In the last few years, especially in the last decade when computers have shrunk to the size of handhelds and mobile devices have become primary tech devices for everyone, Artificial Intelligence has made quantum leaps in its ease and range of use, thus becoming ubiquitous in the broadest sense of the term.
AI pervades across business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) organizations in ways that have exponentially raised the value proposition for both; AI enhances what basic technology already provides in terms of speed, multitasking, ease of operation, enabling, and overall efficiency. The enabling of businesses and consumers has come on the back of vast advances in all areas of artificial intelligence, particularly in the realm of machine learning, natural language processing and cognitive services. 
Benefits of AI in Business
For businesses, especially those that are interaction-oriented, the benefits of AI are obvious. With the masses of data that need to be processed, AI can help process and classify the data to address specific targeted goals and results. Decision-making in complex scenarios becomes immensely quick, accurate, and consistent. Supply chain streamlining is another area where AI, robotics, and algorithms can contribute significantly. AI also helps in automating processes, apart from improving security. All of this ultimately leads to greater efficiency at lesser cost. By cutting overheads and making processes lean and clean, AI helps businesses do more for less, thus making growth and expansion faster and cheaper.
Continue reading: https://yourstory.com/2022/03/conversational-ai-chatbot-startups-customer-engagement/amp?utm_pageloadtype=scroll

FedEx Corp. is partnering with Elroy Air, a startup that makes a large cargo drone, to test moving packages by air with no pilot on board. 
FedEx plans to begin experimental flights next year using Elroy Air’s Chaparral aircraft to shuttle packages from one sorting hub to another, the companies said. The hybrid-powered electric aircraft can fly about 300 miles with as much as 500 pounds of cargo in a detachable pod. 
“FedEx was built on innovation, and it continues to be an integral part of our culture and our business strategy,” Joe Stephens, a senior vice president for the company’s Express unit, said in an interview. “This is just another example where we’re innovating to drive efficiency, safety and reliability and support customer demand.”
Dozens of startups, including Archer Aviation Inc. and Joby Aviation Inc., are seeking to build electric aircraft that take off like helicopters and fly like small planes. Most are going after the passenger market and will start off with a pilot before eventually flying autonomously. Elroy Air is pursuing the cargo market exclusively and has designed its aircraft to fly without a pilot from the start.
Elroy Air, which is doing work in the U.S. Air Force’s Agility Prime program, uses a hybrid of electricity and fuel to power the aircraft. The combination gives the aircraft more range and eliminates the need for building charging stations, said Kofi Asante, vice president of strategy and business development for the South San Francisco-based startup.
Continue reading: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-30/fedex-partners-with-elroy-air-to-test-pilotless-package-drone

As part of the Union Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the government would encourage start-ups to facilitate drone-as-a-service.
Drone-as-a-service enables enterprises to avail of various services from drone companies. This removes the need for them to invest their own money in drone hardware and software, pilots, and pilot training programmes.
For example, a mining company wants to conduct a mapping and surveying operation. Using drones in this case would be very convenient and helpful. But, for this, the company will have to buy the associated hardware and hire or even train the pilots needed. And this would involve considerable costs.
Here drone-as-a-service facility comes into play. The miner can go to a drone company, which already has the hardware, software and human resources at hand. This drone company will then use its resources to conduct the mapping and surveying operation, in the form of services rendered, for the miner.
According to the government, the drone services industry is slated to grow to over Rs 30,000 crore in the coming three years and create over 500,000 jobs.
On a related note, drone-related courses for skilling will start at select Industrial Training Institutes across all states. The government has said that it would also promote the use of ‘Kisan Drones’ for the purposes of crop assessment, spraying of insecticides, and digitization of land records.
So, what are the applications of drone-as-a-service?Let us look at how it can be used in agriculture. Drones can be hired for crop health monitoring, damage assessment, yield estimation, land preparation, irrigation planning, and crop counting.
Mining enterprises can use drone services for mine site planning, site monitoring and maintenance, mapping and surveying, inventory tracking, and live maps for accurate data capture.
Continue reading: https://www.business-standard.com/podcast/technology/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-drone-as-a-service-model-122033000072_1.html

There’s no way you haven’t heard about “Web3” or “web3 platform” if you work in the technology industry. The recent emergence of various Web 3 Platforms like MetaSky, has raised a curiosity on the future of the internet. The web we use and interact with now is a far cry from what it was ten years ago. This change is only going to accelerate, with Web3 appearing to be the next logical stage.
Web 3, also known as “Web 3.0” or “Net 3,” is gaining traction, particularly among crypto enthusiasts. In the final weeks of 2021, cryptocurrency enthusiasts, large technology enterprises, and venture capital firms engaged in a fierce dispute regarding the future of Web 3.
When people talk about Web 3.0 or Web 3, they’re referring to a version of the internet that’s decentralized, free, and, most crucially, free of Big Tech’s grip.
Fun fact: In 2021, Big Tech was responsible for 57 percent of all internet traffic (Google, Netflix, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft).
Here’s what you need to know to figure out what all the fuss is about. In this post, we’ll deconstruct the Web3 notion. So, let’s get started.
Continue reading: https://techbullion.com/web-3-for-dummies-beginners-guide-to-the-future-of-internet/

