TIDES-012: Interesting Technology Posts for May 2022

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As the name says, the idea is to focus on the five topics that make up the acronym. Please reach out with your recommendations for the inclusion of suitable posts in this newsletter.

This week, we shall cover some hot technology-related curation and related content. We shall get content on inspiring stories in the next post.

Hope you enjoy the article and always stay updated!

Thanks and best wishes

Kalilur Rahman

1. Is AI a big hype that has failed to deliver to the expectations of large organizations?

AI Leverages Mathematics and Statistics in a big way for the predictions, modelling and other algorithmic engineering purposes. Take the following two quotes from a leading technologist on AI?

" 1.AI is Statistics in a Tuxedo "

" 2. ‘You may recall that it was neither holy, nor Roman nor an empire. Artificial intelligence is neither artificial nor intelligent!’ "

- John Taysom, NED & Co-Founder, Privitar

The question is - Is this going through the trough of disillusionment? Is AI hype facing a winter season now? What is your take on the current challenges faced by organizations that want to leverage this? If you ignore the technology giants and stalwarts, not many organizations have reaped the full potential or benefits of AI yet. Has it progressed only to a certain extent from the days of EXPERT systems and Genetic algorithms in the 80s and 90s?

2. On the topic?of AI, how AI is helping the Lifesciences industry propel further with some brilliant solutions

Bias is a big problem in the Data Science and AI industry. Bias in the Machine Learning Models can totally derail the systems. One of the focus areas for the companies building AI based systems is to address the Bias.

Learning from the Lifesciences (especially Pharmaceutical) industry can benefit AI Models by addressing the biases across phases in a successful manner, when a process is followed in a diligent manner. The link attached covers a nice article on 5 Solutions that can be considered for improving the AI algorithms.

3. Hyderabad - India is set to host the biggest Google campus outside of the US

This news is of interest to me as I am working in the city of pearls, nizams and Biryani as I type this post. Google is all set to build its large campus outside of the US in Hyderabad that prioritises sustainability and energy efficiency throughout its design. Hyderabad has been expanding its technical capabilities and talent pool over the past decade and is taking giant leaps to progress further.

4. StarLink Usage across the world - Is this a big ambition going wrong - has this good technology idea from Elon musk gone wrong?

As per an article from the Rest of the World, Only 2% of Starlink users live outside of the West. The original global ambition, of Elon Musk’s Starlink through SpaceX, was to make internet access across the world. Following the spectacular failure of Google Baloon and Meta/Facebook's Internet.org, Starlink is still struggling to reach users outside North America and Europe.

To quote Wikipedia

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX. It provides satellite Internet access coverage to 32 countries where its use has been licensed, and aims for global coverage. As of April 2022 Starlink consists of over 2,100 mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), which communicate with designated ground transceivers.

Given the prominence it gained for the access provided during the Ukraine Conflict, do you think Starlink will reach its full potential and achieve what Google and Facebook failed to attain in the near past?

5. AirBnB defines new ways of working for technology working with an employee-friendly HR policy

In an interesting move, tech major and innovator - Airbnb commits to a fully remote workplace: ‘Live and work anywhere for its employees. This includes

• Employees can work from home or the office
• Employees can move anywhere in the country they work and their compensation won’t change
• Employees have the flexibility to travel and work around the world
• They will meet up regularly for gatherings
• They will continue to work in a highly coordinated way

Will it become a default norm for all the companies? What do you think?

6. Aadhar Innovator - Nandan Nilekani's new initiative to enable small retailers to compete against tech giants - ONDC

The Infosys founder and billionaire Tech Pioneer Nandan Nilekani aims to take on Amazon, and Walmart in India by helping India build an open e-commerce grid and to take ambitious state project aims to get small merchants on board.

On December 31, 2021, ONDC was incorporated as a private sector, non-profit company to democratize e-commerce in India. It is incubated by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) at the Quality Council of India.

With India's e-commerce market targeted to reach $200 Billion in 5 years, A pilot soft launch of the ONDC was rolled out on April 29, in five cities spread across different geographical regions in India – Delhi National Capital Region, Bhopal, Bengaluru, Shillong, and Coimbatore.

ONDC is not platform-centric, and its objective is to match the online consumer’s demand with the nearest available source of supply. Consumers can thus find any seller, product, or service via any compatible application or platform – offering real freedom of choice.

Will ONDC be as successful as Aadhaar or UPI and will ONDC help address some of the gaps of the UPI for the commercial traders?

7. How Researchers are building AI that builds AI

A full contrarian article to the first two curated in this list above - this article from "Quanta Magazine" covers an interesting perspective on how the focus is given to building an AI that builds an AI.

With the focus on the usages of hyper networks, researchers can now preemptively fine-tune artificial neural networks, saving some of the time and expense of training.

What do you think about this? Where will it trend to?

8. How Algorithms and Technology are manipulated by highly powerful players to leverage the Social Media

With great power comes, a great responsibility is a famous quote from the Spiderman movie. It is very much applicable to social media.

The article from OpenMind Magazine - "Algorithms, Lies, and Social Media" is a nice narrative on how Social media can play a big role in achieving a more transparent and less manipulative online media that may well be the defining political battle of the 21st century.

There is an official Information Overload Day as well - which is observed on 20th of October every year. In this Attention economy, one needs to be careful about the information overload, misinformation algorithms and fake messaging mechanisms played out by actors and be balanced in the approaches.

What do you think?

9. How a technologically advanced bot can be used to spot depressed twitter users

A team of researchers at two UK based universities have built a BOT that can spot depressed Twitter users in 9 out of 10 cases.

Two universities - Brunel Univ., and Univ. Of Leicester had its researchers build an algorithm that can determine the mental state of a user by analyzing 38 data points extracted from the Twitter profile and recommending their status.

Speaking of emotional status, following Visual Capitalist infographic is a very good one to look into

What do you think about the Bot developed? Would you trust them fully?

10. A brief history of BlockChain - A timeline and history of blockchain technology

Blockchain is the technology that enables cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. But that's not the only application for this technology. Following the YouTube video and TechTarget article is a nice read.

11. Other good Technology articles to read and benefit from

10.1 Bitcoin becomes the official currency of a second country after Venezuela - in the Central African Republic

10.2 TikTok was the top app by worldwide downloads in Q1 2022

10.3 Use of AI for Social Good - A nice article from McKinsey

AI is not a silver bullet, but it could help tackle some of the world’s most challenging social problems.

There are tons of technology stories to share. I have shared my curated list and prioritization of the content for your perusal. I shill share more in the future editions as well. I hope you find them useful and apply them in your lifelong learning!

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did writing it. I am all ears to hear from you. Caring is sharing. Feel free to like, share or comment on what you think! Please tag me if you forward this for relevance.

Some of the key resources referred to are:

1. www.wikipedia.org
2. www.successstory.com
3. www.canva.com
4. www.brainyquotes.com        

Credits:?The header and most of the images are designed using Canva. All other linked quotes and images are available freely on the Public Internet. Respective trademarks are owned by corresponding firms. Quotes are freely available on the Internet. The opinions highlighted are from a personal experience standpoint and in no way reflect the views of my current or past employers or clients.

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