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IBM Watson Will Moderate and Analyze Grammy Debates – Voicebot.ai

on March 2, 2021 at 9:00 am

IBMs Watson AI will host and curate music debates for the Recording Academy ahead of the upcoming Grammy Awards. The Grammy Debates with Watson will leverage the AIs analytical ability to decipher the best arguments and suggest which side has a stronger case in debates ranging from the relative importance of certain artists to the value of music education for children.

Grammy Debates with Watson asks people to share their opinion on topics like whether Prince is the most groundbreaking artist of all time, if Billie Eilish the biggest style icon in music, or whether virtual concerts are better experiences than live shows. Fans can type in short arguments on one side or the other of each debate. Watson will collect both those submitted arguments, and posts on Twitter and other social media networks, applying natural language processing to break down the input. Using its Key Point Analysis feature, Watson will spot and sort all of the arguments, determining which are related even if the language differs. You can submit your opinions on the Grammy Debates page. Watson will pick out the most popular arguments and craft narratives to explain the best reasoning behind the pro and con sides of each argument.

The launch of Grammy Debates with Watson gives Grammy viewers an entirely new way to engage with fellow music lovers and be a part of the conversation. Its great to continue innovating our digital and fan experiences with IBM and to explore how AI and cloud technology can be applied to make our awards show more interactive for viewers, Recording Academy chief marketing and innovation officer Lisa Farris said in a statement. Were excited to bring IBMs expertise to the Grammy Awards, and the work we do to support music creators and celebrate Musics Biggest Night.

IBM created Key Point Analysis as a technique to extract opinions and arguments from conversations, documents, and other sources. The collection of views and supporting arguments are then combined into a cohesive analysis. Its the same tool Watson used for analyzing the Bloomberg Television show Thats Debatable last year. IBM has worked with the Recording Academy for a few years. In 2019, Watson ran Grammy Insights, which used the AI to analyze the pre-show red carpet in real-time. This year, IBM has will host the Grammys and surrounding show content on its cloud servers for the first time. The Grammys are March 14 at 8 p.m.

Our work with the Recording Academy is another example of how were applying IBMs cutting-edge technology to revolutionize the entertainment industry and bring clients innovative and compelling experiences for their key audiences, IBM vice president of sports and entertainment partnerships Noah Syken said. These are the same core technologies hybrid cloud and AI that were using to drive digital transformation for clients around the world.

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Eric Hal Schwartz is a Staff Writer and Podcast Producer for Voicebot.AI. Eric has been a professional writer and editor for more than a dozen years, specializing in the stories of how science and technology intersect with business and society. Eric is based in New York City.

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Cloud robotics Market: Few Little Known Ways To Make The Most Out Of Cloud robotics KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper – KSU | The Sentinel Newspaper

Cloud robotics Market Explore Report is an important stock of keen data for business strategists. This Cloud robotics Market study gives complete information which improves the getting, degree and use of this report.

Brief Introduction About Cloud robotics Market.

Cloud robotics is the seamless integration of robotics and cloud computing, internet technologies, and cloud storage. Cloud robotics are used to enhance the learning abilities of robots. It allows robots to take advantage of powerful computational, storage, and communication resources of modern data centers. Cloud robotics is associated with four primary robotic operations namely data capturing with the help of a robot (onboard/integrated sensors and nodes), processing the collected data on cloud servers, application of the processed data, and feedback sent to the servers for further analysis.

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Key Players In The Cloud robotics Market:Universal Robots, Rockwell Automation, Inc., Yaskawa Electric Corporation, Kuka AG, Fanuc Corporation, and ABB Group.

Geographical Analysis And Leading Players:

This report studies Cloud robotics Market, especially in North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and India, with production, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions, from 2018 to 2026, and forecast to 2027.

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RISC-V Is On a Roll. Is It Ready to Take a Seat Alongside Intel, AMD, and Arm? – Data Center Knowledge

RISC-V, the emerging open source instruction setarchitecture for processors that haveso far been used mostly asaccelerators, is suddenly on a roll and appears about ready to become competitive in the CPU arena.

