Technology giant Google announces that it plans to launch its new skill training program with $100 million Google Career Certificates funds.
The announcement was made by the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, during an event with U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development Alejandra Castillo, and the CEOs of Social Finance, Merit America, and Year Up.
The skill training program will focus on teaching primarily low-income Americans critical skills that the industry currently demands to make them job-ready. According to Google, it is collaborating with Merit America and Year Up to offer this program in the United States.
Sundar Pichai said, “I’m excited to announce a new $100 million Google Career Certificates Fund. The goal is to enable Social Finance to reach more than 20,000 American workers.”
He further added that this new investment of Google in America’s future could result in a $1 billion salary gain for 20,000 training program graduates.
The company intends to use Google funds and Google.org grants to fund its Career Certificates program. This new program can play a crucial role in discovering, training, and establishing new pathways to good jobs in the Country’s modern economy.
Google claims that the program can impact nearly two-thirds of United States citizens who do not have a four-year college diploma. Students will receive services like career coaching, living stipends, and job placement assistance at no cost upfront.
Google says that the students only need to pay once they have found a job that pays at least $40,000 per year at no interest.
“I’m excited to see all the ways this could be transformative for people, their families, and their communities,” said Pichai. He also thanked the partners of this program for their tremendous efforts and support.
Recently, Google Cloud announced a new solution called Virtual Machine Threat Detection (VMTD) in a bid to protect crypto miners from cryptojacking attacks. This Google Cloud solution will also protect poorly configured accounts that have been hacked and are being used to mine cryptocurrency.
At present, the Virtual Machine Threat Detection is accessible in the Security Command Center (SCC) in the form of a public preview. The SCC provides clients with an overview of their Google Cloud environments, allowing them to get insight into their cloud assets and identify potential vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in cloud assets to detect potential attacks. It also assists clients in maintaining industry standards and benchmarks compliance.
Cryptojacking is an unlawful practice in which hackers exploit a computer’s processing power to mine cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and Ethereum. The money is subsequently transmitted to the hacker who is in charge of the software. Systems infected with cryptojacking malware operate substantially slower, and victims are frequently unaware that their computers are being targeted, as such software is difficult to detect. When a system is infected, malicious software works silently in the background at the expense of performance loss. Typically, no personal information is extracted while the malware is running to evade detection for an extended period of time, during which a cybercriminal can make a substantial profit. Cryptojacking is also used by cybercriminals over the cloud when hackers steal an organization’s credentials to obtain access to their cloud environment, rather than a local device, where they run their cryptojacking malware.
As cryptojacking software does not need the victim to establish a command and control link with the attacker, coupled with the reality that the victim is simply losing processor cycles that would have been idle anyway, have all contributed to cryptojacking’s meteoric rise in popularity among hackers. In the earlier days, cryptojacking attempts used Coinhive’s crypto mining software to infect mobile and PCs via browsers. Soon after, the attackers moved cloud data centers, where servers are significantly more numerous and powerful than mobile devices and PCs, providing a new target for cryptojacking software.
According to the announcement, the new security service would scan Google Cloud virtual machine instances to detect crypto-mining risks without forcing clients to install new software. To maintain confidence among cloud customers apprehensive of providers monitoring their data, Google also stated that the new security feature would be an opt-in feature and provide encrypted memory when going from a CPU to RAM.
Google Clouds’ VMTD detects a wide range of security risks like cryptojacking by scanning virtual machine instances in Google Compute Engine, including crypto-mining malware, hijacking virtual machines, and redirecting their computational resources to mine cryptocurrencies. One of the best features of VMTD is that it captures signals that can be used to identify threats without the need for additional software, therefore it has no performance cost.
This is a significant breakthrough since traditional security software depends on running software agents within a virtual Machine to gather signals and data that might indicate the presence of cyber threats, but this can incur a negative performance impact. VMTD, on the other hand, extends the capabilities of SCC by leveraging agentless memory scanning to identify risks inside Google Cloud VM-based systems.
This news comes after Google published Threat Horizons report last November claiming 86% of compromised Google Cloud instances were used for cryptocurrency mining and 10% were used to perform scans for other vulnerable instances. In addition, the attackers exploited poor customer security practices or vulnerable third-party software in nearly 75% of all cases.
