Alphabet and Its Privacy Push or Alphabet Can Spell Me Too
May 8, 2019
The Seattle Times wrote about Google’s privacy push. “Google’s Privacy Promises Don’t Sway Many Experts” includes a number of interesting quotes from the experts. Here’s an example of one that seems close to the mark:
“They’re sort of marginal improvements,” said Jeremy Tillman, president of Ghostery, which provides ad-blocking and anti-tracking software. “They are not bad, but they almost seem like they’re designed to give the company a better messaging push instead of making wholesale improvements to user privacy.”
Like Facebook, privacy is the in thing.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2019
Factualities for May 8, 2019
May 8, 2019
I marvel at the hard data produced by numerical wizards and wizardettes. Here’s a selection of facts which I absolutely, positively believe.
2X. The number of Huawei phones sold compared to the number of mobile phones Apple sold in the first quarter of 2019. Source: Thurrott
$5. The amount of money Amazon will pay you to place your first order via the Amazon mobile application. Source: Lifehacker
7. Number of pregnant Amazon workers allegedly fired for being with child. Source: CNet
10. Number of years in which Amazon will reach fully automated warehouses. Source: Digital Journal
10 percent. Number of Twitter users creating 80 percent of the service’s tweets. Source: Search Engine Journal
30 percent. The amount of the productivity and efficiency increase when an employee uses an enterprise search system is used. Source: Market Talk News
50 percent. The percentage of US college students who go hungry. Source: New York Times
$3,500. Cost of a Microsoft development kit for the HoloLens 2. Upon paying, one gets a “hat”. Source: The Inquirer
6,000. The number of languages in the world. Source via IBM: Medium
15,000. Number of sub domains GoDaddy removed for spammy activities. Source: Wired
50,000. Number of companies vulnerable to a security issue in SAP software. Source: Reuters
50,000. Number of vulnerable Bitcoin nodes. Source: The Next Web
277,000. Number of drones registered with the FAA. Note: There are an estimated 1.25 million personal drones in the US. Source: Engadget
1 million. The number of terrorist videos YouTube has “reviewed” in 2019. Source: CNet
137 million. Number of US adults suffering medical financial hardship in 2015, 2016, and 2017. Source: EurekAlet
250 million. Number of hours YouTubers watch each day. Source: Variety
$300 million. Amount of money invested in the Star Citizen video game which may never be completed. Source: Forbes
$356 million. Amount of digital money stolen from exchanges in the first 90 days of 2019. Source: The Next Web
968 million. The number of Playstation 4s Sony has shipped. Source: Neoseeker
2 billion. Number of monthly YouTube users. Source: Variety
4.9 billion. Number of deceased persons in the Facebook database by 2100. Source: Guardian
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2019
Microsoft Inspires a Fresh Meme
May 8, 2019
I read the “two r’s and two s’s” person’s article “Microsoft’s Satya Nadella Throws the Doors Open Ahead of Build.” Tucked in the write up is the phrase “talented nerd.” Here’s the passage:
When asked about diversity and inclusion, Nadella insists that the whole notion of giving the “talented jerk” a pass is over. “That’s done,” he says. “In 2019, to succeed, I hope anybody joining this industry starts by saying, ‘I want to be great by honing my skills, but I want to create energy around me where people of all genders and ethnicities can contribute.’”
About whom is Microsoft speaking? The Google founders, the Twitter person, or the Zuck? Perhaps it is the head of Windows 10 updates?
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2019
IBM: Watson, Are the Shrimp Ready to Eat?
May 8, 2019
I wish I could say I was making up the information in “IBM Is Putting Sustainable Shrimp on the Blockchain.” The idea is a mostly respectable one: Save the planet and help provide useful information about food. But shrimp on the barbeque? Yes, IBM.
The write up explains:
The Sustainable Shrimp Partnership (SSP) yesterday announced that its joined IBM‘s Food Trust ecosystem which claims to use blockchain to provide greater transparency over where your food comes from. The SSP says it will be using the IBM blockchain to track the journey of Ecuadorian farmed shrimp from birth to barbecue.
Are the data in the blockchain accurate? Not sure.
The French cheese outfit Carrefour has cheese on the blockchain. Are those data accurate? Mais oui. Carrefour is French.
