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Key aspects of RPA in the cloud – TechTarget

August 1, 2021 | Author: admin

Robotic process automation started as a more efficient way to write macros on desktop computers. However, many enterprises had difficulties scaling it beyond a few software robots called "bots."

As interest grows in the automation technology, robotic process automation (RPA) seeks to move these bots from desktop computers to the cloud. RPA in the cloud could simplify the infrastructure, improve scalability and provide better integration with other cloud applications.

Cloud providers are seeing the benefits of RPA and are acting accordingly. Recently, Microsoft revamped its Power Automate tooling for the cloud and Google invested in Automation Anywhere, one of the leading RPA vendors. Additionally, all the major RPA vendors have been busy refactoring their offerings to run more efficiently in the cloud.

Learn how RPA works in the cloud, its deployment model, automation workflows and the importance of governance.

In many ways, RPA in the cloud works similarly to how it works on premises. IT teams create bots that can learn and then execute rules-based business processes. In addition, many RPA offerings can observe human digital actions and then design a bot to complete these actions, automating the bot creation process itself.

In the cloud, RPA can take advantage of cloud-native architectures, security models and scalability more efficiently than it can on desktop or on-premises servers. Designing the technology, design approval, security reviews and the actual establishment of RPA platforms can be a major cause of delays when kicking off a digital workforce program in a larger organization -- but the cloud option reduces those delays significantly, said Maurice Dubey, executive director at Q4 Associates and author of Adopting a Digital Workforce.

With architectures built on containerized microservices and serverless infrastructure, cloud RPA provides better scalability, said Amardeep Modi, practice director at Everest Group, an IT advisory firm.

Containers reduce the time required for configuration and setup, as well as simplify auto-scalability without manual intervention. This lowers resource utilization since IT teams can scale up and down microservices' underlying RPA capabilities independently, rather than the traditional approach of replicating the whole servers. These factors can lead to a lower total cost of ownership.

One important aspect of cloud RPA is the deployment model. RPA infrastructure can be dynamically scaled up in the appropriate cloud platform to be closer to other applications. This reduces the burden on IT staff that had to traditionally manage physical servers. All the RPA vendors have created cloud-specific automations that improve the provisioning and management bots on the cloud.

For example, the Blue Prism RPA platform currently supports deployments on AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, IBM, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Salesforce AppExchange. It also enables IT teams to integrate bots into cloud-native services, such as cognitive services and productivity applications. Another aspect of cloud support lies in tapping into an ecosystem of integration partners that specialize in different cloud platforms or business domains.

Cloud RPA changes the way RPA bots are deployed and integrated into other applications. Traditionally RPA bots have connected to other applications by clicking and scrolling in the application's user interface. The cloud makes it easier to create hybrid bots that are programmed like traditional bots but can also automate tasks via APIs.

The rise of hybrid bots running in the cloud could combine the ease of development and understanding of RPA with the traditional performance and scalability of low-code/no-code development.

For example, Microsoft's Power Automate calls these hybrid automation cloud flows. These allow bots to control apps via direct API integration rather than trying to mimic keystrokes and mouse clicks, which are less scalable and prone to break when the UI changes.

One of the biggest attractions of RPA, compared to low-code development tools, is that application development mirrors the way users traditionally interact with applications. This makes it easy for business users to understand what is going on and to use process mining techniques to create the starting point for new automations. APIs and low-code development tools typically require expert knowledge to use.

The rise of hybrid bots running in the cloud could combine the ease of development and understanding of RPA with the traditional performance and scalability of low-code/no-code development.

Cloud RPA also allows enterprises to change the way they govern automations, even for ones that automate desktop UI of an application running on a local PC. This centralizes administration and governance so that administrators get greater visibility into everything that is created and run by users in the organization.

Also, IT leaders need to ensure governance is implemented appropriately.

"By giving RPA to citizen developers, we may end up with the Microsoft Access scenario where organizations' IT departments ended up having to support a lot of poorly designed and developed Access solutions, some of which ended up managing mission-critical aspects of their business," Dubey said. He believes that baking some of the governance capabilities into cloud RPA could help reduce this risk.

Deloitte's Kruger believes that cloud RPA could also help organizations manage risk and operational support better than low-code/no-code automation. He predicted that demand for cloud RPA will grow faster as more organizations move to cloud-native applications in general. This acceleration will be fueled by independent and professional developers creating and sharing automations through the cloud.

