A self-caring planting system controlled by AI, New Garden

A self-caring planting system controlled by AI, New Garden

New Garden  AI planting Taiwan CES 2021

Every year at CES, the global stage for innovation, you see some ‘oh wow’ breakthrough technologies. This AI-powered planting system by New Garden Co., Ltd., a Taiwanese startup is one. Meet the ULTRON Smart AI Gardener, a self-caring planting system controlled by AI.

It is a self-caring plant container with AI service supported by the UltronSMART Agriculture Platform and App. The platform supports real-time collection, process, analysis, and visualization of data from various IoT devices. Leveraging a technology it calls AIoT ecosystem.

The plant pot [conatiner] is embedded with smart lighting, a watering system, and multiple connected sensors. Which can be taken as a microcosm of a Cloud-to-edge Smart Agriculture System powered by ULTRON.

New Garden says, by cooperating with agriculture experts, the UltronSMART AI Gardener can automatically grow any plants with almost zero effort.

Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) selected the company as one of the 100 featured Taiwanese startups to showcase at CES 2021.

Check out how the AI powered smart garden works from the video below. Tell us what you think as well in the comments.

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Blue Prism brings enterprise-grade intelligent robotic process automation to Azure

Blue Prism brings enterprise-grade intelligent robotic process automation to Azure

intelligent automation Blue Prism Azure Microsoft

Blue Prism announces a new offering of intelligent automation software on Microsoft’s AppSource and Azure Marketplaces. Enhancing access for both Blue Prism and Microsoft customers.

The partnership underwrites Blue Prism’s position as an intelligent automation and robotic process automation (RPA) leader in the cloud.

Blue Prism customers already have access to a scalable, enterprise-ready platform. That combines robotic automation and smart workflows with technologies like machine learning, advanced analytics, natural language processing, process mining, and cognitive capabilities.

This offering allows Blue Prism robots greater access to Microsoft Azure Apps too. With access to over 175 accelerators for Microsoft products within Blue Prism’s Digital Exchange.

The new Bring Your Own License (BYOL) offering for Azure Marketplace and AppSource is pre-loaded with select Azure Cognitive Services. This includes Azure Text AnalyticsAzure Form Recognizer and Azure Computer Vision. All of which customers can license directly through Microsoft.

This combines with Blue Prism Digital Exchange where users can access more than 175 accelerators for Microsoft products to further enhance their enterprise automation.

This combination of Blue Prism and Azure Cognitive Services gives our customers a greater choice with AI-enabled, self-service experience that is provisioned via Microsoft Azure,” says Chief Partner Strategy Officer at Blue Prism, Linda Dotts. “Advanced intelligent automation in the cloud provides multiple advantages for our customers. Most notably the ability to instantly scale to meet enterprise demands.”

Blue Prism accelerators now exist for Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft’s Power Automate gallery, Microsoft’s Healthcare Cloud; with Form Recognizer, Text Analytics and Azure Computer Vision.

It also adds to the company’s growing portfolio of cloud offerings, which include its Blue Prism Cloud SaaS platform. Expanding a cloud strategy that not only centres on making intelligent automation more accessible. But that also aligns with customer desires for interoperability, expanded automation solutions, consumable and extensible artificial intelligence, and a seamless intelligent automation journey.

Customers can embrace the transformative potential of intelligent automation and drive impactful change within their organisations. This is now fully supported by Microsoft,” says CEO and Executive Chairman of Blue Prism, Jason Kingdon.

“We are offering customers more flexible cloud deployment options. Delivering on Blue Prism’s vision of giving customers end-to-end automation solutions that cover the broadest range of IT environments, including on-premises, hybrid, public cloud, and SaaS.

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Amazon announces launch Of New CloudFront Edge Location in Kenya

Amazon announces launch Of New CloudFront Edge Location in Kenya

Amazon Edge Location Kenya cloudfront cdn

Amazon is announcing a new Amazon Web Service (AWS) infrastructure to be located in Kenya. The new Edge Location in Kenya will be part of the Amazon CloudFront Content Delivery Network (CDN).

The Amazon Web Services Team made the announcement introducing new infrastructure in Eastern Europe and Kenya.

Amazon’s CloudFront service accelerates content delivery to users worldwide, with low latency and high transfer speeds.

