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  Published Date: 2020-08-05 

 Linux 5.8 includes 800,000 new lines and over 14,000 changed files, making it one of the biggest releases yet. How to build a great Linux PC for under $1,000 Watch Now Linux 5.8 has finally been released, previously described by Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds as "one of our biggest releases of all time". The new version of the Linux kernel brings a number of updates to Linux 5.7 spanning security, core components, drivers, memory management, networking and improvements to the kernel's design, amongst others. SEE: Linux file and directory management commands (TechRepublic Premium) This includes updates for Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization platform, Intel Tiger Lake Thunderbolt support, improvements to Microsoft's exFAT file system, and support for newer Intel and ARM chips. Torvalds said the kernel had received over 15,000 merge requests and that around 20% of all the files in the kernel source repository had been modified. "That's really a fairly big percentage, and while some of it is scripted, on the whole it's really just the same pattern: 5.8 has simply seen a lot of development," Torvalds said. See also: Translated into numbers, Linux 5.8 includes over 800,000 new lines and over 14,000 changed files. It also received one of the biggest number of merge requests during its merge window – over 14,000 non-merge commits and more than 15,000 including merges, according to Torvalds. "5.8 looks big. Really big," he added. However, while kernel version 5.8 is approximately the same size as version 4.9 from 2016, Torvalds pointed out that Linux 4.9 was "artificially big" due in part to the fact that it contained the Greybus driver subsystem to support Google's modular phone project, Project Ara, which has since been mothballed. Users interested in downloading Linux version 5.8 can download it from the official Linux Kernel page. In the meantime, be sure to check out TechRepublic's Flipboard page for more must-read coverage, guides and how tos on Linux, Android and open source. Open Source Weekly Newsletter You don't want to miss our tips, tutorials, and commentary on the Linux OS and open source applications. Delivered Tuesdays Sign up today Also see 

  Published Date: 2020-08-05 

 Harqen's AI platform analyses language to determine a candidate's suitability for a role, potentially making it less prone to bias than video-based recruitment technology. AI and 5G among the top 10 emerging technologies for 2020 Watch Now Artificial-intelligence-based hiring tools are already transforming the recruitment process by allowing businesses to vastly speed up the time it takes to identify top talent. With algorithms able to scour applications databases in the fraction of a time it would take a human hiring manager, AI-assisted hiring has the potential not only to give precious time back to businesses, but also draw in candidates from wider and more diverse talent pools. AI-assisted hiring is also posited as a potential solution for – reducing human bias whether subconscious or otherwise – in the hiring process. SEE: Robotic process automation: A cheat sheet (free PDF) (TechRepublic) US company Harqen has been offering hiring technologies to some of the world's biggest companies for years, partnering with the likes of Walmart, FedEx and American Airlines to streamline and improve their hiring processes. Originating as an on-demand interviewing provider, the company has now expanded into AI with a new platform that it says offers a more dependable and bias-free means of matching employers with employees. The solution, simply called the Harqen Machine Learning Platform, analyses candidate's answers to interview questions and assesses the type of words and language used in their responses. According to Harqen, this allows it to put together a profile of psychological traits that can be used to help determine a candidate's suitability for a role. Combined with a resume analysis, which provides a more straightforward determiner of whether a candidate's professional and educational background fits with the requirements of the job, Harqen says its machine-learning platform is capable of making the same hiring decision as human recruiters 95% of the time. In one campaign that assessed approximately 3,500 job applications with "a very large US diagnostic firm" in early 2020, Harqen's machine-learning platform successfully predicted 2,193 of the candidate applications that were accepted, and 1,292 that were declined. Key to Harqen's offering is what the company's chief technology officer Mark Unak describes as the platform's linguistic analysis, which can identify word clusters that are specific to certain job types but also offers a personality analysis based on the so-called "big five" traits, also known as the OCEAN model (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), which can help hiring managers determine a candidate's enthusiasm for the position. "We have a dictionary of terms where most positive words are ranked as a +5 and most negative words are ranked as a -5, so we can determine how enthusiastic you are in the answers that you're giving," Unak tells TechRepublic. "We can also use a linguistic analysis to analyse the grammar," he adds, noting that about 60% of our vocabulary consists of just 80 words. Those are the pronouns, the propositions, the articles and the intransigent verbs. "The remaining 10,000 words in the English language fill in that 40%. By the analysis of how you use that, we can get a psychological trait analysis." According to Unak, using a machine-learning system that determines a candidate's suitability based on linguistic analysis is a more accurate and impartial method than those that rely on facial-scanning or vocal-inflection algorithms. Such machine-learning techniques within hiring are on the rise and are increasingly being adopted by major companies around the world. "That's kind of problematic," says Unak. "Not everybody expresses emotions in the same way, with the same facial expressions, and not everybody expresses the same emotion that's expected. Different cultures and different races might have different problems in expressing those facial expressions and having the computer recognise them." SEE: Diversity and Inclusion policy (TechRepublic Premium) By only analysing the linguistic content that has been transcribed from recorded interviews, Harqen's algorithm never factors in appearance, facial expressions, or other self-reported personality traits that could be unreliable. Unak says the company will also retrain its models on a regular basis as new data comes in, which will help ensure that algorithms don't get stuck in their old ways if candidates begin giving new answers to questions that are equally relevant. "If our customer evolves and they start to hire people who are either more diverse, or come up with different answers to the questions that are just as relevant, our models will pick that up," Unak adds. Diversity – whether based on gender, race, age or otherwise –has been show to play a significant role in the success or failure of workplace productivity and collaboration. Whether AI-based hiring tools can help here remains to be seen, and ultimately depends on whether they can be implemented in a fair and impartial way. Beyond diversity, Harqen is exploring how its machine-learning tool could help businesses get the best return on investment form their hiring choices. The magic word here is delayed gratification: the ability to accurately identify employees who can resist the temptation for immediate rewards and instead persevere for an even greater payoff in the future. "It's grit, it's persistence, it's the ability to imagine a future and it's the ability to develop and execute a plan to get there," says Unak. "Isn't that what hope and delayed gratification mean? I hope for a better future, I can imagine it, my hope is realistic and that there's a plan or a way to get there, and I'm going to work towards it." Data, Analytics and AI Newsletter Learn the latest news and best practices about data science, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence. 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  Published Date: 2020-08-05 

