Five billion dollars. That’s the apparent size of Facebook’s latest fine for violating data privacy.Â
While many believe the sum is simply a slap on the wrist for a behemoth like Facebook, it’s still the largest amount the Federal Trade Commission has ever levied on a technology company.Â
Facebook is clearly still reeling from Cambridge Analytica, after which trust in the company dropped 51%, searches for “delete Facebook� reached 5-year highs, and Facebook’s stock dropped 20%.
While incumbents like Facebook are struggling with their data, startups in highly-regulated, “Third Waveâ€� industries can take advantage by using a data strategy one would least expect: ethics. Beyond complying with regulations, startups that embrace ethics look out for their customers’ best interests, cultivate long-term trust — and avoid billion dollar fines.Â
To weave ethics into the very fabric of their business strategies and tech systems, startups should adopt “agileâ€� data governance systems. Often combining law and technology, these systems will become a key weapon of data-centric Third Wave startups to beat incumbents in their field.Â
Established, highly-regulated incumbents often use slow and unsystematic data compliance workflows, operated manually by armies of lawyers and technology personnel. Agile data governance systems, in contrast, simplify both these workflows and the use of cutting-edge privacy tools, allowing resource-poor startups both to protect their customers better and to improve their services.
In fact, 47% of customers are willing to switch to startups that protect their sensitive data better. Yet 80% of customers highly value more convenience and better service.Â
By using agile data governance, startups can balance protection and improvement. Ultimately, they gain a strategic advantage by obtaining more data, cultivating more loyalty, and being more resilient to inevitable data mishaps.Â
With agile data governance, startups can address their critical weakness: data scarcity. Customers share more data with startups that make data collection a feature, not a burdensome part of the user experience. Agile data governance systems simplify compliance with this data practice.Â
Take Ally Bank, which the Ponemon Institute rated as one of the most privacy-protecting banks. In 2017, Ally’s deposits base grew 16%, while those of incumbents declined 4%.
One key principle to its ethical data strategy: minimizing data collection and use. Ally’s customers obtain services through a personalized website, rarely filling out long surveys. When data is requested, it’s done in small doses on the site — and always results in immediate value, such as viewing transactions.Â
This is on purpose. Ally’s Chief Marketing Officer publicly calls the industry-mantra of “more data� dangerous to brands and consumers alike.
A critical tool to minimize data use is to use advanced data privacy tools like differential privacy. A favorite of organizations like Apple, differential privacy limits your data analysts’ access to summaries of data, such as averages. And by injecting noise into those summaries, differential privacy creates provable guarantees of privacy and prevents scenarios where malicious parties can reverse-engineer sensitive data. But because differential privacy uses summaries, instead of completely masking the data, companies can still draw meaning from it and improve their services.Â
With tools like differential privacy, organizations move beyond governance patterns where data analysts either gain unrestricted access to sensitive data (think: Uber’s controversial “god view�) or face multiple barriers to data access. Instead, startups can use differential privacy to share and pool data safely, helping them overcome data scarcity. The most agile data governance systems allow startups to use differential privacy without code and the large engineering teams that only incumbents can afford.
Ultimately, better data means better predictions — and happier customers.
According to Deloitte, 80% of consumers are more loyal to companies they believe protect their data. Yet far fewer leaders at established, incumbent companies — the respondents of the same survey — believed this to be true. Customers care more about their data than the leaders at incumbent companies think.Â
This knowledge gap is an opportunity for startups.Â
Furthermore, big enterprise companies — themselves customers of many startups — say data compliance risks prevent them from working with startups. And rightly so. Over 80% of data incidents are actually caused by errors from insiders, like third party vendors who mishandle sensitive data by sharing it with inappropriate parties. Yet over 68% of companies do not have good systems to prevent these types of errors. In fact, Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica firestorm — and resulting $5 billion fine — was sparked by third party inappropriately sharing personal data with a political consulting firm without user consent.Â
As a result, many companies — both startups and incumbents — are holding a ticking time bomb of customer attrition.Â
Agile data governance defuses these risks by simplifying the ethical data practices of understanding, controlling, and monitoring data at all times. With such practices, startups can prevent and correct the mishandling of sensitive data quickly.
