Teckedin - Daily Curated Tech News - January - December 2023
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Teckedin - Daily Curated Tech News - January - December 2023

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Title/LinkDescriptionCategory
Google Cloud Offers Armor to Thwart Network DDoS Attacks
The service provides “always-on” attack detection and mitigation for Google Cloud customers in gaming, telecommunication and other transmission control protocol (TCP)-based services that are exposed to the internet and vulnerable to DDoS attacks.
Security
Databricks open-sources an AI it says is as good as ChatGPT, but much easier to train 
Big-data analytics firm Databricks Inc. has emerged as an unlikely player in the generative artificial intelligence space, open-sourcing a new AI model that it claims is “as magical as ChatGPT,” despite being trained on far less data in less than three hours using a single machine.
Artificial Intelligence
Regula Introduces a Complete Single-Vendor Solution for Advanced Identity Fraud Prevention
Paired with Regula Document Reader SDK, Regula Face SDK verifies a selfie against a photo from an ID matching the printed portrait, RFID chip photo, selfie uploaded via web or mobile device, and a portrait from an external database to ensure the person is the same in all the different photos.
Security
Microsoft launches collaboration app Loop 
Microsoft has launched its Loop app in public preview. The productivity application combines elements of documents, spreadsheets, and presentation apps in a single collaborative space.
Automation & Productivity
With Arista WAN Routing System the company explicitly targets routing use cases such as SD-WAN for the first time. 
The package, called the Arista WAN Routing System ties together three new components—enterprise-class routing hardware, software for its CloudVision management platform called Pathfinder, and the ability to set up neutral peering points called Transit Hubs.
Network Management
F5 offers new distributed cloud services for multicloud connectivity
“Basically, F5 is tapping into the cloud APIs and connecting all the different networks that are running on each of these different cloud providers and estates,” he said. “All of these technologies are there, but nobody has provided this kind of mega-layer for managing them.”
Cloud
Kyndryl AI Augments Data, Mainframe Management
Using AI in data operations brings in intelligence through metadata activation, meaning augmenting existing metadata through AI or machine learning (ML) to be able to infer new metadata from it. The Kyndryl product uses AI to “proactively detect data drifts, data incidents, and it can use knowledge graphs to arrive at the next best action for data reliability and assess downstream impact,”
Data Management
Oracle predicts: BlueField-3 is coming
The third generation of Nvidia’s OVX computing system is based on its Omniverse Enterprise system for creating and operating metaverse applications such as digital twin simulations. Each OVX server combines BlueField-3 SoCs with four of Nvidia’s L40 GPUs, two ConnectX-7 SmartNICs and Nvidia’s Spectrum Ethernet offering.
Metaverse
StarCompliance Builds Secure Data Access Solution on Snowflake to Harness the Power of the Data Cloud
The solution will provide Star’s customer base with governed access to data, tools, applications, and services that enable a streamlined compliance process. This will reduce risks associated with regulatory breaches and financial penalties, as well as improve the speed and accuracy of conflict-of-interest detection.
Compliance
Contlo Unveils Brand AI Model to Empower Modern Businesses With Contextual Generative AI Marketing Capabilities
To set up the Brand AI Model, businesses provide a combination of inputs such as brand story, identity, design language, tonality, and aesthetic attributes that represent the brand. The AI model understands the brand and creates personalized marketing strategies, such as creative generation, generative customer journeys, autonomous segments, and campaigns.
Marketing Tech
Character.AI personalized chatbot service raises $150M at $1B valuation 
“Character AI’s power is our highly sophisticated language model, which rapidly analyzes and contextualizes large volumes of information to produce useful intelligence tailored to each individual,” said Shazeer, calling it a “superintelligence companion” for people to enhance their productivity. “The potential use cases are infinite.”
Artificial Intelligence
AnswerRocket debuts Max, a GPT-4 powered AI chatbot for data insights 
When it launches in the second quarter, Max will enable simpler data exploration for all business users, while making it easier to perform advanced analytics. In addition to answering basic questions, users can ask Max to perform advanced tasks such as statistical, diagnostic and predictive analytics on any data set.
Data & Analytics
Quantum says its souped-up video surveillance system supports more than 10,000 cameras
The Unified Surveillance Platform (USP) is based on hyperconverged software from acquired EnCloudEn, which enabled it to converge the purpose-built NVR server with its USP software running on a standard x86 server that hosts video management system (VMS) software.
Automation & Productivity
Adobe enters the age of generative AI with creative and enterprise apps
Soon, apparently, everything from brand assets to corporate videos to illustrations will be created differently using Adobe’s creative and enterprise apps and its generative AI tool Firefly. You’ll literally be able to speak to paint (or make video).
Artificial Intelligence
Qumulo plans all-in-one available-anywhere file services
The major product line is scaleout Core filer software that runs on clusters of x86 commercial off-the shelf hardware, including Qumulo-branded hardware (P, C, K series) from Arrow and third-party file storage systems from OEMs such as HPE, Fujitsu, Quanta, Supermicro and Western Digital.
Data Storage
HPE to acquire OpsRamp to boost GreenLake capabilities
OpsRamp and HPE’s GreenLake edge-to-cloud offerings are expected to provide a unified approach to management of multicloud computing, networking, storage, and application resources.
Cloud
Ascend.io Announces Industry-first Data Mesh Innovation
The new Data Mesh capabilities allow teams to package data into products that can be easily consumed and reused across the organization, while assuring the lineage of that data to ensure that information is current and accurate. Ascend is the only company in the market that provides this capability across multiple data cloud platforms, vastly increasing the value that businesses can derive from their data.
Data Management
Microsoft and Adobe introduce AI image generator tools as competition heats up 
For users with access to the Bing chat preview, the new AI image generator will already be at their fingertips and accessible in the “creative” mode. Users will be able to get the interface to generate artwork for them by simply typing a description of the image that they want created, providing a flourishing example such as a place, thing, or activity and then the underlying AI will produce something based on what it was told.
Artificial Intelligence
Akkio Launches Chat Explore Powered by GPT-4
Chat Explore enables analysts to understand their data, find actionable insights, and report on business outcomes 10x faster than traditional methods. Through a chat interface powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4, analysts can easily and quickly ask questions, get detailed analysis, and create live, custom charts and reports.
Data & Analytics
Adobe expands cloud portfolio with new product analytics service
The company’s new Adobe Product Analytics service enables enterprises to track how users interact with their applications and websites. It includes graphs that visualize high-level metrics, such as what percentage of visitors to an e-commerce website make a purchase. The service provides more granular data as well.
Data & Analytics
Google starts opening access to its Bard chatbot in the US and UK 
On launch, Bard enables users to ask only a limited number of questions per chat session but doesn’t cap how many chat sessions can be launched. In response to a query, the service generates up to three different responses dubbed drafts.
Automation & Productivity
DragonflyDB reels in $21M for its speedy in-memory database
One of the most widely used in-memory stores on the market is an open-source system called Redis. DragonflyDB has developed a competing database, called Dragonfly, that it says is up to 25 times faster than Redis. Moreover, the startup says, its database is more hardware-efficient.
Data & Analytics
Kyndryl Unveils Data and AI Console to Unify and Simplify Data Management for Customers
With these features, organizations can now monitor and manage their data from the point of creation to the time of consumption and gain support in proactively mitigating data risks and improving data governance by predicting irregularities and data incidents.
Data Management
Zenoss Launches Real-Time Kubernetes Monitoring
This real-time monitoring of Kubernetes streaming data is part of a broader set of initiatives focused on cloud-based monitoring, which enables visibility for ephemeral systems that cannot be effectively monitored by traditional monitoring tools.
Cloud
Juji Launches New Generative AI Tool for Automating Cognitive AI Chatbot Creation
Juji  an artificial intelligence company, announced the launch of its new generative AI tool that enables any organization to rapidly generate custom AI chatbots with no code or additional IT resources. These AI chatbots are powered with cognitive intelligence—advanced human soft skills like active listening and reading between the lines, and can be used to scale human teams and automate high-touch, high-stakes engagements 24×7.
Automation & Productivity
Seagate, Los Alamos bring compute to storage
“The goal of this joint research is to optimize the efficiencies of a high-performance computing architecture by utilizing compute and memory resources of supporting storage systems down to the hard drive level. This in turn lowers overall TCO with full resource optimization.”
Data Storage
Palo Alto bolsters AI support in SASE, SD-WAN products
New to the Prisma SASE bundle are increased AI capabilities as part of Palo Alto’s autonomous digital experience management (ADEM) monitoring and management system. ADEM provides visibility into endpoints, WAN links, cloud resources, applications, and traffic levels to help troubleshoot performance issues.
Network Management
Workforce management startup Rippling raises $500M 
Alongside its core payroll and benefits management features, Rippling offers several other workforce management tools. For information technology teams, the startup provides a tool that makes it easier to manage employee access to internal applications. For accounting departments, it offers the ability to issue corporate payment cards to workers.
Automation & Productivity
Digimind Introduces Digimind Social to Analyze Any Topic with Dual AI Integration
Digimind has unveiled the first Social Listening solution integrating two powerful AI engines to provide users with a comprehensive understanding of their online presence. The solution, which combines Digimind AI Sense and OpenAI ChatGPT, offers a seamless way to collect, analyze, and act on online conversations.
Artificial Intelligence
Intercom’s Fin is the First AI Customer Service Bot Built with GPT-4 Technology
Fin works with zero setups or training required, unlike most bots where responses need to be curated manually by a human. With the simple toggle of an on-off switch, Fin will start resolving queries instantly, learning everything it needs from companies’ existing support articles and only providing answers based on that content.
Automation & Productivity
Cyber security focused Rubrik admits internal system attacked via Fortra zero-day
Rubrik said it “detected unauthorized access to a limited amount of information in one of our non-production IT testing environments as a result of the GoAnywhere vulnerability.”
Security
Salesforce Announces New AI-powered Tableau Capabilities for Slack
These enhancements use natural language processing to drive user-centric experiences and improve decision-making using Tableau. The newly enhanced features also improve how employees and associates communicate about their Tableau workflows using Slack.
Data & Analytics
Juniper Adds AI Smarts to Cloud-Hosted Campus Network Fabric Workflows
The campus fabric workflow that Juniper has launched is being made available as a new feature that is now available to all Juniper Mist Wired Assurance customers. Wired Assurance is part of the Mist AI cloud and is the cloud-hosted subscription service that brings Juniper’s Mist AIOps solution to Juniper wired/switching customers.
Network Management
Dell offers bare metal cloud via colocation
Under the deal, enterprises will be able to deploy Dell hardware through Cyxtera’s enterprise bare-metal service, an on-demand offering that connects an enterprise’s existing on-premises infrastructure with the colocation environment.
