#Machine Vision Integration Great Lakes

[markreadtrack-auburnhills]

Unleashing Efficiency: The Rise of Industrial Automation Software Solutions

In the age of digital transformation, industrial sectors across the globe are undergoing a fundamental shift. One of the most significant developments driving this evolution is the rise of Industrial Automation Software Solutions. These intelligent systems are redefining how industries operate, streamline processes, and respond to real-time data — all while reducing human error and maximizing productivity.

Industrial automation is no longer just a competitive advantage; it’s quickly becoming a necessity for modern manufacturing, logistics, energy, and production-based businesses. At the core of this transformation lies powerful software designed to integrate machinery, manage workflows, and monitor operations with precision and efficiency.

One of the key strengths of Industrial Automation Software Solutions is their ability to centralize control over complex industrial processes. From programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, this software enables seamless communication between machines, sensors, and operators. The result is a smarter, more connected operation that can adapt quickly to changing demands.

Beyond basic automation, these solutions offer deep analytics capabilities. Using machine learning and AI, the software can detect patterns, predict equipment failures, and recommend proactive maintenance — ultimately helping businesses avoid costly downtime. This predictive approach not only increases reliability but also extends the lifespan of expensive equipment.

Flexibility is another crucial advantage. Most modern Industrial Automation Software Solutions are highly customizable and scalable, allowing companies to tailor systems to their unique needs and expand functionality as they grow. Whether an organization is automating a single production line or an entire facility, the right software can be scaled appropriately without significant disruptions.

In today’s globalized economy, remote access and cloud integration are more important than ever. Many automation platforms now offer web-based dashboards and mobile apps, giving managers and technicians the ability to monitor and control systems from virtually anywhere. This level of accessibility promotes faster response times and better decision-making, even across multiple locations.

Security, too, has become a top priority. As more industrial systems connect to the internet, they become more vulnerable to cyber threats. Industrial Automation Software Solutions are now being developed with robust cybersecurity features, including encrypted communication, multi-layered access control, and real-time threat monitoring.

These solutions also play a key role in sustainability efforts. By optimizing energy usage, reducing waste, and ensuring consistent product quality, industrial automation supports greener operations. Businesses not only improve efficiency but also meet environmental standards more effectively.

As industries continue to adopt smart technologies and prepare for Industry 4.0, the demand for reliable and intelligent automation software is set to grow exponentially. Investing in Industrial Automation Software Solutions is no longer just about keeping up with competitors — it's about laying the foundation for a resilient, future-ready operation.

Whether it's enhancing productivity, improving safety, or driving innovation, automation software is reshaping what’s possible in the industrial world. The future of manufacturing and production isn’t just automated — it’s intelligent, adaptive, and incredibly powerful.

[vdvsdvdsvdz]

Why I Became a Trusted Boat Broker in Texas: More Than Just Boats, It's About Changing Lives

When I first stepped into the marine business, it wasn’t with the intention of simply pushing boats or chasing sales. I didn’t see it as just another job—I saw it as an opportunity to connect people with something far more meaningful than a product. I saw what boating could do for people—the way it can bring families together, create lifelong memories, and even change lives. That’s the heart and soul of why I became a trusted boat broker in Texas.

Boating is More Than a Hobby—It’s a Lifestyle

In our fast-paced, technology-driven world, real quality time has become harder and harder to come by. That’s where boating comes in. I’ve witnessed firsthand how a simple day on the water can bring profound change. I've seen teenagers who are glued to their screens suddenly light up as they cast a fishing line for the first time. I’ve watched couples who’ve been through tough times reconnect over a sunset cruise. I’ve seen the stress of daily life melt away as families cruise together, leaving behind worries and reconnecting in a peaceful, natural setting.

Boating isn’t just about navigating open waters—it’s about creating moments that matter. And helping people find the right vessel to start their journey is something I take great pride in.

The Personal Touch That Sets Me Apart

Anyone can sell a boat, but it takes more to truly be a trusted boat broker in Texas. For me, trust isn’t something that comes from a slick pitch or flashy advertisement. It comes from taking the time to understand what each client really needs. It’s about listening more than talking, and putting people first—always.

Whether you’re a first-time boat buyer looking for a family-friendly pontoon, or an experienced angler searching for a serious offshore fishing machine, I take the time to walk you through every step. I work to understand your goals, your lifestyle, and your budget—then I match you with the perfect boat that fits your vision.

Reconnecting with What Matters

Some of my favorite stories come from customers who never thought they’d be “boat people.” One client, a father of three, told me he hadn’t had a meaningful weekend with his kids in over a year—until he bought his first boat. Within weeks, they were spending every Saturday fishing, swimming, and bonding like never before. That’s not just a sale. That’s a transformation.

Another client told me that after 25 years of marriage, date nights had become routine. After buying a sleek cruiser, he and his wife started taking sunset rides every Friday evening. The water gave them the space to talk, laugh, and reconnect. To me, that's the real power of boating—and it’s why I love what I do.

Why Texas Families Trust Me

Texas is big, and so is its boating community. But finding someone you can trust to guide you through the buying or selling process isn’t always easy. That’s why I’ve worked hard to become the trusted boat broker in Texas that families, fishing enthusiasts, and weekend warriors can count on.

I’ve built my business on transparency, integrity, and unmatched knowledge of the marine market. I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. Every recommendation I make is backed by years of hands-on experience and a genuine desire to help my clients make the right choice—not just the fastest one.

Services That Go Beyond the Sale

As your trusted boat broker in Texas, I offer a full range of services beyond just buying and selling boats. I help with pre-sale inspections, sea trials, financing guidance, title transfers, and even after-sale support. Need tips on winterizing your boat or finding the best launch spots around Texas lakes? I’ve got you covered.

My goal is to be a long-term resource for all your boating needs—not just during the sale, but every step of the way after.

Why the Right Boat Matters

Choosing the right boat can feel overwhelming—there are countless makes, models, and features to consider. That’s where I come in. I help you navigate the maze with clear, honest advice tailored to your goals.

Are you looking for a quiet, stable vessel for family lake days? A center console for Gulf Coast fishing trips? Or a luxury cruiser to explore the Texas waterways in style? I’ll help you narrow it down and find a boat that brings your vision to life.

Final Thoughts

For me, being a trusted boat broker in Texas isn’t just a title—it’s a responsibility. It means showing up with honesty, delivering top-notch service, and treating every client like family. It means caring about what boating means to you—not just the specs, but the stories you’ll create.

I didn’t enter this business to chase numbers. I did it because I saw the smiles, the renewed connections, and the pure joy that happens when people get out on the water. And I want to help you experience that too.

If you’re ready to start your boating journey—or take it to the next level—reach out today. Let’s find the perfect boat for you and start building those unforgettable moments, one wave at a time.

[downtoearthmarkets]

Many people are surprised to learn that rice is being cultivated and grown in New York state, right up the road in the Hudson Valley! While rice production has traditionally been associated with tropical regions, rice farming has become more common in the northeast thanks to warming temperatures and flooding of agricultural lands caused by climate change.

Located on a former champion horse farm in Pine Bush, New York, Great Joy Family Farm was established in 2018 with the goal of restoring the land into a workable, productive and diversified farm. In a few short years, Great Joy Family Farm has become just that thanks to the vision, expertise and hard work of Wendy Chen and a collective of her family members who moved to the United States a decade ago from a region in south central China known for its rivers, lakes and rice production.

In addition to raising pastured animals and growing a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and grains, Great Joy Family Farm offers several products that are reflective of their unique cultural background and heritage, including fresh tofu made from their own soybeans and rice they grow in rice paddies by the Wallkill River.

Down to Earth Markets recently had the pleasure of touring Great Joy Family Farm and their rice paddies while chatting with Wendy to learn more about rice cultivation in the Hudson Valley and to watch the rice being harvested.*

*The conversation with Wendy outlined below has been supplemented with general information about rice growing in the northeast and Asia.

What are the main requirements for growing rice in New York state?

To grow rice, you have to find the right spot. Rice doesn't need to be flooded to grow, but flooded paddies are a way that farmers through history have partnered with nature to grow food. Flooding rice fields can improve growth, reduce the risk of uneven rainfall, and increase yields so it makes growing rice a lot easier. The water in flooded fields also acts as a natural herbicide, drowning weeds while the rice plant is unaffected.

In New York state, rice requires an already flat area, as if it’s bumpy or hilly it won’t work unless you do a lot of grading, which the Department of Environmental Conservation doesn’t generally allow. The land can’t be rocky, and the soil also has to be very clean as growing rice places a lot of demands upon it.

We found out that our friend has a farm with a piece of land that is close to the Wallkill River that he thought might be flood prone. We started to think about if we could grow rice there and if we should consider trying it. We had tried to grow rice on our farm before in a different area. We had dug a reservoir in which to collect the rainwater and had drilled a well. But drilling an irrigation well is very costly and the well was only producing 5-10 gallons of water per minute which is not enough to flood a rice paddy with. On our friend’s land, the well we dug produces 68 gallons per minute, which proved perfect for our needs. We also use rainwater which we collect in a reservoir near the rice paddies. We recycle the water too as, when we drain the fields, the water is sent through trenches back into the reservoir.

Rice does not need a lot of attention to grow. There are two critical stages when it needs work and oversight. The first is during flooding when you need to watch the water levels and the second is when the rice is flowering. However, the management of rice fields requires a lot of knowledge! My uncle and relatives have a lot of experience from back home in China. Plus, all the workers on our farm have specialized knowledge. Each person knows how to operate a particular machine involved in rice cultivation.

What are some of the traditional Chinese rice growing techniques that you employ?

1. Rice-Duck Farming We use a flock of our ducks to help with weed and pest control. This practice is known as integrated rice-duck farming and has been used in Asia for centuries. The ducks are command trained with a bell or voice signal to enter the paddies. They first go out into the paddies at only a week old as, once they get too big, they can damage the rice plants. The ducks won’t eat the rice plants because the silica in rice leaves irritates their bills.

There are many benefits to using the ducks in the paddies including:

Pest control: Ducks eat pests like snails, slugs, and insects that can damage the rice crops.

Weeding: Ducks tear up weeds.

Fertilizing: Ducks leave behind manure that serves as a natural fertilizer.

Oxygenating water: Ducks stir up the water as they wade around, which helps create a healthier environment for rice growth.

Loosening soil: Ducks' movements help loosen the soil, which improves oxygen circulation.

Reducing need for chemicals: Using ducks reduces the need for chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

The ducks help in the rice paddies for the first 6-8 weeks after rice planting. They are removed once they get too big and the rice starts flowering as they will eat the flowers. After their work in the rice paddies which they love, they are taken to the farm for egg laying. In the winter, the ducks are harvested, and they are very yummy to eat!

In China, we also grow freshwater fish in the rice paddies. Rice is considered the perfect accompaniment to fish. Rice-fish culture has been practiced in China for at least 1,700 years. Like the ducks, the fish help with insect and pest control and help fertilize the soil. We might consider trying a rice-fish system in the future. We harvest and eat the fish at the end of the rice growing season and it tastes very good, but because it’s freshwater fish it can be bony.

2. Hand Harvesting When I was growing up on our farm in China, we would hand harvest all the rice and use our feet to separate the kernels. We still do some hand harvesting of our rice, but it’s to preserve seeds for planting the following year. We use a U-shaped knife to hand harvest the best seeds of each type of rice we grow for purity and to stop contamination. The machines can also damage the rice, which is another reason we do some hand harvesting to ensure the best seeds are preserved for next year’s crops.

3. Sun Drying Industrially grown rice is dried in large silos heated by propane. During this process, the rice requires turning which can cause the kernels to become crushed and damaged. We harness natural sunlight to dry our rice in sunrooms. This traditional method of rice drying is not only sustainable, it also preserves the integrity of the rice kernels. We lay the rice out on the floor of the open-sided rooms that are covered with a glass roof. It takes three to four good sunshine days to dry it completely. What are the different types of rice that Great Joy Family Farm grows?  We currently grow the following kinds of rice:

Akitakomachi Brown Rice

Akitakomachi White Rice

Black Rice

Fragrant Brown Rice

Fragrant White Rice

Neches Sweet Rice

Our long and short grain rice varieties produce between six to seven thousand pounds of rice per acre! Our sweet rice and black rice have less yield, so they don’t produce as much rice per acre. The black rice has always been our best-selling rice.

