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Category: CTOUpdate

CTOUpdate

  • Verizon Business Markets CIO: We Have to Humanize Technology

    Verizon Business Markets CIO: We Have to Humanize Technology

    The CIO of Verizon Business Markets, which is Verizon’s small business segment, says that “We have to humanize technology.” What Rajeev Chandrasekharan is talking about is Verizon’s push internally to modernize the customer experience and to make it less frustrating.

    The Verizon Business Markets CIO says that they are modernizing and becoming more customer-centric with the help of Salesforce CRM and other tools. Their goal is to ensure that the customer’s concerns and information follow the customer, regardless of who at Verizon the customer is speaking with.

    Rajeev Chandrasekharan, CIO of Verizon Business Markets, recently discussed how they are reimagining the customer experience at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco:

    The Three Pillars for Industry Transformation

    Our industry is seeing a lot of need for transformation and if you really look at it there are three different pillars. One is we’re engineered for scale and not for speed to market. We do something well and we are big and now that whole equation is changing with needing to get to the market quickly with products. The second aspect is we’ve been around for a while and use different kinds of technologies and we need to refresh them so we need to start using some of the cooler capabilities that exist.

    Lastly, there’s a lot of pressure on us with all the other industries, the digital unicorns, trying to provide this amazing customer experience and it’s not good enough now just to provide service or be a commodity. The intersection of those three needs is creating a need for a huge digital transformation.

    My role here in Verizon Business Markets is while we launch new products try to build digital business and try to leverage all of this technology and customer experience while we penetrate newer customer segments.

    Verizon Business Markets in the Midst of a Digital Transformation

    Generally, when you do a digital transformation there’s a lot of work and a lot of investment and the question companies always have is how much is it worth to go change everything that I’ve done? Luckily for us since we have multiple business units we pick the small business unit and said we see a tremendous potential here for new products and for penetration of the market so the investment is well justified. So go, do not compromise on things, drive this digital mobile first omnichannel thinking to the extreme and build something that’s like a beacon for all the other business units to follow.

    We’ve taken this to a place where revenue is going to be generated and when you have a promise of being able to grow the top-line it’s easy to justify all the work that goes into it. The other aspect is we’ve got a lot of buy-in from the top on trying to do things differently, so we’ve tried to put together a few rules of how we want to operate. We call them the big rules. Then build on that, where we’re trying to make sure the whole organization is saying, don’t fall into the trap of doing things the old way and make sure we focus on these big rules. Culturally and then opportunity wise Verizon Business Markets, the small business segment, becomes a fantastic place to try out this concept and we’re going all-out.

    This is a Customer-Centric Digital Transformation

    This is a customer-centric digital transformation. We started with the customer, we looked at the product research, we looked at the capabilities and then we decided what platform we wanted and what processes we can change. We also challenged ourselves by saying that we need to break our own rules and do something different. For example, if you’re going to get into a house differently and you can’t get to through the window, you can’t build another door, you can’t break in and you have got to use the key, then different about it? We challenge ourselves to break those rules.

    That customer in mindset is what we are struggling with and that’s the one thing I would say that we didn’t have, the digital native aspect, the customer-centric aspect as much. We have that in our service, in our network, and in our products, we have amazing stuff. When we top it off with this we’re going to be in a good place.

    We Have to Humanize Technology

    I think we have amazing products and services so innovation is constantly going to happen there. The two things that I see is operations are going to become digital with artificial intelligence and those sort of new age technologies, which is very important for you to be competitive in the marketplace or you’re not going to survive against your competition. Then, the most important thing is the way you go to deliver capabilities to a customer.

    We have to humanize technology. The customer is basically saying what do you think, what do you say, what do you do, and we then turn it into some garble technology talk. We need to operate as a digital entity and make the customer feel like we as a company are doing one-on-one personal services for you in think, say, and do.

    We’re giving you intelligent recommendations, executing your orders, and we are communicating with you effectively. That is going to almost take you back to the olden days of manual stuff which were one-on-one but without the human and instead with technology. That is the sweet spot for us going forward.

  • Study Says Half of All Tasks Will Be Automated… Are We Facing a Jobless Future?

    Study Says Half of All Tasks Will Be Automated… Are We Facing a Jobless Future?

    Is artificial intelligence going to replace our jobs? That’s the question a panel of experts discussed at the Salesforce Dreamforce conference. James Manyika, Director of the McKinsey Global Institute, says that about half of all job tasks and activities are going to be replaced by AI. Are we facing a jobless future?

    James Manyika, Chairman, and Director of the McKinsey Global Institute talks about the impact of AI on jobs:

    When we think about AI, first it’s important to recognize that this is actually an extraordinary time and we’ve made so much progress in AI in the last five years or 10 years, much more than the last 50 years. Of course, these questions about work become very important to us. Rather than start with jobs, we should think about activities and tasks because what we all do is actually composed of tasks and activities. In fact, if we take any of our occupations they’re made up of a variety of tasks that we do every day and AI and other automation technologies are starting to be able to automate those tasks.

    We’ve looked at something like over 2000 activities and tasks that make up what people do in the economy and you look at what’s now possible to automate based on AI and automation technologies, you very quickly come to the conclusion that it looks like it’s going to be possible to automate close to about half the tasks that people do. That’s a lot, but it’s important to recognize these are tasks, not jobs because any job also constituent activities.

    If you then take this task view and then you try and map it back into occupations, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks about 828 occupation categories. If you map these back to those occupations, you suddenly realize that about 10 percent of occupations look like they have nearly 100 percent of their tasks that can be automated. Approximately 60 percent of occupations have about a third of their constituent activities that can be automated. That means that many more occupations are going to be augmented by technology than will be automated away.

    It’s natural to wonder, so are we facing a jobless future? We concluded with the research that we’ve done that yes, of course, there will be jobs lost, but there will also be jobs gained, and also jobs changed. In some ways, the jobs that are going to be gained and changed are probably a much larger number. So do I worry about a jobless future, I actually don’t. That’s actually the least of my worries.

  • FAA to Promote Spaceports and Neil deGrasse Tyson Says It’s About Time

    FAA to Promote Spaceports and Neil deGrasse Tyson Says It’s About Time

    Congress is set to approve a Federal Aviation Administration bill that authorizes a significant increase in spending for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST). However, what has brought excitement to astrophysicists and space enthusiasts is the provision on spaceports.

