Friday, 1 March 2019

The Enterprise Futurama

The Beginning

Your Wealth is a custom Enterprise briefing for people just like you: Executives, entrepreneurs and builders who know that time isn’t money, but that time and money are feedstock for the one thing that matters most in life: Your family, however you define it.

Once a month, in partnership with our friends at CIB Wealth, we’ll bring you a hand-picked selection of ideas, tips and inspirational stories that will help you make the most of your time, enhance our wealth, and build a better life with the people you love.

As always, we love hearing from readers. Send us story ideas, hints, tips or interview suggestions to editorial@enterprise.press.

Your Life

Enterprise Futurama: We here at Enterprise have always been ardent fans of all things tech. But while that made you cool in the 80’s — when all there was was the Atari, the Apple II, and a walkman — all that does now is make you part of a global cliche. This will not be Black Mirror in word form (we don’t take ourselves that seriously), nor will it be a catalogue of the hot new tech items (well, maybe a little). This will not be the manifesto of the cult of Silicon Valley — so if you are looking for news on startups that are “changing the world” one algorithm at a time, please move along. It’s a look at the concepts in tech that are exciting us these days (ranging from the mundane to the surreal), and what changes these could have on our daily lives if they come about.

So what’s actually getting made out there? Next-level technology might bring to mind virtual reality, self-driving cars, or even teleportation. But while those first two are nascent technologies working through bugs like motion sickness and the third is still a pipe dream, The New York Times writes that voice command home assistants, network security, and 5G networks are the next big things worth paying attention to — already poised to have a huge impact on our lives.

Internet of things: With Amazon and Google connecting their home assistants to everything from thermostats to home alarm systems to microwaves, investing in network security seems like good sense. Think antivirus software but for every internet-connected device. And get excited for 5G, the superfast upgrade to mobile network infrastructure set to transform the pace at which we live, work and experience the world.

Buffering is about to be consigned to history: Since the turn of the year, the tech press has been awash with hype about 5G — due to launch globally in 2020. It is expected to eventually allow insanely quick speeds of up to 20 GB a second, super low latency of 1 millisecond and capacity that is 100 times greater than our current 4G phones. More than this, it is intended to enable the Internet of Things to realize its full potential: cue a techno-utopian/dystopian (delete as appropriate) vision where everything from cars and traffic lights to home appliances and medical equipment will be connected to the internet. Egypt’s telecoms watchdog said last year that we too should expect to see 5G coverage as the new technology is rolled out internationally next year (although no details were given about licenses or how companies will operate it). Wired and Mashable have the lowdowns on the new tech.

With the US and China seemingly nostalgic for the good old days of the Cold War, 5G is becoming another new front in the evolving superpower competition. Huawei — the Chinese tech company every US state department official loves to hate — has been at the forefront of developing the new technology, and has big ambitions for the future. But a war of words has escalated over the past few months after Canada arrested the company’s CFO and the US launched criminal charges. NYT has the info, and for those interested, check out this insightful analysis by journalist Andrej Mrevlje.

The smartphone addiction is real: We’ve come to rely on our smartphones in almost every sphere of our lives – directions, to do lists, phone calls, entertainment. So, it comes as no surprise that experts are now saying we’re addicted to them, literally craving the rush of pings, lights and buzzes. Dopamine shots to the brain triggered by messages, texts, likes, and other sundry notifications cement a neural pattern that sees us constantly checking our phones, chasing the next shot of feel-good chemicals. One study shows that just having them in the same room with us impacts our ability to focus on a task.

But what comes after smartphones? Futurists predict the short term will see greater integration of voice-operated home assistants and clunky AR headsets. The medium term could see AR projected directly onto our eyes and computers that engage in intelligent discussion. And then, things get really weird. Heard of neural lace? Elon Musk’s company Neuralink is in the early stages of developing a technology “that lays on your brain and bridges it to a computer.” If that doesn’t sound like a brave new world…

Now for the semi-surreal portion of your read. Presenting: Mirrorworld: Buried deep in research labs, engineers and scientists are working tirelessly on something that could ultimately culminate in the creation of parallel universe (spooky). The mirrorworld is a term first popularized by Yale computer scientist David Gelernter. It is an envisionedmixed / augmented reality (AR) platform which would place digital overlays on top of every single feature on earth, writes Kevin Kelly in a long read for Wired. “We will interact with it, manipulate it, and experience it like we do the real world.” And this reality will come with all sorts of quirks and surprises.

