Telematics can be a valuable tool in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccine
One thing authorities are learning with the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine is that data matters. Since the first vials of this medical breakthrough began leaving their factories on highly specialized refrigerated trucks in December last year, there have been numerous reports of seemingly avoidable mistakes.
From a miscommunication between logistics officials and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that left 14 states with vaccine shortfalls to reports of vaccine shipments going to waste or spoiling because of poor timing or confusion over protocols, there is a general state of confusion clouding this initial phase of the distribution effort. With the CDC reporting more than 16 million cases and 300,000 deaths in the U.S. throughout 2020, the stakes could not be higher, and these mistakes could be avoided.
How technical teams can better collaborate in a crisis
The transition to remote work has been difficult for technical teams. Software professionals were already struggling to deliver everything on their plate, and shifting to a fully remote model has resulted in ever-changing patterns of communication, making it more difficult to build the human relationships that are so important for good collaboration. Just as tech workers were settling into more agile workflows, they must now also manage cross-team collaboration and alignment without being in the same space.
Software professionals have limited bandwidth to adapt and work on the soft skills required to navigate these remote interactions, and collaboration has suffered as a result. In fact, a recent study by Lucid revealed that as much as 75 percent of respondents said that collaboration has suffered the most in their work life since the start of the pandemic, even more than productivity. This lack of successful collaboration within technical teams and across companies can have a truly detrimental impact on an organization, especially during a crisis.
The top disruptive autonomous vehicle technologies in 2021
Years ago, autonomous vehicles were just a concept. Today, they’re much more attainable and already on the road in some places. The industry is developing, though, and 2021 is on track to see countless improvements.
The following five disruptive technologies will improve the autonomous vehicle landscape and bring them even closer to full realization.
The top conversational marketing trends in 2021
The global enterprise messaging industry accounts for 2 trillion messages annually. Messaging is a great medium for engagement -- it’s instant, and users tend to be much more responsive compared to other media. Also, users tend to utilize messaging apps dozens of times every day. Therefore, brands that do messaging right will see much higher frequency and intensity of engagement than with other media.
Most messages are delivered today using good old-fashioned SMS messaging. However, this sizable enterprise messaging industry is about to change in significant ways. Newer messaging channels are emerging with far greater capabilities -- namely Whatsapp, Rich Communication Service (RCS), Google Business Messages (GBM) and even a new messaging channel launched by Gupshup called Gupshup IP (GIP) Messaging. The common theme across all these channels is that they are all based on data messaging using the Internet Protocol (IP messaging).
Will Budget 2021 make or break Britain's digital future?
Every crisis presents an opportunity -- a truism never more evident than in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s latest investment into the UK’s digital landscape.
For years, the UK economy has faced a fundamental problem; we have more need for highly skilled digital professionals and leaders than we have workers to satiate that demand. Recent research from Microsoft found that the vast majority (69 percent) of UK business leaders believe their organization currently has a skills gap, with a significant 44 percent fearing that this will have a negative impact on their success in the next year.
Audacity 3.0.0 is here with support for a brand-new project format
While Audacity has been in receipt of pretty regular updates, it is quite a while since there were any major changes to the free audio editing software. All of this changes with the release of Audacity 3.0.0, however.
To kick things off, there are bug fixes -- lots of bug fixes. In fact, there are more than 160 that have been addressed, ranging from minor problems to "really juicy high priority bugs". But Audacity 3.0.0 is about much more than just fixing bugs. There are improvements across the software as well as a completely new project format.
Why the nostalgia social media trend is one to watch in 2021
During 2020 and 2021, we've seen nostalgia everywhere. It makes sense, right? There's no better time to pine for the past and relive happy memories than when we're stuck at home during lockdown. Nostalgia has made its way into every walk of life, from our wardrobes to our Instagram feeds.
According to GlobalWebIndex, nostalgia can make humans more optimistic and have a positive influence on their actions. The research also unveiled that nostalgia was a highly common emotion. Results show that 8 in 10 say that they experience feelings of nostalgia at least occasionally and 4 in 10 say that they do so often.
A KYC rule for social media: What social networks can learn from banks
Banks around the world abide by know-your-customer (KYC) rules to block crime. When it comes to finances, governments agree that it’s appropriate to capture clear identification on a person, in order to hold them accountable for their actions. But when it comes to crimes against social infrastructure, there are no checks in place and malicious actors around the globe leverage social media platforms to justify human rights abuses, steal elections, or simply to create division.
