Tech News - Data

Blockstream, a Blockchain-based solution startup, has launched a new Blockchain service called Liquid Network. The Liquid Network is an implementation of an advanced technology called Sidechain. It is a blockchain-based distributed network that provides secure and fast transactions for cryptocurrency traders. What is sidechain? Sidechains are complementary to existing blockchain technology that help in securely transferring the digital entities (assets, tokens, etc.) from one blockchain to other blockchain and vice versa. The sidechain is associated with the main blockchain through a channel that enables the transfer between the two ledgers. The Sidechain then carries additional details of the transaction and thus provides an additional layer of security to the blockchain-based transactions. An important underlying technology associated with Sidechain is “Federation”. A federation is a group that acts as an intermediate to verify all the transactions that happen in Sidechain. Liquid network Liquid network, popularly known as "an inter-exchange settlement network" is built on the top of Bitcoin network. The liquid is based on the concept of Bitcoin sidechain but not exactly sidechain, as it involves more privacy in overseeing the transaction through its network. The liquid network enables a fast transaction by emphasizing on trading mass exchanges through the blockchain ledger. With these functionalities, the Liquid network is said to be bringing in the use of blockchain in production. The main features of the Liquid network are: Liquid Bitcoin (L-BTC): Helps companies provide end-user security for and speedy transfer of Bitcoin with settlements. Issues Assets: This brings Bitcoin features like tokenization, reward points, and attested assets for removing the need for dedicated wallet software. Confidential Transaction technology ensures the privacy of the transfer data by making sure that only transacting parties are overseeing the network. As of its launch on 10 October '18, 23 cryptocurrency companies are using the Liquid network for transactions. The launch of a truly private blockchain network is expected to enable financial institutes in tokenization of various assets like gold, bonds, cryptocurrencies, securities, among others. 9 recommended blockchain online courses JPEG committee wants to apply blockchain to image sharing Google Cloud Launches Blockchain Toolkit to help developers build apps easily

The Origin DApp is a decentralized marketplace on the blockchain mainnet. It launched last week and is in the beta stage. Purpose of the Origin DApp Large organizations like Airbnb or Uber often charge 20-30% as commission for providing a service. One of the goals of Origin mainnet is to host such services that are peer-to-peer. This will eliminate the middleman and the cost of services will go down. Think of it like Craigslist, but Ethereum based and decentralized on a blockchain network. Your account would be your Ethereum wallet. To transact on the Origin DApp, a crypto wallet needs to be attached to your browser. For doing this, the Metamask extension is a good option which available for both Chrome and Firefox. Also, communication is done via Origin Messaging directly between the seller and the buyer. Features of Origin DApp Some of the important features of this DApp are: Smart contract for the marketplace The marketplace contract implements transactions in multiple steps, dispute management, and optional affiliate commissions. It uses ETH and/or any ERC-20 tokens as currency. The Origin token OGN is an ERC-20 token integrated with the marketplace smart contracts. The token is meant to incentivize behaviors that will bootstrap the network and also protect against negative behaviors. The Origin token is meant to reward behaviors that will help the network flourish and safeguard against bad actions. Search You can use the search bar at the top to query listing data by keyword, category, and price. The listings are loaded directly from the blockchain. Resolving conflicts In case of a conflict between a seller and buyer, there is a workflow for dispute resolution. As of now, Origin is the only arbitrator on the platform, but more decentralized solutions are expected in the future. Future work Currently, listings like rentals, ticketing, and e-commerce are not supported. There is no mobile app, advanced search, and no JS SDK for third-party developers to build DApps on the platform. Future plans include enabling third-party developer partners to build on Origin, improving user experience, launching a mobile app/wallet, support for more types of listings, and hardening the infrastructure for greater security and scalability. Since Origin is in the beta stage, currently there are no push or email notifications available. There is a team to resolve any disputes. There needs to be enough abstraction to hide away the complexities of using a service on a blockchain to see mainstream adoption. It can take years for that to happen, for a regular cabbie or hotel owner to understand and use a ‘decentralized marketplace’. For more details, visit the Origin post on Medium and the beta website. To get started, here’s a demo video. Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum 2.0 research has stabilized and might launch next year Ethereum Constantinople hard fork to move Ethereum from PoW (proof-of-work) to PoS (proof-of-stake) model Vitalik Buterin’s new consensus algorithm to make Ethereum 99% fault tolerant

