As the 2023 calendar draws to its end for another year, it’s time for our annual write-up of the technology events and trends on which we’ve been focused this year.

Each of the writers in the Hybrid News stable has their particular specialisms and interests, so our round-up of the big trends in tech in 2023 is best served by giving each a voice here on the pages of Tech Wire Asia.

UNTHREADING TWITTER: META’S NEW SOCIAL MEDIA APP IGNITES A DIGITAL SHOWDOWN

Muhammad Zulhusni | 7 July, 2023

Content moderation in 2023

Tony Fyler writes:

You never know what you’ve got, or what you’ve had, until either it’s gone or it’s under threat.

That’s content moderation in 2023.

The rules of decent society, carried over onto social media networks, have always presumed there would be rules of engagement, and responsible humans to police that engagement.

But with the coming of Elon Musk to then-Twitter, just as with the coming of Donald Trump to the White House, those rules began to fray. Musk fired a vast majority of his content moderation team on arriving at Twitter, both in an attempt to cut costs at the legendarily unprofitable platform, and as part of a campaign to extend “free” speech into areas that seek to de-legitimize the ideas of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Meta followed suit in terms of cutting staff from its content management and fact-checking teams across 2023, raising serious fears for the impartiality of social media reporting of key events like the 2024 Presidential election.

As the fundamental role of social media shifts from pure entertainment to including more journalistic functions, the role of content moderation will become ever more important – without it, active disinformation or the equivalence of facts and lies replaces an informed democracy.

Quantum computing goes mainstream in 2023

Aaron Raj writes:

Quantum computing is still a relatively expensive piece of technology for most organizations. While the industry is still being developed, investments have been pouring in for quantum computing research, with more organizations now experimenting with potential use cases.

IBM, in particular, has been at the forefront of quantum computing research and development in 2023. The IBM Quantum Network has seen tremendous progress among its members. The Cleveland Clinic and IBM unveiled the first deployment of an onsite private sector quantum computer in the US, which will be dedicated to healthcare research. IBM also unveiled the Quantum Heron, the first in a new series of utility-scale quantum processors. The 133 Qubit processor offers a five times improvement over the previous best records set by IBM Eagle.

Apart from IBM, several other quantum computing companies have also recorded milestones in 2024. Among them is IonQ, a quantum computing company offering a fully managed quantum computing service with AWS. There’s also Horizon Quantum Computing, a Singaporean-based company building software development tools to unlock the potential of quantum computing hardware. The company raised a significant investment earlier this year and has established an engineering center in Europe.

DELL TECHNOLOGIES SEES AI, ZERO TRUST, AND QUANTUM COMPUTING LEADING 2024

Muhammad Zulhusni | 6 December, 2023

Perhaps the biggest take away from quantum computing in 2023 will be the implementation of post-quantum cryptography to unify and drive efforts to address the threats posed by quantum computing. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will publish in 2024 the guidelines required to ensure a fluid migration to the new post-quantum cryptographic standard.

Large language models loom large in 2023

James Tyrrell writes:

Many people would pick AI as the tech of the year, but those in the know would dig a bit deeper and recognize large language models (LLMs) as the real heroes of the story. Throughout 2023, the impact of LLMs has been remarkable.

Enterprise software providers have integrated natural language search into their products so that users can query business data as if they were talking to a knowledgeable colleague. And we have LLMs to thank for that breakthrough.

Whether LLMs can push the cost of intelligence (close) to zero, as OpenAI’s Sam Altman has forecast, remains to be seen. But billion parameter models capable of next-word prediction are certainly clever (and know how to stack a book, nine eggs, a laptop, a bottle, and a nail on top of each other).

One of the most beautiful things about LLMs is that they can be trained on unlabelled data. You just have to mask a word in a sentence and have the algorithm find the most likely candidate – tuning the model weights as you go.

Such unsupervised learning has allowed LLMs to vacuum up virtually all of the text on the internet in every published language. We now have multilingual business avatars which are only too happy to meet and greet customers 24/7, and virtual agents that can handle common contact center voice calls with ease. What’s more, compression techniques such as dynamic sparsity allow models to run at the edge and put LLMs in your pocket.

Smartphone chips and augmented reality processors are being designed with neural engines to help us query the world as we go about our daily lives. It’s great news for remote maintenance, and LLMs have an abundance of productivity plus points – many more of which are sure to play out in 2024.

The statistical magic that LLMs bring to the table shines bright, at least in most directions. Having LLMs fill in the gaps in human thought could turn out to be a double-edged sword. And the jury is out on whether AI is good or bad news for jobs – technology writers included!