We grow rice in a field for three years in a row and then let the field rest for a year. After a season of rest, the land needs to be prepared once again for planting by removing weeds and evening out the surface.

The fields of our different rice varieties change colors through the course of the growing season. At first, they all start out vibrant green when the young transplants from our greenhouses are planted in the spring during the month of May. As the rice flowers and ripens, the fields turn different hues of yellow as we approach harvest time.

What are some other differences between supermarket rice and the fresh rice that Great Joy Family Farm produces?

Most rice produced in the United States is grown in the Rice Belt states (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas), California and Missouri. Much of this rice is industrially grown in vast quantities and stored and bagged for long periods of time before it ends up on supermarket shelves. Our fresh rice is considered a boutique, specialty grain that comes straight from our farm without being stored and without the use of any preservatives. This fresh rice cooks much faster and tastes different to aged rice. When you open a bag of Great Joy’s rice, you can often smell a sweet fragrance that is unique to fresh rice. When customers try our fresh rice and other products, they come to us and say that we are changing their diet, and it’s definitely for the better!

Thank you, Wendy, for treating us to this captivating overview of your local rice production and for introducing us to the wonders of New York state grown rice. To learn more about Great Joy Family Farm’s rice growing, click here to watch this video.

You can find Great Joy Family Farm and their range of unique, specialty products at our Cunningham Park, Larchmont, Ossining, Park Slope and Scarsdale farmers markets.

[objectwaysblog]

Real-time Model Oversight: Amazon SageMaker vs Databricks ML Monitoring Features

Model monitoring is crucial in the lifecycle of machine learning models, especially for models deployed in production environments. Model monitoring is not just a "nice-to-have" but is essential to ensure the models' robustness, accuracy, fairness, and reliability in real-world applications. Without monitoring, model predictions can be unreliable, or even detrimental to the business or end-users. As a model builder, how often have you thought about how models’ behavior will change over time? In my professional life, I have seen many production systems managing model retraining life cycle using heuristic, gut feel or scheduled basis, either leading to the wastage of precious resources or performing retraining too late.

This is a ripe problem space as many models have been deployed in production. Hence there are many point solutions such as Great Expectations, Neptune.ai, Fiddler.ai who all boast really cool features either in terms of automatic metrics computation, differentiated statistical methods or Responsible AI hype that has become a real need of time (Thanks to ChatGPT and LLMs). In this Op-ed, I would like to touch upon two systems that I am familiar with and are widely used.

Amazon SageMaker Model Monitor

Amazon SageMaker is AWS’s flagship fully managed ML service to Build, Train, Deploy & “Monitor” Machine Learning models. The service provides click through experience for set up using SageMaker Studio or API experience using SageMaker SDK. SageMaker assumes you to have clean datasets for training and can capture inference request/response based on user defined time interval. The system works for model monitoring if models are the problem, BUT What if Data that is fed to the model is a problem or a pipeline well upstream in ETL pipeline is a problem. AWS provides multiple Data Lake architectures and patterns to stitch end-2-end data and AI systems together but tracking data lineage is easy if not impossible.

The monitoring solution is flexible thanks to SageMaker processing job which is underlying mechanism to execute underlying metrics. SageMaker processing also lets you build your custom container. SageMaker model monitoring is integrated with Amazon SageMaker Clarify and can provide Bias Drift which is important for Responsible AI. Overall SageMaker monitoring does a decent job of alerting when model drifts.

Databricks Lakehouse Monitoring

Let's look at the second contender. Databricks is a fully managed Data and AI platform available across all major clouds and also boasts millions of downloads of MLFlow OSS. I have recently come across Databricks Lakehouse Monitoring which IMO is a really cool paradigm of Monitoring your Data assets.

Let me explain why you should care if you are an ML Engineer or Data Scientist?

Let's say you have built a cool customer segmentation model and deployed it in production. You have started monitoring the model using one of the cool bespoke tools I mentioned earlier which may pop up an alert blaming a Data field. Now What?

✔ How do you track where that field came from cobweb of data ETL pipeline?

✔ How do you find the root cause of the drift?

✔ How do you track where that field came from cobweb of data ETL pipeline?

Here comes Databricks Lakehouse Monitoring to the rescue. Databricks Lakehouse Monitoring lets you monitor all of the tables in your account. You can also use it to track the performance of machine learning models and model-serving endpoints by monitoring inference tables created by the model’s output.

Let's put this in perspective, Data Layer is a foundation of AI. When teams across data and AI portfolios work together in a single platform, productivity of ML Teams, Access to Data assets and Governance is much superior compared to siloed or point solution.

The Vision below essentially captures an ideal Data and Model Monitoring solution. The journey starts with raw data with Bronze -> Silver -> Golden layers. Moreover, Features are also treated as another table (That’s refreshing and new paradigm, Goodbye feature stores). Now you get down to ML brass tacks by using Golden/Feature Tables for Model training and serve that model up.

Databricks recently launched in preview awesome Inference table feature. Imagine all your requests/responses captured as a table than raw files in your object store. Possibilities are limitless if the Table can scale. Once you have ground truth after the fact, just start logging it in Groundtruth Table. Since all this data is being ETLed using Databricks components, the Unity catalog offers nice end-2-end data lineage similar to Delta Live Tables.

Now you can turn on Monitors, and Databricks start computing metrics. Any Data Drift or Model Drift can be root caused to upstream ETL tables or source code. Imagine that you love other tools in the market for monitoring, then just have them crawl these tables and get your own insights.

Looks like Databricks want to take it up the notch by extending Expectations framework in DLT to extend to any Delta Table. Imagine the ability to set up column level constraints and instructing jobs to fail, rollback or default. So, it means problems can be pre-empted before they happen. Can't wait to see this evolution in the next few months.

To summarize, I came up with the following comparison between SageMaker and Databricks Model Monitoring.CapabilityWinnerSageMakerDatabricksRoot cause AnalysisDatabricksConstraint and violations due to concept and model driftExtends RCA to upstream ETL pipelines as lineage is maintainedBuilt-in statisticsSageMakerUses Deque Spark library and SageMaker Clarify for Bias driftUnderlying metrics library is not exposed but most likely Spark libraryDashboardingDatabricksAvailable using SageMaker Studio so it is a mustRedash dashboards are built and can be customized or use your favorite BI tool.AlertingDatabricksNeeds additional configuration using Event BridgeBuilt in alertingCustomizabilityBothUses Processing jobs so customization of your own metricsMost metrics are built-in, but dashboards can be customizedUse case coverageSageMakerCoverage for Tabular and NLP use casesCoverage for tabular use casesEase of UseDatabricksOne-click enablementOne-click enablement but bonus for monitoring upstream ETL tables

Hope you enjoyed the quick read. Hope you can engage Propensity Labs for your next Machine Learning project no matter how hard the problem is, we have a solution. Keep monitoring.

[yooperwolf]

MDARD Awards Rural Grants to Support Infrastructure, Sustainability of Land-Based Industries

or immediate release: February 12, 2021 Media contact: Jessy Sielski, 517-331-1151 Program contact: Heather Throne, 517-712-0841

MDARD Awards Rural Grants to Support Infrastructure, Sustainability of Land-Based Industries

LANSING—The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) has awarded 20 Rural Development Fund Grants designed to promote the sustainability of land-based industries and support infrastructure that benefits rural communities.

“Rural Michigan isn’t some strange, faraway, uninhabited land,” said MDARD Director Gary McDowell. “Most of the people in this great state are either from or currently live in rural areas, so these grants have a real impact on the lives of people we know and in communities not far from our own. Rural Michigan has unlimited potential, but it needs opportunity. The Rural Development Fund grants help provide those opportunities.”

The department received 139 proposals with requests totaling more than $11 million. Of those, MDARD awarded the following 20 projects totaling $1,700,000, leveraging a match of more than $6.7 million:

Apsey Farm LLC - $90,000 (Reed City) – Expansion of livestock processing and distribution.

Beaver Island Historical Society – $31,800 (Beaver Island) – Implement a tourism campaign, upgrades at Heritage Park and Blue Buffalo Camp Trail, development of a mobile app for tourists.

City of Ishpeming – $100,000 – Development along Malton Road to create an additional campground and to increase tourism to the region.

City of Negaunee – $82,600 – Multiple upgrades to the Teal Lake Shoreline Beach Area.

City of Stephenson – $41,500 – Wastewater treatment facility upgrades.

Gallagher Farms LLC – $100,000 (Traverse City) – Establishment of a craft spirits distillery at the farm as a complement to its current Bay View Weddings at Gallagher Farms destination wedding venue.

Gatien Farm and Forest Products Inc. – $100,000 (Powers) – Upgrade equipment with new highly automated machines for wood products.

Great Lakes Tissue Company – $100,000 (Cheboygan) – Expansion of new processing equipment to add value to the plastic byproduct of recycled poly-coated paper feedstock of cartons, paper cups, food trays, and post-industrial paper used in the 100% recycle context tissue manufacturing.

Harbor Hills Fruit Farm – $100,000 (Lake Leelanau) – Purchase of a crossflow filtration unit to enhance the quality of Michigan wines.

Lakeshore Depot L3C – $100,000 (Marquette) – Increase capacity for sales, distribution and value-added processing of Michigan-grown produce and agricultural products at a new FarmStop local food store.

Mackinac Bluffs Maple Farm Inc. – $100,000 (Pickford) – Construction and installation of a “sap house” that will contain equipment to collect and process maple sap for additional maple syrup production.

Noquemanon Trails Network Council – $100,000 (Marquette) – Expansion of parking spaces, a vault toilet facility, and develop a mountain bike skills area for all ages and abilities at Marquette South Trails.

Northern Michigan University – $100,000 (Marquette) – Implement a self-contained growing center proposal that aims to enhance and expand a new indoor agriculture degree program at the university.

Oceana County Economic Alliance – $100,000 (Hart) – Extension of the Village of Shelby’s municipal water service to workforce housing and remove barriers to talent attraction and retention.

Riveridge Land Company – $100,000 (Grant) – Construction of a housing unit for 30 additional H2A seasonal workers for the upcoming growing season.

TCWC LLC DBA Traverse City Whiskey – $100,000 (Traverse City) – Improve natural gas infrastructure and install new NG-compatible steam boiler to allow for increased fermentation capacity for production of distilled spirits.

The Cut Custom Processing LLC – $78,400 (Rosebush) – Expand pork processing capabilities at the USDA processing establishment.

Travel Marquette – $20,800 (Marquette) – Integration of online and print tools to assist citizens and visitors with hearing, vision, and mobility limitations navigate the county.

Tuscarora Township – $54,900 (Indian River) – Installation of additional public boat dockage at Marina Park.

Village of Breckenridge – $100,000 – Expansion of the Technology and Agribusiness Park to allow for additional lots.

The grant funds, made possible from Public Act 411 of 2012, are aimed to promote the sustainability of land-based industries (food and agriculture; forestry; mining, oil and gas production; and tourism) and support workforce training, rural capacity building, business development and infrastructure that benefits rural communities.

Eligible counties include those with a population no greater than 60,000 residents or micropolitan statistical areas. Preference was given to projects in Marquette County.

The proposals were evaluated through a competitive process. For more information about this grant program or a complete list of eligible counties, visit https://www.michigan.gov/mdardgrants.

###

[stellarcyber-security]

Why are leading market research firms so excited about XDR?

Q. Why do you think people including CISOs and analysts are so excited by XDR?

Ans: SIEMs have been the foundation of security operations for decades, and we should acknowledge that. However, SIEMs have made a lot of great promises, and to this day, have not fulfilled many of them, in particular, the vision of automatic correlation of detections holistically. This is the key problem we work to address at Stellar Cyber with our Open XDR platform

Download Datasheet

Q. Let’s clarify that claim. When you say correlation of detections, what do you mean and why can’t SIEMs do it?

Ans: Detections are an event that looks anomalous or malicious. And the issue today in a modern security operations center (SOC) is that detections can bubble up from many siloed tools. For example, you have firewall and network detection and response (NDR) for your network protection, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) for your endpoints’ protection and Cloud Application Security Broker(CASB) for your SaaS applications. Correlating those detections to paint a bigger picture is the issue, since hackers are now using more complex techniques to access your applications and data with increased attack surfaces. Your team is either claiming false positives or an inability to see through these detections and get a sense of what is critical vs. noise. The main purpose of SIEMs is to collect and aggregate data such as logs from different tools and applications for activity visibility and incident investigation.

