Category Archives: Singularity

The price of 8K televisions has been falling all the time, and now we've reached a point where, if you need a new TV, there isn't really any reason not to buy one.

There are several definitions of the technological singularity. The more apocalyptic versions are along the lines of we will have reached the singularity when machines become more intelligent than us. At that point the robots will just make better and better machines without human intervention and in the time it takes to say twenty picofarad capacitor we will have lost our status as the dominant species on the planet to our silicon overlords.

But my favourite definition is more prosaic. It is that we will have reached the singularity when the curve of technological process against time is vertical from our perspective. In other words, things change so fast, that we have lost the ability to predict when they will happen.

I dont think were quite there yet, but I am beginning to think that were in the foothills. One symptom of this is that we are starting to see developments which take us by surprise. And by us I mean people like you and me who are familiar and current with technology. If something seems unexpected to us, then we have indeed been deceived by the steepness of the curve.

Both of my eyebrows skidded to the back of my head when I heard that the new Apple Silicon powered iPad Pro was 1,500 times faster than the first iPad 10 years ago. Like a lot of statistics used for marketing purposes, this is likely to be a bit selective - its hard to figure out the exact basis of the comparison, but, even so, theres more than a little truth in it. And even if its out by a factor of five, its still pretty remarkable and even though I knew the performance curve was steep, I didnt know that it was this steep.

I had a similar surprise when I was looking for a new TV to buy. Its quite enjoyable for me because I actually know what Im talking about in this area.

I found a TV I liked the look of - a 55 QLED Samsung 4K model. QLED is a good technology. Its obviously named to look a bit like OLED, but uses Quantum Dots instead to give extra brightness to the pixels. I know from previous models Ive reviewed that its a good technology. Priced at 1,199, (US$1,670) the set was 700 (US$975) cheaper than when it was on sale only in January this year.

It was only when I was trawling through the specifications that I noticed it is actually an 8K TV. That took me completely by surprise. It was an 8K TV for the price of a 4K set.

At that point, why would you buy anything else?

Actually there are plenty of reasons. You might not want an 8K TV, and Id understand if you didnt. 55 is a bit small for an 8K screen. You wont get the full benefit, and, certainly, if youre price conscious, you can buy 55 4K Samsung TVs for 479 (US$668) - although the QLED ones that same size cost 999 (US$1,392), which makes the 8K version look like even more of a bargain, if not a pricing mistake.

I have to say, though, that you certainly can tell the difference between good 8K and good 4K on a 55 screen, and while there isnt much 8K around to view at the moment, the Samsung even includes AI-based upscaling from HD and 4K to 8K. Ive seen this in action and it really does work, even though it does sound a bit like marketing woo.

Honestly, Im very tempted by this. If you can buy an upper mid-range 8K TV for the price of an upper mid-range 4K set, why wouldnt you? At the very least youll be ready for 8K when its finally available to watch without having to search YouTube for 8K demo footage.

So, does this mean that the technological singularity is here? I think its a sign that its approaching.

Just nine years ago I was at the IBC show in Amsterdam when 8K was a science experiment. 4K was just starting to roll out to expensive consumer outlets: you had to be wealthy to afford the typical 25,000 (US$34,836) list price. Only around three years after that, you could only buy 4K sets in the shops. I think were on the way to that situation now with 8K. I predict that in 3 years the majority of TVs on sale will be 8K and in 5 years, you won't be able to buy 4K sets any more. Soon, it simply wont make sense to buy 4K TVs at all.

There will be plenty of people who will disagree with me, and thats fine, but I would also say that if youve been around as much 8K as I have, there are some distinct advantages to adopting the higher resolution. These are not obvious like the way that HDR looks great even to non technical people, and theyre not as apparent as the stunning improvement that Full HD is over SD. Instead theyre all about subtlety.

High resolution video is not merely a matter of how sharply you can define the edges of an object. Its all about smoothness. Its the lack of aliasing (stepping) on a gentle curve. Its about seeing the microshadows that signal the texture of a face. Its about the ability to show digitally reproduced video as though it were not digital at all. Its about making the digital world look analogue again.

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8K TVs at everyday prices signal that theres far less reasons not to buy 8K - RedShark News

Gene therapy has shown promise in recent years for treating a range of diseases, including sickle-cell anemia, hemophilia, various forms of inherited blindness, mesothelioma, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. A new success story may soon be added to this list, with the publication yesterday of the outcomes of a clinical trial that used gene therapy to cure a rare immune system disorder in infants.

The study, described in the New England Journal of Medicine, was carried out by researchers from UCLA and Great Ormond Street Hospital in London over the course of five years, beginning in 2012.

Adenosine deaminase (ADA) is an enzyme found in a type of white blood cell called lymphocytes, which are primarily active in the brain, GI tract, and thymus gland. Lymphocytes make antibodies and attack infected cells, so theyre pretty crucial to the immune system.

