Thoughts and Ideas: February 2020

Friday, February 28, 2020

Newsroom: TikTok to Surpass 50 Million Users in US by 2021

Source: https://www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index.php/tiktok-to-surpass-50-million-users-in-us-by-2021/
February 27, 2020 at 07:01AM

More than 20% of social users will use TikTok this year February 27, 2020 (New York, NY) â€“ Since launching in the US in 2017, social video app TikTok has […]

Cellphone Carriers Face $200 Million Fine for Not Protecting Location Data

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/technology/fcc-cellphones-location-data-fines.html
February 29, 2020 at 01:06AM

The proposed penalties are among the largest the F.C.C. has sought in years, and come after the data was misused by rogue law enforcement officers and others.

Extract, Load, Transform?

Source: https://gigaom.com/2020/02/28/extract-load-transform/
February 28, 2020 at 05:44PM

Even as technology changes, many things stay the same. Not least, in the world of enterprise-scale data processing, where massive volumes of data often need to be reformatted, restructured, and moved from one place to another (for a broader introduction, you can read our Key Criteria report on data pipelines).

The Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) model emerged with traditional, data-centric architectures in which large-scale, structured databases were king. Cloud computing is changing the game, for several reasons:

‘Elastic’ infrastructure (which scales according to need) reduces the constraints on what data can be stored where and when
Serverless compute models work on an event-driven basis, which is more conducive to (potentially infrequent or nonlinear) streaming data sources
Cloud-based data architectures offer greater flexibility, for example, by not requiring data to be fully structured in advance of storing it

As a result of such drivers, models are emerging that are more akin to Extract-Load-Transform, i.e., ELT, than ETL. Data can be loaded into a cloud-based data warehouse directly from the source, either as database exports, content, or data streams, and then can be treated ‘in situ.’ While the difference in naming may not appear huge, its impact is profound.

First, and perhaps most obviously, it streamlines the process overall: data can be loaded in raw form even as you decide how to pre-process and manipulate it. In addition, however, data only needs to be transformed according to need. Rather than having to process all data into a new format before it can be analyzed or used, for example, you can apply transformations to a subset of the data. Note: this is different from schema-on-read models, which bring transformation and query closer together, but do not reduce the gap between transformation and load.

ELT also reduces risk. Historically, a transformation could only be checked when the data was loaded. By loading the data first, transformations can be tested in situ (likely against a sample subset). Potentially, the overall result brings more effective data pipelines, particularly in situations where data structures are harder to lockdown. You should also see higher levels of cost efficiency: Rather than building multiple small bridges between data islands, you are creating a single data ‘mainland’ as a basis for data transformation at scale.

However, these benefits come with a number of ramifications and considerations:

Potentially, the sky is the limit in terms of which data sources could be loaded. You will still need to decide what you require to store.
In the case of serverless data use, you can define and configure events to trigger how data is loaded and transformed.
You will need to define (in advance) a cloud-based data architecture that is suited to the multiplicity of data types that you are looking to manage.
Compliance and security considerations remain as important as ever, with policies applying to the data pool as a whole, rather than to isolated data silos.

Overall, ELT changes the equation. Rather than needing to apply fixed data manipulation rules according to specific requirements (as was the case with ETL), you can be much more granular about defining and applying transformations according to your needs. At the same time, you will need to consider cloud-based data architecture strategically, taking into account current and future application and analytics needs.

This brings to it a final point: As we all know well, BI and analytics are not standing still. With machine learning increasing its impact, with new data architectures and use cases moving closer to the infrastructure edge, how we manipulate and use data will also have to evolve. Key to this evolution will be how we can manage data both flexibly and at a massive scale, minimizing any bottlenecks to data delivery, however data is to be used.

The Week in Tech: Coronavirus Disrupts the Industry

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/technology/coronavirus-disrupts-industry.html
February 28, 2020 at 05:00PM

Companies are telling investors that sales are slumping because of the outbreak, conferences are being canceled, and workers are being instructed not to travel.

The Capital That Ate Wellness Is Going to Eat Your Mushrooms

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/style/venture-capital-psychedelics.html
February 28, 2020 at 01:00PM

Venture capital arrives for psychedelics.

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Cellphone Carriers May Face $200 Million in Fines for Selling Location Data

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/technology/fcc-location-data.html
February 28, 2020 at 03:59AM

The F.C.C is set to propose some of its largest penalties in decades. But critics see it as a delayed and tepid response.

Unions Push F.T.C. to Study if Amazon Warps the Economy

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/technology/amazon-unions-ftc.html
February 28, 2020 at 01:57AM

So far, the Everything Store has dodged some of the scrutiny dogging Google and Facebook.

Kazuhisa Hashimoto, 61, Who Created the ‘Konami Code’ Video Game Cheat, Dies

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/technology/kazuhisa-hashimoto-died-konami-code-.html
February 28, 2020 at 01:42AM

The code — up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start — was a famous cheat for players who wanted to squeeze more lives out of their video game consoles.

What Do Those Spotify ‘Top Fans’ Messages Mean?

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/style/spotify-top-fans-messages.html
February 28, 2020 at 12:20AM

A new marketing message tells people they are big fans of certain artists. But why?

Steven Seagal Settles Charges of Unlawfully Promoting Cryptocurrency

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/movies/steven-seagal-bitcoiin2gen.html
February 27, 2020 at 11:32PM

The Securities and Exchange Commission said that the actor was paid to promote the initial coin offering for a cryptocurrency company but did not properly disclose the agreement.

Newsroom: TikTok to Surpass 50 Million Users in US by 2021

Facebook, Google and Twitter Rebel Against Pakistan’s Censorship Rules

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/technology/pakistan-internet-censorship.html
February 27, 2020 at 10:45PM

The battle is the latest skirmish between internet companies and governments over who decides what content should be online.

Cloud Computing Is Not the Energy Hog That Had Been Feared

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/technology/cloud-computing-energy-usage.html
February 27, 2020 at 10:19PM

The digital services churned out by the world’s computer centers are multiplying, but their energy use is not, thanks to cloud computing, a new study says.

The Political Pundits of the Future Are on TikTok

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/style/tiktok-politics-bernie-trump.html
February 27, 2020 at 09:37PM

Teenagers are campaigning, debating and running fact checks on the app. One of them called it “cable news for young people.”

What Would a Coronavirus Outbreak in the U.S. Mean for Schools?

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/coronavirus-outbreak-schools.html
February 27, 2020 at 06:16PM

Districts have infectious disease protocols. But few have detailed plans to teach online if schools were closed for long periods.

Founder of 8chan Faces Arrest on ‘Cyberlibel’ Charge

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/technology/8chan-fredrick-brennan-libel.html
February 27, 2020 at 11:55AM

Fredrick Brennan, who founded the site that has given visibility to violent extremists, gave up control of it in 2015 and has criticized 8chan’s current leader.

