Aussie banks feel the effects of Travelexs ransomware crisis – Which-50

Posted on January 12, 2020 by admin

Australian banks which rely on Travelex to provide foreign currency services have been impacted by a ransomware attack on the UK-based company.

Travelex took all its systems offline when it first detected a software virus that had compromised some of its services on New Years Eve. The attack is still causing headaches for the company, as well as its banking clients, well into the new year.

The WSJ reported that the shut down meant banks that rely on Travelex to supply cash in foreign currencies were unable to take orders from customers. The banks online retail foreign-currency exchange services, which are outsourced to Travelex, were also shut off, according to the report.

While the BBC reported Travelex cashiers are using pen and paper to exchange money at cash desks in airports and on the High Streets.

Which-50 understands the issue is impacting a number of banks locally, with Westpac and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank confirming some of their customers currency orders, normally processed by Travelex, were unable to be fulfilled.

A Westpac spokesperson said, We are aware of a cyber incident being experienced by our supplier Travelex which is impacting its ability to issue foreign currency to our customers. We have been working with Travelex to understand the impact on Westpac Group customers and will continue to work with them while they thoroughly investigate the matter.

In the meantime, customers with current orders should attend their local branch for assistance. Our Global Currency Card is also available for our customers and details can be found on each of our brands websites.

A spokesperson for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank told Which-50 the organisation is actively engaging with Travelex as it works to resolve the issue.

The Bank is amongst many financial organisations around the world impacted by the Travelex security incident. Whilst we havent been able to fulfil some retail orders, we can still fulfil major currency orders for our customers. No Bendigo Bank customer data has been breached, the spokesperson said.

Travelex confirmed that Sodinokibi ransomware, also known as REvil, had compromised its systems. The attackers goal is to encrypt the victims files and then request payment in return for a decryption tool to decrypt them.

Travelex said there has been some data encryption but there is no evidence that structured personal customer data has been encrypted. It also says theres no evidence data has been exfiltrated from its systems.

Whilst Travelex does not yet have a complete picture of all the data that has been encrypted, there is still no evidence to date that any data has been exfiltrated, the company said on a statement published on their website.

Travelex is working with the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Metropolitan Police in the UK who are conducting their own criminal investigations.

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Aussie banks feel the effects of Travelexs ransomware crisis - Which-50

Bitcoin Remains Secure Regardless of IBM’s Quantum Computing Boost – Coin Idol

Posted on January 12, 2020 by admin

Jan 12, 2020 at 10:20 // News

International Business Machines (IBM), an American multinational information technology firm, has managed to double the power of its quantum computer (QC) but this effort didnt break the encryption of Bitcoin (BTC), the original blockchain-based cryptocurrency.

During the CES 2020 conference that happened on January 8, the company revealed that it fruitfully completed a Quantum Volume (QV) of 32 with the help of its 28-qubit quantum PC called Raleigh.

In a nutshell, Quantum Volume is the metric used to define the intricacy of snags which can be deciphered and worked on by a QC. The QV can be employed to relate the performance of various quantum PCs and the information tech company has successfully doubled this value on a yearly basis, ever since 2016 (four years now).

The computer machines have for a good time been addressed as one of the powerful novelties happening within this very century, with budding applications in well-nigh every single sector such as healthcare, internet of things, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, financial modeling, etc.

Even though IBM's state-of-the-art advancements can be thought of as momentous progress, QCs can at this time only be applied for very definite errands, for instance, these machines are many miles in front of the universal classical PCs that we have been familiarly using. Per se, major fears have been developed thinking that these gadgets could be at one point in time be applied to break the cryptography employed to safeguard digital assets such as Bitcoin remain speculative, at any rate for the time being.

It is also claimed that since the system is designed completely around cryptographically protected transactions, then, it requires a much more powerful QC to crack and fissure the encryption that is applied to produce the private keys for BTC. As a matter of fact, as per the paper released in June 2017 by several authors including Martin Roetteler, the type of a quantum computer requires to command processing power of about 2,500 qubits in order to breakdown the 256-bit encryption being used by BTC.

