Google’s I/O conference took place this week and they introduced groundbreaking AI assistant technology… but not everyone is in love with the idea of not knowing when they are talking to a robot.
Equifax (finally) released the full impact of their 2017 security breach. 147 million American’s social security numbers were breached. Why did it take so long to get the whole picture? Speaking of security, hackers found a way to bypass two factor authentication.
And…Microsoft might buy Netflix (I have serious doubts about the accuracy of this rumor).
Acquisitions
- Google to acquire cloud migration startup Velostrata
Velostrata helps companies migrate from on-premises datacenters to the cloud, a common requirement today as companies try to shift more workloads to the cloud. It’s not always a simple matter though to transfer those legacy applications, and that’s where Velostrata could help Google Cloud customers.
As I wrote in 2014 about their debut, the startup figured out a way to decouple storage and compute and that had wide usage and appeal. “The company has a sophisticated hybrid cloud solution that decouples storage from compute resources, leaving the storage in place on-premises while running a virtual machine in the cloud,” I wrote at the time.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/09/google-to-acquire-cloud-migration-startup-velostrata/
- Microsoft Will Acquire Netflix Within the Next 2 Years: Top Analyst
“Netflix, while a pioneer as a streaming service, doesn’t have a business model that is sustainable,” said Bibb. “For every one in two movies, one makes a significant loss while one makes a significant gain…No one has cracked the code to fix this, although Netflix doesn’t have to deal with the ticket sales.”
He believes that the Microsoft-Netflix merger could be announced in 18-24 months, but added that there will be “a few bumps in the road before anything happens.”
https://www.thestreet.com/technology/microsoft-acquire-netflix-says-analyst-14583140
Artificial Intelligence
- Intelligent Machines Will Teach Us—Not Replace Us
That is the real promise of this new generation of AI: creating new knowledge, not just good results. Instead of processing human instructions at incredible speed, they create their own guidelines from scratch and discover patterns invisible to us. Instead of analyzing millions of human games to find the best way to play, they can generate their own data and find rules that apply to the real world. These machines will be able to go beyond “what” and tell us “why.”
Whenever there’s a brilliant advance in robotics or machine intelligence, people send it to me on social media with messages proclaiming, “We’re all doomed!” But the notion that these machines could become human-hunting Terminators is absurd. Intelligence and autonomy of movement don’t equal free will and killer instinct.
- Google Duplex: A.I. Assistant Calls Local Businesses To Make Appointments
https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/05/duplex-ai-system-for-natural-conversation.html
Duplex shows Google failing at ethical and creative AI designAt one point the bot’s ‘mm-hmm’ response even drew appreciative laughs from a techie audience that clearly felt in on the ‘joke’.
But while the home crowd cheered enthusiastically at how capable Google had seemingly made its prototype robot caller — with Pichai going on to sketch a grand vision of the AI saving people and businesses time — the episode is worryingly suggestive of a company that views ethics as an after-the-fact consideration.
One it does not allow to trouble the trajectory of its engineering ingenuity. A consideration which only seems to get a look in years into the AI dev process, at the cusp of a real-world rollout — which Pichai said would be coming shortly.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/10/duplex-shows-google-failing-at-ethical-and-creative-ai-design/
- Trump Administration Vows to Maintain U.S. Edge in AI Technology
At a White House conference on artificial intelligence, Trump technology adviser Michael Kratsios pledged that the administration would make a priority of advancing artificial-intelligence research, through greater research funding and other steps.
“America has been the global leader in AI, and the Trump administration will ensure our great nation remains the global leader in AI,” said Mr. Kratsios, deputy assistant to the president for technology policy, according to prepared text of a keynote speech.
- Amazon Reportedly Building Healthcare Team for Alexa So You Can Ask If That Cut Looks Infected
The company’s primary hurdle in that task will be making the voice assistant compliant with the privacy requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The law sets some pretty stringent requirements for handling sensitive health-related data, and Alexa currently does not meet those standards. The company’s cloud platform Amazon Web Services (AWS) does support HIPAA compliance and the new health and wellness team reportedly has a HIPAA expert on board, so Alexa may soon be able to properly handle your medical data—assuming you’re willing to trust the voice assistant with that information.
Amazon’s increased interest in the healthcare industry comes as the company is reportedly bowing out of the pharmaceutical business. CNBC reported last month that Amazon was shelving a plan to sell drugs directly to hospitals through its Amazon Business platform, and experts have suggested the barrier to entry in the filed may prove too high even for the tech giant.
https://gizmodo.com/amazon-reportedly-building-healthcare-team-for-alexa-so-1825938924
Cloud
- Microsoft needs to prove it’s not another IBM
Microsoft can’t afford to become the next IBM and lose any relevance it still holds with consumers, but if it’s not careful, that might be inevitable. Even tomorrow’s Windows-focused keynote is all about Microsoft 365, the company’s subscription service for businesses that combines Windows 10 and Office 365. Microsoft has an opportunity at Build this week to show developers that it’s not just another IBM and that it’s not going to turn into a company that lacks the mindshare and technological influence it possessed in its heyday.