Running a people business is anything but dull. 
And when you employ enough people—especially in a remote-first, distributed company—you’re guaranteed to run into interesting questions about identity. 
With new paradigms of distributed computing and cryptographic identifiers erupting around us with blockchains, NFTs, and web3, I’m left wondering: Is there a better way than how we do it today? 
This is my latest “interesting” identity moment: After extending a job offer to a candidate in Pennsylvania named Mo, it came time to ship a laptop. Ashley, our ops director, reached out to confirm a shipping address. But Mo couldn’t accept a laptop at their home. 
A touch odd, but no problem. Maybe Mo wanted to pick up the laptop somewhere instead? Or have it shipped elsewhere? The next response raised red flags. There was no way Mo could pick up a laptop in PA. And no explanation or alternative suggestion was forthcoming. 
That was enough for Ashley to put on her detective hat. And the extensive digital record of our interactions with Mo showed we had been interacting with someone in Pakistan. 
Continue reading: https://www.fastcompany.com/90734335/what-web3-means-for-the-future-of-work

Volocopter CEO Florian Reuter took the floor at Amsterdam Drone Week, the EASA High Level Conference on Drones, to discuss bringing urban air mobility to life and to answer the big question: when will we see passenger drones take flight?
“We’re at the start of a transformation of the way that we live mobility,” says Reuter. “…The world will look very different 20, 30 years down the road.”
In 2011, Volocopter made it to the Guinness Book of World Records by proving that eVTOL passenger flight was possible – and 5 years later, they were able to fly a person in their passenger eVTOL, now called VoloCity.  Since then, they’ve done many test flights in cities around the world, something that Volocopter feels is a major part of its mission: showing people that automated eVTOL flight is real.
Continue reading: https://dronelife.com/2022/03/29/when-will-we-see-passenger-drones-volocopter-ceo-florian-reuter/

Amazon this year aims to recruit 1,300 test customers to place orders through its Prime Air drone-delivery program, a sign the company is inching closer to its vision of shipping packages via autonomous aerial vehicles, Insider has learned.
These testers will be recruited from Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas, with deliveries starting in September, according to documents obtained by Insider. Customers will be able to choose from roughly 3,000 items weighing under 5 pounds — largely pharmaceutical, beauty, and pet supplies. Amazon aims to deliver one item at a time, within an hour, to these customers, these internal planning documents say.
This would be a significant expansion of Prime Air and the program's largest commercial test. For at least the past 18 months Amazon has operated a much smaller-scale test in almost complete secrecy near the company's drone facilities in parts of Oregon and Crows Landing, California, according to documents and four current and former Prime Air employees. This test reaches about two dozen customers, of which only a handful are not Amazon employees, according to the documents and employees.
Those testers have had access to about 30 non-bulky items, such as a bottle of Dr. Formulated Probiotics, the UNO card-game set, and Apple headsets, a live storefront for those trial users showed as of Friday. Amazon appeared to have disabled this portal after Insider asked a Prime Air spokesperson about it.
The expansion of its testing program would mark the largest public-facing step forward for Prime Air, nearly 10 years after Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos unveiled the vision for drone-delivery service in a "60 Minutes" segment. Amazon's goals for the program are ambitious, with plans to ultimately operate 145 drone launchpads, have 250 drones in the air at any one time, and deliver 500 million packages by drone a year, the documents say.
But those plans can still change, company insiders said, as Prime Air has been slow to launch amid regulatory challenges, high turnover, and safety concerns. These people spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from Amazon.
Amazon's spokesperson declined to comment.
12,000 test flights
The new test flights are part of Amazon's plan to reach at least 12,000 total trial flights by the end of the year, the documents say. Of the 12,000 flights, Amazon expects roughly 5,000 to be commercial flights for trial customers, with the other 7,000 being run for separate durability and reliability testing.
Amazon needs those test flights for regulatory approval. One of the documents said Prime Air has to obtain the Federal Aviation Administration's type certificate for its latest drone model, an approval of the aircraft's design and safety. It said that the customer-initiated test flights would "demonstrate system maturity and service expansion readiness" and that the application for the type certificate would be "submitted upon completion" of the durability and reliability testing.
Amazon has largely been silent about Prime Air's progress lately. Its last major milestone was in August 2020, when Amazon won the FAA's approval to use "unmanned aircraft systems" in a commercial operation. It's been a noticeably slow process with several missed goalposts. In 2013, Bezos predicted Amazon would be delivering packages by drone within "four or five years." Jeff Wilke, Amazon's former retail CEO, announced in June 2019 that Prime Air would launch "within months."
Part of the recent slowdown has to do with internal turmoil and high turnover. Prime Air's team experienced a culture clash between new executives and existing employees last year, with a 20% turnover rate, which was higher than many other parts of Amazon, Insider previously reported. It also closed its office in the UK last year, laying off more than 100 employees, Wired reported.
Continue reading: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-beta-test-drone-delivery-prime-air-california-texas-2022-3

