Technology

Billions Of Devices At Risk Due To Wi-Fi Chip Vulnerability

Posted on by Andy Miller

A security threat to devices, Wi-Fi access points (APs), and routers that comes from the Kr00k Wi-Fi chip vulnerability could affect billions according to security researchers.

Kr00k

The existence of Kr00k, also known by the catchy name of CVE-2019-15126 was made public at the recent RSA Conference in San Francisco and its discovery was attributed to ESET security researchers Miloš Cermák, Robert Lipovský and Štefan Svorencík.

Broadcom and Cypress Chips

According to the researchers, the Kr00k vulnerability is present in Wi-Fi chips manufactured by Broadcom and Cypress.  These chips are present in billions of devices and, prior to patches being developed and released already by many major manufacturers, the kinds of devices that were at risk included home smart speakers (Amazon Echo), Kindles, smartphones (Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy), the Raspberry Pi 3 and many Wi-Fi routers and access points that have Broadcom chips.

What Could Happen?

The Kr00k vulnerability could allow attackers to decrypt Wi-Fi traffic, thereby gaining access to data. Kr00k can do this by forcing an extended dissociation period in Wi-Fi devices, which is the temporary disconnection that occurs when a device moves between access points or when there is a low signal. In this period, Kr00k resets the encryption key used to secure packets to an all-zero value, giving the attackers access to your data.

This kind of attack, however, may not be as easy as it sounds because attackers would need to be within close range of their target’s Wi-Fi network.

Related to Krack

Some security commentators have noted that Kr00k is related to Krack, discovered in 2017, a vulnerability that was also a threat to devices that connected using Wi-Fi and required attackers to be in close proximity to the Wi-Fi network.  Krack was found to be a vulnerability in the Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) protocol.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The security researchers who discovered Kr00k shared their findings with the relevant manufacturers early-on which meant that the major manufacturers were able to quickly develop and release patches, thereby significantly reducing the scale of the threat posed by Kr00k.  Also, the need for attackers to be in close proximity to a Wi-Fi network to exploit the vulnerability is unlikely to be particularly attractive to many cybercriminals who prefer methods that allow maximum financial gain with minimum effort and that position them a long distance from their targets in a way that cannot be traced back to them.

Additionally, in this case, even though it is technically possible for attackers to use the dissociation period to decrypt Wi-Fi traffic, the data that they would be intending to steal is subject to being additionally encrypted by TLS thanks to HTTPS.

Gigabit, Ultrafast Broadband For One Million Households In The West Midlands

Posted on by Andy Miller

Virgin Media has announced that in the UK’s largest gigabit switch-on to date, it is launching its next-generation Gig1 Fibre Broadband services for 1 million+ homes in Birmingham, Coventry and surrounding areas across the West Midlands.

Speed

Virgin Media says that its Gig1 Fibre Broadband offers broadband speeds up to 20 times faster than the regional average with an average peak-time download speed of 1,104Mbps.

Also, the Hub 4 gigabit-capable router is Virgin’s fastest to date and can manage multiple devices at the same time around the home, thereby sharing the hyper-fast speed.  This could mean that ultra-high-definition 4K films and TV programmes, large files and 360-degree videos could be downloaded almost instantaneously, even with multiple devices using the connection at the same time.

Virgin Media says that it now has the largest gigabit-capable network in the UK which currently passes nearly 15 million UK premises.

Government

The government’s Digital Secretary, Oliver Dowden, has said that Virgin Media’s gigabit switch-on for households in the Midlands puts them “a million homes closer in delivering our plans to deliver gigabit broadband to everyone in the UK” and stresses that his government are investing £5 billion to make sure that “even the hardest to reach areas aren’t left behind”.

Electronic Communications Code Changes

In October 2019, the UK’s Electronic Communications Code was amended to help speed up fast broadband rollout across the UK. The change to the law gave broadband operators compulsory rights to install their apparatus on another person’s property, thereby getting around the problem of landlords not responding to requests for access to blocks of flats and apartments.

Full Fibre By 2025?

