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How tech-driven disruptions are driving the future of Indian logistics – Times of India

April 24, 2022 | Author: admin

The Indian logistics sector is one of the biggest in the world, growing at an average of 10.5% every year and valued at around $215 billion. However, the infrastructure is still quite a bit behind in terms of implementing technological advancements. The Covid-19 outbreak has further exacerbated the need for fixing the fragmented networks and the impact of poor infrastructure.

Companies that were not too keen on investing in technology are now seeing the advantages and its necessity. The technological advancements being made in the logistics can cause further disruptions, which would push the efficiency of the sector. The logistics sector is undergoing a transformation and consolidation, organizing the highly fragmented industry. Resilience and agility are the need of the hour and companies are adopting digital technologies to remain competitive in the face of disruptions.

Cloud computing

Cloud computing can help provide access to a shared pool of storage, applications and networks. This can help optimize asset utilization. With road transportation in India still fragmented, vehicles tend to remain idle or return empty. With cloud computation, logistics providers can collaborate with others to share fleets. Service providers will be able to share information using the cloud platforms and coordinate with each other to deliver and pick up goods. This reduces the amount of time vehicles remain idle and making the entire ecosystem efficient.

Collaborative Execution Preparing todays supply chains

Ever since the Covid pandemic hit the country, businesses have been facing unpredictable out-of-stock situations, stranded trucks, and a lack of visibility into their supply chains. The modern supply chain poses a host of new challenges for leaders to grapple with increasing costs, a slew of disruptions, and the complexities posed by new distribution and sales channels add to the complexity of managing operations efficiently. There is an urgent need for improved demand and distribution visibility, integrating new channels, and improving control over quality and speed of delivery in both the first and last miles of the supply chain.

The next stage of productivity improvement is expected to be delivered by the deployment of technologies to facilitate collaborative execution by integrating processes across the shipper & vendor organization to provide end-to-end visibility & get better control thru the transaction execution. With a tech-enabled supply chain, organizations can better allocate critical resources and organizations have protocols and SoPs for their manufacturing facilities as well as field and office staff to continue operations to steer through the disruptions.

Big Data analytics

Logistics providers generate a lot of data with every process and transaction. This data is usually fragmented and stored in various locations in the supply chain. But with Big Data analytics can help parse through the data to find operational efficiencies.

Big Data can help with data mining and complex statistical analysis. This can bring out key insights and trends in the supply chain that companies can use to optimize their processes. Companies can also help develop algorithms to figure out which parts of the supply chain are inefficient and remove costs that are redundant. It can also help determine how much life remains in assets held by companies. All this information can help companies figure out and implement a future strategy.

Cloud computing is also a great way to store the huge amount of data generated throughout the logistics supply chains. Companies will no longer need to invest in physical servers or even need hard drives, which can have a limited amount of storage space. With cloud storage, companies will also be able to access the data from anywhere. This allows them to monitor all their critical processes round the clock.

Machine learning and artificial intelligence

Machine learning is a technology being used by logistics providers to help automate the supply chain. Machine learning and artificial intelligence can streamline the process based on the data theyve gathered related to tracking and internal functions. It brings down the turnaround time required to complete any process. Its a technology that helps reduce costs and improves the time in which orders are processed and delivered.

The Way Forward

Its important for Indian logistics players to invest in upgrading technologies to help their systems become smarter and efficient, even if it means reinventing their processes. An increase in adoption of automation of processes through robotics and artificial intelligence in transportation and warehouse management. This will ensure companies can reduce their reliance on human intervention. AI driven automation, Direct to consumer initiatives and acceleration towards sustainability are also bringing in focus complex technology solutions.

With more disruption in technology set to come, companies should be ready and anticipate how their capabilities need to evolve. Companies can work on developing services that create demand rather than restricting themselves to meeting current demand. To do this, logistics companies will need to maintain strong relationships with customers and the market, so that they can be at the forefront of shaping the future.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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2 Unstoppable Growth Stocks to Buy Now and Hold – The Motley Fool

April 24, 2022 | Author: admin

Cloud computing is one of the trendiest, most transformative technologies of the past two decades. Organizations can now provision infrastructure and software services through the internet, eliminating the need for costly on-site hardware. To that end, cloud computing has fundamentally changed the way many businesses operate, making them more agile and efficient.

Going forward, research company Gartner believes that cloud spend will climb to $917 billion annually by 2025, implying 103% growth from $451 billion in 2021. With that in mind, Cloudflare( NET -3.32% ) and DigitalOcean ( DOCN -4.82% ) look like smart stocks to buy and hold.

