How to Kickstart Your Software Engineering Career

Some of the major branches and career paths in software engineering include: Applications Development. Problem solving-based, non-Web-based software development that includes programming languages such as Java and C#. Systems Development. Web Development. Embedded Systems Development.

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DSD Business Systems

DSD Business Systems has been providing clients across the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Mexico with professional business consulting services and world-class business management software solutions for over 30 years. Our proven solutions include Acumatica, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage CRM and many more solutions.

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Application Development Platform

Empowering Industry 4.0 with Artificial Intelligence

Article | March 15, 2024

The next step in industrial technology is about robotics, computers and equipment becoming connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) and enhanced by machine learning algorithms. Industry 4.0 has the potential to be a powerful driver of economic growth, predicted to add between $500 billion- $1.5 trillion in value to the global economy between 2018 and 2022, according to a report by Capgemini.

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Application Development Platform

How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Businesses

Article | March 19, 2024

Whilst there are many people that associate AI with sci-fi novels and films, its reputation as an antagonist to fictional dystopic worlds is now becoming a thing of the past, as the technology becomes more and more integrated into our everyday lives. AI technologies have become increasingly more present in our daily lives, not just with Alexa’s in the home, but also throughout businesses everywhere, disrupting a variety of different industries with often tremendous results. The technology has helped to streamline even the most mundane of tasks whilst having a breath-taking impact on a company’s efficiency and productivity

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DevOps

The advances of AI in healthcare

Article | April 18, 2024

With the Government investing £250 million into the project, the Lab will consider how to use AI for the benefit of patients – whether this be the deployment of existing AI methods, the development of new technologies or the testing of their safety. Amongst other things, the initiative will aim to deliver earlier diagnoses of cancer. It is estimated that in excess of 50,000 extra patients could see their cancer being detected at an early stage, thus boosting survival rates. More specifically, a study has shown that AI is quicker in identifying brain tumour tissue than a pathologist.This would have a positive knock-on effect in other areas, such as enabling money to be saved (that otherwise would have been spent on further treatment) and reducing the workload of staff (at a time when there is a crisis in NHS workforce numbers).

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Three Keys to Successful AI Adoption

Article | February 10, 2020

Over the past several years, we have begun to see the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) in businesses. According to a study for the AI Index 2019 Annual Report, more than half of respondents report their companies are using AI in at least one function or business unit. Thirty percent report they have AI embedded across multiple areas of their business. As businesses continue to develop their understanding of what is possible with AI, we can expect to see a continued increase in AI adoption.

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Spotlight

DSD Business Systems

DSD Business Systems has been providing clients across the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Mexico with professional business consulting services and world-class business management software solutions for over 30 years. Our proven solutions include Acumatica, Sage 100, Sage 300, Sage 500, Sage CRM and many more solutions.

Related News

AI Applications

IntelePeer's AI Call Summary Dashboard Elevates Customer Interactions

IntelePeer | September 15, 2023

IntelePeer, a prominent AI-driven communications automation solutions provider, introduces a new addition to its SmartFlows platform, the Call Summary Dashboard. This innovative dashboard, equipped with AI and automation tools, empowers businesses to optimize omnichannel communication workflows, monitor real-time ROI, and identify cost-saving opportunities. Existing IntelePeer customers can access the Call Summary Dashboard at no extra cost, enabling them to create advanced hyper-automation omnichannel experiences without prolonged development cycles. Frank Fawzi, the CEO of IntelePeer, emphasized the company's dedication to addressing the needs of enterprises for high-quality automated customer interactions. He stated that AI had become a crucial element for businesses, leading to reduced labor costs and improved competitiveness. Fawzi noted that IntelePeer's most recent analytics engine and dashboard demonstrated how AI enhances the customer experience by guaranteeing consistent and precise responses to queries while eliminating call holds. He also mentioned that when the dashboard is put into action, it discloses the real-time count of fully automated customer interactions, resulting in a significant reduction in hold times and a substantial return on investment. This, in turn, saves businesses thousands through increased automation. The Call Summary Dashboard offers precise data on contained calls automated by IntelePeer's Smart product suite. Customers can assess the savings achieved by utilizing IntelePeer's AI-powered virtual SmartAgents instead of live agents. The dashboard also facilitates the creation of "what if" scenarios based on live traffic, demonstrating additional potential savings through increased automation and self-service capabilities over a specified timeframe. Fawzi highlighted the benefits, saying, With rich analytics at their fingertips, businesses can enhance operational efficiencies, improve customer experience, and make data-driven decisions. Companies harnessing generative AI are gaining an edge, and as AI continues to evolve, IntelePeer remains committed to assisting customers in harnessing this technology to meet evolving consumer needs. [Source: Businesswire] IntelePeer's SmartFlows leverage leading AI platforms like Azure's OpenAI for Generative AI, IBM Watson Assistant, Amazon Lex, and Google Dialog Flow for Conversational AI. Users can create communication-enabled workflows that seamlessly integrate with existing processes and develop intelligent AI voice and messaging bots based on CRM data interactions and other data sources to enhance CX. Key SmartFlows features include: Massively scalable simultaneous call and messaging capabilities Built-in Natural Language Processing and Generation Automated and intelligent routing Easy integration with CRM and other business applications Audio library Pre-built templates About IntelePeer Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Dania Beach, Florida, IntelePeer is a leading software development firm specializing in AI-driven omnichannel communication solutions. Its Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) optimizes customer experiences, reduces costs, and streamlines operations through user-friendly, integrated software. With a robust online presence, IntelePeer continues to innovate in cloud-based communications, offering services such as cloud communications, cloud calling, cloud contact centers, and more.

