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Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) have been a popular way to fundraise projects in the crypto market, but that changed with the advent of regulations. Since then, Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) and Initial DEX Offering (IDO) have entered the market. But with the rise of blockchain games or GameFi, the latest buzz in the town is Initial Game Offering (IGO). We will look at the top 3 things you need to know about Initial Game Offerings in this article. So, without further ado, let's dive straight into it. What is IGO? Much like ICOs and IEOs, IGO is also a fundraising event for crypto gaming projects where participants get assets needed to play the game. Some IGOs also offer in-game rewards. However, it depends on a participant's investment. Simply put, that allows investors to invest in a gaming project at its early development stage. What this fundraising method does is that it lowers the barrier to entry for retail investors by enabling them to get their hands on the in-game assets and tokens before they are made available to the public. IGO is a crowdfunding approach for crypto games While the crypto game project gets the funding directly from its audience, investors get lucrative in-game assets and tokens at a considerable discount before the public sale. A significant benefit of IGOs is that it is open to all investors. The growing interest and popularity of this fundraising type have encouraged tremendous growth in the blockchain gaming space. For instance, Binance's centralized fundraising platform Binance Launchpad was the one behind the launch of the most notable gaming project Axie Infinity. A Look into Launchpads IGOs are organized through specialized platforms known as launchpad platforms. The platform you chose is crucial for the success of an IGO. This means that the platform history, success rate, amount of money raised, and time taken to achieve the funding target must be analyzed. Currently, we are at Listing.Help work with several launchpads that are hosting IGOs: 1 — GameFi was one of the first launchpads to introduce the concept of IGOs. It has four investment tiers, but only one offers guaranteed allocation. One needs a minimum of one lottery ticket, which is equivalent to 20 GAFI tokens. KABY Pool and Deathroad IGO are two popular offerings on the platform. 2 — Binance NFT is another one where IGOs grant access to exclusive in-game assets. The platform uses a subscription system to give all users an equal opportunity to participate. To ensure fairness, NFTs are allocated via public and verifiable algorithmic selection. 3 — A popular IGO launchpad Seedify Fund is governed by a DAO. As for participating in Seedify IGOs, you need between 250 and 100,000 Seedify (SFUND) tokens. The platform has nine tiers. The first one is a lottery tier, while guaranteed allocation starts from tier 2. So far, Seedify has crowdfunded Cyber Trade, Heros Chained, MetaStrike, Penguin Karts, Space, Misfits, Supernova, and other gaming projects. 4 — Enjinstarter is another popular one that has a unique approach to IGO. The ecosystem reserves 75% of IGO tokens for guaranteed allocations, which are then split into three tiers. It operates on a first-come, first-served basis, and investors can participate even with a small holding of at least 1,250 EJS tokens. Age of Tanks, Attack Wagon, Ecia, Gaia Everworld, and PathDAO, among other games, have been crowdfunded on Enjinstarter. 5 — Gamestarter, which has crowdfunded BitHotel, Crypto Fight Club, Dark Frontiers, Demole, and others, allow gaming projects to sell their NFTs or tokens to raise funds. It also has plans to expand beyond the crypto gaming space, as, in the future, Gamestarter will also support INO (Initial NFT Offering). Mechanics of IGO Buying an IGO is a chance to invest in a gaming project early. To participate in such an event, you must purchase the launchpad's native coin and lock it for a certain period of time. These tokens are locked in a pool, and based on the algorithm, the investors would receive either the project tokens or the NFTs required to play the game. In some cases, these tokens and NFTs can be traded outside of the gaming ecosystem on DEXs and NFT marketplaces. Different launchpads have different setups for an IGO, but the typical process involves: Connect your wallet to the launchpad. Select a tier that reflects the value of the investment. Identifying an IGO you want to invest in. It is also better to check whether the launchpad provides guaranteed allocation or not. To qualify for these IGOs, you can apply for Whitelist by going to relevant Launchpad's website, connecting your wallet, and staking the native token. Some platforms also require you to complete KYC. Once you have joined the pool, you can apply for the Whitelist. Raffles are another way launchpads assign assets to investors. To apply for the lottery, go to the launchpad website and ensure you're accessing the correct URL address. Connect your wallet and then join the Lottery by clicking on the button. On selecting the IGO, you'll be all set to participate in the raffle for the upcoming projects. The Crucial Ingredient: Community For an IGO to be successful, the crypto game needs to have a vibrant and strong community rooting for them. A community is usually formed and maintained via popular social media platforms such as Discord, Telegram, and Twitter. In the crypto industry, communities are instrumental in shaping how projects develop and operate. To build a thriving community, a project needs to start with potential members who identify with its envision. The project's focus needs to be on its purpose and members. Members should be involved in every step of the project and empowered through acknowledgment, feedback, and rewards. The beauty of crypto communities is that they are spread worldwide and united by the same idea and purpose. The support of a community ensures the long-term success of a project. Conclusion Crypto gaming projects are already experiencing tremendous growth and a rise in revenue. And IGO is an important part of this success. Although, GameFi help crypto adoption a lot. The recent Chainplay showed that 75% of respondents came to crypto through GameFI. And I think, as crypto goes mainstream and decentralized gaming combined with NFTs gain traction, some established blockchain games have received multimillion-dollar valuations. research The blockchain gaming industry is relatively new but fast-growing. Ultimately, with GameFi on the rise, IGOs can emerge as a viable solution for crypto gaming projects, which are already becoming a mainstay in the industry.

