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The Morning Download: Google AI Tools Target the CIO
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Good day, CIOs. The question over which team leads artificial intelligence efforts may vary from enterprise to enteprise, but for Google's Cloud AI division, the target audience is clear.
“The CIO is the critical person in this. We’re focused on specifically transforming companies’ digital presence, and we’re really determined to go [after] central business problems,” Andrew Moore, head of Google Cloud AI, tells CIO Journal's Sara Castellanos.
The division on Wednesday announced prepackaged AI services aimed at helping company IT chiefs address common business problems. The tools, which include a document understanding tool to help customers analyze unstructured data, are designed so that in-house data scientists can build AI models faster. "AI is no longer an interesting research topic,” Mr. Moore said. “It’s a tangible tool for businesses to be able to leapfrog against their competitors.”
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Lyft and Pinterest are so reliant on Amazon Web Services that they have warned investors of a serious risk to their businesses if it ever goes down. PHOTO: CHRIS HELGREN/REUTERS
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Unicorns Lyft, Slack and Pinterest bet big on Amazon’s cloud. Lyft Inc., which went public late last month, Pinterest Inc., which is expected to list next week, and Slack Technologies Inc., which is preparing a direct listing for late in the second quarter, all are major customers of Amazon Web Services.
How big? The ride-hailing service has committed to spending at least $300 million on AWS through the end of 2021. Pinterest is on the hook for $750 million in a deal running from May 2017 through July 2023.
And therein lies the challenge. The WSJ reports that the reliance is such that Lyft and Pinterest have warned investors of a serious risk to their businesses if Amazon’s service ever goes down. Slack has yet to make its IPO paperwork public, but it may contain similar language.
Blame early adoption. Amazon established its web services operation in 2006, just in time for a new crop of Silicon Valley startups that found the service much more cost effective than building the necessary internal networks. Microsoft Corp.’s Azure didn’t launch until 2010.
Today. More companies are now spreading their bets, embracing the multicloud.
AWS, Microsoft front-runners in Pentagon cloud contract. The New York Times reports that the two cloud giants are the final contenders for a $10 billion Defense Department cloud contract. The program, known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program, or JEDI, would use cloud-computing technology to harness advanced technologies for military purposes. Some cloud rivals, including Oracle Corp., have protested the bidding process, saying it has favored AWS.
China sweetens cloud offer in U.S. trade talks. Last week Chinese negotiators proposed to issue more licenses that businesses need to operate data centers and to lift the 50% equity cap that limits ownership for certain foreign cloud-service providers, the WSJ reports.
An improvement. U.S. negotiators and tech companies panned as unrealistic an earlier proposal calling for a trial liberalization where foreign cloud companies could operate in China without a domestic partner in a free-trade zone.
Tech companies meet with officials. Earlier this week, some U.S. cloud-computing companies including Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. met with officials from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to discuss issues surrounding China’s cloud market.
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A OneWeb satellite under construction at the company’s factory. PHOTO: ONEWEB
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Soon there will be constellations of satellites orbiting the Earth at high speed, providing fast satellite internet directly from space. Many of the plans for these networks describe what eventually could be thousands of satellites, communicating both with one another through still-exotic technologies like laser interconnects and with the ground through novel sorts of electronically steered antennas.
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These are not the ambitions of companies that want to bring internet access to remote villages—they’re the world-spanning, empire-building designs of companies that want to compete with Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, AT&T and other giants as they race to bring ultrafast internet to our homes and businesses via fixed lines, wireless 5G and, eventually, satellite internet.
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Analysis by Christopher Mims
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The black hole image from the Event Horizon Telescope issued Wednesday PHOTO: EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE COLLABORATION/MAUNAKEA OBSERVATORIES/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Computer scientists were instrumental to producing the newly unveiled image of a black hole, a scientific first. The WSJ's Daniela Hernandez talked with Katie Bouman, a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who helped develop new methods that sifted through the mountains of data collected from multiple telescopes around the world by the Event Horizon Telescope project.
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Q:
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Tell us about the algorithms.
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A:
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“We used traditional algorithms for radio interferometry [a tool that links multiple radio antennas together]. Their strength is that people understand them. But they require a lot of human intervention and guidance. We’ve been developing new methods to try to remove the human altogether from the equation.”
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Q:
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Why is the analysis so difficult?
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Q:
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“There are an infinite number of images that can fit the data. You have to point your telescope at the source, and that’s hard to do. We would get drifts. We had to algorithmically try to fix that. Because the atmosphere is variable [between telescope locations]…you have [an] additional delay that mixes into what you’re trying to measure. You can try to back out that corruption to get at the underlying signal, but that’s hard to do. That’s why we’ve developed all these methods to validate what we’re seeing.”
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Laptops for sale in India. PHOTO: NASIR KACHROO/NURPHOTO/ZUMA PRESS
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Global PC shipments fell in latest quarter. The first-quarter decline was driven by a shortage of Intel Corp. computer processors, the WSJ reports. But the shortage largely affected smaller vendors, as the largest companies in the space had better access to computer chips and saw their market share increase, according to the latest reports from Gartner Inc. IT and International Data Corp.
The numbers. Gartner said preliminary data showed world-wide PC shipments totaled 58.5 million units in the first quarter, down 4.6% from the year earlier. IDC said world-wide shipments reached 58.5 million units, a 3% decrease from 2018.
Uber aims for public valuation of as much as $100 billion. The current expectations are well below the valuation of as much as $120 billion that Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the lead underwriters, had pitched as a possible public offering price tag last year. Uber is expected to start its roadshow for investors around the end of the month, which would set it up for a trading debut in the second week of May, the WSJ reports.
U.S. officials pressure Russia-linked buyout firm to sell stake in cyber company. The WSJ reports that U.S. intelligence officials have grown increasingly concerned about connections cybersecurity companies have to Russian entities since they began probing Moscow’s election interference. Private-equity firm Pamplona Capital Management, which has a stake in cyber firm Cofense Inc., is partly backed by a Russian billionaire named in the Steele dossier.
Tech employees push back—this time climate change. More than 4,200 Amazon.com Inc. employees put their name to a shareholder resolution urging the company to draw up a plan around reducing its carbon footprint, the New York Times reports.
Student becomes master. “It’s exactly what Amazon has taught me to be: bold, audacious, and tackle big problems,” Maren Costa, a principal user-experience designer, tells the Times.
Company responds. An Amazon spokesman tells the Times that the company is addressing climate change. This week it announced plans for three new wind farms, its first renewable energy project for data centers in more than two years, the Times reports.
Robot crime wave. Oregon deputies, responding to an intruder call, stormed a house with guns drawn only to discover a Roomba vacuum cleaner performing a “very thorough vacuuming job.” According to a statement from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, the caller, hiding in her bathroom, had reported seeing "shadows under the bathroom door.” CNBC has more.
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Everything Else You Need to Know
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British police arrested Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, at Ecuador’s embassy in London, after Ecuador withdrew asylum protection. His arrest opens a path for a possible extradition request from the U.S. (WSJ)
The company that owns the National Enquirer said it is exploring a sale of the tabloid, which has been at the center of hush payments to women who alleged they had affairs with President Trump. (WSJ)
European Union leaders agreed to postpone Brexit until Oct. 31 to allow British Prime Minister Theresa May more time to try to get the U.K.’s Parliament to approve the country’s divorce deal with the bloc. (WSJ)
In a handful of fossilized teeth and bones, scientists say they’ve found evidence of a previously unknown human species that lived in what is now the Philippines about 50,000 years ago. (WSJ)
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