Cognoa is a good example of a Third Wave healthcare startup adopting these three practices at a rapid pace. First, it understands where all of its sensitive health data lies by connecting all of its databases. Second, Cognoa can control all connected data sources at once from one point by using a single access-and-control layer, as opposed to relying on data silos. When this happens, employees and third parties can only access and share the sensitive data sources they’re supposed to. Finally, data queries are always monitored, allowing Cognoa to produce audit reports frequently and catch problems before they escalate out of control.Â
With tools that simplify these three practices, even low-resourced startups can make sure sensitive data is tightly controlled at all times to prevent data incidents. Because key workflows are simplified, these same startups can maintain the speed of their data analytics by sharing data safely with the right parties. With better and safer data sharing across functions, startups can develop the insight necessary to cultivate a loyal fan base for the long-term.
In 2018, Panera mistakenly shared 37 million customer records on its website and took 8 months to respond. Panera’s data incident is a taste of what’s to come: Gartner predicts that 50% of business ethics violations will stem from data incidents like these. In the era of “Big Data,â€� billion dollar incumbents without agile data governance will likely continue to violate data ethics.Â
Given the inevitability of such incidents, startups that adopt agile data governance will likely be the most resilient companies of the future.Â
Case in point: Harvard Business Review reports that the stock prices of companies without strong data governance practices drop 150% more than companies that do adopt strong practices. Despite this difference, only 10% of Fortune 500 companies actually employ the data transparency principle identified in the report. Practices include clearly disclosing data practices and giving users control over their privacy settings.Â
Sure, data incidents are becoming more common. But that doesn’t mean startups don’t suffer from them. In fact, up to 60% of startups fold after a cyber attack.Â
Startups can learn from WebMD, which Deloitte named as one standout in applying data transparency. With a readable privacy policy, customers know how data will be used, helping customers feel comfortable about sharing their data. More informed about the company’s practices, customers are surprised less by incidents. Surprises, BCG found, can reduce consumer spending by one-third. On a self-service platform on WebMD’s site, customers can control their privacy settings and how to share their data, further cultivating trust.Â
Self-service tools like WebMD’s are part of agile data governance. These tools allow startups to simplify manual processes, like responding to customer requests to control their data. Instead, startups can focus on safely delivering value to their customers.Â
For so long, the public seemed to care less about their data.Â
That’s changing. Senior executives at major companies have been publicly interrogated for not taking data governance seriously. Some, like Facebook and Apple, are even claiming to lead with privacy. Ultimately, data privacy risks significantly rise in Third Wave industries where errors can alter access to key basic needs, such as healthcare, housing, and transportation.
While many incumbents have well-resourced legal and compliance departments, agile data governance goes beyond the “risk mitigation� missions of those functions. Agile governance means that time-consuming and error-prone workflows are streamlined so that companies serve their customers more quickly and safely.
Case in point: even after being advised by an army of lawyers, Zuckerberg’s 30,000-word Senate testimony about Cambridge Analytica included “ethics� only once, and it excluded “data governance� completely.
And even if companies do have legal departments, most don’t make their commitment to governance clear. Less than 15% of consumers say they know which companies protect their data the best. Startups can take advantage of this knowledge gap by adopting agile data governance and educate their customers about how to protect themselves in the risky world of the Third Wave.
Some incumbents may always be safe. But those in highly-regulated Third Wave industries, such as automotive, healthcare, and telecom should be worried; customers trust these incumbents the least. Startups that adopt agile data governance, however, will be trusted the most, and the time to act is now.Â
Source: TechCrunch
A project to 3D-print bulky components in space rather than bring them up there has collected a $73.7 million contract from NASA to demonstrate the technique in space. Archinaut, a mission now several years in development from Made In Space, could launch as soon as 2022.
The problem at hand is this: If you want a spacecraft to have solar arrays 60 feet long, you need to bring 60 feet of structure for those arrays to attach to — they can’t just flap around like ribbons. But where do you stash a 60-foot pole, or two 30-foot ones, or even 10 six-foot ones when you only have a few cubic feet of space to put them in? It gets real complicated real fast to take items with even a single large dimension into space.
Archinaut’s solution is simple. Why not just take the material for that long component into space and print it out on the spot? There’s no more compact way to keep the material than as a brick of solid matter.
Naturally this extends (so to speak) to more than simply rods and poles — sheets of large materials for things like light sails, complex interlocking structures on which other components could be mounted… there are plenty of things too big to take into space in one piece, but which could be made of smaller ones if necessary. Here’s one made for attaching instruments at a large fixed distance from a central craft:
Made in Space already has contracts in place with NASA, and has demonstrated 3D printing of parts aboard the International Space Station. It has also shown that it can print stuff in an artificial vacuum more or less equivalent to a space environment.
The demonstrator mission, Archinaut One, would launch aboard a Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle no earlier than 2022, and after achieving a stable orbit, begin extruding a pair of beams that will eventually extend out 32 feet. Attached to these beams will be flexible solar arrays that unfurl at the same rate, attached to the rigid structures of the beams. When they’re finished, a robotic arm will lock them in place and do other housekeeping.