The most activity has been in the hacker space. Ayear ago about the only way to play around with a RISC-V processor was to spend $1,000 for a development board from the RISC-V-based startup SiFive. These days, SparkFun, BeagleBoard, Pine64, Rios, and others have either already released or are about to release single-board computers powered by RISC-V silicon, and at prices as low as $15. There's even a BBC Doctor Who-based RISC-Vmini computer, meantfor kids to learn coding and sold for under $100.

Related: SiFive Pushes Open Source RISC-V Chip Architecture Closer to Prime Time

"That rollout is going to continue with lots of vendors," Mark Himelstein, CTO at RISV-V International, told DCK. "Some of them are small, like SparkFun, clearly an embedded kind of thing -- like the tiniest Raspberry Pi. Then the BeagleBoard stuff starts showing up as something you can run Linux on. You're gonna see people doing things through a whole range of deployments, first for development and then actually deploying these things."

RISC-V is already in the data center, and not only as accelerators, but pulling duty as CPUs. For example, some HPC networks use RISC-V to process data in transit. It also appears to be on the way to another role, powering servers, where its low power consumption could make it especially useful for edge deployments.

Related: New RISC-V CTO On Open Source Chip Architectures Global Data Center Momentum

"There have been [RISC-V-based] cloud servers already," Himelstein said. "Alibaba does that already -- them and some other people."

Soon he expects to see the architecture powering everything from smartphones to HPC systems.

"I know people are working on that stuff, because they've talked at a bunch of our conferences," he said, "and they've come to our meetings asking about pieces that they care about that fit into those kinds of workloads."

According to Himelstein, the reason more RISC-V servers aren't already emerginghas less to do with the architecture's readiness than with the time it takes hardware manufacturers to develop products and bring them to market. It can take a year or so to bring an embedded product to market, he said. It's more likefive years for a server.

"It's the product runway that dictates that," he said. "People have been working on things for a while, so, as those time periods come to an end you're going to start seeing a lot of products out there with a lot of RISC-V in them.

"I think success begets success," he added. "When people see somebody else doing something, and doing something novel and unique, or something that advantages them, then they try to do it too."

Much of the work being done right now to help put RISC-V on equal footing with Intel, AMD, and Armrevolves around developing extensions, which are part of the chip's modular design. Extensions can be seen as plug-ins chip designers can use to add functions to a chipthat can be called on by software when needed. While some extensions offer functions unique to RISC-V, others include functions found in other types of chips.

For RISC-V, this modular design is partly a way of escaping the technical debt that's baked into the design of other architectures. Since these functions can be pulled or redesigned as needed, they'll never be a burden that RISC-V chip makers will have to carry long term as part of their legacy.

Because some extensions are extremely complex and have the potential to negatively affect performance if not designed with care, they must go through a rigorous approval process. Until recently, this has included even simple and straightforward extensions that can easily be integrated into a chip's design without performance concerns.

For the latter, RISC-V International has developed a Fast Track program, unveiled lastweek, for streamlining approval of these small extensions. As the name suggests, Fast Track greatly reduces the time needed to have an extension approved.

"Fast Track maintains the necessary checks and balances to ensure extensions are properly designed and adhere to RISC-Vs architectural approach, while paving the way for RISC-V International to rapidly expand its set of standardized extensions," Greg Favor, co-founder and CTO of Ventana Micro Systems, explained in a statement.

Alongside Fast Track's announcement, the first extension to take advantage of the process, ZiHintPause, was introduced. It's an extension that software developers can activate to reduce a chip's power consumption under certain circumstances, an especially useful feature for IoT or edge devices where power concerns are an issue.

Himelstein said that the same dynamics that drives developers to open source software is attracting hardware companies to adopt open source RISC-V.

"You're seeing more products being put out there and it's in everything from IoT to HPC," hesaid. "That's because RISC-V gives you freedom. It gives you freedom to choose the things you want; it gives you freedom from the constraints of some of the other architectures; it gives you freedom financially, at some level, on the stock to build the chip and do all those things.

"There's a lot of freedom it gives you, and people really like that. They learn to like that through Linux in the software world, and now they're going, 'Wow, I can do this in the hardware world. Oh my God, this is phenomenal.'"

