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  • Sustaining Global Compliance With Modern Data Privacy Laws

    Sustaining Global Compliance With Modern Data Privacy Laws

    Data privacy laws are becoming a major focus globally as businesses scamper to meet new compliance obligations.

    Privacy regulations generally bind any business or organization to store securely all data they collect or process. What they do with that data is strictly regulated.

    Some 65% of the world’s population will have its personal data covered under modern privacy regulations by the end of next year, according to a Gartner report. Complying with these expanding regulations can be challenging.

    Companies have had near free reign in harvesting personal data from electronic transactions and growing internet use over the last 20 years.

    Many organizations involved with international commerce must alter their procedures to fall into line with new legislation. This is a priority for transactions and correspondence involving e-commerce and social media.

    Expanding consumer mistrust, government action, and competition for customers pushed some governments to impose strict rules and regulations. The impact is changing the no-man’s land conditions that let both large companies and small businesses run rampant with peoples’ personal data.

    “By far the biggest challenge that companies face is keeping up with the volume of data that they manage, which is also subject to ever-changing data privacy requirements,” Neil Jones, director of cybersecurity evangelism at Egnyte.

    Assortment of Differing Demands

    The EU has the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In the U.K. and Continental Europe, data privacy has generally been viewed as a fundamental human right, according to Jones. In the U.S. and Canada, businesses must navigate around a growing patchwork of state and provincial laws.

    Data privacy legislation in the U.S. and Canada has traditionally been more fragmented than in the U.K. and Europe. Canada’s Quebec, and the United States’ Utah and Connecticut are among the latest to enact comprehensive data privacy laws, joining the U.S. states of California, Virginia, and Colorado.

    By the end of 2023, 10% of states in the U.S. will be covered by data privacy legislation, noted Jones. This lack of a universal standard for data privacy has created an artificial layer of business complexity.

    Add to that, today’s hybrid work environment has created new levels of risk which has complicated compliance with myriad privacy concerns.

    What’s at Stake

    To enhance productivity, organizations may need to ask employees detailed questions about their behavior and work-from-home arrangements. These types of questions can create their own unintended privacy impacts, according to Jones.

    The recent convergence of personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) has also put highly-confidential data at risk. This includes workers’ compensation reports, employees’ and patients’ health records, and confidential test results like Covid-19 notifications.

    “With 65% of the world’s population expected to have personal data covered under privacy regulations by next year, respecting data privacy has never been more critical,” said Jones.

    Cloud Privacy Hurdles

    Data privacy and security are top challenges for implementing a cloud strategy, according to a recent study by IDG, now rebranded as Foundry. In this study, data security’s role was a prominent concern.

    When implementing a cloud strategy, IT decision-makers or ITDMs are running into challenges such as controlling cloud costs, data privacy and security challenges, and lack of cloud security skills/expertise.

    With a more stringent focus on securing privacy data, that issue looms large as more organizations migrate to the cloud. The IDG study found that two chief hurdles were data privacy and security challenges, and a lack of cloud security skills/expertise.

    Spending on cloud infrastructure is up by some $5 million this year, according to Foundry.

    “Although enterprise businesses are leading the charge, SMBs are not far behind when it comes to cloud migration,” said Stacey Raap, marketing and research manager at Foundry when the report was released.

    “As more organizations move toward fully being in the cloud, IT teams will need the proper talent and resources to manage their cloud infrastructure and overcome any security and privacy hurdles that come with being in the cloud,” she noted.

    Achieving Compliance

    Organizations can successfully prepare for data privacy legislation, but doing so requires making data privacy initiatives a “full-time job,” Jones maintained.

    “Too many organizations view data privacy as a part-time project for their web teams, rather than a full-time business initiative that can significantly impact customer relations, employee morale, and brand reputation,” he offered.

    Beyond that step comes establishing holistic data governance programs that provide more visibility into the company’s regulated and sensitive data. Added to that is working with trusted business and technology partners who understand the data privacy space and can help you prepare for rapidly evolving regulations.

    Perhaps the most dynamic approach is to use an Advanced Privacy & Compliance (APC) solution, suggested Jones. This enables organizations to comply with global privacy regulations conveniently, in one place.

    Specifically, APCs can help achieve compliance by:

    • Managing Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs) like individuals’ right to be informed about the personal data collected on them, the right to opt-out of personal information being sold to others, or the right to be forgotten by collecting organizations
    • Assessing a company’s compliance preparedness and scope with specific regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA)
    • Creating and reviewing third-party vendors’ technical assessments and evaluating potential risks to consumers’ data
    • Augmenting cookie consent capabilities like integration of cookie consent into compliance workflows

    Proactive Diligence

    It can be difficult for companies to understand today’s rapidly-evolving privacy landscape, as well as how specific regulations apply to them, Jones said. However, by taking proactive steps, organizations can stay on top of data privacy regulations in the future.

    Those steps include these ongoing tasks:

    • Monitor the status of data privacy regulations in the countries, provinces, and states where the customer base lives
    • Create a data privacy task force that can improve organizational focus and enhance senior executive attention on privacy initiatives
    • Keep abreast of new federal data privacy legislation like the proposed American Data Privacy and Protection Act (ADPPA)

    It is also important to note the additional long-term benefits of data privacy compliance. In particular is bolstering a company’s overall cybersecurity defenses.

  • Consumer Satisfaction Remains High for PCs and TVs – Research

    Consumer Satisfaction Remains High for PCs and TVs – Research

    PCs and TVs received high marks from consumers in a recent report released by the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

    The ACSI Household Appliance and Electronics Study for 2021-2022, based on interviews with more than 9,000 consumers, rates a range of products on a scale of zero to 100.

    Customer satisfaction with TVs is “sky high,” the ACSI noted in a news release, pulling down a score of 80.

    “Televisions — and consumer electronics more broadly — have long been one of the more satisfying industries measured in ACSI,” said ACSI Director of Research Emeritus Forrest Morgeson.

    “When you consider the never-ending wave of technological innovations being introduced in the industry, along with steadily decreasing prices for these goods — recent inflation notwithstanding — it is not hard to understand why,” Morgeson, who is also an assistant professor of marketing at Michigan State University said.

    Streaming Satisfaction

    It’s not surprising that overall consumer satisfaction with TVs is so high, added Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst with SmartTechResearch in San Jose, Calif. “For almost a decade, TVs with embedded ‘smart’ interfaces have been gaining in overall share, allowing users to change settings more easily and intuitively, as well as access content in an effortless fashion via an ‘app’ orientation,” he noted. “Consumer satisfaction is up because TVs have been easier to use.”

    Streaming programming has also contributed to consumer satisfaction with TVs. “With TVs embracing streaming, they have become far more capable over time, and they are, in terms of appliances, relatively problem free,” said Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst at the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Ore. “With Streaming, the TV is again the center of in-home entertainment, and people seem to be pleased with the improvements over time and aren’t that concerned about premature obsolescence,” he said.

    Desktops Outscore Laptops, Tablets

    PCs, which includes desktops, laptops and tablets, also scored high on the index with a 79. Among the form factors, desktops, at 80, scored higher than laptops and tablets, which both posted 79s, although the tablet satisfaction number was three points higher in 2022 than in 2021.

    “It is a little surprising that PCs recorded higher customer satisfaction than laptops and desktops,” Morgeson said. “Of course, it is important to note that PCs have far less market share relative than the other two, and the consumers of PCs are different consumers looking for different features and functionality in their computers. These different needs likely explain a large amount of the gap across the product types.”

    Neither Vena nor Enderle, though, were surprised by consumer satisfaction with desktops.

    “Tablets and laptops are often used in punishing mobile settings that make them more prone to accidental damage,” Vena explained. “Because of their fixed nature, desktop PCs — especially all-in-one models — have a stronger reliability perception because they don’t move around.”

    “Desktops typically don’t have to be carried, can have as big a screen as you can afford, have fewer connectivity issues, and don’t have battery life issues,” Enderle added.

    Apple Tops in Popularity

    Among PC makers, Apple had the highest customer satisfaction rating with an 82, although Samsung finished a close second with an 81.

    “Apple PCs have long been popular with their customers, and have often outperformed other PC makers,” Morgeson said.

    “For many years,” he continued, “this popularity was driven by the niche market Apple carved out, appealing to web and graphic designers. More recently, the strong popularity of the Apple iPhone, and its seamless integration with Apple’s PCs — like the MacBook — has drawn in a wider group of customers who have come to really like the product.”

    American Customer Satisfaction Index: Household Appliance and Electronics Study for 2021-2022

    Apple is the leader in overall consumer satisfaction because they control the total hardware and software “stack,” Vena explained.

    “That allows Apple to manage the overall user experience in a much tighter and cohesive manner, which is something that Microsoft can’t do because it relies on an OEM model,” he said.

    “Apple products tend to ‘just work’ because they are not as open, generally speaking, as Microsoft-based products from a third-party peripheral and device standpoint,” he continued.

    “Microsoft tends to focus significantly more on backward compatibility with devices that enterprise customers demand,” he added.

    Stellar Customer Service

    Customer service is another way Apple charms customers. “Apple has great service,” observed Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies, a technology advisory firm in Campbell, Calif. “Over the last 20 years, they’ve developed a top-notch service model that includes physical service at the Apple stores and Genius Bars,” he told newsmen.

    “When you have an issue with an Apple product, you know how to get it dealt with,” he continued. “It has a great online service for handling issues and if you’re in a city with an Apple Store, you can make an appointment with the Genius Bar and 90% of the time, it will help you take care of the problem.”

    “That’s a really big differentiator for Apple,” he said. “None of the other companies have the same kind of network to handle customer service the way Apple does.”

    By contrast, the surveyors found that satisfaction with Microsoft’s software dropped four points, to 73.

    “Microsoft offers a wide array of very different software solutions to its customers, and so it’s hard to attribute their decline to any one software product,” Morgeson said.

    “Yet,” he continued, “the increasing availability of competitive alternatives for many of their products — including low- or no-cost apps now available to consumers — is likely impacting consumer perceptions with software offerings overall.”

    LG Leads Household Category

    “Microsoft’s bread-and-butter apps like PowerPoint, Outlook, Word and Excel continue to gain new features that creates the perception of bloat that doesn’t necessarily help ease of use,” Vena added.

    Then there’s Windows 11. “Satisfaction generally drops when a new OS comes out because people don’t like upgrading even though the process has improved significantly over the years,” Enderle said.

    The survey also showed consumer satisfaction with major household appliances — washers, dryers, dishwashers, refrigerators, ovens, and microwaves — climbed slightly year-over-year by one point to 79. LG Corp. led all companies in the household category, jumping three points to 81.

    “Our performance in the 2022 ACSI rankings indicates that LG is an innovative brand that provides products and features with true consumer benefits, but more importantly, without sacrificing product quality,” said LG Vice President of Home Appliances Product Management Brandt Varner.

    “As we continue to listen to the customer and prioritize their recommendations, our product quality remains our principal focus so that consumers know their LG appliance will offer outstanding performance with their needs in mind,” he said.

  • The Digital Transformation of Warehouses to E-Commerce Fulfillment Centers

    The Digital Transformation of Warehouses to E-Commerce Fulfillment Centers

    It wasn’t that long ago when traditional warehouses had one purpose: to store goods on their way from manufacturers to retailers and other commercial customers.

    Today, warehousing for many industries has evolved into e-commerce fulfillment centers. In addition to inventory storage, e-fulfillment is part of an overall logistics strategy that focuses on moving goods to end-users.

    This big transition has primarily come about because of the steady rise and continued use of e-commerce. Let’s look at how the warehousing space has changed in recent years.

    Conventional Warehousing

    Warehouses of yesterday were generally at the center of an extended supply chain. The primary focus was the storage and movement of bulk items from one point to another. For example, warehouse personnel might shift thousands of units of clothing to various locations for one retailer.

    Today, however, warehouses are increasingly becoming the endpoint in the supply chain. In doing so, those units of clothing might now be shipped directly to a customer without anyone in the middle.

    Traditional warehousing typically catered to large businesses with what seemed like unlimited resources. These facilities were extensive and located where they could service large customers, such as manufacturers and big-box retailers.

    A warehouse typically only stores inventory, while a fulfillment center does much more.

    Warehousing in the World of E-Commerce

    In recent years, consumers have realized the benefits of making 24/7 online purchases from the comfort of their homes. Additionally, many of those purchases come from companies of all sizes worldwide.

    This evolution has significantly changed the goals of logistical companies, as they strive to provide online customers with the best service in the shortest time.

    The Modern E-Fulfillment Center

    E-commerce fulfillment, or e-fulfillment, means more than inventory storage. The process involves activities connected to receiving and storing goods and processing orders, including picking and packing items, shipping, and returns. In other words, these centers cover every step in the order and delivery process. Today’s e-fulfillment centers are essential conduits for e-commerce stores that operate as direct-to-consumer entities.

    The centers act as third-party logistics (3PL) providers, responsible for fulfilling all types of customer orders. Rather than being primarily located near oceanside or inland ports, these fulfillment centers are also being built near population centers to help boost last-mile inventory handling and delivery processes. For example, look at Amazon’s network of fulfillment centers; many of those are in suburban areas.

