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Intel To Acquire Deep Learning Company Nervana
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Intel is acquiring deep-learning startup Nervana Systems in a deal that could help it make up for lost ground in the increasingly hot area of artificial intelligence.
Founded in 2014, California-based Nervana offers a hosted platform for deep learning that’s optimized “from algorithms down to silicon” to solve machine-learning problems, the startup says.
Businesses can use its Nervana cloud service to build and deploy applications that make use of deep learning, a branch of AI used for tasks like image recognition and uncovering patterns in large amounts of data.
Also of interest to Intel, Nervana is developing a specialty processor, known as an ASIC, that’s custom built for deep learning.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but one estimate put the value above $350 million.
“We will apply Nervana’s software expertise to further optimize the Intel Math Kernel Library and its integration into industry standard frameworks,” Diane Bryant, head of Intel’s Data Center Group, said in a blog post. Nervana’s expertise “will advance Intel’s AI portfolio and enhance the deep-learning performance and TCO of our Intel Xeon and Intel Xeon Phi processors.”
Though Intel also acquired AI firm Saffron late last year, the Nervana acquisition “clearly defines the start of Intel’s AI portfolio,” said Paul Teich, principal analyst with Tirias Research.
“Intel has been chasing high-performance computing very effectively, but their hardware-design teams missed the convolutional neural network transition a few years ago,” Teich said. CNNs are what’s fueling the current surge in artificial intelligence, deep learning and machine learning.
As part of Intel, Nervana will continue to operate out of its San Diego headquarters, cofounder and CEO Naveen Rao said in a blog post.
The startup’s 48-person team will join Intel’s Data Center Group after the deal’s close, which is expected “very soon,” Intel said.
Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/intel-to-acquire-deep-learning-company-nervana.html
Twitter Blocks Intelligence Agencies
May 17, 2016 by admin
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Twitter has prohibited a data-mining firm from providing analytics of real-time tweets to U.S. intelligence agencies, according to a Wall Street Journal report, quoting a person familiar with the matter.
Twitter, which provides Dataminr with real-time access to public tweets, seems to be trying to distance itself from appearing to aid government surveillance, a controversial issue after former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the government was collecting information on users through Internet and telecommunications companies.
Executives of Dataminr told intelligence agencies recently that Twitter, which holds around 5 percent of the equity in the startup and provides the data feed, did not want the company to continue providing the service to the agencies.
Twitter’s move appears to be in line with its policy on the use of its tweet data by external companies.
“Dataminr uses public Tweets to sell breaking news alerts to companies such as Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones and government agencies such as the World Health Organization, for non-surveillance purposes,” Twitter said in a statement Sunday. “We have never authorized Dataminr or any third party to sell data to a government or intelligence agency for surveillance purposes.”
U.S. intelligence agencies gained access to Dataminr’s service after In-Q-Tel, aventure capital organization backed by U.S. intelligence agencies, put money in the firm, the WSJ said, quoting a person familiar with the matter. Twitter is said to have conveyed to Dataminr that it didn’t want to continue the relationship with intelligence agencies at the end of a pilot by the data analysis firm arranged by In-Q-Tel. Dataminr does not figure in the list of In-Q-Tel portfolio companies on its website.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/uncategorized/twitter-blocks-intelligence-agencies-access-to-tweet-analytics.html
Oracle Goes Deeper Into The Cloud
Right on the heels of a similar acquisition last week, Oracle has announced it will pay $532 million to buy Opower, a provider of cloud services to the utilities industry.
Once a die-hard cloud holdout, Oracle has been making up for lost time by buying a foothold in specific industries through acquisitions such as this one. Last week’s Textura buy gave it a leg up in engineering and construction.
“It’s a good move on Oracle’s part, and it definitely strengthens Oracle’s cloud story,” said Frank Scavo, president of Computer Economics.
Opower’s big-data platform helps utilities improve customer service, reduce costs and meet regulatory requirements. It currently stores and analyzes more than 600 billion meter readings from 60 million end customers. Opower claims more than 100 global utilities among its clients, including PG&E, Exelon and National Grid.
Opower will continue to operate independently until the transaction closes, which is expected later this year. The union will create the largest provider of mission-critical cloud services to an industry that’s worth $2.3 trillion, Oracle said.
Oracle’s Utilities business delivers applications and cloud services that automate core operational processes and enable compliance for global electric, gas and water utilities.