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AI Applications

Zoom Unveils AI Companion to Boost Productivity, Control, and Privacy

Zoom | September 11, 2023

Zoom introduces an AI companion at no extra cost, enhancing collaboration and productivity for paid users. The generative AI-powered assistant, AI companion, offers real-time capabilities across Zoom's platform. Zoom prioritizes customer privacy, ensures the AI companion is user-controlled, and focuses on delivering value and innovation. Zoom Video Communications, Inc. has unveiled the Zoom AI Companion, formerly known as Zoom IQ, a generative AI digital assistant, as part of its ongoing mission to enhance collaboration and productivity. The AI Companion is now included at no extra cost for users with paid Zoom accounts, reinforcing Zoom's commitment to facilitating human connection and boosting productivity. The company has also rebranded its conversational intelligence software, Zoom IQ for Sales, as Zoom Revenue Accelerator. Zoom's generative AI capabilities, introduced in June, have already benefited numerous companies through free trials of Team Chat Compose and Meeting Summary. In the coming months, Zoom will expand its generative AI offering with the launch of AI Companion, available at no additional cost to paid Zoom user accounts. Zoom's approach to AI is federated, combining its own large language models with third-party models such as Meta Llama 2, OpenAI, and Anthropic. This approach ensures high-quality results and cost-effectiveness. AI Companion will be integrated into various aspects of the Zoom platform, including meetings, team chat, phone, email, and whiteboard, with additional features in development. Zoom aims to deliver tangible benefits to users and disrupt the industry's pricing model. Smita Hashim, chief product officer at Zoom stated, We are transcending the hype in generative AI by delivering tangible products and disrupting the industry’s pricing model, making it easy for businesses and people like you and me to leverage generative AI’s full benefits in our day-to-day work and their foundation was based on doing what's right for their customers. She expressed her firm belief in providing the Zoom AI Companion at no additional cost to their paid Zoom user accounts, as it offers tremendous value in the face of today's challenges. She conveyed her excitement about customers and users starting to use the AI Companion and mentioned a strong roadmap for further innovation, which is underpinned by a commitment to responsible AI. [Source: Globe Newswire] Zoom prioritizes customer privacy and emphasizes that it does not use customer content to train AI models. AI Companion is turned off by default, allowing account owners and administrators to enable AI features according to their preferences. This approach gives users control and visibility over AI usage. AI Companion streamlines collaboration and productivity by automating tasks and removing distractions. It offers real-time AI capabilities, such as faster meeting recording access, chat message drafting, and chat thread summarization. In the future, it will provide real-time feedback on meeting participation and coaching on communication skills. Zoom Whiteboard users will benefit from AI Companion's help in generating and categorizing ideas, with image generation and whiteboard template population planned for spring 2024. Zoom Mail users can expect draft email suggestions, and Zoom Phone will support SMS threads and call summarization. By spring 2024, users will have a conversational interface to interact with AI Companion, helping with tasks like pre-meeting preparation, in-meeting support, and post-meeting summaries. The user-friendly interface allows seamless integration within Zoom Meetings, Team Chat, and Whiteboard workflows. Zoom's AI Companion represents a significant step in enhancing collaboration and productivity for its users, aligning with the company's mission to empower people through technology.