2023: the year in data centers

Fiona Jackson writes:

Love it or hate it, AI (or indeed, LLMs – thanks, James!) was the hot topic of the last year – as confirmed by the Collins Dictionary. The visibility that ChatGPT brought the technology resulted in consumers demanding that products and services matched its level of intelligence.

Naturally, this demand has been passed to product and service providers and then the data centers that support them. It’s no longer just research departments and specialized industries that need to have AI workloads hosted, and data center operators have been scrambling to keep up.

Across the world, racks are being densified, new direct-to-chip cooling solutions are being built, and energy-efficient strategies are being implemented to handle the increased computational requirements. TechHQ visited Iceland in October to check out whether the country’s claims of sustainable data solutions were true, and even with the naturally cold temperatures making direct air cooling a viable option, it turns out many are investigating more efficient liquid cooling alternatives to future-proof against further demand. In five years’ time, 2023 will be looked back on as a turning point in data solution visibility.

From the public’s perspective, they will go from faraway, almost mythological facilities that enable ‘the cloud’ to familiar infrastructure, built into skyscrapers, supermarkets, or architecturally impressive buildings that draw the eye. But their new presence in society will not just be physical, as discussions about AI, data handling, and technological infrastructure will permeate everyday conversations. Concerns over sustainability, ethics, and the societal impact of these advancements will become public discourse, fostering a deeper understanding of the pivotal role these data solutions play.

The year of ubiquitous AI

Muhammad Zulhusni writes:

In 2023, AI firmly established itself as a staple in our daily lives, initiating an era where it’s no longer a futuristic concept but a tangible, integral reality. This year marked a shift from AI being a source of curiosity and entertainment to becoming a critical tool across various domains.

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Aaron Raj | 22 December, 2023

The emergence of “prompt whisperers” exemplified the world’s evolving interaction with AI, guiding users in creating effective prompts and blending AI services for enhanced outputs. AI’s influence was profoundly felt in the workplace, making headlines for winning photography competitions and excelling in academic exams. ChatGPT’s user base reached 100 million by February, a testament to its widespread acceptance.

Other significant developments included the launch of Google’s chatbot Bard, Microsoft incorporating AI into Bing, and Snapchat’s introduction of MyAI. GPT-4’s release in March further advanced AI capabilities, particularly in document analysis.

Major corporations like Coca-Cola and Levi’s leveraged AI for advertising and creating virtual models. The year also saw culturally impactful moments, such as the viral image of the Pope in a Balenciaga jacket and calls for a pause in AI development. Amazon integrated AI into its offerings, while Japan made notable rulings on AI training and copyright. In the US, screenwriters went on strike over AI-generated scripts, highlighting the growing influence and controversy surrounding AI.

Generative AI has changed everything.

AI’s rapid advancement in 2023 has significant implications for the future, particularly in reshaping job markets, education, and policy-making. It’s driving crucial conversations around ethics, privacy, and data security, prompting new regulations and standards. The democratization of AI tools is sparking innovation across industries, fostering an environment of rapid technological progress.

Five years from now, 2023 will be seen as the beginning of the AI revolution, setting the stage for AI to be an integral, ethically integrated part of our lives, revolutionizing our interactions with technology and society.

2023, a year of fading Red Hat

Joe Green writes:

2023 saw Red Hat’s crown slip out from under the brim of the company’s fedora. For years the poster child of how an open source company could make real money, Red Hat suddenly decided to annoy and negatively impact the community of developers, admins, and IT professionals who – let’s be honest – make sure a sizeable chunk of the world’s computers keep doing their thing.

Early in the year, the byte-for-byte copy of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS was canned with little notice, and more recently, the company decided the (previously open source) source code for RHEL was to be placed behind what amounted to a paywall.

Many commentators placed the blame on the perceived ‘bad guy,’ namely IBM, who’s owned the Linux outfit since 2019. But regardless of where the decisions emanated, the imperative behind the moves was commercial – a short-term maximizing of profits at the expense of long-term continuity, goodwill, and the collectivist ethos on which Red Hat (and the internet) were built.

There are significant parallels in the myopic mindset between Red Hat’s courses of action and those of all human activity with regard to the accelerating climate disaster we are living in. Despite the cost of failure being higher in 30 years by a huge factor, both we and Red Hat/IBM choose short-termism, indolence, and profiteering over positive and collective action to assure a future.

“2023 Happy New Year Taiwan Kaohsiung 高流幸福式元旦煙火” by 黃昱峰 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

The post The technology of 2023 – in the APAC and around the world appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Living and working abroad is one of those rites of passage that many people undertake at some stage of their lives. For previous generations, that meant going through various visa and right-to-work applications and getting a local job offer. That often took a significant investment of time and money, and foreign workers were always in danger of exploitation by local organizations seeking a cheap labor pool.

