In Defense of Humanity—How Complex Systems Failed in Westworld **spoilers**

 

The Westworld season finale made an interesting claim: humans are so simple and predictable they can be encoded by a 10,247-line algorithm. Small enough to fit in the pages of a thin virtual book.

Perhaps my brain was already driven into a meta-fugal state by a torturous, Escher-like, time shifting plot line, but I did observe myself thinking—that could be true. Or is that a thought Ford programmed into my control unit?

To the armies of algorithms perpetually watching over us, the world is a Skinner box. Make the best box, make the most money. And Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, Google, etc. make a lot of money specifically on our predictability.

Even our offline behaviour is predictable. Look at patterns of human mobility. We stay in a groove. We follow regular routines. Our actions are not as spontaneous and unpredictable as we'd surmise.

Predictive policing is a thing. Our self-control is limited. We aren't good with choice. We're predictably irrational. We seldom learn from mistakes. We seldom change.

Not looking good for team human.

It's not hard to see how those annoyingly smug androids—with their perfect bodies and lives lived in a terrarium—could come to Continue reading

DockerCon SF 2018 Cool Hacks Spotlight: Kubeflow

The closing keynote at DockerCon is traditionally the Cool Hacks keynote. This year, we featured three great hacks showing off innovative uses of Docker. In this post, I’d like to highlight one in particular, the Kubeflow demo with David Aronchick, and Michelle Casbon.

Machine Learning (ML) is becoming increasing popular, and important to enterprises. Kubeflow is an ML toolkit for Kubernetes, developed by Google. It’s a dedicated, portable and scalable approach to machine learning, using tools you’re already using to deploy other applications. It’s great because data scientists can use it to test out model creation on their laptops. And data engineers can take the models and use the power of Docker Enterprisein the cloud to further train and use the models in production.

In their demo, David and Michelle showed building an app using Kubeflow first with Docker Desktop and then on Docker Enterprise in the cloud. And they even took advantage of Google Cloud Tensorflow Processing Units native to the platform.

Check out their presentation and demo, and also check out Kubeflow to learn more.

 

Cool Hacks Spotlight: @kubeflow, a ML toolkit for #Kubernetes
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IDG Contributor Network: 6 key themes shaping the future of network performance management

We live in an exciting era for IT. Countless new technologies are changing how networks are built, how access is provided, how data is transmitted and stored, and much more. Cloud, IoT, edge computing and machine learning all offer unique opportunities for organizations to digitally transform the way they conduct business. Different as these technologies are, they are unified by their dependence on a properly functioning network, on what might be called “network continuity.” The key component for achieving network continuity is visibility.It’s no secret that new and emerging technologies have always driven networking best practices. With such a wide range of business objectives and activities relying on IT, network performance really is a life or death issue for most companies. So, it’s critical that we maintain a firm grasp on the latest industry trends in order to make informed, strategic network management decisions.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: 6 key themes shaping the future of network performance management

We live in an exciting era for IT. Countless new technologies are changing how networks are built, how access is provided, how data is transmitted and stored, and much more. Cloud, IoT, edge computing and machine learning all offer unique opportunities for organizations to digitally transform the way they conduct business. Different as these technologies are, they are unified by their dependence on a properly functioning network, on what might be called “network continuity.” The key component for achieving network continuity is visibility.It’s no secret that new and emerging technologies have always driven networking best practices. With such a wide range of business objectives and activities relying on IT, network performance really is a life or death issue for most companies. So, it’s critical that we maintain a firm grasp on the latest industry trends in order to make informed, strategic network management decisions.To read this article in full, please click here

Future Thinking: Roxanne Varza on the Internet Economy

In 2017, the Internet Society unveiled the 2017 Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future. The interactive report identifies the drivers affecting tomorrow’s Internet and their impact on Media & Society, Digital Divides, and Personal Rights & Freedoms. In April 2018, we interviewed two stakeholders –Biddemu Bazil Mwotta, who introduced an agribusiness app, and Roxanne Varza, the director of  a startup incubator  – to hear their different perspectives on the forces shaping the Internet.

