IDG Blog | Cloud-Based Ai Is A Game Changer That Does Not Have To Be Impatient

The White House presides over a conference on future artificial intelligence. Executives from 38 companies, including Intel, Oracle, Ford, Boeing, MasterCard, Microsoft and Accenture, will attend a one-day conference.

Why is this happening now? According to Gartner, AI will create 230 jobs by 2020 while eliminating 1.8 million jobs. The subject of the discussion is said to include not only related research support measures, but also methods of making best use of AI in medical and transportation industries. And there is the most threatening theme. It is a strategy to formalize federal policies and regulations.

The Internet is a catalyst. AI is difficult to implement at reasonable cost if it cannot be purchased on an hourly basis from cloud service providers such as Google, AWS and Microsoft. In addition, AI is now regarded as something of a change in the way we change our lives, change jobs, and think about technology in the minds of the public.

I do not think any of the anticipated dramatic AI transformations will see fruit in the next few years. After all, we think that any new technology will become a so-called "game changer." Even if it's true, it actually takes years to change the game. At that time, sudden change today is just common sense and every day.

In fact, technology has changed our jobs for the past 150 years, and using AI as a tool will not be much different from the wave of automation that makes factories and farms go back to their buttons. Someday unmanned cars and trucks will replace motorists and businesses will exclude people from jobs, but most of these people will notice signs of disaster and smart people will soon turn to jobs that are not likely to be automated. A few years of warning will follow, and nothing will happen so quickly.

Now let's think about AI regulation. When the government tries to regulate technology innovation, it also has an unexpected ripple effect. Government bureaucrats are not experts in the field of technology, nor do they know how technology is evolving. This combination cannot be a recipe for success. 

What actually happens is that the law is quickly outdated and unnecessarily confusing enough for lawyers to try to figure it out. And technology quickly finds ways to avoid such laws.

If so, there is no evil genius to make Skynet and slaughter everyone, why should we regulate it? The plot of a wicked genius is great in movies, but it does not happen in reality.

Web Link: www.vcinfotech.ae

Stepping into the World of Virtual Cloud Information Technology

Introduction to Virtualisation:

It isn’t a lie when we talk about virtualisation and its impact on cloud Information technology. We all have been thinking about the virtualisation of servers and storage systems.It is right to say that there have been talks about virtualisation over the years.There are companies like Cisco who have realized the benefits of cloud offer and virtualisation.

Benefits that Virtualisation Offers:

So for those who don’t have any idea about virtualisation and its benefits, it is beneficial to both business and technical department. The everyday tasks that we relied on manual labour to suffice can easily be taken care by virtualisation. Virtualisation is a way toupsurge IT agility, scalability, and flexibility while helping significantly in saving cost.It not only helps cost but decreases workloads, increases performance stability and the availability. You can make all the operations automated and it decreases the manual labour which also eradicates the chances of errors while running operations.

Business Based Benefits:

One of the key benefits of virtualisation in business includes its ability to reduce the costs of operating and capital, eliminate or reduce the downtime efficiently and effectively. It makes business continuity easier and helps in recovering from minor or sometimes major firm disasters.  The best part about virtualisation is that it can simplify central data management.

Conclusion:

There’s hardly anyone who doesn’t use virtual technology for their work purposes. Routers, switches and telephones can all be virtualised. The best part is that these are cost efficient. The advent of virtualisation has also helped companies that provide technical assistance in the betterment of their products as well as services. Cisco routers, Cisco telephones and Cisco switches are leading examples of the benefits of virtualisation.

Virtualisation has become an important part of the modern lifestyle. We want everything at a click and as fast as our lives move, we want our resources to be fast too. Virtualisation technology has grown a lot over the past few years. The new developments have made automation and virtualisation possible which when brought together can be termed as Software Defined Data Centre. Everything in this world including networking, storage, and servers can very easily be defined and controlled through software. This automation has made both business and IT sector get their tasks done more efficiently. So, it’s time we start with the virtualisation of information technology.

