Creative Content
Category TRAVEL
Famous Beach Towns in USA that Offer Happy and Healthy Experience
According to a report there
are certain beach towns that may be better for health compared to others.
According to a survey by Gallup-Sharecare of more than 335,000 people across
the country concerning life satisfaction, from physical fitness to the time
spent worrying, and it seems saltwater therapy might actually be paying off in
addition to a margarita every now and then that may be of help. There are
around 10 towns on the coast that will end up ranking amongst top cities with
highest well-being.
·
Crestview-Fort Walton Beach Destin (Florida) –
This place may be termed as slice of paradise in Florida and might have been
ranked 25th in the overall rankings, however, in measures of
financial stability and social wellness, the place performed exceptionally
well.
·
Cape Coral-Fort Myers (Florida) – Situated next
to the Gulf coast, this peaceful and blissful community is rife with
sugar-white sand beaches, natural wildlife refuges, and inhabitants who are
very satisfied with almost all aspects of life.
·
San Diego – Carlsbad (California) – Warm
beaches, tree line of palm, fish tacos, everything that will be loved. The
region got placed in the top 20 in overall rankings, scoring the most in
measures of physical health.
·
Urban Honolulu (Hawaii) – Idea of residing on an
island at times brings happiness to mind, so its not amazing to know that the
capital city of tropical island state also made it to the list. Hawaiians got
exceptional scores in self-reported feelings of life purpose which is liking
what one does each day and being motivated to achieve goals. Alternatively,
residents surprisingly were ranked very low in social satisfaction.
·
Portland-South Portland (Maine) – The trendiest
city of Maine is famous for its funky vibes and craft brew scene that can be a
contribution to the high sociability as disclosed by the residents of this
place. Portlanders are known to have a great sense of pride in their community
in addition to having high levels of social well-being.
·
Santa Maria – Santa Barbara (California) –
There’s much to love about this jewel city of California, situated on central
coast of California. The beautiful landscape, vibrant downtown, and laid-back
culture all are a reason for happiness of residents. The place got placed
highest in terms of physical well-being, which eventually means having good
health and sufficient energy for routine activities.
·
North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton (Florida) – There
are already enough places in Florida that may be a dreamland for grownups and
there is yet another Sunshine State community with exceptionally high levels of
health and well-being. Located on the south of Tampa this is the first beach to
make it to top 10 being placed at 7th place in overall ranking of
well-being, and 3rd place in measures specially focussed on being
financially sound.
·
Santa Cruz-Watsonville (California) – This calm
West Coast town has great weather all year round in addition to dramatic
beauty, and a surf-centric lifestyle, which is not a matter of surprise that
the place ranks high in physical well-being. Santa Cruz residents have also
reported exceptionally high levels of purposeful life and deep sense of
community.
·
Barnstable Town (Massachusetts) – A storied
history, New England charm, an All-American summer baseball league, and some of
the prettiest beaches are all working as a magnet for hordes of tourists and
visitors that flock to this Cape Cod city every summer. Life is simply fabulous
in this place with residents reporting high levels of community pride that any
other place in the country and also the measures of social and financial
well-being are also very high.
·
Naples-Immokaee-Macro Island (Florida) – This is
one place and adorable Gulf coast community that consistently ranks high in
measures of almost all aspects. According to the survey, residents here have
least levels of stress, worry or depression, and highest levels of happiness. Locals
in Naples also rank highest for going for regular vacations and trips with
family and friends, which is like a dream come true.
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Category MONEY
Making Money with Bitcoin
There are millions of people
who are making money of Bitcoin nowadays and even you could be one too. Just
follow the following methodology. From a miniscule 3 cents per coin in 2010 to
a whopping $19,000 in 2017, it’s no secret that people are eager to ride the
Bitcoin roller coaster. However, one needs to follow a mature methodology to
make money.
Trading – Since the inception of Bitcoin in late 2009, trading has
been the prominent method used by people to make money. One can trade Bitcoin
much like stocks, but it is actually not a stock. To keep things simple just
buy low, sell high. There might be a wait of years required to see real profits
pouring in. In early 2011, the price of Bitcoin was $1 which rose to over $5 by
early 2012, meaning holding onto a Bitcoin for over a year would fetch one just
$4 in profit. In case one could hold on for 5 years, when the price went up to
$430, the profit could have been $429.
Choosing an Exchange – As Bitcoin is a digital currency the
exchanges happen over the internet itself giving leverage to participate in
trading where ever there is an online access. There are also hubs available
where one can physically go and engage in trading. These places are known as
Bitcoin ATM’s and usually present in busy places such as airports and malls.
Every exchange is differently structured having multiple features impacting
trading pattern of people. Some enable people to buy and trade with multiple
currencies while other do not. Some have a focus on limited countries and
regions while others are globally focussed. Following are some of the prominent
exchanges to choose from with details of advantages and disadvantages of each
exchange:
·
CoinBase – One of the simplest exchanges to use
providing computer and mobile support and amongst the most popular exchanges.
Advantages:
Credit/Debit card integration; Intuitive and easy; and Multiple digital
currencies
Disadvantages:
Bank transfers need 5 days; No anonymity; Few available resources
·
BitQuick – It is a cash deposit focussed
exchange providing decent customer support and charging flat 2 percent fee for
all purchases.
Advantages:
Cash deposits offer security; Intuitive design; Fast options to purchase; No
fees for the seller.
Disadvantages:
Only works with Bitcoin, Cash Only transactions; Operates only in US.
·
Kraken – Largest exchange in Europe that also
supports US and Canada offering users the ability to customize trade deals.
Advantages:
Offers multiple ways to pay; Large user base; Is highly secure; Multiple
digital currencies.
Disadvantages:
Difficult interface; One cannot be anonymous; Expensive deposit fees.
·
Gemini – US based exchange also operating in
Canada, UK, and Asia-Pacific regions and offers trades with Bitcoin and
Ethereum.
Advantages:
Highly regulated and secure; Fast buying options; Multiple Digital Currencies.
Disadvantages:
Not available in Hawaii; Not intuitive; slow withdraws.
·
Wall of Coins – A famous exchange that operates
all across North America and most of Europe offering large number of payment
options.
Advantages:
Low fee structure; Large user base; Allows user anonymity.
Disadvantages:
Few high-volume trades; Variable transaction speeds.
·
BitStamp – One of the world’s largest and oldest
exchanges operational and used predominantly by experienced traders.
Advantages:
Ample payment options; Low ‘high-volume’ fees; Multiple Digital Currencies.
Disadvantages:
Insecure having history of data breaches; High ‘low-volume’ fees; Difficult
interface.
One can expect to pay a
transaction fee that is usually small percentage of any Bitcoin purchased or
traded with fess in the range of around 1 percent to 2 percent.
All exchanges will reflect the
current price of a Bitcoin and one does need to be frightened by the higher
price-per-unit. There are also options available to break up a Bitcoin and
start small. The smallest augmentation of a Bitcoin is referred as Satoshi
which is a miniscule .00000001 of 1 Bitcoin. There is also a minimum purchase
size in the vicinity of a few dollars that varies with the exchange.
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Category TRAVEL
Nine Companies
Happy About Your Travel Plan and Likely to Support You Financially
It’s hard to believe but there
are certain companies willing to pay for vacations of their employees. If this
seems like an unlikely dream it is high time you reconsider career path.
Glassdoor recently published a list of companies that provide financial assistance
to employees planning a trip that is inclusive of stipends, discounts, and
reimbursement. Following is the list of those companies that provide monetary
assistance to employees planning trips.
·
Airbnb – The leading site for accommodation
Airbnb has enabled many travellers find a place to stay and also provides help
to employees as well who are planning to travel. There is an assistance of $2000
per annum of travel coupons for employees.
·
BambooHR – Quite like Airbnb, BambooHR, a tech
major focused on enhancing human resources via a software, gifts the employees
$2000 per annum for travelling. For company it is ‘paid paid vacation.’
·
Evernote – Evernote is an application that
enables people organize their work and collaborate on projects and as a company
Evernote is kind enough to shell out $1000 yearly stipend and help employees
travel by also offering them unlimited vacation days.
·
Expedia – Travel opportunities come with
territory to various companies in the travel industry and Expedia is one such
popular site that helps people see the world. There is a reimbursement of
between $250 to $750 per year for travel in addition to discounts on purchased
made through the website.
·
FullContact – Another tech company FullContact
helps business and individuals to manage relationships. It offers a whopping
$7,500 per annum to employees specially for travel purposes and are made to
work while they are on holiday.
·
Moz – A major software marketing company, Moz
offers a decent vacation package. An employee is given 21 PTO days, 7 sick
days, 10 paid holiday days in addition to $3,000 of vacation cost
reimbursement.
·
Travelzoo – The company’s online deals are not
limited to travel alone, there is a combination of deals from entertainment and
local companies as well. The commerce major offers its employees a $1,500
travel stipend and 3 extra days of PTO for booking a hotel stay, vacation
package, cruise, or flight offer that is negotiated on behalf of 28 million
members globally as per Michael Stitt, the President of Travelzoo North
America.
·
TripAdvisor – Similar to Expedia, TripAdvisor
also offers perks to its employees for travelling and leverage whatever is
promoted on the site. Employees are offered at least $250 of expense
reimbursement of travel each year, the benefit that increases longer one works
for the company. In addition, employees are also offered discounts on bookings
through the site itself.
·
United Airlines – United Airlines offers its
employees attractive discounts on flight tickers and unlimited standby travel
on the airlines. This ensures employees are using flights not only for business
purposes but for personal satisfaction as well.
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Category MONEY
Online Savings Accounts to go for in 2019
Perfect online savings
accounts have a characteristic of paying good interest rate, are fully secure,
allow flexibility and offer most attractive interest rates.
Monetary savings is one of the
smartest financial practices to follow.
Interest rates offered by a
usual savings account in a bank are rather low. Average national interest rate
offered was only around 0.07 percent as of March 2018. People end up spending
years depositing hard earned money in the typical savings account given along
with a bank checking account. And the result is that the money remains almost
the same in the savings account due to lower rate of interest. Even $10 earned
as an interest is a mere joke. There was a learning when benefits of opening a
savings account were shared that pays over 10x the other interest rates
offered. Anyway, it is wise to make the money work for you instead of not
making any use of it. Following is the detail of online high yield savings
accounts and what to look for while opening a savings account.
·
Security
– One of the big concerns one has is regarding the safety of money with someone
else. Relief is in the fact that all are FDIC insured, meaning that in case of
bank default the government will ensure payment of equivalent sum deposited in
the account up to a maximum of $250,000.
·
Flexibility
– One may want to withdraw money at his beck and call based on the requirement
of the time and that too without getting penalized. All referred savings
accounts allow to achieve this and transfer money to a checking account at any
point of time.
·
Rate of
Interest – Rate of interest is also of significance to an individual who
wants maximum yield on the money deposited. A word of precaution there are
moments when some accounts do have a minimum balance requirement. A monthly fee
is charged in case one fails to maintain the required balance in the account.
In case one is just parking the money there then it is not a concern as this is
the very purpose of savings account.
Aforementioned are necessary
facts to be taken into consideration while opening a savings account in a bank
and to ensure getting a handsome return on the deposited money.
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Category RETIREMENT
New Rules of Retirement by Suze Orman
Suze Orman the famous personal
finance expert has been distributing hard love mentorship since many years for
individuals seeking financial security and here are few tips shared by the high
energy money and finance guru. There new rules for saving, being wise spender
and creating delay in Social Security benefits have been established to bring
help in all forms or stages of retirement. It is strange to write something
about this at the age of 70 as the all the cues from the outside world point
out 70 being old aged and not really a pleasant to feel at this age. However,
if one thinks about the sense of feeling and nature to take actions of an
individual that is really what defines a person and not what is projected by
others. There is indeed a feeling of excitement for Orman although she is old,
but all that means for her is there is a good grace to transition from young
and fabulous to older and more fabulous. A few years ago, there was an end to
her 14-year show on famous channel CNBC that scaled way back on other work
commitment that may be termed as semiretirement for her. Was there a sense of
scare for her – yes indeed. However, still there was passion about helping
people take a good hold of their financial matters.
