The most difficult completion through the first 11 weeks of the NFL season was a Russell Wilson-to-Tyler Lockett touchdown in the final minute of the first half against the Rams. The Seahawks quarterback scrambled on the play action pass and then lofted the ball to a well-covered Lockett, who hauled it in and made a Pacific Northwest Ballet-worthy toe-tap at the back corner of the end zone.

The probability of that catch was 6.3%, according to the NFLs Next Gen Stats program, which makes use of Amazons cloud computing technology and sensor data to capture factors such as how close defenders were to the quarterback and receiver, and their positioning on the field.

Now, the Seahawks themselves are going all-in on Amazons cloud capabilities to gather and analyze a wide range of data, automate video analysis and manage media assets for starters.

The five-year contract shifts a large and important chunk of the hometown teams IT systems from Microsoft Azure to cloud computing rival and market leader Amazon Web Services.

It is a marquee customer win in a high-visibility sector that is increasingly reliant on data analysis though not as significant as the $10 billion Department of Defense cloud computing contract that last month unexpectedly went to Microsoft rather than Amazon.

(And no, this is not an indication of Jeff Bezos alleged interest in buying the Seahawks, as The Washington Post reported, citing an unnamed source familiar with the NFLs thinking earlier this month. The Seahawks owned by the trust left by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and headed by his sister, Jody Allen, who chairs the team are not for sale, sources told The Post and The Seattle Times.)

Seahawks vice president of technology Chip Suttles said the team is just now ramping up its use of AWS, so it hasnt played a meaningful role in football strategy yet this season. But he envisions coaches and scouts using machine learning, computer vision and related technologies to answer questions that arent captured by traditional statistics, which are quickly being augmented by new ways of parsing sports information, such as the Improbable Completions rankings topped by the Wilson-Lockett touchdown.

The NFLs Next Gen Stats program is only 4 years old and the data underlying it player location, speed and acceleration, gathered by sensors placed around the stadiums and in player shoulder pads was made available to individual teams beginning last season, said Ariel Kelman, AWS marketing vice president.

Teams add other datasets, as well as mounds of video from games and practices, to produce as comprehensive a look as possible at their football and business operations just like more and more businesses, nonprofits and other organizations today.

NFL teams are now just starting on a process of figuring out what they want to do with the data, and how they apply technology to it, Kelman said. He said the trend began with baseball, as documented in the 2003 book Moneyball, and has since spread throughout the sports world.

AWS has made marketing hay with the NFL partnership, highlighting stats such as Catch Probability in commercials featuring Wilson and other NFL stars.

Suttles said teams are willing to collaborate on the business aspects of their IT strategy. But when it comes to what the player performance and sports science teams are doing within the individual clubs, its really kept to the vest. Everybodys looking for a competitive edge.

Suttles, who is responsible for all IT functions for the Seahawks organization, including stadium technology, said there are no current plans to use Amazons facial recognition technology at Century Link Field.

But the great thing about this relationship is that AWS is so broad and has so much capability, he said, adding that the team is eager to start investigating opportunities.

Theres not much branding associated with the new Amazon cloud deal beyond an AWS sign in the stadium, Suttles said.

An earlier agreement between the Seahawks and Microsoft put the Bing search engine logo on team practice jerseys. And Microsoft continues to have a deal with the NFL for its Surface tablets, which are used on the sidelines to review plays during games, and for other hardware with the Seahawks, Suttles said.

Suttles declined to disclose the value of the AWS deal, or the Seahawks IT budget, but said he expected it to be a cost savings.

The rest is here:

Amazons cloud computing will help Seahawks tackle data for a competitive edge - Seattle Times

Now that the outlook for cloud data center growth and gaming is improving, many analysts recently have had a change of heart regarding the future prospects of growth for Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA).

The primary basis for analysts' renewed expectations is the recent improvement in capital expenditures by cloud computing companies after a year of slack spending on graphics processing unit chips and other microprocessors. In addition to favorable projections for data center and PC applications growth for Nvidia's powerful GPU chips, some analysts anticipate an improving game market environment, which for years had been the predominant engine of consistent revenue growth for the company.

Nvidia received a shot in the arm from sales of Nintendo's (TSE:7974) new Switch Lite gaming console, which uses the company's robust GPU chips. Nintendo sold 1.95 million of the devices in the third quarter, leading to a 26% revenue boost in Nvidia's gaming unit over sales in its second quarter.

Nvidia has a technical edge over its rivals, Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC). It is the current GPU leader in data center applications as well as for gaming end uses and threatens Intel on artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. Vivek Arya, an analyst at Bank of American Merrill Lynch, believes the company will greatly benefit from this technical edge in the burgeoning artificial intelligence frontier, most notably the ability of machine learning techniques to accurately listen, comprehend and, most importantly, to speak language contextually. Arya's estimate for the company's growth rests, in large part, on consistent increases in its data warehouse sales (including AI end use).

The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.78, down from $1.84 a year ago, yet well above the $1.58 analysts surveyed by FactSet had anticipated. Net income declined 27% to $899 million. Sales dropped to $3.01 billion from $3.18 billion.

Although the company is viewed favorably by many analysts, it should be noted that although the cloud computing sector has grown rapidly, chip demand is tied to continued robust capital spending by companies such as Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and IBM (NYSE:IBM), who are looking to join the cloud and hybrid computing crowd.

Accurately predicting data center sales is a difficult task. Since sales in data computing centers is a key component for some analysts' sanguine expectations, the risk, however remote, is that if spending should slow in this sector, if only momentarily, Nvidia may disappoint in the near term.

It won't be smooth sailing in the short run, however, as the company acknowledges that the decline in revenue isn't over. Indeed, Nvidia's revenue forecast in the current quarter of around $2.95 billion came in short of analysts' expectations.

Gaming revenue, which made up more than half of overall sales for the third quarter, increased strongly, though it was still lower than for the same period last year. Additionally, though it has been the market leader in GPU design, Nvidia can expect increasing competition, particularly from longtime rival AMD, which recently achieved a significant milestone. Last year, the company introduced its 7 nanometer-based Rome server chips in 2H; smaller nanometer chips are more powerful.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any of the securities referenced in this article.

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Nvidia Poised to Benefit From Cloud Computing Rebound - Yahoo Finance

Are you looking for the best books on cloud computing to read in 2020? The cloud is one of the quickest-growing technologies of recent years; more and more businesses are looking for cloud knowledge and expertise in their current and prospective employees. Books, whether hardcover or digital, are an excellent source for people looking to learn about a specific field of technology, and the cloud is no exception.

