Exhort Tech Headlines & Highlights for: 9/20/2023
Dan Lausted
A technology strategist focused on creating innovative solutions that drive revenue growth and customer satisfaction!
Thoughts from this weeks headlines ...
Hey everybody!? Hope you are having a good week!? Here are the latest headlines from Cloud, AI, and Modern Workplace!?
Microsoft was in the news again for some data leakage with their AI researchers accidentally exposed sensitive data on GitHub. However, they quickly addressed the issue. Furthermore, Microsoft is generously offering a complimentary WordPress playground on Azure and introducing the Azure Update Manager to keep software up to date.
Over in AWS territory, Carahsoft is collaborating to streamline cloud solutions for the public sector. AWS has also rolled out several new features in cloud storage and is actively supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in embracing AI.
Meanwhile, Google is confidently claiming a 10-year advantage in the AI arena. They're also fostering innovation in fintech with a substantial $100K award and enhancing the capabilities of their AI assistant, Bard.
And in other news, there was an interesting article that discusses the strengths and weaknesses of AI, particularly concerning biases. Stay tuned; the tech landscape continues to evolve.
Let's get to work!
Topic: Public Cloud
Microsoft
Microsoft AI researchers accidentally exposed tens of terabytes of sensitive data, including private keys and passwords, when they published a storage bucket of open source training data on GitHub. The data included personal backups of two Microsoft employees' computers, passwords to Microsoft services, secret keys, and over 30,000 internal Microsoft Teams messages. Microsoft responded by revoking the SAS token and expanding GitHub's secret spanning service. No customer data was exposed.
One year after introducing WordPress on Azure App Service, Microsoft has started offering a?free hosting tier for developers to explore with WordPress on Azure without incurring any costs (almost). ?The new WordPress playground relies on?App Service F1 free tier?and on Azure Database for MySQL free trial and may entail charges depending on your subscription type to those services.
Microsoft has announced that Azure Update Manager, previously known as Update Management Center, has reached general availability status, providing a means for managing Windows and Linux software updates on Azure virtual machines (VMs) and VMs on other cloud platforms, plus on-premises infrastructure. It supports features such as automatic VM guest patching, hot patching, customer-defined maintenance schedules, and Azure Resource Manager role-based access controls. It is available at no additional charge for managing Azure VMs, but for Arc-enabled servers, the price is up to $5 per server per month. It can be used to manage Extended Security Updates for Azure Arc-enabled Windows Server 2012/2012 R2 machines, and it has an automatic assessment capability, custom reports, and scheduled patching. Microsoft is planning to retire the Azure Log Analytics agent in August 2024 and is encouraging customers of the solution to move to Azure Update Manager for their software update needs.
AWS
Carahsoft Technology Corp. has announced the addition of Aqua Security Solutions to AWS Marketplace, providing U.S. Public Sector customers a seamless acquisition process for their cloud-based products and solutions. Aqua's Cloud Native Security Platform provides customers visibility into multicloud environments and helps locate system vulnerabilities. Carahsoft is Aqua's Master Government Aggregator and works with resellers to give customers access to the platform. This collaboration allows customers to meet their cloud, security, modernization and innovation objectives.
Amazon Web Services has unleashed seven new?cloud storage?offerings and features to improve AI and ML workloads, data protection and resiliency, and new support for?NetApp, Cloudfare and Oracle?storage products. ?Amazon Web Services has unleashed seven new?cloud storage?offerings and features to improve AI and ML workloads, data protection and resiliency, and new support for?NetApp, Cloudfare and Oracle?storage products.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a robust set of services and features for storage, including Amazon EBS, S3, S3 Glacier, and more. At AWS Storage Day, Amazon announced new features such as FSx for Lustre, file release, AWS Backup Logical Air-Gapped Vault, and expanded multi-cloud options for AWS DataSync to enhance its storage portfolio. These new features will help users manage their data more efficiently and securely.
GCP
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian believes Google has a 10-year head start on competitors in the AI space, due to its history in data analysis and its cloud infrastructure portfolio. He also notes that many of the most successful AI startups are Google Cloud customers. Google Cloud is growing revenues faster than AWS and Microsoft, in part, thanks to its advantages in AI.
DealMaker has been selected to join Google Cloud's Google for Startups Program and has been awarded $100K in credits to accelerate their AI innovation in the fintech space. The company has processed over $1.87B in transactions and over 1,000,000 investments, and aims to refine their platform and innovate their services to make online capital raising mainstream. Google Cloud's resources will enable DealMaker to quickly and efficiently scale and expand operations.
Topic: Artificial Intelligence (AI / AGI)
Microsoft
Microsoft AI researchers accidentally exposed tens of terabytes of sensitive data, including private keys and passwords, due to an overly permissive shared access signature (SAS) token in the URL of an Azure Storage account. This data included the personal backups of two Microsoft employees’ personal computers and other sensitive personal data. Microsoft has since revoked the SAS token and has expanded GitHub’s secret spanning service to monitor for any SAS token that may have overly permissive expirations or privileges.
