Month: July 2024

AI chatbots are people, too. (Except they’re not.)

July 23, 2024 /

During the last two years of the Great Depression, Westinghouse built a robot. 

One of several famous “mechanical men” built in that era, the company’s Elektro robot was created to showcase Westinghouse’s electrical engineering prowess at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

Elektro amazed crowds. Standing seven feet tall and weighing 265 pounds, the humanoid robot could walk, talk, blow up balloons, move his head and arms, and even smoke cigarettes. His photoelectric “eyes” could distinguish red and green light.

Elektro could speak about 700 words using a 78 rpm record player installed in its torso. The words were delivered by a series of turntables connected to relay switches.

After dazzling crowds nationwide in the 1940s and suffering waning enthusiasm in the ‘50s, Elektro was dismantled and put into storage. Later, it was rediscovered, re-assembled, and showcased again — it even appeared in a 1960 comedy film for adults called “Sex Kittens Go to College,” starring Mamie Van Doren. Elektro “played” the “role” of a campus robot called Thinko who could calculate the future, predict winning lottery numbers, and pick the outcome of horse races. (The entire movie is on YouTube.)

Throughout the whole Elektro craze, the public attributed human-like qualities to the robot and assumed it was the beginning of robots that would join human society and the workforce, working both with, and in competition with, humans. 

In other words, Elektro was the ChatGPT of its era. 

Why humans hallucinate about AI and robots

One common complaint about large language model (LLM)-based chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT is that they “hallucinate” (generate information that seems plausible, but is actually false, inaccurate or nonsensical.) But people also “hallucinate” (experience something that isn’t there). Specifically, people tend to believe that AI chatbots experience human-like thoughts and feelings. 

A survey study conducted by researchers at University College London and published in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness found that a large  percentage of the public believes LLMs experience consciousness, emotions and memories. 

The study, “Folk psychological attributions of consciousness to large language models,” concluded that AI’s ability to generate coherent, contextually appropriate, and seemingly empathetic responses makes two-thirds (67%) of surveyed Americans believe it has understanding and emotional depth.

In fact, the more sophisticated and human-like the AI’s responses are, the more likely people are to perceive it as having consciousness, which bodes ill for a future where AI gets much better. 

The Lattice HR fiasco

The HR software company Lattice recently announced a new policy of treating AI personas as “digital workers” equal to human employees, complete with official employee records. 

Lattice CEO Sarah Franklin said the company intends to onboard, train, and assign goals to AI personas. “By treating AI agents just like any human employee, businesses can take advantage of their utility while still holding them accountable for meeting goals, Franklin said. 

It’s clear from Franklin’s statements that she believes the move represents the future of how AI tools will be treated in the future. 

But then she got slammed in the comments of her Linkedin post announcing the move, and the company backed down, saying it would no longer be treating AI personas like human employees. 

The problem with thinking AI can think

A majority of people is deluded into thinking AI can think or feel. Companies are tempted to treat them like humans. And companies in Silicon Valley and around the world are racing to make a AI chatbots and assistants with “emotional intelligence,” human-like vocal patterns and even creative decision making and creative agency.

It’s clear why people believe AI can think and feel. Our Paleolithic-hominid brains are hardwired, then trained in infancy, to distinguish between what is human and what is not by noticing which animals in our world can hold a conversation, convey emotions, use reason, exhibit empathy and communicate with non-word sounds, facial expressions, hand gestures and body language. 

Human parents get right in the face of their newborns on day one, talking to the baby. Every day of our lives, people are talking to us. We learn to do the same. We learn early that talking is the exclusive province of our species. 

It’s natural that when we hold a conversation with AI, our conditioned brains tell us that the AI’s capacity for conversation is based on the same stuff as our own capacity. That AI’s ability to speak is a deliberately crafted illusion feels counterintuitive. 

As a species, we’re clearly slouching toward the normalization of confusing software with humanity. 

It’s a tool, not a colleague

The first problem with believing AI has thoughts, feelings, consciousness and/or knowledge is that we won’t use it as effectively. AI is a tool, not a colleague. Mastery of that tool ultimately demands that we understand what it is and how it works. 

In our work, we’ll increasingly use AI tools for cybersecurity, IT administration, software development and architecture, hardware design and 100 other tasks. Despite the fuzzy language of the tech industry, we’ll succeed best with tomorrow’s tools by understanding, using and exploiting them — not “partnering with AI.” 

The second problem is that we might trust AI, relying far too much on next-generation agentic AI to choose its own path to solving our problems and achieving the goals we set for it. Instead, we need to understand the potential hazards, and make sure it does what we want it to do without accidentally enabling it to “steal,” “cheat,” “lie” or harm people on our behalf. 

Don’t fear the robot

If the public believes AI has human-like qualities, they’re likely to fear it. AI is not human, and behind its programmatic simulation of human speech and artificial emotional intelligence, it’s just a machine with all the humanity of a toaster. AI will always creep people out if they believe it’s “thinking.” As a result of this fear, a huge percentage of people in the future might well refuse AI-based medical interventions and other beneficial or even life-saving drugs, therapies and emergency care. 