Newsroom: US Spotify Listeners Surpassed Pandora Listeners in 2019, Sooner than Expected

Source: https://www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index.php/us-spotify-listeners-surpassed-pandora-listeners-in-2019-sooner-than-expected/
February 25, 2020 at 07:01AM

Spotify will gain more than 10 million US listeners in 2020   February 25, 2020 (New York, NY)Â – Pandora is no longer the most popular music streaming service in the […]

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Microsoft Issues Financial Warning Because of Coronavirus

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/technology/microsoft-coronavirus-earnings.html
February 27, 2020 at 02:05AM

The tech giant said the virus was causing issues with its supply chain, about a week after Apple said it was facing similar problems.

As the Start-Up Boom Deflates, Tech Is Humbled

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/technology/tech-start-up-boom-deflate.html
February 24, 2020 at 07:10PM

Layoffs. Shutdowns. Uncertainty. After a decade of prosperity, many hot young companies are facing a reckoning.

It’s Facebook vs. the Bloomberg Campaign vs. the Internet

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/style/bloomberg-memes-instagram.html
February 27, 2020 at 12:11AM

The Bloomberg campaign is putting out more memes on private Instagram accounts — and running faster than Facebook can keep up.

New York City May Crack Down on Grubhub and Other Food Delivery Apps

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/nyregion/grubhub-doordash-fees-nyc.html
February 26, 2020 at 10:52PM

The City Council will consider a package of bills aimed at limiting how much food delivery apps can charge restaurants.

Should Robots Have a Face?

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/business/robots-retail-jobs.html
February 26, 2020 at 10:20PM

As automation comes to retail industries, companies are giving machines more humanlike features in order to make them liked, not feared.

Should Robots Have a Face?

A Meeting in Orbit Demonstrates a Space Junk Solution

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/science/mev-1-northrop-grumman-space-junk.html
February 26, 2020 at 10:12PM

Two satellites docked together high above Earth on Tuesday, successfully extending the life of one that was running out of fuel.

How Delivery Apps Are Eating Up Your Budget

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/technology/personaltech/ubereats-doordash-postmates-grubhub-review.html
February 26, 2020 at 10:08PM

Uber Eats and DoorDash might be convenient, but the apps are making you pay a juicy premium as high as 91 percent.

Down on the Farm That Harvests Metal From Plants

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/science/metal-plants-farm.html
February 26, 2020 at 07:11PM

Hyper-accumulating plants thrive in metallic soil that kills other vegetation, and botanists are testing the potential of phytomining.

Coronavirus Weakens China’s Powerful Propaganda Machine

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/business/china-coronavirus-propaganda.html
February 26, 2020 at 01:00PM

Beijing is pushing tales of perseverance, but many young people are openly questioning the Communist Party’s message.

Newsroom: US Spotify Listeners Surpassed Pandora Listeners in 2019, Sooner than Expected

Newsroom: Target Cracks Top 10 US Ecommerce Ranking

Source: https://www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index.php/target-cracks-top-10-us-ecommerce-ranking/
February 24, 2020 at 07:01AM

Amazonâ€™s share of US ecommerce approaches 40% February 24, 2020 (New York, NY) â€” Targetâ€™s increased focus on building its ecommerce business has been paying off. The big-box retailer, which […]

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Newsroom: US Spotify Listeners Surpassed Pandora Listeners in 2019, Sooner than Expected

Newsroom: Target Cracks Top 10 US Ecommerce Ranking

Tesla Autopilot System Found Probably at Fault in 2018 Crash

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/business/tesla-autopilot-ntsb.html
February 26, 2020 at 01:08AM

The National Transportation Safety Board called for improvements in the electric-car company’s driver-assistance feature and cited failures by other agencies.

Air Travelers Can’t See All of It, but More Tech Is Moving Them Along

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/business/artificial-intelligence-airports.html
February 25, 2020 at 10:27PM

As more people fly, airlines and airports are relying more heavily on artificial intelligence to speed their trips.

‘Facebook: The Inside Story’ Offers a Front-Row Seat on Voracious Ambition

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/books/review/facebook-the-inside-story-steven-levy.html
February 25, 2020 at 01:00PM

For his new book, the veteran technology reporter Steven Levy gained abundant access to Mark Zuckerberg and firsthand knowledge of his quest for power.

Newsroom: Target Cracks Top 10 US Ecommerce Ranking

Monday, February 24, 2020

Intuit to Buy Credit Karma to Create Financial Data Giant

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/business/dealbook/intuit-credit-karma.html
February 25, 2020 at 12:33AM

The $7.1 billion transaction underscores the value of the financial details of ordinary Americans.

Intuit Is Expected to Buy Credit Karma in $7 Billion Deal

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/23/business/dealbook/credit-karma-intuit-deal.html
February 24, 2020 at 12:31AM

A start-up known for providing free credit scores, Credit Karma is set to avoid the I.P.O. market and instead sell to an established financial firm.

As the Start-Up Boom Deflates, Tech Is Humbled

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/technology/tech-start-up-boom-deflate.html
February 24, 2020 at 11:00AM

Layoffs. Shutdowns. Uncertainty. After a decade of prosperity, many hot young companies are facing a reckoning.

Sunday, February 23, 2020

Kanye, Out West

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/23/style/kanye-west-cody-wyoming.html
February 23, 2020 at 01:00PM

What is the superstar doing in Wyoming?

Saturday, February 22, 2020

Holocaust Educators Urge Amazon to Stop Selling Nazi Propaganda

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/books/amazon-nazi-propaganda.html
February 22, 2020 at 03:26AM

The retailer said it was listening, but defended its right to sell books “that some may find objectionable.”

FreshDirect, After Broken Eggs and Angry Customers, Stages a Comeback

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/business/freshdirect-grocery-delivery.html
February 21, 2020 at 10:34PM

Battling a troubled move and loss of shoppers’ trust, the New York online grocery service now contends with increased competition.

U.S. and Allies Blame Russia for Cyberattack on Republic of Georgia

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/world/europe/georgia-cyberattack-russia.html
February 21, 2020 at 06:44PM

Britain and Australia joined the State Department’s effort to deter Moscow from interfering in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

The Week in Tech: Coronavirus Hits Apple’s Financial Forecast

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/technology/apple-coronavirus.html
February 21, 2020 at 05:00PM

The iPhone maker, which depends on both factories and consumers in China, could be a bellwether for other big tech companies.

New Mexico Sues Google Over Children’s Privacy Violations

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/technology/new-mexico-google-lawsuit.html
February 21, 2020 at 02:47AM

The lawsuit says that Google, the top tech brand in public schools, used its educational products to spy on students.

Lawrence Tesler, Who Made Personal Computing Easier, Dies at 74

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/technology/lawrence-tesler-dead.html
February 21, 2020 at 01:51AM

When you’re cutting and pasting, dragging the cursor over selected text and performing other common computer tasks, you can thank him.

Clicking Buy on Amazon? It’s Trying to Prevent a Coronavirus Caveat

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/business/amazon-coronavirus-supplies.html
February 20, 2020 at 10:57PM

The Everything Store, which stocks more than 100 million items, is working to avoid disruptions in its supply chain.

