ON THE JOB FRONT

• Tech Salaries Remain High Despite Economic Slowdown; MEANWHILE, Upskill Training Gives Valued Staff a Reason to Stay
• 71 Cities and Towns Are Paying Remote Tech Workers to Abandon Silicon Valley
• Employees Who Switched Jobs During Pandemic Received Salary Bumps & Permission to Work Remotely; Those Perks Are Now Under Threat

CYBERSECURITY TRENDS

• White House-Backed Fund Promises to Accelerate "Deep Tech" Advancements in Cybersecurity
• Deepfakes: Next Big Security Threat is Staring Us in the Face

OTHER TECH NEWS

• Google Maps to Offer Energy-Efficient Routes Tailored to Electric Vehicles, Hybrids
• Warehouse Robotics Enters Golden Era as Use Grows
• Powering the Smart Home with Stone & Marble

Bryan Hinckley's new company, 7thSense, where he's a Managing Director, is creating the programming for "the highest resolution screen the world" - with more than a million LED panels to be attached to its exterior, and featured on the MSG Sphere at the Venetian. The Madison Square Garden Sphere is already taking shape, just east of the Strip in Las Vegas, and will be the largest geodesic dome in the world, as well as a performance venue beyond compare. Watch this video to be truly impressed!: Las Vegas is Building the World's Largest Sphere. (Bryan Hinckley, SGV)

II‐VI Incorporated (Nasdaq: IIVI) has successfully completed the acquisition of Coherent, Inc. (Nasdaq: COHR). The combined company plans to be called Coherent and will serve the four markets of industrial, communications, electronics, and instrumentation, which together represent a fast-growing total addressable market of $65 billion. (Randy Heyler, SGV)

Eckert & Ziegler (EZ) has signed an agreement with the U.S. pharmaceutical company Ratio Therapeutics Inc. for the joint development and manufacture of innovative radiopharmaceutical products based on Lu-177 and Ac-225. The agreement covers the development of a validated manufacturing process as well as the GMP-compliant production of clinical investigational products. EZ offers both regional and global pharmaceutical companies a one-stop service for a variety of radiopharmaceutical services under GMP and cGMP conditions. These include complete early development services including process development and scale-up, CMC manufacturing and packaging, product release and stability programs. EZ is able to produce small batches for Phase I, II and III clinical studies and large commercially applicable batch sizes. (Frank Yeager, SGV)

Envision Financial Systems is asking individuals to take its Envision Big-Think Mini Survey and let them know how important tech is to your business. Results will be shared with participants anonymously. (Satnam Gambhir, OC )

OEwaves, Inc. has launched a new optional Excess Laser Relative Intensity Noise (RIN) measurement feature for its acclaimed high frequency OE4001 RIN Analyzer system. This new feature removes the inherent shot noise and thermal/system noise common in conventional laser RIN measurement method in the standard OE4001 RIN Analyzer. The new feature boasts Excess RIN floor extending down to -168 dB/Hz or better. It has been developed to support a wide range of wavelengths covering spectral bands from visible to near-infrared wavelength. With the new optional feature, the system provides a complete total and excess laser RIN measurement capability up to 40 GHz.
MEANWHILE, a paper published in the July/August 2022 Optics and Photonic News - Time Crystals: Improving Oscillators and Clocks - focuses on the latest developments in Time Crystals and highlights the demonstration of Discrete Time Crystals with photons. The demonstration was made through experiments performed at OEwaves using two lasers exciting two modes in a crystalline Whispering Gallery Mode resonator; under specific conditions this system generates Discrete Time . (Lute Maleki, Ph.D., SGV)

A key Optimum Info client, Kia Germany, implemented Optimum's AMOS Business Management Solution to improve their business management processes. AMOS helped Kia Germany handle their complex SKR51 requirement, a standard chart of account unique to Germany that factors in all combinations of brands, locations, accounts, cost drivers and cost elements into a generalized structure. Read the success story here: Kia Deutschland Improves Their Business Management Processes with AMOS.
ALSO, watch a 40-second testimonial video about Optimum Info's AMOS from their client Audi of America. (Arvind Verma, OC)