Such measures are a must, given the fact that the cryptocurrency market has sky-rocketed over the past couple of years.
Microsoft India announces the winners of the second season of the Cloud Champions 11 program. The Cloud Championship 11 is a one-of-a-kind program in which Microsoft partners with multiple Indian Microsoft Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs).
It gives partners new opportunities to build their cloud businesses from the SMB Mid-market and earn various attractive prizes and recognitions. Microsoft awarded 11 Cloud Solution Providers for increasing cloud growth for SMB customers from September to December 2021.
Additionally, Microsoft also acknowledged two indirect providers having direct relationships with the company for providing customer support, pricing, and billing. Apart from the prize money, the competition winners will also receive certificates from Microsoft.
More than 700 Microsoft Cloud Solution Providers participated in the program from 71 Tier 1, 2, and 3 cities across the country. According to Microsoft, winners will also receive expert mentorship from business coach Mitali Chopra, lip-smacking culinary experiences, and more. The massive participation from partners from pan India is a testament to the common goal of growth and engagement.
Microsoft believes that this program will also help the company in building long-lasting relationships with its partners in India. Below mentioned is the list of the winners announced by Microsoft India for its second edition of Cloud Championship 11.
Microsoft’s Cloud Championship 11 evaluated participants based on their cloud business growth across Microsoft Azure, Modern Work, Security, and Business Applications to select the winners.
Participating partners got the opportunity to interact with Microsoft at various events, including training sessions, masterclasses, peer learning, fun engagement sessions, sales training, and more.
Moreover, Microsoft was in close contact with the participants and accepted feedback from them for further improving the offering of the Cloud Champions 11 program.
“With the second season of Cloud Champions 11 program, we recognize our next set of partners who have been at the center of our vision to make more possible for our customers and delivering innovative cloud solutions,” said Country Head – Small, Medium, and Corporate Business, Microsoft India, Harish Vellat.
By the end of the year, Clearview AI expects to have a database of 100 billion facial photos. According to a financial presentation obtained by The Washington Post from a facial recognition platform, the database aims to help in identifying everybody in the world. Currently, Clearview adds about 1.5 billion images to its database every month on average.
Clearview stated in this presentation that it already has 11 times more facial recognition data than any government or non-government establishment. The fact that Clearview claims to have over 3,000 security and law enforcement customers in the US, including the FBI and ICE, is more frightening. This 100 billion image Clearview AI database will contain 14 photographs for each of the world’s 7 billion individuals and will be used to power a surveillance system that has been adopted by thousands of law enforcement and government agencies throughout the world for prosecutions and criminal investigations.
The company now wants to expand its software to monitor workers in the gig economy. Clearview is also working on technology that will allow it to identify people based on their gait, detect their whereabouts from a photo, and get fingerprint data from afar. The 55-page document was created with the intention of raising funds for Clearview’s ambitions, which require US$ 50 million. These ambitions include developing new goods, expanding its worldwide sales force, and increasing its lobbying efforts to influence government leaders to adopt favorable regulations.
It is interesting to note that while Clearview AI is caught in a muddle of data breaches and anti-privacy affairs, the company’s solutions are still being actively used in many parts of the world. In January the company was awarded a U.S. patent for its unique facial recognition capability that has performed nearly flawlessly in the recent National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) Facial Recognition Vendor Test (FRVT). This recognition comes almost a month after Clearview received “notice of allowance” on December 1 from the US Patents and Trademarks Office, implying that the patent will be awarded once the organization pays the required administrative costs. Furthermore, privacy advocates have expressed concerns that patenting Clearview’s work could hasten the adoption of these technologies before legislators and regulators have properly addressed the risks.
In simpler words, Clearview married web-crawling tactics with developments in machine learning that increased facial recognition, as well as a contempt for human privacy, to produce a remarkably powerful tool that continues to stoke new outrage every day. Twitter issued a cease and desist letter to the startup in early 2020, requesting that all collected data be deleted, followed by similar requests from YouTube and Facebook.
