All posts by Paul Stradling

News

Tech News : Age Check Face Scan For Instagram

Social media app Instagram has announced that it is testing new methods for age verification of users, including the use of a video selfie.

What Are The Issues? 

This latest announcement by Meta’s (Facebook) Instagram is an extension of an age verification program which the company began in 2019. Finding new technology-based ways to confirm a user’s age will help address several key issues, which include:

– Instagram has a duty to provide ways to safeguard younger users. For example, it already makes accounts private for teens under 16 by default, plus there are privacy settings to control who interacts with a teen and their content. There is also the ability to block and anonymously report other users, along with the ability to track time spent on Instagram, preventing unwanted contact from adults that young users don’t know and limiting the options advertisers have to reach young users with ads.

– As per Instagram’s (and Meta’s/Facebook’s) terms, users (in the U.S.) must be at least 13 years old to sign up (in compliance with the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act). The minimum user-age is higher in some countries.

– It’s not always clear what age someone really is, simply by asking questions.

What’s Happening 

Instagram says that it has partnered with Yoti, a leading age verification provider for several industries around the world including social media, gaming, and age restricted e-commerce to develop two verification methods, in addition to uploading their ID, to verify a person’s age. The two new methods that the AI-based Yoti system will now use for age verification are:

– Uploading a video selfie. Instagram (Meta) says that it will only share the image with Yoti, and that Yoti’s technology estimates a user’s age based on their facial features. Meta makes it clear that the selfie is deleted afterwards, and that the technology can’t recognise a person’s identity, just their age.

– Using social vouching. This involves asking three mutual followers who are 18 or over to confirm how old the user is.  The mutual followers must respond within three days.

Meta / Instagram’s Own AI Too 

Meta says that, in addition to testing the new methods of age verification, it will be using its own AI system to help decide if a user is a teen or an adult.

What Happened To ‘Instagram For Kids’? 

Back in March 2021, Meta revealed that it was developing the ‘Instagram for Kids’ service, but this was shelved following lawmakers in the US writing to Mark Zuckerberg demanding that the plan be abandoned over worries about the safety of children on social media platforms.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Meta, Instagram’s owner, has attracted a good deal of criticism in recent years over the safety of young people using its platforms, e.g. body-shaming, and cyberbullying, and was pressured into abandoning ‘Instagram for Kids’ over similar concerns. The company has also been criticised over its past privacy record, e.g. the Cambridge Analytica scandal. These new age verification methods, and the accompanying re-assurance that the selfies won’t be shared (and will be deleted) are a way for Meta to show that it’s trying to comply with child protection laws, trying to make its platforms safer for young people, and re-assure parents that its Instagram platform is safe. Last year, Meta also introduced new rules to stop advertisers from being able to target teens based on their interests although advertisers can still target teens based on age, gender, and location.

News

Featured Article: How Can You Protect Yourself From ‘Identity Theft’?

With identity theft and the resulting identity fraud becoming more widespread, we look at how to spot the signs that you may be a victim, the effects on victims, plus how to reduce the risk of having your identity stolen and used for fraud.

What Are Identity Theft and Identity Fraud? 

Identity theft is when personal details of a living or deceased person are stolen e.g., name, date of birth, current or previous addresses, with the intention to commit identity fraud.

Identity fraud is when those stolen details are used to commit fraud, i.e. to obtain goods or services by deception. ID fraud may also take the form of a money laundering scheme, e.g. goods being purchased with the victim’s money, delivered to a person involved in the fraud, and then sold on.

How Big Is The Problem? 

There were 226,000 reported cases of identity fraud in the UK in 2021 with the most hit age group for identity fraud being 60+. In fact, 180,000 instances of fraudulent conduct were filed in the first six months of 2021 which was an 11 per cent increase on the previous year.

How Are Personal Details Stolen? 

There is a variety of ways in which identity details are stolen, with the main ones including:

– Common theft, e.g. having personal possessions stolen from pockets, bags, a property, or via snatching incidents, thereby giving criminals access to different forms of your ID.