How Technology Is Changing the Future of Higher Education

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/education/learning/education-technology.html
February 20, 2020 at 08:20PM

Labs test artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other innovations that could improve learning and lower costs for Generation Z and beyond.

Aircraft, Big and Small, Are Changing Our Relationship With Flight

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/technology/aviation-planes-drones.html
February 20, 2020 at 07:11PM

As aviation technology becomes more integrated into everyday life, providers of new services brace for the unknown.

MGM Resorts Says Data Breach Exposed Some Guests’ Personal Information

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/us/mgm-data-breach.html
February 20, 2020 at 05:13AM

The casino and hotel giant said “it was confident that no financial, payment card or password data was involved in this matter.”

Your Doorbell Camera Spied on You. Now What?

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/technology/personaltech/ring-doorbell-camera-spying.html
February 20, 2020 at 01:11AM

Amazon’s popular Ring security cameras have gaping security holes. Here’s how to protect yourself.

Europe, Overrun by Foreign Tech Giants, Wants to Grow Its Own

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/business/europe-digital-economy.html
February 19, 2020 at 09:59PM

The European Union outlined proposals to bolster its digital economy and keep it from being overly reliant on foreign companies, while cracking down on those companies.

Court Rejects Huawei’s Challenge to U.S. Limits

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/business/huawei-us-court.html
February 19, 2020 at 09:11AM

The Chinese telecom equipment maker had sought to invalidate a law that restricted its ability to do business with U.S. agencies and their contractors.

The iPhone at the Deathbed

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/style/iphone-death-portraits.html
February 19, 2020 at 03:52AM

Families are photographing death at home. These photos may feel jarring on Facebook, but the practice itself has a long history.

Kickstarter Employees Vote to Unionize in a Big Step for Tech

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/technology/kickstarter-union.html
February 19, 2020 at 03:32AM

Engineers and others at the crowdfunding platform voted narrowly to form a union, one of the first tech companies to do so.

Her Blog Post About Uber Upended Big Tech. Now She’s Written a Memoir.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/books/review/susan-fowler-whistleblower-uber.html
February 18, 2020 at 07:33PM

In “Whistleblower,” Susan Fowler, a former software engineer at Uber, describes the harassment she endured while working at the company.

Apple Signals Coronavirus’s Threat to Global Businesses

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/technology/apple-coronavirus-economy.html
February 18, 2020 at 03:36PM

Supply is a problem, the company warned, as factories slowly reopen in China, and demand is down, too, with stores there still mostly closed.

Jeff Bezos Commits $10 Billion to Address Climate Change

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/technology/jeff-bezos-climate-change-earth-fund.html
February 18, 2020 at 02:17AM

The world’s richest man unveiled a fund to help climate scientists and activists, an escalation of his philanthropic efforts.

Silicon Valley Heads to Europe, Nervous About New Rules

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/technology/europe-new-AI-tech-regulations.html
February 17, 2020 at 11:14AM

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai have journeyed to Brussels as the European Union drafts regulation for A.I. and the digital economy.

Vine Made the Internet Fall in Love With Short Videos

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/22/style/byte-vine-short-video-apps.html
February 22, 2020 at 02:00PM

Now that they’re everywhere, is it time for Vine to make a comeback? The founder of Byte hopes so.

Google Reaches Document Protection Deal in Antitrust Fight

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/technology/google-antitrust-document-deal.html
February 22, 2020 at 05:41AM

The company had asked a court for limits on consultants working with the attorney general of Texas, who is leading a multistate investigation.

Friday, February 21, 2020

Holocaust Educators Urge Amazon to Stop Selling Nazi Propaganda

FreshDirect, After Broken Eggs and Angry Customers, Stages a Comeback

Newsroom: Twitch on Pace to Surpass 40 Million Viewers by 2021

Source: https://www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index.php/twitch-on-pace-to-surpass-40-million-viewers-by-2021/
February 20, 2020 at 07:01AM

February 20, 2020 (New York, NY)Â â€“For the first time, eMarketer is estimating the number of people who watch Twitch on a regular basis in its latest forecast. Â Twitch hosts streaming […]

Introducing the GigaOm Radar

Source: https://gigaom.com/2020/02/21/introducing-the-gigaom-radar/
February 21, 2020 at 05:28PM

I love working for GigaOm because of its dynamism and the forward-looking philosophy that fuels all our research projects. The firm is an emerging player in the market, but the idea of positioning our research activity and the resulting reports stands out from the crowd, thanks to a different approach that I cover here. We focus more on the technical aspects of solutions, and the vision, and capacity of execution of vendors instead of looking primarily at market share and other parameters that are not really of help if you want to build an IT strategy that is modern, flexible, and again, forward-looking!

Be Safe, or Be Strong!

In today’s organizations, IT decision-makers have two options, the second of which drives how we develop and publish our research.

Stay safe, always. If this is your mantra, I am pretty sure you are not reading this, and you probably never heard of GigaOm before. Your favorite research analyst is a well-established firm, and your favorite saying is, “nobody gets fired for buying XYZ!”.
Be strong and always look at the future. You are of the opposite opinion. “Nobody gets fired for buying XYZ!” is actually what will get you fired. Because things have already changed, keep changing, and the pace of change is accelerating. If you keep doing the same thing forever, your organization will become less flexible, competitive, and responsive to ever-changing business needs.

All IT organizations, no matter the size, need advice on how to set and execute on IT strategy, and this is what the analyst does. It is up to you then, to trust one analyst firm versus the other, or collect more than one opinion and formulate your own analysis on every single topic.

The Key Criteria Reports

Last year we worked hard on new report formats, to take this into account. We wanted to bring valuable information and education to our subscribers and speed up their decision-making processes. The new Key Criteria report is an example of this effort: we wanted to have an easy-to-read, modular, and informative report that can help decision makers to evaluate new technology. Our primary goal with this report is to define what you can take for granted, and what makes the difference today while getting a hint of what is going to happen next.

This report does not include any vendor-specific information; most of the research for it comes from interaction with end-users and their actual needs in day-to-day operations, field experience, and observable industry trends.

From the methodology section of the Key Criteria report:

A Key Criteria report analyzes the most important features of a technology category to understand how they impact an enterprise and its IT organization. Features are grouped into three categories:

Table Stakes

Key Criteria

Near-term game-changing technology

The goal is to help organizations assess capabilities and build a mid-to-long-term infrastructure strategy. In a mature technology, the solutions are divided into three target market categories: enterprise, high-performance, and specialized solutions. In a mature market, these differ in their characteristics and how they can be integrated with existing infrastructures. That said, the assessment is more dependent on the specific user’s needs and not solely on the organization’s vertical.

Table Stakes

Table stakes are system characteristics and features that are important when choosing the right solution. They include architectural choices that depend on the size of the organization, its requirements, the expected growth over time, and the types of workloads. Table stakes are mature, and the implementation of these features will not add any business advantage nor significantly change the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) or Return on Investment (ROI) of the infrastructure.

