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Total 11 articles, created at 2016-07-25 00:00 1 Uber Pays Security Researcher $10K for Critical Flaw We learn why it's a good thing an outside researcher found a flaw that could have left Uber users at risk and why third-party bug bounty programs are necessary. 2016-07-24 22:54 4KB www.eweek.com 2 Facebook Aquila Completes Successful Test Flight Facebook Aquila is a solar-powered unmanned aircraft designed to stay aloft for 90 days and deliver the Internet to a 60-mile radius. 2016-07-24 22:54 3KB www.eweek.com 3 How is preparing for the mobile VR revolution Now supported on 24 platforms, the is virtually everywhere 2016-07-24 16:15 4KB feedproxy.google.com 4 Remake of Suda51 mystery The Silver Case gets first trailer The original PlayStation game never made it out of Japan. 2016-07-24 16:00 1KB www.pcgamer.com 5 Five new games you probably missed this week Steam has a whole lot of games, so we decided to highlight a few under-the-radar new releases each week. 2016-07-24 15:00 3KB www.pcgamer.com 6 Marvel: Ultimate Alliance remasters hitting PC this Tuesday With UI and visual improvements. 2016-07-24 14:00 1KB www.pcgamer.com 7 8 things you need to know when buying a Chinese smartphone A whole new world 2016-07-24 14:00 6KB feedproxy.google.com 8 Cyanogen reportedly cuts jobs, may shift its focus toward apps Sources tell Android Police that the company may ditch its Android variant and instead focus on apps following a round of layoffs. 2016-07-24 12:07 1KB www.greenbot.com

9 10 Agile Tips From Pokemon Go Coach Training Pokemon Go players want to improve and become better trainers. The same tips that help you catch more Pokemon can help you become a better scrum master. We caught 10 of those pointers that can be applied to leading an agile team developing enterprise software. 2016-07-24 12:06 2KB www.informationweek.com 10 Watson Offers Macy's AI Help, Workday Acquisition: Big Data Roundup Watson's AI will help you find shoes at Macy's, Workday buys big data analytics company, Google releases machine learning APIs, and more in our Big Data Roundup for the week ending July 24. 2016-07-24 11:05 4KB www.informationweek.com 11 51% off Inflatable Lounge Bag Hammock Air Sofa and Pool Float - Deal Alert This innovative lounge requires no external pump and is the perfect substitute for folding chairs, bean bags, hammocks, picnic blankets and pool floats. Simply unfold, scoop air into it and roll and buckle. 2016-07-24 11:00 1KB www.computerworld.com Articles

