Interesting Reads –
2018-07-26
Contents
Articles
- Cobots are transforming the factory floor — but they’re not replacing humans
- How to Teach Computer Ethics through Science Fiction
- With 'Make in India', India also needs a ‘Trade with India’ programme
- Internet Addiction Disorder
- 2018 Cyber Guide: The Ultimate Guide to Cyber Service Providers
- Cryptocurrency is just one of seven types of cryptoassets you should know
- 40 books, TV shows, and movies for people who care about the future of tech
- ERP Applications Under Fire
- We’ll soon have ten times more satellites in orbit – here’s what that means
- What is a data scientist? A key data analytics role and a lucrative career
Events / Announcements
- IEEE SMCS Thesis Grant Initiative 2018
- Tutorial cum workshop on AI&ML
- AICTE & NPTEL sign MOU to recognise NPTEL MOOCS as FDPs for faculty promotion under CAS
- Paywall: The Business of Scholarship
=======================================================
Articles
Cobots are transforming the
factory floor — but they’re not replacing humans
The
increased presence of robots on factory floors has been a boon to
manufacturers, who have embraced automation as a way to increase efficiency and
cut costs. But there’s been less optimism among human workers, who worry that
the rise of robots will render human workers inessential.
In
recent years, however, a new school of thought has gained ground: Rather than
replace their human counterparts, the manufacturing robots of the future will
work alongside them. This future can be seen in the arrival of “cobots,” robots
designed to complement human workers. While humans excel at abstract thinking
and problem solving, robots shine at bringing speed and accuracy to repetitive,
sometimes dangerous tasks. Imagine a factory where robots do the heavy-lifting
as humans focus on more meaningful work, where production lines can run
unsupervised for weeks with minimal manufacturing defects. In the connected
industrial workforce of the future, robots complement workers, improve
productivity, and increase operational efficiency.
This
future is already here. Siemens, for example, is pioneering this transformation
with its manufacturing plant in Amberg, Germany, where automated production
lines run continuously with near-perfect production quality. Complementing that
process are the plant’s 1,150 human employees, who maintain this efficiency by
focusing on programming and monitoring the factory’s machines.
How to Teach Computer Ethics
through Science Fiction
Computer
science faculty have a responsibility to teach students to recognize both the
larger ethical issues and particular responsibilities that are part and parcel
of their work as technologists. This is, however, a kind of teaching for which
most of us have not been trained, and that faculty and students approach with
some trepidation. In this article, we explore the use of science fiction as a
tool to enable those teaching artificial intelligence to engage students and
practitioners about the scope and implications of current and future work in
computer science. We have spent several years developing a creative approach to
teaching computer ethics, through a course we call "Science Fiction and
Computer Ethics." The course has been taught five times at the University
of Kentucky and two times at the University of Illinois at Chicago and has been
successful with students, as evidenced by increasing and full enrollments; high
teaching-evaluation numbers; positive anonymous comments from students; nominations
and awards for good teaching; and invitations to speak about the course on
conference panels and in talks.
Teaching
ethics to computer science students is a pressing responsibility for computer
science faculty but also a challenge. Using fiction as the basis for an ethics
course offers several advantages beyond its immediate appeal to many students
and some faculty. First, fiction offers students a way to engage with ethical
questions that helps them cultivate their capacity for moral imagination;
science fiction in particular can make the ethical stakes of blue-sky projects
vivid, pressing, and immediate. Second, stories offer students the chance to
develop their writing and verbal skills in ethical description. And finally,
discussing ethics in the context of fiction can make it easier for instructors
to adopt an open-ended approach required for a good ethics course. A course
built around fiction enables instructors to incorporate the best and most
useful aspects of a humanistic approach to ethics education while remaining
close to the central technological concerns within computer science.
With 'Make in India', India
also needs a ‘Trade with India’ programme
As
growing protectionist tendencies continue to imperil the current global
economic upswing, the world is on the lookout for a new champion of world
trade. Under President Donald Trump, the US has abdicated. Europe is
preoccupied and, perhaps, hesitant to fill the gap. China may be keen.