Roxanne Varza is the director of Station F, a large and popular startup incubator in Paris which recently celebrated its first full year of operation and is already reported to be the largest startup campus in the world. Situated in a former railway shed, Station F provides a vibrant hub for more than 3,000 entrepreneurs and businesses, including upcoming as well as established organizations like Facebook, L’Oréal, and Microsoft. Born in California to Iranian parents, Roxanne moved to Paris in 2009 where she led Microsoft’s startup activities in France before joining Station F, which was created by the French billionaire Xavier Niel. (You can read Biddemu Bazil Mwotta’s interview here).

The Internet Society: With more than 1,000 startups in its halls, Station F Continue reading

Network Break 191: Juniper Brings EVPN To Campus; Extreme Upgrades The Edge

Take a Network Break! Juniper Networks announces a new campus switch that supports EVPN and VXLAN for a campus fabric, Extreme Networks announces new products for the network edge, and the IEEE gives its blessing to a fog computing reference architecture.

Dell and VMware posted big HCI gains in revenue and market share, new laptops will be delayed as Intel works out CPU issues, and Silver Peak pulls in $90 million in new investment.

AT&T confirms its acquisition of digital ad exchange AppNexus, and the uptick in rocket launches is affecting commercial airline traffic.

Get links to all these stories after our sponsor messages.

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Juniper Networks Delivers EVPN-VXLAN Fabric to Connect Enterprise Data Center and Campus Networks – Juniper Networks

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IEEE sets fog computing standard for compute, storage, control and networking technology

Looking to seriously amplify the use of fog computing, the IEEE has defined a standard that will lay the official groundwork to ensure that devices, sensors, monitors, and services are interoperable and will work together to process the seemingly boundless data streams that will come from IoT, 5G and artificial intelligence (AI) systems.The standard, known as IEEE 1934, was largely developed over the past two years by the OpenFog Consortium, which includes ARM, Cisco, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, and Princeton University. To read this article in full, please click here

IEEE sets fog computing standard for compute, storage, control and networking technology

Looking to seriously amplify the use of fog computing, the IEEE has defined a standard that will lay the official groundwork to ensure that devices, sensors, monitors and services are interoperable and will work together to process the seemingly boundless data streams that will come from IoT, 5G and artificial intelligence systems.The standard, known as IEEE 1934, was largely developed over the past two years by the OpenFog Consortium which includes Arm, Cisco, Dell, Intel, Microsoft and Princeton University. To read this article in full, please click here

Future Thinking: Biddemu Bazil Mwotta on the Internet Economy

In 2017, the Internet Society unveiled the 2017 Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future. The interactive report identifies the drivers affecting tomorrow’s Internet and their impact on Media & Society, Digital Divides, and Personal Rights & Freedoms. In April 2018, we interviewed two stakeholders –Biddemu Bazil Mwotta, who introduced an agribusiness app, and Roxanne Varza, the director of  a startup incubator  – to hear their different perspectives on the forces shaping the Internet.

Biddemu Bazil Mwotta, a 25 under 25 awardee, introduced the mobile-agribusiness-app AgroDuuka, which connects farmers directly with buyers in Uganda, his home country. AgroDuuka creates a market for local farmers, where there was none before, and eliminates the cost of working through intermediaries. To date, it has connected more than 800 smallholder farmers from 36 villages to buyers throughout Uganda. (You can read Roxanne Varza’s interview here).

The Internet Society: The AgroDuuka app, which you developed, bridges traditional barriers for farmers who want to access new markets by connecting them directly with buyers. Why did you develop the app?

Biddemu Bazil Mwotta: I grew up in an agricultural community in rural Uganda. My mother is a farmer, and I always used to Continue reading

Vodafone begins its trek with Voyager

“To boldly go where no one has gone before!”

