T-Mobile has officially acquired Mint Mobile, but what does that mean for all of Mint&#x27;s great wireless deals?

T-Mobile bought Mint Mobile — can you still get the BOGO wireless deal? | Android Central

T-Mobile USA Inc. for the third and final time triumphed in getting a lawsuit over allegedly denied property tax reimbursements dismissed because the third party that submitted the refund claims didn’t have standing to sue, a New Jersey federal judge said.

T-Mobile Succeeds in New Jersey Tax Reimbursement Suit Dismissal

Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash · The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has approved the T-Mobile U.S. deal to buy Ka’ena Corp, the owner of budget service providers Mint Mobile, Ultra Mobile, and Plum, for up to $1.35 billion

T-Mobile Now Owns Ryan Reynolds-Backed Mint Mobile - RetailWire

US Mobile offers generous amounts of high-speed data at great prices with the distinctive option to choose between Verizon&#x27;s and T-Mobile&#x27;s networks.

US Mobile review: Exceptional budget phone plans with unique flexibility

Over a year after announcing it would acquire Mint Mobile for up to $1.35 billion, T-Mobile has closed the deal.

T-Mobile finally owns Ryan Reynolds-backed Mint Mobile

After months of waiting, T-Mobile has finally been given the green light to complete its acquisition of Ka’ena Corporation, which includes brands like Mint Mobile, Ultra Mobile, and Plum. With the approval, the Un-carrier wasted no time in completing the acquisition.

T-Mobile Has Officially Acquired Mint Mobile, Ultra Mobile, Plum Mobile - TmoNews

T-Mobile formally welcomes Ultra and Mint into its family.

T-Mobile celebrating Mint purchase with new and upgraded perks for customers - PhoneArena

The billion-dollar acquisition brings one of the cheapest ways to use T-Mobile&#x27;s network into the T-Mobile corporate family. (And earns Mint pitchman Ryan Reynolds a few bucks.)

T-Mobile Completes Mint Mobile Deal, Promises New Perks for Mint Users | PCMag

T-Mobile Completes Mint Mobile Deal, Promises New Perks for Mint Users

T-Mobile now owns Mint Mobile, but that doesn&#x27;t mean things are changing right away.

T-Mobile completes purchase of Mint and Ultra — what it means for subscribers | Tom's Guide

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Mobile devices are used in everything nowadays and increasing so by the day. Mobile phones are have facilitated more than calling and reaching out to people. They make your life easier. They are used in almost all aspects of life from banking to grocery shopping. Mobile apps are a great way to improve your product or service’s reach to more users and improve the traffic to your site through the mobile devices. As more and more web traffic is coming from the mobile devices, it is really imperative to give access to the users through mobile devices. When you are going to create an application for mobiles, there are two important concepts in design that can not be avoided. In fact, this is where it all starts. The and the . It is important to understand these concepts and the difference between them. User Interface (UI) User Experience(UX) To begin with, understand the basics of UX/UI mobile application design. UX and UI are two different disciplines of the front end design. UI is the components and the layout with which the users can interact. It is what you see in front of your screen is the UI in a very vague sense of the term. UX is overall experience of the user using the website or the application. This includes the usability of the site, the ease with which the application can be used, how easy it is for the user to navigate through the site. So, what is the Importance of mobile applications? Mainly because the traffic from the mobile devices are increasing and with more transactions taking place through the internet there are so many possibilities in the mobile applications. Most of the companies encourage users to use their mobile applications. The convenient and on-the-go mobile apps have resulted in increased revenue for many of the online businesses. So for an online business to thrive mobile apps have become mandatory. So when creating an application for mobiles, the designer’s job is to create the user interface to meet the user’s needs and create an easy and enjoyable experience. To achieve that both the UX and UI should be great. An application has to be really pleasing to get the attention of the user. But at the same time, an application with great that looks pretty with all the bells and whistles won’t make a difference when the user experience is bad. Say, for example, if an application has a confusing layout that a user has to spend more time on searching for the functionality for doing a specific task or user has to really spend the time to understand what is what in the application does not make up for a good user experience. This will make the user leave the site and then never visit again. So, the at the designing part one has to be always conscious about the short attention span and lower patience to be effective in its purpose. So where should we begin when designing the mobile applications in terms of UX and UI? The first step is to understand the targeted users and the market. Do a detailed study of what the user requirements. A detailed study of these requirements will help in improving the user experience.The quality of UX and UI of the application can be indicative of the application’s credibility. Things to Consider Before Designing the UX and UI Before starting designing the UX and UI for a mobile application here is a guide for the things to consider. 1 — Responsiveness Responsiveness has become an integral part of the front end development. You can not avoid going responsive. Whatever your application is it should be fit to view an any size of the screen. When you say mobile devices, you are not just referring to smartphones. The screen size varies from smartphone to other devices like devices like tablets that people use to access the web on the go. And then there are two different screen modes in which the devices can be viewed — landscape and portrait mode. So the design should consider these variations in the dimensions of screens. Also, the size of the screens of devices keeps on increasing as newer models of the same device come in the market. At the same time, innovative screens like the and the infinity display on the Samsung Galaxy brings new challenges and possibilities to the UX and UI of mobile applications. new iPhone X 2 — Design iteration Follow the cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing and refining the design to finest of polish that will keep the users hooked and they will leave with the feeling of satisfaction of having done what they wanted and not getting lost along the way. 3 — Keep it Simple Mobile devices are short in real estate. So knowing what is important is the key. What are the contents to be shown and what to hide? This ensures easy navigation and easy and uncomplicated user experience. Simplicity is not mean minimalist design. The design should be such that the user should be able to do their tasks in as fewer steps as possible. Also, make it a point to keep only one call to action on one screen. 5 — Avoid Excessive Scrolling Excessive scrolling can be really annoying. The design should be such that the user doesn’t have to scroll through very long to get to the content that he needs. Instead, create navigation that can lead the user to the specific points he needs to get. 6 — Know the Latest Trends Keeping up with the latest trends is essential for creating the most effective UX and UI. To know what is gaining popularity among the user helps learn and draw inspiration to create a better, effective design. 7 — Finger-Friendly Designs With mobile devices, we are using the touch of our fingers to navigate through. There are different hand gesture that we use to do specific tasks like swipe to get to the next onboarding screen. Similarly, we have gestures like touch, touch-and-hold, double tap, pinch and zoom that allows us to operate the mobile devices. The user should be able to figure these gestures without any difficulty in a mobile application. Also, people hold their phone in different ways. Sometimes they hold it with one hand, sometimes with two, and with one hand holding the phone. Most of the time people use their phone with one hand like when scrolling or calling someone. But when texting users need both hands. So the design must be able to facilitate the user’s experience by keeping these in mind. 8 — Give feedbacks Applications may sometimes take time to load. But a user may not be patient enough to keep waiting for the application to load if there is no feedback. The user may also think that application is broken and refrain from using it. So it is always important to give feedback to the user not just when loading the site but after every time a particular task is completed. Line when an order has been successfully placed. The user should be getting a message that task he did was completed otherwise leaving him in a state of confusion. Conclusion Designing the UI/UX for mobile devices are different from that of the desktop. There are constraints of the screen size when placing the elements of the website. The websites used in mobile devices are by touch, so that has to be taken into consideration. Also, the design has to planned keeping in mind the responsiveness of the application. But when the application works well on mobile devices, it increases the accessibility to the users and thus the number of users to your business.