Here's why.

Image source: Getty Images.

Cloudflare is on a mission to make the internet faster. Its global network offers tremendous capacity, and its various data centers sit within 50 milliseconds of 95%of internet users worldwide, meaning it can move a lot of data very quickly. That infrastructure is a significant competitive advantage, and Cloudflare uses it to offer a range of cloud services that accelerate and secure corporate networks and applications.

To reinforce its edge, the company offers a free tier of service that has made its platform wildly popular -- Cloudflare's content delivery network powers 19%of the internet, more than every other cloud vendor combined. The company leverages that massive user base to try new products and collect data, and it leans on artificial intelligence to surface insights that accelerate and improve product development.

Not surprisingly, the company is growing like wildfire. Last year, Cloudflare increased its paying customer base by 26% to 140,000, and the average customer spent 25%more. In turn, revenue soared 52% to $656 million, and while the company is still unprofitable on a GAAP basis, it generated positive free cash flow of $8.6 millionin the fourth quarter.

Going forward, Cloudflare has plenty of room to grow. Management puts its addressable market at $100 billion by 2024, and the company is an innovation machine. For instance, it recently added email security tools to its growing portfolio of zero-trustcybersecurity services, and the company is beta-testinga cloud storage service to support its application development platform.

In short, Cloudflare has already achieved a strong market presence, but shareholders have good reason to believe that trend will continue. That's why this high-growth tech stock is a buy.

DigitalOcean is democratizing cloud computing. It offers a growing number of infrastructure and platform services, including computer and networking solutions, managed databases, and software development tools. But the unifying theme is simplicity. Its platform enables clients to deploy cloud services in minutes, even if they lack robust IT support. That differentiates DigitalOcean from vendors like Amazon and Microsoft, both of which tailor their products to larger enterprises.

To reinforce its niche, DigitalOcean also provides 24/7 technical and customer support, and it has created an extensive library of developer tutorials and community-generated questions and answers. To that end, DigitalOcean is a lifeline for small businesses, allowing them to harness the power of the cloud to build and scale applications. That value proposition has generated strong demand.

Last year, the company grew its customer base by 6% to 609,000, and the average customer spent 16% more. In turn, revenue climbed 35% to $429 million, and the company generated positive free cash flow of $24 million, up from a loss of $58 million in the prior year. Better yet, shareholders have good reason to believe that momentum will continue or even accelerate.

DigitalOcean currently tailors its services to start-ups and other small businesses, but the company is adding new products and features at a good clip. For instance, it recently launched solutions for database migration, application development, and infrastructure monitoring. As its portfolio continues to evolve, DigitalOcean should scale alongside the small businesses on its platform, meaning its total addressable market (TAM) should continue to climb in the future.

On that note, management puts its TAM at $145 billionby 2025, and in light of its differentiated business model, this growth stock looks like a smart way to invest in cloud computing.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis even one of our own helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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Canary Pro Is The Ultimate Set Up And Forget Home Security Camera – Forbes

April 24, 2022 | Author: admin

The Canary Pro can blend in one any shelf or mantelpiece and keeps an eye on a room, looking ... [+] movement and uploading video to the cloud while notifying the householder via the Canary smartphone app.

Keeping your home and family protected is a basic instinct in most of us. We want our home to be safe as possible and we want the things we have worked hard to acquire to be protected. More importantly, we want our loved ones to be safe and secure. Finally, we want this security to work when we are at home or away.

Fortunately, Wi-Fi technology has made protecting our homes and loved ones a lot easier. The days of installing cumbersome security alarms with expensive wired sensors are long gone. With wireless networking, we can set up security cameras around the home so that if someone does intrude, theres an off-site video recording and the relevant authorities are informed straight away.

The first thing you need to know when buying a security camera system like Canary Pro that I am reviewing here is that without a monthly subscription, these devices are not much use. If you dont want to pay for a subscription, then you could buy a cheaper Wi-Fi camera with a memory card slot that can record video of any intruders and hopefully ping you on your smartphone to let you know someone has broken in.

With its 147-degree angle of view., the Canary Pro can cover an entire if positioned correctly. The ... [+] 1080P camera uploads video whenever it detects movements and sends a message to your phone.

The alternative is to opt for a deluxe system like the Canary Pro. This stylish-looking security camera has an elegant cylinder format and is available in black or white finishes. It looks a little like a small flower vase. The Canary Pro has a 1080P video camera offering a super-wide 147-degree angle of view that can cover most of a room. The device connects to a home network over Wi-Fi or Ethernet. It feels well-made and wont stick out like a sore thumb when placed on a mantelpiece or bookshelf.

