Let’s all think of a time when skin cancers can be detected to the earliest possible thus increasing the chances of surviving this catastrophic disease by 99 percent. Will this not mean a world of difference for patients diagnosed with skin cancer? Yes it will surely do when the early detection is accompanied with reaping off the various resource and time constraints that keep people from heading to the doctors early. This is exactly why two developers, Peter Ma, an independent developer and part of the Intel Software Innovator Program, along with co-founder Mike Borozdin had screened their own hands to create a free, artificial intelligence-powered screening program completely online. They developed an AI solution which has the same level of intelligence as that of a dermatologist and the power to determine and classify skin cancer types. The technology used is known as Doctor Hazel and uses deep-learning neural networks, pulling 8000 variables simultaneously to screen and classify skin cancer with 80 percent accuracy. It is now possible for anyone to go online and upload a picture of a concerning mole and obtain results within seconds. Thanks to the use of Intel’s Movidius Neural Compute Stick, an edge device that is able to classify cancer images in real time and offline, the AI solution has a wider applicability in places where internet access is scarce. This will in future empower the healthcare capabilities to improve quality of care for the patients as well as reduce time for physicians.

Read more at: https://healthtechmagazine.net/article/2018/07/ai-makes-free-tech-powered-cancer-screening-possible

The herculean task of shifting to the new digital regime of taxation is making the country abuzz with the over explosion of information. This has mostly bewildered the entrepreneurs and SMEs as to how to make a business compliant to GST. Few GST compliant software solutions that can be used by a GST-ready entrepreneur are listed below.

·         CLEAR GST SOLUTION BY CLEARTAX- Priced at Rs. 10,000, the first cost effective well built cloud GST solution software released by Cleartax solutions is Clear GST. However it has few weaknesses including the need for separate accounting software for financial statements, is useful for small businesses only, no availability of offline backup and so on.

·         TALLY ERP 9 BY TALLY SOLUTIONS- Priced from Rs. 18000 to Rs. 54000(GST feature free if already having a license), Tally ERP 9 will be easier and more delightful to use than others with the only weakness of having no basic accounting system of debit and credit.

·         GEN-GST BY SAG INFOTECH- Priced at Rs. 2500, this software is different from others in the sense that it is available on all platforms like desktop, cloud, SAAS and so on. Some of its weaknesses involve its application to small businesses and need for separate accounting software for financial statements.

·         PWC INDIA- A GST solution with end-to-end automation aimed at helping companies to become GST compliant has been recently launched by PWC, the company which targets big business corporations instead of people.

Read more at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297307

Boeing’s hypersonic passenger plane concept unveiled at the 2018 Aviation and Aeronautics Forum hosted by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics on June 26, looks like something out of science fiction. The hypersonic aircraft is one of such vehicles which could have both military and commercial applications. It looks sleek and futuristic having the capability of traveling at speeds of Mach 5 and beyond. Built upon a foundation of six decades of work designing, developing and flying experimental hypersonic vehicles, Boeing is truly unveiling the potentiality of hypersonic technology that connects the world faster than ever before. While Boeing is setting its sight for hypersonic passenger travel, NASA is working on its latest project of building a quiet supersonic plane named X-59 QueSST experimental aircraft. This project aims to minimize the disruptive sonic booms that have prevented commercial supersonic flights over land in the past.

Read more at: https://www.livescience.com/62963-boeing-hypersonic-plane.html

Adopting a hybrid cloud model, a cloud computing environment using a mix of private cloud, third party public cloud services and on premises, has significant benefits if used in healthcare organizations. It not only allows them to take advantages of existing IT services and quick scaling out new resources but also ties various systems together for a seamless end-user experience. Moreover the journey towards the cloud does not need a complete infrastructural haul. However when considering a transition to a hybrid cloud model, the IT decision-makers should think through several considerations including leader requirements for shifts in culture, licensing, processes, system and host of other issues. Few tips for any healthcare organization to smoothen the path towards a hybrid cloud model are listed as follows:

·         Assessing and evaluating the cost-saving structure specific to the healthcare organization.