– Cold calling / Vishing. This involves fraudsters making phone calls, pretending to be a legitimate business, then trying to extract personal details and other financial information during the call.

– Hacking. This could be criminals hacking into a computer or phone to steal details.

– Phishing. Fraudsters often send emails, SMS (smishing), or instant messages that are made to look as though they’ve been sent by trusted companies. These contain a link which goes to a fake website designed to steal details, or an attachment which downloads malware onto the victim’s computer.

– Malware, including keylogging programs, downloaded by emails or on compromised or bogus websites.

– Data breaches, e.g. directly from a data breach, or details purchased from criminal forums on the dark web, and/or shared from other data breaches, or in private exchanges between rogue employees and their handlers or associates.

– From intercepted or stolen statements, e.g. bank statements and other personal correspondence, or personal paperwork recovered from bins.

– From over-sharing on social media.

– Shoulder surfing while paying for goods or at an ATM.

– From card details saved in websites.

How To Tell If Your Identity Has Been Stolen And Used For Fraud 

There are several signs to look out for that could indicate that your identity has been stolen (and perhaps used for fraud) or that you may become a victim of identity theft. These include:

– If you have had important documents stolen, e.g. a passport or driving licence, or bank or utility bills and statements don’t arrive as they normally should.

– Unexplained items / purchases appear on bank or credit card statements.

– If an application for state benefits is made but you are informed you are already claiming.

– Bills or receipts for goods or services arrive that you have not asked for or used.

– Your credit rating suddenly goes down, signalled by a refusal of financial services, credit cards, or loans.

– Letters arrive from solicitors or debt collectors for debts that aren’t yours.

The Effects of ID Theft and ID Fraud 

The effects of ID fraud resulting from ID theft can last months or years, and can include:

– Psychological and emotional effects leading to anxiety, a feeling of violation, disturbed sleep, a sense of powerlessness, grief, and possibly even suicidal feelings from the crime itself and from the financial worries that it may have caused.

– Financial difficulties, which may lead to the need to borrow money (from family or banks and payday loans or credit cards), which could lead to deeper financial difficulties.

– Symptoms of physical illness, e.g. high blood pressure, heart palpitations, fatigue, muscle aches, and more.

Recovering From ID Theft And Fraud 

Recovering from ID theft and fraud can involve:

– Contacting banks, credit card companies, the police, and Action Fraud as soon as the fraud is discovered. As soon as credit card companies are informed, it can take as little as just one month to recover the stolen credit.

– The need to provide proof to dispute fraudulent bank accounts, loans, and other identity theft. This can involve tracing and detailing your steps at the time of the fraud, e.g. using Google Maps, your calendar, phone, and email records, and more. This can sometimes take months or even years.

– The need to make a list of all banks, loan companies, credit cards, online stores used, and PayPal accounts to check and study them all for any anomalies, both for the time of the fraud itself and going forward.

– The need to incur more costs by taking legal advice and help from a professional who is knowledgeable about (or who specialises in) matters of ID theft and ID fraud.

How To Prevent ID Theft and ID Fraud 

Prevention is better than cure and there are several steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of falling victim to ID theft and fraud. These include:

– Avoid over-sharing or sharing very personal details on social media and avoid social media quizzes that could reveal personal details. Check social media privacy settings to ensure that only trusted people can view your personal posts and be on the lookout for unusual friend requests or messages.

– Be wary of any phishing attempts. For example, don’t click on unsolicited or suspicious emails (or SMS or messages), or click on or download any attachments in them, or click on any links in them (which could lead to phishing sites or malware downloads). Also, be wary of ‘vishing’ phone calls and avoid giving any personal details or account details to people who have called you. If in doubt, ditch the call and phone back on what you know to be the legitimate phone number.

– Regularly check bank and credit card activity and statements for any unusual activity.

– Regularly change passwords and keep all antivirus up to date as well as patching, and security updates. Also, make sure all devices, including the phone, have locking set up, security verification, and trusted anti-virus on them.