Stephen E Arnold, May 8, 2019
Twit.TV: Now Advertising Itself
May 7, 2019
Technology centric podcasts are everywhere. One assumes that listenership continues to rise. Numbers about downloads, partial listens, and complete listens are tough to obtain. DarkCyber believes that the hyperbole may be outpacing ears and eye balls. One possible radar blip is the advertisement on TechCrunch for Twit.tv. Twit is the outlet for Leo LaPorte, a former TV personality and current radio host in the US. The Twit network features a number of programs. These range from the somewhat pedantic Security Now to the breezy This Week in Tech.
Here’s the ad which DarkCyber spotted on May 6, 2019:
The ad links to the Twit.tv home page. The page provides a listing of the programs available on iTunes and other outlets. Video programs are findable on YouTube.
Like other podcasts, the Twit.tv programs often feature “talk overs” in which two or more guests chatter simultaneously. The experience can make it difficult to figure out who is saying what. Once characteristic of the Twit.tv programs is the repetition: Ads for products are ones that Mr. LaPorte uses, the guests are the “best”, and themes such as “Apple does not invite Twit experts to their events.”
Several questions arise:
- Is the podcast “revolution” having an impact on the reach of the Twit shows? A legal podcast disappeared earlier this year, probably because of the erratic scheduling and competition from programs from law firms like Steptoe & Johnson.
- Has the format of the shows lost its magnetism as different types of interactive discussions focused on technology become available; for example, the peculiar Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway program which is often insightful but more frequently just strange?
- Have the personal idiosyncrasies of Twit management impaired the organization’s ability to keep its program formats and approach fresh?
- How will the advertising to get listeners (viewers) to sell ads on programs not pulling an audience in an organic way? To recover the cost of advertising on popular sites, won’t Twit have to charge more for its advertising? Won’t advertisers just go to the sites on which Twit buys ads?
The trajectory of Twit.tv may be a glimpse of the future of personality centric “networks.” DarkCyber sees the ad for the Twit.tv network as an important decision. Advertising for ears and eye balls when the advertiser itself sells ads can be expensive. Will the ads produce downloads? One thing is certain: Ads can be expensive, and their ability to deliver results is often a gamble.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2019
Facebook: Yep, Privacy Is Our Business
May 7, 2019
I believe everything I read on the Internet. Here’s an example of truth, which may actually be true: “Facebook’s Contract Workers Are Looking at Your Private Posts to Train AI.” The main idea is that a post marked “private” allegedly may be perused by a contractor. In my experience, contractors are often far away from the office stuffed with supervisors. When I use contract workers, I just get the work. I don’t spend too much time micro-managing. If I hire a contractor via Fiverr.com, I don’t interact after I post an email describing what I want done. My hunch is that contract workers can do quite a few things. I don’t know because they are “contract workers.”
The write up states:
Facebook confirmed to Reuters that the content being examined by WiPro’s workers includes private posts shared to a select numbers of friends, and that the data sometimes includes users’ names and other sensitive information. Facebook says it has 200 such content-labeling projects worldwide, employing thousands of people in total.
Yep, private information in the hands of contracts who are “employees” of WiPro.
Privacy is our business.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2019
DarkCyber Video News for May 7, 2019, Now Available
May 7, 2019
DarkCyber for May 7, 2019, is now available at www.arnoldit.com/wordpress and on Vimeo at https://www.vimeo.com/334253067.
The program is a production of Stephen E Arnold. It is the only weekly video news shows focusing on the Dark Web, cybercrime, and lesser known Internet services.
This week’s story line up includes: The use of Telegram for ecommerce; phishing with fake email undergoes a renaissance; Cisco Talos explains a serious attack on foundation servers; a review of weapons for sale on the Dark Web; and a look at advanced autonomous drone technology.
This week’s feature examines a new study about the sale of weapons on the Dark Web. The report explains that handguns are long rifles are for sale on some Dark Web sites. The majority of these weapons are handguns. Only a small percentage of the weapons are automatic rifles. The research comes from three academics involved in criminal justice. The data from the Dark Web were collection in 2016. Because information about the type of weapons offered for sale is limited, the report helps fill this data gap. DarkCyber points out that the Dark Web has undergone some significant changes in the last two years. As a result, the study provides information, but some of it may be outdated.
The May 7, 2019, program also reports on:
First, how Telegram, an encrypted messaging application, can be used to promote and sell certain types of contraband products, services, and data. Messaging technology may be “old school” but Telegram’s features create challenges for enforcement agencies.
Second, phishing and spear phishing are methods for stealing users’ credentials with a long history. Now these techniques are gaining more momentum. DarkCyber reports about a “smart” application which can automate phishing and spear phishing attacks. Unlike commercial specialist tools, the Dark Web phishing kit costs a few hundred dollars, and it features a “fill in the blanks” approach to these malicious attacks.
