Saturday, October 17, 2020

Covid-19 seems to crossover as a computer virus.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/new-security-report-breaks-down-increase-in-cyber-attacks-due-to-remote-work-lack-of-training-overwhelmed-it-departments-are-the-main-issues/

New Security Report Breaks Down Increase in Cyber Attacks Due to Remote Work; Lack of Training, Overwhelmed IT Departments are the Main Issues

Cybersecurity in the Remote Work Era: A Global Risk Report surveyed 2,215 IT and information security personnel in the United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. All of these organizations have directed employees to work remotely due to the pandemic conditions; on average each organization had about 58% of its workforce working remotely, up from 22% before the pandemic began.





Oops? Probably more the result of wishful thinking.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/16/iab-europes-ad-tracking-consent-framework-found-to-fail-gdpr-standard/

IAB Europe’s ad tracking consent framework found to fail GDPR standard

The inspection service of the Belgium DPA makes a number of findings in a report reviewed by TechCrunch — including that the TCF fails to comply with GDPR principles of transparency, fairness and accountability, and also the lawfulness of processing.

It also finds that the TCF does not provide adequate rules for the processing of special category data (e.g. health information, political affiliation, sexual orientation etc) — yet does process that data.





Guidance.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/singapore-releases-ai-ethics-governance-reference-guide/

Singapore releases AI ethics, governance reference guide

Singapore businesses looking to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) technologies responsibly now can access a reference document to help them do so. The AI Ethics & Governance Body of Knowledge (BoK) is touted to provide a reference guide for business leaders and IT professionals on the ethical aspects related to the development as well as deployment of AI technologies.

The BoK was developed based on Singapore's latest Model AI Governance Framework, which was updated in January 2020, and will be regularly updated as the local digital landscape evolved, said SCS during its launch Friday.





To ensure we’re all on the same page. It ain’t rocket science, it’s just computer science.

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-algorithm.html

What is an algorithm? How computers know what to do with data

In the most general sense, an algorithm is a series of instructions telling a computer how to transform a set of facts about the world into useful information. The facts are data, and the useful information is knowledge for people, instructions for machines or input for yet another algorithm. There are many common examples of algorithms, from sorting sets of numbers to finding routes through maps to displaying information on a screen.



Friday, October 16, 2020

Been there, ate that, paid cash.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/10/breach-at-dickeys-bbq-smokes-3m-cards/

Breach at Dickey’s BBQ Smokes 3M Cards

One of the digital underground’s most popular stores for peddling stolen credit card information began selling a batch of more than three million new card records this week. KrebsOnSecurity has learned the data was stolen in a lengthy data breach at more than 100 Dickey’s Barbeque Restaurant locations around the country.

On Monday, the carding bazaar Joker’s Stash debuted “BlazingSun,” a new batch of more than three million stolen card records, advertising “valid rates” of between 90-100 percent. This is typically an indicator that the breached merchant is either unaware of the compromise or has only just begun responding to it.





Worth reading, but clearly not a quick fix.

https://hbr.org/2020/10/a-practical-guide-to-building-ethical-ai

A Practical Guide to Building Ethical AI

Companies are leveraging data and artificial intelligence to create scalable solutions — but they’re also scaling their reputational, regulatory, and legal risks. For instance, Los Angeles is suing IBM for allegedly misappropriating data it collected with its ubiquitous weather app. Optum is being investigated by regulators for creating an algorithm that allegedly recommended that doctors and nurses pay more attention to white patients than to sicker black patients. Goldman Sachs is being investigated by regulators for using an AI algorithm that allegedly discriminated against women by granting larger credit limits to men than women on their Apple cards. Facebook infamously granted Cambridge Analytica, a political firm, access to the personal data of more than 50 million users.

Despite the costs of getting it wrong, most companies grapple with data and AI ethics through ad-hoc discussions on a per-product basis. With no clear protocol in place on how to identify, evaluate, and mitigate the risks, teams end up either overlooking risks, scrambling to solve issues as they come up, or crossing their fingers in the hope that the problem will resolve itself. When companies have attempted to tackle the issue at scale, they’ve tended to implement strict, imprecise, and overly broad policies that lead to false positives in risk identification and stymied production. These problems grow by orders of magnitude when you introduce third-party vendors, who may or may not be thinking about these questions at all.