Cloud
Tellius Announces Copilot, GPT-Integrated Capabilities to Break Through Barriers to Self-Service Analytics
The new features automatically generate natural language synonyms, code improvements, and enhanced data stories, adding to the company’s existing AI-powered analytics capabilities to further enable every insights-driven organization to rapidly implement and scale self-service analytics.
Data & Analytics
Syniti’s Data Assessment Express Identifies Business Upside and Data Cost Savings with Accelerated Data Quality Insights
The solution can provide value across multiple data strategy use cases, deliver insights across multiple business process domains, and offers an industry-unique ability to identify business upsides and cost savings directly related to data.
Data Management
Beyond Identity Adds Zero-Trust Authentication, Addresses Passwords Limitations
“For our advanced customers and our enterprise customers, we can actually help them get more out of their existing security investment and make even better decisions at the time of access by providing these integrations with partners like EDR [endpoint detection response] vendors like CrowdStrike like MDM [mobile device management] vendors like AirWatch from VMWare, and VPN vendors like Palo Alto Networks,"
Security
data.world Partners with dbt Labs to Deliver Greater Visibility and Discoverability of Data Transformations
data.world and dbt Cloud customers can now leverage metadata about models, snapshots, projects, seeds, sources, and tests from the dbt Cloud. Users can see the relationships between views and referenced database tables or columns and between dbt resources and upstream or downstream resources.
Data & Analytics
Cloudflare offers free post-quantum cryptography protection to customers 
Cloudflare made the commitment ahead of the 2023 Summit for Democracy in support of a more responsive and resilient internet. As part of its commitment, Cloudflare also said it would publish vendor-neutral roadmaps based on National Institute of Standards and Technology standards to help businesses secure any connections that it doesn’t protect.
Security
Groq Adapts and Runs LLaMA, the Meta Chatbot Model and Competitor to ChatGPT, for Its Systems
Facebook parent, Meta, released LLaMA, which can be used by chatbots to generate human-like text, on February 24th. Three days later the Groq team downloaded the model and within a few days had it running on a production GroqNode server, including eight GroqChip inference processors
ChatGPT
Microsoft introduces AI-powered Copilot across Microsoft 365 apps 
Using Microsoft 365 Copilot the AI will be directly integrated into apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, allowing users to ask questions and prompt the AI to write drafts, produce presentations, edit emails, produce presentations, summarize meetings and more
Automation & Productivity
Azure Monitor’s Change Analysis helps you troubleshoot problems quickly
Under the hood is the Azure Resource Graph, which Azure uses for your backup snapshots and other service replication platform features. As the service stores changes automatically, they’re available for Azure Monitor through a secure API. That allows it to track not only the changes you make, but also changes that come from the Azure platform itself.
IT Management
3.4 times more Oracle MySQL transactions with Pliops’ SSD array controller
Pliops’ eXtreme Data processor (XDP) is a PCIe-connected storage controller card that implements a key:value storage-based controller for a group of SSDs, offloading low-level storage functions from a host x86 processor. Its XDP-Rocks software accelerates key-value based applications such as MySQL, MyRocks, Redis, KV-Rocks, TiDB, Kafka, Spark and others.
Data Storage
Ethereum scaling solution Arbitrum launches token and Layer 3 blockchains 
Offchain Labs Inc., the developer of the Ethereum blockchain scaling solution Arbitrum, announced today that it will airdrop, or give away for free to select people, its new token $ARB, a new cryptocurrency that would be used for voting on two of its blockchain products.
Blockchain
Apple may update Siri as it struggles with ChatGPT
The hype machine is real with Generative AI and ChatGPT, which are seemingly everywhere in tech these days. So it's not surprising that we're starting to hear chatter about a new, improved Siri. In fact, 9to5Mac has already spotted a new natural language system.
ChatGPT
LinkedIn is now implementing ChatGPT to help users with profiles and job postings 
LinkedIn has, of course, been using artificial intelligence in one way or another for a long time, but now it wants to give its 134.5 million active monthly users and 900 million members the ChatGPT experience to help them put words into coherent sentences. LinkedIn promises this will “unlock opportunities and elevate your career.”
Artificial Intelligence
Colossal-AI Releases Open Source Framework for ChatGPT Replication
This release has generated a wave of excitement in the AI community, leading to Colossal-AI becoming the number one trending project on GitHub for multiple weeks. This outpouring of interest has solidified Colossal-AI’s position as the go-to solution for highly efficient AI initiatives.
Artificial Intelligence
The semiautomated social network is coming
It’s the first time — I know of — that a major social media platform has directly served users AI-generated content to keep them engaged. And in a time of social media stagnation, from Twitter’s manifold struggles to Meta’s desperate-looking pitch for paid subscriptions, it could point to the industry’s future: to the semiautomated social network.
Artificial Intelligence
Atakama Partners with Panzura to Deliver End-to-End Data Management and Protection
Atakama’s multifactor encryption solution eliminates centralized points of attack and failure and provides unrivaled data protection at the granular object level to fortify a data-centric security model. This dedicated security layer is policy based and achieved in accordance with each organization’s specific use case.
Security
AI21 Labs debuts Jurassic-2, an advanced large language model for text-based generative AI 
Its applications include Wordtune, an AI-powered writing companion that’s able to understand content and meaning to help people write down their ideas in a clearer and more compelling way, and also Wordtune Read, which can analyze long documents in seconds and create a simplified summary.
Artificial Intelligence
HUMBL Announces Launch of “HUMBL Chat” Audio Rooms
HUMBL Chat capabilities include peer-to-peer voice rooms with clear, low-latency connections. HUMBL Chat is also pilot testing the ability for users to record audio rooms and save them as .mp3 files, which can be used for archives, interviews, interactive podcasts and transcriptions
Automation & Productivity
ThoughtSpot Integrates with GPT-3 to Launch Sage, a New AI-powered Search Experience for Analytics
With ThoughtSpot Sage, ThoughtSpot is taking analytics to the next level through advanced natural language processing (NLP) and generative AI. In doing so, data teams are able to exponentially increase their impact across an organization by freeing themselves from tediously managing report requests as business users self-serve insights.
Data & Analytics
Generative AI in Advertising: Omneky’s Creative Assistant Tool Enables Creative Users to Launch Multi-Faceted Advertising Experiences
Innovating on the GPT-3.5 Turbo language model alongside proprietary generative algorithms, the Creative Assistant ushers in a new era of content creation by offering users the ability to generate rich media without having the technical skills or budget.
Marketing Tech
Scammers are using AI to impersonate your loved ones. Here's what to watch out for 
These programs analyze a person's voice for different patterns that make up the person's unique sound, such as pitch and accent, to then recreate it. Many of these tools work within seconds and can produce a sound that is virtually indistinguishable from the original source.  
Artificial Intelligence
Deloitte Launches Greenlight Solution, an End-To-End Decarbonization Software Tool That Helps Unlock a Clear, Actionable Path to Net-Zero Emissions
This first release comprises seven integrated flexible-use software assets and incorporates one of the largest global data libraries, including 150,000 emissions factors and 200 real-world tested emissions abatement projects including projects for hard-to-abate activities and commodities like maritime and air travel, steel manufacturing, and others.
Data & Analytics
Aruba to prioritize SASE, private 5G, data-center networking
Available since early 2022, the CX 10000 is a top-of-rack, L2/3 data-center box with 3.6Tbps of switching capacity. One of the most intriguing aspects of the CX 10000 is that it includes an integrated programmable data processing unit (DPU) from Pensando, now part of AMD, that helps eliminate the need for separate appliances to handle low latency traffic, security and load balancing, for example.
Network Management
Vantage reels in $21M to lower companies’ cloud expenses 
Vantage, incorporated as VNTG Inc., provides a platform that helps companies track how much they’re spending on cloud services and find cost-cutting opportunities. The platform supports major public clouds such as Amazon Web Services. It also works with a growing list of software-as-a-service applications, including New Relic and MongoDB Atlas.
Cloud
DuckDuckGo launches generative AI search assistant 
DuckAssist is implemented as part of the company’s existing Instant Answers tool. The tool enables users to access maps, weather forecasts and other information directly in the DuckDuckGo interface without having to click on search results. It’s intended to provide more relevant answers to user queries than existing Instant Answers responses.
Automation & Productivity
Axelera AI and Advantech Partner to Bring the Inference Power of a Data Center to Edge Devices
Combining Advantech’s expertise in the embedded and industrial PCs and Axelera AI’s disruptive edge AI technology, together they will bring the inference power of a data center to edge devices, enabling customers to process data in real-time, reducing latency while increasing efficiency.
Edge Computing
Generative AI startup Anthropic raises another $300M, bringing its value to $4.1B 
The startup is focused on AI safety and is determined to build more reliable and steerable systems that provide more predictable results. In this way, the team hopes, it can eliminate bias and overcome one of the key limitations of conversational AI.
Artificial Intelligence
IBM and Nokia announce plans for a private 5G service
The new offering will be a private 5G managed service on IBM Cloud Satellite for enterprise customers. Nokia will handle the private wireless side with its 5G Cloud RAN, while IBM will provide expertise in automation, AI and hybrid cloud.
5G
1Password Unlock with Single Sign-On links accounts to third-party identity services 
Unlock with SSO is designed to help information technology teams improve their security posture while reducing daily login hassles and stress for employees. Using the service, vaults can now be unlocked with a single click via SSO, with zero-knowledge architecture and end-to-end encryption.
Privacy & Security
Distributed database provider pgEdge emerges from stealth with $9M
Companies like Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly and others have started handling compute closer to the user. For its part, pgEdge is looking to promote its distributed database as optimized for use at or near the network edge while supporting PostgreSQL, an established and increasingly popular open-source database.
Data Management
PEAK:AIO provides HPC-level performance for AI with NAS simplicity and low cost
UK startup PEAK:AIO has rewrittten some of the NFS stack and LInux RAID code to get a small 1RU server with a PCIe 5 bus sending 80GB/sec of data to a single GPU client server for AI processing.
Data Storage
Edgeless Systems Raises $5Million to Advance Confidential Computing
"Edgeless Systems is already light years ahead of anyone else building the tools to make confidential computing easily accessible for developers in the enterprise. Its Constellation platform for Kubernetes is proof of its deep technical knowledge and first-mover position.”
Edge Computing
VMware overhauls Workspace One for better performance
Workspace One is VMware’s endpoint-management package for delivering, managing and securing application access to any device across the a cloud or distributed on-premises enterprise. The highly-integrated suite includes device management, single sign-on, remote access control, endpoint security, analytics, automation and virtualization.
Security
Akamai releases new threat hunting tool backed by Guardicore capabilities
Akamai Hunt combines the company’s historic DNS, WAF, and DDoS data with Guardicore’s segmentation and telemetry to detect and eliminate evasive threats.
Security
Kubernetes traffic replication startup Speedscale raises $9M
Although relatively unheard of, Speedscale claims to be a leading player in the nascent “production traffic replication” business, providing tools that help Kubernetes engineers looking to stress-test their application programming interfaces with real-world scenarios.