But today, a new generation of digital nomads exists, people with sellable skills who can work almost entirely digitally. The DE Rantau program in Malaysia is the latest national scheme to attract digital nomads to the country, joining trailblazer Estonia and several others since, including Spain, Croatia, Hungary, and Italy. Typically, digital nomad schemes offer a fast-tracked application process and grant successful workers up to a year-long visa to come and live in the host country and work digitally – either for a local company or, more often, for a company located anywhere in the world.

Home from home? Kuala Lumpur. Be honest – you’ve lived in worse places.

The DE Rantau program is modeled on the Greek system after its organizers examined several extant programs for Chiang Mai, Bali, Estonia, and Portugal. The Greek program was launched in 2019 and approved over 3,000 visas in 2021 alone. Since its launch around 13 months ago, 800 applicants have been granted digital nomad status in Malaysia.

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Most nomads coming to Malaysia work in technology, with around a third being software developers. Others focus on AI, content creation, or ancillary software roles like technical writers of documentation or front-end UX design. Elsewhere, the emphasis is on attracting skilled IT workers.

In purely economic terms, participating countries are encouraging the flow of money from abroad for a worker’s wages rather than local currency going to a foreign worker who happens to be a temporary resident. Talented individuals may well also want to stay in their host country, and apply for full citizenship, thus bringing value to the economy in the long term.

Overwhelming response

Speaking in Seoul at the K Travel Tech Summit, Arifah Sharifuddin, head of digital tourism at MDEC (Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation ), said, “When we first announced the visa, we received all kinds of applications, and the rejection rate was very high. But now things have stabilized.”

DE Rantau vets the accommodation that nomads propose to use during their time in Malaysia, ensuring suitable internet connectivity and working environments. Hosting digital nomads is also proving popular among locals: “We have a lot of applications, everyone sees value in hosting,” Arifah said.

WHICH COUNTRY IS THE LEAST SECURE FOR A REMOTE WORK HOLIDAY?

Aaron Raj | 10 August, 2022

Malaysia’s culture, food, climate, and its having English as a common language works in its favor, compared to Estonia, for example. But wherever digital nomads may roam, most participating countries have stipulations around minimum income, health insurance, and proof of employment (or verifiable freelance history). Applicants have to have a valid passport, of course, and there is usually a fee for the visa application.

With technology opening up options, the life of a digital nomad is appealing to more and more tech workers.

There are specific rules, too, that might apply to where the worker’s main source of income comes from. In Spain, for example, only 20% of work can be from Spanish companies, while Estonia needs all digital workers in the digital nomad scheme to be employed (or have clients) outside the country.

By the way… did we mention the food?

For anyone wishing to head to the APAC, Malaysia needs its immigrants on the DE Rantau scheme to have a clean criminal record and have proof of earnings of at least $24,000 a year. Visas are granted for three months to a year.

At a time when many workers around the world have transitioned to an at least partly remote model, the pool of prospective digital nomads looking for their next destination has increased massively in size. Malaysia’s first Digital Nomad Conference took place as part of the six-week MDX event this year, where one speaker said, “Malaysia’s superpower is diversity and inclusivity.” MDEC’s Arifah Sharifuddin put it in broader terms: “First we have fantastic food. Then we have a high quality of life that is affordable. Everybody speaks English, so there’s no language barrier. And we are warm people.”

The post Malaysia’s digital nomad scheme a year old appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

In a January 2023 shareholder letter, the streaming giant claimed that upwards of 100 million people worldwide access the site using borrowed accounts, undermining Netflix’s “long term ability to invest in and improve” its service. In an effort to curb the practise, Netflix is now introducing a paid option for users wishing to share passwords outside their immediate household.

Following its initial trial in Latin America in 2022, the new policy has been rolling out worldwide since February this year. The first quarter of 2023 showed a significant subscriber exodus in Spain, one of the first territories affected by the change. Early data from the US, however, suggested the crackdown is having its desired effect for Netflix, with 73,000 average daily sign-ups between May 25 and May 28 – a 102% increase on the previous 60-day average. It is therefore likely that the policy is here to stay, despite a general uptick in cancellations – and the situation has created an ideal opportunity for cybercriminals.

Check Point Research, Threat Intelligence division of Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd., has identified numerous illicit businesses selling low-cost Netflix subscriptions on the dark web.

