Techstrong Gang

Alan, Mike, Bonnie and special guests Steven Dickens, a chief technology advisor for The Futurum Group, and Stephen Foskett, president of the Tech Field Day business unit for The Futurum Group, dive into the state of the mainframe community following the latest SHARE conference event. Then, they discuss why Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) decided to acquire Morpheus Data, a provider of a platform for managing multiple clouds. Finally, the gang turns its attention to a redesign of the Apple Mac Mini, which is reportedly expected to arrive later this year.

Mike, Mitch, Jon and special guests John Willis, Tracy Ragan and Paul Nashawaty, principal analyst for application development for The Futurum Group, dive into the sorry state of the images and other types of content being generated by generative artificial intelligence tools such as Grok-2 from Elon Musk’s xAI. Then, they delve into AI regulations being proposed by the State of California. Next, the gang dives into the degree to which generative AI might ultimately change the way DevOps teams develop software and who should lead those efforts. Finally, they take a look at a Techstrong Research report that highlights the trends shaping the future in AI-augmented DevOps.

Alan, Mike, Mitch, Jon and special guest Lisa Martin, CMO advisor for The Futurum Group, discuss how cyberattacks are being used to target the Trump and Harris presidential campaigns. Then, they dive into what technologies will be needed to thwart Deep Fake attacks by tracking the provenance of content. Finally, the gang takes a look at the issues that led the State of Texas to sue General Motors for the way it collects driver data.

Alan, Mike, Mitch, Bonnie and special guests Mark Hinkle and Ryan Shrout, president of Signal65, an independent testing laboratory, dive into the impact artificial intelligence (AI) will have on smartphones following the launch of the Pixel 9 smartphone from Google. Then, they delve into suggestions that, after being declared a monopoly, it might be time to break up Google. Finally, the gang turns its attention to a partial delay in implementing the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which the European Union is moving to mandate.

Mike, Mitch, Amanda and special guest David Nicholson, a chief technology advisor for The Futurum Group, discuss the extent to which sticker shock is slowing down the adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the enterprise. Then, they discuss if data management in the AI era is becoming too challenging. Finally, the gang turns its attention to a sudden decision by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to mothball a range of recently added cloud computing services.

Alan, Mike, Mitch, Bonnie and special guest Stephen Foskett, president of the Tech Field Day business unit for The Futurum Group, dive into the state of digital business transformation at the dawn of the artificial intelligence era. Then, the gang turns its attention to cybersecurity advances that promise to make cloud computing more secure, as well as the sustainability issues that might arise once generative AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, become voice enabled.

Alan, Mike, Jon and special guests Tracy Ragan and John Willis dive into what it means to be an artificial intelligence (AI) developer before taking a look at a framework that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has created to test AI models. Then, the gang discusses the implications of the acquisition of Launchable, a provider to a test automation platform, by CloudBees.

Mike, Mitch and special guests Chris Blask and Lisa Martin, CMO Advisor for The Futurum Group dive into latest claims being made by Microsoft, CrowdStrike and Delta Airlines in the wake of massive Windows outage before discussing the state of open source security. Then the gang turns its attention to the state of social media in the wake of a lawsuit Elon Musk as the head of X has launched against advertisers and a U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) investigation into TikTok.

In this special edition of Techstrong Gang, Mitch Ashley, Jon Swartz and Alan Shimel check in live from the Las Vegas scene of the Black Hat hacking conference. Mitch, Alan and Jon give you a bird's-eye view of what the themes and big stories are at this year’s Black Hat. If you didn’t make it out to the conference, this is a great way of staying in the know.

Mike, Mitch, Amanda and David Nicholson, a chief technology adviser for The Futurum Group, dive into some new Techstrong Research that surfaces the degree to which DevOps teams are embracing artificial intelligence (AI) (in a way Rush fans might uniquely appreciate). Then, they delve into how AI might soon reduce the level of technical debt that currently thwarts application modernization. Finally, the gang opines about the impact of a court ruling that finds Google has been abusing its search engine monopoly.