It will at first apply AR to superimpose helpful information observable through wearable devices. “Turn north,” Google might tell you now, but since you’ve never been a boy scout and you don’t live on a grid, that direction might as well be “the Big Dipper” in terms of how useful it is. The mirrorworld will offer a solution by lining the streets with directions, pinpointing you to your destination. Already, the Wall Street Journal's David Pierce has road-tested an early version of an AR update for Google Maps which features direction arrows overlaid on the real-life image of your location through your phone’s camera.

The Google Maps update will underlie the mirrorworld. The update is a new type of smart navigation: both GPS and image based. The GPS tells the app where you’re at, the app then uses its bank of Street View data to make sense of what the camera is seeing. Add volume, textures, features and gaps — you get, a mirrorworld. The mirrorworld will essentially be a 3D map as big as the globe. For this to happen, we will need images of all places and things from every possible angle. We will need a planet of cameras operating 24/7. But then the interactive component of the mirrorworld will kick in. Imagine you’re walking around hungry, so you ask your smart glasses for restaurant suggestions. The device will activate a mode allowing you to look at restaurants and find internet ratings popping up in space (an example mentioned in a piece by Wareable clearly explaining AR). The choices you make about how you interact with the mirrorworld (where you decide to go for lunch, for example) will then provide a feedback loop, altering and refining information for other users.

The big enablers are Microsoft and Magic Leap. Both companies are investing big in lightfield, the technology which makes AR a possibility. Microsoft’s HoloLens, released in 2016, was the most complete mixed reality device out there, until Magic Leap One came around. The vision of the companies is to replace traditional computers with holographic ones, which will eventually create a new paradigm of “spatial computing,” changing the way we receive data from to 3D from 2D (some analysts have even used the term 4D to describe the experience of interacting repeatedly with two different sets of realities). Reviews of both the HoloLens and Leap One, however, suggest that while the experience they provide is enjoyable and opens up enormous possibilities (along with, let’s face it, some pretty daunting questions about its impact on our societies, our psyches and our behavior), the mirrorworld is still decades away from actually being operational.

The psychedelic portion: From the unimaginably big to the unimaginably small, we found these mind-bending videos mesmerizing. We dare you to look away when Wired walks you through the ridiculously high-tech process of making these perfect EDM fits. EDM, or electrical discharge machining, is the process of shaping material by shooting electrical sparks at it off a brass wire. In other words, cutting very hard materials with tiny lightning bolts. How tiny? “The rapid-fire sparks vaporize teeny tiny bits of the metal being cut, on the order of 5 microns wide.” For reference: a micron is a millionth of a meter and 5 microns is smaller than a red blood cell. And just in case you thought this tech was only for oddly satisfying internet videos, EDM is used to create implantable medical devices and jet engine components.

Most alarming stat: 30% of relationships will begin life online by 2026: With around 296 mn people using online dating services today, some companies predict that 30% of relationships will start online by 2026, The Economist reports (watch, runtime: 03:32). Mashable estimates that by 2040, 70 percent of couples will meet online. But what is the broader social impact of this new way of finding love? While online dating has been useful in connecting people across the globe who would’ve otherwise been unlikely to meet and has arguably made it easier for minorities and the middle-aged to find partners, the risk of meeting strangers remains a concern, the magazine points out. Also, seemingly endless choice could make it tough for some people to ever settle.

Unlike Tinder, the new Facebook dating app, already available in Colombia, Canada and Thailand, forces its users to say ‘what up’ before moving onto their next victim (ahem, potential partner). A useful feature that the still-on-trial app has is that users can see what events and groups other users are on and decide whether they would like to get together with them, the FT notes. There’s no way of knowing whether the Facebook dating app will ever make it to our part of the world, but we personally can’t think of anything more terrifying than the thought of giving the social media giant access to such personal info…oh, wait, scratch that.