Researchers have identified a number of channels affiliated with these criminal portals on Telegram, the secure messaging app. Illicit groups sell access to Netflix’s monthly Premium plan through these channels for as little as 190 Indian rupees (just over €2, or US$2.90). These channels claim and promote “full access, effectiveness and legitimacy” to entice potential buyers.

THE END OF THE PASSWORD-SHARING ERA IN NETFLIX. HERE’S WHAT IT MEANS FOR SUBSCRIBERS

Dashveenjit Kaur | 24 May, 2023

Accounts sold through these portals are typically linked to other online crimes. They are often obtained from compromised credentials or breached user data. Consequently, criminal groups can offer significantly reduced prices, reaping full profits without incurring any costs.

It is also important to highlight that, like any criminal enterprise, these criminals may not uphold their end of the bargain. Check Point Research encountered several instances where users either failed to gain access to the accounts they had purchased, or had their access blocked after a few days, weeks, or months.

Check Point Building, Tel Aviv. Source: Kimmel Eshkolot Architects

Individuals are advised to be wary of paying for unofficial subscription plans. To protect their own data and credentials, Netflix users are additionally strongly advised to restrict shared access to their accounts, and to ensure that accounts are properly secure. To assist with this, Check Point advises the following:

•   Lengthy and diverse passwords: Increase password complexity by using a combination letters (upper and lower case), symbols, and numbers. Longer passwords are harder for criminals to solve, because each new character adds exponentially more options.
•     Memorable but difficult to guess: Avoid using personal data such as birthdays, names of family members, or easily discoverable information. What may be easier for the user is also easier for criminals to crack.
•     Unique passwords: Avoid reusing passwords across different accounts. If you use the same password across multiple accounts and an attacker compromises just one of those accounts, they will gain unrestricted access to all other registered services. This obviously makes remembering passwords more difficult, so consider using a password manager to securely store and manage passwords.
•     Keep passwords private: Never share passwords with anyone or store them in close proximity to a computer. Use password manager tools for secure storage. If any suspicious activity is detected on your account – new profiles or unusual content playback, for example – immediately change your password and check for unauthorized access.

“Cybercriminals often exploit users’ needs and desires, aligning their attacks with ongoing trends,” Eusebio Nieva, Technical Director of Check Point Software for Spain and Portugal, explains. “As with any other domain, it is important to remember that if an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Reducing demand is an effective way to counter illegitimate sales on the [d]ark [w]eb and subsequently disrupt revenue streams from these services.”

DID YOU STRUGGLE TO SECURE COLDPLAY CONCERT TICKETS? BLAME IT ON TICKET SCALPING

Muhammad Zulhusni | 2 August, 2023

The post Netflix crackdown creates surge in illicit subscription trade appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

For the first time, wages will be offered to Master’s course students in the semiconductor field. TSMC will expand into the Kumamoto Prefecture as governments, industry, and academia come together over a business strategy to strengthen the area’s semiconductor technology community.

It should bring a windfall for the local economy; the Japanese government is providing a subsidy of up to 476 billion yen (US$3.68 billion) to support and develop chip technologies in a move similar to many other national governments, each wary of a repeat of the recent supply chain shortages in the sector.

A TSMC production facility is being built in Kikuyo, Kumamoto prefecture. On January 12, Chief Executive Officer C. C. Wei said he is willing to go along with plans for a second chip plant in addition to the Kumamoto construction, provided demand in Japan grows.

JAPAN TEAMS WITH ITS ‘BIG TECH’ TO DEVELOP NEXT-GEN CHIPS

Joe Devanesan | 16 November, 2022

The university plans to employ students as research assistants for 1,080 yen an hour or as junior fellows for 2,000-3,000 yen an hour. This will provide annual salaries of 1.1 million to 1.2 million yen — US$8.1k. Doctoral studies students will be eligible for an annual salary of 2 million yen. Compared to more usual student part-time employment wages, this is likely more generous – it’s certainly more vocationally-focused.

A total of more than ten students every year are expected to receive salaried posts, with a maximum of 3.5 billion yen provided over five years from fiscal 2023.

Japan’s semiconductor industry to grow

Looking to improve Japan’s international competitiveness, the Japanese education ministry released guidelines in 2020 on how to improve the treatment of young academics, although these don’t mention Master’s students in the sector specifically.

In Taiwan, the TAFS (Taiwan Fellowships & Scholarships) program is a Republic of China government initiative to promote relevant research, educational links, and enduring friendships between Taiwan and the global community. About 1,200 grants are provided annually for undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers.

Vice President of Kumamoto University, Kiyoyuki Shimizu, said, “Many TSMC employees have Master’s degrees… treating Master’s students properly and letting them focus on learning and research will be important because companies need them.”