 When a shape doesn't spin in a circular motion as expected in Microsoft PowerPoint, consider where the shape's axis of rotation is. You might need to force a new one. Illustration: Lisa Hornung, Getty Images/iStockPhoto It's easy to make shapes spin in Microsoft PowerPoint; simply apply the Spin animation. However, achieving the right spin within the right area isn't always that simple. Sometimes you need to force the axis of rotation to recognize a different area—you can't really do that, but there is a workaround that does this trick. In this article, I'll show you how to do so by forcing a triangle to span the entire circumference of a circle, similar to the hands of a clock, instead of spinning in only one half of the circle. SEE: Office 365: A guide for tech and business leaders (free PDF) (TechRepublic) This article assumes you have basic PowerPoint skills, such as inserting shapes and applying properties. For your convenience, you can download the demonstration .pptx file. You can apply this workaround in the browser edition. What is axis of rotation? Merriam Webster defines axis of rotation as follows: The straight line through all fixed points of a rotating rigid body around which all other points of the body move in circles. A great example of this concept is a compass dial. Its axis of rotation is the center of the dial. The dial circles around the circumference as expected because the axis of rotation is the center of the dial, which is also the center of the circle. This concept might be better explained with a visual. How to create a spinning arrow A center axis of rotation is inherent in some shapes, such as lines. When you can use one of these shapes, do so, because what you need is already there. For example, let's add a double-arrow shape and apply a spin animation to create a simple spinning arrow: Click the Insert tab, click Shapes in the Illustrations group, and choose the left to right double-arrow shape in the Block Arrows section. Position and size the inserted arrow (Figure A). Click the Animations tab. From the Emphasis section, choose Spin. PowerPoint will give you a quick preview. Figure A A figure can't show you the full spin, but the arrow spins from the center—its axis of rotation is in the center of the arrow. (Figure B). Figure B Play around with a few different shapes and you'll see that many shapes spin as expected, whereas others don't. For instance, try a square and a triangle, and you'll find that the triangle spins, but the axis of rotation might not be where you expect! Creating a false axis of rotation It would be great if every shape spun as expected, but because of the axis of rotation, some will surprise you. We can illustrate this by trying to create a clock dial. The double-arrow will spin correctly, but it's a double-arrow, not a traditional one-arrow dial. To get the results you want, you might use a long, narrow triangle, as shown in Figure C. But the lone triangle won't spin as expected. Instead of spinning around the circle, which is what you want, it spins in the top half only (see Figure D). That's because it exists only in the top half. It's spinning correctly, but it's not what you want. Figure C Figure D The obvious solution is to change the axis of rotation to the bottom of the triangle. There's no way to do that, but there is a workaround. In a nutshell, copy the triangle and rotate it, lining it up with the bottom to create a double-arrow dial, then set the new triangle's fill property to nothing. Finally, you group the two shapes and in doing so, you change the axis of rotation from the center of the lone triangle to the point where the two arrows meet. Let's work through an example using the triangle in Figure C (in the downloadable demonstration file): After positioning and sizing the narrow triangle, select it, press Ctrl+B and drag a copy to the side. With the copy still selected, choose Rotate from the Arrange dropdown (on the Home tab). From the submenu, choose Flip Vertical (Figure E). Drag the copy to the lower half and line it up with the arrow in the top half (Figure E). With the lower triangle still selected, choose No Fill from the Shape Fill dropdown (Shape Styles group on the contextual Shape Format tab). Choose No Outline from the Shape Outline dropdown. Hold down the shift key and select both triangles and then press Ctrl+G to group the two. (If you're working in the browser editing, hold down the Shift key.) The two selection boxes will turn into one. If this doesn't happen, try again. With the grouped triangles selected, apply the Spin animation as you did before. Figure E By changing the axis of rotation from the center of the upper triangle to the center of the fake dial, you force the spin animation to work around the clock! As you can see in Figure F, the upper triangle now spins through both the upper and lower halves of the circle. You can use this workaround any time you need to adjust the axis of rotation for a shape. Figure F Also see 