AI ethics does not come in a box. Given the varying values of companies across dozens of industries, a data and AI ethics program must be tailored to the specific business and regulatory needs that are relevant to the company. However, here are seven steps towards building a customized, operationalized, scalable, and sustainable data and AI ethics program.

1. Identify existing infrastructure that a data and AI ethics program can leverage.

2. Create a data and AI ethical risk framework that is tailored to your industry.

3. Change how you think about ethics by taking cues from the successes in health care.

4. Optimize guidance and tools for product managers.

5. Build organizational awareness.

6. Formally and informally incentivize employees to play a role in identifying AI ethical risks.

7. Monitor impacts and engage stakeholders.



(Related)

https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/machine-learning-ethics

Six ways machine learning threatens social justice

When you harness the power and potential of machine learning, there are also some drastic downsides that you've got to manage. Deploying machine learning, you face the risk that it be discriminatory, biased, inequitable, exploitative, or opaque. In this article, I cover six ways that machine learning threatens social justice and reach an incisive conclusion: The remedy is to take on machine learning standardization as a form of social activism.

When you use machine learning, you aren't just optimizing models and streamlining business. You're governing. In essence, the models embody policies that control access to opportunities and resources for many people. They drive consequential decisions as to whom to investigate, incarcerate, set up on a date, or medicate – or to whom to grant a loan, insurance coverage, housing, or a job.





An improvement upon: “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t open the pod bay door.”

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-10-virtual-agent-humans.html

Pilot: A virtual agent that can negotiate with humans

A research team at the university of Southern California has been exploring the possibility of building automated systems that can negotiate with humans. In a paper pre-published on arXiv and set to be presented at the IJCAI conference, they presented a virtual agent based on a framework called IAGO (Interactive Arbitration Guide Online), which can negotiate with humans in a three-round negotiation task. This virtual agent, called Pilot, is one of the finalists of the IJCAI conference's global negotiation challenge (ANAC).

During the three-round ANAC task, Pilot typically tries to lead the negotiation by continuously rolling out offers. Meanwhile, it also guides human partners and offers its assistance, using simple sentences such as “let me help you out.”"

"A key characteristic of Pilot is the effective use of favor exchange," Chawla said. “repeated negotiations provide the opportunity to indulge in favor exchange with the human, where a favor accepted in the current negotiation can be paid back in the upcoming ones. However, prior work shows that whether the favor request is fruitful or not depends on the personality of the partner such as their social value orientation, a feature that captures how cooperatively an individual is expected to approach the negotiation."





Rules? We don’t need no stinking rules!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-15/fcc-to-move-on-trump-plan-to-weaken-social-media-legal-shield

Trump Foes Fume Over FCC’s Efforts to Rein In Twitter

Agency chief says it will conduct rulemaking Trump sought





Like everyone else?

https://www.law.com/2020/10/15/the-pandemic-is-accelerating-the-expansion-of-the-gc-role/

Law.com Barometer: The Pandemic is Accelerating the Expansion of the GC Role

That agility requirement has GCs leading many strategic conversations with the executive team on how best to balance employee safety, company reputation, legal and compliance risk and long-term company survival. GCs are implementing innovative initiatives that require working with teams across business units such as HR, real estate, operations, IT, finance, and supply teams. The difficulty around these decisions, however, is compounded for global operations, where the guidance and regulations may require different standards or may even conflict. As Judy Wong, Tricor’s Group Chief Legal Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer shared with Corporate Counsel, “In today’s changing regulatory and business environment, businesses always have to think about risk in new innovative ways, but COVID-19 just fast-tracked everything.





Perspective. (Podcast)

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/15/1010365/the-fourth-industrial-revolution-has-begun-nows-the-time-to-join/

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has begun: Now’s the time to join

To prepare for a data-dominated future, says Lumen CTO Andrew Dugan, organizations need the right tools to collect, analyze, and act on it.

… When it comes to next-generation apps and devices, edge compute—the ability to process data in real time at the edge of a network (think a handheld device) without sending it back to the cloud to be processed—has to be the focus. Dugan explains: “When a robot senses something and sends that sensor data back to the application, which may be on-site, it may be in some edge compute location, the speed at which that data can be collected, transported to the application, analyzed, and a response generated, directly affects the speed at which that device can operate.” This data must be analyzed and acted on in real time to be useful to the organization.





Makes me feel even older…

https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-cobol/

What Is COBOL and Why Is It in Demand?