It was also announced that the university would establish Japan’s first undergraduate course dedicated entirely to the semiconductor sector in April 2023. The subsidy will be used to invite personnel in the semiconductor field from Interuniversity Microelectrics Center, a research center in Belgium. The Kumamoto prefecture is already home to many semiconductor-related enterprises in secondary or tertiary roles.

Because of the so-called “brain drain” in Japan’s science field, investment in professionals is crucial to maintaining a good position on the global stage and preventing personnel shortages. Although the country’s position as a technology leader has faded since its Asian Tiger role of the 1980s, it remains a center for high-end computing and electronics research, producing graduates of excellent caliber with highly-desirable work ethics.

The post University in Japan is planning to hire and pay semiconductor students appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

We spoke recently with Kenneth Kuek, the Business Development Director of InterSystems, just before the big tech event of the APAC, the Big Data World expo, that took place in Singapore this year, where there were business intellignece platforms a-plenty on show.

“Now people are smart. They think that ‘Oh, I don’t need that amount of data; let’s choose data that [we] are able to interact, to better make use of it, and of course, use machine learning and AI to achieve better outcomes.'”

InterSystems’ specializations are in two areas where data mining for insight has been more advanced to date: the financial and medical sectors, with a strong client roster, especially in the former: JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, and HSBC. But InterSystems’ IRIS platform capability also fits well with the medical sector, where patient and pathological information is rapidly becoming digitized. “In healthcare, we are actually able to produce analytics, not only in the application layer but also in the data layer. We’re able to wrangle the data, for example, for the researchers’ analytics, [and] for the healthcare worker to understand, to digest data, and produce detailed reports,” Ken said.

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Smart Business Intelligence Platforms

The mention of AI or machine learning often goes unchallenged by some data platforms’ potential audiences, but Kenneth was quick to point out that the technology is not a magic wand that can be waved over wildly different data sets to produce ground-breaking results. “So, a lot of people are trying to sell AI [or] machine learning services. But it is not that straightforward. Yeah, it’s not, ‘I have two terabytes of data and I’m just going to throw [that] into your analytic system, and I’m going to get the result that I want.’ To understand the output, or the needed outcome, is most important.”

A company like InterSystems that offers AI-powered analysis as-a-service naturally values data science and the rigorous processes required to extract meaningful results from very different data sources. And the value placed on data professionals is reflected onto InterSystems’ customers.

“We still need data scientists to come in to provide the parameters, depending on what data sources are wanted. […] We render the data in order to make [it] cleaner and very easy for the data scientists to apply the parameters and output to the reports the user expects. So it’s not that you engage [directly] in the system; you subscribe to our IRIS data platform. And, we still need professionals like data scientists to draw the perimeters: this is something very important.”

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The Need for Data Science Jobs

Kenneth told us that boardroom decisions to engage in data-based projects are increasingly common, but often, the wrong choice of solution type may follow. In the short term, the use of self-built machine learning data systems will increase, assembled from the various fragmented open-source libraries and methodologies available. But in the longer term, for faster and generally more valuable results, “I think a mature data platform like the IRIS system will still have a very, very strong foothold.”

In the same way that many organizations prefer to pay others to maintain and run compute, storage, and networking in the form of cloud provisions, Ken sees InterSystems as the AI in the cloud – more scalable, more reliable, less resource-intensive, and producing better bang-for-the-buck. Ken is realistic in that AIaaS isn’t (yet) as simple as spinning up an S3 storage bucket. That’s refreshing amid the hyperbole, where seemingly every product, however mundane, is badged with ‘machine learning for better results.’ IRIS is keeping its feet on the ground (although it’s located in the clouds).

The post Business Intelligence thought leaders: Ken Kuek of InterSystems appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Platforms that help organizations turn their data resources into business gold are latter-day alchemists, and the success of BI platforms is analogous, largely, to the effectiveness with which they ingest, process, and present data. Some solutions specialize in ingestion, or presentation of information, to take two examples. Others offer the full gamut of operations in the data/BI arena, while some are establishing new paradigms like data abstraction layers that might be regarded as a natural evolution from data lakes that duplicate discrete silos’ contents.

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Aaron Raj | 10 October, 2022

At Tech Wire Asia, and its sister site, Tech HQ, we’re gathering thought leadership from this dynamic market space of business analytics, a scene that changes as quickly as the nature and breadth of available information changes. Alyssa Blackburn, Director of Information Management at AvePoint spoke to us recently about how the concept of business intelligence has changed over the last few years and how there are new challenges for data professionals, even as older issues (such as incomplete or unavailable data sets) may be receding.

