Group items tagged

M-Pesa’s success has been phenomenal. Recent statistics show that fully one-quarter of the Kenyan economy flows through M-Pesa.

Other countries are taking a crack at a similar mobile digital currency. Vodacom

has launched M-Pesa in other African nations, as well as India and parts of Eastern Europe. In Latin America, Ecuador recently announced it would launch a nationwide digital currency, residing largely on people’s smartphones

High-profile mobile money launches by Apple and Samsung may have caught the headlines

But it is the developments in payments systems in supposedly less developed nations in Africa and Asia that point the way to the probable future for wider mobile banking.

the reality remains that the mobile phone as a means of payment remains relatively niche even in developed markets.

As America switches from an industrial economy to a digital one, its bluest collar workers are facing the toughest challenge of their lives. Can miners really learn how to code?

Say what you will about the long-term environmental effects (Justice, for one, is very pro-coal) but the impact on the area’s one-source economy has been brutal.

The Rusty Justice seminar concludes for today. The coders swivel back to their computers, and Michael announces weekend plans to no one in particular: “Looks like I better learn C#.”

Китаянку Сяо Юн (Xiao Yun), которую в течение последних десяти лет считали погибшей, обнаружили во время полицейского рейда в интернет-кафе в провинции Чжэцзян.

Сяо Юн ушла из дома в возрасте 14 лет в 2005 году, и с тех пор о ней было ничего не известно.

в последние десять лет она жила преимущественно в интернет-кафе.

Recently, an app called Peeple got a whole lot of attention for trying to be the Yelp for Humans

But what would it be like if we lived in a world where everything you do is subject to a rating doled out by a combination of machines and other people?

Michael Fertik, the founder of Reputation.com and the author of the book The Reputation Economy, talks on the episode about all the ways that brands and companies are already compiling your information into a profile that helps them make decisions about you. Linkedin, AirBnB, Uber, they’re all gathering what Fertik calls your “digital exhaust” to learn more about you

“Wait,” I asked, “so it’s supposed to delete my personal files from my internal hard drive without asking my permission?” “Yes,” she replied.

through the Apple Music subscription, which I had, Apple now deletes files from its users’ computers. When I signed up for Apple Music, iTunes evaluated my massive collection of Mp3s and WAV files, scanned Apple’s database for what it considered matches, then removed the original files from my internal hard drive. REMOVED them. Deleted. If Apple Music saw a file it didn’t recognize—which came up often, since I’m a freelance composer and have many music files that I created myself—it would then download it to Apple’s database, delete it from my hard drive, and serve it back to me when I wanted to listen, just like it would with my other music files it had deleted.

What Apple considers a “match” often isn’t. That rare, early version of Fountains of Wayne’s “I’ll Do The Driving,” labeled as such? Still had its same label, but was instead replaced by the later-released, more widely available version of the song. The piano demo of “Sister Jack” that I downloaded directly from Spoon’s website ten years ago? Replaced with the alternate, more common demo version of the song. What this means, then, is that Apple is engineering a future in which rare, or varying, mixes and versions of songs won’t exist unless Apple decides they do.

Бот поддерживает функцию поиска по раздачам и может сортировать по сидам, личам, размеру раздачи, дате регистрации и количеству скачиваний.

чуть больше двух недель назад бота в мессенджере запустила «Флибуста». Он бесплатно распространяет книги, в том числе и те, за которые онлайн-библиотеку забанили на территории страны.

Правообладатели уже пригрозили заблокировать мессенджер, если администрация Telegram не удалит бота.

Slice Intelligence just revealed that people who bought products in mobile video games last year spent an average of $87 dollars on their “free-to-play” games. This redefines how we view hardcore gamers: people who purchase games for traditional consoles and PCs spend only $5 dollars more on average on their gaming entertainment.

The mobile game with the largest average in-app spend is Game of War, where players spend, on average, $550

If you create something with the Rift, the Terms of Service say that you surrender all rights to that work and that Oculus can use it whenever it wants

Oculus can collect data from you while you’re using the device

Furthermore, the information that they collect can be used to directly market products to you

За ними давно уже закрепились особые названия типа «поколение Y» или «миллениты» (millennials, «тысячелетники»), ибо в новый век и тысячелетие они вошли подростками, которые первыми родились и стали созревать в мире цифровых технологий, где уже рухнули стены глобального идеологического раскола, грозившего мировой катастрофой.

Чтобы уже сегодня не только отчетливо увидеть действительно влиятельную молодежь, но и ясно понимать комплекс продвигаемых ею великих идей, надо сделать несколько парадоксальную вещь. Просто чуть повнимательнее присмотреться к тому, что делают прямо сейчас наиболее умные из людей более старших поколений.

