A brand new initiative that seeks to scale back the environmental affect of thousands and thousands of family and industrial chemical substances was introduced on 26 March, bringing collectively specialists from a few of the world’s greatest corporations – together with Unilever and the world’s greatest chemical substances firm BASF – in addition to main lecturers, commerce associations, analysis institutes and policymakers.
The hassle is being spearheaded by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Polymers in liquid formulations (PLFs) are key substances present in a variety of merchandise, from paints, coatings and water remedy, to cosmetics, private care and family cleansing merchandise. Members of the brand new Sustainable PLFs 2040 initiative will collaborate to revolutionise the way in which PLFs are made, used and disposed of by 2040.
These PLFs are price $125 billion annually and are important to creating thousands and thousands of merchandise work – however virtually not one of the 36 million tonnes of those close to ubiquitous chemical substances are recovered or recycled after use.
Professor Anju Massey-Brooker from the Royal Society of Chemistry, mentioned: “We encounter PLFs each single day, however when it comes to analysis and improvement they’re the ‘forgotten’ group of polymers. There may be an pressing have to make them extra sustainable by creating biodegradable alternate options and creating round economic system infrastructure to cease the waste of those beneficial chemical substances, which in lots of instances, go immediately down the plughole.
“We can not overstate the size of the problem – so it’s large to have so most of the world’s largest producers and customers of those chemical substances committing their experience and useful resource to assist clear them up and create new instruments and information that may profit enterprise, the atmosphere and society as an entire.”
Below the brand new formal construction of the Sustainable PLFs 2040 initiative, a foresight and coordination group will likely be answerable for overseeing supply in opposition to a roadmap beforehand revealed by the RSC. The group will collaborate throughout sectors whereas fostering inclusive decision-making, and driving coordinated actions that result in long-term, sustainable change.
The group is initially comprised of: Professor Anju Massey Brooker from the Royal Society of Chemistry; Professor Andreas Künkel and Dr Martin Klatt from the world’s greatest chemical substances firm, BASF; Dr Paul Jenkins from Unilever; former RSC president, Professor Gill Reid from the College of Southampton; Professor Matthew Davidson from the College of Bathtub; Dr Jen Vanderhoven from the BBIA; and Dr Damian Kelly from Croda.
Foresight and coordination group member and RSC past-president Professor Gill Reid mentioned: “This can be a actually thrilling space for innovation, and the Royal Society of Chemistry’s distinctive method will likely be instrumental in delivering actual, tangible outcomes—from pioneering analysis to market-ready merchandise. The emphasis on creating sustainability evaluation and reporting instruments which are accessible to all on a pre-competitive foundation is especially promising, as it can empower industry-wide progress and speed up the transition to a extra sustainable future by 2040.”
Dr Damian Kelly from chemical substances firm Croda mentioned: “Polymers for liquid formulations signify a critically essential class of chemical merchandise which are important substances in many alternative liquid formulations throughout numerous finish functions. Polymers have traditionally been developed to ship a cheap particular efficiency inside a formulation with little consideration given to how they’re produced or what occurs to them as soon as they’ve served their objective.”
The Sustainable PLFs 2040 initiative will deliver collectively main corporations working throughout the provision chains with the aptitude to develop, scale and commercialise novel polymers with considerably improved environmental credentials.”
The launch of the Sustainable PLFs 2040 initiative is the most recent step in ongoing work first began in 2017. Eager to use classes realized from enhancing the sustainability of plastics use, in 2021 the RSC shaped the Sustainable PLFs Job Power to chart a path ahead for this group of non-plastic polymers. The top end result was the creation of a devoted roadmap to information a metamorphosis within the chemical industries from producing fossil gas derived PLFs to sustainable PLFs by 2040.
Central to the roadmap are two missions to develop and scale biodegradable PLFs by 2030 and advance round economic system infrastructure for PLFs by 2030, each of which is able to catalyse the transition to sustainable PLFs by 2040.
INKY has revealed its annual report on electronic mail safety, discovering that phishing accounted for 30% of all reported cybercrimes final 12 months.
I get extra excited each day as I study one thing new. Nonetheless, I even have my justifiable share of issues in regards to the future—particularly on the subject of AI and the way it will affect the position of community engineers. Okay… I most likely have extra than my justifiable share of issues. (That received’t come as a shock should you’ve been following the previous few years of my journey, exploring the “AI FUTURE!!!”)
