connected-future

[connected-future]

TUUL – A fictional story in the Future about IoT, Smart Cities and Big Data.

TUUL - Transformation Unit for Uninhabitable Lands Trishna Drala watched from her armchair the movement of the "Tuuls" Units. Actually, the drive pattern of the units had changed. Almost 30 years ago, when the first Tuul had been "liberated", everything happened in a coordinated way and without surprises, a real success in the implementation of the project. Trishna was the coordinator and mentor of much of the program. A Tuul—which meant "Transformation Unit for Uninhabitable Lands" brought self-sustaining and independent technology with small modules. They communicated intelligently; They moved; They specialized independently; And thus, transformed themselves and transformed the environment gradually, that is, in the context of the closest environmental space. The Tuuls had the long-term goal of "cooling" the regions most impacted by climate change, and when they operated in the hundreds, they began to soften the temperate in the local microclimate. These units needed Drones to operate. The Drones had the function of bringing and taking specific products and components, and could then change an operation of the Tuul itself and make them work together harmoniously. There were Tuuls specialized in Aquaponics; Others in Permaculture; Others in chemical transformations; and so on. They collaborated in the local agriculture, replacing some forms of production of goods that were harmful to the environment, benefiting the citizens of the participating nations. The Drones sometimes harvested supplies from outside the Tuuls territory, but most of the material came from the horde, making it a self-sustaining community. All were basically powered by solar energy. They gathered information on location, the environment, the local climate, and began to act to generate change in the climate gradually. Each Tuuls' horde could have tens or even hundreds of units, but they were reduced to a certain perimeter, since their function of acting was in the local climate, as soon as this objective was reached, they could return to near original point and to restart their tracks. They were programmed to operate in a more independent way, including in computational terms, causing each unit to interact in Grid with the whole community. At the same time, they communicated with external power stations, which supplied the Tuuls with meteorological, environmental, and solar forecasting data, and the life systems themselves that depended on each microclimate. The project received several awards and was broadly expanded across the globe, and today operated across borders, with investment associated with the return of improvements in each location and all developed nations that were interested in maintaining the heavy investment climate in the Tuuls - Because they harvested political, economic, environmental, and even electoral fruits. These external centers were based on Big Data and received data of all kinds from all locations, making it the largest base on the planet in terms of geography and climate. However, less-invested nations, namely the less developed world—particularly some regions of Africa and Central America, did not directly reap the rewards of the project, but received support from the "developed world" in an indirect way, as historically always occurred. Trishna, however, was now heavily charged by the G10 council at the UN itself. Three years ago, she had obtained authorization for a major change: to introduce Big Data, socioeconomic data from the globe, so that a climate situation could have a self-actualization compensation mechanism. Little by little, with the introduction of this information, the Tuuls hordes began to migrate to those less developed regions. It was as if it were a migration of refugees in the opposite direction—they went to the most deprived part of the globe, with objectives of transforming the microclimates that needed more. Some hordes migrate from Europe to Africa, as well as from North America to Central America. This generated a great deal of controversy around the world, for although the climate problem had already been mitigated in the more prosperous regions, this posed a threat of a reversal of climate change, and an important part of the G10 wanted to eradicate the socioeconomic data of the Big Dates that supported the Tuuls. As all communities were connected, what actually happened was an expansion of the navigation area of each horde, improving the global distribution of the transformation, but removing more of the climate-transforming power of the nations that invested the most. A smaller group of the G10, and mainly with a predominance of the G30, pressed for the maintenance of the recent change, and suggested to increase the investment of the same nations that invested today so that the migration of the hordes in a certain moment stopped and it stabilized. Some African communities have begun to reap small benefits from this change, pointing to a long-term trend, if not clear progress, at least survival. Trishna prepared herself to go to the plenary in 24 hours and to defend the maintenance of socioeconomic data, but with little hope, because she knew that economic power would speak louder, and the less developed bloc would have to wait. However, his Big Data scientist—Dani Costa—did many studies on the pattern of movement of the hordes to detect, perhaps, a deceleration of the change or even a stabilization of the territory of each horde, realized that it was looking at the wrong place. In fact, the tendency of the climate in the most favored nations in general did not worsen and even improved. Dani realized there was a need so great in microclimates most impacted areas that the overall effect even improved, and even in countries that originated the movement of hordes. The Tuuls had considered—so to speak—that they had to respect each microclimate and perhaps move only what was necessary to avoid harming any area. Dani sent the data and Trishna put all together. The result was expressive. Project leaders have achieved a significant increase in Tuuls production in the coming years and the maintenance of the program until further notice. Trishna thought how proud she was of her contribution, and wondered how to prepare the next 30 years of project...  .        Read the full article

#BigData #Iot #SmartCities

[connected-future]

Smart Cities - Part II - The Climate Group Proposal

For this study, we will use a work well referenced in this context, which was carried out by the Climate Group. (https://www.theclimategroup.org/) Companies such as Bell, Telefonica, Cisco, T-Mobile, BT, Nokia, Deutsche Telecom, Vodafone, Intel, Microsoft, Ericsson, Sun, Telenor and France Telecom among others make up the Climate Group. It is a group of traditional companies in the information technology and telecommunications sectors. This group produced a work that was titled SMART2020 (THE CLIMATE GROUP, 2015), where it proposed a series of measures. These measures could potentially have a positive impact, i.e., would cause CO2 emission abatement in 5 specific areas. This would be done as a kind of empowerment for other areas, other industries via sustainable technologies. This training would act as an "Enabling Effect", in addition to the intrinsic reduction itself to the technology industry. The areas with great benefits would be: Smart Buildings Smart Engines Smart Logistics Smart Electrical Networks Dematerialization (effect studied separately, but counted in fractions in Intelligent Buildings, Smart Logistics and Intelligent Electrical Networks) Direct Impacts on ICT plants and services (Information Technology and Communications) The Climate Group proposal sought to understand a reasonable number of successful cases of these types and emission reductions according to each type of proposed modification and always using tools provided by a new technology, establishing potential reductions in existing processes. A broad work was done with projecting an average gain per process, volume of processes per region according to each type. Regarding the methodology for creating the abatement data, and proposing the transformations in each sector, the group defined actions as follows (which will be exemplified in Synthetic Tablets below). Table  — Methodology for Creating Emission Reduction Data Standardize ICT can provide information on the standard forms of energy consumption and emissions Monitor ICT can incorporate the monitored information into the design and control for energy use Account ICT can provide capacities and platforms for energy and carbon accounting Rethink ICT can offer innovation for energy efficiency in buildings / residences, transportation, power generation, manufacturing, and other infrastructures and provide alternatives to the current models of operation, learning, life, work and travel Transform ICT can provide intelligent and integrated approaches to energy management of systems and processes, including benefits in both behavioral and automation changes, and the development of alternatives for emissions-intensive activities Direct ICT Contributions Analysis of ICT Contribution Segments in CO2 Reduction The ICT sector contributes almost 2% of CO2 emissions directly. This contribution includes the infrastructure of Telecom operators (central plants and communications transmission units), corporate data centers, and individual use devices such as personal computers, printers and other peripherals. This subdivision is drawn below in different colors:

There are 3 lines in the chart: 2002 and 2007, which gather historical data of Giga Tons of Equivalent Gases (CO2e); and 2020, which projects growth according to the current trend, without changes of product types; differences in consumption; etc. The CAGR line means Compound Annual Growth Rate (5%, 7% and 5% respectively for "Infra-Telecom", "Data Centers" and "People and peripheral computers"). Thus, in 2020, the ICT sector will be responsible for 1.43 GtCO2e, against 0.83 GtCO2e in 2007 (practically double the emissions). And in 2020, for the "PCs" sector, we will leave the 2007 level from 49% of the weight in this subsector to 57%, in this case, considering 100% as the entire ICT sector. The study also breaks the charts by geographic area as follows:

Figure — From Climate Group: Global ICT Footprint, by World Regions We observe here for the same "shape" of the 3-line chart, one break by region. In this case, one notices the increase in a higher rate of China; of the "ROW" group (Rest of the World), which includes most of the developing countries and a negative growth rate of developed nations such as USA, Canada and Western Europe. This is because, in the first block, the penetration of technology will grow even more than the population in the decade, while in the second block, the change with more effect will occur with the technological advance, in the exchange of facilities and equipment with more efficient use of energy and minor plant use. And how does the study calculate each increase? They are compositions of prognosis and tendencies of the various sectors. For example, just talking about PCs, we are expected to jump from 592 million in 2002 to over 4 billion in 2020. With regard to culling, a large-scale replacement of Desktops with Notebooks (a much-noticed process) is expected less as well as LCD replacement for traditional monitors (also perceived process, which generates lower consumption per unit). The "carbons" in the generation of each item are also taken into account. Thus, the numbers are consolidated in each subitem until the graph is formed, either by subsector or by region. Although not in the plan for this work, we could extrapolate national data in detail and enable a substrate of this basis for national potentialities. By adding our prediction of population penetration into each technology, consumption data of new technologies, we would obtain the extrapolated national calculation for the same chart of the Climate Group. Effect on Other Sectors ICT giving capacity to Reduce Gases to Other Sectors The Climate Group conducts a study for slaughtering in other industries and services via technology. As a summary of CO2e reduction indirectly by the ICT industry can be considered an accounting of the 4 large groups: Industry - Intelligent Engines and Industrial Processes - Potential 1,1 GtCO2e Reduction by 2020 Energy - Use of Intelligent Electrical Networks and Energy generation efficiency; cogeneration, etc.; - with Potential Reduction of 2.1 GtCO2e by 2020 Facilities - Including Intelligent Buildings, Intelligent Electrical Grids, Dematerialization, Intelligent Transport - Potential 2.4 GtCO2e Reduction by 2020 Transport - Including Intelligent Transport, Optimization of Transport Network, Dematerialization, Efficient (and Alternative) Vehicles, and Traffic Monitoring, Planning and Automation - Potential Reduction of 2.2 GtCO2e by 2020 This will be detailed, plus an important item that permeates all other segments, not being highlighted in this chart, would be the dematerialization. Before entering the items, there are some comments about dematerialization. What would the Dematerialization effort be? It would take place on 5 main fronts: Online Media - Replacing conventional media manufacturing such as CD Players, DVD players, etc. Online Trading - Replacing forms and consumer and producer forms printing, avoiding offset Electronic Document - Avoiding printing of private or public documents. Videoconferencing - Avoiding transportation to meetings of various types. Using open or private computing networks and installation enabled. Home-Office and Flexible Work - Avoiding or changing the pattern of routine shifts to work environments through virtual meeting, online collaboration, etc. Using open or private computing networks and installation enabled. Dematerialization is, however, accounted for in the other items of this study. Smart Motors Analysis of ICT Contribution Segments in CO2 Reduction It follows an Figure from the study of the Climate Group, in what form ICT can contribute in the generation of intelligent motors and industrial automation that is proposed. In the chart below, the group subdivides rebates into the smart engine industry and reviews in industrial cycles:

The following table summarizes see this idea and then some highlights that are highlighted later. SMART motor systems: The role of ICT Standardize, Monitor & Account Rethink Transform Monitoring of energy consumption and energy savings Optimization of motor systems by using information on required output of motor system System intelligence and integrated control of devices across the plant and the wider business Central repository of energy consumption data Optimization of industrial systems by receiving information at the factory level on actual output of all motor systems in real time Integration with sales and logistics Transfer of energy consumption data to local and central governments for regulatory compliance Remote and centralized control of VSDs (central intelligence providing instructions to VSDs) Analysis of energy consumption data As shown in the pizza chart of the Enabling Effect distribution, this sector would hold 0.97 GtCO2e of potential slaughter in 2020, from the projected 51.9 GtCO2e (without further slaughtering). Of these 0.97, 0.29 GtCO2e would be in automation of industrial processes and 0.68 GtCO2e would be for transformations in intelligent motors. The study is often used in the Electronic Devices / Variable Speed Drives (VSDs) The study's projections are based on increased efficiency, cleaner production, review of industrial processes, more efficient energy cycles, review and energy / exegetical balance, cogeneration, etc. which we study in the scope of environmental technology, but on the perspective of how ICT can contribute. Concrete contributions, typical would be: Application VSDs; Process simulators; Integration between different production systems in the same plant; Design applied; Alignment of plant systems with business; monitoring of regulatory goals through translation into real-time process controls, etc. VSDs modify a given industrial system by reducing inputs or cycle times. VSDs typically assume self-learning with the optimal metric system such as cycle durations, velocity, temperature, pressure, etc. within a region of safety and certain operating efficiency possible in each system. Smart Logistics Analysis of ICT Contribution Segments in CO2 Reduction Smart logistics would be responsible for 1.52 GtCO2e reduction (within the 51.9 GtCO2e totals projected for 2020). This sector is divided into several according to the series presented in following figure.

