The telecommunication service provider industry is one of the biggest businesses in the world. It also has historically been a capital-intensive industry with high fixed costs, which has put pressure on telecom operators to control their variable costs, particularly human capital. This tension surrounding profitability is intensifying. Many telecom operators crossed the point where revenue per bit is lower than cost per bit in 2017. Telecom operators are threatened by fast and highly-efficient web-scale companies and are straining under the challenge posed by digital transformation.

The company rolling out Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) has announced entering three-year research and development (R&D) partnerships with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Melbourne. Under what it called "major collaborative relationships", NBN said it would work with the two universities on Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), smart cities, programmable networks, data analytics and visualisation, wireless technologies, and "technology for social good" R&D projects. "These two new relationships will help NBN Co double down on our strong focus on technology innovation for customer experience and operational excellence," NBN CTO Ray Owen explained. "With these innovative institutions -- UoM and UTS -- we saw a natural fit in helping NBN Co further enable the digital economy." NBN added that the agreements are also expected to cover opportunities such as "student exchanges" and post-doctoral research collaboration by giving the universities "access to real-world telecoms network operational data".

Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing 104, 19-35.

In this work, we propose a subspace-based algorithm for DOA estimation which iteratively reduces the disturbance factors of the estimated data covariance matrix and incorporates prior knowledge which is gradually obtained on line. An analysis of the MSE of the reshaped data covariance matrix is carried out along with comparisons between computational complexities of the proposed and existing algorithms. Simulations focusing on closely-spaced sources, where they are uncorrelated and correlated, illustrate the improvements achieved.

It sounds paradoxical: can something artificial help us understand what's real and what isn't? Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are pinning their hopes on this possibility in their fight against "fake news." Recently, I had the good fortune to visit an exhibition in Paris entitled "Artists and Robots" with my wife, a former art teacher. As a former artificial intelligence (AI) researcher, it's not often we get to attend an exhibition that can appeal to both artists and scientists. Art is not my strong suit, but I do understand it's not meant to display "reality," but rather, as my good wife instructed me, the artist's "interpretation of reality, designed to appeal to his or her audience."

James Blackman has been writing about the technology sector for over a decade. He edited UK wireless industry trade title Mobile News before joining Chinese telecoms company Huawei, where he led media activity for its devices business in Western Europe. He has since worked on a freelance basis with a variety of private enterprises and news publications, including the BBC, European Communications, Mobile Europe and Solar Media. He is based in London.

Tile's Bluetooth trackers help people keep tabs on their keys, wallets and other items they don't want to lose, and today the company is making it a little easier for some to keep track of their important objects. Tile is teaming up with Comcast so that Xfinity customers with an X1 Voice Remote can simply ask where their item is. All they'll have to do is say something like, "Xfinity Home, find my wallet," or, "Xfinity Home, where are my keys?" And the last known location of the Tile associated with that object will be displayed on their TV screen. This is the first time Tile has offered this type of video and voice control with its trackers.

While the focus and objectives of IoT initiatives are many and diverse, they all share a few common attributes, and one of those is the network. Commonly, that network includes the Internet, over which there isn't any real control for performance and availability. The current state of the art for Big Data analytics, as applied to network telemetry, offers new opportunities for improving and assuring operational integrity. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Jim Frey, Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Kentik, discussed tactics and tools to bridge the gap between IoT project teams and the network planning and operations functions that play a significant role in project success. Speaker Bio: Jim Frey is Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Network Traffic Intelligence company Kentik.

Toyota has slowly been entering the modern era with full smartphone integration in its cars, and now it's time for the company's upscale Lexus badge. Lexus has revealed that the 2019 ES sedan is its first-ever vehicle to support Apple CarPlay, giving iPhone owners familiar apps and Siri while they ride in style. There's still no Android Auto support, sadly, but you do get Alexa voice control both in and outside of the car. The ES is a tech-laden car even if you don't care for voice assistants. The standard model includes an 8-inch center display, but you can spring for a navigation package that gives you an ultra-wide 12.3-inch screen and a mobile Verizon hotspot.

SoftBank's Pepper the humanoid robot has held a variety of odd jobs over the past few years, but a gig at the Smithsonian may be its most prestigious yet. Starting today, visitors can interact with Pepper at six Smithsonian locations to inquire more museum information, play games, or ask it to pose for a selfie. It even has its own security badge. Come say hi to Pepper at our Castle building, @NMAfA, @NMAAHC, @SmithsonianEnv and @hirshhorn. Pepper was created by Softbank Robotics, who provided us with a number of Peppers as part of this pilot.