SHENZHEN, China, July 30, 2021 — Huion announces three big screen pen displays today, Kamvas 24, Kamvas 24 Plus, and Kamvas Pro 24(4K). Two from its Kamvas series and one from its Kamvas Pro series. Featured with upgraded performances, these pen displays are designed for creators specialized in animation, gaming, industrial design, etc.
Kamvas Pro 24(4K)
Kamvas Pro 24(4K)
Kamvas Pro 24(4K) with premium design and performance is a flagship product of Huion. 4K UHD resolution, quantum-dot technology, 140% sRGB color gamut, 1200:1 contrast ratio, and HDR technology are making Kamvas Pro 24(4K) an ideal pen display for immersive visual experience. Like most Huion pen displays, Kamvas Pro 24(4K) also adopts the full lamination technology and anti-glare etched glass for minimized parallax and natural pen-on-paper drawing experiences.
Additionally, Kamvas Pro 24(4K) is embedded with two foldable feet with which users can enjoy the creation at an angle of 20 degrees. But for those who want more diversity and flexibility, monitor arm ST410/ST420 or the adjustable stand ST100A may be more suitable, as they can support more angles for users to find the most comfortable postures when drawing.
Kamvas 24 & Kamvas 24 Plus
Kamvas 24 & Kamvas 24 Plus
Kamvas 24 and Kamvas 24 Plus are the sixth products of Kamvas series. Compared to their predecessors, Kamvas 24 and Kamvas 24 Plus not only boast the largest 23.8inch screen but also feature 2.5K QHD resolution. Kamvas 24 Plus even adopts the quantum dot technology which enhances the color gamut to 140% sRGB and the contrast ratio to 1200:1, enabling more vibrant and vivid picture presentation.
Create more with the digital pen
These three pen displays all come with the digital pen PW517. Developed based on Huion PenTech3.0, PW517 enables more natural and stable drawing experience. Huion also introduced the felt pen nib for the first time, which will come with Kamvas Pro 24(4K).
8192 levels of pressure sensitivity and >220PPS report rate enable instant reproducing of natural and delicate lines. ±60° tilt recognition supports the realization of various drawing techniques such as shading, sketching, and edging.
With the aim to bring digital ink solution to more people around the world, Huion has always been committed to offering better products to creative professionals as well as beginners.
For more information about Huion products, please visit www.huion.com.
HUAWEI has been on a roll these few years. They may have been restricted in using Google’s ecosystem to its fullest joy, but they did not show any signs of slowing down. In fact, at least outside of China, Malaysia has been one of the strongest market for HUAWEI, at least according to them.
They have started embarking into building a product ecosystem though. They made audio peripherals, they made home appliances too. They made notebook PCs, and recently Smart TVs. Now, they make PC monitors.
Welcome to the world of 4K+ resolution that is the HUAWEI MateView. This is not the gaming monitor, that would be the MateView GT with only half the resolution of this unit. This is the monitor made for the working class. This is a monitor made and built for an executive.
There is a small fact that this will set you back MYR 2,988 in retail though. It is also a little oddly shaped for a PC monitor at 3:2 display ratio. You also cannot detach the built-in tiltable stand.
Is the HUAWEI MateView the world changing monitor that HUAWEI wants it to be? Should you even care about this product? Better yet, should you spend your hard-earned money for this piece of kit?
Design
There are no colour options on this monitor, just silver. Nothing wrong with the colour though once you lift it out from the box to put it on your desk. To be fair, silver might not work all that well if you desk tip is black in colour. We do think that the matte, muted silver will look better when you pair it with brighter colours. That is just our personal opinions on that matter though, we are not professional interior designer, so you might want to take this comment with a pinch of salt.
The 28.2-inch 4K+ monitor looks impressive all around. The muted silver finish makes the whole package looks ultra-premium and professional at the same time. Its skinny profiled stand and base looks sleek and elegant.
You notice that there are perforated holes on the bottom of the front-facing place of the stand. That is the 5W dual speakers that is directly connected to the monitor. The base of the monitor is an NFC plate for HUAWEI Share, not a wireless charging pad.
The port placements are rather clean too. Since the stand is an integrated part of the monitor, which means that HUAWEI can easily keep the display portion clean and thin by moving plenty of the components to the stand. All the necessary ports are kept to the back and side of the stand. This also means you cannot mount the monitor on a VESA stand or desk mounts.
The tilting hinge is encased in chrome ball joint looking mechanism which actually looks very pretty. It looks at home at any desks that is meant for productivity and play in any home. While the large HUAWEI logo at the back is also chrome in colour, it is somehow done in good taste.
While we do appreciate the cleanliness in design language of the HUAWEI MateView, we would also like some VESA mount compatibility. The single piece design is clever, because it allows HUAWEI to integrate most of its components on its base stand. Thing is, there are modern 4K monitors that fits everything the HUAWEI MateView has on its base stand to the monitor housing itself without adding too much heft to it, and they are all VESA mount compatible. It could add a little bit in thickness for the HUAWEI MateView, sure, but its compatibility with VESA mount also means that users are given an extra layer of flexibility in their set-up.
Hardware
The large silver slab is not just a looker though. As we mentioned, it is supposed to be a premium item to sit on your desk. At the kind of price it commands, it better be.
TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light Flicker Free certification
Miscellaneous
WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Bluetooth 5.1
Features
From the looks of it, the HUAWEI MateView is feature packed. To say that this is merely another PC monitor for your desk could be a little unfair. It is mainly made to be on a desk top and serve as a monitor for your PC, or tablet, or smartphone though.
Your Friendly USB Hub
You get one HDMI 2.0 port, a MiniDP port, and one USB Type-C power input port capable of taking on 135W. The adapter for the monitor is a 135W unit as well, so you can technically use it to charge your smartphones or tablets or laptops if you want. There are two additional USB Type-A ports on the right side of the device alongside a USB Type-C port and a 3.5mm jack above the elliptical power button.
