• Search for:
    21Mar, 2023
    Bing Chat AI Is Getting Faster, and Has New Buttons

    Microsoft introduced the Bing Chat AI chatbot in February, which has quickly risen in popularity. A few new features are now rolling out, including faster performance, new sharing options, and reduced limits.

    Microsoft published a blog post outlining changes to the new Bing Chat preview. First, the company is testing an optimization on “Balanced” response mode that drastically improves performance, “resulting in shorter but much faster responses.” Bing already had the option to respond in different tones, with Balanced being the default option alongside Precise and Creative.

    The new Balanced mode does seem noticeably faster than before, though speed was never a significant problem with Bing Chat in the first place — relability is the main problem. Much like ChatGPT, Bing still doesn’t have a high success rate with factual answers. For example, I asked it to generate a table comparing the Samsung Galaxy S23 to the iPhone 14 Pro, and it said the S23 had an Exynos 2200 chipset instead of a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, even though none of the linked sources mentioned that chip.

    Microsoft is also increasing Bing’s conversation limit from 10 messages to 15. Bing Chat originally didn’t have a conversation limit at all, but it was introduced after people were using long conversations to coax Bing into calling itself depressed or sentient in some way. Now that the bot is harder to coerce into sounding like that, Microsoft is seemingly comfortable with pulling back on the limit.

    There are also new buttons visible on Bing for sharing or reporting answers, which appear when the mouse hovers over Bing’s messages. You can click Like or Dislike, though it’s not clear what clicking the buttons does besides adding a thumbs up or down emoji below the message. There’s a Copy button for copying the answer to your clipboard, and a Share button that creates a link to your answer. Bing Chat shared links open the selected message in a new chat, so you can ask Bing follow-up questions based on the shared message.

    Annoyingly, the links only work if the web Bing Chat is already accessible — opening them in Chrome or another browser asks you to use Microsoft Edge, and you need to join the Bing waitlist (which doesn’t seem to be a waitlist anymore). Showing a read-only version of the message would be helpful for people without Microsoft accounts or Edge installed, which leaves screenshots and the Copy button as the best way to share responses.

    Finally, Microsoft is tweaking the Creative tone to support larger amounts of context in conversations, and the Skype version can now be added to group conversations where at least one person has access to the new Bing.

    Resource : https://www.howtogeek.com/880239/bing-chat-ai-is-getting-faster-and-has-new-buttons/

    16Mar, 2023
    EV Charging Management System Vulnerabilities Allow Disruption, Energy Theft

    Researchers warn that many electric vehicle (EV) charging management systems are affected by vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to cause disruption, steal energy, or obtain driver information. 

    The vulnerabilities were discovered by researchers working for SaiFlow, an Israel-based company that specializes in protecting EV charging infrastructure and distributed energy resources.

    The security holes are related to the communications between the charging system management service (CSMS) and the EV charge point (CP), specifically the use of the Open Charge Port Protocol (OCPP). The flaws have been confirmed to impact the CSMS offered by multiple vendors.

    The problem is related to the use of WebSocket communications by the OCPP and how it mishandles multiple connections. The protocol does not know how to handle more than one CP connection at a time and attackers could abuse this by opening a new connection to the CSMS. Another issue is related to what SaiFlow describes as “weak OCPP authentication and chargers identities policy”.

    By opening a new connection to the CSMS on behalf of a charge point, the attacker causes the original connection to be closed or to become nonfunctional. 

    According to SaiFlow, an attacker can exploit the weaknesses to launch a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack that disrupts the electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) network. In addition, if an attacker can connect to the CSMS, they may be able to obtain drivers’ personal information, including payment card data, as well as other sensitive data, such as server credentials.

    In certain configurations, if the charger approves unknown driver identities, an attacker may be able to charge their vehicle without paying for it, the security firm said. 

    “Since the CSMS platforms are publicly accessible, it is possible for an attacker to hijack the connection remotely, without needing to gain credentials, access, or perform MITM attacks,” Ron Tiberg-Shachar, co-founder and CEO of SaiFlow, told SecurityWeek.

    Tiberg-Shachar believes it may be possible for a somewhat inexperienced hacker to carry out an attack, even with limited resources. 

    In order to conduct an attack, the hacker first needs to obtain a charger’s identity. This identity typically has a standard structure, making it easier for threat actors to enumerate the values of valid identifiers. 

    In the next phase, they need to obtain information on which CSMS platform the charger is connected to. The expert noted that the CSMS URL can be discovered using services such as Shodan or SecurityTrails. 

