At a time when we crave good news, the giant panda is a beacon of environmental optimism. Since becoming an icon for the conservation movement in the 1980s, 67 panda reserves and countless wildlife corridors have been created in the bamboo forested mountain ranges of central China.

The most recent census suggests all that effort has paid off. There are 1,864 pandas living in the wild today, up from 1,000 in the late 1970s.

But in a new study, researchers discovered that what's good for the panda may not necessarily be good for the rest of the ecosystem. After studying images from camera traps over 10 years, they found that large carnivores the leopard, snow leopard, wolf and dhole (an Asian wild dog) have retreated from where giant pandas have thrived.

Their numbers appear to have fallen significantly in these panda reserves, and the researchers note that the wolf and dhole may be functionally extinct within them, while the tiger has already been driven to extinction here. Panda conservation doesn't appear to be benefiting other species, or the wider ecosystem.

These findings shake the foundations of one of conservation's most enduring ideas that investing time and money into protecting particular large, influential species can pay dividends for the other species and habitats they coexist with.

In the aftermath of that revelation, what do we really know about how to protect ecosystems and save wildlife from extinction?

Protected areas (PAs) where the four large carnivore species still exist (black bars), and where they have died out (grey bars) throughout the giant panda's range in China. (Li et al., Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2020)

Single species conservation was the dominant idea during the latter half of the 20th century. Conservation groups and governments identified particular species in need of urgent help and used their images to raise public support to help save them from extinction.

The poster children of this approach were the giant panda and the tiger. Both of which have been success stories, for the target species at least.

But while lavishing these charismatic species with attention and resources, this approach tends to overlook less attractive species, such as worms, despite them potentially having more ecological value.

Today, conservationists place much greater emphasis on protecting ecosystems and entire landscapes. The logic being that you can more effectively maintain an area's ecology if you treat it as a functional system.

A useful analogy is to compare an ecosystem with an organism, such as the human body. Each is made up of many working systems, whose roles are maintained by species in the case of the former, and organs in the latter.

A respiratory system needs healthy lungs, but both depend on the rest of the body's systems. The lungs need healthy arms and legs to find and collect nourishment. The digestive system needs to be able to process that food to unlock the nutrients for the rest of the body, while the circulatory system needs to transport them to the lungs so they can do their work to keep the organism alive.

Alternatively, replace our organism with an aeroplane. For the aeroplane to fly and land safely, all the components need to work. If an engineer only maintains one component, like the engine, and ignores the wings, wheels and navigation system, the flight is going to end badly.

The lesson from both analogies is that all components and the roles they perform are necessary for keeping the whole functional and healthy. An aeroplane may only tolerate the loss of so many rivets, before losing one that's vital, or losing enough to cause mechanical breakdown.

Losing the function of one organ can cause multiple systems to fail within the body.

Focusing on a single species in conservation isn't necessarily wrong, though. A focal species can act as a flagship, an ambassador that raises support (and money) for conservation of an entire area. Pandas are very good at this.

But there are also umbrella species. For example, beavers modify their habitats so extensively that they create numerous niches for other species to occupy. In that sense they're like an umbrella, that if protected, will provide shelter for other species.

So why did panda-targeted conservation fail to revive populations of large carnivores in central China? Well, a panda's habitat requirements are small compared to a wolf's or a leopard's, and the threats facing them in the wild are very different.

Pandas are also famous for their specialised diet a carnivore turned herbivore and so their needs differ greatly from your average large predator. Put simply, a habitat catered to sedate, bamboo-munching pandas isn't likely to help a nomadic, meat-loving leopard.

Large carnivores don't have it easy worldwide. They need large areas of suitable habitat and lots of prey. In most areas they once occupied, humans have destroyed habitat, removed native prey species and killed large carnivores by gun, trap or poison, either because they hunt livestock or because they are seen as a danger.

The tiger is one of the few large carnivores whose populations have increased in recent years. India has seen its tiger population grow by a third since 2014. Considering the challenges of coexisting with these large predators animals that occasionally kill humans this success is impressive.

India's approach to tiger conservation prizes tolerance, education and working closely with the communities that live alongside this species above all else. Part of that education is recognising the tiger as just one part of the ecosystem, all of which needs protection.

What the panda study tells us is that we cannot assume a flagship species will also be an umbrella species. While individual species are important, some are more important than others for maintaining a healthy ecosystem.

Jason Gilchrist, Ecologist, Edinburgh Napier University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Originally posted here:

The Giant Panda Is a Conservation Icon, But The Success Story Masks a Dark Truth - ScienceAlert

Through EcoBuilder, players build their own ecosystems of plants and animals, adding in species of different sizes and deciding who eats whom. Based on those decisions, the species will either survive or go extinct. The game was developed by Jonathan Zheng, a PhD student at Imperial College Londons Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and his co-advisors Dan Goodman, a neuroscientist in the same department, and Samraat Pawar, a biologist within the Department of Life Sciences.

[Image: EcoBuilder]The idea was inspired by a BBC documentary about the wolves in Yellowstone, which were declared extinct there in 1926. Without wolves, the ecosystem drastically changed. The number of elk skyrocketed, and so did the amount of vegetation that the elk ate. Less of that vegetation affected the habitat for smaller animals such as beaver, and in a chain reaction, even the population of fish struggled.

[Image: EcoBuilder]To bring the ecosystem back into balance, ecologists reintroduced wolves into the park, which brought down the elk population, allowing the plants the elk ate to grow bigger, which allowed beavers to build dams again, which brought back fish. The elk population in Yellowstone is actually higher today than it was when there were no wolves, and the predatory threat of wolves keeps the elk moving around the park instead of overgrazing one area, which caused all those cascading effects. I found it so intriguingly counterintuitive, the idea that in order to save the things the wolves eat, you have to bring the wolves back, Goodman says. I loved the idea that you could play around with that sort of thinking, that ecosystems can behave in a really unusual way.

Though EcoBuilder doesnt depict real animalsall the plants and animals are made up, like Pokmonthe idea is the same: players add in predators in order to keep every species alive. The species in the game differ only in size, which still affects their interactions. When plants are smaller or lighter, they grow faster, feeding more animals. If you make the plants large like an oak tree, they take too long to grow for the animals to survive off of. When the animals change in size in the game, it affects how they eat. If you imagine a herd of cows eating a field of grass, theyre going to eat it a lot lower than a swarm of locusts, Zheng says.

[Image: EcoBuilder]The game uses the same mathematical models that scientists use to model real ecosystems. With every level a player completes, the best ecosystem they made and the actions they took to get there are stored on a server to be shared with researchers. Theres a chance that . . . the results that come from the strategies that the players use and similar understanding of real ecosystems could be used to inform environmentalist policies, Zheng says. There are also ecological models that look at how carbon sequestration can affect species diversity, and the designers say a future update of the game will include a climate change aspect to see how these systems change as the environment does.

While crowdsourcing research for experts, the game also helps its players learn about different ecological phenomena, like competitive exclusion or biocontrol. One interesting thing players may realize is how influential small and medium-sized species are, Pawar says. A lot of conservation work tends to be influenced by what people like to study, which means species such as polar bears may be overrepresented in research. The reality, and that feature the game does capture, is that small to medium-sized species are really the movers and shakers of ecosystems, he says. Once there are enough players to make statistically significant observations, Zheng says theyll publish the results from the game, and if you get a high score, your name might even appear in that paper.

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This mobile game lets you build ecosystems that will help solve real-world ecological problems - Fast Company

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BigPanda, Inc., provider of the first Autonomous IT Operations platform, today announced the expansion of their partner program to address a growing demand from the market for event correlation, powered by AIOps. BigPanda's partner ecosystem comprises four segments: Value Added Resellers (VARs), strategic technology partners, Systems Integrators (SIs), and Managed Service Providers (MSPs). To guide the growth of each of these channels, BigPanda has hired two new Alliance Directors, Nisa Spyker and Matt Biehler.

Large enterprises must manage increasingly complex IT environments as they move to the cloud, adopt more digital strategies, and deliver software in new ways. To continuously optimize their IT Operations, these companies rely on partners, including AHEAD, CDI, Sirius and Trace3, to guide their NOC, IT Operations and DevOps strategies. With time-intensive rip-and-replace approaches and AI science projects proving untenable for customers, partners want to offer solutions that easily integrate with current technology stacks and deliver rapid time to value. These resellers are choosing BigPanda to support their customers and capitalize on the fast-growing AIOps market (slated to grow to $237 billion by 2025) with the confidence that they have a partner focused on mutual success.