Back in June last year, while on the campaign to become the next Conservative party leader, Boris Johnson proposed a target of full-fibre broadband for the UK by 2025.  This target has since been seen by many not realistic because ‘full-fibre’ would mean digging up land and laying down cables, even in the most remote of homes.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For those in the Midlands who actually need these kinds of speeds, this service could be advantageous, and it could benefit small (home) businesses with large data requirements.

Although it is the beginning of ultra-fast broadband rollout in an area where there is a large population and is, therefore, a step in the right direction, critics say that many users may not need a connection that fast and may simply not know the speed of the connection that they already have.

Broadband and Wi-Fi are now essential services for business, and businesses would obviously welcome any improvement in broadband speeds in the UK as soon as possible as it would undoubtedly help UK companies to become more competitive and would boost the economy.

AI Skills Course Available – Free of Charge

Posted on by Andy Miller

A free, basic AI skills course, funded by Finland’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment (MEAE), is being made available to citizens across the EU’s 27 member states.

Success in Finland

The decision by the Finnish government to make the course available online across the EU to an estimated five million Europeans (1% of the total population of EU states) in the 2020-2021 academic year was boosted by the popularity of a test run of the course in Finland back in 2018.

The Course

The six-chapter ‘Elements of AI’ course, which is still open to UK citizens, is aimed at de-mystifying and providing a critical and customised understanding of AI, offers a basic understanding of what AI is, how it can be used to boost business productivity, and how it will affect jobs and society in the future. The six chapters of the course can be studied in a structured or ‘own-pace’ way and cover the topics of What is AI?, AI problem solving, real-world AI, machine learning, neural networks and implications.

The course is available in six languages – English, German, Swedish, Estonian, Norwegian and Finnish.

Run by the University of Helsinki, the course represents a way in which a university can play a role in reaching a Europe-wide, cross-border audience and build important competencies for the future across that area.

Gift

The provision of the online course, which is funded by the MEAE to an estimated cost of €1.7m a year is essentially a gift from Finland, not just to leaders of fellow EU states but to the people of EU countries to mark the end of Finland’s six-month rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU.  It is the hope, therefore, that Finland’s gift will have real-world value in terms of helping to develop digital literacy in the EU.

You can sign up for the course here: https://www.elementsofai.com/

170 Countries

It’s claimed that to date, the free online AI course has been completed by students from over 170 countries and that around 40 % of course participants are women, which is more than double the average for computer science courses.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

With a tech skills shortage in the UK, with AI becoming a component in an increasing number of products and services, and with the fact that you can very rarely expect to get something of value for nothing, this free online course could be of some value to businesses across Europe.  The fact that the course is delivered online with just a few details needed to enrol makes it accessible, and the fact that it can be tackled in a structured way or at your own pace makes it convenient.  It’s also refreshing to see a country giving a gift to millions of citizens rather than just to other EU leaders and the fact that more women are taking the course must be good news for the tech and science sectors. Anything that can effectively, quickly and cheaply make a positive difference to digital literacy in the EU is likely to end up benefitting businesses across Europe.  Also, even though the UK’s now out of the EU, it’s a good job that we’re still able to access the course.

Featured Article – 5G Explained

Posted on by Andy Miller

5G (fifth generation) is essentially the next step up and the replacement for your current 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) connection.  The main benefits that this new generation of mobile broadband should bring are faster upload and download speeds and faster communication with wireless networks (latency).

Spectrum Difference

Most carriers currently use low-band spectrum or LTE, which offers great coverage area and penetration yet it is getting very crowded and peak data speeds only top out at around 100Mbps.

5G, on the other hand, offers 3 different Spectrum bands, which are:

  • Low-band spectrum or LTE/sub 1GHz spectrum.
  • Mid-band spectrum.  This gives faster coverage and better latency than low-band but isn’t as good at penetrating buildings. Mid-band spectrum will offer peak speeds up to 1Gbps.
  • High-band spectrum /  mmWave .  This spectrum can offer peak speeds up to 10 Gbps and has very low latency, although it has a low coverage area and building penetration is poor.
  • In the UK, it is likely that there will be 2 different, location-based frequencies. Sub-6GHz (gigahertz) is likely to be the first offered to users, and the (expensive) high-band spectrum / mmWave for use in densely populated areas. This could mean limitations on where an owner can use their 5G phone (when they eventually get one).