Regarding the methodology of transformation towards the Smart Logistics we would have as detailed below. Smart Logistics: The Role of ICT Standardize, Monitor & Account Rethink Transform Tag and track inventory, stock and other items throughout the supply chain Increase communication between devices and between logistics providers and suppliers Vehicle and load management systems to identify unused capacity within the supply chain Track local terrain and information for understanding of optimal routes Optimize and control inventory to reduce vehicle miles in delivery or returning stock to the manufacturer Reverse logistics to allow the back-loading of vehicles on the network and for the return of unsold/damaged goods to the supplier Information systems to provide the driver with real time information about the vehicle’s efficiency and behavior Model and optimize distribution network design throughout supply chain design Apply systems thinking from production to consumer to end of life Conduct stock repair tasks on behalf of the manufacturer Manage day to day operations with real time data Track efficiency against business performance   Read the full article

#SmartCities

[connected-future]

Customer Experience - Part I - How has transformed the Customer Care and Services

How the subject of Customer Experience Management has transformed the Customer Care and Services Today the subject of Customer Experience is widely used and has aroused interest from several different audiences: Areas of Companies that want to improve their relationship with the client, usually: Marketing, Customer Service, Sales, Alliances, etc. and seek to innovate from new practices linked to the theme Entrepreneurs seeking to increase their revenue with greater market share (Market Share), gaining new customers and reducing the evasion of revenues and operating costs from various sources Business Consultants, Systems and Software Suppliers that accelerate or enable the implementation of Customer Experience practices in companies Business Partners of Companies whose attention to the Customer Experience influences the success of their own businesses. In this context, there is a development of actions and actors that participate in Customer Experience. How could we define this term in the business world? Customer Experience would then be the entire story that the customer goes through in the relationship with a particular service provider or product seller. This company and the client (or user) has a unique relationship, described by the types of interaction and the impacts that the relationship produces. Several relevant actions emerge from these interactions, such as customer use satisfaction; knowledge of the company's offers; ease of decision making; opinions that will be given - positive and negative about the company, affecting its image; differential behaviors made by segments of customers, products, regions; freedom to choose a channel of communication among the many possible, whether traditional or via the digital world. These actions are the object of study by all these audiences, in an attempt to understand this experience as completely as possible. One area that knowledge and performance that gives special attention in this digital world is Marketing. Professionals and Marketing departments are interested in expanding sales with new ideas, new products, a new communication. At the same time, they are not intended to cause everyday use disorders in this complex universe. They are especially interested in these concepts and in these actions. Getting to Know Each Digital Channel Is Vital to Good Customer Service To study the digital channels, the behavior of the client according to each interaction is basic for an outstanding performance of the Marketing area. Therefore, this area has dictated to a great extent the evolution of the theme in the company, because with the rapid pace of change, brings innovative solutions changing processes, systems, information and even changing the very people of the organization. Being an initiative of Marketing departments, it is not, however, restricted to a unique area, and always involves several groups of the company, in the focus of maintaining the customer, increasing the market and taking care of the company's image and products. Areas such as IT, Customer Service, Commercial and Communication are essential in this process, for example. As we see, working with the client in a winning way involves not only a systems solution, business process review, an operational framework, investment, training - but a mindset - a customer-focused mindset, the so-called extended customer view. In other words, it is not just a customer recorded register or historical question, but a holistic view, or as it is said in the market, a 360º view of the client. When a company develops Customer Experience projects, it usually has a maturity or develops with some organizational initiatives, which includes to: Have a Customer Experience program with escalation to the company's executives, the board that understands the importance of a strategic program like this and how the results of the program is related to the corporation's own mission. Provide resources or investment to achieve Customer Experience goals, including personnel, training, solutions, consulting, etc. This program is not secondary to the scheme of other business programs, given its importance. I.e., it is an autonomous program. Realize that innovations for the treatment of Customer Experience in the digital world will also bring adaptations in all areas and therefore the management of the responsible area needs to have the authority to introduce the necessary changes in the company. Not fragment management of customer experience themes and journey, bringing disconnected solutions with the program (to serve customer segments, products, or only a few channels of interaction). Those solutions bring short-term benefits to a particular customer relationship focus, but in long-term it increases the complexity to provide 360-degree customer insight, speed of introduction and changes in customer interactions. For this same reason, one must think of the end-to-end customer journey, going through all departments, across all channels, across all segments and territories and building processes with this focus, aiming to bring the best experience. Measure the results of the area with KPIs in a systematic way, with business impact with improvements in customer satisfaction, revenue increases, decrease in revenue evasion, decrease in service costs, improvement in brand / product sentiment analysis, etc. Thus, the maturity of a company with Customer Experience can and should be measured in several ways. One way to quickly analyze this maturity is to examine in more detail the concern with this subject. In the chart below, see a summary where these points of analysis are highlighted, suggesting a maturity curve. There is a lot of information above, which can be analyzed from a business appraisal. So, to analyze the potential and realized behavior of the customer, the following table presents some dimensions.

Usually a company walks from the bottom up and left to right, in order to know about previous experiences for analytical purposes (outside the moment of interaction) or during the interaction itself. This is essential to know the customer. In a second moment, know what alternative experiences this client takes (other channels, other products, contact outsourcing, etc.). Next, knowing which competing alternatives can attract a customer's decision at each step, in each situation, makes the experience management more powerful. Walking in the knowledge of the client, having data of their behavior or orientations as - attraction by technology; demographic information; trends of the segments to which he/she belong; tendencies to choose by price; by innovation or by relationship - take the next step, making this customer's information more complete. Finally, predicting the outcome of each client's action in an emotional, social, cognitive and physical context completes the picture extensively. What happens is that the more one grows in maturity, the more complex the information to recover, the more subjective and exposed to error. However, looking for them and getting information even with some degree of uncertainty is better than not having anything. In the right side of the same chart, we can check that companies try to understand the interaction at each point of contact with the customer. Based on a very basic management based on product / service PRICING and composition of PORTFOLIO, a corporation can analyze in more detail its interactions or its INTERFACE SERVICES, whether traditional (face to face, telephone service, IVR service) or belonging to the digital world (such as Web, mobile or tablet interactions, etc.). In a next phase, the company is concerned with what individual comments on matters relating to the company or its products; What the segment of this type of individual also comments; which feelings or inferences can be deduced from these interactions; how competitors are being evaluated in the social network by each segment; what actions are taken as a result of certain types of posts in social networks; etc. Finally, understanding the atmosphere or influence of aspects of the ENVIRONMENT on the behavior of the individual is considerable to predict and prevent actions, such as: Climate; Local culture; Economic Status; Competition situation; seasonal effects; influence of the environment; etc. Complementing customer information with less common but relevant data can give the Customer Experience manager an unprecedented advantage by incorporating the new information sources and a more holistic approach to customer behavior. (to be continued)  .         .        Read the full article

#CustomerExperience

[connected-future]

Innovation - Part II - The Process

The Innovation Process Imagine that the CEO of the company gives you a mission. You can be from HR, Special Projects, Innovation Projects, etc. The mission is to innovate more, he is not satisfied, because the company only makes the same, and needs to invent more, to do different, act like some competitors he sees winning market. Knowing you have so many good people, why then cannot your company be the most innovative? There are always long discussions on the subject, why and why not, but perhaps you can examine in a more formal way to evaluate your company's innovation process, its maturity, and produce an assessment for the diagnosis and actions. For example, there are questions that can help you: How your business demands the new? How does the CEO expose his thoughts onto that, is there a culture of thinking about reviewing processes, or does an autonomous way of doing things predominates, producing the same? How are the rewards? How do you recognize the value of innovation? Is there a quantification of new ideas in favor of the company's revenues? Are there people formally or informally dedicated to process review? A department? Some advisors who are called for creativity sessions? How does your company look for innovative talents inside and out? Is it a concern, the renewal of ideas through new permanent or temporary participants? Does the company have an end-to-end process, where suppliers, customers, partners and academics have the opportunity to review processes? Is there a research or simulation in the market with insertion of new ideas? ("Would it be nice if you, our client, had a product like that?") There is a proactive analysis of new markets, competitors, other countries or regions, etc. aiming to import insights? Is there a formal and internal testing process for innovative products and services? Are there events where you focus on reviewing processes, innovations and improvements? Are there events where free themes, interaction games, collaboration and creativity are allowed with facilitators? With these answers, you can get an idea of WHEN to introduce a process of innovation. Note two comments here. First, you are not proposing a routine for drastic and innovative innovations, but creating the environment for it, as a barn for incremental innovations, this tends to work very well. Do not get upset with the critics of the creators of particular ideas that move away from framing processes, because a good part of innovations comes from there. But there is room for everyone. A second comment, which is not exactly innovation that is having a life cycle, a routine of beginning, middle and end, but a process that facilitates its appearance. This refers to the theme of the chapter. Actually, the WHEN INNOVATION response should be ALWAYS, but the innovation process must be introduced in an organized way in the timeline. While the routine innovation benefits in direct proportion to these processes, disruptive innovation can have benefit from events, incentives to seek renewal of talent and a culture that provokes creativity. The questionnaire response will give you tips on how to create a strategic plan, a model of innovation and provide maturity, the culture of innovation in your company. In many cases, it is a medium to long process, so get started as soon as possible. Thus, some actions may be well defined according to the current maturity of the company: Linking business objectives with the promotion of ideas, formalizing a rewards program. Seek with the commercial and marketing groups a formula to evaluate and quantify the introduction of innovations in the market. Create a center of excellence for innovation. This center will take direct care of the formal innovation process (where applicable), oversee the implementation of innovations, communicate the process, and seek internal collaboration so the process gains a framework that touches all key company processes. Create events where key business processes are reviewed - with end-to-end participants, including vendors, partners and even customer representatives. Establish with HR, events with freer themes, aiming to think outside the box, through specialized facilitators Review the routine of acquiring talents - especially in certain positions - looking for people who demonstrate creativity during the hiring process or via curricular / social profile analysis. Establish an exchange program with universities and other talent trainers, where a well-defined roadmap can be useful to both parties. On the business side, creating the habit of listening a lot, being aware of the insights of young talents is rewarding. (To be continued)   Read the full article

#innovation

[connected-future]

Cloud Computing - Part I - Changing a Paradigm and Culture of Data Centers

Cloud Computing is another of the topics that are innovative, it is a lever to transform business and also correlates with the innovative themes as we have approached. Starting from a simpler definition, to then evolve on how cloud computing has become more elaborate throughout its history, we can say that Cloud Computing is the use and delivery of external computing and storage resources—usually from specialized vendors. In this concept, the "Cloud" would extend from the access network to these resources, the resources themselves and the services provided related to these resources. Therefore, the cloud computing business has assumed several facades and complexities, since each use case was more or less complete according to the purpose. Let's investigate this.

Going to CLOUD means that the Infrastructure that was Internal was Outsourced. The term Cloud, of course, applies precisely because we understand that a cloud comprises a degree of external abstraction from functional or architectural diagrams, so common in IT and Telecom staffing. This external is opposed to resources that are more under direct control, and where there is a much more granularized management over each resource. This abstraction has roots in the history of the internet, since we can remember that it was created in the academic world, precisely to be able to access an infrastructure and its information from anywhere, even in the 60's. Since then, the idea of offering services over the Internet has been improving, until near the turn of the century, Salesforce.com and soon after Amazon began offering services, processing and storage. The idea of flexibility or elasticity in the Cloud offering was already beginning to be explored. Even small businesses could get their resources and optimize their IT infrastructure spending with less risk. At the end of the last decade, we had the advent of Web 2.0, which then consolidated a relatively common way of delivering services in the Cloud, with applications based on collaboration and information sharing.