However,
while President Xi Jinping explores how, and to what extent, China might assume
this new role, India is facing a historic opportunity to, at the very least,
complement China’s leadership. But 2 ..
Make
and Trade: India’s government needs to complement its emphasis on manufacturing
with a commitment to growth in exports. ‘Make in India’ was a step in the right
direction. Now, it should be wedded to a parallel ‘Trade with India’ programme.
Internet Addiction Disorder
Signs,
symptoms, diagnosis, and treatments for those who may be addicted to the Web on
their PC or smart phone.
What
Is Internet Addiction?: Do you play video games on the Internet in excess? Are
you compulsively shopping online? Can’t physically stop checking Facebook? Is
your excessive computer use interfering with your daily life – relationships,
work, school? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be
suffering from Internet Addition Disorder, also commonly referred to as
Compulsive Internet Use (CIU), Problematic Internet Use (PIU), or iDisorder.
Originally debated as a “real thing,” it was satirically theorized as a
disorder in 1995 by Dr. Ivan Goldberg, M.D. who compared its original model to
pathological gambling. Since this hoax of sorts, the disorder has rapidly
gained ground and has been given serious attention from many researchers,
mental health counselors, and doctors as a truly debilitating disorder. Though
not officially recognized as a disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), its prevalence in American and European
cultures is staggering – affecting up to 8.2% of the general population.
However, some reports suggest it affects up to 38% of the general population.
The widely variable difference in prevalence rates might be contributed to the
fact that no true and standardized criteria has been selected for Internet
Addiction Disorder. It is researched differently among scientists and mental
health professionals. And, it is researched differently across ethnic cultures.
2018 Cyber Guide: The Ultimate
Guide to Cyber Service Providers
From
the well-publicized Equifax, Uber, and Yahoo hacks of the data of millions of
customers to the many smaller cybersecurity breaches we will never hear about,
the modern-day cyber threat is real. Every organization, regardless of size, is
susceptible to these threats and must take steps to protect against them.
To
effectively protect your business requires a multifaceted approach, which
differs for each organization depending on their size, needs, and
vulnerabilities. While the best fit for one might be a tech start-up that
offers insurance, another organization might feel more comfortable working with
their longtime insurer and broker and their recommended vendors. But what if no
one in your network offers cyber protection? Even if they do, how do you make
sure you are covered from all angles?
Through
careful research and outreach, Advisen has compiled the largest single source
of cyber service providers available into the 2018 Cyber Guide, which contains
163 cyber profiles from 10 categories of cyber service providers.
Cyber
Service Provider Categories: Broker; Carrier; Cybersecurity Software Provider; Forensics & Cyber Investigation; Insurance
Data & Analytics; Legal; Notification, Credit; Monitoring, Call Center; Pre-Breach
Cybersecurity Consultant; Public Relations and Crisis Communication; and Training
This
free e-PDF is a great resource for professionals looking to reduce the impact
of an attack, or defend their company’s assets following a cyber event.
What’s
included in a service provider profile?: Company description; Line(s) of
business; Personal contact
information of a representative; and Optional entries customized for each line
business (such as how many cyber-related claims a carrier handled in 2017 and
the number dedicated cyber insurance underwriters they have)
The
guide is formatted as a “smart” e-PDF file, which allows you to navigate
through provider profiles by line of business or by alphabetical order. Email
links are active, and a top button allows you to return to the table of
contents at any time.
As
cyber threats become more and more commonplace, it is imperative to avoid
putting your business in jeopardy. The 2018 Cyber Guide can help you accomplish
this by directing you to those best qualified to protect you and your
customers.
Cryptocurrency is just one of
seven types of cryptoassets you should know
Two years ago, the entire cryptoasset market had a
value of $9 billion. Had it been a public company, it would barely have cracked
the S&P 500 index. Fewer than two years later, the cryptoasset market is
$300 billion in size, roughly double the market capitalization of
RBC, Canada’s largest lender.
The explosion (and recent pull-back)
of value in cryptoassets like bitcoin and ether has captured the imagination of
developers, and the attention of the media, governments, central banks, the
investing public, and regulators. It has made enthusiasts euphoric,
Nobel laureates skeptical, and old-school billionaires dyspeptic.
Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway went so far as to call bitcoin “noxious poison.”
Is there any other kind of poison?
To be sure, there is a lot of hype in this market, and the industry must confront such implementation challenges as scaling technology and regulatory uncertainty. But beyond the hype and mania, something profound is happening—the creation of an entirely new digital asset class.
This new asset class will transform every industry in the economy, from financial services to pharmaceuticals, media to manufacturing. Existing assets like stocks and bonds will become digital assets and new yet unforeseen assets will emerge, enabling new decentralized business models based on collaboration and clever code. Understanding the various types of cryptoassets, and the different functions they serve, is crucial to thriving in this new decentralized digital economy.
In the updated version of Blockchain Revolution, we break them down into at least seven categories:
40 books, TV shows, and movies
for people who care about the future of tech
In
an interview earlier this year with the New York Times (paywall), Facebook
founder Mark Zuckerberg said he could have never imagined a future in which the
software he developed would be used to interfere with elections. But many have
warned about the potential for misuse, and it’s not a stretch to think that the
Cambridge Analytica scandal, which involved the misuse of data from millions of
Facebook users, is just the tip of the iceberg. Shortly after that interview,
Facebook announced a new dating service, extending its reach further into our
personal lives and our personal data. How will people use—or abuse—this tool,
and what will the consequences be?
Tech
ethics may seem like an abstract concept best left to philosophers and lawyers,
but you don’t need to pass the bar or get a PhD to predict the unintended
consequences of technology—you may just need to read books and watch movies.
If
you want to understand how technologies like artificial intelligence may shape
the future of health, romance, law, and government, you could do worse than to
ask a sci-fi writer.
Through
fictional stories, creative thinkers of the past and present can help
technologists anticipate challenges and opportunities created by technology.
Lowe’s Innovation Labs and ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination are
already employing science-fiction writers to better understand the future of
technology and humans. The Design Futures Initiative hosts conferences and
meetups on “speculative design” that bring scientists, researchers, designers,
writers, and filmmakers together to envision the future.
As
Facebook and Uber dominated headlines, the fiction enthusiasts at Luminary Labs
generated a list of books, movies, and television shows that should be on every
technologist’s radar. We came up with nearly 100 suggestions in less than an
hour and whittled the list down to 40 works of fiction; If you care about the
impact of technology on our lives and want to imagine a wider range of
possibilities, start with this small sampling of stories.
The
following list may include spoilers, and links point to Wikipedia sources that
summarize plotlines in further detail.
ERP Applications Under Fire
The
findings of this joint research between Digital Shadows and Onapsis shed light
into how nation-state actors, cybercriminals and hacktivist groups are actively
attacking these applications and what organizations should do to mitigate this
critical risk. Key highlights include:
- Hacktivist groups are actively attacking ERP applications to disrupt critical business operations and penetrate target organizations.
- Cybercriminals have evolved malware to target internal, “behind-the-firewall” ERP applications.
- Nation-state sponsored actors have targeted ERP applications for cyber espionage and sabotage.
- There has been a dramatic increase in the interest in exploits for SAP applications, including SAP HANA, in dark web and cybercriminal forums.
We’ll soon have ten times more
satellites in orbit – here’s what that means
The
Iridium-7 mission has successfully launched from the Vandenberg air force base
in California, placing the latest ten satellites from the American company’s
second-generation network into orbit. Deployed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Iridium
now has 65 new NEXT satellites in the sky, just one away from the intended total.
The plan is to be fully operational by the autumn.
There
are currently 1,738 active satellites in orbit. Mega constellations will
increase that by an order of magnitude in the next few years. As well as the
strain on bandwidth, the Earth’s orbit is going to become much more congested.
This
raises important environmental questions. Some operators such as OneWeb have
made encouraging noises about managing the end of life of their satellites, but
serious concerns remain. There’s an opportunity for the next generation of
space entrepreneurs to be true pioneers by establishing a sustainable way of
working in space.
