Daily Archives: July 3, 2017

Danbaba Suntai: The evolution of a relationship – Vanguard

Posted: July 3, 2017 at 8:18 am

By Owei Lakemfa

IN April 2012 when I was Acting General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC, then Congress President, Abdulwaheed Omar walked into my office to inform that he had just received a call from the Executive Governor of Taraba State, Danbaba Danfulani Suntai that he just landed at the Abuja airport and was heading to the NLC Office.

It was a shock to us as there was no previous contact. We also did not know what his mission was. The only hint we had was that he had stopped the Taraba State NLC Council elections and I had issued a statement that his action was illegal and will be challenged. We deliberated and concluded that it may not be strategic for us that the governor be seen driving in the normal Governors convoy with siren blaring into the NLC Office. More importantly, it may be better to avoid a direct meeting between him and the NLC President so we can tell him, we have to report back. So Omar agreed to call him, first to say he was unavailable, and secondly, that the Congress will send a delegation to meet him at a neutral venue not at the Congress or the Governors Lodge in Abuja. Suntai replied that since he was already on his way, it may be inappropriate for him to simply drive into a hotel or public place to hold a meeting. He persuaded Omar to let the meeting take place in the Lodge.

So NLC Deputy President, Kiri Mohammed and I met Suntai at the Lodge. After the initial courtesies, a curious Kiri noted that His Excellency seemed to be wearing a uniform. I interjected to say the governor was a pilot. He glowed. He seemed quite happy to be a pilot. I told him that I even knew when he graduated from the Aviation School in Zaria; that a bucket of water was poured on his head. He seemed quite impressed that I had followed his activities and said, he thought Taraba State was an isolated place that people will not pay much attention.

We then turned to the matter at hand. He said he had come to make a complaint against the NLC State Council, particularly its then Chairman. He claimed that the latter had constituted himself into the leader of opposition in the State, had become a security risk and was turning the NLC into an alternative government to the extent that it counters some of his directives. We asked him why he aborted the NLC Council elections. He said it was for security reasons.

We repeated that his action is illegal and unconstitutional as the constitution gives Nigerians the freedom of association including that to establish trade unions of their choice without interference. We also pointed out that he is not a member of the trade unions, so he had no business with the Council elections. After some arguments, I told him that following his abortion of the conference, I had spoken with the NLC Chair who claimed that State Government officials had campaigned against him and even decided to transfer him out of the State capital, but when it was clear he was still going to win the elections, armed policemen were sent to abort the conference. The Governor insisted that what he did was in the interest of the State. I told him that the NLC was calling a fresh conference in the State, advised him to let it hold, but that if he stopped it, Congress will not only challenge him, but will move the conference to a neigbouring state or Abuja.

The Governor said he was pro-workers, did not want an altercation with the NLC and promised to allow the new elections hold. But he asked for a concession; that the outgoing Chairman be barred from contesting the elections as a victory would undermine his standing or authority in the State. We told him it was impossible; that all workers who meet the Congress constitutional requirements have the right to contest and that we had screened all candidates before the State Council elections held nationwide and that the outgoing Chairman was eligible.

We told him that if workers voted for the Chairman then that meant he was representing them well and that it would be in the interest of his government to work with whoever emerges as the Chairman.

I then said that the Chairman had revealed to me that he and His Excellency were very close friends before he became governor. Suntai confirmed that but said the Chairman was an ingrate. He said he had offered the Chairman a seat in his cabinet, but that he had turned it down saying he preferred to remain the NLC Chairman, and that the latter had proposed his brother to take his place. He said in appreciation of his campaigns for him to be governor, he had appointed the Chairmans brother as the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice and also agreed to give the NLC a choice land and build a secretariat for the State NLC but that the Chairman later turned against him.

I told Suntai I was impressed by the conduct of the Congress Chairman who rejected an appointment many lobby for and who despite his closeness to the governor remained upright leading the States workers. Suntai kept to his words; the State NLC elections held, the outgoing Chairman was re-elected and both men worked together as best as they could. He also retained the Chairmans brother in his cabinet.

Suntai and I hit it off; he called me regularly when he came to Abuja. One day he proposed that I be his guest in the State. I politely declined and explaining that as NLC Scribe, I will be unable to explain convincingly, my presence in his aircraft piloted by him, and in any case, what explanation will I give Taraba Sate workers; that the Governor is my friend and that I was on a private visit? Sometimes when we met, he raised non-labour matters.

You can imagine my shock and sadness when news filtered on October 25, 2012 that Suntais aircraft, with him behind the controls, had crashed at the Yola international Airport. He survived with brain injuries, hearing and speech impairment. For five years he battled courageously against his injuries, at a time he even returned to office. I never met him again. On June 28, 2017, news came that he finally succumbed to his injuries; it was two days short of his 56th birthday. He was a gentleman who made governance seem easy. May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace and may God console his family and loyalists who stood by him at all times. Ameen.

