Category: Technology

Killer Bot Boycott

Posted on by Rob Burdett

Reports that the state-run university-based ‘Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology’ (KAIST) has been working on military robot research with defence company Hanwa have resulted in threats of a boycott by more than 50 AI researchers from 30 countries.

Killer Robots?

Although the threat of the boycott of KAIST appears to have been effective in exposing and causing KAIST to agree to stop any work related to the development of lethal autonomous weapons (killer robots), the story has raised questions about ethical red-lines and the regulation of technology in this area.

KAIST opened its research centre for the convergence of national defence and artificial intelligence on 20 February, with the reported intention of providing a foundation for developing national defence technology. It has been reported that a now-deleted announcement about the work of the centre highlighted a focus on areas like AI-based command and decision systems, navigation algorithms, large-scale unmanned undersea vehicles, AI-based smart aircraft training systems, as well as smart object tracking and recognition technology.

Fast Exchange of Letters

It has been reported that almost immediately after a letter containing the signatures of more than 50 AI researchers expressing concern about KAIST’s alleged plans to develop artificial intelligence for weapons, KAIST sent its own letter back saying that it would not be developing any lethal autonomous weapons.

The President at the university, Shin Sung-chul, went on to say that no research activities that were counter to human dignity, including autonomous weapons lacking meaningful human control, had been conducted. Shin Sung-chul is also reported as saying that KAIST had actually been trying to develop algorithms for “efficient logistical systems, unmanned navigation and aviation training systems”, and that KAIST is significantly aware of ethical concerns in the application of all technologies including AI.

Who / What Is Hanwha Systems?

Hanwha Systems, the named partner from the defence / military world in the project, is a major weapons manufacturer based in South Korea. The company is known for making cluster munitions, which are banned in 120 countries under an international treaty.

Outright Ban Expected

To accompany the welcome re-assurances from KAIST that it will not be researching so-called “killer robots”, it is widely expected that the next meeting of the UN Security Council countries in Geneva, Switzerland will call for an outright ban on AI weapons research and killer bots.

Already Exists

As well as the Taranis military drone, built by the UK’s BAE Systems, which can technically operate autonomously, ‘robots’ with military applications already exist. For example, South Korea’s Dodaam Systems manufactures a fully autonomous “combat robot”, which is actually a stationary turret that can detect targets up to 3km away. This ‘robot’ is reported to have already been tested on the militarised border with North Korea, and is reported to have been bought by the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Many of the key fears about AI and machine learning centre on machines learning to make autonomous decisions that result in humans being injured or attacked. It is no surprise therefore, that reports of possible research into the development of militarised, armed AI robots play on fears such as those expressed by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk who famously described AI as a “fundamental risk to the existence of civilisation.”

Even with the existing autonomous combat turret in Korea there are reported “self-imposed restrictions” in place that require a human to deliver a lethal attack i.e. to make the actual attack decision. Many fear that the development of any robots of this kind represents a kind of Pandora’s box, and that tight regulations and built-in safeguards are necessary in order to prevent ‘robots’ from making potentially disastrous decisions on their own.

It should be remembered that AI presents many potentially beneficial opportunities for humanity when it is used ethically and productively. Even in a military setting, for example, an AI robot that could e.g. effectively clear mines (instead of endangering more humans) has to be a good idea.

The fact is that AI currently has far more value-adding, positive, and useful applications for businesses in terms of cost-cutting, time-saving, and enabling up-scaling with built-in economies.

Tech Tip – Identify Objects In Your Phone Photos With Google Lens

Posted on by Rob Burdett

If you’d like a handy way to search your photos and identify important buildings / landmarks, places, names, Wi-Fi passwords and other valuable contextual information depicted in them, Google Lens may be for you.

For example, take a photo of a router’s password sticker and you’ll automatically connect to that network, take a picture of an unknown plant and automatically identify it in Google search results, or take photograph of foreign text for a translation.

This photo scanning smart camera feature for all Android and iOS users works through the official Google Photos app. Here’s how:

– Get the app – Android users are likely to already have this app on their devices, and iOS users can download it from the App Store.

