AI tool can help develop apps that drain less battery

WASHINGTON:Scientists, including one of Indian origin, have created an artificial inteligence (AI) tool to help developers design smartphone apps that drain less battery. "DiffProf" -- the tool designed by researchers at Purdue University in the US -- automatically decides for the developer whether an app feature has room for improving energy efficiency.

How a code runs can dramatically differ between two apps, even if the developers are implementing the same task.


DiffProf catches these differences in the "call trees" of similar tasks, to show why the messaging feature of one app consumes more energy than another. DiffProf then reveals how to rewrite the app to drain less battery.

"Ultimately, in order for this technique to make a big difference for an entire smartphone, all developers would need to make their apps more energy-efficient," said Abhilash Jindal, a former PhD student at Purdue.

"The impact also depends on how intensively someone uses certain apps. Someone who uses messaging apps a lot might experience longer battery life, but someone who doesn't use their messaging apps at all might not," he said.

So far, the DiffProf prototype has only been tested for the Android mobile operating system, researchers said. MHN

-GoITWay

Job fraud cases : Cyber Crime police ask web portals to carry disclaimers

A spurt in job frauds has led cybercrime police to request job portals to carry a disclaimer, warning people about frauds on their homepage.

"Fraudsters extract contact details of jobseekers from portals. They ‘offer’ jobs to people, claiming to be from MNCs. Now the portals display a disclaimer at the bottom of their homepage, warning people about such frauds," said Raghu Vir, additional DCP, cybercrime, Hyderabad.

Every month, at least five cases of job frauds get registered and cops have managed to solve nearly 50% of them.

"Most offenders have been traced to Delhi, Noida and some from Bangalore. Several Nigerians, too, are involved. These fraudsters rent a small place and hire a few people who go through the job portals. Later they send fake emails to see how many responses they get," said S Harinath, ACP, cybercrime, Rachakonda. "Youngsters are approaching us on Facebook to verify authenticity of companies that offer them jobs. We give them suggestions," said DCP Raghu Vir.

:GoITWay

No internet shutdown in India: Cyber Security official

NEW DELHI: A top government cybersecurity official on Friday clarified that India will not face any internet shutdown, quashing fears of an internet blackout in the country amid reports of a global outage. Russia Today had earlier reported that internet users across the globe may experience widespread network failures due to routine maintenance of key domain servers over the next 48 hours.

Speaking to NDTV, National Cyber Security Coordinator, Gulshan Rai, said, "All arrangements are in place and there will be no internet shutdown in India as is being circulated in the media."

The Russia Today report stated that the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN will carry out maintenance work during the 48 hours by changing the cryptographic key that helps protect the internet's address book or the Domain Name System (DNS).

This has been necessitated to counter the rising incidents of cyber attacks, Russia Today cited ICANN as saying. However, ICANN later clarified that the report had a "clickbait" headline and that the impact on users would be minimal.

"Unfortunately, that story carries a headline that is a click bait. There will be minimal impact to users. Note that data analysis suggests that more than 99% of users whose resolvers are validating will be unaffected," an ICANN spokesperson told NDTV.

The spokesperson further stated that "It has been about 20 hours since the rollover and based on all information we have, everything is going smoothly. There have been only a small handful of reports of issues suspected to be caused by the rollover. In all cases, it appears the impact was minor and the issues were quickly resolved."

-GoITWay

What is a data artist? A role for drawing IT and business together

Charles Joseph Minard is arguably the world’s most famous data artist. By combining several data sets, including troop numbers, direction, temperature and terrain, he created in 1869 a visualization of Napoleon’s 1812 Russian campaign. Though that military exercise ended in disaster, Minard’s map remains “one of the best statistical drawings ever created.”

Were he alive today, perhaps Minard would find success in the emerging role of data artist, thanks to the incredible volume and availability of data and the speed and processing power of modern technology. Today’s data artists bridge the gap between IT and business, creating visualizations from terabytes of obscure data that can quickly and easily be viewed and understood by business leaders to help accelerate decision-making and improve the odds of success.

Data artist role and responsibilities

With today’s emphasis on data-driven decision-making, the data artist role is quickly becoming critical, says Justin Langseth, CEO and founder of Zoomdata. While the rise of the data scientist has been a major step forward in helping organizations make sense of their data, a chasm of understanding remains between the technical data analysts and business professionals. That gap has necessitated a new role that combines the technical expertise of a data scientist with the creative abilities of artists and graphic designers, Langseth says.

