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Today’s topics include Larry Ellison’s introduction of Oracle’s new Autonomous Database Cloud and robotic security product; Oracle’s injection of AI technology into its cloud apps; Google’s decision to end the unpopular free article access requirement for publishers; and the release of Skype Preview for Linux.
At his opening keynote address Oct. 1 at Oracle OpenWorld 2017, company co-founder and CTO Larry Ellison introduced what he called the “world’s first autonomous database cloud,” as well as an as-yet-unnamed automated security product. Both use machine learning for automation to eliminate human labor, human error and manual tuning, and to enable availability, high performance and security at a much lower cost than competitors, including Amazon Web Services.
“These systems are … robotic; they’re autonomous,” Ellison said, adding that, “In security, it’s [Oracle’s] computers versus [hackers’] computers.”
The automated security system scans the entire system 24/7, knows immediately when an intruder gets into it, and stops and isolates the intruder faster than any human could, Ellison said. The database cloud, meanwhile, eliminates human labor that touches tuning, patching, updating and maintaining the database.
Also at OpenWorld this week, Oracle revealed its new Adaptive Intelligent Apps, which are built into the existing Oracle Cloud Applications and provide useful artificial intelligence-based modern business applications.
“The AI Oracle is embedding not only goes across finance, HR, recruiting, supply chains, commerce and marketing applications but also for salespeople and service apps,” Jack Berkowitz, Oracle vice president of products and data science for Adaptive Intelligence, told eWEEK.
At the show, Oracle also will be talking about the notion of “connected intelligence” with the advent of all this new IT. “This is not just a set of pinpoint capabilities that you as a salesperson might interact with, but it’s a coordinated outcome across either the touchpoints of a consumer or of a business, or for the employees,” Berkowitz said.
After 10 years, Google will no longer require news publishers with a paid subscription model to provide limited daily free access to their content to ensure they get discovered in Google News and Search.
“As of this week, we are ending the First Click Free policy, which required publishers to provide a minimum of three free articles per day via Google Search and Google News,” said Google Vice President of News Richard Gingras. Google instead will implement a “Flexible Sampling” model, letting publishers decide how many free articles, if any, they want to offer readers before charging for them.
Google is also building a set of products and services to help publishers acquire more paid subscribers for their content, and will use its existing identity and payment infrastructures to enable easier signups for people who want to subscribe to particular publications.
Although Microsoft’s efforts surrounding Linux are largely focused on cloud customers and software developers, people who use Skype on the open-source operating system are still on the company’s mind, and Microsoft is starting to narrow the features gap between the Windows, Mac and Linux versions of Skype.
The latest Skype Preview for Linux mimics the look, feel and functionality of its Windows and Mac counterparts, and includes a new screen-sharing feature, allowing users to follow along with a speaker’s presentation during group calls.
Additionally, a “new group chat feature for Skype for Linux allows you to talk with several friends at the same time,” Microsoft announced. “[Microsoft] even included options to personalize chats with emoticons, Mojis, and photos so you can express yourself with your own style.”