That said there are still a lot of manual tasks needed, like transforming the data including the data fusion to create context for the data, i.e., enrichment with threat intelligence, location, asset and/or user information.

Q. So let’s get back to the headline, why is this so key for security professionals?

Ans: Let’s take Analyst firm, Gartner, as an example. For their Security Summit, their number 2 trend — out of Top 7 Security and Risk Trends for 2020 — is a renewed interest in implementing or maturing SOCs with a focus on threat detection and response. They further note, “In response to the growing security skills gap and attacker trends, extended detection and response (XDR) tools, machine learning (ML), and automation capability are emerging to improve security operations productivity and detection accuracy.”

Q. That is telling, but let’s take a step back and say more about why XDR is new, and not just a wrapper on an existing tool.

Ans: XDR is a cohesive security operations platform with tight integration of many security applications on a single platform. SIEM is one of many such natively supported applications and works with the others, including User and Entity Behavior Analysis (UBA & EBA), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) and Firewall Traffic Analysis (FTA), threat intelligence, etc. At Stellar Cyber, we define Open XDR as focusing on automatic threat detection and incident response use cases by correlating security events from many security tools. These are the primary challenges with SIEM-only products, which make them the tool primary for log management and compliance.

Q. What about architecture? How important is that to the buyer?

Ans: Open XDR is developed using new cloud-native architecture and services including micro-services-based architecture with containers and clustering. It is very flexible in terms of deployment, scalable in performance coupled with a Lucene-based search engine to make the query of information super fast – in seconds instead of hours or days as seen in many SIEM-only products. The same software can be deployed on-premises with hardened physical appliances, virtual machines, private or public cloud with horizontal scalability and high availability capability key to big data analytics running on an open data lake. These characteristics are also critical for the ever increasing data volumes and compliance requirement of zero data loss.

Q. What are other analysts saying?

Ans: Forrester, ESG, IDC and Omdia all say there are silos and gaps in today’s SOC. Tools need to look at detections across network, cloud, endpoints and users. All analysts talk about the idea of correlations across these areas as a true indicator of XDR capability. As an example, your SIEM sees a log telling you a user has accessed SQL at a time of day that is not typical, your NTA tool tells you that the user is sending the traffic outside your country, and your UBA tool tells you that additionally, the user has not typically used this app at those times or at those data rates. This paints a picture of a complex attack, yet siloed tools need manual intervention to draw the conclusion. Today XDR systems can paint this picture automatically through AI / ML.

Q. How would you help those learning about XDR to shortlist companies and make the right decisions?

Ans: This is key, and we think there are five primary foundational requirements of XDR:

Centralization of normalized and enriched data from a variety of data sources including logs, network traffic, applications, cloud, Threat Intelligence, etc.

Automatic detection of security events from the data collected with advanced analytics such as NTA, UBA and EBA

Correlation of individual security events into a high-level view.

Centralized response capability that interacts with individual security products.

Cloud-native micro-services architecture for deployment flexibility, scalability and high availability.

And additionally for Stellar Cyber, the idea of Open XDR means we have an open ecosystem to ensure you leverage your existing security tools and best practices. We believe we reduce risk without disruption, and improve the fidelity of all your existing tools.

So, rather than being just one tool like a SIEM, Stellar Cyber’s Open XDR correlates inputs from many different tools, including its own integrated toolset and existing ones already in place, to produce higher-fidelity alerts, reduce false positives, and supercharge analyst productivity.

[wolfmatrix]

Top 10 Staff Augmentation Companies ( 2020 )

Staff enhancement is quickly trending at the IT job market, bringing more organizations and companies to hire skilled people liberally on a contract basis across the world.  So we have listed down some of those well-known staff augmentation companies across the world through comprehensive research.

In this article, we've compiled this list of the top 10 staff augmentation and dedicated teams companies for you to find the best partner.

Science Soft

Launched in 1989 as a AI product company, Science soft is an established consulting and applications development support.  With 17+ years of experience in IT Consulting, IT Support Services, and IT Outsourcing, it's spread over different countries across Europe and North America and now employs 700+ employees.  

In the previous two years alone, Science soft has more than five awards and certificates.  In 2019, PECB given them the ISO 13485:2016 certificate.  In 2020, it got featured in IAOP Global Outsourcing 100 Award Listed 2020 and acquired Gold Microsoft Competency in Application Integration.

Clients: IBM, eBay, Baxter, Rakuten Viber, Walmart

Employees: 750+

Headquarter: McKinney, TX, US

Founded: 1989

Wolfmatrix 

Wolfmatrix is a software development firm established in Nepal to make every business better by understanding its own requirement and supplying a custom system or technical alternative and partnership.

Wolfmatrix was set in 2014 by 2 young tech fans using the motto'Idea to Implementation.'  Our leaders have years of experience in software development and have excellent management skills.

Wolfmatrix is guided by the worthiness to provide superior service within the budget and estimated period, irrespective of the complexity of the job's requirement.  Wolfmatrix development team concentrates on satisfying your business need to assist you succeed.

Noris

Choosing the right IT service provider is, first of all, a question of trust.  But this trust must be worked hard every day .  With reliability, quality, functionality, adherence to deadlines, security, and partnership-based cooperation -- these are the features on which they cover the maximum excellent attention.  As an online service provider by the very start, they're the right partner for you.  Their services include pure colocation of your systems through managed cloud and services services into the complete outsourcing of your setups, software programs, and business processes.  As an IT service provider with over 25 years of expertise, they know what is vital in your company.

IT Certificates

• ISO 20000-1

• ISAE 3402

• ISO 14001

• ISO/IEC 27001

Awards

• Bavaria's Best 50

• Service Provider Award 2020

• Linux Professional Institute Certification (LPIC)

• Bavarian Creator Award 2019

Cleveroad

Being on the marketplace since 2011, they've been able to obtain the confidence and respect of their clients.  Long-term relationships and happy clients have consistently been their primary goals.

Company Values

Transparency: At Cleveroad, they believe that honesty with clients, partners, and employees is a basic step to creating great products.

Flexibility: Their staff quickly responds to new demands and changes because of the complex development process without any bureaucracy.

Quality: They control product quality in any way levels because of amassing input requirements and defining a sensible work scope from the early phase.

Professionalism: Their software engineering teams consist of high-qualified and certified developers with domain experience across industries.

Industry Recognition

IAOP Professional Member

Top 1000 B2B Providers, Global 2019

Top B2B Service Providers, UK

Best App Developers, International 2019

Unosquare

Unosquare, at its heart, has a mission-driven by three guiding purposes for each person That's part of the company:

Personal

Basically, Who made the agile software development firm with an understanding that, at our core, they're no more than a bunch of people pushing their bounds to do the best work they have ever done.  A right working environment is a secret to that creativity, cooperation, and, ultimately, success.

Professional

They strive to create an environment where their employees may enjoy the cultural foundation and individual relationships built during their team's time.  They also want to collaborate in projects that challenge their own technical abilities which have a complexity level that pushes the person's professional development as well as the team entrepreneurship and autodidactic behavior.

Social

Unosquare is here in order to make a heritage.  They commit to generating well-being in every geography they have a presence in.  Their organization was blessed with the chance to substantially affect the ethos in which we continue to develop the company.  They believe in a worldwide effort toward equality of opportunity.

Business size

501-1000 workers 

Headquarters

Lake Oswego, Oregon

Launched: 2009

Specialties

Staff Augmentation, QA and Testing, Java, Program Support and Maintenance, Cloud Computing, Mobile Application Development, Project Management, Nearshore Services, .NET, PHP, NodeJS, AngularJS, HTML5, Gamification, C#, Open Source Software, and Javascript.

ELEKS

ELEKS is your partner of choice for many of the world's leading enterprises, SMEs, and engineering challenges.  They assist businesses elevate their value through custom software development, product design, and QA and consultancy providers.

What's Different about ELEKS?

Engineering with fire: They're a community of innovators.  They devise bold solutions to the most complex client challenges.  They could research new technologies to design best-fit services with 96% of their customers ready to advocate them.

Performance focus: They become your loyal partner, which means they won't complete a job until both they and you're 100% happy.  With a customer satisfaction rate of over 97 percent, they're regarded as a key strategic technology partner.

Dedication to success: They push innovations that help their clients stay ahead of this curve.  They care about your immediate requirements and your long-term goals.  They believe that success is three-fold: to their clients, customers' customers, as well as the communities they affect.

Specialties

Data Science, Mobility, Quality Assurance, and Testing, R&D, Technology Consulting, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Product Design, Security Services, DevOps, Cloud, Big Data & Analytics, Internet of Things, Machine Learning, Software Development, Logistics, Fintech, Retail, Agriculture, and Healthtech.

Innovex

Inovex is an IT job centre driven by innovation and quality, focusing its'Digital Transformation' services.  Their IT experts give comprehensive support to companies to generate their core business digitized and nimble and execute new digital use cases.

They update existing solutions (Replatforming), strengthen systems against external attacks (Security), and share their knowledge through Training and Coaching (inovex Academy).

Innovex's Software Solutions

Application Development (Web Platforms, Mobile Apps, Smart Devices and Robotics -- from UI/UX design to Backend Services)

Locations

Karlsruhe, Pforzheim, Stuttgart, Munich, Cologne, and Hamburg

Employees: 370+

Contact: Tel. +49 721 619 021-0

Fax +49 721 619 021-11

Mail:info@inovex.de

Altoros

Alto's mission is to allow businesses to shift from legacy IT to the future.  Relying on the latest technology like blockchain, artificial intelligence, and Cloud Foundry helps businesses build and execute readily scalable enterprise-grade solutions.

Core Expertise

Cloud Foundry Service, Cloud Transformation Service, Kubernetes Implementation, Blockchain Development Service, AI Development Services, Machine Learning Services.

Projects Implemented: 1400+

Satisfied Clients: 600+

Global Institutions: 5

CIS

Since its beginning, Cyber Infrastructure's vision and passion have been"strengthening the achievement of their customers and partners via our highly innovative IT solutions while improving the quality of life for their workforce and society."  Being a top-notch Custom software development company, their solutions are designed to take your company to the next level, reducing the gap between you and the peaks of success you wish to achieve.

Their core solutions include Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain Development, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Internet of Things, Robotic Process Automation, Web Development, Branding and marketing, QA service, Microsoft Development, UI/UX Design, Game Development, Mobile Development, Cloud Solutions, and a Lot More.

Achievements

Microsoft Gold Certified

CMMIDEV/5

CMMISVC/5

ISO/IEC 27001:2013

ISO 9000:2015

IT Professionals: 1000+

Satisfied Customers: 3000+

Global Institutions: 4

SCAND

SCAN provides custom software development and IT outsourcing solutions across multiple technology, such as .NET, Java, PHP, JavaScript, C/C++, and a lot more.  With the ideal partner and the ideal technologies, you can embrace the future with confidence.

SCAND helps companies reduce their applications development and related expenses and speed-up their software products' entry into the marketplace.  SCAND is one of the top IT outsourcing firms in Eastern Europe, supplying a complete software development cycle.

Experience 

Contact

DACH: +49 212-880-79797

Email: contact@scand.com

Final Thought

Staff augmentation is the ideal option if you want to rapidly scale your staff or add specific skillsets to your group.  A significant advantage of the Staff Augmentation model is that it leverages existing resources and uses outsourced services and contract workers.  Flexibility, transparency, and cost savings are substantial advantages of strengthening staff.

Before choosing the outsourcing partner, be certain that you conduct extensive market research to locate the best-suited firm.  With several years of experience in personnel augmentation, Wolf Matrix skilled teams are always ready to help you construct a fantastic group for you.  If you want to work with us, then use the contact form to get in contact.