Key Criteria

Key Criteria features differentiate one solution from another. Depending on real user needs, they have a positive impact on one or more of the metrics mentioned. Therefore, implementation details are essential to understanding the benefits relative to the infrastructure, processes, or business.  Following table stakes and Key Criteria, aspects like architectural design and implementation regain importance and need to be analyzed in great detail. In some cases, the features described in the Key Criteria section are the core solution, and the rest of the system is designed around them. This could be an important benefit for organizations that see them as a real practical advantage, but it also poses some risks in the long term. In fact, over time, the differentiation introduced by a feature becomes less relevant. It falls into the ‘table stakes’ group, while new system capabilities introduce new benefits or address new needs, with a positive impact on metrics like efficiency, manageability, flexibility, and so on.

Key Criteria brings several benefits to organizations of all sizes with different business needs. It is organized to give the reader a brief description of the specific functionality or technology, its benefits in general terms, and what to expect from a good implementation. To give a complete picture, we also include examples of the most interesting implementation currently available in the market.

Critical Impact of Features on the Metrics

Technology, functionality, and architecture designs that have demonstrated their value are adopted by other vendors, become a standard, and lose their status as a differentiator. Initially, the implementation of these Key Criteria was crucial for delivering real value, perhaps with some trade-offs. The most important metrics for the evaluation of a technology solution include:

Architecture

Scalability

Flexibility

Efficiency

Performance

Manageability and ease of use

This section provides the impact individual features have on the metrics at the moment of report publication. Each feature is scored from 1 to 5, with a score of five having the most impact on an enterprise. This is not absolute and should always be verified with the organization’s requirements and use case. Strategic decisions can then be based on the impact each metric can have on the infrastructure, system management, and IT processes already in place with particular emphasis on ROI and TCO.

Near-Term Game-Changing Technology

In this report section, we analyze the most interesting technologies on the horizon over the next 12 to 18 months. Some are already present in some form but usually as part of niche products or for addressing very specific use cases. In either case, at this stage, the implementations available are not mature enough to be grouped in Key Criteria. Yet when implemented correctly and efficiently, this technology can really make a difference to the metrics.

Over time, game-changing features become key criteria, and the cycle repeats. Therefore, to get the best ROI, it is important to check what vendors are offering today and what they plan to release in the near future.

Introducing the GigaOm Radar

As I said earlier, we have two goals (information and speed). Whereas the Key Criteria report majors on information, the GigaOm Radar is all about speed and answers to a simple question: “what are the best solutions for my needs?” A simple, but tough question. The Key Criteria report is all about defining what makes a difference in executing your IT strategy at its best; the GigaOm Radar gives clear indications about the status of the market and where it is going so that you can narrow down the list of potential partners, and focus on who is executing better and is more aligned to your actual needs!

Figure 1: GigaOm Radar for Hybrid Cloud Data Protection

The GigaOm Radar chooses not to consider market share as a primary element for decision making, focusing instead on what will make a difference and improve your overall IT strategy. Vendors are evaluated on innovation, maturity, vision, the capacity of execution, and more. The report aims to be instrumental in helping our clients to shape the future of their IT, avoiding non-technological bias, and enabling decision-makers to face today’s needs while targeting tomorrow’s challenges and opportunities.

Here is the introduction to the graphic above that you will find on any GigaOm Radar report:

All of the Key Criteria and the critical feature impact analysis are consolidated in the following graphic representation: The GigaOm Radar. This vector-based graphic gives an overall perspective on all the vendors included in this research in terms of technical capabilities and features (Table 2) and execution on the vision, regardless of their market share or segment (Table 1).

The GigaOm Radar focuses on technical capabilities, roadmap, execution, and the ability to innovate. In this graphic, for each vendor representation of the market, there are three fundamental data points:

The current position in the chart gives information on the state of the solutions provided by the vendor

The direction indicates where the vendor is going with the product strategy and development

The module signifies how fast it is executing on its vision and strategy

The metrics on which the GigaOm Radar focuses:

Maturity: Expresses the maturity and solidity of the product, user acceptance of the solution, and overall ecosystem sustainability.

Innovation: The differentiation of the solution, innovative technical aspects, and overall vendor approach to the market

Feature Play: Gives indications about the focus of the solution in terms of single differentiating features and technical aspects of the product. It usually includes new vendors that are defining new product categories, niche players, and point solutions.

Platform Play: In contrast to “Feature Play,” solutions positioned in this area provide a horizontal platform that can face a broader range of challenges, with a comprehensive feature set and an extensive ecosystem.

The GigaOm Radar is organized in three concentric categories, and the closer to the center, the better:

Leaders: All the vendors that are competing for market leadership in the metrics described above, even if they are competing in different market segments

Challengers: All the vendors with the potential to become a leader soon, niche or traditional players with an established market, and other companies that have interesting solutions but still have to prove their real differentiation

New entrants: Usually, companies with a limited feature set are too young to be included in the innermost category, but showing the potential to move there soon.

The central area of the GigaOm Radar is usually empty. It is reserved for extremely mature and consolidated markets with very few vendors remaining and solutions that are mature, comparable, and without much space for further innovation.

The market share metric is excluded from the GigaOm Radar to give a clearer view of the potential of each vendor. It is a forward-looking market landscape representation that leaves more room for innovation and differentiation, instead of weighting established positions.

Conclusion

GigaOm is not your father’s analyst firm. This is why we focus on the leading edge technology (such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud, Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD), Data analytics, next-gen infrastructure and more, for example), and we have a different approach to solving modern IT challenges.

The GigaOm Radar is not one of the many quadrant-type models that you can find from other analyst firms, based on similar concepts and developed on what we think a backward-looking vision. These are good to get a picture of what happened in the past, but they do not give a direction for the future. I am not saying that looking at the past is not informative, but that it is no longer enough to make decisions on the future of your IT.

We are developing Key Criteria and GigaOm Radar reports for a wide variety of IT topics (alongside other reports in specific areas). And, honestly, I am proud I have contributed to the creation of these types of reports.

PS

I want to wrap up this (very long) blog talking about GigaOm’s business model because I think we are also innovating in this aspect. I know this is biased, but I suggest you take a look at our subscription options. You will be surprised by simplicity and pricing. We think that good research should not cost an arm and a leg, but everybody should be able to access it at reasonable costs.

What are you waiting for? Subscribe today and enjoy the reading!

And we are working on some interesting stuff for our subscribers, so stay tuned!

The Week in Tech: Coronavirus Hits Apple’s Financial Forecast

Newsroom: Twitch on Pace to Surpass 40 Million Viewers by 2021

Thursday, February 20, 2020

New Mexico Sues Google Over Children’s Privacy Violations

Lawrence Tesler, Pioneer of Personal Computing, Dies at 74

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/technology/lawrence-tesler-dead.html
February 21, 2020 at 12:17AM

At Xerox and later at Apple, he worked to make computers accessible to, as a former colleague put it, “users who weren’t also Ph.D.s in computer science.”

U.S. and Allies Blame Russia for Cyberattack on Georgia

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/world/europe/georgia-cyberattack-russia.html
February 20, 2020 at 06:35PM

Britain and Australia joined the State Department in blaming Russia for a sweeping cyberattack last fall in the former Soviet republic.