8 Basic Experience Design Considerations For Mobile Apps

It's said time and again that humans are the weakest link in security. No matter what cloud controls you put up, firewalls you configure, or CI/CD integrity checks you do, more often than not, it takes compromising a single human in your organization to compromise it all and lead to a cyber attack. In fact, Cybint statistics suggest that 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error. Verizon’s 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) details examples of human errors that lead to data breaches. In fact, 74% of incidents include some human element, such as clicking on a phishing link. Battling these attacks has always been top of mind for CISOs and security leaders across the globe, and we resort to security awareness to educate people and train them to identify these attacks. However, is what we have today enough? Clearly not. Despite awareness training, we still see a rise in such attacks, even at prominent organisations such as Microsoft, TMobile, UnitedHealth, etc, in just this year. But you may ask, has this always been the case? I know human risk exists; it has existed for over a decade. Why has it become a burning concern? Here's what has changed over the last decade and why the situation is more alarming and deserves priority now more than ever. Rise of Deepfakes: Social engineering has always relied on creating deceptions, e.g., hackers impersonating individuals in authority and tricking people into trusting them. The latest AI advancements and deepfakes have made it easier for hackers to create even more deceiving personas. In fact, a finance worker paid out. $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer’ Bank call centers are increasingly inundated with deepfake voice clone calls attempting to access customer accounts, and AI-fueled fraud has become the leading security concern for the majority of banks as fraudsters submit AI-altered documents to open fake accounts. But other than increasing the effectiveness of these attacks multi-fold, AI has reduced operational costs, allowing hackers to conduct large-scale personalized campaigns. Increased exposure of personal information: Do you know how many data breaches happened in August 2024 alone? Billions of public records have already been leaked online within this month. All of this data ends up in hacker feeds, triggering a new wave of targeted phishing attacks. A lot of our data is also available with data brokers to be resold by several resellers and lead generation applications. And a lot of it is what we have put online ourselves on several social media platforms. All this information comes in handy for hackers to create fake personas and run a hyper-personalized social engineering attack. Increased reachability: Take a breath and count the number of communication apps you are on. Gone are the days when email was the sole medium of communication for a company. Today, employees use a variety of communication tools such as Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, WhatsApp, voice calls, social media chat, and so on. The increased sources of communication, in turn, increase the attack surface and risk exposure. A hacker can sneak into a conversation via any of these channels and attempt a hack. Increased Online Connectivity: Do you know Gen Z is over three times more likely to be duped by online fraud compared to baby boomers? Gen Z engages with technology more than any other generation, averaging at least four hours daily on social media. With a wide array of apps, from Snapchat to Instagram, they eagerly share every moment of their lives. However, this deep interconnectedness also exposes them to various threats, such as phishing scams, identity theft, and romance scams. The extensive time spent online inevitably raises their vulnerability to falling into online traps. Remote work gaining popularity: Working from home setup has added additional dynamics to this scenario. For many employees, it has blurred the boundary between work devices and personal devices. Many people end up using work devices for personal reasons, inadvertently increasing the risk. Research shows that remote workers are also more easily distracted and more likely to click on suspicious links. When you have not met in person or are not familiar with the conversational style of the other person, it becomes easier for hackers to dupe you into believing the email sent while impersonating the colleague is genuine. The way we organize work, the way we are interconnected today, and the instantaneous and proliferate ways of reaching out to us, with significant information about us being online, have made these attacks more powerful. We need better defenses. Defenses that are in line with the modern-day world and that can provide us holistic coverage. Gone are the days when the security of an organization could be handled separately from the security of an individual. A cyber risk to one individual, whether in a personal or professional realm, is a risk to the organization, and it's time we start looking at this in a holistic manner. Curious to know your personal risk? The free scan is available for seven days. Try it today and share it with your fellow colleagues. We'll scan the deep trenches of the web and share with you the information that you may not be aware the hackers know of. See you in the next post! Till then, stay safe. It's said time and again that humans are the weakest link in security. No matter what cloud controls you put up, firewalls you configure, or CI/CD integrity checks you do, more often than not, it takes compromising a single human in your organization to compromise it all and lead to a cyber attack. In fact, Cybint statistics suggest that 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error. Verizon’s 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) details examples of human errors that lead to data breaches. In fact, 74% of incidents include some human element, such as clicking on a phishing link. Battling these attacks has always been top of mind for CISOs and security leaders across the globe, and we resort to security awareness to educate people and train them to identify these attacks. However, is what we have today enough? Clearly not. Despite awareness training, we still see a rise in such attacks, even at prominent organisations such as Microsoft , TMobile , UnitedHealth, etc, in just this year. Microsoft Microsoft TMobile TMobile UnitedHealth , UnitedHealth But you may ask, has this always been the case? I know human risk exists; it has existed for over a decade. Why has it become a burning concern? Here's what has changed over the last decade and why the situation is more alarming and deserves priority now more than ever. Rise of Deepfakes: Rise of Deepfakes: Social engineering has always relied on creating deceptions, e.g., hackers impersonating individuals in authority and tricking people into trusting them. The latest AI advancements and deepfakes have made it easier for hackers to create even more deceiving personas. In fact, a finance worker paid out. $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer’ $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer’ $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer’ Bank call centers are increasingly inundated with deepfake voice clone calls attempting to access customer accounts, and AI-fueled fraud has become the leading security concern for the majority of banks as fraudsters submit AI-altered documents to open fake accounts. But other than increasing the effectiveness of these attacks multi-fold, AI has reduced operational costs, allowing hackers to conduct large-scale personalized campaigns. AI has reduced operational costs, allowing hackers to conduct large-scale personalized campaigns. Increased exposure of personal information: Increased exposure of personal information: Do you know how many data breaches happened in August 2024 alone? Billions of public records have already been leaked online within this month. All of this data ends up in hacker feeds, triggering a new wave of targeted phishing attacks. A lot of our data is also available with data brokers to be resold by several resellers and lead generation applications. And a lot of it is what we have put online ourselves on several social media platforms. All this information comes in handy for hackers to create fake personas and run a hyper-personalized social engineering attack. Billions of public records Billions of public records Increased reachability: Increased reachability: Take a breath and count the number of communication apps you are on. Gone are the days when email was the sole medium of communication for a company. Today, employees use a variety of communication tools such as Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, WhatsApp, voice calls, social media chat, and so on. The increased sources of communication, in turn, increase the attack surface and risk exposure. A hacker can sneak into a conversation via any of these channels and attempt a hack. Increased Online Connectivity: Increased Online Connectivity: Do you know Gen Z is over three times more likely to be duped by online fraud compared to baby boomers? Gen Z is over three times more likely Gen Z is over three times more likely Gen Z engages with technology more than any other generation, averaging at least four hours daily on social media. With a wide array of apps, from Snapchat to Instagram, they eagerly share every moment of their lives. However, this deep interconnectedness also exposes them to various threats, such as phishing scams, identity theft, and romance scams. The extensive time spent online inevitably raises their vulnerability to falling into online traps. Remote work gaining popularity: Remote work gaining popularity: Working from home setup has added additional dynamics to this scenario. For many employees, it has blurred the boundary between work devices and personal devices. Many people end up using work devices for personal reasons, inadvertently increasing the risk. Research shows that remote workers are also more easily distracted and more likely to click on suspicious links. When you have not met in person or are not familiar with the conversational style of the other person, it becomes easier for hackers to dupe you into believing the email sent while impersonating the colleague is genuine. The way we organize work, the way we are interconnected today, and the instantaneous and proliferate ways of reaching out to us, with significant information about us being online, have made these attacks more powerful. We need better defenses . Defenses that are in line with the modern-day world and that can provide us holistic coverage. better defenses Gone are the days when the security of an organization could be handled separately from the security of an individual. A cyber risk to one individual, whether in a personal or professional realm, is a risk to the organization, and it's time we start looking at this in a holistic manner. Curious to know your personal risk? The free scan is available for seven days. Try it today and share it with your fellow colleagues. We'll scan the deep trenches of the web and share with you the information that you may not be aware the hackers know of. Try it today See you in the next post! Till then, stay safe.

Is the Weakest Link in Cybersecurity Becoming Even Weaker?