The 60-year-old programming COBOL is experiencing a resurgence. Many government system mainframes run COBOL and have been struggling to deal with a surge in demand. In particular, the state of New Jersey’s unemployment systems is administered by a 40-year-old COBOL mainframe.

With the surge in unemployment connected to COVID-19, the system is struggling to keep up. Governor Murphy has identified COBOL programmers as an under-appreciated necessity.

To help address the growing need for COBOL programmers, IBM has created a free COBOL course. The course consists of a series of videos, quizzes, and lab assignments, takes 16 hours to complete and you will receive a badge at the end.





Tools.

https://www.makeuseof.com/lalal-separate-vocals-instruments/

LALAL.AI Makes Separating Vocals and Instruments Easy

If you don't have the master track, listening to just the vocals or instruments for a song requires absurd amounts of audio editing hours to split the tracks into stems.

It's a painful process that may not even end up perfect, no matter how much time you invest.

It doesn't have to be this way, though, as LALAL.AI actually uses artificial intelligence to split the vocal and instrumental tracks for you. Not only does it require next to no effort on your part, but it only takes a few moments to create downloadable versions of each track.

It really doesn't get much easier than using LALAL.AI. You simply go to the website, upload the song you'd like to have split, and wait a minute or two while the AI processes the file and outputs the split version.

Once the files are split, you can listen to them directly in your browser or download the MP3 the separated files to use in whatever way you need them. It really is that simple.



Thursday, October 15, 2020

Start now! Avoid the rush.

https://thenextweb.com/neural/2020/10/15/how-to-build-a-machine-learning-model-in-10-minutes-syndication/

How to build a machine learning model in 10 minutes

I think the way we learn machine learning today is about to change.

It’s also why I’m always delighted when I discover a tool that makes model-building fun, intuitive, and friction-less. That couldn’t be more true of Teachable Machine. It’s a free program, build by Google, that lets you train deep learning models right from your browser. It’s so easy that even elementary school kids can use it!

Under the hood, it uses TensorFlow.js to train a model, which is nice for a couple of reasons:

    • Training happens locally, in the browser, so none of your data gets sent the cloud. Go data privacy!

    • When training is done, Teachable Machine lets you export your model so you can use it later, in your own app, from Javascript.

    • By design, TensorFlow.js uses your GPU (if you have one) to train models, so it’s kinda speedy!

If you want the whole scoop, check out my latest episode of #MakingWithML:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9tjzr1KME0&feature=emb_logo



(Related) Worth reading.

https://thenextweb.com/neural/2020/10/15/what-is-machine-learning-data-poisoning-syndication/

What is machine learning data poisoning?





Thinking Supremely?

EPIC Analysis: Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s Record on Privacy

From EPIC.org:

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett has a mixed record on Fourth Amendment and Article III standing issues but an alarming view of the federal statute that protects consumers from robocalls, according to an EPIC analysis of Judge Barrett’s past writings. Barrett—a judge on the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals—has twice ruled that evidence should be excluded from a criminal case because police had violated the Fourth Amendment: once because officers stopped a car on an unreliable tip and once because officers did not obtain valid consent to search an apartment. But Judge Barrett also stated that the exclusionary rule is “strictly limited,” refusing to suppress evidence collected through a warrantless border search of traveler’s cell phone and obtained on the basis of an overbroad warrant.

Read more on EPIC’s analysis of the nominee’s privacy record on EPIC.org.





Could be useful for research?

https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/14/google-launches-a-suite-of-tech-powered-tools-for-reporters-journalist-studio/

Google launches a suite of tech-powered tools for reporters, Journalist Studio

Google is putting AI and machine learning technologies into the hands of journalists. The company this morning announced a suite of new tools, Journalist Studio, that will allow reporters to do their work more easily. At launch, the suite includes a host of existing tools as well as two new products aimed at helping reporters search across large documents and visualizing data.

The first tool is called Pinpoint and is designed to help reporters work with large file sets — like those that contain hundreds of thousands of documents.

Pinpoint is available now to interested journalists, who can sign up to request access. The tool currently supports seven languages: English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.

The second new tool being introduced today is The Common Knowledge Project, still in beta.

The tool allows journalists to explore, visualize and share data about important issues in their local communities by creating their own interactive charts using thousands of data points in a matter of minutes, the company says.