When You Click Buy on Amazon, It May Be Sweating the Supply

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/business/amazon-coronavirus-supplies.html
February 20, 2020 at 01:00PM

The Everything Store, which stocks more than 100 million items, is working to avoid disruptions from the coronavirus.

Voices in AI – Episode 107: A Conversation with Nir Bar-Lev

Source: https://gigaom.com/2020/02/20/voices-in-ai-episode-107-a-conversation-with-nir-bar-lev/
February 20, 2020 at 04:00PM

[voices_in_ai_byline]

About this Episode

On Episode 107 of Voices in AI, Byron and Nir Bar-Lev discuss narrow and general AI and the means by which we build them out and train them.

Listen to this episode or read the full transcript at www.VoicesinAI.com

Transcript Excerpt

Byron Reese: This is Voices in AI brought to you by GigaOm and I’m Byron Reese. Today I’m excited my guest is Nir Bar-Lev. He is the CEO and the co-founder of allegro.ai. He holds a degree in law and economics from the University of Haifa. He holds a Bachelor of Science in software engineering. He holds an MBA from Wharton and probably a whole lot more. Welcome to the show, Nir.

Nir Bar-Lev: Hi Byron, thank you so much, I’m honored to be on the show.

So I’d like to start off with just a signposting kind of question, which is about the nature of intelligence and when we talk about AI, do you think we’re really building something that is truly intelligent, or are we building something that can mimic intelligence, but it can never actually be smart?

So I think that you know when we talk about AI, there’s always a futuristic talk about you know ‘General Intelligence’ which is attempting to really mimic human intelligence. But apart from academia and maybe a handful of locations in the industry, when we talk about AI in general we’re actually talking about the ability to solve specific problems and really actually marry a couple things, right? We’re mimicking the ability to learn a specific problem and how to solve it. And we’re marrying it with actually some of the things that computers have already and have always done better than humans, — which is being able to manage and manipulate huge amounts of data really really quickly, and do calculations really really quickly.

And when you think of it like that, where do you think we are? Do you think we have key insights that are going to serve us forward? You know, that like we’re knowing fundamental truths or are we still like groping around in the dark, like even the techniques we do now may seem antiquated and outdated in a few years?

Yeah it’s a good question, and you know first I have to say that I feel less equipped to answer that than some of the professors in university. I’m coming at it from a very industry specific viewpoint and really practical viewpoint, and as you know from where I’m sitting, we are just at the beginning of a revolution around again being able to solve very specific problems with AI much much better. And that is going to open a huge opportunity for us.

At the same time we’re very, very, very far away from general intelligence. So I think that that’s not necessarily going to get us there. The practices that we’re using today in the industry and where the development is you know seems to some extent incremental in the sense that we’re using deep learning as really the forefront of AI, but there isn’t anything that is revolutionary in what’s going to happen in the next, I would say, five to ten years. And those are revolutionary things are going to come from academia. What we’re going to see is incremental developments in the science, but use revolutionary developments in the applicability of the science that already exists.

So your company is specifically trying to solve one problem relating to computer vision. So describe what you’re trying to do and why it’s so hard?

Absolutely. This goes to the heart of the applicability of what we’re doing. So let’s start with with maybe a context on AI and deep learning and why is it “intelligent.” So when traditional software engineers try to solve a problem, they are basically actually tasked with building out this workflow or this idea of ‘if this, then that’ for the software that they want to design where the software they need to see out in advance what are all the different situations that this software is going to incur and what to do there in order to reach a certain goal.

And then once they design that, the task is really to simply translate that into something that a machine or a computer can understand into codes. Whereas with AI and deep learning specifically, the idea is that we have an algorithm called a neural network and that’s a very, very simplistic way to try to mimic how the brain works. Literally it’s a network of neurons and nodes that, through a process of training work fermentation a.k.a. “learning” builds this flow all on its own, and obviously then by definition, it’s already translated into something I even understand.

Let me explain that a bit further. So let’s take an example from computer vision: if in traditional computer vision we wanted to identify, say a person or a face, what scientists and engineers were required to do is they were required to figure out what differentiates humans from anything else or what differentiates one face from another. Come up with those parameters and then turn them out and turn them into mathematical formulas or vectors that can identify them, [and] code map. So for example a human, and this is obviously very simplistic, has two legs and two hands and protruding things and maybe the texture is in this way or that, obviously the color and there is always something that looks different, maybe the head, maybe the hair, and they literally have to figure those things out to come up with some sort of mathematical identifier of the human.

What deep learning will do is it will look at an image for example, and it would try to figure out those things by looking at all the different possibilities to identify a human, all the different traits of that image, and come up with something similar. But what’s interesting is that we as humans have a notoriously difficult problem in really being able to describe what is different physically, in terms of something, one thing from the other. Whereas a computer actually isn’t [challenged by that]. They can look at an image and look at multiple other, you know mathematical identification, call it ID prints, that we may not even notice as humans. And in that way it actually can come up with a result that’s much better.

Listen to this episode or read the full transcript at www.VoicesinAI.com

[voices_in_ai_link_back]

Byron explores issues around artificial intelligence and conscious computers in his new book The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity.

How Technology is Changing the Future of Higher Education

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/education/learning/education-technology.html
February 20, 2020 at 01:00PM

Labs test artificial intelligence, virtual reality and other innovations that could improve learning and lower costs for Generation Z and beyond.

MGM Resorts Says Data Breach Exposed Some Guests’ Personal Information

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Your Doorbell Camera Spied on You. Now What?

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/technology/personaltech/ring-doorbell-camera-spying.html
February 20, 2020 at 12:01AM

Amazon’s popular Ring security cameras have gaping security holes. Here’s how to protect yourself.

Lacking Its Own Digital Giants, Europe Plans New Approach

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/business/europe-digital-economy.html
February 19, 2020 at 03:27PM

The European Union outlined proposals to bolster its digital economy and keep it from being overly reliant on foreign companies.

Aircraft, Big and Small, Are Changing Our Relationship With Flight

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/technology/aviation-planes-drones.html
February 19, 2020 at 01:00PM

As aviation technology becomes more integrated into everyday life, providers of new services brace for the unknown.

Court Rejects Huawei’s Challenge to U.S. Limits

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Kickstarter Employees Vote to Unionize

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/technology/kickstarter-union.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 18, 2020 at 08:50PM

Engineers and other workers at the crowdfunding platform voted narrowly on Tuesday to form a union.

The iPhone at the Deathbed

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/style/iphone-death-portraits.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 18, 2020 at 01:00PM

Families are photographing death at home. These photos may feel jarring on Facebook, but the practice itself has a long history.

Her Blog Post About Uber Upended Big Tech. Now She’s Written a Memoir.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/books/review/susan-fowler-whistleblower-uber.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 18, 2020 at 01:00PM

In “Whistleblower,” Susan Fowler, a former software engineer at Uber, describes the harassment she endured while working at the company.