Clearview was sued by the ACLU in Illinois for violating legislation that prohibits the gathering of biometric data, and the corporation is also facing class-action lawsuits in New York and California. In February 2021, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada found that Clearview AI had broken Canadian privacy regulations by collecting images of Canadians without their knowledge or permission. Clearview AI was reprimanded by Australia in November for violating national privacy regulations by secretly collecting residents’ facial biometrics and incorporating them into their AI-powered identity matching service.
Despite being knee-deep in lawsuits and controversies, Clearview AI is now on a mission to sign deals in Panama and Costa Rica and pursue other projects in Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. These events only point out that there are customers who are still feeding off the solutions offered by Clearview AI in their ‘law enforcement units’, without any regard for user consent and cognition. While the company continues to assert that its technology has not led to any wrongful arrest, concrete administrative action against it still remains at large – all the price of user privacy.
The All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) announces the launch of its new artificial intelligence (AI) internship program for 2022.
AICTE has collaborated with EdTech company EduSkills and AWS Academy to offer new internship opportunities to students in the ever-growing field of artificial intelligence. It is a virtual internship opportunity in which AICTE will select 5000 applicants.
The internship program aims to impart critical skills to applicants that the industry currently demands to make them job-ready.
AICTE hopes that the internship program will build a skilled workforce that will eventually become a leader in emerging technology. The selected learners will get a 2-month employment opportunity and a certificate of completion, including a digital badge.
However, it shall be noted that the internship opportunity will be unpaid.
The following are the eligibility criteria for the virtual internship –
Students pursuing courses including BE, BTech, ME, MTech, MCA, or diploma programs at engineering and polytechnic institutions and EduSkills members are eligible to enroll in the program.
Applicants must be available for a duration of 2 months for the internship.
Students from any branch and semester pursuing the above-mentioned courses can apply for the internship opportunity.
Interested candidates can readily apply for the internship program from the official website of AICTE Internships.
After successfully completing the internship, students will get hiring opportunities in Global Corporates. AICTE has already started accepting applications for the internship.
The last to submit the application form is on 23rd February 2022. After submitting the form, the shortlisted students will be registered in the AWS Academy Portal and provided access to the courses.
Students need to then complete a 4-week course and appear for an online assessment before being assigned a project. Students will be mentored by industry experts throughout the project for four days. Additionally, corporate HRs will conduct a one-day career promotion seminar for students.
Researchers have come up with a unique approach that allows them to use artificial intelligence to plan sustainable hydropower development across the Amazon basin.
It is a groundbreaking demonstration that can considerably help harness hydropower electricity in regions stretching across South America. The research demonstrates how artificial intelligence may be used to identify dams that are likely to be particularly environmentally destructive.
In addition, the system can also be used to discover lost environmental benefits from hundreds of existing dams built in the region.
Over the years, the construction of dams has caused massive alterations in the course of the Amazon river, causing several climatic changes. Researchers believe that the demonstrated AI-powered technology can help reduce those adverse effects and harness sustainable hydropower energy.
Associate professor at Florida International University, and a member of the research team, Elizabeth Anderson, said, “The Amazon is the world’s largest and most biodiverse river system, home to more freshwater fish species than any other place on Earth. At the same time, an estimated 47 million people live in the Amazon Basin, and their lives are intertwined with rivers in so many ways—socially, economically, and culturally.”
Researchers discovered that optimizing the size and location of dams requires continuous evaluation of many variables such as sediment transport, river connection, flow regulation, fish biodiversity, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Researchers claim to have developed a unique computational method that allows them to evaluate each trade-off individually and simultaneously, making the method applicable for multiple other basins.
“It is really a pleasure and uniquely rewarding that we are using computer science and AI to address this sustainability challenge,” said Carla Gomes from Cornell University.
This research is far more ambitious in terms of offering insights into the world’s largest and most biodiverse river basin. It points out the importance of international cooperation for planning the entire basin of the Amazon river as it spreads across eight countries.
The University of Florida has been selected to develop a new national artificial intelligence curriculum in the United States focusing on the ethical use of AI.
A newly established National Humanities Center has chosen UF, a top-ranked public university, to build a college-level curriculum that will look at how to develop and deploy ethical AI systems.
