Jeffrey J. Bloom

Jeffrey J. Bloom

The world's largest lithium-ion battery, being built by Tesla in South Australia, is about to begin final testing. The 100-megawatt battery will be up & running in time for summer.

"While others are just talking, we are delivering our energy plan, making South Australia more self-sufficient, providing backup power & more affordable energy for South Australians this summer," the premier said.

Jeffrey J. Bloom

“The Professional Services Council strongly supports Secretary [James] Mattis’ goals of accelerating the adoption of innovative technologies & leveraging commercial capabilities to improve our military’s warfighting capabilities while saving personnel resources & funding that could be redirected to our warfighters,” said PSC’s Executive VP.

“DOD is heterogeneous & comprises organizations that vary greatly in terms of size & specific mission needs... DOD should at least consider a multi-cloud contract should RFP responses indicate an advantage to doing so.”

“DOD today has a tremendous opportunity to access innovation & the best ideas that the private sector has to offer... However, the government faces procurement policy & regulatory barriers to acquiring commercial cloud-based or ‘as-a-service’ offerings.”

http://m.nextgov.com/defense/2017/11/industry-weighs-pentagons-cloud-adoption-plan/142727/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

DUIx's C3 IoT multiyear contract--to develop AI-based predictive aircraft maintenance systems--comes on the heels of the Army awarding IBM continued cloud services--including the new Watson IoT Equipment Advisor--for predictive vehicle maintenance. "We [taught] Watson to see patterns in & correlate the data to arrive at predictions... 30, even 60 days out we could determine which vehicles would break." IBM’s VP for Army & Marine Corps, said.

C3 IoT system will run on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) GovCloud region. “The combination of big data, elastic cloud computing, AI & IoT is becoming the most significant development of the Information Age & is driving the digital transformation of every industry–including aerospace, government services & defense,” said Ed Abbo, C3 IoT’s president & CTO.

Predictive maintenance is a nascent but fast-expanding field within AI & is seen as a revolutionary step forward in both public- and private-sector areas. A Deloitte University report cited examples where predictive maintenance could save millions of dollars in specific industries. McKinsey Global Institute reports predictive maintenance could save companies $630 billion by 2025.
https://www.meritalk.com/articles/dod-enlists-ai-to-predict-problems-with-aircraft-ground-vehicles/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

With the Hallucination Machine, researchers are able to "simulate visual hallucinatory experiences in a biologically plausible & ecologically valid way," which, unlike a drug, doesn't directly alter neurophysiology. Users are immersed in “hallucinations” via a head-mounted display displaying 360-degree panoramic VR videos modified with Google's Deep Dream algorithm, changing natural images to reflect images categorized by a neural network.

Deep Dream happens to insert a lot of dog images into videos, but researchers aren’t quite sure why. “One thing people always ask us is why there are so many dogs,” co-author David Schwartzman, Ph.D. says, "The short answer is we don’t know."

https://www.inverse.com/article/38673-hallucination-machine-sussex-university-consciousness

Jeffrey J. Bloom

Singularity believers claim we're reaching a tipping point where AI devices will exponential exceed human intelligence. AI salvation would occur by uploading human minds to the newly awakened world of computer consciousness.

What’s wrong with this reasoning?
Brooks identifies the problem of “suitcase words,” coined by Marvin Minsky--a founding father of AI--, to identify words that have an unusually large variety of meanings. “Learning” is one such word, as in the AI term “machine learning.”

Jeffrey J. Bloom

The dichotomy of “innovate or die,” assumes we're destined to do one or the other. But one can innovate & die or misinnovate & die. Intelligence history provides ample examples of both “innovate or die” & innovations--or misinnovations--yielding equally disastrous results. Innovation scholar Adam Grant notes, "Our companies, communities, & countries don’t necessarily suffer from a shortage of novel ideas. They’re constrained by a shortage of people who excel at choosing the right novel ideas."

Put another way: In the military & intelligence worlds, even when good ideas are in short supply, “good idea fairies” are everywhere.

This essay proposes two major paths of misinnovation: “buggy whip” misinnovation (innovating along a well-established technological arc for too long) & “Segway” misinnovation (mismatching innovation to a need, often by jumping on the wrong technological arc).

https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/buggy-whips-segways-historical-misinnovation-national-security-intelligence-technology/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

"Today, there can be an epicenter of high-tech solutions in Ukraine that will change not only our country but the whole world. We have about 2 thousand start-ups, and this number is constantly growing," the deputy prime minister stressed.

