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Microsoft has announced it will invest $5 billion in research, products and services for the Internet of Things (IoT) over the next four years. The investment will be made into IoT operating systems, cloud services for managing and controlling those operating systems, analysis tools to make use of the data from IoT, and business applications. In more practical terms, this means making Windows 10 more IoT aware, and developing Azure further.   The announcement of the investment follows a few days after Microsoft announced it was reorganizing internally, splitting the Windows and Devices Group and reshuffling elsewhere to: "focus on the intelligent cloud and the intelligent edge ," according to CEO Satya Nadella. Making Windows 10 more IoT aware is already underway, with Windows 10 IoT Core and Enterprise already available, and work already announced on making it easier to integrate Windows 10 IoT and Azure IoT. Azure IoT is also getting new services and options...

It might be a while before President Donald Trump gets another chance at creating a new, "merit-based" immigration system, a keystone of his four-part plan that Congress rejected a month ago. Meanwhile, his administration is attempting to make it harder for skilled migrants to come work in the US. The State Department has terminated an Obama-era program which allows foreign entrepreneurs to start companies in the US. It is aggressively scrutinizing visa applications for skilled workers from other countries. In addition, it is considering terminating a provision that permits the spouses of those skilled workers to work in the US. The administration and its supporters claiming that they are trying to mend flaws in the current, employer-centric skilled immigration system while campaigning for a complete revamp of America's immigration system. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports reducing immigration said, "The stuff ...

At 18, Accenture Strategy makes most offers BCG, Amazon make second highest offers of 14 each 125 firms participated for placements 'Dream job' applications rise from 110 last year to 176 out of over 400 batch As against 7 last year, this year 6 students opted out of placements for own ventures Placements for the 2018 batch of the postgraduate programme in management (PGP) at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) concluded, with consulting and e-commerce majors emerging as top recruiters. Accenture Strategy made 18 offers, followed by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Amazon with 14 each. Last year, Amazon was the top recruiter, with 18 offers. IIM-A now follows a cluster-based placement process. Companies across sectors are invited in 'cohorts', spread into different days during the weeks. This year, entities from multiple domains participated across the three clusters in final placements, with students being placed across 23 cohort...

r Recently, the thought of the H1B visa is being extremely scrutinized in the public square of the world's most sparkling IT hub. Anti-H1B posters have been put in famous Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) train stations, which travel through the centre of San Francisco Bay Area. The posters will remain there for no less than an entire month in the midst of the new H1B filing season which opens 2 April through an advertisement campaign worth of $80,000. BART is one of the busiest rapid transport systems in the US with an average of around 425,000 everyday passengers and approximately 124 million yearly passengers in the 2017 financial year. As per Bay Area newspapers, at least three stations — Civic Centre, Oakland's 12th Street and 19th Street are marquee locations. Sponsored by Progressives for Immigration Reform, this anti H1B advertisement campaign is setting off the fumes among the sentiments of anti-immigrants that put Trump into the White House. Twit...

H-1B woes have heavily affected the Indian techies trying to migrate out of the country for work. The IT professionals are increasingly heading to Canada.  The data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) suggests that over 4,400 applicants have registered under Global Skill Strategy Program that was launched on June 12 last year. IRCC agency is responsible for issuing work permits to the foreign nationals.  The global skills strategy was launched to make it easier for Canadian businesses to attract the local talent. The initiative was launched last year to boost attract global marketplace. Businesses in Canada want to bring global talent to scale-up and grow. Out of 4,400 applicants that were granted work visa in Canada, 33% are Indians. Lindsay Wemp, the spokesperson of IRCC said, “In the global race to attract the investment of innovative companies, competitors in the European Union, as well as the United States, have considerably larger p...

Increasing fear of cyber attacks has created new market opportunity in cybersecurity sector. The demand for cybersecurity professionals has gone up by 3x in the last one year. The industry has over 15,000 open positions related to cybersecurity. India’s cybersecurity measures are fairly poor as compared to some of the developed nations. The country needs to put in extra efforts to fight against cyber attacks. The adoption of internet and smartphones will further boost the demand in cybersecurity domain. A report by Belong research suggests a great spike in cybersecurity jobs this year. An outbound recruitment solution, Belong has published a report based on job postings by companies that recruit cyber professionals on multiple platforms. The report states, “As companies seek to bolster their defense against data security breaches, the demand for cybersecurity experts in India has outstripped supply of these professionals by three times over the past 12 months.” The de...

