Monthly Archives: April 2022

PR Newswire

IBM study finds Singaporeans are victims of financial fraud at a higher rate than most countries

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  • IBM also announces IBM z16, the next-generation system, bringing industry-first real-time AI to transaction processing at scale to help prevent fraud in real-time, a challenge that costs Singaporeans an average of S$1,648 in the past 12 months due to fraudulent financial charges
  • IBM z16 is the industry’s first quantum-safe system. Building on IBM’s history of security leadership, IBM z16 also is specifically designed to help protect against near-future threats that might be used to crack today’s encryption technologies.

SINGAPORE, April 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — According to a new report by IBM (NYSE: IBM), geographies and generations differ greatly in the frequency and impact of financial fraud, as well as their attitudes toward fraud detection and the institutions responsible for protecting them from bad actors.

IBM z16, the next generation system designed to help prevent fraud in real-time, a challenge that cost the financial industry $32B in card losses in 2021.
IBM z16, the next generation system designed to help prevent fraud in real-time, a challenge that cost the financial industry $32B in card losses in 2021.

The 2022 IBM Global Financial Fraud Impact Report also found that as global consumers have moved nearly exclusively to credit card and digital payments, Singaporeans have been victimized more regularly than all other countries surveyed in the report, costing Singapore consumers an average of S$1,648.52 per year in fraudulent financial charges made by unauthorized third parties.

“Financial fraud and cyber threats are a growing menace to global banks and financial institutions, increasing the need for companies to improve and accelerate preventative methods to stay one step ahead of sophisticated criminal activity,” said Shanker Ramamurthy, Managing Partner, Global Banking & Financial Markets, IBM. “And while the global economy’s evolution toward a cashless society took a huge leap during the pandemic, at the same time, the risk of financial fraud has also grown at an unprecedented rate.”

“The financial sector is constantly under cyberattack globally and Singapore is not spared. The industry is among the most vulnerable to financial fraud and cyber threats because of the vast amount of money and valuable data that banks, and investment firms process each day. The Singapore government is working on a comprehensive approach, working with each party in the ecosystem, to counter the threats. As for financial institutions, they must continue to protect their data and systems against current and future threats – as criminals continue to up their game. It is important to ensure that Singaporeans feel confident, safe, and secure in using financial services,” said Neha Arora, Managing Director, Banking and Financial Markets, IBM.

Global Financial Impact

When it comes to fraud on a global scale, Singaporeans have generally experienced more types of fraud than other countries. Of the countries surveyed, Singapore ranks second in percentage of respondents who have experienced fraud across several categories: credit card fraud, debit card fraud, digital payment fraud (through apps such as Venmo, Zelle and PayPal), digital wallet fraud (such as Apple Pay and Google Pay), and tax fraud. In fact, Singapore ranked second in every category measuring types of financial fraud – with the exception of banking fraud (experiencing financial security issues with their banking institutions), in which it ranked first.

Nearly two out of five Singaporean respondents (39%) are not confident in their bank or credit card’s ability to handle fraudulent charges. Similarly, one-third (33%) are not confident in their financial institution’s ability to detect suspicious activity in their accounts, while more than one-third (35%) of Singaporean respondents are not confident in their bank’s ability to prevent fraud.

Respondents said they believe that banks and payment networks should be most responsible for preventing fraud. But running deep-learning models at scale in real-time has not been possible due to latency issues, meaning a significant amount of fraud is going undetected.

To help address this challenge, IBM today unveiled IBM z16™, IBM’s next-generation system with industry-first breakthroughs, including deep-learning inferencing — in real-time and at scale — for mission-critical workloads such as credit card, healthcare and financial transactions.

IBM z16 uniquely brings together AI inferencing, via its IBM Telum Processor, with the highly secured and reliable high-volume transaction processing IBM is known for. For the first time, banks can analyze for fraud during transactions on a massive scale: IBM z16 can process 300 billion inference operations per day with just one millisecond of latency.

By identifying fraud at the time of a transaction, consumers would no longer need to deal with confirmation emails or texts, or worse, having their card frozen and attempting to recover lost funds. For both merchants and card issuers, this can lead to revenue loss as consumers get frustrated with false declines and turn to other cards for future transactions. 

Other threats including tax fraud and organized retail theft are emerging as challenges for governments and businesses to control. Real-time payments and alternative payment methods are pushing the limits on traditional fraud detection techniques. Applying the new capabilities of IBM z16 to other industries is creating an entirely new class of use cases, including: 

  • Loan approval: Safe, fast approval of business or consumer loans in seconds vs hours or days
  • Clearing and settlement: leveraging AI to determine which trades and/or transactions have a high-risk exposure before settlement
  • Federated learning for retail: to better model risk against fraud and theft

In a hybrid cloud environment inclusive of on-premises and public cloud resources, it is critical to protect against today’s threats and posture against cybercriminals who may be stealing data now for decryption later. Building on IBM technologies like Pervasive Encryption and Confidential Computing, IBM z16 takes cyber resiliency a leap further by protecting data against future threats that could evolve with advances in quantum computing.

