Papa spank? Imagine a nation state sponsor expressing displeasure over an unauthorized ransom.

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/05/darkside-ransomware-gang-quits-after-servers-bitcoin-stash-seized/

DarkSide Ransomware Gang Quits After Servers, Bitcoin Stash Seized

The DarkSide ransomware affiliate program responsible for the six-day outage at Colonial Pipeline this week that led to fuel shortages and price spikes across the country is running for the hills. The crime gang announced it was closing up shop after its servers were seized and someone drained the cryptocurrency from an account the group uses to pay affiliates.

“Servers were seized (country not named), money of advertisers and founders was transferred to an unknown account,” reads a message from a cybercrime forum reposted to the Russian OSINT Telegram channel.

… In a blog post on the DarkSide closure, cyber intelligence firm Intel 471 said it believes all of these actions can be tied directly to the reaction related to the high-profile ransomware attacks covered by the media this week.

“However, a strong caveat should be applied to these developments: it’s likely that these ransomware operators are trying to retreat from the spotlight more than suddenly discovering the error of their ways,” Intel 471 wrote. “A number of the operators will most likely operate in their own closed-knit groups, resurfacing under new names and updated ransomware variants. Additionally, the operators will have to find a new way to ‘wash’ the cryptocurrency they earn from ransoms. Intel 471 has observed that BitMix, a popular cryptocurrency mixing service used by Avaddon, DarkSide and REvil has allegedly ceased operations. Several apparent customers of the service reported they were unable to access BitMix in the last week.”

Everything you do on the Internet is available to anyone who wants to look. Deal with it.

https://www.pogowasright.org/we-found-joe-bidens-secret-venmo-heres-why-thats-a-privacy-nightmare-for-everyone/

We Found Joe Biden’s Secret Venmo. Here’s Why That’s A Privacy Nightmare For Everyone.

Ryan Mac, Katie Notopoulos, Ryan Brooks, and Logan McDonald report:

BuzzFeed News found President Joe Biden’s Venmo account after less than 10 minutes of looking for it, revealing a network of his private social connections, a national security issue for the United States, and a major privacy concern for everyone who uses the popular peer-to-peer payments app.

On Friday, following a passing mention in the New York Times that the president had sent his grandchildren money on Venmo, BuzzFeed News searched for the president’s account using only a combination of the app’s built-in search tool and public friends feature. In the process, BuzzFeed News found nearly a dozen Biden family members and mapped out a social web that encompasses not only the first family, but a wide network of people around them, including the president’s children, grandchildren, senior White House officials, and all of their contacts on Venmo.

Read more on BuzzFeed.

Politics as the road to riches?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-considers-contenders-to-be-his-new-social-media-outlet-after-big-tech-crackdown-11621013567?mod=djemalertNEWS

Trump Considers Contenders to Be His New Social-Media Outlet After Big Tech Crackdown

Donald Trump, sidelined by Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc., has been talking with numerous platforms as he seeks a new online megaphone. Jeff Brain, the chief executive of CloutHub, a fledgling social media network that has become popular with conservatives, thinks his company fits the bill.

… The former president is interested in being paid in exchange for the followers he would presumably bring to the new social networks, people familiar with the situation said. Mr. Trump had nearly 89 million Twitter followers.

“He’s not that interested in equity. He wants cash money up front, like a license fee,” said one person familiar with the process.

Webinar

https://securityboulevard.com/2021/05/cpdp-2021-moderator-eleni-kosta-the-use-of-ai-in-state-surveillance-challenges-for-privacy/

CPDP 2021 – Moderator: Eleni Kosta ‘The Use Of Ai In State Surveillance: Challenges For Privacy’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHhaO8XLYRs

Tools.

https://www.makeuseof.com/how-to-use-measure-app-iphone/

A Step-by-step Guide on How to Use the Measure App

… The Measure app is pre-installed on Apple devices. If you deleted it, simply download it for free from the App Store. Also, make sure that your device is up to date to benefit from the latest features.

… You can tap the measurement to see it in centimeters or inches. Copy the measurement by choosing Copy.

You can also take a screenshot of the object with the measurements using the shutter button in the bottom-right corner.

Tool for faking literacy?

https://www.makeuseof.com/blinkist-alternatives-for-free-book-summaries/

5 Blinkist Alternatives for Free Book Summaries You May Not Have Known

Haven't read a book but still want to look like you read it? Get a free book summary through these apps, podcasts, and YouTube channels.