We Have Done History with a Cloud of Connections In a way, Cloud's success can be explained as risk transfer, cost reduction, and a focus on the business, so more and more companies are choosing to be customers of a Cloud Services provider. Risk transfer is because building, expanding, maintaining a data center requires a high investment, not always coupled with business goals. So, the risk of keeping this infrastructure larger or smaller is transferred to the provider, and the client company chooses to pay what it consumes, which it needs, given the resilience of the services in the Cloud. This risk is even greater for a company with a medium-sized fleet of systems, where under-investment leaps may be more difficult. Another issue is that mission-critical systems require very well-built uptime and fault tolerance solutions, and the risk is usually absorbed more efficiently by the cloud specialist. Reducing costs is due to a specialization in the infra-investment of the provider, and possible choices due to the scale of infra-utilization and standardization of procedures. That is, a storage administrator or server will manage a much larger amount of equipment than a traditional enterprise, due to good standardization of actions in the Cloud Data Center and choices of a certain number of technologies used. The cost of electricity, square meter and personnel when divided by computational capacity and storage will be much lower due to economies of scale; productivity technologies; virtualized environment management; and also because of possible choices for the environment (such as location, taxes, self-power generation, partnerships, scale buying) generating a lower cost base for Cloud Data Center maintenance. Of course, the cost reduction will be all the more significant, as will the study of the feasibility of migrating to the Cloud. There, where a certain complexity of IT processes will be associated with each candidate solution, it will design a more or less standardized and possible maintenance of the migration from the point of view of the least cost. This varies greatly with models and types of Cloud, which we will see later. For companies that do not focus their own IT infrastructure as a direct selling element, it is not always easy to justify the costs of specialists associated with areas that support the company's end-activity. Naturally, this has been the option in all these years, since agility and automation with systems was differential in all segments. However, this issue comes back a bit with the option to leave some of this infrastructure intelligence to the cloud provider, pay for it, and have a service level agreement that guarantees the company's systems and data needs. Given the flexibility of contracted Cloud models, types and sizes, companies can weigh in what volume and look they want to transfer this infrastructure support intelligence to a cloud provider. It's interesting to browse Cloud providers to see how they offer their offer, what resilience or flexibility, what types of cloud or business models they offer. The truth is that the market is still forming in this aspect, including in what concerns the consolidation of prices. Possibly, prices will further decline with providers' scale gains and increased competition. These success factors of Cloud are the same motivators of companies. But there is another that is fundamental in the speed of the digital world. Expand markets, increase volumes, incorporate other companies—some macro business processes require agility as a foundation of success. Expanding systems and their data in the Cloud is something really fast, given that the resources are guaranteed on demand, in the criterion of customer use, it is the pay-as-you-grow model, done in an almost instantaneous way. An interesting fact in the provider business model with Cloud is a larger segmentation, with input from other players. We think of traditional providers like Google and Amazon on one side, and one company as another customer. But today, we have some companies that, in partnership with the providers, offer a service at the top of services in the Cloud. For example, on Database facilities, Storage, and use of Web Services-based development platforms, some software developer may offer an innovative service, for example specific Business Intelligence applications that work on databases, applications that interact with the data of a certain company. They offer services on social networks, applications that index and search cloud information. There are a number of variations, but we can imagine an application that transports the data in processes, services and messages to the users of the company, to meet security, property, etc. requirements. It depends on what's in the cloud, the company's interest, and the service offerings of that provider. (to be continued) Internal Illustrations from Luiz Marcelo Rezende. Site: https://www.flickr.com/photos/resendrix/  Featured Image from geralt at pixabay.com              Read the full article

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[connected-future]

Knowledge Management - Part I - The Society Evolving with Digital Information

Today, Knowledge has undergone intense transformations with technological revolutions. Everything we study in the classical approach to the set of media; the acquisition and transmission of knowledge is being reviewed in multiple aspects. Knowledge has always had a strategic role in all activities, and all human life and its interactions can be differentiated in front of their peers in the way knowledge is acquired and used. The education, the academies, the professional activity and the action of instructing are today all transformed under the prism of the knowledge of the network, before only in books, handbooks, specialized magazines, blackboards or lectures.

The Way to Acquire and Maintain Knowledge is changing dramatically This is done by adding, competing, replacing our basic way of dealing with knowledge. All traditional activities are modified when connecting seeking knowledge - disseminating, commenting, prioritizing, classifying. Knowledge is largely migrating to the network, in a very different way. The traditional knowledge existing in traditional media, when it migrates, is complemented by a kind of meta-knowledge. Filters, prioritization, categorization, indexing are as a part of this knowledge, because they add information to what would be traditional, that is, information gets richer in the network, just because it is there and consumed with the new technologies. In the early days of the internet, who could have foreseen the reach it would take in terms of content? Who could have predicted that the e-book market would begin to take part in the traditional book market consistently? Today it is estimated that there are about 4 Zeta Bytes (or 1KB to seventh power) in the digital world. All this information on the network changes our way of thinking, because as our actions in life is very much based on knowledge, to the way of manipulating knowledge induces different thinking. The knowledge society, now immersed in a full paradigm shift, where information is acquired irregularly, fast, uncontrolled and full of new contents with each click, also changes the manner to fix and transmit knowledge. Are we becoming less concerned with information accuracy and in-depth analysis, but on the other hand, becoming aware of a number of previously inaccessible issues? The Texts we consume in Blogs, e-Books, online news media are filled with hyperlinks, and reading them continuously and analytically becomes more unlikely when it is possible to move quickly (from a traditional sequence led by the authors of "old" media) to indeterminate destinations many times. The experience of acquiring knowledge becomes more particular than before and the interaction with this acquisition changes behavior. The way of thinking becomes more interactive and diffuse. Behavior Will the effects of the Internet on human culture be great? Are we experiencing a drastic change in behavior? The behavior on the network is no longer Geeks or young people, but also, it transforms into almost all groups? Do the relations of consumption, use, socialization, and learning change each group, composing even a new way of conceptualizing culture? I believe that many who analyze social behavior and culture would answer yes to all these questions. More or less drastic - "The Death of Culture" or "The End of Culture" and on the other hand "Hyper culture" or "Cyber culture" - bring a certain perplexity with which many analyze this change in human behavior. Certain behaviors perceived as divergent or innovative are supported by this new culture. It is not therefore presupposed that there is necessarily greater evolution, greater precision and even more certainties, in principle, only more information. One can be right or wrong nowadays full of reasons justified by the search sites, blogs and all the social media. It is as if the truth in the digital world were distributed in a normal curve, where a certain pattern may predominate, but given the high volume, one can find multiple opinions. Unlike the behavior of acquiring traditional knowledge, where schools of thought directed towards a certain convergence of knowledge, the digital world allows a certain harmony with the source (web) after all anything that one wants to determine on any subject. In a world of high volume, not only do diverse opinions support many positions, but it is very common for facts (references or cases) to support each argument. One way to understand this dichotomy of convergent traditional knowledge is to think of this convergence as a filter of massive or scattered information. What enabled the evolutionary march of civilization around knowledge was the use of a suitable filter, that is, winning ideas gave civilizations their tool of domination and shaped behavior around what is wise or cultured, maintaining the best knowledge.

Is Knowledge Migrating to the Web? Would the Web be a withdrawal of these filters as this convergent versus dispersed information antagonism? Before we imagine the destruction of thought and culture, we must also ask ourselves if this form did not produce a certain ruling class, an elite of knowledge. Was Cartesian thinking for all? Have not good ideas been discarded for not being included in this form of Cartesian thought? Not to mention those who paid with life or away with very innovative ideas for their time, even becoming a truth of the elite itself some time later. But yes, let's consider that many today propagate their truths without a more conservative questioning, in the sense of comparative, common sense, social values check, etc. That is, if the information to be propagated is based on valid knowledge, whether innovative or not. Here we have another dimension that relates to this behavior, the speed of propagation. Like memes, rumors, reporting holes, etc. To speak before is to be more read, to speak before is an instrument of power and status in this new world.

In the NEW Knowledge, there are concepts that Change and Others that remain Mistaken information negatively affects someone's reputation on a much smaller scale than having as a habit giving only information that is already old, it seems. The memory for social media evaluates the opinions of social peers or simply the number of hits, spreads or views. On the other hand, academies, which theoretically advocate traditional Cartesian thinking, are pressured to expand their production to the Web itself in a more or less controlled way, containing the moderators as a light filter. There is even a line of thinking that advocates a collaborative review on the Web itself for its academic output. It is not surprising that even open-minded questions are posed that positive and negative impacts are relevant in this path of thought evolution. In journalism, for example, with the popularization of common collaborators, in various ways, it is perceived that the value of information tends to change in concept, as the sources of observation and records are now enlarged and this becomes more important than objective form and sequenced a story from a story. Professional journalism also needs to anticipate, expand, use social networks even by competition. Again, there is a dispersion of knowledge here, where volume, diversity, divergence and expansion of territory coexist. Social media in all its forms with its unparalleled resources take away the look of learning from the search for knowledge from the traditional academic world to the digital world. New figures as bloggers shift the role for themselves from digital publishers and readers become digital publishers as well as simple readers. A change of behavior that expands day by day. In fact, behavior in the face of this new knowledge is a subject still in transformation, we are in the midst of a great change. Read the full article

#KnowledgeManagement

[connected-future]

The Last Wall - A Short-Fiction Story on Mobility

Many listened to the UN Secretary General’s speech apprehensive. It has long been feared that groups linked the block of nations called Coalition would trigger a Web liberation movement which could cause drastic consequences. The Secretary took a breath for a couple of seconds. Then, she continued, and chose to give a historical overview of the problem to contextualize her appeal: "As you know, history has taught us with the Berlin Wall, the outcry of the population will finally speak up. We are in 2039, and next year will celebrate 50 years of its fall. Isn’t this the time for all to be united around the world we are building without borders, without barriers, with a more reputable global behavior? Not a good time to soften this Wall created as a wall of Web censorship? A wall where the social expression of populations has been controlled. We see that now a large majority do not want this anymore. We see that the national boundaries of the geopolitics of the last century persist, but for cultural and historical reasons. Citizens are proud to represent their country in sports, in arts, in the academies, in their own dogmas and these will not be lost. But it's time to give everyone a real freedom of expression. The pride of every nation will be at the heart of each one, however freedom today is spread in all individuals on the planet — an open planet, with fewer political and commercial boundaries. As well as global integrations for legislation, media, education and health. See how much progress we had this half century of opening processes. This movement intensified, as we know, through social networks, movements coordinated in order to provide evolution as a global group, let me say, a planetary civilization. Those same movements surrounded terrorism and hatred to finally took a breath to peace, to a world of greater and mutual respect. However, there are nations that chose to join the block that controls the content on the Web, where each mobile device, each connected object is inspected in what it may contain. The nations that now comprise the Social Wall, need to seize the opportunity. We recognize the great progress that it had where the technology integration between applications, people and business data, electronic public services, advances in digital education and health, but we know it was accompanied by a sophistication in controlling social content. This instrument is becoming increasingly unpopular among the citizens of their nations, that is notorious. Colleagues, so it is time to change." At this time, the Coalition block showed a major discomfort and the so called “open nations” applauded the Secretary. That night would bring more tension. Many eyes saw the speech. A Smart Mob action orchestrated by a liberating group spread across the globe intended to act synchronously. Advances in Web have taken the integration of all economies with digital services, commerce, public administration. Finally, the companies now depended on the Web — as everywhere — to work in its normality. Except that on the one hand, governed by self-regulatory mechanisms, filled with forums, agencies, multilateral representations; while on the other hand, a unilateral governance, always accompanied by dogmas and philosophies and an increasing autocracy. However, it was recognized that even in a “social” environment in the Web being controlled, there was a cohesion growth, social exchange, further information, even with this digital censorship.12 As expected, the representative of the nations of the Coalition kept his position, stressing the news from the progress being made, the numbers of their economies, saying that freedom was ultimately to preserve their own way of life, and the open block was actually coercing the Coalition that he presided. The wall had been raised by both sides, he hinted. He said nearly a dozen technological achievements in public areas and that social networks were an integral part of life for every citizen of the Coalition. Its devices, all the mobiles were now commonplace on the streets of their cities, it is true, the Coalition was also really connected. The question of “supervisory content”, as they called, served to ensure the quality, the right to not have access to that contradicted the common denominator of their dogmas. It would remain and national control agencies earned more people and more technology always. Digital backbones that separated those worlds were absolutely controlled, fearing attacks, which would eventually contain libertarian approaches. However, an operation called LAST FALL would be triggered at any time after the speeches at the United Nations. It was a movement of networks — a Smart Mob, where the coordinated action through mobile would trigger a global proportions protest movement. One group managed to infiltrate the networks, carrying a “permitted” application that would open the code of the mobile wall systems. The mobile security system had been recently updated and unified for more control, but had a small Trojan Horse built by a liberating group which had been organized impressively. The goal was very simple, at a given time, the information would then flow without filters on all digital roads with an encryption initiated in external points to the controls of the virtual walls. It was not an operation so innovative as well, but had a unique feature. It is expected that an exceptional adherence and Smart Mob posts included within the fence in areas "censored" on the outside. They calculated that until this fault is corrected would be 2 to 3 hours. The controllers could not use brute force immediately, due to penetration of essential services in "their Webs" since it would cause a major disaster. The thing was to do this there, at that moment, as a proof of unity, of protest and a certain challenge to that control. The movement began an hour after the speech of the Coalition. For more than two hours, a web coordinated protest at every block member nations occurred. Some were identified posts, others anonymous, but all were declared in favor of the end of the Wall, all posted selfies with a background of a city and a sheet calling for the end of the wall. More than 100 million posts with pictures were counted. An act of great courage and without catastrophic consequences in the sense that there would be tough to pursue such an extensive group, so dispersed, in every city, being so representative. The discussions around the Social Wall began to deepen from that day, and the day was known as the LAST FALL day. There would be a long journey, many discussions, but the pressure of all would be decisive. A move that was allowed because of the mobility that everyone had to own, and was made through social networks, orchestrated by a Smart Mob. Read the full article

