Kozminski Techblog

The feature was released in the US last year and now it is coming to the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. But what is it exactly?

This new feature is aimed at children’s protection against nude photos. It disables them to send or receive this kind of content. As explained on Apple’s website, ‘if Messages detects that a child receives or is attempting to send this type of photo, Messages blurs the photo before it’s viewed on your child’s device and provides guidance and age-appropriate resources to help them make a safe choice, including contacting someone they trust if they choose.’

The screenshots below show how a child could get help after receiving a photo containing nudity:

Moreover, the following screenshots show what would appear on the screen when a child tries to send or view a photo containing nudity:

It is said that all the scanning happens only on the device and is not shared with Apple.

Moreover, as stated on The Verge, ‘Apple is also expanding the rollout of a new feature for Spotlight, Siri, and Safari searches that will point users toward safety resources if they search for topics relating to child sexual abuse’.

What do you think about this new feature? Will technology be able to help with such a sensitive topic?

Resources:

• https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212850
• https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/21/23035183/ios-messages-communication-safety-nudity-sexually-explicit-message-blurring?fbclid=IwAR1A0f3oFCHmqp99ocrgh0QR_tEZPVg_tUzCzkf1EzKSNLM0ptorJmPHduU
• https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/20/apple-says-new-child-safety-feature-to-be-rolled-out-for-uk-iphones

With the increasing usage of digital payments across the world, fiat currency is slowly becoming obsolete. Digital payments have brought about huge convenience as everything can almost be done with a card or a mobile device. China, one of the pioneers in promoting cashless payments through Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay. The country is slowly phasing out the use of fiat currency, and it is forecasted that around 60 percent of China’s 1.3 billion population will have made a purchase via mobile payment by 2023. With the prevalence and advancement of the cashless payments, China may soon become a cashless economy, where digital payment methods totally replace cash. They currently have measures that are breakthrough for the cashless payment industry.

Use of AI facial recognition

While the most common cashless payments include credit cards and QR codes, China has taken digital payment to the next level through the use of AI facial recognition. Shoppers in China are increasingly purchasing goods with just a turn of their heads as the country embraces facial payment technology. Customers can make a purchase simply by standing in front of the cashiering  machines equipped with cameras, if they had linked their their face to a digital payment system or bank account. For example, in a bakery shop Weiduomei, a specialised touchscreen device, similar to the size of an Ipad mini is placed at the checkout counter of the bakery. This device has access to the facial-information database of the parent company. So, if the company has a record of the user’s picture,  they will be in its facial-information database, and the machine will allow the customer to pay based on facial recognition. The cashier enters the amount of money for the order, which is then shown on the device screen. The user then taps Pay with Face Recognition on the screen of the device. The device scans the face and recognizes the user. The user then taps Confirm Payment and is done. 

Inequalities with cashless payments

While digital payments can only be done with access to mobile devices and networks, it has also left behind people who lack the access or technical knowledge in China’s largely cashless and online economy. For example, in northern China, an elderly man could not board the bus as he could not display a health code app that was required due to the covid 19 situation. Similarly, in Hubei province, an elderly woman, who had little knowledge on online payments was unable to pay for her health insurance with cash. These stories created attention and help to prompt the China government to provide more access and alternatives for the marginalised groups. The State Council, China’s cabinet, then mandated local  businesses and government authorities to accept cash payments and provided alternatives for health codes apps so seniors could better navigate the digital divide. The local bank has also started digital yuan programs through lottery-style giveaways by partnering with the local provinces. 

Is it possible for china to entirely transit into a cashless society?

While most transactions in China are online, there is still a significant population in the rural areas that prefer cash due to lack of access and knowledge. While some individuals prefer using debit and credit to cash for convenience, businesses benefit from processing fees when consumers use their apps and services to send and receive payments. Handling cash is also expensive, use of cashless payments will help business reduce cost and manage transactions better. China would probably see a transformation in the next few decades as its digital payments have been spearheaded by the current millennials and the younger generation. They have adopted these technologies since young and it has been a huge part of their lives.

Sources

When we think of solar panels, we always think that solar panels can only be useful during hours of sunlight well that is not the case anymore.

A recent research done by Stanford tested this out. They modified an existing solar panel that was bought and by adding a thermometric generator it generated currents from temperature differences. The result was a smidge of electricity that was generated and relied on the ‘frigid vacuum of space’.