  Published Date: 2020-08-05 

 Learn how to direct phone calls through your Windows 10 computer--if you have an Android device. Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto You need to make make or answer a phone call, but your mobile phone isn't within arm's reach. No problem--if you're in front of your Windows 10 computer and have an Android device. You can make and receive calls meant for your phone through your Windows 10 computer; the trick lies in setting up your phone and then using Microsoft's Your Phone app to enable the calling option. Sorry, iPhone users, this trick won't work for you. But if you own an Android phone, the steps aren't too difficult. For this to work, your PC will need the Windows 10 May 2019 Update, aka Windows version 1903, or higher. Your PC must also have Bluetooth. And your Android phone must be running Android 7.0 or higher. SEE: 20 pro tips to make Windows 10 work the way you want (free PDF) (TechRepublic) If your phone is not already linked in Windows 10, linking it is your first step. Go to Settings and then Phone. If your phone isn't linked, click the button to Add A Phone. At the next screen, choose your type of phone—Android or iPhone--and click Continue. Again, the calling feature works only with Android (Figure A). Figure A On your Android phone, go to the Google Play store and install Microsoft's Your Phone Companion app. Open the app and sign in with your Microsoft Account if requested. Grant the necessary permissions by tapping Allow for each prompt. If you would like the Your Phone Companion app to be always available, tap Allow when asked if you want the app to always run in the background (Figure B). Figure B Back at your PC, check the box that says Yes, I Finished Installing Your Phone Companion App. Click the button to Open QR code. On your Android phone, tap Allow to allow the connection with your PC and then tap Done. You should see a screen indicating that your phone and PC are linked (Figure C). Figure C On your PC, the Your Phone app is already open, as that's what you're using to set up the connection. If you don't see it, click the Start button and open the app from the Your Phone shortcut. At the window for the Your Phone app, click the Settings icon at the bottom of the left sidebar. Scroll down the Settings screen to the Calls section and turn on the switch to Allow This App To Make And Manage Calls From My Phone (Figure D). Figure D From the Your Phone app on your PC, click the icon on the left sidebar for Calls. Click the Set Up button. On your phone, tap Allow when asked to make your phone visible to other Bluetooth devices. You'll then be asked to confirm the PIN displayed on your PC and phone. Click Yes on your PC and tap Pair on your phone (Figure E). If Focus Assist is turned on, you'll receive a notification asking you to turn it off to allow for phone calls. Figure E Now let's say you want to make a call. At the dialpad screen in the Your Phone app on your PC, type the number you wish to dial or start typing the first or last name of the contact you want to call. Then click the phone icon below the dialpad (Figure F). You can then conduct the phone call through your computer and click the Hang Up icon when you're finished. Figure F To be able to answer an incoming call, make sure the Your Phone app is running. Click the Accept button in the notification to pick up the call (Figure G). Click the Hang Up icon when you're done. Figure G 5G and Mobile Enterprise Newsletter 5G networks and devices, mobile security, remote support, and the latest about phones, tablets, and apps are some of the topics we'll cover. Delivered Tuesdays and Fridays Sign up today Also see 

