All posts by Paul Stradling

News

Tech News : Rising Data Management Costs Affecting Businesses

A report from Seagate has highlighted how the rising costs of storing and managing data is hitting businesses hard.

One-Third Of Company Budgets 

The report highlights how up to a third of company IT budgets are being eaten up by data management and storage costs at an average spend of £213,000 per year!

Sleeping Giant 

Seagate describes the problem as a “sleeping giant” for businesses and over half (52 per cent) of the senior IT decision-makers at companies with more than 1,000 employees who were surveyed for the report described this level of spending as “unsustainable.” 

Prioritised 

Also, the report revealed that companies are prioritising spending on data over energy costs, as well as employee welfare and training.

Why Is It Happening? 

There are several main reasons why companies are spending so much on data management and storage. These include:

– Businesses are using and storing data at unprecedented levels.

– Management do not always realise the scale of the problem (51 per cent of those surveyed thought this), thereby allowing costs to continue spiralling.

– Tough economic conditions pushing up data storage and cloud services prices, e.g. Google Cloud raising its prices in March this year. Reasons why cloud prices are rising include disruption in the semiconductor supply chain, rising energy prices, huge demand causing cloud companies to reach scale, and an uncertain geopolitical landscape (in Europe) stalling data centre expansion plans.

Innovation Suffering 

The Seagate report highlights how nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of those surveyed think that how data storage and management is now priced also discourages innovation. This is bad for competitiveness and industries.

Similar Findings To IDC 

The Seagate report echoes some of findings of a recent (November 22) International Data Corporation (IDC) report which highlighted how “the largest share of enterprise IT infrastructure spending in the first half of 2022 (1H22) was Structured Databases/Data Management” with organisations spending $6.3 billion on compute and storage infrastructure to support this workload (8.5 per cent of the market total). The IDC report found that businesses worldwide are spending $41.1 billion annually on “Data Management”. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Data is now a central and vital component for businesses and although a move to the cloud has facilitated its storage and management while providing ways to create more value from that data, the costs of cloud services (among others) are rising at rates which are causing concern.

Over half those surveyed for the report thought that they wouldn’t be able to sustain these kinds of costs in 3 years’ time with data-management spending having risen by 30 per cent this year alone. As noted in the report, there may be a lack of management awareness about the scale of the problem, yet many businesses are now looking at all their costs anyway at this time and their data management costs are now likely to be on that list too. Some approaches that companies could try to reduce those costs (without affecting growth) include optimising existing cloud resources, incentivising behaviour that save cloud costs, more proactive budget controls, keeping scalability and savings in balance, finding/removing underused but costly processes, plus prioritising those processes and tools that best serve business needs. The fact remains, however, that data costs are likely to keep rising so businesses need to act now to take a close look at the sources of their data management costs and identify which steps can be taken to keep them down without hurting competitiveness.

News

Tech Insight : ‘Quiet Quitting’ …?

In this insight, we look at what ‘quiet quitting’ is, what its causes are, together with what could be done to prevent it.

Quiet Quitting? 

Quiet quitting is a term commonly associated with employment where it refers to how workers decide to only do the job they’re being paid to without taking on extra duties or participating in extracurricular work or work activities. I.e., quiet quitters do little or nothing outside the basics of the job description, specifically, doing the bare minimum needed to still get paid. It could also be described as a pandemic-induced burnout resulting in a disengagement.

Quiet quitting from social media (e.g. Twitter) refers to more lurking and less tweeting, i.e. not giving more to a platform than you can expect to get back.

Why? 

Some of the reasons for what many now believe to be the employment trend of quiet quitting (after it trended on TikTok) include:

– The need to re-establish work-life boundaries and get a better work/life balance. Many people appear to have had a realisation that life may be more important than they recognised or appreciated before the pandemic, i.e. the realisation that there’s more to life than just work.