The Equation for Equality report is an original research effort backed by the Command Shift coalition that unveils a previously overlooked, viable talent pipeline of women of color ready for careers in tech.
The research has identified over 2,500,000 women of color who are considered skill-similar, tech-eligible talent. Close to 500 feasible non-tech to tech career transitions for women of color have been identified. 
Read the entire report at: https://www.npower.org/commandshift/research/

Using edge compute over cloud compute means improved performance, reduced data backhaul, earlier threat detection and mitigation, and other benefits such as improved reliability and scalability. It is undeniable that running an application closer to the end user can provide an improved digital experience. In short, all things being equal, it’s better to run applications at the edge instead of in a centralized cloud or data center environment.
Given that fact, why, up until now, have we embraced the centralized cloud compute paradigm rather than a distributed hosting platform?
The answer is in that “all things being equal” statement. Historically, deploying applications at the edge adds technical and operational complexity — not to mention unfamiliar tools and requirements — that can, for many, outweigh its other benefits. These challenges of running distributed versus centralized applications have been with us for some time. We have seen pushes toward grid compute paradigms and, of course, the completely decentralized blockchain application approach. Each of which has represented fundamental shifts away from our current application security, architecture, and dev and ops lifecycles.
However, modern edge compute paradigms are a much more natural, and thus more mainstream, extension from the current operatives of a centralized cloud hosting model.  
Is this enough to achieve the “all things equal” parity? How do you judge? It turns out we can demonstrate the natural extension a distributed deployment brings to the benefits of cloud by considering cloud vs. edge in equation format.
Setting the Equation
First, let’s restate that:
The Benefits of Distributed Edge Hosting > The Benefits of Centralized Cloud Hosting
What is missing from this statement is the accessibility of these benefits for either hosting paradigm. So, for purposes of creating an equation, we need to determine how to express an ability to access or enjoy the benefits of edge vs. cloud hosting.
The key is to recognize that the edge side of the compute equation is not dissimilar to the cloud portion, with one significant differentiator: distribution and how we handle that distribution.     
Continue reading: https://thenewstack.io/when-to-move-to-the-edge-a-simple-equation-to-help-decide/

What’s next for Zoom? Try the possibility of virtual interaction. Pivoting into a more relevant role now that people are willingly and unwillingly heading back to work, Zoom Video Communications is now exploring new-age technologies to tap the hybrid working model that is set in place to take shape now that the world is two years into the pandemic. And now that people are getting back to the office, the company said it's heading for the India and Saarc markets. Sameer Raje announced plans were afoot to go beyond just using Zoom as a video-calling application to a collaboration platform.
Many will see the changes as the new age technologies will add features that would make it cooler, accessible and more relevant. So, as some workers head back to the office, Zoom’s exploration could branch out into a world of possibilities. Raje said, “It could be avatars, it could be a virtual world, it could be virtual interaction, it could be IoT, or multiple other things,” ET reports. Recently, Zoom took a more modern approach and introduced the avatars feature, which will replace a user’s appearance during a video call with that of a virtual animal that mirrors his or her head movements and facial expressions, much like what iPhone users are used to utilizing when implementing their animal avatars.
Continue reading: https://www.govtech.com/products/zoom-mulls-new-virtual-iot-capabilities-for-collaboration

Underrepresentation of women in technology is an ongoing debate across the globe. Despite several government interventions to boost women's education and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) initiatives making concerted efforts to steer a diversified workforce and boost the number of women leaders in tech, the gaps still remain. 
On day 1 of the Future of Work conference 2022, YourStory’s Senior Editor, Ramarko Sengupta, took to unravelling some of the key gaps and challenges acting as barriers to the growth of women in tech domains in conversation with Vidhya Seetharaman, Chief of Staff to the CTO (chief technology officer) at Swiggy; Megha Yethadka, Senior Director, Program Management Tech and Head Global Scale Solutions, Uber, and Dr Geetha Manjunath, founder and CEO (chief executive officer), Niramai. 
 