"Companies are under immense pressure to do more with less as they search for new technologies and processes that enable them to remain competitive," said Paul Szymczyk, vice president of sales, North America, BigPanda. "But, throughout this process, they struggle with outages and resolution times and are often left asking, 'how can I make all of this work? Our ecosystem makes it easier for partners to offer a single solution to customers who need to achieve operational and cost efficiencies, while driving growth at the same time."

Alliance Directors to Guide Partnership ProgramJoining BigPanda are Biehler and Spyker, who have deep expertise leading partnership and sales organizations at enterprise software companies.

Matt Biehler, Director of Alliances and Channel Sales - East, is an experienced sales and partnerships professional with a strong track record at high-growth software organizations. Biehler will work with partner organizations, including AHEAD, CDI, and Datadog. Prior to joining BigPanda, Biehler served in partner and alliance roles at Datadog and Bluecore.

"I'm thrilled to join a company that has such a high demand from partnerships," said Biehler. "There is clearly a huge need in the market for IT Operations solutions that add value, not noise. BigPanda's product is the exact tool our partners are looking for, it's something customers want, and the company's sales process is designed specifically to embrace the channel. This trifecta is the ideal foundation to build partner alliances around, and I'm excited to be a part of the team guiding these partnerships forward."

Nisa Spyker, Director of Alliances and Channel Sales - West, will help lead BigPanda's partner strategy as the company continues to accelerate and grow its ecosystem. Spyker will work with partner organizations, including AWS, Sirius, NTT Data and Trace3. Before joining BigPanda, she spent a decade at Cisco in various roles, including Global Accounts Leadership and Enterprise Sales. She is an expert at helping companies leverage technology to achieve their objectives.

"BigPanda already plays an important role in supporting the success of partners and their customers, and I am excited to help the company grow and expand in that capacity, said Spyker. The great news is that BigPanda already has a world-class team generating momentum with its channel relationships. Now its time to scale.

Tech Partnerships to Accelerate Customer Success In parallel with the expansion of their reseller channels, BigPanda will continue to invest in strategic technology partners like AWS, Datadog, AppDynamics, and LogicMonitor, with enterprise-grade competencies and tighter integrations that further accelerate deployments and meaningful outcomes for joint customers.

BigPanda recently received AWS DevOps Competency status, a recognition illustrative of its ability to help companies transform into agile organizations. The status differentiates BigPanda as an AWS Partner Network (APN) member that delivers proven customer success.

About BigPandaBigPanda helps IT Ops, NOC and DevOps teams detect, investigate and resolve IT incidents and outages, faster and more easily than ever before. Powered by Open Box Machine Learning, BigPanda captures alerts, changes and topology data from all your disparate tools and uses machine learning to reduce IT noise, detect incidents and outages, and surface their probable root cause, in real time. Customers such as Intel, TiVo, Warner Media and Workday rely on BigPanda to reduce their operating costs, improve service availability and performance, and de-risk and accelerate their digital transformation initiatives.

Founded in 2012, BigPanda is backed by top-tier investors including Sequoia Capital, Mayfield, Battery Ventures, Greenfield Partners and Insight Partners. Visit http://www.bigpanda.io for more information.

Media contact:Sammy TotahBOCA Communications for BigPandabigpanda@bocacommunications.com

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BigPanda Invests in Partner Ecosystem to Deliver on Customer Demand for Improved IT Operations - GlobeNewswire

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The IoT Community (Internet of Things Community), the worlds largest community of CxOs and IoT professionals and practitioners, announces Phizzle, the leader in software that solves the power and data complexity challenges of edge computing, joins the IoT Community ecosystem of elite IoT thought leaders. Phizzle will work collaboratively with the community to address the wide variety of barriers, inhibitors, and technical and operational issues that accompany the IoT, IIoT, and Intelligent Edge ecosystems.

Ben Davis, CEO Phizzle, joins the IoT Community board of advisors, and will serve on the IoT Communitys recently formed Converged Edge Center of Excellence (CECoE), which aims to address the rapidly growing needs of the emerging technology frontier underpinned by the IoT the edge. The Converged Edge CoE focuses on the 3 Cs of an IoT solutions architecture Connect, Compute, Control, and their convergence in processes, data, and physical integration.

At the August 19th, IoT Slam 2020 virtual event, Phizzle CTO - Ryan Brady, joins a lineup of elite IoT thought leaders and executives and will give a keynote titled, Location, Location, Location, The Power of the Edge. The keynote will explore how moving computing workloads to the edge can have surprising benefits that lead to entirely new ways of interacting with data. Take one classic edge exercise: bringing millions of time series records per second into a time series database from varied IoT data sources. High-performance time series databases require data to be inserted in order. Geographically decentralized networks then lead to significant delays in delivering data to the database. This delay is measured not just in milliseconds but seconds. The larger this window, the more data must be sorted before insertion into the database. This problem of windowing and sorting at the edge is a simple and powerful example of the true value of localized performance computing.

Full details of the Keynote can be viewed here: https://iotslam.com/session/location-location-location-the-power-of-the-edge/

This session will be streamed live at 4.45pm US Eastern (1.45pm Pacific Time)

Our team is excited to be joining the growing, vibrant community built at IoT Slam over the last five years. The edge market is at a tipping point and we are grateful to come aboard as a Gold member at this time, said Ben Davis. We look forward to this long-term partnership creating even more value in the IoT marketplace for customers.

We are delighted to welcome Phizzle to our IoT Community. Phizzle is on the cutting edge of innovation across Edge, and will be key in community discussions. We look forward to their insights and expertise. said David Hill, Executive Director of the IoT Community.

Dr. Tom Bradicich, VP, Hewlett Packard Fellow, and Global Head of IoT & Edge, at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and IoT Community Advisory Board Chair: We are pleased Phizzle will join our Board of Advisors, and look forward to hearing their learned vision and plans for the intelligent edge and IoT, at our IoT Slam 2020 event on August 19.

In addition, Phizzle CIO, Vijji Suryadevara, will join an exclusive IoT Community - Women in IoT Center of Excellence (WIoTCoE), panel discussion, alongside fellow industry leaders from SAS, F5, Cisco, IBM, and CBT. The panel is pursuant to the IoT Communitys commitment to the practice and advocacy of gender diversity, inclusion, fairness and equal opportunities across the IoT and broader business, technology and societal landscape; promoting diversity of thought to realise impactful outcomes. The goal of the Women in IoT CoE is to engage and enable organizations and leaders to create and sustain an inclusive culture to advance the development of IoT solutions globally.

Full detail of the WIoTCoE panel can be viewed here:

https://iotslam.com/session/panel-women-in-iot-center-of-excellence-2/

The WIoTCoE panel will be live streamed at 2.00pm US Eastern Time (11.00am Pacific Time)

IoT Slam 2020 Registration Details

Virtual Broadcast: Access to the IoT Slam 2020 virtual event on August 19th, is FREE to all. To register for the live and real time global broadcast, visit: https://iotslam.com/register

IoT Community Practitioner Membership (Free Individual membership)

IoT Practitioners seeking to expand their knowledge in the IoT are welcome to join the worlds largest community consisting of 24,500 member here for FREE. https://www.linkedin.com/groups/4662022

Collaboration Opportunities

IoT solution providers seeking accession to the IoT Community should email info@iotcommunity.net

About IoT Community (Internet of Things Community)

The IoT Community is the worlds largest CxO community of senior business leaders and IoT practitioners consisting of 24,000+ members. The function is to focus on adoption and application of IoT in commercial environments, overcoming variety of barriers, inhibitors, and technical and operational issues. For more information about IoT Community, visit http://www.iotcommunity.net Twitter: Follow @IoTCommunity @IoTChannel or hashtag #IoTCommunity, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/9370944/

About Phizzle

Founded in 2005 and headquartered in San Francisco, Phizzle is the first IoT software company to break through the performance requirements of edge device computation, enabling enterprise customers to automate and rely on IoT devices in mission-critical environments. The core innovation in the companys enterprise-class software stack is Regenerative Engineering, which solves the power and data complexity challenges typical of edge computing in an entirely new way. Phizzles EDGMaker solution benefits many manufacturing, pharmaceutical, transportation, oil and gas, and smart cities initiatives around the world. The company's go-to-market partners include Cisco. Phizzle has a history of creating innovative products from consumer data to machine data. For more information visit phizzle.com.

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The IoT Community Internet of Things Community Announces Phizzle Has Joined Its Elite IoT Ecosystem as a Gold Level Corporate Member - Business Wire

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Technavio has been monitoring the clinical trial management system market and it is poised to grow by USD 504.00 mn during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of almost 11% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. ArisGlobal LLC, Bioclinica, Bio-Optronics Inc., Dassault Systemes SE, DATATRAK International Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Medpace Holdings Inc., Oracle Corp., Parexel International Corp., and Veeva Systems Inc. are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

Increasing outsourcing of the clinical trial process has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market.

