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Sunday 14 April 2019

Stellar Research finds, 7 out of every 10 individuals are vulnerable to data breach & privacy RISK while disposing off their devices

Global data care expert Stellar has conducted & announced findings of world’s largest known study of residual data in used devices.
The study analysed a sample size of total 311 used devices comprising hard drives, memory cards, and mobile phones at Stellar’s central laboratory in India. The analysis revealed that a majority 71% of these devices contained personal data, Personally Identifiable Information (PII)and sensitive business information. In a larger perspective, the report establishes that 7 out of every 10 individuals are vulnerable to data breach & privacy risks while disposing their old storage devices.
The study was performed to ascertain the awareness levels amongst device owners, regarding usage of secure data wiping methods at the time of selling old storage devices. It also aims to create awareness about data privacy risks when file deletion or drive formatting are used with a faulty assumption as permanent data removal action.
The devices analysed in the study were procured from individuals, online portals & resellers across multiple locations. Majority of these devices were analysed using a publicly available DIY software - Stellar Data Recovery that discovered thousands of files containing personal data.
The residual data can easily fall into wrong hands, and can lead to identity thefts, financial frauds, personal security threats & user privacy issues. Businesses can be vulnerable to data theft & misuse of business-critical information like financial reports, trade agreements, intellectual property, business intelligence and trade secrets to name a few.
"This lack of awareness among customers at large can lead to an alarming rise in acts of cybercrime. It also underlines the acute importance of adoption of data sanitization procedures by individuals and organizations as a safeguard at time of disposal of old IT assets”, said Sunil Chandna, CEO, Stellar. “The Personal Data Bill 2018, when approved as a law could trigger development of a secure ecosystem leading to high awareness & risk mitigation actions by consumers & organizations,” said Chandna. 
The latest 2019 study is a second and a part of continued program of Stellar to measure the risk awareness using NAID Second-Hand Device Study Principles.
NAID (National Association for Information Destruction), an international watchdog for the secure data destruction industry with more than 2000 member companies globally, has commended Stellar for being the first organization to conduct this study by using NAID principles.
 “The Stellar Second-Hand Electronic Device Study and similar studies before and after, demonstrate the gravity of the problem to regulators, businesses and consumers,” said Bob Johnson, NAID founder and i-SIGMA CEO. “By employing NAID’s principles to conduct the study, STELLAR has assured the results are accurate and the personal information found in the process was fully protected at all times”, said Bob.
The detailed report is available for download using the link - https://www.stellarinfo.com/ResidualDataStudy.php

Tuesday 9 April 2019

Harness Partners with Google Cloud Platform to Bring Next-Generation Continuous Delivery to Kubernetes and Cloud-Native Applications

Harness, a Continuous Delivery-as-a-Service platform, today announced that it has partnered with the Google Cloud Platform and is now available for purchase in the GCP marketplace — giving Google Cloud customers the ability to automate the Continuous Delivery process and deliver artifacts to production quickly, securely, and repeatably.
As a Google Cloud partner, Harness empowers engineering teams to move fast and ship code without the fear of failed deployments. With its Smart Automation technology, Harness provides the first-ever solution to automate the entire continuous delivery process. By applying unsupervised machine learning to Continuous Delivery — a new technology called Continuous Verification — the platform understands a microservices baseline and can initiate automatic rollbacks when irregular activity is detected, avoiding business downtime or widespread failures. To date, Harness has helped customers such as McAfee, Home Depot, Nutanix, Bank  of Santander, and Soulcycle reduce errors in production deployments by up to 99%, while increasing overall engineering velocity by up to 8x.
Key features include:
  • Pipeline Builder. Instead of taking hours to build pipelines, DevOps teams can build and execute complete continuous delivery pipelines in minutes with serial or parallel workflows across their applications, services, and environments.
  • Workflow Wizard. Complex pipelines become simple with out-of-the-box support for canary deployments and blue/green deployments using cloud technologies such as Kubernetes.
  • Continuous Verification. Release teams finally know for sure that deployments succeeded or failed by leveraging unsupervised machine learning to automatically verify application deployments in production. They can detect errors quality and regressions from tools such as AppDynamics, New Relic, Splunk, Elastic and Sumo Logic, as well as use the Harness 24×7 Service Guard feature to monitor the performance of releases indefinitely.
  • Automated Rollback. Instead of painful, manual rollbacks, Harness can automate rollbacks to the last working artifact version and run-time configuration with no required scripting or code.
  • Continuous Security. Harness bakes in security into every step of the deployment process. Harness uses its SecretStore or deep HashiCorp Vault integration to seamlessly reference secrets across all deployment workflows and pipelines. Harness also keeps a full audit trail of every deployment, so teams know the who, what, where and when behind every action.
  • Real-Time Delivery Analytics.DevOps and engineering team leads now have powerful insight into every application, environment, version, and deployment. Teams can debug deployments in seconds, and role-based access is baked into every part of the platform.
"Vuclip gains tremendous advantages from the combination of Harness and Google Cloud," said Jishnu Kinwar, VP of Technical Operations at Vuclip, a leading global technology-driven media company delivering on-demand entertainment to emerging markets. "We use Harness to deploy our artifacts into GCP, relying on Harness machine learning to verify success and help automate rollbacks when required. The two solutions ensure that we're using the very latest Continuous Delivery technology to better serve our customers worldwide."
"We're thrilled to partner with the Google Cloud Platform and help equip DevOps and engineering teams with the safe and seamless ability to deliver applications to the Google Cloud," said Jyoti Bansal, Harness co-founder & CEO. "We see a rapid migration of legacy and monolithic applications to microservices and Kubernetes environments hosted by Google Cloud, and Harness is here to help developers with a platform that accelerates microservices and cloud adoption and reduces the risk of application downtime — while giving engineering teams their weekends back."
The Harness trial is free for two weeks and can be accessed here.