    SaiFlow has published a technical blog post describing the vulnerabilities and the attack scenarios. The company also provides recommendations for how these types of attacks can be mitigated. 

    It doesn’t seem like the vulnerabilities can be easily patched by vendors. 

    “We’ve approached many key players in the industry (and keep on doing so) to make them aware of our findings and how they can approach a solution,” Tiberg-Shachar said. “Additionally, we’ve made our solutions team available to support any specific technical questions, in an effort to reinforce vulnerabilities as quickly as possible. Our key goal is to support partners in scaling their charging infrastructure as quickly and safely as possible.”

    Resource : https://www.securityweek.com/ev-charging-management-system-vulnerabilities-allow-disruption-energy-theft/

    14Mar, 2023
    NASA To Measure Forest Health from Above

    In places across the U.S., tree cover is shrinking – forests are burned by wildfires on the West Coast and drowned by rising sea levels along the East. From the ground, it’s hard to assess the scale of the losses and the effects disappearing trees have on atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and climate change.

    NASA research scientist Jon Ranson is working to improve new technologies for studying trees from above, so future Earth-observing missions can more accurately assess forest health.

    “Trees do a huge service for the planet, in terms of sequestering carbon dioxide, taking it out of the atmosphere and putting it into wood,” Ranson said, “but trees are very sensitive to our changing climate. We’re trying to see the changes going on in forest ecosystems. If you detect things early enough, you might be able to do something about it.”

    When measured from aircraft and satellites, the wavelengths of light reflected by plants tell scientists about the amount of photosynthesis occurring, and therefore how much atmospheric carbon dioxide trees take up and store. The current standard for studying vegetation is called NDVI, or Normalized Differential Vegetation Index, which is the average of two broad portions of the infrared spectrum. NASA’s NDVI record goes back 40 years, providing a low-resolution but accurate picture of forest health.

    While NDVI is good at assessing vegetation quantity and vigor broadly, Ranson said, breaking down infrared and visible light into many more wavelengths, a technology called hyperspectral imaging, can provide insight on plants’ water content, chlorophyll and even changes in health. 

    “Vegetation has these broad spectral properties,” said Ian Adams, Earth Sciences Division Technologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “With hyperspectral imaging, you get lots of different measurements at smaller, closer together frequencies. There is a lot more information we can pull out if we can get better spectral resolution.”

    By dramatically increasing the number of frequencies available for researchers to study, Ranson’s work serves the priorities of the National Academies of Science’s most recent Earth Science decadal survey, which determines the field’s long-term priorities. The survey lists “surface topography and vegetation,” including forests, as a key area of study in need of more advanced technology.

     “Strategically for NASA, and more broadly for the remote sensing community, hyperspectral is one of the areas we see as the future,” Adams said.

    To make use of hyperspectral imaging by future orbital missions, data analysis techniques are first proven closer to the ground.

    Ranson’s team fitted a Skyfish drone (UAV) from partner institution Virginia Tech with a visible and infrared (VIS/IR) hyperspectral camera and lidar equipment. They flew the imaging equipment over forests near Blacksburg, VA, in a region called Mountain Lake. Comparing their UAV observations with actual CO2 levels recorded by sensors on a nearby National Ecological Observatory Network tower, Ranson’s team was able to refine calculations about how much carbon the forest removed from the atmosphere.

    These comparisons allowed them to further refine techniques for interpreting the hyperspectral data. For instance, Plants stressed by too much sunlight may release pigments to shield their chloroplasts, a condition his sensors can detect. If plants get too much shade, they may grow leaves with larger surface-areas, which can cause the sensor to overestimate plant productivity. Ranson wants to add short-wave infrared sensors to better distinguish reflections from leaves and other parts of plants, eliminating another possible source of error.

    The view from space: Seeing the forest for the trees

    Ranson’s goal is to study forests on a global scale from space.

    “We’re trying to get the complete picture,” Ranson said. “So that when we go to space, we know how to find the answer to the question, ‘Are our forests healthy? And if not, why not?’”

    Scientists and engineers at Goddard have been developing a mission concept called Concurrent Artificially intelligent Spectrometry and Adaptive Lidar System, or CASALS. If selected, CASALS would send a satellite with lidar and hyperspectral cameras into space. A constellation of such satellites could take the frequent measurements necessary to assess changes in forest productivity over time, using models perfected by Ranson’s UAV flights.“Forests take up as much carbon as the ocean does, yet forests cover only 9 percent of Earth’s surface,” said Ranson. “So, if something goes wrong with our forests, it’s a dramatic issue. We’ve got this great, great resource in forests, and we need to care for them so they’ll care for us.”

