Since data is at the heart of AI, it should come as no surprise that AI and ML systems need enough good quality data to “learn”. In general, a large volume of good quality data is needed, especially for supervised learning approaches, in order to properly train the AI or ML system. The exact amount of data needed may vary depending on which pattern of AI you’re implementing, the algorithm you’re using, and other factors such as in house versus third party data. For example, neural nets need a lot of data to be trained while decision trees or Bayesian classifiers don’t need as much data to still produce high quality results.
So you might think more is better, right? Well, think again. Organizations with lots of data, even exabytes, are realizing that having more data is not the solution to their problems as they might expect. Indeed, more data, more problems. The more data you have, the more data you need to clean and prepare. The more data you need to label and manage. The more data you need to secure, protect, mitigate bias, and more. Small projects can rapidly turn into very large projects when you start multiplying the amount of data. In fact, many times, lots of data kills projects.
Clearly the missing step between identifying a business problem and getting the data squared away to solve that problem is determining which data you need and how much of it you really need. You need enough, but not too much. “Goldilocks data” is what people often say: not too much, not too little, but just right. Unfortunately, far too often, organizations are jumping into AI projects without first addressing an understanding of their data. Questions organizations need to answer include figuring out where the data is, how much of it they already have, what condition it is in, what features of that data are most important, use of internal or external data, data access challenges, requirements to augment existing data, and other crucial factors and questions. Without these questions answered, AI projects can quickly die, even drowning in a sea of data.
Getting a better understanding of data
In order to understand just how much data you need, you first need to understand how and where data fits into the structure of AI projects. One visual way of understanding the increasing levels of value we get from data is the “DIKUW pyramid” (sometimes also referred to as the “DIKW pyramid) which shows how a foundation of data helps build greater value with Information, Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2022/08/20/are-you-making-these-deadly-mistakes-with-your-ai-projects/?sh=5d4c9b256b54

Many technology leaders associate artificial intelligence primarily with making processes more efficient. New research from Accenture shows that those who do so severely underestimate the technology's role in generating business value. Having analyzed the performance of 1,200 companies across 16 industries and 15 countries, we found that a small group of organizations (12%) outperforms their peers on AI and, as a result, enjoys 50% greater revenue growth.
These AI achievers have reached a much higher level of AI maturity than others. They master a set of AI capabilities in the right combination, including the technology (data, AI, and cloud), organizational strategy, responsible AI, C-suite sponsorship, talent, and culture. Essentially, AI achievers have moved beyond “pilot-it-is” -- a common occurrence where the perfection of a product or tool becomes detrimental to scaling technology – into integrating AI across their businesses.
For example, to harness AI for their growth initiatives, a major retail pharmacy built about 100 high-value AI products that create detailed customer profiles and help the company better optimize inventory and prices. The company has been committed to its data- and AI-led transformation since 2020 with no intention to slow down anytime soon.
On the other end of the spectrum are AI experimenters. This group accounts for the majority (63%) of companies. It includes industries heavy with legacy technology, such as banks, which will likely take only small steps toward AI maturity. For instance, we expect only 11% of the health care and insurance industries and 12% of the financial sector to reach achiever status by 2024, compared to 50% of the technology sector in the same time frame.
Continue reading: https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/ai-is-now-mature-enough-to-drive-revenue-growth

On June 8, 2022, Accenture presented The Art of A.I. Maturity report. The report revealed that only 12 percent of companies surveyed use A.I. at maturity level, achieving superior growth and business transformation. 63 percent of companies using A.I. are only scratching the surface.
While A.I. can provide significant benefits for Enterprise organizations across any sector, the potential of the technology is still far from reaching its peak. While multiple problems can trip up your Enterprise AI adoption, there are four key challenges that companies will face as they move into 2023. Understanding these challenges can help organizations build a road map and their A.I. strategies. They are the difference between mastering A.I. and reaping the benefits or merely playing with a tech novelty. 
Creating a Business-Driven A.I. Culture 
Companies excelling in machine learning and solving real business problems with A.I. will likely have a strong innovation culture across all levels. Currently, hundreds of thousands of companies are experimenting in some way or another with A.I. Within these companies, teams of data scientists or data engineers are in charge of leading the way forward by developing machine learning models that benefit the company. However, these teams are often isolated, develop models in a very ad-hoc, almost artisanal fashion and are disconnected from decision-makers, compartmentalized, and have little support from C-suite executives or other departments. 
Companies that start A.I. projects as experimental and later pitch them to their organization have higher failure rates than those with initial approval for production. Data teams should get input from top decision-makers on the challenges the company faces and build machine learning models that address these real-world business problems.
Data scientists working in organizations that do not have a strong A.I. culture often conflict with the “old ways of doing things.” Blackbox A.I. projects may not get buy-in from executives because they fail to understand how the machine learning model arrived at its results. 
Skilling all workers, from CEOs to IT, marketing, sales, and office workers, breaks the language and technical barrier and creates support and understanding. Data scientists within an organization can not work alone. They need to collaborate with other departments. 
Continue reading: https://insights.dice.com/2022/08/19/4-key-challenges-to-mastering-a-i-heading-into-2023/

