In Depth

In Depth

Artificial intelligence, automation and robotics

• Covid-19 and the art and science of data visualisation

  The pandemic has seen political leaders and civil servants using data visualisation like never before – but there is more to the art than meets the eye  Continue Reading

• Gaurav Dhillon: Silicon Valley is poised to grow up to seize a more spiritual future

  Gaurav Dhillon, co-founder of Informatica and founder CEO at SnapLogic, comes from a generation of Silicon Valley Indian immigrants who followed a scholarship route and have helped to shape the area’s tech companies. Here he reflects on his career ...  Continue Reading

• APAC career guide: How to become a DevOps engineer

  A DevOps career can be highly rewarding, as long as you are open to learning new things and collaborating with team mates to solve problems in software development  Continue Reading

• How to monitor remote workers humanely

  Monitoring employees who work remotely has taken on a whole extra dimension in the Covid-19 pandemic year of 2020. Financial services firms are among those which suggest ways of doing it humanely and legally  Continue Reading

• Get real: Live streaming analytics important to post-Covid growth, but not without good data

  Live streaming analytics could assume increased importance as a fuel for post-Covid growth, but not without good data  Continue Reading

• Patching: Balancing technical requirements with business considerations

  With an increasing reliance on subscription models alongside the regular patching of software, updates have become an essential part of modern business practices. However, care needs to be taken to ensure the optimum patching process is implemented  Continue Reading

• Extended reality software gets pandemic lift

  Extended reality software is not new, but the Covid-19 public health crisis has seen it take on a new lease of life as organisations face up to virtuality  Continue Reading

• Learning on the job when working from home

  Learning a new job and inducting hires when working from home has been tricky for employees and employers alike. We look at what workarounds have been adopted that could become the post-pandemic normal  Continue Reading

• A tech reboot of retail

  With 2020 having been the toughest year on record for bricks and mortar retailers, we look at some tech innovations that may be heading for the high street  Continue Reading

• Covid-19 crisis has speeded up contact centre digital transformation

  Pandemic has accelerated digital transformation in many business sectors, including contact centres such as those of the University of Huddersfield and UK Power Networks  Continue Reading

• Fix bottlenecks before tackling business process automation

  Business processes evolve over time, and intelligent automation requires a thorough assessment of what is not working optimally  Continue Reading

• Lush’s 25-year journey to digital excellence

  Retailers are increasingly focused on using technology to better serve customers, but for high street cosmetic brand Lush, tech has always been part of the picture  Continue Reading

• How AI is helping to drive business process optimisation

  Automating an inefficient process simply leads to a faster inefficient process. Artificial intelligence needs to be deployed to ensure business processes are optimal  Continue Reading

• How crowd simulation modelling enables organisations to develop social distancing strategies

  Crowd simulation modelling has a role to play in maximising the Covid security of offices and other buildings by facilitating social distancing to help get people back to workplaces  Continue Reading

• BI not BS: how businesses are building futures with data analytics

  Business intelligence software is finding an intensified mission as companies try to forecast beyond the global Covid-19 health pandemic  Continue Reading

• Robots delivering the goods for retailers

  Amazon is investing in autonomous robot delivery in the UK, adding to pioneering work undertaken by Co-op and Starship Technologies  Continue Reading

• Morrisons and Pret join UK retail’s growing subscription economy

  Morrisons and Pret A Manger join growing UK retail movement towards subscription models – a space frequented by technology-led players such as Gousto  Continue Reading

• UK government coronavirus data flawed and misleading

  Government Covid-19 coronavirus data has been a miasma of inexactitude, often basically flawed and misleading  Continue Reading

• GPT3 could revolutionise how business can use AI

  OpenAI’s language prediction model that produced an essay could be used to deploy cloud resources and improve the quality of chatbots, among other business use cases  Continue Reading

• How the supply chain is handling Covid-19

  Cost-cutting habits have left supply chains chasing their tails in the wake of the pandemic. We take a look at how they’re coping  Continue Reading

