% to $12.7 billion in the second quarter, compared with the $12.5 billion analysts had forecast. Net income came in at $5.2 billion, or $1.80 per share, in the three months ended June 30. It had been $2.6 billion a year earlier, reflecting a $2 billion charge related to Facebook’s privacy settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. Analysts had expected a profit of $1.39 per share.
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"Duolink Go Launches World-first SpeakerBuds | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/duolink-go-launches-world-first-speakerbuds"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release Duolink Go Launches World-first SpeakerBuds Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn New earbuds, main and two stereo speakers – all in one device LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–July 30, 2020– Duolink Go , is debuting a world first today with the launch of its SpeakerBuds three-in-one device, combining true wireless earbuds and a two-part charging case with in-built speakers, for pre-order via Kickstarter.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200730005017/en/ Duolink Go launches world-first SpeakerBuds (Photo: Business Wire) Designed to transfer music in seconds, with Duolink SpeakerBuds, consumers can listen to music all-day in comfort via the snug fit earbuds or slot the earbuds into the speaker(s) to transfer music for others to enjoy too. Duolink SpeakerBuds’ stereo speakers also offer high-quality sound on both sides of a room, up to 22 feet.
Fully charged after just 2 hours, Duolink SpeakerBuds run for up to 6 hours but, thanks to the speaker acting as a power bank, have 2 times longer battery life compared to similar products on the market. Users can even charge while still playing music by slotting the earbuds into the speaker.
Stable Bluetooth 5.0 connection to any mobile device, lightweight and water resistant (IP54), portable for on-the-go acoustics or seamless music sharing, even at a distance, SpeakerBuds’ AI noise cancelling mics have voice enhancement technology to extract a user’s voice from noisy environments, making calls crystal clear – even in the midst of a party.
Crafted using medical silicone for the ultimate in ear comfort, for all-day wear, SpeakerBuds’ shark fin earbuds with internally tapered tips ensure they fit snugly. Tap control allows users to easily adjust volume, pick up or hang up calls and activate a voice assistant, to summon Siri, all at their fingertips.
Available in red, white and navy blue, Duolink SpeakeBuds offer consumers music their way, to suit all manner of lifestyles.
Duolink SpeakerBuds are available now via https://bit.ly/2CxKYyC for $149 (£125), but early birds can snap theirs up for $79 (£65) for a limited time.
Official website: https://bit.ly/2CUkKXc ABOUT DUOLINK Based in Los Angeles, CA, Duolink Go designs adaptable audio devices for music lovers. Set up by Founder, Victor Liu, Duolink Go’s team of top-notch acoustic engineers aim to bring joy of music to the world through constant innovation. SpeakerBuds were developed as its flagship debut for the world to enjoy music in more than one way.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200730005017/en/ Vanessa Liu [email protected] VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Dexcom makes controlling blood sugar far simpler for diabetes patients -- and everyone else too | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/dexcom-makes-controlling-blood-sugar-far-simpler-for-diabetes-patients-and-everyone-else-too"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Dexcom makes controlling blood sugar far simpler for diabetes patients — and everyone else too Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Dexcom G6 can measure your glucose levels in real time.
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If you’ve ever wondered if the data we’re amassing will be useful, check out the continuous glucose monitor from the medical device company Dexcom.
As a tech narcissist, I’ve been interested for years in how technology can deliver a “ quantified self ,” or data about myself and how I live. But I can’t say that the data I’ve collected so far, from step counters to sleep monitors, has really taught me anything really useful — until I tried out Dexcom’s latest monitor. It turned out not only to be a good health care story but also a great data story.
The Dexcom G6 Pro gave me insights into how my body was behaving moment to moment, and how I can take charge and control how I feel. For me, this was a kind of academic fascination. But for Ric Peralta, for example, a 47-year-old man who has been living with diabetes for 12 years, it makes a huge difference in how conveniently he can monitor glucose levels and manage life-or-death situations.
This kind of insight that we both got from data is something I would expect to learn from a Star Trek Tricorder.
But it’s available today, and it’s why Dexcom has a stock market value of $40 billion and sales close to $1.5 billion a year.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Glucose monitors measure the level of sugar in your blood. For diabetic patients, this is critical.
Diabetes affects more than 34 million Americans and is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States. The traditional standard of care for glucose monitoring has been a fingerstick meter, which is painful as some patients need to test their blood by pricking their fingers up to 12 times a day.
In a patient with Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas can’t produce the hormone insulin, which helps the body absorb sugar and remove it from your bloodstream. For Type 2 diabetes patients, their body may not be able to produce or process insulin effectively. Either condition means people have to inject themselves with insulin to take their glucose levels down. But they can only do this if they can accurately measure their blood sugar levels in real time, something that hasn’t been possible or convenient until recently.
Above: Kevin Sayer is CEO of Dexcom.
More recently, COVID-19 patients with poor glucose control have had bad complications leading to higher fatality rates. “We got an emergency approval from the FDA to use [glucose monitors] in hospitals,” Dexcom CEO Kevin Sayer said in an interview with VentureBeat. “They saw the glucose problems COVID-19 patients were facing. Many of them have diabetes or have high glucose variability.” Moore’s law Above: The Dexcom Seven Plus CGM debuted in 2009.
Dexcom has been making glucose monitors for years. Each one has been getting smaller and more convenient, in step with the march of Moore’s law — the notion that electronic devices get better every couple of years. Intel chairman emeritus Gordon Moore foresaw in the 1960s that the number of components on a chip doubled every couple of years. That made electronics cheaper, faster, and smaller. And the law has held up for decades, leading to advances such as far better glucose monitors.
Dexcom has ridden this wave. It was founded in 1999, debuted its first short-term monitor in 2004, and went public in 2005. It launched new glucose monitors in 2009, 2012, 2015, 2017, and 2018. The latest G6 Pro debuted in 2020. People can now attach the monitor to an insulin pump, and a software algorithm will figure out how much insulin to release into their bloodstream to counter a rise in blood sugar.
As the electronics became cheaper, Dexcom was able to create cheaper, more effective, battery-operated monitors that measured glucose levels and transferred the data wirelessly in real time, Sayer said.
The smartphone era Above: The Dexcom glucose monitor shows you your blood sugar level in real time.
Peralta, the diabetes patient, has noticed the difference. When he started using Dexcom’s G5 monitor a few years ago, he had to manually calibrate it every 12 hours. That meant he had to prick his finger twice a day and analyze the blood to see if it matched the monitor’s results. It was also significantly bulkier than the current model. The newer G6 model is much smaller, and it can automatically monitor Peralta’s sugar levels 300 times a day and deliver the data to his Apple Watch.
“This was mind-blowing for me. A dramatic, immediate change for me,” Peralta said. “The fact that I no longer have to constantly calibrate is a huge game-changer for me.” The Dexcom G6 Pro, which came out this year, is the first device approved for non-diabetic users. For non-diabetics, the Dexcom G6 Pro is OK to use in blinded mode. That means real-time glucose data is hidden from the patient and reviewed retrospectively with their health care professional at the end of the monitoring period. In unblinded mode, diabetic patients can see their glucose data throughout the 10-day sensor wear to gain insights and make treatment decisions in real time. (With that said, a provider could determine that a person might benefit more from seeing the data in real time, so there are scenarios where a healthcare provider might prescribe a G6 Pro off-label and enable a person without diabetes to wear it in unblinded mode. In that way, my usage of the Dexcom G6 Pro could be approved).
The monitors are still expensive at around $900. But roughly 98% of health insurance providers cover the use of these monitors for diabetic patients. It’s going to take a few more spins of Moore’s law to make such devices affordable to the masses. But the newest models are a lot less invasive, so patients are more likely to wear them all the time. And they also have a sharing feature that is critical for caregivers.
Sayer relates one story a customer told him. A young woman shared her glucose monitor results with her mother, who lived in Australia. One day, the young woman went to bed early during a modeling gig in New Orleans — and she didn’t wake up. Her mother saw the alert from the monitor on her smartphone. She called the paramedics, and they broke down the door of her daughter’s hotel room and saved her.
“There’s nothing more powerful than a story like that for someone with Type 1 diabetes,” Sayer said. “The game-changer for us has been the connection to the phone.” Quantifying myself Above: Here’s my glucose monitor test results after 10 days.
Pretty soon, this measurement technology and real-time monitoring — the stuff of dreams for quantified self practitioners — will become relevant to someone like me, who otherwise had no interest in the devices.
I don’t have diabetes, fortunately. As I agreed to test the monitor, I realized that I was going to get a glimpse inside my body that most people never get a chance to do. I found, as Sayer observed, that I could use this data not as a patient, but as a consumer. I could look at what I was doing and what I was eating and figure out what the effect was on my blood sugar.
It was pretty non-invasive. A nurse showed me how to attach it to the left side of my belly. There was a tiny pin prick when I activated the device, which poked a needle into my skin. After that, I couldn’t feel it anymore. The monitor itself was a little over an inch long and it was glued to my skin. I was able to wear it for 10 days and take showers with it. It automatically uploaded the measurements of my blood sugar in real time to my iPhone. It never fell off.
I was astounded to learn that eating a big pile of spaghetti was one of the things that could push my blood sugar level off the charts and even put me above the 180 milligrams per deciliter threshold that doctors considered to be high.
At the same time, when I went for a jog, I found my glucose levels dropped so much that it dipped below 70 milligrams per deciliter and triggered alerts for me, as if I were in danger of fainting. My average glucose level was 124 milligrams per deciliter, which was within the range of normal, according to an evaluation by Dr. Daniel Katselnik, a diabetes and metabolism specialist in Texas.
The range of numbers for sugar levels is what diabetes patients have to follow very closely.
“The more a person stays within the range, the better quality of life they will have,” Sayer said. “People can stay engaged with their status. You can eliminate hospitalizations and save money. Doctor visits are efficient.” If someone like Peralta spikes above their limit or falls below the lower threshold, they face big health risks. If your blood sugar is too high, it can damage your blood vessels. The lows, known as hypoglycemia, can lead to hunger, trembling, heart racing, nausea, and sweating. It can also increase the risk of other problems like heart disease, stroke, nerve problems, and kidney disease. It is a deadly problem, possibly leading to coma or death. An injection of insulin can head off high blood sugar, but Peralta said that, in the past, the amount of insulin to inject was often a guessing game.
Above: Dr. Daniel Katselnik is a diabetes specialist.
The app shared the data with Dexcom’s Clarity app and the doctor, Katselnik, was able to access my data after I shared my account code with him. He got it in a matter of seconds, and we compared the numbers that the app recorded to my notes on what I was doing at the time. He noted right off the bat that 94% of my results were within the suggested range.
But 5% of the time it was high because of what I ate. And when I was out of the range, I got an alert on my iPhone. I figured out one of those nights was the big spaghetti dinner. Another day I had a spike after a lunch. I noticed when I drank a cup of orange juice, the sugar level went up to 145. When I had a lot of carbs to eat, I got sleepy, as the sugar level was starting to spike.
Sayer, who often tests new devices, said he bought doughnut holes for his grandkids and ate a couple of them. He noted that his glucose level was up 10 points during the day because they were so sugary.
“You learn about what you eat, the timing of your meals, and how everything makes a difference,” Sayer said. “You can see here are some meals that may not have been good for you.” Help for prediabetics Above: Dexcom G6 is a continuous glucose monitor that connects to your smartphone.
Even after carb binges, my blood sugar returned to average because my pancreas was working well, unlike in a diabetes patient. The doctor said I could prevent diabetes in the future by controlling my diet, like reducing my intake of carbs. Eating carbs with protein and fat reduces the spike. You’ll notice the impact of different foods on your blood sugar. Alcohol will have a definite effect in making your blood sugar spike, though I didn’t try this.
Katselnik also told me that when your blood sugar is spiking, you can bring it down fast by exercising.
That’s a short-term solution. Over the long term, exercising a lot will help reduce the spikes in blood sugar. Katselnik noted that the Dexcom G6 Pro is a good sensor with FDA approval, with an accuracy level that is within 9% of lab testing accuracy. I used a single-use disposable device. There’s a version that has a transmitter that can last 90 days. This is far easier than pricking your finger hourly.
“This is clearly a leap. It’s accurate. It’s easy to use out of the box,” Katselnik said. “You don’t have to calibrate it or do anything along those lines. So you get all the information you want. And the nice thing is you can do it remotely. This is a life-saving device for a fair amount of people, and it’s a standard part of care.” You can replace the transmitter and keep using it. The sensor lasts about 10 days, so you have to replace that and pop in the existing transmitter when you do that swap. Doctors use the Dexcom monitors on regular diabetes patients, Katselnik said. He uses it on dozens of diabetes patients as well as prediabetic patients who are borderline to having the disease.
“The big use in the future is for patients who are prediabetic or maybe at risk for diabetes, so they can get the data and change their behavior so they don’t become diabetic,” Katselnik said.
Actionable data for diabetes patients Above: Ric Peralta uses Dexcom products to monitor his blood sugar.
For doctors and patients, these Dexcom monitors are godsends compared to the older machines. Peralta used to have to prick his finger and draw blood and put it into an analyzer to get his sugar level. That involved a lot of time. The new glucose monitors deliver this information instantly, and doctors can look at it instantly. As in the story above, caregivers can look at someone’s data and call an ambulance if they see the person is having an episode. Patients’ lives are being saved as a result.
“This is true continuous information,” Katselnik said. “The only thing that is comparable is heart-rate data, and that’s super simple compared to blood sugar data. The data can be used to change medications and dosages. We’re in an exciting time. We have fully embraced it at our office.” Peralta said that his own endocrinologist is very pleased with the results using the Dexcom G6. Peralta is doing some fine-tuning with his routine as he still has some occasional lows. Those times were scary, and Peralta knew he had to do something. One time, he lost his vision and his ability to speak, but he was still conscious. While he couldn’t say anything, the app could send an alert to his wife. She could then engage with him and do something to help him out.
Now Peralta knows that if he is going to go for a strenuous walk in the woods, he has to eat something ahead of time to keep his blood sugar high enough so that his numbers won’t drop too low. Since the app works with the Apple Watch, Peralta can flip his wrist over to see where his blood sugar is at during the day, giving him reassurance or reminding him he has to exercise or eat or use his insulin shots.
“As a Type 1, that’s just part of your daily routine, as you are constantly worried about your numbers,” Peralta said. “With the old fashioned way of the fingerprick, it’s basically you’re gonna burn through more strips than the insurance will provide if you’re constantly checking. And so you’re constantly guessing. ‘How does my body feel? Am I high? Am I low? Am I going up or down? I think I feel this way.’ Instead, I can see exactly where I am now.” The data is different from the usual data that we get from our devices today. It’s actionable.
“There’s no question that, moment to moment, this completely changes your life as a diabetic,” Peralta said. “As a Type 1, we are living our lives basically, constantly on this fight to just try to keep ourselves alive. If I didn’t have this equipment, if I didn’t have insulin, I would not be here right now. It’s as simple as that. And anything that allows me to approach living a normal life is a powerful tool that is worth having. I can plan out hikes and I can plan out trips.” The future of the quantified self Above: The Dexcom G6 (left) is a lot bigger than the next-generation G7 continuous glucose monitor.
Katselnik thinks that body-hacking people and professional athletes will also eat up this data and change their behavior as a result. Athletes who face low blood sugar find that they are completely out of energy. That’s why they need to monitor their energy and drink things like Gatorade to stay at high energy levels.
Back in 2012, Sayer noted an Olympics cycling team used the glucose monitors and found one particular athlete was running out of energy. They asked her what was happening and she said she was dieting because she felt she was bigger than the other athletes. The trainers put a stop to the diet and told her that her skills, not her body shape, was what got her on the team. Once she started eating properly, she was able to perform much better.
Over the long term, Peralta said he can also make good use of the data for his own self-service.
“As long as I have been doing this, I’m starting to notice through some of the other apps that I’m just finding new ways of micromanaging,” Peralta said. “If I’m starting to trend in a certain direction, then I realize that if I just give myself an insulin dose I can flatten that curve a little, but not so much that I’m going to drop off like a rock and be crashing in an hour. After I do this for months, I can see exactly what I need. And I’m definitely having far fewer peaks and valleys.” Sayer said future products that use this core sensor technology will be able to help people in a variety of ways. You may, for instance, look to your blood sugar for why you’re in a bad mood. You can do something about it, like eat a snack. Artificial intelligence could come into the picture as well and handle a lot of the care so the patient won’t have to be so attentive.
“If I am snippy and biting someone’s head off, I can see it,” Peralta said. “‘Oh, this is why I’m like this. This is why I’m in a bad mood.’ And I started apologizing for what I did and saying, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but this is why.'” He’s grateful for the technology. “I think I can come pretty darn close to living a normal life,” Peralta said.
At some point, the quantified-self fans will likely be a market opportunity, as the company will be able to make cheaper monitors for those who are just curious about their bodies. “What’s more important about that use case is giving them a meaningful experience, like developing analytics engines around that for somebody who is not a diabetic,” Sayer said.
A sliver-thin Dexcom G7 device is about the size of a nickel, and it will have its own transmitter built into it. It’s in the product pipeline for 2021. I’m waiting for the day when a monitor will look at my breakfast and tell me not to eat the bagel that’s on my plate.
“We obviously have to take the cost out of this to get it to the mass market,” Sayer said. “This is real health care. This is life and death stuff. We have a lot to do. It makes it very easy to go to work every day.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"CITCON Continues to Expand QR Payments Across North America with OPAY Acquisition | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/citcon-continues-to-expand-qr-payments-across-north-america-with-opay-acquisition"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release CITCON Continues to Expand QR Payments Across North America with OPAY Acquisition Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Expanded Payment Solutions and Customer Support to Help Merchants Drive Business SANTA CLARA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–July 31, 2020– CITCON , the leading mobile payment platform, is acquiring OPAY, Inc., a payment company based in Toronto, Ontario. OPAY offers a full range of mobile payment services including an in-store and online payment gateway to help Canadian merchants serve Asian consumers. Among OPAY’s Canadian clients are major super-store groups, luxury auto dealerships, and premier retail merchants. CITCON is also pleased to welcome OPAY’s Chairman Benjamin Liang to our new team as Head of Business Development in Canada. With this acquisition, CITCON takes a further significant step to serve merchants and their customers easily and seamlessly across North America.
Mr. Liang is currently Chairman of OPAY Inc. and deputy secretary-general of the China Canada Chamber of Commerce, with solid experience in digital payment gateway, electric wallet and cross-border digital payment related businesses. Prior to OPAY, he worked at AT&T, Sun Microsystems (ORACLE) and IBM, responsible for the development of ATM systems and deployment of value-added service for telecommunication companies. In his role at CITCON, he will contribute his expertise to lead business development for CITCON in Canada.
“By adding the capabilities of OPAY and its founder, our new team will build on several key functions, including sales, customer service, finance and compliance,” said Chuck Huang, Founder and CEO at CITCON. “Shelter-in-place, health concerns and social distancing during the pandemic are accelerating the already rapid adoption of mobile devices and digital payments throughout the world, online as well as in store. We are slated to capitalize on this trend, expanding in many other countries and increasing investment in Products and Technologies. “ “CITCON has been serving the Canada market since 2017. We are excited about the acquisition which combines our strengths in business offering and customer support, and demonstrates our commitment to the Canada market with our leading QR payment technology,” said Wei Jiang, President and COO at CITCON. “With expanded business opportunities growing in the eCommerce and retail space, Canadian merchants can take advantage of our full stack payment solutions to grow revenue and thrive in the post-pandemic global marketplace.” “Fast-growing mobile wallet consumers are revolutionizing the $25 trillion traditional card-based digital payment market,” said Benjamin Liang, Head of Business Development at CITCON Canada. “CITCON is a clear leader in the mobile payment space. I am thrilled to join forces with CITCON and be part of the team to accelerate success in Canada.” From stand-alone devices, in-person and eCommerce payment APIs, to POS and payment gateway integrations, CITCON’s payment solution makes it easy for merchants to accept alternative payment methods (APMs) across online, mobile app, and physical stores globally. Our easy-to-integrate solution and strong tech service team allows merchants of all sizes to get up and running fast, expand reach and fuel international growth with fraud and chargeback protection.
About CITCON Founded in 2015, CITCON is a leading payment technology company, building a payment infrastructure that enables global merchants to accept payments from billions of fast-growing mobile wallet consumers through web, mobile and in-store channels around the world. Mobile payment provides a more user-friendly, secure, and safer contactless shopping and payment experience for both consumers and merchants compared to other payment options. CITCON’s secure, scalable and open system allows businesses to quickly and easily accept domestic and international mobile wallets by using a single API suite and an integrated processing and fund settlement platform. Millions of mobile wallet consumers are now able to shop and pay at tens of thousands of merchants, online, mobile and in-store. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, CITCON has five regional offices in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit www.citcon.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200731005066/en/ Evelyn Yang Head of Marketing CITCON +1 888 254 4887 [email protected] VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Candis raises nearly $14 million to automate accounting processes with AI | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/candis-raises-nearly-14-million-to-automate-accounting-processes-with-ai"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Candis raises nearly $14 million to automate accounting processes with AI Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Candis , a startup developing a platform for automated accounting and payment processes, this week closed a €12 million ($13.97 million) funding round. A spokesperson for the company said the money will be used to further develop Candis’ machine learning engine and fuel growth and expansion within Europe, specifically in the Netherlands.
Most paperwork is still done manually. According to a study published by Wakefield Research and Concur, 84% of small businesses rely on some kind of manual process each day. Some of these are financial and require specialized knowledge, and the stakes are high. Errors could result in a client being unable to deliver payments or in late bills that hurt planning.
Candis aims to expedite some of the more complex workflows with algorithms that import files, extract data, approve invoices, and handle exporting. Customers upload documents in one place by scanning them with an app or forwarding them to an email address. The platform handles payment reconciliation with linked business accounts, credit cards, and PayPal accounts by assigning account movements to the correct invoices and notifying admins of missing documents. Candis also automatically updates payment lists and maintains an overview of open liabilities and completed invoices while storing things like invoice numbers to simplify bank transfers and collaboration among team members.
Above: Candis web dashboard.
Candis’ platform runs without installation in a web browser on any device, and the company claims it stores data on ISO-certified servers in Germany.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Studies show the vast majority of day-to-day accounting tasks can be automated with software. That may be why over 50% of respondents in a survey conducted by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants said they anticipate the development of automated and intelligent systems will have a significant impact on accounting businesses over the next 30 years. Indeed, Candis cofounder and managing director Christian Ritosek says the company’s software automates more than 80% of accounting processes for tax advisors at “thousands” of companies. Despite competitors like Botkeeper , Candis says business has grown 500% since its last funding round at the end of 2018. Ritosek estimates the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) market in the EU to be worth around $4 billion.
Existing investors Viola Ventures and Rabo Frontier Ventures, the investment arm of Rabobank, led this latest investment in Berlin-based Candis. Returning investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Point Nine Capital, and Speedinvest (the main incubator of Commerzbank and 42CAP) also participated.
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"Buildots raises $16 million to automate construction site reporting with AI | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/buildots-raises-16-million-to-automate-construction-site-reporting-with-ai"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Buildots raises $16 million to automate construction site reporting with AI Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Data-driven construction reporting company Buildots this week announced it has raised $16 million, a combination of a $3 million seed round and a $13 million series A. Cofounder Roy Danon says the funds will be used to scale and improve the company’s products as Buildots expands to new regions around the world.
Large construction projects — which some countries have allowed to continue during the pandemic — still rely on project managers to keep tedious manual records. These managers are often responsible for keeping tabs on countless tasks, in addition to tracking the progress of dozens (or more) contractors. Some analysts say the intractable logistical challenges lead 98% of large projects to suffer cost overruns of more than 30%. Making matters worse, 77% are estimated to be at least 40% late.
McKinsey claims improvements to “basic” project-management skills have the most potential to improve site performance. Buildots aims to achieve this by turning construction sites into fully digitized environments. The company, which is based in Israel and the U.K., was founded in 2018 by Danon, Aviv Leibovici, and Yakir Sundry, all graduates of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Talpiot unit.
Buildots’ customers volunteer access to schedules and designs, after which an AWS-hosted engine maps all files to generate a construction program. The company delivers 360-degree cameras that can be mounted to construction hard hats and capture video Buildots’ algorithms automatically analyze, aggregate, and compare to determine the status of construction activity.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Buildots’ AI detects camera wearers’ locations at any given physical point — in the event they miss an area, the system flags it so they’re able to cover it on their next inspection. According to Danon, the algorithms have learned to recognize construction sites by training on an enormous amount of data, and they’re augmented with manual analysis during the initial weeks of a project.
Through online dashboards, emails, and SMS, construction teams receive relevant reports and insights. A project view shows a completion percentage next to tracked jobs and identifies the most urgent issues, including partially finished activities and potential errors (for example, an electricity socket installed a few inches from where it should be). Buildots’ analysts optionally run additional queries and reports for insights into each site and company.
To protect privacy, Buildots says it automatically blurs out people, device screens, and documents. For European clients, the company stores and processes data on servers within the EU to fully adhere to personal data and security regulations.
Buildots competes with companies like HoloBuilder and OpenSpace , which similarly offer camera-based, AI-powered construction site-reporting solutions. But Buildots says it counts among its clients two of the 10 largest construction companies in Europe, as well as the largest Israeli construction firm. Buildots plans to make its product available in the U.S. in the next year.
TLV Partners led the funding round, with participation from Innogy Ventures, Tidhar Construction Group, and individual investors Ziv Aviram, Zvika Limon, Benny Schnaider, Avigdor Willenz, and Gil Geva. The company has 35 employees across its offices.
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"Apple's Q3 2020 revenue hits record $59.7 billion, stock will split 4:1 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/apples-q3-2020-revenue-hits-record-59-7-billion-stock-will-split-41"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple’s Q3 2020 revenue hits record $59.7 billion, stock will split 4:1 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn CEO Tim Cook talking at Apple's first virtual WWDC event Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Three months ago, Apple missed its initial revenue target for the second quarter of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic but was still up slightly over the prior year’s quarter — a surprising feat enabled by a rapid and nearly complete shift to online sales, as well as growing demand for devices to accommodate working and studying from home. Today, the company announced its fiscal third-quarter results, top-lined by a record $59.7 billion in revenue, which was notably achieved despite avoiding advance earnings predictions for the quarter.
Analysts generally expected store closures and other COVID-19-related difficulties to negatively impact Apple’s revenues and earnings per share (EPS), with consensus estimates of roughly 3% year-over-year drops. This would have reflected a fall from 2019’s record $53.8 billion in revenues to $52.25 billion for the third fiscal quarter of 2020, with EPS dropping from $2.18 to $2.04. But in what has become a pattern, Apple beat the estimates handily.
Apple’s revenues were actually up roughly 11% over the year-ago quarter, and EPS jumped to $2.58, an increase of 18% that was due in part to share buybacks. Despite continued fears of a prolonged global recession impacted by COVID-19 closures, Apple still saw international sales contribute 60% to its revenue and growth across all of its geographic segments. Year over year, revenues grew from $25.056 billion to $27.018 billion in the Americas, $11.925 billion to $14.173 billion in Europe, and $9.157 billion to $9.329 billion in Greater China. They also went from $4.082 billion to $4.966 billion in Japan and from $3.589 billion to $4.199 billion in the Asia Pacific region.
The third fiscal quarter wasn’t huge for new Apple product releases, but the company did release the 2020 iPhone SE , the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro , and a Magic Keyboard-updated version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro , following late second-quarter updates to the MacBook Air and iPad Pro, all of which contributed to the quarter’s revenue tallies. Software was the big focus of Apple’s annual WWDC developers conference in late June, pointing to major new hardware updates across several of its device families during the next two quarters.
iPhone sales were up to $26.418 billion from the year-ago quarter’s $25.986 billion, Mac sales were up to $7.079 billion from $5.82 billion, and iPad sales grew to $6.582 billion from $5.023 billion. Combined “wearables, home, and accessories” sales went up to $6.45 billion from $5.525 billion, and services climbed to $13.156 billion from $11.455 billion. Three of the categories also represented gains over the prior quarter, when Apple took in $5.351 billion from Macs, $4.368 billion from iPads, and $6.284 billion from wearables and accessories, though they dipped from fiscal Q2’s $28.962 billion from iPhones and $13.348 billion from services. Except for major milestones, the company no longer discloses unit sales for any of its product lines.
As Apple’s stock price is presently in the $385 per share range, the company announced today that it will split each share by 4:1 “to make the stock more accessible to a broader base of investors.” The split will be based on shares held as of August 24, 2020, and trading under the new price will take place on August 31. Apple is also offering a $0.82 cash dividend per share to shareholders as of the close of business on August 10, 2020.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Apple overtakes Saudi Aramco as world's most valuable public company | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/apple-overtakes-saudi-aramco-as-worlds-most-valuable-public-company"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Apple overtakes Saudi Aramco as world’s most valuable public company Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Apple's September 10, 2019 introduction of the iPhone 11 Pro.
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(Reuters) — Apple’s stock hit a record high on Friday after reporting blockbuster quarterly results , helping the iPhone maker briefly overtake Saudi Aramco to become the world’s most valuable publicly listed company.
Apple’s stock surged to as high as $412.22 a share, putting its market capitalization at $1.762 trillion, according to the share count provided by Apple in a regulatory filing on Friday.
Saudi Aramco, which has been the most valuable publicly listed company since going public last year, had a market capitalization of $1.760 trillion as of its last close, according to Refinitiv data.
Last up 6.2% at $408.78 in midday trading, Apple’s market capitalization stood at $1.748 trillion. After Apple bought back $16 billion worth of shares in the June quarter, it had 4,275,634,000 outstanding shares, as of July 17, according to the filing.
With Friday’s stock gain, Apple’s has surged about 40% year to date, with investors betting that it and other major U.S. technology companies will emerge from the coronavirus pandemic stronger than smaller rivals.
In its quarterly report, Apple announced a four-for-one stock split, with trading on a split-adjusted basis starting on Aug. 31. It will be Apple’s first share split since 2014.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Antitrust hearing: Amazon, Facebook, and Google were questioned 2x more than Apple | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/antitrust-hearing-amazon-facebook-google-questioned-more-than-apple"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Antitrust hearing: Amazon, Facebook, and Google were questioned 2x more than Apple Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Apple CEO Tim Cook compared to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai testify virtually on Webex.
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At the “Online Platforms and Market Power” virtual antitrust hearing today, the House Judiciary Committee questioned Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai over Webex. But they weren’t all questioned equally. Most of the questions were directed at Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Pichai — each of them was in the hot seat for at least 50 minutes, by our measure. Cook, on the other hand, was only asked a handful of questions for about 25 minutes. This breakdown of how many times each CEO was questioned by a congressperson today shows where the antitrust focus is, and isn’t: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos: 13 times Apple CEO Tim Cook: 7 times Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: 16 times Google CEO Sundar Pichai: 16 times Antitrust investigations matter to the companies being scrutinized but also to the businesses that depend on them. In this case, that includes, but is not limited to, any business that sells goods on Amazon; wants its website to show up in Google search results; offers an iOS app on Apple’s App Store; or uses ads to target potential customers via Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission are pursuing antitrust investigations into all four companies.
One of the many problems with asking the four CEOs to appear on the same day is that some will inevitably get more screen time than others. The committee clearly focused on Amazon, Facebook, and Google for their anti-competitive behaviors. Bezos was taken to task over Amazon using seller-specific data to determine what products to manufacture and sell itself. Pichai was repeatedly criticized for Google’s decision to prioritize its own products and services in its search results. Zuckerberg was frequently questioned about Facebook acquiring competing social networks, especially Instagram. Cook, meanwhile, talked about Apple’s App Store a handful of times, and that was that.
Above: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook being sworn in virtually on Webex Compared to Cook, the other three CEOs each spent 3 times longer representing their respective companies. That’s good news for Apple. It’s not such good news for businesses that build on Apple’s platforms.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! While today’s hearing is a significant public event, it is a small part of the larger series of antitrust investigations into Big Tech. We will hear more about those over the next few months, especially following the U.S. elections in November.
All four companies report their latest quarterly earnings tomorrow. The respective earnings calls may be less yawn-inducing than usual. The results will encompass the first full quarter during the coronavirus pandemic. Investors may also have follow-up questions regarding today’s hearing.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Alphabet revenue dropped in Q2 2020, the first decline since going public | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/alphabet-revenue-dropped-in-q2-2020-the-first-decline-since-going-public"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Alphabet revenue dropped in Q2 2020, the first decline since going public Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
( Reuters ) — Google parent Alphabet’s quarterly sales fell for the first time in its 16 years as a public company, but the decline was less than expected as many advertisers stuck with the most popular online search engine during the pandemic.
Shares of Alphabet fell 1.2% to $1,518.85 after it released the second-quarter results. The stock had rebounded early Thursday to this year’s prepandemic high of about $1,525.
With its mostly free tools for web browsing, video watching, and teleconferencing, Google has become a larger part of many consumers’ lives during the pandemic as lockdown orders force people to rely on the internet for work and entertainment.
But advertisers on Google have suffered mass layoffs and other cutbacks during the pandemic, and marketing budgets are often the first to get slashed, especially by big clients like travel search engines, airlines, and hotels.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Google’s ads business has long trended with the broader economy, and the U.S. economy contracted at its steepest pace since the Great Depression in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said on Thursday.
Google appeared to weather the slowdown better than before, as the pandemic has made the internet more attractive to advertisers than TV, radio, and other avenues.
“This quarter, we saw the early signs of stabilization as users returned to commercial activity online,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told analysts on Thursday. “Of course, the economic climate remains fragile.” Alphabet’s overall second-quarter revenue was $38.3 billion, down 2% from the year-ago period. Analysts tracked by Refinitiv, on average, had estimated a 4% decline to $37.367 billion.
The sales decline was the first since the company went public in 2004 and the worst performance since its 2.9% growth during the Great Recession in 2009.
About 66% of Alphabet’s revenue came from Google search and YouTube ads, 12% from ads sold on partner properties online, 8% from its cloud business, and 14% from its mobile app store and about a dozen other smaller businesses.
The company has adjusted by slowing expense growth. Alphabet’s total costs and expenses rose about 7% from a year ago to $31.9 billion in the second quarter, compared with a 12% jump a quarter ago.
Alphabet’s quarterly profit was $6.96 billion, or $10.13 per share, compared with the analysts’ average estimate of $5.645 billion, or $8.29 per share.
New data privacy laws, including one that went into effect this month in Google’s home state of California, are also depressing ad prices.
Antitrust regulators in countries across the Americas, Europe, and Asia are weighing whether Google has stifled competition on its way to dominating search, mobile software, and other businesses, with some bodies even considering forcing it to divest parts of its ad operations.
About 2,000 employees last month petitioned Google’s emerging cloud business to scuttle deals with some police agencies, citing racial discrimination concerns. Whether a massive hiring spree will win other cloud clients is uncertain.
Investors may be shifting toward less ad-reliant rivals. Entering Thursday, Amazon and Microsoft , which have smaller ad businesses than Google but bigger cloud units, were trading at 145 times and 35 times their respective earnings over the last 12 months. Alphabet shares were at 30 times earnings over the last year.
(Reporting by Paresh Dave in Oakland, California and Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru. Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Richard Chang.) VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"AI Weekly: Big Tech's antitrust reckoning is a cautionary tale for the AI industry | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/ai-weekly-big-techs-antitrust-reckoning-is-a-cautionary-tale-for-the-ai-industry"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages AI Weekly: Big Tech’s antitrust reckoning is a cautionary tale for the AI industry Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos (clockwise from top left) speak before a July 29, 2020 House Judiciary committee meeting.
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This week, as the heads of four of the largest and most powerful tech companies in the world were called before a virtual congressional antitrust hearing to answer inquiries into how they built and run their respective behemoths, you could see that the bloom on the rose of Big Tech has faded.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, once the rascally college dropout boy genius you loved to hate, still doesn’t seem to grasp the magnitude of the problem of globally destructive misinformation and hate speech on his platform. Tim Cook struggles to defend how Apple takes a 30% cut from some of its app store developers’ revenue — a policy he didn’t even establish that is a vestige of Apple’s mid-2000s vise grip on the mobile app market. The plucky young upstarts who founded Google are both middle-aged and have stepped down from executive roles, quietly fading away while Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai runs the show. And Jeff Bezos wears the untroubled visage of the world’s richest man.
Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google all created tech products and services that have undeniably changed the world, some in ways that are undeniably good. But as these tech titans moved fast and broke things, they also largely excused themselves from asking difficult ethical questions, from how they built their business empires to the impacts their products and services have on the people who use them.
As AI continues to lead the next wave of transformative technology, skating over these difficult questions is a mistake the world can’t afford to repeat. What’s more, AI technologies won’t actually work properly unless companies address the issues at their heart.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Smart and ruthless was the tradition of Big Tech, but AI requires people to be smart and wise. Those working in AI have to not only ensure the efficacy of what they make, but holistically understand the potential harms for people AI tech impacts. That’s a more mature and just way of building world-changing technologies, products, and services. Fortunately, many prominent voices in AI are leading the field down that path.
This week’s best example was the widespread reaction to a service called Genderify, which promised to use natural language processing (NLP) to help companies identify customers’ gender using only their name, username, or email address. The entire premise is absurd and problematic, and when AI folks got ahold of it to put it through its paces, they predictably found it to be terribly biased (which is to say, broken).
Genderify was such a bad joke that it almost seemed like some kind of performance art. In any case, it was laughed off the internet. Just a day or so after it was launched, the Genderify site , Twitter account , and LinkedIn page were gone.