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The Micro server IC market is valued at USD 1.2 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach USD 2.2 billion by 2026; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of…

New York, Feb. 25, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Micro Server IC Market with COVID-19 Impact by offering, Processor type Application, End-User and Region - Global Forecast to 2026" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p04608252/?utm_source=GNW Hyperscale data centers are most widely adopted for cloud infrastructure by cloud service providers. The ultra-low power micro servers maximize the performance and energy efficiency for cost-effective hyper-scale computing environments.Micro servers are being launched by various vendors, offering different specifications and component systems.As micro servers are a nascent product category of the server market in comparison to rack servers and blade servers, it is very difficult to lay down a precise definition of its attributes and features.

The lack of design standards between vendor solutions and customized clustering software will be the restraint for its adoption in big data center environments.Blade servers are gaining popularity over rack-mounted servers in large office operations all across the world.Micro servers are limited to some applications such as web servers that do not require multi-CPU cores.

The development of new hardware and software technology with increased computing power such as 64-bit processors by Intel (US) and ARM (UK) and low-power SoCs by ARM (UK) would make micro servers a better competitor for blade servers. These developments would help micro servers to serve more technologies such as server clustering and cloud data centers so that they can run traditional businesses of high workload applications.

ARM processor:: The fastest processor type segment of micro server IC market .ARM-based processors are expected to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period.A new wave of servers produced with ARM-based system-on-a-chip (SoC) has already made headway in competing against X86 processors, especially with low-power or special-use models.

ARM licenses its chip designs to hundreds of semiconductor companies, which build that design into their own chips before selling them to a broad spectrum of markets.ARMs partners can produce a wider range of micro server platforms, each of which can have a different design catering to different workload applications.

Due to their flexibility, small size, efficiency, and low price, ARM processors are a great choice for infrastructure.It is anticipated that the market share of ARM-based micro servers will increase in the coming years with the recent acquisition by NVIDIA.

The acquisition will lead to better product availability at a lower price than competitors.

Software: The fastest offering segment of the micro server IC market .

Software is used in an SoC to control the operation of the components.Software plays an important part as it helps provide better portability and enables better functioning of the SoC.

It is needed for controlling the microcontroller, microprocessor, peripherals, and interfaces.Other software includes software drivers and software modules which are essential to control operations of the hardware.

The functions of software keep on changing according to the specific need of the applications.The list of micro server software providers includes Microsoft, Red Hat, Citrix, and Oracle.

The recent acquisition of ARM by NVIDIA will provide better software support for micro server peripherals; therefore, companies will start focusing on providing better software solutions for ARM-based ICs.

Edge Computing: Fastest growing application of Micro server IC marketEdge computing is an exciting new approach to network architecture that helps organizations break beyond the limitations imposed by traditional cloud-based networks.Although cloud computing continues to play an important role in modern network architecture, the exciting possibilities offered by IoT devices, which are capable of processing the data they gather closer to the source, are forcing companies to rethink their approach to IT infrastructure.

The development of cloud-based technology and edge computing has made it easier for businesses to scale their operations.There has been a rising need for edge computing for applications such as connected and autonomous vehicles, smart manufacturing and IIoT, and smart cities.

It has spurred the growth of edge data centers, and the rising implementation of compact servers due to space constraints provides an opportunity for micro servers.

North America: The leading region in the global micro server IC market .North America is projected to account for the largest size of the micro server IC market from 2021 to 2026.The increased R&D in the field of IoT and increasing cloud-based services is creating the need for new and improved ICs for better, faster computing to process the huge amounts of data created.

North America has the largest number of data centers globally.The growing demand for high data transfer rates, increased demand for communication devices such as smartphones and tablets induced with 5G network connectivity, the growing market for wearable devices, and growing data center applicability are driving the growth of the micro server IC market in North America.