    E-Fulfillment Facility Types

    There are different types of e-fulfillment facilities, which can vary based on purpose and location. These include the following:

    Multi-Story Warehouses

    Once common in densely populated places in Asia, multi-story warehouses are slowly popping up in the U.S. The reason? Property developers have realized they must provide industrial real estate closer to larger consumer markets. In many cases, these vertical structures are in areas experiencing land shortages and building size restrictions.

    Dark Stores

    By contrast, dark stores are reimagined traditional retail distribution centers that offer last-mile delivery and through automated fulfillment systems. The stores are often huge complexes and allow customers to collect items purchased online. Originally exclusive to the U.K., dark stores have grown in popularity across the rest of Europe and in the U.S.

    Micro-Fulfillment Centers

    As the name suggests, micro-fulfillment centers (MFC) are smaller, repurposed facilities that typically include automated distribution networks. These locations are often located in an existing retail store or warehouse and are sometimes within a parking garage or parking lot. They typically are 10,000 square feet or less.

    Nano-Distribution Centers

    Finally, there are nano-distribution or “last-touch” centers. Originally these were office or retail locations. Today, these facilities are often an extension of established supply chains and help facilitate deliveries to where consumers live and work.

    These centers are considered the fastest and smallest supply chain solution (starting at just 250 square feet) and are in the closest proximity to customers. You’ll find these in urban areas.

    Benefits of E-Fulfillment

    There are many advantages to outsourcing logistics activities to e-fulfillment centers. One is lower overall operational costs. For example, many centers have more buying power because they’re buying items like packing materials in bulk. Additionally, they often have the bandwidth to broker deals with various shipping carriers, including UPS, FedEx, DHL, and others. This can lower costs — which you can pass down the line — while improving delivery efficiencies.

    Other benefits to using e-fulfillment centers as part of your overall logistics strategy include the following:

    • Better personnel management: you don’t have to worry about hiring fulfillment workers
    • More operational space, as storage and fulfillment activities, take place elsewhere
    • Access to the latest logistics technology, without having to pay for it
    • Enhanced customer service, as fulfillment experts take over picking, packing, and shipping
    • Expanded reach to different markets, as multiple e-fulfillment centers are used to move your inventory
    • More focus on core competencies, allowing you to focus on what your organization does best

    Beyond Just Storage

    As e-commerce continues to expand, so will the need for e-fulfillment centers, which, unlike traditional warehouses, do more than store inventory. E-commerce fulfillment centers can assist and take over your organization’s ordering and shipping process. By doing so, your business can concentrate on what it does best — core activities.

  • Tech Trends in Emergency Response and Law Enforcement

    Tech Trends in Emergency Response and Law Enforcement

    Advances in technology are spreading through law enforcement centers nationwide to help police departments better solve crimes and protect public safety. In this regard, law enforcement agencies are defined by some of the same gadgetry that is revolutionizing big business.

    Technological advancement is driving reforms in neighborhood policing strategies and crime-fighting tactics. Some of these high-tech advancements have generated public and political concerns about privacy infringements and police behavior.

    Typically, any change in government, school, and public policing operations confront challenges, doubts, and questions. Businesses, too, are often slow to adopt technological upgrades for some of the same factors, including cost.

    Regardless of the organizations involved, technology brings change, both good and bad, despite the vetting process. Perhaps more so than in other industries, police departments nationwide face both internal and external concerns about implementing new high-tech options.

    For example, some information technology (IT) tools are so innovative that courts have not had time to rule on their legality. When challenges are voiced, court processes take time. As rulings are issued, court decisions are often not applicable universally.

    Police agencies nationwide are very involved with technology today, according to Mike Rodgers, CEO of Critical Response Group. CRG provides visual emergency operations plans to critical infrastructure that can be shared in real time with first responders during critical incidents.

    “Police have to deal with the current threats facing our country and its communities. They have to deploy the best technology out there to give themselves the fighting edge when that opportunity presents itself,” he told TechNewsWorld.

    We scoped out the broader view of how law enforcement is using technology for the common good.

    Specialized Tools for Emergencies

    Rodgers’ company is on the bleeding edge of innovation for law enforcement. It adapted high-end devices developed by U.S. forces on the battlefield to aid police departments in improving response and detection in high-stress emergency situations.

    One of the most troublesome emergencies all police agencies face today, he offered, involves security and rescue in potential situations with active shooters. The Critical Response Group that Rodgers co-founded addresses that deadly situation with effective and innovative use of technology.

    CRG is an indoor mapping company that transitions the lessons learned on the battlefield to public safety use at home, he noted. The process involved taking the military way of doing things with high-end mapping technology, so they were applicable to law enforcement procedures domestically.

    We focus on providing the most accurate indoor mapping data that is compatible with what the tools public safety has employed today,” Rodgers said.

    His company works with local law enforcement agencies throughout the U.S. to understand where each department is technologically. His team then integrates its mapping data directly into that existing structure. CRG also puts police officers on different mobile applications so they can leverage that technology from a mobile perspective, he explained.

    “It’s more of a generational shift that public safety is being affected by where every person being hired on to a police department today has one if not two phones. They have used them for everything they have done for the last 10 years. So they’re bringing that skill set to public safety today,” said Rodgers.

    Police work today is performed by officers who are more technical individuals out in the field. That technology trend is most evident with the New York Police Department, the largest law enforcement force in the world, he offered.

    The NYPD is a first mover because of its resources. They recently moved all their officers off radios. Now every officer is using a cell phone.

    “I think it is because they want to give the other officers the best possible chance when they are out there fighting crime, and you can do that with a portable [phone] and notebook [computer],” he said.

    Battle-Tested, Best Practices

    The CRG is comprised of former U.S. Special Operations Command operators who first used this solution on hundreds of real-world missions. Included within the CRG’s staff are domestic public safety experts who adapted these special teams’ tactics for use by first responders. The company employs a technical staff responsible for designing and managing collaborative mapping projects.

    Rodgers’ company offers a solution based on what military units solved on the battlefield. A big problem law enforcement faces today with active shooter events is communication among responding agencies.

    In these large-scale incidents, it is common for multiple police, ambulance, and fire departments to show up. Many times, the responding units come from other jurisdictions.

    Everybody shows up. Everybody is on different communication systems. Post-incident response analysis repeatedly detailed such communication problems. That scenario was first discovered when the Twin Towers were struck by hijacked airlines in New York City.

    The military figured out that with the war on terror they had to get everybody on basically one data-agnostic common operating picture, explained a CRG official. So they built out this communications system that all special forces units use when working on the same missions.

    CRG takes the best practices for those units used overseas. What Rodgers’ company developed was essentially declassified technology brought to the U.S. as a domestic version.

    Breaking Down Walled Information

    CRG’s approach gives law enforcement a common solution to a nagging — and dangerous — situation. A common thread is that different law enforcement entities are terrible at sharing information.

    One big factor in sharing information is everybody uses different databases and computer systems. Nobody’s computers talk to each other. So that is a direction for the future for law enforcement, observed Rodgers.

    A glaring example of this is evident in New Jersey where CRG is based. The state has about 500 different police departments. They use dozens of records management systems and computer-aided dispatch systems.

    Many departments do not regularly interface with each other. The result is a lot of separate, unconnected silos of information that create a major problem. The solution is finding a way to build almost data-agnostic systems on which everybody can share readily accessible information.

    Mapping Data

    Law enforcement is a very difficult, challenging environment right now. It is more complicated and complex than ever been, Rodgers noted.

    Leveraging technology is the way police agencies can best deal with those issues. Mapping data is becoming the newest approach to dealing with high-tech solutions for law enforcement.

    A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Rodgers left the army as a Captain after nine years of service and multiple combat deployments. His deployments included the 82nd Airborne Division, 75th Ranger Regiment, and Princeton University’s ROTC program.

    His familiarity with using collaboration, interoperability, and information-sharing between all branches of the military, intelligence agencies, and coalition partners fueled his idea to form a company that does the same thing for first responders. The military approach created a communication technique called the Gridded Reference Graphic (GRG).

    This is a visual communication tool that combines a grid overlay with high-resolution overhead imagery. That “big picture” enables all mission participants to communicate off a sheet of paper about unfamiliar locations.

    The military’s GRG approach is used in every counter-terrorism mission conducted overseas. Its value rests in the ability to enable simple communication and collaboration for operators under stress in unfamiliar environments, according to the Critical Response Group.

    In 2013, Rodgers began formulating the domestic version of that solution. He started the Rodgers Group. For the first couple of years, like anything new, growing his company was an uphill battle. Resistance to tearing down information silos within the law enforcement communities was one of his major roadblocks, he confided.

    “People become comfortable in the way that they have always done things,” he added. Eventually, the concept behind his civilian solution for law enforcement gained traction.

    Innovative Technologies for Law Enforcement

    Three years later, Rodgers spun off what was a division within the Rodgers Group to form the Critical Response Group as a separate company partnered with the Rodgers Group. The goal was to transition and implement innovative technology and training techniques to enable better decisions faster and to ensure collaborative communication during critical incidents.

    CRG developed three products to help law enforcement accomplish those goals. The company also facilitates Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP)-compliant emergency response exercises, creates customized policies and training programs related to safety and security for public and private institutions, and provides security management programs for public and private facilities.

    Collaborative Response Graphics are simple visual communication and collaboration tools. Usable under stress, they help to coordinate emergency response both outside and inside a building.

    New High-Tech Tools Extend Options

    Innovative tools for law enforcement and first responders that Rodgers’ companies developed are some of the newest high-tech options. Police organizations have been transitioning to tech-based solutions to improve or replace older technology.

    Much of this high-tech advancement shares a similar thread. They all require high-level IT services integrated with big data. The key areas involve data mapping crime, tracking smartphones, keeping tabs on social media, relying on Wi-Fi, and using biometrics.

    Many police departments either use body cameras already or plan to get them when budgeting permits. Body cameras serve a dual purpose. One, they document interactions between officers on the street and the citizens they encounter. Two, they provide evidence of how effective police training procedures are and where improvements are needed.

    Drones offer the ability to perform aerial mapping, conduct high-level views of crime scenes, and help locate evidence. More sophisticated models are equipped with thermal imaging or 3D mapping software that brings GPS-enhanced precision to the areas being surveyed.

    Also called unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, police drones can carry zoom cameras. This added configuration increases their usefulness by delivering actionable, real-time information in high-risk situations. An added benefit is eliminating the need to arrange and wait for regional agencies to fly over in helicopters in emergency situations.

    Issues related to police use of drones for surveillance has unresolved legal issues. But the positive benefits for police include the ability to locate suspects and citizens in distress more quickly.

    In this regard, other high-tech gadgetry helps police officers change the law enforcement landscape for the better.

    Cloud Support for Boots on the Ground

    Cloud computing now turns once-isolated police vehicles into mobile data centers. Their extended communications reach solves the age-old problem of dealing with dead zones between police radio traffic and the dispatching center. Mobile phones also remove more limited communications capabilities police transmitters often entail.

    It is not uncommon now for police officers alone in their vehicles to be constantly connected to real-time dashboards. The squad car of yesteryear has become a mobile comm center tethered to centralized criminal justice databases.

    Wi-Fi-connected laptops, tablets, and in-dash computers allow police officers to remain in the field while they complete investigative reports and do essential database research.

    This centralized data processing helps police agencies enhance public safety and better investigate criminal activity. Advanced computing resources assist with improved data management and compliance issues. These areas number among the most technologically challenging factors plaguing police in this high-tech age.

    Older Tech Mixed With New

    Two of the most well-known items “older” devices are Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) and street surveillance cameras. ALPR technology has been used for 15 years and is utilized everywhere, not just in big cities. It has become an integral part of the traffic maintenance systems and locating scofflaws as camera and computer databases provide extended features.

    Virtual reality is one of the newest tools in law enforcement. However, its use is still limited due to privacy regulations and related concerns. VR is the new classroom for improving how agencies handle tactical situations.

    The Road Ahead

    Today’s use of technology is better preparing law enforcement agencies to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently. Cutting ties with older, less capable equipment does not always go smoothly, pacify budget watchers, or assuage critics demanding the status quo.

    Progressive policing agencies are starting to keep up with the high-tech curve. These agencies are paving the way for others unable or unwilling to move forward as rapidly.

    Many agencies still struggle with issues identified in the 911 Commission Report, noted Rodgers. That is what his company is working hard to tackle.

    Picture a law enforcement officer stepping out of the squad car to respond to a scene. The vest cam films the on-the-spot witness interviews and records all the conversations. The communications console in the vehicle relays everything back to the department’s cloud server. AI transcribes all the discourse, filters the appropriate details into a report, and packages the entire incident report to a centralized database that other agencies can instantly access.

    Perhaps that is a picture for future police officers. But the technology is developing now to one day make that picture a reality.

  • How the Rise of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artists is Stirring Debate

    How the Rise of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artists is Stirring Debate

    Revolutions in art are nothing new, but this one, some think, may be terminal.

    “Art is dead Dude”, Jason M Allen told the New York Times.

    Mr Allen is the winner of the Colorado State Art Fair’s competition in the category of “emerging digital artists”.

    His winning entry “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” was made using Midjourney, an artificial intelligence system that enables images to be created simply by inputting a few text prompts – for example “an astronaut riding a horse”.