First off, I wish to be very clear. I’m excited about the way forward for community engineering, community automation, and my place on this great world and group. The truth is, my current weblog, Navigating the AI Period as a CCIE, discusses how superior it’s to be a CCIE proper now.
I typically deal with the place I see the constructive potentialities. How AI could make our lives and work as community engineers higher.
However at present, I wish to speak about one thing that worries me: how the AI future is being mentioned and described. My hope is that by discussing it, we are able to keep away from the worst potential dystopian imaginative and prescient of that future. Whereas I like studying books or watching films about these dystopian futures (a responsible pleasure of mine), I don’t wish to stay in a kind of worlds. I’m additionally hoping that you just, my group, will help me perceive whether or not my concern about the way forward for AI is overblown. So, let’s dive in, lets?
I don’t wish to be an AI babysitter…
Hank catches some shut-eye whereas Birdie takes over.
There’s a phrase that has been displaying up in shows, blogs, articles, movies, press releases, authorities documentation, and nearly in all places else discussing how AI will affect the way forward for work. The phrase refers to an strategy referred to as “human-in-the-loop.”
So, what is “human-in-the-loop?”
I simply did a Google seek for “‘human within the loop’ ai cisco” and Gemini was useful in giving me this abstract:
Cisco emphasizes “human-in-the-loop” AI, which means integrating human oversight and suggestions into AI techniques to make sure accountability, moral issues, and dependable decision-making, particularly in areas like safety and knowledge evaluation.
That doesn’t sound dangerous, proper? Right here’s one other snippet from a paper I lately learn on AI and the way forward for job roles:
The extent to which it [Gen AI] can substitute people within the office will depend upon the need for human oversight of machine-performed duties.
Little question you’ve seen or heard comparable descriptions of what it’ll take to “safely” combine AI into day-to-day duties. Right here’s my understanding of why human-in-the-loop comes up time and again in discussions.
It comes down to a couple factors:
Utilizing AI affords a “worth” companies can NOT ignore. What that worth is can differ, nevertheless it typically comes down to hurry: AI is solely sooner than people.
AI isn’t all the time proper. And AI can’t be held accountable for errors.
By having a human log out on the AI work, errors will probably be caught. And in the event that they aren’t, there’s somebody to be held accountable.
I’m NOT saying that the above factors are factually legitimate. The truth is, every of these statements on their very own deserves a variety of deep consideration and dialogue. However for the sake of this weblog publish, let’s take them as they sit to additional discover my issues a couple of future the place Hank is a “human within the loop” for AI techniques.
Right here’s the issue with “human-in-the-loop”
I like being a community engineer. I like creating community designs to fulfill enterprise calls for. I take pleasure in creating configurations and engineering strong routing protocols. I discover the method of troubleshooting a community situation rewarding.
I’ve spent years of my life studying the talents it takes to DO community engineering. And I nonetheless have a few years forward of me as a community engineer. I even have lots to supply the businesses, networks, and staff members I’ll work with sooner or later.
Each description I’ve learn or heard about “human within the loop” locations the human close to or on the finish of “the loop.” An AI device is posed an issue, query, or set of knowledge to work on. Then, AI generates its answer, which is then despatched to a human to evaluation, settle for, reject, or make adjustments.
After I take into consideration this idea, I can’t assist however conjure up an image of row after row of people spending their days listening for the “ding” of a brand new proposed AI work merchandise, ready for the human to do their factor so the AI can proceed on its “loop,” finishing the work. That simply doesn’t sound like the longer term community engineer I wish to be.
Which is able to come first: AI or expertise?
There’s something else I ponder about on this “human within the loop” imaginative and prescient of the longer term. A human community engineer’s potential to establish a mistake made by AI depends on whether or not that community engineer has made that very same mistake previously. Or, on the very least, they want sufficient community engineering expertise to note when one thing is mistaken.
As of now, we’ve got skilled community engineers who can “oversee” AI brokers and establish potential points. Heck, that’s half of what senior community engineers and CCIEs do anyway: help the up-and-coming community engineers on our staff by reviewing their work and serving to them study from their errors.