ADAs job is to convert a molecule thats harmful to lymphocytes into a non-harmful version of itself. If ADA cant work its magic, that molecule starts to build up in lymphocytes, becoming toxic and ultimately killing the cellsand leaving the immune system virtually defenseless, highly vulnerable to invaders like viruses and bacteria.

Mutations in the ADA gene mean the body doesnt make enough of the enzyme to successfully do its job. This deficiency of ADA leads to a condition called severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). Those suffering from SCID can not only get sick very easily, but conditions that would be neutralized by a normal immune system quickly become deadly for them.

SCID was more commonly known as bubble boy disease after David Vetter, a boy born in Texas in 1971, spent 12 of his 13 years of life enclosed in a plastic bubble to protect him from germs.

About 20 different genetic mutations can cause SCID; ADA-SCID refers to immunodeficiency caused by lack of the ADA enzyme: severe combined immunodeficiency due to adenosine deaminase deficiencya bit of a mouthful. The worst part of ADA-SCID is that it occurs in babies; most are diagnosed with the condition before theyre even six months old, and without treatment they typically dont live past age two.

ADA is rare, estimated to occur in about 1 in 200,000 to 1,000,000 newborns worldwide; both the mothers and the fathers ADA gene must have mutations for the child to end up with this condition.

The first step in the gene therapy treatment was to collect hematopoietic stem cells, which are those that manufacture blood cells, from the patients. The researchers then inserted an intact copy of the ADA gene into the stem cells using an RNA virus called a lentivirus (the most well-known lentivirus is HIV).

The altered cells were re-injected into the patients, where they started producing ADA normally, yielding healthy immune cells.

Out of 50 total patients30 in the US and 20 in the UKwith ADA-SCID, 48 appear to have been rid of their condition thanks to the gene therapy, with no complications reported. The two patients who didnt have success with the therapy went back to traditional treatment methods, and didnt experience any adverse effects as a result of having tried the therapy.

If, or hopefully when, gene therapy becomes the go-to treatment for ADA-SCID, it will be a welcome reprieve from traditional options, which are neither pleasant nor cheap: patients need weekly injections of ADA until a bone marrow transplant can be done, and absent a donor, they must consistently receive injections, take antibiotics, and undergo antibody infusions for life.

If approved in the future, this treatment could be standard for ADA-SCID, and potentially many other genetic conditions, removing the need to find a matched donor for a bone marrow transplant and the toxic side effects often associated with that treatment, said Dr. Claire Booth, co-author of the study and a consultant in pediatric immunology and gene therapy at Londons Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Theres no mention of the cost of the therapy, nor whether this could be a prohibitive factor to making it a viable option. Nonetheless, the study is encouraging not just for its potential to revolutionize treatment of ADA-SCID, but as a harbinger for the promise of gene therapy for a multitude of genetic conditions.

People ask us, is it a cure? Who knows long term, but at least up to three years, these children are doing well, said Dr. Stephen Gottschalk, who was not involved in this study but performed a similar gene therapy on kids with SCID at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis. The immune function seems stable over time so I think it looks very, very encouraging.

Image Credit: liyuanalison from Pixabay

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How One Round of Gene Therapy Fixed 48 Kids' Immune Systems - Singularity Hub

The United States offshore wind industry is tiny, with just seven wind turbines operating off Rhode Island and Virginia. The few attempts to build large-scale wind farms like Europes have run into long delays, but that may be about to change.

On May 11, 2021, the US government issued the final federal approval for the Vineyard Wind project, a utility-scale wind farm that has been over a decade in the planning. The wind farms developers plan to install 62 giant turbines in the Atlantic Ocean about 15 miles off Marthas Vineyard, Massachusetts, with enough capacity to power 400,000 homes with clean energy.

The project is the first approved since the Biden administration announced a goal in March to develop 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind capacity this decade and promised to accelerate the federal review process. To put that goal in perspective, the US has just 42 megawatts today. Vineyard Wind expects to add 800 megawatts in 2023.

So, are we finally seeing the launch of a thriving offshore wind industry in the North America?

Several wind farm developers already hold leases in prime locations off the Eastern Seaboard, suggesting plenty of interest. As engineering professors leading the Energy Transition Initiative and Wind Energy Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, we have been closely watching the industrys challenges and progress. The process could move quickly once permitting and approvals are on track, but there are still obstacles.

Vineyard Wind had planned to begin construction in 2019, but a ruling by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management under the Trump administration stalled it. The ruling cast a shadow over other wind farm plans and hopes for a US offshore wind industry.