Here’s a look at the key gaps and solutions
Some of the key gaps which hinder women's representation in tech include a lack of confidence among women themselves, as well as a lack of exposure to various tech domains such as design, data science, engineering offering diverse options and much more than just a career in coding. 
Returning to work after a long break
Statistics suggest more than 20 million Indian women quit their jobs between 2004 to 2012 with 65 percent to 70 percent never returning to work. But organizations are now working on policies to woo women back to the workforce. Sharing her experience of rejoining Swiggy in July 2020 after her maternity break, Vidhya shared how the constant support of the team and her family worked wonders for her.
Continue reading: https://yourstory.com/2022/03/yourstory-future-of-work-women-in-tech/amp

The lives of customers are constantly evolving as the Internet of Things (IoT) gadgets become more commonplace. Similarly, as the number of people using the internet and IoT grows, so does eCommerce, which is projected to be the future of retail, since the majority of the growth occurs online.
As a way to better serve customers all across the globe, retailers are getting ready to use the Internet of Things. Retail and eCommerce businesses alike may benefit from staying on top of digital marketing trends in order to remain profitable and competitive. According to BusinessWire, the global internet of things in retail market size is expected to reach USD 182.04 billion by 2028. These statistics show how well this technology is changing the eCommerce sector.
But how would IoT in eCommerce business benefit in the long run? What changes are currently taking place or being implemented, and how does this impact eCommerce? Have companies that sell goods and services online successfully reached out to prospective customers?
Benefits From IoT for Your Ecommerce Business
Let’s take a look at some of the most promising ways that the adoption of IoT in eCommerce might benefit online retail.
1. Improved Logistics and Tracking
Using IoT, merchants have more insight into the order fulfillment process so they can better satisfy the needs of customers who purchase more online. For online companies, IoT technology provides the ability to follow customers’ orders from the time they are placed until they arrive at their doorsteps.
As a result of management systems, retailers can now trace every item of inventory, no matter where they are. Data such as traffic conditions, weather, location, and employees’ identities may all be accessed using cloud-based technologies like GPS and RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification).
2. Automating Shipping and Delivery (Plus: Optimizing Truck Routes)
As an eCommerce company, you want to be able to keep an eye on the inventory in your warehouses and know what is in and out of stock. For merchants, inventory management can be made simpler by integrating IoT sensors and RFID tags into their systems, eliminating the need to physically engage store managers to check their inventory.
Continue reading: https://www.iotforall.com/ways-the-internet-of-things-iot-can-help-your-ecommerce-business

Today’s Woman in Tech: Saray Ben-Meir, Chief-of-Staff and Corporate Innovation, SQream
As SQream’s Chief-of-Staff, Saray works across teams to ensure alignment on broad and strategic initiatives across the company, building partnerships, leading organizational changes and leadership design, driving constant process improvement, and ensuring the organization abides by its cultural values. Saray brings over two decades of experience in the hi-tech industry, in both corporate and startup organizations, in Israel and abroad.
Saray also serves on SQream’s Executive Innovation Team, which envisions and incubates SQream’s next-generation products, creates partnerships with strategic stakeholders, and integrates those projects into the work stream of the company.
Saray is also responsible for creating an elite group of advanced development engineers across departments to create new technology that delivers higher levels of value to data driven enterprises.
Prior to SQream, Saray served in diverse HR and operational roles at prominent hi-tech companies including NICE and Sapiens.
When did you become interested in technology? What first got you interested in tech?
I have worked at technology companies for over two decades exploring ways to accelerate innovation by encouraging creativity and collaboration. From my first entry-level position in HR, I focused on fostering an intrapreneurial spirit within larger companies.
Continue reading: https://jaxenter.com/women-in-tech-ben-meir-176865.html

Blockchain is one of the major revolutions that has taken the world by storm these past few years. It is an enabler of emerging supply chain, smart contract technologies, record management, clinical record tracking and is most predominantly used as a financial vehicle. It is seen as a financial asset and represents extreme amounts of extrinsic value. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are powered by blockchain technology and make it possible to conduct virtual transactions online, clear funds faster and enable trade without the need for a traditional bank or credit company.
There is a growing need for solutions that can protect data while creating an immutable record proving data has not been tampered with. Blockchain is perceived as highly secure due to its decentralized nature, consensus system of checks and balances, and cryptographic basis used to secure the data in a protected and validated state. For these reasons, it has become its own financial asset class for consumers and large funds.
https://b0715e5b8f16f717192f44ee8cd...tion.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.htmlIntroducing Quantum Computing
We often see articles claiming that quantum computing will threaten blockchain, affecting the cryptographic base, communication protocols and compromising the immutability of its record. Since quantum computers are accessible via the cloud and are purposely being built by nation-state actors for cracking current cryptography, it is only a matter of time before threats against blockchain and cryptocurrency occur. A quantum computer operates differently from the classic computers we use today. Quantum computers use subatomic processes like entanglement and superposition to perform certain kinds of computations that are more powerful than our current computers can perform today.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/03/29/what-does-quantum-mean-to-blockchain-security/?sh=18bd5cae43ec

