Sustainability-in-Tech : Sustainable Seafood … Cultivated Codswallop?
According to German-startup ‘Bluu Seafood’, its range of cultivated seafood is a way to protect oceans and animals as well as ensuring a high-quality, sustainable supply of nutritious food.
What Is ‘Cultivated Seafood’ ?
Cultivated seafood, also known as cultured seafood or lab-grown seafood, refers to seafood products that are produced using cellular agriculture techniques in the lab. Instead of being harvested from the wild or raised in traditional aquaculture systems, cultivated seafood is created by culturing cells taken from the tissues of aquatic animals (fish cells). The Bluu Seafood’s process, for example, involves fermenting the fish cells with natural ingredients to produce a ‘cell mass’ that can then be shaped to resemble popular seafood products like fish fingers, fillets of fish, and sashimi (the fish part of sushi).
How Do They Get The Fish Cells?
The Germany based startup Bluu Seafood (formerly Bluu Biosciences) uses stem cells from a fish sample. These are used to establish fish cell lines that are grown in suspension (without the use of microcarriers or other scaffolds) in small aggregates of cells called spheroids. The spheroids cells adhere to each other and grow while being stirred in a bioreactor. The resulting cell mass has additional natural materials added to it to improve complexity and positively influence the taste, texture, and colour of the final product.
The Benefits
The benefits of producing cultivated seafood compared to catching fish are many, including:
- No further destruction of the oceans, and no mass killing of animals. For example, more than 90 per cent of wild fisheries are now classified as overfished or harvested at maximum capacity.
- It’s more resource efficient, plus location-independent production is possible.
- It may provide a safer, super healthy, GMO-free alternative that has 100 per cent traceable ingredients.
- Unlike many fish, cultivated seafood is not threatened by contamination, e.g. heavy metals and microplastics.
- A consistent premium quality of the product can be achieved, while taste can be adapted to local preferences.
- Producing cultivated seafood is sustainable. There is no damage to the environment or the seabed from fishing boats and there are no carbon emissions from refrigeration, transporting, and other necessary stages in dealing with perishable fresh fish.
Funding
So far, since its foundation in 2020, the startup Bluu Seafood has raised more than EUR 23 million (USD 25 million) and raised EUR 16 million (USD 17 million) in its Series A funding round. Its CEO and Co-Founder Sebastian Rakers said: “Our successful Series-A demonstrates the enormous potential that lies in cultivated fish as a platform technology for sustainable animal protein and underlines the strong scientific development that we at BLUU Seafood have delivered so far.”
Starting In Singapore, cultivated fish and meat does not yet have regulatory approval in many countries so Bluu Seafood is aiming to enter the Singapore market in 2024, where cultivated chicken has been approved since 2020.
What Does This Mean For Your Organisation?
The livestock industry’s environmental impact – greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, water pollution, and other environmental problems, animal cruelty, public health concerns, the need for sustainable and scalable food sources – led to the production of cultivated meat, which raised a few eyebrows to begin with but is already approved in Singapore. It makes sense, therefore, that overfishing, pollution of the oceans and similar environmental and health concerns have laid the demand foundations for cultivated seafood too. The growing popularity of plant-based meat alternatives in supermarkets is a sign that food is heading in a more sustainable direction that doesn’t involve animals. Cultivated meat and fish, with the right information, marketing, and price may be the next step in this journey once regulation extends to countries other than Singapore when there will be plenty of opportunities for new and existing food brands to move into this market. Technology is now playing a greater part in food production and in finding ways to feed the world’s growing population in a sustainable way at a time when the world faces serious global-warming related challenges.
Tech News : 1.5 Million Seat NHS IT Support Deal
Microsoft and NHS England have announced the signing of new five-year contract whereby Microsoft (via a major reseller) will roll out the Microsoft 365 cloud-based online productivity suite to 1.5 million NHS staff.
Trusted Relationship Continues
Coinciding with the 75th Anniversary of the NHS, Microsoft says the partnership, through a contract awarded to the reseller, will see it supply digital solutions – Microsoft’s 365 suite and security tools – to NHS organisations all over the country. The contract is believed to be worth £775 million (£930 million with VAT), is seen as the next step in a “trusted relationship” over decades.
Improving Collaboration, & Modernising
The reseller which described the deal as “money saving” says that it will mean that NHS workers (doctors, nurses, clinicians, and support staff) will now be able to benefit from the full suite of Microsoft 365 workplace productivity apps, which will make collaboration easier and maximise time for care.
