Windscribe is a leading internet security and privacy company. Our goal is to transform the internet with easy to use yet powerful tools, that allow anyone to circumvent censorship, access geographically restricted content, and minimize their exposure to marketers, criminals and surveillance dragnets. Our well-received applications have appeared on Lifehacker, Techradar and CNET. Do you want to help to do something about internet tracking and surveillance? If so, why not join us in our downtown Toronto office. Windscribe launched in April 2016 and has already accumulated 25 million users. Being entirely self-funded and profitable, we’re not preoccupied with appeasing stakeholders or struggling to survive without yet another VC round. You will spend your time building products that millions of people use every day to browse the web privately, the way it was meant to be.

Windscribe

windscribe

This interview series celebrates all the phenomenal . Congratulations! Well-Deserved, Champion.The HackerNoon community is excited to learn more about you! Startups of the Year Winners share the link to your winning city award here [example: ] https://hackernoon.com/startups/north-america/north-america-toronto-canada What does it mean for you to win this title? To us, it highlights that people recognize the need for a VPN in the privacy space that takes privacy seriously - and that you can do this while still maintaining a sense of humor. We’ve been working tirelessly to ensure connectivity in many challenging regions lately. Be it politics, censorship, or dictatorial aggression – we will power through with smiles on our faces. What sets you apart from the competition? I briefly mentioned our sense of humor, and that really does have an impact on all aspects of Windscribe. I think that shows. We get a ton of feedback from people saying that they love our VPN not just because it works well; it’s because of how we communicate with our community. We have the largest VPN community at discord.gg/VPN. We get fan mail from people around the world saying how certain jokes made their day - it’s great, our user base is so awesome. It makes us more approachable and that allows us to cater to their needs better than anyone else. We genuinely love this business and what it does for others. What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem? Our team is awesome: super smart people, from around the world, that get along and are genuinely concerned with privacy. Obviously, there are a lot of VPN companies out there, but we don’t cut corners, we don’t waste money on advertising or affiliate marketing, and we have rigid ethical standards (sometimes to the detriment of our revenue, but to the relief of our consciousness). We have the largest physical network out of any of our competitors. We are entirely self-funded so no one can force us to abandon our ethics. We are open about our ownership and our location - basically, there is a face behind the company, instead of a series of hidden shell companies. We spend a lot on talent, infrastructure, and researching the best solutions to online privacy issues. We take our mission very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously. If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing? Eating chili cheese dogs and letting shit slide? Enjoying having a good posture, unburdened by sitting and typing for 11 hours a day? Yelling at the moon for not being the sun? Teaching my dog how to drive? There is so much I could be doing. At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics? We have a ton of internal metrics. Speed, reliability, and ability for quick turnaround on new features. To roll out fixes, find solutions for censorship, and ensure we respond to any issue within hours. Tell us how your startup is changing the world. At the risk of sounding like we are pitching to a bunch of out-of-touch San Francisco VCs - we are changing the world by helping people who are isolated in countries with restricted internet the means to stay connected and informed about the world around them. We help journalists, protestors, and activists to champion their cause. We provide a means of communication between loved ones. We allow those in countries with only state-approved media a glimpse at the truth of issues that affect them from sources they may not traditionally have access to. We fight for an open internet and privacy for all. We’re also kind of funny, so there’s that, too. How do you or your company intend to embrace the responsibility of this title in 2024? I think if we’re able to maintain and improve on the level of service and reliability of our network, we’ll be able to make Windscribers proud. We often have cat-and-mouse-like antics with those who attempt to censor their citizens. They will often try to find a way to block us which requires us to then find ways to circumvent their censorship. Luckily our circumvent censorship feature, something we’re very proud of, works incredibly well to this extent. Our team knows what to look for, how to adapt, and how to overcome these challenges. What goals are you looking forward to accomplishing in 2024? We want to continue to grow both of our companies, Windscribe and Control D, internally and externally. It feels genuinely great knowing that we can help more and more people access information in traditionally “closed-off” parts of the world and manage their knowledge on their own terms - and do so with an international team of people who care about it just as much, and in some cases, even more than I can (some of our employees live in heavily censored countries). Pretty cliché answer, I know - we just want to keep growing. Which trend(s) are you most excited about in 2024? Share your reasons. Broccoli-style haircuts. Their rise in popularity has given us much to laugh at. But we will be much more excited once that trend dies like the man-bun trend before it. What will come after? Who knows. In the realm of technology, the list is really endless: rocketry and space exploration, AI, increasingly more useful and easier-to-access online educational content… there is a lot of interesting technology being worked on - so we are permanently excited to see what awaits the world. 2023 had been another crazy year, especially in tech, with layoffs and the Generative AI takeover! Which trend are you most concerned about? Be as brief or as detailed as you like. Honestly, AI has been really helpful to our teams. We have adopted it to help teams do more in less time — it eases the burden/annoyance of repetitive and lower-priority tasks, giving everyone more time to work on engaging problems. As for the layoffs, we haven’t had to lay anyone off, which is a blessing. We know it really sucks being let go from a company, but at the same time, this market has allowed us to scoop up a ton of really high-level talent. We have been hiring like crazy, and are still hiring more. Come and apply! Share your biggest success so far and/or your biggest failure so far. We have a company filled with very smart people who all get along to work on problems that affect people directly (censorship, access to information, etc). The team is our biggest success. We also are close to having 69 million users, which is numerologically important to us because funny sex number. My dog didn’t poop in the office this week either. Really, it’s a string of one success after another. Biggest failure? Can’t remember, overshadowed by too much success (see previous sentence). Any words of wisdom you’d like to share with us? At a time when the world is increasing its interconnectivity, it is becoming harder and harder to safeguard one’s own privacy. The main word of “wisdom” (I’ll leave it to you to decide whether it is wise), is that everyone should pay close attention to their online privacy and protect it fiercely, as it is becoming a commodity for companies, governments, and various groups to exploit citizens, and profit off of them both monetarily and psychologically. Take your privacy seriously because no one else will. Other than that… never judge a group of people by the way their government acts. Startups of The Year is HackerNoon’s Flagship community-driven event celebrating startups that survived and thrived in 2023. 30,000 startups across 4200+ cities and six continents participated this year to be crowned the best startup in their city. See our global winners announcement . here Companies that blog more get 67% more leads - Jumpstart your company’s blogging journey by purchasing our . Business Blogging Package The 2023 Startups Of The Year is sponsored by: . . The winners will get a free .Tech Domain, a HackerNoon NFT, and a Tech Company News Page. TECH Domains

Meet Windscribe, Winner of the Startups of the Year in Toronto

DailyBeast calls it Techradar calls it Dig around a little more and you’ll see a lot more praise. “the online privacy tool you should already be using.” “one of the best free VPNs around.” has only been around since July 2015, but in the last two years it’s become one of the most acclaimed VPNs around. Windscribe Clearly there’s a lot of good buzz , and it’s coming in at the right time. about Windscribe Its summer 2017, and online security has never been more important. From the Snowden leaks in 2013 to the Russia-Trump stories that dominate the news, cyber security has become an increasingly relevant topic to the climax that is right now. And if you think cyber security is a big deal for nations, you’d better believe it’s a big deal for you — an individual that is not armed with powerful intelligence agencies for protection. Sure, you may not have a foreign head of state breathing down your neck…but then again you might. There is a host of parties interested in your data, and even if they’re not, there’s a plethora of reasons to keep your information well protected. So it’s natural that lately, a lot of people are trying to find affordable ways they can be safer online. is one such option that has, as we can see, been met with a good reception. Windscribe But does really measure up to the hype it’s been getting lately? Let’s find out. Windscribe Windscribe VPN Cons Okay, cons first. Luckily there’s actually not too much to say here — all the cons are pretty minor. The 45 locations offered on the unlimited service sounds a lot better than the 8 you get for free and will suffice for most, but that’s still a big chunk of the globe getting left out — Africa and South America mostly. Customer support leaves a bit wanting, with no livechat or phone support, and there could be more documentation on their site. Finally, you’ll be dealing with average speeds. It’s not a big deal to me, but for some users, the paid version warrants better. Average speeds, a less than comprehensive customer support, and limited locations are the main downsides to . Windscribe Windscribe VPN Pros Alright, let’s talk about the good stuff. I’ll start off with something unusual — have personality. For example — on the download page, where Windscribe shows the option for mobile devices, there’s an option for Blackberry…with the caption below it reading “just kidding.” Windscribe’s services Part of this personality is honesty. doesn’t really oversell itself in my opinion, so you won’t worry about the features you get being exaggerated in usefulness or power, and the company seems to go out of its way to respect its users’ privacy (example: they don’t store activity logs). Windscribe I think the bandwidth allowance is a significant plus. If you use a free VPN you’d normally expect some bandwidth restrictions, but 10GB a month for is in my opinion pretty sizeable. Windscribe’s free version It’s easy to use and smoothly integrates with your typical internet use, so ease of use is another strong suit. Aside from modest speeds, it runs just fine, so I wouldn’t really say there’s anything so wrong with the performance. It’s feature-packed, and with good features too. P2P, a strong firewall, great privacy options, the secure link generator, and other things I’ll mention form comprehensive package that works lightly with your device and browser, and a lot of the features are available for free. Overall, plenty of pros: honest service, a decent bandwidth allowance, a streamlined interface, and a lot of features with decent performance — something that makes it good for the money. Windscribe offers Windscribe VPN’s Pricing structure is very simple, and affordable whether you’re going for the free version or the paid version. You can view their pricing page here. Windscribe’s pricing The first tier is “Limited,” which is free. However, you can only use it for one device, and only for 8 locations. The bandwidth is 10GB a month, there are no OpenVPN configurations, and firewall, P2P, and adblock services are provided. The second tier is “Unlimited,” and can be purchased on either a monthly or yearly basis. The monthly version costs $9 a month, whereas the yearly version costs $90 total, which breaks down to $7.50 a month. The Unlimited tier allows for unlimited devices as opposed to one, and instead of a 10GB monthly allowance or 8 locations, you get unlimited bandwidth and 46 locations. Plus, you get OpenVPN Configs, as well as the firewall, P2P and adblock services you’d get for free. I appreciate — they don’t complicate things too much. You won’t really need to spend time researching the “right deal,” you just need to think about what you want. Windscribe’s pricing And if you really need to take that extra step, you’re still getting a lot for a decent price. Windscribe VPN’s Features and Options Okay, let’s talk about the features and the options you get when you make an account. Right off the bat, has a lot of different versions for different platforms. You can download it for your computer — PC, Mac, or Linux — and your browser, for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera (sorry IE and Safari!). Windscribe You can of course download it for your phone as well, assuming you have an iPhone or android, for your router, and they have three config generator options. I suppose there could be more options, but realistically, it’s nice to see that covers all your bases. Windscribe You can use the browser extensions and the desktop applications alone, but you’d probably be best off just using both together (and as will tell you, you might as well, since it doesn’t cost extra). Windscribe I thought (also known as Secure.link generator) was pretty nifty. It’s a neat service that basically allows you to enter in a link and make a report card for the site as well as a “secure” shortened URL for you to use. Windscribe’s secure link generator P2P is included, as mentioned, for even the free version, and you get adblock too — something that isn’t strictly necessary for a VPN service, but which is an attractive asset nonetheless. There’s a nifty thing called cruise control for the browser extension that is unique to . It essentially connects you to the best server that is closest to you. You can toggle it on or off and select a different location from a drop down menu within the extension. Windscribe Adding to this feature is something for the desktop software called Double Hop, which, when used with the browser extension, lets you connect to a second location to further hide your traffic — though this will of course slow things down a bit. The desktop app has a good firewall put in place, a nice step to make sure your real IP address isn’t seen. You can, of course, toggle the firewall modes as you want. What’s more, you get a neat feature called “Privacy Options” for the desktop version, which lets you select between a few different choices: ad-blocker, Anti-social, Untraceable, and Split Personality. Respectively, these block ads, remove social trackers, remove known ad beacons and trackers that can track across multiple visited sites, and rotate your browser’s user agent each time you restart your browser. Obviously I can go on, but in the interest of being concise, let’s just say that features are something does well. It’s not loaded with unnecessary functions to look cool or techy, but it has everything you’ll need and a little more, and it’s all very streamlined on top of that. Windscribe Windscribe VPN’s Customer Support isn’t anything great, to be honest. It’s not bad, it’s just pretty average. Windscribe’s customer support I think you probably won’t need much customer support, because using it is pretty self-explanatory. If you don’t know what a button or a feature is, there’s often a handy explanation that will pop up just by hovering your cursor over said confusing object. Their website does have a bunch of set-up guides for each you can download (per browser, per operating system, etc.). Windscribe package The thing is, the guides for the operating systems and browsers are YouTube videos. The other formats have written and illustrated set up guides, but overall these guides feel a bit skimpy. Maybe it’s because ’s targeted demographic is already knowledgeable enough so they don’t need to be coddled — still, I think some stuff is lacking. Windscribe Aside from some simple setup guides, there’s an FAQ section and a “submit ticket” option, which is basically a form that you can use to send a message to the support team. I’ve heard that they respond fairly quickly to these tickets, and that the staff are very competent and helpful. However, I think more can be done — there’s no livechat, no phone number to call. Sure, the available options will take care of a lot, but for some users the lack of a livechat or customer service number will look shabby. Otherwise, the customer support is pretty refreshing though — it’s not too detailed, but it’s spunky and answers the vast majority of the problems customers would ask about. The whole website is tinged with humor and — most importantly — honesty. So overall the customer support isn’t a strong suit and there are a couple things lacking, but overall I don’t think the flaws are too serious. Ease of Use I liked how painless installation was. I’m neither the least knowledgeable nor most knowledgeable guy when it comes to technology, so I sometimes get a slight anxiety when I download things — what if I’m installing weird add-ons? What am I agreeing to? No such problems here. My internet isn’t even that fast, but the browser extension was quick and easy, and the desktop software similarly so (note: I’ve been using the extension for Firefox and the desktop app for Windows 7). You don’t even need an email to make your account, but beware — you’ll be limited to 2GB a month instead of 10, and you can’t reset your password (however, you can always add one later). Anyway, overall I found it integrates smoothly with the browsing experience, and your desktop experience won’t be bothered by annoying notifications. I particularly liked how efficient the browser extension was. The icon in the browser, when clicked on, opens a very simple control panel. Windscribe It shows how many GBs you have left, as well as the secure.link generator I mentioned, which is super easy to use. If you click a button on the side of the control panel, you can access a more detailed menu that can direct you to your account settings, privacy settings, a help page, and so on. The main function of a VPN is of course to protect your privacy — but takes extra steps to be unobtrusive in your day to day use, so there’s a big plus. Windscribe Because it’s so light and compact I feel it’s super handy for on-and-off VPN usage. What I mean is, if you’re not trying to use a VPN for all your browsing — if, for example, you just want to stream Netflix quickly most of the time — is great for that moment when you suddenly need more privacy than before — when you leave home and go onto a public network like a café’s wifi, or an airport’s. Windscribe Windscribe VPN’s Performance Overall, has a pretty solid performance. Windscribe This is fairly typical to say about Windscribe, but it’s not super-fast. Still, you’ll get the job done just fine. I found it fine for casual browsing, like emails and mostly text-laden pages. YouTube videos were slower than I would have liked, but hey — what can you do? Otherwise, I thought it was so handy being able to make secure links from website URLs as I wanted, and it was barely intrusive to the browsing experience. Additionally, just as any good VPN should, does its own part in protecting your privacy aside from the tools it gives you. What I mean by that is they don’t store any permanent access logs or employ anything to monitor their users. Windscribe The firewall, I assume, holds up well, as there doesn’t seem to be a notable amount of complaints about this.Though you can’t see it, these things qualify as good performance for sure: dedication to behind-the-scenes user privacy. Aside from behind the scenes performance, your day to day usage should be just fine. I found it very simple and clean to use, and it never interfered with what I wanted to do on the internet while remaining fast for accessing features I wanted to try playing with. It doesn’t feel like there’s much to comment upon here, but let’s go with no news is good news. We don’t really notice when things go smoothly, and the same is true for . But rest assured, it does indeed run smoothly. Windscribe Windscribe’s Average Speed I have tested windscribe’s speed before installed and then later installed. I got to see different results which you can see in below screenshots. Conclusion So to wrap everything up, is definitely a solid service. If you’re worried about it being overhyped, you can just try it out for free. Windscribe . See Windscribe’s plans & pricing here Yeah, there are some drawbacks, but I don’t see them as severe enough to outweigh all the positives that come with …especially since a lot of the benefits are available for free! Windscribe Originally published at hostingpill.com on August 9, 2017.