#Mobility

[connected-future]

Mobility - Part I - Anytime,Anywhere, Anyway.

The strategy around mobility was something that evolved on a large scale in the view of corporate managers. In the field of solutions, we were in an earlier era with remarkable features:  Goals more committed to architectural building standards. A relatively small group of equipment to integrate. A world of hardware and software well controlled supporting the set of applications approved in each company Well defined silos between the CTO, the CMO, the CIO. It was the facts that ultimately formed a strategy for mobility. All this has really been stirred by the market, by consumers, by new generations requesting the use of a new way of thinking about mobility strategy. A multiplicity of devices with different purposes, with different means of communicating and meeting consumer needs are not only choices of personal use, but also are specific objectives of being integrated in a secure way to the corporate environment. Bring your own application, your own device, any tablet, any smartphone (or a phablet, a half way between the two) and you're expected to be connected ready to use without threatening sensitive data from organizations and individuals. Here are the BYOD (Bring your Own Device / Bring your Own Application; BYOD / BYOA) technologies. Consumerization is a discipline that brings this theme to IT managers, and has been defined as the use of application provider services in the cloud and associated with social media.

Mobility today is present in the business world with the Customer Experience and multichannel approach enabling mobile devices as key players in buying, customer care and marketing. The phenomenon of social networks has been transforming the behavior of connected people in several senses. They are approached in the new society, from the times of knowledge acquisition and how information was consumed to how the interpersonal relationships were built and maintained. The infrastructure that manages mobile communications is growing dramatically, and the voice world with copper-based voice communication is becoming old. Operators and suppliers seek to innovate to be present in the world of mobility, massive use of social applications at no or very low cost. Applications and many business data migrate to the cloud and security policies are booming, adapting to this new world. The theme of mobility brings diverse choices for consumers and together, the market disputes by suppliers. The operating systems that support the devices have specific characteristics and are preferred according to the type of market (more mature markets have preferred Apple's iOS while the Android system is more popular in emerging markets). New devices equipment objects before not intelligent is the theme connected to Internet of Things (IoT). Smart cities are connecting the mobiles in every corner or houses. Buildings, cars or appliances connect to make a world more comfortable for citizens. Wearable, mobile devices coupled to the body, or the most conspicuous term in English, wearables bring innovation by increasing traffic, capillarity and  functionality of mobiles.

The Mobility Theme Attracts the Consumer with Innovations and Changes Your Behavior Technologies linked to the physical interface of mobiles use are also in full evolution. In these choices, various technologies expand or park, depending on the adherence of developers and mainly consumers. Being updated with new technologies today means reading a lot in the media, suppliers, service providers and listening to social networks. Mobile application development technologies, partner ecosystems, evolution of established platforms (such as HTML with the Html5 standard being the standard potential for Web evolution), as well as developments in Telecom (involving the adhesion curves of technologies such as LTE, LTE-a, 5G, HSPA, GSM, etc.) are facilitators consumption pave the way to mobility. Other disputes or choices are made by integrating mobility features, standards or applications such as: Mobile Payments or Mobile Banking; Consumption of media articles (music, videos, etc.); Location Services; Sales Force Automation; Automation of Field Professionals; Cloud Solutions ... A more complex, sophisticated world of super-fast changes is the chessboard ahead of managers of the mobility strategy in companies.

Business Strategy

Managers are realizing that the new mobility trends require a repositioning: The number of people disconnected totally or partially in time is something that is in full decline. Consumers are always connected at anytime, anywhere, in a number of ways. The adoption of smart devices like smartphones is definitive and very significant in relation to any other device. The adoption curve is in full slope in any updated analysis. A drastic change in behavior and inclusion (territorial, age, social status, etc.) is in full swing. A digital world, connected, awaits these people and their mobile to consummate information and applications, and if it is considered that there will be in 2020, 50 billion connected devices. Therefore, selling, marketing, improving image, increasing customer satisfaction and having excellence in care changes completely from the point of view. There is no recipe that the business manager follows to give your company a privileged position serving mobile consumers or otherwise present in a world of mobility. However, looking at the technological trends of this world and connecting with business goals can make a return on investment in innovation in mobility faster. What trends would these be, and how to bear fruit from them from a business strategy point of view? From the answer, the mobility strategy will be customized for each company. However, what innovative technologies are on the menu to compose a business differentiation strategy? This is what we propose in the topics below, addressing item to item: 1. Mobile Payments, M-Commerce There is plenty of money on the table involving payments with mobile. The forecast is that by 2017 we are close to 1 trillion dollars in the global market using mobility according to IDC Financial Insights. Here, we make a distinction, since Mobile Payments is specifically a payment using a mobile device (using NFC technology - Near-Field Communication, for example), while Mobile-Commerce presupposes a more complete offer of services for sale (and payment) at the end, but with marketing functions, service, content, etc. What is expected is a large growth of Mobile-Commerce, driven mainly by financial groups, often supported by IT service providers and Telecom for a complete solution to the customer. A wealth of applications, tools, accelerators and development kits are available to further this market. In fact, the mobility involving commerce and payments, today falls into the categories: The Mobile at the point of sale: Use of the device for payment (with NFC technology for example) in a traditional point of sale. The Mobile as a point of sale: It includes the use of the device with some additional device (credit card reader, for example) to enable the customer to acquire something using the seller's mobile device. In this case, "mobility" is the point of sale itself. M-Commerce Platform / Mobile Payment: In this case, a complete platform is in the hands of the consumer, physically dispensing the use of bank or money cards and wherever they can connect. There is good convergence for this modality with wide investment as a new sales channel. Direct Billing via Operator: In this case, the consumer also does not use credit cards and consumes products or services being debited directly into his account with the telecom operator. It is a very quick and simple way to buy with a mobile, but it is usually restricted to SMS messages or very specific applications and digital assets. Mobile Payments in a Closed Circuit: Having the emblematic case of Starbucks, the company creates a kind of mobile coupon, where the consumer carries a certain value and consumes it through a specific application. Interesting, but being implemented with private solutions, has more restricted membership. 2. Service platform, Knowledge Management The Customer Care area wants to increase satisfaction by offering a set of solutions, information, and for this either interacting via mobile device with the customer or consumer through a platform of service or specific applications of the mobile. Thus, it allows the user or consumer to choose and best way to communicate - to switch use of voice, with other modes - via social network post, via application or specific platform, via point-to-point post with the company, via a chat, etc. The important thing is to align a self-care, service and information with the company's mobility strategy. To do so, managers will eventually need to derive this strategy from marketing guidelines and digital channels. Mobile becomes a source of information in the day to day of people and informing them well about the products and services provided is important in this journey around mobility. 3. BYOD, Secure Data Management The subject of BYOD and BYOA is the guideline of corporate mobility management. A policy that gives employee comfort also increases productivity and speeds corporate goals. Letting personalization be an option, the employee chooses which device and which application is the best. Of course, agreeing to this does not mean having it all resolved with a simple decision. Security technologies and policies, internal and partner development rules need to be appropriate, modernized. Working securely with business data (B2E - Business to Employee) is already a step towards bringing this same security into the business and consumer relationship (B2C - Business to Consumer). Mapping a feasible BYOD strategy is essential and should be implemented over time with clear goals. 4. Cloud Computing Mobility and Cloud are two themes that really combine. Offering applications in the cloud already assumes performance, security, location and availability as expected functions, and all this relates to mobility and hand-devices. In our day to day, we already use applications that keep much of the information in the cloud, outside of the physical hosting of the mobile device. We tend to be extra careful with our bank information, passwords, etc., but it seems that behavior has largely changed, and mobile applications with cloud data is already a commonplace. Of course, there are a number of legal commitments in the corporate dealings of customer data, resulting in security policies. But the seduction of mobility is a great impetus for an adjustment of all these factors. 5. Startups based on Mobility If start-up companies, i.e., entering the market - have a lower overall capital than the big players in their industry, then they may need to balance their investments in innovative technologies. It is also true that a new digital world, exposed in mobile devices, with platforms in the cloud, can democratize the choice around comparable solutions between small, medium and large companies. That is, innovative, well-integrated, well thought-out solutions can pair with sophisticated and extensive solutions. It is important to invest in the right place. For example, in a virtual enterprise approach, yet offering a more mature and sophisticated platform for e-Commerce, service and digital marketing can give an unprecedented competitive advantage to the entrant in the market. Innovations have never been so accessible to flexible cloud applications (in terms of business capacity and functionality), with integration of specialized partners bringing data in principle out of reach, linking with Telecom and banking operator services. This can create more success stories in the startup market. 6. Integration of Welfare and XaaS consumption Welfare through mobile devices is like a companion that gives alerts or recommendations, interacts with location and agenda in the various sectors of the life of each one. Health, nutrition, care, leisure, culture, tourism, learning. All these disciplines can have applications built under the prism of mobility by making this company to the consumer, interacting via mobile device. Opportunities for Sale, Use of Applications and services, Digital Marketing will hitch on these services. The world XaaS - Anything as a Service also proposes that (mobile) services are the face consumed by the client, even if an application, a platform, infrastructure behind this offer exposed by an icon or alerts in the device mobile. 7 Connected Home, Connected Car, M2M, Internet of Things Whether you are a contentious participant in discussions around technology or not, it's hard not to hear about cars and connected homes, the Internet of Things (IoT), and machine to machine (M2M) connections. A world connected to objects and people, with mobility working intelligently with each device according to its application. For example, a house connected by giving metrics to the owner to manage electric consumption, return excess consumption to the network, give comfort and control to remote or automated actions in the operation of the house. A connected car can give anonymous traffic information to peers or authorities. If connecting is no longer uniqueness of persons, whether connected in a fixed or mobile manner. Understanding this world and its new demands improves the creation of mobility strategies by relying on a private, public or hybrid network of connected objects and people. According to the company's performance, figuring out how to leverage business with the new insights of this world is a competitive differential. The information ends up having an unprecedented wealth, since knowing that a family consumes with a certain standard, circulates in certain places, has a certain profile improves marketing actions, from attention to sales. There are several ways to approach the client, but doing so in a way relevant to their mobility is very advantageous. 8. Usage of Wearables, Content Rendering on Any Device Also, widely spoken, is the use of Wearables, i.e. any device attached to our body, which communicates in any way with any other device or network, in order to provide more information, more comfort, more convenience. For example, high-tech manufacturers are currently competing in the market for connected clocks, with special or replicated functions of tablets or smartphones. These devices each have a way of interacting with their owner, through screens of all types and sizes or through audio or other interactive way. Being a challenge for mobile application developers, to include them in an open world, the mobility manager needs to be up-to-date with the innovations that come from there, what kind of deals can come with Wearables? 9. New Analytical Guidance and Big Data for Mobility As we have seen dealing with this new number and dealing with different data, of different types, but relevant to the company's performance. Otherwise, in a connected world, a much larger volume of data is available. Treating these new dimensions also requires innovation. Normally, in order to segment profiles from information collected from traditional systems, we would analyze in detail the behavior of customers within the company, use the data warehouse and analytics. This technology has evolved and companies include Big Data as a new paradigm for understanding this new data family (greater volume, variety, heterogeneous origin, cloud, social media, etc.). It is in fact an instrument to manage mobility strategy, as it allows a richer and more adequate analysis to the digital world, connected, previously unthinkable in traditional corporate processes. 10. Developers meshes, Partnerships, Hybrids It is already a fact in the development of applications for the mobile world, a good cooperation and development in blocks of functionalities, eventually connecting to other developers and building mobile applications or even mobile services. These services can once again be recomposed in an application and a new service in the context of your company, offering an unprecedented resource in the interface with the client or final consumer. Applications and mobile services, exposed to the customer, need to leverage from this world of partnerships, hybrid solutions, global developer networks. Therefore, understanding this world is important to choose how you can help it, which cannot serve the moment of the company, which needs to be adapted according to security or regulatory policies. In short, building a business strategy in the company is not trivial, and managers should be interested in innovation, telecommunications, software development, new generation behavior, digital marketing, and so many other disciplines ... yes, a major challenge, increasingly common to the manager of the new digital world.               Read the full article

