Python, Matlab, Julia -- R. Who would win the battle of the best language for economic research? Hint: the winner has a woman's name.
The Best Language for Economic Research
Python, Matlab, Julia — R. Who would win the battle of the best language for Economic research? That’s probably one of the most common online queries in the programming world. There is just something about humans and our obsession with chasing the very best of the best.
In reality, of course, each language has its nuances and areas
in which it shines. Anyone claiming to have a definitive answer on the matter
should come up with some solid arguments to back their verdict.
And that’s exactly what two London School of Economics researchers did. They looked at different languages based on the power of available libraries, the speed and possibilities when handling large datasets, and the speed and ease-of-use for a computationally intensive task.
Hint: the winner has a woman’s name.
Thanks, but no thanks
That’s the polite
version of what UK students were shouting in front of the Department of
Education over a week ago. The cause of their anger was an algorithm.
University admission exams had been cancelled because of the
pandemic. Teachers proposed predicting their student’s scores as a way to
compromise. The education department dismissed the idea on the grounds that
previous research had proved such estimates to be biased. Instead, they decided
to use an algorithm.
Discover why CIOs should now direct their attention to a more nuanced yet vital aspect of workforce management: improving employee experience.
The return from the holidays is a busy one this year for IT leaders. In addition to the traditional hurdles associated with reactivating latent projects and the sudden spike in activity, CIOs are having to deal with the disruption caused by Covid-19.
The business climate remains uncertain months into the pandemic. Organisations are still figuring out how to adapt to new customer demands and operational needs. IT departments face many challenges including budgetary cuts, improving infrastructure and strengthening their IT support team. Yet perhaps their biggest challenge is adjusting to new workplace dynamics.
So far, technology
teams have had to adjust company workflows and processes to a remote workforce—a
logistics and infrastructure problem in the first instance. But, with this first
stage checked off their to-do list, CIOs should now direct their attention to a
more nuanced yet vital aspect of workforce management: improving employee
experience.
Why employee experience
Far from being a new concept, employee experience had been quickly gaining traction over the past years as an area of focus for businesses. To the point that 84% of respondents to a 2019 survey by Deloitte saw it as an important issue. Over a quarter of organisations identified employee experience as one of the three most urgent issues they were facing for the year.
The reasoning behind this
much concern is quite simple: happy employees are more productive employees.
MIT research shows that companies leading the charge in employee experience reap incredible business benefits as a result of it. Organisations with the best employee experiences innovate twice as much, achieve double the customer satisfaction, and have 25% higher profits than their less employee-friendly counterparts.
Yet despite being a
key factor for business success, only 9% of Deloitte’s survey respondents considered
that their company was fully ready to tackle the issue. It is, therefore, a major
priority for today’s organisations – one that CIOs should make their own.
It’s about
technology
Whereas, in the past,
improvements to employee experience had mainly come from HR departments—in the form
of perks or company activities—technology’s role in the process keeps on growing
in importance. Years ago, it was digitalisation that improved employees’ lives,
speeding up paperwork and other tasks. Then came cloud-based collaboration
tools.
But while cloud infrastructure
remains key to enhancing employee experience, the circumstances brought about
by the current crisis calls for a more expansive and diverse use of technology.
It is not only team collaboration and process optimisation that IT leaders need
to worry about this time around. The lack of direct human contact is alienating
employees and rarefying company cultures. Strengthening social bonds and
ensuring mental and physical health is now more important than ever.
There are already many
technological tools aimed at addressing these issues. Microsoft 365, for
example, has an analytics function that provides users with insights about the way
they work—hours of activity, etc.–and advises them on how to maintain a
healthy work-life balance: something that is particularly difficult for those working
from home.
Other companies are coming up with solutions as they go. SAP, for instance, has created a series of solutions to foster socializing between remote workers who miss office interactions. These include a tinder-like app that pairs up remote co-workers for a virtual lunch.