The BlazingDB team announced a new and free version of BlazingDB’s query execution engine for RAPIDS open-source software by NVIDIA, called BlazingSQL, yesterday. BlazingSQL provides query datasets from enterprise Data Lakes directly into GPU memory as a GPU DataFrame (GDF). GPU DataFrame (GDF) is a project that offers support for interoperability between GPU applications. It also defines a common GPU in-memory data layer. To provide this data lake integration, and to enable SQL queries on the software, critical open-source libraries were built inside the RAPIDS open-source software. These libraries were then layered on a series of modules from BlazingDB. GDF provides users with PyGDF or Dask_GDF that offers a simple interface similar to the Pandas DataFrame.               BlazingSQL BlazingSQL also allows Python developers to execute SQL queries directly on the flat files that exist inside the distributed file systems. Moreover, it comes with cuML and cuDNN that comprises GPU-accelerated machine learning and deep learning libraries using GDFs. The GPU DataFrame offers developers the ability to run complete machine learning workloads inside the GPU memory. This reduces the cost of data exchange between different tools, as well as the transfer overhead over the PCIe bus. The BlazingDB team has given a demo and binary roadmap for the upcoming BlazingSQL releases. BlazingSQL 0.1 uses PyBlazing connection to execute SQL queries on GDFs loaded by the PyGDF API. It will be releasing in the next couple of weeks before 25th October. BlazingSQL 0.2 involves the integration of BlazingDB’s FileSystem API. This adds the ability to directly query flat files inside the existing distributed file systems. This will be releasing sometime between 25th October to 8th November. BlazingSQL 0.3 comprises the integration of the distributed scheduler so SQL queries are fanned out across multiple GPUs and servers. This will be releasing between 8th November and 30th November.  Finally, the BlazingSQL 0.4 will have Integration of the distributed, multi-layered cache. The release date for BlazingSQL 0.4 hasn’t been assigned but it is expected to release in 2018. For more information, check out the official BlazingDB blog post. Introducing Watermelon DB: A new relational database to make your React and React Native apps highly scalable MariaDB acquires Clustrix to give database customers ‘freedom from Oracle lock-in’ RxDB 8.0.0, a reactive, offline-first, multiplatform database for JavaScript released!

The Ethereum team is working on Ethereum 2.0 whose development has reached the “software development slog” stage, said Vitalik Buterin, CEO, Ethereum, last week, at the ETHSanFrancisco, part of the ETHGlobal events.  ETHSanFrancisco Ethereum is an open source and public blockchain-based decentralized computing platform. It enables applications to run without any fraud, censorship or third-party interference. Ethereum 2.0 will be including features such as transferring to the Proof of Stake algorithm from the current Proof of work model, implementation of sharding, and a switch from EVM Ethereum Virtual Machine to eWASM (a restricted subset of WASM used for contracts in Ethereum). These features will also be accompanied by a variety of smaller changes and improvements for a revamped Ethereum blockchain design. Apart from that, Buterin said he’s optimistic about the research side of Ethereum as it has largely stabilized. It doesn’t have any theoretical problems left to be solved. There’s only checking and verification of certain details left. There are a variety of research topics on Ethereum that cover P2P communication, signature aggregation, light client support, etc. Researchers then streamline these topics to make Ethereum 2.0 work. Further, Buterin mentioned that Ethereum 2.0 development and protocol is progressing way faster than Ethereum 1.0. Buterin added that it is in the stage that Ethereum 1.0 was during the fall of 2014. Given that Ethereum 1.0 launched in July 2015, Ethereum 2.0 launch can be expected sometime around the mid of the next year. TestNets (prototypes to demo the capabilities of a project) are expected to be coming soon. Once the auditing and testing are done, it will lead to the mainnet (the actual “end product”) release. However, a timeframe for these releases hasn’t been announced yet. Ethereum Blockchain dataset now available in BigQuery for smart contract analytics Vitalik Buterin’s new consensus algorithm to make Ethereum 99% fault tolerant Will Ethereum eclipse Bitcoin?