The HUAWEI MateView doubles as a USB hub for your PC. Thanks to its placement too, the ports are a lot easier to access compared to other modern monitors. The USB Type-C port on the side can also charge at up to 65W, which also means your thin and light notebooks and tablets can be kept charged while projecting to the HUAWEI MateView.
Dual 5W speakers with Built-in Dual Mic
The dual 5W speakers is basically just that, regular speakers and sounds pretty much like any generic small form factor wireless speakers. Because there is no subwoofer, low end frequencies tend to be a little weak. There is little space to fit a subwoofer though, so the lack of lower-end frequencies is forgivable.
Where the combination of this speaker and mic shines though is when you use the MateView for the work and social stuff. Audio from the speakers is perfect in video chats or voice chats. At the same the mic performs great too, with users at the other end of the line reporting clear voice quality. The users at the other end of the line did report that my voice gets cut out from time to time though. We suspect internet speed and stability issues, or it could just be HUAWEI’s noise cancelling algorithm messing about.
Navigate with Smart Bar
Instead of physical buttons, the HUAWEI MatePad has a touch sensitive bar to navigate through its settings. The Smart Bar, as they call it, does contribute a little bit to the clean, polished look of the premium HUAWEI MateView. The Smart Bar does allow for some quick and accurate navigation through the OSD unlike physical buttons you can barely see though.
If you leave the HUAWEI MateView unplugged and disconnected from any device at all, the display shows its own interface and home screen. That home screen allows you to go through the monitors settings and also allows you to choose the monitor’s primary input when you need to. You navigate through that with the Smart Bar, or you can plug in a mouse to the USB ports. You either slide it side to side to navigate the interface and tap once to confirm your selection, twice to back out of a settings menu when you need to. This monitor does WiFi and Bluetooth, though we are not fully able to take advantage of the two features at the time of testing because HUAWEI has not made the device available to connect with on the HUAWEI’s AI Life app at the time of testing.
Once plugged in to a display source, the smart bar is still the way to navigate the On-Screen Display (OSD). The smart bar now doubles as a volume control slider though, which is clever. You tap once to get into the regular OSD to change your settings and input. To control the volume of the built-in speakers, you simply slide your finger along the smart bar.
HUAWEI Share
HUAWEI Share is also integrated to the HUAWEI MateView monitor, as we have mentioned. It is placed on the base plate of the monitor. Still, integrating that HUAWEI OneHop Share functionality is clever, except, you need to have a modern HUAWEI device with EMUI 11 or later and NFC capabilities to take advantage of it. We do not have a HUAWEI EMUI 11 or Harmony OS 2 device that supports the OneHop NFC capability.
While we do understand that this is a HUAWEI device, their implementation to exclusively support HUAWEI Share alienates it from other Android smartphone user. It does make a lot of sense if you do have a HUAWEI smartphone to work with. Except, not all HUAWEI smartphones are treated equally here too. All HUAWEI devices that are not updated to EMUI 11 or Harmony OS 2.0 will not get access to the HUAWEI Share feature. In that sense, HUAWEI is not just alienating other Android users, they are alienating their own users who held on to HUAWEI devices that are not even 3 years old.
On top of that, we genuinely think that the base plate would be much better off if HUAWEI decided to use it as a wireless charging plate. It is the most sensible place for a wireless charging station, after all. The HUAWEI Share sensor can be moved to either the side, or top, or even the bottom part of the monitor module, in our humble opinions.
Options
We tested the HUAWEI MateView mostly with a USB Type-C connection. Meaning we took advantage of the Thunderbolt capabilities of the HUAWEI MateView too. We connected our thin and light Lenovo Yoga S730 via USB Type-C and later on an Acer Predator Triton 500, also via USB Type-C. Thankfully, the HUAWEI MateView charges the Lenovo Yoga S703 at 65W too, so that is always a bonus.
We used the HDMI 2.0 port of the HUAWEI MateView too with the Acer Predator Triton 500. The only issue is that the HDMI 2.0 connection only allows for the display to work with 50Hz in refresh rate due to the bandwidth limitation of the HDMI 2.0 itself. We could not get our PlayStation 4 Pro to work with the display though, oddly enough. To get the best experience of the 4K+ at 60Hz, you want to use a MiniDP to DisplayPort (provided) cable or USB Type-C to USB Type-C (provided) cable. Of course, make sure your PC can project via USB Type-C.
We would prefer a standard DisplayPort 1.4 on the monitor though. Finding a MiniDP-to-MiniDP Thunderbolt cable proves to be quite difficult. At the same time, there is space behind the stand to house a standard DisplayPort 1.4, which makes it even stranger for the HUAWEI MateView not to include one.
We did a wireless projection with a HUAWEI MatePad Pro (2020) in both regular and Desktop Mode and got quite odd results. The display was not rationed properly, the image looks a little stretched vertically. While that can be easily rectified by connecting the tablet to the display via USB Type-C, it is kind of annoying and defeats the purpose of having wireless projection on the display.
Performance – Satisfying 4K+, Beautiful Colours
The biggest draw of the HUAWEI MateView is no doubt its 4K+ IPS panel that will be the main point of its interaction with its users. At 28.2-inch, the MateView is not exactly small, but is probably the smallest 4K display of its type. Then again, this is the only 4K display of its type at this time projecting 3,840 x 2,560 (3:2) pixels instead of the usual 3,840 x 2,160 (16:9).
The 4K+ resolution is displayed at ΔE<2, and at DCI-P3 coverage of 98%, or 100% sRGB coverage. These numbers basically mean that the HUAWEI MateView features one of the best colour reproductions on its 28.2-inch panel at this time. It also features HDR 400 with 1,200:1 contrast ratio, if you must know.