However how will future up-and-coming community engineers achieve the expertise of being a community engineer if they’re merely a cog in “the loop?”
And sure, I’m absolutely conscious that that is an excessive instance and never what individuals imply after they say “human within the loop” or “human oversight.” Regardless, it’s vital that we think about such a excessive end result now, when the way forward for community engineering is being written. As a result of I completely assume there’s a means this narrative may be circled—a future imaginative and prescient the place community engineers proceed to be community engineers greater than in identify solely.
Let’s flip it round: “AI-in-the-loop”
I suggest that we invert the loop. Make no mistake—synthetic intelligence completely affords worth to community engineers doing community engineering jobs day in and time out. The truth is, I take advantage of it myself. However I take advantage of AI as a useful resource—like every other—at my disposal.
Suppose I’m referred to as in to troubleshoot an intermittent routing drawback at our Web edge. Utilizing my well-worn community troubleshooting expertise, I collect particulars in regards to the situation, carry out completely different checks, and attempt to replicate it. I examine operational output from the routers and have a look at our community administration techniques. Possibly I ask round, “What modified?”
And if everybody tells me, “Nothing. Nothing modified.” I then ask, “Properly, what modified earlier than nothing modified?”
As I do all of this, I leverage many instruments and sources. I’ll seek the advice of our inside documentation in regards to the community. I’ll evaluation the current change requests. I would head over to Cisco.com and seek for error messages or eventualities. (Properly… no, I’ll most likely go to my favourite search engine and seek for error messages and eventualities. 🙂 )
It’s right here, throughout this a part of my work, the place I’ll carry AI into “the loop.” Not solely is AI quick, nevertheless it has been skilled on and has instantaneous entry to all kinds of helpful knowledge that’s related to my work.
AI-in-the-loop: A device for community engineers
I could also be struggling to recollect the precise present command to show all the small print in regards to the BGP prefixes realized by my router. Or I’ll wish to arrange a filtered packet seize and am on the lookout for an instance configuration. Or I’m reviewing a whole lot of strains of debug messages and will use assist in shortly discovering the anomalies. These are examples the place AI could make ME a greater, extra environment friendly community engineer.
You see, I’m a community engineer. I’m a fairly first rate community engineer. I’ve typed hundreds of thousands of CLI instructions with my fingers, seen numerous pings drop, configured routing protocols, entry management lists, VPNs, coverage maps, EtherChannels, and so forth and so forth. However I’m nonetheless only a human, not a pc. I’ll not have instantaneous entry to all the things buried in my mind, however I do know when the reply is in there. I do know that if I see the right reply (or one thing shut), I can acknowledge it and get to the answer. It’s the identical cause an skilled community engineer can remedy a posh drawback with one net search and a look at a discussion board publish or Cisco command reference.
We should always keep within the driver’s seat. We should always keep accountable for the networks and the community engineering. We should always embrace the capabilities of AI to enhance our community engineering work. AI shouldn’t be utilizing us to enhance its community engineering work—we must be utilizing AI as a useful resource to develop into more practical community engineers—now and into the longer term.
Actually Hank… is that every one AI must be?
So, you is perhaps considering:
Oh, Hank, you good outdated boomer community engineer. Get with the occasions… AI affords us far more than only a next-generation search engine!
Sure, it completely does—and I’m enthusiastic about a variety of the enhancements to the techniques and software program we use each day. To not point out the utterly new techniques and software program which are enabled by AI. Simply Cisco’s bulletins within the AI area this previous yr excited me about its potential for community engineers.
Simply think about what we’ll have the ability to do sooner or later. For the reason that first community engineer began capturing log knowledge, we’ve acknowledged that it’s almost unattainable for a human engineer to make sense of the flood of data in any well timed trend. Consider all of the outages that would have been prevented if we had been capable of finding the small and early hints buried in counters, NetFlow knowledge, and log particulars. As for safety… wow. There’s a lot potential within the safety area to establish and reply sooner.
Embedding AI capabilities into networking merchandise will give us a large enhance as community engineers. However this additionally isn’t something all that new. For a few years now, machine studying capabilities have been added and iterated on to boost the community assurance options for the campus, WAN, and knowledge middle. They’re getting a brand new enhance from the GenAI hype and buzz proper now, however most of them aren’t GenAI.