A sudden change of life from
full-time working person to a retired individual did make an interesting new
life stage for her. But there were key learnings as well such as love for life
and not waiting to see what happens in the next moment. There is indeed more
time for family, friends and for self. In addition, there is more time for
passion discovered in 60s – fishing, with real time to just be, which is a
great feeling. There is continuous passion to help people but this is done on a
reduced work schedule. There is no suggestion to keep working post 70 years of
age, it is just a matter of personal choice. Orman seems to have found a
tremendous balance in her life. If that is happens even after being old, she
would want “old” for everyone. Having accepted that there is no denial of fact
that 70 does not mean 35 or 45 or even 55. Her father expired at age 71 and
mother left for heavenly abode at 97. Loss of father was an indication to be
motivated to appreciate and live each day to the full. Mother’s long life does
remind her that she is about 67 years younger. She expects others also are
having a great time at this age with an understanding that there indeed are
pains and aches as well to deal with at this age. She has to steel herself to
avoid buying into the ageism that courses through various part of American
society. But at the core she has the wisdom to celebrate the power to live life
on terms of individual and not based on dictates of others. She wishes all are
content with the life choices made at this age post retirement as part of day
to day living.
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Category RETIREMENT
Reduction in Payment of Taxes Post Retirement
If one is close to retirement
there may be a dream of day of simplified taxes, however there may be a
disappointment for some. As per Ted Havel, an IRA expert from New York, the tax
return may change drastically when moving from working mode to a retired mode.
Every individual goes through a different tax situation and following are some
of the common tax issues that may be encountered and the methods to reduce any
likely impact that may result.
Split of America’s Retirement Income: Social Security – 33 percent,
Post-retirement Work Earnings – 32 percent, Savings and Investments – 10
percent, Pensions – 21 percent, and Other – 4 percent.
Disappearance of Deductions: In the scenario of grown up children
and paid off house there is no tax break eligible for dependents or mortgage
interest. There is no possibility of a tax break for contributing to 401(k) or
IRA as per Havel. Deductions for charitable contributions are likely to reduce
too as various retirees tend to volunteer more than donate. Going by 2017 tax
year, taxpayers with age 65 or more will be able to deduct just the expense
related to medical charges exceeding 10 percent of adjusted gross income,
figure in excess of 7.5 percent. Solution to overcome this problem is to
leverage the tax breaks available in the best manner you can. Put together all
your medical expenses of one year to meet the requirement of bigger health
deduction. As part of contribution during the last year of job it will be wise
to invest the highest possible amount to the retirement plan according to
Marguerita Cheng – COE of Blue Ocean Global Wealth in Rockville, Md.
Getting Stuck in Upper Tax Bracket: There are many retirees who end
up falling in the lower tax bracket on completion of work tenure. But after the
age of 70 there is a need to start minimum distributions annually from
tax-deferred accounts such as 401(k) or traditional IRA. These distributions
can end up pushing retired people into upper bracket. As an instance singles
with taxable income up to $37,950, or couples with income up to $75,900, fall
in 15 percent tax bracket. With several thousand dollars accumulated from a
required distribution the extra income is likely to be taxed at 25 percent.
Solution to overcome this issue is to consider taking distributions from
tax-deferred accounts while still in 60s age range and in a lower tax bracket.
Wisely the money can steadily be withdrawn and still one can be within existing
tax bracket, or end up converting some tax-deferred dollars into a Roth IRA.
One will owe income taxes on the money converted after which Roth withdrawals
are free of tax. Also the Roth does not require distributions.
Likely Taxing of Social Security: The employer withholds taxes from
workers’ paycheques and deposits the money with government. This is not the
scenario post retirement, one may have to pay estimated amount quarterly or
face penalty, according to Dana Anspach – Founder of Sensible Money in
Scottsdale, Arizona. Solution is simple, one can avoid quarterly payments by
asking for brokerage or asking former employer to deduct taxes from IRA withdrawals
or pension cheque. Ensure the withholding is enough to cover the tax liability.
Finance Getting More Complex: One may have been good in saving
ending up having multiple accounts and with a need to withdraw that money in
most tax-efficient manner. Solution is making this task simple by consolidating
the accounts. Additionally, it is wise to consult a tax professional just prior
to retirement or during the first year.
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Category MONEY
Latest Learnings Regarding Making Investments in 2019 and Beyond
One of the longest bull stock
market occurred in 2018 timeframe around September. In mid-September US stocks
went up about 11.2 percent, including dividends, as measured by a broad index
fund. There was a likelihood of US stocks heading for a 10th
straight year of gains and low volatility. But as is usually the case the gain
turned to out to be a short-lived affair and the stocks started falling in the
fourth quarter leaving investors with a pile of coal rather than doling out
goodies. US stocks ended the year with down 5.2 percent, with global stocks
losing 14.4 percent leveraging Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (VXUS) as
a measure. Bonds were able to recoup most of losses and closed the year down
only 0.1 percent as measured using Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND).
Markets usually make people have anxious moments and following are few lessons
taught by the market in recent times.
·
Normal
Period of 2018: It is very unusual for markets to peak up with little
variations in the graph. In fact, last nine and a half years of markets peaking
up that too with slight volatility was rather unusual. 2018 was rather a dark year
compared to 2008. There is a tendency to reflect on the recent past to predict
future and completely ignore the events of decade or more ago. Reality is that
stocks are actually volatile.
·
Almost
all missed Santa Claus decline approaching and instead expecting a rally:
It is not likely for anyone to see the upcoming bear or a bull. The inputs have
been shared by top Wall Street strategies, who were rather optimistic during
the last six weeks of 2018. However according to experts, they did not have the
right thoughts and the forecasts for 2019 are also going to be faulty Expert’s
probabilistic forecast is not emotionally compelling, but it is valuable in
understanding the ins and outs of what could be its effect on one’s retirement.
·
It will
be wise not to abandon international stocks even if they have not performed
well: Although globally the stocks have underperformed during the past
decade, with 2017 being an exception. Still they outperformed between 2002 and
2007. The expert is not solely relying on investments made in his own state of
Colorado, as that would not result in diversification and having a global
investment portfolio is for diversification purposes.
·
The
commitment to buying low (rebalancing) will certainly be harder post the
decline: Usual practice for trading enthusiasts is to buy stocks post a
decline and sell those when the prices have surged. Sticking to a target asset
allocation of an expert can at times be a roller coaster of anxiety. Nobel
laureate Daniel Kahneman’s work on prospect theory highlights that one can get
twice as much pain from losing money compared to the pleasure derived from
making the same amount of money. Hence, it is an underestimation of how hard it
will be to purchase stocks at low prices.
·
Have
patience to digest even worse conditions compared to one witnessed in recent
past: It can be termed as decline even though it barely hit “bear”
territory by certain measures. Till date the major stock indexes only saw 20
percent decline, the usually accepted measure of a bear market. Overall the US
stock market lost in excess of 55 percent during the last major bear
occurrence. One should avoid repeating the mistake as it can reoccur. Its wise
to build a portfolio at the moment that one can live with and rebalance.
·
Stability
of high-quality bonds compared with stocks: During the time when stocks
plunge there is a want of some boring bonds in the portfolio that will act as
shock absorbers and bring relief.
·
There are
no “safe” dividend stocks: General Motors and Eastman Kodak are good
instance of teaching a lesson regarding this a shot while ago. The former
company, once the most valuable company, all but destroyed its dividend in 2018
as the stock dropped like anything. The lesson was relearnt about not making
big bets on any single company.
·
Hot
investments eventually cool off: Bitcoin was one of the hottest investments
in the year 2017 and in 2018 it nearly lost 74 percent of its value making this
statement true.
·
Making
investments is not that simple: The logic and emotion are constantly
wrestling for control of the response to whatever changes are imposed by the
market making investment difficult. In case someone went for buying stocks in
December 2018 it may not be easy even though the rebalancing rule is simple,
logical and effective, because the stocks are being bought on sale and in case
of further fall in the market it will do nothing but only hurt the buyer.
When it comes to investing and
knowing the nature of the market economist John Kenneth Galbraith needs to be
quoted who said that there are two kinds of forecasters, one those who don’t
know and other who don’t know that they don’t know. Heeding aforementioned
lessons won’t bring any certainty on what is expected to come, but it could
definitely improve the odds of a more financially rewarding future.
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Category TECHNOLOGY
Smartphone Enabling You to Keep Your Resolutions
You may want to read more,
spend less, reduce weight or indulge in other activity, the mobile applications
can help convert New Year resolutions into long term commitments. As a first
step visit the App store – whether iOS or Android, to download Apps matching
your goals. Do have respect for patience as experts have predicted that it
takes at least three weeks to make a new habit long lasting. You need to build
up to your goal or you will end up sabotaging yourself according to a life
coach. He says Apps can help you gain traction in a few ways, some may require
you to record daily progress of a certain achievement and other may connect you
to a community of users. There can also be ways available enabling you to
achieve goals that are otherwise difficult, for instance helping you to learn a
new language. Irrespective of the goal, your mind-set is more important,
meaning that it is important to not only be firm about doing something but also
have an idea of the reason to do so.
Enhance you Health: Eating healthy and regular exercising are good
resolutions that may be difficult to stick to at times. For success go in for a
dual approach, download an application related to fitness, to track your
calories and nutrition, and have a separate exercise App to keep track of
professionally guided fitness routines. In case you need motivation one can try
Charity Miles App offering an extra incentive i.e. for each mile moved –
walking, running or biking, the app’s sponsors are likely to give small amount
as charity to your choice of charity or NGO. There are various options to
choose from.
Keep a Check of Expenses: Whatever may be the scenario whether
intention is to track retirement spending or have certain goals to save money
there are apps available to give you a bird’s-eye view of finances ranging from
daily expenses to home loans or investment related expenses. The apps are
secure and help link your cards, bank accounts and help you track spending or
savings in real-time, with colourful charts and graphics making it easy for you
to know the statistics and financial status.
Conquer the Reading List: There may be a difficulty in picking a
book for reading purposes, here is where app like Goodreads can come in handy.
Users can compile reading lists, review and rate books finished reading and
explore customized recommendations. In case there is preference for audio books
try Librivox offering access to more than 50,000 works of publishing in the
public domain.
Help in Learning Language: In case you have a desire to learn a
language or brush up basics of one already learnt again apps can help you boost
your fluency and simultaneous health of brain. One study found that learning a
second language as an adult delayed onset of dementia by 4 to 5 years. You may
choose apps like Duolingo offering more that 2 dozen languages to learn or
choose Memrise featuring user-generated lessons, which is a great way to fit in
the bite-sized practice sessions each day.
Free up your Mind: All want to be relieved of stress and meditation
works as a mood-enhancer in addition to offering host of other health benefits
from increasing pain tolerance to lowering blood pressure. All you need is an
app like Calm or Headspace offering guided meditations on a variety of themes
including sleep or anxiety helping you achieve mindfulness in minutes.
Make Travel Enjoyable: You may have planned a trip in 2019 like
many others. Nearly half of all boomers choose travel for relaxation and
rejuvenation. There are apps like Kayak and Skyscanner that make it easy to
pinpoint the best deals on airfare, hotels and rental cars on the go.
