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"2018 will be the year chatbot conversations get real | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/2018-will-be-the-year-chatbot-conversations-get-real"
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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 2018 will be the year chatbot conversations get real 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.
As we enter 2018, it’s clear the expectations of intelligent assistance providers and enterprise practitioners are more in balance than ever before. It has also become evident that the number of “known knowns” is growing rapidly.
Here are five examples of how we will learn more about the complex workings of conversational commerce in the coming year.
1. Intelligent assistants (IAs) can do a lot right out of the box Solution providers have access to a history of FAQs, recordings, call detail records (CDRs), chat transcripts, product literature, CRM records, and even interactive voice response (IVR) scripts to inform IAs on the basic intents of customers in the top vertical categories. Even if you are not Google, Facebook, or another one of the tech giants that benefit from exposure to inconceivably large data sets, it’s possible to access quality insights about your consumers. Big data is no longer required to get started in conversational commerce.
2. Humans still have a place in training and tuning IAs can result in nearly immediate reduction in operating costs and enhanced customer satisfaction, but their ability to replace live agents and assistants is vastly overrated. On the contrary, the need to monitor and constantly tune responses to keep them relevant for prospects and satisfactory for customers is growing rapidly. Meeting this need will prove a source of new of jobs and reliable employment for the foreseeable future.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! 3. Managing true conversations comes next Categorization? √ Understanding? √ Conversation? Nope! Some solution providers are better than others at recognizing context, promoting turn-taking, and allowing customers’ minds to wander and jump between topics, but the game board is still largely governed by statistics and branches on logic trees that can come up empty. When that happens, IAs are no better than poorly designed, frustrating IVR apps. Watch for some real advancements to correct this situation in 2018.
4. We will be able to hurdle the walled gardens of #ConvComm It’s a shame that the branded Big Four (and other heavy hitters in the tech industry) have elected to create separate and unequal “platforms” for messaging bots and voice first agents. Companies would like to see intelligent assistance infrastructure that lets them develop a service once and have it render correctly on all devices and in all modes. Instead, in the short to medium term, we are stuck with the same duplicated efforts that plague mobile apps (iOS versus Android, for instance). Separate staffs maintain the code base for Alexa skills, Google actions, Facebook Messenger bots, and a few others.
5. Our reach will exceed our grasp Now that we’ve tackled the “known knowns,” we can expect startups and stealthy entrepreneurs to emerge in 2018 ready to tackle “known unknowns.” They will do this by blending machine learning, natural language processing, knowledge management, and other elements of AI with the human touch. Some might even expose and exploit the “unknown knowns.” Their nature is to be determined, but there is always room for breakthrough technologies. At the very minimum, solutions will span the traditional lines of demarcation between customer care, marketing, user ID, and authentication and relationship management platforms.
Adoption and use of conversational commerce will accelerate in 2018. Forces are aligning for people to employ conversational technologies at home, in their cars, and in their offices. It’s up to solution providers to manage the complexity of underlying processes to keep things simple for end users and enterprises alike.
This article originally appeared on the Opus Research blog.
Copyright 2017.
Dan Miller is founder and lead analyst at Opus Research , a market research firm focused on conversational commerce.
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5,614 | 2,016 |
"Twitter now lets you curate your own Moments on mobile | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/twitter-now-lets-you-curate-your-own-moments-on-mobile"
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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 now lets you curate your own Moments on mobile Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn At the Twitter Flight developer conference in San Francisco on Oct. 21.
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 only recently opened up its Moments product to users, allowing them to curate tweets around specific events, but it was limited to just the desktop and web. However, starting today , the company is rolling out mobile support so now you’ll be able to do the same thing while on the go.
With Moments, you can bring together favorite Tweets to tell richer stories – rolling out on mobile starting today.
https://t.co/SMqIZ1Zngo — Twitter (@twitter) November 30, 2016 When you want to create a Moment , first start with a tweet you want to add. Click on the downward arrow in the tweet details and you can add it to a Moment. Do this over and over again until your curation is complete. You can search for tweets you’ve composed or liked, or by keyword. Reorder the tweets as you see fit, select a background for your Moments, and publish.
So what this means now is that if you’re at an event, whether it’s live sports, a conference, a political rally, or hanging with friends, or just somewhere that has people tweeting their thoughts, you don’t have to wait until you reach a laptop or computer to assemble a Moment. Now you can do it within the Twitter app. Of course, since it’s just rolling out now, not everyone will have it yet, so you’ll have to be patient.
It was just two months ago when Twitter began offering its self-service version of Moments. Prior to that, human editors were utilized. Now it’s democratized after there appeared to be traction — Twitter began opening up the program to more influencers, brands, and partners , and that seemed to give the feature some legs.
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5,615 | 2,016 |
"Reddit to ban or suspend harassers following Pizzagate and abuse directed at CEO | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/reddit-to-ban-or-suspend-harassers-following-pizzagate-and-abuse-directed-at-ceo"
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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 Reddit to ban or suspend harassers following Pizzagate and abuse directed at CEO 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) — Social media website Reddit, known for its commitment to free speech, will crack down on online harassment by banning or suspending users who target others, starting with those who have directed abuse at Chief Executive Steve Huffman.
Huffman said in an interview with Reuters that Reddit’s content policy prohibits harassment, but that it had not been adequately enforced.
“Personal message harassment is the most cut and dry,” he said. “Right now we are in an interesting position where my inbox is full of them, it’s easy to start with me.” As well as combing through Huffman’s inbox, Reddit will monitor user reports, add greater filtering capacity, and take a more proactive role in policing its platform rather than relying on community moderators.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Reddit said it had identified hundreds of the “most toxic users” and will warn, ban or suspend them. It also plans to increase staff on its “trust and safety” team.
Reddit’s moves are the latest step by social media companies to adjust their policies in the wake of a polarizing U.S. election earlier this month in which their websites played a key role.
Facebook said it is reviewing its approach to so-called “fake news” — generally sensational but fictitious reports designed to attract as many readers as possible — and banning some sites that host fake news from its advertising network. Twitter is also rolling out new tools to combat abuse.
On Reddit, a channel supporting the U.S. Republican party’s presidential candidate Donald Trump, called r/The_Donald, featured racist and misogynistic comments, fake news and conspiracy theories about his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton, along with more mainstream expressions of support for Trump.
Many of those supporting Trump were very active, voting up the r/The_Donald conversations so that they became prominent across Reddit, which is the 7th-most-visited U.S. internet site, according to web data firm Alexa.
Last week, Reddit banned Pizzagate, a community devoted to a conspiracy theory, with no evidence to back it up, that links Clinton to a pedophile ring at a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor, after it posted personal information in violation of Reddit policy.
Huffman then used his administrative privileges to redirect abuse he was receiving on a thread on r/The_Donald to the community’s moderators — making it look as if it was intended for them. Huffman said it was a prank, and that many Reddit users, including some Trump supporters, told him they thought it was funny, but it inflamed the situation.
Reddit has a more permissive attitude than Facebook and Twitter when it comes to what it allows on its site, but r/The_Donald users frequently crossed a line, Huffman said, including by trying to manipulate voting to ensure their posts appear on prominent Reddit pages.
Reddit has stepped up its efforts to combat abuse on the site over the past year, creating what it called an “anti-evil” team of engineers dedicated to fighting harassment.
“The fact I was saying that combating harassment was important and then letting that openly happen to me, the CEO, there’s a disconnect there,” Huffman said.
In the past, Reddit has worked with moderators of communities to try to enforce its rules.
With r/The_Donald in particular, “we haven’t found that to be particularly effective. We might see flashes of success, but things kind of revert,” Huffman said.
Under its new strategy, Reddit will take a more active role in dealing with troublemakers, who Huffman said were an “infinitesimal” portion of Reddit’s 250 million monthly visitors.
He stressed that the move was not political.
“We don’t want to be censoring political beliefs, but then they do misbehave,” he said. “That’s why we have worked so closely with the r/The_Donald community. We tell them: don’t force us to ban you.” The first wave of bans will likely be skewed to the r/The_Donald community because “that is a catalyst for a lot of this right now. That community is stirred up,” Huffman said.
In a draft of a blog post to be published on Wednesday, Huffman said he had been asked by many Reddit users “to ban r/The_Donald outright,” but he had rejected that idea, because “if there is anything about this election that we have learned, it is that there are communities that feel alienated and just want to be heard, and Reddit has always been a place where those voices can be heard.” (Reporting By Kristina Cooke; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Bill Rigby) 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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"I'm going to miss Hearthstone's vanilla Arena meta | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/im-going-to-miss-hearthstones-vanilla-meta"
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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 I’m going to miss Hearthstone’s vanilla Arena meta Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Let's "hunt" for some wins in Hearthstone's Arena! 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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I’ve finally found my Hearthstone Arena groove — just in time for everything to change.
My favorite mode in Blizzard Entertainment’s market-leading card game is Arena, where you pick from three classes and build a 30-card deck with random cards. It’s a new challenge every time, and each deck you face is different — providing much more variety than what you find in Hearthstone’s constructed ladder or casual modes (which is overrun with competitive decks as people test them before going to the ladder). And on top of facing a wider variety of decks, Arena also has its own metagame environment that differs from constructed — and it’s a puzzle that’s often far more difficult to solve than on the competitive ladder.
You see, it’s all about balance.
The ‘vanilla’ meta Until Mean Streets of Gadgetzan drops, the Arena is in a “vanilla” state. This means no cards get an offering bonus when you’re making your deck. When Blizzard releases a set, it gives that new set an increased percentage chance (up to 50 percent) of class cards showing up in your draft choices. This can make the Arena meta oppressive, especially when it’s a small set of cards from an adventure — like One Night in Karazhan, when the Mage’s Firelands Portal (a spell that deal 5 points of damage and summons a random 5 mana minion) took the brunt of being the card players hated seeing the most.
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! But in a “vanilla,” or balanced, meta, no sets have a bonus. All cards in the Arena — Blizzard said nearly 950 before Mean Streets of Gadgetzan releases tomorrow — now have the standard rate of appearing in the draft (with commons showing up more often than rares, epics, and legendaries). This gives skilled players a better chance of building decks that emphasize the keys to Arena — outvaluing your opponent, a strong mana curve, and consistent cards — and keeps a cap on the strong class cards from smothering the meta.
This has been especially true in this in-between meta following the adjustments Blizzard made to the Arena, thinning the draft pool by removing a number of lackluster cards from every class but Paladin. And I’ve seen it in my Arena records as well.
Above: My Arena nemesis.
Before Whispers of the Old Gods arrived on April 26, I was consistently winning 5-to-7 games for each Arena run. Sure, I’d have some turkeys — especially when I played Warrior, which was then the weakest class in Arena, or Rogue (I’ve never been comfortable with this class). But this changed once Whispers released. My Arena performance tanked — and tanked hard.
In what’s known as the “Taunt meta,” when neutrals like Bog Creeper (a 7-mana minion with 6 attack, 8 health, and taunt, a keyword that gives the card what’s essentially a shield that protects its board and hero’s health until you destroy it) and Pyscho-Tron (a 5-mana taunt minion with 3 attack, 4 health and divine shield, which makes it invulnerable to the first attack against it) dominated, I struggled. I never seemed to get a chance to draft cards that gave me a late game to deal with those big taunts. My win rate plummeted — to less than 3 wins a run. It was frustrating, and no matter how many times I listened to The Lightforge podcast and hosts ADWTCA and Merps (they both stream here ) or watched skilled players like Hafu or Shadybunny on Twitch, I never gained a grasp on the meta.
But after the Karazhan offering bonus and the adjustments to the card pool, I find myself rebounding. Part of this is because building a deck with a good number of “2 drops” (that’s what the community calls cards that cost 2 mana) has led to higher win rates in this meta, and I’m more comfortable playing such decks. Another aspect that’s help me is with such a large card pool, I no longer feel that I have to play around cards — like the Mage’s Firelands Portal or Flamestrike at 7 mana (both of these can swing the board out of your favor when played against you).
Here’s example of how my last seven runs have gone: Paladin: 5 wins Druid: 6 wins Shaman: 6 wins Mage: 5 wins Mage: 4 wins Warlock: 3 wins Paladin: 5 wins This gives me a win rate of 4.9 games per Arena run over the last couple of weeks, which is significantly better than what I’d had since late April. I’d even had a few 7-win runs before I started tracking this more closely, including one that matched my all-time best of 8 wins. This gives me a great deal of confidence that, even if I never get a handle on the meta for Mean Streets of Gadgetzan when it drops tomorrow, I know I can bounce back once the offering bonus disappears.
Above: The Kabal Talonpriest is going to be a boon for the Priest — especially in Arena.
What will the Mean Streets of Gadgetzan hold? I’m cautiously optimistic on how well I’ll do with the new Arena meta once the expansion drops tomorrow. A couple of classes should get a significant boost with the set — especially Priest (my favorite class, and the one I’m most confident in all-around play these days), which could rocket from the bottom and into the top 3, if some Arena observers are correct, thanks to cards like Mana Geode (a strong 2-mana drop that summons a 2/2 crystal every time it’s healed) and Kabal Talonpriest (a 3-mana 3 attack, 4 health minion that gives another minion 3 health), giving it a strong early game, and Dragonfire Potion, a 6-cost spell that deals 5 damage to all minions except Dragons.
I do know that regardless of how poorly or how well I play, I’m still going to enjoy the Arena and give it a go four-to-six times a week. Not only is it a great way to build my card collection (even if you go winless, you get a pack of cards), I’ve found it’s an outstanding opportunity to learn about other cards and deal with situations you’ll never see on ladder.
We’ll see if my mood changes after back-to-back winless runs.
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"YouTube now supports 4K livestreaming across standard and 360-degree videos | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/youtube-4k-livestreaming"
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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 YouTube now supports 4K livestreaming across standard and 360-degree videos Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn 4K YouTube Streaming to debut at Game Awards on December 1 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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YouTube has supported 4K-resolution videos for a number of years already , but today the Google-owned streaming giant is taking things to the next level with support for 4K livestreaming.
Back in 2010, when YouTube first opened up to 4K-quality videos, the standard wasn’t particularly widespread, cameras were expensive, and compatible 4K screens weren’t exactly commonplace. Fast-forward six years, and not only are 4K monitors and TVs easily available and affordable, but many smartphones are now able to shoot in 4K. So opening up to livestreaming makes a great deal of sense for YouTube in 2016 — it’s open to anyone, not just those with expensive equipment.
At four times the resolution of HD, 4K promises crisper and sharper videos. But in reality, even though there are some smartphones out there with 4K displays, the real benefit will be lost on anyone viewing the video on anything less than the largest of TVs. That’s not to say there won’t be some minor improvements in the overall clarity of the picture, but such high resolution lends itself better to bigger screens.
Today’s news comes less than a month after YouTube introduced support for High Dynamic Range (HDR), which effectively improves the contrast of colors within a video, making shadows and highlights more distinctive — whites appear whiter and blacks appear blacker.
The inaugural 4K YouTube stream will take place on Thursday, December 1 at the Game Awards, which will be livestreamed in their entirety from 3 p.m. Pacific. And, moving forward, you can expect to see a range of new 4K streaming content, from concerts to other live events. Additionally, 4K livestreaming will apply to both standard and 360-degree videos.
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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"SurveyMonkey shutting down its mobile app insight service on January 31 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/surveymonkey-shutting-down-its-mobile-app-insight-service-on-january-31"
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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 SurveyMonkey shutting down its mobile app insight service on January 31 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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If you’ve been a fan of SurveyMonkey Intelligence, then you’ll be disappointed to know that the company is shuttering its mobile app insight service on January 31, 2017. No specific reason for the closure was immediately given, but the company later said it’s pivoting its intelligence service into something more than mobile. SurveyMonkey will provide insights and data until the end of this year before finally closing it down in January.
The App Annie-like product launched in April with the intention of giving developers, product managers, and investors access to data around any app they want, including their competitors’. A product of SurveyMonkey’s 2015 acquisition of data analytics startup Renzu, SurveyMonkey Intelligence sought not only to help customers identify and track their competitors, but also to benchmark app metrics, identify mobile trends, and conduct better diligence on apps, partners, and even advertising campaigns.
The closure only affects the product, not SurveyMonkey itself. Your ability to create, send, and analyze surveys won’t be affected by this announcement. Additionally, the company has disabled auto-renew for those who paid for SurveyMonkey Intelligence. Those with prepaid balances will find it’s being refunded and December’s data will be free of charge.
“Mobile will be the leading platform in which businesses connect with customers. With our acquisition of Renzu and the launch of SurveyMonkey Intelligence, we’re removing the barriers of time, difficulty, and cost in getting mobile app data — just as the company did 17 years ago when it established the online survey space and democratized the feedback process,” Zander Lurie, SurveyMonkey’s chief executive, told VentureBeat 7 months ago.
SurveyMonkey had desired to be the “Nielsen of app intelligence,” but that was easier said than done. It entered a market long dominated by App Annie, Flurry, and a bevy of newcomers all thinking that their service is the next big thing.
A company spokesperson provided this statement: “SurveyMonkey is pivoting its SurveyMonkey Intelligence business from an app analytics service to comprehensive market intelligence for our core customers. Few of our 35 million customers were interested in mobile app intelligence. In 2017, we will leverage key learnings from this past year to deliver qualitative and quantitative data that provides additional value and insights for our customers.” Here’s the email that was sent to customers: Dear SurveyMonkey Intelligence Customer, Today we’re announcing that after a year of helping people to uncover mobile app insights, we’ll be shutting down the SurveyMonkey Intelligence product.
We’ll continue to provide new data until December 31, 2016. You’ll be able to view this data until January 31, 2017. At this point the product will be shut down.
We’re proud of the product we built and the community of mobile app entrepreneurs, developers, and investors who inspired it.
Thank you for your support. We hope we can continue to serve you in the future.
The SurveyMonkey Team Updated as of 3:35 p.m. Pacific: Included statement from SurveyMonkey.
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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5,619 | 2,016 |
"Netflix finally lets you download some movies and TV shows to watch offline | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/netflix-finally-lets-you-download-some-movies-and-tv-shows-to-watch-offline"
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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 Netflix finally lets you download some movies and TV shows to watch offline Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Netflix: Downloads 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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Despite pledging it would never offer downloads, Netflix is finally letting its millions of users around the world access movies and TV shows offline.
The news will be music to the ears of Netflix’s 80 million-plus subscribers globally, but it will also come as a surprise, given that the company has repeatedly stated in the past that the solution to the problem of ubiquitous access is to improve Wi-Fi availability, rather than offering an offline mode.
Above: Netflix: Downloading One of the biggest stumbling blocks to offering offline access relates to licensing restrictions — content owners often only want their programming to be accessed in certain locations, and allowing downloads lets people take the videos around the world. But Netflix, it seems, is adopting the same approach Amazon did when it opened up to offline access last year — Only some shows will be available to download. And at the time of writing, that appears to largely be Netflix’s own slate of content, such as Stranger Things , Orange is the New Black , Narcos , and The Crown.
There are a bunch of other shows and movies in there, too, though, including City of God and Quentin Tarantino’s Django , along with a reasonable number of kids’ shows and documentaries.
One way to know whether a title is available to download is to see if it has the little download icon next to it. If so, simply tap that and you can access it from a new dedicated Downloads section. But Netflix has also added a helpful Available for Download menu option, meaning if you’re looking to peruse content to watch on a long-haul flight, for example, you can head straight to this section. You can also select your desired download quality, so those with slower bandwidth or less on-board storage can go for lower resolution videos.
The road to downloads Netflix gave the first hint that it may be willing to allow downloads during its Q1 earnings earlier this year, when Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was asked yet again whether he would consider offline access, and he surprised listeners by giving a less emphatic “no” than he had done in the past. He said : We should keep an open mind on this. We’ve been so focused on click-and-watch and the beauty and simplicity of streaming. But as we expand around the world, where we see an uneven set of networks, it’s something we should keep an open mind about.
This was a telling statement. Given that Netflix went truly global this year when it landed in 130 new markets , it faced problems in markets where unlimited Wi-Fi or mobile internet access wasn’t the norm. In other words, Netflix has had to rethink its strategy to ensure those in emerging markets can access content. Some had previously speculated that Netflix might simply offer offline access in some markets — those that needed it most — but that has never really been Netflix’s way; it prefers to tackle markets holistically where it can, and to offer consistent feature sets across the board.
There is another reason Netflix may have finally decided to offer downloads, and that is simply to do with the competition. Last year, it became apparent that downloading really was the future of streaming when a number of online video-streaming services introduced offline access. Furthermore, Netflix’s slate of original and exclusive programming, which is growing across movies, dramas, documentaries, and more, gives the company a significant degree of flexibility about what it does — it can offer downloads on those shows without worrying about licensing restrictions.
Downloads are available to everyone on Android and iOS devices from today.
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"Google launches App Maker to help people easily build custom enterprise software | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/google-launches-app-maker-to-help-people-easily-build-custom-enterprise-software"
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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 App Maker to help people easily build custom enterprise software 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 is announcing the launch of App Maker, a new service that people inside organizations can use to easily develop custom applications based on their business needs. Google is now taking applications for early access to the tool from organizations that pay for the G Suite (formerly known as Google Apps) Business service tier.
The service lets users drag and drop widgets around on a user interface that complies with Google’s Material design principles. But they can be customized further with scripts, as well as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and JQuery content. And once apps are live, it’s possible to monitor usage through Google Analytics.
Above: Google App Maker.
In being easy to use by default, App Maker will be useful for people who are less technically savvy — people other than full-time developers, in other words. Having this sort of thing available means that IT teams can spend less time dealing with requests from these types of people, who might not otherwise see their ideas ever fleshed out.
“We’re really targeting enterprise developers who need to build line-of-business solutions for an entire company but need there to be less (sophistication) than developers who might build Snapchat or external-facing applications,” App Maker product manager Ajay Surie told VentureBeat in an interview.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! That means App Maker will compete with existing “low-code” application development services. That includes Salesforce’s App Cloud, as well as tools from Appian, Mendix, and OutSystems, among others.
There’s no need to worry about maintaining the necessary infrastructure for running the apps. Apps built with App Maker run on the same data center infrastructure as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive. This is different from the cloud computing and storage infrastructure that people can pay for through the Google Cloud Platform.
New data that’s generated inside Apps built with App Maker can be stored in a new service called Google Drive Tables, which is essentially a managed structured database that stores data in Google Drive. It’s simpler to set up and maintain than something like Google Cloud SQL from the Google Cloud Platform.
App Maker lets users integrate their apps with many services, including Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Forms, Gmail, Google Groups, Google Translate, Google Maps, Google Sites, Google Sheets, Google BigQuery, and Google Calendar.
A blog post has more detail.
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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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"Drake is the most-streamed artist on Spotify for the second year in a row | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/media/drake-is-the-most-streamed-artist-on-spotify-for-the-second-year-in-a-row"
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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 Drake is the most-streamed artist on Spotify for the second year in a row Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Drake.
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Spotify today unveiled data on the most popular music on Spotify for 2016. At the top of the charts is Drake, just like last year. This time around he had 4.7 billion streams. Plus, Drake was the most-streamed male artist on Spotify.
“Drake has been unstoppable this year — he’s a true global superstar,” Stefan Blom, Spotify’s chief content and strategy officer, is quoted as saying in a blog post.
“With the top album and the top song this year, as well as his successful Summer Sixteen tour, Drake continues to engage his fans in a way that only Drake can; it’s no surprise he is dominating the music industry.” This year, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Twenty One Pilots, and Kanye West trailed the Canadian rapper, in that order, according to Spotify’s data.
Not surprisingly, Views was the most-streamed album of the year, Spotify said, with more than 2.45 million streams.
The top song of the year was Drake’s “One Dance,” feat. WizKid and Kyla. That was also Spotify’s top breakup song of 2016.
Before Drake, in 2014, there was Ed Sheeran.
The irony of Drake’s ongoing success on Spotify is that he’s been promoting Apple Music, which is presumably Spotify’s top rival. Spotify has more than 100 million monthly active users and more than 40 million paying subscribers, while Apple Music has more than 17 million subscribers.
Whether having the biggest music interest remain the same for two years straight is a good thing or not is hard to say. But at least Spotify is demonstrating that it’s willing to be transparent about consumption, and that counts for something.
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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"Stay on the offensive with real-time analytics (VB Live) | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/marketing/stay-on-the-offensive-with-real-time-analytics-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 Stay on the offensive with real-time analytics (VB Live) Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Don’t just stay on top of real-time data — use it to stay two steps ahead. But if you can’t separate the wheat from the chaff, you won’t just make bad decisions, you’ll look bad, too. Join this VB Live event for insight into finding and turning the right information into actionable insight.
Register here for free.
“If you look at real time analytics, there are two parts,” says Michael Healey, president of Yeoman Technology Group, which focuses on ensuring the technology investments of their clients deliver sales. “It’s defense and offense.” And it doesn’t even require advanced analytics dashboards that monitor customer movements more closely than the KGB, he adds, but what Healey calls a part of classic real-time analytics — social monitoring.
He offers the example a Yeoman client whose brand-tracking strategy includes following conversations on Twitter. The company discovered that they had mistakenly been added to a boycott list being compiled by consumers — and they were able to catch the error and respond immediately before the rumors spread. They reached out to the protestors to ensure they understood that their company had not been a part of the actions being protested.
“That is some of the best defense ever,” Healey points out. “That was purely on social. There was nowhere else this data was floating around. They were going to get marched and protested against, and they were able to pick it up and knock it out before it ever got the legs that it might have.” But real-time data isn’t just about watching for trends and always reacting — it’s uncovering opportunities to leverage new strategies, and innovative ways to move beyond the information your dashboard is delivering.
“Don’t just think about your own real-time data — think about the real-time data that’s available to you as a marketer that you can use,” Healey says. “Perfect example: weather. What you don’t see all the time is people looking at the real-time weather and using that data as part of their strategies.” Something as simple as real-time weather information can be the underpinning of an astonishingly effective offensive strategy, he adds. “A ten percent increase in online marketing spend when there’s a storm and nobody’s going out to the stores could have a dramatic impact on your ecommerce,” he says.
The basic formula, Healey says, is deceptively simple. “If there’s something going well in real time, you should try to augment it,” he says. “And if there’s something going poorly, you need to understand, is there an impact or is there not an impact?” In other words, while real-time data lends itself to immediate pivots and instant reactions, which admittedly help you stay ahead of the brand conversation, overreacting is a real danger, and senior marketers need to tread very, very carefully.
“Real-time data should always prompt you to look further,” Healey explains. “What’s going on, should I look deeper, should I do something? It shouldn’t be a kneejerk of ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve got to do something!’ You think of it almost as a canary in the coal mine. The canary’s not dead, but if it’s coughing, what should I look at?” For more insight into separating the wheat from the chaff, plus using real time analytics to keep stakeholders on board every step of your campaigns, don’t miss this VB Live event! Register here for free.
In this VB Live event you’ll: Learn how to define the “truth” with metrics, and which version of the truth is meaningful to the business Deal with the unpredictable nature of real time data blips Frame business analytics into actionable solution-focused priorities for stakeholders Speakers: Stewart Rogers , Director of Marketing Technology, VentureBeat Michael Healey , President, Yeoman Technology Group Moderator: Wendy Schuchart, Analyst, VentureBeat This VB Live event is sponsored by Tableau.
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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"PS Plus games December 2016: Invisible, Inc., VVVVVV, and more | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/ps-plus-games-december-2016-invisible-inc-vvvvvv-and-more"
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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 PS Plus games December 2016: Invisible, Inc., VVVVVV, and more 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.
Sony is making one of 2015’s quietest hits part of its PlayStation Plus offerings at no extra charge.
For December, PlayStation-system owners who subscribe to the PS Plus service will get a number of additions to that program’s Instant Games Library feature. Plus costs $10 per month or $60 per year, and it enables online multiplayer on PS4 in addition to giving away a list of games each month. And as long as players maintain their PS Plus subscription, they will continue to own these games. Subscribers can get these games at no additional cost by finding the PS Plus tab in the PlayStation Store.
For December, as is usual, Sony has a handful of games for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and Vita devices. Let’s take a look at ’em.
PlayStation 4 Invisible, Inc.
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! This turn-based stealth game is one of 2015’s best games. It has players infiltrating procedurally generated levels using a variety of characters that have different espionage-related capabilities. Developer Klei built the game to empower players to tackle the challenges in any number of ways, and discovering creative solutions to evade danger is one of the reasons I keep going back to Invisible, Inc. And now no PS Plus subscriber has an excuse to miss out.
Stories: Path of Destinies This adventure features hack-‘n’-slash gameplay and dungeon crawling in a colorful fantasy world. The combat enables you to take on goblins and werewolves, but Stories is more than just sword-based action. It also has a world that will change depending on the actions you take and the choices you pursue with its characters.
PlayStation 3 Hyper Void Hyper Void is a modern take on the classic space-shooter. Players must guide their ship through a wormhole while taking on waves of incoming enemies. If that sounds familiar, that’s because Hyper Void borrows heavily from Tempest while upgrading the visuals.
Tiny Troopers Joint Ops Tiny Troopers is arcade shooter reminiscent of retro games like Smash TV. With a variety of weapons, players must eliminate infantry, tanks, and other opposing forces.
PS Vita Color Guardians A challenging platformer that features a color-shifting mechanic. The game has you controlling a Guardian who must change their color to absorb a rainbow of different obstacles. It’s a simple idea that seems like it could get difficult quickly.
VVVVVV Finally, Vita PS Plus members are getting the VVVVVV platformer from developer Terry Cavanagh, who is best known for Super Hexagon. VVVVVV features simple, pre-NES-era visuals and a core gameplay element where players can switch gravity at will. This enables you to navigate puzzles that are otherwise impossible to overcome with basic running and jumping.
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.
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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"Skillz introduces brand-sponsored tournaments for its mobile esports games | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/esports/skillz-introduces-brand-sponsored-tournaments-for-its-mobile-esports-games"
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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 Skillz introduces brand-sponsored tournaments for its mobile esports games Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Skillz brings esports to mobile.
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Sponsorships are the biggest source of revenue for the growing esports market, and that includes mobile gaming tournaments.
Skillz has launched brand-sponsored tournaments, which enables marketers to fund competitions for any games that run the company’s esports platform. This provides an avenue for brands that want to reach an audience of engaged gamers on mobile. Esports is traditionally for professional players on PC and sometimes consoles, but Skillz brings competitive gaming and a chance to win cash prizes to a variety of apps on smartphones and tablets. These kinds of tournaments can attract a large player base who will return to a game more regularly than they otherwise would, and this is potentially worth a lot to marketers.
Through Skillz, brands can sponsor specific tournaments or an entire game. The companies can even host live in-person events now. These deals should lead to more prize money for Skillz competitors, and it should also lead to more growth in the $493 million esports market.
“As eSports continue to gain in popularity, we’re seeing the same evolution we saw with offline sports like basketball and football,” Skillz chief executive Andrew Paradise said in a statement. “It starts by defining rules, then building a player base, and finally adding broadcast and spectator opportunities. When the transformation of a game into a sport hits an inflection point, major brands want to get involved. With mobile esports now representing more than 30 percent of the industry’s prizes, we’re excited to give brands a way to connect with the diverse audience that mobile has attracted.” 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! Skillz did not identify participating brands. More than 10 million people are registered with Skillz, and the company points out that 49 percent of them are women. So it’s possible that these sponsorship opportunities could attract brands that you would not typically find at traditional esports tournaments.
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.
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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"Halo gets esports reality show from 'The Ultimate Fighter' creators | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/esports/halo-gets-esports-reality-competition-show-from-the-creators-of-the-ultimate-fighter"
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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 Halo gets esports reality show from ‘The Ultimate Fighter’ creators Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Halo 5: Guardians will serve at the center of a new reality show.
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One of Microsoft’s biggest gaming properties is getting its own reality show.
Halo studio 343 Industries is partnering with Pilgrim Media on a reality-competition esports series for Halo 5: Guardians. This is the first production to come out of Pilgrim’s previously announced collaboration with Hollywood studio Lionsgate and esports organization ESL to create content related to professional gaming — although the industry has seen reality-competition shows before with PlayStation’s The Tester.
Pilgrim is responsible for the Ulitimate Fighting Championships reality-competition show The Ultimate Fighter , and it’s likely that the Halo program will have a similar vibe to that mixed-martial-arts show. With the Halo production, Microsft, Pilgrim, and Lionsgate are taking a major step into a growing esports business that some analysts predict could generate as much as $1 billion in revenue by 2018.
“We continue to be blown away by the sheer excitement surrounding esports; the scope and buzz are growing every day,” Pilgrim chief executive Craig Piligian said in a statement. “Esports and Halo fans are exceedingly passionate about gaming and devoted to their favorite titles and franchises — they are exactly the kind of audience we want to produce for.” While the show is going into production, Pilgrim did not specify when or where it will air, but the company is making it with television in mind.
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’re thrilled to be partnering with Pilgrim on developing a reality series that will bring the intensity and extreme competition of Halo 5: Guardians esports to a television audience,” 343 Industries transmedia boss Kiki Wolfkill said. “There is no better partner than Pilgrim to give our fans insight into the world of Halo esports.” Halo’s more traditional esports tournaments will continue on, and fans can catch the Halo Championship Series Pro League Finals starting December 10 and livestreaming on Twitch.
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.
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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"Trump reportedly to appoint Pence ally to FCC chair, setting stage to rollback net neutrality | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/trump-reportedly-to-appoint-pence-ally-to-fcc-chair-setting-stage-to-rollback-net-neutrality"
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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 reportedly to appoint Pence ally to FCC chair, setting stage to rollback net neutrality Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The Federal Communications Commission headquarters.
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 former ally of Vice President-elect Mike Pence with a strong focus on deregulation could be in line for an appointment to the Federal Communications Commission, possibly as the next chairman.
Brandt Hershman, a longtime Indiana state senator, is rumored to be the leading candidate for an opening on the agency, which oversees the telecommunications, broadcasting, and cable industries, Politico reported on Wednesday citing unnamed sources. Hershman worked closely with the vice president-elect after Pence was elected Indiana’s governor in 2012.
Fortune contacted Hershman’s office for comment and will update this story if a response is received.
Hershman, the senate majority floor leader, authored a massive law to deregulate telecommunications in Indiana a decade ago. The bill ended government regulation of phone rates, freed up cable companies from needing to get dozens of local licenses to offer service, and stopped cities and towns from setting up their own municipal broadband services.
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 FCC under chairman Tom Wheeler, appointed by President Obama, has pressed several major regulatory initiatives, including net neutrality rules to prevent Internet providers from blocking or charging more for access to any web site or online service. Wheeler also pushed online privacy rules that apply to Internet service providers. The chairman dropped his efforts to break the cable industry’s set top box monopoly, however.
Analysts expect an FCC run by a Trump appointee would roll back those rules, which have been opposed by Republicans in Congress and major communications companies. The president’s party typically occupies three of the commission’s five seats, and the president designates one member as chairman. Trump could name a new appointee such as Hershman chairman or possibly designate current Republican FCC member Ajit Pai as chairman.
Trump has already named three prominent opponents of net neutrality to his transition team overseeing the FCC.
Two weeks ago , he picked Jeff Eisenach, an economist who has been on Verizon’s payroll, and Mark Jamison, who formerly worked on Sprint’s lobbying team and now heads the University of Florida’s Public Utility Research Center. This week, trump added Roslyn Layton, a telecom industry consultant and visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who has opposed both the net neutrality and privacy rules.
Several other names in addition to Hershman’s are also circulating in the Washington rumor mill as possible Trump FCC selections, Politico reported, including Eisenach, Ellen Nowak, head of Wisconsin’s public service commission; Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican lawmaker; and Mike Gallagher, president of the Entertainment Software Association trade group.
Republicans in Congress have been seeking to overturn the Obama administration’s net neutrality rules since they were enacted. But the threat of an Obama veto prevented the maneuver to kill the rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission in February 2015, later upheld in court in June.
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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"Sony, Facebook, Google, and Samsung dominate VR, with over 50% market share | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/sony-facebook-and-google-dominate-vr-with-over-50-market-share"
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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 Sony, Facebook, Google, and Samsung dominate VR, with over 50% market share Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Photo of an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.
VR is hot! But is it permanent? Those of us who are old enough to have seen the rise of virtual reality in the ‘90s and then the fall and then another rise in mid 2000 and then another fall, know that the present hype about virtual reality may not be sustainable.
That said, we have also seen in the past that for some technologies, after several cycles of hype, the innovation finally does become mainstream. One example is personal organizers (mobile calendar and contacts apps) on a portable device. Palm OS and PDAs rose in 1996 and fell a few years later, and then Pocket PC and Windows CE rose in early 2000 and fell. It wasn’t until the emergence of iPhones and Android smartphones that those applications became sustainable.
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! So the big question is: Is VR here to stay this time, or is it hype? To find the answer, my firm has been researching the VR market for the past few months. We evaluated and estimated product sales for over 30 companies and 40 products globally through revenues and units sold/used for each of the vendors. Here are some of our findings: 1. In 2016, hardware makers dominate the VR market. Sony (PSVR) is clearly leading and is taking one third of the whole market. This is thanks to a) the large installed base of about 40-50 million Playstations sold to users who are the perfect target for a VR upgrade and b) the best balance of price/performance for the VR headset around the $300-$400 price point.
2. Sony is followed by Facebook (the Oculus platform) and Google (Day Dream, Card Board, Tilt Brush, etc.); neither company has a VR user base anywhere close to Sony’s, and their products are either at the low end or a bit too expensive. Still, both companies are generating hundreds of millions of dollars already in 2016, thanks to their brand and the quality of their technology.
3. Samsung follows with another mobile headset (Gear VR). And HTC is close behind with its high-end headset, Vive, thanks to its partnership with Valve and the very popular Steam platform.
4. Content providers, mostly game makers, as well as technology providers come next. This has to change in the coming years (and hopefully will change) since that’s where the bigger value resides. But it is normal to see hardware makers emerge first: Hardware vendors had to ship their kits to developers. Now that there are enough headsets out there in users’ hands (or rather on their heads), it’s time to accelerate generation of content (games, mobile apps, desktop applications, etc). The result of this effort will be more VR games and applications in the coming months and years.