The International Forum "Innovation Market" is held in Kyiv for the second time.

Jeffrey J. Bloom

"Having just opened our U.S. subsidiary, ICEYE U.S. is on a fast-track in providing services that will help the public sector," said Mike Lyons, CEO of ICEYE U.S. "DIUx is tackling some of the nation’s most challenging problems & we’re eager to provide them with data support services that will help in solving those problems."

ICEEYE is headquartered in Espoo, Finland, & aims to build microsatellites equipped with synthetic aperture radar technology that will work to collect imagery for maritime, disaster management, security & intelligence applications

https://www.iceye.com/press/press-releases/iceye-announces-award-with-diux-for-earth-observation-data-support-services

Jeffrey J. Bloom

This award shouldn’t go to a company that works against the president, especially when there are others who are qualified. It is even more clear it shouldn’t go to a company that wants to host sensitive Department of Defense data on servers the Chinese government could gain access to.

Jeffrey J. Bloom

To make data more quickly available for security, remediation & other purposes, Splunk’s partnered with Amazon Web Services’ real-time streaming data engine, Kinesis. Users can employ the real-time streaming ingestion service to get data into Splunk clusters, Ray Zhu of AWS said "Starting up a Kinesis stream — it’s like 15 seconds on the average consul."

Based on real-time searches, alerts, etc, users can trigger the creation of issues in Jira. Michael Lauricella of Atlassian says
“So you have a data model that ties in & allows you to get some metrics out of those events."

https://siliconangle.com/blog/2017/11/21/splunks-big-data-chops-bite-into-automated-security-splunkconf17/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

Musk tweeted a picture of the Tesla Roadster, claimed to be the fastest production car in the world, followed by a statement saying:“Should clarify that this is the base model performance. There will be a special option package that takes it to the next level.”

Responding to what exactly he meant by “next level,” Musk teased a rocket technology upgrade that would turn the Roadster into a Back To The Future-style flying car.

Not sure if he's entirely serious, admitting in the past that he“sometimes goes crazy” on Twitter. “You know, [when] there’s a little red wine, a vintage record player, some ambien. Magic. Magic happens,” he said at a shareholder’s meeting in June, a sentiment he later echoed in a tweet.

http://www.autospies.com/news/REAL-Deal-Or-Bull-Sh-T-Tesla-s-Elon-Musk-Claims-All-new-Roadster-May-Be-Able-To-Fly-94825/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

Musk tweeted a picture of the Tesla Roadster, claimed to be the fastest production car in the world, followed by a statement saying:“Should clarify that this is the base model performance. There will be a special option package that takes it to the next level.”

Responding to what exactly he meant by “next level,” Musk teased a rocket technology upgrade that would turn the Roadster into a Back To The Future-style flying car.

Not sure if he's entirely serious, admitting in the past that he“sometimes goes crazy” on Twitter. “You know, [when] there’s a little red wine, a vintage record player, some ambien. Magic. Magic happens,” he said at a shareholder’s meeting in June, a sentiment he later echoed in a tweet.
https://www.rt.com/news/410543-musk-mars-tesla-twitter/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

"This short film is more than speculation. It shows the results of integrating & miniaturizing technologies that we already have."

Released by the Future of Life Institute --backed by Elon Musk & Stephen Hawking-- the video shows how techn created to fight the bad guys can suddenly be subsumed by the not-so-good guys for appalling purposes.

The UN meeting agreed that something should be done to set limits on such potentially devastating technology.

The pace of technological development, however, always seems to outpace the ability of law & governments to regulate its potential consequences.
https://www.cnet.com/news/scary-slaughterbots-video-shows-danger-of-ai-powered-drone-weapons/

YouTube video:
https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA

Jeffrey J. Bloom

8 year old Jacob Levy's "hearing glasses" idea (enabling people to what they cannot hear) has made him 1 of 7 global winners of "Ideas for Ears," a cochlear implant manufacturer's competition encouraging young inventors (ages 6-11) to dream up hearing loss Solutions.

"I love inventing things & I'm really pleased to be chosen as one of the winners," Jacob says. His glasses would turn conversations into written words in front of user's eyes & convert everyday noises into images, such as a dog barking, or vibrate with a red warning in potentially dangerous situations.