Remember, the most powerful QC that we have now only has about 72-qubit processor, and this implies that it will take more time (in years) to touch encryption-intimidating levels. But that doesnt rule out the rate at which IBM and Google are trying to double the computing power year-in-year-out, hence becoming major threats to Bitcoin and the entire cryptocurrency community.

Apples iPhone Once Again in the Cross Hairs of the FBI – Chiang Rai Times

Posted on January 12, 2020 by admin

Apple Inc is once again in the cross hairs of the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In privacy-vs.-security case being dispute between Apple and the federal government.

Once again, the US Department of Justice is demanding that the company break into a locked iPhone. Once again, the company is resisting. And once again, the rest of us are worried spectators in a game of Whom do you trust?

In particular, the FBI wants Apples help in unlocking two phones belonging to Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani. The Saudi Air Force trainee who killed three people last month at Pensacola Naval Air Station.

Apple says it has turned over all the data it possesses but refuses to go any further. The FBI wants Apple to create a backdoor past the encryption that protects its devices.

Weve traveled this road before and the path is instructive. In 2016, the FBI demanded that Apple develop special software that would allow it to unlock an iPhone 5C used by Syed Rizwan Farook. One of two shooters in a terror attack that killed 14 people in San Bernardino.

When Apple refused, the government obtained a court order. Most of big tech weighed in on Apples side. Before the companys appeal could be heard, however, the FBI surprised everybody with the announcement that it had unlocked Farooks phone.

The DOJs inspector general later found that the FBI had not exhausted all possibilities before taking Apple to court. In particular and its important to follow the rabbit down the hole here the FBIs Cryptographic and Electronic Analysis Unit had not asked for the assistance of the Remote Operations Unit of the Technical Surveillance Section of its own Operational Technology Division.

This mouthful of alphabet-soup matters because, as it turns out, the head of the Remote Operations Unit knew of a vendor that was almost 90% of the way to finding a way to break into a locked iPhone. Upon learning of this, the department invited the vendor to demonstrate the capability. The next day, the suit against Apple was dropped.

Presumably in-house communications have been better this time around. Even so, one can understand why the FBI is back to asking Apple for help. Back in 2016, techies agreed that whatever trick DOJ used would work only once.

Apple would find out how the unnamed vendor broke the encryption, and close that vulnerability in the next generation of phones. Besides, Farooks device was an iPhone 5. As as security goes, thats practically the horse-and-buggy days. Quite likely, then, none of those alphabet-soup players have yet figured out how to break defeat the encryption on the newer devices.

Why does Apple continue to resist? And why do so many of us, notwithstanding our fears about terrorism, think Apple is right?

Heres one reason: The company does not currently have a means of breaking into a locked iPhone. Forced to develop one, Apple would most likely create a software update that, once sent to the device, would allow the phone to be unlocked through some means other than a password (or facial recognition or fingerprint).

But the mere existence of such a technology is inconsistent with the basis on which the phone is sold. The company proudly trumpets its own inability to recover data from a locked iPhone once the user has exhausted 10 tries at entering the password. The value of this encryption is priced into the device.

Even if we assume that the value of this feature to the consumer is quite small perhaps no more than one percent of the sale price the total value is quite considerable to Apple. In the 12 months ended September 28, 2019, Apples total revenue from selling iPhones was a bit over $142 billion. Thus a one percent security premium would come to $1.4 billion not pocket change even for a company whose market cap is currently thirteen figures.

Even if the value of the encryption to the buyer is only one half of one percent of the price of the phone, the loss to Apple is $700 million. If, on the other hand, you think the value of the security component is greater than one percent very much my own suspicion well, you can do the arithmetic.

In any case, lots of users are attracted to the notion that the Apple does not possess any secret way into the iPhone. (I certainly am.) The government, aware of this concern, insists its not asking Apple to create a backdoor; it only seeks a way to extract all the data on a pair of phones.

This bizarre bit of linguistic legerdemain is meaningless. To borrow from one of my mentors, you can call it Thucydides or you can call it banana peel, but its a backdoor all the same. Whatever the label, software that enables recovery of data without the password would mean a lot less privacy for users.

