Huawei is preparing to enter the competitive world of digital assistants with its own voice-powered service, according to Bloomberg. A team of more than a hundred engineers is in the early stages of developing the technology at its Shenzhen offices, one of the people familiar with the matter said.

Groupe ADP, the operator of Paris’s airports, has begun testing new face-recognition software at Charles de Gaulle airport to speed passengers through immigration faster after terrorist attacks on the capital doubled delays amid tighter security, according to Bloomberg.

IBM and Visa announced the industry’s first collaboration that brings the point of sale everywhere Visa is accepted, by allowing businesses to quickly introduce secure payment experiences for any device connected to the Internet of Things (IoT).

The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) announced that the popular LightweightM2M (LwM2M) version 1.0 specification has moved from Candidate Release status to Approved Release status. Marking an important milestone for this specification, which is being widely deployed in the industry, the move to Approved status indicates that all features for LwM2M v1.0 have been frozen.

Veeam Software announced a new initiative to give away up to $200 million through an exclusive Veeam FREE Cloud Services program. Effective immediately, every customer using Veeam for on-premises backup and recovery is now eligible for up to $1,000 in free cloud backup and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) from Veeam and its partners.

Israelian company RAD has announced that it will unveil its vCPE-OS software at Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona, together with its ETX-2v white box. Part of RAD’s Service Assured Access (SAA) solution, vCPE-OS runs on any white box server and is also pre-loaded in RAD’s vCPE devices.

IBM Security announced the availability of Watson for Cyber Security, the industry’s first augmented intelligence technology designed to power cognitive security operations centers (SOCs). Over the past year, Watson has been trained on the language of cybersecurity, ingesting over 1 million security documents. Watson can now help security analysts parse thousands of natural language research reports that have never before been accessible to modern security tools.

Italtel announced it will launch its Itaca solution at Mobile World Congress 2017. As a modular and configurable analytics solution, Itaca improves the end-user experience, leveraging end-to-end visibility, knowledge and understanding of network and delivered services.

Microsoft and other major technology companies and banks are forming an alliance to advance the adoption of Ethereum blockchain database technology in corporations, potentially offering better security for recording transactions, according to Bloomberg.

Facebook’s users often connect on the social network to seek relief and provide support during times of crisis. According to Bloomberg, the company is now updating its Safety Check feature to make it easier for people to find or give help such as food, shelter or transportation during local disasters.

Babak Hodjat believes humans are too emotional for the stock market. So he's started one of the first hedge funds run completely by artificial intelligence, according to Bloomberg.

Microsoft will help cloud customers fend off patent lawsuits and expand coverage of related litigation costs, seeking to distinguish its services from rivals in the fast-growing market for internet-based computing, according to Bloomberg.

The OpenFog Consortium announces the release of the OpenFog Reference Architecture, a universal technical framework designed to enable the data-intensive requirements of the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

Starbucks will begin letting customers order via voice on their iPhones and Amazon’s Alexa system, a bid to bolster its tech capabilities even as the rapid evolution brings headaches to the coffee chain, according to Bloomberg. The new capability works with the barista feature on the Starbucks’ app, which relies on artificial intelligence to interact with customers.

The fourth international conference ICT Security 2017 will be held May 30-31, 2017 at the Hotel Crowne Plaza in Belgrade, Serbia. One of the most important events in the region that deals with advanced issues in information security is organized by eSecurity Association.

Finnish Defence Forces signed a contract with Bittium for the delivery of Bittium Tough Mobile LTE smartphones and related Bittium Secure Suite back-end system classified for Confidential level. The contract signifies a strategic decision to reinforce the information security of the wireless communications of the Finnish Defence Forces. Bittium Tough Mobile smartphones and the related back-end system will be used in different and diverse functions within the Finnish Defence Forces.

Alphabet, Microsoft and Intel, which all posted quarterly results late last week, reinforced what’s become a truism in technology: the biggest growth is in businesses that deliver computing over the internet, according to Bloomberg.