Total 11 articles, created at 2016-07-25 00:00

1 Uber Pays Security Researcher $10K for Critical Flaw NEWS ANALYSIS: Although Uber is a tech company, it didn't discover the flaw on its own but rather by way of a researcher participating in a bug bounty program. Love it or hate it, Uber has helped transform many people's lives and the way they travel in urban areas. At its core, Uber is not a taxi company; it's a technology service, and one of its primary assets is user information. Uber recently closed a high-impact flaw in its platform that could potentially have put user information at risk. Although the vulnerability is interesting, so too is the means and method by which it was discovered in the first place. Although Uber is a technology company, it didn't discover the flaw on its own, but rather by way of a third- party researcher, participating in a bug bounty program. "Through the endpoint at /rt/users/passwordless-signup it is possible to change the password of any Uber user, given knowledge of their phone number (or by just enumerating phone numbers until one is found that is registered with Uber—not too hard given the number of Uber users)," the HackerOne bug report 143717 details show. Uber officially launched its bug bounty program as a public effort in March. The bug bounty program is run on the HackerOne platform, with the promise of a payout of up to $10,000 for critical issues. As it turns out, bug report 143717 is a very critical issue. The issue was first reported to Uber on June 8 by a security researcher identified only by the alias "Mongo. " Uber responded to Mongo's report the same day and made nearly immediate changes to fix the identified issue. On June 28, Uber rewarded Mongo with a $10,000 bug bounty for responsibly disclosing the 143717 issue. The threat addressed in the 143717 issue, however, didn't become public until July 14. This was a critical issue, and it looks like the flaw could have had significant impact on Uber's business and its clients. Uber itself (and again Uber is a software company) did not find this issue on its own, despite its significant engineering and security resources. Remember, Uber is where security researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek now work. Miller and Valasek are the two researchers responsible for hacking a Jeep in 2015 that led to the recall of 1.4 million vehicles. So even a company like Uber, which employs two of the most well-known security researchers on Earth, did not find a critical vulnerability in its software on its own. "Uber runs an incredible competitive and transparent bug bounty program on HackerOne," Michiel Prins, co-founder, HackerOne, told eWEE K. "The security team at Uber utilizes a public bug bounty treasure map to guide hackers looking for vulnerabilities and they embrace public disclosure to help the security community at large. " When a more severe vulnerability is reported by a hacker and resolved by any security team, this is proof of the success and value of bug bounty programs, Prins added. The fact that Uber didn't find the flaw on its own is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather speaks to the incredible value and need for bug bounty programs. Simply put, there are almost always going to be more skilled security people outside a company than inside. By tapping into the broader security researcher community, any company, be it a software vendor or the U. S. Department of Defense, can get different viewpoints, and identify potentially previously unknown vulnerabilities. As for Uber security researchers Miller and Valasek, they too can potentially benefit from bug bounty programs. Fiat Chrysler America (FCA) recently launched its own bug bounty program on the Bugcrowd platform. In an interview with eWEEK at the time, Casey Ellis, CEO and founder of Bugcrowd, said that with the program, researchers like Miller and Valasek now have a platform to communicate flaws to FCA. The bottom line is that security researchers, wherever they might be, and for whomever they work, can and should be free to help improve security without being limited to their place of employment, and that's a promise that bug bounty platforms help enable. Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on @TechJournalist.

2016-07-24 22:54 Sean Michael www.eweek.com

2 Facebook Aquila Completes Successful Test Flight Facebook Aquila, an unmanned aircraft designed to stay aloft for 90 days and deliver the Internet to a 60- mile radius, completed its first successful flight. What has the wingspan of an airliner and can fly on the power of roughly three hair dryers? The answer: Facebook's Aquila, a solar- powered, unmanned aircraft that will beam the Internet to remote parts of the world. On June 28, Aquila took its first flight, sitting on a type of trailer bed being pulled by a truck and finally disconnecting and elegantly lifting over a runway cutting through the vast, scraggly desert of Yuma, Ariz. "After two years of development, it was emotional to see Aquila actually get off the ground," CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared on Facebook July 21. "But as big as this milestone is," he continued, "we still have a lot of work to do. Eventually, our goal is to have a fleet of Aquilas flying together at 60,000 feet, communicating with each other with lasers and staying aloft for months at a time—something that's never been done before. " To accomplish that, Zuckerberg explained, Facebook's engineering team will need to address some challenges. These include reducing Aquila's weight (which is currently around 1,000 pounds); reducing the amount of energy required to keep Aquila cruising; reducing the load, which is largely made up of high-energy batteries; and improving Aquila's ability to transfer data. Goals for Aquila include enabling it to stay in the air for 90 consecutive days, serve Internet connectivity to a 60-mile diameter and transfer data more than 10 times faster than existing systems, using beams to "hit a dime more than 11 miles away while in motion," Zuckerberg wrote. In a separate test, Facebook engineers shared that the flight test, while planned for 30 minutes, lasted 96 minutes, while the team collected valuable data on aspects of the craft's performance, including its radios, aerodynamic handling, batteries, motors and structural viability. That first test was powered only by batteries and used 2,000 watts (the "three hair dryers" estimate is 5,000 watts); but the plan is eventually to include solar cells. Aquila will need to collect enough energy during daylight hours to stay aloft overnight—an act that, flying at a nighttime altitude of 60,000 feet, is expected to require those 5,000 watts. "We are still analyzing the results of the extended test, including a structural failure we experienced just before landing," engineers Martin Luis Gomez and Andrew Cox, wrote on Facebook. "We hope to share more details on this and other structural tests in the future. To prove out the full capacity of the design, we will continue to push the plane to its limits under more extreme conditions in a lengthy series of tests. " Facebook's primary competitor in the space is Google, which has also designed and tested an unmanned aircraft for delivering high-speed Internet. Google's Solara 50 has a wingspan of about 164 feet (Aquila's is a little more than 113 feet) and mimics, by its broad strokes, a typical airplane silhouette, while Aquila is just the wide V of an airliner's wings. Little has been heard about Google's plans for Solara 50, since a model crashed last spring during a test flight. A spokesperson told Bloomberg at the time: "Part of building a new technology is overcoming hurdles along the way. "