Additionally there are apps like PackPoint helping you prepare custom packing
list based on your itinerary and weather of destination. Also, there is Triplt
that takes care of the rest of travel formalities.
Once set to accomplish your
determined goals you still don’t need to stop there as there is habit-tracking
app like HabitBull or Way of Life to track daily progress of your goals and
help you maintain that enthusiasm and motivation all year round. In case you
find losing steam that may happen as when you are making a change you may lose
consistency for some time, don’t loose heart just start afresh.
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Category TECHNOLOGY
Vending Machines and its Uses
As per a report there is a
growth of about 26 percent in the usage of vending machines as recorded in the
growth wave of 2018. There is a provision to sell far more beverages and snacks
by using credit cards and other cashless payment methods.
Juice Machine:
You may have had plenty of
soda. A California start-up has come up with a machine that serves cold-pressed
juice at various locations including supermarkets and fitness centres. JuiceBot
promises that what it offers is fresh and enables consumers to choose flavour
of choice within 24 to 48 hours and drinks are priced at affordable rates.
Cupcake Dispenser:
One dispenser not offering
factory made cakes. Instead these Sprinkles machines across some prominent
cities in USA, dispense gourmet cupcakes that are freshly made at the company’s
bakery. Suitable for the time when there is a desire to have sugar fix at an odd
hour. There is availability of flavours such as red velvet and triple cinnamon
in the range of $5 to $6.
Choose Champagne on Demand:
At times the place near
vending machines become a hub for elite to gather. At a hotel in Las Vegas and
an upmarket bar in New Orleans there is an option to get a mini or split of
famous Moet & Chandon champagne. There is also an option to buy precious
metals at Gold to Go machines in New York, Las Vegas or Atlantic City in New
Jersey.
Clothes on the Go
You may reach a new city and
find that not enough was packed as part of your carry-on luggage. For
travellers who are not satiated with belongings carried along there may be a
solution available in a machine. Vending operators in some prominent US airport
terminals are likely to sell you a stylish vest or an undergarment through the
vending machine. A machine installed in San Francisco terminal reportedly
fetches about $10,000 on a monthly basis.
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Category PERSONAL
Happily Married Couples Since a Long Time Still Feel the Spark of Love
& Romance
On a Valentine’s Day there is
a chance that a lot of older couples will be holding hands and kissing based on
results of a latest report. Recently carried survey of American adults
currently in a relationship by Harris Interactive for online dating service
eHarmony discovered that 78 percent of people aged 65 or above claim to be
happy, very happy or extremely happy in the company of their spouse or the
loved one. An additional 6 percent report their relationships as perfect.
The surveyed older American
couples as part of the poll have been with their partners or better half on
average for 36 years. Eighty nine percent are married while six percent are
staying with their partners, and four percent are a committed relationship but
may not be living in the same place.
There are many who still find
romantic rituals exciting. Ninety one percent of American couples aged 65 years
or more like to kiss their partners every day, while sixty percent reported
holding hands of their partners as a must do ritual, and fifty four percent of
couples still say “I love you” regularly every single day.
According to Grant Langston –
Chief Executive Officer of eharmony, there are lot of people aged 65 or more
those are found to be very romantic. According to him when an individual is
well matched with someone, romance will always remain intact between the couple
with loved ones wanting to hold hands and touch each other as they are in deep
love. One primary reason of happiness of so many couples is that they get along
with each other very well. Just forty one percent of couples aged 65 or more
reported having disagreements once or more on a monthly basis with forty
percent of polled reporting arguing very infrequently, and eighteen percent
claiming that they never argued.
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Category PERSONAL
Rates of Marriage are Rising for the Old and Declining for the Young
The rate of marriage amongst
old aged Americans is continuously increasing, even as many younger adults are
not marrying or postponing their marriage till later in life, as per the data
released earlier this week by leading Institute for Family Studies. Based on
the results of these divergent trends, majority of 65-year-old or more older
people are married (approximately 55.3 percent) whereas most young adults are
unmarried. The rate of marriage amongst 18 to 64-year-old people has dipped to
a record low of 48.6 percent way back in 2016 itself, as per the latest available
Census Bureau data.
The result is that there are
lesser old aged widows and more young people who choose to stay single or go in
for a live-in relationship outside of marriage, as per the report of a research
group in Charlottesville, Va., which also includes scholars of University of
Virginia.
According to Wendy Wang,
director of research institute, the proportion of never-married adults under
the age of 65 years has risen dramatically – from 26 percent in 1990 it jumped
to 36 percent in 2016, resulting in direct contribution to reduction in share
of currently married younger adults. The aforementioned disclosure is what the
director summarized from the analysis conducted. While on the other side the
larger share of married adults of the age of retirement today is more because
of decline in the share of widowed adults, courtesy to the longer life of older
men. At present just 24 percent of 65 years old or more adults are widowed. A
number far less than the 35 percent share in 1990. Among older women, the share
of widowhood has declined sharply from 50 percent in 1990 to 34 percent in
2016. The rate of marriage has overall remained steady over the past five years
with consistently being about 50 percent.
---------------------------------------------
Category TECHNOLOGY
Facebook and YouTube have Tried and Failed to Contain Fallout of New
Zealand Shooting Footage
The famous internet giants
Facebook, YouTube and other prominent Internet majors tried to contain the
fallout after a mass shooter uploaded a seventeen-minute video of deadly attack
on two New Zealand mosques and left a trace of hatred and other criminal acts
on widely used social media, bringing forth the role of these platforms in
nurturing extremist views. According to the country police the gunman, an
Australian citizen, murdered 49 people and injured another 48 by opening fire
on two mosques at the time of prayer, and live-streamed first on Facebook. The
video quickly spread to other Social media sites like Instagram, YouTube and
Reddit. While original videos and links related to the Christchurch shootings
were taken off the web, Silicon Valley giants remained engaged in a game of
whack-a-mole with segments of the video in addition to other related propaganda
getting posted and reposted on the web.
The clips of the video could
still be found on the controversial 8chan forum, where a person claiming to
have opened fire openly discussed about shootings and included a link of
Facebook page that live-streamed the deadly attacks. The trail left by the
alleged shooter, who also urged subscribers to also subscribe to PewDiePie, a
popular YouTube streamer who had to apologize for anti-Semitic remarks, in
addition to making references to far-right violence, suggested there were
forums dedicated to extremism, and wanted to be a keen Internet audience. Prior
to the removal the Facebook page and a Twitter account related to the shooter
contained reference to YouTube videos supporting white nationalist and
anti-immigration views echoed in the manifesto. After being alerted by New
Zealand police, Facebook quickly removed the video and the poster’s Facebook
and Instagram accounts shortly after the video got started viewing popularly.
The Social network giant reported to continue removing any controversial
content related to the attack as soon as it gets an inkling of it getting
posted. There was another new technology also announced to help prevent the
viral spreading of such videos and images. Administrators will now have a
digital fingerprint of a troublesome image which can be stopped from being
shared on the platform at the first place. It’s however unclear at the moment
that how such a technology could have prevented the spreading of live-streamed
video taken by the gunman.
On the other hand, Google,
YouTube’s parent company also stated there was sincere attempt made to remove
video clips. Rapid spread of video even though Facebook and Google had started
to remove it, underscored the scale of problem created by the such hi-tech
platforms that have so far relied on an automated process to remove the ‘bad’
content. Even as more human moderators are being added the explosive growth of
videos has swamped tiny control systems. Facebook, already in a tussle as US
government reviews its data-sharing deals outside entities, had earlier placed
onus on Facebook users to flag videos, still the content reviewer was tasked
with finding problematic content in the video regardless of the length of the
video.
Post the Russian election
interference scandal of 2016, Facebook had brought in additional 5000 security
and community positions by the end of 2018. There are currently 7500 moderators
across the globe tasked with screening for 24/7 timeline. In 2017 as per
Google’s announcement, it was to hire 10,000 new content moderators and have
artificial intelligence tools as well to identify and prevent the spread of
harmful content on YouTube. The failure of this step came to the fore very
recently, last month itself, when it was revealed that adult content continued
to appear on videos featuring children. Despite the unwanted outcome of New
Zealand mass shooting spread through social media, it would be false for any
social media to term this as unexpected. There have been at least 45 instances
of live-stream violence on Facebook since its debut in 2015 according to
trusted sources. These are inclusive of beatings, murder, rape and suicide. It
is important to note that just as New Zealand gunman allegedly leverage social
media to promote hatred and spread racism, other organizations like ISIS are
also having expertise to use social media platforms as a successful tool for
radicalization and recruitment.
--------------------------------------
Category TECHNOLOGY
Wearable Technology at CES included Blood Pressure, Heart and Anti-Snoring
Devices
An expert was touting a new
HeartGuide gadget used for monitoring of blood pressure when his own reading
was abnormal at 166/110, with a normal reading in the range of 120/80 as per
the figure of a globally recognized Heart Association. It was really high as
per the expert, who said if that were his normal blood pressure it would be a
concern. Since it wasn’t hence, he was not concerned. Expert belonging to
Chicago was showing off the wearable device, a monitor looking like a smart
watch at CES (the earlier Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas. Jeff Ray –
working as executive director of business and technology at Omron Healthcare,
is away that blood pressure fluctuates during the day and is also affected by
diet, sleep patterns in addition to level of activity and exercise. The higher
than normal rating must have been because of the vibrant activity at the
largest tech show in the world, and concentration being devoted to HeartGuide
that was cleared as a medical device by the Food and Drug Administration in
December last year. This is not the only wearable health device making hearts
beat fast at CES, Move ECG is another technical health device.
This pretty analogue
smartwatch by Withings is an alternative for users compared to last year’s
famous Apple Watch Series 4, also because it is a bit cheaper priced at $130.
It is also simple to get an electrocardiogram reading by simply touching both
sides of bezel. There is no need to launch an application, however, to see the ECG
in real time or to read it, downloading of app is required. The information so
provided may be of help to those who wish to monitor heartbeat for atrial
fibrillation (A-fib), arrhythmia or other conditions. Wearables cannot just be
referred to watches. AerBetics’ bracelets and pendants use minute nanotech gas
sensors to assess the glucose levels of diabetes patients and warm them of
hypoglycaemia or hyperglycaemic episode that is going to happen. It can also
alert care providers as well of the episodes. There is also an actual clothing
that can monitor health, a cotton-and-Lycra vest by French based Chronolife. It
does not yet have an approval from the FDA, but has sensors that monitor
electrical activity, breathing, body temperature and ominous physical
activities such as falls etc. There is no need to charge the vest and this can
also be washed in a washing machine. There is also the Hupnos (“sleep” in
Greek) app, invented by Curt Ray - the founder of the company, since the wife
had complained about his snoring. The device works with the smartphone as well,
with smartphone listening to the snoring, analysing it, learning it and running
it through artificial intelligence and communicating with a mask.
According to Ray the snorer
will get a gentle vibration to encourage the sleeper to roll to a side thereby
decreasing the snoring. In case the snoring is still in progress it will
increase the exhalation pressure through a patented valve so that it dilates
the airways. This will put a stop to snoring as the airway is larger and cannot
vibrate against itself. Also, Hupnos will not wake an individual as it
optimizes snooze. According to the concept it will start with a very small
vibration and gently increase it unit one rolls over, so that the next morning
one does not remember being woken up, as per Ray. Also, one can wake up and
feel refreshed without noticing that the mask did anything.
