Curated for content, computing, and digital experience professionals

Category: Computing & data (Page 55 of 80)

Computing and data is a broad category. Our coverage of computing is largely limited to software, and we are mostly focused on unstructured data, semi-structured data, or mixed data that includes structured data.

Topics include computing platforms, analytics, data science, data modeling, database technologies, machine learning / AI, Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, augmented reality, bots, programming languages, natural language processing applications such as machine translation, and knowledge graphs.

Related categories: Semantic technologies, Web technologies & information standards, and Internet and platforms.

Gilbane Advisor 10-7-20 — GPT-3, Qubits, AGI, Wayback

AI democratization in the era of GPT-3

The recent announcement of Microsoft’s exclusive license to OpenAI’s GPT-3 says that in addition to using it for their own products, they will continue to work with OpenAI to help “democratize AI”. The GPT-3 code is not open source, but OpenAI provides free access to GPT-3 via an API, and says it will continue to do so. We’re left to speculate what this means beyond that. Will future models provide free access? Will they be exclusively licensed to Microsoft (an investor) or others? What does democratization in this context mean? Without making a value judgement about this, it’s clear that those building applications using GPT-3 API will have a lot of additional questions.

This article by Professor Mark Riedl from Georgia Institute of Technology is a great place to start.

Are you ready for quantum computing?​​

Quantum computing isn’t ready for prime time for practical business application yet, but it has lots of promise for industry use beyond encryption. Quantum computing is difficult for most of us to get our head around, nonetheless, senior executives and strategists need to track its progress and consider potential use cases. Fortunately, Professor of Physics and Computer Science, Shohini Ghose has provided a short and accessible general introduction, hype-free status update, and some good advice for business leaders.

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), a type of artificial intelligence that is at least as capable as human intelligence, is not a near-term reality. Ben Medlock agrees, and argues that humans have an unfair advantage in the scope and richness of our model, and that though we don’t know how, our bodies play a critical role in creating and maintaining our model.

This means that when a human approaches a new problem, most of the hard work has already been done. In ways that we’re only just beginning to understand, our body and brain, from the cellular level upwards, have already built a model of the world that we can apply almost instantly to a wide array of challenges. But for an AI algorithm, the process begins from scratch each time.

The weaponization of web archives: Data craft and COVID-19 publics

An enlightening academic look at provenance-hijacking tactics focused on current pandemic health misinformation.

Using provenance information such as original context, technical specificities, and unique characteristics of online resources from web crawls, and social analytics data from the Crowdtangle API we find that web archives like the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine are being weaponized to propagate and preserve health misinformation circulating on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Also…

The Gilbane Advisor is curated by Frank Gilbane for content technology, computing, and digital experience professionals. The focus is on strategic technologies. We publish more or less twice a month except for August and December. We do not sell or share personal data.

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O’Reilly launches O’Reilly Answers

O’Reilly announced the launch of O’Reilly Answers, an advanced natural language processing (NLP) engine that delivers quick, contextually relevant answers to challenging technical questions posed by users through O’Reilly online learning. With a one-click integration into Slack, O’Reilly Answers helps users learn from and discover content. Leveraging advanced machine learning techniques, the O’Reilly Answers search engine provides relevant highlights and snippets from O’Reilly’s library of expert content across thousands of O’Reilly’s titles, pointing users directly to only the most applicable resources. To encourage deeper discovery, the feature allows users to drill down into full content pieces from referenced titles. To further improve productivity, all functions of O’Reilly Answers are available through a simple Slack Integration.

https://www.oreilly.com/online-learning/

Dstl releases free Baleen 3 data processing update

The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has released a new free version of its popular data processing tool. Baleen 3 is a tool for building data processing pipelines using the open source Annot8 framework and succeeds Baleen 2, one of the first open source projects by Dstl, the science inside UK defence and security. It offers users the ability to search, process and collate data, and is suitable for personal and commercial applications. It has been used across government, and by industry and academia, and also internationally as well as in the UK.

The tool enables the creation of a bespoke chain of “processors” to extract information from unstructured data (e.g. text documents, images). For example, Baleen 3 could process a folder with thousands of Word Documents and PDFs in it to extract all e-mail addresses and phone numbers in those documents and store them in a database. As well as text, Baleen 3 can also find and extract images within those documents, perform OCR to find text within those images, translate that text into English, and then run machine learning models to find mentions of People within those images. Baleen 3 supports components developed within the Annot8 framework, and as a result it is easy to extend and develop further to cover new use cases and provide additional functionality. There are already a large number of components available for use within the Annot8 framework, including some previously developed by Dstl.