[markreadtrack-auburnhills]

Empowering Auburn Hills with Advanced Industrial Automation Solutions – A Mark Read Track Initiative

Auburn Hills, Michigan – a city known for its innovation, manufacturing excellence, and technological growth – is fast becoming a hub for industrial automation. As local manufacturers continue to adapt to Industry 4.0 standards, the need for advanced, integrated, and scalable automation solutions is more pressing than ever. That’s where Mark Read Track steps in, offering cutting-edge Industrial Automation Solutions in Auburn Hills designed to revolutionize how industries operate.

Mark Read Track is an established leader in the field of automation, bridging the gap between traditional processes and digital transformation. With years of experience and a dedicated team of engineers and developers, the company is committed to delivering tailored automation systems that address real manufacturing challenges. From small-scale workshops to large-scale production plants, Mark Read Track delivers measurable impact through automation.

Their Industrial Automation Solutions in Auburn Hills include a comprehensive suite of services such as system integration, PLC programming, HMI development, SCADA implementation, and data-driven analytics. These services are not just about reducing manual labor; they’re about optimizing productivity, ensuring consistency, and preparing businesses for the future of manufacturing.

One of the key differentiators of Mark Read Track is its ability to customize automation systems based on specific industry needs. Automotive manufacturing, electronics, packaging, and food processing industries in Auburn Hills have already begun leveraging their solutions to gain real-time operational insights, reduce errors, and enhance machine efficiency.

At the heart of their strategy lies smart data integration. By connecting machines, sensors, and control systems, Mark Read Track enables manufacturers to make informed decisions in real-time. This not only cuts down on unplanned downtime but also leads to improved product quality and operational safety.

Moreover, Mark Read Track focuses on scalability. As businesses grow, their automation systems should grow with them. That’s why the company builds flexible platforms that can easily be updated, expanded, and integrated with new technologies. This approach ensures long-term value and adaptability in an ever-evolving industrial landscape.

Cybersecurity is another priority. As industrial environments become more digitized, the threat of cyberattacks rises. Mark Read Track incorporates robust security protocols into its automation systems to safeguard data, machinery, and intellectual property.

For companies in Auburn Hills looking to transition from traditional setups to smart manufacturing, Mark Read Track offers not just solutions, but partnerships. Their team works closely with clients from initial consultation through deployment and after-sales support to ensure every system performs at its best.

In an era where efficiency, speed, and precision define competitiveness, Industrial Automation Solutions in Auburn Hills are no longer optional—they are essential. And with Mark Read Track leading the charge, businesses in Auburn Hills can be confident they are embracing innovation with the right partner by their side.

[craigwinslow]

2019: Wait whoa what

The year began quietly with a lot of research and education; teaching workshops, playing with new technology, and a few concepts I couldn’t get out of my head. The momentum of client work began to pick up as I traveled to New Mexico, Japan, and NYC. 

The balance of personal and work life has been something I’ve not often shared about, but have written extensively on for myself. In late February I went through a breakup, at the same time I was the busiest with work that I’ve ever been. A flow of success combined with inner turmoil led to pressured feelings resulting in me not posting much online, despite having the most productive and gratifying year yet.

Halfway through the year I had completed about 15 projects and was ready for a hiatus when The Neon Museum brought me on as an experiential consultant for the upcoming Tim Burton exhibition. I then found myself brought on by Tim Burton to lead design for the exhibition and the rest of the year was a blur; living in France, Malibu, and Las Vegas, working with Tim to bring his vision of many new artworks to life. 

Here's a look back at my work from 2019, followed by a look forward to 2020.

Light Capsules

During Portland Winter Light, I added three of my favorite ghost signs to my growing series that began during my Adobe Creative Residency.

Light Capsule No.032 - Sam Moy & Co. Light Capsule No.033 - Say it with Flowers Light Capsule No.034 - Talbot & Casey / Ford Garage

Teaching More Workshops

For the past few years, I’ve been teaching projection mapping, focusing on MadMapper and showing the potential of new platforms like Lightform. I started off the year with a handful of workshops at PNCA where I’ve been an occasional adjunct faculty / research fellow, but later taught in New Mexico, and at LetterWest in Salt Lake City.

New Mexico Highlands University

NMHU brought me in as a special advisor, mentoring their students on an exhibit at Jemez Historic Site with New Mexico Historic Sites. Using the cyc-wall in their campus production studio, we created an actual size projection to mockup their design.

While visiting the site, I captured the San José de los Jemez Mission Church with drone photogrammetry. This tool continually inspires me and led to exploring new pre-vis techniques throughout the year, integrating with platforms like Disguise One, and The Wild.

Winchester Mystery House Concepts

I was commissioned to conceptualize ways to improve or augment their visitor experience. I won’t go into detail about the secrets… it was an incredible opportunity to explore and develop ideas for such a notoriously historical estate.

Pre-Visualization in Disguise One - under NDA

Bear with me for the vagueness on this one, but it’s worth sharing as it was a significant benchmark & success! I introduced a pre-visualization content pipeline that uses virtual reality and photogrammetry to get a more realistic sense of a surrounding environment for wayfinding, large scale projections, and digital/physical interfaces. Wow, so cool.

Oxfam America - Behind the Barcodes at SXSW

One of the proudest moments of 2019 put my skills to use with Oxfam. We staged an incredibly impactful guerilla projection from over 400ft away on Whole Foods HQ. Two more light installations targeted a large wall just before you drive up to their HQ, and a store in the suburbs. Find out more about the campaign at Behind the Barcodes. 

‘Line Break’

Created for the Design Week Portland party curated by Kamp Grizzly, it was time consuming but therapeutic to create. I brought back one of my favorite materials from one my earlier installations “Light Fall” back in 2015. Designed to be site-specific to fit the space, (and cover-up doors) it is a focus on self-reflection, looking forward/outward and backward/inward, simultaneously.

Tokyo Letterheads

A very timely mental reset, my first trip to Japan was incredible. During Tokyo Letterheads I stayed dedicated to the newbie sign painting room, practicing the craft of sign painting. The following week I explored Kyoto and Koyasan. A very much needed solo trip.

Believer Festival - Featured Artist

I had the pleasure of collaborating with José Orduña on a three-part performance, projection mapping the surrounding him at Ne10 to augment his spoken words. I also created an ambient animated version of their branding, built into a projected backdrop that added life but didn’t distract from intimate performances on the opening night stage of the the literary Believer Festival.

Ready Made - POWER TRIP

Chosen as one of 5 featured artists, I was given the opportunity and creative reign on a warehouse space, reflecting on what power meant to me. I performed a live-mapping of the stage backdrop while it was being painted by Charlie Hudson, and made a DIY laser array that cast throughout the space.

Champlain College Commencement 2019

I had the honor of working with the office of The President of Champlain College to help lead creative direction, stage design, content design, and experiential flow of the commencement. 

KOBE - for Ren 03: Philadelphia

A secret project carried out in one night. I teamed up with photographer Kyle Hannon for Ren Quarterly to create three site-specific projections mapped various memorable locations from Kobe Bryant’s childhood, created using rare source images from Kobe’s high school years.

LetterWest Breakout Speaker

I was asked to give a talk at LetterWest and I’m so glad I did. It came at a great time for me, reflecting on past years working independently, that the idea of ‘success’ has many forms, and urging those in attendance to find their own inner weird. Stay giddy, friends.

‘Emerson’s Reflection’ - Love Letters Exhibit

As part of a large experiential exhibit love for letters of all kinds, this 2-month installation immersed you within excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self Reliance” and “Experience” that really spoke to me, edited to neutralize pronouns. For me, this piece was all about putting the visitor within a reflective space of self-love, shown in an interactive, photogenic way.

Brilliant! System Overhaul

One of the most successful yet unseen accomplishments of the year was executing a complete technical overhaul of our permanent exhibition ‘Brilliant!’ at The Neon Museum in Las Vegas, improving stability by adding an entirely new show controller, lighting control module, and audio testing interface.

Tim Burton’s ‘Lost Vegas’ Exhibition

From the design of a 40ft. tall title centerpiece sign to the artistic styling of a sexy slot machine, I was tasked to work with Tim Burton to rapidly prototype and translate his vision and sketches into polished creations as the 'Lost Vegas' Exhibition's creative director. 

Working closely with Tim Burton for 3 months in France, Malibu, and Las Vegas, with assistant to Mr. Burton Lilah Lutes, and executive producer Sam Kelley, in coordination with curator Jenny He, we were able to bring to life the incredibly ambitious task of organizing the fabrication of a ton of new artworks and coordinating everything for a two-week period.

Each piece deserves its own post to share the process and talented people behind it, but in an effort to keep this 2019 recap tight, here a few of my favorite works: ‘Lost Vegas’ Sign Tower, Neon Grid Wall, the Dome, Landmark Hotel Model Mars Attacks! Projection, Robot Boy And Slot Machine, Stainboy Arcade, Holographic Drawings and Paintings, and the mysterious ViewPorts scattered throughout the boneyard...

The exhibition has been extended to April 12, so don’t miss it. 

CBS This Morning did a great profile on Tim Burton and the exhibition here: Inside "the mind of Tim Burton" at Neon Museum in Las Vegas 

Brilliant! feat. Tim Burton

The icing on the cake for the year. I’m so happy to have been able to collaborate with director and artist Tim Burton on an homage finale during ‘Brilliant!’ for the extent of his exhibition, featuring the track “The Man” by The Killers and iconic footage from Mars Attacks! and Beetlejuice.

‘Brilliant!’ is by far one of the proudest works I’ve created and I’m looking forward to furthering my partnership with The Neon Museum going strong into 2020.

~

In closing 2019, and forward:

2019 was a year that began with heartbreak and a humbling workload, which transitioned into recalibration and self-reflection, was then thrown into a wild mind-bender of work before wrapping the year full circle, finding myself in a quite unexpected new love. 

I found myself focusing on a lot of pre-visualization work, finding new ways to optimize my own workflow and simulate what a project could be, before making it. Leaning into my ability to work rapidly, this workflow smoothly translated a director’s vision through 3D modeling into visualization in VR. 

An ever-growing thread through my work focuses on history, my neverending fascination with bridging the gap between distant past with upcoming technologies to contribute to a more thoughtful future.

As 2020 begins, I’m coming back from a storm starting to hone in on my own voice and what I’d like to accomplish next. As a result of a growing interest in larger-scale immersive works, I’ve begun to assemble the right people/partners for those projects— exploring what ‘scaling’ my studio looks like, while staying nimble. 

Over the next few months, I’m going to spend some solid time auditing my work, recalibrating, and refocusing my studio practice and website as I enter year 7 of this independent venture, and year 10 of this creative career.

And as always, my goal mantra for the year.

2020: Position, Rotate, Scale

Position— Slow down for a studio realignment, audit, assess life balance.

Rotate— Be ever-ready for change, see things from different perspectives.

Scale— Fewer but larger? Hire or partner? Set realistic expectations/boundaries.

Bringing this energy into 2020, I’m looking forward to new work I’ll be able to announce soon that will bring me back to my home state of Maine, as well as what’s next for my work in Las Vegas. I’m also going to invest in Light Capsules again, and get a new road trip project in the books. 2020.

[sciforce]

Can Edge Analytics Become a Game Changer?

One of the major IoT trends for 2019 that are constantly mentioned in ratings and articles is edge analytics. It is considered to be the future of sensor handling and it is already, at least in some cases, preferred over usual clouds.

But what is the hype about?

First of all, let’s go deeper into the idea.

Edge analytics refers to an approach to data collection and analysis in which an automated analytical computation is performed on data at a sensor, network switch or another device instead of sending the data back to a centralized data store. What this means is that data collection, processing and analysis is performed on site at the edge of a network in real time.

What is the hook?

You might have read dozens of similar articles speculating over the necessity of any new technique, like “Does your project need Blockchain? No!” Is Edge Analytics yet another one of such gimmicky terms?

The truth is, it is really a game changer. At present, organizations operate millions of sensors as they stream endless data from manufacturing machines, pipelines and all kinds of remote devices. This results in accumulation of unmanageable data, 73% of which will never be used.

Edge analytics is believed to address these problems by running the data through an analytics algorithm as it’s created, at the edge of a corporate network. This allows organizations to set parameters on which information is worth sending to a cloud or an on-premise data store for later use — and which isn’t.