– Immediately report any missing statements or personal documents that were expected yet have not arrived plud avoid putting personal documents out with the rubbish, shred them instead.

– Be careful and vigilant at ATMs or other places where ‘shoulder surfing’ could take place.

– Immediately report any theft of personal property that could have ID information, any lost or stolen cards, or similar.

– If moving house, ensure that the new address is given for all personal letters or that a forwarding service (e.g. with Royal Mail) is set up.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Identity theft and ID fraud can happen to anyone because they are a significant and growing problem; there has been a significant increase since 2021. The best protection is taking a ‘less is more’ approach about personal details shared, regular checking of accounts and changing of passwords (and not password sharing), and generally being aware of threats like phishing, vishing, and smishing. Getting into good habits such as shredding documents with personal details and quickly reporting anything out of the ordinary could also help reduce the risks that we all face from increasingly bold and inventive criminals using more technically advanced methods.

News

Tech Insight : What Are Wi-Fi 5 And 6 … And What’s The Difference??

In this tech-insight, we look at what Wi-Fi 5 And 6 are including their differences plus the improvements that Wi-Fi 6 offers.

Wi-Fi Standards 

Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 are the names of the most recent Wi-Fi standards. Wi-Fi standards are sets of services and protocols that dictate how a Wi-Fi network (and other data transmission networks) acts.

Wi-Fi 5 

Wi-Fi 5, released in 2014, is the previous generation of Wi-Fi technology, which is now being replaced by Wi-Fi 6. Wi-Fi 5 802.11ac technology is a wireless networking standard in the IEEE 802.11 set of protocols. This is part of the Wi-Fi networking family which provides high-throughput wireless local area networks (WLANs) on the 5 GHz band.

Wi-Fi 6 

Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax technology, introduced in 2019, is the new wireless networking standard that is now being used in many more new routers after being initially limited to high-end ones, e.g. Netgear, TP-Link, Asus, and D-Link. Wi-Fi 6 is also now included in more recent mesh network systems (a group of devices that act as a single Wi-Fi network) such as multiple sources of Wi-Fi / ‘points’ around the house.

What Are The Differences? 

Some of the main differences that Wi-Fi 6 offers over Wi-Fi 5 are:

– Maximum potential speeds of up to 40 per cent higher, due to more efficient data encoding.

– A longer battery life for Wi-Fi-enabled devices because the Wi-Fi radio (on the device) will be instructed to spend more time in sleep mode with Wi-Fi 6.

– Better performance in in congested areas where there are a lot of connected devices in operation. This is due to Wi-Fi 6 configuring access points near each other to have different Basic Service Set (BSS) “colours” (a number between 0 and 7).

– A cut in latency (communications ‘lag’).

– The ability to send more data to multiple devices simultaneously. This is because Wi-Fi 6 uses Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) to divide a wireless channel into a larger number of subchannels. Also, improved Multiple In/Multiple Out (MIMO) lets the access point talk to multiple devices at once, and those devices can respond to the wireless access point at the same time (which did not happen with 5).

– Better Wi-Fi signal reception in devices due to Improved ‘beamforming’, i.e. the focusing a Wi-Fi signal in a specific direction. This means that instead of simply beaming-out a Wi-Fi signal in all directions, Wi-Fi 6 allows the router to determine where a device is and send a stronger signal in that direction.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Wi-Fi 6 essentially offers businesses a faster Wi-Fi speed, plus the ability to improve performance in environments where there are multiple devices, e.g. offices. This could translate into time savings, improvements in productivity and scalability, and a better all-round Wi-Fi experience. However, to reap the full benefits, it’s important to remember that to get Wi-Fi 6 performance on your device, you’ll need both a wireless router and a device that supports Wi-Fi 6. Connecting to a device that only supports Wi-Fi 5 with a Wi-Fi 6 router will still only deliver Wi-Fi 5 performance. However, more devices and routers are now being made to support Wi-Fi 6 which means, when routers and devices are replaced with the latest models, businesses will be able to enjoy the considerable benefits of Wi-Fi 6.