Microsoft is set to hold a special event on September 21 in NYC, where they are expected to release new Surface products and AI updates. This includes new two-in-one models, laptops, and accessories, as well as AI-powered features and services. Microsoft may also unveil the Surface Laptop Studio 2, Surface Laptop Go 3, Surface Go 4, and Surface Pro 10, as well as third-party plug-ins for Bing Chat, Bing-supported ChatGPT availability, and AI integration in Windows 11.
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AWS
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is helping small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) utilize artificial intelligence (AI) tools to reap the benefits of technologies typically used by larger companies. Ben Schreiner, head of innovation for small and medium businesses at AWS, recommends SMBs to work backward from a problem they want to solve when looking at AI tools and to ensure their data is used securely. He also believes customer support tools like chatbots will be more effective in the future, but will not replace customer support roles.
The three-and-a-half-year partnership offers Mission Cloud grant funding to add 150 people to its approximately 320-employee workforce as well as help with research and development, go-to-market and specialized consulting. The funding will also go towards pushing use cases around GenAI. Anderson would not disclose the exact sum of the grant but said it’s tens of millions of dollars.
GCP
Google has announced updates to its AI assistant, Bard, including integration with Google apps, language support for over 40 languages, and a double-check button to counter confabulations. Bard Extensions allow the AI assistant to pull from Google's other services and integrate them into a conversation, while privacy concerns are addressed by not using the content for ads or training. OpenAI's ChatGPT-4 and Microsoft's AI Copilot also offer similar features.
Google is working with the Department of Defense to develop an AI-powered microscope called the Augmented Reality Microscope (ARM) to help doctors detect cancer cells and other pathogens. The ARM is expected to cost between $90,000 and $100,000 and will be retrofitted into existing light microscopes in hospitals. Google has also invested upwards of $200 billion in AI investments in the past decade to help fill the gap in healthcare personnel worldwide.
This text features a variety of research topics related to astronomy, biology, and geology. These include investigating spectral evolution of XTE J1810–189, using a gyroscope to measure variations in Earth's rotation, Turkish astronomers investigating open cluster NGC 2509, grassland expansion and its effect on mammal evolution, plate tectonics and its role in initiating life on Earth, imaging the smallest atoms, understanding bacterial motors, microcombs, viewing biomolecules in pathogens, autophagy protein, proboscideans, coral colony size and shape, and drug-resistant bacteria.
Topic: Modern Work
Microsoft
Microsoft is planning to launch its AI Library to enhance its Teams platform with Large Language Models. This feature will empower developers to create rich, conversational Teams apps, aiming to boost productivity and efficiency worldwide. The AI Library is set to roll out in October 2023, and will provide developers with tools to integrate AI into Teams. This will revolutionize meetings and stimulate a more engaging remote environment, potentially changing the landscape of remote teamwork and communication.
Lighthouse Microsoft 365 Lighthouse has introduced an alerts and notifications feature that provides Managed Service Providers (MSPs) with the ability to configure customized alerts to specific tenants or groups. The platform also includes predefined alert types and can be integrated with third-party ticketing systems. The Alert page allows MSPs to view and manage alerts, set the alert status and severity, and keep a history of the alert.
AWS
Serge Lucio discusses how the rise of multicloud services has become the norm for enterprise organizations and the challenges that come with it. He suggests that a multicloud automation strategy is key to overcoming these challenges and provides an overview of the current state of multicloud automation. He concludes that introducing an orchestration layer and promoting a culture of observability and collaboration is critical to ensure SLAs are consistently met.
GCP
Google is expanding the reach of its Bard AI tool to integrate directly with many of its core apps and services, such as Gmail, Docs, Google Drive, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Flights and Hotels. It allows users to ask questions and submit requests that tie into any or all of Google's various apps. Updates to the PaLM 2 model allow Bard to be more intuitive and imaginative, with greater quality and accuracy. It also offers the ability to double-check responses in English and build on shared conversations.
Google Cloud Next 2023 saw the announcement of Duet AI for Google Workspace, upgrades to Vertex AI, A3 virtual machine supercomputing with NVIDIA, TPU v5e for generative AI inference, and GKE Enterprise Edition for cost and performance efficiencies. These announcements demonstrate Google's commitment to making generative AI increasingly available for productivity and enterprise use.
Topic: Future / Out There
With all of the focus on AI and all of its potential uses, of which it has many.? This article was interesting to consider the true strengths and weaknesses of it as a technology at this point.? It is an awesome productivity tool to be sure.? But we also need to remember that at this point it is basically really good at predictive language based on patterns.? Therefore it is prone to making things up if it thinks it fits its overall pattern.? That can be especially dangerous when it comes to reenforcing bias.
--- Take a read below ---
This article by Lyah Muktavaram discusses the potential dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the biases it can produce. AI is vulnerable to mistakes due to the data it is trained on, which can be full of historical inaccuracies and social biases. The article also highlights the potential consequences of AI in healthcare, law enforcement and economic inequalities. The responsibility falls on humans to ensure that AI technology reflects the world they want to live in, as opposed to one surrendered to biases.