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WILMETTE RESIDENT SALLY SCHOCH IS NUTS!AT 86-YEARS YOUNG AND DURING A PANDEMIC SHE OPENSSALLYS NUTS AND SNACK SHOP IN THE RAVINIA DISTRICT OF HIGHLAND PARK

This year may be a bit nuts but nothing is stopping 86-years young Sally Schoch from fulfilling her dream. She and daughter, Kari Guhl are the proud owners of the newly opened Sallys Nuts and Snack Shop in the Ravinia District of Highland Park, offering their signature sweet & salty Sallys Nuts as well as a grab-n-go menu of fun, affordable simple sandwiches, salads, snacks, cheese boards, sweets, drinks, and fun inspired merchandise.

Its never too late to chase a dream!! says Highland Park-resident Kari Guhl of her moms 15-year fetish with making and perfecting nuts for her family and friends. Everyone would tell Sal she should sell her delicious creations and now I am so happy to see my moms dream become a reality. As Sal says, I want to achieve my dream and who knows what the future holds.

Sallys Nuts handcrafted sweet & salty pecans, cashews and almonds are the perfect accompaniment to the Snack Shops array of homemade sandwiches, salads, cheese and meat boards. Some of the affordable, simple options on the menu include peanut butter & jelly, bologna & cheese, cucumber or egg salad sandwiches, and dont forget the bag of carrots! There are also family favorite salads, dressings, and sweets recipes including the creative Junkanoos and Scrabble Mix (you have to come in for yourself to taste and learn more!).

Inspired by Karis son, Sallys Nuts offers a full line of merch perfect for bundling with the sensational nuts in terrific tote bags. The Merch Menu includes the ordinary Ts, sweatshirt, knit, beanie and baseball hats, to the more unique aprons, tea towels, sponges and cutting boards, making customizing a gift for any Sally or nut a great holiday gift option.

Gaining recognition as the nuttiest girls around, this dynamic mother daughter duo can be found making the handcrafted nuts and all the yummy snacks in the back of their shop at 481 Roger Williams Avenue. They invite the public to come get a little nutty and sample some of the best nuts around!

Hours are Tuesday- Saturday 10AM- 6PM. For more information visit https://sallysnuts.com or call (847) 226-7042.

ABOUT SALLY SCHOCH

A longtime businesswoman, mother of four, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago graduate, Sally believes that you are never too old to live out your passions. Selling her art for 63 years, Sally is ready to live out another passion of hers, creating tasty treats. Her love of all things creative, delicious and celebratory has made Sallys Nuts possible.

Sally has been gifting her famous nuts to family and friends while fine tuning her recipe for the last 15 years. After receiving much encouragement, and the help of her daughter, Sally decided that she would start her own business and share her handcrafted nuts with the community.

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Neighbor discussion: Wishing you a Happy, Healthy and Safe Thanksgiving! - Patch.com

by Rania Toukebri

Cyberattacks are exponentially increasing over time, improving the security of communications is crucial for guaranteeing the protection of sensitive information for states and individuals. For states, securing communications is mandatory for a strategic geopolitical influence.

Most technologies have been based on classical laws of physics. Modern communication technology transfers encrypted data with complex mathematical algorithms. The complexity of these algorithms ensures that a third parties cannot easily crack them. However, with stronger computing power and the increasing sophistication of hacking technologies, such methods of communication are increasingly vulnerable to interference. The worlds first quantum-enabled satellite is the Chinese Satellite (Micius). The purpose of the mission is to investigate space-based quantum communications for a couple of years in order to create future hack-proof communication networks.

In a classical computer, each processing is a combination of bits. A bit can either be zero or one. A qubit, the quantum bit, can be a zero and a one at the same time. So, processing qubits is processing several combinations of zeroes and ones simultaneously, and the increased speed of quantum computing comes from exploiting this parallelism.

According to quantum theory, subatomic particles can act as if they are in two places at once. This property is manipulated so that a particle can adopt either one of two states. If the particle is not observed, it will be in a state of superposition.

There have been successful quantum encryption experiments with some limitation. The messages were sent through optical fibers, the signal would be absorbed by the medium and then it wont be possible to make for long distance. Making such communications over long distances would require quantum repeaters that are devices that capture and retransmit the quantum information.

China found another solution by beaming entangled photons through the vacuum of space, so they wont be absorbed.

Micius satellite works by firing a laser through a crystal creating a pair in a state of entanglement. A half of each pair is sent to two separate stations on earth.