– Make sure that ‘English’ is set as the local language on your phone.

– Open the app and select any photo to view.

– Look for the Google Lens button shown, tap it, and tap ‘Get Started’.

– You will be shown a brief animation on your photo that indicates it’s being scanned.

– After the scan, you will see information Google Lens found for your image.

Wearable Tech Could Help Solve Murder

Posted on by Rob Burdett

Police in Australia are reported to be using data recorded by a murder victim’s Apple smartwatch to help catch her killer.

Murder

The victim and owner of the smartwatch was Grandmother Myrna Nilsson, who was found dead in the laundry of her Valley View home in Adelaide’s north-east in September 2016.

The prime suspect in the murder case is daughter-in-law Caroline Dela Rose Nilsson, who was found gagged and distressed at the scene, and who told Police that her mother-in-law had been followed home by (and had argued at length with) a group of men in a car.

How Could The Watch Data Help?

The Apple watch contains sensors that can measure fitness signals such as heart rate. The watch can also track a person’s movements and, being a watch, it can link the other signals to the exact time.

It is believed that this data could indicate when the victim’s heart rate indicated a loss of consciousness as well as the actual time of death.

Contradiction

Reports about the case so far indicate that while the daughter-in-law’s testimony puts the time of death at around 10pm, and that her mother-in-law allegedly argued with the men for 20 minutes, the data from the watch is not consistent with this version of events.

Reports about evidence uncovered by the Prosecutor in the case, Carmen Matteo, show that watch data shows activity consistent with the victim being ambushed and attacked as she walked into her home just after 6:30pm. The watch is also reported to show activity and heart rate measurements consistent with her body going into shock and losing consciousness.

According to the Apple watch, the deceased must have been attacked at around 6:38pm and had died by 6:45pm, some 3 hours earlier than the time stated by the daughter-in-law.

Bail Denied

The strength and apparent reliability of the watch data has been enough to lead Magistrate Oliver Koehn to deny bail to Ms Nilsson.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Our phones and gadgets are now tracking devices, and can store or transmit a lot of data about us and our activities. In the right hands, as in this case and in situations where mobile phone signals have been used in legal cases, this information can be valuable for some very important reasons i.e. in the interest of justice for victims and their families.

In the wrong hands e.g. ‘sports wearables’ possibly leaking our login credentials and transmitting our activity tracking information in a non-secure way such as that identified back in February 2016 in Canadian research by Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, could make us more vulnerable to crime.

This story should also, therefore, be a reminder to manufacturers of wearable technology that security and privacy of the data stored and transmitted about us should always be a priority, and it is in the interest of the manufacturer and the customer that correct safeguards are taken. After all, as this case proves, you never quite know how useful the secure, uncorrupted data from a mobile or wearable device could turn out to be.

Half Of Households Have Broadband Problems

Posted on by Rob Burdett

A survey by consumer watchdog ‘Which?’ has revealed that more than half of UK customers across 12 providers, are having problems with their broadband service or price.

Which Providers?

The survey looked at the experiences of 1,900 customers of providers that collectively serve about 90% of UK broadband customers. These providers include BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and Zen Internet.

Price A Big Issue

The company that most respondents (47%) felt most dissatisfied with was Virgin Media. The key complaint with their service appeared to be last year’s price increases. As well as price, Virgin Media customers were also found by the survey to be the most likely to face router issues, and to be left with no internet at all for hours or even days at a time.

30% of respondents also complained about price rises by BT.

SSE – Connection Dropouts

The survey found that broadband provider SSE was the worst offender (25% of its customers) when it comes to the frustration of connection dropouts.

Automatic Compensation Now Available

Although we as customers can essentially do nothing at the time when our broadband goes wrong, or to protect ourselves from price increases (apart from switching providers), one thing that could help us to feel a little better after the event is to receive at least some compensation.

Back in November 2017, the good news was an Ofcom announcement that broadband and landline customers would automatically be able to get money back from their providers when things go wrong, without having to make a claim for it. It was predicted at the time that, under these new rules, the amounts paid in compensation to customers could be nine times higher, and customers could receive an estimated £142 million in payouts.