Web Link: www.vcinfotech.ae

Install an ISO Linux on USB

How to install Linux on a USB pen bootable from ISO, live for use on all computers or to install a new system

Instead of continuing to use Windows 7 or 8 as an old laptop's operating system, it might be a wise choice to install a lighter Linux operating system that could bring the old PC to life.

Certainly, a person used to Windows can not recommend to forget Microsoft forever and install a Linux distribution as the only operating system.

Also I do not even want to recommend dual boot procedures, both because they require a little 'experience, both because, if you think of a portable netbook or an older PC, it is likely that there is not a hard disk with sufficient space.

So the solution is to install Linux on a USB stick with an operating system "Live "that is, it resides in memory and does not write anything on the hard disk of the computer.

The Linux Live CDs were popularized to sponsor the open source operating system so you can try it without hitting it.

The USB live pen is the same thing, with the advantage that it also works on laptops without a CD player and that also allow you to use the pen space to save new data and modified files.

The less experienced could imagine who knows what procedures to install Linux on a USB stick that then will have to be made bootable at boot of the computer.

Luckily there is a program that does everything by itself automatically and that creates a bootable USB pen with Linux , any version or distribution you want ( Di Linux there are in fact many different distributions ).

Universal Netboot Installer ( UNetbootin ) is the most popular portable program for Windows Mac and Linux from which it is easy to download and install various distributions of Linux in a system partition or USB drive without any need to burn the ISOs of the distributions ( ISO are the images CDs with operating system installation files).

With Unetbootin you can install Linux on a USB stick.

The program is very easy and just choose the Linux distribution from the first list and then the version in the second menu.

The list includes Backtrack, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, Gentoo, Xubuntu and many others including Puppy Linux, the smallest, of which I had written the installation guide.

For each distribution there is a link to the system homepage and two lines of information.

Just insert the USB stick and press OK to start the automatic download of the Linux distro chosen and proceed with the installation in the USB stick (choose the letter from the last menu correctly).

Optionally you can select the USB image from the computer's hard disk to install from a file already downloaded or to try a version not present in the list.

A program similar to Unetbootin is Universal USB Installer portable application for Windows only.

Attach the USB stick (at least 2 GB) to the computer, start the program and choose, from the drop-down menu, the Linux distribution you want to install.

After selection, you can select the download option that will open the browser and start downloading the ISO file.

After downloading, you can indicate the position of the ISO image in step 2, choose the letter on the USB stick, choose to format it and then indicate the amount of space to be reserved for the system in the pen (so if you want to use an external hard disk it can also be used as normal file storage).

In the end, after a short time and with a very fast procedure, you can create the portable operating system.

The peculiarity of Universal USB Installer is not only the amount of distrubutions and versions supported, many more than Unetbootin, but also the presence of Installer.

Basically you can create a USB stick that becomes like a CD of installation of an operating system and that can be used to install Linux even in dual booting computers that do not have a CD-ROM drive.

From Universal USB Installer you can also create a USB of Windows 7 or Vista installation to install Windows from USB stick.

Best "Cloud" Web Apps to Store Photos

10 web applications, for PC, Mac and Android and iPhone phones to store photos on the internet and save them in the "Cloud" forever

We all use the phone to take pictures, the problem is that these photos must then be stored in a safe place so that even if that smartphone were lost or replaced, the photos remain.

Instead of wasting time and effort in copying photos to your computer every time, it is worth using "cloud" applications that allow you to save all your photos online by uploading them to the internet.

Keeping them online means being safe from any problems and damage to the computer which, we know, is not infallible and can break at any time.

So the question is: which application is the best for storing and accessing multimedia files and photos from any device?

In this article we see the 10 best cloud services to keep photos online so they are visible from other devices, on your computer, on tablets and on smartphones, without the need for transfers or cables.

1) Google Photos

The Google Photos app is the best there is to keep photos online safely, privately, forever and for free without limitations.

If you have an Android smartphone or an iPhone, you can configure the application to upload photos taken with your cell phone online automatically (privately).

Google also accepts and displays RAW images and if you need more space you can buy it.

2) iCloud Photo Stream

Only users of Apple, iPhone, iPad and Mac devices can use the space provided by iCloud.