The Kenya Edge Location will reduce wait time for end-users in the region when they visit a website, watch an online video, play a game or buy a product online, or download an app.

For businesses and developers that will mean less time to deploy services and solutions bringing satisfaction to clients.

We’re excited to announce the AWS infrastructure launch of new Amazon CloudFront Edge Location in Kenya.

Amazon recently launched its AWS Africa region in Cape Town, South Africa. It also hosted a virtual summit so developers and technology enthusiasts can take advantage of its Africa cloud region.

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The role of cloud-based Human Capital Management in the new world of work

The role of cloud-based Human Capital Management in the new world of work

Human Capital Management

Ronnie Toerien, Oracle Human Capital Management (HCM) Sales Development & Strategy Leader Africa, shares how cloud-based HCM plays a critical role today.

The world of work has been changing for some time. Particularly over the last decade as emerging technologies equipped enterprises with the tools to operate with greater efficiency, innovate and explore a new potential. However, unprecedented events in 2020, have accelerated this transformation at an unimaginable pace.

With mandates to work from home if possible, the disruption of traditional business models is being driven by pure necessity. Like other contemporary, cloud-based business systems, Human Capital Management (HCM) has a vital role to play in ensuring business continuity, and resilience, as we march into the new world of work.

Cloud-based Human Capital Management

First and foremost, cloud-based HCM is essential to provide continued access to and support for remote workers. And at the same time safeguard the safety and health of employees. In the case of the latter, one product example is Oracle’s Workforce Health and Safety solution. Currently free to all Oracle HCM Cloud customers. A business’s workforce is its greatest asset and should remain its greatest concern. Especially now. With employees scattered, the data collected and analytics generated, by next-generation HCM solutions become crucial to combat absenteeism, identify at-risk individual employees and formulate a succession planning strategy across an entire organization.

Crises, and the manner in which they are handled internally, can have a major impact on talent retention and acquisition. Which will have a knock-on effect for business delivery. Reassurance through empathetic communication is essential. Empowering employees with information about the company’s strategy during such periods, as well as providing open channels for two-way conversation, gives people a sense of belonging to an organization that is looking after and listening to them.

Going hand in hand is the need to help grow employees. Learning and development are often affected when enterprises embark on crisis cost-cutting. But the current climate is the perfect opportunity for HR to equip staff for new roles. Or take advantage of employee skills and use them in new ways. (Possibly gig economy opportunities) that support the organization and the individual’s own professional growth.

New world of work

It is important to note that the new world of work is under a microscope. Business success is no longer solely reflected in revenue. Public perception can have a powerful impact on customer behaviour, as it spotlights caring organisations and their opposite: those enterprises taking advantage of a situation and their staff.  Cloud-based HCM applications help make work inherently more human-focused.

The new world of work is also notable for its drastically altered business processes. Older ways of working are often proving too inflexible to overcome current challenges. Cloud HCM plays its part in breaking down rigid division, not only between departments but data sets as well. As a powerful integration tool, it can bring together information and related components that do not naturally connect. For example, analytical tools can be combined with a combination of absentee data and workforce plans to model scenarios and combat skill gaps in reality. Such is the case with newly available Oracle Analytics for Fusion HCM, which seamlessly draws together and uses cross-functional data.

Cloud HCM’s’ removal of barriers applies to people too. The future of work is about connection, and contemporary applications equip employees to work more diversely within an organization, collaborating with colleagues across the whole company ecosystem. Hierarchies and silos have given way to a flattened organizational structure of diverse networks working towards a single goal, opening the door to innovation and greater operational agility.

Culture shift

The foundation of a lasting, successful business process change is a culture shift. The latest HCM tools break down resistance to new systems, especially now as workers engage with the modules regularly from their remote work location. HCM is ushering in acceptance of a whole new way of working, with the likes of voice-commanded digital assistants proving their time-saving value, and other benefits, to users.

The new world of work is unquestionably one of co-existence between humans and autonomous systems, underpinned by the likes of machine learning and robotics. Just as traditional HR helped to streamline an employee’s entrance into an organization, maximize their contribution and bolster their employability, cloud Human Capital Management is fulfilling the same function. This, while bringing together man and machine, which is key to business success in the future of work.