    Per SpaceNews, this requires AST to develop a report on spaceport policies, including recommendations on government actions to “support, encourage, promote, and facilitate greater investments in infrastructure at spaceports.” 

    “The bill creates a category of commercial spaceflight vehicles known as “space support vehicles” that cover parts of launch vehicles systems flying for other purposes, such as training or testing. Such vehicles would include the aircraft used by air-launch systems. The bill allows commercial flights of space support vehicles without the need for a full-fledged airworthiness certificate from the FAA.” – SpaceNews

    Renowned astrophysicists, author, and TV host Neil deGrasse Tyson is very excited that the United States is finally getting serious again about space, following the seeming lack of interest by Obama and previous administrations. Many space exploration supporters including Tyson believe this spaceport focus “should have been in progress decades ago”.

    Tyson’s most recent book, Accessory to War, The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military is another great read that you won’t want to miss.

    Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke to Fox Business News about the spaceport announcement:

    In my field, we are overwhelmingly liberal and anti-war. Yet, the entire history of my field goes back to the service of military conquest, hegemony, and empire building. We were the ones who knew how to navigate the night’s sky and how to apply those navigational tools to the earth’s surface, enabling for you to find out what countries you want to conquer or to colonize. There have been astronomers sitting next to explorers right from the beginning.

    Just look at GPS, something that started out as a military intended utility has now become a fundamental driver of so many elements of our modern economy from Uber to Tinder. So this relationship is long and deep.

    There’s a lot of interesting things going on today with the FAA’s announcement that they want to stimulate and promote spaceports and commercial access to space. That really should have been in progress decades ago. This is important because you need someone to think it through from the beginning so if and when it becomes a thing there has been a lot of intelligent analysis regarding the safety of who’s sending you to space, regarding the safety of who’s down range from whatever is launched, and the safety of your duration in space.

    Think of what the FAA has done for us to this day. We have one of the safest aviation records the world has ever seen. You want that to also be true for any activities that occur in space, especially space tourism, which will get you the average person taking these trips rather than just the flyboy macho person who will take the 50 percent risk of dying. You want to turn this into something that people might want to do.

    The first trillionaire will be the person who exploits space resources on asteroids, comets, etc…

  • Twilio’s Unique Platform Business Model Drives It’s Success

    Twilio’s Unique Platform Business Model Drives It’s Success

    Twilio’s success is driven by its unique platform business model where its products are provided to developers based on usage. Companies only pay for what they use with no contracts required and they billed based on whatever is the fundamental value driver of the product they are using.

    Recently, Jeff Lawson, Twilio CEO, discussed their innovative products and business strategy on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street“:

    Why is Twilio a Successful Business?

    It’s really the continued success of our platform business model. Platform developers can use Twilio to solve a wide variety of problems inside of their companies and how their company communicates with their customers. Whether that’s voice phone calls in a contact center or that’s text message alerts, even real-time video communications and things like Facebook Messenger, you can incorporate all those things using Twilio.

    It’s the broad breadth of things that developers can build on top of Twilio coupled with our usage-based pricing model which really aligns our success with our customers’ success, so we get paid when our customers use Twilio more and build things on top of our platform. The combination of the breadth of things you can build as well as the alignment we have with their customers, that’s the platform business model that has worked so well.

    Every Company is Getting Reinvented Because of the Power of Software

    Uber is one of our largest customers, they represent about four percent of our revenue today, but we have many different companies on our platform. Whether it’s Lyft and other rideshare companies as well as everything from Silicon Valley tech companies to Fortune 500 companies including major banks and insurance companies.

    In fact, one of the customers we noted at our Q2 call was U-Haul which is not a company you typically think of as a software company. Every company is getting reinvented because of the power of software. Every company realizes that they too are a digital company now and if your business is U-Haul you have to reinvent yourself with software and when they do the software developers who work at those companies bring Twilio in.

    Customer Engagement is the Lifeblood of Every Company

    I think that every company regardless of what they do is always investing in their own growth and their customer relationships. So when you think about customer engagement, how a company talks to its customers, that’s a source of growth for every company. That is the lifeblood of every single company.

    How you engage with your customers and what they think of those interactions, that is the brand perception and that is the reality of the product delivery.  

    The Platform Business Model is a Unique Business

    We think that our business model, the platform business model, is a unique business. It’s not software as a service, it’s got a lot of different attributes, it’s not traditional on-premise software, it is a new kind of software company. Because of that usage-based model we can sustain a nice expansion rate and nice growth rate.

    How Are the Services Measured?

    Things like phone calls and text messages and video sessions are measured in gigabytes and our new contact center Twilio Flex is measured in the amount of time the agents spend using it. Each one of our products we break down into the fundamental value driver for our customers and we bill for that and what that does is it aligns our customers’ success with our success very nicely.

  • Cybersecurity is Rapidly Changing

    Cybersecurity is Rapidly Changing

    “We cannot control our adversary,” says Rick McElroy, Security Strategist for CarbonBlack, a leading next-generation cybersecurity firm. “Although we can choose to control them once in our environment. We have little to no control over when the “big attack” happens. For too long I think we have focused so hard on finding the adversary that our internal threat intelligence has suffered as a result”. Sharing threat intelligence has gotten easier. Vendors have done a ton to allow teams to cultivate and exchange threat intel and while there is always more work we have abandoned the one thing we have a hope of controlling. The home field advantage.”

    Editor Note: CarbonBlack is offering a free webinar on why companies are moving toward next-generation security here:

    Free Webinar: Why Companies are Replacing AV with Advanced Endpoint Protection

    McElroy adds, “I have heard major CISOs sit in a room and say “asset management is impossible, so why try?” How is this what a leader would say? Yes, this thing we do isn’t easy but giving up is a sure fire way to never achieve a strategic goal.”

    “It’s time we bring this to all defenders, not just customers of a certain organization. Carbon Black is on a mission to make the world safe from cyber attacks. To achieve this mission, we need every one of us sharing and helping quiet the noise. We need application developers and threat hunters on the same page. We need to unite as a community.”