The lead researcher for this experiment Shanhui Fan who is also a professor of electrical engineering said that the main reason was to harness the coldness of outer space as it is an extremely important source of renewable energy. Traditional solar panels absorb sunlight thus the name solar panels, whereas these modified solar panel used in this experiment absorbs radiative cooling. The main feature of traditional solar panels is that they have photovoltaic cells which do not work at night and even in cloudy weather whereas these modified solar panels do.

To give a technical background a regular traditional commercial solar panel can produce up to 200 watts per square meter from a single panel whereas the modified panel used in this project here only generated 50 milliwatts; to put it simply a modified solar panel has 0.04% power output of a traditional solar panel, and for reference, one watt is one thousand milliwatts.

Fan also said that since the modifications were made to commercially available solar panels they could be easily and widely used. He also said that the real-life application for these modified solar panels would be for low power density applications.

Realistically the idea of large-scale implementation of these modified solar panels is a far-fetched idea as the power generation even if deployed on large scale will be extremely low. The future of development for this modified solar panel is in the starting stages and for now, there is no need for it to be a commercially viable option.

In my opinion, the future of these solar panels is bright but as it is hindered by many factors but it needs substantial research and development for it to be of practical use in the upcoming future.

REFERENCES

• https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/solar-panels-that-work-at-night-developed-at-stanford/
• https://www.newscientist.com/article/2314957-solar-panels-that-work-at-night-produce-enough-power-to-charge-a-phone/
• https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/04/08/reverse-solar-panel-technology-still-works-when-the-sun-goes-down

E-sports is a market that is growing steadily today, this market is expected to grow by 25% every year until 2025, a crazy explosion. The name may not be familiar to everyone, so to remind you, E-sport defines video game competitions at a professional level, but what does E-sport encompass and what are its sources of revenue ?  

E-sport arrived in the 1980s with the appearance of the first video games but then it became more democratic in the 2000s with the first offline competitions organised, and it is from the 2010s onwards that this industry has exploded in the eyes of the general public.

E-sport encompasses all video game competitions, but it is divided by each video game, we can mention the biggest franchises like League of Legends, Dota or Counter-Strike. These are the historical games of E-sport, but as said before it is a growing market, so like any profitable market there is a threat of new entrants, this is the case with Fortnite which arrived in Esport in 2019 and has established itself as a stable franchise in the world of E-sport. The graph below shows the most influential video games in the world of E-sports in 2019.

This industry has the same basis as sport at a professional level with players in teams and contracts, performance bonuses, fixed salaries… Each game as well as each sport has different ways of operating but to simplify things, most games follow the model of football with divisions and world championships at the end of the year, of course there are exceptions like Counter-Strike.

This market is extremely profitable economically and represents a major industry in the entertainment market, as the following key figures show :

– 950 million dollars in revenue per year (forecast 1.6 billion in 2023)

– Nearly 500 million Internet users are interested in eSports worldwide

– 445%: the growth of this business over the last 5 years

– According to the Syndicat des éditeurs de logiciels de loisirs (SELL), 48% of players are women

– The League of Legends World Championship is the most watched event on Twitch and Youtube with 105 million hours viewed

– Jesse Vainikka, the highest paid e-sport player in the world, earned $3.16 million in 2019

– In France, more than 7.8 million players over 15 years old watch and participate in E-sport competitions

We can see that it is a market that is attracting more and more people, especially a younger and younger audience, with a parity globally respected. For sure this industry will be a major actor of the entertainment of the new generation, we can thus ask ourselves the question, will E-sport in the next years be as popular as sport or even more popular ?

SOURCES:

https://www.win-sport-school.com/nice/actualite/le-esport-une-industrie-en-pleine-croissance

Nowadays, the impact of new technologies on the environment is a real issue. The permanent use of technologies contributes to what is called digital pollution. This growing phenomenon is not likely to go away. We ask ourselves how to mitigate this problem. 

And if reversing the trend would be the solution? Can digital technology be at the service of the environment? 

68 per cent of the environment-related Sustainable Development Goal indicators, there is not enough data to assess progress. The digital initiatives leverage technology to halt the decline of the planet and accelerate sustainable finance, products, services, and lifestyles, according to the UNEP studies. 

To address this problem, the Swiss technology company IQAir and UNEP partnered to create the GEMS Air Strategic Plan. This platform collected data from 50 million users in 5,000 cities to fight air pollution. In the future, the program aims to extend this capability directly into cell phone health apps.

Another association demonstrating the power of technology to fight pollution is the Freshwater Ecosystem Explorer. 

