The key role of enterprise services in Orange's plans for growth was spelled out clearly by Orange Group's Chairman and CEO, Stéphane Richard, when he presented the Group's five-year strategy, Engage2025, in Paris in early December. He said, "The enterprise market is changing profoundly to become data-driven, multi-cloud based and end-to-end cybersecurity…more than ever we believe in convergence of the technical and IT business, and we intend to accelerate the transformation of the B2B business. "The best proof of IT convergence is the skyrocketing demand for virtualised and on-demand services such as SD-WAN. We have a clear edge over conventional digital services companies in that we have the IT know-how. We are prepared for the challenges…of creating the right partnerships and automating and digitising the processes with the benefits of data analytics and AI". Multiservice integration services (MSI) are one of the areas in which Orange Business Services has invested heavily to gain that edge, a claim supported by testimony from Gartner and more importantly, from its customer Sony. In July, Sony Group announced it had chosen Orange Business Services to consolidate and transform the communications infrastructure of its two largest operating companies, starting with a harmonised network to improve user experience globally. Orange will be Sony's principal global provider, delivering a fully automated, intelligent network for all global business units over time. The solution will be built on Orange's Flexible SD-WAN and will connect more than 500 locations in over 50 countries across five continents. The plan is to deliver better performance, security and scalability. "Orange innovation, integration capabilities and international network are the catalysts that will allow us for the first time to bring our regional operating companies under one umbrella," said Makoto Toyoda, Chief Information Officer, Sony Group. "Only Orange could deliver a platform with the scale and scope to cover all the moving pieces of our international business.

Girone: My talk is going to be about what we do and how we process big data and what the challenges are around this. I will be giving a short introduction of CERN. How many people know about CERN here? Ok, so I'll skip the introduction maybe. I will then concentrate on computing and describe a little bit the challenges and the environment that today we work on. Most of my talk is going to be about what comes next in terms of machine, the machine is going to be upgraded, and computing and storage needs, which already are huge today, are going to go even higher. I'm going to discuss a little bit how we have started our R&D program about this. CERN is certainly a wonderful place to work. It has been created, founded by the member states of Europe just after the Second World War to give the opportunity to physicists, scientists, in general, to come together after a big war and work together. This is actually what we still do today. It has been built across two different countries.

A delegation of members of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) visited three Finnish technological hubs to assess the potential benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence for our society. They stressed that all future developments must encompass three pillars: product safety, consumer trust, and solidarity in health and social care. Artificial intelligence applications can increase people's wellbeing, but the potential risks need to be taken seriously. The products that are emerging as a result of new technologies and the digital revolution are in general extremely helpful and can have a wide range of uses in all areas of our lives, from dispensing medicines to curing loneliness. However, they need to be handled with care, as they are not always as straightforward as they may seem.

A Polish start-up has developed the first application in a suite of artificial intelligence (AI) tools dedicated to crop monitoring, yield optimization and management of outdoor hemp fields. "We'll be able to accurately predict when flowers will be perfect for a harvest. That's important not only because cannabinoids content can drop more than 35% if collected too late, but it's also critical from a logistics point of view," said Marcin Marczak, CEO at the developer, Green Cube Solutions. "With the limitations on available equipment, good planning is the key to a successful harvest." The technology being developed by Łódź-based Green Cube is an "integrated end-to-end platform that will support farmers from soil preparation through harvest and up to product distribution," Marczak said.

Me: "Alexa, tell me what will happen in 2020." Amazon AI: "Here's what I found on Wikipedia: The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship…[continues to read from Wikipedia]" Me: "Alexa, give me a prediction for 2020." Amazon AI: "The universe has not revealed the answer to me." Well, some slight improvement over last year's responses, when Alexa's answer to the first question was "Do you want to open'this day in history'?" As for the universe, it is an open book for the 120 senior executives featured here, all involved with AI, delivering 2020 predictions for a wide range of topics: Autonomous vehicles, deepfakes, small data, voice and natural language processing, human and augmented intelligence, bias and explainability, edge and IoT processing, and many promising applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies and tools. And there will be even more 2020 AI predictions, in a second installment to be posted here later this month. "Vehicle AI is going to be ...

What do these topics have in common? The answer can be found in machine learning research at Binghamton University. Dana Bani-Hani, a doctoral student studying industrial and systems engineering, has spent the past few years teaching machines how to read data sets in any industry. The system she coded, called a Recursive General Regression Neural Network Oracle (R-GRNN Oracle), takes data inputs and creates prediction outputs. Classification models are not new in data science and analytics, but what Bani-Hani created goes beyond the basics.

Researchers at the Yonsei University of Seoul have developed a new type of robotic contact lens that can be recharged wirelessly and which could bring a wide variety of futuristic uses for contact lenses one step closer to reality. The new devices are built around a circular translucent antenna and super capacitor system that can receive continual power without needing to be plugged in to an external power source. These experimental new contact lenses will also be able to draw electricity without raising the temperature of the lens, eliminating a potential long-term cause of harm to wearers and the device itself. According to a report from Yonhap News Agency, because the lenses are completely self-enclosed they can be maintained with standard contact solutions without any risk of degradation. The team used soft contact lens material instead of rigid material to ensure the tools could be used in as wide a variety of circumstances as possible.

From news outlets to social media sites, there are numerous places that spread fake news, but a study has uncovered a new source – you. Researchers found that people will misremember numerical statistics on a controversial topic in a way that fits their own commonly held beliefs. For example, when people were shown that the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States declined recently during the study--which is true but goes against many people's beliefs--they tended to remember the opposite. And the team also found that as people pass along this misinformation, the numbers can become further and further from the truth. The study was conducted by a team at Ohio State University, who carried out two studies to investigate how people perceive and spread fake news.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) are increasingly transforming the healthcare sector. From spotting malignant tumours to reading CT scans and mammograms, AI/ML-based technology is faster and more accurate than traditional devices – or even the best doctors. But along with the benefits come new risks and regulatory challenges. In their latest article Algorithms on regulatory lockdown in medicine recently published in Science, Boris Babic, INSEAD Assistant Professor of Decision Sciences; Theodoros Evgeniou, INSEAD Professor of Decision Sciences and Technology Management; Sara Gerke, Research Fellow at Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics; and I. Glenn Cohen, Professor at Harvard Law School and Faculty Director at the Petrie-Flom Center look at the new challenges facing regulators as they navigate the unfamiliar pathways of AI/ML. They consider the questions: What new risks do we face as AI/ML devices are developed and implemented?

The mobility revolution may have the potential to transform cities, but in the short term the rise in ride-hailing apps, bike sharing, and electric scooters is giving many local officials fits. A healthy dose of data and machine learning may help get this movement back on track. That's the bet that San Francisco-based StreetLight Data is making. The company is helping cities harness the explosion of data being generated by everything from smart city sensors to mobile phones to new transportation modes, in a bid to reinvent urban planning. As cities groan under rising populations and pollution, making more effective use of data could be the key to making them habitable over the long run.