This boosted the growth of the micro server IC market in North America, giving it the highest market share.The study contains insights from various industry experts, ranging from component suppliers to Tier 1 companies and OEMs. The break-up of the primaries is as follows: By Company Type: Tier 1 40%, Tier 2 25%, and Tier 3 35% By Designation: C-level Executives 35%, Directors 28%, and Others 37% By Region: North America 49%, Europe 21%, APAC 19%, RoW 11%

Intel Corporation (US), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (US), Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (US), Quanta Computer Inc. (Taiwan), NVIDIA Corporation (US), Ambedded Technology Co., Ltd. (Taiwan), Dell Inc. (US), Fujitsu (Japan), Marvell (US), Super Micro Computer Inc. (US), Ampere Computing LLC. (US), Bamboo (UK), christmann informationstechnik + medien GmbH & Co. KG (Germany), HIRO micro data centers (Netherlands), Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. (China), IBM (US), Lattice Semiconductor (US), NXP Semiconductors (Netherlands), SiPearl (France), and STMicroelectronics (Switzerland) are some of the key players in the micro server IC market.

Research Coverage:The report segments the micro server IC market and forecasts its size, by value, based on Offering (Hardware, Software), Processor Type (X86, ARM), Application (Web Hosting and Enterpise applications, Analytics and Cloud Computing, Edge Computing), End-User (Enterpises and Data Center) and Region (North America , Europe, APAC, and RoW),.The report also provides a comprehensive review of market drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges in the micro server IC market . The report also covers qualitative aspects in addition to the quantitative aspects of these markets.

Key Benefits of Buying the ReportThe report will help the leaders/new entrants in this market with information on the closest approximations of the revenue numbers for the overall market and the sub-segments.This report will help stakeholders and gain more insights to better position their businesses and plan suitable go-to-market strategies.

The report also helps stakeholders understand the pulse of the micro server IC market and provides them information on key market drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities.Report also covers COVID-19 impact on micro server IC market

Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p04608252/?utm_source=GNW

About ReportlinkerReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

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The Micro server IC market is valued at USD 1.2 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach USD 2.2 billion by 2026; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of...

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Open AI Energy Initiative Partnership Formed – Automation World

The energy industry is no stranger to digital transformation with examples ranging from the adoption of digital twin technology by oil and gas company Shell Global to the outfitting of power generation sites with internet of things (IoT)-enabled devices. After all, the growing drive for sustainability that is increasingly common in so much of industry is often considered even more vital in the energy sector itself. As such, increasing asset performance and finding ways to squeeze new efficiencies out of production are of the utmost priority.

Following from these trends, Shell recently partnered with energy technology company Baker Hughes, cloud-services provider Microsoft, and software company C3 AI, which provides enterprise-scale artificial intelligence (AI) applications to accelerate its IoT projects. The partnership, which has been christened the Open AI Energy Initiative (OAI) aims to build an open eco-system of AI-based offerings that can improve operational efficiency for both energy and process industry operators. Theres much ground to be covered by this partnership, with Shell estimating that currently 92% of all shutdowns and process upsets are unplanned and 40% of those unplanned shutdowns are caused by legacy software failures.

Functions and applications planned for the OAI include AI and physics-based models, monitoring, diagnostics, and prescriptive actions, all of which will be powered by C3 AIs BHC3 AI Suite via Microsofts Azure cloud platform.

By pooling large quantities of data from many disparate sites in centralized cloud servers, the companies hope to more rapidly train machine learning models than would otherwise be possible while also providing end-users with greater system interoperability and ease of deployment.

Taking energy forward requires new approaches to technology that leverage collaboration, open data standards, and cutting-edge AI capabilities, said Uwem Ukpong, executive vice president of regions, alliances, and enterprise sales at Baker Hughes. Working alongside our alliance partners at C3 AI, and together with industry leaders at Shell and Microsoft, the OAI will help address the persistent industry challenge of non-productive downtime.

While additional applications will continue to be developed and made available over time, the first set of OIA modules will be provided by Shell and Baker Hughes, and will focus on improving uptime and performance of energy assets and processes. More specifically, Shell will offer predictive maintenance modules for control valves, rotating equipment, and subsea electrical submersible pumps. Likewise, Baker Hughes will provide OIA interoperability for existing technologies, including its iCenter advanced digital services software, its Bently Nevada System 1 condition monitoring software, and its Valve Life Cycle Management software.

