Emergent Insight: We don't need to choose if artificial intelligence will influence our daily decisions. And tech giant Amazon is making certain it is embedded everywhere according to Seth Colaner at VentureBeat. The good news is that the devices around us are becoming more helpful and proactive which makes our lives easier. The bad news is that practically our every movement and choice is being converted into data that can be mined by, well, tech giants like Amazon. With the pandemic forcing many people to shift daily life indoors and at home leaving a long digital trail of personal information individual security is tenuous.

Emergent Insight: On August 13, 2020 Emergent Enterprise posted an article about the incredibly poor UX of the PDF file. Perhaps Adobe has provided some relief with a new AI-fueled tool that reformats PDF files for better readability on mobile devices and presumably other formats such as AR & VR. Kyle Wiggers explains Liquid Mode from Adobe in this post at VentureBeat and how it might make life easier for all of us who swipe, scroll, pinch and zoom PDF files. Perhaps the most striking statistic here is that 65% find PDF files frustrating. And yet we throw them at our audiences with regularity.

Emergent Insight: We all are recipients of the untiring work of artificial intelligence but we don't take time to acknowledge it. Industrial businesses certainly are leveraging the powerful technology as noted in this post by Michael Sharp at Metrology News. In your company tasks and objectives, take a moment to consider how rules-based AI or machine learning can improve productivity, safety or more. Machines, devices and computers usually take over tasks that are mundane and laborious and don't really require a human to do. Why not let AI do the work and switch the human employees to more satisfying roles?

Emergent Insight: It can be difficult to find bright spots in the midst of a global pandemic but the eruption of new technology solutions to problems associated with the battle against the virus is remarkable. It can take a tragedy to shine a light on the greatest needs of a society and now companies and innovators are identifying connections between problems and shortages and using their strengths to answer the call. This will make us better prepared for next global challenge. Original Article: Image above: HP (3D printed parts for a mechanical bag valve mask (BVM) that is designed for use as a short-term emergency ventilation of COVID-19 patients. This simplified design enables a robust and less-complex device, facilitating its rapid production and assembly.)

Emergent Insight: This post from Megan Nichols at iotforall.com is an excellent introduction to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Present day IIoT gives us an idea of what the factories of the future will look like. The production will be quick, efficient, nearly error-free and run 24/7. There will be little human involvement as factories fueled by data and artificial intelligence will take on the mundane, repetitive tasks of manufacturing. These tasks are also often very complex and even dangerous.

Emergent Insight: This post from Megan Nichols at iotforall.com is an excellent introduction to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Present day IIoT gives us an idea of what the factories of the future will look like. The production will be quick, efficient, nearly error-free and run 24/7. There will be little human involvement as factories fueled by data and artificial intelligence will take on the mundane, repetitive tasks of manufacturing. These tasks are also often very complex and even dangerous.

Last year, Microsoft Corp.'s Azure security team detected suspicious activity in the cloud computing usage of a large retailer: One of the company's administrators, who usually logs on from New York, was trying to gain entry from Romania. A hacker had broken in. Microsoft quickly alerted its customer, and the attack was foiled before the intruder got too far. Hackers are themselves famously adaptable, of course, so they too could harness machine learning to create fresh mischief and overwhelm the new defenses. For example, they could figure out how companies train their systems and use the data to evade or corrupt the algorithms.

Google debuted the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL with dual front-facing cameras and glass body last week, and while there are notable hardware improvements, it's things like being able to screen calls with your own conversational AI or make reservations with Duplex that make the latest Pixel stand out. Many of the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL's best features, whether it's a predictive battery or a camera with Portrait Mode that scans business cards and helps you choose your best pictures, are made better with AI. Pixel 3 phones start shipping Thursday. The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL are the first in Google's Pixel series to ditch aluminum for glass, which enables support for wireless charging -- also a first. It's a bit deceptive; the bottom portion of the rear cover has a matte coating, giving them the two-tone aesthetic characteristic of their predecessors.

Two years ago, Google unveiled its Tensor Processing Units or TPUs -- specialized chips that live in the company's data centers and make light work of AI tasks. Now, the company is moving its AI expertise down from the cloud, and has taken the wraps off its new Edge TPU; a tiny AI accelerator that will carry out machine learning jobs in IoT devices. The Edge TPU is designed to do what's known as "inference." This is the part of machine learning where an algorithm actually carries out the task it was trained to do; like, for example, recognizing an object in a picture. Google's server-based TPUs are optimized for the training part of this process, while these new Edge TPUs will do the inference.

When you picture a personal assistant, you probably envision a celebrity -- or at least someone very wealthy -- walking around with a "shadow" who takes her messages, makes her travel plans, helps her pick out the perfect outfit, and eliminates other daily tasks from her lengthy to-do list. If you've ever wished you could have a personal assistant of your own, then you're in luck. Personal assistants are quickly becoming accessible to the masses -- thanks to AI and other emerging tech. In fact, technology really has been an equalizer when it comes to providing everyday people access to personal concierge services. Besides Siri or Google on your smartphone, Amazon's Alexa and Google Home may be some of the first digital "personal" assistants that come to mind.