    Many artists were furious, but Mr Allen was unmoved: “It’s over. A.I. won. Humans lost”, he told the paper.

    Mr Allen earned just $300 (£262) from the contest, but the news struck a tender nerve.

    Some artists were already fearful that a new breed of AI image generator could take their jobs, and take a free ride on the years spent learning their craft.

    “This thing wants our jobs, it’s actively anti-artist”, wrote California-based movie and game concept artist RJ Palmer in a Tweet liked more than 25,000 times.

    In Twitter posts he highlighted how well the output of AI systems could imitate living artists. In one case he examined, the AI even attempted to reproduce artists’ signatures.What makes this AI different is that it’s explicitly trained on current working artists. You can see below that the AI generated image(left) even tried to recreate the artist’s logo of the artist it ripped off. This thing wants our jobs, its actively anti-artist.

    The output of these AI systems is impressive, but they are built upon the output of flesh-and-blood creators – their AIs are trained on millions of human-made images.

    Stable Diffusion, a recently launched open-source AI image generator, learns from a compressed file of “100,000 gigabytes of images” scraped from the internet, its founder Emad Mostaque tells me.

    Mr Mostaque, a computer scientist with a background in tech and finance, sees the Stable Diffusion as a “generative search engine”.

    Whereas Google image searches show you pictures that already exist, Stable Diffusion shows you anything you can imagine.

    “This is a Star Trek Holodeck moment” he says.

    Artists have always learned from and been influenced by others – “great artists steal” as the saying goes – but Mr Palmer says of AI is not just like finding inspiration in the work of other artists: “This is directly stealing their essence in a way”.

    And AI can reproduce a style in seconds: “Right now, if an artist wants to copy my style, they might spend a week trying to replicate it,” Mr Palmer tells me.

    “That’s one person spending a week to create one thing. With this machine, you can produce hundreds of them a week”.

    But Mr Mostaque says he’s not worried about putting artists out of work – the project is a tool like Microsoft’s spreadsheet software Excel, which – he notes – “didn’t put the accountants out of work, I still pay my accountants”.

    So what is his message to young artists worried about their future career, perhaps in illustration or design? “My message to them would be, ‘illustration design jobs are very tedious’. It’s not about being artistic, you are a tool”.

    He suggests they find opportunities using the new technology: “This is a sector that’s going to grow massively. Make money from this sector if you want to make money, it’ll be far more fun”.

    And there are already artists using AI art for inspiration and to make money.

    OpenAI say their DALL-E AI system is used by more than 3,000 artists from more than 118 countries.

    There have even been graphic novels made using AI. The author of one called the tech “a collaborator that can excite and surprise you in the creative process”.

    But although there is a lot of anger about the way AIs use artists’ work, experts say legal challenges may be difficult.

    Professor Lionel Bently, director of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at Cambridge University, says that in the UK “it’s not an infringement of copyright, in general, to use the style of somebody else”.

    Professor Bently tells me an artist would need to show that output of an AI had reproduced a significant part of their original creative expression in a particular piece of their art used to train the AI.

    Even where that’s possible – not many artists will have the means to fight such legal battles.

    The Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS), which collects payments on behalf of artists for the use of their images, is worried.

    I asked DACS’ head of policy Reema Selhi if artists’ livelihoods are at stake. “Absolutely yes,” she says.

    DACS is not against the use of AI in art, but Ms Selhi wants artists, whose work is used by AI image systems to make money, to be rewarded fairly and have control over how their works are used.

    “There are no safeguards for artists [..] to be able to identify works in databases that are being used and opt out” she adds.

    Artists might be able to claim copyright infringement when an image is scraped from the internet in order to be used to train an AI – although legal experts I spoke to suggested a number of reasons why such a claim might fail.

    And Ms Selhi said proposed changes to UK law would instead make it easier for AI companies to legally scrape artists’ work from the internet – something which DACS opposes.

    Mr Mostaque says he understood artists’ fears and frustrations, noting that “you saw this with photography as well”.

    He said the project was working with “technology industry leaders to create mechanisms by which artists can upload their portfolios and request for their styles not to be used in online services using this and similar technology”.

    Google previously created an AI that could create images from text prompts. Called Imagen, it was never opened up for the public to experiment with because of the “potential risks of misuse”.

    Google warned that the datasets of scraped images used to train AI’s often included pornography, reflected social stereotypes, and contained “derogatory, or otherwise harmful, associations to marginalized identity groups”.

    Recently Techcrunch reported on concerns that Stable Diffusion could be used to create non-consensual pornography, so-called deepfakes and other problematic images.

    Mr Mostaque says that kind of unethical use “breaks the license terms”. And he says the software already filters out attempts to create not-safe-for-work imagery, although that can be worked around by the technically savvy.

    But the onus, he says, is “upon the person doing something illegal”, and other existing tools can also be abused, for example someone could use “Photoshop’s merge tool to stick someone’s head on a nude”.

    Art or goo?

    Sci-fi artist Simon Stålenhag tweeted that AI art revealed, the “kind of derivative, generated goo .. our new tech lords are hoping to feed us”.

    And there are some big names connected to the development of the tech. The “techno-king” himself Elon Musk is a backer of OpenAI.

    Far from being “derivative goo”, they say DALL-E assists human creativity and produces “unique, original images that have never existed before”.

    For a final opinion, I rang up contemporary artist and broadcaster Bob-and-Roberta-Smith (the name belongs to just one artist).

    He’s had work in the big galleries, and will be staging an artistic takeover of the shop in London’s Tate Modern gallery in October.

    He works in old-school physical media mainly but he thinks AI could be an interesting area of artistic activity, in the tradition of the mash-up.

    But policy makers, he says, need to get the rules right, “so nobody feels ripped off”, and money isn’t just siphoned off from artists and into the pockets of big corporations.

  • iPhone And The Future of Satellite Phone Communications

    iPhone And The Future of Satellite Phone Communications

    Last week Apple launched new iPhones with several interesting new features. One feature reports if you have been in an accident (assuming your phone can connect), and another connects the phone to a satellite in a very limited way for those times when a cellular tower is out of range.

    Starlink and T-Mobile are publicizing a yet non-existent service that should make Apple’s satellite service look like it escaped from the modem years. These all follow AST SpaceMobile which will be putting up its first 4/5G satellite next year to begin its coverage.

    Let’s talk about our future of satellite cellular services this week. Then we’ll close with my product of the week: a very affordable pair of active noise-cancelling headphones that may be perfect for those that take long trips and need to sleep with them on.

    Apple Fills a Need

    Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite service, which will be the first to go live of these next generation services, is very limited. Its one big advantage is that it will work long before the others reach critical mass.

    If you are in the middle of nowhere and need help, it will not do you any good to have a service that doesn’t work yet, so the limitations on the Apple service only become a problem for Apple when the other services get to critical mass. Look for that in or around 2025.

    This service only works in open areas with a clear line of sight to the sky and, I expect, you may at times have to dance around a bit to get an adequate signal. It will not work if you fall into a ravine, get stuck in a cave, or are in a bunker.

    Still, every year there are a ton of people that get stranded out where I live. They don’t realize that the weather can change very quickly here, and if you are a long way from your car or civilization in only shorts and a T-shirt when that happens, you’ll need help, or you are likely to lose anything from a few fingers to your life.

    The app helps you find a satellite and then, through menus, uses the intelligence of the phone to minimize the message and get it to someone who can help you. It can, however, take anywhere from 15 seconds to several minutes to get a clean line of sight to the satellite for this to work. So, if you have a broken leg, or are otherwise disabled, you may still be out of luck.

    Apple is working with Globalstar for this feature. IPhone 14 users, the only ones to initially get this feature, will get two years of this service for free. By then, there will likely be alternatives available, and this initial offering will undoubtedly also improve.

    The service is better than nothing and, right now, unless you want to invest in an expensive Iridium (or other satellite) phone, that is pretty much your only choice. Iridium’s service, while expensive, is much less than I recall it being but still more expensive than traditional cellular.

    Starlink and T-Mobile

    Elon Musk has an idea a minute and many are surprisingly good. Though I worked with a guy like Musk and know that working for or with someone like this is a nightmare because not every idea is good and, generally, people like this can’t tell the difference.

    Having said that, the idea of turning the Starlink satellites into a telephone solution is interesting. However, given Starlink is already experiencing bandwidth issues, this service could make Starlink itself less attractive if it reduces, as it likely will, bandwidth to existing Starlink customers.

    Musk also tends to overpromise and underdeliver, to miss announced delivery dates, and to create a considerable number of problems for his companies. Still, SpaceX is the cheapest launch platform currently in service, is surprisingly reliable, and most of the Starlink reviews I’ve seen have been impressively positive.

    Personally, I would have waited until Starlink was profitable and performing at scale before offering another service on the network, but that is not Musk’s way. Until now, his big, risky bets have mostly worked out. But he and his companies remain one major mistake away from a crisis. Given the complexity of his companies, it seems almost certain he will eventually hit a nasty wall.

    The service will initially be more capable than Apple’s satellite offering but not true cellular, and it will require the Starlink satellites to be upgraded. Beta of this service is rumored for late 2023, with full service expected within the following year in areas where there is a critical mass of the new satellites. If it doesn’t reach critical mass, T-Mobile and Starlink are in an interesting position to be the first to succeed with a satellite-based smartphone solution.

    AST SpaceMobile

    AST SpaceMobile, which is slated to launch its low earth Satellite in 2023, has partnerships with companies like Vodafone and AT&T providing a strong path for worldwide initial coverage. They will need between 45 and 65 Satellites to get to critical mass which should happen, assuming no major market shifts or the emergence of a better competing technology at scale, before the end of 2025.

    The company is wrapped with 2,400 patents and should be able to provide decent 4/5G coverage once they get to critical mass. The service would be treated much like international travel or on-plane service for areas where there are cellular alternatives, so your phone will work where it currently doesn’t. Or as a primary phone service for those out of cellular coverage areas, like remote land or sea locations.

    It certainly would be an improvement over ship-to-shore and most radio solutions for police and first responders working in areas where there either is no cellular service or where cellular service has been disrupted. Unlike the other two services, AST SpaceMobile’s will be like regular cellular in that it will support both voice and data and not have the limitations of the other two services. But its quality and data throughput will lag terrestrial cellular services indefinitely.

    This service should also work on planes and be superior to what you currently get on an airplane. It will support both voice and data while planes currently just support data (people have been against getting cellular coverage on planes for fear that those using it would drive them crazy with loud constant phone calls).

    Wrapping Up

    With Apple’s announcement last week, we are now in the world of consumer satellite cellular communications and the increasing potential to be able to call for help from anywhere in the world, regardless of where the cell tower is located.

    This could be huge for those that find themselves in trouble or lost in remote areas and provide a level of peace of mind for parents who freak when they cannot locate their kids.

    Apple is just the beginning. Companies like Starlink and T-Mobile promise far better data bandwidth than Apple, and AST SpaceMobile promises a global general purpose 4/5G cellular service incorporating both voice and data in the same general time frame.

    By the second half of this decade, the idea of being out of service may be as obsolete as the need to find a phone booth was back in the 1990s. That, my friends, is something worth looking forward to.

  • Cybersecurity Security Experts Push for Consolidated Standards, Vendor Products

    Cybersecurity Security Experts Push for Consolidated Standards, Vendor Products

    Cybersecurity pros want the computer industry to push for vendor consolidation and open standards.

    This major change in how IT pros safeguard networks is long overdue, according to new research by the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) International and independent industry analyst firm Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), a division of TechTarget.

    The push toward vendor consolidation and open standards is driven by the buyers themselves who are challenged by the increasing complexity, costs, and hype of best-of-breed technology “tool sprawl.”

    Nearly half (46%) of organizations are consolidating or plan on consolidating the number of vendors with whom they do business. Concerned over the growing complexities of security operations, 77% of infosec pros would like to see more industry cooperation and support for open standards promoting interoperability.

    Thousands of cybersecurity technology vendors compete against each other across numerous security product categories. Organizations want to optimize all security technologies in their stack at once.

    Vendors supporting open standards for technology integration will be best positioned to meet this change in the industry, according to the research report.

    “Given that nearly three-fourths (73%) of cybersecurity professionals feel that vendors engage in hype over substance, the vendors that demonstrate a genuine commitment towards supporting open standards will be best positioned to survive the industry-wide consolidation taking place,” said Candy Alexander, board president, ISSA International.

    CISOs have been so overburdened with vendor noise and dealing with security “tool sprawl” that for many a wave of vendor consolidation is like a breath of fresh air, she added.

    Shift to Security Platforms

    ESG conducted the study of 280 cybersecurity professionals, most of whom are ISSA members. The results, released last month, focused on security processes and technologies, and show that 83% of security professionals believe that future technology interoperability depends upon establishing industry standards.

    Details of the report exhibit a cybersecurity landscape that looks favorably toward security product suites (or platforms) as it moves away from a defense-in-depth strategy based on deploying best-of-breed cybersecurity products. That approach is based on historical precedent that has steadily increased organizational complexity and contributed to substantial operations overhead.

    “The report reveals a massive change taking place within the industry, one that for many feels like a long time coming,” said Jon Oltsik, senior principal analyst and ESG fellow.