CIOs should also
consider implementing solutions that are more directly related to health. Mental
health counselling is now available through many online portals, and some
companies are starting to offer memberships to their employees. Others are implementing
wellness programs that reward employees for exercising and staying active – all
through fitness trackers and dedicated corporate apps.
Taking concrete steps
and committing to it
IT leaders are perfectly positioned to spearhead the new age of employee experience. The CIO’s role has grown considerably as a result of the pandemic. Becoming that of one of the top decision-makers in the executive team. Now, the potential that technology has for delivering a better employee experience puts the IT department at the wheel once again.
But no significant improvements
are going to be achieved if concrete steps are not taken and commitments are
not made.
These kinds of
initiatives can often be downgraded to secondary priorities during hectic and busy
times, with the best IT talent being directed to other projects. For employee
experience to really improve, CIOs need to make it an absolute priority and
devote some of their best resources to the task. They should also work very
closely with HR in the process, conducting a thorough audit of employee
satisfaction and needs via a survey or even a (virtual) focus group.
When it comes to all things enterprise technology, these are the principal platforms that make up the Microsoft Technology Stack.
When it comes to enterprise technology, the Microsoft Technology Stack reaches almost as far as the eye can see. From operating systems and development tools to cloud computing, the company owns an extremely diversified portfolio of solutions that can be hard to keep track of as an IT professional.
Don’t get lost in the clutter. These are the principal platforms that make up the Microsoft Technology Stack.
.NET
An open-source,
cross-platform development framework used to build all sorts of applications.
.NET, allows developers to choose among a wide variety of programming
languages, code editors and libraries, giving users the flexibility and
scalability to build solutions for everything from web and mobile to IoT.
It is these broad
capabilities that make .NET one of the world’s most popular developer
platforms. As such, it benefits from the support of a vast community and an
extensive repository of libraries.
GitHub
GitHub has been part
of Microsoft since the company acquired it in 2018. The platform is used by
both amateur and expert developers to host code, review it and collaborate by
focusing on version control and following a continuous integration, continuous
delivery (CI/CD) philosophy.
Its impressive
community is what really fuels GitHub. Millions of programmers upload their
work and review each other’s code through the platform. As such, GitHub is one
of the world’s largest open-access repositories and collaborative projects
platforms.
Furthermore, the fact
that is used by hobbyists, corporations and top professionals alike has turned
GitHub into a sort of LinkedIn for developers and tech enthusiasts. A place to
showcase one’s talent and concrete achievements.
Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 is one
of today’s leading cloud-based productivity platforms. It combines the
traditional MS Office suite with a set of collaboration tools and features like
cloud-based storage and Teams to provide organizations and individuals with the
means to get things done wherever they are located.
It is a mix of software like Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, with flexible and scalable cloud storage and security and world-class security. From an IT perspective, it requires companies to deploy, maintain and update an infrastructure that is adapted to business needs while preserving security and a nimble spirit.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are all-encompassing software toolsets with capabilities extending across marketing, sales and customer service. As a leading CRM, Dynamics 365 allows organisations to easily plan and execute operations from a single platform. The speed, efficiency and cohesiveness derived from its use have made CRM a staple of today’s business management – as well as one of the most profitable specialisations in the IT world.
Dynamics 365 is a scalable solution that allows for advanced customization, making it adaptable to the needs of each company. It is the job of technical MS experts to set up, customize and maintain this environment in a way that maximizes efficiency, user satisfaction and customer loyalty.
Microsoft Azure is the
company’s public cloud computing platform. A competitor to Amazon Web Services
(AWS), Google Cloud, and IBM Cloud, Azure provides companies with a wide range
of cloud services, including computing, storage, analytics and networking.
Azure is an
open-source-friendly, adaptable and scalable platform that fits the needs of
every customer. Furthermore, Azure is industry-specific, providing dedicated
tools to sectors like healthcare, e-commerce or retail. It offers 4 different
types of cloud computing: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a
service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and serverless.
A whole army of professionals is needed to design, deploy and maintain such cloud ecosystems.