Top 3 Things You Need to Know About Initial Game Offerings (IGOs)

Mergers and acquisitions help drive the business world forward. Those that take place in the cybersecurity industry are no exception. Cybersecurity firm Momentum reported that M&As in cybersecurity in 2021. Around 14 mergers and acquisitions amounted to $1 billion, including deals involving Proofpoint, Avast, Mimecast, and McAfee, among others. hit a whopping $77.5 billion Another major player in the cybersecurity landscape is IBM, which recently announced plans for an upcoming acquisition. Below, learn more about IBM's acquisition of Randori, what this deal means for the future of IBM, and how it will impact the cybersecurity sector. IBM Announces Plans to Acquire Randori At this year's RSA Conference (RSAC), IBM announced plans to acquire a leading attack surface management (ASM) provider and offensive security company Randori, based in the Boston area. Randori seeks to help clients understand what external facing assets they possess, on-site or in the cloud, that attackers may see and prioritize exposures that come with the most risk. IBM acquired Randori to streamline its threat detection and improve its response solutions portfolio. Additionally, the deal is expected to bolster IBM's Hybrid Cloud Strategy, which to all types of clients, such as cost-effectiveness and more value compared to a public cloud-only approach. provides plenty of business benefits Before IBM announced this acquisition, Randori secured more than $30 million in Greenhill, Meijer and FirstBank funding. One benefit of solution is that it is a "hacker-led" company. Clients will experience an authentic cybersecurity incident during simulations. From there, Randori can assist clients in determining previously unknown exposure points that could lead to a data breach and negatively impact their business. Randori's ASM What This Means for IBM Moving Forward There's no denying that companies are grappling with an expanded attack surface. Cybercriminals are also growing to be more sophisticated — some have even __ __to launch their attacks. harnessed the power of AI One beneficial aspect of IBM's acquisition of Randori is timing. IBM recently joined hundreds of other companies and suspended business activity in Russia due to the country's recent attacks on Ukraine. IBM also in Russia in what's being called a "wind-down" of operations. The U.S. federal government also responded to Russia's attacks with punitive economic sanctions, , including banking and financial systems, oil and gas businesses, and the technology sector. began laying off employees targeting vulnerable industries As per IBM's announcement, the company plans on with the extended detection response (XDR) capabilities that come with the IBM Security QRadar. Insights from Randori's software will feed into the QRadar XDR. Security teams will gain more visibility for threat hunting, incident response and intelligent alert triage. integrating Randori's ASM software Additionally, it's expected that Randori's offensive security solution will complement X-Force Red's leading hacker lead offensive security services, another benefit rooted in IBM's acquisition. How Will the IBM Acquisition Impact the Cybersecurity Industry? Combining IBM's deep AI and threat intelligence expertise with Randori's solutions could help provide more cybersecurity solutions to clients and deliver better protection from cyber incidents. Mike Beck, global CISO at DarkTrace, says, "CISOs want solutions that prioritize cyber risks and autonomously harden their environments…businesses are in a constant state of flux and…operational risks are not static. Risk assessment and subsequent hardening must be done in real-time, which is only possible with an AI-driven approach." When companies can leverage the latest digital tools, powered by AI, machine learning, or another emerging technology, to improve their AMS, they're less likely to experience downtime or face critical data breaches lessens. It's vital to take a preventive approach to cybersecurity and managing potential attacks. Consider how beneficial it is for a company to see attacks from the cybercriminal's perspective. With the acquisition, IBM's solutions may become even more valuable to the modern company, regardless of industry. Other IBM Acquisitions Aside from the Randori deal, IBM has acquired three other companies this year. The company is looking to boost its hybrid cloud services and deliver superb AI capabilities to its clients. IBM acquired Sentaca to help them , which is expected to revolutionize the tech industry and provide more use cases for other sectors, such as health care and consumer electronics. The company also acquired Neudesec, a leading Microsoft Azure consultancy firm. prepare for the 5G era In January, IBM acquired Envizi to assist organizations with sustainability initiatives and achieve environmental goals. This specific acquisition could not be any more timely, considering how the climate crisis is a significant issue many companies and the countries they operate in are concerned about. IBM: A Juggernaut Company There's no doubt that IBM is leveraging its power and success to acquire companies and improve their goods and services. Before the Randori deal, its acquisitions were diverse. They sought to achieve unique outcomes, from the 5G tech revolution to addressing climate change. It will be interesting to see how IBM moves forward with Randori and other acquisitions in cybersecurity. It seems as though IBM is making great strides to help its clients achieve their goals, protect themselves and prepare for the world to become even more digital.

What will IBM's Acquisition of Randori Mean for Cybersecurity?