Automation & Productivity
Salesforce Generative AI Prioritizes Trust
“A great example of this is that we have designed into EinsteinGPT a human in the loop, which means that an employee – whether that’s a seller, a marketing manager, or a customer service agent – they have final say, and you can have them make any edits on what generative AI creates as a draft before hitting send or submit,” she explained.
Artificial Intelligence
Scammers exploit interest in ChatGPT with sophisticated investment scams 
Upon accessing the link in the email, users are directed to a copycat version of ChatGPT, luring them with financial opportunities that pay up to $10,000 per month “on the unique ChatGPT platform.” The fake platform’s “chatbot” begins with a short introduction to its role in analyzing financial markets that can allow anyone to become a successful investor in global stocks.
Security
Report: AI startup Inflection in talks to raise up to $675M 
The company is reportedly developing an AI chatbot for the consumer market. It will be capable of helping users with tasks such as “making bookings and purchases.” Unlike the Bard chatbot Google is building into its search engine, Inflection’s system reportedly won’t focus on answering user questions across a broad range of topics.
Artificial Intelligence
Fortinet Compact Next-Gen Firewall Augments OT Security
Fortinet expanded its Security Fabric for OT portfolio with a new rugged next-generation firewall (NGFW), a breach detection appliance, and enhancements to its FortiPAM, FortiSIEM, FortiSOAR, and FortiGuard services to secure operational technology (OT) environments.
Security
Microsoft unveils Dynamics 365 Copilot to bring AI power to business users 
The company is adding the assistant to tools such as Dynamics 365 Sales and Viva Sales to create meeting summaries, product and pricing information, as well as insights from recorded Teams calls. Adding it to customer service tools will allow users to rapidly draft AI-powered emails and chat that can be run entirely by a virtual agent, that can pass over to a human when the AI can’t manage the chat anymore.
Automation & Productivity
LinkedIn’s flood of ‘collaborative’ articles start out with AI prompts
LinkedIn has introduced a feature called collaborative articles, which uses “AI-powered conversation starters” to start discussions between “experts” that use the platform. In an announcement post on Friday, the company says it will “match each article with relevant member experts” based on its skills graph, and invite them to add context, extra information, and advice to the stories.
Artificial Intelligence
OpenAI Launches ChatGPT & Whisper APIs, Developers Can Now Build ChatGPT into Their Apps
OpenAI states that by implementing a series of system-wide optimizations, the brand has achieved a 90% cost reduction for ChatGPT since December; and they are all set to pass on those savings to the prospective API users.
Artificial Intelligence
Touchcast Unveils ManualGPT – the First Ever Conversational Handbook that Transforms Product Manuals into Conversational Experiences
Touchcast, a leading enterprise metaverse company, announced the launch of ManualGPT, one of the world’s first GPT-powered handbooks. ManualGPT is a new tool that integrates Microsoft Azure AI capabilities, including text-to-speech, allowing organizations to take any product or service guide and make it conversational.
Automation & Productivity
Pure swings FlashBlade//E at unstructured data
Pure Storage says it has a new FlashBlade//E product optimized for capacity, designed to replace mainstream disk-based file and object stores with an acquisition price comparable to disk-based systems, and lower long-term cost of ownership, costing less than 20 cents per GB with three years’ support.
Data Storage
Stability AI’s Launches Stability For Blender; Text To 3D Image Creation, No GPU Required
Today, Stability AI, a community-driven artificial intelligence (AI) company, announced Stability for Blender, a free, easy-to-use Stable Diffusion inside Blender. Blender is professional open-source 3D computer graphics software. This new tool, allows users to generate textures, videos, and more inside Stable Diffusion.
Automation & Productivity
HPE to acquire Axis Security to deliver a unified SASE offering
The acquisition is aimed at incorporating the Axis security service edge (SSE) platform into HPE’s edge-to-cloud network security capabilities with to deliver integrated networking and security solutions as-a-service
Security
Fingerprint Partners with Spec to Provide Real-Time User Insights that Reduce Fraud and Deliver Frictionless Digital Experiences
“Accurate device identification is getting increasingly harder – cookies, local storage, and IP address are no longer sufficient to recognize returning visitors. Fingerprint’s device identification platform solves this by identifying visitors across multiple touchpoints with extremely high accuracy,”
Privacy & Security
New Flaws in TPM 2.0 Library Pose Threat to Billions of IoT and Enterprise Devices
Large tech vendors, organizations using enterprise computers, servers, IoT devices, and embedded systems that include a TPM can be impacted by the flaws, Quarkslab noted, adding they "could affect billions of devices."
Security
Drift’s GPT Integration can Respond to Complex Queries & Provide On-Job-Training
Drift, the Conversation Cloud Company, introduced a generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) integration using OpenAI’s API, available exclusively to select Drift customers. The sales representatives will receive artificial intelligence (AI) suggested replies in live chat in the initial integration. This will be a huge step in advancing AI and redefining B2B rules for marketers and sellers alike.
Automation & Productivity
Explorance Launches General Availability of Explorance BlueML and Free Personalized Feedback Analytics Report to Help Human Resource and Academic Leaders Build a More Robust and Agile Workforce
“With BlueML, organizations can now bring to light the uncommon connections, and deep insights, about employees or students, that are otherwise, not easily accessible. With automated and intelligent analysis, the time and effort it takes to unlock data-driven decisions is significantly reduced, empowering organizations to act by evidence and not by assumption.”
Data & Analytics
DataVisor’s Innovation in Advanced Decision Flow Capabilities is a Major Step Toward More Effective Real-Time Fraud Management
At a peak traffic rate of over 15,000 QPS, Decision Flow boasts a hyper-low end-to-end detection latency of under 100ms while supporting sophisticated velocity features, rules, and machine learning model computation.
Privacy & Security
Rocket Software Enhances its Rocket Modernization Suite for IBM i to Empower Organizations to Extend and Enhance Value of IT Investments
Rocket Modernization Suite for IBM i advances an organization’s business environment, tracks data and business logic engagement, automates processes, enables agile work methodologies like DevOps, and empowers organizations to deliver strong ROI across all IBM i projects.
IT Management
Tech Mahindra Join Forces with Red Hat to Deliver 5G Core on Hybrid and Multi Cloud Leveraging netOps.ai
This partnership will deliver customized solutions to help telcos move critical 5G and multi-access edge computing (MEC) workloads to hybrid cloud using Red Hat OpenShift Service on AWS and Tech Mahindra’s hyper-automation platform netOps.ai.
5G
Brave adds AI-powered Summarizer tool to its search
Summarizer is a bit like Google's featured snippets descriptions on a results page, which lists the source of the information. Google tweaked this feature last year to avoid summaries based on bogus information. But, according to Brave, while the Summarizer uses LLMs, it's not prone to the odd musings of other AI chatbots.
Automation & Productivity
IBM and Cohesity partner to launch new data protection offering 
Storage Defender will allow companies to create backups of their data and recover it after events such ransomware attacks. The platform can recover records that usually take hours or days to restore in a few minutes, IBM and Cohesity say. It’s set to include artificial intelligence features and will work with multiple types of data storage environments.
Data Protection
Attio raises $23.5M for its customer relationship management platform
“We’ve been working intensely on building the key features that form the foundation of CRM. However, we’re not taking just a checkbox approach. Instead, we’re taking every aspect of CRM, piece by piece, and making it an incredible experience.”
Automation & Productivity
Akamai acquires Kubernetes data storage startup Ondat 
Administrators regularly adjust how much storage capacity is assigned to a Kubernetes application based on the amount of data it’s holding. Ondat automates the process to a large degree, which saves time. Its platform also encrypts applications’ information and compresses it to save storage capacity.
Data Storage
How SlashNext is using generative AI to shut down ChatGPT phishing attacks 
Email security provider SlashNext is looking to fight AI with AI. BEC Generative AI, its new patent-pending solution, is designed to help identify and block scam messages generated by ChatGPT and other AI models.
Privacy & Security
3D asset visualization and management platform startup Hexa raises $20.5M 
The company claims that product pages will increasingly use 3D representations, replacing traditional 2D pictures and thumbnails. Hexa’s 3D tools guide brands and retailers as they create, manage, distribute and analyze 3D projects.
Emerging Tech
Informatica adds data integration to its budding line of free services
Informatica Cloud Data Integration-Free allows users to process up to 20 million rows for ETL or use 10 processing hours per month, whichever comes first, at no charge. CDI-PayGo includes some additional features and no limit on the number of rows processed or hours of usage
Data & Analytics
The First Web3 Powered City Map of Denver
One can expect geo-located XR, immersive experiences, NFTs in gamified spaces, and personal mapping. With blockchain(s) as its backbone, digital art and pure utility can merge seamlessly, lifting local businesses, empowering local curators, and allowing creators to build with the tools they deserve.
Web3
New EX-22 Tool Empowers Hackers with Stealthy Ransomware Attacks on Enterprises
Some of the notable features include establishing a reverse shell with elevated privileges, uploading and downloading files, logging keystrokes, launching ransomware to encrypt files, and starting a live VNC (Virtual Network Computing) session for real-time access.
Security
Typeface – The Generative AI App Led by Former Adobe CTO that is Bringing Brand-Personalized Content Faster & Easier
Typeface’s Affinity AI self-learns and customizes creations to each enterprise’s voice and audiences across all digital mediums and use cases, including rapid ideation, cross-team collaboration, and personalized product campaigns.
Automation & Productivity
Nvidia plans to make its system that powers ChatGPT available in the cloud
Nvidia sells GPU-based compute systems called DGX Pods. The same processors, networking, and Nvidia’s comprehensive AI Enterprise software stack from the Pods will be available through your browser, rather than sinking six or seven figures into hardware for your data center
Cloud
Breaking Language Barriers: Voicero, the Real-Time AI Translation Platform that Ensures Your Ideas are Heard
Voicero allows real-time voice translation, meaning a professional can speak Korean and others can hear it in the language of preference.
Automation & Productivity
News Corp reveals hackers had access to internal network for two years 
“The best approach is to protect the data itself rather than the borders around it, an approach known as data-centric protection and which includes methods such as tokenization,” Shadabi explained. “Tokenization replaces sensitive information with benign but meaningless tokens, so even if hackers get to your data, it is unintelligible and therefore worthless to them.”
Security
Cisco simplifies cloud-management licensing
Under Essentials, Cisco provides full lifecycle operations with proactive support and service for use cases including managing server profiles/policies, managing firmware updates, and proactive health monitoring and security advisories,
Cloud
Scale adds easy-bake Edge HCI install
Scale Computing has introduced a zero (technical) touch provisioning (ZTP) feature that it says means edge computing sites need a body to unbox the kit, hook it up to power and the Internet and then installation is automatic with no need for any technical bods on site.
