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Week Ending: February 23, 2018

03, 2017

This Week’s Stories AT&T Launches New Smart City Projects February 23, 2018 AT&T has well and truly boosted the smart city sector, adding multiple capabilities to its platform to better the services cities get. The network company has extended its relationship with Cisco, to help cities gain a near real-time view of current activity happening in a city. The additions to the platform include increased capabilities with Cisco, as well as new smart city alliance members and launching new infrastructure projects across Portland. AT&T’s Smart Cities Operations Centre (SCOC) collects and analyses data from multiple departments and points across the city into a customised dashboard. In doing so, it heavily benefits the cities by allowing city leaders to make faster and more informed decisions. Using the platform together, the pair is exploring different ways to integrate the Cisco Kinetic for Cities Platform into specific AT&T Smart Cities solutions. Additionally, this will enable them to strategically roll out resources to make the biggest impact and cut down costs and response times. “Cities today are looking to unlock the value of the data being generated by connected machines, things and spaces,” said Anil Menon, global president, Smart+Connected Communities, at Cisco. “Cisco Kinetic for Cities is purpose-built to harness the power of all that data to drive smart city initiatives forward. Together with AT&T we want to help bridge the disparities between connected devices, people, and processes to simplify operations, enable new revenue sources, and allow leaders to be more responsive to citizen needs.” The open architecture of the platform allows cities to add more solutions much more easily than they have been able to before, addressing a vast range of city needs. The platform takes citywide data and enables it to be used in previous devices, apps and services. “When a city’s data is harnessed, analyzed and acted upon—securely in near real-time—it opens up a world of opportunities,” said Mike Zeto, general manager, AT&T Smart Cities. “With our strategic all iance members, we’re delivering solutions that will give c ity leaders meaningful insights into the communities they serve. This can mean improved quality of l ife for citizens.” Other initiative AT&T is launching in Portland includes AT&T Digital Infrastructure, with Current, to transform lighting infrastructure into sensor-enabled data networks. This will help the city address issues such as traffic flow and parking, as Intel IoT technologies power each sensor’s computer vision analytics. A total of 200 Digital Infrastructure sensors will be rolled out. The city will also roll out AT&T Structure Monitoring, which will work alongside IBM IoT Cloud, and IBM Services. Devices with LTE-enabled sensors will be deployed to different infrastrucutes across Portland, to measures things such as temperature, cracks and tilts to the structure. “As we work to make Portland an even smarter and more connected city we’re excited to launch this new collaboration with AT&T,” said Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler. “This is significant in helping us build our city’s infrastructure and create new opportunities for local residents. With the integration

Inside This Issue:

This Week’s Stories AT&T Launches New Smart Ci ty Projects

States Refile Lawsuits To Block

Repeal Of U.S. Net Neutrality Canada Wants To Help India Lead 'Blockchain Revolution'

Products & Services IBM Reveals Novel Energy-Saving

Optical Receiver With A New Record Of Rapid Power-On/Off Time

Apple Plans Upgrades To Popular AirPods Headphones

Anchor’s New App Offers

Everything You Need To Podcast

Emerging Technology Google’s AI Can Now Predict Heart Disease Just By Scanning

Your Eyes The New Technology That Transfers Data 1,000 Times Faster Than WiFi Is Coming To Offices

Mergers & Acquisitions Unity Partners With IBM To Bring

Watson AI To Games

Sinclair Broadcast To Sell WRLH In Richmond And 10 Other

Stations In Bid To Buy Tribune Media

Industry Reports Arti ficial Intelligence Poses Risks

Of Misuse By Hackers, Researchers Say

IBM Targets Installed Base With

Second Phase Of POWER9 Systems

Weekly Wireless Report

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of AT&T’s Smart City solutions, we will be better positioned to improve traffic and increase public safety.” crbonline.com

