Home Page ContentPress Releases DECEMBER 2017 DIGEST

DECEMBER 2017 DIGEST

by Anthony Weaver

Connect-World’s Digest – Issue  69– December 2017

Editorial Manager’s Eye, by Anthony Weaver, Editorial Manager Connect-World publications.

Welcome to the Connect-World eDigest, which provides a summary of the ICT trade events and news items that have recently caught my eye as Editorial Manager.

For more information on the news items, please visit our press releases webpage detailed below. https://connect-world.com/category/page-content/press-releases/

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Trade Events

Critical Control Rooms, Geneva, Switzerland 5-7 December 2017

The 8th annual Critical Control Rooms 2017 is a conference dedicated to all aspects of critical control room development with a focus on technology, processes, design, environment and people.

The 8th annual Critical Control Rooms 2017 covered topics such as:

  • Improving Work Environment To Enhance Service Delivery
  • Improving Ergonomics To Drive Operational Efficiency
  • Developing A Consolidation Strategy For Critical Control Rooms
  • Delivering Effective Control Room Operations: Planning Approaches And Strategies
  • How Control Rooms Can Benefit From The Cloud: Assessing The Challenges And Opportunities
  • Technology Underpinning The Operations And Capability Of Critical Control Rooms
  • Managing Increasing Amounts Of Data From Different Sources.

Ref: https://www.clocate.com/conference/8th-annual-Critical-Control-Rooms-2017/62542/

Press Releases

Friday 29 December

Dr Joseph Reger, CTO & Fujitsu Fellow at Fujitsu EMEIA, shares his predictions IoT & AI in 2018

Ubiquitous virtual assistants – Over the course of the year we’ll see an increase in the number of virtual assistants and chatbots that are currently in use by banks and insurance companies. Consumers will notice a significant ramp over the next year; however by 2020 they will no longer notice that their interface is not human.

Government health programs will turn to AI – We’ll see governments start to invest in AI to improve health and reduce medical spending. The focus will be on leveraging the technology to accelerate diagnosis and for preventative medicine.

At least two disruptive AI business models will emerge in the next 12 months – We are currently witnessing digitalization disrupt many industries. We can expect to see the start of a new wave of AI-based disruption – with retail a likely candidate for significant change.

Eighty percent of all larger organizations will investigate AI – Sixty percent of these will actually be undertaking proofs of concept. When they reach the implementation phase, 100% will encounter a lack of appropriately skilled employees.

Friday 22 December

Ericsson signs funding agreements for 5G research

Ericsson will raise USD 220 million from the Nordic Investment Bank and USD 150 million from AB Svensk Exportkredit

The credit agreements will mature in 2023 and 2025 and will extend Ericsson’s debt maturity profile

In line with Ericsson’s focused business strategy, these agreements will support R&D activities to further develop 5G and other innovative mobile technologies

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC) is announcing that it has signed agreements for credit facilities with the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB) for USD 220 million, maturing in 2023, and AB Svensk Exportkredit (SEK) for USD 150 million, maturing in 2025. Of these new funds, 98 million will replace credit with NIB that was set to mature in 2019.

Thursday 21 December

Facebook And Universal Music Group Strike Unprecedented Global Agreement

Empowers Fans to Express Themselves with Music from World’s Greatest Artists Across Facebook, Instagram and Oculus

Enables New Commercial Opportunities for Artists on Leading Social Media Platforms

MENLO PARK and SANTA MONICA, December 21, 2017 — Facebook and Universal Music Group (UMG) today announced an unprecedented global, multi-year agreement under which UMG becomes the first major music company to license its recorded music and publishing catalogues for video and other social experiences across Facebook, Instagram and Oculus.

The partnership will facilitate deeper engagement between artists and fans, empowering users to express themselves through music, share the songs they love and build communities around music-fueled culture. Enabling a variety of features across Facebook’s platforms, the agreement is intended to serve as a foundation for a strategic partnership roadmap that will deliver new music-based experiences online.

Tuesday 12 December

Social Virtual Reality Could Change the Face of Travelling

Tuesday 12th Dec – Glasgow-based company Eventual, creators of cloud-based Virtual Reality (VR) environments, are taking their social VR platform to the travel industry. The platform itself allows an unlimited number of people to immerse themselves in and share in virtual reality experiences, in tailor-made environments. And best of all, it works with all major headsets, including mobile.

All landscapes built on the Eventual VR Platform will allow anyone to interact and communicate with others across the globe in a shared environment as if they were physically in the same room. This immersive experience means your favourite tourist hotspot is always on your doorstep! No matter the destination, experience it on your own or share it with your nearest and dearest without the need to travel ever again. All you need is an internet connection and a compatible device.

Defeat of Daesh gives a huge boost to the Iraqi mobile market, says GlobalData

The Iraqi telco market made a recovery starting in 2016, and is forecast to reach 34 million subscribers by 2017, exceeding its 2014 pre-Daesh level, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The Iraq market was severely impacted by the internal conflict with Daesh. The fall of Mosul and the capture of vast swathes of Iraqi territory led to a massive drop in mobile subscribers, from 33 million in 2014 to 29 million in 2015.