The agency ruled that the developers needed to address what is called cumulative impacts: what the East Coast will look like when there are not one or two, but 20 or 40 large-scale wind farms. That part of the US coast is ideal for wind power because of its wide, shallow shelf and proximity to cities that are looking for renewable electricity to reduce their climate impact.

Many researchers studying offshore wind, including some of our colleagues, urge planners to take this perspective.

But thinking carefully about a far future with several wind farms does not justify blocking the first utility-scale wind farm now. That first large wind farm will be an opportunity to learn, including about how wind turbines will interact with marine ecosystems. Right now there is almost no data on the impacts of offshore wind on the regions marine wildlife. The knowledge gained will be invaluable in moving forward responsibly.

Speeding up federal approvals for offshore wind farms is an important first step, but those arent the only hurdles for offshore wind farm developers. A large number of state environmental and coastal agencies also must approve offshore wind farm plans, and the communities where cables come ashore have a say.

Many of the Northeastern states, including Massachusetts, have their own offshore wind energy goals, so theyre likely to support wind farms. But some wealthy communities and the fishing industry have pushed back on wind power in the past. Vineyard Winds developers worked with community groups and fishermen from the region and agreed to compensate them for potential revenue losses.

The federal approval process, even fast-tracked, is also time-consuming. The government conducts reviews and requires site assessment plans, including geological, environmental and hazard surveys. From planning to construction, the entire process can take five to six years or more.

Some other big questions revolve around construction.

Under a 1920 law known as the Jones Act, only US-registered vessels operated by US citizens or permanent residents can move cargo between US ports. In December 2020, Congress made clear that this law applies to wind turbine construction, too.

When companies build offshore wind turbines today, they use special vessels for the installation of the most common offshore turbine designs. The US doesnt have any of these vessels yet, and the Jones Act makes it difficult to rely on vessels from Europe to do the job. There is promise, though: The first US-made version of this vessel is being built in Texas right now. Thats one; the country will need several to meet the new goal.

Vineyard Winds plan uses one of the worlds largest turbines, GEs Haliade-X, to reduce the number of turbines needed. Each has a capacity of 13 megawatts and blades the length of a football field. Image Credit: GE

A thriving wind power industry will also need ports for storing and deploying the long turbine blades, plus a trained workforce for construction and turbine maintenance.

A few coastal states have a head start on this. Massachusetts started laying the groundwork early and already has a port terminal in New Bedford to support the construction and deployment of future offshore wind projects. New Jersey recently announced a plan for a new offshore wind port that will start construction in 2022, and Delaware has been considering one.

States are also investing in training. New York state announced a US$20 million offshore wind training institute in January 2021 with the goal of training 2,500 workers. The Biden administration envisions 44,000 people employed in offshore wind by 2030, and many more in communities connected to offshore wind power activity.

In Europe, where many governments have reduced regulatory risks to the industry, the cost of offshore wind energy has come down much faster than experts expected, to around $50 per megawatt-hour. If the Biden administrations new approach allows US wind farms to achieve costs like this, then offshore wind, with its proximity to large urban centers on the East Coast, will be competitive.

Its also important to recognize other benefits. Every year of delay for a large-scale wind farm costs the US hundreds of millions of dollars in climate benefits. The Biden administration calculates that its new wind power goal would avoid 78 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, roughly equivalent to taking 17 million cars off the road for a year.

This article updates a version published March 31, 2021.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image Credit: T.W. van Urk/Shutterstock.com

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The US Just Approved Its First Big Offshore Wind Farm, and It's a Breakthrough for the Industry - Singularity Hub

Amy Adams stars in The Woman in the Window. Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon, Netflix

A Joe Wright movie is like a box of chocolates. The first might be delicious. The next, you might have to spit out.

This is the director that gave us a repellent, joyless, nonsensical Peter Pan spin-off (Pan) and an Anna Karenina that made audiences root for the train. Yet this is also the director behind two great films Darkest Hour and Atonement and one of the best Jane Austen adaptations (Pride & Prejudice) of the past 20 years.

The Woman in the Window, streaming on Netflix on Friday, May 14, is, unfortunately, one of Wrights amazingly bad movies, and this is a shame, with Amy Adams at the center of it.

Adams is an indefinably great leading lady not in the sense that her greatness cant be defined, but that the quality of indefinability is tied to whats great about her. Shes not distinctive in a way that we associate with other movie stars. Her power is as a vessel of seeming ordinariness that is raised to a level of singularity. This makes her a stealth performer. Through Adams precise consciousness and depth of thought, her intuition and second-by-second communicative power, we watch as her characters are revealed by degrees. So, its disappointing to see Adams giving her intelligence to a vehicle so inadequately conceived that there can be no revelation.