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Why the cloud is the best deployment solution – Security Boulevard

August 1, 2021 | Author: admin

The consensus is clear cloud-first is the future of third-party access management. With increased security, the fact that most of the programs and data third parties access is already on the cloud, and many more benefits, switching to a cloud-first approach makes more sense than ever. In fact, by 2025, Gartner predicts that 55% of large organizations will implement a cloud-only strategy.

We promise its not as complicated as the name suggests. Instead of an on-premise server, this method utilizes the cloud for deployment and future maintenance of an access management system. The product and experience are exactly the same, but the location offers a variety of benefits.

Cloud deployment is seamless and efficient. Housing your vendor management in the cloud can greatly simplify network configuration. Instead of having an outside team build a physical server and work with your organizations team to deploy that server on premise, this option allows every technical detail to be set up and deployed remotely through the cloud. Its simpler for every party involved, and it can reduce an onboarding timeline from weeks to just a couple of days. If you have a widely distributed network with sites across the country or beyond, putting your vendor management system in the cloud may allow you to locate that system closer to the sites being accessed or even deploy multiple appliances to serve different regions. The public cloud offers a more economically feasible way of doing this rather than having to install physical servers in other regions.

Cloud-based access management is cost effective over the long term. In addition to the money saved through the condensed onboarding process that happens through cloud deployment, this method can save an organization money in the long run by making access times faster and configurations easier. Any updates or maintenance that will be needed over time can also happen quicker and easier through the cloud. As cloud-deployment becomes more common, costs are coming down and becoming more competitive, which will reduce cost over time as well.

Cloud deployment limits the burden on your IT staff. If you dont have the staff to manage the hardware and operating system (OS) of a vendor management appliance, or you would just rather not have to allocate those resources, having a fully managed cloud vendor management system can lighten that load. This allows you to get the immediate benefits of the system for your vendor managers without having to deal with infrastructure, which is kind of the concept of cloud computing in general. A condensed onboarding eliminates the need to leverage an organizations IT staff and infrastructure. This allows for more agile, affordable, and efficient deployment and maintenance.

Cloud-based access management delivers the same parity and security as on-premise servers. While this wasnt always the case, the cloud is just as secure as physical servers nowadays. In addition, cloud deployment does meet regulatory guidelines, including those set by HIPAA. Many highly regulated industries use cloud deployment, and there are compliant and secure ways to do so. Utilizing the cloud offers the same features and functionality as any on-premise solution with easier, faster, and more affordable characteristics.

Cloud deployment works with access management software and patient privacy monitoring software. Many access management software programs, as well as patient privacy monitoring software, have already chosen a cloud-first approach. This highlights not only the security of the cloud, but the compliance with regulatory requirements, such as HIPAA requirements for third-party access and management.

Its understandable to have apprehensions about a cloud-first management system. If you cant see the cloud, how do you know its as secure as a physical, on-premise server? However, recent advancements in both security and technology have shown the cloud is secure, complies with regulatory requirements, and eases the burden of your staff both during and after deployment. You can learn more about how the cloud works for access management and more regulated industries here.

The future is here and that future is the cloud. At the end of the day, the cloud allows security companies to onboard vendors faster and easier, while still offering the best experience and products on the cybersecurity market. You can learn more about the cloud deployments here, or request a demo of SecureLinks cloud-first software.

The post Why the cloud is the best deployment solution appeared first on SecureLink.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from SecureLink authored by Isa Jones. Read the original post at: https://www.securelink.com/blog/why-the-cloud-is-the-best-deployment-solution/

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Now is the time for a federal cloud modernization moonshot – Brookings Institution

August 1, 2021 | Author: admin

Now is the time to launch a Federal Cloud Modernization moonshot to modernize all practical legacy civilian IT systems within a decade. COVID vividly demonstrated the importance of our IT systems to a resilient and robust economy. Yet from security breaches to delayed tax processing, the weaknesses of government IT systems are well known.

In ITIFs Secrets from Cloud Computings First Stage report, I show how cloud computing offers a better way to modernize federal IT. This will bring improved citizen services, lower operating cost, andas repeated security breaches highlight the need forbetter cybersecurity. The initiative should be led by the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Federal Chief Technology Officer (CTO), with deep engagement by agencies and support from Congress. The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) can serve as a starting point, with IT modernization funding targeting $10 billion a year.