5. Towards the bottom of the top 20 list, we also see vendors positioned in the “VR for work” segment, with VR applications in collaboration, education, industry, military and defense, science and medical, and other research fields.
So what are your thoughts? VR or VRn’t? Darius Lahoutifard is founder of 01consulting and a serial entrepreneur in enterprise software, SaaS and Internet. He previously held leadership roles at PTC and Oracle. He launched the first browser-based Virtual World in 2008 for which he was awarded in 2011 by the Virtual Worlds community.
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"Email delivery platform SendGrid raises $33 million ahead of IPO in 2017 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/sendgrid-33-million"
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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 Email delivery platform SendGrid raises $33 million ahead of IPO in 2017 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn SendGrid for iPhone SendGrid , an email delivery and performance platform that helps marketers track their email performance stats, has raised a fresh $33 million round led by Bain Capital Ventures, with participation from Bessemer Ventures and the Foundry Group.
Founded out of Colorado in 2009, SendGrid serves up the infrastructure for companies to manage their transactional email initiatives, including shipping notifications, newsletters, and sign-up confirmations. It has an impressive arsenal of customers, including Uber, Airbnb, Spotify, LinkedIn, and FourSquare. Today, the company says that its platform is responsible for sending more than 1 billion emails per day for 42,000 customers in more than 100 countries.
Prior to this latest Series D round, SendGrid had raised more than $45 million, including a $21 million tranche back in late 2014. The latest cash influx will be used to “accelerate its product roadmap,” according to a company statement, as well as expedite its global expansion plans.
Perhaps most notably, the company has reiterated its plans to IPO in 2017 and is already “IPO-worthy,” though it wouldn’t reveal details about its post-money valuation. SendGrid did claim to be profitable, however, grabbing $20 million in revenue in the last quarter — 38 percent up on the previous year.
But while business is apparently looking rosy for SendGrid, there’s no ignoring the oft-repeated mantra that “email is dead,” or at least on its way out. There is little question that email has been impacted by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and the myriad messaging apps out there, but email remains in good health in the B2C and B2B realms, even with Facebook continuing to push Messenger as a B2C platform.
SendGrid delivers more than 30 billion emails each month, and company CEO Sameer Dholakia insists that email is the “gravitational center of digital communications,” with unique elements that cannot be replicated through other means.
“Email will certainly continue to evolve, but we are not worried that email will become redundant,” he told VentureBeat. “Email has the best ROI [return on investment], and, according to the Direct Marketing Association, email remains one of the most cost-effective ways for businesses to communicate with customers and prospects, with an estimated ROI of $38 for every $1 spent.” It’s true that most people still have email addresses that they use to sign up for online services, but it’s equally true that a growing number of services bypass email altogether and instead ask for your Google, Facebook, or Twitter credentials, or even your mobile phone number. Email is still a key communications conduit, for sure, but things can change rapidly, so is there a contingency plan should email suddenly jump off a cliff? It seems the answer is “yes.” “Our mission and vision is to become the world’s most trusted customer communications platform that drives engagement and growth,” Dholakia said. “This will involve us adding more platforms over time to add to email, including push, in-app messaging, display retargeting, and potentially platforms like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Slack. As a company, SendGrid will continue to evaluate how to best leverage these channels to drive engagement and growth for our customers. If our customers are engaging with their customers better to drive growth — and are successful doing so — then we are successful.” For now, however, email is still king for SendGrid. The company says it’s sending 30 billion emails a month on behalf of more than 40,000 customers, with eBay alone responsible for 1 billion of those. And it’s this kind of traction that led the company to not only raise its latest round of funding, but also to lay legitimate claims to being “IPO-worthy.” 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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"MEDIA ADVISORY: Stanford Cardinal Ventures Pitch Day | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/media-advisory-stanford-cardinal-ventures-pitch-day"
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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 MEDIA ADVISORY: Stanford Cardinal Ventures Pitch Day Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn STANFORD, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–December 1, 2016–Cardinal Ventures: WHAT: Cardinal Ventures, Stanford’s on-campus accelerator for student entrepreneurs, will be hosting its Fall Pitch Day on Monday, Dec. 5. The event will allow students to showcase their companies – spanning innovation in consumer products, medical devices, social networks, and cloud computing – to the local Silicon Valley venture community. This group represents the fourth cohort from the Cardinal Ventures accelerator program.
WHO: Cardinal Ventures was founded in 2014 by Justine Moore, ’16, and Olivia Moore, ’16. Current co-leaders of the program are Ela Heussen, MBA ’17, and Albert Gianatan, ’18.
Cardinal Ventures companies have continued to participate in and receive funding from Y Combinator, StartX, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Pejman Mar Ventures, and other accelerators and institutional investors. Company founders range from Stanford freshmen to graduate students from the university’s professional schools. The event will feature a keynote address by Astro Teller , CEO of Google[x] and pioneer in intelligent technology. Over 50 venture firms are expected to be in attendance.
WHEN: MONDAY, DEC. 5, 3-6 P.M. To register, email Michael Gioia at [email protected].
Refreshments will be served.
WHERE: Tresidder Union , Oak Lounge 459 Lagunita Dr. Stanford, CA 94305 Parking will be available at the Tresidder lot , off Mayfield Avenue.
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"Kony Launches New Kony Visualizer Integrated with Amazon Web Services to Simplify and Accelerate Mobile App Development | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/kony-launches-new-kony-visualizer-integrated-with-amazon-web-services-to-simplify-and-accelerate-mobile-app-development"
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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 Kony Launches New Kony Visualizer Integrated with Amazon Web Services to Simplify and Accelerate Mobile App Development Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn AUSTIN, Texas.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–November 30, 2016– Kony, Inc.
, a leading enterprise mobility company, today announced Kony Visualizer to further simplify building mobile apps on the AWS cloud by providing pre-integrated support for the AWS Mobile SDK, along with built-in support for mobile services like Amazon Cognito, AWS Lambda, and Amazon DynamoDB. This new product, which is being launched during the Amazon Web Services (AWS) re:Invent 2016 conference in Las Vegas, is immediately available for purchase on AWS Marketplace.
As part of a re:Invent 2016 session, Kony will highlight Box as one of their early customers of the new Kony Visualizer offering. By using Kony Visualizer, Box was able to extend the value of its Box Platform offering and provide visual tools for rapid, omni-channel development of enterprise-grade mobile and web apps on AWS, which highlights the use of Box’s Platform APIs, secure content management, and rich content types, including 3D models and VR files.
“Customers today are demanding increasingly faster timeframes for developing new mobile solutions,” said Jeetu Patel, chief strategy officer and senior vice president of Box Platform. “However, development skills are always in scarce supply relative to the demand. It’s critical to have productive development tools like Kony Visualizer to bring these capabilities to mainstream IT. By leveraging the combination of Kony Visualizer along with AWS Mobile Services, we now have the leading cloud-based development environment for building mobile apps that can take advantage of the Box Platform. Box Platform makes it easy to build on Box’s innovative security, content management, and collaboration and allows developers to extend the power of Box to transform and accelerate their business.” Kony Visualizer now includes new features specifically optimized for AWS customers, including the following: AWS Mobile SDK support: Kony Visualizer now offers the ability to download and register the latest version of the AWS Mobile SDK. This provides AWS developers immediate productivity in invoking AWS mobile services directly from within Kony Visualizer’s omni-channel JavaScript development environment.
Amazon Cognito support: Kony Visualizer now offers the ability to use AWS Cognito to deliver support for multifactor authentication to your mobile apps and authenticate users through social identity providers such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Kony Visualizer provides both visual pre-built component access as well as JavaScript level control of Amazon Cognito capabilities.
AWS Lambda support: Kony Visualizer now offers the ability to easily invoke AWS Lambda functions from inside the user’s mobile app. This enables high-scale distributed cloud logic without provisioning or managing servers. Kony Visualizer provides both no-code access to AWS Lambda functions through its rules-based Action Editor, as well as JavaScript level control of invoking AWS Lambda functions.
Amazon DynamoDB support: Kony Visualizer now offers the ability to store and query mobile app data using a fully managed NoSQL cloud database that provides consistent and fast service at any scale. Kony Visualizer provides both visual pre-built component access as well as JavaScript level control of Amazon DynamoDB capabilities.
AWS Marketplace purchase: Kony Visualizer is now immediately available for purchase through the AWS Marketplace and its SaaS Subscription feature, which provides an affordable user-based, frictionless way for developers to evaluate and use Kony Visualizer.
“With this new version of Kony Visualizer, Kony provides customers with a simpler and faster way to quickly access the scalable and secure environment of AWS, helping them reduce the complexity of mobile development,” said Amit Patel, general manager, Mobile Services, Amazon Web Services, Inc. “By providing pre-integrated access to AWS mobile services APIs, Kony has extended its visual development environment with more benefits for AWS customers.” These new capabilities of Kony Visualizer are built on the recently announced Kony Nitro, which is a patented, omni-channel technology that allows developers to blend together a mix of native, web and hybrid approaches to increase time to market, rather than having to learn an entirely new solution, rewrite the app or hire additional resources, which could potentially increases costs. Kony Nitro’s cross-platform JavaScript API enables enterprises to use widely available and lower cost web development resources for full 100 percent native access to underlying mobile OS capabilities, and open support for hybrid web technologies, such as Cordova, Angular and third-party JavaScript frameworks.
“Enterprises still struggle to realize the value of mobile due to the limitations of mobile app development inefficiencies and lack of scalability,” said Dave Shirk, president of Products, Strategy and Marketing, Kony, Inc. “Kony Visualizer’s enhanced support for AWS Mobile offerings help businesses address this challenge by combining the huge productivity advances of the newest version of Kony Visualizer, the patented omni-channel capabilities of Kony Nitro, with the broad reach and cost-effective scale of the AWS Cloud. It’s an unbeatable combination and value we deliver to our customers. Enterprises can now design and develop faster and cheaper than what was available before.” Kony is a Technology Partner member of the AWS Partner Network (APN) and was one of the first to achieve the AWS Mobile Competency.
The AWS Competency Program, which is designed to connect AWS customers with qualified APN Partners that have demonstrated technical proficiency and proven success in specialized solution and vertical areas, highlights the top APN Partners with deep experience working with developers and mobile-first businesses to help build, test, analyze and monitor their mobile apps. APN Partners that achieve AWS Competencies are objectively validated as capable of offering a wide variety of services, software and solutions that run on AWS.
For more information : Product Details: Kony Visualizer/AWS Data Sheet: Kony Visualizer for AWS – Data Sheet Video: Kony Visualizer for Amazon Web Services Kony was recently named a Leader for the fourth consecutive year in the Gartner June 2016 Magic Quadrant for Mobile App Development Platforms (MADP) report. In addition, Kony was named a “Leader” and earned the highest score in the current offering category in Mobile Infrastructure Services by independent research firm Forrester Research, Inc., according to The Forrester Wave™: Mobile Infrastructure Services report.
Forrester also named Kony a “Leader” in The Forrester Wave™: Mobile Development Platforms , Q4 2016 report.
About Kony Inc.
Kony is the fastest growing, cloud-based enterprise mobility solutions company and an industry leader among mobile application development platform ( MADP ) providers. Kony empowers organizations to compete in mobile time by rapidly delivering pre-built, omni-channel mobile apps across the broadest array of devices and systems, today and in the future, with a lower total cost of ownership. Kony’s cross-platform solution helps organizations design, build, configure and manage mobile apps to empower and better engage with customers, partners and employees. Kony was named the first place winner in CTIA’s MobITs Awards in the Mobile Applications, Development & Platforms category and included on the Inc. 500|5000 list of fastest growing private companies in America. Connect with Kony on Twitter , Facebook , and LinkedIn.
Gartner Disclaimer Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
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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"GoPro is cutting 15% of its workforce amid sales slump | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/gopro-is-cutting-15-of-its-workforce-amid-sales-slump"
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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 GoPro is cutting 15% of its workforce amid sales slump Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Flying the GoPro Karma drone.
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(Reuters) — Wearable action-camera maker GoPro said on Wednesday it would cut about 15 percent of its workforce and shutter its entertainment business, as the one-time Wall Street favorite cuts costs to help it return to profitability.
Shares of the company, which had about 1,500 employees at the end of 2015, rose 4.7 percent in early trading.
The company has been struggling with slowing sales of its helmet- and body-mounted cameras as cheaper rivals emerge and smartphones feature increasingly advanced cameras.
A recall of about 2,500 of its recently launched Karma drones could also hit revenue.
The company said on Wednesday it would cut about 200 full-time positions, cancel open positions and close its entertainment division, which makes original content.
GoPro said the cost-cutting would help it achieve its goal of returning to profitability on an adjusted basis next year.
The latest job cuts are in addition to a 7 percent workforce reduction announced at the beginning of the year.
GoPro went public in 2014 amid investor enthusiasm that the California company’s focus on social media would make it stand out among other makers of consumer electronics.
The company’s shares, which closed at $9.83 on Tuesday, have fallen about 60 percent since its market debut, including a 45 percent drop this year.
GoPro’s sales have been in decline for the last four quarters, but it has said it expects to return to double-digit revenue growth in the coming year.
Earlier this month, the company forecast revenue for the holiday shopping quarter below market expectations, citing production issues with its Hero 5 camera.
GoPro also said on Wednesday that President Tony Bates would step down at the end of the year.
The company said it expected to take a charge of $24 million to $33 million, related to the cost-cutting, mostly in the quarter ending December.
However, GoPro said sales of its cameras in the week of Black Friday increased more than 35 percent from a year earlier at major U.S. retailers.
(Reporting by Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Sai Sachin Ravikumar) 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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"Fitbit is buying Pebble for $34-40 million | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/fitbit-is-buying-pebble-for-34-40-million"
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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 Fitbit is buying Pebble for $34-40 million 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.
Fitness wearable creator Fitbit is in the process of acquiring smartwatch maker Pebble in a deal that will likely spell the end of the Pebble brand. VentureBeat has learned that the sale price will be between $34 million and $40 million.
The deal, which was first reported by The Information , is not entirely surprising, as Pebble had been itching to sell itself and there had been indications of financial issues plaguing the company for some time. Should the deal go through within the anticipated price range, it would signal a drastic reversal of fortunes for Pebble, which burst onto the scene when it set a Kickstarter record of $7 million with its inaugural smartwatch. The Information said Fitbit will receive the company’s intellectual property and wearable expertise following closure of the deal, which could help it expand into other products.
Fitbit staged a successful public offering in June 2015 , closing at $32.50, a 62.5 percent increase from its opening price on its first day of trading. However, seven months later, its stock tumbled below its IPO price of $20 , and it closed today’s trading session at $8.36. The addition of Pebble looks like an effort to rejuvenate the company, but whether it will have a definitive impact is questionable — while Fitbit has been out commercializing its product and is appealing to the active community, the same cannot be said for Pebble, which has faced competition from the likes of Samsung and Apple.
Pebble was one of the first to launch in the smartwatch space, beating Apple by two years. It has raised more than $40 million through its Kickstarter campaigns, but that doesn’t seem to have helped the company establish financial footing. Earlier this year, it launched its third crowdfunding campaign, with its Pebble 2 and Pebble Time 2.
The idea was to recreate the magic of its first effort, which brought in $10.2 million in 2012 , and its second, for the original Pebble Time smartwatch, which netted $20.3 million.
But time has not been kind to the company, which was forced to lay off employees in March, when it parted ways with 25 percent (40 people) of its workforce. It has also lost several key executives, including head of product Itai Vonshak, head of human resources and legal counsel Jeff Hyman, and vice president of software engineering Kean Wong.
Pebble also had been the target of at least two potential acquisitions. Citizen was interested in purchasing the company for $740 million in the summer of 2015 but was rebuffed by Pebble chief executive Eric Migicovsky. He also blocked another potential deal, this time a $70 million purchase by Intel earlier this year that would have involved holding back the launch of the Pebble 2 and Pebble Time 2. The fact that the price tag has gone down substantially is telling.
In a twist, Vonshak and Wong are now both working at Intel.
Perhaps the biggest gain for Fitbit is Pebble’s operating system, which could enable the fitness tracker manufacturer to create an ecosystem of devices. The company is no stranger to smartwatches, as it has its own — called the Blaze — which launched in January. However, Pebble’s portfolio will likely diversify its lineup, which is what Fitbit’s chief executive James Park shared with analysts regarding his company’s future plans.
Should the deal go through, we’re told that the proceeds may go largely to cover Pebble’s debt, as much as $25 million of which is owed to Silicon Valley Bank. Investors in Pebble include Y Combinator, Draper Associates, CRV, ACE & Company, Tim Draper, and Mark Friedgan.
A Fitbit spokesperson declined to comment, and Pebble hasn’t responded to a request for comment.
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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"AWS launches Amazon Lightsail, a DigitalOcean killer offering $5 virtual private servers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/aws-vps"
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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 launches Amazon Lightsail, a DigitalOcean killer offering $5 virtual private servers Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Amazon Lightsail.
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At its annual re:Invent user conference in Las Vegas today, public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced Amazon Lightsail, a new way for developers to quickly and easily get access to low-cost virtual private servers (VPS).
They don’t need to worry about provisioning storage, security groups, or identity and access management (IAM) when they want to just get a box to run a simple application. They can just use Amazon Lightsail now.
The thing is, for years companies like Linode and BlueHost have offered cheap VPS options. The startup DigitalOcean has risen to popularity because it made the VPS hip and a simpler alternative to AWS. Now AWS is directly going after the DigitalOcean style of cloud infrastructure — starting at $5, the Lightsail VPS prices are certainly competitive.
VPS isn’t something that the other major cloud infrastructure providers like Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure offer. But it’s only a matter of time before that changes.
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 service is currently available only through AWS’ US East (Northern Virginia) data center region, AWS cheif evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post.
Details on the service are 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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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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"AWS now offering trucks to move your data to its cloud | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/aws-unveils-snowmobile-truck-for-moving-data-to-its-cloud"
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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 now offering trucks to move your data to its cloud Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn AWS Snowmobile.
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At its re:Invent user conference in Las Vegas today, public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) unveiled the next generation of its Snowball boxes that customers can use to move lots of data to AWS.
The first version was announced at last year’s re:Invent — it had a capacity of 50TB. Then, in April of this year, AWS showed off a 80TB version.
This time around, AWS decided to add on computing resources, which opens up new possibilities for companies that need a Snowball.
Multiple Snowball Edge boxes — each of which has a 100TB capacity and a color touchscreen — can divvy up databases with sharding, for one thing, AWS chief executive Andy Jassy said, and they can sync data to S3, too. But also, they can run new AWS software called AWS Greengrass , which effectively brings the serverless event-driven computing model of AWS Lambda outside of AWS and onto other kinds of devices, including embedded devices.
Above: AWS Snowball Edge.
But AWS isn’t stopping there. For companies that have exabytes of data — of which there are a lot, Jassy said — AWS is introducing a full-size truck containing a 45-foot shipping container in which customers can load up 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! “We’ll drive the truck over to your data center, we’ll take Snowmobile affixed to a trailer, we have power, and we’ll fiber-connect to your data center, you fill ‘er up, the truck will come back, we’ll put [the container] back on the truck, and we’ll move it back to AWS,” Jassy said.
Sending an exabyte of data to AWS data centers at a rate of 10 Gb/s would take 26 years, but using 10 Snowmobiles would take less than six months, Jassy said.
AWS Snowmobile doesn’t have an official price. But AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr noted in a blog post that salespeople will work with interested customers, and that AWS is keen to ensure that the service “is both faster and less expensive than using a network-based data transfer model.” As for the Snowball Edge, each job costs $300 plus shipping costs, Barr wrote in a blog post.
If you keep it for longer than 10 days, you’ll have to pay $30 per box per day. Locally run Lambda functions are free.
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"Everything announced at AWS re:Invent 2016 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/aws-reinvent-2016"
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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 Everything announced at AWS re:Invent 2016 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Amazon vice president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels talks about all the announcements AWS made this week at its re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on December 1, 2016.
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.
For the past five years, Amazon has held a big conference for customers of its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud division in Las Vegas. Software industry people and existing customers have always paid attention. But this year AWS has become such a financial juggernaut for Amazon that it has become a bigger deal in the wider world of business. And that means this is a really big week for AWS, perhaps the biggest ever.
Of course, AWS came prepared — it’s been planning this event for months. Executives announce one piece of news after another onstage, just like at Google I/O or Microsoft Build. It can leave one overwhelmed, particularly if one doesn’t know the portfolio of AWS services backward and forward.
Here’s a rundown of the announcements coming out of re:Invent this year.
New instances, FPGAs, and GPUs for EC2 Above: New AWS instances.
AWS announced the launch of new virtual machine (VM) instances that will be available for developers to rent out by the hour to run their applications. This is the most predictable announcement of the 2016 re:Invent conference, as AWS tends to unveil new VM types at this event.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Rather than just releasing new VM instances backed with graphics processing units (GPUs), AWS chief executive Andy Jassy said that AWS will be exposing “elastic GPUs for EC2,” a way for people to attach GPU resources to their existing VM instances. Also, there are new F1-branded VM instances that are accelerated with field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). The AWS service lets you write code, package it up as an image, and then run it as custom logic on the FPGAs.
Read more A DigitalOcean killer Above: Amazon Lightsail.
AWS announced Amazon Lightsail, a new way for developers to quickly and easily get access to low-cost virtual private servers (VPS).
They don’t need to worry about provisioning storage, security groups, or identity and access management (IAM) when they want to just get a box to run a simple application. They can just use Amazon Lightsail now.
Read more AWS’ first AI services, including a conversational app framework called Lex, which is what’s behind Alexa Above: AWS chief executive Andy Jassy unveils Amazon’s first AI services at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on November 30, 2016.
The time has come. Following years of mounting interest in a type of artificial intelligence (AI) called deep learning, AWS today announced its first Amazon AI services that make use of deep learning.
There is the new Rekognition image recognition service — presumably drawing on the talent and technology from deep learning startup Orbeus, whose team Amazon hired in the past year.
There is also the new Polly text-to-speech (TTS) service, which supports 47 voices and 24 languages. It’s free to process up to 5 million characters a month, and after that it costs $0.000004 per character, AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post.
But the most significant announcement today is the launch of Amazon Lex. It’s effectively the technology underlying Alexa, Amazon’s voice-activated virtual assistant. Alexa is the basis of the Amazon Echo line of smart speakers, which have taken off — one recent report said Amazon has sold more than 5 million of them. Lex provides deep learning-powered automatic speech recognition and natural-language understanding.
Read more Athena service for querying data in S3 Above: AWS chief executive Andy Jassy introduces Amazon Athena at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on November 30, 2016.
AWS announced the launch of Amazon Athena, a new tool for running queries on data that’s stored in AWS’ widely used S3 cloud storage service.
People can use the standard Structured Query Language (SQL) with the service and don’t need to worry about setting up the infrastructure for it.
AWS doesn’t believe Athema will overlap with the querying tools that are available through its Elastic Map Reduce (EMR) service and its Redshift data warehousing service, AWS chief executive Andy Jassy said during today’s keynote.
Read more PostgreSQL support in the Aurora database engine Above: Andy Jassy talks about new capabilities in the Aurora cloud database service.
At its re:Invent user conference in Las Vegas, AWS today announced that its Aurora managed cloud database engine now supports the popular PostgreSQL structured database.
Amazon already lets developers store and retrieve data using PostgreSQL through its Relational Database Service (RDS). RDS added support for PostgreSQL in 2013. Of course, developers could also just install the open-source PostgreSQL atop AWS computing and storage infrastructure on their own. Sure enough, it will be possible to migrate PostgreSQL databases from RDS to Aurora.
PostgreSQL support is the top request from customers of Aurora, AWS chief executive Andy Jassy said today.
Read more The Snowmobile truck and 100TB Snowball Edge boxes to efficiently move data to the cloud Above: AWS Snowmobile.
At its re:Invent user conference in Las Vegas today, AWS unveiled the next generation of its Snowball boxes that customers can use to move lots of data to AWS.
The first version was announced at last year’s re:Invent — it had a capacity of 50TB. Then, in April of this year, AWS showed off a 80TB version. This time around, AWS decided to add on computing resources, which opens up new possibilities for companies that need a Snowball.
Multiple Snowball Edge boxes — each of which has a 100TB capacity and a color touchscreen — can divvy up databases with sharding, for one thing, AWS chief executive Andy Jassy said, and they can sync data to S3, too. But also, they can run new AWS software called AWS Greengrass, which effectively brings the serverless event-driven computing model of AWS Lambda outside of AWS and onto other kinds of devices, including embedded devices.
Read more Unit testing and debugging services, and a personal health dashboard Above: A demonstration of AWS’ X-Ray service at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas on December 1, 2016.
During the second keynote, AWS announced the launch of a new service called CodeBuild, which is meant to automatically compile developers’ code and then run unit tests on it.
AWS will charge by the minute and automatically scale it in and out based on the needs of the workload, said Amazon vice president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels. The service can also be customized.
AWS is also introducing a service called X-Ray, which is meant to help developers with debugging their code. The service will show performance bottlenecks and show which services are causing issues. It will also show the “impact of issues for users,” Vogels said. Additionally Vogels introduced AWS OpsWorks for Chef Automate, a fully managed version of a Chef server for automating the management of infrastructure.
And AWS is giving customers a new Personal Health Dashboard that compliments the existing Service Health Dashboard. “As the name indicates, this dashboard gives you a personalized view into the performance and availability of the AWS services that you are using, along with alerts that are automatically triggered by changes in the health of the services. It is designed to be the single source of truth with respect to your cloud resource, and should give you more visibility into any issues that might affect you,” AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post.
A new AWS Health application programming interface (API) — available to customers that subscribe to AWS’ business or enterprise support services — provides programmatic access to this information.
Read more DDoS mitigation services Above: Amazon vice president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels introduces AWS Shield at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on December 1, 2016.
AWS said it has turned on distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack mitigation technology, called AWS Shield Standard, for all of its customers, free of charge. It “protects you from 96 percent of the most common attacks today, including SYN/ACK floods, Reflection attacks, and HTTP slow reads,” AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post.
To help customers prevent more sophisticated attacks, AWS is also introducing a premium tier called AWS Shield Advanced. It lets customers call in a special support team that’s available 24 hours a day and seven days a week. And customers can get notifications about attacks.
When AWS detects attacks, “we will work together with DDoS protection teams to create the right level of protection using WAF [web application firewall]. We will also keep an eye on cost, making sure you don’t incur any additional cost by using our service,” Amazon vice president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels said.
Read more A mobile analytics tool Above: Amazon vice president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels introduces the Amazon Pinpoint service at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on December 1, 2016.
AWS also launched Amazon Pinpoint, a mobile analytics service. Pinpoint will help developers understand the behaviors of people using mobile apps. It lets developers send push notifications and then track the impact of them, Amazon vice president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels said during today’s keynote.
It integrates with AWS’ existing Mobile Hub service, and it supports both iOS (Swift and Objective C) and Android apps, with optional campaign analytics and A/B testing.
Read more AWS Glue, for automated data integration Above: Amazon vice president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels introduces the AWS Glue service at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on December 1, 2016.
AWS launched AWS Glue, a tool for automatically running jobs for cleaning up data from multiple sources and getting it all ready for analysis in other tools, like business intelligence (BI) software.
This type of work is typically known as extract-transform-load, or ETL. Companies including Informatica and Talend offer software for it. Now AWS has a cloud service for it.
It’s been possible to use AWS infrastructure to do ETL work, with services like EMR (Elastic Map Reduce). The other big public clouds have Hadoop-based tools for this sort of thing, too. But with AWS Glue it will be easier. And with the help of JDBC connectors, it will be able to connect with data in on-premises services.
Read more Several enhancements to the Lambda event-driven computing service Above: Amazon vice president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels talks about C# support in the AWS Lambda service at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on December 1, 2016.
AWS said it has added support for the C# programming language in its Lambda event-driven computing service. It also talked about a new capability called Lambda@Edge, which makes it possible to run Lambda functions at edge locations where customers store media content around the world on its CloudFront content distribution network (CDN).
Also new: AWS Step Functions, which will allow developers to build full applications in the form of functions that are hooked up together. A visual editor makes it easy to connect multiple functions, Amazon vice president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels explained onstage.
Altogether this is a big refresh to Lambda, which AWS first introduced at re:Invent two years ago. At the time it was viewed as a revolutionary concept because it let developers do complex things without having to set up and manage the underlying computing and storage infrastructure.
Read more AWS Batch Above: Amazon vice president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels introduces the AWS Glue service at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on December 1, 2016.
AWS released a preview of AWS Batch, a service for automating the deployment of batch processing jobs.
In the past decade or so, people have relied on the Hadoop open-source big data software to do batch processing, and AWS and other public clouds have come up with managed versions of Hadoop and additional services that are catered to batch and streaming workloads. Now AWS is trying to more directly meet the needs of developers who want to process lots of data automatically even if it doesn’t happen instantly.
And it’s designed to work with containers as opposed to the more traditional virtual machines (VMs). Customers can provide the exact container images that need to be run on top of the AWS EC2 computing infrastructure. (Shell scripts and Linux executables are also supported, and it will be possible to run Lambda functions in the future.) On top of that, it’s able to take advantage of cheaper EC2 instances — specifically that which is available on the spot market. But customers can specify the types of instances they’d like, as well as minimum and maximum compute resources.
Read more Open-source software for building your own container scheduler Above: Amazon vice president and chief technology officer Werner Vogels talks about Blox at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on December 1, 2016.
AWS has open-sourced new software called Blox that lets developers create custom schedulers for use inside AWS’ EC2 Container Service (ECS). The first two components of the Blox software, a “reference scheduler” and a service for capturing data on clusters that can then be queried, are available now on GitHub under an Apache 2.0 license.
With this move, AWS is making its container deployment service easier to tinker with, rather than using existing third-party schedulers, such as Google-backed Kubernetes, Mesosphere’s Mesos, or Docker’s own Swarm.
Read more 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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"AWS launches elastic GPUs for EC2, FPGA-backed F1 instances, R4 and refreshed T2, C5 and I3 coming in Q1 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/aws-launches-elastic-gpus-for-ec2-fpga-backed-f1-instances-r4-and-refreshed-t2-c5-and-i3-coming-in-q1"
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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 launches elastic GPUs for EC2, FPGA-backed F1 instances, R4 and refreshed T2, C5 and I3 coming in Q1 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn New AWS instances.
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.
At its fifth annual re:Invent user conference in Las Vegas today, public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the launch of new virtual machine (VM) instances that will be available for developers to rent out by the hour to run their applications.
This is the most predictable announcement of the 2016 re:Invent conference, as AWS tends to unveil new VM types at this event, in sync with Intel’s rhythm of releases of new chips.
Of course, the other big public clouds, Microsoft Azure and the Google Cloud Platform, also regularly introduce new VM types for customers. Prices vary and all three cut VM prices from time to time, with Azure continuing to maintain a commitment to match AWS’ prices.
Rather than just releasing new VM instances backed with graphics processing units (GPUs), AWS chief executive Andy Jassy said that AWS will be exposing “elastic GPUs for EC2,” a way for people to attach GPU resources to their existing VM instances. This will be useful in cases when people need “just a little GPU” rather than an entire GPU, Jassy said.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Also, there are new F1-branded VM instances that are accelerated with field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). This announcement comes after Microsoft said it was accelerating Azure instances with FPGAs. The AWS service lets you write code, package it up as an image, and then run it as custom logic on the FPGAs.
Additionally there are several new regular VM instance types on the way.
First up is the new R4 instance family, with DDR4 RAM and twice the RAM of the high end of the existing R3 instance family. There’s also a larger L3 cache and twice as many vCPUs, Jassy said.
The T2 family for smaller general-purpose workloads is being refreshed, too. The T2.xlarge has 16GiB and 2 vCPUs, while the T2.2xlarge has 32GiB and 2vCPUs.
Coming in Q1 are two other new instance families: I3 and C5.
The I3 family of instances for IO-heavy workloads will offer twice as much RAM and vCPU and more than nine times the input/output operations per second (IOPS) of the top I2 instances, Jassy said.
Finally, the new C5 instance family for compute-intensive applications will run on seventh-generation Intel Skylake Xeon chips.
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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"AWS launches Amazon Athena service for querying data stored in S3 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/aws-launches-amazon-athena-service-for-querying-data-stored-in-s3"
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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 launches Amazon Athena service for querying data stored in S3 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn AWS chief executive Andy Jassy introduces Amazon Athena at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas on November 30, 2016.
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.
At its annual re:Invent user conference in Las Vegas today, public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the launch of Amazon Athena, a new tool for running queries on data that’s stored in AWS’ widely used S3 cloud storage service.
People can use the standard Structured Query Language (SQL) with the service and don’t need to worry about setting up the infrastructure for it.
AWS doesn’t believe Athema will overlap with the querying tools that are available through its EMR (Elastic Map Reduce) service and its Redshift data warehousing service, AWS chief executive Andy Jassy said during today’s keynote.
If anything, the service resembles BigQuery, the data querying service that’s available through Google’s public cloud. But in the past year or so Google has been repositioning BigQuery as a data warehousing service, which would put it on par with Redshift rather than let it continue to look distinctive.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! After Athena users query data, they’re able to visualize it using Amazon’s own QuickSight business intelligence (BI) service, or a different one, as long as they use AWS’ new Athena JDBC driver, AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post.
The service is only available through two of AWS’ data center regions: US East (Northern Virginia) and US West (Oregon), Barr wrote. Athena costs $5 per TB of data that the service scans. Query results get stored in whichever S3 bucket you’d like, and that means additional charges for S3 use. More detail is here.
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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"AWS brings PostgreSQL support to the Aurora database engine | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/aws-brings-postgresql-support-to-the-aurora-database-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 AWS brings PostgreSQL support to the Aurora database engine Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Andy Jassy talks about new capabilities in the Aurora cloud database service.
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.
At its re:Invent user conference in Las Vegas, public cloud infrastructure provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) today announced that its Aurora managed cloud database engine now supports the popular PostgreSQL structured database.
Amazon already lets developers store and retrieve data using PostgreSQL through its Relational Database Service (RDS). RDS added support for PostgreSQL in 2013.
Of course, developers could also just install the open-source PostgreSQL atop AWS computing and storage infrastructure on their own. Sure enough, it will be possible to migrate PostgreSQL databases from RDS to Aurora.
PostgreSQL support is the top request from customers of Aurora, AWS chief executive Andy Jassy said today.
Today’s announcement builds on the launch of the Aurora database service in 2014. At the time it was touted as a great tool for companies that were heavily reliant on the MySQL database software. Now Aurora is becoming more powerful.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Other public clouds, including Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, offer their own relational database services.
Fortune reported on AWS’ plans for the new PostgreSQL service earlier this month.
A blog post on the news is 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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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 unveils Dash button for AWS IoT with twice the battery life of the original | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/amazon-unveils-dash-button-for-aws-iot-with-twice-the-battery-life-of-the-original"
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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 unveils Dash button for AWS IoT with twice the battery life of the original Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn AWS IoT button in action! 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.
During the busiest week of the year for the public cloud infrastructure provider, Amazon Web Services (AWS) today said that it has developed a new version of its IoT (internet of things) button with twice the battery capacity as the original, which made its debut in May.
It appears that this news is completely unrelated to the announcements coming out of AWS’ re:Invent conference in Las Vegas. The AWS IoT service was not mentioned during the keynote earlier today. That service, which was unveiled last year , lets customers integrate internet-connected devices with their applications.
This button is a more programmable version of the Dash button that Amazon offers its customers to order Goldfish, condoms, Ziploc bags, and other products from home with the push of a button. Tech-savvy people can use AWS IoT to make the button set a variety of actions. As AWS says online: You can code the button’s logic in the cloud to configure button clicks to count or track items, call or alert someone, start or stop something, order services, or even provide feedback. For example, you can click the button to unlock or start a car, open your garage door, call a cab, call your spouse or a customer service representative, track the use of common household chores, medications or products, or remotely control your home appliances.
The button can be used as a remote control for Netflix, a switch for your Philips Hue light bulb, a check-in/check-out device for Airbnb guests, or a way to order your favorite pizza for delivery. You can integrate it with third-party APIs like Twitter, Facebook, Twilio, Slack or even your own company’s applications.
The original model had enough battery to handle 1,000 button actuations. The new one is able to support more than 2,000, Amazon says in the description for the new product.
It costs $19.95 like the original, and it will be officially released on February 2, 2017 — only Prime members will be able to purchase it, like the original.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! If you don’t want to wait for the new one to become available, you can buy the first-generation version now and get $20 in AWS credits, according to a blog post.
Also notable: There is now an app for Android and iOS that simplifies the process of setting up and programming AWS IoT buttons.
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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"Expedia now has an Alexa skill for flight updates and car rentals | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/xpedia-now-has-an-alexa-skill-for-flight-updates-and-car-rental"
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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 Expedia now has an Alexa skill for flight updates and car rentals 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.
Expedia customers can now use Amazon’s Alexa to ask for flight updates and rent a car, the company announced today.
The skill can also be used to ask questions about hotel bookings, flights, loyalty points balance, and rental car reservations.
The ability to buy millions of items from the Amazon marketplace has been available since July.
While Amazon has made ground ahead of other platforms when it comes to conversational commerce, Alexa cannot currently be used to buy a plane ticket.
“Booking a hotel or a flight are not yet available. We are working hard to bring these exciting features to you soon!” the skill description from Expedia reads.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! By contrast, numerous travel bots like Mezi and Hipmunk for messaging apps like Facebook Messenger can be used to purchase plane tickets. Kayak’s and Expedia’s chatbots can also buy tickets.
Among the now more than 5,000 skills, Expedia and Kayak are some of the only ones in the Alexa Skills Marketplace with the ability to track a flight and plan a trip.
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 limitations of letting chatbots imitate humans | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/the-limitations-of-letting-chatbots-imitate-humans"
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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 limitations of letting chatbots imitate humans 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.
Chatbots have faced a lot of criticism in recent months. They’ve been called dumb , frustrating and useless , and a waste of time.
Of course, a lot of that criticism has been fair — there are a lot of dumb, frustrating, useless, waste-of-time chatbots out there, after all.