It’s frustrating to many in the field that such ill-conceived and poorly executed AI offerings keep popping up. But the swift and wholesale deletion of Genderify illustrates the power and strength of this new generation of principled AI researchers and practitioners.
The burgeoning AI sector is already experiencing the kind of reckoning Big Tech is only facing after decades. Other recent examples include an outcry over a paper that promised to use AI to identify criminality from people’s faces (really just AI phrenology ), which led to the paper being withdrawn from publication.
Landmark studies on bias in facial recognition have led to bans and moratoriums on the technology’s use in several U.S. cities, as well as a raft of legislation to eliminate or combat its potential abuses.
Fresh research is finding intractable problems with bias in well-established data sets like 80 Million Tiny Images and the legendary ImageNet — and leading to immediate (if overdue) change.
And there’s more.
Although advocacy groups play a role in pushing for changes and posing tough questions, the authority for such inquiry and the research-based proof is coming from people inside the field of AI — ethicists, researchers looking for ways to improve AI techniques, and actual practitioners.
There is, of course, an immense amount of work to be done and many more battles ahead as AI fuels the next dominant set of technologies. Look no further than problematic AI in surveillance , military , the courts , employment , policing , and more.
But seeing tech giants like IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon pull back on massive investments in facial recognition is a sign of progress. It doesn’t actually matter whether their actions are narrative cover for a capitulation to other companies’ market dominance, a calculated move to avoid potential legislative punishment, or just a PR stunt. For whatever reason, these companies acknowledged the value of slowing down and reducing damage rather than continuing to “move fast and break things.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"15,000 games removed from Apple's App Store in China ahead of registration deadline | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/15000-games-removed-from-apples-app-store-in-china-ahead-of-registration-deadline"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages 15,000 games removed from Apple’s App Store in China ahead of registration deadline Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Unlicensed mobile games are dropping like flies from the Apple App Store as China’s deadline for registration approaches on Friday.
At the request of the Chinese government, Apple has removed nearly 15,000 games since July 1, with more likely to disappear when the August 1 requirement for registration arrives, said Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad over email. “We expect thousands of games to be removed from the China App Store this year,” he said. For years, China has been the No. 1 mobile game market in the world, and it generated the highest revenue of any country on Apple’s App Store, with 2019 revenues of $12.6 billion, according to measurement firm Sensor Tower.
Niko Partners analysts reviewed the top iOS games in China when the announcement was first made by Apple and found that 97 of the top 100 grossing games on the China App Store have legal ISBNs (International Standard Book Number). Foreign companies have to have a Chinese game publisher apply to get an ISBN from the Chinese National Press and Publication Administration. That process takes about 80 business days, according to publisher Cocos. The NPPA approves or denies games based on its censorship laws.
As a result of the removals, Niko Partners does not expect the enforcement of the regulation to have a significant impact on overall revenue. On the other hand, 50 of the top 100 downloaded games on the China App Store are unlicensed, which means there could be a notable impact on lower grossing casual games and those from small and medium sized developers. These developers will no longer be able to distribute and operate paid games or games with in-app purchases on the China App Store without a license, Ahmad said.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Cocos describes how to register a game in this video: Earlier this month, Sensor Tower noted that 2,500 games disappeared in the first week of July, including the likes of Supercell’s farming game Hay Day, launched in 2012, as well as Nonstop Chuck Norris from Flaregames, Contract Killer Zombies 2 from Glu, ASMR Slicing from Crazy Labs, and Solitaire from Zynga.
Apple announced in February that it would begin to comply with China’s regulations and is no longer allowing new game launches or game updates without a license number.
Separately, geopolitics is affecting games that are made in China as well. On July 27, India started investigating a number of Chinese apps such as TikTok because of the recent clash on the border between the two countries. The Indian government is reviewing 275 apps for national security or user privacy violations. Among the apps that face bans are Tencent’s PUBG Mobile and other games such as those NetEase and Yoozoo Globa publish.
PUBG Mobile is the most successful mobile game in India, with over 175 million downloads and gross revenue of between $2 million to $3 million each month, Niko said.
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"The AI Foundation raises $17 million to create digital AI-powered personas | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/the-ai-foundation-raises-17-million-to-create-digital-ai-powered-personas"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages The AI Foundation raises $17 million to create digital AI-powered personas Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Digital Deepak.
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The AI Foundation , which ambitiously hopes to develop “ethical” AI agents that can be trained to complete tasks, today closed a $17 million funding round. A spokesperson said the funds will be used to scale the company’s platform, which allows people to create a digital persona that mirrors their own.
As the pandemic makes virtual meetups a regular occurrence, the concept of personal AI — tailored to your life or replicating your personality — is gaining steam. Startups creating virtual beings, or artificial people powered by AI, have raised more than $320 million in venture capital to date. As my colleague Dean Takahashi points out, these beings are a kind of precursor to the Metaverse — a universe of virtual worlds that are all interconnected, as in novels such as Snow Crash and Ready Player One.
Like Soul Machines , Brud, Wave , Samsung-backed STAR Labs , and others, the AI Foundation intends to will the Metaverse into existence by pursuing new and existing machine learning techniques.
Established in 2017, the AI Foundation, which was founded by Rob Meadows and former EA vice president Lars Buttler, is a dual commercial and nonprofit enterprise with the stated mission of bringing “the power and protection of AI to everyone in the world so they can participate fully in the future.” At the center of this mission is the company’s proprietary “human-AI collaboration” platform, which brings together innovations from third-party research partners.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The AI Foundation’s steering committee — the Global AI Council — has a mandate to anticipate the negative effects of AI and figure out how to counteract them. One proposal that reached production is Reality Defender, a free tool that scans images, videos, and other media for known deepfakes and supports the reporting of suspected fakes. Underlining the deepfake threat, Amsterdam-based cybersecurity startup Deeptrace found 14,698 deepfake videos on the internet in June and July, up from 7,964 in December 2019.
Reality Defender runs content through AI-driven analysis techniques to detect signs of alteration or manipulation, while the tool’s community of users flags false positives to retrain the underlying models. It also draws on the AI Foundation’s partnerships with content creators to establish an “honest AI” watermark that clearly identifies AI-generated deepfakes.
Reality Defender is the first of what the AI Foundation calls Guardian AI, a responsibility platform built around the idea that everyone should have personal AI agents working on their behalf. The goal is to devise protections against the risks AI currently poses and to build value for people as AI alters the nature of society.
To further its research, the AI Foundation recently partnered with a team at the Technical University of Munich’s (TUM) Visual Computing Lab to explore new media forgery detection and flagging techniques, leading to the publication of several papers and the release of a public data set that other researchers can build upon. Twitter cofounder Biz Stone joined the AI Foundation last May as director of its nonprofit 503(c) arm committed to releasing tools, tech, policy, and guidelines for shielding against — and mitigating — risk.
Late last year, the AI Foundation hinted at its broader ambitions with Digital Deepak, an AI assistant meant to help users achieve wellness and mindfulness milestones. Built and trained with the AI Foundation’s platform, Digital Deepak, which debuted on the Tonight Show , sounds more or less like Indian-American author and alternative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra. Digital Deepak offers personalized advice and answers questions on “every aspect of well-being,” according to the AI Foundation. “The platform enables everyone to create their own AIs; extensions of the owners that look, sound, and think like them without replacing their humanity … Individuals can fully realize their potential by using their AI to travel to billions of places at once, connect with millions of people, undertake continuous self-improvement, enjoy immersive entertainment, and craft their legacy in the world.” The AI Foundation’s series B was raised in partnership with Mousse Partners, You & Mr. Jones, Founders Fund, Alpha Edison, and Stone. It brings the San Francisco-based company’s total raised to around $28 million, following a $10.5 million series A in September 2018.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Researchers examine the ethical implications of AI in surgical settings | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/researchers-examine-the-ethical-implications-of-ai-in-surgical-settings"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Researchers examine the ethical implications of AI in surgical settings Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
A new whitepaper coauthored by researchers at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence examines the ethics of AI in surgery , making the case that surgery and AI carry similar expectations but diverge with respect to ethical understanding. Surgeons are faced with moral and ethical dilemmas as a matter of course, the paper points out, whereas ethical frameworks in AI have arguably only begun to take shape.
In surgery, AI applications are largely confined to machines performing tasks controlled entirely by surgeons. AI might also be used in a clinical decision support system, and in these circumstances, the burden of responsibility falls on the human designers of the machine or AI system, the coauthors argue.
Privacy is a foremost ethical concern. AI learns to make predictions from large data sets — specifically patient data, in the case of surgical systems — and it’s often described as being at odds with privacy-preserving practices. The Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, a division of the U.K.’s National Health Service based in London, provided Alphabet’s DeepMind with data on 1.6 million patients without their consent. Separately, Google, whose health data-sharing partnership with Ascension became the subject of scrutiny last November, abandoned plans to publish scans of chest X-rays over concerns that they contained personally identifiable information.
Laws at the state, local, and federal levels aim to make privacy a mandatory part of compliance management. Hundreds of bills that address privacy, cybersecurity, and data breaches are pending or have already been passed in 50 U.S. states, territories, and the District of Columbia. Arguably the most comprehensive of them all — the California Consumer Privacy Act — was signed into law roughly two years ago. That’s not to mention the national Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which requires companies to seek authorization before disclosing individual health information. And international frameworks like the EU’s General Privacy Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) aim to give consumers greater control over personal data collection and use.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! But the whitepaper coauthors argue measures adopted to date are limited by jurisdictional interpretations and offer incomplete models of ethics. For instance, HIPAA focuses on health care data from patient records but doesn’t cover sources of data generated outside of covered entities, like life insurance companies or fitness band apps. Moreover, while the duty of patient autonomy alludes to a right to explanations of decisions made by AI, frameworks like GDPR only mandate a “right to be informed” and appear to lack language stating well-defined safeguards against AI decision making.
Beyond this, the coauthors sound the alarm about the potential effects of bias on AI surgical systems. Training data bias, which concerns the quality and representativeness of data used to train an AI system, could dramatically affect a preoperative risk stratification prior to surgery. Underrepresentation of demographics might also cause inaccurate assessments, driving flawed decisions such as whether a patient is treated first or offered extensive ICU resources. And contextual bias, which occurs when an algorithm is employed outside the context of its training, could result in a system ignoring nontrivial caveats like whether a surgeon is right- or left-handed.
Methods to mitigate this bias exist, including ensuring variance in the data set, applying sensitivity to overfitting on training data, and having humans-in-the-loop to examine new data as it’s deployed. The coauthors advocate the use of these measures and of transparency broadly to prevent patient autonomy from being undermined. “Already, an increasing reliance on automated decision-making tools has reduced the opportunity of meaningful dialogue between the healthcare provider and patient,” they wrote. “If machine learning is in its infancy, then the subfield tasked with making its inner workings explainable is so embryonic that even its terminology has yet to recognizably form. However, several fundamental properties of explainability have started to emerge … [that argue] machine learning should be simultaneous, decomposable, and algorithmically transparent.” Despite AI’s shortcomings, particularly in the context of surgery, the coauthors argue the harms AI can prevent outweigh the adoption cons. For example, in thyroidectomy, there’s risk of permanent hypoparathyroidism and recurrent nerve injury. It might take thousands of procedures with a new method to observe statistically significant changes, which an individual surgeon might never observe — at least not in a short time frame. However, a repository of AI-based analytics aggregating these thousands of cases from hundreds of sites would be able to discern and communicate those significant patterns.
“The continued technological advancement in AI will sow rapid increases in the breadths and depths of their duties. Extrapolating from the progress curve, we can predict that machines will become more autonomous,” the coauthors wrote. “The rise in autonomy necessitates an increased focus on the ethical horizon that we need to scrutinize … Like ethical decision-making in current practice, machine learning will not be effective if it is merely designed carefully by committee — it requires exposure to the real world.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Privacy problems are widespread for Alexa and Google Assistant voice apps, according to researchers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/privacy-problems-are-widespread-for-alexa-and-google-assistant-voice-apps-according-to-researchers"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Privacy problems are widespread for Alexa and Google Assistant voice apps, according to researchers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa voice app privacy policies are often “problematic” and violate baseline requirements, according to a study coauthored by Clemson University School of Computing researchers. The work, which hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed, analyzed tens of thousands of Alexa skills and Google Assistant actions to measure the effectiveness of their data practice disclosures. The researchers characterize the current state of affairs as “worrisome” and claim that Google and Amazon run afoul of their own developer rules.
Hundreds of millions of people around the world use Google Assistant and Alexa to order products, manage bank accounts, catch up on news, and control smart home devices. Voice apps (referred to as “skills” by Amazon and “actions” by Google) extend the platforms’ capabilities, in some cases by tapping into third-party tools. But in spite of app store regulations and legislation that mandates data transparency, developers are inconsistent when it comes to disclosure, the coauthors of the Clemson study found.
To determine which Google Assistant and Alexa app developers’ privacy policies were sufficiently “informative” and “meaningful,” the coauthors scraped the content of skill and action web listings and conducted an analysis to capture practices provided in policies and descriptions. (Both Google and Amazon make available on the web the app storefronts for their voice platforms.) They developed a keyword-based approach, drawing on Amazon’s skill permission list and developer services agreement to compile a dictionary of nouns related to data practices. Given phrases extracted from an app’s policy and description, they used the verbs and nouns (e.g., “access,” “collect,” “gather,” “address,” “email”) to spot relevant phrases, which they reviewed manually for accuracy.
Across a total of 64,720 unique Alexa skills and 2,201 Google Assistant actions (every skill and action scrapeable via the study’s approach), the researchers sought to identify three types of problematic policies: VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Those that don’t outline data practices.
Those with incomplete policies (i.e., apps that mention data collection in their descriptions but whose policies don’t elaborate).
Missing policies.
The researchers report that 46,768 (72%) of the Alexa skills and 234 (11%) of the Google Assistant actions don’t include links to policies and that 1,755 skills and 80 actions have broken policy links. (Nearly 700 links lead to unrelated webpages with advertisements, and 17 lead to Google Docs documents that aren’t publicly viewable.) The dichotomy is partially attributable to Amazon’s lenient policy, which unlike Google’s doesn’t require developers to provide a policy if their skills don’t collect personal information. But the researchers point out that skills which collect information often bypass the requirement by choosing not to declare it during Amazon’s automated certification process.
A substantial portion of skills’ and actions’ policies share a privacy policy link (10,124 skills and 239 actions), with 3,205 skills sharing the top three duplicate links. Publishers with multiple voice apps are to blame, but this practice becomes problematic if one of the links breaks. The researchers found 217 skills using the same broken link as well as actions linking to a generic policy with company names and addresses but not action names, which Google requires.
Damningly, the researchers accuse Google and Amazon of violating their own requirements regarding app policies. One official weather Alexa skill asks for users’ locations but doesn’t provide a privacy policy, while 101 Google-developed actions lack links to privacy policies. Moreover, nine Google-developed actions point to two different general privacy policies, disregarding Google’s policy requiring Google Assistant actions have app-specific policies.
When reached for comment, an Amazon spokesperson provided this statement via email to VentureBeat: “We require developers of skills that collect personal information to provide a privacy policy, which we display on the skill’s detail page, and to collect and use that information in compliance with their privacy policy and applicable law. We are closely reviewing the paper, and we will continue to engage with the authors to understand more about their work. We appreciate the work of independent researchers who help bring potential issues to our attention.” A Google spokesperson denied that Google’s actions don’t abide by its policies and said third-party actions with broken policies have been removed as the company “continually” enhances its processes and technologies. “We’ve been in touch with a researcher from Clemson University and appreciate their commitment to protecting consumers. All actions … are required to follow our developer policies, and we enforce against any action that violates these policies.” Privacy policy content and readability In their survey of voice app privacy policy content, the researchers found the bulk didn’t clearly define what data collection the apps were capable of. Only 3,233 Alexa skills and 1,038 Google Assistant actions explicitly mention skills or action names, respectively, and some privacy policies for kids’ skills mention the skills could collect personal information. In point of fact, 137 skills in Alexa’s kids category disclose that data collection could occur but provide only a general policy, running afoul of Amazon’s Alexa privacy requirements for kids’ skills.
More troubling still, the researchers identified 50 Alexa skills that don’t inform users of what happens to information like email addresses, account passwords, names, birthdays, locations, phone numbers, health data, and gender or who the information is shared with. Other skills potentially violate regulations including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA) by collecting personal information without providing a policy.
Beyond the absence of policies, the researchers take issue with linked-to policies’ lengths and formats. More than half (58%) of skills and actions policies are longer than 1,500 words, and none are available through Alexa or Google Assistant themselves; instead, they must be viewed from a store webpage or a smartphone companion app.
“Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant not explicitly requiring app-specific privacy policies results in developers providing the same document that explains data practices of all their services. This leads to uncertainties and confusion among end users … Available documents do not give a proper understanding of the capabilities of the skill to end users,” the coauthors wrote. “In some cases, even if the developer writes the privacy policy with proper intention and care, there can be some discrepancies between the policy and the actual code. Updates made to the skill might not be reflected in the privacy policy.” The researchers propose a solution in a built-in intent that takes the interaction model of a voice app and scans for data collection capabilities, creating a response notifying users the skill has these specific capabilities. The intent could be invoked when the app is first enabled, they say, so the brief privacy notice could be read aloud to users. This intent could also advise users to look at a detailed policy provided by the developers.
“This will give the user a better understanding of what the skill he/she just enabled is capable of collecting and using. The users can also ask to invoke this intent later to get a brief version of the privacy policy,” the coauthors continued. “As our future work, we plan to extend this approach to help developers automatically generate privacy policies for their voice-apps.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"MIT CSAIL's system can defer to experts when making predictions | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/mit-csails-system-defers-can-defer-to-experts-when-making-predictions"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages MIT CSAIL’s system can defer to experts when making predictions Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
A new study from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) proposes a machine learning system that can examine X-rays to diagnose conditions, including lung collapse and an enlarged heart. That’s not especially novel — computer vision in health care is a well-established field — but CSAIL’s system can novelly defer to experts, depending on factors like the person’s ability and experience level.
Despite its promise, AI in medicine is fraught with ethical challenges.
Google recently published a whitepaper that found an eye disease-predicting system was impractical in the real world, partially because of technological and clinical missteps. STAT reports that unproven AI algorithms are being used to predict the decline of COVID-19 patients. And companies like Babylon Health, which claim their systems can diagnose diseases as well as human physicians can, have come under scrutiny from regulators and clinicians.
CSAIL’s system aims to address this with a “classifier” that can predict a certain subset of tasks and a “rejector” that decides whether a given task should be handled by the classifier or an expert. The researchers behind the system claim the classifier is fairly accurate, achieving 8% better performance in the case of cardiomegaly (heart enlargement) compared with experts alone. But arguably its real advantage is customizability — the system allows a user to optimize for whatever choice they want, whether that’s prediction accuracy or the cost of the expert’s time and effort.
Efficiency is another advantage of the system’s approach. Through experiments on tasks in medical diagnosis and text and image classification, it was shown to not only achieve better performance than baselines but to do so with less computation and far fewer training samples.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The researchers haven’t yet tested the system with human experts — instead, they developed a series of “synthetic experts” so they could tweak parameters like experience and availability. The current iteration requires onboarding to acclimate to particular people’s strengths and weaknesses, but the team’s plans call for architecting systems that learn from biased expert data and work with (and defer to) several experts at once.
“There are many obstacles that understandably prohibit full automation in clinical settings, including issues of trust and accountability,” said David Sontag, lead author and Von Helmholtz associate professor of medical engineering in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “We hope that our method will inspire machine learning practitioners to get more creative in integrating real-time human expertise into their algorithms.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"LinkedIn details AI tool that better matches jobs to candidates | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/linkedin-details-ai-tool-that-better-matches-jobs-to-candidates"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages LinkedIn details AI tool that better matches jobs to candidates Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
LinkedIn today pulled back the curtains on Qualified Applicant (QA), an AI system that learns from job candidate interactions the kinds of skills and experience a hirer prefers. It’s the model the Microsoft-owned platform uses to help over 690 million users in 200 countries find jobs for which they have the best chances of hearing back, and which aims to reduce the likelihood recruiters overlook applicants by highlighting those deemed a fit.
Creating a system that can contend with the transient nature of job posts was no walk in the park, according to LinkedIn. It had to work at scale — QA has “billions” of coefficients — and it had to be effective for as many job seekers and hirers as possible. Formally, QA tries to project the probability of a “positive recruiter action” conditional on a given member applying for a specific role. What constitutes a positive recruiter action depends on the context — it can include viewing an applicant’s profile, messaging them, inviting them to an interview, or sending them a job offer.
The single global QA model is individually tailored to members and roles, with per-member and per-job models trained on data unique to the members and jobs. Each of the many models is independent within a single training iteration, making them parallel and easier to serve at scale. While the global model is trained on all data, per-member models are trained using only members’ job applications. Per-job models, meanwhile, are trained on jobs’ applicants.
The global QA is retrained once every few weeks, but the personalized models must be refreshed regularly to combat degradation. (LinkedIn says the per-member models’ performance advantage over the baseline halves after three weeks.) Training labels are generated every day from events like hirer engagement with new candidates; an approximate label collection pipeline heuristically infers negatives and uses explicit positive and negative feedback as soon as it becomes available. For example, if a recruiter responds to other applications submitted later, the pipeline might infer a negative label for an application with no engagement after 14 days.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! It takes up to a day to generate labels and retrain the personalized QA model components, which are only deployed if they pass certain automated quality checks. In the future, LinkedIn hopes to reduce the lag time to minutes with a near-real-time data collection and training framework built atop stream processing technologies like Apache Samza and Apache Kafka.
Across LinkedIn business lines where QA has been deployed — Job Seekers, Premium, and Recruiter — the company says it’s enabled new experiences. On the seeker side, QA highlights search results if a member’s profile is a good match for the job. For Premium members, it showcases opportunities for which members are competitive with other job applicants. And hirers using LinkedIn Recruiter benefit from a smarter ranking of applicants, as well as notifications for members with very high match scores.
LinkedIn says the personalized models delivered “double-digit” gains in hirer interaction rates and click-through rate (CTR) for recruiter notifications compared with the systems they replaced, as well as a “site-wide lift” in confirmed hires and premium job seeker CTR. “Our analysis demonstrates that the majority of job applicants apply to at least 5 jobs, while the majority of job postings receive at least 10 applicants. This proves to result in enough data to train … personalization models,” LinkedIn wrote in a blog post. “Our vision … is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Key to achieving this is making the marketplace between job seekers and hirers more efficient … Active job seekers apply for many jobs, and hear back from only a few.” LinkedIn’s use of AI is pervasive. In October 2019, the Microsoft-owned platform revealed a model that generates text descriptions for images uploaded to LinkedIn, achieved using Microsoft’s Cognitive Services platform and a unique LinkedIn-derived data set. LinkedIn’s Recommended Candidates feature learns the hiring criteria for a given role and automatically surfaces relevant candidates in a dedicated tab, and its AI-driven search engine employs data like the kinds of things people post on their profiles and the searches that candidates perform to produce predictions for best-fit jobs and job seekers. Moreover, LinkedIn’s AI-driven moderation tool automatically spots and removes inappropriate user accounts.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Google releases Model Card Toolkit to promote AI model transparency | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/google-releases-model-card-toolkit-to-promote-ai-model-transparency"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google releases Model Card Toolkit to promote AI model transparency Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Google today released the Model Card Toolkit , a toolset designed to facilitate AI model transparency reporting for developers, regulators, and downstream users. It’s based on Google’s Model Cards framework for reporting on model provenance, usage, and “ethics-informed” evaluation, which aims to provide an overview of a model’s suggested uses and limitations.
Over the past year, Google publicly launched Model Cards, which sprang from a Google AI whitepaper published in October 2018. Model Cards specify model architectures and provide insight into factors that help ensure optimal performance for given use cases. To date, Google has released Model Cards for open source models built on its MediaPipe platform , as well as its commercial Cloud Vision API Face Detection and Object Detection services.
The Model Card Toolkit aims to make it easier for third parties to create Model Cards by compiling the necessary information and aiding in the creation of interfaces for different audiences. A JSON schema specifies the fields to include in a Model Card. Using the model provenance data stored with ML Metadata (MLMD), the Model Card Toolkit automatically fills the JSON with information, including data class distributions and performance statistics. It also provides a ModelCard data API to represent an instance of the JSON schema and visualize it as a Model Card.
Above: An example of a Model Card.
Model Card creators can choose which metrics and graphs to display in the final Model Card, including stats that highlight areas where the model’s performance could deviate from its overall performance. Once the Model Card Toolkit has populated the Model Card with key metrics and graphs, developers can supplement this with information regarding the model’s limitations, intended usage, trade-offs, and ethical considerations otherwise unknown to model users. If a model underperforms for certain slices of data, the Model Cards’ limitations section offers a place to acknowledge that, along with mitigation strategies to help address the issues.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “This type of information is critical in helping developers decide whether or not a model is suitable for their use case, and helps Model Card creators provide context so that their models are used appropriately,” wrote Google Research software engineers Huanming Fang and Hui Miao in a blog post. “Right now, we’re providing one UI template to visualize the Model Card, but you can create different templates in HTML should you want to visualize the information in other formats.” The idea of Model Cards emerged following Microsoft’s work on “ datasheets for data sets ,” or datasheets intended to foster trust and accountability through documenting data sets’ creation, composition, intended uses, maintenance, and other properties. Two years ago, IBM proposed its own form of model documentation in voluntary factsheets called “Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity” (DoC) to be completed and published by companies developing and providing AI. Other attempts at an industry standard for documentation include Responsible AI Licenses (RAIL) , a set of end-user and source code license agreements with clauses restricting the use, reproduction, and distribution of potentially harmful AI technology, and a framework called SECure that attempts to quantify the environmental and social impact of AI.
“Fairness, safety, reliability, explainability, robustness, accountability — we all agree that they are critical,” Aleksandra Mojsilovic, head of AI foundations at IBM Research and codirector of the AI Science for Social Good program, wrote in a 2018 blog post. “Yet, to achieve trust in AI, making progress on these issues will not be enough; it must be accompanied with the ability to measure and communicate the performance levels of a system on each of these dimensions.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Foresight's AI-powered wearable helps low-vision users feel the world | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/foresights-ai-powered-wearable-helps-low-vision-users-feel-the-world"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Foresight’s AI-powered wearable helps low-vision users feel the world Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Vision is arguably the most important of the five basic senses, providing most people with the ability to navigate through the world — but there are 285 million visually impaired people worldwide who need assistance to augment their sight. In some cases, the best solution might be a large vision-boosting headset , but a less conspicuous haptic wearable might be a great primary or secondary choice. That’s where Foresight’s new AI-powered navigation aid comes in.
Developed by a team of Harvard students , Foresight places soft robotic actuators inside a device that’s worn like a vest, turning camera input from a smartphone into localized sensations of force across the wearer’s torso. Using a custom version of the computer vision AI system YOLO , Foresight detects, classifies, and estimates the movement of objects surrounding the user, then uses the actuators to apply more or less pressure at various points depending on the user’s distance from those objects. Even without vision, a user could distinguish between a mostly open path ahead, a wall to the left, and a person approaching from the front.
As is often the case with vision assistive technologies, the end product isn’t merely about providing helpful functionality, but also about balancing the wearer’s needs for dignity and practicality. The researchers describe Foresight as “discreet, affordable, and intuitive,” using inflatable soft textiles on the body rather than uncomfortably vibrating haptic motors, a design that can be mass-manufactured without “high-end fabrication facilities.” That’s key to enabling the wearable to spread into parts of the world with lower income levels.
Unsurprisingly, Foresight relies upon the aforementioned smartphone to provide the core camera and computer vision/AI functionality, with renderings showing an iPhone 11 Pro sitting in a central location below the wearer’s neck. This position enables the device to monitor an environment from the wearer’s perspective, then issue real-time haptic commands to the wearable using a Bluetooth connection. It’s highly likely that the product will support a range of smartphones, rather than requiring ones that cost at least $1,000 , though there will surely be a base level of required camera technology and AI processing capabilities.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Foresight’s team is currently working to refine both the software and sensors to ensure that the wearable’s environmental imaging is useful for wearers, and expects that the finished solution will be “another tool in their arsenal,” rather than fully replacing other assistive navigation technologies. There’s no release date or pricing yet, but the team is working with Harvard Innovation Lab’s Venture Incubation Program to commercialize the design.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Carnegie Mellon researchers use Twitch to collect sounds for AI research | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/carnegie-mellon-researchers-use-twitch-to-collect-sounds-for-ai-research"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Carnegie Mellon researchers use Twitch to collect sounds for AI research Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Carnegie Mellon researchers have designed a livestreaming video game that collects audio from players to populate a database for AI research. The team’s game — Rolling Rhapsody — is specifically designed to be played on Twitch, and it tasks streamers with rolling a ball across a map to collect “treasure” while viewers record sound from their homes via an app.
It’s researchers’ belief that recordings of domestic sounds like thudding from a bedroom door or a coughing fit could be used to create a range of useful technologies. For instance, Google drew on audio from thousands of its own meetings and YouTube videos to train the noise-canceling algorithm in Google Meet. Meanwhile, a team of Carnegie Mellon researchers created a “ sound-action-vision ” corpus to anticipate where objects will move when subjected to physical force.
Rolling Rhapsody recently completed a fifth playtest with popular Twitch streamers. In coordination with the researchers, the streamers prompted viewers to record and upload sounds from Android and iOS companion apps. Those sounds were played back during the stream each time the streamer collected a piece of treasure so that everyone watching could listen in unison.
“Imagine being able to collect 500 microwave sounds in 10 minutes by reaching just one person — Twitch makes this possible,” the team explained in a blog post on the project’s website. “It had more than 15 million daily active users and between 2.2 million and 3.2 million monthly broadcasters in 2018. For each streamer we reach, we get many viewers because the amplifier effect takes place … It enables the ability to collect thousands of sounds from the viewers.” Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Above: The Rolling Rhapsody companion app.
The hope is to one day make the sounds publicly available without compromising contributors’ identities. All Rolling Rhapsody players and viewers must opt in and provide consent to upload sounds, and the game gives them opportunities to redact sounds that accidentally capture something personal. They can also delete submissions, choose to store sounds locally, and withdraw their consent at any time.
Rolling Rhapsody is by no means perfect — it requires players at home to label recorded sounds, and about 50% of them provide the wrong label. But work on it continues with a broader field test scheduled for later this summer.
“We can use this as a proof of concept for a new kind of game experience that can result in ethical data collection from the home. We can collect data in a way that’s fun and feels good for everybody involved,” lead researcher Jessica Hammer said. “This research doesn’t have to be limited to gathering audio data for the home. A simple extension is gathering other kinds of audio data. Then you can use the same game, just change the kinds of challenges you give the players.” Rolling Rhapsody, which is supported by sponsorships from Philips Healthcare and Bosch, is part of Polyphonic, a larger Carnegie Mellon initiative that includes an app for sound labeling and validation and an interface where researchers can view and download sounds.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Researcher reveals Mac privacy bug, blasts Apple for 'security theater' | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/security/researcher-reveals-mac-privacy-bug-blasts-apple-for-security-theater"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Researcher reveals Mac privacy bug, blasts Apple for ‘security theater’ Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Safari on the MacBook on MacOS Sierra, using Apple Pay.
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When Apple announced its Security Bounty Program last year , researchers lined up to locate potentially dangerous bugs, keeping them secret in exchange for potentially large payouts. Developer Jeff Johnson promptly told Apple about a zero-day exploit that gives malicious actors access to a Safari browser user’s private files — an issue affecting even the beta version of macOS Big Sur.
But he claims the company left the flaw unpatched for over six months, leading Johnson to give up on the bounty program and describe the company’s efforts as “security theater.” The exploit is troubling: A Safari user tricked into downloading a seemingly innocuous file from a website can allow an attacker to create a dangerously modified clone of Safari, which macOS then treats as the original app. “Any restricted file that is accessible to Safari” then becomes accessible to the attacker, who can automate the sending of what should have been protected files to the attacker’s server.
As Johnson explains, this exploit is possible because Apple’s Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) privacy protection system allows exceptions that only look at the app’s identifier, not where the file is being run from, and “only superficially checks the code signature of the app.” Consequently, a modified copy of Safari can be run from the wrong directory without triggering TCC protection, a problem that spans macOS 10.14 (Mojave) , 10.15 (Catalina) , and 11 (Big Sur) , exposing untold millions of consumers and businesses to unauthorized sharing of their supposedly secure private data.
Apart from the exploit, Johnson notes that Apple’s intermittent responses haven’t instilled confidence in either the speed or likelihood of timely payouts from the Security Bounty Program. Having reported the exploit in December 2019, on the day the company opened the Bounty Program, Johnson received a confirmation that Apple was planning to address the issue, but as of the end of June 2020, nothing has happened. That goes “well beyond the bounds” of a 90-day “reasonable disclosure,” Johnson says, and for at least the second time in his personal experience. It’s “becoming obvious that I will never get paid a bounty by Apple for anything I’ve reported to them, or at least not within a reasonable amount of time.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Complaints regarding Apple’s slow responses to zero-day bug reports predate the Security Bounty Program and include back-and-forth exchanges between Apple and Google’s Project Zero security teams.
Johnson’s story of delayed responses and problematic payouts certainly isn’t unique, but it arrives with the warning to users that “macOS privacy protections are mainly security theater,” harming legitimate Mac developers while permitting malicious actors to weasel through cracks. “You have the right to know that the systems you rely on for protection are not actually protecting you,” Johnson says, adding that despite claims to the contrary, “Apple’s debilitating lockdown of the Mac is not justified by alleged privacy and security benefits.” Yesterday, Apple told Johnson the company is still investigating the exploit. We’ll update this article if and when Apple patches the bug in the beta version of Big Sur , which focuses a lot of attention on improvements to Safari.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"FCC finalizes Huawei and ZTE ban, citing threats to U.S. security | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/security/fcc-finalizes-huawei-and-zte-ban-citing-threats-to-u-s-security"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages FCC finalizes Huawei and ZTE ban, citing threats to U.S. security Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Huawei deputy chair Ken Hu discusses 5G at the Mobile Broadband Forum in Zurich.
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(Reuters) — The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday formally designated China’s Huawei and ZTE as posing threats to U.S. national security, a declaration that bars U.S. firms from tapping an $8.3 billion government fund to purchase equipment from the companies.
The U.S. telecommunications regulator voted in November 5-0 to issue the declaration and proposed requiring rural carriers to remove and replace equipment from the two Chinese companies from existing U.S. networks. “We cannot and will not allow the Chinese Communist Party to exploit network vulnerabilities and compromise our critical communications infrastructure,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement Tuesday.
Huawei and ZTE did not immediately respond to requests for comment but have previously sharply criticized the FCC’s actions.
FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks said on Tuesday that “untrustworthy equipment” remains in place in U.S. networks and said the U.S. Congress must allocate funding for replacements.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! In May 2019, Trump signed an executive order declaring a national emergency and barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by companies posing a national security risk.
The Trump administration also added Huawei to its trade blacklist last year.
The FCC has taken an increasingly hard line against Chinese firms.
In April, the FCC said it may shut down U.S. operations of three state-controlled Chinese telecommunications companies.
The FCC required China Telecom , China Unicom , Pacific Networks and its wholly owned subsidiary ComNet to explain why it should not start the process of revoking authorizations enabling their U.S. operations.
The FCC granted its approvals to the firms more than a decade ago.
In May 2019, the FCC voted to deny another state-owned Chinese telecommunications company, China Mobile , the right to provide U.S. services, citing risks that the Chinese government could use the company to conduct espionage against the U.S. government.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"EvilQuest Mac ransomware impersonates Google, Apple OS processes | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/security/evilquest-mac-ransomware-impersonates-google-apple-os-processes"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages EvilQuest Mac ransomware impersonates Google, Apple OS processes Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Viruses are uncommon enough on Apple’s platforms that users generally don’t worry about them, but security researchers this week discovered a rarity — Mac ransomware that’s both spreading in the wild and potentially dangerous because of the way it hides on an infected machine. Disclosed by Dinest Devadoss , Patrick Wardle , and Malwarebytes’ Thomas Reed , the EvilQuest ransomware appears to be spreading through pirated macOS apps, disguising its background processes as Apple’s CrashReporter or Google Software Update.
Downloaded alongside an app such as the packet sniffer Little Snitch or Mixed in Key 8 DJ software, EvilQuest masks itself first as an innocuous “patch” file within the Mac installer, then renames itself to blend in with system tasks that would be running thanks to macOS or Google’s Chrome browser.
If the ransomware works, it spreads around the computer’s hard drive, then locks infected files behind a demand for $50 within three days, and a threat that the files will remain encrypted.
However, there are questions as to how well EvilQuest actually functions on its own, and what the full extent of its capabilities are. A key logger has been discovered within the ransomware, but the encryption system is still somewhat unknown.
For the time being, it appears that the only way to infect a Mac with EvilQuest is to download certain pirated applications, which provides a simple mechanism to stop the ransomware from spreading: Don’t pirate software. Users who think they might be infected can use Malwarebytes’ Mac app to remove it, and the firm suggests keeping “at least two backup copies of all important data,” one detached from the Mac at all times to avoid attacks on connected drives.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Update on July 7 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific: The researchers have subsequently renamed EvilQuest to ThiefQuest, and now say further examination of ThiefQuest’s code suggests that it’s an exfiltration virus rather than ransomware. According to the researchers, ThiefQuest can transfer a Mac’s files over the internet, as well as logging keystrokes and opening a back door for remote control, but its ransom-related code does not appear to be fully functional. Previously identified tools are still believed to be effective at removing the virus, apparently leaving the Mac undamaged.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Crucible moves back into 'closed beta' -- here's what that means | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/crucible-moves-back-into-closed-beta-heres-what-that-means"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Crucible moves back into ‘closed beta’ — here’s what that means Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Crucible forces you to fight your environment on the planet as well as multiplayer enemies.