This will involve modernizing thousands of systems. We will need to develop new agile migration methodologies and stand up migration factories. The U.S. Digital Service can play an important role here. Leadership must also rally the federal IT industry partner community to implement system migrations at scale. Its not just fundingthe initiative needs a robust program office and careful governance. Ten years is arguably too long, but even so this will be a challenge to achieve; once it starts showing success, lessons learned should be applied to modernize state and local government IT.

Cloud better enables the government missions and programs that the American public depends on. Cloud computing is a powerful platform that provides hundreds of IT services with a common architecture, security model, development tools, and management approach. This now provides a better way to automate and scale modernization in a more repeatable fashion. Cloud computing has 31% lower operational costs than comparable on-premises infrastructure, and even greater savings when people and downtime costs are included Elsewhere, I show that cloud is a more flexible and automated system that enables rapid changes to new demands. This provides better, more reliable citizen services, whether they be innovative public facing websites, faster payment processing, or veterans health care scheduling. Moreover, cloud provides substantially stronger security that is built into the platform by design. While the recent cybersecurity executive order makes important process and policy changes, the systems and code still need to be modernized.

The initiative should be led by the Federal CIO Council, OMB, and the Federal CTO. Agency and department leadership, in addition to CIOs, need to be deeply engaged to support IT modernization. DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency should be an integral partner. Congress will need to support funding and will expect transparency. The CIO Council should set a baseline of systems to modernize and then set measurable, agency-specific outcome goals such as the number of target applications, servers, and petabytes of data moved, cost savings, and priority programs supported. Federal CIOs will need to prioritize all major systems and provide plans to move them in smaller stages, learning along the way. A cloud modernization moonshot program office is crucial to manage the program and should issue public progress reports at least bi-annually, in addition to managing ongoing performance metrics, timelines, and cost savings.

The U.S. federal government is the largest technology buyer, spending well over $100 billion a year on IT. However, we need to get out of the trap where annual appropriations only pay for ongoing operations, leaving little funds to move to lower-cost, more capable systems. As Congress and the President negotiate an infrastructure modernization package, digital infrastructure and Federal IT should be included. The federal Technology Modernization Fund provides funding and expertise to upgrade and transform IT systems. Now is the time to build on the lessons learned and scale it. Funding should be increased to roughly $10 billion a year, or roughly 10% of the federal IT budget. This is substantial but would place the government at the low end of the target share of IT spending dedicated to modernization. The TMF repayment requirement should be aggressively lowered for moonshot projects, with more funding for the most important systems. The OMB, in consultation with Congress, should develop criteria for funding. Funding can prioritize target public domains including health, education, security, and benefit payments and fraud.

The federal government relies on federal IT-focused companies to provide IT services, and private industry will be integral to moving thousands of systems to the cloud. New migration methodologies will be needed to move workloads at this scale, with attention to related mission work-flows and governance. The U.S. Digital Service has an important role to play here. Migration factories that move IT systems and data in more standardized, repeatable processes will be needed. Moving to the public cloud should be the desired default choice due to its better cost, operational flexibility, and agility. However, private clouds for sensitive data and on-premises modernization remain options where appropriate. They should require specific justification and approval, with criteria developed by OMB and the Federal CIO council.

Earlier Cloud First and Cloud Smart policies helped start the federal move to cloud. Ten years later, its time to build on them with additional action. The goal is ambitious. Yet the federal Data Center Optimization Initiative, for example, targeted closing ~10% of federal data center square footage a year, and included goals such as cost savings, server utilization, and energy efficiency. For sure there will be setbacks along the way. But the initiative should learn from these and course-correct. A parallel initiative at the Department of Defense for national security systems could follow. Lessons from the federal level should then be applied to a state and local government modernization initiative. We are moving to a digital economy to generate growth, resiliency, and improve social opportunities. A robust government IT capability is integral to this progress.

Amazon is a general, unrestricted donor to the Brookings Institution. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions posted in this piece are solely those of the authors and not influenced by any donation.

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‘$6 in every $10’ spent on cloud infrastructure is with AWS, Microsoft, or Google – The Register

August 1, 2021 | Author: admin

Spending on cloud infrastructure services shot up by more than a third again as workload migration and cloud native applications development sped up, according to the latest research from Canalys.

After AWS filed its latest set of quarterly figures last night, analysts at the channel focused consultancy confirmed that some $47bn was forked out by biz customers on infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) in calendar Q2, up 36 per cent year-on-year.