Advances in computing power, the availability of data and of new algorithms have led to rapid progress in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). This is “the single most influential human innovation in history,” says Archana Sinha. Deployed wisely, AI holds the promise of addressing some of the world’s most pressing challenges, but it may also have destabilizing consequences on some key dimensions of economic and social life.
In manufacturing, AI promises to increase productivity by extending the capabilities of humans and by helping businesses achieve more efficiency, including through direct automation, predictive maintenance, reduced downtime, 24/7 production, etc. However, as Ezekiel Kwetchi Takam rightly points out, “this automation will be deployed at the expense of some human labor whose skills will be deemed irrelevant.”
In public administration, the adoption of AI can contribute to better public services, for example, by interacting with service users through virtual assistants or by enabling smarter analytical capabilities and better understanding of real-time processes. There is a risk, however, when using data, to amplify existing biases and produce discriminatory and unethical outcomes for different individuals. Moreover, as economist Etienne Perrot explains, “by developing algorithms based exclusively on computation and stochastic data, AI substitutes statistical correlations for (human) causal relationships. The lack of conflicting interpretations inherent in AI creates a human cost that can already be observed in predictive justice.”
Continue reading: https://www.fairobserver.com/business/technology/from-virus-to-vitamin-artificial-intelligence-ai-technology-tech-news-82399/

The conversation about applying artificial intelligence (AI) in businesses has shifted dramatically
Not that long ago organizations were being urged to ‘just get started’ – to set up a dream team of data scientists and protect them from the rest of the company, letting them get on with developing proofs of concept and allowing them to fail or succeed fast.
Those carefree days are over. The time has come to operationalize AI across organizations at scale and to start deriving clear business benefits, including improved customer service and ROI from time and money already spent. Beyond that, the pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated digitalization – compressing years into months – and data-first, AI-enabled organizations are the ones that are going to succeed in the future.
In a way, AI needs to become boring. It needs to become an unnoteworthy part of the fabric of any organization. It should be a foregone conclusion that AI is integrated into a business’ operations. We’re a long way off this. However, much of the extant conversation around operationalizing AI has looked at data strategies, partnerships, and ethical frameworks around scaling. All of these are of great importance but they’re missing the most important ingredient to ensuring technology uptake: humans.
Continue reading: https://technative.io/lets-make-ai-boring/

Join us in Amsterdam and be a part of the CompTIA Benelux Community Meeting on the 21 April, networking, and industry trends and insight with your technology industry partners. The community delivers thought leadership, help and advice through networking, collaboration & learning from each other. The CompTIA Benelux Community meeting is one place you can get vendor neutral; information, technology qualifications, best practices; showcasing how technology and technology companies enable us to solve real business needs and be successful.
     •  Attend our first in-person CompTIA Benelux community meeting in 2 years!      •  Build your network      •  Collaborate and engage with your peers      •  Discover how CompTIA can help you and your business      •  Engage in impactful discussions
Location
Grand Café Restaurant 1e Klas Stationsplein 15 (Spoor 2b) 1012 AB Amsterdam
Agenda
13:30 – 14:30 Welcome Women in Tech 14:00 – 14:30 Meeting Registration 14:30 – 14:45 Community Welcome 14:45 – 15:30 Industry Research and Discussion 15:30 – 16:00 Networking Break 16:00 – 16:45 Table discussion – What’s changed, what are your priorities 16:45 – 17:00 Report Out and Closing 17:00 – 17:30 Networking Drinks 17:30 – 19:30 Network Buffet Dinner Please contact Leanne Johnson with any questions.
Register here: https://connect.comptia.org/events/registration?eventid=BENAPRIL

We live in an increasingly digital world, where technology helps us complete tasks of all kinds throughout the day. With this in mind, it would be easy to think that the procedure of scanning and processing coupons in grocery stores, restaurants, department stores and other retail outlets would be one that's streamlined with technology. Surprisingly, this isn't quite the case.
It's still far too easy to create, purchase, trade and use counterfeit coupons. In recent years, there have been multiple high-profile counterfeit coupon busts orchestrated by the FBI and state police departments. Last year, a movie named "Queenpins" starring Kristen Bell and Vince Vaughn was released, retelling the story of a counterfeit coupon operation that was broken up by the FBI and which saw investigators uncover more than $25 million worth of bogus coupons, 22 assault weapons, 21 vehicles, and a 40-foot boat. The scam that the movie is based on is one that snared a roster of 40 major manufacturers, including Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, and Hershey. Police estimated that hundreds of millions of dollars were lost in profits — the majority of which was through counterfeit coupons.
Though this shocking story caught the attention of Hollywood directors, it’s not exactly a rarity. There have been other large-scale coupon fraud busts in recent months, including an incident that saw a Virginia man sentenced to more than seven years in prison. In addition to the prison sentence, he was ordered to pay $31 million in restitution in connection to what prosecutors described as “what may be one of the biggest counterfeit coupon schemes in history.”
The Problem With Existing Technology
Looking at the scale of the crimes mentioned above, it’s clear that the existing technology used to process coupons and verify their authenticity simply doesn't cut it. Even with the shift to online shopping and increased use of digital coupons as a result of the pandemic, fraud has remained a huge issue.
In fact, digital coupons may even be contributing to a rise in the number of people overusing coupons, as online retailers extend discount codes to attract new shoppers and encourage customer loyalty. While it’s an effective marketing tactic, the distribution of digital coupons has a level of risk involved, particularly if shoppers abuse referral schemes to proliferate coupons or reuse them.
In 2020, a fraud detection report published by Forter highlighted a significant increase in coupon abuse, which grew 133 percent between H2 2018-H2 2019. This was attributed to the oversharing of coupon codes by users and merchants that are not able to put precautions in place to deter this kind of abusive behavior. At the time of the report, it was estimated that coupon fraud costs businesses between $300 million and $600 million each year.
One of the problems fueling coupon abuse is the migration to mobile devices. Across the industry, the technology and standards implemented for coupon redemption haven't been uniform. The result here is that there's a fragmented and siloed coupon distribution landscape. This can be — and has been — exploited. The legacy coupon format, AI (8110), has experienced substantial levels of fraud due to the fact that it's not possible for retailers and brands to exchange real-time data.
Another one of the reasons why coupon abuse has proven to be so easy for criminals is because the existing process for verifying coupons is both time consuming and labor intensive. Annually, there are more than 1.7 billion coupons redeemed in the U.S., with the annual consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry spending $225 billion on promotional activities such as the distribution of coupons. Most of the coupons scanned in stores and used in the U.S. are shipped to Mexico for painstaking hand reconciliation, creating a process that's ripe for fraud.
To bring this process into the 21st century, we've turned to distributed ledger technology (DLT), more commonly known as blockchain technology. Put simply, DLT is a decentralized database for information and assets to be stored and shared securely and in real time, rather than being controlled by one centralized authority. With a decentralized blockchain ledger, the blockchain protocol remains secure even when some of the computers on the network act maliciously. The result? The records of information recorded on the blockchain are virtually tamperproof and hence anyone can verify information recorded in it.
Continue reading: https://www.mytotalretail.com/article/blockchain-technology-can-end-a-multimillion-dollar-financial-fraud/

