Can consumers benefit from facial recognition technology?

Applications of facial recognition technology ‘in the wild’ are still fairly new to us, but enterprising organizations – from Apple to airlines – have quickly found ways to use it for more seamless interactions and added layers of security.

With a market value of US$3.2 billion in 2019 and a growth projection to US$7 billion by 2024, enterprises are increasingly looking to the value of facial recognition as a component in their products and services – particularly as consumers are beginning to accept it for its convenience.

Facial recognition is essentially a biometric technology that helps to identify and verify people by scanning and computer engineering vs computer science their faces. The identification is done when the technology compares the scanned faces from either videos, images and scans to the ones stored in its database. Across Asia, the technology has proven to be strategic in helping businesses speed up their services and offer better products, namely by improving complicated security processes, elevating customer experience, and authorizing contactless payments.

Substituting tickets and keys

In the transportation and aviation industries, for example, facial recognition is being used to replace conventional ticketing systems and repetitive security touchpoints. If customers choose to use the technology, they may no longer have to buy and print tickets and can navigate an airport from ‘kerb to gangway’, without repeatedly pulling out their documents.

One example is Malaysia’s KLIA which has deployed a ‘single token’ journey system using facial recognition technology. Passengers’ faces, travel documents, and journey information are stored digitally in the form of a token which can be used to access any other services at the airport.

This also means verification and security checkpoint processes can be sped up for a more seamless traveling experience. The same systems are also being used to replace keycards in hotels, high-end apartments or other paid-entry venues. This would not only help improve security and safety in cases of forced entries, but it will also save visitors and tenants from the constant hassle of carrying their keys.

first target of new AI research consortium

The University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) are the headquarters of a bold new research consortium established by enterprise AI software company C3.ai to leverage the convergence of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and the internet of things (IoT) to transform societal-scale systems.

C3.ai announced the creation of the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute (C3.ai DTI) today, along with a call for research proposals for AI techniques to mitigate the effects of software engineering vs computer science and possible future pandemics.

“The C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute is a consortium of leading scientists, researchers, innovators and executives from academia and industry, joining forces to accelerate the social and economic benefits of digital transformation,” said Thomas M. Siebel, CEO of C3.ai, in a statement. “We have the opportunity through public-private partnership to change the course of a global pandemic. I cannot imagine a more important use of AI.”

The first call for proposals, due May 1, 2020, targets research that addresses the application of AI and machine learning to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, rigorous approaches to design sampling and testing strategies, and methods to improve societal resilience in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, among other areas relevant to pandemic mitigation.

The institute brings together industry, including tech giant Microsoft Corporation, with additional academic and research partners at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Princeton University and the University of Chicago

JR Shaw's legacy in sharp focus as Canadians flood the telecom networks he helped build

JR Shaw, a family man with a powerful handshake and a warm nature, leaves a legacy as a Canadian telecommunications industry pioneer who built his Alberta cable start-up into one of the nation’s largest communications providers.

The Shaw Communications Inc. founder and executive chairman died peacefully Monday at age 85.

“JR was the founder and leader of our company, but he was also an exceptional husband, a loving father, grandfather and great grandfather. His legacy of love and compassion for people will live on for generations,” Shaw chief executive Brad Shaw, JR’s youngest son, said in a statement.

JR was born in 1934 in computer engineering career, Ont., not far from Sarnia, where he could watch American TV stations on cross-border signals. When he moved to Edmonton in 1961, the only channel he could get was the CBC. He felt he had no choice but to start his own cable company in 1966, according to an interview with the Alberta Business Hall of Fame.

“People would say, ‘You’re building 27 channels, why would you do that? I can only watch one at a time.’ But we wanted to have state of the art and choice,” Shaw said.

Over the next five decades, the company grew into one of Canada’s largest cable and satellite providers and radio and TV broadcasters. It started offering internet in 1996, spun off the media business into Corus Entertainment Inc. in 1999, launched residential telephone service in 2005 and entered the wireless market in 2016 with the purchase of Wind Mobile, now called Freedom.

Marvell announces 96-core ThunderX3 Arm server processor

Marvell got into the Arm server business with the 2018 acquisition of Cavium, maker of the ThunderX Arm server processor. Now the company is introducing the first major revision to the product line since the acquisition, and it's a doozy.

The ThunderX3 line tops out at a stunning 96 cores with four threads per core, for a total of 384 threads per processor. Intel and AMD have only two threads per core, and the top-end Intel Xeon maxes out at 56 cores while the AMD Epyc is at 64 cores.