  Published Date: 2020-08-05 

 The new Advanced Communications plan can be added on to any Microsoft 365 or Office 365 paid subscription. Microsoft Teams: A cheat sheet Watch Now Microsoft has launched a new user license for Teams called Advanced Communications, which scales meetings up to 20,000 participants, introduces branded backgrounds and a new cloud-based phone system called Teams Calling. Advanced Communications introduces new capabilities to Microsoft Teams designed to help organisations push beyond meetings into broader scale communications, such as company-wide events and conferences. Nicole Herskowitz, Teams general manager, said this was important as businesses had to adapt rapidly in the early stages of the pandemic and look towards more sustained transformation in the long term. SEE: Microsoft Teams: This is how To Do and Planner combine in the new Tasks app (TechRepublic) "When it comes to communications, there is a broad spectrum of needs that are required to connect employees from the worksite to the main office to the home office – across locations and time zones," said Herskowitz. "The spectrum starts with the most basic 1:1 meetings and calls with colleagues, to larger group meetings, all the way to large events and conferences." With Advanced Communications, customers can scale Teams meetings up to 20,000 participants. To make sure that participants can still hear and manage speakers easily during large events, the size of interactive meetings will be limited to 1,000 participants. When this limit is met, the meeting will shift to a 'view only' mode. Image: Microsoft New features for admins, meanwhile, allow companies to add their own branding to meetings, starting with lobbies. Companies will be able to add custom branding to the core meeting experience at a later date, Microsoft said. Additional features aimed at Microsoft's enterprise customers include compliance policy call recording and customer engagement workflows. SEE: Windows 10 Start menu hacks (TechRepublic Premium) To increase accessibility for employees who use a traditional phone to communicate, Microsoft is introducing Team Calling, a new cloud-based phone system that allows them to take their Teams contacts with them wherever they go, be it in the office or while working remotely. This can be deployed quickly using an existing calling plan or a Microsoft calling plan in select markets. Microsoft The Microsoft Teams Advanced Communications plan can be added to any paid Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription and is available starting this week. Customers can sign up to a 60-day free trial from today via the Teams Admin Center, or from the Microsoft Teams website from mid-August. New Teams phones and Microsoft's latest range of hands-free devices powered by Microsoft's virtual assistant, Cortana, are also in the pipeline, meanwhile the company is also expanding into a new range of new USB dial pad peripherals for heavy Teams users. For Skype for Business customers moving to Teams, Microsoft is extending support for Skype for Business (3PIP) phones beyond 2023 and will also support core calling features on SIP phones from Cisco, Yealink, Polycom, and others with Teams from the first half of 2021. Microsoft Weekly Newsletter Be your company's Microsoft insider by reading these Windows and Office tips, tricks, and cheat sheets. Delivered Mondays and Wednesdays Sign up today Also see 