    “The fact that 36% of organizations might be willing to buy most security technologies from a single vendor speaks volumes to the shift in purchasing behavior as CISOs are openly considering security platforms in lieu of best-of-breed point tools,” he added.

    Why the Jump From Best-of-Breed

    The number of competing security suites has skyrocketed, with many organizations managing 25 or more independent security tools. It follows that security professionals are now balking at the need to juggle so many independent security products to do their jobs.

    Managing an assortment of security products from different vendors has increased training requirements, difficulty getting a holistic picture of security, and the need for manual intervention to fill the gaps between products. As a result, 21% of organizations are consolidating the number of cybersecurity vendors they do business with, and another 25% are considering consolidating.

    “In general, it has gotten too hard to purchase, implement, configure, and operate lots of different tools, let alone the ongoing support relationship with vendors. Consolidation makes management/operations sense,”.

    That ongoing complexity is influencing 53% of cybersecurity pros to purchase security technology platforms rather than best-of-breed products. The study showed 84% of respondents believe that a product’s integration capabilities are important, and 86% see it as either critical or important that best-of-breed products are built for integration with other products.

    Tighter integration between previously disparate security controls rather than best-of purchases are a primary need, according to 60% of IT teams. Improved threat detection efficiency such as accurate high-fidelity alerts and better cyber-risk identification was on the wish list choice for 51%.

    Generalized Government Mandates

    The cybersecurity products cover the basics, noted Oltsik. That includes a range of products for antivirus software, firewalls, some type of identity management system, and endpoint encryption.

    “In many cases, these technologies are mandated by government and industry regulations,” he added. “The biggest influencer in cybersecurity protection is the U.S. federal government that can and has mandated certain standards.

    For example, the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) is a synthesis of interoperable specifications derived from community ideas. The in-process Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) standard demands certain security certifications for DoD vendors.

    “We have also seen standards come out of the industry, like the activity of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and other OASIS standards. Just this week, we saw the introduction of the open cybersecurity framework (OCSF), a standard data schema for security data. There are many identity management standards as well,” he said.

    Seeking Common Security Ground

    After reviewing this data, ESG and ISSA recommend that organizations push their security vendors to adopt open industry standards, possibly in cooperation with industry Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs). Also, there are a few established security standards from MITRE, OASIS, and the Open Cybersecurity Alliance (OCA) available.

    Many vendors speak favorably of open standards, but most do not actively participate or contribute to them. This lukewarm behavior could change quickly, however.

    For that to happen, cybersecurity professionals — especially organizations large enough to send a signal to the market — establish best practices for vendor qualification.

    Also, they need to push for process requirements that include adopting and developing open standards for technology integration as part of the comprehensive process for all security technology procurement, according to the report.

    Hopeful Outcomes

    Cybersecurity standards and vendor consolidation will strengthen the cybersecurity landscape against the constant rise in cyber threats by easing product development and integration. That will let the industry and security teams focus more on innovation and security fundamentals and less on building connectors for interoperability, Oltsik explained.

    He sees a chance of these efforts being supported within the industry.

    “It is starting to look like some industry leaders are cooperating. I would point to OCSF where 18 vendors agreed to support it,” he said.

    This group includes numerous leaders — AWS, CrowdStrike, IBM, Okta, and Splunk for starters. Another potential driver would be the backing of large security technology customers, he added.

    Oltsik concluded, “If Goldman Sachs, GM, Walmart, and the U.S. federal government said they would only buy from vendors supporting OCSF, it would really influence the industry.”

     

  • N200 Billion ICT Bank and Other Strategies to Rescue the Nigerian Telecom Sector

    N200 Billion ICT Bank and Other Strategies to Rescue the Nigerian Telecom Sector

     

    The Nigerian telecommunications sector must have nine lives. No, it is not a cat. It is however almost always in a near constant mortal struggle with the forces that be – read, government and its agents. The fact that it’s still here means that it has somehow managed to survive, remained sustainable and even dared to thrive. It is a phenomenon that ought to be studied. 

     

    Every indicator shows that the telecom sector remains the bright spot in the nation’s weak economy. It drives socio-economic development, boosts productivity and contributes to improving the lives of citizens like no other sector. 

     

    The COVID-19 pandemic impacted negatively on the global economy by precipitating lockdown and economic disruptions with transport, tourism and aviation sectors tumbling. The telecom sector however continued to “buga”. It saw an increase in voice service and massive growth of digital channels for daily routine activities ranging from telecommuting to entertainment and social engagements. The sector witnessed the growth and saw huge profits as financial reports from major operators show. 

     

    The Nigeria Telecom sector is a gift that keeps on giving. It has witnessed strong growth in recent years and is expected to have continued growth over the foreseeable future. The growth in the sector, according to industry watchers, has been driven by the increasing population, growing demand for communication services, and rising adoption of smartphone services. Some experts have pointed to strong support by the regulatory authorities which in recent times has led to the licensing of the 5G network in the country – a feat some have called the first in Africa. 

     

    Investors in telecom operations are smiling at the bank. It is not surprising therefore that everyone wants a piece of the action, even the government. 

     

    It must be stated that the government collects the value-added tax, annual operating levies, licensing fees and duties among others. This is in addition to all the other statutory taxes including PAYE and withholding tax. 

     

    Now, there are reports that the Finance Minister, Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, is actively pushing for another tax, a five per cent excise duty on telecoms services. Most right-thinking Nigerians, including, interestingly, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, have kicked against it. If a recent news report is to be believed, the finance minister is not backing down. 

     

    If the government is keen on milking the telecom sector, it should at least step up on its behalf and help tackle some of the long-standing issues that have held the sector back. 

     

    The challenges are not new. Many of them have plagued the sector since the liberalization of the industry. Industry experts are quick to point out the fact that these challenges are also opportunities when viewed through the right lenses. 

     

    Here are seven of the most pressing challenges, with what I hope are feasible solutions. The government should give it a look-in if doesn’t want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. 

     

    Difficulty in accessing long-term funds for the industry – The government must hasten to establish an ICT Bank. While it should be in the mould of the Agricultural Bank, it should operate like a venture capital entity. So, after due diligence, the ICT Bank will invest in tech starting with a clearly stated exit /pull-out date. I propose an initial take-off grant of N200 billion naira only. 

     

    Right of way – The goal of the right of way policies should not be revenue generation but to facilitate the speedy deployment of telecom infrastructure. In the short term, states can take a leaf from Ekiti State which reduced telecom’s right of way charges by 97 per cent. For the long term, states should install road ducts on a build-and-lease basis. The federal government can set an example here by installing ducts on all new federal roads and leasing to operators based on an agreed realistic billing scheduled for usage. 

     

    Multiple taxations – Again, governments at all levels, need to stop seeing telcos as only cash cows. Efforts must be towards proper harmonization of taxes and levies and so make it uniform across every state and locality. This will undoubtedly aid the planning and deployment of services by operators. 

     

    Energy challenge – Yes, the telcos knew that Nigeria had a power problem when they paid for licenses in 2001. But who could have imagined that the issue will persist unresolved, for this long? Currently, the logistics of ensuring round-the-clock availability of power is a nightmare that keeps whole teams awake many a night. A straightforward solution is the establishment of energy parks to serve critical infrastructure. QED! 

     

    Local content – Some progress has been made here, especially through the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP). To move forward the government and other corporations need to host local content locally. As a corollary, Nigeria must urgently adopt the doctrine of data sovereignty.

     

    Multiple regulations – This is another problem that is almost as old as the industry itself. The NCC has done a lot of work here. Nigeria must explore a converged regulatory regime as the way out. 

     

    Capacity building – Human resources have always been an issue but the recent increase if the rate of migration has made it a mini-crisis. The Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC) and the NCC have their work cut out for them – bridge the gap between academia and industry via curriculum reform involving the industry and internships.

     

    I’ll be the first to admit that these problems and solutions are not exhaustive. The NCC may want to consider calling a stakeholder forum to deliberate on the problems and proffer solutions. The white paper produced can now be the basis of engagement with the government and its relevant agencies. 

     

    For the government, the focus should not be only on sharing the existing telecom cake, but also on helping the industry bake a bigger cake. 

     

     

     

     

     

    Elvis Eromosele, a Corporate Communication professional and public affairs analyst lives in Lagos.
  • Forrester Report Cautions About Web3 Security

    Forrester Report Cautions About Web3 Security

    The next generation web — Web3 — has been hailed as more secure than the current incarnation of cyberspace, but a report released warns that may not be so.

    While Web3 may be difficult to subvert on an infrastructure level, there are other points of attack that may offer threat actors more opportunity for mischief than can be found in the legacy web, according to the report from Forrester, a national technology research company.

    Web3 applications, including NFTs, aren’t just vulnerable to attack; they often present a broader attack surface than conventional applications due to the distributed nature of blockchains, Forrester reported.

    Further, it added, Web3 apps are desirable targets because tokens can be worth substantial sums of money.

    The openness of Web3, which is supposed to be one of its chief benefits, can be a detriment, too. “Code that’s running on a public blockchain is easily accessible, by anybody with the required technical skills, from anywhere in the world — no need to penetrate any corporate defenses in getting to it,” observed Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst Martha Bennett, who is also a co-author of the report.

    “Source code is typically also easily available, as running closed source ‘smart contracts’ is frowned upon. The Web3 ethos is, after all, ‘open code,’”

    Undesirable Complexity

    David Rickard, CTO for North America at Cipher, a division of Prosegur, a multinational security company, explained that Web3 is based on the distributed control of data and identity by its users.

    “That broadens the attack surface to individuals who may be unwilling or simply unable to handle management of their own data and identity, bringing a technical complexity to an arena that desires ‘easy to use’ above anything else,” he told TechNewsWorld.

    “Individuals, going beyond text messaging, email, and scrolling through social media and shopping apps is a real challenge for them,” he added.

    The Web3 idea of making code transparent and publicly available is unlikely to gain real traction, he maintained. “Between capital investors and users of blockchain financial systems and NFTs, there’s too much money at stake,” he said.

    Making code transparent and public can also broaden the attack surface in obvious ways, he continued. “Secure coding practices that predict how one may misuse a system for nefarious gains aren’t that commonly practiced,” he explained. “It’s not easy to predict how people may use systems for purposes other than those intended.”

    “Most financial losses concerning blockchain and NFT exploit not the immutable object itself but manipulate them by exploiting the applications that can impact them,” he said.

    In addition, while legacy systems may be old, they can also be robust. “What is new also tends to be the most insecure,” declared Matt Chiodi, chief trust officer at Cerby, maker of a platform to manage Shadow IT, in San Francisco.

    “While time is not always a friend of security, it does allow an application to become battle tested,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Web3 is no different. It’s new and very much untested. Legacy applications have the benefit of time. Web3 does not.”

    NFT Becoming Popular Target

    Regardless of whether code is visible and accessible, the report noted, attackers will find the weak points. It explained that while it’s tempting to assume that attacks on smart contracts and cryptocurrency wallets are confined to the Wild West of decentralized finance, increasingly, NFT projects have become a favored target.

    “Why go for a more difficult hack if there are easier ways of achieving what you want?” asked Bennett. “Like any other venue where value is traded, [NFT] marketplaces and communications tools attract those who want to steal or otherwise subvert the rules.”

    “In anything to do with Web3, speed is of the essence, and many of those involved don’t have the required expertise even to assess what might be a potential security issue,” she said. “Sometimes, startups don’t even advertise for a head of security until after something bad happened.”

    One of the largest breaches of an NFT marketplace occurred in June at OpenSea, which exposed some 1.8 million email addresses. “That particular case involved an insider threat, but applications handling transactions can be quite vulnerable,” Rickard observed.

    “There may be hundreds of thousands of ways these can be misused that coders have to try to account for, yet a hacker need only discover one vector, one time for a breach to occur,” he said.

    Hangout for Scammers

    Forrester also reported that Discord, a social media network, has become a major weak point in NFT and other public blockchain projects. Successful phishing attacks on Discord are at the root of many, if not most, NFT thefts, it continued.

    It explained that the attacks are typically targeted at community managers and administrators. Once an administrator account has been successfully taken over, attackers have the opportunity to steal on a grand scale, because users tend to trust messages from community administrators.

    Discord was designed primarily to be a communications forum for gamers, not a place to hold and exchange value, Bennett noted, and it does have mechanisms in place to mitigate risk. “But these mechanisms can only help if they’re implemented, and it’s clear that all too often, they’re not,” she said.

    “Also,” she added, “being the favored communications mechanism for token projects, Discord attracts a commensurate share of phishing attacks and scam messages.”

    Rickard maintained that Discord communities provide a rich source of information for scammers, as well as investors. “Harvesting contact information of participants leads to phishing,” he said. “Hacks into digital wallets are not unusual.”

    “Discord bots have been hacked so threat actors can post fake minting offers, resulting in theft of cryptocurrency,” he added.

    Better Security Than Legacy Web?

    In the fast-moving Web3 world, it’s tempting to ignore security in favor of innovating quickly, but public security issues can easily derail a major launch or slow down the product team by forcing them to analyze and mitigate critical security flaws, Forrester’s report noted.

