Federated Learning

Survey on Federated Learning Systems 

Advances and Open Problems in Federated Learning 

Towards Federated Learning at Scale 

Coded Federated Learning 

Multi-Center Federated Learning 

Evaluation Framework for Large-Scale Federated Learning 

FedML 

Awesome Federated Learning

FedAI

SecureBoost

Social Mixed Reality

In times of social distancing, people still want to be able to connect. Bars are empty. Parks are relatively empty. Seems like the linear social networking sites have become a bit of a trite concept. The next phase of socializing on the web is likely to be in the form of mixed reality - combining some sort of augmented reality with virtual reality concepts. This concept of virtual connection will enable people to meet in all sorts of different ways and maintain a safe distance if they need. It will also help people that are medically ill in hospital or busy at work to be able to connect as well without physically leaving their place of location. It will also enable people to connect across the globe which means reduced need for frequent travelling. Communications is likely to take on new forms of medium as people live more complicated lives with socially unique circumstances. In fact, enabling people with children to socially connect consciously as well within safe environment controls. Such virtual environments may also extend into remote support work to customer service and sales/marketing interactions. Similarly, it can also be extended towards socially connecting collective religious prayer such as for churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples allowing people to not have to physically visit such places while still making their regular rituals of worship remotely. In many respects, non-muslims, may want to visit mecca, where mixed reality could allow them to have a near real-time experience. On other hand, people may want to visit jerusalem from the convenience of their home. On other hand, an individual might want to join a global network of virtually connected prayer gatherings, even a social party scene like a wedding, concert or a festival. 

MQTT

MQTT

OpenFog

OpenFog

Five Rules of Computer Input Popularity

• Cheap
• Reliable
• Comfortable
• Software that makes use of it
• Acceptable user error rate

Anko

Anko

Intel Multi-OS Engine

Intel Multi-OS Engine

Next Generation Web Search

User, Content, and Context become the focal point towards a better and smarter search engine. Some areas of future searchable intelligence are listed below that could potentially add value to search engines of the future or improvement in existing platforms.

• Better user experience 'how can we help you' bots for searching the Web
• More semantically aware searching enrichment for contextual understanding
• Machine Learning for more automated context learning and content filtering
• Geolocation sensitive searching
• More personalized searching
• Searching by collaborative filtering
• Mood sensitive searching
• Ubiquitous content path searching and learning through metadata
• Accessible searching into deeper web
• Content search visualization and better queries over distributed web links
• Searching content on specific question phrases similar to jeopardy
• Better contextual search coverage of the Web
• Additive context value to knowledge discovery
• Search integration across products
• Search becomes everywhere and all knowing, all seeing experience
• Richer context cues adding more creative options for targeted audience advertising
• Searching is swifter and shrewder
• Search engines are able to contextually understand videos, audio, images, and text
• Searching with better security of user identity and navigational behavior
• Searching as a form of a crystal ball
• Searching becomes more ubiquitous through wearable technology and electrical devices/appliances
• Searching using more semantically aware and game-theoretic crawlers for indexing the Web

App Stores

There are many app stores on the web now. The three primary ones include Google Play Store, Mac App Store, and Amazon App Store. These seem to have the largest market share and potentially ones with good monetization potential. However, it seems app stores still need to converge, integrate and provide better services. So, far only Mac App store has a decent enough quality assurance process in place. And, Amazon App store provides the widest amount of device coverage as long as it is Android specific. There are certain functionalities that all app stores need to provide these days in order to make life easier for developers.