HOW DECISION INTELLIGENCE CHANGES THE WAY COMPANIES MAKE DECISIONS
Our hyperconnected world has become so complex that existing decision-making processes within organizations are no longer sufficient. In a study, about 65% of executives from Fortune 500 companies said that, as a result, decision-making in their organization has also fundamentally changed. The perception that high-quality company decisions are made is reported by just 57% of respondents.https://dataconomy.com/2022/08/business-growth-in-the-era-of-ai/#_edn1
Moreover, human nature is not very efficient at making good decisions. Most of the time, whether we like it or not, our judgments are usually based on emotions and influenced by unconscious biases. People want to act rationally, but they can’t because they have natural limits to how much information they can absorb and process.
We also tend to settle for the minimum acceptable requirements we need to find a satisfying solution – a phenomenon that is known as “satisficing” (a combination of the words “suffice” and “satisfy”): It’s just a lot easier and faster to sacrifice some things to obtain satisfaction rather than considering all the necessary information to find the optimal solution to a problem.
WHAT IS DECISION INTELLIGENCE?
Time for companies to rethink decision-making. The tool to make proven groundbreaking decisions for your business is Decision Intelligence (DI). It enables organizations to make future-proof decisions faster and more efficiently using advanced technologies such as AI, machine learning, or process automation.
The great breakthrough is: Consideration is given not only to raw data but also to a multidimensional set of data that includes text, images, video, and audio. This way, cognitive technologies cannot only deeply analyze vast amounts of data but also evaluate their correlation, making it possible to derive reliable forecasts and identify decision needs that you might otherwise miss.
The term “decision intelligence” was first introduced in Lorien Pratt’s book “Link: How Decision Intelligence Connects Data, Actions, and Outcomes for a Better World” before being adopted by market researcher Gartner, who has named DI one of the most important technology trends in 2022 and further developed as a strategic business tool.
Continue reading: https://dataconomy.com/2022/08/business-growth-in-the-era-of-ai/

The use of the term blockchain has gained huge popularity in the online business world. However, with growing adoption, the global technology market is estimated to reach over $39 billion by 2025. With the help of this technology, it’s easier for business entrepreneurs to conduct their online transactions securely without any error. Besides this, it also offers a secure way of data storage and access. Moreover, this technology is known for its promising services in recent years. It holds a quick potential to transform the workings of the financial sector. Continue reading: https://www.gyan.solutions/hiring-a-blockchain-development-company/

Agricultural drone spraying is no passing fad — at least according to KD Bohon. 
Bohon is the Business Development Manager at Agri Spray Drones, so, of course that’s what you would expect him to say. But a captivated audience at a recent spray demo in Jackson, Tenn., tells its own story. As do the numbers of spray drones heading to farms. 
“We’ve sold around 350 units just this summer,” said Bohon, “which is a huge jump over the previous year. This technology is really gaining momentum.” 
Bohon demoed the Agras T-30, an 8-gallon spray drone that can cover 30 acres per hour on average, according to the company. After importing a field boundary and parameters, the drone flies autonomously, returning to the loading site when the tank is empty and batteries need charging.  
“Typically, people who see the drone in action are very impressed,” Bohon said. “We still get some skeptics who say, ‘If I can’t get 600 acres a day, I don’t want it.’ But many of our users have found that in certain circumstances the drone is better than planes or choppers because the timing is optimal.” 
One such user is Hunter Burks, a farmer in western Tennessee who purchased two drones from Agri Spray after seeing a spray demo in a fellow farmers’ field.  
“I think it’s really going to be something,” Burks said. “How many times when we need to be spraying is it either too muddy to get in the field, or we can’t get a plane scheduled? Wait long enough and that adds up to yield lost. I see a lot of opportunity with drones.” 
Continue reading: https://www.farmprogress.com/sprayer/agricultural-drone-spraying-taking

