Sunday, March 31, 2019

Is Robotic Kitchen Future of Restaurant

Who would have ever thought that the growing dependence on technology andthe technological innovations would make its way into the kitchens? Yes you heard it right, robotic kitchen and chefs are new innovation by the UK based Moley, has built a robotic kitchen that learns recipes, cooks, and cleans up the mess. Not only this, with such mind blowing innovation we might see the job of chefs coming at danger wherein robots are fulfilling the needs of the customers easily at some of the top restaurants globally.
Spyce, a restaurant based in Boston, replaced human cooks with robot chefs to extend their customers’ taste buds. Similarly, Japanese restaurant Nagoya is planning to use robots to attract customers while driving labour efficiency. And, it is no far when we can see Indian restaurants adapting to such changes as these robots not only cook great food but also impress and lure customers with their services.

Recently, Indian F&B company Travel Food Services (TFS), has unveiled the latest in technology Mitri, the Robot, to make the experience of travelers interactive and fun.
Mitri will be engaging with customers at TFSs DilliStreat outlet at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi.

“We are always on the lookout for latest innovative technologies that can enhance the experience and satisfaction of our customers. We are extremely excited to present Mitri at our DilliStreat outlet at the Delhi Airport, shared Gaurav Dewan, COO and Business Head, Travel Food Services.
Can Rebots Replace Chefs?
We are not far away from seeing robots spearheading kitchen game. And, we can say that we are very close to seeing robotic kitchens at restaurants and hotels by replacing the chefs and cooks. We have already seen that at some restaurants globally the robots are already doing the cooking. It might happen With automation and convenience taking up the restaurant space, the restaurants are looking at providing best services to its customers’, stay relevant in today’s fast-paced world, and to build an impeccable image in the fast evolving food scenario where restaurant owners are embracing robotic kitchens. Tech-innovations are creating roadblock for old restaurants by saving more on labour cost and coming up with cost intensive features and technologies. Digital POS (point of sale) systems, online food ordering applications, AR-based software providing customers with a video of the food preparation process and so on are common examples of how food is getting influenced by the digital disruption. However, robotic kitchen is still a jaw dropping innovation globally.
“Robots will be part of our cooking but the chef’s indulgence has to be there. The final cooking and food can be tasted only by humans. Yes, they will help us, support us, but the role of chefs will still be alive,” shared Robin Batra, Executive Chef, Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.
Hence, we can say that though robots can provide efficiency at the work front, kitchen would always remain a domain of the chef.

Saturday, March 30, 2019

Application of Machine Learning

  Application of Machine Learning Techniques to Web-  Based Intelligent Learning Diagnosis System.



  This work proposes an intelligent learning
diagnosis system that supports a Web-based thematic
learning model, which aims to cultivate learners’ ability
of knowledge integration by giving the learners the opportunities
to select the learning topics that they are
interested, and gain knowledge on the specific topics by
surfing on the Internet to search related learning courseware
and discussing what they have learned with their
colleagues. Based on the log files that record the
learners’ past online learning behavior, an intelligent
diagnosis system is used to give appropriate learning
guidance to assist the learners in improving their study
behaviors and grade online class participation for the
instructor. The achievement of the learners’ final reports
can also be predicted by the diagnosis system accurately.
Our experimental results reveal that the proposed learning
diagnosis system can efficiently help learners to
expand their knowledge while surfing in cyberspace
Web-based “theme-based learning” model.


Keywords: Web-based learning, Theme-based learning,

Fuzzy expert system, K-nearest neighbor, Naïve Bayesian
classifier, Support vector machines, Learning diagnosis

Some Technology Trends That Will Define the Future of Car Insurance in 2019

Recent technology trends are changing the way that customers interact with a business. Traditionally, car insurance was dependent on the likes of an insurance agent, the claims team and a simple help desk. This is not the case anymore, today customers can make themselves familiar with insurance and what it offers. They can buy car insurance online, raise a claim at a click of a button and receive the payment in their bank account without ever stepping foot in the branch office of their insurer.
An intriguing aspect of the insurance industry is the technologies used by insurers for enhancing workflow. To provide insight, here is a small list of technologies that currently power and have the potential to enhance the car insurance industry in 2019.
  • Big data and Analysis

Insurance companies require large volumes of data to create innovative products and deliver on the needs of their customer base. This reliance on data and analysis will only grow in the near future to meet the ever-increasing and aggressive competition, where sustenance is not the only thing a car insurance company needs to worry about.
Big data and analysis will be the key to creating better products and useful services that will help insurers to remain in the top game. As far as claims are concerned, a case can be automatically adjudicated and settled depending on the magnitude of loss. Also, with increasing volumes and velocity of data being generated, the need for data scientists will also be eminent in the new year.
  • Cybersecurity