Setting up the Canary Pro was a slightly fraught experience as I had to create a Canary account and register the camera. The Canary website was misbehaving, but I put that down to an Internet glitch. I tried again the next day and the process appeared to be straightforward.

You can have multiple Canary cameras on a home network, but the subscription is charged on a per-device basis. The Canary Pro includes a movement sensor and has an AI algorithm that Canary says can detect the difference between humans and pets. I didnt get the chance to try the feature as my cat simply refused to cooperate.

The Canary app works with a range of smart devices and can even be used to view live images and ... [+] offers two-way talk as well as a 90dB siren to scare of intruders.

The Canary smartphone app is used to control the Canary Pro and uses the phones location function to detect when youre at home. The app can be set to disarm the camera when its not needed and, when you go out, it can switch the Canary Pro to Away Mode and then the camera is effectively armed and ready.

The Canary Pro is powered by a universal voltage adapter that uses a Micro USB cable. Theres no battery backup on offer so if power is cut to the home, the camera will stop working until power is restored. The device can monitor air quality in the home alongside temperature and humidity levels.

The home health data is stored in the cloud and can build into a useful long-term record of your homes living environment. Theres even a function to trigger a notification if the temperature, humidity or air quality moves outside preset parameters. This could be useful for installing in an elderly relatives home, so you get a notification when the temperature drops or increases too much.

The Canary Pro has sensors for measuring temperature, humidity and air quality. This is stored in ... [+] the cloud and can trace the changes in the home environment.

As well as the Home and Away Modes, the Canary Pro also has a Night Mode. All three of the modes can also be modified to suit the users preferences or the system can simply be set to Auto which then activates the camera based on the users location. The only flaw I can see with the system is that if you were to leave your smartphone at home, the Canary Pro wouldnt be activated.

When any movement is detected, the camera starts recording and will upload a color HD video stream to Canarys servers. The movement also triggers a notification on your smartphone to let you know that movement has been detected. Canarys Premium service stores video clips online for up to 30 days so you can go back and check from anywhere in the world.

As well as recording video, there is a Live View mode that can be accessed at any time. This could be useful for checking on a child and theres even a two-way talk function so that you can speak through the Canarys built-in speaker as well as being able to hear the person in the room. I noticed a certain amount of background interference with the volume levels turned up high, but Im assured by Canarys tech support that this issue, which is caused by interference from the Wi-Fi chip, has been ironed out on the latest Canary Pro models.

With the Premium Pro subscription, you can log in live to see what's going on at home.

In addition to the monitoring ability, which can be further customized with the ignore pet mode and masking of the activity zone, the Canary Pro also features a Panic Mode. If youre ever unfortunate enough to find yourself under threat in your own home, the Noonlight emergency response feature will alert the police. The camera also has a 90dB alarm that can be triggered and will hopefully scare off any intruders or alert neighbors that there is a problem. The Noonlight Mode is only available with Canarys Premium cloud storage plan, which costs $99 per year. Finally, if youre a smart home type, the Canary Pro can integrate with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.

Verdict: The image quality of the Canary Pro camera is very good and theres also a night vision mode. The angle of view is extremely wide and a whole room can be covered with one camera. The motion detection works well and its useful to be able to access the Live View feature from anywhere in the world. If you have a pet at home, you could use that feature to check up on them and even reassure them by speaking to them when youre at work. The system works well and although it can be used without taking out the Premium subscription, the Canary Pros usefulness is limited. There are cheaper security cameras with local memory card storage, as well as other security cameras like Amazons Ring, which offer cheaper subscription services. The beauty of the Canary System is that its a setup and forget system. The security camera just works even when youre asleep or away from home. The Premium subscription is worth the money, especially the Noonlight panic feature and notifying first responders. One Canary Pro is enough for most small apartments or houses, but you can add extra cameras if required.

Pricing & Availability: Canary Pro camera $169 / 159 / 169. Canary Pro with Premium subscription: $12.99 (camera free). Canary Pro and one year of Premium subscription 238 / 268. Monthly Premium subscription if buying Canary Pro: 79 / 99 annually.

More info: http://www.canary.is

Tech Specs:

The Live Watch system enables the user to check in on pets if they are on their own during the day.

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VAST links arms with Vertica for fast analytics Blocks and Files – Blocks and Files

April 24, 2022 | Author: admin

All-flash scale-out file and objector storage supplier VAST Data is using Verticas analytics software with the aim of wrangling data from VASTs array at high speed.