– Managers in a post-pandemic world still applying old principles and techniques leading to dissatisfaction and disconnection, particularly among the young, e.g. millennials and Gen Z.

– The higher levels of stress and uncertainty caused by the pandemic leading to the magnification of the unhealthy aspects of some work environments.

– A high workload and a perceived lack of empathy from employers.

– Employees feeling disenfranchised and feeling that they can’t be themselves and that they need to change themselves or suppress part of themselves to fit in, e.g. within inequitable work environments.

– Poor compensation, a lack of management support, and an apparent disregard for work and personal life boundaries in a workplace.

– Changing expectations and poor communication or conflict resolution.

Does Quiet Quitting Lead To Real Quitting? 

While quiet quitting really refers to actually staying in a job but doing the minimum, in early 2021 just after the pandemic, a trend known as the Great Resignation/the Big Quit/the Great Reshuffle happened. This referred to employees voluntarily resigning from their jobs en-masse.

Some reasons for this may have been similar to the reasons for quiet quitting, e.g. a shift in priorities precipitated by the pandemic leading to pursuit of a ‘dream job’ or resentments about their employers not treating them well during the pandemic.

It should also be remembered that when the pandemic and its restrictions first took hold, many workers simply lost their jobs and had no choice.

What Can Done To Stop Quiet Quitting? 

Some ways that the quiet quitting challenge could be addressed include:

– Being prepared to manage the younger generations of workers differently and offering more flexible workplace options.

– Giving employees the chance to prioritise their work with perhaps just a one-on-one at the beginning of the week to help overcome overload at work.

– Having realistic expectations of (and goals for) workers – particularly younger workers.

– Ensuring that increases in workload are kept short-term.

– Managers leading by example, being less rigid, and letting employees know that it’s OK to be away from the office sometimes.

– Managers showing gratitude and empathy and letting workers know they’re valued.

– Keeping pay competitive with market rates and compensating employees well for extra effort or results.

– Making stepping up optional and making sure employees’ boundaries are not overstepped by co-workers or managers intruding on their personal time.

– Trying to build a rapport and relationships with employees and monitoring mood and behaviour changes in employees.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

The pandemic and the post pandemic environment created a new and unusual set of circumstances and consequences that have manifested in some (mostly younger we’re told) employees as a kind of burnout and disengagement. Although employees doing the bare minimum and detaching themselves from the business is, of course, bad for productivity and competitiveness, it doesn’t have to be like that.

Everyone suffered during the pandemic, not least business owners, but businesses can’t run well without committed staff and preventing the worrying trend of quiet quitting involves listening and creating the right environment where there is mutual respect, workloads are managed well, employees feel supported and the rewards for (optional) stepping up are clear while offering a motivating levels of reward.

News

Featured Article : What Was FTX All About?

Following news of the collapse of FTX, we look at what it was plus the events leading up to its demise and the effects going forward.

FTX 

FTX, until very recently, was a Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange, founded in 2019 which at its peak (July 2021) had more than one million users and was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume. FTX was founded by the now 30-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried.

What Happened To FTX? 

A series of recent events and allegations about FTX and Mr Bankman-Fried caused panicked traders to pulled $6bn out of FTX, leading to its collapse and bankruptcy. These included:

– In July 2021, Binance, an early investor in FTX, sold its stake in its rival for $2.1 billion worth of FTT, a token launched by FTX.

– A CoinDesk article on (Nov 2) alleged that FTX and its corporate sibling Alameda Research (also owned by Bankman-Fried) faced a liquidity crisis. This led to concerns that Alameda Research’s balance sheet was too heavily reliant on illiquid tokens (tokens that can’t be quickly and easily bought or sold) including FTX’s own FTT.

– One-week later, FTX’s rival Binance announced that FTX had a liquidity crunch and had asked for its help. Binance then agreed a rescue plan to buy the FTX cryptocurrency exchange (not including FTX’s U.S. division called ‘FTX US’) with two CEOs, “CZ” Zhao and Bankman-Fried, signing non-binding letter of intent and saying that a due diligence process would soon be underway.