States Refile Lawsuits To Block Repeal Of U.S. Net Neutrality February 22, 2018 A coalition of 22 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia on Thursday refiled legal challenges intended to block the Trump administration’s repeal of landmark rules designed to ensure a free and open internet from taking effect. The Federal Communications Commission officially published its order overturning the net neutrality rules in the Federal Register on Thursday, a procedural step that allows for the fi ling of legal challenges. The states, along with Web browser developer Mozilla Corp and video-sharing website Vimeo Inc (IAC.O), had fi led petitions preserving their right to sue in January, but agreed to withdraw them last Friday and wait for the FCC’s publication. The Republican-led FCC in December voted 3-2 to overturn 2015 rules barring service providers from blocking, slowing access to or charging more for certain content on the internet. “Repealing net neutrality will allow internet service providers to put corporate profits over consumers by controlling what we see, do, and say online,” said New York’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, who is leading the coalition. Other members of the group include California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The attorneys general argue that the FCC cannot make “arbitrary and capricious” changes to existing policies and that it misinterpreted and disregarded “critical record evidence on industry practices and harm to consumers and businesses.” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is confident the order will be upheld, his office said in a statement. The White House Office of Management and Budget still must sign off on some aspects of the FCC reversal before it takes legal effect. That could take months. Congressional aides say the publication will trigger a 60-legislative-day deadline for Congress to vote on whether to overturn the FCC’s decision. U.S. Senate Democrats, who hold 49 seats in the 100 -person chamber, have the backing of 50 senators for repeal, leaving them one vote short of a majority. Democrats need 51 votes to win any proposal in the Republican-controlled Senate because Vice President Mike Pence can break any tie. Even if Democrats do win a Senate majority, reinstatement of net neutrality would also require a favorable vote in the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a larger majority, and would stil l be subject to a l ikely veto by President Donald Trump. The repeal of the net neutrality rules was a victory for internet service providers l ike AT&T Inc, Comcast Corp and Verizon Communications Inc, conferring power over what content consumers can access.

“Even if Democrats do win a

Senate majority, reinstatement

of net neutrality would also

require a favorable vote in the

House of Representatives,

where Republicans hold a

larger majority, and would still

be subject to a likely veto by

President Donald Trump.”

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On the other side, technology companies i ncluding Alphabet Inc and Facebook Inc have thrown their weight behind the congressional bid to reverse the net neutrality repeal. The FCC December order also seeks to pre-empt states from imposing their own net neutrality rules. But governors in Vermont, Hawaii, Montana, New Jersey and New York have signed orders pledging to do business only with internet providers that abide by net neutrality rules. reuters.com

Canada Wants To Help India Lead 'Blockchain Revolution' February 21, 2018 India and Canada are l inking up to promote the technology behind bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Canadian government-backed researchers are joining forces with India's vast tech industry to explore the use of blockchain in government and academic institutions, as well as businesses. India's tech industry association Nasscom and Canada's Blockchain Research Institute (BRI) said they would also create a center of excellence in India to provide "high-end technology capabilities." The announcement coincided with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's visit to India this week. Blockchain, an internet-based ledger that keeps a public record of online transactions, is being touted as the future of the digital economy for its wide range of potential applications. India plans to use it to digitize everything from land records to healthcare, the head of a government-run think-tank said on Twitter earlier this month. But blockchain is still best known for providing the platform for virtual currencies such as bitcoin and ethereum. The Indian government has repeatedly warned that virtual currencies have no official backing, even likening them to "Ponzi schemes" earlier this year. Experts believe India could be preparing tough regulations, following recent moves in this direction by China and South Korea. But India is also gung-ho about the underlying technology. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said recently that the country would "explore use of blockchain technology proactively," even as he was denouncing cryptocurrencies in his annual budget speech. Canada's BRI, whose stated goal is to "build blockchain-based economies around the world," also touted India as the next big frontier for the technology. "We see our coalition with Nasscom as a delightful opportunity to nurture the blockchain community in India," Don Tapscott, the institute's founder and executive chairman, said in a statement. "We strongly believe that India has the potential to lead the blockchain revolution," he added. Canada has become an attractive destination for bitcoin "miners," who use computer algorithms to unearth the virtual currency by solving math problems, as big markets l ike China crack down on the activity. money.cnn.com

“India plans to use it to digitize

everything from land records to

healthcare, the head of a

government-run think-tank said

on Twitter earlier this month.”

