Kozminski Techblog

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Over the past few years, we have been constantly hearing about artificial intelligence. “AI won the art contest”, “AI predicts cancer”, “AI defended a diploma” and many other news headlines, the veracity of which has always been relative. But over the past few months we were able to meet AI “face to face”. ChatGPT. We can’t say ChatGPT changed the rules of the game, but it was the flare gun that started the “race”. And I guess now it is time for companies to present their “cars”. And our today’s hero is Google Bard.

After successful launch of ChaGPT and presentation of Bing update (my blog from 17.02.2023) it was vital for the company to respond to competitors. And Google did it. Bard is an experimental conversational AI service, powered by LaMDA (Illustration 1). LaMDA is a Language Model for Dialogue Applications based on Transformer (a neural network architecture that Google Research invented and open-sourced in 2017), as well as GPT-3.

So, what is Bard needed for? It is made to analyse and summarise information from the web and provide users with relevant an high quality answers on their questions (Illustration 2). For example, you can ask to explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills.

It should also be mentioned that Bard made a mistake on the presentation. My colleague has written an entire blog about it: “EXPENSIVE GOOGLE’S MISTAKE“. If you want to know more about this accident, I strongly recommend you to read it. In short, it offered the response that the telescope was the first to take pictures of a planet outside the earth’s solar system, when in fact that milestone was claimed by the European Very Large Telescope in 2004 – a mistake quickly noted by astronomers on Twitter. After this, shares in parent company Alphabet sank more than 10% (Illustration 3).

Nevertheless, Bard is still on the test stage. It was mentioned on the presentation that now Bard is available only for the group of testers, but in a few weeks it will be opened for all users.

In conclusion, AI is the future. And after the OpenAI and Microsoft presentation of their products based on GPT, the game was started. Apparently in the near future we will see many projects of different companies based on AI technologies. I believe that the market is going to change due to this competition, and I will watch the development of events with great interests.

List of used sources:

• https://blog.google/technology/ai/bard-google-ai-search-updates/
• https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-use-google-bard/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n25S64fI5s
• https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64576225
• https://blog.google/technology/ai/lamda/
• https://ai.googleblog.com/2017/08/transformer-novel-neural-network.html
• https://www.etoro.com/markets/goog/chart/

Reading Time: 3 minutes

In my previous blogs I wrote about platform FRAGMENT.COM that launched option of buying and selling TELEGRAM @usernames (blog from 2022/11/29) and anonymous phone numbers (blog from 2022/12/17). I recommend you to read them, because in this blog I will use some thoughts, findings and information from them. In this blog I want to make a kind of conclusion and discuss some predictions for the future of TONcoin (Illustration 1) and its ecosystem.

To start with, let’s remember what is TON. TON is a fully decentralized layer-1 blockchain designed by Telegram to onboard billions of users. It boasts ultra-fast transactions, tiny fees, easy-to-use apps, and is environmentally friendly. TON market cap is ~3billion$. It was made to be a high-speed, secure, and scalable (Illustration 2).

Pavel Durov (founder, CEO at Telegram, founder, ex-CEO of VKontakte) was the creator of the original concept of TON. And now he actively supports TON and creates platforms as FRAGMENT.COM based on it. Also, he supports in on Twitter (Illustration 3).

And also Pavel Durov announces plans to create more and more decentralised projects such as wallets and exchanges. He argues that blockchain industry has gone form the original concept of freedom and decentralisation, and now, after the latests events in the industry it is time for developers to “back to their roots” (Illustration 4).

Nevertheless, these are just a words, although the words of a very influential person. But what protects in TON ecosystem are already exist? There is a huge list of them on the TON website, but I want to mention the most important of them and verified by the TON team (marked with the blue checkmark on the website).

• Wallets (Illustration 5).

I guess that the best and the most significant opportunity of @Wallet is Telegram Bot. You can use Telegram as your regular cryptocurrency wallet. Buy cryptocurrency by bank card and receive, exchange, and send cryptocurrency to other wallets. In this Bot you can store, top up, and transfer Toncoin and BTC. Payments can be made in USD, EUR, and RUB.