– The next day (Nov 9) Binance pulled out of its rescue plan deal following a “corporate due diligence” review which appeared to reveal issues in FTX’s financial situation. Binance said these were “beyond our control or ability to help.” 

– Binance’s CEO “CZ” Zhao announced that he was selling all his holdings of FTX’s FTT to “in a way that minimizes market impact.” 

– FTX’s CEO Bankman-Fried denied rumours of insolvency, saying that “a competitor is trying to go after us with false rumours.” He also said that “FTX is fine.” 

– CZ’s announcement that he was selling off all his holdings of FTX’s FTT resulted in a fall in FTT’s price.

– Alameda’s CEO, Caroline Ellison, then tweeted that Alameda (also owned by Bankman-Fried) would buy all Binance’s FTT tokens for $22 each in to minimise the impact on prices.

– The Binance rescue plan caused a 10 per cent (plus) fall in the prices of Bitcoin and Etherium, wiping out more than $60 billion from the market.

– It was alleged that CZ may have deliberately created a liquidity crisis at FTX (which he denied) to enable him to buy one of his biggest competitors for a rock bottom price.

– The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission began an investigation into FTX’s relationships with its sister entities Alameda Research and FTX. Allegations that customer funds had been mishandled were also investigated.

– This led to a knock-on effect on USDC and USDT on the Solana blockchain over FTX’s role in trading Solana-based stablecoins and operating a Solana bridge.

– Many FTX customers then said that they were having trouble withdrawing money from FTX.

– Bankman-Fried announced the winding down of FTX’s sister entity Alameda Research (Nov 10), and that he was concentrating on raising “liquidity” and considering bankruptcy.

– FTX sought rescue funds (of $9.4 billion) from investors, rival exchanges (OKX and Tether), and made a deal with the Tron blockchain network founder Justin Sun, to allow holders Tron-related tokens to withdraw their holdings from FTX.

– A banner on the FTX US website announced the possible halting of trading on FTX US.

– On Nov 11, Bankman-Fried resigned from his position as the FTX CEO and John J. Ray III (a lawyer) was announced as the person taking over as CEO.

– Alameda Research, FTX and around 30 affiliated companies started bankruptcy proceedings.

– American FTX were told that they should be able to get their money back in full although international customers may only get 20/25 per cent of their money back from FTX.

– A Reuters report then alleged that at least $1 billion in funds from FTX customers’ accounts has gone missing.

– Police in the Bahamas along with the Bahamas Securities Commission started an investigation into FTX to see if there had been any wrongdoing.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Sadly, the FTX collapse, like many other crypto failures and crashes, has dealt another blow to the crypto industry and confidence in it. Investors like certainty and in the crypto market, liquidity, being able to easily buy and sell, is also valued.

In the case of the illiquid FTX and following the failed deal and spat with Binance they had neither certainty nor liquidity, so this coupled with the speed and frequency of worrying announcements meant that things were only going to head one way. The FTX collapse has had damaging knock-on effects for other cryptocurrencies and investments, and its collapse puts Binance in a much stronger market position with FTX gone. This has changed the shape of the whole crypto market. The events and investigation into FTX are still quite recent, however, and it remains to be seen what (if any) new information surfaces and which effects this will have going forward.

News

Sustainability-in-Tech : Report Questions Benefits Of Electric Cars

A report which shows huge sales of EVs in the US only resulted in only a 0.54 per cent fall in gasoline consumption in 2021 has led to disappointment and questions about the beneficial Impact of EVs so far.

EV Sales 

A recent Argonne National Lab report shows that a massive 2.1 million plug-in vehicles, including 1.3 million battery EVs were sold in the US between 2010 and 2021.

Despite these impressive numbers, however, plug-in vehicles still only make up almost 1 per cent of all light vehicles on the road in the US.