Third, Cisco’s cyber security unit Talos has published a detailed report about a denial of service attack on core Internet systems. There are 13 foundation or core servers which facilitate domain name services. One of these has been the focus of a digital assault by a bad actor, possible supported by a nation state. The denial of service method relies on a series of nested malware programs. The attack makes use of misdirection and several different methods designed to compromise a foundation server. If such an attack is successful, other types of malicious activity is simplified for the bad actors.
Finally, DarkCyber responds to a viewer’s request for an update on advanced autonomous drone technology. DarkCyber provides a look into the future of US drone capabilities.
Kenny Toth, May 7, 2019
Thomson Reuters: Whither Palantir Technologies
May 6, 2019
When I was working on a profile of Palantir Technologies for a client a couple of years ago, I came across a reference to Thomson Reuters’ use of Palantir Technologies smart system. News of the deal surfaced in a 2010 news release issued on Market Wired, but like many documents in the “new” approach to Web indexing, the content is a goner.
My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I recall that the application was called QA Studio. The idea obviously was to allow a person to ask a question using the “intuitive user interface” which the TR and Palantir team created to generate revenue magic. The goal was to swat the pesky FactSet and Bloomberg offerings as well as the legion of wanna-be analytics vendors chasing the Wall Street wizards.
Here’s a document form my files showing a bit of the PR lingo and the interface to the TR Palantir service:
I am not sure what happened to this product nor the relationship with the Palantir outfit.
I assume that TR wants more smart software, not just software which creates more work for the already overburdened MBAs planning the future of the economic world.
One of the DarkCyber researchers spotted this news release, which may suggest that TR is looking to the developer of OS/2 (once used by TR as I recall) for smart software: “IBM, Thomson Reuters Introduce Powerful New AI and Data Combination to Simplify How Financial Institutions Tackle Regulatory Compliance Challenges.”
The news release informed me that:
IBM and Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence will now offer financial institutions access to a RegTech solution delivered from the IBM Cloud that features real-time financial services data from thousands of content sources. Backed by the power of AI and domain knowledge of Promontory Financial Group, the collaboration will enable risk and compliance professionals to keep pace with regulatory changes, manage risk and reduce the overall cost of compliance.
I learned:
Thomson Reuters and IBM have been collaborating on AI and data intelligence since 2015, bringing together expertise and technology to solve industry-specific problems in areas such as healthcare and data privacy. Today’s announcement represents another step forward in helping businesses combat their most pressing regulatory challenges.
The most interesting word in the news release is “holistic.” I haven’t encountered that since “synergy” became a thing. Here’s what the TR IBM news release offered:
Featuring an updated user experience to allow for increased engagement, IBM OpenPages with Watson 8.0 transforms the way risk and compliance professionals work. By providing a holistic view of risk and regulatory responsibilities, OpenPages helps compliance professionals actively participate in risk management as a part of their day-to-day activity. In addition to integrating Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence, IBM OpenPages with Watson incorporates the expertise of Promontory Financial Group to help users of OpenPages create libraries of relevant regulatory requirements, map them to their internal framework and evaluate their impact to the business.
Yep, OpenPages. What is this? Well, it is Watson, but that doesn’t help me. Watson is more of a combo consulting-licensing thing. In this implementation, OpenPages reduces risk and makes “governance” better with AI and advanced analytics.
Analytics? That was the purpose of Palantir Technologies’ solution.
Let’s step back. What is the news release saying? These thoughts zoomed through my now confused brain:
- TR licensed Palantir’s system which delivers some of the most advanced analytics offered based on my understanding of the platform. Either TR can’t make Palantir do what TR wants to generate revenue or Palantir’s technology is falling below the TR standard for excellence.
- TR needs a partner which can generate commercial sales. IBM is supposed to be a sales powerhouse, but IBM’s financial performance has been dicey for years. Palantir, therefore, may be underperforming, and IBM’s approach is better. What?
- IBM’s Watson TR solution works better than IBM’s forays into medicine, enterprise search, cloud technology for certain government entities, and a handful of other market sectors. What?
To sum up, I am not sure which company is the winner in this TR IBM deal? One hypothesis is that both TR and IBM hope to pull a revenue bunny from the magic hat worn by ageing companies.