Still, perhaps youre wary of absolutes; maybe you believe that in a particular case, the need to prevent crimes particularly acts of terrorism should outweigh the individuals right to privacy. Fair enough. But do ask yourself this: Does history teach that the federal government, once in possession of a surveillance tool, will remain discreet and humble in its use?

Sadly, the record isnt good. Thats why were back here again. And why this time around, the fight will likely be to the finish.

____________

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of law at Yale University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. His novels include The Emperor of Ocean Park, and his latest nonfiction book is Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down Americas Most Powerful Mobster.

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Apples iPhone Once Again in the Cross Hairs of the FBI - Chiang Rai Times

Edward Snowden & Twitter What On Earth? (2020-01-11) – Global Real News

Posted on January 12, 2020 by admin

Bonjour! Today we did a full on analysis of Edward Snowdens Twitter activity. So lets do it. The main metrics are as follows as of 2020-01-11, Edward Snowden (@Snowden) has 4213934 Twitter followers, is following 1 people, has tweeted 4639 times, has liked 489 tweets, has uploaded 377 photos and videos and has been on Twitter since December 2014.

Going from top to bottom, their latest tweet, at the time of writing, has 20 replies, 171 retweets and 600 likes, their second latest tweet has 618 replies, 4,015 reweets and 10,995 likes, their third latest tweet has 88 replies, 464 retweets and 1,830 likes, their fourth latest tweet has 152 replies, 631 retweets and 5,446 likes and their fifth latest tweet has 76 replies, 844 retweets and 1,950 likes. That gives you an idea of how much activity they usually get.

The government game of I Spy – Sharyl Attkisson

Posted on January 12, 2020 by admin

The following is an excerpt from Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson. Watch the video investigation by clicking the link at the bottom.

We begin with an examination of one of the worst abuses of government power that could happen in our society. Illegal spying on U.S. citizens. Amid findings about egregious violations by our intelligence community, theres a criminal investigation. And the court that approves surveillance on U.S. citizens has instructed the FBI to implement new safeguards as of this week. As our intelligence agencies face what may be their biggest scrutiny in decades, we examine how we got here.

Our examination of government surveillance controversies begins in 2001. Under FBI Director Robert Mueller, new rules were imposed to address FBI abuses.

FBI Agents had repeatedly gotten caught submitting false information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to justify wiretapping or spying on U.S. citizens.

The new protections called Woods Procedures were named for the FBI official who helped devise themMichael Woods. Hes seen here testifying to Congress.

Michael Woods: There is significant public concern about the impact of surveillance activities on the privacy and civil liberties of Americans.

The Woods Procedures require the FBI, all the way to the top, to strictly verify each fact in a wiretap application. Now, eighteen years later, those very rules are back in question. More on that later.

First, we go to Salt Lake City, Utah in 2002 and a National Security Agency whistleblower named Thomas Drake. Drake said the NSA was fine [tuning] a new scale of mass surveillance and secretly conducted blanket surveillance of virtually all electronic communications going into or out of the area during the Winter Olympics. Intel officials denied it.

In 2009, FBI whistleblower Shamai Leibowitz stepped forward and accused intel agencies of serious constitutional violations and illegal abuse of power.

As the government secretly expanded its surveillance powers in the name of national security there were shades of what was later to come in 2016.

Intelligence officials began to listen in on members of Congress sometimes political rivals speaking with American-Jewish groups and foreign officials including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A senior official confessed it raised fears [of]an Oh-[blank] moment,that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.

Someone illegally leaked information about private calls made by Democrats Jane Harman and Dennis Kucinich and even leaked actual recordings of Kucinich calls with Libyan officials.

Saif Gaddafi: Hello

Dennis Kucinich: Yes sir.

Gaddafi: This is Saif speaking.

Kucinich: Yes. This is Dennis.

Journalists were targeted, too. Government agents initiated secret surveillance and subpoenas against then Fox News reporter James Rosen and 20 Associated Press reporters. They also secretly hacked into and monitored my computers while I worked at CBS News.

CBS News: Someone has been breaking into the computer of our investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.

An internal email by a global intelligence firm laid some blame at the feet of then Homeland Security adviser John Brennan.

Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources. There is specific tasker from the [White House] to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda.