Once a male-dominated sector in India, a career in the IT industry has become the most sought-after option for women. In fact, the number of women enrolling in B-Tech courses across various tech institutes has doubled. According to the ministry of education, entries went up from eight per cent to 19.72 per cent between 2016 and 2021. Additionally, there are more Indian female graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at tertiary level than in developed nations like the US, UK, Germany and France yet there are fewer women tech leaders, role models, and tech startups run by women today. 
The very few who managed to reach the top had to overcome numerous longstanding challenges. The hurdles women face often look different from those their male counterparts face. According to Skillsoft’s 2022 Women in Tech Report – India Region, only seven per cent of the 1,004 women tech professionals surveyed held executive-level positions (CIO, CXO, CISO), while 13 per cent held managing director-level positions. 
Let’s address the pressing reasons for the underrepresentation of women leaders in tech. 
Lack of equity in opportunities
While women have the skillset to excel in tech roles, the biases in organizations and society are barriers to opportunities. A theme of systemic gender imbalance emerges as the topmost challenge for women in tech. Notably, the challenge of lack of equity in opportunities is more starkly resonant among those who have been in their careers longer. 66 per cent of the women surveyed said that men outnumber them in their organization for leadership roles at ratios of 2-to-1 or greater. The ratio of men outnumbering women by 2-to-1 or greater is higher for those working in tech companies (72 per cent) than non-tech companies (66 per cent), suggesting that tech companies see a starker gender imbalance.  According to the same report, 47 per cent cite a lack of equity in opportunities as the biggest challenge women face in pursuing a tech-related career (Skillsoft Women in Tech Report 2022). Even in non-tech companies today, there are different standards set for them versus the men in their field, while women tech professionals continue to encounter inequity compared to their male peers on multiple levels. Organizations must promote and create more women role models to usher in real change toward gender balance. 
Continue reading: https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/why-india-lacks-more-women-leaders-in-tech/2635629/

What are lessons that Black women founders, specifically, can draw from the successes of an industry veteran?
Three-time founder Angela Benton, currently CEO of data brokerage Streamlytics, shared her thoughts on navigating the tech industry as a Black woman in a recent Inc. webinar. Benton spoke with the Honeypot founder and CEO Beatrice Dixon, and responded to questions from the audience. Here are some takeaways from their conversation.
Break out of the "Black business box"
Being included in only a special category is a common problem faced by minority and women founders. Benton says she doesn't stand for it. "I do not allow people to put me in boxes, and when people do put me in boxes, I correct them," Benton said.
For example, Benton highlighted a recent experience she had at Streamlytics, in which she was working to close a deal that she'd been working on for nearly a year. "We are just about to close the deal with them, but after all this time and effort, they want to categorize us in their Black founders kind of area," Benton said. In response, Benton said she opened with an expression of a desire to work together, but transitioned to being frank about her concerns: " 'I want to have this conversation with you guys, [I'm] super excited, but I don't want to be a part of that, because when I'm a part of that, you're negating all of the game-changing technology that we've developed.' "
Continue reading: https://www.inc.com/steven-i-weiss/streamlytics-angela-benton-data-transparency.html

Far too often we hear stories of people losing their crypto to hacks, phishing attempts or by simply losing access to their wallets. This article will describe a set of strong security habits to help users keep their tokens safe for a lifetime. 
Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto
Let’s say you are planning to hold your recently bought crypto for many years to come. Self-custody is crucial as it means that the only person who can access your account and the assets within them is no one other than you.
Any time you create a wallet, you generate a private key, along with a corresponding public key. 
Public keys work as the holder’s address, visible to anyone to receive tokens (just like anyone can share their email address to receive messages). At the same time, the private key is needed to access the funds held in the public address and determine the actual ownership of the assets. Think of the private key as the password to access your email account.
Since private keys are typically made of a long string of characters, seed phrases are used as a user-friendly substitute for cryptocurrency wallets. Your seed phrase is your private key in a different format and consists of 12–24 random words generated by your wallet when you set it up. Seed phrases are also known as mnemonic or recovery phrases. 
The owner of a wallet should never share their seed phrase with anyone else. In the case they lose it, most of the time, their cryptocurrency is lost forever. Any third party who gets access to a wallet’s seed phrase would gain control over the assets.
Getting Out of the Comfort Zone
The main threats for crypto users will generally come through their wallets or exchanges. The following is a set of recommended tips and best practices to guarantee the safety of your valuable tokens.
Continue reading: https://cryptobriefing.com/staying-safe-in-crypto-tips-and-practices-to-protect-your-stack/

Throughout history, artists have often gotten a rough deal with corporations and middlemen profiting from their work long after they have received and spent the fees they were paid. Now, many believe that the decentralized world of web3 – and specifically NFTs – offers an alternative. By creating and releasing work as non-fungible, digital tokens, they have the opportunity to take back control of how and where their work is used and set payment terms that are more favorable to them. So how does it all work?
In order to find out, I spoke to one of the most well-known artists working in the NFT space today. Pplpleasr, AKA Emily Yang, has appeared on the cover of Vogue Magazine and listed in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list, has been hailed as one of the leaders of the NFT art revolution.
Pplpleasr became involved with NFTs through combining her work as a visual effects artist on movies such as Batman v Superman and Wonder Woman with an interest in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. This led to her selling one of her works – an animation created for cryptocurrency exchange Uniswap – for $525,000. The money raised from this was used to set up a community group called Stand With Asians with the aim of promoting artists of Asian descent. Now, in collaboration with Skillshare, she has created an online course to teach other artists how to create their own NFTs and hopefully use them to earn a living.
What are NFTs?
NFTs – non-fungible tokens – are tokens that live on a blockchain, much like cryptocurrency. How they differ from cryptocurrency tokens, however, is that every one is unique. In short, this means that they can be used to confer that “uniqueness” on other assets that they are associated with. The most popular initial use case for NFTs has been digital artwork, with works created by, among others, Grimes, pplpleasr, and the artist known as Beeple (Mike Winklemann) becoming popular with online collectors and regularly selling for vast sums.
NFTs most often live on the Ethereum blockchain, although other blockchains such as Polygon and the Binance smart chain are also capable of storing them. So if you want to understand the concepts behind NFTs, it’s important to remember that NFTs aren’t the pieces of artwork themselves, it’s more accurate to say they are tokens that act as certificates of ownership for the artwork.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2022/08/19/web3-nfts-and-the-future-of-art/?sh=6f14e7711e05