Bright, Vibrant Colours
We had to turn down the brightness of the display to 80% from full brightness. At full 500nits, the display is way too bright to be used in a room. If you are using this in a darker situation, you do want to turn it down even further because the HUAWEI MateView can get overly bright. Considering that you might be using the HUAWEI Mateview in a well-lit room or under natural lighting though, 500nits could be useful.
There are also a few presets for the display colour profile that you can choose from. We set ours to DCI-P3 colour profile, just because we think it looks best. Images look vibrant with highly saturated colours on this display. Because it is a 4K display too, pixels on lower resolution images get a little exaggerated when displayed fullscreen. High-resolution photographs look stunning on this though.
In these presets though, you cannot change your other colour and temperature settings. Settings like contrast and gamma is locked off. The only thing you have going for you is the brightness control.
Going to the Movies
Movies and films from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and even Disney+ Hotstar are easy to enjoy on the HUAWEI MateView. Even when you watch Full HD 1080p films on the HUAWEI MateView, while you do notice some graininess a little, it still looks great because colours are vivid. High framerate films like Formula 1: Drive to Survive also highlights the MateView’s brilliant contrasts. The bright colours that are projected on darker backdrops are clear as day and sharp. Even the colourful fast-moving cars look great on the MateView itself.
… Or Edit Your Films
Naturally, a 4K+ resolution display will, inevitably, used for creative work. While it may not be the best or top-of-the-line display in terms of creative work, it has all the right qualities for be one of the better displays for content creators. If you are not into 3D work and high-framerate visuals, this should be good enough. We used the 4K+ monitor as a secondary monitor to basically scrutinise our video work. We record most of our videos in 4K and publish them in 1080p Full HD resolution. The added detail you can see from a 4K resolution display also means that we get to be a little more detailed when it comes to our work too. Of course, colour grading is a breeze with highly accurate colours. But the matte finish of the display, which is not typical for colour accurate displays, helps with video and image editing in a brightly lit room.
… Or Game, Because Why Not?
While not something that the HUAWEI MateView is created for, you can game on it. Yes, the display aspect ratio is a little odd at 3:2. A wider vertical view does mean a little more environmental detail on your display on the top and bottom of the monitor. Thing is, you want more peripheral view instead of more to see from the top and bottom of the display, so it does not make that much of a difference in some sense. Still, you can set games to work on the 4K+ resolution at 60Hz, and that is important.
Games in 4K+ does look impressive with details you have never expected before. Colours still pop in games like GTA V and No Man’s Sky. Shadow of the Tomb Raider looks amazing on 4K+. Here is the thing though, to play your games at 4K+ resolution at 60fps requires you to have substantial power from your gaming rig. Not every game will be able to run at 60Hz or even smoothly on 4K+ resolution and you can see the limitations kicking in when you fire games like GTA V up and set everything to ultra. Strangely enough, No Man’s Sky runs great at Ultra settings with speeds hitting above 50fps at times. Keep in mind that this is on a 10th Generation Intel Core i7 paired with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super platform.
The HUAWEI MateView – Impressive, But Maybe Not
Before you get confused with the heading, we do really want to say that we are impressed with the HUAWEI MateView. We like it, even. But there are a few glaring issues we cannot seem to wrap our heads around.
The biggest problem is that it will set you back MYR 2,988. At the time of writing, Samsung’s similar UR55 28-inch 4K monitor technically offers a wider 4K experience (16:9) and an IPS panel as well for MYR 1,399 and it comes with AMD FreeSync. You can even find a 27-inch Dell 4K UHD monitor at MYR 1,589 at this time. A BenQ 27-inch 4K UHD display will also only set you back MYR 2,699, MYR 300 less than the HUAWEI with three built-in speakers and AMD FreeSync technology too. All of them comes with standard DisplayPort as well.
If you are buying for entertainment purposes, what is wrong with a 4K UHD smart TV? While it does have some wireless features, its experience on other devices that does not support its version of HUAWEI Share is not exactly great or seamless. You are still better off with cables in the case of using the display with your smartphone or tablet devices anyway.
We have to admit that we thoroughly enjoyed the HUAWEI MateView. It looks great and as a PC monitor, it works great. Add the mic functionality and speakers that sound better than average speakers from most displays, wireless connectivity capabilities, and its colour accuracy, it is a compelling display to work with. We may not completely understand its incompatibility with systems other than HUAWEI’s own (well, we do, but we think it is a little ridiculous).
In the end, would this be something we would recommend our friends to buy? In short, no. Unfortunately, there are plenty of other far more compelling products at the same price or even less. The HUAWEI MateView, while it isnot a bad product in any way, does not feel and work like a product that commands its price tag.
Newest features include a powerful in-product designer for developing digital forms with no-code custom branding and themes, error handling, and automated deployment capabilities to enhance app lifecycle management
MELBOURNE, Australia, July 30, 2021 — Nintex, the global standard for process management and automation, today announced the latest enhancements to Nintex K2 Five, its powerful low-code process automation on-premise software that IT professionals, app developers, and power users leverage to build powerful process and workflow applications with speed and ease.
To experience how organisations like Ballast Nedam, First Solar, Shoosmiths, and Stihl are building process apps fast and digitising workflows and forms with Nintex K2 Software, visit https://www.nintex.com/case-studies/NintexK2Software
"Since Nintex acquired K2 in October 2020, our teams have been hard at work to ensure we continue to provide our global Nintex community with technology innovations that take a modern approach to process automation and application development," said Nintex Chief Product Officer Neal Gottsacker. "Our latest features within Nintex K2 Five further empower IT teams and app developers to rapidly and easily build mission-critical solutions."
New features include:
Style Profile The new Style Profile provides a visual design experience for creating customised themes and styles that can be applied to any form, enabling organisations to standardise the look-and-feel of all applications to match corporate brand guidelines or create different looks for each application they build.
Built-in error resolution Error resolution handling can be customised for apps with "On Workflow Error" events, empowering teams to specify what action should be taken when an error occurs.
