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Robots are becoming more commonplace in our daily lives, from manufacturing the vehicles we drive, to vacuuming our floors, and delivering our room service.  And, pretty soon, they may be stealing your job.  A new report from McKinsey estimates that up to 800 million jobs will be replaced by robots by 2030.  And, with figures from the UN estimating the world population at 8.5 billion by that time, approximately 10% of jobs previously held by humans will be held by machines.

The worst of this economic shift will be felt in wealthier nations like the US, Japan, and South Korea, simply because they have the capital to invest in robotic technology.  Plus, they have the markets that demand quick acces to goods, affordably, and strong export infrastructure.  Over the long run, robotic technology provides the volume and cost savings that consumers demand.  Poorer countries will of course not be subject to as intense of a robotic shift because their financial needs are elsewhere.

It has been assumed that robotic technology will only touch blue collar, low paid jobs but research is now finding applications for them in law, among other professional industries with repetive tasks and data.  At the most risk?  Restaurant dish washers and clerical workers.  The report also suggests other occupations at risk:

• Machine and building equipment operators
• Food preparation workers
• Waiters

However, the robot's influence won't be felt everywhere - health workers, computer engineers, construction workers, and schoolteachers cannot be replaced and can breathe a sigh of relief (for now).  But what about those who are handed a robotic pink slip?  There will still be plenty of jobs, and the report even suggests that Japan will have an urgent need for caretakers for its aging population that workers can transition to.

This report was based on a November 30, 2017 Business Insider article by Shona Ghosh.

OpenText, a global leader in Enterprise Information Management and PaperFree partner, has announced its recent definitive agreement to become a reseller partner within Dell EMC's Select Partner program.  Initially, the agreement covers OpenText InfoArchive to round out Dell EMC's IT transformation product suite.  InfoArchive is a unique product that enables companies to transition their old data from legacy systems to industry-current ones with ease.  With this addtion, InfoArchive will be available immediately through Dell EMC's services.

“A modern digital strategy enables enterprise customers to simplify IT, reduce operational costs, streamline compliance and deliver business insight.  A major roadblock to realizing complete digital transformation of an organization is the enormous volume of data and content contained in legacy systems.  The agreement between OpenText and Dell EMC is the first stage of a dynamic and growing relationship between the two companies. The combination of OpenText’s leading EIM platform, and Dell EMC’s leading storage services and solutions, will enable our customers to meet and exceed their digital transformation goals.”

- Adam Howatson, CMO, OpenText

Dell EMC is excited to partner with OpenText to add InfoArchive to its product line.  By doing this, their customers can add a comprehensive and powerful utility to their IT transformation efforts, all while maintaining access to archived data in an easy and regulatory-compliant way.  InfoArchive is compatible with a variety of Dell EMC storage platforms, such as Isilon, ECS, and Dell EMC Application Archving and Retirement Service.

This article was based on a November 16, 2017 OpenText press release.  Click here to learn more about InfoArchive.

According to new research by Google and Berkeley, there are "hundreds of millions" of pieces of stolen login information traded on hacker forums and the dark web - and some of it still works.  This research used Googles own internal data for analysis, and researchers estimated that up to 25% of these credentials are still current and their associated accounts exposed.  According to the report: "Through a combination of password re-use across thousands of online services and targeted collection, we estimated 7–25% of stolen passwords in our dataset would enable an attacker to log in to a victim’s Google account and thus take over their online identity due to transitive trust."

The issue is rooted simply is the practice of reusing passwords across multiple platforms - email, Twitter, Facebook, banking, etc.  If one platform is compromised, a common username and password could work elsewhere, and hackers know to check.  And, the ultimate prize is access to an email account, which provides a buffet into a person's online presence via information and password resets.  It's not just the little guys who are getting hacked: Channing Tatum, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, CTO Werner Vogels, and even Mark Zuckerberg himself have been subject to compromised accounts.  In Zuckerberg's case it was his common password of "dadada" on his Twitter and Pinterest accounts that got him into trouble and his Twitter was hijacked by a group calling themselves OurMine.

So, how are hackers getting these credentials in the first place?  The first way is of course through hacking a platform and stealing databases of information, but the second method is phishing, which despite awareness is still quite successful.  A third also exists too - keylogger viruses that surreptitiously send a user's login info to a hacker as they log into their accounts.  Research also found that these viruses have not evolved over the years either - meaning that operating system developers aren't building resistance into their platforms.

