The 31st Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (AICS 2023) is set to make waves as it returns for another year, bringing AI to the forefront of the scientific community. Hosted by Atlantic Technological University (ATU) in collaboration with Ulster University, this year's conference will be held in person at the Letterkenny campus of ATU on the 7th & 8th of December 2023.

The conference will explore how AI is developing and how it is used in an array of industries, including health and wellness in sport. It will also examine the ethical concerns often raised with Artificial Intelligence.

Established in 1988, the AICS Conference has been a cornerstone of the Irish scientific landscape, uniting researchers in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. These fields have evolved to encompass diverse areas such as Data Analytics, Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval, and Machine Learning, all of which play pivotal roles in shaping modern computing research and industry in Ireland.

The AICS 2023 programme, supported by technical sponsorship from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) the UK and Ireland Computational Intelligence Chapter, promises to be a beacon of innovation, featuring presentations of high-quality theoretical and applied scientific papers.

Keynote speakers include Salvatore Tedesco, a Senior Researcher and Team Leader at the Wireless Sensor Networks Group, Tyndall National Institute, UCC, Toju Duke, a passionate advocate for Responsible AI and the founder of Diverse AI, and Dr Róisín Loughran, Manager of the Regulated Software Research Centre at Dundalk Institute of Technology

Salvatore will explore the realm of AI-based Smart Wearable Systems for Health and Wellness in Sports, Ageing, and Rehabilitation, while Toju will shed light on the crucial topic of "The Responsible AI Framework: Developing Impactful AI Systems." Meanwhile, Dr Loughran will examine the ethical side of AI in her address: "The Regularity and Ethical Concerns for AI in Critical and Non-Critical Domains".

Registration for AICS2023 is now open, and the public can register to attend by visiting www.aics.ie

Pure Telecom, Ireland's high-speed broadband and telecoms provider, has announced the results of its inaugural Connected Lives survey, which shows that almost one-third (32%) of adults in Ireland have a fake social media account. Pure Telecom's research also revealed the most common social media faux pas committed by users.

The nationally representative survey of 1,004 adults in Ireland was conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Pure Telecom. It delved into the population's use of social media and the widespread use of 'fake' social media accounts, whereby users don't use their real name. The research found that 44% of men admit to having a fake account, compared to 28% of women. Half of adults aged 26 and under confessed to having a fake account.

Of those who have a bogus account, 25% said they use it to view people's posts and accounts anonymously, while 19% said it enables them to hide their identity while engaging in controversial discussions online. The same proportion have a fake account so that they can stay under the radar of potential and current employers, clients or colleagues.

Pure Telecom's survey found that the average adult in Ireland has 4.4 social media accounts. Juggling an average of 5.6 social media accounts each, Gen Z (adults aged 26 and under) have the largest number of social media accounts. This is followed by Millennials (ages 27-42) with 4.1; Gen X (ages 43 to 58) with 3.4; and Baby Boomers (ages 59 to 77) with 2.3 accounts. The research found that 23% of adults have opened at least one social media account in the last 12 months, while 15% have deleted an account.

With many social media platforms at their fingertips, through which they can connect with people anywhere in the world, Pure Telecom's research found that 39% of adults have people who they consider to be friends, but with whom they have only ever interacted digitally. This rises to 53% for Gen Z and continues to decline throughout the generations: Millennials (36%), Gen X (26%) and Baby Boomers (23%).

Pure Telecom's research also explored the most common social media blunders. These were found to be:

Scrolling through a person's feed and liking a post from a long time ago (34%)

Sending an embarrassing message to the wrong person or group (22%)

Accidentally commenting on the wrong post or image (18%)

Accidentally sharing a post or image that was intended solely for the eyes of close friends or family (15%)

Posting publicly thinking it was private (13%)

Accidentally liking an ex's post, or following/requesting to connect with them (10%)

Accidentally liking an ex's partner's post, or following/requesting to connect with them (9%)

Paul Connell, CEO, Pure Telecom, said: "Social media continues to be an integral tool for people to connect with one another. It has become such a part of our everyday lives that our definition of friendships has changed. Now, as the power of connection allows people to meet and keep in touch from all over the world, a significant proportion of us are enjoying friendships that are entirely online.

"Many of us will probably find some comfort in our research, as it shows us that there are people just like us out there who have committed social media 'no-nos' in the past. With the online world playing such a significant role in our lives, these blunders can leave us seriously red-faced.

"At Pure Telecom, we are proud to be at the heart of people's connected lives. We encourage all social media users to enjoy the personal connections that the platforms enable, while always using them kindly and responsibly."