    Firms can identify risks and protect both their Web3 application’s decentralized and centralized components by engaging their security teams — not just in the software development lifecycle — but throughout the product lifecycle, it added.

    “Web3 needs to shift its focus to the left, meaning getting security as close to the developers as possible and making prevention the end goal,” Chiodi observed. “Without this focus, Web3 will end up no differently than Web2. That would be a shame given its tremendous potential, especially around decentralized identity.”

    “The distributed approach of Web3 provides different types a security capabilities, but the fundamental problems remain the same,” added Mark Bower, vice president for product at Anjuna, a confidential computing company, in Palo Alto, Calif.

    “If an attacker gets access to credentials, root-level privilege or keys — particularly private keys that run across the entire ecosystem,” he told TechNewsWorld, “then it’s game over, just as it would be in a centralized platform.”

  • Leveraging Digital Engagement Channels to Help Enhance Tax Compliance, IGR and Nigeria’s Citizen Experience

    Leveraging Digital Engagement Channels to Help Enhance Tax Compliance, IGR and Nigeria’s Citizen Experience

    Nigeria’s thirty-six federating states achieved a 38.5% Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) growth at the national level in the first three months of 2021, compared to the same period in 2020, which shows a clear push by the states to increase their revenues.

    This is according to figures released by Nairametrics, revealed that this growth was led by Lagos, Abuja and Ogun states, which recorded the highest IGR per population in the first half of 2021, as economic activity started to rebound following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The higher IGR recorded by some states is due to the presence of a larger taxable population in those states compared to other states with lower IGR. Therein lies an enormous pool of opportunity to establish a dependable database of taxable citizens, eliminate all sources of revenue leakages, and track revenue generation.

    All these is achievable with the adoption of a centralized citizen data platform underpinned by a multi-channel digital citizen engagement framework.

    According to the cable.ng, Nigeria has 41 million taxpayers but the revenue generation is still low. This should suggest to government that, in order to maintain an upward IGR trajectory, the best way to grow revenue is by engaging with taxable citizens to drive access to easier ways of doing business, while also finding ways to expand the country’s current tax base.

    One of the main generators of State Government’s tax revenues, is through the Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) tax, paid by workers across every state. Further revenue is also generated through taxes on utilities such as water, electricity, and others, as well as through licences and levies related to commercial activities such as the manufacturing and sale of goods.

    Any innovation that facilitates the ease of collecting taxes will grow the State’s IGR positively.

    The Challenge:

    Presently, there is still a huge gap in the drive for collection of taxes, onboarding and engagement of new and existing tax payers. However, with low tax compliance rates recorded in various states, this continues to be a problem that threatens to dampen the government’s efforts to increase IGR through its tax base.

    One of the reasons for Nigeria’s dismal tax compliance is the unstructured base of taxpayers found across its various regions and states. This is due to many workers being employed in the semi-formal & informal sector – such as sub-contractors, artisans, traders, semi-skilled and unskilled labourers – who are not registered on the government’s tax database and do not have a clear tax payment channel.

    To address this, the government must look at how it is currently adding citizens to its tax base, which comes down to citizen engagement. This is one area in which the government has not been particularly successful; failing to convince potential taxpayers of the benefits of paying taxes or engaging current taxpayers on their journey to effectively demonstrate what they gain from paying taxes. Essentially, the government needs to effectively engage with citizens and treat them like customers.

    “Middleman factor”

    Additionally, tax collection is also hampered by the reliance on unstructured data, meaning that the government is often not leveraging the most effective payment systems to collect revenue. In many cases, the “middleman factor” – where fees and levies are collected by the government representatives – results in possible leakage through fraud and corruption.

    Using a multiple digital channel communications (omnichannel) approach to taxpayers (citizens) engagement can be effective in overcoming these challenges, as it would allow the government to identify and segment its tax base into various strata.

    An omnichannel communications framework allows for a 360-degree view of the citizen (or customer), providing insight into their behaviour, needs and preferences, by unifying all messaging with a potential citizen or customer across all available communication channels.

    This would enable the government to roll out a segmented plan to target specific clusters of the population at a time – a more manageable approach than attempting to target the entire private sector at once.

    Furthermore, an omnichannel communications framework would allow the government to not only forge a closer relationship with its citizens, but also to establish richer engagements over the citizens’ preferred channels, creating the overall citizen experience. At the same time, it would enable the government to cut out the middleman in revenue collection by introducing a direct payment system, customer notification, customer validation and a real time accountability structure that would ultimately and positively impact tax revenue.

    Taxpayers from a Citizen-centric approach

    Engaging with citizens is no longer about passing information to them as and when requested. To improve the citizen experience, the government should understand and leverage communication channels that people are comfortable with.

    A citizen-centric approach calls for defining different stages in the citizen experience programme and tailoring the government services and payment systems to be comparable with the private sector structure.

    From experience in providing customer experience in the private sector, much could be gleaned by looking at the standards and pace set by the multi-channel engagement platform adoption in the sector.

    The private sector approach has significantly revolutionized customer engagement to create value along the customer journey at scale and we believe government can adapt this approach to create an improved community engagement with the benefits of data consolidation & improved insights into citizens expectations.

    Importantly, the government should also establish platforms for feedback and complaints that are available on a 24/7 basis.

    Instead of shying away from criticism, the government should provide a fully-fledged multichannel engagement platform for citizens to call, text, chat email & engage on social media platforms while getting live feedback. A multiple digital channel communications framework can improve the experience of citizens across the various clusters of the government tax services.

    The benefits of providing a superior citizen experience for tax payments through a multiple   channel engagement approach includes a renewed public view of the government as anticipatory, responsive, and a model e-government centre that fosters seamless citizens engagement over their preferred communication channel for secure  messaging, verification, & generation of useful insights that informs decisions to launch  impactful futuristic projects.

    Nigeria plays a very important role in the African region, with many trends from its private sector seeing widespread adoption among neighbouring countries.

    Should Nigeria take the required steps to improve its citizens’ experience (especially for tax collection related services) through the adoption of a multichannel omnichannel communications framework, this would likely create a replication of these services in other parts of the region. Additionally, it would also lower the barriers of doing business in Nigeria and attract foreign investment with the potential of employment and growth opportunities.

  • REPORT: Why Fake Social Media Accounts is on the Increase

    REPORT: Why Fake Social Media Accounts is on the Increase

    Fake social media accounts are usually associated with bot networks, but some research released Tuesday revealed many social media users are creating their own fake accounts for a variety of reasons.

    One in three U.S. social media users has multiple accounts on the social media platforms that they use, according to a survey of 1,500 U.S. social media users conducted by USCasinos.com. Of those with multiple accounts, nearly half (48%) have two or more additional accounts.

    Reasons behind creating the additional accounts vary, but the most cited are “to share my thoughts without being judged” (41%) and “to spy on someone else’s profile” (38%).

    Other motives behind creating the fake accounts include “to raise my chances of winning online contests” (13%), “to increase the likes, followers and other metrics on my real account” (5%), to fool others (2.6%) and to scam others (0.4%).

    When asked where they were creating their fake accounts, respondents most often named Twitter (41%), followed by Facebook (31%) and Instagram (28%). “That’s because Twitter is much more open by default,” said Will Duffield, a policy analyst with the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank.

    “Twitter power users will often have multiple accounts — one for mass audiences, others for smaller groups, one that’s default open, one that’s private,” he told TechNewsWorld.

    Infographic describes where U.S. residents create fake social media accounts

    Infographic Credit: USCasinos.com

    Twitter inspired the research by the online casino directory site, noted the study’s co-author Ines Ferreira. “We started this study mainly because of the buzz about the Elon Musk and the Twitter deal,”.

    That deal is currently tied up in the courts and hinges on a dispute between Musk and the Twitter board over the number of fake accounts on the platform.

    Sex Changing Spies

    The kinds of fake accounts in the study, however, are different from those that are flustering Musk. “The survey conflates two quite different issues,” Duffield maintained.

    “On one hand, you have automated accounts — things run by machines and often used for spamming. That’s the kind of fake account that Elon Musk alleges Twitter has too many of,”. “Then there are pseudonymous accounts, which is what’s being surveyed here. They’re operated by users who don’t want to use their real name.”

    The survey also found that when creating fake accounts, most users maintained their same sex (80.9%). The main exception to that practice, the survey noted, is when users want to spy on other accounts. Then they favor creating a fake account of the opposite sex. In general, about one in 10 of the survey participants (13.1%) said they used the opposite sex when creating fake accounts.

    Infographic describes how many fake social media accounts owned

    Infographic Credit: USCasinos.com

    “There are lots of reasons why we don’t want everything we do online to be attached to our real name,” Duffield observed. “And it isn’t necessarily a result of Cancel Culture or something like that.”

    “One of the great things about the internet is that it allows us to compartmentalize identities or try on new personas without committing ourselves to them so we can showcase one aspect of ourselves at a time,” he explained.

    “It’s quite normal for people to use pseudonyms online. If anything, using real names is a more contemporary expectation,” he said.

    Accounts Created With Impunity

    The study also found that a majority of fake account creators (53.3%) like to keep the practice secret from their inner circle of acquaintances. When they do mention their fake accounts, they’re most likely to mention them to friends (29.9%), followed by family (9.9%) and partners (7.7%).

    The researchers also discovered that more than half the owners of fake accounts (53.3%) were millennials, while Gen X’s average three fake accounts and Gen Z’s average two.

    Creators of fake accounts appear to do so with impunity, according to the study. When asked if their fake accounts had ever been reported to the platforms they were created on, 94% of the participants responded in the negative.

    Infographic describes platforms where fake social media accounts have been reported

    Infographic Credit: USCasinos.com

    “Every so often these platforms release new algorithms to report these accounts, but most of them never get reported,” Ferreira said. “There are so many fake accounts, and you can create them so easily, it’s really hard to identify all of them.”

    “After the Elon Musk deal with Twitter, these platforms are going to think a little bit more how they’re going to do it,” she added.

    However, Duffield downplayed the need to police fake accounts by users. “Creating these accounts isn’t against the platform rules so there’s no reason for the platforms to treat them as a problem,” he said.

    “Because these accounts are operated by real people, even though they don’t have real names, they act like real people,” he continued. “They’re messaging one person at a time. They’re taking time to type things out. They have a normal day/night cycle. They aren’t firing off a thousand messages all at once to a 100 different people at all hours of the day.”

    Harmless Fakes?

    Unlike fake accounts created by bots, fake accounts created by users are less harmful to the platforms hosting them, Duffield asserted.

    “There’s a theory that people misbehave more often when they’re using a pseudonymous account or one not linked to their real identity, but from a moderation perspective, banning a pseudonymous account is no different than banning a real person,” he observed.

    “Facebook has had a real name policy, although they’ve gotten a lot of flak for it over the years,” he added. “I would say that it’s deliberately under-enforced at this point.”

    “As long as the pseudonymous account is obeying the rules, it isn’t an issue for the platforms,” he maintained.

    While bot accounts don’t contribute to the business model of a social media platform, fake user accounts do.

    “If the pseudonymous account is being used by a real human being, they’re still seeing ads,” Duffield explained. “It isn’t like a bot clicking on things without any human involved. Regardless of the name on the account, if they’re watching and being served relevant ads, then from a platform standpoint, it’s not really trouble.”

    “The activity shows up in the monthly active user stats, which is what platforms, advertisers and potential purchasers care about,” he continued. “The overall number of accounts is a useless statistic because people abandon accounts constantly.”

    Still, Ferreira argued that any kind of fake account undermines the credibility of a social media platform. “At some point,” she said, “there’s going to be more fake users than real users, so they need to do something about this now.”

     

     

     

  • Nigerians to Enjoy Free Delivery of Quality Medicines by Konga Kares

    Nigerians to Enjoy Free Delivery of Quality Medicines by Konga Kares

    Nigerians can now enjoy free delivery of highly subsidised quality medicines to their preferred locations nationwide  courtesy of   Konga Kares – a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project spearheaded by Konga, Nigeria’s leading composite e-commerce giant in partnership with Med-Direct Community Pharmacy, a tech-driven online retail pharmacy.

    Discounts of up to 12% are on offer for patients on managed health conditions and reliant on routine prescription drugs for diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol, asthma and arthritis, among others, while a 10% discount is available for regular medicines, nutraceuticals or high-performing supplements for people who wish to enhance their health, lifestyle and beauty goals.

    The project, which will be executed via Konga Kares, the CSR arm of the Konga Group, is set to run for an initial 18 months with a pilot phase commencing in Lagos from Monday.

    Also, retired and serving civil servants, military and paramilitary service men/women and their families, lecturers in institutions of higher learning, teachers and those who are above 60 years of age can enjoy an additional incentive of 2% discount off their supply of prescription drugs once they sign up for periodic refills of their prescription medicines.

    The subsidised medicines are available for purchase on Konga.com with same day delivery at no cost in Lagos.

    Other locations are expected to follow suit after the pilot phase in Lagos, with Konga Kares subsidising the cost of free deliveries to the last mile for all orders/prescriptions received. Also, interested shoppers are encouraged to open wallets on KongaPay for ease of payment and confirmation.