Weve listed the top 12 cloud computing books that you should add to your reading list below! These books are intended for beginners and experts alike and are written by authors with proficiency and/or recognition in the field of cloud computing.

If youre looking for a managed service provider to help you manage your cloud deployments, you should check out our free MSP Buyers Guide! The guide contains profiles on the top cloud managed service providers for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, as well as questions you should ask vendors and yourself before buying. We also offer an MSP Vendor Map that outlines those vendors in a Venn diagram to make it easy for you to select potential providers.

by Stephen Orban

Cloud computing is the most significant technology development of our lifetimes. It has made countless new businesses possible and presents a massive opportunity for large enterprises to innovate like startups and retire decades of technical debt. But making the most of the cloud requires much more from enterprises than just a technology change. Stephen Orban led Dow Joness journey toward digital agility as their CIO and now leads AWSs Enterprise Strategy function, where he helps leaders from the largest companies in the world transform their businesses.

by Michael J. Kavis

Cloud computing is all the rage, allowing for the delivery of computing and storage capacity to a diverse community of end-recipients. However, before you can decide on a cloud model, you need to determine what the ideal cloud service model is for your business. Architecting the Cloud is vendor neutral and guides you in making one of the most critical technology decisions that you will face: selecting the right cloud service model(s) based on a combination of both business and technology requirements.

by Moe Abdula, Ingo Averdunk, Roland Barcia, Kyle Brown, and Ndu Emuchay

As cloud technologies continue to challenge the fundamental understanding of how businesses work, smart companies are moving quickly to adapt to a changing set of rules. Adopting the cloud requires a clear roadmap backed by use cases, grounded in practical real-world experience, to show the routes to successful adoption. The Cloud Adoption Playbook helps business and technology leaders in enterprise organizations sort through the options and make the best choices for accelerating cloud adoption and digital transformation.

by Thomas Erl

Thomas Erl, one of the worlds top-selling IT authors, teams up with cloud computing experts and researchers to break down proven and mature cloud computing technologies and practices into a series of well-defined concepts, models, technology mechanisms, and technology architectures, all from an industry-centric and vendor-neutral point of view. In doing so, the book establishes concrete, academic coverage with a focus on structure, clarity, and well-defined building blocks for mainstream cloud computing platforms and solutions.

by Thomas Erl

Best-selling service technology author Thomas Erl has brought together the de facto catalog of design patterns for modern cloud-based architecture and solution design. More than two years in development, this books 100+ patterns illustrate proven solutions to common cloud challenges and requirements. Its patterns are supported by rich, visual documentation, including 300+ diagrams.

by Ray Rafaels

Your Complete Guide to Cloud Computing and Migrating to the Cloud. This book covers not only the technical details of how public and private cloud technology works but also the strategy, technical design, and in-depth implementation details required to migrate existing applications to the cloud. After reading this book, you will have a much better understanding of cloud technology and the steps required to quickly reap its benefits while at the same time lowering your IT implementation risk.

by Joe Weinman

Cloudonomics radically upends the conventional wisdom, clearly explains the underlying principles and illustrates through understandable examples how Cloud computing can create compelling valuewhether you are a customer, a provider, a strategist, or an investor. Cloudonomics covers everything you need to consider for the delivery of business solutions, opportunities, and customer satisfaction through the Cloud, so you can understand it. Cloudonomics also delivers insight into when to avoid the cloud, and why.

by Raj Samani, Brian Honan, and Jim Reavis

CSA Guide to Cloud Computing brings you the most current and comprehensive understanding of cloud security issues and deployment techniques from industry thought leaders at the Cloud Security Alliance. For years the CSA has been at the forefront of research and analysis into the most pressing security and privacy related issues associated with cloud computing. CSA Guide to Cloud Computing provides you with a one-stop source for industry-leading content, as well as a roadmap into the future considerations that the cloud presents.

by James Bond

If youre planning your long-term cloud strategy, this practical book provides insider knowledge and actionable real-world lessons regarding planning, design, operations, security, and application transformation. This book teaches business and technology managers how to transition their organizations traditional IT to cloud computing. Rather than yet another book trying to sell or convince readers on the benefits of clouds, this book provides guidance, lessons learned, and best practices on how to design, deploy, operate, and secure an enterprise cloud based on real-world experience.

by Zeal Vora

Automating security tasks, such as Server Hardening with Ansible, and other automation services, such as Monit, will monitor other security daemons and take the necessary action in case these security daemons are stopped maliciously. In short, this book has everything you need to secure your Cloud environment with. It is your ticket to obtain industry-adopted best practices for developing a secure, highly available, and fault-tolerant architecture for organizations.

by Kief Morris

Ideal for system administrators, infrastructure engineers, team leads, and architects, this book demonstrates various tools, techniques, and patterns you can use to implement infrastructure as code. In three parts, youll learn about the platforms and tooling involved in creating and configuring infrastructure elements, patterns for using these tools, and practices for making infrastructure as code work in your environment.

by Edward Mahon

An inconsistency exists between actual cloud adoption rates and the viewpoints and direct actions of those responsible for corporate information technology operations. On the one hand, information technology (IT) leaders generally believe the cloud more easily enables the implementation and management of technology services, from web and mobile application development to on-demand computing and storage. These leaders also appreciate the clouds consumption-based pricing model over their current capital-intensive cost structures.

Looking for more info on managed service providers for your cloud solutions? OurMSP Buyers Guidecontains profiles on the top cloud managed service providers for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, as well as questions you should ask vendors and yourself before buying. We also offer anMSP Vendor Mapthat outlines those vendors in a Venn diagram to make it easy for you to select potential providers.

Check us out onTwitterfor the latest in Enterprise Cloud news and developments!

Dan is a tech writer who writes about Enterprise Cloud Strategy and Network Monitoring for Solutions Review. He graduated from Fitchburg State University with a Bachelor's in Professional Writing. You can reach him at dhein@solutionsreview.com

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The Top Cloud Computing Books You Need to Read in 2020 - Solutions Review

KIRKLAND, Wash. The Seattle area offers a rich smorgasbord of geeky tech-as-a-service offerings ranging from software as a service, to gaming as a service, to pizza as a service.

Now you can add farming as a service to the list.