Jacob will be flying to Innsbruck Austria where he'll be treated to an innovation tour of MED-EL’s R&D factory & meet with their inventors, including the company’s co-founders Ingeborg & Erwin Hochmair.
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/15667500.Schoolboy_s_invention_could_help_blind_people_hear_what_they_can_t_see/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

R9B will help plan activities, coordinate intelligence & sustain situational awareness on global activities that affect cyberspace. They'll also deploy personnel to update tools for Cybercom to plan, coordinate, integrate, synchronize, train & facilitate operations of DoD components through the subcontract.
http://blog.executivebiz.com/2017/11/root9b-secures-cybercom-support-subcontract/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

Russia is planning to colonise the Moon & explore its natural resources using an automated probe called Luna-25 (formerly Luna-Glob) to explore the Boguslavsky crater in the south pole & begin drilling.

A 'cyber astronaut’, known as FEDOR, will be sent to the International Space Station to "assist in construction & use of bases" on the moon & potentially other planets.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/881102/putin-russia-mining-moon-astronauts-luna-space-moscow-soviet-union-fedor-planets

Jeffrey J. Bloom

Imagine arriving at the airport in your self-drive car, having your bag collected by a robot, biometrically checking in, clearing security & boarding the plane. The planes are already pretty much flown by computer (fly-by-wire), in many ways the future is now. 

SITA revealed some interesting AI research in their 2017 Air Transport IT Trends & Insights report.  Predictive AI & cognitive computing tools are likely to be adopted by half of airlines & airports over the next 5 to 10 years. Within 3 years, 52% of airlines plan major AI programs or R&D, & 45% of airports will invest in R&D in the next 5 years. However, a few front runners are already trialing predictive modeling, machine learning & data mining. These efforts are mainly focused on initiatives that will provide passengers with more relevant information about their journey to create more seamless & personal experiences. 
https://www.itproportal.com/features/ai-taking-off-at-airports-today/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

With great power comes great responsibility. Our lives will have to adapt to a new computing paradigm were data & personal security will need significant advancements to protect us from the intrusion of functioning quantum computers. Whole industries will be disrupted or cease to exist entirely. We need research & development of appropriate safeguards & strategies to lead & protect future generations from the tsunami of exponential change.

Quantum Computing, or wherever tech takes us beyond binary Computing limitations, has become an arms race of sorts, as companies invest heavily in quantum Computing. Drawing on the complex principles of quantum physics these companies are racing to create the practical mainstream quantum computers.

Traditional PCs use bits (1 or 0) for calculations, going bit by bit to process functions. Quantum computers use qubits which can be both a 1, 0 or a quantum superposition of both. Increasing the number of qubits exponentially increases processing capability.

The real-life impact of quantum computing will be immeasurable - whether for good or bad. The predominant thought is that processing data & running calculations through a quantum computer will accelerate advancement of other technologies. Healthcare could be completely transformed, diagnostics requiring complex labs may be performed on a device the size of your phone. Other promising advancements include the progression of AI research, dramatically improving predictive technology like world weather forecasting. Imagine accurate weather predictions 1 or 2 months out. Farmer's would know when to plant & vacationers would know what to pack, or whether they would even want to go.
http://www.iqisit.com/2017/11/17/exponential-impact-quantum-computing/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

“We have to be lean & agile as we execute our programs,” said Cybercom commander Adm. Rogers. “We cannot keep the US safe into the future, especially in the rapidly changing domain of cyber, using a firehose approach. We have to have the precision of a microsurgeon. We can’t just be good, we have to be great. And, we can’t be great without partnerships.”

“Our objective [for industry day] is pretty simple: to share information with you so we can work together as a team to enable the Cyber Mission Force. Nothing works in this domain without partnership,” Bartko said. “I believe that communication is the lifeblood of teamwork & like Admiral Rogers said, communication needs to go both ways.”

“We’re probably not going toward long-term big projects,” he noted, which is what people tend to think of defense contracting. “We’re likely going to leverage a DEVOPS model.." referring to a model of development popular in the software & tech world aiming to limit time between concept & implementation. Allowing increased adaptation & in-stride modifications.

“The CMF reaching [full operational capability] will drive resources because our operational tempo will increase... We will need to leverage automation, innovation & a rapid development approach. Requirements are dynamic so solutions need to be responsive.”