Edge Computing
HP Enterprise buys Athonet for its 5G portfolio
Founded in 2005, Athonet says its goal is to speed and simplify private 5G deployments. Among other packages, it offers CBRS and 5G starter kits that include Athonet mobile packet core, SIM cards, a choice of radio and other components needed to set up private cellular networks quickly.
Network Management
VERSES Announces Next-Generation AI A “General Intelligent Agent”
With unique features like automating data organization, predictive reasoning, and the ability to learn over time, GIA is poised to become the first intelligent all-in-one solution for anyone seeking a smarter way to organize, manage, and automate their personal and professional activities.
Automation & Productivity
Scale adds easy-bake Edge HCI install
Scale Computing has introduced a zero (technical) touch provisioning (ZTP) feature that it says means edge computing sites need a body to unbox the kit, hook it up to power and the Internet and then installation is automatic with no need for any technical bods on site.
Edge Computing
Alpha Metaverse Technologies Announces AI Tool for Metaverse Content Production
This new AI tool will enable companies to produce 3D assets at a fraction of the cost and time, making it easier for them to develop and innovate in their metaverse experiences.”
Metaverse
Meta releases LLaMA to democratize access to large language AI models 
Large language models are a type of deep learning algorithm that can recognize, summarize, translate, predict and generate text and other content based on knowledge gained from massive datasets. Deep learning uses artificial neural networks to attempt to simulate the behavior of the human brain.
Artificial Intelligence
Google Teams Up with Ecosystem Partners to Enhance Security of SoC Processors
The tech giant said the goal is to bolster the security of software running on these secondary processors (i.e., firmware) and make it harder to exploit vulnerabilities over the air to achieve remote code execution within the Wi-Fi SoC or the cellular baseband.
Security
VAST Data rolling out biggest ever software release
VAST stores its data in its scale-out and global namespace Element Store, a single tier of QLC SSDs accessed across an NVMe fabric by stateless controllers which can see all the drives and refer to metadata held in Optane storage class memory, but now SLC-class fast SSD equivalents.
Data Storage
Radisys Introduces Programmable Media Analytics to Monetize 5G & Edge Cloud Applications
Off-the-shelf models including people and object counting, object and sound detection and classification, and biometric authentication. Engage Media Analytics also supports model customization and new model creation.Data & Analytics
SF-86 and other Sensitive Data Exposed in U.S. Military Email Spill
The U.S. Department of Defense discovered over the weekend that one of their servers was sharing U.S. military emails out on the open internet for the past two weeks, according to TechCrunch. A missing password was the culprit for the server hosting the Microsoft Azure government cloud used for DoD customers.
Security
ALTR Launches Open-Source Data Governance Integration Initiative
Non-proprietary integrations enable seamless data governance, with access control and security spanning from database to data catalog through ELT to cloud data platforms. Complexity is removed for customers by allowing generally-available software to connect to generally-available software via plug-and-play.
Data Governance
Wochit Launches a Free, Prompt-to-Video, AI-Powered Video Generator, Enabling the Instant Creation of Professional Looking, Editable Videos
The solution leverages AI capabilities made available by ChatGPT and allows users to generate professional-looking videos from a simple text description. The Wizard takes in the prompt and puts together a script, scenes, footage, graphics, music, and effects, outputting a video that can either be downloaded as is or further edited and tweaked using Wochit’s Frame online video editor.
Artificial Intelligence
Edgio adds advanced DDoS protection with other WAAP enhancements
Designed to reduce severe damages from sophisticated DDoS attacks, Edgio’s scrubbing solution impersonates the customer’s network by routing the customer’s IP traffic through its scrubbing point-of-presence (PoP) and only sending the “clean” traffic back to the customer’s infrastructure,
Security
End-Of-Life Planning: Will.com To Use Next-Generation AI-Based Technology to Fulfill Final Wishes
The platform helps users capture all aspects of their digital presence, including their final wishes, personal messages, important documents, and online account access, all of which are securely stored and only accessible by chosen executors and beneficiaries after the user’s death.
Artificial Intelligence
NTT unveils prototype chip that could boost internet speeds to 2 terabytes per second 
The company said its extremely compact new baseband amplifier integrated circuit module boasts an ultra-broadband performance of 100 gigahertz and is designed to be used with future all-photonics network technologies, including the nascent Innovative Optical and Wireless Network infrastructure and 6G networks
Network Management
Eclipse To Launch First Solana Virtual Machine Layer 2 With Polygon
Eclipse is a customizable Layer 2 (rollup) provider that allows blockchain infrastructure developers to choose between different virtual machines, including the Sealevel virtual machine. Its rollup technology enables developers to run a new blockchain while leveraging the security of existing networks such as Polygon.
Blockchain
HPe acquires Athonet for private wireless network capabilities
Although Athonet and Celona are both private 5G, or P5G, providers, they do go to market differently. Celona’s “5G in a box” is a full, turnkey solution that deploys and is managed like enterprise Wi-Fi, whereas Athonet’s strength is the mobile core and was designed for carriers and requires some integration work with orchestration tool and other components.
5G
Uniphore buys Red Box to Extend Its Conversational AI Platform
These capabilities are most often used in compliance-centric industries, such as financial services and healthcare. And since Red Box can be used both in real-time and post-call audio and metadata streams, companies are now enabled to capture and monitor conversations for things that might violate organizational or industry rules or policies.
Artificial Intelligence
Coinbase introduces Base, a developer-friendly Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain
Layer 2 blockchains are often used to increase the scalability of other blockchains that can slow down or become overwhelmed with a large number of transactions caused by an increasing number of decentralized apps, or dapps.
Blockchain
Dream by WOMBO: The First Mobile App to Allow AI Image Editing through Text
“We’ve been absolutely humbled by the 60 million downloads and 1.5 billion artworks made with Dream. The scale is crazy for me to think about! We’re blown away by how many people use Dream every day and how much they depend on it. We love our users and want to keep pushing the limits of what AI can do for them.”
Automation & Productivity
Landing AI Democratizes the Creation of AI for All Company Sizes and More Industries
LandingLens is an industry-first data-centric AI computer vision software platform. By focusing on improving data for AI models, LandingLens works even if companies have limited data upon which to train the AI model, which is true for most companies. LandingLens’ step-by-step user interface vastly simplifies the training and deploying of AI models, making the technology accessible to individual subject matter experts within companies.
Artificial Intelligence
Cloud compliance automation platform raises $7.5M to address growing cloud risk
Providers like Scrut Automation, which yesterday announced $7.5 million in funding, are aiming to enable CISOs to monitor their security posture in the cloud through automation. This allows them to maintain compliance with SOC 2, ISO 27001 and the GDPR without being overwhelmed by manual administrative tasks.
Cloud
Deci Launches New Version of Its Deep Learning Platform Supporting Generative AI Model Optimization
The platform is powered by Deci’s proprietary AutoNAC (Automated Neural Architecture Construction) engine, based on Neural Architecture Search (NAS) Technology, that generates best-in-class deep learning model architectures for any task in any environment. The platform enables AI teams to accelerate inference performance by up to 10X, reduce inference costs by 5X, shorten development time by 80%, and lower development costs by 30%.
Artificial Intelligence
Amberflo on SaaS storage: Subscription billing is an aberration
If a SaaS supplier were to write the code for their own metering and billing system they have to be aware that scalability could be a real problem. This is a real-time application and can have a very high event record ingest rate. Gupta said: “AWS has its own billing service. Three years back it was running at 3 billion events per second.” Amberflo itself is processing tens of billions of meter events per day.
Cloud
How to stop data leaks in Slack and SaaS apps, Metomic raises $20M 
Metomic’s solution uses AI to identify data leakage risks in real time with no-code workflows that security teams can use to automate data policies across SaaS applications like Google Apps, Slack, Jira and Zendesk.
Security
AWS boosts its infrastructure for memory-intensive tasks
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced availability of its new Amazon EC2 M7g and R7g instances, the latest generation of instances for memory-intensive applications and running Amazons custom Arm processor, known as Graviton3.
Automation & Productivity
Making AI More Accessible: AWS & Hugging Face Partner Up To Democratize Machine Learning Tools
The collaboration aims to speed up training, and effectively execute large language and vision models to create generative AI applications. The two leaders have a common vision – making the next-generation AI and machine-learning models more accessible to everyone. With this collaboration, AWS will empower developers to access high-end tools at marginal costs.
Machine Learning
iMocha and Microsoft Collaborate to Simplify Assessment of Business Language Skills With Ai-Englishpro
In conventional manual assessments, there is always an element of bias along with the challenges related to scaling. iMocha’s AI-EnglishPro has transformed the assessment process where language proficiency is crucial, by integrating tech and non-tech assessments into a single assessment.
Automation & Productivity
Google claims major breakthrough in quantum computer error correction 
According to Google Quantum AI researchers, they have discovered a way to reduce error rates in quantum computers exponentially, as the size of the system is increased, enabling them to reach “break-even point.” The company says it’s now confident it will eventually be able to achieve “commercial value” for quantum computers.
Quantum Computing
Spot Trender Announces Advanced AI Features for Data Analysis
In addition, Spot Trender can automatically scan business data and generate actionable insights. For instance, the AI can find statistically significant trends within every demographic dimension in your dataset, allowing you to pull out useful trends within seconds, not days.
Data & Analytics
DataStax clones decentralized blockchains into centralized AstraDB database
DataStax says its new service allows advanced querying and real-time analytics to be run at sub-second speeds, enabling developers to build blockchain-based functionalities into their applications. For example, developers can build applications with the capability to analyze any transaction from the entire blockchain history, including crypto or NFTs, for instant, accurate insights.
Blockchain
Kyndi Introduces Kyndi Clarity – a Natural Language-powered Self-service Solution That Enables Customers and Employees to Find the Right Answers in Just One Click
Kyndi Clarity maximizes the relevancy and speed of finding trustworthy answers in unstructured, text-based data to accelerate time-to-issue resolution. With the ability to deliver highly relevant information to customers and agents regardless of how they phrase their questions, the solution enables effective, end-user self-service while reducing the burden and cost for support teams.
Automation & Productivity
Lazarus Group Using New WinorDLL64 Backdoor to Exfiltrate Sensitive Data
The payload, dubbed WinorDLL64 by ESET, is a fully-featured implant that can exfiltrate, overwrite, and delete files; execute PowerShell commands; and obtain comprehensive information about the underlying machine.
Security
Interview: Here’s how AWS aims to build new bridges for telcos into the cloud-native world 
The cloud giant Tuesday announced general availability of AWS Telco Network Builder, a fully managed service to help telcos scale up and run networks on the AWS cloud. The company also unveiled the “Integrated Private Wireless on AWS” program, a new service that leverages AWS in building and managing private wireless networks.
