Technology

Plans To Remove .org Domain Price Cap Prompts Complaints

Posted on by Andy Miller

Many charities and other non-profit organisations that use .org, .biz or .info domains have complained that proposals to lift the price cap on those domains could lead to the price rocketing.

What Price Cap?

The price cap on .org domains was originally put in place by the US Department of Justice at a time when only a few top-level domains were available and offered a level of price protection to the mainly non-profit groups and organisations that used those domains.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) oversees the web’s domain name system and is the organisation that has made the proposal to lift the price cap after having discussions with the Public Interest Registry, a Pennsylvania non-profit corporation, and  Registry Operator for the .org top-level domain (TLD).

Consultation

Icann launched a consultation “Proposed Renewal of .org Registry Agreement” on a forum on its website throughout March in order to obtain community input and to encourage debate among those involved with domains.  The consultation ended on the  29th April, and the resulting report is due on the 30th May.

Many Complaints

Many organisations and interested parties have complained about the proposed .org renewal agreement.  For example, registrar Namecheap has said that the move would put prices up, and that with switching domains being hard, organisations will be left little option but to pay the higher prices.

It appears that most holders of .org domains, companies selling domain names, ISPs and net marketing firms have objected to the proposal.

Critics of Icann’s proposal to remove the price cap have said that Icann appears to be doing so for administrative convenience rather than for the public interest.

Icann

Icann has justified the proposal to drop the price cap by saying that when the cap was introduced there were only a few top-level options available for organisations wanting to register a domain name, whereas there are now around 1200 different options. This could mean, therefore, that price protection for a few choice domains may longer be necessary.

Icann has also pointed out that even if there are price increases, domain registrants will be given a minimum six-month notice of any price increase, and that they can effectively protect themselves against price increases by renewing their registrations for as many as 10 years prior to the change taking effect.

Another Way?

One other possible option that has been raised online is ICANN’s Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group reportedly suggesting that price caps should remain but could be raised by a reasonable level from their current level of 10% per year.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The thought of increased costs and domain price instability for non-profit organisations that need to use their money for their causes is proving to be a very unpopular idea.  Also, for those organisations (particularly larger ones) that have already established a presence online with a .org (.biz or .info), switching to another type of domain is likely to be difficult, costly in many ways, and is likely to be making many organisations feel angry at feeling forced into a position where they’ll have no option but to accept the new higher prices as a result of remaining with their .org (if the proposal goes ahead).

As Icann has pointed out, however, there would be some consolation with organisations being able to renew their registrations for as many as 10 years prior to the change taking effect.

The report from the consultation is due on the 30th May, so it’s a case of waiting until beyond that date to get a clearer indication of what Icann will do.

Slack Builds Email Bridge

Posted on by Andy Miller

Chat App and collaborative working tool Slack appears to have given up the fight to eliminate email by allowing the introduction of new tools that enable Slack collaboration features inside Gmail and Outlook, thereby building a more inclusive ‘email bridge’.

What Is Slack?

Slack, launched ‘way back’ in 2013, is a cloud-based set of proprietary team collaboration tools and services. It provides mobile apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and is available for the Apple Watch, enabling users to send direct messages, see mentions, and send replies.

Slack teams enable users (communities, groups, or teams) to join through a URL or invitation sent by a team admin or owner. It was intended as an organisational communication tool, but it has gradually been morphing into a community platform i.e. it is a business technology that has crossed-over into personal use.

Email Bridge

After having a five-year battle against email, Slack is building an “email bridge” into its platform that will allow those who only have email to communicate with Slack users.

Aim

The change is aimed at getting those members of an organisation on board who have signed up to the Slack app but are not willing to switch entirely from email to Slack. The acceptance that not everyone wants to give up using their email altogether has made way for a belief by Slack that something at least needs to be built-in to the app to allow companies and organisations to be able to leverage the strengths of all their workers, and at least allow those organisation and team members who are separated because of their Slack vs email situation to be connected to the important conversations within Slack. It will also now mean that companies and organisations have time to make the transition in working practices at their own pace (or not ) i.e. migrate (or not migrate) entirely to Slack.