“[All of us] have really made an effort to change the way that we approach data, how we create our data, how we store our data […] sometimes more successfully than others. But even more than that, what I would say is that we’ve also figured out that we have this new, incredible repository of stuff, which is electronic content, be it data, be it information. […] And there’s opportunity there, to monetize that, not, ‘I can sell this,’ but for other purposes; monetize it for my own internal benefit, […] for better insights, better analysis. And I think that organizations are really starting to take that seriously.”

Business intelligence to business analytics

Many organizations are well aware that they have data resources accrued for the last few years – at least, for as long as there’s been a digital element to the business. But receiving value from the resource is the challenge, beginning with realizing where data might be hiding away. Alyssa explained. “How do we actually find the stuff that’s valuable? Just hold on to that, and then be able to do something really sensible and wonderful and transformational, versus, ‘I’ve just mined all of this stuff up from the ground,, […] but I can’t do anything with it, because I don’t know what’s actually good.'”

When overwhelmed with possibilities (think about whole hours spent just choosing what to watch on Netflix as an example of the effects of too much choice), sometimes the key decision is what to throw away (“in an appropriate and defensible way,” Alyssa added). But what happens then is up to the individual company? In some cases, the questions being asked may be wrong or, at least, misdirected.

“The most important thing is to understand what you want the outcome to be. [An organization] might come and say to me, ‘I really need this button to be blue. The button’s got to be blue!’ […] But what do you actually need at the end? And they might say, ‘I need particular reporting of how many things were created over a particular period of time.’ Well, it doesn’t really matter if the button’s blue or red then does it, if it does the same thing?”

Once the desired outcomes are defined, business analytics becomes a target that’s easily focused on, and the clever use of platforms like AvePoint comes into play. “Technology should be there to make things easier, to make things more efficient, but it shouldn’t necessarily drive the process.”

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AvePoint | 21 February, 2019

For the pages of a website primarily focused on technology, it’s an approach that’s much more heavily weighted on the side of the business rather than the technologists’ fascination with how data is assayed, parsed, sanitized, run through models, and answers presented. AvePoint’s platform does all those things, but it’s not those things that necessarily create her unbounded enthusiasm for the possibilities. For Alyssa, the tech does the heavy lifting and does it well:

“We should get the technology to do that, and that’s amazing. But if we don’t know what [the outcome should be], none of the technology is ever going to be any good. I’ve got great software! But if you don’t know what you want it to do, it’s never quite going to meet those needs.”

Keep coming back to the Data & BI Spotlight area on this site to get more Thought Leaders’ insights and opinions.

The post Business Intelligence thought leaders: Alyssa Blackburn of AvePoint appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Show Notes for Series 03 Episode 01

This podcast is produced in conjunction with Prospection

Medical data on patients and their treatments forms highly complex data sets that need specialist software to decode and examine. Among the few organizations that can address the challenges of medical information is Prospection, an Aussie business that works with clinicians, pharmaceutical companies and researchers to decode the hidden patterns of cause, effect, and correlation that are hidden in the gigabytes of information that follow patients throughout their lives.

In addition to holding the key to better treatments, more effective drugs, and shorter clinical trials, medical data also represents some of the most sensitive information about individuals that’s stored digitally. Anonymization and cybersecurity practices help protect a patient’s identity, but the level of detail required for meaningful outcomes creates the need for a fine balance between data integrity and human privacy.

In this episode of the Tech Means Business podcast, we talk to Eric Chung and Peter Cronin, the co-founders of Prospection about these issues. Plus, we talk about how pharmaceutical companies benefit from longitudinal patient data – information that joins up a patient’s interactions with different parts of healthcare over the course of their lives.

Peter is a clinician, while Eric is the IT specialist, and together they’ve formed a company that’s at the cutting edge of what digital information can do to improve all our lives.

You can read more about Prospection here:
https://www.prospection.com/

Peter Cronin is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-cronin-620a19b/

Co-Founder Eric Chung is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-chung-13912926/

And Joe Green is here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephedwardgreen/

The post Podcast: Better Health from Healthy Medical Data appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Tensions between the two countries have grown in recent months over the 2,000 mile-long border between the two, much of it contested. What began as fist-fights between opposing border guards escalated to use of cudgels and sticks, ultimately culminating in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers in the Ladakh region on June 15.

The fatal incident resulted from an Indian action to counter what its government claimed were Chinese attempts to “erect structures” on the Indian side of the border. Then, “Chinese troops took violent actions,” with deadly consequences, according to the Indian government.