The top three cloud providers accounted for 61 per cent of this total expenditure, said Canalys, and AWS was the frontrunner with a 31 per cent share of the spoils, or $14.57bn.

On an earnings conference call last night, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said: "Disruptive economic events like COVID have cause many people to step back and think about how they want to change strategically. And many of come to the conclusion that they do not want to own and run their own datacenters."

Customer wins in the quarter for AWS include telcos Swisscom and Bell Canada, BMO Financial Group, Grupo Bancolumbia, and Ferrari.

Microsoft's Azure service grew 51 per cent to $10.34bn, giving it a 22 per cent share of total spending in IaaS. The beast of Redmond also flashed its financials this week, showing it made a $165m daily profit in fiscal '21.

Third-placed Google grabbed 8 per cent market share in the Canalys ranking, on the back of 61 per cent growth in sales to $3.76bn.

Google Cloud, which has a new EMEA boss in place to lead the charge following the exit of Chris Ciauri, also managed to clip its operating losses in the quarter to $591m versus an operating loss of $1.4bn a year earlier.

"Across cloud, we will continue to invest aggressively, given the opportunity we see," said CFO Ruth Porat this week in a calendar Q2 earnings call with Wall Street types. "The biggest cloud providers benefited from the dynamics of the lockdown, a trend that continues."

Canalys said the pandemic had exposed "many economic and operational fragilities" in the past year and a half, and organisations that worked on business resiliency planning had "expedited digital transformation projects and increased cloud consumption."

Many grey-haired hardware vendors are trying to counter the cloud generation of corporations by launching their own consumption-based services, including HPE, Dell, and Cisco.

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TTX tackles turnover in moving ERP to the cloud – CIO

August 1, 2021 | Author: admin

Railcar pooling company TTX is undergoing its second digital transformation, the first of which saw it ditch its mainframe for x86 servers. Now, its heading for the cloud.

When Bruce Schinelli, CIO and vice president of IT, joined TTX in late 2006 most of its systems were mainframe-based. We had a very small footprint in any other kind of environment, he says. The following year, the company began rewriting its applications from the ground up, a process that took six years. We were one of the few that actually completely exited the mainframe platform and didnt just hide a bunch of the processes in the background, he says.

Come 2017 and Schinelli was ready to map out the next major evolution of TTXs IT strategy, a process that had him thinking in terms of business processes, not applications, ranking them on two axes, from commodity to unique and from highly critical to less critical: Its always critical to somebody, or you really ought not to be doing it, he says.

Critical, unique processes such as the way TTX calculates revenue would need to be built in-house, but many other critical processes were ripe for software as a service. So Schinelli began looking for a cloud platform to replace its ERP at the time, an on-premises SAP system and supply chain, HCM, and planning tools. As several of these were reaching end of life, Schinelli decided to migrate everything at once, trading the flexibility of having multiple vendors for the agility of being able to develop rapidly in a single cloud.

TTX went through a long, rigorous evaluation, which involved most of the company. Everybody got a say. Technology was a huge component, so we got to weigh in quite a bit, but we werent the leading voice, he says.

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Cloud Computing Server Market is to Witness Significant Growth between 2021-2027 with leading players IBM, Corporation,Rackspace, Microsoft…

August 1, 2021 | Author: admin

Cloud server Market is a cloud infrastructure service that allows service providers and end-users to build architectures using virtual networks. While using cloud servers, organizations rent virtual servers rather than renting or purchasing on-premise physical servers.

They generally are paid for what they use depending on the capacity required at a particular time. If organizations use cloud servers, their resource can be scaled up or scaled down according to their demand, which makes it more flexible and cost-effective for the organization.

When more demand is placed on the servers, the capacity can be automatically increased to match that demand without setting up any infrastructure. Cloud servers provide flexibility, scalability, cost-effectiveness, and reliability to cloud service providers and end-users.

The report offers intricate dynamics about the different aspects of the Cloud Computing Server market that aids companies operating in the market in making strategic development decisions.

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Key Players

IBM Corporation,Rackspace, Microsoft Corporation, Google, Oracle Corporation, Dell, VMware, Hewlett-Packard and Amazon

It also includes a key indicator assessment to highlight the growth prospects of the Cloud Computing Server market, and estimate statistics related to the market progress in terms of value.

The report mentions the company profiles of key players that are currently dominating the Cloud Computing Server market, wherein various developments, expansion, and winning strategies practiced and executed by leading players have been presented in detail.