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General AI, AI Applications

FICO Awarded 9 New Patents Used in FICO Platform and Fraud Solutions that Utilize Sophisticated AI to Improve Decision Accuracy

Businesswire | July 17, 2023

Global analytics software firm FICO has been granted 9 patents, 3 foreign and 6 U.S., related to digital decisioning in the areas of fraud, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning technology. FICO’s extensive industry expertise in building AI and machine learning models provides value to enterprises that adopt FICO® Platform and other FICO solutions. “Patents are a product of industry inspired innovation, and we continue to develop tremendous IP in AI, machine learning, and decision management,” said Scott Zoldi, chief analytics officer at FICO. “FICO solutions deliver real-time decisions for businesses worldwide. The power of better decisions and hyper-personalized customer experiences, as exemplified by FICO Platform, is being driven by new AI technologies responding to ever-changing industry demands.” FICO’s new patents include “Soft Segmentation Based Rules Optimization for Zero Detection Loss False Positive Reduction” – which covers rules-based financial crime detection for detecting money laundering and fraud while reducing false positive detections. The techniques include the use of topic models to determine semantic structures underlying transactions and the derivation of behavior archetypes based on those structures, with the result being the reduction of false positives while preserving the same true positive detection set. “Mobile Attribute Time-Series Profiling Analytics” – which claims a means to assess the likelihood that a transaction is abnormal based on a behavioral pattern of a mobile device. The behaviors associated with the device improve fraud detection for transactions that do not occur on the mobile device. This patent has been validated in the UK, France, and Germany and used in FICO® Falcon® Fraud Manager, FICO® Fraud Predictor with Merchant Profiles, and FICO® Platform. “Latent Feature Dimensionality Bounds for Robust Machine Learning on High Dimensional Datasets” – which describes a method to identify the number of optimal hidden nodes in a neural network model, leading to the development of more robust and stable machine learning models at the core of responsible AI. This patent is used in FICO® Platform. “Assessing the Presence of Selective Omission via Collaborative Counterfactual Interventions” – which addresses a critical challenge in operationalizing models in open data environments, where lenders and users of models need to understand the likelihood that the customer is omitting key data that impact outcomes. This patent is used in FICO’s Open Banking Analytic models. “Workflow Templates for Configuration Packages” – which claims a process to allow a decision service to generate decision data based on user-generated input, a collection of configurations, and a decision flow template, leading to a configured software solution. This patent is used in FICO® Strategy Director. “Meaningfully Explaining Black-Box Machine Learning Models” – which covers a means for providing insights into the efficacy and understandability of black-box machine learning models. This patent is used in FICO® Platform - Analytics Workbench™. “Efficient Parallelized Computation of Global Behavioral Profiles in Real-time Transaction Scoring Systems” – which describes a computer-implemented, real-time transaction scoring system for rank-ordering transactions associated with suspicious activity, such as financial crime or a cybersecurity threat. This patent is used in FICO® Falcon® Fraud Manager, FICO® Fraud Predictor with Merchant Profiles, and FICO® Platform. To date, FICO’s patent portfolio consists of 218 active patents, with an additional 71 patent applications filed and pending approval. About FICO FICO powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 200 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in nearly 120 countries do everything from protecting 2.6 billion payment cards from fraud, to improving financial inclusion, to increasing supply chain resiliency. The FICO® Score, used by 90% of top US lenders, is the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the US and other countries, improving risk management, credit access and transparency.