Thats what Infarm is going for, with hydroponic plant-growth cabinets that shrink the acreage needed to grow fresh greens to fit in a grocery-store aisle. The startup, based in Berlin, Germany, has just opened up its first North American farms inside a pair of QFC supermarkets east of Seattle, at Bellevue Village and here at Kirklands Urban Plaza.

Its a merger of agriculture and technology, Emmanuel Evita, Infarms global communications director, told me during todays first harvest in Kirkland.

The process began a few weeks earlier at a distribution center in Seattles Georgetown neighborhood, where the seedlings for herbs, kale and lettuce got their start. After about a week, Infarms urban farmers transferred the plants to on-site grocery cases, where theyve been spending the past few weeks reaching maturity in a closed, temperature-controlled environment..

LED lights shine with a magenta glow thats optimized for growth, while a hydroponic system feeds and waters the greenery. The plants sit in circular trays that are designed to give the roots more room as they grow. Infarm says its process uses 95% less water and 75% less fertilizer than soil-based agriculture.

Infarms cloud-connected sensors keep track of more than 200,000 plants that cycle through the system every month.

The idea is to have a global network thats also hyperlocal, Evita said. Its grown in stores, hyperlocal. But its global: Each of these farms is connected to the cloud, if you will, where we collect data from all of our farms around the world. At any farm, at any time, we know the pH, the temperature, the nutrient levels. We know everything about whats happening to the plants, and we can adjust accordingly.

Story continues

Infarm was founded in Germany back in 2013 by a trio of entrepreneurs, and has since spread out to supermarkets across Europe. Among its partners are retail heavyweights including Amazon Fresh in Germany, Marks & Spencer in Britain, and Metro in France. In June, Infarm announced a $100 million funding round led by London VC Atomico.

The company is one of several ventures aiming to capitalize on vertical farming, with varying degrees of success. One such startup, Plenty, has attracted funding from Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and other high-profile techies but announced earlier this month that it was putting its plans to build a 100,000-square-foot indoor farm in the Seattle area on hold.

About a year ago, QFC executive Suzy Monford came across Infarm during a visit to Europe. She sold her colleagues at Kroger, the grocery chains parent company, on the idea of forming the first U.S. partnership. Infarms cabinets are due to start popping up at about a dozen more QFC stores after the holidays and could put down roots with Krogers other divisions as well.

The value proposition focuses on getting fresh produce including salad staples such as lettuce and kale as well as basil, cilantro, dill, mint and parsley to customers who rarely get out of the city or down to the farmers market.

We are hoping to shorten the distance between where food is produced and where its consumed, Evita said. In 2050, therell be 7 billion people living in cities, and we want to do what we can to help feed these people in a sustainable way. What you see here is the beginning.

He offered me a snippet of the just-harvested cilantro with gloved hands. After rolling the leaf to release its aroma, I chewed the sample and was reminded of the fresh leaves of clover and lambs quarters that I munched on when I was a farmboy in Iowa. It was enough to make me believe Infarms claim that conventionally grown greens lose 45% of their nutrients by the time they arrive at the supermarket.

But dont just take my word for it: Christiane Leibrandt, a German-born transplant to Kirkland, was the first shopper to sample the basil and give a review. Really delicious, she said. I love basil and use it a lot. The flavor is really rich.

Freshness comes at a premium: Infarms lettuce sells for $2.99, compared with the $1.99 price for a head of organic leaf lettuce on the next aisle over. But that $2.99 compares more favorably with the price charged for other brands of living, hydroponically grown butter lettuce.

The acid test came when I brought a head of Infarms caravel lettuce home and pulled off a leaf for our canaries. The birds love the lettuce we grow in the back garden, but theyre not so crazy about store-bought stuff.

For what its worth, the leaf was pecked down to the stem in a half-hour.

Continue reading here:

Infarm plants its blend of vertical farming and cloud computing in QFC grocery stores - Yahoo Tech

With cloud security spending in the United States expected to reach $1.93 billion by 2021, colleges and universities are paying attention to the fastest-growing job market. During a recent public session of the Morgan State University (MSU) Board of Regents fall meeting, Board members voted to allow the university to pursue the addition of a new Bachelor of Science degree in Cloud Computing.

According to a university statement, pending approval from the Maryland Higher Education Commission, a Cloud Computing degree at Morgan would advance opportunities for students in a growing field.

The proposed Bachelor of Science in Cloud Computing program would be offered online as well as in a traditional classroom setting, providing educational experiences to adult learners and other nontraditional students.

I applaud the Boards foresight as it relates to preparing Morgan for the future. For our students to solve the problems of tomorrow, we need to offer them the programs that address those problems today, and cloud computing is at the top of the list, said David Wilson, president of Morgan State University.

According to a PreciseSecurity dot com study, the increasing need for cloud security services is a result of rapid cloud computing market growth, followed by a significant number of threats and attacks.Data breaches have become one of the most critical cloud security threats, causing damage to companies. Other significant threats to cloud security are the lack of cloud security strategy, deficient access management, and account hijacking.Phishing attempts are on the top of that list.

In its statement, Morgan State University says increasingly the demand for data infrastructures that can be stored, secured and accessed from anywhere and at any time requires a cloud-based solution.

Cloud computing will give students the knowledge and skills in cloud services and applications to work in the industry, academia, and government as cloud administrators, computer architects, modelers, engineers, application developers, security specialists, analytics specialists, analysts and researchers, the statement said.

Microsoft Azure describes cloud computing as the delivery of computing servicesincluding servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligenceover the Internet (the cloud) to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale.

Here is the original post:

Cloud Computing: Where the Jobs Are - BlackEngineer.com

Amazon Web Services has launched its counteroffensive against the Pentagon's decision to award the JEDI cloud computing contract to Microsoft, arguing President Donald Trump torpedoed its bid for the lucrative defense engagement.

"We obviously believe that it wasnt adjudicated fairly," AWS CEO Andy Jassy told SiliconANGLE on Monday in regard to the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure initiative to transform military IT infrastructure through a commercial cloud provider.

After combating Oracle's attempt to scuttle the contract in a federal court, AWS filed its own lawsuit last week arguing the United States president interfered with the source-selection process because of antipathy toward Jeff Bezos stemming from the Amazon CEO's ownership of the Washington Post newspaper.

CRN has reached out to AWS for comment.

[Related: The JEDI Cloud History: From A Cloud Goal To A Microsoft Win]

While that lawsuit is still under seal, a filing in the case references four videos as evidence, including two of Donald Trump, as a candidate and then president.

"I think there was a significant amount of political interference," Jassy said in the SiliconANGLE interview.