What is a data scientist? A
key data analytics role and a lucrative career
Data scientists are responsible for discovering insights from massive amounts of structured and unstructured data to help shape or meet specific business needs and goals. The data scientist role is becoming increasingly important as businesses rely more heavily on data analytics to drive decision-making and lean on automation and machine learning as core components of their IT strategies.
Becoming
a data scientist varies depending on industry, but there are common skills,
experience, education and training that will give you the leg up in starting
your data science career.
Events / Announcements
IEEE SMCS Thesis Grant
Initiative 2018
The
System, Man, and Cybernetics Society happily presents the SMC Thesis Grants
Initiative for 2018! The aim of this initiative is to recognize the outstanding
Student, Graduated Student and Young Professional members of SMCS who, early in
their career, contributed to major advancements of theory, technologies, and/or
applications of systems science & engineering, human-machine systems,
and/or cybernetics. Accomplishments include theoretical and technological
advances, improvements in processes, or development of new products or
procedures related to the fields of interest of the Systems, Man, and
Cybernetics Society. Further information can be found via http://thesisgrantinitiative.ieeesmc.hu/
Submission
deadline of the applications: August 7, 2018
Tutorial cum workshop on
AI&ML
IEEE
Bombay Section in collaboration with the India Council is planning to organise
a
day-and-a-half
long ‘Tutorial cum workshop on AI&ML’ during August 10-11, 2018 at
National
Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Powai. In this tutorial cum workshop, experts from
Industry and Academia will give insights on AI, Machine learning and deep
learning frameworks, algorithms and applications of ML and DL in different
sectors and will also cover challenges and opportunities using these cutting
edge technologies.
Poster
competition for students: Students will be preparing posters to demonstrate how
they propose to solve one of the following challenges using AI&ML. Posters
should be printed on 3’ x 6’ flex and bring for presentation. A softcopy of the
same should also be submitted. One hour poster presentation will be scheduled.
There are prizes to be won for the best posters. Following are the topics for
the posters:
- Robotic process automation
- Design of Chatbot for FinTech or operations
- Competitive intelligence
- Supply chain intelligence using AI&ML
- Financial forensic audit using AI&ML
For
more details, schedule and registration: http://ieeebombay.org/event/aiml2018/
For
further assistance or help, email to: aiml2018@ieeebombay.org
AICTE & NPTEL sign MOU to
recognise NPTEL MOOCS as FDPs for faculty promotion under CAS
Copy
of the agreement/MOU is at
https://www.aicte-india.org/sites/default/files/MoU_NPTEL_AICTE.pdf
https://www.aicte-india.org/sites/default/files/MoU_NPTEL_AICTE.pdf
Notification
from AICTE and the details reg. NPTEL courses is at
Paywall: The Business of
Scholarship
Paywall:
The Business of Scholarship is a documentary which focuses on the need for open
access to research and science, questions the rationale behind the $25.2
billion a year that flows into for-profit academic publishers, examines the
35-40% profit margin associated with the top academic publisher Elsevier and
looks at how that profit margin is often greater than some of the most
profitable tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google.
The
film will be released September 2018. Staying true to the open access model: it
will be free to stream and download, for private or public use, and maintains
the most open CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons designation to ensure anyone
regardless of their social, financial or political background will have
access.
If
you are interested in screening this film at your university, please fill out
our contact form at https://paywallthemovie.com/contact
More
details at https://paywallthemovie.com/paywall
Archives of Interesting Reads
at
http://infoforuse.blogspot.in/2018/05/interesting-reads-archives.html
http://infoforuse.blogspot.in/2018/05/interesting-reads-archives.html
Feedback
We will be pleased to have your feedback on the “Interesting Reads” being sent once in five days. Pl. share the links of any interesting things you come across so that we can include them in these email posts. Also, pl. share the email ids of your colleagues, friends, peers and contacts, if you want them to be included in the google group to get regular posts.
We will be pleased to have your feedback on the “Interesting Reads” being sent once in five days. Pl. share the links of any interesting things you come across so that we can include them in these email posts. Also, pl. share the email ids of your colleagues, friends, peers and contacts, if you want them to be included in the google group to get regular posts.
You
may pl. send your communications to hrmohan.ieee@gmail.com
With
regards
HR
Mohan