Friday Tech News

Finishing The Year

Author

Phil Moroni
December 20, 2024

Good morning and welcome to another edition of Friday Tech News! I hope you’ve had a wonderful week. Sorry there wasn’t any FTN last week. Allow me to explain…

From those of you who don’t know, I’ve recently (over the past year) found a love of running and ran my first Marathon this past weekend in Kiawah Island, SC. It was a wonderful time and a needed accomplishment for 2024. Thanks for bearing with me while I took time off to prepare for that. Highlight for me was grabbing my daughter at the end and running across the finish line (photo below). I wore pink so she could spot me easily 😃. Massive shoutout to my wife for bearing with me while I trained and completed my first of hopefully many marathons to come.

Recapping the last two weeks there’s quite a bit to go over below. However, I’m unsure if anything major and newsworthy is going to come out in the next couple weeks while the year finishes up and am honestly debating writing FTN next week. Depends - we’ll see how the week turns out - look for updates on LinkedIn.

2024 has been a wonderful year. I’m excited for what 2025 will bring and have some major announcements coming, so please stay tuned to LinkedIn and Social Media + Beehiiv.

I hope you have a wonderful week, a fun filled Christmas if you’re celebrating, and that you stay physically and digitally safe. Thank you for always coming back for more news to educate yourself on the goings-on in the IT world.

Phil

OEM News & Updates 📰

  • Google has introduced PaliGemma 2, a new family of vision-language models that build on the initial Gemma 2 model. They can see, understand, and interact with visual input.

  • Offers scalable performance.

  • The models generate detailed, contextually relevant captions for images, describing actions, emotions, and the overall narrative of the scene.

  • SerivceNow’s platform integrates AI to automate routine and complex tasks.

  • These self-learning assistants perform tasks autonomously, from handling customer inquires to managing resource allocation.

  • The platform emphasizes that AI is a tool to empower humans, not replace them.

  • Qlik is helping enterprises migrate to the cloud with AWS around runtime analytics.

  • Qlik comes with Qlik Answers. This is an AI-driven solution that addresses unstructured data challenges.

  • Quick AutoML: Predictive Analytics platform that’s growing well and the AI is integrating into it.

  • Elastic has launched Serverless, powered by a re-architecture Elastic Search build on an industry first Search AI optimized for real-time apps.

  • Supports the development of AI-powered search applications & high performance workloads.

  • It’s a fully managed service that offers streamlined pricing to align costs with actual usage. Kind of like the cribl model.

  • I’m waiting to get access. HBU?

  • RSA introduced v4.5 of it’s RSA Authenticator app.

  • App aims to minimize friction during registration and authentication.

  • Aligns with. global regulatory requirements.

  • Man has 2024 been a great year for DB - good for them.

  • Databricks has introduced an API that allows customers to generate synthetic data for machine learning projects. The API is part of the Mosaic AI Agent Eval Tool which helps devs compare the output quality, cost, and latency of AI apps.

  • API is designed to generate question and answer collections to develop apps that use LLMs more efficiently. It’s apparently more cost effective than anything manual you could be doing.

  • The API simplifies workflow by allowing devs to upload business information, specify number of questions and answers, and customize the output.

  • Confluent announced the GA of Confluent for Apache Flink, enhancing enterprise level security and simplifying the management and scaling of on-prem Flink workloads.

  • The platform combines data streaming with stream processing for both cloud and on-prem workloads.

  • Offers lifecyce management, integrated security, and consolidated support for Flink and Kafka.

  • They also introduced WarpStream Orbit, facilitating easier migration to WarpStream’s “BYOC” deployment model for Kafka clusters.

  • Dataiku Stories is a new tool that uses GenAI to transform company data into dynamic visual presentations (cool!) bridging the gap between static slide presentations and enterprise dashboards.

  • The tool ensures that presentations remain accurate and up-to-date by automatically updating with new data.

  • Stories allows more individuals within orgs to access, analyze, and share business insights confidently and accurately.

  • Prompt generated. I’d love to see this.

  • Obsidian has completed the Snowflake Ready Tech Validation and achieved competency to enhance security for the Data Cloud.

  • The integration allows Obsidian to provide identity threat protection and posture management for SaaS and PaaS apps.

  • Lasso Security announced the launch of RapidClassifier, a new tool designed to enhance cybersecurity measures.

  • It offers advanced threat detection and classification capabilities.

  • Aims to improve overall security posture of organizations by providing real-time insights and automated responses to potential threats.

  • FuzzyAI is an open-source framework designed to identify and address vulnerabilities in AI models.

  • It uses various attack techniques to expose vulnerabilities in AI models.

