The University of Western Australia (UWA) and Binance Australia partnered to enhance blockchain education to tackle the growing need for skills in the disruptive technology.
The up to $450,000 (US$300,000) donation from Binance Australia will be taken in BUSD, a fiat-backed stablecoin, and will be used to improve the course already offered at UWA.
Dean of the UWA Business School Professor Peter Robertson said UWA was dedicated to offering business education at the forefront of rapidly advancing technologies.
“It is a wonderful opportunity for students to learn about crypto currencies and the blockchain using real crypto accounts,” Professor Robertson stated.
According to Binance Australia Chief Executive Officer Leigh Travers, a third of the funds was set aside to create UWA Metaverse labs, which will be explored and created by students, while a comprehensive Master’s program for blockchain technology was being built out.
The initiative, funded by the Binance Charity, will provide UWA students with access to opportunities to engage practically with blockchain technologies and develop skills that are in high demand by both established and emerging industries, which are reimagining traditional economic sectors globally.
“The Binance Australia team are incredibly excited to help accelerate the blockchain and crypto literacy of UWA students,” Travers said.
According to lecturer Dr Andrzej Gwizdalski, there is an increasing need for workers who are knowledgeable about blockchain technology and crypto currencies.
“Students completing the course will learn about the key disruptive technologies powering Web3, how to apply the innovation in business and what implications the technologies will have on work, economy, and society,” Dr Gwizdalski said.
To guarantee that Australia continues to be a global leader in this area, Professor Robertson said the UWA Business School has a new Centre for Blockchain and Crypto-Currency Research. The blockchain courses offered by UWA will start in Semester two of this year.
Fujitsu today announced the launch of “Fujitsu Computing as a Service Data e-TRUST” (hereinafter “Data e-TRUST”) as a new service function for “Fujitsu Computing as a Service” (hereinafter CaaS), Fujitsu’s service portfolio that makes advanced computing technologies easily available to everyone.
Fujitsu on October 13 delivered Data e-TRUST in a pre-launch offering to Nagase & Co., Ltd. (hereinafter Nagase) which is promoting digital transformation (DX) in the chemical industry. General availability of the new function for the Japanese market will begin by the end of fiscal 2022. A rollout of services to the global market is planned in the future.
Data e-TRUST adds Fujitsu’s IDentitY eXchange (IDYX) and Chain Data Lineage (CDL) technologies for secure data exchange and utilization trust functions to Fujitsu CaaS and provides advanced data security with three key features: a secure, on-demand and distributed data exchange mechanism; electronic credentials such as digital identity and electronic seals; and a flexible, scalable ledger that extends the blockchain to ensure the authenticity and security of data exchange between different systems and services. In this way, Data e-TRUST supports the authentication of all information related to individuals and corporations in digital transactions and the safe, secure, and free exchange of data.
Fujitsu aims to provide the newly developed Data e-Trust service function to various customers who aim to create new services through the exchange and utilization of data between companies and individual users. In this way, Fujitsu will continue to contribute to the realization of a more convenient data-driven society by supporting the creation of a safe and secure digital ecosystem as part of its vision for “Hybrid IT” to realize a digital infrastructure for a connected society, a Key Focus Area under Fujitsu Uvance, Fujitsu’s portfolio of global solutions to achieve a sustainable world.
Background
The realization of a connected digital world that transcends individuals, companies, and industries represents a major issue in today’s digital society. To this end, the realization of digital trust for the reliable connection and safe and secure exchange and utilization of data has been gaining increasing importance.
To address this task, Fujitsu developed Data e-TRUST to ensure the trust of data exchanged between individual users and corporations by managing the authenticity and security associated with the exchange and utilization of digital data.
About the newly developed service
As part of Fujitsu’s CaaS portfolio, Data e-TRUST offers customers a set of APIs that enable secure and reliable data exchange and utilization between different services and between individual users and businesses. Leveraging Fujitsu’s proprietary IDYX and CDL technologies, Data e-TRUST enables tamper-proof management of data trails including the proof of the origin, ownership, and authenticity of data. By granting trust to all online transactions involving data such as electronic documents and digital content, Fujitsu’s Data e-TRUST supports customers in solving business and societal issues and ultimately contributes to the realization of a sustainable society.
Features of Fujitsu’s Data e-TRUST
1. Trusted data exchange & utilization:
data items to be linked are controlled between confidential individual users’/corporate distributed DBs; on-demand distributed data linkage across individual users and companies is realized by exchanging personal information after obtaining user consent
individual users and companies can manage their own diverse data and pass it on to multiple companies and services, enabling them to exercise fine-grained control over where it is distributed and privacy, thereby enhancing data ownership and governance for information disclosure
2. Digital credentials:
Fujitsu’s IDYX technology, a solution to guarantee that data to be used is accurate and not falsified enables the issuance and use of various electronic credentials for digital information and ensures the authenticity of information exchanged in digital transactions
support of a variety of authentication scenarios that require verification of digital information (enhancement of authentication processes by checking an individual’s identity and personal credentials, information concerning a corporate’s performance, provision of one-stop services such as contract procedures through interconnected customer information, management of copyrights and ownership of electronic documents and digital contents, etc.)