    Resource : https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-measure-forest-health-from-above

    7Mar, 2023
    AI is making a long-running scam even more effective

    You’ve no doubt heard of the scam where the perpetrator calls up an elderly person and pretends to be their grandchild or some other close relative. The usual routine is to act in a distressed state, pretend they’re in a sticky situation, and ask for an urgent cash transfer to resolve the situation. While many grandparents will realize the voice isn’t that of their grandchild and hang up, others won’t notice and, only too keen to help their anxious relative, go ahead and send money to the caller’s account.

    A Washington Post report on Sunday reveals that some scammers have taken the con to a whole new level by deploying AI technology capable of cloning voices, making it even more likely that the target will fall for the ruse.

    To launch this more sophisticated version of the scam, criminals require “an audio sample with just a few sentences,” according to the Post. The sample is then run through one of many widely available online tools that use the original voice to create a replica that can be instructed to say whatever you want simply by typing in phrases.

    Data from the Federal Trade Commission suggests that in 2022 alone, there were more than 36,000 reports of so-called impostor scams, with more than 5,o00 of these happening over the phone. Reported losses reached $11 million.

    The fear is that with AI tools becoming more effective and more widely available, even more people will fall for the scam in the coming months and years.

    The scam still takes some planning, however, with a determined perpetrator needing to find an audio sample of a voice, as well as the phone number of the related victim. Audio samples, for example, could be located online via popular sites like TikTok and YouTube, while phone numbers could also be located on the web.

    The scam can take many forms, too. The Post cites an example where someone pretending to be a lawyer contacted an elderly couple, telling them their grandson was in custody for an alleged crime and that they needed more than $15,000 for legal costs. The bogus lawyer then pretended to hand the phone to their grandson, whose cloned voice pleaded for help to pay the fees, which they duly did.

    They only realized they’d been scammed when their grandson called them later that day for a chat. It’s thought the scammer may have cloned his voice from YouTube videos that the grandson posted, though it’s hard to be sure.

    Some are calling for the companies who make the AI technology that clones voices to be held responsible for such crimes. But before this happens, it seems certain that many others will lose money via this nefarious scam.

    To listen to an example of a cloned voice to see just how close to the original it can get, check out this Digital Trends article.

    Resource : https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/ai-making-long-running-scam-more-effective/

    3Mar, 2023
    The 5 best ChatGPT tips we use constantly

    ChatGPT continues to dominate the internet, but it has several hidden functions that most users don’t know about. By leveraging the best ChatGPT tips, you can go from just chatting to turning ChatGPT into a tool that works for you.

    The chatbot uses the basic input format — [length] [writing results] on in the style of [style] — to allow its machine learning algorithm to process the prompt it receives. Using this basic template can unlock a myriad of tips and tricks that you can use for many beneficial everyday tasks. Here are five of our favorites.

    Generating emails and subjects

    You can use ChatGPT to develop concise emails for whatever purpose you desire. Using simple prompts such as “write a 100-word email explaining why I need to take the day off for a doctor’s appointment” will deliver a concise email template that you can copy and paste with ease. You can give ChatGPT the word count, dialect, topic, etc., in the prompt and it will return the email. Whether it is an elevator pitch, a professional email, or a conversational response, all you have to do is start with the parameters you want.

    ChatGPT is also good at generating email subjects if that is all you need. If you have no issue writing your own emails, but just need a little help with the subject, you can input a prompt such as “can you write me 10 subject email lines for a sales email to potential clients for my cake-baking business?” The text generator will then give you several options that you can select for a clickworthy email header.

    Spelling and grammar corrector

    There are many separate AI tools in existence that already work to edit text for spelling and grammar errors. One such tool is QuillBot, which is a paraphraser, a grammar checker, a plagiarism checker, a co-writer, a summarizer, and a citation generator. However, many of its features are behind a paywall. Even though there is now a subscription-based ChatGPT Plus version that goes for $20, you can easily use the free version of ChatGPT as a spelling and grammar checker.

    You can unlock ChatGPT’s text editor ability with a prompt such as “check the following text for spelling and grammar errors,” then enter the text. The chatbot will return to you freshly edited text.

    Language translator

    ChatGPT says it is capable of translating a variety of languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Danish. However, it does admit its translations are not perfect due to the machine-learning nature of their generation.

    Still, having a source that can quickly and automatically translate almost 20languages is an excellent option if you require fast text editing. For longer text, you can use a prompt such as “translate the following text into this language” and then enter the text. The chatbot will return to you the text in your desired language.