Parasoft has been named as a Leader in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Cloud Testing 2022 Vendor Assessment - Empowering Business Velocity. IDC MarketScape evaluated 24 vendors in this analysis for cloud testing and automated software quality SaaS. Vendor selection was based on the strength of their products' ASQ cloud capabilities and strategy, revenue share, and differentiated position and capabilities in the emerging market. Parasoft was recognized for its strong foundation of core testing technical expertise, broad capabilities in the ASQ space, and excellent customer support.
MEANWHILE, read Parasoft's whitepaper: The Essential Guide to Automated Test Generation for Embedded Systems.
AND, watch a replay of Parasoft's recent webinar: From Dev-Oops to DevOps: Transform to an Agile Workflow for Continuous Testing. (Elizabeth Kolawa, Ph.D., SGV)

Profi scheduling software has been recognized as a "Leader," "High Performer," and chosen by users and customers as a scheduling software users love in G2's Patient Scheduling Summer 2022 Report.
ALSO, Profi CEO Alina Trigubenko has written an article for Forbes - How To Scale Your Coaching Practice From Solo To Team.
AND, watch a replay of Profi's recent Pro Beyond: Fireside Chat with Chester Elton - How to Build Your Coaching Business and Brand. (Alina Trigubenko & Adam Miller, WLA)

As of July 1, Vincit and Bilot have officially merged into one company, operating under the Vincit name. Their combined end-to-end digital commerce and human-centric design, data, and development capabilities give them a totally new competitive edge in Europe and the U.S.
PLUS, for 2022, Vincit has again been named one of the Best Places to Work in Orange County; the company has been on the list every year since 2018. Read Vincit's ebook: How a Great Company Culture Translates Into Great Work For Our Clients.
AND, Vincit USA announced that it recently closed $4M worth of deals - in contract extensions from current clients. Read their blog post to learn more about these recent deals and the common behaviors that high-performing sales teams demonstrate.
MEANWHILE, Vincit's Rachel Valentine recently shared that Vincit has enacted a summer schedule where Fridays are optional, so long as everyone hits their 40 hours. With this method, Rachel says that her only question and concern is whether longer workdays (10 hours x 4) can actually add more stress to an individual or team, or if the 3-day weekend reduces stress and burnout. Rachel wants to know your thoughts, asking you to share them in the comments on her LinkedIn post, adding: "I'll be sure to share an update at the end of summer on how it worked (or didn't) for the Vincit USA team." (Rachel Valentine, OC)

AfterNow has published a step-by-step tutorial on getting its AR/VR presentation software suite, AfterNow Prez, installed and joined to a presentation. AfterNow Prez is an immersive content creation platform that combines the ease of use of PowerPoint with the teleconferencing abilities of Zoom.
ALSO, in this blog post, an AfterNow team member and Oculus Launch Pad graduate talks about his experience with Launch Pad and how it helped shape the development of AfterNow Prez.
MEANWHILE, read other recent posts from AfterNow, including: AfterNow Prez for Sales: Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Presentations and 3D Presentations: Why Are They Better? (Philippe Lewicki, WLA)

In AstraLocker 2.0 Ransomware is a Smash & Grab Variant, Alvaka Networks reports that AstraLocker 2.0 ransomware has recently been released. This updated version is what some threat analysts call a rapid attack, or smash-and-grab style of ransomware. The AstraLocker 2.0 developers use Microsoft Word attachments in emails to distribute their malicious payload using VBA macros. The user needs to click on the attachment and then click on an icon in the document for the OLE object in the payload to be activated. To avoid becoming hostage to AstraLocker or other types of ransomware and malware, it is crucial to maintain recent offline backups of your most important files and data. Adopt a 'defense-in-depth' approach where you use layers of defense with several mitigations at each layer; this means you will have more opportunities to detect malware, and then stop it before it causes detrimental harm to your business.
ALSO, watch an on-demand recording of Alvaka's recent virtual panel, Cyber Defense in the Critical World of Water. (Oli Thordarson, SGV)