Most of the internet today, known as Web2, is owned by companies. They control the majority of websites, data and profits. But many experts believe that the blockchain is enabling a revolution toward Web3: a decentralized internet owned by individuals and communities of users, in which they will control their data, content, privacy and profits.  
While this sounds like a utopia for content creators and grassroots investors, it also creates an opportunity for criminals and terrorists to exploit an unregulated, anonymous and decentralized landscape. Despite the recent volatility in the cryptocurrency market, which has seen the value of numerous cryptocurrencies decline sharply, most experts agree that blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies are here to stay, and mainstream adoption will continue to expand.  Here’s what law enforcement and security organizations need to know to protect the public.
What is the blockchain? 
The foundational technology of Web3 is the blockchain, a distributed public ledger that records information, including cryptocurrency transactions, non-fungible token (NFTs) and smart contracts. Information is maintained using a network of decentralized nodes, which require a consensus to add new records.
Every blockchain transaction and its associated metadata is recorded on the public ledger with the information being publicly available, but the identities of transaction makers are anonymous. The anonymous and unregulated nature of the blockchain and the applications of its technologies invite a variety of illicit activity. 
Continue reading: https://www.gcn.com/emerging-tech/2022/08/what-web3-and-blockchain-revolution-mean-law-enforcement/376041/

Blockchain and artificial intelligence are both making strides in the industry. While Blockchain is revolutionizing the financial sector, artificial intelligence is advancing the industry with self-driving cars and other machine learning advancements. One of the reasons artificial intelligence is progressing at a rapid pace is the data manipulation capability offered by blockchain.
Blockchain’s decentralized technology can lend more transparency and security to artificial intelligence. So far blockchain has had a big impact throughout the industry. As it continues to improve the way we encrypt, examine, and handle large datasets, it can play an important role in the advancement of artificial intelligence. Thus, giving a blockchain engineer to experiment more and come up with ways to advance AI development.
The connection between blockchain and artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is used as a fair term to represent various machine learning developments.
Security and encryption: The security offered by Blockchain is unparalleled, thanks to its cryptocurrency encryption system which is inherent in its filing system. This means that Blockchain is suitable for storing large volumes of personal data, which is further processed to offer convenience is lives. For instance, Netflix recommendations prompt viewers to watch the next shows and Amazon’s shopping recommendations.
Both of these companies store customer’s data. This data is valuable. Companies dealing with this will need to invest billion dollars to build security that matches the level required to secure personal data. As data breaches are increasingly becoming common and larger, this is an essential step to take.
Continue reading: https://medium.datadriveninvestor.com/how-can-blockchain-make-artificial-intelligence-better-f58702b41cbc

Through an app on our smartphone, tablet and laptop, we can order food delivery, send flowers to friends, pay utility bills, exchange ideas with people across the world and even learn how to grout bathroom tiles. We are a generation rapidly becoming entirely dependent on technology. The country’s defenses rely upon technology. As does its economy. Yet, many of the very innovators and drivers behind the scenes, who are coding our conveniences into reality, are working in hostile environments within tech companies that are not only failing women and nonbinary technologists but are also extremely harmful to their well-being.
In a recently released report, Technical Equity Experience Survey (TechEES 2021), from AnitaB.org, a global non-profit dedicated to supporting women and non-binary technologists, revealed that a startling 100% of respondents reported harassment in their workplace.
Read that again. One. Hundred. Percent.
Experiences in tech have gotten worse for all marginalized genders, but are increasingly worse when the data are broken down by intersectional identities. People of color (Black, Latinx/Hispanic, Native American, and Pacific Islander) reported increased feelings of race-based discrimination. And, only 63.5% of all women and non-binary techs surveyed reported a sense of belonging, with Black respondents reporting a startlingly low sense of belonging. Couple these revelations with other staggering stats around pay disparity, maternal leave policies and more, and the situation gets bleaker by the minute.
Empirical data and the lived experiences of the respondents paint a portrait of an industry plagued by unregulated, often insensitive workplace culture, rampant apathy from those in positions of power, and feelings of frustration, exasperation and defeat. We know if an employee is not able to show up as their authentic self to work and be treated with dignity, their psychological safety will be affected, and workplace productivity will suffer.
When women are valued in their workplaces, given equitable opportunities to advance in their careers, and provided with needed support, entire communities are uplifted. We also know that when these particular sets of circumstances exist, productivity and profit increase, resulting in healthy economic progress.
Policymakers agree. Chairwoman of the US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology has been working for decades to support and protect marginalized peoples in the STEM workforce and academic studies. She said recently, “America has endless potential to compete globally in science and innovation, but we cannot succeed if we leave behind any of our nation's brain power. A strong, diverse STEM workforce is essential to addressing the scientific and societal issues we face. Throughout my time in Congress, I have championed initiatives to ensure we have a STEM workforce that reflects the diversity of America. With the provisions that the House Science Committee has fought for in the innovation and R&D legislation currently moving through Congress, we are working to ensure anyone who wishes to pursue a career in STEM has the support and tools they need to succeed. And importantly, these provisions will help build safe workspaces in STEM by directly addressing sexual harassment.”
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brendadwilkerson/2022/08/18/the-chips-act-why-women-and-non-binary-technologists-need-protections-now/?sh=1753de8e4728