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The rise of the BritBot UK Robotics Week highlights AI progress – Diginomica

Posted: at 8:17 am

Robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) form one of the Eight Great Technologies that Britain believes are vital to its future prosperity, and UK Robotics Week throws an annual spotlight on the countrys ambitions to lead the field, inspiring pupils, undergraduates, and professionals alike.

The events are hosted by the UK-RAS Network, an action group of academics run by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the UKs main agency for funding research in these areas. Robotics Week 2017 ended on 30 June with a showcase that also launched an independent report on the quality, reach, and impact of the EPSRCs work.

So are the robots rising in the Brexit gloom?

The panel that produced the report chaired by Prof. David Hogg of the University of Leeds, with senior representatives from Dyson, Harvard University, UC San Diego, UCL, and Kings College London, among others concluded that while there is world-class research in the UK, there are greater opportunities to collaborate across disciplines, such as robotics, machine learning, and computer vision, and to identify critical investment gaps.

One way of doing this would be to establish a shared UK infrastructure for RAS research, says their report. It urges private companies to provide universities with experimental facilities, and information-centric organisations such as Deep Mind and Amazon to place their data in the public domain, complementing the UKs wealth of anonymised data sets. Industry-specific data will be a huge growth market over the next 5-10 years.

But another of the reports recommendations might prove to be more challenging, thanks to Brexit rearing its ugly head once again:

The RAS research community and EPSRC should work to sustain and develop international research links and joint funding opportunities, both within Europe and beyond.

What the EPSRC calls a risk of a reduction in funding for UK institutions from the EU is a certainty if Brexit goes ahead, and it may affect inward investment from elsewhere, too. That said, a number of technology companies, including Apple and Google, have significantly increased their presence in the UK since the referendum.

There are other signs of hope. The UK may benefit from a Trump bump in robotics research at least, according to one delegate. Pietro Valdastri, Professor and Chair in RAS at the University of Leeds, told diginomica how Trumps America first policy is damaging international collaboration within the US, so he has come to the UK to seek a more welcoming community. Other experts may follow as Trumps disinterest in science and the environment takes its toll.

The EPSRC notes that while there will always be a need for fundamental UK research into robots which another delegate described as the arms, legs, and eyes of the internet there is:

an opportunity for a greater proportion of the overall portfolio to be linked to societal needs and industry challenges.

In other words, academic research into RAS sometimes takes places in an ethical, societal, and industrial vacuum and gives too little consideration to the technologies real-world purpose. Backroom boffins must do more to translate their efforts into applications that benefit society as a whole.

Speaking at the event, Dr Lester Russell, Senior Director EMEA Scale Team at Intel, urged the RAS community to consider the ways in which the black box of AI can be used for social good:

You do need the people and the process and the technology to each be set to one, otherwise the output will be zero. If either the people or the process is set to zero, all the technology in the world will make zero difference.

He added that by considering the ethical and societal impacts at the design stage, the future application of robots, AI, and autonomous systems will be less about replacing workers, and more about how we segment our work and create new jobs.

The showcase also saw the launch of four UK-RAS white papers on: the development of AI and machine learning; RAS for resilient infrastructures; robotics in extreme or hazardous environments; and robotics in social/health care.

In Britain, the last two are particularly important.

The UK will spend 2bn every year for the next 100 years cleaning up its nuclear waste principally that left behind by the arms race, rather than by nuclear power stations. So RAS represents a 200 billion opportunity in one industry alone.

Nuclear fusion is another robotics hotspot in every sense but extreme temperatures, electronics-killing radiation, and residual magnetic fields currently make it almost as hazardous to robots as to human beings. So there are enormous opportunities to develop haptics, AI, and autonomous/remote systems to work in the power stations of the future what RAS-UK calls a race to zero in terms of human intervention.

With climate change, the global need for early warning technologies and more resilient critical systems is just as clear. According to RAS-UK, 263 million people worldwide were affected by disasters in 2010 110 million more than in 2004, the year of the Asian tsunami.

The UK already has a strong network of universities that are conducting world-class research into sensors, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), batteries, and AI in these fields, along with leading institutes, such as the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the National Oceanographic Centre (NOC), which offer global perspectives on their application.

Search and rescue bots, smart oil fields, and the remote maintenance of offshore wind farms are further areas in which the UK is conducting world-beating research.

The paper makes a number of recommendations on how the UK can capitalise on its extreme- environments expertise. These include the need for:

The white paper concludes that RAS technology has reached a tipping point in these areas, with massive commercial opportunities already being demonstrated. It adds:

Careful regulation and strategic stimulus is required to ensure that the UK has a significant impact in the use of, as well as the design, development, and manufacture of, RAS services and solutions.

Robotics will also have a significant impact on social/health care worldwide, as ageing populations create unprecedented societal challenges.

The need for technology assistance is real. By 2020 there will 12 million people over the age of 65 in the UK, and by 2035 that figure will have increased to 17 million. There are too few qualified nurses and care professionals already, together with high staff churn, and yet public spending on social care is falling in real terms.