#Mobility

[connected-future]

Hidden Dream in The Cloud

Since Chiron Aristóphanes ran his program at Amibor Corporation three days ago, he was feeling really nervous. Even as an authorized and expert employee, he knew that his program could be found anytime, and certainly he would be fired because of that. It was the year of 2024. Chiron started a grid-computing style protein folding program, adapted from the open source site from Genomma Digital University. He did a lot of adaptations to run the grid computing architecture into processing units that fitted at the giant cloud infrastructure from Amibor. He hoped that eventually would finish the 2-week processing window and would not be discovered. But he perceived how wrong he was. His boss just called with a heavy voice, asking him to go immediately to the Security Department, they would have a meeting with the director. Of course his boss was not happy and he felt he would be fired. Yes, at the meeting room, his boss and the security director were showing some very serious faces. The director began: "Chiron, we know that you ran the protein folding, an unauthorized program; we know that you managed to camouflage several bunches of code to seem that the code is an inoffensive internal operating system utility; we know that you were running them along our cloud infrastructure all over the world, using slots of time only when it would not compromise the payload from virtualization balancing. We know also that you copied it and adapted from Genomma Digital University. Is that correct?" Chiron just nodded his head agreeing. The director continued: "Now, it’s 2:58PM. We will need to do a few questions more in order to tell you the next steps. You know you did very wrong and you are in trouble, but things can get worse if you do not collaborate from now. At 3PM our CEO and a scientist from Genomma Digital will enter into videoconferencing and will ask you questions. Is it ok for you?" Chiron underestimated his crime. Probably he infringed more rules that he expected and some cops outside would soon take him to the prison… he was nearly dropping a tear. But he stopped, as he saw two legendary faces at 2 videos. He was staring static at his CEO Lou Fratello and Eli Lucas, the Chief Scientist from Genomma, for the protein-folding program. The CEO began straight to the point: "Chiron, good afternoon. I will ask direct questions and considering you are not in a good position right now, I recommend that you answer those with absolute sincerity. I will take this in account to offer you the best way out for this. Deal? Chiron said yes almost in a pleading tone." "Why did you do this?" "Well, I had no other place to do this. Even at the University site, I saw that Mr. Lucas always did public requests to have more computers joining his grid effort to advance in science and medicine. Amibor, with his huge volume of servers and processor power would fit this perfectly to run the protein folding program much more quickly and really contribute effectively with his research. Amibor and all our customers would not have any impacts considering this size." "Chiron, I know the cloud story, where it gradually took the infrastructure that would be for the grid computing, even for scientific applications, and a certain nostalgia that aroused in some people. I will remind you on the purpose of our organization, which is selling cloud solutions to the market. Are you a nostalgic guy? Again, why did you do this, Chiron? Fratello was now pressing him." "I did for my mother. She is developing the Alzheimer Disease, and I know the findings from the project from Mr. Lucas will benefit those patients, like my mom. The discovery of new drugs depends on this research. I assume my errors. I am sorry and ready to know what will happen with me."

"Easy! Mr. Chiron." Fratello spoke a little louder. "What you did is not correct, but it was a good job fooling us. Let Mr. Lucas talk with you now. He has another question, I believe." "Yes, I have." Eli Lucas was a typical academic man, with a calm and smart aspect. Chiron felt immediately a full respect to him. "Chiron, I had some understandings earlier with Lou. The thing is, will you join us to run this program from a cloud corporation like Amibor? I mean, you will leave Amibor as an employee, but you will manage the relationship with technical experts from Amibor and also coordinate the grid revision from our code, to fit it into a heavy cloud infrastructure?" "Yes, but…" Now Chiron was astonished. "How…" Lou Fratello looked at his watch and shot his final consideration.— Chiron, if you want to collaborate we will forgive you, and this project will fit in the TIR Law, The “Law of Tax Incentives for Research”. We were searching for adequate projects during the last months. Also you will donate your entire code to Amibor, we will use anyway we want. Of course, we need to adapt a lot into our security premisses. Well, for that we will forgive you, as you checked with Mr. Lucas, you will be hired at the University and will of course keep the hope concerning your mother. Second option, you are fired and we will prosecute you. Choose now. Chiron Aristóphanes chose and next week he really began to play at Digital Genomma University. A very serious game.             Read the full article

#CloudComputing #GridComputing

[connected-future]

Nasa Mars 2020 Mission and Project Management Techniques

NASA intends to start a new mission in 2020 toward Mars, there, the Rover Research Robot will collect very important information from the soil of the neighboring planet. Everything that comes from Nasa arouses a great interest for lovers of science, engineering, and space affairs. Reading about the Mars 2020 project (According https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/timeline/surface-operations/), I also found it very interesting how NASA manages the project and how it communicates with the public via its Portal. I have cut the high-level information about this project and would like to parallel it with traditional project management such as PMI, which we need every day in large companies. So even a simpler one-week project that aims to build a report or client presentation can - why not - absorb the way to manage a mission to Mars. So let's go on the chart below. NASA lists the High Level phases that this mission will include. We will then comment on the parallel with project management. The phases of the Mars 2020 mission would include: Pre-launch Activities: Preparation for the mission, including pre-project planning, science definition and instrument selection, landing site selection, assembly and testing, and delivery to Cape Canaveral Launch: Lift-off from Earth Cruise: Voyage through space to Mars Approach: Nearing the red planet Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL): Journey through the martian atmosphere to the surface Instrument Checks and First Drive: After landing when engineers first conduct tests to ensure the rover is in a "safe state" Surface Operations: Learning about Mars through the day-to-day activities of the rover Follow-on Steps potentially completed by a later Mars mission We have already noticed an organization with a well-defined design of the phases.

We may consider that NASA has already gone through the KickOff of this project however it has Pre-launch Activities that are very important for the launch. We could say that it would be the start of a project. It would comprise the initial 2 phases of PMI: (1) Conceptualization and Initiation and (2) Definition and Planning. We have a very important phase, and this is the Pre-launch activities. It is where all planning, selection of resources or instruments, destination selection, tests etc. occurs. As we know in typical projects, a suitable preparation for entry into production since project development is extremely important. There can be no uncertainty after the launch. In this case, if it is assumed that everything has already been defined, and has already been discussed to the extent of the possibility of knowledge and action. There would be no more to change ideally, all opportunities were exhausted for the success of the project. In the case of Launch, it is assumed that the project has already begun, but we could imagine the Cruise here to the planet Mars as an initial phase of the project, which is characterized in a different way, but is essential for the success of the final goal. Anyway, the Launch would correspond to item (3) of PMI, Launch or Execution. An interesting phase is the Approach. At this stage some pre-programmed adjustments will be made so that the spacecraft approaches properly before landing on the planet, orbit, propulsion, and adjustments for entry into the atmosphere is important at this stage. In the Cruise, Approach, and EDL phases, the item PMI (4) that corresponds to Performance & Control monitoring is for everything until Landing and Surface Operations (inclusive). Similarly, when approaching a moment of production, we must prepare what will be the reality and ultimate fact in a large company. This is the new project that will be put in full operation in search of its initial objectives, in the final phase of Production, which would be the operation on the surface of Planet Mars itself.

Here we see this technology called NASA's EDL, which is the technology linked to landing in a correct way according to the objectives. The Landing process in which NASA is a strategy that will give greater precision to the exact landing site. In other words, the topology is a very important item so that the Rover can start its operation well. We can imagine in the parallel with project management, the stress that is an entry into production people need to pilot what was new as it were in day to day, fully integrated with all the updated information in the operational aspect so that there is no problem with the new project in its final phase. I am calling here the Surface Operations of the Rover, which is where the ultimate objectives of the Mars 2020 mission will be achieved. The production phase itself (last stage). Just before the Surface Operations, a overall check of instruments and the first safe driving of the Rover are made. It is like an assisted operation, already in production itself. It's an important step for operations to go well. Last item is the Following Steps ie we can imagine as lessons learned from the project what can be improved for future missions or even adjustments to the goal of the mission itself. It would be related to PMI item (5), Project Close. See more details compiled from the NASA Portal, summarized below. It is about phase details, above, which of course, is also important in Project Management. Pre-launch activities include: Pre-Project Planning: Mars 2020 concept and requirements definition (Phase A - Completed) And its preliminary design and technology development (Phase B - Completed). Final Design and Fabrication at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory: The Mars 2020 mission team is building parts of the rover and its spacecraft (Phase C). Engineers assemble and test the Mars 2020 rover in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Phase D). (1) The Mars 2020 team is currently considering 8 potential landing site;  (2) The Mars 2020 rover will make a journey from its California birthplace to Florida in preparation for launch.   Surface operations The surface operations phase is the time when the rover conducts its scientific studies on Mars. After landing safely (February 2021), Mars 2020 has a primary mission span of at least one Martian year (687 Earth days). The Mars 2020 rover uses a depot caching strategy for its exploration of Mars. What does the rover do during surface operations? While exploring Mars during surface operations, the rover: finds rocks that formed in, or were altered by, environments that could have supported microbial life in Mars’ ancient past (Objective A) finds rocks capable of preserving chemical traces of ancient life (bio-signatures), if any existed (Objective B) drills core samples from about 30 promising rock and “soil” (regolith) targets and cache them on the Martian surface (Objective C) tests the ability to produce oxygen from the carbon-dioxide Martian atmosphere, in support of future human missions (Objective D) Main Image from Nasa Portal - Rover from Mars 2020 Mission   Read the full article

#ProjectManagement #SpaceTravel

[connected-future]