Ahead of a consumer data privacy hearing, scheduled for today, Epic and eleven other consumer and privacy organizations submitted a data protection framework to the Senate Commerce Committee, yesterday. The Framework outlines issues that should be addressed to implement effective baseline privacy protections in the United States. “Core principles include: user control, transparency about business practices, collection and use limitations, data minimization and deletion, and security.“Personal data” should be broadly defined to include information that identifies, or could identify, a particular person” This hearing titled “Consumer Data Privacy: Examining Lessons From the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act,” will take place on Wednesday, October 10, 2018. It will be presided by U.S. Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. This hearing will discuss the new privacy laws in Europe and California and ponder on the types of consumer protections to consider in future legislation. The Data protection framework proposed by the consumer protection organizations lays basic rules for the Congress to act on in the U.S. This includes: Enact baseline federal data protection legislation: “Baseline federal legislation should be based on familiar Fair Information Practices, such as the widely followed OECD Privacy Guidelines. This framework creates obligations for companies that collect personal data and rights for individuals whose personal data is collected.” Limit government access to personal data: “US companies should not disclose user data in bulk to the government agencies, particularly after the recent Carpenter ruling that established that individuals have a constitutional privacy interest in the personal data held by third parties.” Establish algorithmic transparency and end discriminatory profiling: “Algorithmic transparency, to promote fairness and to remove bias, is now a core element of modern privacy law and should be included in US privacy law.” Prohibit “take it or leave it” and other unfair terms: “Requiring individuals to pay more or providing them with lower quality goods or services if they do not agree to waive their privacy rights is unfair and discriminates against those with less means.” Ensure robust enforcement: “Companies should be required by law to implement and maintain robust security measures. Furthermore, consumers should be able to pursue a private right of action that produces meaningful penalties.” Promote privacy innovation: “Federal privacy law should make privacy innovation an affirmative obligation for all companies that collect and use personal data.” Establish a data protection: “The US needs a federal agency focused primarily on identifying emerging privacy challenges, ensuring compliance with data protection obligation and identifying emerging privacy challenges” Epic.org has also submitted a statement to the Committee regarding the recent security and data breaches at Google and Facebook. Their statement also highlights the Federal Trade Commission's failure to take necessary action on these incidents. Per their statement, “The FTC’s failure to enforce consumer privacy safeguards has led not only to diminished data protection in the United States but also to less innovation and less competition among Internet services. The FTC’s failure to enforce the original privacy rights of WhatsApp allowed Facebook to acquire user data and undermine one of the best messaging services. Even the founders of WhatsApp know this. But the FTC has said nothing.” Read the full proposed data protection framework, to know more. Google, Amazon, AT&T met the U.S Senate Committee to discuss consumer data privacy. Facebook, Twitter open up at Senate Intelligence hearing, the committee does ‘homework’ this time. Jack Dorsey to testify explaining Twitter algorithms before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

MongoDB, Inc, a leading free, and open source general purpose database platform, announced, yesterday, that it is acquiring mLab, a San Francisco-based cloud database service. With this acquisition, MongoDB aims to deepen its relationships with other developer-centric startup communities. The mLab team has been very successful in maintaining these relationships with the startup communities in the past. “Over the years, mLab and MongoDB have explored ways to work more closely together. As we have gotten to know each other, we have found we share a similar vision and both believe in an engineering culture based on intellectual honesty, hard work, and respect. We were excited by the idea of working together, as part of one team”, said Will Shulman, CEO, mLab. The acquisition will be closing in the fourth quarter of MongoDB’s fiscal year which ends on January 31, 2019. This is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Currently, mLab has one million databases hosted on its platform across both free and paid tiers. Shulman hopes that given the growing trend towards building software systems and deploying those systems in the cloud, there will be enormous market opportunities for global cloud databases. These opportunities will then be well powered by MongoDB in ways that other database technologies cannot. Another goal that MongoDB plans to achieve with this acquisition is the ability to scale MongoDB Atlas at an even faster pace. “mLab has been providing a compelling service to their customers for seven years and we are delighted to bring this talented team into the MongoDB family”, stated Dev Ittycheria, President & CEO, MongoDB. MongoDB Atlas is a leading general-purpose database that operates as an independent, global cloud service. Atlas is great handling all the complexities involved with deploying, managing, and scaling MongoDB on your preferred cloud provider such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, etc. It also comes with built-in security practices and automation of the time-consuming administration tasks. “We are very excited to come together with MongoDB to modernize the way companies store and manage their most valuable asset -- their data”, said Shulman. For more information, check out the official MongoDB blog. MongoDB Sharding: Sharding clusters and choosing the right shard key [Tutorial] MongoDB 4.0 now generally available with support for multi-platform, mobile, ACID transactions and more MongoDB going relational with 4.0 release