An awful lot of “hurry up and fix it!” pressure will do this.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/colonial-pipeline-5-million-ransom_n_609e1a82e4b063dccea7df1a

Colonial Pipeline Reportedly Paid $5 Million Ransom After Hack

The owner of the Colonial Pipeline paid hackers about $5 million in bitcoin to regain access to its data and end a standoff that forced one of the country’s largest energy pipelines offline, multiple media outlets reported Thursday.

Details of the payments were first reported by Bloomberg News and The New York Times, and cited sources familiar with the ransom. The ransom amounted to about 75 bitcoin, a hard-to-trace cryptocurrency.

(Related)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57111615

Irish health service hit by cyber attack

Ireland's health service has temporarily shut down its IT system after what it described as a "significant ransomware attack".

The Health Service Executive (HSE) said it had taken the precaution of closing down its systems to further protect them and assess the situation.

Ireland's Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said the incident was having "a severe impact on [the] health and social care services".

… "At this moment we can't access lists of people who are scheduled for appointments on Monday, so we don't even know who to cancel," she said.

(Related)

https://threatpost.com/ransomwares-swindle-triple-extortion/166149/

Ransomware’s New Swindle: Triple Extortion

Ransomware attacks are exploding at a staggering rate, and so are the ransoms being demanded. Now experts are warning against a new threat — triple extortion — which means that attackers are expanding out to demand payments from customers, partners and other third parties related to the initial breach to grab even more cash for their crimes.

Check Point’s latest ransomware report found that over the past year, ransomware payments have spiked by 171 percent, averaging about $310,000 — and that globally, the number of attacks has surged by 102 percent.

… Download our exclusive FREE Threatpost Insider eBook, “2021: The Evolution of Ransomware,” to help hone your cyber-defense strategies against this growing scourge. We go beyond the status quo to uncover what’s next for ransomware and the related emerging risks. Get the whole story and DOWNLOAD the eBook now – on us!

An idea for my Ethical Hacking students: make Alexa sound like Donald Duck.

https://voicebot.ai/2021/05/13/ford-cars-will-embed-amazon-alexa-in-cars-by-over-the-air-update/

Ford Will Embed Amazon Alexa in Cars by Over-the-Air Update

Ford announced that it will integrate Amazon Alexa directly into hundreds of thousands of vehicles this year using its new Power-Up program of Over-the-Air (OTA) updates. The hands-free version of Alexa includes all of the voice assistant’s standard and automotive-specific features, including control over the car’s locks and remote control over smart home devices.

This caught my eye. A labor shortage? Are we no longer teaching our liberal arts graduates how to ask, “Do you want fries with that?”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-mc-donalds-minimum-wage-hike-is-surprisingly-good-news-for-the-stock-163651859.html

Why McDonald's minimum wage hike is surprisingly good news for the stock

… "In this highly competitive market for talent, successful employee recognition, recruitment, and retention is fundamental to drive growth," said McDonald's U.S. President Joe Erlinger in an internal memo obtained by Yahoo Finance.

I know a couple of English teachers who will find this rather distressing. If I write (program) one of these tools, can I claim copyright on all of their output?

https://builtin.com/marketing/copywriting-ai-gpt3

AI WON’T TAKE COPYWRITING JOBS. IT’LL TRANSFORM THEM.

… Many writers — not just neurotic Hollywood scribes — will tell you that the hardest part of the process is getting started.

… Services have arrived on the scene to help these writers conquer the blank page. And they all share something in common: they’re powered by artificial intelligence.

These tools include Copy AI, Conversion AI, Anyword, Copysmith, Writesonic and Shortly AI. They are designed to transform simple human inputs (like brainstorm notes and bullet points) into clean prose — full sentences that pass off as human creativity.

It’s all but inevitable that AI writing assistants will help shape the future of content marketing and copywriting.