Brennan went on to head up the CIAwhere questions continued to build. In 2014, the CIA Inspector General revealed that under Brennan, five CIA officials had improperly searched through staff emails of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Brennan had denied it but apologized after the IG report.

John Brennan: But what I really want to do is to have as much dialogue as possible with you to have that trust can be built up.

Meantime, at a public hearing, Democrat Ron Wyden asked another top intel official, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, about mass surveillance on innocent U.S. citizens.

Sen Ron Wyden: Director Clapper, I want to ask you about what I asked you about a year ago. Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions, or hundreds of millions of Americans?

James Clapper: No, sir.

Wyden: It does not?

Clapper: Not wittingly.

Clappers testimony proved false. He later apologized saying hed misunderstood the question.

It was NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in June 2013 who blew the lid off just how massive and intrusive the governments surveillance dragnet had grown.

Edward Snowden: You cant come forward against the worlds most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk because theyre such powerful adversaries that no one can meaningfully oppose them. If they want to get you, theyll get you in time.

President-elect Donald Trump received a similar warning from the Democrats Senate leader Chuck Schumer after Trump criticized sitting intelligence officials.

Sen. Charles Schumer: You take on the intelligence community they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.

Sure enough, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz recently concluded the FBI committed egregious errors in targeting Trump associates for investigation and surveillance during the 2016 campaign.

Donald Trump: Today is our Independence Day.

Michael Horowitz: We are deeply concerned that so many basic and fundamental errors were made by three separate, hand-picked investigative teams on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations.

On their way out, Obama officials secretly listened in on conversations between Trump officials and others including at Trump Tower.

They wiretapped former Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page as if a Russian spy.

To get the wiretap, an FBI lawyer allegedly doctored a document.

And the FBI used evidence that turned out to be unverified political opposition research bought by the Clinton campaign and delivered to the FBI and the media.

Less than two weeks before the 2016 election, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts lead judge Rosemary Collyer secretly slammed Obama intel officials over a series of surveillance violations shed just learned about. She accused the NSA of institutional lack of candora very serious Fourth Amendment issue and demanded fixes.

Intelligence officials deny doing anything wrong. They say their motivations were never political or to spy but to protect national security and that whenever theyve discovered issues, theyve taken steps to correct them.

In a speech and Congressional testimony, Trump FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed theres never been any abuses of surveillance authority known as 702 although the court has documented numerous examples.

Christopher Wray: Theres been no evidence of any kind of abuse of power under Section 702 despite all the oversight I mentioned before, with the three branches of government and quite a few years of experience now.

In the end, those who blew the whistle on alleged government abuses paid a price. The NSAs Thomas Drake was prosecuted for mishandling documents and made a plea deal. The FBIs Shamai Leibowitz was prosecuted for leaking to the media.

Snowden: Its a fear Ill live under for the rest of my life.

And Edward Snowden is charged with three felonies in his absence from the U.S.

This story ends today back at square one where it began. According to the Inspector Generals report last month, FBI officials violated the Woods Procedures when they wiretapped Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page repeating the very mistakes the Woods Procedures were set up to avoid 15 years before.

Theres news regarding Sharyls computer intrusions. A former government agent who admits he took part in the illegal surveillance operation against her has now stepped forward to provide information and implicate his colleagues. He says many US citizens were illegally spied on in the same way. And a former FBI Unit Chief has also publicly confirmed he initiated the original forensics that proved the government was involved. You can read more at SharylAttkisson.com.

Watch the report by clicking the link below:

http://fullmeasure.news/news/politics/i-spy

Support Attkisson v. DOJ and FBI

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The government game of I Spy - Sharyl Attkisson

The role of Artificial Intelligence today – – VENTS Magazine

Posted on January 12, 2020 by admin

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is probably one of the branches of Computer Science that is experiencing more growth nowadays. Even though it was born more than 70 years ago, it is in a historical period where it has generated more interest because of the revolution it has caused on the market today.

Until very recently, there were limited computational capacities that made Artificial Intelligence produce very poor results on the problem being applied, which resulted in several periods of historical dissatisfaction in the industry and considerable reduction in both interests. In this case, discipline on the number of dedicated researchers.