How?

The change supports Slack’s current Outlook and Gmail functionality, which enables users to forward emails into a channel where members can view and discuss the content and plan responses from inside Slack. It also allows anything set within the Outlook or Gmail Calendar to be automatically synced to Slack.

The new changes will allow team members who have email but have not committed to Slack to receive an email notification when they’re mentioned by their username in channels or are sent a direct message.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Slack appears to have listened to Slack users who’d like a way to keep connected with their e-mail only / waiting to receive credentials colleagues, and the email bridge is likely to meet with their approval in this respect.  For Slack, it also presents the opportunity gently for those people who are more resistant to change into eventually making the move to Slack.

This change is one of several announced by Slack, such as the ‘Actions’ feature last year, and the two new toolkits (announced in February this year) that will allow non-coders to build apps within Slack.

Slack knows that there are open source and other alternatives in the market, and the addition of more features and more alliances will help Slack to provide more valuable tools to users, thereby helping it to gain and retain loyalty and compete in a rapidly evolving market.

‘ManyChat’ Raises $18 million Funding For Facebook Messenger Bot

Posted on by Andy Miller

California-based startup ‘ManyChat’ has raised $18 million Series A funding for its Facebook Messenger marketing bot.

ManyChat

ManyChat Inc. is now the leading messenger marketing product, reportedly powering over 100,000 bots on Facebook Messenger.

ManyChat lets you use visual drag`n`drop interface to create a free Facebook Messenger bot for marketing, sales and support.  The bot is essentially a Facebook Page that sends out messages and responds to users automatically.

The ManyChat bot allows you to welcome new users, send them content, schedule posts, set up keyword auto-responses (text, pictures, menus), automatically broadcast your RSS feed and more.

The bot, which is a blend of automation and personal outreach also incorporates Live Chat that notifies you when a conversation is needed with a subscriber.

Facebook Messenger

ManyChat says it has focused on Facebook Messenger because it is the #1 app in the US and Canada with over 1 billion active users, and it is the most engaging channel with average 80% open rates and 4 to 10 times higher CTRs compared to email.

The Funding

The $18 million funding for ManyChat was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Flint Capital, and means that Bessemer’s Ethan Kurzweil will be joining the board of directors, and Bessemer’s Alex Ferrara becomes a board observer.

1+ Million Accounts Created

ManyChat reports that more than 1 million accounts have been created on the platform already by customers in many different industry sectors.  The platform has also reported that these 1+ million customers have managed to enlist 350 million Messenger subscribers and that there are now a staggering 7 billion messages sent on the platform each month.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Bots provide a way for businesses to reduce costs, make better use of resources and communicate with customers and enquirers 24/7.

As ManyChat points out, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to effectively reach their audience because people open less email and social media is ‘noisy’ to the point where messages become lost in the crowd.  A key advantage of ManyChat, therefore, is that it uses Facebook Messenger as a private channel of communication with each user, it’s instant and interactive, no message is ever lost, and Messenger has huge user numbers. Other advantages that businesses will appreciate is that it’s free and easy to set up the bot (no coding skills are required), and it offers the best of both worlds of automated communications, and the option to jump in with Live Chat when it is needed.

This kind of bot could enable businesses and organisations to make their marketing more effective while maximising efficiency.

ManyChat is also good news for Facebook which owns Messenger as it appears to be boosting user numbers by finding an improved, business-focused use for the app.

For ManyChat, its Facebook Messenger bot appears to be only the beginning (hence the funding), with investors looking at platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, RCS, and more to further expand bot marketing services in the future.

UK Government Services Information Accessible Via Voice-Activated Smart Speakers

Posted on by Andy Miller

After a six-month trial by the Government Digital Service (GDS) with a view to future-proofing the delivery of online services for citizens, 12,000 items of government information can now be accessed via voice-activated smart speakers and virtual assistants, such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home.

Wider Plan

The GDS trial that has made the information available via voice-activated smart -speakers is part of a wider plan to employ the use of third-party (voice) apps, machine learning, and other new technologies in order to simplify interactions between citizens services going forward. The millions of smart speakers now in use in UK homes means that voice-activated technology has provided an important first step for the government’s plans.