The unintentional cold shoulder to Palantir may not be a signal about that firm. But with IPO talk circulating in some circles, Palantir certainly wants outfits like TR to emit positive vibes.
Interesting stuff this analytics game. I suppose one must take a “holistic” view. Will there be “synergy” too?
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2018
Amazonia for May 6, 2019
May 6, 2019
Amazon has become a company to watch—at least in some advertising circles. We learned that an outfit named “The Marin Software” is holding a live webinar called “Amazon Advertising: A Crash Course for the Modern Marketer.” One must sign up for the program because there won’t be a version of the program on YouTube if the email promotion sent to select individuals is to be believed. In the webinar, one will learn in just 60 minutes how to set up an Amazon ad campaign, the “best practices” for creating successful Amazon ads, and “advanced strategies” which will generate higher revenue. How does one find out about the webinar? Easy. Just chase down Marin at this url. DarkCyber believes that Google ad chiefs will attend.
In other Amazon news this week, DarkCyber noted:
Amazon Is Ethical
Computerworld reports that “AWS is ethical about AI.” The source is an Amazon executive who reveals:
But ‘we just don’t talk about it.
The story points out:
AWS offers some best practice advice relating to its customers’ use of data, but has stopped short of laying out its own guiding principles. It is up to clients to decide whether their use of AWS tools is ethical, said the company’s head of solution architecture in ANZ, Dr Peter Stanski.
Dr. Stanski allegedly said:
“We certainly don’t want to do evil; everything we’ve released to customers to innovate [helps] to lift the bar on what’s actually happening in the industry. It’s really up to the individual organization how they use that tech.”
The exploding products item is not related to artificial intelligence and is, therefore, not part of smart software.
Amazon: Product Quality
Facebook has interesting content, and Amazon has products which may provide a buyer with a battery explosion. “When Your Amazon Purchase Explodes” provides some information about the quality control methods for some sellers’ products. Well, there’s not much. The article reveals:
Curious about what [a battery fire] had happened, Jones went back online to try to contact the seller and alert Amazon to the problem. Scrolling through reviews, he realized other buyers were reporting fires from the same item. But Amazon seemed unconcerned, he told me: Customer-service representatives treated his report like a new one each time he called, asking for his name, the order number, and the story of what had happened over and over again. Amazon would not put him in touch with the seller and never assumed blame for the fire.
The message seems to be, “We just sell stuff.” In the small town in which I was born, one auto dealer had a sidewalk guarantee for each used car sold. Here’s the idea: “Once you drive the car off my lot and across the sidewalk, it’s your problem.”
Amazon’s Revenue from Third Party Sellers
Geekwire reported that Amazon’s first-party online sales dipped below 50 percent of the company’s overall net sales in the first quarter, reflecting the growth of the tech giant’s other businesses. The write up said:
The milestone doesn’t take into account sales by other retailers on Amazon.com, but it’s nonetheless a testament to the tech giant’s growing diversification. It’s especially notable in light of the company’s history. Amazon rose to prominence as a pioneer of the e-commerce industry, becoming the online “Everything Store” by expanding beyond its original mission of selling books.
And what will the sellers’ need? Amazon advertising and ways to stand out from the rapidly increasing crowd? SEO.
The data, if accurate, underscore the threat Amazon shopping poses to eBay, Google, and Wal-Mart.
Amazon the Target of an Alleged Microsoft Fear Tactic
Business Insider, which is an interesting publication indeed, reports that Microsoft is capturing customers using IBM’s old school tactic: FUD or fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The story “Microsoft’s Satya Nadella Uses a Subtle Fear Tactic to Win Cloud Business Away from Amazon” asserts that the tactic is manifested in statements like this from Microsoft:
Do you trust a technology partner to store their data, handle their transactions, know the most intimate details of their business, if that tech partner is also a competitor?
Apparently Microsoft mentions that Amazon’s businesses are like “tentacles”, “pimples”, and “boils.” Nice stuff.
Business Insider concludes:
Amazon’s willingness to compete with its partners and customers could be AWS’s Achilles heel and one that Nadella seems ready to exploit.
Amazon: A Digital Souq
CNBC reported “Amazon Launches New Middle East Marketplace, and Rebrands Souq, the Company It Bought for $580 million in 2017.” Here’s the interesting bit:
The launch of the new Middle East marketplace, which was first reported by CNBC in January, comes at a time of slowing international sales for Amazon. In its most recent quarter, Amazon’s international sales only grew 9% from a year ago to $16.2 billion.