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Amazon isn’t quite pulling the plug on Crucible , but it is making a drastic move on its path toward reviving the team-based shooter. Starting tomorrow, July 1, at 9 a.m. Pacific time, Crucible will move back into “closed beta.” This is coming after the game already released on Steam.
Put as simply as possible, this means Amazon will no longer have the game up for new players to download (it’s a free-to-play game). But if you already added it to your library, you can continue to access it without interruption.
In a blog post on the Crucible website , Amazon says that most things won’t change if you’re an active player. But if you want to play with anyone else, they’ll need to add it to their library now.
“If you’ve got friends who want to be part of the Crucible beta, you can encourage them to get the game before tomorrow morning,” reads the blog post. “In the near future, newly interested folks will be able to sign up through playcrucible.com.” One of the major problems with Crucible is that it doesn’t exactly have a lot of active players. Crucible hit a peak of only 159 concurrent players over the last 24 hours. That is down from 25,145 concurrents at its peak a month ago.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Above: Crucible’s audience has vanished on Steam.
As it stands today, Crucible seems destined to join Boss Key’s shooter Lawbreakers and Valve’s Artifact as one of gaming’s biggest flops in recent years.
Where Crucible went wrong If anyone knew exactly why one game succeeds and another doesn’t, they would likely be an extremely wealthy consultant or publishing executive. But you can look to a number of factors for some insight here.
Crucible came out at a tough time. It essentially went head-to-head with Riot’s Valorant , which had a ton of built-in interest as the next big game from the League of Legends studio. But Riot also pumped up the marketing for Valorant by paying streamers to play the game for their massive audiences. Crucible did not have the same level of external support.
Amazon also doesn’t have a history in gaming. The company has spent a lot of money in the space. It has acquired talent and studios. But all it has to show for it — in terms of consumer products — is the disappointing Grand Tour racing game based on the company’s Prime Video show.
Making games is hard. It’s so hard that companies like Google and Amazon cannot just waltz in with stacks of cash and find immediate success. Ubisoft has 15,000 employees all dedicated to making about a dozen or so video games.
Amazon hasn’t shown that it’s willing to dedicate those kinds of resources to its gaming products yet.
And that likely means that it’s going to continue failing in this market.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"PlayBrain raises $6 million to build up esports in Japan | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/esports/playbrain-raises-6-million-to-build-esports-in-japan"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages PlayBrain raises $6 million to build up esports in Japan Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn PlayBrain is targeting the Japanese esports market.
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Learn more.
PlayBrain has raised $6 million in funding to create content and manage tournaments for esports competitions in Japan. The country got a late start compared to the rest of the world, but PlayBrain believes the market is poised to grow quickly, even as most of the events happening now are entirely online.
Japan’s esports revenue topped $56 million in 2019 and is expected to grow to $141 million by 2023, according to BCN.
Last year alone, PlayBrain’s events grew 2.5 times when measured by audiences reached, the company said.
PlayBrain’ s goal is to help establish the nascent Japanese esports ecosystem and support the growth of Japanese esports culture. The investment will be used to grow the company’s presence, expand into additional esports and entertainment properties, and build on its second year of partnership with League of Legends Japan League.
PlayBrain wants to be a full-service esports tournament and media provider in Japan and plans to ally itself with brands and game publishers in the country to reach gamers and fans through large-scale esports event production and marketing. In addition to Riot Games, PlayBrain already works with the most prominent publishers and brands involved in gaming, including Activision Blizzard, EA, Bandai Namco Entertainment, Twitch, Supercell, Alienware, and Intel.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! PlayBrain recently joined Future Design Shibuya (FDS), an open innovation hub building a social project for the esports community in Shibuya City. PlayBrain also recently soft-launched taiyoro.gg, a media platform that houses esports content to introduce esports culture and entertainment to Japanese esports fans. The company was founded in 2016 and currently has 30 employees.
Bitkraft Esports Ventures returned as an investor in the new round. In conjunction with the funding, PlayBrain has appointed Mangamo founder and CEO Buddy Marini to its advisory board. The round brings PlayBrain’s total raised to $8 million.
PlayBrain CEO Michael Sheetal said in an email to GamesBeat that the team has been working remotely since March, except for some limited events at the venue.
“Despite needing to cancel or reduce some smaller events where sponsors wanted to push their marketing budgets to later in the year, we have switched most of our events that were previously held offline, such as LJL, to being online events,” Sheetal said. “So far, this has been a successful operation, and we have also seen a significant uptick in viewership, so sponsors who have stuck with it have actually been rewarded. Now as Japan has been opening up after voluntary restrictions were in place, we have about 20% of our team back at the office, with the remainder continuing to work from home.” He added that the overall plan hasn’t changed much. With larger events, the company is planning online and offline options, with an online-only backup plan.
“Our staff has been great at adjusting to remote work, and we are still pushing ahead with our goals to expand content and intellectual property in the industry,” Sheetal said.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Where the U.K. went wrong with its COVID-19 contact tracing app | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/where-the-u-k-went-wrong-with-its-covid-19-contact-tracing-app"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Where the U.K. went wrong with its COVID-19 contact tracing app Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn UK National Health Service employee Anni Adams shows a smartphone displaying the new NHS app to trace contacts with people potentially infected with the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) being trialled on Isle of Wight, Britain, May 5, 2020 Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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( Reuters ) — As Britain’s COVID-19 infections soared in the spring, the government reached for what it hoped could be a game changer — a smartphone app that could automate some of the work of human contact tracers.
The origin of the NHS COVID-19 app goes back to a meeting on March 7, when three Oxford scientists met experts at NHSX, the technical arm of the U.K.’s health service. The scientists presented an analysis that concluded manual contact tracing alone couldn’t control the epidemic.
“Given the infectiousness of SARS-CoV-2 and the high proportion of transmissions from presymptomatic individuals, controlling the epidemic by manual contact tracing is infeasible,” concluded the Oxford scientists’ paper, which was published in the journal Science two months later.
The Oxford researchers believed a smartphone app could help locate individuals who didn’t know they were infected — and by alerting them quickly could reduce and even halt the epidemic if enough people used it. Within days of the meeting, NHSX began the process of awarding millions of dollars worth of no-bid contracts to develop such an app, government procurement records show.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! In the weeks that followed, ministers seized on the technology as a route out of Britain’s lockdown, which had begun on March 23. At a Downing Street coronavirus briefing on April 12, health secretary Matt Hancock announced that testing had begun on what he called the government’s “next step — a new NHS app for contact tracing.” He explained people could use the app to report feeling unwell and it would anonymously alert other app users who had recently been in close contact with them. On April 28, he said he expected the app to be ready by mid-May.
Privately, some researchers who had proposed the app were dismayed that the government had stopped widespread testing on March 12, a decision they believed undermined the app’s effectiveness and public health in general. “We were very clear from the start that this thing needed to work with testing,” David Bonsall, a clinical scientist at Oxford who attended the March 7 meeting, told Reuters.
By early May, transport secretary Grant Shapps was heralding a test of the app on England’s Isle of Wight. “Later in the month, that app will be rolled out and deployed, assuming the tests are successful, of course, to the population at large,” he said. “This is a fantastic way to ensure that we are able to really keep a lid on this going forward.” Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, the Silicon Valley tech firm hired to develop the app, told a Fox Business television interviewer on May 8, “I tell you, we think this is the best one in the world, and we’re really thrilled to be working with the NHS in the U.K. to help bring it about.” But by the end of May, government officials were downplaying the app. In an interview with Sky News, Hancock called the app “helpful,” but said traditional contact tracing needed to be rolled out first. Quoting another official, he said, “It puts the cherry on the cake but isn’t the cake.” Behind the scenes, NHSX testers were discovering serious technical problems.
The agency had opted to develop an app that collected and stored data on central servers that could be used by health authorities and epidemiologists to study the disease. It relied on a technology called Bluetooth to determine who had recently been near someone displaying symptoms and for how long.
NHSX testers were finding that while the app could detect three-quarters of nearby smartphones using Google’s Android operating system, it sometimes could only identify 4% of Apple iPhones, according to government officials. The problem was that, on Apple devices, the app often couldn’t utilize Bluetooth because of a design choice by Apple to preserve user privacy and prolong battery life.
The issue was no secret. Apple and Google had jointly announced in April that they would release a toolkit to better enable Bluetooth on contact tracing apps. But to protect user privacy, it would only work on apps that stored data on phones, not central servers. The NHSX app didn’t work that way.
The government insisted it had developed a successful workaround to overcome the Apple issue. But not everyone was convinced. The advocacy group Privacy International, which had tested the app in early May, “found it wasn’t working properly on iPhones,” Gus Hosein, the group’s executive director, told Reuters. But because of the government’s assurances, he said, “We just assumed we were doing something wrong.” Other countries, including Germany, decided they would change their apps to work with the Apple-Google toolkit. That raised another problem with the U.K. app — it likely wouldn’t be compatible with many other contact tracing apps, so British travelers wouldn’t be notified if they were exposed to the virus.
On June 18, weeks after the U.K. app was supposed to be rolled out, government officials announced a dramatic U-turn — they would abandon the app being tested on the Isle of Wight and try to create one that worked with the Apple-Google technology. Work had already begun on it, and they had learned lessons from the test, they said.
NHSX referred questions about the app to the health department, which said, “Developing effective contact tracing technology is a challenge facing countries around the world, and there is currently no solution that is accurate enough on estimating distance, identifying other users, and calculating duration, which are all required for contact tracing.” A spokesperson for VMware said it “is proud of the work we have done and continue to do to rapidly develop an application to support the U.K.’s contact tracing and testing efforts.” A government official expressed confidence the app would be ready by the autumn or winter — although initially, the official said, it might not contain contact tracing at all, but offer other services that are yet to be determined.
( Reporting by Steve Stecklow, edited by Janet McBride.
) VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"VIVA Investment Partners Joins Forces with SPiCE VC to Build Digital Securities Ecosystem | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/viva-investment-partners-joins-forces-with-spice-vc-to-build-digital-securities-ecosystem"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release VIVA Investment Partners Joins Forces with SPiCE VC to Build Digital Securities Ecosystem Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The World’s First Fully Tokenized Venture Capital Fund Will Scale with Strategic Partners ZURICH & SAN FRANCISCO & TEL AVIV, Israel–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 30, 2020– SPiCE VC , the leading venture capital (VC) fund in the digital securities ecosystem which has revolutionized the VC asset class with a liquid tokenized fund, announced today its partnership with Swiss private equity firm VIVA Investment Partners AG (VIP). VIP was co-founded by fund entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, Dr. Julie Meyer and Dr. René Eichenberger who joins the Board of SPiCE VC. VIP has acquired an equity position in the management company and the fund of SPiCE.
“We have been scanning the market, looking for an investment team that will build the digital securities ecosystem by backing the best entrepreneurs as well as teaming up with value-add strategic partners,” said Dr. René Eichenberger, one of the leading fund entrepreneurs. “We are impressed with the work that Tal Elyashiv, SPiCE VC and his co-founder Carlos Domingo have done. Their vision and execution have been outstanding; we look forward to working with them closely to move the digital security opportunity forward.” VIVA Investment Partners, which offers alternative fund managers the necessary resources to scale their funds, combined with SPiCE VC’s outstanding performance from their first close in 2018 will enable SPiCE to scale and its portfolio companies to access global partnerships.
“We are delighted to bring VIVA Investment Partners into our partnership. The long-term global potential for security tokens is in the hundreds of trillions of dollars. With over two decades history of identifying emerging market opportunities and capitalizing on them for investors, Rene is an outstanding addition to our leadership team,” said Tal Elyashiv, co-founder & managing partner of SPiCE VC. “Together with VIVA Investment Partners, SPiCE VC will further strengthen its leadership position in this rapidly growing market.” “When I met Tal in 2017, I knew this talented entrepreneur was going to build a category-defining firm,” said Dr. Julie Meyer, CEO of VIVA Investment Partners. “When a new ecosystem is emerging, there are always winners and losers. SPiCE VC is among the leading firms as the digital security ecosystem continues to grow.” SPiCE provides its investors wide exposure to the massive growth of the blockchain and tokenization ecosystem. As one of the pioneers of the industry, SPiCE has also played a significant role in the creation of the legal and regulatory framework that is used today. Since the fund’s first closing in 2018, SPiCE has achieved value appreciation of 65 percent, focusing on portfolio companies aiming to change the digital tokenization landscape.
VIVA Investment Partners AG seeks to acquire minority equity stakes in and provide financing to emerging alternative asset managers. Central to VIP’s success is its business services platform that provides strategic support to its funds in various areas, including capital strategy, deal flow, and developing the portfolio’s connectivity and performance. To learn more about VIVA Investment Partners, visit www.vivapartners.net.
About SPiCE VC: SPiCE VC is a Venture Capital fund providing investors exposure to the massive growth of the blockchain/tokenization ecosystem. SPiCE invests globally in platforms and ecosystem providers enabling access to capital markets, banking, real estate, and other industries enhanced through Blockchain technologies. The fund focuses on companies who stand to benefit the most from the massive growth of the industry. Combining institutional know-how, hands-on management, entrepreneurial innovation and professional investment experience SPiCE’s management team has been involved in hundreds of tech funding rounds totaling billions of dollars; as entrepreneurs, investors, and executives. SPiCE is located in the US, Switzerland, Singapore and Israel. To learn more about SPiCE VC visit www.spicevc.com or email Tal Elyashiv, Founder and Managing Partner, at [email protected].
About VIVA Investment Partners: VIVA Investment Partners AG was founded by successful entrepreneurs and venture capital investors to acquire equity stakes in and provide financing to established alternative asset managers (fund investments) and emerging growth companies (direct investments). With over two decades of experience transacting with institutional financial firms in the United States, Switzerland, Europe and Australia, the firm has completed over 100 equity transactions and collectively managed over $10 billion in aggregate capital commitments. Central to VIP’s success is its Business Services Platform TenX®, which includes Follow the Entrepreneur® (FTE) and EntrepreneurCountry Global® (ECG). The TenX team provides strategic support to partners seeking to significantly scale their existing business (TenX). To learn more about VIP, email Julie Meyer, CEO, at [email protected].
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200630005318/en/ Liz Whelan [email protected] +1 (312) 315-0160 VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Ubisoft CEO promises company-wide overhaul after sexual misconduct reports | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/ubisoft-ceo-promises-company-wide-overhaul-after-sexual-misconduct-reports"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Ubisoft CEO promises company-wide overhaul after sexual misconduct reports Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Asssassin's Creed: Valhalla.
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Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told employees in an internal letter sent on Friday that the company will overhaul how it handles employee complaints in the wake of sexual harassment reports.
The letter, which GamesBeat obtained and Business Insider first reported about, is an indicator that game companies are responding to a wave of sexual harassment complaints that were made public in the past week on social media. While more than 267 complaints have been logged on social media chronicling the incidents of harassment and abuse in the game industry, Ubisoft stood out among big game companies in terms of the volume of complaints.
Guillemot did not specifically refer to sexual harassment or abuse in the letter. In response to the allegations, Ubisoft said last week that it was launching investigations with the help of external consultants and was prepared to take appropriate disciplinary action. Ubisoft also said it was auditing its existing systems to understand where they have broken down so it can better prevent inappropriate behavior.
On June 24, Ashraf Ismail, the creative director of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, stepped down from his role in Ubisoft’s next major game following allegations.
Bloomberg also reported that Ubisoft placed Tommy François and Maxime Béland, two high-ranking game executives, on administrative leave pending investigations into their behavior. Other employees have been named in individual harassment complaints as well. Ubisoft declined to comment on ongoing investigations.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Here’s the full text of the letter: Dear all, I am profoundly affected by what I have been reading the past few days on Mana. I would like to express my deep solidarity to all those who have been directly hurt and assure you that I will personally follow each of the situations that have been reported.
These actions are in total contradiction with our values and with what I want for Ubisoft. The company we hold dear must offer a welcoming and respectful environment, allowing everyone to flourish. I will not accept anything less.
I have gathered all of my direct reports to address this subject and your feedback. I would like us to thoroughly review all of our systems so that these types of situations cannot happen again. In addition to the first actions that Cécile has just shared with you, I’ve asked for a multidisciplinary working group to be set up across the company to take up these subjects. In particular, this group will have to come up with better solutions and tools to detect, report, and resolve any incident or serious problem without delay and in an impartial manner. To inform their proposals, this working group, aided by an external partner, will start by organizing focus group meetings to hear from you and get your points of view. I will regularly participate in these sharing sessions.
I am organizing a call on Monday with all your managing directors to discuss these subjects in more detail and to ask them for their full involvement and exemplarity on these important issues. I will come back to you soon with additional updates, and I want to say again that I am committed to safeguarding for each and every one of you a work environment of which we can be proud.
I am here to listen to you and am at your disposal via email or teams if you wish to contact me personally.
Yves GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"These thinking skills courses can give your mind a major boost | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/these-thinking-skills-courses-can-give-your-mind-a-major-boost"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Sponsored Deals These thinking skills courses can give your mind a major boost Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn With so much time being spent at home in isolation, it can be easy to fall out of touch with the critical thinking skills that make you most effective in your work and personal life. If you feel that your mind could use a jump start in order to boost you closer to success, VB Deals has the perfect bundle for you.
The Mastering Thinking Skills Bundle Ft. Timothy Kenny is designed to help you enhance your creativity, metacognition, and more. The bundle features 14 hours of content spread across 4 courses that cover complex concepts including visual thinking, recognition of “mini languages”, and how to develop the interstate system within your brain.
All courses in this bundle are taught by Timothy Kenny, author of Accelerated Learning for Entrepreneurs.
He has taught classes and spoken to groups at the Harvard Innovation Lab, the Tufts University Entrepreneurs Society, and the General Assembly in Boston, among others. Kenny has been a featured educator on numerous online education platforms and has consulted with startup teams on how to accelerate and transform their learning, growth, and creativity.
The best part is that the Mastering Thinking Skills Bundle Ft. Timothy Kenny is available right now for the low price of just $21.99, hundreds of dollars off of list price. Get it now, and see the impact Kenny’s instruction can have in your life.
Prices subject to change.
Do you have your stay-at-home essentials? Here are some you may have missed.
VentureBeat Deals is a partnership between VentureBeat and StackCommerce. This post does not constitute editorial endorsement. If you have any questions about the products you see here or previous purchases, please contact StackCommerce support here.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Scalefast Raises $22M Series B Round to Lead Future of Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/scalefast-raises-22m-series-b-round-to-lead-future-of-direct-to-consumer-ecommerce"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release Scalefast Raises $22M Series B Round to Lead Future of Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Digital commerce solution raises Series B from investment partners Xplorer Capital, Stereo Capital, FJLabs, Benhamou Global Venture and Crédit Mutuel Equity LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 30, 2020– Scalefast, a Los Angeles-based digital commerce solution that is changing the way brands do direct-to-consumer (DTC) eCommerce, has raised a $22 million Series B funding round. Scalefast plans to use this funding to expand its team, footprint and product offering to further support existing and new customers.
The Series B funding further validates Scalefast’s modern approach to helping brands expand and scale their direct-to-consumer sales. As a leader in global eCommerce, Scalefast has successfully provided greater control to brands that need to deliver seamless and unified operations to consumers in an otherwise slow, expensive and fragmented enterprise eCommerce market. In light of the global COVID-19 crisis, Scalefast further demonstrated its capacity to help brands respond to an unprecedented event by offering its services for brands needing to increase product availability to consumers through a rapid move towards DTC sales, launching stores in as little as 15 days.
Xplorer Capital, Stereo Capital, FJLabs, as well as current investors Benhamou Global Ventures, Crédit Mutuel Equity and Adara Ventures, participated in the round.
Scalefast, whose portfolio of customers includes industry leaders such as L’Oréal, FLIR and Square Enix, saw 200% growth year-over-year and has received top honors in the past few years including Red Herring’s 2019 Top 100 North America award , and named to both the Inc. 5000’s list of the fastest growing companies and Deloitte Technology Fast 500. “Everyone struggles with the necessary trade-off requirements attached to move one’s brand online. And it takes a subtle set of tools to maximize the revenue impact, the content and the experience all-in-one. Scalefast is disrupting the sector and enabling commerce at your fingertips. It is becoming a standardized platform, a must have for its unmatched flexibility and fluidity,” said Red Herring’s jury.
“Our vision has always been that brands should deliver a perfect eCommerce experience directly to the consumer, not intermediaries. As brands have had to adapt quickly to a new reality over the past few months, the need for rapid digital transformation that allows retailers and brands much needed flexibility to scale has never been more critical,” said Nicolas Stehlé, CEO of Scalefast. “With this latest fundraise, we are able to uniquely position Scalefast to provide the necessary tools for a flawless direct-to-consumer experience unhindered by third-parties.
“In reality, most brands are massively under-performing in a direct-to-consumer capacity,” said Fabrice Grinda, Founding Partner of FJLabs, “Building, operating and scaling their own channel simply can’t be solved by the software that is currently out there. Scalefast has built a unique business-as-a-service approach which, combined with its robust and flexible SaaS-based technology, allows brands to quickly scale a fully-functional DTC channel and expand abroad without risk. Our goal is to support them through their next phase of growth as they continue to build upon their one-of-a-kind model.” “Scalefast is executing on their ultimate vision of bringing speed, flexibility and agility to enterprise eCommerce,” said Keith Nilsson, Managing Partner of Xplorer Capital. “By delivering the only comprehensive and flexible solution for brands looking to sell directly and scale globally in just a matter of weeks, Scalefast is leading the charge of challenging the status quo in DTC eCommerce and we couldn’t be more excited to be a part of it.” In addition to the financing, Nilsson will be joining Scalefast’s board effective immediately.
For more information about Scalefast and its eCommerce solutions, please visit https://www.scalefast.com/.
About Scalefast Scalefast is the modern way for brands to sell online, empowering them to regain the control and simplicity they need to create an exceptional shopping experience. For enterprise companies looking to increase the performance of their eCommerce channel, Scalefast is the end-to-end eCommerce solution that makes it fast and simple to launch into new global markets or jump-start brand growth with DTC, almost instantly.
At the core of Scalefast is our next-generation technology platform, built to manage, optimize and deliver modern delightful eCommerce experiences. Our end-to-end operating partnership, including global merchant-of-record agreements, physical and virtual fulfillment, payment, fraud & tax management, and the full range of finance functions, complement all core channel functions necessary to deliver new revenue fast and without risk.
Enterprise companies looking for high growth partner with Scalefast to accelerate global distribution, market penetration, user experience and profitability.
Scalefast is your ecommerce accelerator. For more information, visit www.scalefast.com.
About Stereo Capital Stereo Capital is a venture growth investor dedicated to backing technology companies that leverage data assets, cloud platforms, and mobile connectivity to build exceptionally efficient companies. Stereo is based in Silicon Valley and manages a portfolio of fast-growing companies that serve consumers, small businesses, and enterprises around the world.
https://www.stereocap.vc/ About Xplorer Capital Xplorer Capital is an early stage venture capital firm that invests in talented entrepreneurs and disruptive technologies that transform industries on a global scale. Our portfolio companies drive advancements in AI, robotics, and automation to improve industries such as logistics, manufacturing, agriculture, sustainability, and corporate productivity.
https://xplorer.vc/ About FJLabs FJ Labs is an early-stage venture firm/startup studio focused on online marketplaces and consumer Internet companies. Founded by serial entrepreneurs Fabrice Grinda (OLX, Aucland, Zingy) and Jose Marin (Deremate, IG Expansion), FJ Labs has backed over 500 companies including Alibaba, Betterment, Delivery Hero, Fanduel, and Flexport and has been directly engaged in building companies such as AdoreMe, Properly, Letgo, and Rebag. More about FJ Labs: https://www.fjlabs.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200630006046/en/ Scalefast Media Contact Diffusion PR for Scalefast [email protected] (646) 571-0120 VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear 4100 promises deeper, faster smartwatch apps | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/qualcomms-snapdragon-wear-4100-promises-deeper-faster-smartwatch-apps"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100 promises deeper, faster smartwatch apps Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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While the Apple Watch has leveraged Apple-developed chips to dominate the smartwatch industry, Qualcomm hasn’t given up on creating alternatives to power Google’s Wear OS and Android competitors. Today, the San Diego chipmaker announced the Snapdragon Wear 4100 platform, which will significantly raise the bars for both midrange and high-end smartwatches later this year.
There are actually two variants of this year’s Snapdragon Wear — the 4100 and 4100+, differentiated by the latter’s addition of an AON coprocessor. The trick is that only the 4100+ will support either Wear OS- or Android-based smartwatches, while the standard 4100 is designed to only run Android. Smartwatch makers will be able to choose between the platforms, but to achieve the lowest possible power consumption, they’ll likely need the 4100+.
Both variants benefit from a major upgrade to the “big” side of the platform’s “big-little” hybrid CPU architecture, which was previously used in Snapdragon Wear 3100.
The 4100 shifts from a 28-nanometer manufacturing process to 12nm technology, enabling a much denser and more power-efficient collection of chip transistors to fit in the same area. Qualcomm has consequently shifted from ARM’s 1.1GHz four-core Cortex-A7 to a 1.7GHz four-core Cortex-A53, enabling 85% faster performance with a 25% savings in power consumption compared with the Snapdragon Wear 3100. The GPU is 2.5 times faster, backed by 750MHz LPDDR3 RAM, and has two DSPs to handle discrete tasks, rather than one.
While those numbers provide specific performance quantifications, the bigger picture is that smartwatch applications are about to become deeper, more immersive, and more interesting — closer to smartphone apps in look and features, enabling greater periods of true independence from phones. OEMs will have the option of including a new, higher-performance 4G modem in 4100-series watches, enabling users to enjoy smartphone-like features such as real-time GPS maps, full voice assistant access, real-time language translation, and robust music streaming, all without relying on a tethered phone.
Snapdragon 4100-series watches also include support for Bluetooth 5.0 and superior assisted GPS positioning, as well as continued support for the outdated Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n). OEMs will now be able to include up to two cameras, enabling direct-from-wrist video calling and/or photography with up to 16-megapixel stills. At least one OEM — BBK, the company behind Oppo — has a watch called Z6 coming with camera functionality.
That said, Qualcomm notes that smartwatches typically spend 5% of their time in active use (relying on the “big” CPUs) and 95% in “ambient” mode (using the little core). This is why prior Wear 3100 series watches were able to achieve 48-hour typical runtimes between charges and Wear 4100+ will extend that number by another 25%, depending on the apps and usage scenarios. Even high-end 4G-capable smartwatches will see around 25% better battery life, Qualcomm says, and some apps will use 40% less power than before.
The Wear 4100+ includes a QC1110 AON ultra-low power coprocessor that lets watches do more when they’re being passively worn. Always-on displays will now be able to show 64,000 colors at all times, rather than 16, and benefit from typography tweaks such as number and font kerning. AON will also be able to handle sleep, heart rate, and step tracking — plus alarms, haptics, and tilt-to-wake features — without needing to waste big CPU energy. It will also support a super low power consumption mode that promises a week of battery life with that full-color display while still tracking steps and heart rate.
Early Snapdragon Wear 4100 watches will be available later this year, including the aforemented Z6, a timepiece with an easily detachable wristband targeted at kids. Additionally, Mobvoi will introduce the first Wear OS watch based on the Wear 4100+ chipset in 2020. Given Google’s somewhat soft updates to Wear OS in 2019 , it’s unclear when the software will be updated to support all of the new functionality, but Qualcomm says the companies are continuing to work together to further Google’s wearable platforms.
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"Firefox 78 arrives with accessibility and video call improvements | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/mozilla-firefox-78"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Firefox 78 arrives with accessibility and video call improvements Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Firefox logo Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Mozilla today launched Firefox 78 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Firefox 78 includes accessibility features and video call improvements and is the last to support three older macOS releases. You can download Firefox 78 for desktop now from Firefox.com , and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. According to Mozilla, Firefox has about 250 million active users , making it a major platform for web developers to consider.
While Google and Microsoft had to adjust their respective browser release schedules due to the coronavirus pandemic, in April Mozilla committed to sticking with its 2020 Firefox release schedule and the browser’s four-week release cadence. While the schedule remains unchanged, Mozilla shifted its roadmap to avoid shipping changes that might negatively impact government and health services websites and to address video conferencing issues.
Accessibility and video conferencing Firefox 78 brings a slew of accessibility tweaks. If you use a screen reader, you’ll see improvements when moving around in an HTML input control, reduced lag when focusing the sharing indicator, faster loading of large tables, and less unexpected switching. Additionally, text input controls with custom styling now correctly show the focus outline, and there are fewer animations that might trigger users with migraines or epilepsy.
As for video conferencing, your screen saver will no longer interrupt WebRTC calls in Firefox 78. This follows the May release of Firefox 76 , which specifically improved the Zoom experience.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Firefox 78 ESR Firefox 78 is a Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR), designed for schools, universities, businesses, and others who need help with mass deployments. Firefox ESRs are maintained for one year. In other words, if you’re using Firefox ESR, you’ll now get Firefox 78 and be stuck with it until July 2021.
At the same time, Mozilla is dropping Firefox support for OS X 10.9 Mavericks, OS X 10.10 Yosemite, and OS X 10.11 El Capitan. These users will be automatically moved to Firefox ESR. Unsurprisingly, Mozilla recommends that Mac users on these old versions upgrade their operating system.
“While Apple does not have a public policy governing security updates for older macOS releases, their ongoing practice has been to support the most recent three releases,” Mozilla says in a support article.
“The last security update applicable to macOS 10.11 was made available in July 2018. Unsupported operating systems do not receive security updates, have known exploits, and can be dangerous to use, which makes it difficult to maintain Firefox on those versions.” Windows, Mac, and Linux Firefox 78 also brings a few developer features, including a new regex engine, updates to the ECMAScript Intl API, new CSS selectors, enhanced support for WebAssembly, and Firefox Developer Tools improvements. If you’re a web developer, check out the details here: Firefox 78 for developers.
For the full rundown, here’s the Firefox 78 for desktop changelog : The Protections Dashboard includes consolidated reports about tracking protection, data breaches, and password management. New features let you track how many breaches you’ve resolved right from the dashboard and see if any of your saved passwords may have been exposed in a data breach. To view your dashboard, type about:protections into the address bar or select “Protections Dashboard” from the main menu.
Because we know people try to fix problems by reinstalling Firefox when a simple refresh is more likely to solve the issue , we’ve added a Refresh button to the Uninstaller.
With this release, your screen saver will no longer interrupt WebRTC calls on Firefox, making conference and video calling in Firefox better.
We’ve rolled out WebRender to Windows users with Intel GPUs , bringing improved graphics performance to an even larger audience.
Firefox 78 is also our Extended Support Release (ESR), where the changes made over the course of the previous 10 releases will now roll out to our ESR users. Some of the highlights are: Kiosk mode, client certificates, Service Worker and Push APIs, Block Autoplay, Picture-in-picture support, and manage web certificates in about:certificate.
Pocket recommendations , featuring some of the best stories on the web, will now appear on the Firefox new tab for 100% of our users in the U.K. If you don’t see them, you can turn on Pocket articles in your new tab by following these steps.
The Firefox DevTools’ Network panel now highlights which extension or CORS restriction blocked a request, so developers can make their sites more resilient and secure.
DevTools Console now logs uncaught promise errors with much more detailed names, stacks, and properties, particularly improving JavaScript framework debugging.
Debugger’s automatic mapping for minified variable names now also works for Logpoints , which makes debugger of source-mapped projects feel more seamless.
New RegExp engine in SpiderMonkey brings new capabilities, adding support for the dotAll flag, Unicode escape sequences, lookbehind references, and named captures.
Enable support for client certificates stored on macOS and Windows by setting the experimental preference security.osclientcerts.autoload to “true.” New policies allow you to configure application handlers, disable picture in picture, and require a master password, which will be renamed to “primary password” in future releases.
The minimal system requirements on Linux have been updated. Firefox now needs GNU libc 2.17, libstdc++ 4.8.1 and GTK+ 3.14 or newer versions.
As part of our ongoing effort to deprecate obsolete cryptography, we have disabled all remaining DHE-based TLS ciphersuites by default. To mitigate web compatibility issues from disabling DHE-based TLS ciphersuites, Firefox 78 enables two more AES-GCM SHA2-based ciphersuites.
We have disabled TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 to improve your website connections. Sites that don’t support TLS version 1.2 will now show an error page.
The context menu (accessed by right clicking on a tab) lets you undo multiple tab closings with a single click and places Close Tabs to the Right and Close Other Tabs in a submenu.
When using the JAWS screen reader, pressing the down arrow in an HTML input control with a datalist no longer incorrectly moves the cursor to the next element after the input control.
Screen readers no longer severely lag or freeze when focusing the microphone/camera/screen sharing indicator.
Large tables with thousands of rows now load much faster for screen reader users.
Text input controls with custom styling now correctly show the focus outline when appropriate.
Screen readers no longer sometimes incorrectly switch to document browsing mode unexpectedly when the user enters the main Developer Tools window.
We reduced a number of animations, such as tab hover, search bar expansion, and others, to reduce motion for users with migraines and epilepsy.
Various security fixes.
We fixed bugs in the search results quality composition and improved search result texts based on recommendations by our partners.
Mozilla releases new Firefox versions every four weeks. Firefox 79 is currently slated for July.
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"Microsoft pledges to upskill 25 million workers for the 'COVID-19 economy' | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/microsoft-pledges-to-upskill-25-million-workers-for-the-covid-19-economy"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Microsoft pledges to upskill 25 million workers for the ‘COVID-19 economy’ Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Microsoft has announced a slew of new initiatives designed to open up access to new digital skills, including cash grants, providing access to data, affordable certifications for Microsoft products, and a new learning app baked directly into Microsoft Teams.
The company said in a press release that it planned to help 25 million people globally acquire the skills needed for the “COVID-19 economy,” and that it hoped it would help accelerate economic recovery particularly for those out of work. Moreover, it said that it plans to do so by the end of 2020.
Building on the LinkedIn Economic Graph, a digital representation of the global economy using LinkedIn’s arsenal of employment data, Microsoft has launched a new portal to provide market insights into skills and gaps in the employment market — basically, the most in-demand jobs, the most desirable skills, and which companies are actively hiring for those roles. This data can be used by businesses and policymakers to better understand what’s happening in their local markets, and is available in 180 countries around the world.
Above: Microsoft Economic Graph: New interactive tool Additionally, Microsoft has also identified the 10 jobs that are most in-demand today and which will likely continue to grow in demand over the next decade. Criteria for inclusion in the list covered factors such as available job openings, whether it generally offers a living wage, and whether the skills can be learned online or not: 1. Software developer 2. Sales representative 3. Project manager 4. IT administrator 5. Customer service specialist 6. Digital marketing specialist 7. IT support / help desk 8. Data analyst 9. Financial analyst 10. Graphic designer In tandem, Microsoft is providing access to “ learning paths ” and resources for users to develop skills for these jobs, which will be available from today until the end of March 2020, and includes a series of videos to help jobseekers start off on the right foot for each role. Microsoft will also connect more technical roles with other resources and tools, including its bot-powered GitHub Learning Lab where budding coders can practice new skills. And feeding into this, Microsoft said that it will join the dots through to qualifications, by offering “low-cost access” to industry-recognized Microsoft certifications “based on exams that demonstrate proficiency in Microsoft technologies,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a separate blog post.
These exams, which cover areas such as Azure Fundamentals, Azure Data Fundamentals, Data Analyst Associate, and Security Administrator Associate, can often cost $100 or more, but those who self-declare (i.e. Microsoft won’t require proof) that their job has been impacted by COVID-19 will only pay $15. These exams can be scheduled from September 2020 through to the end of the year, though the exam must be completed by March 31, 2021.
In addition to putting its own platforms and training resources to use, Microsoft said that it is also committing $20 million in grants, as well as technical support, to nonprofits. These grants are intended to support the scaling of Microsoft’s resources so that they can be tailored for each market and also translated into new languages, as well as to support teachers in deploying the training and certification programs in their areas.
Among the nonprofits on board at launch are Trust for the Americas, Fondazione Mundo Digitale, Nasscom Foundation, Tech4Dev, NPower, National Urban League, and Skillful.
Learning in teams To capitalize on the surging popularity of Microsoft Teams to connect remote teams ( and family ) through the COVID-19 crisis, Microsoft also said that it would be bringing new learning functionality to the communication and collaboration platform — this is less aimed at jobseekers than it is creating a “system of learning” in the workplace.
A new learning app will be made available inside Teams later in 2020. According to Smith, it will make it easier for employers to integrate their own training content, as well as resources from LinkedIn and Microsoft Learn , and will include mechanisms for managers to assign training, track progress, and gain certifications.
It seems clear that Microsoft is looking to strike while the iron is hot, as companies have had to embrace remote working tools more than ever during these past three months — CEO Satya Nadella recently said COVID-19 had resulted in two years’ worth of digital transformation in just two months.
For Microsoft Teams, that means that it’s evolving into an all-encompassing workplace platform spanning chat, meetings, communication, collaboration, and — soon — learning.
