May, 2017 - itbusinessdirect

Microsoft dominates with the AI strategy

May 8, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Microsoft has been in the artificial intelligence (AI) game for a long time. However, the recent surge in artificial intelligence developments has created an AI land-rush, where it seems like every tech company, including Microsoft, is promising to do more with machine learning and cognitive computing. Last year, the conversation was all about AI chat bots. At Build 2016, CEO Satya Nadella promised them in everything from Skype to HoloLens. The company even launched its own Twitter chat bot, Tay, only to pull it hours later after someone used its…

Is Africa’s new smartphone a game changer?

May 8, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Whether the Onyx phone will actually be the first smartphone manufactured in Africa depends on how you define manufacturing . A South African start-up will next month begin mass producing a $30 smartphone, which it describes as the first of its kind to be manufactured in Africa. According to CNN, Onyx Connect is gearing up to launch a four-inch entry-level smartphone for about $30 that includes front and rear cameras, 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM, 1.3GHz quad core processor and runs the latest Android 7 Nougat. While most low-cost smartphones come…

Galaxy J7 2017 features appears at GFXBench

May 8, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

The Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017) which received Bluetooth certification last month with version 4.1 from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has now been spotted on GFXBench benchmarking website the model number SM-J730. The smartphone also received certification from Indonesian certification agency P3DN. It is also to be noted that Samsung Galaxy J7 (2017) with model number SM-J727VL was also spotted on the same benchmarking website in February. Now it has ben spotted with a different model number and an even different set of specifications. Since the beginning of the…

Google’s battle with Android malware: Who wins?

May 4, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

While most people are aware of the malicious threats targeting their computers, many still don’t realise that their mobile devices are an increasingly lucrative a target for cybercriminals. The main way smartphones are attacked is though apps, often ones which pose as innocent and useful but actually aim to steal data or in the case of ransomware, force users to pay up. Recently, google uncovered the Android version of Pegasus, a mobile spyware created by NSO Group, an Israeli surveillance company considered the most advanced producer of mobile spyware on…

Google Docs phishing attack is fixed

May 4, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Google Docs users were hit by a widespread phishing attempt everywhere being spammed with what appeared to be malicious invitations to log on to their Google accounts. Unlike your garden-variety cyberattack, many of the telltale signs that could tip off that something was awry are absent. What made this attack so tricky to detect was that it took advantage of Google’s legitimate tool for sharing data with responsible third-party apps. Since the bogus invitation was being routed through Google’s real system, nothing was misspelled, the icons looked accurate, and it’s hard to know something’s…

Intellectual Property protection: The key incentive to innovation

May 2, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Intellectual property rights , patents in particular , are perhaps most critical in industries characterized by high fixed costs of development and low marginal costs of production. Intellectual property (IP) protections are fundamentally about encouraging the innovation that drives human progress. And these protections have been extraordinarily successful contributing to rapid increases in global living standards over the past two centuries The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) took a deeper look at the latest data on the strength of IP laws and the amount of innovative, creative output around…

Artificial Intelligence is Nearer than We Think

May 2, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Artificial intelligence is one of the hottest subjects these days, and recent advances in technology make AI even closer to reality than most of us can imagine. The subject really got traction when Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and more than 1,000 AI and robotics researchers signed an open letter issuing a warning regarding the use of AI in weapons development last year. The following month, BAE Systems unveiled Taranis, the most advanced autonomous UAV ever created; there are currently 40 countries working on the deployment of AI in weapons development. Robots are…

The Internet of Things Needs a Code of Ethics

May 2, 2017 Dianne Jacobs

Technology is evolving faster than the legal and moral frameworks needed to manage it. With the development of IoT, malwares have been used to disrupt internet access around the globe. Right now, in this early stage of connected devices’ slow invasion into our daily lives, there’s no clear answer to that question. That’s because there’s no real legal framework that would hold manufacturers responsible for critical failures that harm others. As is often the case, the technology has developed far faster than policies and regulations. But it’s not just the…