Overall, edge analytics offers the following benefits:

Edge analytics benefits

Reduced latency of data analysis: it is more efficient to analyze data on the faulty equipment and immediately shut it up instead of waiting for sending data to a central data analytics environment.

Scalability: accumulation of data increases the strain on the central data analytics resources, whereas edge analytics can scale the processing and analytics capabilities by decentralizing to the sites where the data is collected.

Increased security due to decentralization: having devices on the edge gives absolute control over the IP protecting data transmission, since it’s harder to bring down an entire network of hidden devices with a single DDoS attack, than a centralized server.

Reduced bandwidth usage: edge analytics reduces the work on backend servers and delivers analytics capabilities in remote locations switching from raw transmission to metadata.

Robust connectivity: edge analytics potentially ensures that applications are not disrupted in case of limited or intermittent network connectivity.

Reduce expenses: edge analytics minimizes bandwidth, scales operations and reduces the latency of critical decisions.

Edge architecture

The connected physical world is divided in locations — geographical units where IoT devices are deployed. In an Edge architecture, such devices can be of three types according to their role: Edge Gateways, Edge Devices, and Edge Sensors and Actuators.

Edge Devices are general-purpose devices that run full-fledged operating systems, such as Linux or Android, and are often battery-powered. They run the Edge intelligence, meaning they run computation on data they receive from sensors and send commands to actuators. They may be connected to the Cloud either directly or through the mediation of an Edge Gateway.

Edge Gateways also run full-fledged operating systems, but as a rule, they have unconstrained power supply, more CPU power, memory and storage. Therefore, they can act as intermediaries between the Cloud and Edge Devices and offer additional location management services.

Both types of devices forward selected subsets of raw or pre-processed IoT data to services running in the Cloud, including storage services, machine learning or analytics services. They receive commands from the Cloud, such as configurations, data queries, or machine learning models.

Edge Sensors and Actuators are special-purpose devices connected to Edge Devices or Gateways directly or via low-power radio technologies.

A four-level edge analytics hierarchy

Edge analytics going deep

If edge analytics is only paving its way to ruling the next-generation technology, deep learning, a branch of machine learning for learning multiple levels of representation through neural networks, has been already there for several years.

Will deep learning algorithms applied to edge analytics yield more efficient and more accurate results? In fact, an IDC report predicts that all effective IoT efforts will eventually merge streaming analytics with machine learning trained on data lakes, marts and content stores, accelerated by discrete or integrated processors by 2019. By applying deep learning to edge analytics, devices could be taught to better filter unnecessary data, saving time, money and manpower. One of the most promising domains of integrating deep learning and edge analytics is computer vision and video analytics.

The underlying idea is that edge analytics implements distributed structured video data processing, and takes each moment of recorded data from the camera and performs computations and analysis in real time. Once the smart recognition capabilities of a single camera are increased and camera clustering enables data collision and cloud computing processing, the surveillance efficiency increases drastically, at the same time reducing the manpower requirements.

Deep learning algorithms integrated into frontend cameras can extract data from human, vehicle and object targets for recognition and incident detection purposes significantly improving accuracy of video analytics. At the same time, shifting analytics processing from backend servers and moving them into the cameras themselves is able to provide end users with more relevant real-time data analysis, detecting anomaly behavior and alarm triggering during emergency incidents which does not rely on backend servers. This also means that ultra-large scale video analysis and processing can be achieved for projects such as safe cities where tens of thousands of real-time.

Experimenting with edge computers

Edge computers are not just a new trend, but they are a powerful tool for a variety of AI-related tasks. While Raspberry Pi has long been the gold standard for single-board computing, powering everything from robots to smart home devices, the latest Raspberry Pi 4 takes Pi to another level. This edge computer has a PC-comparable performance, plus the ability to output 4K video at 60 Hz or power dual monitors. Its competitor, the Intel® Movidius™ Myriad™ X VPU has a dedicated neural compute engine for hardware acceleration of deep learning inference at the edge. Google Coral adds to the competition offering a development board to quickly prototype on-device ML products with a removable system-on-module (SoM). In our experiments, we used them as a part of a larger computer vision project.

Real-time human detection

Human detection is a process similar to object detection and in the real world settings it takes raw images from (security) cameras and puts them in the camera buffer for processing in the detector&tracker. The latter detects human figures and sends the processed images to the streamer buffer. Therefore, the whole process of human detection can be divided into three threads: camera, detector&tracker and streamer.

As the detector, we used sdlite_mobilenet_v2_coco from TensorFlow Object Detection API, which is the fastest model available (1.8 sec. per image).

As the tracker, we used MedianFlow Tracker from the OpenCV library, which is also the fastest tracker (30–60 ms per image).

To compare how different devices work on the real-time object detection problem, we tested Coral Dev Board and Coral Accelerator for human detection from two web-cameras against Desktop CPU with Coral Accelerator and Raspberry Pi with the same Accelerator:

Coral Accelerator — Edge TPU Accelerator v.1.0, model WA1

Coral Dev Board — Edge TPU Dev Board v.1.0 model AA1

RaspberryPi — Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2

Desktop CPU — Intel Core i7–4790

WebCam — Logitech C170 (max width/height — 640x480, framerate — 30/1 — used these parameters)

As it turned out, the desktop CPU showed the lowest inference and the highest fps, while Raspberry Pi demonstrated the lowest performance:

Chess pieces object detection

Another experiment addressed a more general object detection task, as we used this method for model conversion for Coral Dev Board and Accelerator and one of the demo scripts for object detection. We compared the performance of the Coral Dev Board and Accelerator against the Neural Compute Stick 2. For the latter, we used the openVino native model-optimization converter and this model+script.

Our experiments proved that the Coral Dev Board showed the lowest inference, while the Intel Neural Compute Stick 2 had the inference more than four times higher:

These experiments confirm the potential of modern edge devices that show similar performance with desktop CPUs.

Challenges and Restrictions

Deep learning can boost accuracy, turning video analytics into a robust and reliable tool. Yet, its accuracy usually comes at the cost of power consumption. Power balancing is an intricate task based on improving the performance of edge devices, introducing dedicated video processing units, and keeping neural networks small.

Besides, as only a subset of data is processed and analyzed in the edge analytics approach, a share of raw data is discarded and some insights might be missed. Therefore, there is a constant tradeoff between thorough collection of data offline and prompt analysis in real time.

Therefore, edge analytics may be an exciting area of great potential, but it should not be viewed as a full replacement for central data analytics. Both can and will supplement each other in delivering data insights and add value to businesses.

[doyouthatknow]

What is ExoSkeleton ?

Exoskeleton skeletal system is designed to increase proficiency and Nov that we have and is a general term for technologies that increase human endurance in every sense. Today, Space Exploration Technologies exo skeleton from military technology, medical treatment, workers in the industrial area extending from a very wide range of support equipment to be used and continues to be developed. Leading U.S. technology companies that are suffering, especially for electronics and automotive industry already has become a major competitive factor. The ExoSkeleton Of The History Of Technology

ExoSkeleton

ExoSkeleton Armies began to be built in the war when the idea of super soldiers from the time it is one of the professional fighters were always processed. First, these technologies then we slowly started somutlasmay armor techniques futurists texts. Edward was a soldier for the first time the idea of muscular mechanical Sylvester Ellis's “the Steam man of the Prairies” in the novel emerge. Published in 1868, an inventor Johnny Brainerd designed mechanical skeleton watch hero of this novel market reaches a speed of 96.5 km. This power, which gives him a steam-powered giant skeleton. Then, in 1961, created by Marvel comics Iron Man character designs today all this can be considered as a source of reinforced skeleton. Just the intended character of Iron Man in years, the Pentagon by the U.S. Department of Defense exo-skeleton for soldiers in the field to increase the resistance of the project has started to send invitations to the relevant companies. The Pentagon in the 1960's of the year, in accordance with the spirit of the Cold War, nuclear weapons and high-kinetic-energy weapons aimed at the development of a mobile person who can weather the storm of the tank. Developed for the Pentagon by the middle of the 1960s in the design of the first success, was obtained from Cornell University. Developed the first Iron Man exo-skeleton or famous with the name ”Superman outfit” as per served. Weighing just 16 kg, this Superman wearing his suit, the soldier could carry about 450 kg weight with each hand. A cabin in this area of robotic walking Peliculator then called and known by the media exo skeleton was met with intense interest by the second. 6 meter this device is more functional because it is not a tool reminding me of alien and was abandoned. Designs were developed in the 1980s and 90s, similar to today's Iron Man, but these have been shared with the media. Throughout the years many different designs were developed exo-skeleton, while there were things that all these designs and projects akamet weak. The foremost problem of the device it Administration command and the energy. The devices in question, or the user doesn't respond fast enough to the commands of the commands incorrectly, or was picking up. Command the soldiers of the device other than the issue of distances and environments needed for a long time and he wanted to keep sufficient energy in the service of power, but none of the devices could not transmit the developed power for more than 1-2 hours. Again, this is a problem in the skeleton itself was a source of clumsiness. Didn't get to all these obstacles, scientists and designers work constantly, and eventually the search for the man of Steel when it comes to the year 2000 first introduced the functional and real models has begun to be successful. Connected to the Pentagon, and Defense technology research tools by the agency named DARPA about $ 75 million project was launched with a big budget like called exoskeletons. This DARPA project was quite ambitious. According to the project, the soldier who wears these clothes, dozens of miles without getting tired of hundreds of pounds of clothes to carry, carry at least two weapons that can normally be used by soldiers will be able to use. His friends can put away from without difficulty injured in the battle line, or anti-aircraft artillery could pass for a normal human being where they can continue to fight under fire, without being affected by jumping obstacles that would exceed. Most experts find impossible if the goals in this project, studies increasingly shows that it is closer to a realization of the aforementioned ability. Drunk Steve owned computer company, has developed a number of innovative technology hydraulic systems sensors could command very quickly. The company succeeded to these sensors and make them compatible with the human nervous system Nov when a huge obstacle was overcome in the field of technology exo-skeleton. As of 2005, the company called the design of robots in science fiction movies reminiscent of XOS revealed. Later studies with the support of DARPA's transfer to Raytheon drunk Raytheon vision was closest to the design. The Raytheon XOS 2 by the name of Sarcos introduced this technology for the first time in September 2010, the company was presented to the media at the research facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. The exo-skeleton of the present-day use area

Exo-Skeletal Technology Future A super human exo skeleton or as a project from DARPA to the present day numerous technology companies continues to be an area on the running clothes today. The success of these new devices and abilities is regarded as a source of great hope for humanity while in some circles " that considers humans to be invaded by robots the first step to be fast and amazing achievements. 20 hour battery life with the Japanese company Cyberdyne, the neural commands that are sent by brain directly with running has developed into a suite of. Need exo skeleton developed by DARPA in the field of technologies by other companies designs projects as well as an office printer from almost quieter running. Named the Raytheon XOS 2 exo skeleton design Sarcos DARPA is equipped with GPS at the same time as, the soldiers give information about the location. Soz 2 Nov instant the soldiers with the help of sensors that are integrated into the nervous system and blood pressure, vital information can also be displayed such as the frequency of breathing. Designs Exoskeleton war is extremely beneficial civilian purposes in time of peace, when designed in accordance with the capacity for strong opportunities.Designed by Berkeley Bionics e-leg system and the spine of people who have persistent problems with neuromuscular diseases, enabling them to perform daily life activities smoothly. To continue development work in this area, especially in the lives of individuals with disabilities has provided great convenience already. Again, the Ekso Bionics Robot developed by the brand called Hyundai tech is a great innovation in the field of industrial automation systems claim to give. This is also possible to prevent occupational accidents of the workers who fucked with EXO technology, the performance is expected. Exo-Skeletal Technology Future

Exo-Skeletal Technology Future For the moment, technologies exo skeleton is still in the development stage, also will take the place of these technologies in the near future, it is obvious that in all areas of life. This technology currently stands as the biggest obstacle to production and development costs. On the forehead with the expansion of 3D printer technology, this high cost, it is stated that the barriers would be overcome.     https://www.orak11.com/index.php/types-of-simple-machines/ Read the full article

[trungtechreview-blog]

Apple iMac (2017) review

OUR VERDICT

The 2017 iMac is a fine update to Apple’s desktop computing platform, but suffers from a few nagging design quirks, as well as its own place amid rapidly-evolving desktop design trends. Still, for Mac fans in need of an upgrade, the 21.5-inch model presents surprisingly impressive value.