Micro Focus-owned Vertica provides its Unified Analytics Platform as SaaS across all major public clouds and on-premises datacenters, and integrates data in cloud object storage.

Now with VAST and Vertica, customers get to use a single system for both data warehouse and data lake. Jeff Denworth, VAST Data co-founder and CMO, said: VASTs entry into the Vertica ecosystem allows customers of both companies to benefit from hyperscale flash storage and industry-leading data reduction, unlocking greater operational efficiency and faster performance to implement advanced analytics at a fraction of the cost of the public cloud.

Verticas SQL-based Unified Analytics Platform has a massively scalable architecture andanalytical functions spanning event and time series, pattern matching, geospatial, and end-to-end in-database machine learning. VAST Universal Storage has a disaggregated shared everything (DASE) architecture with a single tier of flash storage for all data

The VAST and Vertica alliance supports the fusing of the data lake and data warehouse architectures so providing a one-stop shop for customers structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. The companies said customers get to benefit from real-time storage performance for all their use-cases: data-warehouse analytics, ad-hoc queries, and complex data science jobs. And they get simplified management from eliminating the data warehouse and data lake separation.

As Verticas Eon Mode separates compute from storage functions, each can scale independently and achieve workload isolation for different types of analytics.

The two also claim that their combination delivers 3x faster database queries than legacy all-flash NAS (meaning, we guess, PowerScale/Isilon), 2x better datacenter density at lower cost, and consistent quality of service without performance degradation or resource contention.

VAST and Vertica are providing an on-premises offering. The pair have published a joint technical validation guide and a solution brief.

Vertica also partnered with NetApp in November last year to have its cloud-native analytics software run on NetApp StorageGRID object storage.

At the time, parent Micro Focus said Vertica with StorageGRID has a fast multi-site, active-active architecture and can perform queries 10-25 times faster than conventional databases. It also claimed that the separation of Verticas compute and storage architecture in Eon Mode allowed admin staff to use StorageGRID as the main data warehouse repository or as a data lake.

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Area9 guides Tourism Top End to the cloud – ARNnet

April 24, 2022 | Author: admin

Darwin, Northern Territory

Darwin-based IT services provider Area9 has played a pivotal role in helping not-for-profit organisation Tourism Top End adopt Microsoft 365 and Azure Files.

Tourism Top End operates the Northern Territorys largest tourism and information centre, representing more than 550 businesses, including regional and remote tourist destinations, across the Top End.

The organisation, which doesnt house a dedicated IT team, were facing a predicament in either updating its ageing server equipment or migrating to a new cloud storage service. A request for tender was put out in its quest to find a suitable solution and ongoing IT support.

IT can be a daunting process and creates a lot of anxiety for a business when its changing or not going right," saidTourism Top End general manager Glen Hingley.

"Area9 was competitive on all levels, especially when they came to understanding who we were. They offered a range of solutions our team could manage and explained them clearly which we really appreciated.

For the project, Area9 proposed moving to the public cloud using Microsoft 365 and Azure Files, which was compatible with its existing work structure and data.

The project also included migrating all users to Azure AD and implementing Area9s Cloud Backup Service for Microsoft 365. A new router was also wired in to cater for the greater internet demand.

Microsoft 365 ticked all the boxes within our organisation, while giving us the ability to work remotely. Speed and efficiency gains have been tremendous and we are able to connect with each other and our booking partners more seamlessly, Hingley said.

We know were not experts in IT and we really appreciate that Area9 didnt take advantage of that. They were super supportive and transparent in how they worked with us, responding to our needs quickly and really nurtured us through the transition, coming out to our site when needed.

"They brought comfort to Tourism Top End with their years of extensive IT experience, but, also being based in the Northern Territory, they understood our company and what we needed.

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Want to Disable Onedrive on Windows 11? These 5 Options Will Help You! – NerdsChalk

April 24, 2022 | Author: admin

OneDrive is the cloud storage offering from Microsoft that comes bundled with Windows 11 by default. Like Microsoft Edge, bundling OneDrive has also faced harsh criticism from users as many look for ways to remove it from their PCs. If youre in the same boat and would like to remove OneDrive, then heres all you need to know about it.

Disabling OneDrive has its advantages and disadvantages. Heres what happens when you disable OneDrive on your system.

Yes, you can officially remove OneDrive from Windows 11 by using the uninstall option (see option 5 below). This, however, leaves remnants of OneDrive on your PC so that it can be easily recovered.