Contrast Amazon’s tactics with Google’s. Amazon seems to be moving in a purposeful way. Google appears to be more focused on staff-related issues and Amazon’s encroachment on product search and online advertising. For information about how Amazon’s ad business is changing the game for Google and other firms, check out “Google’s Competition for Advertising Heats Up from Amazon, Rival Platforms.”
Amazon: An Uber for Trucking
CNBC is reporting interesting news about Amazon. “Amazon Has Been Quietly Running an ‘Uber for Trucking’ Service Since Last Year” reports:
Amazon has been testing a new online service that matches truck drivers with shippers since last year, taking its first step into the lucrative online freight brokerage space.
Should FedEx and UPS be worried? Yep, especially UPS. Those Amazon returns are now being handled by Kohl’s, which may provide a hint of Amazon’s approach to deliveries: Disruption and disintermediation.
Amazon Dinged for Plagiarism
Amazon may find itself in another spat with copyright owners. The Digital Reader’s “The Biggest Plagiarism Scandal in the History of eBooks Slipped by Amazon Unnoticed” reported as allegedly true:
CopyPastCris, as the scandal has been dubbed, now includes no fewer than 95 books by 43 authors as well as articles and other content from six websites (and two recipes). Numerous passages have been copied from those books and websites into one or more of Serruya’s published works. Yes, ninety-five books.
Digital Reader points out a possible flaw in Amazon’s publishing system:
While some of the plagiarism was spotted by readers and authors, much of the work to document the plagiarism was done by Ryan. She wrote the algorithm, she supplied the computer time to run it, and she double-checked the results. Isn’t it funny how one programmer could find all this and Amazon did not?
Amazon bulldozes forests, not spindly creative flowers, may be one conclusion the allegedly true write up explicates.
Amazon Highlights Speedy AI Chips
Technology Review reported in its public magazine this story: “This Chip Was Demoed at Jeff Bezos’s Secretive Tech Conference. It Could be Key to the Future of AI.” The headline is intriguing because MIT is one of the outfits inventing the future of smart software. The recognition that an online bookstore is producing chips which could “invent the future of smart software” is quite a revelation.
The write up points out in a less than secret way:
the new chip achieves performance 10 or even 1,000 times more efficient than existing hardware does.
The inventor of the chip is a company called Sze, named after an MIT grad Vivienne Sze. What’s this suggest? Amazon is serious about making its smart software smarter.
Why’s this important? The article provides a clue to those lucky enough to attend the Amazon high-tech conference in 2020:
…expect the eye-catching robots and drones at the next MARS conference to come with something rather special hidden inside.
AWS May Be Getting More Like a Mainframe
“New – Amazon S3 Batch Operations” reveals Amazon S3 Batch Operations which allow customers to “process hundreds, millions, or billions of S3 objects in a simple and straightforward fashion. You can copy objects to another bucket, set tags or access control lists (ACLs), initiate a restore from Glacier, or invoke an AWS Lambda function on each one.” The old is new again.
Make Money with Alexa? Maybe
Amazon wants Alexa developers to make money, in theory. “Alexa In-Skill Purchasing, Which Lets Developers Make Money from Voice Apps, Launches Internationally” states:
With in-skill purchasing, developers are able to generate revenue from voice apps in a number of ways: through the sale of digital goods as a one-time purchase, subscriptions or consumables.
Will this work? DarkCyber does not believe that Alexa has a must-have app winner among the 80,000 or so Alexa skills, but the article identifies a couple of contenders; Escape the Airplane and Jeopardy.
Amazon: Search Engine Optimization Comes to the Online Bookstore
SEO undermined the idea of relevance at ad supported Web search systems. Now the SEO carpetbaggers are setting up to mine the Amazon. “Some Amazon Sellers Are Paying $10,000 A Month To Trick Their Way To The Top” discovered:
An emerging black market offers Amazon sellers pricey ways to cheat the marketplace and mislead customers.
I am not sure about the “emerging” part. Fake reviews for products and books have been a success story for some third parties for more than a decade. Nevertheless, the write up reports with the dewy freshness of a spring morning:
The most prominent black hat companies for US Amazon sellers offer ways to manipulate Amazon’s ranking system to promote products, protect accounts from disciplinary actions, and crush competitors. Sometimes, these black hat companies bribe corporate Amazon employees to leak information from the company’s wiki pages and business reports, which they then resell to marketplace sellers for steep prices. One black hat company charges as much as $10,000 a month to help Amazon sellers appear at the top of product search results. Other tactics to promote sellers’ products include removing negative reviews from product pages and exploiting technical loopholes on Amazon’s site to lift products’ overall sales rankings. These services make it harder for Amazon sellers who abide by the company’s terms of service to succeed in the marketplace, and sellers who rely on these tactics mislead customers and undermine trust in Amazon’s products.