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Here are five best practices for cloud security

Here are five best practices for cloud security

cloud security

Cloud security is a fundamentally new landscape for many companies. While many of the security principles remain the same as on-premises, the implementation is often very different. This overview provides a snapshot of five best practices for cloud security: identity and access control, security posture management, apps and data security, threat protection and network security.

1. Strengthen access control

Traditional security practices are not enough to defend against modern security attacks. Therefore, the modern security practice is to “assume breach”: protect as though the attacker has breached the network perimeter. Today, users work from many locations with multiple devices and apps. The only constant is user identity, which is why it is the new security control plane.

Institute multifactor authentication

Provide another layer of security by requiring two or more of the following authentication methods:
• Something you know (typically a password)
• Something you have (a trusted device that is not easily duplicated, like a phone)
• Something you are (biometrics)

Take advantage of conditional access

Master the balance between security and productivity by factoring how a resource is accessed into an access control decision. Implement automated access control decisions for accessing your cloud apps that are based on conditions.

Operate in a zerotrust model

Verify the identity of everything and anything trying to authenticate or connect before granting access.

2. Improve security posture

With more and more recommendations and security vulnerabilities identified, it is harder to triage and prioritise response. Make sure that you have the tools you need to assess your current environments and assets and identify potential security issues.

Improve your current posture

Use a tool like Secure Score in Azure Security Centre to understand and improve your security posture by implementing best practices.

Educate stakeholders

Share progress on your secure score with stakeholders to demonstrate the value that you are providing to the organisation as you improve organizational security.

Collaborate with your DevOps team on policies

Modernise your security information and event management (SIEM)
To get out of reactive mode, you must work with your DevOps teams in advance to apply key security policies at the beginning of the engineering cycle as secure DevOps.

3. Secure apps and data

Protect data, apps and infrastructure through a layered, defence-in-depth strategy across identity, data, hosts and networks.

Encryption

Encrypt data at rest and in transit. Consider encrypting data at use with confidential computing technologies.

Follow security best practices

Ensure your open source dependencies do not have vulnerabilities. Additionally, train your developers in security best practices such as Security Development Lifecycle (SDL)

Share the responsibility

When a company operates primarily on-premises, it owns the whole stack and is responsible for its own security. Depending on how you use the cloud, your responsibilities change, with some responsibilities moving to your cloud provider.
IaaS: for applications running in virtual machines, more of the burden is on the customer to ensure that both the application and OS are secure.
PaaS: as you move to cloud-native PaaS, cloud providers like Microsoft will take more of the security responsibility at the OS level itself.
SaaS: at the SaaS level, more responsibility shifts away from the customer. See the shared responsibility model.

4. Mitigate threats

Operational security posture – protect, detect and respond – should be informed by unparalleled security intelligence to identify rapidly evolving threats early so you can respond quickly.

Enable detection for all resource types

Ensure threat detection is enabled for virtual machines, databases, storage and IoT. Azure Security Centre has builtin threat detection that supports all Azure resource types.

Integrate threat intelligence

Use a cloud provider that integrates threat intelligence, providing the necessary context, relevance and prioritization for you to make faster, better and more proactive decisions.

Modernise your security information and event management (SIEM)

Consider a cloud-native SIEM that scales with your needs, uses AI to reduce noise and requires no infrastructure.

5. Protect the network

We’re in a time of transformation for network security. As the landscape changes, your security solutions must meet the challenges of the evolving threat landscape and make it more difficult for attackers to exploit networks.

Keep strong firewall protection

Setting up your firewall is still important, even with identity and access management. Controls need to be in place to protect the perimeter, detect hostile activity and build your response. A web application firewall (WAF) protects web apps from common exploits like SQL injection and cross-site scripting.

Enable Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Protection

Protect web assets and networks from malicious traffic targeting application and network layers, to maintain availability and performance, while containing operating costs.

Create a microsegmented network

A flat network makes it easier for attackers to move laterally. Familiarise yourself with concepts like virtual networking, subnet provisioning and IP addressing. Use micro-segmentation, and embrace a whole new concept of micro perimeters to support zero trust networking.

As more business move their operations to the cloud here is what to know about the hybrid cloud.

Cloud security tips from Microsoft Azure.

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