Photo by Fakurian Design on Unsplash What is an IGO? stands for IGO Initial Game Offering. It's similar to ICO – Initial Coin Offering and IDO – Initial DEX Offering. It’s a presale of tokens (available to pre-selected buyers) before they are listed on an exchange. While ICOs and IDOs can be for any type of token/project, IGOs, as the name implies, are only crypto games. The purpose of the IGO is to raise funds for the next stages of the game’s development, marketing, etc. This means investing at a very early stage and of course, this carries some risks as there’s no guarantee that the project will be completed or successful. However, the benefit of investing so early is that you’re buying the token at the lowest possible price and as a result, you can expect the value of the token to go up significantly (5x – 60x in my experience) within the first 48 hours... and potentially even more in the future. The main rule of making big gains (percentage-wise) in crypto is getting in early, before the price pumps… and you cannot get into a project any earlier than this (unless of course, you are one of the devs;). Launchpads You can find upcoming IGOs on launchpads. Launchpads are platforms designed for, well, launching new projects. They can be on different blockchains - Ethereum, BSC, Cardano, etc. Some may have games alongside other projects, while others are focused purely on games. They may have different criteria for accepting new projects and for the potential buyers to get whitelisted (being able to take part in an IGO). Also, some are likely to have more projects listed than others. There are many different launchpads but below are a few examples. Seedify Fund Game Fi Trust Pad Enjinstarter From my point of view, the four main criteria for selecting a launchpad are: 1. How frequently they launch new projects? How much it will cost me i.e. how many launchpad tokens do I have to purchase to have a guaranteed allocation in an IGO. 2. What are their criteria for a guaranteed allocation? The pool weight is your ‘slice of the pie’. It varies with each IGO (depends on how many investors are in the pool, at what tiers and how many tokens are for sale) but you can expect the bottom tier (weight 1-2) to be able to invest sometimes only around 20-30 USD in each IGO, while the top tiers might be able to invest around 3,000-5,000 USD. 3. What is the pool weight for each tier? This means that at lower tiers you certainly won’t become a millionaire anytime soon ;-). That’s the downside of pools that have a relatively low entry for guaranteed allocation – they are very attractive and have a lot of members. But as you can get 30-60x gains, you can turn for example 20 USD into 1,000 USD quite easily, which is still pretty cool  While the price of the tokens in an IGO is low, you have to remember that there’re still gas fees to consider. For example, Binance Smart Chain or Polygon have much lower fees than Ethereum. 4. Which network (blockchain) it’s using? How to Take Part in an IGO? There’s only one way - your wallet address must be on a whitelist, which is usually published a few hours or maybe a day before an IGO (for example on launchpad’s Telegram channel). There are two methods: How to get on the whitelist? Winning a spot in a lottery
. Guaranteed allocation (usually by holding a specific amount of launchpad tokens). Winning a spot in a lottery is pretty self-explanatory ;-). Sometimes the lottery is completely random, in other cases, holding a certain amount of launchpad tokens gives you higher chances of winning. For example, this is the case with Game Fi and Trust Pad. Having a guaranteed allocation is probably what most of us are interested in. It’s usually quite straightforward – you just need enough launchpad tokens in your wallet to qualify for a particular tier. The downside is that the amount is usually quite high, especially for larger allocations. How Does Guaranteed Allocation Work in Practice In this section, I will compare four launchpads (Seedify, Game Fi, Trust Pad and Enjin Starter) and the tiers they offer. Please bear in mind that over time, launchpads may change their tiers and of course the prices of their tokens will also change. Seedify Fund As you can see, you need between 250 and 100,000 SFUND tokens to participate in an IGO on and there are 9 tiers. Seedify Only Tier 1 is a lottery. From Tier 2 onwards (1,000 SFUND) you have guaranteed allocation in every IGO. SFUND token currently trades around 4.3 USD, although it was around 5.3 just a few days ago. At current prices, this means an investment of 4,300 to 430,000 USD for guaranteed allocations. It’s a lot of money but a few good IGOs can make it worthwhile. Also, the prices of many tokens went up a lot recently. I was talking about SFUND on and when the prices were between 2.9 and 3.3 USD (so it’s worth following me there;-) and during the summer market pullback you could easily get it for around 0.3 – 0.6 USD. This means that it was possible to get Tier 3 with around 1,000 USD! my YouTube channel Twitter Game Fi As you can see, has a slightly different approach – only 4 tiers and only the top one has guaranteed allocation. You need between 20 and 500 GAFI tokens, which at the current price of GAFI (68 USD) means anything between 1,360 and 34,000 USD. Game Fi Every 20 GAFI tokens give you one ‘lottery ticket’ so although tiers 1-3 are all lottery, tier 3 gives you a 20 times better chance of getting on the whitelist. Also, as it’s a lottery, the number of spots on the whitelist is known in advance so individual allocations are known upfront and higher than in the case of, for example, Seedify. Tier 1 (Rookie) of Game Fi is similar in allocation to Tier 3 of Seedify, and Tier 3 (Pro) is similar to Tier 7… but, it’s a lottery so you never know if you’ll be able to participate in an IGO. Trust Pad has 9 tiers and as you can see they’re a combination of lotteries with various weighting and guaranteed allocations. Trust Pad TPAD token currently trades around 0.46 USD (although you could get it for as little as 0.07 during the summer), so you need an investment of at least 1,380 USD to participate in the lottery or anything between 5,520 and 85,100 USD to have a guaranteed allocation. Trust Pad is not focused purely on games but there’s still a good number of IGO using it. Enjinstarter has yet another approach. 