  Published Date: 2020-08-05 

 Identifying any color displayed on a screen is not as easy as it sounds. That once laborious process has been simplified with Windows 10 PowerToys Color Picker. Image: scyther5, Getty Images/iStockphoto Version 0.20.0 of Windows 10 PowerToys adds a new utility to its set of featured applications. The Color Picker allows you to quickly find the specific and unique identifying information for any color displayed on your computer screen. That information is copied to your Windows 10 clipboard where it can be retrieved later. For developers, graphic artists, photographers, marketers, and many others, knowing the precise identification information for a particular color is vital. For consumers, blue is blue, but for the creators and developers there are thousands of shades of blue. Color Picker allows these creators a simple way to consistently use the right shade of blue. This how-to tutorial shows you how to activate and use the Color Picker utility found in the latest version of Windows 10 PowerToys. SEE: Microsoft Teams: How-to guide (TechRepublic Premium) Windows 10 PowerToys: How to activate and use Color Picker The first step is to download the latest version of Windows 10 PowerToys from the GitHub release page. On the date of this writing, the current release is Version 0.20.0. Color Picker was added to the Windows 10 PowerToys project by Martin Chrzan. With version 0.20.0 installed and running, open the Windows 10 PowerToys Settings menu and select Color Picker from the left-hand navigation bar. As shown in Figure A, click the Enable Color Picker button to the On position. Figure A Note that the default keyboard shortcut used to activate Color Picker is Windows Key+Shift+C. This key combination can be changed if you wish. Also note that the default setting is to record a color's identification information in the hexadecimal (HEX) format. You can use the dropdown to change to the RGB setting. With Color Picker now active, you may close the Windows 10 PowerToys Settings screen. SEE: How to use the Windows key Shortcut Guide in Windows 10 PowerToys (TechRepublic) Perhaps the most powerful aspect of Color Picker is the fact that is a system-wide application. The keyboard combination shortcut of Win+Shift+C will activate Color Picker regardless of what other application(s) are running. Just hover the resulting mouse cursor (Figure B) over the color you wish to record identifying information for and left click your mouse. Figure B The color identifying information will be copied to the Windows 10 clipboard in the form you selected in the Settings. The default setting is HEX. To zoom in for a more detailed view of the pixels on your screen, use the scroll button of your mouse. SEE: How to use Windows 10 PowerToys Run to open applications, folders, and files (TechRepublic) Once the information is stored on your Windows 10 clipboard, you may paste the identification information into the color palette of your preferred editing tool. Before Windows 10 PowerToys Color Picker, such a seemingly simple operation would have required more than a few applications and some gymnastics with open screens to accomplish. The Color Picker tool greatly simplifies this process and will save developers and creators time when working with color and color design projects. Microsoft Weekly Newsletter Be your company's Microsoft insider by reading these Windows and Office tips, tricks, and cheat sheets. Delivered Mondays and Wednesdays Sign up today Also read: 

  Published Date: 2020-08-05 

 The open source language has seen skyrocketing interest in 2020, bringing it from relative obscurity to the top ten languages in Tiobe's monthly index. oatawa, Getty Images/iStockphoto The R programming language continues to hold on to a top spot in Tiobe's August 2020 edition of its monthly top programming language index, leading Tiobe CEO Paul Jansen to say it's on track to be Tiobe's programming language of the year. R's resurgence has been reported in several places recently. TechRepublic covered it on the basis of Tiobe's July index, TechRepublic sister site ZDNet covered it as well, and other tech industry publications have weighed in too. SEE: Quick Glossary: DevOps (TechRepublic Premium) As ZDNet said in the above article, the reasons for the resurgence are still a bit unclear. Tiobe's explanation for the rise has to do with increased data processing needs due to COVID-19 (R is one of the data science programming languages of choice) but other language analysts have said R won't ever crack the top 10 of their listings because it's too specialized. Regardless of the reasons for R's rise in popularity, Tiobe's calculation shows a language that has rebounded since August 2019, when it held the 20th spot in the index. Now ranking eighth for the second month in a row, that's a 12-spot jump, making it the only language to break into the top ten since last year. Tiobe gives its language of the year award to the programming language that has the highest rise in ratings over the course of a year, and unless something changes for R in the second half of 2020 it's essentially a shoe-in. Looking at the Tiobe index you'll see a relatively stable top 10: C and Java have swapped places since last month, while Python, C++, C#, Visual Basic, and JavaScript remain in the same places they were at this time in 2019. PHP dropped a single space, and SQL holds steady at number 10, where it was last year as well. SEE: Top 5 programming languages for systems admins to learn (free PDF) (TechRepublic) Only R, which rose from 20 to eight, and Objective-C, which dropped from ninth to 19th, made moves in or out of the top 10. Most of the interesting movement, said Jansen, comes in the lower rankings. As mentioned in TechRepublic's article about the July Tiobe index, the rankings can give developers a good idea of whether their programming skills are up to date, or whether they need to think about changing languages for an upcoming project. There have been a number of changes in the order of the top 20 since July, with Scratch and PL/SQL leaving the top 20. Go and Perl both climbed slightly and are continuing their upward trajectory since August 2019. Ruby, MATLAB, and Classic Visual Basic have all slipped, but Apache's Groovy programming language re-entered the top 20. Developer Essentials Newsletter From the hottest programming languages to the jobs with the highest salaries, get the developer news and tips you need to know. Weekly Sign up today Also see 