All of this begs the question..."what can I do?" and there are a few things you can do to help protect yourself.  The researchers of this study recommend the following:

• Enabling two factor authentication - meaning that logging into an account not only requires a username and password, but also a code sent via text message to a separate device or account.
• Use a password manageer - these utilities can generate unique passwords for each of your accounts (and also helps you remember them).
• Don't use insecure passwords - passwords like 123456 or abc123 are just asking for trouble, so use a password that uses a hard-to-guess combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.

Using the above methods to secure your online presence is a great starting point, but one should always be cautious of unsolicited emails requesting a login, or sketchy links.  And what became of the accounts that the researchers found to be compromised?  Google enabled a forced password reset on them.

This article was based on a November 13, 2017 TechInsider.com article by Kif Leswing.

As information becomes digital more and more large companies are facing an increasing need to manage their Big Data needs with adaptable storage.  What's taking up all their storage?  Written records, customer service calls, IoT information, and other industry-specific information.  For example, insurance giant IAG managed 80TB last year but now it's managing 2PB and that data store is growing by 14TB a month.  All of this data falls under what the industry calls "volume, variety, and velocity" of data.

Our data needs are growing too - Cisco estimates that global internet traffic will crest 3.3ZB by 2021 a year.  Monthly internet demand is also estimated to reach 35GB per capita.  Though these numbers reflect a fair amount of data held on consumer devices, it does show that our consumption of data is on the rise.

At IAG, storage architecture largely consists of open source storage, and added commodity and converged storage in software-defined networks has enabled IAG to get storage in place more quickly when needed.  This ability to access additional storage comes in handy for situations like natural disasters, where demand for insurance services and room to store associated data is high.  However, this capability also comes with the need to balance cost with growth and capability.  IAG manages this by deploying a shared OpenStack cluster with multiple hosting providers.  It also has five storage tiers, with the highest tier being all flash.  Each tier is designed with a 25% buffer for quick needs and is reviewed quarterly.

More and more companies are turning toward cloud and flash storage, but they all can't switch over just yet.  Many are still running backups on different storage standards, and even daily software that isn't designed for the speed that these methods offer.  To address this, Dell EMC has taken the approach of containerization, which lessens the demand for addtional resources, but that doesn't solve the issue that old software faces.

Cloud storage is no perfect method - it doesn't work for all software and latency is an issue - so for now its major use is in backup and recovery.  However, as technology continues to develop we may see more of a reliance on cloud storage and processing for all things computing.

This article was based on a ComputerWeekly.com article by Beverley Head.  Read it here.

Ever get frustrated with your phone's personal assitant not being able to understand you?  Or have you received a transcribed voicemail that made no sense?  Those days are numbered thanks to innovations at Microsoft - their AI's voice recognititon engine error rate has now reached an all time low of 5.1%; comparable to the error rate of humans' comprehension of speech.  Microsoft credits "neural-net based acoustic and language models" for this improvement, as well as giving its AI the ability to analyze context when deciphering speech.  For example, the phrase "let's leave it red" could be interpreted as "let's leave it read", which could prove to be a confusing transcription for recipients.  However, if the AI has the opportunity to consider to the entire block of speech and hears the word "logo", "colors" and the like, it can safely assume that the conversation is about a design decision and "red" is the correct word.  Or, if the speech talks about messages or replying, it can understand that "read" is correct.  Microsoft technical fellow Xuedong Huang, who reported the error rate success, says that this has been a Microsoft research goal for 25 years.

Though a technological breakthrough, Microsoft's engine still faces challeneges in understanding speech in noisy environments, accents, and colloquial phrases.  Plus, this success hasn't spread to other languages yet either, as each language handles individual elements differently and there may be limited training models available for less-spoken languages.  However, Huang adds "Moreover, we have much work to do in teaching computers not just to transcribe the words spoken, but also to understand their meaning and intent. Moving from recognizing to understanding speech is the next major frontier for speech technology."

It remains to be seen just how influential AI understanding of speech will be, but it's poised to be a major technological development when it happens.

This article was based on an August 21, 2017 Business Insider article by Rob Price.  Read it here.

OpenText, a gloabal leader in Enterprise Information Management and PaperFree partner, recently announced a successful project for Center for Life Management (CLM), a nonprofit behavioral health care provider based in New Hampshire.  The solution addressed the need for faster records input and access, as well as decommissioned a decade old legacy EIM system that could not be scaled as the organization grew.  OpenText chose ApplicationXtender and ECM Toolbox Workflow to meet CLM's needs, as well as provide room to grow in the future.

According to Patrick Ulmen, vice president and chief information officer at CLM, OpenText ApplicationXtender was chosen "because [they] wanted a system that would help us realize our mission of ‘Changing Lives, Saving Lives’, and do it in a responsible way.  We don’t only deliver services, but also bill for the services, document the services, store records associated with the services, and then mine those records to figure out what we are doing well and what we can do better. We then take that information and drive it into improving services.”

