Working in DevOps Requires a Unique Set of Skills

Devops is a unique job in that it combines software development with operations management. As such, if you want to make this your career, you must hold an eclectic set of skills. You can do it. In fact, to help you out, here is a list of skills many believe make for a good devops engineer. Don’t forget to get your bachelor’s degree in software development. You can then move on and earn your master’s degree in operations management for the well-rounded education you will need for the job.

People Skills

One of the primary responsibilities of any person working in devops is to be the liaison between a business’ development and operations teams. You must be able to work with everyone on a project from concept through fruition. In fact, part of your responsibility will be to manage the workflow that allows the project to move forward. If you understand people, and how to get them together to work toward a common goal, you may be invaluable when it comes to devops jobs.

Technology Skills

Of course, each project will require different technology to make it happen, so you will also need to possess a broad understanding of various technologies out there. You must be knowledgeable in cloud, container concepts, continuous integration, deployment, infrastructure automation, orchestration, and source control. Ron Gidron from Automic Software explains that the best devops engineers are people who remain curious at all times.

Security Skills

All of this technology must be locked down, so you’ll also need to know a thing or two (or a million) about security. Because putting development and operations together streamlines processes, it increases the time in which a project is completed. This looks good on the bottom line, but it also opens up new networks to vulnerabilities. You must combine your knowledge of development and operations to ensure you protect the project against any security risks. Can you write security code?

Automation and Testing Skills

Because part of your job will be to develop network infrastructures, you will need to be savvy with automation and testing. In fact, James Giles IV of Datical states automation is one of a devops engineer’s primary jobs. You should be able to write scripts to automate administrative and engineering roles. This streamlines network processes and keeps any lists of manual tasks consistent for all IT and other applicable personnel. You need to test the systems, too, so make certain you have that experience.

Although the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does not have an exact job outlook for devops positions, the closest thing to this career is a software developer. That job outlook looks good – so good in fact, demand for good developers is projected to increase a whopping 24 percent by the year 2026. The average median salary for software developers in 2017 was over $100,000, and when you take into account you’ll earn more because you’ll manage operations, too, devops is a great career choice.

If you have the determination to succeed, you will – no matter what you choose to do. In the case of devops, the career is dynamic, exciting, and lucrative. With the right combination of education and experience, you should have no trouble securing a job in this field.

Apple iOS 11.3.1 Has A Nasty Surprise

Apple users are in for an Ugly surprise in iOS 11.3.1

So what is an update to an operating system supposed to do? You may say fix bugs and maybe introduce some new features to the OS, but apparently some think differently, exhibit Apple. Taking the example of Apple iOS 11.3, users expected bug fixes and some new features but all they got was some more bugs and the previous ones not really fixed, just forget about new features. This fiasco in turn put new pressure on Apple to make some serious changes with iOS 11.3.1, but then again we have a repeat iOS 11.3 performance but this time with a little kick and believe me this kick will hurt.

iOS 11.3.1 seems to have one fix in mind but other than that it fails to address any other issues, when in fact there were a host of other fixes that were desperately required. Now coming back to that special kick, with iOS 11.3.1, you get, maybe the most serious iOS 11.3 bug so far, an audio skipping issue. Thought you were smart huh in skipping the iOS 11.3 update and going straight to iOS 11.3.1, but now are thinking otherwise?

The Audio Skipping incident with iOS 11.3.1:

Incident or frequent occurrence is more like it. This issue seems to have affected a number of Apple users. So what exactly does this bug do?

The audio skipping problem actually skips or distorts your audio, whether it be listening to your music or podcast or receiving or making calls. It seems like you have a bad line but is actually the audio skipping bug that you get free with iOS 11.3.1

What’s more is that with the audio skipping bug in iOS 11.3.1, features like phone calls, podcasts, music playback are all made almost useless.

Reaction to the audio bug in iOS 11.3.1:

As you can imagine users are furious that they now have to contend with this bug over every other issue that is there. This problem too with iOS 11.3.1 seems to have also affected a large number of Apple users out there.