In England and Wales, 2015-16 expenditure stood at 8.34 billion, only fractionally more than the 8.3 billion spent a decade earlier. Factor in the effects of inflation and an increase of nearly two million in the 65+ population during that timeframe, and this represents a per-capita reduction in available funds of more than one-third, according to RAS-UK figures.

Fortunately, the UK has a number of world-leading university research projects (at Bristol, Hertfordshire, Sheffield, Edinburgh, and elsewhere) exploring how RAS technologies can help ageing, sick, or disabled people to live more independent lives: a programme of assistive and rehabilitative care rather than the dehumanised system that some have predicted.

According to RAS-UK, these technologies can help address physical, cognitive, and companionship challenges within ageing populations, and provide smarter home, residential, and hospital environments, tele-health systems, and more. For people with disabilities, driverless vehicles could be a transformative technology.

The white paper counters the widely held belief that RAS in a social/health care environment will mainly be about replacing human workers:

First, as technologists who are trying to understand the challenge of care, we are very aware of the level of human skill involved in everyday care activities [] RAS can be developed to assist with these activities, but they will not match or replace the ability of human carers in the near future.

Second, the interpersonal aspects of care, such as empathy and understanding, are uniquely human. AI personal assistants and social robots may be able to provide a form of synthetic companionship that people may find engaging, but this will never replace human companionship.

The paper recommends that RAS development in these fields should focus on relieving the burden of repetitive, strenuous work so that human carers can handle the professional, human-to-human aspects of care. It adds that robotics will have an important role to play in rehabilitation and the delivery of medical assistance in the home, with systems that allow people to stay in their own homes for longer.

Excellent progress for the UK, and positive goals for researchers and suppliers. So lets hope that customers dont only see the opportunity to slash costs, rather than augment human abilities.

But a lot of buy-side analyst and think tank research on robotics, automation, and AI focuses on the potential to remove human workers rather than to assist humans, improve society, or complement skills.

Take the recent Reform group report on robotics and automation in the public sector, which saw opportunities to remove 250,000 staff, including teachers and nurses, and create an automated environment in which human workers compete via reverse auction for ad hoc work.

Like all of the UK Robotics Week publications, the social/health care white paper is a clarion call for UK ambition and talent. It concludes that the UKs innovation culture, combined with its thriving academic base and a burgeoning SME sector, proves that Britain can be a world leader in RAS over the next quarter century.

However, todays Brexit landscape of political instability and regulatory uncertainty, together with a lack of central investment in the national infrastructure and secondary education, mean that the UK has a fight on its hands to avoid squandering its own potential and to persuade buyers not to junk real benefits in favour of easy, cheap answers.

Image credit - pinterest

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Country School competes in robotics – New Canaan Advertiser

Posted: at 8:17 am

New Canaan Country Schools Middle School Robotics Team participated in the eighth annual ROBOnanza!, a competition for Westchester and Fairfield county independent schools held in Greenwich on May 13. The Country School Cougar Bots, robots built completely out of LEGOs and programmed by the fifth and sixth graders, contended against robots from other schools in three levels of challenges.

The CSI-inspired theme of this years ROBOnanza! was Forensic Frenzy. With that in mind, the students were challenged to build robots that could travel down a lane and knock over as many burglars (pins) as possible in a 5-frame game (Bowling For Burglars); navigate to five numbered areas with various LEGO evidence worth various point values (Collect the Evidence); and complete an obstacle course autonomously (Police Academy Training).

Country School sixth graders Sofie Petricone (Rowayton) and Charlotte Calderwood (Darien) took home the first-place trophy for Police Academy Training, while the fifth grade team of Malcolm Stewart (Darien), Cyrus Pearson (New Canaan) and Decatur Boland (Rowayton) netted second-place honors in the same category. The Cougar Bot designed by sixth graders Tyler Rosolen (Norwalk) and Sam Cherry (Westport) scored second place in Collect the Evidence, and the fifth grade team consisting of Waverly Walters (New Canaan), Katey Charnin (Darien) and Annie Nichols (New Canaan), placed third. Sixth grader Parakram Karnik (New Canaan) scored second place in Bowling for Burglars.

Fifth grader Peter Metcalf (Darien) won a special trophy for being the only person in the competition to fully complete the Police Academy challenge. He was also cited for successfully navigating his robot around the outline of a human body.

Sixth grader Rebecca McKee (Stamford) earned praise for designing a robot which successfully navigated almost all of the line challenges, in addition to getting out of a box.

All team members took home certificates for successfully completing challenges.

It was a great combination of STEM challenge, creative problem-solving and teamwork, said sixth grade teacher Fraser Randolph. Once again, the students worked hard and showed their resiliency in the face of challenges. Many of the robots had to be completely reprogrammed on the spot and the students did so successfully with great results.