“In the midst of all the conversations around AI, big data, machine learning, data-driven decision-making, we realized that more enterprises were trying to tell stories based on their data using infographics, but that wasn’t telling the whole story,” Langseth says. “The problem is that infographics are static — information is constantly streaming in and new data can mean new results. There’s also a comprehension gap — businesspeople not understanding the same ‘language’ that technical data scientists are speaking. So, a data artist bridges that gap by presenting the technical information in ways that are easy to understand, through visualizations.”
The benefits of hiring data artists

Data artists can help provide competitive advantage by improving an organization’s ability to make beneficial decisions fast. Because data artists also possess the skills to make data visualizations interactive, businesspeople and IT leaders can perform “what-if” analysis and/or slice and dice data sets to home in on specific areas of importance, Langseth says. That means businesses can make better decisions faster — a key to keeping ahead of the competition, he adds.

“In IT, everyone has pretty much the same access to the best CRM system or whatever technologies are available,” Langseth says. “You’re not going to out-innovate competitively because of that tech alone, though. It’s what you’re able to do with that technology that matters. It’s going to be the companies who can make better decisions, faster, based on better data, that they can quickly and easily understand. With real-time analysis provided by data artists, you can experiment with different options and see different outcomes, and then figure out how to optimize your business for better results.”

For Charles Boicey, co-founder and chief innovation officer at cloud-based healthcare data visualization platform Clearsense, data artists help support better financial, operational and business — even clinical — outcomes.

“This is two-fold, for us, as a company serving the healthcare market. For IT and the business, it’s incredibly important, but also for clinicians, who have different needs when it comes to the data,” Boicey says. “If you can put patient data in a format where they can understand it at a glance, that can lead to better decision-making and better patient outcomes — which then circles back and leads to better business and financial outcomes, too.”

Data artist skills

Data artists have a unique combination of skills: part programmer, part data scientist and part visual artist, says Langseth. Data artists need computer science and programming skills to render data visually; data science skills to identify the relevant data and format it correctly; and visual design and creative skills to transform data into images that are easily digestible, he says.

“It’s such a hybrid position that requires all of these skills — JavaScript is one of the main languages used in this role, but also open source tools to help design custom visualizations. You also need to work closely with data scientists, so data literacy is key. And there’s even a bit of educational psychology involved, because you need to understand human beings’ visual processing abilities and how they understand information,” he says.

-GoITWay

Five things to know about the Facebook hack

Facebook reported its worst security breach on 25 September, in which at least 50 million accounts were compromised and another 40 million were considered to be at risk by the social media network. Mint tells you what you need to know about the breach.

1. What has happened?

Facebook found three bugs in its video uploader, which would occasionally appear when using the “View As” feature. This is a feature that allows you to look at your Facebook Timeline as someone else. Hackers stole access tokens, giving them entry into your account. An access token is a code that identifies the user and allows other apps, browsers, etc., to access your information. This is how your browser keeps you logged in to Facebook despite closing the page. An access token does not store your password, so stealing it doesn’t give hackers your password. Access tokens are also generated by Gmail, Twitter and many other websites.

2. How will you know if you were affected?

Facebook logged 90 million of its users out of their accounts, as a result of resetting their access tokens. According to the company, 50 million users have been affected by the hack and an additional 40 million were logged out because they accessed the “View As” feature since the vulnerability entered Facebook’s code. If you were one of Facebook users affected by the breach, you would have seen a post at the top of your News Feed, notifying you of the breach. Since access tokens do not include passwords, you don’t have to change your Facebook password if you were affected.

3. Has the bug been fixed?

Facebook said the leak was plugged on 27 September, though it is continuing the probe into the matter. Access tokens for affected accounts were reset, but Facebook isn’t sure if personal information was accessed.





4. Are accounts other than Facebook affected?

Technically, yes. Having your access token would let attackers access all websites and apps that use your Facebook account for authentication. That includes food delivery and dating apps and many others. This is why users had to re-log in to those apps as well because the access tokens they had have now been invalidated. You can find information on apps that you have logged into using Facebook from the social network’s own settings. The “Apps and Websites” option will show you this.

5. How is this breach different from the Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal?

The main difference between this breach and the CA scandal is that this one is an actual hack: there was a vulnerability in Facebook’s software. In the CA scandal, a researcher exploited Facebook’s data-sharing policies for his gain. Facebook hasn’t yet disclosed what information the hackers accessed. If personal information was leaked, Facebook may be punished under GDPR, as many of the affected users would have been from Europe.