Clinical Trial Management System Market 2020-2024 : Segmentation

Clinical Trial Management System Market is segmented as below:

To learn more about the global trends impacting the future of market research, download a free sample: https://www.technavio.com/talk-to-us?report=IRTNTR43269

Clinical Trial Management System Market 2020-2024 : Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our clinical trial management system market report covers the following areas:

This study identifies increasing healthcare expenditure as one of the prime reasons driving the clinical trial management system market growth during the next few years.

Clinical Trial Management System Market 2020-2024 : Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the clinical trial management system market, including some of the vendors such as ArisGlobal LLC, Bioclinica, Bio-Optronics Inc., Dassault Systemes SE, DATATRAK International Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Medpace Holdings Inc., Oracle Corp., Parexel International Corp., and Veeva Systems Inc. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the clinical trial management system market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Clinical Trial Management System Market 2020-2024 : Key Highlights

Table Of Contents :

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by End-user

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Volume Driver demand-led growth

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendor Analysis

Appendix

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavios report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavios comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Excerpt from:

COVID-19 Impacts: Clinical Trial Management System Market Will Accelerate at a CAGR of Almost 11% Through 2020-2024 | Increasing Outsourcing of...

Digi-Capitals virtual and augmented reality forecast is for global revenue to grow from over $13 billion this year to more than $67 billion by 2024. Yet todays market is still evolving beyond its early stage of offering related point solutions to specific problems, to becoming a fully functioning ecosystem in its own right. Different parts of the market are moving at different rates, with many shifting pieces to the puzzle.

Lets look at where we are today with consumer AR/VR markets, not enterprise.

For platforms to be platforms, they need active users. Lots of them. Table stakes are tens of millions, and hundreds of millions are better but billions are the ultimate goal. For comparison, most of us are active users of the biggest consumer platform on the planet: mobile. According to Ericsson, mobile now has as many subscriptions as there are people on the planet.

Mobile AR can now claim to be a consumer platform, with Digi-Capital forecasting over 1 billion active installed base across messaging-based, OS-based, and web-based mobile AR platforms in 2020. For example, ByteDances TikTok use grew 130% in the first week of March for a weekly total over 3 billion hours due to both higher user numbers and average time per session. This was a significant factor in TikTok owner ByteDance (also owner of Chinese messaging platform Douyin) being reported by Reuters to have 130% revenue growth to $5.6 billion in Q1 2020. However, ByteDance is now dealing with different challenges across several fronts.

Looking to the long-term, Digi-Capital forecasts messaging-based mobile ARs active installed base to top 1.5 billion by 2024, OS based mobile AR over 1 billion by 2024, followed by web-based mobile AR (at a much higher growth rate). This could see all mobile AR platforms combined active installed base over 2.7 billion in 5 years time.(Note: total figures for active installed base types inherently involve double counting, exaggerating total figures due to users active on more than one platform. However, this enables direct comparison between different platform types and platforms.)

VR has different user dynamics, partly because of a lack of plurality, but mainly due to user attrition. One of the challenges for VR is a primary entertainment focus (games, video), which despite its immersion can be done more easily and cheaply on existing devices. Also the social side of VR hasnt scaled even Facebook announced it was starting again from scratch with a totally new social VR platform late last year. When describing ambitions for Facebook Horizon, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Horizon is going to have this property where it just expands and gets better. Yet scale remains a question. While there is a dedicated core of active VR users, there arent enough casual users to scale VR as a platform yet.

If Apple launches smartphone-tethered smartglasses as an iPhone peripheral in late 2022, as Digi-Capital forecasts, well get a better idea of what consumer smartglasses Daily Active Users (DAU) could look like. But as weve said many times, only Tim Cook and his inner circle really know if and when Apples going to enter. Magic Leap pivoted away from the consumer market, with former CEO Rony Abovitz saying, While our leadership team, board, and investors still believe in the long-term potential of our IP, the near-term revenue opportunities are currently concentrated on the enterprise side. Its also early days for consumer smartglasses startups like nReal, despite CEO Chi Xu describing it as a cell phone companion taking a different approach to Google Glass, HoloLens and Magic Leap. Similarly, Snap Spectacles (not smartglasses) and Google Glass highlighted some of the consumer challenges for high tech goggles.

The most important economic lesson from mobile is Frequency Revenue ( means proportional to). In other words, high user frequency = money. For example, top 1% grossing mobile apps deliver 35 times the sessions per day of top 5% apps. And going back to active users, lifetime value of top 1% grossing apps is 20 times that of the top 5%. While its obvious, you need to hold on to users and give them something they want to do every day to make money. There are big differences between AR/VR and mobile, but this remains a crucial dynamic.

Mobile AR has shown what is possible for major AR enabled messaging platforms, with Facebook Messenger, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat as standouts. While each has a different approach to user engagement, usage frequency for AR lenses/filters is high, with Snapchat reporting AR features used by three quarters of its users on a daily basis. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said, Theres a lot of demand right now from businesses to think about different ways to try things on. People have been excited about the potential for this for a long time.

Mobile AR is a big part of why messaging platforms are so valuable, driving massive user generated content consumption against which to sell advertising. Its worth noting that a lot of this ad spend is going toward traditional ad units viewed around user generated mobile AR content (i.e., filters and lenses on messaging platforms), rather than just mobile AR ad units. This does not mean that sponsored mobile AR filters and lenses are not a significant part of the mix going forward. Pokmon Go has also delivered high usage frequency.

Many VR headsets get used by consumers less than once a day, with a significant proportion every few days, weekly, or even monthly. Our User Strategy teams product/market fit reviews for startups have consistently shown this dynamic even when users love their VR apps. The words evenings, weekends and holidays come up frequently, particular for under-34 Snapchat demographic users. Not great for frequency.

Again with smartglasses it is too early to tell, but app developers might need a mental model closer to mobile than enterprise to get frequency to work. Lightweight, short duration apps that are opened tens to hundreds of times a day could keep smartglasses on peoples faces when theyre ready for prime time. No pressure there, then.

We think about use cases for new technology platforms in terms of valuable versus critical. Valuable use cases might be cool and technically hard to do, but either dont fundamentally transform user experience or arent important to users. Critical use cases enable lots of users to do something they really care about, and that couldnt be done in any other way. Critical is interesting, but valuable? Not so much.

One critical use case has emerged for mobile AR AR filters/lenses in mobile messaging apps. Snap said in June that 170 million Snapchatters engage with AR daily nearly 30 times every day, so its easy to see how mobile AR has become part of the core user loop for a significant proportion of messaging users. Pokmon Go is also notable, but might be considered an outlier due to its singular scale in the mobile AR games space.

VR is cool, technically hard to do, and can take you to other worlds. But critical? VRs entertainment focus effectively makes it a subset of the games market for consumers, as evidenced by the majority of top VR apps on Steam, Facebook/Oculus and Sony app stores (as well as enterprise use cases promoted by HTC and others). Beyond games, a critical consumer use case hasnt emerged for VR since Facebook acquired Oculus 6 years ago. For comparison, Uber launched three years after the iPhone.

As smartglasses are largely enterprise-focused today, again its early for critical consumer use cases. The first could evolve from mobile AR, but they are more likely to come from native smartglasses use cases that only work for that form-factor.

(Source: Digi-Capital AR/VR Analytics Platform)

Mobile consumers spend an average of 90% of their phone time in apps (versus 10% for web), tend to use just 10 mobile apps regularly, and spend over three quarters of that time in their top three apps. A majority of users download zero apps per month too. This means critical use cases are not enough. They need to be features of critical apps we use all the time already, or something so insanely great that we might actually download it.

This dynamic has proven to be mobile ARs secret weapon, with messaging as the critical app for mobile AR. The huge success of Pokmon Go came from a specific set of circumstances that are hard to replicate, and Live View in Google Maps remains a promising AR functionality. Houzz CEO Adi Tatarko has discussed how its mobile AR features drive an extraordinary 11-times sales uplift for ecommerce as a feature of an already successful app, saying that were very proud as a technology company that we can always be in front of the best technologies and apply them very deeply into our own industry. So mobile incumbents might have a disproportionate impact on mobile ARs ecosystem compared to startup insurgents.

The challenges for critical VR use cases apply to critical VR apps too. Its hard to describe a VR app you couldnt live without, even if you love Facebooks Beat Saber. Its too early to tell with smartglasses again, but their critical use cases might need to be more than ports from breakout mobile AR successes.