  • You can add your own attack methods to tailor tests for domain specific vulnerabilities.

  • Growing community of collaborators doing this - awesome stuff.

  • Model Specifications:

    • Micro - ideal for basic tasks like summarization and logical reasoning priced at $0.04 per 1 million input tokens.

    • Light - multimodal for text, image, and video processing priced at $0.06 per 1 million input tokens.

    • Pro - most advanced model for creatives - priced at $0.80 per 1 million input tokens.

    • That’s a steep price hike. Same as what OpenAI is doing with $200 x month subs.

  • Performance:

    • Micro - outperforms Gemini Flash 8B in speed and efficiency (for now)

    • Light - matches Claude 3.5 Haiku in multimodal tasks but is more affordable (for now)

    • Pro - rivals GPT-4 and Sonet in accuracy and functionality (for now)

  • Available thru AWS Bedrock with LIMITED free credits for eval.

  • Torq has introduced a new autonomous multi-agent system for security operations, enhancing the capabilities of its AI-native autonomous SOC.

  • The system aims to alleviate the burden on SOC teams by handling high-volume, low complexity attacks to reduce manual security case investigations by 70%, increasing SOC analyst resource utilization by the same. It also mitigates workflow errors by 80%.

  • Torq Agentic AI uses in-context learning, planning, and reasoning to autonomously analyze security incidents and coordinate tasks among specialized agents.

    • involves multiple collaborative agents such as Socrates Agent for Tier-1 Soc analysis, Builder Agent for creating, Scripting Agent for assisting in automation, etc…

  • Foglight: This monitoring optimization platform now includes the performance investigator for PostgreSQL add-on. It enhances visibility into PostgreSQL and allows for cross-database monitoring.

  • SharePlex: This data replication and migration offering now supports data sync among PostgreSQL 17.0, Oracle 23ai, MariaDB 11.4.2, Google AlloyDB, and Google AlloyDB Omni. Designed for smooth and minimal disruption during migration activities.

  • they’re just missing an L and it’d be a better model name.

  • Phi-4, a GenAI model with 14 Billion parameters, is designed to excel in specialized tasks like mathematical reasoning.

  • Unlike most language models, Phi-4 incorporates synthetic data throughout its training process.

  • It outperforms larger models like Gemini Pro 1.5 and GPT-4o on complex reasoning tasks while using fewer computational resources.

  • Available for research purposes only through the Foundry Platform.

  • It’s a good one.

  • The new version includes identity protection enhancements, with support for backing up Microsoft Entra ID.

    • Remember in 2023, we said that Identity was the new Firewall. Glad to see people protecting it.

  • Proactive Threat Analysis: New features like Recon Scanner and. Veeam Threat Hunter improve threat detection and analysis, of course utilizing GenAI for intelligent data protection.

  • Data Portability: Expanded support for Nutanix AHV (nice), including App-aware processing and in-depth alerting.

  • IoC Scanner included too.

  • Integration with Veeam Data Cloud Vault v2 for air-gapped, encrypted, and immutable cloud storage with predictable pricing.

  • I don’t usually report on this type of software, but it’s important in business so check it out. Mainly High fidelity SBOM output.

  • They’ve introduced the Merlin Agent Builder to simplify the creation and deployment of high-value AI Agents. The tool aims to bridge the gap between custom code and single purpose SaaS agents.

  • They also unveiled new curated Tray Agent Accelerators, offering templates for knowledge agents, IT ticketing agents, customer support agents, etc…

  • Part of Tray’s larger platform (which I’m unfamiliar with) and combines data integration, process automation, and AI capabilities into a single platform.

  • Includes important security features as well thru Merlin Guardian (agent).

  • GitGuardian has unveiled a comprehensive NHI security strategy with integrations across major secrets management platforms.

    • key integrations include: HashiCorp Vault, CyberArk Conjur, AWS Secrets Manager, GCP Cloud Secrets Manager, and Azure Key Vault.

  • Features:

    • Unified Visibility - Centralized dashboard showing secrets stored across all connected vault platforms

    • Cross Vault Resolution - links secret incidients and affected vault entries for faster remediation

    • Secrets Lifecycle Management - Automated identification of stale, unused, or even overprivileged secrets.

    • Vault Migration Assistance - process for consolidating secrets across different platforms included

    • Policy Standardization - consistent secrets management practices across teams and platforms.

  • NHI’s have led to an explosion of secrets scattered across various storage solutions which makes them vectors for attack. This is a legit announcement.

  • Fortinet has introduced a new cloud-delivered platform that integrates web app security and performance management tools into a single offering.