• An app store that can support many devices, languages, and platforms not exclusive to a few
• A separate analytics option to measure app performance and churn rate
• A separate analytics option to measure sentiments, marketing, and monetization channels
• An app integration option to drive packaging with ease across multiple platforms
• A demo section where consumers can get a preview of the app before buying or downloading
• A docking facility to support on browser, desktop, and mobile
• A gateway or fusion service that seamlessly makes upgrading, deployments, and publishing easier
• A widget and theming service
• A push notification, synchronization, and upgrade management service
• A separate option for desktop and browser
• A separate option for mobile, tv, and other ubiquitous devices
• A better way of monetization for free apps and a way to control viral amplification on the web
• A secure way to download and upload apps, and app security checking during QA review process, as well as continuous identity and apps screening
• Also, a standardization process across all app stores to make monetization and publishing easier
• A more secure and flexible payment processing workflow both for seller and buyer
• A better semantically searchable option for apps that can be queried across app stores
• Access to public and private controls for downloads for enterprises, DRM, and country restrictions
• Age and parental control restrictions
• Ability to check app compatibility on the fly
• Simpler and more accessible policy and code of conduct guidelines for developers
• Better selection criteria for app stores
• A central administration console
• Device registration and management
• Auto-scalability, CDN, and uptime features via public and private cloud options
• Options for added promotions, offers, and discounts for further upselling on the apps 
• Also, app stores should only be commission based no flat fee for membership should be necessary, and if the fee is necessary then it should be fairly nominal like $9.99 rather than $99 per year

List of mobile software distribution platforms
App store optimization
best google play store alternative app stores
android app stores
17 android app store alternatives to google play store
google play store alternative
What ingredients go into the successful app store
the enterprise app store the 10 must have features

Creative Intelligent Agents

There is great potential in the development of intelligent agents that can outshine humans in their ability to be creative and produce new ideas. Such agents could be utilized for generative art, for developing hit songs, generating ideas that could evolve new profitable business ventures, even to conquer creativity in mass advertising campaigns. One could even use a creative agent to think up a new jingle or a theme for a new John Lewis advert. Creative agents could even be incorporated into understanding plot lines to enable mass appeal for box office and chart topping entertainment. Creative agents could even invent new dance moves and social trends in process. Idea geniuses could be useful for start-ups in exposing untapped business markets, website generation, and even brand development. One could even utilize creative agents to discover new chat-up lines for dating experiences or even to linguistically construct jokes on stage. Furthermore, they could even be adapted for the home cinema experience for augmented reality. Obviously, there are certain underlining complexities in context of creative learning methods and the areas that have been under heavy research have ranged from music composition, painting, to storytelling. Creativity has no real bounds as limits only lie in the imagination and the evolution of artificial intelligence. From conversational agents to more socially ubiquitous agents that can enhance the immersive experiences for humans can only be a good thing.

Go for Robotics and Internet of Things

Go is a very easy language to learn which can take a mere mortal a day at max to get started and probably less. The language is starting to take shape in a diverse application domains. It is becoming quite useful for cloud computing, and embedded as well as low-level development work. And, even an interesting replacement for shell scripting. Although, the language uses garbage collection, it does derive its roots from the C programming language, especially from looking at the backgrounds of the creators. For Python developers, it will be another useful and familiar arsenal at their disposal. Go is especially becoming useful for Robotics and Internet of Things with several interesting approaches becoming available in the community. It is even taking shape in the Semantic Linked Data space. At moment, the community is slowly starting to accept Go for a variety of application use cases through experimentation and evolution of the language. In time, we are going to witness an emergence of a new ecosystem of Go developers and a resurrection of an almost religious as well as active use for large-scale enterprise applications. 