Many people in the augmented reality industry are excited about AR Cloud, a persistent 3D real-world data layer for shared AR apps. Apple, Google, Niantic and others are positioning for the future of the technology, and it could become a key enabler for the ecosystem for both mobile AR and smartglasses. Yet critical use cases and monetization remain open questions, and even Niantic CEO John Hanke has been quoted as saying that, AR in and of itself is not a magic bullet for a hitthere are some real drawbacks to it. Google and Uber are proof that platform economics can take time to hit their stride, so the excitement may yet be warranted. High Fidelity CEO Philip Rosedale explored blockchain early on as a generalized digital asset registry, but the company pivoted away from its original social VR platform before that approach caught on.

For the Consumer AR/VR Ecosystem to succeed, massive installed bases for underlying hardware and software platforms are required. While this does not guarantee users downloading or using AR/VR apps, without them theres little chance of success.

As above, mobile AR has solved this problem due in no small part to high mobile messaging app usage. So while mobile AR has many challenges to solve to go broader than messaging and games, installed base appears to be a done deal. VR might only top 10 million installed base by 2023, so again looks like a subset of the games market for consumers (as well as some enterprise users). Smartglasses could produce tens of millions installed base by 2024 (again if and when Apple enters), and result in a combined AR/VR headset installed base over 50 million in 5 years (or around 2% of mobile AR).

Todays critical hardware is the smartphone. Its the first, most frequent, and last thing most of us look at every day. So mobile AR has critical hardware already. And if were right about Apple adding rear-facing depth sensors to the iPhone this year, functionality could get better for a broader set of users. Fast Company recently reported a source with knowledge as confirming our thinking, so well all know whether or not this happens later in the year.

VR hardware is valuable, but its usage patterns dont make it look critical yet. So despite the relative success of Facebooks Oculus Quest and Sonys PSVR, VR seems to have found a deep niche audience without going mass-market.

Smartglasses need an Apple quality device (whether made by Apple or somebody else) to be critical. They could start out as mobile peripherals, but a device capable of replacing your phone might be whats needed to truly scale. However there are major technical issues to solve first, so this could take a few years.

The ecosystems future could depend more on internal corporate investment than startups raising cash from venture capitalists. For example, Apple, Facebook, ByteDance, and Snaps internal augmented reality investments over recent years might prove greater than the largest augmented and virtual reality investment by VCs. So while attention has focused on monster rounds for Magic Leap and others, a recent decline in VC virtual and augmented reality investment back to pre-Facebook/Oculus levels (as reported in VentureBeat) means that the corporate world could prove more important for fueling market growth.

Mobile ARs consumer leaders are primarily major messaging platform holders like Facebook, ByteDance, and Snap, as well as OS based mobile AR holders Apple and Google. Niantic is also a mobile AR market leader, but has yet to evolve at scale beyond hit game Pokmon Go. Consumer VR has the usual suspects of Facebook, Sony, HTC, and Valve, but their leadership is limited by VR market scale so far. Apple stands out as a potential consumer smartglasses hero, but the company hasnt talked about product, let alone launched anything yet.

Mobile AR is AR/VRs fully functioning ecosystem today, albeit in a specific vertical built on mobile messaging platforms (again, Pokmon Go looks more like an outlier so far). It will be fascinating to see how messaging incumbents build out from their beachheads, and how effectively they layer ecommerce on top of todays largely ad-driven business model.

VR appears challenged at the ecosystem level at this stage of the market, with no clear catalyst on the horizon despite steady growth. And while the consumer smartglasses market doesnt really exist yet, Cook and friends could change everything if and when they decide its time for one more thing. Its not like they havent done it before.

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The AR/VR ecosystem Are we there yet? - VentureBeat

LONDON (PRWEB) August 04, 2020

Spixii, a leading insurtech, announced today that it has integrated its award-winning conversational process platform with the Duck Creek Platform from Duck Creek Technologies, a leading provider of core system solutions for the property/casualty insurance industry. Available today, the Spixii Claims solution is available on Duck Creeks Content Exchange, enabling insurer customers to submit loss information in a personal, immediate, and 24/7/365 available channel while insurers can scale their claims processes with further automation.

While one-to-one conversations create trust between customers and businesses, they are difficult to scale, and people end up queuing with call centres, saturating quickly. Web live chats also saturate after a few conversations held simultaneously, and the conversations held are analogue and lacking performance in terms of speed, consistency, and execution of queries.

With the Spixii conversational process platform, insurers can:Scale expert insurance conversations by automating them using Spixii Intelligent ChatbotsIntegrate their processes with the Duck Creek Suite via the Spixii Connectivity HubEnable continuous improvement with Spixii Advanced Analytics and Business Insights

Chatbots are only useful if they complete the transactions users wish to perform. This is why by integrating with Duck Creek Claims through an Anywhere Enabled Integration, the Spixii Claims solution offers a strong and unique proposition, responding to high customer expectations by servicing their needs online in real time while giving agility and a strong foundation for customer-centric digital processes for insurers.

Bart Patrick, EMEA MD, Duck Creek, said, Straight-through processing is the new standard for simple claims, as customers are increasingly happy without a human touch. The Spixii Claims solution interacts directly with Duck Creek Claims workflows, creating operational efficiencies while increasing customer satisfaction and service. We are glad to welcome Spixii to the Duck Creek Partner Ecosystem.

Renaud Million, CEO, Spixii, said: The ability to deliver at the moment of truth is what precisely defines the promise of insurance companies. This ability can be difficult to maintain outside office hours, during surges, or under adverse external circumstances. By integrating the Spixii Claims solution with Duck Creek Claims, customers can rely on an immediate, 24/7/265 available, personal, and impactful service. Allowing insurers to process valid claims as soon as possible while making the claims processes more robust with automation, the benefits go beyond amazing user experiences by improving core business performance and making the moment of truth an opportunity to retain customers and grow.

The Duck Creek Partner Ecosystem includes systems integrators, consulting/advisory, and solution partners that offer a breadth and depth of complementary value-add solutions and services to extend the power of the Duck Creek Platform to insurance carrier customers, enabling them to more quickly and efficiently meet their business challenges.

For more information about Duck Creeks Partner Ecosystem, please visit https://www.duckcreek.com/partner.

For more information about Spixiis partners, please visit https://www.spixii.com/partners.

To access the technical guide on how to enable the Spixii Claims solution in Duck Creek OnDemand, please visit https://www.duckcreek.com/content-exchange/spixii_integration.

About Duck Creek TechnologiesDuck Creek Technologies is a leading provider of core system solutions to the P&C and General insurance industry. By accessing Duck Creek OnDemand, the companys enterprise Software-as-a-Service solution, insurance carriers are able to navigate uncertainty and capture market opportunities faster than their competitors. Duck Creeks functionally-rich solutions are available on a standalone basis or as a full suite, and all are available via Duck Creek OnDemand. For more information, visit https://www.duckcreek.com.

About SpixiiSpixii translates customer-facing processes into automated conversations using the Spixii conversational process platform. Recognised amongst the Cool Vendors in Insurance by Gartner in 2018 and certified ISO 27 001 for information security, Spixii enables leading insurance companies to be more resilient and performant with end-to-end automation while providing their customers with superior experience and keeping the personal touch with well-designed conversations. For more information, please visit https://www.spixii.com.

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Off-the-shelf tools give attackers everything they need to build authentic-looking phishing campaigns

Organizations must understand the tools used by cyber-scammers if theyre to tackle the growing phishing threat, according to a white paper that examines the DIY kits that are driving the phenomenon.

Written by threat intelligence firm ZeroFOX, The Anatomy of a Phishing Kit explores the phishing kit business model and ecosystem, which make the process so easy that even the least capable of scammers is able to pull off a phishing campaign.

Small-time cybercriminals need not manage their own infrastructure or design their own scams, thanks to the growing prevalence of readymade phishing kits.

These off-the-shelf tools give attackers everything they need to build an authentic-looking website and lure victims into entering sensitive personal information via emails or social media posts purporting to come from trusted sources.

To install the kit, wannabe cybercriminals set up a dropper email inbox, and sometimes a Telegram channel, ZeroFOX researchers said.

They then configure the kit to send results to droppers; buy infrastructure via web hosts, domains, or compromised websites; and unzip a file containing the kit onto a target machine.

Operators then spam the phishing kit URL, usually via SMS, email, or social media.

The research focuses on sophisticated vendors that emulate the licensing model used by legitimate Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) vendors, rather than unlicensed or cracked kits.

These premium vendors typically provide technical support via social media or slick tutorial videos hosted on the dark web or anonymous chat applications.

RELATED Healthcare email hack exposes 78,000 cardiovascular patients data

Via administrator dashboards, users can access detailed logs of visits to their malicious sites and the sensitive information disclosed, as well as training guides and other tools.