What Can We Expect From 5G?

More frequencies, faster speeds and less latency should mean big improvements in broadband (particularly commercial) and an end to slowdowns during busy times of day that have been experienced due to the overcrowding of the current limited LTE.

How Fast is Faster?

Theoretically, the maximum speed for 5G should be a hundred times faster than the current 4G technology can provide i.e. 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) rather than 100 megabits per second (Mbps).

Peak data rates with 5G could reach 20Gbps downlink and 10Gbps uplink per mobile base station (for all users in the cell), but 5G users will not actually experience this speed unless they have a dedicated connection.

Speed Record

Swedish phone company Ericsson’s research and development team have just reported setting a new maximum speed record on 5G connections, by achieving download rates of 4.3Gbps on the millimeter wave spectrum during interoperability testing using commercial products.

Finite Frequency

Also, the frequency spectrum needed for 5G is finite, and even with additional spectrum that has been auctioned to the UK’s mobile networks, more will be needed. This may mean some crowded traffic in the first wave, with things not improving until more auctions have taken place.

It is also likely that other technologies will need to be developed and trialled in order to help 5G live up to its promise. Lessons learned about 5G in other countries (e.g. China) will take time to be noted and incorporated in the UK network to help it deliver maximum benefits.

Real-Life Business Applications

Anticipated ways that 5G could improve things in our lives and for businesses include:

  • Improvements to health care.  Communications and sensor networks in health care are likely to be improved, therefore benefiting patients, doctors and other staff.
  • Improvements in the IoT as devices require fewer resources, and huge numbers of devices can connect to a single base station, making them much more efficient. IoT improvements could help with all kinds of services e.g. public services such as smart bins and smart lighting, remote healthcare services, and CCTV / surveillance services.
  • A boost to virtual and augmented reality.
  • Benefits for the growing autonomous vehicle market as 5G provides the constant, guaranteed connection that they need, enables better communication with other vehicles on the road and better provision of information to other cars about road conditions, as well as improvements in the performance of information given to  drivers and automakers.
  • Advantages for companies operating delivery drone/robot services e.g. Amazon may also get a boost from reliable and powerful 5G connections.
  • Advantages for local authorities and local infrastructure (monitoring and control for streetlights, drain/flood information) and for utility and other companies that use remote sensors.
  • The low latency of 5G offering allowing more remote device control e.g. reducing risk in hazardous environments and allowing technicians with specialised skills to control machinery from anywhere in the world.

Challenges For 5G Phone Manufacturers

For phone manufacturers, manufacturing 5G phones is a slightly different and more complex proposition. For example:

  • 5G phones are more complex e.g. they need a more complex antenna. These mean extra production costs which are likely to be passed on (with first-wave prices) to customers. It is thought that 5G compatible phones will be priced between £450-£540, with higher prices for leading brand models e.g. Samsung, Apple and Huawei.
  • The miniaturisation of more complex 5G phone presents challenges. The first generation of 5G phones may, therefore, be a little larger than a normal smartphone.
  • Launching new handsets before the new network has been rolled out could simply annoy buyers and damage brand reputation, and many customers may simply delay buying a 5G anyway until they are confident that 5G is performing well and will offer them all the benefits.
  • The first 5G smartphones need two modems, one standalone 5G modem, and one that still works on 4G and older networks (for when 4G isn’t available).

Despite the challenges, 5G phones have been available for some time now many people have been holding off from buying them until the 5G connection services become more widely available.  It is estimated that 260 million new 5G phones will be produced worldwide in 2020.

Whereas Sony has recently announced that it is launching its first 5G smartphone this month (Xperia 1 II flagship handset), which many see as a bid to prop up its struggling smartphone business, Huawei and Samsung are currently ahead in the 5G phone market.