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ServiceNow, the leading digital workflow company making the world work better for everyone, has launched a major expansion to its Now Assist generative AI portfolio with new capabilities to transform experiences and increase productivity. Available to all customers today, Now Assist in Virtual Agent, flow generation, and Now Assist for Field Service Management (FSM) are the latest powerful GenAI solutions to be embedded into the ServiceNow Platform. All three solutions enhance ServiceNow's portfolio of practical generative AI applications that are helping customers transform how they work.

Gartner forecasts that "Between 2023 and 2027, $3 Trillion dollars will be spent on AI", and "GenAI represents 36% of total AI Spending." As organisations across industries begin deploying GenAI, ServiceNow customers are already realising cost savings, growth, and cross-enterprise efficiency and productivity improvements. Now Assist accelerates customers' digital transformation journeys with fast implementations and quick return on investment.

"Our customers are facing increasingly complex and competitive dynamics across industries and AI holds the key to enabling faster execution, smarter decision making, and greater business agility," said CJ Desai, president and chief operating officer at ServiceNow.

Accelerating end-to-end digital transformation with natural language interfaces on a single intelligent platform

Now Assist in Virtual Agent, flow generation, and Now Assist for FSM are immediate productivity multipliers for customers by reducing time spent searching, summarising, and creating basic information while enabling conversational self-service, incident deflection, and workflow automation.

Now Assist in Virtual Agent helps organizations create and deploy advanced generative AI chat experiences in 15 minutes or less with enhanced guided setup capabilities. Customers and employees can now solve issues and get what they need fast, while allowing organisations to increase call deflection rates.

It provides better self-service with a generative AI-powered conversational experience that pulls in the most relevant information or actions from a customer's knowledge base and service catalog. New updates for Now Assist in Virtual Agent include Q&A in Knowledge Management and multi-turn conversations for ordering catalog items or making service requests, with the ability to provide additional information directly within the chat. Much like how people communicate in everyday life, these updates allow employees and customers to have conversational experiences for fast, more relevant self-service.

Flow generation accelerates workflow development on the Now Platform by helping Admins and Developers generate workflow blueprints for fast development at scale. It converts plain text into low-code workflows so developers no longer need to build flow automations from scratch, improving the time-to-value for organisations and reducing the automation backlog. Once the initial workflow is established, developers can easily make continuous adjustments and refinements using the no-code design interface in App Engine.

Now Assist for Field Service Management (FSM) helps field service teams deliver better, more proactive experiences and accelerate productivity with generative AI. The new solution uses generative AI to access all activity, parts, and incidental data to summarise work order tasks, which are critical for field technicians who are moving from site to site and rely on mobile devices to get their most important work done. By simplifying the work order process, Now Assist for FSM improves technician and customer experiences along with documentation, compliance, and consistency.

As announced previously, leading companies and innovative organisations are already early adopters of Now Assist, including CBRE, Deloitte, Teleperformance, and a U.S. government agency. NVIDIA is also a customer, as well as a ServiceNow technology partner.

"Leading compani...

Salesforce has announced that Aer Lingus, the Irish flag carrier, is using Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud to transform its customer experiences.

Why it's important: 96% of customers say excellent customer service builds trust, according to Salesforce research.

With Salesforce, Aer Lingus will digitally transform to deliver personalisation and seamless customer experiences at scale. This includes introducing a centralised management capability and omni-channel approach across all marketing, transactional, post purchase/travel, loyalty, support and disruption communications.

Creating a customer-first approach across all touchpoints will remove friction, optimise the right message at the right time, and also help Aer Lingus consolidate its technology stack.

With Service Cloud, Aer Lingus will allow customer service teams to respond to customers more efficiently through data, automation, UI and guided workflows. average case handling time and increase agent productivity through guided workflows. This will enable teams to respond to customers more effectively and quickly during peak travel periods.

Marketing Cloud will streamline all customer communications, increasing the quality of communications through richer, more relevant data and increased consistency.

Susanne Carberry, Aer Lingus Chief Customer Officer, said: "At Aer Lingus, we are constantly striving to enhance our customers' journey with us. Salesforce will allow us to understand our customers better and offer them a personalised, digital led experience. As we grow our airline, this will become an integral part of how we ensure we are giving customers the dedicated care that they expect from Aer Lingus.

"We're delighted to be working with Salesforce as we use their game-changing technology as part of our ongoing digital transformation."

Carolan Lennon, Salesforce Ireland Country Leader, said: "The airline industry is increasingly competitive, and how brands communicate with passengers will continue to be a key differentiator. From booking travel to receiving notifications of new routes, Aer Lingus recognises the power of personalised customer journeys in the air and in their digital offer. Enhancing personalisation and reducing friction experiences are key ingredients driving success with Aer Lingus.

