Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU)

Q3 2017 Results Earnings Conference Call

June 29, 2017, 04:30 PM ET

Executives

Shanye Hudson - Investor Relations

Sanjay Mehrotra - President and CEO

Ernest Maddock - CFO

Analysts

Harlan Sur - JPMorgan

Wayne Low - Citi

Mark Delaney - Goldman Sachs

David Wong - Wells Fargo

Kevin Cassidy - Stifel

Srini Pajjuri - Macquarie

Romit Shah - Nomura Instinet

Blayne Curtis - Barclays

Joe Moore - MS

John Pitzer - Credit Suisse

Jagadish Iyer - Summit Redstone

C.J. Muse - Evercore

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Karen, and I'll be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Micron Technology's Third Quarter 2017 Financial Release Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers remarks there will be a question-and-answer period. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Shanye Hudson. You may begin the conference.

Shanye Hudson

Thank you, Karen. And welcome to Micron Technology's third fiscal quarter 2017 financial conference call. On the call with me today are Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO; and Ernie Maddock, Chief Financial Officer. This conference call, including audio and slides, is also being webcast from our Investor Relations website at investors.micron.com.

In addition, our website contains the earnings press release, which was filed a short while ago, and supplemental information including a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures, slides for today's conference call and a convertible debt and capped call dilution table. The prepared remarks from today's call will also be added to our website later today.

Today's call will be approximately 60 minutes in length. A webcast replay will be available on our website for a year. We encourage you to monitor our website at micron.com thought the quarter for the most current information on the company, including information on the various financial conferences that we'll be attending. You can also follow us on Twitter, @MicronTech.

As a reminder, the matters we will be discussing today include forward-looking statements based on the environment as we currently see it. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements being made today. We refer you to the documents that the company files with the SEC, specifically our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q for a complete discussion of these important risk factors and other risks that may affect our future results.

Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or other achievements. We're under no duty to update any of the forward-looking statements after todays date to conform these statements to actual results.

With that, Ill turn the call over to you Sanjay.

Sanjay Mehrotra

Thank you, Shanye. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to be speaking with you for my first Micron quarterly earnings call and I'm particularly fortunate to be joining at a time when we are able to report record revenues and non-GAAP EPS. These results reflect healthy industry fundamentals, the strength of Micron's diversified technology and product portfolio and our broad customer reach.

Micron also continues to make progress in improving its technology and product competitiveness. The current industry dynamic and the growing strategic importance of Micron's technologies and capabilities make this an exciting time to join the company. The unprecedented amount of data being created, stored and processed presents tremendous opportunities for Micron.

Applications like autonomous driving, machine learning and big data analytics all promise to make an enormous impact on our lives. Memory and flash storage are the critical and increasingly strategic elements in every one of these applications.

Market-leading companies from a broad array of industries who provide data center services, automotive applications and mobile solutions, just to name a few, are eager to partner with innovative companies like Micron that can provide leading-edge technology and systems solutions.

Micron is uniquely positioned with the right technologies and capabilities to take a leadership position, and I'm delighted to have the opportunity to help the company maximize this potential.

I will now share some details from each of our business units, followed by technology and operational highlights for the quarter. Finally, I'll share our perspective on current industry supply and demand dynamics.

We had record revenues in all business units this quarter, nearly doubling our company level year-over-year revenue performance. In the Compute and Networking Business Unit, all segments posted significant gains from year ago levels.

Revenue from cloud customers was more than four times higher year-over-year. And we saw increased enterprise demand as analytics workloads are driving more use of in-memory databases and higher server memory content.

We continue to build upon our strong position in graphics and high performance memory technology, with shipments of our 12 gigabits per second GDDR5X, the industry's fastest discrete DRAM, which we successfully ramped to high volume during the quarter. Most CNBU revenue came from 20-nanometer DRAM products, and we also recognized initial revenue on our next generation 1X DDR4 products.

Looking forward, we believe that we are well positioned to effectively serve both our traditional OEM customer base, as well as evolving opportunities around tailored solutions for large data center customers.

Our Mobile Business Unit revenue increased slightly quarter-over-quarter with significant margin expansion, driven by lower costs associated with the continued shift to 20-nanometer LPD RAM and a favorable pricing environment. We expect increased demand ahead of anticipated flagship smartphone introductions planned for the fall.

Requirements for multi-camera systems, augmented reality applications and high-resolution displays now dictate 4 and 6-gigabyte LPDRAM densities for a great user experience. This demand aligns well with our 20-nanometer and 1X offerings where we plan to introduce nearly 20 new 1X package-on-package variation in the next 12 months.

We are focused on developing and diversifying our MCP and discrete NAND device offerings, which will position us to well to address the full range of smartphones, from basic entry level smartphones to content rich high-end devices.

Many mobile OEM customers prefer MCPs in their design implementation to address their memory and storage requirements, as MCPs provide a single source for DRAM memory and NAND storage, simplifying system design, validation and supply chain considerations.

We continue to sample our 32-layer MLC and TLC 3D NAND MCP, discrete UFS and e.MMC devices to both chipset partners and handset OEMs.

Revenue shipments of these products will begin later in the second half of this calendar year following completion of qualifications by customers.

Our Embedded Business Unit recorded a 44% increase in revenue year-over-year, driven by strong demand growth across all segments and a better pricing environment. We achieved record quarterly revenue for each of the automotive, consumer and connected home and industrial segments. We saw continued strength in automotive, DRAM and e.MMC NAND with the infotainment and instrument cluster applications driving this record level.

We continue to maintain our strong market share leadership position in automotive, enabled by our focus on a high quality and deep customer relationships and support. Industrial and consumer connected home revenues were led by increased shipments into rapidly growing applications, such as voice-activated home assistance and set-top boxes.

We continue to transition our non-automotive DRAM portfolio onto 20-nanometer designs. Our Storage Business Unit delivered record revenues as sales of our SSD products grew 33% quarter-over-quarter. Sales to cloud and enterprise SSD customers grew appreciably on a combined basis and exceeded revenue from client customers for the first time.

The most significant growth came from our cloud customers, where revenue doubled quarter-over-quarter. Our SSD sales in the quarter were driven primarily by our SATA SSD solutions using our 32-layer TLC 3D NAND.

During the quarter, we had first revenue shipments of our 8-terabyte SSD enterprise class SSD, which is an industry first. Several new OEM and hyperscale customer qualifications are underway for our SATA drives, and in calendar year 2018, we plan to introduce NVMe PCIe offerings using our 64-layer TLC 3D NAND.

On the manufacturing operations front, we continue to make good progress toward achieving meaningful output by the end of our fiscal year on both our 64-layer 3D NAND and our 1X DRAM.

Both of these technologies have already begun revenue shipments and are advancing well in their production yield ramp. We also continue to execute our plans to outfit our assembly operations as part of our DRAM center of excellence in Taiwan.

These DRAM center, in addition to our NAND center of excellence in Singapore, will be essential to our ongoing efforts to optimize costs and improve our flexibility and speed to meet customer needs.

On the technology front, we continue to make solid progress on the development of our third-generation 3D NAND and our next-generation 1y DRAM technologies. Our third-generation 3D NAND will continue to be based on our innovative CMOS-under-the-array architecture.

This architecture, pioneered by Micron, provides the benefits of smaller die size and lower cost. We expect our 1y DRAM to further improve our competitive position in the industry.

Looking at the industry broadly, Micron continues to see a healthy supply and demand environment that creates opportunities across both memory and storage markets.

For calendar 2017, we expect DRAM industry bit supply growth of between 15% and 20%, slightly below our view of demand growth. For NAND, we expect 2017 industry supply growth in the high 30% to low 40% range, constraining what would otherwise be higher demand.

We expect healthy industry demand to persist into 2018, supported by continued strong growth in both DRAM and NAND demand, reflecting broader trends in the data center and mobile markets, as well as increased adoption of SSDs across enterprise, cloud and client PCs.

Finally, after my first two months at Micron, I would like to share some of my priorities. Our execution and competitiveness are my primary focus, particularly accelerating the ramp of new technologies into volume production and introducing new products quickly, both of which are essential to delivering innovative solutions at lower cost and strengthening Micron's business fundamentals.

Micron has a tremendous portfolio of technologies and core capabilities. Our goal is to leverage these to provide high-value products and solutions that improve our revenue mix. We will target high growth opportunities and seek out partnerships with leading companies in the ecosystem to position Micron for long-term success.

We are off to a good start. Our execution and the current business climate are creating more flexibility, which we are leveraging to solidify our foundation through technology, product and manufacturing investments, while also strengthening our balance sheet. I believe that through focus and solid execution, Micron can capitalize on the world's increasing reliance on memory and storage solutions.

Ill now turn it over to Ernie, who will walk through the specifics of our financial performance this quarter.

Ernest Maddock

Thank you, Sanjay. We had a strong quarter with record revenue, non-GAAP EPS and operating cash flow, driven by the continued positive industry environment, additional bit growth from our current technologies and progress on deploying our next-generation technologies into manufacturing.