Facebook hasn’t been shy about copying Snapchat, its smaller social-media rival. Now it’s unveiling the biggest and boldest clone so far: a feature resembling Snapchat’s Stories, directly within the Facebook application, according to Bloomberg.

Central bankers may do well to pay less attention to the bond market and their own forecasts than they do to newspaper articles, according to Bloomberg. That’s the finding of a new algorithm-based index being tested at Norway’s central bank in Oslo. Researchers fed 26 years of news (or 459,745 news articles) from local business daily Dagens Naringsliv into a macroeconomic model to create a “newsy coincident index of business cycles” to help it gauge the state of the economy.

Leading IT service provider in Croatia COMBIS launched cloud.combis.hr, web portal that includes the widest Cloud offer in Croatia intended for business customers. Portal's goal is to educate readers about numerous possibilities of Cloud in modern business, having in mind the fact that every company has its own specific business and Cloud needs.

Just over two years after leaving Google, creator of the Android operating system Andy Rubin is preparing to take on the smartphone industry he helped create, according to BLoomberg. Rubin is planning to marry his background in software with artificial intelligence in a risky business: consumer hardware.

This year's CES has definitely confirmed the strength of the "Internet of Things" trend, says for ICTbusiness Sebastian Popović, the founder of Zipato. Zipato is the company employing thirty employees that's in the business of home management devices from the Smart Home category.

Wall Street’s largest back-office processing service is partnering with IBM to upgrade how payments and record-keeping for credit-default swaps are handled by putting the system on a blockchain by early next year, according to Bloomberg.

Ford, the second largest U.S. automaker, said it will begin offering “Alexa in the car” this summer on vehicles equipped with its Sync 3 infotainment system. An automotive version of Amazon’s popular voice-activated Echo assistant, Alexa in the car will let drivers order items on Amazon, listen to audio books, play music, check news, search for restaurants and get directions. The driver just has to push a button on the steering wheel and say, “Alexa,” followed by a command.

Microsoft is rebooting its push to sell software for cars with a new set of programs and services in a bid to keep up with rivals like Google and Apple that are expanding in auto technology, according to news report from Bloomberg. "We're not getting into self-driving cars ourselves but we can be an important element of it by providing the platform," said Microsoft's business development chief Peggy Johnson, in an interview.

Nvidia announced at CES in Las Vegas a new version of its Shield set-top box and the debut of an online service designed to bring millions of new consumers to high-end computer games, according to Bloomberg. The new $199 Shield will display high-resolution video and feature Google Assistant technology capable of recognizing natural-language commands and controlling other devices.

Smart homes market is only one vertical of industrial revolution known as the Internet of Things, says Zipato's manager, Sebastian Popovic. Zipato, domestic manufacturer of solutions for managing smart home, again exhibits at CES, the world's largest technology fair in Las Vegas. We talked about Zipato and their Zipatalo which was first introduced last, just before CES opened its doors to visitors.

Trend Micro, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, recently partnered with ASUS to protect home users against malicious IoT threats with Trend Micro Smart Home Network solution embedded in ASUS wireless home routers. Security of Internet of Things (IoT) devices remains an essential aspect for consumers to know about while they gradually adopt the concept of connected devices in this era. Trend Micro’s security solution aims to protect home network users from turning into zombie computers, while connected devices remain safe from possible malicious activities.

Airbnb is developing a service for booking air travel as the home-rental startup looks to compete with Priceline and Expedia for more of people's online travel spending, according to Bloomberg. Development of the flight-booking feature is early, and the company is considering various routes to break into the business, said people familiar with the plans.

Slovak company ESET has reached a monumental milestone in the security industry. Their NOD32 is the first product to ever pass the magical threshold of 100 VB100 Awards received by a single product. With an unbroken record over 18 consecutive years, no other security product can claim to be the top performer by this independent testing and certification body.