How will this play out? There will be conferences, and there will be some modest push back from Amazon. But business is business. Google now has videos about SEO, the industry which it helped foster.
Amazon Secure Zones: Maybe Yes, Maybe No
ZDNet reported that there is No difference between regular AWS and Australian government protected level services. With Amazon competing for the US government JEDI contract the information in the write up could be significant. The article reported:
When AWS gets a customer with specialist security requirements, it looks to implement those requirements everywhere.
From Amazon’s point of view, security is security, regardless of the customer. From ZDNet’s point of view, the approach is newsworthy. A close reading of the statements by the AWS executive reveals:
By certifying a cloud service …it allows government to consume software-as-a-service more easily, while also making it easier for developers to reach government. … Government customers are looking towards outsourced and managed services, but they often cannot consume them because of security regulations.
The Amazon approach addresses this problem.
Amazon Doing Good in Des Moines
Marketwatch published “Amazon Web Services Become the Community Sponsor of the Monetery Tech Summit.” The news item said:
The Monetery Tech Summit has acted as a funding engine for underrepresented groups in technology. In 2018, the conference raised more than $10,000 for Pi515, an after-school program that educates Iowa’s underserved population, particularly refugee 7-12th grade students, on computer coding.
Amazon Blockchain
This struck DarkCyber as old news, but Cointelegraph seemed excited. “Amazon Web Services Launches Managed Blockchain Service.” The article disclosed:
The product will purportedly allow customers to set up blockchain networks within their organizations, and uses the Ethereum and Hyperledger open source frameworks. Notably, Amazon states that AMB can scale to support thousands to millions of transactions.
News of the service surfaced last year, and DarkCyber has pointed out that the information from such a service might have above average interest in some sectors of the law enforcement community.
Autonomic Drives to Amazon
Yahoo reported that “AWS will power Autonomic Transportation Mobility Cloud, giving automotive manufacturers and software developers the cloud infrastructure needed to build innovative connected vehicle services at scale.” As previously noted, Ford is in on the AWS game.
Amazon Advertises Its Conference
The low profile Amazon conferences are low profile no more. Amazon is advertising its reMARS conference. Here’s an example:
You can find this on on TechCrunch.
Amazon and Ethereum
Use the Bit reported that Amazon could start using Ethereum for New Scalable Blockchain. We thought this was already in place with some interesting implications for Amazon’s policeware business.
Amazon Epyc
AnandTech reported that AWS offers another AMD Epyc Powered Instance: T3a. The naming of Amazon services is — to be straightforward — quite an art. T3a is for the Amazon Elastic Computer Cloud, not to be confused with Elastic, the company which developed Elasticsearch. Amazon is beavering away with Elastic in order to suck in “run it on our stuff” business. Back to the Epyc T3a service. We learned:
AWS’s T3a instances offer burstable performance and are intended for workloads that have low sustained throughput needs, but experience temporary spikes in usage. Amazon says that users of T3a get an assured baseline amount of processing power and can scale it up “to full core performance” when they need more for as long as necessary.
The article, rather unhelpfully adds, “Previously AWS started to offer M5, R5, M5ad, and R5ad instances based on AMD’s latest server processors.”
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2019
Animatronics: The Impact of Digital
May 6, 2019
DarkCyber noted these statements from “Gold Coast Animatronic Marvels Up for Auction, Rendered Redundant by CGI.” The found of Creature Workshop, John Cox, made these observations:
- CGI had reached the point of photo realism.
- Today with some of the effects we are seeing it is very hard to tell what is real and what is computer-generated
- 3D animation and visual effects are now able to create realistic characters, realistic environments, realistic vehicles all created within the computer.
There was one statement which suggests that human actors may be replaced as well.
We are even seeing in some of the big movies now they are de-aging actors, or totally replacing them with a CGI character, so you have to wonder where it will end.
It is a short step from de-aging to replacing. Now about the accuracy of videos. What’s real and what’s fake? Good questions, particularly if asked by a legal eagle when video footage is evidence assumed to be “real” and there are gaps between an event and “finding” relevant video data.
Stephen E Arnold, May 5, 2019
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