    Traditional AV is Falling Short

    Just about every enterprise company is feverishly working on implementing next-generation solutions to protect against internet threats. The primary reason is that traditional AV software is no longer effective enough:

    First, let’s look at why traditional AV is falling short against the cyber-attacks organizations face today. Traditional AV technologies still rely on a signature-based approach that can only identify known threats. Attackers can run circles around this approach by making small tweaks to their malware in between signature updates; this allows them to operate with impunity while organizations scramble to deploy new updates.

    In short, traditional AV leaves organizations one step behind the attacker. Making matters worse, a signature-based approach cannot detect modern attacks that do not write files to disk (so-called file-less attacks) or techniques that use trusted system tools like PowerShell to perform malicious actions. In order to combat the shortcomings of traditional AV, organizations must ensure that they have AV technology that takes a proactive approach to cybersecurity. – Dan Larson, Vice President Product Marketing at CrowdStrike via Security Ledger.

    The Security Fight Has Escalated

    “Nearly 20 years ago, viruses such as the Melissa virus and Love Bug worm were causing millions of dollars’ worth of damage, hijacking email servers, corrupting corporate and government documents, and forcing systems to shut down,” stated Martin Borrett, IBM Distinguished Engineer and CTO IBM Security Europe. “Today, cybercrime is a global plague that will cost the world economy $6 trillion annually by 2021, according to Cybersecurity Ventures.”

    Borrett added, “As cybercriminals, nation-state attackers and hacktivist groups have become more sophisticated, the security industry has grown up to defend our national security as well as the vital interests of businesses and consumers. Gradually, the battle between attackers and defenders has become something akin to an arms race: New types of attacks lead to new defenses to block them. Security innovations become outdated as soon as attackers find ways around them. Meanwhile, cyberattackers continue to rely on social engineering tricks that are hard to defend against.”

    New Cybersecurity Approaches Are Clearly Needed

    According to Dr. Kirk Borne, Principal Data Scientist at Booz Allen, what’s needed is for companies to modernize their current cybersecurity defenses:

    For modern cybersecurity operations to be effective, it’s necessary for organizations to monitor diverse data streams to identify strong activity signals. This includes monitoring network traffic data to find well-known patterns of common adversary activities, such as data exfiltration or beaconing. While these detection techniques are critical to cybersecurity operations, it is imperative to leverage such signals to predict future activities. Further capabilities could even be created to modify the behavior of the actor (or analyst) to the benefit of the organization and mission. This could include systems on networks that are trained to autonomously take action, such as blocking access to resources or redirecting traffic, based on a predicted behavior.

    Modern attackers are too agile and creative for organizations to rely on passive descriptive analytics or reactive diagnostics techniques for protection. Rather, building an ability to forecast future outcomes through predictive analytics that utilize prior knowledge of events, particularly the precursor signals evident before an attack, are proactive measures. – Dr. Kirk Borne via a recent post on O’Reilly Media.

  • Microsoft and Red Hat Team Up to Offer OpenShift on Azure

    Microsoft and Red Hat Team Up to Offer OpenShift on Azure

    Microsoft and Red Hat have announced their collaboration in offering the first jointly managed OpenShift on Azure, the former’s public cloud. At the Red Hat Summit that opened on Tuesday, the teamup will allow enterprise developers to run container-based applications across on-premises and public clouds.

    Red Hat OpenShift, the company’s Kubernetes container application platform, has been identified as the industry’s most comprehensive solution. With its availability on Azure, container management will become easier since it will be a fully managed service by Microsoft and Red Hat.

    So, how does container application platform works? Runtime components, such as files, environment variables, and libraries needed in executing an application, are distributed into so-called containers. They use fewer resources since app containers can share with the host’s operating system in order to run, unlike virtual machines that have their own OS.

    Red Hat president Paul Cormier pointed out that several organizations often have a mixture of on-premises and public cloud footprint for their IT operations. Its partnership with Microsoft gives customers the opportunity to tap into an innovative hybrid cloud platform without making major adjustments in their existing operations.

    During the summit, Burr Sutter of Red Hat demonstrated how users can load-balance across a hybrid cloud comprised of an on-site rack, Azure in Texas, and Amazon Web Services in Ohio. He showed that the task could be done automatically and in real time using Kubernetes.

    As more companies turn to containerized applications as part of the digital transformation, the demand for managed services around containers is also increasing, observed Red Hat vice president Mike Ferris. Red Hat OpenShift on Azure gives enterprises the flexibility to move workloads around and across on- and off-premises, such as the public cloud. Moreover, OpenShift customers no longer need to manage Kubernetes themselves – a strategy that Microsoft has been nudging on.

    Other advantages of the collaboration to developers include faster connections with enhanced security under hybrid networking, and access to managed services like Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Machine Learning, and Azure SQL DB. Thanks to available extensive technology platforms, OpenShift customers can now build cloud-native apps and update existing ones. There will be an overarching support for containerized applications, operating systems, infrastructure, and orchestrator.

    “Microsoft and Red Hat are aligned in our vision to deliver simplicity, choice, and flexibility to enterprise developers building cloud-native applications,” said Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s executive vice president for cloud and enterprise. “Today, we’re combining both companies’ leadership in Kubernetes, hybrid cloud, and enterprise operating systems to simplify the complex process of container management, with an industry-first solution on Azure.”

    The rollout of the collaboration will happen in two phases, with support for the OpenShift Container Platform and Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure. Meanwhile, the jointly developed and managed Red Hat OpenShift on Azure is slated for preview in the coming months.

  • Data is the Foundation of Innovation

    Data is the Foundation of Innovation

    Intel CEO Brian Krzanich told his Keynote audience at CES that data has now become the foundation of innovation. Data started as a static tool used by companies to see trends and process information, but it has now reached the point where it is the critical element that is driving technology and is revolutionizing all aspects of society.

    Below is an excerpt of Krzanich’s talk about data’s amazing impact on our world.

    Data is Driving the Technology Revolution

    Data is the unseen driving force behind the next wave of the technology revolution. In fact I think it is even bigger. Data is going to introduce social and economic changes that we only see perhaps once or twice in a century.

    In the 19th Century we saw this change with the combustion engine. That led to the rise of the automobile which ushered in the modern transportation system of trains, cars and planes. Just 50 years ago we saw another inflection point with the creation of the integrated circuit and the rise of the semiconductor industry. This is the story of Moore’s Law which has shaped every aspect of modern technology. We need to think about data changing our society in the same way.