Photo Stream takes photos saved or taken with iPhone, iPad and Mac and syncs them so that they are available on all devices.

You can share photos with friends who have iOS devices or create an online photo gallery that anyone can watch.

iCloud accepts RAW images but does not support videos.

The limit of iCloud is that it makes no online backup of photos, visible only from a Mac.

Photo Stream is the only way to instantly upload photos in the background from an iPhone without having to remember it manually.

Photo Stream works well, but unlike the others there is no online photo backup and there is no way to display them from a PC or from non-Apple programs.

The iCloud Photo stream limit is 1000 photos (with free account).

3) Dropbox Photo

The Dropbox Android smartphone app allows you to automatically upload all the photos taken with the camera to a special folder.

All images stored and stored on Dropbox can be seen in the photo card that is available on the website.

Dropbox loads all the photos at full resolution and this, in addition to slowing down a bit 'operations, causes a rapid filling of the available space.

Dropbox also allows you to save videos but they are only visible in streaming for 15 minutes.

4) Shutterfly

This application is perhaps the lightest and most immediate to use, able to automatically group photos by date, time, and also by content.

This Life allows you to upload all the photos to the cloud using the app for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, free up to 1000 photos.

5) SmugMug is one of the most popular online services by photographers, which allows you to create a real personal web page, made with customizable graphic styles and with your own photos.

Smugmug there are no free accounts and after 14 days of trial you have to pay the subscription of $ 40 per year also buying an unlimited online space (for photos no larger than 50MB).

Smugmug also provides excellent applications for iPhone and Android phones.

6) Onedrive

Microsoft Onedrive, former SkyDrive is a bit like the Windows Explorer, moved on the internet.

It offers 15GB of free space for all files, plus another three for photos.

Photos can be sorted into albums, viewed as a presentation or even incorporated into websites.

Microsoft has also released clients for Windows and Mac and no frills but functional apps for Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

On Windows Phone the OneDrive app allows you to auto-upload photos to the internet.

7) Flickr: The free space made available by Flickr, almost without limit, is 1 TB for photos.

In addition, Flickr maintains its professional photography site, with applications for iPhone and Android and also with customization filters and editing tools.

Flickr preserves images at multiple resolutions, offers very precise privacy controls and can be integrated into other applications of terse parts.

See how to backup all PC photos on the internet with Flickr.

Video upload is limited to 1 GB and a more modern and feature-rich PC client is expected soon.

Even if not perfect, Cloud Storage is finally a reality and with applications such as Google Photos and Flickr you can keep online forever all the photos of your life or almost, no more risk of losing them and visible from every PC or tablet or mobile phone.

Optimize Windows 7 for a Fast PC and Better Performance

8 general and essential tips to optimize Windows 7 and have a pc always fast and without slowdowns

No matter what version of Windows is used: the computer, after a few months of regular use, slows down to make normal operations impossible.

To keep the PC in shape we will have to apply a regular and automatic maintenance, which will make the PC as fast as newly formatted regardless of the number of programs already installed.

All this applies to any version of Windows that we are using: whether we have remained faithful to Windows 7 we can optimize performance and have a fast PC with some targeted interventions such as those described below.

These operations are simple, do not involve any modification to the system, do not require you to install any external program and you can do so safe, without risk of damaging the system in any way.

1) Remove Unused Programs and Windows Features

When you buy a new PC or notebook you most likely are present (especially if preassembled) with a lot of demo programs and trial de try and buy later.

Each program installed on the computer consumes system resources and slows it down.

Since most of these programs will never be purchased (and I advise you not to buy anything and to use free programs, unless you need it for work), you should remove them.

To uninstall all the useless software go to the Control Panel -> Programs -> Uninstall a program and from there scroll the list by removing the unused applications.
To uninstall a program completely, removing all the files should use an external program that does a better job.

Also, from the same window, we can use the Activate or not Windows feature button so that you can uninstall unnecessary Windows components.

