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The Morning Download: Allied Universal CIO Sees AI System as 'Virtual Coach' for Employees
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Good morning, CIOs. Mike Mullison, chief information officer at Allied Universal, talked with CIO Journal's Agam Shah about how the security firm is tapping artificial intelligence to help its guards better patrol buildings and sites.
The AI-enabled system, known as Heliaus, assesses real-time data to determine where security risks merit the most resources. It's another example of how companies are boosting efforts to integrate AI into the corporate decision-making process. In this case, the decision concerns getting security guards in the right place at the right time.
The company saw more than a 20% reduction in incidents at sites using the system. “We have a platform that acts as a virtual coach,” he said. "We’re seeing that reduction in safety and security incidents…things like crimes and accidents.”
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PHOTO: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS
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Otis Elevator CDO prepares for spin off. As chief digital officer at Otis Elevator Co., the world's largest elevator company, Neil Green is bringing technology chops to a company with a rich engineering history. He is also preparing Otis to spin off from its parent company United Technologies Corp., which will be finalized next year. He talked with CIO Journal about technology priorities in the lead up to the split.
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What sort of transformation are you providing?
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We're in the midst of separating from UTC. A lot of the capabilities that we got from UTC, we have to build those on our own. We're building a cybersecurity discipline, these are capabilities that we got from UTC that we never had to think about. We have to build our own data and analytics engine. Otis has been collecting data for the last 30-plus years. My first hire joining the company was our new data and analytics officer. She's now building a team and hiring analysts and hiring developers to write the algorithms that will help us drive the service.
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As a 150-plus year old engineering company, how do you re-skill workers and change the way they think about elevators?
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I'm just starting that conversation. As part of our separation efforts from UTC, we're also thinking about how do we provide capabilities on a global scale. I have to start thinking about the functions we are displacing with these new technologies and what becomes of those workers ... As I deliver consistent ERP systems across the globe, how do I take those workers that were skilled in one area and how do I retrain, retool them, for the functions that we're going to need in the future? That's a lot of the conversations that we're having.
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Cybersecurity consultant Maor Schwartz, speaking Aug. 7 at the Black Hat USA conference in Las Vegas, said selling details of software vulnerabilities to technology providers has become a legitimate business for hackers. PHOTO: BLACK HAT
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Hackers go pro, seeking bounties for bugs. Finding fundamental flaws in software used to be a shady business. No more, WSJ Pro Cyber's James Rundle reports. HackerOne Inc., which manages bug-bounty programs, said that it has registered more than 300,000 hackers and that companies have paid out $42 million in bounties through its platform since November 2013.
Best for quick hits. Still, few hacker-researchers focus on attacking professional-grade software for mega payouts. Around 75% of researchers go after quick wins relating to website vulnerabilities.
Giant batteries supercharge wind and solar plans. A global wave of investment in high-capacity batteries is poised to transform the market for renewable energy in coming years, making it more practical and affordable to store wind and solar power and deploy it when needed. (WSJ)
London locales install facial recognition. Transit and eatery hub King's Cross already is using facial recognition technology to track visitors. If the Canary Wharf development of East London follows suit as planned, over 240 acres of London will be covered by the tech. (FT)
Remember Tumblr? Verizon Communictions Inc. has agreed to sell its blogging website Tumblr to Automattic Inc., the owner of popular online-publishing tool WordPress.com, unloading for a nominal amount a site that once fetched a purchase price of more than $1 billion. (WSJ)
Fired academic goes to Facebook. The social media company has hired a speech recognition effort who was fired recently from a research professor position at Johns Hopkins University for using bolt cutters to enter a building occupied by protesting students. (CNBC)
YouTube radicalizes Brazil. Fans of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's president, credit his rise to YouTube. Critics of the far-right figure likewise credit YouTube's recommendation algorithm, noting a general degradation in societal discourse. (New York Times)
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75%
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Percentage of North American employers using agile practices, according to a survey of more than 3,130 project managers by the Project Management Institute.
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JONATHAN ZIZZO FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Why the current obsession with work processes? Blame email. "With the arrival of practical asynchronous communication, people replaced a significant portion of the interaction that used to unfold in person with on-demand digital messaging," writes the New Yorker's Cal Newport. Yet while email allowed office workers to cut down on time spend playing phone tag and arranging meetings, something has been lost. "Work has become something we do in the small slivers of time that remain amid our Sisyphean skirmishes with our in-boxes," Mr. Newport writes. Enter the Scrum.
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Everything Else You Need to Know
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Protesters swamped Hong Kong International Airport for a second straight day, blocking the gates to the security and immigration areas and snarling the busy transit hub. (WSJ)
Legal immigrants could be ineligible for green cards if they use or are deemed likely to rely on social programs, a new rule by the Trump administration that critics say punishes the poor. (WSJ)
The Trump administration is removing protections aimed at keeping animals from becoming extinct. (WSJ)
A new arrival to Wall Street and former student-body president at New York University’s Stern School of Business was charged with insider trading tied to a $1.7 billion buyout. (WSJ)
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