It provides a detailed overview of the state of lakes and rivers in every country on the planet.

“This data is presented in a policy-friendly way, so citizens and governments can easily assess what is really happening to the world’s freshwater resources,” says Stuart Crane, a freshwater expert at UNEP. “This helps countries track their progress toward achieving Target 6.6 of the Sustainable Development Goals.”

Data about the physical environments in which we meet, work, and conduct our daily activities therefore raises serious privacy and security concerns. This is especially true when combined with health data. We need to better understand how to set limits on data collection. For example, we need to determine whether certain types or sources of data should be prohibited. We also need to define limits on how citizens, communities, and businesses can use this data.   

However, this improvement in data collection poses considerable privacy and ethical challenges in making the most of the data. The integration and governance of its data poses a considerable challenge. 

“Data about the physical environments in which we meet, work, and conduct our daily business therefore raises serious privacy and security concerns. This is especially true when combined with health data. “explains Anders Quitzau Research & Innovation Executive, IBM Research – IBM Watson

Sources :

The war in Ukraine, which has been going for almost 2 months now is even fought in the Internet. Recently, we found out that the Russian are stealing various types of things, including Apple equipment.

As we all know, Apple system offers the solution of “Find my iPhone”, which enable to measure the company’s equipment as long as it is attached to the account, One of the AirPod users added a Twitt in which he confessed that his stolen headphones are in Belarus.

“Ukrainians are locating their devices on their territory of the Homiel region, Belarus, where part of the Russian army has withdrawn” – says Franak Viacòrka.

This massage from Viacòrka is also the proof that Russia is using the territories of Belarus to conduct its military operations.

The whole situation shows that humanity is the weakest feature here. Maybe you remember, one time it was loud about secret military bases that were no longer secret. All thanks to soldiers who track their physical activity thanks to a running application (of course with GPS turned on).

What is more, it turns out, that Russian commanders use also unsecured telephones and radio transmitters. In this way, the Ukrainian army can relatively easily track their location and attack the command staffs.

Additionally, it turns out that even various dating sites contributed to the fact that Western countries earned about Russia’s plans to attack Ukraine earlier. New facts about dating apps recently came too light. Moreover, these services can still help in the hostilities.

UK service sources revealed that the dating apps become huge stores of knowledge for spies. Soldiers and people involved in military operations were not scrupulously supervised by their superiors. What is important here, the content posted on dating apps has already contributed to the use of confidential information by special services several times. Recently, in this way, American soldiers have, absolutely unknowingly, betrayed the location of several secret bases. Men serving in the military use dating apps and other websites that save and share their activity results, including documenting the routes of walks or runs.

Sources:

https://www.rmfmaxxx.pl/news/Wsrod-nich-znalazl-sie-Tinder-Aplikacje-randkowe-ujawnily-plany-wojenne-Putina,62606.html#crp_state=1

https://highlab.pl/ukraincy-namierzaja-rosyjskich-zolnierzy-appl

The food industry is one of the largest, rich and financed industries in Africa and the Middle East. According to statistics over 30% of total income of citizens from all over the Africa and Middle East is being spent on food supplies and rations. But, unfortunately there are a lot of restaurants that are struggling to successfully operate their businesses and as a result having problems with increasing margins, ROIs or even operate in a loss.

That’s why Wesam Massoud, Kareem El Daly and Ahmed Osman who are the founding fathers of the startup called “The Food Lab” came up with an innovative idea of the platform that will take care of a vast amount of infrastructure, food operations of the restaurants and as a reward take a small fee from the overall restaurant’s income. All of the founders have a big amount of experience in the restaurant businesses and all of them experienced difficulties in setting up the different operational processes of the restaurants properly to establish a growing margin. That’s why they created a centralized platform that provides infrastructure and food related services to the restaurants, so that management was able to focus more on the strategies and marketing, rather than on questions related to the kitchen and infrastructure.

The idea of the “The Food Lab” was established and created in 2019 by three passionate entrepreneurs who wanted to address the modern issues faced in the restaurant and food industries in Egypt and Middle East. First major success The Food Lab faced recently when the idea had blown up and startup received approximately 4.5$ millions in a pre-seed phase of a venture financing campaign. Founders claim that this amount will be enough to completely take over the Egyptian market and also to enter other Middle East and African markets. For now, startup has two kitchens located in Egypt with the total of 175.000 processed and delivered orders from different customers.