2) Check Programs That Start Automatically When You Turn On Your Computer

The most common cause of slowing down programs that run when Windows 7 starts automatically and remain active in the background consuming system memory and slowing down the PC.

We can proceed by deactivating all the unnecessary programs by opening the Start menu, typing in the msconfig search bar and taking us to the Startup tab.

From here we can disable auto-start programs and tools with greater impact on PC startup performance; we can deepen the discussion by reading the MSConfig guide, the system configuration utility.

3) Adjusting Visual Effects

On modern Windows operating systems, the graphic effects are the masters, with lots of gesture and features that consume a lot of CPU and GPU.

If the PC is only for work and we do not need any special visual effect we can adjust the visual effects and have better performance from your system we will not have to do other than right click on the My Computer icon on the desktop, open the Properties item and finally Advanced system settings.

In the Performance tab, click on Settings and select the Rule option to obtain the best performance and, if necessary, enable the various effects by choosing them individually from the list.

4) Adjust the Indexing Options

The indexing system continually indexes the files on the hard disk, often slowing down the PC during these scans.

You should change the settings so that the Windows indexes are active only for the frequently used and not all folders.

From the Control Panel or from the Start menu we can look for the Indexing options so as to open the window where we can select the folders to be indexed, by deactivating the search in folders that are almost never opened.

We can also completely disable the Windows Search indexing service from the services ( Start -> Run -> services.msc ) and use a better, faster program for file searches on the computer

5) Adjusting the Energy Settings

The power management by default in Windows is balanced, so that there is some energy savings by sacrificing performance slightly.

If we are not interested in using the battery on the laptop and if you prefer to speed up Windows 7 rather than save energy, we can change the setting from the Control Panel by clicking on the Power Options -> Change the power settings.

Among the savings items we can select, click on High Performance.

6) Turn off System Sounds

If you want to delete one or all the sounds of Windows 7 (such as the annoying startup) you can from the Control Panel -> Audio -> Sounds and in the Combination drop down menu you can choose No sound ; we can also disable the start-up sounds by unchecking the Windows Start-up Sound.

This clearly is not that much improves the performance of Windows but speed maniacs could be happy.

Turning off system sounds does not turn off computer audio while surfing the internet, music, and movies.

7) Disable the Windows Services: Disabling non-essential services is perhaps the most important point to optimize Windows even if it is normally reserved only for expert users.

Windows 7 Services runs in the background and provides necessary functions to the computer.

However, many users do not need all the services, and since each of them consumes memory and CPU resources, they can be disabled.

From the Start menu, directly type the word Services in the search bar and open the entry onomima; we will get a screen with all the active services.

Each service can be set to Automatic (automatic start at boot), Manual (start when needed), or disabled.

For Windows 7 and later, you should definitely look at the table on this website which offers the ideal configuration for all versions of Windows.

Pay attention to what you are doing and use extreme settings only if you are convinced and know what it entails (I do not recommend it).

If you notice, from the task manager, that svchost.exe consumes a lot of CPU , check which service is responsible for it and, if possible, disable it.

8) Other Tips to Speed up Windows

Other suggestions to improve the performance of your Windows operating system are:

Accelerate the loading of folders with videos and images without reloading the cache every time;

Use ReadyBoost with a USB stick;

Use a Registry Cleaner as CCleaner, frequently;

Use a Good Light Antivirus;

Restart or shut down Windows 7 without hibernation at least once a week (if we switch off the PC with hibernation);

Defragment the mechanical hard drive at least once a month, using one of the best free defragment programs

Deactivate unused entries from the right-click context menus;

Consult the blist of the best programs for a fast PC

Upload ISO to Android for use on a PC

You can mount an ISO image on an Android smartphone to use on a PC to install Windows or Linux or start recovery systems

There are times when the computer's operating system stops abnormally, perhaps because the internal disk has been broken or ruined, or because of a serious error that does not resolve at all.

In these cases, as we have learned, you can recover data using a portable operating system on DVD or USB stick, which can be started instead of Windows and that allows access to all the files to extract them from the disk and save them in a new one memory unit.