List of Go Projects

Gobot
Cayley

Convergence of TV and Internet

Although in past TV and Internet have been treated significantly as different media source streams, it will become evident that such options have more synergies for the future. Not only does it mean more access to a wider digital customer base but also reuse of existing content and technologies. Advertising companies are already focusing on context and behavior for mobile, TV and Internet. However, sooner or later WebTV and ubiquity is going to take over where content providers will need to start treating all such media sources as one ultimate streaming option with all dependent on metadata semantics. Even such retailers as eBay and Amazon will have to look to digital TV options to enhance their already wider customer base. This will also mean more complexity of use cases but yet consolidation of technology for big data. Desktop is again going to take center stage as more people will look for access to multi-model accesses to media streaming. People want applications and platforms that work across digital divides with minimum amount of fuss on compatibility and re-engineering by the consumer. Advertising will again mean reduction in subscription costs and a higher revenue stream. Essentially, ubiquity will also take center stage as digital technology becomes a part of our very existence rather than an over visible tool constraint, an almost plug and play for everything. And, as digital electronics and software converge it will mean mass appeal for the customers due to the multi-model transparency of use. Such approaches are already in existence today through Apple and Google products. However, people also want more versatility of contextual use as well as smarter intelligence. As more people spend time with digital technology, they will also become emotionally aware of their own health and well being which means more ubiquitous technology needs in the home and office as well as the daily leisure life of an individual. If there is a publishing or retailer site on the Internet, it will only become more contextually beneficial to have a channel brand as well to broadcast the content. Aggregated outlets will have the benefit of a larger contextual semantics for streaming. Real-time needs are growing while people become more demanding as consumers with their more complex tastes and digitally connected lives. It will inevitably become a case of consolidation for meeting digital trends, harnessing cost-effectiveness from technology, and the wider consumer base.

Renewable Energy

Energy in its many forms is a shared necessity that drives the very existence of a modern society and the running of businesses. However, centralized energy sources are not really working sufficiently enough to meet increasing population demands as even running of such plants consumes energy. While the privatization of energy sector has also led to huge price hikes for households. The trend towards energy sources should really be decentralized back to the households while still maintaining some level of government sponsored plants. In process, such initiatives should allow households to be more responsible with their consumption and more creative projects could arise in how renewable energy could be harnessed as well as stored. It would also provide incentives for households to sell back recycled energy and materials to businesses. Use of solar power is one obvious alternative. However, this alternative alone is not going to be sufficient even with government incentives. Majority of renewable energy needs to be met through recycling and refuse that households throw away on a daily basis. In process, it will solve multiple issues in cities. For one, it would stop massive landfill sites that add to global warming and pollution. It would also stop the infestation of rodents in cities. Also, there would be no need for regular rubbish to be stacked outside homes for collection. Another option for renewal is to recycle wasted heat from running water, air conditioning, and other electrical appliances. Internet of Things would also help to tackle such a hurdle through semantic technology and robotics. Decentralization of energy sources and consumption should also reduce the scalability and provisioning requirements for production. Such options could even extend to businesses who also produce a huge amount of waste. Modern living is all about living clean with environmentally friendly alternatives, while not foregoing on the luxuries that life affords. As energy cannot be created nor destroyed, we can at least make efforts towards discovery of alternative sources and forms from the many recycling options, for better and efficient ways of living as part of a community. 

Semantic Nature

Understanding our Earth is important as it provides for valuable answers. Nature provides us a means of developing cures as well as a way of understanding our place on Earth. As humans we want to be able to track all the living things on Earth and develop a connection with them. Nature also provides a huge amount of data on human life and the transitive effects overtime. Taking inspiration from Noah could be one form of improving on the Linnaeus taxonomy schema and providing a universal Semantic Web of Nature. This would allow for a linked data for scientists and the development of connected services for much needed research. One could then also utilize the open community on modifications to a type as new species and sub-species are discovered, similar in approach to Freebase and Wikipedia. Knowledge discovery in such a connected manner would allow for a multitude of research options for collaboration and interconnected sharing of both interests and findings. Often having two of each is enough to build a taxonomy similar to the Noah's Ark. Also, linked data on nature and wildlife would enable more applications in tracking animal behavior patterns as well as when they become at risk of extinction. Even total population counts through animal tagging can be semantically enabled. Perhaps, even the approach to Internet of Things would take ubiquity of applications to new heights. One could even build a taxonomy of animal communication and provide for natural language parsers in this domain. Semantic Web holds the key to unlocking a lot of the untapped potential of machines of today in providing for much needed intelligence for smart applications, especially for the real-world, where problems not only have complexities in uncertainty but also in multiple dimensions. There is much that we still do not know about the world we live in. The more we are able to contextualize and utilize machines for reasoning, the more we become productive and efficient in discovering knowledge.