Some large percentage of people might want to avoid or attack robots and robotic tools and vehicles, believing them to be malicious. There’s no moral dimension to this in terms of harming mechanical beings. But robots are property, and vandalism of others’ property is unethical. 

And finally, the biggest reason to reject the intuition that AI is human-like is that it diminishes the value of humanity. To treat machines as human is to treat humans as machines. We should all strive to treat our fellow humans with dignity, respect and consideration. And we should avoid the delusion that a machine deserves the same, just because we programmed it to talk.

Sorry to break it to you, mid-20th Century Americans. Elektro the robot was not a “mechanical man.” It was just a man-shaped can of electrical and mechanical components purpose-built to dazzle rubes at the county fair.

Likewise, AI can’t think or feel. It’s just a complex system for organizing information, combined with a natural-language user interface.

We are entering the age of AI. Let’s use these new tools. Let’s control them. But mostly, let’s enter this era without delusion. 

AI chatbots are people, too. (Except they’re not.)

July 23, 2024 /

During the last two years of the Great Depression, Westinghouse built a robot. 

One of several famous “mechanical men” built in that era, the company’s Elektro robot was created to showcase Westinghouse’s electrical engineering prowess at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

Elektro amazed crowds. Standing seven feet tall and weighing 265 pounds, the humanoid robot could walk, talk, blow up balloons, move his head and arms, and even smoke cigarettes. His photoelectric “eyes” could distinguish red and green light.

Elektro could speak about 700 words using a 78 rpm record player installed in its torso. The words were delivered by a series of turntables connected to relay switches.

After dazzling crowds nationwide in the 1940s and suffering waning enthusiasm in the ‘50s, Elektro was dismantled and put into storage. Later, it was rediscovered, re-assembled, and showcased again — it even appeared in a 1960 comedy film for adults called “Sex Kittens Go to College,” starring Mamie Van Doren. Elektro “played” the “role” of a campus robot called Thinko who could calculate the future, predict winning lottery numbers, and pick the outcome of horse races. (The entire movie is on YouTube.)

Throughout the whole Elektro craze, the public attributed human-like qualities to the robot and assumed it was the beginning of robots that would join human society and the workforce, working both with, and in competition with, humans. 

In other words, Elektro was the ChatGPT of its era. 

Why humans hallucinate about AI and robots

One common complaint about large language model (LLM)-based chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT is that they “hallucinate” (generate information that seems plausible, but is actually false, inaccurate or nonsensical.) But people also “hallucinate” (experience something that isn’t there). Specifically, people tend to believe that AI chatbots experience human-like thoughts and feelings. 

A survey study conducted by researchers at University College London and published in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness found that a large  percentage of the public believes LLMs experience consciousness, emotions and memories. 

The study, “Folk psychological attributions of consciousness to large language models,” concluded that AI’s ability to generate coherent, contextually appropriate, and seemingly empathetic responses makes two-thirds (67%) of surveyed Americans believe it has understanding and emotional depth.

In fact, the more sophisticated and human-like the AI’s responses are, the more likely people are to perceive it as having consciousness, which bodes ill for a future where AI gets much better. 

The Lattice HR fiasco

The HR software company Lattice recently announced a new policy of treating AI personas as “digital workers” equal to human employees, complete with official employee records. 

Lattice CEO Sarah Franklin said the company intends to onboard, train, and assign goals to AI personas. “By treating AI agents just like any human employee, businesses can take advantage of their utility while still holding them accountable for meeting goals, Franklin said. 

It’s clear from Franklin’s statements that she believes the move represents the future of how AI tools will be treated in the future. 

But then she got slammed in the comments of her Linkedin post announcing the move, and the company backed down, saying it would no longer be treating AI personas like human employees. 

The problem with thinking AI can think

A majority of people is deluded into thinking AI can think or feel. Companies are tempted to treat them like humans. And companies in Silicon Valley and around the world are racing to make a AI chatbots and assistants with “emotional intelligence,” human-like vocal patterns and even creative decision making and creative agency.

It’s clear why people believe AI can think and feel. Our Paleolithic-hominid brains are hardwired, then trained in infancy, to distinguish between what is human and what is not by noticing which animals in our world can hold a conversation, convey emotions, use reason, exhibit empathy and communicate with non-word sounds, facial expressions, hand gestures and body language. 

Human parents get right in the face of their newborns on day one, talking to the baby. Every day of our lives, people are talking to us. We learn to do the same. We learn early that talking is the exclusive province of our species. 

It’s natural that when we hold a conversation with AI, our conditioned brains tell us that the AI’s capacity for conversation is based on the same stuff as our own capacity. That AI’s ability to speak is a deliberately crafted illusion feels counterintuitive. 

As a species, we’re clearly slouching toward the normalization of confusing software with humanity. 

It’s a tool, not a colleague

The first problem with believing AI has thoughts, feelings, consciousness and/or knowledge is that we won’t use it as effectively. AI is a tool, not a colleague. Mastery of that tool ultimately demands that we understand what it is and how it works. 