Is Windscribe VPN Good to Use?

Toronto, Canada, January 29th, 2024/Cyberwire/--In an era where online threats no longer discriminate by business size, Control D, powered by Windscribe VPN's robust security expertise, announced today the launch of 'Control D for Organizations'. This modern DNS service democratizes cybersecurity, making it accessible to businesses of every size, from budding start-ups to late stage SMBs and MSPs. Leveraging the strength of the world's largest physical VPN network, Control D is bringing unmatched expertise in navigating cybersecurity challenges and global surveillance into the hands of businesses that traditionally lacked these advanced protections. Control D for Organizations is geared at companies, schools, and NGOs of all sizes offering simplicity for smaller teams and highly specific and advanced controls for larger organizations. Control D is packed with an arsenal of tools designed to secure and empower diverse teams: Malware Blocking: Protecting business continuity against malicious threats with state-of-the-art detection techniques, all built in-house. Protect individual devices or entire networks in just a few minutes. **Multi-Tenancy: Addresses the complexity of managing access and filtering policies across different departments, subsidiaries, or customer accounts within a large enterprise or service provider setting. Modern Protocols: Security cannot be assured using standard DNS protocols. That’s why Control D supports all modern (and encrypted) protocols like DNS-over-HTTPS/3 and DNS-over-TLS. Custom Filtering: Highly granular web filters provide power users with ultimate control, while more general curated lists allow DNS security newcomers to gain maximum security benefits with minimal effort. Actionable Insights: Detailed network activity analytics empowers businesses to improve their security posture and make strategic decisions. Control D for Organizations is more than a security tool—it's a declaration that first-rate cybersecurity is no longer a luxury. It embodies a new era where organizations, irrespective of their size or financial prowess, can confidently protect their operations and data. Control D for Organizations ', Empowering Every Business with Advanced Cybersecurity Control D is a pioneer in software security, devoted to offering next-level, user-centric solutions. Backed by the years of security expertise of Windscribe VPN which protects over 68 million people, Control D leverages the largest physical VPN network and one of the fastest anycast DNS networks to deliver unparalleled security and freedom from surveillance on a global scale. Join the DNS security revolution and equip your business with Control D. Visit for more information and take your first step towards comprehensive digital protection. Additional assistance for onboarding channel partners available. Free no-payment-details required trial is available. controld.com Media Contact Information:
For further details, please contact Yegor Sak at or our channel partner lead Joe Jaghab at business@controld.com Joe@controld.com Contact Founder Yegor Sak Control D +1(848)500-9848 business@controld.com This story was distributed as a release by Cyberwire under HackerNoon’s Business Blogging Program. Learn more about the program here.

Control D Launches Control D for Organizations: Democratizing Cybersecurity All Organizations

The wait is over! - it’s time to celebrate the champion startups of the world. Shout out to all of the participants in our ! You did a wonderful job showcasing your incredible startups and powering through another year. 2023 Startups of the Year is a community-driven voting platform brought to you by HackerNoon that recognizes and celebrates tech startups changing technology and the world for the better. The award started on May 8th, 2023, where the internet nominated and voted for 30k startups around the world. The voting period remained open until December 31, 2023, and now we are here with the winner announcement after a comprehensive evaluation by the HackerNoon team. Startups of the Year 2023 To see the top 3 startups in each respective city, visit and pick a city. hackernoon.com/startups You’ll get a little surprise 😉 Here are the Startups of the Year Regional Announcements: North America Europe Asia Africa South America Oceania Misc/Remote From all of us at HackerNoon, thank YOU for your excellent campaign perseverance 🥺 This year has been awesome! Startups of the Year 2023 is concluded with 623k+ total votes, up from 215k+ votes in the inaugural startup competition. We look forward to seeing you again in the next campaign (stay tuned 😉)! Without further ado, let us kick off the announcement by celebrating the cities with top votes per region for 2023 🎉 North America (11,697 votes): Winner: Bloomfilter Cleveland, Ohio (8,835 votes) - Winner: SerpApi Austin, Texas , California (5,564 votes) - Winner: Finch San Francisco (4,258 votes) - Winner: RELAYTO SoMa, California - (3339 votes) Winner: Windscribe Toronto, Canada, North America (3304 votes) - Winner: Vouched Seattle (2716 votes) - Winner: Seccuri Palo Alto, CA, North America (2671 votes) - Winner: Salsa Valley Miami, FL, North America (2,613 votes) - Winner: Majhi Group Manhattan, New York (2423 votes) - Winner: Flieber, Inc. New York City, NY, North America See the complete announcement for the . Startups of the Year, North America, here Europe (45,612 votes) - Winner: Algomo London, UK (2,344votes) - Winner: Data Lake Warsaw, Poland (1,955 votes) - Winner: Hoken Tech Bari, Italy (1716 votes) - Winner: Not8 Amsterdam, Netherlands (1657 votes) - Winner: KYVE Frankfurt Am Main, Germany (1566 votes) - Winner: BazaIT Kyiv, Ukraine (1496 votes) - Winner:  Unity Network Tallinn, Estonia (1,478 votes) - Winner: Volcaino Ghent, Belgium (1,288 votes) - Winner: Owl Me Dublin, Ireland (1198 votes) - Winner: Groover Paris, France See the complete announcement for the . Startups of the Year, Europe, here Oceania (3,350 votes) - Winner: Sharepass Melbourne (2,107 votes) - Winner: The Catfisher Project Perth, Australia (220 votes) - Winner: Gemini AI Solutions Auckland, New Zealand, Oceania (213 votes) - Winner: Nexustorage Wellington, New Zealand, Oceania (138 votes) - Winner: Coviu Sydney (124 votes) - Winner: Bopple Brisbane, Australia, Oceania (124 votes) - Winner: Regional CFO New South Wales, Australia, Oceania (106 votes) - Winner: Edit on the Spot Gold Coast, Australia, Oceania (93 votes) - Winner: Knowledge Satnav Canbera, Australia, Oceania , Australia, Oceania (48 votes) - Winner: Peptalk360 North Melbourne, Melbourne See the complete announcement for the . Startups of the Year, Oceania, here Asia (16,345 votes) - Winner: Serenity Shield Singapore (13,588 votes) - Winners: QUIXY Telangana, India (10,168 votes) - Winner: HealthySure Mumbai, India (3,865 votes) - Winner: InterviewBuddy Visakhapatnam, India (3,733 votes) - Winner: Omniflo Bengaluru, India (4589 votes) - Winner: MeNow Tel Aviv (3877 votes) - Winner: ForestVPN Dubai (2478 votes) - Winner: TechGraph Powai, Mumbai, India (1004 votes) - Winner: Reelo Ahmedabad, GJ, India (875 votes) - Winner: Debt Hunter Hong Kong, China See the complete announcement for the . Startups of the Year, Asia, here Africa (8,179 votes) - Winner: GO PLATFORM Algiers, Algeria (767 votes) - Winner: Tudu Accra, Ghana (415 votes) - Winner: Treford Lagos, Nigeria (265 votes) - Winner: Phalconwise Ogbomosho, Nigeria (157 votes) - Winner: AbuErdan Cairo (151 votes) - Winner: Eazipay Lekki (144 votes) - Winner: KaziConnect Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (101 votes) - Winner: faceATT Gauteng, South Africa (79 votes) - Winner: Dimagi Cape Town (71 votes) - Winner: Sabi Addis Ababa See the complete announcement for the . Startups of the Year, Africa, here South America (376 votes ) - Winner: UpGirl Santiago, Chile (217 votes) - Winner: Klever Sao Paulo, Brazil (191 votes) - Winner: Tributo Simple Buenos Aires, Argentina (127 votes) - Winner: Light-it Montevideo, Uruguay (87 votes) -Winner: Thousand Antioquia, Colombia (108 votes) - Winner: GetLavado Lima (101 votes) - Winner: Cogniflow Medellin (73 votes) - Winner: TPAGA Bogota (73 votes) - Winner: Reliv Quito (47 votes) - WInner: Quantex Cordoba See the complete announcement for the . Startups of the Year, South America, here Misc/Remote: Featured Startups (1500 votes) - Winner: CIC Chain Remote, Earth (1193 votes) - Winner: Reship Colony US Misc (146 Votes) - Winner: Partful UK, Misc (116 votes) - Winner: GoMining British Virgin Islands Misc (283 Votes) - Winner: tomorrowSpace Germany Misc (225 votes) - Winner: Dtravel Cayman Islands See the complete announcement for Misc/Remote startups . here Once again, HUGE CONGRATULATIONS and BIG PROPS to all of the top Startups of each region this year! The whole team at HackerNoon would like to thank you for your perseverance in the campaign, and we look forward to seeing you in the next campaign. About HackerNoon’s Startups Of The Year Startups of The Year is HackerNoon’s Flagship community-driven event celebrating startups that survived and thrived in 2023. 30,000 startups across 4200+ cities and six continents participated this year to be crowned the best startup in their city. Visit our page to learn more. FAQ Companies that blog more get 67% more leads - Jumpstart your company’s blogging journey by purchasing our . Business Blogging Package The 2023 Startups Of The Year is sponsored by: . . The winners get a free .Tech Domain, a HackerNoon NFT, and a Tech Company News Page. TECH Domains

Stand Up for the Champion Startups of the Year! 

বছরের চ্যাম্পিয়ন স্টার্টআপের জন্য দাঁড়ান!

Setzen Sie sich für die Champion-Startups des Jahres ein!

¡Defiende a las startups campeonas del año!

Défendez les startups championnes de l’année !

वर्ष के चैंपियन स्टार्टअप के लिए खड़े रहें!

今年のチャンピオンスタートアップのために立ち上がろう!

올해의 챔피언 스타트업을 위해 일어서세요!

Defenda as startups campeãs do ano!

Встаньте на защиту стартапов-чемпионов года!

Yılın Şampiyon Startup'ları için Ayağa Kalkın!

Hãy ủng hộ các công ty khởi nghiệp vô địch của năm!