Monday, February 17, 2020

Apple Warns That Coronavirus Will Hurt Revenue

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/technology/apple-coronavirus-economy.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 18, 2020 at 01:37AM

Supply is a problem, as factories slowly reopen in China, and demand is down, too, with many stores there still closed.

Jeff Bezos Commits $10 Billion to Address Climate Change

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/technology/jeff-bezos-climate-change-earth-fund.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 17, 2020 at 11:10PM

The world’s richest man unveiled a fund to help climate scientists and activists, an escalation of his philanthropic efforts.

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Silicon Valley Heads to Europe, Nervous About New Rules

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/technology/europe-new-AI-tech-regulations.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 16, 2020 at 10:43PM

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai have journeyed to Brussels as the European Union drafts regulation for A.I. and the digital economy.

Saturday, February 15, 2020

To Tame Coronavirus, Mao-Style Social Control Blankets China

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/business/china-coronavirus-lockdown.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 15, 2020 at 06:28PM

Despite their high-tech tools, the authorities are mainly relying on a flood of workers to keep hundreds of millions of people from coming in contact with outsiders.

From Dubai to Mars, With Stops in Colorado and Japan

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/science/mars-united-arab-emirates.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 15, 2020 at 01:00PM

The United Arab Emirates used a novel approach to build the Hope spacecraft, which launches for the red planet this summer.

Friday, February 14, 2020

Facebook Says Political Candidates Can Use Sponsored Memes

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/style/facebook-political-memes.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 15, 2020 at 03:06AM

Unlike campaign advertisements, the posts are not subject to advance review by Facebook, and the platform does not make money from them.

Lots of Rich Men Tweet Like the President Now

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/style/billionaire-tweet-ecosystem.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 15, 2020 at 12:46AM

From Goldman Sachs to Amazon to the Democratic contenders, older rich men are going wild online.

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Judge Halts Work on Microsoft’s JEDI Contract, a Victory for Amazon

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/technology/amazon-jedi-pentagon-contract-microsoft.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 14, 2020 at 01:24AM

The judge ordered work to stop on a cloud-computing contract for the Pentagon until Amazon’s legal challenge was resolved.

A Growing Presence on the Farm: Robots

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/science/farm-agriculture-robots.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 14, 2020 at 12:48AM

A new generation of autonomous robots is helping plant breeders shape the crops of tomorrow.

With Harsh Words, China’s Military Denies It Hacked Equifax

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/china-equifax-deny.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 13, 2020 at 10:06PM

The People’s Liberation Army said U.S. indictments accusing four of its members of stealing information amounted to “legal bullying.”

High-Tech Tires, From Pit Lane to Your Garage

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/smart-tires-pirelli.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 13, 2020 at 09:23PM

The Cyber Tire from Pirelli can sense if a car is slipping and warn the driver or the car to make adjustments.

Voting on Your Phone: New Elections App Ignites Security Debate

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/us/politics/voting-smartphone-app.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 13, 2020 at 04:51PM

A start-up says it has developed a smartphone tool through which voters can cast ballots anywhere. But researchers say the app is riddled with security flaws.

SoftBank Takes Another Multibillion-Dollar Hit From Bad Bets

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/business/dealbook/softbank-results.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 10:37PM

A $2 billion plunge in profitability will increase pressure on the Japanese conglomerate to get its financial house in order.

New Yorkers Face a Training Gap for Tech Jobs, but a Study Finds Hope

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/technology/new-yorkers-tech-training.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 09:28PM

A new report points to a shortage of successful programs for tech careers. One, it says, shows how they can work.

He’s Stared Down Activists and Apple, and Is Still in Charge

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/business/Steve-Mollenkopf-Qualcomm-corner-office.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 01:00PM

After a career spent working on “very important backup plans,” Steve Mollenkopf has steered Qualcomm through one rough patch after another.

F.T.C. Broadens Review of Tech Giants, Homing In on Their Deals

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/technology/ftc-tech-giants-acquisitions.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 03:18AM

The agency ordered Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Alphabet and Microsoft to turn over a decade’s worth of information on small acquisitions.

All Your Favorite Brands, From BSTOEM to ZGGCD

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/style/amazon-trademark-copyright.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 01:34AM

How Amazon is causing us to drown in trademarks.

She Wants to Break Up Big Everything

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/technology/big-tech-antitrust.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 11, 2020 at 01:00PM

Trustbusting advocates like Sarah Miller, who target corporate power, have finally found themselves at the center of the political conversation.

Amazon Looks to Question Trump in Pentagon Contracting Case

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/technology/amazon-depose-trump-pentagon-jedi.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 11, 2020 at 03:07AM

The Pentagon said it “strongly opposes” the request from the internet giant, which is challenging the awarding of a defense contract to Microsoft.

U.S. Charges Chinese Military Officers in 2017 Equifax Hacking

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/us/politics/equifax-hack-china.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 11, 2020 at 02:52AM

The indictment suggests that the breach was part of a series of thefts by China to use the data to target American officials.

White House Earmarks New Money for A.I. and Quantum Computing

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/technology/white-house-earmarks-new-money-for-ai-and-quantum-computing.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 11, 2020 at 01:28AM

The technologies are expected to become an important part of national security, and some worry the United States is behind China in their development.

Israeli Voters: Data of All 6.5 Million Voters Leaked

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/world/middleeast/israeli-voters-leak.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 11, 2020 at 12:12AM

The website for an election app used by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party made it possible to view full names, addresses, identity card numbers and more.

We’ve Never Seen the Sun’s Top or Bottom. Solar Orbiter Will Change That.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/science/nasa-solar-orbiter-launch.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 10, 2020 at 11:56PM

The NASA-European Space Agency spacecraft, which launched Sunday, will spend the next decade closely observing the sun.

Clearview’s Facial Recognition App Is Identifying Child Victims of Abuse

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/business/clearview-facial-recognition-child-sexual-abuse.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 10, 2020 at 02:16PM

Though a breakthrough for law enforcement, the technique could allow the little-known start-up to collect an extraordinarily sensitive set of data and images.

North Korea’s Internet Use Surges, Thwarting Sanctions and Fueling Theft

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/us/politics/north-korea-internet-sanctions.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 10, 2020 at 03:53AM

The North has evaded America’s “maximum pressure” campaign with a 300 percent increase in internet use that has opened up new opportunities for cybercrime.

Ransomware Attacks Grow, Crippling Cities and Businesses

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/technology/ransomware-attacks.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 10, 2020 at 01:11AM

Hackers are locking people out of their networks and demanding big payments to get back in. New data shows just how common and damaging the attacks have become.

In Amazon’s Bookstore, No Second Chances for the Third Reich

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/technology/amazon-bookstore-nazis.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 10, 2020 at 12:35AM

The retailer once said it would sell “the good, the bad and the ugly.” Now it has banished objectionable volumes — and agreed to erasing the swastikas from a photo book about a Nazi takeover.

He Combs the Web for Russian Bots. That Makes Him a Target.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/technology/ben-nimmo-disinformation-russian-bots.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 09, 2020 at 10:36PM

Ben Nimmo helped pioneer disinformation investigations. His work is now more urgent as misleading internet tactics spread.