Biotechnology lies in the middle of biology and technology. Through modern technologies, it uses biological processes, organisms, cells, molecules, and systems to create new products for the benefit of humanity and the planet. In addition, it contains laboratory research and development through bioinformatics to explore and extract from biomass through biochemical engineering to develop high-value products. Biotechnology operates in various fields, such as agriculture, medical, animal, industrial, and others.
White biotechnology, related to creating products demanding chemical processes from biomass, can also be one of the solutions to the energy crisis by producing biofuel. The latter can be used for vehicles or heating.
Each organization working in the biotechnology sphere maintains voluminous sets of data stored in databases. This data must also be filtrated and analyzed to be valid and applicable. Such operations as drug manufacturing, chemical analysis, enzyme studies, and other biological processes should be backed by computerized solid tools for high performance and accuracy, as well as helps to reduce manual errors.
One of the most helpful technologies that help to manage the biological processes, drug production, supply chain, and deal with data within biotech is Artificial Intelligence.
It interacts with data received through scientific literature and clinical data trial. AI also manages incommensurable clinical trial datasets and enables virtual screening and analyze the high volume of data. As a result, it reduces clinical trial costs and results in discoveries and insights for any field in which biotech operates.
Continue reading: https://readwrite.com/why-is-artificial-intelligence-crucial-for-biotechnology/

Earlier this week a new type of stablecoin (aUSD), built on a platform (Acala), which itself was built on a blockchain (Polkadot), fell from its $1 peg to $0.009 (which rounds to zero as far as I’m concerned), following an attack on one of the platform’s liquidity pools. If the words following “attack on” seem to be oddly specific, that’s because they are.
Acala wasn't attacked, hacked and thwarted directly. Rather, the iBTC/aUSD liquidity pool, something built on top of Acala, was attacked, hacked and thwarted directly. The exploit was successful and allowed bad actors to create billions of aUSD for themselves. This influx of new aUSD crushed the price of the stablecoin strictly through immense supply dilution.
This article is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk's daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can subscribe to get the full newsletter here.
aUSD has since recovered, but only after the Acala community voted to destroy the billions of the improperly minted aUSD. Never mind that the minted aUSD wasn’t really improperly minted and never mind the need for a centralizing force to come in to fix this mistake, let’s instead look at how cryptocurrency protocols are only as secure as what’s built on top of them.
Move fast and break everything
aUSD isn’t the first crypto thing that has been broken or hacked (e.g. Ronin for $625 million and Wormhole for $326 million) – it’s just the flavor of the week. But we should be clear here: aUSD didn’t necessarily stop working, and the attackers didn’t rappel into a building to physically break into the mainframe or something.
Continue reading: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/in-crypto-base-layer-security-isnt-enough

In March 2022, over $625 million worth of cryptocurrencies were stolen from the Ronin Bridge protocol as a result of a malicious attack from hackers, marking the event as one of the biggest cryptocurrency heists ever. In June, Harmony One’s Horizon Bridge lost over $100 million in an attack. In August, another $200 million was lost from the Nomad Bridge as a consequence of an exploit of a vulnerability in its underlying technology — smart contracts.
In total, Chainalysis estimates that over $2 billion worth of digital assets have been stolen from blockchain bridges in 2022 alone. This figure accounts for approximately 69% of all stolen crypto funds in the year.
The frequency of these bridge hacks has become a warning signal for users and a significant threat to building trust in blockchain technology. As adoption of cryptocurrency accelerates, the industry is facing growing pressure to fix the flaws that have allowed these exploits.
In this article, we’ll look at why blockchain bridges have become an essential part of the crypto ecosystem, the difference between trust-based and trustless bridges, and the potential weaknesses in each model that enabled hackers to siphon funds in each one.
What are blockchain bridges?
Blockchain bridges, also known as network bridges or cross-chain bridges, are a tool designed to solve the challenge of interoperability between blockchains. Bridges have become a necessary component of the blockchain industry because, as it stands, blockchains operate in silos and cannot communicate with one another.
For example, users cannot use bitcoin (BTC) on the Ethereum blockchain or ether (ETH) on the Bitcoin blockchain. So if one user (let’s call him Billy) who holds all his funds in BTC wants to pay another user (let’s call her Ethel) for an item but Ethel only accepts ETH, Billy hits a wall. He can’t send BTC directly to Ethel. He can take extra steps to buy ETH or trade a portion of his BTC for ETH, but BTC cannot be sent directly to Ethel. This can be seen as a major disadvantage in comparison to fiat currencies and credit cards, which can be used across several providers.
Blockchain bridges aim to eliminate this issue.
Continue reading: https://www.coindesk.com/learn/are-blockchain-bridges-safe-why-bridges-are-targets-of-hacks/