Over a month since its launch, some say that the Humane AI Pin may just be the beginning of the world's transition to an era of less screen time. The sail off of this $699 wearable technology could grant users a self-sufficient life where advanced AI technology is integrated into their daily lives with every piece of information available on the device with no screen attached to the lapel of their wears. According to Humane, the production company of AI Pin, this wearable tech is an embodiment of their vision to "integrate AI into our everyday living while enhancing our abilities in the world without overshadowing our humanity". You can say that they aim to present a whole new way for humans to communicate and interact with the world intricately and at all levels without the need for so many screens. Is that possible? Many have termed it "a potential smartphone killer". But if you ask me, I see it nowhere being near the truth. Let's see for ourselves what the prospects of AI Pin are. What is AI Pin? AI Pin is the brainchild of two very talented Apple ex-employees, Imran Chaudhri (hardware designer) and his wife, Bethany Bongiorno (software engineer) aimed at liberating humanity from smartphone addiction. The AI Pin is a small, lightweight, and screenless wearable device that combines AI technology, sensors, and a projector and is designed to provide users with a variety of functionalities that are both natural and intuitive when the device is interacted with. The AI Pin has the functions of a smartphone but as opposed to smartphones, it has no home screen or digital interface that can be looked at. It is like a tech pixie – a tiny powerhouse that marries artificial intelligence with the unassuming charm of a pin and strips away all the interface cruft from the fabric of your daily life. Thoughts are flying – without a screen, how do you operate the AI Pin? A touch on the device powers it on and it switches on at the sound of your voice or your hand gestures. You can talk and say what you want to know or do, and the device will act in response to your demands automatically. AI has grown more efficiently over the years, undergoing a metamorphosis from simple text commands to chatbots, to oral interactions. We've seen AI personas like Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant, and Microsoft's Bing, play personal assistant roles to users. However, Humane makes its AI Pin an AI that you can carry anywhere effortlessly and with all convenience while giving you a more personalized interaction and experience. How Does AI Pin Work? In a , co-founders, Chaudry and Bongiorno detailed the full capabilities and technologies of the AI Pin. 10-minute video The gadget is a technology basically for talking not typing. Hence, it makes use of language models and not applications. Ending an era of apps, Humane's operating system, the cosmOS, runs a cloud-based AI-powered inventory called 'AI Bus" that understands what you need, picks the right response/data, and calls up the AIs and tools you need at the moment, so you no longer have to search for, download, or manage apps. Its unique features include: A Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset (Snapdragon processor with a dedicated Qualcomm AI engine), is crucial for AI technology because it is super fast and ensures optimum performance. An in-built network connectivity built right into Humane's network and connected by T Mobile. Every owner of the pin gets a special phone number. A wireless connectivity that enables users to integrate, control, and interact with various smart devices, and access online services. An ultra-wide RGB camera that scans objects and images immediately for necessary data and takes gorgeous pictures and video just by a double tap on the device. Depth and motion sensors are super smart and fast in tracking and recording your surroundings or detecting your hand gestures and interpreting them. A trust light indicator built directly into the Atkins hardware via a dedicated privacy chip and it indicates when the input optical or audio sensors are active, which ensures full transparency and data security. A laser ink projector that displays a visual interface of the AI Pin on the palm of your hand. A beacon light that notifies you when there is something new for you, like messages, services, etc. A special speaker that creates a 'personic' sphere bubble of sound that can be reduced or increased. A perpetual power system that consists of two pieces – battery boosters and a battery charger which helps in achieving all-day battery life. The AI is powered by GPT-4 and uses natural language processing to listen to, understand, and interpret user interactions. By interacting with the device either by a voice, gesture, or touch command, the AI can assist in tasks such as: Managing schedules, arranging meetings, answering queries, providing recommendations, summarizing important or daily messages, etc. Monitor health and fitness metrics, including heart rate, sleep quality, step count, daily calorie counting, etc. Find out information about events like the next lunar eclipse, map directions, songs to play, restaurants to visit according to your preferences, etc. Carry out transactions. Pay bills, buy items, order for products/meals, etc. Live translations of languages. The AI acts as an interpreter in a bi-lingual conversation, interpreting the receiver's language to you in your language and interpreting your language to the receiver in his/her language in your intonation. and many more. A Review of the AI Pin The wearable device sounds like such a thrill device, that anyone would rush to get one to try it out. I am very much intrigued myself. But is this acclaimed "do everything" AI gizmo truly capable of living up to its expectations? Let’s start by analyzing the design and features in respect to other devices. AI pin is a small thin, sleek, and lightweight hardware with a smooth glass surface, easily pinned to your lapel; the device is very comfortable for your daily activities and almost forgettable. Much more convenient to use than your smartphone in your hands, your wristwatch strapped to your hands, your AirPods stuck in your ears, or the Ray-Ban Glasses on your face. If this wearable device can replace the mentioned devices especially smartphones, then it is an easy sell; but this is improbable as these devices have uniquely positioned themselves in the lives of their users, such that, it  will take the AI pins some more years to play catch up in order to convince users that it is a better alternative. totally But Eras do come to an end, don’t they?? The laser ink display that projects some details like battery life, temperature, music, location, time (and so much more we are yet to find out) on the palms, which can be operated with simple hand and finger gestures, is quite an impressive feature for a wearable device with no screen. The perpetual power system with 2 extra hot swapping batteries (or battery boosters) for longer battery life that could last weeks without charge, may just be able to score some extra points if I do not have to swap the boosters during my day's routine. But sadly, it seems not as Chaudry, in the promotional video, opined: "...and this is how we achieve all-day battery life". Can someone tell me why exactly a device so small would exhaust 3 batteries in approximately 24 hours? That certainly does not give a lot of confidence in the device and has to be improved on. The privacy feature dares to be exceptional; it has no 'wake words' that ensure that the AI is not always listening or recording everything about your life (to cause an AI apocalypse/takeover in the future. lol). It only comes on and is active at its user engagement or voice. In addition, the prominent Trust Light indicates that the sensors are active and could be recording so you can keep whatever you have to keep private. If this is compromised, the pin shuts down automatically and needs Humane's professional service to get it functioning again. The bad side, you cannot contact Humane's professional services until you visit Humane's Care Centre, which is also the center you need to use to manage the AI Pin. To get in touch with the center, you have to resort to your smartphone or PC. (Haha! Play catch up, buddies! You can't completely get rid of your smartphones.) Where AI is concerned, there is still a tough call as to whether the technology is perfectly intelligent and wholly accurate. Humane's debut of the AI Pin served as a low blow to its 5 years of development as it features inaccuracies due to its AI slip-ups or fabrications. First, our hazy AI tells Chaudry that the best view for the next solar eclipse would be in Australia when in all common sense, the best view for the eclipse, which is the 'Great American Eclipse' would be in no other place than America. A huge slip-up, right? Next, after Chaudry asked how many grams of proteins the handful of almonds he held was, AI replied 15 grams. WRONG! According to dieticians, you have to engulf at least 60 almond nuts to get 15 grams of protein. If we have to depend solely on this AI when using the AI Pin, how sure can we be about the information it provides us? Confidence drops to 50%. This brings me to the price. $699? And a $24 monthly TMobile subscription to have access to unlimited calling, texting, and data connectivity to OpenAI's AI models and Microsoft? May not be outrageous for some technologies, but consider a small wearable device pinned to your lapel with no screen, I call that horrendous! Okay, it would be a fair price if it could auspiciously take the place of smartphones in our day-to-day lives by at least 70% and didn't have so many faults. This is its first entry into the market, which means there should be a lot of feedback and reviews that would lead to a couple of updates and upgrades for future models. Buying a debut device at such a price could only be out of curiosity. Can the AI Pin survive the test of time? Wearable devices like , a life-logging device designed to also sit on the user's lapel and take pictures at 30-second intervals, held on for 4 years until it dissolved. However, it would be demeaning to compare the AI Pin to the discontinued tech as it has more use cases and holds more promise. Narrative Clip The Humane couple and ex-Apple geniuses are confident in the future of the Pin. Bongiorno calls it the "world’s first contextual computer" and believes it will have a mass appeal - A computer Beyond Touch…. Beyond Screens Amidst all the criticisms, I must acknowledge that this is a first-of-its-kind gizmo – a screenless, seamless, and sensing AI-powered voice-controlled gadget that does not require connectivity to another smart device to operate. The advent of smartphone technology reduced our dependency on desktop and laptop computers. Likewise, the arrival of the AI Pin technology can greatly reduce our screen time by cutting down our  clinginess to smartphones. No one can tell the future; it is too early to predict as the technology is in its premature state. But just as the first iPhone was released in 2007 and continued to pass through different phases of development to become more sophisticated, the AI Pin is also very capable of this kind of development and growth, especially with the advancement of AI technologies. Are the chances of bigger corporations engulfing Humane and its AI Pin? I can't say for sure. But unapologetically, Humane has the backing and is heavily funded to a ton of  $200 million by A-list companies pushing technology around the globe. Some of these companies include OpenAI, Microsoft, Qualcomm Technologies, TIDAL, T-Mobile, Salesforce, and others. Competitors are sniffing at this technology and taking wild guesses regarding its future – Google, Meta, etc. However, Humane's greatest competitor could be…(your guess is as good as mine), Apple Inc. Apple's fascination with AI makes them a force to reckon with. They are known to have a radical approach that dominates the market and keeps them at the top as a tech giant.  They also play a smart game of acquisitions or competitions. If they can't acquire, they release a strong contender into the market. A pin that has the potential to overshadow the smartphone in our daily lives is not a novel idea that Apple can pass by and ignore. To stay on top of the game, they could watch the pun's prospects in the market and be whipping a checkbook in no time or releasing a more sophisticated version in few years down the line. You can't be too surprised if you hear iPin after a successful acquisition or iClip as a daring competition. (Note: This is solely a prediction from a personal point of view) In all cases, it is not for us to know. Humane could become an unprecedented force leading the technology of AI voice-controlled wearable gadgets and reshaping the way we interact with AI and technology. (P.S: Once Humane becomes a fully registered and public company and releases an upgrade of the AI Pin, I'll be taking up some shares. There is good potential here.) Final Words The world is buzzing with new and newer technologies every day. However, the AI Pin is a pacesetter that proves that it is not another neoteric attempt to make wearable tech a trend but a revolutionary voice-controlled device that will liberate users from the addiction to screens even in a tech-infused world.

Can Humane's AI Pin Survive the Test of Time?

হিউম্যানের এআই পিন কি সময়ের পরীক্ষায় টিকে থাকতে পারে?

Kann der KI-Pin von Humane den Test der Zeit überleben?

¿Puede el pin de IA de Humane sobrevivir la prueba del tiempo?

L'IA Pin de Humane peut-elle survivre à l'épreuve du temps ?

क्या ह्यूमेन का एआई पिन समय की कसौटी पर खरा उतर सकता है?

Humane の AI ピンは時の試練を生き延びることができるでしょうか?

휴메인의 AI 핀은 시간의 시험을 견딜 수 있을까?

O AI Pin da Humane pode sobreviver ao teste do tempo?

Сможет ли ИИ-пин Humane выдержать испытание временем?

Humane'nin AI Pin'i Zaman Testinden Geçebilecek mi?

Pin AI của Humane có thể tồn tại trước thử thách của thời gian không?