News

Sustainability-In-Tech : New Ultrafast Saltwater Purification Device

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a device that can desalinate water at least one thousand times faster than existing methods.

A Membrane Made From Tiny Fluorine-Based Nanoscopic Rings 

Scientists at the Tokyo School of Engineering’s Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology constructed tiny fluorine-based nanoscopic rings that were coated with a hydrophobic surface of a dense molecular bond of carbon and fluorine. The fluorine was chosen because of how well it contributes to the water repellent properties of Teflon coatings e.g., on pans. The tiny rings, at 0.9 to two nanometers, much smaller than a human hairs strand which is 100,000-nanometer size, were stacked to create an impermeable lipid membrane.

Amazing Test Results 

In large and small-scale tests of passing seawater through the membranes, they were not only found to perfectly reject salt molecules but did so a thousand times faster compared to the conventional industrial machines, and 2,400 times faster compared to the hypothetical carbon nanotube desalination devices.

Technology – Computer Simulations 

The scientists first used computer simulations to predict and gauge how effective such a membrane would be in cleansing water and the real tests confirmed the success that the simulations predicted.

Applications 

Given that water covers 70 per cent of earth, but only around 3 per cent of earth’s water is freshwater and, of that, only around 1.2 per cent can be used as drinking water, a fast, effective desalination device could be very helpful. For example, this technology could help getting fresh water more quickly to more areas where there is a shortage or hazardous supplies (drinking water accessibility) and could help with agriculture and habitat protection. The abundance of seawater makes it a sustainable solution where the system (as in this case) is not energy-hungry or doesn’t have a big effect in the surrounding environment.

Uses Less Energy 

Another positive aspect of the membrane-based system is that it requires less energy to operate than other desalination systems and is easy to use. The Tokyo University scientists who developed the system also anticipate being able to make much larger membranes to use in industry, and perhaps to develop similar membranes to reduce the carbon dioxide or other undesirable waste products released by industry.

What Does This Mean For Your Organisation? 

There are large areas of the world where fresh water and drinking water are in short supply and this problem may become even worse with global warming. Being able to use an energy-efficient, effective, easy to use, and much faster system than existing desalination methods could bring real benefits to those areas in terms of basic living necessities, agriculture, habitat protection, and business. The system’s potential to be modified to help reduce industrial carbon emissions is also very promising from an environmental perspective. This project also illustrates the importance of computer simulations, models, and digital twins in speeding-up and getting a better understanding of the viability and likely performance of innovations and products before committing to building them, and to help pre-test potential changes in a cost-effective way. Technology such as simulations and models are, therefore, now an important contributor to getting sustainable ideas more quickly to market for the benefit of all.

News

Security Stop-Press : Warning Over Amazon’s Human Voice Mimicking Plans For Alexa

A Global Cybersecurity Advisor at ESET has warned that Amazon’s plans to enable the Alexa voice assistant to mimic human voices (dead or alive) could be used to launch deep fake audio attacks on some voice authentication security systems. The advice from some security experts is that, if Amazon goes ahead with voice mimicking for Alexa, it may be wise to switch from using voice authenticate e.g., for bank accounts to another verification method such as online banking via a smartphone.

News

Tech Tip – How To Colour Code Your Outlook Calendar

If you’d like to get more at-a-glance organisation and track all items related to a project or task in your Microsoft Outlook calendar, colour-coding can help. Here’s how to add it:

– From the main calendar view, right click on an appointment, meeting, or event in your calendar, select ‘Categorize’ and select a colour category.

– From an open appointment, meeting, or event, look for the ‘Categorize’ button on the ribbon, in the ‘Tags’ group.

– For more categories or to create a new category, click on ‘All Categories’ to open the ‘Colour Categories’ dialog box, and select the check box next to the colour category.

News

Tech News : Fewer Cookie Pop-Ups – But At What Cost?

A government Bill has laid out a new UK data protection regime (which diverges from EU regulations) and which the government says will ease the burden of compliance on businesses.

