Artificial Intelligence, it’s one of the hot new trends. Developing a brand new sport, creating a language of its very own, or perhaps, augmenting jobs and technology all over the world across so many different professions. In it’s current form AI seems to still be in early development when you take into account the grand scheme of things and the future to come.

I’ve already spent half of my day listening to speakers at the AI4 Cybersecurity Conference and if I had to draw a comparison it would remind me of the early days of the internet. Back when the internet was only for researchers and a small handful of universities to share information. It was new, fresh and not ever present throughout daily life. Before cell phones existed and hard drives were measured in the kilobytes. That’s what I’m talking about — the early days of when something when new and exciting was starting to emerge. All that to say, that’s what’s like right now with AI from my perspective.

The digital is here to stay without a doubt — so much of our lives touch technology and the internet. Getting directions, planning events, or even finding out who has the best overpriced Avocado Toast in New York City. As two stand alone fields Cybersecurity and AI both have their quirks, features, and similarities, but imagine a world where you could combine the two to make the digital landscape even safer for companies and people alike. Automated responses, decisions, threat detection, and so much more is only possible by combining AI and Cybersecurity.

The morning sessions at AI4 Cybersecurity left me with thinking about all the good possibilities AI can have. As someone who works in Cybersecurity and studied it in college, it’s best to view AI as a supplement. Humans can only process information and make decisions so quickly and efficiently. Sure there are some people who are more skilled than others, but at the end of the day, if you can improve upon a process as a whole why wouldn’t you. Automated threat detection with AI? Entirely possible. Behavioral analysis for how malware spreads across a network? You bet. AI to filter through millions of security alerts? Say no more. You think it and there’s probably a way to use AI. Shoot if you’re not that good of a photographer you can get a hand with artificial intelligence.

Depending on how a company, consulting firm, or organization implements AI into their security posture it’s apparent the benefit to be had. Now there’s a slight caveat, is AI the end all be all and magic solution to everything? Not exactly, as one speaker said. There’s still that need for that human intuition and human element. False positives are known to happen, and while it’s better to error on the side of caution, AI is only as smart as the algorithm or the human that programmed it.

Story developing, check back later for additional thoughts and comments…

Back in February it was announced that I would be heading to one of my all time favorite places, New York City, to cover the Artificial Intelligence Cybersecurity Conference. What’s this AI4 Cybersecurity conference all about you ask? The Ai4 Cybersecurity conference brings together business leaders, data practitioners, and AI pioneers who are applying artificial intelligence to solve problems and create opportunities in the cybersecurity industry. Right here is what makes this special, we’re taking a break of our typical conference coverage — usually video game or Apple-related — and switching gears to something more security oriented.

Now a days it’s no doubt how important cybersecurity really is, especially what seems to be on a semi-frequent basis of data breeches or hacks that expose customer data. Last year it was estimated that information security spending would exceed $124 billion in 2019, which is no small figure when you take into account what else companies could be spending money on, such as research and development.

Moving forward though the AI4 Cyberseucrity conference will run for two days, Monday and Tuesday, from 8AM to about 5PM give or take. Here’s a rough outline of the daily schedule.

Monday morning the conference keynote will be held by Mark Segal, the NSA’s Chief of the Computer & Analytics Sciences Research Group. According to the conference agenda he will take stage to present “AI@NSA: From Artificial Intelligence to Signals Intelligence and Cybersecurity”.

From a content and informational standpoint, this will be an excellent conference as cybersecurity is an ever evolving and growing space. As hackers change their methods and tools, so must companies adapt and grow to meet their cybersecurity demands. Even self-managed websites such as PocketFullOfApps have to stay onto of security updates and any potential breaches. All in all I’m looking forward to this week’s conference as there should be lots of good content and takeaways to write about.

Astragon Entertainment and the developer team of weltenbauer have announced a partnership with the construction equipment manufacturer CASE. Players can now look forward to official licensed vehicles of the US-based earth movement specialist in the upcoming Construction Simulator 3 game. In addition, to compliment the announced a trailer has been released that you can see below.

In Construction Simulator 3 players will discover numerous exciting and challenging construction works as well as machines of different fields within the construction industry. Starting with some smaller earth-moving jobs, right up to erecting houses and office buildings, bridge building as well as road construction and many other missions, the latest game of the popular series will offer once more a wide range of construction jobs.

Next to its new features and a completely new, European-style game world, one of the highlights of Construction Simulator 3 will be its gigantic vehicle fleet including officially licensed vehicles of world-famous brands and manufacturers. Thanks to the new license partnership with CASE, simulation fans will be able to take the wheel of lovingly recreated machines by this trusted US brand, which is also very popular in the European construction industry.

Construction Simulator 3 will include four new earth-moving machines by CASE: the flexible CASE 1021G wheel loader, the powerful CASE 2050M bulldozer, the agile CASE 321F compact wheel loader and the CASE 856C motor grader, which is ideal for preparing surfaces in road construction. As of right now the game is set to release the first half of 2019.

In keeping tabs with Nexon they have recently announced the release of AxE: Alliance vs Empire, a revolutionary new massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) built from the ground up for the mobile platform. Players worldwide can now experience a fully-featured MMORPG experience on-the-go, including an expansive storyline and campaign, a massive evolving open world to explore, challenging cooperative dungeons and raids and a variety of competitive player-vs-player (PVP) modes.

In celebration, a special AxE starter kit will be available to all players who download AxE for a limited time. AxE is set in a sprawling fantasy universe where two warring factions, the Darkhaan Empire, which fights for law and order and the Galanos Alliance, who battles for self governance, clash to control the fate of the world.

As players begin their journey, they must align with one of the two factions. Once a side is chosen, players can select from one of the three unique unique character classes on each faction. Each character can be tailored to fit every play style preference by using an arsenal of weapons, armor and special abilities.

The epic single player adventure of AxE finds players exploring a range of vibrant open-world locations, where they will meet unique characters and enemies and complete quests and objectives to earn powerful loot and equipment to further level up and customize their characters.

Battles in AxE offer a players a variety of real-time competitive modes, ranging from tactical four vs four player matches, to the large-scale 75 vs 75 faction warfare arriving to the game soon. Cooperative battles and raids give players a chance to team up to take on powerful enemies and dungeon bosses. In AxE, rivalries between players are taken to new heights with the Chase and Revenge feature, giving them the ability to track and pursue enemy players in the game in real-time.

Players can also easily communicate and interact with feature robust social systems which include chat and team management, providing players with the tools to strategize before every team battle. AxE: Alliance vs Empire is available to download for free with in-app purchases.

For along time now I’ve personally been a fan of Urban Armor Gear‘s products, for nearly the last two years I’ve used their cases on my iPhone 8 Plus and Retina MacBook Pro. From my experiences their cases are an excellent balance between price, protection, and weight for everyday on-the-go use. Today is no exception as they’ve announced a new case for their iPad lineup called the Plyo Series, which is aimed at being translucent with a minimalist look.

Designed for the smaller 9.7″ iPads, the Plyo Series offers a lightweight design with air soft corners for impact protection. Best of all it still meets military grade drop protection (MIL STD 810G-516.), which is always nice to see when it comes to choosing a case to protect your device. As you can see in the pictures, the Plyo Series sports a sleek slim design with a front-folio cover.

By the looks of it the case is actually priced fairly reasonably, coming in at $69.95, and is compatible with iPad (6th & 5th gen), iPad Pro 9.7, iPad Air 1 & 2.