The Open AI Energy Initiative is an early but clear reflection of the direction the market is heading, said Kevin Prouty, IDC group vice president of energy and manufacturing insights. With this already-established alliance of leading organizations, including C3 AI, Shell, Baker Hughes, and Microsoft, the OAI is poised to single-handedly establish the ecosystem of enterprise AI for the energy industry.

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ThreatLocker partners with Datto to Streamline Secure Business Operations – PR Web

ThreatLockerLOGO

MAITLAND, Fla. (PRWEB) March 02, 2021

ThreatLocker is a global cybersecurity leader providing enterprise-level cybersecurity tools for the Managed Services Provider (MSP) industry to improve the security of servers and endpoints, today announced its partnership with Datto, the leading global provider of cloud-based software and technology solutions purpose-built for delivery by MSPs. This integration streamlines secure business operations for MSPs, allowing them to access their Autotask PSA account from within the ThreatLocker portal.

Ransomware remains the most common cyber threat to SMBs, and MSPs have seen increased security risks for clients following the move to remote working and the accelerated adoption of cloud applications in 2020. Its imperative that businesses adopt solutions and best practices to protect themselves and their clients data from a cyber attack. ThreatLocker addresses these concerns, protecting against ransomware, viruses, and other malicious software, integrating seamlessly with Autotask PSA which combines all the mission-critical tools MSPs need to operate a successful business.

This integration enables MSPs to validate their Autotask PSA account from within the ThreatLocker portal. Successful validation allows the MSP to map their existing Autotask PSA sites to their existing ThreatLocker organizations. Initial PSA ticket settings can also be selected through the integration and with successful company mapping, PSA tickets can now be created.

Datto is excited to partner with ThreatLocker, whose platform and seamless integration with Autotask PSA helps partners to securely manage their business operations, said Joe Rourke, Director of Product Management at Datto. Partnering with ThreatLocker and their leading cybersecurity solutions, this integration further protects our partners and their clients' data from malware and malicious threat actors.

To learn more about how you can protect your clients from the costly effects of downtime following a ransomware attack, visit: http://www.threatlocker.com

About ThreatLockerThreatLocker is a global cybersecurity leader, providing enterprise-level cybersecurity tools for the Managed Services Provider (MSP) industry to improve the security of servers and endpoints. ThreatLockers combined Application Whitelisting, Ringfencing, Storage Control and Privileged Access Management solutions are leading the cybersecurity market towards a more secure approach of blocking all unknown application vulnerabilities. To learn more about ThreatLocker visit: http://www.threatlocker.com

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We add a small private bank every month, that is the kind of growth YONO gives us Amit Saxena, Global Deputy CTO, SBI – Express Computer

The year 2020 was an unprecedented year due to the pandemic. SBI, being a systemically important bank couldnt have missed the digitisation bandwagon that was witnessed in 2020. More digitisation leads to a pressure on data centers and thus its important to manage this nerve centre for 24X7 availability of systems. When many of the SBI employees were given virtual access and privileges, overall, the data center availability was satisfactory. The servers performed upto the expectations. The softwares and firmwares were upgraded as a part of the regular refresh exercise.

Fireside Chat: Amit Saxena, Global Deputy CTO, State Bank of India | DCIDS 2021

The year of the pandemic has offered opportunities to embed automation capabilities. SBI is looking forward to adopting automated functionalities. The bank is currently using machine learning and analytics to improve server performance. The application monitoring tools are operational in addition to ML models being run to monitor server performance, API call performance, which helps in procurement decisions in terms of compute, storage etc. to be acquired for meeting the future demand. The decisions are taken based on the historic data of the last few months. AI is yet to come in action. SBI doesnt take decisions on cloud adoption on which workloads can go on cloud and which cannot. The growth potential of the workload is the determinant to qualify it to be hosted on a cloud model. The bank runs its own private cloud with one of the very important applications hosted on the private cloud, in addition to a few important internal facing applications too. Private cloud enables quick creation of RHEL based and VAPT tested, virtual machines, in a matter of 5-10 mins. We have benchmarked our cloud on how well it is doing however we are too big a bank to rely on just one cloud. A hybrid cloud model works for us. There is a discussion going on with big public cloud providers on the scope of standardising their cloud models to collapse the learning curve for companies like us. This will help in adoption of multiple clouds from different companies without going through the learning curve, says Amit Saxena, Global Deputy CTO, State bank of India. Given the growth in the amount of digital transactions, the plan is to soon add more cooling systems in the data center. In the last year, the Govt undertook many initiatives to improve the network connectivity. Additionally, the overall internet penetration has also improved, which has reduced connectivity bottlenecks. As a consequence, the digital transactions at the branch level and especially on the YONO platform has taken a surge. We add a small private bank every month, that is the kind of growth YONO has given us, says Saxena.Amit Saxena has a three point suggestion for CIOs planning to move to public cloud data purity, API standardisation and API rationalisation. All coupled with a robust middleware architecture will make the application ripe to be moved onto a public cloud. SBI is exploring public cloud opportunities because of the limitations of handling the exponential transactions surge with a bare metal environment.