• Bridges (Illustration 6)

• Platforms based on The Open Network (TON)

Fragment (Illustration 8) is a free platform which facilitates the transaction of collectibles between users. It supports direct, secure and anonymous sales as well as public auctions where everyone can participate over a period of time. To provide this service transparently, Fragment takes full advantage of TON, a blockchain technology initially developed by Telegram.

Getgems (Illustration 9) is an NFT marketplace built on The Open Network blockchain. To start using the website, all you need to do is connect your wallet — and that’s it. You’ll have all of the marketplace’s functionalities at your fingertips — buying, selling, minting, and transferring single NFTs or entire collections. If you’re more of an observer, there’s plenty of NFT beauty on the marketplace to admire!

In conclusion, The Open Network seem to develop and supported by people and companies. For me, it is an intersection phenomenon of creating of an entire ecosystem based on one blockchain. I like the idea of decentralisation and I will be very interested to see the development of this project in the future.

List of used sources:

• https://coinmarketcap.com/ru/currencies/toncoin/
• https://ton.org/en
• https://ton.app
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=madE_dI_ITU
• https://twitter.com/durov
• https://getgems.io
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Durov
• https://fragment.com/about

Reading Time: 3 minutes

When we were kids and we needed an answer to a question, we asked mom. When we were teenagers, and we needed an answer to a question, we asked Google. Today when we need an answer to a question we ask ChatGPT. So, who will we asked tomorrow? I guess Microsoft knows the answer. They presented new AI-powered Bing search engine powered by GPT-3.5 technologies.

To start with, what is Microsoft Bing? It is a search engine launched in 2009, owned and operated by Microsoft. Currently, it is the second most popular search service in the world. Bing powers some Microsoft products such as the Cortana and Microsoft Edge. Previously, Bing had some advantages over competitors, but they were not significant enough to fight Google. But seems like something is going to change. Microsoft announced updated version of Bing powered by new generation of Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT-3.5) by OpenAI.

So, what can Bling powered by AI offer users?

• Improved search precess: Bing providing more relevant results that best match your request.
• Complete answers: Bing reviews and summarises answers on the question that you have asked, and gives you complete answer.
• AI Communication: Bing has interactive chat for complicated tasks, for instance smartphone selection or vocation planning. Through communication process you can specify some parameters, ask clarifying questions and so on.
• Creative tasks: Bing also can generate content based on some information from web. For example you can ask him to write an email or essay, create a travel plan, or make a quiz. Moreover, it will give you the list of references (links) used during the process creation.
• New AI abilities on the webpages: using Microsoft Edge you can summarise article or any information given, receive brief retelling and ask some clarifying questions. You can also ask Edge to help you compose content. Furthermore, AI can interact with the page interface, so you can ask it to perform some actions.

Also, it should be mentioned that new Bing is based on the new generation of GPT-3.5 created by OpenAI (Illustration 2), which is more powerful than the one used in ChatGPT and customised directly for searching process. Combined with Microsoft Prometheus model, it gives more relevant and targeted results (let me remind that ChatGPT had problems with the analysis of information that has appeared over the past couple of years.

Microsoft and OpenAI were expected to work closely together, due to financial and technical support Microsoft provided to OpenAI. But I was surprised an how quickly this happened and how extensively they integrate new technologies in their products. In conclusion, it seems like Microsoft is trying to beat the competitors like Google (Google Search), Apple (Siri), Yahoo and so on. AI technologies implementation is high potential, but still risky. But Microsoft and OpenAI has started this game, and now the move of other companies.