75% of the pool (the tokens which will be available in the IGO) is reserved for guaranteed allocations split between 3 tiers. Enjinstarter To participate, you have to hold between 25,000 and 500,000 EJS tokens, which at the current price of 0.13 USD amount to 3,250 – 65,000 USD. What’s different is that the remaining 25% of the pool is available to anyone who has at least 1 EJS token in their wallet. This is on the first-come, first-served basis, so it’s not the best solution but it’s nice that there are options available for those who may not necessarily be able to invest thousands into a launchpad coin. Stages of an IGO So how an IGO works in practice? This example is based on a recent launch of Bloktopia on Seedify. All upcoming IGOs are listed on Seedify’s website so you can see when the next one goes live. Private sale is for Tier 6 and above and public sale is for all other tiers. A few hours before the launch a whitelist is published on Seedify’s Telegram. If you have enough SFUND tokens in your wallet and you connected your wallet to Seedify launchpad previously, your wallet address will be on the whitelist. You can also see how much you can invest depending on your tier. These numbers will vary for every IGO. Also, make sure you have enough tokens (in this case BUSD) to purchase tokens during IGO. In the same message, there will be an information when exactly the IGO is taking place. You won’t have to rush as the window is usually 2-3 hours and your allocation is guaranteed (in this example) but you have to make sure you can access your computer in that window, otherwise, you lose your allocation. Once the IGO is live, you simply go to Seedify website and connect with your MetaMask. You will then have to authorise the transaction and pay gas. As it’s on BSC, the fees are very very low – but make sure you have some BNB in your wallet to pay for it! If not all IGO tokens sell, there will be a second phase the next day. This one is on a first-come, first-serve basis and the remaining tokens sell out in a couple of minutes max. You may need to increase your gas fee to have a chance. In that original message on Telegram, there will be also information when the token will be listed on an exchange and what is the vesting period. In the example below, you can see that you will receive 10% of your tokens once the IGO is completed, then 20% per month for the next 3 months and the remaining 30% in the final month. This also varies for each IGO. Sometimes it may be 50% once the IGO is completed and 50% after one month. The slower the release of tokens, the more stable the price as people can’t just dump them all immediately. On the day of listing the token on the exchange, you will find the following info on Telegram. Once you add this contract address manually to your MetaMask (pay attention of the network – the IGO was on BSC but this is a Polygon token so you have to add Polygon network to your MetaMask), the tokens will automatically appear in your wallet. Of course in this case, you will only receive the first 10%. The rest will be transferred after one month etc. Once the token is listed on the exchange, you can monitor the price and decide if you want to hold it or sell it. Selling Tokens In my experience, every IGO is generating profit straight away. For this IGO, I was only Tier 2 so could invest only 20.39 USD but BLOK token went up in value around 60x within the first 48 hours after listing. In other words, I could sell my 10% stake (so 2 USD worth of tokens) for 120 USD. It didn’t make me a millionaire but it’s not a bad result ;-) And I still have 90% of BLOK tokens coming in the next few months. One note – I had to make sure I have some Matic tokens on Polygon network in my MetaMask to pay for gas to sell those BLOK tokens. The fees are very small but still. Also, it’s important that these Matic tokens are on Polygon network, not Ethereum network in your wallet – some tokens can exist on different networks but you cannot just send ERC-20 (Eth) Matic to Polygon address as you’ll burn those tokens! You can use a bridge but the cost of gas makes it quite expensive. Conclusion IGOs present an amazing opportunity to make some serious gains but you have to invest a fair chunk on money in launchpad tokens. But even with much smaller investment you can still have a reliable source of modest income… at least in a bull market ;-). But the biggest opportunity (especially at higher tiers as your investment is more substantial) is the chance to get super early into gaming projects, which not only have a great potential for growth but also are a good hedge against bear market. After all, people will not stop playing games when the market crashes ;-) I hope you found this article helpful and interesting. If you’re interested in crypto tutorials and crypto market commentaries, please check out my channel and follow me on . YouTube Twitter ---- Disclaimer The content covered in this article is NOT to be considered investment advice. I’m NOT a financial adviser. These are only my own speculative opinions, ideas and theories. Do NOT trade or invest based purely upon the information presented in this article. “This article is part of The Gaming Metaverse Writing Contest hosted by HackerNoon in partnership with The Sandbox. Submit your #gaming-metaverse story today for your chance to win up to $2000.”