As the industry’s first quantum-safe system, IBM z16 is underpinned by lattice-based cryptography, an approach for constructing security primitives certified by NIST that helps protect data and systems against current and future threats. With IBM z16 quantum-safe cryptography, businesses can future-ready their applications and data today. IBM z16’s quantum-safe secure boot and cryptography can help clients get ahead of future quantum-computing related threats including harvest now, decrypt later attacks leading to extortion, loss of intellectual property and disclosure of other sensitive data.

About the 2022 IBM Global Financial Fraud Impact Report

IBM commissioned the study to maintain its understanding of present-day challenges that consumers are facing when it comes to financial fraud, as well as the ability of global financial institutions to retain control of their mission critical infrastructure to provide secure payment transactions in real-time. The study was commissioned by IBM and conducted by Morning Consult; a third-party market research firm based in the United States. The study was conducted among 1000 adults in six countries: the US, China, Singapore, Brazil, Japan, and Germany. The full report can be downloaded here.

Media contact

Seri Rahayu

External Communications

IBM ASEANZK – Singapore & Vietnam

seri.rahayu@ibm.com 

+60122106907 (Mobile)

Selvi R

Communications Leader 

IBM ASEANZK & Singapore

selvir@sg.ibm.com 

+65 9795 4165 (Mobile)
PR Newswire

Insider named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Customer Data Platforms Focused on Front-Office Users 2021-22 Vendor Assessment

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Insider, a single platform for delivering individualized, cross-channel customer experiences, helps 1000+ leading enterprise brands and high growth startups, including Samsung, GAP Marks & Spencer, Virgin, IKEA, Burger King, Toyota, Santander, Vodafone, Madeira Madeira, Puma, Singapore Airlines, CNN, Lenovo and Estée Lauder accelerate digital growth by connecting data across channels, predicting future behavior with AI, and individualizing experiences to deliver the fastest time to value.

NEW YORK, April 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Insider — one platform for individualized, cross-channel customer experiences, today announced that it has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Customer Data Platforms Focused on Front-Office Users 2021-22 Vendor Assessment. The report is a comparative study of the functional capabilities aligned with customer needs and growth strategies of 12 worldwide CDP vendors that predominantly benefit front-office users in marketing, customer experience, loyalty, customer service, support, and sales; outlining their respective strengths, challenges, and buyer considerations.

The IDC MarketScape recognizes Insider as a “robust yet intuitive platform that helps marketers achieve a 360o customer view and power customer journey analytics, orchestration, and personalization”.

Gerry Murray, Research Director, Marketing and Sales Technology at IDC said, “Insider offers a scalable cross-channel customer engagement solution for both known and anonymous users; on the foundation of a very flexible customer database, high data ingestion and processing rate, and strong consent management capabilities.”

Access your complimentary excerpt of the report here.

Hande Cilingir, Co-founder and CEO of Insider said, “Our vision of building an industry-leading cross-channel marketing platform built on a solid CDP foundation that helps our customers easily collect, manage, analyze, and activate customer data is validated with our recent positioning as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape Report 2021-22. We have bold plans in place to continue disrupting the marketing technology industry as we endeavor to help global enterprise brands reinvent the future of customer experience.”

Insider’s core customer data capabilities that enable it to outplay other vendors in the market include:

  • Identity Resolution: Ability to stitch customer identities across devices and channels by merging zero, first-, second-, and third-party customer data in real-time
  • Audience Insights: Enables marketers to analyze their entire customer base and find profitable audiences to target
  • Next Best Channel Predictions: Enables marketers to predict the right channel to engage a customer (from 12+ channels) based on their likelihood to convert or revenue potential
  • Multi-Armed Bandit Testing: Allows marketers to automatically test different cross-channel strategies and remove the manual guesswork to deliver high-converting, 1:1 experiences

Insider’s expansive related product offering portfolio, built on its CDP foundation, further makes it a strong cross-channel customer experience solution that enables 3 key capabilities:

  • Segmentation: Helps marketers define segments based on past or real-time behavior and leverage 7+ AI-led segments to predict purchase, interest, churn, CLTV, and more
  • Contextual Personalization: Data streaming APIs allow marketers to listen to customer actions and trigger contextual 1:1 experiences that increase product discovery, repeat purchases, and loyalty
  • Cross-Channel Activation: Allows marketers to build and deploy individualized journeys across 12+ channels including web, app, email, SMS, messaging platforms like WhatsApp, LINE, RCS, and more

Access your complimentary excerpt of the report here.

About Insider

Insider helps global brands and marketers across industries connect data from multiple channels, predict the future behavior of their customers with AI, and deliver individualized experiences on any channel. Insider strongly differentiates from other providers with its extensive set of digital channels including WhatsApp Business, Facebook, SMS, RCS, and more. With advanced AI-powered capabilities, Insider helps marketers orchestrate perfect customer journeys and predict the next best channel for each individual, continuously improving its platform with future-proof technologies. Learn more: useinsider.com

About IDC MarketScape

IDC MarketScape vendor assessment model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.

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PR Newswire

Stamus Networks Supports NATO Cyber Defense Exercises

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The company to provide advanced technology and experts to support the international live-fire exercise

TALLINN, Estonia, April 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Stamus Networks, a global provider of high-performance network-based threat detection and response systems, today announced it is once again participating in Exercise Locked Shields (LS22), organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) in Tallinn, Estonia.