However, in recent years Artificial Intelligence has gained enormous momentum, able to solve problems with computers that were previously thought to be impossible, reaching levels that had never been reached before. Even mobile devices benefit from research in this area, for example, through keyboard predictive text, fingerprint screen unlocking, or face detection on a frame taken by a camera.

Several reasons that have functioned as AI takeoff machines can be listed, but the democratization of computational capacity stands out with particular emphasis, especially since 2009 with the publication of the first scientific article about the massive parallelization of AI calculations using GPUs and others in 2010, to demonstrate their use in automatic recognition of handwriting, exceeding for the first time the capacity of humans in this task. In this way, Artificial Intelligence gets its name because of the ability of electronic devices to solve problems that require intelligence and that, in the traditional way (programming), cannot be solved on a computer.

Looking back, the birth of Artificial Intelligence occurred more than 70 years ago, in the hands of Alan Turing, considered the father of this discipline. In 1936 he compiled a computational model, which consisted of heads on an infinite long band that could read, write and scroll. This computational model is called a Turing machine, and it is possible to represent any computational operation, in other words, any computation can be reduced and represented by a Turing Machine. This raises the following question: If the brain exerts computational operations, can it be reduced and represented by the Turing Machine?

If this is possible, it means that operations that we consider to be intelligent can be carried out automatically, such as the detection of objects in an image, the classification of sounds, or even the proper functioning of brain awareness. We cannot assert that the latter may occur, however, there is progress in simulating or approaching intelligent behavior, which is why subfields have emerged in the fields of Artificial Intelligence such as Computer Vision (CV), Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP).

The Japans case: Matchmaking

In Japan, a country with a high level of technological development, AI has played a more important role in matchmaking. AI devices began to be used to provide a picture of a potential partner only through the touch of a hand. It seems that the intelligence will be a determinant factor in matchmaking, today and in the future. You can find more information here. It seems that Artificial Intelligence begins to have the maturity to be applied in solving problems which until a few years ago were deemed unsolvable by machines. And one important factor in this phenomenon is that AI systems can operate independently like living things. This system is able to regulate itself, act like thinking beings, and thats why the reason is called Artificial Intelligence.

In short, Artificial Intelligence is the future of humans. We as humans cannot escape this reality. All we can do is make sure it works according to human norms and ethics. Hopefully this article can provide an overview of our future.

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The role of Artificial Intelligence today - - VENTS Magazine

Evolving Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Big Data – ReadWrite

Posted on January 12, 2020 by admin

Find the evolving relationship between big data and artificial intelligence. The growing popularity of these technologies offers engaging audience experience. It encourages newcomers to come up with an outstanding plan.

AI and Big Data help you transform your idea into substance. It helps you make full use of visuals, graphs, and multimedia to give your targeted audience with a great experience. According toMarkets And Markets, the worldwide market for AI in accounting assumed to grow. As a result, growth from $666 million in 2019 to $4,791 million by 2024.

The critical component of delivering an outstanding pitch is taking a step further with an incredible plan of assuring success. Big data and Artificial intelligence help you contribute to multiple industries bringing an effective plan. It can directly speak to investors and your targeted audience, covering essential aspects and representing your idea in a nutshell.

According to Techjury, The big data analytics market is set to reach $103 billion by 2023, and in 2019, the big data market is expected to grow by 20%.

From transformation to the phenomenal growth AI and Big data provide you with the accessibility of relevant information. Big data holds the data from multiple sources like social media platforms, search data, and others, which can be structured or unstructured. While artificial intelligence is intelligence demonstrated by machines with the rise of natural intelligence displayed by humans.

The most exciting thing for anyone to do is to identify the problem. So to know what prevents people from reaching their goal. From the product or service you wish to obtain the targeted audiences attention, it must solve the problem of the potential customers. There can be any problem from simple to complicated for which customers need a solution.

For every problem, there is a solution. Once you have understood the problem and willing to bring change, you can clearly solve the problem in the most defined ways. Artificial intelligence is a true reflection of technology advancement. With big data, you can make full use of vital information extracting the information you need.