We’ll have to see if any of this can be completed in the time allowed.

https://www.bespacific.com/executive-order-on-improving-the-nations-cybersecurity/

Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity

May 12, 2021: “Today, President Biden signed an Executive Order to improve the nation’s cybersecurity and protect federal government networks. Recent cybersecurity incidents such as SolarWinds, Microsoft Exchange, and the Colonial Pipeline incident are a sobering reminder that U.S. public and private sector entities increasingly face sophisticated malicious cyber activity from both nation-state actors and cyber criminals. These incidents share commonalities, including insufficient cybersecurity defenses that leave public and private sector entities more vulnerable to incidents. This Executive Order makes a significant contribution toward modernizing cybersecurity defenses by protecting federal networks, improving information-sharing between the U.S. government and the private sector on cyber issues, and strengthening the United States’ ability to respond to incidents when they occur. It is the first of many ambitious steps the Administration is taking to modernize national cyber defenses. However, the Colonial Pipeline incident is a reminder that federal action alone is not enough. Much of our domestic critical infrastructure is owned and operated by the private sector, and those private sector companies make their own determination regarding cybersecurity investments. We encourage private sector companies to follow the Federal government’s lead and take ambitious measures to augment and align cybersecurity investments with the goal of minimizing future incidents…”

Another example of a voting system not designed to produce unimpeachable results.

https://threatpost.com/e-voting-security-flaws/166110/

Researchers Flag e-Voting Security Flaws

A group of election security experts said after a deep dive into Australia’s electronic voting systems that they have “serious problems” with the accuracy, integrity and privacy with elections run by the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Electoral Commission.

… “Secretive, unverifiable systems like the ones used in the ACT 2020 election make it relatively easy to change the recorded list of votes cast, in a way that observers cannot notice,” they said. “It also makes accidental errors more likely to remain undetected.”

Interesting. Some day there may be a bot for every state! Or the law may require such a tool.

https://www.bespacific.com/privacybot/

PrivacyBot

Berkeley MIMS Final Project 2021 – “PrivacyBot is a free and open-source way to delete your data from an exhaustive list of data brokers and people search sites. The largest statewide privacy law change in a generation, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) went into effect in January 2020. However, exercising these privacy rights is a tricky business even for privacy experts. A survey we conducted within a few privacy-related subreddits showed that tracking down data brokers is “a huge pain in the [neck]”.

We introduce “PrivacyBot”, a simple way to start exercising your privacy rights. Our deliverables include:

• A fully open-source local-only system that automatically routes data delete requests to data brokers and people search sites

• User experience research reports about current CCPA processes and feedback

• Shareable insights and data visualizations about the request process…”

Naming specific tools is less comprehensive than describing the process.

https://www.pogowasright.org/nyc-council-passes-data-privacy-bill-that-would-impose-rigorous-requirements-on-owners-of-smart-access-buildings/

NYC Council Passes Data Privacy Bill That Would Impose Rigorous Requirements On Owners of “Smart Access” Buildings

Damon W. Silver and Gregory C. Brown Jr. of JacksonLewis write:

As we noted in our last post, there has been a flurry of data privacy and security activity in New York, with the State appearing poised to join California as a leader in this space. Most recently, on April 29, 2021, the New York City Council passed the Tenant Data Privacy Act (“TDPA”), which would impose on owners of “smart access” buildings obligations related to their collection, use, safeguarding, and retention of tenant data.

Under the TDPA, a “smart access” building is one that uses electronic or computerized technology (e.g., a key fob), radio frequency identification cards, mobile phone applications, biometric information (e.g., fingerprints, voiceprints, hand or face geometry), or other digital technology to grant entry to the building, or to common areas or individual dwelling units therein.

Read more on Workplace Privacy, Data Management & Security Report

Systems that automate bias.

https://fpf.org/blog/automated-decision-making-systems-considerations-for-state-policymakers/

AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING SYSTEMS: CONSIDERATIONS FOR STATE POLICYMAKERS

In legislatures across the United States, state lawmakers are introducing proposals to govern the uses of automated decision-making systems (ADS) in record numbers. In contrast to comprehensive privacy bills that would regulate collection and use of personal information, automated decision-making system (ADS) bills in 2021 specifically seek to address increasing concerns about racial bias or unfair outcomes in automated decisions that impact consumers, including housing, insurance, financial, or governmental decisions.

So far, ADS bills have taken a range of approaches, with most prioritizing restrictions on government use and procurement of ADS (Maryland HB 1323 ); requiring inventories of government ADSs currently in use (Vermont H 0236 ); impact assessments for procurement (CA AB-13 ); external audits (New York A6042 ); or outright prohibitions on the procurement of certain types of unfair ADS (Washington SB 5116 ). A handful of others would seek to regulate commercial actors, including in insurance decisions (Colorado SB 169 ), consumer finance (New Jersey S1943 ), or the use of automated decision-making in employment or hiring decisions (Illinois HB 0053, New York A7244 ).

