Four Weekly Tech Newsletter – Feb 7
Lead articles from February 7
AI aims to outsmart the mutating coronavirus
USC researchers have developed a new method to counter emergent mutations of the coronavirus and hasten vaccine development to stop the pathogen responsible for killing thousands of people and ruining the economy. Using artificial intelligence (AI), the research team at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering developed a method to speed the analysis of vaccines and zero in on the best potential preventive medical therapy.
'Weird new things are happening in software...'
Some AI researchers’ practices are as tired as a Michael Bay movie, to hear Christopher Re tell it. Wednesday, Re, who is a Stanford University associate professor of computer science, gave a talk for the University’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence institute. His topic: “Weird new things are happening in software.” That weird new thing is that the stuff that was important only a few years ago is now rather trivial, while new challenges are cropping up.
Recruiting women can help solve security's biggest problems
Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, the cybersecurity profession faced a talent crisis. Multiple studies show a growing skills gap in the field; while the numbers quantifying unmet demand vary, the message is consistent. There are simply not enough cybersecurity experts in the global market to manage the growing number and range of cyber-risks out there. It’s clear that COVID-19 made these talent problems more acute. The sudden shift to remote work accelerated the expansion of the attack surface.
3 ways AI can improve your customer experience
Your customers are moving online at an exponential rate. Gartner predicts that customers will manage 85 percent of their relationship with the enterprise without interacting with a human. Meanwhile, there’s a lot of hype and promise around AI tools. While many of those promises are still a long way off, CX is an area that can benefit from AI right now. Whether your business model is B2B or B2C, providing a highly personalized, truly exceptional customer experience is one of the most important things for any enterprise…
Not just speed: 7 incredible things you can do with 5G
You can’t walk around Mobile World Congress without 5G slapping you in the face. If there’s a phenomenon that’s dominated this week’s trade show besides the return of a 17-year-old phone, it’s the reality that the next generation of cellular technology has arrived. Well, at least it’s real in the confines of the Fira Gran Via convention center in Barcelona.Above the Qualcomm booth flashed the slogan: “5G: From the company that brought you 3G and 4G.” If you took a few more steps, you could hear an Intel representative shout about the benefits of 5G…
Is ethical risk getting the better of artifical intelligence?
There are too many cases of discrimination in AI and, in some cases, organizations are even shelving plans to adopt it altogether. Beneath the exciting tide of artificial intelligence (AI) applications permeating industries and consumers’ daily lives, there has been an undercurrent growing in strength over years: the question over whether we can trust the decisions of morally-void autonomous systems, informed by and interpreting only the datasets they receive.