Data Reform Bill 

The government says that the ‘Data Reform Bill’, announced in this year’s Queen’s Speech, and outlined as part of London Tech Week, has been designed to:

– Strengthen the UK’s data protection standards while replacing ‘unnecessary’ paperwork to deliver around £1 billion in business savings.

– Modernise the Information Commissioner’s Office (the data regulator), so it can better help businesses comply with the law.

– Give tougher powers to crack down on nuisance calls.

– Minimise the number of annoying cookie pop-ups people see on the web.

– Give researchers more flexibility to conduct life-saving scientific research.

– Empower the UK to strike new data partnerships.

– Fuel the responsible usage of data for innovation by providing clearer definitions about how consent is obtained for research.

Diverging From The EU Data Laws 

Following Brexit, the UK introduced its own version of GDPR (UK GDPR) which essentially mirrored the EU’s GDPR. The EU recognised Britain’s standards in a process called adequacy, which enables the seamless flow of data to continue.

What Changed? 

Back in August 2021, the UK signified its intentions to diverge from the EU’s data protection model by saying that would reform the data rules it agreed as an EU member by adopting a “common sense” approach. This approach included trying to secure data partnerships with the United States and other nations.

This led to the EU Commission saying that it would closely monitor any developments to the UK’s rules in case the level of data protection became inadequate, and the adequacy decision needed to be “suspended, terminated or amended”.

The UK government has blamed its need to seek a change to its data regulations on a “lack of clarity” in the EU’s data regulation standards leading to “an over-reliance on ‘box-ticking’ to seek consent from individuals to process their personal data to avoid non-compliance” , resulting in a “one-size-fits-all approach”.

The UK has also now appointed a new Information Commissioner who is reported as saying that he shares the support and ambition of the reforms.

Criticism 

Although the UK government is pitching the Bill as a way to reduce costs and beaurocracy for businesses, it has nevertheless received some criticism. For example:

– The Law Society have said that: “The fundamental right to protection of an individual’s privacy is underpinned by broad international consensus that personal data belongs to the individual, not to businesses. Any perception that the scales may start to tip in favour of businesses being allowed to use personal data for wider reasons at the cost of respect for (and effective measures to preserve) that privacy runs the risk of the UK no longer being seen as a global leader in data protection”.

– Criticisms from the ICO challenging the idea that data privacy laws stifled innovation, saying: “It is crucial we continue to see the opportunities of digital innovation and the maintaining of high data protection standards as joint drivers of economic growth. Innovation is enabled, not threatened, by high data protection standards.” 

– Some commentators noted that no longer requiring businesses to appoint a data protection officer (DPO) or to conduct data protection impact assessments (DPIA) when developing new tools or services, appears to be less stringent and more of a laissez-faire approach.

– The Open Rights Group said that the Bill is “a natural product of poor proposals being discussed in a rigged consultation process”, and that “the Government are boldly taking the side of the abusers and the law-breakers: the UK Data Reform Bill will make it the default setting to spy on us, and your burden to opt-out of something you never wanted in the first place”. Also, Mariano Delli Santi, a data protection campaigner at Open Rights Group, said the proposals would “risk leading to a massive and expensive rupture with the EU, making data transfers costly for UK businesses, costing jobs during an economic downturn”. 

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

It was inevitable that Brexit would result in more changes to UK data regulations as time progressed. The government is keen to emphasise savings in costs and ‘red tape’ to businesses that the new Bill could bring and how, as Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries says, it could “make it easier for businesses and researchers to unlock the power of data to grow the economy and improve society.” Critics, however, are uneasy about the consultation process for the Bill, a possible weakening of data protection standards, giving businesses the scope to use our personal data for their wider usage and, as the Open Rights Group says, making a default setting “to spy on us” and shifting the burden of responsibility to users to “opt-out of something” they didn’t opt-into in the first place. It remains to be seen how the Bill progresses through the next stages.

News

Tech News : Regulations Dictate More Action Needed On Fake Content

A Strengthened EU ‘Code of Practice on Disinformation’ will require big tech companies to take more action to ensure that purveyors of disinformation do not benefit from advertising revenues.