The reseller’s managing director said the deal will with NHS England will provide: “A platform for future innovation in healthcare”, and that the five-year contract “highlights the breadth and depth of skills [they] bring in managing, advising, and supporting the NHS to utilise secure cloud platforms, analytics, and apps”.
Clare Barclay, Chief Executive Officer, Microsoft UK, said: “This agreement will ensure that NHS organisations can deliver efficiency, reform ways of working through collaboration tools and build resilience through a modern, secure cloud-based infrastructure”.
Money Saving
The money saving aspect of the deployment contract comes from negotiating one single, national NHS contract rather than, as in the past, negotiating separate software licences with different prices with each individual healthcare trust. John Quinn, Chief Information Officer at NHS England said the new contract is “a further great example of the NHS using our collective buying power to secure market-leading products at a reduced cost for taxpayers”.
That said, the contract was only signed after £8m had been spent on emergency one-month extensions to previous arrangements.
Follows The Teams National Deal In 2020
This new national deal follows the first national deal in March 2020 whereby the Microsoft Teams app was made available to all NHS staff, saving users an estimated 17 million hours of time by being able to have virtual meetings.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
For NHS England, the collective deal with an already familiar major Microsoft re-seller is a way of building on the success of the previous 2020 deal, moving more to the cloud, and improving the type of collaborative working that the NHS needs. Also, the deal brings modernisation, scope for innovation, and the kind of updated security that the NHS needs – health organisations with outdated security have been targets for cyber criminals in recent years. For the reseller, a near billion-pound new deal with a massive existing client is clearly good news and brings the security of continuing close relationship. For Microsoft, already dominant in this area, it’s another high-profile endorsement of its products that’s bought good publicity and enhanced an already profitable relationship through its resellers. With the NHS once more known to be the biggest purchaser of fax machines, this deal marks another big step towards modernisation of the tech aspects of its operation that could benefit all stakeholders.
Tech News : Apple Photo Stream Shutdown Warning
Those with photos and videos stored on Apple’s Photo Stream may wish to back them up elsewhere or lose them when Apple retire Photo Stream on 26 July.
What Is Photo Stream?
Apple’s Photo Stream was a feature introduced in 2011 as part of their iCloud service, which allowed users to sync and share photos across their Apple devices. Photo Stream was designed to automatically upload and store the most recent 1,000 photos taken or saved on an iOS device, Mac, or PC for a period of 30 days (after which they are automatically deleted from iCloud). In essence, Photo Stream temporarily uploads the photos taken on one device so users can view them on any other device with My Photo Stream enabled and import them to their library on that device if they wish.
Replaced With iCloud Photos (iCloud Photo Library)
Photo Stream was largely replaced by iCloud Photo Library / iCloud Photos, a separate service, which was introduced in October 2014, alongside the release of iOS 8.1, and provided users with a more comprehensive and integrated solution for managing and syncing their photos across Apple devices.
Photo Stream Being Retired On July 26
Apple says that Photo Stream will be shut down on July 26, 2023. Users may already be aware that new photo uploads to My Photo Stream from devices were stopped one month before, on June 26. Apple says, “Any photos uploaded to the service before that date will remain in iCloud for 30 days from the date of upload and will be available to any of your devices where My Photo Stream is currently enabled”.
What To Do
Users of Photo Stream should already have been emailed about the matter, but a summary of the advice is:
– Check whether you use iCloud Photos. Go to Settings > your name > iCloud. Check that it says “On” next to Photos on each device. On a Mac, go to Apple menu > System Settings, click your name, then click iCloud. Make sure that it says “On” next to Photos on each of your devices.
– If you already have iCloud Photos enabled on all of your devices, there’s no need to do anything as your photos are already uploaded and stored in iCloud.
– If you don’t use iCloud Photos, you can save photos currently in My Photo Stream to your device. To keep your photos synced across your devices, you can turn on iCloud Photos.
– If you don’t have iCloud Photos, the photos in ‘My Photo Stream’ will already be stored on at least one of your devices, and as long as you have the device with your originals, photos won’t be lost. However, if a photo you want isn’t already in your library on a particular iPhone or iPad, make sure that you save it to your library on that device.