·         Identifying with the effects of cloud control and its management.

·         Preparing beforehand for impacts on the Service-Level Agreements.

·         Maintaining Software Licensing Compliance.

·         Proper Skills Developing to Support the New IT Environment.

·         Preparing Healthcare Staffs for Cultural Shifts.

Read more at: https://healthtechmagazine.net/article/2018/07/6-tips-smooth-your-move-hybrid-healthcare-cloud

What is it that keeps our sun and other stars burning? It is the nuclear energy caused by nuclear fusion of hydrogen into the heavier element helium. The proponents of such nuclear fusion say that the energy has the capacity to make other types of electricity generation obsolete. It can lighten more than 700,000 average American homes by producing large amounts of electricity from relatively small amounts of the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, which are relatively abundant in ordinary seawater. A UK-based nuclear fusion company, Tokamak Energy has heated for the first time a plasma of hydrogen to 27 million degrees Fahrenheit (15 million degrees Celsius) in a new reactor -hotter than the core of the sun. This test will create a milestone possibly by 2030 by producing commercial electricity from fusion power. The company also announced the creation of the superhot plasma inside its experimental ST40 fusion reactor which contains the fusion reaction inside powerful magnetic fields, in early June. The test has been a success so far which means the reactor will now be prepared next year for a test of even hotter plasma, of more than 180 million degrees.

Read more at: https://www.livescience.com/62929-plasma-fusion-reactor-tokamak.html

It has been more than a year since the biggest and the most comprehensive indirect tax reform, Goods and Service Tax (GST) has come into effect in India from 1 July 2017. This phenomenal task of shifting to the new digital regime of taxation is aimed at streamlining and consolidating indirect taxes in order to unify the market. This transition accounts for changes in all areas of business, tax rates and tax payment schedule, logistics, delivery, marketing and sales and so on. In this context let’s look at the few ways by which organizations can make the best use of GST.

·         Understanding and assessing the impact of GST on each aspect of the business.

·         Taking advantage of the integrated and unified system of taxes to streamline operations and rationalize prices.

·         By taking advantage of the single registration and seamless tax-credit flow mechanism, businesses can expand to other states/parts of the country.

·         Reaping out the benefits from increased at par competitiveness under unified GST which has replaced multiple tax systems levied by different authorities.

·         Increasing profit margins and reducing operational costs by ensuring all expenses where ITC can be claimed.

       Read more at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/308667

Advanced technology has certainly come a long way in managing our lives and guiding our buying processes. When it comes to beauty industry, applications of artificial intelligence are giving brands the power to create an intelligent, sophisticated and authentic ‘robot’ which would enable the customers to find a product that not only feels good on their skin but also doesn’t cost them much. These chatbots will improve a particular company’s customer service and overall customer experience. They can be trained to answer specific questions and give the customers a personalized experience according to their skin type, needs and price range, and certainly reduce all the hurdles that customers have to face when trying to buy products online. Innovative beauty brands, with the help of augmented reality have shown their customers how easy it can be by asking the right questions, showing them the results and even incorporating suggestions into their bots. With the advancements cropping in more, chatbots will no longer be required to be trained by the employees and would become more intelligent from the information they will learn gradually.

Read more at: https://www.clickatell.com/articles/customer-relationship-management/chatbots-customer-experience-beauty/

In countries where legacy systems, paper-based processes and outdated transparency are disarming both governments and citizens alike, Government-Tech, a $400 billion market is a promising take which is slowly giving attention to new age startups and venture capitalist for bringing in efficiency and transparency into the age-old problems. It has the potentiality to disrupt the age old delivery system of the government and provide much better and faster services at reduced costs. Coming to the Indian context, Government-Tech is still at a nascent stage and involves lot of risks but it can provide solutions to the problems involving obsolete technology, lack of information of processes and slow delivery due to bureaucracy which mostly happen to curb the government and the public sectors. For example, a solar powered IoT Air-Quality monitor called, “Polludron” is a low cost, eco-friendly and compact Oizom Instruments Solution which solves the problem of increasing commercialization. Despite the bright potentiality of the Government-Tech Start-Ups in India, there are also many challenges and problems that are rooted in the procurement processes of the government and bureaucratic mind set. Although technology continues to evolve, the unskilled and untrained workforce in the government/public sector results in sub optimal solutions as consultants have no practical exposure to the actual problems thus compromising the expected overall efficiency.

