4 Ways Governments Can Modernize Contact Centers for Emergencies

by  Jenifer Bond

Artificial intelligence plays a big role in improving the citizen experience.

When a natural disaster hits, the affected community's first instinct is to seek answers — fast. People want to know how to evacuate, where to find shelter or when it will be clear to return home. The contact center becomes the heartbeat of the emergency response. This isn't just a phone system, it's the first direct connection between citizens and the support they need, often making the difference between confusion and clarity and safety and danger.

In the wake of devastating events such as Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton, which recently hit Florida, traditional contact centers face numerous challenges. Outdated systems struggle to handle the overwhelming volume of calls, leading to delays and frustration for citizens urgently seeking help.

 Read full story at StateTech…

FTC to Launch Investigation Into Microsoft's Cloud Business

by Arash Massoudi, James Fontanella-Khan, Stephen Morris, and Stefania Palma, Financial Times

Microsoft is accused of using punitive licensing terms for Azure.

The Federal Trade Commission is preparing to launch an investigation into anti-competitive practices at Microsoft's cloud computing business, as the US regulator continues to pursue Big Tech in the final weeks of Joe Biden's presidency.

The FTC is examining allegations that Microsoft is abusing its market power in productivity software by imposing punitive licensing terms to prevent customers from moving their data from its Azure cloud service to competitors' platforms, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Tactics being examined include substantially increasing subscription fees for those that leave, charging steep exit fees, and allegedly making its Office 365 products incompatible with rival clouds, they added.

The FTC is yet to formally request documents or other information from Microsoft as part of the inquiry, the people said.

 Read full story at arsTechnica…

How the Federal CIO Is Prepping for the Presidential Transition

by  Natali Alms

Cybersecurity, customer experience and effective transition efforts have been top-of-mind for Clare Matorana in the last days of the Biden administration.

With 66 days until Inauguration Day, Federal Chief Information Officer Clare Martorana says her top priority in the last days of the Biden administration is cybersecurity.

“Continuing to make sure that cybersecurity is not an afterthought,” she told Nextgov/FCW on the sidelines of an ACT-IAC event Friday, adding that she wants cyber to be part of the IT community, rather than segmented away from each other.

“In government, it just continues to perplex me that we don't necessarily co-join in our product development and the ongoing maintenance of our digital properties as a single, cohesive team,” she said.

Second up is facilitating an effective transition for the incoming Trump administration

 Read full story at NextGov…

25 AI Tips to Boost Your Programming Productivity With ChatGPT

by  David Gewirtz

With ChatGPT in your toolkit, coding can be faster and smoother. I share the best ways of using AI to overcome common coding challenges, so you can streamline your development projects.

Many people I talk to think that AI is a magic genie that can manifest an entire program or app out of a single, barely-formed wish. Here's a much better analogy: AI is a power tool. Sure, you can use an old-fashioned saw to cut wood, but a table saw goes much faster. Neither tool makes furniture. They simply help you make furniture. Keep in mind that the AI isn't going to write your code for you. It's going to help you write your code.

Although there's no objective way for me to tell you exactly how much ChatGPT has helped me, I am fairly convinced it has doubled my programming output. In other words, I've gotten twice as much done by using ChatGPT as part of my toolkit.

 Read full story at ZDNET…

IBM Boosts the Amount of Computation You Can Get Done on Quantum Hardware

by  John Timmer

Incremental improvements across the hardware and software stacks add up.

There's a general consensus that we won't be able to consistently perform sophisticated quantum calculations without the development of error-corrected quantum computing, which is unlikely to arrive until the end of the decade. It's still an open question, however, whether we could perform limited but useful calculations at an earlier point. IBM is one of the companies that's betting the answer is yes, and on Wednesday, it announced a series of developments aimed at making that possible.

On their own, none of the changes being announced are revolutionary. But collectively, changes across the hardware and software stacks have produced much more efficient and less error-prone operations. The net result is a system that supports the most complicated calculations yet on IBM's hardware, leaving the company optimistic that its users will find some calculations where quantum hardware provides an advantage.