Some are even thinking of making a switch to Samsung after many years with Apple. Looks like the bug problem finally got to them. The audio skipping problem with iOS 11.3.1 also has nothing to do with battery life because users have also commented that their batteries are fine and that they still faced this problem with iOS 11.3.1

Something interesting with iOS 11.3.1: 

Apple seems to be secretly claiming that by updating to iOS 11.3.1, users will actually get this problem solved. This leads to more unsuspecting users updating to iOS 11.3.1 and then Voila! They are face with the dreadful audio skipping problem.

Apparently there is no end in sight with this problem. There seems to be no fix to the iOS 11.3.1 issue and while many claim that a hard reset of the iPhone with iTunes may help, there is no evidence to support it.

How Google Autocomplete works in Search

The Workings behind Google Auto complete

We all know what autocomplete is and how it works (basically) but what we don’t really know is how much time it saves for us. A post by Google shows that Google autocomplete saves around 25% of our typing time or in other words around 200 YEARS of typing time per day, Yes you read right 200 YEARS per DAY! On the other hand google autocomplete is especially useful for mobile devices as you don’t have to take too long on typing on a smaller screen. Though, most of us have become master typists at this point.

Google Autocomplete is a feature that you will find anywhere, that is wherever there is a Google search bar like obviously Google Home, Google app present in Android and iOS, Quick search box in Android and Omnibox address bar within Chrome. Type and there you have the predictions appear.

Google uses the term predictions in Google Autocomplete:

In a Google article recently posted, Google has specifically used the word predictions to describe Google autocomplete rather than suggestions and for good reason too. Google autocomplete tries to predict what you want to search for, rather than showing you what different things you can search for.
Determining of Predictions on Google Autocomplete:

Google looks at real searches done by other users, trending information and your location and passed searches to create predictions in Google’s Autocomplete. It fills in predictions according to words already typed and eliminates search predictions that do not match words as and when more info is typed by us.

Predictions against Google Autocomplete rules:

When it comes to giving predictions, Google does not want to shock users in getting out- of- context and insensitive searches so they have put up a set of rules to govern the same within Google autocomplete.

Some of the predictions that are against the rules are hateful comments against groups or individuals on the basis of race, religion etc., predictions that are violent and dangerous and harmful predictions.
Google also removes predictions from Google autocomplete that are based on valid legal requests, those that are related to spam and those that relate to piracy.

 

Control mechanisms in place in Google Autocomplete:

Google does its best when it comes to controlling inappropriate predictions but with sifting through billions of searches per day sometimes inappropriate predictions on Google autocomplete slip through the cracks and that is why sometimes we see things that at times can be shocking.

Google has also started a feedback tool since last year that has been useful to them in removing unwanted predictions from Google autocomplete. They also plan on increasing the criteria for determining what is considered hateful in removing unwanted suggestions from Google autocomplete.

Reporting of Unwanted predictions:

Individuals too now can report anything that appears inappropriate on Google autocomplete. For those using a desktop there is “report inappropriate predictions” link that appears on the bottom of a search box and for those on Android, users can long press on the prediction to report it.

An Augmented Reality Microscope for Cancer Detection

An Augmented Reality Microscope will help in detecting cancer cells in upcoming days

With each passing day virtual reality, augmented reality and machine learning are opening new pathways in varied medical disciplines. It has been found that the application of the machine learning in varied medical departments specifically the radiology, ophthalmology, dermatology and pathology can help in deriving accurate and precise reports of the patients on global scale which can in turn boost the overall health sector on global level.

Google research team has come with an innovative and promising Augmented Reality Microscope, which has started showing remarkable results in detecting the breast cancer symptoms with highest rate of accuracy found only in very few trained pathologists.

This augmented reality microscope can perform a wide range of task like offering visual feedback, in form of the heat maps, contours, arrows, animation as well as some texts. As it is being powered by the machine learning it has got the ability to perform some problem solving as well as like going through smart object detection, classification as well as the quantification.