When the original iMac launched 20 years ago, Steve Jobs envisioned it as the Apple computer for everyone. He wanted to feature a playful, yet practical, unibody design – with no floppy disk or CD tray. Now, in 2019, the iMac is closer to Steve Jobs’ original vision than ever before.

It’s certainly not cheap, but the Apple iMac 2017 is one of the most value-oriented products in Apple’s stable, second only to the 2018 Mac Mini. The iMac is closer to Steve Jobs’ vision, as it does away with the unnecessary CD and mechanical hard drives.

Then, there’s the wireless keyboard and mouse, which effortlessly sync with the iMac. It’s the ideal of the all-in-one PC, which in and of itself makes the iMac one of the best PCs on the market, and worth your attention.

The Apple iMac doesn’t radically change the formula, but we’re not complaining. It takes 7th-generation Intel Kaby Lake desktop processors and adapts them into the traditional iMac form factor, to great effect. The pure simplicity of the iMac’s design speaks volumes, both about Apple and Intel’s formulaic upgrade structure. The iMac just works.

Price and availability

The iMac’s price starts at a mere $1,099 (£1,049, AU$1,599), which will include both the Magic Mouse 2 and Magic Keyboard in the box. That’s $178 (£178, AU$248) for just the accessories alone.

Of course, you’re getting a 21.5-inch iMac with a Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) display and Intel Iris Plus 640 graphics, which is integrated into the 7th-generation, dual-core 2.3GHZ Intel Core i5 processor, but it’s a commendable value all the same.

As you can see from the spec sheet, the iMac we were sent for review is a step up from the entry-level model in every regard, save for the hard drive, and for just another 200 bucks at $1,299 (£1,249, AU$1,899).

From there, you can configure the iMac with just about every component better than the last. Need discrete graphics to live out your creative aspirations? You can get a 21-inch iMac with up to AMD Radeon Pro 560 graphics. Or, if 32GB of RAM suits your fancy, you can demand that Apple install that too.

You can even bump the display up, and opt for an iMac 27-inch with virtually the same components as the iMac we reviewed here, but with Radeon Pro 570 graphics for $1,799 (£1,749, AU$2,699).

If that’s not enough, we’d have to recommend that you take a look at the iMac Pro, coming in at $4,999 (£4,899, AU$7,299), it’s an extravagant purchase for most people, but the prospect of up to 18 cores of raw power should be very enticing to the professional or power users out there.

The iMac’s price falls in line with other high-end all-in-one PCs out there, namely the iMac’s chief competitor in the original Surface Studio at $2,999 (£2,999, AU$4,699) – though it’s been replaced by the more expensive Surface Studio 2. You’ll be able to find cheaper all-in-one desktops out there, but they won’t be this well-built or include components as powerful as the iMac’s.

If you’re looking for an even more budget-friendly option, and you already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse lying around, you could also go with the Mac Mini at $799 (£799, AU$1,249) for comparable power to the entry-level iMac. But, it doesn’t include any of the accessories that the iMac boasts.

You’ll be able to find all of the 2017 iMacs through Apple’s website itself, or other retailers like Amazon.

Design

The iMac looks and feels pretty much the same as it has for the last few years. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as this brushed aluminum all-in-one is a pleasure to behold. However, after a few persisting design choices – not to mention its overall design in the face of new rivals – give us a bit of pause.

That iMac silhouette is still iconic, though – there’s a reason that it’s become a staple of offices, home and otherwise, in TV and films for years. The iMac’s simple yet elegant appearance manages to be both striking and avoids getting in the way while working.

Then, of course, there’s the seemingly impossible thinness of the iMac, considering exactly how much is packed into the display portion of the computer (i.e. literally everything).

However, the iMac is competing with Microsoft’s Surface Studio lineup, so we can’t ignore just how much thinner and more impressive the iMac could be if Apple just leveraged what it’s learned from developing Mac Mini computers toward crafting an iMac base that holds all the computer's guts and ports.

Looking at the Surface Studio in the TechRadar office and then back at the latest iMac, it’s frankly baffling that Apple didn't beat Microsoft to that punch years ago.

Despite this, Apple managed to cram all the ports you could ever want or need from an all-in-one computer into the back of this iMac, so kudos.

Further to the point, Apple’s pursuit of absolute thinness despite cramming all of the iMac’s innards behind the display has only led to suffering audio. A total of two stereo speakers rest within both sides of the iMac’s bottom-most edge and, while they deliver impressive volume, as a result the narrow chambers deliver highs and mids no better than your average Ultrabook can.

That’s not cool for a device that takes up as much space as an all-in-one does – no matter how impossibly thin it is.

But, we need to talk about the Magic Mouse 2 – it needs a revamp. It clicks and tracks amazingly, as you’d expect from the company that inspired everyone else to up their input game years ago. However, the fact that you can’t charge the mouse while using it, because of where the Lightning charging port is located, makes no sense.

Fortunately, the iMac’s included Magic Keyboard 2 is simply delightful to type on, and the days long battery life of both input devices are a major plus – considering that you have no other choice but to buy older wired models, if you’re not into wireless peripherals.

BENCHMARKS

Here’s how the 21.5-inch Apple iMac performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

Cinebench CPU: 544 points; Graphics: 83 fps Geekbench 4 Single-Core: 4,647; Multi-Core: 13,363

Performance

Because macOS Mojave isn‘t compatible with the majority of normal benchmarks that we run at TechRadar, it’s hard to compare the Apple iMac against the Windows 10-based all-in-one PCs we’ve reviewed in a comprehensive way.

That said, it’s clear in the tests that this iMac benefits quite a bit from its 7th-generation (Kaby Lake) Intel Core i5 processor over the Surface Studio’s quickly-aging, 6th-generation chip.

For example, the Apple iMac shows stronger single-core performance over the Surface Studio as well as moderately higher multi-core performance in Geekbench. Still, the Surface Studio does have a stronger GPU with more memory, which shows in the numbers – the Microsoft all-in-one scores 20fps faster in Cinebench than the iMac, despite the older chip.

At any rate, we find the latest iMac to be a strong performer regardless. It handles our normal workloads of dozens of Google Chrome tabs and the Slack chat client – both RAM and processor-hungry apps – with ease, and could likely take on a bit more. While we did bear witness to the spinning beachball more times than we’d like from a newly-opened Mac, it didn’t appear frequently enough to the point of it outright being a detraction. (No matter how new your computer is, it’s not immune to the spinning wheel regardless of color or shape.)

Our biggest takeaway from using the latest iMac is its simply stunning display. Seriously, if you can swing it, spring for the mid-range 21.5-inch model, because that 4x jump in pixel density – and the better graphics tech behind it – is well worth it.

Photos look impressive on the iMac’s panel and are expertly colored, thanks to its P3 color gamut. That’s an important point, because that improved color reproduction affects all ends of the system, regardless of the resolution of the content you’re viewing. Even videos at 1080p look drastically improved thanks to P3. Sadly, this has made going back to our usual 1080p screens with RGB color a sobering experience.

Final verdict

The iMac 2017 is a fine update to Apple’s all-in-one computing platform. For the money, at least for the 21.5-inch model, you’re getting a beautiful machine that’s more than capable of handling every task you throw at it – from web browsing to photo editing.

That said, nothing exists (for long) in a vacuum. We can’t ignore that the iMac seems to have fallen behind the trends of modern all-in-one computers, namely those spearheaded by Microsoft’s Surface Studio. Plus, we’re not fans of the audio performance and, while the Magic Mouse 2 is a wonderful mouse to use, the fact that it can’t be used while charging is an oversight.

At any rate, those seeking a 4K-ready – or even 1080p – all-in-one that’s as powerful as it is aesthetic will find what they’re looking for in the iMac 2017. Despite a few minor issues and an arguably dated design, the average Mac fan (or would-be fan) will find plenty to love about yet another iconic Apple computer.

[thenewmandalordoc]

Reemergence

The hull of the Divine Wind groaned as the tides of the Immaterium rocked it like a newborn child. A Strike Cruiser belonging to the Third Legion of the Legiones Astartes, it bore the perfection and power that the Emperor’s Children was known for. Raphael Carion had felt his heart swell as his Primarch, Fulgrim, had given him the charge after his promotion to Lord Commander and allowance into his inner circle, the Princes of War, but felt it sag a bit when he realized that he would be aiding the Imperial forces on frontier world of SalusaUnus. He did not question his Primarch’s orders, but he had his theories of why he was chosen. Something odd had been affecting his Legion. Though the Emperor’s Children were well-known for their eccentric behavior, many had started to become more engrossed in their passions and vanity, leaving those, such as his friend Vespasian, and himself to be ostracized. Raphael sharpened his resolve though, took the piece of parchment that held his orders, and bowed to his Primarch. In a way, he enjoyed this since it allowed his third company to escape the decadent haze, and enjoy a more zenexistence that they had grown more accustomed to.

The Imperial forces at Salusa Unus were engrossed in a campaign against a xenos species that Imperial Zoologists were calling the Dobhar Chu, but the records continuously called them Water Dogs. From the pics that the Remembrancers accompanying the army had sent, the xenos resembled nothing of the creatures that once called “man’s best friend.” They resembled a mixture of a water rodent and a Fenrisian wolf that had managed to walk semi-upright and create energy based weapons out of the pearls they pulled from the great lakes and oceans of their world. They were hideous, carnivorous creatures and therefore had to be exterminated. A week into their travels, the Warp had become dark, and his astropaths had become quiet. The light of Holy Terra could no longer be seen and any contact with the navigational psykers had resulted in them silently searching for a way out. Any inquiry he made resulted in the same safety and security.

“These incidences are to be expected in the Immaterium,” the Librarian Zhevaan Solacles said as he tended to his private collection of Meiji Bonsai trees.

“Their life signs are stable and normal,” the head Apothocary, Rhem Ventastus had assured him after he ordered the Navigators’ vitals to be assessed.

“The Omnissiah has blessed us with complacent machine spirits, my lord.” The tech-marine Hakael Pola told him after reviewing the cruiser’s many control decks. Raphael knew little about the Machine Cult and questioned its existence, though would never bring it to the attention of the man who controlled the repair servitors. Since everything was in proper order, the Lord Commander had spent his time drilling his men on the the training decks in the way of blade and bolter. Sending them through rigorous trails until they reached their destination. When he had the sparring ring to himself, Raphael trained with his charnabal saber, a Third Legion exclusive blade, unarmored against training servitors eventually working his way up to the combat servitors. One at a time or in large groups, it did not matter, he left them in disabled heaps. Each servitor learned from the one that preceded it, but still not one had been able to land a glancing blow against the Prince. By the time he was finished, all the servitors had been sent for repairs by Hakael’s lot while he was left to collect his thoughts and reflect on his actions. It had been over a month by now. Surely their Navigators had found something.

“Slave,” Raphael pointed the tip of his blade to a waiting servitor. “drag that one to your master and bring me another.”

“There are no others,” the servitor responded in its mechanical voice. Raphael knew that it was stating predetermined voice recordings based off obvious data, but his boredom and frustration was getting the better of him. A vision of the minor servitor being run through with his saber had crossed his mind, but it had stopped when he found himself looming over the poor construct with sword in hand. Raphael closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply through his nose and exhale through his mouth, calming him. Any blind anger he had for the servitor melted away and was replaced with calmness.

“My lord?” the servitor asked, not sure what the Lord Commander wanted.

“It’s nothing,” Raphael turned and put his blade back on the rack with the others. “Tell your master that I do not wish to be disturbed, but only with news of our departure.”

The servitor did as it was told, dragging the machine’s carcass with it. Alone, Raphael sat on the floor of the sparing ring, one leg crossed over the other as the Dragons had shown him, and he began his slow, rhythmic breathing.

Whether it was caused by his will or a wish, a familiar pressure pressed one his sinuses and behind his eyeball. The recycled air had a tinge of familiars to it, and there was a weight on his shoulder that could not be imitated with the artificial. They had finally returned to real space.

