Technology – Page 47

Why These 10 Stocks Were in the Spotlight

November 1, 2021 Audrey

In this article we will take a look at the some notable tech stocks that trended this week. You can skip our detailed analysis of these stocks and go to read This Week in Technology: Why These 5 Stocks Were in the Spotlight.

It was a good week for the broader tech market as the NASDAQ 100 index had risen 2.81% over the last five trading days. Among the tech stocks that trended include Twilio Inc. (NYSE:TWLO), PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL), Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), and Spotify Technology S.A. (NYSE:SPOT). Let’s analyze why each stock was in the spotlight this week and how elite funds were positioned among them.

Why do we care about hedge fund activity? Insider Monkey’s research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 86 percentage points since March 2017. Between March 2017 and July 2021 our monthly newsletter’s stock picks returned 186.1%, vs. 100.1% for the SPY. Our stock picks outperformed the market by 86 percentage points (see the details here). That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to. You can subscribe to our free newsletter on our homepage to receive our stories in your inbox.

Source: pexels

10. Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) trended this week due to CEO Mark Zuckerberg deciding to focus the social media company more on the metaverse, which is a shared virtual environment. With the metaverse platform, users can use augmented and virtual reality technology to potentially realize a better experience than the company’s existing apps. To make the metaverse a reality, Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is expected to increase its capital spending in 2022 to $29 billion to $34 billion from an estimated $19 billion this year. Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg owns substantial shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB).

9. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) was in the spotlight this week after it disclosed it owned a 20% stake in Rivian. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) was trended due to the company reporting strong results for its cloud division. For the third quarter, Amazon Web Services grew its sales 39% to $16.1 billion and is now at an annualized sales run rate of $64.44 billion. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) CFO Brian Olsavsky said, “AWS has seen a reacceleration of revenue growth as customers have expanded their commitment to the cloud and selected AWS as the cloud partner.” Billionaire Jeff Bezos owns substantial shares in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).

8. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) was in the spotlight this week after the company reclaimed the title of the world’s most valuable tech company. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) did so with the help of strong cloud growth. For its fiscal Q1 earnings, the company’s intelligent cloud sales were $16.98 billion, versus the expected $16.58 billion. Sales of Azure grew 48% year over year

Texas A&M considers massive technology consolidation

October 30, 2021 Audrey

Consultants on Monday recommended that Texas A&M centralize its information technology department and establish a central help desk to give leaders more information about services.

A restructuring of one of the country’s largest universities, outlined in a report published by two companies hired by the Texas A&M system in June — MGT Consulting and Martin+Crumpton — would have the institution halve the number of units in its IT department’s organizational chart. The guidance is in line with the report’s broader takeaways, including that the university needs to better organize its departments for efficiency and oversight.

“As a result [of decentralization], talent and financial resources are not used in a practical or transparent method, and students, faculty, and staff do not have complete clarity when seeking help from operational units,” the report reads. “A misalignment of oversight responsibilities has resulted in a duplication of efforts, ineffective initiatives, and unnecessary administrative burdens on faculty and staff.”

The news aligns with a broader trend at universities and colleges now reviewing their operations or undergoing strategic planning efforts. Virginia Tech recently employed Deloitte to review its IT and cybersecurity operations, which will include how the university balances departmental and central IT operations. University regents set a goal in University of Arizona President Robert Bobbins’s contract for finding “appropriate centralization” opportunities for departments including IT.

Texas A&M enrolls more than 70,000 students and operates at two branch campuses. According to its report, the firms surveyed more than 16,000 former Texas A&M students, current students, faculty, staff and deans, and they reviewed operations at peer universities and conducted interviews.

Consultants also recommended centralizing other departments — including human resources, finance and marketing — but IT was highlighted as one of the larger groups, employing 300 part-time liaisons. How the university chooses to adopt these recommendations affects workers, with consultants noting in the report that restructuring IT would highlight where there are inefficiencies and duplication. Leaders can reduce staffing over time, reinvesting the money into updating technology or infrastructure or redistributing workers to fill gaps, according to the report.

Centralization would involve pulling IT workers assigned to other areas, like research or student affairs, to work under a central IT department, and moving communications and finance for IT operations out to related departments. The proposed organizational chart streamlines units based on the centralization, grouping units under leaders, like an associate vice president for student and faculty systems or on-campus college support.

“Not only will this increase the effectiveness of Information Technology and create myriad efficiencies, but consolidation will also lead to improvements in the ability to manage campus-wide cybersecurity,” the report reads. “The effort to consolidate and centralize services and personnel will naturally lead to a more efficient organization. Cost savings should be reinvested into continuing to advance technology services and other critical issues, such as cybersecurity.”

The central help desk is proposed as part of the firms’ recommendation that Texas A&M collect more data on its everyday services, and the report notes “little data” was available

From the field to the sky; Purdue University uses drone technology for farming

October 29, 2021 Audrey

FARMLAND, Ind. — Harvest time is here but the work doesn’t stop for farmers when the crops leave the field, in some ways it begins anew.