At a high level, each of these bills share similar characteristics. Each proposes general definitions and general solutions that cover specific, complex tools used in areas as varied as traffic forecasting and employment screening. But the bills are not consistent with regard to requirements and obligations. For example, among the bills that would require impact assessments, some require impact assessments universally for all ADS in use by government agencies, others would require impact assessments only for specifically risky uses of ADS. 

Because I was an Auditor for lots of years and did build some automated audit tools.

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/compliance-made-easy-how-to-improve-your-risk-posture-with-automated-audits/

Compliance Made Easy: How To Improve Your Risk Posture With Automated Audits

Compliance standards come in many different shapes and sizes. Some organizations set their own internal policies, while others are subject to regimented global frameworks such as PCI DSS, which protects customers’ card payment details; SOX to safeguard financial information or HIPAA, which protects patients’ healthcare data.

Regardless of which industry you operate in, regular auditing is key to ensuring your business retains its risk posture whilst also remaining compliant. The problem is that running manual risk and security audits can be a long, drawn-out, and tedious affair. A 2020 report from Coalfire and Omdia found that for the majority of organizations, growing compliance obligations are now consuming 40% or more of IT security budgets and threaten to become an unsustainable cost.

The report suggests two reasons for this growing compliance burden. First, compliance standards are changing from point-in-time reviews to continuous, outcome-based requirements. Second, the ongoing cyber-skills shortage is stretching organizations’ abilities to keep up with compliance requirements. This means businesses tend to leave them until the last moment, leading to a rushed audit that isn’t as thorough as it could be, putting your business at increased risk of a penalty fine or, worse, a data breach that could jeopardize the entire organization.

Narrow market, large fine.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/13/google-hit-with-123m-antitrust-fine-in-italy-over-android-auto/?guccounter=1

Google hit with $123M antitrust fine in Italy over Android Auto

Google has been fined just over €100 million (~$123M) by Italy’s antitrust watchdog for abuse of a dominant market position.

The case relates to Android Auto, a modified version of Google’s mobile OS intended for in-car use, and specifically to how Google restricted access to the platform to an electric car charging app, called JuicePass, made by energy company Enel X Italia.

Keep learning!

https://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-learning-popular-free-online-classes-2021

These 10 LinkedIn Learning classes teach the most in-demand skills companies are looking for — and the courses are free until the end of May

… To help gain some insight into what to focus on, LinkedIn just released the top five trending skills based on LinkedIn Learning data from LinkedIn's top 50 companies.

Additionally, LinkedIn made some of its LinkedIn Learning courses to learn these skills completely free through May 31. That means that you can earn a certificate of completion to add to your LinkedIn profile so long as you're signed into LinkedIn and finish the courses before the end of May.

Papers please! Anything to have a national ID card?

https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/11/nhs_app_vaccine_passport_england/

NHS App gets go-ahead for vaccine passport use despite protest from privacy groups

Folks in England can from next week use the NHS App to confer their vaccination status, in the face of warnings that the technology could lead to identifiable medical information being exposed.

A pledge or a smoke screen?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-plans-to-double-ai-ethics-research-staff-11620749048

GOOGLE PLANS TO DOUBLE AI ETHICS RESEARCH STAFF

Alphabet Inc.’s Google plans to double the size of its team studying artificial-intelligence ethics in the coming years, as the company looks to strengthen a group that has had its credibility challenged by research controversies and personnel defections.

Vice President of Engineering Marian Croak said at The Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything Festival that the hires will increase the size of the responsible AI team that she leads to 200 researchers. Additionally, she said that Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai has committed to boost the operating budget of a team tasked with evaluating code and product to avert harm, discrimination and other problems with AI.

“Being responsible in the way that you develop and deploy AI technology is fundamental to the good of the business,” Ms. Croak said. “It severely damages the brand if things aren’t done in an ethical way.”

Problem solved? I rather doubt it.

https://techxplore.com/news/2021-05-smart-fake-news.html

Development of a smart system for fake news detection

A research team from the universities of Jaén and Alicante has created an application that automatically analyzes news stories and determines their truthfulness with a high degree of accuracy. Although the model is still in the testing phase, it is proposed as a useful tool for filtering the vast amount of information that reaches journalists and private readers every day.

… In the journal Expert Systems with Applications, the researchers have published an article entitled "Exploiting discourse structure of traditional digital media to enhance automatic fake news detection” in which they present the prototype of a 'fake news' detector for websites. This tool aims to offer greater confidence to the reader and to provide journalists with new tools that allow them to distinguish between different pieces of information.