The objective of this method is to generate communication keys encrypted with an assembly of entangled photons. The information that will be transmitted will be encoded by a set of random numbers generated between the transmitter and the receiver. If a hacker tries to spy or interfere with one of the beams of entangled photons, the encryption key will be changed and will become unreadable due to the observer effect of Quantum theory. In consequence, the transmitter will be able to change the information in security.

The Quantum communication in Military and defense will enable China to be a strong leader in military sophistication and it will empower its geopolitical influence, decreasing by that the US authority.

China has already started the economic and technological development while US foreign policy is declining her dominance on the global geopolitical scene. Technically, Quantum technological development will speed up a multipolar power balance in international relations.

On another hand, USA is also making research on Quantum Technologies but the US investments remains limited compared to ones in China and Europe. Which is making China the leader in quantum communication. But the USA recognizes the importance of this filed and started making more efforts technically and financially. But the question remains, who will be able to reach the frontier before?

Following the Chinese space strategy, in the last years, China invested a lot in technological development including the pioneer space program, her aim was to reach a dominance in air and force. Micius satellite will be able to make a boom in military advancement and an information dominance. This space program is symptomatic to the Chinese strategy on technological development.

The first Chinese satellite was launched after USA and Russia in 1970. The strategy followed afterwards enhanced an exponential growth in space and technological development by a huge financial investment gained after an exponential economical growth. Beidou ( China space navigation satellite) provides precise geolocation information for Chinese weapon systems and communication coverage for its military. Which is a strength point on military and geopolitical aspects.

The policy is still going in that direction by having a global network coverage of 35 Chinese satellites. The Chinese space program launched already two space laboratories, its aim is the launch of a permanent manned space station in 2022 knowing that the international space station will retire before 2028.

In consequence, China would become the only country with a space station, making it necessary to the countries and in consequence a center of power. More Chinese space missions including robotics and AI took place, preparing for the next generation space technology. Quantum is the accelerator to reach the ultimate goal of this space program and then became the first priority in the technological researches. By 2030, China aims to establish a network of quantum satellites supporting a quantum internet.

The network of quantum satellites (2030 China Project) is aiming to increase the record distance for successful quantum entanglement between two points on Earth. Technically, the lasers being used to beam the entangled photons between the stations will have to achieve a high level of precision to reach the selected targets. But the limitations are:

Rania Toukebri is a Systems engineer for spacecrafts, Regional Coordinator for Africa in Space Generation Advisory Council in support of the United Nations, Space strategy consultant and Cofounder of HudumaPlus company.

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#SpaceWatchGL Opinion: Quantum Technology and Impact of the Global Space Security - SpaceWatch.Global

Welcome to Neurals guide to the glorious future of AI. What wonders will tomorrows machines be capable of? How do we get from Alexa and Siri to Rosie the Robot and R2D2? In this speculative science series well put our optimist hats on and try to answer those questions and more. Lets start with a big one: The Singularity.

The future realization of robot lifeforms is referred to by a plethora of terms sentience, artificial general intelligence (AGI), living machines, self-aware robots, and so forth but the one that seems most fitting is The Singularity.

Rather than debate semantics, were going to sweep all those little ways of saying human-level intelligence or better together and conflate them to mean: A machine capable of at least human-level reasoning, thought, memory, learning, and self-awareness.

Modern AI researchers and developers tend to gravitate towards the term AGI. Normally, wed agree because general intelligence is grounded in metrics we can understand to qualify, an AI would have to be able to do most stuff a human can.

But theres a razor-thin margin between as smart as and smarter than when it comes to hypothetical general intelligence and it seems likely a mind powered by super computers, quantum computers, or a vast network of cloud servers would have far greater sentient potential than our mushy organic ones. Thus, well err on the side of superintelligence for the purposes of this article.

Before we can even start to figure out what a superintelligent AI would be capable of, however, we need to determine how its going to emerge. Lets make some quick decisions for the purposes of discussion:

So how will our future metal buddies gain the spark of consciousness? Lets get super scientific here and crank out a listicle with five separate ways AI could gain human-level intelligence and awareness:

In this first scenario, if we predict even a modest year-over-year increase in computation and error-correction abilities, it seems entirely plausible that machine intelligence could be brute-forced into existence by a quantum computer running strong algorithms in just a couple centuries or so.

