It is possible to transfer money through Alipay, a mobile payment app used by more than 120 million people in China, using only your face as credentials. Didi, China’s dominant ride-hailing company, uses the Face++ software to let passengers confirm that the person behind the wheel is a legitimate driver. The technology figures to take off in China first because of the country’s attitudes toward surveillance and privacy.
In new ads, the nation's largest vodka brand states that it is "made in America but we'd be happy to talk about our Russian ties under oath." While the ad buy was limited, Smirnoff is getting worldwide attention on social media.
It all comes down to eye glances. The time you spend looking on the road matters. If your glances at texts are longer than the darting ones you make back to the highway in front of you, you lose awareness of where you are in space. Smartphones and in-car infotainment systems present a new issue: The driver isn’t really deciding when to engage with the product. “If the phone goes brrrrring, you feel socially or emotionally compelled to respond to it.” An anti-distraction product could adapt to the kind of driver behind the wheel
The cost for investors and consumers to buy or sell bitcoin hit an average of $5 per transaction in June, the highest rate of its eight-year history as an alternative means of payment. Two years ago, it was less than a nickel. The growing use of bitcoin, whose total value now exceeds $40 billion, is stretching the limits of its current market structure. The fees are being borne by users.“The reason behind bitcoin isn’t really there anymore. Any currency where you have to pay a huge portion of the transaction just for the privilege of using that currency is no currency.”
Millennials may well be more socially aware and politically progressive that older generations, but, they appear to behave like everyone else when it comes to spending money. That means: Ethics are good, but price and convenience carry the day.
Costs are escalating as mall owners work to keep their real estate up to date and fill the void left by failing stores. More than a dozen retailers have gone bankrupt this year as the shift toward online shopping accelerates. 13,000 stores are forecast to close next year, compared with 4,000 in 2016 The companies are turning to everything from restaurants and bars to mini-golf courses and rock-climbing gyms to draw in customers who appear more interested in being entertained during a trip to the mall than they are in buying clothes and electronics.
In the Fourth Industrial Age, technology will slide further behind the curtain into more of an assistive role, not all about shiny new gadgets and operating system updates.We won’t think as much about the next iPhone or the latest Android tweaks; we’ll care about how much the interfaces, hardware, and connections can customize themselves to meet our needs and then step out of the way. "We’ll stop being enamored by tech. Tech will be enamored by us."
For graphic designers, the risk of losing their job to automation (8.2%) is low relative to other professions, and architects have a much lower risk (1.8%). Interior designers (2.2%), floral designers (4.7%), fashion designers (2.1%), and landscape architects (4.5%) join graphic designers and architect in the “totally safe” risk category. Urban and regional planner (13%) and software engineer (13%) are the only design jobs listed that climb to double digits.
By 2040, electric vehicles are predicted to make up 54% of worldwide new car sales, with 67% of the market in Europe, 58% in the U.S. and 51% in China. The falling price of lithium-ion batteries is driving the shift. The average price of the batteries plummeted last year to $273 per kilowatt hour (and) is expected to fall to $73 by 2030.
These are the companies making the best use of the Internet, software, and other technologies to streamline their operations and create new market opportunities. But most companies aren’t actually harnessing new technologies very effectively. “Technologies are increasingly complex, and many firms may lack the competencies to adapt.”
They are putting artificial intelligence to work among their star traders, allocating funds and analysing data to develop strategies. Artificial intelligence comes up with a trading optimisation strategy that is then validated by humans. When the strategies were back-tested, they achieved annualised returns of 10.3%, outperforming the 6.9% returns of the benchmark. (But) most AI success seems currently about doing what people do in terms of process, but more efficiently.
Two thirds of ingredients showed some same-day price variation. One third of items shifted in price by less than 10% of their average price. The remaining two thirds showed more dramatic price variations, with vendor prices varying up to 50% for the same item on the same day. The products with the most variable prices were diverse, encompassing produce and dry goods. For 50% of items, there was no relationship between price and volume purchased of that item.
Desktopography works like an oversized touchscreen. “You want interface to escape from physical objects not escape from your hands.” Algorithms identify things like books, papers, and coffee mugs, and then plans the best possible location to project your calendar or Excel sheet. Desktopography gives preference to flat, clear backgrounds, but in the case of a cluttered desk, it’ll project onto the next best available spot.
"The question is whether the impact will be positive or negative?" reads the ARM report. "On one hand, increased automation means greater efficiency and productivity, better employee safety and even a higher standard of living (more free time, lower prices). However, AI may also cause job losses and fundamentally change traditional employment."