    It is Time to Rethink the Importance of Data

    Data will redefine how we experience life in our work, at home, in school, and even how we enjoy sports and entertainment. It’s going to make possible experiences that know one has even started to imagine. I think the time has come for us to entirely think about the importance of data differently. The breakthrough came from computing power. Computing has become so fast and so powerful that we can now generate and capture information capable of prediction, decision making, recognition, and even thinking.

    What Do We Mean by Data?

    Let’s start with some basics. Almost everything associated with technology generates data. Any device with a plug, every email, every podcast, every picture you post on Instagram, and even the blog you are writing about this Keynote tonight. All of it creates and shares an incredible amount of data, and it’s all connected. Today, the cloud is filled with billions of bytes of data, going from our devices to the data center and back again. We’ve created literally a flood of data.

    That’s really staggering, by 2020 the average person will generate one and a half gigabytes of data a day, which is about 2 times what a person creates today! That’s small in comparison to an autonomous car which will generate about 4 terabytes of data per day, or 2,500 times the data a person will generate. A connected airplane will generate about 40 terabytes a day and a smart factory will generate 1 petabyte of data per day. That’s the equivalent of 700 thousand people.

    That data is moving all around us at an unimaginable speed. That speed allows the device in your hand to make decisions in an instant, and this is a big shift in how edge devices provide value.

    All Technology Starts with Data

    There was a time when data was something that was stored and processed and very carefully shared. Some businesses would analyze that data and that led to some pretty interesting insights, but basically data was a static commodity. All that has shifted in just the last few years. Today, data is the foundation of innovation.

    Almost everything you will see here at CES, virtual reality, smart cities, autonomous driving, and above all artificial intelligence, all start with data. People have been writing about artificial intelligence since the 1950’s, but what we are seeing emerge today is a rush of breakthroughs using data and AI. This includes facial recognition, devices controlled by voice commands, robots, autonomous vehicles, and even art itself.

    Art and space are just two examples of how data is going to reshape our world. Devices operated by voice command, visual intelligence and precision medicine… I spent my whole life watching technology dramatically leap forward, and the advances with data and AI we’ll see in the coming years will dwarf all of that.

    If you are impressed in what you see today, well stay tuned. We are still discovering new ways to apply the power of artificial intelligence and data and these discoveries will impact almost every sector and that is what is meant to reimagine data.

    Watch Intel CEO Brian Krzanich’s full CES keynote below:

  • Google Cloud Now Offers Low-Cost Preemptible GPUs

    Google Cloud Now Offers Low-Cost Preemptible GPUs

    Businesses using Google’s cloud computing services for resource hungry GPU processes can now avail of a lower cost option recently launched by the company. To sweeten the deal, the new feature, which was already launched as a beta version, is offered to companies at a significant discount. However, there is a catch—Google has the right to shut down any process anytime if it needs those resources.

    Called preemptible GPUs, clients can now create GPU instances in the Google Cloud Platform using Nvidia chips. The company announced that these GPU processes are priced 50 percent lower than GPUs attached to on-demand instances, which could be big savings for clients and especially attractive for firms pressured to reel in operational expenses.

    But of course, this 50 percent discount comes with a tradeoff. Google may, at any time, terminate these preemptible GPU instances if it needs these resources. As explained in by the tech giant, the compute engine will terminate them after giving a 30-second warning. In addition, Preemptible GPUs may only be used for a maximum of 24 hours.

    Under the preemptible feature, clients will have access to Nvidia K80 and Nvidia P100 GPU at a much lower rate. The company will charge K80 usage at $0.22 per GPU hour while the P100 carries a $0.73 per hour rate.

    With the preemptible option, Google is targeting clients running “distributed and fault-tolerant workloads,” especially processes that are dependent on a single instance.  Another advantage seen from this option is clients will know exactly how much they are going to pay compared to the currently unpredictable pricing models for on-demand services.

    At the moment, Google announced that the preemptible GPU feature is now available in the US-central1 region. To check if the feature is already available in your region, click the link for the full list of locations.

    [Featured image via Google Cloud]

  • Microsoft Rolls Out New AI Feature for Bing

    Microsoft Rolls Out New AI Feature for Bing

    Microsoft rolled out a number of intelligent search features for Bing at a press event recently held in San Francisco. Since it will be powered by artificial intelligence (AI), the search updates are expected to lead to enhanced utilization of object recognition, provide more detailed answers and allow for more general or conversational search queries.

    The improved features will have Bing substantiating its answers by sourcing numerous websites, instead of just one. And in situations where there’s more than one credible perspective, Bing will compile the answers and show both sides at the top of the search page. The search engine will also supply a conveyor of answers if there are several ways of answering a search query.

    Microsoft’s team has also incorporated pertinent comparisons or analogies to search answers so that it will be easier to understand the supplied information. For instance, when searching for Syria’s land area, Bing would not only give how many square miles the country is, it would also show that the area is estimated to be as big as Florida.

    Jake Hofman, a senior researcher at Microsoft, explained that the team wanted to provide some context or perspective when it comes to reading numerical data. Most of the time, people who read numbers don’t really understand them. By adding an analogy, the numbers are placed on familiar ground that’s often connected to people’s daily experience. What’s more, Microsoft has also expanded Bing’s comparison replies, which used to be limited to product comparisons.

    Another new feature incorporated in Bing is its clarifying questions. These clarifiers are expected to help people searching for answers to conversational questions or broad topics by narrowing down and refining their search. Microsoft also rolled out advanced image search proficiency, which will allow users to search for objects or images within images. For example, the user can track down a specific accessory they are interested in buying that a model or celebrity is wearing.

    Microsoft has also decided to have Bing and Reddit join forces. This means that information contained in Reddit’s threads will now find its way to Bing’s search page. Users will now be able to search Bing for particular Reddit topics or subreddits, like “Reddit Aww” and the search engine will provide a snippet of the conversation. General searches that could be answered via Reddit conversations will also be shown in Bing search results. Users who also want to view specific Reddit “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) or read the popular ones will find that Bing will also pull those up to the top of the results page. Upcoming AMAs will be featured as well.