Some commentators have noted, however, that although 5G services have now been rolled out in the UK by many of the networks and 5G phones are available, there is still some scepticism in the UK marketplace about the benefits vs costs of getting 5G phones at this early stage, and there appears to be a general feeling among consumers that 5G is not ready for mainstream adoption yet.

When?

5G has taken nearly 10 years to develop and so far in the UK, EE launched its 5G service in May 2019, Vodafone followed in July 2019, O2 launched its 5G service in October, and BT Mobile also launched its 5G service in October 2019.

Sky Mobile entered the market with its 5G service in January 2020 and although the Three network launched for home broadband in parts of London in August last year, it has not yet expanded this to its phones.

Where?

Viavi Solutions (The State of 5G Deployments report) reveals that commercial 5G networks have now been deployed in 378 cities across 34 countries, with the most cities with 5G availability in South Korea (85) and with 5G now available in 31 UK cities.

Looking Ahead

The same increased speed and lower latency of 5G that allows downloading films and games in seconds and watching them without any buffering is also likely to provide many new and innovative opportunities and could help provide a boost to new industries.

Many different types of businesses could benefit from improved connectivity with remote workers or with salespeople in remote areas.

Also, the news from an O2 forecast is that 5G could deliver time savings that could bring £6 billion a year in productivity savings in the UK, and that 5G-enabled tools and smart items could save UK householders £450 a year in food, council and fuel bills.

We will, however, have to wait for 5G networks and services to be operating fully and offering all the predicted benefits, and as well as being somewhat expensive, purchasing a 5G phone may be something that many people will still hold-off doing until they’re confident they’ll get the promised value from it.

Featured Article – AI, Supercomputers … and Storm Dennis

Posted on by Andy Miller

The disruption and damage caused by weather events affect businesses across the UK but having the benefit of early and detailed insights provided by a new supercomputer system could enable businesses, organisations, agencies, local authorities and the government to plan and minimise disruption where possible, thereby saving billions of pounds per year.

Climate Change

The widely recognised effects of climate change are likely to be responsible for the seemingly more frequent and record-breaking extreme weather events such as storm Dennis here in the UK which brought a record number (594) of flood warnings across England and devastation to many town and businesses.

The increase of a whole degree in temperature since the Industrial Revolution has, for example, warming the atmosphere, making it able to hold more moisture and become unstable. This is likely to mean, at the very least, more storms and flooding in the coming years, and highlights the need for longer advance warnings (Dennis was forecasted 6 days in advance) and more targeted information.

Met Office

The current Met Office system for weather forecasting utilises 200 billion daily observations from satellites, weather stations and ocean buoys that are interpreted by Cray XC40 supercomputers which are due to reach the end of their life in late 2022.  Even though the Cray XC40 is in the top 50 of the world’s most powerful computers, and performs more than 2 million calculations per second for every man, woman and child on the planet, the need for faster, even more accurate, earlier and even more locally-focused weather forecasting requires an investment in new computers to replace the Cray systems for a 10-year period from 2022 to 2032.

New Investment

The new Met Office supercomputer system, announced against the backdrop of storm Dennis, will cost £1.2 billion (which include hardware and running costs too over a ten-year period) but could, according to the department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) deliver £19 worth of economic benefits for every pound spent.

The new system will create a simulated picture of the weather, will divide the globe into grid smaller squares, and will have a massive increase in processing power (six times more powerful) at its disposal which will mean that:

– Four-day weather forecasts will be as accurate today as one-day forecasts were 30 years’ ago.

– With the grid that the simulated picture of the earth’s weather is divided into, the new system will be able to operate (and deliver accurate forecasts) for a resolution as sharp as 100m squares.

– Extreme weather conditions will be spotted earlier.

– Improved daily to seasonal forecasts and longer-term climate projections can be made.

– The effects of a hotter world in the future can be explored, and more detail can be added to projections taking account of factors such as the way nitrogen reacts with the carbon in the air.

– Scenarios such as how the country can make the best use of the land if/when the target of net zero emissions by 2050 is reached can be explored.