The first video submitted as an exhibit by AWS takes place at a Trump campaign rally in 2016, during which then-candidate Trump claimed Bezos' bought the Washington Post to have political influence in benefit of Amazon.

"If I become president, oh do they have problems, they're going to have such problems," Trump said in Texas.

The second video is of the press conference at the White House, where Trump noted the complaints of AWS competitors.

"Great companies are complaining about it like Microsoft and Oracle and IBM," Trump said in July.

By that point, Oracle and IBM had been eliminated from consideration for failure to meet some requirements established by military officials. Those "gate criteria" remain a focus of a legal challenge mounted against the federal government that Oracle lost but has since appealed. AWS voluntarily joined that case a co-defendant.

AWS competitors were saying the contract "having to do with the cloud," Trump said, which at the time was still a contest between AWS and Microsoft, wasn't competitively bid.

A third video was of testimony Defense CIO Dana Deasy gave to the Senate Armed Services Committee in October.

Senator Angus King asked Deasy about President Trump's "antipathy" to Amazon, including reports that Trump told former Defense Secretary James Mattis to "screw Amazon."

Deasy, however, defended the process, saying his team was organized so no would was swayed by political influence, and the source selection was not influenced by pressure from the White House.

Another video is of a segment aired in July on Fox News that argued the contract was rigged in favor of AWS. Fox host Steve Hilton dubbed the still pending selection process as "The Bezos Bailout."

Jassy told SiliconANGLE his company lost the deal to Microsoft because of the campaign evidenced by those exhibits.

"When you have a sitting president of the country who is very open about his disdain for a company and the leader of that company, it makes it really hard for government agencies like the DOD to be able to make objective decisions without fear of reprisal," Jassy said.

"I think thats really risky for our country and for our democracy," Jassy added.

Had there been no interference, Jassy said AWS would have won JEDI.

"In any objective apples-to-apples comparison of our platform versus others, you dont end up, with the conclusion that they made," he said of the final decision.

Here is the original post:

AWS Launches JEDI Cloud Counteroffensive - CRN: The Biggest Tech News For Partners And The IT Channel

The upshot: Neocortix can muster smartphones to act as cloud computing resources.

From where we all sit, we see lots of cloud computing either being developed or fully rolled out. The general public is also heavily involved with the cloud, although they may not be as aware of it. To much of the public, the cloud might feel like an amorphous notion of giant banks of computers perhaps dominated by the Big Tech Overlords that are out of their control. In other words, theyre not personally involved with the cloud; its elsewhere and invisible.

And, for the most part, thats true. But theres one company, Neocortix, that has been working for a couple of years to change that. They aim to leverage the vast array of smartphones in the wild, harnessing them to handle cloud-computing-type work in the background when were not using the phone for something else. Add up the number of smartphones around the world, and theres some serious computing potential out there. Call it crowd computing?

And phone owners could be paid for the service to rent out their phones computing capacity. Neocortix claims on their website that top users can earn up to $80 a year for a phone thats engaged in computing for 8 hours a day; if available for 24 hours, it can earn up to $240 a year.

While this sounds straightforward enough (Neocortix will aver that it was anything but), several questions or perhaps concerns immediately come to mind. There are at least six of them:

Lets take these in order.

The security and privacy things both popped immediately to my mind. Lets start with the phone user. This isnt something that a phone can simply be roped into. You have to install an app, and with any app come permissions. If this app were to ask to use the phone or send texts, that would probably be a no-go. Neocortix say that theyve got a 2-1/2-year record of being responsible with the permissions, and they intend to keep it that way. If they were to change that policy on an update, then the phone owner would be prompted for new permissions. In other words, this isnt something that could be snuck into a future revision under the radar.

So, if we trust permissions enough to allow notorious privacy-abusers like Facebook to install apps on our phones, then, hopefully someone with a decent track record should be easier to OK. For the time being, Neocortix has been vetting their cloud users, but that doesnt scale and will be stopping in the not-too-distant future. So the permissions will be what we count on to protect our phones.

What about for the folks doing the computing? Should they be afraid that phone users would be able to see whats going on? Will data breadcrumbs be left on the phone? According to Neocortix, the computation happens in a secure container. In fact, to them, this looks like Linux. The container is unable to see outside files and processes on the phone. Thats good for both the person doing computing and for the phone owner. Theres also no long-term storage at this point. Any data is erased when the session ends. They have a storage version on their roadmap, so that policy may change someday.

When it comes to illicit use, their approach is to use policy and enforce it. Theres only so much that can be done to force behavior using technology; at some point you have to limit things by policy. Even for something as simple as photo storage, each such cloud service has policies as to what kind of content is acceptable (or legal). Although Facebook is working hard at this, right now, automated bots have limited success at flagging certain legal content that violates their internal standards and, in true cat-and-mouse fashion, folks try to alter images in ways that can foil the bots. So, ultimately, Facebook has to rely on complaints and their ability to put users into Facebook jail or ban them outright.

The same holds for pretty much any cloud service, and it will hold for Neocortix as well. I asked about a hypothetical situation once a storage product were to be available: lets say that some cloud-service user is abusing the system to park illicit photos on the various phones. If caught and terminated, what happens to the files on the phones? And, in particular, would the phone owner end up being legally responsible for those images?

The specific answer is TBD. If, in the future, we were to offer a distributed shared-economy storage product, we would have to have permissions, disclaimers, policies, protections, encryption, and remedies at all levels of the product to protect the phone owners and our company from a malicious [cloud-service] customer. Getting that right can be done, but it would be a significant amount of work which we would take very seriously, and that is one of the main reasons that we have not begun any work on such a storage product we have our hands full with our Scalable Compute product, and we will for the foreseeable future.

The next question about the battery has a surprisingly simple answer: this will work only while the charger is plugged in. Likewise for the data-plan question: this works only when the phone is connected via WiFi, meaning that it doesnt chew up data-plan data ever. So they guarantee, with clear text, that participating will not drain your battery and will not overrun your data plan.

Those usage conditions suggest that most phones will be on the nightstand charging at night when they can participate. That provides about eight hours a day of use (and potential income). Spare phones, however, can also be utilized up to 5 phones total for one account. If those phones are left on, with the charger connected and the WiFi active, then they can provide 24 hours of computing availability. This is where the earning potential of 8 vs. 24 hours comes from. If you have two regular-use phones and three spares on the same account, then you have 2 x $80 plus 3 x $240 for a total of $880 per year. And yes, if you earn more than $600 in a year, you will be 1099ed.