I will provide an overview of the fiscal Q3 results by technology and business unit, followed by comments on our overall corporate financial performance and guidance for F 'Q4.

DRAM represented 64% of our total revenue with the following segmentation: Mobile was in the mid 20% range. PC was in the low 20% range, down from the prior quarter. Server represented approximately 30%, up from 25% the prior quarter, and specialty DRAM, which includes networking, graphics, automotive and other embedded technologies, was in the mid 20% range.

Our trade NAND revenue represented 31% of total revenue with the following segmentation. Consumer, which consists primarily of component sales to partners and customers, was approximately 40%. Mobile, which includes managed NAND discrete solutions and the majority of our MCPs, was in the mid-teens percent range. SSDs were in the mid 20% range, up slightly from last quarter, and automotive, industrial and other embedded applications were in the high-teens percent range.

Turning to performance by business unit. The Compute & Networking Business Unit reported fiscal Q3 revenue of $2.4 billion, up 25% sequentially due to increased bit shipments, ongoing success in penetrating growing segments like enterprise, graphics and high-performance memory and cloud and a stronger pricing environment.

Non-GAAP operating income was $1.2 billion or 51% of revenue, up from 38% to prior quarter. 20-nanometer products were greater than half of CNBU revenue and were shipped primarily in the enterprise, cloud and client segments.

Revenue growth in the enterprise segment was driven by the continued expansion of DRAM content per server. And in the cloud space, we experienced good sequential bit growth. Both segments also benefited from the current pricing environment. We saw ongoing growth of our 20-nanometer DDR4 products with particular strength coming from the latest industry server platforms.

In networking, we saw shipment and revenue growth bolstered by the continued transition to 20-nanometer, 4-gigabit DDR3 and 8-gigabit DDR4 products. We also continue to see strong interest in our high-performance memory portfolio. This strength was primarily evident in data center networking equipment.

Double-digit client revenue growth was driven by a continued firm pricing environment and product mix optimization, resulting in modestly declining bit shipments. Our 1X nanometer revenue was predominantly in this segment.

Graphics also saw double-digit revenue growth, driven by strength in the game console market, as well as new PC graphics card product launches, including the G5X-based Titan Xp from NVIDIA.

The Mobile Business Unit delivered fiscal Q3 revenue of $1.1 billion, up 4% sequentially, driven primarily by a stronger pricing environment and our non-GAAP operating income was $304 million or 27% of revenue, up from 16% to prior quarter.

The embedded business unit delivered fiscal Q3 revenue of $700 million, up 19% sequentially. Non-GAAP operating income was $256 million or 37% of revenue, up from 33% the prior quarter.

The results were driven by strong bit demand and increased average selling prices of DRAM, combined with record shipments of SLC and MLC NAND in the consumer and connected home segments and record shipments of DRAM and eMMC NAND into the industrial and automotive segments respectively.

The Storage Business Unit delivered fiscal Q3 revenue of $1.3 billion, up 26% sequentially. Non-GAAP operating income was $276 million or 21% of revenue, up from 7% the prior quarter. The results were primarily driven by strong unit growth of SSDs and a stronger pricing environment.

Moving to overall company results. Revenue for the third fiscal quarter was $5.6 billion, up 20% sequentially and driven by primarily stronger DRAM ASPs and higher NAND bit volumes.

On a year-over-year basis, revenue increased 92%, primarily due to a stronger DRAM pricing environment, increased bit volumes in both DRAM and NAND and our focus on higher value-add solutions to improve our product mix.

Examples of this improved mix includes SSDs where year-on-year revenue tripled, while in DRAM bits embedded in high-value solution for enterprise, cloud and graphics customers, together grew at a rate twice our overall DRAM bit output for the same period.

Non-GAAP gross margin for the quarter was 48%, up from 38.5% in the prior quarter, driven by increased DRAM ASPs and cost per bit reductions in both DRAM and NAND.

On a year-over-year basis, non-GAAP gross margin increased 30 percentage points, driven by a stronger DRAM pricing environment, a better product mix and lower cost per bit in both DRAM and NAND. Non-GAAP net income was $1.9 billion or $1.62 per share.

Turning to results by product line. DRAM revenue increased 20% compared to the prior quarter as a result of a 5% increase in bit shipments and a 14% increase in ASPs.

DRAM non-GAAP gross margins for the third quarter increased 10 percentage points sequentially to 54%, driven by a 6% cost per bit reduction and better product mix. As a reminder, we noted last quarter that second half fiscal year 2017 DRAM bit output would be about 10% higher than first half fiscal year 2017.

As we look forward into fiscal 2018, the timing of the 1x technology transition is expected to result in our bit growth at or slightly below industry growth rates over the same period. We consider this bit growth pattern when we provided our 2 year bit growth CAGR earlier this year.

Trade NAND revenue increased 21% compared to the prior year quarter, reflecting a 17% increase in bit shipments and a 3% increase in ASPs. Non-GAAP gross margin was 41%, up 10 percentage points, driven by a 12% cost per bit reduction and better product mix.

As a reminder, we noted last quarter that second half fiscal year 2017 bit growth would be about 30% above first half fiscal year 2017. Based on the timing of technology transitions, we foresee relatively muted bit growth in the first half of fiscal 2018 follow by stronger growth in the second half. Consistent with DRAM, we considered this bit growth pattern when we provided our 2 year bit growth CAGRs earlier in the year.

Non-GAAP operating expenses for the quarter were $600 million, down $12 million from the prior year quarter. The company generated operating cash flow of $2.4 billion in fiscal Q3 compared to $389 million in the year ago period.

During the quarter, we deployed $1.3 billion for capital expenditures, net of partner contributions and free cash flow for the quarter was $1.1 billion as we retired approximately $1 billion of debt via a tender offer for certain of our high-yield notes. We currently expect fiscal year 2017 free cash flow of approximately $3 billion and continue to prioritize the deployment of our cash flow toward advancing our production technology capabilities and reducing our debt.

For fiscal year 2017, we are trending to the upper end of our indicated net CapEx range of $4.8 billion to $5.2 billion. We will provide a fiscal year 2018 CapEx perspective later this year.

We ended the third quarter with cash, marketable investments and restricted cash of approximately $4.9 billion. Our guidance for fiscal Q4 is informed by our view of sustained, healthy supply and demand dynamics, our ongoing work around cost reduction and the improvement of our product mix.

On a non-GAAP basis, we expect the following, revenue in the range of $5.7 billion to $6.1 billion, gross margin in the range of 47% to 51%, operating expenses between $575 million and $625 million, and operating income ranging between $2.2 billion and $2.4 billion. EPS will range between $1.73 and $1.87 per share, based on 1,179 billion [ph] diluted shares.

At our Analyst Day in February, we outlined how our production technology execution and the results in bit growth and cost reductions have enabled us to significantly strengthen our cash flow and financial performance in any market conditions.

We've been reporting our incremental progress each quarter. However, I wanted to share the tremendous progress we've made over the 12-month period ending in fiscal Q3.

During that time, our bit output has been above industry average for both DRAM and trade NAND and our cost per bit has declined approximately 25% and 30% in those technologies respectively.

In addition, we continue to improve our competitiveness by successfully delivering solutions to deliver higher value-add opportunities. Our ability to deliver these results has enhanced our energy and excitement to make further progress, and we look forward to sharing that with you.

With that, I will turn it back to Sanjay.

Sanjay Mehrotra

See the original post here:

Micron Technology's (MU) CEO Sanjay Mehrotra on Q3 2017 Results - Earnings Call Transcript - Seeking Alpha

Police in Cumberland County have a new piece of technology aimed at promoting public safety that many people have only seen in the movies and on television.

On Wednesday, Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed, along with members of local law enforcement, announced the roll out of mobile finger printer ID units in four municipalities.

I dont think it takes too long out on the streets to determine when somebody is not sharing the whole truth or being evasive with their identity, Freed said. Its very important for that police-citizen interaction for the police to know who they are dealing with.

A total of eight units have been provided to Upper Allen Township, Camp Hill, Mechanicsburg and Hampden Township police departments by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency and the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association at no cost to the departments.

The devices, essentially modified Samsung smart phones equipped with new software and hardware, are able to scan fingerprints and compare them to FBI and Pennsylvania State Police databases to better identify people in the field.

Unfortunately, with todays technology anyone can go on the internet and buy false ID and get your picture on it with all kinds of information, Upper Allen Township Police Chief James Adams said. Sadly, its very popular in a lot of your college communities, but its also very popular with the criminal element.

The device takes about three minutes to scan both databases, which Freed said includes people who have been arrested and processed by law enforcement.

If youve been arrested and processed in Pennsylvania and that has not been expunged, your prints will be in there and it will come back with a hit, Freed said.

The databases do not include people who have been fingerprinted for things like work clearance, according to Pennsylvania State Police Cpl. Adam Reed said.

Its another piece of equipment that I think will make the officers safer, Adams said. As (Freed) alluded to, this type of technology has been seen on TV and in movies for years. People expect that of us. This is just one of many success stories when it comes to technology.

The devices do not retain search records and do not add fingerprints to the database, Freed said.