A Complete Guide to Initial Game Offerings (IGOs)

The Report Program Generator (or RPG for short) is a high-level programming language serves a wide array of business applications and uses. It is an IBM proprietary programming module and a vast majority of its later versions can only be accessed on IBM i- or OS/400-based systems. RPG actually has quite a long history. It was developed by the tech giant IBM in 1959 as the Report Program Generator- a tool that was developed to serve as an alternative for the punch card processing system on the IBM 1401. However, it was subsequently updated to the RPG II following the development of the IBM System/3 in the 1960s. It has since evolved into the high-level language equivalent of COBOL and PL/I. To this day, RPG is still a very popular programming language on the IBMi operating system. RPG IV (also known as ILE RPG) is the most current version of RPG and it is a tool that provides a highly enabling programming environment for AS400 RPG Programmers. When RPG was first developed, the major stronghold that it had was known as the program cycle. Every RPG program executes programs within a hypothetical loop. This loop is able to apply the same program to every file on record. At that time, there will be a comparison between each record and every line in the program. Every line has the choice to either act on the record or not, based on whether that line has an indicator turned on or off. The entire idea of level breaks and matching records is one that is unique to the RPG II language. Ever since System/38 was introduced in 1979, the majority of RPG programmers stopped making use of the cycle and rather opted for the controlling program flow which has standard looping constructs. However, IBM has also continued to provide backward compatibility for the cycle. IBM i RPG Programmers IBM iSeries programmers (or AS400 RPG Programmers, if you will) are specially trained professionals who are trained to use the RPG programming language to manipulate and solve issues. RPG programmers are usually employed by Companies to create codes that can be integrated into business operations in order to ensure a higher level of efficiency. IBM i Application Development On any particular day, an RPG programmer can work on a wide array of tasks, ranging from creating new codes to ensuring the proper maintenance of existing program codes (although existing codes might be written in versions of the RPG code that look slightly different). If you’re looking to hire an RPG Programmer, they can help you with any of the following: Analysis, designing, development and maintenance of the IBM i software written in a wide array of languages, including RPG, RPG ILE, RPG-FREE, and SQL. Following various functional specifications in order to create technical documentation and develop pseudo codes. Either create new RPG programs or strengthen existing ones. In the case of any issues, he can also troubleshoot your business processes to diagnose where the issues are. He also debugs any existing software to locate and solve issues. Implement new codes and bug fixes into the existing software. RPG has a long history… As RPG has been the most reliable language for commercial applications, many updates and versions have helped the IBM i programmers to code easily. After RPG, RPG II rolled with more updates and modifications so that it can be easily run on the smallest IBM systems of that time. These included- IBM 1130, IBM system3, system34 and system36. Later it was also used on bigger systems like system370. The most interesting aspect of RPG II is that it is a fixed format programming language, each and every code should be placed in the respective column in order to generate the right output. RPG II: Next in the line is RPG III which was developed for System38 and other bigger systems. RPGIII was more enhanced and could support new structures like IF END IF, DO loops and subroutines. It was available for the larger systems like IBM system370 with OS VS1. RPGIII: RPGIV was developed in 1994 with and has a lot of enhancements over RPGIII like: RPGIV/RPGLE: Longer field names Source level debugging Date and time support Additional data types (floating point, boolean, pointers) Free-format expressions Built in functions Case tolerance One of the great features of RPGIV is that it is ILE compliant. This means that the programmers have a vast number of functional, performance, maintenance, and productivity benefits apart from the ability to integrate multiple languages. is a free version of ILE format from IBM i V5 and from IBM i V6. RPG5 RPG6 RPG 7 is the latest version of RPG programming language and is widely used industry wide. It is a fully free format from IBM i V7. RPG7: RPG Open Access Handler A handler in any programming language is an event or function created for a certain task. RPG open access handler is an interface or method which handles the communication with the available resources and devices.  Rational open access is a way for RPG programmers to use the RPG I/O model to easily utilize the resources and devices that are not directly supported by RPG. This Open Access provides RPG’s file I/O capabilities, allowing anyone to write innovative I/O handlers to access other devices. Platforms on which RPG rolled out- As we all know the initial versions of RPG were developed for IBM systems like 1401, /360, /3, /32, /34, /36, /38 AS/400 and System i systems. Later on it was enhanced and implemented for and many more. The latest platform developed for RPG compiler is Windows .Net through the WINRPG compiler. Sperry Univac BC/7, the Digital VAX, Siemens BS2000, Univac system 80, Burroughs B700, B1700 Conclusion RPG has a long history, initially developed as a report program generator today this language is counted in one of the finest high level languages like COBOL and PL/I. Having so many versions it has created confusions sometimes but has evolved quite rapidly as compared to any other language. Many organizations which are based on IBM i rely on the latest versions of RPG ( ) to enhance and develop new solutions every now and then. Stable: RPG IV version 7

IBM’s proprietary RPG programming language: An Overview

In a sent on June 8th, IBM’s CEO Arvind Krishna made a bold statement regarding the company’s policy toward facial recognition. “IBM no longer offers general purpose IBM facial recognition or analysis software,” says Krishna. letter to congress “IBM firmly opposes and will not condone uses of any technology, including facial recognition technology offered by other vendors, for mass surveillance, racial profiling, violations of basic human rights and freedoms, or any purpose which is not consistent with our values and Principles of Trust and Transparency.” The company has halted all facial recognition development and disapproves of any technology that could lead to racial profiling. The Problem with Face Recognition The ethics of have been in question for years. However, there has been little to no movement in the enactment of official laws barring the technology. In fact, numerous law enforcement agencies actively use face recognition tech today. As an example, the has an entire section that details how they use facial recognition to catch fugitives, via a global database of images from 160 countries. face recognition technology INTERPOL website However, according to IBM, this technology may not yet be ready for use in law enforcement. “We believe now is the time to begin a national dialogue on whether and how facial recognition technology should be employed by domestic law enforcement agencies,” says Krishna. “Artificial Intelligence is a powerful tool that can help law enforcement keep citizens safe. But vendors and users of Al systems have a shared responsibility to ensure that Al is tested for bias, particularity when used in law enforcement, and that such bias testing is audited and reported.” Bias in Modern Face Recognition Algorithms In December of 2019, The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published a study which found large variations in accuracy across numerous contemporary face recognition algorithms. False Positives A false positive is when the system says that a face matches an entry in the database, when in fact they are not of the same person. The biggest glaring issue was that Oppositely, they were lowest among Eastern Europeans. The study found that “This effect is generally large, with a factor of 100 more false positives between countries.” false positive rates were much higher among those of African and Asian descent. Additionally, they found that false positives were higher in faces of women, the elderly, and young children. False Negatives A false negative is when the system says that a face does not match any entries in the database, when in fact it is in the database. This is especially dangerous at airports or border crossings. If the system checks individual faces against a criminal database, it could potentially allow dangerous individuals past a security check. The found that and lowest among Caucasians and African Americans. NIST study false negatives were highest among Asians and American Indians How Will IBM’s Boycott on Face Recognition Tech Affect the Industry? IBM has been at the forefront of machine learning development for a long time. Their natural language processing system, IBM Watson, is regarded as one of the best question-and-answer systems in the world. Aside from NLP, IBM has also done impressive work in Computer Vision with . Their advancements have garnered much respect in the AI community, and as a result their voice carries weight. Watson Visual Recognition Positive Impact of IBM’s Stance on Facial Recognition When such a large company takes a strong position on facial recognition, it is bound to make waves. In fact, IBM’s decision already seems to be causing a domino effect in the industry. Following IBM’s announcement, of their own saying they are halting sales of facial recognition technology to American police departments. Microsoft made an announcement On the other hand, other companies may take advantage of IBM halting facial recognition development.  There is now more room in the market for other companies and startups to move in. The worst case scenario is that nothing changes. Companies might continue developing face recognition algorithms to sell to law enforcement agencies, without worrying about the consequences. Final Thoughts Ideally, other developers will start investing more time and money to ensure that their algorithms are free of bias. Hopefully, more companies will take a step back to study the effects of emerging technologies before releasing them. IBM’s CEO believes that the biases that exist in modern facial recognition algorithms warrant a complete halt of their usage. They are calling on governments and vendors to ensure that their algorithms are free of bias before being implemented in vital areas of society, such as law enforcement. Many AI technologies are emerging faster than governments are able to regulate. Hopefully, IBM’s stance paves the way for other large tech companies and startups to think about ethics before advancement. Previously published on: https://lionbridge.ai/articles/why-ibm-decided-to-halt-all-facial-recognition-development/