-------------------------------------
Category PERSONAL
Critical Ways to Save Thousands on Monthly Expenses
As part of a strategy to save
more money it is wise to go in for the low hanging fruit. Alternatively, it is
good to look for ways to spend less that do not require much, cutting back or
sacrificing. Monthly bill is an apt place to make a beginning. Following is a detail
of how $300 per month was saved without really giving up anything. You may be
able to save even more depending on your scenario. There was an inkling about
good deals to begin with. Although there was some frugality, there is not
always an attempt to switch providers with a focus to save money. All the same,
that may be the place where the biggest chunk of savings can actually be found,
especially if your provider is not able to beat competitors’ prices. Explore
where you are actually spending on regular basis. Try to make a habit to check
how much can be saved by you every month. It will be great if the style of
saving $300 would seem like small potatoes to you. Although $3,600 saved per
annum may be used for a vacation real question is how you would spend that
money?
Saving Money from the Cable Bill – Reach out to the cable provider
to check for any retention specials or bonuses. You may even plan to switch to
a competitor in case there is an attractive introductory offer made to you. In
my case there was $30 per month discount available for a year without any
change in the ongoing plan. Previously I was able to change the channels in the
package helping me save $15 per month. In addition, I returned unused cable
boxes helping save additional $14 per month. In case there is a guest visiting
me there is an option to use Roku or watch cable together in the living room.
These small changes helped save $44 per month without any change to the
existing cable plan. Another option to be considered is to cut the cord.
Decrease the Internet Bill – There are usually several internet
providers offering competitive plans at attractive prices that can be compared.
It will be good to reach out to the existing provider and ask him to match the
competitor pricing, in case that is less. There might be a chance that even
more attractive rate is offered by the provider. In my case faster internet was
offered at lower cost helping save $20 per month.
Try Saving Money on Streaming Services – There
is a tacit assumption that streaming services are currently being paid for.
Tips can be disregarded in case friend is helping you. In case American Express
card is being used, go and check the Amex Offers section. In my case there was
a possibility of getting $5 off each month credit for a few months of CBS All
Access. Other comparable offers for Showtime and Netflix have also been
available. Go and check the streaming services or credit card company offers to
see if there are any offers or ways to reduce the payment. For instance, CBS
All Access was offering 15 percent discount in case year’s rent is paid
upfront. Same shows and services are offered at a lower price.
Check for Car or Homeowners Insurance or
Other Insurances – The insurance company was charging $2 per month for privilege
of paying premiums each month. I chose to pay every six months thereby avoiding
any fees resulting in saving a little more and having fewer bookkeeping
entries. You may want to explore raising deductibles on existing homeowners or
auto insurance policies. Many times, there is a possibility of paying for the
difference in deductibles via a lower insurance costs in just one or two years.
There was an option to raise the deductibles on Auto and Home resulting in
helping save $50 per month. In case of something happening to the home, there
was need to only submit a homeowner’s insurance claim for something major. The
same would be applicable for auto insurance also. In case of a small damage
worth $1,200, it would be good to pay from the pocket rather than submit a
claim in case there was a $1,000 deductible. After having written this still
there is an emergency fund to cover such expenses.
Save on Gymnasium or Yoga – There is
always a possibility of negotiating gym gates. As far as my gym is concerned on
asking for an attractive plan, I was offered two months without any charge
helping save about $15 per month in the present year. In case you are not an
exercise freak it is good to cancel the membership. Fitness freaks have a gym
as well as a membership of yoga studio. It is usually too expensive to take
yoga classes on per class basis. There are studios offering nice discounts if
money is paid in advance. For instance, monthly membership is $150, while if
paying for the whole year it costs a total of $900, which is a saving of 50
percent. This leaves $75 in the pocket to spend elsewhere.
Explore Cell Phone Plans – Family plans
are best way of saving money when it comes to cell phone bills. Still there is
a scope for negotiating on cost and discount. In case there is a partner,
spouse or other family member to share a plan with that is beneficial. You may
end up saving up to $75 per month easily in case a couple shares a plan. The
savings could be increased in case there were more lines. It will be good to
note that all shareholders pay their share of bill on time and in case you not
on an unlimited plan, ensure splitting the bill on usage basis.
Listening to Music in the Car – There
is a preference to listen to satellite radio while driving. As I am not driving
that frequently there is a preference to spend $20 per month elsewhere. A
discussion with the provider resulted in a $12 per month discount. The discount
kept on increasing with frequent discussions with the provider, resulting in an
offer of $8 per month. Additionally, there is an option to switch to a
month-to-month contract viz-a-viz annual expenses, enabling you to cancel the
service at any point of time. There is always an option to listen to podcasts
or playlists using the phone.
These
potential savings may not be huge or life changing but could help save a few
bucks. Saving about $300 per month is good amount of money, which amounts to
$3,600 saved on annual basis. An amount good enough to pay for retirement plan
contributions. Doing so is likely to further lower the taxes thereby putting
more money in the wallet. Perhaps these savings can also help reduce your
student loan, mortgage or credit card outstanding amount. This can potentially
help you save more money in reduced interest charges. For those in good
financial health this saving could help plan another vacation. Try and put this
into action, take a look at your bank and credit card statements and make a
list of recurring charges. Analyse and see which charges could be reduced by
reaching out to the provider. You may find the resulting savings as substantial
and you may end up reducing your expenses by simply tidying up the monthly
bills.
-------------------------------
Category BLOCKCHAIN
Doors Opened for Mobility Open Blockchain
Initiative’s First European Colloquium by BMW
The group
IT centre of BMW based at Munich on February 15th, hosted the first
European colloquium of the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI) as the
car manufacturer explores further about use of blockchain in automotive
enterprise. It was only less than a year ago that MOBI got launched by major
auto companies including BMW, General Motors, Ford and Renault, in order to
explore the value addition of blockchain in the automotive and mobility space.
There are total of 30 founding members of MOBI that also include companies not
directly related to the automotive manufacturing space and directly dealing
with blockchain. Some of other major contributors include likes of Bosch,
Blockchain at Berkeley, Hyperledger, Fetch.ai, IBM and IOTA amongst others.
Focus of the colloquium – members of
MOBI are set to meet at BMW’s IT centre in Munich for two days in the likely
platform for sharing knowledge and experience an in an attempt to endorse and
develop common standards for using distributed ledger technologies and
blockchain in the mobility industry. Andre Luckow, Head of department for
blockchain and distributed ledger technologies at BMW, said that the excitement
surrounding blockchain as subsided and is being even met with occasional
scepticism. BMW is convinced that blockchain represents a real opportunity and
can even break up established, centralized market by coming up more
decentralized platforms giving customers more control of the data.
Mobile
industry has been exploring the enterprise blockchain technology to find ways
of how it can complement the automotive industry across the board. BMW has even
made news by finding how blockchain technology can aid in sourcing ethical
cobalt. Meanwhile Toyota is another automotive major looking independently at
the technology for aid in a critical new wave for automobiles, the autonomous
vehicle. BMW is also piloting a blockchain platform to track mileage in
vehicles on lease via its start-up innovation program via the VerifyCar app.
Other major automobile companies that has joined the R3 Consortium include the
RCI Bank, created and wholly owned by groupe Renault, which joined in 2016-time
frame.
The
European colloquium of MOBI that is first of its kind help by BMW highlights
where exactly is the automotive industry in terms of leveraging blockchain
technology for its industry in addition to its enterprise. The potential of
effectiveness of blockchain is huge in vast automotive industry, starting at
sourcing of material and going all the way up to ride-share reward programs.
For being successful in the implementation of this technology across the
industry it is required by the companies of this size to engage with small
players also and even start ups to share expectations and experiences.
Tougher Competition – Automotive
industry is usually always on the cutting edge driven by dictates of customers
and competition. It is thus wise for automotive giants including BMW, GM, Ford
and other major players to open up to the potential of blockchain and give a
boost to their enterprise. Automobiles are now highly technical, shifting from
being just industrial, and it will not be intelligent to not indulge in
technologies like blockchain, AI and IoT. It is also important to note that in
the current competitive scenario, the manufacturers are eager to sit together,
open their doors, and welcome direct competition into a space where there is a
potential of open discussion with key technology drivers.
This
watchful yet progressive and hands-on approach is fruitful for major
manufacturers in their enterprise. In addition, it also helps smaller
organizations including start-ups who have the potential to build up technology
and its use-cases within a well-defined framework.
-------------
Category TECHNOLOGY
Lot of Interest Generated by Automated Wheelchairs at CES
Global investment in
technology for older adults has almost grown three times sine the year 2017 as
per the Telegraph. No wonder CES 2019 has amazing technical stuff including
world’s first Lamborghini massage chair that integrates the looks of the
Aventador Roadster and Bumblebee from the Transformers movie and costs about
$30,000. Seems like each company at CES in the process to reinvent the wheel or
the wheelchair with technology with new Autonomous Drive System (ADS), a
self-driving update of CES hit of 2018, the CI wheelchair, which ensures the
attendees are now able to rent to cruise amidst the huge crowd of visitors. As
per Justin Gagnon – marketing director of WHILL, everybody wants to still
travel as the boomer population goes older. As per Gagnon, strategic
partnerships with airports will make that easier and more fun. Demand for
mobility assistance at airports is increasing at the rate of fifteen percent
each year. Airports could save money with WILL meaning that what otherwise
seems to be a tech upstart’s pipe dream could come true.
Gagnon adds that it’s the
mobility-impaired Uber. When one reaches airport one can summon it and it picks
you up and you can command it to take you to a certain terminal or a gate.
Rather than getting pushed around there is a possibility to explore the airport
independently. Independence is another big idea behind another intriguing
wheelchair gizmo at CES, the Wheelie. Paulo Pinheiro – an inventor, was at
trouble to see an immobile lady in a wheelchair at airport but was struck by
cheerful smile of the lady. A thought cropped up about the smile propelling her
wheelchair. With facial recognition software, the Wheelie can be controlled by
a person with using eleven different facial expressions that include a grin, a
wink, a smooch or a raised eyebrow.
Another major news in CES
showcasing wheelchair tech was the announcement of five $500,000 finalists
battling for the $1 million first prize money at the Toyota Mobility
Foundation’s Mobility Unlimited Challenge. Italdesign was a finalist at CES for
its Moby, a wheelchair-sharing service. Persons with lightweight
hand-controlled wheelchairs can roll them into Moby docking stations in urban
settings while connecting to bigger electric wheelchairs that resemble
speedboats on wheels and are able to whizz around the cities with ease. When
they are ready, renters return the wheelchair to the share station. Other
finalists that can beat Moby include Phoenix Instinct’s Phoenix Ai, which
constantly rebalances the ultralight wheelchair’s centre of gravity so that the
driver hitting a bump or trying to reach for something would not make chair
trip over. Another technical entry is Evowalk of Evolution Devices, a
rehabilitation “sleeve” for lower-leg paralysis having sensors to direct muscle
stimulation right where it is needed the most. Two additional entries that
reduce wheelchair to an exoskeleton include Quix from USA based Myolyn and the
Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, which is based on robotic balance
algorithms to keep users upright on the chair, and Qolo, the University of
Tsukuba’s entry that is a powered exoskeleton on wheels. Does Qolo has an Iron
Man like costume to defy disability? Maybe yes, or maybe it is still being
considered. Outcome of CES is that every year dreaming is an iterative process
capable of delivering major technology push to boomers and other including some
who probably long for a Lamborghini that can crunch a damaged back.
-------------------------------
Category BLOCKCHAIN
Navigating Ethereum, Bitcoin, XRP:
Blockchain Made Searchable by Google
It’s a
balmy weather in Singapore and experts from Google are finding somethings
puzzling. Using the tools, developed at Google, there is a mysterious concerted
usage of artificial intelligence observed on the blockchain for Ethereum. Ether
is the third largest cryptocurrency of the world after bitcoin and XRP, and
there is still a market cap of about $11 billion despite significant loss of
its value (more than 80 percent) in 2018. Looking at blockchain, the
distributed database of transactions underpinning the cryptocurrency, the
experts detect a “whole bunch” of “autonomous agents” moving funds all the
places in an automated fashion. They are clueless of who has created the AI,
they suspect that there could be agents of cryptocurrency exchanges trading
among themselves in order to artificially inflate ether’s price. According to
experts it is not really just single agents performing things on their own,
they are forming with other agents to bring a larger group effect.
