We have heroes and then superheroes, models and then supermodels, and now rounding off the list, agents and then super agents.

Walmart global CTO and chief development officer Suresh Kumar said the discount store operator has been busy at work building agents at a rapid pace. However, the company recently had an epiphany: More agents can sometimes mean more problems.

“Multiple agents—even if each one is useful—can quickly become overwhelming and confusing,” Kumar wrote in a July 24 LinkedIn post.

The realization led Walmart to tinker its approach to agents. The result? Super agents. Kumar said the retail giant currently has four of the AI helpers whose name sounds as if they could exist in the DC Universe.

For more on Walmart’s super agent strategy and whether it will spark copycats, keep reading here.—BM

If you can’t beat them, ban them.

The UK is clamping down against ransomware attacks by proceeding with a ban that would forbid public sector organizations and critical infrastructure operators from paying ransoms.

The proposed ban would prevent local councils, schools, and the National Health Service (NHS) from paying ransom demands requested by cybercriminals. Additionally, businesses excluded from the ban would be required to report plans to pay a ransom demand to the government. The UK government hosted a public consultation for the proposal between January and April of this year.

In a statement, Security Minister Dan Jarvis called ransomware a “predatory crime that puts the public at risk.”

For more on this ransomware clampdown and whether it will cause collateral damage, keep reading here.—BM

The link between music and math has been long known; musical notes are the representation of vibrations and frequencies, which math quantifies. The art of music—the way it makes us feel—is how our brains recognize and translate patterns and then translates them into feeling and emotion.

Adam Ribaudo, an artist and IT professional, said that he’s always felt an intuitive link between math and music, specifically when it comes to intuition and harmonies.

“There needs to be some sort of intuition and some mental map of how notes relate to each other,” Ribaudo said. “That mental map can then be transferred more easily to mathematical or some technical concepts where you’re searching in your brain for those harmonic registries.”

For more on the unique connection for IT pros between music and math, keep reading here.—CN