New Canaan Country Schools Middle School (fifth and sixth grades) Robotics Team members recently demonstrated their skills in ROBOnanza!, a competition for Westchester and Fairfield county independent schools. In front, from left, are Charlotte Calderwood (Darien), Annie Nichols (New Canaan) Waverly Walters (New Canaan), Cyrus Pearson (New Canaan), and Katey Charnin (Darien). In back are sixth grade teacher Fraser Randolph, Sam Cherry (Westport), Tyler Rosolen (Norwalk), Sofie Petricone (Rowayton), Decatur Boland (Rowayton), Malcom Stewart (Darien), Rebecca McGee (Stamford), Parakram Karnik (New Canaan), Peter Metcalf (Darien) and technology teacher Bruce Lemoine. Torrance York photo. New Canaan Country School middle school students recently competed in robotics.

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Tough competition during FIRST Robotics final – Kingman Daily Miner – Kdminer

Posted: at 8:17 am

Photo by Aaron Ricca.

A Lego robot moves stones across a table. Two robots faced off while moving and lifting different objects across the space-table for points. The robots also had avoid small obstacles in order to not lose points.

KINGMAN The competition was fierce, but fun.

After a week of learning to program and build Lego robots, as well as conducting research and building friendships, 40 third- through eighth-grade students put their skills to the test during the final trials of the 2017 FIRST Lego League Lego Camp at Kingman High School Friday.

Kingman FIRST Robotics Team 60 coaches and high school science teachers Celeste Lucier and Jody Schanaman, along with Team 60 student mentors, watched, learned, advised and cheered the various teams on as they and their Lego robots scrambled to lift, shift and move random Lego parts across a space-table during coordinated exercises for points.

Theyll also conducted research to identify real world problems, learning how to create innovative solutions and create a presentation to share their findings.

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Business community seeks clarity on aspects of GST – Hindu Business Line

Posted: at 8:16 am

Coimbatore, July 2:

On the surface, the going seemed calm with dealers in textiles, particularly the smaller establishments, making a note of every sale in the bill book, instead of scribbling the amount on piece of paper, which neither the customer nor the seller used to maintain in the past.

There was a note of surprise as some inquisitive, regular buyers at such shops, preferred a discount, not an invoice, even as the shopkeeper thrust the bill into the pack.

Mukesh, proprietor of Mukesh Textiles, said his auditor had advised him to charge 5 per cent GST on every sale from July 1. There is no clarity on the rates. It will take some time, this is just a beginning, he said.

Elsewhere, a dealer in electrical goods and spare parts continued with his earlier practice of selling spares without raising a bill.

Most establishments on that stretch of Nanjappa Road in Coimbatore are dealers in electrical goods, pumps and motors and hardware products such as pipe fittings. A majority of them do not even maintain a register of the inventory.

It would be just impossible to take stock of the goods here. In any case, the turnover is less than 20 lakh, said a dealer in electrical goods and spare parts.

Bigger corporates though seem better prepared, but big or small, every businessman is hoping the government to be lenient to the mistakes during the initial stages of GST implementation.

K Ilango, past chairman, Confederation of Indian Industry, Coimbatore, said he is clueless over several aspects of the Act, but top of the mind recall is reverse charge.

Section 9(4) of the GST Act is the most complicated and difficult one to comprehend. This section deals with reverse charge and incidentally no one talks of this, he said, adding, We have not gone deeper into uploading and stuff like that. There is bound to be some hiccups.

V Sundaram, president, Codissia, also felt that the government should not penalise traders for mistakes.

(This article was published on July 2, 2017)

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Beyond Anime and Manga, Tokyo Content Showcases Augmented and Virtual Reality – Variety

Posted: at 8:16 am

Last weeks Tokyo Content 2017 was an eye-popping demonstration of just how wide-ranging the definition of content has become in Japan. With its seven exhibitions and 1,650 exhibitors, the trade show featured the anime, manga and games that have become emblematic of Japanese content to the world at large.

But the cavernous exhibition halls were also abuzz with visitors examining and experiencing the latest advances in entertainment technology, particularly in augmented-reality and virtual-reality software and hardware.At the booth of Hado, which designs entertainment content for Fuji TV, TV Tokyo and other clients, visitors played Hado Shoot, a game in which players wearing VR headsets shot virtual light balls at each other and racked up points by scoring body hits.

Meanwhile, Marza Animation Planet, a CGI animation house affiliated with Sega, offered a VR exhibit inspired by the Resident Evil sci-fi/fantasy action series. Visitors tried to thread their way through a 3D battle in an underground corridor without getting blasted.

Courtesy of music producer Grandfunk Inc. and animation studio Koo-ki was Around the Sound, an immersive 360-degree VR environment that melded music and colored triangles, cubes and other shapes to entrancing effect.

In a keynote address, Naomi Tomita, head of robotics company Hapi-Robo St and chief information officer for the Huis Ten Bosch theme park, said that the ultimate goal for VR development was the merging of the virtual and the real as the technology advances. Calling himself an analog person, the 69-year-old executive noted that digital technology still had a way to go before it could duplicate what he described as the subtlety of analog.