Philadelphia, Lehigh and Montgomery counties have also implemented the mobile finger print ID devices.

See the original post:

Cumberland County police roll out finger print ID technology - The Sentinel

As we race toward the fourth industrial revolution there will inevitably be tensions between public, private and individual interests. But these should be challenged, rather than shied away from, to minimize displacement, panelists at the World Economic Forum's "Summer Davos" agreed on Thursday.

"The tension between the private sector and the public sector and civil society and each of us individually is a good tension to have," Lauren Woodman, chief executive of NetHope, a consortium of NGO's with a specific focus on technology, as panellists debated the responsibility of government and private business to manage technological advancements.

Private business has faced criticism for the speed at which it has embraced automation, while public bodies are under growing pressure to manage this change in order to safeguard jobs.

"It means that the benefits (of technology) do surface to the top," Woodman told a CNBC panel in Dalian, China.

"Even the process of recognising that there is a gap, and that we have to struggle against that problem, means that we are at least beginning to bring those voices in."

See the original post:

Technological development will cause tension - and it's a good thing, say 'Summer Davos' execs - CNBC

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University has announced that it is expanding and reorganizing the university resources devoted to delivering IU innovations to Indiana and the nation.

Effective July 1, technology transfer activities, previously led by the Indiana University Research and Technology Corp., or IURTC, will be moved into the Office of the Vice President for Research.

These activities include receiving and vetting invention disclosures, applying for intellectual property protection, marketing technologies and licensing them to established companies and startups.

"Indiana University has long been a leader in technology transfer activities, recently achieving year-over-year record numbers in patents issued, licensing agreements and generated revenue," IU President Michael A. McRobbie said.

He added that transferring responsibility for this area to the Office of the Vice President for Research would bring technology transfer staff closer to faculty who are making discoveries and inventions that have great commercial potential and need the kinds of services this office will now provide.

The move will facilitate a greater alignment with university priorities and a closer relationship with IU faculty, staff and students. It will also allow technology transfer to take advantage of the greater resources and efficiencies available within the university and to work more seamlessly with corporate and foundation relations and federal research relations, based in the research office.

Technology commercialization directors, managers and operations personnel who previously performed technology transfer duties at the nonprofit IURTC will continue their work as university employees in the research office. They will retain their current office locations at Simon Hall in Bloomington and at 518 Indiana Ave. in Indianapolis.

Technology transfer will also be adding four new positions and promoting existing staff. Bill Brizzard, currently director of technology commercialization in Bloomington, will become executive director. David Wilhite will continue as director of technology commercialization in Indianapolis. Simon Atkinson, associate vice president for research and vice chancellor for research at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, has been designated to oversee technology transfer and licensing and corporate development within the research office.

In 1997, IU established the Advanced Research and Technology Institute, or ARTI, to handle all IU-related intellectual property, trademarks and business development activities. In 2007, the organization evolved into IURTC. Over the past 20 years, these efforts have contributed to:

With the move of technology transfer into IU, IURTC will take on a greater role in supporting start-up ventures, including finding talent to lead and staff IU innovation-based companies, securing capital to be made available at all development stages, offering mentors and networking opportunities, and developing appropriate startup space and programming.

Vice President for Research Fred H. Cate said, "Our goal is to ensure that IU provides a seamless array of research and innovation services, including attracting the very best faculty, staff and students; supporting their efforts to earn support through competitive grants and foundation and corporate support; ensuring effective compliance with legal requirements; identifying, protecting and licensing intellectual property; and supporting startup companies that involve IU colleagues or intellectual property.

"We couldn't be better served than by the talented professionals whose skill and dedication have contributed to record-breaking results. I am delighted to welcome them to IU and to the research team."

Original post:

Indiana University to expand, reorganize technology transfer and licensing - IU Newsroom

As Democrats begin to rebuild in the wake of their 2016 presidential election defeat, the partys official political organ is tapping Raffi Krikorian, a former top engineer at Ubers self-driving-car program, to be its next chief technology officer.

The hire, confirmed by multiple sources on Wednesday, comes as the Democratic National Committee looks to improve its tech tools in a bid to reach more voters while preventing another major cyber breach, the likes of which by Russian-backed hackers in 2016 helped sink Hillary Clintons campaign.

Krikorian departed Uber in February; he had served as the senior director of engineering at Ubers Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh. He then briefly joined New America, a nonpartisan policy think tank, as the director of engineering focused on public-interest technology. He did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, nor did the DNC. And he previously spent five years as vice president of platform engineering at Twitter.

When he assumes his new role, though, Krikorian will face no shortage of endemic tech troubles to tackle beginning with shoring up the DNCs cyber defenses after Russian hackers targeted Democrats in 2016, stole their private emails and shared them with WikiLeaks.

The DNCs new leader, former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, has specifically said that the party needs its own in-house cyber security officer not just to help the DNC, he told Politico in January, but to support local political officials as they also try to fight off future breaches.

Beyond that campaign-changing, narrative-shaping cyber incident, many believe the DNC has fallen behind in supporting and deploying tech tools to target voters, raise money and send those supporters to the polls on Election Day.

Even Hillary Clinton has criticized the DNC for disorganization, stressing at the Code Conference in June that it was bankrupt and on the verge of insolvency when she won the partys presidential nomination.

Its data was mediocre to poor, Clinton said.

Clintons comments quickly drew sharp rebukes from DNC veterans. Many also charged that the partys next challenge is corralling and harnessing the myriad tech-focused groups that have sprung out of Silicon Valley to oppose Trump.

Update, 1:14 p.m. ET: Hours later, Kirkorian confirmed the hire.

i'm so excited for this new role as the CTO for @TheDemocrats. let's do this.

See the article here:

Democrats have hired Raffi Krikorian, a former Uber exec, as their chief technology officer - Recode

In early 2017, Floridas House Government Operations and Technology Appropriations subcommittee launched a legislative assault on the autonomy of the states centralized IT shop, the Agency for State Technology (AST). That affront, better known as House Bill 5301, did not survive Gov. Rick Scotts veto June 26.

When the bill was originally introduced in March, the chief sponsor of the bill, Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, R-District 35, raised issue with the 3-year-old agencys authority over the states data center oversight, and targeted what he perceived as unnecessary costs and ballooning IT expenses.

He called for agencies to conduct their own cost-benefit analyses around data center use, which would have allowed them to unilaterally move to individual cloud services at will. Experts worried the plan would have driven up costs for agencies remaining under the data centers cost recovery model.

Officials within the agency and experts in the states tech community voiced concern about the plan to essentially decentralize the agency, but the bill proceeded, eventually being tied to the states budgeting and appropriations process. In May, word filtered down that through budget conference negotiations, the agency had secured its at-risk funding and would remain intact.

As a result of the budget conference, AST was able to increase some measure of authority in the form of a new chief data officer position and the creation of the geographic information office, though 20 positions would be cut eight of which were staffed as of May 4.

The negotiations also netted some additional reporting requirements for AST, but those leading the agency said they were happy to oblige.

Though officials within the agency are pleased their charge will remain, they are not dwelling on the events of the past several months. Rather, Erin Choy, spokesperson for the agency, told Government Technology that they are focused on the upcoming legislative session, which begins in January, and the many initiatives they would like to see come to fruition.

Because of the way, in even-numbered years, the legislative session begins the second week in January, AST folks are working on proposed legislative budget requests and policy proposals, she said. So, yes, we were waiting for the governors action on the bill, but we are very focused on improving the current environment.

As Government Technology has reported, Florida's IT agencies have faced considerable challenges at the hands of the states Legislature to this point. In 2005, the Florida State Technology Office was shuttered after losing its funding. And in 2012, the Agency for Enterprise Information Technology was pulled by Scott rather than allowing it to stand in title and function without funding.

Read more from the original source:

Affront to Florida's Agency for State Technology Officially Dies by Governor's Veto - Government Technology

"This is definitely a shot across the bow of Tesla, which already has Autopilot," said Michelle Krebs, analyst for AutoTrader.com. "Cadillac is really trying to take Tesla on in that category of technology."

There are some key differences between Cadillac's Super Cruise and Tesla's Autopilot.

The Super Cruise system includes a small camera on the steering column that watches the eyes of the driver. If you are not watching the road for more than a few seconds and you are texting, surfing the web on your phone or falling asleep, the camera on the steering wheel will prompt the Super Cruise to alert you to take control.

The first warning is the steering wheel flashing. After that, the CT6 sends an audio warning and the steering wheel starts flashing red, both telling you to take control.

If you continue to ignore the warnings and do not re-engage the car, Super Cruise will turn on the CT6's hazard lights and slow down the car, eventually bringing it to a stop. At that point, an OnStar operator will reach out to the driver.

"How long it takes before the system notices a driver is not paying attention depends on your speed," said Bolio. "If you are going 75 miles per hour, it's three or four seconds, depending on the traffic around you. If you are in bumper-to-bumper traffic going 10 miles per hour, it's a little longer."