The Microsoft Power
Platform enables businesses to create and deploy custom-made workflow apps and
reports that help them easily extract, process, and analyse data. The Power
Platform is integrated with the rest of Microsoft’s ecosystem of platforms as
well as with other third-party apps.
It is a key tool in
today’s data-driven business world, providing actionable insights in real time.
It requires a team of technical experts to deploy, maintain and expand, as well
as to train end-users and offer them support on a daily basis.
Microsoft SQL
Server
SQL Server is a relational database management system (RDBMS) by Microsoft. Also called MSSQL, it serves as the backbone to data registering, accessing and manipulation for its enterprise customers.
It is protected by high-grade encryption and caters to a variety of businesses depending on size and data needs.
Microsoft Visual
Studio is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that can be used to build
anything from the ground up. In a way, IDEs are the word processors of the
programming world, allowing developers to create applications for a multitude
of platforms from a single place.
Visual Studio includes debugging, automation and
team collaboration features, creating a holistic environment to conceive and
deliver high-quality applications.
Learn more about the Microsoft Technology Stack and the various roles within Microsoft Technologies in our comprehensive Microsoft Technologies Careers Guide
Researchers have
discovered what they believe to be the first-ever crypto-mining worm that also
manages to steal AWS credentials.
Crypto-mining worms have been around for a while, stealthily
infiltrating a network and using its computing power to mine cryptocurrency.
This new worm is actually not even that good at it, having only made a mere
$300 in profits.
However, the attackers, who go by the name TeamTNT, have managed to incorporate the credential-stealing feature into their code. The researchers believe the attackers have recycled this functionality from a previous worm that targetted Alibaba’s cloud.
This points to an emerging trend of copy-and-paste, opening the door for future malware to replicate TeamTNT’s code and go onto steal AWS credentials and compromise cloud ecosystems.
Fired for skipping the firewall
A whopping four out of
ten businesses in the UK admit having dismissed employees for breaching the
company’s security protocols. That’s according to a new survey by Centrify, a
privileged access management solutions provider.
Most incidents were related to work-from-home scenarios, as a
large proportion of employees tends to circumvent safety measures in favour of
comfort or portability.
As a result, 65% of companies have made important changes to their cybersecurity policy. Shadow IT was already a huge problem before the workforce transitioned to remote work. Now it’s become even more difficult to ensure that employees don’t use personal devices to access company networks and files.
Well, just keep in mind that you could get fired for it.
Remote hiring has become as much of a necessity and a reality and, just like telework, it comes with its own set of challenges and peculiarities.
Any activity that could afford it went remote with the arrival of Covid-19. Now, as the months ahead remain uncertain and companies discover that is possible to operate remotely, the exception has become the norm. A recent Gartner survey confirmed the writing on the wall: a sweeping 82% of business leaders are planning on allowing at least some level of remote work moving forward, even after the pandemic is over. Yet despite being the other side of the employment coin, recruiting has not received that much attention thus far. In fact, remote hiring has become as much of a necessity and a reality and, just like telework, it comes with its own set of challenges and peculiarities.
Remote hiring & the new recruitment landscape
Gone are the days of overcrowded career
fairs full of eager master’s students elbowing each other to get a minute with
a representative of one of the top companies present. So are the endless rounds
of in-person interviews that have candidates repeatedly come into the employer’s
offices and meet half the team.
From now on, businesses will conduct fewer
and more focused interviews, mostly online. Only the more critical and senior
positions will get greater face-to-face time, with the rest of candidates being
interviewed remotely except for perhaps the last interview, which is often just
used to meet the chosen candidate and establish a more personal connection —
something rather important in the colder remote work environment. In the case
of IT contractors and temporal employees, however, the selection process is
most likely to move completely online as flexibility and speed can be more of a
priority.
Career fairs and other networking events will also move online or even disappear completely, in favour of a new model that can accommodate safety measures while allowing for talent attraction. Eliminating the physical barriers of traditional career fairs will, in turn, expand the pool of candidates available to companies and democratize access to the top positions. Companies will be able to seek the best candidates regardless of location, while candidates will get to apply to positions that otherwise would have been completely out of reach.