Climate change is creating a nightmare scenario for subsistence farmers around the world.
Subsistence farms are typically small operations, often less than 2 hectares, with outsize importance to the families that operate them, and to the surrounding community that relies on the crops. As of 2013, nearly 2 billion people on the planet relied on small-scale subsistence farms for survival. But those farms are in trouble: Rising CO2 levels have increased the likelihood and severity of extreme weather events like droughts, floods, and wildfires—a trend that can leave those farmers with nothing to eat and no money to buy food elsewhere. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, extreme weather disasters cost developing nations’ agriculture sectors $108 billion between 2008 and 2018.
But one company thinks it can help solve the problem with a seemingly unlikely tool: blockchain.
Using blockchain technology to protect people from climate change might sound a bit like using gasoline to protect against a blaze, but the Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition, which launched last week, says that’s exactly what it wants to do.
 

Cocoa farmers drying their crop in sub-Saharan Africa [Photo: Pula/Lemonade]
Most blockchain technology is famous for being energy intensive: One Bitcoin transaction uses enough energy to power an average U.S. house for six weeks, according to some analyses. Put another way, each Bitcoin transaction is equivalent to releasing 402 kilograms of CO2. The Lemonade Crypto Climate Coalition, a new nonprofit arm of insurance tech firm Lemonade Foundation, believes it can leverage blockchain technology to provide insurance against climate disasters for upward of 2 billion subsistence farmers on the planet, and avoid making the planet hotter while doing it. The Lemonade Foundation is focusing its early efforts in Africa but wants to one day bring its ideas to South America, Asia, and anywhere else where small-scale farmers need crop insurance.
Climate insurance is not a new concept, but providing the service to subsistence farmers has been difficult historically. Claims are often small—on the order of tens of dollars—meaning that it’s incredibly difficult for traditional insurers to underwrite and process claims and still make money. “Everything’s upside down. It costs you more to service the claim than the claim itself,” says Daniel Schreiber, Lemonade’s cofounder and CEO.
Continue reading: https://www.fastcompany.com/90735778/can-blockchain-tech-help-farmers-get-climate-insurance

Like other tech companies, DJI also gets its products into the hands of “real users” before they are launched officially. One such beta tester for the newly announced Matrice 30 enterprise drone was the Weber County Search and Rescue – a volunteer organization assigned to assist the Weber County Sheriff’s Office in the state of Utah. Incredibly enough, the SAR team was able to witness the lifesaving capabilities of the DJI M30 drone firsthand when a snowboarder became stranded in North Fork mountain valley land.
As Lt. Mark Horton from the Weber County SAR team recalls the incident that took place recently, he says the M30 not only found the missing person “within 10 minutes of being on scene,” but the drone also helped map out an escape path, letting rescuers know “the safest way to get off the mountain without getting into more trouble.”
The M30 series comes in two versions: the M30 and the M30T. The drone that Weber County SAR team received for beta testing was the latter, which features an additional 640×512 px radiometric thermal camera to find hotspots and heat signatures.
To reassure the snowboarder that he had been found, the rescue team put an aerial spotlight on the man, which drone operator Kyle Nordfords explains “was great for him to be able to look up, see the drone, and know that he was found.”
Overall, the team says the M30 series drone cut the rescue mission time in half, with Horton saying:

It just makes the rescue so much faster and safer for everybody involved, from our patient to also our heroes, our rescuers on the ground.