Read more at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/316558

Traces of radioactive waste from 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant accident has been recently spotted in a California wine by a group of French nuclear physicists. On testing 18 bottles of California’s rosé and cabernet sauvignon produced in 2009 and onwards, it was found that wines produced after the disaster had increased levels of man-made radioactive particles. Two methods have been used by researchers to look for traces of a radioactive isotope called cesium-137. While the first method detects the particles through the wine bottles without having to open or destroy them, the second and the more accurate method for detection is to destroy the wines through heating and reducing them to ashes.Cesium-137 is then tested in those ashes. Inspite of the detection, the experts, according to the New York Times, have assured that there is nothing to worry about health because of the increased levels of radioactive waste in wines.

Read more at: https://www.livescience.com/63131-fukushima-radiation-in-california-wine.html

The ultimate goal of any customer-facing department is to provide an advanced, instant and trouble free customer support. This real time customer support wasn’t as possible as it is today. With the advent of innovative chatbots, businesses can now offer their clienteles a convenient and self service solution. They have not only cut down on the long periods of time when customers had to wait both physically and virtually to have their queries addressed but also have cut down on the necessity of speaking with humans for the same. The question that arises in this context is that whether buyers are really comfortable in interacting with chatbots. Yes, it is true that many people found it pretty strange to speak to a bot initially, but as more people learned about the benefits of the artificial tools, the more convenient it appeared to them to communicate with chatbots. Chatbots can collect data based on recent interactions and respond to a message or a solution that directly suits the needs and preferences of the customers. The combination of humans and chatbots have always been successful in providing a results driven and around-the-clock hassle free service thus enabling them to increase productivity and customer satisfaction.

Read more at: https://www.clickatell.com/articles/customer-relationship-management/consumers-chatbots-customer-support/

The social media platforms are proving to have immense potentiality and opportunity for the businesses to focus on their marketing strategies by targeting their audience on such platforms. However, given the fact that social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are mostly used for mainly two intentions: to get informed and to have fun, it’s not easy to generate sales through them. Some tips to tackle these types of challenges are listed below.

1.       Focus should be on Creating a Community- Before using social media as a marketing strategy, first it is necessary to understand the inherent self-explanatory motive of the audience for using it. People use social media to connect with like-minded people and not necessarily with businesses. Hence creating a social media group or a community can help promote the company’s brand and keep the audience cognizant of the latest stocks and provide a platform where the members can actively share their thoughts about the products.

2.       Being a Go-To Page- Having people come to a company’s page with questions and addressing their queries in the comments is a good way to kick-start sales when the audience will start making purchases without having to invite them in taking an action. However having a large scale authority as business is not easy and would require the following dimensions:

·         Content- An integrated high quality content blog is required to be published at the website that would provide solutions

·         Paying attention to the description of the blog posts and promoting them so that engagement is triggered after reading them.

A lot of effort and patience coupled with the right strategies can indeed help to generate sales of a company from the social media audience.

Read more at: https://digitalagencynetwork.com/how-to-generate-sales-leads-through-social-media/ 

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In the predictive analytics market for healthcare, advancing Big Data processing tools, data mining and data organization are being increasingly used by market research firms to predict huge gains. Also by leveraging Big Data and scientific advancements, healthcare organizations are now being able to fuel the future of patient care. Despite the fact that there are several roadblocks to using analytics in this field there are also many ways by which Big Data can actually revolutionize the health field. Some of them are listed below as:

• Big Data Boost on Precision Medicine and Research- By tapping reams of data from tools like Smartphone apps, genomics and mobile biometric sensors, precision medicines are now being able to treat individuals with therapies and treatment plans more specific to them
• Tapping Big Data for Real-Time Infection Control- By using “sniffer” algorithms to assign risk scores, the data analytics pilots are identifying patients that are at risk for sepsis. Moreover the Big Data network is being able to predict and prevent infections out of the system thus squeezing the cost out and creating a safer environment for patients.
• Cost Cutting with Patient Data Analytics- Predictive analytics is believed to cut 25 percent or more annual costs of more than 47 percent healthcare organizations over the next five years.