为年度冠军初创企业挺身而出！

Every time we venture online, we leave a digital breadcrumb trail behind. It could be your name or number or, more concerning, a record of your online activity; this data has value. Governments claim the information can enhance national security, and commercial corporations can personalize your browsing experience, encouraging you to buy into their marketing spiel, and, as we all know, hackers can steal your identity and money. Virtual private networks, or , are increasingly on the frontline of internet security, with businesses and home users relying on them to hide data and online activity. VPNs But are we right to put so much trust in VPNs, especially ? free VPN services The recent data breach involving the free VPN SuperVPN allegedly leaking over suggests they may not live up to their promises. With consumer confidence shaken, this breach prompts a broader discussion about what to look for in a VPN provider and how to ensure your VPN is trustworthy. 360 million user data records What is an independent audit? A VPN audit is a comprehensive evaluation carried out by independent third-party cybersecurity firms. It aims to examine the VPN’s security, privacy, and overall performance to ensure it's living up to its claims and meeting industry standards. Primarily, VPN audits fall into two categories – security evaluations and privacy assessments, and most credible VPN providers will carry out both types. Security evaluations inspect a provider's infrastructure, checking applications and other services for any vulnerabilities that could open the door for hackers to access sensitive customer data. Privacy assessments focus on the no-log policy and its strategy for informing users about the collection, storage, and utilization of their data. Why is a no-log policy important? A is crucial for ensuring the privacy and security of users. When a VPN provider operates under a no-log or zero-log policy, they do not collect or retain any data related to the user's internet activities. This includes information about what websites the user visits, what data is downloaded or uploaded, and sometimes even when the user is connected to the VPN. no-log VPN policy However, privacy policies are occasionally deemed as the cybersecurity equivalent of "greenwashing,” given that it's nearly infeasible for a VPN server to refrain from logging any data entirely – some data is necessary to ensure service speed and user experience. Thus, the kind of data accumulated and its usage become crucial aspects to scrutinize in privacy policies. It can be challenging for users to place their faith in a provider that alleges a no-logs policy but has not yet validated this claim through an independent audit. Who carries out VPN audits? The significance of the audit is tied not only to its existence but also to who executes it, and many VPN providers have audits undertaken by one of the "Big Four" consulting firms – Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, or EY. Their endorsement of a no-logs policy significantly enhances consumer confidence. Several other cybersecurity companies, including Cure53, VerSprite, Leviathan, and MDSec, are conducting VPN audits. Which providers have undertaken VPN audits? have all had their security and privacy protocols independently verified. Other popular providers have had either their security or privacy evaluated, including CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, and Windscribe. NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN, and Proton VPN How to find a VPN provider you can trust Finding a reliable VPN provider involves careful research and consideration. Here are some key factors to consider: Third-party audits: Look for independent, third-party audits verifying the provider’s security measures and a no-logs policy Provider reputation: Investigate the provider's history, particularly any past security incidents or controversies involving user data Jurisdiction: The location of the provider's headquarters can affect how your data is handled due to differing data retention laws and international surveillance alliances Encryption standards: Check that the VPN uses strong encryption methods like AES-256 to protect your data Payment options: Providers that accept payment via cryptocurrencies or gift cards offer an extra layer of anonymity Customer support: Quality customer support can guide you through issues and answer your queries User reviews: Check reviews and recommendations for insights into the provider's reliability, speed, and ease of use. In conclusion, and transparency in the cybersecurity world. These independent, third-party assessments examine a VPN provider's security infrastructure, data handling practices, and adherence to their no-logs policy, providing consumers with a more accurate picture of their offerings. VPN audits provide an essential level of trust As users, it's important that we appreciate the significance of these audits and use them as a tool for making informed choices. They form a critical part of our decision-making process, reinforcing our efforts to protect our online privacy and security.

Should I Really Trust My VPN?

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An Amazon Fire Stick is an incredibly useful device for many reasons. It provides a great number of apps for those wishing to stream and access content on their TV with as few bumps as possible. Unfortunately, even these are subject to the restrictions of streaming services themselves, rendering these sticks unable to access blocked content on their own. A VPN can resolve these issues fairly well, but even might not work so well with Amazon’s device. That’s why this article will take a look at 5 of the best VPN services that are compatible with Amazon Fire Stick and Fire TV! the best VPNs for streaming Similarly to a Chromebook, the OS used by Fire Sticks is a variation of Android. Unlike Chromebooks, many VPNs that support Amazon’s operating system can be found on Amazon itself as a downloadable app. Numerous VPNs support the Fire Stick, but there are a few lesser-known ones that can offer a similar or even better experience when compared to the biggest names out there. This article includes links to NordVPN and ExpressVPN. You won’t be charged anything extra for clicking on links to these services, but purchases made through these links will support the writer. Disclaimer: 5 of the Best VPN Services With Support for the Fire Stick and Fire TV 1. ExpressVPN 2. NordVPN 3. IPVanish 4. Windscribe 5. PureVPN 1. ExpressVPN It should come as no surprise to those remotely familiar with VPNs that is still one of the best choices overall. describes its compatibility and advises the user on what they should do to get the best experience. There is a minor caveat of the service not supporting 1st generation Fire TVs, but this is only a concern if you happen to have an older device. ExpressVPN Its webpage on Amazon’s device Pricing for ExpressVPN is around $6.67 USD per month for a 12-month subscription ( ). +3 months extra for free There are no bonus streaming-oriented packages or features, making the choice for Fire Stick users fairly simple. If you aren’t sure if you have a 1st generation device or not, don’t be afraid to take advantage of the 30-day money-back guarantee just in case things don’t work out. 2. NordVPN also has , but its compatibility list is notably different from the one shown by ExpressVPN. It doesn’t list the Fire TV 2nd Generation as compatible, but it does offer compatibility for the first. Oddly, this compatibility doesn’t spread to the first-generation Fire Stick, though it also mentions that the VPN can be used on the Fire Tablet. NordVPN its own page on the Fire Stick Despite these oddities, NordVPN is a fierce competitor, offering blazing-fast speeds and incredible reliability, making it a smart choice if you have a device that can use it. NordVPN is priced at around $3.49 per month for a 2-year plan or around $11.99 for just one month. There are pricier options to be found in the Plus and Complete packages, but the only one that might be relevant for Fire Stick users is the cross-platform password manager. Even then, if you’re only using the service on Amazon’s device, you’re likely better off sticking with the cheap options. No matter which plan you go with, the service’s top-notch quality won’t be lowered. 3. IPVanish manages to offer some unique support for Fire Stick and Fire TV. It also mentions with 1st generation devices, though its statements on where the compatibility issues lie are very clear. IPVanish a lack of compatibility It also offers some great documentation on these devices, including that work well with the VPN. This documentation alone shows a great deal of commitment to the Fire Stick, making it a favorable choice for those who crave long-term support. guides on how to set up other applications Those who want to purchase IPVanish can get a 2-year subscription for around $3.33 per month or a basic monthly subscription for around $11.99. Like ExpressVPN, it lacks any extra purchases or features that you’ll need to get for the most optimal experience. What you see is what you receive, and what you receive is a great product that can stand up to the best services out there. 4. Windscribe Though it doesn’t have on Fire Stick, is unique in a very special way. a whole lot of documentation Windscribe On top of allowing users to try the service out for free — albeit in a limited capacity — it also offers its own custom plans. This allows users to only pay for as much as they need, which isn’t very much in the context of Fire Stick usage. A regular “pro” plan is around $5.75 per month for a yearly subscription and around $9.00 for a single month. You can heavily reduce this overall pricing with the custom-built plans, making Windscribe a particularly cheap choice with some of the best personalization one can find. If you’re still skeptical on how well it’ll run, you can always download the app and test it out for yourself before making a full purchase. 5. PureVPN is just one more service that proclaims itself to be . It offers a great number of locations and offers comparable privacy to other options on this list. It also offers some fine support and documentation, ensuring users know how to make full use of the service on their device. PureVPN the best VPN for Fire Stick users It might not stand out in many other ways, but it doesn’t really need to when considering its price. Outside of Windscribe’s free option, PureVPN is the cheapest choice on this list. At around $2.29 per month for 2 years and 3 extra months, you’ll get more bang for your buck than you might expect. Even the single-month option is surprisingly cheap at around $10.95. The service comes with extra security options that come with their own per-month price tags, but only the Password Manager — and maybe Digital Security — will be relevant to most users. If you simply don’t have much to spend on a more extravagant service, PureVPN will do more than just get the job done. Final Thoughts Since a Fire Stick is almost all about streaming, features like extra security might not be as important as compatibility. Services that offer flexibility or great documentation on Amazon’s devices will definitely be more favorable than others. After installing your VPN of choice, test it out with your preferred apps and see just how well it can take the heat!