Read More

AI Applications

IntelePeer's AI Call Summary Dashboard Elevates Customer Interactions

IntelePeer | September 15, 2023

IntelePeer, a prominent AI-driven communications automation solutions provider, introduces a new addition to its SmartFlows platform, the Call Summary Dashboard. This innovative dashboard, equipped with AI and automation tools, empowers businesses to optimize omnichannel communication workflows, monitor real-time ROI, and identify cost-saving opportunities. Existing IntelePeer customers can access the Call Summary Dashboard at no extra cost, enabling them to create advanced hyper-automation omnichannel experiences without prolonged development cycles. Frank Fawzi, the CEO of IntelePeer, emphasized the company's dedication to addressing the needs of enterprises for high-quality automated customer interactions. He stated that AI had become a crucial element for businesses, leading to reduced labor costs and improved competitiveness. Fawzi noted that IntelePeer's most recent analytics engine and dashboard demonstrated how AI enhances the customer experience by guaranteeing consistent and precise responses to queries while eliminating call holds. He also mentioned that when the dashboard is put into action, it discloses the real-time count of fully automated customer interactions, resulting in a significant reduction in hold times and a substantial return on investment. This, in turn, saves businesses thousands through increased automation. The Call Summary Dashboard offers precise data on contained calls automated by IntelePeer's Smart product suite. Customers can assess the savings achieved by utilizing IntelePeer's AI-powered virtual SmartAgents instead of live agents. The dashboard also facilitates the creation of "what if" scenarios based on live traffic, demonstrating additional potential savings through increased automation and self-service capabilities over a specified timeframe. Fawzi highlighted the benefits, saying, With rich analytics at their fingertips, businesses can enhance operational efficiencies, improve customer experience, and make data-driven decisions. Companies harnessing generative AI are gaining an edge, and as AI continues to evolve, IntelePeer remains committed to assisting customers in harnessing this technology to meet evolving consumer needs. [Source: Businesswire] IntelePeer's SmartFlows leverage leading AI platforms like Azure's OpenAI for Generative AI, IBM Watson Assistant, Amazon Lex, and Google Dialog Flow for Conversational AI. Users can create communication-enabled workflows that seamlessly integrate with existing processes and develop intelligent AI voice and messaging bots based on CRM data interactions and other data sources to enhance CX. Key SmartFlows features include: Massively scalable simultaneous call and messaging capabilities Built-in Natural Language Processing and Generation Automated and intelligent routing Easy integration with CRM and other business applications Audio library Pre-built templates About IntelePeer Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Dania Beach, Florida, IntelePeer is a leading software development firm specializing in AI-driven omnichannel communication solutions. Its Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) optimizes customer experiences, reduces costs, and streamlines operations through user-friendly, integrated software. With a robust online presence, IntelePeer continues to innovate in cloud-based communications, offering services such as cloud communications, cloud calling, cloud contact centers, and more.

Read More

AI Applications

Zoom Unveils AI Companion to Boost Productivity, Control, and Privacy

Zoom | September 11, 2023

Zoom introduces an AI companion at no extra cost, enhancing collaboration and productivity for paid users. The generative AI-powered assistant, AI companion, offers real-time capabilities across Zoom's platform. Zoom prioritizes customer privacy, ensures the AI companion is user-controlled, and focuses on delivering value and innovation. Zoom Video Communications, Inc. has unveiled the Zoom AI Companion, formerly known as Zoom IQ, a generative AI digital assistant, as part of its ongoing mission to enhance collaboration and productivity. The AI Companion is now included at no extra cost for users with paid Zoom accounts, reinforcing Zoom's commitment to facilitating human connection and boosting productivity. The company has also rebranded its conversational intelligence software, Zoom IQ for Sales, as Zoom Revenue Accelerator. Zoom's generative AI capabilities, introduced in June, have already benefited numerous companies through free trials of Team Chat Compose and Meeting Summary. In the coming months, Zoom will expand its generative AI offering with the launch of AI Companion, available at no additional cost to paid Zoom user accounts. Zoom's approach to AI is federated, combining its own large language models with third-party models such as Meta Llama 2, OpenAI, and Anthropic. This approach ensures high-quality results and cost-effectiveness. AI Companion will be integrated into various aspects of the Zoom platform, including meetings, team chat, phone, email, and whiteboard, with additional features in development. Zoom aims to deliver tangible benefits to users and disrupt the industry's pricing model. Smita Hashim, chief product officer at Zoom stated, We are transcending the hype in generative AI by delivering tangible products and disrupting the industry’s pricing model, making it easy for businesses and people like you and me to leverage generative AI’s full benefits in our day-to-day work and their foundation was based on doing what's right for their customers. She expressed her firm belief in providing the Zoom AI Companion at no additional cost to their paid Zoom user accounts, as it offers tremendous value in the face of today's challenges. She conveyed her excitement about customers and users starting to use the AI Companion and mentioned a strong roadmap for further innovation, which is underpinned by a commitment to responsible AI. [Source: Globe Newswire] Zoom prioritizes customer privacy and emphasizes that it does not use customer content to train AI models. AI Companion is turned off by default, allowing account owners and administrators to enable AI features according to their preferences. This approach gives users control and visibility over AI usage. AI Companion streamlines collaboration and productivity by automating tasks and removing distractions. It offers real-time AI capabilities, such as faster meeting recording access, chat message drafting, and chat thread summarization. In the future, it will provide real-time feedback on meeting participation and coaching on communication skills. Zoom Whiteboard users will benefit from AI Companion's help in generating and categorizing ideas, with image generation and whiteboard template population planned for spring 2024. Zoom Mail users can expect draft email suggestions, and Zoom Phone will support SMS threads and call summarization. By spring 2024, users will have a conversational interface to interact with AI Companion, helping with tasks like pre-meeting preparation, in-meeting support, and post-meeting summaries. The user-friendly interface allows seamless integration within Zoom Meetings, Team Chat, and Whiteboard workflows. Zoom's AI Companion represents a significant step in enhancing collaboration and productivity for its users, aligning with the company's mission to empower people through technology.