Furthermore, as we know, when reinstalling Windows, both with Windows 7 and with Windows 10, it is possible to make sure that the data on the disk is not erased.

But if you do not have another computer with which to create the disk or USB flash drive, we find out here how you can use a smartphone or an Android tablet to restore your PC and recover files.

In other words, let's see how to mount ISO from an Android smartphone to install Windows or Linux on a PC or to run a data recovery system from which to start the computer.

With an Android smartphone and the USB cable to be connected to the computer to use it as a normal external drive, you only need to use an application that is capable of making the ISO file bootable in the phone memory bootable or allowing the ISO to be copied to a USB stick connected to the phone.

The ISO file is the file that contains the installation files or running an operating system when the computer starts, which can be Windows, Linux or even a data recovery system or an antivirus system.

We have seen several examples of systems to start when the PC starts, for example to install Linux on a USB stick , different programs to burn ISO to USB and even how to create a USB pen to install Windows 7 10 and 8

With an Android smartphone it takes a special application to make the ISO bootable on PC and there are two possibilities:

1) The first possibility is the Drive Droid app, free and very popular with professional systems engineers.

This application allows you to store bootable ISO files on Android, to create a real operating system installation file directly in the phone, so that, by connecting the smartphone to the computer, you can then load the alternative operating system, or installation, directly from the phone's memory.

The application also provides direct links to the download of ISO or IMG images of installation of the main Linux distributions, making it even easier to use.

You can then connect the Android device to the PC and restart it from USB to load the operating system stored in the phone.

This app is ideal for testing Linux distributions on your computer or always having an emergency operating system to use to recover data from a broken computer.

The limit of this app is that it requires an Android smartphone unlocked with root to be used.

If we do not have the root, go to the second solution.

2) The second possibility to use an Android smartphone as a base for uploading ISO images or installing operating systems on a PC (which could also be the Windows installation file) is the ISO2USB application.

ISO2USB lets you burn an ISO file directly to a USB flash drive via USB-OTG.

This app does not require root permissions and can be used on any Android phone, even if it has an important limitation.

This app does not allow you to use the phone as a USB drive for your computer, but can instead load and boot an ISO image into a USB stick connected to the phone.

In practice, it provides a support to prepare, from the smartphone, the bootable USB stick to then use on the computer to install or load a Linux operating system, Windows or any recovery program.

The only requirement for an Android device to be used as a PC is that you have a cable for OTG data transfer, which stands for USB On-The-Go.

Thanks to OTG cables it is possible to connect a USB key as Extra memory of an Android smartphone , and also connect mouse and keyboard to the smartphone to use it as a PC.

If there is this function, this includes a mouse, a keyboard or even a USB storage device.

An OTG cable can be bought on Amazon at less than 5 Euros, with MicroUSB or even USB-C output depending on the phone used.

Once connected to the phone, the OTG adapter cable allows you to connect a USB flash drive on which to write the downloaded ISO.

From the application you can select the connected USB drive and then select the ISO file inside it.

Once finished, remove the USB device, insert it into the PC and start the computer from the USB flash drive.

New Oneplus 6 Smartphone; Is the Best Cell Phone of 2018?

Let's take a closer look at all the features of the OnePlus 6, best smartphone 2018, to decide if it is worth buying

The Chinese company OnePlus no longer stops and ready to attack the category of top-of-the-range smartphone by proposing the OnePlus 6, a concentrate of technology and innovation that, on paper, should compete on iPhone X and the latest Samsung models with a price definitely more accessible.

But is OnePlus 6 really the best smartphone of 2018? , can it really give a hard time to competitors with practically unlimited economic possibilities and a weight in the marketing not indifferent?

In this review article we will show you all the qualities that characterize this device, with an eye to the appearance, the technical characteristics and the operating system, without forgetting the links where to view the purchase of the product and the final considerations, so be able to choose whether to bet on this OnePlus 6 or not.

Appearance

Surely the feature that emerges immediately by looking at the device is the presence of the notch, that is the small black box at the top of the device, where the sensors are stored, the front camera and the speaker to listen to calls (in style iPhone X ) -

Excluding the notch the front is practically all occupied by the screen, a borderless solution that pleases both for the recovery of space (less edges, more screen) and for the elegance that gives the whole device.