In the past, CLM's front desk staff had the double duty of welcoming patients, gathering paper information and copies for manual input later, and for later visits catching any changes to the patient's information or insurance.  Now, insurance cards are scanned during check in and back office staff is automatically notified of changes via ApplicationXtender's Workflow Manager.  This allows billing to be done more accurately and front desk staff can more easily focus on preparing patients for their appointments.

Ulmen also notes that for non profits staffing can be a struggle - funds are carefully managed and a new system had to provide the resources for workers to do their jobs better.  However, he notes that better worker resources meant that patients had a better experience at CLM.  This better experience is facilitated by faster information lookup - which is down to 3 seconds.  All final documents are also stored on the system and are accessible even if the electronic medical records go down.  Faster data lookup has also returned increased productivity to the over 100 staff members who use the system daily.  CLM is also taking advantage of ApplicationXtender in other ways by utilizing it to manage HR records as well.

CLM has been pleased with the results they've been seeing with OpenText ApplicationXtender and looks forward to the benefits it will bring to their organization.

This article was based on an August 8, 2017 press release by OpenText.  Read it here.

As the conversation about autonomous cars heats up, BMW is looking at a different way to make use of cloud technology to power how their vehicles operate.  Their focus?  Owning the customer experience and making it fit the rest of the driving experience.  Instead of outsourcing infotainment to another company, BMW has decided to keep it in-house while accommodating Apple CarPlay integration.  BMW's target market is decidedly tech-savvy, and by tapping into this attribute they have the upper hand on making a product that fits all aspects of a customer's lifestyle compared to the oft-panned infotainment systems in competing products.

BMW has taken a step towards this seamless integration by acquiring Nokia's Chicago software team and its experience in mobile, cloud, and internet services.  One of the biggest barriers to applying this expertise to in-vehicle software thus far has been the disparity in cycles: tech updates every two years or so while vehicle generations stick around up to three times longer.  And, because of tech cycles, vehicle software is nearly always out of date, even when the vehicle is brand new.  The other trouble is that even the newest infotainment system is outdated quickly, and there is no way to offer system updates so old technology is on the road long past its relevance.

Many manufacturers are working around this by adopting Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integration into their infotainment systems.  This moves the burden of current tech to the owners' smartphones, which are nearly always online and able to receive updates.  Smartphone integration then handles the majority of audio, navigation, and message notifications, and less tech reliant systems such as climate control or setting personalization are handled in other menus or by physical switchgear.  However, to address this challenge effectively BMW felt that the answers were in the cloud instead of a third party's product.  Though BMW has integrated Apple CarPlay it has done so reluctantly and has forgone Android Auto completely.

Here is where Microsoft enters the tech picture - BMW is working with them and other companies to customize their cloud products for in-vehicle use and is heavily utilizing the Microsoft Azure Cloud platform to see it through.  Now, you can receive Outlook notifications in your BMW and support for Skype is coming soon.  However, BMW is always striving for a premium product and here is no exception - you'll never see a Microsoft logo.  BMW insists on retaining complete control over how the user interacts with the system and how they see it.  Currently, they are working on a solution for the Siri/OK Google problem as those popular personal assistants are well-loved by their users but do not fit into the premium schematic.  With cloud integration comes other benefits - now engineers can see how the software is used in real life and push updates to fine tune the experience or resolve bugs.  So far this year 260 updates have been pushed out, compared to the 0 that have made it to many other brands' infotainment systems.

Sure, BMW is taking ownership of the customer experience but it's not just doing it so that you can get a reminder about that 3pm meeting without looking at your phone, it's doing it to ready the platform for fully autonomous vehicles in the future.  When drivers suddenly turn into riders there is a vastly untapped productivity market and BMW wants to be the first on scene.  By taking the steps now to set them apart later, BMW hopes to solidify its market share as vehicle manufacturers transition to software developers too.

This article was based on a July 30, 2017 TechCrunch article by Frederic Lardinois.  Read it here.

