News

Artificial intelligence, automation and robotics

• February 26, 2021 26 Feb'21

  Palantir once more in sights of civil libertarians over NHS Covid data store

  The award of a new government contract to data analytics supplier Palantir on the back of its participation in the NHS Covid-19 data store has provoked Open Democracy into legal action, backed up by an exposure of lobbying activity that pre-dates ...

• February 25, 2021 25 Feb'21

  GCHQ sets out rules of the road for AI in cyber

  A paper produced by GCHQ shows how the intelligence agency can use artificial intelligence responsibly as a tool to protect the UK’s national security

• February 25, 2021 25 Feb'21

  Deloitte: How organisations can prepare for new look office work

  In the 1980s, desktop computing changed the workplace. Today, the coronavirus pandemic has led to companies rewriting a 40-year-old rule book

• February 24, 2021 24 Feb'21

  Facebook’s AI doctoral research programme makes inroads into UK

  Facebook collaborates with University College London to bring artificial intelligence doctoral research programme to the UK, with aim to open-sourcing the findings

• February 23, 2021 23 Feb'21

  XDR makes cyber a Stroll in the park for Aston Martin F1

  Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One team will run SentinelOne’s Singularity XDR platform under the bonnet

• February 23, 2021 23 Feb'21

  AI powers reputational damage insurance policy

  Reputational damage has an immediate impact on a company’s share price, and brand loyalty built over many years can be lost in an instant

• February 16, 2021 16 Feb'21

  Qatar regulator launches platform to monitor human understanding of financial crime

  Qatari financial services regulator works with global body to provide digital platform to assess whether financial services workers understand how to prevent financial crime

• February 15, 2021 15 Feb'21

  NHS trust expedites data management with Qlik in pandemic

  Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust turned its use of BI apps from Qlik to rapid effect during the Covid-19 public health emergency

• February 15, 2021 15 Feb'21

  How computer vision can protect coral reefs

  The Australian Institute of Marine Science teams up with Accenture to protect coral reefs in a computer vision project inspired by a Netflix documentary

• February 11, 2021 11 Feb'21

  Benioff projects future of work onto Salesforce’s ‘Cloud 3.0’

  Salesforce is unveiling a vision of the future of work based on what it calls ‘Cloud 3.0’, with ‘Hyperforce’ – a rearchitecting of the Salesforce CRM platform to run on public clouds

• February 09, 2021 09 Feb'21

  Russia’s Sber launches international AI contest for children

  Children from across the world invited to take part in artificial intelligence competition launched by Russian bank-turned-tech business

• February 08, 2021 08 Feb'21

  Interview: Robert Opp, chief digital officer, United Nations Development Programme

  Chief digital officer of the United Nations Development Programme talks about the relationship between digital technologies and sustainability, and how it can be used for a more environmentally-friendly and inclusive future

• February 08, 2021 08 Feb'21

  Woolworths to invest more than A$50m in skills training

  More than 60,000 Woolworths employees across store and e-commerce operations, supply chain network and support offices are expected to benefit from the new investment

• February 04, 2021 04 Feb'21

  Microsoft launches Viva as employee experience platform born out of Teams

  Microsoft has launched an “employee experience platform”, based on Microsoft Teams, said to aid the integration of the working environment

• February 04, 2021 04 Feb'21

  UiPath hires former cloud executive to head APAC business

  Former Google and AWS executive Rick Harshman will lead UiPath’s business in Asia-Pacific, where adoption of robotic process automation is growing

• February 04, 2021 04 Feb'21

  CDEI: Local government data use must keep up Covid momentum

  The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation says momentum in local authority data use during the Covid-19 pandemic is in danger of being dissipated without central government investment and support for data skills development

• February 03, 2021 03 Feb'21

  Has Covid-19 made bank branch closures easier to sell?