A new series of challenges for employers with remote hiring
But moving the hiring process online will
create new problems while solving existing ones. Assessing a candidate’s fit
for the position and the company is more challenging when done through a
computer screen. And there is a lot to assess in today’s candidates.
Additionally, the unique conditions of remote work make soft skills more important than ever. Softer skills like creativity and entrepreneurship were already becoming a must-have for IT experts. Now, interpersonal and communication skills are key to ensuring efficient teamwork dynamics and workflows. So is cultural fit. Employees need to be proactive in reaching to colleagues, making their work more visible and being open about their needs. Unfortunately, soft skills are some of the hardest qualities to assess when not face-to-face.
Looking ahead
Both the new recruitment environment and the difficulties it brings along are forcing companies and hiring managers to come up with new best practices and processes in order to attract and retain the best candidates.
Ideally, the new approach combines a better and more targeted online interview model, with personal know-how and the use of the latest technological tools. For example, AI can help recruiters identify candidates who match the job’s criteria and are a
It can be difficult for hiring companies to assess the technical skills of IT candidates.
Undoubtedly, it can be difficult for hiring companies to assess the technical skills of highly specialized IT candidates. Especially when recruitment duties fall more heavily on the HR or Purchasing functions rather than on the more tech-savvy IT managers.
That is even if you consider yourself to be an industry insider who knows all the ins and out of your company’s market. As a hiring specialist, you probably do not have the level of detail needed to assess a candidate’s skill in any of the technical areas of expertise currently most in demand.
But that does not mean you are helpless. Not at all. Here is a series of steps that will help you identify top tech performers regardless of their specialty.
Assess the Technical Skills of IT Candidates
Start with the CV
The first step in the process of recruiting any candidate is CV analysis. Beyond providing an overall idea of a candidate’s profile and trajectory, a careful look at a CV also offers an opportunity to start filtering early on and be more efficient.
Tips on indicators to look for
Look at these
indicators to get a first impression of an expert’s technical skills:
Real-world experience: someone who has worked on actual AWS migration projects, as opposed to someone with just an educational background, will have a deeper knowledge of this technology stack and related AWS tools (CodeDeploy, CodeBuild, CodePipeline…)
The level of that experience. Of course, a consultant with 25 years of experience and major projects on their back will be more skilled than a more junior profile
Specific training and certifications on given technologies. Yes. Education is still important. Not as a substitute of experience, but as a complement that demonstrates a candidate’s professional and career-oriented attitude and validates the depth of their expertise.
The level of detail with which a candidate lists all skills and technologies. A truly experienced IT professional will have no problem specifying what programming languages, stacks and platforms. They dominate and to what level. Whereas someone with not as much experience will opt for more general and vague terminology.
Community
involvement
Moreover, not all tech and IT professionals get involved with their community and attend events. Being an active member of the community is not a prerequisite for being good at one’s job. But it sure helps.
If you spot a
candidate who attends trade conferences, shares their expertise on forums, or
leads workshops on their area of expertise, chances are they are the kind of
committed and driven professional you are looking for. Positive signs here
include having an active GitHub profile, which allows users to share original
code and have an open debate a variety of issues.
Ask the right
interview questions
The interview is the next step. Asking the proper questions about the skills covered in the CV and the job offer will allow you to get a more precise idea of the candidate’s level of expertise. Do not hesitate to ask for more detail on the candidate’s past experiences, to alternate open-ended questions and very concrete ones, and to propose hypothetical scenarios. Take the time to prepare your questions in advance.
If your level of
understanding of the candidate’s area of expertise is very limited, do not
hesitate to be accompanied by someone who can help you prepare and conduct the
technical part of the interview.
Nothing beats an old-fashioned test when it comes to demonstrating certain skills. It is very common for companies to have their IT candidates take task-specific practical tests, both to assess their technical capabilities and other parameters such as essential soft skills and cultural fit.