2016-07-24 22:54 Michelle Maisto www.eweek.com

3 How Unity is preparing for the mobile VR revolution The gaming landscape looked quite different when TechRadar spoke to John Riccitiello, CEO at game engine Unity, back in June 2015. The HTC Vive and Oculus Rift were still eight months from release, and 2016 was being hyped up as the year that virtual reality would finally meet gamers' expectations. Though, as Riccitiello told us at the time, nobody quite knows just what they want from VR yet - and it's safe to say that rings true today. Unity's chief has since warned that it may take as long as 2020 for VR to be considered a success - at least in terms of sales numbers - as developers get to grips with coding for VR and headset prices begin to fall. That hasn't caused Unity to shy away from VR though, quite the opposite. The game engine now supports 24 platforms, and it can be used to deploy to Oculus Rift, Gear VR, Microsoft HoloLens, and PlayStation VR. Steam VR/Vive support is on the way, and native support for Google's Daydream VR headset is in the works. To drill deeper into game development and VR, TechRadar spoke to Marcos Sanchez, head of Corporate Communications at Unity. He believes that mobile VR products like Daydream and Samsung's GearVR are going to drive adoption of VR on a global scale. This is, he says, helped along the fact that 3 billion people own smartphones in 2016 (versus 1.5 billion PCs). The reality is that we have a lot to learn - such as social stuff. That's what John was really talking about, and I also think that him saying this is the year of VR doesn't necessarily mean that VR has matured. But I absolutely will say that this is the year that people start paying attention to VR. I think augmented reality will be equally as important. That's everything from doctors performing surgery to law enforcement and duration. AR is likely to be bigger than VR in the long run - I'd say in around ten to fifteen years. Google is in a unique position to drive and push innovation in this area because of the fact they're producing Android N and Daydream. They have the (as yet unannounced) minimum spec and an installed developer base that they're working with right now. I think that all of those things combined will really help to push things on further. I think that will help them compete with the folks who have been doing it for a while and have built up their asset collection. But just because the older guys have had an asset library, it doesn't mean that it automatically translates in the right way for them. They may be a bit ahead but not leaps and bounds, We wanted to answer the right question, that of "What is the best way to do VR editing? ", not "How do we get our product into VR editing? ". When you take that approach, it seems glaringly obvious that editing at scenes in VR makes a lot of sense. You can do CAD drawings, but until you're in the house then you won't know that the sofa is in the wrong place. You are able to more quickly and accurately understand an environment you're creating when you're in the middle of it rather than when you're coding and taking a headset on and off. With the backpack, you can have a more immersive experience that takes advantage of being tethered, allowing you to roam around multiple rooms, while the sensation of wearing a backpack is consistent with the visual stimuli – you're "carrying" a photon backpack. That said, with the increases in processing power and optimizations, it is mobile, such as Samsung Gear VR and the upcoming Google Daydream, that is most likely to give people untethered experiences in the near term. Long term, the headsets will become more self-sufficient and creative uses of things like WiFi for positioning will remove the need for backpacks. We're still experimenting and the hardware will be continually evolving. It will get there, but it may take a few years. I'm also a sucker for Finding Monsters in GearVR – that has a special place in my heart as it was a real "wow! " moment for me. And you have to love Tilt Brush – there's something so cool about drawing in a 3D space. Article continues below