    The partnership of Bing and Reddit is already in effect, along with Bing’s improved image search. Meanwhile, the search engine’s conversational search and intelligent answers features will slowly be rolled out by next month.

    Microsoft also introduced new AI-enhanced features for both Cortana and Office 365 at the press event. Specifically, intelligent search will be incorporated into Office 365 products, including SharePoint and OneDrive. This will allow users to search for text within presentation and image slides. The new Office features will rollout before the month ends.

  • Machine Learning and It’s Impact on Search

    Machine Learning and It’s Impact on Search

    The terms machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) have been cropping up more often when it comes to organic and paid search. Now a recent report by Acquisio has confirmed just how effective machine learning is for search results.

    According to Acquisio, paid search accounts that have been optimised for machine learning have 71% higher conversion rates and have lower cost-per-click (CPC). But these were not the only benefits that accounts using machine learning enjoyed. The web marketing company also revealed these accounts were also able to reach their target spending levels and had lower churn rates.

    The data implies that small marketing teams and CMOs now stand on an even playing field with more established companies now that ML is more affordable, effective and accessible to everyone.

    This doesn’t mean that marketers should ignore organic search and original, value-laden content. Paid search might be the easiest way to rank high in search engines, particularly since AI will be doing the bulk of the work, developing campaigns that have greater odds of being seen by the right searchers at the proper time. However, organic search is more authentic and will last longer than paid searches.

    The goal now is to understand how ML impacts the search system and how to take advantage of the technology’s evolution that made paid and organic searches more effective.

    Paid vs Organic Search: Which Wins in the End?

    There’s been an ongoing debate as to which is better – paid or organic searches. Interestingly, both have come out on top, but at different times and conditions. The results have depended on the type of research done and other outside factors. For instance, a study conducted in 2011 showed that organic search was more effective. However, paid search has outpaced its counterpart from 2013 onwards. But this appears to be due to the changes Google has made to its algorithm.

    So which is better? Andy Taylor, the Associate Director of Research at Merkle, believes that flexibility is the best option. Instead of just sticking to one approach, companies should determine what search strategy is ideal for their business at the moment and the technology that’s currently available. After all, the ideal marketing strategy for your company now will probably change in a few months as customers change their expectations and technologies expand.

    Machine Learning is Changing More Than Search

    The rise of machine learning has also resulted in a shift to data-driven models instead of the conventional attribution models. This multi-touch attribution model (MTA) relies on an analytics scale that’s more descriptive and takes into account various touchpoint outputs, like ad interactions, ad creative, or exposure order. It also allows marketers to have a better understanding of how factors, like a distinct set of keywords and ad words, can affect a conversion.

    But it’s not just search capacities that machine learning has an impact on. The technology is also being used to refine and make algorithm changes. It has been theorized that Google’s RankBrain utilizes machine learning to assess if the company has to revise its own rankings based on what the consumer searches for and whether the user was satisfied with the result.

    Machine Learning Will Push for More Sophisticated Content

    Because machine learning technology is developing more advanced SEM capacities and sophisticated algorithms, search engines are pushing marketers and content producers to deliver more refined content. This would eventually lead to search engines becoming more discerning to the quality of online content a company is putting out. This means producing high-quality content that particularly targets what the consumer is looking for becomes more vital than ever before.

    Machine learning and AI are impacting every aspect of marketing. Companies should start understanding them and how to utilize ML-optimized tools effectively in their marketing campaigns.  

  • Oculus Rift Goes After Business Sector With New VR Bundle

    Oculus Rift Goes After Business Sector With New VR Bundle

    Oculus VR is now trying to tap into a new market to boost the sales of its high-end virtual reality device. The company is now launching Oculus Business, effectively sweetening the deal for companies to snap up its Oculus Rift bundle.

    Oculus vice president Hugo Barra made the announcement of its business bundle during the Oculus Connect conference in San Jose, Tech Crunch reported. The Oculus for Business package costs $900 and includes the hardware package, dedicated customer support, full VR license and enterprise-grade warranties.

    The hardware package consists of the Oculus Rift headset, three room sensors, three Rift Fits and Oculus Touch Controllers, according to The Verge. Altogether, the hardware only costs $574, but the $900 price of the business bundle is still considered a great deal, given the warranty, commercial license and preferential customer support that go with it.

    While virtual reality is still a relatively new technology, businesses can harness its potential to improve their reach and exposure as well as streamline their operations. For instance, VR can be utilized to aid personnel training and even allow potential customers to examine products in great detail in the virtual world. In the future, VR could be indispensable to a host of industries such as construction, manufacturing, education, tourism, and health.

    In fact, the German automobile manufacturer Audi is one of the launch partners of the Oculus for Business. The carmaker harnessed VR to build virtual showrooms where potential buyers can configure a car and even walk around it to assist them in the selection and customization process.

    Aside from Oculus VR, other virtual technology manufacturers such as Apple have been pitching their VR hardware as a business tool. Admittedly, the market for VR gear among individuals is a bit limited, as the price of the gadgets is a bit too steep for the average consumer. In addition, setting up a VR rig inside a home also requires some expertise. Businesses, however, have bigger budgets and tech-savvy staff at their disposal which makes it easier for them to buy and install VR equipment.

    [Featured Image by YouTube]

  • Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Could Happen in October

    Sprint, T-Mobile Merger Could Happen in October

    The U.S. telecommunications landscape is about to drastically change once more. If rumors are correct, Sprint and T-Mobile, two of the country’s largest telecommunications players could merge by October this year.

    Of course, talks of T-Mobile merging with Sprint have been around for years. This time, however, it looks like there’s more meat to it than mere idle speculation. According to Reuters, T-Mobile, the U.S.’ third largest carrier, is on the brink of agreeing to a merger with the country’s fourth-largest carrier, Sprint, citing unnamed sources familiar with the deal.

    Timing is important in mega-merger deals. Previously, plans of a merger between the two telecom giants fell through when it became apparent that the Obama administration’s anti-trust stance would object to the deal. With the Trump administration, however, a T-Mobile-Sprint merger could push through and deal makers are not likely to let this window of opportunity pass by, according to Engadget.