If you wish to remove OneDrive permanently, then you will have to opt for a more robust solution like removing it using a .bat script, CMD commands, a third-party uninstaller, and more. You will find guides for all these methods in Option 5 below.

Related: 14 Ways to clear Windows 11 cache

Here are all how you can disable OneDrive on Windows 11. Follow either of the sections below to temporarily or permanently disable OneDrive on your system depending on your preference.

FYI, among the five options below, while options 1 to 4 are about disabling OneDrive on your PC, Option 5 is about uninstalling it.

You can start by pausing OneDrive sync if you wish to disable it temporarily. This will pause all OneDrive activities and services running in the background. This is the recommended way if you wish to get rid of OneDrive temporarily.

You will get to choose a time period for which OneDrive will be disabled on your device. Upon its completion, OneDrive will automatically begin syncing on your device again.

Use the guide below to help you along with the process.

Click theOneDriveicon in your taskbar.

Select Settings in the top right corner.

Now, click Pause syncing.

Click the drop-down arrow and select one of the following options depending on your preference.

You will now have paused OneDrive sync on your device for the selected period.

Related: How to Disable Windows 11 Alert Sounds

This option is for users that wish to remove their OneDrive account from a particular PC while retaining local files. Your OneDrive account will be unlinked from the current PC and your files will no longer be synced to the cloud.

OneDrive only files will be deleted from your local storage, while retaining other files. Use the guide below to help you along with the process.

Click the OneDrive icon in your taskbar.

Click the icon in the top right corner.

Select Settings.

A small window will appear and by default, the Account tab will be selected. Click Unlink this PC under the same.

Click Unlink account to confirm your choice.

Related: How to Clean Registry on Windows 11 [4 Ways]

You can also stop OneDrive from opening on startup to prevent it from automatically launching. This way you can use the app only when needed on your system without having it constantly running in the background.

This is the recommended solution if you use OneDrive occasionally and would like it turned off when not in use.Follow the steps below to help you along with the process.

Click on the OneDrive cloud icon in the taskbar.

Click the icon in the top right corner.

Select Settings from the dropdown menu.

Click and switch to the Settingstab.

Uncheck all the boxes under General.

Click OK.

Related: How to add WinRAR or 7Zip to Windows 11 Context Menu

You can also hide OneDrive from your system if you wish to temporarily part from it. While this wont remove or disable OneDrive sync, it will remove the OneDrive listing from your File Explorer.

This is an ideal solution for users that wish to keep their online files away from prying eyes while still having access to them whenever needed. OneDrive will keep working in the background as intended.Use the steps below to help you along with the process.

Open File Explorer and right-click on OneDrive.

SelectProperties.

Check the box for Hidden under Attributes.

This will hide OneDrive from the File Explorer. ClickOK once done. SelectApply changes to this folder only.

ClickOK.

Click the OneDirve icon in your taskbar and selectthe icon.

ClickClose OneDrive.

Confirm your choice by clicking on the same.

OneDrive will now quit and will be hidden from your taskbar. We recommend you follow the guide above to prevent it from launching at startup to disable it temporarily on your PC.

Related: Windows 11 Taskbar Not Showing? How to Fix

If youre looking for a more permanent solution then we recommend you remove OneDrive from your system completely. If you would like to keep some setup files and background services so that it can be easier to set up the same for other users, then you can use the Settings app to remove OneDrive.

However, if you wish to remove OneDrive permanently, then we recommend you use one of the other solutions mentioned below. Follow the relevant section below to help you along with the process.

Press Windows + i on your keyboard and selectApps & features.

ClickInstalled apps.

Find Microsoft OneDrive in the list and click the iconbeside it.

SelectUninstall.

ClickUninstallagain to confirm your choice.

Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the process and OneDrive should now have been removed from your system.

Command Prompt can help you more permanently remove Microsoft OneDrive. Follow the steps below to help you along with the process.

Press Windows + R and type in the following. Press Ctrl + Shift + Enter on your keyboard once done.

Confirm the UAC prompt and then type in the following commands one by one and execute them by pressing Enter on your keyboard.

%Systemroot%SysWOW64OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstall

%Systemroot%System32OneDriveSetup.exe /uninstall

Use the following command to close the command prompt.

exit

And thats it! You will now have removed OneDrive from your PC.

Press Windows + R, type in the following, and press Enter.

gpedit.msc

Navigate to the following path using the left sidebar.

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > OneDrive

Double click onPrevent the usage of OneDrive for file storage value on your right.