The bad news was, however, that automatic compensation won’t be available until early 2019.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Ofcom research shows that nine in ten adults report going online every day and three-quarters of internet users say it is important to their daily lives. Broadband is now an essential service for business, and many business owners may feel that it doesn’t take a survey for them to know that broadband services in the UK can sometimes be patchy, and often expensive.

Some commentators argue that instead of offering automatic compensation, customers would be better served if broadband providers invested more in making sure that their service was more reliable and offered greater value for money in the first place.

Nevertheless, since current levels of compensation are low, and don’t come close to reflecting the harm caused, when automatic compensation becomes available it will at least be some improvement, particularly for small businesses.
At the moment, better broadband services, particularly for businesses in rural locations, still seem a long way off as the reality is that the UK ranks only 31st in the world for average broadband speeds, and we may only actually have 7% full fibre coverage by 2020.

Robots Not Coming For Your Job Just Yet, Says Report

Posted on by Rob Burdett

A report by OECD says that previous forecasts may have exaggerated the impact of automation on jobs because the forecasts relied on a broad grouping together of jobs with the same title.

Previous Forecasts

One of the most influential forecasts of the effects that automation could have on our jobs was the 2013 forecast by Oxford University. Its worrying conclusions at the time included the bleak prediction that 47% of jobs in the US in 2010 and 35% in the UK were at “high risk” of being automated over the following 20 years.

Another report by PwC from May 2017 also claimed that over 30% of UK jobs could be lost to automation by the year 2030. That report also said that 44% of jobs in manufacturing (where there are already many robots e.g. car manufacturing), especially those involving manual work, look likely to go to AI led software or robots.

Not That Bad

The new OECD report, however, paints a much more positive picture, and forecasts of the effects of automation on jobs are not as bad as in the original reports. For example, OECD figures suggest that only 12% rather than 35% of jobs are actually at high risk of being automated in the next 20 years

Why The Difference?

The OECD report forecasts a lesser impact by automation because, unlike the Oxford University report, it didn’t group together jobs with the same title, and, therefore, takes account of the differences between jobs with the same name.

Most And Least At Risk

The OECD report states that there is no measurable evidence that AI has been significantly impacting jobs requiring high levels of education and skill.

It is likely that lower-skilled jobs involving routine tasks are most at risk of automation, whereas jobs involving dealing with complex social relationships, using creativity and complex reasoning, and the physical manipulation of objects in a constantly changing work environment are least at risk of automation.

Geographical Difference

The report also pointed out that jobs in Anglo-Saxon, Nordic countries and the Netherlands are less likely to be automated than those in the south and east of Europe, Germany, Chile and Japan.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Most businesses are likely to be affected by some aspect of automation e.g. software or mechanical, in the near future, either themselves or through suppliers and stakeholders. There is an inevitability that AI and robotics will alter what jobs look like in the future, but it is also important to remember that they could provide huge advantages and opportunities for businesses in terms of reducing costs, and doing jobs cheaper and faster, while working day and night with no holiday.

As workers, we can try to insulate ourselves from the worst effects of automation by seeking more education / lifelong learning, and by trying to remain positive towards and adapting to changes, and by spotting and taking advantage of niches and other opportunities where we find them. Jobs which are highly varied, require specific human interaction, where people are required to have high levels of education, and where automation may be less acceptable e.g. education, could be less likely to be threatened by being replaced by AI and/or robots.

Exactly how many jobs will be lost to automation in what amount of time is virtually impossible to predict taking into account the advances in technology, together with the fact that AI bots learn, and get better at what they do as a result.

What kind of automation individual businesses adopt will, of course, depends upon a cost / benefit analysis compared to human workers, and whether automation is appropriate and is acceptable to their customers / users.

One interesting point that the new report highlighted was that young people may find it harder to find work in future because entry-level posts may have a higher risk of automation than jobs requiring more experience.

Apple Hires Google’s AI Chief To Help Boost Siri

Posted on by Rob Burdett

In a bid to develop Siri and catch up with competitors in the digital assistant battle, Apple has hired Google’s top AI man, John Giannandrea.

