Catch up on this week’s round-up of the latest hosting and tech news. Here’s what we’ve uncovered since our last edition.
eCommerce boom benefits shippers
While the economy as a whole is still reeling from the effects of the pandemic, the eCommerce boom which grew out of the lockdown has had knock-on benefits for businesses in the delivery sector.
German company, Hermes, which has been delivering parcels for UK customers for 20 years, has recently announced plans to create an additional 10,500 British jobs. This includes 9,000 freelance drivers and 1,500 full-time employees. The new jobs will increase the company’s delivery capacity by 40% – a clear indication of how much the online market is expanding. In addition, the company is also opening ninety new local depots and upping its UK investment by £100m. Hermes’ expansion should be encouraging news for the UK’s online stores.
On yer bike, CAR.O.L
Digital transformation is about to enter the gym thanks to the development of CAR.O.L. an AI-assisted exercise bike. By taking a few test rides, the built-in AI is able to create optimised workouts with the right levels of resistance for the rider’s physiology.
What most people will like about CAR.O.L is that is designed to work on the body at the molecular level, giving riders the same benefits of a high-intensity training session but by only requiring them to undertake short speed bursts throughout a gentle ride, for example, eight 8-second bursts in 20 minutes or two 20-second bursts in eight minutes. 20 seconds is about the longest a human can maintain maximum effort and these two short periods enable exercisers to gain the greatest fitness benefits.
The machine will continue to monitor the rider throughout the exercise so that when they return, it will have devised the next step in their fitness program.
Microsoft sued for exploiting user data
According to a recent lawsuit filed against it in the US, Microsoft is making illegal use of business customers’ data from Office 365 and Exchange. The action claims that the company is using customers’ documents, emails and contacts, together with other information, to gain intelligence that helps it develop new products. At the same time, it has been accused of sharing the data with third-parties, including Facebook, without consent.
Under its terms, Microsoft is only supposed to use this data to provide customers with the services they have purchased, to only share it on a need-to-know basis and never with third parties. The sharing of data to Facebook is of particular concern because the social media giant may reshare it with others.
Finastra takes fintech to the cloud
British fintech firm, Finastra, is using the cloud to speed up digital transformation for its global clientele in the finance sector. The company aims to transform the way financial services use technology by developing an open platform that accelerates innovation and collaboration. As part of the process, it will migrate over 8,000 of its customers to its cloud platform.
The platform should enable Finastra’s customers to create digital-first workplaces and, in turn, to offer their own customers financial services and solutions that better meet their needs in the digital world. Applications being developed include electronic signatory and electronic notary services.
Its like Ancestry for data
If you think finding your long lost family is hard, consider how difficult it would be to trace all the data you have shared over the internet. While Ancestry can help you find your bygone relatives, Israeli startup, Mine, has come up with a solution to help you retrace your data – ideal for those that, under GDPR, want to be forgotten.
Mine employs a two-stage process to do this. First, it uses AI and machine learning to analyse the subject lines in your email box. It believes 90% of the companies which store data about individuals and businesses will have sent them emails and the subject lines indicate the relationship the receiver has with the sender.
Following this, the platform analyses extensive datasets of privacy policies and this will indicate the data an organisation collects, for example, names, addresses, emails, phone numbers, financial data and browsing histories.
According to Mine, its machine learning models can present a customer with around 40 companies they have handed data to within the first 30 seconds. After a couple of days, this figure often reaches into the hundreds. As part of its service, Mine offers to contact the businesses on the customers’ behalf to ask for copies of the data to be provided or, where it’s no longer required, to be deleted.
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