But there’s one piece of feedback I’ve been hearing that just doesn’t ring true for me. It’s this idea that the shortcomings of today’s chatbots stem from the fact that they’re not human enough. And that until they can achieve a human-level of intelligence, they won’t be able to add any real value.
As one critic recently wrote , “The ideal chatbot solution would be so seamless that a customer wouldn’t be able to determine whether they’re talking to a human or a chatbot.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! For me, however, this solution doesn’t seem ideal at all. I already have a team of actual humans who can talk to customers. So why would I also need a chatbot that can trick customers into thinking it’s a human? The goal of building a chatbot shouldn’t be to have it flawlessly imitate a person. The goal should be to have it do something that a person can’t do, or to have it do some annoying, repetitive task that’s better suited to a machine (such as crunching numbers or searching through databases).
In attempting to create a chatbot that’s indistinguishable from a human, you’re inevitably going to fall into something like the “uncanny valley.” The uncanny valley is a concept in robotics/aesthetics that refers to the revulsion people feel when they see something that looks almost — but not exactly — human.
Ultimately, people like seeing some human features (e.g., two eyes, a smile) on their robots and other non-living beings. But when things get too realistic, it’s perceived as creepy.
That same notion can be applied to chatbots. Just think about the first time you played around with a chatbot like Jabberwacky, or ALICE, or SmarterChild.
There were probably a few moments when the responses seemed so human-like that you got a bit weirded out, right? So instead of thinking about chatbots solely as a means for replicating human intelligence and human behavior, we should be thinking about them as an independent technology.
The only thing working against us is history.
Because traditionally, artificial intelligence (AI) has always been defined in relation to human intelligence. Just look at the first definition for AI that pops up on Google: “the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence…” Our current understanding of AI, as well as our expectations for what chatbots should be able to do, was no doubt shaped by Alan Turing’s groundbreaking paper, “ Computing Machinery and Intelligence.
” In that paper, Turing introduced the world to his now-famous machine intelligence test, the Turing Test, which asserts that a machine can be considered intelligent if it’s able to pass itself off as a human during a 1:1 (text-based) conversation with an actual human.
So from the earliest days of AI research, the measuring stick for AI has been our own, human intelligence.
There’s a separate camp of AI researchers out there, however, who think that the real measure of AI should be something totally different. They point to other technologies, like artificial flight, which didn’t rely on their counterparts in nature in order to become a reality. If the Wright Brothers’ plane didn’t have to flap its wings like a bird in order to achieve flight, why should we assume that a chatbot has to be able to communicate like a human in order to achieve intelligence? For a definition of AI that reflects this viewpoint, look no further than Amazon’s Alexa. Its definition of AI: The branch of computer science that deals with writing computer programs that can solve problems creatively.
See the difference? Here, AI isn’t concerned with solving problems like a human , it’s concerned with solving problems creatively.
The goal isn’t to replicate a human process, it’s to figure out the best, most efficient process possible.
And that’s how I like to think of chatbot development at my company. We don’t want to build chatbots that can imitate humans, we want to build chatbots that can take actions that maximize their chances of success toward achieving particular goals. That’s how we define artificial intelligence: It’s having chatbots learn from their experiences so they get better and better at the tasks they’re performing.
At the end of the day, we don’t want our customers to think, “Wow, that chatbot is so human-like.” We want them to think, “Wow, that chabot is so helpful and good at what it does.” If we ever want bots to reach their true potential, we need to let bots be bots.
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"The Bots Landscape evolves, adds heavyweights like Google Assistant, funds 14 more Slack bots | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/the-bots-landscape-evolves-adds-heavyweights-like-google-assistant-funds-14-more-slack-bots"
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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 Bots Landscape evolves, adds heavyweights like Google Assistant, funds 14 more Slack bots Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Bots for the office 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.
About a year ago I left Google to join Slack , and I hit the ground running. The team I joined was really excited about the platform we were planning to launch and things were super hectic. We were working with partners to implement bots, deliberating if developers will understand and buy into the concept of bots, and speaking at events to introduce this notion of the conversational office.
There were early platforms, like Kik , that were also promoting bots and a few developers, like Ben Brown and Chris Messina , who were evangelizing the idea of bots and conversational UI, but most of the market was still in the “bot what?” stage. A month later, we launched our Slack Platform with more than 150 apps in our directory and opened a fund to invest in this market. Ben Brown from Howdy (our first Slack Fund investment) was on stage and announced BotKit , an open source bot framework.
What happened following that, in the past year, has been mind blowing.
One by one all the giants of the high tech industry placed their bets on bots as well, and these were big bets, with CEOs standing on stage saying that bots are the future of software. Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Oracle, and many others have joined the race to build platforms, tools and services for bots and bot developers. Startups launched bots, dev tools, bot hosting, and marketing tools. Brands, tired of mobile app user acquisition costs, started exploring bots and what that means to their business. This in turn started to bring marketers to talk about bots. Tech media outlets started dedicating sections to bots. We were all becoming bot-shit crazy! 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 progress the market has made is pretty interesting. On the technology front, artificial intelligence is becoming a common service provided by many bot frameworks, including Google ( Api.AI ), IBM ( Watson ), Microsoft ( LUIS ), and Facebook ( Wit.AI ).
On the funding front, VCs and incubators are increasing their investments in bots. (The Slack fund announced in July an investment in 14 startups.) There are also good signals for revenues, as bots such as StatsBot , Kip , and Zoom.ai have already started to monetize.
The developer ecosystem is thriving, and there are tens of thousands of bots on many platforms, serving B2B and B2C use cases.
Jon Cifuentes created a map of the ecosystem in August, showing how the ecosystem is evolving.
This article is part of the Bots Landscape. You can download a high-resolution version of the landscape here.
Even though this ecosystem isn’t even a year old, this progress reflects a longer term market shift into messaging. The early stats are pretty impressive — very much like the mobile and web revolution. All the big players are leaning in on bots, and investors as well as developers are joining this movement.
So? Are we there yet? My take is that we are still very early in this game, and there are still major hurdles to overcome. We are still exploring the best use cases (and business cases) for bots. In April I wrote, “Bots are a great hammer, but not everything is a nail,” and I still stand behind that.
On the product side, we are still defining what it means to have a conversation with software, whether it is a set of rich interactions, plain text, or both. Also, bot discovery is still broken — there, I said it.
From a developer perspective, we are still working out the tools and frameworks for bots, bot ethics, and marketing strategies. There are a lot of conflicting opinions on the use of AI in bots, as well as the relationship of bots and AI.
From a consumer perspective, while bots are well known in the Silicon Valley, bots are still far from being pervasive in every household.
So there’s still a lot to do. We need to remember it took 2–3 years before we started to see top-notch apps and way more time before we had top-notch web apps. We are in the first year of this bot ecosystem, and this takes time.
The road ahead The opportunity for the next year of the bot ecosystem is pretty big, and we might start to see winners in a few segments.
When it comes to bots for work, there are a lot of opportunities to create the next big thing with bots that assist us in all aspects of work: HR, productivity, finance, sales, support, legal, IT, corporate travel, security, and more.
Bots for consumers are going to become more common, and we will see a lot more commerce bots, personal assistant bots, and fun & entertainment bots. Someone might win the super-bot war (super-bots are bots that strive to provide users with multiple services), and a lot of homes are going to have Amazon Echo, Google Assistant, or a competitor from the likes of Apple.
Developer tools and frameworks have a lot of potential to improve. We will have a great integrated development environment (IDE) for bots, and we will have great debugging tools for bots. AI will become much smarter this year, moving from language understanding to conversation understanding.
Another good news for developers is that platforms will enable better bot interactivity and better discovery, which will drive bot business success.
An ecosystem that works together Looking back, one of the things we managed to get right this year as an ecosystem was Botness.
Together with good friends — such as Lili Cheng , Jon Bruner , Ben Brown , Chris Messina , Andy Mauro , Brady Forrest , and more — we gathered all the platform providers, bot builders, media, and investors into a community that works together to drive this ecosystem. We work together to make bots useful all across the market, sharing best practices and lessons learned.
I am honored to be part of this great movement, and I am looking forward to another great year.
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"How chatbots will factor into elections | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/how-chatbots-will-factor-into-elections"
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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 How chatbots will factor into elections Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn U.S. President Donald Trump 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.
When people ask me why they should use a bot , my answer is simple: Bots are engaging. Land on a webpage and you need to go through the effort of reading the content and figuring out the point.
Land on a bot and it will (ideally) tell you exactly what you need to know when you want to know it.
For this reason, it does not take much research to find several articles explaining why marketers should pay attention to bots.
So it comes as a great surprise to me that I have found no political bots.
There are a few bots with a political purpose. A site created by SapientX could play clips from Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, although they were not created by the candidates. What I’m talking about is a chatbot that can fill in for a politician during a campaign, answer policy questions, and discuss topics.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Political campaign or a marketing campaign? The best way I have heard political campaigns described to me are as a combination of a war and an ad campaign. They are like battles in that two opposing sides battle for victory. But at the same time political campaigns are essentially marketing campaigns. Opposing companies try to engage with as many supporters as possible in the hopes that they get more people to back their product, i.e., their candidate.
Living in India, you learn that politicians will do anything to make you think of them. While at the local level it’s largely limited to offline methods like hoardings (what billboards are called in India) and pamphlets, national campaigns go all out. Radio, TV, public speeches, front page newspaper ads, YouTube commercials, giant hoardings, the much-dreaded WhatsApp forwards that your uncles do not stop sending, and constant SMS messaging — the list is endless.
Of late in India, it has become something of a trend to engage supporters through television or radio shows where leaders address their supporters’ questions and concerns. The Prime Minister in India runs a radio show called Mann ki Baat (Talk from the Heart). His political rival and the chief minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, recently started an internet show called “Talk to AK,” which garnered hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube and Facebook and had not one but two hashtags ( #talktoaktomorrow and #TalkToAK) trending on Twitter for a few days.
I can’t help but think that a natural progression of this trend would be having a political chatbot.
Do we really need one? As politicians try to engage with potential voters and supporters more meaningfully, a chatbot offers the promise of the ultimate level of engagement. Rather than having a talk show on which only a few supporters could submit their questions, imagine a future in which leaders could talk to everyone via a bot — a virtual AK or Modi who can answer all their constituents’ questions about their political platforms.
Of course the benefits do not flow in one direction. A corollary of an omnipresent political bot is that every citizen has complete access to their leaders and can hold them more accountable. Imagine if you could scream at your local politician every time you saw a pothole or a garbage pile appear near your house. Political accountability would increase significantly. Chatbots will disrupt governance and elections as we know them today.
Bots are a natural progression in our everlasting quest to create a system of government in which politicians are responsive to their voters’ desires and are held accountable for their actions after the frenzy of an election is over.
Inspired by this thought process, I decided to create a political bot. Over the weekend I created a scripted bot that turned Arvind Kejriwal’s platform into a bot.
You can try out the bot here: In English: chattoak.com In Hindi: chattoak.com/hindi Eventually political chatbots could become common, especially since it is often hard for candidates and politicians to engage with voters as often as they would like. A chatbot could easily fill a void — and may one day even help a candidate get elected.
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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"Geohot's startup Comma.ai open-sources its self-driving car technology | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/geohots-startup-comma-ai-open-sources-its-self-driving-car-technology"
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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 Geohot’s startup Comma.ai open-sources its self-driving car technology Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Comma.ai founder George Hotz holding up the Comma Neo.
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George “Geohot” Hotz is driving forward with his push to bring self-driving cars to the masses, but he’s going about it a slightly unconventional way. His company Comma.ai is brushing past some previous regulatory issues and is trying another route — open-sourcing not only its self-driving technology, but also instructions for building your very own hardware device (“a robotics platform”) called Comma Neo. All of this information is available today through Comma.ai’s GitHub repositories.
Since the beginning, the company has had a goal of being the Android version of self-driving cars — it wants to empower “ghostriding for the masses.” Earlier this year, it was approached by state and federal regulators inquiring about a product Hotz claimed wasn’t even on sale yet. Fed up with the scrutiny, Comma.ai cancelled its first product, the Comma One, and pivoted its thinking to democratizing its knowledge. So it’s keeping with its promise, but has scrapped its $999 price point in favor of it being free. “If we really want to be the Android of self-driving cars, we can’t be charging $999, can we?” Hotz explained.
Open-sourcing all the things So today, Comma.ai is making available its Open Pilot and Comma Neo repositories. The former gives developers access to autopilot software, which provides almost all the functionality in Autopilot 7. Hotz boasted that it’s “better than the software in every car besides the Tesla” and is MIT-licensed. But that’s not all you need to evolve your vehicle — you need the hardware. But the company isn’t building any new products right now. It wants you to have instructions to create your own robotics platform. It provides details on the materials you need, the software, and more so you can bring Comma.ai right to your vehicle.
Think of Comma.ai as IKEA, where Open Pilot is the parts and materials while Neo is the instructions.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Hotz sought to assure that his company hasn’t run afoul of any regulatory issues, saying that nothing announced today is for sale — he has promised to give the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) advance warning before that happens. When the Comma Neo is added to any vehicle, its technology will enable self-driving for up to six minutes. After that, it will instruct the driver to take the wheel. If that doesn’t happen, the car will de-accelerate.
Above: Comma.ai’s new technology release: The Comma Neo, an open-sourced robotics platform A big part of Comma Neo is what’s inside and what developers will have to purchase on its own — remember that it’s just instructions. At the core is an Android smartphone, but as of right now only the One Plus 3 is supported because it’s affordable, comes with a Snapdragon 820 chip (this was an important requirement), is modifiable, and comes equipped with a pretty decent camera. Comma.ai’s technology relies on the smartphone’s rear-facing camera, so it’s important to have one that can visualize what’s on the road as accurate as possible. However, with all the bells and whistles of the One Plus 3, Comma.ai has limited functionality; only the rear-facing camera and GPS are being used — it will not listen to you nor will notifications be displayed, as the Neo’s operating system uses a very stripped-down form of Android 6.0 Marshmallow (only the kernel and core services).
But this isn’t a rebranding of the Comma One. Hotz’s team said the main difference is buildability: “It’s been redesigned from the ground up so it can be built by anyone [who] can use a soldering iron.” Currently, only two model cars are supported: the 2016 Acura ILX with Acura Watch Plus and the 2016 Honda Civic Touring (although neither car manufacturer are apparently officially associated with this).
This move seems to help Hotz keep a promise Comma.ai has made, to ship a self-driving car by the end of the year for under $1,000. Obviously there was some leeway in what “ship” means.
Above: George “Geohot” Hotz is head of Comma.ai.
Today’s announcements are geared towards hobbyists, researchers, big automakers, and after-market manufacturers. It’s this last demographic that especially appeals to Comma.ai. But Hotz admits, “The problem is, I’m not really sure what the size of the market is for the device. Let’s make a market. Let’s make after-market self-driving systems a product category.” But Comma.ai is far from being in a league of its own, as there are numerous attempts out there to create self-driving vehicles, including with Tesla and Mobileye, all with different results. Udacity has seen the apparent market opportunity, launching autonomous car nanodegrees in collaboration with BMW and McLaren. Baidu tried to get into it with BMW, but that project came to a halt earlier this month. Of course Google is actively trying to develop the technology, as is Apple — this has caused incumbent manufacturers to team up to try and beat these technology companies to the punch.
What might be different in Comma.ai’s approach is its intent on being the Android of self-driving cars, enabling anyone to customize their system as they see fit for any vehicle they own, not requiring it to be pre-programmed from the manufacturer.
Speed bump It was just more than a month ago when Hotz’s Comma.ai hit a stumbling block. In the aftermath of receiving a special order from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) inquiring about the self-driving car’s system, Hotz was extremely displeased, tweeting that regulators made “no attempt” at a dialog and that he’d “much rather spend my life building amazing tech than dealing with regulators and lawyers.” The result was the cancellation of the Comma One , the semi-autonomous system that could be applied to any vehicle for just $1,000 and would have first been used on the 2016 Honda Civic.
Hotz eventually sought to step back from the cliff, saying that this wasn’t the end of Comma.ai, but just a product. What makes this more bizarre was that the NHTSA appeared to ask for more information and the company had been gearing up to ship the car kit to the public. Should it have been released, the Comma One would compete against Tesla, Mobileye, Cruise, and other emerging autonomous systems being worked on.
It's a neon party up in here! @comma_ai pic.twitter.com/PJE5tdhoLw — Eddie Samuels (@edsammy) November 30, 2016 In fact, ahead of Wednesday’s press conference, Hotz said that he was now “friends” with Tesla and Cruise, but still there was some animosity with Mobileye. Highlighting his rather fun demeanor, prior to the start of the day’s events, he blasted Warren G’s “Regulate” — perhaps a bit of tongue-in-cheek reference to stuff Comma.ai has gone through? However, Hotz didn’t hold back when talking about past issues.
“Some people speculated that investors pulled our funding; that’s not true,” he said. “Some speculated that the company was over because the Comma One was cancelled; that’s not true. Some speculated that the Comma One didn’t work and that it was vaporware, like Theranos; that’s not true.” He went on to say that the Comma One was cancelled due to a 10-day ticking clock that was imposed on the company from the NHTSA that would fine it $21,000 for each day on a product “that we weren’t even taking pre-orders for.” Further, he stated that even though regulators wanted to see user instructions, if there was a mistake in the documentation, Hotz himself could have potentially faced jail time.
Contrary to some, Comma.ai wasn’t opposed to questions being asked of it by NHTSA, but what broke the proverbial camel’s back were statements from the agency like this: “As you are undoubtedly aware, there is a high likelihood that some drivers will use your product in a manner that exceeds its intended purpose.” Hotz found himself chagrined and unable to respond to that statement. Amid all of this, his company opted to shift its focus slightly, almost like it wanted to skirt the issue entirely.
Fans of the work around Comma One should not feel dismayed. Comma.ai has previously open-sourced the research around machine learning and artificial intelligence (some of which was highlighted in a Bloomberg profile in 2015).
Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Hotz had been passionate about developing a self-driving car, powered through machine learning and sensor data from the environment. In September, he told VentureBeat that more than 306,000 miles of data and 7,908 hours of footage from 738 users of Comma.ai’s Chffr mobile app has been generated.
A recognized hacker, Hotz unlocked an iPhone in August 2007, enabling it to be used on any wireless carrier. This came as a shock to AT&T and Apple because AT&T at the time had the exclusivity on the device.
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"AWS launches Amazon Lex, a bot framework that powers Alexa | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/aws-launches-amazon-lex-a-bot-framework-that-powers-alexa"
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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 launches Amazon Lex, a bot framework that powers Alexa Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A demonstration of what Amazon Lex can do.
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The time has come. Following years of mounting interest in a type of artificial intelligence (AI) called deep learning, the biggest public cloud infrastructure provider, Amazon Web Services (AWS), today announced its first Amazon AI services that make use of deep learning.
Deep learning generally involves training artificial neural networks on lots of data, such as photos, and then getting them to make inferences about new data. One of AWS’ top competitors, Google Cloud Platform, introduced the Cloud Machine Learning service that can do deep learning earlier this year.
In China, the Alibaba public cloud has the DT PAI service available for AI workloads. Additionally, startups such as Clarifai offer cloud-based deep learning services.
But AWS isn’t providing a basic general-purpose AI service — not today, anyway.
There is the new Rekognition image recognition service — presumably drawing on the talent and technology from deep learning startup Orbeus, whose team Amazon hired in the past 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! There is also the new Polly text-to-speech (TTS) service, which supports 47 voices and 24 languages. It’s free to process up to 5 million characters a month, and after that it costs $0.000004 per character, AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post.
But the most significant announcement today is the launch of Amazon Lex. It’s effectively the technology underlying Alexa, Amazon’s voice-activated virtual assistant. Alexa is the basis of the Amazon Echo line of smart speakers, which have taken off — one recent report said Amazon has sold more than 5 million of them.
Lex provides deep learning-powered automatic speech recognition and natural-language understanding.
“This will allow you to build all kinds of conversational applications,” AWS chief executive Andy Jassy said during today’s keynote at AWS’ re:Invent user conference in Las Vegas. “You’ll submit either a piece of text or a piece of audio. You’ll specify a response [to the input], and then it’ll return that response.” This will be able to power chatbots on apps like Facebook Messenger, and eventually Slack. But it will also let developers tap data in existing data repositories — there are connectors to Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Marketo, Zendesk, Quickbooks, Twilio, and HubSpot, Jassy said. It can also support triggers built with the AWS Lambda event-driven computing service.
Chatbots are among the trendiest technologies of 2016. Facebook and Microsoft have also unveiled platforms for building chatbots this year, and now the biggest cloud provider is catching up.
The service is available in preview now through just one of AWS’ data center regions — US East (Northern Virginia). It’s free to make up to 10,000 text requests and 5,000 speech requests per month, and after that it costs $4 per each thousand speech requests and 75 cents for every thousand text requests, Barr wrote in a blog post.
To an extent AWS leaked its own news. During an onstage interview at the AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington D.C. in June, Jassy said that AWS would unveil a deep learning service “in the next few months.” Earlier this month The Information reported on AWS’ plan to launch a deep learning service, and Fortune last week reported that AWS would expose more powerful AI tools to developers.
AWS has been laying the groundwork for this. In May Amazon open-sourced the DSSTNE deep learning framework , and earlier this month AWS announced that its deep learning framework of choice would be MXNet , not DSSTNE.
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"Amazon Alexa skills are about to become much smarter | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/amazons-alexa-is-about-to-become-much-smarter"
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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 Alexa skills are about to become much smarter Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Amazon Echo Dot 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.
Amid a flurry of major news for Amazon’s Alexa, the company today shared plans to beef up the Alexa Skills Kit with a library of hundreds of built-in commands within the next few weeks.
“Intents” are used to understand the most basic commands from users. Earlier this year, Alexa only had 15 intents and slot types — for commands like “Stop,” “Cancel,” or city names.
Amazon offered few details about the kinds of intents and slot types coming, though Alexa vice president Rohit Prasad told Backchannel today that people should expect book, video, and local business slot types.
The news was announced by Amazon Echo evangelist David Isbitski in a blog post today and addressed by Prasad in an Alexa State of the Union address delivered at the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Earlier in the day, at re:Invent, Amazon announced the launch of its first AI services , the launch of the Alexa bot framework Lex, and the creation of the Alexa Accelerator, a 13-week startup accelerator that will be run with Techstars.
“With the new built-in intents library, weather becomes an object that Alexa knows a lot about, both weather itself and its attributes, but also how a person may ask for the weather,” Isbitski wrote. “Our interaction model now can be done with no sample utterances and a single intent! We call this new type of interaction an Intent Signature and it includes actions, entities and properties.
There are numerous Intent Signatures available for use in your Alexa skills across all sorts of categories.” New intents will initially only be available for Alexa users in the U.S.
The number of Alexa skills in the Alexa Skills Marketplace has grown from around 100 at the beginning of the year to more than 5,000 today, Isbitski said.
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 discloses actively exploited Windows vulnerability just 10 days after reporting it to Microsoft | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/security/google-discloses-actively-exploited-windows-vulnerability-just-10-days-after-reporting-it-to-microsoft"
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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 discloses actively exploited Windows vulnerability just 10 days after reporting it to Microsoft 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 shared details about a security flaw in Windows, just 10 days after disclosing it to Microsoft on October 21. To make matters worse, Google says it is aware that this critical Windows vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild. That means attackers have already written code for this specific security hole and are using it to break into Windows systems.
A 0-day vulnerability is a publicly disclosed security flaw that wasn’t known before. In other words, the company that makes the software has not yet issued a patch for it. Indeed, Microsoft has not released a fix nor issued an advisory for this flaw.
Google described this particular Windows vulnerability as follows: The Windows vulnerability is a local privilege escalation in the Windows kernel that can be used as a security sandbox escape. It can be triggered via the win32k.sys system call NtSetWindowLongPtr() for the index GWLP_ID on a window handle with GWL_STYLE set to WS_CHILD. Chrome’s sandbox blocks win32k.sys system calls using the Win32k lockdown mitigation on Windows 10, which prevents exploitation of this sandbox escape vulnerability.
Also on October 21, Google shared a Flash vulnerability ( CVE-2016-7855 ) with Adobe, which that company patched on October 26. That means users can simply update to the latest version of Flash. For the other security flaw, Google merely recommends “to apply Windows patches from Microsoft when they become available for the Windows vulnerability.” 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 web plugin like Flash is a lot less complex than an operating system like Windows. This is one of the reasons why Google’s policy for actively exploited critical vulnerabilities — namely publicly disclosing details after seven days — is so controversial. Many software companies argue that a week is not enough time to code, test, and issue a patch for a security flaw. Google prefers to make the public aware sooner rather than later, but many security researchers maintain that details should only be shared once a patch is available.
This is not the first time that Google has disclosed Windows vulnerabilities before a patch was ready. In fact, the company did this for Windows 8.1 twice in January 2015.
Microsoft understandably wasn’t pleased, but this time around is even more serious. Both of those earlier vulnerabilities weren’t being actively exploited.
We have reached out to Microsoft regarding Google’s disclosure today and will update you if we hear back.
Update at 12:45 p.m. Pacific : Microsoft issued a statement, though the company did not share when a patch could be expected.
“We believe in coordinated vulnerability disclosure, and today’s disclosure by Google puts customers at potential risk,” a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat. “Windows is the only platform with a customer commitment to investigate reported security issues and proactively update impacted devices as soon as possible. We recommend customers use Windows 10 and the Microsoft Edge browser for the best protection.” A source close to the company also shared that the exploit Google describes requires the Adobe Flash vulnerability. Since Flash has been patched, the Windows vulnerability is mitigated. That said, Microsoft still needs to plug the security hole as it could be leveraged in other types of attacks.
Update on November 1 : Terry Myerson, executive vice president of Microsoft’s Windows and Devices group, has shared more information , including that Windows 10 Anniversary Update users are not affected by the vulnerability being exploited in the wild. Myerson also criticized Google in line with Microsoft’s previous statement.
Microsoft will be issuing a patch for this vulnerability on November 8.
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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"Watch us play Hide and Shriek, the head-to-head ghost simulator | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/watch-us-play-hide-and-shriek-the-head-to-head-ghost-simulator"
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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 Watch us play Hide and Shriek, the head-to-head ghost simulator Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Let us get spooky.
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I need to file an HR complaint against a co-worker. Fellow GamesBeat writer Mike Minotti turned into a skeleton and made me curse and bite my tongue. Pretty sure that’s against our code of conduct.
Hide and Shriek is a new $5 Steam game that enables two players to compete as ghosts in a high school, and it is the tool that Mike used to harass me. The goal is to get points by collecting powerups, retrieving special orbs, and scaring your foe. You can set traps to slow down one another, and you have a big jump-scare attack that penalizes your foe by deducting points from their score.
Since it’s Halloween, Mike and I (GamesBeat reporter Jeffrey Grubb), decided to boot the game up and have a go. The result was humiliating for me, and not only because I screamed like a child.
Go ahead and check out the video below to watch us play: 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! 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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"SteelSeries Arctis 5 headset struggles with comfort while nailing style and sound | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/steelseries-arctis-5-headset-struggles-with-comfort-while-nailing-style-and-sound"
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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 Review SteelSeries Arctis 5 headset struggles with comfort while nailing style and sound Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn SteelSeries Arctis 5 7.1 gaming headset.
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Gaming accessory manufacturers often embrace a design language that looks like they gave a hyperactive toddler an energy drink and told them to design a Star Wars spaceship from memory. Companies like SteelSeries, however, are starting to bring some sanity into this space.
SteelSeries Arctis 5 7.1 Pricing: $100 Availability: Out now Compatibility: 3.5mm/USB for use with PC, consoles, smartphones, and more SteelSeries has launched its new line of Arctis headsets that have a mature style that I would proudly wear in public. On top of that, the peripheral maker is including some nice options like a retractable mic, slick-looking lighting, and on-ear controls. But how does it perform? Well, the beautiful package delivers some impressive audio but some other issues get in the way.
What you’ll like Among the best looking all-purpose headsets I love the Arctis’ looks. It has a low profile, with a retractable microphone and ear cups that are shaped like flat cylinders. It’s not trying to ape the style of a stealth bomber. It’s not trying to scream “I’m for gamers!” It looks like something an adult would wear.
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! But as it keeps out some of those extreme elements, it incorporates others in far more elegant manner. When you connect the headset through USB, an outer ring lights up around the edges of the cups. It looks handsome.
SteelSeries’s retractable microphone is also a smart design choice. This means you get full voice integration, but you only need to pull it out when you need it. When you don’t, you can throw the Arctis on without looking like a doofus in public. This enables the headset to serve well as a gaming device, but it’s also great for movies and music on the go.
High-resolution audio On top of the design, the Arctis has some of the clearest audio of any headset below $100. It won’t shake your head with its bass, but it is better at articulating noises across a wide spectrum than just about any other recent headset. At loud volumes, the 50mm audio drivers accurately deliver explosions, gunshots, music, and voices all at the same time.
When testing its music capabilities using a hyperclean recording like Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen.” The Arctis 5 powered through the crisp highs without losing any fidelity on the lower end. Where a lot of other headsets lose some of the finer midrange instruments in a song like this, every sound has its own place in the Arctis 5. That’s crucial to delivering a high-quality 7.1 surround-sound experience in a headset, and the SteelSeries device outperforms most other competitors in this range when it comes to that feature specifically because of its clarity.
What you won’t like Annoying comfort issues Beauty isn’t everything. And while Arctis 5 has an enticing design and gorgeous audio, it is not very comfortable. The biggest issue is that it never feels secure. I have a relatively large head, but the cups feel so loose around my ears. They move and jostle around my head whenever I make even the slightest body adjustments. That’s incredibly annoying, and SteelSeries simply doesn’t provide enough options to fix these comfort issues.
Conclusion You need to try on the Arctis before committing to buying it. If they are comfortable for your dome, then I highly recommend them based on their audio quality and design. I wish every headset looked and sounded as hot as these do.
SteelSeries provided GamesBeat with a sample of the Arctis 5 for the purposes of this review. It is available now.
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.
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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"Toyota engineers say they have finally tamed volatile lithium-ion batteries | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/offbeat/toyota-engineers-say-they-have-finally-tamed-volatile-lithium-ion-batteries"
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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 Toyota engineers say they have finally tamed volatile lithium-ion batteries Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A Toyota Prius Prime is seen during the media preview of the 2016 New York International Auto Show in Manhattan, New York, U.S. March 23, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File photo 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) – Engineers at Toyota say they have tamed volatile lithium-ion battery technology, and can now safely pack more power at no significant extra cost, giving the Japanese automaker the option to enter the growing all-electric car market.
While rivals including Tesla Motors and Nissan Motor Co began adopting lithium-ion battery technology nearly a decade ago, Toyota has largely held back due to concerns over cost, size and safety.
Lithium-ion batteries can be unstable and have been blamed for incendiary Samsung smartphones and smoking Dreamliner airplanes.
Having Toyota endorse lithium-ion will be a fillip for the developing technology, and gives the automaker the option to produce for an all-electric passenger car market which it has avoided, preferring to put its heft behind hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs).
Toyota says its Prius Prime, a soon-to-be-launched plug-in electric version of the world’s top-selling gasoline hybrid, will use lithium-ion batteries, with enough energy to make the car go around 60 kms (37.3 miles) when fully charged before the gasoline engine kicks in. Because of different methodology in measuring a car’s electric mode range, the Prime’s 60 km range will be listed in the United States as around 25 miles (40.2 kms).
“Safety, safety, safety” Many lithium-ion car batteries use a chemical combination of nickel, cobalt and manganese. These store more energy, take a shorter time to charge, and are considered safer than other Li-ion technologies.
But they can still overheat and catch fire if not properly designed, manufactured and controlled.
“It’s a tall order to develop a lithium-ion car battery which can perform reliably and safely for 10 years, or over hundreds of thousands of kilometers,” said Koji Toyoshima, the chief engineer for the Prius.
“We have double braced and triple braced our battery pack to make sure they’re fail-safe … It’s all about safety, safety, safety,” he told Reuters.
Above: A detail is seen on a Toyota Prius Prime during the media preview of the 2016 New York International Auto Show in Manhattan, New York March 23, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo Toyota has mainly used the more mature nickel-metal hydride batteries to power the motor in the conventional Prius, widely regarded as the forefather of the ‘green’ car, though it did use some lithium-ion batteries from 2009 in its first plug-in hybrid Prius, around the time the first all-electric cars powered by lithium-ion batteries – such as the Tesla Roadster and Nissan Leaf – came on to the mass market.
Toyota’s confidence in its battery’s safety and stability comes from improved control technology that precisely monitors the temperature and condition of each of the 95 cells in its new battery pack.
“Our control system can identify even slight signs of a potential short-circuit in individual cells, and will either prevent it from spreading or shut down the entire battery,” said Hiroaki Takeuchi, a senior Toyota engineer involved in the development.
Working with battery supplier Panasonic Corp – which also produces Li-ion batteries for Tesla – Toyota has also improved the precision in battery cell assembly, ensuring battery chemistry is free of impurities.
The introduction of even microscopic metal particles or other impurities can trigger a short-circuit, overheating and potential explosion.
“The environment where our lithium-ion batteries are produced is not quite like the clean rooms where semiconductors are made, but very close,” Takeuchi said.
Battery experts say increasingly sophisticated systems that can track individual cell conditions are becoming closely-held trade secrets.
“State of charge management, safety management and algorithm development is becoming one of the higher tiers of proprietary internal development,” said Eric Rask, principal research engineer at Argonne National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy facility outside Chicago.
“It’s very internal, very strategic, and companies are seeing management algorithms as a competitive advantage.” Falling prices Toyota has also been able to shrink the size of each cell, for example, closing the distance between the anode and cathode, where active ions travel when charging and discharging.
This has doubled battery capacity to around 8.8 kilowatt hours, while only increasing the battery pack size by around two-thirds and its weight by a half.
Battery experts say lithium-ion battery cell prices have fallen by about 60 percent in five years to around $145 per kilowatt hour as larger-scale production has made them cheaper to make.
Falling battery prices have enabled Toyota to develop its more compact, efficient battery, while also adding more sophisticated controls into its battery pack, Toyoshima said. Toyota declined to say more on its costs.
While Toyota sees FCVs as the ultimate ‘green’ car, the United States and China are encouraging automakers to make more all-electric battery cars as they push alternative energy strategies.
“Developing lithium-ion batteries for both hybrids and plug-ins will enable us to also produce all-electric cars in the future,” said Toyoshima said. “It makes sense to have a range of batteries to suit different powertrains.” (Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu, Maki Shiraki and Norihiko Shirouzu; Editing by Ian Geoghegan) 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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"Multinational crew leaves space station, returns to Earth | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/offbeat/multinational-crew-leaves-space-station-returns-to-earth"
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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 Multinational crew leaves space station, returns to Earth Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Russian space agency rescue team helps International Space Station (ISS) crew member Kate Rubins of the U.S. to get from the capsule shortly after the landing of the Russian Soyuz MS space capsule near the town of Dzhezkazgan (Zhezkazgan), Kazakhstan, October 30, 2016. REUTERS/Dmitri Lovetsky/Pool 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) – A joint U.S., Russian and Japanese crew left the International Space Station on Saturday aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule and landed back on Earth, leaving behind three crew mates who arrived at the orbiting outpost just last week.
Station commander Anatoly Ivanishin, with the Russian space agency, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Japan’s Takuya Onishi climbed inside the capsule and left the station at 8:35 p.m. EDT, a NASA TV broadcast showed.
The trio made a parachute landing in Kazakhstan at 11:58 p.m. EDT, wrapping up a four-month mission that included the first use of a DNA sequencer in space and installation of a parking spot for upcoming commercial space taxis.
“I’m kind of reluctant to close the hatch,” Ivanishin said during a change-of-command ceremony on Friday.
“The time is very special here … I didn’t have time to know what’s going on our planet, and maybe it’s for the better. On the space station, you live in a very friendly, very good environment.” Ivanishin turned over command of the space station, a $100 billion orbiting research lab, to newly arrived U.S. astronaut Shane Kimbrough.
Above: A Russian Soyuz MS space capsule carrying International Space Station (ISS) crew members, Kate Rubins of the U.S., Anatoly Ivanishin of Russia and Takuya Onishi of Japan, descends outside the town of Dzhezkazgan (Zhezkazgan), Kazakhstan, October 30, 2016. REUTERS/Dmitri Lovetsky/Pool Kimbrough and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko reached the outpost on Oct. 21.
“We’re sorry we’re only here a week with you,” Kimbrough told the departing crew after taking command on Friday. “You guys have trained us well though.” Kimbrough, Ryzhikov and Borisenko will be on their own until next month, when another three crew members are due to reach the station, a project of 15 nations that orbits about 250 miles (418 km) above Earth.
(By Irene Klotz. Editing by Steve Gorman, Nick Macfie and Sam Holmes) Above: The International Space Station (ISS) crew members Kate Rubins of the U.S., Anatoly Ivanishin of Russia and Takuya Onishi of Japan, surrounded by ground personnel, rest shortly after landing of the Russian Soyuz MS space capsule near the town of Dzhezkazgan (Zhezkazgan), Kazakhstan, October 30, 2016. REUTERS/Dmitri Lovetsky/Pool 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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"Toyota is testing a Smart Key Box that makes it easier to share your car with strangers | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/toyota-is-testing-a-smart-key-box-that-makes-it-easier-to-share-your-car-with-strangers"
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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 Toyota is testing a Smart Key Box that makes it easier to share your car with strangers 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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Toyota is the latest car manufacturer looking into the sharing economy, thanks to its development of what it calls a “mobility services platform.” The first product it’s experimenting with is a Smart Key Box, which promises to transform vehicles so they can be shared with anyone using a mobile device.
To test its theory and see if its Smart Key Box can gain any traction, Toyota has teamed up with Getaround , in a deal revealed last week, to form a strategic investment through its Mirai Creation Investment Limited Partnership.
Beginning January 2017 in San Francisco, Getaround will leverage the car maker’s technology in its vehicles, starting with select Lexus or Prius models, so drivers do not need to use physical car keys.