– Data from the supercomputer can be used to inform UK government policy as part of leading the global fight against climate change.

Artificial Intelligence

The Business and Energy Secretary, Alok Sharma, has highlighted how the new supercomputer looks likely to drive forward innovation and grow world-class skills across supercomputing, data science, as well as machine learning and artificial intelligence.  The Met Office’s new supercomputer will, for example, be able to use artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to carry out even more detailed climate model analysis.

Supercomputer Carbon Footprint?

Some commentators have pointed out that the new supercomputers will require a massive amount of electricity to operate them (as the existing ones do), thereby meaning that ironically, they could be contributing to the global warming that is producing the changing weather conditions that they have been introduced to predict.

The Met Office has, therefore, invited potential providers to come up with low-carbon options and it is likely that much of the processing work could be located in countries with easy and abundant sources of clean energy within the European Economic Area e.g. Iceland (geothermal energy) or Norway (hydropower).

Other Weather Forecasting Options For Business

Weather Source and its Snowflake, cloud-based (AWS) data exchange is an example of another accurate forecasting service for businesses that helps them to quantify and manage climate risks. In addition to being fast and providing forecasts projected over 15 days, the service requires only a few hundred gigabytes of new data to be processed per day, therefore, making it a very efficient option.

Benefits

Looking forward, the socio-economic benefits of the new Met Office system are likely to be many.  These will include better forecasting at airports to help the aviation and travel industries,  more sophisticated modelling of flooding to help businesses with premises in flood areas with continuity and contingency planning, providing more detailed information to the energy sector which will have knock-on benefits to many businesses, and providing insights and early warnings that are vital for the UK’s transport infrastructure and for business transportation, delivery and distribution services.

In a world where the climate is capable of causing massive damage and disruption on a more regular basis, the investment in even more powerful supercomputer technology and AI by the Met Office could actually bring considerable savings for businesses of all kinds and provide a better basis for government decisions.

Google In Talks About Paying Publishers For News Content

Posted on by Andy Miller

It has been reported that Google is in talks with publishers with a view to buying in premium news content for its own news services to improve its relationship with EU publishers, and to combat fake news.

Expanding The Google News Initiative

Reports from the U.S. Wall Street Journal indicate that Google is in preliminary talks with publishers outside the U.S. in order expand its News Initiative (https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com/), the program where Google works with journalists, news organisations, non-profits and entrepreneurs to ensure that fake news is effectively filtered out of current stories in the ‘digital age’.  Examples of big-name ‘partners’ that Google has worked with as part of the initiative include the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and fact-checking organisations like the International Fact-Checking Network and CrossCheck (to fact-check the French Election).

As well as partnerships, the Google News Initiative provides a number of products for news publishing e.g. Subscribe With Google, News on Google, Fact Check tags and AMP stories (tap-operated, full-screen content).

This Could Please Publishers

The move by Google to pay for content should please publishers, some of whom have been critical of Google and other big tech players for hosting articles on their platforms that attract readers and advertising money, but not paying to display them. Google has faced particular criticism in France at the end of last year after the country introduced a European directive that should have made tech giants pay for news content but in practice simply led to Google removing the snippet below links to French news sites, and removing the thumbnail images that often appear next to news results.

Back in 2014 for example, Google closed its Spanish news site after it was required to pay “link tax” licensing fees to Spanish news sites and back in November 2018 Google would not rule out shutting down Google News in other EU countries if a “link tax” was adopted by them.

Competitors

Google is also in competition with other tech giants who now provide their own fact-checked and moderated news services.  For example, back in October 2019, Facebook launched its own ‘News’ tab on its mobile app which directs users to unbiased, curated articles from credible sources.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For European countries and European publishers, it is likely to be good news that Google is possibly coming to the table to offer some money for the news content that it displays on its platform, and that it may be looking for a way to talk about and work through some of the areas of contention.

For Google, this is an opportunity for some good PR in an area where it has faced criticism in Europe, an opportunity to improve its relationship with publishers in Europe, plus a chance to add value to its news service and to help Google to compete with other tech giants that also offer news services with the fake news weeded out.