    The initiative is aimed at mitigating the harsh effects of the global economic crunch, while also improving access and reducing the cost of quality medicare for Nigerians. In addition, the project has been identified by Med-Direct and Konga Kares as part of efforts to contribute their own little quota to the achievement of one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) identified by the United Nations, specifically Goal 3.4.1 which is aimed at cutting premature death due to chronic (non-communicable) diseases by one third come 2030 in all countries.

    ‘‘We are confident of improving the health and well-being of millions of Nigerians through this partnership with Konga Kares, while also delivering good value for money and reducing the prevalence of fake medicines,’’ disclosed Pharm. Ifeanyi Ogbolu, Head of Retail Operations, Med-Direct Africa.

    ‘‘Interested shoppers can reach out to us via WhatsApp on +234 907 729 9649 for enquiries or to upload their prescriptions and interact with our team of experienced pharmacists for verification before supplies are made. We are also ready to take orders for supplements, lifestyle products and other medications for swift and free delivery to customers nationwide.’’

    Furthermore, he disclosed that the initiative equally presents a fitting opportunity for interested and public-spirited Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora to purchase quality drugs and have same delivered at no cost to friends, families, the less privileged and communities of their choice across Nigeria. Also, he emphasized that local and international donor agencies can leverage the partnership to deliver drugs and other medical supplies in bulk to needy or beneficiary communities or to target groups across Nigeria free of charge.

    Konga Kares has regularly identified with and empowered critical segments of the population in need of a helping hand and other identified target beneficiaries in Nigeria. In addition to delivering exceptional value during the COVID-19 regime by supplying quality food and drugs to thousands of Nigerian families free of charge, Konga Kares is also known to discount prices for essential products to families during the Christian and Moslem fasting and festive periods.

  • The Tech Battle Between the US and China

    The Tech Battle Between the US and China

    The technological arms race between the United States and China has cut across everything from smartphones and cellular equipment to social media and artificial intelligence. But a new battleground is emerging that goes a layer deeper: to the components that power our smartphones, computers, automobiles and home appliances.

    President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed new legislation aimed at boosting the US semiconductor industry, in an attempt to address a long-running computer chip shortage and reduce reliance on other countries, such as China, for manufacturing. Dubbed the CHIPS and Science Act, it provides incentives for domestic semiconductor manufacturing as well as research and development, including more than $50 billion in funding and additional investment in the National Science Foundation, the Department of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
    China has long been a dominant force in tech manufacturing, with companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft relying significantly on the country to make their devices and the parts that comprise them. China has also rapidly gained ground in the semiconductor market, ranking first globally in assembly, packaging and testing and fourth — ahead of the United States — in wafer fabrication, according to a recent analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
    China’s increased focus on its domestic manufacturing is likely a function of US restrictions on some of its biggest semiconductor companies. China’s semiconductor sales grew more than 30% in 2020 to reach nearly $40 billion, according to figures from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), a trade group whose members include IBM (IBM) Intel (INTC), AMD Qualcomm (QCOM) and Nvidia (NVDA).
    But the Covid-19 pandemic caused a global shortfall in chip supply, with matters made worse this year by China’s stringent lockdown which stalled factories and hurt supply chains. Multiple regions are now rethinking their approach to the industry in order to become more self-sufficient and reduce exposure to Chinese manufacturing.
    Why Apple can't quit China

    Why Apple cant quit China
    US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has repeatedly touted the importance of “friend-shoring,” or moving supply chains through US allies such as South Korea and Japan to further insulate the tech industry from China. European legislators, meanwhile, have proposed investments worth tens of billions of dollars over the coming years to boost the continent’s semiconductor industry.
    China, for its part, continues to try to grow its semiconductor industry as part of a five-year plan announced last year.
    “There’s growing global recognition that these are the technologies that will determine who ‘wins’ in the future global economy,” Kenton Thibaut, Resident China Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab in Washington DC, told CNN Business. However, she added, being completely self sufficient in chipmaking is easier said than done because of the layers of technology and specialized expertise involved. “It’s not really possible to gain a top spot in the semiconductor supply chain as a whole.”
    China has become a global hub for electronics manufacturing over the last decade.

    China has become a global hub for electronics manufacturing over the last decade.
    Complicating matters further is Taiwan, the self-governed island off China’s coast that has become a diplomatic and military flashpoint between Washington and Beijing. Tensions around Taiwan which China’s Communist Party views as its own territory despite never having controlled the island, have escalated rapidly after US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit there last week.
    Taiwan is critical to the global semiconductor industry with several of the world’s top manufacturers headquartered there, including Apple suppliers Foxconn and Pegatron. The biggest of those chipmakers, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company or TSMC, accounts for an estimated 90% of the world’s super-advanced computer chips.
    “Nobody can control TSMC by force,” the company’s chairman, Mark Liu, said in a interview. “If you take a military force or invasion, you will render TSMC factory non-operable, because this is such a sophisticated manufacturing facility [that] it depends on the real-time connection with the outside world — with Europe, with Japan, with the US.”

    A push to bolster US production

    TSMC has already committed at least $12 billion to building a semiconductor fabrication plant in Arizona, with production expected to begin in 2024. Another Taiwanese manufacturer, GlobalWafers, recently pledged $5 billion towards building a silicon wafer plant in Texas, and South Korean conglomerates Samsung and SK Group earlier this year put forth plans to spend tens of billions of dollars to grow their US tech manufacturing presence.
    TSMC’s investment predates the CHIPS and Science Act, but the legislation is likely to spur more companies to bring factories to the United States, according to Zachary Collier, an assistant professor of management at Virginia’s Radford University who specializes in risk analysis.
    Here's what's in the bipartisan semiconductor chip manufacturing package

    Here is What is in the bipartisan Semiconductor Chip Manufacturing Package
    “It’s a very capital-intensive process to build a big manufacturing facility like this and anything that offsets some of those costs very much incentivizes the companies to bring those things onshore,” he said. The legislation earmarks nearly $53 billion over the next five years to expand US semiconductor manufacturing, including $1.5 billion for telecommunications companies that compete with Chinese firms such as Huawei. Companies that invest in semiconductor manufacturing will also get a 25% tax credit.
    Even beyond the short-term incentives, companies may be keen to establish a US manufacturing presence because of the country’s relative stability, security, highly educated working class and, perhaps most importantly, sheer demand. Collier estimates that the United States accounts for a quarter of global semiconductor demand but only 12% of manufacturing. And TSMC says North America, broadly, accounts for 65% of its revenue, with China and Japan accounting for 10% and 5%, respectively.
    Companies “would try to rush in and satisfy that demand,” Collier said. But replacing China overnight — or perhaps at all — will not be easy.
    “Right now China has an advantage in that it has a concerted strategy around pitching its technologies and supplying critical infrastructure to countries that need them,” said Thibaut. “The US and other democracies need to also develop a strategy around tech that does not just focus on competing with China, but is also proactive in providing real solutions to real needs.”
    No matter how much countries try to shore up their local manufacturing bases, it will likely be virtually impossible to decouple from the global supply chain, particularly for products as integral and intricate as semiconductors. The design, fabrication, manufacturing and even raw materials for chips are distributed across several different countries and regions.
    “It’s really a huge web,” said Collier, adding that no matter how much countries try to localize production, a degree of interdependence is inevitable. “It’s global, one way or the other.”
  • Tech Survey: More Teens Say They Use The Internet Regularly

    Tech Survey: More Teens Say They Use The Internet Regularly

    New York (CNN Business)Nearly half of US teens say they use the internet “almost constantly,” according to a new survey released on Wednesday.

    The survey of 1,316 teenagers delved into the technology habits of teens and was conducted by the Pew Research Center.
    The percentage of teens who reported a near constant level of online presence was markedly up from a 2015 Pew survey in which only about a quarter of teens reported that level of internet use.
    The survey found that the social media platforms most frequently used by teens are changing as well, with video-focused platforms like YouTube and TikTok leading in popularity.
    Facebook is no longer such a dominant force in the lives of American teens, according to the new survey. Only 32% of US teens ages 13 to 17 say they now use Facebook. That’s down from the 71% of teens who said they used Facebook in a Pew survey conducted between 2014 and 2015.
    Once the most popular social media platform for younger users by a long shot, Facebook has now been surpassed by YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, according to Pew.
    YouTube, in particular, was used by 95% of teens, according to the survey, with nearly 20% reporting near constant use of the platform, making it the most popular social network, followed by TikTok. Of teens who used TikTok, nearly a quarter reported near constant use.
    In recent years, Facebook and Instagram have taken steps to beat back competition from newer platforms. (Notably, teens were nearly twice as likely to be Instagram users than to be Facebook users.) Both platforms released features that replicate Snapchat’s signature Stories feature, which lets users post content that disappears after 24 hours. Instagram also introduced a short-form video option called Reels to compete with TikTok.
    In some cases, however, those efforts have created new headaches for the company. Many Instagram users, including celebrities Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, recently criticized some of Instagram’s updates for making the platform too much like TikTok. Instagram has since walked back some of its changes.
    Meta (META FB), the parent company of both Facebook and Instagram, did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
    Meta has also come under scrutiny for the impact its services have on younger users, particularly teen girls, in the wake of leaks last year from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.
    While teen usage of Facebook may have waned, this age group only seems to be more online.
    In total, 97% of those surveyed said they use the internet daily, up from 92% of teens who said they used the internet daily in the 2015 report.
  • The Metaverse Future: Are You Ready To Become a god?

    The Metaverse Future: Are You Ready To Become a god?

    While the metaverse on the consumer side is industrial use, outside of gaming which has effectively consisted of metaverse instances for years, Nvidia at Siggraph will be talking about its leadership in integrating AI into the technology, the creation and application of digital twins, and successes at major new robotic factories like the one BMW has created with the help of Siemens.

    But what I find even more interesting is that as metaverse tools like Nvidia’s Omniverse become more consumer friendly, the ability to use AI and human digital twins will enable us to create our own worlds where we dictate the rules and where our AI-driven digital twins will emulate real people and animals.

    At that point, I expect we’ll need to learn what it means to be gods of the worlds we create, and I doubt we are anywhere near ready, both in terms of the addictive nature of such products and how to create these metaverse virtual worlds in ways that can become the basis for our own digital immortality.

    Let’s explore the capabilities of the metaverse this week, then we’ll close with my product of the week: the Microsoft Surface Duo 2.

    Siggraph and the AI-Driven Metaverse

    If you’ve participated in a multiplayer video game like Warcraft you’ve experienced a rudimentary form of the metaverse. You also discovered that objects that do things in the real world — like doors and windows that open, leaves that move with the wind, and people who behave like people — don’t yet exist.

    With the introduction of digital twins and physics through tools like Nvidia’s Omniverse, this is changing so that simulations that depend on reality, like those developing autonomous cars and robots, work accurately and assure that potential accidents are reduced without putting humans or real animals at risk because those accidents happen initially in a virtual world.

    At Siggraph, Nvidia will be talking about the current capabilities of the metaverse and its near-term future where, for a time, the money and the greatest capabilities will be tied to industrial, not entertainment, use.

    For that purpose, the need to make an observer feel like they’re in a real world is, outside of simulations intended to train people, substantially reduced. But training humans is a goal of the simulations, as well, and the creation of human digital twins will be a critical step to our ability to use future AIs to take over an increasing amount of the repetitive and annoying part of our workloads.

    It is my belief that the next big breakthrough in human productivity will be the ability of regular people to create digital twins of themselves which can do an increasing number of tasks autonomously. Auto-Fill is a very rudimentary early milestone on this path that will eventually allow us to create virtual clones of ourselves that can cover for us or even expand our reach significantly.

    Nvidia is on the cutting edge of this technology. For anyone wanting to know what the metaverse is capable of today, attending the Siggraph keynote virtually should be on your critical to-do list.

    But if we project 20 or so years into the future, given the massive speed of development in this space, our ability to immerse ourselves in the virtual world will increase, as will our ability to create these existences. Worlds where physics as we know it is not only optional, but where we can choose to put ourselves into “god mode” and walk through virtual worlds as the ultimate rulers of the virtual spaces we create.

    Immersion Is Critical

    While we will have intermediate steps using prosthetics that use more advanced forms of haptics to attempt to make us feel like we are immersed in these virtual worlds, it is efforts like Elon Musk’s to create better man-machine interfaces that will make the real difference.

    By connecting directly into the brain, we should be able to create experiences that are indistinguishable from the real world and place us in these alternative realities far more realistically.

    Yet, as we gain the ability to create these worlds ourselves, altering these connections to provide greater reality (experiencing pain in battles, for instance) will be optional, allowing us to walk through encounters as if we were super powered.

    Human Digital Twins

    One of the biggest problems with video games is that the NPCs, no matter how good the graphics are, tend to use very limited scripts. They don’t learn, they don’t change, and they are barely more capable than the animatronics at Disneyland.

    But with the creation of human digital twins, we will gain the ability to populate the worlds we create with far more realistic citizens.

    Imagine being able to license the digital twin you create to present to others and use in the companies or games they create. These NPCs will be based on real people, will have more realistic reactions to changes, will be potentially able to learn and evolve, and won’t be tied to your gender or even your physical form.

    How about a talking dragon based on your digital twin for instance? You could even populate the metaverse world you create with huge numbers of clones that have been altered to look like a diverse population, including animals.