Automated deployment Existing CI/CD pipelines can be supported with enhanced capabilities for automated packaging and deployment of K2 Software-based applications and dependent resources.
Improving the way people work
First Solar, one of the world’s largest solar manufacturers, leverages the Nintex K2 Five process automation platform to centralise support while gaining the flexibility to build workflows.
"Nintex K2 Five gives us the ability to get solutions out the door a lot faster. We’ve been able to get the same amount of work done in less time but with better quality. You don’t have to be a developer to build things, which has expanded the number of people who can work on things internally and reduced our reliance on third parties and offshore developers," said Charles Carr, Manager, IT, First Solar.
Designed to solve business problems quickly and at scale, three of the most notable benefits of Nintex K2 Five include:
Process apps that are built and deployed rapidly With low-code tooling, organisations can build powerful process apps with the simplicity of drag-and-drop design.
Empowered teams and maximised resources IT can build and deploy customised apps faster while enabling less-technical power users to automate their own workflows in a low-code setting.
Take control of processes and workflows Improve visibility into enterprise-wide processes while maintaining control and governance over who has access and what information they have access to.
About Nintex Nintex is the global standard for process management and automation. Today more than 10,000 public and private sector organisations across 90 countries turn to the Nintex Platform to accelerate progress on their digital transformation journeys by quickly and easily managing, automating and optimising business processes. Learn more by visiting www.nintex.com and experience how Nintex and its global partner network are shaping the future of Intelligent Process Automation (IPA).
Financial services will remain the largest contributor to the European MSS/PSS market until 2024, finds Frost & Sullivan
SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 30, 2021 — Increasing cyber-threats coupled with a shortage of cybersecurity professionals in Europe is compelling organizations to turn toward managed and professional security services (MSS/PSS) companies. Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, European Managed & Professional Security Services Market, reveals that the dynamic threat landscape requires security vendors to look for efficiencies and invest in new technologies incorporating automation such as breach and attack simulation (BAS) platforms. Despite being fragmented, the European MSS/PSS market is estimated to reach $10.92 billion by 2024 from $8.50 billion in 2021. This study includes revenue forecast by region, vertical, and enterprise size, growth drivers, key trends, and insights for chief information security officers (CISOs).
"Financial services is the largest contributor to the European MSS/PSS market, accounting for 26.4% of total market revenue in 2020, and will remain the largest revenue contributor till 2024," said Piotr Kopczynski, Security Research Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. "The manufacturing sector, the second-largest contributor to the market, has witnessed a significant increase in the MSS/PSS penetration rates over the past three years as a result of increasingly high-profile attacks that halted production and negatively impacted revenues for affected organizations."
Kopczynski added: "Additionally, increasing security incidents and the continuing shortage of cybersecurity professionals will drive demand for better artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled security technologies that can improve communication between customers and MSS security operations centers (SOCs). Further, vendors that do not adapt their portfolios to incorporate automation in the SOC or fail to address competition from cloud solutions vendors baking security into their offerings will have difficulty growing."
Organizations’ move to mitigate the dynamically changing threat landscape presents lucrative growth prospects for market participants, such as:
Expansion into the Operational Technology (OT) Market: Managed security service provider (MSSP) vendors should expand their service portfolio through partnerships with OT security vendors that are helping secure OT networks.
Breach and Attack Simulation Technology: MSSPs need to invest in market education initiatives to increase awareness about BAS technology and its advantages over traditional cyber risk assessment solutions, such as human-based penetration testing, red team exercises, and vulnerability management tools.
Well-designed Zero-trust Environments: Security initiatives are increasingly focused on zero-trust framework environments; thus, PSS firms need to strengthen their offerings to put zero-trust experts at the forefront of every engagement.
European Managed & Professional Security Services Market is the latest addition to Frost & Sullivan’s Security research and analyses available through the Frost & Sullivan Leadership Council, which helps organizations identify a continuous flow of growth opportunities to succeed in an unpredictable future.
About Frost & Sullivan
For six decades, Frost & Sullivan has been world-renowned for its role in helping investors, corporate leaders, and governments navigate economic changes and identify disruptive technologies, Mega Trends, new business models, and companies to action, resulting in a continuous flow of growth opportunities to drive future success. Contact us: Start the discussion
European Managed & Professional Security Services Market
When compared to two years ago, 65% of those surveyed put a greater organizational focus on employee experience
LIVONIA, Mich., July 29, 2021 — Leading global provider of integrated workforce management and employee experience solutions WorkForce Software released the results of the benchmark report titled, The State of Human Experience in the Workplacewhich it co-sponsored with IBM and eightfold.ai. SAPinsider surveyed 111 members of its community in May and June 2021 and generated responses from across a wide range of geographies, industries, and company sizes. The goal of the survey was to understand important factors driving human experience for SAP customers and to discover the strategies to adequately address these factors.
Employee experience has been a growing topic for years, but the COVID-19 pandemic has amplified its importance. With many employees forced to move to partial or fully remote working arrangements and deskless workers evaluating their options with alternative companies and roles, employers are seeking new ways to engage with both existing workers and potential recruits. The State of Human Experience in the Workplace report provides key insights into where organizations currently are on their employee experience management journey.
The report analysis includes the factors driving employee experience management strategies today and the top challenges employers have faced over the past year. When asked, "What Drives Employee Experience Strategy?" more than half (54%) of survey respondents indicated that an increase in remote work caused by the pandemic was their largest driver of employee experience strategy, followed by major organizational change (31%), increased competition for talent (27%), and higher employee turnover rate (25%).
When it comes to addressing these employee experience drivers, many companies say that optimizing self-service to make employee and work data more accessible is their lead action (indicated by 61% of respondents) and investing in technology to improve worker productivity is a tactic utilized by 59%, while 54% of respondents say creating spaces and processes to increase collaboration between employees and teams is one of their main focuses. Additionally, nearly 50% of respondents are adding or improving employee feedback or surveys to capture their employees’ sentiment, so they can better react in the moment and increase employee satisfaction.