    At the moment, neither Sprint nor T-Mobile has officially commented on the leaked merger plans. However, company officials from both camps have already given previous hints of such agreement.

    For instance, T-Mobile CEO John Legere gave indications last January that the company is open to a possible merger in the near future saying, “It may make sense from a scale standpoint.” On the other hand, Sprint CEO and President Marcelo Claure hinted that it would make announcements about merger discussions in the near future.

    Should the transaction push through, Japan’s SoftBank Group will end up controlling between 40 to 50 percent of the merged entity while German firm Deutsche Telekom and the rest of T-Mobile shareholder will own the majority of shares. SoftBank controls Sprint while Deutsche Telekom owns a majority of T-Mobile.

    The combined entity will likewise become the second biggest telecom player on the block. Combining T-Mobile’s 69.6 million subscribers with Sprint’s 53.7 million will create a telecom titan with 123.3 million subscribers, enough to overshadow Verizon’s 114.5 million (the current number 2) and placing it firmly behind AT&T’s 135.7 million.

    Aside from the advantage of scale, a merger between T-Mobile and Sprint could also improve the combined entity’s bottom line. According to research firm MoffetNathanson partner and senior analyst Craig Moffett, a merger could mean as much as $4 billion in savings due to cost-cutting opportunities. The combined entity could then invest those savings in areas like 5G which is critical if it wants to maintain an edge over rivals in technology.

    [Featured Image via Youtube]

  • Apple Schedules September Products Event —Will it Include the iPhone 8?

    Apple Schedules September Products Event —Will it Include the iPhone 8?

    Will we finally see an iPhone 8 launch this coming September? That just might be the case as recent reports state that Apple has already picked a date next month to release its newest lineup which could include the highly anticipated smartphone.

    According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has already scheduled a product announcement event on September 12, 2017. Of course, the latest report is welcome news for Apple fans who, for several months now, have been waiting for the tech giant to announce the iPhone 8 release date.

    Before you get all excited, here’s a warning. Apple did not actually make the announcement. In the report, WSJ simply stated the latest information came from people who have inside knowledge of Apple’s plans. Without an official statement from the company, this also means that iPhone 8 may not be included in the new products to be unveiled.

    But still, one can remain hopeful. In fact, there are several reports stating that Apple will unveil not one but three new iPhone models.

    According to eWeek, Apple will launch three new smartphones in the upcoming September 12 event. The report is not certain if one of the three new phones will be the highly anticipated iPhone 8 or if it will even be named as such. One possibility is that the new phones might be labeled as extensions of the iPhone 7 series.

    There is one interesting prediction made by eWeek though. According to the publication, one of the new iPhones will be a 10th-anniversary edition to commemorate the September 2007 release of the first iPhone. If correct, consumers can expect the special phone to be a bit more expensive than the regular models.

    Meanwhile, Mashable is betting that one of the upcoming phones to be unveiled at Apple’s September 12 event will be the iPhone 8. The publication agrees with eWeek’s report that the tech company will be unveiling three smartphones during the event and has, in fact, named the other two mobile phones as iPhone 7S and iPhone 7S Plus.

    While Apple may unveil the iPhone 8 at the event, Mashable warns consumers not to expect the gadget to be available anytime soon. Apple is predicted to delay the availability of the new phone until later this fall to give time for the sales of the latest iPhone 7 models to stabilize.

    Aside from smartphones, Apple is also expected to launch newer versions of the Apple Watch. According to Recode, the gadget has been gaining popularity as a fitness tracker, a trend that the company plans to mine with the introduction of new features into the upcoming versions of the wearable. For instance, the new Apple Watch will likely sport a built-in modem to enable users to listen to streamed music, make calls and even use some apps such as Uber.

    [Featured Image via Pixabay]

  • iPhone 8 Leaks: Is Apple Planning To Replace Touch With Face ID?

    iPhone 8 Leaks: Is Apple Planning To Replace Touch With Face ID?

    While everyone waits with bated breath on the unveiling of Apple’s newest flagship smartphone, the anticipation continues to mount as more rumors and speculations surface about the device. The latest leaks, if accurate, will give Apple fans something to truly be excited about as the new iPhone would sport a pioneering and game-changing feature– the introduction of Face ID.

    Latest iPhone 8 leaks seem to indicate that the upcoming phone would reflect Apple’s transition from fingerprint scanning to facial recognition for security, according to Forbes. The latest component leaked suggests a 3D sensing camera module which, coupled with the lack of information on a Touch ID system, could mean that the upcoming flagship smartphone could be the first to introduce 3D Face ID technology to mobile phones.

    If this rumor is correct, it would also mean that Apple’s next flagship will be way ahead of its competitor by about two years. According to BGR, Samsung’s facial recognition system is only 2D and not the rumored 3D capability of the iPhone 8. For this reason, Samsung’s Face ID can be “hacked” by a picture, the reason why it can’t be used to authenticate financial transactions.

    There is also another implication for the iPhone’s rumored 3D sensing camera. Aside from its use as a security feature of the smartphone, the 3D sensing capability could also be utilized to unlock the VR and augmented reality potential of the gadget.

    One possible concern that Apple’s Face ID would need to address is speed. How long will it take the device to recognize a face? Rival facial recognition systems like the Windows Hello take a moment to process a face in front of it. If Apple wants the new technology to be the killer feature of its upcoming flagship, it needs to have a processing speed comparable, if not faster, to the current Touch ID.

    But it seems that Apple already got this concern covered. According to MacRumors , iPhone 8’s Face ID will be able to unlock the phone in just a few hundred milliseconds. Now that is fast.

    [Featued Image By Maurizio Pesce/Flickr]

  • Microsoft’s New Outlook Sports Smarter Features and Customization Options

    Microsoft’s New Outlook Sports Smarter Features and Customization Options

    On Tuesday, Microsoft launched its new Outlook.com beta, which sports a new design and comes packed with new features users might find useful. For instance, the search interface has been relocated, email attachments can be previewed and the new inbox comes with a ton of smart features designed to give users an easier way to tag useful information with their emails.

    The redesigned Outlook.com may be activated by clicking on the “try the beta” toggle. Since the new features of the beta—which are still being tested and may be improved on—might take some getting used to, Outlook users can simply revert back to the old format by clicking on the toggle again.