Pest Control In Big Cities

One is never too far from a colony of rats and mice in big cities that are so densely populated. London and New York City being prime examples where they are even more in population than humans. Some can be docile and distant. Others, will not care and will gleefully play around with humans in background, as if to tease our intense dislike for the creatures. Still there are others, that will jump on top of a human's back and even bite viciously in defense. There are also some that will just open their gaping mouths to a human as if to exchange the intense fear and dislike both parties have for each other. Rats and mice will always dwell in company of humans. Perhaps, this is a natural part of their scavenging existence to come after all our rubbish that we so profusely throw away on a regular basis. Rubbish is plentiful in big cities. They also are a very disruptive creatures that will destroy everything in their way and spread disease in process. Some humans have even developed a strange fondness for them. One can emphatically agree that rats and mice can be a nightmare for a homeowner. In the time that rats and mice have been around, humans have yet to create an effective strategy of tackling them especially during a domestic infestation. We have so called commercial recipes and options. Some are not very long lasting or just ineffective. Others work well if used with traps. Traps are nasty business for most people. As they are nocturnal animals, one never knows what they are up to once they get access to our homes, while we are away or even asleep. Another, annoying experience for homeowners is the droppings which are highly toxic and hoovering only seems to spread the effects. They make cleaning around the house an utter nightmare as they spread their droppings on everything and can even at times shoot urine at person if they are in the vicinity. It is even worse for those individuals that have an allergic reaction. We as humans find ourselves at a quandary. Wherever humans go, the rats and mice sure to follow. It is almost like they are our savage night stalkers. But, surely our lives would be a lot easier if we just got rid of them, at least in a way that they do not invade our homes. A generally accepted way is to have a predatory animal, plug any open holes, keep the house clean, and poison bait as a long lasting remedy on rats or mice. But, even such methods can allow rats and mice to adapt to their surroundings. They have even adapted well to sonar repellers in cities which in fact attract them to homes. It can also be argued that homes that provide for an intense amount of repellers, poison, traps, and minty smells may actually be doing themselves a disservice. Rats and mice can probably learn to adapt to such risks and in fact realize that homes with so many preventative measures could only mean one thing - such homes have a lot of food at their disposal. The iRobot created a very successful way of cleaning the floor. Perhaps, we can extend the idea of a robot to act as a predator or communicator to the mice or rats in a continuously adaptive way. The robot should be able to learn from a rat or mouse behavior and take that into a feedback loop to ward them away. So, overtime a robot should always be looking for inputs from rat or mouse, to stay ahead of the game. Not all preventative methods work for pest control as such animals have adaptive practices and their own unique ways of handling human fear. And, though they are animals, they are curiously smart ones too. A robot is a smart beast as well that is engineered to do one thing and one thing only at its optimum potential. To eradicate rats and mice completely we would need to understand their nest sources, their local forging behavior, the patterns of behavior they display with humans as well as among themselves, and what types of preventative measures make them fear. There is even an approach to understanding degrees of fear in a fuzzy way to tabulate what is intense enough for one may not be intense enough for another. One could even adapt the robot using genetic algorithms and through reinforcement learning. Perhaps, the ideas of using autonomous robots could also work here as a way of pest control and eradication. Could one create a robot in form of a cat, rat, mouse, or even a snake? Unfortunately, pests in big cities are not just limited to rats and mice either. They can even be foxes, squirrels, insects, and the list could go on based on the city in question. In end, the humans take a backseat as they turn a war on pests, at least to the anticipation of striking a peace deal.