Yet to think, it sounded great: Adams as a woman who snoops on her neighbors, kind of like James Stewart in Rear Window; with Julianne Moore, Anthony Mackie and Gary Oldman in the supporting cast, and with a script adapted by Tracy Letts from A.J. Finns novel. This movie has been on the way for months, delayed again and again, and when it turned up on the Netflix schedule, it felt like, Ahhh, big stars again. Big movies again. Normal life again.

Of course, one aspect of normal life, which tends to be forgotten in the haze of nostalgia, is that it contained a lot of bad movies. In this prime example, Adams plays a drug-addicted, alcoholic, agoraphobic therapist who spends a lot of her non-drinking time looking out the window.

The problem is, shes not very good at it. Unlike Stewart, who hung back in the shadows, shes visible to everyone. And curiously, even though people know shes watching, nobody puts up curtains, drapes or a humble shade, even before they kill somebody.

By the way, before the murder is committed, we know who did it. One of the neighbors comes to visit, acting slightly more wiggy than Peter Lorre, and the woman welcomes him into her home. True, its understandable that someone who never leaves the house might welcome a visitor with the enthusiasm of Gene Hackmans hermit in Young Frankenstein. But shes supposed to be a mental health professional, and if she cant tell that her visitor is alarmingly bizarre, she might want to rethink her career.

The supposed fun of Woman in the Window is that the woman witnesses something, but because shes a mentally unhinged substance abuser, the cops dont believe her and her neighbors feel at license to scream at her.

Gary Oldman has a ridiculous role, in which he flies off the handle in every scene. The screaming has no mooring in sense or backstory; its just an actor trying to do something with nothing.

With its superior cast, its intelligent art direction and a filmmaker capable of exceptional work, Woman in the Window is like a race car revving in a driveway, with nowhere to go. It shows that even the best actors and an occasionally masterful director cant get from the front door to the mailbox without a decent script.

KThe Woman in the Window: Suspense thriller. Starring Amy Adams and Gary Oldman. Directed by Joe Wright. (R. 100 minutes.) Streaming on Netflix starting Friday, May 14.

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Review: The Woman in the Window is one of director Joe Wrights stinkers, even with Amy Adams as star - SF Chronicle Datebook

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SentinelOne is the Only Vendor To Score Highest Across All Three Critical Capabilities Use Cases

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SentinelOne, the autonomous cybersecurity platform company, today announced that Gartner has positioned SentinelOne with the highest score in use case Type B in Gartners 2021 Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection Platforms report1.

SentinelOne received the highest score for all three customer types out of 19 vendors. Gartner says, Type B organizations aim to stay relatively current on technology without getting too far ahead or behind their competition.

We believe receiving the highest product score among organizations prioritizing overall value in the 2021 Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection Platforms validates our vision and execution in delivering an AI-powered platform purpose built for the demands of the mainstream enterprise market, said Raj Rajamani, Chief Product Officer, SentinelOne. These organizations represent the largest market segment out of Gartners use cases and prioritize technology deployments that improve their organizations productivity, product quality, customer service, and security.

The Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection Platforms is part of the analysis conducted for the 2021 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms2 and uses the same data collected during that research period. In conjunction with the report, we believe our ease of use, prevention, managed services and EDR functionality satisfied customer needs to the highest possible degree across all use cases -- use cases A, B, and C.

SentinelOne was also positioned by Gartner as a Leader in the 2021 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms. SentinelOnes Singularity Platform encompasses prevention, detection, and response capabilities across endpoints, containers, cloud workloads, and IoT devices in a single, completely autonomous platform - using patented behavioral and static AI models to deliver protection with an invisible performance impact. With SentinelOne, organizations scale their cybersecurity with an AI-powered solution that provides transparency into everything that is happening across the network at machine speed and successfully replaces traditional antivirus.

- Download a complimentary copy of the 2021 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection platforms by visiting: LINK

- Register for our upcoming webinar on Wednesday, May 19th at 10:00 AM PDT by visiting: LINK

- Download a complimentary copy of the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection platforms by visiting: LINK

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartners research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner Peer Insights reviews constitute the subjective opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences and do not represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.

Gartner Peer Insights Customers Choice constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Gartner or its affiliates.

About SentinelOne

SentinelOne is the only cybersecurity solution encompassing AI-powered prevention, detection, response and hunting across endpoints, containers, cloud workloads, and IoT devices in a single autonomous XDR platform. With SentinelOne, organizations gain full transparency into everything happening across the network at machine speed to defeat every attack, at every stage of the threat lifecycle. To learn more visit http://www.sentinelone.com or follow us at @SentinelOne, on LinkedIn or Facebook.

1Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, Paul Webber, Peter Firstbrook, Rob Smith, Mark Harris Prateek Bhajanka, 5 May 2021.

2Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection Platforms, Mark Harris, Peter Firstbrook, Rob Smith, Paul Webber Prateek Bhajanka, 6 May 2021.