Hoosier farmers are busy this week dodging raindrops while planting cover crops like radishes, wheat and oats. This lineup of winter produce helps keep the soil, and the nutrients within, in place until next year.

Purdue University is using drones to do what tractors cannot, as they say the future of agriculture may be above the ground.

“I think this drone is absolutely amazing,” Purdue Extension Precision AG Educator Mark Carter said. “We use it for spreading seeds. Use it for spraying pesticides, herbicides. We can do it in a very precise manner. It’s very controlled.”

Remote controlled, Purdue University employs nearly 25 drones throughout Indiana at various AG Centers. Each drone can carry roughly 25 pounds of seed or liquid which is then programmed and spread throughout any given field.

“You think about the first tractor that pulled something without horses… that was technology,” Carter said. “This is just the next step. We have digital agriculture where we’re mapping everything, we’re tracking every acre and immediately we started seeing some different results.”

With the help of their eight-propellered implements, farmers can plot their fields, plant more precisely and get a real time view of what’s typically reserved for birds.

“Real time information can let you know if you have any issues emerging… whether it’s disease or insects, weeds or water issues,” Carter said. “You can see it from up high. and you don’t need a bunch of fancy software, you just fly up and take a look and see what’s there.”

While most newer tractors are equipped with satellite technology which allows them to be precise to the nearest inch, these often, self driving tractors, still come up short when the weather’s wet.

“The fields are so muddy that if we put a tractor in there right now it’s gonna sink. It’s gonna rut up the field. It’s gonna make a big mess,” Carter said. “The beautiful thing about this technology with the drones is I’m spreading cover crops today where as we couldn’t get the tractor and the drill in to plant the cover crop even if we waited a few days… and the weather today is favorable for planting – why waste time?”

If time is money then Carter says farmers should be all ears.

“Every dollar counts, our seasons aren’t always the longest and the weather is always a variable so every minute counts,” Carter said. “Our margins are thin that’s why it all really matters.”

At Purdue University’s Davis Purdue AG Center along County Road 900 West in Farmland, a few miles northeast of Muncie; educators like Carter and AG-Center Superintendent Jeff Boyer take the time to test new technology so hardworking producers don’t have to.

The latest technology in art restoration? Bacteria

October 28, 2021 Audrey

Written by Ben Wedeman, CNNJacqui Palumbo, CNNRome, Italy

Rome may be the eternal city, but its ancient artifacts are under unrelenting assault by the ravages of time, pollution, acid rain and the sweat and breath of millions of tourists. The Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum, for one, has the grime of 18 centuries caked onto its surface.

Now, conservator Alessandro Lugari and his colleagues are trying to salvage the city’s treasures using a new technology — one that employs one of the oldest forms of life: bacteria.

The Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome is being fortified with billions of bacteria that have been fed enzymes in order to calcify. Credit: John Harper/Moment RF/Getty Images

“This marble was almost disintegrating; it was turning to powder,” he says. “So we needed to intervene with consolidation.”

Standing beneath the arch, Lugari points to a marble block weighing several metric tons. “Inside, there are billions of bacteria,” he adds.

The block in question served as a test for the rest of the monument. Its exterior was covered with enzymes, drawing the bacteria — which naturally reside within the marble — to the surface. The resulting calcification strengthened the stone, with the enzymes applied multiple times a day over the course of two weeks.

Bacteria “have already been selected by nature to develop potential abilities which we can test and study and apply,” said microbiologist Chiara Alisi. Credit: CNN

“(The bacteria) doesn’t pass through the marble but rather through the cracks, and it solidifies,” Lugari explains. “It becomes covered with calcium carbonate, which is the same substance as marble and therefore binds, on a microscopic level, the various parts of the marble, creating more marble.

“We tried this, it worked, so the next step will be to try it on the entire monument,” he adds.

Restoring at the molecular level

Silvia Borghini, conservator at the National Roman Museum, said that bacteria have an unfair reputation because they are associated with infection, but their functions are much more complex. “Only a very small number of bacteria are pathogens,” she says. “More than 95 percent of bacteria are not harmful to humans… we live in the midst of bacteria and live thanks to bacteria.”

Increasingly, restoration work is being carried out on a molecular level. But in Italy, the challenge is huge because the country has archaeological sites on a monumental scale.

Michelangelo’s 16th-century tombs for the Medici family have recently been cleaned with bacteria. Credit: Alamy

Beginning in November 2019, bacterial microbes were used in Florence to clean the Medici Chapel, a mausoleum designed by Michelangelo in the 16th-century.

“They found that they had to remove both organic and inorganic materials,” says Chiara Alisi, a microbiologist with the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development. “But in this case using chemical substances would have been too aggressive, so (the restorers) asked for our help.”

Alisi and her team search for potentially useful strains of bacteria in

Can new DNA technology help solve the 2015 murder of a Jacksonville grandmother?