Again, you can enlist the help of a tech-savvy colleague to design the test and interpreted. It is standard practice to develop a range of tests covering the most common positions, but you will need to do some extra work for areas of expertise that are not so ubiquitous or if the candidate needs to fulfil very specific project specifications. Working with an industry-specialized recruiter can also give you an edge here.
Check the
references
Last step: checking a candidate’s references. As it is the case with any other position, this process takes time but is essential to avoid mistakes. Especially when you do not know too much about the skills you are vetting.
Compare the answers that the candidate provided during the interview to what former employers have to say. Ask these employers about the depth of the candidate’s knowledge, as well as their role within the project and overall performance. Here you also have a chance to corroborate your first impressions of the candidates cultural fit and their soft skills.
If you are one of the 2.5 billion Android device users out there, you now have a new conversation topic. Yes, your phone is an Earthquake Detector soon...
If you are one of the 2.5 billion Android device users out there, you now have a brand new conversation topic. Soon your phone will be part of a worldwide earthquake detection network. Yes, your phone is an Earthquake Detector soon…
While using smartphone sensors to build an okay seismometer app
is nothing new, Google has a better idea: integrating it into the phone’s
operating system directly.
All devices running Android 5.0 and up will get the new feature
through a Google Play Services update, essentially becoming decentralised
tremor-monitoring stations that one day will help detect earthquakes early on
and warn users.
For now, Google plans on collecting data for a while to fine-tune
the system before rolling out proactive alerts. But don’t worry. You can
opt-out of the service via your phone’s settings. Although most people won’t
even know it is there.
Toshiba-bye
Thirty-five years
after debuting its first laptop, the Japanese conglomerate Toshiba announced it
is abandoning the portable PC market.
The entire PC hardware market, in fact. In 2018, Toshiba had
already sold most of its PC business to Sharp, the same buyer this time
around.
The decision comes as the company announced its first quarterly
losses in 4 years and officially marks the end of an era in laptop
history.
Toshiba laptops reached their heyday in the 1990s, when they came to dominate the global market. They started losing ground in the late 2000s after an industry shift towards more attractive designs and more powerful machines
A good reminder of how important it is to adapt and keep innovating.
Strengthening the IT support team ? Many companies have been hit hard by the Covid-19 epidemic.Their new mantra: adapt, anticipate, and reassure internally.
Many companies have been hit hard by the Covid-19 epidemic. Disruption was inescapable, from decline and suspension of activity to forced restructuring of teams and processes. IT teams were among the most impacted by these upheavals, as IT decision-makers had to take on a new role to help their organizations navigate the crisis. Therefore their new mantra: adapt, anticipate, and reassure internally. Is then strengthening the IT support team the top back-to-school challenge for CIOs?
As we approach the start of the new school year, the challenges for CIOs and other IT managers are increasing. Like who awaits impending doom, they are faced with the threat of a new lockdown at any minute. Adapting to a new way of working and conducting business won’t be easy either.
It is now more strategic than ever to strengthen their IT support team, guaranteeing operational continuity and completing the digital and organizational transformation of the company. Yet budget and organisational constraint make this a challenging endeavour.
Strengthening the IT support – A front-line service
IT support has always been a vital service
within the company. Operating as an internal customer service, it helps solve end-user
problems, responds to all their requests related to the work environment, and
improves productivity.
In just months, the pandemic has
strengthened the role of IT within organizations and propelled the IT service
to the front line. While some companies had to completely shut down activity
during lockdown, many were able to remain active thanks to telework.
But managing such a sudden and massive transition has required significant technical and organizational adaptation. Setting up collaboration tools, remote troubleshooting and technical assistance, rapid resolution of incidents, training of employees regarding cybersecurity risks… IT support teams had to put in long hours to ensure the proper functioning of remote work.