One of the most influential factors that determines whether girls will pursue a career in the technology industry is having a parent or teacher who encouraged them to study computer science, according to a survey from Girls Who Code and Logitech.
While there’s a high share of women in science-related health care jobs, women continue to be underrepresented in engineering, computer science, and physical science jobs. Tech companies and K-12 schools are being asked to do their part to bridge the gap.
“In the broader tech industry, we see that gender equality remains a challenge,” said Delphine Donné, general manager and vice president of creativity and productivity at Logitech. “We want to make a difference.”
“The objective is simple: inspire more girls and young women to join and stay in STEM. But first, we had to understand what women currently experience and what successful women have done to get where they are today,” she added.
When asked who had the greatest influence on their decision to pursue a career in tech, 60 percent of adult female respondents said a family member or a friend and 50 percent said a teacher.
The survey, published Aug. 9, was conducted by market research firm Ipsos from Feb. 7-18 and asked 400 adults working in the technology and IT industries about their paths to those careers.
Continue reading: https://www.edweek.org/technology/the-key-to-getting-girls-interested-in-stem-could-be-their-teacher/2022/08

The technology industry has been a challenging environment for women at times, but it is presenting new opportunities as organizations explore the value of diversifying their workforces and their executive ranks. “Actions are the best ally when it comes to creating opportunities for women in tech. Not only do they speak louder than words but they are the only way to create meaningful change” said Mary Ann Yule, president and CEO of HP Canada, who has spent her entire career in and around the technology sector.
Yule made her remarks July 21 at the Women in Tech Leadership Forum, hosted by CDW and in partnership with YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. The event featured a panel of speakers who addressed how organizations can remain competitive by attracting, supporting and retaining women in technology.
During the forum, the speakers noted that while women have made strides in the IT industry, there are still opportunities to foster more diverse talent — and to face the equity challenges exacerbated by the global pandemic.
"There’s been this history of being excluded in the technology space, but it’s truly an amazing environment for women to thrive.”
A 2021 report from the Pew Research Center noted that “from February 2020 to February 2021, a net 2.4 million women and 1.8 million men left the labor force.” Men have returned to work at a higher rate than women, said Ellen McRaith, vice president of talent acquisition at CDW.
Continue reading: https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2022/08/women-advance-tech-change-must-continue

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has described the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) as more revolutionary than the discovery of fire or electricity. According to PwC, it has the potential to contribute $15 trillion to the global industry by 2030.
I have worked with countless organizations on their AI strategies; however, companies wanting to capitalize on AI face significant barriers regarding the skills and resources needed to put it to use. To bridge this gap, many businesses turn to AI consultancies. These experts have the specialized knowledge and experience required to help companies deploy AI to create more intelligent products and services, improve their internal processes, and ultimately make better use of the data available to them.
One of the most frequently asked questions I get from clients is: can you recommend an AI consulting firm to help us turn our AI ambitions into practice? So here are my top ten that are generally considered to be the best at what they do.
QuantumBlack
QuantumBlack is the AI consultancy arm of McKinsey, which began as a data and analytics firm working in the field of Formula One racing. It uses an approach that it describes as Hybrid Intelligence – combining the power of technology and people to solve problems for clients by leveraging machine learning and bespoke tools such as its Brix code-sharing platform.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2022/08/17/what-are-the-10-best-ai-consulting-firms/?sh=59259f8a58d3

AI is still in its infancy because we still don’t fully understand how our brains work – so how far are we from having a human-like AI?
A Google engineer recently claimed one of the company’s LAMda chatbots was ‘sentient’ — meaning it can express thoughts and feelings. Blake Lemoine claimed the chatbot — which was designed to have free-flowing conversations — had conversations with him about complex subjects such as rights and personhood.
He has since been fired on the grounds his claims were “wholly unfounded,” yet this has created such waves (and in some quarters alarms), because the majority of AI that we engage with on a daily basis (knowingly or unknowingly), for example face ID to open your iPhone, isn’t built to act in the same way as a human brain does. So how close are we to a human-like AI?
The truth is nowhere near at all. For now, sentient AI remains in the realms of Netflix’s sci-fi category. But that’s not a bad thing.
We know humans are great at a general set of tasks but even as humans we all have jobs, areas that we specialize in and focus on to become better and better at that one thing. Looking at industry, given the technical difficulties of building AI which mimics the all-encompassing capabilities of a human brain, focus has been placed on building applications of AI technology to solve specific business problems.
Continue reading: https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/cyber-security/what-does-ai-meaning-human-brain-sentient-b1017657.html