2016-07-24 16:15 By Kane feedproxy.google.com

4 Remake of Suda51 mystery The Silver Case gets first trailer Before KIller 7 and , Suda51 made a text-heavy murder mystery named The Silver Case, and what with those being all the rage these days (thanks to , 999 and the like), it makes sense for there to be a remaster in the works. Not least because the original never made it Westward. Suda's studio is handling it, and it's coming to PC this Autumn/Fall (you'll be able to find it on Steam and ). You're expecting the game to be a bit weird, because Suda, but it's a little more serious and perhaps with a darker theme than his other games, at least if we judge it on the debut trailer alone. And I just love that character art, which reminds me a little of Shin Megami Tensei.

2016-07-24 16:00 By Tom www.pcgamer.com

5 5 Five new Steam games you probably missed this week On an average day, about a dozen new games are launched on Steam. And while we think that's a good thing , it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. Thanks in part to the website WhatsOnSteam.com , we’ve gone through every game that’s launched on Steam in the last week to find the diamonds in the rough. This list, updated every Sunday, won’t include the Grand Theft Autos or the Fallout 4s of Steam, focusing instead on the games that may have been easy to miss. These games seem the most promising, already have positive user reviews, and may be worth a second look. A pixelated action-, Red Rope: Don’t Fall Behind is about two people exploring a labyrinth while tied together by a relatively short rope. You can either control both characters on your own or play the game with a friend via local co-op. You have to fight enemies and solve puzzles, using their tether to your advantage. It’s a mechanic I haven’t seen in other games, and one I hope developer Yonder explores over the game’s 100 levels. A bomberman game with a cowboy aesthetic, Bombslinger just hit Early Access this week. It’s a refreshing look for an iconic gamemode. While multiplayer hasn’t been added yet, one of the biggest draws for a game like this, its single player looks interesting as is. Bombslinger may not be a game I want to buy right this minute, but once local multiplayer is added I could easily see it being added to my party game rotation. A point-and-click adventure game with a sense of humor, Kelvin and the Infamous Machine just left Early Access this week. Developer Blyts says the plot of the game centers around Kelvin, a lab assistant who “stumbles irresponsibly through history to help legendary geniuses complete their masterworks.” While the launch trailer is a bit campy, the game has a wonderful art style and some interesting looking puzzles. Plus, as PC gamers, it’s always nice to see more high quality point-and-click games being made. Swordy is one of the sillier local competitive games I’ve seen in awhile. As its name would imply, Swordy is about fighting each other with swords in a physics-based brawler. Maybe the name doesn’t imply all of that, but the trailer above should make the rest clear. Swordy launched on Early Access, and promises “major updates guided by our community every 4 to 6 weeks,” and what’s already there looks like a lot of fun. Unfortunately, as of now, you have to use a controller to play Swordy—not that it looks like an appealing game to play with a keyboard anyway. Another physics-based game, we actually already highlighted Human: Fall Flat when it came out. But after watching the trailer, it really does seem like a very clever puzzle game. It looks sort of like controlling a Gang Beasts fighter, but instead of punching your friends, you are pulling levers and solving puzzles with physics. The game also has a focus on exploration of the dream-like world you inhabit, and can even be played local co-op with another person.

2016-07-24 15:00 Tom Marks www.pcgamer.com

6 Marvel: Ultimate Alliance remasters hitting PC this Tuesday Back in prehistory (the PlayStation 2), two action RPGs came out that made great use of the Marvel license. Those games were X-Men Legends and X-Men Legends 2, and Marvel hasn't just announced it's re- releasing remastered versions of both games next Tuesday, for PC and the current consoles. No, we're getting Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 instead, the pretty good, next-generational follow-ups that boshed in the likes of Iron Man and Captain America as well. As you might have guessed, the news comes out of this weekend's San Diego Comic-Con, along with a dozen exciting trailers for upcoming superhero films. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and its sequel will be available individually or in a double-pack this coming Tuesday, in digital form. For your $39.99/$59.99 for both, you're getting better performance, along with visual and UI improvements. There's no word on whether the games' reams of downloadable content will be included in the package, but on the plus side, M:UA Remaster executive producer Mike Jones has said that "anything is possible" regarding a third entry in the series. Thanks, NeoGAF .