Researchers are exploring possible impacts of developing robots that are driven by Artificial Intelligence. Developing robots that have a mind of their own can automate a number of real-world situations. A team of researchers from the University of Texas, Austin is incorporating AI into machines. These systems can learn themselves and operate in the home, workplace and even the sports field. If these robots can deal with real-world situations, we can soon have intelligent robots that you must have seen in science fiction movies. The fictional representations of intelligence robots are in the minds of global users for over 50 years now. The manufacturing sector has been the biggest beneficiary of robotic technologies. The robots that can carry out preordained and repetitive tasks can solve a number of problems. But these robots are not capable of dealing with real-world situations. Even the simplest tasks that can be unpredictable need human interaction to solve. Resea...

While Indian IT professionals are struggling to get the work visa for the US, the Indian IT firm is on a hiring spree in the US. Infosys has created employment opportunities for 2,500 American workers in 2017.   The Trump administration continues to make H-1B visa approval difficult. Indian techies are finding it extremely difficult to get the work visa for the US. The new government’s “Buy American, Hire American” campaign has killed the hopes of highly-skilled, eligible immigrant workers. India’s second-leading IT firm is creating a large number of work opportunities for the American workers. Infosys is among the top employment generators for India. The IT services company has a large client base in the US. While Infosys is battling to secure visas for Indian techies, it is also hiring more locals than ever before. According to the latest report, Infosys has hired over 2,500 American IT professionals in 2017. The report comes at a time when Infosys has stop...

IBM today announced  PAIRS Geoscope , a new experimental cloud-based service that makes it easier for developers to work with large amounts of geospatial data from across a wide variety of sources. The service handles ingesting, integrating and managing the data and allows developers to focus on their queries. Indeed, it’s the part of the service that handles the data ingesting and indexing that sets PAIRS Geoscope apart from other big data analytics services. It can take in anything from geotagged IoT data from sensors to weather data, census data, aerial imagery and even tweets or news data from the Google-backed  GDELT Project . If you are interested in how IBM does this, you’re in luck, because the team recently  published a paper  that goes into more detail about how this integration engine works. From the developer’s perspective, though, the most important feature here is that PAIRS converts all the data into common formats and units and automatically ali...

The Trump administration decided to delay the decision regarding H4 visa. This is supposed to be a good news, but it has nothing but confused the Indian techies working in the US. The department of homeland security (DHS) deferred issuing the proposal to restrict work permits for H4 dependent visas. The decision was supposed to be taken by February 28 but it has now been delayed to the end of June 2018. The move comes just a few days after the Trump administration announced increased scrutiny for H-1B visa approvals, making it rather confusing for existing H-1B holders. Indian families are largest beneficiaries of H-4 visas. H-1B visa holders that move to the US with their spouses can apply for work permit for their spouses. The provision of H-4 visa has helped many Indian H-1B holders find work for their spouses. The department of homeland security (DHS) was planning to issue the proposal to restrict work permits for H-4 visa holders. The government led by the former...

In recent times, most of the people who came to the US legally with a spousal visa, or H-4, allowed to the spouses and wives and husbands of those who have H1-B, or high tech, visas, are much delighted and cried with euphoria as soon they heard that they would be able to get a work permit. Although H4 visas did not permit a person to work in the US – until 2015, when the Obama rule empowered a regulation that opened the route for several people with spousal visas to get permits, well-known as employment authorization documents (EAD). The help of H-4 visa holders hasn't kept going long, in any case. Bishen and mates who got the work approvals are presently in limbo since the Trump organization showed it intends to end the program this year. In the event that that occurs before they can get new work grants, life partners of H-1B holders in the Seattle region should choose whether to quit working in the United States or leave the nation. However, this relief of H-4 visa-ho...