Experts are
senior developers for Google Cloud, but some describe the role as “customer
zero” for the company’s cloud computing efforts. As such it is their job to
anticipate demand prior to product’s existence, and according to them making
blockchain more accessible is the next big thing. Just as Google enabled and
also generated profit, from making the internet more user friendly about two
decades ago, its next billions may come from shining bright light on
blockchains. If there is success, the world will come to know whether
blockchain’s real usage is living up to its hype. Last year experts and another
small team of open-source developers quietly began to load date for the whole
Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchains into Google’s big data analytics platform
named BigQuery for testing purposes. Then the experts collaboratively worked to
create a suite of sophisticated software to search the data.
In spite of
lack of publicity about the project, the word spread at a fast pace among
crypto-minded coders. During the past year there are more than 500 projects
that got created using the latest tools, with an attempt to achieve everything
from predicting the price of bitcoin to analysing wealth disparity among all
holding ether. While considering cloud computing, Google is way behind the
leaders like Amazon and Microsoft. Of course, Google pocketed close to $3
billion in revenue from cloud services in the year gone by, Amazon and
Microsoft were the leaders generating about $27 billion and $10 billion,
respectively in cloud-based revenue. The experts now hope that the project,
christened Blockchain ETL (extract, transform, load), will help even the
playing field. Amazon managed blockchain in a great way in 2018 with cutting
edge tools for managing distributed ledgers. Microsoft jumped into the scene in
2015 timeframe while releasing tools for Ethereum’s blockchain. Now is offers
range of services as part of its Azure Blockchain Workbench. Focus of Google
experts is to expose how blockchains are actually being used and by whom.
In the
coming times moving additional economic activity on chain will not just require
a consensus level of trust, according to experts, who are referring to the core
validating mechanism of blockchain technology. There will be a requirement of
some trust to know about whom one is actually interacting with. In reality if
blockchain is to go mainstream, some its anonymity features need to be done away
with. Distributed-systems technology has been in the tool of the experts for a
while now. Interesting characteristics of blockchains could be seen that could
run a global supercomputer. Experts hired in 2016 to work in the health and
bioinformatics areas of Google segues to blockchains, the hottest
distributed-computing effort on the planet currently. Prior to releasing the
tools experts just searched a blockchain that required specialized software
called – block explorers, which let users hunt only for specific transactions,
each labelled with a unique tangle of 26-plus alphanumeric characters. Google’s
Blockchain ETL on the other hand, lets users make more generalized searches of
entire ecosystems of transactions.
For
demonstrating how customers could use Blockchain ETL of Google to bring
positive changes to the crypto economy, experts have used these tools to
examine the much-hyped hard fork, or an irrevocable split in a blockchain, that
created a new cryptocurrency called bitcoin cash, from bitcoin during the
summer of 2017. The particular split was a result of Hatfield and McCoy fighting
within the bitcoin community amongst a group that wanted to leave bitcoin as
such and another group that wanted to develop a currency, like cash, that would
be cheaper and faster to use for paltry transactions. Using Google’s BigQuery
it was discovered that rather than increasing micro-transactions, as claimed by
developers, it was actually being hoarded among big holders of bitcoin cash.
Google’s experts work is inspiring others. There are programmers from places
like Warsaw who are creator of service that analyses smart contracts, a feature
of some blockchains designed to transparently enforce contractual obligations
such as collateralized loans but with reduced reliance on other parties such as
lawyers’ community. In only some time these programmers and Google experts met
and within a month, new developers were using Google’s tools to search for a
smart contract feature termed as “selfdestruct,” made to curtail contract’s
life span.
Google
experts are now expanding beyond bitcoin and Ethereum. Additional
cryptocurrency to be added to BigQuery includes Litecoin, zcash, dash, bitcoin
cash, Ethereum classic and dogecoin. Independent developers are loading their
own crypto data sets on Google. There was a Dutch developed who uploaded entire
400GB of transaction data from Ripple’s XRP blockchain into BigQuery. The data
of Dutch expert that is updated every 15 minutes, prompted Danish designer to
come up with a heat map of crypto flows. The resulting colourful orb so created
brings forth more than a million crypto wallets, including big exchanges like
Binance and Wirex – London’s crypto debit card start-up, which are neck deep in
XRP transactions. According to BlockApps CEO James Lubin, Google has been a bit
of a sleeping giant in blockchain, and BlockApps is now partnering with Google
to sell enterprise blockchain apps. Google has filed numerous patents related
to the blockchain, including one in 2018 to use a lattice of interoperating
blockchains to enhance security, a big event in the world where hackers have
created havoc on millions of crypto. The company is also making its developers
to come with apps on the Ethereum blockchain, and Google’s venture segment, GV,
has also come up with prominent investments in crypto start-ups. It seems that
he giant is now going to wake up.
-------------------------------------
Category PERSONAL
Starbucks’ Expansion Accelerated Across
Asia Amidst Intense Competition by Kevin Johnson
Performers
are dancing to the soothing melodies and the charming sounds in Bali at the
January opening of a special Starbucks Dewata Coffee Sanctuary on the resort
island. Dignitaries present on the occasion include VIPs draped in finest batik
shirts, including Kevin Johnson - the CEO of Starbucks. The outlet is the
largest in Southeast Asia, at 20,000 square feet, and one of the only 185
existing Starbucks Reserve bars across the world out of about 29,000 existing
stores. Johnson welcomes the gathering by greeting them and declaring the
pleasure of their presence, and inviting them to explore the new store that
also includes a small, but working, coffee plantation on the premises. Johnson
travelled all the way from Seattle, the Starbucks headquarter city, to take
part in the ceremony in good part as Asia has huge strategic importance for the
company, which is having close to 8,600 outlets. China is the most critical
market in the region, home to about forty percent of all outlets in Asia.
According to Johnson, aged 58, China is the second largest and fastest growing
market for Starbucks, after USA as stated to Forbes Asia in an exclusive
interview.
The Chinese
market is expected to generate approximately $4.3 billion in revenue by 2022,
up from existing $2.4 billion, according to Mintel a U.K. based research firm.
By that time Starbucks aims to have more than 6,000 stores in China alone, a
growth from existing 3,521 stores, which is about double the size in just three
years. Addition of new cafes in China is paying off, having nearly doubled
Starbucks’ total revenues from the region to $652 million in 2018 from a year
ago. While USA is already saturated, China is wide-open opportunity. Annual
coffee consumption per capita is just about 0.5 cup compared to 300 cups in
USA. In an analyst conference held in April last year, Johnson said that if one
looks at the math, it means it’s over 1,200 times the opportunity size as U.S.
in terms of consumption. The largest Starbucks in the world by size, at 30,000
square feet was opened in Shanghai in 2017 to show its commitment to China.
Still there are numerous competitors in the region from various fronts, from
dozens of new hip coffee bars opening across Asia to larger regional
competitors such as Hong Kong’s Pacific Coffee and Singapore’s Coffee Bean
& Tea Leaf. One of the strongest upstarts in China is the homegrown Luckin
Coffee, based in Xiamen. Starting with a single store in Beijing just a year
back, it has grown to more than 2,000 outlets during this time. This challenge
is going to be the biggest test for Johnson, who took over as CEO of Starbucks in
2017 from the legendary founder Howard Schultz.
Luckin is
all set to overtake Starbucks during the current year with more stores in
China, around 4,500 by end of the year, compared to Starbucks’ planned 4,200
stores by the year-end. Johnson was confident that Luckin is “unlikely” to stop
Starbucks in 2019. Yet Luckin claims to open a new store in China every fourth
hour compared to Starbucks that is opening one every fifteenth hour. Starbucks
is also in a race to be at the best locations in China as per John Quelch, dean
of University of Miami Business School. He says that more stores there are, the
more efficient is the national brand advertising and brand building effort.
Starbucks entered China two decades ago and is playing for keeps. According to
Johnson Starbucks is committed for a long-term. It was only in May last year
that Starbucks sold its global consumer business to Swiss multinational Nestle
for $7 billion. The deal creates a partnership where Nestle will handle the
retail sales of all Starbucks-branded products all across the world. The global
agreement has a large China component as well, as the Swiss giant already has
distribution to 1.5 million outlets in China.
Nestle is
in a comfortable position to roll out Starbucks products quickly across China.
Another milestone was achieved in 2017 in consolidating position in China when
Starbucks bought out its joint venture partner in eastern China, Taiwan’s Uni-President
group, for $1.3 billion, giving Starbucks full control over the critical Shanghai
market. As part of the deal Uni-President was given full control to run
Starbucks in Taiwan. Post the acquisition, now Starbucks fully control about
eighty five percent of its stores in China with the rest being licensed to
partners. Digital also plays an important as part of the strategy. Starbucks
has tied up with Alibaba as part of China digital partnership and now Starbucks
deliveries across China is a possibility. In August last year, Starbucks signed
a deal with Alibaba to use Ele.me, the leading food delivery site of China, to
sell Starbucks beverages. The new entity named Starbucks Delivers, will link
Ele.me delivery services with 2,000 Starbucks outlets across 30 Chinese cities.
It will also be available in Alibaba’s retail grocery chain Hema. There is also
a plan to open the first virtual story worldwide in China, in partnership with
Alibaba, making it available via Starbucks app or Alibaba’s apps like Taobao or
Alipay. The virtual store will enable customers to order drinks, buy
merchandise or send gifts while being in or outside a physical Starbucks store.
Johnson
seems to be calm about China and Asia market. According to him the addressable
market for coffee is huge and is growing. There have been competitors since the
first Starbucks store was opened, there are large competitors, start-up
competitors and Johnson’s strategy is to continue to invest in the experience
that is created by Starbucks.
------------------------------------------
Category TECHNOLOGY
Convergence of IoT and Blockchain: Digital
Identity Offering Launched by WISeKey
Very
recently SensorsID has been launched by WISeKey International Holding, a
digital offering focussed to protect device identities and the stored data.
There is an analysis report by Gartner with an estimation that by 2020, in
excess of 20 billion devices will be connected. Each device is expected to have
a security with it with many of the sensors putting secure IoT chips to use.
There is a prediction that by 2020, 1 trillion networked sensors will get
embedded in the world with each one protected by strong digital identity,
authentication and data protection. SensorsID as a result focusses to rely on
dual-factor authentication capabilities with a cutting edge blockchain platform
for securing device identities and the subsequent data transactions, as per the
company. The SensorsID blockchain is continuously growing as upcoming identity
blocks and relevant data transactions are being added to it to provide
protection to authenticity and traceability, as per the company.
The system
is completely decentralized and has the potential to be operated at national or
local levels using distributed ledger controlled by trusted entities spread
across the blockchain ecosystem. According to company’s report, the protection
offered in the new solution in combination with an application microcontroller
in the IoT edge device, is at a ‘premium’ level. The combined security could
have put a stop to both the meltdown and spectre attacks. According to the
company the data is stored securely within the protected memory of the chips
that have been designed with superior capabilities that do not allow other
software to run on them. In addition, these have been equipped with multiple
hardware sensors and protection mechanisms providing protection from hardware
attacks. In another instance of IoT and blockchain convergence, at consumer
level, there was an announcement last month by Omniaz – a Singapore-based
start-up, that it had partnered with Wine Connection to launch a ‘smart bottle’
experience referred as DRNK. DRNK which means ‘drink, rewards, network,
knowledge’ is being developed in addition to providers such as NEM, Smartrac,
Semiconductors and ProximaX.