Artificial intelligence has received a great deal of attention in recent years due to its significant contribution to transforming businesses and strengthening industries. The digital marketing sector is continuously evolving, with new technologies being introduced on a regular basis. As a result, there is no doubt that some of the technologies have the potential to significantly change our conception of the online consumer journey. Artificial intelligence has strongly changed how businesses are functioning. It not only helps the company to work better, but it also significantly contributes by allowing them more time for companies to focus on creativity and innovative solutions. AI is also having a big impact on the digital marketing industry. Many businesses are incorporating artificial intelligence into their digital marketing strategies. AI enables more accurate targeting and personalized customer interactions. Artificial intelligence technology allows you to make more accurate and well-informed predictions about customer behavior,  by which companies can incorporate more relevant marketing strategies. AI technology can also help you speed up your marketing efforts. This helps to improve your marketing performance by providing high-quality content while also saving you a significant amount of time and money. Here are a few excellent ways to incorporate AI into your digital marketing strategy.
1. Chatbots with Artificial Intelligence- 
Chatbots are the most prominent example of how artificial intelligence technology is altering the face of digital marketing. Chatbots serve as one of the most efficient digital marketing tools, particularly for use on social media and your website. Combining AI and chatbots can assist you in providing an automatically generated user experience that answers questions, actively helping visitors to your website in understanding your company’s offerings. AI-enabled chatbots can improve your customers’ experiences and interactions by providing immediate solutions to their queries 24 hours a day, seven days a week. An instant response allows users to solve problems quickly, resulting in a positive customer experience for your customers. If used correctly, the chatbot will enhance your brand’s image and increase the level of trust associated with your business.
Aside from providing immediate responses to customers, incorporating AI and chatbots into your digital marketing strategy can assist you in gathering essential data about your website’s visitors and following up with personalized offers on your behalf. You can use this data to improve your chatbot marketing strategy as well as your overall marketing to create good financial and communication results.
2. Increased Personalization with Artificial Intelligence
The constantly rising effect and benefits of AI in digital marketing are constantly being used for new and innovative applications, and we can only speculate on how the changing face of marketing will look in a few years. Personalization is a hot topic in the business world. People expect personalization from their favorite brands. They want to be heard, and there isn’t any better way to do so than to personalize the advertisements. Alas, not all companies understand its significance. According to a 2017 Accenture report, nearly 41% of users switched to competing brands because of a lack of trust and poor personalization. 
Continue reading: https://www.medianews4u.com/digital-marketing-leveraging-artificial-intelligence/

Like every other industry, marketing has been on a decades-long journey of change driven by constant advancements in data management, analytics and technology, along with external influences such as privacy legislation, market fluctuations, consumer trends and social sentiment (not to mention a global pandemic). But I think the next era of transformation in marketing will be like no other, with technologies like machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) playing a more prominent role than ever before. With new technologies come elevated restraints and the need for moral metrics.
Today’s shifts revolve around the clear truth that consumers have raised the bar by controlling their relationship with brands and determining their own levels of engagement. And every business survives and thrives based on its command of the customer experience. I’ve found that consumers demand relevance, convenience, memorability and consistency in every moment of interaction with a brand, no matter the channel they’re using. And they demand trust and transparency—with consent playing a much bigger role in the exchange of personal information. The sum of these parts ultimately helps determine customer loyalty.
Our increasingly contextual world means that insight goes far beyond demographic and behavioral data. It’s a wider universe where there are exponentially more signals to round out a customer view. Data is consumer currency, and experience is the builder of trust, so you should know who your customers are and use the infinitely available data to anticipate and meet their needs. This requires a delicate balance between engaging smart, predictive technologies, such as ML and AI, and honoring the ethical standards that build trust between brands and customers.
Continue reading:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2022/08/17/the-role-of-ethics-in-the-evolving-world-of-marketing-ai/?sh=564f002c2e97