Если кто-то вдруг совсем не в курсе или уже успел подзабыть, то судебные власти США методично и целенаправленно сфабриковали против Шварца и его «подрывной идеологии» крупномасштабное уголовное преследование – с комплексом обвинений, тянувших на срок тюремного заключения от 30 до 50 лет. И все это за то, надо подчеркнуть, что Шварц, по сути дела, брал и копировал слишком много библиотечных книг и журналов. Формулируя точнее, он легальными методами, но в автоматическом режиме выкачал через сеть университета MIT гигантское количество научных публикаций из коммерческого архива JSTOR – «с очевидным намерением затем распространять эти файлы через интернет», что прямо следовало из его публичных выступлений о необходимости «освобождать знания». То есть собственно факта распространения еще не было, однако влепить дюже умному хакеру полсотни лет тюрьмы за это будущее «преступление» власти собирались вполне решительно.

Law firm Baker & Hostetler has announced that they are employing IBM’s AI Ross to handle their bankruptcy practice, which at the moment consists of nearly 50 lawyers.

Ross, “the world’s first artificially intelligent attorney” built on IBM’s cognitive computer Watson, was designed to read and understand language, postulate hypotheses when asked questions, research, and then generate responses (along with references and citations) to back up its conclusions. Ross also learns from experience, gaining speed and knowledge the more you interact with it.

“At BakerHostetler, we believe that emerging technologies like cognitive computing and other forms of machine learning can help enhance the services we deliver to our clients.”

distributors are usually loathe to discuss VOD specifics publicly. When consumers are used to seeing $60 to $100 million opening weekends for major blockbusters in wide release, VOD numbers, no matter how “good,” look miniscule in comparison. Add on the fact that Snowpiercer is the widest multi-platform release ever, and the tricky exercise of figuring out how to combine theatrical earnings with weekend estimates from digital and cable providers, and the territory gets even more unfamiliar.

Snowpiercer earning an estimated $1.1 million from VOD this past weekend, nearly twice as much as the $635,000 it earned in theaters. “From a layman’s perspective these numbers are possibly not that interesting,” admits RADiUS-TWC co-president Tom Quinn. “But from an industry perspective, it’s a game changer.”

VOD is both cheaper and more profitable. “That $1.1 million gross is actually worth almost double to me in terms of how it nets out in our bottom line,”

From staff-free ticket offices to students who can learn online, it seems there is no corner of economic life in which people are not being replaced by machines.

One of the reasons Google is investing so much is that whoever owns the communications system for driverless cars will own the 21st century's equivalent of the telephone network or money clearing system: this will be a licence to print money.

The only new jobs will be in the design and marketing of the cars, and in writing the computer software that will allow them to navigate their journeys, along with the apps for our mobile phones that will help us to use them better

Google is working to create a new product in the home services market

Calif.-based technology giant is working on an offering through its ads team that will allow customers to connect with roofers and repairmen and put it in direct competition with Thumbtack and Amazon.com

As Buzzfeed reported, there will likely be some integration with Google Ad Words, which will likely create targeted ads for users searching for certain services that will allow them to receive direct quotes.

When we launched ads two years ago, ads were available in just eight countries. In September, we opened for business in around 200 countries

Facebook’s global sales team was beginning to push Instagram’s advertising to small businesses, providing them with the ability to target marketing at particular users

that international expansion was a priority, with 75 per cent of its more than 400m users based outside the US

Соответствующий сервис Social Attributes запустило Национальное бюро кредитных историй (НБКИ) совместно с IT-компанией Double Data.

Первый опыт использования системы, по информации издания, показал, что подписка заемщика на группы о сетевом маркетинге, быстрых кредитах или антиколлекторах увеличивает риск невыплаты кредита в 2-4 раза. При этом позитивные действия пользователя, например, публикация фотографий о путешествиях, наоборот, снижают риски для кредитора.

The financial magazine has published its first ever list of top earners on the video platform, with the irrepressible Felix Kjellberg (better known as PewDiePie) heading the charts with pretax earnings of $12 million,

most of these individuals’ income comes from advertising such as sponsored videos and previews, although four of those on the list also have book deals, while a few even offer their own product lines.

The social media giant will roll out the digital currency in around a dozen countries by the first quarter of next year,

Facebook has a huge ecosystem of users it can provide new value for using the nascent asset class. Its crypto can reduce friction for these users, enabling them to make purchases or make transfers to each other without having to leave the platform,

McDonald’s recently announced that it is acquiring personalization software vendor Dynamic Yield, for a reported $300 million or more. This “supersized” deal took many of us who pay attention to the personalization space by surprise. But the underlying message behind the deal shouldn’t surprise anyone: personalization matters. It’s undoubtedly worth investing in.

This is what McDonald’s is planning to do with its latest acquisition. It is planning to understand what each person is interested in ordering based on a number of factors such as the weather or what he has started to order, decide in the moment what menu options are relevant to that person, and respond with those options in a seamless way.

McDonald’s acquisition shows us that forward-looking companies are prioritizing personalization and putting it at the very center of their CX strategy — even those you might not expect. It shows us that personalization is not just about a single digital channel like a company’s website or email campaigns. It can truly be integrated anywhere.