Recognizing an opportunity to teach scouts real-world skills, the Girl Scouts of the USA has recently partnered with Palo Alto Networks to develop a program consisting of 18 earnable badges to teach scouts cybersecurity skills.  Girl Scout badges are insignia awarded to scouts once they have completed requirements to develop mastery of a given topic - and the number of possible badges available across all levels of scouts numbers in the hundreds.  This partnership was announced by Girl Scouts of the USA CEO Sylvia Acevedo at the Palo Alto Networks Ignite '17 conference in Vancouver, Canada.  An accomplished woman herself, Acevedo reports that the addition of these new badges open opportunities to scouts of all ages to explore topics in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), while also developing leadership and problem-solving skills.  In fact, the emphasis put on STEM learning as a young Girl Scout is what led Acevedo into her career as a rocket scientist at the Jet Propulsion Labs at NASA and she also reports that 90% of female astronauts who've been to space were Girl Scouts, along with 80% of female leaders in Silicon Valley.  “So we know how to create that STEM pipeline, and in the past two years we have had more than 1.8 million hands-on science activities, with computer science and cyber security being the top two things that Girl Scouts wanted to learn more about,” said Acevedo.

Girls as young as five years old will have opportunities to participate in the program, which also spans up to high school age scouts.  The first badges are expected to be awarded in September 2018.  Palo Alto Networks, the partner in this project, is a Santa Clara, California-based network and enterprise security company.

Not only are the cybersecurity skills earned by scouts useful, they are also needed in the marketplace.  Cybersecurity Ventures reports that there will be a global deficit of 3.5 million cybersecurity professionals by 2021, and as it is women account for just 11% of these professionals currently.  Sadly, reports by the Computing Technology Industry Association show that 69% of women who had interest in pursuing IT careers chose not to out of concern for lack of opportunties later on.  The Girl Scouts of the USA hopes to change this - their programs aim to prepare women for these types of careers should they choose to pursue them, which will ultimately bring more diversity to the industry.  “It is our hope that this collaboration will serve to cultivate our troops’ budding interest in cyber security by providing access to invaluable knowledge that may not otherwise be available to girls in many communities across the US,” Acevedo said.

Click here to read more of this story at Computer Weekly.

PaperFree Corporation strengthens its offerings for information management solutions with the announcement that the company has added M-Files to its current suite of offerings. This addition further enhances the company’s ability to provide advanced content management and workflow solutions to a variety of new and existing customers. “We are always on the lookout for new or visionary technologies that we can bring to our customers. In addition, M-Files also provides us with additional consumption options with their cloud and subscription based licensing models. We are pleased to add M-Files to our current product basket” says James Robinson, President and CEO.  

PaperFree is a leader in information capture and management solutions for both business and government. Automation of business processes help to bring much needed efficiency gains, improved customer service, and significant cost savings for their customers.  

John Deere, the ubiquitous name in farming equipment, isn't just your granpa's tractor anymore.  Though the company has enjoyed popularity throughout its 180-year history, it still has had to innovate to stay at the lead of the pack.  A recent story in Network World explores the technological advancements they've added to their products - essentially adding brains to the brawn.

Network World's article explores the John Deere Intelligent Solutions Group, which they describe as a "skunk works with tractors" as an homage to the specialized Lockheed Martin aircraft design division.  The Intelligent Solutions Group (ISG) is an IoT development division within John Deere and its task is add value to the products via technology.  Initially, the group's task was to add adding cellular modems to the machinery for the purpose of collecting usage data and the company quickly realized the potential of allowing this group the autonomy to innovate.  Now, their bread and butter is location-based tech added to the equipment.  As vast as farmlands are, the industry is actually quite precise: seeds must be placed perfectly to maximize yield, sprayers must deliver fertilizer directly to the soil over them, and harvesting equipment has to be perfectly lined up with rows of crops for a speedy harvest.  The ISG has developed solutions for this via their GNSS location-tracking system.  Described as "hyper-accurate", this system accounts for these tiny precisions and integrates with many farming systems to ensure precision in every step.

The article reports that many John Deere employees carried an attitude of turning farming into “a science, not an art” and the gut instincts and farmers' almanacs are slowly being replaced by math and science-based decisions.  The prevalence of mobile devices is aiding this transition - John Deere's applications were once limited to desktops but now they're easily accessible all over the farm and standard in the cabs of equipment.  This mobile adoption enables another major advancement in farming too - interoperability.  Now, teams of machinery can be connected to stay aligned during a harvest; reducing the need to go back and get missed patches and the potential loss of product if, for example, a receiving truck strays too far from the output chute from an accompany harvester.  This has benefits for the humans involved too - there's less physical twisting to check alignment behind you while still needing to drive in a straight line and less mental stress trying to manage so many processes at once.

The ISG has done quite a bit in its fifteen year history, and it continues to innovate.  What's next?  Moving analytics to the tractor instead of the cloud.  This puts local control in place to make decisions on the fly, to  “[leverage] all that back-office analytics and the prescription you’re executing, but modifying it in real time based on conditions in the field,” according to John Teeple, John Deere Director of Technology.  It will be interesting to see where the ISG goes with new technological innovations to add a modern twist to an ancient industry.