Stamus Networks Supports NATO Cyber Defense (Locked Shields) Exercises
Stamus Networks Supports NATO Cyber Defense (Locked Shields) Exercises

Exercise Locked Shields is the largest and most complex international live-fire cyber defense exercise in the world. An annual event, Exercise Locked Shields has been organized by the CCDCOE since 2010 and is a red team (attackers) vs. blue team (defenders) exercise with teams formed by member nations and partners of CCDCOE. This year there are 24 blue teams participating with an average of 50 experts in each team. The blue teams take on the role of national cyber rapid reaction teams that are deployed to assist a fictional country in handling a large-scale cyber incident.

Locked Shields uses realistic technologies to train national defense teams in an exercise environment based on a fictional scenario. According to the CCDCOE, the need for collaborative exercises such as LS22 has become even more evident during the current global pandemic and current European geopolitical situation. Societies have become more dependent on virtual solutions to ensure continuity of societal functions during the pandemic. This has greatly increased the attack surface for malicious actors and requires effective collaboration between public and private entities to ensure the systems we depend on can be protected.

“Many of our long-term partners have contributed substantially to the success of the Exercise over the years” said Colonel Jaak Tarien, director of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). “These partners include NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, the Estonian Ministry of Defence, the Estonian Defence Forces and several private companies such as Stamus Networks. We are incredibly grateful for all their contributions.”

Since 2016, Stamus Networks has worked with the CCDCOE in multiple exercises by contributing expert personnel and its network security solutions, including its advanced network detection and response (NDR) system – the Stamus Security Platform.

“We partner with the CCDCOE for these exercises which are designed to strengthen the defensive capabilities of our NATO allies because we have made it our mission to develop and support tools that make the job of cyber defenders easier and more impactful,” said Ken Gramley, CEO of Stamus Networks. “In addition, Locked Shield gives us a world-class proving ground for the new capabilities we incorporate in our network-based threat detection and response solutions.”

To learn more about the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) and the Exercise Locked Shields, visit the website: https://ccdcoe.org/exercises/locked-shields/.

About Stamus Networks
Stamus Networks believes in a world where defenders are heroes, and a future where those they protect remain safe. As organizations face threats from well-funded adversaries, we relentlessly pursue solutions that make the defender’s job easier and more impactful. A global provider of high-performance network-based threat detection and response systems, Stamus Networks helps enterprise security teams know more, respond sooner and mitigate their risk with insights gathered from cloud and on-premise network activity. Our solutions are advanced network detection and response systems that expose serious and imminent threats to critical assets and empower rapid response. For more information visit: stamus-networks.com.

Business, Lifestyle, News

Netflix Loses a Chunk of Subscribers, says it is the Fault of Account Sharers – Offenders Will Be Dealt with Swiftly

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Netflix is a household name by now. In the pandemic period, it is one of the things that has kept plenty sane and pass their time while they are completely cut off from the outside world. It is, after all, one of the largest, if not the largest entertainment platform currently known to man. During the pandemic period, they really thrived.

Fast forward to today, the world is in a stark contrast compared to when the COVID-19 pandemic started. We are better at dealing with it now, we have vaccines, people are allowed out of their homes, things are returning to normal. That also means that you now have less time to enjoy Netflix and to catch up on your movies and TV shows.

No matter, Netflix still predicted that they are going to increase their membership base in 2022. For the first quarter of 2022, Netflix has just released their earnings report. The numbers do not look good, nor reflected Netflix’s 2022 projections.

The report from Netflix shows that they have lost a significant number of subscribers for the first time in 10 years. If we read their reports correctly, Netflix has reported a loss of 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2022 alone. In contrast, the first quarter of 2021 saw nearly 4 million new subscribers. While 200,000 subscribers may sound significant, the entire of 2021 saw Netflix gain nearly 20 million new users. There is more concerning news for Netflix shareholders in the reports though. Netflix is expecting to lose about 2 million subscribers in the coming quarter of 2022, a significant dent in their dominance over their market segment.

Despite the rather crowded space that is the over-the-top (OTT) on-demand streaming industry, Netflix is not blaming its competition for the lost of subscribers. They are rather blaming users for their loss in market share. They specifically mentioned that the 200,000 lost subscribers are lost to users who are sharing their accounts. In their reports, Netflix estimates that among their 222 million users, 100m of them are sharing their accounts. Of course, they cited that the current development in Russia and Ukraine is not helping the situation.

Taking on Shared Accounts

Netflix has been citing shared accounts to be an issue for a while now. In their ideal world, every user with a Netflix account is individual users with their unique accounts. Inevitably, there will be people who shares single accounts to enjoy their shows at different times. In Malaysia at least, we have specific accounts that is made specifically for sharing with up to five users anyway.

Still, we are not referring to that though. Netflix refers to users who are using accounts made for a single individual and sharing the same account with the household, or friends. According to Netflix, the more than 100 million households that are using accounts owned by another household are opportunities for increased revenue. In that sense, Netflix is looking into ways to monetise account sharing soon.