These top tactics all involve technology and indicate a need for software solutions that will enable self-service, create collaboration spaces (particularly remotely), and better capture sentiment through in-the-moment surveys. However, the survey found that not many companies have actually implemented the software they need; just over one-third (35%) of respondents are currently using or implementing workforce management solutions (WFM), and over half are either planning to implement WFM in the next 24 months or are aware of the need for WFM.
Companies are even further behind with offering their employees end-to-end employee experience solutions — less than 2% of survey respondents currently use them. However, 72% of those surveyed are planning to implement end-to-end employee experience solutions in the next 24 months or are currently evaluating them.
"These survey results with SAPinsider underscore what our customers are telling us – now is the time to invest in modern technology to bolster employee experience in the workplace," said Alan Winegar, Chief Services Officer at WorkForce Software. "This past year has shown us that businesses that can pivot and be flexible and attentive to their employees’ changing needs will gain a competitive edge and opportunity to thrive. Investing in business operations that have a direct positive impact on your employees’ day-to-day work experience also have an impact on your customers’ increased satisfaction too. Great customer and employee retention are what we all strive for and modern WFM technology can help global businesses achieve that."
About WorkForce Software WorkForce Software is the first global provider of workforce management solutions with integrated employee experience capabilities. The company’s WorkForce Suite adapts to each organization’s needs—no matter how unique their pay rules, labor regulations, and schedules—while delivering a breakthrough employee experience at the time and place work happens. Enterprise-grade and future-ready, WorkForce Software is helping some of the world’s most innovative organizations optimize their workforce, protect against compliance risks, and increase employee engagement to unlock new potential for resiliency and optimal performance. Whether your employees are deskless or office workers, unionized, full-time, part-time, or seasonal, WorkForce Software makes managing your global workforce easy, less costly, and more rewarding for everyone. For more information, please visit WorkForceSoftware.com.
When I was a young boy growing up in Jersey in the British Channel Islands, I’d turn on the grainy TV to warm up so I could watch sports with my father and brother. FORMULA 1 racing was the most exciting sport for us, even though the cars often sped by faster than the camera operator and the technology could keep up.
Now, racing is covered in a far richer and more engaging way, especially since F1 launched F1 Insights powered by AWS in 2018, bringing data analytics as a live feed to my screens. Watching on my phone in Singapore, I love the real-time Car Performance Scores, which include thousands of data points streamed every second from every car on the track, giving me a much better understanding of where my favorite car ranks in the field – and what’s driving its performance.
It’s exactly this type of real-time information that businesses need to understand their performance, so they can make decisions rapidly and keep up with market changes. During the pandemic, we have learned that speed matters, whether you’re a digital native or a more traditional organization. As all businesses faced social distancing measures, those who survived the pandemic adopted new ways to do business, and they adapted fast using the cloud.
Some moved faster than others. Some enterprises with legacy systems seem resigned to moving slowly. Even today, I often hear comments like, “It’s just the nature of our size and heritage.”
We must debunk that myth. Speed is not preordained by heritage. Speed is a choice that any organization can make if it is prepared to harness the cloud. As a recent McKinsey article put it: “For CEOs, cloud adoption is not just an engine for revenue growth and efficiency. The cloud’s speed, scale, innovation, and productivity benefits are essential to the pursuit of broader digital business opportunities, now and well into the future.”
Culture Change
Many organizations can look for ways to change their culture and embrace speed, creating an environment that values urgency. In a culture designed for speed, people are actively encouraged to experiment and are rewarded for it. Although, flipping a switch won’t suddenly deliver speed – companies have to build muscle while they learn how to innovate at pace, all the time.
Amazon has been around for nearly 27 years, and to this day we maintain what we call a “Day 1” culture – approaching everything we do with the entrepreneurial spirit of being on the first day of your organization. We do this by giving our teams autonomy, on the understanding that they operate within the guardrails of our culture.
We believe the more we can equip people to make high judgment decisions at all levels, the better off we, and our customers, are. We encourage employees to make high-velocity, high-quality decisions by setting the vision and context for teams. Since Amazon was founded in 1994, we’ve consistently operated based on three big ideas that every employee knows. The first is to obsess over customers. This is cemented in our mission statement to be “earth’s most customer-centric company.” The second is that if we focus on the customer it will force us to innovate – to look at new ways of solving problems on behalf of our customers. The third is to be stubborn in sustaining our long-term vision while being flexible in how we get there.
As Jeff Bezos explains, “In a traditional corporate hierarchy, a junior executive comes up with a new idea that they want to try. They have to convince their boss, their boss’s boss, their boss’s boss’s boss and so on – any ‘no’ in that chain can kill the whole idea.” Systems and processes that identify, validate, and approve new ideas from within the business are invaluable in democratizing company-wide idea exploration and driving experimentation in business as usual. For example, at Amazon, we make it easy for those closest to our customers to raise ideas for speedy review. Imagine a time-wasting process or one that results in a poor customer experience. People complain about it regularly, but they know that it can be so hard to implement change, that it’s not worth the effort. The problem is put in the “too hard” basket and no one says anything. Now, imagine actually rewarding teams for suggesting a fix. Imagine if the process was fast and painless and resulted in change. How many great ideas would happen every week?
Thinking Big and Acting Small
Thinking big is the hallmark of innovation. But, as we look to move quickly and embrace greater experimentation, we should also look to de-risk the process. This means recognizing that the most powerful innovations often come through simplification. One small, seemingly insignificant cost or time-saving can drive enormous benefits for both companies and their customers when applied at scale. Thinking big also means starting big ideas with very small, reversible experiments. At Amazon, we look for “two-way doors.” If an experiment fails (as they often do), we can back out of the decision rather than being committed to moving ahead through a “one-way door,” which can be expensive and difficult to undo. This way, you learn quickly with very low stakes.