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Products & Services

IBM Reveals Novel Energy-Saving Optical Receiver With A New Record Of Rapid Power-On/Off Time February 22, 2018 With the increasing popularization of datacenters and other bandwidth hungry interconnect applications, today's bandwidth growth of short-distance optical networks demands data transmission speeds of more than 100 Gb/s, calling for the development of energy-efficient, multi-channel optical l inks with fast data transfer rates. Based on complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (COMS) technology—a standard low-cost, high-volume chip manufacturing technique used for most processors and chips today—a group of researchers from IBM Research in Zurich, Switzerland, together with a consortium working under the EU-funded project "ADDAPT," have demonstrated a novel optical receiver (RX) that can achieve an aggregate bandwidth of 160 Gb/s through four optical fibers. This is not only the fastest data transmission speed to date, but the newly developed optical receiver also features the link power-on/off functionality and can wake-up and achieve phase-lock in eight nanoseconds, the shortest switch time in record. They will present their innovation at OFC 2018, 11-15 March, San Diego, California. According to the researchers, the rapid power-on/off feature will enhance link utilization and greatly reduce energy consumption on a chip or in an optical interconnect system. Unlike many commercial optical transceivers that are always powered on regardless of transmission activity, the power here would only be used when data packets are transmitted through the optical link. The novel design, packaged with an 850-nanometer photodiode array, targets low-cost VCSEL-based optical l inks for datacenter interconnects. "This is the first optical an receiver that combines high-speed data transmission rate and rapid power-on and off functionality while being extremely low lower in the 'power-on' state (about 88 miliwatts)," said Alessandro Cevrero, the primary author of the paper and a scientist of IBM Research Lab, Switzerland. Today, l ink utilization in datacenters is less than ten percent for 99 percent of the links. This means only ten percent of the links' work time is actually used for transmitting user data, while the rest of the time is wasted by sending idle data packets that missing information. To improve power efficiency in optical interconnect system, the researchers developed the rapid on/off functionality for the receiver, so that l inks can be powered off during idle time and powered back on when the data is ready to be transmitted. "Our design, for the first time, allows for the on/off switching of and optical l ink on a per -packet basis," Cevrero said. The switch-on time is only eight nanoseconds, which is shorter than the average length of time for an individual data packet in a typical network protocol transmitted at a speed of 160 Gb/s. "There were previous scientific attempts to turn off the links when there is no data, however the timescale to switch on and off the link was orders of magnitude longer than that of an individual data packet. To achieve shorter power-on, time at a very high data transmission speed is the key challenge." To address this, Cevrero's team designed an optical receiver with four i dentical channels associated with a proposed link protocol. The link protocol is equipped with self-developed smart analog circuits that can rapidly align the receiver's clock with the arrival of the incoming data, and detects the optical signal sequences to rapidly turn the link system on and off. The researchers then tested the receiver at 40 Gb/s second with a reference transmitter consisting of an 850-nanometer Mach-Zehnder modulator followed by a variable optical attenuator. They also

“According to the researchers,

the rapid power-on/off feature

will enhance link utilization and

greatly reduce energy

consumption on a chip or in an

optical interconnect system.”

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performed power on/off experiments by generating an optical signal implementing the proposed link protocol. As a result, they observed correct power cycling across a 109 power cycle, and that the receiver operates error free at 40 Gb/s second yielding 160 Gb/s aggregated bandwidth over multi-mode fibers. The experimental data also showed that ten-percent l ink utilization corresponds to 85-percent power saving on the receiver. Cevrero noted that improving power efficiency of optical l inks enables scientists to build significantly faster, higher performance computer systems, since one can "cram" higher bandwidth in the same thermal budget of the package. Saving on energy consumption also helps reduce the carbon dioxide emission from the optical network, leading to greener optical communication systems. The researchers' next step, Cevrero said, is to validate a complete optical interconnect system by measuring the optical transmitter, as well as to increase the data transmission speed on the receiver side to 56 Gb/s per channel. phys.org

Apple Plans Upgrades To Popular AirPods Headphones February 22, 2018 Apple Inc., seeking to bolster its wearables business, is working on upgrades to its wireless AirPods headphones, according to people familiar with the matter. Like with its mobile devices -- the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch -- Apple intends to frequently update the AirPods with new hardware features. The Cupertino, California-based technology giant is working on a new version for release as soon as this year with an upgraded wireless chip, the people said. A subsequent model for as early as next year is planned to be water resistant, they added, asking not to be identified discussing private product plans. The model coming as early as this year will let people summon Apple’s Siri digital assistant without physically tapping the headphones by saying "Hey Siri." The function will work similarly to how a user activates Siri on an iPhone or a HomePod speaker hands-free. The headphones, internally known as B288, will include an upgraded Apple-designed wireless chip for managing Bluetooth connections. The first AirPods include a chip known as the W1, and Apple released the W2 with the Apple Watch last year. The idea for the water-resistant model is for the headphones to survive splashes of water and rain, the people said. They likely won’t be designed to be submerged in water. The latest iPhones can survive splashes, while the Apple Watch is considered "swim-proof." Apple’s plans could change or be delayed, the people said. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. Apple's Other Sales Boom Other Products category is Apple's fastest growing division thanks to devices l ike AirPods The AirPods are designed by the same department that produced the HomePod speaker, Bloomberg News reported last year. Apple introduced the first AirPods in 2016 a longside the iPhone 7 as a way to replace the traditional wired headphone jack. Since launch, AirPods have been considered one of the top-performing Apple products and have resonated with both reviewers and consumers. The product helped take wireless headphones mainstream. It was one of the first models to be fully wireless and come in a case that charges the headset. Similar products followed from Google, Sony