Not surprisingly, he cited Huis Ten Bosch as an example of that merging. Among the theme parks current high-tech attractions are a robot-staffed hotel and a VR Center that offers such experiences as a virtual bungee jump and a marriage proposal from a handsome virtual guy inside a love simulation booth.

Tomita spoke about Shooting Star, a light show that will unfold nightly at the park fromJuly 22 to Aug. 5. The show features 300 illuminated drones, as well as 3D animation and music.

Its a first for Japan, Tomita said. This is our way of celebrating Huis Ten Boschs 25thanniversary.

But on both opening and closing nights, the show will be supplemented by a huge fireworks display: in other words, a merging of analog and digital entertainment.

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The Emergence of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in the Security Operations Center – Security Intelligence (blog)

Posted: at 8:16 am

Organizations are increasingly clustering their skills and capabilities into security operations centers (SOCs). An SOC is a focused facility where security specialists monitor, assess and defend against computer security issues. Introducing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology into this environment can enhance the teams performance.

An organization wishing to invest in an SOC typically has two options to accomplish this goal:

But with a global skills gap translating to an estimated 1.8 million unfilled cybersecurity positions by 2022, it is critical to find better ways to detect and identify threats and vulnerabilities. Reducing complexity, too, will allow an organizations security staff to be as effective as possible. SOCs help organizations, chief information security officers (CISOs) and their staffs to successfully analyze, defend and complete their cybersecurity missions. In their current model, however, these security facilities are costly, and difficult to set up and maintain.

SOCs need for a central geographic site presents a number of technical, logistical and operational challenges. The traditional SOC model also calls for substantial investments in hardware, physical footprint, visual isolation and technical configuration, among other things. For example, SOCs need numerous digital displays and sophisticated servers to facilitate the visualization of security monitoring and the gathering of data via security information and event management (SIEM) software.

VR and AR technologies can help solve some of the problems todays SOCs face, enabling organizations to rapidly mobilize and scale their centers without excessive monetary and resource investment.

Using VR as a platform for security staff allows them to take their SOC anywhere, untethering them from the fixed physical infrastructure and geographic location of a traditional center. Taking action from the virtual world by sending serverside requests from the VR user interface to limit services, run scans and develop systemwide alerts creates an end-to-end story for users where monitoring and control exist in the same virtual space.

In a VR environment, the frontline SOC level-one security analyst role can be performed with the appropriately scoped visual cues, without requiring a seasoned security professionals depth of knowledge. This allows organizations to adequately staff their SOCs in the face of significant employment competition and high global demand for cybersecurity roles. The addition of services, such as Watson for Cyber Security, further enhances this capability.

Undoubtedly, VR represents a paradigm shift in how monitoring solutions are designed, created and employed. VR has extraordinary benefits to an organizations SOC: It can help reduce costs associated with maintaining the SOC, enable the monitoring of more varied sources and facilitate the analysis of more endpoints. Additionally, the virtual environment can raise internal awareness among the day-to-day requirements of SOC operators, helping them to identify areas of investment for the ongoing maintenance of the defenders ecosystem.

With its visual impact, the VR experience offers a unique medium through which business-level stakeholders can be kept abreast of their organizations security ecosystem and posture, improving both their understanding and their ability to ask questions.

With the addition of augmented intelligence and interaction in the form of technologies like threat intelligence, the SOC operator can issue voice commands to interrogate specific network data without needing to exit their virtual environment. This immersive VR space enables security professionals to maximize their time spent observing network activity and mitigating potential threats, in turn providing greater context and consumable intelligence for the C-suite.

Visualization is central to understanding security ecosystem data and organizational key performance indicators, as well as to building internal awareness of an organizations security status in a top-down, consumable way.

An organization cannot react to a cyberthreat that is not manifested in the data nor one that is hidden in even more data or else is delayed. The Ponemon Institutes malware report suggested that the greatest barrier to remediating advanced threat attacks is a lack of visibility of threat activity across the enterprise.

Security analysts are drowning in data, and it is difficult for them to interpret this information when receiving so many security alerts many of them red on a daily basis. More dashboards and more displays are not the answer. But a VR solution can help effectively identify potential threats and vulnerabilities as they emerge for oversight by the blue (defensive) team.

Our cybersecurity team at IBM Ireland has recently developed a prototype VR solution integrating with the IBM QRadar SIEM product. We built this prototype with the Unity Technologies framework, a cross-platform game engine that can be used to create highly interactive three-dimensional spaces. In our implementation, the Unity framework was combined with the IBM QRadar SIEM application program interfaces (APIs) to transform the JavaScript Object Notation data feed from the application into the form of a 3-D galaxy inside a VR-capable device (Oculus Rift, for example).