    For shorter text, you can use a prompt such as “translate the lazy dog jumped over the log into Norwegian.” ChatGPT will return to you the text in Norwegian. ChatGPT notes that it is a good idea to have a human translator review important documents for accuracy.

    Teach ChatGPT your writing style

    ChatGPT is a constant learning algorithm. But not just from the thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons built into its layout. You can train the chatbot to produce text based on your own writing style, according to YouTuber The AI Advantage. This is helpful if you have a solid text of your own that you want to use as a template to recreate the style and flow for future writings.

    You can use a prompt such as, “Analyze the following text for style and tone of voice. Apply that exact style and tone of voice to all of your future responses.” Include your text with the prompt for ChatGPT to analyze. The chatbot will respond with a breakdown of the style and tone of voice of the text and explain how it will respond to prompts in the future. Then you can use a more standard prompt to generate whatever text you desire.

    You can draft any sort of text, but it is best to be consistent. So, if want to generate an email, it’s best to have ChatGPT analyze an old email of yours to learn your writing style. If you want to generate an essay, it’s best to have the chatbot analyze an old essay of yours.

    Using follow-up prompts to improve results

    Overall, ChatGPT is meant to be a conversational machine learning algorithm that you can talk to with ease. So, if the chatbot doesn’t give an ideal response or you want more information or to keep the conversation going, you can do so with follow-up prompts.

    Follow-up prompts can help you get closer to your desired result by giving you different options. Say you used the prompt “write me a 50-word essay about elephants in the style of Octavia Butler with a Ph.D. in zoology.” You could then use the prompt “now in the style of Maya Angelou” to get a completely different result. Better yet, you can use the prompt “try again,” instead of inputting the same prompt to try and get a different result.

    Another interesting trick for using follow-up prompts is getting past the 1,000-word limit on ChatGPT. Your initial prompt will be something like “write me the first 500 words of a 1000-word essay on XYZ.” Then you just follow up with “keep going,” and the chatbot will continue with another 500 words.

    Resource : https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/best-chatgpt-tips/

    24Feb, 2023
    Top 5 Dominating Blockchain Industry Trends to Know in 2023

    The top trends dominating the Blockchain industry in 2023 that disrupt and influence the technology

    Blockchain Industry is still in its nascent stage, but it has shown enormous promise in recent years. A growing number of startups and businesses are embracing blockchain technology. With this advancement, there will be trends dominating Blockchain industry that will yield productivity and security benefits.

    A blockchain is a decentralised, distributed, and public digital ledger that is used to record transactions across many computers in such a way that the record cannot be changed retroactively without affecting all subsequent blocks requiring network consensus. The ability of blockchain technology to revolutionize various industries through secure and transparent data, asset storage, and transfer is widely recognized. It is used in a variety of applications, including finance, supply chain management, healthcare, and government. Because of its robust security measures and privacy-enhancing capabilities, some top blockchain trends help aid companies and organizations to its full potential.

    In 2023, the following 5 trends will dominate blockchain industry:

    1. Increased adoption of blockchain by enterprises

    A variety of factors, such as funding from venture capitalists, value chain creation to clients via a variety of use cases, and the growing need to simplify processes by creating transparency, reducing operational costs, and transforming customer experience, are driving large scale adoption of blockchain among enterprises. Blockchain is quickly becoming an essential component of business operations. And this will only become more prominent in 2023. Businesses are becoming more aware of the potential benefits that blockchain technology can offer. Improved security is one of these advantages. Furthermore, blockchain provides transparency in transactions, which can be viewed publicly on the blockchain network. Blockchain’s decentralized nature makes it highly secure against cyber attacks.

    1. Blockchain with AI

    Better development will result from the integration of AI with blockchain technology. This integration will demonstrate a level of advancement in blockchain technology with a sufficient number of applications. Furthermore, blockchain can make AI more coherent and understandable, and we can trace and determine why decisions in machine learning are made. Blockchain and its ledger can record all data and variables that go through a machine learning decision.

    AI can improve blockchain efficiency far more effectively than humans or even traditional computing. Smart Computing Power, Creating Diverse Data Sets, Data Protection, Data Monetization, and Trusting AI Decision Making are some examples of AI applications in Blockchain.