Ever since the Mueller investigation proved that Russia used its Internet Research Agency to conduct disinformation in the United States in order to sow social discord around the 2016 presidential election, more nefarious groups seem to be taking advantage of the opportunity to cause disruption. And with 1 in 5 Americans getting their news only from social media, the impact is huge. The reason social media is such a powerful medium for this illicit activity is that perpetrators are able to hide behind fake accounts, creating ties to communities and causes in a seemingly legitimate manner.
Artificial Intelligence: A smart investment for financial services firms
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly gaining momentum as a vital business resource as organizations discover new use cases in their efforts to improve processes, increase efficiency and automate costly, manual tasks. Industries such as financial services are ideal for AI-driven applications and a related technology, machine learning (ML), because they can bolster customer service and leverage data to increase competitiveness.
AI includes software that’s designed to work in ways similar to the human brain, while machine learning encompasses programs that alter themselves based on data that’s fed into the programs in order to train them.
DDoS attacks intensify in 2020 -- driven in part by COVID-19 and 5G
Cybercriminals had a busy year in 2020, with rapidly increasing numbers of distributed denial of service (DDoS) weapons, widespread botnet activity, and some of the largest DDoS attacks ever recorded. As COVID-19 drove an urgent shift online for everything from education and healthcare, to consumer shopping, to office work, hackers had more targets available than ever -- many of them under protected due to the difficulty of maintaining security best practices in an emergency scenario.
At the same time, the ongoing rollout of 5G technologies has accelerated the proliferation of IoT and smart devices around the world, making unsuspecting new recruits available for botnet armies to launch crushing attacks on a massive scale.
Protecting your business from increased digital risk
Business conversations have included digital transformation for decades. However, more recent innovations have made it much easier for businesses to seamlessly integrate digital technology into their operations.
While these technologies improve efficiency, support personalization, and promote safety, they also challenge risk managers to protect company information, prevent data breaches, and reduce potential threats that can accompany doing business with third-party vendors.
Unlocking business potential by integrating telecom APIs
Today’s business leaders are faced with competing challenges and uncharted waters as they continue to navigate the impacts of COVID-19. During the past year, we’ve seen a rise in e-commerce and increased reliance on the cloud to facilitate communications and collaboration and support contactless services.
As business and IT decision makers look to capitalize on new or existing cloud investments and accelerate digital transformation efforts, implementing nimble IT resources is an essential component of the process and will set businesses up for long-term success. Getting the most out of their investment means taking advantage of every opportunity to improve operations and customer experiences through seamless integrations. One such technology that can help in this regard is APIs.
What we can learn from organizations who flourished during COVID?
When the knock-on effects of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent UK lockdowns are discussed, much of the focus is on the negative impact on the economy, our physical health, and our mental health. But, while the damaging effects are unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed, it’s not all doom and gloom.
While many businesses have suffered as a result of the pandemic, others have flourished. Exercise equipment, homeware, DIY, and gardening retailers, amongst others, were some of the businesses that flourished during the first national lockdown. When it comes to business-to-business, technology providers, ecommerce sites, video conferencing software solutions, and healthcare providers led the way. So did the companies who tapped into their services.
Why price doesn't equal cost in the cloud
Saving money in IT has always been an important consideration, but due to COVID-19 many corporate strategies and budgets have been pushed off course. For example, relative to pre-COVID levels, the likelihood of undertaking cost reduction initiatives has increased globally by 74 percent, 66 percent of companies are now expected to pursue cost reduction strategies over the next 12 months and it is predicted we will see a 38 percent increase in these cost reduction strategies in the next 12 months, compared to pre-COVID times.
Due to the need for greater flexibility caused by COVID-19 and the need to secure these cost reductions, many organizations are now looking to the cloud. Cloud spending rose by 37 percent to £20 billion during the first quarter of 2020 and, according to Gartner, we saw a 19 percent growth in cloud spending in 2020 even when IT spending overall was down by 8 percent. It goes without saying that there are many benefits to moving to the cloud, one of them being cost reductions, with others including agility, flexibility, scale, working from home capabilities and the transfer of budget allocations from CapEx to OpEx.
If I knew then what I know now -- Zero Day Vulnerabilities and why we should confine the unknown
When Donald Rumsfeld gave a briefing about the Iraq WMD program in 2002 (Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction were a major justification for the second invasion) he said "There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know."
At the time, many mocked this word-salad as the Secretary of State for Defense delivering an over-complicated and evasive way of admitting that they had no evidence of WMDs in Iraq -- not yet at least. Even so, there is some undeniable logic in accepting that there can be unknown unknowns, and not just in the field of counter intelligence but in cyber security too.
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