With motor insurance companies actively entering the online "space," one of the most nagging issues they face is creating a strong and secure environment for the collected data. A customer is willing to share sensitive information which has great potential of getting exploited and can lead to dire consequences. This is the unfortunate flip side of living in the age of the internet. Having said that, it is possible to guard the vulnerable data with multiple layers of security via advanced technology. In 2019, sensitive information will be protected with the help of cyber security software in an efficient manner.
  • IoT and Telematics Insurance

IoT (Internet of Things) is probably the most useful technology ever created. What began in 1982 with a simple vending machine that updated the inventory with whether enough Coke bottles are available, has now found a way in modern households.
This technology works with the help of IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) where an IP address is assigned to each object for communicating data. Pair this with Telematics, that is the technology of sending, receiving and storing information using telecommunication devices, and a smart InsurTech product is born. Car insurance companies might take a leap of faith and embrace the power of IoT and Telematics for creating avant-garde insurance products in the near future.
  • Automation of Claim Processing

Insurance works on the principle of delayed gratification in the form of claims. Customers expect a financial backup in case of an unfortunate event and if a genuine claim is not processed within the expected timeframe, customer satisfaction is jeopardized.
One of the solutions is to reduce human intervention by introducing automation in the claim process. With the help of machine learning, a system can parse historic data. Each claim process provides an insight into the better processing of the next one. All this by adhering to regulatory compliance. In this manner, the processing of a minor claim can potentially be completed without the involvement of any manpower. As a result, the claim process can be both -- time saving and cost-efficient.
T
hey tell us how leveraging technologies like Big Data and Analysis helps  to create custom products that suit individual needs and the customer does not pay a standardized premium but is charged fairly based on past history
  • Artificial Intelligence and Chatbots

Many times customers fail to realize that when they click on "chat with an agent" on a car insurance portal, they are actually interacting with a software program -- a chatbot. These chatbots are powered by Artificial Intelligence. They have the ability to understand user query and solve it to present the most accurate answer.
A chatbot also helps in filtering simple and complex questions. This software has brought cost efficiency to the insurance industry. Do they reduce the time and money spent on engaging a customer relationship manager for solving basic queries like what is covered under a comprehensive car insurance policy? Artificial Intelligence (AI) helps this software become more and more efficient with each interaction.

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Why AI and Humans Are Stronger Together Than Apart

While artificial intelligence (AI) is radically altering how work gets done and who does it, the technology’s larger impact will be in augmenting human capabilities, not replacing them.
In fact, a report from Harvard Business Review found that firms achieve the most significant performance improvements when humans and machines work together. After all, what comes naturally to people—interpersonal communication, for example—can be tricky for AI, while simple AI tasks like transcribing data remains challenging for humans.
AI and humans should work together to double check for errors and help augment each others’ capabilities. By integrating human talents and AI-driven functions, companies across industries can reap the benefits of AI.
The Value of Human and Machine Working Together
AI technology can boost business productivity by up to 40 per cent, according to Accenture. But while business leaders may rejoice at that fact, 72 per cent of employees fear AI stealing their jobs, Pew Research found.
However, the adoption of AI doesn’t mean a wipeout of work available to humans. While some tasks may be trusted completely to AI, like the algorithms that drive recommendation engines on platforms like Netflix, Amazon, and Spotify, others are reserved for human skill only.
For instance, because AI cannot offer empathy or emotion, traits native only to humans, it likely won’t have an applicable role in practice areas like psychotherapy, social work or in-depth customer service.
There’s also a third category of work: the kind best done by humans and AI working in tandem. In the case of many tasks, AI can help get progress started, but it still requires a human to complete the job by verifying the accuracy or providing more context. These gray areas include services like accuracy checks and human interaction.
While AI may not complete such tasks perfectly on its own, there is still value in keeping AI a part of the process. The ideal AI-human arrangement is one in which AI technology drives the lower-level, repetitive processes associated with completing a task, while human oversight ensures the timely and accurate completion of that task.
AI-Human Teams in Action
So where can we see this tag-team dynamic in action? The voice transcription space serves as one example.
Quick and accurate voice-to-text technology plays an important role in the deaf and hard of hearing community, as well as the higher education and legal industries. AI can transcribe human speech much faster than humans can—in a controlled environment, that is.
But the everyday need for voice transcription doesn’t always come in the form of a controlled environment. AI only hits peak accuracy when the speech mimics the kind it was trained on. We can’t rely on AI alone to transcribe voice perfectly when the accent, speed, diction, and tone of the speech vary, or if background noise is present.
However, it’s most efficient to give AI the first crack at it and employ the help of humans to verify accuracy and fix errors if needed. Taking this approach has enabled faster access to high-quality voice transcription than ever before.
Teams that rely on fast voice transcription are reaping the benefits of humans and AI perfecting the practice. Courts, for example, face a court reporter shortage, with an estimated 70 per cent of the workforce expected to retire over the next 10 years. AI and human-powered voice transcription will help fill in the gaps.
Students — whether deaf, hearing-impaired or with no hearing issues — all benefit from timely access to the transcriptions of course lectures. Deaf and hearing-impaired students deserve the chance to keep up with their hearing classmates, and not all hearing students learn best by listening.
While AI has earned its place it every industry, it doesn’t always perform best on its own. Enlisting the help of humans brings it to its full potential and allows us all to take full advantage of a powerful technology, making a true difference in end-users’ lives.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Artificial Intelligence Bringing South Winds to Industry 4.0