“Oracle’s industry organizations maintain unique domain knowledge, specialized expertise and focused product investments,” said Rodger Smith, a senior vice president who leads the Utilities global business unit, in a letter to customers and partners. “This model has proven highly successful across several industries, and we look forward to bringing these same benefits to the customers of Opower.”
Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/oracle-pushes-deeper-into-cloud-computing-with-another-acquisition.html
FCC Votes To Tighten Broadband Providers Privacy Rules
April 19, 2016 by admin
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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is moving toward major new regulations requiring ISPs to get customer permission before using or sharing their Web-surfing history and other personal information.
The FCC voted 3-2 last week to approve a notice of proposed rule-making, or NPRM, the first step toward passing new regulations, over the objections of the commission’s two Republicans.
The rules, which will now be released for public comment, require ISPs to get opt-in permission from customers if they want to use their personal information for most reasons besides marketing their own products.
Republican Commissioners Ajit Pai and Michael O’Rielly complained that the regulations target Internet service providers but not social networks, video providers and other online services.
“Ironically, selectively burdening ISPs, who are nascent competitors in online advertising, confers a windfall on those who are already winning,” Pai said. “The FCC targets ISPs, and only ISPs, for regulation.”
The proposed rules could prohibit some existing practices, including offering premium services in exchange for targeted advertising, that consumers have already agreed to, O’Rielly added. “The agency knows best and must save consumers from their poor privacy choices,” he said.
But the commission’s three Democrats argued that regulations are important because ISPs have an incredible window into their customers’ lives.
ISPs can collect a “treasure trove” of information about a customer, including location, websites visited, and shopping habits, said Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. “I want the ability to determine when and how my ISP uses my personal information.”
Broadband customers would be able to opt out of data collection for marketing and other communications-related services. For all other purposes, including most sharing of personal data with third parties, broadband providers would be required to get customers’ explicit opt-in permission.
The proposal would also require ISPs to notify customers about data breaches, and to notify those directly affected by a breach within 10 days of its discovery.
Courtesy- http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/fcc-votes-to-tighten-broadband-providers-privacy-rules.html
Deutsche Bank Taking Dives Into ‘Big Data’
December 14, 2015 by admin
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Deutsche Bank is undertaking a major computer systems overhaul that will help it to make greater use of so-called “big data” to provide a detailed picture of how, when and where customers interact with it, the bank’s chief data officer said in an interview.
JP Rangaswami, who joined Deutsche Bank in January as its first-ever chief data officer, said better and cheaper metadata was allowing the bank to analyze previously inaccessible information.
“We are able to see patterns that we could not see beforehand, allowing us to gain insights we couldn’t gain before,” Rangaswami told Reuters in an interview.
Upgrading the technical infrastructure Deutsche Bank needs to get the most out of this data is a priority for Chief Executive John Cryan. He is trying to improve the performance of Germany’s biggest bank, which is struggling to adapt to the tougher climate for banks since the financial crisis.
Cryan, who unveiled a big overhaul at Deutsche on Oct. 29, said at the time that imposing standards on Deutsche’s IT infrastructure was key to improving controls and reducing overheads.
The CEO said in the October presentation that IT design had occurred in silos with the application of little or no common standards. “Our systems are disjointed, cumbersome and far too often just plain incompatible.”
An annual global survey of more than 200 senior bankers published last week by banking software firm Temenos found that “IT Modernization” was now top priority, displacing earlier investment objectives such as regulation and customer friendly mobile apps. IT modernization ranked only fourth among major priorities in the survey last year.
The shift toward technology as a priority shows the extent of the challenge facing banks to modernize infrastructure to analyze internal customer data and try to fend off competition from new financial technology companies.
Rangaswami, who was chief scientist at Silicon Valley marketing software giant Salesforce from 2010 until 2014, said the data would allow Deutsche to tailor services to customers’ needs and to identify bottlenecks and regional implications faster and solve problems more quickly.
Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/deutsche-bank-taking-a-deeper-dive-into-big-data.html
Intel Rewards RealSense Developers
Intel has awarded $1m to a number of developers as part of its RealSense 3D App Challenge, which was launched last year.
Announced by Intel president Renee James at Computex 2014, the RealSense App Challenge was part of Intel’s efforts to boost RealSense globally and generate software innovation around the ecosystem.
More than 7,000 software creators in 37 countries applied to compete, and 400 were selected to develop new applications for entertainment, learning and collaboration.