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Uniphore, one of the world's largest AI-native companies, has announced a strategic partnership with Workair, the largest cloud communications specialist in Ireland, to bring enterprise AI to Ireland, with a priority placed on Ireland's world-class contact centres.

With deep expertise and a track record of success working with enterprise scale companies, public sector and global contact centres, Workair will leverage Uniphore's X Platform and their industry-leading AI solutions to help clients select, deploy and support customer-centric solutions that best meet their specific needs. The Uniphore X Platform infuses multiple AI technologies into all areas of the enterprise that impact the customer, such as conversational AI, generative AI, knowledge AI, and emotion AI.

As an established leader, Workair will leverage its expertise and the access it now has to industry leading technology with Uniphore to ensure its customers will be able to better handle customer-centric tasks such as sales, frontline support, and compliance management across contact centres.

"Ireland has become a vibrant tech hub for innovation," said Umesh Sachdev, CEO at Uniphore. "Workair has been a major force driving innovation not only for Irish enterprises, but for global brands as well. We're thrilled to partner with Workair to deliver best-in-class customer experiences throughout Ireland and beyond. This collaboration is a critical step in expanding Uniphore's global footprint and ensuring our leading enterprise AI platform is recognised on the world's stage."

To kick off this partnership, Uniphore and Workair gathered a select group of senior executives from Ireland's top businesses at an event at The Fire Steakhouse in Dublin on Thursday night Nov 16th 2023 to network and discuss the future of AI. The event was also attended by a very special guest, Brian O'Driscoll, a World Rugby Hall of Famer.

"Workair has always been at the forefront of delivering easy-to-use, integrated and cost-effective customer communications to Ireland's contact centres," said Stephen Mackarel, Managing Director of Workair. "We are proud to partner with Uniphore and provide Ireland's call centres with enterprise AI capabilities that will empower agents to better address customer concerns, lower call times and improve the overall customer experience."

"AI is clearly the next major force for business transformation and there is a huge opportunity for all customer-facing functions to leverage it for improved customer and employee/advisor experiences," said Dorothy O'Byrne, Managing Director at Contact Centre Management Association in Ireland. "CCMA is working with members to help identify and develop the opportunities that AI brings. We congratulate Workair, sponsors of the CCMA, on this partnership with Uniphore."

Uniphore's enterprise-class, AI-native platform makes it easy for businesses to transform every part of the enterprise that impacts the customers. With the addition of the Workair partnership, Uniphore's platform is now available in over 20 countries.

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By Calvin Jones

With its Zenfone line, Asus continues to fly the flag for those who want a phone they can comfortably carry in a pocket, and use with one hand, without compromising on flagship grade specs and performance. This year's Asus Zenfone 10 brings the range bang up to date with the latest high-performance internals, while retaining the same compact form-factor as last year's Zenfone 9, offering what is, in contemporary smartphone terms, a small device with few compromises.

Asus Zenfone 10: High Spec Compact Phone reviewed

Pros:

Blistering all around performance

Compact, pocket-friendly design that's easy to use one-handed

Excellent build quality, a premium feel and full IP68 water and dust rating

It STILL has a headphone jack!

Cons:

Software updates is the biggie here: Asus still only guarantees 2 Android updates plus a further 2 years of security updates, which isn't bad, but falls short of competitors

Charging speed from the bundled 30 watt charger is adequate but no more

Lack of autofocus on ultrawide and selfie cameras feels like a downgrade

Asus Zenfone 10: Full Review

The Zenfone 10 is more of a subtle refresh of last year's Zenfone 9 than a complete revamp. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as the Zenfone 9 design had a lot going for it. The phone is the same width and height as its predecessor, but is a smidgen thicker at 9.4mm (from 9.1mm), and slightly heavier at 172g (from 169g). Those differences aren't noticeable in the hand though - and the phone feels every bit as comfortable and compact as last year's model.

The Zenfone 10 sports a 5.9" AMOLED display with a maximum refresh rate of 144hz - which is great - but that higher refresh rate is only available on compatible mobile games through Asus's Game Genie game optimisation tool. For day-to-day stuff it tops out at the 120hz refresh rate found of the Zenfone 9 - which is ample for buttery smooth scrolling and interaction with the UI and whatever apps you're rocking. It's bright and vibrant too, with punchy colours, deep blacks and lots of contrast.

Maxing out at 1,100 nits, the Zenfone's display is bright, but not as bright as some contemporary rivals. While it remains visible in bright sunlight, there are scenarios where you might notice it struggling.

