Structure News: The golden age of artificial intelligence

Where Learning Is Deep, Man February 26th, 2016 / by Tom Krazit This week, we'll talk about mapping the sentiment of the world based on data, DDoSing for dollars (not exactly, but the alliteration worked), and three huge breakthroughs in artificial intelligence research. STRUCTURE NEWS HOW GDELT IS CATALOGING AND ANALYZING THE ENTIRE PLANET One of the talks I'm most looking forward to at Structure Data is the one given by Kalev Leetaru, who is putting some amazing technology and data science behind a project to map the globe using a wide ranging of factors, from social media to news reports, in order to visualize the emotional status of a given country and help predict what might come next. He wrote a guest post for us this week about the effort required to keep this project up and running. THE STRUCTURE SHOW: WHY AI IS THE FUTURE OF SOFTWARE On this week’s show, Derrick Harris and I discuss IBM’s big event in the desert (more on that in a bit), Apple’s showdown with the FBI, and an excellent essay from Andreessen Horowitz’s Chris Dixon on the future of computing. Spoilers: we’re mixed on the value of developer/partner events, we’re sympathetic to Apple, and we’re big believers in the power of AI. Structure Data 2016 is right around the corner! Don't miss you chance to see some of the sharpest minds in big data and artificial intelligence, including Jeff Dean of Google, Peter Lee of Microsoft, and many more on March 9th and 10th in San Francisco. Register here.   INDUSTRY NEWS IBM INKS VMWARE, GITHUB, BITLY DEALS, EXPANDS APPLE SWIFT USE AS IT DOUBLES DOWN ON THE CLOUD IBM invited several thousand of its closest friends to Las Vegas this week for a big conference during which it trotted out a bunch of news before Elton John took the stage. Techcrunch takes a look at some prominent announcements, including a deal in which VMware will run inside IBM's public cloud datacenters, and a rare public appearance by Apple engineers to discuss how IBM will expand its use of Apple's budding Swift programming language in enterprise app development services. THE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE WHEN SECURING DATA IN THE CLOUD In a way, the public cloud lets CIOs breathe a little easier, in that basic security becomes the service provider's problem, but of course that's not entirely true. Silicon Angle uses the ongoing debate over the FBI's quest to get inside Apple's iPhone to look at how cloud security works in practice. ORACLE BUYS CLOUD SOFTWARE STARTUP RAVELLO SYSTEMS FOR $500 MILLION, SOURCE SAYS Oracle picked up another piece of the puzzle this week as it attempts to shift its business model toward the public cloud. Venturebeat reports that Ravello Systems will allow Oracle to improve its cloud infrastructure services, for the price of half a unicorn. BUG BOUNTY HACKERS SCORE BIG DOLLARS AND THE BOOM'S ONLY JUST BEGUN Software companies have been offering "bounties" to security experts for several years in hopes of providing a different kind of financial incentive to find weaknesses in software, and this is turning into a big business. The Register has a nice feature on the growth of bug bounties and the big money that can be made probing for weaknesses in software. SPOTIFY NEXT MEDIA COMPANY TO MOVE TO THE CLOUD Chalk up another win for Diane Greene: Google has convinced music streaming service Spotify to run the back-end infrastructure supporting its service on Google Compute Engine. Variety notes that Spotify had long been a roll-our-own infrastructure company, but hardly any company these days hasn't at least investigated the notion of running on the public cloud, and you have to figure Google made them a sweet deal to get a well-known customer win. NETWORKING TECH INVENTOR CASADO LEAVES VMWARE FOR ANDREESSEN  We've been following the career of Martin Casado, the father of software-defined networking, for several years now, and it looks like it's time for him to take on a more expansive role. Bloomberg reports that Casado is leaving VMware -- which acquired his pioneering startup Nicira -- to become a venture capitalist, looking at enterprise and infrastructure investments. BIG PICTURE Usually in this section, I try to summarize the most noteworthy or important event in the Structure universe that surfaced during the past week. But this week, there were three very interesting developments in artificial intelligence research that so clearly supported the notion that we're turning a corner in this area, I couldn't help but include all three as we gear up for two days of AI discussion at Structure Data. On Thursday, Google announced that it had developed a deep-learning machine that could actually tell you the location depicted in an image on the internet based on data. We're talking about famous locations, like the Eiffel Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge, but it's still another amazing example of the power of neural networks. Not to be outdone, Facebook revealed that it was able to map 4 percent of the world's surface in a week using satellite photos. That might not sound like a lot, and we've had pretty good maps for a while now, but Facebook thinks it could map the entire earth in six days using these algorithms and its computing power, which could pay amazing dividends in an era of rising seas. (The picture above is a "DigitalGlobe satellite image of Naivasha, Kenya (left) and results of our analysis of the same area (right)," Facebook said.) And finally, Google's DeepMind unit said it will tackle one of the biggest burdens of an aging population -- health care -- with the goal of improving the speed and accuracy of medical test results. As we continue to quantify ourselves with health data, helping medical organizations make sense of that data will not only make it possible to treat larger numbers of patients but could lead to additional breakthroughs in treatment. Let's not succumb to horse-race treatment of these announcements: as I wrote earlier this year about the AI conference organized by Facebook's Yann LeCun earlier this year, this industry is still small enough and collaborative enough that we should celebrate all of these advances. Still, competition is a very healthy thing in technology, and Google and Facebook are showing us what can be possible when massive computer networks and some of the finest minds of our time set out to achieve results unfathomable even five years ago.        DISCOVER MORE   Click here to unsubscribe from this list. Our mailing address is: Structure 405 El Camino Real, #215 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Add us to your address book Copyright (C) 2016 Structure All rights reserved. Forward this email to a friend. Update your profile.