3. Digital evidence:
Fujitsu’s CDL technology enables individual users and organizations to manage transactions and evidence of activities in a tamper-proof manner by extending the blockchain and enabling flexible, scalable, and centralized management of transaction histories across individual users and companies
technology that offers various digital transaction histories to prove the integrity of different business activities and social contributions (i.e. accurate visibility of supply and value chains by interconnecting data on carbon footprint and consumer behavior with data on CO2 emissions)
Customers can utilize these features of Data e-TRUST in combination with a variety of further service features. In this way, Fujitsu will expand the ecosystem for the exchange and utilization of a wide variety of data across industries and support customers in reforming business processes and creating new businesses.
Use case: Provision of Fujitsu Data e-TRUST to Nagase
Fujitsu in October 2022 started to offer Data e-TRUST in a limited pre-launch to Nagase, which is actively promoting digital transformation in the chemical industry. Nagase will apply the new service function to its distribution management system “DocuValue” (6) to offer a new cloud service solving tasks of the chemical industry related to the distribution management of complex chemical documents in the supply chain. Moving forward, Fujitsu will further expand functions of Data e-TRUST and will continue to enhance the value of Nagase’s services and contribute to the growth of Nagase’s DX and business as a business partner.
Comment by Natsuki Imamura, General Manager, ICT Planning Division, NAGASE & CO., LTD.:
“We designed DocuValue as a service that can be used as a platform by many companies in the chemical industry to contribute to the improvement of productivity and “Responsible Care” throughout the industry. For this reason, we adopted Fujitsu’s trust service “Data e-TRUST” as it enables us to handle confidential data with care. We have protected data with Data e-Trust so that not even Nagase Information Development, Ltd. (7), the operator of DocuValue has access to information related to the sales channels of contract companies. As a result, many companies are now able to use our service with confidence. I feel that the Data e-TRUST is a very innovative service as it enables us to secure data distribution without having to develop an advanced system on our own. “
Future Plans
Moving forward, Fujitsu will offer the newly developed service function to customers from a wide range of industries including finance, manufacturing, retail, and medical care and work with various customers to create new services through the exchange and use of data among companies and individual users across industries. Fujitsu further plans to combine its Data e-TRUST service with advanced computing technologies such as its supercomputing (HPC) technology, its quantum-inspired Digital Annealer, and quantum computing technology, as well as AI technologies to accelerate innovation, bring trust to society, and make the world more sustainable.
Mark Zuckerberg introduced Meta Quest Pro, the first in a new range of sophisticated headsets designed for collaboration, creativity, and productivity.
At Meta Connect, Zuckerberg joined leaders from Meta Reality Labs and a few special guests to display their work in making the metaverse a reality. Meta officials emphasised Meta Quest 2’s great success, described how virtual reality is becoming more sociable, and exhibited innovations for health, gaming, and work.
Meta Quest Pro was unveiled at the event, a game-changing device that brings the physical and digital worlds closer together.
Meta recently revealed few information regarding the future VR gadget, Project Cambria. Now, Meta has dropped the codename in favour of Meta Quest Pro.
The Meta Quest Pro is the first in a new line of powerful headsets designed to broaden the capabilities of virtual and mixed reality. Its pancake lenses bend light over many times, lowering headset size while providing crisper views. A redesigned, curved battery on the rear contributes to Meta Quest Pro being a more balanced and ergonomic headset in general.
Meta Quest Pro is Meta’s first full-colour mixed reality gadget, thanks to high-resolution outward-facing cameras that collect 4X as many pixels as Meta Quest 2.
According to Meta, it’s also the first headset with inward-facing sensors to record natural face emotions and eye tracking.
Meta has regarded the breakthrough as a significant step towards attaining the metaverse’s promise.
New Partnership to Advance the Future of Work
Meta Quest Pro was created with productivity in mind and will be a significant advance for individuals who use virtual reality as a tool for work, but hardware is only one component of the equation. Meta stated that they are equally committed to developing and supporting software that enhances the way you operate.
Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella joined Zuckerberg in announcing a new collaboration that will bring powerful new work and productivity tools to Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 2 next year, including apps for Microsoft Windows 365 and Microsoft Teams, as well as the ability to join a Teams meeting from within Meta Horizon Workrooms.
New Social Experiences in VR and Beyond
According to Meta, when Meta Quest 2 was released two years ago, most people’s time in VR was spent alone. The majority of time is now spent on multiplayer and social apps.
Meta announced it’s developing Meta Horizon Worlds on the web so you can eventually pick up your phone or laptop and visit friends hanging out in VR, and vice versa. Along with this is the announcement of new social innovations we’re working on with the YouTube VR team.
Meta previewed its next generation of Meta Avatars, which will be more expressive and detailed — as well as full-body avatars in VR, which will begin in Meta Horizon Worlds. Aside from VR, Meta is introducing avatars to video chat, beginning with Messenger and WhatsApp, so users can express themselves and react without turning on their camera.
Reality Labs Research Updates
Aside from what Meta recently presented, it also shared research updates on the underlying technologies for future devices and the metaverse, such as:
Meta’s approach is to produce more intuitive, human-centred interfaces by combining artificial intelligence and electromyography;
The collaboration of Project Aria and Meta with Carnegie Mellon University to assist people with vision impairments in better navigating their surroundings indoors;
In the metaverse, two technologies are used to create and modify 3D objects: neural radiance fields and inverse rendering; and
Photorealistic Codec Avatars with more complex facial emotions and Instant Codec Avatars are quicker and easier to create.