In our work, we’ll increasingly use AI tools for cybersecurity, IT administration, software development and architecture, hardware design and 100 other tasks. Despite the fuzzy language of the tech industry, we’ll succeed best with tomorrow’s tools by understanding, using and exploiting them — not “partnering with AI.” 

The second problem is that we might trust AI, relying far too much on next-generation agentic AI to choose its own path to solving our problems and achieving the goals we set for it. Instead, we need to understand the potential hazards, and make sure it does what we want it to do without accidentally enabling it to “steal,” “cheat,” “lie” or harm people on our behalf. 

Don’t fear the robot

If the public believes AI has human-like qualities, they’re likely to fear it. AI is not human, and behind its programmatic simulation of human speech and artificial emotional intelligence, it’s just a machine with all the humanity of a toaster. AI will always creep people out if they believe it’s “thinking.” As a result of this fear, a huge percentage of people in the future might well refuse AI-based medical interventions and other beneficial or even life-saving drugs, therapies and emergency care. 

Some large percentage of people might want to avoid or attack robots and robotic tools and vehicles, believing them to be malicious. There’s no moral dimension to this in terms of harming mechanical beings. But robots are property, and vandalism of others’ property is unethical. 

And finally, the biggest reason to reject the intuition that AI is human-like is that it diminishes the value of humanity. To treat machines as human is to treat humans as machines. We should all strive to treat our fellow humans with dignity, respect and consideration. And we should avoid the delusion that a machine deserves the same, just because we programmed it to talk.

Sorry to break it to you, mid-20th Century Americans. Elektro the robot was not a “mechanical man.” It was just a man-shaped can of electrical and mechanical components purpose-built to dazzle rubes at the county fair.

Likewise, AI can’t think or feel. It’s just a complex system for organizing information, combined with a natural-language user interface.

We are entering the age of AI. Let’s use these new tools. Let’s control them. But mostly, let’s enter this era without delusion. 

How to replace Edge as the default browser in Windows — and why you shouldn’t

July 23, 2024 /

Microsoft has been struggling to get people to use its Edge browser for years. Even though the company made Edge the default browser in Windows 10, users left in droves, most of them flocking to Google Chrome — and with good reason. The original version of Edge was underpowered, had difficult-to-use features, and offered very few extensions compared to Chrome and Firefox.

But in January 2020, Microsoft launched a new version of Edge that’s based on the same technologies that drive Chrome. The new Chromium-based Edge is a much better browser, and there are compelling reasons to use it. (The new Edge is the only one that’s ever been offered in Windows 11.) But you might still prefer to use Chrome, Firefox, or one of the many other browsers out there.

Note that even if you’ve previously set up another browser to be your default, it might have been changed since then. When there’s a major Windows 10 or Windows 11 upgrade, the upgrade recommends switching to Edge, and you might have inadvertently made the switch.

Whatever the reason, if Edge is your default browser in Windows 10 or 11, it’s easy to switch to the browser of your choice. As I’ll show you, it only takes a few minutes.

The instructions in this article assume that you’ve installed either Windows 10 version 22H2 or Windows 11 version 23H2. If you’re using an earlier version, the screens you see may vary somewhat from what you see here.

Why you might want to stick with Edge

It’s probably worth at least trying out Edge. The browser offers a clean design with intuitive features. The biggest drawback to the old Edge was its paltry selection of browser extensions, but because the new Edge uses the same rendering engine as Chrome, it can run Chrome extensions, which number in the thousands. And unlike Chrome, Edge offers tracking prevention, which blocks ad providers from tracking you from website to website.

In my tests, Edge also feels faster than Chrome and uses less RAM. And it has some interesting features worth trying, such as the ability to launch a website as if it’s an app.

And then, of course, there’s the Copilot generative AI chatbot (formerly known as the Bing chatbot) which has been integrated into Edge via a right-hand pane. Chrome has a genAI chatbot as well, Gemini (formerly Bard), but you may prefer Copilot, which has been around for a longer time.

All that said, you might not be interested in trying out the new Edge, or you might try it and decide you still prefer Chrome, Firefox, or another browser. You may, for example, like Firefox’s ability to alert you when a website covertly uses your computer’s processor to mine cryptocurrency in the background, without your knowledge. Or you might like the way Chrome’s Omnibox (the place you type URLs and searches) can do things like perform math functions, convert currencies, or answer questions such as naming the capitals of US states without having to search the internet.

If you want to use another browser as your default, here’s what to do.

How to designate another browser as your default

The first thing you need to do to switch to another browser as your default is to install the other browser on your system. What you do next depends on whether you use Windows 10 or Windows 11.

Changing the default browser in Windows 10

1. If you’re using Windows 10, click the Start button and then click the Settings icon that appears on the left-hand side of the screen. (It looks like a little gear.) You can alternatively type settings into the search box and click the Settings result that appears at the top of the screen.

replace edge default browser win10 settings

To change your default browser in Windows 10, start in the Settings app.

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2. In the Settings app, select Apps > Default apps. The “Default apps” screen appears. It shows the default apps for email, maps, playing music and videos, viewing photos, and more.