    One of the more noticeable changes brought by the beta is the placement of the search interface, which is now located at the top portion of the inbox rather than the side. But the search interface’s change is more than mere aesthetics as email and people are now included in its search results.

    Another interesting change in the Outlook beta is the conversations view. Files and photos in the conversations may now be previewed which makes it easier to take a quick peek into email contents while browsing through ones’ emails.

    In addition, the new Outlook beta allows for a greater degree of personalization with the new options found in the conversations view, according to Tech Crunch. For instance, users can pin at the sidebar shortcuts to important emails. In addition, the inclusion of emojis and GIFs inside the new Outlook beta makes it easier to add some personal touch to one’s emails to close friends.

    The new beta version also introduced a smart new feature called Quick Suggestion. Placing tags on emails regarding restaurant location, flight details, and even sports teams’ schedules is now a breeze with the new feature in place.

    Of course, the purpose of the Outlook.com beta is to gauge customer reception and gain important feedback on the new changes. Things could still change for the better as the Outlook team announced that “based on your feedback we’ll iterate, improve, refine, or discard them.”

    Want to try the beta version of Outlook right now? Follow the link below:

    https://outlook.live.com/mail/#/inbox

    [Featured Image by Outlook]

  • Facebook Combats Fake News With Related Articles and Updated Machine Learning Technology

    Facebook Combats Fake News With Related Articles and Updated Machine Learning Technology

    Facebook is making steps to ensure that everyone gets their facts right before forming their own opinion on a topic trending on the popular social media platform. Recently, the company tweaked its Related Articles feature and introduced an updated machine learning technology to help spot potential misleading or fake news.

    Facebook’s Related Articles feature, which is basically a list of recommended articles appearing after a post, was introduced in 2013 as a way to expose readers to other viewpoints from different sources on the same topic. With the additional information and perspective, it was hoped that readers of trending social media posts will become better informed on their topics of interest, allowing them to participate intelligently in online discussions. In addition, it is also a clever way of minimizing the spread of fake news as readers will be able to do some fact-checking themselves before sharing a story.

    After the company was accused of enabling the spread of fake political news on its platform during the U.S. elections, Facebook tweaked the Related Articles feature last April. The updated feature, which was tested to a small group of U.S. users, now shows the list of additional articles to readers even before they read an article in the news feed as they appear as links below a news story in their feeds.

    Facebook announced that the updated feature is now being rolled out broadly in the United States as of August 3, 2017. Forbes reported that the updated Related Articles feature is also available for users in some European countries such as the Netherlands, France, and Germany.

    Recently, fake news has become a tricky issue for Facebook in Europe as well. Before the May 2017 presidential election in the country, French voters were reported to have been bombarded with a barrage of fake news reports. With its election coming this September, Germany is mulling over a plan to fine social network platforms should they fail to halt the spread of hateful posts.

    But Facebook has technology on its side. The social media giant likewise announced that it can now screen potential fake news better with its updated machine learning technology.

    [Featured Image by Pixabay]

  • War of Words: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg Spar on Importance of AI

    War of Words: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg Spar on Importance of AI

    Nothing gets a geek’s dander up than a discussion of whether a Skynet-like AI will become part of our future, as seen in the beef apparently brewing between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

    The two billionaires have opposing views with regards to artificial intelligence. While Musk is known for issuing warnings regarding the dangers of artificial intelligence, Facebook’s CEO has expressed optimism on how AI can improve people’s lives. A mindset that Tesla’s chief thinks is a pretty “limited” understanding of the topic.

    The word war apparently started after Zuckerberg conducted a Facebook Live session. As he relaxed at home and manned the grill, the tech icon answered various question, including one about AI.

    According to Zuckerberg, people who keep trying to drum up fear of AI are “really negative” and “pretty irresponsible.” He emphasized that any technology, including AI, can be used for either good or bad and that it’s up to designers and developers to be careful of what they create.

    Zuckerberg added that he has a hard time understanding those who are against the development and evolution of AI technology, saying that these people are “arguing against safer cars that aren’t going to have accidents” and “against being able to better diagnose people when they’re sick.”

    It’s safe to assume that Tesla’s boss was among those people Zuckerberg is talking about. Musk met a group of US governors earlier this month and proposed that regulations on artificial intelligence should be enacted.

    Musk explained that AI technology posed a huge risk to society, hinting at a future similar to what the Terminator movies have implied.

    “I keep sounding the alarm bell, but until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react, because it seems so ethereal,” Musk said then.

    Upon hearing Zuckerberg’s comments on AI, Musk hit back on Twitter, saying that he has talked to his contemporary about this. He also said that Zuckerberg’s “understanding of the subject is limited.”

    However, Zuckerberg is sticking to his guns as he once more defended his views on AI in a recent Facebook post. He reiterated his optimism about AI and the technology’s potential to improve the world.

    [Featured image via YouTube]

  • Microsoft Develops New Chip for Hololens 2; Promises No Lag, Real-Time Processing

    Microsoft Develops New Chip for Hololens 2; Promises No Lag, Real-Time Processing

    Microsoft revealed that its next-generation Hololens will pack quite a punch. Scheduled for a 2019 release, the new gadget will arrive with an all-new, more powerful artificial intelligence (AI) chip.

    Augmented reality (AR) technology has been steadily gaining ground in recent years. Among its most recent successes is in the gaming industry, where Niantic Lab’s AR mobile game Pokemon Go became a huge success, dominating the gaming charts in 2016.

    However, Microsoft is betting that, aside from gaming, the AR technology will have more practical applications in the real world. Thus, the software giant introduced the Hololens, a pair of AR smart glasses that can be programmed to assist users in a variety of tasks such as guiding tourists who are unfamiliar with a city, fixing engines, and even surgical operations using visualization tools.


    More Powerful Processor

    At the heart of the Hololens 2 is a new AI chip that will power the new device. According to Time, the coprocessor’s main task is to run deep neural networks, a process that parallels how the actual human brain works. The more powerful processor enables the new device to handle large amounts of data that one can expect to come from an ever-changing world at lightning fast speeds.

    No Lag Time

    Users of this new device will benefit greatly from its upgraded AI chip. The dedicated processor will ensure that the upcoming gadget will process data in real time without any lag, a necessary quality especially in systems that require split-second decisions like driving.