• Business process automation expansion could founder on IT drift from business focus

  Business process automation might find new territory to expand into as businesses have become bloated with excess processes since the 2008 crash. But has IT drifted out of business alignment again?  Continue Reading

• Covid crisis shifts supply chain management from efficiency to resilience

  Supply chain management seems to be changing profoundly as the coronavirus pandemic unfolds, possibly shifting from an economy of efficiency to resilience, harnessing trading networks, machine learning and robotic process automation  Continue Reading

• Storage analytics: How AI helps storage management

  We look at storage analytics products that measure key metrics in storage hardware, single-vendor and multi-vendor tools, and how AI-based storage management and AIOps is emerging  Continue Reading

• The art of developing happy customers

  AI is playing a growing role in modern software development, but how well can an AI build applications that deliver great customer experience  Continue Reading

• Hangar 51 supports startups taking off in travel tech

  International Airlines Group’s accelerator programme aims to give travel technology companies a flying start in the sector  Continue Reading

• Digital experience management – web content management for the omnichannel age?

  Digital experience management represents an evolution of web content management for a more omnichannel commercial world. We explore its definition and applicability  Continue Reading

• Coding within company constraints

  We find out how containerised microservices and automated testing, combined with effective collaboration and communication, can drive innovation  Continue Reading

• APAC buyer’s guide to BI and analytics

  In this buyer’s guide, we look at the state of adoption of business intelligence and analytics tools, common use cases and other technology and business considerations  Continue Reading

• Intelligent ways to tackle cyber attack

  Artificial intelligence-powered security tools should enable IT security teams to achieve more with less  Continue Reading

• Automating IT security

  IT security’s battle with the hacking community has always been a game of cat and mouse, but it’s becoming increasingly automated  Continue Reading

• How business software can stay clear of digital addiction

  Consumer software is notoriously and deliberately addictive. Should companies and B2B IT emulate that or take the high ground of avoiding the spread of user digital addiction?  Continue Reading

• Auditing for algorithmic discrimination

  Despite the abundance of decision-making algorithms with social impacts, many companies are not conducting specific audits for bias and discrimination that can help mitigate their potentially negative consequences  Continue Reading

• Between a cloud and a hard place: companies change applications tack

  The Covid-19 pandemic crisis has intensified and sped up the migration of business applications to the cloud  Continue Reading

• Black Lives Matter, but do bots know that?

  The volume of content generated each day necessitates automated moderation to curate everything as it is published, ensuring offensive and objectionable material is blocked. But this only works if systems are adequately configured and reviewed  Continue Reading

• How Malaysia’s industries are tapping IoT

  Computer Weekly speaks to four industries that claim to have benefited from various IoT deployments and how it has changed their businesses  Continue Reading

• Designing software to include older people in the digital world

  The Covid-19 coronavirus crisis has accentuated the importance of including older people in the digital world. How can software firms design products to include generations that came to maturity before the internet?  Continue Reading

• Customer experience software can help companies weather the Covid-19 storm

  Advanced customer experience software can help companies weather the current Covid-19 storm, as well as build resilience. Marks & Spencer is one firm exploring the technology  Continue Reading

• Coronavirus: The role of AI in the ‘war’ against epidemics and pandemics

  What role can artificial intelligence play in battling against epidemics and pandemics, such as the current Covid-19 coronavirus one? Data science is stepping up to back up medical science and to prepare humanity better for future pandemics  Continue Reading

• Governing by data: Limits and opportunities

  Governing by the use of data analytics may be fashionable, but what are its limits as well as its opportunities? Lessons from Estonia, Essex, and healthcare  Continue Reading

• Computational storage: What is it and what are its key use cases?