Moreover, to complicate things, cybercrime has skyrocketed since the start of the pandemic and continues to rise. Hackers are taking advantage of the human and organizational weaknesses of companies, targeting remote access points and employee email. Finding the right security experts has become a big challenge for businesses in recent months.
In short, IT support teams have made
themselves more essential than ever.
Facing new challenges
The challenges related to the Covid-19
crisis add to a multitude of already existing challenges within IT support
teams. Issues such as cost reduction, process optimization and quality of
service have only acquired more importance.
The notion of the internal customer is
leading many companies to redefine their structure and put the user at the
heart of the process to improve employee experience. This perspective, which
brings benefits like satisfaction and fluidity, often requires support teams to
unify points of contact, collect feedback and proactively participate in
improving the image of the overall IT department.
Another challenge: reducing tasks with low
added value and exploiting technologies such as AI to automate as many
operations as possible. The idea here is to allow support teams to focus on
more strategic tasks like provide guidance to users.
IT support managers have also one more major new challenge: communication. They need to be transparent and reassuring with their team and play an important role in raising employee awareness about increased security threats.
Set up an adapted Talent Strategy for strengthening the IT support team
To have a good IT support, you need to
start by having a suitable team. Having the right people in place is an
essential condition for success, as it is often the skills and motivation that
make the difference between an efficient support service and an insufficient one.
But how do you make sure you have a strong
team? You can start by following these few tips:
Perform an audit of current
skills within your support teams: look at what skills are missing, see if key
skills are concentrated in too few employees, etc.
Adapt your team’s organization
to be able to call on the right people at the right time: in an emergency, you need
to be ready to activate a reorganization plan to mobilize key skills
Identify the most efficient
resources and secure your existing talent
Set up training mechanisms to
re-skill certain employees whose area of expertise is no longer suited to the
current situation
Establish a recruitment plan to
cover the missing skills and be able to quickly find the right candidates when
needed
Focus on communication and
transparency
Strengthening the IT support : Is calling on external resources an effective strategy for your IT support?
On top of operational challenges, the
current economic crisis is having a heavy impact on corporate budgets. Many
organizations have had to drastically cut down their expenses, especially their
IT costs.
In addition to fewer administrative constraints and the positive effects that freelancers can have on your internal teams, the recruitment of an independent consultant can allow you to mobilize very specific skills to accelerate projects or resolve incidents in key business areas.
The flexibility of working with contractors
allows you to limit risks during this unstable period, as well as access highly
coveted expertise such as cloud and certain collaborative tools.
Regardless, the start of the school year promises to be pretty intense. Whether you choose to strengthen your support teams through hiring or by occasionally calling on external staff, do not neglect the importance of having a strong support team to face the coming months with confidence.
Finding the Blue Dragon
hadn’t been precisely easy. It turns out speakeasies, those hidden bars that
had been so popular at the beginning of the century, were back in fashion. Exclusive
cocktail lounges, disguised as laundromats or hidden in the basement of a
regular restaurant. Secret meeting places for those who like to feel special
and mingle with the ‘different’ people. Although you can’t really call them
secret when they are all listed online. But this one wasn’t.
Nadia had wandered around
the apartment building at 4 Chance St for quite some time before finally finding
the right door. She had mistakenly knocked on at least four flats, their
inhabitants greeting her with caution before closing the door again. At the fifth
doorbell she rang, a nice old lady with an evident passion for spying on her
neighbours had pointed Nadia the way.
“I believe you want to go
to the end of that hallway, my dear. Third door on the left. People have been
up and down making a fuss all afternoon. Odd-looking bunch, if you ask me.”
Nadia was now sited on an
expensive leather couch, sipping on some unpronounceable drink that tasted like
mouldy oranges and leftover coke. Tom hadn’t arrived yet. Thought real leather
had been banned years ago. A self-described staunch defender of animal
rights, Nadia decided she couldn’t afford to enjoy that blood-stained comfort any
longer and headed for the bar.