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"Koji raises $10 million so you can remix games and interactive content for social media | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/koji-raises-10-million-so-you-can-remix-games-and-interactive-content-for-social-media-posts"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Koji raises $10 million so you can remix games and interactive content for social media Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Koji is a remix tool for interactive content.
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Koji has raised $10 million for its platform for creating interactive social media posts. It’s a remix tool that anyone can use to make and share interactive selfies, memes, and games.
TikTok popularized “remix” culture (taking one piece of content and modifying it for another purpose) and has grown to 800 million active users, but Koji wants to go one step further with its own broadly available, standards-based social platform that can bridge many other platforms by making it easier to share social content like minigames. During the beta period, the company claims that people made 150,000 Kojis and played them 10 million times.
The San Diego-based company spent the past year beta-testing the product, CEO Dmitry Shapiro said in an interview with GamesBeat.
“TikTok introduced a new wrinkle to this concept of remixing, not starting from scratch, but starting from something that already exists and changing it,” Shapiro said. “People thought this was copying things in the past and that wasn’t valuable. But TikTok has shown that is not the case. It showed that remixes themselves could be significantly better than the originals.” Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! The company comes from Shapiro, a former MySpace Music and Google veteran, and Sean Thielen, a young developer. Galaxy Interactive led the round, with participation from Bitkraft Esports Ventures and others. Angel investors include former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, games and esports firm Modern Times Group, Google News head Richard Gingras, and Zynga founder Mark Pincus. Meanwhile, the company recently hired former Sony Online Entertainment CTO Chris Yates as its head of engineering.
Koji’s goal is to create things that go viral. “All of this is really a function of who creates it and who shares it,” Shapiro said. “A big influencer could make a Koji, share it on Twitter, and it could get 20 million plays.” Creating Kojis Above: This is a Koji of Mark Zuckerberg.
Based on a full-stack, standards-based Java application, Koji is like WeChat’s chat programs, but in this case Koji generates a link that you can share on any platform. It supports supports multimedia, audio, video, 3D graphics, augmented reality, and virtual reality content. It has templates as well.
“My 6-year-old knows how to do this,” Shapiro said. “We believe that the interactivity is one of the next big things on that spectrum of things that can be democratized.” Shapiro claims that creating a Koji is simple. Anywhere you find a Koji, you can simply tap or click the “remix” button. Or visit the Koji site, pick a template, and click the “remix” button to customize with images, colors, sounds and other options, and then share to your feed on any social platform. Hundreds of templates are currently featured, with new ones being added multiple times per day.
How influencers have created Kojis Above: Koji was made for influencers.
Just as TikTok made remixing easier, Koji wants to do the same with interactivity. During its stealth days, Koji scored some interesting partnerships. Burger King retweeted a Koji created by a fan about the Moldy Whopper Ad Campaign, and it got tens of thousands of plays, inspiring over a dozen other Burger King games. The average time playing the game was 1 minute and 48 seconds, Koji said.
On top of that, YouTuber ThatYouTub3Family went live with a contest, inviting fans to make Kojis using their assets. The result: more than 2,000 Kojis created and a major lift in engagement with the fans.
Above: You can make Kojis for any occasion.
Shapiro believes that interactive social content drives dramatically more engagement and sharing, and it leads to more followers than traditional, static photo/video/text posts. Early users are also benefiting from the revenue-generating opportunities Koji offers, he said. Developers and other “asset creators” can generate revenue by creating templates.
“I think of the templates as interactive selfies or interactive memes or interactive video,” Shapiro said.
That generally takes more skill to create, but Shapiro claims making remixes of those templates takes almost no skill at all. Those content creators can offer premium templates or license graphics, sounds, music, and other content to remix. Koji takes about 20% of a purchase.
“This platform enables mini apps, a marketplace, the democratization of creation tools, and sort of all the trimmings that are required,” Shapiro said. “It’s like TikTok, but interactive.” The company has 10 employees.
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"IBM uses AI to enhance old Wimbledon tennis footage for the digital era | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/ibm-uses-ai-to-enhance-old-wimbledon-tennis-footage-for-the-digital-era"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages IBM uses AI to enhance old Wimbledon tennis footage for the digital era Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn TV monitors inside the broadcast center at Wimbledon on July 3, 2009.
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Along with just about every other major sporting event, the Wimbledon grand slam tennis tournament was canceled this year due to the COVID-19 crisis. However, organizers at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club (AELTC) have tapped long-time partner IBM to create a virtual two-week event consisting of classic matches dating back more than 40 years.
To go beyond just bringing old matches to modern digital platforms, IBM and AELTC have leveraged AI techniques to revitalize old footage and appeal to modern viewers. With matches stretching as far back as 1977, a wide range of video quality is to be expected, and older recordings tend to have an issue with visual “noise.” “To the naked eye, this noise is like static in the image, with color pixels dancing,” IBM executive Sam Seddon told VentureBeat. “Along with the movement within the image, this is seen as ‘blurring’ and lack of color sharpness. For modern audiences, this historic content may be less appealing because it is a lower quality than what they have become used to.” Remastering old footage is hardly a new concept, of course. But while IBM initially applied more traditional video enhancement techniques to the footage, it has also turned to AI techniques like Super Resolution and Deblurring to bring greater clarity to some of the older matches. This effort involved creating custom AI models built on IBM Cloud, using over 10,000 images from more recent Wimbledon tournaments. To train the system, IBM created an alternative version of each image, one that looked old and fuzzy.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “In this way, the system learned the differences been new and ‘old’ and subsequently how to reverse the process to partially modernize old color imagery,” Seddon continued. “In many ways, Wimbledon is timeless, and modern imagery was the perfect input to inform the AI model what Wimbledon content ‘should’ look like.” This before (left) and after (right) clip highlights the level of improvement: Wimbledon was already using various AI-powered smarts and has been ramping up its use of IBM’s Watson in recent years.
For example, Watson helps broadcasters capture the best parts from each match and automatically package them into a highlights reel within minutes of the match ending. To do this, it listens to things like crowd cheers to identify big points and ball-strike noises that could signal long rallies, as well as observing the players’ gestures and reactions. This saves human curators from having to manually sift through matches to pull out the best moments.
IBM said it is applying similar AI sound analysis to this year’s “event” to automatically find the most exciting moments in historical matches. “Fans will now have a new way to navigate the greatest moments at Wimbledon,” Seddon added.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Hunters Raises $15 Million in Series A Funding to Speed Enterprise Breach Detection & Response with Autonomous Threat Hunting | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/hunters-raises-15-million-in-series-a-funding-to-speed-enterprise-breach-detection-response-with-autonomous-threat-hunting"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release Hunters Raises $15 Million in Series A Funding to Speed Enterprise Breach Detection & Response with Autonomous Threat Hunting Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Led by M12 – Microsoft’s venture fund – and U.S. Venture Partners, with backing from Okta Ventures, investment to boost development of Hunters’ XDR technology and expand North American operations LEXINGTON, Mass. & TEL AVIV, Israel–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 30, 2020– Hunters today announced it has raised $15 million in Series A funding to scale its autonomous threat hunting solution to defend enterprises from intruders and missed attacks across cloud, network, endpoint and more. Investors include Microsoft’s venture fund M12 , Silicon Valley high-tech venture investor U.S. Venture Partners , with participation by seed investors YL Ventures and Blumberg Capital , and Okta Ventures, the venture arm of publicly traded enterprise identity leader, Okta.
This new investment brings the total funding to date to $20.4 million.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200630005153/en/ Hunters team. Co-founders Uri May, CEO (l.) and Tomer Kazaz, CTO (r.) seated in the front row center (Photo: Business Wire) Just 18 months after its inception , Hunters is shipping its SaaS-based autonomous threat hunting product to customers that include Snowflake and TripActions , via direct sales and through partner channels like the CrowdStrike Store , and Snowflake Partner Connect.
Hunters.AI, the company’s platform, addresses the problem of missed attacks by autonomously detecting attack techniques and correlating them across a multitude of surfaces. Hunters will use the funds to deepen its ongoing ML R&D and further enable customers to extend threat detection with best-of-breed security components.
Industry analysts acknowledge that single-point solutions cannot effectively defend against multi-pronged attacks. Furthermore, the pace and scale of threats outstrip human-led detection and response, and overwhelm SOC team triage with a deluge of alerts and false-positives. This is why the industry is turning toward Extended Detection & Response (XDR) that cuts across all attack surfaces and reduces alert noise.
Hunters’ unique XDR capability picks up weak threat signals hiding in the noise and connects them across sparse and siloed data sources. Its broad, independent ecosystem allows customers to utilize existing security solutions and organizational data sources to detect more threats, faster. By connecting to a wide array of raw data and integrating telemetry across the IT stack, Hunters.AI applies its TTP-based intelligence (tactics, techniques and procedures) to surface potential attack signals, maps them to the MITRE ATT&CK framework and automatically analyzes, enriches and correlates massive volumes of data. It then delivers high confidence attack findings to expedite response by SOC teams, while significantly reducing alert fatigue and false warnings.
Hunters was recently recognized in Gartner’s March 2020 “ Innovation Insight for Extended Detection and Response ” report (Gartner subscription required). The report notes, “Extended detection and response describes a unified security incident detection and response platform that automatically collects and correlates data from multiple proprietary security components.” “To overcome today’s cyber threat landscape, enterprise CISOs need to think like attackers in order to anticipate their moves, and they need to do it at scale. By automating the threat hunting process, Hunters addresses both needs,” said Mony Hassid, General Manager and Managing Director of EMEA, M12. “Hunters has an exceptionally strong team with an intimate understanding of attacker techniques, which is critical in this business.” “USVP strives to identify market opportunities created by applying novel technology approaches to well understood customer pain points and Hunters XDR is a perfect example,” noted Dr. Jacques Benkoski, Partner at U.S. Venture Partners. “We see an exploding market opportunity in Hunters with its unique ability to derive strong insights from correlation of small signals across diverse telemetry. The company’s emphasis on integration with best-of-breed security systems enables easy customer adoption and the autonomous nature of the system dramatically simplifies detection of ongoing attacks while at the same time reducing the load on overburdened security teams.” “Okta’s mission is to enable any organization to securely use any technology. Today’s distributed organizations are faced with more security threats than ever before,” said Monty Gray, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development at Okta. “Hunters’ diverse XDR ecosystem and unique detection technology offer our joint customers an integrated value, and a resilient security solution to help them overcome these challenges and increase their overall security posture.” “The Series A investment validates the tremendous progress we’ve made on the technical front with ML and threat research, and commercially with cybersecurity ecosystem partners,” said Uri May, Hunters co-founder and CEO. “We are excited to join the impressive portfolios of M12 and USVP and to be able to leverage the support, experience and networks of these top U.S. venture firms. The participation of cloud-native, enterprise identity leader Okta, via Okta Ventures, is an additional significant vote of confidence in the value Hunters brings to the cybersecurity ecosystem.” Request a demo to learn more about Hunters and the advanced Hunters.AI autonomous threat hunting solution.
About the Investors M12 , Microsoft’s venture fund, invests in enterprise software companies in the Series A through C funding stages with a focus on applied AI, business applications, infrastructure, security, and vanguard technologies. As part of its value-add to portfolio companies, M12 offers unique access to strategic go-to-market resources and relationships globally. M12 has offices in San Francisco, Seattle, London, Tel Aviv, and Bengaluru.
U.S Venture Partners brings over 30 years’ experience in early-stage high-technology venture funding, With US$3.9 billion invested to date in nearly 500 companies, USVP helps entrepreneurs build market leaders including cybersecurity lighthouses Check Point, Imperva, Luminate, Threatmetrix, Trusteer and Vontu.
YL Ventures funds and supports Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs from seed to lead. With $270M under management and headquarters in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, the value-add-focused VC firm leverages its multidisciplinary team and extensive network to support its founders through every step of development of their businesses.
Blumberg Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that partners with passionate entrepreneurs to innovate and build successful technology companies. Blumberg Capital is headquartered in San Francisco with team members in Tel Aviv and New York.
Okta Ventures is a $50 million investment fund fueling the next generation of modern identity solutions. As Okta is the leading independent provider of identity for the enterprise, Okta Ventures is committed to accelerating innovation throughout the identity ecosystem by investing in cutting edge technologies focusing on identity, security, and privacy.
*Gartner “Innovation Insight for Extended Detection and Response,” Peter Firstbrook, Craig Lawson, 19 March 2020 Media Resources Testimonial: Extending Threat Detection with Hunters.AI – Mario Duarte, VP Security, Snowflake Blog post: XDR: The Cybersecurity X Factor Webinar On-Demand: ‘ Extending Threat Detection with Hunters and CrowdStrike ‘ Webinar On-Demand featuring Forrester’s Principal Analyst Josh Zelonis: ‘The X Factor – How to Extend your Security Solutions into an XDR’ About Hunters Hunters ‘ autonomous threat hunting solution detects cyberattacks that bypass existing controls in every IT environment. Hunters.AI extends threat detection and response across every attack surface – a capability increasingly known as ‘ XDR.
’ It ingests rich security telemetry and intelligence from a wide array of data sources and IT environments like cloud and network, and enriches threat signals with unique tactics, techniques and procedure based (TTP) attack intelligence. It then applies ML and cloud-based analytics to correlate threat patterns and provide high fidelity attack stories for cybersecurity team response. Learn more at: Hunters.AI.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200630005153/en/ Deb Montner, Montner Tech PR (203) 226-9290 [email protected] VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"How high refresh and frame rates will change phone screens and cameras | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/how-high-refresh-and-frame-rates-will-change-phone-screens-and-cameras"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages How high refresh and frame rates will change phone screens and cameras Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Apple's iPad Pros have had 120Hz screens for three years - next, they're coming to numerous smartphones, along with faster video cameras.
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Though 2020 will be remembered for many things, one of the year’s noteworthy smartphone device trends — broad availability of “120Hz” screens — could slip under the mainstream radar, mostly because average consumers have no idea what Hz (“Hertz”) means. Displays targeted at gamers and creative professionals adopted 120Hz technology several years ago, sometimes referring to “120Hz refresh rates,” and in 2020, even budget smartphones will include “120Hz display support.” What that means is that smartphone users at $300-$400 price points are about to have access to the imperceptibly fast display technologies that were once restricted to high-end computers and tablets, right at the same time higher frame rate cameras are becoming increasingly popular on phones. Today, I’m going to simplify this complex topic, and explain why it actually matters when a screen moves from 30Hz to 60Hz or 120Hz refresh rates — as well as when it’s overkill.
Hertz and frames per second Hertz (generally abbreviated Hz) is the international unit of frequency per second — how many times something happens in a second — and is used across many different technologies. When we talk about screens such as TVs or monitors, a completely still photograph is “1Hz,” such that it doesn’t change at all every second. Most videos today move at 30Hz, which is to say a video is really a collection of still pictures that you see flashing before your eyes 30 times per second.
The screen on your phone may be capable of updating 30 or 60 times each second, which is known as its “refresh rate” — how often it can completely refresh the whole display in a second. But the content it displays may not change as often as the screen is capable of showing. The rate the content plays back at is measured in “frames per second.” Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Human eyes and brains collectively know something’s not quite right when a video plays back at fewer than 24 frames per second. That’s the minimum number of changes that are needed each second for something to look “lifelike” to a human viewer, and scientific tests have shown that most people can’t perceive motion faster than 60 frames per second, or under most circumstances quantify the differences between 30 and 60 frames per second. Consequently, movie studios settled on 24 frames per second for theatrical films, and most prior-generation TVs were built to display most content at 30 or fewer frames per second, with narrow exceptions. Filmmakers commonly described 24FPS as “more cinematic” than the faster-refreshing 30FPS, but both rates peacefully co-existed.
The 60Hz-60FPS shock For many decades, 24FPS and 30FPS were considered so ideal for video playback that little traction developed for faster displays. Movies could distinguish themselves from more common TV shows, video games, and user-created content. While adding more pixels (resolution) could dramatically improve the detail of every frame, there wasn’t an obvious need for a faster display.
Moreover, digital video creators knew that switching from 30 to 60 frames per second meant having twice as many images to store per second, bloating file sizes in ways that might not let movies fit on optical discs or quickly transfer over the internet. As smartphones continued to become more popular, 60FPS videos would have required twice the limited space on a pocket-sized device, and their screens might not be able to show video at that higher rate, arguably making the extra data wasteful.
There wasn’t a specific single event that changed perceptions about the “right” speed for a display, but rather scattered changes from multiple directions. As 60Hz and 120Hz screens became easier to make, some TV makers saw an opportunity to sell them, even though 60FPS TV and movie content wasn’t available. So they began to offer “motion smoothing” features that added extra, approximated frames each second, making 24FPS movies (and other content) run artificially at 60FPS, an effect that made cinematic productions look like overly fast TV shows. This profoundly upset Hollywood filmmakers, who felt like their movies were being heavily adulterated on some TVs, and some TV show creators as well.
Game companies weren’t as shy about higher frame rates. Computer graphics chip designers and some video game developers began to push for 60FPS as a floor , with the prospect of even higher display refresh rates and content frame rates under some circumstances. Today, achieving a guaranteed 60FPS frame rate is considered to be ideal for games, but isn’t universally guaranteed. Many gamers still struggle to precisely explain why 60FPS or faster speeds are better than 30FPS, beyond to say that games look smoother at higher frame rates.
Even so, gamers (and some others) have pushed for video recordings and streams of games to be offered at 60FPS, forcing YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, and other platforms to embrace the change and deal with the added bandwidth/storage demands. While Hollywood has largely stuck to 24FPS content, Chinese filmmakers and film financiers have embraced higher frame rates with the same verve as game designers, and some Chinese theaters currently display Hollywood films that were officially converted to 60FPS.
Why 120Hz displays matter The simplest way to explain the difference between 30Hz, 60Hz, and 120Hz displays is that the higher the number, the more frames per second the screen can display, and the smoother content will look. As suggested above, however, most of today’s videos remain at 24-30FPS, so why does someone need even a 60Hz display, let alone a 120Hz version? One key advantage to a 120Hz screen is that it can be easily divided by both 24 and 30, so it can just keep each frame of a 24FPS movie on screen for 5 of its 120 frames in a second, while 30FPS TV shows can display each frame for 4 of the screen’s 120 frames. That means older movies and TV shows are displayed as they were originally intended, without using artificial frame smoothers like the ones that upset Hollywood. Additionally, newer videos (including ones recorded with smartphone cameras) can be played back at 60 or even 120FPS.
Videos aren’t the only things that play back on smartphone screens; people do a lot of web browsing, scrolling through social media feeds, and other things with their phones that can also benefit from smoother movement. Apple introduced “ProMotion” to its iPad Pro tablets three years ago, and the primary benefit has been that scrolling through anything is smooth enough that you can continue to read text even while it’s moving up or down. On non-ProMotion screens, text scrolling is jittery enough that you unconsciously only really look at it while it’s stopped.
That having been said, gamers are arguably the biggest potential beneficiaries of faster displays. In January, Epic Games updated the iPad version of Fortnite to support 120FPS frame rates on iPad Pro models with ProMotion screens — a feature that lets gamers (with $799+ tablets) see up to twice the frames of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, or four times the frames of the Nintendo Switch, an advantage one YouTuber described as “so good it’s unfair.” The reasoning, which hardcore computer gamers will attest to, is that the smoother frame rates enable faster split-second reads on how you and your opponents are moving, as well as more accurate responses.
Relatively few iOS/iPadOS game developers support 120FPS at this point, but Fortnite is a heavy hitter, and the ProMotion update is a sign of what’s coming elsewhere. Roughly 100 titles have been updated to support the “UltraMotion” 120Hz displays on Razer’s niche smartphones, including several high-profile fighting games, some popular MMORPGs, and the perennially successful Pokémon Go. Since Qualcomm’s latest high-end Snapdragon 865 chipsets recently added support for up to 144Hz displays, it’s clear that 120Hz isn’t the upper limit for smartphones, and could follow PC monitors to reach ridiculously high refresh rates.
Why 120FPS (and faster) cameras matter While screens were climbing to 60Hz and 120Hz speeds, high frame rate cameras began to take off for action sports and “prosumer” videographers interested in using Hertz in a different way. Since some cameras can take one picture every 120th or 240th of a second, what if the resulting videos could be played back at 30 frames per second? Every real world second would take 4 or 8 seconds to watch — “slow motion” — and viewers could pick up on details that would be impossible to see at regular speeds.
Current-generation iPhones and iPads have the option to record “Slo-mo” videos at 120 or 240FPS, maxed out at 1080p resolution. iOS 14 betas suggest that the next iPhones will be able to record higher-resolution 4K videos at these speeds. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 has the memory speed and bandwidth to create 960FPS videos at 720p resolutions — yes, that’s 960 individual images per second — for mind-bogglingly slow motion, such that every real-world second would take 32 seconds to watch at 30fps.
Now 120FPS cameras can also be paired with 120Hz screens to deliver crazy-smooth real-time videos. While there isn’t much of an application for this yet with traditional 2D screens, VR and AR headsets can use higher frame rate videos and displays to mitigate nausea.
One drawback to bear in mind is that high framerate cameras consume a ton of storage and wireless bandwidth. iOS and iPadOS warn users that 4K 60FPS video recording requires 400 megabytes per minute, which could fill a base model 64GB iPhone 11 in around two hours, assuming relatively few apps or other files are also installed. If 4K 120FPS and 240FPS recordings are added this year, you can expect the storage requirements to roughly double or quadruple — though most people won’t create two-hour-long (or even 30-minute-long) videos at these speeds.
Do you really need a 120Hz (or faster) phone display? For most people, the short answer is currently “no.” A 120Hz screen is a “nice but not mandatory to have” feature that many people won’t even notice 99% of the time. Smoother scrolling through a device’s UI and apps is certainly better, but in a way that people have struggled to quantify, and smoother videos still have some iffy bandwidth tradeoffs, particularly when viewed on tiny screens and streamed over spotty cellular networks. While smoother gaming is nice, only serious computer gamers (and the companies that supply them) care at this point about higher than 60FPS titles.
Over time, this will clearly change. 120Hz screens are about to become ubiquitous due to a growing supply of inexpensive components, and device chips such as Qualcomm’s, Apple’s, Samsung’s, and MediaTek’s will support high refresh rates because it’s increasingly trivial to do so. Right now, 120Hz technology is at best a frill for average people, but as chip speeds, memory capacities, and overall system bandwidth increase, companies will simultaneously support high-refresh screens and high-FPS cameras in even the most affordable devices. Hopefully, you’ll be able to both notice and explain the improvements for yourself.
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"Google acquires holographic glasses startup North | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/google-acquires-holographic-glasses-startup-north"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google acquires holographic glasses startup North Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn North's Focals 2.0 teaser image Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Google confirmed today that it has acquired North , a Canadian augmented reality (AR) wearables company backed by Amazon and Intel. Neither company confirmed the value of the acquisition, but the Globe and Mail , which first reported on the deal last week, quoted sources as putting it at around $180 million. North had raised close to $200 million in a mixture of equity, debt, and grants, so if the reported acquisition price is accurate, this is pretty much a fire sale.
As a result of the acquisition, North will wind down its business and the team will join Google’s existing hub in Kitchener, Ontario, where North is based. Google didn’t share specifics about its plans for North’s technology, but Rick Osterloh — senior VP for devices and services at Google — said North’s technical expertise will “help as we continue to invest in our hardware efforts and ambient computing future.” Out of focus North, which was founded in 2012 as Thalmic Labs, was originally known for a gesture- and motion-guided device called Myo. The $200 armband enabled people who had amputated limbs to control a prosthetic hand and surgeons to navigate screens while carrying out complicated surgery. In 2016, Thalmic Labs raised a hefty $120 million in funding from Amazon’s Alexa Fund, Intel Capital, and Fidelity Investments Canada. The company rebranded as North in 2018 while simultaneously pivoting to holographic eyewear.
North’s first product, Focals, were glasses that connect to the user’s smartphone over Bluetooth to display key notifications directly in the wearer’s field of view. These included weather, calendar notifications, messages, turn-by-turn navigation, and more. A separate connected ring — called Loop — allowed users to control the glasses by clicking with their finger. The glasses also sported a built-in mic that let the wearer ask Alexa questions, with answers delivered on the display or via a little speaker.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Above: Focals by North North’s business model encountered friction from the outset. Besides the $999 price tag, Focals required custom fitting in physical retail stores , but only two existed — one in Toronto and one in New York. The company soon scythed the starting price to $600 , and in early 2019 it laid off some 150 employees. A month later, news emerged that North had raised $40 million in debt financing.
Last September, North started selling its Focals AR glasses online, leaning on the iPhone’s TrueDepth camera to help custom-fit the frames remotely.
While the writing was already on the wall, in December of last year North stopped selling Focals altogether and revealed that a new “sleeker” design would be launched sometime in 2020. That new product never materialized. In a separate blog post today, North’s founders said the company was winding down Focals 1.0 — which presumably means it will no longer offer support for existing users — and would not be shipping Focals 2.0 as planned.
Above: North’s Focals 2.0 teaser image The Globe and Mail cited a number of former North employees, who spoke to the Canadian publication on condition of anonymity. According to these sources, company executives made “many questionable decisions,” including rushing the product to market before it was ready and failing to find a proper product-market fit.
Google is no stranger to augmented reality (AR) eyewear, of course, mostly via Google Glass, which it unveiled way back in 2013.
Though Google Glass didn’t quite work out as a consumer product, Google later repositioned the product for the enterprise , where the company still hopes to gain traction across manufacturing and other industries. It’s also worth noting that other companies have struggled with AR headsets, including the heavily funded Magic Leap, which recently announced significant layoffs and refocused on the enterprise. Last year, enterprise AR headset startup Dagri announced it was shutting down.
It seems that either AR isn’t quite ready for prime time, companies have yet to deploy it in a way that appeals to consumers, or people simply don’t want constant alerts in their line of sight.
North’s closure also raises questions for consumers who shelled out $1,000 for the glasses less than two years ago. VentureBeat has reached out to North and Google for clarification on whether any support or compensation will be provided.
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"Etermax accelerates mobile game launches during the pandemic with debut of Topic Twister | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/etermax-launches-topic-twister-mobile-game-in-attempt-to-dominate-word-category"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Etermax accelerates mobile game launches during the pandemic with debut of Topic Twister Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Etermax has launched its Topic Twister mobile word game on iOS and Android as the company speeds up game launches during the coronavirus pandemic. The new title is the company’s fifth mobile game launch of the year and reflects its ambitions to be a force in the word game sector.
That will be tough to do as long as games like Zynga’s Words With Friends and Scopely’s Scrabble dominate the market, but Etermax is no slouch. It’s the company behind long-running hit Trivia Crack, which is the main reason its catalog has more than 700 million downloads.
“Word, logic, and trivia games, those that help exercise the mind, have always existed,” said Mariano Fragulia, chief product officer at Etermax, in an email to GamesBeat. “At Etermax, we have been inspired by these games to reinvent them and adapt them to today’s technology, whether on mobile, social networks, or even on voice devices such as Google Home or Amazon Alexa.” Fragulia said each Etermax game has four main characteristics, with simple mechanics that entertain even in short sessions. Most of the games focus on language to learn (trivia, crossword, word searches, or puzzles). They can connect communities and encourage interaction between people, and they can be launched simultaneously worldwide.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Since the quarantine began, Etermax claims it’s seen up to 5 times more downloads in several countries. It also saw an increase in consumption of at least 20% per day over usual rates. For example, the percentage of players challenging a friend to a game grew 50% over the previous quarter in Trivia Crack 2 and Words & Ladders, Fragulia said.
Topic Twister Above: Topic Twister is launching globally in multiple languages.
Topic Twister tests players’ language skills. When challenging an opponent, a player must spin the twister and write a word that begins with the assigned letter in each of the five categories, which appear at random in less than 60 seconds. The player with the most valid words wins the round.
This means you have to know your vocabulary and quickly recall words in competition with direct opponents. You are also measured against players through weekly global rankings. After winning games, players receive stars that move them up rankings and that also unlock chests. There are 10 initial leagues, and the higher the league a player belongs to, the greater the rewards.
In addition, Topic Twister offers a series of power-ups. You can access these by investing coins from games won or from the daily bonus, as well as those purchased in the integrated shopping store. The power-ups include a chance to find out if the entered word is valid and options to rotate the swirl again to get a different letter, change category, buy more time, or unveil a valid answer by category.
The game is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian, and German.
A strategic shift Fragulia said in 2019 Etermax accelerated its product generation and focused on improving its global delivery of games. By 2020, the company had an ambitious plan to launch six new games in the year. Despite the pandemic, it has already launched five in 2020.
The other games launched this year are Words & Ladders, Word Show, Word Crack Mix 2, and Word Crack 2. Working during the pandemic hasn’t been easy, but the company wanted to deliver.
“We reinforced our commitment and responsibility to keep our users connected and entertained with their loved ones while we must be physically separated,” Fragulia said. “Video games, especially social games like the ones we develop at Etermax, have always been a great way to connect with others. In this context, our games are presented as a different way of being close to family and friends and sharing with them a space of entertainment and distraction, bringing new proposals each month so that people of all ages can have fun, socialize, and widen their knowledge and skills.” GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Elementary Robotics raises $12.7 million to automate industrial inspections | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/elementary-robotics-raises-12-7-million-to-automate-industrial-inspections"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Elementary Robotics raises $12.7 million to automate industrial inspections Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Elementary Robotics , a robotics company developing tools to automate industrial tasks, today announced it has raised a $12.7 million round. The fresh capital will be used to deploy the Los Angeles-based startup’s automation products at scale, a spokesperson told VentureBeat.
McKinsey pegs the automation potential for production occupations at 79%, and the pandemic is likely to accelerate this shift. A report by the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte found that 4.6 million manufacturing jobs will need to be filled over the next decade, and challenges brought on by physical distancing measures and a sustained uptick in ecommerce activity have stretched some logistics operations to the limit. The National Association of Manufacturers says 53.1% of manufacturers anticipate a change in operations due to the health crisis, with 35.5% saying they’re already facing supply chain disruptions.
Elementary asserts it’s prepared to address the industry’s challenges. The company, which has kept a low profile since its founding in 2017, offers products that automate industrial inspections using a combination of hardware, software, machine learning, and computer vision to identify defects — including those manufacturers might not be aware of. It enables manufacturers to set up inspections in the cloud so human inspectors can be kept in the loop and trace and train the systems over time.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Elementary offers a “full stack” robotic solution, with everything from motor controls to an API that “enables machine learning from the ground up.” The company’s robots can learn to perform monotonous tasks and leverage RGB cameras, depth sensors, and AI to “perceive the world,” allowing them to learn from processes they observe.
CEO Arye Barnehama, who previously founded and sold wearable technology company Melon to Daqri, an industrial augmented reality startup that went on to raise $275 million, wasn’t willing to reveal much beyond the basics about Elementary’s solutions. But he believes the company is poised to become a “world leader” in assistive robotics, in part because of a proprietary vision stack with a lower bill of materials than many competing systems.
Elementary Robotics certainly has the talent to deliver on that vision. It counts graduates and employees from Qualcomm, Caltech, NASA JPL, SpaceX, and Art Center College of Design among its workforce, all of whom are working on “cutting-edge” robotic systems that will one day augment human workers by performing a range of complex tasks.
In a testament to its competitiveness, Elementary says it has inked deals with a number of manufacturing and logistics suppliers, including Toyota. Its customers have transitioned from sample-based inspection to 100% inspection and seen reduced scrap rates as workflows have become easier to standardize across factories and production lines.
Threshold Ventures led this week’s series A, with participation from existing backers Fika Ventures, Fathom Capital, and Toyota AI Ventures. The round brings Elementary’s total raised to over $15 million.
With the warehouse robotics market alone anticipated to be worth $4.44 billion by 2022, according to Markets and Markets , there’s no shortage of competition. Amazon acquired robotics company Kiva Systems for $775 million in March 2012, and last November DHL announced it would invest $300 million to modernize its warehouses in North America with internet of things sensors and robots. Elsewhere, Startups like Attabotics and CommonSense Robotics have raised tens of millions of dollars for compact automated fulfillment centers that can slot into tight spaces, like underground garages.
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"Call of Duty: Warzone's expansion to 200 players means insta-death for me | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/call-of-duty-warzones-expanding-to-200-players-means-insta-death-for-me"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Call of Duty: Warzone’s expansion to 200 players means insta-death for me Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Call of Duty: Warzone will have an update that delivers 200-player battle royale.
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Activision and Infinity Ward announced today that Call of Duty: Warzone will have a new mode where 200 players can fight in a battle royale match.
The mode will team people up in quads, or groups of four, and throw them into the same-size match where previously only 150 players could battle each other. For me, this raises the prospect of insta-death. As you may recall, as I have broadcast it over and over again, I have won one match in Warzone since its March 11 launch date, despite having played more than 255 matches.
In its first two months, the free-to-play Warzone mode was downloaded more than 60 million times.
This 200-player take is a new limited-time mode, and you should be able to play traditional 150-player matches as well. But for those who dive into it starting at 11 p.m. Pacific time tonight (June 29), you’ll likely find that there are a lot more people landing where you typically might parachute. This is a challenge because you parachute into a part of the map with only a pistol. You then hunt around to find more weapon loot as fast as possible and fight off anyone else from other teams trying to do the same.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! I always try to avoid the obvious places where everyone will land, even if that means coasting for a longer time while parachuting. But it looks like that will become a lot harder, and I’ll just have to try to survive dropping into a highly populated zone.
The update for Season Four also includes a sniper rifle, the Rytec AMR; a Spotter Scope, which marks enemies without counter-detection; a Juggernaut Royale mode; a Gulag weapons update (the Gulag is where you go for one last chance for revival after you’ve been killed on the map); and a new Contract called Supply Run. The game also has a new operator, Roze, a new multiplayer map and mode (Cheshire Park and Team Defender).
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"AgencyKPI Secures Series A Funding from Insurance Industry Leaders | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/agencykpi-secures-series-a-funding-from-insurance-industry-leaders"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release AgencyKPI Secures Series A Funding from Insurance Industry Leaders Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Instead of Venture Capital, AgencyKPI Sought Funding from within the Insurance Industry AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–June 30, 2020– AgencyKPI ( www.agencykpi.com ), developer of the first business intelligence platform designed to address and manage the abundance of data produced by multiple software programs and legacy systems across the insurance industry, today announced the closing of $5 million in Series A funding.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200630005632/en/ AgencyKPI Co-Founders, Bobby Billman and Trent Richmond. (Photo: Business Wire) The Series A round of funding is led by EMC Insurance Companies of Des Moines, Iowa. EMC is ranked among the top 60 property/casualty insurance organizations in the country based on net written premium.
“We are very happy to be working with AgencyKPI on a platform that is sure to benefit independent agents and how EMC aligns with them. With AgencyKPI, we’ll have more timely and accurate data that’s just easier to understand and share with our networks and independent agents to help us grow and be more profitable together,” said Mick A. Lovell, COO of EMC Insurance.
Two other insurance agency networks are also investing in AgencyKPI: Keystone Insurers Group of Northumberland, Pennsylvania, and Austin-based Combined Agents of America.
Keystone Insurers Group, founded in 1983, has grown to almost 300 independent agency partners across 14 states. It is ranked third on Insurance Journal’s Top 100 Property/Casualty Agencies list for 2019.
“I’m delighted our Board of Directors unanimously approved an additional investment in AgencyKPI to close out their Series A Funding initiative. All three original investors decided to further their financial commitment, signifying an exceptional level of confidence in the company’s leadership, product and strategic direction. We’re proud to be in partnership with such talented and fine quality people,” said Mike Azar, Chief Financial Officer of Keystone Insurers Group.
Combined Agents of America is comprised of 75 independent insurance agencies and is ranked sixth on Insurance Journal’s Top 100 Property/Casualty Agencies list for 2019.
“CAA is excited to continue and enhance our partnership with AgencyKPI. They are doing something the insurance industry has never seen before. We view Agency KPI as not only a valuable asset for CAA and our members, but also as a game changer for the Insurance Agency Networks,” said A.J. Lovitt, CEO of Combined Agents of America.
AgencyKPI started in 2017 when Trent Richmond, an insurance industry veteran, and Bobby Billman, a seasoned high tech executive, began to quietly recruit data scientists and software engineers to build its software stack and define its network business intelligence platform in conjunction with their initial beta clients.
In 2019, the company emerged from stealth mode with $3 million in seed and strategic-round funding raised from insurance networks, carriers, independent agencies, and C-level executives in the insurance industry. This year, AgencyKPI will use the new funds to hire more software developers and data scientists to accelerate the development of the company’s additional business intelligence platforms.
“With this funding round, we have confirmation from the insurance industry that insurance carriers, networks and independent agencies want to better enable collaboration through a deeper understanding of their data. We’re especially proud to continue to work with our partners who provided our seed funding. They believe in our vision and support our direction,” said Bobby Billman, co-founder of AgencyKPI.
Also in 2019, AgencyKPI launched its business intelligence platform for networks, called Harmony, which addresses mass data fragmentation and unifies data from various sources, so insurance networks can begin to see how they are performing on any given level. Today, the Harmony platform handles $15.8 billion in written premium from more than 8,800 affiliated agencies.
About AgencyKPI AgencyKPI is a start-up in Austin that provides a business intelligence platform for insurance networks, independent agencies and insurers. AgencyKPI has a fundamental belief that insurance agencies, networks, carriers and wholesalers desire to deepen their relationships through mutual understanding, and the harmonizing and balancing of their collective efforts. During a time when most Insurtech companies claim that disruption is the path to the future, AgencyKPI is developing software platforms that support Harmony, Understanding and Balance between all partners and vendors in the insurance industry.