The ability to gather enormous amounts of data and analyze it efficiently is part of the reason investors think Tesla is more valuable than General Motors. After a traditional car company sells a car, its relationship with thecustomer is limited. Tesla, by contrast, collects terabytes of driving data from its customers. That data is then put to use in improving the self-driving features of its cars. Tesla’s advantage in data is likely to translate into a huge advantage in making safe and effective self-driving cars.
The smartphone market is not the growth engine it was a few years ago. Apple has never minded cannibalizing its own products. The question is whether Apple is willing to cut into its iPhone sales to get a jump on the next big thing. "Apple will do 'heart transplants.' It is going to take longer than you would think, but it is eventually going to replace the phone."
As the United States struggles with how to match good jobs to the two-thirds of adults who do not have a four-year college degree, a worker’s skills can be emphasized over hiring filters like college degrees, work history and personal references. These jobs have taken off in tech (because): computing skills tend to be well defined (and), demand for tech skills is surging. IBM has 5,000 job openings in the US. New-collar workers can help meet its work force needs — and inexpensively if those workers are far away from urban centers.
Breakthroughs in deep learning have enabled computers to interpret images as successfully people do. Companies are selling products that exploit the technology, which is likely to take over or assist in a wide range of tasks, from driving trucks to diagnosing medical disorders. Convolutional neural network (CNN) allow machines to excel because it is better able to learn, and draw inferences from, subtle, telling patterns in the images.
Communications used to be predictive: We could post at a certain time of day to optimize views, but because algorithms and growth hacking are changing at a rapid rate, this is no longer possible. New technologies helps us make the most of data and analytics to build insights on optimal brand targeting. The goal is to achieve a better understanding of what customers want. From its ability to personalize marketing strategies, (and) to allow micro-segmentation in mass communications, the use of AI is significant.
Studies confirmed that surprisingly large numbers of people can be recruited into long-term research studies on mobile phones; that their consent to participate can be obtained more easily than in conventional studies; and that the medical data obtained can be made anonymous, collected and analyzed by advanced algorithms in ways never before imagined. (An) app used an algorithm (that) can detect Parkinson’s from a digital voice file with 98% accuracy.
GE hopes to become one of the world’s top software providers by 2020, a quest that amped up in 2011 with a $1 billion initiative to collect and analyze sensor data from machines. Creating smarter models via AI is the next step in the company’s strategy. To develop these systems, GE researchers need to understand both the physics of the machines and the AI algorithms. 400 employees from across the company have completed GE’s certification program for data analytics, and 50 scientists have moved into digital analytics jobs.
These figures represent more than just the revenue generated through app stores. It also took into account other forms of monetization, like in-app ads and mobile commerce. Today, the 3.4 billion app users, spend $379 in apps across all three forms of monetization last year, or $0.80 per hour, per person. This will grow to $1,008 per user by 2021.Consumer spend across app stores will reach $139 billion by 2021. Google Play combined with third-party Android marketplaces is expected to overtake the iOS App Store this year, largely thanks to China.
Management techniques explained 18% of the difference. R&D accounts for 17%; employee skills, 11%; and IT spending, 8%. Firms in more competitive industries and in those in more pro-business states, tended to be better managed. Firms with more college graduates and firms located near universities adopt better management practices. Being located near a successful large new entrant improved practices. Good management is relatively rare and incredibly valuable. Great managers make great management.
The device was a well-timed, smartly executed culmination of multiple trends already happening in the industry. "The thing that Apple did super well, and I would argue better than anyone else, is they figured out the user interface for this small form factor."
It turns out that there are all sorts of unexpected foods that are totally and completely awesome cooked on the grill.
The current pessimism about technology is partly the result of unrealistic expectations that the internet would somehow set us free. The internet isn’t inherently liberating or repressive. If we went a little overboard with our techno-exuberance, now the pendulum may be swinging too far in the other direction. “The only way that we will assert popular resistance against autocratic control of technology is by seizing the means of information. We’re not going to get there with tin cans and string.”
Personality research shows that people score high on “agreeableness” are less likely to challenge existing rules and violate expectations about how things are supposed to be done. Given this resistance to conflict, it’s not surprising that agreeable people are less likely to bring creative innovations to life. But it’s almost impossible for a CEO to act callously toward people and still be an effective, transformational leader.
Digitization means all kinds of media can be stored, streamed, or downloaded in seconds. “If we can deliver intangibles anytime, anywhere, to anybody, that instant aspect of them means we don’t have to own them anymore." And if you can summon a car to pick you up within minutes, why own one, especially when owning means storing, cleaning, maintaining, and insuring? Subscribing gives all the benefits of owning without any of the liabilities.