Those words still echo in my mind as I remember watching the old Star Trek shows from yesteryear. It rings of adventure, of exploration, and of never settling for the known state of things.

It is these words that come to mind when I think of the new Voyager technology that is coming to market, which is designed to go boldly where no other technology in the Packet and Optical world has gone before. Voyager is the industry’s first combined routing, switching and optical platform all combined in a 1 RU footprint. The unique combo sets out to unifying both IP and optical to massively reduce complexity and costs. It will boldly transform the data center interconnect of today.

Vodafone-Voyager project

But it’s also the first open offering in the optical space. Cumulus is bringing its networking with S.O.U.L. (Simple. Open. Untethered. Linux) moxie and applying it to the transport and data center interconnect markets. This disaggregated solution dramatically reduces the cost of the current proprietary stack. It’s a solution with multiple players…

The Week in Internet News: WiFi Gets a New Security Standard

A more secure Wi-Fi: The Wi-Fi Alliance has released the new WPA2 standard for WiFi that’s designed to mitigate several long-standing security problems. Among the fixes: The new standard mandates stronger WiFi passwords, Wired.com reports. The new standard also will include 192-bit encryption. The alliance also published the new WiFi Easy Connect protocol, designed for IoT devices that have limited or no display, says SlashGear.

Wait for us, says email: The Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the organizations behind the HTTPS-encryption initiative Let’s Encrypt, has launched an email server encryption project called STARTTLS Everywhere. The project is designed to help admins run more secure email servers, Engadget reports.

AI targets fraud: Insurers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence technologies to root out fraud, Fast Company says. AI can help pick out inconsistencies and unusual patterns to identify “sophisticated rings of fraudsters rigging auto accidents” and people exaggerating the worth of their damaged property.

AI also examines eruptions: Scientists at the Earth-Life Science Institute in Tokyo are using AI to help predict the types of eruptions coming from volcanos, says Phys.org. By examining tiny particles of volcanic ash, the AI is predicting the types of eruptions coming from Continue reading

5 ways the IoT must improve to achieve enterprise success

If you think you know the problems facing the Internet of Things (IoT), a new Deloitte report, Five vectors of progress in the Internet of Things, offers a great chance to check your assumptions against the IoT experts.Despite the fancy-pants “vectors of progress” language, the report’s authors — David Schatsky, Jonathan Camhi, and Sourabh Bumb — basically lay out the IoT’s chief technical challenges and then look at what’s being done to address them. Some of the five are relatively well-known, but others may surprise you.To read this article in full, please click here

5 ways the IoT must improve to achieve enterprise success

If you think you know the problems facing the Internet of Things (IoT), a new Deloitte report, Five vectors of progress in the Internet of Things, offers a great chance to check your assumptions against the IoT experts.Despite the fancy-pants “vectors of progress” language, the report’s authors — David Schatsky, Jonathan Camhi, and Sourabh Bumb — basically lay out the IoT’s chief technical challenges and then look at what’s being done to address them. Some of the five are relatively well-known, but others may surprise you.To read this article in full, please click here

The rise of the citizen developer: assessing the security impact of online app generators

The rise of the citizen developer: assessing the security impact of online app generators Oltrogge et al., IEEE Security & Privacy 2018

“Low code”, “no code”, “citizen developers”, call it what you will, there’s been a big rise in platforms that seek to make it easy to develop applications for non-export developers. Today’s paper choice studies the online application generator (OAG) market for Android applications. When what used to be a web site (with many successful web site templating and building options around) is often in many cases now also or instead a mobile app, so it makes sense that the same kind of templating and building approach should exist there too. For a brief period at the end of last year, Apple flirted with banning such apps from their app store, before back-tracking just a couple of weeks after the initial announcement. After reading today’s paper I can’t help but feel that perhaps they were on to something. Not that templated apps are bad per se, but when the generated apps contain widespread vulnerabilities and privacy issues, then that is bad.

With the increasing use of OAGs the duty of generating secure code shifts away from the Continue reading

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