Marvell also bests Ampere, the startup run by former Intel exec Renee James that's also working on an Arm-based server chip. Ampere recently announced the Altra Q80-30 processor a few weeks back sporting 80 cores entry level computer science jobs. Ampere's strategy is cores over threads.

ThunderX3 supports eight channels of DDR4-3200 with two DIMMs per channel. The IO subsystem offers 64 lanes of PCIe Gen 4.0 with 16 controllers. The processor will be available in both single- and dual-socket configurations. And for floating point operations, ThunderX3 features four 128-bit SIMD (Neon) units per core.

Basic microarchitectural improvements mean the ThunderX3 will offer 25% greater IPC (instructions per clock) performance over ThunderX2. This plus the increase in the core and DDR frequencies will enable an overall gain of more than 60% in single-thread performance versus the previous generation. At the socket level, ThunderX3 provides more than 3x higher socket level integer performance and more than 5x socket level floating point performance over ThunderX2.

MTU engineering experts join open-source ventilator movement

The open-source hardware community wants to change that.

Joshua Pearce, Richard Witte Endowed Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and a professor of electrical and computer engineering, is an open-source hardware expert and co-editor-in-chief of computer science vs engineering a leading open-source scientific hardware journal.

"The research on open-source ventilators is not new, but when it started a decade ago the technology was not there. Now it is, and we have substantial motivation, and we just need to bring all the information together," Pearce said, explaining that 3D-printed lab hardware and other open-source tech can be cost-effective and encourages design improvement. "Even complex medical devices are not outside the realm of possibility anymore."

Pearce, who runs the Michigan Tech Open Sustainability Technology (MOST) Lab, has joined the Michigan Tech Open Source Initiative, which collaborates with groups like the 9,000+ strong Helpful Engineers, made up of makers, hackers, medical personnel, engineers and other researchers from around the world. Many perspectives converge on a single goal: getting 3D-printed, open-source ventilators and other medical hardware where they're needed to overcome COVID-19.

However, technological expertise is not the same as medical expertise (and a key validation test for open-source ventilators requires a lab with a synthetic lung -; not something most people keep around their makerspace). The end goal is medical-grade, low-cost designs, which can be made using distributed manufacturing technologies, like 3D printing or circuit milling systems, by anyone who needs them locally. To use them, the medical community needs certainty that an open-source design will operate as intended and do no harm.

West Slope information technology firms announce merger

Networks Unlimited has merged with Lorimer Network Research to offer more information technology services in a larger geographic area.

With offices in Grand Junction and Montrose, Networks Unlimited serves a total of more than 2,000 clients in 39 states. Based in Ouray, Lorimer Network Research serves a total of more than 300 clients in Southwest Colorado and Denver.

The combined business will operate as Networks Unlimited.

“We are excited to have our current customers benefit from the additional experience and resources from Lorimer Networks Research Inc. and have a regional presence in Ouray,” said Mark Swain, founder, and president of Networks Unlimited. “And, similarly, customers benefitting from an expanded technology services offering to a larger service team and a dedicated remote support services staff.”

Network Unlimited offers a range of information technology services as well as computer and networking sales and support. For more information, jobs with computer science degree or log on to the website located at www.networksunlimited.com.

Digital Outcomes Now signs strategic partnership with Yellowbrick Data to help the Global Telecommunications Industry convert their massive data volumes into positive outcomes

The next wave of Mobile 5G and IoT capabilities will generate volumes of data unlike anything previously imaginable. The organizations that are able to process this data as fast as possible to create valuable outcomes will rule the digital future.

“Yellowbrick Data has created a breakthrough in processing analytic datasets that is extremely well-positioned to deliver on this coming 5G opportunity. In 1/20 the rack space of traditional Data Analytics platforms, Yellowbrick Data is able to process complex data queries at over 100x the performance of traditional systems,” said John Gillespie, President, and CEO of Digital Outcomes Now. “This unique architecture is perfect for distributed analytics at the network edge, in the network core or in a hybrid cloud environment.”

Designed to break through the traditional computer engineering vs computer science surrounding multi-cloud compatibility, system lock-in and cost, Yellowbrick’s data warehouse enables enterprises to run workloads on-premises, in the cloud – or both, while achieving the best economics in the industry. The Yellowbrick Data solution is ideal for organizations with data warehouse volumes ranging from 10TB to several petabytes. With unprecedented performance, predictability, reliability and cost savings, the Yellowbrick Data Warehouse supports thousands of concurrent users and delivers 100X faster query speeds versus traditional offerings.