‘Runet’ Test – Russia Unplugs Itself From The Internet

Posted on by Andy Miller

A little later than its original planned date of April 1st 2019, a recent test-run has seen Russia successfully ‘unplug’ itself from the Internet and prove that it can create its own state-controlled Intranet.

Successfully Creating The ‘Runet’

The test, which was first announced back in February last year, is reported to have gone ahead without users noticing much difference and created what is effectively a giant, fully isolatable domestic intranet which has been dubbed the ‘Runet’.

Why?

Officially, the test to be able to pull up the drawbridge on the wider global internet is to ensure compliance with Russia’s new law called the Digital Economy National Program which came into force in November 2019.  This will require Russia’s ISPs to show that they can operate in the event of any foreign powers acting to isolate the country online with a “targeted large-scale external influence” i.e. a cyber-attack. For (state-owned) ISP’s, this will mean having to install deep packet inspection (DPI) network equipment which will allow Russia’s telecoms watchdog ‘Roskomnadzor’ to be able to identify traffic sources, filter content, and block certain sites. It has also been reported that, as part of the project to create and run the Runet, Russia is working on creating its own Internet address books.

Another official explanation for the value of the test to create the Runet is that it helped to show any vulnerabilities in the growing ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT).

Control

Although this is the official explanation, some western commentators see this as a move towards tighter control and authoritarian rule in a way that is similar to some other countries.  For example, China, which operates its own Great Firewall of China (GFW) for Internet censorship to block access to many foreign websites and to slow down and monitor cross-border internet traffic. Also, Iran operates its own National Information Network, run by the state-owned Telecommunication Company of Iran, which controls access to the web and polices content.

Difficult To Circumvent

Those thinking of circumventing the Runet and other censorship are likely to find it difficult as virtual private networks (VPNs) will not work with the Runet in place and many commentators think that it is likely that the Kremlin will try to stop access to end-to-end encrypted apps e.g. Telegram or WhatsApp.

Interfering

It is likely that one good reason for Russia to be able to cut itself off from the wider Internet is to protect itself from cyber threats in what now appears to be an ongoing war of interference, misinformation, and cyber-attacks between many states.  For example, Russia was shown to have interfered with the last U.S. presidential election and has itself been the subject of large-scale cyber-attacks. That said, the Chinese recently accused the U.S. of conducting “large-scale, organised and indiscriminate cyber theft” after it was revealed that since the 1970s, America’s CIA has been monitoring hundreds of countries via the Swiss cryptography firm Crypto AG.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For the Russian government, being able to exert tight control and conduct censorship on this scale, and to operate through a small number of state-owned suppliers not only guards against misinformation and cyber threats but also gives the government the opportunity to wield immense political power over its people. The move is, obviously, being greeted with suspicion and criticism from the west, with concern about the rights of Russian citizens.

Also, for non-Russian companies hoping to do business there, an inward-looking, state-controlled Intranet that favours Russian companies, particularly with tech and communications products and services would make trade there very difficult. Many western commentators are now worried that Russia may be going the same way as China in terms of censorship and access to the world by digital means.

UK Job Candidates Favour Tech-Savvy Companies

Posted on by Andy Miller

New research conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Tableau Software has revealed that half of UK job candidates would reject a job offer from a company that offered no digital and data potential.

Training

The research results, which were obtained from 1,100 office workers and C-suite executives from across the UK, showed that a vacancy that offered digital and analytics training (important for 80 per cent) and where a commitment to encouraging new skills was just a perk of the job (90 per cent) would make most candidates more likely to accept a job offer with a specific company or organisation.

Interested In The Company

The research results showed that as well as being interested in the opportunity to gain skills to make themselves more data fluent, most candidates (80 per cent) also recognised the value that training or learning and development programmes could bring to an organisation’s digital and data analytics strategy and competitiveness, thereby making it a more attractive organisation to work in.

40 per cent of candidates, for example, think that companies that invest in training and learning and development programmes are likely to get the benefit of employee engagement and retention as a result.

