US government CIO calls for “self-aware” systems for IoT

As the Internet of Things (IoT) grows to an enormous scale, new security and scalability challenges are bound to emerge. According to the chief information officer (CIO) of the federal government, Tony Scott, the issues may be fixed by implemented self aware systems and lowering the amount of data analysed.

Speaking at the ICIT Forum 2016, Scott — who previously worked for Microsoft and VMWare under the same title — said that IoT components lack a few critical features that may lead to major issues.

The first missing feature is self awareness; the ability for the component to ask questions like “Am I healthy? Am I still operating the way I was designed to? Have I been compromised? Can I call for help?” Self aware components might even be able to self diagnose, providing a report every few hours on its health to a centralized server.

Self awareness is not artificial intelligence, but provides the chip with enough “brain power” to know when it’s unhealthy or vulnerable to attack. This could save money by lowering the amount of analysis done on an IoT network.

This leads into Scott’s next point on the over analysation of a network. He calls for systems to be created that send only the most important pieces of information, rather than an entire network of info.

Security an “intractable problem?”

“I don’t believe we can collect logs and analyze them for everything that’s going to be a participant in the Internet of Things,” said Scott. “I don’t think there’s enough compute power or enough data science to do that effectively at really large scale. It’s just an intractable kind of problem.”

Scott believes that developers of IoT systems need to look at new ways of designing systems that differ from previous platforms. He suggests that developers rethink how a system is built and if every component is necessary to make IoT functional and secure.

Automation of systems is being tested by a few companies like Google and IBM, which want to use artificial intelligence to lower the amount of human input, but it is still in the early days. Other systems like the blockchain might help towards a more computer-orientated system of trust and security.

At Carnegie Mellon, using tech to make teachers more engaging

Amy Ogan, an educational technologist at Carnegie Mellon University, calls herself a “CMU lifer” and for good reason. She nabbed both her undergraduate degree and Ph.D from the school. For the last couple of years, she has also worked at the university as an assistant professor, where she’s primarily focused on making classrooms, both online and offline, far more engaging.

Earlier this week, we talked with Ogan about how her team of researchers is right now trying to make good old-fashioned university settings more compelling through what they call “sensing.” Our chat has been edited for length.

TC: What inspired you to examine real-world classroom engagement?

AO: One of the motivations of this work is that with [online courses], we can collected data on what students are doing all the time, but there’s a lot that you can’t see, and a lot of those things demonstrate learning and give us better feedback. So we’re taking the idea back to the physical classroom first.

TC: You’re collecting talk data to start. What kinds of patterns are you looking for?

AO: The first thing is to just look at who is talking in the classroom, which is a major indicator of how students are doing — and how the teacher is doing, too. In many university classrooms, it turns out that not a lot of active learning is happening.

TC: What tech are you using to collect this data?

AO: We’re using sensors that aren’t expensive and can be set up in a variety of classrooms. You don’t need to build a million-dollar, state-of-the-art classroom. It’s microphones and cameras.

TC: What in the talk data tells you that students are engaged?

AO: We’re looking at the frequency of questions, but also how often the instructor is pausing. It’s been demonstrated that if you wait just three seconds after asking a question, you get orders of magnitude more participation from students in the class.

In fact, one approach we’re trying is when we detect that the teacher has been talking too long without interruption, we flash a big red screen on his or her laptop that sort of breaks that lecture mode and gets them to stop and solicit student participation.

TC: How do they react?

AO: They’ve been reacting favorably to it. The trick is not to interrupt the teaching in a way they can’t handle.

TC: And what are you doing with this analysis?

AO: We’ve figured out that the most productive approach is to incorporate some of this information into weekly training exercises for teachers and teaching assistants. One training exercise might prompt them to ask open questions that let students explore ideas, versus closed questions that check whether students have read materials. Then we look at week’s end to see whether they asked those open-ended questions.

TC: Who, or what, is poring over all this data?

AO: A research team here is working on it every day. But we’re working to  verify that you can use machine learning to do this in a completely automated way, as if a human was analyzing the data.

TC: This is a research project, but if and when it’s time to commercialize it, what do you think the product might look like?

AO: It would be easy for any teacher to set up; they’d receive feedback in an automated fashion. They’d receive training exercises on a weekly basis that help them gauge how they’re doing. And they’d hopefully improve their own teaching and get better over time.

While we’re focusing on talk first, we’ll study facial reactions, too. A number of studies has shown how posture is related to student learning experiences, as well as how many people have their hands raised.