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Corp., Samsung Electronics Co., Motorola and Bose. AirPods accounted for 85 percent of the money spent in the U.S. on wireless headphones since they debuted, research firm NPD Group estimated last year. Apple’s Other Products segment, which includes AirPods, Beats headphones, the Watch, Apple TV and accessories, generated more than $5 billion in revenue for the first time in the company’s fiscal first quarter, representing 36 percent year-over-year growth. "Wearables were the second-largest contributor to revenue growth after iPhone, which is impressive," Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said during a conference call with analysts earlier this month, adding that sales jumped almost 70 percent last year. The category may continue to grow. Apple has said it is releasing an upgraded AirPods case this year that allows the headphones to be recharged wirelessly, l ike the iPhone X. The company is also working on an augmented-reality headset that would launch in 2020 at the earliest, Bloomberg News has reported. bloomberg.com

Anchor’s New App Offers Everything You Need To Podcast February 22, 2018 Broadcasting app Anchor, which helps anyone record and share audio, is relaunching its app today

with a new focus on serving the larger podcaster community. While in the past, Anchor was carving

out a niche for itself in the short-form, social audio space, the new version – Anchor 3.0 – aims to be

everything you need to record, edit, host, publish, and distribute a podcast of a ny length, as well as track how well the podcast is performing.

The changes follow Anchor’s close of a $10 million Series A from Google Ventures and Accel last fall,

and arrive at a time when interest in podcasts is continuing to grow. Half of U.S. homes are now

podcast fans, Nielsen has said, and 22 percent consider themselves “avid” fans. In addition, the rise of

smart speakers with voice assistants has made it more convenient to l isten to audio recordings in the

home, helping to boost adoption further.

Anchor’s general belief has been that anyone should be able to easily record and share audio without

the need for special tools or technical know-how. The new product represents a doubling-down on

that belief, as it aims to remove the many obstacles that would-be podcasters face, from hosting

fees, to the needs for special editing software, and the lack of insight into how well podcasts are

being received by l isteners, among other things.

Though Anchor had been targeting short-form audio, professional podcasters began using its app in

greater numbers last year to take advantage of several of its tools. This included Anchor videos,

which turns audio into shareable, video clips (which will be re-added to the new app in a later

release), as well as a “call-ins” feature which allows them to receive voice messages from listeners

that could be later integrated into a new episode.

But most of all, they were using the one-touch podcast feature that lets anyone record and distribute

audio with a tap of a button.

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“That’s when the floodgates opened, and we saw all this interest around podcasting, specifically using

Anchor tools,” explains Anchor CEO Mike Mignano.

He says the team then looked to see how they could better serve their podcaster user base, and

found that it was still surprisingly hard to create a podcast today.

“It seemed crazy how difficult it was to make an actual podcast. There’s the expensive microphone

you have to buy, the difficult software you have to manage on your computer and learn. And there’s

the process of uploading and paying to host your audio files,” he says. There’s also dealing with the podcast’s RSS feed, which not everyone understands.

What’s New

The new app will now drop users straight into a podcast creation screen, with color-coded buttons for

using Anchor’s various features in addition to the big, red “Record” button.

There are buttons for recording with friends; for call-ins (now called voice messages, meant for direct,

private conversations); for adding music from Apple or Spotify; and for adding transitions from Anchor’s built-in library of sounds.

As you create and use these components, they appear as drag-and-drop modules in a visual editor on

the screen, so you can move them around to create your podcast episode.

This all color-coded as well, as is a bar at the top of the screen showing the length of each audio piece you’ve assembled. And Anchor has dropped the 5-minute limit on recording your voice, too.

Anchor will also now host your podcasts for free, and allow you to easily import your back catalog if

you want to make a switch from your current hosting provider. There are no limitations on who can use this feature.

“In 2018, this is just the way it should be – there shouldn’t be hosting fees holding people back from

this,” says Mignano.

After you’ve finished your edit, you can push a button to publish the podcast for availability on Apple

Podcasts, Google Play, Overcast, Pocketcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Alexa devices, Google Assistant devices, Apple HomePod, Android Auto, Apple Carplay, and, as of today, Spotify.

Also in the new app, and to a greater extent on the web, Anchor now offers podcast analytics which

show things like plays per episode, total plays, downloads, and more. On the web, these are available as charts and graphs, and there’s a section showing which platforms listeners are coming from, too.

The web version offers a more advanced editor with the ability to upload audio files from your

computer and re-use recordings from your Anchor history.

Of course, there is one concern for professional podcasters migrating to Anchor’s platform – and that’s whether it will be around in the long-term.