Meta is developing a new computing platform with Reality Labs centred on people, connections, and meaningful interactions.
Just hours before the 2022 FIRST Global Challenge Opening Ceremonies at the Palexpo, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), in partnership with DEKA Research and Development Corp., unveiled the XRP (Experiential Robotics Platform) a new robotic platform that is poised to be a game changer for the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education pipeline for generations to come.
The XRP robots, still in beta form, are simple, inexpensive, easy to build, and just as programmable as a far more expensive robot. The XRP robots come with built-in educational and software support, and they are designed to operate autonomously, perform basic tasks, navigate on their own, sense distance, and manipulate their environment. Simple, tool-free assembly allows for a quick build and parts can be replaced easily with the use of a 3-D printer. When they come to market next year the 7 inches by 5 inches, weighing less than 1 lb. (17.78 cm by 12.7 cm, .45 km) –about the size of a box of chocolates-will cost less than $50.
“Robotics has proven to be extremely effective in stimulating interest in broad areas of science and technology across the entire range of student levels from kindergarten through college, but having access to affordable tools and sustainable support systems is often a barrier,” says Winston “Wole” Soboyejo, interim president of WPI. “The XRP was designed and created with that in mind, so more young people from around the world can partake in the exciting activity of building and programming robots. Our world urgently needs more STEM professionals and business leaders with differing experience(s), expertise, questions, and passions to labs and boardroom tables – only then will we be able to create, translate, and deploy new scientific insights and technologies that work for everyone.”
All 185 teams representing 180 nations at this year’s FIRST Global Challenge are given a free XRP to bring back to their home countries. The teams are challenged to share the kits with other schools or organizations who are interested in implementing or expanding robotics programs. With the kits, educators and students also get access to free online courses, created and supported by WPI, on how to build, program, and control the robot, which they can scale up using the same hardware with free software updates.
“We are at a critical time across the world when many of our most pressing problems, such as climate change, can be and need to be addressed by science and technology,” says Dean Kamen, a WPI alumnus and founder of FIRST Global and DEKA, who has been partnering with his alma mater to engage and inspire young STEM enthusiasts for more than 30 years. “The demand for this kind of talent is intense and having a global STEM workforce prepared for the future isn’t just a societal need, it’s good business. It’s also essential for every aspect of life on this planet that we continue to empower and encourage kids by joyfully engaging them in activities like the sport of robotics. This will allow the kids to understand their own potential to use science—and that of science and technology—to solve the world’s great problems.”
“We considered every aspect of the design and materials to ensure it could not only function at a high level but remain affordable. To have a robot that weighs and costs less than a textbook—so potentially every student in a classroom could have one—was always our guiding light.” -Brad Miller
The actual idea to distribute an affordable robot kit around the world traces its origins to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when WPI students abruptly switched to remote learning in spring 2020 and FIRST needed to keep competitive robotics teams working together on various entries. Both needed to figure out how to get remote students small, relatively inexpensive robots to work on for hands-on experience. Eventually, WPI incorporated a commercially available robot kit that students could purchase and build at home into its curriculum. A similar version was then used in FIRST robotics competitions—one that was able to use WPILib software, which WPI created for FIRST in 2009. From there, WPI and DEKA Research & Development Corp. continued to work together to create the XRP and help increase the global STEM pipeline with support from an NSF grant through the Engineering For Us All (E4USA) org.
“The XRP will change the paradigm for hands-on robotics education around the world by dramatically reducing cost, expanding use, and enhancing curriculum support for teachers,” said David Rogers, DEKA’s Chief Development Officer, who worked closely with WPI in developing the XRP platform.
Unlike other platforms that require several upgrades to adapt to higher levels of robotics education, the common programming language used in the XRP kits will also allow students to easily transition to more complicated projects.
“We considered every aspect of the design and materials to ensure it could not only function at a high level but remain affordable,” said Brad Miller, former director of the WPI Robotics Resource Center and senior fellow of WPI’s Global STEM Education Initiative. “To have a robot that weighs and costs less than a textbook—so potentially every student in a classroom could have one—was always our guiding light.”
“Being able to see the results of your code executed on a classroom robot is one way of maintaining and really encouraging this excitement and enthusiasm within what can be challenging fields with a number of roadblocks,” said Joe Doiron, director of WPI’s Global Lab and Global STEM Education Initiative.
In the coming months production will increase to provide additional XRPs as needed. In the meantime, WPI is announcing a larger STEM initiative at both the FIRST Global Challenge and XPrize Summit also taking place in Geneva this week. The new Global STEM Education Initiative leverages the university’s expertise and resources to help other countries and underserved schools in the United States provide high-quality, accessible K-12 STEM education. With the programming, activities, and support provided by this initiative, WPI will help educators around the world bring inspiration and possibility to their classrooms.
“If you dream big, even when you have very limited resources, the size of your dreams determines the scope of your impact,” says Soboyejo. “For me, just as important as getting kids excited about STEM, we need to encourage them to dream big and to surround themselves with people that encourage and nurture that dream.”
SDC22 brought together developers, innovators, and designers to explore seamless, connected experiences powered by Samsung.