How IBM's Stance on Face Recognition Will Affect the AI Industry

Hi there! I interned at the Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay under Prof. Anirudha Joshi during my second year of undergrad. There I chose to work on project titled: Chorded Keyboard. Applying to professors for a summer internship can often be a confusing and daunting task, more when you don’t have anyone to guide you through the process. The process is easy but fairly long and time-consuming. I am jotting down some points which I followed and which helped me in getting selected. The same application procedure applies to all the other academic institutions as well. Step 1: Start Early, Start Right! Mostly the Professors start receiving emails from students in the month of January which continues up till late February. The final selection of interns is done latest by March/April since usually, the internship duration is from May till July. A good first step here would be to narrow down on your research area of interest: What topics would you like to work on? What are your learning goals? How can you contribute to a Professor's ongoing research or to new research work? Next step would be to look for professors working in research areas similar to your interests. Narrow down on the ones whose projects excite you and start reaching out to them. Now the question that arises is as to What, When and How should one  reach out to a professor? Fret not the next steps will get you there! Step 2: Make your CV/Resume. I can’t stress enough on this one. After your cover letter, the only thing that is going to get you noticed and hence selected is how you present your work in a precise and concise manner in your CV. Sample Resume The hyperlink above will lead you to few actual CVs of some of the top academic students from different departments at IIT Bombay which was shared with me by a fellow senior student there. I used these as a reference while working on structuring my own CV. By looking at these you can get an idea as to what all important points you should mention in your resume and which ones to leave out! Align your previous projects and interests in such a way so that the professor you're applying to will find your profile cut fit for the role. Ideally, your CV should be a one-pager with minimal white spaces and everything should be mentioned in bullet points to reduce the word count. Tip: Make your CV using . PRO TIP: LaTeX Overleaf: Real-time Collaborative Writing and Publishing Tool I found this site super useful and handy. Since we all know that making a CV is a never-ending process that requires constant updates and iterations. On this particular site, you can use the existing templates to begin with, and then make changes to generate your own CV which you can always go back and edit. The best part is that you can share the editing link with someone else, allowing them to view and make changes to your CV in real-time. Step 3: Prepare your Cover Letter A good cover letter increases your chances of getting selected by manifolds. Since most renowned Professors have many students wanting to work under them, a good cover letter will help you in getting noticed among the lot. Since many Professors don’t have the time to go through long e-mails so try to keep the cover letter short. A word count of 150–200 would suffice. Always remember that you have to sell yourself in the best possible way as you can, also it shouldn't feel like you’re boasting. Your cover letter must not look like a copy-paste from somewhere else. I would encourage reading about the professor’s work ( why not? After all, you want to work under him!) and write your cover letter along the lines stating as to how his ongoing project interests you and how you think you can contribute to it further. Mention only selected projects and skills of yours in a line or two which you think are related to the professor’s area of interest. You can find a few sample cover letters . Here Never send your CV as an e-mail attachment. PRO TIP: Usually, the professors don’t have the time to download the CVs and it’s highly probable that once after downloading and reading he might lose the file and later forget. Instead, Upload your CV on Google Drive and get the shareable link to generate a hyperlink for CV in the mail body. Adding the link to an online portfolio site like Behance, Dribble, GitHub, LinkedIn profile, or any online platform which validates your projects and shows your online presence would help. and SHOOT that mail! Step 4: The Follow-up Once you’ve mailed the professor it’s important to wait for at least 7–10 days till you get a reply. Since most professors usually have a busy inbox you can send a reminder mail like the one I sent, shown below. After sending a reminder email, wait for few days and if the professor doesn’t reply then you can send a reminder mail again. Never email Professors of the same department and institution at the same time because it doesn’t look professional but, You can mail Professors of different institutions and departments simultaneously. TIP: Make sure that not many students from your college/course are mailing the same professor at the same time. Otherwise, chances are high that you won’t get a reply and the professor will end up marking it as spam. Step 5: Repeat! If you don’t get any reply or acceptance for a particular application (which is highly likely to happen!) email the next professor on your list, until you get a confirmation. In my case, I wanted to work under Prof. Anirudha Joshi. Hence, I never applied to any other professor rather I invested my time to align my CV and Cover Letter after going through his research work. If you would like to get in touch to talk more, please reach out to me on LinkedIn . Alternatively, you can also email your queries to contact@simranpandey.com . I send out a newsletter every month answering your questions on any topic — sign up here . Thank you so much for reading till here :) Happy learning! Previously published at https://medium.com/@simranpandey97/how-to-get-a-summer-internship-at-iits-iims-nits-or-at-foreign-universities-6772f361fc05