The idea of Industry 4.0, which is also referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution has emerged from the concept of digitization of the Manufacturing industry. The growing number of technologies in the country and their wide-ranging implementation convinces people more about the much speculated Fourth Industrial Revolution coming into reality. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Big Data are the technologies that are posing to be the ones that will play a significant role in the Industry 4.0.
Digitization and automation have chances of seeing growth with smart and autonomous systems fueled by data and machine learning. It also involves cyber-physical systems, the Internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, cognitive computing, and several others. all these will boost productivity in the industry.

Holding all these potential, it also implanted seeds of suspicion in the minds of professionals and entrepreneurs regarding the adverse impact it will have on the jobs pertaining to the disruptive natures of AI and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). But the initiation of Industry 4.0 in hands with the technologies, also offers a positive outlook to the jobs market. There stands a huge slice of possibility that it will assist professionals in their jobs in easing decision making and boosting the exchange of ideas and create promising job opportunities instead of wiping them out entirely.
Not a ‘Buzzword’ Anymore
AI is being the most vouched technology in Industry 4.0 and is often referred to as the brain of this industrial revolution. A buzzword for a few, the technology has spread its roots in every possible direction. For Anku Jain, the MD from MediaTek, AI is a lot more than a mere buzzword. He believes, “AI is no more a buzzword. It is happening everywhere. The technology has and is catering to a lot of businesses ideas to startups. One of the major aspects of AI is how it helps to make decisions. The technology can be implemented wherever data is available.
Implementing AI, converting data into useful information has become easy. Industry 4.0 will see a lot of implementation of AI.”
A Fusion of Technologies
The fourth manufacturing revolution has the potential to create a macroeconomic shift and boost employment, productivity and growth. And here the Internet of Things (IoT) is another technology that has also hit the level of expectations. It will supposedly build manufacturing systems that are not only interconnected but communicate, access and use the information to drive further intelligent action back in the physical world.
Vishwas Mugagal, CEO, Good work Labs, who believes that these technologies will be transforming businesses for the next century, mentions, “We are banking on Industry 4.0. It is a big impetus to bring AI, Big Data, Machine Learning, IoT and Robotics together and will create a fusion of all these technologies, which are very different at this time. But they will all converge in the future and Industry 4.0 will be a platform on which this will happen. This is where everything is heading right now. This is going to be the next revolution.”
Eagle10 Ventures, a platform that helps startups generate seed funding and helps angel investors co-invest in startups raised its hands in support of AI. Picking the sectors that look promising for 2019, its co-founder Prashant Pansare vouches, “For 2019, the Sectors that need to watch out for are Fintech, SaaS, Healthcare, AI / Data Analytics. They have a long way to go.”

Artificial Intelligence: The Growth Factor for Budding Entrepreneurs in Home Automation Industry