------------------------------------------
Category TECHNOLOGY
New IoT Tool Launched by Sprint to Provide
Simpler Pricing Options to Businesses
There is a
recent announcement by Sprint about launch of its new Curiosity IoT Estimation
Tool that will provide quick access to medium and small size business customers
in addition to enterprise customers, to customized Sprint Curiosity IoT data
pricing. The product is also equipped to enable users to select one or multiple
features for creation of custom access point names (APNs), in addition to
pricing information. The Curiosity IoT Estimation Tool provides international
IoT data rates in six different regions across the world for the benefit of
planning and building IoT solutions by global organizations. In addition, the
tool helps businesses quickly scale IoT solutions by showing pricing estimates
for adding multiple devices and services without any need to back and forth
with a sales team.
According
to Ivo Rook – Sprint SVP of IoT and product development, there is a statement
that irrespective of which IoT planning stage one is in, the tool quickly and
with ease depicts customized pricing by gigabyte for the prominent IoT data
services of the company. It shows the customers exactly what is needed to be
budgeted for IoT data services and eliminates the guess work while highlighting
the confidence that Sprint has in IoT data pricing. Targeting its primary
competitor AT&T for alleged fake 5G marketing, Sprint brought forth a
full-page advertisement in the New York Times at the start of this month. In
spite of having a 4G network, the undertaken marketing strategy for upcoming
5G-E network has created uneasiness with the rivals. According to some critics,
the branding is misleading and the consumers are likely to believe that they
have quick access to a 5G network. Prior to going in for a lawsuit in February
timeframe, Sprint carried out a detailed survey to find that 54 percent of
consumers believe that 5G-E is the same as, or even better than a 5G network.
------------------------------
Category Technology
AI Set for a Business Breakthrough by
Delivering Content Smarts to Workers
There is a
good understanding amongst Canadian CEO community about the potential
artificial intelligence (AI), many still find it a challenge to implement it
usefully. According to experts this is all set to change. The use of AI-driven
content management practices is likely to deliver quantum results for
enterprises as per a Gartner report. Also, there is a prediction from Forrester
that the combination of enterprise content management and analytics will hit a
cognitive tipping point by 2021, if not earlier. AI offers easy solutions to
team to find and work with content, making business processes speedy. For
instance, it will be easy and quick to spot people and objects in a video or
security footage helping save major time of searching. According to Mike
Schwartz – Product Marketing Manager at Box, this has the potential to be a
fundamentally transformative wave of technology. According to other experts it
will have even more impact than cloud did on the way businesses operate in
today’s digital age.
Capitalization of Content – Enterprises
now have to manage an ever-increasing load of data. According to Gartner, by
2021, businesses are expected to see an 800 percent increase in data created,
with 80 percent of that being unstructured content comprising of documents and
images. As data grows it will even more tough, time consuming and expensive to
find sense within the data. On an average a worker spends 136 minutes per week
looking for documents as per Schwartz. At times even sensitive information can
fall through cracks. Simultaneously there is being made big investments by
major cloud providers in AI to enable businesses leverage the power of machine
learning according to Schwartz. AI solutions have prominently been used by data
scientists, but not shared across the entire organization. With the current
availability scalable and cheaper computing power, the focus is to put rich
insights into the minds of the people that can put it to good use, as per
Schwartz.
Real World Applications – AI solutions
have been put to practical use to solve wide range of complex business
problems. For instance, AI solutions can help extract information from customer
contracts for legal teams or help bring forth details from a licence to help
onboarding of new employees or customers at a faster pace. Even audio calls or
handwriting can be converted to written text by them. There are various
possibilities, but more important is to understand the way to bring this
together. There has been a framework developed by Box, called Box Skills, that
enables the enterprises with ability to analyse their data on the Box cloud
content management platform using the AI technology of choice. Enterprises has
the choice of going in for IBM Watson or an algorithm developed inhouse to get
greater value from their data, as per Schwartz. It is easier setting it up as
it applies AI to the existing Box cloud content management system that is being
used by the employees on daily basis. According to Ravneet Uberoi – Product
Manager at Box Skills, to realize the true benefits of AI, it is important for
enterprises to choose the correct use cases while taking the first steps. It
should be applied to repeatable processes, where there is a large repository of
data that is being used by people frequently, and where there is extensive
manual entry and verification involved. Uberoi says it is good to start with
the most manual processes. According to him that is the area where machine
learning is a very powerful, giving employees an ample time to focus on higher
value tasks.
--------------------------------
Category MONEY
New Tax Rule Out Resulting in Lower Breaks for Home Equity Loans
For a long time now, house has
been considered a financial back up. In case one planned to help children in
graduating, encountered a surprise medical bill or was tired of paying higher
interest on credit card balance, tapping the equity in the home was a low-cost
way to borrow. The rate of interest on a home-equity loan is usually lower than
what is paid elsewhere and that could be deducted as interest on your taxes.
This may not be true any longer as the 2017 tax legislation changed the rules
altogether, and may even come as a surprise while filing taxes. You can
subtract interest on home equity loan or line of credit only if the debt was to
buy, build or bring improvement in the home, according to IRS. If borrowing for
any other reason the interest is no longer eligible for deduction. This could cost
you money at tax time and also make it difficult to file, as more and more
homeowners treat their homes as personal banks. As per a recent survey by
Bankrate.com, 44 percent homeowners thought debt consolidation as a good use of
home equity, with 31 percent citing education expenses. While working on taxes
this year, if something has been borrowed against your home for anything other
than a repair of home, you will need to know the IRS “tracing rules,” requiring
you to identify where the loan proceeds actually went.
The lender is likely to send
you the old form stating the total rate of interest paid by you last year (i.e.
Form 1098), but the bank or credit union is actually clueless of what was done
with the funds. As per Mark Luscombe – principal federal tax analyst for
Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting, to calculate the deduction you must track
and document the portion used on home compared to other projects. For instance,
if eighty percent of loan on new room and the other twenty percent on education
expenses, you can deduct only eighty percent of the interest. According to Cari
Weston – director of tax practise and ethics for American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants, the code allows you to estimate as long as it is
reasonable. As per Luscombe its not exact tracing. There is no need to prove
that exact home equity funds went to improvements, but it is required to
document how you spent say $1 lakh on a new kitchen.
Finally, there is no way to
get around this by refinancing the original mortgage and rolling home equity
loan into that or taking out cash to spend the way you want. Luscombe notes
that the new rule for deducting interest is applicable to debt backed by the
home. In addition, you could run afoul of another new limit on subtracting home
loan interest. Unless you borrowed prior to December 2017, you can no longer
deduct interest on home debt in excess of $7.5 lakh down from $1 million, which
is still the limit on older loans. Under all these changes one will be better
off simply paying down the debt as per Weston.
-----------------------------------------------------
Category TECHNOLOGY
Four Trends of Cloud Computing That CIOs
Need to be Prepared for in 2019
Traditional
role of CIOs keeps evolving and 2019 promises even more pressure on them to
deliver IT solutions with a focus to meet expectations of customers, partners
and even employees. As per a report by IDC, almost half of IT spending in 2018
timeframe was on cloud-based technologies, which is expected to reach 60
percent of IT infrastructure and 60 percent to 70 percent of all software,
services and technology spending by 2020. It is important for CIOs to see the
importance of cloud computing from a competitiveness perspective, not just as a
cost that needs to be carefully managed. 2019 is the year requiring CIOs to
balance the capabilities of the newest cloud technology while still focussing
on security. Following are the four major trends of cloud computing requiring
CIOs to be considerate in 2019:
·
Cloud Services
Offerings and Solutions are to Grow (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS): There is going to
be an explosion of new cloud services and solutions. Following statistics is
there to reinforce this statement.
o
Subscription based software-as-a-service (SaaS)
is all set to grow at an 18 percent CAGR in 2020, according to reports of Bain
& Company.
o
Investment in platform-as-a-service (PaaS) will
rise from 32 percent figure of 2016 to 56 percent in 2019, turning it into
fastest-growing sector of cloud platforms as per KPMG.
o
Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) market is set
to reach $72.4 billion globally by 2020 as per Gartner.
Going by existing cloud computing trends, the number of cloud
solutions in public and private sectors will expand in 2019. There is
likelihood of more enterprises taking advantage of the simplicity and
high-performance offered by cloud services.
·
Quantum
Computing May be Closer Than we Think: The race to establish quantum
supremacy is on with IBM competing against Microsoft, Google and Intel, the
companies that are working with full force to develop the first quantum
computer that can deliver on the technology’s long promised abilities such as
seamless data encryption, creating solutions for healthcare industry, weather
predictions, AI and enhanced financial modelling. A robust reliable quantum
computer is likely to be developed in a decade’s timeframe, however the recent
effort of the companies may bring it in a short frame of time. There was an
achievement by IBM in November 2017, when the computing industry saw a 5-qubit
and a 20-qubit version, and quantum computing was being offered as a cloud
service. Amongst the primary companies signing up for testing included JPMorgan
Chase, Daimler, Honda, Barclays and Samsung. Next big step towards quantum computing was taken when Alibaba
collaborated with Chinese Academy of Sciences, and 11-qubit quantum computing
service was launched which is now publicly available on the quantum computing
platform. Currently it is the second fastest in the world behind IBM’s 20-qubit
computer.
The quantum computing market is set to grow faster then imagined.
Global quantum computing market is set to be worth $1.9 billion by 2023, which
will increase to $8 billion by 2027. The quantum computing industry is getting
crowded also, an increasing number of quantum computing start-ups are entering
the fray. Prominent amongst the start-ups is Canadian D-Wave Systems, the first
company to sell quantum computers in the world. Many other companies are
developing quantum computing components, algorithms, applications and software
tools. With IBM and Alibaba effectively implementing quantum computing’s power
with their cloud offerings, time is ripe to accelerate the adoption of quantum
computing. Upon reaching the next milestone in quantum computing, there is
likely to be success and a way for greater quantum computing innovation.
·
More
Players are Likely to Opt-In for Hybrid Cloud Solutions: Fully
transitioning to the cloud has turned out to be more challenging than
anticipated. Here is the place for hybrid cloud solutions to play a prominent
role. Hybrid cloud is going to enable companies to transition to the cloud at
their own pace and this involves less risk and lower cost. 2019 is the year
where more companies are going to opt for a hybrid-cloud approach allowing them
to access the efficiency and effectiveness of cloud solutions. 2016 based cloud
survey from RightScale highlights that a business using the cloud is likely to access
six different clouds at least. The clouds are going to come from multivendor
systems such as AWS, IBM, Google et al, or a blend of private and public
clouds. With the adoption of cloud systems peaking in 2019, the CIOs need to
focus on the advantages and disadvantages of cloud services prior to choosing a
befitting solution meeting business requirement.
·
Cloud
Security to Become More Complicated With GDPR: Security is likely to be a
major issue with the cloud technology, especially now with the introduction of
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Going by the positives of the cloud
services, majority businesses are going to opt for cloud without thinking much
about security issues. As per Gartner, till 2020, 99 percent of vulnerabilities
exploited are going to be ones known by security and IT professionals for a minimum
of one year. 2019 is going to be a tough year for companies to ensure that the
data practices are in sync with GDPR requirements. Digital transformations are
likely to make more and more enterprises move to the cloud in 2019, which also
means increase in cyber-security threats in the time to come.
It is expected that about 83 percent of enterprise workloads will be
in the cloud by 2020, with 41 percent enterprise workloads running on public
cloud platforms, while another 22 percent running on hybrid cloud platforms.
Ensuring cloud compliance as part of GDPR is also going to be a tough task.