2016-07-24 14:00 By Tom www.pcgamer.com

7 8 things you need to know when buying a Chinese smartphone In March of this year a list of the world's top phone vendors was published. Twelve names were on it, and of those a stunning eight were Chinese. Far from the knock-off merchants they have so often been categorised as, companies such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and more have been almost unstoppable in their ascendance. But what does this mean for consumers in the West? On the surface of it, not a great deal. These manufacturers have tended to focus almost exclusively on China and other emerging markets, particularly India. For various reasons many of them have opted to avoid the West almost entirely, only dipping their toes in every now and then. A great deal of this has to do with patent law, which is a story for another day (preferably a long gloomy winter's eve). That means the handsets can be a little tricky to get hold of. The opportunity does exist for those of you with a little gumption and knowledge to successfully snare yourself a super Chinese smartphone. In doing so you can get a cracking deal, with specs to make even the most hardened power hounds weep with envy, and often at a third of the price of the well known flagships. The market is totally different however, and there are many pitfalls to avoid. Read on for eight top tips on buying handsets from abroad. This may seem like an obvious first step, but the reality is harder than you might think. To begin with there can often be a lack of reviews for many handsets, especially those from lesser known companies such as Doogee, Elephone and Cubot. Set a budget for yourself, trawl the web and draw up a list of three or four phones that particularly appeal (for example the Xiaomi Mi5 , the Elephone P9000 and the Meizu Pro 6). It's worth noting that there's a particular love for phablets in China, so those with smaller hands may want to steer clear. Everyone wants superfast internet on their smartphone, so a key thing to check is whether the phones you're looking at support the correct LTE bands for your country. Many Chinese handsets come without support for Band 20, which for example is used by O2 in the UK, and would mean no 3G or 4G internet when using such a phone on a network which relies on this band. The next thing to do is look a little further into the company behind your handset. Take Xiaomi for instance. Every phone from the firm comes running MIUI, a proprietary skin of Android , and does not run Google services. Xiaomi regularly updates its software, bringing new versions of Android to customers at a relatively decent speed. However, it's the exception rather than the rule. If you plan on keeping your handset for any length of time, try to ensure you pick a manufacturer with an established reputation for software update support, otherwise the first bug you find may continue indefinitely. There's another major thing to bear in mind before buying a Chinese smartphone, after-sales support. If you would like to receive this, don't buy 'gray imports'. With limited presence (and in some cases none) in the West, parts and expertise are scant should a repair be needed, so have a think before buying and certainly before dropping the phone you've chosen onto unforgiving cement. This may change in the years to come as manufacturers continue to expand their global presence, but for the moment it can be a difficult choice to make. This is perhaps the most important step, as making the wrong choice can mean weeks, maybe months of disappointment and despair. Different phone manufacturers depend on different sites. Meizu and Oppo phones can generally be purchased through Amazon, while Xiaomi devices are usually available from the likes of AliExpress and GearBest. Where possible, try to get stock shipped from a warehouse relatively near you, for example from Europe if you're in the UK, and also make sure to choose a guaranteed delivery option. Research each vendor before making a purchase, and pay close attention to user reviews. If several people have had a bad experience that should be a red flag. Due to firewall restrictions in China, the vast majority of Chinese phones come without Google's suite of apps installed. They instead run a custom software package ('ROM') overlaid on top of the core Android platform. That doesn't necessarily mean you'll be in passion of a dud, as you can get Google's offerings with an international ROM with support for English and Google Play. Many vendors will give the option to ship with an international ROM, but beware of this as devices bought this way may come preloaded with malware. Choose a handset with an unlockable bootloader, and preferably with a microSD slot too, and check that an international ROM is available. You can then manually flash the ROM to the phone, minus any potentially nasty malware or unnecessary additional applications. An important point when purchasing any phone from abroad is; be aware of customs. Having a device shipped from the same country will help to avoid this situation, but it isn't always an option. Often when shipping from China, not only will the device in question take several weeks to arrive, but when it does an extra charge has sometimes been applied, proportional to the cost of the device, potentially up to 20%. Take care, and definitely factor in this potential extra expense when having products delivered, as otherwise cheap phones can skyrocket in price when extra hurdles are applied, thus negating any cost advantage. So you've done it! Every hurdle has been cleared, except making the phone usable. On the setup screen, change the language to English (or your lingo of choice). This daunting step completed, there remains the issue of installing the Google Play store should it not be present - and should it be possible. On Xiaomi devices this can be accomplished by downloading an app from the Xiaomi store, on others it can require full on flashing. Buying phones from far-flung locales can be a highly rewarding process. If done correctly, you can end up with a powerful, beautiful device with an impressively low price point. If anything goes wrong however, it can mean that your lovely slice of eastern delight ends up a very decorative paperweight. Two tenets above all hold true: exercise whatever amount of common sense you may possess judiciously, and become the forum lurker you were born to be, as there is no better source of information than someone who has already made a purchase. Article continues below