“We are extremely excited to work with Digital Outcomes Now to deliver solutions based on Yellowbrick Data’s technology to the Global Telecommunications Marketplace. Our technology has been receiving rave reviews from our early Telecommunication customers,” said Neil Carson, Founder, and CEO of Yellowbrick Data. “We see our partnership with Digital Outcomes Now as a key addition to expanding our success in this exciting market.”

Security, Networking Collaboration Cuts Breach Cost

The security team, instead of operating in silos, can lower overall post-breach costs if it collaborates with other teams across the organization.

Cybersecurity is still a top priority for executive leadership, researchers say in Cisco's "2020 CISO Benchmark Report." The survey of 2,800 IT decision-makers reveals key trends and pain points as companies face issues such as alert fatigue, mobile security, and private cloud security.

Ninety percent of respondents agree business executives have created clear metrics for assessing the effectiveness of a security program. Time-to-detect ranks highest as a key performance indicator (KPI); however, for reporting to the C-suite or board, time-to-remediate is equally key because it represents the total impact of an incident: downtime, records affected, cost of investigation, lost revenue, lost customers, lost opportunities, and out-of-pocket costs.

Organizations reporting more than 100,000 records compromised in their most severe breach grew from 15% in 2019 to more than 19% in 2020. A major incident has the greatest effect on business operations (36%), followed by brand reputation (33%), finances (28%), intellectual property (27%), customer retention (27%), and supplier relationship (26%), researchers found.

Alert fatigue is a major issue when you consider the number of security products cluttering enterprise environments. There is a gradual trend to reduce complexity through vendor consolidation, with 86% of businesses using up to 20 vendors, and only 13% using more than 20. In 2019, 15% of companies used more than 20 vendors; in 2018, that number was up to 21%.

"We're starting to see this move toward fewer consoles and move toward greater collaboration with other teams," says Wolf Goerlich, advisory CISO with Duo Security (now under Cisco). "CISOs who act on those two trends have better outcomes for the computer science vs software engineering."

AITD holds workshop on networking

ACCESS Student Council of Computer Engineering Department, Agnel Institute of Technology and Design (AITD), Assagao conducted a one-day hands-on workshop on ‘Networking’ for third-year computer students. The workshop was organized in association with Teach Me Computers Institution, Mapusa.

Speakers for the workshop were founder, Teach Me Computers, Shiva Naik who also works as a network engineer at Remote Software Solutions, Porvorim, Goa, and director, Teach Me Computers, Siya Naik.

Head of the department of computer engineering, professor Snehal Bhogan highlighted the importance of networking in academia and in industry.

During the first half of the session, students were given a brief overview of networking basics in which they were introduced to various networking concepts like types of networks, reference models, networking devices and cables, what to do with a computer science degree, etc.

In the second half, students had a practical hands-on session in which they were taught how to make use of a crimping tool in order to conjoin two pieces of metals. Also, a practical demonstration was given on how to share files and folders across various systems in a network. Various IP addressing concepts were also explained during the session.

Computer Science Department struggles with faculty shortage

The drastic increase in students taking computer science courses has led to a faculty shortage in the department. While the department has hired 16 new faculty members since 2011 to keep up with student demand, it also lost 11 faculty members during the same time period to retirement and other institutions.

Between 2011 and 2017, there was a 2.5 times increase in the number of students enrolled in courses offered by the Computer Science Department at UC Davis, and this number has continued to rise. In order to meet the demand for computer science courses, six temporary lecturers have been hired in addition to the five associate-instructors and 38 faculty who teach the majority of the courses. Some of these lecturers are graduate students who are pursuing degrees in computer science.

Jason Sison, the undergraduate advisor for the Department of Computer Science, sent an email statement on behalf of the department to The California Aggie. The department cites the increase in demand as the main reason behind the shortage.

“Not only are we teaching our own majors (approximately 1300 students right now), we are also teaching students who want to minor in our program, students who want to transfer into our program, and students who are required (or advised) to take CS classes as part of their own major,” the statement read. “There are also many students who see the benefit of obtaining some basic programming knowledge and want to increase their skill set for the computer science major jobs.”