It shouldn’t be surprising that Toyota is exploring the viability of the car-sharing industry, especially when others, like General Motors (GM) and Ford , have also made moves into this space. But instead of acquiring a company, as Avis did with Zipcar , Toyota is looking at providing a hardware device that will enable any current vehicle out on the road to be shared and accessible through a mobile device. In a way, it’s following Volvo in that space.
The Smart Key Box is a gadget that can be placed in a vehicle without any significant modifications being made. Drivers can then lock and unlock doors and start the engine just by using their phone. Toyota explained that through its app, car renters will receive codes to access the Smart Key Box. The software will automatically unlock the vehicle when in close proximity, transmitting a signal through Bluetooth Low Energy. The company believes that by modernizing access, it makes the process of lending and renting cars safer and more secure.
Installing the Smart Key Box is simple: Just place it somewhere in your car, such as in your glove compartment, trunk, cup holder, or dashboard, or affix it to your windshield (obviously in a place that doesn’t obstruct your view).
While Toyota Smart Key Box makes it seem like the device is all you need to participate in the on-demand car-sharing economy, Toyota’s mobility services platform provides a broader picture. This is the gateway to data around specific vehicles, opening it up to developers for additional innovations and likely raising concerns around security, even though the company claims the information is all encrypted.
“As a mobility service platform provider, by collaborating with various companies and services, we would like to help create a new mobility society in order to offer safer and more convenient mobility to our customers,” said Shigeki Tomoyama, Toyota’s president for its in-house Connected Company.
To test the merit of this device, Toyota has enlisted the help of car-sharing service Getaround. “In order to conduct a pilot program and study [Smart Key Box] benefits and convenience in car sharing, Toyota decided to collaborate with Getaround, which has installed connectivity devices into all the vehicles used for its car-sharing business,” the company told VentureBeat in an email.
Starting in San Francisco, select Toyota vehicles, such as Lexus or Prius models, will be equipped with the Smart Key Box. Car renters can also take advantage of Toyota’s new financial program that monetizes car sharing, helping users pay off monthly leases just by participating in Getaround. Under the terms of the contract, car owners will have a 36-month term that allows up to 15,000 miles per year.
The decision to launch a pilot program in San Francisco makes sense, given Getaround’s location. The car-sharing service was started in the City by the Bay, so it’s a logical place to test out this new program. However, based on the success of this pilot, Getaround indicated its intentions to expand into other markets, though no timeline was provided.
“Our mission is to empower people to carshare everywhere,” said Getaround chief executive Sam Zaid. “We’re excited to work with Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, on this integration and broader partnership, and see it as validation that the future of mobility is shared, connected, and sustainable.” While Toyota has put a “strategic investment” into Getaround, the exact amount has not been disclosed. But the car maker used the same exact phrasing when describing its partnership with Uber earlier this year.
It’s been reported that Toyota may have put $10 million into Getaround. Certainly, the likes of Getaround, Uber, Lyft, Juno , Chariot, and others have caused incumbent manufacturers to rethink what it means to own an automobile in today’s society, resulting in acquisitions, collaborations through “strategic investments,” and the creation of sharing programs.
“Toyota recognizes that car-sharing is emerging in multiple countries and regions rapidly, as car usage practices have been changing. Toyota, as a mobility service platform provider, would like to work with a variety of companies and services openly, and will explore various opportunities, including potential collaborations with other car-sharing providers,” the company stated.
What makes Toyota’s efforts notable is that the company seems to want to make all vehicles potentially shareable, regardless of the model. Car owners need only affix the Smart Key Box anywhere on their car to make the magic happen. This differs slightly from other offerings, such as GM’s Mavens program, which allows pre-modified vehicles to be rented.
It will be interesting to see what data Toyota gleans from this effort, how it plans to remain one step ahead of its competitors, and what other devices and technologies come from its mobility services platform.
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"Samsung shines a light on 6 new C-Lab spin-out products, including a 360-degree wearable camcorder | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/samsung-c-lab-startups"
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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 Samsung shines a light on 6 new C-Lab spin-out products, including a 360-degree wearable camcorder Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Samsung Ahead 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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Samsung is spinning out six new projects from Creative Lab (C-Lab), an in-house program that offers employees the opportunity to work on ideas separate from their core functions at the company.
C-Lab has been operating for more than four years, but it was only at CES this year that Samsung first showcased some of the fruits of the program, which permits employees to take a year away from their regular post to work on their idea. In June, Samsung revealed that it was spinning out five new startups as standalone entities. These included one based around quirky smart belts and an ‘idea printer.’ And a few months back, another spinoff turned to Kickstarter to help fund a new smart shoe for golfers.
Now, Samsung is shining a light on the next wave of C-Lab spinoffs — some of which were demoed earlier this year — and which are now officially on the fast track to becoming real products.
Fitt360 The Fitt360 is a completely new reveal from Samsung, and it doesn’t appear to have been demoed at any point in the past. Samsung calls the Fitt360 a “360 degree camcorder” that is apparently worn as a headband and lets users record everything around them in all directions. Based on the first product photo, however, it doesn’t look as though it literally captures video in all directions. But it promises hands-free controls, and should cater well to the burgeoning virtual reality (VR) industry.
“In comparison to existing 360-degree cameras, which are large and inconvenient, Fitt360 is hands-free and easy to use, allowing an individual to become fully immersed in VR content,” Samsung says.
Above: Fitt360 ItsyWatch Smart watches may be in decline , but that isn’t stopping ItsyWatch from targeting kids with its smart habit-building wearable. In a nutshell, ItsyWatch strives to bring fun to otherwise mundane activities, such as teeth brushing, eating, and exercising. The on-screen characters give kids positive feedback, providing encouragement and “gamifying” everyday activities, while parents can also keep track of how their kids are getting on.
Above: Itsywatch Ahead Samsung gave a glimpse of this smart triangular device earlier this year. “Ahead” can be attached to any helmet via magnets, such as those worn by bikers and skiers, and gives the wearer hands-free access to their smartphone or other communications device, such as a walkie-talkie. It can also let users receive voice notifications and listen to music.
Above: Samsung Ahead Licon Licon taps the built-in camera on a smartphone to control connected devices around the home. Users snap a photo of any connected device, for example a home appliance, TV, vacuum cleaner, or kids’ toy, and the Licon app recognizes the device and opens an interface that lets the user control it. It’s designed to circumvent the need to navigate to product-specific apps by centralizing everything in a single app.
Above: Licon Hum on First demoed at SXSW earlier this year, Hum On is a mobile app that lets you make music by, well, humming. So, those who have zero musical aptitude but like to hum a tune can take things to the next level and convert their hums into musical notation. Gnarly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj1r9YJ6INA Waffle Waffle was also demoed at SXSW this year. It’s a social network built around doodles, and it lets users draw on friends’ virtual walls. If you can’t find the words to say something, why not scrawl a picture, right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U8c-7CnYrE It’s worth noting here that these are all still early-stage projects, and there is no indication when — or even if — they’ll reach the public market.
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"Pebble 2 review: I really wanted to like it, but I don't. | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/pebble-2-review-i-really-wanted-to-like-it-but-i-dont"
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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 Review Pebble 2 review: I really wanted to like it, but I don’t.
Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Wait! Not actually my typical Sunday! — Up close with Pebble's new smartwatch, the Pebble 2.
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I tested the new Pebble 2 and I do not bring good news.
I want to root for Pebble and its quirky watches. I’ve spent lots of time with them — I wore Pebble’s Time Round for nearly a year and I tested the Pebble 2 for weeks. But the Pebble 2 isn’t a great smartwatch, and it isn’t a good fitness tracker. It’s a geeky watch with just a little charm.
As smartwatches get smarter and Fitbit dominates activity tracking, Pebble feels lost, somewhere between the two categories. It feels left behind. I can’t recommend it anymore.
Smarts At $130, Pebble 2 does some things you’d expect a smartwatch to do: It displays calendar alerts and push notifications, it can change songs and answer calls on your phone, and there’s an app store.
But Pebble’s smartwatch features pretty much end there. The Pebble 2 can’t actually take calls or play songs. It’s mostly a remote control for your phone.
And Pebble’s app store feels neglected. Few third-party Pebble apps meaningfully expand the functionality of the watch. The standout apps are Uber, Swarm, and Runkeeper, and that’s about it. I don’t see a vibrant developer community here.
This was fine in 2013, when Pebble shipped its first watch. And it was fine last year, when Apple’s Watch didn’t even have GPS. But while smartwatches grow more capable and independent, Pebble’s simplicity and small developer community feel like liabilities.
Fitness The Pebble 2 tracks steps, sleep, and exercise, and it checks your heart rate. But it doesn’t do enough with the data it collects.
The best way to view your activity over time is to check the health widgets inside Pebble’s mobile app. But Pebble’s system only lets you compare your activity to averages of past days, weeks, and months. This concept isn’t useful early on (when the app says your typical step counts are zero) and it’s not very useful later (are you supposed to just level up your average activity forever without any additional context?).
This is where Pebble makes Fitbit look good. Fitbit’s fitness software is simple (move 10,000 steps), but it’s also precise. With Fitbit’s app, you can see your progress in detail. Inside Pebble’s app, there isn’t enough context to understand your progress.
Even Pebble’s motivational push notifications aren’t very useful. Often, they just retroactively congratulate you for moving. I found Fitbit’s reminders far more helpful.
Pebble may improve its health and fitness software over time. But for now, it feels like an afterthought.
Overall Pebble watches still have some charm to them. The Pebble 2 is reminiscent of vintage calculator watches and Nike’s Volt aesthetic.
The retro vibe is nice, but it’s not for everyone.
After almost a month, I didn’t receive a single compliment on the Pebble 2, but when I pressed friends for feedback on the design, I heard a few complaints. Later, one of them warmed up to it.
If you like the Pebble 2’s design, if you want something geeky to play with, or if you’re a die-hard fan who now hates my guts, go ahead and buy one. It works fine as a watch and its battery lasts for days.
Otherwise, I can’t recommend it for most people — even at $130. If you want a smartwatch, just save up for something with more features, like an Apple Watch. And if you want a fitness tracker, you’re better off with a Fitbit.
I’m sorry. Honest. I’m not happy about this, either.
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"Microsoft boosts Outlook mobile app with new scheduling assistant that shows coworkers' availability | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/microsoft-outlook-ios-scheduling"
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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 boosts Outlook mobile app with new scheduling assistant that shows coworkers’ availability Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Outlook for iOS 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 is bringing a new scheduling feature to its Outlook mobile app today, one that makes it easier to organize meetings with colleagues.
Above: Outlook Scheduling Borrowing from the scheduling assistant on the desktop version of Outlook, the new mobile-focused feature basically lets users view their colleagues’ availability in real time. This ensures a mutually suitable date and time can be reached without having to engage in multiple back-and-forth emails.
So, let’s say you want to organize a meeting with three other people. You would create a new event, as usual, and add the names of the individuals you wish to attend the event. Then you hit the date-picker, and dates that have some availability for everyone (assuming everyone has up-to-date calendars) will be shown in white, while yellow means that some people are free, and red means that nobody is available. When you hit the time-picker, you can drag and drop the event onto a slot until it turns green, which means everyone is available at that time.
The new feature is only available on iOS for now, and it is only open to accounts that are connected to Office 365 or the latest version of Exchange. Microsoft says that it will be arriving for Android and Windows 10 mobile “shortly.” Today’s news comes six months after Microsoft announced it was shuttering Sunrise, the smart calendar app it acquired last year , noting that it would be bringing “the magic of Sunrise” to its mobile Outlook apps. Indeed, the company recently rolled out a refreshed Outlook app on Android and iOS, giving the apps a handful of new features, including Maps and Skype for Business integration, as well as the ability to subscribe to so-called “interesting calendars,” such as your hometown sports team’s fixture list.
Microsoft also recently launched summary cards for Outlook across all platforms. These promise Google-like informational snippets relating to emails you receive, such as flight information and packages that have been dispatched to your address.
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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"IDC: Tablet shipments decline for eighth straight quarter, no company surpassed 10 million units | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/idc-tablet-shipments-decline-for-eighth-straight-quarter-no-company-surpassed-10-million-units"
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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 IDC: Tablet shipments decline for eighth straight quarter, no company surpassed 10 million units Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The Apple Pencil and the 9.7-inch iPad Pro.
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The tablet market has now been in decline for eight quarters in a row.
Q3 2016 saw a 14.7 percent year-over-year decline: 43 million units shipped worldwide, compared to 50.5 million units in the same quarter last year. The estimates are provided by IDC , which counts both slate and detachable form factors, meaning tablets with keyboards are included.
The top two tablet makers maintained their positions: Apple was first and Samsung second. Amazon also seems to have solidified its spot in third place. The top five vendors accounted for 55.8 percent of the market, up from 46.8 percent last year, and nobody managed to ship more than 10 million units: Both Apple and Samsung saw their shipment numbers fall once again, though Apple gained share, up 1.9 points to 21.5 percent market share. Samsung slipped 0.9 points to 15.1 percent, but still shipped more than double the units than those behind it.
Because of the larger drop for Samsung, the gap between the South Korean company and the U.S. company increased. This is unique to 2016, as in the previous year the gap had been shrinking. The reversal can likely be attributed to Apple’s iPad Pro lineup, though Apple is still selling fewer and fewer iPads overall.
This is the third time that Amazon has placed in the top five in a non-Q4 quarter — typically, the company only shows up due to the holiday season. The company’s low-cost Fire tablet has propelled the company to the top, though the growth shown is skewed by the fact that IDC did not include the 6-inch tablets offered by Amazon in Q3 2015.
Lenovo shipped fewer units but grew 0.3 points to 6.3 percent share, while Huawei shipped more units and gained 1.9 points to 5.6 percent. Both companies have maintained their positions for many quarters now and don’t look like they will be displaced.
Microsoft is still missing from the list. And given that the company only unveiled the Surface Book i7 this year, we doubt that will be changing anytime soon. But pursuing the premium segment for tablets is the right strategy.
“Unfortunately, many low-cost detachables also deliver a low-cost experience,” IDC research analyst Jitesh Ubrani said in a statement. “The race to the bottom is something we have already experienced with slates and it may prove detrimental to the market in the long run as detachables could easily be seen as disposable devices rather than potential PC replacements.” 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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"To aid marketing attribution, LeadsRx launches one tracking pixel to rule them all | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/marketing/to-aid-marketing-attribution-leadsrx-launches-one-tracking-pixel-to-rule-them-all"
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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 To aid marketing attribution, LeadsRx launches one tracking pixel to rule them all 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.
If you spend money on marketing, you know the problem — figuring out which dollar, or combination of dollars, caused the customer to make a purchase so that you can determine where to spend more money.
But attribution isn’t easy. Most marketers struggle to say with any certainty which touchpoint or channel helped the customer make a decision to buy, and the situation is made more complex thanks to multiple tracking pixels and differing attribution models per ad network.
Today, LeadsRx has launched its 2.0 product that includes, among a raft of significant updates, a universal tracking pixel that promises to solve the attribution problem for marketers.
So how does the universal tracking pixel play with existing trackers from the likes of Google and Facebook? 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 LeadsRx universal conversion tracking pixel works right alongside other pixels from the ad serving vendors like Google, Facebook, and AdRoll,” AJ Brown, CEO and cofounder at LeadsRx told me. “But the insights you’ll get from a universal pixel means you can remove the vendor pixels and get them off your site.” That could solve one of marketing attribution’s biggest issues — multiple result counts.
“Let’s say you have three pixels from three different ad vendors on your website and a visitor has clicked on ads from all three at some point before converting,” Brown said. “What you’ll get from each of those vendors is the fact that the ad they served resulted in a conversion.” The lack of communication between these disparate platforms makes understanding return on investment difficult and time-consuming.
“These vendor pixels don’t share data with one another, so you’ll see a total of three separate conversions with no information other than a timestamp to try and decide if they are the same individual,” Brown said. “In some cases, you only get aggregated results without detail, so it’s impossible to glue this information together for a complete picture of what the attribution path is.” The LeadsRx universal tracking pixel tracks attribution paths for each individual separately across all ad vendors. The end result? Marketers know exactly what is influencing each visitor’s decision to convert.
In addition to the tracking pixel, the new LeadsRx product includes algorithmic attribution that uses machine learning to evaluate patterns of successful and non-successful conversion paths, and therefore weight the findings accordingly. It also includes the ability to select and change attribution models on the fly, and predictive modeling to help understand radio and TV attribution.
Choosing the right attribution model is important, so being able to select the right one dynamically without long recalculation delays is important.
“Many marketers want to know the complex combination of advertising and content that helps prospects make the decision to convert,” Brown said. “This requires a multi-touch attribution model, which takes all touchpoints into consideration and uses different weighting factors based on a number of methods. Choosing a single touch attribution model instead, like first touch or last touch, would be a mistake, since this would miss potentially important touchpoints that occurred midway.” However, single touch attribution still has its place.
“Consider B2B sales teams who mostly want to know the original source of a lead,” Brown said. “Did it come from their own prospecting activities or from a marketing campaign? Did another customer refer the new lead? Using a first touch attribution model works well in this simple situation, as it will always indicate exactly where the lead started.” And how will the age of the connected TV, and having to target to households — not individuals — affect the future of marketing and attribution? “The whole area of connected households is a marketer’s dream,” Brown said. “Television is just one part of the excitement, but so are thermostats, refrigerators, door locks, and more. The Internet of Things will hopefully give marketers new attribution points that can make a real difference in the personalization and effectiveness of advertising.” In addition to the universal tracking pixel, and new attribution models, LeadsRx 2.0 includes an Ad Grader tool to help marketers decide which ads are working well, and which to cut. It also includes integration with Google AdWords and CallSource, giving it the ability to attribute sales to inbound telephone calls.
LeadsRx is available from today, with plans that start at $50 per month.
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 Skyrim's PlayStation 4 remaster compares to the original on PC | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/how-skyrims-playstation-4-remaster-compares-to-the-original-on-pc"
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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 Skyrim’s PlayStation 4 remaster compares to the original on PC Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Releasing an updated version of the blockbuster RPG, Skyrim, for current-gen consoles was a real Fus Ro Duh.
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim originally came out in 2011 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC. Now, Bethesda has released a new Special Edition with improved graphics for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Of course, back in 2011, the PC version was easily the best way to go. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 were already aging consoles by then, and Skyrim on the PC had far more options designed for high-end rigs. Five years later, can a console version finally compete? Digital Foundry , which specializes in graphical comparisons, has released a new video on its YouTube channel comparing the new, PlayStation 4 version of Skyrim with the original release on PC (not the new Special Edition on PC).
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! Some of the changes, like those softer shadows, are subjective changes, but the improved draw distance and added foliage definitely look nice.
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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"Hollywood studios team up with Jam City's TinyCo on Family Guy game Halloween event | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/hollywood-studios-team-up-with-jam-citys-tinyco-on-family-guy-game-halloween-event"
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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 Hollywood studios team up with Jam City’s TinyCo on Family Guy game Halloween event Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff.
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Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff has been one of the biggest hits in mobile gaming, maintaining its rankings in the top-grossing games charts since its launch in 2014. So it’s not surprising to see multiple companies get together to create a special limited-time Halloween event for fans in the game.
TinyCo , (which Jam City , formerly known as SGN, recently acquired), has teamed up with Fox Digital Entertainment, Lionsgate , and Starz to bring a mix of film and TV horror characters to the event in Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff. In-game events are a good way to make money and get lapsed players to come back.
Pokémon Go held its first ever event — for Halloween — and that was enough to push the title back to the top of the highest-grossing games. All told, Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff has been downloaded more than 30 million times and it has generated neraly $100 million in revenue, according to measurement firm Sensor Tower.
The release features Billy the Puppet from Lionsgate’s Saw films, the long-running horror franchise; Ash Williams from Starz’s popular Ash vs Evil Dead television series; and Leprechaun from Lionsgate’s classic Leprechaun film franchise. The characters all check into a haunted hotel run by James Woods, a recurring Family Guy guest star.
“As longtime fans of the TinyCo team and Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff, we are fired up and honored to include our intellectual property into this limited-time Halloween event,” said Peter Levin, president of interactive ventures and games for Lionsgate, in a statement. “Collaborating with Fox and Starz on this initiative and allowing fans of these iconic genre characters to interact in this medium is a win for all parties involved.” 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! This Halloween event builds upon Fox Digital Entertainment and TinyCo’s track record for keeping players engaged by regularly integrating third-party intellectual property and new storylines into their game. In this update, “Sheriff” Peter Griffin and his costumed crew do battle with the supernatural forces that have taken over the hotel.
“Starz is thrilled that Ash vs Evil Dead will be joining the Family Guy: The Quest for Stuff. Ash Williams, Billy the Puppet, Leprechaun, and Peter Griffin are bringing the party this Halloween, and Quahog is going to be cleaning up the gore for a long time to come,” said Alison Hoffman, chief marketing officer at Starz in a statement.
In addition to the Lionsgate and Starz characters who will take on a new life in Quahog, the update introduces a new investigations feature to the game through which players can explore James Woods’s haunted hotel and scare off ghosts and ghouls with new Halloween-themed actions and animations.
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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"GamesBeat Review Vault | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/gamesbeat-review-vault"
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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 GamesBeat Review Vault GamesBeat Staff Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Corporations win again! 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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Below you’ll find a listing of every GamesBeat game review to date. They are listed in reverse chronological order with the latest review appearing at the top. Note that the dates listed are for when the review was posted, not necessarily the actual release date for the game.
That information, along with platform tested and more, can be found in the actual review.
2020 6/11 The Last of Us Part II 2019 11/14 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! Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 10/28 Luigi’s Mansion 3 10/24 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 10/22 The Outer Worlds 10/15 Dauntless 10/9 Concrete Genie 9/23 Sayonara Wild Hearts 9/19 The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening 9/9 Greedfall Borderlands 3 9/4 Gears of War 5 8/28 The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan 8/21 Telling Lies 8/10 Steel Division 2 5/23 Total War: Three Kingdoms 5/10 Days Gone 4/23 SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech 3/27 Yoshi’s Crafted World 3/21 Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice 1/24 Kingdom Hearts III 1/22 Resident Evil 2 1/18 Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes 1/9 New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe 2018 12/6 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 11/12 Spyro: Reignited Trilogy 11/9 Tetris Effect 11/8 Hitman 2 10/30 Diablo III: Eternal Collection 10/17 Soulcalibur VI 10/15 Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 10/1 Mega Man 11 9/10 Shadow of the Tomb Raider 9/4 Marvel’s Spider-Man 8/28 Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age The Messenger 8/27 Donut County 8/15 Destination: Primus Vita 8/6 Dead Cells 7/27 Semblance 6/4 Vampyr 5/31 Cultist Simulator 5/29 Unforeseen Incidents 5/24 Detroit: Become Human 5/11 Forgotten Anne 5/8 Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire 3/26 Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 5 3/15 Yakuza 6: The Song of Life 3/14 Kirby Star Allies 2/28 Where the Water Tastes Like Wine 2/26 Moss 2/19 Fe 2/15 Crossing Souls 2/8 Octogeddon 2/2 Fortune-499 1/30 Shadow of the Colossus 1/25 Monster Hunter: World 1/22 Iconoclasts Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 4 1/18 Genderwrecked 1/17 Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition 2017 12/13 Gorogoa 12/9 Reigns: Her Majesty 11/21 Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV 11/20 Batman: The Enemy Within Episode Three 11/19 Battle Chef Brigade 11/10 Cat Quest 11/2 Call of Duty: WWII 10/26 Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus 10/26 Super Mario Odyssey 10/26 Assassin’s Creed Origins 10/24 High Hell 10/16 The Evil Within 2 10/11 Middle-earth: Shadow of War 10/2 Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 2 9/27 SNES Classic Edition 9/26 SteamWorld Dig 2 9/21 Another Lost Phone: Laura’s Story 9/18 Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite 9/14 Hiveswap: Act 1 9/12 Metroid: Samus Returns 8/28 Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle The Metronomicon 8/21 Yakuza Kiwami 8/17 Uncharted: The Lost Legacy 8/14 Sonic Mania 8/9 West of Loathing 8/8 Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 8/7 Batman: The Enemy Within 8/4 Shrouded Isle 7/27 Sundered 7/24 Pyre 7/20 Kingsway 7/18 Splatoon 2 7/14 Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles 7/10 Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age 6/29 Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy 6/7 Arms 4/20 Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 4/17 The Disney Afternoon Collection Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: A Telltale Series — Tangled Up in Blue 3/29 Persona 5 3/20 Mass Effect: Andromeda 1/10 Gravity Rush 2 2016 12/22 Dawn of Titans 12/15 Super Mario Run 12/5 The Last Guardian Dead Rising 4 11/28 Final Fantasy XV 11/4 Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare 10/28 Titanfall 2 10/24 World of Final Fantasy 10/19 Battlefield 1 10/16 Mafia III 10/8 Destiny: Rise of Iron 10/6 Gears of War 4 10/5 Paper Mario: Color Splash 9/20 Forza Horizon 3 World of Warcraft: Legion 8/30 Abzu 8/23 Deus Ex: Mankind Divided 8/12 Monster Hunter: Generations 7/13 Pokémon Go 6/6 Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst 5/31 Overwatch 5/26 Doom 5/9 Battleborn 5/5 Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End 4/29 The Division 4/20 Star Fox Zero Star Fox Guard 4/14 Dark Souls 3 4/13 Bravely Second: End Layer 4/4 MLB: The Show 16 4/1 Quantum Break 3/31 Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear 3/22 Day of the Tentacle Remastered 3/1 The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD 2/22 Far Cry Primal 2/17 Fire Emblem: Fates 2/8 Unravel Firewatch 1/25 The Witness 1/23 Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam 1/22 Lost Harmony 1/20 Star Trek: Timelines 1/11 Tharsis 2015 12/28 Amplitude 12/21 Magic: The Gathering — Puzzle Quest 12/11 Fast Racing Neo 11/24 Gunjack 11/23 Star Wars: Battlefront 11/20 StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void multiplayer 11/19 Undertale 11/18 Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash 11/17 Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival Game of Thrones: A Telltale Game Series – Episode 6 11/16 Guitar Hero Live mobile 11/10 Rodea the Sky Soldier 11/9 Fallout 4 Rise of the Tomb Raider 11/6 Call of Duty: Black Ops III 11/5 Progress 11/4 Yo-Kai Watch Knights of Pen and Paper 2 11/3 Warhammer: End Times — Vermintide 11/2 Need for Speed 10/28 The Legend of Legacy 10/27 Life Is Strange: Episode 5 — Polarized 10/26 Kingdom Guitar Hero Live Halo 5: Guardians 10/22 Xbox One Elite Controller Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate 10/21 The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes Minecraft: Story Mode 10/20 Tales from the Borderlands Episode 5: The Vault of the Traveller 10/19 Sword Coast Legends 10/14 Pro Evolution Soccer 2016 Yoshi’s Wooly World 10/12 Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection The Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone 10/9 Lego Dimensions 10/8 Chibo-Robo Zip Lash Spirit Hunter Chesh 10/5 The Ghost Blade Rock Band 4 10/1 Might & Magic: Heroes VII 9/29 Destiny: The Taken King 9/28 FIFA 16 Skylanders Superchargers Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer 9/24 Madden NFL 16 9/23 Evoland II: A Slight Case of Spacetime Continuum Disorder Star Wars: Uprising 9/22 Persona 4: Dancing All Night 9/14 Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain 9/13 Tearaway Unfolded 9/9 Dropsy 9/8 Mad Max Dungeon of the Endless (iPad) 9/2 Super Mario Maker 8/27 Lara Croft Go 8/26 N++ 8/25 Mega Man Legacy Collection 8/24 Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Until Dawn 8/22 Pac-Man 256 8/21 Tales from the Borderlands Episode 4: Escape Plan Bravo 8/20 RymdResa 8/11 Galak-Z: The Dimensional 8/10 Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture 8/7 PlanetSide 2 (PlayStation 4 version) 7/31 Angry Birds 2 Life Is Strange, Episode 4: Dark Room 7/28 Magic Duels SpellUp Alphabear 7/26 Sorcerer King 7/14 Rory McIlroy’s PGA Tour 7/13 Skullgirls: 2nd Encore 6/15 Fallout Shelter 6/9 Heroes of the Storm 5/27 Splatoon 5/26 Life Is Strange, Episode 3: Chaos Theory 5/22 Luna’s Wandering Stars 5/8 Wolfenstein: The Old Blood 4/27 Broken Age: Act 2 4/23 Crypt of the NecroDancer 4/15 Mortal Kombat X 4/11 Smove 4/2 MLB 15 The Show Axiom Verge 4/1 Final Fantasy: Record Keeper 3/20 SwapQuest 3/16 Final Fantasy Type-0 Mario Party 10 3/10 Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number 3/9 Ori and the Blind Forest 2/25 Dead or Alive 5: Last Round 2/23 Aaru’s Awakening 2/19 The Order: 1886 2/13 Evolve 2/10 Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Midnight Star 2/4 The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D 2/3 Game of Thrones: A Telltale Game Series — Episode Two: The Lost Lords 1/29 Supreme League of Patriots Life Is Strange, Episode 1: Chrysalis 1/27 Grim Fandango Remastered 1/20 Citizens of Earth 1/19 Resident Evil HD Remaster Saints Row IV: Gat Out of Hell 1/14 Elite: Dangerous 2014 12/16 The Crew 12/12 Sneaky Sneaky 12/8 The Talos Principle Lara Croft: Temple of Osiris 12/1 Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix 11/25 Tales from the Borderlands Episode 1: Zero Sum 11/22 LittleBigPlanet 3 Assassin’s Creed: Rogue 11/21 World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor 11/20 Persona Q 11/19 Super Smash Bros. for Wii U 11/18 WWE 2K15 Pokémon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby 11/17 Far Cry 4 11/14 This War of Mine 11/11 Assassin’s Creed: Unity Dragon Age: Inquisition 11/7 Halo: The Master Chief Collection 11/3 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare 10/27 Sunset Overdrive 10/23 Civilization: Beyond Earth 10/21 Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved 10/10 Styx: Master of Shadows 10/7 Driveclub 10/3 Alien: Isolation 9/26 Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS 9/25 Fenix Rage Forza Horizon 2 Wasteland 2 Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor 9/19 Disney Infinity 2.0 9/17 Hyrule Warriors 9/15 Destiny 9/10 Golem Arcana 9/5 The Sims 4 9/2 Velocity 2X 8/26 The Walking Dead Season Two Episode Five: No Going Back 8/25 Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, Ace Attorney 8/17 Crawl 8/12 Hohokum 8/6 Sacred 3 Road Not Taken 8/5 Metrico 7/29 Modern Combat 5: Blackout 7/23 Magic 2015: Duels of the Planeswalkers 7/22 The Walking Dead: Season Two Episode Four 7/10 Osmo 7/8 The Wolf Among Us Episode 5: Cry Wolf 6/26 Shovel Knight 6/24 Valiant Hearts: The Great War 6/6 Tomodachi Life 6/5 Pushmo World 6/3 War Thunder 6/2 Murdered: Soul Suspect 5/30 Monochroma 5/27 Watch Dogs The Wolf Among Us Episode 4: In Sheep’s Clothing 5/22 Tropico 5 5/20 Transistor Wolfenstein: The New Order 5/15 Mario Kart 8 5/14 The Walking Dead: Season Two Episode Three 5/9 The Last Tinker: City of Colors 5/6 MLB 14 The Show 4/29 Daylight 4/28 Kirby: Triple Deluxe Mario Gold: World Tour 4/22 Hitman Go 4/21 NES Remix 2 4/17 Warlock 2: The Exiled 4/16 Moebius: Empire Rising Trials Fusion 4/8 The Wolf Among Us Episode 3: A Crooked Mile 4/4 The Elder Scrolls Online 3/25 Deception IV: Blood Ties Dark Souls II 3/20 Infamous: Second Son 3/18 Luftrausers Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes 3/17 Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft 3/10 Titanfall Final Fantasy X|X-2 HD Remaster 3/9 TowerFall: Ascension 3/4 South Park: The Stick of Truth The Walking Dead: Season Two Episode Two 2/27 Inazuma Eleven 2/25 Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy 2/24 Thief 2/20 Weapon Shop de Omasse 2/18 Strider 2/17 Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze 2/11 Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII 2/9 Strike Vector 2/7 The Wolf Among Us Episode 2: Smoke and Mirrors 2/5 Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc 2/4 Loadout 1/30 Octodad: Dadliest Catch 1/28 Bravely Default 1/23 Might & Magic X Legacy 1/22 Insurgency 1/17 Broken Age: Act 1 2013 12/21 The Walking Dead Season Two — Episode One 12/19 Republique Cut the Rope 2 12/11 Angry Birds Go! 12/10 Doki-Doki Universe 12/9 Peggle 2 12/6 Gran Turismo 6 12/3 Tiny Brains 11/25 Tearaway 11/22 Need for Speed: Rivals 11/21 Ryse: Son of Rome 11/19 Super Mario 3D World 11/18 Dead Rising 3 Crimson Dragon Killer Instinct 11/14 The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds 11/13 Killzone: Shadow Fall Resogun Contrast Knack 11/1 WWE 2K14 10/29 Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag 10/18 Sonic Lost World 10/13 Skylanders Swap Force 10/11 The Wolf Among Us Episode One: Faith 10/8 Beyond: Two Souls 10/4 Pokémon X and Y 10/1 Rain 9/18 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD 9/16 Grand Theft Auto V 9/10 Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD Remix The Wonderful 101 9/9 Card Hunter 9/6 Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Puppeteer 9/4 Outlast Killzone: Mercenary 8/28 Killer is Dead 8/27 Madden NFL 25 8/20 Divekick 8/19 The Bureau: XCOM Declassified 8/14 Splinter Cell: Blacklist Saints Row IV 8/13 Europa Universalis IV Divinity: Dragon Commander 8/7 Mario & Luigi: Dream Team 8/6 The Drowning 8/5 Ibb and Obb 7/31 Dragon’s Crown 7/25 Shadowrun Returns 7/18 Breach & Clear 7/10 Deus Ex: The Fall Shin Megami Tensei IV 7/9 NCAA Football 14 7/8 Sid Meier’s Civilization V: Brave New World 7/6 The Walking Dead: 400 Days 6/26 Company of Heroes 2 6/25 Deadpool 6/21 Game and Wario 6/20 Neverwinter 6/6 Kingdom Rush: Frontiers 6/5 The Last of Us 6/4 Animal Crossing: New Leaf 6/3 The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Remember Me 5/31 Dust 514 5/29 CastleStorm Skyward Collapse 5/28 Fuse 5/20 Resident Evil: Revelations 5/13 Metro: Last Light 5/6 Star Trek 4/24 Monaco 4/22 Dead Island Riptide 4/19 Defiance 4/18 Cut the Rope: Time Travel 4/13 Shootmania Storm 3/25 BioShock: Infinite 3/22 The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct 3/21 Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon 3/18 StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm 3/14 Lego City: Undercover 3/8 MLB 13 The Show 3/7 God of War: Ascension 3/6 Dollar Dash 3/5 Castlevania: Lords of Shadow — Mirror of Fate 3/4 SimCity 2/26 Star Wars Pinball 2/25 Tomb Raider 2/19 Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Crysis 3 2/18 Serious Sam Double D XXL 2/12 Aliens: Colonial Marines 2/5 Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time Dead Space 3 2/4 Ni No Kuni: The Wrath of the White Witch 1/31 Omerta: City of Gangsters 1/30 Skulls of the Shogun Fire Emblem: Awakening 01/22 The Cave 01/18 Temple Run 2 Tokyo Crash Mobs 01/15 Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable 01/10 Noble Nutlings Anarchy Reigns 01/07 Seduce Me 1 2 View All 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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"Hearthstone caster, streamer Amaz turns to Kickstarter for 2nd season of Team League | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/esports/hearthstone-caster-streamer-amaz-turns-to-kickstarter-for-2nd-season-of-team-league"
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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 Hearthstone caster, streamer Amaz turns to Kickstarter for 2nd season of Team League Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn One Night in Karazhan.
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.
The Blizzard-run World Championships for Hearthstone are going on right now , but you can help get a future, independent tournament get funded right now.
Jason “Amaz” Chan, a popular broadcaster and player of the market-leading digital card game, announced a second season of the Amaz Team Championships. The first Amaz Team Championships had the largest prize pool of any non-Blizzard backed Hearthstone tournament with $250,000. But the second season isn’t guaranteed. Amaz has turned to Kickstarter to help fund the tournament, seeking a goal of $206,322 (that number only looks random because it’s converted from $1.6 million Hong Kong dollars). This time, the prize pool is only starting at $100,000. However, it can go up if the Kickstarter exceeds its goal.
Like the first Amaz Team Championships, the second season will be an invitational event focusing on popular Hearthstone personalities, competitors, and streamers.
“Whether it has been through their streams, video content, or tournament participation over the years, this is my way of saying ‘Thanks for being involved in the community!'” Amaz explained in the Kickstarter page.
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 $206,322 Amaz is hoping to raise isn’t just for prizes. The money will help pay for production costs, travel, securing a venue, promotion, Kickstarter rewards, and more. Speaking of Kickstarter rewards, you can pledge $9,670 to earn the highest backer title of Grand Master, which provides you and your friends travel to the event and even lets you stream with Amaz.
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.
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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"Zirra raises $1.6 million to analyze startups on demand | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/zirra-raises-1-6-million-to-analyze-startups-on-demand"
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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 Zirra raises $1.6 million to analyze startups on demand Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Zirra's team 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.
Israel’s Zirra has raised $1.6 million for its mission of analyzing startups.
The Tel Aviv-based company has developed artificial intelligence technology to evaluate startups to find out how much they’re worth. Investors include former Microsoft executives Moshe Lichtman and Soma Somasegar.
Zirra provides insights on startups, including estimated valuations, lists of competitors, estimated time to exit, risk and success factors, and a rating of the overall team, product, momentum, and execution. The company said its own valuation is $6 million.
Zirra’s analysis is performed using aggregated data and proprietary AI-based analysis of as many as 80 parameters, such as quality of the team, media momentum, and gaps between financial rounds. The AI technology is then matched and calibrated with qualitative insights taken from a network of experts, who also provide Zirra with inside information about the market.
The network consists of experts in multiple areas of the tech market, such as enterprise software, cyber security, Big Data, cloud, robotics, automotive, ad tech, social networks, and biomed. In return for their contribution, Zirra contributes to the charity of their choice.