The system analyzes the structure of the published news item taking into account traditional journalistic standards: the 5W+H rule and the inverted pyramid. These references are based on the fact that a rigorous news story should contain information that answers the six basic questions (what, when, where, who, why and how) and should be presented in descending priority from what is most important to the finer details.

(Related)

https://www.reuters.com/article/israel-palestinians-socialmedia-idUSL8N2MU624

Instagram, Twitter blame glitches for deleting Palestinian posts

Instagram and Twitter have blamed technical errors for deleting posts mentioning the possible eviction of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, but data rights groups fear “discriminatory” algorithms are at work and want greater transparency.

(Related) Could a re-tweet of a “true” news article ever be flagged as ‘Fake?’

https://apnews.com/article/asia-pacific-china-europe-middle-east-government-and-politics-62b13895aa6665ae4d887dcc8d196dfc

Army of fake fans boosts China’s messaging on Twitter

China’s ruling Communist Party has opened a new front in its long, ambitious war to shape global public opinion: Western social media.

Liu Xiaoming, who recently stepped down as China’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, is one of the party’s most successful foot soldiers on this evolving online battlefield.

… His stream of posts — principled and gutsy ripostes to Western anti-Chinese bias to his fans, aggressive bombast to his detractors — were retweeted more than 43,000 times from June through February alone.

But much of the popular support Liu and many of his colleagues seem to enjoy on Twitter has, in fact, been manufactured.

Checklists are good! (But not always complete.)

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3617910/minimizing-damage-from-a-data-breach.html?upd=1620825187487

Minimizing damage from a data breach: A checklist

… First, make sure you have the necessary resources and preparations in place to investigate. The process of identifying how an attacker entered the network is often based on the evidence and timeline analysis. Knowing how best to handle the evidence and having a plan in place before an intrusion occurs are key to properly handling the investigation. The Cybersecurity Unit for the US Department of Justice has several resources to help with planning ahead.

This task checklist will make it easier to respond to a data breach or limit its damage:

Explaining a new concept.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3617078/5-tips-for-getting-started-with-soar.html#tk.rss_all

5 tips for getting started with SOAR

Security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) platforms coordinate tools and help fight threats more efficiently. Here's how to prepare for making the transition to SOAR.

Securing those self-driving cars…

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/the-race-for-cybersecurity-regulation-compliance-is-on/

The Race for Cybersecurity Regulation Compliance is On

… As vehicles today became more sophisticated, they also need to have cybersecurity measures put in place. The United Nations Economic Commission For Europe (UNECE) states that cars today have close to 100 million lines of software code, and that number should grow three times by 2030. As a result, they implemented regulations for vehicle cybersecurity that will be part of the current WP.29, will be enforced by July 2024. According to Deloitte, while that may seem far away, it’s actually quite close since the development of new vehicles can take three to four years, so the time for implementation is now.

As cars get smarter…

https://thenextweb.com/news/ford-new-patent-ruin-driving-forever-hell?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheNextWeb+%28The+Next+Web+All+Stories%29

Ford’s new in-car advertising patent is what hell looks like

… Or in real plain human speak, Ford wants cars to scan billboards as they drive past, to serve up more adverts on the car’s infotainment screen. Yes, the dystopian future of motoring is well and truly upon us.

Perspective. This time a legal perspective.

https://www.insideprivacy.com/data/ninth-circuit-denies-section-230-defense-in-products-liability-case/

Ninth Circuit Denies Section 230 Defense in Products Liability Case

… The plaintiff-appellants in Lemmon were the parents of teenagers who died in a fatal car accident after one of the teenagers posted content on Snapchat using the app’s “Speed Filter,” which depicts the rate of speed at which a user is traveling. The plaintiffs alleged that Snapchat knew or should have known that the Speed Filter would create an incentive for users to drive at dangerous speeds.

The lower court held that Section 230 protected Snapchat from the conduct of the teenagers, but the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded, finding that Section 230 was not implicated because the plaintiffs did not seek to hold Snapchat liable as a publisher or speaker; rather, they sought to hold Snapchat liable for negligent product design. The Ninth Circuit found that the duty to produce a safe product was independent of Snapchat’s role in monitoring or publishing third-party content on its app.

Perspective. (Okay, a fictional perspective.)

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/05/11/murderbot-diaries-martha-wells

'Murderbot' Is Not Your Typical AI

Science fiction often portrays artificial intelligence in one of two ways.