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2022 NAB Show: Liqid Delivers Maximum GPU Flexibility and the World’s Fastest Storage for M&E – Latest Digital Transformation Trends | Cloud News -…

April 24, 2022 | Author: admin

Add 16 NVIDIA A100 GPUs per Single Server via Software, Get up to 4-million IOPS per SSD, Save Production Costs and Give Time Back to Creators

LAS VEGAS(BUSINESS WIRE)#ArtificialIntelligenceLiqid, the worlds leading software company delivering data center composability, today announced it is bringing its adaptive GPU platform and the worlds fastest NVMe storage1 to Media & Entertainment (M&E) professionals at the 2022 NAB Show (booth W2603). Liqids software-defined approach to resource management accelerates time-to-results for challenging workflows across the production pipeline, while maximizing resource utilization for a more efficient infrastructure footprint. For content creators, video editors, producers, streaming platform providers, and others working in the M&E space, solutions based on Liqid Matrix software enable users to deploy previously impossible amounts of GPU and NVMe storage in minutes, versus having to physically alter hardware configurations. Software-defined solutions from Liqid also enable these and other accelerator resources to be portioned out via Liqid Matrix in exact amounts via a simple pane-of-glass GUI, significantly increasing utilization and system performance while reducing overall costs for the most efficient content production against demanding deadlines.

Whether youre a mega-studio or a small VFX shop, youre facing some of the same hardware challenges youve been up against for the last 20 years. The most advanced GPU servers and disk-based storage solutions are limited by their form factor, trapped and underutilized, said Nader Soudah, Vice President, Global Channel, Liqid. Liqid Matrix-based solutions remove those physical limitations with breakthrough software that delivers significant cost savings and time-to-value for producers, but just as importantly, give time back to creators and crews, whether theyre rendering dailies on set, building the next VFX marvel at a workstation, or working magic in an editing bay.

Modern M&E projects are extremely data-intensive, and capturing, rendering and producing content on traditional, disk-based storage systems and static GPU infrastructures wastes valuable time which consumes already tight budgets and threatens already tight deadlines. With the rate of data only continuing to grow, M&E pros need a new way to manage data that accelerates time to value. Solutions based on Liqid Matrix software enable users to:

A wide variety of solutions based on Liqid Matrix software are available to suit todays requirements for data performance, while offering a way to grow infrastructure on demand, as required. With Liqid Matrix-based solutions, users can architect a digital production system that delivers:

In the age of high resolution media creation, studios, producers, 3D and video artists understand that content must be created faster than ever and distribution must be free of interruption for a seamless audience experience, whether its at a massive sports arena, a state-of-the-art IMAX or on the screen of a handheld device, said David Bitton, Global Director, M&E, Hypertec, a global IT solution and services provider and Liqid channel partner, with specialization in vertical markets such as M&E, finance, and service provider.

As consumer habits change, this is only more urgently relevant, which is why software-defined solutions like those provided by Liqid are becoming essential to todays production facilities, accelerating creative tools for artists while improving performance of everything from video editing on multiple 4K streams, rendering dailies to streaming content, Bitton said.

To learn how the University of Illinois at Chicago built the Liqid Matrix CDI platform into the core of its state-of-the-art visual computing lab, download this case study. Go here to schedule an appointment with an authorized Liqid representative or reach out at sales@liqid.com. Follow Liqid on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay up to date with the latest Liqid news and industry insights.

About Liqid

Liqids composable infrastructure software platform, Liqid Matrix, unlocks cloud-like speed and flexibility plus higher efficiency from data center infrastructure. Now IT can configure, deploy, and scale physical, bare-metal servers in seconds, then reallocate valuable accelerator and storage resources via software as needs evolve. Dynamically provision previously impossible systems or scale existing investments, and then redeploy resources where needed in real-time. Unlock cloud-like datacenter agility at any scale and experience new levels of resource and operational efficiency with Liqid.

1Source: Storage Newsletter, Fastest SSDs, at More Than 7GB/s Read Transfer Rate, April 2022

Contacts

Robert Brumfield

Sr. Director, Communications

Liqid

917 224 7769

brumfield.bob@liqid.com

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Deep Science: AI simulates economies and predicts which startups receive funding – TechCrunch

April 24, 2022 | Author: admin

Research in the field of machine learning and AI, now a key technology in practically every industry and company, is far too voluminous for anyone to read it all. This column aims to collect some of the most relevant recent discoveries and papers particularly in, but not limited to, artificial intelligence and explain why they matter.