During the SDC22, Samsung discussed its commitment to providing streamlined, game-changing customer experiences and the company’s new vision for SmartThings as it transitions from a connectivity platform to an enabler of smarter living. SmartThings is developing a more prosperous, more open environment that empowers users to streamline their connections and daily lives, from greater integration with Bixby to seamless interaction with Matter-compatible devices.
“I am proud to share the next generation of our work, like SmartThings, to further our collaboration with partners and developers. As technologies become more complex, we will always search for ways to make life easier, more connected, and more flexible, so our consumers can focus on what matters most,” Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman, CEO and Head of Device eXperience (DX) Division Jong-Hee Han said.
Connecting Platforms and Devices with Calm Technology
According to Samsung, its goal of seamless connectivity is inspired by the Calm Technology philosophy where products instantly function together. To accomplish this, Samsung redesigned SmartThings and its linked services and collaborations, such as Samsung’s Hub Everywhere, which extends audio and visual data capabilities to the entire smart home and SmartThings Energy, SmartThings Pet, and SmartThings Cooking. Samsung also collaborated with Philips Hue to incorporate Philips Hue Sync directly into Galaxy devices.
Through SmartThings’ integration with Matter and Samsung’s participation in the Home Connectivity Alliance, the seamless experience will extend outside Samsung’s ecosystem. Google and Samsung collaborated to produce a multi-admin feature for Matter devices, allowing users to search and connect their devices across platforms.
Bixby is now fully linked with SmartThings, a developer tool to create more sophisticated voice user interface experiences. Bixby has matured as Samsung’s flagship voice assistant platform to become the on-device AI solution capable of controlling individual Galaxy devices and the cross-device experience across the Samsung ecosystem. Developers can now create unique, customised experiences for the SmartThings platform using the Bixby Home Studio.
Meanwhile, Samsung is developing a new security paradigm that allows Samsung products to defend one another. Samsung Knox Matrix1 is a private blockchain-based network that transforms qualified Samsung devices into a shield to safeguard users’ entire device ecosystem. The new Security and privacy dashboard monitors for vulnerabilities, advises security upgrades, and provides data management options to keep privacy and security at the forefront of their minds.
Personalised Services for Better Experience
According to Samsung, Samsung TV Plus has grown by 100 per cent in the last year, with three billion hours streamed projected by the end of the year. To capitalise on this momentum, Samsung TV Plus has partnered with Lionsgate and Vice Media to provide 8K content on demand. Samsung TV Plus has also been redesigned to showcase its diversity of content, with over 1,600 channels available in 24 countries.
After ten years of operation, Samsung said its Tizen operating system (OS) is still providing best-in-class user experiences. The Samsung Gaming Hub improves, accelerates, and simplifies access to gaming on Samsung Smart TVs with industry-leading partners such as Xbox, NVIDIA GeForce NOW, Utomik, and Amazon Luna. Samsung Gaming Hub combines hardware and software expertise to incorporate technologies like AI Upscaling and multitasking to enable gaming on Samsung Smart TVs to be an engaging, optimal experience.
Tizen OS is also growing its support for NFTs with partners such as Art Token, laCollection, and Nifty Gateway. Samsung provides B2B APIs tailored to industries and use scenarios, such as Syncplay, which allows material to be synced and played in numerous signages to B2B clients and developers. Tizen also introduces SALT, a new content conversion solution for displaying high-quality HDR10+ material on supported televisions.
Your Galaxy, Your Way with One UI 5
One UI 5 allows customers to quickly modify the look and feel of their device while also improving productivity and enabling incredible experiences across devices and platforms. With custom-built Modes and Routines, as well as a Dynamic Lock screen that displays numerous visuals on your phone, Galaxy Watch, and other One UI 5 devices. One UI 5 provides more personalised experiences. One UI 5 also includes new daily health solutions that allow you to track your health and wellness in one spot. This features the Samsung Privileged Health SDK, allowing developers to create apps that use the Galaxy Watch’s BioActive Sensor.
Future-Forward Investment and Research
Samsung Research has made its robot arm manipulation code public on GitHub, allowing academics, researchers, and developers to investigate novel robotic manipulation concepts.
According to Samsung, the Samsung Research team was also motivated by its new wellness features, particularly on the Galaxy Watch5. Samsung Research collaborates with universities and healthcare organisations to research topics such as heart health, stress, blood pressure, lung health, and neurology to identify new use cases. As a result, Samsung is providing a full-stack SDK — the Samsung Health Stack — to begin research and development in critical health disciplines.
Stellantis inaugurated today a new software center in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. The new center will focus on the development of software and technological innovations crucial to the advancement of automobiles and mobility. In line with Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares’ vision of marking a new era for Stellantis in India and the long-term Dare Forward 2030 strategic plan, the new site is the Company’s second global innovation center in the country.
The facility, spread across 50,000 square feet, will serve as the primary development center for STLA SmartCockpit – one of the three technology platforms that are key to the Company’s digital transformation strategy due to arrive in 2024 and deployed across the four STLA vehicle platforms. In addition, the Bengaluru center will play a crucial role in the development of AI and ADAS technologies for STLA AutoDrive. Additionally, the Base Software Development team in Bengaluru will support Base software platforms made with the Classic and Adaptive Autosar frameworks.