Google researchers have developed the augmented reality microscope based on the modern computation models along with the deep learning models using TensorFlow. The use of the machine learning algorithm helps in getting the output right on the screen in real time.

Detecting breast cancer based using new algorithms

Google researchers has trained this augmented reality microscope to run two very different cancer detection algorithms in order to detect cancer with highest rate of accuracy.One algorithm allows the augmented reality microscope to detect the breast cancer metastases present in the lymph node while the other algorithm trains it to detect the prostate cancer present in the prostatectomy specimens.

As it is able to take snaps in higher magnification of 4-40x, it allows the physician or researchers to have a look at the growing tumour regions with the green contour right on their screen. Furthermore these detailed imaging of the cells also allows the doctors or pathologist to carefully study the area under the influence of tumours cells without any issues.

Future application of the augmented reality microscope

Google is hopeful that augmented reality microscope will find its due place in the global health sector market along with making a huge impact in the same. It will be a great asset for the developing countries where it becomes extremely difficulty to detect the common infectious disease like tuberculosis and malaria in the early stages.

Apart from being robust in nature it is also quite light weight which will help it in finding it easily adoptable in wide varieties of industries globally apart from the pathology.

Secondly augmented reality microscope will also be finding a huge success in the digital industry here it can be used to create digital workflow prints which aren’t’ possible to be done by the modern scanners.

Healthcare will certainly be the prime focus of the Google in establishing, introducing and marketing the augmented reality microscope in the upcoming days but tech giant is also looking forward to bring this revolutionary device to the life research and material science disciples as well.

This Fire Detecting Wallpaper Can Turn an Entire Room into an Alarm

Fire Detecting Wallpaper: The wallpaper of the future!

Have you ever heard of wallpaper that can not only detect fire in the area that it is in but also helps in preventing its spread? Well neither have I until now that is. Researchers have come up with wallpaper that can detect fire and which is also fire resistant. Made of a material that is found in bone teeth and hormones, yes you read right, this fire detecting wallpaper, may actually stop the spread of flames and also alert you to the fact that your house is on fire.

Those colorful, beautiful wallpaper that you find in stores today are actually highly flammable made of such materials such as plant cellulose fibers and synthetic polymers, these wallpapers will help a fire spread in the nick of time making recovery of anything near impossible. Researchers of the fire detecting wallpaper have swapped out those flammable materials for something strange yet environmentally friendly.

The strange material in fire detecting wallpaper:

Fire detecting wallpaper is made of a material commonly found in bone teeth and hormone, (God knows where they got the idea from), this material known as hydroxyapatite is fashioned into long and by that I mean really long nanowires to give it high flexibility.

This hydroxyapatite material, that is used to make the fire detecting wallpaper, actually helps the wallpaper in preventing the spread of flames.

Making the fire detecting wallpaper “smart”:

Researchers didn’t just make the fire detecting wallpaper preventive of fire, they also wanted to make it “smart”. To do this they added sensors to the fire detecting wallpaper made from drops of graphene oxide in an inky mixture.

This graphene oxide acts in two ways, at room temp, it acts as an insulator, that is it blocks the flow of electricity while under high temperature say when there is a fire, it makes the fire detecting wallpaper conductive and this completes a circuit that sound an alarm.

Researchers also boast that this alarm on the fire detecting wallpaper can last for a prolonged period of more than five minutes.

So to fit it all in one nice package, the fire detecting wallpaper is not only non-flammable but also high in temperature resistance and has an automatic fire alarm.

The wallpaper that you find in today’s stores are highly flammable and won’t do nothing when it comes to a fire in the house while the fire detecting wallpaper has a high flexibility, it can also be processed into various shapes, made in different colors and made with a commercial printer.

But all this won’t come cheap, the fire detecting wallpaper, because of their materials come at a very steep price tag. They may be environmentally friendly but not really pocket friendly, making you think that you’d rather take your chances when and if there is a fire with normal wallpaper.

The next thing on the agenda, therefore, for scientists is that they now are looking for more cost effective ways of making fire detecting wallpaper, that will be easy on a person’s wallet.