Cyberattacks could potentially disrupt U.S. infrastructure, from the electric grid to the financial system. In July, the Department of Homeland Security reported that Russian hackers gained access to the control rooms of electric utilities. Now, analysts and policymakers are debating the best way to protect our critical infrastructure. While many believe that federal and state government regulation, funding and oversight are necessary, others argue this tack may actually cause harm and we should consider alternative approaches. Read more

Following the news that WarnerMedia would shutter its streaming service FilmStruck at the end of this month, The Criterion Collection announced that it plans to offer selections from its library of classic Hollywood, foreign language and notable art-house films via its own standalone streaming service to launch in spring 2019 (FilmStruck had an exclusive licensing deal to stream movies from the Criterion library). The announcement further revealed that The Criterion Channel would also be made available via “WarnerMedia’s new consumer platform when it launches late next year.” Read more

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will begin the first of two auctions for extremely high-frequency spectrum licenses, testing out how valuable these radio waves are considered. Up until now, wireless carriers have judged these high-frequency ranges to be useless, but the advent of 5G wireless services has changed that assessment. Signal frequencies above 1 gigahertz can carry more data for current 4G networks, often positioned above low-frequency bandwidth, and also help launch 5G networks. Read more

Nielsen Holdings and Microsoft are partnering on a cloud-based platform, Nielsen Connect, to help retailers gain insights from its consumer and operational data related to, respectively, media/TV ratings, and purchases of consumer goods. Nielsen chief technology/operations officer John Tavolieri noted that, given the value of the data, the industry has thus far not found a good way to “unlock” it. Nielsen’s data will be loaded to Microsoft Azure where the latter’s AI tools and APIs will enable users to search. Read more

Intel just announced its latest invention: the Neural Compute Stick 2 (NCS2), a self-contained neural network on a thumb drive. NCS2 is intended to make the process of embedding intelligence into Internet of Things and network edge devices faster and easier. Edge devices, which include routers, switches, gateways and a range of IoT devices, are defined as any hardware that controls the flow of data between the boundaries of two networks. The announcement came just before Intel’s first AI developers’ conference in Beijing. Read more