That said, the low 0.54 per cent US gasoline consumption reduction figure has proven disappointing to many.

The Upside 

Looking at the positives of the Argonne National Lab report, the 70 billion miles and 22 terawatt-hours of energy consumption of EVs since 2010 in the US has displaced the use of more than 2.5 billion gallons of gasoline and a 19 million tons of greenhouse gases.

Context

Put in context, however plugin vehicles only saved the equivalent of two days of consumption (690 million gallons) of gasoline in 2021.

Why? 

Apart from the obvious fact that EVs still make up only a tiny proportion of vehicles on US roads, other reasons why they haven’t made much of an impact on gasoline consumption include:

– A reduction in mileage covered during the pandemic.

– Different battery sizes and differences in driving situations e.g., city driving (43 per cent) and highway driving (43 per cent).

Impact On The Electrical Grid 

Although EVs are a great way to tackle the pollution and carbon emissions problem that petrol and diesel cars currently cause, they still need electricity. Some critics have warned about the pressure on the electrical grid of widescale EV adoption and the fact that this may increase the power demand, reshape the electricity load curve, increase in evening peak loads, cause more burning of fossil fuels in power plants initially, and that manufacturing EVs could be more emissions-intensive to make because of their batteries. The Argonne National Lab report also highlights how the manufacture of bigger and heavier electrified SUVs may have had a negative effect on electrical range efficiency of EVs over the last 3 years.

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation? 

With it still being very early days in the curve of EV ownership and with EVs only making up one per cent of America’s vehicles at present, it is perhaps not surprising that EVs haven’t yet led to a significant reduction in petrol and diesel consumption. Also, the US grid still contains a mix of fossil fuels (60 to 70 per cent) and other sources, which also affects how green they are generally. The industry also still faces challenges with the price of EVs, the availability of charging points, and battery limitations, which affect the rate at which EVs are being adopted. There is also the matter of changing city policies towards traffic anyway and people looking more at other ways they can get around e.g., electric buses, cycling, trains, and walking. EVs alone are not, therefore, the complete answer to transport and emissions challenges, and there is long way to go yet before their benefits are really noticeable.

News

Security Stop-Press : LastPass Second Data Breach

Password app company LastPass has reported a second data breach that may be related to a previous breach in August where source code and some proprietary LastPass technical information were taken.

The company has reported that in this most recent attack, a threat actor using information from August’s attack accessed “certain elements of our customers’ information.” LastPass says, however, that customers’ passwords remain safely encrypted, its services remain fully functional, and it is currently working to discover the scope of the attack and what information has been accessed.

The advice from LastPass is to follow its best practices around setup and configuration of LastPass as detailed here: https://blog.lastpass.com/2022/01/how-to-set-up-your-new-lastpass-account/

News

Tech Tip – Sharing In Microsoft OneDrive

Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud storage system at Onedrive.com allows you to share files and folders with other members of your team, control who has permission to just view or to edit files and folders, and work together on them at the same time. Here’s how it works:

– To share files of folders using a link, login to Onedrive.com and select (by putting a tick next to) the files or folders you’d like to share.

– On the menu top left, click on the ‘Share’ symbol (the arrow in the box). Specify who to send it to in the ‘To: Name, group, or email’ field. Here you can put the email addresses of those you’d like to share the link with.

– Click on the downward arrow to the right of this field and give permission for them to edit the files or just view them and specify any other ‘Link settings’. Write a message and click ‘Send’.

– To simply copy the link to send by email or other means, instead of writing a message and clicking on ‘Send, click on the “Copy” button in the “Copy Link” section.

– To share the link on social media, after clicking on ‘Get a link’ and ‘Copy’, select ‘More’ to see the social media options.

– To share a whole folder, follow the same process. To change permissions, select ‘Shared’, select the relevant folder, or file, and select the ‘Information’ icon.