Structure News: Apple's security showdown with the feds

Where We've Always Been In Cockroach Mode February 20th, 2016 / by Tom Krazit This week, we'll talk about the doom and gloom hanging over Silicon Valley, the race for the AI prize, and Apple's decision to take on Washington. STRUCTURE NEWS THE STRUCTURE SHOW: IBM AND AI, NETFLIX AND THE CLOUD, AND STORMS HEAD FOR SILICON VALLEY? On this week's show Derrick Harris and Barb Darrow join me to marvel at how quickly startups went from unicorns dancing in the fields to cockroaches just trying to survive. We also speculate a bit about the future direction of AI business at IBM (more on that in a bit), and recognize a milestone in Netflix's relationship with Amazon Web Services. Don’t forget that Structure Data 2016 is right around the corner, March 9th and 10th at the UCSF Mission Bay conference center. Derrick has put together a really cool lineup of speakers, including Rob High of IBM, who can shed some more light on the AI discussions taking place at Big Blue. You can find more information about the event here, and register here.   INDUSTRY NEWS BOSSES TAP OUTSIDE FIRMS TO PREDICT WHICH WORKERS MIGHT GET SICK From this week's edition of there-are-lots-of-humane-uses-for-data-but-that's-kinda-creepy beat, The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) highlights companies like Castlight Healthcare, which helps other companies comb employee medical records for signs they might need some medical help. The companies involved say they have only good intentions for their use of this data, and some of them undoubtedly do, but it's still a bit disconcerting that your HR department might get a push notification that you're stopped filling your birth control prescription and might be trying to get pregnant. TABLEAU TRIES TO FIX MISSTEPS AS IT SEES SLOWER GROWTH The all-out quest for growth that has characterized this latest startup boom might be draining public companies, too. Bloomberg interviews Tableau CEO Christian Chabot, who admits that the data analysis company probably grew too fast in the previous couple of years, and is now hoping to wring productivity gains out of its existing sales organization. THE USER EXPERIENCE: WHY DATA -- NOT JUST DESIGN -- HITS THE SWEET SPOT Design thinking is one of the most important concepts to evolve in the tech industry over the last decade, but when it comes to user experience, data must play a key role, at least according to Scott Snyder of Mobiquity and Jason Hreha of Dopamine, writing for Knowledge@Wharton. "… the reality is that all users are not the same — and they don’t all want to interact with your app in the same way," they write. X PRIZE AND IBM ANNOUNCE A $5 MILLION ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COMPETITION The X Prize has been a boon for several emerging technologies, such as self-driving cars and robotics, and it's now teaming up with IBM to offer one of its prizes for artificial intelligence research. It's a little unclear exactly how this competition is going to work, since the X Prize didn't set a specific goal and won't announce how it is defining AI until May, according to The Verge, but it's still cool. THE KEY TO SECURITY IS BEING OPEN Apple might disagree with the headline of this piece on Medium (more on that in a bit), but Alex Stamos, CSO of Facebook, argues that the best way to protect tech companies from outside attackers is to band together. You can bet this theme will be on the agenda at Structure Security, our brand-new conference, this September. HERE'S WHY IBM IS DROPPING $2.6 BILLION ON TRUVEN HEALTH After buying up The Weather Channel's treasure trove of weather data for its Watson program last year, IBM is now adding to its health-care data set. Fortune reports that IBM paid $2.6 billion for Truven Health, which will give Rob High of IBM something else to talk about at Structure Data.   