5 Best VPN Services for Fire Stick

“Whoever controls the DNS, controls the universe” (image credit: OpenAI Dalle2) spice The following article will provide a very brief overview of what DNS actually is, and what makes it “authoritative”. Then, I will discuss why you may choose to disregard its authority in some cases in order to have a better browsing experience and gain a bunch of superpowers using a service our team has built over the last 2 years. Strap yourself in. What is DNS First things first: what is DNS? DNS (Domain Name System) is a distributed “phone book” that maps (domain) names to IP addresses. When you enter hackernoon.com into your browser, it will query the router on your network for the IP address of hackernoon.com. Your home router doesn’t perform any DNS resolution and forwards the request upstream to whatever DNS server is configured there. This could be your ISP or a 3rd party resolver like Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 or Google 8.8.8.8. These resolvers are typically recursive in nature, meaning they reach out to the root DNS servers for the .com zone, and perform a recursive lookup against the authoritative DNS servers for the DNS zone (hackernoon), and then you finally get the IP(s) that hackernoon.com resolves to. So your DNS query takes the following route (simplified view): Your Device → Router → DNS Provider → Root Name Server → Authoritative Server → IP Address Saul Goodman explains this best. This process is fairly slow and can take ~1s, so typically the response is cached by the DNS provider for some period of time so the next lookup can be served from a cache. Your browser will also cache the response for the duration of the TTL associated with a particular DNS record, so as not to initiate a DNS query every single time. The responses that the authoritative DNS server emits are typically static. This means that any user, anywhere, asking any DNS server “where is hackernoon.com” will get the same response: yegor@Work-Desktop:~$ dig +short hackernoon.com 172.67.69.96 104.26.11.89 104.26.10.89 There are some notable exceptions to this when it comes to CDNs, which will geo-code your source IP, and return variable results based on your location. A user in the UK will see different IPs than a user in the US. This is done for performance reasons, so people in different countries connect to the nearby CDN location in order to reduce latency. That being said, you’re still bound by what the authoritative DNS server returns (or doesn’t). The above flow is true for pretty much every single thing that you do online that communicates with a remote server. Every web resource you download,  every API call you make, and every Git commit you do resolves a domain to an IP address that the authoritative DNS server returned. What if you could disregard what the authoritative server tells you? What advantages (superpowers) does that have? Let’s dive in. What is Control D Control D, as you probably guessed, is a DNS service. It can do all the things your standard DNS provider can (resolve  domains), but it can also do a lot more. Control D is a user-configurable DNS service that offers transparent proxies deployed on top of an anycast network, with exit locations in over 69 countries. Sure, that all sounds impressive, but what does it ACTUALLY do? When you get started with Control D, you will get a set of DNS resolvers that are unique to your account and can enforce your unique configuration. Think of it as your personal authoritative DNS server, for the entire Internet. You can customize your configuration via a simple web interface, as there are no required apps to install to use the service.  Control D supports multiple DNS protocols: - least secure, but most widely supported Legacy IPv4/IPv6 - most secure, supported by modern OSes DNS-Over-HTTPS (DoH) - most secure, supported by modern OSes DNS-Over-TLS (DoT) The first protocol offers the best compatibility and can be used on any Internet connectable device. Legacy DNS is not encrypted, so it can be easily intercepted and manipulated by your ISP, or network administrator. The latter two offer you the best privacy and security, as your DNS queries are encrypted with TLS and cannot be intercepted or manipulated. Think of it as: Legacy = HTTP DoH/DoT = HTTPS What’s the difference between DoH and DoT and which one is better? Honestly, just stick with DoH, as it operates on TCP port 443 and is indistinguishable from normal HTTPS traffic. DoT operates on a special port (853) and is easily detectable (and therefore easily blocked). The advantages of DoT (less overhead and therefore faster resolution time) are debatable, and we have not seen them in practice. Mind you, on some platforms like Android, you have no choice but to use DoT, as DoH is not supported ( ). but will be soon Once you configure one of the DNS resolvers on your device (router, computer, browser, phone) your DNS queries will be steered to the Control D network. By default, if no settings are changed, Control D will behave like a standard DNS resolver, no different than Cloudflare, Google, or your local ISP. Once you start fiddling with the knobs, you can do of neat things, by selectively disregarding authoritative DNS records and substituting your own. all kinds Block a category of sites (ads, or porn for example) Block malicious domains non-malicious domains that point to malicious IPs and Block a specific service (Facebook, or TikTok) Block a specific TLD, FQDN, subdomain, or a wildcard entry (i.e. server-*.domain.com) Spoof a service, TLD, FQDN, subdomain, or all DNS queries to a specific IP address of your choice (think a wildcard-supporting hosts file) Redirect a specific service through a proxy location (BBC iPlayer through London, for example) Redirect a specific TLD, FQDN, subdomain, or wildcard entry through a proxy location (All .ca domains get proxied through Toronto) Redirect resolved DNS queries through a specific proxy location (there are over 100 cities to choose from) all Override blocks enforced by category filters, or services Schedule any of the above behavior to kick in at a certain time of day A whole bunch more TL;DR: Control D allows you to selectively disregard the authoritative DNS records associated with any domain you attempt to resolve (regardless of it actually existing in public DNS), and replace the answers with anything you want. This can prevent the domain from loading by spoofing  it to an IP of your choice (like 127.0.0.1), or to one of over 100 supported by Control D. Then, Control D will transparently proxy SNI (and some non-SNI) enabled traffic through servers in that location/country. exit locations You can also block, spoof, and redirect ALL of your DNS queries by using the catchall "Default Rule". Bad Use Cases You wouldn’t use a hammer to perform dental surgery (hopefully) - every tool has its use case. The same applies here, so before we jump into why you use a service like Control D, let's spend a moment talking about why you . should shouldn't Life Critical Anonymity If you live in a country where freedom of speech is non-existent, or you are a whistleblower, dissident or political activist, you should not use Control D to stay safe online. Despite Control D encrypting your DNS queries, even if you are using the proxy capabilities to spoof your location, the Server Name Indication (SNI) TLS extension is still transmitted in plaintext. This means that on adversarial networks where this information is captured and filtered, Control D will not provide you any security benefits. It will not be able to unblock restricted sites, and your browsing history could still be captured by the network administrator. If this is your particular use case, you are much better off using a (shameless self-plug as Windscribe is our sister company). Do keep in mind that a VPN is not a magical security solution either, despite what you may have heard from your favorite YouTuber while they react to videos of people describing the taste of meat to vegetarians. trusted, no-logging VPN Their scripted “opinions” are worth less than the Zimbabwean dollar.  A VPN is just tools that should be in your toolbelt if you care about these things.  I could rant all day about this, but let’s move on. one of the many BitTorrent Control D will not affect the BitTorrent protocol. Since this is a P2P protocol, which does not rely on DNS, all your torrent activity will be in the clear. Control D offers an optional filter that will block all common torrent indexes and trackers, which will make the use of the BitTorrent protocol difficult on the network where Control D is deployed (and this Filter enabled), but it will not 100% eliminate all torrent activity. If you wish to apply a layer of privacy to your torrent activities, you should use a VPN. Gaming (Improvements) Many people use VPNs for gaming in order to "improve ping" or mask their IP from trolls. The efficacy of this is , but Control D is unlikely to help here. In fact, there is a good chance that if you redirect all your traffic to our proxies, it will break some games entirely. debatable We recommend disabling Control D functionality if you experience problems playing your favorite games. You can do this from the section of the control panel; simply find your game and create a rule. Services BYPASS Actual Use Cases So now that we got that out of the way, what CAN you use Control D for? The following list is not exhaustive but should give you an idea of the flexibility you can achieve. Block Ads, Trackers, and Malware (and many other things) Yes, you can use a browser extension like uBlock that will do a really good job blocking things in your browser (until anyway, when we all eat a Google turd sandwich). January of 2023 However, this will just block ads in your favorite desktop browser. All tracking (and ad delivery) that happens outside of the browser (OS, installed programs, mobile applications, and browsers) will get through. If you set up Control D inside the operating system, or on your router, all DNS queries that any application makes (including the browser) will query your personal resolver, and all your rules apply. This means you can eliminate 99% of all ads and trackers (as well as 14 other categories)  from even loading on your devices. This effectively creates a network/system-wide ad block, which is highly effective. With this in mind, you can block many other categories, including: Malware distributing, typosquatting, and phishing domains (if you accidentally click a shady link) Adult content (handy on networks with kids) Social networks (stop wasting time looking at your "feed") IoT telemetry (prevent your fridge from talking to servers in China) Gambling, Drugs, Dating sites (keep your vices in check) A whole bunch more Help with Dev Efforts You’re probably familiar with the host’s file, which allows you to define domain names that may not exist in public DNS. You can also use it to override the DNS responses that are in public DNS to point to your local dev machine or a remote dev server. With Control D you can have a remote hosts file. This has several advantages: You can enforce the same host’s file on all your dev/test devices, including a mobile (or your smart toaster) Control D supports wildcards entries, so you can redirect all subdomains with a single rule Simulate regional access to your project from over 100 city-level locations Eliminate Your Pi-Hole Pi-Hole is a great tool to control your network, deploy custom blocklists, and have visibility on what is being resolved, but there are downsides: Pi-Hole only works on your home network – Control  D works on all networks, including cellular. You have to manage blocklists yourself – Our bespoke filters are built on top of community-maintained blocklists, with tens of thousands of false positives removed, based on feedback from 45M Windscribe users. We did all the work for you! Lack of advanced blocking – Pi-Hole only blocks domain names. Control D malware filter also blocks domains that resolve to malicious IPs from threat intelligence feeds. Lack of scheduling or flexibility – With Control D, your rules don't have to be static. They can change day to day, and be different on different devices. You have to run it yourself – Control D is deployed on top of a global anycast network, is available everywhere, including cellular networks, and supports Secure DNS protocols out of the box. (Selectively) Spoof Your Location Unlike a VPN, which sends all your activity to a single server in a chosen country, you have a lot more, well, when you use Control D. Since it operates at the DNS layer, you can create all kinds of rules in your configuration to do all kinds of things. control Here is a silly example of 7 different websites seeing you in 7 different places, all at once: You can instruct Control D to resolve different FQDNs through proxies in different countries, with as little as 3 clicks. When your browser asks to resolve a domain that has a rule, Control D will return a proxy IP instead of the true IP of the destination (disregarding the authoritative answer). It will read the SNI, and forward the end-to-end encrypted request to the site you wanted to load. From here, we can get fancier. Instead of creating individual rules, you can create a folder of rules, and assign an action (block, redirect, or bypass) to it. Any domain you add to this folder will inherit and apply the chosen folder rule. Don't want to make your own rules? That's where the Services section comes in. We've created rules for over 200 most common services online, and this list is always growing based on . user requests With a single toggle switch, you can apply a chosen rule to a video streaming service, an audio service, a store, a tool, a social network, or a game.  Each service can be redirected through a unique location (or blocked entirely), so you can appear to be in 69 countries, all at once. Lastly, you can redirect all your activity through the closest , if you don't care about the geolocation of your IP. This will have the best performance and supports IPv6 end-to-end. Control D Primary Location Optionally, you can choose a specific exit location (city), which will double hop your traffic from the closest Control D Primary Location to a Windscribe VPN server in the chosen country. All of this is without having to install a VPN app. You can use all 3 behaviors in parallel to create some very unique browsing profiles. The rule engine works as follows: Custom rules take precedence over everything Service rules are second in line, and are checked if there are no custom rules that match the DNS query Filters (which block things) are 3rd in-line and will match a domain if there is no overriding custom rule or Service rule Last in line is the Default Rule, which will, like the name suggests, match queries that aren't affected by any of the above Parental/Productivity/Impulse Controls The internet is full of distractions and outright harmful content. You may choose to block certain types of content at certain times of day (or all the time) so you can get stuff done, or prevent your kids from wasting time when they should be doing their homework. Control D gives you the tools to block large categories of distractions (social networks and games) so you can concentrate on your school or work. You can also use the same tools to block harmful content like porn, drugs, and malware on your network if you have kids. You can make these rules permanent, or time-based using the Scheduler. Here are some examples: Block social networks and games every Monday to Friday, and allow playtime on the weekends during certain hours Block porn, Reddit, and TikTok Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm so you can remain gainfully employed and boost your productivity British TV Fridays: Every Friday your Netflix and Disney+ shows British content Shopping Tuesday Mornings: All popular shopping sites are blocked every day except for 1hr on Tuesday morning. Then you can decide if you REALLY needed those $800 custom sock puppets you found at 3 am after a few drinks, and thought were super cool. Unique Device Configurations You're not limited to a single set of rules. Each account allows you to have up to 10 unique browsing profiles (configurations), and you can then create up to 10 devices and enforce your configurations using unique per-device DNS resolvers. Your personal laptop and phone can have one profile,  your partner's iPad could use another, and your kids' phones can use the rest. Each physical device can be configured to access or block a unique set of filters, services, and custom rules. Conclusion As you can see, there's a you can achieve with Control D, and this article really only scratches the surface. I recommend you (no payment details required!) and play around with it - I think you will be pleasantly surprised. It's time to take back control of your Internet experience. lot get yourself a trial account PS. The service is very much in active development, so if you have an idea or a suggestion, don’t hesitate to send us any and all feedback. We release new stuff weekly.