This VR-integrated IBM QRadar app immerses the security professional (blue operator) in a virtual 3-D space featuring planets, stars, nebulae, comets and manmade structures. Each spatial visual element represents the various nodes of the operators IT ecosystem from the SIEM solution, including individual IPs, databases, public customer-facing endpoints, or any other facet of the network or service they may wish to monitor. Threats and warnings appear as solar flares, supernova and other visual cues, clearly alerting the observer to any potentially troublesome cybersecurity activity inside their infrastructure scope.

Through our experience in gamification for security education and cyber skill development, we observed the enormous value in using visual metaphors to explain complex issues. Based on this experience, we adopted a visual metaphor approach in our VR prototype.

The VR experience has the potential to further evolve into the AR space, where digital contexts and layers can be presented on top of the real-world SOC itself.

With AR, any operator at any level can superimpose views on the fly to augment the data presented, improving forecasting, analysis and decision-making. AR is also a prevalent emerging technology with significant advantages over the VR prototype we built. In the case of the SOC, AR could enable a personalized and customizable second virtual screen (or view) for each operator.

While the main drawback of a VR-powered SOC is that it pulls the security professional out of the familiar physical world and into a virtual environment, an AR solution allows the SOC operator to be in two worlds at once.

A well-thought-out, configured and deployed VR SIEM integration toolkit will become an asset for organizations creating or maintaining future SOCs. Although the prototype described above is a virtual solution, enterprise security products will, in time, integrate effectively with a complementary AR utility to facilitate greater engagement, interaction and success inside SOCs.

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RPT-Big pharma turns to AI to speed drug discovery, GSK signs deal – Reuters

Posted: at 8:16 am

(Repeats story first filed on Sunday)

* Machine learning deployed to find potential new drugs

* Aim to compress discovery process from 5.5 years to one

* $43 million GSK-Exscientia deal shows AI advancing

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON, July 2 The world's leading drug companies are turning to artificial intelligence to improve the hit-and-miss business of finding new medicines, with GlaxoSmithKline unveiling a new $43 million deal in the field on Sunday.

Other pharmaceutical giants including Merck & Co, Johnson & Johnson and Sanofi are also exploring the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to help streamline the drug discovery process.

The aim is to harness modern supercomputers and machine learning systems to predict how molecules will behave and how likely they are to make a useful drug, thereby saving time and money on unnecessary tests.

AI systems already play a central role in other high-tech areas such as the development of driverless cars and facial recognition software.

"Many large pharma companies are starting to realise the potential of this approach and how it can help improve efficiencies," said Andrew Hopkins, chief executive of privately owned Exscientia, which announced the new tie-up with GSK.

Hopkins, who used to work at Pfizer, said Exscientia's AI system could deliver drug candidates in roughly one-quarter of the time and at one-quarter of the cost of traditional approaches.

The Scotland-based company, which also signed a deal with Sanofi in May, is one of a growing number of start-ups on both sides of the Atlantic that are applying AI to drug research. Others include U.S. firms Berg, Numerate, twoXAR and Atomwise, as well as Britain's BenevolentAI.

"In pharma's eyes these companies are essentially digital biotechs that they can strike partnerships with and which help feed the pipeline," said Nooman Haque, head of life sciences at Silicon Valley Bank in London.

"If this technology really proves itself, you may start to see M&A with pharma, and closer integration of these AI engines into pharma R&D."

STILL TO BE PROVEN

It is not the first time drugmakers have turned to high-tech solutions to boost R&D productivity.

The introduction of "high throughput screening", using robots to rapidly test millions of compounds, generated mountains of leads in the early 2000s but notably failed to solve inefficiencies in the research process.

When it comes to AI, big pharma is treading cautiously, in the knowledge that the technology has yet to demonstrate it can successfully bring a new molecule from computer screen to lab to clinic and finally to market.

"It's still to be proven, but we definitely think we should do the experiment," said John Baldoni, GSK's head of platform technology and science.

Baldoni is also ramping up in-house AI investment at the drugmaker by hiring some unexpected staff with appropriate computing and data handling experience - including astrophysicists.

His goal is to reduce the time it takes from identifying a target for disease intervention to finding a molecule that acts against it from an average 5.5 years today to just one year in future.

"That is a stretch. But as we've learnt more about what modern supercomputers can do, we've gained more confidence," Baldoni told Reuters. "We have an obligation to reduce the cost of drugs and reduce the time it takes to get medicines to patients."

Earlier this year GSK also entered a collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and National Cancer Institute to accelerate pre-clinical drug development through use of advanced computational technologies.

The new deal with Exscientia will allow GSK to search for drug candidates for up to 10 disease-related targets. GSK will provide research funding and make payments of 33 million pounds ($43 million), if pre-clinical milestones are met. ($1 = 0.7682 pounds) (Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Adrian Croft/Keith Weir)

LONDON, July 3 European shares kicked off the new quarter with solid gains as talk of higher interest rates boosted banks, while the dollar rose from nine-month lows as U.S. Treasury yields hit their highest since mid-May.