Mak Rahnama, Technology Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Since the recapture of Mosul in August 2017 and the defeat of Daesh in numerous other areas of west and northern Iraq, telcos have proved very quick and resourceful.”

The regional telcos Zain and Asiacell were physically unable to provide mobile coverage to a significant portion of the Iraqi population that was under the control of Daesh. But in recent months they have made extensive progress in terms of reconnecting these areas.

Rahnama concludes: “Nonetheless, there are still serious and challenging obstacles facing mobile operators in terms of driving the adoption of mobile services, and there has also been significant destruction of telecommunication infrastructure that will take time,

Monday 11 December

Banks must Strengthen their Commitment to Fight Cyber-crime

Banks must strengthen their commitment to fight cyber-crime by placing confidence in new forms of technology including AI and machine learning, says BOHH Labs

According to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), financial services firms and banks in the UK are not reporting successful cyber-attacks. Megan Butler, Director of the FCA, warned that banks are still not admitting the full scale of cyber-attacks carried out every day. In response to this news, cybersecurity expert Simon Bain from BOHH Labs, challenges regulators and banks to adopt innovative technology such as artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to minimize the threat of cyber-crime.

Earlier this year, Nick Cook, the FCA’s head of data and information operations, said that the regulator was “still learning” how to support the adoption of automated, digitised compliance. The FCA reports that the number of successful cyber-attacks has risen from 5 to 49 annually between 2014 and 2017.

Thursday 7 December

Global LTE Connections Hit 2.5 Billion Milestone

5G Americas, the industry trade association and voice of 5G and LTE for the Americas, today announced that global LTE connections reached the milestone of 2.5 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2017. There was an increase of 838 million new LTE subscriptions in one year ending September 2017 according to data from Ovum. Global market share for LTE achieved 32 percent at the end of the third quarter of 2017, an increase of almost 10 percentage points in one year. The North America region continued as a global leader with LTE market share of 73 percent, higher than any other world region. Latin America exhibited continued growth with market share for LTE increasing to 26 percent.

“Although the global wireless industry is working on preparations for 5G in the future, currently operators are deploying more advanced LTE capabilities, and LTE subscriptions are continuing to grow at a fantastic rate,” stated Chris Pearson, President of 5G Americas.

New LTE network deployments continue as well as many network upgrades from LTE to LTE-Advanced.  As of mid-November, there were 562 commercial LTE deployments worldwide, while 211 of those operators have already evolved to LTE-Advanced.

Wednesday 6 December

IUNGO: The Reinvention of the Internet [strikes again]

The availability of the internet is not an issue for many living in Europe or North America – coverage is sufficient allowing most people to browse news portals, interact with social platforms or even work remotely. Unfortunately this is a luxury for many around the globe.

Over 4.3 Billion people are still unable to reap the fruits of the internet as it is unavailable to them. That is more than half the globes population who still have no access to Facebook or even know about email. IUNGO will change this.

IUNGO is an innovative team of socially responsible IT professionals with an idea to change the word for the better. They believe that universal, affordable internet access is a basic human right which must be ensured anywhere in the world.

A large number of enterprises, governments and international organisations have thus far failed to achieve global internet access due to their centralized approaches which have resulted in expensive infrastructure, substandard maintenance, unscalable systems and lack of grassroots incentives. This has been even more of a problem in developing regions who suffer from low incomes.

Tuesday 5 December

T-Mobile, Ericsson exceed 1 Gbps with LAA demo

T-Mobile and Ericsson are first in the world to demonstrate speeds exceeding 1 Gbps using 12-layer Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology

The demonstration was performed in T-Mobile’s lab using Ericsson Radio System together with test gear from Cobham Wireless

T-Mobile (NASDAQ: TMUS) and Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) have achieved speeds of 1.1 Gbps using 12-layer Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology – the first in the world to hit speeds beyond the 1 Gbps threshold on unlicensed spectrum.

Neville Ray, Chief Technology Officer for T-Mobile, says: “T-Mobile has built the nation’s fastest LTE network by innovating and bringing new technologies to market for our customers. This LAA technology builds upon our deployments of 4×4 MIMO and 256 QAM and will give customers even greater access to near gigabit speeds in 2018.”

Friday 1 December

Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications – Experts Draw up a Roadmap for the Secure use of Big Data

Experts draw up a roadmap for the secure use of Big Data

– 12-point plan to help enterprises use big data responsibly, securely and innovatively

– Pseudonymous processing and privacy by design don’t offer adequate data protection

– The debate has to focus on technical procedures; security, transparency and data privacy are the highest priorities

– Collected data should always be encrypted and stored in distributed data repositories for evaluation on a legitimate request basis only.

For more information on the news items, please visit our press releases webpage detailed below. https://connect-world.com/category/page-content/press-releases/

Anthony Weaver

Editorial Manager

Connect-World Magazines

United Kingdom

Email: anthony.weaver@connect-world.com

Web: www.connect-world.com

 

 

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