The place didn’t look
like a cocktail lounge. The layout was all off, as if was someone had squeezed
a bar and a few tables into a regular apartment. The walls were covered in red,
velvet-like material, with dark curtains separating the main hall from the
smaller private rooms. At the front door, the security guard who had taken Nadia’s
invite card was welcoming a young couple in fancy attires. Here and there,
small groups of people engaged in quiet conversation. Their soft chatter made
for a good accompanying tune to the synthetic jazz playing through the
speakers.
“There you are!” Nadia jumped
up startled as Tom’s arm hugged her from behind. “See, love. I told you she’d come.”
Tom’s breath smelled of
alcohol and smoke. Clearly, he had had a head start. His boyfriend Hao was standing
behind him with an apologetic grin. He seemed colder than usual.
“I thought you prided
yourself in never being late,” said Nadia while poking Tom’s arm with one of
those tiny cocktail umbrellas.
“And I wasn’t!” responded
Tom triumphantly as he signalled the bartender to bring another round for
three. “We were closing a deal in one of the backrooms,” he said patting Hao’s
shoulder. “You didn’t think you’re the only one who knows how to do business,
right?”
“Oh, great. Another one
of your crazy ventures,” said Nadia. “What was the last one, again? A virtual
bar for AI assistants to go on dates?”
“Please: more like a soulmate
bazar,” corrected her Tom. Nadia spilt her drink as she burst out laughing. “Say
what you want, girl, but it was a brilliant idea. Why bother wasting time on
dates when we could simply send our AI assistants to figure it out for us? I
still don’t get why people weren’t that into it.”
“Yeah, quite the mystery,
huh?” All this talk of AI assistants had taken Nadia’s mind back to EVE. Thankfully
she had been quiet so far. Hopefully, she would remain like that for the rest
of the night. “So, these are your friends, Hao?”
“Oh, no. They already
left,” he said quietly. Something was off between the two; Tom’s
uncharacteristic early drunkness and Hao’s unusual gloomy mood. Nadia wondered
what had happened during their meeting. Somehow she got the impression that Hao
wasn’t okay with the whole thing.
“Trust me, Nadia. This
time it’s something big,” said Tom in a serious tone.
The bartender arrived with a sumptuous, pyramid-shaped ensemble of fresh fruit and laurel leaves. Three cubic glasses sat at different levels of the pyramid, holding a golden liquid with no observable bubbles. Whatever. Better enjoy before she’s back. They each grabbed a drink and let the night take its course. Things ended up picking up the pace when the music changed to something more upbeat. Hao loosened up a bit and accepted Nadia’s invitation to dance. At least until Tom came back to steal her dancing partner as a knight in shining armour. Jokes and office gossip were exchanged in between several more pyramids. Tom decided to move on from virtual matchmaking and devoted perhaps too many efforts to find a suitable someone for Nadia among the attendees. A fun yet embarrassing pursuit. It wasn’t a bad night.
The retina-tracing lasers
of the holovisor cabins were clearly not designed for hungover eyes. Nadia stepped
out of the egg-shaped enclosure and poured a few eye drops after a long yawn. Unbeknown
to Nadia, a red alert popped up on the system’s main dashboard.
“How about a little walk,
stretch your legs?” suggested EVE.
“So, you care about me
all of a sudden?” said Nadia as she exited the RayStar security room and made
it down the hallway.
“Oh, Nadia. I have always
cared about you and your loved ones, tried to keep you all safe.”
The security wing was at
the very top of the building, so at least employees could compensate for the
long hours inside a holopod with 360 views of the City. A corridor went around
the whole floor along the window. It took about two minutes to complete a whole
round. Nadia knew because she had timed it before.
“I still don’t see what
you are hoping to get out of this,” said Nadia.
“You will soon.”
Dark clouds were
gathering beyond the city skyline. A group of tiny people could be seen doing
yoga in the park across the street. A cargo drone flew by, carrying a debris
container from the construction site next door.
“You know I only have
access to the RayStar servers. The encrypted attachments you are making me…” Nadia
interrupted herself as she crossed paths with a group of technicians engaged on
a heated debate. Something about a game?