The Snoopy Drone and Honeymoon on the Gold Coast

Matt and Linda were going to start a new honeymoon. After the marriage of the youngest daughter, all the children were well-bred. Well, married or not, they had excellent jobs in the metropolis, and the couple chose to move to the Gold Coast, on the east coast of Australia. They held a wedding confirmation party with the whole family, and with many friends from Brisbane and Sydney. Barbecue, Soccer, Games ... it was a success, but the couple wanted to enjoy their retirement with the gift of a youth spread in that landscape coast that they have always loved. Matt, at the end of the party, when everyone was gone, looked romantic at Linda and shot, "Honey, could  just the two of us celebrate tomorrow?" Linda returned the invitation with a smile that said "yes". The couple always found the Gold Coast mornings the most romantic... The next morning Matt looked out the window and contemplated the wonderful day that had just begun. He looked at Linda and thought of waking her gently when he saw a small black spot in the sky that moved slowly from one point to another in a short movement in the air. He found it strange and decided to wait a little. He ended up falling asleep and was awake with Linda calling him from the kitchen to have breakfast. "Wow, we will keep that for the next day", he thought. They had a wonderful day. At the end of the couple's night as young fellows in love they walked in the garden of the house. Matt then made the same invitation, which was promptly confirmed. Linda gave him a warm hug and said she could not wait to get up the next morning. And dawn came again. In the window, another beautiful day. Sounds of birds from the coast and ... The little black dot. This time, Matt, decided to leave the house and investigate. Arriving in the garden, he saw that it was a Drone. In 2 or 3 minutes, after the Drone moved around in small spaces, he understood that he was being snooped. A sense of invasion of privacy ran through him. How could they ruin their honeymoon with Linda like that? Matt decided to wait and see where the proof of the crime would go. Unsurprisingly, the Drone flew quietly toward his garage, in fact an open space behind the house protected by walls. How so? Had the house been invaded? He recognized the quadcopter as really his own, he had acquired a few weeks ago. Who would be piloting his own Drone? He ran rather alarmed and ready for an energetic action, opened the door of the garage of surprise. There was the Drone perched quietly on his workbench, at his power base being loaded. With relative relief, he understood that the Drone had been programmed. And he remembered that his family was in the house a couple of days ago. But then he also remembered that this did not invalidate the fact that he was being gossiped and the blood rose in his temples. He remembered that his brother-in-law and nephew Geek had played with the Drone and certainly wanted to play a trick. The two played with the artifact that day. Still with the object in hand, they seemed to have given up, and then asked if they could watch the fishermen that lived there and disappeared. It was mid-day, and even though it was strange why Matt had replied, "Of course, okay," but he did not think it was a pretext to get out of there, and program his own Drone to snoop around. How Funny. He was already thinking of how much he would complain with his sister. It occurred to him then, to go into the Drone application and see the media he had eventually captured. Which was not his surprise with the little videos he saw. His brother-in-law and nephew had discovered a nest of ospreys on a small cliff nearby.

Picture at https://adventuregrancanaria.com/rules-for-flying-drones-in-gran-canaria/ And it was Drone's route to take excellent pictures and videos of the nest, which allowed him to observe him from a distance from his window. He thought it was the work of his nephew, but what an intelligent boy! He had certainly programmed the Quadcopter for trips near the nest, pointed the camera and programmed the device for daily taking of the nest. The material was getting sensational! Hence the question they asked. They simply did not warn about this "programming," but even realized they were having so much fun that they did not need any talk about technology or nature. Matt decided to leave the Drone, with his harmless activity to him, Linda and own pups of fishermen, since filming the distance.

Osprey at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osprey#/media/File:Wild_Pandion.jpg He relaxed again, and saw that everything was fine again in his house. It was still early, it was still a beautiful day, and he smiled alone, imagining that there would still be time to wake up Linda.       Main Picture from adventuregrancanaria.com Read the full article

#Drones

[connected-future]

Smart Society 2025

Society is in one of those times when a lot of innovations present themselves are on an upward curve of consolidation and use, more, and most likely have not yet come to their hype. These various technologies detain many analysts dissecting them, interpreting how they will be used in society. What is certain is that they will interact, and benefit from each other when applying. The table of this article, or rather, an Architecture Framework was designed, in order to investigate not every Technology, to go deep into their interrelations, however, in how in a not so distant future, they will compose what we are calling a Smart Society for 2025. For this reason, it is really interesting to observe the growth of these innovative technologies in order to structure and give their Foundation. For this intelligent society, in the near future, we divide into two types of use, or topics: Intelligent Applications and Data; and second, the Autonomous Processes. There are two aspects that will reach this society with an unprecedented volume and wealth of information. New applications in a heterogeneous dataset, well classified, and of much greater volume, will give a very transforming feature for the modern society. The way we consume information today and rely on day-to-day applications will be much more intense and somewhat transparent. This is part of everyday life in a more natural way today. Our use of technology is somewhat active and disruptive in behavior. The new applications based on much richer data will integrate in a softer and more coupled way during our common day. For this, we rely on the development of many technological foundations. We point out in this Framework three of them, very important: Internet of Things, Cloud Computing and 5G. The Internet of Things for this diversified volume will be a great enabler of this day-to-day integration with human behavior, since cars, houses, wearables, and many other connected "things" will be helping us to live in this new society. The devices that we commonly use today - the tablets and smartphones - of course, did not cease to exist. However, they will be greatly complemented by these applications that touch everyday life in a more transparent way. This will give behavior in society a less aggressive way. That is, there will be other forms of connection and integration across the network that are not via a physically active use of mobile devices. We can always think that economic development is necessary in parallel. Development that is different for each region, for each nation. But at the same time we can see that the wave of technology always reaches all societies sooner or later. Another important element is Cloud Computing supporting these smart applications. Or rather, smarter applications. More data will be available in a secure, hopefully, outside of the local storage environment. That is, outside of the personal infrastructure itself, but in the cloud. There is still much to discuss what is considered anonymous, what is considered correct to store, for each person or company, but certainly, from reciprocal benefits, these data will be more and more used, necessarily accompanied by a regulation that also needs evolve so that everything takes place as each society demands. Cloud Computing is already causing a shift in the dominant Technology companies in the marketplace. Every great technological wave can cause this and usually causes. Betting in advance on new technologies greatly increases this chance of having a key role among software vendors, general applications and processes in the future smart society. What will develop is not only Cloud computing technologies, access to information, and information exchange, but also Cross Processes among the holders of qualified information in the cloud. We also see a telecoms revolution approaching, which is the advent of the new generation at 5G. In fact, very important to allow this society to obtain a feasible infrastructure, compatible with the performance and bandwidth required for this new Framework. Also transformative to the world of Telecom; for the vendors; for CSPs, 5G goes deep into this world governed by OTTs and software companies, or the cloud. At least it will allow this possibility. Or for the more progressive will actually demand it for their own survival. Software-defined networks, fragmentation of functions, use of machine learning, predictive analysis ... all these items will be present to support the application layer and intelligent data and interact with all these technologies mentioned. On the other hand, autonomous processes will be common throughout society. A need for lower-level interaction as it is done today is becoming less and less necessary. Processes that will have a "guarantee" from your supplier for each item will more and more people and govern the behavior of people. The credibility and reputation of these new processes are related to the companies that will be present in each of the vertical industrial and services sectors. For example, the Healthcare Area will have consolidated players that bet on the new technology but also maintain their reputation for quality services and responsibility, once combined these factors, there will certainly be a great adhesion of this new society. We can imagine the same for the financial area, for the telecommunications area, for the transportation area, etc. Processes with intelligence, data abundance, and secure transactions will be capital, so that this wheel works in an engaged way. Thus, we also cite three important technologies to support these autonomous processes: Blockchain, Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. Blockchain that already supports in its birth, operations with cryptocurrency. It is common knowledge among analysts, for their security, easy access and decentralization — by various industries and several innovators in the construction of processes and software. The blockchain characteristics combine very well with this more decentralized world, less physically coupled to physical devices. That is, a user can be walking and at the same time participate in secure transactions, certified by a specialist layer. But at the same time, decentralized, dissociating herself (/himself) from the typical holders of the end-process, as we see today. There is no shortage of expositions that bet heavily on blockchain today and there are those who defend it as a great revolution in terms of processes. But we want to add here how blockchain will interact very well with all those technologies that support intelligent society. And how each of these supportive technologies, in turn, propelling the others. For example, Artificial Intelligence benefits and supports the blockchain for transaction evolution and record analysis, with intelligent pieces of software and processes that will permeate these secure transactions. When the process learns from its own use, improved management is provided. And then, the processes themselves become better. And in the case, moreover, autonomous. In addition, Big Data Analytics is an already well-established technology. But it will be established in an expanded way, more integrated than today in the cloud with information of Connected Things more effectively. We could imagine Big Data Analytics as an intelligent classification of data, but we find it even more important to link it to the autonomous process, or to explore its analytical part. It is precisely there that we will need a large capacity to digest all the information and the answer will be a fully functioning Big Data in the cloud, using the things connected in an extensive way and with Artificial Intelligence coupled in its reports, analyzes, and inferences. Of course, all these interactions deserve a dedicated analysis and it is interesting to think about how each block interacts with one another. Something that will be very much done everywhere, but at the same time we need to think about how our society, which can be said, is "reborn" for now, will behave with so many innovations. For this we need to look not one by one, but all these innovations working together, to understand future behavior and social interactions. Changes in the technical profile of Employees in all sectors, changes in social interactions in moments inside or outside work, change in the use of all the material devices that surround us, from those of the smart home, to connected cars, via wearables, and even the nascent industry of robots. We can not yet say whether society will resemble some vision of fiction film or futuristic essay. Well, this will show up very soon. We also need to be prepared for the Smart Society that will come in the next few years. Read the full article

#5G #BigData #blockchain #CloudComputing #Iot #SmartCity

[connected-future]

Delta-Virgo-1 - An Interplanetary Fiction - Part I

Investment Decisions in Technology Abroad - In a tale of interplanetary fiction. It was nightfall on β-Auriga-4 planet, or Bárcon, as they called its inhabitants. The Journalist Kronis had finished watching the third day of the Investment Panel Abroad precisely in the modulus of beginners civilizations, and was happy for his first professional mission was happening. Indeed, there would be several meetings related to use of decisions of the investment funds. Kronis, who had just graduated with an excellent score, would have the opportunity to attend the meetings to funds of appointments in Delta-Virgo-1, code-named DV-1, a planet which then was in development of its industrial cycle. His role would be to report the destination of aid to the young planet, and for that he studied its history, that is, the past of the planet from its birth. He also studied, the mode of operation of those meetings held in the Investment Panel. Kronis imagined to connect the DV-1 planet, learn from managers, mentors and Barcon leaders, because they would lead to development assistance to that world, and so he dreamed of becoming a kind of special reporter for new civilizations, what would give him a spectacular career perspective.

Kronis made a specialization of its journalism school–the Relationship with Foreign Cultures–and have realized how it was this kind of meeting, with a lot of organization, transparency and participation of all components without much hierarchical distinction. The meeting took with a peaceful way, the chairman of the panel concluded a speech at a certain distance, but they could clearly see him in every room of the auditorium, as screens showed the details of the speech. In that auditorium, the enclosures were semi-open office rooms, and Kronis thus calculated the amount of meetings that would be on the spot. Kronis thought around a hundred. Therefore he was in the room for the DV-1 planet, with nearly a dozen people, and he was by far the youngest. The meeting leader, Councillor Padmé had great reputation in Bárcon, she also had the role of mentor for that planet and was one of the managers for basic investments, which were common to the whole planet at the same level of DV-1. She opened with a presentation summarizing the moment the planet, and clarified how the basic investments would be applied. The basic and mandatory investments were separated into four groups: "Ethics and civilization"; "Socioeconomics"; "Personal Development and Health"; and "Basic Science and Engineering.” The "elective" investments consisted also of other groups: "Advanced Engineering"; "Chemical and Nuclear Physics"; and "Communications and Computing.” What was there to decide when and how investments in DV-1, over its next period of time would be applied. The Councillor gave a brief history of previous investments, the impact on civilization on the planet, and she gave as well, recent and unknown details for the group on DV-1. Kronis made his private notes along the digital record of the meeting. Actually, DV-1 was going through a turbulent industrial cycle, was hit by intergovernmental conflicts in recent times and now was developing with great difficulty, the basic principles of a modern civilization. Although they had relative success in specific subjects, related to technology and engineering. DV-1 was part of a dangerous pattern that other planets also went through, where progress in some prevailed, yet in others, conflicts predominated and led an entire civilization to self-extermination. Actually, in certain planet regions, groups still prevail in diverse ways exerting dominance over other groups.