Basically, this means the incredibly potent combination of exponentially increasing power and self-replicating artificial intelligence could cook up a sort of digital, quantum, primordial soup for AI where we just toss in some parameters and let evolution take its place. Weve already entered the era of quantum neural networks, a quantum AGI doesnt seem all that far-fetched.

What if intelligence doesnt require power? Sure, our fleshy bodies need energy to continue being alive and computers need electricity to run. But perhaps intelligence can exist without explicit representation. In other words: what if intelligence and consciousness can be reduced to purely mathematical concepts that only when properly executed became apparent?

A researcher by the name of Daniel Buehrer seems to think this could be possible. They wrote a fascinating research paper proposing the creation of a new form of calculus that would, effectively, allow an intelligent master algorithm to emerge from its own code.

The master algorithm idea isnt new the legendary Pedro Domingos literally wrote the book on the concept but what Buehrers talking about is a different methodology. And a very cool one at that.

Heres Buehrers take on how this hypothetical self-perpetuating calculus could unfold into explicit consciousness:

Allowing machines to modify their own model of the world and themselves may create conscious machines, where the measure of consciousness may be taken to be the number of uses of feedback loops between a class calculuss model of the world and the results of what its robots actually caused to happen in the world.

They even go on to propose that such a consciousness would be capable of having little internal thought wars to determine which actions occurring in the machines minds eye should be effected into the physical world. The whole paper is pretty wild, you can read more here.

This ones pretty easy to wrap your head around (pun intended). Instead of a bunch of millionaire AI developers with billion-dollar big tech research labs figuring out how to create a new species of intelligent being out of computer code, we just figure out how to create a perfect artificial brain.

Easy right? The biggest upside here would be the potential for humans and machines to occupy the same spaces. This is clearly a recipe for augmented humans cyborgs. Perhaps we could become immortal by transferring our own consciousnesses into non-organic brains. But the bigger picture would be the ability to develop robots and AI in the true image of humans.

If we can figure out how to make a functional replica of the human brain, including the entire neural network housed within it, all wed need to do iskeep it running and shovel the right components and algorithms into it.

Maybe conscious machines are already here. Or maybe theyll quietly show up a year or a hundred years from now completely hidden in the background. Im talking about cloud consciousness and the idea that a self-replicating, learning AI created solely to optimize large systems could one day gain a form of sentience that would, qualitatively, indicate superintelligence but otherwise remain unnoticed by humans.

How could this happen? Imagine if Amazon Web Services or Google Search released a cutting-edge algorithm into their respective systems a few decades from now and it created its own self-propagating solution system that, through the sheer scope of its control, became self-aware. Wed have a ghost in the machine.

Since this self-organized AI system wouldnt have been designed to interface with humans or translate its interpretations of the world it exists in into something humans can understand, it stands to reason that it could live forever as a superintelligent, self-aware, digital entity without ever alerting us to its presence.

For all we know theres a living, sentient AI chilling out in the Gmail servers just gathering data on humans (note: there almost certainly isnt, but its a fun thought exercise).

Dont laugh. Of all the methods by which machines could hypothetically gain true intelligence, alien tech is the most likely to make it happen in our lifetimes.

Here we can make one of two assumptions: Aliens will either visit us sometime in the near future (perhaps to congratulate us on achieving quantum-based interstellar communication) or well discover some ancient alien technology once we put humans on Mars within the next few decades. These are the basicplots of Star Trek andthe Mass Effect video game series respectively.

Heres hoping that, no matter how The Singularity comes about, it ushers in a new age of prosperity for all intelligent beings.But just in case it doesnt work out so well, weve got something thatll help you prepare for the worst. Check out these articles in Neurals Beginners Guide to the AI Apocalypse series:

Published November 18, 2020 19:50 UTC

Excerpt from:
Neurals guide to the glorious future of AI: Heres how machines become sentient - The Next Web

Over the years there have been two missing components everyone on Twitter moans about: the notorious edit option and the dislike button. Well, it turns out we might be getting one of those in the future.

Responding to a tweet from security expert Jackie Singh, Twitter product lead Kayvon Beykpour revealed the company is exploring adding a dislike button to its platform but its simply not one of its most urgent priorities.

Instead, Twitter is currently concentrating its efforts on cutting the spread of inauthentic behavior, enhancing the safety of its users with better tools to curb and report harassment, and cracking down on misinformation that could have harmful effects on itsusers.

Anyone who actively uses Twitter already knows the company has spent a considerable amount of time on battling harassment and the spread of misinformation on its platform. Indeed, it has introduced a slewof features aimed at solving those two issues over the years.