Humane 的 AI Pin 能否经受住时间的考验？

Obtaining appropriate funding for a cybersecurity program could be a daunting task. As inflation soars, obtaining funding gets more difficult. A major funding challenge has been the inability of security leaders to demonstrate the value cybersecurity brings to the business. A recent Gartner publication pointed out that the absence of is due to the lack of “ ” to articulate business value. Value is essential to obtaining much needed funding to protect the business against ransomware and other threats. value building a better cybersecurity metric Establishing metrics to measure operational performance, achievement of set goals and return on investment is core to an organization’s existence. When an organization fails to accurately implement business metrics, its chance of remaining in business is undermined. Similarly, there must be metrics in place to measure the return on security investment. There is no doubt that measuring a security investment is cumbersome, especially as focus has been on IT-related metrics such as patching cadence or number of system misconfigurations. To truly identify and articulate the value of cybersecurity, it is important to understand that cybersecurity is a business investment. Therefore, the questions the cybersecurity leader should be asking are: “How do I demonstrate the business value of the security program?”, “How does the security program sustain the business?”, “What is the impact of prevented cyber threats on the business?”, “How does the business continuity process promote business resilience?”, etc. The focus of the questions emphasizes how the security program is tied to business sustainability and security. Cybersecurity Value Metric Indicators Measuring return on security investment can be achieved by implementing four major metric indicators. They include risk reduction, reassurance, resilience, and revenue. The principal goal of cybersecurity is to identify risks, vulnerabilities and threats that could cause consequential business disruption. While it is typical for the security team to present a technical report of cyber threats and incidents as risk indicators, the true source of identifying business risks is the business. Business operators know what is critical to keeping the organization operative, hence, they should be the main driver of enterprise risk conversations, particularly cyber threats, and leverage controls to address such risks. However, in many cases, business operators are often myopic about the introduction of risk and potential business impact for utilizing information systems and other technologies in advancing business objectives. A business-savvy security leader who can quantify the impact of cyber threats on the business becomes an integral partner in enabling the organization to achieve its mission and vision. Risk Reduction: One of the major lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic is that IT-related business disruption is not limited to cyber incidents alone, such as a ransomware attack or an outage. Working from home has introduced new business risks that organizations must grapple with. These new risks have placed a demand on the security team to adapt its program and evolve to provide appropriate protection. For instance, identity and access management (IAM) has become a core business solution that must be in place to keep remote work safe and efficient. Therefore, using the IAM as a risk reduction metric for justifying an investment in the solution, the security leader should show how such a solution serves a business purpose of keeping operations going as well as protecting and complying with regulatory requirements. To mature risk reduction as a metric, it is fundamental to directly correlate a security investment to the risk it seeks to reduce. It is equally crucial to align the security program with financial, legal, contractual, compliance, reputational and operational risks. There is abundant evidence to support the of to drive the point home. Showing the cost of risks prevented from happening is an important way of demonstrating the business value of the security program. cost cyber incidents Research has shown that is one of the reasons executive leaders invest in cybersecurity. 69% of security and IT leaders said influencing cybersecurity budget, compared with 49% who stated that were a major factor to consider when making cybersecurity investment. Maintaining regulatory and contractual compliance is particularly important, especially as ; nonetheless, security investment should move beyond compliance to providing reassurance. Reassurance: the fear of compliance failure regulatory compliance was a major factor best practices noncompliance has been associated with excessive cost of remediating successful cyber incidents Reassurance is the effective and efficient utilization of cybersecurity controls to demonstrate how they keep the business safe, address concerns and questions from the executive team, and align the program with regulatory and contractual requirements. Providing reassurance is a continuous process and is made possible by an adaptive cybersecurity program that leverages threat intelligence, risk analysis and deployment of resources to proactively mitigate business risks. A principal part of my responsibility is to analyze data from various sources, including infrastructure, trust relationships, threat modeling, and evaluate the effectiveness of extant controls to proactively stop threats and prevent risks before they impact the business. I provide the executive team with monthly reports that highlight how the program is protecting the business. Working in a highly regulated industry, the security program is subjected to a rigorous audit and assessment process that comprises an audit of security controls by a dedicated security auditor, compliance internal audit team and a team of external auditors and assessors that include three of the consulting firms. A SOC 2 audit, NIST CSF maturity assessment or HITRUST validated assessment is treated as a statement of control effectiveness to reassure executive leaders, investors, regulators, and clients that the organization has effective controls in place to protect the business. Big Four Using reassurance as an investment metric provides security leaders with an arsenal of tangible value to demonstrate the crucial role cybersecurity plays. To effectively apply reassurance as a metric, security investment must move beyond assurance, which is the controls baseline to keep IT systems secure, to intentionally scaling controls to meet business needs and requirements. As such, investment must correspond with specific operational, legal, financial, contractual, regulatory, and reputational objectives. One of the myths organizations wish to be a reality is that . There is no doubt that more spending could position an organization to be more effective at preventing cyber threats, it is misleading to assume that a huge budget is a guarantee of a risk-free enterprise. This is one of the reasons why the board frowns at more budget when there is no stopping from happening. The truth is the most secure organization does not exist. A driving factor responsible for increased spending in the financial sector is to make . Resilience: the more they spend, the more secure they are successful threats banks more resilient against evolving sophisticated and destructive cyber-attacks Investment in keeping the business resilient is a no brainer. Dependence on technology and digitalization has placed the survival of organizations squarely within the IT - security space. In a hybrid work environment, collaboration platforms are no longer nice-to-have but must-have to keep performance and productivity going. Protecting such platforms to prevent major business disruption is the prerogative of the security team. Maintaining a business continuity or disaster recovery program is no longer something to consider in the future. Thanks to the pandemic and geopolitical instability with their attendant supply chain disruption, businesses must have controls in place to keep . operations sustainable and resilient A major responsibility of security leaders is to keep business operations resilient in the event of a catastrophic occurrence. This commitment requires substantial investment. It is certainly not practicable to invest resources to replicate a business parallel. A resilient investment approach will focus on the prioritization of mission critical assets, identification of material threats and risks, utilization of preventative, detective, and corrective controls as well as optimization of recovery and contingency capabilities. One way to leverage resilience as a metric is to create business-specific scenarios that identify potential outages or quantify downtimes due to IT issues or vendor services and technology. A 2017 cost companies $150 million, while the 2021 across the US. Though Facebook lost about , millions of businesses also lost revenue. AWS outage outage wreaked havoc $65 million during its 2021 outage It has been said several times that cybersecurity does not generate revenue. Although cybersecurity does not make money as the core business operations do, it ensures the business can continue to operate in a secure environment. For the sake of argument, finance or human resources does not make money; however, they facilitate the operationality of the business through budgetary allocation and resource optimization. No business can survive without some element of finance or human resources management. Likewise, cybersecurity is very integral to successful business operations. Revenue: Cybersecurity has shifted from a supplementary role of creating a supporting environment to ensuring revenue preservation and generation. To better appreciate how cybersecurity ensures business operations remain profitable, a review of the cost of data breaches and other cyber incidents shows that the cost of cyber-attacks is exorbitant. Preventing such attacks from occurring translates to money that can be used to keep operations funded. According to the Data Breach Report, the cost of data breach was $4.35 million in 2022, the and 12.7% increase from 2020. McAfee put at around $945 billion, while the cost is expected to increase to by 2025. highest in the 17-year history of the research the global cost of cybercrime $10.5 trillion There is no argument that cyber incidents will continue to happen. In the first 6 months of 2022, there were high profile incidents involving global corporations including , , , , and . A recent Uber data breach reinforced the persistence of cyber incidents. According to the , 62% of system intrusion incidents were due to third party relationships, while ransomware increased 13% over the previous year. Remote work was responsible for compared with breaches that work from home was not a factor. Okta Microsoft TMobile NVIDIA others 2022 Verizon Data Breach Report higher cost in breaches Modern business environment has made cyber incidents inevitable. From the risk posed by remote work to third-party exposure and supply chain disruption, it is imperative that organizations implement appropriate cybersecurity controls to mitigate against business loss. This key role of protecting the business is the revenue preservation value security investment brings to the business. Besides ensuring that businesses can continue to be profitable, cybersecurity also functions as a revenue generation vehicle for the business. Organizations are more unwilling to do business with vendors who cannot guarantee they have effective cybersecurity controls in place. With 84% of IT and security professionals believing that , organizations that experience cyber incidents suffer brand reputation damage and . Conversely, organizations with appropriate cybersecurity controls are more likely to attract new business opportunities. 18% of CEOs identified cybersecurity as critical to . Thus, cybersecurity becomes a marketing leverage to get new businesses, which translates to revenue generation. supply chain attacks will be the biggest cyber threats devaluation of trade name customer trust Using revenue as a metric requires security leaders to demonstrate how cybersecurity actively drives business opportunities. To measure how cybersecurity preserves revenue, security leaders should provide the statistics of prevented attacks and their impact on the business.  One way to use cybersecurity as a revenue generator is to transform cybersecurity into a trust program by showing how implemented controls secure clients’ businesses and assure peace of mind. An added value is the presentation of third-party affirmation of the effectiveness of implemented cybersecurity controls. Cybersecurity brings enormous value to the business by protecting it against cyber threats that could cause material damage. The crucial job of building the right value metric helps to make a case for appropriate cybersecurity budgetary allocation. Moreover, articulating its value will further demonstrate how the business benefits through risk reduction, reassurance, resilience, and revenue generation.

How To Obtain Cybersecurity Budget During Inflation

I will not break down what collaborative governance is – API decisions made individually with a shared understanding of a system developed collaboratively – or why you should be governing your APIs. That would be like telling you that global warming is happening or that fossil fuels are running out. Tech professionals and developers have heard this term a thousand times; the whole concept of DevOps is based on collaborative governance. But now, businesses want to modernize the way they govern APIs and fix their current traditional API management tools through automation and integrated platforms, all to avoid bottlenecks and overwhelming tool stacks with vast resource investments. Let’s see how. Undesirable API Design: The Dire State of the Situation When I joined T-Mobile in 2015, I designed and implemented internal and external facing APIs. Exposed to a vast disconnect between the benefits of emerging technology and how people embrace it, I realized good API management spans a broad spectrum of concerns, and making any decisions requires coordination between many different teams. I found it shocking that every company wants to build a seamless experience for customers at a mobile store or digital bank. But internally, their API teams face disjointed communication, with no view of what other departments are doing. Enterprises aspire to give developers autonomy to build and release APIs quickly, but they still expect them to wait in endless “queues” to get approvals on newly-designed tools. I’ve heard of companies having all the necessary funding and trying every platform and tool under the sun to build an API developer portal and market their APIs, but they still haven’t had success. And I’ve realized why. While speaking to a fintech leader about designing their APIs, he said that each of his developers was using their own tools to design, build, and deploy APIs – and they were facing 1000 bottlenecks along the way, slowing down decision-making and feature releases. So, how are you designing your APIs? Do you relate to these critical issues: Low business agility Poor code performance Slower release times No reusability Less visibility and transparency Unreliable version control A way to streamline these processes and encourage collaboration is through platform-driven governance – a shared brain but a decentralized system. If all the actors – product owners, developers, analysts, or operation professionals – worked through a platform that automatically enforced collaborative governance, business agility would be restored. The Evolving API Landscape Before digital transformation skyrocketed as a response to the pandemic, in 2018, Stripe predicted that developers were losing in productivity every year. nearly $300bn In 2022, there’s an increased pressure to accelerate time-to-market, and enterprises have to navigate distributed environments (on-premise and multi-clouds). Enterprises want to leverage the newest technologies, but they struggle with these developments in the industry that lead to further API complexity and sprawl. Now, with in use, developers are spending their time on code maintenance and fixing bugs in the system more than ever. The number of API developers needed for an average enterprise is ludicrous. If we look at Starbucks or TMobile, the number is quickly close to 400 people with enterprise architects, product owners, and business analysts. The sheer number of people needed to build efficient, sustainable API programs are not available due to a tech skill shortage, so manually building, managing, operating, and running APIs is a catastrophe waiting to happen. over 200 million APIs Most companies with API programs don’t have advanced API management tools, and they can only do a couple of releases a year from inception to production. Collaborative governance, with an automated platform, is the future to plug the gap from a business standpoint and help them get to market quicker and faster. A whole team would understand how APIs mature and prepare responses for the varying requirements. are already implementing automation initiatives to create better-connected experiences. This will assure consistency and oversight and allow employees to be more autonomous by moving away from a centralized command-and-control model, which demands approvals and causes slowdowns. 44% of organizations You Can’t Have Everyone in a War Room When Facebook and Whatsapp, with around 68,000 employees, went down due to a cascade of mistakes during maintenance in October 2021, that really was a war room situation that involved all hands on deck. But this cannot be an everyday scenario, even though it often is. For enterprises to be profitable, developers need to be focused, not constantly fixing issues. Collaborative governance democratizes the API building process as anybody in a team should be able to build, manage, and maintain APIs. Add a low-code, results-driven platform or AI-assisted development tools to the mix, and developers won’t always need to learn about new tools and technologies from scratch or interact with multiple parties. Through centralizing ownership using version-controlled configuration, enterprises can avoid the disruption caused by manual errors or configuration changes and enable reusability. Time to production is also reduced due to continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD). Bugs can be easily fixed without pulling in an entire team, resulting in greater savings, productivity, flexibility, and scalability. It is the equivalent of what I would call a “no-look pass” in football. You should be able to make a move knowing your teammate will be there, even if you are not facing them. If you want to run a data-driven enterprise and monetize your APIs safely in 2022, you must have an overview of the entire API lifecycle and shorten the production cycle of APIs through collaborative governance. This will be even more achievable for everyone by 2024 when and services will be built by people who are not technology professionals. 80% of technology products By , CEO and Founder at . Darshan Shivashankar Apiwiz