The entrance of the world into the digital age has overhauled almost all the aspects of life, out of which one of the most noticeable evolution is – ‘the Smart Homes of New Age’. Automation, which is termed as a method, technique, or arrangement of operating or controlling a procedure by electronic gadgets and reducing human interference to a minimum, has risen as a new industry vertical in the last two decades. Gone are the days when someone has to check the house twice before leaving so that no lights, fans, or appliances are left switched on. It’s the age of automation, where relay modules, sensors, and automated systems will take care of the optimal usage of electricity and all devices. Moreover, the past years have witnessed AI evolving as a technology for developing automatic systems and making decisions using case-based reasoning. This leap has opened a great avenue for aspiring entrepreneurs to venture into and capitalize their innovative ideas.
The principal of building an automation framework for an office or home is expanding day by day with various advantages. Industrialist and scientists are attempting to work for proficient and affordability automatic systems to monitor and control diverse electronics like lights, fans, AC dependent on the prerequisite. The measurement displayed by Statista demonstrates a development conjecture for the worldwide home automation advertise in 2020 and demonstrates the real anticipated market estimation of the home automation showcase in 2013. For 2020, the worldwide brilliant home automation industry is projected to reach 21 billion U.S. dollars. The predicted CAGR between 2013 and 2020 is estimated to be 26.3 %. Today, when tech giants are also entering this domain, it also poses great potential for entrepreneurs in start-ups and MSMEs.
Automation makes an effective as well as a practical utilization of the power and diminishes a great part of the wastage. Homes of the 21st century will turn out to be increasingly more self-controlled and automated because of the solace it gives. The consistent evolution of Home automation has also encompassed the control and automation of lighting, warming, machines, and security. The home automation market is required to achieve INR 30,000 Cr by 2023.
With the development of innovation and Wi-Fi-based gadgets, home automation is consistently being acknowledged across segments in India. Moreover, the diverse application of home automation in segments of Lighting, Security, Heating, Ventilating & Air Conditioning (HVAC), and Entertainment has given this industry the required boost. As per a study, the penetration of home automation in Indian homes is going to increase from 2per cent in 2018 to 15per cent in 2023. Majorly, this is attributed to the growth of IT hubs and HNWI’s (high net worth individuals) across India, especially with the rise of earning millennials.
Home automation gadgets like motion sensors and remote appliance control units have seen improved interest over the recent years. These gadgets additionally incorporated with voice-based or action-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) gadgets like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or others do not just improve the functionality but also take automation several notches higher.  With such great potential, AI has become the new enhanced feature in home automation, giving an advantage to entrepreneurs to have a breakthrough in this growing sector. The combination of AI has reclassified the role of home automation and a few of the essential highlights that new age home automation items give is:
Appliance control and setting
From the accessibility of remote access and control of essential gadgets like fans, lights, TVs, forced air systems among others on your smartphone, new home mechanization products can be utilized to customization gadget settings dependent on a state of mind, time and use. AI enabled homes automation learns from the user activity and improvises on the same. This concept has gained momentum in this growing industry for entrepreneurs to introduce their creative products and services.
Integration with Voice controlled innovation
One of the primary highlights in recent time is the simple incorporation of these home automation products without the need for numerous control boards. Existing home automation gadgets can be effectively connected with voice-based gadgets like Google Home, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa to pick up voice access to various gadgets.  This is just the beginning, and the competitiveness gets fierce with the entrance of both industry giants and innovative entrepreneurs in this segment.
Energy and monetary savings with home automation
Gone are the days of wasting electricity, resources, and money. The inclusion of AI in home automation has realized the concept of smart devices, which helps in saving energy and expenditure for the users. This functionality of AI in home automation also helps users to comprehend vitality utilization and point of confinement vitality wastage. Entrepreneurs can leverage this implication of AI and offer a more comprehensive solution in the Indian market.
Safety and Security with Home Automation
Lighting and security take up nearly 80% of the Indian home automation market, as per Renub Research. This itself rises as a great opportunity for young entrepreneurs and innovators to delve into and propose AI-enables smart products to modern Indian Home Makers. Interruption alert dependent on facial acknowledgement, remote access to constant video benefits from your smartphone, or microwave-based movement sensors that can distinguish irregular development and alert homeowners are a few of the modern security solutions proposed by AI-powered home automation entrepreneurs. Home Automation System is an emerging technology. Furthermore, the smart homes of the future will be facilitated with AI. The main objectives of home automation are controlling, management and coordination of home appliances in a comfortable, effective and AI are supplementing home automation as a technology for developing automatic systems that can perceive & learn from the environment, and can make a decision using case-based reasoning. With the introduction of AI to home Automation, the living space of the user can be controlled without the touch of a button. AI is undoubtedly becoming an integral part of the home automation industry in India and opens a new horizon for rising entrepreneurs to venture in and create new milestones.