Broader Range Of Commitments 

The strengthened ‘Code of Practice on Disinformation’ will aim to achieve the objectives of the European Commission’s Guidance presented in May 2021, by setting a broader range of 44 commitments and 128 specific measures to counter online disinformation.

What Commitments? 

The bolstered code aims to galvanize (via the threat of penalties for non-compliance) more action from tech companies to tackle online issues including:

– Transparency of political advertising, i.e. introducing better transparency measures, allowing users to easily recognise political ads by providing more effective labelling, committing to reveal the sponsor, ad-spend and display period.

– Ensuring the integrity of services by measures such as acting to reduce manipulative behaviour used to spread disinformation, e.g. fake accounts, bot-driven amplification, impersonation, and malicious deep fakes.

– Empowering users by protecting them from disinformation, giving them enhanced tools to recognise, understand and flag disinformation, to access authoritative sources, and through media literacy initiatives.

– Empowering researchers by providing better support to research on disinformation, e.g. by ensuring automated access to non-personal, anonymised, aggregated or manifestly made public data.

– Empowering the fact-checking community across all EU Member States and languages, ensuring that platforms will make a more consistent use of fact-checking on their service.

– Setting up a Transparency Centre, accessible to all citizens, and a permanent Taskforce to keep the Code future-proof and fit-for-purpose.

– A Strengthened Monitoring framework.

Which Tech Companies Have Signed Up? 

34 signatories have already joined the revision process of the 2018 Code. The EC has noted that they come from a broad area of the online environment and include companies from the advertising ecosystem, advertisers, ad-tech companies, fact-checkers, emerging or specialised platforms, civil society, and third-party organisations with specific expertise on disinformation.

Specifically, and significantly, they include Google, Meta, TikTok, Microsoft, Twitter, and Clubhouse. Twitter is reported to have the updated code.

Penalties 

The penalties for companies that do not comply with the strengthened code could be anything up to 6 per cent of their global turnover.

Part Of A Broader Framework 

The 2022 strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation will become part of a broader regulatory framework, in combination with the legislation on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising and the Digital Services Act.

Deepfakes : A Growing Problem 

Deepfakes have been a growing problem in recent years. For example, in April 2022, researchers from the Stanford Internet Observatory reported finding more than one thousand deepfake ‘virtual’ employees on the LinkedIn platform.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has also emphasised the threat posed by deepfakes. For example, in March 2022, deepfake videos of both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky started appearing online, with the President Volodymyr Zelensky designed to distort public perception of the invasion

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Disinformation and deepfakes have plagued big tech (social media platforms) in recent years and the effects may have influenced political outcomes and (as demonstrated in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) could be used to distort facts in a way that could have serious implications. The events of the Trump era and Capitol Hill in the U.S. also emphasise some of the dangers of disinformation and deepfakes. It is no surprise, therefore, that governments (especially in the case of the EU) are keen to introduce more regulation to put greater pressure on big tech and social media companies to act and be more proactive to tackle this threat. The significant fines for non-compliance may also give it the teeth that it needs to have a chance being more effective. Social media companies especially will have expected this strengthened code and are likely to be all-too-aware of the greater focus upon them and how they police their platforms and protect their users in recent years.

News

Tech-Insight : What Is ‘Data Gravity’?

In this insight, we look at what ‘data gravity’ is, what challenges it creates, and some ways in which businesses can tackle data gravity challenges.

What Is Data Gravity? 

Working with (larger) datasets means the need to collect, store and manage the data and move it around to different applications. The data then accumulates (builds mass), attracts services and applications which need to be close to the data to improve the latency and throughput, and leverage high bandwidth. As more data collects and grows at a specific location / a central data store (on-premises or co-located), the process accelerates, to the point where it’s difficult or impossible to move data and applications anywhere else. This affects workflows, creates higher costs, and results in lower system performance, and management overheads.

The term for this cumbersome, dragging effect of a central store data of costly, difficult to manage data on a business was, therefore, first dubbed ‘data gravity’ by IT researcher Dave McCrory in 2010.