Following the release of Baleen 3, support for the existing Baleen 2 project will be withdrawn. Dstl is encouraging all users to move to using Baleen 3 where possible. Baleen 3 is built on top of newer technologies, and will be easier to maintain and deploy as a result of the upgrade. It also extends Baleen 2’s focus on text to support other forms of unstructured data, such as images. Baleen 3 is available to download now.

https://github.com/dstl/baleen

Expert System announces rebrand to Expert.ai

With more than 20 years’ industry experience in the Artificial Intelligence market, Expert System has rebranded to become expert.ai. This effort highlights the company’s vision to redefine what is possible in extracting value from language to make the most of information. As the AI market evolves, there is a growing demand from organizations to easily transform their information into knowledge and insight for better decision making with speed and accuracy. As part of this go to market transition, expert.ai is introducing a new logo, new corporate image and new website. The rebrand follows the rollout of the company’s 2020-2024 strategic plan which aims to accelerate global growth and capitalize on the flourishing artificial intelligence market and a newly released cloud-based Natural Language API.

https://expert.ai

Exasol and Pyramid Analytics partner

Exasol, the high-performance analytics database, announced a new strategic partnership with Pyramid Analytics, provider of an analytics platform for the enterprise. Together, Exasol and Pyramid will bring an enhanced analytics experience to their customers, allowing business users and IT teams to become more agile and make the most of their data. Both technologies can be deployed together anywhere—on-premises, in the cloud, and in hybrid architectures. Joint customers will be able to execute complex business calculations quickly and at scale, regardless of data volumes, environment of choice, or number of users.

Pyramid’s calculation engine works natively on Exasol via a direct connection, so no data is ever extracted or duplicated. This offers security and performance advantages, while simultaneously enabling governed self-service analytics through Pyramid’s business user friendly interface. In addition, Pyramid allows business analysts to easily load external data sets into Exasol where they can be combined with existing Exasol tables to fuel machine learning models.

https://www.exasol.com/, https://www.pyramidanalytics.com

SmartBear announces integration of ReadyAPI and SwaggerHub

SmartBear, provider of software development and quality tools, has integrated its API quality platform, ReadyAPI, with SwaggerHub, its API design and documentation platform. ReadyAPI users are now able to setup and manage a connection in their SwaggerHub account within ReadyAPI, search and filter through definitions in SwaggerHub, and more. Together, ReadyAPI and SwaggerHub provide the a comprehensive API tooling for all stages of the API lifecycle to help ensure high quality software. The integration streamlines the process of logging in to SwaggerHub from ReadyAPI as well as storing information for re-use when performing actions against SwaggerHub.

To highlight the interconnectedness of SmartBear API solutions, the three modules of the ReadyAPI platform have been renamed under the ReadyAPI brand. SoapUI Pro, the API testing tool, is now ReadyAPI Test, reflecting that ReadyAPI supports RESTful, GraphQL, and other API standards in addition to SOAP. LoadUI Pro, the way to API load test, is now ReadyAPI Performance. ServiceV Pro, which allows anyone in the delivery pipeline to create mocking and service virtualization, is now ReadyAPI Virtualization. The name SoapUI, the open source solution that SmartBear supports, will remain unchanged. The consolidation under the ReadyAPI brand ensures these three API tools are delivered in one centralized, intuitive platform. From planning and designing APIs to developing, testing and deploying, Agile and DevOps teams can ensure ReadyAPI and SwaggerHub are meeting their needs when building APIs.

https://smartbear.com/

DataStax announces DataStax Fast 100 program

DataStax announced the DataStax Fast 100 program to quickly align Apache Cassandra experts to enterprise projects. Cassandra is an open-source, NoSQL database. The partners currently on-board, with more to come, include: Deloitte, Expero Inc, and Anant Corporation. The program enables swift enablement for partners with consultants certified and ready to deliver on Cassandra engagements within 30-days.

Practitioners cite a lack of skilled staff as the top obstacle to Cassandra adoption. When asked what it would take for practitioners to use Cassandra for more applications and features in production, they said “easier to migrate” and “easier to integrate.” The DataStax Fast 100 aligns prequalified partners to enterprises to help ensure their success. The program will help enterprises with business modernization, technical migrations, cloud-native data platforms, and various mission-critical use cases.

https://www.datastax.com/partners/datastax-fast-100

Cloudflare announces privacy-first Web Analytics for all website owners

Cloudflare, Inc. launched Cloudflare Web Analytics to provide accurate, clear, and free analytics for anyone who cares about how their site is performing and doesn’t want to sacrifice their visitors’ privacy. Cloudflare Web Analytics is built on top of Cloudflare’s existing network, giving site owners insight into key traffic metrics at the edge. Now site owners have control over their own site data, eliminating the need for third-party scripts that can track their users and help retarget them with advertising. Cloudflare Web Analytics will be available, for free, to any website owner, whether they are an existing Cloudflare customer or not.

Unlike ad-supporting analytics companies, Cloudflare’s business model has never been about tracking individual users across the web. Cloudflare does not track where visitors are going online, and can help web owners get clear and accurate information about how their sites are performing without the need to profile users. Cloudflare already processes the requests for sites on its network and can collect analytics at the edge without adding third-party analytics scripts to a website. This privacy-friendly approach measures a ‘visit’ by looking at the source of each request, rather than tracking individual user behavior. Cloudflare Web Analytics also does not conflict with ad blockers, which frequently block third-party analytics tools from measuring anything at all. When combined with Cloudflare’s Bot Management tool, automated bot traffic that could skew analytics is also filtered out for improved accuracy.

Cloudflare paid customers can enjoy Web Analytics today. In the coming months, Cloudflare Web Analytics will be available to any website owner including those not on Cloudflare’s network. If you are not an existing Cloudflare customer on a paid plan, you can add your name to the waitlist.

https://www.cloudflare.com/web-analytics/

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