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It's hard to believe that the founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX could have such reactionary views about artificial intelligence. Elon Musk last weekend had some very un-Musk-like things to say about AI when he addressed the U.S. National Governors Association meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. "AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization, and I don't think people fully appreciate that," Musk said. He even suggested that government ought to regulate the nascent industry -- but it's hard to regulate that which isn't yet formed. It's reminiscent of what happened when the George W. Bush administration decided to restrict stem cell research. The regulation didn't work because the research simply moved to more friendly jurisdictions.

Federal agencies already under the gun to modernize their information technology capabilities have a new set of standards to meet as a result of an executive order President Donald Trump issued this spring. The directive not only will affect agency managers in their IT operations and acquisition activities, but also will have a significant effect on IT vendors...

I just finished reading an interesting hard science fiction book called "The Punch Escrow" by Tal M. Klein (a movie is in the works) What makes the difference between hard and soft science fiction is that hard science fiction is based on science, while soft is, let's just say, far more imaginative. To be honest, I enjoy both types, and the soft stu...

Microsoft and Johnson Controls this week unveiled Glas, a smart thermostat that runs on Microsoft's Windows 10 IoT Core, a special operating system designed specifically for smaller devices. Glas also utilizes Microsoft's smart voice assistant Cortana and its Azure Cloud to help users save energy while monitoring air quality in the home Heating an...

Retailers have been focusing on technologies to measure and assess customer response, and have been using the data they produce to drive e-commerce decisions, suggests a study of 136 enterprise retailers at the 2017 eTail West Conference held earlier this year Enterprise retailers with at least US$500 million in annual revenues participated in the ...

Millions of IoT devices are vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks due to a vulnerability initially discovered in remote security cameras, Senrio reported this week The firm found the flaw in a security camera developed by Axis Communications, one of the world's biggest manufacturers of the devices.

You're probably tired of reading that the Internet of Things is the hottest thing going, and that IoT is a boon to technology and, simultaneously, a potential disaster for security and privacy. However, over the past few years, another IoT-related technology has been growing: vehicle to vehicle V2V is a way for automobiles to communicate directly w...

Customers want fast service or support from knowledgeable people where, when, and how they prefer to receive it, based on the results of a study the CMO Council published Tuesday Together with SAP Hybris, the CMO Council last year conducted an online survey of 2,000 respondents, equally divided between men and women. Fifty percent were in the Unite...

CoreOS and the Open Container Initiative on Wednesday introduced image and runtime specifications largely based on Docker's image format technology. However, OCI's decision to model the standard on Docker's de facto platform has raised questions. Some critics have argued for other options....

Facebook on Wednesday launched "Discover Growth," a global ad campaign targeting B2B marketers The 30-day U.S. ad campaign, which will target direct-response marketers as well as traditional brands, will run both on and off the Facebook platform....

Microsoft on Monday announced the availability of its first public release candidate for SQL Server 2017, which includes full support for Windows, Linux and Docker containers SQL Server on Linux improves on earlier previews with several key enhancements, including active directory authentication; transport layer security to encrypt data; and SQL Se...

People concerned about automation killing jobs might look at Helpshift's strategy and similar automation approaches. By enabling businesses to build help or support into mobile apps, these new models are re-inventing support to get the job done. Sure, they provide automated support in lieu of conventional agents, but they do so at a level where it...

Google's augmented reality goggles were a flop several years ago -- when intrepid explorers wore the devices in restaurants and bars, sparking reactions ranging from disapproval to outright violence -- but they have become very welcome in the workplace. Their success in a host of business settings led The Team at X on Tuesday to announce an expansion of its Glass Enterprise Edition program...

The American Technology Council, which President Donald Trump established this spring by executive order, has four years to rebuild the federal government's information technology structure. A massive reboot of both hardware and software will be necessary to bring government computers up to modern standards. The effort will force many government a...

Avnet last week unveiled a beta version of Ask Avnet, an automated virtual assistant that combines artificial intelligence with on-demand access to industry experts Ask Avnet targets "engineers, designers, hobbyists, makers and purchasing specialists across the electronics supply chain -- which includes the product manufacturing chain," said Kevin ...

The Internet Association, which represents 40 of the United States' leading technology companies -- including Facebook, Google, Amazon, and others -- on Monday filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission, urging it to maintain Net neutrality regulations enacted during the Obama administration The rules have created a level playing fie...

With September fast approaching, speculation has begun to roil about the next generation of iPhones, particularly the iPhone 8, or whatever Apple decides to name its special 10th anniversary edition of its smartphone However, fans aching to get their hands on the iPhone 8 may have to ache longer than those upgrading to the expected new iPhone 7s an...

SharkLinux OS is one of those very rare newcomer distributions that has "Future Big Winner" written all over it....

DoNotPay, an AI-based chatbot app created to help fight parking tickets in the UK, now addresses roughly 1,000 consumer concerns and is available throughout the United States as well as across the pond. The app's creator, Stanford University student Joshua Browder, announced the expansion last week. Powered by IBM Watson, DoNotPay has about 1,00...

Verizon, the largest wireless phone company in the U.S., last week confirmed that data belonging to about six million of its wireless customers was exposed after the information mistakenly was allowed to remain unprotected on an Amazon cloud server. The disclosure follows reports that an engineer at Nice Systems, which provides workforce managemen...