– Next either select ‘Add People’ to share with more people or ‘Manage access’ to change permissions or select the ‘Can Edit’ or ‘Can View’ dropdown to change permissions or Stop Sharing.

News

Tech Insight : Ultra-Accurate GPS (10 cm)

In this insight, we take a closer look at the new alternative positioning system to GPS that is accurate to within an incredible 10 centimetres.

Issues With Current GPS System 

Society heavily relies on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) like GPS for positioning and navigation, as well as the distribution of time and frequency reference signals. Although current GPS works reasonably well and has a high economic value, it has some limitations. These include:

– It uses satellites. This can mean that when received on Earth, radio signals can be weak, thereby affecting the usability of GPS positioning.

– GPS can be unreliable in urban areas because buildings block the radio signals. This has implications for location-based applications, navigation devices, and for new technologies like automated vehicles.

– GPS often doesn’t work in indoor settings due to radio waves being blocked by physical barriers, e.g. walls and other objects.

– The narrowband GNSS-signals (used in GPS) offer lower data rate transmissions, i.e. slower communication.

– There is no back-up system to GPS.

SuperGPS 

‘SuperGPS’ is the new system developed by researchers at Delft University of Technology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and VSL. SuperGPS was specifically developed to tackle many of the limitations of GPS and to work as a hybrid optical-wireless system for accurate positioning, navigation and network synchronisation for many applications.

How It Works 

Instead of using satellites, SuperGPS uses fibre-optic connections in the telecom network, synchronised to an accurate optical atomic Master clock, and the system uses wideband radio signals, rather than today’s narrowband GNSS-signals. This creates a synchronised optical network which serves as a backbone for a wireless enhanced terrestrial positioning system.

The Benefits 

The benefits of SuperGPS compared to GPS are:

– It could be more accurate and stable. The SuperGPS researchers say that it has 10-centimetre accuracy compared to (the several metres of) GPS, with greater stability.

– It works where GPS doesn’t, i.e. it works in circumstances in which satellite navigation is not available, or only with strongly reduced performance.

– Its simultaneous data, time and frequency transfer offers two important systems in one, i.e. connectivity like the existing mobile and Wi-Fi network, and accurate positioning and time distribution like GPS.

– Futureproofing. It offers the kind accurately synchronised infrastructure that will be needed for future applications of wireless terrestrial positioning systems, appropriate signal processing and positioning techniques.

– SuperGPS uses the existing fibre-optic connections in the telecom network, thereby speeding up its introduction and keeping costs down.

Applications 

Currently, GPS has a relatively wide variety of applications including communications networks, banking systems, financial markets, and power grids, logistical supply chain management, precise time synchronisation, wireless services, personal devices including mobile phones and watches, and more.

It is hoped that the new, more accurate SuperGPS with stronger, more reliable signals will deliver many new benefits for personal smart devices, industry and e-commerce, wireless Internet (4G+), Cm level positioning, science, quantum communication, and new/emerging technologies like smart highways and autonomous vehicles.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

The reliance upon satellites in the current GPS system can mean that weak signals being blocked by buildings and other objects can affect its reliability and accuracy. The new SuperGPS system’s use of fibre-optic networks, increased speed and accuracy mean that it could offer a much more stable, reliable, and effective earth-based localised alternative. These benefits, along with its two-in-one simultaneous connectivity, coupled with accurate positioning and time distribution give it the kind of scope that is needed for next level communications and new technologies like autonomous vehicles. Putting this kind of improved infrastructure in place could boost industries like autonomous vehicles, have positive knock-on efficiency effects across many industries, plus lay a foundation for a whole new realm of innovation.

News

Tech News : Personalised (Printed) Pills

A Helsinki startup has developed a ‘Medicine-as-a-Service’ system where drugs can be 3D printed to exactly match the needs of the patient in terms of their size, physiology, species, plus any allergies.

