Communications

The role of blockchain developer is the most rapidly growing emerging job in the United States, according to the 2018 U.S. Emerging Jobs report by LinkedIn released on Dec. 13. In the course of preparing the report, LinkedIn used data from its Economic Graph to analyze the positions that companies are hastily hiring for, as well as skills related to those positions and roles that have emerged over the past five years. The professional social network found that the role of blockchain developer has registered an increase of 33 times in the past 12 months, while cities with the highest demand are San Francisco, New York City, and Atlanta. Among major skills required for the role, LinkedIn notes solidity, blockchain, Ethereum, cryptocurrency, and Node.js. This year's top emerging jobs also include artificial intelligence (AI) specialists, wherein "six out of the 15 emerging jobs are related in some way to AI," and machine learning engineers, with 12 times growth year-over-year.

Oracle's Steve Miranda, EVP Oracle Applications Product Development, sits down with analyst Ray Wang to talk about tech trends in the cloud including AI, autonomous database, and user experiences--AI is the new UX.

The challenges of making the technology industry a more welcoming place for women are numerous, especially in the booming field of artificial intelligence. To get a sense of just how monumental a task the tech community faces, look no further than the marquee gathering for AI's top scientists. Preparations for this year's event drew controversy not only because there weren't enough female speakers or study authors. The biggest debate was over the conference's name. The annual Conference and Workshop on Neural Information Processing Systems, formerly known as NIPS, had become a punchline symbol about just how bad the gender imbalance is for artificial intelligence.

The surprise arrest of Huawei Technologies Co.'s Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou is about to impact one of the Chinese company's suppliers in Japan. Yaskawa Electric Corp., which supplies industrial robots for Huawei's smartphone and telecom gear factories, saw all orders for its machines put on hold after the arrest, President Hiroshi Ogasawara said in an interview Wednesday. Of Yaskawa's ¥448.5 billion revenue for the fiscal year that ended in February, 23 percent came from China. "My people on the ground in China say that Huawei is turned upside down internally," Ogasawara said. "All kinds of capex (capital expenditure) deals are temporarily on hold as they figure things out."

A different kind of internet celebrity is emerging; virtual characters that talk on YouTube or pose on Instagram like living, breathing people. Is this the dawn of a new breed of star? Kizuna AI has 2.3 million YouTube followers. But she is also a CGI construct; a fictional character made to look like a young woman, voiced by an actor, claiming to be an advanced artificial intelligence. Her channel is part of a growing trend in Japan for so called virtual YouTubers, or VTubers.

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Samsung has unveiled the 2019 edition of its high-end convertible, the Notebook 9 Pen. Aimed at creative professionals, it offers a new and improved built-in S Pen that works on a device that can be used as a laptop or tablet. The 2-in-1 is available with a 13-inch or 15-inch full HD LCD screens, both of which come with a dark-blue aluminum finish, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and Intel's 8th generation Core i7 processors. The 15-inch model is a new option for the Notebook Pen. They also sport a backlit keyboard and feature facial and fingerprint recognition.

The portion of marketers using AI to connect with customers is growing, a new survey shows, even though few are satisfied with the ability to balance personalization tools with privacy. In 2018, 29 percent of marketers used AI, according to the fifth edition of the Salesforce State of Marketing report, which surveyed more than 4,100 marketing leaders worldwide. By comparison, just 20 percent of marketers used AI in 2017. The 2018 AI adoption rate was higher, at 40 percent, among "high-performing" marketers -- those who said they are completely satisfied with their overall marketing performance and the outcomes of their marketing investments. Also: Can humans get a handle on AI?

The future depends on connectivity. From artificial intelligence and self-driving cars to telemedicine and mixed reality to as yet undreamt technologies, all the things we hope will make our lives easier, safer, and healthier will require high-speed, always-on internet connections. The FCC regulates who can use which ranges, or bands, of frequencies to prevent users from interfering with each other's signals. Low-Band Frequencies Bands below 1 GHz traditionally used by broadcast radio and television as well as mobile networks; they easily cover large distances and travel through walls, but those are now so crowded that carriers are turning to the higher range of the spectrum. Mid-Band Spectrum The range of the wireless spectrum from 1 GHz to 6 GHz, used by Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, mobile networks, and many other applications.

One of the stand-out features of Samsung's forthcoming flagship smartphone, presumably called the Galaxy S10, is expected to be the camera, with the latest rumour suggesting an ultra-wide lens that will significantly improve image quality. The new camera feature was spotted in a beta version of the Android Pie mobile operating system, which includes an option for "Ultra wide lens correction" within the camera settings. Several rumours surrounding the Galaxy S10 camera have already hinted at a multi-lens setup, both on the front and rear of the device. Last month, a report claimed that the successor to the Galaxy S9 will feature twice as many cameras as Apple's latest iPhone, with two on the front and four on the rear. The Galaxy S10, set to launch on the 10th anniversary of Samsung's first Galaxy flagship smartphone, is also expected to shun the precedent set by Apple by using a "hole-punch" instead of notch in order to incorporate a front-facing camera.