SHRM Report

A 2019 Society for Human Resource Management report showed that the U.S. is facing similar tech skills shortage challenges with the workforce not having enough workers and skilled candidates to fill an ever-increasing number of high-skilled jobs. The report highlighted candidates not having the right technical skills as the reason why 35 per cent of organisations are struggling to hire suitable candidates and suggests that training is one of the most effective ways to bridge the skills gap for both retention and recruitment.

The report says that an increase in worker training and education, and companies collaborating closely with educational institutions in order to improve graduate employability and supplementing the existing workforce with foreign-born talent could be a good way to meet the needs of companies and job candidates.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

With the effective use of data playing an important role in the success of businesses and with job applicants realising the value that could be created for themselves in the tech job market and for the companies they join through tech training and development, there is pressure on companies to offer this as a way to attract good staff.

UK businesses have been faced with a tech skills shortage for several years now, which was exacerbated by forces (such as Brexit fears) deterring overseas talent. Also, a recent Open University report, ‘Leading in a Digital Age’, highlighted how business leaders themselves still need to be equipped, through technology training, to manage digital change in order to improve the performance of their businesses.

Considering the number of factors involved in creating the skills shortage in the first place among workers and business leaders, many feel that the burden to reverse the situation and create a more tech-skilled workforce shouldn’t be down to companies alone financing training for their staff.  Many businesses feel that a wider strategy involving the government, the education system and businesses working together is the way forward to developing a base of digital skills in the UK population and to ensure that the whole tech ecosystem finds effective ways to address the skills gap and keep the UK’s tech industries and business attractive and competitive.

Amazon Offering Custom ‘Brand Voice’ to Replace Default Alexa Voice

Posted on by Andy Miller

Amazon’s AWS is offering a new ‘Brand Voice’ capability to companies which enables them to create their own custom voice for Alexa that replaces the default voice with one that reflects their “persona”, such as the voice of Colonel Sanders for KFC.

Brand Polly

The capability is being offered through Amazon’s ‘Brand Polly’, the cloud service by Amazon Web Services (AWS), that converts text into lifelike speech.  The name ‘Polly’ is a reference to parrots which are well-known for being able to mimic human voices.

Amazon says that companies can work with the Amazon Polly team of AI research scientists and linguists to build an exclusive, high-quality, Neural Text-to-Speech (NTTS) voice that will represent the “persona” of a brand.

Why?

According to Amazon, the ‘Brand Voice’ will give companies another way to differentiate their brand by incorporating a unique vocal identity into their products and services. Hearing the ‘Brand Voice’ of a company is also another way to help create an experience for customers that strengthen the brand, triggers the brand messages and attitudes that a customer has already assimilated through advertising, and helps to provide another element of consistency to brand messages, communications and interactions.

How?

The capability involves using deep learning technology that can learn the intonation patterns of natural speech data and reproduce from that a voice in a similar style or tone. For example, in September, Alexa users were given the option to use the voice of Samuel L. Jackson for their Alexa and in order to produce the voice, the NTTS models were ‘trained’ using hours of recorded dialogue rather than the actor being required to read new dialogue for the system.

Who?

Amazon Polly says on its website that it has already been working with Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Canada (for a Colonel Sanders-style brand voice) and with National Australia Bank (NAB), using “the same deep learning technology that powers the voice of Alexa”.

Uses

The ‘Brand Voice’ created for companies can, for example, be used for call centre systems (as with NAB).

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The almost inevitable ‘Brand Voice’ move sees Amazon taking another step to monetizing Alexa and moving more into the business market where there is huge potential for modifications and different targeted and customised versions of Alexa and digital assistants.  Back in April last year, for example, Amazon launched its Alexa for Business Blueprints, which is a platform that enables businesses to make their own Alexa-powered applications for their organisation and incorporate their own customised, private ‘skills’. The announcement of ‘Brand Voice’, therefore, is really an extension of this programme.  For businesses and organisations, Alexa for Business and ‘Brand Voice’ offers the opportunity to relatively easily customise some powerful, flexible technology in a way that can closely meet their individual needs, and provide a new marketing and communications tool that can add value in a unique way.