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Brian Merrillfama PR for SentinelOneP: 617-986-5005E: S1@famapr.com

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SentinelOne Receives Highest Score for Type B Use Case in the Gartner 2021 Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection Platforms - StreetInsider.com

Last year, a guy in a jet suit glided up a mountain to trial whether jet suits could be a useful tool for emergency responders in wilderness areas. It went pretty well; the jet suit-clad pilot reached the mountainside location in 90 seconds, as compared to the 25 minutes it would have taken an emergency responder on foot. Now the same suit is being trialed by the British Royal Marines as a possible tool for boarding ships at sea.

In what sort of situation would you need to fly onto a ship? To fight pirates, for one.

The jet suit is made by UK-based Gravity Industries, whose founder Richard Browning was himself in the Royal Marine Reserves for a time. Having set and then broken the Guinness World Record for the fastest speed flown in a body-controlled jet engine powered suit (who knew world records got so specific?) in 2019, Browning started looking for practical and humanitarian applications for his invention.

Boarding a ship thats been hostilely taken over isnt an application that would have come to many peoples minds (my own included), but it seemed to work pretty well, albeit in a staged simulation where no one was using weapons. During the trial, Gravity Industries employees operated the jet suit, using it to board a Royal Navy Batch 2 River-class offshore patrol ship called the HMS Tamar.

The jet suit wearer took off from a speedboat moving behind the much larger ship, more or less as would be done in a true visit, board, search, and seizure, or VBSS, which is military speak for getting on a ship whose captain or crew dont want you there; it applies in situations like trying to capture an enemy ship or intercept terrorists or smugglersor pirates.

Once on board the HMS Tamar, the pilot dropped a rope ladder for the other people on the speedboat to board the ship. If you saw the excellent 2013 movie Captain Phillips, you may remember the scene where the pirates are able to get past the ships water hoses and fire bombs, pull up next to it, attach a ladder, and climb right on; chaos and destruction ensue.

Gravity envisions the jet suit being able to provide extremely rapid access to any part of the target vessel, instantly freeing up hands to bear a weapon, and even retaining the capability to relocate on target or self-exfiltrate. I mean, how much easier would it have been to rescue Tom Hanks with a jet suit? (to whatever extent the movie is accurate, though, a bullet-proof version may not be a bad idea).

Piracy is, unfortunately, still a very real problem. As one expert notes, 2000 through 2011 saw high levels of pirate activity, with the Gulf of Aden area off the coast of East Africa becoming the most pirate-infested part of the world, and the most dangerous for cargo ships. Efforts to make ships more secure, patrol waters more thoroughly, and improve health and education services on land all helped curb attacks on ships from 2012 to 2019. The economic hardship brought by the pandemic, however, likely contributed to an increase in attacks last year, and the outlook going forward is uncertain.

The British Marines havent publicly stated whether they plan to move forward with employing jet suits; with a price tag of around $400,000, theyd be a significant investment, and army personnel would need to be trained to use themthough Browning told Digital Trends that the way this thing flies is very much an intuitive part of your body, adding that people have gotten the hang of it in four or five goes, with each go just lasting around 90 seconds.

Image Credit: Gravity Industries

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Watch a Jet Suit Pilot Fly Onto a Ship to Trial the Tech for Fighting Pirates - Singularity Hub

Theres a name thats mentioned in every story written about artificial intelligence (AI) since 1984, and its not a scientist. Its Arnold Schwarzenegger. So lets get this out of the way. The Terminator is a very fine film, but it is not a documentary.

Futurist and author Gihan Perera, who has been watching computer intelligence grow exponentially for 30 years, admits, Artificial intelligence scares some people. They think its a killer robot. Theyre thinking of Arnie Schwarzenegger, but thats not what AI is. Its just self-learning software.

We dont need to worry about the singularity. Thats dystopian thinking. But theres also a utopian view where, thanks to AI, well all be living lives of luxury, doing everything we choose to do.

The reality will be somewhere in between.

This sounds vaguely reassuring. Whats not in doubt is that businesses which dont quickly adapt to and capitalise on the myriad advantages of AI will be terminated by those that do.

In business, if youre not engaging with AI, youre going to get beaten; its that simple, explains Perera, author of Disrupted: Leading the Change Through Crisis, Recovery and Growth.

One of the biggest mistakes that I see leaders make with AI is that they dont realise how powerful it already is. They pray that they wont need to get on the AI bandwagon because they think its too difficult, but its already here, and the businesses on the bandwagon are riding away from them.

The key is a term that humans generally struggle to understand exponential growth (rarely seen in nature, or at least, not until a health pandemic comes along).

We dont see much exponential growth in real life, and the best business example is Kodak, which was one of the biggest brands in the world in 1995, and filed for bankruptcy in 2012, Perera says.