Read More at: https://healthtechmagazine.net/article/2017/11/predicting-analytics-3-big-data-trends-healthcare

With heightening popularity of Instagram among other social media platforms, creating an interactive link in one’s business bio is likely to attract interested people. Portraying a positive profile of a business is critical to its success on such a social media platform that engages its users on a visual scale. However grabbing someone’s attention within the limited space and among hundreds of other attractive posts demands a catchy bio for the business. Being the best platform for promoting physical products for most e-commerce sites, keeping one’s company’s bio original and engaging is crucial as this will not only enhance the company’s personality but also persuade the potential customers to join the circle.

Writing a perfect Instagram Bio should involve the following dimensions:-

·         A Profile Photo relevant to the business that would awaken the visual senses on visiting the page.

·         A proper named Username that will be displayed on top of the profile page and which will be easily searchable on Instagram search field.

·         Choosing appropriate words to summarize about the company and its activities in a Bio.

·         A Website Link which will allow the users to visit the company’s website page on one click.

·         An Email button which when clicked by a user would prompt the Instagram app to open its default mail app on the user’s phone.

Read more at: https://digitalagencynetwork.com/how-to-write-the-best-instagram-bios-for-businesses/

Any successful home assistant robot should have the ability to deal with every sort of “disturbance”. A similar Spotmini robot weighing 66 lb has been designed by Boston Dynamics to fit comfortably in a home or an office. Unlike Boston Dynamics’ other robots which are created to help people during disasters, Spotmini is designed to be a vaguely cute home or office assistant which calls for some extra capabilities than a disaster robot. Boston Dynamics has shown that progressive iterations of Spotmini can perform various tasks ranging from climbing stairs to bringing someone a Diet Coke. The mention of hazards to small children is not explicitly mentioned by Boston dynamics but the description of the robot depicted in the YouTube videos does hint at those types of challenges.

Read more at: https://www.livescience.com/61840-robot-dog-fights-off-human.html

There is a growing concern about AI replacing human workers in almost all areas thus spelling out the fears of massive job loss, rise of robots and sophisticated computer changes to replace our world as we know it.  AI is being increasingly used in Financial Institutions where anyone availing robotic advisory services or has paid for transactions using bitcoins has also made use of AI in finance. We have probably noticed banks cutting on their staffs for addressing questions and processing transactions. This is because such financial institutions are deploying AI to help manage complicated programs, automate some trading systems and minimize the need for human support. It also plays an important role in helping with fraud detection and smart banking. Because of such advanced capabilities of AI, researchers like Bill Gates, Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk have pointed out the growing possibilities of AI developing  destructive methods against humans or teaching itself over time to fight against humans as it sees itself as a super intelligent system. According to the recent estimates by the experts, AI will gradually replace workers who perform repetitive tasks, thus predicting job loss numbers as high as 800 million people by 2030.

Read more at: https://finance.toolbox.com/articles/ai-in-finance-present-concerns-and-future-applications

Built around 3250 years ago, the Tomb of pharaoh Ramesses II’s favourite wife, Queen Nefetari , is located in the valley of the Queens, near Luxor. The paintings of the tomb are so stunning that they have been compared to Italy’s Sistine Chapel. However in recent times the tomb is being opened to small group of visitors as the increase in humidity on entrance of the visitors, leads to increase in bacteria and fungi which are further damaging the beautiful paintings. = The virtual reality tour of Nefatari’s tomb is shown as it appears today although many have tried to recreate the site as it looked thousands of years ago. Improvement of holography technologies and virtual reality will surely fasten the process of making vivid virtual reality tours thus teleporting audiences across space and time.