Maybe Information Actually Doesn’t Want to Be Free

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/business/media/the-information-jessica-lessin.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 08, 2020 at 04:59PM

Jessica Lessin’s online tech publication costs $399 a year and has no ads. Silicon Valley’s elite is eating it up.

Tech Companies Detect a Surge in Online Videos of Child Sexual Abuse

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/us/online-child-sexual-abuse.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 08, 2020 at 02:36AM

In a first, videos outnumbered photos in reports to the authorities last year. Facebook found the most imagery, the bulk of it on its Messenger app.

Siding With Amazon, Judge Halts Work on Microsoft’s JEDI Contract

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/technology/amazon-jedi-pentagon-contract-microsoft.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 13, 2020 at 11:33PM

The judge ordered work to stop on a cloud-computing contract for the Pentagon until Amazon’s legal challenge was resolved.

U.S. Charges Huawei With Racketeering

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/technology/huawei-racketeering-wire-fraud.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 13, 2020 at 11:16PM

The charges escalate the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against the Chinese tech giant.

Tesla Faces a New S.E.C. Investigation

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/tesla-sec-subpoena.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 13, 2020 at 08:22PM

The electric-car maker says the agency is also looking into contracts and “regular financing arrangements.”

High-Tech Tires, From Pit Lane to Your Garage

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/smart-tires-pirelli.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 13, 2020 at 02:00PM

The Cyber Tire from Pirelli can sense if a car is slipping and warn the driver or the car to make adjustments.

A Growing Presence on the Farm: Robots

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/science/farm-agriculture-robots.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 13, 2020 at 01:00PM

A new generation of autonomous robots is helping plant breeders shape the crops of tomorrow.

With Harsh Words, China’s Military Denies It Hacked Equifax

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/business/china-equifax-deny.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 13, 2020 at 11:27AM

The People’s Liberation Army said U.S. indictments accusing four of its members of stealing information from the credit data company amounted to “legal bullying.”

Voting on Your Phone: New Elections App Ignites Security Debate

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/us/politics/voting-smartphone-app.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 13, 2020 at 11:00AM

A start-up says it has developed a smartphone tool through which voters can cast ballots anywhere. But researchers say the app is riddled with security flaws.

Michael Bloomberg’s Campaign Suddenly Drops Memes Everywhere

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/style/michael-bloomberg-memes-jerry-media.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 13, 2020 at 09:11AM

A campaign of sponsored content for the candidate flourished suddenly on Instagram. A new outfit, called Meme 2020, is behind it.

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Newsroom: US Political Ad Spending to Hit Record High

Source: https://www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index.php/us-political-ad-spending-to-hit-record-high/
February 12, 2020 at 07:01AM

Facebook dominates digital with nearly 60% share   February 12, 2020 (New York, NY)Â â€“ As campaigning for the 2020 presidential election heads into its final months, political ad spending will […]

Andy Rubin’s Start-Up, Essential Products, Shuts Down

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/technology/andy-rubin-essential-shutdown.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 10:38PM

The smartphone company founded by Mr. Rubin, a former Google executive, struggled to win over customers.

SoftBank Takes Another Multibillion-Dollar Hit From Bad Bets

New Yorkers Face a Training Gap for Tech Jobs, but a Study Finds Hope

A Thorn in YouTube’s Side Digs In Even Deeper

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/technology/carlos-maza-youtube-vox.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 08:00PM

Carlos Maza, a socialist who calls YouTube “deeply unethical and reckless,” is trying to bolster the video site’s left wing.

Britain to Create Regulator for Internet Content

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/technology/britain-internet-regulator.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 02:20PM

To push Google, Facebook and other internet giants to police their own platforms, Britain said its media watchdog would become an internet authority.

SoftBank Takes Another Multibillion-Dollar Hit From Bad Bets

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/business/dealbook/softbank-results.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 01:55PM

A $2 billion plunge in profitability will increase pressure on the Japanese conglomerate to get its financial house in order.

He’s Stared Down Activists and Apple, and Is Still in Charge

SoftBank Takes Another Multibillion-Dollar Hit From Bad Bets

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/business/softbank-results.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 11:25AM

The Japanese company’s $2 billion plunge in profitability will increase pressure on the conglomerate to get its financial house in order.

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

F.T.C. Broadens Review of Tech Giants, Homing In on Their Deals

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/technology/ftc-tech-giants-acquisitions.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 12:26AM

The agency ordered Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Alphabet and Microsoft to turn over a decade’s worth of information on small acquisitions.

Foldable Phones Are Here. Do We Really Want Them?

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/technology/personaltech/foldable-phones-samsung.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 12, 2020 at 12:16AM

The jury is out on whether bendable screens are a lasting trend or a passing fad.

All Your Favorite Brands, From BSTOEM to ZGGCD

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/style/amazon-trademark-copyright.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 11, 2020 at 05:00PM

How Amazon is causing us to drown in trademarks.

She Wants to Break Up Big Everything

Monday, February 10, 2020

White House Earmarks New Money for A.I. and Quantum Computing

Dell EMC PowerOne is Next-Gen Converged Infrastructure

Source: https://gigaom.com/2020/02/07/dell-emc-powerone-is-next-gen-converged-infrastructure/
February 07, 2020 at 10:32PM

At Storage Field Day 19, I attended two insightful sessions about DevOps and infrastructure automation, and they were both hosted by Dell EMC. One was about PowerOne, a next-generation converged infrastructure, while the other was more geared towards the efforts that Dell EMC is putting in the so-called infrastructure as a code.

I don’t like Converged Infrastructures

To be frank with you, I’ve never liked converged infrastructures, but I understand why they exist. Dell EMC PowerOne, from this point of view, doesn’t make any difference. The user pays for a system that is pre-certified, pre-installed, and pre-whatever-else-you-need because it is just cheaper than doing it yourself. In large IT organizations, processes can be such a pain in the neck that getting it all sorted out could cost you more, and take much more time, than buying a CI solution. That said, it would be nice to work on the processes that govern the IT organization instead of keeping doing the wrong things… but this is a topic for another blog, maybe.

PowerOne Could Be Much More Than CI

The PowerOne Controller is the component of PowerOne that supersedes all first installation, configuration, and management activities. In practice, as you can see from the demo, it allows you to install and configure a complete infrastructure in a few hours with just a few inputs from the sysadmin. But this is not the coolest part; the most interesting thing is the concept behind it and its potential. Take a look at the video that talks about its internal architecture to understand why:

From my point of view, Dell EMC should take this to the next level and try to make PowerOne controller something similar to what CISCO has with NSO. Long story short, it could be an automation hub for simplifying and automating all the storage infrastructure, simplifying the configuration management of large scale infrastructures.

Been There Done That?

Yes, the vision of a PowerOne Controller in charge of storage infrastructure automation is very similar to what we had years ago with ViPR. Great on paper, short on execution. There are a couple of differences to take into account though:

At that time, the world was not ready. Enterprise mentality was not there, and nobody wanted to leave control to configuration and automation tools like Ansible. Now everybody wants to do it!
There wasn’t the same maturity we have today when it comes to infrastructure automation. Now we have public APIs for every device in the data center, best practices, plug-ins for common automation tools, and so on. Everything is just easier.