What Kind of Information?

Examples of the kind of government services information that’s now available via Alexa and Google home includes the dates of UK bank holidays, the minimum wage level, information about how to apply for a passport or pension, as well as the answers to childcare and tax-related questions.

Started A Year Ago

The plans to future-proof government services in this way were first made public a year ago when Neil Williams, head of Gov.uk at the time, said that around 400 services had already been identified as potential use cases for voice technology.

Machine Learning Added To Gov.uk website

The idea of integrating machine learning with the Gov.uk website is reported to have led to the creation of an algorithm that helps to tag all the content and develop a taxonomy, thereby making it much easier for users of the website to quickly access relevant information.

The Gov.uk website, which came online back in 2012 is reported to have resulted in huge efficiency savings, as well as making it much easier for citizens to access government content.

Innovation Strategy

In a recent blog post, The Minister for Implementation, Oliver Dowden, highlighted the importance of the GovTech Catalyst initiative in matching innovative private sector solutions with public sector challenges. Mr Dowden also announced the publication of an Innovation Strategy later this year that will share the government’s vision of how GDS and wider Cabinet Office will lay the foundations for the government to use emerging technologies.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

There are many services that businesses need to access information about and having the information available quickly via smart speakers and virtual assistants could save time and money and help businesses to comply with government rules and regulations.  It could also help businesses to discover opportunities and help that may be available via government services for both the business itself and employees and other stakeholders.

The Gov.uk website has also been a money-saving tool for the government, and making more information available via smart speaker and apps, while improving the website and its operation using machine learning could provide greater savings in the future, while demonstrating how the government is making efforts to embrace and utilise the strengths of new technologies, and simplify access for to information for citizens.

Samsung’s Folding Phone Faults Delay Release Date

Posted on by Andy Miller

The release date of Samsung’s new dual-screen Galaxy Fold mobile handset has been delayed after reviewers reported having removed the top layer of the display causing damage to the screen, problems with hinge areas, and debris getting trapped under the screen.

The Galaxy Fold

Announced as the Galaxy X last summer, the Galaxy Fold handset has two inside panels and one outside panel with the two inside panels folding out to form the 7.3-inch OLED screen, thereby giving the user a much larger screen area.  The fact that the flexible screen folds in on itself when closed also adds protection for the touchscreen when the phone is not in use.

Reviewers

A number of reviewers, including many journalists, were given Galaxy Fold handsets for trial use.  It appears that faults were discovered and were perhaps even caused by many of the reviewers who peeled off what they believed was just a protective layer (despite being warned against doing in the handset’s documentation) that was, apparently, an important part of the screen display’s protection.

Several Faults

Several faults were identified by reviewers and confirmed in a statement from Samsung, including:

  • Issues on the display associated with impact on the top and bottom exposed areas of the hinge.
  • Substances being found inside the device affecting the display performance.

It has also been reported that some reviewers saw creases on the fold and other display glitches which the folding robot really should have found.

Production Problems – Is The Technology Ready Yet?

Part of the delay in the production of a commercial version of Galaxy’s folding phone from the first sighting of its prototype 7 years ago is thought to be down to production problems in the complexity of developing durable but flexible plastic screens.

Also, the fact that competitors LG and Sony have many patents on foldable mobile displays but have not produced a foldable phone yet has led some commentators to suggest that the technology may simply not be fully ready for use in the current generation of phone handsets.

In Samsung’s own statement about the reported faults the company said that “how the device needs further improvements”.

Huawei

Another major phone market player (Huawei) also has a foldable phone in the development pipeline.  Huawei’s ‘Mate X’ version folds outwards, which some have speculated may leave the most vulnerable part of the device exposed all the time. The fact that Huawei has not yet gone to market with its foldable offering may also be a sign that it too is wrestling with similar screen problems i.e. screen creasing.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

In the phone market, there has been a degree of stagnation as customers delay upgrades while waiting for more innovative models and new features.  A folding phone offers value in terms of its versatility as a kind of “2-in-1” tablet and phone, as well as the novelty value and kudos of having a device with the very latest folding screen.  As expected, however, the Samsung Folding (when is eventually launched), and competitor folding phone models will have a premium price tag (thought to be around £1,500), and although this would decrease as volumes increase, many businesses may decide to wait a bit longer before they buy one.