CurifyLabs   

According to CurifyLabs, the startup that has created the system, there is one big drawback to the existing methods of administering medication. CurifyLabs says that the pharma industry’s capital-intensive processes to produce large volumes of tablets that are identical in dose, shape and size mean that these tablets may be unsuitable for treating patient populations who need more individualised treatments.

For example, these include:

– Pets, the variety of which varies widely and each species may need different size/shape tablets for different conditions.

– Children, because they have specific needs due their small body weight.

– The elderly, who often have trouble swallowing.

– Any patient group who currently have a very limited amount of suitable treatment options and benefit from tailored dosage forms and/or must have allergen-free treatments.

These issues mean that many current drug treatments are suboptimal for these groups, resulting in undesirable side effects and poor treatment efficacy.

The Solution? Curify MiniLab 

According to Curify, the answer is to develop a small-scale manufacturing system which can be used effectively in a busy pharmacy and that can produce personalised medicines of any size, shape, or flavour to exactly meet the needs of niche patient groups.

The Curify MiniLab, which looks a bit like a small, stainless steel-finished fridge/microwave size cabinet with lab technology and tools inside enables on-site, sustainable, on-demand manufacture of medicines, customised to provide effective treatment for all patients. It can be used, for example, in pharmacies (it’s targeted primarily at pharmacists), clinics, veterinary practices, and other locations where tablets need to be dispensed.

Technology 

Some of the key tech elements of MiniLab are:

– A user-friendly platform which the company says, “turns pharmacy compounding into a digital experience”.

– 3D printing technology, giving control over the composition of tablets.

– A built-in quality control system and technology that allows printing directly into blister packs.

Benefits 

Some of the key benefits of using the MiniLab are, for example:

– It could provide more effective treatments with fewer side effect risks for niche patient groups.

– It’s automated and seamless so requires less attention/time from human workers and eliminates the human error risk (in the manufacturing process).

– The precise, small batch production of pills mean less wastage.

– Being a self-contained, digitised unit with built-in quality control, it makes it easier and quicker to make high quality, targeted medicines, as and when required.

– It’s adaptable with a lot of scope, i.e. it can be used for many different niche patient groups, human or animal.

– Printing pills straight into blister packs makes it safer, i.e. no risks from human handling.

– With the system being digital, this removes the need for manual paperwork (saving time and wastage) and enhance efficiency.

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation?

Although the MiniLab is essentially targeted at pharmacies, giving them a fast, less labour-intensive way to more closely meet the needs of niche patient groups, it could be used in many other medical/clinical settings. This product is an example of how leveraging a combination of technologies can have the potential to solve not just long-standing treatment problems but could have significant human benefits too.

It is also another example of how, as in so many industries now, 3D printers are being used innovative ways to simplify manufacturing challenges. If this product (and others like it) proves to be successful, it may even change how we treat illness and lead to medicines that treat you as an individual by tailoring drugs to precisely to your body. In doing so, as highlighted by Curify, it may “remodel the world of health”.

News

Tech News : New Deadline To Remove Huawei

Following the UK government’s decision back in June 2020 to remove all Huawei Equipment From 5G Network Cores, the deadline has now been pushed back to December 2023.

Why Remove Huawei Equipment? 

The decision to remove the equipment in the UK dates back to the Trump era in the US, however worries about national security due to Huawei’s possible links to the Chinese state date back much further. For example:

2001 – Allegations from India’s intelligence agencies that Huawei was helping the Taliban.

2003 – A Cisco lawsuit against Huawei in 2003 over the alleged copying of intellectual property (copying of software and violation of patents).

2007 – Concerns over whether a venture between Cisco rival 3Com and Huawei should be permitted due to a perceived lack of transparency in Huawei.

2010 – Concerns after Huawei products and equipment were tested for security holes at a Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) in Banbury. The factory-style centre was set up as a partnership between Huawei and the UK authorities to make sure that the UK’s telecoms infrastructure is not compromised by the involvement of Huawei.