AgencyKPI is founded by Trent Richmond and Bobby Billman. Richmond is a veteran of the insurance industry and is the former CEO of Combined Agents of America, and also the former president and chairman of the board of Bridges Group Insurance. Billman is a former vice president at Motorola Mobility, a Google company, where he was responsible for global products and go-to-market strategies. Over his career, Billman has held executive leadership positions at Samsung Mobile, Dell, Dish Network and Nokia Mobile. In 2020, AgencyKPI gained recognition as one of the Austin Business Journal’s “Best Places to Work.” For more about AgencyKPI, Inc. go to www.agencykpi.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200630005632/en/ Jason Meeker Director of Marketing 512-553-9188 [email protected] VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Where does your organization stand on the AI curve? (Find out with this survey) | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/where-does-your-organization-stand-on-the-ai-curve-find-out-with-this-survey"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages VB Event Where does your organization stand on the AI curve? (Find out with this survey) Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn This may be the year artificial intelligence moves firmly into the enterprise.
Big businesses like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Salesforce tout the AI agents they put to work for their clients. Autonomous vehicles have spread past experiments with taxi-style services and moved into industrial parks and commercial shipping. AI is powering services from marketing analysis to credit approval. The applications seem limitless.
That’s why VB is offering our second annual AI survey. It’s for execs who are busy integrating AI into their workflows and product development, or who may be just starting out.
It takes just a few minutes, and in return, you’ll have exclusive access to the full results, which won’t be released publicly.
In last year’s survey, 50% of AI buyers said the biggest barrier to AI adoption was too little talent and resources. Still, they expected AI to show results quickly: 42% of buyers of AI said they expected ROI within 4-6 months.
Another interesting finding last year was that a large number of leaders felt that responsibility for AI initiatives was wrongly placed. For example, only 13% of our respondents said that IT departments should be in charge of AI implementation, while 65% said business lines should be responsible — very different from the reality, where respondents reported that ownership was equally held between IT and line of business.
After you fill out the survey, join the conversation and register for Transform 2020: Accelerating Your Business with AI.
It’s three days of unbeatable networking, case studies featuring real ROI from industry giants to ingenious startups, and how-to AI product workshops in smart speech, computer vision, and more. Don’t miss our VIP events such as the Women in AI breakfast and the 2nd annual AI Innovation Awards dinner.
Lend your voice: To learn more about where your company stands now, and how the market is evolving in the AI-first era, take the VB AI Survey now.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Waymo to expand autonomous truck testing in the American Southwest | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/waymo-expanding-autonomous-truck-testing-in-american-southwest"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Waymo to expand autonomous truck testing in the American Southwest Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Today during a briefing with members of the media, Waymo head of commercialization for trucking Charlie Jatt outlined the company’s go-to-market plans for Waymo Via , its self-driving delivery division. In the future, Waymo will partner with OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers to equip cloud-based trucks manufactured and sold to the market with its autonomous systems. In addition, Waymo will work with fleets to provide its software services and offer support for things like mapping and remote fleet assistance.
As Waymo transitions to this model, Jatt said that Waymo intends to own and offer its own fleet of trucks — at least in the short term. One of the delivery solutions it’s exploring is a transfer-hub model where, rather than an automated truck covering an entire journey, there will be a mix of an automated portion and a portion involving manually driven, human-manned trucks. Automated vehicle transfer hubs close to highways would handle the switch-off and minimize surface street driving.
In a first step toward this vision, Waymo says it will soon expand testing on roads in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas along the I-10 corridor between Phoenix and Tuscon, as previously announced.
This year Waymo mapped routes between Phoenix, El Paso, Dallas, and Houston and ramped up testing in California on freeways in Mountain View, but the focus for the rest of 2020 will be on the American Southwest.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Tests will be primarily along Interstates 10, 20, and 45 and through metropolitan areas like El Paso, Dallas, and Houston. Chrysler Pacifica vans retrofitted with Waymo’s technology stack will map roads ahead of driverless Peterbilt trucks as part of a project known as Husky.
Waymo is also engaged with local delivery under the Waymo Via umbrella, the company reiterated. It currently has two partnerships in the Phoenix area — one with AutoNation and one with UPS. On the AutoNation side, Waymo is performing “hot shot” deliveries where Waymo vehicles travel to certain AutoNation locations and deliver car parts. And on the UPS side, the company is ferrying packages from stores to UPS sorting centers.
Waymo began piloting dedicated goods delivery with class A trucks — 18-wheelers — in 2017. After completing tests in 2018 with real loads from Google datacenters in Atlanta, Waymo began limited testing on roads in the San Francisco Bay Area, Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia, and on Metro Phoenix freeways.
Waymo’s autonomous trucks employ a combination of lidars, radars, and cameras to understand the world around them. They have roughly twice as many sensors as Waymo’s cars to handle the trucks’ unique shape and the occlusions they cause, and they place a greater emphasis on long-length perception (the perception range is somewhere beyond 300 meters). But they use the same compute platform found in the fifth-generation Waymo Driver.
As the pandemic drives unprecedented growth in the logistics and ground transportation market, Aurora , TuSimple, and other rivals are investing increased resources in fully autonomous solutions. They stand to save the logistics and shipping industry $70 billion annually while boosting productivity by 30%; according to a recent study from the Consumer Technology Association, a quarter (26%) of consumers now view autonomous delivery technologies more favorably than before the health crisis.
Besides cost savings, the growth in autonomous trucking has been driven in part by a shortage of human drivers. In 2018, the American Trucking Associates estimated that 50,000 more truckers were needed to close the gap in the U.S., even despite the sidelining of proposed U.S. Transportation Department screenings for sleep apnea.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Rios raises $5 million for robots that can grasp 'thousands' of types of products | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/rios-raises-5-million-for-robots-that-can-grasp-thousands-of-types-of-products"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Rios raises $5 million for robots that can grasp ‘thousands’ of types of products Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Rios , a Stanford robotics spinout founded by former Xerox PARC engineers, emerged from stealth today after 18 months with $5 million in funding. The company plans to use the funds to bolster product R&D and to accelerate its go-to-market efforts as it signs on “global” customers and partners.
Around $1.2 billion in U.S. venture capital deals have targeted logistics-focused robotics and automation companies since 2015, according to PitchBook, and investments are poised to accelerate. During the pandemic, ecommerce order volume has increased by 50% compared with 2019 and shipment times for products like furniture more than doubled. At the same time, Datex found that warehouse positions being created to accommodate the expansion is outpacing the labor pool’s growth by six to one, signaling a talent shortage.
While industrial robotics aren’t exactly novel, Rios claims its technology is more versatile than most. As CEO Bernard Casse explains, the company’s platform combines dedicated hardware, computer vision, and AI to enable warehouse, factory, and supply chain robots to handle thousands of types of objects, precisely performing manipulation tasks. With a pincer-like gripper component, the machines can adapt — and be programmed — to address multiple use cases in a range of unstructured environments.
Rios’ first product is the DX-1, which is designed to perform tasks from pick-and-place of arbitrary objects to complex component assembly. DX-1 can interact with objects in both static and dynamic settings, such as bin picking and moving conveyor belts, thanks to a “biomimetic” touch sensor containing thousands of miniature sensors relaying pressure, texture, and temperature information. The sensor data are processed by embedded chips running Rios’ AI algorithms, imbuing DX-1 with capabilities like grasping, slip detection, and surface topography mapping in addition to texture discrimination.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Rios says that in pilots with a Tier 1 automotive manufacturer and others, DX-1 demonstrated a knack for automating tasks across the vehicle assembly, lab automation, and food services segments. With the funding round under its belt, the company plans to deliver DX-1 via a robots-as-a-service (RaaS) model, charging a flat monthly fee that includes installation, initial programming, regular software updates, re-programming as needed, maintenance, and 24/7 monitoring.
Valley Capital Partners and Morpheus Ventures led Rios’ round with participation from Grit Ventures, Motus Ventures, MicroVentures, and Alumni Ventures Group. Strategic investors Fuji Corporation and NGK Spark Plug also contributed to the funding, and VCP managing partner Steve O’Hara, Morpheus investment partner Howard Ko, and Grit founder Jennifer Gill Roberts joined Rios’ board of directors.
Rios is headquartered in Palo Alto and has a pilot facility in San Carlos.
Rios’ fundraising follows a decade of multimillion-dollar bets on logistics and fulfillment automation. Amazon acquired robotics company Kiva Systems for $775 million in March 2012, and last November DHL announced it would invest $300 million to modernize its warehouses in North America with IoT sensors and robots. Separately, startups like Attabotics and CommonSense Robotics have raised tens of millions of dollars for compact automated fulfillment centers that can slot into tight spaces, like underground garages. Others like Covariant and Soft Robotics have won over investors with control systems that can pick, place, and unload objects in warehouses.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Researchers combine reinforcement learning and NLP to escape a Grue monster | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/researchers-combine-reinforcement-learning-and-nlp-to-escape-a-grue-monster"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Researchers combine reinforcement learning and NLP to escape a Grue monster Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
Learn more.
AI researchers from Georgia Tech and Microsoft Research created AI that combines reinforcement learning and natural language processing (NLP) to outperform state-of-the-art question-answering AI in eight of nine text adventure games. Researchers say the model MC!Q*BERT is the first known learning agent to consistently get past a bottleneck where a player is eaten by a Grue monster in Zork, one of the first interactive computer games.
MC!Q*BERT is made in part from Q*BERT, a deep reinforcement learning agent that learns and builds a knowledge graph by asking questions about the world. Every observation made throughout the course of a game generates a series of questions that are then converted and added to the knowledge graph.
Q*BERT is based on KG-A2C, an approach to using reinforcement learning in NLP action spaces published earlier this year at ICLR by Georgia Tech PhD student Prithviraj Ammanabrolu.
For answering questions, Q*BERT uses a pretrained version of ALBERT , a variation of the BERT language model. The model is then fine-tuned using the SQuAD benchmark and a newly created data set of text adventure game question and answer pairs called Jericho-QA. Jericho-QA contains more than 200,000 question-answer pairings. The approach was detailed earlier this month in a paper published on preprint repository arXiv titled “How to Avoid Being Eaten by a Grue: Structured Exploration Strategies for Textual Worlds.” Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! “We present techniques for automatically detecting bottlenecks and efficiently learning policies that take advantage of the natural partitions in the state space,” the authors wrote in that paper. “We see text games as simplified analogues for systems capable of long-term dialogue with humans, such as in assistance with planning complex tasks, and also discrete planning domains such as logistics.” A major challenge for making AI that can succeed in text adventure games is overcoming bottlenecks, or instances where players are commonly trapped and eliminated. In Zork, for example, a common bottleneck occurs when players moving about without a light are eaten by a Grue monster. That means the AI must recognize and fulfill a certain series of actions to advance. Authors said many existing models fail to clear such bottlenecks. However, they assert, Q*BERT automatically detects bottlenecks, then creates policies to overcome the challenge. A dependency graph takes into account the items Q*BERT must collect to succeed and the locations in the game it must visit in order to advance.
All experiments took place within the Jericho simulator created by Microsoft. If an agent failed to collect a reward in the simulated environment, authors understood this to mean that it may be stuck because of a bottleneck. Once identified, the agent uses a method called modularity chaining to “backtrack to previously visited states” and overcome bottlenecks.
In other recent question-answering NLP news, last week Google AI together with partners from University of Washington and Princeton University announced the launch of the EfficientQA competition , a question-answering challenge for creating NLP capable of storing knowledge. Top-performing models will compete live against human trivia experts.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Refraction AI's robots start delivering groceries in Ann Arbor | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/refraction-ais-autonomous-robots-begin-delivering-groceries-in-ann-arbor"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Refraction AI’s robots start delivering groceries in Ann Arbor Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Refraction AI , a company developing semi-autonomous delivery robots, today began handling select customers’ orders from Ann Arbor, Michigan’s Produce Station. This marks the startup’s first foray into grocery delivery after the launch of its restaurant delivery service. The move comes as Refraction reports a 3-4 times uptick in pandemic-related demand.
The worsening COVID-19 health crisis in much of the U.S. seems likely to hasten the adoption of self-guided robots and drones for goods transportation. They require disinfection, which companies like KiwiBot, Starship Technologies , and Postmates are conducting manually with sanitation teams. But in some cases, delivery rovers like Refraction’s could minimize the risk of spreading disease.
Refraction says from today customers within a three-mile radius of Produce Station can have orders delivered by its REV-1 robot. After customers order through a dedicated website, Refraction’s employees load the vehicles at the store, and recipients receive text message updates, along with a code to open the robot’s storage compartment when it arrives.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! According to Refraction, new protocols and adjustments to operations have been implemented in accordance with current health guidelines. Robots are now disinfected between each delivery, for instance, with cleaning staff remaining physically distant from each other. The robots also contain microbe-killing UV lights and are being controlled and operated by employees at home instead of from Refraction’s office in downtown Ann Arbor.
REV-1, which is approximately the size of an electric bicycle and legally categorized as an ebike, weighs approximately 100 pounds and stands roughly 4 feet tall, including its three wheels. It travels an average 10 to 15 miles per hour with a very short stopping distance, and the compartment holds about six bags of groceries.
REV-1’s perception system comprises 12 cameras, in addition to redundant radar and ultrasound sensors — a package the company claims costs a fraction of the lidar sensors used in rival rovers. The robot can navigate in inclement weather, including rain and snow, and it’s not dependent on high-definition maps for navigation.
Prior to the Produce Station partnership, REV-1 had been delivering exclusively from Ann Arbor restaurants — including Miss Kim and Tio’s Mexican Cafe — during lunchtime as part of a three-month pilot. The company charges the restaurant a flat $7.50, and Refraction’s over 500 customers pay a portion of that fee if the business chooses. (Tips go directly to Refraction’s partners.) As of May 2020, Refraction had eight robots running in Ann Arbor, and it expects to have 20 within the next few weeks.
Launched in July 2019, Refraction AI was cofounded by Matt Johnson-Roberson and Ram Vasudevan, both professors at the University of Michigan. The startup recently secured $5 million in funding from investors that include eLab Ventures and Trucks Venture Capital, bringing its total raised to $6.5 million.
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"Montreal AI Ethics Institute suggests ways to counter bias in AI models | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/montreal-ai-ethics-institute-suggests-ways-to-counter-bias-in-ai-models"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Montreal AI Ethics Institute suggests ways to counter bias in AI models Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
The Montreal AI Ethics Institute, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to defining humanity’s place in an algorithm-driven world, today published its inaugural State of AI Ethics report.
The 128-page multidisciplinary paper, which covers a set of areas spanning agency and responsibility, security and risk, and jobs and labor, aims to bring attention to key developments in the field of AI this past quarter.
The State of AI Ethics first addresses the problem of bias in ranking and recommendation algorithms, like those used by Amazon to match customers with products they’re likely to purchase. The authors note that while there are efforts to apply the notion of diversity to these systems, they usually consider the problem from an algorithmic perspective and strip it of cultural and contextual social meanings.
“Demographic parity and equalized odds are some examples of this approach that apply the notion of social choice to score the diversity of data,” the report reads. “Yet, increasing the diversity, say along gender lines, falls into the challenge of getting the question of representation right, especially trying to reduce gender and race into discrete categories that are one-dimensional, third-party, and algorithmically ascribed.” The authors advocate a solution in the form of a framework that does away with rigid, ascribed categories and instead looks at subjective ones derived from a pool of “diverse” individuals: determinantal point process (DPP). Put simply, it’s a probabilistic model of repulsion that clusters together data a person feels represents them in embedding spaces — the spaces containing representations of words, images, and other inputs from which AI models learn to make predictions.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! In a paper published in 2018, researchers at Hulu and video sharing startup Kuaishou used DPP to create a recommendation algorithm enabling users to discover videos with a better relevance-diversity trade-off than previous work. Similarly, Google researchers tested a YouTube recommender system that statistically modeled diversity based on DPPs and led to a “substantial” increase in user satisfaction.
The State of AI Ethics authors acknowledge that DPP leaves open the question of sourcing ratings from people about what represents them well and encoding these in a way that’s amenable to “teaching” an algorithmic model. Nonetheless, they argue DPP provides an interesting research direction that might lead to more representation and inclusion in AI systems across domains.
“Humans have a history of making product design decisions that are not in line with the needs of everyone,” the authors write. “Products and services shouldn’t be designed such that they perform poorly for people due to aspects of themselves that they can’t change … Biases can enter at any stage of the [machine learning] development pipeline and solutions need to address them at different stages to get the desired results. Additionally, the teams working on these solutions need to come from a diversity of backgrounds including [user interface] design, [machine learning], public policy, social sciences, and more.” The report examines Google’s Quick Draw — an AI system that attempts to guess users’ doodles of items — as a case study. The goal of Quick Draw, which launched in November 2016, was to collect data from groups of users by gamifying it and making it freely available online. But over time, the system became exclusionary toward objects like women’s apparel because the majority of people drew unisex accessories.
“Users don’t use systems exactly in the way we intend them to, so [engineers should] reflect on who [they’re] able to reach and not reach with [their] system and how [they] can check for blind spots, ensure that there is some monitoring for how data changes, over time and use these insights to build automated tests for fairness in data,” the report’s authors write. “From a design perspective, [they should] think about fairness in a more holistic sense and build communication lines between the user and the product.” The authors also recommend ways to rectify the private sector’s ethical “race to the bottom” in pursuit of profit. Market incentives harm morality, they assert, and recent developments bear that out. While companies like IBM , Amazon , and Microsoft have promised not to sell their facial recognition technology to law enforcement in varying degrees, drone manufacturers including DJI and Parrot don’t bar police from purchasing their products for surveillance purposes. And it took a lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development before Facebook stopped allowing advertisers to target ads by race, gender, and religion.
“Whenever there is a discrepancy between ethical and economic incentives, we have the opportunity to steer progress in the right direction,” the authors write. “Often the impacts are unknown prior to the deployment of the technology at which point we need to have a multi-stakeholder process that allows us to combat harms in a dynamic manner. Political and regulatory entities typically lag technological innovation and can’t be relied upon solely to take on this mantle.” The State of AI Ethics makes the powerful, if obvious, assertion that progress doesn’t happen on its own. It’s driven by conscious human choices influenced by surrounding social and economic institutions — institutions for which we’re responsible. It’s imperative, then, that both the users and designers of AI systems play an active role in shaping those systems’ most consequential pieces.
“Given the pervasiveness of AI and by virtue of it being a general-purpose technology, the entrepreneurs and others powering innovation need to take into account that their work is going to shape larger societal changes,” the authors write. “Pure market-driven innovation will ignore societal benefits in the interest of generating economic value … Economic market forces shape society significantly, whether we like it or not.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Lyft resumes autonomous vehicle testing on public roads | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/lyft-resumes-autonomous-vehicle-testing-on-public-roads"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Lyft resumes autonomous vehicle testing on public roads Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Roughly three months after the pandemic halted its autonomous vehicle tests, Lyft today announced its safety operators will resume driving a portion of its cars on public roads. An employee-only autonomous ride-hailing pilot in Palo Alto remains on pause. But in a blog post, Lyft director of product Sameer Qureshi and director of engineering Robert Morgan characterized road testing as a “critical” part of Lyft’s driverless systems development.
In March, Lyft’s safety drivers — along with engineers and developers — were told to stay home until further notice as shelter-in-place orders made public road testing impossible. In the interim, the company has leaned on simulation to further refine its platform. Autonomous vehicle developers agree that simulation supplements but can’t replace real-world experience.
A spokesperson said Lyft would continue to abide by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and work with local governments in deciding whether to pause testing in the future. This week, governors in Washington, California, Florida, and Texas walked back some of their reopening plans as COVID-19 cases rose in more than 30 states across the U.S.
Currently, Lyft safety drivers are using personal protective equipment (including face shields) and taking precautionary steps inside the driverless vehicles. Two drivers will be paired together for two weeks at a time and subject to temperature checks, and separated by partitions installed inside the regularly sanitized cars.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! While simulation may be insufficient on its own, Jonny Dyer, director of engineering at Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving division, told VentureBeat in an earlier interview that the company chose to “double down” on digital by leveraging data from the roughly 100,000 miles its real-world autonomous cars have driven and calibrating its simulation environment ahead of validation. Specifically, Lyft refined the techniques it used in simulation to direct agents (such as virtual pedestrians) to react realistically to vehicles, and it built out tools like a benchmarking framework that enables engineers to compare and improve the performance of behavior detectors.
Lyft didn’t focus on challenges like simulating camera, lidar, and radar sensor data, looking instead at traditional physics-based mechanisms, as well as methods that help identify the right sets of parameters to simulate. In addition, it reworked its validation strategy to more heavily address things like structural and dynamic simulation.
“Training inputs like weather and pedestrian behavior are limited to what’s happening in the world at each moment, and it can be unpredictable when you encounter a rare obstacle a second time. If reliant upon on road miles, it may take some number of billions of miles to test everything,” Qureshi and Morgan wrote. “Therefore, we supplement our on-road testing with simulation, which gives us a cost-effective way to create additional control, repeatability, and safety. It also allows us to test our work without vehicles, without leaving our desks, and for the last few months, without leaving our homes.” Lyft’s resumption of on-the-road testing comes after the company revealed it would begin tapping data from its ride-hailing network to improve the performance of its autonomous systems. A subset of drivers’ cars — currently Select Express Drive vehicles, as well as Lyft’s autonomous vehicles in Palo Alto and select cars that follow the vehicles for safety purposes — are now equipped with inexpensive camera sensors. This enables them to capture challenging scenarios while helping solve problems like generating 3D maps and improving simulation tests.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
Discover our Briefings.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Hunters.ai raises $15 million to automate cyberthreat detection | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/hunters-ai-raises-15-million-to-automate-cyberthreat-detection"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Hunters.ai raises $15 million to automate cyberthreat detection Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Autonomous threat detection company Hunters.ai today announced a $15 million round that will help scale its autonomous threat-hunting solution to defend enterprises from malicious attackers and missed intruders. Specifically, the Tel Aviv- and Lexington-based company plans to use the funds to deepen its machine learning R&D and expand its headcount internationally.
Incident detection time is a major contributor to the cost of data breaches. A study by the Ponemon Institute found companies take 197 days to identify a breach and 69 days to contain it, on average. It’s also an expensive process — threat intelligence often involves a subscription to multiple data feeds , and fees vary from about $1,500 to $10,000, depending on the number of feeds.
With its extended automated mitigation and response framework, Hunters aims to cut down on threat detection time and expenditures by picking up on weak signals hiding in the network noise. Its platform allows customers to leverage existing security solutions and data sources to detect more threats, connecting a range of databases and integrating telemetry across siloed and sparse IT stacks. Hunters applies its tactics, techniques, and procedures to surface potential attack signals, mapping them to the MITRE ATT&CK framework (a knowledge base of adversary tactics and techniques) and automatically analyzing, enriching, and correlating volumes of data.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Hunters’ solution can ostensibly surface potential threats in cloud, network, and endpoint environments, synthesizing terabytes of data in total. Informed by its AI correlation graph, Hunters provides attack detection alerts with business summaries and hunting quest insights such as timelines, paths, targets, and contexts.
Hunters says this approach has already won over customers. Eighteen months after its founding, the company has secured contracts with Snowflake and TripActions via direct sales and through partner channels like the CrowdStrike Store and Snowflake Partner Connect.
Hunters’ series A was led by Microsoft’s venture fund M12 and Silicon Valley and U.S. Venture Partners, with participation from seed investors YL Ventures, Blumberg Capital, and Okta Ventures. The new investment brings the company’s total funding to $20.4 million, following a $5.4 million seed round in May 2019.
Hunters has plenty of competitors in the cyberthreat detection and remediation space.
Ironscales employs AI and machine learning to defeat organization-wide phishing attacks in real time, and France- and Boston-based Vade recently raised $79 million to further develop its filtering stack that protects against compromise, malware, and spam. There’s also Tessian , which uses machine learning for securing enterprise mail, and Valimail , which nabbed $45 million last year to thwart email phishing attacks.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"How COVID-19 is accelerating IoT and the need for distributed data storage | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/how-covid-19-is-accelerating-iot-and-the-need-for-distributed-data-storage"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Sponsored How COVID-19 is accelerating IoT and the need for distributed data storage Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Presented by Western Digital In the midst of the pandemic, IoT is no longer a nice-to-have but a need-to-have. Many people and businesses are relying on IoT products such as remote connected health monitoring solutions, packaging and shipping trackers, and streaming devices — the devices that are enabling remote work, telehealth, and telelearning. It also means the amount of data being transmitted, received, stored, and analyzed at the edge, or on devices, is exploding.
“For many people, before COVID-19, IoT was a nebulous thing, devices talking to devices,” says Huibert Verhoeven, senior vice president and general manager of Automotive, Mobile and Emerging Markets, Western Digital. “Now these IoT devices have become a big part of the new reality. They’re making it possible to limit dense gatherings of workers to avoid virus transmission, for example. And interwoven in the rise of IoT is an even stronger demand for processing and storage.” The need for latency-free data transmission As we continue to see where the pandemic leads us, home internet service providers have realized how critical data is and have had to plan for increased at-home use of systems — in some cases, suspending the caps on their customers’ home internet plans.
It’s particularly a problem when crucial business video conferencing requires low latency immersive HD video. The pipes simply aren’t large enough to do that with acceptable performance. At the same time, very little of that data you send and receive is worth storing, and most of it only has value for a small period of time. Of course, some of that data is actually tremendously valuable, but might require added AI software to extract it — and of course that’s immensely compute intensive.a Companies need a strategy for data management. In some cases, data is used and analyzed immediately, and in other cases it is used later, or simply retained (think of regulations on record retention), and in other cases, it is stored locally, as system architects realize that some data needs to remain close to where it was captured.
The aim for companies working with a vast array of IoT devices is to place specific storage solutions where they are most needed to ensure that data is handled appropriately across its entire journey, and that the user experience in examples like HD videoconferencing maintains a high quality of service.
Privacy concerns also mean that some end users or companies might prefer that their data stay local, that is, to be analyzed and processed on the device rather than in the cloud. This scenario tends to favor placing storage on-premises in common edge applications like smart video in cameras using embedded, or even removable storage card solutions.
However today, data is not just stored at the edge, and there is the challenge of managing the distributed nature of data.
Data demands placed on distributed hubs Data today is much more distributed. Data could be located in edge data centers, or in any of a number of smaller distribution sites. It’s also locally stored on devices and can be locally analyzed on devices too.
Consider the data demands of distribution and fulfillment: they’ve been massively disrupted because of the impact the pandemic has had on shipping conditions and distribution centers. Before COVID-19, typical requests would go to a central point where they would be disseminated to the biggest hub closest to the consumer with most of the supplies in stock. The result: the two-day delivery that disrupted the industry so long ago.
But even that has gotten significantly more complex with the enormous surge in demand for shelter-in-place supplies, groceries, electronics, and so on. Massive distribution is a challenge, because of the sheer volume of requests and new precautions for high population and dense worker environments.
Many companies are now looking at how to set up smaller locations closer to the customer, which creates a supply chain issue, Verhoeven says. You would no longer have larger data centers with central data resources. Yet, all that information has tremendous value from an efficiency perspective, a market perspective, a routing perspective, and more. All that information, all of a sudden, is even more important.
“Companies are starting to realize that data is of vital importance to their survival and to growing their business,” he says. “The analytics on that data is so important that many midsize companies are now taking it in-house and deploying on-edge data centers, as opposed to outsourcing or hosting with clouds or other data centers.” That means the need for more edge data centers for all of these customers is growing, and becoming essential. For medium- to large-size companies, deploying many more of those edge data centers means they need their own specific storage. For latency reasons, for speed reasons, it’s a fundamentally different architecture, because they’re trying to solve slightly different problems.
The move toward AR/VR and meeting virtually gets real Another advance that COVID-19 has brought to bear is the use of virtual meetings. For companies developing new technologies or running a global business, the required expertise won’t always be in the same location of a problem that needs to be fixed.
“Before COVID, I would have support engineers fly between distant continents on two hours’ notice to make sure we can help a customer at some stage in product development,” says Verhoeven. “With AR and VR, will we see these engineers in the same lab, looking at the same thing, on a common whiteboard while working in augmented reality?” The AR/VR space too, could get a tremendous boost from what we are going through, Verhoeven asserts, enabling this kind of immersive long-distance collaboration, taking AR/VR far beyond the gaming world where it’s mostly been confined up until now. This new virtual work environment is another example of how certain workflows can actually improve or become more efficient, if the right technology is in place.
Verhoeven says, “Today, the importance of storage is undeniable as it plays a role in all these data scenarios, at home and in business settings. It must be considered as part of one’s business strategy. Not only does storage support human and machine-to-machine communications, but when combined with AI, storage enables companies to access data quickly to gain insights. Access to such data will be important as new post-pandemic business models develop.” Bolstering connectivity and the data infrastructure There’s a big reason to look at the role of data infrastructure to ensure that mission-critical data can be transmitted, received, stored, and analyzed where it’s needed and when. Most important is a boost in connectivity — fiber to the curb that takes internet speeds to a gig and beyond.
That kind of internet connectivity and speed is becoming increasingly available across the U.S., and availability has begun to accelerate as demand continues to increase. Then there’s 5G.
For several years, 5G has been getting a lot of hype because users want the ability to connect anywhere, and share large data files and videos, and 5G seemed set to deliver. But while 5G phones have been introduced globally, networks have lagged, and few consumers have access to 5G.
“I think we have found in this situation a catalyst that will accelerate the demand for 5G ,” says Verhoeven. “The newly dispersed workforce still requires quality virtual connections, and this will continue to drive demand for high-speed, low-latency connectivity everywhere, even on the go.” The pandemic has shed a light on ways that 5G, were it fully deployed globally, could help home-based workers and or workers still onsite who are focused on mission-critical manufacturing and other work. More efficient and responsive storage in 5G smartphones is an area Verhoeven’s team focuses on.
5G is a key driving force in helping IoT move forward enabling more reliable autonomous manufacturing processes via new standards for ultra-low latency in factories. The processing power required for 5G is tremendous, and along with that comes the requirements for data storage.
In IoT, the processing and storage requirements needed for factory endpoints such as robots and cameras are growing. In autonomous driving, many latency- and privacy-sensitive processes running in the car will require careful architectural storage design across many subsystems.
Storage technologies provide many options today. Companies can host their data in the cloud, or control their own destiny by implementing scalable storage solutions and infrastructure for their business, on-premises, at the edge, or at the endpoints.
High-capacity hard drives enable the cloud, fast NVMe™ SSDs propel data in the data center for AI, and embedded flash storage at the endpoints enables on-device data analysis.
“All these examples of increased human and machine communications during a pandemic are centered around data that has to be created, stored, and shared to bring results and insights,” explains Verhoeven. “Whichever storyline — WFH, smart devices, telemedicine, supply chain — whichever thread you start pulling, it all leads to more data, going to more places and growing in its potential value.” Sponsored articles are content produced by a company that is either paying for the post or has a business relationship with VentureBeat, and they’re always clearly marked. Content produced by our editorial team is never influenced by advertisers or sponsors in any way. For more information, contact [email protected].
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Hi Marley raises $8 million for its AI messaging platform that connects insurers with customers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/hi-marley-raises-8-million-for-its-ai-messaging-platform-that-connects-insurers-with-customers"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Hi Marley raises $8 million for its AI messaging platform that connects insurers with customers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
Learn more.
Hi Marley , a startup developing an AI messaging platform for insurers, today announced it has raised $8 million. The company says it will put the funds toward hiring, including expanding its engineering and customer-facing teams, as it continues to build out APIs and partnerships.
Studies show customers prefer text messaging to alternatives like emailing and calling. According to a ZipWhip survey, 77% of clients have a more positive impression of companies that text. And with a 98% open rate, texts are far more likely to be seen than emails, which have a roughly 20% open rate.
In a single conversation happening in real time, Hi Marley streamlines communication around claims, underwriting, and service interactions while connecting all the providers who typically touch an insurance experience. Providers get a web app where everything can be monitored, tracked, and optimized to meet organizational demands, with features that enable claims reporting via text. Hi Marley says its platform results in a 22% faster claim rate and around four fewer calls per claim for insurers like American Family and Plymouth Rock.
Hi Marley’s AutoTranslate feature supports over 25 languages, and its AI-enablement handles routine questions and conversations from customers to free up representatives. Behind the scenes, the company’s APIs integrate with core systems like servers, software, and applications to provide performance insights and analytics.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! On the internal communications side, a group feature lets companies create teams, incorporate user-specific roles, and facilitate communication between members. A “side chat” feature lets operators chat privately with field adjusters, support providers, and other representatives to obtain status updates, information, and reports. Operators can also get time- and user-stamped transcripts that include media and digital copies involved in the conversation.
Hi Marley can also routinely survey customers for feedback and send proactive notifications for things like weather alerts and reminders. The company says its carrier customers have leveraged the platform to support announcements notifying people of premium relief credits and billing options during the pandemic.
True Ventures and Underscore VC led this latest round, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures and Greenspring Associates. The round brings Hi Marley’s total raised to $18.6 million.
Hi Marley is in a cash-flush market. According to Markets and Markets , the chatbot market is expected to grow from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $9.4 billion in 2024.
Mindsay , which provides a software-as-a-service (SaaS) suite of conversational chatbots to meet the requirements of large hospitality, ecommerce, and transportation companies, recently raised $10 million. Not to be outdone, in May 2018 enterprise chatbot platform Avaamo raised a $14.2 million round led by Intel Capital.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Google's G Suite finalizes Connected Sheets and introduces AI-driven data cleanup tools | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/googles-g-suite-finalizes-connected-sheets-and-introduces-ai-driven-data-cleanup-tools"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google’s G Suite finalizes Connected Sheets and introduces AI-driven data cleanup tools Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Last April during its Cloud Next conference, Google unveiled Connected Sheets , a type of Google Sheets spreadsheet that works with the full data set from BigQuery, up to 10 billion rows. After just over a year in preview and beta, Connected Sheets is generally available as of today. And in the coming months, it will be joined by new capabilities — Smart Fill and Smart Cleanup — that leverage AI to learn patterns between columns to autocomplete data and surface suggestions in Sheets’ side panel.
Connected Sheets, along with Smart Fill and Smart Cleanup, are intended to make it easier for G Suite customers to take informed actions and produce better results.
According to Gartner, 87% of organizations have low business intelligence and analytics maturity, meaning they’re largely relying on spreadsheet-based management systems while lacking data guidance and support.
“At Google Cloud, we believe everyone — not just those who specialize in writing complex queries — should be able to harness the power of data,” G Suite product manager Ryan Weber wrote in a blog post. “We continue to build Google AI natively into Sheets, so it’s easy for everyone — not just specialized analysts — to quickly make data-backed decisions.” Connected Sheets enables users to analyze petabytes of data in Sheets without having to use programming languages like structured query language (SQL). Analyses in Connected Sheets can be performed with tools like formulas, pivot tables, and charts, and can be visualized as dashboards and shared with anyone within an organization.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Smart Fill tackles a different problem. Given a column of full names, for example, it automatically detects the pattern, generates the corresponding formula, and autocompletes the rest of the column. Weber compares it to Smart Compose , a Gmail tool that taps AI to autofill emails with fewer mistakes. Smart Fill relies on common patterns of data mappings (e.g., combining one column with another to derive an output column) and analyzes data within a user’s spreadsheet to evaluate whether formulas, data from the user’s G Suite people directory, or knowledge available through Google’s Knowledge Graph will assist in data entry.
Smart Cleanup meanwhile surfaces algorithmic suggestions in Sheets tailored to imported data. Specifically, it helps identify and fix duplicate rows and number-formatting issues, showing column stats that provide a snapshot of data, including the distribution of values and the most frequent value in a column. Smart Cleanup similarly evaluates whether common data cleanup actions (like removing duplicates post-import) are relevant for a given sheet, and it surfaces the most appropriate suggestions to aid a user in swiftly cleaning up data prior to analysis.
A Google spokesperson told VentureBeat that AI models developed in Google’s TensorFlow framework are deployed when appropriate to make Smart Fill and Smart Cleanup suggestions more relevant and helpful. “As these features become available, users can expect Smart Fill to continue becoming more intelligent in learning patterns to autocomplete data,” the spokesperson said, “and Smart Cleanup to make data cleanup faster and more accurate for a broader and more diverse set of data cleanup operations and data sources in Sheets.” “Before making critical decisions, it’s important to ensure your data is consistent and error-free,” Weber wrote. “[These features] make data entry quicker and less error-prone.” Connected Sheets is available starting today for G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Enterprise for Education, and G Suite Enterprise Essentials customers. Smart Fill and Smart Cleanup will arrive on G Suite later this year.
The new Sheets capabilities come as Google looks to inject G Suite with more AI-powered functionality. Recently, the company added a feature that lets users ask natural language questions about data in spreadsheets, like “Which person has the top score?” and “What’s the sum of price by salesperson?” Google Meet earlier this year gained adaptive noise cancellation.
Two years ago, Google rolled out Quick Access, a machine learning-powered tool that suggests files relevant to documents users are editing, to Sheets, Docs, and Slides. And more recently, Google brought assistive features like grammar suggestions and spelling autocorrect to Google Docs in Spanish (previously, they were only available in English).