Finally, how do the cloud-computing customers interact with this whole service? Neocortix has worked very hard to make the interaction look exactly as it would look if using Amazons cloud service. Given the potential challenges of getting folks to sign up for something new like this, the usage model is a barrier that Neocortix doesnt want to introduce into the process. Existing scripts and approaches should work with little or no modification, easing that friction.

So, will we all eventually be hosts to unlimited amounts of computing on our phones? Its hard to say; it depends on how good a job they do convincing people that its safe. It sounds like theyve done all the right things. But phones have become these playgrounds for companies trying to harvest data from everywhere. Theres some dodgy history to be overcome, and I count myself as one of the skeptical ones when it comes to downloading apps. Then again, I usually come around if theres real value to be had. So, if this gets traction, Id probably join the crowd. Would you?

More info:

Neocortix

Sourcing credit:

Lloyd Watts, Founder and CEO, Neocortix

Related

Link:

Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing? - EE Journal

Alibaba Group Holdings Inc. (BABA), the e-commerce giant known as the "Amazon of China," is poised for explosive growth and set to become a dominant player in cloud-computing services, a league currently dominated by Google parent Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). And a new study by Forrester predicts the companys cloud unit will surpass Google Cloud next year as the third biggest competitor in the global cloud market, according to a recent story in Business Insider.

Alibaba, with amarket capof $484 billion, currently dominates the online retail market in China, the worlds second largest economy and most populous country with around 1.4 billion people. The expected rapid pace of growth of the e-commerce company will not only put it ahead of Google in the market for cloud services, but will put it into direct competition for global customers with Amazon and Microsoft.

When we say that Alibaba is threatening Google for the third post, we believe in 2020 Alibaba will make more money than Google will, Forresters vice president and principal analyst Dave Bartoletti told Business Insider.

The Forrester report predicts that Alibabas cloud infrastructure unit, first formed in 2009, will bring in $4.5 billion in revenue next year. While Googles reported annual revenuerun ratefor its cloud business is $8 billion, that figure is a combination of revenue from both its cloud infrastructure unit and its G Suite productivity software. Solely based on infrastructure, Alibaba is expected to replace Google as the third most dominant player in global cloud services.

Alibaba has not always been the most innovative of big tech companies and has propelled itself forward by largely being adept at imitating the innovations of its competitors. However, things may be starting to change. Nowadays, innovation is happening everywhere in the China market, and Alibaba Cloud has become one of the most important platforms to support business-driven innovation, especially based on the Internet, vice president of Canon Ehara Taisei toldBarrons in September.

But regardless, one of the major sources of Alibabas strength is its dominance in the biggest marketplace in the worldChina. The company raked in total revenues of more than $56 billion in its most recent fiscal year andcomprises about two-thirdsof the online-retail market share in China. When it comes to cloud computing, demand in China is only growing, and Alibaba is the household name for such services.

They are the leading public cloud provider in China, which is a very big market, said Bartoletti. They have a lot of people using their services there. They are doing well financially. They have money to invest in build out. They are doing a good job of being a fast follower.

While financially strong, another thing that will help Alibaba to invest in further growth is Alibabas latest round of share issuance for its secondary listing in Hong Kong next week. The secondary offering wasoversubscribedwith proceeds of the sale amounting toroughly $13 billion, a pile of cash that could help Alibaba grow its cloud business to Amazon-like proportions.

But while Alibaba may be starting to shift its focus on the two frontrunners in the cloud space, Google wont give up its third place spot without a fight. Google Cloud is likely to maintain its dominance with domestic customers as Alibaba has a much smaller presence in North America. Google could also gain ground if it shifts some of its attention to expanding abroad in European markets.

See the original post here:

Alibaba Is Taking the Cloud Battle to Amazon - Investopedia

A new virtual companion to the Thermo Scientific TruScan RM Handheld Raman Analyzer is available for pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturers that continue to move toward more efficient modern digitization and cloud computing. This first-of-its-kind digital tool enables reprocessing of spectra using TruScan RMs algorithm in the cloud and allows for method validation without a physical sample.

The Virtual TruScan RM (VTR) App is designed to save pharmaceutical manufacturers time and money by accelerating the release of new materials into production and reducing costs related to existing global method validation processes. This digital twin also aims to strengthen manufacturers ability to assess falsified and substandard medicines.

In addition to growing regulatory pressures, and 100% raw material identity verification requirements, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturing sites are seeing an increase in new materials for which they must build new, thoroughly validated methods. The Virtual TruScan RM App enables globalized method validation using cloud computing to overcome many critical problems facing pharmaceutical manufacturers, said Erica Hirsch, vice president and general manager, field and safety instruments, Thermo Fisher Scientific. Method development and validation teams, senior scientists and compliance and quality managers bear the burden of shipping samples around the world for method validation, a challenging, time-consuming and expensive process that the VTR App is designed to reduce significantly.

The VTR App expands the capabilities of the TruScan RM Handheld Raman Analyzer and can be linked to Connect, Thermo Fishers platform for secure, cloud-based data storage, scientific analysis apps and peer collaboration tools. Thermo Fisher Scientifics commitment to continuous innovation within its product lines with more comprehensive digital solutions aligns with its customers goals for rapid modernization of their processes such as bringing method validation to the cloud.

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New Virtual TruScan RM App Enables Method Validation in the Cloud - Technology Networks

November 25, 2019Timothy Prickett Morgan

After so many years of waiting, it looks like IBM i shops are going to have a wide variety of options when it comes to acquiring true cloud computing to either replace or augment their on premises systems.

IBM, Google, Microsoft, and Skytap all are offing slices of Power9 machines, which complement the cloudy and hosted infrastructure that has been available for a number of years from Connectria, iInTheCloud, UCG Technologies, LightEdge Solutions, Data Storage Corp, Source Data Products, Secure Information and Services, and First Option IT have offerings that fall on the spectrum from traditional hosting to cloud as well. There is clearly a lot going on here, after a decade and a half of waiting for what I used to call utility computing before Amazon Web Services uncloaked from stealth back in March 2006 and everyone started using its cloud metaphor.

On December 5 at 1 p.m. Eastern, we will be participating in a webinar being hosted by John Blair, founder and president of Blair Technology Solutions, to talk about all things cloud as they relate to the IBM i platform. We did a profile of Blair Technology back in early November, and the company is offering services layers on top of the public cloud offerings from IBM, Google, and Microsoft, which is partnering with Skytap because of the IBM i expertise that it has developed over several years.