2012 – A US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee report flagged-up the potential for Chinese state influence from both Huawei and ZTE.

2018 – The ‘Five-Eyes’ espionage chiefs from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. agreed at a meeting to contain the global growth of Chinese telecoms company Huawei (the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment) because of the threat that it could be using its phone network equipment to spy for China. From here, bans on Huawei Technologies Ltd as a supplier for fifth-generation networks equipment followed in the US, Australia and New Zealand, plus Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, was detained in Vancouver at the request of U.S. authorities, for allegedly violating US sanctions on Iran.

2019 – The US Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Huawei with bank fraud and stealing trade secrets. Also, in the US in 2019, Huawei was put on an export blacklist in 2019 (the entity list), banning the telecom giant from buying components and technology from U.S. companies without U.S. government approval.

2020 – January, in the UK, the government at first said that it would allow Huawei equipment to be used in the country’s 5G network, but not in core network functions or critical national infrastructure and not in nuclear and military sites. Then, following White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney visiting the UK to help dissuade the UK from using Huawei’s products in phone networks. Furthermore, after warnings by Robert Strayer (the US deputy assistant secretary for cyber and communications) that allowing Huawei to provide key aspects of the 5G network infrastructure could allow China to undermine it and to have access to “sensitive data”, GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) produced a new report about Huawei’s products and security.

2020 – In July, the UK government went back on its original decision to use some Huawei equipment in non-core parts of the UK’s 5G network and has opted to remove all Huawei kit by 2027

2020 – In the US, the Trump administration issued an executive order banning US companies from doing business with Huawei (due to national security concerns) including supplying equipment for network infrastructure, particularly 5G. The ban was extended in 2021.

March 2021 – In the US, five Chinese companies were put on a “covered list”, identifying them as posing a threat to national security under a 2019 law to protect US communications networks. The list included Huawei, ZTE, Hytera Communications Corp Hikvision and Dahua.

Deadlines In The UK 

In the UK, the original deadline to remove all Huawei Equipment From 5G Network Cores was set for January of this year. Also, BT and Vodafone have been told to remove Huawei 5G equipment from their core by January 2023 (at the latest).

It is still the case that under The Telecoms Security Act (passed last year), no new Huawei 5G installations can be added and all Huawei products must be removed from UK networks by the end of the year 2027.

The new extension, however, now means that:

– Telecoms companies in the UK now have until December 2023 to remove Huawei equipment from their 5G mobile connectivity (network cores).

– The deadline for companies to cut the amount of Huawei equipment used in their non-core networks to 35 per cent has been extended from July 2023 to Oct 31, 2023.

– All 35 telecom network operators in the UK have been informed of the change by legal letter.

New Ban In the US Last Week 

Last week there was news that the Biden administration has banned any approvals of new telecommunications equipment from Huawei Technologies and ZTE. The reason given is that they pose “an unacceptable risk” to US national security.

News

Featured Article : AI Content Legal Challenges

Following a copyright lawsuit against an AI code generator and industry questions about who actually owns images made by AI text-to-image generators, we look at the legal issues (and others) surrounding generative AI.

The Issue 

The recent lawsuit and questions from coders, artists, musicians, and other creatives show that the challenge is that there is currently a lack of clarity around issues of ownership relating to the output of AI content generating tools. There are many issues at the heart of the whole generative AI area, including:

– AI tools that generate images, code, text, and music are relatively new and how and what they produce hasn’t yet been subject to much legal scrutiny.

– AI content generating tools are built using with algorithms that have trained on previous work produced by humans and, once again, need more scrutiny.

– As noted by visual artists, the legality and ethics of AI that incorporates existing work needs to be examined. Also, AI art tools that have been trained on work by specific artists can copy their style in the images they produce. This could have a negative impact on the artist’s income.