Several hundred developers of creative app ideas in these categories received the latest edition of the RealSense 3D Camera and RealSense software development kit, which included free tools, examples and application programing interfaces with which to develop their ideas.
Intel announced on Thursday that the grand prize winner, who picks up $100,000, is Brazilian developer Alexandre Ribeiro da Silva of Anima Games.
His Seed app requires gamers to use reflexes and rational thinking to solve puzzles. The goal of the game is to guide a little floating seed through its journey to reforest a devastated land.
The second prize of $50,000 was awarded to Canadian developer David Schnare of Kinetisense. His OrthoSense app uses RealSense to help medical professionals remotely rehabilitate a patient who has suffered a hand injury by tracking their range of movement over time.
“This practical application of human-computer interaction is an impressive example of how technology can make our lives better,” Intel said.
Another notable winner was Lee Bamber from the UK, who received recognition for his virtual 3D video maker. The app allows a user to record themselves as a 3D hologram and then transport to a variety of scenes.
Once recorded, they can then change the camera position over the course of the playback to add an extra dimension to a video blogs, storybook or v-mails, for instance.
“The idea of the app is that you can choose the backdrop then set the lighting as you would in a studio then do the acting,” Bamber explained in his video.
Doug Fisher, SVP and general manager of Intel’s Software and Services Group, said in a blog post that now the app challenge is complete “the real work begins”, as Intel Software will continue to encourage all finalists to bring products to market.
“We also will continue mobilising our resources to inspire, educate and advance innovation through programmes such as the Intel Developer Zone, where developers can engage to find new software tools and build industry relationships,” he said.
“Human-computer interactions will no longer be defined by mice, keyboards and 2D displays. Our physical and digital worlds are coming together. When they do, the opportunities for us as consumers and businesses will explode.”
Oracle Acquires Datalogix
On Monday, Oracle agreed to purchase Datalogix for an undisclosed sum, saying that together the companies will provide marketers with a richer understanding of what consumers do, say and buy, allowing them to measure the effectiveness of their different campaigns and advertising channels.
Oracle plans to link the Datalogix service, which provides the spending data to customers through a cloud-based tool, to its other cloud-based services via Oracle Identity Graph. This, it said, will allow it to connect consumer identities to build better profiles that can be used to personalize online and mobile services — and even to target them offline and via the TV.
It made no commitment to maintain the existing Datalogix product roadmap, saying that it was still reviewing its plans. The companies set no timeline for completing the deal, which they said must meet customary closing conditions including obtaining regulatory approval.
Will MasterCard Sell Big Data?
June 23, 2014 by admin
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MasterCard Inc, the world’s second-largest credit card association, sees business booming from selling data to retailers, banks and governments on spending patterns found in the payments it processes, a top executive told Reuters.
MasterCard, which handles payments for 2 billion cardholders and tens of millions of merchants, uses that information to generate real-time data on consumer trends, available more quickly that regular government statistics.
“It is an incredibly fast growing area for us,” Ann Cairns, who heads MasterCard’s business outside North America, said in an interview, stressing that the company respects cardholder privacy, using anonymous data rather than personal information.
MasterCard does not give figures for its information services products but “other revenues”, which include the sale of data, grew 22 percent in the first quarter of 2014 to $341 million, outpacing the growth of total revenue dominated by payments processing, which rose 14 percent to $2.177 billion.
Cairns said clients for the data include retailers, banks and governments, with MasterCard tailoring it to their needs.
“Retailers are fantastic at using the data they have available about how people shop in their store, how their inventory turns over, but what they don’t know is what happens outside their store,” she said. “The data we’ve got is ubiquitous across the whole market. We can help retailers see what they need to do to capture more sales.”
Cairns, 57, a statistician by training who joined MasterCard in 2011 after helping manage the disposal of Lehman Brothers assets in Europe, revels in the insights real-time card data can provide, such as London’s popularity as the world’s top travel destination and a rise in spending on experiences such as eating out or going on holiday rather than shopping in stores.
MasterCard has recorded a spike in spending in Brazil on groceries and a drop in spending on luxury goods as the price of food has risen ahead of the World Cup, she said, the kind of insight valued by companies such as Nike and Adidas that are hoping to sell $300 soccer boots during the competition.
While MasterCard expands in “big data”, Cairns sees no slowdown in its traditional business of processing payments, with plenty of potential for growth as 85 percent of consumer transactions are still made by cash or check.
