Category: Tech

China’s alarming plan for tech dominance

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Digital Innovation, Governments, TechLeave a comment

China has been using robotics in its manufacturing for quite some time, and it has some very powerful AI tools as well that automate processes in its factories. This is going to push other countries to match China, particularly the USA.

However, while America may be regarded as a world leader in tech, China’s President Xi has a plan to take that role for his country, and ensure that China is not using US-made tech either.

In an article published by the South China Morning Post, in May of 2020, President Xi presented his vision for China and his goal of achieving global tech supremacy by 2025. This is an extract from the piece:

“Beijing is accelerating its bid for global leadership in key technologies, planning to pump more than a trillion dollars into the economy through the roll-out of everything from next-generation wireless networks to artificial intelligence (AI).

In the master plan backed by President Xi Jinping himself, China will invest an estimated 10 trillion yuan (US$1.4 trillion) over six years to 2025, calling on urban governments and private hi-tech giants like Huawei Technologies to help lay 5G wireless networks, install cameras and sensors, and develop AI software that will underpin autonomous driving to automated factories and mass surveillance.

The new infrastructure initiative is expected to drive mainly local giants, from Alibaba Group Holding and Huawei to SenseTime Group at the expense of US companies. As tech nationalism mounts, the investment drive will reduce China’s dependence on foreign technology, echoing objectives set forth previously in the “Made in China 2025”programme. Such initiatives have already drawn fierce criticism from the Trump administration, resulting in moves to block the rise of Chinese tech companies such as Huawei.”

Tim Bajarin in Forbes, asks us to consider Xi’s use of the term, “tech nationalism.” He explains that Xi plans to “nationalise everything in China so it is the main provider of goods, services and tech-related products to China itself.” He wants China to be completely self-sufficient in tech by 2025, and nationalised tech will “receive a huge financial boost from China’s $1.4 trillion dollar fund.”

In early September former Google CEO Eric Schmidt commented that China’s leadership in AI posed a security threat and could lead to “high-tech authoritarianism” worldwide.

According to Bajarin, the US government is aware of the problem, but so far nobody knows exactly what actions it might take. Will it counter China’s influence by remaining a tech powerhouse, or what? If China is successful in fulfilling Xi’s vision, then it is also likely that “there could be a time when products we get from China are no longer available to the west.” Currently, China is still committed to globalisation, so its products will continue to reach us, but if it scales back on that, then those products will need to be sourced elsewhere. The question is, where might that source be? It is time the USA and any other countries likely to be negatively affected by a lack of good from China form a plan – the clock is ticking!

Covid-19 sparks the tech trends of 2021

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn AI, Big Data, Covid - 19, Digital Innovation, TechLeave a comment

This year, 2020, has been such a disaster that looking forward to 2021 is our only option. Of course, while making predictions used to be a fairly safe occupation, now it feels slightly dangerous. Furthermore, as Bernard Marr reminds us in Forbes, “tech has been affected just as much as every other part of our lives.”

It is also true that tech promises to play a major role in adapting to whatever the future may now look like. As Marr says: “From the shift to working from home to new rules about how we meet and interact in public spaces, tech trends will be the driving force in managing the change.”

You would be correct in thinking that Covid-19 has accelerated tech advances that were already in the pipeline, due to our increasingly digital lifestyle. Now they will happen quicker, because necessity is driving the change.

In Marr’s latest book, Tech Trends in Practice, he has identified some of the things we may see in 2021, many of which will support the recovery from the effects of the pandemic on almost every part of our lives.

He identifies Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a leading tech trend. In 2021 “it will become an even more valuable tool for helping us to interpret and understand the world around us.” We have seen an unprecedented amount of data collected around Covid, and machine-learning algorithms “will become better informed and increasingly sophisticated in the solutions they uncover for us.” Some of the AI tools Marr envisages include “ computer vision systems monitoring the capacity of public areas to analyzing the interactions uncovered through contact tracing initiatives, self-learning algorithms will spot connections and insights that would go unnoticed by manual human analysis.”

The provision of services that we need to live and work through cloud-based, on-demand platforms, known as ‘as a service’ providers are also key. Just look at how quickly Zoom entered our personal and business lives during the last few months.

5G is another key tool, and not just so you can download films faster. 5G will support services relying on advanced technologies, such as augmented reality and virtual reality (discussed below) as well as cloud-based gaming platforms, and it will likely make cable and fibre-based networks redundant.

Extended reality, virtual and augmented reality that uses glasses or headsets to project computer-generated imagery directly into the user’s field of vision is growing. Emergency services have already been using it for training during Covid, as real-life training situations for firefighters and police were not feasible. We may also see it used more in medical diagnostics, as face-to-face consultations decrease.

There will be many more tech advances as we grapple with an uncertain future. The aim is to make everyday activities safer for everyone, and to allow business to continue as we negotiate our way through a new environment.