October 28, 2021 Audrey

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Years after a grandmother was found beaten to death in her Jacksonville home detectives are hoping for new leads.

The woman’s daughter wants answers, too.

“She was a great mother, she was a phenomenal grandmother, she was my best friend,” said daughter Kara Trimmer.

Thursday will mark six years since Bradla Cook, 61, was murdered and her car was found torched nearby.

Trimmer said what’s concerning about the case is that there was no sign of forced entry at her mom’s home, meaning whoever did this was somebody she trusted.

A cold case detective said they hope advancements in DNA technology will help them find her killer.

A car on fire behind a Winn-Dixie on Blanding Blvd led investigators to Cook’s home about a mile away. Inside, they found Cook’s body.

“Mrs. Cook was 61 years old. She’s your neighbor, she’s your mom, she’s your grandmother. She wasn’t involved in any nefarious activities. She wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Det. Ray Reeves said.

Reeves said the cause of death was blunt force trauma but she’d been stabbed, too.

“This case in particular, we need the community’s help with,” Reeves said. “There were no signs of forced entry, so it was obviously someone who she had some kind of relationship with, that she knew, or she was trying to help.”

He said some electronics were missing, but money was left so they don’t think it was just a robbery.

“It was confusing. Like who would hate my mother so much to be as selfish and jealous to take her from so many people that loved her unconditionally?” Trimmer said.

Trimmer said her mom, known affectionately as “B,” was a loving grandmother who was active in the community.

She said the mourning process has been overshadowed by questions.

Investigators believe someone killed Cook, left her in her car, and dumped it, setting it on fire in an attempt to burn evidence. But Det. Reeves said they didn’t succeed and investigators have troves of evidence from both scenes.

“And through the years, there has been great advancements in technology,” Reeves said. “We have so many items of evidence collected from both scenes, DNA swabs and things like that that we have been able to re-submit over the last few months to our partners at the FDLE and they’re rechecking that evidence for us.”

He said detectives are already following up on the results.

In the meatime, Trimmer has a message for whoever did this.

“Just be an honest human and do the right thing,” Trimmer said.

She is hopeful that fresh eyes from the Cold Case unit will soon get justice for her mom.

Anyone who knows what happened to Cook, or saw anything that October night in 2015, is asked to call JSO.

https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2021/10/27/can-new-dna-technology-help-solve-the-2015-murder-of-a-jacksonville-grandmother/…

PAX Technology Raided by FBI, Suspected Ties to Cybercrime

October 28, 2021 Audrey

Image for article titled Large Chinese Tech Firm Raided by the FBI After Accusations of Aiding Cyberattacks — Photo: Robyn Beck / AFP (Getty Images)

A prominent Chinese tech firm that sells hardware to companies throughout the world is currently under investigation after being accused of facilitating cyberattacks on various American and European targets.

On Tuesday, a swarm of FBI agents raided the Florida offices of Pax Technology, a large, Chinese-owned point-of-sale manufacturer that sells millions of payment terminals (POS) to companies all over the globe. POS terminals are essentially payment kiosks. While you may not recognize the term, you’ve definitely used one before. They can be found pretty much everywhere—from supermarkets to gas stations to your local dive bar (wherever you need to swipe a credit card, a POS terminal will be there).

News of the raid on PAX was originally broken by WOKV, a local Florida news outlet, which reported Tuesday that the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and other agency officials were conducting “an investigation” at the business’s warehouse in Jacksonville. When queried by reporters, the FBI put out the following statement about their activities:

“The FBI Jacksonville Division, in partnership with Homeland Security Investigations, Customs and Border Protection, Department of Commerce, and Naval Criminal Investigative Services, and with the support of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, is executing a court-authorized search at this location in furtherance of a federal investigation. We are not aware of any physical threat to the surrounding community related to this search. The investigation remains active and ongoing and no additional information can be confirmed at this time.”

While that doesn’t give us a whole lot of clarity on the situation, security journalist Brian Krebs has reported that the company is being investigated for its potential role in facilitating cyberattacks on various American and European targets. A trusted source told Krebs that the company’s point-of-sale devices were supposedly being used as a storage space for malware as well as a “command and control” center, whereby attacks could be deployed and data stolen.

“FBI and MI5 are conducting an intensive investigation into PAX,” the source told Krebs. “A major US payment processor began asking questions about network packets originating from PAX terminals and were not given any good answers.”

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That payment processor would appear to be Worldpay from FIS. On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that the company had recently begun replacing PAX-manufactured point-of-sale devices with those made by two competitor firms. The replacements, which started prior to news of the federal investigation, were spurred by concerns over odd network activity emanating from PAX’s POS terminals. When asked about the activity by Worldpay, PAX reportedly did not give “satisfactory answers,” a spokesperson told the outlet.

Krebs points out—and it’s a well-known fact—that point-of-sale terminals are common targets for cybercriminals and that the devices are frequently hijacked by hacker groups for the purposes of credential theft and malware distribution. It wouldn’t