At the back there is the impression sensor, the double rear camera and the logo of the Chinese company, while the sides of the smartphone are placed the button to immediately exclude the ring tone, the volume keys, the power button and the small compartment for the two SIM cards (the device is Dual SIM). 

On the upper side there is only the hole of the second microphone (to exclude ambient sounds), while on the lower side we can find the audio speaker, the 3.5mm audio output and the USB Type-C port. 

The screen is 6.28 inches (huge for many!) And has a very high proportion (19: 9, compared to 16: 9 and 18: 9 of the competition). 

Technical features

After seeing some of the external features of the OnePlus 6 smartphone, let's see together the technical characteristics of the device that wants to compete with the iPhone X: 

Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 Octa-core processor (4 cores at 2.8 GHz Kryo 385 and 4 cores at 1.8 GHz Kryo 385)

6 or 8 GB of RAM LPDDR4X

Internal memory 64GB, 128 GB or 256 GB (not expandable)

AMOLED 19: 9 inch screen at 2280 x 1080 pixels (pixel density 402 ppi)

Dual rear camera with IOS image stabilization (16MP + 20 MP)

Dual LED flash and 4K shooting

16 MP front camera

Dual Band WiFi (2.4 and 5 GHz)

Bluetooth 5.0

NFC

Fingerprint reader

Dual SIM (Nano type)

LTE Cat.16 connection (up to 1 Gigabit in download)

3300mAh battery with fast charge Dash Charge 

Definitely a latest technical card, with all the features that normally we can only find on the highest-end devices: a very processor fast, a lot of RAM memory (we are at PC levels now), a large amount of internal memory (to the point of making a microSD useless), super fast LTE and enough battery to be able to always arrive until the evening in any condition of use (fast charging is also available via the charger supplied as standard).

Like all modern smartphones has a fingerprint reader in the back (only really comfortable place), the WiFi Dual Band and the latest version of Bluetooth, while they are absent a system for facial recognition (we'll see if the future updates will introduce it), a reader of the heartbeat (we can fix it with any smartband or smartwatch) and an IP certification, even if OnePlus ensures that some sketch or a few drops of rain should not ruin the smartphone (a certification was certainly a better guarantee than to simple words). 

Operating System

Once the smartphone is switched on, we will meet with the Oxygen OS operating system, based on Android 8.1.0 Oreo, which updates and security patches are regularly applied.

The operating system is very fluid and with very few customizations, tracing in a way to see the Google experience that can be obtained from expensive Pixels.

What distinguishes OnePlus from other manufacturers is the great attention that is given for updates: the phone will be updated very frequently (are already expected the arrival of a game mode and the advanced gesture for the interface) to integrate new characteristics and above all to get the maximum in terms of security.

If the home updates should not be satisfactory, there is a large community of geeks and experts who continuously release customized versions of the operating system (Custom ROM) to be installed on OnePlus to take full advantage of all the capabilities, you just have to check often the forum of XDA Developers to know the latest news about it. 

Conclusions Is 

OnePlus A Phone That Deserves To Be Considered?

Absolutely yes: the data sheet speaks for itself, the features of the product are high-end (in some cases really monstrous), the phone is nice to see and the operating system will offer a lot of speed and autonomy, satisfying virtually any user (without forgetting the great community of modding and Custom ROM that will be born behind this device).

The official updates are constant and are true updates, not just the classic security patches (anyway necessary to avoid the latest threats).

Only true in this product: the notch (which may like as you may not like), the lack of features of facial recognition, USB 2.0 and not USB 3.0 and especially the lack of an advanced advertising system: the smartphone hardly you will see it advertised on television or on billboards, which are the preserve of Samsung, Apple and Huawei.

So, despite the goodness of the device if you ask someone on the street what is OnePlus, you have to hope to meet someone really passionate about technology otherwise the name will not say anything, just because unknown (we hope that the arrival on Amazon moves a bit 'things , because OnePlus deserve it all ).