There’s evil AI — think HAL, the computer in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” who stops obeying orders from the humans so it can kill them. Then there’s good AI like Data in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” who gets lost in wonderment at the human ability to whistle.

Martha Wells’ “Murderbot” doesn’t fit into either trope.

Increasingly common.

https://www.databreaches.net/negotiations-fail-threat-actors-dump-more-data-from-metropolitan-police-d-c/

Negotiations fail, threat actors dump more data from Metropolitan Police D.C.

This morning’s routine check of leak sites discovered a listing on Babuk threat actors’ leak site that many people have probably dreaded.

The message under the shield says:

“The negotiations reached a dead end, the amount we were offered does not suit us, we are posting 20 more personal files on officers, you can download this archive, the password will be released tomorrow. if during tomorrow they do not raise the price, we will release all the data.”

(Related) Governments don’t like encouraging hackers?

https://www.zdnet.com/article/axa-pledges-to-stop-reimbursing-ransom-payments-for-french-ransomware-victims/

AXA pledges to stop reimbursing ransom payments for French ransomware victims

Insurance company AXA has revealed that, at the request of French government officials, it will end cyber insurance policies in France that pay ransomware victims back for ransoms paid out to cybercriminals.

A solution or an excuse?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/dhs-launches-warning-system-find-domestic-terrorism-threats-public-social-n1266707

DHS launches warning system to find domestic terrorism threats on public social media

The Department of Homeland Security has begun implementing a strategy to gather and analyze intelligence about security threats from public social media posts, DHS officials said.

The goal is to build a warning system to detect the sort of posts that appeared to predict an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 but were missed or ignored by law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the officials said.

… So far, DHS is using human beings, not computer algorithms, to make sense of the data, the officials said.

… Law enforcement officers and intelligence analysts are legally entitled to examine — without warrants — what people say openly on Twitter, Facebook and other public social media forums, just as they can take in information from reading newspapers. But civil liberties groups generally oppose government monitoring of social media, arguing that it doesn't produce much intelligence and risks chilling free speech.

Early days...

https://venturebeat.com/2021/05/10/one-third-of-organizations-are-using-ai-ibm-survey-finds/

One-third of organizations are using AI, IBM survey finds

Almost a third of organizations are using some form of AI, with 43% reporting that their rollout accelerated as a result of the pandemic. That’s according to a new Morning Consult study commissioned by IBM, which revealed that while AI adoption was flat over the last year, momentum shifted with changing business needs.

… Of the categories of AI organizations are adopting, natural language processing (NLP) is at the forefront. Almost half of businesses say they’re using apps powered by NLP and 1 in 4 organizations plans to use the technology over the course of 2021. Customer service is the top use case, with 52% of companies deploying or considering deploying NLP for it, according to IBM.

Even before the pandemic, autonomous agents were on the way to becoming the rule rather than the exception — partly because consumers prefer it that way. According to research published last year by Vonage subsidiary NewVoiceMedia, 25% of people prefer to have their queries handled by a chatbot or other self-service alternative. And Salesforce says roughly 69% of consumers choose chatbots for quick communication with brands.

A bit techie, but worth reading the article if not the book.

https://bdtechtalks.com/2021/05/10/biological-computer-vision/

Understanding the differences between biological and computer vision

Welcome to AI book reviews, a series of posts that explore the latest literature on artificial intelligence.

… Biological and Computer Vision, a book by Harvard Medical University Professor Gabriel Kreiman, provides an accessible account of how humans and animals process visual data and how far we’ve come toward replicating these functions in computers.

Useful resource!

https://www.bespacific.com/welcome-to-the-eu-council-library-libguides/

Welcome to the EU Council Library LibGuides

European Council, Council of the European Union: “The Council Library guides provide a selection of information resources relevant to the work of the Council of the EU and the European Council: information databases, (e)journals, (e)books, articles and EU publications. Search the online Eureka catalogue to discover the full collections.” Search All Guides, By Group, By Subject, By Types.

See also Eureka, the resource discovery service of the Council Libraries. The gateway to the information resources and knowledge base of the Council libraries. Use it to discover content relevant to the work of the Council of the EU and to explore our print, digital and electronic collections…”

Tools. Do things without your phone.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-sites-to-send-free-text-messages-to-cell-phones-sms/

The 10 Best Sites to Send Free Text Messages to Cell Phones (SMS)

My Blog readership.

Globally popular or unappreciated at home?