 Read full story at arsTechnica…

US Lawyers Will Reportedly Try to Force Google to Sell Chrome and Unbundle Android

by  Wes Davis

Bloomberg reports that DOJ lawyers will try to break up Google's search monopoly by targeting Chrome, Android, and AI Overviews

The Department of Justice is planning to ask for Google's antitrust trial judge to force the company to sell off its Chrome browser after the judge ruled the company has maintained an illegal search monopoly, reports Bloomberg.

Chrome is the world's most widely used browser, and the government's lawyers have argued that its use in cross-promoting Google's products is one of the things limiting available channels and incentives for competition to grow.

Requirements that officials are preparing to propose include that Google separate Android from Search and Google Play, but without trying to force Google to sell off Android. Another requirement would say it has to share more information with advertisers and that it “give them more control over where their ads appear,” the outlet writes.

 Read full story at The Verge…

Digital Twins Reimagined at Scale for Utilities

by  Phil Schwarz

Elevate human potential with information reimagined

As a global society we rely on machines so much that it's easy to take them for granted. We rely on machines to ensure water comes out of our faucets, heat our homes and businesses, fill our cars with petrol or electricity, construct and maintain roads, transport people and goods, provide medical images, and manufacturing more machines. Businesses and consumers rely on machines so much that exponentially more will be built, and their designs and operational performance will need to last longer without compromising safety or reliability. There is plenty of data available to help make this happen as “machines now generate one million times more information in one day than all humans on this planet do in an entire year.”

… Just as both humans and machines need to be managed to achieve their highest performance, so does the information that is generated or used by either one of them. The better that information is managed, the digital representation of the machine (or digital twin) and the workflows that directly support their operational performance will be more trusted, autonomous, and secured. Moreover, adding in the power of AI and LLMs, the value of digital twins can be maximized to confidently predict and safely act on machine performance.

 Read full story at UtilityDive…

Huge Gas Plant Eyed to Power Mystery $5B Louisiana Data Center

by  Pam Radtke

Entergy proposes a new $3.2 billion natural gas plant to run a 'game cha' data center in northeast Louisiana, while critics question the move

In rural northeast Louisiana, known for its rice, sweet potato farms and poverty, an as-yet-to-be-named company has agreed to build a new data center with an investment of at least $5 billion. The development is being called a “godsend” and a “game changer” for the region, where one in five people lives in poverty.

Next to the site, off Interstate 20 in Holly Ridge, electric utility Entergy plans to build a 1,500-megawatt natural gas plant to power the data center. The data center, the power plant, or possibly both, will be built on a 1,400-acre site, called Franklin Farms, owned by the state, according to filings with the Louisiana Public Service Commission. Entergy would spend $3.2 billion on the plant, a related 754-MW gas plant to be built in South Louisiana and transmission lines.

Over the last several months, concern has arisen that the construction of fossil-fueled power plants to provide power to the proliferation of U.S. data centers will slow progress on the nation's climate change goals.

 Read full story at Floodlight…

PG&E to Deploy Nuclear-Specific AI at Diablo Canyon Plant

by Sean Wolfe, Kevin Clark

Atomic Canyon's Neutron Enterprise generative AI solution, built and running on NVIDIA's full-stack AI platform, aims to simplify document retrieval and improve efficiency at Diablo Canyon.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is deploying Atomic Canyon's artificial intelligence-powered solutions for the nuclear energy sector at PG&E's Diablo Canyon Power Plant, marking the inaugural commercial installation of the first on-site generative AI deployment at a U.S. generating facility.

The announcement was made at the PG&E Innovation Summit presented by DISTRIBUTECH. Atomic Canyon's Neutron Enterprise generative AI solution, built and running on NVIDIA's full-stack AI platform, is being deployed at Diablo Canyon for document search and retrieval processes. PG&E also says the AI technology will deliver cost savings and improved operational efficiency.

Federal and state regulations require utilities that operate nuclear power plants to manage “billions of pages” of technical documentation, PG&E said, which are spread across multiple systems.

 Read full story at P:ower Engineering…