Based on the technology, Zirra has just launched two products: Startup Spotlight Report for investors and entrepreneurs, and Startup Spotlight Report for job seekers. Investors read these reports to get a better knowledge of the deal flow, to properly prepare for meetings with startups, or during a due diligence process. Entrepreneurs can use it to better know their competitors and to get a stronger knowledge of the market they operate in.
Job seekers can use it to acquire deeper knowledge about the companies they are being interviewed by before making important career decisions. Zirra also offers deeper reports, which include critical development paths, cite search engine and traffic trends, and highlight business opportunities. And soon, Zirra will launch a chatbot that will disclose bits of information on demand.
“Until we started offering our products, investors and entrepreneurs were unable to analyze companies and competition systematically, due to the fact that traditional offerings demand excessive time, money, and expertise,” said Moshit Yaffe, Zirra’s CEO, in a statement. “Even if an investment house had ten dedicated analysts, those analysts cannot cover an entire market with its particular subtleties, and, likewise, no CMO can find the time to compose an organized, objective report about the competitive landscape within which his company operates. Our solutions are tailor-made for scenarios such as these and are offered for a significantly lower price, compared to alternatives solutions from standard consulting firms, research companies, and market analysts.” Other investors include AOL’s investment fund, Dan Galai, Singulariteam Investment Fund, Ohad Shaked, Venture Club Ru, and Michael Dolinsky (cofounder of Aorato, which was sold to Microsoft). Zirra’s original seed round investors all joined in this round, as well.
Zirra was founded in 2014 by Yaffe and Aner Ravon (CPO), and it serves several dozens of institutional clients from Israel and the United States. The company recently joined Nautilus, AOL’s startup platform in Tel Aviv, and it employs around 15 people. To date, the company has raised $2.5 milllion.
Here’s an example of Zirra’s analysis of a startup called Graphiq.
It also has an analysis of Snapchat’s value.
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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"Women executives left Yahoo after company announced plans to sell itself | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/women-executives-left-yahoo-after-company-announced-plans-to-sell-itself"
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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 Women executives left Yahoo after company announced plans to sell itself Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Yahoo's Sunnyvale headquarters 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) – Women executives left Yahoo at an unusually high rate after the U.S. technology company announced plans to sell itself earlier this year, but it was not immediately clear why, according to the company’s 2016 diversity report, released on Monday.
The sharp drop comes as Silicon Valley faces pressure to diversify a workforce heavily dominated by white and Asian men.
The last year has been turbulent for the web pioneer, which in February announced it would explore alternatives and put in motion a plan to cut about 15 percent of its workforce. In July, it struck a $4.8 billion deal to sell its core internet businesses to Verizon.
The number of women in Yahoo leadership roles slipped to 21 percent as at June 30, down from 24 percent the year before, the report showed. Women in non-technical jobs dropped to 52 percent from 54 percent. The total number of women at Yahoo remained steady at 31 percent.
Yahoo had 8,800 employees at the end of the second quarter, down from 9,400 as at March 31.
It was not clear why there was such a marked decline in the proportion of women leaders at Yahoo, which is led by Silicon Valley’s most powerful female CEO, Marissa Mayer.
“Women leaders organically left because other opportunities were more appropriate for them,” said Margenett Moore-Roberts, Yahoo’s global head of diversity and inclusion. She said most of the women executives who left did so voluntarily after the plan to sell the core company was announced.
She said Yahoo will use a combination of internal searches and promotions, outside recruitment and partnerships with women-focused tech organizations to balance the losses.
The dip in women executives does not seem to be mirrored at other major tech companies. Women held 28 percent of leadership positions at Apple Inc, according to its latest figures, unchanged from the year before.
(Reporting by Deborah M. Todd; Editing by Peter Henderson and Bill Rigby) 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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"VentureBeat is hiring a director of sales | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/venturebeat-is-hiring-a-director-of-sales-2"
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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 VentureBeat is hiring a director of sales 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.
We are looking for a passionate and consultative sales professional to help sell big, custom campaigns and integrated marketing solutions to leading business and technology brands. The Strategic Account Director will help drive VentureBeat’s online, custom, and events business, already at the epicenter of the startup ecosystem and wider digital-tech revolution, to further heights.
The ideal candidate has at least five years of B2B experience in the technology media marketplace. This strategic sales executive will be an instant value creator with established contacts who will help VentureBeat expand the brand’s presence and business with new and existing strategic partners. This vital talent will be responsible for prospecting, developing, and closing new business, as well as overseeing clients’ integrated marketing and advertising campaigns.
The role is at the heart of our organization: Advertising and sponsorship sales for VentureBeat’s website, events, and custom content marketing solutions ensure our success and continued growth.
The position is located in San Francisco but will require some travel. Please contact our recruitment team for further information.
Responsibilities Manage and maintain current client and agency relationships and build new partnerships with prospective clients Strong focus on new business relationships with Tier 1 media buying agencies and leading technology and business brands Observe industry and market trends and develop plans for achieving strategic goals Exceed quarterly and annual targets to drive revenue growth Assist in leading all marketing and RFP brainstorms Track campaign results to leverage and foster further partnerships with clients and to forecast future revenue growth Continually research trending and innovative ad products and bring market-leading solutions into the conversation Requirements 5 years’ experience in online media ad sales within respective territory Strong experience in B2B media preferred Existing relationships with Business/Technology and Tier 1 media buying agencies Strong sales skills, including prospecting, forecasting, pitching, presenting, and closing large deals Strong knowledge of current tech industry trends, such as messaging, artificial intelligence, AR/VR, Mobile, Games, and Cloud Working knowledge of content marketing solutions Ability to ideate dynamic, complex, and highly targeted integrated concepts, customized to the specific needs of the brand Contract negotiation experience Excellent verbal and written communication skills 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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"Svelte Medical Systems Announces Start of DIRECT III Post-Market Registry Study | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/svelte-medical-systems-announces-start-of-direct-iii-post-market-registry-study"
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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 Svelte Medical Systems Announces Start of DIRECT III Post-Market Registry Study Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn NEW PROVIDENCE, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–October 31, 2016– Svelte Medical Systems, Inc. today announced the start of enrollment in the DIRECT III post-market registry study. DIRECT III is an ‘all-comer’ study in Europe undertaken to evaluate the procedural efficiency and long-term safety of SLENDER IDS, the first advance in stent delivery since the rapid-exchange catheter. SLENDER IDS is the world’s lowest profile drug-eluting stent (DES), reducing the catheter size necessary to perform percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and facilitating transradial intervention (TRI) in more patients. Incorporating Asahi guide wire technology, a specialized balloon design and DISCREET TM , a new class of bioresorbable drug coating, SLENDER IDS is designed to enhance direct stenting, enabling interventional cardiologists to extract steps, time and cost from stenting procedures.
“SLENDER IDS is a new approach to coronary stenting, offering unique capabilities which I have integrated into my regular practice to benefit patients,” said Giovanni Amoroso, MD, PhD, Principal Investigator of the DIRECT III study and practicing interventional cardiologist at Onze Lieve Vrouwe Gasthuis (OLVG Hospital) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. “Vessel trauma with TRI is always a concern, especially in the elderly and patients of smaller stature. The ultra-low profile of SLENDER IDS allows me to downsize catheters without compromise to back-up support and performance, making for more slender and streamlined interventions, and ultimately, happier patients.” DIRECT III will enroll up to 1,000 patients in 6 countries. Access site size, bleeding complications, overall procedure and fluoroscopy time, contrast administration and adjunctive product use will be assessed in all patients, while the first 250 patients will additionally receive clinical follow-up through 1 year. DIRECT III follows upon findings from the DIRECT II randomized, controlled study and previously published registry studies using a bare-metal version of the IDS in which reductions in procedure time, fluoroscopy exposure, contrast administration and material use were observed.
The DIRECT I and II clinical studies have demonstrated exceptionally low clinical event rates, with no deaths or stent thromboses reported through 4 years. SLENDER IDS is indicated for use with direct stenting and in diabetic patients, and is commercially available in Europe. Both SLENDER IDS and DIRECT RX, a rapid-exchange platform designed for direct stenting and utilizing the same DES and balloon technology, will be evaluated next year in the OPTIMIZE study in support of PMA and PMDA approvals.
About Svelte Medical Systems Headquartered in New Providence, New Jersey, Svelte Medical Systems ( www.sveltemedical.com ) is a privately-held company engaged in the development of highly deliverable balloon expandable stents. Statements made in this press release that look forward in time or that express beliefs, expectations or hopes regarding future occurrences or anticipated outcomes or benefits, are forward-looking statements. A number of risks and uncertainties, such as risks associated with product development and commercialization efforts, results of clinical trials, ultimate clinical outcomes and benefit of the company’s products to patients, market and physician acceptance of the products, intellectual property protection and competitive product offerings, could cause actual events to adversely differ from the expectations indicated in these forward looking statements.
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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"Somnia turns Framestone from visual-effects masters into IP creators | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/somnia-turns-framestone-from-visual-effects-masters-into-ip-creators"
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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 Somnia turns Framestone from visual-effects masters into IP creators Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Somnia is the first intellectual property from visual effects shop Framestore, which has done work on Game of Thrones and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
You’ve seen Framestore’s work before. The visual effects studio’s digital fingerprints can be found in some of the most successful films of recent times like Avengers: Age of Ultron , memorable commercials such as Shell’s Shapeshift promo , and even a few VR apps including the upcoming Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them experience for Google Daydream.
But what you might not have seen is something Framestore actually made from the ground up. By that I mean something the studio owns, an IP it created to utilize its own storytelling and technical talent for projects that actually mean something to itself beyond a paycheck at the end of a few months’ of work.
That’s where Framestore Ventures comes in. This is an internal group that is building a stable of IP and products that the company has complete creative control over.
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 have some of the best artists and technical folk in the world working here and they’ve all got brilliant ideas and create ideas for clients and they also create ideas in their heads for themselves but have nowhere to put them,” Gaby Darbyshire, Prinicpal of Ventures, tells me. It’s an exciting prospect, the thought of taking the immense talent housed under Framestore’s various offices and switching their focus from the corporate to the creative. What’s even more exciting is that the group is working with the company’s dedicated VR studio.
Quietly announced earlier this month, Somnia is the latest in a growing trend of narrative-driven VR experiences that aren’t necessarily games so much as interactive stories. Like Jon Faveru’s Gnomes and Goblins or the upcoming Darth Vader Star Wars story, it casts the audience as an actual character in the world that they’re free to explore, but they won’t encounter any significant challenges or mechanics to block their path to the end. They’re there to experience a story in an intimate, personalized way, not triumph over evil or rack up high scores.
This story in particular is one of both sci-fi and, based on the first trailer horror.
Above: A glimpse at Somnia.
I first heard about Somnia through a tie-in comic book that accompanied the launch of Madefire’s Gear VR app a few weeks back. Framestore itself is an investor in Madefire, and supporting its new venture with a tease of what’s to come made sense for the company. “Our guys can pitch projects internally to be a part of the Madefire slate and we will do the art and script development and everything else to make it happen,” Darbyshire explains of the pair’s relationship. One of those pitches was for an origins story for the upcoming app.
“The comic book tells the backstory of one of the characters and some of the technology involved in the core Somnia story, or the origin of how we came to where we are in the story now,” Michael Cable, Technical Director of the VR group, tells me. In the actual experience, you’ll awaken to find yourself alone on a spaceship in the middle of a journey to save your planet. As you explore, however, you’ll encounter “unusual happenings” including the appearance of ghost-like characters seen in the trailer. “They start off just being glimpses out of the corner of your eye but you getting the feeling that there’s something other-world going on,” Cable says.
From the sounds of it, Somnia could have easily been a survival horror game with full mechanics, but that idea isn’t of interest to its creators.
Above: The eyes are what make robots cute.
“If VR is going to be a medium that’s wider than gaming and given the incredibly high costs of making beautiful, high-fidelity games, an easier chance of doing it in the short term until we figure out what the install base is going to be and how popular it’s going to be as a medium is to do something a little less complicated than a game and slightly less narratively complicated than a movie,” Darbyshire states. Framestore describes this as a “sweet spot” while the processes of making full VR movies remains uncharted.
Hitting that point home, Cable talks of early cinema and the struggle to make sure shooting was consistent. “We’re in that sort of point with VR,” he says. And Cable is one to talk; he’s been working on on tech since the days of the Oculus Rift DK1, developing Framestore’s Game of Thrones: Ascend The Wall experience.
It’s still early days for Somnia right now. It’s releasing in 2017, though Framestore wouldn’t confirm any launch platforms. It did state they would like it to be on all headsets eventually.
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"RedZone Maps Crime and Navigation App Breaks Through Top 5 in Apple's App Store | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/redzone-maps-crime-and-navigation-app-breaks-through-top-5-in-apples-app-store"
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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 RedZone Maps Crime and Navigation App Breaks Through Top 5 in Apple’s App Store Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–October 31, 2016– With beta testing behind them, Zone Technologies, Inc., the creator of RedZone Maps , a GPS-driven, real time crime data aggregation and navigation map application, together with big data analytics provider Helios and Matheson Analytics, Inc. (NASDAQ: HMNY), announced today that RedZone Maps broke through the top 5 in Apple’s App Store in the U.S. navigation maps category, right behind Google Maps and Waze, last week during its successful beta test.
This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161031005384/en/ Social empowerment at its best! (Photo: Business Wire) RedZone Maps now provides its users with real time crime data from approximately 1,250 cities in the United States – across all state borders – showing over 500,000 crimes committed during the past 60 days and as recently as the past 24 hours. The availability of this information in a navigation map format, including information about shootings, assaults and thefts, works to keep users aware of their surroundings, whether in their own neighborhoods or traveling. RedZone plans to deploy its propriety technology worldwide, making big data of the same magnitude available to users globally. Currently, the RedZone app is available free in the Apple App store and expected to be accessible to Android users shortly.
“Our goal is to enable the RedZone Maps technology, when combined with the power of HMNY’s big data and predictive analytics capabilities, to help people avoid dangerous crime,” said Ted Farnsworth, founder of RedZone. “We have designed RedZone Maps to show real time crime data through its social listening, big data and artificial intelligence capabilities in a navigation map format. We’re not aware of any other solution that does that for its users and as a result we believe this makes RedZone the leader in this space,” Mr. Farnsworth continued.
“HMNY’s core strengths have been a great strategic fit with Red Zone Maps’ mission. HMNY’s culture has always been focused on helping and guiding its clients. Our motto is that we offer the ‘wisdom of data to see the light’, and now, RedZone Maps has enabled us to reach beyond the companies we typically serve, and help empower individuals to feel more safe and secure,” said Pat Krishnan, HMNY’s CEO.
The RedZone Maps proprietary mapping and navigation system, offering a safe route and risky route, combined with real time crime data aggregation, crowdsourcing and a social interaction component, are obvious benefits to individual users. We believe, with safety becoming an ever-increasing daily concern around the world, the leading online travel, hotels, lodging and on-demand transportation apps and websites would also benefit significantly from the RedZone Maps solution, joining the interests of individual users with their corporate interests.
About Helios and Matheson Helios & Matheson Analytics, Inc. provides information technology consulting, training services, software products and enhanced suite of services of predictive analytics. With their client roster including Fortune 500 corporations, they focus mainly on the BFSI and Technology verticals. Their solutions cover the entire spectrum of IT needs, including applications, data, and infrastructure. The company is headquartered in New York, NY. Helios and Matheson Analytics, Inc. is listed on the NASDAQ (HMNY). For more information visit us at http://www.heliosmatheson.com.
About RedZone RedZone (Zone Technologies, Inc.) is a state-of-the-art mapping and spatial analysis company with offices in the U.S. and Israel. Its eye-opening safety map app enhances mobile GPS navigation by providing advanced proprietary technology, to easily and safely guide travelers to their destinations while avoiding risky areas deemed “red zones,” due to high groupings of crime data, with safer routes generally 15% longer. More than that, the app incorporates a social media component allowing for real-time “It’s happening now” crime reporting coupled with up-to-the-minute data from over 1,400 local, state, national and global sources. Currently available to iOS users with an android version launching shortly, RedZone is available free in the App Store. More information is available on the RedZone website and the free app is available for download in the Apple App Store.
Important Information For Investors And Stockholders This communication does not constitute an offer to buy or sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any securities or a solicitation of any vote or approval. This communication relates to a proposed business combination between HMNY and Zone Technologies, Inc. (“Zone”). In connection with the pending business combination between Zone and HMNY, HMNY has filed a definitive Information Statement on Schedule 14C with the Securities Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS OF HMNY ARE URGED TO READ THE DEFINITIVE INFORMATION STATEMENT AND OTHER DOCUMENTS THAT MAY BE FILED WITH THE SEC CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. The definitive Information Statement has been mailed to stockholders of HMNY in accordance with Regulation 14C under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Investors and security holders may obtain free copies of these documents and other documents filed with the SEC by HMNY through the website maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov.
Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by HMNY will be available free of charge on HMNY’s website at www.hmny.com.
Cautionary Statement on Forward-looking Information Certain statements in this communication contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 or under Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (collectively, “forward-looking statements”) that may not be based on historical fact, but instead relate to future events, including without limitation statements containing the words “believe”, “may”, “plan”, “will”, “estimate”, “continue”, “anticipate”, “intend”, “expect” and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact included in this communication are forward-looking statements.
Such forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions. Although HMNY’s management believes that the assumptions made and expectations represented by such statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that a forward-looking statement contained herein will prove to be accurate. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained herein and even if such actual results and developments are realized or substantially realized, there can be no assurance that they will have the expected consequences or effects. Risk factors and other material information concerning HMNY are described in its Annual Report on Form 10-K, as amended, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015, and other filings, including current and periodic reports, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. You are cautioned to review such reports and other filings at www.sec.gov.
Given these risks, uncertainties and factors, you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements and information, which are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. All forward-looking statements and information made herein are based on HMNY’s current expectations and HMNY does not undertake an obligation to revise or update such forward-looking statements and information to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except as required by law.
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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"President Obama announces semiconductor industry working group to review U.S. competitiveness | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/president-obama-announces-semiconductor-industry-working-group-to-review-u-s-electronics-competitiveness"
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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 President Obama announces semiconductor industry working group to review U.S. competitiveness Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Chips are becoming increasingly complex with billions of transistors.
President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology (PCAST) today announced the launch of a new Semiconductor Working Group that will provide recommendations to address the rapid rise of semiconductor businesses abroad.
Chips are the heart of everything electronic, and they have become a $330 billion worldwide industry. U.S. companies have held the leading market share in the industry — which puts the “silicon” in Silicon Valley — for decades. The Semiconductor Working Group includes 11 experts on chips and the broader economy.
John Neuffer, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association, the U.S. industry trade group, said in a statement : SIA welcomes this timely announcement, given new challenges facing the U.S. semiconductor industry, including unprecedented government investment programs from some countries and the increasing technological complexity involved in achieving new innovation breakthroughs. These developments have implications not only for the economy and society, but also national security. In fact, SIA earlier recommended the Administration form a public-private advisory group to help guide government policy related to improving the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry.
In a related development, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker will give a policy address on the importance and future of the U.S. semiconductor industry at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) this Wednesday at 1 p.m. EST. The semiconductor industry directly employs 250,000 workers, is the third-largest source of U.S. manufactured exports, and has the highest level of investment in research and development (R&D) as a percentage of sales of any major industry, according to a post by John Holdren and former Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who are co-chairs of the group.
Neuffer said that semiconductors are a “fundamental building block for U.S. technology leadership. They enable commercial innovations that drive economic growth and productivity, as well as strategically important platforms that ensure U.S. national security, such as satellites and supercomputers. The chip industry spawns new industries, makes existing industries more productive, and drives advances once never imagined.” To stay ahead in the tech, the U.S. needs a vibrant industry. Neuffer said, “We view today’s announcement as helpful for assessing, analyzing, and formulating recommendations to this and the next Administration on how to maintain U.S. leadership in this key sector. We look forward to working with the PCAST Semiconductor Working Group and hope this and other efforts can lead to a more comprehensive and robust national strategy to spur greater competitiveness, innovation, and research and development in the U.S. semiconductor industry.” The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) just announced the formation of a new working group focused on strengthening the U.S. semiconductor industry in ways that benefit the nation’s economic and security interests — big news for our industry and the tech sector, in general.
The full working group includes the following members: John Holdren (director, OSTP; PCAST co-chair); working group co-chair Paul Otellini (former president and CEO, Intel); working group co-chair Richard Beyer (former chair and CEO, Freescale Semiconductor) Wes Bush (chair, CEO, and president, Northrop Grumman) John Hennessy (President Emeritus, Stanford University) Paul Jacobs (executive chair, Qualcomm) Ajit Manocha (former CEO, GlobalFoundries) Jami Miscik (co-CEO and vice chairman, Kissinger Associates; co-chair, President’s Intelligence Advisory Board) Craig Mundie (president, Mundie and Associates; former senior advisor, Microsoft; member of PCAST) Mike Splinter (former CEO and chair, Applied Materials) Laura Tyson (Distinguished Professor of the graduate school, UC Berkeley; former CEA chair and NEC director) 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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"Nitrous.io is shutting down its cloud IDE on November 14 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/nitrous-io-is-shutting-down-its-cloud-ide-on-november-14"
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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 Nitrous.io is shutting down its cloud IDE on November 14 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Nitrous.io's cloud IDE.
Nitrous.io built a business around offering a cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE) in which software developers could work on source code and even share their work with teammates. However, today the startup announced in its company newsletter that the cloud IDE will go away on November 14. As of today, Nitrous will stop taking on new users.
Payments made after October 16 will be refunded, the startup said in the email.
People with existing projects will be sent an email with a link to download their data, but after 15 days the data will be deleted.
“We will send an update on our free and open-source Nitrous Solo IDE in the coming weeks,” the company said.
There are other cloud-based IDEs, including Eclipse Orion, which was recently incorporated into the Google Cloud Shell , and Koding.
Startup Codeanywhere also offers a cloud IDE.
The reason for Nitrous’ shutdown is not clear, and indeed its homepage doesn’t say anything about the news. But earlier this year, public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) acquired another cloud IDE startup, Cloud9.
Some developers might not like to rely completely on a machine that’s running remotely. Nitrous does offer a Nitrogen plugin for GitHub’s open-source Atom text editor.
Nitrous.io was founded in 2012, with offices in San Francisco and Singapore. Investors include 500 Startups, Bessemer Venture Partners, CrunchFund, Draper Associates, Golden Gate Ventures, Lion Rock Capital, and Eduardo Saverin. The startup announced a $6.65 million round in March 2014.
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.
All rights reserved.
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"Microsoft launches Flow and PowerApps out of preview | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/microsoft-launches-flow-and-powerapps-out-of-preview"
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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 launches Flow and PowerApps out of preview Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Some available Microsoft Flow integrations.
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.
Microsoft is announcing today that it’s launching the Flow app integration service and the PowerApps codeless app building and sharing tool out of preview. PowerApps first launched last year , and it became available in preview in April, as did Microsoft Flow.
Since then, the two tools have racked up more than 160,000 users at 71,000 organizations, Microsoft corporate vice president James Phillips wrote in a blog post.
The apps are now available for anyone to use on Android and iOS; there’s a native Windows app for PowerApps, while Flow has a web app. Both apps are included with Microsoft Dynamics 365 , as well as Office 365 Enterprise, Business Premium, and Essentials service tiers.
Plus, PowerApps can now use something Microsoft calls the Common Data 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! “The Common Data [Model] stores your key business data in a secure Microsoft Azure-hosted database, organizing it in a standardized but extensible form — customer, lead, opportunity, employee, invoice, inventory item, product, task, contact, calendar and so on,” Phillips wrote. “This standardization makes it easy to create new applications and workflows that derive value from your data. And PowerApps, Flow, and Power BI are natively aware of this common data model, making it that much easier.” PowerApps is a more modern way to build applications that draw from enterprise data repositories, including SharePoint. While PowerApps and Flow run on Microsoft’s Azure data center infrastructure, applications built with the PowerApps can incorporate data from companies’ on-premises data centers. And Flow can tap on-premises “gateways,” while also tying in to online services. That’s key for the many companies that want to use some of that data in modern apps that work on many devices.
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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"Here's what the White House will do with its social media accounts after Obama leaves | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/heres-what-the-white-house-will-do-with-its-social-accounts-after-obama-leaves"
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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 Here’s what the White House will do with its social media accounts after Obama leaves 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.
As the 2016 election cycle draws to a close, the White House has begun turning its attention toward the transition of power. And for the 45th president of the United States, the process of getting acclimated to the White House will diverge a bit from the usual.
President Barack Obama has been steadily updating our idea of what an administration should look like, and this effort extends to social media. So as January 20 inches closer, some may be wondering what his team will do with the presidential Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other social accounts. The White House has heard you and has revealed how it will smartly pass along the digital presence of the most powerful office in the free world.
Peaceful digital transition In a blog post, Deputy Chief Digital Officer Kori Schulman explained that, as part of the transition, all materials the White House has created will be preserved with the National Archives and Records Administration, including tweets, snaps, videos, photos, and everything that was produced online. But this data won’t be wiped from the internet — Schulman shared that whenever possible, the administration will seek to ensure that all the material will still be accessible where it was originally published. Her team is also working to ensure that existing digital assets can be repurposed by the next administration.
When either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump officially assumes the presidency, they’ll be given access to the @POTUS Twitter handle and its more than 11 million followers. All the tweets made under Obama will be removed, but will be accessible under the new handle @POTUS44. This same plan will be enacted for associated accounts, including @WhiteHouse, @FLOTUS, @PressSec, and @VP.
The White House’s Instagram and Facebook accounts will also be passed down to Obama’s successor, but without pre-populated content. That content will be archived and transitioned to new accounts, specifically to ObamaWhiteHouse, for both Instagram and Facebook. The official Facebook accounts for Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with the Instagram accounts of First Lady Michelle Obama and Biden will be reassigned to new accounts with “44” affixed at the end of their respective handles.
And yes, the same will be done for all photos and videos shared on YouTube, Vimeo, Myspace, Flickr, and other online platforms where the White House has a presence.
Opening social data to the people But since it’s the people’s house, the White House is opening up the data to the public, allowing anyone to download a zip file containing all of its social media content. It has begun inviting students, data engineers, artists, and researchers to submit creative ways to take advantage of this opportunity. There are several criteria that must be met before gaining access, however. First, each proposal must be an innovative way “to archive our social media account, and your proposal must be constructive in spirit.” Next, any produced product must be free and accessible to the general public. Lastly, projects have to be completed by mid-December.
Another significant tool developed under the Obama administration is the We the People petition website. The White House said that more than 12 million verified users have created more than 470,000 petitions. To ensure its continuation in some way, shape, or form, the team has open-sourced the product and will work with future administrations to try to keep it operational. In the meantime, all petitions and official White House responses will be archived with the National Archives.
The ‘digital president’ When Obama took office in 2008, he accelerated the move toward a more accessible office, and he was the first president to truly tap into social media and technology. From Twitter to Facebook, YouTube to Vimeo, Myspace, Snapchat, and even Facebook Messenger , the 44th president has taken pains to extend his message beyond traditional television and newspaper channels.
He was the first to establish the role of chief technology officer , currently helmed by former Google executive Megan Smith , and he has enlisted the help of some of Silicon Valley’s best, including bringing on board former LinkedIn data scientist DJ Patil as the country’s chief data scientist.
Whether these innovations continue in the White House after Obama’s term remains to be seen, as officials have repeatedly said that they’re still in the fourth quarter and are racing toward the end.
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"Here's how to watch Peter Thiel's press conference to explain his support of Trump | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/heres-how-to-watch-peter-thiels-press-conference-to-explain-his-support-of-trump"
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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 Here’s how to watch Peter Thiel’s press conference to explain his support of Trump Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Even as Peter Thiel’s support for Donald Trump draws controversy in Silicon Valley circles, the enigmatic investor seems to have no doubts about which horse he is backing.
Thiel has scheduled a press conference today at 11 a.m. on the East Coast to defend his Trump support. The event will be held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. But anyone can watch the livestream here.
Thiel plans to open the hour-long press conference with some remarks, followed by a question-and-answer session with reporters.
Silicon Valley has overwhelmingly backed Hillary Clinton in this election, and Thiel’s endorsement of Trump has drawn considerable attention. Thiel served as a California delegate for Trump in the primaries, got a featured speaking slot at the Republican National Convention in July , and most recently donated $1.25 million to the campaign.
The latter came after a tape leaked of Trump making sexist remarks about a decade ago.
That donation proved to be the final straw for many, with some calling on organizations such as Y Combinator and Facebook to cut ties with Thiel. Both declined to do so, saying they defended Thiel’s right to political free speech.
It seems unlikely that Thiel can put the debate to rest today. But no doubt some of Thiel’s friends and fans are hoping he can offer more context around why he’s drawn to a candidate that so many in the tech community are actively opposing.
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"Google Play Store now detects and filters fraudulent app installs | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/google-play-store-now-detects-and-filters-fraudulent-app-installs"
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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 Play Store now detects and filters fraudulent app installs Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Google Play Store.
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.
Google today said that it’s launching enhanced systems for identifying and preventing fraudulent app installs that could otherwise affect app rankings on the Google Play Store.
Google obviously knows a thing or two about search rankings. The Play Store, full of mobile apps for Android devices, represents a search repository wholly different from the web, and now Google is cracking down on attempts to game this system.
“If an install is conducted with the intention to manipulate an app’s placement on Google Play, our systems will detect and filter it,” Google search quality analyst Kazushi Nagayama and Google product manager Andrew Ahn wrote in a blog post.
“Furthermore, developers who continue to exhibit such behaviors could have their apps taken down from Google Play.” Nagayama and Ahn suggested that developers make sure any attempts to promote their apps are legitimate.
The move comes a couple of months after Apple announced that it would be taking “problematic and abandoned apps” out of its App Store. Google’s move is different but related — it’s about spammy apps, not crud. Basically, in both cases Google and Apple are improving search results in their respective app stores.
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"Solar lighting company D.light raises $7.5 million and reveals plans for a solar-powered TV | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/d-light-raises-7-5-million-solar-powered-tv"
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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 Solar lighting company D.light raises $7.5 million and reveals plans for a solar-powered TV Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn D.light technology in the wild 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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D.light , a for-profit social enterprise that manufactures and distributes solar-powered products aimed at “off-grid” communities, has raised $7.5 million in a debt financing round from investment management company Developing World Markets.
Founded in 2007, D.light makes myriad solar lighting products and claims five distribution hubs around the world, spanning the U.S., East Africa, West Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. The company also offers the D30 bundle , which constitutes a solar panel, battery-charging pack, solar lights, switches, FM radio, and a torch, all underpinned by D.light’s pay-as-you-go platform.
Today’s financing news comes less than two months after D.Light raised $22.5 million in a round that included a $5 million grant, $2.5 million debt funding, and $15 million equity financing from Omidyar Network, a philanthropic investment firm set up by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, with participation from a handful of other parties. The company has now raised more than $50 million in total since its inception, and its latest cash influx will be used to expand its existing products as well as branch out into new products — including a solar-powered TV.
“We believe that capital markets can create positive economic and social change and that D.light can provide the kind of financial and social returns we seek from our investments,” explained Peter Johnson, managing partner of Developing World Markets.
D.light hasn’t divulged any details about when it plans to bring its solar-powered TV to market, but the funding news comes just a few months after U.K. electronics company Cello launched a solar-powered TV of its own, so it seems that there is demand for such a device.
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"CenturyLink will buy Level 3 Communications for $19.43 billion to create a broadband giant | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/centurylink-will-buy-level-3-communications-for-19-43-billion-to-create-a-broadband-giant"
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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 CenturyLink will buy Level 3 Communications for $19.43 billion to create a broadband giant Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn (By Narottam Medhora and Supantha Mukherjee, Reuters) – Telecom company CenturyLink Inc said on Monday it would buy Level 3 Communications Inc in a cash-and-stock deal for equity value of $19.43 billion to expand its fiber optic network and high-speed data services.
CenturyLink will offer $26.50 in cash and 1.4286 of its shares for each Level 3 share held.
Level 3’s shares were up 3.9 percent at $56.15 in light premarket trading while CenturyLink’s shares were unchanged.
The deal would combine Level 3’s enterprise services with CenturyLink’s network that provides internet and telephone offerings to millions of customers.
Including debt, the deal is valued at about $34 billion.
The deal, for about $66.50 per share, is at a premium of 42 percent from Level 3’s Wednesday close. Reuters reported on Thursday that the companies were in advanced talks to merge.
The deal comes at a time when business clients of both companies seek more bandwidth and faster capabilities to move data to run their businesses.
This deal, expected to close by the end of the third quarter of 2017, will increase CenturyLink’s network by 200,000 miles of fiber.
CenturyLink shareholders will own about 51 percent of the combined company and the rest by Level 3 shareholders.
Up to Friday’s close, CenturyLink’s shares had fallen nearly 21 percent this year while those of Level 3 were marginally lower.
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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"AWS is setting up a second wind farm in Ohio | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/aws-is-setting-up-a-second-wind-farm-in-ohio"
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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 is setting up a second wind farm in Ohio 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 Web Services (AWS), a division of ecommerce company Amazon that provides a variety of cloud-based computing and storage services, today said that it will establish a second wind farm in Ohio to support its data centers.
The first one, located in the Buckeye State’s Paulding County, has a capacity of 100 megawatts (MW), while this new center, in Hardin County, will have 189MW of capacity, according to a statement.
This will AWS’ fifth renewable energy site — the others are in Indiana , North Carolina , and Virginia. Amazon is also erecting a wind farm in Texas.
The news comes two weeks after the opening of us-east-2 , AWS’ second US East data center region, located in Ohio. Sure enough, the new wind farm will support both US East (Northern Virginia) and US East (Ohio).
AWS has committed to relying completely on renewable energy. It’s now past the 40 percent mark, and by the end of next year it will have passed the 50 percent mark, according to today’s statement. Google, which operates cloud infrastructure that competes with AWS, also relies on renewable energy sites to power its data centers.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! EverPower, owned by the private equity firm Terra Firma, will build, own, and operate the new site, which will open in December 2017.
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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"Bots and banks: The next step in digital engagement is here -- if you’re ready (VB Live) | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/bots-and-banks-the-next-step-in-digital-engagement-is-here-if-youre-ready-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 Bots and banks: The next step in digital engagement is here — if you’re ready (VB Live) Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn How do you stay competitive in an increasingly bot-engaged market, with a relatively young technology, in a complex industry where a single error could be devastating? Join this VB Live event to find out how financial companies can minimize risk, maximize customer satisfaction and transform their brand.
“A lot of these bot technologies have already become table stakes—so one of the fears that financial institutions have is that there’s this window of opportunity, and there’s been a gap in the services they’re providing,” says Katy Gibson, Vice President of Product Applications at Envestnet | Yodlee, a leading data aggregation and analytics platform. “How quickly can they close it or get to parity with other service providers?” Bots are a unique opportunity for banks to interact with their customers, Gibson says, especially as banks decentralize and work to stay nimble to keep up with an increasingly mobile world. “As they’re moving away from branches, I think building a brand around digital engagement—and having the best digital engagement—is key for banks to stay competitive,” she explains.
“And the risk for banks is that fintech disruptors are going to come and take that space,” Gibson adds.
USAA has already launched a voice-activated virtual personal assistant on their mobile app, while Bank of America just announced the release of its new chatbot, the cleverly named Erica (think “IM Erica”). She’s designed to offer improved customer service in daily banking tasks but also scan customer data and offer opportunities to optimize and consolidate finances.
“The big challenge and the secret sauce is going to be combining data intelligence with the conversational technology in the larger context of the customer experience and journey,” Gibson says. “Banks are going to have to get really good at putting it all together and creating the full experience.” What is that going to take? “Banks have to be careful to make sure that they are either looking at this technology themselves or they’re partnering with the right solution providers,” Gibson says. “So whomever they’re using for their natural language processing, making sure that the bot is understanding the context of the question is critical. Otherwise that can backfire. And they need to be prepared to have fallback solutions.” The second part is access to the right data points. “It becomes very important to have the right level of data analytics on the back end to be able to recognize a question, and then provide the appropriate response,” Gibson says. Customers have little patience in general with customer service technology; with their financial information at stake, that can reach a breaking point far more rapidly, she explains.
And critically, none of this data can be siloed, no matter what product or service a customer is interacting with. “A customer may have a credit card and a mortgage and a line of credit and checking relationship; they view themselves as a full entity,” Gibson says. “And when they’re talking to your brand, they expect you to have all of that information and the correlation of all of those relationships available to the bot.” If you send them one place to talk about their mortgage, and another for their checking account, and yet another for credit cards, they’re going to just keep walking.
But now is the time for financial institutions to start making some smart decisions about bots, and whether they’re going to buy, partner, or build, Gibson says.
“It’s a great technology,” Gibson says. “There are going to be lots of great use cases for bots. It’s going to depend on the size of the bank and their position in the marketplace. For banks with an innovation brand, they absolutely should be proactive about it.” To find out how to leverage data for next gen chatbots, address or mitigate potentially devastating errors, and find the right AI partners, join our free VB Live event. Joining Gibson will be Forrester senior analyst Peter Wannemacher – you won’t want to miss out.
Register here for free! By attending this VB Live event, you’ll learn how to: Re-engineer back-end systems to enable real-time action Make progress on platform improvements—or replacements Embrace APIs for faster, more dynamic future changes Speakers: Peter Wannemacher , Senior Analyst, Forrester Research Katy Gibson , Vice President, Product Applications, Envestnet | Yodlee Evan Schuman , Moderator, VentureBeat 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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"5 bots to try this week: HomeHero, Trump Survival, Spooky Street, Ghost Treasure Mansion, and Betalist | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/5-bots-to-try-this-week-homehero-trump-survival-spooky-street-ghost-treasure-mansion-and-betalist"
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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 5 bots to try this week: HomeHero, Trump Survival, Spooky Street, Ghost Treasure Mansion, and Betalist 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.
Are you ready for Halloween? Will your trick-or-treating take you down a spooky street? Will your pursuit of chocolate and other treats lead you to a palatial, haunted mansion hiding treasure and ghosts? Mwahahaha! Just in time for Halloween (and the upcoming U.S. Presidential election), here are the five most popular bots this past week, as they appear on Botlist.