Cloud
New Cultural Analytics Platform Delivers Leadership, Safety, Sustainability and Performance Diagnostics at Scale
The initial release includes three products: 1) Integral Culture Assessment, 2) Incident and Injury-Free (IIF) Safety Perception Assessment, and 3) High-Performance Projects Assessment. Cultural assessment tools for Sustainability and Fleet Safety are in development for launch later this year.
Data & Analytics
Microsoft brings Bing’s AI chatbot to mobile devices and adds voice support 
According to Microsoft, mobile users can have Bing display three versions of the same chatbot-generated answer. Bing can display the chatbot’s default answer, a simplified version or a set of bullet points. It supports more than 100 languages and also provides the option to translate between them.
Artificial Intelligence
Security warning: Beep malware can evade detection
While Beep is in its early stage of development and still lacks some essential malware attack capabilities, Minerva’s report shows that it can enable threat actors to download and inject additional payloads on infected systems using three major components: a dropper, an injector and a payload.
Security
Yellow.ai tackles conversational AI pain points with new design tool
With the launch of its Dynamic Conversation Designer, Yellow.AI looks to improve the design process for chat and voice conversational workflows using generative AI. Integrated within the Yellow.ai conversational AI platform, this conversation design tool allows teams to design chatbot conversations without writing any code, saving significant development time and effort.
Artificial Intelligence
QR code generator My QR Code leaks users’ login data and addresses
The leak was caused by misconfiguration, making the server publicly accessible to the public without any security authentication or password. What’s worse, it was also noted that the data was being actively updated with new records each day, indicating that the leak was still ongoing.
Data Privacy
Official: Twitter will now charge for SMS two-factor authentication
Now, it’s official: You have to pay for the privilege of using Twitter’s worst form of authentication. In fact, if you don’t start paying for Twitter Blue ($8 a month on Android; $11 a month on iOS) or switch your account to use a far more reliable authenticator app or physical security key, Twitter will simply turn off your 2FA after March 20th.
Security
Google’s long-awaited Tasks and Reminders consolidation starts in March
Google will automatically migrate reminders created in the Google Assistant and Calendar apps to Google Tasks in May, though users can voluntarily do so starting in March.
Automation & Productivity
New Exploratory Data Tool Identifies Anomalies in Multivariate Datasets
The tool uses an algorithm to automate the process of finding specific segments in large datasets where metrics underperform or exhibit anomalous behaviors while avoiding noise and false positives.
Data & Analytics
Microsoft reportedly developing ad features for Bing’s search chatbot 
According to ad industry executives cited by Reuters, the embedded promotions in Bing’s chatbot could take the form of paid links below search query answers. Furthermore, Microsoft is said to be testing a second ad format for “advertisers in specific industries.” It would reportedly enable brands to target users with offers when they search for a product or service.
MarketingTech
Domino Data Lab Announces Domino Code Assist to Shrink the Data Science Talent Gap
Domino says DCA employs a code-first strategy that will enable CDOs and CDAOs to involve more analytics professionals in data science and machine learning projects by improving efficiency and providing a platform for learning valuable coding skills.
Data & Analytics
CommandK raises $3M to assist companies achieve higher security standards 
CommandK scans everyday tools to discover any sensitive data shared in plaintext, with the ability to analyze and remediate any leaked sensitive data. On the compliance side, the platform checks sensitive data against various regulatory and compliance standards, including Service Organization Control 2, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Security
City of Oakland declares state of emergency after ransomware attack 
The state of emergency was declared “due to the ongoing impacts of the network outages resulting from the ransomware attack” and allows the city to “expedite the procurement of equipment and materials, activate emergency workers if needed, and issue orders on an expedited basis.”
Security
SpectraLogic targets on-prem archive market
StorCycle is SpectraLogic file/object lifecycle management software that scans primary on-premises or public cloud storage and moves older, less-accessed data from primary storage tiers to less expensive ones, such as nearline disk (NAS or object), tape, or archive storage tiers in the public cloud – both AWS and Azure.
Data Storage
Alteryx Boosts Decision Intelligence with New Cloud Analytics Platform Capabilities
The enhanced platform, which now includes all access for Designer Cloud, offers an approachable easy-to-use drag-and-drop modern interface accessible to employees of all skill levels, without compromising data governance or security standards.
Data & Analytics
DataStax Adds Blockchain to Cloud NoSQL for Web3 Development
It’s especially a heavy lift for the real-time aspect. A lot of our users were running batch jobs, so the data is always out of date until you run the next job. So the real time aspect is hard to do. All the data modeling, all the management of the database–all that we’re taking care of for users.”
Blockchain
Snap passes 750M active monthly users, predicts 1B in 2-3 years 
Time spent on Snapchat’s Spotlight feature, a tab in the Snapchat app that shows short-form video content, now exceeds the time spent watching Friend Stories per Story viewer. Launched in 2020, Spotlight is often described as Snap’s TikTok competitor and the company is highly pleased with its growth.
Apps
Aryaka Adds Hyperscale PoPs to Extend SD-WAN, SASE Reach
He said the expansion will enable more optionality for consuming Aryaka’s services at packaged bandwidth tiers for the vendor’s private core network, for an optimized layer-2 and layer-3 backbone, and in incremental bandwidth speeds with “flexible mix-and-match choices.”
Network Management
Extreme adds network fabric support to its SD-WAN
New to the ExtremeCloud SD-WAN package is support for the vendor’s Fabric Connect technology, which lets customers automate discovery and configuration of fabric-enabled switches and access points. With this integration, customers can more easily extend connectivity to new sites while keeping costs low and improving security, visibility and application performance, Hull said.
Network Management
MariaDB SkySQL Wins 2023 DEVIES Award for Data Storage & Management
It is capable of scaling out a single database to hundreds of nodes with ease using Xpand, a distributed SQL database, and can deploy modern analytics on massive data sets to meet enterprise demands.
Data Management
You.com challenges Google, Microsoft with launch of ‘multimodal conversational AI’ in search
YouChat 2.0 is the first web search that combines advanced conversational AI with community-built apps, offering a unique and interactive experience with each query. With its blended large language model known as C-A-L (Chat, Apps and Links), YouChat 2.0 is able to serve up charts, images, videos, tables, graphs, text or code embedded in its responses to user queries
Artificial Intelligence
Akamai targets cloud computing’s middle ground with Connected Cloud
CDN (content delivery network) giant Akamai Technologies today announced that it will discount cloud egress pricing, add ISO, SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance, and build out enterprise-scale cloud computing sites and distributed points of presence in over 50 cities as part of a new initiative — dubbed Connected Cloud — aimed at filling a niche between the hyperscalers and edge computing.
Cloud
Veeam Backup & Recovery v12 aims at four object storage targets
Cloudian, Object First, Pure Storage and Scality are the four initial object storage targets for version 12 of Veeam Backup and Recovery, which has added the ability to back up directly to object storage on-premises.
Data Storage
EnterpriseDB Unveils Transparent Data Encryption for Postgres Security and Compliance
 “EDB’s latest innovations further demonstrate a commitment to product design with a security-first approach. By adding transparent data encryption, we’re making it even more attractive for organizations to move to Postgres as their enterprise database standard.”
Data Management
ChatGPT: One million people have joined the waitlist for Microsoft's AI-powered Bing
OpenAI's ChatGPT attracted one million users in one week and now, after announcing the 'new Bing' with ChatGPT features, Microsoft officials have highlighted their own figure: a million people signed up on the waitlist to try out the new Bing in just 48 hours
Artificial Intelligence
Census Enrichment Integrates First- and Third-Party Data in the Data Warehouse
“With Census Enrichment, we’ve simplified enrichment in the data warehouse, providing seamless access to third-party customer information provided by Apollo.io and Clearbit. It’s the easiest way to understand your customers, and you can use the enriched data for any SaaS solution – enrich once and use anywhere.”
Data & Analytics
Blockchain cybersecurity firm Ironblocks raises $7M 
“We believe that smart contract security is a given right for all crypto traders and protocols, and we aim to ensure the safety of data and crypto assets in the best way to bring about the broad adoption in DeFi and Web3,”
Blockchain
Expert.ai Announces Integration of GPT into Its Platform
Our platform is designed for the real-world needs of enterprises to ensure accuracy, governance, and return on investment. It delivers an end-to-end, integrated, and intuitive capability to take language in any form and build AI-powered solutions in any process or application.
Artificial Intelligence
Managed detection and response startup Deepwatch raises $180M 
Its MDR Essentials allows organizations to deploy a high-performance, automated security operations center in less than one hour. The service integrates with the existing environment without requiring additional hardware or consulting.
Security
Rakuten Symphony makes distributed stateful cloud-native 5G edge play
Seethala said stateful edge sites were needed because, if data is not filtered, processed and acted on closest to where it is generated, then it results in a poor user experience, increased cost from transferring data over the network, and poor end-to-end performance. The compute needs to be located where the data is generated.
Edge Computing
Now ChatGPT is coming to your web browser too 
Opera was quick to jump onto Web3 with its Opera Crypto Browser and now apparently plans to do the same with generative AI. Opera plans to roll out the generative AI features in the sidebar of the browser.
Artificial Intelligence
IBM Acquires StepZen to Help Enterprises Get More Business Value from Their Data and APIs
GraphQL has rapidly become a go-to query language for companies to interact with their data and is emerging as a new standard for APIs, layering upon the investments in REST APIs and data systems.
Data & Analytics
Cisco Viptela SD-WAN Gains SASE Deploy Support
Gueland explained that the SASE framework’s ability to securely connect users to applications provides it with two primary use cases: secure private access and secure internet access. Supporting both the Viptela and Meraki SD-WAN platforms makes SASE management easier by extending the benefits of both use cases
Network Management
DataStax Launches New Cloud Service to Spur Rapid Web3 Innovation
With Astra Block, developers can stream enhanced data from the industry’s dominant blockchain in a matter of minutes, then scale Web3 experiences virtually infinitely on Astra DB -- the serverless cloud database built on the open source Apache Cassandra database
Web3
NetApp Announces New Line of Low-Cost, Capacity Flash Storage for the Modern Data Center
This family of capacity flash arrays are also offered with one of the industry’s most comprehensive software suites, ONTAP One, an all-in-one license that includes all available NetApp software.
Data Storage
Esri Releases New App to Easily View and Analyze Global Land-Cover Changes
The app is easy to access and leverages the same geographic information system (GIS) technology behind the land-cover map. The app, map, and source Sentinel-2 imagery are all part of the company's ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.
Data & Analytics
The World’s First GPT-3 Powered Native iOS Keyboard is Here
ParagraphAI, a leading provider of GPT-3 powered writing solutions,  announced that its iOS keyboard extension is out of stealth mode and ready for consumer use. The ParagraphAI keyboard allows its users – both free and premium – to instantly draft original messages or develop replies based on previous messages.
