Hello!
It may be the last week of summer but we have some great tech treats to brighten up your commute.
This week we share news on facial recognition regulation; show how statistical analysis could solve song authorship; reveal the saddest number one song ever; and show why numbers and capital letters do not make a good password policy.
Cheers! The Vibrant Tech Team
Top Tech Stories This Week
Here’s What Two Executive Surveys Revealed About Blockchain Adoption
PwC’s report, published on Monday, revealed that 84% of 600 executives surveyed indicated their companies are “actively involved” with blockchain. On Tuesday, Deloitte published its survey results, showing that nearly three-quarters (74%) of respondents reported their organizations see a “compelling business case” for the use of blockchain.
Lennon or McCartney? can Statistical Analysis Solve an Authorship Puzzle?
It was a mutual Beatles passion that led Mark Glickman, senior lecturer in statistics at Harvard, and Jason Brown, professor of mathematics at Dalhousie University, to wonder whether a stylometric approach could answer the burning question: Lennon or McCartney? As Glickman explains, for most Lennon-McCartney songs, it is well-known and well-documented which of the two wrote the song. However, a surprisingly large number of songs (or portions of songs) have disputed authorship.
Vertical Spotlight: Machine Learning for Customer Service
Machine Learning is making strides in automating and improving parts of the Customer Service (CS) stack quickly, like auto-routing tickets to the right agent or improving your knowledge base. Use cases can generally be split along two axes: improving the customer experience and saving the big bucks.
Can Data Reveal the Saddest Number One Song Ever?
Data journalist Miriam Quick put Spotify’s new algorithm to the test, analysing over 1000 tracks to find the saddest pop songs to top the charts. The results were surprising.
No, Eight Characters, Some Capital Letters and Numbers is Not a Good Password Policy
Internal cybersecurity audits rarely make it to the public domain, but when they do it’s often an eye-popping read. Take the Western Australian (WA) Auditor General’s 2017 recent report on the state of user account security in an Aussie state which tends a mammoth 234,000 Active Directory (AD) accounts across 17 state agencies.
How Should we Regulate Facial Recognition?
A string of embarrassing stories in recent months has driven home exactly how dangerous the technology can be in the wrong hands, and it’s led to new calls for regulation. Even Microsoft, one of the largest providers, has called on Congress to place some kind of restriction on how and where the technology can be used.