Weirdest app award winner: UK-based company launches a Tinder rip-off. Only this time, it’s for cows: So-called Tudder is a matchmaking app to help farm owners find potential mates for their cattle, according to the BBC. You’d think the first non-human species to get a dating app would be man’s best friend, but that’s not what Hectare Agritech had in mind. The company runs a livestock auction website, and so used the data it has to create profiles of animals from 42,000 farms for owners to swipe through. For those with a guilty love of puns, check out the app’s description on the App Store.

Your top 5

Your top 5 business and economic news in Egypt in February:

Your Time

With great tech comes great responsibility. And with more apps, tools, and gadgets than ever before designed to maximize our productivity, sometimes the conversation about how best to use these things gets lost in the shuffle. Yes, we want to be productive, but at what cost? What kind of consumers, citizens, and family members do we become when technology dictates more and more of our behavior? How do we prepare students for a future we can’t quite imagine? (Hint: everyone take computer science classes, MIT’s president suggests.)

We at Enterprise don’t like to fearmonger and so rather than sound a Luddite call to reject tech at every turn, we prefer to put forward Farhad Manjoo's maxims on ethical and mindful usage. First, look beyond a product to a company’s business model: “it’s in the buying and the selling of a product, rather than in the using, that you can best figure out its dangers.” If you don’t like Google profiting off internet ads, resist the temptation to buy a Google Pixel. Second, avoid feeding the giants of the industry. Not only does monopoly (or near-monopoly) stifle innovation, but it minimizes consumer choice and makes regulation difficult. Finally, take your time. Wait and see how new products play out before jumping on the bandwagon.

And speaking of mindfulness, when was the last time you really settled down with a good book without checking your phone, a quick Googling, and no notifications? Writing in The Globe and Mail, author Michael Harris makes the confession some of us at Enterprise are still too embarrassed to ‘fess up to: he’s forgotten how to read.

Ways to read: “To read was to disappear, become enrobed in something beyond my own jittery ego. To read was to shutter myself and, in so doing, discover a larger experience. I do think old, book-oriented styles of reading opened the world to me – by closing it. And new, screen-oriented styles of reading seem to have the opposite effect: They close the world to me, by opening it.” These new styles of reading, Harris contends, are sharper, more critical, faster. They speed towards the point and usher you on to the next thing, heightening our instinctive tendency towards distraction and undoing the conditioning of years spent curled up with a book. But instead of despairing, Harris chooses to celebrate that books can still transport us to a pre-internet frame of mind, an increasingly rare occurrence.

Your Money

The problem with data: While there’s broad awareness of at least some of the risks in user profiling and targeted advertising (yes, we’re looking at you, Facebook), according to this FT piece “most smartphone users often do not realise the extent to which their data [is] passed to third parties, or repackaged and passed on again.” Researchers at Oxford found, after examining close to 1 mn Android apps, that 90% could transfer data to third parties in the US, 5% to third parties in China and 3% to those in Russia. With our phones containing “stores of sensitive information,” there’s potential for a literal wealth of customer information about us to be shared every time we check them — from our location to our opinions to our habits and preferences.

But if we imagine for a moment that not everyone who analyses our data is trying to sell us something, interesting opportunities open up for how companies themselves could function more effectively. Harvard Business Review suggests combining data science with change management to analyse what the daily workings of employees can tell us about the structural activity of a company, and then working with experts to design mechanisms that will improve processes and retain talent.

Financial accessibility, courtesy of CIB: No discussion about tech or innovation would be complete without a look at financial accessibility. Here, CIB is leading the way, developing products that make life a little bit easier, like its new upfront time deposit. You probably know that a time deposit is an interest-earning deposit that matures within a specified period. CIB’s new time deposit targets customers — individuals or companies — who are in need of cash for a particular payment, but also want to maintain their capital and avoid losing liquidity.