So, what are the services that “The Food Lab” provides and what’s the overall idea of the Cloud for the restaurants? The main idea is to provide a kitchen and cooks as a service for the restaurant and at the same time fully take care of the procurement of the food supplies, delivery to the customer and support of the kitchen equipment. Due to the recent rapid increase in the demand of the delivery services, that can be a perfect solution for restaurants that are struggling with managing all of their processes correctly.

Also, “The Food Lab” has a Machine Learning and Data driven solution that tracks all the data related to the customer orders and makes analysis of their activity and provides dashboards to the restaurant management, so that they were able to build more accurate marketing strategies or for example restructure and reengineer the menu.

For now, startup is planning to “Expand their Borders” and hire more employees for handling operations and also to build new “Kitchen Centers” all around the Egypt and further in other regions of Africa and Middle East.

Resources:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/18/the-food-lab-an-egyptian-cloud-kitchen-provider-raises-4-5m-pre-seed-for-expansion/

https://thefoodlab.com/

https://innovation-village.com/the-food-lab-an-egyptian-cloud-kitchen-provider-raises-4-5m-in-pre-seed-funding-round/

We have all heard of Mark Zuckerberg taking advantage of its users’ data as a bargaining chip, while publicly claiming to be protecting that data. It is therefore to no surprise that users of big tech companies try to disclose as little private information as possible. However, what if Microsoft, Zoom, Apple and co. nevertheless use our data without us knowing?

According to a study of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, whenever you use a video teleconferencing app, the company hosting the service is collecting all audio data, even when muting your mic. To put it another way, students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison were able to create machine learning models that could accurately predict what a teleconference app user was doing while their microphone was muted. Consider what Google or Microsoft could accomplish with their enormous AI models. Big tech companies do not inform their users of this issue, however there is a way to mute your audio feed. If you have headphones with a physical mute button, you can use that to silence your headphones first, then utilize the app’s mute button as an additional layer of muting. If your headphones don’t have a physical mute button or you’re communicating using your laptop’s microphone, you can mute yourself via the app as well as through the computers’ system settings.

It is controversial of big tech companies to ask for our permission to utilize private data, however, to not inform users in large print that even when muted, they can listen to our conversations. What AI do with the data and to what extent it stays private is for now unknown. The only option is to double mute and unmute again whenever it is time to talk (:

Daley, J. (2022, April 11). You’re muted — or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen even when mic is off. News WISC. https://news.wisc.edu/youre-muted-or-are-you-videoconferencing-apps-may-listen-even-when-mic-is-off/

Greene, T. (2022, April 14). Muting your mic reportedly doesn’t stop big tech from recording your audio. TNW | Neural. https://thenextweb.com/news/muting-your-mic-doesnt-stop-big-tech-recording-your-audio

Yang, Y., West, J., Thiruvathukal, G., Klingensmith, N., & Fawaz, K. (2022). Are You Really Muted?: A Privacy Analysis of Mute Buttons in Video Conferencing Apps. The 22nd Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium, 1–21. https://wiscprivacy.com/papers/vca_mute.pdf

Recently, I read an article on BBC news that a controversial facial recognition company, Clearview AI, announced it had given its technology to the Ukrainian government to help identify the dead in Ukraine.

The controversial part comes when it is known that the company has scrapped billions of photos from social media companies, like Facebook and Twitter, to create an enormous database of what its CEO and founder Hoan Ton-That calls “a search engine for faces”, something like how Google has scrapped billions of information and is now one of the most reliable search engines. And of course, due to the privacy laws, the company has faced multiple legal challenges, with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office even fining the company for failing to inform people it was collecting photos of them.

However, I believe that there are ways to ensure the ethical use of this technology and the company could adopt the following principles proposed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU):

• Collection: Institutions should obtain informed, written consent from citizens before including their biometric data in the facial recognition database.
• Usage: Users should refrain from using facial recognition systems to determine an individual’s skin color, race, religion, national origin, gender, age, or disability.
• Disclosure: The results of a facial recognition system shouldn’t be traded or shared without the informed, written consent of the data subject.
• Security: Organizations should have dedicated security professionals to host, manage, and secure facial recognition information.
• Transparency: Organizations must define policies for compliance and use of data while offering the necessary technical measures to verify accountability.

All in all, I believe the use of facial recognition has been revolutionary but users of such technology should be more careful with how they collect and use the photos of people.

References

• Article Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-61055319
• External Source: https://learn.g2.com/ethics-of-facial-recognition#:~:text=The%20top%20six%20ethical%20concerns,breaches%2C%20and%20inefficient%20legal%20support.