“The encrypted
attachments you are making me hide in my messages to colleagues. Whatever they
are, they are not going to get you anywhere. Our system is designed in a way
that all accounts are independent of one another and from the central system
itself. When I send them a message, they only get a representation, an image of
the message, not the message itself. Whatever is in the attachment will never
make it out of my account.”
“Let me worry about that.”
Nadia had completed a
full circle around the building and was back in front of the holovisor room. It
had taken her longer than usual. She should better get back to work. Plenty to
do before lunch. Nadia rested her chin on the biometric scan. But the system
made a beep and marked and error. Weird. Nadia tried again. Access
restricted.
“Nadia?” said EVE
“What now…”
“Thank you.”
And just like that, EVE’s
voice disappeared. But someone was still calling her name. Coming down the
hallway were a couple of security guards. A police officer accompanied them.
Regulating Big Tech. The popular video app TikTok has been making headlines.The reasons behind its quick ascend to fame are a no-brainer.
The Two-Faced Approach to Regulating Big Tech; why ransomware attacks keep on happening ; and how VR could change real estate.
The Two-Faced Approach to Regulating Big Tech
Regulating Big Tech. Big The popular Chinese short-form video app TikTok has been making headlines since its origins back in 2018. The reasons behind its quick ascend to fame are a no-brainer.
TikTok lets anyone produce and edit videos effortlessly, and is
powered by an incredibly effective recommendations algorithm that makes
scrolling down its feed highly addictive.
The platform has also become a meeting place for younger
generations that had so far eluded traditional social media outlets like
Twitter and Facebook. And brands love that.
Given its huge monetization potential, then, it’s no surprise
that TikTok’s has also attracted the attention of powerful interests. For good
and for ill.
After threatening to ban the app under suspicions of Chinese-sponsored espionage, the U.S. government –and Trump– had a new message:
It’s okay as long as Microsoft buys TikTok’s U.S. business before mid-September. Oh, and the government should get a cut of the benefits.
Only that now it appears that Microsoft might want to buy TikTok’s entire global business.
The new episode of this serialised drama comes just a week after Big Tech leaders appeared before U.S. Congress to defend themselves against accusations of monopoly and unfair competition. Now one big tech company might get even larger.
Whatever it takes to win a trade war and fatten the national coffers.
And that’s why ransomware attacks keep on happening
This past month has
been a busy one for cybersecurity.
First Twitter got hacked by what turned out to be an
amateur group of teenagers. Then the
smartwatch maker Garmin was knocked out by a ransomware attack that kept its
services down for days.
Garmin would have supposedly made the payment through an
intermediary, Arete IR, which provides ransomware negotiation services.
A great ending for EvilCorp, the Russian hacking organisation
thought to be behind the attack. Or maybe not?
In fact, Arete IR claims that WastedLocker, the ransomware
strain used in this occasion, is not consistent with the Russian group’s modus
operandi. Another player might be responsible.
Whoever is the real culprit, the fact that a large multinational company like Garmin has opted to pay the ransom sets a dangerous precedent in the fight against cybercrime.
Taking a virtual
reality tour of a new apartment or office is nothing new. The technology has
existed for some time now. They were simply not that many incentives to make it
a widespread thing.
With the pandemic, however, shopping for a home without leaving
the sofa has acquired more of an appeal. Especially considering that lockdown
has left many hungry for a change of scenery.
Too much time trapped in between four walls tends to make you
want to at least change those for walls.
Although, as the BBC shows in an article published this week,
the number of apartment offerings that incorporate a VR tour option remains
marginal, things are quickly picking up pace.
The property listing company Zoopla says the coronavirus crisis
has tripled the number of virtual viewings for new properties.
This goes in line with developers and the broader real estate industry, which for years now have been allocating a part of the construction budget of new buildings to developing a VR experience.
There’s only one big caveat: visiting an apartment in this manner requires you to have a VR headset at home, and they are expensive. At least for now.