The new center was launched by Yves Bonnefont, Chief Software Officer at Stellantis, together with the Stellantis India top management team. The Bengaluru office will house state-of-the-art labs, including a next-generation acoustic lab, which is tasked with the development of specific audio signatures as well as premium audio experiences for Stellantis vehicle owners worldwide. The establishment of the new digital hub as a key contributor of change for a sustainable tomorrow is a robust demonstration of Stellantis’ unabated dedication to facilitating the global mobility sector’s digital transformation.
“Stellantis is proud to contribute to the age of software-defined vehicles,” said Yves Bonnefont, Stellantis Chief Software Officer. “As a global organization, we are committed to fostering talent across geographies. The Indian tech talent and its innovative startup ecosystem are important to accelerating Stellantis’ transformation to a sustainable mobility tech company. India plays a key role in Stellantis’ digital approach and development.”
Stellantis has accelerated the hiring process for the new center that will eventually employ approximately 500 people. In addition to leveraging multi-pronged hiring strategies, the Company is investing in the upskilling and reskilling of local talent to help empower them to take on global assignments.
The new innovation and development center in Bengaluru will further help nurture Indian expertise in the software and technology sector and give us the opportunity to wield such proficiency in global markets. The company is also collaborating with Indian universities to explore the development of industry-specific curricula and support ongoing expansion.
Stellantis’ software-driven strategy deploys next-generation tech platforms, building on existing connected vehicle capabilities to transform how customers interact with their vehicles and to generate €20 billion in incremental annual revenues by 2030.
In addition to the Software Hub, Stellantis in India is also represented by two iconic automotive brands – Jeep and Citroën offering a wide range of cars for domestic as well as export markets.
Gallup and AWS collaborated to undertake the largest international survey of its kind, questioning nearly 30,000 workers and 9,300 hiring managers in 19 countries, to obtain a deeper understanding of the value of digital skills and how they can improve lives.
In a statement, Amazon said Gallup also examined Lightcast (previously Emsi Burning Glass) data on all advertised job vacancies in 33 countries from mid-2021 to mid-2022 to determine the talents most in demand by today’s employers. The 2022 AWS Global Digital Skills Study: The Economic Benefits of a Tech-Savvy Workforce now has the full conclusions.
As technology continues to revolutionise people’s lives and workplaces, new research from Gallup and Amazon Web Services (AWS) shines light on the enormous economic, innovation, and performance benefits that investing in advanced digital skills for workers can deliver.
The study delivers five critical insights as part of Amazon’s continued promise to give free cloud computing skills training to 29 million individuals by 2025.
Digital skills yield big economic benefits
Workers and industries benefit from income and revenue premiums generated by digital skills. This quickly adds up to significant global value. According to the research, sophisticated digital skills alone—such as cloud architecture and software development—raise annual global GDP by an estimated $6.3 trillion through increasing worker income and productivity.
Furthermore, organisations that use digital skills at a high-level report annual revenues that are around 168 per cent higher than companies that do not use digital skills. Workers perceive the advantages as well. Workers with intermediate skills, such as comprehending cloud principles and the ability to utilise tools like drag-and-drop websites, earned 40 per cent more than those with basic digital skills, such as email and word processing, across the 19 nations studied. Individuals with advanced capabilities, such as programming languages, saw a 65 per cent increase in salaries.
Workers’ benefits increase as digital skills knowledge increases
Employees understand the importance of digital skills, and nearly all (98 per cent) believe that learning a digital skill has benefited their career. More than three-quarters of digital workers (77 per cent) are “very” or “very” interested in learning new digital skills. This is encouraging news for staff who continue to cite difficulty in obtaining qualified candidates. When it comes to occupations needing digital skills, more than two-thirds of businesses (70 per cent) cite hiring issues.
Furthermore, the poll demonstrates a significant relationship between digital skill mastery and increases in employee job satisfaction. Nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) of workers with advanced digital skills consider their employment to be near-ideal, compared to fewer than half (43 per cent) of individuals with basic digital abilities. Similarly, workers with advanced digital skills reported greater job stability (7 per cent vs. 48 per cent).
Investing in digital skills delivers big dividends for businesses
Additionally, studies show that businesses that use cloud, digital, and advanced digital skills routinely beat their non-digital competitors. Businesses are nearly 50 per cent more likely to report inventing in the last two years when advanced digital workers—such as cloud engineers and software developers—are employed than when merely using basic digital technologies like email and messaging applications. A rate five times greater than businesses that do not use the cloud and do not plan to adopt it in the future was reported by 66 per cent of businesses that operate all or most of their operations in the cloud during the previous two years.
5G, cryptocurrency and the Metaverse are here to stay
While the majority of firms currently acknowledge that finding candidates with the digital skills they require is difficult, they must also get ready for future hiring difficulties. There are still fresh, disruptive technologies being developed. When asked to rate the possibility that 10 such emerging technologies will become a standard component of their business in the future on a scale of zero to 10, 65 per cent of worldwide employers gave at least one technology an eight or higher. More than half (52 per cent) think that using numerous technologies will become the norm, and 11 per cent say that their organisation will eventually use all 10 of these.
Today at Next ’22, Google Cloud announced new customer wins, partnerships, and product innovations to help organizations of all sizes, across every industry, adapt to rapidly changing customer expectations and shifting global markets.