According to the plans, faculty members of the selected universities will develop the new course by 2023-2024.
The University of Florida says that it plans to hire more than 100 AI-focused faculty and is the first university in the US to provide AI courses across disciplines to prepare students for future jobs.
Faculty members from more than 15 universities, including UF, will participate in the program to develop and implement courses, allowing students to understand how AI can be ethically used in their daily lives.
UF already hosts more than 6000 students enrolled in artificial intelligence courses because of its public-private partnership with technology company NVIDIA. Additionally, Google will also provide support in this new program.
Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of Florida, Joe Glover, said, “This partnership with the National Humanities Center is a powerful step forward in further positioning UF faculty and students as prominent voices in the national conversation about developing ethical, equitable AI technologies to help solve the planet’s most pressing problems.”
He further added that they want to ensure that all University of Florida students have access to AI technology as they pursue careers as scholars and future professionals in an AI-enabled workforce.
A UF faculty member will engage in a seven-day intensive session at the National Humanities Center in this program.
“The University of Florida’s AI initiative is an impressive investment that promises to make them a leader in AI research and teaching in the years to come,” said President and Director of the National Humanities Center, Robert D. Newman.
Earlier this month, UF partnered with technology giant IBM to tackle multiple society’s biggest challenges by jointly launching a comprehensive skills program.
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, announces the launch of its new Mephisto Dataset Collection Tool. The newly launched tool named Mephisto is used to standardize and codify best practices and infrastructure for collecting and annotating research data.
The tool is capable of providing a straightforward way to open source and share Meta’s methods. Over time, Meta has worked towards stabilizing the platform to make it more reliable.
Meta is now accepting applications from University faculties related to Mephisto. Researchers need to submit their research papers to Meta for applying to this program.
However, it is mandatory for applicants to disclose present or previous partnerships with Meta researchers related to the request for proposal before applying.
The prize pool ranges from $25,000 to $37,500, in which four awards will be presented. The prizes include the overhead of up to 40% of project costs, and the funds will be distributed to RFP winners under the conditions of a Sponsored Research Agreement (SRA) that includes open scientific provisions.
Meta encourages researchers from multiple diverse fields and skill sets to participate in this program. Applicants must be full-time faculty members at an accredited academic institution that provides Ph.D. students with research degrees. Government officials excluding faculties of public universities will not be able to participate in Meta’s new program.
Interested applicants must submit the following documents to apply for this program –
A project summary in English that explains the target dataset and its importance to their research area.
A draft budget description that includes an estimate of the award’s cost and an explanation of how they plan to utilize the funds.
Applicants must submit their Curriculum Vitae.
Details about the organization, including tax and administrative contact information.
The application process has already started, and Meta will stop accepting applications after 23rd March at 11:59 PM PT. Interested candidates can submit their application forms from the official website of Meta.
In a futuristic turn of events, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently announced it has been working with the Philadelphia-based company Ghost Robotics to develop robot dogs for patrolling at the US-Mexico border.
These 100-pound quadrupeds were designed to scale all forms of natural terrains, such as sand, rocks, and hills, as well as man-made environments, such as stairs. Each robot dog is equipped with a variety of sensors and is capable of transmitting live video and data streams. The devices are not currently operational on the US-Mexico border, but they are being tested and evaluated in El Paso, Texas. These robots would eliminate the need for human people to be exposed to extreme temperatures and other dangers near the border.
“The southern border can be an inhospitable place for man and beast, and that is exactly why a machine may excel there,” added DHS Science and Technology Directorate manager Brenda Long.
Jiren Parikh, CEO of Ghost Robotics, said he couldn’t reveal any more details about the Border Patrol’s robot dogs, but some in development have unique sensors and can carry technology to detect narcotics, nuclear materials, and chemical weapons. The company has previously unveiled its robots at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida as part of an effort to replace stationary surveillance cameras. Last year, during the Association of the United States Army’s annual conference in October, Sword International has unveiled an armed robot dog from Ghost Robotics with a custom-made weapon termed a “special purpose unmanned rifle” or Spur.