  Published Date: 2020-08-05 

 New Tenable study says 94% of organizations experienced a business-impacting cyberattack or compromise within the past 12 months; 46% weathered five or more attacks. As threat actors gain momentum with a continued onslaught of COVID-19-related malware and phishing scams, security and business leaders are concerned about the impact on the enterprise. According to a new report from Tenable, 94% of survey respondents experienced a business-impacting cyberattack within the last year, and 46% of businesses suffered five or more attacks. One of the causes noted was a disconnect between an organization's business and security, and it was exacerbated by the COVID-19 outbreak: By April, 41% of respondents had at least one cyberattack directly related to COVID-19 in the last 12 months The report found 96% of respondents developed COVID-19 response strategies: 75% of business and security leaders said their COVID-19 response strategies are only "somewhat" aligned Within two years, 77% of executives expect cyberattacks to increase SEE: Zero trust security: A cheat sheet (free PDF) (TechRepublic) A "security program should include identifying every asset across all computing environments and understanding the exposure of each, including vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other security health indicators," said Nathan Wenzler, chief security strategist at Tenable. Impact of cyberattacks Cyberattacks can have a major effect on the enterprise, affecting not only daily operations, but can permanently damage a company's reputation if not addressed immediately. The report revealed what respondents experienced: 36% lost sensitive data or productivity 35% experienced financial loss or theft 32% experienced identity theft It's evident businesses need response strategies for breaches, but 75% of organization leaders don't feel in sync on the strategies. Business leaders demand a clear picture of cybersecurity, while its security leaders struggle to find clarity. Connecting the disconnect Only 40% of security leaders can answer with a high level of confidence, "How secure, or at risk, are we?" But, according to the report, only a cybersecurity leader who aligns strongly with an organization's business leader can be confident in response. Only four in 10 security leaders meet this requirement. The report identified a disconnect between business and security on how to handle cyber risk. Less than 50% of security leaders understand the relationship between a cybersecurity threat and how it directly affects a specific business risk, while not enough security leaders (51%) believe in a coordination with business stakeholders' needs, regarding cost, performance, and risk-reduction objectives. Despite the rash of cyberattacks, only 25% of security leaders regularly review security's performance metrics with business stakeholders. Failure to communicate While cybersecurity attacks can have tremendous impact on a business' financials, reputation, and sustainability, cybersecurity is rarely integrated fully into a business strategy. Clear coordination between security leaders and business executives is critical. There's not enough discussion on cybersecurity strategy: 47% of security leaders frequently discuss cybersecurity with business execs, and 42% of business executives rarely, "if ever," consult with security leaders on business strategies. Even if policy requires security leaders to apply business risk-management objectives and vulnerability prioritization practices, only 44% of security leaders comply. More than 50% of security leaders report security has a comprehensive assessment and understanding of what's vulnerable to attack. To measure their organizations' risk, fewer than 50% of security organizations use threat metrics that incorporate business risk context. SEE: SSL Certificate Best Practices Policy (TechRepublic Premium) "Approaching security program efforts from a risk management perspective allows security leaders to improve misalignment and elevate the conversation around cyber risk within the organization," Wenzler said. He suggested security leaders create a simplified, unified language "that isn't overtly technical and frames cyber risk in such a way that's easy for everyone to understand" so security and business leaders can make better decisions on managing risks. He added, "This is where we see the most successful CISOs and security leaders advocating for the security of both the technology and the business; evolving from technology experts to that of business-aligned security leaders." Not only do security leaders analyze and prioritize potential cyber risks (despite limited threat context), but execute remediation based on what business leaders consider critical assets. An organization can expect a good outcome when security and business are in sync with agreed-upon contextual data. Business-aligned security leaders are eight times more likely--as their peers who operate in isolation--to be highly confident in reporting the organizations' security or risk level. Many business-aligned organizations (80%) employ a Business Information Security Officer (BISO), compared with 35% of their less-aligned counterparts. Secure or at risk? Other findings from the report: 72% of (the successful) business-aligned security leaders are "very or completely confident in their ability to report on their organizations' level of risk" 9% of security leaders who are not working in tandem with business reply with the same level of confidence 85% of those business-aligned security leaders use metrics to track cybersecurity return on investment (ROI) and a business' success 25% of security leaders not working in tandem with business are not only isolated, but reactive, and do not employ metrics. 4 key takeaways from the report The report offered these four important items to keep in mind: A "climate of uncertainty" is ripe fodder for cybersecurity threats and creates a higher profile concern, a topic of board-level visibility. Security leaders really grapple to provide business leader peers with what the latter wants: Clarity on the company's cybersecurity. Many organizations don't align security with business, which creates a "disconnect" in managing cyberattacks. Cybersecurity must develop in tandem with business strategy. The enterprise needs a new approach to security. Wenzel explained, "One that elevates and aligns the role of the CISO with other business leaders. Information security is really a risk management function," not just an IT function. Methodology Tenable commissioned Forrester to conduct an online survey of 416 security and 425 business executives, and to interview five business and security executives to examine cybersecurity strategies and practices at midsize to large enterprises. Cybersecurity Insider Newsletter Strengthen your organization's IT security defenses by keeping abreast of the latest cybersecurity news, solutions, and best practices. 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  Published Date: 2020-08-05 