Collaborative Governance Will Be The Driver of The API Economy

If 30 years ago you would’ve told someone about self-driving cars, online shopping, or getting a cab delivered at your doorsteps using a few clicks, you would’ve been laughed at. But today, technology has offered a dimensional shift to the way we look at access to almost every service that we need. However, there are so many techs who themselves are evolving at a quick pace and inviting rapid changes to our lives. So, we decided to bring you this blog that offers briefs you about the top 10 emerging technologies in 2021. What value does this blog add to your life? Well, that depends on how invested you currently are in IT or if you’re planning to do so in the future. Are you a business in dire need to hire artificial intelligence developers? Or Are you in search of an AR development company ? So, in a nutshell, if you are pondering on the futuristic piece of tech that will be in congruence with your business needs, then this is the perfect read for you. Let’s begin. Top 10 New Technology trends for 2021 Here’s a list of the top 10 tech you should make a note of in 2021. Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Edge Computing Blockchain 5G Quantum Computing Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality Cybersecurity Internet of Things (IoT) Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Distributed Cloud Let’s have a brief look at each of the preceding techs. Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning One can’t be alien to the buzz that has received over the years. The AI market is predicted to grow to a whopping 190 billion USD industry by 2025. The industry has received such recognition as its effects on how we work, live, and play is notable. AI offers tools to enhance navigation apps, personal assistants, speech recognition, ride-sharing, and more. AI’s functionalities can be further extended to offer insights by analyzing underlying connections. Other than this it can be used to make sound decisions about resource utilization for hospitals or other businesses. Also to analyze real-time data and predict changes in customer behavior and personalizing their user experience. A tech trend that an AR development company is quite familiar with. AI Machine Learning is a subset of AI that is creating many opportunities for skilled professionals across many industries. As per a prediction made by Forrester AI, machine learning and automation would account for 9% of new jobs in the US by 2025. These jobs can need profiles such as content curators, data scientists, robot monitoring professionals, and automation specialists, some additional tech trends that you can keep an eye out for. Edge Computing Cloud computing, a tech trend that became mainstream with the contribution of high tech players such as AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. Yet, since the advent of Edge, it is no longer considered an emerging tech trend. The tech industry has realized certain prominent shortcomings of cloud computing. Edge is designed to offer a solution to the delay caused by cloud computing in getting data to a data center for processing. The best use of edge computing can be done in remote locations to process time-sensitive data that has no or limited connectivity to a centralized location. Edge computing will act as mini data centers in such situations. With edge computing, there will be an increase in the use of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The worldwide edge computing market is predicted to reach 6.72 billion USD by 2022. Blockchain When you hear the word Blockchain, most people think that it’s related to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. This is true but the tech also offers many other benefits. To understand blockchain in the simplest of forms, it’s data that one can add to but cannot change or take away. Hence, it contains the word chain because it forms a data chain. The USP of this tech is the unchangeable previous blocks, which makes it more secure. One of the other specialties of Blockchain is that no one entity can control the data as it’s consensus-driven. With this tech, you don’t need to validate or oversee transactions using trusted third-party services. 5G The Internet has offered us so many conveniences. Majorly all the services we use today are because of the internet. But it’s mainly due to the 3G and 4G services that we’re able to use data-driven services with increase bandwidths to browse our favorite video on YouTube or listen to our favorite song on Spotify. However, the game is going to get better with the introduction of 5G services. 5G will enable services based on VR & AR. It will also add speed to using cloud-dependent gaming services such as NVidia, GeForce, Google Stadia, and more. The tech can enhance safety and traffic management by providing HD cameras, help factories with smart retail and grid control. Every big name in the telecom industry such as Apple, Verizon, Tmobile, Nokia Corp, Qualcomm, and more are heavily invested in developing 5g applications. Quantum Computing Quantum computing is a remarkable tech that makes use of quantum phenomena like entanglement and superposition to compute data. Using this a tech company can easily monitor, analyze, and act on a particular data. It has proved to be extremely useful in preventing the spread of coronavirus. Quantum computing also offers great services in the field of finance and banking. It can be widely used for fraud detection, high-frequency trading, and managing credit risks. Many renowned companies such as Honeywell, Microsoft, AWS, Splunk, and Google are now making innovations in the field of Quantum Computing. The sole reason behind the same is that these computers are a multitude of times faster than normal computers. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are exceptional tech trends that have helped many industries to enhance their service or product presentation. The difference between the two is that VR immerses the user in its stimulating environment while AR adds certain things to their current environment. Many share the belief that these techs are only important to the gaming industry. This is so not true today in 2021. The tech is highly used in real estate companies, and by companies like LensKart to enhance their product presentation techniques. It has also been used to train the U.S. Navy, Army, and Coast Guard Ship Captains as simulation software. You can expect this tech to integrate further convenience into our life in 2021. AR and VR can work collaborating with other techs that we’ve mentioned in this list. Both techs have immense potential to contribute in industries such as entertainment, training, marketing, rehabilitation after an injury, and education. It can be used to offer a deeper experience, train doctors for surgeries, enhance marketing campaigns and theme parks. You can hire AR developers to design convenient business-specific solutions for your clients. If you take a look at the numbers a good 14 million VR and AR devices were sold in 2019. And as per future predictions, the AR and VR market is expected to grow to 209 billion USD by the year 2022. Cyber Security You might think why has Cyber Security made this list when it has been around for a while now. The reason behind the same is that it has been evolving at a rapid pace now. As the internet presents you with new threats regularly, ethical hackers need to upgrade their knowledge to prevent confidential data. We know that the malevolent hackers will try their best to make their way through our toughest of security measures. But if they don’t give up, why should we? The other reason is that new additions to tech are highly focusing on ways to enhance security. So as long as we have to fight this battle against hackers, Cyber Security will be a trending tech. The need for cybersecurity is so high that 6 trillion USD will be spent on the same on a global scale by 2021. Internet of Things (IoT) As you might be aware, today many “things” or “devices” are being designed with built-in wifi technology. This is being done to help them connect with the internet and to each other. The internet of things solutions offers futuristic ways to connect tech and data to foster its efficient use. The same has already been applied to cars, home appliances like TV, ACs, refrigerators, and more. Today IOT development companies are working hard to offer us solutions that can enhance our routine experience. For instance, we can track our fitness with our smartwatches, lock our doors using home automation tools, preheat our ovens, or start our ACs on our way back from our office. In addition to this, businesses have many benefits from IoT. As relevant data from machines is analyzed and processed, IoT can help enhance efficiency, safety, and decision-making for businesses. In addition to this, it can improve customer service, provide predictive maintenance, boost medical care, and offer other benefits that we haven’t yet imagined. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Speaking of automation jobs, like AI and Machine Learning, Robotics Process Automation (RPA) is another upcoming tech you should look out for. RPA can be used to automate business processes such as replying to emails, dealing with data, processing transactions, and interpreting applications. RPA is proficient in automating repetitive tasks that one does regularly. As per Forrester’s research, RPA automation will affect approximately 9% of global workers or 230 million or more knowledge workers. Distributed Cloud Distributed Cloud will take cloud computing to next level. The services cater to the distribution of public cloud services to remote geographical locations. The operations, updates, and other related services will be managed centrally by the original cloud provider. This will offer added benefits to organizations such as minimizing data loss risk, cost-reduction, and reducing latency. Many techs that require processing huge data in real-time such as IoT and AI will have an added advantage. Final Thoughts This brings us to the end of the countdown of our top 10 emerging techs of 2021. All the preceding technologies hold tremendous potential and offer promising career opportunities. About the Author: Technource If you’re an entrepreneur looking for a to seek guidance for planning your investments into the right tech, then be sure to give contact us. Check our our profile on HackerNoon for more info: mobile app development company https://hackernoon.com/u/technource