Give them a try and let us know what you think.
5. Betalist ( also #5 last week ) For all product geeks and tech nerds. Browsing is dead — get what you want to hear delivered to you.
Available on Messenger VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! 4.
Escape from Spooky Street You’re trapped on Spooky Street, the scariest, most haunted street you’ve ever heard of! Not only that, but a rude ghost has turned you into a pumpkin! DANG! That sucks.
Can you get all five magical candies to reverse the spell and escape Spooky Street? Are you brave enough to face five spooky monsters in a contest of wits? Available on Kik 3.
Escape: Ghost Treasure Mansion Your rich, puzzle-obsessed uncle has died. He’s left you, his favorite relative, two things — a ouija board and a key to his palatial, haunted-looking mansion, with the promise of treasure inside. Naturally, you head over to claim your inheritance. But could this haunted-looking mansion be … haunted? By ghosts? Available on Kik 2.
Trump Survival Welcome to Trump Survival! You’ll face a series of scenarios and make life-and-death decisions throughout the day. Are you ready? Available on Messenger 1.
HomeHero HomeHero is your digital concierge for a smarter home.
He kinda drew the short straw when they were handing out super powers — he is faster than a speeding bullet, but only for helping you with home services.
Ever ask yourself: • Is my home an attractive target for burglary? • Who is the cheapest energy provider? (UK only) • Why is my Wi-Fi so slow? • How will my boiler behave this winter? Message @YourHomeHero now for instant superhero advice! Available on Messenger Popularity of the top 5 bots on Botlist is based on web traffic to individual bots’ pages appearing on the site, which currently lists more than 11,000 bots. The bot directory says it receives more than 200 submissions each week and tests their purpose, functionality, content, and overall quality before accepting them. This week’s rankings were for the period October 24-30, 2016.
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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"3 future scenarios for super intelligent chatbots | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/3-future-scenarios-for-super-intelligent-chatbots"
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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 3 future scenarios for super intelligent chatbots Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Super intelligent bots? 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.
Very few applications and devices so far are truly intelligent. However, innovation in the field of machine intelligence is high and accelerating rapidly. We’re approaching a new age in which there actually will be an intelligent assistant for every part of our lives and, accordingly, the future digital landscape will look very different.
When Dag Kittlaus (creator of Siri and founder of Viv ) demonstrated Viv’s new speech-based user interface in May of this year, we were given a glimpse into a future with radically different dynamics. One of the demonstrations was booking a vacation. In the past you’d either have a dozen of tabs open, consulting different platforms and doing research, or you’d pay a travel agency to arrange it for you.
Kittlaus showed that these first two scenarios will soon be displaced. We’ll engage with intelligence that will remember our preferences, recent actions, and purchases, and will be able to process our requests faster within one interface.
In the Viv scenario, the Hotels.com brand presence is reduced to a small logo in the bottom-right of the screen and a link to their support page. Their booking platform has been usurped and displaced by the intelligence used to facilitate the transaction. For the user, this means a single, simpler UI and a streamlined booking experience. For Hotels.com, it’s a valuable new source of transactions, although it also poses challenges for their platform in the longer term. Platforms like Hotels.com, Booking.com, Indeed.com, or eBay will play a very different role or disappear entirely as we interact with assistants, not 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! Future scenarios We’ll live in a world in which we will engage with intelligent assistants in most if not all aspects of our lives. For this future, there are three different scenarios that could arise: A single super-intelligence Intelligence managing intelligence (e.g., Siri interacting with the intelligence of a company’s customer service) A fragmented landscape with different players (horizontals and verticals) Assuming a super-intelligence could be kept in check (i.e. working on behalf of human-kind, as opposed to seeking to destroy the human race), it would make a fantastic digital assistant: smart enough to deal with booking holidays, ordering the groceries, and much more, often before we even asked. A market-leading intelligence would have access to the necessary data and commercial integrations to handle any request users can throw at it.
The second scenario involves various intelligent agents, acting on behalf of different companies or individuals, that interact and transact among themselves to reach outcomes of mutual benefit. From a UX perspective, there may be very little difference to the end user between this and interacting with one super-intelligence: The user would interact with their own digital agent, which would handle any further interactions autonomously.
The “fragmented landscape” scenario seems the most likely; intelligence will solve some industries’ challenges before others, and hence the user may need to interact with multiple specialized digital assistants in order to accomplish a varied range of tasks.
Dharmesh Shah, cofounder and CTO of Hubspot, had this to say about socio-technological shifts: He cites 1997 and the rise of the Internet and 2007 with the launch of the iPhone as prominent examples of massive changes brought about by technology.
Now he sees a new shift : “Now almost another decade has passed and the third tech shift is happening. It’s what we’re seeing today in messaging and chat bots. […] This, too, feels like a Very Big Deal.” Automation is already happening Consultancy firm McKinsey are already hard at work codifying the situations in which people can be replaced by machines. While predictable and repetitive physical tasks rank highest for automation potential, many white-collar jobs — especially back-office roles involving data collection and processing — are increasingly automatable.
The adoption of bots as “employees” in the workplace is already happening. It was recently reported that law firm Baker & Hostetler hired Ross, an AI , to give them an edge. Ross is built on cognitive technology from IBM and is capable of searching through masses of legal documents, case law, etc. to instantly retrieve contextually relevant information for the firm’s human staff.
This openness toward and willingness to try automation is something we also witness when we talk to companies about their efforts to automate the repetitive tasks within the hiring process.
While we spend ever more time with digital devices, we constantly strive to spend less time with them. Bots might offer the opportunity to finally catch up. While we utilize increasingly complex technology, it was never easier to engage with it and make use of it, no matter how old you are or the speed of your internet connection.
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"Twitter shares jump 5% on report that Google is working with Lazard on a possible bid | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/twitter-stock-google-lazard"
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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 shares jump 5% on report that Google is working with Lazard on a possible bid 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 stock increased more than 4 percent after a report today claiming that Google has tapped financial advisory firm Lazard to help it consider bidding on Twitter.
Google worked with Lazard for its acquisition of Apigee earlier this year, according to Bloomberg , citing an unnamed source.
Disney and Salesforce are also rumored to be evaluating their own bids on Twitter. The initial report that Google and Salesforce were both interested led Twitter stock to spike 20 percent.
In August, Twitter cofounder and board member Ev Williams told Bloomberg that “as a board member we have to consider the right options.” In July, Twitter missed expectations on revenue for the second quarter of the year, coming up with $602 million. Meanwhile, the social network’s growth rate for monthly active users has been on the decline.
Google declined to comment. A Lazard representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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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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"Facebook test prompts users to connect with friends abroad by posting a status update | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/facebook-test-prompts-users-to-connect-with-friends-abroad-by-posting-a-status-update"
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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 test prompts users to connect with friends abroad by posting a status update Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Facebook: Start a post 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.
As Facebook continues to explore new verticals, such as virtual reality (VR), drone-powered internet access, and computer vision research , it’s easy to forget about the company’s core raison d’être — as a platform for sharing information with friends.
It’s generally accepted that people are sharing fewer personal updates than they once did — that’s not to say people are sharing less overall, or even visiting the site less often, but they’re less inclined to tell their hundreds of “friends” what they’re up to. That could explain why the company is continuing to experiment with new ways to put the personal back into Facebook and ensure it retains its stickiness. For example, back in June, Facebook revealed it was fine-tuning its News Feed algorithm to surface more posts from friends and loved ones, and it later re-tuned the News Feed to try to cut down on clickbait — a wearisome omnipresence on Facebook in recent years.
Now, it seems, Facebook is testing out a new feature to encourage people to post more personal updates by prompting users to connect with friends in other countries through big events that are happening.
The feature appears under the usual “What’s on your mind” status update box, and, in the example I encountered, Facebook reminded me that a friend lives in India, where a new cricket season was about to begin. It then invited me to write a new post to “show you’re thinking of him.” Above: Post prompt When I hit “Start a Post,” I was then asked to say something about this special occasion, suggesting that I, too, am celebrating the start of the Indian cricket season, despite my being in the U.K.
Above: What’s on my mind? I don’t like cricket..
Facebook is known to give its developers the freedom to test out new features on small groups of people to see what kind of traction they garner, so there is every chance this won’t see the light of day. Certainly, it seems odd that Facebook’s algorithms wouldn’t know that the friend in this instance isn’t someone I interact with regularly and that at no point have I indicated that I like cricket — I’d rather watch paint dry, quite frankly. Moreover, the default status update suggests to other users that I’m in India for the celebration.
But this all ties in with Facebook’s efforts to get people posting more personal updates. Last year, Facebook prompted users to post a video to celebrate their friend’s birthday, which is relevant to the company’s broader push into the video realm.
And throughout 2015, it also prompted users to post a status update around Memorial Day, the Supermoon Lunar Eclipse, and even the premiere of the new season of The Walking Dead.
Facebook now claims in excess of one billion daily active users, which is great news for the company’s ad business today. But if people stop contributing personal content, the social network will gradually become less appealing — Facebook grew off the back of connecting friends, and if loses that personal edge, people will eventually drift off.
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"Where the new McAfee will go after its spins out from Intel | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/security/where-the-new-mcafee-will-go-after-its-spins-out-from-intel"
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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 Where the new McAfee will go after its spins out from Intel Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Chris Young is CEO of Intel's new spinoff, McAfee.
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Chris Young will be the CEO of McAfee after the security company spins off from Intel in a deal valued at $4.2 billion.
With that, McAfee will become an independent company, 51 percent owned by private equity firm TPG and 49 percent owned by Intel.
Intel acquired McAfee for $7.68 billion in 2010 to beef up its security software and services and to build better security into its hardware. Given Intel’s decrease in value, you could say that deal didn’t work out so well, and the new McAfee has a lot to prove. But Young is optimistic about McAfee’s prospects.
We interviewed Young about the future of McAfee and why it is sticking with that name — given the troubles of John McAfee, who is no longer associated with the company he started in 1987. (McAfee has had a lot of legal troubles, and he wants the name back himself.) Here’s an edited transcript of our conversation.
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: Chris Young is leading the new independent McAfee.
VentureBeat: Can you talk about why you guys are going back outside of Intel? Chris Young: We announced a couple of weeks ago that Intel signed a deal with TPG. Because of that deal, we’re establishing a new company: McAfee. The Intel security business will be 51 percent owned by TPG and 49 percent owned by Intel. The new company will be a private company. We expect the deal to close in the beginning of the second quarter of 2017.
The thought process is pretty simple. Today, inside Intel, we’re one of the largest cybersecurity players. The market is moving so fast. There’s a lot of change happening. As we’ve evolved our business, we came to the conclusion that the best way for us to compete and operate in the marketplace that we’re focused on is to be an independent company.
Clearly, Intel believes there’s still a lot of value in the organization, which is why they’re remaining a large shareholder in what we’re doing. We’ve set ourselves up to be 100 percent focused on cybersecurity. We’re coming out of the gate as one of the largest, certainly the best, leading cybersecurity players in the industry. We have a great product portfolio. We’re very broad and deep in our capability set. This is going to allow us to, as a company, focus on the sole mission around cybersecurity, but maintaining the right ties back to Intel.
VB: In some ways it seem as if plan A didn’t work out. Is there an explanation as to why being inside Intel didn’t produce the expected benefits? I remember covering it at the time, and they talked about integrating more security efforts into Intel hardware as one of the prime motivators.
Young: I’ve only been here two years, so I can’t say that I built plan A. A lot of the folks associated with the initial acquisition are no longer here. I would say that a lot’s changed in the six years that Intel has owned McAfee. Cybersecurity has gone from a back office function of IT to a boardroom, C-level, Oval Office-level issue. There’s a staggering number of new entrants into the marketplace. Established companies are investing, as well.
VB: I was at a Net Events conference yesterday where an analyst mentioned they’d tracked 1,500 different security companies.
Young: That’s about right. As of a few years ago, I think 1,250 was the number I quoted at RSA. That’s probably not far off. The landscape has changed a lot. The attack landscape has changed immensely in that six-year period. I’m a bit less focused on what didn’t work and very focused on what is working. Our performance has been very strong in the last year and a half here as part of Intel. We decided the right path forward is to stand this company up as an independent organization, keep it close to Intel from a perspective of ownership and technical collaboration, but give it the structure that’s going to help us operate like a $2 billion cybersecurity player needs to operate.
Above: Chris Young of McAfee is not all suit and tie.
VB: Is the idea of hardware security still a priority? Young: There’s a lot of security in hardware. If someone was to brief you on all the elements of security capability that we either deliver in our hardware architecture or accelerate with our hardware architecture, it’s staggering. We do a tremendous amount of crypto acceleration. In the Skylake release we had late last year, we introduced a foundational platform called SGX, the Secure Guard Extensions in the Intel chipset, which opens up a whole new set of security capabilities for isolation, data protection, credential management.
Intel has been quite good at the security posture, the feature set, the capabilities in its core platforms. But what we do in Intel security and what we’ll do at McAfee—it’s different than the security capabilities that either exist in or are enhanced by what we do in silicon. The recognition is that security is a ubiquitous item, but in some cases, you’re in the business of security and in other cases, you’re enabling security in different ways, or building foundational security into your products — you have different objectives. Intel does a lot with security today and will continue to do that. We’ll continue to collaborate on points of crossover there.
VB: One thing that seems to have burst on the scene in the last year is A.I. A.I. in security is one of these hot topics. Is that something that’s front and center for you? Young: We think about security across everything our customers are trying to do. What A.I. will do, as it becomes part of the fabric of our technology infrastructure, it’ll introduce new use cases for security. You can already see what some of those will likely be, like how we protect identities. A.I. will require secure analysis of information, secure storage of information.
What may be more discussed as it relates to A.I. and security are issues that bleed over into privacy. Part of the value of A.I. is going to be taking large data sets and finding what can be interpreted from large data sets about patterns, about people, about business, even parts of our physical lives. A lot of questions will need to get tackled as we realize the potential of A.I.
VB: I know Intel was reducing its headcount as well. Does this relate in any way to that, or is this an independent development? Young: This is independent of Intel’s cuts announcement. We made that announcement at the end of Q1. This isn’t a reduction, really. It’s a separation.
VB: How many people are on at McAfee now? Are you expecting to add people? Young: We’re expecting to run our business on our current course. I want to increase the speed, but we’re a little bit over 7,000 today. We’ll have to add some people because we’ll be an independent company again, but we feel comfortable with our level of investment. We remain committed to our product road map. As far as what the future holds for our business, we’ll define it by our opportunities and customer needs along the way. But no major plans as part of this to change the makeup of what we do, beyond the need to become an independent company and establish the requisite capabilities.
VB: What did you think about the name? It has a lot of things associated with it these days.
Young: We’ve actually continued — even though we were Intel Security Group, and we’d retired the name “McAfee” from the company — we’ve been in the market with McAfee as a product brand all along. We have several hundred million consumers who use and trust McAfee security products…many hundreds of millions of corporate users, thousands of corporations and public sector organizations that use McAfee products as part of their security architecture.
We never abandoned the McAfee name. We were Intel, so we became Intel, but the product brands have always been McAfee. It’s one of the most trusted and well-known brands in security. That’s one of the reasons, as we become an independent company, we’re naming the company McAfee.
Above: Chris Young of McAfee says the name means a lot.
VB: As far as your outlook goes, what are some things you expect to happen in the next year or two in the security industry? Young: Two big things are on my list right now. I came here just about two years ago. I spent the first year changing team strategy. We made a lot of announcements last year at our Focus customer event. We’re starting to deliver a lot of that new technology, new product releases to the marketplace. We started that in August. We have a whole cadence of new releases coming.
That’s what’s important for the market and for our customers, that we have the right product portfolio and the right capabilities that are going to help them solve more challenging problems they face from a security perspective. They can do so with less complexity, and hopefully, over time, more effectiveness in their security architecture.
Second, we have to stand up a new company. That will be a big part of my job as we go into 2017. We’re remaining very committed to a lot of the new capability we’re bringing to the market, but I know a lot of my attention is also going to be focused on making sure we stand up this company in a way that helps us accelerate all the great things we do for our customers in 2017.
VB: It’s a very different world around security these days, with things like Edward Snowden and Russian hackers in the headlines. Very different even compared to a few years back.
Young: Certainly a lot has changed. I’ve been in security the bulk of my career. I started in the ‘90s. I’ve seen a tremendous amount of change happen. But a lot of things have stayed the same. One thing I’m excited about, we have a strong group of people who are dedicated to the security mission. We have customers who are energized by our commitment to them and to their success. Despite everything happening in the attack landscape, we’re trying to stay committed to sorting through all that and helping our customers deal with it as it comes.
VB: Anything else you’d like to add? Young: We view this as an opportunity. The marketplace, in my opinion, needs a strong, large cybersecurity player that can partner with organizations and be the most trusted by consumers to deliver the safety and security they need as we evolve the way technology integrates with our lives. That’s my commitment. We’ll be the biggest and the best. That’s the opportunity all of us here are working toward and that our customers deserve.
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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"12 awesome tech items to pump up work and play | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/offbeat/12-awesome-tech-items-to-pump-up-work-and-play"
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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 12 awesome tech items to pump up work and play Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn 360fly 4K 360 Camera 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.
Whatever you’re doing — whether it’s getting some business-related tasks done or trying to get the most out of your weekend or family trip — gear makers have developed some devices that will give you a helping hand in the office, at home, or on the road.
Technology is filtering into every part of our lives. Larger storage and powerful apps have converted our phones into a blend of game console, desktop computer, executive assistant, and travel concierge. Connected devices are opening up ways to interact with our environment we never imagined before.
We’ve gathered together a collection of some recent and upcoming gear that we think will capture your attention. They’re not just fun products — though there’s plenty of entertainment to be had in this list—but gadgets that will also help you be more productive and learn a few things.
1.
Parrot Disco Next-generation drone ($1299) French manufacturer Parrot was one of the first companies to offer an affordable, consumer-oriented drone with its Augmented Reality drone, the AR.Drone quadcopter, which was introduced in 2010. Now the company is adding to its lineup with a fixed-wing drone that looks and moves more like a remote-controlled plane.
The Disco makes launching the device very easy: You pick it up and throw it into the air, at which point the drone climbs to 50 feet and circles there until you input different directions. From there, you pilot it with a smartphone/tablet app — or using the more advanced Skycontroller — and the built-in GPS enables tight navigational control of the drone for up to 45 minutes of flight, hitting speeds up to 50mph.
A stabilized HD camera in the nose provides a live video stream, so you’ll be able to see where it goes as if you were in the plane — there’s an option for more immersion if you use the Parrot Cockpitglasses and your smartphone for a first-person perspective. Use of such captured video will be helpful to consumers and businesses (especially now that commercial use of drones has been okayed in the U.S.
). Landing the Disco is also automated, so you won’t have to fuss with getting it down safely.
2.
Google Home Smart digital assistant ($129, available in November) Amazon has essentially established the digital-assistant category with its Alexa/Echo products. However, lots of other companies are looking to catch up with their own Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) helpers. In May, Google announced its plans for Google Home, which will be built on its assistive technology foundation.
If you’ve used an Android phone in the last couple of years, you probably know that you can say “Okay, Google” and follow up with a question or instruction — such as set an alarm, ask for historical facts, start turn-by-turn navigation to a specific address or call/text someone in your contacts list, among many others. It appears that Google Home will springboard off that, but looks to add such elements as controlling devices in the home (turning lights on or off, for instance).
It also seems that you can chain some Home-connected speakers in other rooms and network them with your media devices, which enables you to play music in multiple rooms or request Home to stream media to a home television (presumably through Chromecast). If having multiple companies pushing the envelope on a specific technology rapidly drives advancement of what that tech can provide to end users, the future of digital assistants should be pretty bright for use in homes and offices.
3.
GoPro Omni 360-degree camera bundle ($1500 for the rig with no cameras) It wasn’t long ago that GoPro developed cameras that made it easy for anyone to record fast-paced sports or action videos and put them on YouTube for the world to see. Now the company has created a rig that holds six GoPro Hero cameras to capture the world around us in 360 degrees.
The cameras attached to the small globe each capture a portion of the surroundings. When all of the recordings are run through the Omni’s special software, the videos are stitched together into a full panoramic view. Playing back a 360-degree video on YouTube, you can grab the screen and rotate the view in any direction; if you have a Virtual Reality (VR) headset, you’ll be able to simply turn your head in any direction to see the scene. It’s stunning tech that’ll revolutionize how people take action and vacation videos…and perhaps create a whole new industry showing people what they’ll find when they visit a vacation spot or other location.
4.
Anki Cozmo Personal, programmable robot ($179) One of the big buzz terms in tech these days is “bot,” which can be anything from a speech-recognition assistant interpreting what you say and responding intelligently, to an A.I. chatbot that is conversational and useful for businesses looking to provide an automated customer-service agent on a 24/7 basis in Facebook Messenger or other chat platforms. You’ll be seeing an explosion of bots in the coming years as the technology evolves and is implemented by big companies, such as Amazon, Apple, Google, and IBM.
As the tech improves, we’ll probably also see a flood of personal robots with increased capabilities and uses. A good demonstration of that is Anki’s Cozmo, a tabletop robot that contains a lot of power in its little package — Anki refers to it as “a supercomputer on treads.” It features facial recognition (so it “knows” you), is able to create a detailed map of its surroundings to better navigate your world, can provide facial expressions on its LED face/screen, plays numerous games (some unlocked the more you play with it), and is easily controlled from an app on an iOS or Android device. Anki also has a free beta SDK (software development kit) that’ll enable developers and consumers to create new uses for Cozmo — and reportedly operates under a simple programming language that users, especially kids, will be able to understand and employ to build on the robot’s capabilities.
5.
Automatic Pro Automobile-status monitor ($129) Every day, we get in our cars to drive to and from work — or as part of our work — and we take for granted how the vehicle operates. In other cases, vehicles are a key element of our business, with employees getting around to meet customers, deliver goods, etc. A company called Automatic is seeking to offer more information on our vehicles and keep us better connected.
The company’s Automatic Pro plugs into the on-board diagnostic (OBD) port on a car, which connects it to the vehicle’s internal computer. From there, it monitors the car’s health and can offer information if the car’s Check Engine light comes on by deciphering the engine codes the computer spits out. Even in normal operation, the Pro can help you locate a vehicle in a parking lot or, if someone else is driving, where the car is traveling and its condition.
The Pro comes equipped with built-in 3G cell transmission (without any added subscription fees), so it monitors the vehicle’s stats and sends them to the cloud, where they can be remotely viewed in a phone app. The 3G connection is also the backbone of the device’s Crash Alert service, which can detect when the car has been in an accident and connect the occupants with trained responders who’ll contact family or emergency services for help. It’s a great way to keep track of a vehicle that’s being driven by a family member or employee, or to make sure you’re in touch with others should something happen.
6.
QNAP TAS-168 Network-storage/personal-cloud device ($199) We put a lot of faith in having a healthy hard drive, since we’re filling it with critical documents, images, e-mails, and more. Yet, IT people have a prescient saying: “It’s not if a hard drive will fail, but when.
” Even in normal-use situations, we want to pull up a file on a different computer connected to the same network, but without sharing network resources (such as having to log all computers in the same Windows “workgroup”) or using a USB drive to move the files by “sneakernet.” This can create a challenge for even savvy computer users.
QNAP (which stands for “Quality Network Appliance Provider”) has some devices that can help. In particular, the TAS-168 provides separate network storage, much like a shared server, so files are available throughout a home or business. Additionally, even users not connected to the network can access the device’s contents remotely through a “personal cloud.” It can also be directly connected to a display through an HDMI cable to stream media, such as a presentation or a video file. And because it runs on the Android OS, it can run certain compatible apps, such as YouTube or other streaming services.
The device doesn’t come with a hard drive, but that enables you to add as much storage as you need, and its tool-less system gives you the ability to install a standard or solid-state drive in a snap without the help of an IT person.
7.
Anker PowerCore+ 20100 Pocket-sized, digital-device charger ($59) You only have to look around your local Starbucks to see how much people are relying on smartphones, tablets, and laptops for news, work, and general information gathering. The problem is, battery life hasn’t been radically improved, and if you use your devices heavily (and have a lot of resident apps running in the background), your remaining-battery percentage can really plummet quickly. The last thing you want when you have an important conference call or need to send a critical text is to have your device power down from a dead battery.
Anker’s PowerCore+ is a sleek, pocket-sized charger that has enough battery power to refill your smartphone’s battery up to seven times before it needs to be recharged itself. It’s equipped with two standard USB-A ports, which makes it compatible with most any digital device these days, but the PowerCore+ also has a port for the newer USB-C connector (which can be found on the latest MacBook, the latest Google Chromebook, and assorted tablets and smartphones). USB-C supports a “rapid charge” capability, which can refill compatible devices much more quickly than a standard USB-A port, and also enables faster recharge of the charger itself from a wall outlet or other USB-C device that’s plugged in.
8.
Parrot Pot Self-watering, plant-monitoring flower pot ($149) Yes, we just talked about the Parrot Disco drone above, but the company isn’t only about drones. It’s seeking out innovative solutions for different kinds of needs. One innovative product is the Parrot Pot, which takes the pressure of caring for a plant off of you. You’re busy, so why not take advantage of a smart floral assistant? To start, Parrot Pot’s accompanying app, called Flower Power, comes equipped with a database of 8000 plants, so it knows the specifics about caring for whatever you might put in the planter. The planter holds more than two quarts of water, and it knows just when to water and how much to use, which means you don’t have to put a lot of effort into maintaining your green thumb — it can take care of gardening duties for up to a month at a time. But it doesn’t just water. It monitors the amount of light, soil, PH level and temperature, among other stats, so it’ll make recommendations through the app for what you should do for optimum plant health.
9.
Xcooter Diminutive, personal urban transport ($999) Fifteen years ago, Segway tried to revolutionize personal transport with an electric scooter of a sort. While it didn’t catch on for a number of reasons, the need for a good “vehicle” is still there. Xcooter might be a product to watch in this category.
Xcooter is a 40-pound scooter that can cruise up to a distance of 15 miles at up to 15mph, and can be fully charged in 3–4 hours to quickly get it back on the road. This makes it perfect for short commutes, for taking you between a train or bus and the office, or just for getting to some local errands or meetings. Best of all, it folds up to a size that fits under your desk or can be rolled into a train for the commute, but is sturdy enough to hold a maximum weight of 265 pounds.
10.
Bose Wireless SoundSport Powerful, feature-filled earbuds ($149) Everyone is active these days, which can require some audio entertainment during a noisy commute, for fitness or sports, or maybe in a high-energy job, where you’re often hoofing it up and down city sidewalks. No matter the situation, you want to enjoy some music from your smartphone or tablet, but you don’t want a bulky set of headphones or the hassle of wires between devices.
Bose has always been a big name in audio with its speakers and headphones, but now it also makes a great set of unobtrusive sports earbuds that are water- and sweat-proof, and lightweight so they get the job done without getting in your way. They can wirelessly connect to your digital device by Bluetooth or NFC (Near Field Communication), which means your other hardware can safely stay in your pocket, purse, or shoulder bag. Its battery serves up to six hours of audio, delivering you plenty of music between charges.
11.
Mokacam 4K Big camera in a tiny package ($279) GoPro has faced many competitors in the 12 years since its first action camera came out. One of the newest is a super-small 4K-resolution unit called Mokacam, which raised more than a million dollars on its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign earlier this year. The company has started shipping its campaign’s preorders, and is still offering the cams at a reduced price from what it plans to charge for them. It’s quite a bit cheaper than GoPro’s own 4K unit and comes with better specs as well, such as 25 frames-per-second, ultra-high definition video with a 16-megapixel sensor and a slightly smaller footprint (with a size smaller than two inches square and weighing in under three ounces).
Mokacam has a number of unique features that make it even more enticing. It has a rotatable screen for easy viewing no matter its orientation (and, well, for the requisite selfies you’ll be taking). Strong magnets not only hold the camera fast to metal surfaces, but also enable backup batteries to be used without having to open the camera or turn the camera off. And an accompanying app enables remote control of the camera from a smartphone or tablet, as well as easy sharing of content to your device or other online media service.
12.
360fly 4K 360 Camera Affordable, smaller 3D camera ($499) GoPro captured lightning in a bottle with its action cameras, enabling users to capture their ski runs, mountain-bike rides, cliff dives, and much more. Now companies are aiming for the same ubiquity with their 360-degree video cameras (including GoPro’s own Omni, listed above).
If you want to start smaller and cheaper, and still get great results, a fine option is the 360fly, which is only six ounces and about 2.5 inches in diameter (slightly bigger than a billiard ball and about the same weight), yet captures 2800 x 2800–resolution video at 50 frames per second. (If you don’t need 4K resolution or want to save a few bucks, there’s a $299.99 version that can capture 1504 x 1504-resolution video at up to 20fps). It can also switch between 360-degree video and 16:9 2D video with the touch of a button. The 360fly 4K works with powerful Android or iOS apps that’ll turn your digital device into a viewfinder, but which also enable on-device editing capabilities, so you can get your edited video up to YouTube or another media service right after you record it.
Sponsored posts 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].
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"Want to minimize acquisition and engagement costs? Try this. | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/want-to-minimize-acquisition-and-engagement-costs-try-this"
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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 Want to minimize acquisition and engagement costs? Try this.
Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn A recent study revealed that the average cost per acquired mobile user is $4.50 which reflects the increasingly competitive mobile app marketplace. However, with intelligent data collection and analysis, as well as appropriate marketing tools to ensure a consistent message across channels, we can certainly minimize those costs.
We live in a customer relationship era. Consumers have more leverage than ever before and it’s the relationship your brand has with them that will determine your success. Additionally, customers want you to meet them where they are located. This means that the channels you use to reach them are distributed across a variety of platforms, such as email, SMS, push, and display ad networks.
Using data to dynamically update campaigns Fortunately, there are data-forward ways to leverage this opportunity– not only to lower your acquisition and engagement costs, but also to solidify your messaging across channels. With a customer data platform ( Segment ), an email/push tool ( Iterable ), and a retargeting platform ( AdRoll ), we can be intelligent about when and how to engage with customers at various points of their buying journey.
As an example, let’s use a fictitious app that delivers $5 artisanal toast on demand called Toastmates. For customers who have registered, but haven’t bought a single item, the marketing team can use this strategy to lower costs.
Implement tracking of key events (e.g. “Item Added to Cart”, “Checkout Completed”) into app with Segment Enable Iterable, AdRoll on Segment’s platform In Iterable, send a push or email to customers who meet the conditions where “Item Added to Cart” is true and “Checkout Completed” is false Segment’s SDK will automatically collect events such as “Push Notification Sent” and “Push Notification Opened” In AdRoll, create a retargeting campaign for customers who meet the conditions of abandoning a shopping card and “Push Notification Opened” or “Email Opened” is false Since the data flowing through all of these tools is consistent, it gives their marketing team flexible control to make narrower segments (e.g. customers who have opened the email, but did not click through the deep link that’ll open the app) with more targeted messaging (e.g. “Here is a $2 coupon!”).
And this is just the beginning. You can measure the engagement on each channel to adjust the messaging. Or take a look at what the LTV of each channel is and figure out how much to cap the AdRoll retargeting campaign. Or throw Facebook Ads on top of that.
What next? The most successful companies are both rigorous in their event tracking, thoughtful in their personalized messaging, and constantly experimenting with their messaging.
The underlying principles that can inspire further similar marketing use cases are as follows: Data, data, and more data : Data is knowledge and knowledge is power. The more you know about your users — how they hear about your app, their demographic information, how they’re using your app — the more you can divide your user base into segments with defined needs. Those needs can inform how, when, and what to message them to re-engage or activate them.
Users don’t just hang out in your app : There are dozens of channels to get your message in front of mobile users — email, push notifications, SMS, paid display advertising, Adwords, and advertorials such as the one you’re reading right now. Therefore, the right marketing mix will include a variety of channels that are specific to your business and will change over time.
Users want value, now : When on their phones, users are goal-oriented. Your app should deliver value immediately, which you can achieve by providing a personalized experience depending on the user’s data.
Andy Jiang is a developer advocate at Segment , a customer data platform developers and analysts love because of its elegant APIs and extensive partner ecosystem. He writes about using data to create delightful customer experiences that drive business growth. Follow him on Twitter at @andyjiang for product updates and lame jokes.
Sponsored posts 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].
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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"Facebook testing Snapchat Stories-like features in Messenger | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/mobile/facebook-testing-snapchat-stories-like-features-in-messenger"
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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 testing Snapchat Stories-like features in Messenger Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Facebook is testing Snapchat features in Messenger called "My Day". Tests are being conducted with users in Poland.
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Facebook once tried to buy the company formerly known as Snapchat for $3 billion. After getting rebuffed, the social networking company opted to find ways to compete against the ephemeral messaging app, even repeatedly launching experimental apps to see which ones would gain traction among its users. It seems that something must have clicked because some of Facebook’s tested features have started to stick on its established apps, starting with Instagram, and could very well be coming to Messenger.
Users in Poland have started to see elements of Snap’s stories feature pop up in their Messenger service. Called “Messenger Day,” you can create ephemeral stories that last for 24 hours; it also offers privacy controls, which allows you to specify who can see your latest rant.
A Facebook Messenger spokesperson confirmed the tests, providing this statement: “We know that people come to Messenger to share everyday moments with friends and family. In Poland, we are running a small test of new ways for people to share those updates visually. We have nothing more to announce at this time.” With “Messenger Day,” there are more than a hundred stickers to choose from with no Snapchat-like features. Users that are testing this feature out say there’s no current way to opt out from accessing it. When you compose a photo, you can draw and write on it before publishing it to your story.
Sure, people will say it’s a copy of Snapchat Stories (we say it in a headline), but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, right? Instagram’s Kevin Systrom admitted to the practice, and in a way it’s giving credit to those that have done it well. It’s an effort by Facebook to have more of its massive digital properties take on the growing behemoth that is Snap and its 60 million monthly active users in the U.S. and Canada.
It’s not surprising that companies run tests like these, because what happens if they don’t work or people just don’t like them? So while some of the more than 1 billion users of Facebook Messenger might wish for “Messenger Day” to be available, there’s a chance that the feature never makes it to production. In the meantime, you could just use Instagram Stories.
However, should it see the light of day (no pun intended), it helps Facebook further grow Messenger’s importance as a communication platform, one that already accounts for 10 percent of all Voice over IP (VoIP) calls worldwide.
Updated as of 11:39 a.m. Pacific on Friday: Corrected name of feature from “My Day” to “Messenger Day”.
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"Why ad mediation needs disrupting | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/marketing/why-ad-mediation-needs-disrupting"
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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 Why ad mediation needs disrupting 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.
Mobile ad tech has evolved rapidly in recent years. As advertiser spend has increased greatly, there has been a correspondingly huge growth in tools and platforms to help app publishers earn as much revenue as possible through their in-app advertising.
One of the hottest topics in ad monetization right now is mediation. In principle, mediation is a wonderful thing for app publishers. It enables you to aggregate demand from different networks, making each demand source compete for your available impressions. The increase in demand leads to higher competition which, in turn, results in better fill rates and eCPMs (effective cost per thousand impressions) and, ultimately, ad revenue.
Mediation may sound like a perfect solution to managing your ad waterfall but, in reality, the industry is riddled with problems. This is highlighted by the fact there is very little loyalty between large publishers and their mediation platform, with many working on annual contracts that are instigated by six-figure integration bonuses.
So, what are the biggest problems which underpin the industry, and how can this part of the ad tech ecosystem be changed for the better? Most mediation is not real time The technology used by the majority of platforms today is still very much in its infancy. Many mediation solutions claim to make decisions in real time by looking at bids from each demand source and selecting the highest bid for that specific impression. However, this isn’t strictly true for large volumes of demand.
Most ad networks do not provide bid data to mediation platforms. In order for a mediation company to decide which network they deem to be the highest paying, they must use historical data provided via reporting APIs. The problem here is that data within the reporting APIs can be up to 48 hours old and contain aggregated information. It’s certainly not a real-time environment where each network bids against one another for each impression.
While the above is true for a huge volume of demand accessed through mediation platforms today, publishers can access real-time bids for their inventory if the mediation platform is connected to a DSP (demand-side platform). However, mediation platforms need to be much clearer about how their platforms actually work and avoid using misleading marketing material to describe how a publisher’s ad waterfall is managed.
Many platforms are biased Make no mistake, making money as a mediation platform is tough. One of the most popular ways mediation platforms earn money is by injecting their own demand into a publisher’s waterfall, which is usually compulsory. In effect, the mediation platform takes a percentage of a publisher’s impressions and sells this to advertisers directly. The publisher then earns a commission from this sold inventory, just as they do from other ad networks. Because of this, many mediation platforms market themselves as “free.” This is very misleading, and here’s why.
Broadly speaking, it’s easy to check if a mediation platform’s own demand is being allocated the correct volume of impressions, as it is visible in their reporting. However, the more important question to ask is, which impressions have the mediation platform taken? Not every impression in your app has the same value. For example, the first impression in your waterfall is going to earn you more than your tenth impression. So, while a mediation platform may only have taken 5 percent of your impressions, if all these impressions were the first impression, then their performance will look stronger than it actually is, and you will likely have lost revenue due to your most valuable inventory being made non-competitive.
Some platforms have got to be more transparent about this side of their business and provide reporting that clearly highlights which demand is getting access to which impressions. Ultimately, by having their own demand in the mix, mediation platforms have a conflict of interest. To what extent do they optimize their own revenue versus yours? Hidden commissions One thing that many mediation platforms don’t disclose is the fact they make money from most of their demand partners. For example, if a mediation platform is integrated with demand source A, B, and C, they will likely be taking varying amounts of advertiser commission from each, typically ranging between 3 percent and 6 percent of overall earnings.
Do you trust that this doesn’t affect their weighting on what appears within your waterfall? If ad network A pays out a much better commission than ad network B, which will receive more exposure? The fact is, most mediation partners need to take a commission from their demand partners, as margins are already tight. But this needs to be documented and explained to publishers.