Talented Women in the Tech Workforce

For decades, society and the federal government fixated on how to get girls into technology careers. There have been summits and conferences held, numerous presidential and congressional committees and reports, plus countless articles on the issue. All this activity would indicate that education and inspiring girls to choose tech as a career is the key for long-standing and sustainable female representation in the heavily male-dominated tech industry. However, this approach, which stretches back to the Clinton administration, fails to address a key issue -- keeping women in the tech workforce.
The female tech talent pool in the U.S. leaks like a sieve and requires immediate attention. Here’s a sobering fact: today, there’s a smaller percentage of women in tech than 25 years ago. Men, and almost exclusively men, design the technologies that individuals use to interact with the world for more than half of their waking hours. It’s staggering how much influence tech has on society and the individual, and how much of that influence is coded by one gender.
More than half -- 56 percent -- of women who enter the tech industry drop out of the workforce midway into their careers. None of the reasons cited are particularly shocking or unknown. The NCWIT report cited reasons including being undervalued -- which is demonstrated in lower pay -- not being challenged in tasks, not having a seat at the table and seeking a balance in priorities to include their personal life. Women don’t want to walk away from what they love to do, but the male-led tech industry isn’t working for the majority of women.
Individuals, businesses and the society-at-large pay an astronomical price in hard and soft costs when women drop out of tech. For the worker, she’s forfeited more than $120,000 to get her degree, and she’s probably paying 4-5 percent in interest with student loans. There’s the cost of certifications, conferences and continuing education as well as the time investment in developing key expertise, building networks and developing intellectual capital.
Financial impacts on businesses can run even more steep in real costs, climbing as high as a million dollars or more. According to The Society of Human Resource Management, it costs six to nine months salary to replace a salaried employee. Hired.com reported in 2017 that the average tech worker in San Francisco made $142,000 a year. So, a company could pay anywhere from $852,000 to $1.3 million to backfill this position. Of course, replacing a salaried woman is on the lower end of this range, thanks to the well-documented wage gap. Keep in mind, this cost does not take into account the loss of productivity, institutional knowledge, and potentially, the industry’s next great idea when a woman leaves tech.
Parity is profitable. A 2016 study by Peterson Institute for International Economics compared companies with no female corporate leadership to those with a 30 percent representation and found that the injection of women leadership yielded a 15 percent increase in profitability. This stat just scratches the surface of the missed growth and opportunity in tech without female participation at parity. We know that diversity of thought increases innovation and enhances problem-solving.Parity is profitable. A 2016 study by Peterson Institute for International Economics compared companies with no female corporate leadership to those with a 30 percent representation and found that the injection of women leadership yielded a 15 percent increase in profitability. This stat just scratches the surface of the missed growth and opportunity in tech without female participation at parity. We know that diversity of thought increases innovation and enhances problem-solving.
I urge us to focus our energy equally on keeping women in tech careers and inspiring girls to enter tech. Gender parity in the tech industry is about more than workforce diversity. All of us must shape the virtual worlds in which we operate so these worlds are truly expansive, innovative and disruptive versus hard coding more of the same. But gender parity in tech is an impossible dream unless we stop the drop of women from tech after they start their careers. Awareness is a start, but it doesn’t generate change. Action is needed to move society forward. To energize this much needed change, I am launching the One Woman Challenge to ignite a discussion around this issue and create career supportive actions for women in business.
At its core, the campaign is about connecting and contributing to a woman’s career path by pledging to help with one supportive act. This could be anything from reviewing a presentation, to taking a coffee meeting, to making an introduction. These acts create opportunity and change at the individual level, and each individual action creates a swell that together starts to change the tide. The time is now for us all to be change agents for society and a future in tech that will include female.

Women Professionals – NOW is the Time to Get Ahead in Your Career!