3. To change the default browser, you’ll have to scroll down toward the bottom of your screen. There you’ll see Microsoft Edge under the “Web browser” listing.

replace edge default browser win10 default apps

Navigate to the “Default apps” screen and scroll down.

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4. Click the Microsoft Edge icon and you’ll see a pop-up with a list of your installed browsers.

replace edge default browser win10 choose browser

Select a different browser to be your default.

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(Side note: The pop-up also has a “Look for an app in the Microsoft Store” option, but if you click it, you  may not find a popular browser you want to install. Clicking it launches a search of the Windows App Store for the term “http.” When I tried it for this article, the only familiar browser it found was Firefox. Otherwise, there was a motley collection of apps, from file downloaders to an app that dims your Windows background to make it easier to view videos. There are also some little-known browsers listed, such as Super-Fast Browser and BlueSky Browser. Try them out if you like, but keep in mind that they’re Windows Store apps, and as a general rule, Windows Store apps are underpowered compared to desktop apps like Chrome, Firefox, and Opera.)

5. Click the browser that you’d like to be your default browser. No need to restart; your work is done.

Changing the default browser in Windows 11

1. In Windows 11, after you’ve installed an alternate browser, click the Start button and then click the Settings icon in the Pinned area.

2. In Settings, select Apps > Default apps, then scroll to the browser you want to make your default — for example, Google Chrome.

3. Click the arrow next to it, and at the top of the screen that appears, click Set default.

win11 settings chrome default browser

Making Google Chrome your default browser in Windows 11.

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4. A checkbox then appears next to “Set default.” To change the default back to Edge, or another browser, scroll to the browser you want to be the default and click Set default.

Once you switch the default browser to something other than Edge, clicking most web links in emails, documents, and most other apps will open them in your new default browser. However, some links associated with web browsing will likely still open in Edge — for example, PDF files, some graphics files such as .svg, mailto links, and more. You can hunt down each of those file types and links and change them individually to your new default browser, but it’s going to take you time. Here’s how to do it.

1. In Windows 10, go to Settings > Apps > Default apps > Choose default apps by file type.

2. On the screen that appears, scroll through all the file types and look for those still associated with Microsoft Edge — for example, .pdf.

3. Click the Microsoft Edge icon to the right of the file type, and from the screen that appears, select your default browser — for example, Google Chrome.

4. You can alternatively choose to have an app from the Microsoft Store run the file. To do it, click Look for an app in the Microsoft Store and follow the directions.

5. After you’ve done that, go to Settings > Apps > Default apps > Choose default apps by protocol and follow the same steps.

1. In Windows 11, go to Settings > Apps > Default apps and click your default browser — for example, Google Chrome.

2. Scroll through all the file types and protocols, and click any still associated with Microsoft Edge — for example, .pdf.

3. On the screen that appears, choose Switch Anyway, and then from the pop-up screen, select the app you want to use to open that file. Note that you don’t have to choose your default browser — you can choose another app, such as a PDF reader for .pdf files.

Even after all that, you may still find that clicking links in the Windows interface itself — such as in the Start menu, Windows Search results, or widgets — will open them in Edge. Microsoft announced that it’s changing this behavior in Windows 11 so that all links open in the user-set default browser, but only in Europe. The rest of us will be stuck with Edge for Windows system links for the foreseeable future.

This story was originally launched in September 2017 and most recently updated in October 2023.

The future of DaaS: Why legacy VDI is not enough for today’s business needs

July 22, 2024 /

Legacy virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions that rely on centralized servers and complex infrastructure are not well-suited for the dynamic and diverse needs of modern organizations. Instead, many are looking for a cloud-based alternative that reduces complexity and total cost of ownership.

A few years ago, legacy VDI solutions were vital to organizations seeking to bolster application delivery management, unified endpoint management, and security capabilities. But they are often expensive, difficult to manage, and prone to performance issues.

Desktop as a service (DaaS) solutions leverage the cloud to deliver virtual desktops on demand and provide many benefits that on-premises systems lack, such as improved security, scalability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency. Users can access virtual desktops on demand from internet-connected devices while the organization can simplify and automate application management with less costly, scalable solutions.

Microsoft Azure is renowned for its robust security features and compliance certifications, and Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) leverages those capabilities to provide a secure virtual desktop environment. From data encryption and access controls to threat detection and identity management, Microsoft AVD helps organizations mitigate security risks and ensure compliance with industry regulations and standards. 

Still, not all IT organizations want to handle the extensive customization and configuration options that can optimize AVD for specific organizational requirements. In some cases, they don’t have the time it takes for IT staff to acquire training and familiarization with the Azure platform. As in many areas of IT, a managed platform option can supplement overtaxed internal resources.

Avoiding tedious migration efforts

Radius Recycling, an operator of large recycling facilities and its own steel mills, used a legacy VDI provider and was reliant on old servers running on Windows 2008 to host custom applications developed in-house. It was breaking so often that Radius felt it was completely unstable and untenable. The company’s development team began the process of migrating to Azure the main SQL server, which was supporting 50 Pick-n-Pull lots across the US and Canada.