What Is DNS and Why You Should Control It

Hackers (1995) - “The Plague: There is no right and wrong. There's only fun and boring.” In recent days, I had the opportunity to take an introductory course in . cybersecurity This text is an extract from what I studied in these past few days, and I believe these are basic pieces of information that provide a spark for those who are interested in the subject. It should be sufficient to give you some understanding of cybersecurity. I have included some links among the topics that I found useful for anyone interested in exploring the subject further. 1 - BASICS 1.1 - Network Topology Computer Network is the way computers (and other components) are connected, forming a structure. There are various forms of network topology, but the most important ones for us at this moment are: 1.1.1 - Bus Each computer is connected to the network uniquely and sequentially, Node 1, Node 2, Node 3, and so on. It is the simplest and cheapest to implement, but if any of the nodes fail, the entire system can be compromised, and security possibilities are limited. 1.1.2 - Ring In addition to being connected to the subsequent device, the computer is also connected to the preceding device. Thus, the connection is made at both ends. With this dual connection, data transfer is faster. However, if one of the nodes fails, the entire internal system will collapse. This topology is also considered less secure compared to others. 1.1.3 - Star The star connection involves a HUB that is connected to four other devices. In other words, the four devices are dependent on the HUB; if the HUB fails, all the others will also fail. Despite this, if one of the four devices goes down, the system remains stable since the "brain of the connection" is the HUB. 1.1.4 - Mesh All network devices are connected through dedicated channels. Although it is very robust and fast, its main drawback is the cost of this structure. 1.2 - Types of Network Regardless of the network topology, there are types of networks that are divided based on their area of operation, known as LAN, MAN, and WAN. In addition to these, there are networks focused on data transfer between storage devices called SAN (Storage Area Network) and the virtual LAN, VLAN. 1.2.1 - (Local Area Network) LAN It's the simplest network, the Local Area Network (LAN). Typically, it's a group of devices that share the same server. Usually limited to a short distance, typically less than 10 km, a LAN can be a simple structure such as a house, a small business, a shop, or the devices connected to these structures. 1.2.2 - MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) It follows the same idea as LAN but on a larger scale, Metropolitan Area Network. An example is the network infrastructure of a university, where different campuses are connected to the same network, even if they are located at various points in the city. 1.2.3 - WAN (Wide Area Network) Expanding on this concept, we have the Wide Area Network, which is a large-scale geographical network encompassing a country, continent, or even the entire world. An example is a large car manufacturer that connects all its factories spread across the globe to the same network, along with its stores, workshops, and more. WAN encompasses both MAN and LAN networks. 1.2.4 - (Storage Area Network) SAN Unlike the previous types, SAN focuses on the rapid transfer of information between storage devices. It's a modern approach to maintaining servers, where information is transferred between devices at high speeds. What distinguishes SAN is its specific structure, including types of hosts, switches, and storage. It can be used locally, in servers, or in the cloud. 1.2.5 - VLAN (Virtual LAN) It is similar to LAN but implemented in a virtual manner, where devices communicate with each other in a virtual environment. 1.3 - Protocols For communication between devices to exist, rules for the transmission and reception of data packets need to be in place. Although there are various protocols, the most commonly used one is TCP/IP, which is an evolution of the OSI model. 1.3.1 - OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) The OSI model characterizes and standardizes what is used for this communication, dividing it into seven layers to be analyzed. Each layer has its protocols designed for specific actions that need to occur during data transmission. For this topic, we don't need an in-depth understanding of the layers and types of protocols. The ones we'll discuss are more practical. However, if you want a comprehensive understanding of how internet navigation works, this article is a must-read: TCP/IP vs. OSI: What’s the Difference Between them? | FS Community 1.3.2 - TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) TCP simplified some layers of the OSI model but retained the use of the same protocols. 1.3.3 - IP IP stands for Internet Protocol, which is the way devices connect to the internet (here, we are not discussing the entire flow of information but rather how a device connects). There are four types of IP addresses: private, public, static, and dynamic. Private This is the IP used within a network, such as a home. It is the IP used between you and your router. When the router receives information from the internet, it analyzes to which recipient it will address the information. Public This is the public address. Your router requests an IP from your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to be used for you. This IP is typically dynamic. The request for information or the sending of information is done with this IP, and only within your router is the public IP analyzed along with the private IP, allowing the router to know where to address the information. Static This means your IP is static; it always receives the same IP. Devices where IP consistency is crucial, have their addresses defined and remain the same for an extended period. Dynamic As the name suggests, it is an address that continuously changes, even while connected, whenever necessary. With that said, let's move on to the IPv4 protocol, which is gradually being phased out in favor of IPv6. IPv4 IPv4 is the model that enables networks to transmit data, assigning an origin and destination for this traffic. However, the maximum number of IPs is limited to 4 billion, which is currently smaller than the existing number of devices. It's worth noting that IPv4 dates back to 1982. Therefore, the transition to IPv6 became necessary. Introduced in 1995, IPv6 allows for the existence of up to 340 undecillion IPs (1028 times more than IPv4). IPv6 uses a 128-bit addressing scheme, unlike the 32-bit scheme of IPv4. IPv6 Address: “2001:0db8:0000:0042:0000:8a2e:0370:7334” IPv4 Address: 192.168.1.100 1.4 - Proxy and VPN are tools used to enhance your protection through anonymous browsing. Proxy and VPN With a proxy, you connect to a server, and this server, with its IP, handles all requests on your behalf. You connect to it, and it "browses" for you. On the other hand, VPN encrypts your data. It passes through your ISP, reaches the VPN server, decrypts your data, conducts the browsing, and encrypts the results again before passing through your ISP. When it reaches you, it is decrypted. In essence, it functions as an encrypted information tunnel. 2 - DEEPWEB Some tools for secure browsing on the Deep Web. 2.1 - TOR (The Onion Router) One way to access the Deep Web is through the TOR browser, which employs a three-node route, encrypting each step akin to layers of an onion. It passes through three nodes to request information in an encrypted manner, and the response to this request also traverses three new nodes, encrypting the data again, making your browsing much more secure, albeit slower. 2.2 - DeepLinks In the Deep Web, the majority of existing sites are not indexed, making it impossible to "search" for these links. Instead, you need to know them to access them. Therefore, there are some indexed sites with lists of deep links, providing access to non-indexed sites in the Deep Web. 2.3 - TAILS Transitioning from browsers and links, let's delve into the operating system. For this, we have TAILS (The Amnesic Incognito Live System), an OS based on Debian Linux. TAILS is an operating system with a focus on anonymity and can be installed on a USB drive. It gained notoriety for being used by Edward Snowden to leak information about Microsoft. Among its native tools are Tor, Thunderbird, KeePassXC, Metadata Cleaner, and various other features. 2.4 - WINSCRIBE It is a reliable website that provides free VPN services (and additional features in the paid version). 2.5 - HIDE.ME Similarly to Winscribe, Hide.me is a tool, but for a proxy. 3 - CYBERSECURITY 3.1 - Introduction Despite being a widely used term and perhaps even somewhat obvious, it's worth taking a step back to understand what cybersecurity is all about. When we talk about cybersecurity, we are referring to the practices of protecting systems, networks, and programs from digital attacks, known as cyberattacks. Cyberattacks are ways of accessing, without authorization, altering, or destroying sensitive information. In some cases, it might involve extorting money from users. It can also be a political or social act to disrupt business operations. Cybersecurity is the constant and ongoing effort to secure information, preventing unauthorized individuals from accessing what they shouldn't. Keeping this in mind, we can consider what tools are used to achieve its scope. What should be studied, and what tools should be used daily to effectively protect data? The answer lies in using the same tactics as those who attack, simulating attacks to find vulnerabilities in the systems we intend to protect. In essence, what needs to be studied and done by those in the field of cybersecurity is, to a large extent, similar to what attackers do. However, the goal is to document, instruct, and improve the protected environment, closing possible security loopholes. 3.2 - RED TEAM x BLUE TEAM One of the most common cybersecurity practices is simulating attacks, usually divided into two teams: the Red Team and the Blue Team. These exercises aim to identify points of vulnerability, determine areas for improvement in defense, make changes to defense processes, and develop quick responses that should be executed when an attack occurs. The RED TEAM is obligated to attack, identify and exploit vulnerabilities in the defense. It's important to note that all of this is done at the request of the company. Everything being explored has been previously agreed upon as permissible access to the information being targeted. The Red Team doesn't have direct access to this information, so, like a real attacker, they attempt to access this information. On the other hand, the BLUE TEAM is responsible for protection, both preventive and reactive, during an attack. They must be capable of identifying the intruder, analyzing what they interacted with, and expelling them from the system. While these two teams are the most common, other types of teams encompass more than one responsibility, such as the Purple Team. 3.3 - PTES - Framework: PTES (Penetration Testing Execution Standard) is a penetration testing process. This process was developed to maintain a standard in the format in which penetration tests should be conducted, which does not mean that the content of the actions is predefined. Like any process, it is based on stages to be completed, and it is no different with this one, which is divided as follows: 3.3.1 - Pre-Engagement Covers all activities before the active start of the penetration test. It involves contracts, goal definitions, limits, and what cannot be used. It is the preparation to ensure that the test is conducted correctly and to clarify the client's objectives. Red Team: Schedule attacks, study potential targets, and try to identify weaknesses before the actual test. Blue Team: Define defense protocols, analyze potential weak points, and create procedures for test approval. 3.3.2 - Intelligence Gathering It is the external collection of information, attempting to accumulate as much information as possible about the network infrastructure, applications, users, and potential points of vulnerability that could be exploited during the test. OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) is used here, which will be explained later, to access as much free information about what will be attacked. Red Team: Collect information, investigate, study public profiles, and identify exposed sensitive data. Blue Team: Verify exposed sensitive information and develop strategies to protect data sensitive to such exposure. 3.3.3 - Threat Modelling Models are created with the target system in mind, making it clearer to observe the possible network securities and the most significant vulnerabilities. The model tries to encompass as many possible vulnerabilities, the most severe ones and those that need to be prioritized in an attack. Red Team: Identify potential attack vectors. Blue Team: Develop defense measures to neutralize vulnerabilities or hinder access to the most critical data. 3.3.4 - Vulnerability Analysis All information and models created are analyzed to effectively validate existing vulnerabilities. It is the validation of collected information and listed vulnerabilities. Red Team: Validate vulnerabilities to exploit security breaches. Blue Team: Implement defense measures created in Threat Modeling, fixing software, and adding new security options. 3.3.5 - Exploitation It is the attack itself, where the Red Team tries to invade the system through the weaknesses found, and the Blue Team tries to monitor the attack and block attackers before they dominate any system breach. 3.3.6 - Post-Exploitation When the attack is successful, there is Post-Exploitation, where the Red Team tries to maintain control over part of the target system to collect additional information. It is as if the attack has been executed (Exploitation), reached its goal, and now something is kept in the attacked system to collect more information. Red Team: Maintain control over part of the system, collecting more information. Blue Team: Try to detect unauthorized activity and implement containment measures after an attack or as part of a routine, avoiding the existence of unauthorized access. 3.3.7 - Reporting The final phase, where a report is produced for the client, covering all identified vulnerabilities, ways to mitigate these vulnerabilities and other necessary improvements. 3.4 - OSINT (Open-source intelligence) OSINT is a method of collecting public information, particularly prevalent in the cybersecurity context, aiding in the discovery of sensitive information publicly available on the internet. The helps find tools for collecting this public information, offering a wide array of potential tools depending on the desired information. Here are some key tools: OSINT framework 3.4.1 Google Hacking Advanced use of Google to employ specific search techniques to find results that are not easily accessible through regular searches. 3.4.2 Shodan Known as the "Google" for devices connected to the internet. Identifies open ports on devices like cameras, computers, or any unprotected devices. 3.4.2 Maltego Focuses on finding information and establishing relationships between people, companies, domains, sites, and documents across the internet. 3.4.3 Social Engineering Involves manipulating individuals to obtain information, often by deceiving them to compromise the security of the target. 3.5 Nerwork Scanning and Enumeration One of the simpler ways to implement PTES concepts. Involves identifying active devices in a network, either to expel or infiltrate the network and search for hosts, services, and information. To accomplish this, tools like , and are highly useful. Metasploit Meterpreter Wireshark If you found this text interesting and these tools compelling, you can delve deeper into cybersecurity with other articles, courses, and videos available.

My First Steps in Cybersecurity: What I Have Learned and Tools I'm Using

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In recent years, there has been a gradual increase in the number of podcast audience all over the world. As people can listen anytime while simultaneously doing other activities, they find listening to a podcast more convenient than reading a blog post or watching an informative video. In contrast to social media, they help people in engaging with their audience with long-form content. Since the industry is still untouched by many, there are incredible opportunities for students, teachers and researchers to produce good quality scientific content and connect with their audience. However, creating scientific podcasts can be a challenging task. To make an effective one, individuals need to understand the complexity of scientific topics. Additionally, you must also demonstrate the ability to communicate the important points of the complex topic in simple language for the audience to understand. Once a clear script is created, the next steps include recording, editing, uploading and connecting with the audience. If you are new to this, then here is a complete guide of recording a scientific podcast and making it a hit amongst your audience. Equipment required for recording New presenters might find it confusing to select the right recording equipment. It is a common belief that the quality really depends on the equipment used. However, new podcasters can start with a small setup and gradually expand their list. Here is a list of basic hardware tools required for recording: A microphone While it is easy to record with the help of a smartphone or an in-built computer microphone, using a separate microphone for recording will make your scientific podcast sound more professional. A microphone plays a great role in determining the audio quality. Thus, make sure that you invest in a good-quality microphone. Simple USB microphones can offer great audio quality but if you want to significantly improve the quality then go for a microphone that is front-firing and has good rejection. This kind of microphone will clearly pick up your voice and will filter out all unwanted sounds from your surroundings. Before picking up a microphone, determine whether you will be using it to record your audio or to take interviews and also if you will record in a quiet room or in noisy surroundings. Some of the best microphones include Snowball, Zoon H2N, Samson Q2U, and Blue Yeti. A computer Using a smartphone for recording, editing and publishing a podcast can seem like an easy option. However, due to the small screen size, a smartphone is not an optimal option. A computer will not only make it easier for you to record but also will come handy to edit, save and upload your work. Additional equipment A microphone and a computer are the most basic and important tools required for any recording. However, as you progress in your podcasting journey you can invest in more tools such as an audio interface, a mixer, a pop filter or a windscreen, compressor, microphone stand, headphone, headphone amplifier, shock mount, etc. Software requirements Once you have recorded your audio, the next step is to edit it and publish it. GarageBand is one of the widely used software for editing audio files. Although it is free software, it is only available for Mac users and is not available on computers powered by Windows. However, Windows users can use Audacity which is also a free audio editor. One of the best features of Audacity is that it is an open-source audio editor which means users can easily make changes to the original code. Audacity also offers online tutorials and videos for new podcasters to efficiently use the software. Other commonly used podcast editing software includes Adobe Audition, Alitu and Descript. After editing your content, you can move forward to the publishing stage and upload it. However, signing up to a media host is an important publishing step. With the help hosting sites such as Soundcloud, Libsyn and TuneIn you can publish your episodes online. Apps such as iTunes and Spotify will then pull your show from these sites and will make it available to a global audience. Furthermore, you can also use hosting services such as Speaker or Omny. Apart from being user-friendly, these services also make it easier for the users to organise and publish different episodes in one place. Software for organising guest sessions For those planning to record with a co-host or interview long-distance guests, then specific software such as SquadCast and Zoom can help you in recording each speaker on a separate track. If you want to only record the audio, then SquadCast can assist you in recording high-quality lossless audio without recording the video conferencing. If you are planning to record both audio and video content of your guest session, then Zoom is one of the best online interview platforms. However, while recording a guest session in Zoom, you will have to compromise on the audio quality might as the audio is compressed. Steps involved in publishing a podcast Since you cannot directly publish your podcasts, here is an example of the steps involved in publishing on iTunes: 1. Before you publish, create an RSS feed. Sites such as Libsyn and Podbean automatically create the RSS feed for their users. 2. After creating an RSS feed, click on “Submit a Podcast” on the iTunes Store. 3. Next enter your feed URL as well as other information such as Name, Description and Author. 4. When you submit your show, you will get a confirmation message from iTunes about the status of your submission. Once approved, it will be available to audiences in three to five days. Author Bio This article was contributed by Laura Butler, owner of , a multimedia digital agency specialising in helping people create, launch and grow successful podcasts in a variety of genres. The Loop Podcasting Agency

Recording Scientific Podcasts – Where Do I Start?

Metrics are crucial to DevOps and Continuous Delivery as part of the process of continuous improvement. However, you must balance collecting and displaying data with being flooded with information. You need to decide what data to collect and what smaller set of data you pay attention to at any time. If your car had a dashboard that displayed every metric it collects through the engine management system, there'd be no space for a windscreen. Early cars only featured an on their dashboard, which measured the electric current between the battery and voltage regulator. This was important as it told you the charging system was working. There was no speedometer. Cars could only achieve a top speed of 35 miles per hour, and the suspension discouraged traveling at this speed. It wasn't necessary to measure velocity. ammeter In a modern car, no dashboard space is given to an ammeter (though a battery light will illuminate if there's a problem). But, you will find a speedometer in almost every car. The current dashboard design reflects the development of cars and the broader system they operate in. Engines are more powerful, suspension systems are better, roads are generally smoother, and more cars are on the road. Attitudes towards safety have also changed. Similarly, the metrics you collect and show will change over time as you respond to differences in your team and organization. As you create and evolve your measurement system, there are some common mistakes you should avoid. Ignoring the data The first problem with metrics is that you expend great effort collecting them, but they're not always used. This happens even in organizations that regularly review the numbers. Your data needs some process that generates insights. You can turn what you discover from the information into theories you use for experiments. The experiments should then provide new data to start the cycle again. The only good reason to collect DevOps metrics is to learn more about your work and find ways to improve it. If you collect data , the chances are it will be misused or not used at all. just in case Activity bias There are 4 levels of measurement, with activity often being the earliest and easiest to collect. You can usually track activity in near real-time. The result of the activity is not typically available as an output or outcome-based metric until some later date. Activity metrics are usually a built-in feature of your existing tools, so they're already available. The problem is not all activity represents progress. Some activities might even reduce output and result in worse outcomes. You can use activity metrics to predict future changes to outputs and outcomes. To do this, you must continually test the relationship between your activity metrics and your related output or outcome metrics. If you only measure activity, you get a lot of motion but no progress. Tracking too much at once The number of metrics you collect and display can increase, often rapidly. Before long, you've filled your dashboard with charts, and you don't know what's important and what isn't. You need to keep your tracked metrics lean, current, and relevant. When a chart is no longer helpful, you should remove it from your dashboard. You should also consider whether the metric still needs to be collected and retire it if you don't have a good reason to track it. If you already have a dashboard, open it, and for each chart ask, "What would I do differently if this number went up or down?". Revisit this question frequently, deleting any chart where you don't have an answer. Your metric set should focus on key long-term output and outcome metrics, with dashboards showing short-term metrics across all categories in your current improvement efforts. Jumping into tools Data visualization tools like Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, or Google Data Studio are among the most useful software products you'll have in your organization. Many business tools have a grid or text-based interface, but data tools come stacked with colorful animated charts. It's easy to be distracted by creating an engaging dashboard. If you don't begin with metric design, you end up with lots of pleasing dashboards that have no impact on your daily work. You need dashboards and charting tools to help you make sense of the information but design the metrics first. It's better to start in low-fidelity to collect meaningful metrics. It's okay to start with a simple spreadsheet or even a whiteboard. After you work out which measurements are helpful to your team and organization, start automating the collection and creating slick displays. If you invest too much time creating a stunning dashboard, you'll find it harder to delete charts when they're no longer required. Standardization Some organizations try to replicate the success of a high-performing team by making other teams follow the same process. This is rarely successful, as each team works on different problems and has different skill levels. Just as the process and practices need to be context-specific, so do the metrics. You should address metrics as part of your continuous improvement activities. For a team with long lead times, you measure batch size, queue times, and the time work spends in each state. These metrics are unsuitable for a team whose primary problem is quality. This requires the data, insight, theory, and experiment cycle where you look at the information you have about the problem you want to solve, form a theory about what might improve the issue, then run an experiment to test your idea. The metrics you collect also signal to the team what's important . You often see improvements simply because your metrics communicate that you care about some aspect of software delivery. at the current time Relying on eyeballs You should create a simple dashboard to display the metrics you're tracking for experiments. This should be displayed on an information radiator so everyone on the team can see the data. However, if you only react to data when someone looks at a dashboard, you'll crowd the dashboard with too much information and miss key events. Long-term metrics you keep to track progress over time will seem as important as the short-term metrics you use to improve your software delivery. The key to resolving the problem of retaining long-term metrics without cluttering your dashboard is to put in place a monitoring and alerting process for the data. Automated alerts should tell you if the metrics cross a threshold, and you could use anomaly detection to tell you if something interesting happened. With metrics tracked automatically, you can remove them from the dashboard to free up space. Rewarding performance If your team is working to increase its deployment rate, it can be tempting to incentivize them with a reward if they achieve daily deployments. This approach to motivation leads to poor outcomes. A team might let other critical work slip to achieve the goal - not to cheat the system but because you made daily deployments more important than anything else. In the landmark book, explains that attempting to manage people with incentives leads to long-term harm for your organization. Hundreds of studies have found that people do worse work when offered rewards. Alfie Kohn Using metrics to create a competitive atmosphere, either for individual performance, comparison of different teams, or to gamify the workplace (where you introduce game elements as a form of "fun" competition), all lead to trouble. Competition conflicts with what you really need in your organization: collaboration. If you work on the assumption that people want to do good work, you'll find you don't need to use rewards or punishments to get them to improve their performance. Conclusion The 5 DORA metrics and the SPACE framework provide pre-built, balanced ways to measure software delivery performance. (There used to be 4 DORA metrics, but an additional metric was added.) reliability A good set of metrics will mix leading indicators to predict performance with lagging indicators that check the accuracy of predictions. Measurements should span activity, output, system output, and outcome categories. Whatever you measure, you need to constantly refine your metrics to ensure they remain useful to your team and organization. Ideally, the metrics you collect are relevant to a specific experiment you're running to test a theory. If you use metrics well, you amplify performance and learning as you seek to become one of the elite performers in software delivery. Also published here.