Aptiv/Audi Receives Innovation Partnership Award for Automated Driving Satellite Compute Platform

Dublin, April 9, 2019 - Aptiv PLC (NYSE: APTV), a global technology company enabling the future of mobility, announced it was recognized by Automotive News as a 2019 Innovation Partnership Award winner for its work with Audi on the Aptiv Automated Driving Satellite Compute Platform.

Aptiv is democratizing active safety through the efficient and scalable Automated Driving Satellite Compute Platform. Most systems have the computing power integrated into the sensors, processing the information at the source, which makes each sensor expensive to build and to replace when damaged. Aptiv's Automated Driving Satellite Compute Platform takes processing and electronics out of individual sensors, instead sending the information to the central platform, allowing the sensors to be smaller, more cost efficient, lighter and easier to package in a vehicle. The reduced mass and volume also eliminates sensor heat dissipation concerns. In one application Aptiv's innovative technology reduced the camera footprint from the size of a deck of playing cards to the size of a pack of chewing gum.

"As a global technology company with a rich history of developing safer, greener and more connected solutions, we are honored to be recognized for our collaboration with Audi in development of the Automated Driving Satellite Compute Platform," said David Paja, Aptiv's senior vice president and president of Advanced Safety & User Experience. "This industry-first platform, developed with our strong Audi partnership, enables our customers to apply a simplified sensor footprint to scale features for advanced levels of safety automation. It truly is a game changer in the industry."  

From basic ADAS to Level 4 autonomous vehicles, this compute platform is scalable for increasing automated driving levels and complexity demands. The concept has had a revolutionary impact on Aptiv's customer's vehicle architecture.

The Automotive News PACE panel of judges recognized the Aptiv-Audi team working on the Automated Driving Satellite Compute Platform with an Innovation Partnership Award, for their "special levels" of supplier and OEM collaboration.

The judges found that Aptiv's systems integration capabilities and strong collaboration with Audi led to the development of a platform that  incorporates several different components into a single, affordable ECU controlling the advanced safety features. The judges cited Aptiv's Automated Driving Satellite Compute Platform as a great example of the new level of collaboration needed as the industry moves toward more autonomy.

MassRobotics Builds Strategic Partnerships with Analog Devices, Honda, Husqvarna, FedEx, Lockheed Martin and More