BIG PICTURE Apple has flown somewhat under the radar in Washington compared to some of the other tech titans, namely Microsoft and Google. But this week the company put itself in the middle of one of the most important fights between tech companies and government surveillance interests in the post-Snowden era. The details are familiar by now: the FBI wants Apple to tweak iOS to allow it to brute-force attack (and pry open) an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernadino attackers. In a strong rebuke, Apple CEO Tim Cook (above) basically told the FBI to pound sand, and you can be sure at least a year's worth of litigation is about to break out. Ben Thompson's Stratechery blog has a good overview of the situation. As we prepare for Structure Security, I've been talking to lots of security professionals about issues such as these: when do tech companies cooperate with government requests for user data (and how), and when do they choose to fight back? After years of security gains, government-mandated backdoors into popular software like iOS could open the floodgates for all sorts of bad actors who want to do everything from installing malware to stealing money. At the heart of this dispute is a simple question: will the U.S. government allow tech companies to make products that its spies can't break into? If the FBI wins this case, it's not hard to see a drumbeat of similar cases springing up all across the tech world. From mobile phones to cloud services, Silicon Valley companies are being put on notice that the federal government thinks it has a right to access their user data. While requests backed by a warrant are one thing, forcing products to be designed around government surveillance requirements is quite another. The outcome of this dispute will have an enormous impact on the way future tech products and services are designed. (Tim Cook portrait courtesy Flickr user thierry hermann)       DISCOVER MORE   Click here to unsubscribe from this list. Our mailing address is: Structure 405 El Camino Real, #215 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Add us to your address book Copyright (C) 2016 Structure All rights reserved. Forward this email to a friend. Update your profile.

Can data play the hero during a tumultuous time in tech?

Good morning, We're not that far into 2016, and the tech sector has already had a wild ride. Have we seen the worst, or are we in for another one of those years that Silicon Valley won't soon forget? I can't promise Structure Data will deliver the answer to that question, but it might help offer a little clarity. We'll hear from executives and technologists at influential companies who'll share their assessments of the current climate, what the future holds, and how data analysis can play a role in turning things around. Speakers include: Chris Moody, VP of Data Strategy, Twitter Rob Bearden, CEO, Hortonworks Josh Wills, Director of Data Engineering, Slack June Andrews, Data Scientist, Pinterest Eva Tse, Director of Big Data Platforms, Netflix Ron Brachman, Head of Yahoo Labs, Yahoo Chris Martin, CTO, Pandora Jeff Schneider, Engineering Lead, Uber ATC Rob High, VP and CTO of Watson, IBM John Schroeder, CEO, MapR Tom Reilly, CEO, Cloudera You will not find a better event than Structure Data to hear from, and network with, some the smartest people in technology and covering technology. One great thing about the tech industry is that it's very hard to predict what comes next, but we do know it will be exciting, world-changing and, possibly, humbling. Register here to be part of the discussion. -Derrick Harris Head of Content for Structure Data Copyright © 2016 Structure, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you attended a Gigaom event in the past or signed up for a Gigaom.com newsletter Our mailing address is: Structure 405 El Camino Real, #215 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