Maybe a PowerOne Controller (or call it next-gen ViPR if you want) could be a success this time.

Takeaways (and Wishful thinking)

It is a shame that Dell EMC has two teams working on infrastructure automation that don’t talk to each other (PowerOne and the guys that are developing Ansible plug-ins and other components for automation tools). In my opinion, they should work together and see if PowerOne could become much more than part of their converged infrastructure.

I know that we saw several attempts to automate storage infrastructures all failed, miserably. Still, this time it could be different because of the maturity of the tools, datacenter people, and vendors. It is a huge maybe, of course, but Cisco did a fantastic job (take a look at the demo they had at Tech Field Day 20), and there is potential for a similar product for enterprise data storage.

Voices in AI – Episode 106: A Conversation with Monte Zweben

Source: https://gigaom.com/2020/02/06/voices-in-ai-episode-106-a-conversation-with-monte-zweben/
February 06, 2020 at 04:00PM

[voices_in_ai_byline]

About this Episode

On Episode 106 of Voices in AI, Byron speaks with Monte Zweben about the nature of intelligence and the growth of real-time AI-based machine learning.

Listen to this episode or read the full transcript at www.VoicesinAI.com

Transcript Excerpt

Byron Reese: This is Voices in AI brought to you by GigaOm and I’m Byron Reese. Today my guest is Monte Zweben. He is the CEO at Splice Machine in San Francisco. Before that, he was the Chairman of Rocket Fuel. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon and an M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University. Welcome to the show, Monte.

Monte Zweben: Thank you, Byron. Nice to be here.

So let’s start with the basics. When people ask you what AI is or what intelligence is, let’s begin right there. How do you answer that question?

Well, I answer that question in a very abstract and simple way. Intelligence, artificial intelligence is really the ability for computers to perform tasks that typically humans do very well and computers, heretofore typically did not.

So by that definition, my cat food dish that refills when it’s empty is artificial intelligence?

Well you know I think that simple automation perhaps can be looked at as artificial intelligence, but usually we’re looking at tasks that typically are not just standard steps in an algorithm. Do step one, do step two, do step three…

But aren’t all computer programs exactly that?

Not all, and that’s where it gets interesting. Now, where it gets interesting is when computers are having to look at a variety of different data points and draw conclusions from them that might be generalizations. So I’ll give you two examples of artificial intelligence that is very different than what we just talked about. One is machine learning. With machine learning, there is no clear cut decision of each individual step. Typically you’re given a great deal of data and what you’re trying to do is look at the data and try to best come up with a description of the concept you’re trying to learn based on the positive examples of the data and the negative examples of the data, where you are including as many of the positive examples and excluding as many of the negative examples, but coming up with some description that has good coverage of those examples. That’s very much probabilistic and uses techniques that are a little bit different than just concrete or discrete steps.

Another good example is reasoning tasks. One of the companies that I used to run was a company that helped manufacturers plan and schedule operations and to do that you have lots of choices of what you might manufacture on day one, day two, day three, day four. You have lots of orders that are coming from customers that are demanding different kinds of products and you have lots of inventory that go into products in their builds and materials in order to build things. And the puzzle is trying to figure out what’s the best schedule to come up with that meets all of the customer demands and allows you to carry the least amount of inventory on hand to meet those requirements. And those are lots of different choices.

Humans are really good at trying to look ahead and see what are the different choices one might make, and search through a set of possibilities and make decisions sometimes even on the fly, and those kinds of applications are very different than computer programs that do the same thing every time. Sense, plan, act, are the kinds of processes that robotic systems use, planning systems use, scheduling systems use, space systems from when I used to run my lab at NASA. These are very different kinds of applications that try to reflect the decision making that humans do inside of computer programs.

So if somebody were to ask you, “OK given those definitions, where are we at? What is the state of the art for narrow AI right now?”

It’s a great question, and I think some of the hype and news is a little bit ahead of perhaps where we are as a science. I remember back when I was beginning my AI studies in the early 80s, there was so much hype that we were going to have complete general artificial intelligence available in just a few years and it didn’t happen.

And now we’re seeing similar hype, and the hype is coming because of the very big success that we’ve had with the application of machine learning. Machine learning has stepped up to another level of contribution in many disciplines: precision medicine, marketing, planning, in fraud detection and other anti-crime types of applications. But the power of machine learning that we are seeing today has literally come about because of the power of distributed computing. The more data you can put to bear on a machine learning task, the better and more accurate your machine learning models are.

And we finally have figured out a way for organizations around the world to use many computers at once to deal with very, very large datasets. In the past, only specialists with PhDs in distributed systems were able to do that. Now just about anyone can do that. So that’s broken new ground in being able to use empirical methods for machine learning.

However, some of the first generation artificial intelligence methods for being able to do reasoning and planning, some of these systems still haven’t broken through, and I have to say that I think we’re far away from having general artificial intelligence. We’ve made great progress and companies are deploying the beginnings of artificial intelligence into specific focused tasks, kind of like the first generation of expert systems. But we have not really come too long of a way to create a generic intelligence, in my humble opinion.

Listen to this episode or read the full transcript at www.VoicesinAI.com

[voices_in_ai_link_back]

Byron explores issues around artificial intelligence and conscious computers in his new book The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity.

U.S. Charges Chinese Military Officers in 2017 Equifax Hacking

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/us/politics/equifax-hack-china.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 11, 2020 at 12:07AM

The indictment suggests that the breach was part of a series of thefts by China to use the data to target American officials.

Amazon Looks to Question Trump in Pentagon Contracting Case

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/technology/amazon-depose-trump-pentagon-jedi.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 11, 2020 at 12:02AM

The Pentagon said it “strongly opposes” the request from the internet giant, which is challenging the awarding of a defense contract to Microsoft.

Israeli Voters: Data of All 6.5 Million Voters Leaked

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/world/middleeast/israeli-voters-leak.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 10, 2020 at 06:07PM

The website for an election app promoted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his party had a simple flaw that exposed full names, addresses, identity card numbers and more.

What Happens When QAnon Seeps From the Web to the Offline World

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/09/us/politics/qanon-trump-conspiracy-theory.html?emc=rss&partner=rss
February 10, 2020 at 09:55AM

It began online as an intricate, if baseless, pro-Trump conspiracy theory. Now it has surfaced in political campaigns, criminal cases and a college classroom.

PowerOne Could Be Much More Than CI

Been There Done That?

At that time, the world was not ready. Enterprise mentality was not there, and nobody wanted to leave control to configuration and automation tools like Ansible. Now everybody wants to do it!
There wasn’t the same maturity we have today when it comes to infrastructure automation. Now we have public APIs for every device in the data center, best practices, plug-ins for common automation tools, and so on. Everything is just easier.

Maybe a PowerOne Controller (or call it next-gen ViPR if you want) could be a success this time.

Takeaways (and Wishful thinking)