Can Occur In The Cloud Too – Artificial Data Gravity

So-called ‘artificial’ data gravity can also occur when attractive forces are created through indirect or outside influence, such as costs, throttling, specialisation, legislation, or usage.

For example:

– With cloud storage, although the cloud allows fast scalability, large and growing datasets stored there also attract analytics and applications, and more cloud storage egress fees (charged when applications write data out to the network or repatriate data back to the on-premises environment).

– Usage, e.g. Dropbox charging each individual user for use of Shared Data (Artificial Usage), so each person pays for the data consuming their storage, but Dropbox only stores and directs authorised users to a single copy.

In essence, therefore, artificial data gravity is a product of cloud services’ financial models, not technology.

Tackling The Data Gravity Challenges 

Ways in which businesses and organisations can try to tackle data gravity challenges include:

– Separating data storage, by utilising event-driven architectures.

– Investing in new storage solutions, e.g. solid-state storage or tiering, and storage management tools.

– Using hyperconverged systems, i.e. consolidating resources and reducing costs by combining computing, storage, networking, and management in one unified system. This, however, can have scalability challenges.

– Using cloud-based solutions. This can require the use of Cloud Architects (cloud management specialists), using Cloud-native applications such as Amazon QuickSight, or using cloud gateways and cloud-native technologies (container-based environments) e.g., object storage.

– Opting for a multi-cloud strategy (to reduce vendor dependency), using cloud-native storage tiers, e.g. on AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure and matching then them to performance and access frequency of different types of data processing.

– Scaling public cloud computing for batch processes and large-scale analysis.

– Closely monitoring costs to ensure there are no data gravity cost hotspots.

– Making greater use of analytics (analysing data at the edge) and developing better data management and data governance strategies.

What Does This Mean For Your Businesses? 

For businesses that collect large amounts of datasets, managing that data in a cost-effective way, and in a way that maintains workflow is a serious issue. Keeping a close eye on costs and analytics, making better, smarter use of the cloud, taking specialist cloud advice, and using cloud-native applications are some of the ways that businesses can avoid falling victim to the effects of costly and cumbersome data gravity. Although a proportion of the data collected may generate value for businesses, too much data in one location can reduce that value by attracting costs and creating an issue that can affect competitiveness. Recognising and understanding what data gravity is and how it occurs, coupled with more of a focus on data management and planning can prevent data gravity problems in the future.

News

Featured Article : Internet Explorer is Dead. Long Live The King?

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser has been retired after 27 years and here we take a brief look back over its history and why it fell behind competitors before being succeeded by Microsoft Edge.

It Came From ‘Mosaic’ 

Microsoft first launched its Internet Explorer (IE) browser in 1995. The browser was built under license to Microsoft using the code from the ‘Spyglass Mosaic’ browser, an early forerunner to modern Internet browsers which had been developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1992/93. The Mosaic browser was discontinued in 1997.

Explorer was originally introduced to the market in two paid-for packages, in Microsoft Plus! add-on for Windows 95 and via the simultaneous OEM release of Windows 95. It wasn’t until August 95 that Microsoft Explorer version 3 was bundled free with Windows 95, and this led to Microsoft having to pay Spyglass US$8 million because Spyglass’s minimum quarterly licensing fee had been cut-off. There were 11 versions of Internet Explorer between 1995 and 2013.

Early Competitors 

Early strong competitors in the browser market included Netscape Navigator (beta versions introduced in 94/95) which was also based on the Mosaic browser code. This was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in the 1990s and it included new features such as cookies, frames, proxy auto-config and JavaScript which became the open standards of the W3C and ECMA and were emulated by other browsers. Netscape Navigator’s decline came, however, as a result of the ‘browser wars’ and a combination of factors such as the release of IE version 3.0 in 1996, an agreement with Apple to make IE its default web browser in new Mac OS distributions, Microsoft using its leverage from Windows OEM licenses, and the introduction of browser-specific extensions in web pages which forced users to choose between two competing and almost incompatible web browsers.