  Computational storage brings the CPU to the storage and so boosts system performance by tackling processing tasks, such as near the edge or in AI/machine learning workloads  Continue Reading

• Shirts and suits retailers using tech to stay smart

  Enhanced personalisation, increased visualisation and much more customisation with a digital twist comprise the to-do lists of several UK formalwear retailers  Continue Reading

• Malaysia’s digital transformation efforts progress

  Malaysian enterprises are taking steps to modernise their infrastructure, but many are still grappling with the lack of niche IT skills in key emerging technologies such as the internet of things  Continue Reading

• How HR robotics can be good for people

  The automation of human resources processes, some of which uses robotic process automation, can benefit humans, as a clutch of Nordic and UK organisations show  Continue Reading

• From Pixar to GovTech: The inside story of Singapore’s AI whizz

  After nearly a decade at Pixar, GovTech’s Chong Jiayi is leading a team of experts to solve hard problems in robotics and artificial intelligence  Continue Reading

• How IT can back up ESG efforts to do environmental and social good

  Organisations’ environmental, social and governance programmes depend on IT leaders for technological backup  Continue Reading

• The big retail tech themes from Retail’s Big Show

  The National Retail Federation’s Big Show signals the kick-off of the retail events calendar. We look over the themes promised for retail tech over the next year  Continue Reading

• Grilling the answers: How businesses need to show how AI decides

  As artificial intelligence becomes more widespread, so the need to render it explainable increases. How can companies navigate the technical and ethical challenges?  Continue Reading

• Virtuous circles: Skilling up for an ethical web

  Tim Berners Lee’s Contract for the Web aims to drive the internet in a more ethical, open and human-centred direction. What does this mean for the future of IT skills and governance?  Continue Reading

• Fly by data: How service models drive data collaboration in aerospace

  Rolls-Royce has added collaborative data sharing to its fundamental business model shift to servitisation  Continue Reading

• McLaren COO Jonathan Neale on finding racing margins in IoT sensor data

  Jonathan Neale, chief operating officer for the McLaren racing team, speaks about finding marginal advantages through sensor data analytics  Continue Reading

• How Halfords is using tech to rev up its customer service

  Live chat, virtual contact centres and a new unifying web platform are set to enhance Halfords’ customer service proposition in the year ahead  Continue Reading

• How software can support public involvement with democracy

  Iceland, Scotland and Sweden have experimented with using online software to involve citizens more deeply in democratic processes. The key seems to be encouraging enlightened debate  Continue Reading

• Reskilling the UK in the face of AI growth

  The government has introduced the National Retraining Scheme alongside funding to tackle the UK’s growing tech skills gap, but will it be enough in the wake of artificial intelligence adoption?  Continue Reading

• Building enterprise-grade AI: Sberbank and AI Telekom

  Machine learning and artificial intelligence are growing beyond adolescence to prove business value. Practical applications at Sberbank and AI Telekom suggest getting machine learning data in one place, where data scientists can experiment  Continue Reading

• How companies can do the right thing with online reviews

  TripAdvisor and Amazon have had to learn how to manage online reviews in ways that other companies can learn from  Continue Reading

• Are AI applications failing to live up to hype in enterprise adoption?

  Artificial intelligence has been baked into enterprise applications in recent years and often given special names, such as Einstein, Leonardo and Coleman. But has the hype delivered?  Continue Reading

• Search beyond search engines

  All-purpose search engines can have drawbacks for professional searchers. Technologies are emerging to take consultants, journalists, academics and others beyond search engines  Continue Reading

• Integrating security with robotic process automation

  RPA’s power is that it can mimic human behaviour. Enterprises must secure robotic automation with this principle in mind to avoid security failures  Continue Reading

• Scale-out NAS hits the spot for large datasets, AI and machine learning

  Despite the rise of cloud and object storage, scale-out NAS is a key choice for the big datasets increasingly prevalent in artificial intelligence and machine learning scenarios  Continue Reading

• Medtech startup Andiamo uses AI and 3D printing to make orthotic manufacturing more efficient

  Shortcomings in the traditional manufacturing process for orthotics mean patients can end up waiting a long time for the devices they need, but medtech startup Andiamo claims to have found a remedy  Continue Reading

• How to deploy NVMe flash storage for artificial intelligence

  We run the rule over NVMe flash as a storage choice for AI applications and the key decision points in form factor and hardware specification  Continue Reading