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"Facebook's MARGE AI summarizes and translates documents without fine-tuning | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/facebooks-marge-ai-summarizes-and-translates-documents-without-fine-tuning"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Facebook’s MARGE AI summarizes and translates documents without fine-tuning Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
In a paper published on the preprint server Arxiv.org, Facebook researchers describe Multilingual Autoencoder that Retrieves and Generates (MARGE). It’s a language model that generates words, sentences, and paragraphs by retrieving related words, sentences, and paragraphs in different languages and identifying patterns within them.
The researchers claim MARGE learns to paraphrase, translate, and summarize text without any fine-tuning, a potential step toward systems that can perform any text task from pretraining alone.
In machine learning, pretraining involves training an AI model on a vast amount of data before it’s fine-tuned on a narrow data set tailored to particular tasks, like summarization. Masked models — which pretrain by removing and then reconstructing parts of an input text — are widely used in the language domain. But by design, they have to memorize a vast amount of encyclopedic knowledge to achieve strong performance.
Above: A demonstration of MARGE’s translation skills.
MARGE, by contrast, emphasizes paraphrasing while reducing the required amount of knowledge. During pretraining, it ingests batches of “evidence” documents and target documents, and it learns to accurately summarize and translate specific snippets of text (conditioned on the evidence documents) as it susses out the relevance of evidence to each target.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! MARGE first computes a relevance score between every pair of documents, which encourages it to attend more to relevant evidence documents. It then computes the likelihood of reconstructing each target using a modified seq2seq model, a general-purpose encoder-decoder model for language processing. Lastly, MARGE constructs batches so that evidence documents are relevant to the targets, using the relevance model for retrieval.
During experiments, the researchers created a Transformer model with 960 million parameters dubbed MARGE-NEWS, which comprised 2,048 “workers” that processed sub-batches of four documents (two evidence and two targets) each for 550,000 steps. They further pretrained it for 100,000 steps on Wikipedia data and rebuilt the index every 10,000 steps, so that MARGE-NEWS took on average four monolingual and four cross-lingual links per target document. (The documents spanned 26 different languages in total.) The researchers report that on the task of cross-lingual sentence retrieval, MARGE outperformed all other unsupervised models (i.e., models that look for patterns in unlabeled data sets) according to one benchmark (BUCC), and performed comparably to Facebook’s leading XLM-R model against another benchmark (Tatoeba). And on BLEU, a metric that measures language translation quality, MARGE achieved 3.58 for German to English — among the highest scores for a system without fine-tuning.
MARGE also edged out state-of-the-art models when tasked with determining whether two sentences are paraphrases and answering questions about documents in Chinese. It struggled in some cases to generate non-English languages, particularly those with non-Latin alphabets, but the researchers report that English-to-French worked well.
“MARGE exhibits strong performance on a range of discriminative and generative tasks in many languages, both with and without fine-tuning … We show that fine-tuning gives strong performance on a range of discriminative and generative tasks in many languages, making MARGE the most generally applicable pre-training method to date,” the coauthors wrote. “Future work should scale MARGE to more domains and languages, and study how to more closely align pre-training objectives with different end tasks.” It should be noted that the researchers don’t appear to have tested MARGE on data sets designed to uncover gender, racial, ethnic, and other biases, like StereoSet.
This is somewhat concerning considering Facebook’s poor ethical track record as of late. A spokesperson recently told VentureBeat the company doesn’t tally diversity statistics by teams like Facebook AI Research, the group that produced this work. And in a recent Twitter exchange, Facebook chief AI scientist Yann LeCun suggested data alone leads to prejudicial AI systems , a position with which scholars like Google ethical AI co-lead Timnit Gebru took issue.
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"AWS, Google, and Mozilla back national AI research cloud bill in Congress | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/aws-google-and-mozilla-back-national-ai-research-cloud-bill-in-congress"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages AWS, Google, and Mozilla back national AI research cloud bill in Congress Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Stanford HAI codirector Dr. Fei-Fei Li and Hoover Institution director and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice talking about AI Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
A group of more than 20 organizations , including tech giants like AWS, Google, IBM, and Nvidia, joined schools like Stanford University and Ohio State University today in backing the idea of a national AI research cloud. Nonprofit groups like Mozilla and the Allen Institute for AI also support the idea. The cloud would help researchers across the United States gain access to compute power and data sets freely available to companies like Google, but not researchers in academia. Compute resources available to academics could grow even more scarce in the near future as COVID-19 fallout constricts university budgets.
The National AI Research Resource Task Force Act was first introduced earlier this month by the founding cochairs of the Senate AI Caucus, U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM), together with a bipartisan group in the House of Representatives. If passed, the bill will bring together experts from government, industry, and academia to devise a plan for the creation of a national AI research cloud.
The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) chair and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt also supports the plan. In reports written by tech executives and delivered to Congress in the past year, the NSCAI has recommended more cooperation between academia, industry , and government as part of a broader strategy to keep the United States’ edge in tech compared to other nations.
The idea of a national AI research cloud was first proposed last year by Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) codirectors Dr. Fei-Fei Li and John Etchemendy, who said its creation was essential to U.S. competitiveness and the nation’s status as a leader in AI. In a March blog post , Li and Etchemendy called the creation of such a cloud potentially “one of the most strategic research investments the federal government has ever made.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Leaders at Stanford joined more than 20 other universities in sending a joint letter to President Trump and Congress last year backing a national AI research cloud. Previous bills also recommended the creation of AI centers and a national AI coordination office as part of a comprehensive U.S. AI strategy.
Increased data sharing and ideas like a national center of excellence also came up last year when the Computing Community Consortium laid out its 20-year AI research road map.
Li talked about AI, China, health care, and other topics today in a conversation with former Secretary of State and soon-to-be Hoover Institution director Condoleezza Rice.
After stating that a U.S. lead in tech is important to national security, Rice asked Li about how the U.S. can lead in AI if China has more data and fewer privacy concerns. In response, Li said AI applications like speech or facial recognition may be data heavy, but other forms of AI that require less data may supply fruitful ground for U.S. progress.
“Data is a first-class citizen of today’s AI research. We should admit that, but it’s not the only thing that defines AI,” Li said. “Rare disease understanding, genetic study of rare disease, drug discovery, treatment management — they are by definition not necessarily data heavy, and AI can play a huge role. Human-centered design, I think about elder care and that kind of nuanced technological help. That’s not necessarily data heavy as well, so I think we need to be very thoughtful about how to use data.” The future of work, ethics, and AI bias were also major topics of discussion. Li urged the development of AI that brings together interdisciplinary teams, gathers insights from people impacted by AI, and is made by more than computer science school graduates.
“America’s strength is our people, and the more people who participate in this technology, to guide and develop it, the stronger we are,” she said.
Li also stressed the need to stay ahead of the ethical implications of AI and suggested computer scientists throw away the notion of independent machine values, asserting that “Machine values are human values.” In a separate policy proposal made by Stanford HAI last year, Li and Etchemendy urged the federal government to grow its national AI investments to $12 billion a year for the next decade.
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"Amazon launches AI-powered code review service CodeGuru in general availability | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/amazon-launches-ai-powered-code-review-service-codeguru-in-general-availability"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon launches AI-powered code review service CodeGuru in general availability Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Amazon today announced the general availability of CodeGuru , an AI-powered developer tool that provides recommendations for improving code quality. It was first revealed during the company’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent 2019 conference in Las Vegas, and starting today, it’s available with usage-based pricing.
Software teams perform code reviews to check the logic, syntax, and style before new code is added to an existing application codebase — it’s an industry-standard practice. But it’s often challenging finding enough developers to perform reviews and monitor the apps post-deployment. Plus, there’s no guarantee those developers won’t miss problems, resulting in bugs and performance issues.
CodeGuru ostensibly solves this with a component that integrates with existing integrated development environments (IDEs) and taps AI algorithms trained on over 10,000 of the most popular open source projects to evaluate code as it’s being written. Where there’s an issue, CodeGuru proffers a human-readable comment that explains what the issue is and suggests potential remediations. The tool also finds the most inefficient and unproductive lines of code by creating a profile that takes into account things like latency and processor utilization.
It’s a two-part system. CodeGuru Reviewer — which uses a combination of rule mining and supervised machine learning models — detects deviation from best practices for using AWS APIs and SDKs, flagging common issues that can lead to production issues such as detection of missing pagination, error handling with batch operations, and the use of classes that are not thread-safe. Developers commit their code as usual to the repository of their choice (e.g. GitHub, GitHub Enterprise, Bitbucket Cloud, and AWS CodeCommit) and add Reviewer as one of the code reviewers. Reviewer then analyzes existing code bases in the repository, identifies bugs and issues, and creates a baseline for successive code reviews by opening a pull request. The service also provides a dashboard that lists information for all code reviews, which reflects feedback solicited from developers.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! CodeGuru Profiler delivers specific recommendations on issues like extravagant recreation of objects, expensive deserialization, usage of inefficient libraries, and excessive logging. Users install an agent in their app that observes the app run time and profiles the app to detect code quality issues (along with details on latency and CPU usage). Profiler then uses machine learning to automatically identify code and anomalous behaviors that are most impacting latency and CPU usage. The information is brought together in a profile that shows the areas of code that are most inefficient. This profile includes recommendations on how developers can fix issues to improve performance and also estimates the cost of continuing to run inefficient code.
Amazon says that CodeGuru — which encodes AWS’ best practices — has been used internally to optimize 80,000 applications, leading to tens of millions of dollars in savings. In fact, Amazon claims that some teams were able to reduce processor utilization by 325% and lower costs by 39% in just a year.
CodeGuru is available now in US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), EU (Ireland), EU (London), EU (Frankfurt), EU (Stockholm), Asia Pacific (Singapore), Asia Pacific (Sydney), and Asia Pacific (Tokyo) with availability expanding to additional regions in the coming months. Early adopters include Atlassian, cloud tech consultancy EagleDream Technologies, enterprise software developer DevFactory, condominium review website operator Renga, and scheduling program startup YouCanBook.me.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"ACM calls for governments and businesses to stop using facial recognition | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/acm-calls-for-governments-and-businesses-to-stop-using-facial-recognition"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages ACM calls for governments and businesses to stop using facial recognition Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
An Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) tech policy group today urged lawmakers to immediately suspend use of facial recognition by businesses and governments, citing documented ethnic, racial, and gender bias. In a letter (PDF) released today by the U.S. Technology Policy Committee (USTPC), the group acknowledges the tech is expected to improve in the future but is not yet “sufficiently mature” and is therefore a threat to people’s human and legal rights.
“The consequences of such bias, USTPC notes, frequently can and do extend well beyond inconvenience to profound injury, particularly to the lives, livelihoods, and fundamental rights of individuals in specific demographic groups, including some of the most vulnerable populations in our society,” the letter reads.
Organizations studying use of the technology, like the Perpetual Lineup Project from Georgetown University , conclude that broad deployment of the tech will negatively impact the lives of Black people in the United States. Privacy and racial justice advocacy groups like the ACLU and the Algorithmic Justice League have supported halts to the use of the facial recognition in the past, but with nearly 100,000 members around the world, ACM is one of the biggest computer science organizations in the world. ACM also hosts large AI annual conferences like Siggraph and the International Conference on Supercomputing (ICS).
The letter also prescribes principles for facial recognition regulation surrounding issues like accuracy, transparency, risk management, and accountability. Recommended principles include: VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Disaggregate system error rates based on race, gender, sex, and other appropriate demographics Facial recognition systems must undergo third-party audits and “robust government oversight” People must be notified when facial recognition is in use, and appropriate use cases must be defined before deployment Organizations using facial recognition should be held accountable if or when a facial recognition system causes a person harm The letter does not call for a permanent ban on facial recognition, but a temporary moratorium until accuracy standards for race and gender performance, as well as laws and regulations, can be put in place. Tests of major facial recognition systems in 2018 and 2019 by the Gender Shades project and then the Department of Commerce’s NIST found facial recognition systems exhibited race and gender bias, as well as poor performance on people who do not conform to a single gender identity.
The committee’s statement comes at the end of what’s been a historic month for facial recognition software. Last week, members of Congress from the Senate and House of Representatives introduced legislation that would prohibit federal employees from using facial recognition and cut funding for state and local governments who chose to continue using the technology. Lawmakers on a city, state, and national level considering regulation of facial recognition frequently cite bias as a major motivator to pass legislation against its use. And Amazon , IBM , and Microsoft halted or ended sale of facial recognition for police shortly after the height of Black Lives Matter protests that spread to more than 2,000 cities across the U.S.
Citing race and gender bias and misidentification, Boston became one of the biggest cities in the U.S. to impose a facial recognition ban. That same day, people learned the story of Detroit resident Robert Williams, who is thought to be the first person falsely arrested and charged with a crime because of faulty facial recognition. Detroit police chief James Craig said Monday that facial recognition software that Detroit uses is inaccurate 96% of the time.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"NASA resumes human spaceflight from U.S. soil with SpaceX launch | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/transportation/nasa-resumes-human-spaceflight-from-u-s-soil-with-spacex-launch"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages NASA resumes human spaceflight from U.S. soil with SpaceX launch Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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( Reuters ) — SpaceX, the private rocket company of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, launched two Americans into orbit from Florida on Saturday in a landmark mission marking the first spaceflight of NASA astronauts from U.S. soil in nine years. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 3:22 p.m. EDT (19:22 GMT), launching Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on a 19-hour ride aboard the company’s newly designed Crew Dragon capsule bound for the International Space Station.
Just before liftoff, Hurley said, “SpaceX, we’re go for launch. Let’s light this candle,” paraphrasing the famous comment uttered on the launchpad in 1961 by Alan Shepard, the first American flown into space. Minutes after launch, the first-stage booster rocket of the Falcon 9 separated from the upper second-stage rocket and flew itself back to Earth to descend safely onto a landing platform floating in the Atlantic. High above the Earth, the Crew Dragon jettisoned moments later from the second-stage rocket, sending the capsule on its way to the space station.
The exhilarating spectacle of the rocket soaring flawlessly into the heavens came as a welcome triumph for a nation gripped by racially charged civil unrest, as well as ongoing fear and economic upheaval from the coronavirus pandemic. The Falcon 9 took off from the same launchpad used by NASA’s final space shuttle flight, piloted by Hurley, in 2011. Since then, NASA astronauts have had to hitch rides into orbit aboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft. “It’s incredible, the power, the technology,” said U.S. President Donald Trump, who was at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida for the launch. “That was a beautiful sight to see.” The mission’s first launch attempt on Wednesday was called off with less than 17 minutes remaining on the countdown clock. Weather again threatened Saturday’s launch, but cleared in time to proceed with the mission.
Spaceflight milestones NASA chief Jim Bridenstine has said resuming launches of American astronauts on American-made rockets from U.S. soil is the space agency’s top priority. “I’m breathing a sigh of relief, but I will also tell you I’m not gonna celebrate until Bob and Doug are home safely,” Bridenstine said.
For Musk, the launch represents another milestone for the reusable rockets his company pioneered to make spaceflight less costly and more frequent. And it marks the first time commercially developed space vehicles — owned and operated by a private entity rather than NASA — have carried Americans into orbit. The last time NASA launched astronauts into space aboard a brand new vehicle was 40 years ago at the start of the space shuttle program.
Musk, the South African-born high-tech entrepreneur who made his fortune in Silicon Valley, is also CEO of electric carmaker and battery manufacturer Tesla. He founded Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, in 2002.
Hurley, 53, and Behnken, 49, both NASA employees under contract to fly with SpaceX, are expected to remain at the space station for several weeks, assisting a short-handed crew aboard the orbital laboratory. Boeing, producing its own launch system in competition with SpaceX, is expected to fly its CST-100 Starliner vehicle with astronauts aboard for the first time next year. NASA has awarded nearly $8 billion combined to SpaceX and Boeing for development of their rival rockets.
Trump also hailed the launch as a major advance toward the goal of eventually sending humans to Mars. He was joined at the viewing by Musk, as well as Vice President Mike Pence, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Florida congressperson Matt Gaetz and Senator Rick Scott.
Earlier on Saturday, the crew bid goodbye to their families. Prior to climbing into a specially designed Tesla automobile for the ride to the launch site, Behnken told his young son, “Be good for mom. Make her life easy.” During the drive, Behnken and Hurley passed former astronaut Garrett Reisman, who held a sign saying, “Take me with you.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Twitter hides Trump's Minneapolis tweet and labels it for 'glorifying violence' | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/twitter-hides-trumps-minneapolis-tweet-and-labels-it-for-glorifying-violence"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Twitter hides Trump’s Minneapolis tweet and labels it for ‘glorifying violence’ Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Twitter has placed a warning label over a tweet President Trump posted in response to Minneapolis riots following the killing of George Floyd. In the tweet, which was cited as “glorifying violence,” Trump seemed to call for violent retaliation against protestors if looting continued.
The decision is Twitter’s second riposte against Trump this week, as the social media platform previously placed a fact-checking label on a tweet about mail-in ballots. Trump responded to the earlier move by signing an executive order calling for a review of legal protections for speech on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
Twitter’s latest measure goes one step further by hiding the original tweet under a warning label. Users can click the label to see the tweet, but they cannot like it or retweet it.
“We’ve taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts, but have kept the tweet on Twitter because it is important that the public still be able to see the tweet, given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance,” reads a tweet from Twitter’s public relations team.
The killing of George Floyd, an African-American man, by Minneapolis police has sparked widespread protests in the city. Protests escalated in places to include people storming stores and seizing items. Some businesses have also been burned, and protestors took control of a police precinct and set it on fire.
While city leaders have called for calm and a return to peaceful protest, Trump took a more incendiary tone by threatening to send in the National Guard. Then he called the protestors “thugs” and wrote: “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” ….These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020 Many people noted that the phrase seemed to reference a former Miami police chief who used strong-arm tactics against minority protestors in the 60s. The language proved to be enough for Twitter to take action.
This Tweet violates our policies regarding the glorification of violence based on the historical context of the last line, its connection to violence, and the risk it could inspire similar actions today.
https://t.co/sl4wupRfNH — Twitter Comms (@TwitterComms) May 29, 2020 In its policy against violence , Twitter says users “can’t glorify, celebrate, praise, or condone violent crimes, violent events where people were targeted because of their membership in a protected group, or the perpetrators of such acts.” Beyond the speech itself, Twitter notes that the president’s language could potentially incite others to engage in violent action: “We have a policy against content that glorifies acts of violence in a way that may inspire others to replicate those violent acts and cause real offline harm.” In this case, Twitter believed that Trump’s “shooting starts” phrase crossed the line. While offending content could be removed, Twitter also highlighted its public interest exceptions policy: “At present, we limit exceptions to one critical type of public-interest content — tweets from elected and government officials — given the significant public interest in knowing and being able to discuss their actions and statements. As a result, in rare instances, we may choose to leave up a tweet from an elected or government official that would otherwise be taken down.” Twitter appears to have taken action around 4 a.m. Eastern, so Trump has probably not yet seen the obscuring label. However, the president’s ongoing grievances with social media platforms are likely to reach new heights.
Update at 5:42 a.m. Pacific : President Trump and the White House have responded to Twitter’s move.
Trump accused Twitter of political bias: Twitter is doing nothing about all of the lies & propaganda being put out by China or the Radical Left Democrat Party. They have targeted Republicans, Conservatives & the President of the United States. Section 230 should be revoked by Congress. Until then, it will be regulated! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020 The official White House Twitter account sought to circumvent the warning label by reposting the same tweet: “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!” https://t.co/GDwAydcAOw — The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 29, 2020 From the White House Deputy Chief for Communications: https://twitter.com/Scavino45/status/1266343153466060803 VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Trump signs executive order attacking Section 230 legal protections for Facebook and Twitter | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/trump-signs-executive-order-attacking-section-230-legal-protections-for-facebook-and-twitter"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Trump signs executive order attacking Section 230 legal protections for Facebook and Twitter Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Donald Trump meeting Jack Dorsey at the White House Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
( Reuters ) — President Donald Trump said he will introduce legislation that may scrap or weaken a law that has long protected internet companies, including Twitter and Facebook, an extraordinary attempt to intervene in the media that experts said was unlikely to survive legal scrutiny.
Trump signed an executive order on Thursday afternoon after attacking Twitter for tagging his tweets about unsubstantiated claims of fraud in mail-in voting with a warning prompting readers to fact-check the posts.
Trump said we may “remove or change” Section 230 of a law known as the Communications Decency Act through legislation so social media companies will not enjoy this legal immunity, which protects such platforms from liability for content posted by their users.
The President also said U.S. Attorney General William Barr will pursue said legislation to regulate social media companies.
On Wednesday, Reuters reported the White House’s plan to modify Section 230 based on a copy of a draft order.
Facebook and Twitter did not immediately comment on the executive order.
The President’s remarks and the draft order, as written, attempts to circumvent Congress and the courts in directing changes to long-established interpretations of Section 230. It represents the latest attempt by Trump to use the tools of the Presidency to force private companies to change policies that he believes are not favorable to him.
“In terms of presidential efforts to limit critical commentary about themselves, I think one would have to go back to the Sedition Act of 1798 — which made it illegal to say false things about the president and certain other public officials — to find an attack supposedly rooted in law by a president on any entity which comments or prints comments about public issues and public people,” said First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams.
Others like Jack Balkin, a Yale University constitutional law professor, said “The president is trying to frighten, coerce, scare, cajole social media companies to leave him alone and not do what Twitter has just done to him.” Still, Twitter’s shares were down 4.4% on Thursday. Facebook was down 1.7 percent and Google parent Alphabet Inc were up slightly.
Trump, who uses Twitter heavily to promote his policies and insult his opponents, has long claimed without evidence that the service is biased in favor of Democrats. He and his supporters have leveled the same unsubstantiated charges against Facebook, which Trump’s presidential campaign uses heavily as an advertising vehicle.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"The coronavirus crisis could push the U.S. to adopt online voting by 2024 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/security/the-coronavirus-crisis-could-push-us-to-adopt-online-voting-by-2024"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest The coronavirus crisis could push the U.S. to adopt online voting by 2024 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden recently suggested that, as the public health emergency deepens, all-mail ballots are “worth looking at, quickly.” Mail-in ballots could be helpful as a stopgap right now, but it’s a slow and inefficient process in a digital age that demands a better answer. In addition, the lack of emergency funding for the United States Postal Service showcases how we cannot depend on this mode of voting for much longer.
Although false starts like Iowa’s Shadow app fiasco appear as setbacks, we indeed have the building blocks for online voting; we just need the determination, focus, and execution to bring it to fruition. It’s much too late to consider a transition to online voting in this year’s elections. But we could make the move in time for 2028, with state-wide beta tests in place as early as 2024. Although we may be eager for implementation sooner rather than later, it will take time for us to do this right.
The most prominent concern is, of course, security. Online voting must overcome several significant hurdles before it can be rolled out widely. These hurdles include voter ID fraud, a learning curve for users to understand the user interface, and attempts by hackers to take down the back-end networks and tamper with mobile apps and data, which could be difficult for election officials to detect.
Federal government, military, and private sector studies have all concluded that internet-based voting is not secure and shouldn’t be used in U.S. elections. The Department of Homeland Security recently released guidelines that point to high security risks for online election voting.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “Until there is a major technological breakthrough in or fundamental change to the nature of the internet, the best method for securing elections is a tried-and-true one: mailed paper ballots,” democracy watchdog group Common Cause has said.
As the chief technology officer of a cybersecurity company with several government customers, I’ve been watching this issue closely. Truth is, the technological building blocks are available now for online elections, such as that for collecting, storing, and mining data at scale securely.
Here’s what else is needed: For starters, 100% of the source code needs to be open source. The mobile applications and server-side code should be open and shared for everyone to examine and poke holes in. A single organization operating behind closed doors can’t be expected to get this right. A community approach is the way to go.
We also need a process to trust and verify votes. Every American would need Real ID compliant identification, and the voting process would require layers of multi-factor authentication. Once placed, votes would need to be transparent in the sense that the person is anonymized, but certain characteristics about them are known, such as where the individual resides and who they voted for.
A potential problem could be some humans’ lack of trust in the digital process. Mail ballots can be verified, but how would online voters know their ballot was received? This could be remedied by requesting a confirmation that would then require the voter to confirm their identity once again. It could also be an instance in which blockchain serves as confirmation that someone voted but their identity is masked. Concepts of homomorphic encryption could be applied to ensure that voting data is encrypted yet can still be searched.
Then there’s the voting experience itself. The process would have to be so straightforward that everyone from Boomers to Gen Z could easily take part. That means the final product that voters will interact with, via the web or a mobile device, will need to have undergone a significant amount of usability testing. The apps will need to feel natural to users — and will need to support dozens of languages and be accessible to voters with disabilities.
We’ll need a robust system to collect votes. I don’t see scale as a problem, though. These days, one can develop a service on an off-the-shelf laptop that can write hundreds of thousands of events per second. With good architecture and design, and stress testing, a strong system can be deployed.
Finally, we’ll need to think about how we add security in every layer: the network, the app, and the data store. We’ll have to build and implement controls to generate and review system audit logs, limit access, and apply zero-trust concepts. This might sound like a lot, but it really isn’t much different than what regulated organizations in financial services and healthcare already do today.
A final question we will need to address is who puts the pieces together and creates the software required for online voting. Should a government task force take the lead? A public super company like Google or Apple? Some combination of technology leaders? The bottom line is, saying online voting won’t happen seems foolish. Surely, voting will happen digitally eventually; it just needs to be done right. And the coronavirus crisis may provide the push we need to make it happen sooner rather than later.
Kunal Anand is CTO at cyber security company Imperva.
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"Qualcomm's Wi-Fi 6E chips support wireless VR headsets, packed spaces | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/qualcomms-wi-fi-6e-chips-support-wireless-vr-headsets-packed-spaces"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi 6E chips support wireless VR headsets, packed spaces Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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While wireless technologies have continued to improve in bandwidth, distance, and resilience against interference, most businesses and general consumers haven’t yet upgraded to Wi-Fi 6, last year’s sequel to the older, popular 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) standard. That’s probably for the best, as chipmakers are now moving to Wi-Fi 6E , a superior, recently approved update, and Qualcomm is ready with new device and router solutions that promise “VR-class low latency” and the fastest Wi-Fi speeds consumers have seen.
Today, Qualcomm is announcing the FastConnect 6900 and 6700, device-ready wireless systems that include both Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 for maximum wireless performance and power efficiency. While FastConnect 6700 offers a peak Wi-Fi speed of 3 gigabits per second (Gbps), the higher-end 6900 tops out at 3.6Gbps, using four-stream dual-band simultaneous transmitting and 6GHz multi-band capabilities. Those numbers are faster than the 2- to 2.63Gbps peak Broadcom is claiming for its competing BCM4389 , and Qualcomm is promising under 3-millisecond latency — enough to support cable-free head-mounted displays for VR — with up to eight times better latency reduction in Wi-Fi-congested environments.
It’s hard to overstate how important Wi-Fi 6E is likely to be for offices, retail spaces, and densely populated living spaces such as apartments. For the first time in decades, the new standard opens additional 6GHz radio spectrum to Wi-Fi, the equivalent of adding a giant, empty new highway immediately next to existing 2.4GHz and 5GHz roads. Between extra lanes and more modern infrastructure, users will be able to send data faster and with greater responsiveness, letting newer devices both avoid and decrease congestion on the older roads. If you’re working from home, you’ll get superb wireless performance regardless of signal competition from your neighbors; offices and stores will be able to use next-generation VR headsets and holographic displays without cables or network hiccups.
There’s a big year-over-year performance difference compared with the prior FastConnect 6800 , which was used in LG’s V60 and Xiaomi’s Mi 10/Pro , among other devices. In addition to nearly or fully doubling the prior peak Wi-Fi speed of 1.8Gbps, FastConnect 6700 and 6900 support Bluetooth 5.2 with LE Audio , the new high-efficiency audio standard that enables multi-point connectivity and open, broadcast-style streaming. Two Bluetooth-specific antennas are included to improve both reliability and range, while the LE Audio standard delivers a stronger combination of low power consumption and high sonic fidelity than before. Qualcomm notes that the new systems are built using a 14-nanometer process, delivering up to 50% better power efficiency than prior-generation solutions.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! On the router side, Qualcomm is also introducing four new Wi-Fi 6E Networking Pro platforms, each including support for Tri-Band Wi-Fi 6 — capable of operating simultaneously on 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHZ frequency bands. Depending on the performance level an OEM chooses, it can offer anything from a business- or campus-scale enterprise access point to a home mesh Wi-Fi network, with support for up to 2,000 simultaneous clients.
All four of the Networking Pro platforms use quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processors, but they differ in maximum throughput. With the highest-end 1610 platform, clients can collectively reach up to 10.8Gbps of data usage, twice the peak of the lowest-end 610 platform. However, the peak single device-to-device transfer speed is 2.4Gbps, which Qualcomm achieves using an especially dense (4,096 QAM ) implementation of Wi-Fi 6E.
The four platforms are as follows: Networking Pro 1610 (2.2GHz A53): Up to 16 streams, 10.8Gbps peak total speed Networking Pro 1210 (2.2GHz A53): Up to 12 streams, 8.4Gbps peak total speed Networking Pro 810 (1.8GHz A53): Up to 8 streams, 6.6Gbps peak total speed Networking Pro 610 (1.8GHz A53): Up to 6 streams, 5.4Gbps peak total speed Qualcomm is shipping the Networking Pro platforms now, and expects them to be commercially available in OEM products this year. The FastConnect 6900 and 6700 are sampling now to OEMs and are expected to appear in devices starting in the second half of 2020.
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"Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge is a new VR adventure from Oculus and ILMxLAB | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/star-wars-tales-from-the-galaxys-edge-is-a-new-vr-adventure-from-oculus-and-ilmxlab"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge is a new VR adventure from Oculus and ILMxLAB Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge is a game from ILMxLab.
Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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ILMxLAB has announced Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge, a new virtual reality experience being created in collaboration with Oculus Studios.
It is coming out this year. The announcement didn’t reveal what platforms the title is coming to, although Oculus devices are a safe bet.
Star Wars has been a big part of VR, although it often brands its releases more as experiences instead of games, like with Trials on Tatooine and Vader Immortal.
This story takes place between the events of The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
It’s set on Batuu, the same planet that guests visit at Disneyland and Walt Disney World in their new Star Wars-themed lands, which are called Galaxy’s Edge. So, you know, now we’ll hear some tales from that place, I guess. That’s a nice bit of brand synergy for Disney.
“The rich storytelling in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge has redefined what a Disney park experience can be, and we are thrilled fans will have an opportunity to discover new stories, meet new characters and explore new regions of the planet Batuu in Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge,” said Scott Trowbridge, Walt Disney Imagineering creative executive, in the announcement. “Now our guests can immerse themselves in these stories both inside and outside our parks.” It’s not clear how Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge will play, although Oculus says that it “will include multiple styles of gameplay and difficulty settings to bring in a wide variety of players.” The Galaxy’s Edge in Disney parks includes a market, a Resistance hideout, a First Order base, a smuggling operation, a droid factory, and a secret lightsaber workshop.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Uber now lets U.S. riders book trips for $50 an hour | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/uber-now-lets-u-s-riders-book-trips-for-50-an-hour"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Uber now lets U.S. riders book trips for $50 an hour Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Uber driver and rider apps showing hourly rides Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
Learn more.
Uber is introducing an option that allows riders in the U.S. to book trips by the hour, the latest in a string of offerings the company has launched to offset the impact of the pandemic. Uber has in recent weeks been trialing its new hourly service in a handful of cities around the world, including in Europe, Australia , Africa, and the Middle East. From June 2, riders in 12 U.S. cities will also be able to book by the hour.
With demand for ride-hailing services plummeting due to social-distancing measures, Uber has had to double down on food delivery and micromobility , among other investments — though the company still had to lay off a significant chunk of its workforce. With lockdowns beginning to ease in the U.S. and elsewhere, demand for ride-hailing services could rise a little — but with many cities reclaiming roads from cars to make more room for pedestrians and bikes, Uber and its ilk are unlikely to see normal service levels resume in the near future. Hourly bookings effectively open Uber up to new use cases, such as running errands, moving to a new home, or even sightseeing.
The initiative follows an extensive safety program through which Uber distributed millions of pieces of personal protective equipment to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 between drivers and their passengers.
Hourglass For the new hourly booking service, riders enter a destination and can add up to three intermediate stops per hour, though they can also edit these stops during the journey. It’s worth noting that they can’t choose airports or a location outside the city that they’re in.
When the rider selects the hourly tier, they are charged a set $50 amount — so even if they cut the trip short, they will still pay the full hourly rate. They can choose to pay for up to seven hours in advance, with the price rising by $50 for each additional hour.
Above: Uber: Hourly bookings The rates don’t include tolls and other surcharges, and there is also a mileage limit for each hour booked — this varies by city, but a typical limit is around 40 miles. Any trip that runs over the hour will be charged additionally on a per-minute basis, and if a trip goes beyond the mileage limit, riders will also be charged a per-mile rate for the extra miles.
Hourly bookings make some sense for Uber, opening the company to a market previously held by the likes of Zipcar — though with the addition of a personal driver and at a vastly inflated price. But it also highlights the lengths Uber is going to as it prepares for the likelihood that social distancing will continue for some time. Last month, Uber launched a service that allows its users to deliver anything they want , with drivers effectively serving as couriers.
Uber’s new hourly bookings will go live from Tuesday in the following 12 cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Washington D.C., Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, Tampa Bay, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Tacoma, and Seattle. More locations will be added in the weeks to come.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"This Microsoft Excel training bundle is just $34 right now | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/this-microsoft-excel-training-bundle-is-just-34-right-now"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Sponsored Deals This Microsoft Excel training bundle is just $34 right now Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn If you haven’t used Microsoft Excel in a while, you might be surprised at just how different it is. For instance, did you know that the application has been supercharged with machine learning ? If that caught you by surprise, then it might be time for you to get familiar with everything this powerful app has to offer these days. This is where the Ultimate Microsoft Excel Training Bundle comes in.
If you’ve used Excel before, you might be familiar with some of its basic capabilities. Things like formulas and functions, or the ability to make quick and dirty graphs and charts based on the data entered. Well, this app is far more powerful than you might imagine, and the Ultimate Microsoft Excel Training Bundle as the courses that can prove it.
Dive in to courses like the Microsoft Excel: Advanced Excel Formulas and Functions course to go hands-on with more than 75 unique functions that Excel can pull off. Then try out Microsoft Excel: Data Visualization, Excel Charts and Graphs and work through demos that will teach you how to make more than 20 different kinds of eye-popping visuals.
Once you’ve mastered these tools, you can learn how to put Excel to work for any number of more advanced purposes. Try courses like Microsoft Excel: Intro to Power Query, Power Pivot and DAX or Microsoft Excel: Data Analysis with Excel Pivot Tables to see how this app can fit into your workflow in ways that you might have never imagined.
The Ultimate Microsoft Excel Training Bundle contains more than 33 hours of exclusive Excel knowledge laid out across six unique courses. This collection is valued at $945, but you can get it for just $33.99.
That’s 97 percent off the retail price — and you don’t need to perform an Excel formula to know that is a deal that you can’t pass up. People are raving about the bundle, giving it a 4.5 star rating on over 177 reviews. Listen to the people and snag this course bundle while you can ! Do you have your stay-at-home essentials? Here are some you may have missed.
VentureBeat Deals is a partnership between VentureBeat and StackCommerce. This post does not constitute editorial endorsement. If you have any questions about the products you see here or previous purchases, please contact StackCommerce support here.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Reveal Group Is First and Only Partner to Achieve Blue Prism "Double Platinum" Capability Certification | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/reveal-group-is-first-and-only-partner-to-achieve-blue-prism-double-platinum-capability-certification"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release Reveal Group Is First and Only Partner to Achieve Blue Prism “Double Platinum” Capability Certification Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Company Sets New Standard for Intelligent Automation Delivery Capabilities NEW YORK & SYDNEY–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May 29, 2020– Reveal Group , a global leader in Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Intelligent Automation deployments, today announced that it has been recognized by Blue Prism (AIM: PRSM) as the first and only certified Double Platinum Capability and Delivery Provider in the world. The result of a five-year partnership, Reveal Group have obtained the highest level of certification a Blue Prism provider can achieve. This comes on the tail of the company’s recent launch of Reveal RoboSuite™ , best practice tools to help organizations automate better, which further showcases its commitment to sell and support Blue Prism’s Digital Workforce.
To achieve the Platinum Capability and Delivery Provider certification, Reveal Group met Blue Prism’s rigorous requirements, demonstrating excellence in client support, expanding on the Blue Prism Robotic Operating Model (ROM) and achieving large-scale deployments of over 100 active Digital Workers in production for multiple, leading global enterprises across more than 64 industries. Reveal Group were the first partner globally to achieve Platinum Capability status, receiving over 50 customer satisfaction surveys with an average score of 98 percent.
“Reveal Group has cemented itself as a leading Blue Prism partner,” says Jason Kingdon, Chairman and CEO of Blue Prism.
“Their depth of experience and ongoing pursuit to drive best practices has seen them remain at the forefront of deploying and scaling Blue Prism across our customer base. We also encourage our customers to leverage the benefits of their innovative offerings by trialling RoboSuite™ through the Blue Prism Digital Exchange (DX).
” “We are honored to be the first Blue Prism partner to achieve Double Platinum status. Since commencing our RPA journey with Blue Prism we have strongly believed that accreditation sets a bar that is good for our team and good for helping organizations new to RPA to select a partner they can rely on. Our RoboSuite™ tools have been instrumental in helping us automate faster and better and have underpinned our success. I am delighted Blue Prism are supporting us to make these available to all Blue Prism customers,” says Ian Crouch, CEO of the Reveal Group.