https://www.deviantart.com/ariochiv/art/Stars-in-Shadow-Special-Planet-Types-409067539 Thus, the concern of a certain amount of investment in each area, not to bring about incentives that would entail additional scourges which the planet would inflict itself. Approaching on the planet an acute crisis of water, natural resources and climate imbalance and the life-sustaining cycle. And this made even more complex the decision about the aid. Padmé detailed the conflicts underway and the progress made, passing the word to managers of core subjects, where all actually have a key role in the possible recovery of civilization DV-1. Each area may have investment degrees: maximum, normal or regular. After a quick discussion, all the basic areas unanimously had maximum level by the group. However, it was not enough. The planet would need innovations, technology to face the difficulties that were about to start and the additional disciplines needed to be provided by an appropriately fund. Kronis wondered how the group could get out of there with the best decision, when the Engineer in charge of development of advanced technologies started: "The planet has regions where it develops a rural economy and in others, has an urban focus. There are occasions where transport is based on rudimentary and not sustainable techniques, and others with a certain concern for the environment. The industry is only now beginning to benefit from protection practices with the use of resources. Innovations, inventions, techniques focused on the desires most recently made to transform society, which in turn had to multiply, grow, expand, but without a concern of a positive economics." He continued. "Now, we need to include in this transformation, a sense of preservation, respect for the planet and the universe. Thus, together with the Personal Development colleague, it is urgent to build a plan of distribution of knowledge, technique and innovations according to each region, but across the planet. The Advanced Engineering is now in my opinion, which distributes better what we want, keeping the diversity that exists on the planet, takes the next step of the industrial and urban development, with the current base of a greater volume of people interested in acquiring knowledge. DV-1 is now connected via the technologies developed closer to the complexity of the senses that people have, and can take advantage as a whole and more intensely our aid." Then, the Manager and Specialist in Nuclear Physics and Chemistry gave his opinion: "DV-1 will have to work hard the way how demands non-renewable resources of their world. However, the time is now asking for emergency measures, since even with specific improvement actions, the situation will become chaotic quickly. Nuclear technology is still in its infancy, they need to improve the entire energy extraction process in the context of the planet. They always constitute the logic regarding the unrestricted use and depletion of resources targeting the sake of cost efficiency, without much concern the rational use of fuel. Its reactors must go forward to the next generation across the planet. The proposal for a new generation of reactors will reassure you will not have a belligerent appeal and will be more sustainable. So, it will decrease rapidly and drastically the generation of climatic imbalances on the planet." Then, the manager explained with a video, how DV-1 will be benefited from a new technology, properly spread in various parts of the world. He was worried even in do not tilt the tenuous political and existing cultural issues, through a strategic plan. Finally, the Communications Manager and Computer defended the investment in the area, he knew that greatly. He had made a study of development in DV-1 and proposed to the group, which saw as the best investment for the planet: "If in firstly, the planet receive all regions, benefits for greater access to knowledge, from integration with people and automated processes, to information exchange in a more extensive and immediate way, and secondly, may we see quickly a whole society, industry, education, health and public administrators working perfectly in harmony. The injustices and imbalances will be further restrained by self-mechanisms of these processes. The technology that permeates these activities, as we know, information and communication are related with all disciplines and will work as a link to all the initiatives that must be perpetuated, by acting as a kind of catalyst." The Manager continued. "I believe in its history, DV-1 used the innovations towards part of their civilization, which is typical in earlier stages but extends too long to share knowledge, access, evolution itself. The information flowing fast, shared, created in a collaborative way is both an antidote to groups with local interests to the detriment of interests of that world, and also, this catalyst allows other innovations to enhance and benefit the whole civilization of DV- 1." In the end, everyone well defended their views and Kronis made his notes in order to connect the true lessons he had received in order to document how an investment of that magnitude in a distant developing world. He felt even as a beginner in the matter. Padmé took the floor and passed into the final phase of the meeting: "I think we all share arguments very well in each of our disciplines in the interest of the foreign civilization. We were about to actually influence their future. We want it mostly, and it's our job to give the best end to investments. It's up to me to suggest the general lines, and then everyone is free to propose alternatives. Finally, as rules our meeting, we will vote openly in the best alternative." The Councillor continued. "I therefore propose that all investments have called elective normal degree. All are important, but we are unable to provide maximum resources at all. Moreover, I believe that these features really need to be present consistently in the future period in question for DV-1. So, I understand that we will distribute the optional subjects in three waves in this period. First, the information phase to act as a preparation and distribution of innovations across the planet. Then the Chemical and Nuclear Power Phase for faster allowing reduce damage to the environment, compared to a population that is still growing at relatively high rates. And finally, the Advanced Engineering phase that will allow consolidation of the real progress in a planet in this stage. After detailing a bit more what she had in mind, everyone eventually agreed that it was the feasible plan for DV-1 and there were no alternative proposals. Over the next two days, the group would create an executive plan for investments in greater detail. At the end of the day, Kronis, a little sheepish, noticed he was the only one there, who had not contributed with comments for the plan. Padmé had this intuition and wanted to encourage the participation of the young reporter, though she knew of his beginner position as a professional. "Kronis we want to hear you, what do you think of it? Do you think we're on the right track?" Kronis smiled and said he was very happy to be there and see how the fate of a planet could be so strongly improved, with foreign aid and he was proud to participate. In the end, he risked, perhaps not to look away from the DV-1 issue: "What could I just suggest something is collateral, of lesser importance. Perhaps for being a journalist, I make a solicitation: Why our group does not give an unscientific name to this planet? This will bring us closer to them even more, I think." "Great idea, Kronis, how about we use the name of a certain group on the planet uses already, for example, how about we call DV-1, “Prithvi”?" It worked, all congratulated Kronis and said goodbye for the day. It was sealed the beginning of change of Prithvi. Main image at Pixabay.com from DasWortgewand           Read the full article

#ScienceFiction

[connected-future]

Ray Kurweill's Predictions

See Ray Kurzweill's Predictions for 2019 . Some are a bit out of date, others are common. Some real, more only in the developed world, and not in the whole world. Anyway, predictions made 25 years ago, very interesting. Kurzweill, in addition to everything influenced in the world of the musical synthesizers, making history there also. Here they are: The computing power of a $ 4,000 computing device (in 1999 dollars) is approximately equal to the computational capacity of the human brain (20 quadrillion calculations per second). The combined computational powers of all computers are comparable with the total intellectual resources of the human race. Computers are embedded everywhere in the environment (inside the electronics, jewelry, walls, clothing, etc.). People experience 3-D virtual reality through glasses and contact lenses that beam images directly to their retinas (Retina Display). Along with an audio source (headphones), users can communicate remotely with others and access the Internet. These special glasses and contact lenses can offer "augmented reality" and "virtual reality" in three different ways. First, they can design "heads-up screen" (HUDs) across the user's viewing area, overlaying images that remain in place in the environment, regardless of user perspective or orientation. Secondly, virtual objects or people could be processed at fixed places by the glasses, and so when the user's eyes look elsewhere, the objects seem to stay in their places. Thirdly, devices can completely block the "real" world and fully insert the user into a virtual reality environment. People communicate with their computers through two-way speech and gestures rather than with keyboards. In addition, most of this interaction occurs through computer wizards with different personalities that the user can select or customize. Dealing with computers thus becomes more and more like dealing with a human being. Most business transactions or requests for information involve dealing with a dummy person. Most people own more than one PC, although the concept of what a "computer" is has changed considerably: Computers are no longer limited in design to laptops or CPUs contained in a large box attached to a monitor. Instead, devices with computer capabilities come in all kinds of unexpected shapes and sizes. Cables connecting computers and peripherals have almost completely disappeared. Rotating computer hard drives are no longer used. Three-dimensional nano-tube grids are the dominant computing substrate. Massively parallel neural networks and genetic algorithms are in wide use. Destructive brain scans and non-invasive brain scans have enabled scientists to understand the brain much better. The algorithms that allow the relatively small genetic code of the brain to construct a much more complex organ are being transferred to the computer neural networks. Pin-head sized cameras are everywhere. Nanotechnology is more capable and is in use for specialized applications, but has not yet done so for the mass market. "Nano-engineered machines" begin to be fabricated. Lightweight, slim, your handheld has very high resolutions and are the preferred media for viewing documents. The above mentioned computer goggles and contact lenses are also used for the same purpose, and all download the wireless information. Computers have made paper books and documents almost completely obsolete. Most learning is accomplished through intelligent, adaptive didactic material presented by computer simulated teachers. In the learning process, human adults fill the counselor and mentor roles instead of being academic instructors. These assistants are often not physically present, and assist students remotely. Students still learn together and socialize, although this is often done remotely through computers. All students have access to computers. Most human workers spend most of their time acquiring new skills and knowledge. Blind people wear special glasses that interpret the real world for them through speech. People with vision also use these glasses to amplify their own abilities. Neural and retinal implants also exist but are in limited use because they are less useful. The deaf wear special glasses that convert speech into text or signs, and music into images or tactile sensations. Cochlear implants (implants in the ear) and others are also widely used. People with spinal cord injuries can walk and climb stairs using computer-controlled nerve stimulation and exo-skeletal robotic walkers. Computers are also found within some humans in the form of cybernetic implants. These are most commonly used by people with disabilities to recover normal physical faculties (for example, retinal implants allow the blind to see and spinal implants along with mechanical legs allow paralytics to walk). Language translation machines are of much higher quality, and are used routinely in conversations. Effective language technologies (natural language processing, speech recognition, speech synthesis) are available Internet access is completely wireless and provided by wearable (or wearable) computers or deployed. People are able to access the Internet wirelessly at all times from almost anywhere Devices that deliver sensations to the surface of their users' skin (for example, special protective clothing or gloves) are also sometimes used in virtual reality to complete the experiment. "Virtual sex" -in which two people are able to have sex with each other through virtual reality, or in which a human being can have sex with a "dummy" partner who only exists on a computer, become a reality. As well as audio-visual reality appear, the haptic technology has matured completely and is completely convincing, but requires the user to enter a virtual reality space. It is commonly used for computer sex and remote medical exams. It is the preferred sexual form since it is safe and enhances the experience (sic). World economic growth continued. There has not been a global economic collapse. The vast majority of business interactions occur between humans and simulated retailers, or between a virtual personal assistant of a human being and a dummy retailer. Domestic robots are ubiquitous and reliable. Computers do most of the driving of vehicles - humans are actually banned from driving on unattended highways. In addition, when humans do not take the wheel, the on-board computer system constantly monitors their actions and takes control whenever human drives recklessly. As a result, there are very few transportation accidents. Most roads now have automated systems-driving networks for monitoring and communication devices that allow computer-controlled vehicles to navigate safely. There are now prototype personal flying vehicles using microflaps. They are also mainly computer controlled. Humans are beginning to have deep relationships with automated personalities, which have some advantages over human partners. The depth of some computer personalities convinces some people that they should be granted more rights. Although a growing number of human beings believe that their computers and the simulated personalities with which they interact are intelligent in the context of human-level consciousness, experts discard the possibility that anyone could pass the Turing test. (Obs. Roughly, the Turing Test evaluates whether a robot response is a human response) Relationships between humans and robots beginning with simulated personalities have become more compelling. Interaction with virtual personalities becomes a primary interface Public places and workplaces are ubiquitously monitored to prevent violence and all actions are recorded permanently. Personal privacy is an important political issue, and some people protect themselves with unbreakable computer codes. The satisfaction of basic needs of the lower class is realized. (It is not specified whether this concerns only the developed world or for all countries) Virtual Artists - Creative computers capable of making their own art and music begin to emerge in all fields of the arts. Read the full article

#Predictions

[connected-future]