“My Lord Carion,” the Divine Wind’s ship master voice came through the vox. “Your assistance is needed on the command deck.”

Raphael smiled as he left the training, heading for the armory. Presentation was everything in the Third Legion, and Raphael was not one to break tradition.

From the strategium vantage point, Raphael could see starlight and the dark blue void once again. The Divine Wind and accompanying fleet had arrived on the opposite side of an orange glowing star. Bright only enough to sting the eyes but nothing more. A few planets rotated around it, but from what the captains had told him they were lifeless rocks.

Raphael stood tall and proud in his full encasement of Imperial Maximus power armor. Beautiful purple amaranth helped highlight the integrant patterners of Martian gold over his breastplate, gauntlets and legs. A long cape trailed behind him depicting the insignia of the Third Company as well as the Legion’s colors. On one hip rested his charnabal saber whilst a master crafted bolt pistol rested in its holster on the other. His helm was nestled under one arm, and it portrayed the genius of the tech-priests of Mars and his own artistic talent. Gold, silver and bronze feathers flanked the sides, making a magnificent and intimidating crown. A perfect companion for a prince. At first glance, all his equipment looked new. Not one scratch or dent to mare its beauty, when these pieces of war gear had been serving the Emperor of Mankind since the earliest days of the great crusade. Apart of it was due to his own personal skill, the other was caused by the Iron Halo that his Primarch had gifted him with. An assurance of his position within the other Princes. The glow made him look almost ethereal.

“What did you have need of me?” he asked the ship master.

The ship master was a bear-like man who had been fighting the Emperor’s wars for what seemed like centuries. He and the Lord Commander were on friendly enough terms where one did not have to salute the other. “We are picking up a hail frequency from a nearby ship. They are showing themselves off as Raven Guard.”

“Raven Guard? So far in the frontier?” Raphael would have expect members of the White Scars to be faring the unknown, but rarely the sons of Corax. “Have you responded?”

“All attempts have been made with little results. I believe something is blocking the signal, My Lord.”

Raphael had fought alongside the silent Raven Guard before, and had found them to be cowardice and craven at first. But after the wars against the Greenskin filth of Wallex-8, he had thought differently. The sun’s gravitational pull brought them around to face the hailing ship only be amazed at the carnage they were witnessing. The emergency hail was coming from a Retribution-class Battleship, along the sides were the words Litany of Hatred, and it was under attack. Smaller crafts flying around it like bloated pink and black flies around a soon to be carcass. They were concerned more with damaging the ship than destroying it. Some even made feudal attempt to ram it, only to explode in magnificent fire blalls or burrow in like ticks.

“Your orders, My Lord?”

The hull of the Divine Wind rocked as a few of the smaller space crafts turned their sights on them now. They had stuck the lower docks and the crews of the ones that had survived were now massacring dock workers.

“Tell the fleet to keep their distant, while you bring the cruiser’s guns to bare. Aim for anything heading straight for us.” Raphael said as he placed his helmet over his head. . “I must go entertain our new guests.” Dock workers panicked as pink and black monsters came from the burning wreckage of what use to be starships. Some held bolters that looked like maws of animals, while others held large parodies of instruments, and other attacked with bare hands. Dock workers who had found their courage took up las-carbines and fired on the large monsters. They just chortled and laughed as the las-bolts bounced off their armor or fizzled out completely useless. The sound from their instruments was wonderful and cruel, and it tore dock workers that were unfortunate to be in the sonic path. With little more quarry to hunt, and the ones remaining putting up more of a fight for them bother with, the warriors in pink and black tried to bash their way out of the hanger, crushing the packed bodies under cerimite boots.

“Children of the Emperor!” Raphael said as he sliced the head off the shoulder of the first creature he saw. Those following behind him took up the war cry as they attacked the murderous beasts.

Raphael ran into the hangar, noticing that some dock workers were still holding off the borders with las-bolts and tarantula turrets. One brought a bolt-gun up to fire, but luckily the round zipped by harmless. The other dropped his and lifted his sword, prepared to meet the Prince’s charge. Raphael went through them like a scythe through dry wheat. Raphael was not the swordsman that Fulgrim was, but the Primarch enjoyed using him regular sparring partner. These creatures were no match for the man that Primarch Fulgrim himself once said, “He forces me to work for each victory.”

Raphael became a flurry with blade and bolted. Wherever he went Death followed wit a trail of corpses to signify his work. Other members of the Third company had followed their lord commander and right now they were in their element, completely surrounded by enemies and cutting them down with a flourish of blades. They served as the perfect distraction for the devastator squads to for up on the catwalks hanging above. Whether their would be any left by the end of this was up for debate.

He blocked, parried, countered, reposted and shot any creature that had the misfortune of going against him. A one carrying the sound weapons blocked his path. Raphael’s movements were almost too fast to follow, and then the headless corpse was falling backwards. Raphael kicked the severed head into the feet of the next invader, tripping him. Saber gleaming silver and red, Raphael leapt over the falling man, launching himself at the next in line while his brothers stabbed the fallen creature to death. By the time they had finished, their Lord Commander had sliced the last sound cannon’s barrel and operator’s hand off and was fighting another whose sword seemed to be made out of tumors and flesh then actual actual steel. Swords flying back and forth in a blur of steel, only with a powerful kick was the invader sent back through the particle barrier and back into the void of space.

Invaders died left and right as the Emperor’s Children twisted back and forth, constantly slashing and stabbing, in a continuous dance of limb-severing death. The devastator crews began to give their brothers much needed fire support from above, ripping apart the remaining monsters with heavy bolter shells and las-blasts.

As quickly and suddenly as it began, the battle had ended. All invaders had been dealt with accordingly with zeros losses of his own. Apothecaries were sent to tend to the wounded dock workers while his own Astartes gathered the dead creatures and were ready to send them out an airlock. Raphael found it odd how these creatures resembled Space Marine. Could they have been a of Xenos culture that reversed engineered Astartes Armor? Or did a sect go rouge and turn away from the Emperor’s glorious vision for mankind? He found both theories to be preposterous. The primitive mind of the Xenos could not possibly rival the intelligence of the Mechanicus, and any Astartes worth their damn would never turn away from the Emperor, less suffer His, the Warmaster, or any of the Primarch’s wrath.

Suddenly the Chastising of Monarchia bubbled up to the surface. He had heard rumors of how the Word Bearers under their Primarch, Lorgar Aurelian, had created the “perfect city” of Monarchia, all in the name of the Emperor’s divinity. The Emperor returned this favor by oppsosing his supposed god hood, and ordering Lord Guiliman to reduce the city to rubble. The destruction was a means to humble the Seventeenth Legion, and though the Urizen fell into a melancholy state, he still served loyally.

Could a sect of the Word Bearers’ legion gone rouge? No, impossible. Despite the destruction of his great city, Lorgar world never allow it. He had been a staunch supporter of the Emperor, and the Word Bearers taught with a zeal not found in any of the other legions.

Raphael did not how long the ship Master had been trying to get in contact with him, but the void-veteran’s voice started to come through clearer in his helm’s vox network.

“My Lord Carion, can you hear me?” the ship master’s voice came through loud and clear. Apparently he had been trying to reach Raphael for a while.

“Yes, Ship Master Preston, I can hear you loudly and very clearly.”

“Thank the Throne, I was worried that you would be a corpse.” Even over the vox network, the Ship Master’s concern was sincere. “All remaining hostiles have been eliminated. We were able to establish communication with Litany of Hatred. They are requesting an audience. Patching them through right now, My Lord.”

Raphael mentally prepared himself for which ever Raven Guard he would be talking too, but opening with a friendly jab might allow them to open up. “Hail, Son of Deliverance. Have you come to assist with the Water Dogs? I hope you left a few for us.”

He was not prepared for the response.

“This is Lord Inquisitor Godiva Iboni of the Ordo Hereticus. By decree of the God-Emperor of Mankind, you are under arrest with tries to the Ruinous Powers.”

(Well because I got a surprising amount of support, I decided to dye a sample chapter for Raphael. I’m thrilled so many people enjoyed him, and I hope you enjoy the piece. Btw, not a fan of the Coming Storm stuff, so if I make jabs at it in the future don’t be shocked.)

Tags: @fuukonomiko, @sisterofsilence, and @mrsdorn for the support. @tw6464 for commenting. @crysdrawsthings for drawing stuff. And @a-40k-author for the inspiration.

[componentplanet]

CES 2020: Highlights in Photos

With a nearly unimaginable array of products and concepts on display spread across all of Las Vegas, it is hard to pick out a final few each year for our wrap-up. But here are those we found of particular interest.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 “Many-in-1” Foldable

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold is the world’s first folding display tablet. (There are obviously several designs that have separate displays on each section, but not a single folding display.) I got to demo one this week and I’m really impressed with the design. The display is protected front and back by an integrated leather cover. That prevents a lot of the issues that arose with the original Samsung Fold. You can’t get under the screen — neither can your sandwich crumbs — and the back of the hinge is solidly protected. I saw no evidence of a crease when folding and unfolding it. Lenovo rates the display for 3-4 years of life, as tested by their industrious robots. For the full specs, you can read our coverage of the announcement here.

Given concerns over the plastic screen scratching, I asked Lenovo about that. They said it is actually harder to scratch, and have been testing it in pockets with keys and other sharp objects. With the keyboard tucked inside, there really isn’t any room for something to get in once it is folded, but without the keyboard, there is a tiny gap. I offered to trade them my Surface Pro for one on the spot, but Lenovo was not amused. It looks like a great ultra-portable if you can afford the $2,499+ price when it ships later this year. Not everyone wants a Windows tablet, but it worked quite nicely as a 13-inch display with the optional Bluetooth keyboard that you can fold into the tablet.

On the lighter folding side, Lenovo’s new Razr features a fully functional retro mode that works exactly the way the original Razr phone did.

ShiftCam Aims To Put Another Nail in Camera Company Coffins

There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of clip-on lenses and filters for smartphones. But unless they are specced very tightly for a particular model phone, they are hard to align. The problem is worsened if you need to swap between them for different effects. ShiftCam has come up with an ingenious solution: The company puts a number of lens and filter modules into a phone case that has a sliding section. So you can simply slide the correct lens or filter over your phone’s camera. Right now it is understandably iPhone-only, as the bewildering variety of form factors for Android phones makes building something like this for them difficult.

Living Packets Sustainable e-Commerce

Our modern lives full of “1-click ordering” come with many costs. One is the huge amount of packaging required. Some, like cardboard boxes, are at least fairly easy to recycle. Others, like many foam peanuts or other petroleum-based packing materials, aren’t. Living Packets aims to totally up-end both the physical reality of product shipping and its economics. I can’t do the company’s aspirations justice in these few sentences, but they’ve constructed an easy-to-fold, reusable box that in the shipping version will be equipped with GPS, cellular connectivity, an inward-facing camera for inspecting package contents, an e-Ink display for addressing, and even temperature and humidity sensors for quality tracking.

Customers who get a product in one of the company’s boxes can use the box to return products, or donate or sell other items they own in a user-friendly way. Or they can return them to a participating retailer for a small credit. There is a lot more to the vision of Living Packets, but overall the team describes a utopian vision of how product shipments and returns almost certainly should work in a perfect world. So I’m happy to wish them every success, but making this vision a reality will be a long and challenging enterprise. The company has been doing testing with a French retailer, and is planning a broader European launch later this year. The US isn’t on their radar until next year.

The Massive Black Multi-Rotor Copters Are Now Friendlier-Looking

Last year, the Bell multi-rotor passenger helicopter prototype looked like it belonged in a dystopian science fiction movie: sheer black, accented with blue neon. Apparently the company got the message, as this year it was dolled up in much more reasonable garb. Hyundai also showed a massive prototype this year. The color is fine, but unlike the Bell that has shrouds around its props, the props on the Hyundai look like they could double as killing machines. Of course, they are quite high up, but the effect is still a little disconcerting.

Far From the Madding Crowds: Outside Las Vegas

It’s easy to forget that the neon and concrete of Las Vegas sits in the middle of one of the most beautiful areas anywhere. The immediate area is desert (the Mojave), but there are plenty of mountains. This is a view coming down from Sequoia National Forest past Lake Isabella on our drive to the show.