10 Emerging Technologies to Look out for in 2021

Here’s my compendium of the best tech reporting, writing, and commentary of 2019: January Josh Constine, Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/ Joseph Cox, I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone Motherboard (Vice) https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nepxbz/i-gave-a-bounty-hunter-300-dollars-located-phone-microbilt-zumigo-tmobile Martin Giles, Explainer: What is a quantum computer? MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612844/what-is-quantum-computing/ February Casey Newton, Illustrations: Corey Brickley, Photos: Jessica Chou The Trauma Floor: The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona Catalin Cimpanu, Russia to disconnect from the internet as part of a planned test ZDNet https://www.zdnet.com/article/russia-to-disconnect-from-the-internet-as-part-of-a-planned-test/ Taylor Lorenz, When Kids Realize Their Whole Life Is Already Online The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/02/when-kids-realize-their-whole-life-already-online/582916/ Jonathan Corum, NASA’s Opportunity Rover Dies on Mars The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/13/science/opportunity-rover-mars-map.html March Cory Doctorow, Myspace lost all the music its users uploaded between 2003 and 2015 Boing Boing https://boingboing.net/2019/03/17/facebook-is-next.html Greg Epstein, Silicon Valley’s inequality machine TechCrunch (ExtraCrunch) https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/02/silicon-valleys-inequality-machine-anand-giridharadas/ Joe Veix, Photos, Brandon Tauszik I Rode an E-Scooter as Far From Civilization as Its Batteries Could Take Me Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com/i-rode-an-e-scooter-as-far-from-civilization-as-its-bat-1833434599 Micah Maidenberg, Who Controls Diners’ Data? OpenTable Moves to Assert Control The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-controls-diners-data-opentable-moves-to-assert-control-11552644121 Mike Isaac, As Mark Zuckerberg Tightens Grip on Facebook, 2 Top Deputies Leave The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/technology/facebook-chris-cox.html April Alfred Ng, Facebook still tracks you after you deactivate account CNET https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-is-still-tracking-you-after-you-deactivate-your-account/ Nicholas Thompson and Fred Vogelstein, 15 Months of Fresh Hell Inside Facebook Wired https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-15-months-of-fresh-hell/ Darren Byler, China’s hi-tech war on its Muslim minority The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/apr/11/china-hi-tech-war-on-muslim-minority-xinjiang-uighurs-surveillance-face-recognition Daniel Oberhaus, A Programmer Solved a 20-Year-Old, Forgotten Crypto Puzzle Wired https://www.wired.com/story/a-programmer-solved-a-20-year-old-forgotten-crypto-puzzle/ May Paul Ford, Why I (Still) Love Tech: In Defense of a Difficult Industry Wired https://www.wired.com/story/why-we-love-tech-defense-difficult-industry/ Nathan Heller, The Hidden Radicalism of Chris Hughes’s Call to Break Up Facebook The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-hidden-radicalism-of-chris-hughess-call-to-break-up-facebook John Kennedy, A year after GDPR, how is Ireland tackling the data giants? Siliconrepublic https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/gdpr-ireland-dpc-investigations June Casey Newton Illustrations: Corey Brickley, Photos: Amelia Holowaty Krales Bodies in Seats: At Facebook’s worst-performing content moderation site in North America, one contractor has died, and others say they fear for their lives The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/18681845/facebook-moderator-interviews-video-trauma-ptsd-cognizant-tampa Nitasha Tiku, Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech Wired https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-years-misery-happiest-company-tech/ Alfred Ng, Amazon’s helping police build a surveillance network with Ring doorbells CNET https://www.cnet.com/features/amazons-helping-police-build-a-surveillance-network-with-ring-doorbells/ Julia Alexander, YouTube looks to demonetization as punishment for major creators, but it doesn’t work The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/25/18744246/youtube-demonetization-steven-crowder-patreon-advertising-merch Jack Gillum and Jeff Kao, and Photos: Adrienne Grunwald Aggression Detectors: The Unproven, Invasive Surveillance Technology Schools Are Using to Monitor Students ProPublica Wired https://features.propublica.org/aggression-detector/the-unproven-invasive-surveillance-technology-schools-are-using-to-monitor-students/ July Brian Krebs, Capital One Data Theft Impacts 106M People KrebsonSecurity https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/07/capital-one-data-theft-impacts-106m-people/ Farhad Manjoo, The Tech Industry Is Building a Vast Digital Underclass The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/opinion/doordash-tipping.html Andy Newman, Photos: Christopher Lee My Frantic Life as a Cab-Dodging, Tip-Chasing Food App Deliveryman The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/21/nyregion/doordash-ubereats-food-app-delivery-bike.html Patrick Howell O’Neill, What happens when a country’s entire adult population is hacked? MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/f/613973/what-happens-when-a-countrys-entire-adult-population-is-hacked/ Charlotte Jee, How “stalkerware” apps are letting abusive partners spy on their victims MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613915/stalkerware-apps-are-letting-abusive-partners-spy-on-their-victims/ Dan Goodin, My browser, the spy: How extensions slurped up browsing histories from 4M users Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/07/dataspii-inside-the-debacle-that-dished-private-data-from-apple-tesla-blue-origin-and-4m-people/ Sue Halpern, How Cyberweapons Are Changing the Landscape of Modern Warfare The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/how-cyber-weapons-are-changing-the-landscape-of-modern-warfare Jennifer Walter, The Mechanical Turk: How a Chess-playing Hoax Inspired Real Computers Discover Magazine https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/the-mechanical-turk-how-a-chess-playing-hoax-inspired-real-computers August Elizabeth Lopatto, WeWork Isn’t a Tech Company, It’s a Soap Opera The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/15/20806366/we-company-wework-ipo-adam-neumann Greg Williams, Inside DeepMind’s epic mission to solve science’s trickiest problem Wired UK https://www.wired.co.uk/article/deepmind-protein-folding Wes Schlagenhauf, Yelp swaps restaurant phone numbers with Grubhub’s to boost referral revenue The Hustle https://thehustle.co/yelp-grubhub-restaurant-controversy/ Nick Heath, Python is eating the world: How one developer’s side project became the hottest programming language on the planet TechRepublic https://www.techrepublic.com/article/python-is-eating-the-world-how-one-developers-side-project-became-the-hottest-programming-language-on-the-planet/ September Madhumita Murgla and Richard Waters, Google claims to have reached quantum supremacy Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/b9bb4e54-dbc1-11e9-8f9b-77216ebe1f17 Kim Zetter and Huib Modderkolk, Revealed: How a secret Dutch mole aided the U.S.-Israeli Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran Yahoo News https://news.yahoo.com/revealed-how-a-secret-dutch-mole-aided-the-us-israeli-stuxnet-cyber-attack-on-iran-160026018.html Kara Swisher, He Who Must Not Be Tolerated The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/opinion/joichi-ito.html Andrew Marantz, The Dark Side of Techno-Utopianism The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/the-dark-side-of-techno-utopianism Anna Wiener, Four Years in Startups The New Yorker https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/30/four-years-in-startups October Casey Newton, All Hands On Deck The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/1/20756701/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-leak-audio-ftc-antitrust-elizabeth-warren-tiktok-comments Kara Swisher, The Sum of Zuckerberg’s Fears The New York Times Paris Martineau, Turkish ISP Blocks Social Media Sites Near Syrian Border Wired https://www.wired.com/story/turkish-isp-blocks-social-media-syrian-border/ Cory Doctorow, Bruce Schneier makes the case for “public interest technologists” Boing Boing https://boingboing.net/2019/10/10/public-interest-at-scale.html Katherine Miller, The 2010s Broke Our Sense Of Time Buzzfeed News https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katherinemiller/the-2010s-have-broken-our-sense-of-time November Lily Hay Newman, How the Iranian Government Shut Off the Internet Wired https://www.wired.com/story/iran-internet-shutoff/ Rob Copeland, Google’s ‘Project Nightingale’ Gathers Personal Health Data on Millions of Americans The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-s-secret-project-nightingale-gathers-personal-health-data-on-millions-of-americans-11573496790 Ashlee Vance, Images: Guy Martin Open Source Code Will Survive the Apocalypse in an Arctic Cave Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-11-13/microsoft-apocalypse-proofs-open-source-code-in-an-arctic-cave Ben Thompson, The Google Squeeze Stratechery https://stratechery.com/2019/the-google-squeeze/ Susan D’Agostino, Photos: Cody O’Loughlin The Architect of Modern Algorithms Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org/barbara-liskov-is-the-architect-of-modern-algorithms-20191120/ Greg Epstein, Will the future of work be ethical? TechCrunch (ExtraCrunch) https://techcrunch.com/2019/11/28/will-the-future-of-work-be-ethical/ December Adi Robertson, Illustrations by Alex Castro / How to fight lies, tricks, and chaos online The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/3/20980741/fake-news-facebook-twitter-misinformation-lies-fact-check-how-to-internet-guide Dan Goodin, New crypto-cracking record reached, with less help than usual from Moore’s Law Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/12/new-crypto-cracking-record-reached-with-less-help-than-usual-from-moores-law/ Josh Constine, Instagram still doesn’t age-check kids. That must change. TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/03/instagram-age-limit/ Casey Newton, Larry Page is the tech world’s Dr. Manhattan The Verge https://www.theverge.com/interface/2019/12/4/20993633/larry-page-sergey-brin-quit-google-dr-manhattan-watchmen-strained-metaphor Zoe Schiffer, Illustrations by Grayson Blackmon and Will Joel Emotional Baggage The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20995453/away-luggage-ceo-steph-korey-toxic-work-environment-travel-inclusion Caroline Haskins, Image: Hunter French How Ring Transmits Fear to American Suburbs Motherboard (Vice) https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywaa57/how-ring-transmits-fear-to-american-suburbs Stuart A. Thompson and Charlie Warzel, Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html