If their phishing sites are identified as malicious and taken down, attackers can quickly set up new domains to minimize downtime.

Easy-to-configure letters emails that spoof legitimate organizations are also available from vendors, as well as from phishing communities found on social media, chat apps, or invite-only forums.

Phishing kits are helping to fuel a rise in email and social media scams

In response to growing demand, the number of phishing kits advertised on underground cybercrime marketplaces doubled, while prices jumped from $122 to $304, between 2018 and 2019, according to Group-IB research dissected by The Daily Swig.

And Akamai reported in April that phishing kits were being repurposed to target a newly dispersed workforce during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The greater availability and market of the kits definitely contributes to the overall increase in phishing activity, Zack Allen, director of threat operations at ZeroFOX, tells The Daily Swig.

With browser-based exploits having been almost eliminated by the latest browser security features, the money in malicious websites specifically is almost exclusively in phishing now.

The ZeroFOX Alpha Team found that the price of phishing kits invariably paid in cryptocurrency appeared to be roughly pegged to the popularity of the targeted sectors.

The most widely imitated sectors according to the latest phishing figures(PDF) from the Anti-Phishing Working Group SaaS/webmail (accounting for 33.5% of campaigns), financial institutions (19.4%), and payment platforms (13.3%) were also targeted by the most expensive licensed kits.

It is clear that financial institutions offer lucrative opportunities for attackers to profit due to the nature of financial transactions and inherent trust built between financial consumers and the institutions themselves, said the ZeroFOX researchers.

Read more of the latest cybersecurity research news

SaaS/webmail kits, meanwhile, could be used by spammers to do additional pivots through email in order to obtain access to accounts owned by the victim.

Kits that spoofed social media companies (only accounting for 8.3% of campaigns) and cloud storage vendors (3.9%) were priced for the cash-strapped cybercrook and often circulated for free.

Organizations must ramp up their counter-phishing efforts in the face of proliferating, increasingly well-equipped enemies, suggests Zack Allen.

In some ways, its a lot harder to catch phishing pages due to the use of kits, he explains.

The latest innovations include geo-fencing victims to a particular region of the world, as well as only allowing mobile users to view the site. This is typically a result of an actor who can configure and code these kits for their own use, but since its now consumer-focused, much less-sophisticated operators can use these features.

Organizations should defend against an ecosystem rather than just a link in an email, advises the white paper.

Analyzing the kits, the developers behind the kits as well as the TTPs of the operators can provide a cybersecurity team a holistic view of who and what they are combating, the report states.

READ MORE Ledger data breach impacts one million users, hardware wallet funds are safe

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DIY phishing kits dissected: Organizations urged to tackle the underground ecosystem that democratized cybercrime - The Daily Swig

The report on the The Wearable Technology Ecosystem market provides a birds eye view of the current proceeding within the The Wearable Technology Ecosystem market. Further, the report also takes into account the impact of the novel COVID-19 pandemic on the The Wearable Technology Ecosystem market and offers a clear assessment of the projected market fluctuations during the forecast period. The different factors that are likely to impact the overall dynamics of the The Wearable Technology Ecosystem market over the forecast period (2020-2026) including the current trends, growth opportunities, restraining factors, and more are discussed in detail in the market study.

The Wearable Technology Ecosystem Market report provides in-depth review of the Expansion Drivers, Potential Challenges, Distinctive Trends, and Opportunities for market participants equip readers to totally comprehend the landscape of the The Wearable Technology Ecosystem market. Major prime key manufactures enclosed within the report alongside Market Share, Stock Determinations and Figures, Contact information, Sales, Capacity, Production, Price, Cost, Revenue and Business Profiles are (270 Vision, 3L Labs, 4DForce, 4iii Innovations, 9Solutions, Abbot Laboratories, Acer, AcousticSheep, Active Mind Technology, Adidas, AGPtek, AliveCor, Alphabet, Amazon, Amber Alert GPS, Ambit Networks, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), AngelSense, Anthem Insurance Companies, Aplus, Appirio, Apple). The main objective of the The Wearable Technology Ecosystem industry report is to Supply Key Insights on Competition Positioning, Current Trends, Market Potential, Growth Rates, and Alternative Relevant Statistics.

Get Free Sample PDF (including COVID19 Impact Analysis, full TOC, Tables and Figures) of The Wearable Technology Ecosystem Market Report @ https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid1753278

The Wearable Technology Ecosystem Market By Capability, Production and Share By Manufacturers, Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers,The Wearable Technology Ecosystem Market Share of Manufacturers, Revenue and Share By Manufacturers, Producing Base Distribution, Sales Area, Product Kind, Market Competitive Scenario And Trends, Market Concentration Rate.

Later, the report gives detailed analysis about the major factors fuelling the expansion of The Wearable Technology Ecosystem Market in the coming years. Some of the major factors driving the growth of The Wearable Technology Ecosystem Market are-

The Wearable Technology Ecosystem Market Regional Analysis Includes:

Moving forward, the researched report gives details about the strategies applied by companies as well as new entrants to expand its presence in the market.On the basis on the end users/applications,this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, The Wearable Technology Ecosystem market share and growth rate of The Wearable Technology Ecosystem foreach application, including-

On the basis of product,this report displays the sales volume, revenue (Million USD), product price, The Wearable Technology Ecosystem market share and growth rate ofeach type, primarily split into-

The market study report also fragments the market on basis regions and sub regions. Furthermore, discusses the contribution of major regions that are likely to influence the market in the coming years.

Key Questions Answered in the Report:-

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Some of the Major Highlights of TOC covers:

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Addressing the potential impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on The Wearable Technology Ecosystem Market: Quantitative Analysis from 2018 to 2030...

Since its launch in 2008, Dream11 has posted a growth on the back of its official partnership with Indian Premier League (IPL), National Basketball Association (NBA), Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), among other sports leagues. In the last five years the platform has witnessed a rise in users from three lakh users to 8.2 crore , and capitalising on this, Dream11 plans to invest in the esports ecosystem over next two years. From coaching to sports analytics, we are going to invest heavily in grassroot sports development for the next two years. Our aim is to help build the esports ecosystem by providing capital to these initiatives and knowledge in digital to help them expand aggressively. Through this, well build the ecosystem from bottoms up, Harsh Jain, co-founder, Dream11, said in a fireside chat with Vinit Karnik, business head, ESP Global at the inaugural edition of India Gaming Summit held virtually.

Talking about Dream11s streaming platform FanCode, Jain highlighted that nearly 95% of the nations viewership goes towards cricket (mainly IPL and BCCI held matches), this has created a huge gap in the broadcast for the other sports viewers. FanCode, Jain claims, offers personalised sports content to fulfill every sports viewers appetite. We launched FanCode as an incubation to solve streaming for both content and commerce. Fancode is an aggregator platform that would welcome any other person to reach content to our 8.2 crore users in a personalised way. We are trying to solve different sports fans problems in India hence, where Dream11 solves fan engagement via fantasy sports, FanCode solves personalised content and commerce problems for fans, he added.

Harsh Jain also touched upon how the platform has witnessed a 5x rise in female audiences and female gamers, propelling FanCode to include women sports content. Its interesting how the number of women playing on our platform is growing at a faster pace than the number of men playing on our platform. Capitalising on this, we have started covering a lot more women sports content which has subsequently worked in our benefit as we have seen a massive uptake in our viewership, he stated.

Read Also:India Gaming Summit 2020: How personalised experiences will further drive the growth of gaming industry

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India Gaming Summit 2020: How Dream11 plans to build the esports ecosystem from the bottoms up - The Financial Express

Huawei shared the latest progress on both Huawei Mobile Services Ecosystem and AppGallery at the 19th China Internet Conference.

Huawei Mobile Services Ecosystem is growing rapidly, reaching 700 million global Huawei device users, with a year-on-year growth of 32%. The number of registered Huawei developers worldwide has reached 1.6 million, up 76% year-on-year, with more than 81,000 innovative applications integrated with HMS Core open capabilities.

For over 30 years, Huawei has worked closely with partners to bring better digital connectivity to people and communities around the world. It believes that in the world increasingly driven by digital technologies, no one should be left behind. Huawei seeks to encourage global innovative developers to work with Huawei Mobile Services to bring better and smarter experience to consumers. Huawei has previously announced a USD 1 billion Shining Star Program to incentivise global developers. More than 10,000 innovative apps have since benefited from it.

Looking at Pakistan, Huawei has been hard at work to make the HUAWEI AppGallery experience better with the addition of top local apps such as Easypaisa, SC Mobile Pakistan, HBL Mobile, Meezan Mobile Banking, Askari Bank, My Zong, My Telenor, Foodpanda, Daraz Online Shopping App and many more.