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Indeed, when marketers call a product game-changing, transformative, or revolutionary, more often than not, it’s just that – marketing. But as any search and rescue team who’s laid hands on an enterprise drone would tell you, this technology is not just helping save lives, it’s keeping first responders out of harm’s way by giving them the context they need to move quickly and make the right decisions.
Continue reading: https://dronedj.com/2022/03/28/dji-m30-drone-rescue-weber-county/

A wave of business school students are choosing blockchain careers over traditional banking gigs, shaking up the financial jobs market as much as cryptocurrencies themselves have rattled Wall Street’s old guard.
When Columbia Business School Professor Omid Malekan taught his Intro to Blockchain and Crypto course two years ago, “Most of the students who took it were either just curious or oftentimes actually skeptical,” he said. But last year, particularly during the fall semester, Malekan noticed a significant uptick in students who were not only interested in learning about cryptocurrency, but also in pursuing careers in the industry.
Business school students Morning Brew spoke to said they also began to eye crypto as a career path from late 2020 to mid-2021, when awareness of the industry expanded in parallel to the boom in individual stock investing.

• 16% of Americans had traded, used, or invested in cryptocurrency as of last November, according to a Pew Research study.
• Though Pew didn’t ask the exact same question in a 2015 survey, only 1% responded that they had collected, traded, or used bitcoin.

There’s a reason Pew’s 2015 survey only asked about bitcoin. At the time, bitcoin was synonymous with crypto. Bitcoin’s market cap was over $5.5 billion (compared to nearly $900+ billion now), while the runners-up, XRP and litecoin, were each consistently worth less than $200 million. In the years since, new cryptocurrencies have flooded the market, along with other applications using blockchain technology, such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance (DeFi), and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
Most of these crypto applications were invisible to the general public just one year ago, but became hot topics at networking events, on Discord servers, and in Morning Brew articles last year. In an NFT collection called CryptoPunks, one NFT sold for less than $300 (in ether) in 2020 and resold for over $1 million in 2021. Another sold that year for a record-setting $24 million.
Continue reading: https://www.morningbrew.com/daily/stories/2022/03/28/the-business-students-skipping-wall-street-for-web3

Blockchain is one of the hottest technological terms in the global tech market, right now! Every industry is highly instigated to implement blockchain technology for its transparency and high speed in completing workloads. Yes, blockchain has transformed workload processes and made life easier for us! Industries such as financial services, education, sports, and many more have started leveraging cutting-edge technology with full force to enhance customer engagement and drive substantial profit in the long run. Today, the main concern is not about cybercriminals or transaction speed— but the gender gap. Investors and tech companies are gaining huge popularity for harnessing the power of blockchain technology to provide efficient customer service at any time at any place. But, we have noticed one important element in this tech market— the number of men investing in blockchain is higher than the number of women participating in this domain. Women in technology have started dominating the global tech market with their talents, skills, and behavioural characteristics. Still, there is a long way to go to bridge the gender gap in this blockchain technology. Let’s go through how it is the right time to embrace the integration of blockchain and women in technology in 2022.
Women entrepreneurs are flourishing in the global tech market across the world to dominate their male counterparts. There is a completely different women-focused industry thriving with the integration of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT, cloud computing, and many more. It is widely known as FemTech! It is successful in providing a large space for women in technology to show their women empowerment in the global highly competitive market. They are receiving a plethora of funding opportunities worth millions of dollars to expand all kinds of FemTech products.
It is high time to make a revolutionary change in the blockchain industry in Industry 4.0. Women should explore the gender dimensions of blockchain technology as well as the highly volatile cryptocurrency market. Blockchain technology is providing thousands of cryptocurrencies for a smart investment, especially the popular ones like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, etc. Society should realize that cryptocurrencies hold the power to contribute to women empowerment with financial support. Though it is a highly volatile market, women are not afraid to enter this market for financial independence.
 
Continue reading: https://www.analyticsinsight.net/embracing-the-integration-of-blockchain-and-women-in-technology-in-industry-4-0/