7 Common Misconceptions about DevOps Metrics

Tim Bos, CEO at ShareRing talks about User Identity in the Metaverse with Ishan Pandey Ishan Pandey: Hi Tim, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” Please tell us about your background and the inspiration behind ? ShareRing Tim Bos: Hi Ishan, thanks for inviting me to be part of the series. Well, where do I start? I’ve had a passion for cutting-edge technology and how big ideas can change the world for as long as I can remember, from the late 80’s and early 90’s when I taught myself how to code 68000 assembly language on the Commodore Amiga, and also used to ‘hack’ into bulletin boards and various other things (phone phreaking, etc), for a bit of fun. My first real job was in 1995 when I worked for Melbourne House (Beam Software), a leading video game development company that Atari later acquired. Around that time, I was also interested in the web (AARNet at the time. I spent too much of my time writing MUD’s on various systems) and its potential. I started a small training group at the local university to teach people about it and how to get online. I guess that was my first startup. After that, I worked for a few consulting companies, including Avanade, GE, and also Barclays Capital investment bank. I finally took the leap and started my own company in 2004 called bioWatch. We developed one of the first cloud-based GPS tracking systems, initially with a focus on the horse racing industry, but we moved into vehicle tracking pretty quickly. I sold that company in 2010 and then started Caramavan, a peer-to-peer caravan/motorhome sharing company with my partner at the time. We struggled to get that off the ground and ended up selling it to a listed company in 2012. In a similar ‘sharing economy’ vein to Caramavan, I founded Keaz, a leading white label vehicle sharing platform, in 2012. This was subsequently sold too. Throughout this time, I also kept up to date with new technologies. I mined some Bitcoin in around 2010 just for fun and was engrossed with the potential of Ethereum smart contracts when I came across it in 2016. All of these ideas and learning led me to conceptualize ShareRing in 2017. : Vested Interest Disclosure The author is an independent contributor publishing via our . Be it through direct compensation, media partnerships, or networking, the author has a vested interest in the company/ies mentioned in this story. HackerNoon has reviewed the story for quality, but the claims hereon belong to the author. #DYOR brand-as-author program Ishan Pandey: According to you, what is the future of the sharing and rental economy and how does solve the issues being faced in these businesses? Web3 Tim Bos: As someone who was previously active in the car sharing economy, I saw a lot of issues that created high levels of  friction for the renter and the company. One issue is around the fragmentation of the whole industry. If I’m travelling to Europe, and I want to rent a car from Share Now in Paris, then I go to another city and want to rent a SIXT car, then maybe I want to use a co-working space for a while, or check into a hotel or AirBNB/VRBO. Every one of these services requires me to spend 15-20 minutes signing up, scanning my ID, sending all my personal information and waiting for them to approve me. Furthermore, all of my information is stored on their centralized servers, waiting to be stolen. There are so many opportunities to improve this process. Imagine if each of these companies had a standardized sign-up process and simply added a QR code on their windscreen/front-door that allowed you to scan it, and then get instant approval to book or use their asset/location. Furthermore, this increased standardization would reduce costs for the companies whilst also decreasing the rate of fraud that they experience. Ishan Pandey: What are your views on NFTs? Do you think that we will see an NFT market crash and loss of liquidity with the end of free money and the rise of federal bank interest rates? Tim Bos: Unlike 99% of the market, I don’t see NFTs as simply art. Whilst it’s a great use case to guarantee the authenticity of artwork, it has a utility that far exceeds this simplistic view. An NFT can be a method of positively authenticating almost anything. For example, your identity can be linked to an NFT as a way to prove something about yourself in Web3 applications. You could have an NFT-based land title that would make it easy to prove ownership and transfer this title to someone else. You could have NFT-based NFT tickets (which we are doing now) that will eliminate ticket scalping fraud, fake tickets, and also ensure the artists/agents benefit from ticket resales. There are many more examples of where NFTs can remove friction, fraud and frustration from various industries and services. As for the NFT art market, I’ve been an art avid art collector for the past 18 years, so I have a personal interest in where this is going. I could write an essay on the subject, but in summary.. 99% of the NFT ‘art’ projects will go to zero and disappear. Any NFT art project requires a strong community and an ongoing belief in the team to succeed, but a lot of the groups that are launching the NFT projects aren’t factoring that in, so the community interest slowly disappears shortly after the launch of the NFT (this happens for many reasons, including founders who take 100% of the proceeds off the table, leaving nothing for the community building). There are also a lot of traditional artists who have jumped into the NFT space, only to find that their art hasn’t had much success or reached the stratospheric values of many other NFT projects. This is because they don’t understand the dynamics of the market well enough, but also because the ‘art collector’ community that buys their paintings, prints and sculptures aren’t the same people as the crypto degens who are betting on the next big NFT ecosystem project. Ishan Pandey: Gaming companies with virtual currency-based products are on high alert following the recent fall of TerraUSD (UST) and Luna. What are your views on the latest developments and concerns surrounding the Luna and UST token? Tim Bos: I looked deeply at Luna, UST and Anchor late last year and it appeared to me that the whole model was unsustainable, particularly if the market aggressively entered into bear territory (which it has so dramatically done). What really shocked me was how many startup crypto projects had almost the entirety of their treasury in Anchor. The thinking was that if they could receive 20% APY, the interest alone would cover their operating costs. A lot of people got hurt (directly and indirectly) because of this completely flawed ecosystem that was built. Terra’s actions to try and restore the UST peg were also a very badly thought out knee-jerk reaction that sent shockwaves through the whole market. I believe that there’s some good potential for algorithmic stable coins, but not when they’re attached to an unrealistic lending protocol or not when they’re so reliant on the price of a single token. It would be good to see some more crypto companies take a proactive approach and introduce strong internal governance and best-of-breed regulations when launching DeFi products (something that only a few organizations such as have done). Crypto.com Ishan Pandey: What is ShareRing ID and what is its impact? Tim Bos: ShareRing ID is the nucleus of the ShareRing Vault. It’s generated from the first document that’s uploaded during the user sign-up process. This is very important, as all of the other identity documents are checked against this ShareRing ID. For example, if you’re uploading a graduation certificate with a name on it, the system will check the name on that certificate against the name in your ShareRing ID. Or if you’re adding another type of photo ID, the photo will also be matched against the one in the ShareRing ID. Ishan Pandey: Tell us about the ShareRing network and the technology behind it? Further, how does it impact the industry? Tim Bos: ShareRing was created with a couple of simple goals. We wanted to remove the friction that’s involved with accessing many different products and services, whilst maintaining the highest levels of trust and security for the users. Over the years, there’s been a trend for large companies to host more and more data about you in their data warehouse to provide you with a ‘better service’. But as a user, you still need to give all of your personal information to a new company every time you sign up with them. And far too often, there’s a hacker that gains access to and leaks (or sells) this information. By using the concepts behind self-sovereign identity and W3C, we’ve created the ShareRing Vault. This technology allows you to store verifiable documents (and associated data) securely on your phone (or backup drive) and then use these documents to sign up for, and gain access to various services that we are adding to our ecosystem, from concerts and events, and eventually university campuses, worksites that require specific credentials/qualifications, to travel and car-sharing services. The important thing is that, whilst ShareRing provides the infrastructure to access these services, we don’t store any PII about our users, beyond your name and email address. Ishan Pandey: What kind of documents does ShareRing Verify? How does the protocol secure a user’s personal data? Tim Bos: Generally, any type of document. We take a broad view of ‘identity’, in that it is a piece of information that allows you to verify something about yourself to another person or company. For example, it could be a passport or license, but it could also be your medical or vaccination history, or a ticket to an event, a graduation certificate, a trade/work certificate, or even or an NFT that you own. We have 3 methods of verification for these documents. There’s verified at source, when the original creator of the document (ie. a graduation certificate) scans and enters the information via our document issuance service. The document is then encrypted using your public key and then sent directly to your ShareRing Vault. We also have ‘verified by ShareRing’. Documents in this category are scanned using the ShareRing app, but they’ll have something unique about them that will allow the ShareRing app to verify the authenticity of the document. It might be a QR code with the bio data encrypted in it, or it might be an NFC chip and MRZ like we have on passports and ICAO-compatible identity cards. We then have self-verified. These documents don’t go through any 3rd party verification. The user simply scans and adds these to the ShareRing app. In all of these cases, a digital hash is taken of the document and associated data and then written to the blockchain. This means that when the user presents their document to a person or business (either physically or online), then the document’s authenticity (and evidence that it has never been tampered with) can be verified on the ShareLedger blockchain. The document is also always encrypted with the user’s public key and placed into their ShareRing Vault on Android or iPhones. We are also in the process of introducing a smart contract engine to ShareLedger so 3rd party developers can write their own interactions and contracts for the ShareRing Vault identity. Ishan Pandey: According to you, what new trends are we going to see in the blockchain industry? Tim Bos: Given my current focus, I see a huge demand for identity-related products. These products can genuinely reduce fraud and increase trust, but also remove user friction. As regulation starts to roll out across the crypto industry (this is inevitable, given the recent events with Luna, Celsius, etc), there will be a lot of demand for identity products in a Web3 world. The current Web2 (centralized and self-sovereign)  identity solutions won’t stand up in Web3, particularly when you need to prove your jurisdiction, age, or something else to interact with a purely Web3 DAO. I’m also looking forward to seeing more projects demonstrating real-world utility for NFTs. Don’t forget to like and share the story!