The panel is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus, which should be able to take some abuse and be none the worse for wear, although a decent screen protector is always an option if you're concerned about knocks and scrapes.

The back of the Zenfone 10 is a tactile, textured material very similar to that found on the Zenfone 9, but is described as an eco-friendly bio-based polycarbonate that's kinder to the environment. It doesn't feel remotely plasticky, and has a rough, almost paper or cardboard like texture. It feels great, has a unique look, provides plenty of grip, and while it might not feel quite as premium as glass, it is certainly a lot more robust.

The Zenfone 10 comes in five colours: the new Aurora Green (like our review unit), Eclipse Red, Comet White, Starry Blue and Midnight Black - so there's plenty to choose from.

Oh… and it still has a headphone jack. Hallelujah!

Performance & Battery Life

Under the hood the Zenfone 10 is powered by the latest flagship chipset from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, paired with 8GB or 16GB of blisteringly quick LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB or a whopping 512GB of super-fast UFX4.0 storage (we reviewed the 16/512GB variant). That makes the Asus Zenfone 10 not just one of the best performing compact phones out there… but according to benchmarks this little beast is one of the best performing phones on the market… period.

There is no SD Card slot to expand that memory though, so you'll need to make sure you get enough on-board storage for your needs. The Zenfone 10 supports dual nano-sims, but there's no support for eSims… which is a shame.

Day-to-day performance on the Zenfone 10 is exemplary. Scrolling through content, launching apps, switching between them, etc. ...

Centripetal, the global leader in intelligence powered cybersecurity, has announced a strategic partnership with Renaissance, the leading Irish value-added distributor in Ireland.

This collaboration marks a significant milestone in bolstering Ireland's cybersecurity landscape and underscores the commitment to combating the rising tide of cyber threats.

The cost and complexity of protecting IT assets from cyberthreats is increasing and enterprises are struggling to know where best to invest their efforts and budgets for maximum impact. Centripetal's CleanINTERNET delivers real-time protection against all known cyber attacks by operationalizing the world's largest collection of threat intelligence, in real-time.

The solution also provides a team of elite, highly skilled, intelligence operational analysts augmented by AI technology to monitor and protect an organization's network.

"In an age where the digital terrain is rife with escalating cyber threats, Centripetal stands as a crucial ally for Irish organisations in pursuit of thorough protection," said Michael Conway, Director at Renaissance.

"This partnership signifies a transformation in the cybersecurity landscape of Ireland. CleanINTERNET not only delivers a robust alternative protection strategy but does so at a dramatically lower cost, redefining the landscape of digital defense."

With this partnership, Centripetal and Renaissance aim to empower Irish organisations to stay ahead of cyber threats, reinforcing the importance of intelligence-powered cybersecurity in an era where traditional, legacy, methods fall short.

"This collaboration marks a significant milestone, extending the reach of proactive, intelligence-powered cybersecurity solutions to organisations across Ireland," added Dave Silke, European MD at Centripetal. "Together, we are excited to elevate the standards of digital defense in the Irish market."

For more information and to learn how to partner with Centripetal visit www.centripetal.ai/partners.

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Dell Technologies and Hugging Face are collaborating to make it easy for enterprises to create, fine-tune and implement their own open-source generative AI (GenAI) models with the Hugging Face community on industry-leading Dell infrastructure products and services.

The companies will create a new Dell portal on the Hugging Face platform to offer simplified on-premises deployment of customized large language models (LLM) on the industry's top-selling infrastructure technology portfolio.

Hugging Face's Dell portal will include custom, dedicated containers and scripts to help users easily and securely deploy open-source models available on Hugging Face with Dell servers and data storage systems. Over time, the portal will release updated containers with optimized models for Dell infrastructure, offering improvement in performance and support for new GenAI use cases and models.

"Dell Technologies' GenAI capabilities, combined with Hugging Face's collection of datasets and libraries, offer users the freedom of open-source GenAI models with the peace of mind of on-premises data security and reliability," said Jeff Boudreau, chief AI officer, Dell Technologies. "This collaboration translates into enterprises being able to modernize faster by more simply deploying customized GenAI models powered by trusted Dell infrastructure."

"We are incredibly excited to partner with Dell Technologies to make open-source AI easy to use for enterprises within their on-premises infrastructure," said Jeff Boudier, head of Product and Growth, Hugging Face. "This collaboration will empower companies to build their own AI systems leveraging the incredible innovations of the open source community, while benefiting from the security, compliance and performance of Dell systems."

Learn more here.

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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ireland & the UK feel that HR requirements are overwhelming vital resources, according to a survey commissioned by Meath-based HR tech company HR Duo.