Commvault’s recent surveys highlight that only a small number, around 12
percent of 177 global IT organizations surveyed, have a sense of how GDPR is
going to affect cloud services. These results increase the doubt that companies
using cloud services are going to be vulnerable. CIOs are also likely to face
additional challenges compared to past, to be competitive in this ever-changing
tech environment. The aforementioned details are critical areas which requires
dedicated resources to stay relevant and ensure the products remain ahead of
the curve in 2019 and in coming years.
Category TECHNOLOGY
Exploring the Future of Enterprise Cloud
Computing
The focus
of enterprise cloud-based discussions is shifting from risk to integration to
value creation, and this is going to make traditional approaches to technology
and service management immaterial.
Avoid Managing Yesterday’s Solution
Tomorrow
Majority of
time of these three decades has been utilized by enterprises on optimizing
technology and service management disciplines around the concept of expensive,
complex, and dissimilar solutions needing prominent operational oversight,
substantial time to change consumption patterns, and major effort and cost to
improve. Cloud services, going by the nature of flexible on-demand consumption,
are unsuitable for approaches related to governance based on pre-negotiated
baselines or custom costs for increasing consumption or consideration of fixed
cost repayment. The mentioned services are not suited to monthly or quarterly
reporting and analytics related to consumption and performance, or other
planning processes related to new functionality or lifecycle management. The
existing gap between traditional management and governance methodology, and the
type of cloud services used show a growing barrier to the ability of
enterprises to take advantage of enterprise cloud for better business outcomes.
The
decrease in value due to unexpected demand, mis-managed provisioning,
inefficient architecture, poor performance management, and non-negotiable
integration and innovation management can jack up the cost of enterprise cloud
services, shatter even fundamental benefits of lifecycle management, and can
destroy the cost benefit offered by well-architected and well-managed cloud
services. Following is a data for your reference, extracted from Avasant
Research’s survey of over 1,500 technology professionals during the first
quarter of 2018.
·
Unexpected
Demand – There is 30 to 40 percent higher cost reported than what is
planned based on higher consumption by the clients exploiting cloud services
for enterprise workloads. Nearly 40 percent of the consumption reported is due
to adoption of cloud at a faster pace than expected. But, due to increase in
cloud consumption on a daily, or even minute-to-minute basis, and with capacity
decisions for legacy environments being made on quarterly or annual basis,
there are usually no corresponding reductions in traditional tasks, leading to
a greater cost.
·
Improper
Demand Management – The major concern is that about 60 percent of the
higher cost is due to inefficient usage of cloud resources, which starts from
issues such as provisioning the wrong commercial model for certain tasks, to
continual usage of cloud resources even post fulfilment of demand. Altogether,
these factors are a reason for reduction of on-demand nature of cloud usage and
resulting of excess unused capacity that is being paid for by enterprises,
which is unlike traditional on-premises or outsourced data centre delivery
models.
·
Poor
Architecture – Major reason for inefficiency is inefficient application and
integration architecture leading to higher transaction volumes in and out of
cloud environments. The traditional delivery models are not affected by cost
factor due to excess capacity that is unused also, the superfluous transactions
do have impact on clouds in the range of 40 to 50 percent of what can be
achieved with properly architected solutions.
·
Difficulty
in Management – There is significant cost and effort involved in
integrating and orchestrating hyperscale solutions with both applications
hosted in IaaS/PaaS model, and with other services outside the native cloud
environment, even though these offer a good automation, monitoring and
reporting facility of native workloads. The monetary burden of
instrumentations, monitoring, automation, integration, and reporting can destroy
any management and governance efficiencies compared to traditional on-premises
or outsourced managed services.
·
Traditional
Integration – Difficulty in having operations to support massive change in cloud
environments, and the need to ensure these changes are coordinated with and
integrated into other workloads, is likely to disturb any benefit of lifecycle
management that cloud services offers. The increased effort to integrate,
lifecycle management of traditional environments, and the management and governance
of such efforts costs the same, if not more than, the lifecycle management
efforts in traditional environments.
No More Fruitless Value
Even though
the cloud adoption, the presence of Enterprise Cloud services, and clear
understanding of the barriers to value creation has increased, still there is a
bottleneck to transformation holding back business transformation for over
couple of decades and perpetuating legacy and traditional technologies in
enterprises. The huge cost of transforming obsolete, customized, and inflexible
technologies, in combination with lack of investment in many industries,
results in over half of transformations initiatives not seeing the light of the
day, and in excess of 95 percent of technology expenditure is still spent on
maintenance of obsolete technologies. Traditional methodologies to
transformation, even if put to practice, have a poor track record, with 65
percent of initiatives failing to meet scope, cost, or time objectives, with
average cost overrun in the vicinity of 50 percent, and around 90 percent
initiatives requiring immediate remediation due to overage caused by long
planning and execution cycles, typically 3 to 4 years from ideation to
execution. Forward thinking enterprises are responding by disposing off of the
traditional portfolio management and capital budgeting approach to
transformation, and instead opt for zero cost transformation approach based on:
·
Significantly reducing or eliminating principal
expenditure needed to innovate.
·
Investment from strategic technology partners in
the digital transformation program.
·
Compensation for technology partners linked to
fruitful business value generated, measured and reported.
As per the
figure of 2017, over 25 percent of all transformation initiatives were based on
co-investment, and about one-third of initiatives linked some of all vendor
compensation to tangible business value generation. This coexistence is made
possible by very low cost of easily available cloud-native solutions, major
impact on business efficiencies, increased acceptance to switch technologies
and vendors based on open standards, and rapid maturation of the market for
co-innovation partnerships. Importantly, by taking advantage of cloud-native
solutions and embedding DevOps into transformation initiatives, enterprises can
reduce initiative timelines from multiple years to just six months, thereby
enhancing speed of innovation, reducing cost and time related risks, and
eliminating the risk of technology obsolescence.
------------------------------------------------
Category
BLOCKCHAIN
Blockchain IoT Market Set to Exceed Pound
2.31 Billion by 2024 According to Report
There is a
report from MarketsAndMarkets that forecasts tremendous growth in the
blockchain IoT market to exceed beyond 2 Billion Pounds by 2024 timeframe. At
the moment blockchain and IoT are two of the hottest buzzwords. It was
infamously proven by Long Island based Blockchain company that if one uses
either term there will be investors ready to invest money in the business. In
2019, the report expects the market to reach $113.1 million mark and by 2024,
the figure is expected to cross $3.01 billion mark. It is known to most people
by now about incredible opportunities presented by IoT, and of the associated
risks. Weak security and proliferating devices have made the IoT a specific
target for hackers. Primary activity to solve some of the IoT’s prominent
security problems is expected to be at the helm of huge growth in the
blockchain market. Another prominent use for the blockchain is transparency and
immutability. Some IoT deployments have this as a vital and important aspect of
maintaining trust. Transportation and logistics, in particular are expected to
hold the largest market size in the blockchain IoT market. The thrust to
securely track critical things such as food and medicinal supplies has long
been touted as a critical benefit of combining blockchain and the IoT.
------------------
Category TECHNOLOGY
Major Cloud Predictions for the Year 2019
Last year
of 2018 turned out to be a landmark year for cloud technology with flurry of
mergers and acquisitions, perhaps none more so than the IBM bid to take over
Red Hat, the Kubernetes supporter via Red Hat OpenShift and open source
powerhouse behind Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The mentioned and the other
upcoming alliances are all set to accelerate technological advances that create
a new standard for adoption. The volume and impact of subsequent changes have
forced organizations to rethink how they define the cloud strategy for their
business and infrastructure needs. While looking up to 2019, organizations are
all set to focus on shifting respective cloud strategies from the low end
infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) opportunity to instead extracting valuable
data from their business processes; integrating information and data across the
enterprise and with external data sets; and putting into practice new,
innovative services of the like of Artificial Intelligence, blockchain and
analytics to that data.
Organizations
will require hybrid and multi-cloud environments comprised of the apt tools and
infrastructure to help accomplish their tasks more efficiently. At IBM,
following cloud trends are likely to gain momentum as enterprises continue into
the next phase of respective cloud journey
·
Hybrid
multi-cloud architecture will replace the “one-cloud-fits-all” approach:
As per the research by Ovum, about 20 percent of business processes
have already moved to the cloud, while 80 percent of mission-critical workloads
and sensitive data are still running on-premises for want to performance and
regulatory requirements. While entering the next phase of the cloud journey,
majority of enterprises will be moving away from “one cloud fits all.” The key
to cost effectively accelerating digital transformation is the public cloud,
still many enterprises data centres are not going anywhere and nor should they.
Not every process is a candidate for the public cloud. Organizations are increasingly
going to drive value from the integration of private and public as a way to
leverage the most out of the cloud investment with an approach of a hybrid
multi-cloud. There is a use of a
combination of on-premises, private cloud and public cloud architecture in a
hybrid multi-cloud environment, with best-in-class resources implemented by the
state-of-the art open cloud technology vendors.
·
Companies
are all Set to Embrace Open Cloud Technology:
Majority of the prominent companies have already embraced the concept
of open source to help them avoid lock-in and allow them to choose from diverse
vendors. There is a belief that open technology enhances interoperability of
applications, platforms and data. Also, it is believed that open technology projects
developed in communities committed to open governance tend to attract the
largest ecosystems and most expansive markets. In the coming time there is a
prediction that more advanced companies are going to identify new opportunities
for containers, using open source Kubernetes to be arranged into clusters that
support microservices across multiple clouds. Open management tools will be
essential to administering, securing and updating those clusters over a period
of time.
·
Cloud
Related Skills and the Relevant Culture will be the Key to Cloud Adoption:
While enterprises adopt a hybrid multi-cloud approach, IT
organizations are also set to undergo a culture shift in the way of working.
There will be a requirement of teams equipped with new skillsets, such as cross-platform
tool and automation experience, and knowledge of API management and best
practices related to data integration. Job titles such as cloud project
manager, cloud architect, cloud services broker and cloud automation engineer
are to become increasingly common to manage emerging hybrid cloud environments.
·
Security
Needs to be a Priority as Cloud Adoption Increases:
Siloed IT processes are no more in practice where an application was
developed and then security put in place to protect the app. With emergence of
new phase of the cloud journey, enterprises are going to use a mix of public
clouds, private clouds and on-premises IT. It is known that many enterprises
already manage between five to sixteen different cloud vendors, which is likely
to introduce new risks and vulnerabilities because of lack of consistent
management, control and visibility into the threat posture of applications and
data. To overcome these challenges, developers have the provision to integrate
security even earlier into the app development processes and a DevSecOps
culture will take shape in the enterprise. Introducing security best practices
into every facet of application design and deployment will provide greater
application visibility, control and protection.
·
Edge Computing
is all Set for Explosion:
The continued convergence of IT and telco is likely to bring edge
computing to the forefront as this year (2019) proceeds, creating a surge of
new opportunities for companies to use new technologies and computing power.
The scale and value of edge computing is all set to grow, meaning thereby that
companies will be positioned to increasingly drive innovation, expand
automation and decrease the response times in low-bandwidth locations.
Hybrid
cloud platform and software defined networks are going to increasingly use edge
networks, giving companies improved visibility and the ability to analyse,
protect and even reap the benefits of valuable data from sensors, cameras and
pieces of industrial equipment. The meaning of open, interoperable technologies
is that edge locations stay in sync with the cloud for a consistent experience
throughout. With repeated entry into the next chapter of cloud, it has become
all the more exciting to work in IT. IBM is increasingly investing to lead in the
emerging, high-value segment of the market, from hybrid multi-cloud to
Artificial Intelligence, security, quantum and blockchain. Eyes are set to
witness the new value that businesses are going to generate using cloud in
2019.