TC: You’re not alone in trying to measure student engagement. What’s your biggest differentiator?

AO: I’ve seen a number of desktop -based systems that feature teacher dashboards, so teachers can look at the work that students have done across classrooms and determine, say, maybe the most common error that students are making. The idea is a similar one [to ours] in that it allows you to collect data so you can make improvements. But [those existing systems] don’t show data about the teachers to better support learning. That’s really the piece that we’re trying to tackle — changing the way people approach teaching to turn lectures into more active participatory learning environments.

US election 2016: Donald Trump sweeps five US states

Donald Trump has won presidential primaries in all five US states that voted on Tuesday, while Hillary Clinton triumphed in four out of five.

Mr Trump called himself the Republican "presumptive nominee" after victories in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

The results bring him closer to the number of delegates he needs before the party's national convention in July.

For the Democrats, Mrs Clinton was denied a clean sweep by Bernie Sanders.

The Vermont senator won in Rhode Island and vowed to fight to the end of the primaries process.

Speaking at the Philadelphia Convention Center after securing the four other states, Mrs Clinton said her campaign was setting "bold, progressive goals" to improve lives in the US.

"We believe in the goodness of our people and the greatness of our nation," she said.

The story of the night

Full results state by state

After his sweep of the five states, Mr Trump said of the battle for the Republican nomination: "It's over. As far as I'm concerned, it's over."

He told supporters in New York he would not moderate his policies if elected president.

He said: "You know I went to the best schools. I'm like a very smart person. I'm going to represent our country with dignity and very well.

"But I don't really want to change my personality. You know, it got me here."

---

Analysis: Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America reporter

There's winning, and then there's WINNING.

Donald Trump's night is shaping up to be the latter, as he steamrolled his opposition in all five mid-Atlantic states.

This campaign season has been punctuated with a series of theories about how and why Mr Trump's presidential ambitions would eventually be thwarted. The latest was that he'd never be able to win more than 50% of the vote as the field narrows. It appears likely that he'll easily surpass that mark across the board and claim the lion's share of the delegates at stake.

During a primary night speech that took place before the polls even closed, Texas Senator Ted Cruz promised that his campaign was now heading to "more favourable terrain". He's setting up a firewall in Indiana, but there's a Trump-fuelled conflagration heading his way.

The New Yorker still has work to do to clinch the Republican nomination, but after his latest performance, such a prospect seems increasingly likely.

Trump and Clinton deliver decisive blows

After their victories, Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton turned their fire on each other.

Mr Trump said his Democratic rival's only advantage in the presidential race was being a woman.

"Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she'd get 5% of the vote," he said.

Mrs Clinton hit back at his accusation that she was playing the "woman card".

"Well, if fighting for women's healthcare and paid family leave and equal pay is playing the woman card, then deal me in," she told cheering supporters in Philadelphia.

Rivals' pact

Mr Trump's rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich, have already shifted their attention to forthcoming states.

As part of a new campaigning pact, Mr Kasich will give Mr Cruz a "clear path" to tackle Mr Trump in Indiana on Tuesday, with Mr Cruz reciprocating for Mr Kasich in the Oregon and New Mexico primaries.

Mr Trump has condemned their pact as a sign of weakness and desperation, and another sign of the Republican party colluding against him.

Neither Mr Kasich nor Mr Cruz has a chance of securing the Republican nomination outright. The hope of a contested convention this July in Cleveland is keeping them in the race.

This scenario would see party delegates - Republican officials and activists - choose the nominee.

Analysts believe that Indiana, with its 57 delegates, will be crucial if Mr Trump's rivals are to stop him securing the 1,237 he needs to win outright.

Opinion polls suggest Mr Trump has 39% support there, Mr Cruz 33% and Mr Kasich 19%.

Mr Cruz told supporters in Indiana on Tuesday night they could look forward to some success as the race moved to more conservative states.

His event was held at a basketball court where some scenes were filmed for the 1986 film Hoosiers, about a small-town high school basketball team that wins the state championship.

The Texas senator attempted to recreate a scene from the film but was mocked on social media for referring to a basketball "ring" rather than a "hoop".

Meanwhile, speaking in Huntington, West Virginia, after the vote, Bernie Sanders vowed to fight to the end of the nomination process, saying he would attract broad support in November's election.

"The reason that we are generating this enthusiasm is because we are doing something very unusual in contemporary politics. We are telling the truth," he said.

But he admitted to Associated Press he had a "very narrow path and we're going to have to win some big victories".