2016-07-24 14:00 By Sean feedproxy.google.com

8 Cyanogen reportedly cuts jobs, may shift its focus toward apps Cyanogen appears to be undergoing a major shakeup, according to reports from Android Police and Recode. Citing “multiple sources,” Android Police reported Friday that the company was “in the midst of laying off a significant portion of its workforce around the world.” According to Android Police’s sources, the company has laid off about 20 percent of its staff, though the report notes that “it’s unclear” whether more employees will also lose their jobs. Recode confirmed the report Friday evening with its own sources, and added that Cyanogen “is said to be working on a new strategy being overseen by newly hired Chief Operating Officer Lior Tal,” formerly of Facebook.

2016-07-24 12:07 Nick Mediati www.greenbot.com

9 10 Agile Tips From Pokemon Go Coach Training Have you heard of this new game everyone's playing? "Pokémon Go," I think is what they're calling it. I had read about it, but it really came into focus when I saw a group of people with smart phones held at arm's length wandering around the lawn outside a nearby hospital. This is a serious game with serious implications... for agile development . As with so many aspects of life, it only took a few days before articles started appearing on the web with advice on how to be a better Pokémon Go trainer. It was only a couple of days later we began to see ads for people willing to catch and train Pokémon for you, but we're not here to talk about PaaS (Pokémon-as-a-Service). Instead, we're here to talk about how becoming a better Pokémon trainer can help you become a better product owner or scrum master within the agile development discipline. I know that there are many who will see absolutely no parallels between running around the landscape chasing imaginary monsters with a smartphone and leading an agile team developing enterprise software. I think those people haven't looked deeply enough at the process of catching and training all those pocket monsters now scattered about the landscape. The link between the two is strong, with deep lessons for scrum masters to be taken from the exercises necessary to "catch them all" in the Pokémon universe. [See Agile vs. DevOps: 10 Ways They're Different.] I went around the internet looking for tips on becoming a better Pokémon Go trainer and found a bunch that translate directly into ideas that will help you be a better product owner or scrum master. Out of that group, I've chosen 10 that you should be able to put to use very quickly in order to make a real impact on your next sprint. Have you become a great Pokémon trainer? Is Pokémon Go taking over your office? I'd really like to hear about your experience with Pokémon Go -- and about all the ways that the game has helped you with your agile experience. The links are out there. Let's hit the parks and catch those Pokémon -- and the lessons they carry! 2016-07-24 12:06 Curtis Franklin www.informationweek.com