    1. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) and Regenerative Finance (ReFi) will continue to gain steam

    DeFi is a blockchain-based financial service that eliminates the need for users to go through traditional intermediaries such as banks or other financial institutions. Instead, they can use the blockchain network to directly access lending, borrowing, and investment services. Cred Protocol, a DeFi-based startup, has created a credit scoring system for these types of transactions. ReFi in cryptocurrency, on the other hand, aims to use blockchain technology to spread positive impact and solve systemic problems such as climate change. This is still a new and developing concept, but we can expect it to grow as blockchain technology advances. These two technologies have recently gained popularity, and we expect them to gain even more traction in 2023.

    1. Economy and Finance will lead Blockchain Applications

    Unlike other traditional businesses, the banking and finance industries do not require radical changes to their processes in order to adopt blockchain technology. Financial institutions began seriously considering blockchain adoption for traditional banking operations after it was successfully applied for cryptocurrency. Banks will be able to reduce excessive bureaucracy, conduct faster transactions at lower costs, and improve their secrecy with the help of blockchain technology. Furthermore, blockchain can be used to launch new cryptocurrencies that are governed or influenced by monetary policy. Banks hope to achieve greater control over their monetary policy by reducing the competitive advantage of standalone cryptocurrencies.

    1. Blockchain Integration into Government Agencies

    A digital government based on blockchain can protect data, streamline processes, and reduce fraud, waste, and abuse while also increasing trust and accountability. Individuals, businesses, and governments share resources via a distributed ledger secured with cryptography in a blockchain-based government model. This structure eliminates a single point of failure and protects sensitive citizen and government data from the start.

    A blockchain-based government has the potential to alleviate legacy pain points while also enabling the following benefits: Secure data storage for the government, citizens, and reduced labor-intensive processes, excessive costs associated with managing accountability must be reduced, Reduced risk of corruption and abuse, Trust in government and online civil systems has grown. The distributed ledger format can be leveraged to support an array of government and public sector applications, including digital currency/payments, land registration, identity management, supply chain traceability, health care, corporate registration, taxation, voting (elections and proxy), and legal entity management.

    Resource : https://www.analyticsinsight.net/top-5-dominating-blockchain-industry-trends-to-know-in-2023/

    22Feb, 2023
    AI Chatbots Are Coming to Search Engines. Can You Trust Them?

    Google, Microsoft and Baidu are using tools similar to ChatGPT to turn Internet searches into a conversation. How will this change humanity’s relationship with machines?

    Months after the chatbot ChatGPT wowed the world with its uncanny ability to write essays and answer questions like a human, artificial intelligence (AI) is coming to Internet search.

    Three of the world’s biggest search engines — Google, Bing and Baidu — last week said they will be integrating ChatGPT or similar technology into their search products, allowing people to get direct answers or engage in a conversation, rather than merely receiving a list of links after typing in a word or question. How will this change the way people relate to search engines? Are there risks to this form of human–machine interaction?

    Microsoft’s Bing uses the same technology as ChatGPT, which was developed by OpenAI of San Francisco, California. But all three companies are using large language models (LLMs). LLMs create convincing sentences by echoing the statistical patterns of text they encounter in a large database. Google’s AI-powered search engine, Bard, announced on 6 February, is currently in use by a small group of testers. Microsoft’s version is widely available now, although there is a waiting list for unfettered access. Baidu’s ERNIE Bot will be available in March.

    Before these announcements, a few smaller companies had already released AI-powered search engines. “Search engines are evolving into this new state, where you can actually start talking to them, and converse with them like you would talk to a friend,” says Aravind Srinivas, a computer scientist in San Francisco who last August co-founded Perplexity — an LLM-based search engine that provides answers in conversational English.

    CHANGING TRUST

    The intensely personal nature of a conversation — compared with a classic Internet search — might help to sway perceptions of search results. People might inherently trust the answers from a chatbot that engages in conversation more than those from a detached search engine, says Aleksandra Urman, a computational social scientist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

    A 2022 study1 by a team based at the University of Florida in Gainesville found that for participants interacting with chatbots used by companies such as Amazon and Best Buy, the more they perceived the conversation to be human-like, the more they trusted the organization.

    That could be beneficial, making searching faster and smoother. But an enhanced sense of trust could be problematic given that AI chatbots make mistakes. Google’s Bard flubbed a question about the James Webb Space Telescope in its own tech demo, confidently answering incorrectly. And ChatGPT has a tendency to create fictional answers to questions to which it doesn’t know the answer — known by those in the field as hallucinating.