That's the other major difference between Cadillac's Super Cruise and Tesla's Autopilot. Super Cruise can only be engaged on the highway and does not automatically do lane changes. Tesla's Autopilot allows drivers to signal a lane change and if the sensors on the car show the lane is free, it automatically moves the car over with the driver not having to touch the steering wheel.

In addition, Autopilot can be engaged in city driving, not just on the highway.

So after testing out Super Cruise, the question is whether I felt it changed my driving experience? I admit having the car watch me added a level security and reassurance. In addition, the system was intuitive and easy to use.

That said, I would love to see it expand beyond highway driving. There are plenty of major roads I use on the way to work where Super Cruise would make the drive far less frustrating as I constantly ride the brake in rush hour traffic.

Super Cruise will be offered on Cadillac CT6 models starting this fall.

More here:

Putting Cadillac's self-driving Super Cruise technology to the test - CNBC

UK entry fee could be used to improve border technology

BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

Visitors should be charged 10 to enter Britain to pay for new technology to avoid the need for a hard Irish border and increase the ease of doing business after Brexit, a think-tank has said.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/uk-entry-fee-could-be-used-to-improve-border-technology-35876833.html

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/article35876832.ece/f8f0e/AUTOCROP/h342/PANews%20BT_P-a10f3ad4-f20b-45e0-af8d-1683fa5818fd_I1.jpg

Visitors should be charged 10 to enter Britain to pay for new technology to avoid the need for a hard Irish border and increase the ease of doing business after Brexit, a think-tank has said.

The Reform think-tank said the fee would be in line with United States charges for international visitors and could raise up to 450 million a year, equivalent to 80% of the Border Force budget.

The money could go towards harnessing technology to cut queues at passport control to just 15 seconds while ensuring customs checks on goods entering the country take 12 minutes rather than six hours.

It comes after Brexit Secretary David Davis said the UK will leave the tariff-free EU customs union by March 2019, when Brexit is due to be complete.

The Government's intention to leave the customs union in order to strike free trade deals around the world has sparked fears that border checks could come into force between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and warnings that such checks could damage businesses.

Ministers have said they would like to maintain "frictionless" customs arrangements and Reform said technology can deliver this objective.

For travellers, the focus should be on making human interactions redundant, with cameras confirming a visitor's exit from their departure country, a smartphone app sharing their travel status once they board a plane, and their entry to the UK through an e-gate following pre-clearance for arrival.

Similar technology in the Netherlands enables people to pass through border control in 15 seconds, while the UK Border Force currently aims to process new arrivals within 45 minutes, the think-tank said.

Pressure on UK customs can be eased by shipping firms sharing information on cargo before arrival while in-built sensors can track the movement of containers and the condition of livestock and food, the think-tank added.

Such an approach could also boost tax take by accurately identifying foods entering the country, making more money available to the Government, the report said.

Britain could also adopt technology used at the port of Rotterdam, where artificial intelligence reads x-rays of suspect cargo, taking 3.5 seconds as opposed to 10 minutes for humans.

Alexander Hitchcock, report co-author, says: "Technology can remove any fear of a return to a hard border between the UK and Ireland, while increasing ease of doing business.

"This will go a long way to fulfil the Government's aim of a 'truly Global' Britain following Brexit."

See the original post:

UK entry fee could be used to improve border technology - Belfast Telegraph

BlackRock (BLK.N), the world's biggest asset manager, on Tuesday said it would buy a software company that helps businesses invest their cash, marking its second investment in a technology firm this month.

The investment giant with oversight of $5.4 trillion in assets will buy Denver-based Cachematrix Holdings LLC in a deal slated to close next quarter, according to a statement by both companies. Terms were not disclosed.

Cachematrix builds a software tool that banks can provide to corporate treasurers managing the cash and short-term debt they hold. Investments can be made in money-market funds provided by BlackRock and rival money managers, such as Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Charles Schwab Corp (SCHW.N).

Just last week, BlackRock said it would take a stake in Scalable Capital, a European digital investment manager.

The deals come two months after BlackRock Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink told Reuters he was considering up to four small acquisitions to shore up the New York-based company's technology and investment expertise.

Fink has placed an unusual emphasis on technology for a company in his industry, including through the company's Aladdin operating system for investment management, which it licenses to rivals.

The latest deal gives BlackRock a new stable of bank clients and pushes Aladdin further into the business of advising companies on how to invest their cash. In a statement, BlackRock said it plans to combine some of Cachematrix's features with Aladdin.

On its website, Cachematrix lists Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and HSBC (HSBA.L) among its clients and reports assisting with $200 billion of client assets.

Banks trying to meet strict requirements intended to prevent another financial crisis have been looking to shed deposits that would require them to hold more capital. Businesses have been eager to find places to put cash as ultra-easy monetary policy has pushed yields on debt to historic lows.

BlackRock in 2015 expanded its reach in the business of managing large institutions' cash and short-term investments when it acquired the money-market fund business run by Bank of America. BlackRock's cash business included nearly $400 billion in assets at the end of March.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt)

LONDON The rise of fintech does not pose any compelling risks to financial stability, according to a review by global regulators, but this may change as the sector grows.

The world of financial technology - also known as "fintech" involves lots of buzzwords, jargon and often obscure terminology.

See the article here:

BlackRock makes technology deal in cash management business - Reuters

Roughly 3.3 million years after ancient humanoids invented the earliest known tools, mankind is on the cusp of perfecting sophisticated self-driving technology that has the potential to revolutionize transportation as we know it.

There is only one problem: kangaroos.

Volvo's new self-driving technology uses a "large animal detection" system to prevent its S90 and XC90 car models from plowing into deer or moose while on the go, the BBC reports. But during tests in Australia, researchers realized the technology is completely befuddled by the hops of kangaroos.

"We've noticed with the kangaroo being in mid-flight when it's in the air, it actually looks like it's further away, then it lands and it looks closer," Volvo Australia's technical manager, David Pickett, told ABC.

To fix the problem, Volvo first needs to "start identifying the roo," Pickett explained. That would make sense, seeing as the company initially developed its large animal detection software by dodging moose in Sweden.

Determined, Volvo has spent the past 18 months in Australia teaching its software not to hit kangaroos. The company needs to get it exactly right, after all, as there are more than 16,000 roo collisions a year in the country, NRMA Insurance reports.

"We identify what a human looks like by how a human walks, because it's not only the one type of human you've got short people, tall people, people wearing coats," Pickett explained. "The same applies to a roo." Jeva Lange

View post:

Driverless car technology is being thwarted by kangaroos - The Week Magazine

This week was Technology Week at the White House,and the Trump Administration held events focusing on modernizing government technology and stimulating the technology sector.

On Monday, the White House invited major tech leaders and university presidents for the inaugural summit of the American Technology Council. Hosted by the White House's Office of American Innovation, the event consisted of multiple breakout sessions to discuss ways to modernize the government byretiring out-of-date legacysystems and increasing the use of shared services.

On Tuesday, United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin and Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn held a listening session with technologyleaders to discuss tax reform in the United States and the implications of a new tax plan on the technology sector.

On Wednesday, President Trump traveledto Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He toured Kirkwood Community College and spoke about agricultural innovation and empowering the American farmer.

On Thursday, the White House hosted the American Leadership in Emerging Technology Event, where American tech industryleaders demonstrated technologies like advanced drones and 5Gwireless networks to the President.

On Friday, President Trump signed the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017.

After a successful week of addressing American innovation and meeting with leaders of the technology sector, next week the Trump Administration will turn its focus to energy.

Link:

Technology Week Recap - The White House (blog)

The Ford Fireworks in downtown Detroit tonight will feature the U.S. debut of a pyrotechnic technology used only in Europe until now, enabling a surprise or two during the show.

The new technology enables the creation of longstanding letters in the sky, said Tony Michaels, president and CEO of The Parade Co., the Detroit nonprofit that organizes the fireworks and America's Thanksgiving Parade Presented by Art Van.

"We tried doing Ford ovals in previous years, but the integrity of the fireworks was blown away almost immediately with a little bit of wind," Michaels said.

Provided the wind is under 20-25 mph tonight, the new pyrotechnics will produce a readable message, Michaels said. Watch for it midway through the fireworks and again near the end, he said.

Zambelli Fireworks is working this year with internationally known fireworks choreographer Patrick Brault, president of Quebec-based Sirius Pyrotechnics. He has choreographed fireworks for global events including the Olympics, FIFA World Cup and Formula One races and is known for his ability to synchronize fireworks to soundtracks.

The Detroit fireworks show will be bigger this year, adding 1,000 fireworks to bring it to a total of 11,000 explosions.

Need to know: 59th annual fireworks to celebrate Detroit's progress

The display is one of the top shows in America and at a level now, Michaels said, that The Parade Co. is beginning to look into securing television broadcast of the event in markets outside of Detroit. That would put it on a national stage, in the company of the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks in New York, which is televised across the country, he said.

Detroit does "world-class, best-in-class events, and people need to know that," he said.

The Ford Fireworks draws hundreds of thousands of people into Detroit each year. That translates to an economic impact of nearly $20 million for that single night, according to a 2013 study done by the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau.