Food supply chains have become a contentious topic in recent years, with question marks over standards, safety and the environmental impact of modern farming and manufacturing. IBM, however, would seem to have found a solution - blockchain. The tech multinational yesterday (October 8) launched its Food Trust system, a ledger that will give stakeholders at every point in the supply chain improved transparency over where food has come from and how it has been produced. IBM has been working on its Food Trust system for 18 months. With its launch, it has revealed a number of organizations taking part in the pilot scheme, such as French food giant Carrefour and Walmart. Laurent Vallée, Carrefour's General Secretary, said: "Being a founding member of the IBM Food Trust platform is a great opportunity for Carrefour to strongly accelerate and widen the integration of blockchain technology to our products in order to provide our clients with safe and undoubted traceability." Why blockchain could be a game-changer for the food industry The advantages of using IBM's blockchain-backed technology is clear - it offers transparency for everyone. Because a ledger offers a single view for all stakeholders, every transaction that takes place is observable - this means that bad practices, such as a vendor going to a different supplier from the one agreed, to, say, cut costs, can be easily identified. Walmart's Frank Yiannas, VP for food safety, explained that Walmart wants to "create the equivalence of FedEx tracking for food," so everyone involved in a supply chain has full visibility. Obviously, from a safety perspective, this could be huge, and should, in time at least, discourage bad practice. The success of IBM's Food Trust system remains to be seen. It is, however, a sharp riposte to blockchain sceptics. It might also turn out to be an important victory for tech optimists. At a time when technology appears hell bent on eroding trust, perhaps this is a vital example of technology helping to reassert the importance of trust in the public realm. Read next: How far will Facebook go to fix what it broke: Democracy, Trust, Reality

Mozilla spoke out about using the word “meritocracy”, as a way to describe its governance and leadership structures, last week. Mozilla has decided to discontinue using the word “meritocracy” following the revised proposal last week. “We have been thinking about the words we use as important carriers of our intended culture and the culture we wish to see in the broader movements we participate in. We have, therefore, taken up a review of our language and practices”, writes Emma Irwin on the Mozilla diversity blog. The first line of Mozilla’s governance reads, “Mozilla is an open source project governed as a meritocracy.” Meritocracy refers to a structure governed by people selected according to merit. On the surface, this sounds ideal, but given its abused usage, it had become analogous to an insidious way of maintaining exclusivity to those with access and experience. Using the term “meritocracy” to refer to communities suffering from a “lack of diverse representation” and without “equal opportunity” seems biased thereby perpetuating a dominant monoculture. Emma states that about 20 years ago, “meritocracy” was the best practice among open source projects. However, now this concept has become more linked to hidden bias and outright abuse. This bias involves devaluing a person’s contributions based on certain aspects of their identity such as gender, race, etc. Many advocates for women and minorities in the tech world have spoken out about how the tech industry considers men to be better at their jobs than everyone else. They don’t take into account the fact that many men have had more opportunities to succeed than their minority and female counterparts. A general belief in the open source community is that those contributing the most, have the most merit and are most deserving. Those who contribute less are not as “meritorious”, ignoring the fact that they might have less access to opportunity, time, and money, preventing them from contributing freely. This is the reality of the open source “meritocracies”, and one of the driving factors behind less diverse culture among the open source community. As a result, Patrick Finch, former strategist, Mozilla, and Emma Irwin, Open Project & Communities Specialist, Mozilla, revised the proposal to better articulate the major principle behind Mozilla’s governance statement. The revised proposal states: Mozilla is an open source project. Our community is structured as a virtual organization. Authority is primarily distributed to both volunteer and employed community members as they show their ability through contributions to the project. The project also seeks to debias this system of distributing authority through active interventions that engage and encourage participation from diverse communities. Mitchell Baker, Mozilla’s co-founder, and chair accepted the revised proposal. She said: “The original meaning I took for meritocracy in open source meant empowering individuals, rather than managers, or manager’s managers or tenure-based authority. However, it’s now clear that so-called meritocracies have included effective forms of discrimination. I personally long for a word that conveys a person’s ability to demonstrate competence and expertise and commitment separate from the job title, or college degree, or management hierarchy, and to be evaluated fairly by one’s peers”. Mozilla is not the only one who has decided to step down from using meritocracy. GitHub’s CEO Chris Wanstrath literally removed the rug at Github’s San Francisco headquarters, back in 2014. The rug kept as a centerpiece at the office room was emblazoned with the phrase, “United Meritocracy of GitHub”. Another example of organizations taking a step to promote diversity is Python dumping the offensive ‘master’, ‘slave’ terms in its documentation. Also, in September, Linux dropped its meritocracy based Code of Conflict in favor of a new Code of Conduct just as Linus Torvalds took a break from Linux to work on his behavioral issues. This new Code of Conduct has been at the epicenter of a major culture clash within the Linux community of late. “I long for a word that makes it clear that each individual who shares our mission is welcome, and valued, and will get a fair deal at Mozilla – that they will be recognized and celebrated for their contributions without regard to other factors. Sadly, “meritocracy” is not the word it once was. The challenge is not to retain a word that has become tainted. The challenge is to build teams and culture and systems that are truly inclusive”, says Baker. People’s opinions about Mozilla’s decision are varied: “Well, meritocracy means we will try to select and give influence/recognition based on merit. When someone tries to push an idea like "let's have more Asians" or "let's have more men" in the project we can direct them to the very first statement where they see we do selection based on merit and not skin color, gender or sexual orientation. Any attempt to introduce gender/race/sexual orientation quotas will promptly be rejected on those basis. There is value in wording it like this beyond "let's do good", reads a comment by “bluecalm” on Hacker News. “The real issue here is that some people get really upset by the word "meritocracy". Clearly, you have never dealt with a white man who is better off than certain women, or people from ethnic minorities, and thinks it's because his being white/male makes him inherently better and invokes "meritocracy" all the freaking time. I have. And I'm a half-Asian male - I can't imagine what it's like to deal with that jerk if I were a woman or an ethnic minority he didn't consider inherently intelligent. When the word "meritocracy" is used to structurally shut down debates of sexism and racism, it is no longer about meritocracy”, reads a comment by “vanderZwan”  on Hacker News. “How is this relevant? If someone is voicing dissent about a culture there's a million barriers they can hide behind instead of facing the allegations ("we're committed to working towards a more diverse and inclusive environment..."). Are we to cower away from any word that can be twisted to justify bad things as well as good things, for fear that people will abuse them? The word "meritocracy" doesn't seem like a line of code specifying an objective action that is to be taken to solve a problem, it describes a vision of how someone would ideally like their company to operate. How about we just call out bad behavior when we see it and not let it pollute the vision? That's what needs to happen, or we'll be locked in this battle until one political group manages to suppress the others (that, by the way, seem to have the exact same end goals they do)”, reads a comment by “nyxxie” on Hacker News. For more information, check out the official Mozilla diversity blog. Mozilla, Internet Society, and web foundation wants G20 to address “techlash” fuelled by security and privacy concerns Mozilla optimizes calls between JavaScript and WebAssembly in Firefox, making it almost as fast as JS to JS calls Mozilla updates Firefox Focus for mobile with new features, revamped design, and Geckoview for Android Mary Meeker, one of the premier Silicon Valley investors, quits Kleiner Perkins to start her own firm