The fact that Samsung has called-off the launch and not given a future launch date for the Samsung Folding may indeed indicate that the technology is not quite ready, and that simply introducing a model with design faults just to be first to get a folding phone out there is not something they’re prepared to risk.

Fake Finger Fools Fool-Proof Phone

Posted on by Andy Miller

A Reddit user claims to have used a 3D printer to clone a fingerprint and then use the fake fingerprint to beat the in-display fingerprint reader on a Samsung Galaxy S10.

Fingerprint Scanner

The Galaxy S10 and S10+ phone models have an Ultrasonic Fingerprint Scanner embedded into the screen that uses soundwaves to create a 3D map of the owner’s fingerprint, and the recognition sensor at the bottom centre of the screen can then be used by the owner to gain entry to the phone by placing their fingerprint on it.

Made Fake Finger

The Reddit user, known only as ‘darkshark9’ claimed in a proof-of-concept uploaded to Imgur that they had been able to unlock their own Galaxy S10 phone using a fake finger that had been made using a photograph (taken using the Galaxy S10’s camera) of their own fingerprint on a wine glass.  The mystery ‘darkshark9’ claimed that they had used Adobe Photoshop and Autodesk 3ds Max to work on the photograph and had then used an AnyCubic Photon LCD resin 3D home printer (costing less than £400) to make a physical replica of the fingerprint.

It has been reported that it took ‘darkshark9’ less than 15 minutes to make the fake fingerprint that opened the phone.

Fingerprint Fear

This means that a person with same equipment who could obtain a photo of a fingerprint from an object such as a glass or phone at close distance, or using a higher-quality DSLR camera (from perhaps even across the room) could have the potential to quickly break into anyone’s biometric security protected phone and steal personal data, access apps etc.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Many security experts agree that using biometric security as a primary unlock method is less secure than a password or PIN, although it offers convenience and is liked by many users.  In the case of the Galaxy S10, although it was supposedly fooled with the fake finger model, its fingerprint scanner uses ultrasonic sound waves to map the user’s fingerprint in the first place which is more secure than the optical sensors used by some other phones that can be fooled by a paper printout of a fingerprint.

Having a fingerprint scanner / sensor on the phone is better than having nothing at all, as is the case with many people who leave their phones unlocked all the time rather than having to type in a PIN or password.

This is not the first time that phone biometric security measures have been defeated.  For example, it is also claimed that the S10’s facial recognition (because it uses cameras rather than infrared sensors) can be fooled by another phone playing a video of the S10’s owner face.

Also, in a Twitter thread, Manchun Wong claimed that she was able to fool her brother’s S10 facial recognition scanner using her own face, presumably because of the similarity of family and sibling resemblance. This is reminiscent of a case back in 2017 when BBC ‘Click’ reporter Dan Simmons reported that he had been able to fool HSBC’s biometric voice recognition system by passing his brother’s voice off as his own.

Biometric security on phones clearly has some way to go before the effectiveness lives up to the promise, and for the time being, although less convenient, password and PIN may be safer as the primary unlock method.

AI Used To Tackle Money Laundering

Posted on by Andy Miller

Banks and financial institutions are experimenting with AI technology to tackle the multi-trillion-pound problem of money laundering, thereby hitting the traditional funding sources of major criminal gangs.

Money Laundering

Money laundering is the process of concealing the origins of illegally obtained money by passing it through legitimate business or a sequence of banking transfers.

According to figures from the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, money laundering accounts for up to 5% of global GDP – the equivalent of £1.5 trillion per year.  In the UK, National Crime Agency figures show that financial crime suspicious activity reports increased by 10% in 2018.

Also, in the UK for example, Companies House and estate agents (setting up new companies and investing in property) have been criticised by the government’s Treasury Committee as being key ways in which money laundering can take place in the UK.

