The impact that Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies are having on our industry is undeniable. Organizations who are able to quickly embrace and adapt to technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) will find themselves with a wealth of exciting new opportunities for growth. Artificial Intelligence is one such technology, which will continue to grow in importance in our industry. As I mentioned previously, remote working is here to stay, and the modern enterprise needs to be mobile and robust. To achieve this, businesses must work smarter and become more efficient.

No company can afford the backlash associated with a data breach. It's not just the fines, it's also the monumental impact to the company's reputation and potential hit to customer loyalty that can ultimately prove difficult for even the largest organizations to overcome. Unfortunately, data breaches and ransomware attacks are seemingly regular events with new occurrences continuously making headlines. In fact, in the first 10 months of 2017 alone there were a reported 1,120 breaches and more than 171 million records exposed -- a significant jump from the 36.6 million exposed records in all of 2016. As such, it's time for organizations to step up their approach to protecting enterprise data.

Dozens of companies who fancy their technologies as a great fit for the automotive market are on the hunt for alliances. For example, Kyocera and FotoNation announced Tuesday (May 17) a partnership agreement to develop intelligent automotive camera technology -- deemed critical in the coming era of semi- and fully autonomous cars. Kyocera has already dabbled in the auto sector with its rearview camera modules. FotoNation, with the lion's share of computational imaging solutions for mobile phones, entered the driver monitoring system market last year. "The two companies' interests are aligned," Sumat Mehra, senior vice president of marketing and business development at FotoNation, told EE Times, "to expand each company's presence in the automotive market" -- well beyond what they offer today.