With the above said, as with all areas of ad tech, improvements are being made at a rapid rate, and this is something that Christian Calderon, chief revenue officer at Ketchapp , is excited about. He told me: “Mediation is good and here to stay, the increased competition in the marketplace is forcing providers to improve their technology and service, and we think over the next six to 12 months publishers are going to see some exciting developments in the space.” For the foreseeable future, though, publishers need to be aware of exactly how their chosen platform works, and how they make their money.
Dom Bracher is cofounder and CPO at Tapdaq , a platform that enables mobile developers to grow and monetize their apps with powerful cross-promotion and unbiased ad mediation.
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"Verve.ai launches to make customer-centric data science available to all | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/marketing/verve-ai-launches-to-make-customer-centric-data-science-available-to-all"
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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 Verve.ai launches to make customer-centric data science available to all 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.
There is a general problem with analytics, especially when it comes to understanding your audience — knowing where to find the right data, understanding what questions to ask, and gathering real insights in the resulting swamp of information.
That kind of research usually requires a data scientist, and even then it can take days or weeks to gain real insights.
Today, ARCompany and RealSociable have announced a merger, forming Verve.ai , a SaaS platform that traces both your brand’s and your customer’s digital breadcrumbs, identifying insights, reporting on them (in plain English) in real time, and applying the right adjustments to the campaign.
The platform automatically provides social, persona, brand and content insight, and it reports on them in the context of your objectives. It is that ability to understand outcomes against objectives, and lay those reports out in a simple-to-digest format, and the messaging app-style interface, that makes Verve.ai an intriguing prospect in the world of analytics.
I spoke with Dalia Asterbadi, CEO and chief data scientist at Verve.ai, during AdWeek in New York about the merger, the new platform, and the patented technology behind the scenes.
“We live in a cookie-based world right now, and that isn’t giving us the insights we need,” Asterbadi said. “Just because a customer clicks on our website five times doesn’t mean we know who they are and what they care about.” Let’s say that you’re running an influencer campaign. You’ve identified your ambassadors, given them all content to work with, and sent them off to do what they do best.
In a typical campaign, you would measure the outcome after the content has been produced and is live for some time, measuring reach, impressions, clicks, and other essential data points.
“With Verve.ai, we will check the program during delivery, and report on that in context with the objectives of the campaign, so that we can determine whether it needs to be adjusted, extended, or canceled,” Asterbadi said.
The solution can be used in many ways. It can qualify leads in a B2B environment (and it integrates with Salesforce), help to mitigate reputational damage on social media, find potential new revenue streams, and reduce customer churn. Behind the scenes is patented machine learning technology that powers the platform.
And it enters a machine intelligence landscape that has returned 4.6X for every dollar invested.
When it comes to reporting, the dashboard offers clear reports on-screen and an interface that allows for requests to be typed in, chatbot-style. And reports can be exported directly for presentation to executives within the business.
Where Verve.ai stands out is in its ability to create and understand customer personas, allowing for easy segmentation of existing and third-party data. It can then make real-time adjustments to campaigns to ensure the right flow of communication.
“Let’s say you are a pharmacy targeting mothers,” Asterbadi said. “We can understand, in real time, those individuals that engage with your campaign, look at their social attributes, and then create personas and segments from that data. If a person likes your Facebook post and is a client, we can adjust the segments to ensure they get the right communication next, rather than keeping them in the same flow as those that don’t engage.” Verve.ai has bold plans for the future as it continues to build its cognitive, machine learning-based platform.
“The ultimate vision is that we won’t need a user interface,” Asterbadi said. “We’ll be able to inject the right content at the appropriate time based on the data, and make all the right decisions for the brand based on its business objectives.” Verve.ai is available from today.
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 DeanBeat: Westworld finds the frontier between the real and the virtual, between humans and A.I. | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/the-deanbeat-westworld-finds-the-frontier-between-the-real-and-the-virtual-between-humans-and-a-i"
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"Game Development View All Programming OS and Hosting Platforms Metaverse View All Virtual Environments and Technologies VR Headsets and Gadgets Virtual Reality Games Gaming Hardware View All Chipsets & Processing Units Headsets & Controllers Gaming PCs and Displays Consoles Gaming Business View All Game Publishing Game Monetization Mergers and Acquisitions Games Releases and Special Events Gaming Workplace Latest Games & Reviews View All PC/Console Games Mobile Games Gaming Events Game Culture The DeanBeat: Westworld finds the frontier between the real and the virtual, between humans and A.I.
Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn What Guests don't see behind the scenes at Westworld.
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HBO’s Westworld debuts on Sunday as a major TV show that delves into enduring sci-fi and morality themes about whether we should create human-like artificial intelligent beings, how we should treat them, and what’s the difference between humans and machines. I talked in a group with the creators of the show, and during that conversation, video games, virtual reality, and real-world technology came up over and over.
It’s a show that is relevant to Silicon Valley, techies, sci-fi fans, and gamers. That may not be obvious, as it’s a Western, but it speaks to the frontiers of technology and how we behave when we play. The show is a remake of Michael Crichton’s sci-fi film of 1973, where rich guests can take a vacation in the almost-real theme park of Westworld , which is full of androids who are instructed not to harm the human guests. The human guests can do anything they want, with no consequences, according to the corporation that runs the technological paradise.
The show runs with Crichton’s original idea of the theme park inmates turning on their masters. Filmmaker JJ Abrams broached the idea of a remake 20 years ago, and HBO finally made it happen with executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. I joined watched the first three episodes and attended a press briefing yesterday with the Nolans and three of the show’s actors and actresses. The conversation will be fascinating to techies, gamers, and anyone who ponders the questions about who we really are deep inside, once we shake off all the rules and enter a world like Westworld , where you face no consequences and you can do everything that you’ve ever fantasized about.
Above: Evan Rachel Wood as Dolores and Ed Harris as the Gunslinger in Westworld.
“It was a chance to tell a frontier story on two levels,” said Joy. “On the one level, it’s on the frontier of science — all the more so now, when what was once pure science fiction is much closer to science without fiction, in terms of the development of AI. There’s also the Western landscape. The ability to approach that from a new angle was a playground we couldn’t resist.” 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 Nolans did research into real deep learning A.I. projects such as Deep Mind , Google’s A.I. that beat the top human Go player, as well as IBM’s Watson supercomputer , which beat the world’s best human Jeopardy player.
“That’s a landmark moment,” Nolan said. “There’s a lot of money behind machine intelligence in this town.” Of course, some companies didn’t want to be publicly associated with the conversations, because Hollywood’s tendency to associate A.I. with the apocalypse (The Terminator) or other downsides of A.I., where the robots go bad. Nolan read about consciousness, which has been the domain of philosophers as much as scientists. Nolan noted that both Larry Page of Google and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook are “on a tear to be the father of A.I.” “For a long time, people have been talking about ideas like this, but without the technical wherewithal to re-create it or manifest it,” Joy Nolan said. “Now science is catching up with the imagination and exceeding it. It’s an iterative relationship.” Above: Cleaning up the park in Westworld.
I asked if Westworld was a physical place or a virtual place. If it was the latter, I could think of it as the Star Trek Holodeck, or a video game where I would suffer no consequences in the real world for my virtual actions. I could play in that space and not worry about who I shot. If it’s a physical place, I would be more worried about how I treated the other human A.I.
Joy responded, “It’s funny, because again, is morality a circumstantial thing or a personal thing? In that way, morality is something that’s based on rendering. How detailed is the image? Because you’re doing the same things. It’s just to one thing that’s more detailed and more lifelike than another. Your behavior is the same in both cases. If it’s one way in a video game, and then you have the game as a virtual reality, and then you have the virtual reality manifest in automatons playing out the exact same scene, does it suddenly become immoral because they become too lifelike?” Nolan added, “Part of the reason why there isn’t great outcry — there are some conversations about it. I’m conflicted about it myself. But there isn’t a great outcry about the morality of people playing video games because the simulations aren’t very good. They’re great compared to what we had when we were kids, but they’re still distinctly un-real.” And he said, “You imagine that this story is taking place in a world where, if you have the means to do so — VR is what everyone else does. That’s basic. This is reality. That’s what they’re selling. Forget VR and come here because it’s real. That introduces a problem. Morality isn’t a problem in video games because the simulation — a character says this in the pilot. The simulation is poor enough that you don’t conflate the experience. In film and television, we struggle to make violence as real as possible. We look at visual effects shots and blood splatter and say, ‘Oh, it doesn’t quite look real, do it again.'” Above: Thandie Newton and Angela Sarafyan in Westworld.
He added, “We’re looking for verisimilitude, but that two-dimensional screen is a distancing device. As our simulations get more granular, more perfect, we will be confronted with this problem. Now it feels too real. The morality of what you do in that world becomes a lot more confusing when two things happen: when the simulation is indistinguishable from reality and when the intelligence of the non-player characters you interact with eclipses a certain level. Then it’s much more problematic. Driving around in Grand Theft Auto and running over a bunch of pedestrians is happening right now.” He also said, “In the era of Pong, he anticipated Grand Theft Auto. My wife, who’s the only person I’ve ever seen Grand Theft Auto and actually obey the traffic signals — Ford comments on this in episode four. He and his partner Arnold build the park with an eye toward open space. They built 100 happy storylines. And everyone went with the more sadistic or at least the more self-aggrandizing experiences. Exercising power, as he says.” Actress Thandie Newton, who plays Maeve Millay in the show, said, “Part of what’s so important are boundaries, incredibly important. We’re all talking about boundaries, about divisions in nations and all sorts of things. That’s what’s crucial to Westworld , that what happens in Westworld stays in Westworld.
You literally go through a door, get on a train, and transition into a place. What’s going to be fascinating is when those boundaries become messy, which you see — these breakthroughs of dreams.” We can draw a parallel between Westworld and virtual worlds or social networks, where we see an insidious, paranoid distrust of the system and the hidden biases that keep people from understanding the bubble that they’re living within.
Above: The evil androids in Westworld.
“The miscalculation (of social networks) was more that these tools would usher in an age of information, rather than an age of misinformation,” said actor Jeffrey Wright, who plays technologist Bernard Lowe in Westworld.
“That’s the thing that, for me, was most surprising. We’ve just added to the chaos as opposed to any clarity.” When I asked point-blank if they intended a message in this for Silicon Valley, Nolan and Joy backed off a little and said it was a fantasy. It was meant to make people think but it wasn’t preaching to the world’s technologists. But Nolan added that we have to be careful about what we create.
“I think we’re asking, hopefully, interesting questions about human behavior, about our appetites, and about the moment that seems imminent and urgent, in which our creations begin to ask question of us,” Nolan said. “They begin to regard us. For us, that was the key jumping-off point for the series. It’s not about us talking about AI. It’s about AI talking about us.” As the conversation developed, others in the room had stronger opinions. Newton said she came to regard the robots in the show as “innocents,” while the tourists were exploiting them.
“To lie to them, to make them feel that they’re human when they’re not. That’s the biggest betrayal,” she said.
At the close, I asked Nolan if we were unlikely to have a Westworld video game where you could shoot everybody.
“If that were to happen,” he replied. “It would be deeply ironic.” 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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"NES Classic Edition has filters to re-create the crappy '80s TV experience | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/nes-classic-edition-has-filters-to-re-create-the-crappy-80s-tv-experience"
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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 NES Classic Edition has filters to re-create the crappy ’80s TV experience Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn NES: Classic Edition is a tiny gaming bundle.
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It’s going to be a nostalgic Christmas.
Nintendo announced new features for the Nintendo Entertainment System Classic Edition , which launches November 11 for $60. The NES Classic is a mini-version of the original console, which dominated the gaming landscape from its launch in 1985 to the end of the ’80s. While it doesn’t play cartridges, it has 30 games on its drive and connects to modern TVs via HDMI. It also has multiple filters, which enables you to play in sharp quality or re-create the experience of playing on a crappy, ’80s TV.
“To make sure every Goomba stomp looks as authentic as possible, all games can be played in three display modes,” Nintendo noted in a press release sent to GamesBeat. “With the CRT filter, a scan-line effect is added to the screen to give everything that oh-so-retro look and feel. 4-to-3 is a sharp, clean look that adheres to the original aspect ratio used by the NES. And when playing in Pixel Perfect mode, every pixel is shown as a perfect square, providing the most accurate representation of the games as they were originally designed.” “Originally designed” might be a stretch. Developers might have had the limitations of ’80s TVs in mind when they were designing their games. Still, the Pixel Perfect mode will definitely provide a clearer image than we could ever have had on our old, CRT TVs.
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 NES Classic also comes with a replica of the original’s controller that you can use with the new device or NES digital titles on the Wii and Wii U. The mini system also includes digital versions of the original instructional manuals for all of its games. And, if you find passwords inconvenient, you can create digital save states at any time during your game.
The November 11 launch date makes it available just in time for the holiday season, the most lucrative time of the year for the gaming industry thanks to all the gift-giving. A lot of adults with fond memories of the original NES might be asking Santa for the Classic Edition.
The original NES was a huge hit thanks to landmark games like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid. Those and 27 other hits come with the Classic Edition.
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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"HTC launches Viveport, its VR app store | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/games/htc-launches-viveport-its-vr-app-store"
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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 HTC launches Viveport, its VR app store Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn HTC Vive 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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HTC is launching the Viveport app store on a global basis for virtual reality fans.
HTC is the maker of the HTC Vive, the $800 VR headset that enables “room-scale” experiences. The Viveport store, which previously was open only in China, is a way to highlight some of the best experiences available on the Vive, and it will coexist alongside similar stores, such as those run by Oculus, Valve, and Samsung.
Rikard Steiber, president of Viveport, said in an interview with GamesBeat that the Viveport store will be open, meaning it will accept titles from other stores and platforms. And it will not force developers to place their apps exclusively in the Viveport store, Steiber said.
“Viveport is the place where people can start their journey to virtual reality experiences,” Steiber said. “We launched in China earlier this year. We are happy to roll this out globally with some of the best creators in the industry. Our vision is to establish Viveport as the platform for virtual reality.” 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! Some of the premier titles in the Viveport store include an updated Everest VR, a new edition of theBlu, Google Spotlight Stories’ Pearl, The Music Room, Stonehenge VR, Lifeliqe, and more. All told there are 60 titles in the store, including a dozen that have been available only in Asia. All told, Steiber estimates that there are 500 or 600 VR titles available across the industry. About 90 percent of those are games.
Viveport will highlight games, but it will also have categories in art, creativity, education, museum, 360 videos, and other categories that can help convey the broad variety of immersive content that people can experience in VR, Steiber said.
To promote the store, HTC is holding a 48-hour sale during which several hit titles will be available for $1. The discounted titles include theBlu, Mars Odyssey, and Firebird: La Peri.
“We want to make it very frictionless to come to Viveport,” Steiber said. “You can get quality titles. It’s hand curated.” Above: TheBlu HTC wants to encourage consumers to explore, create, connect, and experience new VR titles. Viveport showcases VR experiences across art, creativity tools, design, education, fashion, music, sports, travel, video, and more. Viveport’s mission is to democratize access to the world’s most diverse selection of immersive experiences by empowering all content creators to reach and engage the fast-growing global VR audience.
Viveport Premieres consist of content launching first on Viveport.
“Vive is a leader in VR and we’re excited about the Viveport release, as we bring a new version of theBlu to VR fans everywhere”, said Neville Spiteri, CEO of Wevr and maker of theBlu. “We can’t wait to see new and existing customers try out theBlu, Gnomes and Goblins, and some exciting upcoming titles on Viveport.” The Viveport store also includes the Viveport Community , where you can join and connect with other VR fans, influencers, and enthusiasts. The store also includes Vive Home, where you can customize your personal space with the debut collection of objects, experience streaming media with the new web browser widget, and more.
The store has no Oculus VR titles yet, but Steiber said to stay tuned for news on that in the future. The Vive will get more competition in October with the launch of the PlayStation VR headset from Sony, which debuts on October 13 on the PlayStation 4.
“I wish them the best of luck,” Steiber said. “It is important that VR be successful on game consoles and mobile. We’ll have more consumers coming on to experience VR. That’s good for the ecosystem.” Steiber’s team is based in San Francisco, where it’s easier to find the intersection of technology and content, he said.
HTC also released a cryptic statement in its press release below: “And one more thing,” said Steiber (note the clues in a puzzle in the highlighted words). “Any day now, we will relay a secret message that will reopen a path to unlimited Viveport content for worthy contenders. We hope you will follow us on social media, install the VIVE software, visit Viveport.com, and explore Vive Home over the next month, as we unveil more clues and keys to unlock the treasures.” 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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"Takeaway.com IPO today offers cheer in gloomy year for European exits | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/entrepreneur/takeaway-com-ipo-today-offers-cheer-in-gloomy-year-for-european-exits"
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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 Takeaway.com IPO today offers cheer in gloomy year for European exits Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Takeaway.com 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.
On the tail end of the third quarter, Amsterdam-based Takeaway.com launched its IPO today, delivering some good news to a European market that has had a rough year for exits.
The company announced that it had priced its shares for an IPO that would give it a $1.1 billion valuation. From the initial price of €23, shares were up in mid-day trading to €24.79.
“I am proud that we took Takeaway.com public today,” said CEO Jitse Groen in a statement.
“This IPO enables the company to continue the rapid growth of the past 16 years. It is also a compliment to our people who have worked so hard to develop our business from scratch to where we are now.” According to Crunchbase , the company had raised $117 million in venture capital. The public offering allowed Takeaway to raise $367 million as it seeks to fend off competition in the crowded meal delivery market. Competitors include Deliveroo, Delivery Hero, Foodora, and even UberEats.
While we’re still waiting for the tallies of IPO activity for the third quarter, the first half of 2016 saw the numbers across Europe tumble dramatically. During the first six months, there were 145 IPOs, compared to 205 for the same period a year earlier, according to PwC data. The total value of those IPOs fell by half.
Overall, a report by Tech.eu in July indicated the volume of European tech exits had fallen by about half during the first six months of the year.
Takeaway on its own isn’t likely to change this dynamic. But its IPO is at least a sign that the right companies can exit if the circumstances are favorable.
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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"BlackLine files to raise $100 million in IPO | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/entrepreneur/blackline-files-to-raise-100-million-in-ipo"
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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 BlackLine files to raise $100 million in IPO 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) – Accounting software maker BlackLine filed for an initial public offering with U.S. securities regulators on Friday, looking to ride on the recent success of technology offerings in a relatively quiet year for IPOs.
Los Angeles-based BlackLine, founded in 2001 by Chief Executive Therese Tucker, counts Coca-Cola, Under Armour and Dow Chemical Co among its 1,500 customers.
Reuters reported last week that the company was preparing for an IPO that could value it at more than $1 billion.
Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Raymond James, William Blair and Baird are among the underwriters for the IPO, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Demand for tech offerings has been robust, and on Friday shares of Nutanix, an enterprise data storage provider, more than doubled in their market debut.
Nutanix sold 14.87 million shares, more than the expected 14 million, and priced them above the anticipated range of $13 and $15.
BlackLine said it plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq under the symbol “BL”.
The IPO would raise up to $100 million, according to the filing.
The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filing is usually a placeholder.
(Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila) 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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"Yahoo open-sources a deep learning model for classifying pornographic images | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/yahoo-open-sources-a-deep-learning-model-for-classifying-pornographic-images"
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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 Yahoo open-sources a deep learning model for classifying pornographic images Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Signage hanging along the courtyard at Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.
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.
Yahoo today announced its latest open-source release: a model that can figure out if images are specifically pornographic in nature.
The system uses a type of artificial intelligence called deep learning, which involves training artificial neural networks on lots of data (like dirty images) and getting them to make inferences about new data. The model that’s now available on GitHub under a BSD 2-Clause license comes pre-trained, so users only have to fine-tune it if they so choose. The model works with the widely used Caffe open source deep learning framework.
The team trained the model using its now open source CaffeOnSpark system.
The new model could be interesting to look at for developers maintaining applications like Instagram and Pinterest that are keen to minimize smut. Search engine operators like Google and Microsoft might also want to check out what’s under the hood here.
“To the best of our knowledge, there is no open source model or algorithm for identifying NSFW images,” Yahoo research engineer Jay Mahadeokar and senior director of product management Gerry Pesavento wrote in a blog post.
Baidu, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter have also open-sourced different deep learning systems in the past.
But this software shouldn’t be considered perfect.
“We do not provide guarantees of accuracy of output, rather we make this available for developers to explore and enhance as an open source project,” the authors of the open_nsfw project write in a disclaimer.
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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"Why the C-suite should focus on optimization and creating a culture of experimentation | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/why-the-c-suite-should-focus-on-optimization-and-creating-a-culture-of-experimentation"
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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 Why the C-suite should focus on optimization and creating a culture of experimentation Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn This sponsored post is produced in partnership with Optimizely.
Picture a world without the scientific method. There would be no clinical trials, medical journals, or SpaceX rocket test flights. Without the ability to run experiments, the pace of innovation would slow, new discoveries would be inconsistent, lacking clear data to support them.
Experimentation is the process that has guided how all of human knowledge has been discovered and documented, reinforced, and shared. Why wouldn’t you apply the same method to growing your business, learning from your customers, and making decisions with confidence? When you experiment, you can unlock the creativity of your organization and put ideas from any employee to the test. Where can you experiment? Anywhere — from your website and mobile applications to the search algorithms, pricing, and user interfaces your customers interact with — and anyone, from marketing and product through to your development teams – can run those experiments.
Without executive support, however, the process of experimentation is limited in its potential. Experimentation across a business requires a clear vision, shared buy-in, and concrete steps for enabling the organization to run experiments, no matter what an individual employee’s business objective or technical ability.
Creating a company-wide culture of experimentation Executives, understandably, want to impart their years of experience and decision-making skills as part of their daily management of the company. But when your company defers all final decisions to its upper management, it diminishes the possibility of using experiment-driven methodology to drive decisions at all levels. Once data and empirical testing are downplayed when making decisions, the vitality of the enterprise becomes atrophied — the C-suite begins to doubt the results of data-driven research in favor of “tried-and-true” solutions that worked in the past. And as we know, a surprise success can rarely be repeated.
Failing to elevate experimentation to the C-level virtually ensures that the process will remain tactical rather than strategic. Without investment from both upper-level and mid-level employees, optimization by individual departments also localizes failure to lower-level employees, who will lose their nerve to experiment and lock into a cycle of fear-of-failure.
To create a culture of experimentation, your company needs to make it easy for anyone to contribute ideas, to focus on ideas and changes that can be tested empirically and tracked with data. This can take the form of a company-wide “new ideas” competition, or just a company culture that emphasizes cross-departmental idea sharing and collaboration. The idea is to make sure that everyone at all levels of the company has a stake in the results of these changes, with easy access to the tools needed to contribute ideas that can be tested and evaluated with data and evidence.
How to get your C-Level Execs (and everyone else) on board Change is difficult no matter who you are. It’s a hard sell when you’re asking executives to make changes that will alter the fundamental makeup of your company.
Executives who might be reticent to implement large-scale procedural and product changes can be brought on board with those old placating words we remember from the Emergency Broadcast System: “This Is Only An Experiment.” Optimizely CEO and Founder Dan Siroker’s early mentor gave him some of the best advice to bring the higher-ups into the fold: “The key phrase,” Siroker says,” was to say, ‘ Let’s just run an experiment.
’ In that context, the idea became an irresistible investigation into whether it would be worth their time and money — not a hard-and-fast decision of whether to make a permanent change.” Make it easy to contribute ideas A company-wide culture of experimentation is not the same thing as the installation of the world’s largest employee suggestion box. It needs to be implemented in a way that makes submission of ideas intuitive, but also favors ideas that can be tested with data or analysis.
Optimizely suggests creating a simple, lightweight form to capture ideas and turning the results into a contest. When creating the form, it’s very important to evaluate both the quality and testability of the ideas.
Collaboration amongst the C-suite will also produce different benefits for each member, and show different issues that can be improved. By opening up optimization to leaders with different goals in mind, existing problems can be solved with unexpected solutions.
CFOs can use company-wide optimization to unify the entire C-suite around a consistent (and proven) set of metrics and KPIs; bringing the head of sales into the conversation can apply rigorous experimentation to generate higher quantities of high-quality leads with higher conversion rates.
The recent launch of the new Optimizely X platform is an intuitive introduction to the notion of “experimentation everywhere.” With this platform, users can not only experiment on what customers see on a website, but also with what they experience, such as the order of search results, product and content recommendations, new mobile features, and pricing changes to improve customer interactions and grow revenue.
A new frontier for experimentation Companies that weave optimization and experimentation into their business culture at all levels will reap the benefits. Experimentation-driven decision-making delivers the best and most innovative results when combined with the innate knowledge and experience that C-level executives naturally bring to the table.
To learn more about the power of experimenting everywhere at your organization, tune into the keynote from Optimizely’s Opticom conference.
Sponsored posts 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].
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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"Why A.I. assistants need to stay neutral | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/why-a-i-assistants-need-to-stay-neutral"
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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 Why A.I. assistants need to stay neutral Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Assistants should not only present information that supports the bot.
With the release of Google Allo last week, we’ve officially entered the era of the assistant. Every company that owns a major tech platform is now betting that assistants will be an important interface in the post-mobile world.
You might think assistants today are trivial or stupid, and you wouldn’t be wrong. They often don’t understand what we say and can’t hold real conversations yet. Mostly they’re relegated to simple tasks like playing music, sending texts, or setting timers.
The people building the assistants of a not-too-distant tomorrow see it differently. The next generation, of which the Google assistant that ships with Allo is one, have a grander ambition: to replace search and mobile apps as we know them. They are designed to provide information and guidance to everyday questions, to hold longer conversations, and even make complex decisions on our behalf.
Looking only at how assistants work today ignores the nature of how A.I. works. It improves at an exponential scale. Look at self-driving cars: A technology that seemed impossible for many years is already shuttling passengers in Pittsburgh.
Assistants that influence our everyday decision-making may seem far off, but they will come upon us suddenly.
It’s critical that we start to think about how next-generation assistants decide what information they share with us now, before it’s decided for us. How will they determine which sources to consult when choosing recommended flights, hospitals, medical treatments, TV shows, or Chinese food delivery options? Who owns those data sources and decision processes? When I ask my assistant a question or give it a task, I want to know it’s going to give me the best answer it possibly can, no matter where it comes from. I don’t want it to be biased towards some other corporate goal. If we wait until assistants are performing daily tasks and functions for the mass consumer, it will be too late. Our information sources will have been pre-determined, without our consent.
As of today, the situation doesn’t look good. The assistants offered by major companies today come with significant bias because they exist primarily to promote another business interest. For example, when you ask the Google Assistant questions, it always leads you to one of Google’s properties for answers. If Google thinks one of their products, like Google Places or Knowledge Graph, can provide an answer, you get that. Otherwise, you get a single blue link from web search (the ultimate “I’m feeling lucky!”). There are no third parties directly informing Google’s assistant.
Yelp and other important sources of reviews and information have complained for years of Google crowding out web results in favor of their own products on web search. The assistant exacerbates this problem, eliminating other voices altogether. It makes sense if you are building an assistant to drive traffic to your own products, but it’s terrible for consumers, who want (and deserve!) the best answer, and developers, who need (and deserve!) non-competitive distribution partners.
What about the independents? Independent assistants aren’t focused on driving another business through their advice and recommendations; they are focused leveraging technology to provide the best possible results and guidance to the consumer. They live or die based on this promise. But being a true multi-domain knowledge-based assistant is a highly specialized and expensive task. Few teams are poised to pull it off — and many of them are being gobbled up. Just last week, Api.ai , one of the granddaddies in the assistant space, was bought (by Google).
A neutral assistant has the potential to be an incredibly valuable business for consumers and publishers/developers alike. Far more valuable than the limited source versions we see today. It’s perhaps inevitable, with developers desperately seeking an efficient discovery platform, that an independent assistant interface will become the search engine of the future. Access to unbiased, quality content may well depend on it.
The era of intelligent assistants is upon us. As the A.I. rapidly improves, assistants will increasingly replace search and apps as the starting point for any decisions or tasks we want to perform. That’s why we need to start talking about assistant neutrality now.
Humans make the best decisions when they can take into account many different points to view. We need our assistants to do the same.
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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"These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/these-were-the-10-biggest-european-tech-stories-this-week-30-sep-2016"
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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 These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week 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.
This week, Tech.eu tracked 12 technology M&A transactions, one IPO, and 86 funding deals, totaling €199 million (about $224 million), in Europe, Turkey, and Israel.
Here’s an overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for this week: 1) Dutch food delivery company Takeaway.com went public on Euronext Amsterdam today.
Its shares were priced at €23 in its IPO, giving it a market cap of around €1 billion upon opening.
2) Spotify had quite a lot of news to announce this week, like its introduction of Daily Mix , its launch in Japan , and a new board member ( Netflix’s content boss ). But the biggest news came from the FT, which reported that Spotify is close to buying Berlin’s SoundCloud.
3) Qualcomm is reportedly in talks to acquire The Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors , a deal that likely would cost more than $30 billion and accelerate a consolidation rush in the semiconductor industry.
4) German enterprise software giant SAP has earmarked $2.2 billion for the expansion of its Internet of Things portfolio.
As part of that overall effort, SAP also says it is acquiring Italian IoT firm Plat.One and Norwegian analytics software maker Fedem Technology.
5) Salesforce urges EU to probe Microsoft, LinkedIn for antitrust issues.
6) This week saw the creation of Europe’s first Automotive-Telecom Alliance. The Alliance includes six leading sectorial associations, as well as 37 companies, including telecom operators, vendors, automobile manufacturers, and suppliers for both cars and trucks. Its main goal is to promote the wider deployment of connected and automated driving in Europe.
7) Apple’s new UK HQ will be in London’s iconic Battersea Power Station.
8) Renault’s carmaking alliance with Nissan is partnering with Microsoft to develop cloud-based services for cars, a step toward the group’s plans to build self-driving automobiles by 2020.
9) German fintech pioneer Smava has raised a $34 million round.
10) France’s Lydia raised €7 million for its peer-to-peer payment service.
Bonus link: Map shows VCs invested €23.8 billion in European startups since 2014.
This post originally appeared on Tech.eu.
You can subscribe to Tech.eu’s newsletter here.
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"Pantomime launches Creatures AR app with shared augmented reality | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/pantomime-launches-creatures-ar-app-with-shared-augmented-reality"
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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 Pantomime launches Creatures AR app with shared augmented reality Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Pantomime lets you interact with virtual objects through screens.
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Pantomime , a maker of augmented reality technology, has unveiled its new Creatures AR app with shared augmented reality.
Sebastopol, Calif.-based Pantomime has come up with a way of viewing virtual reality imagery without wearing goggles. The new technology is part of the promise of virtual reality and augmented reality, which are expected to become a $120 billion market by 2020, according to tech advisor Digi-Capital.
The new app is available on iOS. It enables realistic first-person 3D interaction and real-time multiplayer over Wi-Fi. The company argues that its version of AR is a significant advance over the popular Pokémon Go mobile game introduced this July, which simply shows individual animated characters superimposed over live video as a targets for Poké Balls.
“Pokémon Go launched a new era where Augmented Reality isn’t about costly headsets or vision processing,” said Pantomime cofounder and CEO David Levitt, in a statement. “Now Pantomime Creatures AR lets anyone interact in 3D, turning our phones and tablets into paddles and scoops to use in augmented worlds. Since no new hardware is needed, these consumer experiences will continue to be the largest and fastest-growing augmented reality markets.” 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! Pantomime’s software detects the way you are holding a tablet and figures out which point of view you should see through the tablet’s screen. If you turn the tablet in a new direction, you’ll see a different view. The tech makes use of motion-sensing hardware on the devices. You can cradle, grip, or swing the device in your hand, and you’ll see your own motion have an effect in the virtual world.
Pantomime Creatures AR provides real-time 3D, with first-person graphics and navigation that puts users in vivid 3D worlds. It has realistic physics, where users interact with multiple 3D creatures simultaneously as they toss them food, scoop up and pour creatures and objects from virtual cups, and knock them into a creature collection basket with virtual snowballs.
Above: Pantomime’s software lets you interact with a virtual world.
The Creatures AR app also has synchronous multiplayer, where users on the same Wi-Fi network can play together, seeing each other’s 3D movements in a shared world in real time.
Creatures AR lets you use a tablet or phone to view a 3D-animated world and the virtual objects in it. An object that you hold in your hand in front of a camera can show up in the virtual world, too. Your animated hands can also show up in the virtual world, as viewed through a screen. Devices can contact and collide with virtual objects, while their screens become mobile views into the virtual scene. Users can tip, turn, tumble, walk, paddle and swing their devices through the scene, stroke the screen to move and turn, and tap the screen to throw objects, in a portable experience that requires no external sensors or advance setup.
Creatures AR lets users attach a virtual Cup to their device to carry creatures and food. Users can fill a cup with food, scoot under flying creatures to catch them, scoop things up from the virtual play rink, and pour out the contents by tipping their device over as they view the scene through it. Thus real devices, interactive objects, and animated characters are seamlessly combined in physically realistic 3D worlds. I’ve seen some of these in a past demo.
Last year, Pantomime launched a new twist on the virtual world with an app it has dubbed Pantomime Playground. The first game to debut on top of Pantomime Playground was Pantomime Bug Farm , which lets you use your iPad to maneuver around a table with bugs on it. You can use the iPad to view the bugs from different angles and can even squish them with it.
“We call it virtual worlds for the rest of us,” said Levitt, in an interview with GamesBeat last year. “You can reach into a virtual world using the tablets, screens, and computers we already have.” Levitt studied artificial intelligence at MIT under A.I. innovator Marvin Minsky. In addition to his work with Minsky, Levitt also spent time at VPL Research, one of the first VR companies, which Jaron Lanier founded in 1984. That first go-round for virtual reality failed, but Levitt reawakened to the possibilities after Oculus VR started grabbing the limelight with a revival of the medium. He started his company before Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion.
In most virtual-reality and augmented-reality systems, you must wear goggles with a stereoscopic display over your eyes, so you can immerse yourself in a virtual world. But Pantomime’s technology turns this inside out. Ordinary tablets, smartphones, and computers become the portal into a VR space, as if their screens are made of glass. Your device is a part of the virtual scene, and you can use it as a paddle, swinging it back and forth. You can use a Mac screen with your iPad to view your tablet’s position in the virtual world, so long as both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network.
Levitt formed his new Sebastopol, California-based company in 2014 with Don Hopkins, who formerly worked on The Sims. Eric Hedman, another game creator who worked on The Sims expansion packs, subsequently joined them. Advisors include Arthur van Hoff of cinematic-virtual-reality leader Jaunt and video game visionary Nolan Bushnell. Pantomime has filed for patents — and has been awarded one — on its technology, and it is working with game and entertainment companies to build apps on top of it.
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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"Nutanix closes at $37 after first day of trading, up 131% from IPO price | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/nutanix-stock-closes-first-day"
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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 Nutanix closes at $37 after first day of trading, up 131% from IPO price Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Nutanix celebrates its premier on the NASDAQ on September 30, 2016.
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Converged data center hardware company Nutanix today had its first day of trading on the stock market, and its stock closed at $37 per share, up 131 percent from the $16 share price at which it sold more than 14 million shares in its initial public offering (IPO).
Nutanix stock started trading this morning at $26.50 on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. The closing price of $37 was 39.6 percent higher than that.
Generally speaking, during its first day of trading, the stock went up. The high for the day was $39.40.
Above: Nutanix stock on September 30.
Nutanix ended the day with a market cap of approximately $5 billion.
Based in San Jose, California, Nutanix started in 2009. As the company has challenged incumbents that sell individually packaged servers and storage gear, Nutanix has also found itself competing with virtualization company VMware and its vSAN offering.
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"Intel hits the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week to show designer sunglasses | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/intel-hits-the-catwalk-at-paris-fashion-week-to-show-designer-sunglasses"
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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 Intel hits the catwalk at Paris Fashion Week to show designer sunglasses Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Intel teams with Hussein Chalayan to make wearable sunglasses at Paris Fashion Week.
The marriage of fashion and technology is advancing, as Intel announced today a collaboration with fashion designer Hussein Chalayan at his runway show during Paris Fashion Week.
Chalayan’s models showed off brand new glasses and belts powered by Intel technology, as part of a special demonstration. The demo was one of Intel’s many fashion collaborations to make technology cool under its “ amazing experiences outside ” brand campaign.
Intel said Chalayan’s Room Tone devices work together to bring a new level of awareness and proactive stress management to everyday life through the use of sensors, projected visualizations, and new approaches to wearable technology for fashion. What’s more, the concept elevates the utility of clothing and accessories with intelligent capabilities.
As technology and fashion continue to converge, Intel looks forward to empowering and inspiring designers and brands who share the vision of incorporating technology into their collections and shows, the company said. Collaborations between tech and fashion companies are increasingly common, as seen with the partnership Voke talked about at New York Fashion Week.
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 have been working with wearable technology for many years,” said designer Chalayan, in a statement. “Throughout this time, it has been very important for me to work on ideas which will be as close as possible to a real product, while also challenging myself at the same time. Intel’s years of experience, out-of-the-box mentality, commitment to innovation, and level of perfection has made this project one of the most valuable and exciting collaborations for me in recent years.” The collection included stress-sensing connected glasses powered by the Intel Curie module, a tiny, low-power hardware product with the ability to collect biometric data from the wearer. It senses brainwave, heart rate, and breathing data to infer stress in real time.
Intel Curie features an onboard Bluetooth LE connection that communicates the wearers’ biometric data to another device (such as a smartphone). In this demonstration, the biometric data is communicated to a belt.
The glasses are also equipped with capacitive electroencephalogram (EEG) electrodes to measure asymmetrical brainwave activity, an optical heart rate sensor to measure heart rate variability, and a microphone to measure breathing rate.
Intel also showed connected belts, powered by the Intel Compute Stick, a small computing device that’s about the size of a pack of gum. The belts capture the biometric data from the glasses and translate the information into visualizations that interpret the wearer’s stress level. Housed within the belts is a small Pico projector that displays the visualizations onto a wall in real time, as the models move down the runway. The projected imagery serves as a visual cue to the wearer who, by initiating stress-reduction techniques, sees the imagery change in correspondence with her physical response.