And that's not including the River Days festival that took place this past weekend, Michael O'Callaghan, executive vice president and COO of the visitors bureau, said in an email.

The benefit from the influx of visitors is likely even greater today, given the number of new restaurants, hotels and other businesses that have opened in recent years in the city, giving attendees more places to spend money.

"There is a newfound excitement in Detroit and it is transforming downtown," Jim Vella, head of the Ford Motor Co. Fund, said in an emailed statement.

Ford's title sponsorship of the fireworks runs through 2018. DTE Energy, Huntington Bank and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan are also returning sponsors this year.

Here is the original post:

New pyrotechnic technology awaits Detroit fireworks fans tonight - Crain's Detroit Business

Many MIT-affiliated startups are innovating in the burgeoning fitness technology and science space, aiming to promote healthier lifestyles and help optimize athletic performance.

Novel products from these startups include a smart chair that fights back pain and diabetes, a sleeve that monitors muscle-movement data that users can share in the cloud, a wristband that tracks blood oxygen levels for greater performance, and even a so-called anti-aging pill.

A workshop hosted June 22 by the Industrial Liaison Programs STEX (Startup Exchange) program brought together some of these MIT entrepreneurs and industry experts to showcase their innovations and foster connections that could lead to new business opportunities.

Held throughout the year, the three-hour STEX workshops include lightning presentations from MIT-affiliated startups; brief talks from academic innovators, industry experts, government representatives, and venture capitalists; startup presentation and demonstration sessions; and an interactive panel discussion.

At last weeks event, eight entrepreneurs pitched their fitness-tech products several rooted in MIT research to a crowd of around 80 entrepreneurs, researchers, and industry experts in the ILPs headquarters on Main Street, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academic keynote speaker was MIT Novartis Professor of Biology Leonard Guarente, who took the opportunity to demystify the science behind his startup Elysium Healths anti-aging pill, which is made of compounds that aim to thwart age-related cell damage, which can lead to inflammatory and heart diseases, osteoporosis, and diabetes.

STEX events aim to stimulate discussion and build partnerships between MIT-affiliated startups and ILP-connected companies, which now number around 230. The series covers a broad range of topics: a recent workshop focused on energy storage, while upcoming events will focus on synthetic biology, robotics and drones, cancer therapies, renewable energy, world water issues, and 3-D printing.

These are very exciting areas, and MIT has young and old startups in all of these spaces. We certainly have industry coming to campus interested in all of these technologies and products coming from them, Trond Undheim, a senior industrial liaison officer and co-organizer of the event, said in his opening remarks.

Presenter Simon Hong, a researcher in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, and CEO of smart-chair startup Robilis, said last weeks STEX workshop provided an opportunity to interact with potential stakeholders.

Based on neuroscience research, Robilis developed StandX, a chair with two automated moving halves, side by side. The halves alternate one dropping down and the other staying straight making the user sit down on one half while standing on the opposite leg. The frequent alternation prevents stress on the spine caused by sitting in one position for extended periods, and the chairs design encourages proper posture. The movement also interrupts prolonged sitting, which is associated with diabetes.

During a startup demonstration session midway through the event, Hongs station was crowded with attendees looking to try out the chair. In the end, he walked away with a few contacts interested in helping with production and in introducing him to potential investors. I was quite satisfied with the event, Hong told MIT News. It is in a way a networking event, and good things tend to happen quite unexpectedly during many, many interactions with people.

Apart from providing a venue to spread the word about his wearables, the event enabled Alessandro Babini MBA 15, co-founder of Humon, to connect with larger organizations in the space. Humon, a wearable targeted at endurance athletes, attaches to a muscle, where it monitors blood oxygen levels by shining a light into the skin and analyzing changes in the light that indicate less or more oxygen.

It was interesting to get an understanding about what big brands seek in partners, what theyre looking to invest in, and what theyre working on now, Babini told MIT News. Big corporations have a lot of customers and a big influence on where the market is going.

Another interesting MIT spinout, figure8, presented a wearable that captures 3-D body movement that can be analyzed by the user or shared with an online community like a YouTube of movement data.

The wearable is a small sleeve made from novel sensor-woven fabric that fits over the arm or leg to track joint and muscle movement. It lets users map the movement of muscle, bone, and ligaments. Put on a knee, for instance, the wearable can map individual ligaments, which is valuable for, say, monitoring the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). One application is in physical therapy, so athletes can track injuries as they heal.

Users can also map their movement to others. Dancers, for instance, can use the sensor to match their movements to those of others during training. The startup is also developing a platform that lets users upload and share that data in the cloud.

Before YouTube, no one thought about video as something you can share, upload, and download as a commodity, said co-founder and CEO Nan-Wei Gong, an MIT Media Lab researcher, during her presentation. Were trying to create a system for everyone to collect this motion [data] they can upload and download.

Other startups that presented included: Kitchology, Fitnescity, Digital Nutrition, Food for Sleep, and SplitSage.

In his keynote, Guarente explained the science and history behind Elysiums anti-aging pill, called Basis, which he himself has been taking for three years. He noted the pill doesnt necessarily make people feel more youthful or healthier, especially if theyre already healthy. You should just fall apart more slowly, Guarente said to laughter from the audience.

Years ago, Guarente and other MIT researchers identified a group of genes called sirtuins that have been demonstrated to slow the aging process in microbes, fruit flies, and mice. For instance, calorie-restricted diets, long known to extend lifespans and prevent many diseases in mammals, is key in activating sirtuins. It turns out there are compounds that can do the same thing, Guarente said.

At MIT, the researchers discovered one of those compounds, which is abundant in blueberries. Later, they discovered that an enzyme called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) was also essential in carrying out the activity of sirtuins. But the enzyme deteriorated with age. If theres not enough NAD, you dont activate sirtuins. Metabolism and DNA-repair goes awry, and a lot of things go wrong, he said.

However, they soon found that in the NAD synthesis pathway, NADs immediate precursor, called nicotinamide riboside (NR), could be injected into an organism, where it would move efficiently into cells and be converted into NAD.

Basis is a combination of NR and the sirtuin-activating compound from blueberries.

Last year, Elysium conducted a 120-person trial. The results indicated that the pills were safe and led to an increase and sustainability of NAD levels. More trials are on the way, and the startup is growing its pipeline of products. It has not yet been shown whether Basis can extend life-span in humans.

We could really make a difference in peoples health, Guarente said at the conclusion of his talk. And it would add to all the medical devices and DNA analysis and motion sensors, so that people can begin to do what they want to do, which is to take charge of their health.

The investor speaker was David T. Thibodeau, managing director of Wellvest Capital, an investment banking company specializing in healthy living and wellness. The industry speaker was Matthew Decker, global technical leader in the Comfort and Biophysics Group of W.L. Gore and Associates, the manufacturing company best known for Gore-Tex fabrics.

Panelists were Guarente, Decker, Thibodeau, and Josh Sarmir, co-founder and CEO of SplitSage, an MIT spinout that is developing an analytics platform that can detect sweet spots and blind spots in peoples fields of vision to aid in sports performance, online advertising, and work safety, among other applications.

STEX has a growing database of roughly 1,200 MIT-affiliated startups. Last year, ILP created STEX25, an accelerator for 25 startups at any time that focuses on high-level, high-quality introductions. The first cohort of 14 startups have gone through the accelerator, gaining industry partnerships that have led to several pilot programs.

See the original post here:

STEX event showcases innovations in fitness technology and science - MIT News

If a new study is an accurate indication of what the investment management industry will look like in a decade, investors are poised to benefit.

Released by the CFA Institute, "Future State of the Investment Profession" shows that the trends influencing how money managers and financial advisors run their businesses are pushing them toward a more ethical, value-oriented and socially responsible profession over the next five to 10 years.

Advisors "need to become customer-focused," said Robert Stammers, director of investor engagement for the CFA Institute's Future of Finance team and one of the study's authors. "They need to change from trying to beat the market to focusing on how they meet client objectives and create better outcomes for investors."

Some of the forces reshaping the landscape range from regulatory and technology-related changes to shifting demographics and investor preferences.

The study surveyed 1,145 leaders in the investment industry around the world. Only 11 percent of respondents said their industry has a "very positive" impact on society. But 51 percent said if stronger principals were existent, there would be a very positive societal impact.

The public, too, sees room for improvement. According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, the public's trust in the broader U.S. financial services industry stands at just 54 percent. While higher than the 36 percent recorded in 2009 following the financial crisis, it remains lower than the pre-crisis figure of 69 percent.

For financial advisors, much of the ethics picture focuses on whether they are required to put their clients' interests before their own when recommending investments. Such a "fiduciary standard" is viewed by many as more ethical than one of "suitability," which only says an investment must be appropriate for a client.

Fiduciaries typically are paid via service fees, while suitability adherents typically are paid in commissions. In simple terms, the difference in standards is dictated by exactly how they are regulated.

More from Portfolio Perspective: Three things investors should know when buying ETFs Why asset allocation is so important for investors Buying stock? Ask yourself this question first

While the Labor Department under the Obama administration jumped into the fray by adopting the so-called fiduciary rule which requires advisors to act in their client's best interest, specifically with retirement accounts the start date for the new regulation has been delayed until June 9 while parts of it are under review.