The webinar will go over the current state of the cloud for IBM i as well as go over the various scenarios where cloud capacity makes sense initially for customers disaster recovery and high availability are the obvious starting points for IBM i shops and how this expands out to either running test/development in the cloud or moving applications wholesale to a public cloud and getting rid of on premises iron entirely. This is not a cheap option from an operational perspective, but it does add flexibility and that is worth something. We will also talk about the various assessment, migration services, and managed services that are layered on top of these public cloud offerings. There is still plenty of stuff that the big public clouds dont do for IBM i shops that a service provider like Blair Technology can fill in the gaps for. And rapid templating, something that Skytap has been doing, is also a key feature. Everything we said about IBM i also applies to AIX, of course.

The IBM Power on Public Cloud webinar will last for 45 minutes, including plenty of time for question and answer from the audience. You can sign up for the live webinar at this link, and we hope that you will do so. We look forward to sharing our thoughts about IBM i on the cloud and hearing yours.

The Cloud Breathes New Life Into Managed Service Providers

Tags: Tags: AIX, Amazon Web Services, IBM i, IBM Power on Public Cloud, Skytap

How Infors Coleman Strategy Is Evolving, and How IBM i Fits InNo developerWorks Content Will Be Left Behind, IBM Promises

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Join In For The IBM i On The Public Cloud Webinar - IT Jungle

XIAMEN, China, Nov. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Under the guidance of Fujian Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, Xiamen Municipal Government and Xiamen Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, Xiamen Zhongchuan Business Co., Ltd. is cooperating with the China Joint Association (30 provinces and cities of the Internet of Things Industry Association) to strengthen resource integration of Internet of Things Application Market Segment. Internet of Things Fair (IoTF) China will be held at Xiamen International Exhibition Center from July 2-4, 2020. As an important part of the exhibition, Xiamen International Artificial Intelligence Expo in China is is positioned at 6G, 5G, cloud computing, big data, and AI chips to build a one-stop procurement platform for its development, construction and operation.

According to estimates by relevant institutions, Chinas digital economy has grown at an average annual rate of 20% in the past three years. The rise of digital economy and industrial transformation and upgrading bring new opportunities for the development of Chinas Internet of things industry. In terms of total volume, Chinas digital economy reached 27.2 trillion yuan in 2017, up more than 20.3% YoY, accounting for 32.9% of GDP, up 2.6 percentage points YoY. Digital economy and industrial upgrading have become the core driver for economic growth in recent years. The Internet of things is the core and carrier of the digital economy. With the promotion of the Chinese government and the demand of the market for industrial upgrading, the demand for new construction and renovation in smart city, industry, retail, transportation, public sector, education, medical care, automobile, finance, agriculture, vision and other segments continues to expand which provides a huge market for IoT companies, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, chips, IoT devices and electronic components suppliers.

Gathering global resources, opens up Chinese unlimited opportunities

2019 IoTF China Xiamen International IoT export covers artificial intelligence, smart city and community security, vehicle networking, parking management, cloud computing, big data, information security, MEMS and sensors, test measurements, system integration, RFID, 5G communications and gateways, mobile devices and materials from other 10 sectors of the Internet of Things and data economy construction and operation. Gathering 203 enterprises from the IoT industry worldwide, totaling 18,000 square meters. Attendees will include Huawei, Ali, Tencent, Xiaomi, Gosuncn, Unis, Amazon, Microsoft, Telecom, Mobile, Unicom, TChina Tower, Hanwei, Xindeco, Tongfu Micro, Guangxuan Electronics, Xiamen Information Group, Yaxon, Network Chain Technology Group, NETVOX, Leelen, Dnake, Tuya, Quectel, Cheerzing, Xminnov, Mantunsci, Mt. Sainsburys and other enterprises. An expected 49,012 buyers from 91 countries and regions in investment and development, system integration and project design will attend the expo.

More than 100 guests and experts from home and abroad participated in the colorful event themed Insight 5G - Application Innovation to create a cross-border ecosystem with IoT+ as its core. Forums and sessions include Internet of Things Series Forums, China IoT CXO Summit, IoT Industry Award, The China IoT Project Investment Road show, The Black Technology Product Launch Activities. A total of 8 keynote speeches, 14 product launches, 15 professional matchmaking meetings, more than 1,000 IoT application scenarios, more than 300 talents from the real estate, government, system integration and the technology industry have been invited to give speeches. It provides a unique trading platform for solution, information exchange and sharing.

Creating an innovative IoT convergence belt, providing an important business opportunity

Xiamen has the unique location advantage of developing the Internet of Things, nearly 5,000 software enterprises are the backbone of Xiamens 100 billion industrial chain, which provides a solid foundation for the success of IoTF, but also provides important business and trade opportunities for foreign enterprises.

2020 the 6th IoTF China International Internet of Things Expo will continue to usher in colorful events in Xiamen. There will be 570 media outlets attending, an important channel to enter the Chinese mainland market, display new products, new technologies and new applications; strengthen industry information exchange and cross-border integration; promote project floor-to-ceiling applications. IoTF is a professional exchange platform for domestic and foreign IoT upstream and downstream enterprises, which creates business opportunities, to improve the level of development of the IoT industry chain, to build a new ecology of the IoT industry, to promote trade cooperation between at home and abroad, and effectively enhance the trading volume.

Smart, Innovative, Integrate - Fully Upgraded 2020 IoTF

Intelligent

Huawei, Amazon, Qualcomm, ARM, Ali, Xiaomi, China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, Microsoft, NXP, iFLYTEK, SenseTime, Kingsoft, Inspur and other leading enterprises will display the latest technology, released industry information; which will attract more enterprises from home and abroad to build a purchasing and supply chain for digital economy, IoT, artificial intelligence, big data, etc.

Innovation

The IoTF 2020 will add a high-level IoT summit themed thousands enterprises, through the form of a thousand person conference, in the form of artificial intelligence, system integration and construction of design and operation; Intelligent manufacturing transformation and upgrading, science and technology empowerment and other forefront topics. Focusing on integration, launching the industrys strength to jointly promote the development of the industry.

Integration

Based on the original authoritative media release, professional media promotion, large-scale release of IoT media, IoT associations and organizations, IoTF expo joint IoT Vane and Global Exhibition Navigation will provide an important channel for the global market promotion and comprehensive upgrading.