One can come with accurate solutions using AI and big data. It helps in introducing a low error rate compared to humans if appropriately coded. The AI takes the decision based on data and a set of algorithms, which decreases the chance of error. Big data and AI, when used together, can really help you solve the problem by answering the potential issues and bringing an effective solution.

To solve any kind of problem, one must know about the potential market. Divide your target market into segments from whom you expect to get a positive response. It helps you do what you need to. These advanced technologies have a strong foundation with outstanding capabilities to capture the potential market. One must learn and apply these technologies to get a better result in transforming the overall experience of customers.

Capturing the target audiences attention is as important as solving the problem. Once you know how big is your potential market is, and what your target audience wants, you can use these advanced technologies to pitch and get the desired result. That is only possible if you use your segment creatively and consider creating your own identity for targeting your customer while working on your business plan.

Every industry has its own competition with a particular set of competitors. One must invest in something that can really help people and bring the best solution for them with beneficial results and stand out in the real competition.

To stay in the market and promote your service, one must invest in providing customers with alternative solutions. These AI solutions can help you increase your customer base. Give your customers the reason to choose your solution over someone elses. That reason will be the identity that you will create in the market. Build a unique solution that can help you focus on growing your business and stay ahead in the competition.

Mark your presence in the market, accomplishing specific goals that you desire to achieve and have already accomplished. Make your business a reality setting realistic goals and perform better and notable milestones to achieve greater success. The core essence of running a smooth business and getting all that you desire is accomplishing set milestones.

Accomplishing set milestones can really help you get desired results and gain positive support from the trusted and reliable model. By doing this, you can strategies your small business plan with changing times and market demand. Gain an ideal position in the market with better results and in-depth data.

Achieving a milestone can be a tough task. However, with AI & Big data, it has become possible to get predictive analysis for better results and position of control. Consider all the options that make you stand out in the competition and help you grow your business.

AI can help you analyze consumer data patterns. It can predict what users would like to pay for with the help of big data. Both these technologies are compelling to present and provides a useful result that can boost your sales and increase business revenue.

Nitin Garg is the CEO and Co-founder of BR Softech Business Intelligence Software Company. Likes to share his opinions on IT industry via blogs. His interest is to write on the latest and advanced IT technologies which include IoT, VR & AR app development, web, and app development services.

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Evolving Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Big Data - ReadWrite

Artificial intelligence needn’t be a barrier to gender parity if we use it smartly | Dr. Lamya Fawwaz – Gulf Today

Posted on January 12, 2020 by admin

The photo has been used for illustrative purposes.

2020 marks the start of a critical decade in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As the Fourth Industrial Revolution continues to transform just about every industry sector, and revolutionize the way we live and work, it is only natural that we look to leverage its benefits to drive greater sustainability.

The role of artificial intelligence in achieving renewable energy and sustainable targets was highlighted in a recent report; using AI for environmental applications could add USD 5.2 trillion to the global economy, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 4 per cent, according to PwC.

The benefits of AI in sustainability are manifold: it can support the deployment of self-driving vehicles to transform transportation systems, or better manage food purchasing to reduce wastage. Smart grid technology aligns energy production, distribution and usage more effectively, while water wastage can be tackled at source.

However, while AI and other emerging technologies will undoubtedly prove vital in addressing sustainability challenges, we need to be careful about how they are applied if we dont want to waste an even more vital resource women.

AIs gender bias issues have also come under the spotlight recently from claims that Amazon had to abandon an experimental hiring tool because it discriminated against female applicants, to concerns about the (over) use of womens names for virtual assistants think Siri, and Alexa.

The benefits of AI in sustainability are manifold: it can support the deployment of self-driving vehicles to transform transportation systems, or better manage food purchasing to reduce wastage.

Possible reasons for this perceived gender bias are not hard to determine. While women make up half the global workforce, they only represent 30 per cent of tech industry employees, and less than 10 per cent of clean-tech start-ups are women-owned. In cutting-edge disciplines like AI, the imbalance is even worse: only 12 per cent of AI researchers, and just 6% of software developers, are female.

Given that SDG 5 achieving gender equality and empowering females is central to reaching all the other SDGs, clearly there is still much work to be done in the tech sector.