The growth of computer science in the digital era reflects its wide range of applications, including fields such as engineering, neuroscience, and even graphic design. In fact, according to LinkedIn, many of the top hard skills employers look for stem from computer science, and its overall usefulness is likely one of the reasons why computer science has grown in popularity amongst universities in the U.S., including UC Davis.

Mysterious ‘Humane’ technology company hires Apple VP of Engineering ahead of product reveal

Not much is known about the mysterious technology company called Humane aside from their growing roster of former Apple veterans. Rubén Caballero is Humane’s most recent hire, Humane has announced, joining the company after a 15 year career at what is computer engineering.

Caballero is credited as one of the leaders of the early iPhone team and most recently held the title of Vice President of Engineering at Apple. Going forward, Caballero will be a Technical Advisor for Humane. Apple veterans and Humane co-founders Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri announced the new hire. Chaudhri previously spent over two decades working on design at Apple, and Bongiorno spent nearly a decade managing iPhone, iPad, and Mac software.

Other former Apple employees hired by Humane late 2019 and early 2020 include:

• Sara Glick, Head of Electrical Engineering, who spent several months as an iPod hardware development intern
• Software Engineer Adam Binsz spent over two years as a software engineer at Apple
• Senior Software Engineer Lilynaz Hashemi spent over four years as a software engineer at Apple
• Former iPhone 7 enclosure product design lead Miguel Christophy who now works as Humane’s Head of Design Engineering
• Senior HW Engineer Brian Huppi who worked as a senior sensing system hardware engineer at Apple
• Humane Chief of Staff Andie Adragna who worked as Apple’s Executive Administrative Assistant & Team Admin Manager
• Design Lead Britt Nelson who worked on user interface design at Apple
• Marketing & Strategy Lead Guillaume Golsong worked as iOS Product Marketing Manager for Camera, Photos and Media
• Director of Camera Technologies Monique Relova previously worked on camera hardware and software at Apple

Flaws Riddle Zyxel’s Network Management Software

Security researchers are warning that networking hardware vendor Zyxel and its Cloud CNM SecuManager software is chock-full of unpatched vulnerabilities that kick open the doors for hackers to exploit. In all, researchers have identified 16 vulnerabilities, ranging from multiple backdoors and default credentials to insecure memory storage.

The Zyxel CNM SecuManager is a networking management software solution that provides an integrated console to monitor and manage enterprise security gateways, such as the company’s own ZyWALL USG and its VPN series products. When contacted by Threatpost, Zyxel would not say how many users of the product there are, only that the number was “what does a computer engineer do.”

However, security researchers Pierre Kim and Alexandre Torres wrote in a report posted Monday that “the attack surface is very large and many different stacks are being used making it very interesting. Furthermore, some daemons are running as root and are reachable from the WAN. Also, there is no firewall by default.” The report outlined the more than a dozen flaws.

This startup is providing career counselling to over 12,000 students across India

Remember the time you gave your Class X board exams? Many of us were confused about which stream to choose — Science, Arts, or Commerce? But the dilemma didn’t end there. After Class XII boards, we had to decide on what course to choose, in which college, and how to get there. Most of us relied on the experience and knowledge of our teachers and parents to answer our questions, but not all of us have that privilege. 

Most of us relied on the experience and knowledge of our teachers and parents to answer our questions, but not all of us have that privilege. For students living in slums and coming from poor economic backgrounds, and for those who are the first generation in their family to get an education, access to expensive counselling to decide their computer engineering careers paths is limited.

For students living in slums and coming from poor economic backgrounds, and for those who are the first generation in their family to get an education, access to expensive counselling to decide their career paths is limited. To fill this gap and to help millions of children across India who lack such resources, Aditya Bose started ProBano in 2017. To this date, Delhi-based ProBano is providing feasible counselling and has reached out to 12,000 students from 142 institutes across 11 states.

How Mircom Group is using technology to turn buildings into active, networking machines

The doorman of a glass-and-steel office block faces a huge, wall-mounted intercom panel. The scene, from French filmmaker Jacques Tati’s 1967 film Playtime, makes it impossible to talk about the business of building intercoms and alarm systems without smiling.

Lights flash across the intercom panel like a shooting gallery. Buzzers blare. An overamplified voice blurts out. Mr. Tati famously spoofed modern conveniences. The doorman whistles to himself in a dismissive, Gallic way. Of course, the joke today is how quaint that all seems. The alarms and building-communication systems made by a handful of multinationals, including the smaller Vaughan, Ont.-based Mircom Group of jobs with a computer science degree, are now exponentially more complicated. They tap into cloud servers, networks, and wireless apps and can be monitored extensively on-site and even remotely. They effectively turn buildings into active, networking machines. And this has forced Mircom and its competitors to branch far off from their original business.