To be fair, Netflix has been toying with the idea of charging customers more for accounts that are being used in households other than your own. The idea is to have a sub-account to the main account where users have their own unique login and password. That way, all watch history, lists, recommendations can be tailored to that single user. It also allows Netflix to identify that sub-account to be a unique user, obviously. The solution was first tested in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru. There are no reports on the success of the program. We must assume that Netflix achieved some success in the tests though because they are planning to bring the solution to the global market. How much more it will cost users will be the only big question mark currently.

Low-Cost Netflix, but with Ads

Netflix Q1 2022 Earnings Interview

Amidst the tough competition that Netflix is now facing, they are also leaving no stone unturned to gain more market and mindshare. Reed Hastings, co-founder and CEO of Netflix has mentioned that they are now quite open to offering plans at lower costs with ads infused into the plan as an option. He says that the company is working on a solution and plan option to be introduced within a year or two.

Hastings was strongly against putting ads into Netflix and its subscription plans. He cited before that adding advertising into Netflix adds a tonne of complexity that users might not enjoy. He added that he favours the rather simple subscription model that Netflix has been offering thus far.

The move into having advertisements in Netflix is not just to fatten up the entertainment company’s pockets though. In effect, it is supposed to also bring subscription costs down while allowing Netflix to maintain their margins. At the same time also, it could be a viable path for Netflix to finally bring Live Sports as a part of their offerings. We are imagining watching F1 on Netflix without having to make any work arounds here.

PR Newswire

Kakao Brain Unveils Efficient Text-to-Image Generator, RQ-Transformer, on GitHub

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  • Doubled the sampling speed compared to company’s ‘minDALL-E’ model
  • Achieved enhanced quality and faster sampling speed by configuring high-resolution images as low-resolution 3D tensors
  • Technology to be presented at global computer vision conference, CVPR 2022

SEOUL, South Korea , April 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Kakao Brain has announced that it published its advanced text-to-image generator Residual-Quantized (RQ) Transformer on open-source community GitHub[1] in late March. RQ-Transformer, the text-to-image AI technology comprised of 3.9 billion parameters and 30 million text-image pairs, significantly improves the quality of generated images while reducing computational costs and achieving a sampling speed that exceeds every other text-to-image generator available worldwide.

RQ-Transformer successfully addresses the high computational costs and slow image generation of existing models. By primarily leveraging the residual quantization technique, which uses a fixed size of codebook to recursively quantize the feature map in a coarse-to-fine manner instead of simply increasing codebook size, RQ-Transformer is able to learn more information in a shorter period of time.

Boasting the highest number of parameters with 3.9 billion in Korea as well as the fastest sampling speed among Kakao Brain’s text-to-image AI models, RQ-Transformer outperforms the 1.4-billion-parameter minDALL-E, another open-source text-to-image model created by Kakao Brain, with double the sampling speed.

RQ-Transformer can understand text combinations it sees for the first time and create a corresponding image. Sample images generated on the text condition, ‘the Eiffel Tower in the desert,’ are shown below:

Sample images generated on the text condition, ‘the Eiffel Tower in the desert'
Sample images generated on the text condition, ‘the Eiffel Tower in the desert’

RQ-Transformer is just the beginning of Kakao Brain’s technology as it puts forward the fundamental technology that enables rapid image generation while maintaining cutting-edge performance. With this technology as its cornerstone, Kakao Brain plans to strengthen this model and improve the quality of images generated via computer programs, learn more data with greater cost-effectiveness, and build technologies that go beyond simply generating images on fed information to help humans visualize the ideas in their head on screen.

Recognized for its all-around superior approach, the text-to-image technology was selected to be presented at CVPR 2022,[2] an annual global computer vision conference which will be held in June this year. To uphold a high standard in its technologies, Kakao Brain’s Generative Model (GM) Team, in charge of the research & development (R&D) of image generation models, will continue to finetune this model in the pursuit of even more sophisticated images and faster sampling speeds.

“The computer generating images based on human commands signifies the tech’s ability to distinguish and understand the intention behind the demand,” said Kim Il-doo, CEO of Kakao Brain. “We’re incredibly excited to see where this research leads us, and we believe that this revolutionary AI model marks the beginning of the journey to a future where humans and computers can communicate freely.”

More information on RQ-Transformer is available on GitHub at https://github.com/kakaobrain/rq-vae-transformer.

About Kakao Brain

Kakao Brain is a world-leading AI company boasting unparalleled AI technologies and research & development networks. The company was established by Kakao in 2017 to solve some of the globe’s biggest ‘unthinkable questions’ with solutions enabled by its lifestyle-transforming AI technologies. Constantly driving innovation in the world of technology, Kakao Brain has developed numerous groundbreaking AI services and models designed to enhance quality of life for thousands of people, including minDALL-E, KoGPT, CLIP/ALIGN, and RQ-Transformer. As a global pioneer of AI, Kakao Brain has the responsibility of fostering a vibrant tech community and robust R&D ecosystem as it carries out its mission to form new tech markets with endless potential. For more information, visit https://KakaoBrain.com/.

[1] GitHub provides internet hosting for software development and is mostly used to host open-source projects. As of November 2021, GitHub is the largest source code host with over 73 million developers and 200 million repositories.