Automation & Productivity
Google debuts AI-powered Bard chatbot for conversational search 
Bard features a chatbot interface similar to OpenAI LLC’s ChatGPT service. When a user enters a search query, Bard doesn’t return a list of webpage links but rather a detailed natural language answer. The chatbot can process input of varying complexity, including advanced questions such as requests to explain recent scientific discoveries in a simplified form.
Automation & Productivity
Armo Integrates ChatGPT for Cloud-Native Security
The integration allows users to create custom controls without needing to understand how to use OPA or the Rego language. “All they need to do is to write in their own words what they want to check, and ChatGPT and Armo will return the exact control written in Rego, with the description and suggested remediation,”
Security
Turn up the Volumez: Storage orchestrating startup exits stealth
The Volumez engine provisions the data path to local on-premises or raw public cloud storage services, such as Amazon EC2 Instance Store, Google Compute Local SSDs, and Azure Ephemeral OS Disks. Volumez claims its technology makes ultra-high performance data services composable, scalable, and universal across public and private clouds.
Data Storage
NetApp pushes ONTAP into Google’s cloud
Google Cloud VMware Engine can use the fully managed Cloud Volumes Service as a datastore, enabling on-premises VMs, using ONTAP as an external datastore, to be moved to GCP (or AWS or Azure) and get the same data management and performance facilities.
Cloud
Microsoft Outlook and Teams suffer another global outage
“Users primarily located in the North American region attempting to access Outlook.com may be unable to send, receive, or search email,” Microsoft said in a post on its service status page. “Additional functionality such as the calendar consumed by other services such as Microsoft Teams would also be affected.”
Automation & Productivity
Nix management startup flox raises $16.5M, launches open-source platform
Nix is a cross-platform package manager that employs a functional deployment model where software is installed in unique directories. The new flox open-source platform provides convenience, collaboration and control throughout the systems development life cycle, according to the company.
DevOps
This notorious ransomware has now found a new target 
The Linux variant of Clop ransomware has been uncovered and detailed by cybersecurity researchers at SentinelOne, who say it's active in the wild. However, they also suggest a flawed decryption mechanism means that, for now, the Clop Linux variant is still in the experimental stages of development.
Security
NetApp announces new portfolio of storage programs and flash storage for data centers 
The service is said to evolve the storage lifecycle by allowing organizations to avoid complex, costly and time-consuming refresh cycles. By enabling ongoing, nondisruptive hardware upgrades, NetApp Advance ensures efficient, secure and sustainable storage with new guarantees to meet the needs of organizations.
Data Storage
Cequence Security Enhances API Security Testing Capabilities
For scenarios where no API specifications exist, security teams can leverage real-time API traffic analysis to baseline API specifications based on runtime traffic, eliminating the need to search for owners of legacy APIs or create specifications from scratch.
DevOps
Microsoft Announces Latest AI-powered Capabilities in Viva Sales
Viva Sales would bring in the power of OpenAI Service and GPT to provide an enriched access to sales data and insights, hosted on Azure and Microsoft Cloud. From reminding sales people about meetings and calls to sending personalized email and chat messages, Viva Sales prowess is well-defined in the context of hyperautomation for sales intelligence.
Automation & Productivity
Ctrl+e Unveils Building Intelligence and Energy Management Platform
By providing real-time visibility and control over a building’s devices and energy consumption, the platform empowers building owners to effortlessly adapt and optimize energy usage, reduce building expenses, eliminate carbon emissions and unlock meaningful insights into any building’s health and safety.
Sustainability
Microsoft’s new Teams Premium tier integrates with OpenAI's GPT-3.5
Teams Premium, a new tier of Microsoft Teams now generally available to customers, uses the new version of GPT — the OpenAI artificial intelligence engine and database on which ChatGPT is based — to underpin the AI capabilities that will be available to users of the new version of the collaboration application
Automation & Productivity
Tuxera SMB Server Offers Novel Scale-out Feature Compatible With Linux
Where many enterprise storage systems rely on a single SMB server for operations, scale-out allows for a multi-SMB service that can route to multiple file cluster nodes and storage systems, providing faster throughput at low CPU and memory usage.
Data Storage
Red Hat Enterprise Linux arrives in Oracle’s cloud
RHEL will be available on Oracle’s VMs, ranging in size from 1 to 80 CPU cores and from 1GB of memory up to 1024GB. Initial support will be limited to the newer OCI virtual machine shapes, which use AMD, Intel and Arm processors.
Cloud
Rambus Delivers 6400 MT/s DDR5 Registering Clock Driver to Advance Server Memory Performance
 “We were first in the industry to 5600 MT/s, and now we have raised the bar with our Gen3 DDR5 RCD capable of 6400 MT/s to support a new generation of RDIMMs for server main memory.”
Data Management
OneSpan acquires blockchain provider ProvenDB to enhance digital agreement security 
ProvenDB uses blockchain technology, which adds a layer of security to transactions by mirroring them across multiple copies of ledgers that are all protected by cryptographic hashes and designed to be immutable after data is added. Once information is added to ProvenDB, digital signatures are generated and registered and its secure storage provides proof of document integrity, ownership and creation time.
Blockchain
Zillow’s New Ai-Powered Natural-Language Search Is a First in Real Estate
Now home shoppers can enter phrases like “$700K homes in Charlotte with a backyard” or “open house near me with four bedrooms” directly into the Zillow search bar, rather than starting with a location and having to filter their way to the homes they want. They can also save their searches and have Zillow notify them when new qualifying listings come online.
Automation & Productivity
BuzzFeed’s stock price soars as company announces AI content push 
Peretti explained that OpenAI’s starring role at the company will at first be mostly “enhancing the quiz experience, informing our brainstorming, and personalizing our content for our audience.” He added that down the line, he expects AI to play a much bigger role in writing content, although he said humans will always be the company’s main source of content.
Artificial Intelligence
Encord Launches Open Source Active Learning Toolkit to Speed Up Real-World Applications of Computer Vision
“As many ML engineers know, the performance of all models depends on the quality of their training data. Encord Active is first and foremost a framework built to help machine learning engineers understand and improve their data quality iteratively and effectively, ”
Machine Learning
Unbabel introduces new Self-Service and Quality Intelligence options to enable greater accessibility to LangOps
The free 14-day trial solution gives anyone access to Unbabel’s full capabilities, and enables them to quickly and easily set up translation pipelines using AI combined with human editors, request translations, and integrate with Zendesk within 5 minutes. Unbabel also announced free public access to its Quality Intelligence solution enabling anyone to receive a demo using Unbabel’s industry-leading quality estimation technology.
Artificial Intelligence
AWS Announces General Availability of Amazon OpenSearch Serverless
To get started with OpenSearch Serverless, customers need to create a collection. Collections are a logical grouping of indexed data that works together to support a workload, while the physical resources are automatically managed in the backend. Customers don’t have to declare how much compute or storage is needed, or monitor the system to make sure it’s running well.
Automation & Productivity
One AI Powers 50,000 Companies and Developers with Advanced Language AI Capabilities
One AI curates and trains state-of-the-art NLP building blocks that can be enhanced with customer data to meet their unique business needs. The platform makes it easy to stack and access these building blocks via API, so users can quickly and easily create custom language processing solutions, with support for text, audio and video inputs.
Artificial Intelligence
Fiverr Launches New Categories as Searches for AI-related Services Increased over 1400%
Searches for AI-related services have increased over 1400% in the last six months on the platform. Business leaders are not only eager to integrate AI into their operations, sales and marketing campaigns, but are also searching for the people who are skilled using these new tools.
Automation & Productivity
Dell confirms it has acquired Cloudify to boost its cloud orchestration capabilities
Cloudify’s tools cater to companies that have to juggle multiple infrastructure management platforms. For instance, a company might use VMware Inc.’s vSphere virtualization platform to manage its on-premises services, along with Kubernetes in support of its public cloud deployments.
Cloud
NSA and CISA alert: This phishing scam could give hackers control of your PC 
The warning comes following the discovery of an email phishing campaign that tricks victims into downloading legitimate remote monitoring and management (RMM) software, which allows attackers to gain access to bank accounts.
Security
Hacker finds copy of TSA no-fly list on exposed cloud storage 
A copy of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s “no-fly list” has been found by a Swiss hacker exposed on the open internet in yet another case of misconfigured cloud storage.
Security
KoreAI updates make it easier to build low-code chatbots with ChatGPT’s large language model 
The addition of support for zero-shot and few-shot models to Kore.AI’s platform means that companies can now leverage the power of LLMs and generative AI to create more capable chatbots than before. The LLM behind ChatGPT, for example, eliminates the requirement for finding initial training data.
Automation & Productivity
Big tech backs Google in defending internet liability protections
A week after Google filed a defense brief to the US Supreme Court, warning that altering Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) would "upend the internet," a number of corporations —including Twitter, Meta and Microsoft, have filed their own legal briefs — supporting Google’s argument that narrowing the statute could have dire consequences for digital publishers.
Tech for Good
ThriveCart raises $35M in funding to help businesses build eCommerce carts and funnels
One of the challenges faced by eCommerce entrepreneurs is shopping cart abandonment. Research from Baymard Institute shows that about 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned. That means, for every 10 customers who add an item to their shopping cart, seven of them leave without completing the purchase. That’s why one tech startup is on a mission to address this problem.
Sales & Marketing
SAIC Launches New Data Science Platform Named Tenjin
As a collaborative environment, Tenjin supports full-code technical data scientists and machine learning engineers, while also enabling non-technical users to contribute and understand AI and data-driven decision-making. Tenjin offers extensibility and interoperability with its open architecture and cloud agnostic flexible deployment model.
Data & Analytics
WANdisco Launches Data Activation Platform 2.0 to Supercharge Massive Data Movement to Any Cloud
Supporting both the WANdisco Data Migrator and Edge to Cloud solutions, the updates maximize the speed and scale of on-premises and edge data transfers through precise control over migration throughput, cleanup, and prioritization, among other features.
Data Management
ClearML Releases New Reports Feature to Share Real-Time Results of ML Projects
This new feature makes it easy to create and share real-time reports within ClearML as well as connect to third-party editors such as Confluence, Monday, Notion, Colab (Jupyter), and others using embed code. A report can contain charts that auto-update continuously throughout an experiment lifecycle.
Automation & Productivity
Optable Expands Flash Node Capabilities Allowing Customers to Match and Activate With Advertisers
This expansion will allow publishers and media owners to activate audiences based on matches obtained using clean room functionality in Snowflake, without data being moved out of Snowflake.