7 of the 10 fastest growing jobs in India (according to LinkedIn) and 5 of the 10 fastest growing careers in the US (Bureau of Labor Statistics, US) are in areas which either didn’t exist at all or existed only in university labs 15 years ago. For instance, jobs like a Data Scientist, Machine Learning Engineer, Solar Photovoltaic installers and Wind turbine technicians were almost non-existent
The next industrial revolution is going to be driven by soft skills, data, climate/energy/resource challenges and the cheap and ubiquitous availability of computing capacity. This revolution will induce a massive skill-gap. Professionals and graduates alike will need to quickly understand the urgency of picking up the latest industry-relevant skills to be on top of their game.  
There’s every reason however for professionals to be excited about the future because some exciting opportunities lie in wait. Over 70per cent of Indian Companies will adopt AI Solutions before 2020 and close to 2,00,000 analytics jobs will be created by 2020.
While the future of professionals in general looks bright, the women professionals seem to be at high risk of being globally displaced due to this skill gap.
Let’s find out what is happening on a global scale and what can be done to solve this conundrum
The High Risk Alert: What do the Alarm Bells Signify?   
Based on an IMF study, 180 million jobs for women (across 30 countries) are at high risk of being displaced globally due to new technologies like automation; which means the overall participation of women in the global workforce is going to decrease significantly. In India, 3 out of 4 women do not work (just 25per cent participation), and women’s labour force participation has fallen alarmingly from 36per cent to 25per cent in the last decade. What’s puzzling about these facts is that they stand in contrast with graduation rates and school performance, where women continue to do well.  
As per the Routine Task Intensity (RTI) index in the IMF Report, women conduct more routine tasks than men; which indicates that our education system is training people (particularly women) for an outdated industry. The RTI index, on average, is 13 per cent higher for women professionals across 30 countries.
Also, women professionals perform fewer tasks requiring analytical and interpersonal skills and more tasks which are characterized by greater repetitiveness. What this implies is that women are at a higher risk and are more exposed to automation than men.
But automation is just one part of the problem. Women continue to face problems such as gender-pay parity, issues related to maternity leaves and more. As you can see below, India ranks shockingly low in terms of the gender-pay parity on a global scale.  
What then is the solution required to solve this problem? There is one…which is “upskilling”.  
Staying Ahead of the Curve  
Women professionals can rise up to the challenge by picking up the most trending and in-demand skills, and of course, adopting the practice of continuous learning.
This is precisely where assessment and training partners can step in and empower the women of our country. By assessing the women professionals and helping them upskill and reskill through our industry-certifications & course programs for businesses, we hope to enable women to be ready for the roles of the future.   
Also, while upskilling is a crucial aspect, it needs to be supported by governmental and corporate initiatives, and incentives around disseminating skills for women starting at the school level. A large-scale program at the national level championed by the Central Government can really help the cause and help improve women’s participation in our workforce. In addition, encouraging entrepreneurship among senior and experienced women by setting up incubation centres will go a long way towards giving women the belief needed to succeed.  
Lastly, ecosystem-level support structures through mandating schemes like crèches, work from home policies and mentorship programs can help women professionals immensely.
The future looks bright  
All in all, the future is full of exciting opportunities for working women. However, women graduate and professionals must take the initiative to upskill, companies must extend a hand of support by promoting upskilling initiatives and training centres for their existing workforce and the government should provide policy and ecosystem level support to eliminate constraints women face in joining and staying on in the workforce.

Some necessary steps to be Empowered as Women in Business

As per statistics, 111 million women worldwide have been running established businesses. But still, in a world that has been belittling and undermining the calibre of women since time immemorial, embarking on an entrepreneurial adventure is a tough choice to make. With the journey being full of obstacles to face and overcome, here are the golden rules to help you rock as an entrepreneur.
  1. Push Hard & Earn Recognition - Indian workspace has been a challenging place for all working women and has made it necessary for them to push harder than the men to achieve the same results and recognition. You need to push yourself to get out of your comfort zone and earn the recognition that you and your efforts deserve. Running a successful business requires you to have a desire to grow and learn new things. Keep complacency at bay. Instead, strive to test your limits and push your boundaries and see how far you can go.
  2. Work-life Balance - With women being firm practitioners of multitasking, it is important that they strike the right balance. To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to have your priorities sorted on both professional and personal front. Learn the art of delegation. Do what you have to do, but also delegate work to others so as to keep the flow smooth. Another step towards a balanced work-life is limiting distractions. One should focus on being productive and keep time-wasting gadgets aside. While at home, instead of being glued to the television, you should spend time with your loved ones. Set a specific slot of time to use the phone so that you make the best of the time that you have to yourself.
  3. Healthy Support System - A healthy support system can be the most crucial element for a woman to succeed, where the spouse plays an important role. Ensure that your partner is the go-to person in your times of need. Also, try to divide household chores and whenever possible finish those tasks together in order to get the work done in double quick time. With the world being a victim of gender inequality, bring about a change and move forward by nurturing a success-aimed personal relationship based on equality and support.
  4. Be Passionate & Fearless – Starting a new venture is a risky affair, but to be successful in it, you need to be courageous. Whatever business you get into, make sure that you are passionate about it. One is more likely to achieve success if she is investing her time and resources into something that she feels passionate about. While you may not love every part of your job, but the bigger picture of the potential success should keep you going. Take risks, go beyond what you can think of and venture into unknown territories. Do not shy away from trying something new and always be fearless in your pursuit.
  5. Believe in Yourself - Always believe in yourself! A successful entrepreneur is one who listens to the voice within and has complete trust in her skills and calibre. Being an entrepreneur requires you to rely on your experience and wisdom, which turns you into a confident leader. In most cases, entrepreneurs start their business once they have gained enough experience while working under someone else. So, the best way down the road would be to gain adequate experience and then embark on your entrepreneurial journey.   
    Entrepreneurship can be a tough road to travel, especially for women, with all the misogyny that exists around us. But by following the above-mentioned rules, you can turn the odds in your favour and become a better entrepreneur.