This article is based on the fireside chat conducted as a part of Express Computers Data Center and Infrastructure Digital Summit. To watch the video, click here

If you have an interesting article / experience / case study to share, please get in touch with us at [emailprotected]

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We add a small private bank every month, that is the kind of growth YONO gives us Amit Saxena, Global Deputy CTO, SBI - Express Computer

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Form 8.3 – Willis Towers Watson plc – Yahoo Finance UK

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Texas Governor Greg Abbott lifted the mask mandate and other anti-pandemic restrictions, defying warnings from health officials about the perils of dropping those precautions too soon.Effective March 10, all businesses will be allowed to open at full capacity, Abbott said during a media briefing in Lubbock on Tuesday. Although his executive order allows counties to reimpose anti-virus rules should hospitalizations surge, it forbids them from jailing or fining scofflaws.This will kill Texans, Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement. Our countrys infectious disease specialists have warned that we should not put our guard down even as we make progress towards vaccinations.Abbott acted at what federal authorities warn is a critical juncture in the pandemic that has killed 516,000 Americans: While hospitalizations and caseloads have dropped in Texas and nationwide, U.S. vaccinations are not yet widespread enough to provide so-called herd immunity, and new, easier-to-spread variants of Covid-19 are proliferating.Abbots move drew immediate criticism from Democrats while giving the Republican governor an opportunity to shift attention from the weather-induced blackouts that crippled the state two weeks ago. Texas deregulated electric market, a product of the states GOP leadership, is at the center of blame for the failures.Hard-Earned GroundThe announcement flies in the face of pleas by federal health officials for a continuation of masking and other anti-virus protocols.Abbotts anti-pandemic measures also have grated on his conservative electoral base, which saw them as government overreach, and may have wounded any presidential aspirations. He received 0% of the vote in a presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference this past weekend.At this level of cases with variants spreading, we stand to completely lose the hard-earned ground we have gained, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said during a Monday briefing. Please stay strong in your conviction, continue wearing your well-fitted mask and taking the other public health prevention actions that we know work.Bidens WarningWalensky warned that a fourth wave of Covid-19 infections could be in the offing without continued vigilance. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden reinforced her admonition.I urge all Americans to please keep washing hands, stay socially distanced, wear masks, Biden said. Now is not the time to let our guard down.New Covid-19 cases in Texas dropped to a five-month low of 1,637 on Monday, state health department figures showed. Virus hospitalizations slipped to the smallest tally since Oct. 28.Too many Texans have been sidelined from employment opportunities; too many small-business owners have struggled to pay their bills, the governor said. It is now time to open Texas 100%.Earlier Tuesday, Abbott said in a tweet that Texas is administering more than 1 million Covid-19 vaccinations weekly.Texans have mastered the daily habits to avoid getting Covid, Abbott said.As of Sunday, none of the states 22 trauma-service areas had more than 15% of hospital capacity occupied by virus patients. The pandemic has claimed almost 43,000 Texans since it emerged in early 2020.An irresponsible decision guided by political expedience and nothing else, Houston City Controller Chris B. Brown said in a tweet. Not only will this set us back in the battle against #COVID19 in the region, it will likely prolong the economic pain brought on by the pandemic.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Form 8.3 - Willis Towers Watson plc - Yahoo Finance UK

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The Future of Video Security – Security Today

The Future of Video Security

Even before the pandemic, cloud computing wasflourishing. It is nearly impossible today to find anorganization that doesnt use some form of cloudservice. From applications to operating systems, toweb servers, storage, and virtual LANs an almostinfinite array of solutions can be found in the cloud.