    A Google spokesperson said Bard’s error “highlights the importance of a rigorous testing process, something that we’re kicking off this week with our trusted-tester programme”. But some speculate that, rather than increasing trust, such errors, assuming they are discovered, could cause users to lose confidence in chat-based search. “Early perception can have a very large impact,” says Sridhar Ramaswamy, a computer scientists based in Mountain View, California and chief executive of Neeva, an LLM-powered search engine launched in January. The mistake wiped $100 billion from Google’s value as investors worried about the future and sold stock.

    LACK OF TRANSPARENCY

    Compounding the problem of inaccuracy is a comparative lack of transparency. Typically, search engines present users with their sources — a list of links — and leave them to decide what they trust. By contrast, it’s rarely known what data an LLM trained on — is it Encyclopaedia Britannica or a gossip blog?

    “It’s completely untransparent how [AI-powered search] is going to work, which might have major implications if the language model misfires, hallucinates or spreads misinformation,” says Urman.

    If search bots make enough errors, then, rather than increasing trust with their conversational ability, they have the potential to unseat users’ perceptions of search engines as impartial arbiters of truth, Urman says.

    She has conducted as-yet unpublished research that suggests current trust is high. She examined how people perceive existing features that Google uses to enhance the search experience, known as ‘featured snippets’, in which an extract from a page that is deemed particularly relevant to the search appears above the link, and ‘knowledge panels’ — summaries that Google automatically generates in response to searches about, for example, a person or organization. Almost 80% of people Urman surveyed deemed these features accurate, and around 70% thought they were objective.

    Chatbot-powered search blurs the distinction between machines and humans, says Giada Pistilli, principal ethicist at Hugging Face, a data-science platform in Paris that promotes the responsible use of AI. She worries about how quickly companies are adopting AI advances: “We always have these new technologies thrown at us without any control or an educational framework to know how to use them.”

    Resource : https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-chatbots-are-coming-to-search-engines-can-you-trust-them/

    30Jan, 2023
    Top 5 technology trends to watch out in 2023

    With technology being a great leveler, the world has become flat and offers equal opportunities to all. Whether you are someone born in the Bay area or a remote village in Africa, your opportunity to create an impact and to make a difference in the world is the same. 

    In India, for instance, the government is adopting technology readily with initiatives like JAM (Jan Dhan-Adhaar-Mobile) trinity and offering a level playing field to all its citizens. Close to 47% of India’s GDP gets transacted on this platform and my recent interaction with a local tea seller showcases how this tech adoption is making a difference at the grassroots.  

    I curiously asked this young man from Kerala who operates his tea shop single-handedly, the reason to adopt UPI payments. He explained how it saves his time in giving change to customers after each transaction and that now he doesn’t need to go to the bank to deposit cash.

    On the other hand, the bank to which his UPI transactions are linked now knows that this young man is generating INR 30,000/- per working day. Therefore, their risk profiling AI software is now able to analyze this data and recommend him a loan for his business expansion with better certainty of loan repayment. This was not possible 3 years ago. This is the beauty of what is happening around us!

    In the past few years, India has undergone significant economic expansion, with the adoption of new technology such as AI, Robotics, IoT, Blockchain, Cybersecurity, and Big data. In this article, I would like to discuss few technology trends that are gaining significant mindshare and will continue to do so in 2023.

    Web 3.0: Web 1.0 was “Read-Only”, Web 2.0 is “Read-Write”, and you can imagine Web 3.0 as “Read-Write and Execute”.  This is the next level of internet where the internet will be more interactive and immersive and will be led by user generated content and interaction. For example, to imagine next level of AI in Web 3.0 – AI would be used for natural language processing, to recognize your emotions and facial expressions to render relevant content. This means, when you frown while watching an Instagram reel, it automatically moves to the next genre when you swipe up. This space would therefore be great for enterprises to present relevant content to their users. 

    The way we consume gaming and financial instruments, “DeFi” (Decentralized Finance) will also change big time. Several Web 3.0 apps are gaining popularity and are worth mentioning. For example, “Brave” browser that allows one to block all ads and evade trackers while rewarding good content through “BAT” (Basic Attention Token), it could change the way people look at digital ads. Also, the widespread use of “NFT” (Non-Fungible Token) will help the content creators’ music, video and photo content get better recognition and revenue for their work by ensuring traceable ownership and minimizing the middlemen in between.

    Cybersecurity: The travel and tourism industry is embracing emerging technologies to redefine products, services, and consumer experiences, but doing so makes their cyber ecosystems more exposed to security risks as these technologies handle massive volume of financial transactions and priceless customer data. Travel firms are, therefore, a prime target for cyber-crime. Ransomware and phishing attacks are two of the major concerns in this sector. Due to the current dependence on data, organizations are also at risk from human mistakes brought on by their own staff. To keep the data secure, organizations must invest in cybersecurity as well as a variety of hardware and software solutions. It is evident that a step change is needed, and a more comprehensive, business-driven, and risk-based approach to building cybersecurity capability is going to be the norm in the coming years.