BERLIN, July 3 Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives promised on Monday an end to unemployment, more police, new homes and increased support for families in their programme for September's national election, when she will seek a fourth term in office.

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RPT-Big pharma turns to AI to speed drug discovery, GSK signs deal - Reuters

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AI will help us download meeting notes to our brains by 2030 – VentureBeat

Posted: at 8:16 am

The internet is overflowing with tips on how to hack your health. From increasing cognitive function by drinking butter-spiked coffee to tracking sleep, stress, and activity levels with increasingly sophisticated fitness wearables, ours is a culture obsessed with optimizing performance. Combining this ethos with recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, its practically inevitable that the next frontier in achieving superhuman status lies in the rapidly developing field of brain augmentation.

Artificial intelligence has already proven its value in making software more intuitive and user-friendly. From voice-activated personal assistants like Alexa and Siri to smarter app authentication through facial recognition technology, we have reached the point where people are starting to trust that the machines are here to improve our lives. The science fiction-based fear of bots taking over is being put to rest as consumers embrace the ease and enhanced security that AI brings to our daily lives. Now that artificial intelligence has nestled itself comfortably inside our smartphones, scientists are aiming higher with the next device hack: the human brain.

Visionary entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk and Bryan Johnson, have teamed up with scientists around the world to make brain augmentation a reality sooner than you may have thought possible. Simply put, the goal is to enhance intelligence and repair damaged cognitive abilities through brain implants. Duke University senior researcher Mikhail Lebedev, who recently published a comprehensive collection of 150 brain augmentation research papers and articles, is confident that brain augmentation will be an everyday reality by 2030.

Lebedevs main focus of research is developing a device that can be fully implanted in the brain. Creating a power source and wireless communication system is a huge challenge, one that Elon Musk is also working on. Musk made headlines earlier this year with the launch of Neuralink, a company working on the development of what science fiction fans refer to as neural lace, or the merging of the human brain with software to optimize output of both biological and technological functioning. Musk hopes to offer a new treatment for severe brain traumas, including stroke and cancer lesions, in about four years.

With Neuralinkstill in its early stages, other Silicon Valley heavy hitters are eager to crack the code of brain augmentation. Braintree founder Bryan Johnson invested more than $100 million of personal funding to launch Kernel, a startup staffed by neuroscientists and engineers working to reverse the effects of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinsons through the creation of a neuroprosthetic in the form of a tiny embeddable chip. Scientists admit that much more research into how neurons function and interact needs to happen before neural code can be written by computers, but the resources and attention garnered by some of todays brightest entrepreneurs are sure to accelerate the process.

While we wait for technology to advance to the level of creating a fully implantable brain enhancement device, the short-term breakthroughs we can expect to see from AI brain augmentation revolve around sensory augmentation.

Using electronic stimuli to trigger the brain into producing artificial sensations has huge potential to improve damaged cognitive functioning. Vision could be triggered in the blind, allowing them to experience sight for the first time. Sensory touch could be stimulated in paralysed limbs. And cognitive functions such as memory that tend to degenerate with age could be optimized.

The implications are even larger than repairing cognitive functioning, though. In 2013, Miguel Nicolelis, a neurobiologist at Duke University, successfully led an experiment demonstrating a direct communication linkage between brains in rats. This first successful brain-to-brain interface allowed rats to electronically share information on how to respond to stimuli and the implications for humans could be staggering. Encompassing the ability to share memories and information, such an alteration of our shared consciousness is a more far-flung but nevertheless attainable goal of AI. Imagine all the collective suffering in office conference rooms that could be eliminated if meetings could be directly downloaded to our brains!

The field of AI-based brain augmentation represents the biggest evolutionary step forward in human history. Creating technologies to augment and enhance human intelligence holds the promise of eliminating diseases and providing a higher quality of life through optimizing, well, everything. Just think: The smartphone was just a crazy idea until the iPhone hit the market 10 years ago. Now 44 percent of the worlds population owns a smartphone, with the ability to expand the devices computing powers exponentially by connecting to the cloud.

Famed futurist and Google executive Ray Kurzweil predicts that by the 2030s nanobots will enter our brains via capillaries, providing a fully immersive virtual reality that connects our neocortex to the cloud, expanding our brain power in much the same way that our smartphones tap into the cloud for outsized computing power.

If Kurzweils incredible track record of predicting emerging technologies is any indicator hes been right about 86 percent of his predictions since the early 90s then we can expect to add a whole new meaning to the phrase head in the clouds. Were living into an exciting age when what was once science fiction is becoming reality, and having our heads in the clouds will no longer mean being lost in daydreams but rather that were plugged into the enhanced intelligence of a superbrain.

Andrew DiCosmo is the CTO for Blackspoke, a company that specializes in IT consulting to the Federal Government.