Anti-Chinese sentiment has since swept across India, especially in the North East, the location of the fractious border dispute. Citizens have publically burnt any possessions that were made in China and feelings have been expressed strongly on several fronts, with the ex-Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale writing in The Hindu, “The shortcomings of the regime will further fuel a debate on the superiority of the Chinese model as an alternative to democracy. Will this form the ideological underpinning for the birth of a new Cold War?” Many Indian celebrities such as Bollywood stars have added their voices to the chorus of outrage on Twitter.

The reality of India-China trade is, however, deeply ingrained. India relies heavily on its neighbor for the supply of all manner of goods and services, many of them part of the everyday fabric of Indian life, from manufactured goods to smartphone apps.

Additionally, Chinese investment by the likes of government-backed global companies like Tencent and Alibaba has been behind several notable Indian technology success stories, such as payment portal service Paytm, and Ola, the ubiquitous ride-hailing service.

India’s boom smartphone use is largely fueled not by the likes of Samsung and Apple, but comprises rather of lesser-known (in the US and Europe) models from Chinese companies such as Oppo and Xiaomi.

Certain elements in the West might relish the emergence of what could develop into a fully-fledged trade war between the two nations, but that seems unlikely in the medium to long terms. Unlike the US-led opposition to China, which centers on specious claims of spying tech hardware (but in actuality is more to do with US protectionism), the current Indian anti-China sentiment is of a different patriotic flavor, and centered on geography, rather than economics.

Nevertheless, India continues to talk up its ties with the West, with Nashad Panjwani, regional president of the West India Council speaking on June 26 at the “Advantage India” webinar on bilateral investment between the US and India, organized by the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce. “The US is now the largest merchandise trading partner for India, and we’re extremely delighted by it. The time is ripe to further expand the exchange between US and India at the political, business and people to people levels,” he said, according to a press release from the event.

ERICSSON, NOKIA WIN SINGAPORE 5G CONTRACTS – HUAWEI LUCKS OUT

Mark Jones | 30 June, 2020

While tempers may be frayed and relationships suffering from spats and wars of words, the realities of global trade and economics should ensure that both parties will, in time, see sense and impose calm. Despite short-term issues muddying the water, the rivers of bilateral trade usually end up running clear.

The post China-India crisis escalates – will tech trade hold fast? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Each year stackoverflow.com takes an extensive survey of its development community. Stack Overflow is one of the gamut of tools and resources which, like GitHub, are used just about every day by most professional developers, and indeed, many hobbyist developers.

Over 100,000 developers took the survey this year, among them 20,000 developers based in Asia: from the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia and Singapore, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as the Philippines, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.

The majority of developers identified themselves as backend developers (57.9 percent), or full stack/front-end developers (48.2 percent/37.8 percent respectively), closely followed by mobile developers at 20.4 percent of those surveyed. This last statistic is significant when compared to the 17.2 percent of developers who identified themselves as desktop or enterprise application developers – reflecting the high overall level of emphasis placed on mobile apps by business users and consumers alike.

The majority of developers based in Asia are employed full- or part-time, with only around 25 percent working as pure freelancers.

Of the two employment models, freelancers generally seemed less dissatisfied with their careers with only 186 either slightly or extremely dissatisfied with their careers to date.

Among the employed staff, 15.8 percent were either slightly or extremely dissatisfied with their job.

Regarding their careers as a whole, around 42 percent of Asian employed developers were “slightly satisfied” or “extremely satisfied” to date.

Before employers can give themselves a hearty round of applause for their superlative work in providing exciting, stimulating, and rewarding workplaces for their development teams, it is interesting to note that only 1,366 of those surveyed based in Asia saw themselves doing the same job in five years time (6.7 percent).

Just over 60 percent are either actively looking for a new job or would be interested if a fresh job opportunity presented itself. Most Asian devs are sticking with their chosen career in code-land, with only 2.3 percent stating that they were looking to do the career equivalent of running away to join the circus.

Around 3,700 of the c.12,000 with itchy feet were looking to start their own company, more than the 2,616 who would like a promotion to managerial status in their existing organization, or in the next one.

The survey went on to ask developers which particular things about any new role would interest them most. The standout statistics of those 12,000 considering jumping ship included 4,849 who said that the languages or framework in which they are expected to work were very important, while an almost equal number, 4,834, said that the potential for professional development (a.k.a. training possibilities) was their most significant influence in considering a new role favorably.

And while developers traditionally rely on and value peer review, 62 percent also placed salary or other bonus schemes very high on the list.

Only 10 percent stated parental leave is vital with similar numbers also favoring a gym, free snacks or a decent canteen.