For now, the company isn’t generating revenue – it’s l iving off its funding. Podcasters who pay for

hosting or self-host don’t generally have to worry with whether they’ll one day have to quickly

migrate elsewhere because the company is shutting down or being acquired – and that’s always a concern with startups.

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Mignano says Anchor’s plan is to eventually introduce monetization tools for podcasters, which will

play a role in Anchor’s business model. (Specifics were not available, but Anchor would likely take a

cut of the revenue it helped to generate, as is standard.) This seems like a good bet, especially considering how popular the format has become.

Several big names are launching on Anchor 3.0.

This l ist includes: Reshma Saujani & Girls Who Code, BuzzFeed, Relay FM, Penguin Random House

author Alison Green, Tiffany Zhong and Zebra Intelligence, Seeker, Fatherly, Eniac Ventures, Abby Norman, The Outline, Cheddar, The Players Tribune, and Atlantic Records.

Along with hosting, every podcaster gets their own custom URL for their show, which includes

buttons to subscribe anywhere its hosted – l ike Apple Podcasts, Google Play, etc.

Partners, and other Anchor broadcasters, will continue to see their work featured within the app, as before, but in a redesigned “browse” section that has more of an iTunes-like look-and-feel.

Anchor 3.0 is rolling out to iOS and Android, and on the web, starting today.

techcrunch.com

Emerging Technology Google’s AI Can Now Predict Heart Disease Just By Scanning Your Eyes February 20, 2018 As if Google doesn’t already have its fingers in enough pies, the company is now taking aim at cardiovascular disease with the help of machine learning. In a paper published in Nature’s Biomedical Engineering journal (PDF), the search giant’s health subsidiary Verily detailed a method to predict risks of heart diseases that uses by scanning the rear interior wall of your eye. When photographed with the aid of a microscope and camera, that portion of your eye, known as the fundus, can give doctors an idea about the patient’s age, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and whether or not they smoke – and by extension, whether they’re l ikely to suffer from heart disase. By training with data from nearly 300,000 patients, Verily’s machine learning system was able to look at the retinal images of two candidates – one who had suffered a cardiovascular event in the following five years, and who did not – and correctly identify them 70 percent of the time. That’s comparable to methods that are currently in use and require blood tests. The researchers acknowledge that there are still a few limitations to overcome before it’s ready for prime time. Nonetheless, the findings are promising, and Verily’s work could certainly speed up tests for cardiovascular disease and make them more accessible.

thenextweb.com

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The New Technology That Transfers Data 1,000 Times Faster Than WiFi Is Coming To Offices February 19, 2018 A new technology could fundamentally impact the way real estate companies think about digital connectivity. LiFi is an emerging way of transferring data that will make even the fastest WiFi connection feel like a dial-up modem from 1997. And the technology it uses is relatively simple — a l ightbulb. LiFi uses LED lightbulbs to transfer data, in much the same way as a WiFi router but much, much quicker and more efficiently. Speeds can be around 1,000 times faster than WiFi. Without getting too deep into the science, which was pioneered by professor Harald Haas at the University of Edinburgh, LiFi uses l ight instead of radio waves to transmit data, and for that reason is much faster. Light has a higher frequency than radio waves and also a higher bandwidth, which means as well as being able to carry data faster, it can carry more of it. “That gives LiFi a much higher capacity,” WiredScore Technical Director Sanjaya Ranasinghe said. “If you think about how difficult it is trying to get on the WiFi in a public place, that is because so many people are using it. If you think about offices, there will be an even greater number of devices in the future, when people have wearable technology and there are more devices connected to the Internet of Things. LiFi will have the capacity to deal with that.” Ranasinghe said the technology is “moving from prototype to maturity”. French developer Sogeprom, part of investment bank Société Générale, built a new headquarters in the La Défense business district of Paris incorporating the technology. “The installation of high bandwidth LiFi in our offices fits our vision and perfectly fits with our client's demands of increased mobility, system security and connectivity,” Sogeprom Deputy Chief Executive Pierre Sorel said. LiFi also has the potential to provide increased security. Because light does not travel through walls, it is possible to create LiFi networks for very specific areas, reducing the ability of anyone outside that network to hack in. “If the chief executive or a particular team need their own network, that is possible,” Ranasinghe said. bisnow.com

“…LiFi uses light instead of

radio waves to transmit data,

and for that reason is much

faster.”