This week in AI, scientists conducted a fascinating experiment to predict how market-driven platforms like food delivery and ride-hailing businesses affect the overall economy when theyre optimized for different objectives, like maximizing revenue. Elsewhere, demonstrating the versatility of AI, a team hailing from ETH Zurich developed a system that can read tree heights from satellite images, while a separate group of researchers tested a system to predict a startups success from public web data.

The market-driven platform work builds on Salesforces AI Economist, an open source research environment for understanding how AI could improve economic policy. In fact, some of the researchers behind the AI Economist were involved in the new work, which was detailed in a study originally published in March.

As the coauthors explained to TechCrunch via email, the goal was to investigate two-sided marketplaces like Amazon, DoorDash, Uber and TaskRabbit that enjoy larger market power due to surging demand and supply. Using reinforcement learning a type of AI system that learns to solve a multi-level problem by trial and error the researchers trained a system to understand the impact of interactions between platforms (e.g., Lyft) and consumers (e.g., riders).

We use reinforcement learning to reason about how a platform would operate under different design objectives [Our] simulator enables evaluating reinforcement learning policies in diverse settings under different objectives and model assumptions, the coauthors told TechCrunch via email. We explored a total of 15 different market settings i.e., a combination of market structure, buyer knowledge about sellers, [economic] shock intensity and design objective.

Using their AI system, the researchers arrived at the conclusion that a platform designed to maximize revenue tends to raise fees and extract more profits from buyers and sellers during economic shocks at the expense of social welfare. When platform fees are fixed (e.g., due to regulation), they found a platforms revenue-maximizing incentive generally aligns with the welfare considerations of the overall economy.

The findings might not be Earth-shattering, but the coauthors believe the system which they plan to open source could provide a foundation for either a business or policymaker to analyze a platform economy under different conditions, designs and regulatory considerations. We adopt reinforcement learning as a methodology to describe strategic operations of platform businesses that optimize their pricing and matching in response to changes in the environment, either the economic shock or some regulation they added. This may give new insights about platform economies that go beyond this work or those that can be generated analytically.

Turning our attention from platform businesses to the venture capital that fuels them, researchers hailing from Skopai, a startup that uses AI to characterize companies based on criteria like technology, market and finances, claims to be able to predict the ability of a startup to attract investments using publicly available data. Relying on data from startup websites, social media, and company registries, the coauthorssay that they can obtain prediction results comparable to the ones making also use of structured data available in private databases.

Applying AI to due diligence is nothing new. Correlation Ventures, EQT Ventures and Signalfire are among the firms currently using algorithms to inform their investments. Gartner predicts that 75% of VCs will use AI to make investment decisions by 2025, up from less than 5% today. But while some see the value in the technology, dangers lurk beneath the surface. In 2020, Harvard Business Review (HBR) found that an investment algorithm outperformed novice investors but exhibited biases, for example frequently selecting white and male entrepreneurs. HBR noted that this reflects the real world, highlighting AIs tendency to amplify existing prejudices.

In more encouraging news, scientists at MIT, alongside researchers at Cornell and Microsoft, claim to have developed a computer vision algorithm STEGO that can identify images down to the individual pixel. While this might not sound significant, its a vast improvement over the conventional method of teaching an algorithm to spot and classify objects in pictures and videos.

Traditionally, computer vision algorithms learn to recognize objects (e.g., trees, cars, tumors, etc.) by being shown many examples of the objects that have been labeled by humans. STEGO does away with this time-consuming, labor-intensive workflow by instead applying a class label to each pixel in the image. The system isnt perfect it sometimes confuses grits with pasta, for example but STEGO can successfully segment out things like roads, people and street signs, the researchers say.

On the topic of object recognition, it appears were approaching the day when academic work like DALL-E 2, OpenAIs image-generating system, becomes productized. New research out of Columbia University shows a system called Opal thats designed to create featured images for news stories from text descriptions, guiding users through the process with visual prompts.

When they tested it with a group of users, the researchers said that those who tried Opal were more efficient at creating featured images for articles, creating over two times more usable results than users without. Its not difficult to imagine a tool like Opal eventually making its way into content management systems like WordPress, perhaps as a plugin or extension.

Given an article text, Opal guides users through a structured search for visual concepts and provides pipelines allowing users to illustrate based on an articles tone, subjects and intended illustration style, the coauthors wrote. [Opal] generates diverse sets of editorial illustrations, graphic assets and concept ideas.