[2] CVPR (Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition), co-sponsored by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and The Computer Vision Foundation (CVF) since 1983, is regarded as one of the most acknowledged annual conferences in the computer vision sector, along with European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) and International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV).

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PR Newswire

Toshiba Wins Two Awards at iF DESIGN AWARD 2022

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TOKYO, April 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO: 6502) has reconfirmed its commitment to quality and excellence in design by clinching two awards at iF DESIGN AWARD 2022. The award-winning projects are Toshiba Quantum Key Distribution System, a secure key distribution system, in the product design discipline; and Toshiba co-creation center Creative Circuit, a co-creation space, in the interior architecture discipline.

iF DESIGN AWARD, one of the most prestigious international competitions for good design, is sponsored by iF International Forum Design GmbH , the world’s oldest independent design organization, based in Hanover, Germany. This year, awards were presented to 1,973 participants, from among almost 11,000 entries submitted from 57 nations.

Outline of Toshiba’s winning projects

1. Toshiba Quantum Key Distribution System – joint application with Toshiba Digital Solutions Corporation

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) is a technology that detects eavesdropping based on the quantum mechanical properties of photons, and is a theoretically unbreakable cryptographic communication technology, even in the coming quantum computer age. Embodying the absolute security of the technology in a precise and robust metal casing creates a design that symbolizes both the functionality and the emotion of the next-generation network that supports both a safe and secure future life.


Click here for more information about Toshiba Quantum Key Distribution System.

2. Toshiba co-creation center Creative Circuit – Toshiba Corporation

Creative Circuit is a co-creation space where people from different backgrounds and specialties can gather to enhance their creativity and generate innovative business ideas. In order to accelerate co-creation activities, the space provides both hardware and software support, such as ingeniously designed fixtures, open collaborative spaces, tools and methods that facilitate design thinking. One of the features of this space in a post COIVD-19 world is the use of both online and offline advantages. It offers hybrid workshops using original digital tools, a functional space for face-to-face communications, and a makerspace that allows rapid prototyping.


Click here for more information about Creative Circuit (website in Japanese).

About the iF DESIGN AWARD


Since 1954, the iF DESIGN AWARD has been a globally recognized trademark when it comes to excellent design. The iF brand is internationally recognized as a symbol of design excellence. The iF DESIGN AWARD is one of the most important design prizes in the world. It honors design achievements in all disciplines: product, packaging, communication and service design, architecture and interior architecture, as well as user interface (UI), user experience (UX) and professional concept. All the award-winning entries are presented on www.ifdesign.com and published in the iF Design App.

About Toshiba Corporation

Toshiba Corporation leads a global group of companies that combines knowledge and capabilities from over 140 years of experience in a wide range of businesses—from energy and social infrastructure to electronic devices—with world-class capabilities in information processing, digital and AI technologies. These distinctive strengths support Toshiba’s continued evolution toward becoming an Infrastructure Services Company that promotes data utilization and digitization, and one of the world’s leading cyber-physical-systems technology companies. Guided by the Basic Commitment of the Toshiba Group, “Committed to People, Committed to the Future,” Toshiba contributes to society’s positive development with services and solutions that lead to a better world. The Group and its 120,000 employees worldwide secured annual sales surpassing 3.1 trillion yen (US$27.5 billion) in fiscal year 2020.

Find out more about Toshiba at www.global.toshiba/ww/outline/corporate.html

PR Newswire

TopEdit and Turnitin partner to support research publication integrity in China

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TopEdit, a provider of academic editing and publication support services to Chinese researchers, becomes an official partner of Turnitin’s plagiarism prevention service, iThenticate, in China.

SHANGHAI, April 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Today, TopEdit—a provider of academic editing and publication support services for researchers in China—and Turnitin—a global provider of academic and research integrity solutions for universities, corporations, and publishers—announced their official partnership. As an authorized Turnitin partner in China, TopEdit now offers text similarity detection services to researchers and academics in China.

A global Turnitin product, iThenticate is a premier text similarity detection tool for researchers, publishers, editors, and writers to check their works for potential plagiarism. The iThenticate platform can check for text similarity between 176 languages, including simplified and traditional Chinese. With the new partnership between Turnitin and TopEdit, iThenticate will now also be available directly via TopEdit.

The partnership allows researchers using TopEdit’s services in China to receive comprehensive publication assistance, including proofreading, editing, translation, and text similarity detection. By adding Turnitin’s iThenticate to its service offerings, TopEdit now provides the necessary tool to further guard research work against accidental plagiarism and citation mistakes—protecting institutional and individual reputations and integrity.

The collaboration between TopEdit and Turnitin reflects the complementary missions of the two companies—to further advance global research and education through original and innovative research publication. 

“Sharing information through reputable journals is a critical step to progress society; sharing information in a local language is a critical step to inclusivity,” says Turnitin VP of Alliances Todd Baker. “With TopEdit as an official partner for Turnitin’s iThenticate in China, researchers and academics can be confident in the originality and integrity of their publications and information-sharing. We are proud to be a resource for the Chinese research community and their important work.”