With one IT staffer tasked with rebuilding apps from scratch and deploying them on Windows 10, the process was inefficient and tedious. Then that staffer learned about Microsoft AVD with Nerdio Manager for Enterprise. Microsoft AVD and Nerdio support more than 500 monthly active users at Radius Recycling, easing the burden on the help desk and providing employees with improved performance of third-party apps.

Onboarding was relatively simple without the need for an elaborate new vendor procurement process because Nerdio Manager is installed directly from the Azure Marketplace into the customer’s tenant.

Microsoft AVD with Nerdio allows organizations to leverage Microsoft’s significant investments in AVD, Intune, and Windows 365 services. Nerdio Manager for Enterprise enhances Microsoft’s native components instead of replacing them with proprietary functions. There’s no lock-in, so organizations can remove Nerdio Manager without impacting users or infrastructure.

With the advantage of Nerdio’s modern, unified platform, IT professionals can deliver and maintain a wide range of virtual Windows endpoints and Windows applications across hybrid workforces with ease and utilize powerful monitoring and analytics for maximum effectiveness.

Organizations can fully manage the entire lifecycle of desktop images without the need for PowerShell scripting. The platform offers Scripted Actions that enable IT Admins to create images in less than 30 minutes. Meanwhile, companies can reduce Azure compute and storage costs by up to 80% using AVD with Nerdio’s Auto-Scaling capabilities.

Organizations need greater flexibility to adapt to changing business needs. To learn how Microsoft AVD with Nerdio can help modernize IT infrastructure and enhance user productivity, visit us here.

Cost optimization: How to get the most out of your DaaS investment

July 22, 2024 /

The advantages of cloud computing come with notable challenges that frustrate enterprises, particularly managing costs and optimizing resources. Desktop as a service (DaaS) is one notable cloud service that can be complex and requires careful planning and monitoring to avoid overspending and underutilization, leading many to turn to managed platforms that can ease those burdens.

Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) stands out as a leading enterprise VDI solution, offering unparalleled scalability, security, and flexibility for organizations of all sizes. The virtual desktop operating system is used to securely host desktops and applications in the cloud. It is highly scalable and flexible, renowned for robust security features, and it offers a cost-effective, consumption-based pricing model.

Many organizations, though, face a steep learning curve in implementing and managing AVD, especially if the IT team lacks experience with cloud-based virtual desktop environments. Configuring AVD’s extensive customization options and optimizing it for specific organizational requirements takes planning and expertise. That’s led some to augment AVD with Nerdio Manager for efficient applications management, streamlining support for hybrid workforces, and providing a single pane of glass for overseeing AVD, Windows 365, physical devices, and Windows applications.

AVD with Nerdio enables organizations to modernize their IT infrastructure and enhance user productivity. Nerdio significantly reduces the learning curve associated with AVD by offering intuitive management interfaces and step-by-step guidance tailored for IT administrators.

Avoiding cloud utilization headaches

Unoptimized cloud computing costs can create major headaches for IT and finance teams. But Nerdio’s patented Auto-Scaling feature can reduce Azure compute and storage costs by as much as 80%. Nerdio Manager for Enterprise automatically swaps out OS disks from SSD to HHD when VMs are not running, and it automatically expands and reduces the Azure Files IOPS and sizes to meet storage needs based on usage.

Nerdio’s Auto-Scaling and automation enabled the IT organization at Canada’s Equitable Bank to turn virtual machine schedules on and off as AVD usage and demand fluctuated. This resulted in 74% savings on compute per month compared to the previous environment. The bank now manages approximately 1,900 end users with Nerdio, seamlessly connecting employees across Canada with a cloud-based solution.

With Nerdio’s storage optimization of Azure Files and Azure NetApp Files, Log Analytics, OS disk swapping, Advanced Predictive Drain Mode, and multiple scaling triggers, organizations can closely match the Azure infrastructure to user demand in real time. This ensures maximum efficiency in utilizing AVD’s consumption-based pricing.

Nerdio can fully manage desktop images, utilizing Scripted Actions to easily enable the creation of images in less than 30 minutes and install the software that is needed without having to log onto the VM. This avoids manual image creation or utilizing DevOps, Packer, or some other complicated method.

An automated approach to provisioning AVD with Nerdio ensures consistency and reliability across deployments, mitigating the risk of errors and ensuring a seamless user experience.

In 2021, the University of North Florida (UNF) undertook a major strategic initiative to digitally transform and migrate to the cloud to better serve the student body, faculty, and staff. When beginning the transition to Azure Virtual Desktop, they found that it was more agile and improved performance—but the native capabilities were limited, making it challenging to manage and automate, so it turned to Nerdio Manager for Enterprise to improve the AVD environment.

“Unlike with our previous virtualization solution, I no longer have to sit around to see if machines are being over-utilized,” said Michael Holmes, Assistant Director of Endpoint Management at UNF. “I don’t need to move users around or re-image my hosts in the middle of the day. Nerdio handles it all gracefully, ensuring a seamless user experience.”

Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop ensures a uniform and efficient user experience for employees and contractors alike, whether they’re working remotely, on the move, or within offices. But if you don’t have the resources or the desire to master how to optimize AVD performance and utilization, learn more about how Nerdio can provide the expertise and support services needed to ensure a seamless experience for end users and maximize the value of your investment.