The law in the UK (from 2017) relating to trying to tackle money laundering requires those businesses or sole traders who operate as “high-value dealers” i.e. you / your company accepts or makes high-value cash payments of €10,000 or more (or equivalent in any currency) in exchange for goods, must register with HMRC.

Money Laundering In The News

Some recent high-profile cases of alleged money laundering involving banks include:

  • Swiss bank UBS being fined a staggering £3.2 billion for helping wealthy clients based in France to hide money from tax and launder the proceeds (the bank has lodged an appeal).
  • In September 2018, Dutch bank ING Groep NV being fined €775 million euros after failing to spot that criminals had been money laundering through its accounts.
  • In December 2018, 10 former employees of the local branch of Danske Bank in Estonia being arrested as part of an international investigation into (alleged) money laundering.

How AI Can Help

AI technology is being tested in the fight against money laundering because AI can crunch vast amounts of data (i.e. the data from millions of bank transactions) very quickly and accurately, thereby making it very good at detecting patterns and deviations from patterns.  AI can, therefore, quickly detect patterns of unusual activity e.g. behaviour consistent with money laundering (AI also learns with experience), as well as being able to spot smurfing attempts (breaking down a transaction into smaller transactions to avoid being spotted), accounts that are set up remotely by bots rather than humans, and suspicious behaviour by corrupt insiders (known to be an important element in many successful money laundering operations).

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Money laundering is often used to help organised criminals / criminal gangs continue to finance many kinds of other serious crimes which have a negative impact on society and the economy. It is, therefore, good news for businesses (particularly in the financial and property sectors) that an accurate, and reliable technology-based early detection system, that works independently from human influence and error is being set to work to crack an old problem using the very latest means.

Critics have said, however, that even though AI may be excellent at spotting unusual transaction patterns it will only be as effective as the data it is fed, and banks financial institutions, governments, and law enforcement agencies, therefore, need to share more information to get the best results from the AI tools.

Some have also been sceptical of how effective an ‘off-the-shelf’ AI-based money laundering detection tool (of which there are several on the market) could be.

Windows 10 Breaks Traditional PC Hardware and OS Upgrade Links

Posted on by Andy Miller

With figures (Gartner) showing Windows 10 predicted to represent 75% of the professional PC market by 2021, continued PC sales and improved Windows 10  back-end management, Windows 10 is making (historically) time and resource consuming Windows OS and hardware upgrade projects a thing of the past, and is breaking the link between the two.

Mobile PCs A Popular Business Choice For Content Creation

Even though the whole global PC market is in decline, traditional PCs are set to decline by 3% in 2019 to total 189 million units, and smartphones are users’ primary mobile devices, mobile PCs look set to remain popular purchases for businesses because they are needed for content creation.

With laptop PCs running Windows 10, this is a key reason why Windows 10 represents such a large share of the professional PC market.

The SaaS model with its automatic bi-annual automatic upgrades is, therefore, the step to making teams responsible for OS upgrades in businesses a thing of the past.

Left Behind and At Risk

The growth, popularity, and general effectiveness of Windows10, coupled with the ending of support for older versions is making businesses still running older platforms (e.g. Windows 7) and thinking of putting off the upgrade to Windows 10 until 2020 look likely to be left behind in IT effectiveness terms, and at risk in security terms (support for Windows 7 support is scheduled to end in January 2020).

Businesses are also realising that:

  • They can’t skip a version i.e. waiting and skipping to Windows 11 is not an option – migration to Windows 10 may as well happen sooner rather than later.
  • Windows 10 is a modern operating system that allows organisations to run cloud applications and provide security much more effectively.
  • Microsoft has aligned upgrades of its cloud productivity suite, Office 365, to Windows 10, so not switching to Windows 10 could mean a competitive disadvantage.
  • Windows 10 enables businesses to automatically receive new, potentially value-adding features every six months.