Regardless of the rule's fate, the industry is continuing to move toward a fiduciary environment more earnestly than it had before the rule passed in 2016. To some degree, peer pressure and client inquiries due to greater public awareness have contributed to the shift.

David Hays, president of Comprehensive Financial Consultants, said that in some of the advisor circles he moves in, non-fiduciaries are given less respect.

"If you aren't a fiduciary, you are kind of looked down upon," said Hays, who is a fiduciary but was not when he started his career more than two decades ago. "It's peer pressure that if you aren't one, you [had] better become one."

He also said that among new clients, awareness of the role of a fiduciary is growing.

Originally posted here:

Trends, technology help make advisors better: Study - CNBC

But the global tech industry is increasingly relying on automation, robotics, big data analytics, machine learning and consulting technologies that threaten to bypass and even replace Indian workers. For example, automated processes may soon replace the kind of work Mr. Choudhari was performing for foreign clients, which involved maintaining software by occasionally plugging in simple code and analyzing data.

What were seeing is an acceleration in shedding for jobs in India and an adding of jobs onshore, said Sandra Notardonato, an analyst and research vice president for Gartner, a research and advisory company. Even if these companies dont have huge net losses, theres a person who will suffer, and thats a person with a limited skill set in India.

Such job losses could be politically damaging to the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won an electoral mandate in 2014 on the promise of development and employment for a bulging youth population. In January, near the three-year mark of his administration, an economic survey reported that job creation had stalled.

So far, the scale of the impact is not clear. T. V. Mohandas Pai, a longtime industry figure, estimates the cuts will encompass up to 2 percent of the work force by September, mainly from culling underperformers. A 2015 study released by the National Association of Software and Services Companies, the Indian technology industry trade group known as Nasscom, and McKinsey India found that 50 to 70 percent of workers skills would be irrelevant by 2020.

Of course, new technologies will create new jobs. The impact of automation and artificial intelligence still is not clear, and they could open up new areas that simply shift tech work rather than eliminate it.

But some in the Indian tech industry worry that many of the new jobs will be created outside India, in places like the United States, in part because President Trump has pledged to tighten visa laws that allowed many Indian nationals to go to that country to work. The subject is likely to pop up on Monday, when Mr. Modi is scheduled to visit the White House.

The Indian government has rushed to reassure the public that job losses will be minimal. Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Indian minister who oversees the technology industry, recently denied that major layoffs were occurring even as he encouraged the industry to speed up development.

The question of slackness in jobs is absolutely factually incorrect, he said. Obviously, those who dont perform will have to go.

Some tech employees who recently lost jobs disputed that they were underperformers.

It is not something that only the employee is responsible, Mr. Choudhari said of upgrading his skills. Employers, he said, are also responsible.

For India, where household income by one measure is one-twelfth that in the United States, such jobs have long been seen as a steppingstone. Small-town and rural youths who aspire to join the urban middle class enroll in four-year university engineering programs and graduate by the hundreds of thousands per year, many with the dream of a lifetime career at one of Indias outsourcing companies.

Competition is already fierce. Ashwin Kotnala graduated this year with a bachelors degree in technology from Graphic Era University, a private university in Dehradun in northern India. She has applied for more than 20 positions but has yet to get one.

Everyone wants to work with IT firms because of a good salary, Ms. Kotnala, 22, said. Ive not got placed, but if I get placed in I.T. company, then Ill do better and make my parents proud.

Finding a job can be even harder for experienced workers who need to refresh their skills.

Dinesh Shende, a 38-year-old developer at Tech Mahindra who said he was forced to resign in February, looked for work for months. Born to farmer parents in a village in Maharashtra, he earned about $37,000 a year.

Now employers say reskilling is needed it is your responsibility, he said. We are ready to reskill ourselves. But will the next company employ us?

He found a new job last week, at a start-up in Bangalore, meaning he would have to move and leave his wife and children behind in Pune. He declined to say whether he would take a pay cut.

The next employer will try to take benefit of the situation, Mr. Shende said. To other job searchers, he advised: Keep trying, keep trying, keep trying.

Tech Mahindra representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment by either phone or email. With its profitability declining, the company has been reshuffling its operations and work force.

As you know, the talent factors are changing, the technology is changing, consumers are changing, C. P. Gurnani, Tech Mahindras chief executive, told investors in a May conference call, and we need to make sure that our people are changing with the time.

In some places, tech workers are showing early signs of organizing, which industry leaders say could lead to unions and then to government interference, which could hurt competitiveness. In Pune, 47 workers from Tech Mahindra and other India-focused employers, including the local arms of Cognizant Technology Solutions of the United States and Vodafone of Britain, have signed petitions alleging forced resignations and baseless firings to the local labor commissioner.

Cognizant said the allegations were totally unfounded, while Vodafone did not respond to requests for comment. R. Chandrashekhar, president of Nasscom, the industry group, said in May that the industry would remain a net hirer but that automation would eliminate some types of jobs.

Many of those who have lost their jobs have not given up.

Mr. Choudhari graduated in 1997 with a degree in engineering. He took out a loan for his apartment in 2006, payments that hell have to meet for 10 more years. With two months pay and a bonus for 10 years of service giving him about $3,200 upon leaving, he does not know how hell make them. So far, he has managed to secure just one unsuccessful job interview.

Basically Im from a poor family, he said. This is a profession where I thought I could do something good.

A version of this article appears in print on June 26, 2017, on Page B2 of the New York edition with the headline: Tech Jobs Cut in India. A Reason? Technology.

Originally posted here:

Indian Technology Workers Worry About a Job Threat: Technology - New York Times

Back in January 2017, a new law went into effect in California that banned state government employees and officials from using tax dollars to travel to states with laws it deemed discriminatory in regards to LGBT rights starting with Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee.

On Thursday, June 22, 2017, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced that the list had doubled. The ban on state-funded and state-sponsored travel now includes Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota and Texas.

In making the announcement, CA Attorney General Becerra said, "Our country has made great strides in dismantling prejudicial laws that have deprived too many of our fellow Americans of their precious rights. Sadly, that is not the case in all parts of our nation, even in the 21st century.I am announcing today that I am adding four states to the list of states where California-funded or sponsored travel will be restricted on account of the discriminatory nature of laws enacted by those states.

According to the press release: AB 1887 prohibits state-funded and state-sponsored travel to states with laws that authorize or require discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression or against same-sex couples or their families. The California legislation went into effect on January 1, 2017. This restriction applies to state agencies, departments, boards, authorities, and commissions, including an agency, department, board, authority, or commission of the University of California, the Board of Regents of the University of California, and the California State University.

Negative Reactions From Banned States

The reaction from the affected states was swift and predictably negative. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal.com:

In Kentucky, the ban has to do with a religious freedom law signed by Gov. Matt Bevin.

Woody Maglinger, press secretary for Bevin's office, called the California Attorney General's actions hypocritical in a statement emailed to the Courier-Journal.

"It is fascinating that the very same West Coast liberals who rail against the presidents executive order, that protects our nation from foreign terrorists, have now contrived their own travel ban aimed at punishing states who dont fall in lockstep with their far-left political ideology," the statement said.

According to the San Jose Mercury News:

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott responded to the news with a biting rebuke in a statement playing to his states noisy economic rivalry with the Golden State.

California may be able to stop their state employees, but they cant stop all the businesses that are fleeing over taxation and regulation and relocating to Texas, Abbott spokesman John Wittman told CBS Dallas.

While the motivations behind the move are understandable, the ban could be tricky to implement and, potentially, trigger political retribution, said Jack Pitney, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College.

California is not held in high esteem in much of the country, Pitney said. One could see legislatures in other states supporting some kind of retaliatory action. It would be quite popular with the Republican electorate.

The Houston Chronicle reported: (Texas Governor) Abbott aides and legislative leaders dissed the California move as hollow, saying that if that if the Golden State is so concerned about discrimination and human rights outside its borders, Gov.Jerry Brownshould not have recently visited China.

Immediate Impact Is Unclear

Trying to gauge the immediate nationwide impact of the travel ban is difficult. As the Courier-Journal article points out, It's unclear what practical effect California's travel ban will have. The state law contains exemptions for some trips, such as travel needed to enforce California law and to honor contracts made before 2017. Travel to conferences or out-of-state training are examples of trips that could be blocked. Becerra's office couldn't provide information about how often state employees have visited the newly banned states.

ESPN.com reported that the California ban won't stop Alabama from hosting Fresno State, since the contract was already in place. However, Cal wont schedule future Kansas, North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee trips due to LGBT discrimination laws in each state

SFGate.com reported that CA States travel ban may trip up intercollegiate athletic teams including recruiting trips and other aspects of cross-state travel.

When Californias ban took effect in January, the Cal athletic department issued a statement saying: Our intent is to support our student-athletes in their right to participate in NCAA postseason competition should they be assigned to a restricted state.

But its not clear how they could do that, short of raising private donations to support not only travel costs, but also salaries for coaches and staff, and potentially insurance.