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Mergers and Acquisitions Unity Partners With IBM To Bring Watson AI To Games February 21, 2018 Game engine developer Unity has teamed up with IBM to bring their powerful Watson AI to games. The collaboration was revealed in a post on the Unity3D blog, whi ch includes a number of examples and resources for prospective developers. The 'IBM Watson Unity SDK' has been added to the Unity asset store, allowing developers to integrate the cloud-based artificial intelligence into their games. Unity's Nathan Ventura believes the partnership will help to build "the future of enterprise AR and VR." "This partnership exemplifies IBM and Unity’s commitment to accelerating the enterprise developer journey and equipping them with the tools and resources they need to build powerful new AR and VR apps." "We're excited to collaborate with IBM to empower the Unity community with powerful AI -driven cloud services to help expand a new frontier of interactivity." The SDK opens up many possibilities for utilizing speech recognition within games, boasting "powerful language translation and language classification capabilities." A few examples include the ability to issue vocal commands to NPC's in Star Trek Bridge Crew and Watson and Waffles, a VR adventure title where the Watson AI is used to identify 3D objects drawn by the player. The Unity team recently revealed a trailer to demonstrate the capabilities of the engine in 2018. You can check out the spooky "Book of The Dead" trailer here. ign.com

Sinclair Broadcast To Sell WRLH In Richmond And 10 Other Stations In Bid To Buy Tribune Media February 21, 2018 Sinclair Broadcast Group plans to sell WRLH in Richmond, Chicago’s WGN-TV and stations in New York and eight smaller markets to win federal approval of its proposed $3.9 billion takeover of Tribune Media. Sinclair outlined steps it will take to comply with national TV station ownership rules in a plan filed Wednesday with the Federal Communications Commission. Sinclair plans to sell stations in eight markets where it overlaps with Tribune to comply with the FCC’s duopoly rule. Tribune owns WTVR in Richmond.

“The Tribune acquisition would

cement Sinclair’s spot as the

nation’s biggest broadcaster,

with control of 233 television

stations that reach 72 percent

of U.S. households.”

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The Tribune acquisition would cement Sinclair’s spot as the nation’s biggest broadcaster, with control of 233 television stations that reach 72 percent of U.S. households. As originally proposed, the deal would give Sinclair 42 Tribune-owned stations and a presence in top markets, including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. The FCC said in a Sept. 14 letter that the merger as proposed in May would leave Sinclair exceeding a national TV ownership l imit and asked what steps Sinclair planned to take to comply. Sell ing stations in Chicago and New York would be one of those steps. However, Sinclair plans to enter into an “option and services agreement” with the buyers of those stations, which aren’t identified in the fi ling, with details to be revealed “shortly” in another filing. In November, the agency made changes to station ownership rules, including eliminating a requirement that at least eight independently owned television stations remain in a market after combining the ownership of two stations in the market. The agency also allowed ownership of two top-four ranked stations in the same market on a case-by-case basis. Critics of the deal have accused the FCC of changing rules to benefit Sinclair. Besides planning to sell stations in New York, Chicago and San Diego to comply with a national ownership cap, Sinclair plans to sell stations in eight markets where it overlaps with Tribune to comply with the FCC’s duopoly rule, including places such as Seattle-Tacoma, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City and Richmond. The broadcaster also is seeking permission to own two top-four rated stations in markets in Indiana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Tribune Media was created in 2014 when the former Tribune Co. spun off the Chicago Tribune and other newspapers to form Tribune Publishing, now known as Tronc. richmond.com

Industry Reports

Artificial Intelligence Poses Risks Of Misuse By Hackers, Researchers Say February 21, 2018 Rapid advances in artificial intelligence are raising risks that malicious users will soon exploit the technology to mount automated hacking attacks, cause driverless car crashes or turn commercial drones into targeted weapons, a new report warns. The study, published on Wednesday by 25 technical and public policy researchers from Cambridge, Oxford and Yale universities along with privacy and military experts, sounded the alarm for the potential misuse of AI by rogue states, criminals and lone-wolf attackers. The researchers said the malicious use of AI poses imminent threats to digital, physical and political security by allowing for large-scale, finely targeted, highly efficient attacks. The study focuses on plausible developments within five years. "We all agree there are a lot of positive applications of AI," Miles Brundage, a research fellow at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute. "There was a gap in the literature around the issue of malicious use."