Data & Analytics
CloudHedge is Gartner Cool Vendor in Cloud-Native Computing
“OmniDeq smartly automates multiple workflows of legacy application modernization and enhancing deployability across environments. Further, OmniDeq continuous modernization platform powered by R6Ai brings predictability & drives efficiency,”
Cloud
Chord, a tech startup led by former Glossier execs, raises $15M to expand its headless eCommerce platform
Chord’s technology stack, which combines headless commerce and data infrastructure, does not require a massive and costly team to build and operate. Chord’s infrastructure also integrates into a brand’s system and is pre-configured and instrumented for best-in-class data collection and modeling, as well as synthesized insights.
eCommerce
Pliops spreads wings with RAID supercharger
It is a key-value-based (KV) controller with built-in hardware engines for compression, encryption, RAID and other low-level storage functions. These functions are typically carried by system software, which Pliops refers to collectively as a storage engine.
Data Storage
aiOla Raises $25 Million to Interface Natural Language to AI Solutions in Traditional Manufacturing
“aiOla’s proprietary and patented natural-language interface technology is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the ‘gold rush” in AI adoption. Our technology spans any language or jargon for any process, offering an instant and lasting impact across a variety of industries and verticals.”
Artificial Intelligence
Client management startup Copilot secures $10M in funding 
Copilot’s platform is accessible through a web-based interface and a mobile app that each business can customize with its brand assets. The portal includes a messaging tool for sharing project details, as well as a built-in file storage service. The file storage service offers an electronic signature feature that makes it easier to process contracts.Automation & Productivity
Hat trick: Mailchimp hacked for the third time in one year 
Mailchimp’s latest data breach was detected on Jan. 11 when an authorized actor was found to be accessing tools used by customer-facing teams for customer support and account administration. The attack vector involved the hacker successfully targeting Mailchimp employees and contractors with a social engineering attack to gain access to select Mailchimp accounts using employee credentials compromised in the attack.
Privacy & Security
Metahood raises $3M to build a platform for trading metaverse real estate 
Web3 metaverse real estate uses nonfungible tokens, a type of crypto asset that uses blockchain technology to allow users to have provable ownership of virtual land inside of virtual worlds. The tokens themselves represent ownership of land plots inside different virtual worlds.
Metaverse
T-Mobile hacked yet again as 37 million customer records stolen
In a filing today with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission, T-Mobile said a bad actor first retrieved data through an application programming interface on or around Nov. 25. The breach wasn’t detected until Jan. 5, and the company cut off access to the API one day later.
Privacy & Security
Baker Hill Partners with FlashSpread, a BeSmartee Company, to Automate the Tax Return Spreading Process
FlashSpread streamlines the tax analysis process by converting PDF and scanned tax returns into standardized, spreaded reports with the click of a button. As a result, financial institutions and lenders can process more business loan applications with increased accuracy.
Automation & Productivity
Nextdata launches tools to transform its vision of a ‘data mesh’ into reality 
The creators are tasked with ensuring the quality and relevance of the data, and they’re responsible for sharing it with others across their organization who may want to use it. The data mesh employs a consistent, organization-wide set of definitions and governance standards to ensure consistency, while a metadata layer is used to make it searchable, so others can find what they need.
Data & Analytics
Action1 Provides Free Tool to Eliminate Organizations’ Exposure to Compromise after LastPass Breach
The company empowers IT teams with automated scripting capabilities to identify all LastPass installations installed as browser extensions, and eliminate threat actors’ chances to leverage potentially weak or reused master passwords to break into organization’s critical systems by working directly with vulnerable users.
Privacy & Security
Okta Optimizes No-Code for Identity Management
Okta’s progressive profiling lets developer teams build custom login flows to collect user data over subsequent logins. “This means users can sign up quickly and organizations can still capture first-party data without adding friction up front,” Ramji said, citing research that shows 44% of users are frustrated with long-winded login processes.
Privacy & Security
Mavenir Introduces Fixed Wireless Access Solution
This offering provides a competitive solution in a low-footprint deployment that leverages public and private cloud infrastructure. Mavenir’s FWA solution delivers high throughput, differentiated QoS control, geo-restriction, home-zoning, differentiated charging, advanced power savings, and many more features.
Network Management
Nest co-founder launches Mill, a sustainable kitchen bin that turns food scraps into chicken feed to combat food waste
To put food waste into a perspective, “if food waste was a country, it would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the United States.”

Sustainability
Got It AI launches truth checking tool to fix ChatGPT’s inaccuracies 
The startup said its tool makes it possible for enterprises to deploy ChatGPT-like experiences without the risk of it providing incorrect responses to employees or users. As a result, companies can use the tool to deploy conversational AI that leverages extensive knowledge bases, such as those used for external customer support or internal user queries.
Automation & Productivity
Meta sues AI startup Voyager Labs for allegedly creating fake accounts to scrape Facebook and Instagram users’ data
According to the filing in the District Court for the Northern District of California, Meta alleged that Voyager Labs created over 38,000 fake Facebook user accounts, that the startup later used to exploit publicly posted information from over 600,000 other users, including posts, likes, photos, and friends lists.
Data Privacy
Samsung launches new desktop gumstick SSD
All three are M.2 gumstick format drives with NVMe interfaces across a PCIe gen 4 connection and meant for OEM use. They are built with V-NAND, Samsung’s term for 3D NAND, and are mainstream desktop/notebook SSD products.
Data Storage
AuthID-Okta integration assists in eliminating passwords and preventing unauthorized access 
Verified CloudConnect complements Okta’s Workforce and Customer Identity and Access Management platforms to secure desktop and mobile devices with cryptographic FIDO2 passkeys, enrolling and securing workforce users and customers.
Security
HPE Acquires Pachyderm to Expand AI-at-Scale Capabilities with Reproducible AI
"Pachyderm’s unique reproducible AI software augments HPE’s existing AI-at-scale offerings to automate and accelerate AI and unlock greater opportunities in image, video, and text analysis, generative AI, and other emerging large-language-model needs to realize transformative outcomes.”
Artificial Intelligence
Expanded Cloudflare-Microsoft relationship helps organizations enhance zero-trust security 
The new integrations between Cloudflare and Microsoft allow customers to deploy zero-trust security tools in minutes, with no complex code changes. The integration also includes claimed industry-first features, such as Cloudflare’s Remote Browser Isolation technology.
Security
Intel Inaugurates Confidential VM, Guns for AMD
“VM isolation effectively removes the cloud service provider or other cloud tenants from the trust boundary with cryptography and hardware. It adds technological strength to compliance and sovereignty programs with little impact to the existing applications that run within the virtual machine.”
Cloud
Aptum Strengthens its Hybrid Multi-Cloud MSP Position with the Acquisition of Montreal-based CloudOps, an AWS, Google and Edge-to-Cloud SaaS Orchestrator
Aptum will enhance its Hybrid Cloud Management Portal by leveraging CloudMC’s API-driven, modular and extensible, edge orchestration platform. It will accelerate the existing development of a single pane of glass for hybrid multi-cloud workload management.
Cloud
Ava Labs teams with AWS for one-click Avalanche blockchain node deployment 
The function will include a feature to distribute validators to secure the subnet across different regions and availability zones to improve robustness. Ava Labs defines subnets as “effectively ‘blockchain-as-a-service’ secured by some portion of Avalanche validators, ” which in turn are computers that are dedicated to maintaining a blockchain’s integrity.
Blockchain
Metaplane Raises $8.4M to Ensure Organizational Trust in Data
It automatically monitors modern data stacks from warehouses to BI dashboards, identifies normal behavior (e.g. lineage, volumes, distributions, freshness), and then alerts the right people when anomalies arise.
Data & Analytics
DeepL targets AI translation for enterprises with fresh $100 million
According to the company, it uses a novel NN design to understand the nuanced interpretations of phrases and sentences and is able to convey them in a target language.
Artificial Intelligence
New Microsoft 365 Basic offers additional services at a reduced price 
The new Microsoft 365 Basic will be available starting Jan. 30 for $1.99 per month or $19.99 per year and replaces a previous 100-gigabyte OneDrive storage subscription with additional features. The tier offers 100GB of storage, web and mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneDrive and other apps, ad-free Outlook web and mobile access, and Microsoft technical support.
Automation & Productivity
Experts Detail Chromium Browser Security Flaw Putting Confidential Data at Risk
 "Specifically, the browser did not properly check if the symlink was pointing to a location that was not intended to be accessible, which allowed for the theft of sensitive files."
Privacy & Security
Supermicro storage servers get a boost from Sapphire Rapids
In addition to the processor, every major sub-system has been dramatically upgraded w/ up to 2X improvement in memory performance with DDR5, 2X better I/O bandwidth w/ 80 lanes of PCIe Gen 5  I/O that will support higher performance accelerator cards, and 400 Gbps networking and improved manageability and security.”
Data Storage
Cisco warns customers of critical vulnerabilities in small business routers 
The vulnerabilities have been found in Cisco Small Business RV016, RV042, RV042G and RV082 routers. Using the access, an attacker can bypass authentication or execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system of an affected device.
Security
Observability platform Chronosphere raises additional $115M in Series C funding at a $1.6 billion valuation
In fact, customers that use Chronosphere’s cloud native observability platform, which enables customers to transform their data based on the need, context, and utility to optimize costs, improve user experience, and solve problems faster. The average customer optimizes their data set by 48% for significant additional cost savings.
Cloud
Microsoft unveils VALL-E, a text-to-speech AI that can mimic a voice from seconds of audio 
The company said its tool, VALL-E, can keep the emotional tone of the speaker for the rest of the message while also simulating the acoustics of the room from which it first heard the voice. Not only can it do this from a short audio sample — which is unheard-of so far — but Microsoft says no other AI model can sound as natural.
Artificial Intelligence
planetRE Announces AI Intellectual Assistant within Socialite CRM
The new feature called AI Intellectual Assistantä allows users  to generate contents on any topics, create realistic art and imagery prescribed via short natural language phrases and transform any loaded picture  using a library of AI transformations – all with full user control for automated email, text and predictive marketing campaigns.
Automation & Productivity
Seek AI raises $7.5M to build generative artificial intelligence platform for data 
Seek AI provides a cloud-based AI platform that allows business users to ask on-the-spot, or “ad hoc,” questions about data and uses AI to write new code queries to answer those questions. The platform uses generative AI like DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and GPT-3 to automate this process and provides natural language processing to understand written text.
Artificial Intelligence
Homeland Security, CISA builds AI-based cybersecurity analytics sandbox
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – in particular its Science and Technology Directorate research arm – and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) picture a multicloud collaborative sandbox that will become a training ground for government boffins to test analytic methods and technologies that rely heavily on artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques.
Security
Flare, the Layer 1 oracle network, launches with the distribution of over 4 billion tokens to millions of recipients
The airdrop is a significant milestone for Flare as developers can now start to take advantage of Flare’s EVM and native data acquisition protocols, the State Connector, and Flare Time Series Oracle. These native protocols, secured by the network, provide decentralized access to high-integrity data from other blockchains and the internet, enabling the creation of new use cases and monetization models.