    Practical applications will include everything from virtual classrooms with virtual teachers, to police and military training with virtual partners against virtual criminals — all based on real people, providing the ability to train with an unlimited number of realistic scenarios.

    For example, for a police officer, one of the most difficult things to train for is domestic disturbance. These confrontations can go sideways in all sorts of ways. I know of many instances where the police officer stepped in to protect an abused spouse and then got clocked by that same spouse who decided suddenly to defend her husband from the officer.

    Today I read a story about a rookie who approached a legally armed civilian who was on his own property. The officer was nearly shot because he attempted to draw on the civilian who hadn’t broken any laws. That civilian was fully prepared to kill the officer had that happened. The officer was fired for this but could have died.

    Being able to train in situations like this virtually can help assure the safety of both the civilian and the officer.

    Wrapping Up: God Mode

    Anyone who has ever played a game in god mode knows that it really destroys a lot of the value of the game. Yes, you can burn through the game in a fraction of the time, but it is kind of like buying a book and then reading a comprehensive summary with spoilers. Much of the fun of a game is figuring out the puzzles and working through the challenges.

    “Westworld” explored what might happen if the virtual people, who were created to emulate humans, figured out they were abused. To be realistic, these creations would need to emulate pain, suffering and the full gambit of emotions, and it is certainly a remote possibility that they might overcome their programing.

    However, another possibility is that people fully immersed in god mode may not be able to differentiate between what they can do in a virtual world and a real one. That could result in some nasty behaviors in the real world.

    I do think we’ll find there will be a clear delineation between people who want to create viable worlds and treat those worlds beneficially, and those that want to create worlds that allow them to explore their twisted fantasies and secret desires.

    This might be a way to determine if someone has the right personality to be a leader, because abusing power will be so easy to do in a virtual world, and a tendency to abuse power should be a huge red flag for anyone moving into management.

    We are likely still decades away from this capability but we should begin to think about the limitations of using this technology for entertainment so we don’t create a critical mass of people who view others no differently than the virtual people they abuse in the twisted worlds they will create.

    What kind of metaverse god will you be?

    .

  • Why The World Is Not Yet Ready for Electric Cars

    Why The World Is Not Yet Ready for Electric Cars

    A TED Talk by Graham Conway, principal engineer at Southwest Research Institute, asserts that electric vehicles are less green than ICE cars and it is well argued. While I don’t agree with all of Conway’s metrics, the point he makes is valid, which is that the things we need to do to truly make an electric vehicle green have not been done yet.

    We are nowhere near the maximum potential for the electric car. Conway contends that for the next two or three decades, the hybrid approach might be better — at least until we can fix the parts of the ecosystem that are making electric vehicles less green.

    Meanwhile, we should continue to explore alternatives like green hydrogen; a process where hydrogen is produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity. With that, we might end up in a better place faster than if we continue our huge push to convert to electric vehicles.

    This week let’s talk about what’s really involved with switching to electric cars. Then we’ll close with my product of the week, a laptop from Vaio that showcases just how much you can get for under $700 — at least for now.

    I’m Not Anti-Electric

    Let me start by pointing out that I drive an EV and have since 2019 when I leased one of the very first Jaguar I-Pace electric cars coming into the U.S.

    Last year I bought that car from the leasing company because I couldn’t find anything I liked better, and the lease buyout was around a grand less than what I could sell the car for. Seemed like a good deal.

    I’ve been covering electric cars since the late 1990s when I was the lead U.S. battery analyst on top of several other titles. So, I love electric cars, but I also know their shortcomings and there are still several.

    Electric Car Shortcomings

    As Conway pointed out, electric cars can be run in a closed room indefinitely without killing us and are certainly greener to operate. However, they have three big weaknesses.

    The first is that due to a near total collapse of battery development in the early 1900s, battery technology is not where it otherwise would be.

    Lithium Ion has one third the energy density of dynamite, the normal configuration is in small AA battery-like cells that are difficult to cool, and should the battery catch fire, it is wicked hard to put it out. I know this firsthand because I had a bicycle Lithium-Ion battery catch fire in my garage and even though I trained as a fireman and was home, I nearly lost the house.

    Lithium Ion burns hot enough to melt aluminum and it will keep igniting as long as the cells contain enough energy to generate the heat needed to combust. That’s why we have reports of crashed Teslas catching fire again in wrecking yards.

    Further, as Conway mentioned, building these batteries is far from a green process and the substance is a pollutant, meaning the batteries must be recycled to prevent ground water contamination.

    The second weakness is that largely to cryptocurrency miners, the world doesn’t have any electrical power headroom and the peak generating capacity of electricity grids too often comes from old, dirty, and nearly obsolete generating facilities.

    Electric cars pull a considerable amount of electricity, and we don’t have the headroom in our grids yet to supply it. Cars are typically charged at night when renewables like wind and solar either are unreliable (wind) or non-existent (solar). So, even if you have a solar plant on your roof, if you are grid connected (not using batteries for nighttime power), and you change your electricity at night, you may be pulling from a power source that is anything but green.

    Third and finally, we don’t have enough neighborhood electrical capacity to handle a huge influx of electric cars. Last I checked, if you get more than three cars charging at once in one block of houses, there is a good chance your local transformer will grenade — and they really do go boom when they go up.

    I looked at getting a Level 3 charger for my own electric vehicle, and it would have cost me more than the car cost. I’d have to not only pull larger wires and more of them (going from L-2- to L-3 phase), but I’d need to pay to replace the local transformer and massively increase my home service level.

    Now with solid state batteries (which are coming), an expansion of green power sources (particularly nuclear or geothermal which can operate at night), and the expansion of micro-grid technologies (providing smaller green generators that are distributed), we could turn electric cars en masse into a tremendous force to work against climate change. But we aren’t there yet.

    This isn’t a list of requirements you can pick and choose from. You need all three elements to make electric cars truly green: green energy storage, enough green energy generation, and a much more capable grid to distribute that energy reliably, inexpensively, and safely. All of that is coming, just not all of it this decade.

    Other Problems We Aren’t Talking About

    The big one is what do we do with the existing gasoline drilling, refining and distribution systems? The oil industry employs roughly 6 million people directly and 10 times that many jobs are created indirectly.

    The refineries, gas and oil pipelines, storage tanks and gas stations are all potentially hazardous materials problems depending on how much oil and gas has leaked out over the years. Even if the answer is zero, the equipment would need to be safely cleaned and then scrapped.

    Industries that depend on oil production ranging from plastics to inexpensive medications (petroleum jelly) and some solvents would largely collapse without oil production, and the resulting economic collapse of an industry (what happens to all the oil platforms and oil drilling rigs?) could leave future ecological time bombs once the firms that own them go under.

    Plans on what to do with these related industries should be cooked and under implementation before the car and truck industry pivots to electricity to avoid what could be huge labor and ecological problems.

    Plug-In Hybrids: The Short-Term Answer

    As the TED Talk also pointed out, you can gain much of the same benefits of an electric car with a plug-in hybrid.

    My wife drives a Volvo XC60 rechargeable plug-in hybrid. Coming up on a year and a half with the car, we are on our third or fourth tank of gas (largely connected to drives that exceed its electrical range). It uses a far smaller and safer battery.

    The Volvo XC60 also generally only requires the included Level 1 battery charger that plugs into a regular house electrical plug, as opposed to Level 2 chargers which require a two-phase hookup and a plug more like what an electric clothes dryer uses. Her car will work with my Level 2 charger, and it does charge faster but not enough, in my opinion, to make a Level 2 charger worthwhile.

    Oh, and I should point out that while her car has a 20-mile electricity range, the latest version of her car doubles that to 40 miles, which is more ideal while keeping the battery size down to something far smaller and greener than a full-on electric car.

    Wrapping Up

    While I’m an electric car fan because they’re a ton of fun to drive and passing gas stations is surprisingly pleasurable, the electric car ecosystem isn’t where it yet needs to be to gain the full benefits of going electric.

    We need better, safer, more reliable, and greener battery technology. More green energy is needed to charge the cars, and we need a far more robust and powerful grid to handle the added load (cryptocurrency mining, which has dropped off as of late, has arguably helped push for a more powerful grid). We also need a plan to step away from oil more painlessly. Otherwise, the transition will be avoidably much uglier than anticipated. If we go to electric cars before all these elements are in place, not only will the result minimize the positive impact on climate change that electrics would otherwise provide, but they’ll create a host of other environmental and social problems we are unprepared to deal with. Sometimes it is better not to rush into a new technology and instead be more measured in our approach. This is why, for now, a hybrid car may be the more sustainable choice over electric vehicles until we can solve the other aspects of the conversion process to EVs.

  • Effective Collaboration: A New Approach To Tackling Insecurity

    Effective Collaboration: A New Approach To Tackling Insecurity

    The twenty-first century has ushered in a period of ease and convenience for many nations. Advances in commerce, better means of transportation, healthcare, and the rise of information communication technology (ICT) have proven to be very useful in today’s world.

    With the advent of digital technology, every aspect of life has been transformed. The digital transformation of the economy has led to the creation of new business models, new products and services, and new ways of doing business. However, as technology has advanced, so have crime and insecurity, with Nigeria ranking as the 8th least peaceful place in Africa, according to the 2021 Global Peace Index (GPI).

    The rising incidence of insecurity in Nigeria has deepened poverty and increased economic inequalities. Amid the insurgency of Boko Haram and bandits, the threats of cybercriminals grow undeniably in cyberspace.

    Security is a growth driver wherever you look – be it in the private sector or the public domain. An absence of security breeds chaos. In the past, security and access solutions took the form of classic mechanical lock and key systems.

    Now, advancing digital technology is influencing these classic systems, including cyberspace, acting as a double-edged sword. While one side cuts, the other mends. It is not surprising therefore that many of the arrays of new digital technologies that are emerging are equally the greatest threats especially as it pertains to cybersecurity.

    Some experts believe that to mitigate the impact of physical insecurity and curb the threats of cybercriminals, effective inter-agency collaboration is a necessity. This was part of the submissions of the Pan African Digital Initiative Summit and Expo (P.A.D.I.S.E) hosted by Tech TV, themed: ‘Leveraging the Right Policies and Technologies in Taming Insecurity and Cyber Threats’.

    The two-day conference featured several industry experts, including Engineer Ikechukwu Nnamani, President, Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) and CEO of Medallion Technologies, Peter Ejiofor, CEO Ethnos IT Solutions, Dr. Victoria Ekhomu, CEO, Transworld security systems, Dr. Krishnan Ranganath, CTO, Africa Data Centres, Shehu Ibrahim, DG, Bureau for ICT, Nasarawa State, Bayo Abiodun, Managing Editor, Africa Telecom and IT News, Engineer Austine Nwanoli, from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), SP Benjamin Hundeyin, from the Lagos State Nigerian Police Force (NPF) and Don Pedro Aganbi, Tech TV founder, veteran tech journalist and Convener of the summit.

    The Director General for the Bureau of ICT, Nasarawa State, Mr. Shehu Ibrahim, stated that the correct implementation of technology can solve many of the insecurity issues affecting the country today. He said: “Technology holds the promise of significant social and economic benefits, increased efficiency, and enhanced productivity across a host of sectors, both private and public. The truth is that while many of these new technologies are easy to access and use, most of them are inherently vulnerable to exploitation and disruption from both near and far. This is the real issue today.”

    “The challenges are numerous and growing. Unfortunately, the very technology that is meant to improve the digital economy is the very ones that cybercriminals now use to gain access to perform nefarious activities. In considering how to leverage the right policies and technologies in taming insecurity and cyber-threats, effective collaboration between tech and security organisations is essential, to protect individuals” he added.

    Engineer Ikechukwu Nnamani, President, ATCON & CEO of Medallion Technologies, emphasized the need for accurate data gathering and cooperation with regulatory bodies. He said: “Nigeria is a nation that needs accurate data for research and record purposes. For us to safeguard the country from various risks, including cybercrime, cyber-attacks, and ransomware, we need accurate data. We need to have data to make the right decisions, we need to be able to identify vulnerabilities in online systems so that we can fix them.”

    “In the physical world, data is also important. Imagine having accurate data on the total amount of networks, GPS, internet service providers and cell towers in the country. So many positives can be achieved from this. A quick example will be to pinpoint locations to intercept criminals.

    Asides from this, cooperation is needed between mobile network services and law enforcement to apprehend these individuals,” he remarked.

    Regarding the economy, Engineer Ikechukwu noted that the world is gearing towards digitisation and Nigeria needs to grow in these aspects so that it is not left behind. “Data is the lifeblood of the digital economy. It’s used to create new products and services, make decisions as regards security, and much more.”

    Speaking in the same vein, Benjamin Hundeyin SP, a police officer from the Lagos State Police Force, stated that the police rely on a couple of measures to protect citizens from risks and enhance national security. “The NPF has collaborated with the West African Police Information System (WAPIS) to begin data collation of all nefarious individuals across the West African region. The NPF Force HQ has a Technical Intelligence Unit (T.I.U) to combat cybercrime and physical threats to Nigerians.”

    “We are improving on the response time of our security personnel, to protect our citizens, from physical attacks, which is part of our sole duties. However, we are facing several challenges, which include a lack of funding, lack of security gear, lack of improved gadgets and the growing number of non-state armed groups (NSAG) are exacerbating conflicts and insecurities,” he added.