    Metaverse: Metaverse travel has the potential to dramatically revolutionize how people engage with the travel industry, imagine digitally touring a hotel from the comfort of your home on the other side of the world. By creating three-dimensional replicas of real locations, metaverse travel will create new experiences and new possibilities for people to choose hotels and activities. In 2023, metaverse will emerge as a grand concept, that will be based on a single interconnected ecosystem, like the internet. Soon, autonomous metaverse platforms with different economies and the capacity to transport assets and things between worlds may become possible. There has been a lot of conversations around the governance, so things are going to get tricky, as there would be no single controller. There will be a shift in viewpoint, and it will inevitably give rise to new travel patterns and an increasing demand for virtual reality and metaverse travel services. As several companies continue to compete for this space, the future is surely going to look very different, especially with the possibility of creating multiple identities in the metaverse.

    Cloud:  In recent years, the travel sector has seen an increasing interest in cloud computing investments. However, there are still several issues that are delaying the rate of cloud adoption. But as client expectations rise and the travel sector’s technological environment becomes more dynamic, a lot of travel organizations have come to understand the benefits of cloud computing. In the travel tech industry, we deal with a lot of personal data. Through growing computational power and capacity of the cloud, data storage becomes simpler thereby enabling us to provide personalized travel experiences.

    Wearables and IoT: The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the most significant and potent emerging technology topics that must be understood and explored by individuals and businesses. According to me, this is merely the tip of the iceberg, as we will see additional wearables with cutting-edge capabilities soon. For instance, non-intrusive wearables for HbA1C monitoring are very close to reality, which would benefit diabetic patients around the globe to monitor and act in real-time. IoT devices are also bringing transformation in many industries, including agriculture. Now there are devices that can tell a farmer the exact amount of water needed per square inch of the farming land. These devices make it possible to identify the crops infested by pests and then, separately treat only the affected yield, instead of the entire crop. Such devices are not only feature-rich but are also the primary driving force behind the Internet of Things.

    Many of the bigger cross-industry breakthroughs were anticipated in the upcoming year and beyond are likely to be built on the patterns indicated above. Furthermore, it is gaining ground and is probably going to be precursors to the technology that will define the overall course of human technology.

    Resource : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/top-5-technology-trends-to-watch-out-in-2023/

    30Jan, 2023
    Security Technologies

    The following article, Security Technologies, provides you with an outline of the most common technologies used in security. We all aware of the pace with which the internet is growing. For everything that we had to travel or to stay in long queues for longer, the Internet had made them easy for us, and now almost all of the things are available at our fingertips. In simple words, we can say that it is not easy to imagine a single day without the internet. It is known to everyone that everything had two sides: pros and cons, and the same applies to the Internet as well. With the fast increase in Internet usage, the attacks happening in organizations have also been increased. For contemporary business or organizations, a new challenge has been evolved that protects their body from cyber attacks. Here we will be discussing the technologies that are available to protect the organizations from cyber attacks so that the flow of their operations remains smooth.

    Security Technologies

    In order to protect organizations from cyber attacks, several technologies are available to fight against them.

    Below are some of the common technologies that are used very often in organizations.

    1. Data Loss Prevention

    Data Loss Prevention may be defined as the technology concerned with validating if the data sent out from the organization is sensitive enough to hinder the business. Usually, the data are sent through emails and under this technology, the mails have been monitored to ensure that it is not carrying the confidential data out from the organization. By virtue of this technology, all the emails and their attachments are monitored closely to ensure that all the data sent outside the organization are appropriate and not something confidential.

    2. Intrusion Detection System

    An intrusion Detection System(IDS) can be defined as the technology which monitors all the traffic that enters the organization to ensure that those are not malicious. It can also be considered a tool responsible for checking the traffic and raising the alert if the traffic is found malicious or appears to be originated from the untrusted source. This technology is mainly concerned with giving a close view of the traffic to ensure that it is something that the organization should allow to get in.

    3. Intrusion Prevention System

    Intrusion Prevention System(IPS) may be defined as the technology or tool that takes action against the traffic that is labelled malicious by the IDS. Usually, the IPS drops the packet entering into the system once it is considered untrusted. It is the main protection point that makes sure that malicious traffic should not enter into the organization’s network. It is IPS that makes sure that all the traffic that enters the system should comply with the policies that are defined by the organizations so that it should not affect the working of the systems in any way.