Falling Behind

The battle to dominate the digital assistant market has been going on for some time now, but industry commentators have noted that Apple’s Siri, which was first introduced on the iPhone 4S in 2011, has fallen behind the competition i.e. Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Siri Problems

The problems that have plagued Apple’s Siri since its early lead and subsequent falling behind in the market are thought to include:

  1. Infighting and internal politics within the Siri team at Apple.
  2. Too many attempts to reorganise the basic underpinning technology.
  3. Press criticism of the poor AI in Apple’s HomePod – the company’s attempt to compete with Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home smart speakers.

Hiring

Apple has, therefore, sought to quickly boost its expertise in AI and machine learning through hiring-in the top talent.
John Giannandrea joined Google in 2010 and previously worked as Netscape’s chief technologist. Mr Giannandrea is widely credited as being responsible for rebuilding the technology that is now at the heart of Google’s landmark products, which include search, translation and voice recognition. He is also recognised as being the person responsible for putting Google on a par with Amazon for technological supremacy in the field of voice-controlled assistants.

As well as hiring Google’s top AI man, Apple is also reported to have posted adverts for 160 other openings for work related to improving Siri.

Other high profile hires by Apple in the AI field in recent times include Carnegie Mellon professor Russ Salakhutdinov who studied at the University of Toronto under Geoffrey Hinton, who helps to oversee the Google Brain lab.

Different Approach

One of the key challenges that Giannandrea and the other news recruits will have to address is how to dramatically improve the AI and machine learning performance of Siri while giving it less detailed data for its AI training. This is because Apple has decided to take a different approach to Amazon and Google in terms of trying to gather less personal data about its users.

Apple believes that it can still produce good AI personalisation results for Siri users with a smaller dataset, and hopes that customers will value its attempts to protect their privacy, and that this will add to the positive differentiation of Siri.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The big tech companies can see the future potential value of widening the range of services that can be offered via digital assistants. As well as being able to access them through our mobile devices, smart speakers are now commonplace in many UK homes, and there will soon be business-focused versions.

The hope is that we will use our digital assistants for almost all of our daily activities e.g. paying bills, purchasing, and calling friends and customers. This illustrates why it is so important for Apple to quickly catch up with competitors and to make sure that its digital assistant is at least as capable as Amazon and Google’s offerings in terms of key AI and machine learning.

Apple is in the fortunate position of being able to attract and pay for top Silicon Valley talent, and the hiring of Google’s top man will no doubt be seen as a small victory in itself in the ongoing battle of the digital personal assistants.

UK Universities Are Cryptojacking Targets

Posted on by Rob Burdett

The latest attacker behaviour industry report by automated threat management firm Vectra shows that UK higher education institutions are now prime targets for illicit cryptocurrency mining, also known as ‘cryptojacking’.

Cryptocurrency Mining

‘Cryptocurrency mining’ involves installing ‘mining script’ code such as Coin Hive into multiple web pages without the knowledge of the web page visitor or often the website owner. The scammer then gets multiple computers to join their networks so that the combined computing power will enable them to solve mathematical problems. Whichever scammer is first to solve these problems is then able to claim / generate cash in the form of crypto-currency – hence mining for crypto-currency.

Taking Coin Hive as an example, this crypto-currency mining software is written in Javascript, and sends any coins mined by the browser to the owner of the web site. If you visit a website where it is being used (embedded in the web page), you may notice that power consumption and CPU usage on your browser will increase, and your computer will start to lag and become unresponsive. These slowing, lagging symptoms will end when you leave the web page.

Why Target Universities?

According to Vectra report, the UK’s universities are being targeted by cryptojackers because they have high bandwidth capacity networks, and they host many students on their networks who are not protected. This makes them ideal cyber-crime campaign command and control operations centres.

This means that students who are using the bandwidth e.g. to watch movies online could unwittingly be giving cyber criminals access to computing resources in the background by using websites that host cryptojacking malware.

It is also believed to be possible that the relative anonymity and power of the computing resources at universities are enabling a small number of students to tap into them, and carry out illicit cryptocurrency mining activities of their own.