Yesterday, Facebook launched two brand new video communication devices. Named Portal and Portal+, these devices let you video call anyone, with more richer, hands-free experiences. The Portal features a 10-inch 1280 x 800 display, while Portal+ features 15-inch 1920 x 1080.  Both devices are powered by Artificial Intelligence. This includes a Smart Camera and a Smart Sound technology. Smart Camera stays with the action and automatically pans and zooms to keep everyone in view. Smart Sound minimizes background noise and enhances the voice of whoever is talking, no matter where they move. Source: Facebook Portal can also be used to call Facebook friends and connections on Messenger even if they don’t have Portal. It also supports group calls of up to seven people at the same time. Portal also offers hands-free voice control with Amazon Alexa built-in which can be used to track sports scores, check the weather, control smart home devices, order groceries, and more.  Facebook has also enabled shared activities in its Portal devices by partnering with Spotify Premium, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Facebook Watch, Food Network, and Newsy. Keeping in mind, it’s security breach that affected 50 million users two weeks ago, Facebook says it has paid a lot of attention to privacy and security features. Per their website, “We designed Portal with tools that give you control: You can completely disable the camera and microphone with a single tap. Portal and Portal+ also come with a camera cover, so you can easily block your camera’s lens at any time and still receive incoming calls and notifications, plus use voice commands. To manage Portal access within your home, you can set a four- to 12-digit passcode to keep the screen locked. Changing the passcode requires your Facebook password. We also want to be upfront about what information Portal collects, help people understand how Facebook will use that information and explain the steps we take to keep it private and secure: Facebook doesn’t listen to, view, or keep the contents of your Portal video calls. In addition, video calls on Portal are encrypted. For added security, Smart Camera and Smart Sound use AI technology that runs locally on Portal, not on Facebook servers. Portal’s camera doesn’t use facial recognition and doesn’t identify who you are. Like other voice-enabled devices, Portal only sends voice commands to Facebook servers after you say, “Hey Portal.” You can delete your Portal’s voice history in your Facebook Activity Log at any time.” In all the above, Facebook seems quite cryptic about audio data. It also doesn’t really explain how it will use the information it collects from users. The voice data is stored on the Facebook server by default, probably to improve the Portal’s understanding on the user’s language quirks and to understand the user’s needs from the data. But it does make one wonder, should this be an opt-in and not an opt-out by default? Another jarring aspect is the need for one’s Facebook password to change the device’s passcode. This just feels like the new devices are yet another way for Facebook to add users to Facebook, not to mention the fact that Facebook just had a data breach on its site, the repercussions of which they are still investigating. In an interesting poll conducted by Dr. Jen Golbeck, Professor at UMD, on Twitter, over 63% of respondents said that they will not trust Facebook to responsibly operate a surveillance device in their home. https://twitter.com/jengolbeck/status/1049343277110054912 Read more about the devices on Facebook’s announcement. Facebook Dating app to release as a test version in Colombia. Facebook’s Glow, a machine learning compiler, to be supported by Intel, Qualcomm and others How Facebook is advancing artificial intelligence [Video]