One of the most popular models from the Ghost Robotics, the Ghost Vision 60, measures 2.5 feet tall (76cm), weighs 70lbs (32kg), and can travel over 7.5 miles in 3 hours on a single battery charge. It is currently priced at $150,000, with specialized sensors or other add-ons costing extra. The government has not said how many robots it plans to buy or how much the program would cost.
The Science and Technology Directorate, which advises Homeland Security on research and development, began collaborating with US Customs and Border Protection and Ghost Robotics to create and test a border patrol robot for a period of 2.5-years. The Ghost Vision 60 has to be modified to function in adverse weather conditions and isolated regions in order to work at the border. The robots delivered to DHS can work in temperatures ranging from -40 degrees Celsius to 55 degrees Celsius and can also withstand submerged conditions. Before being shifted to El Paso, Texas, for further trials in tougher environments, robot dogs went through intensive testing in Lorton, Virginia.
While the idea of deploying robot dogs to patrol at the US-Mexico border sounds like exciting usage of robotics, not all feel the same about this initiative. According to Fernando García, executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights, “Instead of fixing our immigration systems, understanding the pushes and pulls of the immigration process and try to actually fix what is broken. We continue to invest in this enforcement-only approach that includes this technology.” Many have objected to adding robot dogs to the already militarized US-Mexico border.
Further employment of robots dogs does not have a good reputation so far. For instance, in 2021, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had deployed a canine-like robot nicknamed Digidog at Manhattan public housing complex. This remote-controlled bot was created by Boston Dynamics, a robotics company known for viral videos of robots dancing and sprinting with human-like skill. However, after a public outcry over ethics and privacy, the NYPD was forced to end this initiative.
Not long time ago, the Honolulu Police Department recruited Boston Dynamics’ Spot to scan the eyes and measure temperatures of homeless citizens to check for Covid signs. Even this step was heavily criticized as dehumanizing.
Meanwhile, Parikh assures that the robots dogs from Ghost Robotics at US-Mexico border are not autonomous yet and people should not be worried. Although, the whole development of robotic dogs begs a question, “Do we seriously need robots to keep an eye on human activities – illegal or not?” Are we racing towards a dystopian future or a world on the quagmire of ethical rights?
One of the world’s leading car manufacturers, Jaguar Land Rover, announces partnership with technology company NVIDIA for autonomous driving systems.
The companies have signed a multi-year contract for developing next-generation automated driving systems and artificial intelligence-powered services for customers. According to the companies, Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles will be powered by the NVIDIA Drive software-defined platform from 2025.
NVIDIA’s smart platform will be able to provide a wide range of active safety features, automated driving and parking, driver assistance features, and lots more, making future JLR vehicles highly reliable and safe to use.
The newly announced strategic partnership between the two companies has already increased TATA Motors’ shares by roughly 2%.
Chief Executive Officer of Jaguar Land Rover, Thierry Bolloré, said, “Collaboration and knowledge-sharing with industry leader NVIDIA is essential to realizing our Reimagine strategy, setting new benchmarks in quality, technology, and sustainability. Jaguar Land Rover will become the creator of the world’s most desirable luxury vehicles and services for the most discerning customers.”
He further added that as the company continues its transformation into a truly global, digital powerhouse, its long-term strategic partnership with NVIDIA will open a world of possibilities for their future cars.
NVIDIA’s driving system will provide multiple artificial intelligence functions such as driver and occupant monitoring, and advanced visualization of the vehicle’s environment, allowing cars to operate better.
NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion is the foundation for this full-stack solution, including DRIVE Orin centralized AV processors, DRIVE AV and DRIVE IX software, safety, security, networking technologies, and surround sensors.
In addition, the vehicle manufacturing company also plans to couple their developed data center solutions with NVIDIA DGX for training AI models and DRIVE Sim software built on NVIDIA Omniverse for real-time simulations.
“Next-generation cars will transform automotive into one of the largest and most advanced technology industries. Fleets of software-defined, programmable cars will offer new functionalities and services for the life of the vehicles,” said founder and CEO of NVIDIA, Jensen Huang.
He also mentioned that they are excited to collaborate with Jaguar Land Rover to reinvent the future of mobility and develop the most advanced vehicles.