– It is not clear exactly who owns an image or other piece of content that generative IT tools produce. For example, is it the owner of the AI that trains the model, or the human that prompts the AI with words?

The Lawsuit – Who Owns AI Generated Code?

The recent class-action lawsuit filed in California was focused on an AI tool called GitHub Copilot which automatically writes working code as the programmer types. The coder who filed the lawsuit argued that the code-writing tool may be infringing copyright because it doesn’t provide any attribution for the open-source code it reproduces. Some open-source code, for example, is covered by a license that requires attribution.

It should be noted that GitHub’s CEO has now said that Copilot now has a feature that can be enabled to prevent copying from existing code.

DALL-E Prompts Questions About Copyright And Ownership Of AI Generated Images 

Another recent example of generative AI that has prompted industry questions relating to copyright and ownership is OpenAI’s DALL ·E tool. DALL·E 2 is an AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language using a process it calls “diffusion” (see: https://openai.com/dall-e-2/). Although for a subscription, users are given full usage rights to reprint, sell and merchandise the images they create with the tool, creative professionals have been asking questions about generative AI ownership issues like the ones mentioned above.

Other Examples Of Generative AI Tools 

GitHub Copilot and DALL·E are by no means the only AI generative tools available. Others (and there are many more) include:

– Images (text-to-image) – Starryai, Craiyon, and NightCaf.

– Video (text-to-video) – Synthesia, Lumen5, and Elai.

– Design – Khroma, Designs.ai, and Uizard.

– Audio (text-to-speech voice generators) – Replica, Speechify, and Play.ht.

– Music -AIVA, Jukebox, and Soundraw.

– Text – Jasper.ai, Peppertype, and Copy.ai

– Code (text-to-code) – Tabnine, PyCharm, and Kite.

Copyright Law 

Up until now, the Internet has created a challenging area to keep track of legally, nevertheless some basic copyright rules apply. That said, so much digital (and non-digital) work is continuously created that there is no one copyright register in the UK for the online world. Instead, the law simply states that a person automatically enjoys copyright protection when they create something, e.g. original literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic work (including illustration and photography). This automatic ownership also applies to creating original non-literary written work, such as software, web content and databases.

If a person has copyright protection in the UK, it should mean that nobody else can copy, distribute (paid or free), rent, or lend copies of that work, make an adaptation of the work, or put that work on the Internet. However, AI content generating tools are blurring those lines and raising new ownership questions.

Fair Use 

Some legal and tech commentators have pointed to the possible importance and relevance of US copyright ‘fair use’ in making decisions about (for example) the output of text-to-image generators. For example, in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc (2021), it was decided that Google’s use of Oracle’s code was ‘fair use’, and the focus of the decision wasn’t whether the material copied was protected by copyright.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

This is a relatively new area where, as with so much of AI, the technology and its usage appear to be advancing faster than regulation and laws. This is generating more questions than clear answers, thereby creating uncertainty. For creatives such as musicians and artists, generative AI could be a threat, e.g. copying their style or work, as well as an opportunity.

For coders too, generative AI tools could represent a threat although, as with GitHub’s CoPilot, features could be added to the tools to lessen the threat. However, generative AI is a growing and lucrative market with the potential to step on many toes, hence the inevitable lawsuits. Users of generative AI services may also have doubts about the absolute legality of what they produce and publish using generative AI services, e.g. it may not always be clear whether AI-produced text for blogs contains copied material or is even factually accurate.

It appears, however, that the courts in each country will be the way that disputes about infringements by generative AI are decided and settled. Generative AI tool producers will need to keep a very close eye on how their algorithms work and the legal outcomes and implications of various cases as they are decided. For businesses using generative AI tools (e.g. to create images or other content), it undoubtedly meets a need in a new and innovative way, can save time, add value, and be a source of new strengths and opportunities. For the large, well-established photo/image retailers, these tools may currently represent a threat so it remains to be seen how markets such as this react.