The 59 Best Technology Journalism Stories Published in 2019

These instructions are only intended for the purpose of being able to install legally licensed firmware on routers you own. Do not use this guide as instructions for violating any patents or copyright laws There is a router out there known as T-Mobile (AC-1900) which is a rebranded ASUS AC1900/68u. The tmobile router sells for $70 and the asus router sells for $130–$170. Whats the difference between these two? Nothing other than firmwares. Modding firmwares can be a bit scary and intimidating at first. But after that first brick and then that first time bringing it back from the dead, one can gain confidence. Take your time read through the instructions a few times and don’t forget to breathe. Fundamentals: routers usually run a very basic set of software. This is usually booted up the same way every time a router starts. Most cases we are going to interrupt the router boot and drop it into a bootloader or recovery mode. This is running a separate start option that is usually stored on a separate memory chip or a special set of memory addresses. This allows us to modify the system firmware from outside the usual run process. Various routers have different ways of entering this mode, but at the end of the day its all the same. It’s separate environment and generally just the absolute barebones the work with. Lets begin, the first pass of the firmware mod. Give this a read and then we can come back here. Pretty striaght forward drop router into recovery mode load an older TM firmware. Then modify the cfe/MTD… . wait whats the mtd and cfe? “MTD subsystem (stands for Memory Technology Devices) it provides an abstraction layer for raw flash devices. It makes it possible to use the same API when working with different flash types and technologies… provide I/O access to the raw flash. They support a number of calls for erasing eraseblocks, marking them as bad or checking if an eraseblock is bad, getting information about MTD devices, etc.” CFE: common firmware environment. “It is intended to be a flexible toolkit of CPU initialization and bootstrap code for use on embedded processors (typically running on MIPS32/64 instruction set CPUs found in Broadcom SoCs). It is roughly analogous to the ’ “ . Next we are modifying the CFE so that the proper mac address range is used instead of the TM version. This allows the vanilla asus firmware to get installed because there are restrictions on the firmware only running on a specific range of mac addresses. https://www.bayareatechpros.com/ac1900-to-ac68u/ http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/doc/general.html ioctl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Firmware_Environment BIOS The modded firmware is up and running, bam done great. OOPS we upgraded the router and it reverted back to TM locked down firmware. This is often done by accident, such as not paying attention and thinking “hey I should upgrade”. Nuts, they also disabled telnet and ssh in the firmware itself. Not just hiding it in the UI via hidden and disable tags. Looks like they are starting to try pretty hard to stop us from changing the firmware. Not sure why exactly they are trying so hard to lock us out, but alright. How do we get at a terminal for the router now? Well, there is a network tools page, that is essentially an open terminal. I guess they assume if you are logged in to the router they should allow anything to happen. Another situation where, “well if they get past my firewall than my internal network is pwned situation.” (sigh) Sadly this is often repeated all throughout the tech industry. After a bit of searching I came across this google doc, that is going to help explain how we will actually hack our router. I am not going to go through and repeat everything that was laid out there but I will skip to some interesting bits. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NsZMONmJ70zMmoAKKQJXbTVKytaPJptWTpqih1TD5n8/edit?usp=sharing First we will need to get the needed files onto a usb. once we have them all zipped up we will plug in the usb drive in to the back of the router and leverage the usb support built in. Then using the network tools windows that we talked about earlier we are going to exploit a code flaw of the form. Thus actually hacking our router by closing the network command and then running our commands. If we open the console part of the developer tools on say chrome once we are on the page. we can do something like this. validForm = function(){document.form.SystemCmd.value = “ping\nmount -t tmpfs tmpfs userRpm”;return true;} Here we had the network tools run the ping command and then just drop to a new line and since we had a web shell we can run a mount command and get that usb mounted. Then there are a few more commands that need to be run which takes us to restarting a service on the router. This is done much the same way we would do it on a linux box. validForm = function(){document.form.SystemCmd.value = “ping\nservice restart_httpd”;return true;} Again we are using the ping command then then restarting the httpd service that we slightly tweaked to do our bidding. Then once the service is restarted we do a few more mount commands and a find in order to snag a couple more files from the mounted usb. Finally we run the big scary command that should most definitely not be allowed to be run form a webshell but hey they left the ability there so we are going to take advantage of it . ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ validForm = function(){document.form.SystemCmd.value = “ping\nmtd-write2 FW_RT_AC68U_30043763626.trx linux”;return true;} Here we are rewriting the firmware to one that we seeded. oops/awesome!Well then there are a few more cleanup steps involved in finishing up the mod and getting things setup to maintain the firmware. The real interesting thought is that perhaps a router manufacturer should spend less time and effort trying to stop modders from messing with the hardware on site, and a little bit more effort securing the software itself, because if you can do this from the gui, you better believe that there are underlying security vulnerabilities in there that would let worse things happen. It would be a somewhat simple fix of elevated run levels for specific actions and perhaps validating the inputs of the webform/shell to not allow extra commands to flow through… but hey let waste our time where the money is right? Sadly just another router manufacturer that jams out some hardware and leaves a squishy underbelly of software. But hey if no one looks then no one will find the problem right? I hope everyone enjoyed a whirlwind tour of router hacking 101–103, until next time. Same hack time same hack channel. Footnotes:modding tutorial for older firmware tmobile: https://www.bayareatechpros.com/ac1900-to-ac68u/ hardware: https://www.amazon.com/T-Mobile-Wireless-AC1900-Dual-Band-AiProtection-Complete/dp/B01MYTAURW google doc with in-depth breakdown https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NsZMONmJ70zMmoAKKQJXbTVKytaPJptWTpqih1TD5n8/edit?usp=sharing