One thing is coming to the community engineers’ world that pertains to GenAI that has me very, very excited. Pure Language Interface, or NLI, will quickly be a part of the a lot cherished and lauded Command Line Interface (CLI) and the slightly-bummed-it-isn’t-the-new-kid-on-the-block-anymore Software Programming Interface (API) as strategies community engineers work together with the units and techniques we handle. And that will probably be superior. Really, a sport changer.
Sure, a part of changing into a community engineer is studying all the particular instructions required to make the community work. When community engineers collect collectively and share conflict tales, somebody will all the time complain (lovingly) about the way it is not sensible that it’s “ip ospf authentication-key” however “ip authentication mode eigrp,” and why can’t they only be the identical?! And we’ll chortle and chortle and chortle.
However let’s be sincere. It isn’t memorizing particular command line syntax that makes us community engineers. It’s realizing how, why, and when we have to configure authentication for our routing protocol that’s necessary. Gained’t we be a lot happier after we can merely inform our router:
“Allow authentication for EIGRP and OSPF on all interfaces. EIGRP ought to use md5 with key-chain 5, and OSPF wants to make use of plaintext due to the legacy system we’re linked to.”
Positive, some community engineers will grumble and say issues like “again in my day.” However I do know I’ll be happier for all of it.
So what now?
So what now, you ask? Properly, I wish to hear what you all assume. Don’t be shy. When you assume I’m overreacting, please inform me. When you share my issues, let me know I’m not alone. What excites you about the way forward for community engineering with an AI assistant in your pocket? Are there some duties you’ll be able to’t anticipate AI to take over for you? Go away a remark beneath to let me know your ideas!
Within the meantime, listed below are some solutions for wonderful locations to study extra about AI and begin constructing expertise. As a result of there’s one factor I’m completely positive of… AI is coming, and we gotta be prepared for it.
Make investments extra time on this wonderful Community Academy course, Introduction to Trendy AI, with my new favourite teacher, Eddy Shyu. (Don’t let the truth that it’s on Community Academy scare you away. It’s implausible for anybody trying to get a strong basis in AI.)
Dive in deep and “Rev Up” your recertification journey (34 Persevering with Schooling credit!) with AI Options on Cisco Infrastructure Necessities. Free in Cisco U. till April 26, 2025, and with content material and movies from 5xCCIE (and my hero) Ahmed Moftah.
Torc Robotics Inc. just lately introduced that it’s collaborating with Flextronics Worldwide Ltd. and NVIDIA Corp. to develop a scalable bodily synthetic intelligence compute system for autonomous vans. The corporate final week demonstrated its know-how at NVIDIA GTC in San Jose, Calif.
“It was actually thrilling to make our GTC debut this week, together with the announcement of our NVIDIA and Flex collaboration,” mentioned CJ King, chief know-how officer of Torc, on the occasion. “As we get nearer to commercialization, it’s important to share extra of our best-in-class know-how and get our world-class engineers out right here to fulfill and share the story of Torc with others.”
Torc Robotics mentioned its bodily AI permits self-driving vans to understand, perceive, and carry out complicated actions in the actual (bodily) world. The firm asserted that bodily AI is on the core of its software program stack to allow vans to autonomously navigate their environment utilizing sensors corresponding to lidar, radar, and cameras.
This enables the truck to make knowledgeable selections about lane adjustments, braking, and impediment avoidance to make sure protected and environment friendly autonomous driving operations. Torc claimed that it’s the first deployment of bodily AI for autonomous long-haul trucking at manufacturing scale.
Along with engineering workplaces in Austin, Texas, and Montreal, Quebec, Torc Robotics has a fleet operations facility within the Dallas-Fort Price space in Texas, in addition to a presence in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Torc mentioned at NVIDIA GTC that it has collaborated intently with NVIDIA on a multi-chip adaptable structure that makes use of DRIVE AGX utilizing the DRIVE Orin system-on-a-chip (SoC) and DriveOS working system.
“NVIDIA DRIVE AGX has been industry-proven in full manufacturing for automotive real-time purposes on the edge,” acknowledged Rishi Dhall, vice chairman of automotive at NVIDIA. “It delivers the excessive compute efficiency, low latency, and multi-sensor connectivity wanted for Torc’s subtle autonomous trucking software program, delivering sturdy notion, prediction, and planning for protected and dependable operation.”