At the end of last week, on October 5, Elastic - the company behind the hugely popular ElasticSearch search tool - went public. And it looks like the move public paid off. By the end of its first day as a public company, shares in Elastic had doubled in price. At the start of the day it was around $36 per share - by the close of trading it has leapt to $70. This meant its market cap had risen from $2.5 billion to $4.9 billion. We probably shouldn't be surprised. As Fortune pointed out over the weekend, the demand for shares in Elastic was already getting pretty hot towards the end of September. "It originally filed to sell the stock at $26 to $29 apiece on Sept. 24, while Thursday’s pricing was higher even than banks managing the sale were expecting." https://twitter.com/elastic/status/1048302021143670786 Elastic's journey to the stock market ElasticSearch was first released back in February 2010. The tool contained the imprint of Elastic's mission - to make powerful search accessible to modern businesses. And it has certainly done just that. Today Elastic powers immensely popular apps like Uber and Tinder, as well as giving logging and processing power to companies like Cisco where big data has become the norm. According to founder Shay Banon, writing in a blog post published on Friday, Elastic has seen "more than 350 million product downloads, a... community of more than 100,000 developers, and more than 5,500 customers." What next for Elastic? Banon insists that "as a public company, [Elastic] will continue doing the things that have made us Elastic." This includes continued investment in the developer communities that have grown up around Elastic's products, new features to products and working with customers to adapt to changing trends in software infrastructure - so Elastic's products can be deployed anywhere. Business as usual might well be a recipe for success for Elastic. Investors will be hoping that the organization continues to deliver on its mission, as demand for better, faster search isn't going to end any time soon.

Popular Quantum Computing Canadian startup D-Wave Systems Inc. launched a free, and real-time online Quantum Application Environment (QAE), called Leap, yesterday. What makes Leap so unique is the fact that it virtualizes quantum computing for almost anyone who has a computer and a broadband connection. Leap is the first cloud-based QAE that offers real-time access to a live quantum computer. It comes with open-source development tools, interactive demos, coding examples, educational resources, and knowledge base articles. Leap is designed for developers, researchers, and businesses. Its online community enables collaboration, thereby, helping Leap users write and run quantum applications. This accelerates the development of real-world applications. Major features of Leap Leap QAE provides free access to a D-Wave 2000Q quantum computer which lets you submit and run applications, helping receive solutions in seconds. It comes with an open-source Ocean software development kit (SDK). This comprises built-in templates for algorithms, along with an ability to develop new code using a familiar programming language, Python. Leap also provides Hands-on coding option. This consists of interactive examples in the form of Jupyter notebooks with live code, equations, visualizations, and narrative text to jumpstart the process of quantum application development. Apart from that, it offers learning resources, which includes comprehensive live demos and educational resources. This helps developers in writing applications for a quantum computer, quickly. It also offers Community support which includes community and technical forums enabling easy developer collaboration. Leap is an outcome of D-Wave’s continuous efforts to drive the real-world quantum application development forward. D‑Wave customers have built 100 early applications so far for problems such as airline schedules, election modeling, quantum chemistry simulation, automotive design, logistics, and more. A lot of them have built software tools that make it easy to develop new applications. These existing applications and tools, along with an access to a growing community, provide developers with a wealth of examples to learn from and build upon. “Our job is to sift through the sands of data to find the gold—information that will help our manufacturing customers increase equipment efficiency and reduce defects. With D‑Wave Leap, we are showing we can solve computationally difficult problems today, while also learning and preparing for new approaches to AI and machine learning that quantum computing will allow,” said Abhi Rampal, CEO of Solid State AI. Apart from D-Wave, Rigetti Computing, a California-based developer of quantum integrated circuits also launched Quantum Cloud Services last month, to bring together the best of classical and quantum computing on a single cloud platform. For more information, check out the official D-Wave blog post. Did quantum computing just take a quantum leap? A two-qubit chip by UK researchers makes controlled quantum entanglements possible Quantum Computing is poised to take a quantum leap with industries and governments on its side “The future is quantum” — Are you excited to write your first quantum computing code using Microsoft’s Q#?