“This year’s event takes place at an inflection point in the cloud industry,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “Data and artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming everything around us, and open, connected ecosystems are essential to everything we do. This week, we are proud to announce cloud innovations that help businesses embrace openness and interoperability, in addition to celebrating the incredible achievements of our customers and partners.”
Customer momentum across every geography and industry Many of the world’s biggest brands are choosing Google Cloud to digitally transform and innovate, including 9 of the top 10 retailers, 8 of the top 10 banks, and 8 of the top 10 automotive companies. Building upon recent momentum with leading organizations like MLB, H&M Group, Banco BV, and ASX; public sector institutions like the New York State, Central Dutch Government, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Army; and new emerging companies like AppLovin, Arize.ai, Rent the Runway, Rightmove, and Tokopedia, Google Cloud today announced new or expanded relationships with Coinbase, Prudential plc, Rite Aid, Snap, T-Mobile, Toyota, and Wayfair.
New innovations and partnerships to define the future of cloud At Next ’22, Google Cloud is announcing hundreds of new innovations and partnerships across its portfolio, which includes a data cloud so organizations can better understand their data and automate core processes; an open infrastructure cloud to help modernize legacy information systems and build new applications that are reliable and scalable; a trusted cloud to protect users, applications, and data from growing cyber threats; and a collaboration cloud to enable modern, secure communication and collaboration.
An open data cloud Customers want to be able to utilize their data from all sources, in all storage formats, and across multiple styles of analysis. Today, Google Cloud announced significant steps to provide the most open, extensible, and powerful data cloud in the industry, along with new applications and services to put powerful, applied Google AI technology in the hands of more data specialists. Innovations announced today include:
Big Query support for unstructured data, a new capability that will significantly expand the ability for people to analyze all types of data.
Support for new data formats, including Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, and Apache Hudi, as well as a new integrated experience in BigQuery for Apache Spark.
Looker Studio, a complete enterprise business intelligence suite based on the unification of Looker and Google Data Studio. Google Cloud is also introducing Looker Studio Pro to provide organizations support and key governance capabilities.
Translation Hub, a new enterprise-scale translation AI Agent for self-serve document translation, which lets organizations cost effectively localize content in more than 135 languages.
Vertex AI Vision, a new service that makes powerful computer vision and image recognition AI more accessible to data practitioners. It also reduces the time to create computer vision applications from days to minutes at one-tenth the cost of current offerings.
Expanded integrations with many of the most popular enterprise data platforms, including Collibra, Elastic, MongoDB, Palantir Foundry, and ServiceNow—to help remove barriers between data, give customers more choice, and prevent data lock-in.
Easy, transformative, open infrastructure To better help organizations of all types and sizes run on Google Cloud, at the edge, or in their data centers, the company is announcing a series of infrastructure and migration updates, including:
Five new Google Cloud regions coming to Austria, Greece, Norway, South Africa, and Sweden.
Infrastructure enhancements tailored to customers’ workloads, including the C3 machine series powered by the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor and Google’s custom Intel Infrastructure Processing Unit (IPU), and general availability of TPU v4, which runs large-scale training workloads up to 80% faster and up to 50% cheaper.
Anthos enhancements, including a more robust user interface, an upgraded fleet management experience, and the general availability of virtual machine support on Anthos clusters for retail edge environments.
Dual Run, which will help remove the most common roadblocks from migrating 20+ year old mainframes into the cloud.
Migration Center, which brings assessment, planning, migration, and modernization tooling together in one location so organizations can progress faster through their migration journey.
OpenXLA Project, a new open-source ecosystem of ML technologies developed by Google, AMD, Arm, Intel, Meta, NVIDIA, and more.
An integrated, AI-powered collaboration hub To help hybrid teams communicate and collaborate, create and share ideas, and get work done safely from anywhere, Google Cloud today announced new innovations in Google Workspace and its partner ecosystem that will help organizations transform the way they work, including:
New capabilities in Google Meet, such as speaker spotlight, which enables presenters to embed their video directly in Google Slides, and adaptive framing with AI-powered cameras from Huddly and Logitech that let everyone in a conference room be seen clearly.
Smart canvas enhancements with custom building blocks in Google Docs, enabling companies to build their own templates that can be easily accessed by all users, and smart chips for third-party applications, including AODocs, Atlassian, Asana, Figma, Miro, Tableau, and ZenDesk, so people can view and engage with rich third-party data without switching tabs or context.
New security enhancements, including data loss prevention (DLP) rules for Chat and the extension of Client Side Encryption to Gmail and Calendar to help keep people and data safe across more of the apps teams use on a day-to-day basis.
New APIs for Meet and Chat, giving programmatic access to common functions like creating and starting meetings or initiating messages directly from a third-party app. Asana, Lumapps, and ZenDesk will be the first partners to leverage these in their apps. Developers can also embed their app directly into the Meet experience with a new Meet add-on SDK.
Advanced security tools to protect what’s important The rise of cybersecurity threats has every company rethinking their security posture. With the recent acquisition of Mandiant, Google Cloud is extending its cybersecurity leadership and expertise to help customers stay protected at every stage of the security lifecycle. This week, the company is announcing new products, partnerships, and solutions to build the most open and extensible trusted cloud offering, including:
Chronicle Security Operations, a modern, cloud-born software suite that better enables cybersecurity teams to detect, investigate, and respond to threats with the speed, scale, and intelligence of Google.
