Kozminski Techblog

You may probably have heard about China’s efforts to introduce a social scoring system based on live facial recognition in public areas. The idea was to give people points for doing good things, and punish those doing bad things – like jaywalking, fighting or stealing. 

Well, UK goes through a similar debate right now, and while it may not be as controversial as the Chinese scoring system, it still has gathered quite a lot of controversies. The question is, should UK apply live facial recognition to their already extensive network of CCTV cameras? What inpact would that have on society and would the positives outweigh the negatives? Let’s review the arguments that have been made by both sides. 

The difference between normal CCTV and this technology is that it can automatically indentify you by your facial feature and can pull up available data about you. Some look at the opportunities this could bring in finding people that have been doing bad things – such as thiefs or other criminals. They could be indentified by walking down the street or while buying groceries. It could also help with finding missing persons. 

On the other side, people are very distressed about the possibilities of doing harmful things with this technology. People often refer to the ‚Big Brother’ from George Orwell’s book, 1984. The UK information commisioner mentioned the following in one of her blog posts: “I am deeply concerned about the potential for live facial recognition (LFR) technology to be used inappropriately, excessively or even recklessly. When sensitive personal data is collected on a mass scale without people’s knowledge, choice or control, the impacts could be significant,”

There are also campaigns like Reclaim Your Face that fight against biometric mass surveilance and want to reclaim the public space. They believe that either to government or coporations will use this technology against the people. It’s just a matter of when, not if. 

What is your opinion on this? Do the negatives outweigh the positives or the other way around?  

Anduril is a startup that creates cutting edge products for the US and its allies. They build everything from software, to drones and sentries. 

Andruil has now raised 450 million dollars giving it a valuation of 4.6 billion dollars, which is about 4 times greater than one year ago. Elad Gill, who is a former Googler and Twitter VP, has taken the lead on this investment round, however there have been a number of funds and investors that also joined this round. 

Since it’s foundation, the company has built a better and better relationship with the US army.

Last year it was chosen as one of the 50 companies to work on the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) project or the US army.

Find more about this interesting start-up in this video made by Bloomberg.

Apple’s new AirTags, a location device that you can attach onto almost anything and track it through your application has been met with a lot of love, but also criticism. People are afraid that these will be used for stalking or other illegal activities. 

Apple responded that they are aware of the issue and they are trying to deal with it. Their solution, for now, is to notify users that have been tracked for 3 days that they may be stalked. There is a debate inside whether or not that is the correct ammount of time. On the one hand, getting a notification after 3 days allows you to make sure that you will not be tracked long term without your knowledge, but 3 days is still a lot of time in which someone may stalk you and potentially take advantage of you with the information he has aquired. 

Another issue with these devices is the way they communicate. They basically send SOS signals to other people’s iPhones in the area, allowing them to communicate the signal to Apple.  The issue is, if there are no iPhones around then there will be no SOS signal received. Apple’s team has been working on this and ‚lost’ ome of these AirTags on purpose to test them to their limits. 

What do you think about Apple’s new AirTags. Would you use them and are you worried that someone may track your whereabouts with one? 

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Laika allows dog owners to keep track of their pet and can give out treats.

For those of you who have pets, you know how hard it is to let them at home. Some pets may even eat your shoes, your sofa, or even your walls. I know, because mine did. There are many gadgets that offered to solve this problem, some were only cameras, other had speakers, and others again were only food dispensers. None actually fixed the problem. Until now. Laika is a robot (made by a start-up called CamToy), but not any kind of robot. Laika is a companion for you furry friends. It will follow your dog and give him traits. It has a microphone and a speaker, which will let you to talk to your dog and hear him. You can even record him or make photos.

The robot can be fully controlled through your smartphone, this way you will never miss your dog anymore when he is home alone. The interesting part, however, is that you can actually put it on smart auto mode when you are busy. It will follow your dog, play with him, give him treats and even play fetch with him. When the battery starts to get empty, it will automatically go back to its case and charge. When fully charged, it will start playing again.