Global Exhibition Navigation has established good relations of cooperation with more than 150 overseas exhibition organizers, more than 200 trade associations and more than 300 overseas partners, covering a wide range of fields, Including infrastructure, construction and real estate, electronics, etc. This will provide opportunities for global customers and partners to participate, experience and close deals, and inject momentum and unlock opportunities for a wide variety of trading industries.

Booth sales start-up; Renewal booming

By 2020, IoTFs total exhibition area will exceed 20,000 square meters. It officially launched sales in early September, as of the end of October, current booth sales have occupied almost 50% of the total space available, industry-leading enterprises have confirmed their attendance and previous exhibitors are enthusiastic to expand their booths. Previous exhibitors include: Huawei, Amazon, China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom, China Tower, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, Gosunn,Unis, Microsoft, Hanwei, Cinda, Qualcomm, ARM, Tongfu Micro, Optical Electronics, Lenovo, Dell, Xiamen Information Group, NETVOX, Inspur,Leelen, Dnake, Tuya, Quectel, Kingsoft, Cheerzing, Xminnov, Mantunsci, Sensetime, Sanstar, NXP, Iflytek, Kuaishang.

Booth reservation is still available. Sharing the Internet of things purchasing alliance, expanding data economy emerging market provide exhibitors and visitors many reasons to attend in July 2020.

For more information, visit the official website at http://www.iotfair.net or follow the official WeChat: iotfair.

Contact: China Xiamen Zhongchuan Business Co., Ltd. Contact: Niexiuying +86-180-3013-8851 Tel: +86-592-5806777 E-mail: info@iotfair.netWebsite: http://www.iotfair.net

View original content: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2020-iotf-opens-new-opportunities-for-china-iot-industry---booth-reservations-are-booming-300964286.html

SOURCE Xiamen Zhongchuan Business Co., Ltd.

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2020 IoTF opens new opportunities for China IoT industry - booth reservations are booming - Associated Press

The recently published market study published by TMRR highlights the current trends that are expected to influence the dynamics of the Cloud Computing in Education market in the upcoming years. The report introspects the supply chain, cost structure, and recent developments pertaining to the Cloud Computing in Education market in the report. Further, the micro and macro-economic factors that are likely to impact the growth of the Cloud Computing in Education market are thoroughly studied in the presented market study.

According to the report, the Cloud Computing in Education market is expected to grow at a CAGR of ~XX% during the forecast period, 20XX-20XX and attain a value of ~US$ XX by the end of 20XX. The report is a valuable source of information for investors, stakeholders, established and current market players who are vying to improve their footprint in the current Cloud Computing in Education market landscape.

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Critical Data in the Cloud Computing in Education Market Report

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Regional Assessment

The regional assessment chapter in the report offers an out and out understanding of the potential growth of the Cloud Computing in Education market across various geographies.

Application Assessment

The presented study ponders over the numerous applications of the Cloud Computing in Education and offers a fair assessment of the supply-demand ratio of each application.

segmentation pattern which introduces classification criteria such as deployment model, service model, and end user.

The global cloud computing in education market report is a crucial guide for businesses wanting to ensure a visible progress in the industry. With customizations procured as per the needs of the interested parties, the publication holds the potential to rightly direct the existing as well as budding players to penetrate the global market.

Global Cloud Computing in Education Market: Trends and Opportunities

Across the world, the cloud computing in education market is anticipated to gain a strong impetus due to the elevating adoption of the technology in higher education and K-12. For the forecast period, higher education is predicted to mark a larger share in the global market amongst other end users. The domination of this possible end user segment could continue until the end of the forecast period.

Since most end users prefer the services offered by platform as a service (PaaS) providers, this service model market is expected to gain traction over markets in the category. The important change in the cloud ecosystem is principally attributed to the implementation of PaaS. However, software as a service (SaaS) is foreseen to hold a significant percentage of share in the global cloud computing in education market.

Owing to the amplified number of security features offered at a reasonable price, the community cloud as a probable deployment type segment is foretold to grasp a marked share in the world cloud computing in education market.

Global Cloud Computing in Education Market: Regional Outlook

Specifically in the developed countries of Canada and the U.S., the demand for cloud computing in education is prognosticated to move levels higher as they look to ride on the elevating focus on production innovations. Most innovations in this field are judged to receive a strong push from the rigorous research and development activities performed in the cloud computing sector. As a result, North America is expected to leave no doubts in the minds of the research analysts for coming forth as a larger revenue holder in the global cloud computing in education market.

The Asia Pacific market is forecasted to be propelled by the shift toward cloud solutions for sophisticated services such as tracking, sharing, and collaborating sundry variants of a document. Much of this demand is expected to birth from end users such as universities and schools.

There could be a few challenges that the top regions of the cloud computing in education market could face, i.e. rigidly designed cloud-based systems and account management and data protection risks. Nevertheless, such constraints are estimated to lose their effect eventually with the advent of momentous opportunities such as developing potential markets, employment of adaptive cloud services, and application of cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

Global Cloud Computing in Education Market: Companies Mentioned

Among others, the sovereign brands operating in the worldwide cloud computing in education market could be Ellucian, Amazon Web Services, NetApp Inc., NEC Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, VMware Inc., IBM Corporation, Cisco System Inc., and Adobe System Inc. With the intention of popularizing their offerings at a global platform, the major vendors in the market are envisaged to take advantage of acquisitions and mergers and inauguration of novel products.

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The report resolves the following doubts related to the Cloud Computing in Education market:

About TMR Research:

TMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to busi-ness entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experi-enced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.

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Cloud Computing in Education market is projected to attain a market value of ~US$ XX Mn/Bn in 2020 2018 2028 - Space Market Research

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "IoT Insight Series - Edge Computing M&A Analysis" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Edge computing is redefining the cloud computing space. The growing de-emphasis on the cloud's role in connected environments is expected to lead to smarter and faster autonomous solutions that have the potential to reshape the IoT landscape.

Companies are transforming their business models to attain edge computing capabilities necessary for offering end to end services. Startups with innovative networking technologies and newer software-defined architectures are aiming to enhance flexibility in hybrid networks.

Emerging technologies like AI and neuromorphic computing are changing data processing and decision-making. Data center architectures are being rewritten with easily available off the shelf, cost-effective, and efficient solutions. Further, the upcoming 5G networks are projected to fuel the expansion of edge infrastructure for high speed communication.

