A week in retrospect…
Surprise, surprise! It has been another busy week in the world of tech. Elon Musk seems to have put his flamethrowing days behind and is now set on making his Teslas talk to nearby pedestrians. He didn’t go into much detail about what they’ll actually say, though he did confirm they will be able to fart in people’s general direction.
Classic billionaire joke.
On a more serious note — and in what effectively proposes a major shift in how we approach AI — U.S. researchers announced this week that they have successfully created the first biological robot. The Xenobot is made from frog stem cells and powered by evolutionary algorithms. It can also heal itself. Potential applications are certainly sci-fi worthy: micro-plastic cleaning bots, highly targeted drug delivery…
However, the researchers are hoping to use these robots to understand the interaction and communication between cells. After all, the human body as a whole is one of the most developed and effective forms of collective intelligence known to us.
Just imagine what could be achieved by uncovering its secrets and applying them to the advancement of robotics and AI.
RIP Windows 7….
Nothing new here — As of Tuesday, Microsoft is finally discontinuing support for what some consider the company’s best OS to date. Beyond such considerations, the phase-out leaves a good chunk of Windows users vulnerable to security breaches and other nasty hassles. Aware that some business-critical applications only run on Windows 7, Microsoft is offering to continue support for the old OS iteration until 2023. At a cost, of course.
Ironically, this happened the same week we discovered that the NSA alerted Microsoft of a security bug involving CryptoAPI that affects millions of Windows 10 computers.
We’d be curious to hear what you cybersecurity experts think could be the worst potential complications following the Windows 7 service cut. What are your thoughts?
Well, guess who’s not going to be happy with Google’s decision to end third-party cookies by 2022. Here’s a hint: our blue, furry friend above is not alone in this one.
As Google wrestles with Chrome user demands for greater privacy, it risks compromising the advertising-based revenue model that has served as the foundation of its empire. Folks at the Internet giant are already rushing to calm down advertisers while proposing they all work together to build an alternative that meets both privacy and profitability concerns.
What do you think could substitute third-party cookies and increase user privacy at the same time?
Last but not least — New developments coming straight from the front lines of the cloud wars.
Microsoft unveiled new ad tools for retailers at New York’s NRF, one of which Home Depot has already been using for the past year. The result of Microsoft’s acquisition last August of NY-based PromoteIQ, the new Microsoft PromoteIQ will allow retailers to promote products by combining intent-based data with audience insights.
The immediate goal is clear: to help MS customers increase sales at scale. The main goal? To grab some of Amazon’s cloud market share by pushing services to retailers who’d rather not deal with Mr. Bezos and his e-commerce monopoly.