In its survey of over 300 SMEs it was found that almost two-thirds (64%) say that trying to keep on top of all elements of HR in their business is extremely challenging. But despite the difficulties in the current business environment, just 10% say their HR function is likely to decrease in the next 12 months, with 45% predicting an increase. This is leading to a perfect storm, where HR requirements are continually increasing while a majority of SMEs feel that they are already overextended.

The survey identified that the lack of suitable HR technology for SMEs is central to their struggle to manage the HR workload. Three quarters (74%) feel that automation of manual tasks would be of major benefit to their business, with 66% saying that there are lots of paper processes in need of digitisation.

Yet roughly the same amount (67%) feel that addressing HR challenges is very different in SMEs compared to large organisations, meaning that existing options don't address their needs. Indeed a majority (60%) of SMEs feel that HR tech platforms generally are geared towards the needs of larger companies, and adapting these to the needs of SME would be too onerous, with 70% believing they need a lot of expertise to set up and use effectively.

The result is time and resources wasted by SMEs in conducting routine HR tasks, which would be better utilised running and growing the business.

Jerome Forde, Founder and CEO of HR Duo, commented, "SMEs are the driving force of the Irish economy, employing 1.19 million people - roughly two-thirds of the total workforce - and generating almost half of the turnover in the private sector (source: ISME). But so much time and resources are being wasted on outdated manual tasks, meaning less opportunity to grow the business and hire new people."

Unsurprisingly, two-thirds (64%) of SMEs said that increased productivity through better use of automation and tech is a priority for them over the next 12 months. Recent entrants to the market are making this more of a possibility for SMEs and challenging incumbent brands that prioritise larger organisations.

Jerome continued, "From speaking to SMEs around the country, it is clear that here is a huge need for a simple but innovative software solution that works for them straight out of the box - time is critical for them and they need a service tailored to their needs. With this in mind we developed HR Duo, a cloud-based platform that automates 80% of routine HR tasks, with the remaining 20% serviced by an expert team to help with more complex issues.

HR Duo's easy to use, low cost, and 'always on' proprietary software make it ideal for its target market of SMEs with 50-1,000 employees, acting as a bolt-on support to HR personnel, or indeed as a HR back-up for companies without a dedicated HR department. With subscriptions starting from as little as 10 per employee per month, the service can be scaled up or down as the business requires, with no lengthy, onerous contracts.

While HR tech solutions tailored to SMEs are now finally available, this does not mean they intent to reduce or eliminate HR capabilities. Indeed, feedback received during the survey revealed that SMEs don't want a simple 'set and forget' solution - instead, there is a strong desire for a system to build institutional knowledge, with 85% wanting a HR platform that adds to their knowledge base. What SMEs desire is not a silver bullet, but a long-term partner in helping with their HR needs, freeing them up to build and scale their businesses into the future.

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Network optimisation company Data Edge has announced a new partnership with HUBER+SUHNER. The collaboration is expected to generate half a million euro (500,000) for Data Edge in additional revenue over the next two years.

Headquartered in Switzerland, HUBER+SUHNER manufactures electrical and optical connectivity solutions, serving a variety of industries. A global leader, its solutions and products include optical switches, global navigation satellite system (GNSS) distribution and antennas, as well as cabling and connectors. This new partnership with Bray-based Data Edge is the company's first in Ireland.

The collaboration enables Data Edge to enhance its data centre offering by bringing several new innovative solutions to the market in Ireland and making use of the unique GNNS distribution equipment and 'power over fibre' antenna solutions from HUBER+SUHNER.

It will also benefit Data Edge's existing customers, enabling access to the latest generation optical distribution frames and lab switching which improves the speed of connections between communication facilities.

Data Edge and HUBER+SUHNER expect to generate new business through this partnership. In fact, they are already working together on a significant project with a leading multinational technology company.

Commenting on the partnership, Paul Phelan, CEO, Data Edge said: "Partnering with HUBER+SUHNER has been a goal for us for quite some time, as its suite of products are a perfect fit for our customers' evolving needs. Due to our experience and position in the Irish market, we are a natural fit for this partnership and are looking forward to leveraging it fully to grow our business, particularly our data centre offering."

Mark Alexander, Sales Manager, Data Centre at HUBER+SUHNER said: "When considering a partnership in the Irish market, Data Edge stood out to us as an experienced potential collaborator, having done excellent work here for a number of years on high-level projects such as the National Timing Protocol Timesaver and the recently launched National Timing Grid.

Data Edge will be showcasing equipment from HUBER+SUHNER on its stand (#127) at the Data Centres Ireland show at the RDS convention centre this month, 22-23 November.

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