Kodak didnt understand exponential growth. We often hear that they were afraid of digital, but it was actually someone in the company that invented the digital camera, took it to senior management and said, What do you think of this?

You might think management said, Destroy it. Its going to kill us, but its the opposite; they said, This thing is grainy. Its slow. It will never be as high quality as film. Dont worry about it.

But they didnt take into account that technology grows exponentially, and they were quickly overtaken.

Another thing a lot of people dont realise is just how much AI is already a part of their everyday lives, and how much it is driving the success of some of the biggest companies on the planet.

AI already sets the prices on Amazon, predicts your Google searches, runs your GPS, sends you an Uber, matches buyers and sellers online, recommends songs on Spotify and even qualifies borrowers for companies like Ant Financial Services Group.

In business, if youre not engaging with AI, youre going to get beaten; its that simple. Gihan Perera

This giant Chinese company valued at around A$400 billion, or three to four times the equity value of Goldman Sachs uses AI for consumer lending, credit-rating services, investment funds and selling health insurance.

Marco Iansiti, a Harvard professor of business administration and co-author of Competing in the Age of AI, explained in the Harvard Business Review, Unlike traditional banks, investment institutions, and insurance companies, Ant Financial is built on a digital core.

There are no workers in its critical path of operating activities. AI runs the show. There is no manager approving loans, no employee providing financial advice, no representative authorising consumer medical expenses.

And without the operating constraints that limit traditional firms, Ant Financial can compete in unprecedented ways.

This isnt the future; its whats happening right now, and regardless of whether you run a digital startup or are part of a traditional business, its essential to understand the revolutionary impact AI has on operations, strategy and competition, Iansiti says.

Again, its important to realise were not talking about the AI of science fiction here computers that are indistinguishable from humans and able to reason like us, which is known as strong AI.

All you need to shake up a business completely is computers that can perform and continually get better at tasks, lots of them, traditionally left to humans, or weak AI.

Software makes up the core of the firm, while humans are moved to the edge, as Iansiti puts it.

This will, of course, mean fewer jobs for humans partly because AI systems will work 24 hours a day for almost no dollars, which humans cannot and will not and the implications are far reaching.

AI-based operating models can exact a real human toll, Iansiti says in the Harvard Business Review article. Several studies suggest that perhaps half of current work activities may be replaced by AI-enabled systems. We shouldnt be too surprised by that.

After all, operating models have long been designed to make many tasks predictable and repeatable. Processes for scanning products at check-outs, making lattes and removing hernias, for instance, benefit from standardisation and dont require too much human creativity.

Toby Walsh, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at UNSW Sydneys School of Computer Science and Engineering, sees hope in that latte example, however, and says that in some ways, AI will make humans more valuable and valued.

Computers arent going to take over all jobs because we are social animals. We prefer human contact. I mean, why do we pay humans to make coffee when a machine can make it better? Because we like the fact that baristas flirt with us, gossip with us, Walsh insists.

Therell be plenty of jobs like that doctors, for example; they will have AI assistants, but we will prefer a human telling us the bad news because they have empathy.

Ubers will be autonomous eventually. Thats how theyll really start making money, but people will pay extra to have a chauffeur. They might not even drive the car, but well pay for them to carry our bags and chat to us.

Well also pay extra for humans because we prefer them.

Perera agrees that its not time to panic yet. While the growth of AI may be exponential, people, on the other hand, are slow to change, so weve got time.

McKinsey actually did a report that found that robots and AI will create more jobs than they destroy, but what we worked at 20 years ago is not going to work in the future, he cautions.

Its also going to change the kind of jobs we have. When Uber went looking for a new boss, they hired a tech expert, not someone with experience at a taxi company.

Walsh, who has been fascinated by AI for 40 years, agrees that companies and business leaders need to adapt because things are changing at incredible speed.

The past decade has been the most exciting because AI has moved out of the laboratory. Ten years ago, I never spoke to a journalist or a politician about it, and now, Im constantly being asked, Where is this taking us? he says.

Its true, though, that any company that sits on its hands will be eaten by its competitors. Look at Amazon, FedEx. Theyre the early adopters. Theyre the ones that are prospering while other companies are going to wither.

Walsh says the short-sighted way to introduce AI into your business is to merely focus on reducing headcount, but he says thats a race to the bottom.

The other way to look at it is as an opportunity to see that peoples time is freed up by AI, so they should concentrate on improving the product, moving the business forward, Walsh says. It allows you to concentrate on what people are good at, that emotional intelligence that humans have.

Perera, who regularly helps businesses and large corporations integrate AI into their workplaces, has very specific advice. He says the first thing to do is buy the AI tools that can assist in your peripheral operations.

AI can record your Zoom meetings, file them away and then give you instant retrieval, based on a few words you recall from the meeting, he says.