And the potential is there. In the workplace, technology can help us break down some of the barriers to female inclusion, such as inadequate training, limited access to financing, inflexible work environments, and lack of engagement with decision makers.

Nor is it necessarily true that women dont want to work in tech-related fields. Here in the UAE, women make up 56 per cent of graduates in STEM disciplines. Further, women make up around a third of tech entrepreneurs in the Middle East.

The UAE is also actively promoting opportunities for women in its emerging high-tech sector, and the investment is paying off. Around 40 per cent of the team working on the UAEs Mars Mission are female, while 90 per cent of the scientists at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre are women.

The UAEs commitment to parity between men and women has seen the country climb 23 positions in the UNDP Gender Equality Index in the past year, rising to 26th place and becoming the highest ranked Arab country in the world.

But this commitment to gender equality hasnt come at the expense of technology expertise the UAE also leads the region in technology adoption, and we are also one of the most advanced nations in the world in the application of AI. The UAE was the first country to appoint a minister of state for AI, while Masdar City is set to host the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence the worlds first graduate-level AI research institution.

The role AI and digitalization can play in sustainability and gender parity will be discussed in-depth at Women in Sustainability, Environment and Renewable Energy (WiSER) Forum, convening on January 14th at this years Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.

The UAEs progress in both gender equality and in driving technology adoption is a clear demonstration that applied correctly technology can be a vital tool in empowering women. By giving women and girls equal opportunities, we can maximize our collective potential. Just ask Siri.

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Artificial intelligence needn't be a barrier to gender parity if we use it smartly | Dr. Lamya Fawwaz - Gulf Today

IDC unveils Top 10 Artificial Intelligence predictions 2020 and beyond for the Indian market – TelecomTV

Posted on January 12, 2020 by admin

New Delhi, January 7, 2020 International Data Corporation (IDC) has revealed predictions impacting the Artificial Intelligence (AI) investments for organizations in India for 2020 and beyond. In this data-driven era, AI is becoming a priority for organizations in India, driven by the need to automate, faster route to market, and agility. Organizations in India are warming up to leveraging AI when it comes to automating processes, deriving actionable insights, and prototyping with use cases to evaluate the implication of the technology.

According to Rishu Sharma, Principal Analyst, Cloud and Artificial Intelligence, IDC India, "Indian organizations are looking at leveraging AI driven by the need for automation to increase the productivity. As we deal with large set of unstructured data being created in the digital era, AI will be the backbone when it comes to extracting valuable insights. Unsurprisingly, the primary reason holding the organizations back when it comes to implementing AI technology is - the trustworthiness of the data. Enterprises also cite unrealistic expectations, lack of skilled staff and unclear business case, as the reasons for failure of AI projects."

IDC India has listed the following ten predictions that would impact the technology buyers and suppliers in AI in India in 2020 and beyond:

#1 Outcomes as a Service: By 2025, AI will be integral to every part of the business in India, resulting in 20% of the overall spend on AI solutions as "outcomes as a service" that drives innovation at scale and superior business value.

#2 Worker Augmentation: By 2024, 50% of enterprises in India will invest in employee retraining and development, including third-party services, to address new skill needs and ways of working resulting from AI adoption.

#3 Digital Trust: By 2024, top 100 organizations in India will have formal programs to monitor their "digital trustworthiness" as digital trust becomes a critical corporate asset.

#4 Intelligent Process Automation: By 2024, 50% of enterprises in India will embed intelligent automation into technology and process development, using AI-based software to discover operational and experiential insights to guide innovation.

#5 AI is the New UI: By 2024, AI in India will become the new user interface by redefining user experiences where over 20% of user touches will be augmented by computer vision, speech, natural language, and AR/VR.

#6 Hyper-Personalization: By 2023, 10% of customer experience applications in India will be continuously hyper-personalized by combining a variety of data and newer reinforcement learning algorithms.

#7 AI Edge Applications: By 2025, 30% of computer vision and speech recognition models in India will run on the edge (including endpoints) and feature deep learning on convolutional and recurrent neural networks.

#8 Embedded AI: By 2025, at least 50% of new enterprise application releases in India will include embedded AI functionality, but truly disruptive AI-led applications will represent only about 5% of this total.

