Photo by Craig Sybert on Unsplash
Automation and artificial intelligence will likely change the world, for both good and bad.
The dark side of automation is making itself known through robocalls. We all get them, including hospitals. Many help lines are getting clogged with robocalls which are preventing people with urgent care needs from getting through.
Meanwhile, Oracle is on a roller-coaster ride this month. Their financials are up, but people are calling out financial engineering due to $36B in stock buy back.
Acquisitions/Investments
- Blue Prism acquires UK’s Thoughtonomy for up to $100M to expand its RPA platform with more AI
Blue Prism, which helped coin the term RPA when it was founded back in 2001, has announced that it is buying Thoughtonomy, which has built a cloud-based AI engine that delivers RPA-based solutions on a SaaS framework. Blue Prism is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange — where its market cap is around £1.3 billion ($1.6 billion), and in a statement to the market alongside its half-year earnings, it said it would be paying up to £80 million ($100 million) for the firm.
The deal is coming in a combination of cash and stock: £12.5 million payable on completion of the deal, £23 million in shares payable on completion of the deal, up to £20 million payable a year after the deal closes, up to £4.5 million in cash after 18 months, and a final £20 million on the second anniversary of the deal closing, in shares. Thoughtonomy had never raised outside funding, although that was not for lack of interest.
Artificial Intelligence
- Microsoft PowerPoint gets an AI presentation coach
Microsoft’s AI can’t tell you if your jokes will land, of course, but the new coaching feature gives you real-time feedback on your pacing, for example, tells you whether you are using inclusive language and how many filler words you use. It also makes sure that you don’t commit the greatest sin of presenting: just reading the slides.
After your rehearsal session, PowerPoint will show you a dashboard with a summary of your performance and what to focus on to improve your skills.
Security/Privacy
- Robocalls are overwhelming hospitals and patients, threatening a new kind of health crisis
“These calls to health-care institutions and patients are extremely dangerous to the public health and patient privacy,” said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.), the Democratic chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who has put forward legislation to try to clamp down on robocalls. “The FCC and Justice Department need to go after these criminals with the seriousness and urgency this issue deserves.”
The absence of immediate relief spells particular trouble for medical professionals. Scammers often adopt a technique known as spoofing to cover their tracks, a practice that results in people receiving calls from numbers that look similar to their own. For a hospital, that often can mean calls appear to come from local area codes, tricking health care workers into thinking it’s a nearby patient in need of care.
- Your used Nest camera could be spying on you
A member of the Facebook Wink Users Group discovered that after selling his Nest cam, he was still able to access images from his old camera—except it wasn’t a feed of his property. Instead, he was tapping into the feed of the new owner, via his Wink account. As the original owner, he had connected the Nest Cam to his Wink smart-home hub, and somehow, even after he reset it, the connection continued.
We decided to test this ourselves and found that, as it happened for the person on Facebook, images from our decommissioned Nest Cam Indoor were still viewable via a previously linked Wink hub account—although instead of a video stream, it was a series of still images snapped every several seconds.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90366910/your-used-nest-camera-could-be-spying-on-you
Software/SaaS
- Oracle shares rise on bullish earnings report
Good numbers: Oracle Corp. shares rose 7.5% to $56.63 Thursday after the business software maker reported a bigger-than-expected 14% rise in quarterly profit driven by growth in its cloud services and license-support business. The shares closed Friday at $56.12.
http://www.startribune.com/market-recap-oracle-shares-rise-on-bullish-earnings-report/511662182/
Oracle investors breathe a sigh of relief on rising sales“We are focused on our star products and our star products are now driving the top line higher,” Ellison said on the call. “We have these other businesses that are melting away and we just don’t care.”
Cloud licence and on-premise licence sales increased 12 per cent to US$2.52 billion, suggesting that Oracle is doing a good job of signing on new customers. The company said that revenue from NetSuite grew 32 per cent, and Fusion HR and financial suites gained by the same amount.
https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/technology/oracle-investors-breathe-a-sigh-of-relief-on-rising-sales
Oracle spent $36 billion in one year buying its own stock back, and it raises some uncomfortable questions about how it’s spending its cashFor example, in contrast to the $36 billion spent on stock buybacks, Oracle spent $1.66 billion on capital expenditures in 2019, down from the $1.73 billion it spent in 2018.
Remember, Oracle is trying to build itself into a cloud computing giant to take on the likes of mighty Amazon Web Services and, more importantly, keep itself relevant in an age where its customers want the cloud.
https://www.businessinsider.com/oracle-stock-buybacks-growth-cloud-investors-2019-6
The New Oracle Looks Like the Old IBMOracle is an aging tech company that lacks real growth engines and repeatedly props up its earnings with buybacks. It’s stuck in the same downward spiral as IBM used to be, and it lacks the motivation of IBM under Ginni Rometty to break the cycle. Therefore, I’d avoid Oracle and stick with stronger tech companies — like Amazon or Microsoft — even though they trade at higher valuations.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/06/20/the-new-oracle-looks-like-the-old-ibm.aspx
Other
- IBM CIO Focuses on User Experience to Keep Staff Happy
New employees expect that the IT services they use at work will be as good as or better than the technology they use at home, he said. To be competitive and attract talent, “we have to create an environment where talented engineers want to work,” he added.
To that end, Mr. Previn and the design team have created new ways for employees to get and set up new devices. Device provisioning, or the act of assigning employees laptops, desktops and mobile phones with the appropriate encryption, email and productivity software, can be costly and time-consuming for IT departments.
Mr. Previn’s user-research team oversaw a monthslong project in which they observed how much friction was involved for employees setting up their laptops. Many of the steps are now automated and cloud-based, similar to the way a consumer would be able to set up a device out of the box. “That’s materially different from an experience standpoint,” Mr. Previn said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-cio-focuses-on-user-experience-to-keep-staff-happy-11560984488