It can also answer an email from someone seeking to interview you, look at your diary and then because it knows what time of day you like to do that kind of thing offer that person some options and set up the whole thing for you. The other person will assume theyre dealing with your human EA. Its that seamless.

The second step is to look at how you can build AI into your main operations: Things like your supply chain, production, collecting data, getting AI to analyse and take advantage of that, Perera explains.

And you dont have to build this from scratch. You can rent AI the same way you rent office space. Google and Amazon rent out their incredibly powerful machine-learning systems for your use.

You can even use IBMs Watson for US$100 a month. Its an incredibly powerful machine-learning AI that actually beat humans at the game show Jeopardy, which is something we think only humans could understand because it uses double meanings and wordplay.

But it wasnt trying to work like a human brain. It was using data and creating patterns. You can imagine how useful that would be to businesses.

So just how profound a change are we looking at in the way that business, and our lives, are run? Were talking genuinely revolutionary, like the industrial revolution, only bigger and faster, according to Walsh.

People forget that the weekend was invented by the industrial revolution. That was a human-made construction, brought about by workers wanting Sunday off, and because of the gains made by industry, they got that, he explains.

We could end up with a three-day weekend. You could pay people more for less work and theyd be happier.

As for timing, if you look back at 2020, it was clearly a time of change in many ways, but Perera believes it will be a landmark year in what he calls the technological revolution.

Well look back in 20 or 30 years time at how much COVID-19 accelerated digital change and automation, the way we all started to work through screens, contactless payment, online shopping, he predicts. Well look back at this as a really significant moment in that change.

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How AI could give us a four-day work week and shape the future of business - The CEO Magazine

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SentinelOne, the autonomous cybersecurity platform company, today announced that Gartner has positioned SentinelOne with the highest scores in all three use cases; Type A, B, & C in Gartners 2021 Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection Platforms report1.

Out of the 19 vendors included in the report, SentinelOne is the only vendor that received the highest score across all three Critical Capabilities use cases:

We believe receiving the highest product score across all three customer use cases in the 2021 Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection Platforms validates our vision and execution in delivering an AI-powered platform that is purpose built for the demands of the mainstream enterprise market, said Raj Rajamani, Chief Product Officer, SentinelOne. We believe these results are a clear demonstration of the unrivaled capabilities SentinelOne delivers to a diverse set of customers and is representative of the continued market traction were experiencing.

The Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection Platforms is part of the analysis conducted for the 2021 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms2 and uses the same data collected during that research period. In conjunction with the report, we believe our ease of use, prevention, managed services and EDR functionality satisfied customer needs to the highest possible degree across all use cases -- use cases A, B, and C.

SentinelOne was also positioned by Gartner as a Leader in the 2021 Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms. SentinelOnes Singularity Platform encompasses prevention, detection, and response capabilities across endpoints, containers, cloud workloads, and IoT devices in a single, completely autonomous platform - using patented behavioral and static AI models to deliver protection with an invisible performance impact. With SentinelOne, organizations scale their cybersecurity with an AI-powered solution that provides transparency into everything that is happening across the network at machine speed and successfully replaces traditional antivirus.

- Download a complimentary copy of the 2021 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection platforms by visiting: LINK

- Register for our upcoming webinar on Wednesday, May 19th at 10:00 AM PDT by visiting: LINK

- Download a complimentary copy of the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection platforms by visiting: LINK

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartners research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner Peer Insights reviews constitute the subjective opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences and do not represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.

Gartner Peer Insights Customers Choice constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Gartner or its affiliates.

About SentinelOne

SentinelOne is the only cybersecurity solution encompassing AI-powered prevention, detection, response and hunting across endpoints, containers, cloud workloads, and IoT devices in a single autonomous XDR platform. With SentinelOne, organizations gain full transparency into everything happening across the network at machine speed to defeat every attack, at every stage of the threat lifecycle. To learn more visit http://www.sentinelone.com or follow us at @SentinelOne, on LinkedIn or Facebook.

1 Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms, Paul Webber, Peter Firstbrook, Rob Smith, Mark Harris Prateek Bhajanka, 5 May 2021.2 Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Endpoint Protection Platforms, Mark Harris, Peter Firstbrook, Rob Smith, Paul Webber Prateek Bhajanka, 6 May 2021.

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SentinelOne is the Only Vendor to Score Highest Across All Three Gartner Critical Capabilities Use Cases - Business Wire

Pravin Hungund, Chief Technologist and Global Head Technovation Centre, CTO, Wipro Ltd.

By Pravin Hungund, Chief Technologist and Global Head Technovation Centre, CTO, Wipro Limited

The year 2020 fast forwarded the need to adopt emerging technologies. In the pre-pandemic world, emerging technologies typically lived through a one to two year window, to either fade away or mature. Today, however, most of them have quickly become an essential requirement, in order to address societal challenges.