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Artificial intelligence, or AI, involves using computers to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as taking decisions or recognizing text, speech or visual images. It is considered a powerful force for unlocking all manner of technical possibilities but has become a focus of strident debate over whether the massive automation it enables could result in widespread unemployment and other social dislocations. The 98-page paper cautions that the cost of attacks may be lowered by the use of AI to complete tasks that would otherwise require human labor and expertise. New attacks may arise that would be impractical for humans alone to develop or which exploit the vulnerabilities of AI systems themselves. It reviews a growing body of academic research about the security risks posed by AI and calls on governments and policy and technical experts to collaborate and defuse these dangers. The researchers detail the power of AI to generate synthetic images, text and audio to impersonate others online, in order to sway public opinion, noting the threat that authoritarian regimes could deploy such technology. The report makes a series of recommendations including regulating AI as a dual-use military/commercial technology. It also asks questions about whether academics and others should rein in what they publish or disclose about new developments in AI until other experts in the field have a chance to study and react to potential dangers they might pose. "We ultimately ended up with a lot more questions than answers," Brundage said. The paper was born of a workshop in early 2017, and some of its predictions essentially came true while it was being written. The authors speculated AI could be used to create highly realistic fake audio and video of public officials for propaganda purposes. Late last year, so-called "deepfake" pornographic videos began to surface online, with celebrity faces realistically melded to different bodies. "It happened in the regime of pornography rather than propaganda," said Jack Clark, head of policy at OpenAI, the group founded by Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk and Silicon Valley investor Sam Altman to focus on friendly AI that benefits humanity. "But nothing about deepfakes suggests it can't be applied to propaganda." msn.com

IBM Targets Installed Base With Second Phase Of POWER9 Systems February 20, 2018

Back in December, IBM announced the first phase of its POWER9 products—its first POWER9 chip and its first POWER9-based server (read my full write-up of the announcement here). Now IBM has officially launched the second phase of its POWER9 server products. While the first phase centered around newer customers focusing on AI and ML workloads, the new phase targets current IBM customers running IBM AIX, IBM i, Linux, and SAP HANA. I am going to delve further into the new announcements, but first, some background.

“These new offerings are

designed to run on legacy, on-

prem Linux, AIX, and IBM apps,

or to create new cloud and AI

apps.”

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IBM Power Systems play where reliability, longevity, and performance are key. I heard a great story from an “IBMer” last week about a customer being upset that they had to reboot their older POWER system after nine years. With an NPS of 65, it is clear that customers are very happy with these products (Google has an NPS of 50, for reference). This is a big part of why IBM is very well represented in the financial, healthcare, telco, and government markets. You can get a sense of how focused IBM is on verticals by looking at this. Another key to IBM’s success is that its solutions are end-to-end. IBM, l ike Apple, creates all the hardware and software and even some of the applications. In addition to the POWER hardware, IBM also offers as part of all POWER systems IBM AIX OS, IBM iOS (no, not the one from Apple), Linux OS, PowerVM (virtualization), PowerVC and PowerVC for SDI (cloud stack), and IBM Private Cloud (containers). IBM Power Systems are essentially designed to be one-stop shops—very appealing for customers. Building On The First Phase, Focused On AI And ML IBM has adopted a sort of “rolling thunder” approach for its POWER9 product releases. As I said earlier, the first phase was geared towards newer customers, focusing on AI and ML workloads. The initial release of POWER9 received prominent endorsements from both Google and the Department of Energy CORAL; while Google has yet actually to publicly deploy POWER9, CORAL is already running it and claims to be seeing significant performance improvements. AI/ML is an area where POWER9 undoubtedly excels, and it made sense for IBM to lead off here. The company wanted to make sure it got its due credit for designing the new architecture from the ground up for AI/ML specific workloads. Having accomplished this, IBM is now entering the next chapter of rollout—focusing on its installed base. The second phase of IBM’s POWER9 offerings is geared towards mission-critical data and workloads, targeting current customers already running AIX, IBM i, Linux, and SAP HANA. These new offerings are designed to run on legacy, on-prem Linux, AIX, and IBM apps, or to create new cloud and AI apps. According to IBM Market Intelligence, 61% of the Power Systems installed base claims that “cloud” is impacting their migration plans, and not just because their CIOs are breathing down their necks to “get some cloud.” That number even seems a bit low to me, but it makes sense. Power Systems In Private Cloud, Too Speaking of cloud—every Power System comes with its virtualization software built-in, called PowerVM and a base cloud stack called PowerVC, a crafted OpenStack base software stack. These run on Linux, IBM AIX and IBM i. Customers can upgrade, for a fee, to PowerVC for SDI to get a complete SDI stack, adding SDS (software defined storage) and SDN (software defined networking) to the base PowerVC. If customers prefer containers, they can use IBM Cloud Private software. This all sounds great on paper, but it is important to see these capabilities in action. While IBM could not disclose the company’s name, it has mentioned a major European retailer customer who is using Power Systems in three different environments. First, it has an AIX private cloud, running PowerVC and PowerVM on top of one POWER8, 128 core, 4TB E850C 4U system. Secondly, the company is using a big data, Mongo DB private cloud, running PowerVC Cloud for SDI and KVM cloud on six 22 core POWER8-based S822LC systems. Lastly, it is running an AI system for ML research, on one 20 core POWER8-based S822LC (the S822LC can handle two to four NVIDIA Tesla P100s with NVLInk and optional water cooling—I like to call it the “Swiss-army knife of acceleration”). These case studies are all good demonstrations of IBM Power Systems’ private cloud versatility—I hope to see more examples soon of companies putting the new POWER9-based servers to work. The last thing I will say in this area is that IBM is putting much emphasis on the fact that it has a ten-year roadmap for both AIX and IBM i. The company wants to demonstrate that not only is it making a