Google will demonstrate and discuss these new tools in more detail during a series of upcoming virtual events, including the Online News Association’s conference on Thursday, October 15. The Google News Initiative training will also soon host a six-part series focused on tools for reporters in seven languages across nine regions, starting the week of October 20.





Trumpian truth?

https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-10-15



Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Yes, it can be done! This is important!

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/focusing-on-risk-and-recovery-a-ransomware-preparation-checklist/

Focusing on Risk and Recovery: A Ransomware Preparation Checklist

… Ultimately, the nature of ransomware means that, at present, preparing for a ransomware attack is by far the most effective way of minimizing the risk of becoming a victim. Following the steps on this checklist can help tip the balance of power against potential attackers:

[Most neglected? 6. Create an immutable copy of vital data.





Any tool is welcome.

https://www.infoq.com/news/2020/10/facebook-privacy-opacus/

Facebook Open-Sources Machine-Learning Privacy Library Opacus

Facebook AI Research (FAIR) has announced the release of Opacus, a high-speed library for applying differential privacy techniques when training deep-learning models using the PyTorch framework. Opacus can achieve an order-of-magnitude speedup compared to other privacy libraries.

Differential privacy (DP) is a mathematical definition of data privacy. The core concept of DP is to add noise to a query operation on a dataset so that removing a single data element from the dataset has a very low probability of altering the results of that query. This probability is called the privacy budget. Each successive query expends part of the total privacy budget of the dataset; once that has happened, further queries cannot be performed while still guaranteeing privacy.





Some thoughts. Worth a read…

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaulli/2020/10/10/ai-artificial-intelligence-governance-how-to-get-it-right/#7c79e586745f

AI (Artificial Intelligence) Governance: How To Get It Right

AI (Artificial Intelligence) governance is about evaluating and monitoring algorithms for effectiveness, risk, bias and ROI (Return On Investment). But there is a problem: Often not enough attention is paid to this part of the AI process.

“AI projects are rarely coordinated across a company and data science teams are often isolated from application development,” said Mike Beckley, who is the CTO of Appian. “And now regulators are starting to ask questions businesses don’t now how to answer.”

Keep in mind that AI introduces unique problems. Training data is often flawed, such as with errors, duplications and even bias. Then there is the issue with model drift. This is when the AI degrades over time because the algorithms and data do not adequately reflect the changes in the real world.





Is this obvious?

https://www.oreilly.com/radar/ai-product-management-after-deployment/

AI Product Management After Deployment

The AI product manager’s job isn’t over when the product is released. PMs need to remain engaged after deployment.

The field of AI product management continues to gain momentum. As the AI product management role advances in maturity, more and more information and advice has become available. Our previous articles in this series introduce our own take on AI product management, discuss the skills that AI product managers need, and detail how to bring an AI product to market.

One area that has received less attention is the role of an AI product manager after the product is deployed.





Another voice.

https://www.bmwblog.com/2020/10/12/bmw-writes-code-of-ethics-for-ai/

BMW writes code of ethics for AI in collaboration with the EU

… “Artificial intelligence is the key technology in the process of digital transformation. But for us the focus remains on people. AI supports our employees and improves the customer experience. We are proceeding purposefully and with caution in the expansion of AI applications within the company. The seven principles for AI at the BMW Group provide the basis for our approach,” said Michael Würtenberger, Head of “Project AI”.

… Building on the fundamental requirements formulated by the EU for trustworthy AI, the BMW Group has worked out seven basic principles covering the use of AI within the company:

Human agency and oversight.

The BMW Group implements appropriate human monitoring of decisions made by AI applications and considers possible ways that humans can overrule algorithmic decisions.

Technical robustness and safety.

The BMW Group aims to develop robust AI applications and observes the applicable safety standards designed to decrease the risk of unintended consequences and errors.

Privacy and data governance.

The BMW Group extends its state-of-the-art data privacy and data security measures to cover storage and processing in AI applications.

Transparency.

The BMW Group aims for explainability of AI applications and open communication where respective technologies are used.

Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness.

The BMW Group respects human dignity and therefore sets out to build fair AI applications. This includes preventing non-compliance by AI applications.

Environmental and societal well-being.

The BMW Group is committed to developing and using AI applications that promote the well-being of customers, employees and partners. This aligns with the BMW Group’s goals in the areas of human rights and sustainability, which includes climate change and environmental protection.

Accountability.

The BMW Group’s AI applications should be implemented so they work responsibly. The BMW Group will identify, assess, report and mitigate risks, in accordance with good corporate governance.