---------------------------------------
Category RETIREMENT
Basing Your Retirement on a “Magic Number”
is a Retirement Mistake Made
Are you
able to retire at the moment when your savings hit a magic number? It seems
that some people are making a critical mistake, based on the articles with
titles such as “How to retire at $1 million” or some other that advocate
accumulating a specific target multiple of the pay or salary. At the age range
of 30s, 40s, or even early 50s, it can make sense to set a target retirement fund
amount and thereafter develop a plan to save to meet the decided target at an
age late in life. Nevertheless, retirement planning becomes all the more
complex in the age group of mid to late 50s, you are about to retire, and also
need to decide exactly when and how you will actually retire. Main disadvantage
of a magic number of retirement is that there is no provision for you to make
critical decisions, particularly the time and way to retire, when will the
Social Security benefits actually start, exactly what is the way to invest and
draw from the retirement savings, how to be wary of the stock market crashes in
retirement, or finally whether there is a requirement to reduce spending in
retirement or work for longer duration. There indeed are better ways:
Option to Avail Retirement Income Security
In place of
focusing on a target savings amount, you have an option to manage magic formula
for retirement income security with I>E (“I” for Income, and “E” for
Expenses). The income needs to exceed the living expenses for the rest of the
life. You can judge that this is simple common sense and no magic formula. But
as a disadvantage to the older workers and retirees, retirement end up
focussing only on the income aspect of retirement, wanting to talk to you only
about how retirement income can be generated. They might be heard saying that
there is a need to retirement income equal to 70 percent or 80 percent of the
salary just prior to getting retired. There is a disadvantage as well if this
is followed. It simply ignores the element of living expenses, which can
significantly change in the later years. There is also an assumption that one
wants the same lifestyle while retires that had been there during the working
years and that there is no provision to change the spending habits. Many people
however have different scenarios.
Instead one
may want to take a closer look at expenses and find out the provision to
curtail the expenses. There may also be a focus on buying just enough to meet
the needs and make one happy. Since most older Americans have not saved enough
to continue with the existing standard of living while retired, there would be
a need to strategies to manage both sides of the aforementioned formula for
retirement income security. Once the financial basics are taken care of, there
may also be a requirement to focus on other critical money related decisions
that are needed to be taken while transitioning into the retirement stage. Some
of the decisions include obtaining the right medical insurance, making the
correct choices about Medicare, and protecting oneself from the risk of
abnormally high expenses for long-term care late in life. It is wise to spend
time it takes to make choices that allow one to feel comfortable that one will
not go bankrupt in retirement and that enough has been done to plan for a
secure future, it is time to go and enjoy life.
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Category TRAVEL
You Will Find Best Quality of Life in the
World in this City
The world
is becoming a smaller place to live, thanks to the advancements in travel and
technology. People are being enabled to work from just any part of the world,
and the economy is benefitting from this. What all needs to be done by the
company and its employees is move to one of top cities in the world for quality
of life and one will all set for success. In the Quality of Living Ranking of
2019, the global consultancy Mercer analysed in excess of 230 cities to find
out which ones are the perfect places for both business and life. As part of
its rankings, critical factors considered by Mercer include housing, education,
public services including public transportation, the natural environment,
recreation, and political and social environment, according to Business
Insider. Also, as Mercer noted, the rankings are calculated on annual basis to
enable multinational companies and other organizations to compensate employees
fairly while placing them on international assignments.
Organizations
with a focus to expand overseas have a plethora of considerations when
identifying where is the best place to locate staff and new offices, as per
Ilya Bonic, Senior Partner and President of Mercer’s Career business. Further
she states that the key is relevant, reliable data and standardized measurement,
are also critical enabling the employers to make major decisions, from deciding
where to establish offices to find out how to distribute, house and
remuneration amongst the global employees. So which city actually tops the
charts? If you go by Mercer’s data, and if you want both the business and
employees to thrive then Vienna it is. Globally, Vienna is topping the charts
for tenth straight year, closely followed by Zurich, according to Mercer’s
findings. Auckland, Munich and Vancouver stand jointly at the third spot with
Vancouver, the highest-ranking city in North America for the last ten years.
Additional
global cities in the top list include Singapore, Montevideo, and Port Louis
maintaining their status as the highest-ranking cities in Asia, South America
and Africa respectively. Additionally, Mercer reports that despite still being
featured at the bottom of the quality of living list, Baghdad has seen
significant improvement specific to both safety and health services. However,
Caracas, has seen living standards dropping following significant political and
economic instability. As far as America is concerned, just one city rose in the
rankings and that was New York. The main reason has been the falling rate of
crime in the city. All other cities covered in the analysis fell in the
rankings, with Washington DC falling the most. According to Mercer, the city of
Detroit remains the American city with the lowest quality of living in this
year’s report. Although, as per Mercer, importantly the rankings are meant to
be used by multinational organizations, government agencies, and the municipal
corporations, hence there is no need to get upset about the one’s own beloved
city placed lower in the ranking in the overall list. The most important factor
remains the level of happiness in the job in the city where one currently
resides.
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Category TRAVEL
Make a Trip to London
England is
a hub of pageantry and tradition, and London is the key hub with full display of
these traditions in a vibrant manner. The capital of the United Kingdom is not
living in the past, it is continuously courting innovation and growth in its
art, architecture, restaurants, and hotels. From the ever-expanding East End to
the fully thriving City Centre, T+L’s London travel guide gives inputs about
continual evolvement of the world-class destination. There is charm about the
way 2,000-year-old settlement with such deep roots in the history, and with
such familiar to the point of predictable iconography, has come to exist at the
leading edge of design, fashion, fine art and pop culture. The city is an
example of embracing international styles and influences, including people, as
much as passionately as its own. Millennial resurgence of the city is a result
of blend of clear-eyed preservation, savvy reinvention, and bold innovation.
This is the
place where a brash new landmark like Shard so fast find its place in the old
cityscape; and this is the place where could a cutting-edge gastro pub like The
Ledbury so readily could get accepted in the local parlance and culture. There
are millions of tourists visiting London every year to have a glimpse of its
modern-day renaissance and experience the warmth of city, whether taking in the
new look of the South Bank or taking a walk in the new neighbourhoods, and no
matter the time of the year, London trip is sure to bring a taste of bustling
city life. The temperate climate of the country is synonymous with rain showers
throughout most of the year, even though temperature remains mostly
comfortable. Tourist inflow peaks between April and September, and again around
Christmas timeframe, when the nights are long, but holiday decorations add the
extra glimpse. It is suggested to opt for travel dates in both spring and fall
for brisk days and nights, in addition to a little more breathing room.
Spring
begins early in the United Kingdom, and it is optimal in otherwise
temperamental weather. Mild winters and highly decorated Christmas markets make
November and December also very popular months. As far as transportation is
concerned one can choose from the subway, also referred as the tube or
underground, or the buses, boats, commuter trains or cabs. Transportation is
further divided into zones; the further the zone is from central London, the
more one will have to shell out to reach there. While in the city for a few
days, it is good to purchase a smart card, and consider a day or a weekly pass.
While discussing the weather, January is the coldest month, with an average low
of 45-degree Fahrenheit (7 degree Celsius), while July is the hottest month,
with an average high of 66-degree Fahrenheit (19 degree Celsius). London is an
expensive place and not as much a convenience as America, with some black cabs
refusing to accept cards. It is wise to plan ahead of time for the best deals,
and book restaurants and theatre tickets well in advance to spend the Pound in
London.
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PERSONAL
Most People have Productivity as a Common
Trait, as per MIT Survey of 20,000 People
In case
there is a desire to turn up the workflow, it is better to try turning down
email intake. This was one of the major findings by Robert Pozen – Senior
lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who also created his very
own Pozen Productivity Rating tool, to enable working professionals find out
their real productivity. Gathering responses from 19,957 who volunteered to
participate in the survey, Pozen and his team identified groups of people with
the highest productivity ratings and homed in on the habits most regularly
practiced by those high-scorers. There were 21 questions considered in the
survey, three pertaining to each of seven habits chosen by Pozen based on his
personal productivity course and research for his book, Extreme Productivity:
Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Habits: planning your schedule, developing
daily routines, coping with your messages, getting a lot done, improving
communication skills, running effective meetings, and delegating to others.
People with
best overall average scores included seniors (ages 60 or plus) and senior-level
employees (C-Suite executives). There was one particular habit which fetched
good scores for both the groups and that was: Coping with their daily flood of
messages. According to Pozen age and seniority of an employee are linked – more
senior people tend to be a little older. Both groups have mastered managing the
flow of information. What is more important, becoming an executive makes you better
at coping with messages or does coping with messages in a better manner make
you an executive? Pozen, who was once an executive himself as a president of
Fidelity Investments, says it’s a bit of both. As one moves up and becomes more
senior, one gets more messages, but according to him it is the skill of
managing that helps in moving up. The data clearly shows that being good at
dealing with the inbox is linked to productivity, and that the most productive
people are at the top of the ladder. This makes a lot of sense.
With the
number of social media networks, media outlets, and personal and professional
messaging platforms out there, it’s easy to feel like as if you are drowning in
notifications. Mastering that task is theoretically helping you distinguish
yourself in a sea of good employees. In practice, managing emails isn’t the
most necessary habit of a productive person. It is an important skill and needs
to be paired with other, more big-picture habits in order to be effective. Few
important habits include whether you are geared to accomplish a lot in place of
putting in a lot of hours, according to Pozen. This leads to second important
thing, which is whether you have defined your highest priorities and are
focussed on your highest priorities. Anybody interested to spend time more
efficiently could look to seniors and executives for proof, as both performed
good when it came to “getting a lot done” and “planning schedule.” Productive
people’s success is in their ability to work hard instead of working longer,
which may require side-lining emails from time to time. Executives didn’t excel
at everything and the study found that they fell behind lower-level employees
when it came to running effective meeting and delegating tasks. Habits that
excellent performers struggle with, as per Pozen. He says the promotion of
employees is directly linked to their performance. They have a hard time
delegating because they don’t think it will be done in a way better than
adopted by them.
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TECHNOLOGY
Most Important Skill for Young People to
Learn as per Apple CEO
You may be
writing the resume; Apple CEO Tim Cook knows which skill you should master
next. While speaking in New York at the Time 100 Summit, Cook referred to
coding as the most important second language for one to learn, as it has a
global appeal. According to him every kid should master the act of coding while
in the school, as was highlighted by Cook on the stage. Whatever may be the
passion – science or arts, coding is the way to express yourself. Tim Cook,
while giving a wide-ranging interview that touched upon various subjects
ranging from his interactions with Donald Trump to having too many iPhone
notifications, stated that software is now touching every aspect of people’s
lives. This fact makes it even more important for children to learn coding. He
is not pitching for everyone to choose a career of a programmer, it is just
like the basics of mathematics and history learnt at school, this is also a
core skill to be learnt by school going kids. This was stated while he plugged
Apple’s “Everyone Can Create” and “Everyone Can Code curriculum guides.
The key
advantages of learning coding go a way beyond impressing Cook when it is
actually done, and eventually you sit down for an interview in Cupertino. As
per the record of 2017, about a third of users on the platform Codecademy
highlighted that they were able to earn more money because of the coding that
they had learnt. The median pay for software developer last year was nearly
$106,000 per annum, as per the report of Bureau of Labour Statistics. Prior to
signing up for the latest bootcamp on immediate basis, do understand that not
everyone is in agreement with opinion of Tim Cook. For instance, very recently
Jeff Weiner – CEO of LinkedIn, stated that employers need to prioritize soft
skills in areas such as communication and leadership in place of technical
skills. Cook also shared the views very recently that creativity skills were of
equal importance for the young ones. So the next time you hit the books, or the
screen, you may want to focus on both coding and creativity for overall
personality development as advised by Tim Cook.
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