Blockchain
Identity thieves exploit security flaw to steal credit reports from Experian
The Experian website ostensibly required several questions to be answered to obtain a credit report, but the identity thieves discovered that they could trick Experian into giving them access to credit reports. Obtaining access was as simple as editing the address displayed in the browser URL bar at a specific point in the identity verification process
Privacy & Security
Syntiant to Introduce Turnkey Edge AI Security Solution at CES 2023
The company will display its edge AI audio, sensor and vision processing capabilities, including
audio event detection such as glass break, person or vehicle detection for smart cameras and doorbells, as well as inferences based on sensors, which include accelerometers for tamper detection.
Security
AMD unveils exascale data-center accelerator at CES
The accelerated processing unit (APU) is a mix of 13 chiplets, including CPU cores, GPU cores, and high bandwidth memory (HBM). Tallied together, AMD's Instinct MI300 accelerator comes in at 146 billion transistors.Automation & Productivity
Meta rolls out a new ad delivery system in response to discrimination 
“After the ad has been shown to a large enough group of people, the VRS measures aggregate demographic distribution of those who have seen the ad to understand how that audience compares with the demographic distribution of the eligible target audience selected by the advertiser,"
AI Ethics
Conversational AI startup NLX raises $4.6M to fuel expansion and product development 
NLX says it enables brands to create personalized voice, chat and multimodal conversations in one place through an end-to-end no-code platform. The platform provides a one-stop shop for building, managing and analyzing all self-service conversions
Automation & Productivity
CatchProbe receives $1M in funding from Applied Value Group to eliminate misinformation in cyber intelligence
Founded in 2017 by Turkish engineer and entrepreneur Batuhan Tosun, CatchProbe provides actionable web intelligence, OSINT, deception systems, threat intelligence, and digital crime analytics solutions and products through the world’s first AI-Driven SaaS-based centralized and autonomous intelligence platform.
Security
Microsoft looking at OpenAI’s GPT for Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint
Microsoft has reportedly been using OpenAI’s GPT technology to improve Outlook search results so users can find what they’re looking for without having to search using keywords in emails. Microsoft is also said to have looked at how these AI models could suggest replies to emails or recommend document changes to improve Word users’ writing. It’s not clear if Microsoft plans to launch these features, or if it’s just experimentation for now.
Automation & Productivity
AAG launches MetaOne Wallet to simplify and streamline the Web3 user experience
MetaOne will also play a vital role in helping drive the mainstream use and acceptance of Web3 primitives as the AAG team rolls out support for multiple blockchains in the coming weeks and the AAG Academy spearheads the efforts to raise awareness about crypto and Web3.
Web3
Malicious PyPI Packages Using Cloudflare Tunnels to Sneak Through Firewalls
The malicious code, as is increasingly the case, is concealed in the setup script (setup.py) of these libraries, meaning running a "pip install" command is enough to activate the malware deployment process.
Security
TrustRadius Enables Buyers With Comprehensive Technology Insights, Pioneering the First B2B Decisioning Platform
To continue that journey, and influenced by data collected from 2,185 technology buyers in the 2022 B2B Buying Disconnect report—virtually 100% of technology buyers expect to find user feedback, specs, pricing, and product demos without having to engage a salesperson—TrustRadius is building the ultimate B2B technology decisioning platform.
IT Management
Fathom.fm Launches New Version of Revolutionary AI-Powered Podcast Player—Now With ‘More Future’
Now Fathom has been completely re-designed to include both game-changing features (like creating custom clips and AI chapters) and daily driver features (downloads, much faster UI), so Fathom easily replaces listeners’ go-to daily podcast player.
Automation & Productivity
Twitter data breach shows APIs are a goldmine for PII and social engineering 
Insecure APIs provide cybercriminals with a direct line to access user’s personally identifiable information (PII), usernames and passwords, which are captured when a client makes a connection to a third-party service’s API
Security
Confluent acquires stream processing startup Immerok 
A stream processing application is a program that processes data in near real-time. A cybersecurity tool, for example, might process breach alerts in near real-time to speed up the detection of malware. In contrast, many traditional applications only analyze new information hours or days after it’s generated.
Data & Analytics
Rumble Launches a New Interface for Desktop and Mobile Web
Each video will also show useful statistics such as total views, number of comments, as well as likes and dislikes. The site’s search function will also now include both Channels and Videos within a single search, removing the need to search multiple times.
Automation & Productivity
Enfabrica intros hyper-distributed data moving ASIC
The initial product is a server fabric interconnect ASIC, a massively distributed IO chip. It will be part of an integrated hardware and software stack to interconnect compute, storage and networking to get applications executing in servers faster. This sounds like a Data Processing Unit (DPU) or SmartNIC device.
Automation & Productivity
CData Software Releases Certified Power BI Connector for CData Connect Cloud
Certified by Microsoft, the CData Connect Cloud Power BI Connector enables Connect Cloud users to access and analyze more of their disparate cloud data from within their Power BI dashboards.
Data & Analytics
New LogRhythm capabilities offer a force multiplier for security teams
Designed to streamline security analytics, the latest Axon updates are said to make it easier for teams to detect, investigate and report on potential threats. The additional features also reduce the burden of managing threats and the operating infrastructure.
Security
Confluent acquires Apache Flink vendor Immerok to expand data stream processing
“Streaming data has become very mainstream, and Kakfa is a platform now in almost every company,” Kreps told VentureBeat. “So, the next kind of logical problem to solve is, ‘What do you do with the streams of data and how can you make it easier and easier to build applications around?’”
Data Management
Arista floats its answer to the strain AI puts on networks
“What we are starting to see is a wave of applications based on AI, natural language, machine learning, that involve a huge ingestion of data distributed across hundreds or thousands of processors—CPUs, GPUs—all taking on that compute task, slicing it up into pieces, each processing their piece of it, and sending it back again,”
Network Management
Aporia Launches Direct Data Connectors, the Industry’s First Solution for Monitoring Large-scale Data to Ensure Safe and Trustworthy AI
Aporia, the observability platform for machine learning, announced today the launch of Direct Data Connectors (DDC). DDC is a novel technology to monitor machine learning models in production by connecting directly to training and inference datasets, without the need to duplicate any data
Data Management
Apple brings AI narration to audiobooks 
“This is an Apple Books audiobook narrated by a digital voice based on a human narrator,” reads each audiobook listing that uses Apple’s digital narration service. The listings include both free and paid books, and a report in The Verge says that although the voices sound perfectly intelligible, they also have an unmistakable “artificial edge” that lacks the same warmth as a human storyteller’s voice.
Artificial Intelligence
Arcion Introduces SAP Sybase ASE Connector for Ultimate Migration Flexibility
This new extension to the Arcion CDC platform enables high-volume database migration and real-time data replication with guaranteed delivery, 100% transactional integrity, and sub-second latency, with zero downtime
Data Management
Aviatrix, Equinix Encrypt Multi-Cloud Networking
This new service is particularly suited for large enterprises in need of management consolidation or simplification. “It allows customers who are using Aviatrix in the cloud to extend that operational model,” including connections management, visibility, and security, to all corners of an environment.
Network Management
Withings’ U-Scan lets you do urinalysis at home on a daily basis
One of the company’s most technologically advanced devices to date, U-Scan is a miniaturized health lab that hygienically sits within any toilet bowl to unlock the wealth of health information in daily urine.
MedTech
Linbit pushes DRDB-based software as SAN replacement
Savvy Linux users can provide SAN services to physical, virtual and containerized applications without buying a SAN product, by using LinBit open-source software based on DRDB, which is included in the Linux distribution.
Data Storage
Snowflake acquires Myst, looks to build time-series forecasting capabilities
Over the last year, Snowflake has worked aggressively to expand its data cloud. The Montana-based company has been focusing on building machine learning extensibility into the platform, and with this deal, it has taken a step in this direction.
Data & Analytics
SpyNote Strikes Again: Android Spyware Targeting Financial Institutions
"The reason behind this increase is that the developer of the spyware, who was previously selling it to other actors, made the source code public," ThreatFabric said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This has helped other actors [in] developing and distributing the spyware, often also targeting banking institutions."
Privacy & Security
MeetKai rolls out creator tools for conversational AI and the metaverse
Rather than shoot for the extreme high-end of 3D graphics, MeetKai is targeting experiences that anyone can access via a web browser, without the need for expensive specialized hardware,
Metaverse
D2iQ Announces Newest Release of Its Kubernetes Platform
DKP 2.4 includes feature enhancements, version upgrades, and expanded infrastructure support across the leading cloud service providers, enhancing and unifying the management of fleets of Kubernetes clusters across hybrid, multi-cloud, and multi-cluster environments.
Cloud
Job applicant data stolen in breach of burger chain Five Guys 
A subsequent investigation determined on Dec. 8 that the data accessed was in relation to its employment process. The form letter only states that the data stolen were applicants names before a field labeled “Variable Text 1.” Presumably, the field would be populated with further information relating to the affected job applicant.
Data Privacy
Progress Software acquires NoSQL data integration engine MarkLogic 
Progress said the deal will give it a unified enterprise-grade semantic data platform for deriving value from complex data. MarkLogic is a multimodal database that can be used as a document store, a native DBMS for use with the extensible markup language, a Resource Description Framework store and a search engine.
Data & Analytics
Landis+Gyr & MicroEJ Collaborate on App OS Platform for Next Gen Smart Meters
MicroEJ, the leading provider of software containers for IoT and embedded devices, and Landis+Gyr, a global leader in energy management technologies, announced their collaboration to expand the app development environment for the next generation of smart meters. This collaboration establishes the digital foundation for more efficient and sustainable energy management.
Sustainability
The Evolving Tactics of Vidar Stealer: From Phishing Emails to Social Media
When a user creates an account on an online platform, a unique account page that can be accessed by anyone is generated," AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC) disclosed in a technical analysis published late last month. "Threat actors write identifying characters and the C2 address in parts of this page."
Privacy & Security
Intel debuts new laptop processors with up to 24 cores 
The 13th Gen Intel Core processor series, which is also known as Raptor Lake, includes more than two dozen central processing units. Some are designed for high-end laptops that prioritize performance over power efficiency. Other Raptor Lake chips will ship as part of entry-level and midrange notebooks
Automation & Productivity
IRS Implements Robotic Process Automation Technology from UiPath Within Its Finance and Procurement Divisions
The IRS CFO office plans to use bots to format financial data and aims to deploy others to perform tasks such as consolidating information from multiple data sources, extracting data from documents, and retrieving data related to property and equipment vouchers.
Automation & Productivity
Uniphore Introduces Q for Sales: Real-Time EQ to Transform Remote B2B Buying Experiences
Built on Uniphore’s unique conversational AI and automation platform, Q for Sales leverages Computer Vision, Tonal Analysis, Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to capture and make recommendations on the full emotional spectrum of sales conversations to boost close rates and performance of sales teams.
Marketing Tech