  Big banks continue to close branches and invest more in technology as the Covid-19 pandemic makes a case for digital banking

• February 03, 2021 03 Feb'21

  UK slow in AI maturity race

  A new survey for Rackspace has found that IT decision makers in the UK struggle with finding the right skills to support artificial intelligence

• February 03, 2021 03 Feb'21

  Healthcare and life sciences dominate 2021 DataIQ 100 list

  NHS England’s managing director of data and analytics, Ming Tang, joins data leaders from pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and GSK in the top 10 of this year’s DataIQ 100 list

• February 02, 2021 02 Feb'21

  Nordic region provides autonomous vehicle test bed

  Nordic region has the suppliers, environment and appetite for pioneering the development of autonomous vehicles

• February 02, 2021 02 Feb'21

  Bank of Singapore taps analytics to improve operations

  Private banking arm of Singapore’s OCBC Group will use analytics to improve compliance, customer service and the performance of its sales teams

• January 28, 2021 28 Jan'21

  SAP launches ‘Rise’ business transformation as a service

  SAP CEO Christian Klein announces business transformation as a service package, dubbed Rise

• January 28, 2021 28 Jan'21

  TCS rings in the new year on a roll

  India’s Tata Consultancy Services recorded one of its strongest third-quarter earnings and grew its brand value amid a global pandemic

• January 27, 2021 27 Jan'21

  After a push at the start, Mencap’s automation journey is gathering pace

  UK charity was helped out by a bank at the start of an automation investigation that is now a project sweeping across the organisation

• January 25, 2021 25 Jan'21

  Inside Grab’s DevOps practices

  A senior software engineer at Grab offers a peek into the DevOps practices at one of Southeast Asia’s technology unicorns

• January 18, 2021 18 Jan'21

  AI specialists and software engineers among most popular UK roles, says LinkedIn

  Demand for specialist software engineers and people with skills in AI have risen, according to professional network LinkedIn

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  Unforeseen consequences of new technologies put UK at risk

  Lords committee told that the risks associated with various emerging digital technologies must be assessed together, with input from UK citizens, if the government is to avoid ‘siloisation’ of fundamentally interconnected problems

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  South Central Ambulance Service drives out of Covid data fog with Qlik

  Ambulance service’s business intelligence has come into its own during the coronavirus crisis, helping the managers behind the paramedics to deliver the service with fast data flows and joined-up datasets

• January 12, 2021 12 Jan'21

  Former ministers speak out on Mike Lynch extradition

  As Mike Lynch, founder and former CEO of Autonomy, awaits his US extradition hearing, several former Tory MPs have expressed their concerns

• January 11, 2021 11 Jan'21

  Ordnance Survey opens up direct, API access to location data for public sector

  Location data made available to public sector organisations via application programming interfaces, reducing data management overheads

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  Major facial-recognition supplier builds system to identify masked faces

  Facial-recognition supplier claims new system can accurately identify masked faces, therefore promoting public health during the pandemic. But questions remain about whether its existing UK law enforcement clients will be deploying the technology

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  AI Council advises government to do artificial intelligence moonshots

  The AI Council has published a “roadmap” of advice to government in respect of developing a UK state strategy for artificial intelligence, encompassing skills, vendor support and public sector procurement

• January 07, 2021 07 Jan'21

  Poor data flows hampered government’s Covid-19 response, says the Science and Technology Committee

  House of Commons Science and Technology Committee finds poor data management to have hampered the government’s Covid-19 pandemic response

• January 07, 2021 07 Jan'21

  Competition and Markets Authority kicks off Nvidia/Arm investigation

  In September, Arm and Nvidia announced a £31bn merger. Will Arm chip design remain free from Nvidia’s influence?

• January 06, 2021 06 Jan'21

  Distributed supercomputer DiRAC gets a £20m upgrade

  New funding will be used to boost performance and make the HPC system much more energy efficient

• January 05, 2021 05 Jan'21

  AI advancement: Mimicking decision-making

  In The Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger is transported back to 1984. If Arnie had to rely on cloud connectivity, he’d still be walking around naked

• January 04, 2021 04 Jan'21

  Caerphilly council delivers free school meals through automation

  Welsh council expands its robotic process automation project, which has successfully helped the council deliver free school meals during the Covid-19 pandemic

• January 03, 2021 03 Jan'21

  Covid-19’s impact on the retail supply chain

  The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed gaps in the ability of retailers to mitigate supply chain imbalances

• December 31, 2020 31 Dec'20

  Pandemic heroes dominate New Year Honours List 2021

  The New Year Honours List 2021 is remarkable for its recognition of those who have excelled during the Covid-19 public health emergency, including digital and data professionals