AppGallery, Huaweis official app distribution platform, covers more than 170 countries and regions. With this coverage, we hope to share local digital innovation with the world. We want every innovative app developed by global partners to reach all 700 million Huawei device users. said Zhang Pingan, President of Consumer Cloud Service, Huawei Consumer Business Group. Concurrently, globalized HMS Apps such as HUAWEI Video, HUAWEI Music and HUAWEI Reader have brought high-quality services and content to consumers in more countries and regions.

Huawei also brings users a smarter and more convenient digital life experience with more innovative services, such as Quick Apps, a new type of installation-free apps, providing users with a tap-to-use experience and much less memory space. As well as Ability, powered by Huawei AI technology, includes Content Ability, Card Ability and App Ability, enables high-quality services to be efficiently distributed to users across the world.

To help global partners and developers with innovation, Huawei opens Chipset-Device-Cloud capabilities through HMS Core, giving developers the access to Huaweis Machine Learning Kit, HiAI, AR Engine, etc. HMS Core 5.0, now available globally, will further open Huaweis software and hardware capabilities to elevate users experiences worldwide. On top of that, Huawei offers a one-stop, full-spectrum app development support in over 67 areas through AppGallery Connect, helping developers innovate and carry out efficient operations.

Presently, Huawei Mobile Services has established six regional centers worldwide. Huawei offers localized services globally through DIGIX Lab, HUAWEI Developers, Huawei Developer Day, and many other opportunities. In a fully connected world, Huawei seeks to encourage innovation in both technology and app development among global developers.

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Huawei Ecosystem has gone beyond the heights with 1.6 M Global Developers - - Technology Times Pakistan

Last week, several newspapers reported that the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) was reviving a proposal that it had first mooted a year agoto impose transaction limits on the Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, ecosystem. Once fully implemented, no single UPI payment entity will be allowed to process more than a third of the total transactions on the payment network.

At present, though there are dozens of apps you can use to make UPI payments, the ecosystem is dominated by just three players. Of these, two account for as much as 77% of the entire market. Given that there were nearly 1.5 billion UPI transactions in July alone, the NPCI is justifiably concerned about the systemic risk of letting two playersor worse, just onecontrol the entire UPI ecosystem.

This fear, I believe, is well founded. Everyone knows that digital platforms are susceptible to winner-takes-all effects. In sector after sector, companies with the first-mover advantage have consolidated their early lead into absolute market dominance. In search, social media and e-commerce, the companies that dominate the market today started out small but went on to build moats around their platforms till it became virtually impossible for anyone to mount a challenge to their dominance. And while all these sectors are important, none of them is as systemically significant as payments. The NPCI would be wise to take precautions in order to prevent Indias UPI ecosystem from being dominated by a few.

That said, I believe that instead of imposing restrictions as crude as an absolute limit on the total the number of transactions that an individual player can carry out, there are other more elegant measures that the NPCI should consider in order to make the market more naturally competitive.

In the first place, the NPCI should even out the playing field to make it easy for players without significant financial resources to also participate. The UPI market is, at present, rife with discounts and cashbacks, as UPI players look to buy customer loyalty through whatever means they have at their disposal. While this is great for the consumer, it requires deep pockets to be able to sustain these financial subsidies over an extended period of time. If UPI players are allowed to take this to the next level and enter exclusive arrangements with merchants who end up locking themselves into one platform or another, certain products and services might in the future only be available through a single UPI app. Unless such practices are regulated, the market will end up being dominated by companies that have the financial resources to be able to stick it out till the bitter end.

Of similar concern is the data advantage that UPI players will inevitably be able to build. As transaction volumes rise month on month, the UPI applications through which this flood of financial data is funnelled will become more and more valuable. UPI platforms will start to leverage their unique position to derive unprecedented market insights from the data that passes through their systems.

In its report, the Non-Personal Data Committee highlighted the value inherent in aggregate data like this. It would be wise to ensure that no one player gains exclusive control over this data. One possible way of achieving this, which has been alluded to in the committees report, would be to create a marketplace for data where UPI players can offer the datasets that they alone are in a unique position to generate.

But, by far the most effective mechanism to ensure greater competition is to let more participants enter the ecosystem. The UPI ecosystem is, by design, radically substitutable. Any UPI app can be used to transfer money from any bank account to any other.

Unlike every other payment system in existence on the planet, there is absolutely no friction in switching from one UPI service provider to another. That being the case, I cant understand why the NPCI has been dragging its feet in allowing other big players to enter the ecosystem.

The immediate effect of letting other powerful players operate in this ecosystem will be that these new players will serve as an effective antidote to the evident risk that the two companies that currently dominate the market would run away with their early advantage.

Apart from acting as a brake on the ambition of such entrenched players, this move would also encourage greater diversity in the ecosystem, allowing for the establishment of niche payment platforms designed to cater to the unique needs of specific market segments. For instance, I can see how players with special expertise in the legal and healthcare sectors could develop UPI applications designed especially for cases as specific as the payment of court fees or recurring medical bills. There could be many other niche applications as well.

Finally, it is critically important to ensure that UPI spreads into the rural hinterland. As impressive as the current numbers are, UPI transactions are almost entirely taking place in urban parts of the country. If it is to reach its full potential, NPCI will have to go out of its way to encourage UPI platforms that show a commitment to expanding in the rural market.

It is only when all these measures to boost competition fail and expand the systems reach that the NPCI should impose curbs on the total volume of transactions.

Rahul Matthan is a partner at Trilegal and also has a podcast by the name Ex Machina. His Twitter handle is @matthan

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Opinion | How to make online payments bustle with competition - Livemint

I write a lot about the importance of building connected products with an eye toward also building out an ecosystem, because a connected device is really only as valuable as the other things it can work with. Were very early in this phase, but these ecosystems are currently emerging in the enterprise world in the form of platforms provided by incumbents such as Honeywell, Emerson, Siemens, and more.

So, in my Everything is Connected event held this past Tuesday, I wanted to understand how companies were building out such ecosystems and what challenges they face. I asked executives from Honeywell, Intel, Zededa, and DevicePilot to offer their advice on building out ecosystems that work, including how to bring startups into the fold.

The first thing to do in establishing an ecosystem is to figure out a compelling business case, then to try and find one or more partners.

Each participant had different experiences when it came to choosing a business case. Ginger Smith, director of strategic partnerships at Honeywell Connected Enterprise, talked about how Honeywell and SAPs recent partnership around smart buildings was based on a meeting between the two companies respective CEOs at Davos.

Irene Petrick, senior director of Industrial Innovation in the Internet of Things Group at Intel, suggested that companies find their business case with the business line managers who have a specific need. Petrick also recommended picking partners who have graduated beyond slideware and have specific use cases already deployed and to be prepared to customize, since theres never a solution thats ready right off the shelf.

Regardless of how the partnerships get started, to work they need people who are committed to solving a problem across all levels of an organization. Petrick said people who can move freely between the tech and business teams to help define problems and communicate the technical limitations available are crucial. She called these individuals bridgers.

And according to Pilgrim Beart, CEO of DevicePilot, many companies that have built connected products or are in the process of building one might be surprised to discover that they are already part of an ecosystem. An IoT product is not simply a product. Its an ecosystem in its own right, he said. A lot of people have to collaborate to bring any one IoT solution into the market.

The good news is that companies may be further along than they think in terms of understanding how to build these ecosystems. So what about creating relationships between traditional companies and startups?

Smith said that her group at Honeywell is working with two startups at the moment, and in general is looking for companies that are building a product that either isnt competitive and can slot into the Honeywell roadmap and help it get to market faster, or one that customers are asking for that Honeywell doesnt have. She admitted that many startups will likely find working with a larger company trying. Petrick was more blunt, noting that Intel is probably not as an effective a partner for startups because it is so big and has so many competing interests.

Differently sized companies are not the only challenge to building an ecosystem partnerships face. The point of establishing an ecosystem is to create a web of companies to offer services and products that provide more value together than apart. But figuring out how to charge customers for that value and then apportion that value among the partners is tough.

Delivering value and harvesting that value is not yet appreciated in the IoT space, said Beart, who thinks it will simply take time. People are constantly trying to work out how to pass value down the chain, what to keep to themselves, and how to structure a business model.

Petrick believes IoT also needs more infrastructure. She mentioned auditing ecosystem partnerships as an example of a challenge that doesnt yet have a solution. So I have a rev share agreement in a partnership, but I have to know whos selling what, and to whom, and some of the auditing mechanisms arent really well-established or clear yet. She noted that we tend to audit things that are easy to count, but in the IoT, those may not be the right metrics, especially when it comes to sharing data.