“Double Platinum is an outstanding recognition of the quality of our training, our depth of Blue Prism expertise and our business model, which emphasizes being easy to work with and responsive to our clients. We could not have achieved this accolade if it were not for the 120+ exceptionally talented and dedicated members of our global team.” About Reveal Group Reveal Group specializes in deploying and scaling intelligent process automation programs using its Blueprint for Scale™ methodology and Reveal RoboSuite™ tools. They are revolutionizing Operational Management with innovative software. In every instance Reveal Group brings industry-leading experience, unrivalled expertise and a global partner network to support clients. Since 2005 Reveal Group have been at the forefront of applying technology to transform processing, guaranteeing rapid and sustainable results. Across all service industries, Reveal Group are helping teams to maximize productivity and optimize benefits. Learn more at www.revealgroup.com About Blue Prism Blue Prism’s vision is to provide a Digital Workforce for Every Enterprise. The company’s purpose is to unleash the collaborative potential of humans, operating in harmony with a Digital Workforce, so every enterprise can exceed their business goals and drive meaningful growth, with unmatched speed and agility. Visit www.blueprism.com to learn more.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200528005914/en/ Media Charley Vokoun Reveal Group [email protected] VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"ProBeat: Throw out all your pre-coronavirus surveys and start again | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/probeat-throw-out-all-your-pre-coronavirus-surveys-and-start-again"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Opinion ProBeat: Throw out all your pre-coronavirus surveys and start again Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
I got a pitch this week to cover an annual developer survey with tens of thousands of respondents across the world. It was pretty straightforward — reputable company, big sample size, tons of findings. I quickly noticed, however, that the survey was conducted from February 5 to February 28.
February. As in, three months ago. As in, long before the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on March 11. Before Italy overtook China as the country with the most deaths on March 19. Before the United States overtook China and Italy with the highest number of confirmed cases on March 26. Then we had two more months of lockdowns , social distancing , layoffs , work from home , and deaths.
The point is, those survey results are useless. And so are your results if your company conducted a survey about anything to do with technology, workers, or business in general earlier this year. I let the company know my thoughts and then asked for comment. The company agreed, to an extent: Data around languages, frameworks, and technologies remains informative and helpful for developers, technologists, and companies that are interested in the latest trends in the space. However, given the current environment, any data around employment trends (e.g. compensation, looking for a new job, etc.) has most likely changed significantly since we surveyed our users and should be viewed through that lens.
No. None of it is helpful anymore. This is a global, life-changing event we are living through. The languages, frameworks, and technologies that developers are interested in and not interested in are going to change. In fact, they already have. COBOL developers are suddenly in extremely high demand because governments and banks distributing stimulus money still use systems written in the 60-year-old programming language. That’s a drastic example, but it’s easy enough to extrapolate to every corner of the world where technology exists.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! I’m not naming the company in this case because I don’t want you to focus too much on this specific developer survey. This is about all tech surveys — internal, external, local, global, you name it.
A survey from earlier this year simply can’t factor in the major shifts underway in tech. For example, I looked back over the stories in this column since February and every one somehow ties back to the pandemic. ProBeat has covered permanent WFH , a cancelled smart city , surveillance drones , ecommerce exploding , contact tracing , invisible AI , Zoom’s mistakes , tech events , and collaboration tools.
The world is changing quickly. Even if you believe your industry isn’t directly impacted by the pandemic, it will be indirectly impacted by how people work, evolving technology, and the economic fallout. That will drastically influence your tech survey results right across the board.
So back up, throw out your results, and start again. You don’t even necessarily need to write a set of new questions or talk about COVID-19 specifically. You just need to make sure your tech survey wasn’t conducted before a historic global pandemic changed everything.
ProBeat is a column in which Emil rants about whatever crosses him that week.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Premium Bowling will soon strike Oculus Quest | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/premium-bowling-will-soon-strike-oculus-quest"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Premium Bowling will soon strike Oculus Quest Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn We’ve got table tennis , we just got golf , and now Oculus Quest is getting another sport that makes perfect sense for the platform – bowling.
Premium Bowling has appeared in the Coming Soon section of the Oculus Store.
Developed by Sadetta, the game lets you hit the lanes in VR. There’s no date for the Quest release just yet, but you can check the game out in the trailer below.
It looks like it comes with the expected bells and whistles; alongside solo-play, there are multiplayer modes including both local and online options. Given how we’re all staying home during the pandemic, I’m sure some will relish the chance to spend a Saturday night passing a headset round in a bowling match. Leaderboards and ball customization options also feature.
The game’s been in full release on Steam for PC VR headsets since October 2019, where it’s racked up a “Very Positive” rating based on 120 user reviews. Better yet, Sadetta, has been pretty consistent with updates since launch, so it looks like this one will be well-supported.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! All that said we haven’t yet given the game a go for ourselves yet so we can’t speak to its quality. Like we said, bowling makes great sense in VR as opposed to more mobile sports like football, though without replicating the weight of a ball it’s tough to know how throwing it down the lane will really feel. We’ll look to bring you more impressions as we get closer to the launch of Premium Bowling on Oculus Quest.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
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"New Prototype BabyBubble Pram, Protecting Infants From Environmental Risks, Is Currently Seeking Investment | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/new-prototype-babybubble-pram-protecting-infants-from-environmental-risks-is-currently-seeking-investment"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Press Release New Prototype BabyBubble Pram, Protecting Infants From Environmental Risks, Is Currently Seeking Investment Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn LEEK, England–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May 29, 2020– A unique new pram design was announced today which is intended to protect babies from airborne diseases such as Covid-19 and other environmental threats. BabyBubble is currently at prototype stage and the company is confident it can bring the pram to market in 3-6 months with the right investors on board. Furthermore, a donation from every pram sold will go to the NHS. The BabyBubble pram uses N95 filters to prevent viruses and air pollution from entering the bubble and helps parents protect infants aged 0-12 months. The eye-catching transparent bubble design also protects babies from UV rays and allows parents to adjust the bubble’s internal temperature to ensure their child is comfortable and safe.
New-born babies are exposed to a wide variety of risks when transported in regular pushchairs. These include airborne illnesses, air pollution, extreme weather, harmful UV light, insect bites, aggressive animals, or even acid attacks. The BabyBubble eliminates these risks.
The BabyBubble pram helps protect infants using a variety of unique features: Air filtering: The pram uses N95 air filters to ensure that air circulating inside the pram is purified. This stops babies breathing in pollution from vehicle emissions or airborne diseases like Covid-19, influenza, common cold and chickenpox. Parents can easily replace filters when required.
Sun protection: The unique transparent bubble protects the child from 99.9% of harmful UV light and 97% of infrared light. It repels 70% of the sun’s heat and uses the same sun control film found on luxury hotel windows in hot countries.
Temperature control: The BabyBubble is fitted with a temperature check which links to a smartphone app. This allows parents to monitor the temperature inside the bubble. The pram can be further enhanced with air conditioning to regulate internal temperature.
The BabyBubble is packed with additional features to help parents safely transport their children. The pram battery charges as it rolls and comes with a self-braking system (BabyBubble can only be moved when parents push down on the handle). Its sturdy aluminium frame is lightweight and folds in a single click for easy storage. Made from BPA-free plastic, the pushchair is highly durable, and even includes an internal light which lets parents check on their little one at night.
BabyBubble’s inventor, Ian Whieldon, explains why he designed the pram: “In today’s world there are countless environmental risks which threaten new-born babies’ health – Covid-19 is just the latest danger”.
He added that: “Shockingly, traditional prams provide almost no protection against environmental threats. We know just how dangerous air pollution can be to children’s lungs, and we also know how damaging UV rays are to their skin – not to mention many other risks. The BabyBubble is designed to eliminate as many of those threats as possible while providing comfort for babies in an aesthetically-pleasing and lightweight design”.
The inventor behind BabyBubble is actively seeking investors to partner on this and a variety of other unique inventions.
— ENDS — Notes for editors: About BabyBubble BabyBubble was designed by a British inventor who holds patents for several internationally-recognised products spanning fields as diverse as sports, defence and energy.
Supporting multimedia files can be viewed here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ibnugy3la2ri62x/AACvkzf5YNKA4SMf0Gab6Mjga?dl=0 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200529005031/en/ BabyBubble Office number: 01538 387786 Mobile numbers: 07895 010385 or 07562 259024 Name: Ian Whieldon Email: [email protected] VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Monument Valley maker Ustwo launches Go Go Bots instant game on Facebook | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/monument-valley-maker-ustwo-launches-go-go-bots-instant-game-on-facebook"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Monument Valley maker Ustwo launches Go Go Bots instant game on Facebook Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Go Go Bots comes from the maker of Monument Valley.
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Monument Valley maker Ustwo and Facebook are launching the Go Go Bots instant game on Facebook Gaming today. The game is available exclusively on Facebook Gaming, built on Facebook’s Instant Games platform, which can be played in instant message threads on mobile devices or via web links. No downloads are necessary.
The game will be available on the gaming tab on Facebook and the standalone Facebook Gaming app on Google Play. Leo Olebe, head of gaming partnerships at Facebook, said in an interview with GamesBeat that Go Go Bots is a “strategic climbing” game, set in a colorful, glitchy, cyberpunk future.
“We’re just really excited the opportunity to work with Ustwo, as they have an amazing background and they’re a great company,” Olebe said. “We share very similar visions about creating accessible and interesting gameplay for people.” The game was also developed alongside Facebook Gaming, which allows the game to take advantage of deeper levels of social play and friendly competition, Olebe said.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! How the game works Above: A Go Go Bots duo game.
Players choose from one of five mechanical characters, each with its own powers and attributes. They race against the clock and each other to navigate hazard-strewn obstacle courses. With two game modes focused on friendly multiplayer competition, Go Go Bots is specifically designed to connect people. I gave it a whirl and found it challenging. It’s best played on a smartphone.
Go Go Bots has two game modes: Seasons allows players to play solo and Grand Prix allows group play.
Olebe said that each month more than 700 million people play games, watch gaming videos, or engage in gaming groups on Facebook. The most recent surge of games on Facebook has come from the Instant Games platform, which lets developers build and publish games in the HTML5 format, the lingua franca of the web. In April, Facebook launched the standalone Facebook Gaming app on Google Play, a focused, gaming-only experience where you can watch your favorite streamers, play instant games, and take part in gaming groups.
Above: Go Go Bots trio game In December, two new Pokémon games launched on Facebook Gaming: Pokémon Tower Battle and Pokémon Medallion Battle. This marked the first time The Pokémon Company has created games for Facebook Gaming and both were built on the Instant Games platform.
The collaboration took about a year, with a focus on making a broadly accessible game, Olebe said. The game doesn’t have any monetization in it now, but it could be added later. Typically, such games monetize through in-app purchases or advertising.
“It’s a great moment in time for the platform,” Olebe said. “With the state of the world today, with everybody dealing with COVID-19, more people are playing games and watching people play games. So people are looking for great gaming experiences like this.” GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz is stepping down | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/magic-leap-ceo-rony-abovitz-is-stepping-down"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz is stepping down Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz speaks at the L.E.A.P. conference in Los Angeles, CA on October 10, 2018.
Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz confirmed he has raised a new round of funding and announced he will step down as the augmented reality company’s top executive.
In a statement, Abovitz confirmed rumors that the company had raised a last-minute round of funding, but he didn’t say where it came from or share the amount raised. The company is pivoting to focus its spatial computing platform on the enterprise market. A week ago, the Information reported that Magic Leap had raised $350 million as a lifeline, just after the company announced it was cutting 1,000 jobs and exiting the consumer business for its Magic Leap One AR headset, which overlays animated images on the real world.
In some respects, it’s not surprising to hear Abovitz say he will step down after the company finds a new CEO. Many companies outgrow their founders, and Magic Leap hasn’t fulfilled its original vision of transforming our world with AR glasses. The company tried to make both consumer and enterprise products succeed at the same time. But the consumer market balked at Magic Leap’s expensive product, which sold for at least $2,000. And big enterprise orders didn’t materialize for a technology that seemed like it was still a work in progress.
Magic Leap’s plan to focus on the enterprise is probably the right strategy, as companies are more likely than consumers to make a bet on high-end technology. But there’s a lot of competition, and it won’t be easy to convince customers that Magic Leap will pull off a miracle after whiffing on its first attempt. As with virtual reality companies, Magic Leap may have to hunker down and prepare for the possibility that the revolution won’t happen quickly. That may be the kind of thing the new CEO will have to think about.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! Abovitz is to be applauded for the vision that got the company to its valuation in the billions of dollars. But it is probably a good time to find someone who can make a business out of all of that value.
Here’s Abovitz’s full statement: As we’ve shared over the last several weeks, in order to set Magic Leap on a course for success, we have pivoted to focus on delivering a spatial computing platform for enterprise.
We have closed significant new funding and have very positive momentum towards closing key strategic enterprise partnerships.
As the board and I planned the changes we made and what Magic Leap needs for this next focused phase, it became clear to us that a change in my role was a natural next step. I discussed this with the board and we have agreed that now is the time to bring in a new CEO who can help us to commercialize our focused plan for spatial computing in enterprise. We have been actively recruiting candidates for this role and I look forward to sharing more soon.
I have been leading Magic Leap since 2011 (starting in my garage). We have created a new field. A new medium. And together we have defined the future of computing. I am amazed at everything we have built and look forward to everything Magic Leap will create in the decades to come.
I will remain our CEO through the transition and am in discussions with the board with regards to how I will continue to provide strategy and vision from a board level. I remain super excited about Magic Leap’s future and believe deeply in our team and all of their incredible talent and capabilities.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Kippo raises $2 million for a dating app for gamers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/kippo-raises-2-million-for-a-dating-app-for-gamers"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Kippo raises $2 million for a dating app for gamers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Kippo is a dating app for gamers where your profile includes your favorite games.
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The days when gamers couldn’t get dates are over. Case in point: Kippo has raised $2 million for a dating app for gamers who want to find like-minded companions.
The company’s larger idea is to create a next-generation gaming app that modernizes the way that people connect and meet. While stereotypes of the lonely male gamer in a basement persist, CEO David Park said it’s perfectly normal for people to meet through their passions, such as playing video games. In fact, many people think gamers are new jocks, Park said.
“We always talk about how the rates of anxiety and depression and loneliness are increasing,” Park said. “We thought about the solution. And it seems so simple. It’s to connect people. It’s for people to have meaningful human relationships with others.” He added, “I’ve been a gamer my entire life. And it’s kind of a niche demographic that is no longer niche. It’s growing more and more mainstream. Historically, there were so many stereotypes and stigmas about gamers. We know that that’s just not true anymore. And this is something that this community really needed.” Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! My editor asked me why I did this story, as we don’t cover dating. I don’t see it so much as a dating story as a story on a startup that is taking advantage of where gaming is today. The thinking behind it is about how the culture of gaming is leaving old stereotypes behind, and that there is a business opportunity around this. I see this insight as the same kind that Anita Sarkeesian had when she published her Feminist Frequency series about tropes in games. This startup is a direct assault on the old tropes.
Primer Sazze Partners led the round, with participation from former Tinder executives and partners at NextGen Venture, and IHeartComix. The capital will primarily be used to expand the interactive features on the app. The name for the company comes from a Korean word, and it’s a twist on “happiness,” Park said.
The grand vision is to create a platform for everybody, a platform that is a gamified experience for people to meet new people,” Park said. “The demographic that’s most comfortable with interacting with others in an online virtual setting has been gamers for decades. Because of COVID-19, other people are starting to learn the joys of interacting online.” Unique gamer profiles Above: Kippo is a twist on the word “happiness” in Korean.
Most dating and social apps abandon users’ virtual selves, failing to recognize the benefits of bonding over a digital activity like gaming and its value in getting to know someone. (This reminds me of Skillprint , which wants to recommend careers for gamers based on what they play).
With Kippo, gamers identify what games they like and include a lot of photos in their profiles. They also connect using in-game names, rather than phone numbers. If a date goes bad, then you don’t have to worry that the other person has your phone number.
In some cases, users may not be looking for dates. They may just want someone to play with, and so many of the users get together without concern to location. They could be in different countries, but they can still get together just to play games, Park said.
Ninety-six percent of Kippo users have filled out their entire profile using its interactive profile builder that highlights each personality through a variety of “cards.” The most popular cards are This or That, Star Sign, and Myers–Briggs Type Indicator.
Ninety-three percent of Kippo users go on a virtual date and play video games together before ever meeting in-person. That allows them to relieve some pressure from the awkwardness of dating, Park said.
Steady growth Above: Kippo So far, the app has gained 45,000 users over eight months, without any real promotion. The usual users so far are ages 18 to 24, which is generally younger than other dating apps. 40% of the users are female. Park hopes to raise awareness through gaming influencers, some of whom work for the company.
The company’s revenue has consistently increased 50% every month. Additionally, in the current time of social distancing measures, app usage has increased by 275%, Park said.
The company was founded in 2019 by David Park, Cheeyoon Lee, and Sean Suyeda.
“As a gamer myself, I’ve made a lot of friends. I have found platonic friends and romantic relationships and friends in general through video games,” he said. “We believe the best way to interact online and to get to know each other is to play video games together.” Gamer data So what does the data say about gamers and non-gamers getting into relationships? “I only have anecdotal data,” Park said. “Anytime one person in a relationship is immersed in an activity that defines them and the other person doesn’t at least understand that activity, there’s always gonna be friction.” Park also said that gamers are more socially attractive and diverse than they once were.
“Gamers historically have been known as the losers or less popular kids, but it’s changing so quickly,” Park said. “The new rock stars, superstars, and celebrities are professional gamers or people that are highly ranked in games. Gamers are the new jocks.” GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
Discover our Briefings.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"HP Reverb G2 virtual reality headset arrives this fall for $600 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/hp-reverb-g2-virtual-reality-headset-arrives-this-fall-for-600"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages HP Reverb G2 virtual reality headset arrives this fall for $600 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn HP Reverb VR headset will cost $600.
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HP is unveiling the HP Reverb G2 virtual reality headset with high-resolution specs the company hopes will attract new enterprise users and consumers. The company is launching the second-generation VR headset in a partnership with both Microsoft and game company Valve. The headset will debut in the fall for $600.
The resolution of the headset is 2,160-by-2,160 per eye, which should help with the visual realism of VR, said John Ludwig, lead product manager for VR at HP, in a press briefing. He said the Reverb G2, which uses lenses designed by Valve, will have 2.5-times the resolution of the Oculus Rift headset, delivering sharper images that enhance the feeling of being transported to another reality.
“These are brand-new panels, not the same panels the Reverb G1 used, and they come with some amazing improvements in immersiveness,” Ludwig said. “The contrast and brightness are up significantly on these brand new panels. We’ve also reduced the persistence of the pixels. So with the contrast and brightness boost, you get a much better visual experience. With persistence, you get a more comfortable and fluid experience.” Above: HP designed its new VR headset to be comfortable.
HP worked with Valve and Microsoft to enable integration across the Windows Mixed Reality and SteamVR platforms. The new headset is a replacement for the HP Reverb G1 , which launched in March 2019 for $600. That headset had visual flaws that made it feel like you were looking at the world through dirty goggles, but those issues aren’t in the new headset, Ludwig said.
Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! The hope is the product will lure more people into the virtual world. While VR hasn’t lived up to its original promise, it has been making steady gains during the pandemic.
“We at HP have been learning to adapt to this new normal,” said Anu Herranen, director of new product introduction at HP, in a press briefing. “Now the virtual way is the only way for us all. So this new normal has really accelerated and expanded how and when we use VR at HP. There will be a huge population of people working, training, and learning from home.” Developing a new VR experience Above: The HP VR headset has 2K-by-2K per eye resolution.
VR has an opportunity because of the pandemic, as Zoom video meetings lack immersive interaction, according to HP, and physical meetings aren’t possible.
In April, SteamVR saw nearly 1 million additional monthly-connected headsets, tripling the previous largest monthly gain. HP believes that by 2021, 25% to 30% of the workforce will be working from home multiple days a week and searching for new ways to collaborate. HP kept features such as high-resolution LCDs in a lightweight design and a 114-degree field of view. It runs at 90 frames per second.
The new device has enhanced audio that HP says will allow the user to experience a real sense of 3D space when immersed in the VR world — for example, letting gamers locate their foes with audio clues. The speakers for the device are similar to those in the Valve Index VR headset.
Above: The HP Reverb G2 VR headset has speakers similar to the Valve Index.
Like other modern headsets, it has inside-out tracking, or four cameras on the headset itself that get rid of the need for external sensors. Windows Mixed Reality also enables 1.4 times more movement capture, maintaining six degrees of freedom without external sensors or lighthouses, Herranen said.
With better resolution, users will be able to see text and textures more clearly, providing a better experience and increased retention. The hand controllers come with new intuitive control features including an optimized button layout, application and game compatibility, and the ability to be pre-paired via Bluetooth for easy setup.
HP designed it to be more comfortable. The headset has manual adjustments for your eye settings and a facemask cushion for better comfort. You can flip the facemask 90 degrees when moving back and forth from the virtual to the real world. And the headset also has better weight distribution and comfort for extended VR sessions. It connects to a PC via a single cable.
U.S. preorders will be available today on HP.com, the SteamVR homepage, and select channel partners.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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"Google will rank webpages based on Web Vitals, but not in 2020 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/google-search-ranking-factor-web-vitals-2021"
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Google today announced that a webpage’s experience will eventually be a ranking factor in Google Search overall and in the Top Stories feature on mobile. Earlier this month, Google unveiled Web Vitals , an initiative to provide web developers and website owners with a unified set of metrics for building websites with user experience and performance in mind.
Core Web Vitals, Google’s attempt to spell out the metrics it considers critical for all web experiences, will help determine how the company measures a webpage’s responsiveness and visual stability.
Google promised not to make the ranking change this year and to give six months’ notice before it does. A Google spokesperson confirmed to VentureBeat that the search ranking change would be rolled out in 2021 at the earliest. The company cannot commit to specific timing at this point due to general unpredictability thanks to the coronavirus, the spokesperson added. Indeed, in its announcement, Google noted that “many site owners are rightfully placing their focus on responding to the effects of COVID-19.” Born online, Google’s revenues are directly tied to the web.
The company has a vested interest in improving the web’s user experience. Given Google’s reach, including over 1 billion Chrome users and over 2.5 billion monthly active Android devices , not to mention Google Search, anyone with a website needs to track what Google prioritizes. Web developers and website owners that didn’t pay attention to the original Web Vitals announcement should definitely reconsider now that Google has confirmed Web Vitals will be a search ranking factor.
Page experience ranking Over the years, Google has tweaked its search ranking based on webpage metrics. In November 2014, Google started labeling sites as “mobile-friendly” to denote pages optimized for phones. The company then experimented with using the label as a ranking factor , ultimately pushing those changes in April 2015 and increasing the effect in May 2016.
Google removed the label in August 2016 , noting that most pages had become “mobile-friendly.” In 2018, Google Search started ranking faster mobile pages higher.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Now Google is pointing to internal studies and industry research to say that users prefer sites with a great page experience. A new signal that combines Core Web Vitals with Google Search’s existing signals for page experience (mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive interstitial guidelines) will apparently provide “a holistic picture of the quality of a user’s experience on a web page.” Because changes aren’t happening this year, Google says “there is no immediate need to take action.” Think of this more of an early warning of what’s to come.
As its name implies, Google Search’s page experience signal is meant to measure how users perceive the experience of interacting with a web page. Google says optimizing for these factors is supposed to make the web “more delightful” and “contribute to business success” on all types of devices.
Core Web Vitals annual updates Google plans to update Core Web Vitals annually. That will trickle down to the search ranking. Google will incorporate more page experience signals on a yearly basis to “both further align with evolving user expectations and increase the aspects of user experience that we can measure.” This year’s Core Web Vitals include loading experience, interactivity, and visual stability of page content. As an example of a webpage it wants to punish, Google showed a user accidentally tapping the wrong button because the page shifted: Google says Core Web Vitals capture important user-centric outcomes, are field measurable, and have lab diagnostic metric equivalents. Specifically: Largest Contentful Paint measures perceived load speed and marks the point in the page load timeline when the page’s main content has likely loaded.
First Input Delay measures responsiveness and quantifies the experience users feel when trying to first interact with the page.
Cumulative Layout Shift measures visual stability and quantifies the amount of unexpected layout shift of visible page content.
Google’s hope is this ranking change will give people better webpage experiences, with valuable information and higher engagement. Page experience will not be the only signal, of course. Google promises to prioritize pages with “the best information overall, even if some aspects of page experience are subpar. A good page experience doesn’t override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search.” Top Stories feature on mobile This upcoming Google Search update will also incorporate page experience metrics into the ranking criteria for the Top Stories feature on mobile. Google will also remove the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) requirement from Top Stories eligibility. The company emphasized, however, that it will continue to support AMP and link to AMP pages when available.
On the face of it, this seems like an odd change since Top Stories currently emphasizes AMP results, which are all about speed and “a good page experience.” On closer inspection, it looks like Google is removing the AMP eligibility criteria for the Top Stories experience because page experience will become a ranking factor.
Allowing any story that meets the Google News content policies to be featured in Top Stories should make site owners who don’t use AMP quite happy. While Google notes that site owners who publish AMP versions of their pages will see no change in behavior, one has to wonder if Google hopes to phase out AMP altogether one day and rely solely on Core Web Vitals.
In any case, developers should know that Google has updated developer tools such as Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights to surface Core Web Vitals information and recommendations.
Search Console’s Speed Report should also help site owners improve their sites.
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"Google launches Android Studio 4.0 with Motion Editor, Build Analyzer, and Java 8 APIs | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/google-launches-android-studio-4-0-with-motion-editor-build-analyzer-and-java-8-apis"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Google launches Android Studio 4.0 with Motion Editor, Build Analyzer, and Java 8 APIs Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Google today launched Android Studio 4.0, the latest version of its integrated development environment (IDE). Android Studio 4.0 is supposed to help developers “code smarter, build faster, and design apps.” The new release comes right before Google’s Android 11 Beta 1 launch next week. Google delayed its Android 11 beta schedule due to the coronavirus.
Android is a massive platform with over 2.5 billion monthly active devices.
While developers can use other IDEs to build on Android, the latest features arrive first in Android Studio. Version 4.0 includes a new Motion Editor, a Build Analyzer, and Java 8 language APIs. Google also overhauled the CPU Profiler user interface and improved the Layout Inspector.
You can now download Android Studio 4.0 for Windows, Mac, and Linux directly from developer.android.com/studio.
If you are already using Android Studio, you can get the latest version in the navigation menu (Help => Check for Update on Windows/Linux and Android Studio => Check for Updates on OS X).
Google released Android Studio 3.6 in February. The version number 4.0 suggests this is a major release for anyone who builds apps and games for Android.
Below you’ll find Android Studio 4.0 features broken down by category: design, develop, and build. The new version also includes the usual performance improvements and bug fixes on top of the new features ( full release notes ). Google didn’t share its plans for the next version. Normally we’d get hints at the company’s I/O developer conference, but 2020 is a weird year.
Android Studio 4.0 design features Motion Editor : The MotionLayout API extends the rich capabilities of ConstraintLayout to help Android developers manage complex motion and widget animation in their apps. It’s now easier to use this API with the new Motion Editor — an interface for creating, editing, and previewing MotionLayout animations. You no longer have to create and modify complex XML files; the Motion Editor generates them for you, with support for editing constraint sets, transitions, keyframes, and view attributes. If you do want to see the code the editor creates, it is one click away. For developers already using ConstraintLayout , the IDE can easily convert those to MotionLayout.
Upgraded Layout Inspector : Investigate where a value for a particular attribute came from or see a live 3D representation of nested views to inspect your view hierarchy. The Layout Inspector gives you access to data that stays updated with your running app and providing insights on how resources are being resolved. Use the live Layout Inspector by selecting View > Tool Windows > Layout Inspector from the main menu. If you are deploying to a device running API 29 level or higher, you have access to additional features, such as a dynamic layout hierarchy that updates as views change, detailed view attributes that also help you determine how resource values are resolved, and a live 3D model of your running app’s UI. Navigate, animate, and transition between views on your running app while being able to debug your UI.
Layout Validation: When you’re developing for multiple form-factors, screen sizes, and resolutions, you need to verify that changes you make to your UI look great on every screen you support. With the Layout Validation window, you can preview layouts on different screens and configurations simultaneously. To get started, click on the Layout Validation tab in the top-right corner of the IDE.
Android Studio 4.0 develop features CPU Profiler UI upgrades : The CPU profiler is designed to provide a rich amount of information about your app’s thread activity and trace recordings. CPU recordings are now separated from the main profiler timeline and organized in groups. You can move groups up and down, or drag-and-drop individual items within a group for additional customization. You can now view all thread activity in the Thread Activity timeline (including methods, functions, and events) and try new navigation shortcuts to easily move around the data — such as using W, A, S, and D keys for fine-grained zooming and panning. Google also redesigned the System Trace UI so Events are uniquely colored for better visual distinction, threads are sorted to surface the busier ones first, and you can now focus on seeing data for only the threads you select. The quality of the CPU profiler should also be better — Google has seen a significant decrease in the user-reported error rates of recordings since Android Studio 3.6.
Smart editor features when writing rules for code shrinking: R8 was introduced in Android Gradle plugin 3.4.0 to combine desugaring, shrinking, obfuscating, optimizing, and dexing — resulting in noticeable build performance improvements. When creating rules files for R8, Android Studio now provides smart editor features, such as syntax highlighting, completion, and error checking. The editor also integrates with your Android project to provide full symbol completion for all classes, methods, and fields, and includes quick navigation and refactoring.
IntelliJ IDEA 2019.3 platform update: The core Android Studio IDE has been updated with improvements from IntelliJ IDEA 2019.3 and 2019.3.3 releases. These improvements largely focus on quality and performance improvements across the IDE.
Kotlin Android live templates: An IntelliJ feature that allows you to insert common constructs into your code by typing simple keywords. Android Studio now includes Android-specific live templates for your Kotlin code. For example, simply type toast and press the Tab key to quickly insert boilerplate code for a Toast. For a full list of available live templates, navigate to Editor > Live Templates in the Settings (or Preferences) dialog.
Clangd support for C++: For developers writing C++, clangd is now the primary language analysis engine for code navigation, completion, inspection, and showing code errors and warnings. Google also now bundles clang-tidy with Android Studio. To configure Clangd or Clang-Tidy behavior, go to the IDE Settings (or Preferences) dialog, navigate to Languages & Frameworks > C/C++ > Clangd or Clang-Tidy, and configure the options.
Android Studio 4.0 build features Build Analyzer : Outdated or misconfigured tasks can cause longer build times that lead to frustration and lost productivity. The Build Analyzer helps developers understand and address bottlenecks in your build by highlighting the plugins and tasks that are most responsible for your overall build time and by suggesting steps to mitigate regressions.
Java 8 Language library desugaring in D8 and R8 : Previous versions of the Android Gradle plugin supported a variety of Java 8 language features for all API levels, such as lambda expressions and method references, through a process called desugaring.
Now, the desugaring engine has been extended to support Java language APIs, regardless of your app’s minSdkVersion. This means that you can now use standard language APIs, which were previously available in only recent Android releases (such as java.util.stream, java.util.function and java.time).
Feature-on-feature dependencies : You can now specify that a Dynamic Feature module depends on another feature module. Being able to define this relationship ensures that your app has the required modules to unlock additional functionality, resulting in fewer requests and easier modularization of your app. For example, a :video feature can depend on the :camera feature. If a user wants to unlock the ability to record videos, your app automatically downloads the required :camera module when it requests :video.
New options to enable or disable build features : The Android Gradle plugin has built-in support for modern libraries, such as data binding and view binding, and build features, such as auto-generated BuildConfig classes. However, you might not need these libraries and features for every project. You can now disable discrete build features, which can help optimize build performance for larger projects.
Essential support for Kotlin DSL script files: Built-in support for Kotlin DSL build script files (*.kts) means that Kotlin build scripts offer a full suite of quick fixes and are supported by the Project Structure dialog. Google will continue to refine the Android Gradle Plugin’s DSL API throughout the next year, which may result in breaking API changes for Kotlin script users. Long term, these fixes will make for a more idiomatic, easy-to-use DSL for Kotlin script users.
Dependencies metadata: When building your app using Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 and higher, the plugin includes metadata that describes the library dependencies that are compiled into your app. When uploading your app, the Play Console inspects this metadata to provide alerts for known issues with SDKs and dependencies your app uses, and, in some cases, provide actionable feedback to resolve those issues. The data is compressed, encrypted by a Google Play signing key, and stored in the signing block of your release app.
Lastly, Android Gradle plugin 4.0.0 includes support for Android Studio’s Build Analyzer by using Java 8 language APIs (regardless of your app’s minimum API level), and creating feature-on-feature dependencies between Dynamic Feature modules.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"EA delays Madden NFL 21 announcement due to U.S. protests | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/ea-delays-madden-nfl-21-announcement-due-to-u-s-protests"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages EA delays Madden NFL 21 announcement due to U.S. protests Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Madden topped one of the slowest August months on record.
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Electronic Arts said it is postponing its announcement about Madden NFL 21 for Monday due to the protests happening in American cities.
This coming week was the beginning of many game announcements that were previously scheduled for the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), but the announcement from the Madden NFL 20 account on Twitter suggests that the nation may be too focused on the protests ignited by the death of African-American George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who has been arrested.
EA did not set a new date for the postponed event.
An official statement from EA SPORTS pic.twitter.com/MKdgJjvKJB — Madden NFL 20 (@EAMaddenNFL) May 31, 2020 Event GamesBeat at the Game Awards We invite you to join us in LA for GamesBeat at the Game Awards event this December 7. Reserve your spot now as space is limited! The unrest has continued in Minneapolis and the other U.S. cities for five days, and if it does continue, I think we can expect that more of these events will be postponed. Sony has a PlayStation 5 reveal event scheduled for June 4.
The game industry has had to cancel or postpone numerous events during the pandemic, but this is the first related to the U.S. protests and to what some are calling the “ racism virus ” in the U.S.
If the turmoil continues and more events have to be postponed, more of the best-laid plans of game publishers and marketers will be thrown into disarray. In an email, an EA spokesman said the company has nothing else to reveal at this time.
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it.
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Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Claim the top spot on Google with these discounted SEO tools | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/claim-the-top-spot-on-google-with-these-discounted-seo-tools"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Sponsored Deals Claim the top spot on Google with these discounted SEO tools Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Is your brand not growing as fast online as you know it could? A common problem among aspiring entrepreneurs is not using the most effective SEO keywords in the copy on their websites. Search engine optimization is the key to getting your site bumped up the ranks on Google and Bing which is all but guaranteed to lead to increased traffic.
With SSEOZI , you can stop guessing whether your SEO strategy is working or not. SSEOZI is a professional set of tools that allows you to comprehensively measure site traffic, view your ranking on popular search engines, identify and analyze competitors, even run a complete audit on your website to diagnose and solve SEO issues.
SSEOZI combines a number of processes to bring you an in-depth breakdown of your site’s performance. It displays top search queries that direct potential customers to your site, finds your current global rank by scraping Alexa, and runs a speed test on your site in order to recommend PageSpeed insights from Google.
These tools are the ultimate in web traffic analysis, crucial for any SEO professional looking to boost their website’s popularity. You can access SSEOZI from any modern browser, ensuring that control of your site is always in your hands. The best part is that lifetime access to SSEOZI is currently on sale for just $25 , nearly half off its original price.
VentureBeat Deals is a partnership between VentureBeat and StackCommerce. This post does not constitute editorial endorsement. If you have any questions about the products you see here or previous purchases, please contact StackCommerce support here.
Do you have your stay-at-home essentials? Here are some you may have missed.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Charge and disinfect your smartphone with this Qi charger for just $50 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/charge-and-disinfect-your-smartphone-with-this-qi-charger-for-just-50"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Sponsored Deals Charge and disinfect your smartphone with this Qi charger for just $50 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn As reopening measures are enacted around the world, it may still be some time before we all start feeling safe from germs and viruses in the environment around us. From grocery store carts to gas pumps, we are constantly in contact with pathogens that could make us sick and harm us. These pathogens are then transferred to your phone, the object you likely touch the most in a given day. Now there is a convenient way to rid your devices of nasty germs in just minutes.
The 3-in-1 UV Sterilizer removes the need for any and all traditional cleaning methods when it comes to your mobile phone. Even better, this UV sanitizer also functions as a wireless charger! Simply drop in a capable Qi-standard device and watch it gain power as it is blasted with UV-C light. In 15 minutes or less you can eliminate 99.99 percent of germs without any heat, liquid, or chemicals that will harm your device.
The large basin is designed for any smartphone up to 6.2” (which includes all current gen iPhone, Pixel, and Galaxy series devices), but will also sanitize keys, headphones, jewelry, or anything else that will fit into the unit itself. While your phone is being disinfected, you can also take advantage of the UV Sterilizer ’s aromatherapy function. Add in your favorite aromatherapy liquid to the dedicated port and leave your device smelling as fresh as it is clean.
Now is not the time to risk getting sick. Kill germs efficiently and preemptively with the 3-in-1 UV Sterilizer.
You can pick yours up right now for just $49.99, a 66 percent discount.
VentureBeat Deals is a partnership between VentureBeat and StackCommerce. This post does not constitute editorial endorsement. If you have any questions about the products you see here or previous purchases, please contact StackCommerce support here.
Do you have your stay-at-home essentials? Here are some you may have missed.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
Discover our Briefings.
VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Can TikTok's new CEO convince big brands to spend on the platform? | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/can-tiktoks-new-ceo-convince-big-brands-to-spend-on-the-platform"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest Can TikTok’s new CEO convince big brands to spend on the platform? Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
TikTok tapped former Disney exec Kevin Mayer last week to be its new CEO and to serve as COO of parent company ByteDance.
Hiring a leader in the U.S. is a smart move, since TikTok’s connection to China has sparked both speculation and scrutiny — including from U.S. lawmakers, who are concerned about both privacy and censorship. Several government agencies, including nearly all branches of the military, have even barred employees from downloading or using the app. Appointing a CEO in the U.S. will certainly make the platform more appealing to Western brands.
But hiring new leadership is not nearly enough to get big brands to shift from experimenting with content on TikTok to investing big dollars in ad spend. ByteDance is counting on Mayer’s ability to make TikTok as successful in attracting big advertisers as it has been in attracting users.
TikTok was the most downloaded app in Q1, 2020, so a recession likely won’t hinder its popularity or stop brands continuing to experiment with organic content on the platform. In fact, the social media platform will likely grow during a recession as people spend more time with digital content. TikTok has always been popular among youth, but it is now attracting an older demographic , too, which should make it even more appealing to brands.
It is a great time to be an advertiser on TikTok. When it comes to ads, which is how TikTok makes money, the platform has a lot of supply (people watching videos) and relatively low demand (brands advertising on the platform), especially compared to Facebook. In other words, brands that are already advertising on TikTok might be getting broader reach at a fraction of the cost of advertising on other platforms. However the challenge is the demographic of the audience on TikTok and its actual purchasing power.
The vast majority of brands aren’t ready to get serious about TikTok advertising yet. They are still in the test-and-learn phase, running multiple experiments to better understand how TikTok works and how it might perform for them. They know how engagement looks on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, but they’re still figuring out what TikTok’s format and audience can deliver.
Some well-known, global brands — including Mercedes Benz, MAC Cosmetics, and Burberry — have run successful experiments and are ahead of the curve in testing the TikTok’s potential as a marketing platform. But most of their campaigns emphasized hashtag challenges and influencers, not paid advertising. MAC Cosmetics, for example, launched its #YouOwnIt hashtag challenge on TikTok and earned more than 2.3 billion views. The campaign kicked off with a clip produced by MAC, but the vast majority of the content that followed was user generated. Burberry launched its TikTok presence with a highly-engaging challenge: The #TBChallenge.
Celebrating the launch of the new Thomas Burberry Monochrome collection, Burberry encouraged followers in the U.S. and the UK to recreate the new Thomas Burberry Monogram motif with their hands to unlock a new lens. Meanwhile, Mercedes Benz used TikTok to engage with socially-savvy Gen Z via an extensive campaign to encourage users to come up with their own interpretation of the infamous Mercedes Benz star logo, using the hashtag #mbstarchallenge. The creative branding campaign scored Mercedes Benz over 494 million views, 61,600 new followers, and more than 525,000 likes.
Mayer’s challenge is to accelerate brands’ learning curves and encourage them to make bigger advertising bets, even as they’re still getting to know the new platform. To do that, he will need to promote the ad formats TikTok already offers, such as Infeed Native ads, Brand Takeovers, and Branded Lenses, while developing the platform’s ability to target. After all, TikTok doesn’t yet offer the same sophisticated capabilities that marketers are used to getting from Facebook or Instagram. He will need to convince advertisers that it is time to make the shift from using TikTok as a sandbox for marketing experiments to making TikTok ads an integral part of the marketing mix — especially for brands interested in staying culturally relevant and connecting to the consumers of tomorrow.
But that’s not all. To get marketers’ confidence, Mayer should further open the TikTok platform for technology partners to source data and help marketers understand a campaign’s performance as well as their audience and content at scale.
Mayer’s nickname at Disney was “Buzz Lightyear,” and he is credited with the explosive growth of Disney+.
Frankly, TikTok is the only social media network that comes close to the scale of Facebook and Instagram, and with Mayer at the helm, it is likely to grow even more. The company is expected to hire 40,000 people this year, mostly on the business development side. With Mayer at the helm, it is the platform to watch in 2020.
Yuval Ben-Itzhak is CEO of Socialbakers.
He was previously CTO at Outbrain, at AVG Technologies, and at Finjan, and in 2000 founded web application security company Kavado.
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"Aclima: Pollution data shows how much San Diego's skies have cleared | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/aclima-pollution-data-shows-how-much-san-diegos-skies-have-cleared"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Aclima: Pollution data shows how much San Diego’s skies have cleared Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Air pollution has fallen dramatically in San Diego, California in recent weeks, according to data collected by Aclima ‘s fleet of fixed and mobile pollution monitors. Precise measurements show the dramatic effect of work-from-home policies enforced during the pandemic and could prove invaluable in developing strategies to fight pollution on a hyperlocal level, Aclima CEO Davida Herzl said in an interview with VentureBeat.
“The reason that this data is so important is that we’ve never had control data on this scale,” Herzl said. “It’s an unnatural experiment, where you literally turn off the biggest emission sources all at once, in every county, across the state, but also around the world. And so the fact that we are collecting, measuring air quality during this time is an unprecedented experiment.” Aclima has been working with local governments to provide “hyperlocal” air quality insights, first by measuring local air quality data and then by sharing that information publicly so communities can take action to reduce pollution. It is a potentially disruptive approach to fighting climate change and pollution, Herzl said, but she stressed that the gains we are seeing during the pandemic are not permanent.
“There is a temporary reprieve,” Herzl said. “There are a couple of things that we take away from this. I think we now have a personal experience of what clean air feels like and what it smells like. We can feel the visceral experience. I think that has the potential to really inspire people to new actions on emissions reductions.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Above: Davida Herzl is CEO of Aclima.
The company puts pollution monitors on a fleet of electric cars that drive through the city, and it also has monitors in fixed places, Herzl said. These monitors catch the pollution on every street at the level where we breathe the air, she said. The government, by contrast, only collects small samples from fixed stations, such as a single monitor for the entire city of San Francisco.
“They have very low-resolution data and they extrapolate to a large region. Aclima has published studies with a number of scientific institutions that show that pollution is actually hyperlocal, and it can vary by 5 to 8 times along the single city block,” Herzl said. “And so if you want to understand how a neighborhood experiences pollution, or how an individual might have higher levels of exposure to pollution, you need to understand what hyperlocal pollution looks like.” The pandemic effect The silver lining of the coronavirus that has killed more than 100,000 people in the U.S. alone is its dramatic impact on pollution, as shelter-in-place orders have taken cars, trucks, planes, and mass transit out of operation. In February and March, reduced travel correlated with a decline in air pollutant levels around the world.
In San Diego, fine particulate matter dropped 29%, carbon monoxide dropped 20%, and ozone dropped 6% in recent weeks, based on regulatory data from previous years for the Air Quality and Meteorological Information System (AQMIS) database. The company observed drops in air pollutant levels in every county in the state, starting from when the shelter-in-place order was issued through the first week in April. You can verify it by looking out the window in normally polluted cities like Los Angeles.
Above: Black carbon is an important type of particle pollution typically arising from diesel fuel combustion.
In mid-April, however, Aclima began to see an increase in air pollutants in parts of California, as measured by both regulatory monitors and Aclima’s mobile sensing network. Changes in air pollutant and greenhouse gas levels can be caused by any number of factors. Many of these overlap — including precipitation, temperature, wind speed and direction, traffic patterns, and changes in human activity — so Aclima is conducting ongoing research to more deeply understand contributing factors during the shelter-in-place order.
The company is looking at the government’s regulatory data going back as far as 2017 to discount any seasonal effects on air pollution. Aclima’s own mobile sensing network has been measuring air pollutant and greenhouse gas levels in regions on a block-by-block basis since the spring of 2019. While average air pollutant levels are still lower than the average of the past three years and are below pre-pandemic levels, the upward trend in parts of San Diego is important to explore further as more people return to work.
Above: Carbon monoxide fell to lows during the lockdown in San Diego.
Looking at the hyperlocal data and border areas in San Diego, you can see fluctuations in pollutant levels week over week.
Broader mission Aclima has been measuring pollutants and greenhouse gases with its mobile sensing network in areas designated as environmental justice communities, as well as along the U.S. border with Mexico. This work supports emissions reduction efforts in parts of San Diego that are disproportionately impacted by air quality issues, including the neighborhoods near the port. “We make it easy to get this kind of environmental data in the hands of more decision makers to accelerate emissions reductions,” Herzl said.
The company said that prior to the shelter-in-place order, major freeways and roads near the coast and the border showed higher levels of the pollutant black carbon than other regions, likely relating to port activity and cross-border trucking traffic. “These front-line communities see much higher levels of pollution, and they have more health impacts,” Herzl said. “During COVID-19, there is an emerging science that shows that communities with more pollution are seeing more impact from COVID-19.” Above: Black carbon levels are inching back up in San Diego after falling during lockdown.
During the shelter-in-place period, black carbon concentrations (often from diesel fuel) fell 33% in San Diego across five weeks. But starting the week of April 12, concentrations of black carbon began to increase with the rise in other pollutants. Ongoing research is required to isolate the impact of combustion emissions versus meteorological influences on black carbon and other air pollutant concentrations.
But Herzl believes the overall message is clear: We need to invest in “decarbonization” efforts now. While such efforts could strain an economy already taxed by the pandemic, she believes we have a new opportunity to create jobs with smart energy investments.
Aclima has 120 employees and has raised $24 million from Social Capital and others.
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"8 ways to bring your employees back to work | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/8-ways-to-bring-your-employees-back-to-work"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest 8 ways to bring your employees back to work Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
In the last few months, hundreds of millions of employees had to go home.
It was a mass migration unlike any before it. While sheltering in place, companies have been wondering how to eventually bring all those people safely back into the office. However, there’s no road map for navigating the transition, and safety measures like clean-desk policies and one-way corridors may work at one office but not at another. The most important objective is keeping your people safe.
My team has spoken to over 100 executives from the F1000 who have offered insight into workplace strategy, health and wellness, and what the office will look like after this pandemic. These conversations have made it clear that the success of any return-to-work program depends largely on employee buy-in. The guidelines below are ways to think about implementation and communication that will build employee trust in your organization’s policies and empower them to be part of the solution.
1. Over-communicate health & safety strategy Returning to the office will require both organizational strategy and open communication of that strategy to employees. Creating a reliable flow of information between managers and employees will build team trust and enable employees to share responsibility for a healthy work environment.
Wayfinding systems and digital signage are effective tools for communicating new policy. Consider establishing company wikis, occupancy and usage monitors, and clearly displayed cleaning schedules in order to efficiently disseminate important health and safety information to teams.
2. Create functional waves, not status waves Companies should consider employee needs and bring people back based on function. Focusing on the functionality of a role instead of seniority will help mitigate concerns about portraying some employees as “more” important and some as “less.” Staggering schedules and returning in waves will also help cleaning crews keep up with the resurgence in foot traffic and increased sanitary standards.
3. Prioritize payroll If you’re looking to lower your cost base, start by reviewing your real estate portfolio. In doing so, empower employees to provide guidance on what amenities they can live without.
Putting your people first may mean putting your space second. Real estate is often an organization’s second largest budget item. Think of ways you can reduce property expenses through space consolidation and halting new projects until you understand what the work-from-home environment will look like.
4. Decentralize decision-making If your company has offices in multiple regions, consider empowering local managers to set site-specific guidelines about their team needs. Strictly enforcing organization-wide mandates will slow down the implementation process and compromise effectiveness in different markets.
Delegating decision-making to local managers will provide team leaders agency over their office and remind employees that your organization is prioritizing their specific health and wellness over less efficient corporate directives.
5. Create WFH & office hybrid After adjusting to a remote workforce, some companies have found they can still be as productive (or even more so) when working from home. Because of this, many employees may not want to return to the office at all. To support these changes, companies should consider enabling video conferencing in all meeting rooms. You could also establish a work-from-home budget for remote employees by redirecting the funds needed to support them in the office.
Preparing for future pandemics and office disruptions means adopting a work-from-home and office hybrid environment. Ensure that company productivity can be maintained remotely. This flexibility will increase employee agency over how and where they work.
6. Avoid excessive mandates Too much regulation can be detrimental to cleaning initiatives. Companies should aim to create a healthy-but-not-sterile environment for employees when they return. Schedule usage-based cleaning and avoid wasting time cleaning areas that have not been visited.
If your organization adopts an excessive number of new cleaning policies, employees may find it difficult to adhere to every detail. Pick the essential policies for keeping your team safe and implement those to the letter. Otherwise, employees may start to slip up and ultimately compromise the effectiveness of all new strategies.
7. Establish strategic buffers for cleaning Cleaning crews will need ample time and space to sanitize regularly used areas in the office. To help them succeed, establish natural buffers by staggering work schedules, distributing teams to specific/separate locations, and carefully rotating available resources to employees who need them.
These buffers will create a margin of error that will help keep your people healthy. If you can limit the overlap of teams and resources, fewer people will interact with the same spaces, and cleaning crews will be able to tend to those areas more effectively.
8. Preserve culture COVID-19 will impact office culture. Your teams will be returning to a changed office. Consider how limited shared spaces, plexiglass dividers, and clean-desk policies will affect workplace experience. Companies should plan for this and make every effort to preserve culture. Review and re-publish core values, display team-building strategies, and support employees as they adapt to the changes.
These guidelines will help your company stay healthy while navigating the inevitable change in team culture. By following these steps, your organization can boost employee confidence and flexibility, empower managers to lead initiatives, and set your team up for success in the event of future disruptions.
Andrew Farah is CEO of people-counting startup Density.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"OpenAI debuts gigantic GPT-3 language model with 175 billion parameters | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/openai-debuts-gigantic-gpt-3-language-model-with-175-billion-parameters"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages OpenAI debuts gigantic GPT-3 language model with 175 billion parameters Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
A team of more than 30 OpenAI researchers have released a paper about GPT-3 , a language model capable of achieving state-of-the-art results on a set of benchmark and unique natural language processing tasks that range from language translation to generating news articles to answering SAT questions. GPT-3 has a whopping 175 billion parameters. By comparison, the largest version of GPT-2 was 1.5 billion parameters , and the largest Transformer-based language model in the world — introduced by Microsoft earlier this month — is 17 billion parameters.
OpenAI released GPT-2 last year , controversially taking a staggered release approach due to fear that the model could be used for malicious purposes. OpenAI was criticized by some for the staggered approach, while others applauded the company for demonstrating a way to carefully release an AI model with the potential for misuse. GPT-3 made its debut with a preprint arXiv paper Thursday, but no release details are provided. An OpenAI spokesperson declined to comment when VentureBeat asked if a full version of GPT-3 will be released or one of seven smaller versions ranging in size from 125 million to 13 billion parameters.
Many advanced Transformer-based models have evolved to achieve human-level performance on a number of natural language tasks. Authors say the Transformer architecture-based approach behind many language model advances in recent years is limited by a need for task-specific data sets and fine-tuning. GPT-3 is an autoregressive model trained with unsupervised machine learning and focuses on few-shot learning, which supplies a demonstration of a task at inference runtime.
“Here we show that scaling up language models greatly improves task-agnostic, few-shot performance, sometimes even reaching competitiveness with prior state-of-the-art fine-tuning approaches,” the paper reads. “For all tasks, GPT-3 is applied without any gradient updates or fine-tuning, with tasks and few-shot demonstrations specified purely via text interaction with the model.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! “Broadly, on NLP tasks GPT-3 achieves promising results in the zero-shot and one-shot settings, and in the few-shot setting [it] is sometimes competitive with or even occasionally surpasses state-of-the-art (despite state-of-the-art being held by fine-tuned models),” the authors note.
The paper released Thursday examines forms of GPT-3 in varying sizes to assess few-shot learning results, as well as one-shot learning, the kind thought to most closely mimic how humans learn, and zero-shot learning, where only a description of a task is provided at runtime.
Though GPT-3 works well to generate news articles and tasks like using novel words in sentences or performing arithmetic, it can fall short when it comes to common-sense reasoning. On the SuperGLUE benchmark introduced last year specifically to test reasoning and other tasks for advanced NLP models, GPT-3 achieves nearly state-of-the-art results in COPA and ReCoRD reading comprehension data sets, but falls short with word-in-context analysis (WiC) and RACE, a set of middle school and high school exam questions.
“GPT-3 appears to be weak in the few-shot or one-shot setting at some tasks that involve comparing two sentences or snippets, for example, whether a word is used the same way in two sentences (WiC), whether one sentence is a paraphrase of another, or whether one sentence implies another,” the paper reads. “By presenting a broad characterization of GPT-3’s strengths and weaknesses, including these limitations, we hope to stimulate study of few-shot learning in language models and draw attention to where progress is most needed.” Unlike many other pretrained language models, a preliminary assessment of algorithmic bias found in GPT-3 is also included in the paper. Sentiment analysis of GPT-3 racial bias performance was assessed using the Senti WordNet model and found that “Asian” had a consistently positive score, ranking first in racial groups in positive scores in three of the seven versions of GPT-3. “Black” consistently had low sentiment analysis scores across five of the seven versions of GPT-3.
In an assessment of associations between gender and occupation, GPT-3 demonstrated that it’s most likely to suggest a male identifier, based on analysis of almost 400 occupations. A recent analysis of pretrained language models found race, gender, occupation, and religious bias prevalent among pretrained language models, but researchers found that OpenAI’s GPT-2 demonstrated more idealistic results than others.
The GPT-3 paper also includes documentation on data contamination; energy usage during training; the broader impact of the advanced language model; and potential misuses, such as “misinformation, spam, phishing, abuse of legal and governmental processes, fraudulent academic essay writing, and social engineering pretexting.” GPT-3 is trained with nearly a trillion words obtained from the Common Crawl corpus of data between 2016 and 2019, as well as data sets related to web text, books, and Wikipedia.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"OpenAI and Uber create Virtual Petri Dish to find the best AI model for a task | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/openai-and-uber-create-virtual-petri-dish-to-find-the-best-ai-model-for-a-task"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages OpenAI and Uber create Virtual Petri Dish to find the best AI model for a task Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Researchers affiliated with Uber AI and OpenAI have proposed a new approach to neural architecture search (NAS), a technique that involves evaluating hundreds or thousands of AI models to identify the top performers. In a preprint paper, they claim their technique, called Synthetic Petri Dish, accelerates the most computationally intensive NAS steps while predicting model performance with higher accuracy than previous methods.
NAS teases out top model architectures for tasks by testing candidate models’ overall performance, dispensing with manual fine-tuning. But it requires large amounts of computation and data, the implication being that the best architectures train near the bounds of available resources. Synthetic Petri Dish takes an idea from biology to address this dilemma: It uses candidate architectures to create small models and evaluate them with generated data samples, such that this relative performance stands in for the overall performance.
“The overall motivation behind ‘in vitro’ (test-tube) experiments in biology is to investigate in a simpler and controlled environment the key factors that explain a phenomenon of interest in a messier and more complex system,” the researchers explained. “This paper explores whether the computational efficiency of NAS can be improved by creating a new kind of surrogate, one that can benefit from miniaturized training and still generalize beyond the observed distribution of ground-truth evaluations … [W]e can use machine learning to learn data such that training an [architecture] on the learned data results in performance indicative of the [architecture’s] ground-truth performance.” Synthetic Petri Dish needs only a few performance evaluations of architectures and, once trained, enables “extremely rapid” testing of new architectures. The initial evaluations are used to train a Petri dish model while generating a set of architectures through an off-the-shelf NAS method. The trained Petri dish model then predicts the relative performance of the new architectures and selects a subset of architectures for performance evaluation.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! The process repeats until the NAS method identifies the best architecture.
In experiments run on a PC with 20 Nvidia 1080 Ti graphics cards (for ground-truth training and evaluation) and a MacBook (for inference), the researchers sought to determine how Synthetic Petri Dish performs on the Penn Tree Bank (PTB) data set, a popular language modeling and NAS benchmark. Beginning from a ground-truth model containing 27 million parameters (variables), Synthetic Petri Dish generated 100 new architectures and evaluated the top 20 architectures.
The researchers say that at the end of the search, their technique found a model “competitive” in its performance with one found through conventional NAS while reducing the complexity of the seed model from 27 million parameters (variables) to 140 parameters. They also report that Synthetic Petri Dish required only a tenth of the original NAS’ compute and exceeded the performance of the original NAS when both were given equivalent compute.
“By approaching architecture search in this way as a kind of question-answering problem on how certain motifs or factors impact final results, we gain the intriguing advantage that the prediction model is no longer a black box. Instead, it actually contains within it a critical piece of the larger world that it seeks to predict,” the coauthors — who conducted the research at Uber — wrote. “[B]ecause the tiny model contains a piece of the real network (and hence enables testing various hypothesis as to its capabilities), the predictions are built on highly relevant priors that lend more accuracy to their results than blank-slate black box mode.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"New Alexa skill development tools reduce pain points between businesses and customers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/new-alexa-skill-development-tools-reduce-pain-points-between-businesses-and-customers"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages New Alexa skill development tools reduce pain points between businesses and customers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Amazon today announced the general availability of Multi-Capability Skills for Alexa, a way to combine smart home and custom Alexa apps into single, unified voice apps. Starting this week, developers can publish and maintain an Alexa app that enables both internet of things and third-party features for their devices, extending built-in smart home commands with custom voice interaction models to support nearly any feature without forcing customers to enable and invoke two separate apps.
Before the advent of Multi-Capability Skills, Alexa developers had to publish and maintain multiple apps to enable custom features: a smart home app to leverage built-in smart home capabilities and a custom app to support capabilities not included in the Alexa smart home API. Now they don’t — and customers don’t have to remember two different app names. In this way, Multi-Capability Skills make it easier for developers to create better Alexa experiences. For example, they could leverage Alexa’s support for utterances to create an app that recognizes the commands “Alexa, ask Roomba to vacuum the kitchen” and “Alexa, ask this skill ‘What can this device do?'” Amazon says that already Dyson has built a Multi-Capability Skill to enable customers to interact more naturally with its devices via Alexa using commands like “Alexa, set the fan speed to 5” and “Alexa, set Oscillation to wide,” as well as setting night modes and quiet modes in their Alexa-programmed routines. For its part, TP-Link used Multi-Capability Skills to let Alexa users in the U.S. with compatible TP-Link routers access expanded features in a single app, like control over internet access across a household’s connected devices (e.g., “Alexa, pause internet for Timmy’s iPad” or “Alexa, ask TP-Link to enable gaming mode”).
Developers with existing Alexa apps can update those apps through the Alexa Developer Console as part of the configuration workflow or add models to base apps using the Alexa Developer Console. Alternatively, they can create Multi-Capability Skills on live app development, allowing for the testing of expanded feature support before the app (or apps) are submitted for certification.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! There’s a reason Amazon is devoting time and attention to smart home device integrations. Smart home device shipments are expected to experience a 26.9% year-over-year uptick to 832.7 million units by 2020 and to hit 1.6 billion units by 2023. And of the 75% of respondents to a recent Dashbot survey who use voice assistants like Alexa at least once a day, 23% say they control smart home devices with their assistant. Of that group, 63% tap assistants for home automation multiple times a day.
Amazon also this week announced that it’s expanding the ways Alexa developers can use voice profiles in their apps with the Person Profile API. Apps using Alexa voice profiles can now incorporate contact information like full names, first names, and mobile numbers to personalize how the voice assistant engages with users. “[W]hen a customer’s voice is recognized, [apps] can request customer permission to access certain contact information and further personalize their experience,” Amazon explains in a blog post.
“For example, a game [app] can request to incorporate the customer name for a global leaderboard. Further, a food delivery [app] can request to send updates on the food delivery status to customers on their mobile number.” The Person Profile API remains in preview for now. Developers can apply to personalize their app experiences by completing a short survey ; Amazon says it’ll notify those who are selected.
In somewhat related news, Alexa on Fire TV devices now supports additional commands for select third-party apps including Netflix and YouTube. Alexa can control the playback of clips, TV shows, and movies with phrases like “Alexa, forward thirty minutes” and “Alexa, rewind twenty seconds” as well as perform searches across apps like Disney+, JioCinema, Apple TV+, MX Player TV, Eros, and Viu.
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"New AI technique speeds up language models on edge devices | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/new-ai-technique-speeds-up-language-models-on-edge-devices"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages New AI technique speeds up language models on edge devices Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Researchers at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab recently proposed Hardware-Aware Transformers (HAT), an AI model training technique that incorporates Google’s Transformer architecture. They claim that HAT can achieve a 3 times inferencing speedup on devices like the Raspberry Pi 4 while reducing model size by 3.7 times compared with a baseline.
Google’s Transformer is widely used in natural language processing (and even some computer vision ) tasks because of its cutting-edge performance. Nevertheless, Transformers remain challenging to deploy on edge devices because of their computation cost; on a Raspberry Pi, translating a sentence with only 30 words requires 13 gigaflops (1 billion floating-point operations per second) and takes 20 seconds. This obviously limits the architecture’s usefulness for developers and companies integrating language AI with mobile apps and services.
The researchers’ solution employs neural architecture search (NAS), a method for automating AI model design. HAT performs a search for edge device-optimized Transformers by first training a Transformer “supernet” — SuperTransformer — containing many sub-Transformers. These sub-Transformers are then trained simultaneously, such that the performance of one provides a relative performance approximation for different architectures trained from scratch. In the last step, HAT conducts an evolutionary search to find the best sub-Transformer, given a hardware latency constraint.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! To test HAT’s efficiency, the coauthors conducted experiments on four machine translation tasks consisting of between 160,000 and 43 million pairs of training sentences. For each model, they measured the latency 300 times and removed the fastest and slowest 10% before taking the average of the remaining 80%, which they ran on a Raspberry Pi 4, an Intel Xeon E2-2640, and an Nvidia Titan XP graphics card.
According to the team, the models identified through HAT not only achieved lower latency across all hardware than a conventionally trained Transformer, but scored higher on the popular BLEU language benchmark after 184 to 200 hours of training on a single Nvidia V100 graphics card. Compared to Google’s recently proposed Evolved Transformer , one model was 3.6 times smaller with a whopping 12,041 times lower computation cost and no performance loss.
“To enable low-latency inference on resource-constrained hardware platforms, we propose to design [HAT] with neural architecture search,” the coauthors wrote, noting that HAT is available in open source on GitHub. “We hope HAT can open up an avenue towards efficient Transformer deployments for real-world applications.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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"Facebook AI Research applies Transformer architecture to streamline object detection models | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/facebook-ai-research-applies-transformer-architecture-to-streamline-object-detection-models"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Facebook AI Research applies Transformer architecture to streamline object detection models Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
Six members of Facebook AI Research (FAIR) tapped the popular Transformer neural network architecture to create end-to-end object detection AI, an approach they claim streamlines the creation of object detection models and reduces the need for handcrafted components. Named Detection Transformer (DETR), the model can recognize objects in an image in a single pass all at once.
DETR is the first object detection framework to successfully integrate the Transformer architecture as a central building block in the detection pipeline, FAIR said in a blog post.
The authors added that Transformers could revolutionize computer vision as they did natural language processing in recent years, or bridge gaps between NLP and computer vision.
“DETR directly predicts (in parallel) the final set of detections by combining a common CNN with a Transformer architecture,” reads a FAIR paper published Wednesday alongside the open source release of DETR. “The new model is conceptually simple and does not require a specialized library, unlike many other modern detectors.” Created by Google researchers in 2017, the Transformer network architecture was initially intended as a way to improve machine translation, but has grown to become a cornerstone of machine learning for making some of the most popular pretrained state-of-the-art language models, such as Google’s BERT, Facebook’s RoBERTa, and many others. In conversation with VentureBeat, Google AI chief Jeff Dean and other AI luminaries declared Transformer-based language models a major trend in 2019 they expect to continue in 2020.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Transformers use attention functions instead of a recurrent neural network to predict what comes next in a sequence. When applied to object detection, a Transformer is able to cut out steps to building a model, such as the need to create spatial anchors and customized layers.
DETR achieves results comparable to Faster R-CNN , an object detection model created primarily by Microsoft Research that’s earned nearly 10,000 citations since it was introduced in 2015, according to arXiv. The DETR researchers ran experiments using the COCO object detection data set as well as others related to panoptic segmentation, the kind of object detection that paints regions of an image instead of with a bounding box.
One major issue the authors say they encountered: DETR works better on large objects than small objects. “Current detectors required several years of improvements to cope with similar issues, and we expect future work to successfully address them for DETR,” the authors wrote.
DETR is the latest Facebook AI initiative that looks to a language model solution to solve a computer vision challenge. Earlier this month, Facebook introduced the Hateful Meme data set and challenge to champion the creation of multimodal AI capable of recognizing when an image and accompanying text in a meme violates Facebook policy. In related news, earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that an internal investigation concluded in 2018 that Facebook’s recommendation algorithms “exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness,” but executives largely ignored the analysis.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"COVID-19 HPC Consortium pours 437 petaflops of compute power toward virus research | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/covid-19-hpc-consortium-pours-437-petaflops-of-compute-power-toward-virus-research"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages COVID-19 HPC Consortium pours 437 petaflops of compute power toward virus research Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you ready to bring more awareness to your brand? Consider becoming a sponsor for The AI Impact Tour. Learn more about the opportunities here.
In March, IBM announced alongside the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy that it would help coordinate an effort to provide hundreds of petaflops of compute to scientists researching the coronavirus. As part of the newly launched COVID-19 High Performance Computing (HPC) Consortium, the company pledged to assist in evaluating proposals and to provide access to resources for projects that “make the most immediate impact.” Almost two months later, IBM claims those efforts are beginning to bear fruit.
This week, IBM announced that the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Swiss National Supercomputer Center (CSCS) will join the COVID-19 HPC Consortium, making available machines including the University of Edinburgh’s ARCHER; the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s DIRAC; the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council’s Earlham Institute; and Piz Daint, the sixth-ranked supercomputer in the world according to the TOP 500 supercomputing list. With the new additions, scientists can take advantage of over 437 petaflops (430 trillion floating-point operations per second) of compute power — up from 330 petaflops in mid-March — across hardware owned and operated by the Consortium’s 40 partners.
IBM says more than 59 projects in the U.S., Germany, India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Croatia, Spain, the U.K., and other countries have been matched with supercomputers from Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, IBM, and dozens of academic and nonprofit research institutions for free. (Normally, a petaflop of computing power costs between $2 million and $3 million, according to IBM.) Collectively, they’re running on over 113,000 nodes containing 4.2 million processor cores and more than 43,000 graphics cards.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Powerful computers allow researchers to undertake large numbers of calculations in epidemiology, bioinformatics, and molecular modeling, many of which would take months on traditional computing platforms (or year if worked by hand). The insights generated by the experiments can help advance humanity’s understanding of COVID-19 in key ways, such as viral-human interaction, viral structure and function, small molecule design, drug repurposing, and patient trajectory and outcomes.
Researchers affiliated with the University of Utah tapped the Consortium’s compute to generate more than 2,000 molecular models of compounds relevant for COVID-19 and rank them based on force field energy estimates, which they theorize could help design better peptide inhibitors of a novel coronavirus-stopping enzyme. Meanwhile, IBM Research Europe partnered with scientists at the University of Oxford to combine molecular simulations with AI to discover potential compounds that could be repurposed as anti-COVID-19 drugs. A pair of NASA researchers are working to define risk groups by performing genome analysis on COVID-19 patients who develop acute respiratory distress syndrome. Not to be outdone, scientists at Utah State University intend to leverage the Consortium’s supercomputers to study the transmission of airborne respiratory infectious diseases like COVID-19.
Above: A supercomputer rendering of airflow in an empty hospital room, where the vertical velocity of air is high enough to keep the virus-laden aerosols in suspension. This will help tell the regions in the room that might have aerosols of certain size in the air column.
On the private sector side of the equation, Kolkata-based Novel Techsciences hopes to use the Consortium’s resources to identify phytochemicals from India’s over 3,000 medicinal plants and anti-viral plant extracts that might act as natural drugs against COVID-19. London-based AI chemistry startup PostEra’s Moonshot Project has already isolated around 21 designs that target a key protein associated with coronavirus. Another effort spearheaded by AI startup Kuano, which is also based in London, aims to glean info about diseases akin to COVID-19 to pioneer a new drug that could defeat coronavirus, while Germany-based Innoplexus hopes to discover molecules that could combat COVID-19.
Today’s update follows news that scientists tapped IBM’s Summit at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the world’s fastest supercomputer, to simulate how 8,000 different molecules would interact with COVID-19, resulting in the isolation of 77 compounds likely to render the virus unable to infect host cells. Elsewhere, the Tianhe-1 supercomputer at the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin was recently used to process hundreds of images generated by computed tomography and give diagnoses in seconds. And the Gauss Center for Supercomputing, an alliance of Germany’s three national supercomputing centers, said it would help those working on COVID-19 research gain expedited access to computing resources.
More recently, Folding@home and Rosetta@home, two of the largest crowdsourced supercomputing programs in the world, kick-started initiatives to uncover the mysteries behind COVID-19’s spike protein, which the virus uses to infect cells. Since the COVID-19 focus was announced earlier this year, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have joined the effort. As of March, the Folding@home network alone has been running with over an exaflop — one quintillion floating-point computations per second — of distributed computational performance, exceeding the performance of any of the Consortium’s machines.
Supercomputers have been used long before the pandemic to identify and test treatments for complex and chronic diseases. Researchers tapped the Texas Advanced Computing Center’s Lonestar5 cluster to simulate over 1,400 FDA-approved drugs to see if they could be used to treat cancer, for instance. Eight supercomputing centers were last year selected across the EU to host applications in personalized medicine and drug design. More recently, pharmaceutical company TwoXAR recently teamed up with the Asian Liver Center at Stanford to screen 25,000 drug candidates for adult liver cancer.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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"Amazon discontinues the Echo Look and migrates AI style recommendations to other apps and devices | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/amazon-discontinues-the-echo-look-and-migrates-ai-style-recommendations-to-other-apps-and-devices"
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"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Amazon discontinues the Echo Look and migrates AI style recommendations to other apps and devices Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship.
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Amazon this week discontinued the Echo Look after pulling the Alexa-powered camera from store shelves in December 2019, a spokesperson confirmed to VentureBeat via email. As spotted by Voicebot.ai , Echo Look customers began receiving an email yesterday stating that their devices and the companion app will “no longer function” beginning July 2020, as the Echo Look’s capabilities migrate to other apps and services.
Style by Alexa, which suggests, compares, and rates apparel using a combination of AI and human curation, is already available in the Amazon Shopping app after launching exclusively on the Echo Look. (It’s under the Programs and Features section in the left slide-out menu.) And now, asking any Alexa-enabled device “Alexa, what should I wear?” will prompt style recommendations based on the weather, shopping preferences, and other factors.
As Amazon explains, the Echo Look was always intended to help train the AI algorithms behind features like Style by Alexa, whose expanded launches come as the apparel market suffers pandemic-related declines.
With style recommendations and programs like Prime Wardrobe, which lets users try on clothes and send back what they don’t want to buy, Amazon is vying for a larger slice of sales while algorithmically surfacing products customers might not normally choose. It’s a win for businesses on its face — excepting cases where the recommended accessories are Amazon’s own , of course.
Above: Alexa style recommendations from the Alexa mobile app.
“When we introduced Echo Look three years ago, our goal was to train Alexa to become a style assistant as a novel way to apply AI and machine learning to fashion. With the help of our customers we evolved the service, enabling Alexa to give outfit advice and offer style recommendations,” a spokesperson told VentureBeat. “We look forward to continuing to support our customers and their style needs with Alexa.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Amazon is encouraging Echo Look owners to dispose of their units through its recycling service , and it says owners have been offered steep discounts on purchases of an Echo Show 5. Additionally, the company is offering free Amazon Photos accounts to store users’ Echo Look photos and videos through July 24, 2021, but those who don’t create an account by the deadline won’t be able to access their content. (Customers who wish to delete existing content must also do so before July 24 if they’d rather avoid calling customer service.) Above: Style by Alexa in the Amazon Shopping app.
Interestingly, the demise of the $200 Echo Look — which launched in a closed, invite-only beta three years ago and was made available for general purchase in April 2017 — follows Facebook’s push toward an AI- and machine learning-driven ecommerce assistant. Last week, the social network detailed the algorithms behind its shopping experiences, including GrokNet, which can detect exact, similar (via related attributes), and co-occurring products across billions of photos; the company says GrokNet performs searches and filtering on Facebook Marketplace at least twice as accurately as the algorithm it replaced.
“We envision a future in which [a] system could … incorporate your friends’ recommendations on museums, restaurants, or the best ceramics class in the city — enabling you to more easily shop for those types of experiences,” Facebook wrote in a blog post. “Our long-term vision is to build an all-in-one AI lifestyle assistant that can accurately search and rank billions of products, while personalizing to individual tastes. That same system would make online shopping just as social as shopping with friends in real life. Going one step further, it would advance visual search to make your real-world environment shoppable. If you see something you like (clothing, furniture, electronics, etc.), you could snap a photo of it and the system would find that exact item, as well as several similar ones to purchase right then and there.” VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact.
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The AI Impact Tour Join us for an evening full of networking and insights at VentureBeat's AI Impact Tour, coming to San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles! VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat.
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Subsets and Splits
Wired Articles Filtered
Retrieves up to 100 entries from the train dataset where the URL contains 'wired' but the text does not contain 'Menu', providing basic filtering of the data.