5 Defining Tech Trends that Will Shape Business
The world of computing has followed Moore’s Law for generations. The “law,” which was developed by researcher Gordon Moore in the 1970s, says that the number of transistors that can be squeezed into a set amount of space will double every two years. It’s been a reliable gauge ever since.
Moore’s Law may be nearing its end, however. Tom Simonite at the MIT Technology Review writes that Intel has declared in a regulatory filing what insiders have suspected: The company is slowing the release of new chips in a manner that doesn’t keep pace with the law. The reason is simply that fabricating small transistors, which now are at about 14 nanometers, is increasingly difficult and costly. The insiders suspect that the end is near because the next generation, which aims at 10 nm, has already been delayed.
This doesn’t mean that other chip makers may not take up the challenge. It also won’t affect mobile devices, at least not yet. Intel is not a big mobile player, Simonite points out. He adds that mobile chipmakers are generally a few years behind. In any case, Simonite says that new chip technologies may replace silicon.
Uber Offers Rewards to Hackers
Uber, the car service that harnesses private drivers to transport people, is offering rewards of between $3,000 and $10,000 to hackers who find flaws in its communications and computer systems, according to Computerworld.
The program is being run by HackerOne, and has set three levels: A critical flaw is worth $10,000, a significant flaw $5,000, and “medium issues” go for $3,000. Uber took the informal approach in announcing the contest:
“Chaining of bugs is not frowned upon in any way, we love to see clever exploit chains!” Uber stated in its online challenge. “If you get access to an Uber server, please report it us and we will reward you with an appropriate bounty taking into full consideration the severity of what could be done. Chaining a CSRF vulnerability with a self-XSS? Nice! Using AWS access key to dump user info? Not cool.”
CSRF stands for cross-site request forgery and XSS stands for cross-site scripting.
Comcast, HUD Bring Broadband to Poor in Five Locales
Comcast and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development have launched the ConnectHome program, which brings broadband to public housing, in Miami-Dade County, Nashville, Philadelphia and Seattle.
Those eligible will have access to Comcast’s Internet Essentials product. The press release says that the expansion is the program’s eighth in five years. ConnectHome now connects more than 600,000 low-income families. Last year was its best ever, with 30 percent more new enrollees than in 2014.
Putting AI to Work
Artificial intelligence (AI) is more than the stuff of science fiction. Recently, Google DeepMind beat the South Korean grandmaster, Lee Sedol, in a tournament of Go, a complex board game that is popular in the country.
AI isn’t just fun and games, however. Andrew Thomson, CEO and founder of VentureRadar, wrote at Dark Reading about four startups that are enlisting AI in the cybersecurity battle.
Darktrace “is inspired by the self-learning intelligence of the human immune system” to protect security. Jask is, according to company boilerplate quoted by Thomson, “the world’s first, predictive security operations center” for enterprise cybersecurity. Deep Instinct is using “deep learning algorithms to safeguard banking, financial and government interests in the United States and Israel.” harvest.ai searches internally to find the enterprise’s weaknesses and potential targets.
U.S. Web Speeds Accelerate: Akamai
Akamai has released its State of the Internet Report for the final quarter of last year.
The average connection speed in the United States was 14.2 Megabits per second (Mbps). That is a 29 percent year-over year increase, according to Multichannel News. Peak connection speeds were 61.5 Mbps, a 25 percent year-over-year rise. The nation is 14th and 20th in the world in average and peak connection speed, respectively.
Global average connection speed was 5.6 Mbps, a 23 percent year-over-year increase. Global peak connection speed was 32.5 Mbps, a 21 percent year-over-year increase. South Korea, at 26.7 Mbps, was tops in average connection speed. Singapore, with an average peak connection speed of 135.7 Mbps, was tops internationally.
Carl Weinschenk covers telecom for IT Business Edge. He writes about wireless technology, disaster recovery/business continuity, cellular services, the Internet of Things, machine-to-machine communications and other emerging technologies and platforms. He also covers net neutrality and related regulatory issues. Weinschenk has written about the phone companies, cable operators and related companies for decades and is senior editor of Broadband Technology Report. He can be reached at cweinsch@optonline.net and via twitter at @DailyMusicBrk.