Meanwhile, Cal had been in preliminary talks for a mens basketball series with the University of Kansas in January, when the travel ban that included Kansas took effect.

Cal got back to us and told us the state ban would prevent it, said Jim Marchiony, a spokesman for KU athletics.

Will State and Local Government Technology Partnerships Be Impacted?

Many are wondering: will this travel ban affect technology partnerships, conferences, cybersecurity efforts and/or other cooperative government and private sector arrangements?

Sadly, I think it will impact public-private partnerships in several ways. Initially, this impact may be minor, but it could grow substantially depending on a variety of factors such as whether other states retaliate.

For example, the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) is scheduled to meet in Austin, Texas, this October, 2017. Will California state officials be able to attend? I certainly hope our respected government technology colleagues will be allowed to be there and offer their presentations and respected input. If not, California's leadership and influence in areas ranging from autonomous vehicles to smart cities to artificial intelligence to procurement reform will be negatively affected.

Similar topics will arise if leaders from California Universities cannot present their research findings at conferencesand events around the country in the named states.

Another question is whether other states and/or countries retaliate in some, such as forbidding their government staff from traveling to events or meetings in California. Numerous national (and global) technology and cybersecurity events are held in California.

Could events like the RSA Conference in San Francisco, which is the largest cybersecurity conference in the world, be impacted in 2018? Could non-government organizations organize boycotts of technology or other conferences in California? Is this the beginning of a new chapter in US culture wars between conservative and liberal states? Will future historians via these recent actions as a cultural turning point?

Answer: I certainly hope not. Perhaps some court will overturn this CA travel ban, in the same way that courts have stopped President Trumps Executive Orders on travel to the USA from certain overseas countries. This negative rhetoric is bound to flow over into other areas of government cooperation between state and local governments. But only time will tell for sure.

My Perspective

No doubt, most states have instituted out-of-state travel bans at some point. In Michigan government, state employees faced out-of-state travel restrictions for budget reasons during several years of furlough days such as in 2009. However, those bans focused on budget savings and included all out-of-state travel and not just specific states that passed laws that Michigan legislators disagreed with.

With the LA Times, my personal view is that that this government travel ban in California is ill-conceived. The LA Times ended their opinion piece like this:

Boycotts have a long and venerable history of success:Californians can look back with pride on the table-grape boycott of the 1960s that led to better working conditions for farmhands. Like that campaign, the best boycotts do more than rattle sabers. They are well-targeted and have a meaningful effect. They dont carry a list of exemptions and exceptions, and they stand a good chance of bringing about change with a low risk of retaliation and unintended consequences. Californias well-intended boycott on behalf of LGBTQ rights meets none of these standards.

I respectfully understand that the CA legislators are trying to make a point, but they cannot change the laws in other states by implementing these government employee travel bans to named states. These travel bans are more likely to inflame cross-state tensions even further, especially if even more states are added to the California list.

Regardless of whether you support the new laws in these eight states for religious liberties or whether you believe these laws are unfairly discriminatory, this travel ban is still a bad idea in my opinion. It may lead to a coalition of states that oppose California laws and take action, while other states may join with California.

If this trend continues, partnerships and cooperative relationships between a myriad of public and private institutions across the country will be negatively impacted. The situation could get much worse if other states counter with their own travel bans to California, as State Rep. Dustin Burrows of Texas says he would like to do.

Final Thoughts

In March 2016, I wrote an article entitled: Could the election be hacked? I was mocked in a few social media channels by some industry colleagues who said I was being an alarmist by raising the hacking issue at that time for the upcoming 2016 Presidential election.

No doubt, these two issues are very different, but I feel the same level of concern about the potential for this CA travel ban situation to escalate and impact state government business and mutual cooperation in business and technology areas nationwide.

I truly hope that California will back down and lift their travel ban to these states before the situation moves in an untold number of negative directions to the detriment of our entire nation.

Note: This blog contains my personal viewpoint on this CA travel ban issue. These views expressed may or may not be consistent with the opinions of Government Technology Magazine or eRepublic leadership.

Read more here:

Will California's New Travel Ban To Named States Affect Government Technology Partnerships? - Government Technology (blog)

USA TODAY NETWORK Published 12:08 a.m. ET June 25, 2017 | Updated 13 hours ago

Are Detroit and the Silicon Valley the hotbeds for driverless car development? Not necessarily, says Brent Snavely of the Detroit Free Press. Video by Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY

A self-driving Uber car drives down River Road on Pittsburgh's north side.(Photo: Gene J. Puskar, AP)

The stakes are enormous. Last year, Goldman Sachs projected the market for advanced driver assistance systems and autonomous vehicles would grow from about $3 billion in 2015 to $96 billion in 2025 and $290 billion in 2035.

In some cities, automakers, suppliers and technology companies are clustering to test their self-driving vehicles. In others, governors and mayors are beckoning the industry by changing laws or touting other inducements.

I think its about being a part of the race, said Alex Fischer, CEO of the Columbus Partnership, a group of top CEOs that helped the Ohio city beat out tech hubs such as Austin, Pittsburgh and San Francisco to win federal grant money through the government's Smart City Challenge.

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Cities are taking different paths to success. In Detroit, for instance, major corporations form the backbone for the emerging technology. In others such as Boston, Pittsburgh and Austin universities with cutting-edge research have spawned talented engineers and start-up companies.

Hereare the nation's hot spots that have emerged as leaders in the race to self-driving cars:

Austin Mayor Steve Adler likes to refer to Texas' capital city as the Kitty Hawk of driverless cars, referencing the site of the Wright Brothers' firstflight in 1903.

That's because Google's self-driving car unit, Waymo, quietly chose Austin for the first fully-autonomous test drive in 2015. Now Austin officials want more.

"We are trying to do everything we can to help promote and advancethe future of this technology," Adler said."We think its the wave of the future. We think it is going to help our city."

The city and the state have put political differences aside to embrace partnerships and legislation designed to attract testing and investment.Austin is a part of a statewide consortium that includes the University of Texas and Texas A&M University to create a network of proving grounds and testing areas.

Brent Snavely, Detroit Free Press

In October, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announced policies intended to put the city at the forefront.

"Boston is ready to lead the charge on self-driving vehicles," Walsh said in a statement.

Area technology companies are already at work. NuTonomy, a company that emerged from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013, is working with French automaker PSA Groupe on a self-driving car.

Brent Snavely, Detroit Free Press

In October, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announced policies intended to put the city at the forefront.

"Boston is ready to lead the charge on self-driving vehicles," Walsh said in a statement.

Area technology companies are already at work. NuTonomy, a company that emerged from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013, is working with French automaker PSA Groupe on a self-driving car.

Brent Snavely, Detroit Free Press

Columbus leaders are tickled their city was chosen for $50 million in federal and private funding over seven other finalists.Key to Columbus win was the buy-in of the citys major employers, who have come to view their home citys preparation for autonomous vehicles as part of the companies preparation for profits in the next century.

It combined investments from top local companies, the state of Ohio and Ohio State University to pool more than $400 million for autonomous and electric vehicles.

There are a select group of cities that are going to be a part of the race. And Columbus is in the race, and it always will be," Fischer said. "Some are going to win on certain projects, Columbus will win on others, and collectively the country will win.

Chrissie Thompson, Cincinnati Enquirer

A former industrial site 30 miles southwest of downtown Detroit where Rosie the Riveter worked during World War II is where the Motor City is planting one of its most significant flags in the battle to capture a significant role in the future of self-driving cars.

It is slated to become Michigan's newest testing ground for autonomous and connected vehicles.

What were going to create is ... a lifelike proving ground so we can really exercise these (driverless) vehicles, said John Maddox, CEO of The American Center for Mobility, which is expected to open late this year. No one will have the full scope of what we will have.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra emphasized the company's commitment to maintaining the state's leadership when she announced in December that the automaker will build and test autonomous Chevrolet Bolts in metro Detroit.

Ford Motor Vice Chairman Bill Ford said last year Detroit can be and should be ground zero, for the future of mobility.

Brent Snavely and Eric D. Lawrence, Detroit Free Press

Nashville was chosen as one of 10 global cities for an autonomous vehicles initiative launched last year by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Aspen Institute.

It certainly doesn't hurt that Nissan's U.S. headquarters is outside the city in Smyrnaand that the Japanese automaker was among the first to predict when it would field self-driving cars for sale 2020.

The citys newly appointed transportation director, Erin Hafkenschiel, wants to see shared electric autonomous vehicles in Nashville that would operate similar to Uber or Lyft. That would help alleviate congestion problems in tandem with major investments in mass transit, sidewalks and bikeways, she said.

The city has been upgrading its traffic signals to be compatible with autonomous vehicles.

Lizzy Alfs, The Tennessean

Northern Nevada has been at the forefront of self-driving car testing since 2011, when it became the first state to adopt legislation authorizing self-driving car testing.

Google was lured to Nevada by the state's dry weather and its wide-open spaces when it ran into early resistance from California. Plus, Tesla's Gigafactory, a massive 5-million-square-foot factory that began pumping out batteries for its electric cars, is on Reno's outskirts. Tesla has been aggressive in developing self-driving vehicles.