Command officials said that ultimately partnership, outreach & teamwork will make Cybercom more agile & capable in its ability to defend the nation.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1373397/cybercom-challenges-industry-be-agile-precise/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

Business adoption of Big Data & AI processes remains a challenge for most legacy firms.  Being a large & complex organization, possessing massive amounts of data to be analyzed, Verizon customers, suppliers & partners require considerable help in navigating this complexity. Analytics & cognitive applications can shed light on potential problems & make the navigation process easier.

It probably wouldn’t work for Verizon to have a single analytics & AI organization that addresses all internal & external needs. Having a variety of different groups with a coordinating mechanism like VEDA appears to offer an effective organizational solution to the challenge and opportunity of leveraging Big Data and AI at Verizon.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2017/11/15/how-verizon-is-building-a-big-data-and-ai-culture/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

Microsoft has released a series of AI tools & solutions to help infuse enterprises with intelligence & insight. The products released are:

*Visual Studio Tools for AI
*Cloud & AI capabilities for Azure IoT Edge
*Innovations in Microsoft Translator
*Chinese language learning app
*Seeing AI, to help vision-impaired people interact with the world around them

Visual Studio Tools for AI is aimed at AI developers & data scientists. The new product in the Visual Studio line will leverage Visual Studio's debugging & rich editing capabilities, adding deep learning frameworks such as Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, Tensorflow & Caffe...
https://www.itwire.com/data/80838-microsoft-releases-raft-of-ai-tools-to-enhance-ingenuity.html

Jeffrey J. Bloom

Machine Translation (NMT) is useful in all situations where there is a demand for local relevancy – call it service, product, support, sales, marketing or even training. Some of the industries that can benefit the best out of NMT include; customer service, healthcare, hospitality, retail, eLearning, automotive & banking.

"Applying artificial neural networks to natural language processing are capable of producing a translation better than a native language speaker."

There is an increasing need for multi-lingual content today. Sales, service, product & support are extended in diverse languages. To get a near-perfect translation, neural machine translation systems gain strong consideration. Even languages like Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese etc have become much easier & simpler to translate via NMT systems. Considering the level of demand to address the global audience, neural machine translation poses to be the next game-changer in the near future. https://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/neural-machine-translation-poses-next-big-game-changer-01959236

Jeffrey J. Bloom

“We serve as advocates for our naval technology customers & want to invest in technology that will make a difference to our Sailors & Marines in the field... Secondarily, we also want to invest in, & provide small businesses with, opportunities to grow & succeed. The SBIR/STTR program allows us to do both.”

Advocates note that the Navy & Marine Corps benefit from the innovative ideas the SBIR/STTR office discovers and supports.

“If a naval program officer has a technological need, the SBIR/STTR office is a great place to start searching for a solution... From battlefield robots to eyewear coatings to AI, we’ve got a long history of technologies that have served as jumping off points for projects."
https://www.dvidshub.net/news/255330/think-big-start-small-navy-sbir-sttr-program-can-help-advance-your-ideas

Jeffrey J. Bloom

“F-16s will benefit from predictive maintenance as a way to inform pilots of which aircraft are at the highest risk in terms of being unreliable. We pinpoint systems such as engines & subsystems such as the propulsion,”  said Ed Abbo, president & CTO of C3 IoT whose Platform enables the DOD to aggregate & keep current enormous volumes of disparate data, including both structured & unstructured datasets, in a unified cloud-based data image, running on AWS.

Some aircraft, for instance, have newer sensors able to perform on-board analytics & in some instances, even record a pilot’s voice as a way to process language information. This initiative is entirely consistent with a broad service-wide effort to extend data security beyond IT & apply AI, automation & machine learning to larger platforms.
https://defensesystems.com/articles/2017/11/15/air-force-c3-iot-f16.aspx?m=1

Jeffrey J. Bloom

Very little is known about the Zuma mission, as no government or commercial entity has claimed it. 

All we know is that Northrop Grumman was asked by the government to procure a launch vehicle for the mission & it chose SpaceX, saying Zuma will be headed to low-Earth orbit, about 1,200 miles above the planet. 