Are you switching to Signal?

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Tech, Tips, UncategorizedLeave a comment

For some years now almost the entire world has been using WhatsApp thanks to it being the leading secure messaging platform. However, that is all changing  due to a slowness on the part of its owner Facebook to introduce multi-device access.

Zak Doffman comments that this has been made worse by “the fast-moving convergence of messaging and calls—and with WhatsApp calls still tied to a phone, rather than an easier-to-use large screen device, it’s becoming a major stumbling block.”

Facebook tried to rectify this by launching the cross-platform Messenger Rooms, but these don’t offer end-to-end encryption. So, as Doffman says, it isn’t an ideal way to communicate if your information is sensitive or confidential.

Admittedly, WhatsApp does do a good job of securing voice and video calls from its iPhone and Android apps, and you can now have up to eight people on a call. It also has a desktop app in the pipeline, but it’s all a bit too late.

The super secure Signal platform is beating WhatsApp. It has already started beta testing one-to-one video and voice calls from its desktop app. Group calls are not available yet, but they won’t be far away, as Signal’s recent announcement would seem to indicate: “We think that calls need to zoom out of the past and into the future, and your feedback will help us get there.” Obviously this was aimed at Zoom, which dominated work and personal conversations during lockdown.

“This release is one of the first steps towards our goal of enabling secure voice and video calls that are available on all of your devices,” Signal says, adding, “in addition to being end-to-end encrypted and free for everyone to use.”

However, Doffman points out that Signal isn’t really that concerned about Zoom,  it is WhatsApp that is the real target. And it is picking up traction with those who don’t really trust Facebook for messaging. The only downsides of Signal at the moment are first, the number of users is relatively small at the moment, and second, there are no backups yet, so if you lose your device, you lose your messages.

The recent protests in the USA and Hong Kong have highlighted the need for a more secure messaging by anyone concerned about interception, metadata or tracking. What’s more Signal is chasing WhatsApps users and is ahead of the game. If WhatsApp wants to retain its No.1 position, it needs to implement end-to-end encrypted back-ups and linked devices. Not used Signal yet? Why not install it on your phone and try it now.

The Ugly Exploitation of 5G Fears

On By mehranmuslimiblogIn Digital Innovation, TechLeave a comment

The COVID-19 pandemic has proved to be a fertile breeding ground that has brought together disparate groups, including anti-vaxxers and the anti-5G movement, on any platform they can find to share their conspiracy-based views. One of the most prominent claims is that 5G technology spread the coronavirus, even though 5G is not available ‘everywhere’.

Before that became a widely shared theory, we already knew that those who don’t want to see 5G launched had been pushing out information about the alleged dangers of 5G. We were all about to be ‘wi-fried’ by it, and children would be particularly vulnerable. I’m not here to debate the claims of the anti-5G movement, but I would like to alert people to one of the dangers that this kind of scaremongering can produce: the opportunity to be scared into buying into a health scam.

A Forbes story by John Koetsier illustrates it perfectly. It concerns a ‘5G Bioshield’ that is being sold for $350 per unit. The USB stick boasts features such as “quantum oscillation” and “restoring coherence of atoms” as well as “emitting life force frequencies.”

This is what the company selling it claims on its the website:

“Through a process of quantum oscillation the 5G BioShield USB Key balances and reharmonizes the disturbing frequencies arising from the electric fog induced by devices, such as laptops, cordless phones, wi-fi, tablets, etc., The 5G BioShield USB Key restores the coherence of the geometry of the atoms, which allows a perfect induction for life forces, by (re-)creating a cardiac coherence, via plasmic support and interactivity.”

It sounds like the answer to all those fears about the health damage that 5G is purported to inflict. It must be a very special USB stick to do all the above, must it not? You’d like to think so for $350.

The expert analysis

But when Pen Test Partners reviewed the stick’s properties, it “revealed nothing more than what you’d expect from a regular 128MB USB key,” states its blog. And they went on to say: “Usually with USB devices, one can look at the properties and it will list the manufacturer and extra information about the device. However, we found that all the default values remained. This is often an indication of cheap, unbranded devices.”

So, basically it is a $6 USB stick being sold for $350. Furthermore, the founders of the 5G Bioshield don’t appear to exist. Koetsier says, “A search for “Dr. Ilija Lakicevic,” listed on the website as one of the founders of the company, turns up nothing on LinkedIn. A search for him on the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, where the 5G BioShield website says he worked, also turns up no results.”

Have they sold any? Yes. To the city of Glastonbury in the UK, which issued a statement saying, “We use this device and find it helpful.” It is also worth mentioning that other health protection used in Glastonbury include Shungite, a mineral which is said to have healing powers that one “healing crystal” company says “span the board from purity to protection.”

Whether you agree with the theory that 5G is a health danger or not, I expect you can agree that paying $350 for a $6 product is quite simply — exploitation!