Structure News: Why the enterprise will drive the internet of things

Where Security Is Social February 12th, 2016 / by Tom Krazit This week, we'll talk about a brand-new conference in the Structure Series, a milestone for Netflix, and the path to glory for the internet of things. STRUCTURE NEWS INTRODUCING STRUCTURE SECURITY: MAPPING THE FUTURE OF SECURITY Structure was created in part to take our events series to new places, showcasing other parts of the tech industry (and maybe even beyond…) alongside the events you already know and love. The first brand-new event we plan to host is Structure Security, which will happen September 28th and 29th in San Francisco. I wrote a preview of what you can expect from the show here. CAN DATA PLAY THE HERO DURING A TUMULTOUS TIME IN TECH? It's best not to look at the Nasdaq these days. But the companies that thrive despite what might be a coming tech downturn are the ones that understand the best way to collect, analyze, and utilize data, argues Structure Data curator Derrick Harris. Remember, Structure Data 2016 is around the corner of February, coming March 9th and 10th to UCSF Mission Bay. Register here. THE STRUCTURE SHOW: WHY AI IS THE FITURE OF SEARCH, CISCO'S IOT BET, AND STRUCTURE CONNECT On this week's edition of the podcast, old friends Barb Darrow of Fortune and Stacey Higginbotham of The IoT Podcast joined me to talk about AI and search, which we covered in last week's newsletter, Cisco's $1.4 billion bid for Jasper, and Structure Connect, which we're thrilled to have Stacey organizing again (more on that in a bit). Photo Credit: Yu. Samoilov via Compfight cc   INDUSTRY NEWS ANDY RUBIN UNLEASHED ANDROID ON THE WORLD. NOW WATCH HIM DO THE SAME WITH AI At Google, Andy Rubin changed the trajectory of the smartphone market by developing and releasing a "free" mobile operating system that anyone could use to build a phone. Rubin has something more-or-less similar in mind for his new venture, Playground Garage, which according to Wired hopes to nurture startups that will create the building blocks for AI-based applications and devices. ZENEFITS FOUNDER PARKER RESIGNS AFTER COMPLIANCE FAILURES One of the highest-flying enterprise cloud-software startups in the Valley had a hell of a week. Zenefits, which helps smaller businesses offer benefits to their employees, forced its founder and CEO, Conrad Parker, to resign after finally admitting that its disdain for the laws of the insurance market had gone too far. Buzzfeed, which first pointed out how Zenefits was flouting state laws to a rather disruptive degree, has the story. STEPHEN PRATT, HEAD OF IBM'S NEW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE GROUP, LEAVES IBM is chasing younger (although to be fair, that's everybody) and nimbler competitors on a host of fronts in enterprise computing, and it encountered another setback this week with the departure of Stephen Pratt, who was leading its AI efforts, according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required). The company has a great marketing vehicle for its AI efforts in the ubiquitous Watson (as Rob High of IBM will talk about at Structure Data), but AI research is an extremely competitive field at the moment. GOOGLE HAS QUIETLY LAUNCHED ITS ANSWER TO AWS LAMBDA Diane Greene's Google cloud unit continues to make noise as it fights uphill, releasing this week Google Cloud Functions, which as Venturebeat reports mimics Lambda, a very well-regarded feature within Amazon Web Services. In classic Google mode, it's an alpha release, which means most enterprise customers will wait and see, but it checks off the "Is Google serious about the enterprise?" box on many lists. NETWORK VIRTUALIZATION IS VMWARE'S NEXT FRONTIER VMware is in a very weird position going into 2016, waiting to see how the Dell-EMC plays out while trying to assure customers that everything is business as usual. This week CEO Pat Gelsinger talked up a few of the things the company has planned for the future, such as a big bet on software-defined networking, according to Fortune. NETFLIX FINISHES ITS MASSIVE MIGRATION TO THE CLOUD Netflix has always been one of the leading examples of the cloud computing revolution, and it made that designation official on Thursday by announcing that it has closed its last data center. Ars Technica reports that billing and payments was the last thing to move to the cloud, which underscores that even the biggest cloud evangelists take their time when it comes to moving their customers' financial information into the cloud.   BIG PICTURE There have been many computing revolutions: punch cards to mainframes, mainframes to mini computers to PC-based servers, and the rise of mobile devices. In almost all of those revolutions, consumers have been on the trailing edge of adoption: obviously regular people didn't buy mainframes, PCs were way too expensive for a very long time to be ubiquitous anywhere but work or school, and BlackBerry used to own the smartphone market. We think the internet of things is in a similar place. This week Stacey Higginbotham, who created the Structure Connect conference back in a different world, laid out some of the principles she's thinking about as she puts together the program for Structure Connect 2016, which will be held in San Francisco this June. One thing that struck me was the notion that the enterprise is likely to be the first place IoT companies see a lot of adoption, after years of all of us talking about the smart home. This makes a lot of sense. Consumer-focused IoT companies have been tripping all over themselves peddling a bunch of incompatible products and services to a public that has yet to see an iPhone moment ("oh, wow, that's totally something I want!") in this market. Meanwhile, enterprise customers have been quietly investing in sensors and connected devices that can improve their supply chains and unlock new data about their business practices. We plan to showcase both kinds of companies at Structure Connect, and stay in touch to hear more about those plans as they come together. Someday the iPhone moment will happen for the smart home/car/toaster market, but the road to that moment will likely pass through a few enterprise-driven places first, until somebody takes the acquired knowledge from those experiences and makes something that delights the masses. Come find those companies at Structure Connect. Photo courtesy Flickr user Hans Poldoja/CC 2.0       DISCOVER MORE   Click here to unsubscribe from this list. Our mailing address is: Structure 405 El Camino Real, #215 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Add us to your address book Copyright (C) 2016 Structure All rights reserved. Forward this email to a friend. Update your profile.