• APAC buyer’s guide to human capital management software

  More Asia-Pacific organisations are turning to HCM software to recruit, engage and retain a new breed of employees who increasingly expect personalised services from HR teams  Continue Reading

• A tale of two smart cities: Manchester and Australia’s Casey

  How local government needs to focus on immediate returns, not pie in the sky, for a smart city agenda  Continue Reading

• How tech leads local government innovation in Vienna, Helsinki and Belfast

  Digital leaders in the cities of Vienna, Helsinki and Belfast are innovating new services to help citizens and local economies  Continue Reading

• Universities use data analytics to tackle student mental health

  UK universities turn to data analytics software to tackle student mental health. Are there duty of care lessons for other sectors?  Continue Reading

• Forward-thinking companies are listening to employees

  Technologies and programmes amplifying employees’ voices gain interest among companies keen to keep staff loyal and motivated  Continue Reading

• Rise of the machines: How AI is changing unified communications

  Artificial intelligence is now moving into live UC environments at scale. We look at the impact it will have and what lies ahead  Continue Reading

• AI storage: Machine learning, deep learning and storage needs

  Artificial intelligence workloads impact storage, with NVMe flash needed for GPU processing at the highest levels of performance – and there are other choices right through the AI data lifecycle  Continue Reading

• Oracle and The World Bee Project expand partnership following trials

  Trials of ‘smart hive’ technology have enabled The World Bee Project to collect billions of data points about the health and activity of honey bees, for scientific research and conservation efforts  Continue Reading

• Convenience, digitisation and the impact on the physical store

  Digital technologies and the need for convenience have changed the way consumers shop, but what will this mean for the purpose and size of physical stores?  Continue Reading

• How retail store technology is filling the ‘imagination gap’

  Retailers are using in-store technology to reduce the time between shoppers’ consideration phase and purchase, but how is it engaging them and triggering conversions?  Continue Reading

• Skills, digital and the manufacturing sector

  Manufacturing still accounts for a large amount of the UK economy, and when it comes to the fourth industrial revolution, the UK has aspirations to be a world leader – but does it have the digital know-how to back it up?  Continue Reading

• Norway’s autonomous ships point to new horizons

  Norway is a pioneer in the autonomisation of shipping, which conveys environmental benefits as well as efficiency gains – but human mariners are likely to stay on board for a while yet  Continue Reading

• APAC buyer’s guide to NVMe storage

  NVMe storage is becoming popular among Asia-Pacific enterprises that want to reduce latency and speed up application performance  Continue Reading

• How DataOps helps organisations make better decisions

  DataOps is helping organisations to accelerate the time it takes to derive value from the data they collect  Continue Reading

• Silicon Valley startups look to plug gaps in data value chain

  A group of California-based startups and early-stage data management companies are promising CIOs ways to plug gaps in the data-to-insight value chain  Continue Reading

• How modern business intelligence shapes up to big data

  Business intelligence and analytics strategies have evolved in recent years in the face of big data. Here, we get a supplier CEO perspective, some analyst counsel, and testimony from Nationwide, Schroders and King  Continue Reading

• How to find a much sought-after data scientist

  Every organisation seems to be hunting for a data scientist, but securing the right people with the right skills is a challenge  Continue Reading

• Futuristic logistics: retailers focused on rapid delivery

  From Asos Instant to Ocado Zoom, and a host of new services in between, rapid delivery is gaining traction in UK retail in an attempt to meet customer demand  Continue Reading

• Is it too soon for AI in the education landscape?

  This year saw education secretary Damian Hinds call for more tech in schools to help reduce teacher workload, but are schools ready, and how do we fix the pressing issues faced by UK education?  Continue Reading

• Can work allocation algorithms play fair?