Read More

General AI, AI Applications

FICO Awarded 9 New Patents Used in FICO Platform and Fraud Solutions that Utilize Sophisticated AI to Improve Decision Accuracy

Businesswire | July 17, 2023

Global analytics software firm FICO has been granted 9 patents, 3 foreign and 6 U.S., related to digital decisioning in the areas of fraud, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning technology. FICO’s extensive industry expertise in building AI and machine learning models provides value to enterprises that adopt FICO® Platform and other FICO solutions. “Patents are a product of industry inspired innovation, and we continue to develop tremendous IP in AI, machine learning, and decision management,” said Scott Zoldi, chief analytics officer at FICO. “FICO solutions deliver real-time decisions for businesses worldwide. The power of better decisions and hyper-personalized customer experiences, as exemplified by FICO Platform, is being driven by new AI technologies responding to ever-changing industry demands.” FICO’s new patents include “Soft Segmentation Based Rules Optimization for Zero Detection Loss False Positive Reduction” – which covers rules-based financial crime detection for detecting money laundering and fraud while reducing false positive detections. The techniques include the use of topic models to determine semantic structures underlying transactions and the derivation of behavior archetypes based on those structures, with the result being the reduction of false positives while preserving the same true positive detection set. “Mobile Attribute Time-Series Profiling Analytics” – which claims a means to assess the likelihood that a transaction is abnormal based on a behavioral pattern of a mobile device. The behaviors associated with the device improve fraud detection for transactions that do not occur on the mobile device. This patent has been validated in the UK, France, and Germany and used in FICO® Falcon® Fraud Manager, FICO® Fraud Predictor with Merchant Profiles, and FICO® Platform. “Latent Feature Dimensionality Bounds for Robust Machine Learning on High Dimensional Datasets” – which describes a method to identify the number of optimal hidden nodes in a neural network model, leading to the development of more robust and stable machine learning models at the core of responsible AI. This patent is used in FICO® Platform. “Assessing the Presence of Selective Omission via Collaborative Counterfactual Interventions” – which addresses a critical challenge in operationalizing models in open data environments, where lenders and users of models need to understand the likelihood that the customer is omitting key data that impact outcomes. This patent is used in FICO’s Open Banking Analytic models. “Workflow Templates for Configuration Packages” – which claims a process to allow a decision service to generate decision data based on user-generated input, a collection of configurations, and a decision flow template, leading to a configured software solution. This patent is used in FICO® Strategy Director. “Meaningfully Explaining Black-Box Machine Learning Models” – which covers a means for providing insights into the efficacy and understandability of black-box machine learning models. This patent is used in FICO® Platform - Analytics Workbench™. “Efficient Parallelized Computation of Global Behavioral Profiles in Real-time Transaction Scoring Systems” – which describes a computer-implemented, real-time transaction scoring system for rank-ordering transactions associated with suspicious activity, such as financial crime or a cybersecurity threat. This patent is used in FICO® Falcon® Fraud Manager, FICO® Fraud Predictor with Merchant Profiles, and FICO® Platform. To date, FICO’s patent portfolio consists of 218 active patents, with an additional 71 patent applications filed and pending approval. About FICO FICO powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 200 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in nearly 120 countries do everything from protecting 2.6 billion payment cards from fraud, to improving financial inclusion, to increasing supply chain resiliency. The FICO® Score, used by 90% of top US lenders, is the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the US and other countries, improving risk management, credit access and transparency.

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