“Moving money and doing it safely and securely is so deeply cared about by so many people around the world that it will be a business that has fantastic value now and for years to come,” said Cairns, who previously worked at Citigroup and ABN Amro.
IBM Breaks Big Data Record
IBM Labs claims to have broken a speed record for Big Data, which the company says could help boost internet speeds to 200 to 400Gbps using “extremely low power”.
The scientists achieved the speed record using a prototype device presented at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) this week in San Francisco.
Apparently the device, which employs analogue-to-digital conversion (ADC) technology, could be used to improve the transfer speed of Big Data between clouds and data centres to four times faster than existing technology.
IBM said its device is fast enough that 160GB – the equivalent of a two-hour 4K ultra-high definition (UHD) movie or 40,000 music tracks – could be downloaded in a few seconds.
The IBM researchers have been developing the technology in collaboration with Swiss research institution Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) to tackle the growing demands of global data traffic.
“As Big Data and internet traffic continues to grow exponentially, future networking standards have to support higher data rates,” the IBM researchers explained, comparing data transfer per day in 1992 of 100GB to today’s two Exabytes per day, a 20 million-fold increase.
“To support the increase in traffic, ultra-fast and energy efficient analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) technology [will] enable complex digital equalisation across long-distance fibre channels.”
An ADC device converts analogue signals to digital, estimating the right combination of zeros and ones to digitally represent the data so it can be stored on computers and analysed for patterns and predictive outcomes.
“For example, scientists will use hundreds of thousands of ADCs to convert the analogue radio signals that originate from the Big Bang 13 billion years ago to digital,” IBM said.
The ADC technology has been developed as part of an international project called Dome, a collaboration between the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), DOME-South Africa and IBM to build the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), which will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope when it’s completed.
“The radio data that the SKA collects from deep space is expected to produce 10 times the global internet traffic and the prototype ADC would be an ideal candidate to transport the signals fast and at very low power – a critical requirement considering the thousands of antennas which will be spread over 1,900 miles,” IBM expalined.
IBM Research Systems department manager Dr Martin Schmatz said, “Our ADC supports Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards for data communication and brings together speed and energy efficiency at 32 nanometers, enabling us to start tackling the largest Big Data applications.”
He said that IBM is developing the technology for its own family of products, ranging from optical and wireline communications to advanced radar systems.
“We are bringing our previous generation of the ADC to market less than 12 months since it was first developed and tested,” Schmatz added, noting that the firm will develop the technology in communications systems such as 400Gbps opticals and advanced radars.
Techies Demand More Money
February 11, 2014 by admin
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Employers may need to loosen their purse strings to retain their IT staffers in 2014, according to a salary survey from IT career websiteDice.com.
Among the tech workers who anticipate changing employers in 2014, 68 percent listed more compensation as their reason for leaving. Other factors include improved working conditions (48 percent), more responsibility (35 percent) and the possibility of losing their job (20 percent). The poll, conducted online between Oct. 14 and Nov. 29 last year, surveyed 17,236 tech professionals.
Fifty-four percent of the workers polled weren’t content with their compensation. This figure is down from 2012′s survey, when 57 percent of respondents were displeased with their pay.
The decrease in salary satisfaction could mean companies will face IT staff retention challenges this year, since 65 percent of respondents said they’re confident they can find a new, better position in 2014.
This dissatisfaction over pay comes even though the survey, released Wednesday, showed that the average tech salary rose 2.6 percent in 2013 to US$87,811 and that more companies gave merit raises. The main reason for last year’s bump in pay, according to 45 percent of respondents, was a merit raise. In comparison, the average tech salary was $85,619 in 2012 and 40 percent of those polled said they received a merit raise.
Meanwhile, 26 percent of respondents attributed their 2013 salary increase to taking a higher-paying job at another company.
Employers realize tech talent is coveted and are attempting to keep workers satisfied by offering them a variety of incentives, the survey found. In 2013, 66 percent of employers provided incentives to retain workers. The two most popular incentives were increased compensation and more interesting work. Incentives that allow employees to better balance their work and personal lives were also offered, such as telecommuting and a flexible work schedule.
Skills that commanded six-figure jobs in 2013 came from some of the hottest areas of IT. Data science led the way with big data backgrounds yielding some of the highest salaries. People skilled in Knowing R, the popular statistical computing language, can expect to make $115,531 on average, while those with NoSQL database development skills command an average salary of $114,796. IT pros skilled in MapReduce to process large data sets make $114,396 on average.