When asked to name the most innovative region in the country, only 10% selected the Midwest. Less fashionable towns and cities attract startups by offering cheaper operating space, selling themselves as test markets for new products and services, and by supporting wellbeing, as opposed to the harshness of (in) Manhattan or Palo Alto.
For the foreseeable future, email is here to stay as a foundation of internal communication. Email is simply too universal, too easy to use and too convenient to recklessly abandon. 47% of recipients decide whether to open an email based solely on the subject line. So when you create subject lines that are meaningless or irrelevant, you've missed the opportunity to capture attention.
Information is everywhere. That’s a given. Now, prepare for another shift. AI cannot exist without crowdsourced data. The machine learns from the crowd by gathering data. We see this play out with autonomous cars. Cars analyze thousands of data points using sensors that watch how people drive on the road. The irony here? The machine age is still human-powered.
Barristers were wading through 3,000 documents a day. RAVN processed 600,000 daily - with fewer errors than the lawyers.“Where someone has scanned a 300-page document, it's not uncommon to put one in upside down by mistake. We need to deal with that real world of messy datasets. It cut out 80% of the work. It also saved us a lot of money." Using data buried in documents, its system could suggest likely outcomes of mergers and acquisitions, or true estimates of project costs.
The Alphabet structure is Google’s stab at an age-old corporate conundrum: sustaining innovation within a giant enterprise. (But) it's not yet clear the structure will enable Alphabet to do what most companies cannot: conceive the next wave of innovation in-house or through the development of key acquisitions. That goal is central to both the company's mission and investor expectations
There are roughly 863 cryptocurrencies/tokens in the market today. The total cryptocurrency market has a market capitalization of $100 billion which is roughly equal to the amount of venture capital deals entered into in 2016. Blockchain and its applications in the form of Bitcoin, Ether and other cryptocurrencies/tokens have opened up the debate on greater efficiency, transparency and democratization of the entire capital raising lifecycle i.e. from angel investments to IPO’s.
The problem is that many companies view data science and machine learning as checkboxes on their operational to-do lists. Hiring a data scientist checks the box, and they’re done. Businesses that haven’t teased out the connection between that role and the return on investment they’re expecting from it won’t ever have the right tools to hire appropriately.
The development of self-driving cars has pitched a handful of cities into a new gold rush, a chance to be on the forefront of a new technology that will give rise to billion-dollar companies and thousands of newjobs.Automakers, suppliers and technology companies are clustering in certain cities to test their vehicles. In others, governors and mayors are beckoning the industry to come to their states by changing laws or touting other inducements.
"In the age of the Internet of Things, our senses no longer define the boundaries of our perception." Soldiers in the near future will live in a world with almost infinite available information. The videogame industry has already cracked the code. The (Pentagon) plans to approach the gaming industry with an idea: You build the Pentagon the systems it wants and give it exclusive access for, say, six months. And then everything can go back into the game. “We don’t own the product, we own the time,”
In 2016, Chinese businesses spent $46 billion on foreign direct investment in the United States. Wages aren’t the only costs in China that are rising. The price of electricity has increased 15%, and industrial land is becoming more expensive. Taxes are high as well. Foreign companies are responsible for many of the jobs in states like Ohio today—they employ 18.5% of manufacturing workers in the U.S. New-business creation is faltering in America, with the number of new start-ups at 40-year lows. Foreign investment could be a key
Most of the money being made from artificial intelligence will go to the United States and China. A.I. is an industry in which strength begets strength: The more data you have, the better your product; the better your product, the more data you can collect; the more data you can collect, the more talent you can attract; the more talent you can attract, the better your product.
The democratisation of consumer goods has made them far less useful as a means of displaying status. In the face of rising social inequality, both the rich and the middle classes own fancy TVs and nice handbags. Since 2007, the US’s top 1% (earning $300,000 per year) are spending significantly less on material goods. Eschewing an overt materialism, the rich are investing more in education, retirement and health – all of which are immaterial, yet cost many times more than any handbag
The first is jobs that involve “genuine creativity, such as being an artist, being a scientist, developing a new business strategy”. The second is occupations that involve building complex relationships with people: nurses, for example, or a business role that requires you to build close relationships with clients.The third is jobs that are highly unpredictable – for example, if you’re a plumber who is called out to emergencies in different locations.
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As a Partner and Co-Founder of Predictiv and PredictivAsia, Jon specializes in management performance and organizational effectiveness for both domestic and international clients. He is an editor and author whose works include Invisible Advantage: How Intangilbles are Driving Business Performance.
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