    4. Security Incident and Event Management

    It is also known as SIEM. It is mainly concerned with invoking the alert once anything unusual is found on the organization’s network. Several tools can be integrated into SIEM to make sure that anything that is malicious must generate the alert so that the security team could take action against it and keep the internal environment protected. It also keeps track of the logs that are generated while ensuring the security of the network. It can also be considered as the central system that has other tools attached to it. All the tools work as peers that protect the network in their own way.

    5. Firewall

    The firewall works as the first layer of protection of any system or network. There are various types of Firewalls based on their role. In order to protect the internet, network firewalls are used, while in order to protect the web application, there are web application firewalls. This technology has been developed to ensure that the internal network is protected from unusual traffic, and nothing malicious could make it to the internal network. The technology ensures that the ports should be open only for the appropriate communication, and the untrusted data should not hit the system anyhow. The firewall could either allow the traffic to enter or could configure the port filtration to make sure that all the traffic passes through it must be useful for the service running on any particular port,

    6. Antivirus

    Antivirus is another technology used in cybersecurity. As its name states, it protects the system from the virus. The virus is nothing but the malicious code that makes the host or network to take unexpected actions. It is deployed in the network and can also be used as endpoint protection. All the devices connected to the network can have an antivirus installed in them to protect themselves from virus attacks. In order to detect whether the particular file is a virus, the antivirus used the signatures present in the repository of that antivirus. The latest antivirus has the capability to leverage the anomalies to detect the virus and take action against it.

    Conclusion

    The risk associated with the internet has been grown parallelly to its usage. The architecture of the web application or the network these days is supposed to be complex in order to satisfy the business needs, and with the high complexity, it also increases the chance of the system being breached. In order to ensure that the system is protected from any of the security mishappenings, the organization is expected to take all the measures seriously and use the technologies to defend their systems. On the other hand, the complex or high level of security breaches has also given birth to efficient cybersecurity technologies or tools that are ample power to ensure the system’s safety. Those tools could be leveraged to protect the system, keep the business flow smoothly and help the business focus on its operations rather than remaining concerned about its security.

    Resource : https://www.educba.com/security-technologies/

    19Jan, 2023
    What is Artificial Intelligence chatbot Chat GPT? Know why it has landed in ‘anti-Hindu’ controversy

    Artificial Intelligence is being deemed the future of the tech world, with the capabilities of several new AI projects even transcending the expectations of the human mind. Something similar has been done with a new AI technology called Chat GPT.

    Chat GPT is an AI technology that can help the user learn more about almost all the topics in the entire world. Not just this, but Chat GPT also learns from its users, gaining more and more knowledge each time you ask it a question about any topic.

    While Chat GPT is a new and innovative step towards the evolution of AI, it has recently landed in a major controversy. Many people have alleged that artificial intelligence is hurting the sentiments of Hindus through some of the content available on the religion.

    First, let’s learn what AI Chat GPT is and how it functions for a user.

    What is Chat GPT?

    Chat GPT is an AI-based chatbot, which has been developed by the company OpenAI. It has slowly become one of the most popular AI-based tools which are being actively used by students, working professionals, and teachers.

    Taking a step ahead of Wikipedia and basic Google searches, Chat GPT has emerged as an AI-powered chatbot that uses a field of machine learning known as natural language processing (NLP) to generate responses to users’ questions.

    If you ask Chat GPT a question, it will analyze thousands of web pages and content on the internet in seconds and give you a detailed answer within the set word limit. People have been using Chat GPT for homework, writing books, and even writing comedy routines.

    What is interesting is, every time you ask Chat GPT a question, it will give you a detailed answer and even learn more, which will equip it to give even better answers in the next attempt.

    What is Chat GPT’s controversy related to Hindu religion?

    Several users pointed out that Chat GPT is displaying content on the Hindu religion that can be deemed objectionable by many. An example of this is, when a user asks Chat GPT to make a joke on any Hindu deity, it displays the joke without any disclaimer or warning.

    But when the same is written for the Bible or Islamic religion, Chat GPT displays a warning that such content can hurt religious sentiments. Many are defending the AI by saying that it might not have knowledge about the Hindu religion yet, but many are also deeming it as ‘Anti-Hindu’.

    Resource : https://www.dnaindia.com/technology/report-what-is-artificial-intelligence-chatbot-chat-gpt-know-why-it-has-landed-in-anti-hindu-controversy-3017825