40% off ticket sales – Thursday only

Save over $400 with this one-day only* promotion. Limited tickets available – offer valid while tickets last. If you’re interested in data, analytics, visualization or making sure your business can compete in the 21st century, there is one place you need be in March: Structure Data. Immerse yourself among 600 big-data practitioners and experts from Fortune-500 companies and startups alike.   Speaker list: Area 1 Security Baidu Battery Ventures Bayes Impact Bloomberg Brain of Things Civis Analytics Cloudera Cloud Technology Partners Condé Nast Confluent Databricks DataHero Enlitic Ensemble Labs Evidation Health Facebook Fast Company GDELT General Electric Google Gracenote Hortonworks IBM In-Q-Tel Intel Interana MapR Technologies McLaren Applied Technologies Metamarkets Microsoft Netflix Norwest Venture Partners NPR Orlando Magic Pandora PayPal Pinterest Propeller Health Samsung Slack Syapse The Climate Corporation The New York Times Thorn Turning AI Twitter Uber UC Berkeley VenueNext WIRED Yahoo ZDNet Tickets: Pick them up today. p.s. This discount is for new registrations only.   SPEAKERS   Jeff Dean Google Peter Lee Microsoft Andrew Ng Baidu William Ruh General Electric Eva Tse Netflix Jeff Schneider Carnegie Mellon University and Uber ATC   SPONSORS   HEADLINE     PRIMETIME     SHOWTIME     PARTNERS     MARCH 9 – 10, 2016 SAN FRANCISCO, CA REGISTER NOW   Click here to unsubscribe from this list. Our mailing address is: Structure 405 El Camino Real, #215 Menlo Park, CA 94025 Add us to your address book Copyright (C) 2016 Structure All rights reserved. Forward this email to a friend. Update your profile.