• December 30, 2020 30 Dec'20

  Top 10 ASEAN IT stories of 2020

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 ASEAN IT stories of 2020

• December 30, 2020 30 Dec'20

  UK-EU Brexit deal passes Commons with six-month data adequacy bridge

  IT industry trade body TechUK has welcomed a six-month data adequacy bridge, in the wake of the EU-UK trade deal that the House of Commons has voted for

• December 30, 2020 30 Dec'20

  Top 10 information management stories of 2020

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 information management stories of 2020

• December 29, 2020 29 Dec'20

  Top 10 business applications stories of 2020

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 business applications stories of 2020

• December 24, 2020 24 Dec'20

  UK-EU Brexit deal: TechUK and DigitalEurope hail new dawn but note unfinished data business

  Technology trade bodies TechUK and DigitalEurope welcome Christmas Eve UK-EU Brexit deal as a new dawn, but say there is work still be to done on data adequacy and financial equivalence

• December 24, 2020 24 Dec'20

  UK-EU Brexit deal: TechUK sees positive runes on digital and data adequacy

  TechUK is giving a cautious welcome to the imminent UK-EU trade deal, seeing positive signs for data adequacy and digital trade

• December 24, 2020 24 Dec'20

  Top 10 Downtime Upload podcasts of 2020

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 Downtime Upload podcasts of 2020

• December 22, 2020 22 Dec'20

  Top 10 retail technology stories of 2020

  Computer Weekly looks at what 2020 had in store for the retail industry – just how did technology help retailers adapt to changing customer behaviour during the pandemic?

• December 21, 2020 21 Dec'20

  Nordic CIO interview: Åsa Melvanius, Lund municipality

  For Åsa Melvanius, CDO at the Swedish municipality of Lund, created a “robot factory” that has saved the city more than 6,500 hours by automating routine processes

• December 21, 2020 21 Dec'20

  Top 10 artificial intelligence stories of 2020

  AI has moved beyond a tool for web giants and internet startups to something mainstream businesses should take seriously

• December 17, 2020 17 Dec'20

  Government can’t be complacent with AI, says Lords report

  Report urges coordination on policy and use of artificial intelligence, and sets out recommendations for how official bodies should respond to advances in the technology

• December 17, 2020 17 Dec'20

  Guide Dogs data strategy navigates path to organisational view

  Guide Dogs CIO Gerard McGovern is mapping out a data strategy that is aimed at taking the charity from an individual to an organisational view of data

• December 15, 2020 15 Dec'20

  Finland examines wider use of AI video camera technology

  Authorities in Helsinki will use artificial intelligence and video technologies to help them automate monitoring of crowds

• December 14, 2020 14 Dec'20

  Google services outage: Gmail, YouTube and Docs temporarily down

  Google’s services suffered unexpected downtime on 14 December 2020. Gmail, YouTube, Google Drive, the Android Play Store and its maps service all affected

• December 14, 2020 14 Dec'20

  Digital Ethics Summit 2020: governance key to inclusive post-Covid economic recovery

  Pluralism key to developing and deploying technologies for an inclusive post-Covid economic recovery, according to a panel at Digital Ethics Summit 2020

• December 13, 2020 13 Dec'20

  Singapore trials beacons to bolster police operations

  Police beacons equipped with video cameras, sirens, floodlights and speakers are being deployed at two parks to improve public safety in a year-long trial

• December 10, 2020 10 Dec'20

  Alan Turing Institute appoints global advisory board to aid digital identity schemes project

  The Alan Turing Institute announces an international advisory board for a project investigating digital identity schemes, with a view to building the technology and organisational infrastructure to sustain them as trustworthy

• December 10, 2020 10 Dec'20

  DCMS’s Whittingdale: National Data Strategy enters post-consultation phase

  Minister for media and data tells TechUK’s Digital Ethics summit that the long-awaited national data strategy has entered a new, post-consultation phase, and that the UK is set to show international leadership on digital and data in 2021

• December 09, 2020 09 Dec'20

  Top IT predictions in APAC in 2021

  The Asia-Pacific region will continue to be a cradle for technology innovation in the new year, whether it is 5G services, artificial intelligence, cloud computing or cyber security

• December 06, 2020 06 Dec'20

  China lags US in computer vision

  China trails the US in the field of computer vision despite making inroads in computing and research, new report finds