Nvidia is developing special AI chips for China

July 22, 2024 /

The US government has introduced new regulations that make it difficult for Western technology companies to export certain computer components to China. So, Nvidia is now in the process of developing a special version of its AI chip that can be sold to China without violating the new laws.

According to Reuters, the chip is a variant of the B200, one of the processors in the Blackwell series launched in March. The special version is called B20 and is estimated to be 30 times faster than previous chips when answering questions from chatbots.

China currently accounts for 17 percent of Nvidia’s turnover, which can be compared with 26 percent two years ago.

Microsoft pins Windows outage on EU-enforced ‘interoperability’ deal

July 22, 2024 /

An interoperability deal Microsoft enforced by the European Commission in 2009 may have led the Windows-maker to open itself to the recent CrowdStrike-led outage, according to Microsoft.

In an interview with WSJ, a Microsoft spokesperson indicated the deal could have potentially kept Microsoft from completely locking down the Windows operating system for security purposes. Queries sent to Microsoft however did not elicit a response until the publishing of this article.

The “Interoperability Commitment” Microsoft entered made the company grant security software makers the same access to Windows as Microsoft itself.

“Microsoft shall ensure that third-party software products can interoperate with Microsoft’s Relevant Software Products using the same Interoperability Information on an equal footing as other Microsoft Software Products,” outlined the agreement available as a Doc file on Microsoft’s website.

EU laws mandate open API access

As per the agreement, Microsoft was mandated to provide third-party security software makers access to the APIs used by its security products in Windows Client and Server operating systems. Additionally, Microsoft was asked to document these APIs on the Microsoft Developer Network, except when doing so would create security risks.

The EU has intensified efforts to combat anti-competitive behavior by big tech, making it unlikely to permit Microsoft to further lock down Windows, despite any potential benefits.

Apart from Windows Client and Server operating systems, software makers, under the agreement, are also allowed federated access to Microsoft’s PC productivity applications, SharePoint, Outlook and Exchange, and the .NET framework.

Interestingly, the EU has not been able to arrange such terms with Apple or Google, and both macOS and ChromeOS, respectively remain free from any inclusivity obligations. This may have to do with how different these companies are from Microsoft in terms of their business models. Apple operates closed integration of its software, whereas Google’s open-source Android platform already provides a lot of transparency.

CrowdStrike-led outage was avoidable

While the deal, in itself, aims to ensure a fair competitive environment by enabling third-party software vendors to integrate and operate seamlessly with Microsoft’s products, it isn’t as great from a security viewpoint as it opens critical Microsoft systems to third-party access and may sometimes even lead to a mass disruption as in the case of recent CrowdStrike patch fiasco.

“This highlights the risk of open systems and API access to security vendors mandated by EU laws,” said Pareekh Jain, CEO and lead analyst at Pareekh Consulting. “In the future, lawmakers would need to make a special case for security while advocating open access and a level playing field to security software companies.”

The CrowdStrike outage was caused by a defect found in a Falcon content update for Windows hosts as confirmed by CEO George Kurtz. Without the interoperability obligation, perhaps, Microsoft could’ve had measures in place to stop the update from being pushed to countless Windows machines within just 79 minutes.

Why Business Internet Security Is Important for You

July 22, 2024 /

The biggest rationale behind adding business internet security to your small business is one, simple, but crucial, factor—safety.

Business internet security protects you against multiple levels of threats. It doesn’t matter what size business you’re running, what industry you’re in, or what your business offers; the truth is that no small business is exempt from cyber-attacks. The repercussions of your business becoming a victim to a cyber-attack can be harmful to your business’ growth, daily operations, reputation, and customer base.

Keep reading to learn about some of the biggest risks your small business could face should you be subject to a cyber-attack.

Customer Privacy

Small businesses contain a great deal of private information—information that would be detrimental to one’s business if it leaked, was sold, or got out somehow. Think about the type of information your small business has access to such as proprietary data and customer communications.

All of that information—and more—needs to be protected from hackers and cyberattacks. The main reason for someone to try to access this information is to collect customer data that can be leveraged in fraud or identity theft. As a small business, it’s your obligation to ensure you’re never putting your customers in a position where their data may be exploited. Implementing security measures and taking the necessary steps to ensure their data is protected will go a long way toward ensuring your customers trust you with their data—in the immediate future and on a long-term basis.

Identity theft

Not only is identity theft an issue that affects your customers, but it can also directly affect you as the business owner. If someone gets access to your small business’ private data, they can use it to steal the identities of you or your employees. This information can include things like name, account details, credit card numbers, or even Social Security Numbers, depending on the type of business you operate. Hackers can then use this information to commit various nefarious, malicious cyber-crimes, such as opening fake bank or credit card accounts in the victim’s name. 

Recovering from identity theft can take months (sometimes years), loads of money, and a lot of the victim’s own time. It can also take a long time to rebuild your reputation and ensure clients can trust you again. By utilizing antivirus software, cloud-based technologies, and other business security products, you can prevent these damaging incidents. 