Hacking your own router to become more

Tensor & Flow: Part 1, TensorFlow & Machine Learning on Android

Society is built upon a story. The glue that holds humanity together is fiction, a creatively invented story for “the greater good.” Look at money. Why trade our lives for paper? Wars are waged over this meaningless money. And money my friends is the one bubble that’s never popped. Money’s also the source of power for government. Before that it was royalty, and force. Before rulers were gods, or ordained by the gods… and on and on. The power of stories defines humanity. The story of the Ponzi scheme For anyone who does not know, a Ponzi scheme is an elaborate scam where you pay to participate and just need to convince 3 friends to convince 3 friends to convince 3 friends… and so the money flows. Notice the pyramid-esque nature. This is a Ponzi scheme, aka a scam. And it is illegal. ( ) BTW we aren’t talking about ICOs and cryptocurrencies, which are definitely a ponzi scheme (plus much more). For more on ICOs boom, bust and rebirth, and see this pos t You have probably heard of Bernie Madoff. He ran the most infamous Ponzi scheme ever, stealing a supposed $65B for “innocent” investors/fellow Ponzi participants. Source: ScamAvenger But that begs the questions: where are Bezos and Zuckerberg on this list? Let’s talk network effects (NFx) You could argue today’s social networks look eerily similar to a Ponzi scheme ( ). The dynamics of a connected world create tangible value for members and enormous financial rewards for the creator(s) of the network. still a far cry from ICO scammyness network As an investor, I am constantly looking for startups with true network effects. Companies able to leverage the flywheel of continuously increasing value warrant ridiculous valuations. From social platforms like: Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp to B2C marketplaces like Amazon, Airbnb and , successful network effects result in nearly untouchable monopolies (f_or more_ ). Uber on today’s monopolies stifling innovation, see this post And network effects aren’t only applicable to consumer companies. Look at and Box. Slack What do all these companies have in common? Great products with killer network effects. Acquiring customers One of the most important responsibilities of any founder is acquiring customers. Without users and cash, the business dies. Network effects and “virality” are two of the most crucial strategies for organic growth. startup And organic growth built the unicorns and tech behemoths of today. Few giants grow from paid acquisition — the costs are just too high. And as markets saturate, CAC rises. This is not true with true network effects. Instead as networks grow, all participants benefit and CAC remains constant, if not decreasing. Look at Amazon. Onboarding initial buyers and sellers was hard. It was just a bookstore. Fast forward to today to the Everything Store. Suddenly Amazon’s doing $136B/yr and sellers everywhere are scrambling to get onboard. Amazon doesn’t need to pay a dime. And customers come too. When Amazon has more options and better prices than Walmart, and delivers to your door, it isn’t even fair. Amazon’s flywheel fixes their initial capital challenges, increases margins, decreases CAC and drives LTV through the roof. Source: PointofSale.com The 5 types of network effects Not all businesses can leverage NFx. And even many that do have limits ( ). which is why Airbnb’s a 100x better business than Uber There are five type of network effects, each with strengths and weaknesses. They are: Marketplaces — aka Two Sided Networks Channel partners — aka Three Sided Networks Communications networks Content networks Local networks 1. Marketplaces — Two sided networks The first and most obvious type of network the market. Markets have existed since the dawn of time and grown exponentially in the internet era. Markets just make sense. People have needs and wants — from your stomach to sex to survival, markets pop up around every conceivable human want and desire. These traditionally consist of buyers and sellers. Historically, prior to the rise of cities, nomadic traders travelled between small settlements, continuously peddling their wares and pulling in profit. Farmers bought tools, craftsmen bought meats and traders traded in everything. Notice the movement. Traders came to the people. This has not changed. As buyers aggregate, sellers somehow find their way. Implication: Because acquiring customers is so much harder than acquiring sellers, businesses need to spend the bulk of their resources focused on buyers. As the number and quality of buyers in a market increase, companies can start to focus more on sellers — specifically quality control. Look at Amazon and Ebay. What is the primary difference, besides success? Ebay’s auction platform that encourages negotiation and lowball offers, hurting sellers and slowing the speed of transactions. This attracts low price, unattractive buyers. Amazon does the exact opposite. They focus on seller quality, ensuring good customer experiences which leads to more word of mouth. Buyers don’t brag about Ebay, sellers either. But everyone and their mother talks about Amazon. That is because Amazon is fast, cheap and easy to use — everything Ebay is not. Source: The Motley Fool Application: Building a two-sided market? NPS is incredibly important (first for buyers, then for sellers). Onboard customers, make the process fast and seamless and suddenly you have a sharable marketplace. Two-Sided Marketplace Examples Low Tech: shopping centers, farmer’s markets and brothels. Tech: Airbnb, Uber, Amazon Strengths of marketplaces Nearly untouchable after critical mass Monopolistic pricing power to increase commissions Low maintenance and operating costs once established (unless like Amazon you own distribution) Huge valuation multiples due to strength of network Weaknesses of marketplaces Very challenging to acquire customers/users Need to balance supply and demand Cash intensive to get started Revenue lags growth ( .) NOTE: For more on tokens/ICOs ability to disrupt established markets, see this post Channel partners — Three sided networks Not all commerce is conducted via a platform. The reason? Acquiring customers in a nascent market is hard. Because the business models and structures of marketplaces and channel partnerships are so different, most companies cannot do both well. A real world example. As an ecommerce/Amazon strategist, I’ve consulted for numerous public companies on their future and the world of Amazon. These corporates knew they needed to increase sales online but they had a problem. To sell on a marketplace meant alienating existing distributors (channel partners). If XYZ competes with their distributors, distributors suffer and thus XYZ suffers. Can you kill the aging golden goose? Perhaps the best example of the monopolistic power for this type of network is Microsoft. Microsoft owned the desktop and personal computing space. They built a vast network of suppliers and channel partners and then squeezed them. Companies could not afford to exclude Windows and Microsoft Office, users HAD to have it. And because legacy systems and software were all built and reliant upon Windows, switching costs were prohibitively high. So Gates got to charge mafia money — pay the ransom or watch your business burn… Source: JumpCloud.com Most channel partnerships do no go like this. That said, it is usually the responsibility of the brand to boost awareness — unless you pick your partners well. Take for instance bookkeeping. Few entrepreneurs know, like or care about bookkeeping. They just need to get it done. So they find a bookkeeper who uses and recommends . Xero Now the owner has two choices: find a new bookkeeper or use Xero. Inevitably most buy in. That is how Xero became a ~$4.5B business, off the back of recommendations (aka channel partnerships or affiliate marketing). Implications/Application: Channel partnerships do not work for every type of business. It really depends on the product and end customer. They can be massively lucrative and scalable when done right. Channel partnerships require trust and demand generation — both of which can come from you or your partner. Here the medium and product play a large role. For instance grocery stores get millions of pitches, they aren’t going to push your product. It is up to the brand to create demand and move inventory. If they can’t, shelf space goes to someone who can. A great counter example would be podcast marketing. Joe Rogan (the UFC guy with a massive podcast audience) singlehandedly turned the Fleshlight into a huge hit. The adult product was Joe’s first advertising partnership and the product hit it off, quickly connecting with Joe’s audience and outside the box approach — the company didn’t need to do a thing… What type of channel partnership can your company leverage? Channel partnership examples: Low Tech: bigbox retail, QVC, catalogs Tech: Microsoft, Xero, affiliate marketing Strengths of channel partnerships Outsourced acquisition means lower capital expenditure Ability to scale sales quickly with established networks Low maintenance and operating costs once established Ability to focus more on core product Weaknesses of channel partnerships Long sales cycle for onboarding channel partners Demand/trust component Lower margins Less direct contact with end customer More dependent on partners, thus riskier [LIKE THIS ARTICLE SO FAR? THEN YOU’LL REALLY WANT TO SIGN UP FOR MY NEWSLETTER — AND GET SOME FREE BONUSES!] OVER HERE Communication networks Successful social media companies warrant crazy valuations. Instagram sold for $1B before making a buck. Snap has yet to prove they can make money and are valued at ~$17B. And don’t forget the 500k pound gorilla in the room, Facebook’s evil empire. Communication is one of the truest forms of network effects. For every new user, my value goes up. If ½ my friends are on and ½ are off, there are ONLY two options: onboard everyone or switch to something better. Imagine if your cell phone could only make calls within your carrier’s network. Joe’s on Tmobile, mom and dad have AT&T, grandma’s got Verizon… you would need 3 different phones and 3 different plans. The same is true for social. Everyone or no one. If you have to switch between apps and services, you are not going to stick around. But with communication the viral component is key. Add all your friends. Invite everyone on LinkedIn. Want to join Whatsapp? The pressure to grow the network for my own personal reasons does the dirty work for them. Facebook isn’t spamming my friends, I am. And I and billions like me built a 2B+ person network worth $531B+. The key to communications networks is onboarding — as quickly as possible. Networks that leverage users’ social proof scale. Networks that pay to acquire customers fail. It is that simple. Implications/Application: Given these dynamics, it is no surprise that social networks are winner take all. And that justifies massive valuations and upfront investments. In winner take all markets, monetizing too soon can be catastrophic. In social, the outdated VC mantra of “growth at all costs” actually makes sense. Any advertising, any monetization and you risk reduced NPS scores and lower virality (the two MOST important aspects of any communication network). Communication Network Examples: Low Tech: fax, mail, phone Tech: Facebook, Whatsapp, Slack Strengths of communication networks Viral growth as users onboard their networks Increasing value as # of users increases Low maintenance and operating costs once established Massive switching costs to leave network Weaknesses of communication networks Require lots of capital and runway to get started Need very strong NPS score to encourage sharing No direct monetization model Some networks get too big to control the noise Content networks Whereas communication networks involve two-sided, near real-time communication, content networks are much more one-sided. And as they say, content is king — and it lasts. Content does for eyeballs and attention what markets do for commerce, it aggregates it. And content has long been a profitable business. Look at magazines and newspapers (pre-internet). These publications put out content, users subscribe (pay) and advertisers add tons of ads. The editors can sell ad space because readers are hooked and keep coming back for more. And unlike communication networks, the one-sided nature of content allows it to scale easier. An article or video can have 100 or 100M views without much increase in base costs. There are two keys to creating a killer content network: 1) the content and 2) the hook. It is one thing to wow readers or viewers, it is another to get them coming back. But because advertising is such a weak monetization model, it means you need big volume and better have users coming back for more. This is where the hook comes in. In television it is the cliffhanger ending that makes you come back next week (or next episode with Netflix). But blogs do this too. It is all about subscribing and remarketing again and again and again to drive the network. Source: TVRopes.org Implications/Application: Content networks function inversely to marketplaces. Whereas marketplaces make money by initially aggregating buyers, content companies need creators. Without the first few landmark pieces, people get bored. This is why organizations like Youtube or Netflix spend so heavily on content (empowering creators and creating content respectively). Evergreen content keeps producing, even after production ends. And with all great content, people love sharing. How many of your friends recommended Game of Thrones or House of Cards or that horrible Gangnam Style video? People want to feel cool and know about things before their friends — look at any social feed. Any content network that optimizes for quality and creativity can create a massive loyal following — as long as it effective remarkets and suggests additional content. Content Network Examples: Low Tech: newspaper, TV, radio Tech: Youtube, Instagram, Medium Strengths of content networks Evergreen content continually delivers Value (and potential customer base) increases as amount of content grows Creators do much of early marketing for you Large switching costs for creators leave network Low to no cost of content creation Weaknesses of communication networks Onboarding creators or creating content is expensive/hard Need very strong NPS score to encourage sharing No direct monetization model Some networks get too big to control the noise Local Networks Last but not least, we have local networks. As technology and the internet have connected the world, these networks have struggled. That said they are still very relevant, especially the dynamics behind them. Local networks will never die, unless VR ends reality. Look at humanity’s basic needs: food, clothing, shelter, sex/relationships. All of these are physical, tangible and heavily influence our daily lives. And evolution bred society into humanity. We are social creatures. We are built to connect. Whether that is meeting for dinner, going to the game, poker night or a casual hookup, we tend to aggregate ourselves. Think about sports? Almost every American has a TV. You could watch any game at home, whenever you wanted. So why do fans buy tickets? Why are sports pubs so popular? No one likes drinking alone. These dynamics are what make local networks so strong? Church groups, sports teams, the neighborhood pool… there are local networks all around us. The problem with local networks is that they are small. For the most part they are not VC fundable. But businesses based locally with nationwide scale can succeed. Look at — local networks of everything under the sun, organized by location and interest — like the Reddit or real life. Meetup Implications/Application: You build massive companies like this one piece at a time. Facebook was a local network before it was a communication network. The keys to growth: focus on one target customer in one location at one time. A leaking ship eventually sinks. Networks that try to scale before perfecting the model need significantly more capital and still usually fail. Franchisees are perfect example of this model. McDonalds started small, perfected the experience and slowly started to scale. Ray Kroc (not actually the founder), focused on each locale, perfecting the process and exciting the public. From their the franchise spread as nationwide and then international demand exploded. Local Network Examples: Low Tech: restaurant, sports teams, church group Tech: Meetup.com, , Tinder Nextdoor Strengths of local networks Easy to interact with early adopters/customers Brand ambassadors help with much of marketing In-person events drive greater emotional attachments Every new city/expansion increases business defensibility Weaknesses of communication networks Scaling presents logistical challenges Once it “works”, users may no longer need app (example: Tinder, Match.com etc…) Culture fit/demand differences between regions Need to compete with increasingly digital world Closing Thoughts Network effects are one of the strongest indicators of business model success. Organic growth eats paid acquisition for breakfast. Unfortunately designing network effects isn’t exactly easy. Hopefully the concepts discussed in this post help you better understand your business model. What are you investing in and how do network effects play into your investment philosophy? For investors: What are you building and how can you leverage organic growth, virality and most importantly networks effects to build an enormous business? For founders: Answer those questions successfully and this insanely long blog post will have been worth it. Before you go… If you got something actionable or valuable from this post, click the💚 or 👏 button below or share the article on Facebook and Twitter so your friends can benefit from it too. Hold down the clap button if you liked the content! It helps me gain exposure . Clap 50 times! Donations and support are always greatly appreciated BTC Wallet: 14qFdA5A6BVY8oxbWDBjUmXdTkpujbCAKr ETH Wallet: 0x36d558c84204f3902F0C5C02afBEfd649CD3E23E LTC Wallet: LNyMG1Kf6UhD5GircU8iD6uQeo5FFJCiiK

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