A great example of innovative thinking in the face of legacy technology is FashionValet. As the modest fashion brand grew, its multi-environment hybrid technology infrastructure was unable to keep up with demand during product launches. In 2019, FashionValet went all-in on AWS to optimize processes and meet growing demand. With Auto Scaling Groups and RDS Aurora features, FashionValet can now run 10x more servers during product launches to meet demand, then scale down automatically with no downtime. Using this technology, FashionValet has also accelerated their product development timeline by 200% and reduced their infrastructure management costs by 75%.
Companies don’t have to bet their business on innovation, but they shouldn’t let legacy thinking hold them back. By actively empowering teams, clearing the path to “Yes,” and using small experiments, companies can build capability to promote high-velocity decisions – helping them operate at the speed of F1.
Businesses today are not conducted in the office anymore. Business deals are also not sealed in a meeting room most of the time these days. Instead, if you consider the 2020/2021 pandemic situation, businesses and deals are conducted and sealed at home. But even before that, businesses and deals are done outside of the office environment like coffee shops and even restaurants, public spaces.
Portable computing solutions like notebook PCs play a big role in the rising trend in moving out of the office to get your work done though. At the same time, laptops are also getting more sophisticated, especially when they start becoming more function specific. For example, the ASUS ExpertBook line-up that ASUS just launched are built specifically for the modern road warrior.
ASUS ExpertBook B1
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
A thin and light notebook PC does not need have to come with a heavy price tag. The prime example of an affordable thin and light notebook that is also versatile is the ASUS ExpertBook B1 (B1400 & B1500). They are thin (19.2mm for B1400, 19.4mm for B1500), and they are not exactly back breaking (1.45kg for B1400, 1.73kg for B1500). While they may not be the lightest laptops available today, you do have to remember that the B1400 ExpertBook B1 is a 14-inch notebook, while the B1500 ExpertBook B1 is a 15.6-inch notebook.
The display size is the only thing that separates the two notebooks in the series though. The ExpertBook B1 notebooks come with up to the 11th Generation Intel Core i7 1165G7, a powerful CPU with Integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics. Alongside up to 8GB of RAM, the ExpertBook B1 makes short work of any sort of documents you need to get through for the day anywhere.
It is truly a laptop you can take anywhere with you with little worry that it will work in any condition. ASUS built the ExpertBook B1 to MIL—STD 810H military standards to ensure that it can withstand all the kinds of drops and bumps it will go through in its lifetime. At the same time, it has versatility like no other with a slew of I/O ports that could prove useful in a lot of conditions. It has a full HDMI port, an RJ45 LAN port, a USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 port, three USB Type-A ports (2 x USB 3.2, 1 x USB 2.0) one MicroSD card reader, a VGA D-SUB port, and an Audio combo 3.5mm AUX jack.
Physical connection, while much appreciated is secondary these days when it comes to networking today. The ExpertBook B1 comes with WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity. These things mean that the ExpertBook B1 will have a stable and fast connection to any wireless internet line, or when you need to transfer data between two Bluetooth devices.
Of course, security is a big concern in the corporate world. To ensure only the right people gets access to the ExpertBook B1, ASUS includes a fingerprint sensor that integrates to the power button for Windows Hello’s biometric security measures. It is seamless too, with users only needing to turn on the device with the power button to simply log in. At the same time, Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM 2.0) ensures that the ExpertBook B1 is more secure than ever. As a bonus, it is Windows 11 ready with TPM 2.0.
ASUS ExpertBook B5
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Next up is the new standard in convertible notebook PCs, the ExpertBook B5. To be fair, there are two flavours in the ASUS ExpertBook B5 line-up – a convertible flip variant, and regular clamshell variant. They are basically the same notebooks though, on paper at least, with the flip convertible ExpertBook B5 Flip being the heavier one of the two (1.11kg vs 1kg).
The MIL-STD 810H aluminium and magnesium-alloy constructed body is light while containing a lot of power. It packs a lot of punch with up to an 11th Generation Intel Core i7-1165G7 CPU with the proven integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics. 8GB of RAM ensures that the ExpertBook B5 maintains its speed and power through any sort of work you can throw at it.
The 16.9mm ExpertBook 5 series still packs up to 512GB of SSD that gives you ample storage for all kinds of documents you need for work. SSD speeds also allows you to quickly access any files you need at any time. Dual-band WiFi 6 should also supply the ExpertBook B5 with enough networking speeds when needed.
Of course, security and privacy are not forgotten with the ExpertBook B5 series. The 720p HD webcam comes with a physical shield to cover the webcam when not in use. The power button also doubles as a fingerprint sensor for super quick log in to Windows 10 Pro. At the same time, you can get the ExpertBook B5 with TPM 2.0 which also means that it would be compatible with Windows 11 when it is available.
At up to 1.11kg, the ExpertBook B5 series is made to be travelling with you to all corners of the world. This is also while providing you the power to get any sort of work done anywhere and anytime with up to 14-hours of battery life from its 66Wh battery. When you run out of battery, charge quickly via USB Type-C using the provided 65W charger that you can also use to charge your smartphone, if needed.
ASUS ExpertBook B9
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
Source: ASUS
The start of the show is none other than the ExpertBook B9. The most premium device in the ExpertBook line-up offers the world’s lightest 14-inch business laptop experience at 880 grams. At 14.9mm, it is not exactly thick either.
ASUS managed the weight and also achieve MIL-STD 810H military build standards with a unique magnesium-lithium-alloy chassis mix. They still manage to fit a 33Wh battery in the 880g variant of the notebook for an impressive battery life. For a full day of battery life though, there is the 1005g variant that packs double the battery size at 66Wh. Both of which are still contained in a 14.9mm thick body.