    “But I believe that effective inter-agency collaboration can curb the rising spate of insecurity. We have collaborated with the Nigerian Army Cyberwarfare command, which sends us classified intel, which assists us in curbing cybercrime. We have some initiatives, such as the Police Trust Fund, and the Rescue Me App to assist the populace with security issues. We also collaborate with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and other security agencies to rescue kidnapped individuals and prevent threats from happening in the country. We are not there yet, but we are making progress,” Benjamin said.

    “Despite government efforts, the security situation in Nigeria is deteriorating. Indeed, the lingering conflict between herders and farmers in north-central Nigeria has been a cause for serious concern,” said Dr. Victoria Ekhomu, CEO, Transworld security systems. “Co-operation and collaboration are pertinent if we are to win the war against insecurity,” she added.

    Engineer Austine Nwanoli, from the NCC, on his part, spoke about the need for implementing policies while taking key learnings from Interpol’s 2021 Africa Cyber Threat Assessment Report.

    Engineer Austine noted that: “We cannot deny the potential of cyber terrorism and insecurity in Africa because more and more infrastructures are becoming technology driven and particularly Internet-driven. It is unfortunate that while digitalisation has contributed immensely to human advancement, the world still must deal with cyber terrorism. It is more and more evident that unlawful activities such as the dissemination of fake news and ideas are being perpetrated with the aid of smart devices, and computer systems.”

    “NCC as the independent communications sector regulator has been playing a great role in supporting efforts and implementing initiatives that ensure the integrity of the country’s cyberspace,” he concluded.

    Other panelists on the second day of the event, reiterated similar opinions on tackling insecurity.

    Increasingly, national security agencies have begun to recognise that true security cannot be achieved without effective collaboration.

    No matter the new conceptions of security formulated, the important thing to note is that achieving complete security requires a great deal of contextual information and effective collaboration.

    It is time for Nigeria to take action to limit the risks that come with emerging technologies. It is time for Nigeria to prioritise securing her physical and digital space, to put in place policies to enable true security and by that secure Africa.

    Effective collaboration between agencies and the populace will undoubtedly reduce the scourge of insecurity.

     

    Reginald Onabu, a scientist and upcoming public relations practitioner writes from Lagos.

     

  • Here Are The Four Industries on The Brink of Tech Disruption

    Here Are The Four Industries on The Brink of Tech Disruption

    One of the stories told in management classes as an example of a recurring mistake companies make when their industry is transitioning focuses on buggy makers at the turn of the last century.

    Those that figured out they were in the personal transportation business pivoted to cars. Most of the others that thought they were only in the buggy business became extinct because their market moved to cars, and they didn’t.

    Seems obvious after the fact, but clearly at the time it didn’t seem obvious at all because most buggy makers and those that sold horses and did blacksmithing went out of business.

    In the case of autonomous cars, we are looking at moving from car ownership to a service like Uber that will provide a car just when we need it.

    But, going further, initially with services like Zoom and eventually with the metaverse extending the concept of holoportation — coupled with drone delivery and the pandemic — will we even need cars as much, or at all, in the future?

    Holoportation, or the use of avatars to travel virtually, is not considered personal transportation today. But if it is successful, it could eliminate most personal transportation in the future, and in turn put existing car makers in the same category as those buggy makers were a century ago.

    Should holoportation be considered part of the transportation industry, or should existing personal transportation be considered part of old school collaboration, social networking, and shopping?

    Let’s talk about a some of these big coming technology disruptions. Then we’ll close with my product of the week, a head-mounted display from TCL called the Nxtwear Air that could become this year’s must-have gadget.

    Personal Transportation

    Before the pandemic, personal transportation was mostly focused on cars with air transport, human powered transport, and even motorcycles largely falling into different classes. But with the increased use of video conferencing and collaboration products like Zoom, Teams, and Webex, the need for business travel has taken a significant hit.

    Among the cool stuff at CES this year, Portl and La Vitre demonstrated a way to visit family and friends virtually, while a solution from ARHT Media called Holopresence showed how you can speak at any remote event without ever leaving your home, yet appear to actually be there.

    While we are currently still habit-bound to travel, the pandemic is forcing us to reconsider our safety and aggressively consider not traveling. We don’t really need to go to the store anymore as delivery options have expanded. Because of Covid, our doctors increasingly meet with us remotely, and we’ve been able to use services like Amazon and eBay to get around our need to go to malls and department stores.

    When cars become truly autonomous, why will we need to own one for the few times we have to leave our homes? Just contact the car service and an automated vehicle will appear at your door and function pretty much like an elevator in a high rise. You don’t need to own an elevator, so why would you need to own a car?

    At CES, a lot of the car designs looked more like rolling living rooms than cars, and several of them were rather ugly. But so are elevators, and we don’t seem to mind that much what they look like any more than we used to care about those old yellow cabs or buses.

    Plus, we haven’t even begun to talk about flying cars and people-carrying drones, both of which are advancing very quickly. Once vehicles are autonomous, we won’t need professional drivers or driver’s licenses because humans won’t be driving.

    Film and Television

    In video games, we have a concept called NPC, which is a non-player character that follows a set script. But isn’t that what actors and extras do? Soon, it might be far easier to program an NPC to appear in a movie and convert a script to a realistic representation of the character far easier, and far less expensively than hiring a person.

    Actors can get sick, they can have behavioral issues, they can get into trouble off screen resulting in their termination, and they get more expensive every subsequent time you use them. Movies today are largely filmed with computer graphics anyway and it is much easier for a rendered character to operate on a virtual stage than it is for a human.

    Now, it isn’t just the acting. Script writing can now be done using AI. You don’t need catering or recruitment for virtual players, and with a digital movie-making engine, you can more easily rewrite the script and digitally reshoot the scene when fine tuning the result with digital characters than with humans.

    Studios like Dust are already creating relatively high-quality content using far cheaper digital tools, and an increasing number of movies today use rendered people as extras for scenes that previously would have required humans in those roles.

    So, do we replace directors, writers, actors, extras, camera people, and all the rest of the movie staff with a few programmers and advanced artificial intelligence? The result is still a movie — and services like Netflix and Amazon have a never-ending appetite for content today. It seems to me like video game studios might well displace movie studios before this trend is over.

    Farming

    Traditional farming methods are becoming largely obsolete due to climate change. We are moving to warehouse farms which produce more food in much less space and can exist a lot closer to customers located in cities.

    Farms such as these are increasingly tended by robots and autonomous equipment to reduce cost and contamination and operate at a scale that traditional farms generally can’t match.

    In addition, for ranchers, we are developing healthier, tasty alternatives to beef, chicken, and other animal protein sources.

    These changes should be not only more reliable during times of rapid weather change, but also potentially more beneficial for the environment because you don’t need to clear rain forests and you no longer need to eat other animals. Some of the animals we eat are huge producers of methane gas which contribute significantly to climate change.

    Does this mean farming will become like manufacturing, particularly when we start 3D printing food? The farm of the future could simply be another factory.

    Manufacturing

    Warehouses and factories are changing with the increased use of robots and reduced need for human workers. Factories effectively evolve into huge 3D printers that can produce both cookie cutter products at volume, and far less expensive custom offerings thanks to increased automation.

    Are factories still factories once they are fully automated? Or are they just huge appliances that 3D print the products we want on-demand and ship them using the increasing variety of autonomous vehicles and package-carrying drones?

    Fully automated 3D printing factories should have fewer shutdowns, be less impacted by inflation slowing their growth, and be more able to meet transitory demand using a just-in-time manufacturing model. Also, because these automated factories will use 3D printing as part of their process, they can be smaller, more localized, and probably more resistant to logistics disruption.

    Wrapping Up: Tip of the Iceberg

    I could go on for pages about the massive disruption of electrics replacing internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, personal robots, military drones (we may not need military pilots or drivers in a few years), fast food robots turning fast food restaurants into large food vending machines, and satellite-based data and voice services — and we already have advanced coffee vending machines that make a better cup of coffee than Starbucks.

    Is personal transportation actually personal, or is it becoming part of the communications market? Are restaurants, factories and 3D printers merging to become part of the technology market? Are movies and video games going to merge and provide different experiences but use the same creation tools and back-end. If so, what do we call the result?

    PCs and smartphones are merging at a rapid pace, but is the result an enhanced smartphone or a more portable PC? These are all things that will be addressed in the next decade and those companies that figure out what new segment they are in will likely survive. Those that don’t anticipate these changes and evolve with the times probably won’t.

    But one thing is for sure, this decade is going to be known for both an unprecedented amount of change and a lot of companies and people suddenly discovering that the road they were on dead-ended. You’ve been warned.

     

  • 20 African Countries With The Most Expensive Prices of Mobile Data

    20 African Countries With The Most Expensive Prices of Mobile Data

    • This list is courtesy of Statista, as we relied on data provided by the research firm and dated December 2021.

    Earlier, we reported about the agitation by Nigerian telecom operators to increase the prices of the services, a development that was met with uproar across the country. Just in case you missed that, the telcos wrote the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to demand an upward review of the prices of data, call and SMS; citing higher cost of doing business. Needless to say that Nigerians weren’t too pleased with the demand.

    The development piqued our curiosity to find out how much people in other parts of Africa are paying for telecom services.

    We particularly sought to find out whether Nigeria is among the most expensive countries in Africa to buy mobile data. Well, as it turns out, the country currently has one of the cheapest prices of mobile data on the continent.

    Some interesting facts

    According to Statista, about 480 million Africans currently have access to mobile internet. These are 480 million people who must buy data either on a daily, weekly or monthly basis in order to remain connected to the world wide web. Interestingly, these people do not all pay the same prices for the service, as you will see shortly.

    It should be noted that African countries generally have some of the most expensive costs of mobile data in the world. The aforementioned source (i.e., Statista) explained that the high cost is due to various factors, including unavailability of infrastructure and high taxation in the African telecom industry.

    20 African countries with the most expensive prices of mobile data

    That said, we shall now focus on the 20 African countries with the most expensive average prices of mobile data. The list is based on a stats from Statista dated December 2021. See the list below.

    1. Equatorial Guinea: This country currently has the most expensive price of mobile data, with one gigabyte costing as much as $49.67.
    2. Sao Tome and Principe: Here, one gigabyte data would cost you $30.97.
    3. Malawi: Malawians pay the third most expensive price of mobile data in Africa at $25.46 per gigabyte.
    4. Chad: This Sahelian African country has the fourth most expensive price of mobile data at $23.33.
    5. Namibia: People in Namibia spend an average of $22.37 to buy one gigabyte data.
    6. Central African Republic: In CAR, the average price for one gigabyte data is $9.03.
    7. Seychelles: This island African country comes in at number seven with an average price of $8.64 per gigabyte data.
    8. Gambia: The average price for one gigabyte data in Gambia is $5.86.
    9. Mauritania: The average price for one gigabyte data is in this West African country is $5.56.
    10. Madagascar: In this country, the average price for one gigabyte data is $5:14.
    11. Gabon: The average price for one gigabyte data in Gabon is $4.82.
    12. Cape Verde: Here, the average price for one gigabyte data is $4.78.
    13. Togo: Togolese spend an average of $4.69 to buy one gigabyte data.
    14. Burkina Faso: Here, the average price for one gigabyte data is $4.52.
    15. Guinea-Bissau: The average price for one gigabyte data in this country is $4.41.
    16. Botswana: Botswanans spend an average of $3.92 for one gigabyte data.
    17. Benin: People in Benin Republic spend an average of $3.61 for one gigabyte data.
    18. Mali: In this country, the average price of one gigabyte data is $3.28.
    19. Sierra Leone: Here, the average price for one gigabyte data is $3.26.
    20. Comoros: Here, the average price for one gigabyte data is $3.21.

    BONUS: The average price for one gigabyte data in Nigeria is $0.88.

    source – businessinsider

     

  • African Countries with the Most Expensive Petrol Prices in 2022

    African Countries with the Most Expensive Petrol Prices in 2022

    • Seychelles has the most expensive fuel in Africa at $7.213 per gallon of petrol.
    • Conversely, Libya has the cheapest fuel in Africa at $0.118 per gallon of petrol.
    • Generally, richer countries have higher prices while countries that produce and export oil have significantly lower prices.

    The cost of a gallon of petrol has soared worldwide, and Africans are not the only ones to experience pain at the pumps due to the Russian invasion. The average price of gasoline around the world is $5.51 per gallon. However, there is a substantial difference in prices among countries due to the various taxes and subsidy policies for petrol.

    While people living in Africa may think they have it bad, the price of a gallon of petrol in Europe has gone crazy, forcing many countries to bring in radical policies to stifle the price rise.

    Using data from globalpetrolprices.com, here are the ten African nations with the most expensive gallon of petrol as of June 2022.

    1. Seychelles – $7.213
    2. Cape Verde – $6.892
    3. Morocco – 6.328
    4. Mauritius – $6.241
    5. Zimbabwe – $6.127
    6. Lesotho – $5.710
    7. Uganda – $5.707
    8. South Africa – $5.626
    9. Zambia – $5.568
    10. Senegal – $5.404
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