“Torc is on a transparent path to scalable manufacturing for its business launch in 2027 and dealing towards a seamless improve to NVIDIA DRIVE AGX with DRIVE Thor,” he added.
The platform makes use of NVIDIA DRIVE AGX with Flex’s Jupiter compute platform to assist productization and scaled market entry in 2027. | Credit score: Torc Robotics
Flex design contributes to ‘software-defined car’
Flextronics is offering its Jupiter compute design platform and superior manufacturing capabilities. This provides Torc a scalable high-performance manufacturing {hardware} and software program primarily based on an autonomous-ready Freightliner Cascadia. That car is provided with superior applied sciences and redundant programs to assist future deployment of autonomous driving capabilities.
“Our collaboration with Torc, Daimler Truck, and NVIDIA illustrates how Flex companions throughout the complete ecosystem to allow mobility corporations to launch next-generation know-how with higher resilience and pace,” mentioned Mike Thoeny, president for automotive at Flex. “We admire the belief Torc and Daimler Truck have positioned in Flex via leveraging our Jupiter compute platform and superior manufacturing capabilities to ship autonomous long-haul trucking at scale.”
Torc Robotics mentioned NVIDIA DRIVE, paired with Flextronics’ automotive compute design capabilities, adheres to its stringent dimension, efficiency, value, and reliability necessities. The system additionally meets the whole value of possession (TCO) targets of Torc’s fleet prospects, that are pursuing continuous, long-haul driverless trucking integration.
“This work gives a real software-defined car (SDV) performance,” the corporate mentioned. “It’s adaptable to ever-changing operational design domains, together with new lanes, new routes, new hubs, new {hardware} and sensor configurations, new operational guidelines, new highway situations, and extra.”
Torc mentioned its driverless product-acceptance check efficiently validated the platform on a closed course at freeway speeds final yr.
Cybersecurity researchers have make clear a brand new phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platform that leverages the Area Title System (DNS) mail alternate (MX) data to serve pretend login pages that impersonate about 114 manufacturers.
DNS intelligence agency Infoblox is monitoring the actor behind the PhaaS, the phishing package, and the associated exercise beneath the moniker Morphing Meerkat.
“The risk actor behind the campaigns usually exploits open redirects on adtech infrastructure, compromises domains for phishing distribution, and distributes stolen credentials by a number of mechanisms, together with Telegram,” the corporate mentioned in a report shared with The Hacker Information.
One such marketing campaign leveraging the PhaaS toolkit was documented by Forcepoint in July 2024, the place phishing emails contained hyperlinks to a purported shared doc that, when clicked, directed the recipient to a pretend login web page hosted on Cloudflare R2 with the tip aim of amassing and exfiltrating the credentials through Telegram.
Morphing Meerkat is estimated to have delivered hundreds of spam emails, with the phishing messages utilizing compromised WordPress web sites and open redirect vulnerabilities on promoting platforms like Google-owned DoubleClick to bypass safety filters.
It is also able to translating phishing content material textual content dynamically into over a dozen completely different languages, together with English, Korean, Spanish, Russian, German, Chinese language, and Japanese, to focus on customers internationally.
Along with complicating code readability through obfuscation and inflation, the phishing touchdown pages incorporate anti-analysis measures that prohibit the usage of mouse right-click in addition to keyboard hotkey combos Ctrl + S (save the online web page as HTML), Ctrl + U (open the online web page supply code).
However what makes the risk actor actually stand out is its use of DNS MX data obtained from Cloudflare or Google to determine the sufferer’s e mail service supplier (e.g., Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, or Yahoo!) and dynamically serve pretend login pages. Within the occasion, that the phishing package is unable to acknowledge the MX report, it defaults to a Roundcube login web page.
“This assault technique is advantageous to dangerous actors as a result of it allows them to hold out focused assaults on victims by displaying net content material strongly associated to their e mail service supplier,” Infoblox mentioned. “
“The general phishing expertise feels pure as a result of the design of the touchdown web page is in keeping with the spam e mail’s message. This method helps the actor trick the sufferer into submitting their e mail credentials through the phishing net kind.”
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INKY has revealed its annual report on electronic mail safety, discovering that 