  Allocating work by algorithm might have advantages for workers as well as employers. Can it be done fairly and with respect for “human capital”?  Continue Reading

• Inside the AI developer’s toolbox

  With so much artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning in development, we look at the kit programmers might find useful in their AI toolbox  Continue Reading

• West Midlands Police turns to predictive analytics

  Force is developing a system to identify potential perpetrators of violent crime and aims to target resources – but how viable is the system and what are the challenges?  Continue Reading

• The nightmare driving test: How to make sure self-driving cars are safe

  Simulating realistic environments using deep learning to enable self-driving cars to learn the rules of the road will prove more useful than any amount of real-world practice. We find out why, and meet the people doing something about it  Continue Reading

• Compute strategies for AI applications

  Devising compute strategies for AI applications can be challenging. Find out about the hardware, network and software frameworks available  Continue Reading

• Tableau CEO Adam Selipsky talks strategy

  Tableau’s CEO, Adam Selipsky, talks strategy and business intelligence trends with Computer Weekly. He asserts enterprise relevance for Tableau, predicts BI tools consolidation and a ubiquitous user base for analytics  Continue Reading

• Where next for AI? Understanding business use cases

  IT leaders share their views on artificial intelligence and how to take advantage of the technology to benefit their businesses  Continue Reading

• Interview: Andy Berks, digital product director, Asos

  Asos’s digital product director Andy Berks talks about how the online retailer has used AI and machine learning technologies – and why the needs of the customer have to come first  Continue Reading

• Time for a truce in IT’s battle with RPA

  Lack of governance and limited resources have put IT departments at loggerheads with business-led robotic process automation. But RPA and IT teams can help each other out – if they play nice  Continue Reading

• Managing digital change: The CIO challenge for 2019

  As technology changes have an increasing impact on organisations, 2019 is the year when CIOs must adapt their teams to better manage digital disruption and business innovation  Continue Reading

• Amazon AI debacle won’t stop adoption for recruitment

  The sexist artificial intelligence recruitment debacle at Amazon should prove a blip as the technology gains ground in and for human resources departments  Continue Reading

• Automation key to unravelling mysteries of the universe at CERN

  How CERN is using enterprise asset management from Infor and ramping up the automation of its IT services to plumb the depths of the universe  Continue Reading

• Antisocial media and AI in play at Oxford Science and Ideas Festival

  Facebook and other forms of social media were discussed at two linked events at the Oxford Science and Ideas Festival, alongside artificial intelligence and how it might augment humanity  Continue Reading

• IBM pushes boundaries of AI, but insists companies take an ethical approach

  Researchers at IBM are pushing the boundaries of what artificial intelligence and machine learning can do, but remain wary of the ethical implications that accompany the proliferation of this technology  Continue Reading

• A new era of collaboration for the NHS

  Great Ormond Street Hospital's new research and innovation unit, Drive, marks a significant shift towards greater collaboration between NHS organisations and third-party industry partners  Continue Reading

• Executive interview: Sebastian Krause, general manager, IBM Cloud Europe

  IBM Cloud Europe general manager Sebastian Krause opens up about Big Blue's big bets on hybrid cloud, enterprise IT and why the public cloud market is not one it is interested in playing in  Continue Reading

• Trust and openness vital to get benefits from supply chain automation

  Supply chain automation is benefiting from new technological developments, such as blockchain, 5G and machine learning – as companies such as Maersk, Opel and Nestlé are proving  Continue Reading

• Shell CTO Yuri Sebregts talks about using AI to amplify the human impact of its workforce

  Digital transformation is a multi-decade process for Shell, with artificial intelligence presenting the oil and gas giant with new opportunities to ramp up the productivity of its workforce, its CTO explains  Continue Reading

• Intelligent automation and the WAN: Is SD-WAN moving mainstream?

  Take-up of software-defined networking in corporates is slower than expected. Where have we reached on the journey to software-controlled networks – and SD-WAN in particular – becoming the norm?  Continue Reading

• Doorstep challenge: How retailers are innovating on delivery and fulfilment

  Every retailer selling online in 2018 needs great shipping options for customers who have got used to an expanding list of choices. How are some retailers developing the proposition, and where does technology fit into the equation?  Continue Reading