The upfront time deposit offers a range of features, including the opportunity to receive interest payments on the day it is booked, tenors that range from 1 week to 12 months, the chance to receive assets worth up to 75% of the principal amount of the upfront time deposit, and both declared and preferential rates (subject to approval). It is offered in local currency (EGP). So whether you need to make a downpayment on a car, buy a machine for your factory, pay a school or utility bill, or perform any number of essential payments that can spring up without warning, CIB’s new upfront time deposit is designed to offer you a little more breathing space.

For more information, call 19847 or visit the CIB website or your nearest branch.

Your Family

You thought vegans could be militant? Try parents on The Screen Time Crusade. Writing in The Verge, Lauren Smiley opens up a modern-day Pandora’s box of parenting: how much screen time should a kid have, and how she should spend it? While it’s hard even for adults to stringently limit our tech time in the service of protecting small children from screen exposure, the most taxing part of this issue actually appears to be other parents. “There’s just morality around this whole technology issue — the equivalent of religiousness,” said one parent interviewed for the article.

The canine portion: Just in case your canine companion was starting to feel left out of the tech hype, let us be the first to tell you about tech for dogs (yes, really). Bustle has a list of apps specifically designed for you and your dog, ranging from the straightforward (vet tips and advice), to the quirky (dog selfie tech), and even the cultural (songs for dogs). Meanwhile, Tesla might win with the most practical offering. ‘Dog mode’ keeps the AC rolling if you have to leave your dog in the car for a while, and tells passersby through the main screen that your furry friend is a-ok.

Tech-enabled dogs are also a thing, have been for a while actually: Sony launched last year a new generation of robot puppies modelled after its 20-year-old Aibo series. The company produced the first Aibos in 1999, and released a new model every year until the project was called off in 2006 to restore profitability. The first Aibos moved like dogs, but felt and sounded like droids from Star Wars.

But new ones are stunningly dog-like: The new Aibos come with crazy advanced features. From the ability to gauge how their owners feel to a response to themselves responding to petting and voice commands to developing unique personalities entirely molded by your actions, they’re yet another testament to the power of AI. But with a price tag of USD 2,899 (EGP 51k in our fair, floating town), the game is probably not worth the candle.

Who would want a plastic dog anyway? As the woman in the final part of tech journalist Bridget Carey’s review of Aibo said, “we’re in a computer age and people are talking to computers instead of people. Now they’re going to talk to robot dogs” (watch, runtime: 7:11). Others however responded well in their interactions with the cute supercomputers. Still, no one seems quite ready to trade in the real thing for an Aibo: “Maybe in the future he can get an update to be a watchdog… but for now, it’s really just something designed to entertain or keep you company if you’re alone.”

Your Health

Nothing like reading up on medical tech to make us go out and get a greasy burger: Advances in medical technology never cease to amaze, and this diabetes pill modeled on a tortoise’s shell that injects insulin directly into the stomach wall, is no exception. The FT breaks down the science, including how the pill’s shape allows it to right itself after being swallowed, just as a tortoise’s shell allows the tortoise to flip back onto its feet if it is upended. Other technological advances poised to revolutionize healthcare include telehealth, digital platforms that connect patients to doctors, 3D printing — which could eliminate the need for organ donors — and AI, including predictive analytics for patient monitoring.

And the feel-good medical tech stories keep on coming: The Verge road tested two apps being rolled out by Google that could be a huge boost for the hard of hearing. Live Transcribe automatically transcribes speech in real time and is surprisingly accurate, adding punctuation and correctly capitalizing the sentence “I am buying a new jersey in New Jersey.” A pulsing mic icon indicates whether or not you need to move the microphone closer and a keyboard allows you to type replies. The app supports up to 70 languages and doesn’t save any transcriptions or use data to improve its algorithms. Sign up here if you’d like to be notified when Live Transcribe becomes available. Meanwhile, Sound Amplifier, available on the Play Store, allows users to adjust a variety of sliders to enhance hearing through plugged in headphones (yes, we rolled our eyes too.)

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