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Deep Science: AI simulates economies and predicts which startups receive funding - TechCrunch

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How is the Expectation-Maximization algorithm used in machine learning? – Analytics India Magazine

April 24, 2022 | Author: admin

The expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm is an elegant algorithm that maximizes the likelihood function for problems with latent or hidden variables. As from the name itself it could primarily be understood that it does two things one is the expectation and the other is maximization. This article would help to understand the math behind the EM algorithm with an implementation. Following are the topics to be covered.

Lets try to understand how the expectation and maximization combination helps to decide the number of clusters to be formed but before that we need to understand the concept of the latent variable.

A latent variable is a random variable that can be observed neither in training nor in the test phase. These variables cant be measured on a quantitative scale. There are two reasons to use latent variables:

The latent variable is the direct causation of all the parameters. Now the final model is much simpler to work with and has the same efficiency without reducing the flexibility of the model. There is one drawback of latent variables: it is harder to train these models.

Are you looking for a complete repository of Python libraries used in data science,check out here.

The general form of probability distribution arises from the observed variables for the variables that arent directly observable also known as latent variables, the expectation-maximization algorithm is used to predict their values by using the values of the other observed variable. This algorithm is the building block of many unsupervised clustering algorithms in the field of machine learning. This algorithm has two major computational steps which are expectation and maximization:

A high-level idea of EM algorithm functioning is stated below.

So, we had an understanding of the EM algorithm functionality but for implementation of this algorithm in python we need to understand the model which uses this algorithm to form clusters. Lets talk about the Gaussian Mixture model.

The Gaussian Mixture Model is an important concept in machine learning which uses the concept of expectation-maximization. A Gaussian Mixture is composed of several Gaussians, each represented by k which is the subset of the number of clusters to be formed. For each Gaussian k in the mixture the following parameters are present:

The above plot explains the Gaussian distribution for the data having a mean of 4 and a variance of 0.25. This could be concluded as the normal distribution. Using an iterative process the model concludes the final number of the cluster with the help of these parameters which determines the cluster stability.

Lets implement the concept of expectation-maximization in python.

Import necessary libraries

Reading and analyzing the data

Using the famous wine data for this implementation.

Plotting a distribution

This plot helps to understand the distribution of the dependent variable over the independent variable.

Fitting the GMM

The score function returns the log-likelihood which the lower the better. The is negative because it is the product of the density evaluated at the observations and the density takes values that are smaller than one, so its logarithm will be negative. Ignoring the negative and focusing on the magnitude which is 0.73 indicates the model is good and the number of clusters should be 6.

The expectation-Maximization Algorithm represents the idea of computing the latent variables by taking the parameters as fixed and known. The algorithm is inherently fast because it doesnt depend on computing gradients. With a hands-on implementation of this concept in this article, we could understand the expectation-maximization algorithm in machine learning.

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How is the Expectation-Maximization algorithm used in machine learning? - Analytics India Magazine

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Mawf is a free machine learning-powered plugin synth from the company behind TikTok – MusicRadar

April 24, 2022 | Author: admin

In their first foray into the music production world, Bytedance - the company behind social media platform TikTok - have announced the development of a curious new plugin.

Mawf uses machine learning to 'morph' incoming audio signals into emulations of real instruments in your DAW. The plugin's ML synthesis engine can also run on MIDI input alone. This means you can use Mawf as an effect to colour an existing sound, or use it as a virtual instrument by itself. In its beta version, Mawf offers models of three instruments: saxophone, trumpet and the khlui, a Thai flute.

The developers behind Mawf used machine learning to analyse recordings of professional musicians playing instruments. The ML models extracted expressive changes in the instrument's sound that were linked to variations in pitch and amplitude. Mawf then uses these trained models to approximate the sound of these instruments based on input provided by the user. They're keen to distinguish this from physical modelling synthesis, which requires "specialised equations" for each instrument modelled. Mawf needs only a solo recording of the target instrument in order to imitate it.

Though the range of modelled instruments is a little small, Mawf does feature some interesting additions. There's an in-built compressor, chorus, and reverb effects, and a number of Control Modes that adjust how Mawf's synth engine is triggered, allowing the user to control the pitch of the processed audio through MIDI.

In a statement on their website, the developers commented on the current limitations of the technology: "Like the first ever analogue synthesiser, expect some funky bleeps and bloops from Mawf. ML for audio synthesis is a new technology no one has really perfected yet."

Mawf can be downloaded for free by users outside of the U.S., but beta testing is limited to the first 500 sign-ups, so we suggest moving fast if you'd like to snag a copy.

Visit Mawf's website to find out more.

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Mawf is a free machine learning-powered plugin synth from the company behind TikTok - MusicRadar

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