In Leadership: Sell the dream while making the reality, Dave says that as a leader, you set the goals, establish the strategies and tactics to get there (with help from others of course), and sell the dream to all your stakeholders, including potential customers, executives and employees. He gives an example: "I once sat in on a roundtable meeting in which the executive of a company stated his goal as 'educate the world' To be fair, he followed a bit later with a goal of $30 million in revenue within five years, which got my attention. The first statement was a mantra, a vision, a rallying cry. But when he did state a monetary goal, he started a real conversation about how he will achieve it and with what resources, and which of several focused revenue models. Note that 'Educate the world' elicited little response until the group saw the financial goal. Your executives, board and others will surely do the same."
AND, in OK. Let's AMPLIFY your three levels of leadership, Dave states that the three levels are visionary, strategic and tactical. As a leader, you must worry over issues from mundane to strategic, constantly reordering your priorities to accommodate competing needs. Sometimes, the noisiest or most recent issue takes center stage - just because it is easiest to respond to at the moment. But we all should be aware of the three levels of leadership that each of us experience as we create, grow and nurture our various enterprises, no matter what their size.
PLUS, in Employee vs. contractor: Here we go again, Dave shares that several years ago, he wrote an extensive article on the ten most important tests of a company in classifying a person as an independent contractor. But things have gotten much more complicated over the years, partly because of the Uber, Lyft and other new generation of GIG workers, and the best description of their class as "semi-independent." But now we must weigh in with the U.S. Department of Labor definitions as well as the Internal Revenue Service and try to make sense of the mix, which Dave goes on to discuss. (Dave Berkus, SGV & WLA)

Cibola Systems CEO Lisa Perrine is featured and quoted throughout a recent article published by WORKTECH Academy - Is empathy the missing link in tech integration for hybrid? The article acknowledges that 'technology' and 'empathy' are two words that have rarely been used in the same sentence when discussing the workplace. But as organizations worldwide try to bring their people back to the office and figure out how to make hybrid happen, that could be about to change. Empathy is all about building affinity with users and understanding their perspective - so it is a quality totally in tune with creating the right workplace solutions for the post-pandemic era. (Lisa Perrine, Ed.D., WLA)

GetVisible and CEO Jason Ciment are spotlighted in a recent blog post from Scopa Analytics, entitled Easily Enhance Revenue for eCommerce Blogs.
AND, in his own newsletter, Jason continues to offer a variety of business hacks, including:
>> Use Wheregoes.com to check your website links that you may suspect are harming your SEO effort.
>> Let's say you have a photo and you want to remove an object from the image: use the Magic Eraser.
>> Check out GetVisible's tutorial on how to leave a Google review. (Jason Ciment, WLA)

In From Content To Viral Growth: How To Create Fans By Turning Your Customers Into Believers, Half Past Nine covers: How to Create Brand Believers - 1. Pick a Core Target Audience Most Likely To Become the First Believers; 2. Create a Brand Identity That Serves Your Audience's Needs and Values; 3. Get Your Offering Right To Maintain Faith; and 4. Own and Maximize the Customer Lifecycle. Half Past Nine also discusses: Mobilize Your Brand Believers Into a Growing Community - 1. Listen and Interact To Build Relationships; 2. Create a Brand Messaging Bible for Believers; 3. Encourage and Share User-generated Content; 4. Ask for and Display Customer Reviews; 5. Reward Loyal Believers Who Bring New Converts; and 6. Consider a Dedicated Community Platform. (Ken Shen, WLA)

Groundswell, where Adam Miller is Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, is highlighted in a recent article on Lifehack - 11 Ways To Boost Workplace Morale As A Leader, which says that there are many ways to boost morale and help employees feel more connected to their organization and its core principles and values. For many employees, it's not just a matter of phoning it in and collecting a paycheck. They want to feel that what they do matters and that the companies they work for care about making the world a better place. Groundswell is mentioned in the article as a platform that allows companies to turn donor-advised funds into an employee benefit. (Adam Miller, JD, WLA)