10 Watson Offers Macy's AI Help, Workday Acquisition: Big Data Roundup Retailer Macys is the most recent beneficiary of IBM's AI Watson cognitive computing capabilities. Google's AI investment pays off in energy savings. The search giant introduces a couple of new machine learning APIs. SaaS-based enterprise applications upstart Workday has made a new acquisition in the analytics and big data realms. Let's start with IBM and Macy's. This week the retailer announced a pilot of "Macy's On Call," a mobile web tool that lets customers interact with an AI-powered platform via their mobile devices. Think of it as Siri for Macy's customers. Except this is via Satisfi , the location-based intelligent engagement platform. The solution will be rolled out to enhance the customer in-store shipping experience at 10 test locations nationwide. Will it help you locate your size instantly so you can get in and out of the store before you are sprayed by perfume-wielding store workers? Unclear at this point. We haven't tested it. What the companies say it will do is enable customers to ask a question about products, services, or facilities, and receive a customized response. The companies noted that a customers may ask for the location of women's shoes, and may also specify a particular brand of shoes. That customer will then receive a relevant response with the location of matching products in the store, according to the two companies. The pilot will include a Spanish language feature to reach a broader set of customers in select stores, Macy's noted. [How some sports teams are getting the edge with analytics. Read Hudl Sports Video Analysis Service Grows Fast on Amazon.] "This particular use case takes Watson beyond helping consumers evaluate purchasing decisions, and influences another, equally important aspect of the in-store experience -- ease of use in locating products, facilities, and services," said David Kenny, general manager of IBM Watson, in a prepared statement. "As more developer partners like Satisfi continue to build with the technology, we see Watson more frequently being delivered into the hands of consumers, and we’re looking forward to learning more from this pilot with Macy’s and Satisfi. " Google has cut its energy use for data centers by up to 40% , thanks to the insights delivered by its DeepMind artificial intelligence. The company reported that it had begun using machine learning two years ago to help it save energy at its data centers, and more recently added artificial intelligence from its DeepMind research, significantly improving the results. The energy savings come from improving power usage effectiveness by 15%, which includes accounting for non-cooling inefficiencies and electrical losses. Google also said it has focused on reducing data center energy usage over the past decade by investing in green energy resources and building its own efficient servers. Google notes that its ultimate goal is to power its data centers completely with renewable energy. Meanwhile, Google also announced two new beta versions of Cloud Machine Learning product APIs, Cloud Natural Language, and Cloud Speech. Google unveiled the news in a blog post this week. The Google Cloud Natural Language API enables revealing the structure and meaning of text in languages including English, Spanish, and Japanese. It includes sentiment analysis, entity recognition, and syntax analysis. The Cloud Speech API gives enterprises and developers access to speech-to-text conversion in over 80 languages for both apps and IoT devices, Google said. Cloud Speech uses the voice recognition that powers Google Search and Google Now. Software-as-a-service enterprise applications company Workday announced via a blog post on July 21 that it will acquire Platfora , a provider of operational analytics and data discovery tools that let companies make sense out of huge amounts of data (on the scale of petabytes) instantly. "With the Platfora team and its technology unified within Workday, we will continue enriching the analytics in Workday Financial Management and Workday Human Capital Management so our customers can be even more prepared to tackle business problems and seize opportunities today and into the future," the company announced in its post .

2016-07-24 11:05 Jessica Davis www.informationweek.com

11 51% off Inflatable Lounge Bag Hammock Air Sofa and Pool Float - Deal Alert This innovative "lounge" requires no external pump and is a suitable substitute for folding chairs, bean bags, hammocks, picnic blankets and pool floats. To inflate, simply unfold, scoop air into it, roll and buckle. Elastic loops allow you to anchor your lounger to solid ground in the windiest conditions. Currently averages 5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from 59 reviewers ( read reviews ). It's list price of $79.99 has been reduced by 51% to just $39. See this discounted summer item now on Amazon.

2016-07-24 11:00 DealPost Team www.computerworld.com

Total 11 articles. Created at 2016-07-25 00:00