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The research methodology adopted by analysts to combine the Cloud Computing Server market report is based on detailed primary as well as secondary research. With the help of in-depth insights of the industry-affiliated information that is obtained and legitimated by market-admissible resources, analysts have offered riveting observations and authentic forecasts of the Cloud Computing Server market.

During the primary research phase, analysts interviewed industry stakeholders, investors, brand managers, vice presidents, and sales and marketing managers. On the basis of data obtained through the interviews of genuine resources, analysts have emphasized the changing scenario of the Cloud Computing Server market.

For secondary research, analysts scrutinized numerous annual report publications, white papers, industry association publications, and company websites to obtain the necessary understanding of the Cloud Computing Server market.

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The myth of privacy – The Express Tribune

August 1, 2021 | Author: admin

The Pegasus Project, as it is being called now, has blown the lid off of the Pandoras box of fears and doubts. Since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the predatory nature of the alleged surveillance capacities and practices of the American and the British intelligence agencies in 2013, we have seen truckloads of new literature (both fiction and non-fiction) on cybersecurity and espionage. Hollywood has also let its imagination and paranoia run wild. And since 2013, technology has grown more powerful, internet speeds much faster, the storage capacity of each device and batteries attached much bigger. Cameras on each device alone have grown much wilder. And then there is the issue of cloud services. Unless you change the settings on your smartphones and other smart devices their data is automatically backed up on cloud servers. Once this information is imprinted on internet servers despite all assurances from the vendors this data for all practical purposes becomes non-fungible. But let us not get ahead of ourselves.

Let us first take a look at the scandal so far. NSO Group, an Israeli software company, sells snooping software to several governments in the world. These governments then deploy it to spy on groups and countries they have an adversarial relation with. Given that the software is military-grade the Israeli government strictly controls who gets access to it and who doesnt. Except this responsibility until a few months ago was shouldered by none other than Bibi Netanyahus government. This may explain why he was so adamant about not leaving power or even the prime ministers residence once out of power.

This software infects the target phones through phishing scams that get to you through SMS, WhatsApp messages, iMessage or an unknown vulnerability in certain phones. Once it infects the phone it can harvest your text, WhatsApp and email messages, access your photos and videos, your phone book, your GPS data, your calendar, passwords, record your calls, activate your camera and microphone at will. As its technology has improved the NSO Group can now install the said software even without you clicking a link.

In 2020, Forbidden Stories, a non-profit project primarily focusing on publishing stories which the traditional media for some reason does not carry, got ahold of a target list of 50 thousand phone numbers. Amnesty Internationals cybersecurity team examined some of the target phones and found out that half of them had traces of the Pegasus Trojan software. As many as 17 media outlets, including Washington Post, then came together to further probe the matter. And the revelations since then have been startling. The list included 3 presidents, 10 prime ministers and one king apart from various individuals in the public eye like journalists, civil society activists, dissidents and government officials. Of these 10 prime ministers, one is Imran Khan. Without forensic analysis, it is hard to say if all these numbers were effectively hacked. But it is clear that at some point these were considered potential targets. Frances President Macron, for instance, made it to the list and since then has reportedly changed his phone but apparently was not spied on.

Perhaps the most interesting case is of India. Of all the client countries it is perhaps the only one with well-established democratic credentials. Democracies as a matter of principle do not spy on their citizens. Snowdens revelations might have shaken faith in this precept a bit but since then the democratic institutions have visibly reasserted themselves ensuring that intelligence agencies do not spy on their citizens. But not in India. The Pegasus Project revelations show that Indias current government spied on opposition leaders like Rahul Gandhi, hacked into the phone of election strategist Prashant Kishor as he was advising West Bengals leading party during recent state election, in addition to many other civil society and media functionaries. It did not even spare its own cabinet ministers and office-bearers. Presently the Indian government is pretending that it did nothing wrong and hopes that like the dead bodies in water during the Covid crisis media will soon get over it. It may have to reconsider this position for three reasons. One, like the Covid crisis this scandal has already done considerable damage to its international image. Two, this is the kind of scandal that tends to grow because of the sheer number of high-profile victims. Three, there might be more whence all this came.