Damaged Reputation

A business’ reputation is everything. As a small business, you know this to be true—most businesses rely on repeat customers and referrals. If a system’s security gets comprised, it can severely tarnish your sparkling reputation, prompting customers to take their business elsewhere. People will tell others about the trouble, too, and it may create a roadblock in finding new customers.

Financial Damages

Beyond data breaches and privacy risks, hackers can also drain a company’s bank accounts. Ransomware is a type of attack where intruders hold stolen data hostage until the business pays up, with the ransom fees usually being exorbitant. Fixing the technical issues that led to the attack is expensive, as are the public relations fees you may have to pay to mitigate publicity from the issue. All of this can add up to a drastic setback for any small business—in many cases, leading foreclosure or bankruptcy.

Damage Control

Part of the process of recovering from any kind of cybercrime event is figuring out how it happened, then implementing stronger protective measures to avoid it in the future.

The initial problem can often stem from something as simple as an employee’s mistake. User error is the root of much cybercrime, as not all employees follow company security practices. In other cases, some kind of forensic investigation may be required to get to the root of the problem, along with corrective technical actions to fix any issues – again, a potentially expensive endeavor. 

Common Types of Cyber Attacks 

Educating yourself and your employees on the wide array of cybercrimes—from malware to DNS filtering and beyond— will put you in better position to prevent them. Here are a few of the most common ways that cybercriminals are trying to infiltrate your small business:

Malware

Let’s say an employee happens to click on a pop-up window on a company computer. If the link is malicious, clicking it can result in harmful software being installed on the computer, leading to threats including ransomware, viruses, or spyware. Spyware enables intruders to gain access to personal information and obtain passwords that can then be used by intruders to log in to your systems as a legitimate user and do all sorts of harm.

Phishing

Phishing scams often come in the form of deceitful emails, social media messages, or texts that look legitimate but are in fact attempts to steal personal information, including financial information and passwords, or to install malware. If this happens on a company computer, it can leave your business and network in a vulnerable position.

DDoS Attacks

DDoS stands for distributed denial-of-service attack. This occurs when cybercriminals use bots to flood your network, website or other systems with illegitimate traffic. The intent is to overwhelm the system’s resources and bandwidth. This causes immediate disruption, such as a slow or nonresponsive website, while also leaving your small business susceptible to further attacks that can potentially crash your systems and further disrupt your business.

How to Protect Your Business From Cyber Attacks

Any company can experience these types of attacks, from small, mom-and-pop shops to corporate conglomerates. The good news? You can take numerous security measures to protect company data and sensitive information. By implementing appropriate antivirus software and other security solutions, you can ensure your business and customers are protected against hackers.

Cybercrime tactics aren’t static. In fact, cybercriminals are getting smarter, so businesses must get smarter too. Optimum offers protective solutions like firewall and antivirus software, as well as offerings to fight the threats of malware, phishing, and DDoS attacks. Our support team can help you find the security solution that’s right for your small business, and help you get properly set up. We also offer 24/7/365 technical support to ensure you’re always covered and protected, because cyber-attacks can happen at any time. 

Hackers are always looking to improve their techniques, and we are too. We’re constantly improving our products and services, so our clients stay secure in this ever-changing world. 

To read more about the steps you can take to protect your small business, check out our blog detailing the 5 Best Practices for Small Business Cyber Security.

To learn more about how Optimum can help your small business stay safe, contact us today.

The workers have spoken: They’re staying home.

July 22, 2024 /

Dell had it all figured out. The venerable computer company wouldn’t force people back into the office. Instead, it would just insist that all staffers show up at the office for at least three days a week. 

If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be laid off — they just wouldn’t be promoted. (Unspoken was that this new policy would serve as a way of “thinning the herd.”)

Given a choice between not getting promoted or continuing to work at home, half of the employees have elected to stay home, thank you very much. 

I’m sorry, Dell. This is 2024, not 2014. Now that people have gotten a taste of working from home, they’re not going back to the office. You’d think that would be clear by now — now just at Dell, but almost everywhere.

Why? Let me count the reasons:

  1.  No commute on crowded highways;
  2.  A better life/work balance;
  3.  Cost savings;
  4.  Flexibility to choose where to live (and work).
  5.  More control over your workplace.

I’ve been working from home for decades, which makes me something of an exception compared to a lot of workers. But my experience holds for people who got their work-from-home start during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

I used to work out of a Manhattan office, but I lived in New Carrollton, MS. How did I do it? I took Amtrak to work on Monday and returned home on Friday. I’d joke that I walked to work — first to my local train station and then from Penn Station to the office. There were just a few hours in the middle when I’d work from the dining car. 

More often than not, though, I’d just work from home. 

When I decided to move to Asheville, NC, in 2001, my bosses agreed to let me move because, as I told them then, I could always catch a same-day flight if they really needed me in the office. But, as I told them, I doubted there would be any reason I’d need to be there.

I was right. While I still fly to New York City occasionally for work, I never had to be there for the job. 

Better still. I had more time to be home — and I saved money to boot. It’s cheaper to make a sandwich in my kitchen than to get lunch at a deli near the office in midtown Manhattan. Finally, I love living in mountainous and green Asheville rather than the flat and asphalt-covered area inside the Washington, DC beltway.