Why Business World Needs to Embrace Women in Leadership

According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of female Fortune 500 CEOS reached it’s all time high of 6.4 in 2017 (32 out of the 500) and fell to 4.8 percent again in 2018 after several of those women left those roles. And while even these small gains should be celebrated, the question of why this advancement has been so slow, so incremental, remains. In 2019, with women comprising more than half of the population, why industry and commerce don’t even come close to that representation in leadership is still pretty baffling.
The other question inevitably raised by these statistics is how these women who were able to attain these positions of power went about doing so — in a male-dominated world, women often report feeling like they have to “act like men” or otherwise subsume their own instincts and management styles in order to be accepted into the boy’s club of C-level executives.
The inherent flaw in this reasoning is that “traditionally female” and “traditionally male” styles of work and leadership are neither set in stone, nor in direct competition with one another. No gender can be viewed as a monolith in terms of business or management styles, but it can’t be denied that qualities like competitiveness, ruthlessness and assertiveness, which are typically viewed as masculine, have driven the business world pretty much since the beginning.
As women have infiltrated the sphere of management, it has become clear that women offer a different perspective and a way of working with and managing people that can produce the same successful outcomes or better. But even with that advancement, recent research backs up the idea that many, men and women alike, still feel those male-associated qualities are necessary for effective leadership, over traditionally feminine qualities like patience, empathy and communality.
To break through that mental barrier, which has been entrenched in us over decades, centuries even, we have to learn what it actually means to embrace diversity in leadership. To embrace something means to wholly and enthusiastically support it. We need to create an environment where both sides of the equation are not pitted against each other, where women and their input are not merely tolerated but actually valued on their merit, not simply because a quota is being met or a policy being followed.
By keeping women out of the highest echelons of business, we’re losing out on 50 percent of the possible brainpower, the potential for new ideas that always comes along with increasing the diversity of a group. Different backgrounds and perspectives foster more creativity and innovation, and there are dozens of studies out there to support that. So why wouldn’t we want to seek that out? Why would we frame this issue as either/or when it should be both, working in concert, ideas and management styles augmenting and supporting each other?
It’s a paradigm shift that has to come from the top, and from inside us all, and it is not going to happen without some static.
When people of different backgrounds, whether it’s gender, race, sexuality or any other, come together, there can be discomfort, mistrust, lack of engagement. Similarity bias is the natural instinct we have to surround ourselves with people like us, and it’s not necessarily a conscious reaction, which is what makes it difficult to pinpoint and “fix.” Breaking through that bias and the negative perceptions it causes requires time above all; people need time to develop trust and psychological safety with those who are different from them, and there can be clashes at the start. But given the time and space to work through those issues, those groups can start turning out work that makes a competitive difference for your organization.
So it’s not just about what you teach them, it’s also about knowing how they’ll learn those lessons. A section in your employee handbook and three-hour long workshop is not going to cut it if you want to actually take advantage of the benefits of diversity and inclusion. You have to not just preach it, but literally immerse your organization in it for good. Diversity and inclusion should inform all of your decisions and it should be centered in your processes, rather than an afterthought or a box to check. You should be considering it a long-term investment.
This means creating those diverse groups and having them work together to accomplish goals and overcome obstacles — a practicum of sorts, in conjunction with teaching the concepts and tenets of inclusion. The more relevant, meaningful connections people can make with new information, the better their retention of and engagement with those ideas moving forward. They don’t just hear how diversity and inclusion benefits them and their organization; they see it firsthand, by being a part of it.It’s dangerous and reductive to assume that elevating women displaces or otherwise harms men. Leadership traits like confidence and assertiveness are not the sole purview of men. Leadership traits like compassion and empathy are not only present in women. All of these traits play a role in the effective leadership of a business, and it’s time we stop putting people in boxes and let all of those strengths, whether they are displayed by a person identifying as male or as female, complement each other.
We need to make space for people to rise through the ranks without changing who they are, and further, learn to embrace them for their unique value. With 100 percent of our available brainpower working for us, just imagine what we could accomplish.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Google Stadia is the company's new cloud-based video game platform.


Google Stadia is the company's new cloud-based video game platform.

Video gaming is big business and it goes well beyond the assortment of game apps you can find in the Google Play store for Android. Today, Google is taking the stage at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to announce a new gaming product. There's a lot of speculation about what it might be, including an expansion of its cloud-based game-streaming platform, Project Stream, which allows users to play Assasin's Creed Odyssey on devices running the Chrome browser.
The live stream is embedded above, so feel free to follow along and watch the announcement, or just check out the updates below as we add them in almost real-time.

Introduction

Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai is on-stage at the beginning of the keynote. He admits that he's not much of a gamer, but reminds everyone that Google's AI is quickly learning how to beat humans at various video games like Go and Starcraft II. He also touts the idea that Waymo's self-driving cars have spent millions of hours in simulation, which is a game in a way.

Stadia

The new platform is called Stadia and it's clearly designed to rope in both gaming and streaming for people who want both active and passive consumption. It wants to give you all the reasons you could want to quit your job and just soak your brain in games.
The first demo goes back to the Assasin's Creed franchise. The example shows a user watching a YouTube trailer for the game and pressing a "play" button. Within five seconds, you're playing the game via cloud streaming.
At launch, it will support desktops, laptops, TVs, and phones. There's no box and everyone plays from the same code.
You play on a TV using a Chromecast Ultra instead of buying a new box. You can use existing USB controllers or mouse and keyboard to play.
Google Stadia
Google Stadia Controller
It looks like an Xbox controller, but this is Google's Stadia controller, complete with a Google Assistant button.

The Stadia controller has a capture button that can immediately start sending your game stream to YouTube. There's also a Google Assistant button that game developers can use for in-game features. I hope you can use it to talk to Cortana in Halo.
When Stadia launches, Google says it will stream content up to 4K at 60 fps. It will also do surround sound and HDR. It also says it will be able to handle 8K streaming in the future when anyone has an 8K TV.
Google is seriously flexing its data center muscles here. There will be two streams, one that lets you play the game and another that gets stored in the cloud in 4K so you can share your replays.
Stadi resolution
It will eventually be able to stream 8K.
Doom Eternal will be one of the first games running on Stadia. It will be pushing 4K resolution at 60 fps according to the developer, so it will be one of the first big tests for the platform.
One of the big draws according to Google is the direct connection to the servers without having to rely on the internet in general. This could mean more reliable multiplayer games with thousands of concurrent players. Imagine playing Fortniteagainst thousands of middle schoolers instead of just 99.
There are 200 million users watching going on YouTube every day and Google wants more people to get in on it. People watched 50 billion hours of gaming content last year, which is a wild number. A new feature called Crowd Play will allow users to jump into a game with a streamer. So, if you’re watching a game and want to join in, you can use the button to join the lobby. It sounds like it could be a very grabby tool for gamers with a big audience.
Google Assistant integration will allow users to ask for advice instead of going over to Google and searching for it. It seems slightly weird since Google would make ad money off of a search and presumably won't off of a voice request, but maybe that use case is too small to matter.







Monday, March 25, 2019

Researchers Get Humans to Think Like Computers.

Researchers Get Humans to Think Like Computers.




The new study sought to see if humans would make the same mistakes as computers if given the same limited option.

In an unusual role reversal, a new Johns Hopkins University study sought to demonstrate how computers can make mistakes like humans do by making people think like computers do.

Think like a computer

"Most of the time, research in our field is about getting computers to think like people," says senior author Chaz Firestone, an assistant professor in Johns Hopkins' Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. "Our project does the opposite -- we're asking whether people can think like computers."
Artificial intelligence systems are much better than people at calculating math or storing large quantities of information. Where they fail is at recognizing everyday objects.
However, recently, neural networks have been created that mimic the human brain. This has resulted in an improved ability to identify objects leading to technological advances in applications such as autonomous cars and facial recognition.

Fooling images
However, a critical blind spot remains. It's possible to purposely make images that neural networks cannot correctly recognize called "adversarial" or "fooling" images.
The new study sought to evaluate whether humans could also misidentify these tricky images.
"These machines seem to be misidentifying objects in ways humans never would," Firestone says. "But surprisingly, nobody has really tested this. How do we know people can't see what the computers did?"
To test this, Firestone and his team asked 1800 test subjects to "think like a machine". Since machines have only a small vocabulary, Firestone showed people fooling images that had already tricked computers, and gave them the same kinds of labeling options that the machine had.



What they found was that humans tended to make the same labeling choices as the computers when faced with these limited options. People agreed with the computer's answer 75 percent of the time.
Researchers then gave people a choice between the computer's favorite answer and its next-best guess. 91 percent of people once again agreed with the machine's first choice.
"We found if you put a person in the same circumstance as a computer, suddenly the humans tend to agree with the machines," Firestone says. "This is still a problem for artificial intelligence, but it's not like the computer is saying something completely unlike what a human would say."
The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.