More recently, the company shared it had labeled over 300,000 tweets for election misinformation, some of which were posted by none other than US President Donald Trump.

To be fair, Twitter has previously experimented with the idea of a dislike button, although not quite in the same way its like button works.

The company had briefly made it possible for users to report tweets they dont like, but it was impossible for other users to see a tally of the dislikes a tweet had received. Its unclear if Twitter is exploring any alternatives beyond this, but time will tell.

Until then, youll simply have to do with the good old ratio.

via Gizmodo

Read next: Google Chrome introduces tab search here's how to use it

Original post:
One for the haters: Twitter considers adding a dislike button - The Next Web

Technology is rapidly transforming the way how banks operate and how they serve their customers, and becoming a key enabler of competitive edge. According to a new report by Deloittes Middle East Financial Services practice, eight emerging technologies are set to disrupt the banking industry in the coming years. An outline of the technologies and some of the key benefits they have to offer to the banking industry.

Cloud is an essential tool of todays service delivery model, and enables banks to penetrate new business opportunities and access new delivery channels. By leveraging cloud-based services, banks are able to decrease data storage costs through saving on capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX), while ensuring customer data is protected.

There are three types of cloud services:

Some of the key benefits of cloud-based working for banks include:

Big data refers to large and complex datasets that create significant challenges for traditional data management and analysis tools in practical timeframes. Using advanced analytics, banks can apply technology to efficiently extract valuable insights from data, and use those to improve the (strategic) decision-making process.

Benefits of Big Data analytics for the banking sector include:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now becoming a part of the business environment and is reinventing the entire ecosystem of the banking sector. By increasing the level of automation and using dynamic systems, AI supports decision-making, enhances the customer experience, and improves operational efficiency. AI also provides a strategic oversight for getting value out of data, which is now needed more than ever due to the data influx from a wide range of sources.

Benefits of artificial Intelligence in the banking sector include:

Deloitte foresees a growing appetite for AI investment across the Middle East. In fact, in one scenario, spending could reach over US$100 million in 2021.

Internet of Things is a technology which connects devices/sensors in a network with the aim of providing better data-driven insights. The banking sector started utilizing IoT relatively late compared to sectors such as energy and automotive. However, IoT has been gaining importance in financial services lately, especially in retail banks, which are showing large investments in IoT to be used in their internal infrastructure and consumer-facing capabilities.

The use of IoT devices will allow banks to collect massive stockpiles of customer data, ranging from their demographic details to their income and spending patterns, to their preferences. The access to this amount of data has the potential to drive fundamental change in the industry including increasing operational efficiency, preventing fraud, reducing nonperforming assets (NPAs), improving employee and customer efficiency, and facilitating easier verification, loan tracking, and customer retention.

The banking industry is mandating the use of intelligent automation to drive efficiency, eliminate repetition, and improve customer satisfaction by providing fast and efficient services. The technology behind this automation is called robotic process automation (RPA).

RPA is transforming how banks operate. Some key benefits of RPA in the banking industry:

Blockchain technology and its associated distributed ledgers were devised as a simple yet smart solution to keep track of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency in circulation. The solution leveraged a distributed ledger architecture under which all users who participated as nodes in the network had a copy of the entire ledger.

Benefits of Blockchain technology in the banking sector include:

A quantum computer is a new type of computer that harnesses the power of quantum mechanics to solve problems that were previously believed to be intractable on regular computers. In the banking sector, the authors predict four major use cases.

There still is some way to go however before quantum computing becomes a reality. According to Deloitte, the 2020s will likely be a time of progress in quantum computing, but the 2030s are the most likely decade for a larger market to develop.

Open Banking refers to the movement that banks work together in an ecosystem of (technology) partners. Banks broadly have four broad strategic options: full-service provider; utility; supplier; and marketplace interface.

These four options are not mutually exclusive. Two of these utility and supplier involve losing control of the customer interface as products and distribution become unbundled. However, organizations pursuing more than one option are likely to need to sharpen their own proposition for each option they pursue to remain competitive.

Open banking is poised to introduce a number of opportunities both for incumbents and new entrants:

In related news, according to another recent report by Deloittes Middle East Financial Services practice, the firm found that one fifth ofMiddle East bank holders now use FinTech solutions to bolster their experience and financial management.

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Eight technology trends that will disrupt the banking industry - Consultancy-me.com