You can see it all happen in this unfortunately not particularly exciting video:
Once finished, this pair of 32-foot solar arrays would theoretically generate some five times the power that a spacecraft that size would normally pull in. Because spacecraft are almost without exception power-starved systems, having more watts to use or store for the orbital equivalent of a rainy day would certainly be welcome.
In another print, the robot arm could rearrange parts, snap on connectors and perform other tasks to create more complex structures like the ones in the concept art up top. That’s still well in the future, however — the current demonstrator mission will focus on the beam-and-array thing, though the team will certainly learn a lot about how to accomplish other builds in the process.
Naturally in-space manufacturing is a big concern for a country that plans to establish a permanent presence on and around the Moon. It’s a lot easier to make something there than make a quarter-million-mile delivery. You can keep up with Archinaut and Made In Space’s other projects along the space-printing line at the company’s blog.
Source: TechCrunch
In the forever war between the Big Easy and the deluge, engineering keeps coming up short. Climate change is making it worse.
Source: Wired
The team decided with “heavy hearts” to shut down Hearts.
Source: CNET
Commentary: What the latest iPod Touch lacks in screen and battery life, it makes up for in apps, games, AR and now it has some real competition from Nintendo’s Switch Lite.
Source: CNET
This transition is different from earlier cellular generation shifts, which means 4G could be useful a lot longer.
Source: CNET
For its Black Friday in July Specials, Macy’s is offering brands including KitchenAid and Pyrex, and some favorite kitchen products are on sale.
Source: CNET
The Federal Trade Commission is said to have approved a settlement with Facebook.
Source: CNET
Catch up on the most important news from today in two minutes or less.
Source: Wired
While the agility of a Spot or Atlas robot is something to behold, there’s a special merit reserved for tiny, simple robots that work not as a versatile individual but as an adaptable group. These “tribots” are built on the model of ants, and like them can work together to overcome obstacles with teamwork.
Developed by EPFL and Osaka University, tribots are tiny, light and simple, moving more like inchworms than ants, but able to fling themselves up and forward if necessary. The bots themselves and the system they make up are modeled on trap-jaw ants, which alternate between crawling and jumping, and work (as do most other ants) in fluid roles like explorer, worker and leader. Each robot is not itself very intelligent, but they are controlled as a collective that deploys their abilities intelligently.
In this case a team of tribots might be expected to get from one end of a piece of complex terrain to another. An explorer could move ahead, sensing obstacles and relaying their locations and dimensions to the rest of the team. The leader can then assign worker units to head over to try to push the obstacles out of the way. If that doesn’t work, an explorer can try hopping over it — and if successful, it can relay its telemetry to the others so they can do the same thing.
Fly, tribot, fly!
It’s all done quite slowly at this point — you’ll notice that in the video, much of the action is happening at 16x speed. But rapidity isn’t the idea here; similar to Squishy Robotics’ creations, it’s more about adaptability and simplicity of deployment.
The little bots weigh only 10 grams each, and are easily mass-produced, as they’re basically PCBs with some mechanical bits and grip points attached — “a quasi-two-dimensional metamaterial sandwich,” according to the paper. If they only cost (say) a buck each, you could drop dozens or hundreds on a target area and over an hour or two they could characterize it, take measurements and look for radiation or heat hot spots, and so on.
If they moved a little faster, the same logic and a modified design could let a set of robots emerge in a kitchen or dining room to find and collect crumbs or scoot plates into place. (Ray Bradbury called them “electric mice” or something in “There will come soft rains,” one of my favorite stories of his. I’m always on the lookout for them.)
Swarm-based bots have the advantage of not failing catastrophically when something goes wrong — when a robot fails, the collective persists, and it can be replaced as easily as a part.
“Since they can be manufactured and deployed in large numbers, having some ‘casualties’ would not affect the success of the mission,” noted EPFL’s Jamie Paik, who co-designed the robots. “With their unique collective intelligence, our tiny robots can demonstrate better adaptability to unknown environments; therefore, for certain missions, they would outperform larger, more powerful robots.”
It raises the question, in fact, of whether the sub-robots themselves constitute a sort of uber-robot? (This is more of a philosophical question, raised first in the case of the Constructicons and Devastator. Transformers was ahead of its time in many ways.)
The robots are still in prototype form, but even as they are, constitute a major advance over other “collective” type robot systems. The team documents their advances in a paper published in the journal Nature.
Source: TechCrunch