    Self-Contained System

    According to ARN, another advantage is that with the new AI chip in place, the Hololens 2 can be self-contained. Simply put, since the device has its own CPU, it is basically untethered and will not have to depend on a PC or a cloud service to function.

    This advantage is highlighted by Tirias Research’s Jim McGregor in a Seattle Times report. “For an autonomous car, you can’t afford the time to send it back to the cloud to make the decisions to avoid the crash, to avoid hitting a person.”

    [Featured Image by Microsoft]

  • iPhone 8 Predicted to Cost a Jaw-Dropping $1200

    iPhone 8 Predicted to Cost a Jaw-Dropping $1200

    It’s no secret that the Apple iPhone is an expensive mobile device. The entry-level iPhone 7 is priced at $649 while the more feature-packed 256GB iPhone 7 Plus is at a whopping $969, a cost that is way higher than most other smartphones currently on the market. With the iPhone 8’s release looming around the corner, its price is once again the talk of the town.

    Analysts and Apple experts believe that the new iPhone will most likely hit the $1000 mark. In addition to that, they also think the company will release not just one model this year, but three.

    How Many New iPhones Will There Be?

    Insiders say we should expect three phones. The first two releases will be an upgrade of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus with an improved processor and upgraded camera. The third one, it seems, will be the long-awaited iPhone 8 which is rumored to be priced at $1,200 or even more.

    Will the iPhone 8 Features Justify the Cost?

    Apple’s iPhone 8 is set to open up a new “luxury” tier since its cost will be $550 more than the previous model. Its features will be a screen that uses OLED technology, wireless charging, a 3D camera that can be utilized for augmented reality and facial recognition, and an edge to edge screen.

    However, these features are not really that new in the smartphone industry. Apple’s rival, Samsung has recently released the Galaxy S8 at $749, which already has the features that Apple is currently planning.

    Since the Samsung Galaxy S8’s release, it has eaten quite a chunk of Apple’s market share. But if that is the case, why would Apple put such a high price tag on its phone?

    Reports have surfaced that Apple is having production issues with the iPhone 8 and launch date delay is a real possibility. In addition to that, the new OLED screens are more expensive than Apple’s prior LCD screens. The high demand, limited supply, and higher production cost are the likely culprits of the phone’s rumored hefty price.

    Who’s Really Going to Buy a $1200-iPhone?

    Apple will be at a significant disadvantage if they try to release the phone at such an insanely high price, according to reports. However, Apple has no shortage of loyal followers that are willing to pay almost any price for the company’s latest offering, guaranteeing the success of the product. In fact, Apple is betting that the iPhone 8 will break previous sales records which saw iPhone unit sales of 78.3 million, up 5 percent from the previous year.

    Right now, there is no official price for the iPhone 8 and many analysts believe Apple will have a more reasonable pricing strategy for its buyers.

  • Google Unveils PAIR Initiative to Improve Relationship Between Humans and AI

    Google Unveils PAIR Initiative to Improve Relationship Between Humans and AI

    Google announced Monday a new initiative geared towards improving the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence (AI).

    The project, called People + AI Research (PAIR), will see Google researchers analyze the way humans interact with AI and the pieces of software it powers. The team, to be led by Google Brain researchers and data visualization experts Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, will work to determine how best to utilize AI from the perspective of humans.

    “PAIR is devoted to advancing the research and design of people-centric AI systems. We’re interested in the full spectrum of human interaction with machine intelligence, from supporting engineers to understanding everyday experiences with AI,” the website for the initiative says.

    The thrust of PAIR is to have AI in a form that is more practicable to humans, or to make it “less disappointing or surprising,” as described by Wired.

    An application of this idea would be the use of AI as an aid for professionals like musicians, farmers, doctors and engineers in their vocations. Google, however, did not go into detail on how it will go about putting this idea into practice.

    The researchers also hope to help form impressions of artificial intelligence that will enable people to have realistic expectations of it.

    “One of the research questions is how do you reset a user’s expectations on the fly when they’re interacting with a virtual assistant,”  Viégas said.

    Viégas and Wattenberg, along with the 12 full-time members of the PAIR team at Google, will also be working with experts from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    PAIR, according to Google, will “ensure machine learning is inclusive, so everyone can benefit from breakthroughs in AI.” Nevertheless, as Fortune points out, there have been questions of whether tech giants like Google and Facebook are keeping AI knowledge to themselves after hiring many highly regarded researchers in different areas of AI such as deep learning.

  • Microsoft Exec Confirms Delay of Windows 10 Timeline Feature

    Microsoft Exec Confirms Delay of Windows 10 Timeline Feature

    Microsoft launched an exciting demo at Build 2017 in May. It showcased, among other things, a convenient and useful Timeline feature in its Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.

    This feature was supposed to work in conjunction with the Pick Up Where You Left Off feature, allowing users to move across different platforms by syncing their work between Windows 10 devices, along with Android phones and iPhones in some cases.

    The Fall Creators Update will hopefully arrive around September or October, but this Timeline feature will not be a part of it. This was confirmed on Twitter by Joe Belfiore, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for the Operating Systems Group, in response to a tweet by Tom Warren. He did comment that this feature would be released on Windows Insiders “shortly after” the Fall Creators Update.

    A concept like the Timeline feature is not new. The iOS and macOS systems by Apple have a similar feature for users to start and resume their work across multiple devices. Microsoft’s promised Timeline, however, seeks to enable resuming work across competing operating systems.

    Another aspect of the much-awaited Timeline feature is the ability to view an earlier version of your desktop. The work progress will also be displayed on a “cards-style interface,” thereby making it convenient to jump right into an ongoing task. Since the testing of this feature would only come about after the next update, this functionality is also not available for now.

    Reviewers are not surprised, as this is not the first time an announced feature was delayed by Microsoft. The Fall Creators Update carries with it the MyPeople experience, which was supposed to have been a part of the last Windows rollout. Nevertheless, studies have shown that Microsoft’s operating system progress is still in good shape. The Fall Creators Revision is deemed to be a welcome update for Windows user, with insightful changes and useful tools.

    As is the norm, Microsoft users would eventually have to upgrade their systems for their own security and privacy. The upgrade is also necessary for a proper balance between user control and convenience.