The world of technology has gone through multiple evolutions, moving from Phygital to going digital. In this phase we witnessed the maturing of emerging tech, which in turn accelerated automation. Then from going digital enterprises went to being digital which enabled a hands free operating mode for the industry. The pandemic has caused a further shift into a digital in the virtual mode.

The Digital in the virtual world and the technology concepts that enable it.

The codified centric approach has proven its might at a time where there is a need for certain human free operation. At Wipro, this is exemplified by a simple DIY app that helps track Covid-19 using Artificial Intelligence to pre-screen, track and assign degrees of urgency to patients. Right from sample submissions to AI analysis to results transferred to patients, the entire process is digital. This way, certain burdens are lifted from those working to battle Covid-19 and additionally those who may be vulnerable can be protected better.

The state of the Digital in the Virtual world today

The fintech industry is considered to be a horizontal enabler to every industry and acts as a reflector of emerging and existing industry trends across sectors. This is also true for the concept of digital in a virtual world.

The emergence of the intelligent enterprise: Merging of technologies, industries, and digital native conduct.

The pandemic generated dialogues around intellectual property (IP) and underscored its criticality in a post digital era, for every business. Today, IP has emerged as a must have for enterprises worldwide if they want to survive.

We witnessed the positive impact of an operational intelligent enterprise when we went into the lock down that caused the entire business ecosystem to come to a grinding halt. Despite the lock down, select enterprises thrived in the scenario of constraints and ambiguity. While some businesses lost in select areas of business, others grew their revenue and expanded their sphere of influence and customer base. Several factors contributed to that success such as the fact that their product offering was crucial to the needs of the industry and they were in the cloud. However, the most important reason for this success was the foundational operating modes that made these companies intelligent.

The emerging tech ecosystem An Autonomous Operating Model

The foundation of Technological Singularity

Technology singularity is a hypothetical concept that indicates a point in time at which the use of technology grows exponentially and irreversibly, resulting in never before imagined opportunities and changes to human civilisation.

While currently technological singularity is a hypothetical event, the massive growth in technology due to unprecedented innovation is real. These innovations have the power to unlock new paradigms, as they converge.

The Emergence

Take into consideration the below converging technology themes at different layers,

When integrated end to end, with emerging technologies such as Cloud Tech, IoT, AI, 5G, Blockchain, Robotics and Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, these layers produce tactical themes which enable intelligent enterprises. This could include Augmented Virtuality, an Integrated approach to simulation and modelling, Intelligent Mechatronics and Human Machine Collaborative Intelligence. In addition, a new trend of convergence can emerge across operations, data and engineering and game tech. The four layers of convergence of OT, IT, GT and ET will be the drivers of the intelligent enterprise ecosystem in the future.

These fundamental changes make the dialogue on an enterprises intellectual property strategy even more critical for not only profitability but for survival. While technology singularity may still be in the distant future, technology convergence will surely give rise to computable environments and extend the internet functionality beyond its current form to sharing even experiences remotely at the edge. As technology evolves post pandemic era, enterprises will leverage IPs to shift from hands free to an autonomous operating model. These will be the levers from further shift from automation to an autonomous enterprise. Leveraging collaborative innovation, crowdsourcing and open innovation systems, will become a more fundamental society need.

If you have an interesting article / experience / case study to share, please get in touch with us at [emailprotected]

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Intelligent enterprises and the importance of intellectual property - Express Computer

Thats not all. One of the details that helps explain the watchs singularity is its variable-geometry rotor, quite possibly the most esoteric function ever integrated into a watch. It gives the wearer control over the rate at which the rotor (the freely oscillating weight that charges an automatic watch) spins, based on how active theyre likely to be while wearing it.

So if youre feeling frisky, you may want to push the red gold segment to the rotors centre to slow the winding down. On the other hand, if youre languishing like a lounge lizard, move it to the outer edge so that when you do lift a finger, your watch winds more efficiently.

Those familiar with the British automotive marque will recognise some of the visual cues that link watch and car. The overall form is one of them, as is the canopy-shaped section running through the centre of the watch. More obvious is the engraving of the word Speedtail into the case at six oclock and the flash of McLarenorangethat runs through the lower part of the dial and into the black rubber strap, mirroring the Speedtails central tail light. And, like the car, only 106RM 40-01watches will be made.

The Speedtail, which was pitched as the spiritual successor to McLarens iconic F1, sold out in a flash. Secondhand models, sometimes with only factory miles on the clock, are already commanding values well over $3 million, significantly above the original start price. Buyers of Richard Milles new hyperwatch will be hoping it proves just as collectible.

richardmille.com

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Richard Mille just revealed the most extreme watch its ever made - British GQ