#9 AI Accelerated Chips: In 2023, technology buyer spending on semiconductors (GPUs, FPGAs, AI ASICs, and AI ASSPs) used specifically to accelerate AI training and inferencing will reach nearly $120 million in India.

#10 AI Edge Computing: By 2024, nearly 10% of servers that process AI workloads using AI-optimized processors and coprocessors in India will be deployed at the edge.

"Artificial Intelligence in India promises to develop advanced solutions that tackle organizational challenges and speed up strategic formulation. With the increasing availability of data, AI can be effective in multiple applications across various verticals including agriculture, transportation, finance, healthcare, retail and many more. India, being the key contributor in the global startup ecosystem, will play a crucial role in discovering the benefits of AI technology across varied sectors," says Swapnil Shende, Senior Market Analyst for AI at IDC India.

These strategic predictions for the India market are presented in full in the following report: IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Artificial Intelligence 2020 Predictions India Implications (IDC #AP45727419 ) and is part of India Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Services report series

IDC FutureScape reports are used to shape IT strategy and planning for the enterprise by providing a basic framework for evaluating IT initiatives in terms of their value to business strategy now and in the foreseeable future. IDC's FutureScapes are comprised of a set of decision imperatives designed to identify a range of pending issues that CIOs and senior technology professionals will confront within the typical three- to five-year business planning cycle.

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading tech media, data and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit http://www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights: http://bit.ly/IDCBlog_Subscribe.

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IDC unveils Top 10 Artificial Intelligence predictions 2020 and beyond for the Indian market - TelecomTV

WikiLeaks reveals Bin Zayed’s opinion on Saudi royal family Middle East Monitor – The Union Journal

Posted on January 12, 2020 by admin

A brand-new telegram released on the WikiLeaks site, a global charitable site being experts in releasing personal files, disclosed the issues of the crown royal prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed Bin Zayed, over the judgment family in Saudi Arabia.

The telegram, additionally released by The New York Times, introduced in an extensive record that Bin Zayed had actually educated the United States ambassador, James Jeffrey, that he is afraid Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia and also intends to remove it.

The New York Times reported that the crown royal prince of Abu Dhabi: Considered the Saudi royal family during the reign of King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud as helpless; however, he was afraid that the alternative would be an authoritarian and Wahhabi state similar to ISIS. He additional specified: Anyone who replaces Al Saud will be a nightmare.

The telegram divulged that Bin Zayed quickly concentrated on the present crown royal prince, Mohammed Bin Salman: Who was impatient for introducing reforms in order to reduce Saudi Arabias attachment to radical Islam, and marketed his vision to the administration of US President Donald Trump.

In the very same prolonged record, qualified Mohammed Bin Zayeds Dark Vision of the Middle Easts Future, author Robert F. Worth incorporated talking to, profiling and also evaluating the crown royal prince of Abu Dhabi the de facto leader of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

READ: Recording web links UAE crown royal prince to Malaysia PM corruption instances

The New York Times reported that Bin Zayed: Put much of his enormous resources into the counter-revolution, and he cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood and built a hyper-modern security-based state, where everyone is monitored in search of the slightest whiff of Islamic inclinations.

The paper explained that the separation of the Egyptian head of state, Mohamed Morsi, was the very first wonderful success of the Bin Zayed project, including: It appears that he was very confident in what could be done without American restrictions, and soon turned his attention to Libya, where he began providing military support to the former general, Khalifa Haftar, a tyrant who shares Bin Zayeds feelings towards Islamists.

The writer, pricing quote a United States mediator, worried that the clog enforced on Qatar because June 2017 has actually come to be a personal revenge issue for Bin Zayed.

It deserves additionally keeping in mind that in 2009 Bin Zayed decided that would considerably boost his capacity to task power past the UAE boundaries, when he asked Mike Hindmarsh, previous leader of Australias Special Air Service program, for aid in reorganising the Emirati military, assigning him at some point to lead the military.

He suggested that it is unthinkable to select a non-Arab authorities in such high army message in any kind of various other nation in the Middle East.

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WikiLeaks reveals Bin Zayed's opinion on Saudi royal family Middle East Monitor - The Union Journal