List of used sources:

• https://openai.com
• http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/search-engines
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bing
• https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/02/07/reinventing-search-with-a-new-ai-powered-microsoft-bing-and-edge-your-copilot-for-the-web/
• https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/7/23587454/microsoft-bing-edge-chatgpt-ai

Reading Time: 4 minutes

The closing date of Zenly was announced month ago, even though the plans for it were announced much more earlier. Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel, in his letter on August 31 has provided Restructuring and Refocusing Plans for 2023, which included termination and decline in investment for the projects that are don’t contribute to strategic priorities of the company. One of these projects is Zenly. Even though Zenly is very popular app with monthly amount of active users more than 35M, it seems like developers have not figured out how to make it profitable. So, the closing date was set to 3rd of February, all users receiver the following announcement (Illustration 1.) and the timer in the app started.

To start with, what is Zenly? Zenly was founded in 2012 by Antoine Martin and Simon Pollet, two French entrepreneurs. They launched the app in 2013, and it quickly gained popularity in Europe. In 2017, Zenly was acquired by Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, for an undisclosed amount. After the acquisition, Zenly app continued to operate as an independent app, but with the support of Snap. Zenly is a mobile application that allows users to share their location with friends and family in real-time. Users can see the location of their friends and family on a map, and they can also use the app to message each other, share photos, stickers, videos and more. You are able to create and highlight places on the map, both custom and common, check favourite places of your friends, see countries where you been and pleases where you spent time and so on (Illustration 3). The app is available on both iOS and Android platforms.

So, what are the reasons for the shutdown? Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel: From the mentioned letter of We have worked thoughtfully and deliberately to find the right balance between focusing our investments while continuing to innovate, and we have made the decision to discontinue our investments in Snap Originals, Minis, Games, and Pixy, among other areas. We have also started the process of winding down the standalone applications Zenly and Voisey. So Zenly along with other projects and applications became a victim of the financial crisis in the Snap inc. So, that does crisis management mean? Closing projects that does not bring money. And unfortunately, Zenly is one of these projects.

Also, there is one more important factor that affected the shutdown. Snap inc. one of the main products is SnapChat (Illustration 4.).

SnapChat is a multimedia messaging app that allows users to send photos, videos, and text messages that disappear after a short period of time. Users can also use the app to add filters and effects to their photos and videos, and to communicate with friends through live video chats. Snapchat also has a feature called “Stories,” which allows users to create a chronological collection of photos and videos that are visible to their friends for 24 hours. And one of the options is SnapMap (Illustration 5.). Even though the functionality of it is far less than Zenly, seems like Snap inc. managers believe that after Zenly shutdown most of the community will go to the SnapMap.

In conclusion, it is a pity that because on the financial crisis and unprofitability Zenly is closing. Also, from my point of view, SnapMap will not acquire many new users, because the difference between the functionality of Zenly and SnapMap is too high, and users would rather prefer other alternatives like iShare and so on. However, it should be noted that after the shutdown the huge amount of users searching for the alternatives will appear on the market, and developers will have a chance to attract new audience for their projects.

The list of used sources:

• https://zen.ly/terms
• https://newsroom.snap.com/ru-RU/restructuring-and-refocusing-our-business
• https://map.snapchat.com/
• https://isharingsoft.com
• https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/18/social-maps-app-zenly-rolls-out-its-own-maps/
• https://community.zen.ly/hc/en-us/articles/11085576435857-why-is-zenly-shutting-down-
• https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/05/zenly-was-the-best-social-app-and-it-will-sadly-shut-down-on-february-3rd/
• https://isharingsoft.com/zenly-shutdown-and-whats-next/

Reading Time: 3 minutes

In my previous blog I have already told you about the FRAGMENT platform (fragment.com). I recommend you to read it, because this article is a continuation of the topic that I have discussed previously. In short, in the penultimate update Telegram presented the function of buying and selling @usernames through the fragment.com. And since the last update, you can buy virtual telephone number for Telegram account through the same platform.