Confidential Space, a new solution in the Confidential Computing portfolio, that allows organizations to perform tasks such as joint data analysis and machine learning (ML) model training while ensuring the data they own can stay protected from their partners.
Google Cloud Ready – Sovereign Cloud, a new program for partners and customers to advance digital sovereignty and address growing demand for cloud solutions with the highest levels of control, transparency, and sovereignty.
Software Delivery Shield, a fully managed, end-to-end software supply chain security solution to help customers better protect the integrity of the software that underpins their business.
A significant expansion of the company’s trusted cloud ecosystem, featuring new integrations and offerings with more than 20 partners focused on digital sovereignty and cybersecurity.
Delivering next-generation computing to enterprises The combination of Google’s technical strengths, backed by its unique scale and deep experience in connecting that technology with consumer products and ecosystems, enables Google Cloud to put the tools of tomorrow in the hands of organizations today. New developments announced at Next include:
Project Starline, which creates a 3D model of a person, making it feel like they are sitting in the same room, will enter its next phase of testing with an early access program with enterprise partners. Starting this year, Google Cloud will deploy units in select partner offices for regular testing to see how Project Starline can help people form strong ties with one another, no matter where they are in the world.
A strategic partnership with Coinbase will help serve the growing Web3 ecosystem and its developers. Google’s partnership with Coinbase will make it easier for customers to take advantage of Google Cloud’s scalability, reliability, security, and data services, so Web3 founders and developers can focus on innovation. It also builds on recent Web3 announcements with Nansen, BNB Chain, Sky Mavis, and NEAR Protocol.
Powerful new ways for organizations to develop sustainably Google Cloud operates the cleanest cloud in the industry—and is committed to helping customers by making lasting change through products and services that minimize environmental impact. Today, the company announced that Google Cloud Carbon Footprint is now Generally Available, and provided at no cost for every customer in the cloud console. In addition, eco-friendly routing is coming soon to the Google Maps Platform for developers, to help ridesharing and delivery companies embed eco-friendly routes into their driver applications.
And, earlier this year, Google announced the Google Cloud Ready – Sustainability designation to better scale its efforts and help global businesses and governments accelerate their sustainability programs. Since that announcement, more than 20 partners have achieved the designation.
Toyota and Google Cloud today announced an expanded partnership that brings together Toyota and Lexus next-generation audio multimedia systems and Google Cloud’s AI-based speech services. Customers can now experience the first results of the partnership in the latest generation Toyota Audio Multimedia and Lexus Interface infotainment systems, including in 2023 models like the Toyota Corolla family, Tundra and Sequoia and Lexus NX, RX and all-electric RZ.
With the growing popularity of voice assistants in everyday life, consumers increasingly expect accurate and consistent voice interactions. The machine learning capabilities required to provide high-quality speech results have traditionally relied on a connection to the cloud, as natural language processing is extremely complex and can require specialized computers.
Vehicles equipped with Toyota’s latest-generation Automotive Grade Linux-based Audio Multimedia and Lexus Interface infotainment systems already leverage Google Cloud’s Speech-to-Text service to accurately perform automatic speech recognition for in-vehicle queries. Toyota’s Voice Assistant, which leverages technology from Google Cloud, was co-developed between the Toyota Motor North America Connected Technologies and Toyota Connected organizations since 2018. The partnership highlights the AI and machine learning innovation brought forth in the latest Toyota and Lexus infotainment systems.
The strength of the partnership announced today is that Toyota’s next-generation system will no longer require an internet connection for natural-speech functions.
Driving Future Innovation Together
Expanding the collaboration between Toyota and Google Cloud, the partnership aims to drive future innovation with the addition of Speech On-Device – a new Google Cloud AI product that equips embedded devices with the same powerful, AI-based speech recognition and synthesis available in the cloud, regardless of internet connectivity – to future Toyota and Lexus vehicles.
The future vehicle-native Speech On-Device will enable voice requests to be served directly by vehicles’ multimedia system processors, without the need for internet connectivity, to power voice queries in select vehicles. Now, with voice interactions served locally instead of by the cloud, drivers will not have to worry about a tunnel or dead zone affecting voice commands.
“Today’s announcement represents refinement that comes with years of collaboration between Toyota and Google Cloud to perfect how our technologies work with one another,” said Steve Basra, group vice president, Connected Technologies, Toyota Motor North America, and CEO and president of Toyota Connected North America.
Google’s Speech On-Device Technology
Speech On-Device builds on innovations from Google Assistant and Google Pixel that enable fully featured speech models – comparable in quality to those hosted in the cloud – to run locally on small devices at the edge with only a fraction of the model size and computing requirements. The new product makes it possible for Google Cloud customers to bring high-quality speech services to disconnected environments, presenting new opportunities across a variety of use cases, from cars to televisions and even kiosks.
“By working closely with Toyota to understand its in-vehicle device requirements and capabilities, we were able to provide server-like quality while using only a small fraction of the processing power to ensure the best possible experience for drivers,” said Umesh Vemuri VP, Global Strategic Customers & Industries, Google Cloud.