Boston, April 9,2019 - Robotics is emerging as a key technology among companies large and small, and across myriad industries. As a result, MassRobotics, the global hub of robotics, has increased its strategic partnership relationships, bringing significant companies and organizations into the MassRobotics community. These corporate partners provide strategic guidance, help fund MassRobotics' programming, and fuel the organization's expansion, both for its upcoming expanded Boston co-working space and its growing international presence within the robotics industry.
"Corporate partnerships have been a core part of MassRobotics' unique startup escalation model and have helped attract and scale successful startups over the last few years," said Fady Saad, MassRobotics Co-founder and Director of Partnerships.
New partners represent a range of companies and industries pursuing innovative robotics solutions, and include:
  • Analog Devices: This significant partnership includes the planning and execution of a major robotics technology challenge focused on Sensor Fusion and Context Awareness, where robotic systems combine multiple sensing technologies to gather information about the environment as it happens. The technology challenge is intended to encourage system solutions innovation with advanced automation, energy, sensing, communications, and power management technologies. The partnership also gives Analog Devices exclusive naming rights to MassRobotics' new electronics lab in its planned expansion facility.
  • Lockheed Martin: MassRobotics' first strategic partner from the defense community will further support robotics innovation for challenging defense applications. In collaboration with LM's venture investment arm, MassRobotics will continue to build strong links between the robotics and AI startup community and the defense community. Lockheed Martin is especially interested in the pipeline of MassRobotics' cluster startups and excited to introduce companies to LM engineers for a variety of strategic and investment opportunities in aerospace and defense.
  • FedEx: This key strategic relationship in the supply chain and logistics industry, coupled with the unparalleled concentration of logistics robotics companies in the region – Locus, 6Rivers, Vecna Robotics, XYZ and others – will introduce FedEx technologists to the cutting-edge technology in the MassRobotics ecosystem and open the doors to future strategic opportunities.
  • Husqvarna Group: A key international partnership with this major Swedish outdoor power products manufacturer for green spaces and construction, Husqvarna Group is the world's largest outdoor robotics company with close to two million robotic lawn mowers sold. Their offering also includes chainsaws, trimmers, garden tractors, power cutters, floor grinders and demolition robots. Through MassRobotics, Husqvarna Group expands their exploration in robotics and creates opportunities for ecosystem startups active in this space. Husqvarna Group is already vested in the Boston'srobotics ecosystem through their participation in Franklin Robotics.
  • Honda Xcelerator: This is MassRobotics' first strategic partnership with a large automotive player. Working with Honda Xcelerator, a program that offers funding for rapid prototyping, collaborative workspace and pairing with Honda mentors for innovators across all funding stages, MassRobotics and Honda will explore emerging technologies in manufacturing, robotics, and autonomous driving. The growing startup cluster in the region is a key magnet for many automotive companies to get engaged through MassRobotics.
  • Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC): This is the first-of-its-kind collaboration between a leading clean energy organization and a robotics organization, and will motivate robotics startups with specific applications for the clean energy space (e.g. drones for inspecting solar panels and wind turbines, ground robotics to perform energy and leakage inspection in tight spaces). It will also help fuel studies about the impact of massive robot deployments like self-driving cars, drones, home robots and logistic robots on the current energy grid and the use of batteries. This collaboration will host startups at MassRobotics, provide non-diluting grants for high-performing startups, and engage large, clean energy corporates with MassRobotics' ecosystem.
  • Additionally, longtime and/or founding partners, including Harmonic Drive, Panasonic, Locus, Autodesk, SMC, Solidworks and iRobot, have renewed or extended their partnerships.
MassRobotics' new, larger facility now being designed will be able to support close to 70 startups in the robotics space. The organization's unique "escalator" model allows entrepreneurs and startups to get established, grow and provide meaningful employment for the future workforce, and to provide ongoing value for partner organizations. MassRobotics is shaping the future of robotics and growing its global influence to expand its community to the world.

Sunday 7 April 2019

Dhanbad and Ranchi only cities with over 95% 4G coverage in India, other cities pass 87% mark: OpenSignal Survey

The city of Dhanbad is known as the coal capital of India, and is headquarters of some of the country's biggest coking companies in the mineral-rich Jharkhand state. And now Dhanbad is on fire as Opensignal's hottest city for 4G Availability.

We looked at 50 of India's largest cities and analyzed them by their 4G Availability, based on a combined score for all operators that operate a 4G network in those metros. Dhanbad scored 95.3% in Opensignal’s measurements — one of only two cities to pass the 95% mark. The other was Ranchi, Dhanbad's neighbor and state capital of Jharkhand, which scored 95.0% in 4G Availability.
Opensignal’s 4G Availability metric is not a measure of coverage or the geographic extent of a network. It measures what proportion of time our users with a 4G device and subscription can get a network connection, in the places they most commonly visit. So when we say an operator has a 4G Availability score of 95%, that means our LTE users on that network were connected to 4G services 95% of the time. This important distinction is often missed by traditional coverage metrics. 4G Availability represents when users have an LTE connection, rather than where, providing a far more accurate reflection of the true mobile user experience. For more on Opensignal's metrics, please read about our methodology and Experience Charter.

In India 4G Availability, in a slightly unlikely third place we saw Srinagar, one of India's remotest cities, located in the mountain passes of Jammu and Kashmir. Srinagar was just shy of the 95% mark with a 4G Availability score of 94.9%. In fourth place we saw the much-larger metropolis of Raipur, which scored 94.8% in our measurements, followed by Patna with 94.5%. Patna won our comparison of 20 of India's largest cities by 4G Availability nearly a year ago, and has increased its score by close to 2 percentage points in that time.

Of India's largest cities, none were really stoking the fires in Opensignal's 4G Availability analysis. Delhi and Mumbai were in the lower half of the table, neck-and-neck with scores just shy of 90%, behind Hyderabad's 90.5%. Bangalore was mid-table on 92.3%, while Ahmedabad scored 92.7%. Nonetheless, all of the 50 Indian cities we measured scored over 87% 4G Availability — a feat that many much more developed mobile markets would be proud of.

Fanned by the flames of competition, India is really smoldering in 4G Availability. In Opensignal’s most recent India Mobile Network Experience report, we found Jio's national 4G Availability score was a remarkable 96.7% — over 20 percentage points ahead of its main rivals. The world's first "super-disruptor", Jio stunned the mobile world with its revolutionary free data offerings, amassing over 100 million subscribers in just 6 months. But its rivals have reacted. All of India's key operators continue to aggressively invest, while the merger of Vodafone and Idea is set to create India's largest operator, further disrupting the market.