Other Targets

Higher education institutions are, of course, not the only main targets. The report highlights the entertainment and leisure sector (6%), financial services (3%), technology (3%) and healthcare (2%) as also being targets for cryptojackers. The effects of being targeted by cryptojackers can be increased power consumption and a reduction in hardware lifespans.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For higher education institutions, they can only issue notices to students they detect cryptomining, and / or issue a cease and desist order. They can also provide assistance in cleaning computers, and try to advise students on how to protect themselves and the university by installing operating system patches and creating awareness of phishing emails, suspicious websites and web ads. These measures, however, don’t go far enough to address the challenge of better detection, and / or stopping cryptomining from happening in the first place.

Businesses are also struggling to keep up with the increasingly sophisticated activities of cryptojackers and other cyber-criminals, particularly with a global shortage of skilled cyber-security professionals to handle detection and response. In the meantime, the answer for many enterprise organisations has been the deployment of artificial intelligence-based security analytics. Where cryptojacking is concerned, AI is proving to be essential to augmenting existing cyber-security teams to enable fast detection and a response to threats.

The increased CPU usage and slowing down of computers caused by mining scripts waste time and money for businesses. If using AI security techniques are beyond your current budget and level of technical expertise, you may be pleased to know that there are some more simple measures that your business can take to avoid being exploited as part of a cryptojacking scam.

If, for example, you are using an ad blocker on your computer, you can set it to block one specific JavaScript URL which is https://coinhive.com/lib/miner.min.js . This will stop the miner from running without stopping you from using any of the websites that you normally visit.

Also, a dedicated browser extension called ‘No Coin’ is available for Chrome, Firefox and Opera. This will stop the Coin Hive mining code being used through your browser. This extension comes with a white-list and an option to pause the extension should you wish to do so.

Coin Hive’s developers have also said that they would like people to report any malicious use of Coin Hive to them.
Maintaining vigilance for unusual computer symptoms, keeping security patches updated, and raising awareness within your company of current scams and what to do to prevent them, are just some of the ways that you could maintain a basic level of protection for your business.

Tech Tip – Track Changes To Your Word Documents

Posted on by Rob Burdett

If, as so many businesses do, you use Microsoft Word, and you have shared documents that others can make changes to, you may find the ‘Track Changes’ feature very useful.

By turning on ‘Track Changes’ you can see who has made changes to your document, you can choose which changes to accept or reject, and you can view and delete comments. This is a great feature for reviewing a document. Here’s how:

On the Review tab, in the Tracking group, choose Track Changes. Word then marks up and shows any changes that anyone makes to the document.

If you turn off Track Changes, Word stops marking up new changes, but any changes that were already tracked remain marked up in the document until you remove them.

On the Review tab, in the Tracking group, in the Simple Markup list, you can choose to view:
– Simple Markup – the default option which indicates where changes are with a red line in the margin.
– No Markup – which hides markup to show what the incorporated changes will look like.
– All Markup – this shows all edits with different colours of text and lines.
– Original – this shows the document in its original form.

In the Show Markup list, you can choose the revisions you would like to see – Comments, Ink, Insertions and Deletions, Formatting, Balloons, Specific people.

‘See In The Dark’ Phone Camera

Posted on by Rob Burdett

Chinese electronics company Huawei is heading to the European market with a smartphone that uses a long exposure and AI to take photos in near-dark conditions without a flash.

How?

The revolutionary phone camera is able to gather enough light to take a photo in near dark conditions thanks to an exposure lasting up to six seconds. This means that 960 frames per second can be filmed at 720p “high-definition” resolution, thereby delivering a better final image.

The artificial intelligence element is then able to work on the image to remove any blurring and smearing so that the end result is a sharp photo, something that would not be achievable with most other phone cameras.

The Use Of AI

The AI part of the camera is essentially used to find the optimum frame for each item in a shot, take information from other frames to improve the definition of each object, and then merge all the information from those frames together in a single photo that appears brighter than the human eye would see it.