Many people would ask themselves whether or not their dog will be afraid of Laika, and instead of being a good companion it would be something else to be afraid of. Cnet wrote:

The combination of treat delivery and its ability to move should appeal to many dogs. A representative for CamToy joked that it’s possible for a dog to like Laika more than its owner.

Laika is now available for purchase for around 1700 PLN, however it can still be purchased on IndieGoGo for roughly 1200 PLN. That might sound as a lot of money for many people, including for me. However, when you are ready to pay tens of thousands for premium dog hotels, spa or travelling services, 1200 PLN seems like a no-brainer.

Laika has inspired others, too. Since Laika has managed to raise the goal of 40.000 USD way before the closing date, there have been others trying to do similar things. For example, there is Buddy+ who has almost the same functions as Laika, but without the smart auto mode. Instead, It has a mini-tennis ball launcher that you can use to play with your dog when you are away.

Buddy+ comes with a tennis ball launcher so the dog can play fetch.

However, let us take a step back and look at this from a business perspective. This opens up doors for businesses designed to deal with you dogs, such as dog hotels. Imagine that you let your dog at a hotel on New Years Eve so that you can go to a party. You know your dog is probably very scared and you feel sorry for him. Only the thought of this could destroy the mood for a more sensitive person. Imagine now, that your hotel has one of these robots included in their offer. You could then just open up your phone and get to see how your pet is doing, play around with him or give him something to eat.

Laika is the pioneer, but who knows what will come next?

Please tell me, what do you think about Laika? Would you be tempted to buy one for your own pet? Why or why not?

Sources

cnet

SCMP

IndieGoGo

Adopt Laika

Reading Time: 3 minutes 

Firefly, who had the idea to put electronic billboards on top of cars, especially Uber and Lyft ones, was launched with 21.5 million USD in funding. Even though this idea is not completely new, many taxies have ads on their cars, Firefly allows advertisers to run targeted, geofenced campaigns. This means that the ads put on the cars do not have to be changed, you can show ads for multiple advertisers and it can be more targeted to the place you find yourself in, using Big Data.

Firefly wants, however, to implement some restrictions on what kind of ads they want to display through their product. They will not accept ads for strip clubs, tobacco and cannabis, among others. The founders of Firefly stated that they also work with advertisers that have never advertised outdoors before. They think they can expand the market by bringing to the table a new way to do efficient marketing.

According to Firefly, we are not talking about small sums of money that are available for the drivers. They stated that the drivers they currently work with make on average around 300 usd more a month just because of the ads. This is not only good news for the drivers, but it might mean that we might also benefit from this. If Uber decides to make all drivers to use this device, they might be able to offer more competitive prices. It is, of course, just a speculation.

I can definitely see this product used in other industries where cars are involved. However, they only offer this product to Uber and Lyft. I can also see how some would be tempted to put this kind of advertisements on their personal cars too, in order to earn a little bit of extra money. I am not sure however, if this would be a good idea due to the relatively small amount of time casual drivers use on the road.

Gunay, one of the founders, said that right now, if the drivers meet a certain threshold of kilimoeters on the road, they driver will get a flat benefit to carry the advertisement. He also admitted, however, that they are trying to explore different ways of remuneration, to “maximize the revenue that we share with the drivers and give the maximum benefit to the drivers.”.

As you may or may not know, earlier this year Uber also signed an agreement with Cargo, in order to allow drivers to sell more by selling products such as chewing gum, snacks or phone chargers. Even though Uber does not have any official agreement with Firefly, the founders said that they had discussions with Uber and they were informed that their drivers are free to adopt the technology if they do wish to. That is very fortunate for Firefly, and a sign that the company is likely to succeed on the market.

I think this is a great idea, which might bring a lot of benefits to the drivers, and potentially to the clients. I have not seen one yet in Warsaw, so I will be looking for it in the future.

What do you think, is this going to become a must-have for all commercial drivers?