Recent articles from ProProfs include How to Use Online Testing to Change Your Recruitment Game, which discusses prerequisites for choosing recruitment tests, how they improve the hiring process, types of online tests, and more.
AND, 20 Best Recruitment Assessment Tools in 2022 covers what they are, what to look for when choosing, benefits, features, price comparisons, and more.
PLUS, How to Create a Twitter Quiz for Your Business shares reasons for doing so, how to do it, tips to make your quiz go viral, quizzes that scale your business, and more. (Sameer Bhatia, WLA)

Marshall Toplansky recently wrote on LinkedIn: "The great irony of California's environmental movement is that California would never have been a great place to live if it hadn't used human engineering to create water, energy and agricultural infrastructure. The solution is not to move the state back to its unlivable, primeval past, but to use its innovative brain to re-engineer the state." Marshall then shares his and Joel Kotkin's recent article, Engineered California - The birthplace of environmentalism was built through meticulous application of technology. (Marshall Toplansky, OC)

Xsolla is making its recent event available to watch on-demand - How to get your game noticed in a saturated market. No matter your genre, or whether your game is on iOS or Android, web or PC, the biggest challenge for a game studio is consistently standing out from the crowd. It's difficult, but not impossible. In this VentureBeat Live event, game industry professionals offer the latest and greatest best practices for increasing a game's visibility from the start and extending a game's longevity.
ALSO, learn everything you need to know about mobile game monetization in Xsolla's YouTube vault of videos. (Shurick Agapitov, WLA)

Change Healthcare, in Collaboration with Luma Health, has launched Patient Engagement, a suite of solutions that seamlessly connects touchpoints across the patient journey, increasing access and improving communication between patients and providers. The Patient Engagement suite centers on the patient's success, and the tools work to increase patient volumes and loyalty while reducing denials and other administrative burdens for providers. (Marcia Augsburger, JD, ABL-Health Bay Area)

In Digital Pathology: The Future is Here, LigoLab Information System describes how the pandemic opened the door to digital pathology and how modern LIS systems provide the foundation for this new and evolving laboratory ecosystem.
AND, The LigoLab LIS & RCM Laboratory Operating Platform Now Features Web-Based Remote Ordering and Reporting announces that this newly added feature, dubbed LigoLab Web Connect, enables physicians and other lab clients to easily place orders, retrieve lab reports, and track the status of a case in real-time from anywhere and from any device with a simple internet connection.
ALSO, LigoLab is recently featured in articles on Influencive and MedCityNews. (Suren Avunjian, ABL-Health LA)

MedWand recently had the honor of participating with the FUTURES exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC to support a special one-day event - Living Longer Festival: Health + Wellness 2050. During the special pop-up, FUTURES and MedWand unveiled the "The Doctor is In (Space)!" where guests of all ages lined up to visit a healthcare provider in the year 2050 with a futuristic distanced healthcare visit, where medical professionals could monitor key health data from anywhere, anytime, allowing for distanced diagnoses and immediate care (even in outer space). ABL was well represented at the event: in addition to MedWand CEO Bob Rose, ABL Member Marcia Augsburger participated on a panel of experts discussing "Living Longer in the Future," moderated by Mimi Grant, with Bob Kelley interacting with the live and telecast audience. (Bob Rose, ABL-Health OC)

Providence Digital Innovation Group (DIG) has published Utilizing Innovation to Impact Healthcare's Workforce Crisis and is also making a video of a recent discussion on the topic available on-demand. Providence DIG delves into enabling self-service, automating non-clinical tasks, digital clinical support, new digital-first disruptive models of care, and workforce wellness. (Marcee Chmait, ABL-Health LA)

In The Future of Artificial Intelligence & Healthcare, SAVI Group explores the potential of increasing early diagnoses with AI, increased efficiency, and greater access to care.
AND, in Embracing Healthcare Analytics to Improve Patient Care, SAVI shares multiple data points that providers can use to improve their operations and patient care quality levels, including data on procedural tasks and giving patients insights into their health and well-being. Data can be stored, shared, and analyzed by using EHRs, patient portals, RPM devices, and more. It can also be used for predictive modeling, making it possible to take preventive measures and track health outcome improvements. (Sumit Mahendru, ABL-Health OC)

Wipfli has launched EMRConnect, a new solution for healthcare clients using Sage Intacct, which allows the seamless flow of information from EMRs to the Sage Intacct cloud financial management system and bolsters Wipfli's ability to help healthcare organizations streamline operations and consolidate operational, clinical and financial reporting and analysis, while helping to ensure accurate billing and reimbursement.
MEANWHILE, for the 11th year in a row, Wipfli has been named to the Bob Scott's Top 100 VARs list, chosen from organizations specializing in the sale and implementation of ERP and accounting software. (Jeff Johnson, John Dao & Steve Rousso, ABL-Health Bay Area)

Across the board, salaries in tech professions have risen 6.9% in the past year, with some positions - including web developer, technical support engineer and database administrator, and data analyst - leading the pack with double-digit growth, according to a survey by IT career marketplace Dice. IT upgrades and build-outs put on hold during the pandemic resumed in 2021. Companies committed to larger, more aggressive investments in tech that helped overcome disruptions of the previous year - AI, analytics, automation, cloud. Meanwhile, the supply of talent to implement, operate and manage these technologies did not keep up with demand. As competition for talent increased, so did salaries.
While the surge may level off over the next year, salaries are expected to remain high. Wages for tech workers were already on the rise, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data and CompTIA's annual State of the Tech Workforce report. The median wage in tech rose to $94,058 in 2020 from $86,852 in 2019, an increase of 8%. (https://www.ciodive.com/news/tech-talent-salary-spike-hiring/626901/)

MEANWHILE, Upskill Training Gives Valued Staff a Reason to Stay: With salaries on the rise and businesses aggressively pursuing cloud, AI, analytics and other IT upgrades, tech leaders are now looking inward for talent. Upskilling isn't a new idea. But, with demand for talent eclipsing supply, tech leaders are wise to see training not just as a practical solution to skills gaps, but as a means to cultivate workforce engagement and loyalty. (https://www.ciodive.com/news/IT-training-retention-tech-talent/626967/)

A growing number of cities and towns all over the U.S. are handing out cash grants and other perks aimed at drawing skilled employees of faraway companies to live there and work remotely. A handful of such programs have existed for years, but they have started gaining traction during the pandemic - and have really taken off in just the past year or so. Back in October there were at least 24 such programs in the U.S. Today there are 71, according to the Indianapolis-based company MakeMyMove, which is contracted by cities and towns to set up such programs. Because these programs specifically target remote workers who have high wages, a disproportionate share of those who are taking advantage of them work in tech, and especially for big tech companies. Local governments are offering people willing to move up to $12,000 in cash, along with subsidized gym memberships, free babysitting and office space. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-workers-silicon-valley-move-out-11657918928)

For much of the pandemic, tech companies big and small went on hiring sprees where would-be employees could name their price and expect rich, work-from-anywhere perks. Now, as fears of a recession loom, more employers are scaling back or freezing hiring, rethinking how many of their positions should be remote and in some cases even rescinding job offers.
One reason for this change in bargaining power at startups: Capital isn't flowing as freely. As venture firms tighten up terms and investors offer survival advice to portfolio companies prepping for a downturn, startups are more focused on cutting costs than rapid growth. That means spending exorbitant amounts of money on salaries to attract new hires is coming to an end, say those who help recruit for the portfolio companies of venture capital firms.
Not all employees are at a disadvantage. After all, there are still more roles open in the industry than there are people to fill them. Job postings for tech positions reached 505,663 in June, a 62% increase over the same time a year ago, indicating employers that are dialing down hiring are more than offset by those still adding to their ranks, says CompTIA, an IT trade group.
Highly skilled workers in areas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence can still name their price, recruiters say. Nearly a third of all tech job postings in June were for software developers and engineers, according to CompTIA. The number of software development job postings that mention remote work had also risen to nearly 38% at the end of June, up from around 32% during the same period a year ago, according to Indeed.com. (https://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-workers-long-got-what-they-wanted-thats-over-11657877406)

An investment fund supported by the White House and partially bankrolled by tech heavyweights Peter Thiel, Eric Schmidt and Craig Newmark is making a big bet that "deep technologies" will give the U.S. the edge over China - especially when it comes to cybersecurity. The U.S. needs to do more to win the "great nation competition," according to Gilman Louie, CEO of the newly launched America's Frontier Fund, and that means supporting innovation in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, fusion, microelectronics, 6G cellular technology, advanced manufacturing and synthetic biology. Most of these technologies will soon be increasingly embedded in cybersecurity, he said. (https://www.cyberscoop.com/white-house-backed-fund-deep-tech/)

There's a new challenge on the horizon - protecting against the coming wave of digital imposters or deepfakes. A deepfake video uses artificial intelligence and deep-learning techniques to produce fake images of people or events. Many companies publicly list their board of directors and senior management on their website. Often, these high-level business executives will have spoken at events or in the media, so it's possible to find footage of them speaking. By using AI-powered deep-learning techniques, cyber criminals could exploit this public information to create a deepfake of a senior-level executive, exploit email vulnerabilities to request a video call with an employee, and then ask them to make a financial transaction. If the victim believes they're speaking to their CEO or boss, they're unlikely to deny the request.
The FBI has already warned that cyber criminals are using deepfakes to apply for remote IT support jobs, roles which would allow access to sensitive personal information of staff and customers that could be stolen and exploited. While advances in technology means it's becoming more difficult to tell deepfake content apart from real-life video, the FBI has issued advice on how to spot a deepfake, which includes the video warping, strange head and torso movements, along with syncing issues between face and lip movement, and any associated audio. Deepfakes could easily become a new vector for cyber crime, and it's going to be a real struggle to contain the trend. It's entirely possible that organizations will need to develop a new set of rules around authenticating decisions made in online meetings. It's also a challenge to the authenticity of remote working - what does it mean if you can't believe what you see on the screen? (https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-next-big-security-threat-is-staring-us-in-the-face-tackling-it-is-going-to-be-tough/)

Google Maps is preparing to expand its fuel-efficient routing options by specifically tailoring to electric vehicles, hybrids, and more. Last year, Google Maps began offering an alternative way to navigate your car from one place to another. Where typically a navigation app optimizes for the shortest travel time, Google Maps started offering routes that would be more fuel-efficient and eco-friendly, even defaulting to that route if the ETA is similar. To that end, the latest beta update to Google Maps, version 11.39, includes preparations to specify the engine type of the vehicle you're currently driving. This selection - with options for gas, diesel, electric, and hybrid - will be used by Google Maps to "tailor" your navigation to find what will "save you the most fuel or energy." (https://9to5google.com/2022/07/14/google-maps-efficient-route-electric-hybrid/)

Adoption of robotics in warehouses will increase 50% or more in the next five years, according to surveys taken by the Material Handling Institute, an industry trade group. The goal is mechanical orchestration, in which a team of robots, steered by sophisticated software and artificial intelligence, can move boxes and products in a seamless environment. Unlike assembly line manufacturing, warehouses demand a significant degree of flexibility. Only recently have systems like visioning and artificial intelligence become cheap and powerful enough to sort the tens of thousands of different products streaming through an e-commerce warehouse. This technological leap is part of a larger embrace of robotics: The industry saw a 28% jump in purchases from 2020 to 2021, according to the Association for Advancing Automation. Now the technology is becoming more affordable and filtering down through the industry. (https://www.standardspeaker.com/news/business/robots-arent-done-reshaping-warehouses/article_8baa180c-c6fa-5865-928f-047a5d1a77bc.html and https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/business/warehouse-technology-robotics.html)

Researchers at Korea's Kookmin University have fabricated microsupercapacitors integrated into the surface of stone tiles, a technology breakthrough that could one day change the smart home. The team believes that these microsupercapacitors could be used on other building materials as well, such as marble in the future. Integrating power into materials currently used in home building and renovation could save consumers and the power grid in the future. Researchers tested the integrated-electronics stone and found it maintained a high energy storage capacity even after 4,000 charge-discharge cycles. When multiple devices were strung together in a three-by-three array, enough energy was stored to power a light emitting diode (LED). Additionally, researchers found the stone energy storage devices were durable against harsh impacts and could be recycled. (https://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/18372/powering-the-smart-home-with-stone-or-marble)

Email: [email protected]