Prime Minister Khans phone was also on Indias target list along with a host of other high-profile officials. Pakistan government says it will litigate the matter. This will be an interesting development and many like me will watch it closely. But as a rule of thumb, unless the domestic technology has grown sufficiently to ensure total security for the use of such high placed officials, it is strongly advised that they do not use smartphones at all. There are many reasons for it. But this time they might have been lucky and this scandal was caught quite early. Who knows how many other software and companies are out there doing exactly that or even a better job of not getting caught? And dont forget each smartphones own firmware and the apps you use in such phones. Despite their bonafides, these companies also routinely harvest your data.

On books at least the software is only meant to target terrorists and criminals. This obviously wasnt the case and therefore the incumbent Israeli government claims to be conducting a thorough investigation into the matter. The NSO Group also claims that the software cannot be traced back to the spying government. This obviously proved wrong and with every passing day, more damning evidence is surfacing. Even if an inquiry doesnt close this company, this scandal will ensure that it soon goes out of business.

But for an ordinary smartphone user here is the bottom line. Kiss your privacy goodbye. It is funny how so many people refuse Covid vaccines after listening to baseless conspiracy theories about privacy but happily buy expensive smartphones with open mics and two opposite high-powered cameras, if not more, always connected to the network.

Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace by Ronald J Deibert does a great job of summarising how privacy in this age is a myth. The number of internet chokepoints like the physical locations called IXPs (internet exchange points) alone provides an infinite number of opportunities to snoop on your data. Until better devices come, cover the cameras and pretend you are not being watched. Or convince yourself that you are not important enough.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31st, 2021.

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Dont Fret Intel Macs Will Still Get This M1-Exclusive macOS 12 Feature – iDrop News

August 1, 2021 | Author: admin

When Apple unveiled macOS 12 Monterey last month, it drew a line in the sand between its new leading-edge M1-powered Macs and those models still using Intel chips. Now, however, it appears that this line has been blurred, at least a bit.

There are at least six big new features in macOS Monterey that were expected to require an M1 Mac, but now the latest macOS 12 beta is bringing at least one of them to Intel-flavoured Macs too Live Text in Photos.

The change comes in the fourth macOS 12 beta, released to developers earlier this week, which was quickly followed by a third public beta of the same build. There wasnt much else interesting about the latest macOS beta Apple briefly suggested that Universal Control had finally been enabled, but sadly, that turned out to be premature.

However, buried in the release notes was an oblique confirmation that Live Text was quietly being added to Intel Macs as well:

Live Text now works across all Mac computers that support macOS Monterey.

Apple didnt mention the word Intel in the release notes at all, but all Mac computers naturally includes the many Intel variants that Apple has sold in the past and still sells today.

As Rene Ritchie theorizes, Apple seems to have changed course and added Live Text based on demand, but it also helps that support for Live Text on the Mac doesnt need to be done in real-time like it does on the iPhone and iPad.

Even though most of Apples Macs feature a FaceTime camera, even the M1-powered models wont allow you to view Live Text through the camera. This seems reasonable considering that the MacBook and iMac cameras are designed for things like video conferencing, and most users arent likely going to be pointing it at signs and receipts the same way they would with an iPhone.

Of course, youll still be able to extract Live Text from pictures captured with the Macs FaceTime camera you just wont be able to do it while looking at a live preview of the image. Instead, youll have to load it up in Photos or Preview.

As Ritchie explains, this means that Live Text on the Mac doesnt really need the M1s Neural Engine. While M1-powered models will almost certainly still leverage that for even faster processing, Intel versions can simply handle it opportunistically. This means it might run a bit slower on older Intel Macs, but at least it will be possible.

The real benefit of the new Live Text feature will be found in iOS 15 on the iPhone, where users will be able to extract text right through the iPhones Camera app.

Its a magical feature, and it doesnt just work in the Camera and Photos apps, either. Its a system-level feature that should work for any photo that youre viewing, anywhere on your device. There are already a few exceptions with specific apps that dont use the standard iOS photo APIs, like Facebook and Instagram, but these may also simply be a matter of waiting for these apps to be updated.

Most significantly, Apple is doing all the processing directly on the A-series or M-series chip in your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Your photo data never leaves your device for this purpose, and Apples servers dont analyze your photos for text at all. This is similar to the on-device photo processing for things like faces and objects that Apple has been doing since iOS 10 back in 2016.

Of course, if you sync your photos with iCloud Photo Library, then your photos will be stored on Apples servers, but the key is that Apple doesnt perform any computational analysis on the photos stored there. Every other service that does this kind of analysis relies on powerful cloud servers to do the heavy lifting, meaning that all the text in your photos is living in a database on that companys server. Apples approach is a massive win for privacy.