"We were really hardware-centric for a long time. We would build the housings, the components, the circuit boards, the devices, and we would supply the hardware. But like most businesses, technology started to converge,” says Mark Falbo, Mircom’s president and chief executive officer.

“It used to be just a hardwired system with wires running through a building. Now it might be tied into a network infrastructure, an internet infrastructure – whereas before you would sell the equipment and be done with it.” Back in the 1960s, when electronic alarm and intercom systems were relatively new, Mark’s father Tony Falbo came to Toronto from Cosenza in southern Italy and was working for Mirtone, which made home intercoms that connected rooms like the kitchen to the living room or bedroom.

HID Global launches HID Signo, its signature line of access control readers

HID Global, a worldwide leader in trusted identity solutions, announced the launch of HID Signo, its signature line of readers that creates a new industry benchmark for the most adaptable, interoperable and secure approach to access control. The new readers dramatically simplify system deployment and management, meet the advanced security requirements of today’s dynamic environments and set organizations up for smarter, more connected access control.

“With the industry now seeking to use access control systems as a backbone for creating intelligent environments, consultants, integrators and end-users are increasingly demanding more versatile high-performance solutions,” said Harm Radstaak, Vice President and Managing Director of Physical Access Control Solutions, free intrusion detection software.

“HID Signo is built on an open platform and delivers on our commitment to innovation with its unprecedented flexibility and robust set of forward-looking features that optimize workplace experiences. “Our goal is to put more choices in the hands of our customers and give them peace of mind in knowing they can continually adapt their systems as requirements change.”

For ultimate versatility, the readers are interoperable with over a dozen physical and mobile credential technologies so organizations can use their technology of choice and easily migrate to the latest solutions at their own pace.

Nokia dispatches cut system usefulness for LTE and 5G NR giving more choices for mines

Nokia as of late reported the dispatch of a new start to finish cutting system usefulness for 4G and 5G New Radio (NR) – the main merchant to offer this capacity. The arrangement will bolster availability from 4G and 5G gadgets over the cut system to applications running in private and open mists and will be accessible this late spring. Nokia's new arrangement empowers administrators to begin fabricating their system cutting business today with LTE and 5G NR. The cutting ability can be sent by means of a product update into existing LTE and 5G non-independent (NSA) systems and along these lines 5G independent (SA) systems. The cutting congruity among what is a intrusion and 5G NR permit administrators to augment their system inclusion for new portable availability administrations. 

The new usefulness has noteworthy significance in mining systems, as delineated by Jaime Laguna, Nokia Global Program Sales Leader for Mining: "When recurrence isn't accessible straightforwardly to a mining client, a specialist organization may be included and by doing radio cutting, they can utilize same the framework for numerous clients and still keep up the idea of 'private' LTE systems. Clearly, there are different themes to be examined between specialist co-ops and mining clients on the administrations' side like assistance level understandings (SLAs) and KPIs yet we have seen another enthusiasm for these bearers in the market."

Investigating Cyber Landscape of Connected and Autonomous Cars

As of late, different assaults have been performed to feature security worries about developing brilliant vehicles. Specifically, remote hacks took a ton of consideration in 2015 when two security specialists commandeered the vehicle's infotainment framework and exhibited how to control keen vehicle capacities. Such assaults raise the dangers related to the keen vehicle frameworks and show that there must be constant allots taken before rolling these vehicles out and about. That is on the grounds that doing so directly affects human lives.

In November 2019, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) distributed a report that gives a benchmark to far-reaching cybersecurity and security provokes identified with keen autos, laying out the great cybersecurity rehearses by deciding the difficulties, dangers, dangers and assault situations. The target of this far-reaching study was to recognize the principle resources and dangers exposed to the environment of associated and independent autos with significant practices to address cybersecurity issues. The report gave European just as worldwide administrative, institutionalization and approach activities to encourage harmonization.

The what is intrusion detection categorization that covers the brilliant vehicle capacities to recognize the related dangers and dangers. The elements of the savvy autos directly affect the security of travelers. Hence, the security of brilliant vehicles is of prime significance.

Be that as it may, the scope of these innovations, segments, and capacities covers sensors just as computational, correspondence, utilitarian car parts of the vehicle. This accumulation is especially advanced with regard to interoperability.