Covid law?

https://www.law.com/2020/10/13/jury-selection-via-zoom-is-so-thorny-a-new-jersey-court-lawyered-up-and-beat-a-challenge/

Jury Selection Via Zoom Is So Thorny, a New Jersey Court Lawyered Up—and Beat a Challenge

… In an order made public Tuesday, the Appellate Division found no merit in a challenge to the judiciary’s post-pandemic jury selection process. The panel lifted a stay in State v. Dangcil, the state’s first new jury trial in six months, and sent the case back to Bergen County Superior Court for the trial to resume.

The panel also found no fault in the state judiciary’s representation by its own attorney during the trial.

… Defense lawyers in the case also claimed that the revised jury selection process lacked transparency, produced a pool of prospective jurors that where not chosen randomly and had few people of color.

But the appeals court said those claims were unsupported.





Perspective. I wonder if this translates to other regions?

Digital Challengers in the next normal in Central and Eastern Europe

Acceleration of creating a digital, tech-driven economy could be the key to post-pandemic growth in the region.





For the toolkit.

https://www.bespacific.com/web-hosting-checker/

Web Hosting Checker

Web Hosting Checker is such a tool that allows you to know where a website is hosted, it’s location, you can find out the Hosting Provider and their Contact details of Hosting Provider with our tool. Our Hosting Lookup tool (Hosting Checker) is all about Accuracy and Speed. We don’t want our users to wait for some time to get the results, we deliver most results within an average 1.5 seconds, which is 82% Faster than other tools. Hosting Checker is a great tool to check website hosting for free, in just a second. You can use our tool for completely free and obtain results like Hosting Checker, Company, Datacenter Location, IP Address of the Host and most importantly, the contact details so that it may be easier for you to contact the host of website if need be. Hosting Checker will solve these problems for you for free.





Mock tests for my mock students?

https://www.makeuseof.com/best-job-aptitude-test-apps-android/

The 5 Best Job Aptitude Test Apps for Android To Help Advance Your Career

Do you want to boost your chances of landing your dream job? Then taking mock aptitude tests to accompany your preparation is worth doing. In addition to improving your IQ, taking mock tests gives you an edge over others in any job test.



Tuesday, October 13, 2020

The first thing we do, let's hack all the lawyers

https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2020/10/12/seyfarth-shaw-targeted-by-weekend-cyber-attack/

Seyfarth Shaw Targeted by Weekend Cyberattack

Seyfarth Shaw is the latest Big Law firm to get hit by a cyberattack. The firm said in a statement Monday morning that it was victimized by “a sophisticated and aggressive malware attack that appears to be ransomware” over the weekend.

… “Our monitoring systems detected the unauthorized activity, and our IT team acted quickly to prevent its spread and protect our systems,” the firm’s statement said. “We have found no evidence that any of our client or firm data were accessed or removed. However, many of our systems were encrypted, and we have shut them down as a precautionary measure.”





“It can’t happen here!” and other myths.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Philippines-starts-registering-millions-for-national-ID-cards

Philippines starts registering millions for national ID cards

Manila hopes system will spur consumer adoption of electronic payments

… All Philippine citizens and resident foreigners are required to register such information as name, sex, date of birth, place of birth, blood type, address and nationality. Biometric data – fingerprints, facial photos and iris scans – also will be stored.

The country's current system, in which different agencies issue their own numbers, has been criticized as inconvenient. The new system will grant each person a unique number that can be used across agencies.





“It can’t happen here!” and other myths.

https://www.bitdefender.com/box/blog/iot-news/home-security-cams-hacked-singapore-stolen-footage-sold-adult-websites/

Home security cams hacked in Singapore, and stolen footage sold on adult websites

In Singapore it’s not at all uncommon today for people to have IP cameras all over their homes.

And, of course, the more people who installed internet-connected cameras throughout their private residences the more you would be considered odd if you hadn’t jumped on the bandwagon, and put cameras in your living room, kitchen, bedroom, sometimes even with a view of even more private areas of your house.

It’s not as though your friends encouraged you to cam up your home with malicious intentions, but over time, it became a perfectly normal thing to do. And so more and more people in Singapore did it, believing it would be an easy way to secure the property, or monitor children, domestic workers, vulnerable relatives, and pets.

Perhaps some home owners are now reconsidering whether that was such a wise idea.