Intel and Chalayan showed five studies using unique, never-before-seen glasses and belts to illustrate the potential of future integrations of fashion and technology. The theme of the “Room Tone” show and collection centers on “the Here and Now of London life,” consisting of a series of five studies which are simultaneous reactions and proposals on how certain attitudes or realities in London life can be experienced or optimized.
Following Paris Fashion Week, the five studies will be on display at the Design Museum’s “Fear and Love: Reactions to a Complex World” exhibition in London, starting in November.
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"Google shows off Tilt Brush VR painting prototypes: multiplayer mode, custom avatars, camera feed | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/google-shows-off-tilt-brush-vr-painting-prototypes-multiplayer-mode-custom-avatars-camera-feed"
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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 shows off Tilt Brush VR painting prototypes: multiplayer mode, custom avatars, camera feed Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Multiplayer mode in Tilt Brush.
Google today is unveiling new prototypes it has developed for Tilt Brush, a 3D painting app that’s available for the HTC Vive virtual reality headset.
It’s a lot of fun to use the app on your own. But if a video preview is any indication, Tilt Brush will get really cool when you can use it with someone else.
“It’s amazing how collaborating in the same space makes the virtual feel real. We think you’ll love this one, so we’re exploring ways to develop this concept further,” Google Tilt Brush creative director Drew Skillman wrote in a blog post.
Skillman arrived at Google as a result of Google’s acquisition of Skillman & Hackett, the development studio behind Tilt Brush, last year.
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! Also, Google has developed a way for users to design their own avatars. So as you move, the avatar representing you moves in 3D space, too.
Above: Designing your own avatar in Tilt Brush.
Google figured out a novel way of giving users a peek at their surrounding world while using Tilt Brush — but not so much that the experience becomes full-blown augmented reality. It’s sort of like being stuck in a car with snow on the windshield and when you clear off some, you can see out. The trick relies on the Vive’s front-facing camera.
Above: The Portal Brush prototype for Tilt Brush.
“Although it only refreshes at 30fps, it’s a playful way to stay connected to the real world,” Skillman wrote.
It’s important to point out that these are just prototypes, so there’s no guarantee that they’ll become available to everyone. But then again, Google did end up shipping the fascinating audio-reactive brushes for everyone after first testing it out internally.
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"Google Maps for Android starts showing Calendar events | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/google-maps-for-android-starts-showing-calendar-events"
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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 Maps for Android starts showing Calendar events Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Google Calendar on Android.
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Google today unveiled a no-brainer update to Google Maps: integration with Google Calendar. Rolling out gradually worldwide (so don’t be surprised if you don’t see it on Google Play just yet), the new feature means Android users will start to see their Google Calendar events on Google Maps.
For an event to appear on Google Maps, the address needs to be in the “Where” box in the Google Calendar event. The other requirement is that you need to be signed into both Google Calendar and Google Maps with the same account.
In addition to points on the map, you will also be able to see a list of your upcoming events. Open the sidebar menu in Google Maps, tap Your Places, and then Upcoming. You can also hide events from the map by tapping on them and hitting Dismiss.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Last but not least, Google Maps has a new personal content manager under the Settings tab in the side menu. Use it to toggle off what you don’t want to see on your map.
Update : A spokesperson got in touch to clarify that Google today also highlighted existing integrations in Google Maps: Gmail and Google contacts. Confirmation emails for hotel, flight, or restaurant reservations already currently show up on Google Maps — these bookings are also treated as “events” and thus show up in the Upcoming tab in Your Places. Google contacts appear on Google Maps as well, but don’t worry — these aren’t real-time updates. If you have trouble remembering exactly where all your family members, friends, and coworkers live, just type their name in the Google Maps search box, and their address will show up (as long it’s attached to their contact info).
Calendar events are probably the most welcome of all of the above, so it’s great to see this integration finally start rolling out.
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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"AWS officially launches P2 GPU-backed instances | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/aws-officially-launches-p2-gpu-backed-instances"
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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 officially launches P2 GPU-backed instances Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Matt Wood, general manager of product strategy for Amazon Web Services (AWS), takes the stage at the AWS Santa Clara Summit in July 2016.
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Public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) today officially announced the availability of new P2 virtual machine instances that feature graphics processing units (GPUs).
VentureBeat reported earlier this month that AWS was testing the instances ahead of an impending launch. Now that’s happened.
“These instances were designed to chew through tough, large-scale machine learning, deep learning, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), seismic analysis, molecular modeling, genomics, and computational finance workloads,” AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr wrote in a blog post.
Deep learning, a trendy type of artificial intelligence, often involves using GPU-backed servers to train neural nets on lots of data so they can make inferences about new data, and now AWS is providing more powerful infrastructure for that computing.
The infrastructure helps bring AWS closer to competitors like Microsoft Azure and IBM SoftLayer when it comes to offering powerful GPU resources in the cloud, so people don’t need to worry about maintaining them on premises. (Microsoft’s Azure N-Series GPU instances are currently in preview.) 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 instances use up to eight Nvidia Tesla K80 GPUs, each of which contains two Nvidia GK210 GPUs. “Each GPU provides 12GB of memory (accessible via 240 GB/second of memory bandwidth), and 2,496 parallel processing cores,” Barr wrote.
There are three sizes for the P2: p2.large (1 GPU, 4 vCPUs, 61 GiB of RAM), p2.8xlarge (8 GPUs, 32 vCPUs, 488 GiB of RAM), and 488 GiB (16 GPUs, 64 vCPUs, and 732 GiB of RAM). The instances are available now in AWS’ US East (Northern Virginia), US West (Oregon), and Europe (Ireland) data center regions. (Azure’s N-Series instances are with available with no more than four GPUs.) Also today, AWS announced the introduction of a deep learning Amazon machine image (AMI) that can be installed onto VM instances on AWS. The AMI comes with the Caffe, MXNet, TensorFlow, Theano, and Torch open-source deep learning frameworks installed, so customers don’t need to worry about getting them running.
Update on September 30: Added information about Microsoft’s Azure GPU instances.
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"Avast completes AVG acquisition, will operate as single company from October 3 | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/avast-completes-avg-acquisition-will-operate-as-single-company-from-october-3"
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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 Avast completes AVG acquisition, will operate as single company from October 3 Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Avast CEO Vince Steckler signing AVG contract 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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Almost three months after announcing its plans to acquire software security rival AVG for $1.3 billion, Avast has finally revealed that the deal is complete and the duo will operate as a single entity from this coming Monday, October 3.
Avast CEO Vince Steckler will now run the combined company and will oversee “more than $700 million” in revenue for 2016, according to a company statement.
“The combined company now has over 400 million users, more than 40 percent of the world’s consumer PCs outside of China, and the largest consumer security installed base in the world,” said Steckler. “If they were a country, we would have the third largest population in the world. The U.S. is now our number one market, with 58 million users. We truly have global reach and are proud to be the most popular choice for security in the world.” Both companies’ origins can be traced back to the old Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s / early 1990s, and they each emerged as major players in the mobile and desktop antivirus security software market. When Avast announced its plans to acquire AVG back in July, it said it was to “gain scale, technological depth, and geographical breadth.” VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Though the transaction had already been given the go-ahead by the boards of both companies at the time, given that AVG is a publicly traded firm (on the New York Stock Exchange), it needed shareholder approval, which it now has. Indeed, Avast now holds around 87.3 percent of AVG’s outstanding shares, and it has opened another offering period to give the remaining AVG shareholders a chance to tender their shares — this will close on October 14.
The new combined entity will see AVG delisted from the NYSE to become a fully private firm, while AVG’s CEO, Gary Kovacs, will be leaving the company.
“We now have the technical breadth to provide superior protection for our customers,” continued Steckler. “For example, our combined threat labs will have teams dedicated to emerging threats affecting consumers. These include social engineering threats, which are commonly used to target IoT devices, and ransomware, which we are fighting with machine learning technology. We believe we are now better equipped than ever to outsmart those who want to do harm to people online.” 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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"3 simple steps to great chatbot dialogue | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/business/3-simple-steps-to-great-chatbot-dialogue"
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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 3 simple steps to great chatbot dialogue Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Chatbots are just a “hi” away. Not like a website that you have to navigate to, or an app that you have to locate and open. But chatbots today lack the ability to provide the visual feedback customers rely on for a sense of validation.
People like to see content plainly, and they can do this on websites and apps. At Yala we are tackling this problem. Here are three lessons we learned along the way: 1. Don’t be dense Example: Me: help.
Chatbot: I can help by answering simple questions about how Chatbot works. I’m just a bot, though! If you need more help, try our Help Center for loads of useful information about Chatbot — it’s easy to search! Or simply type */feedback* followed by your question or comment, and a human person will get back to you.
The above response could be improved by taking the approach below: Me: help.
Chatbot : Help is here, Gary! Chatbot is typing… Chatbot : Ask me a simple question.
Me : how to I blah blah blah? Chatbot : I wasn’t able to help, but our support team will get back to you! [BUTTON: Send to Support] | [BUTTON: Cancel] Chatbot is typing… Chatbot : In the meanwhile, check out my Help Center.
Conclusion: Constructing a concise chronological narrative helps reduce denseness. When content is in little chunks, it’s easier to process.
When your chatbot provides the right forms and buttons at the right time, it can outperform its visual interface counterpart.
Combining concepts or distinct sets of details in one response causes mental static, and should be avoided.
2. Have a vibe Using satire, exaggeration, even being poetic in the appropriate measure, is the window through which your brand can shine. Make charm and wit to peek through, but just a touch. Just enough to know when it’s not there. Unbridled witticisms may leave your customers feeling alienated by too much artificial cheekiness. But let’s check out how to do this right.
Break up your communication into parts based on their functions: actions, greetings, goodbyes, thankyous, updates, loading, processing, intros, descriptions, notifications, etc.
Pick one or two parts and — while keeping all other parts neutral, concise, and direct — make that part a little zesty or animated. At Yala we had fun adding 1950s charisma to greetings, while a dash of hyper-futuristic effervescence found its way to our loading and progress indicators.
Test your dialogue by playing it back to yourself lots and lots. Chat dialogue, if you don’t already know this, needs to be neutral enough to “wear” every day. Play the dialogue back to yourself in context again and again.
3. Speak, don’t print When we humans express thought with words, we pause, we intonate, we enunciate, we intensify, etc. Your chatbot, given its habits for speaking and chatting in a distinctly human and live communication channel, is expected to play by the rules. Your chatbot is being heard by your customer and not studied. Your chatbot is speaking.
It’s not good form to dump more than, say, 80 characters at once on your customer without a pause before the next phrase appears. Longer pauses are called for when changing concepts or to allow the digestion of a dense response, while short pauses are ideal when expanding on a single concept. For example: Chatbot: Hey there! I’m Yala and here’s how I work. You can call me up via Direct message by saying hi. Then you can compose a social media post. I can publish that post to as many of your Facebook and Twitter timelines as you like.
The above example flattens the chatbot and does not promote the speaking.
The below attempts to improve it.
Chabot: Huloo.
yala is typing… [short pause] Are we having fun yet? yala is typing… [there’s a slightly longer pause as I change concept from greeting to guidance.] I’m Yala yala is typing… [short pause] And I work like this… [short pause] yala is typing… You can call me up via Direct Message by saying hi.
yala is typing… [a slightly longer pause to allow the user to digest the above instruction.] Etc. etc.
Pauses are not lengthy. They’re just right.
Speech has rhythm, and your chatbot’s rhythm should groove.
By sticking to the above chatbot dialogue credo, you’ll be able to reach accessibility, branding, and a pleasant user experience. You’ll probably have fun, too.
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"Why simplicity ensures that bots will kill 99% of apps | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/why-simplicity-ensures-that-bots-will-kill-99-of-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 Guest Why simplicity ensures that bots will kill 99% of 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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The average person uses 3-5 apps per day. How many do you have on your phone? The big app purge is coming — you know, the day you delete all of those apps that you don’t use.
In a really big way, apps have failed us, and the reasons are quite obvious.
First, apps require learning. Each app has its own user interface, which inevitably becomes more and more complex with each new release, all but ensuring that new users will struggle.
Second, app discovery sucks. It’s the equivalent of Yahoo circa 1996. You basically have two options: know the name of the app, or hope that it is popular enough to be featured / ranks high enough on a few keywords so you can discover it. If you have a problem and you’re seeking a solution, chances are you won’t find it in the App Store.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Lastly, apps have too many friction points. You have to sign up, sign in, and remember the app for future use. This means that a lot of great technology that could be life changing goes unused, primarily due to cognitive load.
The user experience with bots is ultra fast and simple. In fact, it’s as simple as picking fruit from a tree, something humans have been doing for 100,000 years or more. No matter what fruit you’re picking, the user experience is similar, despite the reward being different.
The immediate value of a bot One of the main advantages of bots is that they offer instant access to value while eliminating friction. There is no sign-in or sign-up process, like an app or a website requires, and since the bot already has access to your social media profile, it can personalize information to you instantly.
Additionally, the bot UI is standard, so there will be no new interface to learn. First-time users can get immediate value and solve their problems quickly. Bots excel at one-time-use cases. If you need help fighting a parking ticket, ordering pizza, or finding out if Sephora has your favorite lipstick in stock, bots will effortlessly solve your problem.
Bots will dominate in these areas: Retail : Imagine being able to quickly find out that Sephora just got the Selena collection in stock, and then be able to put the signature red lipstick on hold. Bots will offer this level of personalized experience without the heaviness of an app.
Customer Service : Everyone hates calling 1–800 numbers, and soon bots will become a much loved alternative. Imagine never having to be on hold again! Local Services : Bots will be great at getting local services. Need to preorder lunch, book reservations at a hotel, or even hire a local plumber? Bots will automate this process.
Scalable Personalized Content : Bot can segment their audience and give different users different experiences. This is something you can now do with Chatfuel , and it’s showing signs of great success.
Social : Soon you and your friends will be able to summon a bot to group chat to have it order movie tickets, book a trip, or even order takeout.
One-Time-Use Cases : In areas where the epistemology is well known, a bot will be able to offer professional-grade services. For example, a dermatology bot will be able to monitor your skin ailments and prescribe medicine. Bots will be able to quickly scan your eye and tell you if you have diabetes (something Google has done successfully) or even fight a parking ticket for you.
Conversational : When multiple variable inputs are needed, bots excel. This means that bot apps can more effectively understand a particular need than an app can. Furthermore, conversations are very human, which means that a bot has a much higher chance of being memorable.
Due to high friction and low discoverability, 99 percent of apps and their technology will never see the light of day. This is a massive waste! Bots’ tail will have far more value than apps’ long tail. In terms of popularity, the tail will both be much longer and have a higher volume. Bots will be more comparable to websites or even phone calls than apps.
Above: Apps lose their appeal, chatbots do not.
The internet allowed us to democratize content and product creation. As a result, artists, bloggers, musicians, and product creators are no longer at the whims of large corporations. Solo acts have access to distribution channels like never before, and bots offer the next logical step.This means further democratization for product and content creation and an even bigger push towards personalization. In order for bots to fully capitalize on this opportunity, discovery will need to be improved.
Currently, Facebook does not even have a bot store; however, this is sure to change. One of Facebook’s main goals is to ensure that their bot store doesn’t fall victim to the same issues of the app stores. In terms of discovery, it needs to be more like a 2016 Google search than a 1996 Yahoo browse.
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 Assistant could be the killer bot, but it’s missing a key feature | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/google-assistant-could-be-the-killer-bot-but-its-missing-a-key-feature"
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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 Assistant could be the killer bot, but it’s missing a key feature Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Google Allo 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.
As Google Allo becomes available worldwide, just over a week into its existence, its Google Assistant is already being called a standout in the rapidly growing field of bots.
Pete Skomoroch, founder of early-stage startup Skipflag and formerly a principal data scientist at LinkedIn, called the search engine-powered Google Assistant “the best I’ve ever used.
” Other people in the bot ecosystem, like Matrix Partners investor and former Facebook Parse cofounder Ilya Sukhar, have had similarly rosy things to say about Allo.
“Allo’s assistant seems best in class. Everything else is meh,” Sukhar tweeted shortly after the release of the chat app.
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 is the beginning, said Google vice president of engineering Scott Huffman , the “first time you’re able to have conversation with Google.” This virtual assistant has the power to answer questions, perform translations, or plan a night out, and it is already embedded in Allo. But in the coming months it will also become part of Google Home and a true competitor to Amazon Alexa and other virtual assistants inside devices.
Above: Google Assistant interacts with a user in search of tacos.
Allo’s release comes at a time of rapid change and investment in chat apps.
The race to the killer bot If you haven’t followed along, here’s where we are in the chat wars.
In the span of less than six months, Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft — hands down some of the biggest tech companies in the world — either launched a bot platform for their chat app, gave developers access to their platform so they can make their own bots, or, in the case of Google, created a new chat app.
Since April, tens of thousands of developers have created bots for Facebook Messenger, Kik, Slack, and the like. But none of these has been a breakout hit, the one that — like a rising tide — has the potential to lift the collective boats of virtual assistants and the bot ecosystem in general. In short, there’s been no killer bot — until Google Assistant.
Microsoft’s Tay had potential to be a killer bot. But it turned out to be a racist, sexist jerk that smoked weed in front of the police.
We checked: There are no plans for Tay to make a return at this time, a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat in an email.
It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, exactly, Tay and Google Assistant. Tay was made to be more conversational than what we’ve seen from Google Assistant so far, but Tay was derived from Xiaoice , a bot made by Bing researchers that has the ability to do many of the things Google Assistant can do today.
So it could be that Google — the last of the tech giants to show us its consumer-facing chat client for the coming chat wars — has built the first killer bot.
What Google Assistant gets right Already downloaded 10 million times on Android, Allo and its Google Assistant are not without flaws, but here are a few things they do get right.
First, Google Assistant leverages the powerful search capabilities that made Google a verb and a multi-billion dollar company. As my colleague Emil Protalinski described it, Google Assistant is “like chatting with Google Search and Google Now in one.” Second, Allo appears to fundamentally understand the importance of group chat. Want to send a new message with Allo? Before you see Incognito Mode, Google Assistant, or your friends, you see “Start a new group chat.” The ability to operate a bot within a group immediately gives Allo an advantage over platforms like Facebook Messenger , which does not allow bots to chat in groups.
While in group chat, you can do Google searches together, look for a restaurant together, play group games, and, it appears, do anything else Google Assistant can do.
This will be even more powerful when Google Assistant can make purchases, schedule appointments, or complete tasks for a group.
Above: Google Allo Smart Reply works with words and images Another standout feature: Smart Reply. Over time, Google Assistant promises to suggest responses based on the way you speak and your response to thumbs-up / thumbs-down surveys, given at the end of each query. More than generic common answers, Google Assistant learns your lingo and common responses.
One more plus: Google Assistant may not be the only bot on Allo for long.
The race to conversational commerce A day before the public launch of Allo , Google announced the acquisition of API.ai, a platform for building bots and virtual assistants through chat platforms and devices. This suggests that Google Assistant may operate alongside other bots made for the Allo platform. API.ai is currently used by more than 60,000 developers.
“API.ai offers one of the leading conversational user interface platforms, and they’ll help Google empower developers to continue building great natural language interfaces,” Huffman wrote in a blog post.
Google’s efforts underscore what exactly is up for grabs in this high-stakes game. Chat apps like Messenger and Line and WeChat and Kik have become some of the largest platforms in the world, larger than social media , and they’re now seen as a way to deliver goods and services.
More than 20,000 bots have been made for Kik, tens of thousands have been made for Microsoft and Facebook, and developers appear to be very receptive to Apple’s recent launch of iOS 10 and an App Store for iMessage. Since the launch of iOS 10 a little over a week ago, more than 1,600 stickers or app extensions have been created for iMessage.
These tech giants are beginning to build ecosystems around their platforms and their hundreds of millions of monthly active users. Even companies like Oracle and LinkedIn — companies not really associated with chat — launched bot initiatives in past weeks.
This conversational commerce epiphany, and the stampede by U.S. tech giants to open platforms to third-party developers is happening in large part because of what WeChat has already accomplished in China.
People use WeChat to shop, pay for services like utility bills, and speak to businesses (as well as friends). The ubiquitous app uses QR codes to bring commerce into the offline world.
It’s the most popular messaging app in China, and last week WeChat parent company Tencent announced that the chat platform has started to test use of xiaochengxu , or Little Program.
Little Program will allow WeChat users to download and use apps inside WeChat, similar to iMessage.
Conversational commerce has been achieved in China because users can have new experiences, pay for things, and socialize with the world from inside WeChat itself. Much of what you need to do on a daily basis — split a bill, put money in a savings account, make purchases in the offline world — can be done without needing to jump into a webpage or another app.
But that’s not how Allo works.
Where Allo falls short Want the latest headlines in Allo? You’ll see the top three results. Tap “More” and you’re brought out of the app and onto the mobile web.
Want to watch a YouTube video on Allo? You’re brought to the YouTube app. Want to watch a YouTube video when using iMessage? You watch the video inside iMessage.
Upon its release, Google said Allo was made to solve the problem that happens every time you need to leave the app. This is the problem that arises when you’re chatting with a friend in order to figure out what you want to do tonight and need to search for a restaurant or check movie times.
If the purpose of Allo is to solve this problem, it’s going to need to do more inside Allo.
Building conversational commerce for a platform is largely about providing a holistic experience within a single chat app. Today Allo’s experience stitches together aspects of the Google suite of apps, web search, and the chat app.
In the chat wars ahead, if other messaging app companies manage to get their own ecosystems operating primarily inside their apps — doing away with the need to leave to talk to a business, add a friend to the conversation, or buy groceries — they stand a good chance of converting users.
It may only be the beginning for Allo and the chat wars, but whether Allo succeeds or not may depend on how much of the Allo experience is woven together from web searches and the suite of Google apps, and how much of it operates within Allo.
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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"Automakers partner to compete against Apple and Google for autonomous car services | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/ai/automakers-partner-to-compete-against-apple-and-google-for-autonomous-car-services"
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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 Automakers partner to compete against Apple and Google for autonomous car services Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Graphic depicts the range of sensor information feeding a new set of live traffic services digital mapping company HERE is introducing ahead of the Paris Motor Show in conjunction with automakers Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and other, yet-to-be-named automotive partners. September 25, 2016.
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) – Alarmed by the threat posed by Silicon Valley firms developing autonomous driving systems, carmakers at this week’s Paris Motor Show showed signs they are ready to hit back by cooperating in areas where they might have been expected to compete.
“This is how the automotive industry may be able to fight off the threat that Apple and particularly Google represent to their brands as digital services become more and more important,” technology investment analyst Richard Windsor said.
BMW, Daimler and VW’s Audi announced this week they would launch new traffic monitoring services next year which give drivers a view of road conditions miles ahead. They are based on video data collected from sensors in other cars and fed to the three carmakers’ jointly-owned navigation mapping services firm HERE.
Separately HERE’s Dutch rival TomTom on Thursday announced traffic data deals with truckmaker Volvo and carmaker Skoda, a VW subsidiary.
VB Event The AI Impact Tour Connect with the enterprise AI community at VentureBeat’s AI Impact Tour coming to a city near you! Also General Motors, Nissan and VW are experimenting with a plan to pull video data captured by their customers’ vehicles using Israeli firm Mobileye’s camera-based sensor systems, that may soon give automakers an edge over the likes of Google in the precision-mapping required for driverless cars.
However, it remains to be seen whether carmakers can charge premium prices for connected car services as technology companies like Google look to develop similar offerings for free, supported by advertising or other business models.
A deal by traffic data start-up Inrix to supply data to Google-owned crowd-sourced traffic and navigation service Waze will help drivers find parking spots on smartphones using the free app. And Renault said on Thursday it was showing a prototype of a Waze system built into its car dashboards which run Android Auto, Google’s operating system for carmakers.
Meanwhile connecting cars on the move with the Internet also needs more reliable mobile telecoms networks. With that aim, Germany’s top automakers said this week they were teaming up with telecoms network equipment makers Ericsson, Huawei , Nokia, Qualcomm and Intel to help with developing the next-generation 5G networks set to debut around 2020.
Careful driving At the same time carmakers are now racing to plot their courses to building self-driving vehicles over the next five years, a dramatic acceleration in pace from the 10- to 15-year timeframes many had charted until pushed to speed up the process by the advances made by Google and Tesla.
“We see the car transforming from a product into the ultimate platform,” Daimler Chairman Dieter Zetsche told reporters in Paris.
Among the car companies there have been two camps, those who are trying to develop their autonomous driving technology in-house, and those who are outsourcing it, but that division is looking set to become less clear-cut due to the need for cooperation in some areas at least.
“Gradually all of the car manufacturers will have to get more and more involved in managing data. It’s natural. We’re going to have to work much more collaboratively,” Stewart Callegari, a Nissan product planning executive for driverless cars told reporters at the Paris show.
Fiat’s recent partnership to build self-driving vans with Google is seen by analysts as an example of outsourcing, given the Italian auto maker’s weak finances, limiting its ability to invest in its own software expertise.
Daimler, on the other hand, is firmly in the camp of vehicle makers who want to go it alone but still sees some need for collaboration.
“We need to think whether we work together analyzing the data or whether we do this on our own. This depends on the use case,” Zetsche said, adding that it made sense to work together in areas where potential cost savings resulted but did not blur the distinctions between brands.
Some partnerships like the deal between Chinese carmaker Geely’s Swedish subsidiary Volvo Car Group to develop autonomous cars with Uber, and General Motor’s partnership with Uber’s rival Lyft, are also seen as hybrid approaches.
“The automotive industry has and will continue to become a software business in many ways,” Audi of America President Scott Keogh told Reuters.
(Reporting by Gilles Guillaume, Andreas Cremer and Laurence Frost in Paris; Editing by Greg Mahlich) 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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"Holy innovation Batman! Instagram photos and videos get pinch-to-zoom | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/holy-innovation-batman-instagram-photos-and-videos-get-pinch-to-zoom"
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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 Holy innovation Batman! Instagram photos and videos get pinch-to-zoom 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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Instagram announced today that it’s rolling out an update to iOS that lets you zoom in on photos and videos in your feed, on profiles, and in the Explore section of the app. The feature is also coming to Android “very soon,” Instagram tells VentureBeat, but there are no plans to bring it to mobile web users.
Although pinch-to-zoom feels as if it has existed since the dawn of time, this is a nice addition to Instagram now that the service has evolved beyond a feed of low-fi filtered squares.
Zoom also appears to have been a sought-after feature: Numerous apps and guides exist to help users zoom in on Instagram pictures.
Smartphone cameras have improved quite a bit since Instagram launched five years ago. Today’s update isn’t innovative, but it doesn’t have to be. Plus if you don’t want to pinch and zoom, you don’t have to use it.
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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"Facebook fixing 'bug' showing vomit sticker when searching for 'liberals' or 'feminism' | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/social/facebook-fixing-bug-showing-vomit-sticker-when-searching-for-liberals-or-feminism"
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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 fixing ‘bug’ showing vomit sticker when searching for ‘liberals’ or ‘feminism’ Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn The Facebook Messenger booth at Facebook's F8 developer conference in San Francisco on April 12, 2016.
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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Facebook is apologizing for what it says is a “bug” that caused people to see the vomit sticker when looking for something to represent “liberals” or “feminism” on its platform. The company attributed the blame to something in its search algorithm and acknowledged that it was fixing the problem.
“We have guidelines for tagging Stickers in place, so this appears to be a bug in our search algorithm which is being corrected and should not appear after today. We apologize if this caused any concern,” said a Facebook Messenger spokesperson in a statement.
Go into @Facebook #stickers and search for #feminism or #liberals.
Go ahead, I'll wait. How was this approved?? pic.twitter.com/EDvUyuBigr — @Serena (Ehrlich) (@Serena) August 31, 2016 Reports surfaced on social media and were verified by VentureBeat that if you looked for stickers around “liberals” or “feminism,” the only result that appeared was the vomit sticker. It’s likely that most people didn’t notice this, but it does raise into question how stickers are tagged within Facebook’s system. The company declined to comment, but since the problem stemmed from its search algorithm, it’s possible that it parsed through conversations to better understand how people are using them.
This could all be an isolated incident that Facebook is working to rectify, but in light of the impact the political season has had on the company, it’s another small blemish that leads people to believe something underhanded took place. Earlier this year, it was heavily criticized after a report emerged saying that Facebook showed political bias with its Trending Topics — naturally, the company denied its human editors were biased. Just last week, Facebook announced it stopped using humans to write its trending topic descriptions.
On the other hand, this whole episode might be about the company’s efforts to provide relevant stickers to people gone awry and mistakes happening. After all, it’s near impossible for Facebook’s team to tag stickers with every conceivable label that makes it easier to find when the time is right. That’s likely why the search algorithm comes into play. However, it admits that this process failed to meet Facebook’s tagging guidelines, so what will the company do to improve its checks and balances? Right now the sticker may seem a bit innocuous, but the larger issue remains: What happens if you search for “African American” or “women” or anything else and something a bit more vulgar or offensive shows up? How will Facebook deal with that? 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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"World of Warcraft: Legion Day 2 journal — loving my first zone and dungeon | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/world-of-warcraft-legion-impressions-day-2"
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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 World of Warcraft: Legion Day 2 journal — loving my first zone and dungeon Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you related to Grandmother Willow? 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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I’m finding my love of Warcraft in Odin wrong places. OK, I may be working too heard for a clever intro there.
After unlocking my artifact weapon and my class hall , I spent my second day in World of Warcraft’s Legion expansion exploring my first zone, the Norse-themed Stormheim. Completing those quests also took me to my first dungeon, the Halls of Valor. It was all some of the most fun I’ve had leveling a character in World of Warcraft.
Above: Pretty.
Stormheim Usually, you have to tackle expansion zones in a mostly linear order. Level-scaling in Legion allows players to go to any new area they want in any order. I had a choice of four, and I went with Stromheim. I’ve liked similar zones from other expansions, like the Howling Fjord in Wrath of the Lich King, plus the quest dialogue noted that Genn Greymane, the leader of the Worgen race, would be there. I figured that this area would continue some of the story started in the pre-patch quests that saw the Alliance leader, King Varian Wrynn, killed in battle.
The introduction to Stormheim was exciting. I entered in an airship, parachuted onto some enemy vessels, and crashed into a mountain. After rescuing the survivors, I started my journey for one of the Pillars of Creation. We need these items to stop the Legion, which are scattered around the Broken Isles. This clear objective gives you more agency and purpose, and it makes each zone feel like a self-contained story and adventure.
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! To get this Pillar of Creation, I had to do a bunch of quests to show my worth to an Odin-looking god. In the middle of all this, I also had to help Greymane take on Sylvanas, the undead leader of the Horde. Not only did the zone move me closer to my Pillar-collecting objective, but it continued the larger Warcraft narrative while showcasing two of its coolest character.
The quests were mostly typical stuff — go there, kill that, talk to this guy, click that thing — but they took place in some beautiful locations and featured memorable characters. I had a good chuckle when I went to give a god a bunch of severed heads from my fallen enemies, only to see that he himself was recently decapitated.
Above: Ha.
I was also given a grappling hook to use during my time in Stormheim. I used it to access high points, making it easier to navigate the vertical landscapes. It’s nice to have a little something like to make a zone feel unique.
I also loved how much content littered the map. Besides quests, you’ll often find minibosses and treasure chests in the area. Beating a boss or opening a chest can give you new gear, pets, and (best of all) artifact power, which makes your artifact weapon more powerful.
Also, the music in the area was just awesome. Just take a listen.
Dungeon time Once I finished the major quests in Stormheim, I had to beat a dungeon, the Halls of Valor, before earning the Pillar of Creation. Dungeons are areas filled with bosses that require five players to beat: three damage deals, a healer, and a tank.
Dungeons have been a part of World of Warcraft since the beginning, but this was one of the best I’ve played. The mechanics were complicated enough that I had to do more than just stand still and whack away at my enemies, but they weren’t so complex that I had to read a strategy guide before standing a chance at beating it. For example, the final boss would put a different rune on top of each players head. A pattern on the floor had each rune written on it in different spots. You had to run to the area that matched your rune to stay safe.
The Halls of Valor also just looked cool, especially a part that turned my allies and me turn into orbs of light as we zipped across a bridge of pure light.
Above: Fancy! Return to … the Exodar? With Stormheim completed, I was ready to start a new zone. However, I actually received a quest from the mage Khadgar, who has become Warcraft’s exposition-mover supreme. He received a strange item and needed me to give it to Prophet Velen, the leader of the Dranei (which happens to be my Death Knight’s race).
To do that, I had to go to the Exodar, the Dranei capitol introduced in the first expansion, the Burning Crusade. These days, the Exodar is abandoned by players. They just don’t have anything to do there that they couldn’t accomplish at a more popular, convenient city like Stormwind.
Just like with the artifact quests, I love how content like this gives me an excuse to go back to old areas. I won’t give away what happens at the Exodar, but it was another experience that continued Legion’s story while giving important characters a chance to entangle themselves in the expansion’s narrative web.
Above: An epic battle in an unlikely place.
Let’s keep this up If Stormheim and the Halls of Valor are any indication, I’m going to really enjoy the new zones and dungeons in Legion. Being able to tackle each area in any order forced Blizzard to give each place a standalone experience, so you feel like you accomplish something when you finish each one. I’m also glad to see so many chests encourage players to explore.
Even with all of this done, I’m still only level 102. I have a ways to go before I hit that level 110 cap.
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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"10 tips for staying alive in the Battlefield 1 open beta | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/tips-for-staying-alive-in-the-battlefield-1-open-beta"
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While playing the Battlefield 1 open beta , I was once again reminded it’s hard to stay alive in a game full of die-hard players. I lasted only minutes in the Sinai Desert, the new multiplayer map that Electronic Arts is opening up to all players today. But that’s only because I spent a lot of time running or riding into the action.
In those rare moments when I was in combat with other players, I only survived for seconds. Here’s a few tips that I learned during my short encounters with the enemy so far. Check out the video of gameplay below. You can see that I rarely execute on my own advice. But hey, remember the old saying. Old people for counsel, young people for war. I played the open beta on Origin on the Windows PC.
Find yourself a ride. Get into a plane. Find a horse. Board a transport. Find a machine gun truck. Or climb aboard a tank. All of these transport systems make you more mobile as a soldier so that you can move to the places of battle and capture flags. They also give you protection, because they’re armored, for the most part. And you can cause a lot more damage if you’re in a vehicle. And sometimes just park a vehicle and operate its gun.
Work with other players. While you’re in the tank, stop and get some passengers who can shoot the guns. Or if you are shooting the gun, make sure you’ve got a good driver. Inevitably, your driver will wind up driving your tank into a bunch of buildings or into a giant ditch. At that point, you’ve got to abandon the tank and try to get to cover.
Use cover. Climb atop buildings to get a better field of view. Or hide around corners. Don’t be impatient by running out into the open. Someone will pick you off. If there’s a front line to the battle, try to figure out where it is. You’ll be less likely to get shot in the back.
Don’t forget to use your bayonet charge. When the enemy is close, you can go into close combat. This melee attack is hard to stop.
Shoot when you’ve got a target. If you shoot too soon, someone will see your tracers and spot you. Then you’ll draw return fire.
Take time to aim. Instead of spraying gunfire at a target, take careful aim and get a confirmed kill. Sometimes this means you have to stand still for a while. But if you’re in cover, this won’t be as big a problem.
Use destruction to your advantage. If you’re in a tank and you see an enemy on top of a building, shoot the cannon at the building to knock it down. The Frostbite engine is made for destructible environments, so make use of them.
If you must make a run for a victory point, and there’s no vehicle available, use the dunes to your advantage. Try to run in between the dunes so that you don’t present your silhouette as a huge target for a sniper.
Try to stay aware of the entire battle. If you are stuck in a tank, your field of view as a gunner is very limited. If you are a machine gunner on top of a building, you might have a very wide field of view. Take advantage of it.
If you find a good driver or pilot, stick with that person. You can do massive damage as a two-person team, moving into the battle at high speed and taking out the players who are trying to make it on their own. Switch guns often from one side to another.
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.
Join the GamesBeat community! Enjoy access to special events, private newsletters and more.
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"PlayStation Now on PC feels like an evolution for console gaming | VentureBeat"
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"https://venturebeat.com/pc-gaming/playstation-now-windows-hands-on"
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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 PlayStation Now on PC feels like an evolution for console gaming Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn PlayStation Now on PC.
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I’m running around a mythical city as Kratos, the god of war, but I’m not using a PlayStation console. This is strange.
You no longer need to purchase PlayStation hardware to play a number of first-party Sony games — well, at least the older ones. The publisher released its PS Now game-streaming service on PC earlier this week , and that means you can boot up a number of PS3 classics on a PC running Microsoft’s Windows operating system. I’ve given the experience a try. It works, and it seems like a major step toward a different future for the way gaming platforms work. It also indicates that some other PlayStation services, like the TV-streaming program PS Vue, could come to Windows PC soon as well.
The thing about PS Now on PC is that it still feels a lot like a Sony product. You need to use the DualShock 4 controller, and the interface is a version of the XMB (cross media bar) that the company has used for years. My early results were mixed. I’m on Wi-Fi, and I had a few connection issues. When I did get into some games, the noticeable lag made what I played more difficult than they normally are — and it made online multiplayer in Ultra Street Fighter IV unplayable.
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! Despite any connectivity problems, this clearly signifies that PlayStation is more than a box that plays video games for Sony. A service that serves up your digital library of PlayStation games on your television, PC, or smartphone is something that could help Sony leave behind the console cycle, and it has that with PS Now. While you can only get PS3 games on the service at this point, it seems likely that Sony will continue to expand what it offers on the streaming network. PlayStation 4, as well as PlayStation and PlayStation 2 classics, are likely inevitable.
By establishing PS Now, Sony is setting up a service where it can generate income from its games and from distributing third-party software even if something like a PlayStation 5 flops. Figuring out the long-term future of gaming is crucial for Sony because the PlayStation division is one of its last profitable ventures, and it’ll find itself in a tough spot if that revenue ever dries up.
For gamers, all this means is that you now have a method of playing beloved hits like Uncharted, Sly Cooper, and God of War without having to purchase a PlayStation-branded system.
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.
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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