However, this requirement for on-device processing is precisely why the Live Photos feature wasnt originally going to be supported on Intel Macs. Apple presumably felt that the Intel chips werent up to the task, and more importantly, the code to handle this was built for Apples own Neural Engine, which is only found in the 2017 A11 Bionic and later A-series chips, and of course, the new M1 chip that powers Apples latest Macs. This is the same reason that youll need at least an iPhone XS/XR to use Live Text in iOS 15.

In the case of Intel Macs, however, Apple obviously realized that it could batch process photos for Live Text, rather than needing to do it in real-time. Its not yet clear exactly how this approach may differ under the hood its likely Apple is analyzing photos in the background and pre-storing the text for later but the result is the same: there will be one more feature for Intel Mac users to enjoy when macOS Monterey launches later this year.

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SSD belonging to Euro-cloud Scaleway was stolen from back of a truck, then turned up on YouTube – The Register

August 1, 2021 | Author: admin

It sounds like a "dog ate my homework" excuse for the cloud age, but Euro-cloud Scaleway says one of its solid-state disks was stolen from a truck, turned up in the hands of a YouTuber, and has now made its way back home.

A Saturday post by CEO Yann Lechelle revealed that over a year ago, a disk was stolen while in transit between two Scaleway data centres.

Fast forward to 2021 and a YouTuber bought the disk on a classified ads site called Leboncoin. Specifically, a YouTuber called Micode who creates content about the persistence of data even after disks are formatted.

Lechelle said Scaleway worked with the YouTuber to recover the disk. The French-language video creator has written to Scaleway with assurances they have not copied the information contained on the disk. It is said some customer data was on the drive, unencrypted, including the source code and SSH keys of an Italian VPS provider.

If you understand French, you can catch the final part of Micode's video series on the purloined Scaleway SSD here, which was uploaded on July 23, the day before Lechelle emitted his blog post.

We're told Scaleway has alerted its clients to the incident.

The CEO said recovering the disk helped the authorities to advance their investigations into the heist, and meant the company felt able to publicly disclose the theft.

The cloudy company has since revisited its data transfer policies, and now ships disks in sealed cases equipped with GPS trackers. Obviously it has no desire to have to explain such an improbable security story for any incident of any origin ever again.

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AWS growing so fast its revenue makes it bigger than Cisco or HP – The Register

August 1, 2021 | Author: admin

Amazon.com has released its Q2 2021 earnings, and revealed that revenue from its cloud business Amazon Web Services has jumped 37 per cent to an annualised rate of $59 billion a figure that takes it past Cisco's annual revenue and puts it within striking distance of Lenovo.

In Thursday's investor earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said:

That $59 billion surpasses last reported full-year revenue from both Cisco ($49.3B, FY2020) and HP Inc ($56.6B, FY2020). The figure leaves AWS very close to overtaking Lenovo's 2021 revenue of $60.7 billion.

AWS only commenced operations in 2006, so creating a Cisco-sized business in the 15 years since is quite an achievement.

AWS was already leading the cloud market, but experienced accelerated growth in Q2, three months ended 30 June.

CFO Olsavsky attributed the revenue growth to enterprises, governments, educational and research institutions, as well as startup and digital-native customers. A press release [PDF] released on Thursday detailed a slew of new AWS contracts, ranging from telecom companies to financial services to automotive.

And, as with the rest of Amazon, COVID played a part in AWS's growth. According to Olsavsky:

Amazon's Q2 2021 total revenue across AWS, its digital tat bazaar and other activities was reported at $113.1 billion, up 27 per cent year-on-year. AWS accounted for a $14.809bn chunk of this, itself up 37 per cent.

Group operating profit climbed 31.8 per cent to $7.702bn, of which AWS contributed $4.193bn versus the $3.357bn AWS threw in the pot a year earlier.

The cloud business's operating margin for Q2 was down to 28.3 per cent from Q1's 30.8 per cent. Olsavsky attributed the decline to pressure to cut prices, foreign exchange rates and workforce and infrastructure expansion.

"We are very happy with the numbers," said Olsavsky on the call, adding "We know it's going to bounce around as we invest, but also work very hard to scale our businesses and efficiently run our assets."

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AWS growing so fast its revenue makes it bigger than Cisco or HP - The Register

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