 Harqen's AI platform analyses language to determine a candidate's suitability for a role, potentially making it less prone to bias than video-based recruitment technology. AI and 5G among the top 10 emerging technologies for 2020 Watch Now Artificial-intelligence-based hiring tools are already transforming the recruitment process by allowing businesses to vastly speed up the time it takes to identify top talent. With algorithms able to scour applications databases in the fraction of a time it would take a human hiring manager, AI-assisted hiring has the potential not only to give precious time back to businesses, but also draw in candidates from wider and more diverse talent pools. AI-assisted hiring is also posited as a potential solution for – reducing human bias whether subconscious or otherwise – in the hiring process. SEE: Robotic process automation: A cheat sheet (free PDF) (TechRepublic) US company Harqen has been offering hiring technologies to some of the world's biggest companies for years, partnering with the likes of Walmart, FedEx and American Airlines to streamline and improve their hiring processes. Originating as an on-demand interviewing provider, the company has now expanded into AI with a new platform that it says offers a more dependable and bias-free means of matching employers with employees. The solution, simply called the Harqen Machine Learning Platform, analyses candidate's answers to interview questions and assesses the type of words and language used in their responses. According to Harqen, this allows it to put together a profile of psychological traits that can be used to help determine a candidate's suitability for a role. Combined with a resume analysis, which provides a more straightforward determiner of whether a candidate's professional and educational background fits with the requirements of the job, Harqen says its machine-learning platform is capable of making the same hiring decision as human recruiters 95% of the time. In one campaign that assessed approximately 3,500 job applications with "a very large US diagnostic firm" in early 2020, Harqen's machine-learning platform successfully predicted 2,193 of the candidate applications that were accepted, and 1,292 that were declined. Key to Harqen's offering is what the company's chief technology officer Mark Unak describes as the platform's linguistic analysis, which can identify word clusters that are specific to certain job types but also offers a personality analysis based on the so-called "big five" traits, also known as the OCEAN model (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), which can help hiring managers determine a candidate's enthusiasm for the position. "We have a dictionary of terms where most positive words are ranked as a +5 and most negative words are ranked as a -5, so we can determine how enthusiastic you are in the answers that you're giving," Unak tells TechRepublic. "We can also use a linguistic analysis to analyse the grammar," he adds, noting that about 60% of our vocabulary consists of just 80 words. Those are the pronouns, the propositions, the articles and the intransigent verbs. "The remaining 10,000 words in the English language fill in that 40%. By the analysis of how you use that, we can get a psychological trait analysis." According to Unak, using a machine-learning system that determines a candidate's suitability based on linguistic analysis is a more accurate and impartial method than those that rely on facial-scanning or vocal-inflection algorithms. Such machine-learning techniques within hiring are on the rise and are increasingly being adopted by major companies around the world. "That's kind of problematic," says Unak. "Not everybody expresses emotions in the same way, with the same facial expressions, and not everybody expresses the same emotion that's expected. Different cultures and different races might have different problems in expressing those facial expressions and having the computer recognise them." SEE: Diversity and Inclusion policy (TechRepublic Premium) By only analysing the linguistic content that has been transcribed from recorded interviews, Harqen's algorithm never factors in appearance, facial expressions, or other self-reported personality traits that could be unreliable. Unak says the company will also retrain its models on a regular basis as new data comes in, which will help ensure that algorithms don't get stuck in their old ways if candidates begin giving new answers to questions that are equally relevant. "If our customer evolves and they start to hire people who are either more diverse, or come up with different answers to the questions that are just as relevant, our models will pick that up," Unak adds. Diversity – whether based on gender, race, age or otherwise –has been show to play a significant role in the success or failure of workplace productivity and collaboration. Whether AI-based hiring tools can help here remains to be seen, and ultimately depends on whether they can be implemented in a fair and impartial way. Beyond diversity, Harqen is exploring how its machine-learning tool could help businesses get the best return on investment form their hiring choices. The magic word here is delayed gratification: the ability to accurately identify employees who can resist the temptation for immediate rewards and instead persevere for an even greater payoff in the future. "It's grit, it's persistence, it's the ability to imagine a future and it's the ability to develop and execute a plan to get there," says Unak. "Isn't that what hope and delayed gratification mean? I hope for a better future, I can imagine it, my hope is realistic and that there's a plan or a way to get there, and I'm going to work towards it." Data, Analytics and AI Newsletter Learn the latest news and best practices about data science, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence. 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  Published Date: 2020-08-05 