Smart Cities: Sustainability with Low Carbon Economy

Humanity has been concerned in the last decades with the process of climate change to maintain life on the planet. Although with diverse interpretations around the world, it is a constant discussion in scientific and governmental forums. According to climate experts, climate change is simplified in a cause-and-effect process in four phases: 1. Increased human activity in the planet's regions as the main element of change in the overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions pattern - mainly in the last decades. 2. Emissions on the planet and migration to the GHG stock in the atmosphere, increasing its concentration. 3. Higher concentration of GHG in the atmosphere increasing the physical effect of greenhouse gases with more heat retention and temperature increase. 4. Climate change due to changes in temperature and its impacts on mankind. Thus, the low-carbon economy is a proposal that becomes necessary when an intensive human activity takes place. An economy would be called low carbon, because it would emit less GHG, not causing the negative consequences that impact humanity. Otherwise, a low carbon economy is an economic model with low energy consumption. The key to the low carbon economy is to realize the high efficiency in energy use; clean energy development mechanisms; sustainable production; and include technological innovation in energy production, and in their industries. There are no conventions with emission limit values ​​to explicitly define whether an economy is low carbon. However, it can be measured in the economic group to which it belongs (for example, measuring per capita carbon intensity of the economy analyzed in the G20 or in its geopolitical sphere). This proposal must be managed by each nation, with programs of low carbon economies with multilateral integrations with other nations, and the internal management of its geo-political regions, that is, in the public management of macro-regions or  group of nations. Countries with low carbon economies would thus typically be nations that have been able to introduce practices that are considered to be up-to-date and effective in reducing GHG emissions. To provide a low-carbon economy, it is necessary to know the country's energy matrix. Here are some observations with respect to GHG producers: - In the world, only the energy sector is responsible for more than 1 in 4 units of GHG emission volume. The main opportunities for reducing energy would come with the introduction of Carbon Capture and Storage, use of Nuclear Energy, and use of renewable sources - The profile of the energy sector in each region strongly impacts its emissions volume and, in turn, the management of reduction policies.- - - - Countries with a weight in nuclear energy (eg France) or hydroelectric energy profile (eg Brazil) or non-renewable energy (such as China and the US) bring these differences - The other 3 large groups would be: Industry (Oil, Gas, Cement, Metals, Chemical, etc.); Consumer Sectors (Transportation, Buildings and Garbage / Waste); and Sectors linked to land use (Agriculture and Forestry) Contributions of typical reductions due to consumer behavior change would be: - Smart buildings - Transportation: Smaller cars with more efficient steering, less displacement; Less use of air transport; Greater use of rail, bus, walking and bicycle - Agriculture: Decrease in meat consumption in developing regions; Change in the consumption of ruminant meat for other types of animals - Transhipment effect in industrial sectors: Decrease in the use of cement (Buildings), Iron and Steel (Building and Transport) and Chemicals (Buildings and transport). Thus, a low carbon economy must strongly consider its energy matrix, its current economy and the behavior of society to structure a successful public policy. Read the full article

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[connected-future]

Big Data - Part II - How Society Transforms itself with Big Data

Like Internet of Things and other innovations, Big Data will undoubtedly bring a series of changes in society. We will highlight some very frequently pointed out: Availability. One positive aspect that comes quickly is to think is the availability of information for our convenience. Information of unprecedented nature and in greater volume, with analytical treatment for each case. This will allow us to decide as consumers, as citizens or as professionals, a way to take insurance, and much more quickly. Agility, automation and performance. Possessing more information and, rather, information not previously available - will allow us to act fast, automatically route processes and have results in a chain of actions that can start automatically by capturing data, until its treatment, so that it arrives in our hands very quickly. Taken in a macro view, it will bring a society more agile, reactive, aware and very responsive to actions in chain. In the business environment, it can be a speed that will put the company ahead of competitors, and in a public administration, an information and process that will bring well-being and quality to the citizens in a forceful way. For us, we already see this trend - we want to be more connected, informed of our interests anywhere, anytime. Multi-Segmented Society. It is not new the use of segments, for product creation, customer service, marketing campaigns, etc. Business Intelligence software has been collaborating on this aspect for years. However, Big Data's proposal is an extrapolation of the segments, enabled by its innovative and high-capacity architecture. The stratification will be richer, reaching micro segments according to the analytical objective. Data from social networks combined with use of services, combined with regional anonymous data, age, behavioral, location, etc. can create dynamic segments, where traditional marketing actions, service offerings will become richer. Society will be analyzed through more enriched behavior. More Transparency in various activities. The information available to people, companies, organizations was increasing with time, in the digital medium or not. Some decades ago, citizens started interacting with the Web for various purposes. In the criminal or legal context, the internet should be seen as an extension of reality, not introducing a step of privacy, but maintaining historical privacy, always defended from the point of view of the law. Thus, according to legal investigation procedures, with respect for privacy - activities like civil, public, financial, labor, etc., that involve people and businesses will be better documented and available in part when needed. In the end, it is easier to gather information about individuals faster, with more volume, with more variety. In another way, we can say that these activities have more transparency and is a way of defending society more in a preventive or corrective way of illegal acts. Like any powerful tool, Big Data can be used for a variety of purposes, whether ethical or not, but we understand that in the aggregate, society is allowed to regulate itself around its welfare and there are advantages to a greater degree. Capturing data from all these activities enriches the history of individuals, corporations and public organizations, making them all "charge" for correct behavior, and this intention predominates in a society. Innovation in Economic Activity. Imagine that you realize that farmers with information in detail on the claims of crop buyers - local or external - are fundamental information for their survival, and this is done by direct communication or by trying to understand the market. Imagine carriers that act more or less on demand, including seasonality and the market as a whole, but on demand. Imagine that the public administration directed to the rural area of ​​some of our states has an agricultural incentive amount, in the training of technicians in several areas, but it promotes trainings and courses in a historical way, according to traditional demand. Where does this all relate? Considering that a new perspective of capture, analytical analysis and business intelligence is part of the Big Data world, but with an unprecedented way of dealing with large volumes online, with a lot of variety and speed, imagine the value that can be provided to these economic activities. Crossing data from areas with interrelated processes can give new answers by supporting previously unimagined business. The application in this case, having access to these various themes, is to give greater depth to the decision of each of these segments. The carrier, in possession of the intentions of agricultural groups, as well as the public administrator, will act in a more specific way. Farming businesses can benefit from a more complete network of purchase intentions for their network. Notice that in these cases, we already work with trends, pre-contracts or market information, but what we talk about here is an application that treats this cross-information benefiting the entire economic chain, in a simplified example. Information on economic activities is already migrating in an accessible way for the network, but as many segments, it is necessary to have a standard form of use, think of integrator and knowledge-maker partnerships, intelligence in the software and connect the sources appropriately. In the field of Health, we will have more information on treatment and medical records, access to data from pharmaceutical companies, wearables for monitoring people, surveys, endemic data, more specialized information treated, social networking data, expert blogs. Data structured on bases or not. Data that will eventually need to be anonymous due to privacy. Data that will be protected due to financial interests. However, with the use of Big Data and its applications at the top, aiming for "e-Health", there will be a pressure for information. Competition, regulatory, common practices ... will surely read from the connected society the need to structure, interconnect, allow health mashups to evolve. Big Data is a typical architecture here, translating data from multiple sources, merging structured data or not, and offering analysis and decision-making tools for the whole society at the top. In the area of ​​Public Administration, very good news. For the citizen, and the public administrator, in our country, because we know that they need to know each other better. In many places, having information of demands of various types of citizen and acting with this priority can be the difference of a good or bad government. Otherwise, it can make the citizen use of better services and that are rendered in a more convenient way. Location, segmentation, feasibility, all the conditions that classify the life of all in the city are opportunities of an interaction with the administration. Manage investments, services, taxes, local talent, all this opens up a new perspective with a volume and variety that Big Data allows. On the issue of governance as a whole, the public sector will have a better chance of reducing fraud and illiquidity, reducing costs, prioritizing investments, conducting social programs, balancing revenue and improving security and transportation. In the retail area, the benefits of improving customer experiences with more information, being aware of customer participation in social networks, and driving better targeted, almost one-to-one campaigns with personalized offerings are unprecedented differentials offered by business process with Big Data. In this area that has fierce competition and is dynamic, having this information online, and responding promptly is essential. Being reactive to the market in this complete and fast way is a differential that every retailer seeks. Even with the best Customer Care, marketing and e-commerce tools, it will be inevitable at a certain point to build your Big Data base to be competitive. Behind the scenes, having efficient inventory and logistics, customizing channels with supply and coverage, and working at the right prices for each time and place are other benefits. In the industrial and manufacturing, education, justice and banking, banking areas there are also benefits, and we are getting rich in cases of success in all areas. The interesting thing is that applications that cross information between the sectors enrich and potentiate each sector. As it is said, we have a glimpse of a society with more options, much more information, and it is a way without return. So, what we see is a trend that starts, but it will still transform our society a lot. Creation of new types of information, new segments, new data models. In addition to a richer nature of included sources, in parallel a much greater intensity of the traditional data creates this panorama. A greater view of information and smaller systems predominating in corporate architectures will be typical. External sources, many partners, data in the cloud, integration with social networks, internet of things are the ingredients that complement Big Data transformation. (to be continued) Main image from "CreativeMagic" @ Pixabay.com               Read the full article

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[connected-future]

Us and Them

Belma Polat had an important mission in the media company she worked for. In fact a big conglomerate with TV company, online radio, portals, etc. She was in charge of understanding the hatred that was swarming in Turkey. As they were going through a time of political elections, the feeling that hatred was everywhere was greater. But Belma was not a career journalist, actually she was Big Data's support for a group of high-profile journalists. She was the youngest in the group, and it was the first really interesting job at the company, something that could give her a great reputation and participate in top media stories. Belma's group work was to use the company's Big Data, along with contracted statistics and external databases, to eventually generate a report on hatred in the country. Belma knew that this was not only a problem of her country, several nations in the Americas, in Europe, all over the world went through this. A simple matter, a giant job. The answer could not be specific, linked to polarized positions of an election, social, sporting or political question. She needed to know the historical roots, and understood that she had to navigate a little bit in philosophy, sociology, and, of course, history itself. She had what they considered there, a long time. 5 days to produce the outcome! Belma gathered a lot of data, but could not correlate hatred with polarizing ideas in a universal context. The results were clear when judged on a case-by-case basis, and she was able to understand what leads people to prefer this or that political ideology, this or that religion, this or that opinion about front-page media events. But everything was clouded when extrapolating to hatred without the variable of the event, the context, the subject itself. Was hatred present in every human being? This led Delma to religious and philosophical research, but did not answer the question to give content to the report, via a structured and then written deduction. The demographic data, the statistics of pre-existing opinions helped her a lot, this in itself had already been a beautiful job, but she felt she lacked the icing on the cake, the link that would tie it all together. The last day has come. Belma was exhausted with that work done without pause. Overactive, she confessed to the family that feared for an incomplete outcome for her job. She decided to stop a little and visit her grandfather, actually a neighbor of Delma and as always he was taking care of his motorcycle in the garage of a small house. Her grandfather was an old-fashioned hippie, but she adored him. He had a great feature—did not judge anyone, you might say. In telling his dilemma, his grandfather gave no advice as always, just said: "You will not get anywhere like that. You are restless. I see it in your face. How about just doing something light, looking at the flowers, listening to the music ... " At that moment, his grandfather's playlist moved on to the next song, and of course, everything revolved around classical rock in that garage. It began to play US AND THEM from Pink Floyd. A hit from the early 70's, his grandfather's style. She listened to the lyrics: “Us and them And after all we're only ordinary men Me and you God only knows It's not what we would choose to do … Black and blue And who knows which is which and who is who Up and down And in the end it's only round 'n round Haven't you heard it's a battle of words” Belma smiled. Would it be an insight thanks to Grandfather and Pink Floyd? In the end, was it all about "Us and Them"? Perhaps. Sectarianism was historical and accompanied all polarizations. Over time, it no longer mattered what one group believed, it was mutant for individuals in the same data segment. But on the other hand, once the inner truths were established, there was a feeling of "Us", which would in no way feel as "Them". From then on, aggregations of what was "good" fell on the "Us", and what was bad about the "Them". Each created in an almost unconscious way, a framework of arguments for any and all defense of polarization, the continuity of hatred. This was done with such psychic "violence," that love and hate were heavy on the issue. It was no longer a logical opinion, a technical argument, ever. It was, however, a defense from the depths of every being's guts. Whoever defended what he did not believe was now almost an enemy, someone without good will, they were "Them". It was forged intolerance, and with it, hatred. Belma knew it was an insight, yes, perhaps, just a daydream. But she had an inner certainty that it was the way. She did not know if she would succeed, because it will require to base all that with data... many data, many models. But those hours of hard work remained, was within her expertise. At that moment, the grandfather looked at her and saw the change in Belma's expression. She gave him a kiss and touched the bike, saying ... "Pretty." Belma left leaving a smile on grandfather's face who continued the maintenance and listening to his playlist. Main Imagem at pixabay.com from "999theone".                          Read the full article

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