Web3 User Identity Needs to be Transparent and Secure 

Watch the Video Review, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUPUrbRWaWc Range of Total Cost: $200 to $450 1. Webcam — NexiGo https://www.amazon.com/Microphone-Streaming-AutoFocus-NexiGo-N680P/dp/B08CL56SDS Anything with 1080p HD quality, but this would be mind pick, based on lots of research and comparisons. Whatever you get, it also needs to come with software, which allows for controlling the image coloring and contrast output. 2. Lighting — Softbox Lighting https://www.amazon.com/HPUSN-Professional-Photography-Continuous-Reflectors/dp/B07NBP6D98/ — Portable Photography Lighting https://www.amazon.com/Neewer-Portable-Photography-Lighting-Adjustable/dp/B07YFY7H7J I use the full Softbox Lighting solutions, and they sit to the sides of my desk 24/7/365. I’ve never had to replace the bulbs, over the few years I’ve had them. If you didn’t want such a cumbersome lighting solution, then the smaller portable lights may work better for you. Either way, you’ll have to use your webcam software to correct the coloring, or you’ll look white-washed. 3. Backdrop — Generic Stand https://www.amazon.com/Studio-Adjustable-Background-Backdrop-Support/dp/B00MTF6ZVC — Two Backdrop Sheets https://www.amazon.com/Elegant-Comfort-Wrinkle-Free-Egyptian-Quality/dp/B01MEEXIQD/ You don’t need paper, so I just use a black king size bedsheet as a backdrop. I also don’t use a backdrop stand, but rather I fashioned something from Home Depot using PVC pipe, and nailed it to a beam on my ceiling. With two sheets, I can part them, and walk through the area unhindered. I have a large desk behind mine, where my scraping servers reside. 4. Microphone — Cheaper https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QLNYBG9/ — Better https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Condenser-Microphone-Streaming-Podcasting/dp/B07QKQJL17 Make sure to grab a “ ” as well. If there are any issues with availability, then just make sure you get something that is at-least above the $60 price range, and that has a desktop mic stand. mic cover foam windscreen You don’t need to have a mic holding stick that sits right-up next to your face, unless you want it to sound like you are a radio broadcaster. This is a silly style that is preferred by the podcasting culture, but it’s totally unnecessary. You can set the mic about 1ft away from your face, on your desk, out of the view of your webcam, and it will still sound great. 5. Headphones — Cheapest Pleather Studio Monitors https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T8MKM94/ Cheapest Non-Pleather Studio — Monitors https://www.amazon.com/Samson-SR850-Semi-Open-Back-Reference-Headphones/dp/B002LBSEQS/ — Best Non-Pleather Studio Monitors https://www.amazon.com/Philips-SHP9500S-Precision-Over-ear-Headphones/dp/B00ENMK1DW I got my current pair of Studio Monitors over at Guitar Center on a clearance sale, years ago. They were $30, marked-down from $70, so that’s an option, as well, if you wanna see some pairs locally. Pleather is cheap, but every two years your pleather products will begin to flake and disintegrate, so anything made with pleather is NOT a cost-effective long-term investment. 6. Recording Software — Faster https://www.screencastify.com/buy — — More Flexible https://obsproject.com/ FREE (any platform that supports LIVE broadcast, like YouTube or Facebook) I still use Screencastify for all my screenshares, but it is VERY limited. The main reason I use it is because of it’s direct connection to my YouTube channel, which allows me to save a ton of time. The output is higher quality, and significantly more flexible, with OBS, but there is a small learning curve, and it takes some handling to get your videos to a finished state. You can also just use a LIVE broadcast utility, like the ones offered by Facebook or YouTube, etc. There are some advantages to doing your on-page beforehand, but if you make a mistake, or accidentally reveal some sensitive data, then there’s a bit of risk involved. 7. Editing Software — FREE https://shotcut.org/ (or none at-all, which is my preference) Here is my video guide for how to use this software — FREE https://inkscape.org/ (for thumbnails) Here is my video guide for how to use this software As far as editing, unless you are trying to do something comedic, then the speed doesn’t need to be at the obnoxious Vine’s or TikTok level of editing that people have become accustomed to. I’m also intentionally leaving-out a section on stock media and outsourcing, because you don’t really need it, and incorporating that stuff will take more time than most of your videos take to actually record. Once your channel starts bringing-in big traffic, then you can circle-back, and start incorporating more sophisticated media, but for now, my recommendation is to not waste your time with it. If you make half an image a picture of your face, and the other half a text description, or basic icon, then you’ll be ahead of most of your competition. You can also skip making thumbnails altogether, then go-back and add something nice, later on, if a video starts gaining traction. 8. YouTube SEO and Strategy — YT Keywords https://keywordseverywhere.com/ I sometimes use a tool called “ ” for YT keywords, and insights, as well. MorningFame That tool tells me that the majority of my traffic, which is small yet still gets me steady subscribers, comes from internal YouTube SEO. So, it makes a big difference to invest time into setting your on-page features, like titles, description, hashtags, and tags, with the appropriate keywords you wanna rank for. It’s ideal to vlog everyday, but any level of frequency will get you progress, using any kind of keyword research. Getting your videos embedded, on other sites, will increase rankings a bit, and link-building works, here, as well, but the main thing is to do good on-page, and create a lot of content. You can always improve rankings later, if something is on-its-way to ranking for something legitimate. Make sure to put your most important link at the very top of your description, as a small part of that area is visible without needing to click “ ”. show more If that link is also a location where you have embeded that video, then you will receive a powerful SEO boost for both properties. Follow-Me! :) You can join my mailing list, if you wanna stay up-to-date with all my free content and innovations: https://sendfox.com/getivan Best to you, and thanks for reading! https://www.getivan.com/ Previously published at https://getivan.medium.com/ivans-guide-to-video-streaming-equipment-for-pc-8606f15c434

Your Guide To Video Streaming Equipment for PC: 2021 Edition

When we talk about pedestrian traffic, safety must be the top concern. But sadly, transportation infrastructure worldwide pays more attention to the vehicle's safety, not people. More than were killed in car crashes in the year 2017. This does not end here as in the same year, more than of pedestrian-car crashes were also reported. 5,900 pedestrians 136,000 cases of non-fatal accidents Upon inspection, around 45% of cases reported a drunk driver or an intoxicated pedestrian. Additionally, most of these accidents occur at night, which shows that most of the vehicles, even those included in the luxury tier, do not have adequate lighting to alert the driver or the pedestrian on the road. According to !important , the prominent pedestrian safety app developer, “The demand for state-of-the-art technologies to prevent vehicles from colliding people has gained momentum in recent times. Today, many companies are coming up with innovative car safety ideas that could help deal with the pedestrian safety crisis.” Regardless of the cause of these fatal incidents, there is no comprehensive solution to avert them. In response, automotive manufacturers are now developing advanced crash-prevention technology in their new models. Given the alarming number of fatal traffic incidents, the presence of automated acceleration and braking systems is increasing. New cars are coming with a system that cautions the driver while changing lanes on the road. Also, around , are reported to have come with a pre-installed crash-prevention system. However, these crash-avoidance systems fall short of our current need, as they are more driver-oriented and cater to the safety needs of those inside the vehicle only. 80% of vehicles sold in 2018 On the flip side, the top automakers realize the urgency to include safety controls to avert accidents and meet the two-way safety goal for both the pedestrian and the driver. They have committed to improving the safety controls with advanced tech with an ever-improved road sense. There’s no doubt that that ensures Pedestrian safety is the real challenge for automakers, globally. Therefore, we’ll look at some of the top car safety techs that are currently in development for installation in upcoming models. car tech Automated Braking System More than 95% of carmakers in the US have committed that all new vehicles by 2022 will come with a pre-installed automated emergency braking system. A prominent development is German carmaker Bosch's emergency braking system, which uses advanced algorithms to detect walkers and cyclists on the road. It functions within a 20-meter radius, using radar and a camera installed on the top of the windshield. The detector alarms the driver if a pedestrian or cyclist is found within a range of 20 meters, and triggers the emergency brake. The high-tech can even identify an object or pedestrian in foggy conditions, thus overcoming the limitations of previous standard automated brake tech. A special feature of this braking system is that it constantly monitors side-ways and in front of the car. It’s super-fast in analyzing the situation as the software runs algorithms more than 30 times in a second, and decides on whether triggering an emergency brake is possible. The brake can also be triggered successfully within a second. Although the technology seems essential to be installed in new car models, there are not many carmakers that have started their work with automated braking. Advanced Headlights Since more than 70% of the fatalities occur at night, providing better lighting to drivers could really help solve the problem. Insurance companies have also expressed concerns about inadequate lighting, which is even a problem with expensive, luxury cars. In addition, SUV vehicles, which have been in trend since 2008, require adequate lighting since these more likely to have fatal accidents on the road. Because of their height and high speed, they are likely to hit the walkers around the neck or even worse, at the head. Advanced lighting which helps the driver to see clearly in the dark, will certainly help in reducing pedestrian-car crashes. cars are three times Road-Infrastructure Sensors At times the car driver may not be at fault, and the pedestrian may emerge in front out of the blue. Accidents at intersection points are common and a real challenge for carmakers. The automotive maker, Continental has come up with innovative tech. This wireless tech could be installed at the road infrastructure close to intersection points. Infrastructure sensors have the capability to sense a moving object within a small radius. Sensors could be integrated with car systems, and wireless connectivity may communicate information if an object is nearby, thus signaling the driver to slow down. The American Luxury car maker, Cadillac has pioneered in installing infrastructure sensors. Infrastructure tech could be beneficial to drivers and signal them to take immediate action, thus averting crashes. On the flip side, installing sensors on intersection points has a hefty cost, and for successful installation at such a wider scale, there has to be a stronger commitment from local transport authorities. High-Tech Car Infotainment Another useful tech is . Using smartphones and getting distracted with infotainment is common for car drivers. As a solution, the advanced infotainment tech is here. Car infotainment tech is the according to the top carmakers. The infotainment technology has an in-car display projector, which will turn the driver’s windshield into a wind-screen. car infotainment future for drivers Infotainment tech is developed to keep the driver’s eyes on the road. The windscreen will display key features such as fuel, intersection points, speed, location, and essential safety controls, making driving safer both for the driver and the pedestrian. Mobileye Driver Assistance Tech The . The system informs the driver if the vehicle is in an alarming radius with any object, pedestrian, bicycle, or vehicle. Driver assistant tech is integrated with the smartphone of the driver, with the aim to keep the driver focused. Mobileye Driver Assistance system is an emerging tech for car safety Infotainment on smartphones has proven to be disastrous as drivers get distracted easily and end up crashing into pedestrians and vehicles. This driver assistant tech integrates with the phone and has a camera that could be installed on the windshield. The assistant system has an android app, which is installed on the smartphone for integrating the smartphone of the user. The driver’s assistant also comes with an optional in-car display screen. The software uses the mounted camera to examine the road and recognizes objects using algorithms and alarms the driver while accelerating and taking turns, thus providing better safety controls to the driver. Pedestrian Detectors Since accidents occur despite the presence of crosswalks, and as drivers do not always keep track of the crosswalks due to distractions, a new technology for pedestrian safety strives to avert crashes. Belgium-company named Trafficon, develops high-end traffic safety tech. The company has developed pedestrian detectors, which activate within a defined radius. The detectors are integrated with the traffic lights system, ensuring the safe and smooth flow of both vehicles and pedestrians on the road. When a pedestrian is nearby, the detectors recognize them, and automatically the pedestrian light turns green. On the other hand, when there are no pedestrians around, it turns the pedestrian light red and allows vehicles to pass, thus ensuring a steady flow of vehicle traffic. The guarantees safety for all as it can delay the passing time for pedestrians after detecting them near the crosswalk. integrated pedestrian detector Pedestrian GPS Catering to the safety needs of older pedestrians or people with disabilities is more important. Around 20% of all pedestrian-car accidents involve people aged 65 and above. People with impaired vision or blindness find it hard to navigate streets, or when to walk-on the crossing. As a solution, Pedestrian GPS is an emerging tech that helps older people in navigating streets with its AI agent, which communicates location, and enables smooth and safe movement. The GPS primarily guides on routes having minimal traffic and could also be turned on as a discovery tool for people being lost, and trying to locate to get home safely. Self-Driver Technology is an emerging system. Sensors guarantee safety for both the driver and the pedestrian. This tech has received immediate attention from some of the top carmakers such as Volkswagen, Tesla, General Motors, and others. Self-driver tech However, AI-powered driving systems have many challenges ahead since recently crashed into a pedestrian and was unable to recognize objects and enforce emergency brakes. Uber’s self-driven vehicle Conclusion Most pedestrian safety tech is under development. Automated braking systems are common to find and could bring fruition in averting pedestrian crashes. Advanced headlights or adequate headlights are what can be seen as essential since most incidents take place in the dark. On the flip side, the wide-scale implementation of safety infrastructure sensors is a hefty investment. The self-driver tech is emerging and faces many challenges ahead.

Car Safety Technology Is A Must-Have To Save Pedestrians' Lives 

Let’s get our priorities straight, A.I. can wait Every organization seeminly wants to be data-driven, but data can't drive anything at all. Data, data analysis and data-driven decision making have to go back to the little box that they belong in. Data can’t tell us where to go. Not even when it comes to us in the form of A.I. Or, especially not in the case of A.I. First of all, thanks to Fabiënne, who reminded me to write this article. There had been an irritation and an uncomfortable feeling in my belly for a long time, concerning a term that seems to be thrown around left and right ever more often. “Data-driven”. Don't get me wrong, as a tech blogger and a marketer and copywriter for an IT consultancy company, I am guilty of it myself more than I would like to admit here. "The data-driven housing corporation." "How do you turn your company into a data-driven company?" "Seven steps to a truly data-driven corporate culture." And I'm not the only one. But perhaps these more or less “old school” organizations becoming data-driven in the way that they seem to be trying now, should be the least of our concern. Could true A.I. spell the pinnacle of decision making being driven by data? It seems everyone wants to be data-driven, but if you think about it: data can't drive anything. What we need instead are purpose, and ethics. These are the things that we need to drive our decision making. And data, data analysis and emerging technology like A.I. can assist us, if they agree to wait their turn. Side note: what if and drives its own agenda, is already here? A.I.that makes its own decisions The power steering-driven car Consider the example of a car. If we apply a particular innovation when fabricating our new car, which makes the windscreen much larger and offers much clearer visibility than previous models, would we call it windshield-driven? Or if we greatly improve the built-in navigation systems or the power steering, do we suggest that these parts are what drives the car? It’s gasoline and a combustion engine powering the car (in most cases, still). And the driver is the thing that controls the car. The desire of that driver to arrive at a certain destination is what makes the car come into motion at all. So a human, with a certain destination or purpose in mind – that's what drives the car. Simon says: Purpose As Simon Sinek, the management guru who seems to know a lot about the desires, dreams and quirks of my generation, the Millennials – : first Why, then How, then What. Having a higher goal or purpose is what makes the difference, in everything you do. From marketing to sales to product or services. said it "People Don't buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it." Purpose, is what it is. Data, data analysis and “data-driven” have to go back to their respective little boxes. Away from the Why-box, and back into the How-box. Data cannot tell you where to go. Your gut feeling can. Ethics can, empathy can, and a clear vision can. If you’ve decided on a goal, data can help you get there. Purpose-driven, data-assisted The same goes for a housing corporation. Or a logistics company. Or a retailer or your no-doubt really cool new tech startup. Or with the culture in any organization, and with your personal development. A human with a in mind, that's what drives things forward. And ethics and empathy make great guides. goal or purpose Purpose, ethics and data Power steering, a particularly clear windscreen; data, data analysis and awesome algorithmic agents – these things can only make your trip easier. Provided they are smartly and conveniently applied. So should we have less focus now on supporting our work, our marketing, decision-making and our operations with data? Should we be less excited about creating (General) A.I.? I don't think so. But the wording of the whole thing can be a little different, here and there. Maybe that will help to adjust the focus in our way of thinking. We need to be purpose-driven, ethics-guided and data-assisted in making the right decisions to actually reach our greater goals. Driven by a mission; supported by data.

