Tech and Business Review: June 10, 2017

In Technology by Shelly KramerLeave a Comment

Tech and Business Review: June 10, 2017

Last week Shelly Kramer was in Vegas to attend and moderate the Women in Tech panel during the #Pegaworld Conference. Following her tweets during the conference just reiterates the idea that technology is driving innovation in business. Those who do not embrace and adapt digital transformation in their organizations will be left behind. No matter how busy we get, we always make it a point to curate and share news we found that may pique your interest. Let’s get started. 

7 ways AI will revolutionize business travel.  I travel a lot for business and make it a point to go on vacation at least a couple of times a year. One of my biggest pet peeves is heading to an airline boarding area only to find out the gate has changed. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get notified before schlepping halfway through the airport? AI technology, machine learning and robotics has and is impacting many areas of business and these technologies will also impact business travel soon. Delivering a more personalized experience and experiencing fewer over booking dramas are just two of these ways.  This article shared by Sunny Hoi highlights seven ways technology will revolutionize the travel industry.

Shopify’s Kit virtual shop assistant is now free for all merchants. If you’re a Shopify merchant or planning to be, I have some good news for you. You can now avail yourself of Shopify’s virtual assistant named Kit for free. In the past, this service would carry an upcharge of $10 to $25 a month per user.

All Shopify merchants can now of the Kit office assistant at no additional cost. As a business owner myself, free labor is always good news especially if you have a business or a startup and you’re dealing with tight-margins. Kit is a fully automated VA that will communicate with you via text, email or Facebook Messenger. Kit can write your messaging, pull images and submit ad copy for you. Kit will handle all the technical stuff allowing you, as the merchant, to concentrate on other important business matters. Get the 411 by reading this article from TechCrunch shared by Steven Krohn on Twitter.

Ten best practices for securing the Internet of Things in your organization. If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, one of the biggest headaches that businesses are encountering today is dealing with cybersecurity. In recent months, we’ve seen sophisticated phishing attacks that have targeted Google docs users. The most recent one is the WannaCry attack. This massive online attack—by the group “Shadow Brokers”—occurred across tens of thousands of computers with more than 150 countries affected. This forced some affected computer owners to pay money or risk data loss.

With the increase of connected devices, security measures must be a priority. For IoT deployment to be successful, enterprise owners must consider proper cybersecurity measures from the onset. To help with that, here are ten best practices your company should consider implementing.  Thank you Gil Press for sharing this article from ZDnet on Twitter. A definite must read.

iOS 11’s new ‘Password Autofill for Apps’ won’t work with (or replace) your favorite password manager. We all know how much of a pain managing and dealing with the myriad of passwords for the endless number of websites we interact with daily. Well, Apple may have a solution to your password hell!

The next version of Apple’s iOS operating system, iOS 11, will be introducing a new feature called “Password AutoFill for Apps.” This new feature will offer users much easier access to your passwords, right from the iOS keyboard, when you’re on an app’s login screen.

As Apple noted in the recent keynote presentation last week at WWDC, logging into apps is a source of friction for many users. We’re supposed to use complex passwords, change them often and not store them in unsecured places. But that is easier said than done for many users.

The new PassWord AutoFill for Apps in iOS 11 will no longer rely on that same level of developer adoption as is the case with existing third party password lockers. Instead, iOS 11 itself will figure out which credentials to display in the app based on those users already have saved.

The find out more about this potentially game changing development, check out this article shared by Shakthi on Twitter.

Amazon drops its unlimited cloud storage plan. In the past, Amazon cloud storage subscribers could store as much data as they wanted for around $60 per year. Yesterday, Amazon announced that their customers will now have a choice between two new plan tiers: a 100 GB plan for $11.99 per year or a 1TB plan for $59.99 per year. If you require additional storage space, you can purchase up to 30 TB for an additional $59.99 per terabyte.

If you’re an existing unlimited customer, you still get use your unlimited plan until the end of this year before having to switch to one of the new plans. To find out more about this new development and the new options, check out this article shared by Charles Millander.

Satellites are critical for IoT sector to reach its full potential. The Internet of Things or IoT is already impacting how we live and do business. Most homes now have smart appliances, self-driving cars are already here and soon businesses will have entire self-driving fleets of vehicles at their disposal.  It’s projected that there will be 20 billion connected things  in use by 2020.

According to this article from TechCrunch, the biggest challenge that we will encounter is that no single technology or company may be able to reach or handle all possible markets and customers while at the same time handling the multitude of connections required and massive amount of data will be captured.

Satellite technology will certainly play a critical role in realizing the full potential of interconnected devices. To better understand how this is going to be implemented, click on the link shared by the smart  Tamara McCleary.

Photo Credit: CommScope Flickr via Compfight cc

Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years' experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging development, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly's coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”

Leave a Comment