Changing The Nature of Upgrades

With most businesses using Windows 10 and receiving automatic software upgrades every month, and more enterprise applications being consumed as software as a service (SaaS), hardware upgrades are more likely to be driven by wear and tear in future rather than by the availability of a new PC operating system from Microsoft.  This is the reason why Windows 10 has effectively disconnected the link between PC hardware and Windows operating system upgrades.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Figures show that laptop PCs with Windows 10 loaded on them are (and will continue to be for the near future) an important tool for many businesses, and that the automatic bi-annual upgrade and SaaS model of Windows 10 has disconnected the traditional link between PC hardware and Windows operating system upgrades.  The migration to Windows 10 can also not only free up resources once needed just to ensure OS upgrades, but can also improve security, competitiveness and operational effectiveness.

Windows 10’s successes and the weaknesses and threats of holding out until 2020 before upgrading are presenting strong arguments for businesses to take the plunge sooner and move to Windows 10.

School Enlists Chinese Help To Upgrade To Enhanced Wi-Fi

Posted on by Andy Miller

The Lytchett Minster School in Dorset recently made the news among IT commentators after demonstrating how it could overcome the connectivity challenges of its rural location, cut costs and increase efficiency by upgrading its on-site network with Chinese company TP-Link’s enhanced Wi-Fi.

Challenges

As recently featured by Computer Weekly, the school had to contend with a rural campus location and the resulting poor connectivity, next to a grade II listed 18th century manor house, and a rudimentary system of ageing individual home-user access points (APs) mounted in school corridors which required users to disconnect and reconnect when roaming around.   Also, the old wireless network was not voucher-based and was insecure (the pre-shared key could be compromised), which meant that staff had to reset each AP’s password individually (with remote authentication dial-in user service help) and users had to keep reconnecting each of their devices to the network.

As is the case with so many schools, Lytchett Minster School had to make its limited budget go as far as possible in the upgrade.  This meant the need to minimise price per AP and annual licensing fees while getting the best value, efficient and effective wireless infrastructure solution.

Requirements

It was decided that the most important requirements on the school’s list were power over Ethernet (PoE), Radius authentication, centralised management, provision of multiple service set identifiers (SSIDs) and voucher authentication.

TP-Link Chosen

The school chose Chinese company TP-Link to upgrade their on-site network based on features offered, value for money, and the fact that TP-Link builds its hardware itself instead of outsourcing and, therefore, doesn’t charge licensing fees.

Founded in 1996 by two brothers and based in Shenzhen, China, TP-Link is a manufacturer of computer networking products and is now the world’s number 1 provider of consumer Wi-Fi networking devices, shipping products to over 170 countries.

Change

Changing to the upgraded, enhanced Wi-Fi meant that the old APs could be moved from corridors into classrooms for optimum performance and coverage. The changes to a better enhanced Wi-Fi network also meant that access control lists could issue users with vouchers that restricted network access at the subnet according to core user group, out of hours separate public access SSID could be offered to users of the school’s sports facilities, larger numbers of staff iPads and phones could be used for teaching, and special provisions could be made for the BYOD policy for  sixth form students.

The new system also enabled easier, centralised management of the network with data from each AP being displayed to the IT department on large screens, with no more need to perform network reboots (as these can happen automatically at 6 am every day to avoid disrupting lessons), and the ability to carry out all key tasks from a central interface.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

This story is an example of how the potential of an organisation (a school in this case) was limited by poor Wi-Fi provision, partly due to its rural location and old, inadequate hardware. The school showed that today, it is possible for a school based in Dorset to choose a Chinese tech firm as a partner to deliver a business-class wireless network solution that meets all operational requirements within budget, and without the extra cost of ongoing licence fees. An enhanced Wi-Fi system of this kind also offers the convenience, transparency and ease of centralised control.

Tech Tip – Free Graphic Design App For Android

Posted on by Andy Miller

Design social media posts, ads, presentations, cards, flyers and more with ‘Desygner’, a free, popular graphic design app for phone or tablet.  The app has an intuitive interface and thousands of templates to choose from. Although the basic offering is free, you can switch up to a £5.99 monthly subscription if you plan to use the app regularly.

To install the app, look for ‘Desygner’ in Google Play.