While dealing with regulations and ever-present concerns over security, the global financial services ecosystem is in the mood for innovation. Traditional banks, fintech firms and investment platforms are finding ways to reinvent services and satisfy consumer aspirations quickly, whether this involves open banking, blockchain or digital currencies.
This raises a question for enterprises in other sectors, especially those in B2B markets: Can company leaders afford to ignore these developments? Let’s take a closer look.
1. Open Banking: Watch Closely
With open banking, customers can choose to share their personal and financial data with third parties they trust, such as tech startups and online financial services providers. Banks open up their APIs, which creates opportunities for these non-banks to offer apps that provide fast payments, helpful account information and other services.
Currently, the major business opportunity is with consumers, who are attracted to financial services that are more visible, simpler to use and easier to track. In the U.K., over 26 million open banking payments had been made by the end of 2021, an increase of more than 500% in 12 months.
The B2B world has yet to take the plunge in a big way, but open banking offers great promise. Currently, ERP vendors spend a lot of energy creating specific integrations for their enterprise customers to help them deal with different formats, security measures and certificates for each bank. None of these are standardized—but they could be with open banking and readily available APIs. This would free up significant resources for ERP vendors to create more value for their customers.
With open banking, enterprises could achieve greater agility through faster payments, as well as more timely account information, managing cash receivables and payables directly through their ERP. Right now, some exciting proof-of-concept work is underway in this area at my own company, Unit4. Opportunities are also being discussed publicly by the likes of JPMorgan and the global financial group BBVA.
However, it’s not yet clear how the financial model could work out for banks and businesses. Watch this space.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/08/16/how-ready-are-enterprises-for-open-banking-blockchain-and-digital-currencies/?sh=16f8f1b2fcc5

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. It was Billy Ocean who first sang it. But in the tech industry at least, it’s the blockchain industry that’s truly lived it.
There really are few other industries like this one. With fates tied to the crypto markets - and most often to Bitcoin directly - blockchain technology seems to be permanently at the mercy of market sentiment. But scratch the surface a little, and you might find that’s not so helter-skelter as it appears on the charts.
In what’s shaping up to be one of the toughest market periods for crypto to date, this is a perfect time to reflect on the challenges, but also the opportunities, that building a product or working with an advertising solution or platform in the blockchain industry entails. Ready for lesson number one? Evaluate your market.
Product-market fit
Nothing encourages innovation quite like adversity. And in blockchain, it’s in market conditions like these that projects with true utility and longevity begin to shine through.
Like the dot-com bubble in the early 2000s, blockchain has had more than its fair share of self-reported ‘world changers’. Brands that claim to do everything from revolutionizing finance to transforming data storage, or even bringing about the fourth industrial revolution are numerous. But they won’t always be so.
The last bear market for crypto in 2018 mercilessly separated the wheat from the chaff. This year’s cycle is proving to be no different, and projects with weakly defined use cases are finding themselves adrift now that retail investors are leaving the markets.
The upside of a niche product-market fit is that boom-bust cycles become irrelevant when technology truly fills a market need. And in 2022, no industry is quite so needy, technologically speaking, as advertising, which is now growing at an unprecedented rate and crying out for a transparent solution to tracking and paying for advertising campaigns.
Continue reading: https://www.thedrum.com/profile/the-digital-voice/news/when-the-going-gets-tough-blockchain-gets-building

By now, almost everyone who spends time in the tech space knows that blockchain technology is having a moment. It is a digital technology that has gained prominence in recent years, especially concerning the cryptocurrency industry.
How you could be using blockchain to grow your business
Blockchain technology is not just for tech-savvy bitcoin traders, however. These days, businesses of all kinds, from beauty products to gaming, are jumping on the blockchain bandwagon, and for a good reason. Utilizing blockchain technology in your business can grant it greater efficiency, visibility, transparency, and tracking, among other perks.
Transforming digital business
Blockchain technology has solidified its usefulness among various businesses, with the global market valued at $5.92 billion in 2021 and is forecasted to hit $17.9 billion by 2024. That exponential growth can be attributed to the successes a variety of businesses have found with blockchain technology. The more people recognize its potential and apply the technology to their businesses, the larger its influence becomes.
The injection of blockchain technology into small and medium business ventures also helps the economy at large. Greater access to this technology, and ease of making and receiving payments, can help businesses scale. This, in turn, leads to overall job growth and a strengthening of the market. While initially used to power the digital technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the emerging applications behind blockchain stand to disrupt tech as a whole.
Finance
Blockchain’s influence on the financial markets is evident. It provides a way to create secure, hack-proof logs of sensitive activity, making it tailor-made for international financial transactions. Blockchain technology reduces the middle-man operations of decades past, creating cheaper and more efficient ways of sending and receiving money.
Lack of access to finances can be one of the biggest issues that small and medium businesses face, despite the significant role that these businesses play in the global economy. For instance, small and medium ventures represent roughly 90% of businesses and 50% of the total workforce worldwide. Giving those ventures an easier way to make payments, receive payments, and grow revenue only stands to bolster the strength of these businesses on the world stage.
Furthermore, blockchain technology allows these companies to bridge financing gaps and adapt to many challenges that may be thrown their way in the midst of building or growing their business. Decentralized financial structures allow businesses access to funding without intermediaries, opening up options where unfunded or underfunded ventures often run the risk of failing.
Continue reading: https://appdevelopermagazine.com/using-blockchain-to-grow-your-business/