• December 04, 2020 04 Dec'20

  Government data quality framework geared to overcome poorly organised data

  The Office for National Statistics has published guidelines aimed at improving “disorganised” public sector data

• December 04, 2020 04 Dec'20

  Avast and Borsetta to support Intel’s AI security project

  Security firm Avast and AI security specialist Borsetta have signed up to support an Intel-led artificial intelligence security research project

• December 03, 2020 03 Dec'20

  Dreamforce 2020: Hyperforce shifts Salesforce to public cloud

  Salesforce COO Bret Taylor announced “Hyperforce” during Marc Benioff’s opening keynote at the virtual version of the supplier’s 2020 Dreamforce event in San Francisco

• December 03, 2020 03 Dec'20

  S/4 Hana projects come off back burner, but skills shortage impedes progress

  UK and Ireland SAP User Group members set to ramp up S/4 ERP migration projects, but skills shortage and retirement of SAP managers in user organisations are a concern

• December 02, 2020 02 Dec'20

  How IoT keeps water flowing in rural communities

  Non-profit organisation Charity: water has built an internet-of-things device packed with sensors to keep wells in remote parts of Africa and Asia flowing with clean water

• December 02, 2020 02 Dec'20

  Salesforce confirms rumoured Slack acquisition on eve of Dreamforce 2020

  Salesforce has announced a $27.7bn stock and cash acquisition of Slack ahead of the virtual iteration of its Dreamforce 2020 event

• December 02, 2020 02 Dec'20

  CIO interview: John Davison, First Central Group

  For the last nine years, John Davison has provided an IT strategy to drive business operations. Automation is the next phase of that strategy

• December 01, 2020 01 Dec'20

  Wayra partners with UK government for Latin American scaleup project

  Two scaleups from three Latin American countries – Argentina, Chile and Uruguay – will be selected by a project that will help the growing firms expand overseas into the UK market

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  Lords propose making tech giants pay for using news

  Digital platforms such as Google and Facebook profit from running adverts alongside publishers’ content, but no financial compensation is given for carrying that content, says Lords committee

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  Algorithmic transparency obligations needed in public sector

  Public sector’s use of algorithms with social impacts needs to be more transparent to foster trust and hold organisations responsible for the negative outcomes their systems may produce, says report

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  Government pumps £20m into AI research projects

  Alan Turing Institute’s artificial intelligence (AI) research fellows will receive funding for 15 projects including using AI to detect cancer and improve the performance of virtual personal assistants

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  How Grab is using technology to improve trust and safety

  Southeast Asian unicorn Grab is tapping artificial intelligence and other technologies to keep its users safe and cyber criminals at bay

• November 26, 2020 26 Nov'20

  Robots taking jobs, but creating careers

  Robotic process automation developers tell Computer Weekly about the job they never expected to be doing

• November 26, 2020 26 Nov'20

  Tony Blair Institute and Oracle combine to launch cloud-based vaccine management in Africa

  The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) and Oracle have combined to launch a vaccine management programme in several African countries

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  Australia’s science agency unveils mapping tech for SMEs

  The digital specialist arm of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has developed a mapping system to help robots navigate dangerous and complex terrain

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  Scottish government unveils strategy for digital planning

  Scotland’s government has published a document that describes its strategy for the digitisation of the nation’s planning system

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  UK government Geospatial Commission stipulates actions to exploit location data

  Report outlines some actions public bodies and companies can take to make better economic use of location data

• November 24, 2020 24 Nov'20

  Three options for next year’s IT strategy

  CIOs are under pressure to reduce costs, but they also need to modernise applications and help their businesses return to profitability

• November 23, 2020 23 Nov'20

  Inside Huawei’s APAC cloud strategy

  The Chinese technology giant is counting on its strengths in hardware infrastructure and focus on research and development to make a mark in Asia Pacific’s public cloud market

• November 20, 2020 20 Nov'20

  Pioneering companies use AI to drive profit

  The latest research from McKinsey shows that there is a strong correlation between an organisation's artificial intelligence maturity and profitability

• November 17, 2020 17 Nov'20

  Automated image recognition: How using ‘free’ photos on the internet can lead to lawsuits and fines

  Germany-based photographer Marco Verch uses computer scripts to populate the internet with topical images and photographs. People and companies who make mistakes in following the complex licensing terms of his ‘free to share and adapt’ photographs ...