  • Key features:

    • Advanced Bot Defense

    • Global Server Load Balancing

    • Web and API Security

    • Threat Analytics

  • Unified Platform part of their Security Fabric.

  • Patronus AI has introduced Glider, a 3.8B parameter open-source language model designed to evaluate and judge the accuracy of larger AI models.

  • It outperforms GPT-4o-mini in eval tasks.

  • Glider offers real-time evaluation scores with understandable reasoning and can be run on-prem or on-device.

  • GitHub has introduced a free tier of its AI based pair programmer, Copilot which is integrated into VS Code. 2000 code completions and 50 chat messages per month.

Articles I Liked This Week 💡

  • 18 companies spanning various sectors such as research, finance, healthcare, consumer, security, CRM, etc.

  • The fund provides startups with compute credits, technical guidance, and company-building expertise from Menlo & Anthropic.

  • Pro tip - set the action button on the side panel to ChatGPT voice. Immensely useful. Thanks to Eric Vogelpohl for the idea. More details from VentureBeat here.

  • if you think the cloud is going somewhere you’re probably not paying attention.

  • Look out Microsoft Edge (LOL even though I love it).

  • Seriously this has replaced google for me.

Tech Funding & M&A 💸

  • xAI is Elon Musks’ answer to OpenAI and everyone else.

  • LambdaTest is a California based Browser Testing platform for enterprises.

  • WaveForms is a private company developing sound related AI based systems.

  • Strong Network helps businesses build, launch, and access mission-critical applications more efficiently and cost-effectively.

  • Perception Point is an Israel based Cybersecurity-as-a-Service platform that offers incident response, threat monitoring, and related solutions for businesses.

  • Stainless Software is a New York City based API platform provider. They offer SDKs for REST APIs for companies to build API developer experiences without dedicating full-time engineers to SDK maintenance.

  • Liquid AI is a Massachusetts based AI company. They develop Liquid Foundation Models (LFMs) which are smaller and more efficient AI models designed for enterprise use.

  • Astrix is an Israel based NHI focused platform supporting API key management, service account management, and secrets management for businesses.

  • Rivery is an Israeli Data Management Startup. They specialize in providing a complete SaaS platform for end-to-end ELT processes.

  • Tidelift is a Massachusetts based company focused on improving the health and security of open-source software. They provide a subscription service that offers proactive management of open-source components for businesses. Nice pickup from Sonar.

  • SnapAttack is a Virgina based cybersecurity company that specializes in threat detection and engineering for businesses. Look for this to enhance Splunk capabilities.

  • Cylance is a California based company providing endpoint detection and response software for businesses.

  • Decart is a California based AI startup that came out less than 2 months ago. They are building a fully vertically integrated AI research lab. Their first consumer product is a playable “open world” AI model called Oasis. Check it out.

Meme of the week 🤣

ChatGPT’s Meme from a simple prompt. Spot the error.

Recommendations 👉🏻

Return on Security5 minutes to master cybersecurity's biggest market moves. Zero fluff. Your weekly briefing on the business of security.
Latio PulseThe Latest in Product Security Delivered Weekly

Thank you so much for making this a part of your Friday morning coffee time. I'm Phil Moroni, and I'm an Account Executive in the Information Technology industry here with another edition of Friday Tech News!

What is this? This is a newsletter that provides updates and insights on the latest trends and developments in the technology industry. I am a professional who specializes in supporting IT leaders in evaluating, investing, and managing people, processes, and technology tools that support their businesses.

Each week, I summarize relevant industry updates from popular Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM's), software publishers, and managed providers. The goal of my research and newsletter is to keep you informed about current trends and events that may impact your business from a trusted and reputable source. It's just information I'm sharing, and I follow and work with hundreds of partners in the industry, keeping track of their growth, changes, and evolution so that you don't have to.

Bottom Line: As you focus on improving your business through digital initiatives, my commitment is to keep you informed of the fast-paced changes and trends taking place so that you can plan ahead and stay ahead of the game.

Key areas of focus for me are:

  1. Cloud Computing, Security, Trends

  2. Developer & Security Tools

  3. Networking & Infrastructure Tools

  4. End User Tools & Workspace Tech

  5. Emerging Technologies and Future Concepts

If you have any questions, would like information about any specific vendors I follow, or would like to have a conversation about any topic that is challenging you, I invite you to engage with me! I value feedback immensely and would love to know what you find valuable about this newsletter so feel free to reach out!

Thank you for reading and stay digitally and physically safe!

Phil

Reply

or to participate.

News Room

New Rooms is a news style newsletter template. Ideal for news sites and designed with journalists in mind.

© 2025 Friday Tech News.

Privacy Policy

Terms of Use

Powered by beehiiv