The 14-inch display is an LED-bakclit, IPS panel that projects 1080p Full HD resolution at up to 400nits in brightness and up to 1005 of sRGB colour gamut. To keep Windows 10 Pro and all its applications running happy on the ASUS ExpertBook B9 is a powerful 11th Generation Intel Core i7-1165G7 CPU with integrated Intel Iris Xe Graphics. With up to 16GB of RAM too, the new standard in thin and light can multitask like a champ.
You get WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 as standard in the ASUS ExpertBook B9 notebook for high-speed and stable networking. The only way to extract more speed for the ExpertBook B9 is to connect the notebook to an RJ45 line, which is possible with the laptop via the micro HDMI port (adapter included). At the same time, you have up to 1TB in SSD to store all your important files and documents while maintaining the speed to access needed files.
Instead of writing off the 3.5mm AUX combo jack though, ASUS manages to keep the headphone jack in the ExpertBook B9. Alongside the AUX jack are two USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB 3.2 Type-A port, and a single standard HDMI port alongside a micro HDMI port. This also means that the ExpertBook B9 can handle up to two 4K displays at the same time.
Security is handled by a combination of hardware and software implementations on the ASUS ExpertBook B9 to make it the most secure business notebook you can find in their line-up. There is the fingerprint sensor that is integrated with the power button. At the same time, the 720p HD webcam also comes with an IR sensor for Windows Hello’s biometric facial recognition feature. TPM 2.0 comes standard in the platform for encryption. ASUS Business Manager and ASUS Control Center apps allows you to monitor and control all the security features and even drive access on the ExpertBook B9.
Price and Availability
All ASUS ExpertBook laptops come pre-installed with Windows 10 Pro. There are no colour options on the new notebook PCs unfortunately, but they all come in a shade of grey that could blend into any workspace easily.
The ASUS ExpertBook B1 will be available in 14-inch and 15.6-inch trip equipped with either an 11th Generation Intel Core i7 or Intel Core i5. Prices start from 3,599 (B1400 with Core i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB) and tops out at MYR 4,399 (B1400 with Core i7, 8GB RAM, 512GB). The 15.6-inch trip only comes in an 11th Generation Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM, and 512Gb storage option at MYR 3,759.
The ASUS regular clamshell ExpertBook B5 will be available in either an Intel Core i5 (256GB) trim or an Intel Core i7 (512GB) trim. It will be priced at MYR 4,299 and MYR 5,199 respectively. The convertible variant of the ASUS ExpertBook B5 comes with a sylus too. It will be priced at MYR 4,999 (Core i5, 8GB RAM, 512GB) and MYR 5,599 (Core i7, 8GB, 512GB).
The ASUS ExpertBook B9 in Malaysia will only be available in the slightly heavier 1,005g option that comes with 66Wh battery that could last you a full working day. You get 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage as standard too with the top-of-the-line business notebook from ASUS. All these will set you back MYR 7,989. More information on ASUS’ ExpertBook series can be found on their website.
SHANGHAI, July 29, 2021 — Wanxiang Blockchain Labs, a non-profit research institution focusing on blockchain technology based in China, announced that it was going to hold the Seventh Global Blockchain Summit from Sep.14 to Sep.15 in Shanghai, China. This event will be broadcast on the Internet to engage blockchain followers around the world. Free registration for the online broadcasting will be open soon at the official website of this event: https://www.blockchainlabs.org/week2021/home.
Starting from 2015, the Global Blockchain Summit hosted by Wanxiang Blockchain Labs has been carried out for 7 years running and has grown into an influential blockchain feast in Asia and beyond.
This event has a reputation of getting global blockchain experts, investors, and entrepreneurs all under one roof year after year. Vitalik Buterin, Founder of Ethereum and Chief Scientist of Wanxiang Blockchain Labs, Gavin Wood, Founder of Polkadot, Jed Mccaleb, Co-found and CTO of Stellar, Nick Szabo, Inventor of Smart Contract, Jae kwon, Founder of Cosmos and other blockchain influencers shared their thoughts on the industry and their experience at previous Global Blockchain Summit.
This year, under the theme of Digital Transformation, the Seventh Global Blockchain Summit will focus on the convergence of blockchain and other digital technologies, such as IoT, AI, 5G and its value in empowering the digitalization of our life, economy and society.
Impacted by COVID-19, we are getting used to working, shopping and connecting with others on the Internet. It seems like that we are gradually moving from the physical world to a digital world built on digital technologies, which indicates that our daily life is undergoing a digital transformation.
Moreover, as data becomes an indispensable production factor, companies, governments, factories and many other organizations are in an urgent need of digital transformation to improve their ability of managing data and exploring the value of data to get the upper hand in this digital age.
What roles can blockchain and other digital technologies play in the digital transformation of our life, economy and society? Are there any practical solutions or use cases to learn from? How will the digital transformation change our world?
The Seventh Global Blockchain Summit, a two-day event that will take place in Shanghai, China and be broadcast online at the same time from Sep. 14-15, will feature one stage with speeches and panels delivered by prominent speakers to explore the potential of blockchain and other digital technologies in empowering the digital transformation of our life, economy and society and think about the changes the digital transformation will bring to the world.
Prior to the Seventh Global Blockchain Summit, there will be two warm-up activities. From early August to Sep. 12, 2021 Wanxiang Blockchain Hackathon will invite talented developers around the world to explore the value of blockchain and the collaboration of blockchain and other digital technologies, such as AI, IoT, 5G, VR and AR in building the digital future and to compete for a prize pool of more than $26,000. On Sep. 13, to nurture an atmosphere of dynamic and in-depth communication, we save this special day as Open Day for fellow companies to display their projects and technologies and our audience to explore more exciting opportunities. We believe this healthy interaction will contribute to accelerating the development of the blockchain industry.
The activities mentioned above, namely 2021 Wanxiang Blockchain Hackathon, Open Day and the Seventh Global Blockchain Summit, make up the 2021 Shanghai International Blockchain Week. For the details and the latest news of this event, please visit the official website: https://www.blockchainlabs.org/week2021/home.