The Internet of Things (IoT) is gaining traction as a connected device. And smart home and office gadgets have taken over the market.
According to Statista, the worldwide Internet of Things (IoT) sector will be valued at over $1 trillion by 2030. This increased income opens up new opportunities to leverage IoT technology for businesses. Business-to-customer relationships are changing as IoT devices become more widespread.
Consider employing contemporary voice technologies like Siri, Alexa, and Cortana to search for things while a customer places an order.
1. Voice-Powered Tech
In the future, this one aspect of IoT will explode. But, will you be caught off guard? Voice-powered tech saves time, helps productivity — thereby saving money.
As a result, tech-savvy organizations will want to take advantage of this tech — so they won’t be left in the dust.
Customer support representatives and virtual assistants will be replaced by voice technology. This is already happening.
Voice-powered tech has the potential to improve customer service, provide a consistent experience, and increase efficiency. This should be obvious to everyone.
2. Analysis of Retail Data
IoT was made possible by technological advancements that have continued to innovate, and the iteration has also catapulted forward in various fields of science such as math and physics.
Data is collected via connecting smartwatches, digital thermostats, and smart speakers.
Because these devices are so prevalent, data from the retail business may be readily available, making the pathway to detailed analysis way easy.
Tracking customer behavior in physical businesses may be pretty helpful for business owners, and it’s a game-changer everywhere.
Customer care solutions are being developed using data from cash registers, store cameras, and mobile customer applications. It beats taking a survey.
Based on peak client activity hours of the day or week, the data can be utilized to optimize labor or inventory demands. Using peak client activity hour data effectively will revolutionize warehouse procedures.
Continue reading: https://readwrite.com/10-iot-business-opportunities-on-the-rise/

We’ve seen examples of companies that have not been able to adapt to current technologies when a change in the existing business model occurs. Think about the companies that fell by the wayside when the software industry switched from a per-licensee pricing model to SaaS. In this frequently evolving digital world, we are on the brink of the same type of change within IoT. Companies are aggressively looking at taking the dive into IoT implementation, which is why it is necessary for the adoption of professional IoT services.
It is assumed that by the end of 2025, over 27.1 billion IoT devices are expected to be part of the globe. This will accelerate growth synchronized with the latest solutions offered by IoT. In April 2021, 500 decision-makers in the U.K. and the U.S. announced their adherence to ramping up IoT investment, with 49 percent planning new projects in the next two or three years, and 89 percent planning budget increases.
However, many companies do not have the proper resources and skills that are required to architect, integrate, and strengthen a connected solution in their enterprise setting. Plus, without an experienced technical team, the IoT project cost can be high and escalate into unanticipated risks, which can cause disturbances in the growth of the project. Let’s discuss the reason many IoT projects fail, or are not as successful as originally projected to be, and the ways in which the adoption of IoT services can help deliver quality solutions.
The Reasoning Behind Failed IoT Projects
Research shows that respondents are struggling most with security, connectivity, and device onboarding. All these are considered top challenges. 39 percent said that security was their biggest obstacle, whereas the other 35 percent device on-boarding, testing, and certification. The rest said that cellular connectivity across multiple countries and regions causes difficulty. Therefore, overall experience says that IoT projects undertaken in the last twelve months had failed to attain the expected potential.
IoT devices drag in many complexities like connectivity issues or the configuration of an existing system with an IoT ecosystem. Still, it is expected that IoT should facilitate reliable and secure connectivity that can crush international or local restrictions. It should be robust and well-designed, capable of overcoming escalating security threats.
Besides connectivity and other issues, logistical challenges also disrupt growth, especially for global or multi-region roll-outs, the ongoing management and coordination of multiple vendors, and many other related challenges that companies have to deal with.
As we already discussed, some organizations lack specialist skills internally to develop and deploy IoT-based solutions. Organizations often don’t have the in-house expertise or a team to manage multiple vendor relationships for various components of an IoT solution.
Continue reading: https://www.iotforall.com/why-does-your-business-require-professional-services-to-accelerate-iot-adoption

The speed of growth often outpaces the rate at which enterprises figure out concrete ways to manage, integrate and leverage data actionably. Some trends become staples (like Salesforce.com), and others go down in history as just a fad (like Netezza and other data warehouse “appliances”). 
Now, as we have settled into 2022 and have a clearer picture of what enterprises are prioritizing this year in data management, five emerging trends show potential to last. Data teams will need to catch the wave early and effectively to stay competitive.  
Top Five Data Management Trends for 2022 
Predicting and preparing for trends is necessary in a world that evolves as fast as ours. Here are the key trends that we’ll see playing out over the course of this year. 
Trend #1: Demand for real-time capabilities fueling the return of change data capture
As data teams deal with the distribution, diversity and dynamic nature of the expanding data universe, they need to be able to understand what changed, when it changed, and the order in which it changed on each update. We see more teams turn to log-based, queryable historic changelogs to follow every update.  
The focus is not just on the speed of replication but also on the precision to feed use cases like AI model training, fraud detection and real-time marketing campaigns. With change data capture, data teams have visibility into all the changes laid out in chronological order. This expands possibilities to more compelling use cases than just copying a snapshot of the data from point A to B. Change data capture is best deployed on large source databases, which may have a high, or sporadic, update schedule to a smaller fraction of the overall table size. The latency of incremental changes and the time it takes to update them are minuscule.  
Trend #2: Operational analytics moving into the cloud data warehouse
The scale and elasticity of the cloud data warehouse have made it the backend system of the business. Enterprises are finding new, creative avenues to take advantage of the rich data in these platforms and fit different data pieces together. Data sharing is making this increasingly more common. 
Continue reading: https://www.toolbox.com/tech/data-management/guest-article/data-management-trends-to-keep-an-eye-on/