For more on the challenges and other advice around data sharing and even the contracts necessary for building out an enterprise ecosystem, please check out thevideos of the sessions.

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Building ecosystems is hard. Auditing them is worse. - Stacey on IoT

In summary

Unless AB 3030 is changed to protect existing fishing access and to recognize sustainable management of West Coast fisheries, sport and commercial fishers must oppose it.

Marc Gorelnik chairs the Pacific Fishery Management Council, marc@gorelniklaw.com.

Mike Conroy is executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermens Associations, mike@ifrfish.org.

We Californians are rightfully protective of our environment. Unfortunately, our ecological ethic is not widely applied around the globe.

In much of the worlds oceans, meaningful protections are absent. There are a variety of reasons: corrupt governments, lack of management and enforcement resources, and the simple lack of appreciation of the mutual benefits of a healthy, abundant ecosystem.

Keep tabs on the latest California policy and politics news

Against this background, the international environmental community has joined forces to ensure our planets biodiversity by proposing to protect 30% of the worlds oceans, land and inland waters by the year 2030. Assembly Bill 3030, a bill introduced by Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San Jose Democrat, would similarly declare Californias goal to protect at least 30% of Californias waters and lands by 2030.

The goal is laudable, but the bills language is not. Unless the bill is fixed to protect existing fishing access absent a need to protect biodiversity from specific harm and to recognize the sustainable management of West Coast fisheries, sport and commercial fishers must regretfully oppose AB 3030.

Why have sport and commercial fishers up and down Californias coast opposed AB 3030? The bill strays from the international initiative from which it was spawned. The bill fails to recognize that the meaningful marine biodiversity protections sought elsewhere in the world already exist here in California.

Whether an area is protected depends solely on the nature and extent of the restrictions applied there, not a label that may or may not be correctly applied. In California, existing fishing management measures already protect marine biodiversity and its role in the larger marine ecosystem.

Virtually all of the ocean waters off California are already protected by overlapping federal and state laws and regulations designed to protect the health of living marine resources. Significant threats remain to our oceans, such as offshore energy and mineral extraction, climate change, ocean acidification, plastics, inland pollution reaching the ocean, and water policies in our rivers that diminish stocks of salmon and steelhead. However, no evidence supports the notion that sustainable fishing in the ocean waters of California creates a risk to Californias marine biodiversity. If a threat from fishing were to arise, tools are already in place to address it.

AB 3030 ignores the presence of these existing, comprehensive biodiversity protections. Supporters claim that only 16% of ocean waters are protected because they focus solely on areas designated by the California Fish and Game Commission. These no take areas are the most extreme form of protection, but not the only form of biodiversity protection recognized by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Twenty years ago, there were a host of overfished marine species in California and little attention was paid to protecting habitat. That is no longer the case. Vast areas of the ocean have been and remain closed to fishing in order to minimize impacts and allow stocks to recover. As stocks rebuilt to healthy levels, fishing access was carefully and slowly restored.

Much of the ocean bottom is protected as Essential Fish Habitat. All fishing activities must comply with the Endangered Species Act to protect listed species. Numerous National Marine Sanctuaries have been established along our coast. The tight management of fishing activities in the Golden State are now a model of biodiversity protection for the world.

Californias fishers rely on a healthy and abundant ecosystem. That is why fishers have consistently supported strong laws to protect living natural resources and preserve their abundance for generations to come. Gratuitously decreasing fishing access in Californias waters will do nothing to cure environmental malpractice happening elsewhere around the globe. Therefore, AB 3030 in its current form must be fixed or defeated.

As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on the generosity of Californians like you to cover the issues that matter. If you value our reporting, support our journalism with a donation.

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AB 3030 fails to recognize marine protections that exists in California - CALmatters

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Technavio has been monitoring the global automotive intelligent door system market size and it is poised to grow by 1,869.20 thousand units during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of almost 12% during the forecast period. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment.

Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Please Request Latest Free Sample Report on COVID-19 Impact

The market is fragmented, and the degree of fragmentation will accelerate during the forecast period. Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., Brose Fahrzeugteile SE & Co. KG, Continental AG, Huf Hlsbeck & Frst GmbH & Co. KG, Johnson Electric Holdings Ltd., Kiekert AG, Magna International Inc., Mitsui Kinzoku ACT Corp., Schaltbau Holding AG, and WITTE Automotive GmbH are some of the major market participants. To make the most of the opportunities, market vendors should focus more on the growth prospects in the fast-growing segments, while maintaining their positions in the slow-growing segments.

The growing demand for differentiated in-car experiences has been instrumental in driving the growth of the market. However, the imposition of higher tax on luxury vehicles might hamper market growth.

Automotive Intelligent Door System Market 2020-2024 : Segmentation

Automotive intelligent door system market is segmented as below:

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Automotive Intelligent Door System Market 2020-2024 : Scope

Technavio presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our automotive intelligent door system market report covers the following areas:

This study identifies as the development of smart doors one of the prime reasons driving the automotive intelligent door system market growth during the next few years.

Automotive Intelligent Door System Market 2020-2024 : Vendor Analysis

We provide a detailed analysis of around 25 vendors operating in the automotive intelligent door system market , including some of the vendors such as Aisin Seiki Co. Ltd., Brose Fahrzeugteile SE & Co. KG, Continental AG, Huf Hlsbeck & Frst GmbH & Co. KG, Johnson Electric Holdings Ltd., Kiekert AG, Magna International Inc., Mitsui Kinzoku ACT Corp., Schaltbau Holding AG, and WITTE Automotive GmbH. Backed with competitive intelligence and benchmarking, our research reports on the automotive intelligent door system market are designed to provide entry support, customer profile and M&As as well as go-to-market strategy support.

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Automotive Intelligent Door System Market 2020-2024 : Key Highlights

Table Of Contents :

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by Technology

Customer Landscape

Geographic Landscape

Market Drivers

Market Challenges

Market Trends

Vendor Landscape

Vendor Analysis

Appendix

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavios report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavios comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

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COVID-19 Impacts: Global Automotive Intelligent Door System Market will Accelerate at a CAGR of almost 12% through 2020-2024|Growing Demand for...

Latest published market study on Global VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry Market with + data Tables, Pie Chart, high level qualitative chapters & Graphs is available now to provide complete assessment of the VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry Market highlighting evolving trends, Measures taken up by players, current-to-future scenario analysis and growth factors validated with Viewpoints extracted via Industry experts and Consultants. The study breaksVoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry market by revenue and volume (wherever applicable) and price history to estimates size and trend analysis and identifying gaps and opportunities.

The report on VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry market covers the key trends of the industry which impact its growth with reference to the competitive arena and key regions. The study highlights the challenges this industry vertical will face along with the growth opportunities which would support the business development in existing & untapped markets. Besides this, the report also includes few case studies including those which take into account the corona virus pandemic, with an intention to offer a clear picture of this business sphere to all stakeholders.

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VoLTE (Voice over LTE) Ecosystem Industry Market Professional Survey 2020 by Manufacturers, Share, Growth, Trends, Types and Applications, Forecast to...

Bruce Kaskey COO at OrecX delves into the world of voice and screen recording with Don Witt of The Channel Daily News, a TR publication. Bruce discusses why one should select OrecX for Voice and Screen Recording.

OrecX is a strong supporter of the channel as well as their analytics partners.

Bruce and OrecX have also been attending the ClueCON Conference from the beginning.

The founders of OrecX areopen sourcerecording pioneers, launching the Oreka GPL in 2005 (used today by millions in over 190 countries).

OrecXs mission is simple: Organize the worlds spoken word with a modern and open audio capture platform that meets the widest variety of use cases and promotes interaction with third partysolutionssuch as speech analytics and customer experience management solutions.

OrecXscustomersand partners benefit from the Strategic, Technical, Economic and Collaborative benefits of the OrecX audio capture platform. Users can perform long term strategic planning with confidence, extend the platforms value without any arbitrary restrictions on system data, and build a rich complimentary ecosystem of speech analytics, AI, customer experience platform and transcription partners.

For more information, go to: https://www.orecx.com/

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Podcast: CLUECON SPECIAL FEATURE OrecX not only delivers top shelf stereo recording, but delivers a huge ecosystem of add on technology that may...

Earlier today the Singapore Games Association (SGGA) was launched with support from Enterprise Singapore (ESG), Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). The association aims to develop and sustain a gaming and esports system locally.

With hopes of putting Singapore on the world map when it comes to gaming and esports, the SGGAs foundation is to build a local gaming and esports industry. It is estimated that the video games segment in Singapore will reach US$130m in 2020 and US$138m by 2024, according to research by Statista.