Finally: An Ultra-Short-Throw Projector for Consumers

Whether it is because you like the relative softness and easy-on-the-eye feel of a projected image, or because you can’t afford a zillion-dollar, super-big-screen TV, projectors are an obvious solution. Until now, though, they have required a large area and fancy mounting. Or, like the Sony ultra-short-throw on display a couple of years ago, cost as much as a low-end Tesla. Vava, better known for lower-end consumer electronics, has introduced a really impressive 4K (pixel-shifted using a TI DLP) UST that can project a 150-inch display. The model I demoed was projecting 100 inches onto a special UST-friendly ALR (Ambient Light Rejecting) screen. While it doesn’t have quite the color gamut of a similarly priced home cinema projector, it is a lot more convenient.

F1: The World’s Highest-Tech Sport

Top Formula 1 teams employ well over 1,000 people and spend as much as $400 million a year to field just two cars in about 20 races (21 last year, 22 this year). So, of course, F1 had an exhibit to hype the massive amount of data produced, transmitted, and consumed by the cars. Each race venue has to be fitted with about 60 km of fiber optic cables, for example. For show and tell, you could play F1 2019 in a really nice cockpit (review samples were unfortunately not available) and see Sebastian Vettel’s 2011 title-winning Red Bull car redecorated in the team’s 2019 livery.

GaN: The Secret to Fast Charging

A couple of years ago, I wrote about how EPC’s GaN semiconductor technology was the secret sauce to most high-speed lidar units. It turns out that GaN is also the secret to super-fast, high-power, compact USB-C chargers. If like me, you’d never heard of Navitas, you may still have used a charger powered by its chips. Well over a dozen brands use the company for its high-end USB-C chargers, including Aukey, Ravpower, Anker, and ASUS. The photo shows the size reduction possible by going from a traditional to GaN approach for a 300-watt power supply.

Jeep Combined VR With the Real World in This Ride

Finally, on the fun side, Jeep offered show-goers a turn in this hydraulically-lifted Jeep Rubicon as they traversed an off-road course in virtual reality — competing for the best time.

[Image Credit: David Cardinal]

Now Read:

CES 2020: A Breakthrough Year for Digital Health Wearables

For Self-Driving Cars, Lidar Amps Up at CES 2020

Intel at CES 2020: 10nm++ Tiger Lake, Comet Lake-H, and an Upgradeable NUC on Tap

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/304155-ces-2020-highlights-in-photos from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/01/ces-2020-highlights-in-photos.html

[longislandweekly-blog]

A weekend trip in the new Chevy Blazer

The shapely and sporty 2019 Chevrolet Blazer RS handles like a dream on the winding mountain roads of the Hudson River Valley. (Talisman Photo)

Only a short drive away, the Hudson River Valley boasts beauty and fun all year long. On a recent sisters weekend away, I had the opportunity to spend time in Hyde Park, Stone Ridge, Rhinebeck and other towns in the area and can’t think of a better location for a leisurely getaway. I also had the opportunity to drive Chevy’s new Blazer and can’t think of a better car to explore the artsy, mountainous villages of the Hudson River Valley in.

Our trip began as most road trips do—by loading luggage into the car, or in this case, the stylish crossover SUV. The cargo area of the Blazer is equipped with a rail that slides forward and backward and locks in place. This ingenious feature is great for keeping a suitcase or two in place during a long drive and perfect for keeping grocery bags or sports equipment from rolling around during day-to-day activities.

The Culinary Institute of America’s American Bounty Restaurant serves up charred citrus salad with arugula and endive, turmeric Greek yogurt and an Aperol vinaigrette.

Welcome to the CIA

Hyde Park is known as the hometown of Franklin D. Roosevelt. His Springwood Estate, the FDR Presidential Library and Museum, as well as the Vanderbilt Mansion, are preserved as National Historic Sites just two hours away in Dutchess County. You know what else is just two hours away? The Culinary Institute of America.

The CIA, as it is affectionately known as, is a four-year college and culinary school where the top restaurateurs of the country graduate from. The Hyde Park campus operates four public restaurants, including American Bounty, a contemporary farm-to-table restaurant with a focus on regional ingredients.

The lunch menu features dishes Roasted Sage Kobocha Gnocchi, Charred Citrus Salad and Grilled American Beef Wagyu Culotte, which are as beautiful to the eyes as they are delicious to the taste buds. The desserts—Warm Caramelized Apple, Chocolate Mousse Cake and Tres Leches Panna Cotta—are miniature works of art on a plate.

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Students at the CIA get hands-on experience at the restaurants and are constantly making connections between different areas of study. A student with a background in engineering named Joe sagely related the MAYA principle—Most Advanced, Yet Acceptable—to food design and car design. The father of industrial design Raymond Loewy developed this blueprint for delivering the future gradually and palatably to the masses.

“It’s this idea that the newest best thing that’s going to appeal to the most people is a balance between the furthest you can go without scaring people away,” Joe said. “I’m sure it’s a lot with car design too, the balance between aesthetics and use.”

The Chevy Blazer fits this principle perfectly. Designer Steve McCabe and his team endeavored to edge Chevy design into the future with sporty styling choices not typically seen on SUVs. The design turns heads—in a good way. 

Chef Bruce Mattel, senior associate dean of culinary arts at the CIA, also added to the concept of how far one can go with food design.

“If you’re too avant garde with food, some people are going to be intimidated,” he said, and this principle is reflected in the dishes he serves with innovative flavor combinations, a focus on texture interplay and artful plating that enhances the dining experience.

American Bounty changes its menu seasonally. There’s no excuse not to journey there quarterly to check out what new flavors they have in store.

Chill out with a good book or play board games with the other guests at Hasbrouck House in the warm and inviting Club Room. (Photo by Emma Tuccillo/Hasbrouck House)

Home Away From Home

Hasbrouck House has everything you could want in a weekend getaway. Established in 1757, the Dutch Colonial stone mansion is hidden among the trees of Stone Ridge, NY, and offers modern, luxury accommodations in a historic setting.

Guest rooms, lofts and suites are dispersed between the main building, the Stable House and the Carriage House, in addition to a private house called The Cottage. Though featuring the same soothing color palette, rich furnishings, large windows, Frette linens and goose down pillows, no two rooms are alike.

My favorite touches are the in-room Nespresso machines, Aesop toiletries and heated marble floors in the bathroom.

During your stay, I recommend booking an appointment with one of Hasbrouck House’s massage therapists or yoga instructors in the Wellness Room. A yoga session with Pepper will give you the opportunity to check in with yourself and feel more relaxed and renewed than you may have thought possible.

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The 50-acre property contains walking trails down to a private lake. It’s a lovely walk even with snow on the ground to get some fresh air and quietude.

For dining, you need look no further than Butterfield, the in-house restaurant and bar. Ingredients are locally sourced and the dishes epitomize farm-to-table cuisine. Simplicity is key and no more evident than in the shishito peppers appetizer. The tender peppers when blistered and sprinkled with coarse mustard salt are perfection.

After dinner, you can spend some time with a drink by the fireplace in the Club Room, or play a round of pool or darts in the Game Room downstairs. The arcade game machine, loaded with classics like Pac-Man and Asteroids, is a fun bonus. These are the best spaces to interact with other guests of the house.

Every guest is treated like a VIP at Hasbrouck House, a true gem of the Hudson River Valley.

McCabe relates pottery design to car design. (Talisman Photo)

Make your mark

Nearby Rhinebeck has a flourishing arts and culture scene. Dive right in at Hudson Valley Pottery and Ceramics School.

Most of us have worked with clay in elementary school, whether it was making pinch pots or small sculptures. It’s easy to forget how much fun it is unless you’ve gone back to it as an adult and realize that ceramics is as much an art as a craft.

At a class at the pottery studio, we were given a tutorial on hand-building a mug, then unleashed on the clay and tools to bring our individual visions to life. Hand-building is good for beginners, while using the wheel requires more practice and skill. Everyone in the class enjoyed the time spent the studio and look forward to seeing our finished projects post-firing and glazing.

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Though it may seem unexpected, clay is an integral part of the car-design process. Following the initial sketches, clay sculptors make small models of the car. Changes in the surfacing are made and rendered back into a digital form. Later, a scale model is made with clay where designers can see if those lines and curves that looked great on the small model still look great life-sized.

McCabe credits the clay sculptors he works with with making him look good. Curves that read to the consumer’s eye as simple and sleek are actually the result of a complex collaborative process between artists.

McCabe also notes that clay is easy to work with, relatively inexpensive and recyclable, which makes it the perfect material for auto design as well as good choice for a hobby.

Make an appointment at Hudson Valley Pottery for a private lesson, or open studio time if you’ve got some experience under your belt. Judi Esmond and her wonderful staff will help you tap into your creative side.

Lead Creative Designer Steve McCabe highlights unique design features of the Blazer. (Talisman Photo)

Form and Function

‘Form follows function,’ the foundational principle associated with architecture and industrial design that states the shape of a building should primarily related to its intended purpose, can also be applied beyond those fields. In food, the form is the visual and the function is the taste. No chef wants to sacrifice good flavor solely to improve the look of the meal. In pottery, a beautiful-looking mug with an uncomfortable-to-hold handle is not functional for its intended purpose. Examples can be found all around.

The Chevy Blazer sports this principle perfectly in its interior with round vents. According to McCabe, there was a big debate during the design process whether to do a rectangular or a trapezoidal shape, or a round shape reminiscent of the Camaro, which the Blazer was modeled after.

In order to justify using an older vent style, the design team decided to make it functional. The round rim acts as the temperature control, making for an intuitive and slightly futuristic design feature. It was the first thing I noticed when I sat in the driver’s seat—my hand went straight for the vent instinctively.

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“From a styling standpoint, we’ve reached ahead a little,” McCabe said.

The Blazer is offered in the signature model, the sporty RS and, for the more formal buyer, the Premiere.

“The RS captures that sports car personality. We injected that Camaro DNA into it,” McCabe said.

As a young father, he feels he’s created an exciting loophole in the market—a bold, dynamic, responsive sports car with the spaciousness and features of a family-oriented SUV that he’s not ashamed to put a car seat and stroller in.

“I can get the best of both worlds with this vehicle,” he said, another place where form meets function.

Drive around and take in the scenery of the Hudson River Valley. (Talisman Photo)

Exploring The Hudson River Valley

Each hamlet of the Hudson River Valley has a personality all its own. Woodstock’s bohemian spirit is fun to explore. The friendly staff at Hasbrouck House can show you the route that takes you over the Ashokan Reservoir, where you can park the car and take pictures of the scenery.

Fruition Chocolate, which is available at Hasbrouck House, has its storefront on Tinker Street in Woodstock, where you can sample the small batch, handcrafted, bean-to-bar chocolates and bring a few bars home as souvenirs.

Also stop into the Garden Café, a vegan restaurant and juice bar on Old Forge Road, and try the Indian chickpea blinis with cashew date chutney—little savory pancakes packed with flavor that redefine what a pancake can be.

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To get away from it all or get some of that adventure you’ve been craving, spend a day hiking, biking or climbing at Mohonk Preserve. The mission of the sprawling nature preserve is to protect the Shawangunk Mountains region and inspire people to care for, explore and enjoy their natural world.

The Chevy Blazer handles amazingly well on windy, snowy mountain roads and has a tighter than expected turning radius, which stands up to the test on New Paltz’s angular, often one-way, streets.

New Paltz is another fun destination while you’re in the area. Lagusta’s Luscious offers artisanal chocolates in flavors like tahini cream and thyme preserved lemon sea salt caramel, while its sister cafe, Commissary, makes a mean cheese plate.

To cap off the weekend, visit the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art on the SUNY New Paltz campus. In addition to its permanent collection, works by Angela Dufresne and an exhibition celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of Mohonk Mountain House are on display through mid-July.

Spend a leisurely weekend away in the Hudson River Valley. Learn more about the Culinary Institute of America, Hasbrouck House, Hudson River Pottery and the new Chevrolet Blazer, an SUV with the DNA of the Camaro. A weekend trip in the new Chevy Blazer Only a short drive away, the Hudson River Valley boasts beauty and fun all year long.

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