Featured Article – Innovations/Gamechangers to Expect in 2020

Posted on by Andy Miller

This is the time of year for looking ahead to how technology could be affecting and hopefully, enhancing our lives over the coming year and here is a selection of just some of the possible game-changing technological innovations that could be making an impact in 2020.

5G Technologies

Technology and communications commentators are saying that 5G’s increased bandwidth and speed, along with other benefits could start to improve file sharing and other communication capabilities for businesses this year (in the geographical areas where it’s deployed).

Quantum Technologies

Back in October, we heard about the paper, published in the journal Nature, that told how scientists may have reached quantum supremacy, whereby a quantum computer can now to do something significant that a classical computer can’t.  With Google’s Sycamore chip (54-qubit processor), an algorithm output that would take 10,000 years using a classical computer only took 200 seconds, and heralded greater potentially game-changing developments this year and beyond. With results from computing power of this kind, many hitherto extremely challenging problems could be solved quickly across a range of industries, and this is likely to attract much more investment in Quantum technologies in 2020.

AI and Health

The possibilities for AI are still being explored, but thanks to start-ups like Imagen which builds AI software for the medical field e.g. OsteoDetect which uses algorithms to scan X-ray images for common wrist bone fractures, and AI software developed by Good Health researchers (in conjunction with other key partners) which has proven to be more accurate at detecting and diagnosing breast cancer than expert human radiologists, AI could be finding more positive ways to impact upon healthcare in 2020 and beyond.

Although AI has promise in so many areas, including health, one of the predicted downsides of AI developments for workers is that the automation that it brings could really start to replace many more human jobs in 2020.

Neural Interfaces

There are many predictions of how commercial applications of neural interfaces may bridge the gap between humans and computers, perhaps allowing people to think instructions to computers.  One of the key challenges is, of course, that neural communications are both chemical and electrical, but this didn’t stop head of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, announcing in July last year that brain implants (‘Neuralink’) that can link directly to devices could be a reality within a year i.e. by the end of 2020.  It remains to be seen, however, how much progress is made this year, but the idea that a near-instantaneous, wireless communication between brain and computer via an implant is that human brains could be offered a kind of ‘upgrade’ to enable them to keep up with and compete with AI.

Electric Vehicle Explosion

The many technologies (and government subsidies in some countries) that have led to a commitment by big car manufacturers to the production of electric vehicles mean that sales are predicted to rise 35 per cent in the first nine months of 2020.  More electric cars being produced and purchased in developed countries could herald game-changing results e.g. lessening the negative environmental impact of cars.

One other innovation that could help boost the growth of electric cars is a breakthrough in battery technology, such as that announced by Tesla’s head of battery research and university academic Jeff Danh, who has published a paper about a battery that could last a million miles without losing capacity.

Display Screen Technology

Advances in technologies used for display-screen e.g. for phones are likely to prove game-changers in their industries. With new screens becoming ultra-thin LEDs and, therefore, able to be added as computational surfaces to many different surfaces and objects e.g. walls and mirrors, and with advances like foldable screens e.g. Microsoft’s Surface Neo, our environment and communications tools could see some real changes in 2020.

Translation

Technology for mobile devices, AI, and language have converged to create translation apps such as Google’s interpreter mode real-time translator that’s just been rolled out for Assistant-enabled Android and iOS phones worldwide.  Having a reliable tool to hand that enables back and forth conversation with someone speaking a foreign language (and is loaded with 44 languages) could be a game-changer for business and personal travel in 2020.

Augmented Reality

Several tech commentators are predicting (perhaps optimistically) that 2020 could be the year that reliable Augmented Reality glasses find their way onto the market e.g. perhaps from Apple and could see large-scale adoption.

Looking Ahead

2020, therefore, holds a great deal of promise in terms of how different existing and some new technologies and developments combined in new products and services could become game-changers that drive positive benefits for businesses and individual users alike.