Julia programming language, cloud computing, cybersecurity worries: Research round-up

Bowery Capital profiles and highlights over 500 vertical-focused companies for its Opportunities in Vertical Software report, where companies are classified on a three-point scale. By our analysis, manufacturing, aerospace/drones, and transport & logistics consistently offer the biggest opportunities for vertical software companies.

For more see: Mapping the industry cloud landscape

Julia Computing recently conducted a survey of over 1,800 Julia users to find out what they like and don't like about the language. The most popular technical feature of Julia is speed and performance followed by ease of use. Users also report their biggest gripes with the language. The top one is that packages for add-on features aren't sufficiently mature or well maintained to meet their needs. 

For more see: Julia programming language: Users reveal what they love and hate the most about it

Questions about problems on the non-technical side of Julia highlight the difficulties of getting a relatively new language off the ground versus more established languages like Python. The top complaint here is that colleagues use other languages and that there are not enough Julia users in their industry or field. Users also cite a lack of teaching and learning resources online. 

For more see: Julia programming language: Users reveal what they love and hate the most about it

Gartner paints a picture of a hybrid AI approach, where humans and machines work together through 2030 to drive business value. By then, decision support and augmentation will surpass all other AI initiatives in terms of business value and represent 44% of the market. Smart products will be 13% of business value, with decision automation at 19% and agents at 24%.

For more see: AI will drive business value via decision support, human augmentation

Perficient Digital's image recognition accuracy study looks at image recognition - one of the hottest areas of machine learning. On a pure accuracy basis, three out of the four engines - Amazon, Google Vision, and Microsoft Azure Computer Vision - score higher than human tagging for tags with greater than 90% confidence. In the analysis, Google is the clear winner across all categories, with Amazon AWS Rekogniton in second place.

For more see: Which company does the best job at image recognition? Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or IBM?

Almost one-in-three remote employees believe they are more qualified than their manager, according to research from online resume creator Resume Lab. If roles were reversed, over one in three (35%) of employees surveyed say they would create goals for employees if they were in charge, while 34.3% say they would increase employee pay. 

For more see: A quarter of employees would upgrade their workplace technology if they were In charge

A team of academics - from Microsoft Research, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Seoul National University and Pennsylvania State University - has found malicious scripts that intercept user clicks on 613 of today's most popular websites. The research team created a tool named Observer that they used to scan the Alexa Top 250,000 list of most popular websites for the presence of malicious scripts that intercept user clicks through popular techniques.

For more see: Clickjacking scripts found on 613 popular sites, academics say

The researchers found that some of the malicious scripts were used to intercept clicks and perform clicks on ads for monetary profit, while other scripts intercepted clicks to redirected users to malicious sites showing scareware, tech support scams, or peddling malware-laced apps. According to data collected by the research team, most of the clickjacking scripts were included in legitimate sites as part of advertising solutions.

For more see: Clickjacking scripts found on 613 popular sites, academics say

Online security systems company Security.org has surveyed 1,012 Americans to determine how people are unknowingly putting their online safety at risk. Users are 24% more likely to keep their passwords on management apps compared to a sticky note, but it makes little-to-no difference when they are giving our combinations to people who they think they can trust. Regardless of the requirements across websites, the average password is nine characters, with the majority of users using uppercase and lowercase letters along with numbers and symbols.

For more see: The average US user recycles online passwords at least four times

The research shows that nearly two-out-of-five (39%) users report using 'complicated' passwords, and almost half (46%) believe their passwords qualify as moderately complicated. But one-third (33%) rely on a pet's name, and nearly one in five (17%) use their age in their password.

For more see: The average US user recycles online passwords at least four times

Finally, Unify Square has released a report in partnership with Osterman Research on the unified communication habits of millennials. Almost a third (28%) of millennials report using unapproved apps two to four-times per week, and 71% report using unapproved apps at least a few times per year. Microsoft Skype for Business and Teams are reported to be users' preferred platforms at 59% and 48%, respectively. 

For more see: Millennials are twice as likely to use unapproved collaboration apps in the workplace