It all started with the discussion between Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey on Twitter. The subject of discussion was the telephone number verification on Twitter account. On the 6th of December Pavel Durov (founder, CEO at Telegram, founder, ex-CEO of VKontakte) thanked them for the feedback and announced a new Telegram update (Illustration 1)

Now, lat’s move on to telephone numbers themselves. The Telegram telephone number (starts with +888) is an NFT, that is connected with your TON wallet and can be used for the telegram account verification, sold or putted up on the auction. Just like with @usernames. On fragment.com there are two ways of buying a number. Firstly, you can buy a particular number from other users. Some of them are placed on sale at a fixed price, some are putted up for auction. At the moment prices start from the 15 TON (for ordinary ones without specific combinations of numbers), and can reach more than 55.000 TON (for rare and beautiful ones) (Illustration 2).

Additionally, it should be mentioned that starting on December 13 at 12PM UTC the price for the random number is increasing for 1 TON every 3 hours until it reaches 99 TON, at which point these numbers will be removed from sale. This news boost user’s interest and uncreased both amount of sales and the price of TONcoin (its price increased from 1.8$ to 2.8$, now it is currently trading an 2.4$ (Illustration 3)).

To talk about the anonymity, I believe that it is a new step in this sphere. To buy an ordinary phone number, you need your passport information. To buy a telegram prone number, you need only a TON wallet. And even though every person in the internet can check any TON wallet with its balance, NFTs and transactions, no one can tell who owns the wallet and its contents. And that is the anonymity.

In conclusion, the telegram keep developing its projects. Telegram is becoming something more than just a messenger. It is developing it’s own eco-system with using cryptocurrency, NFT and other modern market trends. And even though internet anonymity is conventional topic, `I believe that it is the future.

Links and sources:

• https://coinmarketcap.com
• https://fragment.com
• https://techblog.kozminski.edu.pl/2022/11/29/telegram-launched-the-platform-for-buying-and-selling-usernames-for-channels-and-personal-accounts/
• https://getgems.io/collection/EQAOQdwdw8kGftJCSFgOErM1mBjYPe4DBPq8-AhF6vr9si5N#items

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Video hosting YouTube presents a new paid function – now you can subscribe to more than 30 streaming services such as SHOWTIME®, Paramount+, STARZ, AMC+, and more (image 1). So, you can get a subscription and watch the content directly through the YouTube website or application. So far this is a beta version, and it is accessible only to users from the US. 

YouTube started its work in 2005, and at this moment it has more than 2 billion active users all around the world. With such many users, YouTube is trying to expand and occupy new niches in the market. In 2015, the streaming service YouTube Music was introduced as part of the YouTube Premium subscription. In 2017, YouTube TV was released, which currently includes more than 100 TV channels. On YouTube Movies, you can buy or rent movies and series.

Now YouTube is trying to combine on its platform as many streaming services as possible. Subscriptions will be made on the platform itself, so then YouTube will take some commission. All content will also be placed within the platform, which will help to focus more audience on one platform (image 2). Streaming services, in turn, will be able to attract new audiences through advertising and an individual selection of content for YouTube users.

However, it is unlikely that in the future YouTube will be able to bring together more big streaming services because the larger audience has streaming services, the less interested it is in such integration because they have the resources to promote its platform and not pay anyone a percentage of the profits. Moreover, competitors in this field are already such giants as Apple (Apple TV) and Amazon (Amazon Prime Video), so the content market will have to fight with them.

For an ordinary user, this is not an opportunity to save money, as it is necessary to subscribe to each service separately. So far there is no combined subscription to YouTube Premium. However, given that currently, YouTube combines user-generated content, music, podcasts, live streaming, movies, TV, streaming services, and many other types of content, this platform is becoming more and more convenient for users, as it can combine many types of content interesting to the user, as well as on the basis of statistics to select individual offers.

However, in the long run, such integration could lead to small companies locking in audiences and platforms of big IT companies such as YouTube, Amazon, and so on, and consequently, large platforms will have the ability to censor and influence the content of dependent channels.

List of used sources:

• https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-launches-streaming-service-store-as-competition-intensifies-for-viewers-11667302512?mod=business_lead_pos12
• https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/more-of-your-favorite-content-on-youtube-with-primetime-channels/