Applying for Research Internships at IITs, IIMs, NITs, and Foreign Universities

Today I'm pleased to interview Ajdin Imsirovic, senior developer, author and teacher of two brand new Angular courses on Learnetto - The Free Visual Guide to Getting Started with Angular and The Complete Practical Angular Course . In this interview, Ajdin shares his thoughts on Angular and frontend web development. My name is Ajdin Imsirovic. I'm a self-taught full stack web developer. I started off as a print designer, then slowly moved into digital media (web design), and finally, bit by bit, into web development. Initially, I only did HTML and CSS, then SCSS, then JavaScript, and now I'm working in several front-end languages and libraries, and with PHP and Ruby on the backend. I blog actively on and have written several . Please introduce yourself. https://www.codingexercises.com technical books I built my first web page as a table-based layout in 2001. The web was young back then, and it was a fun, novel technology to play around with (I still feel the same way today!). However, I didn't really get into full time coding till maybe 10 years later. In the meantime, I was mostly designing on the side and working in non tech-related jobs. Regardless, all that time I kept following the progress of web technologies, and every once in a while, I'd dabble a bit with mostly front-end development. Finally, in 2011 I got hired as a webmaster, then as a web developer, and it went on from there. What got you into programming? Why do you like Angular? Let's say there are several obstacles you're trying to solve as a web developer: Stay relevant and improve your skills. Use a complete framework that helps you be productive. Balance challenging tasks with familiar tasks so that you can grow and your job is not boring. I believe Angular is a right mix of several competing solutions, each one pulling in their own direction. For example, you need to stay relevant, by learning new things. So, if you know JavaScript, but don't know TypeScript, Angular will help you there since it's the default language to use. Additionally, it's a complete framework: it comes with batteries included. For example, you don't have to think about the best way to perform XHR requests, it's built-in; you just need to know how to use the features as intended. Once you do know it, each project will have a level of similarity that makes you become more productive, faster. Angular also has enough different features that there's always something new to explore and get better at - thus you're never bored. But you are still staying inside the Angular ecosystem, which is helping you master your craft. Long story short, I only have words of praise for it. How does it compare to other frontend libraries and frameworks? I've already sort of answered the question, but if you'd like a more direct comparison, here's my take on it: I don't like React since it's too flexible. It's like somebody gave you all the parts of a car, feel free to assemble it yourself. However, being curious as I am, I'm still watching React and making mini projects in it here and there, but Angular just feels like a better fit for me. It reminds me of Elm because very often it won't compile if you messed something up. For example, if you accidentally mess up your HTML templates, it will throw an error saying: Template parse errors. So it safeguards you against your own mistakes - to a point. One complaint could be that Elm catches many more errors then Angular does, because Angular's compiler is not as strict, but it's strict enough for my taste. Vue is sort of like an offshoot of Angular. It's a strong contender in my opinion; I like it, but it doesn't feel as enterprise-ready as Angular, and the market share is not as big. However, all of these answers need to be taken with a grain of salt. Lots of online comparisons of frameworks really boil down to personal preference and to what is actually used at your place of work. The best advice, in my opinion, is to try them all, then decide which one works best for you. This is a significant effort, but it's still doable. Even if you decide to try something like that, I'd say you should try Angular right after you do it in vanilla JavaScript and/or jQuery. The standardized way of doing things is my number 1 Angular feature. People say React has got more jobs and more projects online, but Angular is better when these projects become bigger. So it is sort of expected that bigger projects should/will use Angular on the frontend. It's a stretch, but this might mean that you'll have better job stability since you'd be working for enterprise clients or directly in enterprise firms. Also, standardization helps avoid things getting messy as your projects grow bigger. Additionally, standardization makes it easier to add new features, because most of the times, there are only a few suggested/expected ways of doing things in Angular. Angular is best-suited for large projects with lots of features. I've used it to build some very complex web apps that included lots of logic on the front-end. Since I'm a teacher by vocation and a self-taught web developer in practice, I'm really curious - even obsessive - about the learning process. Like any web-related technology, it is best to learn it by doing. However, it's important to not lose too much time learning the basics, because it takes time to learn Angular. My suggestion is start with and if you like it, enrol in to go in-depth while building a complete Angular application. What's your favourite thing about Angular? What kind of projects is Angular best for? What projects have you used it for? How do you recommend people start learning Angular? The Free Visual Guide to Getting Started with Angular The Complete Practical Angular Course