Read more at: www.livescience.com/63010-ancient-egypt-sistine-chapel-virtual-reality.html

The new, soft, folding “Pokemon” like robot called, "Rotary Actuated Dodecahedron" (RAD) is cutting across the obstacles faced by humans when they use hard tools underwater and hurt the soft and delicate ocean creatures for the purpose of studying them. From the result of the collaboration among marine biologists, engineers and designers, the soft, plastic and four fingered device is driven by a single motor which drives it to fold along all of its joints, forming a 12-sided hollow container around whatever it's trying to snatch. The device has been tested, first at Connecticut's Mystic Aquarium and then in the open ocean near Monterey, California. It successfully captured squid and jellyfish unharmed after being mounted to an unscrewed underwater vehicle and controlled remotely via joystick.

Read more at: https://www.livescience.com/63105-harvard-underwater-pokeball.html

Few science-fiction writings and popular movies like, "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968), “2001: A Space Odyssey”, ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Robot” have showcased the speculation about artificial intelligence (AI) that surpass the expectations of its creator and escapes their control, gradually enslaving humans or targeting them to extinction. Although these are all based on fictional stories and imaginative instances, what is buried inside them is a flavor of truth and seeds of unease. An ‘Existential Threat’ is what has been used in a speech by Elon Musk at a meeting of the National Governor Association in July 2017 when he expressed his concern about his exposure to cutting-edge AI and the fact that people should be concerned about the rapidly advancing technologies. Even physicists like Stephen Hawking had expressed his concerns about malicious AI, telling the BBC in 2014 that "the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." However AI functions under specific limitations marked by certain algorithms that control its behavior. So fears like developing consciousness and awareness to overthrow humanity are beached in delusion of what AI truly is. The real fear as expressed by Kilian Weinberger, an associate professor at Cornell University should be when AI is harnessed for detrimental reasons by unscrupulous humans.

Read more at: https://www.livescience.com/62775-humans-why-scared-of-ai.html     

A simple yet effective way for restaurant owners to promote their restaurants’ brand and increase their clientele is by introducing SMS marketing in their market strategy. It helps their customers to stay updated about their favourite restaurants in the following ways:-

·         SMS marketing strategy gives customers insider information which makes them feel special and engages them in a unique manner. This information includes behind the scene pictures of a restaurant’s kitchen or messages about a sales event. This can be quite an effective way to show customers that they are valued thus increasing clienteles significantly.

·         It can be used as reservation reminders.

·         An effective use of SMS marketing is for making offer deals, promotions, coupons on a daily basis.

·         Mobile coupons are an effective way to use SMS marketing and can be modified to suit the customer list.

·         Making bulk SMSes can make restaurant owner to have edge over the cut-throat competition. More customer engagements would imply more traffic to the doors.

Read more at:  https://www.clickatell.com/articles/customer-relationship-management/sms-marketing-restaurants/

Creativity and Innovation are what makes us truly human. Starting with visually representing the stunning features of animal species on paper to making intricate structures on road we can do it all. However such creative and innovative skill set are also present in some AIs who with human like capabilities and behaviours and under the guidance of the programmers have produced original paintings, songs and digital artwork. While some make their own dance moves, others rhyme like Kayne. Few examples of today’s artistic AIs include:

Dance-Dance Revolution- An AI inside a white fabric dome structure, records and processes dance moves performed by people and then incorporates those dance moves inside a “Virtual Dancer” after ‘remembering’ from human dancers.

Blooming Dinos- Creation of “botanical dinosaurs” images composed entirely of flowers and plants by AI.

The stuff of nightmares- By using deep learning, a system of data structures that form connections similar to that of neurons firing in the human brain, an AI project aptly named "Nightmare Machine” makes pictures frightening.

Master Class- An AI named “Vincent” assists humans to produce digital creations of canvasses of some of the most celebrated painters of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Read more at: https://www.livescience.com/62713-can-machines-be-creative-ai-humans.html