Don't Be Data-Driven. Become Purpose-Driven and Data-Assisted.

Prototype, Prototype, Prototype! “If you only do two things make them research and prototyping. If you only do one thing, do research; get off your seat and onto the street, talk to your customers and more importantly observe your customers” , Co-founder Global Service Jam Adam St-John Lawrence Over the past few months, we’ve been really busy facilitating and service design workshops to support programmeOne, the organisational transformation programme currently underway at Bromford. In itself, this has been a journey of discovery for the Lab. As well as doing the work involved in designing, facilitating, synthesising and communicating the output of workshops, we’ve also been working out how we best fit within the programme and where we can offer the most value. We’ve just rebooted our to reflect the work packages which were the result of our discovery sessions and we’re currently busy pulling together stakeholders, filling out Change Requests and drafting Test Plans. discovery sessions trello board On Wednesday, we had a serendipitous conversation which allowed us to step off the hamster wheel for an hour and take stock of how we have been working. I felt more creative and clear following that hour than I had in weeks, so the first thing we need to remember is: Time to reflect isn’t a luxury, it’s essential . . . and it’s proper work. In our desire to move our post discovery session thinking forward, we’ve been really busy over the past few weeks defining work packages, drafting detailed Test Plans and submitting Change Requests to our Design Board. In itself, this is good; whilst Change Requests and Test Plans might seem like they add unnecessary bureaucracy, they actually don’t. They provide a structure which ensures that everything we test has been considered in terms of how and where it fits within the organisational strategy and it ensures that following the test we are able to demonstrate impact. However, the reason for the video catch-up which turned into our serendipitous conversation was that we were struggling to push all of our work packages through this framework. The answer, it appeared, was that there was nothing to test. . . yet. What was wrong? Had we lost our creative mojo? Why couldn’t we see what we needed to test? PING! A light bulb, and a second point to remember: Prototype, Prototype, Prototype! We’ve long advocated to , but before any of this we prototype. . . .or we did. A high fidelity prototype can work much like a test, but a low fidelity prototype could be a paper mock-up or even a doodle during a workshop. Prototypes can be anything from a sketch or storyboard to a morning or an afternoon trying to sell people a service which looks real but actually doesn’t exist, in order to see whether you’ve got an idea that floats. Prototypes help us understand a problem and give us valuable insights that we can use to design tests (if we need to). So rather than trying to jump straight to a Change Request and Test Plan, for some of the work packages we just need to go much more low-fi, we need to get out on the street talking to people, start sketching screens on cardboard iPads or just start making something — if we’re stuck on a problem we just need to get out the pens, Lego and PlayDoh. Do we really need to run a formal test to see if we can fly our new drone and quickly produce formatted video, or did Paul just prototype it (which is exactly the same) last weekend? test more and pilot less sat on a bench in a park with his own drone Which leads me on to our final point to remember: It’s much better to show people how something could work than it is to try and explain it to them. The mantra of the Global Service Jam is to ‘show not tell’ and ‘do not talk about doing’, essentially to use prototyping in order to both learn and communicate your learning. If you want to understand more about how people interact with driverless cars (it’s not on our own by the way) you don’t need to develop an early version of an autonomous vehicle and file for all kinds of certificates and permits, you just need to and stick a GoPro to your windscreen. The inspiration and learning we get through ‘doing’ is much more useful than ‘talking about doing’ and arguably enables greater buy-in from stakeholders later down the line. exploration pipeline dress up like a car seat Comment Originally published at www.bromfordlab.com .

Things We Need To Remember

As us and others have already stated, and respond to our emotions in real time. So what kind of technology and processes will underlie this new era of intelligent solutions? our vehicles will soon know how we feel emotionally transport See the for a quick tour or read on to get a little deeper in the weeds. accompanying infographic Take a tour through the world of empathic mobility in the infographic accompanying this story – see link above. Without diving too deep into the foundations of how people’s emotions are measured, let’s be clear on the basic premise: Changes in a person’s physiology can indicate changes in their emotional state. In other words, we can infer an emotional response from something changing in or on the body — heart rate, facial expression, voice tone, breathing rate, and so on. And now, increasingly affordable and accurate sensors allow us to measure human emotions in almost any environment. By plugging human data into our vehicles, they can be trained to respond to our emotional state. This can provide many benefits, from life-saving safety, to comfort and entertainment. Your ride could be very different if it knows you are happy, anxious, distracted, tired, drunk or having a medical episode. This is , and here is a quick run-through of some of the key technologies in the empathic mobility stack. empathic mobility Firstly, Gather your Data While there are many data signals that can be used to infer an emotional response, the in-vehicle environment has some unique restrictions and opportunities. The main data types currently being integrated into the next generation of transport include: Facial Coding Video from a camera pointed at the occupant’s face can be processed for their facial expressions. This has the advantage of not requiring a big leap forward in hardware solutions, you simply embed a camera in the cockpit, facing the occupant. On the downside, the data signal can be affected by various factors including lighting conditions, skin colour / ethnicity, glasses, facial hair and head movement. Any meaningful signal is also limited to how often we pull facial expressions while driving, when most of the time there’s (hopefully) nobody in front of us to express our feelings towards. ‘Internal ‘ Biometrics There are various hidden, nonconscious changes in our bodies that can give us a continuous and high-frequency readout of the user’s emotional state. In our experience the top players in the list are heart rate, skin conductance and breathing rate. These are typically measured using consumer- or medical-grade wearables. They can be insightful sources of information but we can’t expect everyone to don something like a wristband or chest-strap every time they want to travel somewhere. The detection of biometric signals is starting to move away from the body and into less intrusive formats, such as sensors in the seat. There are even remote, noncontact ways to measure things like heart rate and breathing, typically by bouncing a signal off the user’s body. Leaders in this space include infrared cameras, lasers and radars. We’ve spoken to several automakers who are exploring how to integrate this kind of tech into their next range of vehicles, as well as tech companies whose data could be added to the mix to build a unified solution set. Voice A microphone is all you need to send a user’s voice recording to software that can analyse it for patterns such as emotional states. As with cameras, this has the advantage of requiring reasonably low-fi sensor hardware but there is still some fancy software juju required to eliminate background noise, separate multiple voices and so on. Also, in the same way that we don’t always show facial expressions, voice analysis can only work when the occupants are speaking. Context Even if your next motor is riddled with weapons-grade physiological sensors, no AI system can flawlessly interpret your body’s behaviour for useful insights. A sudden spike in heart rate or a frowning face don’t necessarily mean much on their own. You could be approaching a potential accident, or maybe you just remembered that you forgot to put the cat out. This is why we need all the context we can get our hands on. I already argued this point in more detail recently — see: — so I won’t push it too hard here. But let’s take a brief skim through some of the context data types an empathic vehicle could use to flavour its understanding of the occupants. We can break them roughly into two main camps: Sensor Fusion: The Only Way to Measure True Emotion . Sensors throughout the cockpit and under the hood can already tell us a great deal about what the vehicle is doing. These include engine performance stats, in-vehicle climate conditions, the status of the infotainment system, as well as information about the vehicle’s movement and its driver’s behaviour, such as speed, location, acceleration, braking, etc. Vehicle . Outside the metal box on wheels, there is a vast ecosystem of data available to us to further help understand what the people inside the box are feeling and doing. Consider how much more accurate and relevant the AI in the vehicle will become when external sensors are feeding it data about other vehicles or pedestrians in the vicinity, the current weather conditions, the state of traffic up ahead, its occupants’ daily schedules or recent sleep patterns… the list is endless. Environment An emerging terminology for this matrix of data connections, which spans from the inside of the occupants body to the global IoT and cloud infrastructure, helps illustrate the network structure: : vehicle-to-human. V2H : vehicle-to-vehicle. V2V : vehicle-to-infrastructure. V2I : vehicle-to-‘everything/anything’. V2X Oh, but there are so many more being thrown about already. How about: : vehicle-to-pedestrian. V2P : vehicle-to-device. V2D : vehicle-to-grid. V2G : vehicle-to-home. V2H (again!) : vehicle-to-road. V2R : vehicle-to-sensor. V2S : vehicle-to-internet. V2I (again!) You get the idea. Jump on over to our recent story if you want to dig a little deeper into the techniques and challenges of . Measuring Emotion in the Driver’s Seat In the near future, vehicles will be empathic machines, connected to the data-rich world around them. Next, Gently Stir your Data Streams The current set of sensors running in a modern vehicle is already complicated enough. Now, coming out of the automakers’ next few production cycles we’re likely to see an explosion of sensors, not just in terms of their numbers but also of different types and volumes of data collected. Even in 2015 Hitachi claimed that ‘ ’. As vehicles get smarter that digital traffic is likely to pile up fast. today, the amount of data generated by a connected vehicle exceeds 25GB/hour To put each data type in its right place for subsequent processing, the vehicle needs to act as a platform. Its onboard computer is tasked with the heavy lifting of synchronising all the different types and frequencies of incoming data. Then, bandwidth-permitting, they can be passed over to onboard or external processors to gather insights about the vehicle and its occupants’ situation. sensor fusion Now Cook your Data The emerging generation of processing software is designed to churn through the deluge of sensor data for useful emotional insights. This can come in many flavours but the basic idea is to output values (eg. how happy, sad, anxious, etc.) and events (eg. change of mood or behaviour) that inform the vehicle to execute an appropriate response. emotion AI Whether the signal from the occupant was a change in facial expression, heart rate variability, voice tone or other physiological response, the emotion AI processor would detect an event. As I’ve already mentioned, these physiological changes could be cross-correlated with other context data, such as the time of day, and weather or lighting conditions. The AI in the system makes probabilistic inferences about the situation, based on the available data, and informs the vehicle of its conclusion. Overall, this is a process of scanning multiple sources and types of incoming data for patterns, and comparing them with existing knowledge about the user and the current context. Sound familiar? It’s what us humans do all day long. And our capability to understand and response to the situation is what we call . empathy Empathy is a type of intelligence that varies between people and can be developed over time. It’s part of being smart. And in an analogous way, we are training smart technology to develop its own form of empathy, to provide useful or entertaining responses to our current mood and behaviour. Serving Time To clarify the process from end-to-end, I will illustrate a potential user scenario and give you a basic overview of the way our system at would deal with it. Sensum Let’s say you’re driving home late, after a busy day of office work and subsequent dinner with clients. Rain is pelting the windscreen, causing you to squint into the blurry lights ahead. You are starting to nod off but are too tired to notice yet. A camera in the dashboard is recording a video of your facial expression, gaze direction, and head & body position. At the same time, a microphone is listening for changes in your voice tone. Contact sensors in the seat, and remote sensors throughout your car’s cocoon, are collecting data on your heart rate, breathing, skin temperature and so on. All this data is constantly being streamed to the vehicle’s onboard AI chipset. The system should detect a potential issue as it sees changes in, say, your heart rate variability and breathing rate. You might be starting to roll your eyelids and nod your head as you get sleepier, all showing up in the facial coding stream. Even if these combined data-points are not enough for the computer to make a decision, it can adjust its assessment based on the fact that external data has informed it that the weather is poor, it’s late, and you had a busy day (inferred from your calendar). The way our system processes incoming data streams is by comparing any data types it recognises against each other. It then builds a probabilistic model of the user’s emotional state on multiple ‘dimensions’ of emotional scoring such as arousal (excited/relaxed), valence (positive/negative) and dominance (control/submission). Depending on which ‘zone’ the data is clustered in this dimensional space, the system is able to infer a likely emotional state such as drowsiness, which might be signified by something like low arousal, neutral valence and low dominance. More on how our own system works if you’re keen to learn. here OK, so now the onboard AI system is informing your car that you are probably drowsy. Quite how the car responds to this information could vary across vehicle models, manufacturers and their software providers. For instance, it could be any combination of the following: : a voice notification from your onboard voice assistant or a warning displayed on the dashboard. Notification : reduce the temperature of the cocoon and switch on the air flow towards your face. Climate control : switch your music over to a more upbeat playlist. Media : if your car has autonomous capabilities it could request partial or complete control of the vehicle. Driver control : the car might search for the nearest fuel station and recommend pulling over for a coffee or a nap. Journey planning That’s a quick tour of the empathic mobility tech stack as we currently see it. With widespread investment in emotion-related technologies, particularly from the mobility sector, it probably won’t be long before this kind of empathic human-machine interaction (HMI) hits the road. Demo vehicles have already been built by major automakers, including and so we may see significant empathic HMI in the next cycle of production models, two or three years from now. Toyota (Yui) Audi (Aicon) Further Serving Suggestions The infographic for this story: . A Tour of Empathic Mobility . Sensum mobility solutions . The Role of Human Emotions in the Future of Transport . Measuring Emotion in the Driver’s Seat: Insights from the Scientific Frontline . Sensor Fusion: The Only Way to Measure True Emotion

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