Zuma calls to mind two missions launched in 2009 & 2014, called PAN & CLIO, which were also secret & unclaimed by any government entity. According to documents obtained by The Intercept, the PAN mission was used to listen in on communications satellites above the Middle East, via the NSA.
http://mashable.com/2017/11/14/spacex-zuma-launch-and-landing-secret-mission/

*Inside Menwith Hill - The NSA’s British Base at the Heart of U.S. Targeted Killing, September 06, 2016: https://theintercept.com/2016/09/06/nsa-menwith-hill-targeted-killing-surveillance/

*Secret Endeavors of Mysterious Spy Satellite revealed in Snowden Documents: September 12, 2016: http://spaceflight101.com/snowden-documents-reveal-mysterious-pan-satellite

*SpaceX makes launching a secret satellite and landing a rocket booster look easy, May 01, 2017: http://mashable.com/2017/05/01/spacex-launches-secret-satellite-rocket-landing/

*Regulatory filings suggest SpaceX plans November launch with mystery payload, October 14, 2017: https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/10/14/regulatory-filings-suggest-spacex-plans-november-launch-with-mystery-payload/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

“We got the airplane on September 19, 2016. Two days later, I was successful in accomplishing a remote, non-cooperative, penetration,” said Robert Hickey of DHS.

Initially, the team's findings were written off by experts as old news & "not a big deal." However, during a technical meeting to discuss the findings, a bunch of commercial airline pilots said they were unaware of the vulnerabilities exploited during the hack.

What's old hat to infosec pros, safely behind their desks, is news to the people flying & working on the actual airplanes. Which may not come as a surprise, since any computer-controlled system has bugs exploitable by meddling miscreants.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/11/15/airplanes_vulnerable_rf_hacking/

Jeffrey J. Bloom

A White House adviser says Elon Musk did not get a "Verbal" green light to begin an ambitious mass-transit tunneling project between New York & Washington DC. Musk said on Twitter in July that he got "Verbal government approval" for the project that would develop a Hyperloop route between the two major East Coast hubs.

The "Verbal government approval" was probably a misunderstanding. The Boring Company declined to comment, but conversations between Musk & government officials may have just been a semantic misfire.

Jeffrey J. Bloom

“With this developer preview, we have intentionally started with a constrained platform to ensure performance on some of the most important common models,” a post by the TensorFlow team reads. “We plan to prioritize future functional expansion based on the needs of our users. The goals for our continued development are to simplify the developer experience & enable model deployment for a range of mobile & embedded devices.”

Jeffrey J. Bloom

AT&T & Verizon are leading AI initiatives for self-healing networks. Pattern seeking algorithms can detect signals that normally precede breakdowns at cell towers or inside communications lines. Known as predictive or condition-based maintenance, AI agents minimize customer impact by repairing networks before outages occur.

AT&T’s strategy includes “implementing AI to help us identify where breakpoints are & help repair those in an automated way without human intervention.”

Along the same lines, Verizon is sharing its latest advances in AI through a program called Exponent, which brings advanced tech tools to smaller carriers all over the planet.
https://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/invisible-ai-reinventing-telecom-speak-01956485

AT&T’s predictive maintenance:
https://www.techemergence.com/telecom-machine-learning-applications/

Verizon Exponent:
https://ipcarrier.blogspot.com/2017/11/ai-in-telecom-customer-service-is-early.html

Jeffrey J. Bloom

Attendees from a variety of industries shared their thoughts & concerns about protecting sensitive data in the age of the IoT & automation, when threats are continuously evolving & attacks are increasingly bold & aggressive. Important takeaways:

1. Panelists stressed that cybersecurity frameworks, like those NIST provides, are not "one-size-fits-all" security roadmaps. They're simply foundational protocols that need to be customized & may not be appropriate for, as Robert Hickey of DHS said: "Critical infrastructure that is in motion [a vehicle] demands a paradigm shift from traditional methods of protecting & reconstituting stationary critical infrastructure.”

2. Strategic network segmentation will be the cornerstone of cyber defenses in the age of automation. Like self-driving transportation that's gradually taking control out of human hands.

3. Cybersecurity is a job for everyone. The world’s largest companies are realizing the perils of placing the responsibility of securing enterprise networks entirely on the shoulders of IT departments. “At PBS, serious cybersecurity discussions happen at all levels — from the executive board to entry level team members... Our leadership creates policies that are fully supportive of our IT department. It is the responsibility of everyone working in the building to follow their recommendations, exercise caution, & communicate their concerns when suspicious activity happens."
http://www.satellitetoday.com/technology/2017/11/13/3-takeaways-cybersecurity-experts-cybersat/