• November 12, 2020 12 Nov'20

  IT Priorities 2020: Budgets rejigged to support 2021 recovery

  IT has been essential in helping organisations remain operational. IT chiefs are now considering the IT to drive a sustained business recovery

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  DCMS’s Whittingdale: National data strategy not tied to EU trade deal

  Minister tells ODI Summit that national data strategy is nearly finished and will fuel UK economic growth post-Brexit and post-pandemic

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Gartner: Composability will make business more resilient and agile

  CIOs have stepped up to the challenge of supporting their organisations during the global coronavirus crisis. Now they are set to do more – with less

• November 06, 2020 06 Nov'20

  Lockdown 2: Balancing job retention with automation

  As the UK enters its second coronavirus lockdown, experts have questioned the funds that governments across Europe have put aside to support businesses

• November 05, 2020 05 Nov'20

  Quarter of UKISUG members plan S/4 Hana migration by 2022

  Research by UK and Ireland SAP User Group and analyst firm shows SAP customer base still moving slowly to S/4 Hana

• November 05, 2020 05 Nov'20

  Mastercard: Looks like a tech firm, acts like a tech firm, is a tech firm

  Financial services giant finds itself in a prominent position as the volume of digital transactions increases

• November 03, 2020 03 Nov'20

  Mixed blessings for robots in retail

  Ocado has acquired two US firms to boost its robotics expertise, while Walmart has reverted to using staff for shelf inventory checks

• November 03, 2020 03 Nov'20

  NHSX launches second round of NHS AI competition

  NHS is looking for artificial intelligence products to help with triage, screening, imaging and intelligent operational automation

• November 03, 2020 03 Nov'20

  Robot lawyer gets Sberbank role

  Russia's largest state-owned bank creates a robot lawyer to reduce the time taken to process documents and make decisions based on them

• October 30, 2020 30 Oct'20

  Google third-quarter results highlight public cloud goals

  Google is the third player in the public cloud market, but it sees multicloud support as a major differentiator

• October 29, 2020 29 Oct'20

  How Shell is fleshing out a digital-twin strategy

  Digital twins are among the innovations that use AI, IoT and big data to help asset-intensive industries manage their operations

• October 28, 2020 28 Oct'20

  Avalon Airport deploys touchless kiosks, CT screening

  Australia’s Avalon Airport has rolled out touchless check-in and bag drop systems that passengers can control using speech, head gestures and eye gaze

• October 27, 2020 27 Oct'20

  SAP Q3 2020 results: revenue down 4%, cloud silver lining hailed

  SAP’s third quarter 2020 results stated a 4% year-on-year reduction in revenue, with an 11% increase in cloud revenue lightening the gloom

• October 26, 2020 26 Oct'20

  Chatbots will not replace call centre agents

  Chatbots have not lived up to their promises and are better poised to support call centre agents in the blended realm of customer service and employee collaboration, says a regional Avaya executive

• October 22, 2020 22 Oct'20

  Saudi Arabian authorities work with Chinese IT giants on digital goals

  Saudi Arabia has signed two agreements with Chinese IT suppliers as it strives to deliver its ambitious programme to diversify its economy

• October 20, 2020 20 Oct'20

  Pace of digital transformation accelerates

  As businesses strive to return to profitability, business leaders are relying on tech innovation to drive economic recovery

• October 20, 2020 20 Oct'20

  Study finds AI can teach humans new tricks

  Artificial intelligence tends to rely on supervised learning, but making the most of AI requires people to take on board what these systems learn autonomously

• October 16, 2020 16 Oct'20

  Serco and Sitel contact-tracing contracts agreed to be penalty-free for underperformance

  Penalties for underperformance were not included in NHS contact-tracing contracts with Serco and Sitel, it has emerged from questions to the Department of Health by Conservative MP David Davis

• October 16, 2020 16 Oct'20

  Services Australia taps AI in document processing

  Services Australia and Capgemini have developed an AI engine to classify and extract information from claim documents in a pilot project

• October 15, 2020 15 Oct'20

  Emerging tech can improve regulatory processes, says BEIS report

  Regulators should take a best-practice approach to the use of emerging technologies but need to be aware of the challenges, according to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy