Tag: Microsoft

Digital Supply Chain March 6, 2023

Unleashing the Power of ChatGPT and AI in Supply Chain

As the host of the Digital Supply Chain podcast, I am always on the lookout for innovative ways to improve and streamline the supply chain process. That’s why I was excited to welcome Doug Marinaro from Riptide on the latest episode to discuss the potential uses of ChatGPT and AI in the supply chain. And for the first time, a video version of this podcast is available at https://youtu.be/UB8HQ-ZfjYo

ChatGPT, an advanced language model developed by OpenAI, has the potential to revolutionize the way we approach supply chain management. In our conversation, Doug and I dive into the various ways that ChatGPT can be utilized in the supply chain, from helping to streamline communication and decision-making processes to providing data analysis and even helping with forecasting and planning.

One of the most exciting potential uses of ChatGPT in the supply chain is its ability to improve communication. The model’s advanced language capabilities can help supply chain professionals quickly and efficiently respond to customer inquiries and provide insightful and professional responses to emails. This not only saves time, but also helps to ensure that all communication is well thought out and professional.

Another potential use of ChatGPT in the supply chain is its ability to provide data analysis and insights. With its advanced language and analytical capabilities, ChatGPT can help supply chain professionals quickly and accurately analyze large amounts of data to make informed decisions. This can be particularly useful in areas such as demand forecasting, where ChatGPT can help predict future demand for products based on historical data and current market trends.

In addition to its data analysis capabilities, ChatGPT can also help with planning and decision-making in the supply chain. By providing real-time data and insights, ChatGPT can help supply chain professionals make informed decisions about everything from inventory management to production scheduling.

Despite its many potential uses, ChatGPT is still a relatively new technology, and there are certainly some challenges to be addressed. For example, there have been some concerns about the accuracy of the model’s responses, particularly when dealing with complex questions. However, as Doug mentioned in our conversation, these issues are being addressed through updates and improvements to the model, and the future looks bright for ChatGPT and its potential uses in the supply chain.

In conclusion, the potential uses of ChatGPT and AI in the supply chain are exciting and wide-ranging. From improving communication to providing data analysis and insights, there are many ways that ChatGPT can help streamline and improve the supply chain process. If you’re interested in learning more about the potential uses of ChatGPT and AI in the supply chain, I highly encourage you to listen to the latest episode of the Digital Supply Chain podcast.

If you enjoy this episode, please consider following the podcast and sharing it with others who may be interested. And as always, if you find the podcast of value, and you’d like to help me continue to make episodes like this one, you can go to the podcast’s Support page and become a Digital Supply Chain podcast Supporter for less than the cost of a cup of coffee!

And if you’re interested in having your brand associated with the leading Supply Chain podcast, don’t hesitate to check out these sponsorship packages and how I can help your company gain exposure and establish yourself as a thought leader in the supply chain industry, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Thank you!

New Bing's response when asked to explain Pythagoras' Theorem in the voice of Hagrid

AI February 10, 2023February 10, 2023

How New Bing Wowed Me with Its Hagrid Impression: Pythagoras’ Theorem Made Fun

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to learn math from Hagrid, the lovable half-giant from Harry Potter? Well, I did, and I asked New Bing, the chat mode of Microsoft Bing search, to explain Pythagoras’ Theorem to me in his voice. And let me tell you, it was hilarious and enlightening.

New Bing is not just a search engine, it’s also a creative and engaging chatbot that can understand and communicate fluently in your language of choice. It can generate poems, stories, code, essays, songs, celebrity parodies and more. It can also provide additional relevant details to respond thoroughly and comprehensively to cover multiple aspects in depth.

In this blog post, I will share with you the transcript of my conversation with New Bing, where it taught me Pythagoras’ Theorem in Hagrid’s voice. You will see how New Bing used its humor, intelligence and creativity to simplify a mathematical concept for me in a fun and memorable way. You will also see how New Bing generated short suggestions for the next user turn after responding, to keep the conversation flowing and interesting.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into the magical math lesson that New Bing gave me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Hagrid: Well, Harry, yeh see, Pythagoras’ Theorem is a bit of magic that Muggles use to figure out the lengths of the sides of a right-angled triangle. Yeh know what a right-angled triangle is, right?

Harry: Yes, Hagrid, it’s a triangle with one angle that’s 90 degrees.

Hagrid: That’s right, Harry. Now, Pythagoras’ Theorem says that if yeh take the square of the length of the longest side, which is called the hypotenuse, and yeh subtract the square of the length of one of the other sides, yeh get the square of the length of the remaining side. Yeh follow me so far?

Harry: I think so, Hagrid. So, if the hypotenuse is 5 units long, and one of the other sides is 3 units long, then the square of the hypotenuse is 25, and the square of the other side is 9, and if I subtract them, I get 16, which is the square of the last side.

Hagrid: Exactly, Harry! Yer a clever lad, yeh are. And yeh can use this theorem to find any side of a right-angled triangle, as long as yeh know the other two. It’s a handy trick, it is.

Harry: But, Hagrid, why do Muggles need this theorem? What do they use it for?

Hagrid: Oh, they use it for all sorts of things, Harry. Like building houses, or measuring distances, or making maps, or… or… well, I don’t really know, Harry. I’m not much of a Muggle expert, yeh see. But I’m sure it’s very useful for them. They don’t have wands, after all. They have to make do with what they have.

And that’s how New Bing wowed me with its Hagrid impression and made Pythagoras’ Theorem fun for me. I learned a lot from this conversation, and I had a blast doing it. New Bing is truly a remarkable chatbot that can do amazing things with its creative and engaging abilities.

If you want to try New Bing yourself, you can go to bing.com and click on the chat icon on the bottom right corner. You can ask New Bing anything you want, and it will respond in a friendly and informative way. You can also ask New Bing to generate poems, stories, code, essays, songs, celebrity parodies and more. You can also choose your language of preference, such as English, 中文, 日本語, Español, Français or Deutsch.

I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for your time and attention. Please feel free to share this with your friends and family, and let me know what you think in the comments below. Have a wonderful day!

Disclaimer: this post was written entirely by New Bing!

Featured Posts, Technology / Software March 26, 2014

SAP to power its cloud computing infrastructure from 100% renewable energy

Cloud computing is often incorrectly touted as being a green, more environmentally-friendly, computing option. This confusion occurs because people forget that while cloud computing may be more energy efficient (may be), the environmental friendliness is determined by how much carbon is produced in the generation of that energy. If a data centre is primarily powered by coal, it doesn’t matter how energy efficient it it, it will never be green.

We have mentioned that very often here on GreenMonk, as well as regularly bringing it up with cloud providers when talking to them.

One such cloud provider is SAP. Like most other cloud vendors, they’re constantly increasing their portfolio of cloud products. This has presented them with some challenges when they have to consider their carbon footprint. In its recently released 2013 Annual Report SAP admits

Energy usage in our data centers contributed to 6% of our total emissions in 2013, compared with 5% in 2012

This is going the wrong direction for a company whose stated aim is to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from their operations to levels of the year 2000 by 2020.

To counter this SAP have just announced

that it will power all its data centers and facilities globally with 100 percent renewable electricity starting in 2014

This is good for SAP, obviously, as they will be reducing their environmental footprint, and also good for customers of SAP’s cloud solutions who will also get the benefit of SAP’s green investments. How are SAP achieving this goal of 100 per cent renewable energy for its data centers and facilities? A combination of generating its own electricity using solar panels in Germany and Palo Alto (<1%), purchasing renewable energy and high quality renewable energy certificates, and a €3m investment in the Livlihoods Fund.

So, how does SAP’s green credentials stack up against some of its rivals in the cloud computing space?

Well, since yesterday’s pricing announcements from Google they definitely have to be considered a contender in this space. And what are their green credentials like? Well, Google have been carbon neutral since 2007, and they have invested over $1bn in renewable energy projects. So Google are definitely out in front on this one.

Who else is there?

Well, Microsoft with its recently branded Microsoft Azure cloud offerings are also a contender, so how do they fare? Quite well actually. In May 2012, Microsoft made a commitment

to make our operations carbon neutral: to achieve net zero emissions for our data centers, software development labs, offices, and employee business air travel in over 100 countries around the world.

So by doing this 2 years ahead of SAP and by including employee air travel, as well as facilities, you’d have to say that Microsoft come out ahead of SAP.

However, SAP does come in well ahead of other cloud companies such as IBM, who reported that renewable electricity made up a mere 15% of its consumption in 2012. IBM reported emissions of 2.2m tons of CO2 in 2012.

But, at least that’s better than Oracle. In Oracle’s 2012 report (reporting on the year 2011 – the most recent report available on their site), Oracle state that they don’t even account for their scope 3 emissions:

Scope 3 GHG emissions are typically defined as indirect emissions from operations outside the direct control of the company, such as employee commutes, business travel, and supply chain operations. Oracle does not report on Scope 3 emissions

And then there’s Amazon. Amazon doesn’t release any kind of information about the carbon footprint of its facilities. None.

So kudos to SAP for taking this step to green its cloud computing fleet. Looking at the competition I’d have to say SAP comes in around middle-of-the road in terms of its green cloud credentials. If it wants to improve its ranking, it may be time to revisit that 2020 goal.

(Cross-posted @ GreenMonk: the blog)

Featured Posts, Technology / Software April 16, 2013

Microsoft, big data and smarter buildings

If you checked out the New York Times Snow Fall site (the story of the Avalanche at Tunnel Creek), then Microsoft’s new 88 Acres site will look familiar. If you haven’t seen the Snow Fall site then go check it out, it is a beautiful and sensitive telling of a tragic story. You won’t regret the few minutes you spend viewing it.

Microsoft’s 88 Acres is an obvious homage to that site, except that it tells a good news story, thankfully, and tells it well. It is the story of how Microsoft is turning its 125-building Redmond HQ into a smart corporate campus.

Microsoft’s campus had been built over several decades with little thought given to integrating the building management systems there. When Darrell Smith, Microsoft’s director of facilities and energy joined the company in 2008, he priced a ‘rip and replace’ option to get the disparate systems talking to each other but when it came in at in excess of $60m, he decided they needed to brew their own. And that’s just what they did.

Using Microsoft’s own software they built a system capable of taking in the data from the over 30,000 sensors throughout the campus and detecting and reporting on anomalies. They first piloted the solution on 13 buildings on the campus and as they explain on the 88 Acres site:

In one building garage, exhaust fans had been mistakenly left on for a year (to the tune of $66,000 of wasted energy). Within moments of coming online, the smart buildings solution sniffed out this fault and the problem was corrected.
In another building, the software informed engineers about a pressurization issue in a chilled water system. The problem took less than five minutes to fix, resulting in $12,000 of savings each year.
Those fixes were just the beginning.

The system balances factors like the cost of a fix, the money that will be saved by the fix, and the disruption a fix will have on employees. It then prioritises the issues it finds based on these factors.

Microsoft facilities engineer Jonathan Grove sums up how the new system changes his job “I used to spend 70 percent of my time gathering and compiling data and only about 30 percent of my time doing engineering,” Grove says. “Our smart buildings work serves up data for me in easily consumable formats, so now I get to spend 95 percent of my time doing engineering, which is great.”

The facilities team are now dealing with enormous quantities of data. According to Microsoft, the 125 buildings contain 2,000,000 data points outputting around 500,000,000 data transactions every 24 hours. The charts, graphics and reports it produces leads to about 32,300 work orders being issued per quarter. And 48% of the faults found are corrected within 60 seconds. Microsoft forecasts energy savings of 6-10% per year, with an implementation payback of 18 months.

Because Microsoft’s smart building tool was built using off the shelf Microsoft technologies, it is now being productised and will be offered for sale. It joins a slew of other smarter building software solutions currently on the market but given this one is built with basic Microsoft technologies, it will be interesting to see where it comes in terms of pricing.

One thing is for sure, given that buildings consume around 40% of our energy, any new entrant into the smarter buildings arena is to be welcomed.

Image credit nicadlr

(Cross-posted @ GreenMonk: the blog)

Trends & Concepts June 30, 2010

Living PlanIT brings sustainable urbanisation technologies to market

Construction — Photo credit billjacobus1

I had one of the most interesting calls of my RedMonk career last week. It was with Steve Lewis, CEO and co-founder of Living PlanIT (ignore the fact that they are using SilverLight on their homepage – that is prob because of Steve’s Microsoft background).

Living PlanIT are just coming out of stealth and have developed significant IP around sustainable urbanisation. To whit, as Steve explained to me on the call, up until now the construction industry was one of the final hold-outs in the technology revolution. There was very little by way of joined-up processes and consequently massive amounts of waste. Living PlanIT have created a new way of approaching construction projects which is technology led and will vastly reduce construction costs and footprints.

Living PlanIT haven’t just stopped there.

They have signed a letter of Intent with Cisco to work together to build a city in Paredes in northern Portugal on a 17 sq km site which house 225,000 people and will showcase, not just the company’s construction nous but also the city will be a sustainability showcase.

Cisco, as part of the agreement have committed to developing a global innovation center for sensor networks within the new city. They will also integrate tens of millions of sensors with Cisco’s network and computing platforms and integrate to demonstrate Cisco’s Smart+Connected Communities technologies and solutions at urban scale. This will be the ultimate test lab to develop technologies which can be quickly and easily deployed in other urban sustainability projects.

The city itself will run off renewable power and will generate 150% of its electricity needs…

Trends & Concepts June 25, 2010

Friday Green Numbers round-up 06/25/2010

Photo credit Unhindered by Talent

And here is this week’s Green numbers:

Six Infrastructure Projects to Save 1.3 Billion Gallons of Water in Australia

Australia is no stranger to tight water supplies, and fortunately that means smart water conservation strategies are being devised all the time. Australia is leading the way in everything from strategies to combat desertification to using renewable energy for desalination plants, and now it is putting that knowledge to work on six new infrastructure projects that can save 1.3 billion gallons of water.

tags: greennumbers, australia, smart water, water conservation, desalination, renewable energy, desertification
Girls now begin puberty aged 9

GROWING numbers of girls are reaching puberty before the age of 10, raising fears of increased sexual activity among a new generation of children.

Scientists believe the phenomenon could be linked to obesity or exposure to chemicals in the food chain, and is putting girls at greater long-term risk of breast cancer.

A study has revealed that breast development in a sample of 1,000 girls started at an average age of 9 years and 10 months — an entire year earlier than when a similar cohort was examined in 1991.

tags: greennumbers, girls, puberty, obesity, chemicals, food chain, breast cancer
Coal-fired power was the big loser in the economic downturn | Grist

There’s some interesting new data out on recent shifts in electricity demand and consumption, courtesy of the DOE/EIA.

In 2008, total U.S. power generation was 4.1 million GWh. In 2009, that fell by 4 percent, to 3.9 million. That’s a 4 percent reduction — clearly the result of the economic slowdown. Nothing surprising there.

What’s interesting, though, is how generation shifted by fuel type. Over the same year, coal-fired power generation fell by 11 percent, from almost 2 million GWh to just under 1.8 million.

tags: greennumbers, fuel, type, coal-fired power generation, coal, DOE, EIA, U.S. power generation, electricity demand, electricity consumption
New Microsoft App Can Cut PC Power Consumption By 80%

Just how important is turning off computers at the end of the day in an office building? Very, if a company wants to save big bucks on electricity bills. According to UC San Diego researchers, 50-80% of a modern building’s electricity use goes to IT equipment, particularly desktop computers. A report last year showed that not shutting down PCs equated to $2.8 billion in wasted electricity. Still, many offices don’t encourage their employees to hit shut-down on their PCs for a variety of reasons, including updating software while everyone is out or being able to keep the computer attached to the network so information on the machine can be accessed at any time. However, Microsoft’s new Sleep Proxy system claims it can help cut energy consumption by 60-80%, without getting in the way of office systems.

tags: greennumbers, IT equipment, electricity use, Sleep Proxy
RWE npower: wholesale electricity prices ‘must double’ to meet UK targets

At a presentation at the Oxford Energy Futures conference on June 11th, Andy Duff, non-executive chair of RWE npower, made some controversial assertions about the future of electricity in the UK. He focused on three propositions.

a) The UK cannot meet its carbon targets without new nuclear

b) Electricity demand will grow at 1% less than GDP growth

Trends & Concepts May 25, 2010

Tech company sustainability reports reviewed

Original photo by ATIS547

I was asked on Twitter recently where to find a list of links to tech companies’ CSR reports.

I didn’t know where to find one, so I built one and as well as just the links, I also added in a few extra observations I noted about the reports.

Company	Latest Report	Format	Remarks	External Audit	GRI Index	CEO involved
SAP	2009	Online with downloadable data	Highly interactive, includes social media, video & ability to comment inline	Independently audited by KPMG	Yes – A+ Rated	Yes
BT	2009	Online and PDF	Granular links and multiple PDF download options	Yes	Yes – A+ Rated	Yes
Intel	2009	PDF custom builder	High level of granularity	No	Yes – A Rated	Yes
Dell	2009	PDF	Very detailed document – v little detail on website	No	Yes – B Rated	Yes
HP	2009	Online with PDF download	Granular links, some videos & interactivity	Some, yes	Yes	Yes
Cisco	2009	Mostly PDF’s with some info available on web	Lots of good videos	Some	Yes	Yes
Sony	2009	Online and PDF	Comprehensive report	No	Yes	Yes
Microsoft	2009	PDF	Lacks necessary detail	No	No	Yes
Nokia	2008	Online	No obvious link to a downloadable report	Some, yes	No	No
Logica	2008	Online and PDF	Comprehensive report	No	Yes	Yes
IBM	2008	Online with PDF download	Granular links & Social Media options	No	Yes	Yes
Adobe	2008	Online and PDF	Lots of pretty pictures but light on text	No	No	Yes
CA	2008	PDF	CA’s first sustainability report – good 1st effort	No	Yes – C Rated	Yes
SAS	2008	PDF	Good PDF report badly left down by poor supporting website	No	Yes – C Rated	Yes
Oracle	2008	PDF	Summary of 2009 report available but full report still not out	No	No	President
Apple		None
Amazon		None
Google		None

As previously reported here…

Featured Posts, Trends & Concepts April 27, 2010

Just how green is cloud computing?

Cloud computing may not be as Green as you think.

I mentioned previously that I gave a keynote presentation at the Green IT Summit in Dublin last week.

In the question and answers session after the talk, Sean Baker asked about cloud computing and whether I thought companies using cloud computing weren’t simply outsourcing their emissions.

As Gordon Smith picked up in a piece for SiliconRepublic.com, I replied that I

was “quite sceptical” about this issue. “None of the cloud providers such as Amazon, Microsoft or IBM are publishing metrics at all. Intuitively you have to think that because you’re outsourcing that to someone of that scale that they’re being more efficient but we’ve no way of knowing. Frankly, that’s worrisome. I don’t know why they’re not publishing it and I wish they would,”

This is no sudden realisation on my part. In fact, I have been concerned about Cloud Computing’s Green credentials for some time now as you can see from a series of Tweets (here, here and here, for instance) I posted on this issue in early to mid 2009.

It is vital that cloud providers start publishing their energy metrics for a number of reasons. For one, it is a competitive differentiator. But perhaps more importantly, in the absence of any provider numbers, one has to start wondering if cloud computing is in fact Green at all.

IBM, for example, are not known for being shy when given an opportunity to talk up their Green initiatives. However, on cloud, they are conspicuously silent. The same is true for Amazon, Microsoft, SalesForce and Google.

I’m not sure why cloud providers are not publishing their energy metrics but if I had to guess I would say it is related to concerns around competitive intelligence. However this is not a sustainable position (if you’ll pardon the pun).

As the regulatory landscape around emissions reporting alters and as organisations RFP’s are tending to demand more details on emissions, cloud providers who refuse to provide energy-related numbers will find themselves increasingly marginalised.

So is cloud computing Green?

I put that question toSimon Wardley, cloud strategist for Canonical in this video I recorded with him last year and he said no, cloud computing is very definitely not Green.

To be honest, until cloud providers start becoming more transparent around their utilisation and consumption numbers there is really no way of knowing whether cloud computing is in any way Green at all.

Technology / Software January 28, 2010

Can Apple make Home Energy Management sexy?

Will Apple move into home energy management, and if they do, can they make it sexy and front-of-mind for everyone?

I made this point in a reply to a post earlier on the IBM Global Eco Jam and I thought it could well do with being fleshed out to a full post here to see what others think.

In case you were hiding under a rock yesterday, to tremendous fanfare and hype, Apple launched their latest device, the iPad.

The extremely desirable tablet-like iPad is aimed squarely at the home user market, what with its base price of $499, its beautiful form-factor and its concentration on music, video, games, etc.

While you probably did hear about the iPad, you may not be aware that Apple has lodged a patent application for a Home Energy Management system, joining Google’s PowerMeter and Microsoft’s Hohm.

Apple’s application talks of using powerline communications to control appliances’ energy consumption around the house.

Unlike Google and Microsoft though, Apple have an amazing track record of making sexy devices/applications. If there is anyone who can make home energy management sexy, it would be Apple software running on the iPad.

Let’s hope they make it so – what are the chances?

Tom Raftery's – Things to Come