Of the 100,000+ surveyed across the world, the vast majority are male (92 percent), heterosexual (93 percent), and suffering from levels of stress and mental illness at around average levels (although more so in the US than any other country).

Employers wishing to gather up the next generation of developers may be interested to learn that the best way to approach potential new employees is through a private email address, message on a job site or through social media.

Fewer than 10 percent of those surveyed regarded an email through their current employer-provided work account to be acceptable (or wise, presumably).

The global survey results (available in full here) show a wide range of current incomes, ranging from a few dollars a year garnered on a freelance basis by hobbyist developers, up to a few lucky souls who quoted their incomes as around US$2 million per annum!

After ignoring the wild outliers in the income stats, pay rates seemed to begin at around US$7,000 (paid on the Indian subcontinent) up to salaries well into six figures; typically the top end is around the $200,000 mark, enjoyed by just a few US-based devs.

The average developer income in Asia was US$26,442, paid in local currency (converted to US dollars at the time of the survey results’ collation).

For employers looking for guidance on attracting the best developers to a workforce, this author would advise the following:

• Provide professional development or training – it’s highly valued. In fact, around 83 percent of professional developers also code “for a hobby.” To many, therefore, coding is all-encompassing, not just a 9 to 5. Courses in Rust will probably prove popular – it’s the most well-regarded language according to the survey.
• Pay well — salaries, bonus schemes, health care, health insurance are all valued more highly than the provision of free snacks, access to a gym, or a pile of shiny new hardware on which to work. But on the latter point, note most developers use two monitors+ as standard. This may seem trivial, but monitor space is devs’ literal workspace, and they spend a good number of hours staring at them.
• Create a career ladder – many regard their progress up the ranks an attractive goal, with managerial promotions valued highly. Those not thus rewarded are more than happy, it seems, to go and take part in the next wave of APAC start-ups than sticking around waiting to be recognized.
• Don’t rely on people hanging around — with around 60 percent of respondents from Asia actively looking for, or willing to consider a new role, employers have to provide something really quite special to keep valued employees.

For the young, skillful and ambitious developer, the work marketplace is an exciting and productive place to be.

With blockchain developers reputedly earning salaries of up to US$1 million per annum (according to current internet rumors), and artificial intelligence coding skills in extraordinarily high demand, developers are operating in a seller’s market.

The post How to hang onto your developers in a seller’s market appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Of the approximately 20,000 audience members attending a Jacky Cheung concert at the Jiaxing Sports Center Stadium in Zhejiang, the software picked out a suspect under investigation for the alleged theft of US$17,000-worth of potatoes.

“A few minutes after he passed through the security checkpoint, our system issued a warning that he was a wanted person,” said Shen Yueguang, from the Nanhu District Public Security Bureau.

Rather than being identified by means of his hefting an incredibly large burlap sack, the criminal was fingered after the camera/software combination cross-referenced his features against a database.

Last month, a man wanted for “economic crimes” was arrested in Jiangxi province after facial recognition systems detected him at a Cheung concert among 60,000 other attendees.

Another Cheung-based warble-athon in Fujian province yielded a further AI-driven arrest by police this month, according to the South China Morning Post.

China's facial recognition cameras apprehend third fugitive Jacky Cheung concertgoer in two months https://t.co/qajO60vzaT pic.twitter.com/7w2zXjaVDN

— TODAY (@TODAYonline) May 22, 2018

Chinese authorities seem keen on facial recognition technology and have few of the problems potentially found in other countries caused by concerns vocalized by civil rights groups.

The Chinese are planning a network of camera systems that will survey roads, malls, transport hubs and public buildings across the country. Called “Sharp Eyes,” the project aims to track suspects and monitor the country’s 1.4 billion people.

The US’s largest supplier of police-issue body cams, Axon (formerly the charmingly-named Taser International) is considering using AI in its products for use by police patrols.

The concept is that officers can get an automated warning if they approach a known felon in the line of carrying out their duties. The company has created its own AI ethics board to guide development in this contentious area.

Technology which uses machine learning to predict crime hotspots (among other uses) has a checkered past, of course, with economic and ethnic bias being applied unduly to police activity – critics have claimed.

While freedom of speech activists, civil rights agitators, and technophobes may well rail against the emergence of this type of facial recognition tech in law enforcement, there is clearly enough demand for it in traditional policing for a viable market to exist.

Turning up to a Jacky Cheung ballad-fest while appearing on China’s-Most-Wanted list is probably not a good idea for the foreseeable future, however, given the Chinese enthusiasm for technology.

The post Chinese concerts aid fight against crime, thanks to AI appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.