Recently, IoT seems emerging as a solution vehicle for data analytics on real-world scenarios from setting a room temperature setting to predicting a component failure of an aircraft. Compared with developing an application or deploying a cloud service, is an IoT solution unique? How does a typical IoT solution architecture consist? And what are the essential components and how are they relevant to each other? How does the security play out?

SYS-CON Events announced today that Golden Gate University will exhibit at SYS-CON's 21st International Cloud Expo, which will take place on Oct 31 - Nov 2, 2017, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. Since 1901, non-profit Golden Gate University (GGU) has been helping adults achieve their professional goals by providing high quality, practice-based undergraduate and graduate educational programs in law, taxation, business and related professions. Many of its courses are taught by faculty actively working in their field of expertise, providing students with skills that can be applied immediately. The new MS in Business Analytics, like most of its programs, is available fully online or in-person in downtown SF. To learn more, visit us at www.ggu.edu.

The U.S. military says it conducted two drone strikes Thursday against Al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab fighters in southern Somalia. The results of the strikes were still being assessed, a statement from the U.S. Africa Command said. The strikes took place near the Banadiir region of Somalia, an area that includes the capital, Mogadishu, the statement said. "We continue to work in coordination with our Somali partners and allies to systematically dismantle al-Shabaab and help achieve stability and security throughout the region," the statement said. The strikes were carried out under new authorities that President Trump granted the Pentagon in March.

What is Image Recognition and why is it Used? In the context of machine vision, image recognition is the capability of a software to identify people, places, objects, actions and writing in images. To achieve image recognition, the computers can utilise machine vision technologies in combination with artificial intelligence software and a camera. While it is very easy for human and animal brains to recognize objects, the computers have difficulty with the same task. When we look at something like a tree or a car or our friend, we usually don't have to study it consciously before we can tell what it is.

If you could construct a sexual partner that was faithful, beautiful, and responsive to your every wish, would you? It's a question Aimee van Wynsberghe, co-founder of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics, thinks a lot about. In July 2017, she and fellow ethicist Noel Sharkey published a report (pdf), Our Sexual Future with Robots, that delved into the state of the robot sex industry and its future. Quartz met van Wynsberghe, a professor of robotics and ethics at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, on a trip to London in a busy café, just before she headed to the Science Museum's Robots exhibition, to discuss how close humanity is to sex and even love with robots, and the risks involved. The interview is edited and condensed for clarity. Quartz: Your report mainly deals with "precursors" to sex robots. How are the dolls and devices that already exist connected to possible robots of the future?

Not much about Makoto Koike's adult life suggests that he would be a farmer. Trained as an engineer, he spent most of his career in a busy urban section of Aichi Prefecture, Japan, near the headquarters of the Toyota Motor Corporation, writing software to control cars. Koike's longtime hobby is tinkering with electronic kits and machines; he is not naturally an outdoorsy type. Yet, in 2014, at the age of thirty-three, he left his job and city life to move to his parents' cucumber farm, in the greener prefecture of Shizuoka. "I thought I was getting old," Koike told me.

From manual human effort the world is slowly paving its way to a new space where most process are getting replaced with tools and systems to improve efficiency and bring down operational costs. Automation is the next big thing and low code platforms are fueling it in a significant way. The Automation era is here. We are in the fast pace of replacing manual human efforts with machines and processes. In the world of Information Technology too, we are linking disparate systems, software and tools to make things self-sustaining.

Hiroki Iwasa, a 40-year-old IT entrepreneur with an MBA, grows strawberries in seven high-tech greenhouses where computers set the temperature and humidity to optimal growing conditions and ensure the rows of bushes are sprayed with water at precise times. He markets his Migaki Ichigo-brand strawberries directly to fancy department stores in Tokyo, where they go for as much as ¥1,000 apiece, as well as to customers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, where Japanese produce has an excellent reputation. Such changes, while small, come as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pushes to reform the nation's hidebound farm industry, where small-plot holdings still dominate, the average farmer is over 66 years old and the sector's contribution to the economy has fallen by 25 percent since its peak in 1984. They should also make Japan more resilient if the United States tries -- as Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has hinted -- to pry open Japan's markets for rice and beef, which are protected by tariffs. Iwasa was running an IT company and working on an MBA in Tokyo when his coastal hometown of Yamamoto in Miyagi Prefecture, an area famous for strawberries, was hit by the March 2011 tsunami.

Artificial intelligence (AI) could add as much as 1.6 percentage points to China's economic growth rate by 2035, with industries like manufacturing, agriculture and retail seeing the most value from the technology, according to a recent report. As China's economic growth slows, a report by consultancy firm Accenture suggests that the advent of AI could give the country a much-needed boost in productivity and growth, especially as the number of working-age population in the country continues to decline. "AI capabilities have only just matured, such that they are able to interpret data at a speed and a cost that is reasonable and affordable for companies to take advantage of," said Adam Burden, Accenture's global lead for advanced technology & architecture. "The largest area of opportunity for AI in China's growth is absolutely manufacturing...the instrumentation of manufacturing has really only just begun. The Internet of Things, taking data and telemetry off machines and manufacturing lines for greater productivity is really just beginning."

Here's this week's newsletter: Last week, VentureBeat invited Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM, and other giants of AI into a big tent with brands like Coca-Cola, The New York Times, Tumi, and Walmart, as well as such promising startups as Bark.us, The gathering was MB 2017, and the need for practical AI was on nearly everyone's mind. Walmart, for instance, is using machine learning to better serve its 140 million weekly shoppers and to make new services possible. Laurent Desegur, vice president of customer experience engineering at WalmartLabs, explained the role of data science to make possible so-called Pick-up Towers within stores, which allow customers to order and pay online for items and then retrieve them, skipping the checkout lines. Desegur also described a 20-store pilot of Scan and Go shopping, a self-serve experience.