About Wanxiang Blockchain Labs
Funded by China Wanxiang Holdings, Wanxiang Blockchain Labs is a non-profit research institution focusing on Blockchain technology. Wanxiang Blockchain Labs provides support for the research, entrepreneurship, developments and applications in the industry. It will also provide reference information for regulatory bodies. Overall, Wanxiang Blockchain Labs dedicate itself to the promotion and application of Blockchain industry, and to explore how the technology will be contributing to the development of the economy and the society. As the earlier research organization in China and determines to devote itself to promote the development of blockchain technology globally, Wanxiang Blockchain Labs has been hosting global blockchain summits in China, which have become an influential and iconic industrial events in Asia. Through these efforts, participants from various industries have showed great interest in blockchain technology and the known the potential of what it could bring to the world.
TAIPEI, July 29, 2021 — Brain Shen, Chairman of Information Service Industry Association (CISA), has recently published an article titled "Decoding Taiwan’s Information Security Industry’s Dilemma", sharing the views of the Information Security development in Taiwan. The full text is as follows:
Brain Shen, Chairman of Information Service Industry Association (CISA)
In November of 2017, Taiwan held the Information Security Industry Strategy Conference, and in 2018 Taiwan’s public sectors and private enterprises visited Israel to observe their Information Security (InfoSec) industry. These two events led to the formulation of the 2018-2025 Taiwan Information Security Industry Development Plan. Many parts of this plan refer to Israel’s InfoSec industry; however, it fails to take the differing industrial strengths and public roles of Taiwan and Israel into account. The result is that now, three years later, the Taiwan InfoSec industry has only seen severely limited growth marked by the complete absence of any sizeable InfoSec businesses.
Though the Taiwan InfoSec market is limited, many small-scale businesses do exist, an indication that there is still plenty of potential for innovation in the industry. Yet even though the industry is full of opportunities to capitalize on, in scale it remains stagnant. How the authority should develop an environment in which the InfoSec industry can flourish is a question of the utmost importance. I recommend that the authority should work to build an InfoSec ecosystem by integrating resources in the industry and assisting businesses with outsourcing; after all, in order for this industry to grow, it cannot rely solely on the Taiwan market.
How, then, should an environment for the InfoSec industry be constructed? First, public policies should be developed to guide large Taiwanese companies to invest in the industry, so that these enterprises become the focal and dominant firms in the InfoSec ecosystem. The fields in which they invest should enable them to integrate different kinds of InfoSec solutions, including providing InfoSec cloud services and developing products which combine software with hardware. Only when these focal firms come together to continually invest in the industry will it further drive the development of startups, as this would provide momentum to attract talent and spur innovation. Furthermore, as there is a severe lack of InfoSec talent in Taiwan, unless large-scale ICT companies are guided to invest in the InfoSec industry, the result will be a lack of industry-academia cooperation and the industry finding it hard to resolve the dearth of talent and major companies.
Current public policy favors expanding Taiwan InfoSec market, but doing so neglects the characteristics of Taiwanese enterprises: large international groups and financial holding companies in Taiwan will not risk utilizing the security solutions of small-scale InfoSec companies (these companies might not even have products suitable for large companies), and small and medium-sized enterprises favor products from foreign InfoSec companies, thus failing to benefit local small-scale InfoSec manufacturers.
I suggest the authority prioritize the efficiency of capital output and input. In order to do so, it must: 1) use tax policy to incentivize large-scale ICT manufacturers to invest in InfoSec development; 2) use the Taiwan Development Fund to set up an InfoSec investment fund in collaboration with large-scale ICT manufacturers, with a professional investment team handling the fund to invest in Taiwan InfoSec manufacturers; 3) establish Public Information Security Policies as important fields for Taiwan security solutions to develop in; 4) reward large-scale ICT manufacturers for global acquisitions of InfoSec startups; and 5) encourage large international InfoSec companies to set up research and development centers in Taiwan. Currently, there is sufficient funding in the InfoSec market; only by utilizing big data analysis combined with researchers in the field and policies dedicated to developing an industry ecosystem can we resolve the dilemma of stagnant growth in the InfoSec industry.
FREMONT, Calif., July 29, 2021 — 42Gears, a leading device management software provider, today announced that SureMDM, its unified endpoint management solution, now supports Zebra VisibilityIQ™ Foresight on Zebra Technologies’ rugged mobile computers and tablets. This will allow 42Gears customers to monitor VisibilityIQs Foresight’s data-driven analytics from the central SureMDM console, enabling smarter decision-making. 42Gears is a Zebra PartnerConnect Independent Software Partner.
SureMDM’s integration with VisibilityIQ Foresight benefits retail, logistics, and transportation firms requiring quick decision-making for frontline workers. With the help of VisibilityIQ Foresight, decision makers can quickly detect new trends, anticipate future challenges, and make the decisive choices needed to thrive in rapidly-changing industries.
Business benefits:
Data-driven decision making: VisibilityIQ Foresight provides real-time data about any firm’s Zebra devices, enabling admins to make rapid, smart choices to maximize efficiency.
A stronger central command center: VisibilityIQ Foresight joins the rich sets of data instantly available to anyone using the SureMDM online console. Now, admins can find even more data and make even better decisions in the same console.
A competitive advantage in uncertain times: VisibilityIQ Foresight leverages each enterprise’s past patterns to anticipate future trends, letting users avoid or overcome problems.
About 42Gears
42Gears is a leading Unified Endpoint Management solution provider, offering SaaS and on-premise solutions to secure, monitor, and manage all business endpoints, such as tablets, phones, desktops, wearables, and VR headsets. 42Gears products support company-owned as well as employee-owned devices built on Android, iOS, iPadOS, Windows, macOS, Wear OS, VR, and Linux platforms. 42Gears products are used in various industries, such as healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, education, and retail. 42Gears products are trusted by over 18,000 customers in more than 115 countries. For more information, please visit https://www.42gears.com.