OmniSci, previously named as MapD, is a data-visualization startup that provides real-time analytics solutions. Yesterday, they bagged $55 million in Series C funding from top investors. The company was founded in 2013 and has raised a total of $92m in funding till now. A global investment firm called Tiger Global Management led the funding round. Other investors include In-Q-Tel, New Enterprise Associates, NVIDIA, Vanedge Capital, and Verizon Ventures. Todd Mosak, CEO of OmniSci stated: “It was clear that they [Tiger Global Management] held a strong thesis around the massive market opportunity in front of our company, and were fully aligned with our vision of the disruptive power of GPU-accelerated analytics..” What is OmniSci? Mostak originally built the technology behind OmniSci as a researcher at Harvard and MIT. He realized the speed advantages of GPUs over CPUs while querying and visualizing large datasets. The SQL database engine in OmniSci exploits GPUs to their full potential. This results in-memory access to big data. OmniSci’s software allows customers to perform operations on data to present graphics and visualizations from billions of data points. Their mission is to make analytics instantly available, powerful, and effortlessly accessible to everyone. Mosak stated: “Our goal is to give our customers a competitive advantage through painstakingly optimizing our software to take full advantage of modern hardware, particularly the massive parallelism of GPUs. Obsession with shaving off milliseconds is a particular quirk of our culture, and yet simultaneously existential, as it is ultimately the source of the differentiated value we deliver our customers and open source community.” OmniSci runs on AWS and Google Cloud and can be installed on-premises. It makes use of NVIDIA GPUs. OmniSci Cloud is a fast open source SQL engine and visual analytics software that can be launched from a web browser in under 60 seconds. OmniSci founders plan to use the $55m funding to accelerate research and development, while also supporting the open source community. For more information, visit the OmniSci website. 8 ways to improve your data visualizations A libre GPU effort based on RISC-V, Rust, LLVM and Vulkan by the developer of an earth-friendly computer Chaos engineering platform Gremlin announces $18 million series B funding and new feature for “full-stack resiliency”

Looks like Christmas has come early this year!  After the latest iPhone range announced by Apple, Amazon’s wide range of Alex products that even included a voice-activated microwave, Microsoft unveiled a host of devices ahead of the holiday shopping season. With a vision to empower people and organizations to achieve more, Microsoft's tools focus on life experiences as a whole. To manage the emerging digital lifestyle, they have been delivering technology that empowers users rather than overwhelm them. The lineup of announcements includes a new version of its desktop computer, called the Surface Studio 2, and its first pair of smart headphones. It also announced the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2. Let’s take a brief look at these devices: #1 Surface Pro 6 Surface Pro 6 is 67% faster than its predecessor with an Intel 8th Gen Quad Core processor. With ultimate portable mobility, this device offers hassle-free connectivity, uncompromising mobility, and exceptional power and performance. With an all day battery, full friction hinge, 12.3” PixelSense Display and multi-screen docking to present content beautifully, Surface Pro 6 is something to watch out for! Source: Microsoft #2 Surface Laptop 2 This ultra-light, fast-charging laptop has been beautifully designed and crafted. It gets supercharged with Intel 8th Gen Quad Core Processor, while offering up to 14.5 hours of battery life with faster and quieter typing. The 13.5” PixelSense Display screen offers an immersive touchscreen for faster, more natural navigation Source: Microsoft   #3 Surface Studio 2 As compared to its predecessor, Surface Studio 2 has 50% more graphics performance. With a 28” PixelSense Display, the gadget offers USB-C support and Xbox Wireless built-in gaming-class performance. It includes the latest Surface Pen with tilt sensibility and 4096 levels of pressure. Source: Microsoft #4 Surface Headphones This is Microsoft’s first premium and smart headphone includes a smarter way to listen, with rich audio and hands-free calling. With adjustable noise cancellation and automatic pause and play, Microsoft is aiming to change the way users listen to music! Source: Microsoft #5 Surface All Access Surface All Access offers the option of paying monthly for the Surface products and starts at just $24.99 per month for 24 months. This comes with an Office 365 subscription, access to in-store training and top-tier support. Other Windows 10 & Office 365 Announcements 1. Your Phone App The Your Phone App helps users access their texts and photos in their Android phone to their PC. This ensures users maintain their focus while working on a PC as pausing a task on their PC to respond to a text or notification on your phone can break focus. 2. Windows Timeline on Phone To combat the challenging issue of finding files and documents or web pages accessed throughout the day across different devices, Windows Timeline enables a user to scroll back in time and find the files and websites they were using across their devices. 3. To-Do Integration with Outlook.com & Skype The To-Do integration with Outlook.com, drags tasks into an open slot on a user’s calendar and blocks time to complete it. In Skype, users need to select the message and tap “Create a task” to open the tasks pane.They can then add, edit, and check off tasks. Tasks will be saved and available in Skype, or in the To-Do app. 4. Family Safety for Microsoft Launcher With Microsoft Launcher installed and a Microsoft family group of accounts set up on a family’s Android devices, parents can stay up to date on their kids’ location to ensure their safety. Parents can check in on kids’ app activity on their Android device, including which apps are accessed and the time spent on each app. 5. Inking in PowerPoint Powerpoint users can now transform an inked bulleted list into perfectly formatted text. While inking a flow chart or diagram, users can design their slide using ink, and Designer will use AI to recommend slides to choose from. 6. Inking in Word The Ink Editor, allows users to add a word, split words or add new lines to their document without touching a keyboard. They can edit a Word document from start to finish using their digital pen and touch-enabled device. 7. Embedded 3D Animations In PowerPoint and Word, dynamically animated movements are built into 3D objects. This makes it effortless to incorporate 3D and animation into a user’s project. Surface All Access is already available at Microsoft retail stores in the U.S. The rest of the products are expected to launch by the end of this year. To know more, you can visit Microsoft's official page. Microsoft Ignite 2018: New Azure announcements you need to know Neural Network Intelligence: Microsoft’s open source automated machine learning toolkit Microsoft’s new neural text-to-speech service lets machines speak like people  