Six years ago, we envisioned people buying self-driving cars, said Bruce Breslow, director of the Nevada Department of Business & Industry. Now it looks like the first major push is going to be in fleets for self-driving cars whether it be a taxicab fleet, a transportation network company like Uber or Lyftor even self-driving trucks.

Jason Hildalgo,Reno Gazette-Journal

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey touts a hands-off regulatory environment in aneffort to lure autonomous vehicle testing to his state, and the tactic has led to some high-profile wins.

In December, Uber joined companies such asWaymo and Ford, which were already testing self-driving cars in the state. Uber promptly trucked its self-driving cars to Arizona in December following a registration dispute in California over not having the correct permits.

In April, Waymo announcedit would begin taking applications from Phoenix-area residents who want to be among the hundreds of riders testingan expanded fleet of Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid minivans outfitted with Waymo's myriad autonomous car sensors.

Ryan Randazzo, Arizona Republic

With talented professionals in the autonomous vehicle space at Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania's second-largest city quickly emerged as an attractive base for the world's leading self-driving car companies.

Uber, which recruited many of CMU's self-driving car experts, has located a major R&D facility in Pittsburgh. And Uber made a splash in September when it became the first major American company to offer urban rides to consumers in partially self-driving vehicles, choosing the confusing, pedestrian-filled, bridge-laden streets of Pittsburgh for the pilot program.

But Uber's relationship with the city has soured. Mayor Bill Peduto has publicly assailed Uber for refusing to back the city's application for a federal cities innovation grant and for making a stingy contribution to a philanthropic initiative.

That spat aside, Uber has shown no signs of easing off the accelerator in Pennsylvania. Competitors are fast on its heels. In February, Ford announced it would invest $1 billion over five years in Pittsburgh-based autonomous car start-up Argo AI.

Nathan Bomey, USA TODAY

With Silicon Valley at the heart of developing self-driving cars, California has become a top testing ground.

Google has been letting its high-tech, self-driving cars wheel around the area south of San Francisco for several years. Now, about 30 companies from traditional automakers to upstart tech companies have taken out the paperwork to test self-driving cars in the Golden State.

Silicon Valley is the right place to be doing a lot of this work, says Greg Larson, chief of the Office of Traffic Operation Research for the California DOT. Instead of building a car with a computer, this is building a computer and putting a car around it.

Marco della Cava, USA TODAY

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The NFL has decided to take steps aimed at improving the TV presentation of its games, with specific focus on pace. To do that, the league actually went to the homes of fans to replicat[e] the game experience.

Thats what NFL COO Tod Leiweke told thesecond annual Geek Wire Sports Tech Conference at CenturyLink Field, via Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times.

Were really starting to study how people are watching games, Leiweke said. And were doing it in really, really interesting ways.

Among other things, the league is using eye-tracking technology in fan homes to monitor the things they follow during the games, along with what they do during commercial breaks. The study has contributed to a decision to reduce the total number of commercial breaks from five per quarter to four.

They want a pace of play that doesnt involve us chopping things up, Leiweke said. [Y]oure going to see, next [season] really working hard to tighten up that game presentation and present the game with more of that pace.

Its all part of an effort to deal with any ever-changing present that continues to raise questions about the future, given the explosion of options that consumers now have when it comes to the many different ways to spend their time considerably more than the days when the options were to watch one of three channels on TV, read a book or a magazine, or stare off into space like David Puddy.

Anyone who thinks they know exactly whats going to happen is not telling you the truth, Leiweke said. Because its very, very hard to tell, in this rapidly changing world, what this is all going to look like in 2025.

Its very, very to tell what its all going to look like in 2017. For those who watch NFL games, its apparently going to start looking a lot different.

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NFL uses eye-tracking technology to improve game presentation - NBCSports.com

Mike Pratt has been promoted to managing director of the Office of Technology Development after being interim managing director since August 2015. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

Talk about taking one for the team. In 2008, BU researcher Ed Damiano needed a couple of healthy adults as controls for the first human clinical trials of the bionic pancreas for people with type 1 diabetes that hed been working on for several years. Mike Pratt volunteered. He spent 27 hours in a bed at Massachusetts General Hospital with IVs attached to both arms. An administrator with the Office of Technology Development (OTD) for 17 years, Pratt says he was inspired by the College of Engineering biomedical engineering professors research missionto improve the lives of children with the disease. I believed in Eds work, he says.

Now, after leading OTD as interim managing director since August 2015, Pratt (Questrom13) has been named to the position. As University leaders have undertaken a critical review of OTD over the past year, Pratt has been instrumental in refocusing the offices goals: to provide prompt, informed service to faculty inventors/creators while protecting and licensing their creations through clear, transparent, and efficient processes, Gloria Waters, vice president and associate provost for research, writes in a letter announcing Pratts promotion. Waters commends Pratts vision for further enhancing BUs ability to interact with industry in order to promote the institutional goal of widespread dissemination/use for societal benefit.

For Pratt, who holds a BA in physics from the College of the Holy Cross and an MBA from the Questrom School of Business, his job at OTD is an opportunity to connect people from two different worldsacademia and industry. Its an important responsibility to try and commercialize these technologies so more people can benefit from all the hard work that goes into research and discovery, he says. People connecting with people to solve common problems: thats tech transfer to me.

Getting a discovery to market can take yearsif it gets there at alland Pratt says his goal is for OTD to help faculty navigate the paperwork, and the inevitable obstacles, as smoothly as possible. Were not a gatekeeper, he says. Were an enabler. We want people to view tech transfer not as an administrative burden, but as an office that helped them through this difficult process and didnt hold them back.

OTD should enable faculty to fulfill their own visions for collaborating with industry, he says. We want to empower faculty to make good choices, but we also need to draft legal agreements that protect the institution from downstream liabilities.

Pratt joined OTD in May 2000 as a licensing associate responsible for inventions that came out of research in the physical sciences. Over the years, he has held a series of different roles, each with increasing responsibility: director of corporate business development, director of translational research and corporate relations, executive director of business development. Before coming to BU, he was the global support manager at NESLAB Instruments, Inc., of Portsmouth, N.H.

In 2015, Pratts office helped Damiano navigate a mountain of licensing and intellectual property agreements to start Beta Bionics, Inc., as a public benefit corporation.The companys mission is to serve the type 1 diabetes community by getting Damianos bionic pancreas through final clinical trials and the regulatory process and into commercialization.

Thats BU empowering Ed to pursue his dream the way he wants to pursue it, Pratt says. If we were just trying to make money, someone would have said to Ed, Dont do it that way.

Damiano credits Pratt with guiding him and his Beta Bionics partners through an incredibly complex licensing deal involving many stakeholders, under an absurdly short timeline, and through the 2015 holiday season.

It was on a Friday night in mid November 2015 that Damiano let Pratt know that he had to complete the licensing paperwork for Beta Bionics before the end of the year. We went to Eds house that Saturday, says Pratt. We said, If were going to get this done, wed better start right now.

Pratt and his team accomplished in six weeks what most academic institutions wouldnt be able to do in six months, Damiano says. Boston University is extremely fortunate to have Mikes dedication, talent, and commitment to lead its Office of Technology Development.

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New Leader for Office of Technology Development - BU Today

Posted June 26, 2017 09:16:26

Australian scientists have developed world-first surveillance technology to combat the global illegal fishing trade.

Source: CSIRO

The CSIRO, in collaboration with Indonesian authorities, have created a notification system that will collect satellite data from the anti-collision devices on most boats.

The system will flag vessels that have a pattern of suspicious behaviour, and send reports to the authorities when those boats pull into port.

One tell-tale sign that a boat may be engaged in illegal behaviour is moving abnormally through shipping lanes.

Lead research scientist at the CSIRO, Chris Wilcox, said that could include moving faster or slower than usual.

"One of the other things we look for is indicators a vessel is trying to avoid surveillance," he said.

"If they turn off their transmitter for instance, or if they change their vessel name while they're at sea, we flag those as suspicious also."

Illegal fishing is the third most lucrative black market in the world - behind gun running and drug trafficking.

"It's a major issue in terms of major crime and it's linked to lots of other things, like people smuggling and drugs," Dr Wilcox said.

"If you want to do something at sea you would use a fishing vessel because they're the cheapest and most seaworthy.

"Half of Australia's barramundi comes from Asia. We import the majority of our seafood, so the level of illegality in them is really very relevant for people in Australia."

Some estimate about a third of the seafood in Australian markets is mislabelled and potentially caught illegally.

The project team is in discussions with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation to distribute the new system to member countries.

"We've had quite strong interest from national governments here in Australia and in the US, and from regional and global bodies," Dr Wilcox said.

"In our region here in the Pacific and Indian oceans, there's been quite strong interest."

The technology will be launched at the Our Oceans conference in Malta in October.

Topics: illegal-fishing, law-crime-and-justice, science-and-technology, australia

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CSIRO behind breakthrough technology to help combat illegal fishing trade - ABC Online