 The cohort will get help refining their investment pitches as well as access to the group's network of institutional investors. Image: elenabs, Getty Images/iStockphoto Three companies building artificial intelligence products and services have a fast track to funding as the newest members of the ELITE Group. This private business development program developed by the London Stock Exchange and Global Accelerated Ventures provides entrepreneurs with business coaching and access to institutional investors. ELITE announced Friday three new companies that will be in the organization's latest cohort: ModuleQ: An artificial intelligence (AI) platform that analyzes data from calendars, email, and Microsoft Teams to make business recommendations for individuals. Covex 2020: An AI company that combines and analyzes multiple data sets to support decision making. vElement: A service provider that specializes in robotic process automation, data science, and artificial intelligence. Thomas Tyler, global head of ELITE Americas and global head of business development, said that companies in the new cohort first will refine their core strategy and their pitch to investors. The next step is connecting the companies with ELITE's network of institutional investors. "The goal is to get bigger, get bought, or get listed," he said. SEE: Robotic process automation: A cheat sheet (free PDF) (TechRepublic) ELITE has worked with companies in 45 countries and in all sectors that share a common factor of an ambition to grow and the willingness to learn. The focus for this cohort was fintech and healthtech. Companies applied for a spot and had to meet these criteria: Turnover greater than $5 million Operating earnings greater than 5% of turnover Positive net profit Demonstrate historic growth and future potential Convincing projections Credible management Motivation to deal with the cultural, organizational, managerial change required to access long-term financing opportunities Tyler said the ELITE program fills a gap for businesses that are beyond the accelerator phase and just starting to scale and grow. ELITE works with more than 200 partners including lawyers, brokers, and sales and marketing experts to support cohort companies. Tyler said that even in this climate of uncertainty there are opportunities to engage with investors, although entrepreneurs might have to accept slightly lower valuations. "Clearly COVID is going to change some portfolio strategies but our view is that the fundamentals of that process don't change," he said. Companies that are invited to join the organization can work with the coaches and use the funding network for as long as they need to. Tyler said members have been contacting ELITE for advice more frequently since the pandemic started. "COVID has highlighted where they were weaker than they thought and emphasized the need to have the right people on board and the right processes in place," he said. Polishing the investment pitch Tyler offered this advice for entrepreneurs looking for support from investors: Know how to tell your story Know your numbers Explain your governance processes Be able to explain clearly what your ambition is He said one common challenge for entrepreneurs is recognizing the moment when it's time to stop working on day-to-day operations and start working on the strategic plan. Having a comprehensive plan helps companies stand out to investors who hear hundreds of pitches a year. "A company that is unprepared may not necessarily have a tested investment story or a growth story that will withstand the scrutiny of an investment market," he said. Tyler said that ELITE helps companies refine their corporate governance and risk management plans because investors are looking for resilient business models. "Investors want to understand that there are good processes in place to protect the investment," he said. "Companies need a solid five-year strategic growth plan which can sometimes supersede whatever the business opportunity might be." "The process of building a business is one of constant learning and engagement and you have to have that mindset as you move through those processes," he said. Data, Analytics and AI Newsletter Learn the latest news and best practices about data science, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Delivered Mondays Sign up today Also see