In short, I’m happy working at home and have been for more than two decades. Most people who work from home feel the same. 

Companies might want people’s rumps back in office chairs, but according to a recent Gartner report, 48% of employees say their company’s mandates prioritize what leaders want rather than what employees need to do good work.

Yes, that’s right. At far too many companies, the desire for control trumps what people really need to do their best work. 

In particular, Caitlin Duffy, the Gartner HR practice director, said: “High-performing employees are more easily able to pursue opportunities at organizations that offer hybrid or fully remote policies.” 

If they don’t get those work-from-home opportunities, they’ll leave. That, in turn, “means losing high-performers to attrition, costs organizations in terms of productivity, [can cause] difficulty in backfilling the role, and the overall loss of high-quality talent available to fill critical positions,” Duffy said.

Ding! Ding! Ding! 

Here’s another piece of evidence that people are not, in capital letters, returning to the office.  According to the latest Moody’s commercial real estate analysis, office vacancy rates have never been higher. Just over one in five offices is now vacant. (The only reason that percentage isn’t higher is that companies have yet to be able to get out of long-term leases.)

Might I note that once that lease has ended, companies  won’t have to pay for that office space. It’s a win-win —unless your business is commercial real estate.

Put it all together, and what do you get? You get the new work culture of the early-mid-21st century and beyond. It’s all work from home from here on out, folks. 

Deal with it. And enjoy it. 

Put not your trust in Windows — or CrowdStrike

July 20, 2024 /

What do the Boll Weevil, Cavendish bananas, and the recent Windows/CrowdStrike fiasco all have in common? They’re all economic disasters that occurred because far too many people put their trust in a monoculture.

I’m serious.

Indeed, I warned you years ago about Windows when I first mentioned Mr. Boll Weevil. After the Civil War, the US South became more dependent on cotton production than ever before to make money in the region in the late 19th century. 

Then, in the mid-1890s, Boll Weevils arrived and almost destroyed the cotton crop and the South’s economy. With only one cash crop, the South was vulnerable to this one bug as it destroyed crops — and hundreds of thousands of people’s livelihoods.

Today, the banana you get for breakfast every morning is in danger. Almost half of the bananas in your grocery store are Cavendish bananas, which are being devastated by the Fusarium wilt. This fungal disease might well drive Cavendishs into extinction; then what will you do for your banana split??

And now, we come to Windows and the disaster that unfolded on Friday. (This time ,Microsoft’s poor security wasn’t to blame for the problem for once.) The proximate “credit” for the ongoing mess goes to CrowdStrike, which released a truly awful security update to its Falcon Sensor program, which scans Windows computers for intrusions and signs of hacking. 

All it took was a single faulty content update — not really even code — to fry Windows computers from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Just as bad, undoing the problem requires manual fixes to every computer, PC by PC. IT staffers will be up to all hours over the weekend and beyond deleting the fouled-up data file and the system reference that called it. (Those overworked IT folks will be happy learn the CEO has apologized.)

Why was the update so awful? Why did it cause hundreds of millions — perhaps billions — of PCs around the world to crash and get locked into endless reboot loops? Because just like cotton and Cavendish bananas, we depend all too much on a single product: Windows.

I told you so; let me reiterate: “Windows bad, Linux good.

I wasn’t surprised to learn that, according to the folks at QR Code Generator, “Analysis of Google search data has revealed that online searches for “Microsoft alternative,” “MacOS,” “Debian,” “Ubuntu,“ and “Linux” soared by up to 290% worldwide during Microsoft’s global IT outage.”

Once more, and with feeling, I suggest you seriously consider switching your computers from Windows to Linux and contemplate moving from PCs to Macs. 

Leaving that smart-aleck attitude aside, we really do depend too much on Windows, period. If we were all using Macs or Linux, we might have encountered the same problem, but it’s less likely. Linux is more secure by design, but it’s had its security breaches, as well. It just doesn’t have them nearly as often as Windows does. 

To a lesser degree, it’s the same story with CrowdStrike. You’re unlikely to use Falcon Sensor on your home PC. Still, according to the business data analysis company  6sense.com, CrowdStrike is the No. 1 business endpoint security company with more than 3,500 customers. 

If you’re playing the “What Happened to Whom Game at home,” that’s about one in four companies that use endpoint security. These tend to be big companies. For example, my friends stuck in airports on Friday kept telling me it included most of the major airlines and all the airport flight scheduling screens. It was not a good day to fly. 

Or, to buy groceries, or get paid, or… you get the idea. I’m sure you have your own story. 

Me? Yes, I was fine with all my Linux desktops and servers…, as long as I stayed in my home/office. 

That’s the problem, you see. In this interconnected world of ours, even open-source fans like me are affected when Windows goes down. We all are.

Windows has become a single point of failure for the world’s IT infrastructure. We really must move on, not to a world where everyone uses Macs or desktop Linux, but one where we use a multitude of different operating systems.

Yes, this will be a pain. But at least this way, we won’t have days like Friday when all too much of the day-to-day technology we depend on goes down.