10 worst rat cites in the world

Internet Of Things

An Internet of Things is an interesting concept. However, quite open ended and still very much an emerging area. The idea is also about making smarter cloud driven applications to ubiquitously find things in general. A thing may be something tangible for enhancement towards smarter living. In some ways, making lives easier and yet becoming ubiquitous in our every day lives. Using the Internet to make things more connected. Things here could be any concept - a device, a service, or even an abstraction of some kind to conceptualize data in some useful way. Ordinarily it requires some form of smart identity profiles similar in respects to the idea of RFIDs. Making things smarter means such concepts become more accessible and extensible as resources. In semantic web, things and concepts hold separate meanings. However, the same approach can be applied to the Internet of Things as well. The interaction can be seen in a distributed computing context as well with rich information flows even in real-time. The domain context is extremely broad and is valuable in areas of mission-critical applications. They also enable smart city life where almost every device or gadget becomes alive from embedded intelligence with a constant stream of data without requiring significant human intervention. Obviously, in this regard even the most mundane functionality such as light switches can be made complex by their embedded circuitry to enable them for such an ideal. There are also security risks for making everything enabled for privacy concerns in general. Such self-controlled intelligence can also make people lose a sense of control of their lives. There is also a need for more efforts towards a formal policy, protocol or framework to allow for the concerns to be tackled and a seamless integration process.

Smart Utility Services

Utility services are getting more and more expensive across every household. Energy in all its forms as a consumable is becoming more and more expensive. Unfortunately, as technology driven products and services become all the more a necessity the need for utilities is also becoming more and more an important dependency for all. Winters are growing colder while Summers are getting hotter. It seems only natural that something must be done about the way utility services are consumed and how they are conserved. Building more intelligent meters would be useful. Also, the idea of being able to conserve around the house when such utilities are not being used would be an adequate functionality to have on electrics. They do exist on most standard PCs nowadays but not on most electrical items. Robotics could also come in handy around the house for utility consumption as well as in creating options for better fuel and energy sources that can be better renewed in turn saving many in the huge costs to a supplier. Often the expense passed to a consumer is down to the supplier being greedy and stock piling in order to inflate price which has a result on the way they may be traded on the financial markets. There has to be better alternatives possible that can leverage cost savings across the board. These can come from more hybrid approaches from semantic models across cities and using artificial intelligence techniques to harness better alternative fuel sources that can drive more efficiency as well as meet the practical demands.

Intelligent TV

It would be interesting if TVs of today were a lot more intelligent in reflecting our habits and tastes as well as catering to our personalization needs. At any given time, they should have the capacity to learn our natural patterns of viewing and incorporate that into providing us with a schedule of shows through the day. This is one aspect that will optimize a TV viewership especially as network services work to achieve such goals in chasing after ratings. Even advertising markets could change dynamically to the habits of viewers. Also, on satellite and cable TV there are just so many channels available. Unless, one has a double screen TV or a view-in option, it would be difficult to watch multiple shows at once. Catering to individual needs is the answer to many. It also means people can watch all their missed shows to match their busy lives. One thing, that TV does is show repeats of shows so people could catch-up where they have missed. However, such shows also invariably repeat a little too much boring the likes of many as well. There is also the need to move the notion of a TV and transform it into a more ubiquitous viewing. The utility of a TV needs to harness its surroundings within the everyday gadget of a home. It needs to be available over the internet. And, it needs to allow people to connect socially. Internet will also make quality of viewing possible as well especially in order to view channels that have border restrictions. Even the approach to 3-D TVs needs to be pushed faster in advancement so people do not have to wear glasses in order to take use of such a facility. The more intelligent our electronics become the more versatile they are for us to use, and the more we can take advantage of them as part of our everyday lives. TVs could even take inspiration from the minority report  or even the marvels of shield and provide us a more thinner set of glass displays to advance most display technology in general.