Because, as local media reports, clips stolen from more than 50,000 hacked cameras have been uploaded to pornographic websites, and X-rated footage sold to people prepared to pay a subscription fee of US $150.

In addition, the group claims that subscribers will receive tuition in how to “explore, watch live and even record” hacked cameras.





Perspective.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robtoews/2020/10/12/the-next-generation-of-artificial-intelligence/#4f8cb12659eb

The Next Generation Of Artificial Intelligence

The field of artificial intelligence moves fast. It has only been 8 years since the modern era of deep learning began at the 2012 ImageNet competition. Progress in the field since then has been breathtaking and relentless.

If anything, this breakneck pace is only accelerating. Five years from now, the field of AI will look very different than it does today. Methods that are currently considered cutting-edge will have become outdated; methods that today are nascent or on the fringes will be mainstream.

What will the next generation of artificial intelligence look like? Which novel AI approaches will unlock currently unimaginable possibilities in technology and business? This article highlights three emerging areas within AI that are poised to redefine the field—and society—in the years ahead. Study up now.

1. Unsupervised Learning

2. Federated Learning

3. Transformers





Set your calendar or just read the book?

https://www.bespacific.com/webinar-the-reasonable-robot-artificial-intelligence-and-the-law/

Webinar – The Reasonable Robot: Artificial Intelligence and the Law

Join the Center for Data Innovation on Friday, November 13, 2020 at 12:00 PM EDT for a conversation with Ryan Abbott on his new book The Reasonable Robot: Artificial Intelligence and the Law. The book argues that, as a general principle, the law should not discriminate between AI and human behavior, and discusses how this principle should shape tax, tort, intellectual property, and criminal law.”

    • Date and Time: November 13, 2020, from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM (EDT)

    • Speakers: Ryan Abbott, Professor of Law and Health Sciences, University of Surrey School of Law; Daniel Castro, Director, Center for Data Innovation (moderator)

    • Register for the video webinar





Tools for a pandemic?

https://www.zdnet.com/article/pc-shipments-climb-in-q3-gartner-and-idc-report/

PC shipments climb in Q3, Gartner and IDC report

According to Gartner, PC shipments in the US increased 11.4% in the third quarter of 2020 – the strongest growth in the US in a decade. Worldwide, PC shipments totaled 71.4 million units, an increase of 3.6% year over year.





Perspective. The world after Covid?

https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/12/rsa_covid_19_work_automation/

Amazon-like megacorps dominating various online sectors could become norm for pandemic-stricken planet

Certain business models work better than others when most people avoid human contact

Shifts in consumer behaviour could see a handful of companies come to dominate the online food, education and leisure industries, as Amazon has in e-commerce, according to research.

A study [PDF] by the UK's Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) suggests that the "winner takes most" dynamic that gives the Seattle giant an unfair advantage could be accelerated by the pandemic and spread to other sectors as the drive for digital services increases.

The RSA pointed out that Amazon's retail sales have increased by 42 per cent between April and June. Streaming services such as Netflix are also benefiting from the pandemic, having reported a record 15.8 million additional subscribers globally in the first quarter of 2020.





Perspective. Do we still teach handwriting?

https://www.bespacific.com/handwriting-shown-to-be-better-for-memory-than-typing-at-any-age/

Handwriting shown to be better for memory than typing, at any age

BigThink: A new study collected 500 data points per second. Handwriting won out. “While tablets are excellent for scrolling through the day’s news, the value of digital versus print has long been debated. Physical books are tactile, which bring readers great pleasure, including ease of annotation, better navigation, and a sense of accomplishment—pages are landmarks, not the infinite scroll of e-books. Your brain maps better with such visual cues. Then there’s memory. Print book readers retain more information. As a new study from the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology argues, the same goes for writing. Handwriting helps children and adults remember information better. Typing is a shortcut…”





Tell your kids they can program it to do their homework for them, then stand back!

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Banana-Pi-A-Raspberry-Pi-alternative-with-an-AI-accelerator-that-costs-just-US-16.497765.0.html

Banana Pi: A Raspberry Pi alternative with an AI accelerator that costs just US$16

Sinovoip has brought its latest single-board computer (SBC) to AliExpress, the Banana Pi BPI-EAI80. The Banana Pi cannot run Windows 10 or Raspbian like the Raspberry Pi can, but it can connect to external devices via its 40-pin GPIO header like the Pi.