“The partnership between Turnitin and TopEdit will help advance the contributions of Chinese researchers, scientists, and academics in their areas of expertise by helping them navigate the publication process correctly and successfully,” says TopEdit CEO and founder Ning Zhang. “TopEdit helps non-English speaking authors meet the highest standards of publication in scholarly journals. By adding iThenticate to our service offering, TopEdit is now able to provide researchers and academics with a text similarity detection tool—that is used by the world’s biggest publishers—in their local language. This is a significant step towards non-English accessibility to quality research tools.” 

The partnership will support thousands of Chinese researchers with their publications in English-speaking academic and professional journals.

Media contact
press@turnitin.com

APAC partners contact
Manushree Bahukhandi, MBahukhandi@turnitin.com

About TopEdit

TopEdit is one of the industry’s leading academic editing and author services providers. Since its establishment in Washington, DC, in 2015, TopEdit has edited more than 100,000 manuscripts and helped its customers to improve their manuscript acceptance rates by more than 61%. TopEdit’s services include academic editing, translation, journal recommendation, publication support, personalized consultancy, and educational training. To ensure that authors receive personalized, professional assistance, TopEdit’s more than 3,000 academic editors are highly experienced and hold advanced academic degrees. The company specializes in a wide variety of professional fields, including clinical medicine, basic medicine, biology, chemistry, geosciences, physics, engineering machinery, humanities, and social sciences. TopEdit has partnerships with major publishing organizations and prestigious academic institutions in China and abroad to provide researchers with up-to-date, high-quality assistance in their publishing journey.

About Turnitin

Turnitin is a global company dedicated to ensuring the integrity of education and meaningfully improving learning outcomes. For more than 20 years, Turnitin has partnered with educational institutions to promote honesty, consistency, and fairness across all subject areas and assessment types. Turnitin products are used by educational institutions and certification and licensing programs to uphold integrity and increase learning performance, and by students and professionals to do their best, original work.

Turnitin has offices in Australia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Over 16,000 academic institutions, publishers, and corporations use Turnitin services: Gradescope by Turnitin, iThenticate, Turnitin Feedback Studio, Turnitin Originality, Turnitin Similarity, ExamSoft, ProctorExam, and Ouriginal.

PR Newswire

South-South Cooperation Knowledge Sharing Platform Goes Live

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A news report by WFP China COE: The World Food Programme (WFP)-China South-South Cooperation Knowledge Sharing Platform (www.wfpchinacoe.net) launch ceremony was held at the UN Compound on April 15, 2022.

BEIJING, April 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The World Food Programme (WFP)-China South-South Cooperation (SSC) Knowledge Sharing Platform (www.wfpchinacoe.net) launch ceremony was held at the UN Compound on April 15, 2022. More than 100 representatives from Chinese government, foreign missions in China, international organizations and academia, attended the event either online or in person.

The platform was supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People’s Republic of China (MARA), and jointly developed by WFP Centre of Excellence for Rural Transformation (WFP China COE) and China Internet Information Center (CIIC).

Visitors can access information on the platform about China’s experiences and solutions in the following four thematic areas: Value Chain Development for Smallholders, Post-harvest Loss Management and Food Systems, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Resilience, and Innovative Poverty Alleviation Initiative. These can help empower them to enhance food security in their local areas.

The platform also offers Cloud School, an inclusive digital education space, which features programmes that are tailored to the needs of participants of all levels. It is a response to the rising demand for China’s vetted knowledge about food security, nutrition improvement, poverty alleviation and rural transformation. Courses offered in Cloud School reflect WFP China COE’s work on the four thematic areas, as well as the value chain development in rice, Juncao and cassava. Certificates of completion are awarded to those who successfully finish them.

Xie Jianmin, Counsel (Director-General Level) of Department of International Cooperation, MARA, noted that the WFP-China SSC Knowledge Sharing Platform, as a knowledge hub, will make contributions to food security and nutrition improvement by enabling visitors to learn about experiences and practices related to China’s agricultural and rural development.

Du Zhanyuan, President of China International Communications Group (CICG), said CICG will take new formats such as digital media and publishing as an important developing direction to provide digital support for South-South cooperation projects, promote capacity-building and knowledge sharing for development in developing countries, and promote more inclusive and sustainable digital economic cooperation with partners together.

Cao Yingjun, Acting Director General of China’s National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration’s Department of International Cooperation, emphasised that the Administration is willing to share and exchange China’s experience with other countries in ensuring food security and advancing the transformation of the food system, and make joint contributions to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Rahamtalla Osman, Representative of the African Union to China, observed that the website’s educational programmes will enhance South-South and triangular cooperation between China and Africa.

Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator in China, remarked that China has an important opportunity and responsibility to lead and guide other developing countries, leveraging its experience, expertise, and resources to serve and benefit the Global South.

Qu Sixi, Representative of WFP China, concluded in his video remarks that the Knowledge Sharing Platform provides a digitalised space for WFP China COE to boost operational engagement related to South-South and triangular cooperation. It’s a viable pathway to address common challenges and to accelerate progress towards zero hunger.