Build is a chance to show off the good bits of the new Microsoft and where exactly the company will be heading in the next five years. Vague promises of AI and quantum computing won’t be enough without a good demonstration of its software prowess in action. Microsoft has the opportunity to show the world this week what it really stands for and why people should still care.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/7/17325540/microsoft-build-conference-2018-preview
Security
- Equifax filing reveals hack was somehow even worse than previous estimates
Today’s information was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of the company’s disclosures regarding the hack. It provided first a handy table listing what was stolen as raw strings of data from Equifax’s inadequately protected databases:
Full name: 146.6M
Date of Birth: 146.6M
Social Security number: 145.5M
Full address: 99M
Gender: 27.3M
Phone number: 20.3M
Driver’s license number (incl. 2.4M partials): 17.6M
Email address: 1.8M
Credit card numbers (with expiration dates): 209,000
Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN/Tax ID): 97,500
Driver’s license state: 27,000Previous estimates of driver’s license numbers leaked were around 10.9 million, and total affected put at 143 million. Sure, the difference between 143 million and 146.6 million is relatively small, but it’s still 3.6 million people.
- Hacker Kevin Mitnick shows how to bypass 2FA
Chief Hacking Officer Kevin Mitnick showed the hack in a public video. By convincing a victim to visit a typo-squatting domain liked “LunkedIn.com” and capturing the login, password, and authentication code, the hacker can pass the credentials to the actual site and capture the session cookie. Once this is done the hacker can login indefinitely. This essentially uses the one time 2FA code as a way to spoof a login and grab data.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/10/hacker-kevin-mitnick-shows-how-to-bypass-2fa/
- Flash Drives Are Contraband at IBM Now
In a seemingly unenforceable move, IBM has banned its employees “from using removable memory devices such as USB sticks, SD cards and flash drives.” The company’s global chief information security officer Shamla Naidoo said that “the possible financial and reputational damage from misplaced, lost or misused removable portable storage devices must be minimised.”
http://goingconcern.com/flash-drives-banned-ibm-inchan/
Lots of headlines about this, but it isn’t like IBM is the first company to do this.
Software/SaaS
- SAP Ariba tightens supplier risk monitoring with new vetting process
“When it comes to some indirect spend, the role of procurement is changing from negotiating deals to creating a dynamic marketplace within a compliant environment where users can get what they need,” said Robert Ward, procurement process and performance manager, NSG Group. “And with SAP Ariba Spot Buy, we can do this.”
GRMS evaluates and continuously monitors suppliers against more than 1500 global governmental watch lists and enforcement and sanctions sources. The service also offers the risk assessment modules in regulatory compliance, financial stability, insurance management, reputational protection, health and safety, social responsibility, cyber security and document management.
http://www.insidesap.com.au/sap-ariba-tightens-supplier-risk-monitoring-new-vetting-process/
- Oracle’s autonomous database could leave DBAs unemployed
The autonomous self-patching, self-healing database, the first version of which is 18c, is a part of a long-term play to help draw the company’s customers into Oracle’s piece of the cloud – which is increasingly packing itself with cloud-based applications and services.
Hurd said it could take almost a year to get on-premise databases patched, whereas patching was instant with the autonomous version. “If everyone had the autonomous database, that would change to instantaneous,” he said.
So where does that leave Oracle DBAs around the world? Possibly in the unemployment queue, at least according to Hurd. “There are hundreds of thousands of DBAs managing Oracle databases. If all of that moved to the autonomous database, the number would change to zero,” Hurd said at an Oracle media event in Redwood Shores, California.
Other
- One of net neutrality’s biggest enemies ‘retires’ from AT&T amid Michael Cohen scandal
AT&T has decided to join the growing coalition of people who regret paying President Trump’s lawyer. In a message to AT&T employees today, first obtained by CNN, AT&T President Randall Stephenson said “our company has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons these last few days and our reputation has been damaged. There is no other way to say it — AT&T hiring Michael Cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake.” Regardless, Stephenson insists that “everything we did was done according to the law and entirely legitimate.”
But while Stephenson says he takes “full responsibility” for the mistake, it actually seems like AT&T’s top lobbyist Bob Quinn is taking the hit. Stephenson also announced in his message that Quinn “will be retiring,” and that the company’s lobbying shop will now be reporting to AT&T General Counsel David McAtee.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/11/17344040/at-t-michael-cohen-lawyer-lobbyist-bob-quinn
- Apple is no longer building its $1 billion data center in Ireland
Apple has announced it will no longer build a $1 billion (€850 million) data center in Ireland after planning delays lasting over three years, reports Reuters. Since 2015, Apple has wanted to build the data center in Athenry to be close to green energy sources, but the plans have been met with stalls in the approval process. The company had yet to even beginconstruction on the center. Apple was also set to face an appeal in Dublin’s Supreme Court on Thursday over initial approval of the planned first phase of building.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/10/17338734/apple-data-center-ireland-scrapped-athenry
Photo by Patrik Göthe on Unsplash