Edge computing will transform the IoT landscape into a hyperconnected environment where the restrictions related to latency and computation capacity will be eliminated. It is important for the incumbents to keep up the pace of innovations to stay ahead of the competition. Also, companies from other industries can be expected to cash in the opportunity at hand.

The recent years have witnessed a number of mergers and acquisitions in the edge computing space for IoT services, with the increase in M&A activities representing the industry's conundrum of cloud, edge, and hybrid architectures, and the race to achieve a considerable market share.

Acquisition Trends

The report includes an analysis of approximately 60 deals, along with a detailed technology overview and the purpose of the acquisitions. The M&A analysis section offers a comprehensive view of the transactions around edge computing, covering different technology aspects including data center, AI, security, software-defined WAN (SD-WAN), analytics, interoperability, multi-access edge computing (MEC), and others.

Some prominent deals observed include:

Patent Capabilities of Target Companies

IP acquisition is a key strategy for technology companies to drive innovation in the edge computing space, with the goal to develop next generation solutions. We have assessed the patent capabilities acquired in the M&A deals to understand and evaluate IP value creation.

Key Insights

Key Questions Addressed

Key Topics Covered

1. Introduction

1.1. Rise of Edge Computing Solutions

1.2. Edge Computing Use Cases

1.3. Key Drivers of Edge Computing

1.4. Need to Invest in Edge Computing

2. Mergers & Acquisitions in Edge Computing

2.1. Trends between 2015 - 2019

2.2. Year wise Analysis

2.3. Geography Analysis

2.4. Acquirer Landscape

2.5. Technology Breakdown

2.5.1. Acquisition Trend #1 Data Center

2.5.2. Acquisition Trend #2 SD-WAN

2.5.3. Acquisition Trend #3 Artificial Intelligence (AI)

2.5.4. Acquisition Trend #4 Security

2.5.5. Acquisition Trend #5 Analytics

2.5.6. Acquisition Trend #6 Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC)

2.5.7. Acquisition Trend #7 Interoperability Solutions

2.5.8. Acquisition Trend #8 Embedded Technologies

2.5.9. Acquisition Trend #9 Other Capabilities

3. Patent Capabilities of the Target Companies

3.1. Methodology

3.2. The Acquired Technology Landscape

3.3. Breakdown of Key Technology Areas

4. Patent Coverage of Acquired Target Companies

4.1. Technology Distribution of Top 5 Assignees

4.2. Patent Coverage of Other Assignees

4.3. Patent Analysis: Concluding Remarks

5. Insights and Recommendations

5.1. Time to Market Strategies

5.2. ROI on the High Value Deals

5.3. Growing Interest in New Technology Areas

5.4. Support for Multi-cloud and Hybrid Architectures

5.5. Opportunities in Edge Computing

5.6. Integration of Blockchain Technologies with the Edge Computing Architecture

5.7. AI-based Solutions not on the Radar of Acquiring Companies

5.8. 5G

6. Appendix

6.1. Detailed Overview of Deals

6.2. References

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/mxo6r5

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Global Edge Computing M&A Analysis 2015-2019: Data Center, AI and Security-related Deals Combined to Account for Half of All M&A Activity -...

General Election 2019: Cover of the Conservative Party Manifesto

The Conservative Party has launched its election manifesto, promising funding of 5 billion to underwrite a pledge to bring full-fibre to every household in the country by 2025.

On top of that, the Party is also planning changes to research and development tax credits to encourage the continued development of cloud computing.

"We intend to bring full fibre and gigabit-capable broadband to every home and business across the UK by 2025," the manifesto promises.

We intend to bring full fibre and gigabit-capable broadband to every home and business across the UK by 2025

It continues: "We know how difficult it will be, so we have announced a raft of legislative changes to accelerate progress and 5 billion of new public funding to connect premises which are not commercially viable."

The pledge is one of a number of promises for an "infrastructure revolution", largely based on rail and road, but also encompassing "gigabit broadband for every home and business".

Themanifestopromise follows-up a pledge to connect every householdto full-fibre broadband by the middle of the next decade, made by Boris Johnson when he became Prime Minister earlier this year. At the time,BT questioned whether the 2025 target for full fibre is achievable.

That compares to more radical policies from the Labour Party, in their manifesto released last week, to nationalise Openreach, BT's infrastructure arm, and to provide fibre broadband to all households for free by 2030.

The Labour Party, though, has been criticised for suggesting that its planned nationalisations will be "cost neutral" and underestimating the likely cost of providing free fibre broadband to every household.

In a manifesto that is markedly shorter than Labour's - with both fewer pages and fewer pledges - one of the most intriguing elements was its promise to support the development of cloud computing technologies in the UK via the system of research and development tax credits.

We will increase the tax credit rate to 13 per cent and review the definition of R&D so that important investments in cloud computing and data... are also incentivised

"Some measures have worked, but need to go further - as with R&D tax credits. We will increase the tax credit rate to 13 per cent and review the definition of R&D so that important investments in cloud computing and data, which boost productivity and innovation, are also incentivised," the manifesto pledged.

On top of that, there was a pledge for funding for more technical education with a promise of 2 billion to "upgrade the entire further education college estate" and to open "twenty Institutes of Technology, which [will] connect high-quality teaching in science, technology, engineering and maths to business and industry".

In addition, the Conservatives promised to "invest in technical skills and work incentives so British workers take up as many jobs as possible". This promise was markedly less explicit than Labour's pledge to establish a National Education Service that would provide life-long "technical, vocational, academic and creative" education.

These people can do more than any others to drive scientific progress and help our NHS and our economy

For freelancers and contractors in the IT industry, there was no reference to IR35, but there were promises for a general review to "better support the self-employed. That includes improving their access to finance and credit (not least mortgages), making the tax system easier to navigate, and examining how better broadband can boost homeworking".

Just as Silicon Valley and US technology giants were partially fuelled by ambitious incomers, the Conservatives pledged to make the UK an attractive place for the world's best brains, promised to actively recruit "leaders in their field" with "fast-track entry to the UK". It continued: "These people can do more than any others to drive scientific progress and help our NHS and our economy."

In healthcare, the Conservatives promised to "hold an annual health technology summit".

On law and order, the Party said that it would "embrace new technologies and crack down on online crimes" and "create a new national cyber crime force".

In addition, the Conservatives said that they would "empower the police to safely use new technologies, like biometrics and artificial intelligence, along with the use of DNA, within a strict legal framework".

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General Election 2019: Conservatives promise full fibre for every home by 2025 and R&D incentives for cloud computing - http://www.computing.co.uk