South-South Cooperation Knowledge Sharing Platform Goes Live

http://p.china.org.cn/2022-04/15/content_78168353.htm

About WFP-China South-South Cooperation Knowledge Sharing Platform (www.wfpchinacoe.net):

Visitors can access information on the platform about China’s experiences and solutions in the following four thematic areas: Value Chain Development for Smallholders, Post-harvest Loss Management and Food Systems, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Resilience, and Innovative Poverty Alleviation Initiative. The platform also offers Cloud School, an inclusive digital education space, which features programmes that are tailored to the needs of participants of all levels. It is a response to the rising demand for China’s vetted knowledge about food security, nutrition improvement, poverty alleviation and rural transformation.

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Android, Mobile, News

OPPO A96 with 256GB Launches in Malaysia for MYR 1,299! Hands-On the OPPO A96

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The entry-level smartphone market, in Malaysia at least, is a rather crowded space. The offerings can also be compared directly to mid-range smartphones, which just complicates things when you are looking for a new smartphone at under MYR 2,500 range. There is still a distinction though. In the mid-range segment, you want the best bang-for-buck you can get in terms of high-level performance, and innovations. In the entry-level segment, you want the best bang-for-buck and reliability; something that just works.

While there are plenty of players in the entry-level segment at below MYR 1,500, we can safely say not many can do better than OPPO and their A-series smartphones. Do not get it confused with Samsung’s A-series though, Samsung’s offerings are in the premium mid-range segment. When you take up OPPO’s A-series smartphones, you start to wonder what the extra money do for you in the mid-range segment.

OPPO A96 Unboxing and Hands On || techENT

Take this latest OPPO A96 for example. On paper at least, it is comparable to any mid-range devices you can pit it up against. It might as well be a mid-range device on paper.

Big Memory

OPPO A96 3

It packs 8GB of RAM and 256GB in storage. With OPPO’s clever memory technology, the 8GB RAM can be expanded to up to 13GB temporarily for when you need the extra horsepower. This should mean much better multitasking experience comparable to even flagships of today. The only limiting factor should be its System on a Chip (SoC) that is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 680 platform. It does not pack 5G too, unlike most mid-range devices today.

Flagship Level Display

OPPO A96 17

The SoC is the only thing that puts it squarely in the entry-level segment though. The main display is still a Full HD+ display with 90Hz refresh rate with up to 96% NTSC or 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut coverage. At 6.59-inch, it is not what you want to call a small display too.

Powerful Camera

OPPO A96 1

In terms of camera, the front-facing camera lodged in a punch hole on the display packs 16-Megapixel, rather powerful for an entry-level device. Out the back is a high-resolution 50-Megapixel shooter that works together with a 2-Megapixel depth sensor to produce beautiful portraits with those essential ‘bokeh’. Sure, it does not come with additional lenses to get telephoto or ultra-wide photos, but a high-resolution camera is the one that is being used often.

Premium Glass Backing

OPPO A96 19

The OPPO A96’s back plate is also a glass panel, not plastic like most entry-level devices at its price range. It has a unique texture and design that OPPO calls the Glow Design made with diamond-cut glass panel placed in a vacuum to bring out the crystal patterns you see on the Pearl Pink colour option. The unique texture produced by the process is also resistant to fingerprint stains, which is a bonus to keep your device looking fresh and pretty.

Beefy Battery

OPPO A96 16

To top all of that is an all-day battery sandwiched by two glass panels. It is 5,000 mAh battery that should last you at least an entire day with heavy usage. Use it sparingly and you might get two or even three days of charge with it. When it runs out, 33W charging speeds should bring it to a full charge within an hour for you to get going the entire day again. The device is also clever enough protect its own battery shelf-life by limiting its charge speeds when you charge it overnight to keep the battery optimised for you.

Price and Availability

As mentioned, the OPPO A96 will be available in two colour options – Starry Black and Pearl Pink. The device will be available for pre-order today onward all the way to the 22nd of April 2022. It will set you back MYR 1,299 and you can get your hands on one from OPPO’s authorised retailers and official showrooms when it is available. More on the OPPO A96 on their website.

PR Newswire

Japan’s first laser nuclear fusion company, EX-Fusion raises 130 million JPY in pre-seed round, paving way for the development of critical components needed for commercialization of nuclear fusion

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Funds will be used to develop technologies that enable continuous injection of target material and auto tracking and alignment of the laser systems to build a commercial fusion reactor

OSAKA, Japan, April 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — EX-Fusion Inc., the first startup in Japan aimed at commercializing laser based fusion energy, announced on March 31, 2022 that it has closed a pre-seed round funding of 130 million Japanese yen. The pre-seed round was led by ANRI, a Tokyo based venture capital firm, along with Osaka University Venture Capital (OUVC) and was the first company funded within ANRI’s latest ESG specific fund.

EX-Fusion Team Photo, from left to right: Kenjiro Takahashi, Takayoshi Norimatsu, Kazuki Matsuo, Yoshitaka Mori, Koichi Masuda
EX-Fusion Team Photo, from left to right: Kenjiro Takahashi, Takayoshi Norimatsu, Kazuki Matsuo, Yoshitaka Mori, Koichi Masuda

The funding enables EX-Fusion to accelerate the development of the continuous target supply system (CTSS) and the laser target tracking system (LTTS), both fundamental systems for the commercialization of laser powered nuclear fusion reactors. By combining the two systems, EX-Fusion aims to demonstrate the feasibility of high frequency repetition laser plasma experiments using high power pulse lasers and to demonstrate the ability to continuously generate neutrons in sequential laser fusion reactions.