The Growth of Explorer 

IE’s early growth (i.e. Explorer 2.0) was really a product of it being integrated with Windows 95 OSR 1 in 1996, i.e. bundling Explorer with its Windows operating system, and this growth accelerated with version 4.0’s release.

Antitrust Case 

In the US in 1998, following the ‘browser wars’ which ended Microsoft’s main competitor, Netscape Navigator, Microsoft was the subject of an antitrust case where it was accused of making it difficult for consumers to install competing software on computers operated by Windows. Part of the argument against Microsoft was that the bundling of IE with the Windows 95 operating software had restrained trade in web-browsing software. Microsoft lost the case and although this wasn’t the end for IE, it facilitated the rise of competitors.

New Competitors 

Fast forward into the 2000s, and although IE had a massive 95 per cent of the browser market in 2004, new browser market players moved in and nudged out IE. Some of IE’s challenges were that it was regarded by many users as being clunky, buggy, suffering from security issues, and having fewer add-ons, extensions, and plugins than its new competitors.

After Netscape opted for open source code and launched its not-for-profit Mozilla, which released Firefox in 2002, and Google released its browser for Microsoft Windows (now Chrome) in 2008, things got a lot tougher for IE. In fact, by 2010, IE’s previously dominant market share fell below 50 per cent, and Google’s Chrome browser finally knocked Microsoft’s browser off the top spot in 2012. Apple’s Safari browser, first introduced in 2003, also rose as a competitor to IE, and now to Edge, and in May of 2022, Apple’s Safari dropped to the third most popular desktop browser (behind Edge) and is used by 9.61 per cent of desktop computers worldwide (StatCounter).

Edge Replacing IE 

Over time, the incremental improvements to Internet Explorer couldn’t match the general improvements to the web at large and this led to the introduction of Microsoft Edge with Windows 10 in 2015 and the phasing out and retirement of IE.

Retirement 

As of June 15, 2022, Microsoft has announced the final retirement of IE for certain versions of Windows 10. This will mean that:

– Over the next few months, opening IE will progressively redirect users to Microsoft Edge with IE mode. Here, users will still see the IE icon on their devices (e.g. on the taskbar or in the Start menu) but if they click to open IE, Microsoft Edge will open instead with easy access to IE mode.

– As part of the redirection process, Microsoft users will have their data (favourites, passwords, and settings) imported from IE to help the transition and, if a user wants to delete or manage their data at any point afterwards, Microsoft says they can do so in Edge from the Settings menu.

– IE will eventually be disabled permanently as part of a future Windows Update, at which point the IE icons on users’ devices will be removed.

– The first versions of Windows from which IE has been retired are Windows 10 Home, Pro, Enterprise, Edu and IoT (there is no IE in Windows 11) but IE will not be immediately removed on all these versions. Instead, there will be progressive re-directs to Microsoft Edge over the next few months.

– For some versions of Windows, currently in-support and used in critical environments such as in-support Windows 10 LTSC releases (including IoT) and all Windows Server versions, as well as Windows 10 China Government Edition, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 with Extended Security Updates (ESUs), Microsoft will continue to support until further notice.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Microsoft’s IE played a key role in the development of the web and bundling it with Microsoft Windows, as well as defeating its early competitor Netscape Navigator in the browser wars helped to deliver its dominance in the browser market. However, the antitrust trial, the introduction of strong market competitors like Google Chrome and Firefox, the rise of smartphones with pre-installed browsers, i.e. Apple with Safari, and Android with Google Chrome and Mobile and tablet internet usage overtaking desktops saw Chrome rise to the top. This effectively signalled the end for Microsoft’s IE. With IE no longer up to the demands of the modern web, and Microsoft switching its efforts to a better version – Microsoft Edge – and then Edge for Chromium In 2020, IE was finally left high and dry and put into retirement. For many people, the ease, clean and modern look, and the quality of search engine results in Google outshone anything IE could produce, and Edge, IE’s successor, has needed to use Chromium and take on a similar clean look to try and compete and claw back some of the ground lost by IE.