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long-term customer commitment, but also that its OSs will remain “fresh” l ike Linux (even though the company is a big Linux player). It’s important to note that if IBM customers stick with AIX or IBM i, there is a 100% chance they will buy IBM hardware. The POWER9 Platform Details With all of the bigger picture stuff out of the way, let’s move on to the nitty-gritty of the new POWER9 platforms. These new products do feature some impressive differentiated technology—such as the built-in virtualization software mentioned earlier. Additionally, these new platforms sport 25Gb/sports, which can add some of the fastest AI, ML, encryption and network accelerators out there. As I have written before, IO is becoming everything when it comes to server platforms and subsequently server chips. These links support NVLink 2.0, OpenCAPI 3.0, and PCIe Gen 4. No other platform supports this kind of options. Additionally, POWER9 platforms feature 4TB with two sockets, with two standard RDIMMS, allowing customers to quickly put entire HANA instances on one server, addressing real memory, without crossing server l inks or spooling to slower storage. While most SAP HANA installs are below 2GB, I believe this is because this capability was not readily available, and IT restricted the amount of data to memory size. The new POWER9-based platforms are divided into three families. First, small enterprise servers for AIX, IBM i, and Linux. This group includes the S922, the S914, and the S924, which span from a four core, 1-socket, 1TB platform in a 2U chassis, up to a 24 core, 2-socket, 4TB platform in a 4U chassis. All of these come with PowerVM and support for AIX, IBM i, and Linux. The biggest reason, in my mind, for legacy POWER customers to move to POWER9 systems are the huge improvements in performance, pre-built cloud capabilities, and the fact that the technology is robust and “future-proof” with its 25G links and PCIe Gen4. IBM is touting a 50% performance improvement over POWER8, so I can only imagine somewhere in the ballpark of a 500% improvement over POWER5. That is significant. The second group of the new POWER9 servers is those optimized for SAP HANA—the H922 and the H924. These span from a four core, 1-socket, 4TB platform in a 2U chassis to a 24 core, 2-socket, 4TB platform in a 4U chassis. All of these come with PowerVM and support AIX and Linux. It is important to note that IBM i supports only 25% of the cores per system. The big reasons for legacy customers to upgrade here are the massive 4TB memory access on 2-socket systems, increased performance, and potentially better reliability. IBM says that failures of x86 servers are often cited as reasons for delays in HANA ’go-l ive’ projects. Furthermore, IBM says clients are migrating from HANA on x86 to POWER are reporting at least 2X better performance. I have not had the chance to vet any of these performance claims, but I intend to. Things could get interesting here! The last segment is straight-up Linux, add your own “everything”, even though the platform still comes with PowerVM. This segment includes one platform, the L922, and spans from 12 core, 1 -socket configuration in a 2U chassis to a 24 core, 2-socket configuration in the same 2U chassis. Some potential good reasons to upgrade from the older Power Systems could be increased performance and PowerVC’s pre-built cloud capabilities.

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Wrapping Up IBM Power Systems play big in the mission-critical markets where reliability, performance, and longevity matter—hence the 65 NPS score and strong presence in the financial, retail, and telco verticals. With the first phase of the rollout, IBM POWER9 proved itself as a great Linux platform for new customers with AI and ML workloads with dominating IO and great PowerAI tools. The second phase looks to be a promising attempt to appeal to Big Blue’s preexisting installed base, adding optimizations for AIX, IBM i, Linux, and HANA environments. Current AIX, IBM i and Linux customers should consider upgrading for the performance, longevity, and built-in cloud features. SAP HANA customers should keep in mind IBM’s spicy performance and resiliency claims versus x86 a nd consider upgrading to access the monster 4TB footprint. Legacy POWER customers on Linux need to consider moving to POWER9 platforms for the increased performance and built-in cloud capabilities. All in all, I think IBM has done a great job of positioning the new POWER9 servers towards its installed base of customers running traditional AIX and IBM i environments. I will continue to watch with interest. forbes.com

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