EX-Fusion was co-founded between Kazuki Matsuo, postdoctoral research fellow at University of California San Diego, Shinsuke Fujioka, professor at the Institute of Laser Engineering at Osaka University, and Yoshitaka Mori, associate professor at the Graduate School for the Creation of New Photonics Industries.

“We believe that nuclear fusion is the solution for meeting our global energy needs and helping the world reach carbon neutrality by 2050,” said Matsuo. “And by focusing our research and development around the fundamental technology related to commercial operation of laser-based nuclear fusion, we can achieve safe and affordable clean energy faster. This initial funding will kick start our efforts to build the two systems, continuous target supply system and laser target tracking system, which will prove that continuous target injection as well as laser targeting can be achieved at or above 10Hz.”

Masahiro Sameshima, Partner at ANRI, said,

“I have been encouraging researchers to establish their own ventures with the hope of creating a nuclear fusion venture that could become a new power source in Japan. I am thrilled to be supporting the launch of EX-Fusion from the beginning. Investment in fusion ventures is accelerating around the world toward the realization of fusion technology, and Japan is lagging far behind in terms of the amount of funds raised. However, we are not pessimistic about this, and are determined to help refine EX-Fusion’s original technology and prove that we can compete on the world stage. Furthermore, we hope to apply this laser technology to various fields such as processing of metal materials and semiconductor manufacturing.”

Yousuke Hirai, Investment Principle at OUVC, said,

“I am very excited to be investing into the EX-Fusion team whose goal is to provide the ultimate clean energy in the form of commercial nuclear fusion power. While we realize that laser based nuclear fusion is one of many forms of nuclear fusion, there have been rapid advancements in the field of laser fusion recently and thus is considered one of the most commercially viable methods amongst various nuclear fusion methods. By taking the learnings from the research conducted at Osaka University over the past 50 years, EX-Fusion will lead the advancement of laser nuclear fusion and pave the path to commercialization of the technology.”

EX-Fusion is collaborating with the Institute of Laser Engineering (ILE) at Osaka University, the Graduate School for the Creation of New Photonics Industries (GPI) as well as multiple private sector corporations in its development of these technologies. The joint development project with ILE involves the development of the CTSS, which will allow for material targets to be placed inside the fusion reaction chamber continuously, consistently and congruently against the high powered pulse laser system. The collaboration with GPI will be focused on developing the LTTS, which will allow for real-time alignment of multiple lasers such that it can direct the energy at maximum efficiency towards the reactor target.

About EX-Fusion

EX-Fusion is a Japan-based private company aiming to develop the first commercial laser based nuclear fusion reactor for power generation.

Laser fusion is a method of obtaining energy by using a high power laser to compress a mixture of deuterium and tritium to high density and heat it to high temperature, causing a nuclear fusion reaction. Research is being conducted mainly in the US, Japan, France, the UK, China, and Russia.

In the U.S., in August 2021, an experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved a fusion output of 1.35 megajoules, which is more than 70% of the laser input energy. This demonstrated that it is possible to ignite and burn fusion fuel using a laser method.

On the other hand, in order to realize a commercial reactor, it is necessary to (i) improve the efficiency of fusion reaction generation, i.e., to achieve a fusion power that exceeds the laser input energy, and (ii) to generate a steady-state fusion reaction with a repetition rate of about 10 Hz and to recover the fusion energy and convert it into consumable energy forms such as electricity and hydrogen. In Japan, for (i) improving the efficiency of fusion reaction generation, we are focusing on the fast ignition method, in which high-density fusion fuel is externally heated by a laser, which is expected to increase the efficiency, and experiments are being conducted using the GEKKO XII and LFEX lasers at the Institute of Laser Engineering (ILE), Osaka University. The founder, Kazuki Matsuo is one of the lead researchers on fast ignition and is the world record holder for fast ignition type of reaction [1]. The recent results have been referred to in the summary of the world fusion research published by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) in the United States [2]. Furthermore, as for (ii) fusion generation by high frequency repetition lasers, our executive officer Mori, as a core member of the Graduate School for the Creation of New Photonics Industries (GPI), has been conducting joint research with Toyota Motor Corporation and other partner institutions using high power lasers developed by Hamamatsu Photonics [3].

Our company was established to consolidate the knowledge of laser fusion that has been cultivated in Japan and to realize a commercial laser fusion reactor. Currently, we are transferring the 10Hz continuous target feeding system [4] owned by the Graduate School for the Creation of New Photonics Industries to our company. With this technology as our core technology, we will start our research and development with the support of our partner institutions.

[1] K. Matsuo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 35001 (2020).

[2] Samuel E. Wurzel, Scott C. Hsu arXiv:2105.10954v4 (2022)

[3] Y. Mori et al., J. Plasma Fusion Res. vol. 97, 352-364 (2021) (written in Japanese). 

[4] Y. Mori et al., “Ten-Hz beads pellet injection and laser engagement” Nucl. Fusion. NF-104796.R1 (2021)

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