Interview with Ajdin Imsirovic on Angular and Frontend Web Development

The Red Hat acquisition took many by surprise — especially the price tag. Since the announcement, many experts, strategists, and employees both current and former have chimed in on various angles some suggesting this mirrors , when Lou was in charge, how keeping Red Hat’s employees happy is IBM’s new strategy, or that this is all about . IBM’s old playbook Gerstner really Kubernetes At , we have a front-row seat to what’s happening in the digital cloud, but the Red Hat acquisition is unique for many reasons. Intricately I wanted to offer another perspective by looking at the acquisition as a parallel to the rise of industrialized shipping for context on why Red Hat will be a critical part of IBM’s future. In particular, we’ll focus on the growing number of companies’ moving to multi-vendor cloud strategies and its potential for this strategy to commoditize the big cloud vendors core (compute and storage) businesses. We’ll then unpack IBM’s bet on cloud commoditization and the acquisition of Red Hat (particularly its service business) as an opportunity to own a high-margin business and maintain relevance in the face of cloud domination from AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. I’ll also make a bunch of logistics and shipping references. I hope you like them. Shipping bits vs shipping atoms In a former career, I worked in logistics and read (would highly recommend_)_. A somewhat lengthy title that crisply sums up the roughly 400 pages. We’ll shorten the title to from here on out. Mark Levinson’s The Box : How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger The Box Do you remember what life was like shipping containers? Probably not. Long story short, Amazon.com wouldn’t have been possible, international commerce was hard, and it involved lots of . before really stevedores Prior to 1956, products were shipped as , this was companies putting their goods in boxes, bags, barrels, drums, crates, and whatever else they felt like which were occasionally secured to pallets. The stevedores unpacked and packed ships all day long full of various shapes and sizes of products. break bulk cargo Sound familiar? Today, the internet as we know it is being is powered by cloud providers that act as both the transportation vehicles (the ships, trucks, and airplanes that deliver your goods via virtual machines) the makers of the break bulk cargo containers of all shapes and sizes (the niche AI, ML, and other solutions). and This is partially due to the cloud providers waging a war to capture IT dollars as businesses first moved to hybrid cloud, then the native cloud, and increasingly, a multi-cloud strategy. But as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google turned their resources towards building the vehicles and cargo cases for the cloud over the last ten years, IBM chose to sit things out, costing them billions of dollars in potential cloud revenue. IBM tried to rectify this in 2013 with the acquisition of Softlayer, but between being late to market not in a position to commit the CAPEX necessary to compete with the established Big Cloud Co’s, they needed a new plan. and Containers to the rescue? While the cloud companies have been at war for companies’ infrastructure spend, technologies like and have made substantial progress on cloud standardization by innovating with containers. Docker Kubernetes Similar to how revolutionized global trade, cloud containerization allows companies to ship (digital) products faster and cheaper by defining and enforcing a standard set of rules, streamlining the process for all parties involved. Intermodal containers Moving to the standard shipping container and away from break bulk cargo required concerted effort between entrepreneurs, private investors, governments, and ports. We’re now seeing this happen in the cloud as IT buyers move to a multi-vendor strategy, changing the way digital products are built and deployed. Just like the massive expansion of standardized shipping that changed the world, the cloud is having to reconcile itself to the benefits of standardization in the best interest of their customers by providing the fastest and cheapest solutions to deliver their product. It’s clear that the transition to standardized shipping containers radically changed international logistics and grew the total addressable market exponentially. Okay, okay, but wasn’t this an article about IBM and Red Hat? Well, over the last few years, Red Hat has been focused on for enterprises (i.e Kubernetes). Similarly to how IBM was once the layer between , containerization has the potential to deliver standardization between all of a company’s applications regardless of the underlying cloud provider or technology. in implementing open source container solutions open source technologies and the enterprise This means that with containerization, digital products can be manufactured and shipped to consumers faster and cheaper across the internet superhighway by defaulting to the easiest route — whether that’s Amazon, Azure, or Google Cloud servers that handle the “logistics”. Rather than ships with irregular cargo of all shapes and sizes, containerization empowers digital “manufactures” by no longer locking them onto certain infrastructures and allowing them to deliver products and applications across the cloud based on the optimal route for each customer. Similarly to how Walmart has dozens of shipping partners that go from production facilities on the other side of the globe to the last mile, containerization allows companies to pick the best providers for each leg of the journey with ease. Building the right kind of port If the revolution of intermodal containerization taught us anything, it’s that sometimes a necessary solution is building a whole new port. The transition to standardized containers is the reason for the death of first-generation port cities like New York, London, and San Francisco (think of these as v1.0) and the rise of secondary cities like Oakland and Newark (the new and improved 2.0 versions). And rather than betting the farm on being able to catch up in infrastructure and niche cloud computing, IBM saw an opportunity to lean into its service-based business because service-based businesses tend to have lower, but more stable and higher margins, especially versus a capex-intensive computing business. With their purchase of Red Hat, one of the largest implementers of Kubernetes, IBM is effectively betting on the commoditization of the cloud vendors while maintaining their long-standing business relationships to sell more (high-margin) cloud consulting services. IBM is essentially building the port to the new cloud where everything is optimized for delivery of digital products and Red Hat is the key piece of the puzzle to service the ships coming in and out of these “digital ports”. A commoditized cloud As the consumerization of everything spreads to Enterprise IT, expectations for business challenges to be solved faster and cheaper are not just nice-to-haves core requirements. Just like standard shipping containers created the foundation for massive international commerce, the standardization of the cloud has the potential to drive a similar explosion of digital commerce. but This will allow businesses to build, deliver, buy, and sell technology products like never before, and while the big guys will likely try and resist it, in the long-haul, standards typically lead to a market where everyone wins.

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