Three Lenses

One of the most noticeable features of the P20 Pro built-in camera is that it has three rear lenses, each offering the user different capabilities. For example:

  1. The main lens offers a high resolution (40 megapixels) and can use ‘light fusion’ to create 10MP photos that look good even in low-light conditions. ‘Light fusion’ is a way of combining four smaller pixels together to make a much larger pixel.
  2. The second lens can take better monochrome shots because it has a 20MP black-and-white sensor.
  3. The third lens has a hardware-stabilised 3x zoom lens, which can produce 5x shots when used with a software-based digital zoom, thereby comparing favourably to the 2x zoom of the Galaxy S9+ and iPhone X.

Two other key benefits of the phone are the composition suggestions that it makes to the user e.g. when to loosen or tighten a shot and the object-recognition which enables the camera to automatically adjust its settings to suit each subject, while not requiring a connection to the internet to do so.

Not In The U.S. Yet

One major challenge that Huawei has with the launch of the P20 Pro is that it is still having problems entering the US market because of suspected ties to the Chinese government. This is thought to have resulted in AT&T and Verizon pulling out of talks to sell its devices.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For many businesses, sending photos to potential customers and posting photos online e.g. website and social media is an essential part of their daily business. Lighting is not always perfect, cloudy days are common in the UK, and many services are delivered in dimmer conditions or in the evening. A phone with a camera that can make the most of these conditions could, therefore, be a useful business tool.

This story is also an example of how a company that doesn’t have the brand power of some of its bigger competitors e.g. Samsung or Apple, has gone the extra mile in terms of the product, and part of the challenge will be to get this message across.

For other phone manufacturers that sell in the European market, this product innovation and Huawei’s need and desire to throw everything at it to make up the sales volume expectation that it had in the US, is likely to have them worried.

Contactless ‘Pay to Pray’

Posted on by Rob Burdett

The Church of England has announced that it will be able to accept contactless card payment for donations at 16,000 churches, cathedrals and religious sites.

Why?

The Church of England raises a whopping £580m every year in donations, but in today’s society, particularly among young people, cash is carried less often, and there is a trend towards using contactless card payments for most daily transactions.

For example, contactless payments now account for around one-third of all debit card payments, and in terms of value, debit card payments in the UK (£13.4 billion) now exceed cash payments (£13.3 billion). Also, in July last year, Transport for London (TfL) figures showed that 40% of public transport customers in London are paying for their journeys with contactless payment cards.

There has also been a noticeable decline in the use of cash over many years. In 2006, 62% of all payments in the UK were made using cash, and by in 2016 that proportion had fallen to 40%. It has been predicted (UK Finance figures) that by 2026 cash will be used for just 21% of all payments.

Contactless Collections

The Church of England has already tested its contactless payment system in a trial involving 40 churches last year. The system will use technology by London-based fintech start-up ‘SumUp’ and parishioners will be able to make donations using contactless payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay, plus chip and pin transactions.

Donations will be made on a self-service basis. It is thought that this may include including passing around a reader for the collection.

Standing Order Still King

Despite the added convenience that the contactless scheme may offer to both church and churchgoer, the Church of England has said that it expects that most regular donations will continue to come from standing orders.

Catholic Church Too

Back in October last year, the Catholic Church also explored other donation options. For example, several Catholic parishes allowed parishioners to donate via text message on their mobile phone, and a code was made available to them to allow them do this.

Also, worshippers at cathedrals including Guildford and Liverpool have been encouraged to make donations by credit or debit card instead of putting cash in a collection plate or box.

Not Just For Donations

Contactless payment schemes in churches are also helpful for services other than donations. For example, couples can use contactless payment to pay for marriage banns.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

In a society where it is known that fewer people carry cash and more people prefer to use contactless payments, it makes sense that the church appears to be moving with the times to take account of these trends, and to make the most of the technology that is now more easily available.

Among some commentators, there is an argument that with declining congregations in many churches, more opportunities for donations need to be generated from existing members of the congregation i.e. contactless payments will enable more money to be collected from existing churchgoers.

For many, this move by the church is simply a reflection of the trends in society, and an example of how technology, religion, history and tradition can co-exist in a practical and beneficial way.