Splunk have kicked off their .conf 2018 conference with a bang. Splunk announced plans to update their premium enterprise products - Splunk Enterprise and Splunk Cloud - powered with machine learning and analytics capabilities. These products will be initially made available for public use through beta programs, and will allow Splunk customers to work with large-scale data and extract useful insights out of them. The upcoming versions of Splunk Enterprise and Splunk Cloud will include the following features: Splunk Business Flow - This feature will give customers the ability to make smarter business decisions by understanding relevant trends and process flows. Splunk Data Stream Processor - This feature will let users evaluate, transform and perform predictive analytics on streaming data. Splunk Mobile & Splunk Cloud Gateway - This new feature will allow Splunk users to interact with a whole suite of Splunk products from their mobile devices. Leverage the power of Natural Language Processing and query Splunk through voice and text commands. Build effective cloud-native services with Splunk Developer Cloud. Splunk Data Fabric Search will allow Splunk users to perform large-scale search of real-time data. Use Augmented Reality (AR) to interact with data such as QR codes, UPC scanning, etc. In his keynote, Merritt also announced plans for Splunk MLTK, a Splunk-specific application to run AI use-cases. This tool will be able to interact with key open source AI libraries such as Tensorflow and Spark’s MLlib. With these capabilities, businesses will be able to perform large-scale analytics by harnessing AI in their Splunk applications and related projects. Splunk Chief Executive Doug Merritt was of the opinion that businesses are finding it hard to keep track of the ERP data inside their data centers. “If we really want to be successful, we’ve got to tap into this sea of data around the world, outside of our walls,” he said. “We are in the midst of the data revolution, and these product updates ensure the Splunk platform evolves as our world does to deliver business outcomes no matter the organization, team or dataset”. Read more Why should enterprises use Splunk? Splunk leverages AI in its monitoring tools Splunk Industrial Asset Intelligence (Splunk IAI) targets Industrial IoT marketplace

The Anaconda team announced the release of Anaconda Distribution 5.3.0 in a blog post yesterday. Harnessing the speed of Python, learning and performing data science and machine learning is all the more easy in this new update. Here is the list of new features in Anaconda 5.3.0 #1 Utilising Python’s speed Anaconda Distribution 5.3 is compiled with Python 3.7, in addition to Python 2.7 Anaconda installers and Python 3.6 Anaconda metapackages. This will ensure the new update takes full advantage of Python’s speed and feature improvements. #2 Better CPU performance Users deploying TensorFlow can make use of the Intel Math Kernel Library 2019 for Deep Neural Networks (MKL 2019) included in this upgrade. These Python binary packages will ensure high CPU performance. #3 Better Reliability The team has improved the reliability by capturing and storing package metadata for installed packages. The additional metadata is used by the package cache to efficiently manage the environment while storing the patched metadata used by the conda solver. #4 New packages added There are over 230 packages which have been updated or added by the team. #5 Work in Progress on the casting bug The team is working on the casting bug in NumPy with Python 3.7 and the patch is in progress until NumPy is updated. To know more about this release, you can head over to the full release notes for the Distribution. Arm releases free Cortex-M processor cores for FPGAs, includes measures to combat FOSSi threat PyTorch 1.0 preview release is production ready with torch.jit, c10d distributed library, C++ API