No doubt, the adoption of cloud-based tools and services willbe a priority for organizations for years to come. The pandemichas brought a considerable acceleration of technology developmentand a broad demand and acceptance of countless new usecases, all unheard of just a year ago.

Gartner recently reported that the worldwide public cloud servicesmarket is forecast to grow 6.3% in 2020 to total $257.9 billion, upfrom $242.7 billion in 2019. Desktop as a service (DaaS) is expectedto have the most significant growth in 2020, increasing 95.4% to $1.2billion. DaaS offers an inexpensive option for enterprises supportingthe surge of remote workers and their need to securely access enterpriseapplications from multiple devices and locations.

Part of the attraction for a cloud-based services approach is thatit offers an easy and efficient way for an enterprise to manage applicationsand technology with a high level of redundancy, stability,and security. Simply put, cloud computing eliminates the problemsof buying and maintaining hardware and software on a user-by-user,workstation-to-workstation basis. Cloud solutions are generally moreaffordable, which makes them suitable for businesses of any size.

THE VSAAS BOOM

For reasons mentioned, cloud services are particularly attractiveto professional security and surveillance applications. Some ofthe key factors driving the popularity of Video Surveillance as aService (VSaaS) include the low cost of investment, the increaseddemand for real-time surveillance data, and the flexible scalabilityoffered by cloud-based solutions.

According to a recent Markets and Markets report, the VSaaSmarket is expected to grow from $2.2 billion in 2020 to reach $4.7billion by 2025, and its expected to grow at a compound annualgrowth rate of 16% from 2020 to 2025.

This article originally appeared in the March 2021 issue of Security Today.

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Amazon donating $15M to Code.org to create AP computer science course with inclusive focus – GeekWire

Amazon is making a $15 million donation to Code.org to help the Seattle nonprofit launch a new Advanced Placement computer science programming course aimed at underrepresented groups of students.

The gift from Amazon Future Engineer will be used to create a course that teaches students the same concepts as the existing AP Computer Science A (AP CSA) course. But it will have an inclusive focus that takes into account the unique cultural perspectives, interests, and experiences of Black, Latino, Native American (BLNA), and other minority students, according to a news release Tuesday.

The goal is to increase access, participation, and achievement in computer science among high school students of all backgrounds and encourage a more diverse range of students to pursue careers in engineering.

Code.org, which aims to teach computer science to every child in America, will design the course to bring real-world concerns and experiences into computer science concepts and class activities.

We are excited to develop a much-needed AP-level programming course to inspire, engage, and prepare a more diverse population of students in high school computer science, Code.org founder and CEO Hadi Partovi said in a statement. With our experience of designing CS curricula that break records in student participation and diversity, we are confident of the courses potential impact, and we are grateful for Amazons generous support to make it possible.

State education leaders in Georgia, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Ohio have already pledged to participate in piloting the new AP CSA course during the 2021-2022 school year. Code.org will supply the curriculum and professional development workshops needed to offer the course to all participating schools. Additionally, each state has committed to requiring all of its high schools to offer computer science classes by the 2024-2025 school year. Teachers and others interested in the program can sign up to receive news and updates as the course development progresses. Code.org will make the new course available for all schools nationwide for the 2022-2023 school year.

Amazons $15 million donation will be paid over three years. The company previously committed $10 million to the nonprofit in 2017.

Launched in 2018, Amazon Future Engineer is taking the childhood-to-career approach to inspire and educate children and young adults from underserved communities that are underrepresented in tech. Its part of Amazons $50 million investment in computer science/STEM education. The company has donated more than $10 million to organizations that promote such programs across the country.

Microsoft is also a longtime supporter of Code.org. The company donated $7.5 million last year to help Code.org roll out anew AI curriculum to help K-12 students learn about artificial intelligence and $10 million in 2018.

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