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AI will help us download meeting notes to our brains by 2030 - VentureBeat

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6 voicebot challenges and opportunities – VentureBeat

Posted: at 8:16 am

The voicebot ecosystem is growing immensely and amazing opportunities abound. Reading a recent post by Alon Bonder, and realizing the main subject of conversation for product managers, startups, and developers is voice-tech, I figured out some points to help you focus on building the right product for whats coming next. Basically, the mobile apps ecosystem we saw growing 10 years ago is making a return, but this time it is all aboutvoice.

In the beginning, before the mobile apps ecosystem rose in popularity, problems werent as clear as they are today. Specific iOS apps had memory problems; the UI was too simple; the development platforms were horrid (or nonexistent); there werent enough solutions for mobile app marketing, acquisition, and attribution; and the competition featured apps alongside thousands of farting, semi-funny, and non-valuable apps.

But as the ecosystem evolved and matured it granted new options to individuals and startups, who went ahead and made an app for that. These might be heaven-sent or perhaps simply tell you if something is Not a Hotdog.

Developers these days are struggling with incomplete voice platforms: Alexa, Cortana, Siri you name it. Even if an amazing voice app is built, the ecosystem isnt necessarily ready for prime time, or the full funnel: Develop acquire on-board retain make money.

The voice ecosystem is missing essential tools available in the mobile apps ecosystem to conduct appropriate analytics and measurement, marketing attribution, A/B testing, deep-linking for improved acquisition and re-engagement, and so on.

There are development solutions available for basic voice products thanks to APIs, frameworks, and AI tools but these are basic and, in most cases, only allow you to build a proof of concept without acquiring real users.

That leads us to a series of problems and opportunities.

Discovery: Building a voice app is the first logical step, but finding an audience is the first difficult step.

How should developers distribute their apps? Try to tell Alexa to order you a cab, ask Cortana to transfer $100 to a friend, or ask either to find you a good payment skill/app.Voice Ad networks, affiliations, and more are challenging. Any personal assistant or voice interface is available by chat and can disrupt word-of-mouth as we know it.

Discovery isnt that good now, so we need to promote our skill on Facebook, Google, maybe Twitter. Simple enough, but dont we need a skill URL? How about the ability to enable the skill from the ad (like app downloads/installs), or track behavior after an ad was clicked? Unfortunately, thats not available just yet. Appsflyer, for example, has been providing amazing attribution for the mobile apps ecosystem, but we need a similar solution for the voice ecosystem.

Happy times, a new user connected to your voice app but will they use the skill?

To provide a smooth and practical onboarding experience, we must develop a proper, flexible, AI/ML-based tool that will talk the user through the experience to help them achieve their goals. Think WalkMe but with voicemaybe TalkMe?This can be combined with attribution, so the talk-through may be personalized for the individual user and help you find their preferences, age, and gender. Of course, youll need proper analytics tools like GA or MixPanel (or Voicelabs), and a real-time content platform to analyze, improve, and test your onboarding funnel.

Whats a common known with the mobile apps funnel these days is non-existent for voice. Were missing a tool for in-depth analysis that would grant us insights to understand, change, test, and optimize the experience of the new skill-enabled user kind of like an Apptimize, but for voice. Also consider the conversion optimization ecosystem (Qualaroo, Unbounce) and the amazing possibilities voice apps are opening.

Did you know voice app retention is around 3 percent after seven days? In other words, 97 out of 100 users will not use your voice app after seven days. Crazy churn!Trust is one of the top reasons for churn, or the lack of trust. To build trust, the AI must understand how users perceive the apps voice, tone, and tempo. Voice analytics will truly help us understand the bot and the user.

Push notifications must also be adopted by the voice ecosystem to help in the retention department, as Appboy or Urbanairshiphave been doing for mobile.Alexas approach is a good first step but should be improved to include real-life communication between people. For example, if your friend wants to call you with an update about the game tonight, they will call you and not send a red-colored LED. Thats a given.

How do users bring new users to your voice app? A click on that Facebook or Twitter ad wont doremember, people dont click. But you can ask Alexa, please share Uber with Dan. Social sharing is difficult when done by voice only, so we must create a voice-sharing experience. A tool to share my actual Cortana email experience can make this personalized and trustworthy, so we can listen and understand the value of voice.

How about social proof, such as Rate our app! and please add your 5-star review so new users will think our voice app is amazing. Alexa is thereCortana and others arent yet.And the ecosystem?Build an API allowing users to share amazing skills and developers to easily track them to understand how viral the voice app is.And lets not forget the right tools to ask for feedbackby voice. Thats difficult, as you dont want a robot to interrupt while its helping you navigate.

Whats next? Invite three friends (tech, biz dev, product) for a brainstorming session with beer and snacks, and read this post again. Then list thee top products from the mobile apps ecosystem and how they could evolve to the voice ecosystem. Thenbuild one!

Ariel Kedem is the VP of Productsat Knowmail, an AI messaging system.

Above: The Machine Intelligence Landscape This article is part of our Artificial Intelligence series. You can download a high-resolution version of the landscape featuring 288 companies by clicking the image.

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6 voicebot challenges and opportunities - VentureBeat

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