Initial efforts of the SGGA were previously headed by the former Singapore Games Guild (SGG), which focused more on supporting Singapore based game devs. Now, with more support and collaborations with different entities, we can see the SGGA support not only gaming but also esports as well.

Among the initiatives that have been proposed by the SGGA include Singapore Esports. It aims to provide a holistic development for the esports scene besides positioning Singapore as the number one sport for international esports tournaments and events.

An upcoming event under SGGA that is coming this month is Gamescom Asia. Despite the pandemic, we can expect the event to still kick-off online. SGGA is gearing up to collaborate with the organizers of the event to showcase made-in-Singapore games.

For those who are interested in joining the SGGA to boost Singapores gaming and esports industry, SGGA will be launching its paid membership program in Q3 2020. Among benefits for those who participate include special rates and access to SGGA initiatives, including local and

overseas event participation, focus groups, networking opportunities, resources, training courses, and benefits through SGGAs partner network. This program is open to all companies registered in Singapore as well as Singapore-based individuals and freelancers.

Currently, the SGGA is also looking for people who are interested in contributing to the gaming and esports industry of Singapore as well as volunteers of different merits. You can find out more about the SGGA on their official website.

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Singapore Launches SGGA To Create A Sustainable And Inclusive Ecosystem for Gaming and Esports. - IGN Southeast Asia

The partnership follows a successful automotive customer collaboration in which the Argus Control Flow Integrity product has been jointly integrated to work with Green Hills Software's industry-leading optimizing C/C++ compiler. The joint solution will be securing safety-critical ECUs in vehicles of a major European OEM starting in Calendar Year 2021. As vehicles become increasingly dependent on software and connectivity, their exposure to cyber-attacks increases. Leveraging the existing security and safety capabilities of the Green Hills C/C++ Compiler, theArgusControl Flow Integrity integration supports AUTOSAR classic devices running on the Renesas RH850 processor family, providing protection from cyber attacks such as buffer overflows with zero false positives.

"By optimizing Argus Control Flow Integrity for the Green Hills Compiler, we have succeeded in reducing the complexity and time involved for automotive software developers to enhance cyber security in their platforms," said Nir Rozen, VP Product Management, Argus Cyber Security.

"We are excited to be working with Argus Cyber Security and have them join our rich ecosystem of best-in-class technology providers," said Chris Tubbs Business Development Director EMEA, Green Hills Software.

Argus Control Flow Integrity is one layer in Argus' multi-layered Connected ECU Protection and Argus Core ECU Protection product offering. Compliant with ISO 26262 ASIL B, Argus Control Flow Integrity protects also safety-critical ECUs in the vehicle, such as braking, ADAS and more, from cyber-attacks. In addition, Argus Control Flow Integrity will work with ECUs running high-level operating systems, AUTOSAR Classic, and bare metal ECUs.

Green Hills Compilers have led the embedded industry by generating the fastest, smallest, and most reliable code for over 35 years. Certified to ISO 26262 ASIL D, they are heavily used in safety systems and ECUs running bare metal, AUTOSAR Classic, OSEK, or higher-level operating systems. Green Hill Compilers provide support for C, C++11, C++14, C++17, Embedded C++ and GNU C/C++ extensions across a broad range of processors.

About Argus Cyber SecurityArgus, a global leader in automotive cyber security, provides proven in-vehicle solutions, professional services, and an automotive security operation center (ASOC) to protect connected cars and commercial vehicles against cyber-attacks. Customers include car manufacturers, their suppliers, and fleet managers.

Currently in production, Argus products and services help prevent, detect, and respond to cyber attacks targeting in-vehicle components, networks, and post-production fleets. Argus professional services help our customers comply with existing guidelines and regulations, such as UNECE WP. 29, through a suite of tailored consulting services that help integrate cyber security practices and processes into the entire product lifecycle. Argus' innovative methods and solutions are based on decades of cyber security and automotive research and have culminated in over 66 granted and pending patents.

Founded in 2013, Argus is headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, with offices in Michigan, Stuttgart, Tokyo, and Korea. Argus is an independent subsidiary of Elektrobit, a leading provider of automotive software products and services. Visit Argus Cyber Security at https://www.argus-sec.com.

@ArgusSec| LinkedIn

About Green Hills SoftwareFounded in 1982, Green Hills Software is the worldwide leader in embedded safety and security. In 2008, the Green Hills INTEGRITY-178 RTOS was the first and only operating system to be certified by NIAP (National Information Assurance Partnership comprised of NSA & NIST) to EAL 6+, High Robustness, the highest level of security ever achieved for any software product. Our open architecture, integrated development solutions address deeply embedded, absolute security and high-reliability applications for the military/avionics, medical, industrial, automotive, networking, consumer and other markets that demand industry-certified solutions. Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, with European headquarters in the United Kingdom. Visit Green Hills Software at http://www.ghs.com.

Green Hills, the Green Hills logo, and INTEGRITY are trademarks or registered trademarks of Green Hills Software, in the U.S. and/or internationally. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Green Hills Software Welcomes Argus Cyber Security into Its Rich EcoSystem of Automotive Partners - PRNewswire

Now that more is known about the returning otters' impact, biologists and other advocates believe it will be widely seen in a positive light overall, much like the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the U.S., where the predators helped rebalance the complex ecosystem.

Mike Willie, a hereditary chief from the coastal Kwikwasut'inuxw Nation, says he has heard some negative talk about the otters, but he sees them as a long-term benefit for the region.

He spoke to the CBC on board his boat in the waters off northern Vancouver Island, on the way to see his latest venture at an old village site on Hope Island, called Place of the Otter.

It's an idyllic spot, with a sheltered bay wrapping around a gravel beach.

Willie's company, Coastal Rainforest Safaris, was set to help revive the site as a high-end camping, or glamping, outpost this year. Large tents were to be erected on top of a new boardwalk, with tourists paying $1,000 a night to experience the region's wilderness.

The COVID-19 pandemic has delayed those plans, but it hasn't dampened Willie's enthusiasm.

"I'm excited about it. Sea otter viewing is giving First Nations a chance out here to take part in the mainstream economy."

He said with other local industries such as logging and fishing in decline, tourism is one of the few long-term bright spots.

Others share his enthusiasm. Veteran scuba diver Jackie Hildering works with the Marine Education and Research Society in Port McNeill, B.C. She specializes in photographing kelp and was keen to explore the waters near Hope Island for the first time.

As she put on her scuba gear, she promised to quickly come back with a kelp-eating sea urchin. Thirty minutes later, she returned to the surface after spotting plenty of other sea life but no urchins.

"The otters have done their work here," she said while still in the water.

"I went down thinking I'd be back in a minute. How crazy is it not to be able to find a purple urchin?"

Hildering detailed how the waters near Hope Island differ from areas where there are still no sea otters. She saw expansive kelp forests close to shore, sheltering a wide variety of fish including herring, different types of rockfish and swimming scallops.

"What I just experienced as a diver, was diversity.

"If only those worried about otters could see this," she said, connecting the underwater dots linking kelp beds to a wide variety of sea life.

It's a phenomenon that's been documented by Linda Nichol, the lead sea otter research biologist for Fisheries and Oceans Canada at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo.

"It's an interesting story. It's a quite complex story, she said of sea otters.

"They have this profound and incredible role in the ecosystem where they can literally flip the ecosystem from one system to the other."

Nichol said the otters are simply playing out their evolutionary role, but it "creates conflict with people who want shellfish."

"It's a very complex issue and we'll see how it unfolds," she said.

The interaction between species was on full display as CBC News tagged along during Erin Foster's otter survey in the Queen Charlotte Strait near the northern tip of Vancouver Island in early July.

As the boat moved slowly along the shoreline, more than once those on board were caught off guard by the sudden rush of air from the lungs of a humpback whale surfacing nearby. A huff or two of breath and it would dive back into the deep in search of food.

Small bait fish such as herring and needlefish popped from the surface as they attempted to evade attackers below. Salmon, too, were jumping as they made their way along the coast to freshwater to spawn. What was seen on the surface only hinted at what was happening below, out of sight.

Relatively few people venture this far north, past the end of the roads on Vancouver Island, where the coast is harsh and wind-blown seas batter the coastline. The landscape is mostly steep and rocky, often appearing monochromatic, framed by a grey sky overhead and steely ocean below. The trees fighting for survival are stunted and gnarled, branches flattened by all-too-frequent gale-force winds.

It's a place where the constant churn of water from the open Pacific meets land, sparking countless interactions between plants, animals, algae, fish and birds. A balance where the sea otter is once again part of the mix after a long absence.

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To oblivion and back - CBC.ca