Smart Postal Services

Postal services are becoming quite antiquated in their approach. It is also for many a struggling business not to mention the extra level of care they have to maintain these days for mail security. There has to be better and more effective ways for postal services. In a matter of speaking the role of a postal service has to evolve drastically to meet the pressures and demands of a digital age both for individuals as well as businesses. Digital mail is seen as an alternative to standard postal mail. However, how much can one digitize in form of mail is another story of data protection. Postal splits into two streams of courier and general postal services. For mail sorting, they could use more robotics into specific functions and gradually phase them in the process. For postal deliveries, they can apply the travelling salesman problem as a form of effective route planning which goes further than just a simple shortest path problem. They could also enable bar codes and GPS tracking on standard mail for a more effective means of streamlining sorting and delivery. Another, alternative is to use RFID tags. Even semantic web and linked data approaches could be applied here to harness the web using geonames. There is also a need to reduce the time required for deliveries as well as an increase in reliability. Postal services also need to incorporate themselves towards the option of emails for standard letter parcels in a digitized form. There also needs to be an automated way of allowing users to scan and register their own postage as well as more flexible ways of mailing services. Amazon is using an interesting option of providing in-store delivery boxes for customers, which is quite a good idea. Something similar could be applied to the general postal services as well. In process, ecommerce companies, like Amazon would not need to create their own services. Perhaps, this is an indication that postal services are not effective enough for ecommerce. It also seems that drones should be applied for local postal systems based on their specific districts enabling them to geotrack senders and recipients. Even personalized services for pickup should be made available. Postal services could also incorporate advertising into their system of delivery. This on its own could add a significant portion of revenues. Most postal service sites also lack responsiveness in their interfaces. They also provide very limited mobile alternatives. Analytics is another options that could add further optimizations. In general, postal services need to incorporate the digital age in their business objectives and harness the web towards diversification of services. There is much that can be improved in the postal services and not just for delivery but also for all their standard mail functions. 

Drones For Services

Drones are starting to be used in experiments for postal, takeaway, and even for grocery shopping. However, they do have some serious drawbacks. For one thing, they can be used for snooping on others and invading our rights to privacy. At same time, they could even fall prey to pranks and attacks from humans and even other drones. An almost simulated drone warfare could become a nightmare for public services. Especially, if there are visible electric wires in the neighborhood. Even the manoeuvring of drones can seem like a big maze over obstacles in form of tall trees, chimneys, tall buildings, or even birds. What about migratory birds and how drones could effect their seasonal behavior. Nature could even play its way in form of hail, rain, heavy storms. Perhaps, it even means the loss of the delivery man and the end to commissions. Can we really be assured with the way a drone delivers our food or perhaps the way it delivers our post through GPS tracking?  Can a drone really be taught all the various unpredictable things of human society and the manners of city life. Simulations are just not enough to provide a clear level of intelligence for the unpredictable and the uncertainties of nature and human societies. A drone really needs more than neural capacity. It really needs a degree of conscience. The will to make conscious decisions based on the changing surroundings and the best course of action that is humanly possible. Drones can also cost a lot more to enable and for humans to adapt to within their daily lives. Businesses often take a lot longer to realize the full potentials of anything that drives in change to the status quo. It may appear the drive for more robotics in business is a clear way for over added big brother beyond the reproach of visible cameras. So, perhaps, the increase in interest and the creative uses for drones really needs to be taken with an open mind and with a pinch of salt. As not all such creative ideas have an underlining ethical intent or so called productive use in mind. Perhaps, there is more of a drive there for hidden levels of monitoring of people that hides behind the covers of plausibility verse deniability which is further cultivated as a way of adapting new experiences into society. Or, maybe, people really can use the moral high ground and build drones that make our society more efficient and productive. Ubiquity is the underlining driver into drones so are web services, and with web services you can add more added semantic value, which also means they can act as multiagents with deductive reasoning abilities.