With Toyota’s next-generation multimedia system in development upon the brand’s native platform, vehicle-embedded Speech On-Device will be used as a component of the nextgen Toyota Voice Assistant. These technologies combined allow voice requests to be served directly by vehicles’ multimedia system processors, without the need for internet connectivity, to power voice queries in select vehicles.
Speech On-Device is available for select Google Cloud customers.
Back in 2018, BERT got people talking about how machine learning models were learning to read and speak. Today, large language models, or LLMs, are growing up fast, showing dexterity in all sorts of applications.
They’re, for one, speeding drug discovery, thanks to research from the Rostlab at Technical University of Munich, as well as work by a team from Harvard, Yale and New York University and others. In separate efforts, they applied LLMs to interpret the strings of amino acids that make up proteins, advancing our understanding of these building blocks of biology.
It’s one of many inroads LLMs are making in healthcare, robotics and other fields.
A Brief History of LLMs
Transformer models — neural networks, defined in 2017, that can learn context in sequential data — got LLMs started.
Researchers behind BERT and other transformer models made 2018 “a watershed moment” for natural language processing, a report on AI said at the end of that year. “Quite a few experts have claimed that the release of BERT marks a new era in NLP,” it added.
Developed by Google, BERT (aka Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) delivered state-of-the-art scores on benchmarks for NLP. In 2019, it announced BERT powers the company’s search engine.
Google released BERT as open-source software, spawning a family of follow-ons and setting off a race to build ever larger, more powerful LLMs.
For instance, Meta created an enhanced version called RoBERTa, released as open-source code in July 2017. For training, it used “an order of magnitude more data than BERT,” the paper said, and leapt ahead on NLP leaderboards. A scrum followed.
Scaling Parameters and Markets
For convenience, score is often kept by the number of an LLM’s parameters or weights, measures of the strength of a connection between two nodes in a neural network. BERT had 110 million, RoBERTa had 123 million, then BERT-Large weighed in at 354 million, setting a new record, but not for long.
In 2020, researchers at OpenAI and Johns Hopkins University announced GPT-3, with a whopping 175 billion parameters, trained on a dataset with nearly a trillion words. It scored well on a slew of language tasks and even ciphered three-digit arithmetic.
“Language models have a wide range of beneficial applications for society,” the researchers wrote.
Experts Feel ‘Blown Away’
Within weeks, people were using GPT-3 to create poems, programs, songs, websites and more. Recently, GPT-3 even wrote an academic paper about itself.
“I just remember being kind of blown away by the things that it could do, for being just a language model,” said Percy Liang, a Stanford associate professor of computer science, speaking in a podcast.
GPT-3 helped motivate Stanford to create a center Liang now leads, exploring the implications of what it calls foundational models that can handle a wide variety of tasks well.
Toward Trillions of Parameters
Last year, NVIDIA announced the Megatron 530B LLM that can be trained for new domains and languages. It debuted with tools and services for training language models with trillions of parameters.
“Large language models have proven to be flexible and capable … able to answer deep domain questions without specialized training or supervision,” Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning research at NVIDIA, said at that time.
Making it even easier for users to adopt the powerful models, the NVIDIA Nemo LLM service debuted in September at GTC. It’s an NVIDIA-managed cloud service to adapt pretrained LLMs to perform specific tasks.
Transformers Transform Drug Discovery
The advances LLMs are making with proteins and chemical structures are also being applied to DNA.
Researchers aim to scale their work with NVIDIA BioNeMo, a software framework and cloud service to generate, predict and understand biomolecular data. Part of the NVIDIA Clara Discovery collection of frameworks, applications and AI models for drug discovery, it supports work in widely used protein, DNA and chemistry data formats.
NVIDIA BioNeMo features multiple pretrained AI models, including the MegaMolBART model, developed by NVIDIA and AstraZeneca.
LLMs Enhance Computer Vision
Transformers are also reshaping computer vision as powerful LLMs replace traditional convolutional AI models. For example, researchers at Meta AI and Dartmouth designed TimeSformer, an AI model that uses transformers to analyze video with state-of-the-art results.
Experts predict such models could spawn all sorts of new applications in computational photography, education and interactive experiences for mobile users.
In related work earlier this year, two companies released powerful AI models to generate images from text.
OpenAI announced DALL-E 2, a transformer model with 3.5 billion parameters designed to create realistic images from text descriptions. And recently, Stability AI, based in London, launched Stability Diffusion.
Writing Code, Controlling Robots
LLMs also help developers write software. Tabnine — a member of NVIDIA Inception, a program that nurtures cutting-edge startups — claims it’s automating up to 30% of the code generated by a million developers.
Taking the next step, researchers are using transformer-based models to teach robots used in manufacturing, construction, autonomous driving and personal assistants.
For example, DeepMind developed Gato, an LLM that taught a robotic arm how to stack blocks. The 1.2-billion parameter model was trained on more than 600 distinct tasks so it could be useful in a variety of modes and environments, whether playing games or animating chatbots.
“By scaling up and iterating on this same basic approach, we can build a useful general-purpose agent,” researchers said in a paper posted in May.
It’s another example of what the Stanford center in a July paper called a paradigm shift in AI. “Foundation models have only just begun to transform the way AI systems are built and deployed in the world,” it said.