– To set up iCloud Photos (on any iPhone with iOS 8.3 or later, iPad with iPadOS 8.3 or later, or Mac with OS X Yosemite or later), follow the instructions on the Apple website here.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
The iCloud Photos feature essentially replaced Photo Stream many years ago with a more permanent, better alternative – Photo Stream only saves photos/videos in iCloud for 30 days. Apple announced back in May its intention to close down Photo Stream and users should have been told by email. However, some users may still not be aware and may not have iCloud Photos set up so, in order to avoid possibly losing some valuable memories which may include business-related videos and photos, it’s worth checking now to avoid any problems.
Tech Trivia : Did You Know? This Week in History …
July 1968 … The Start of ‘More Noise’.
On 18th July 1968, Intel was incorporated.
These days, you’ll know them as the wildly successful manufacturer of microchips and indeed the processor that you’re using right now in whichever device you’re holding may well have “Intel Inside”.
One of their big-breaks came when they correctly predicted that memory chips were going to have a lot of competition, so they took action and went into the microprocessor market.
However, they’ve also created some less-than-stellar products over the years as well. Did you know they used to make digital watches for example? Gordon Moore (one of Intel’s founding fathers) famously wore his Microma watch for many years after they’d decided to abandon the digital watch market, calling it his ‘$15 Million dollar’ mistake.
Not that it was all wasted because the pioneering integrated circuitry which helped spawn the age of digital watches directly translated into advances in the field of mircroprocessors.
As an aside, Intel entered the watch market again in recent years with smartwatches and wearables and fitness trackers and once again they failed to make it commercially successful and abandoned the market. The reason for Intel’s forays into the watch market every few decades isn’t because they’re hell-bent on making watches! It’s because they’re hell bent on pioneering and innovation in markets that show promise, which means making (and accepting) mistakes.
Even their name was a failure at first … they were originally called Moore & Noyce, which people thought sounded like “More Noise” and so the name Intel (from ‘Integrated Electronics’) quickly replaced it which is fair enough because Robert Noyce did invent the integrated circuit after all, being the prodigious physicist that he was.
It’s said that if you want more success, you need to experience more failure. So, it pays to get organised.
One way of describing organised-failure is “Research” and Intel has highly-renowned research divisions and collaborate with universities around the world and – crucially – joint-venturing with other businesses for their research.
Internal research and development isn’t the only way to test new products and markets because Intel have bought many businesses over the years including Microma’s aforementioned washed-up watches to the acquisition of Altera, an attractive augmentation which now provides them with steady profits.
All in all, not bad for a company founded by a humble physicist (Noyce) and a chemist (Moore).
Tech Tip – 6 Ways To Speed Up Your Phone Charging
If you would like to save time and speed up your phone charging, here are six easy ways you can do this:
1. Switch To Airplane Mode
Switching on Airplane mode stops the cellular, Bluetooth, radio, and Wi-Fi features which all drain the battery, and in Airplane mode your phone loses less power. Turning on Airplane mode (via Settings in Android and Control Centre in iPhone) can save you a few minutes in charging time. Remember to turn Airplane Mode off afterwards.
2. Turn The Phone Off While Charging
It sounds obvious, but turning the phone off while charging means nothing else is drawing power from the battery, therefore, the phone charges faster. The downside is possibly missing calls.
3. Limit Phone Usage (App Use) While Charging
You may want to leave your phone switched on while charging but continuing to use power-hungry apps will slow things down (and potentially damage the battery with heat). Therefore, close apps while the phone is charging.
4. Use A Wall Socket
Using a wall socket rather than USB socket on a device makes for more efficient, faster charging.
5. Use a Fast Charger
Such chargers have the potential to promptly deliver up to 30W of power to a mobile phone or a tablet, which is six times swifter compared to a conventional charger, on average! With such a rapid charging device, your phone will attain full battery capacity swiftly.
Note – there’s been debate about the potential dangers of fast charging for mobile devices, due to the sudden influx of a large volume of electricity into the battery. Nonetheless, batteries are designed to quickly assimilate significant amounts of charge initially, so the consensus is generally that fast charging doesn’t result in any lasting damage. However to be sure, perhaps only use fast chargers when it’s really necessary.
6. Keep the Phone Cool
If your phone becomes (excessively) warm or hot, it could trigger your battery to malfunction, given that electronic components are susceptible to high heat. Moreover, if your phone is already overheated, the battery charging process will take considerably longer to avoid further temperature increase.
You can maintain an optimal temperature for your phone by not using it incessantly, avoiding placing it in hot environments like vehicles or enclosed containers, and understanding how to charge it in the right way (for instance, avoiding charging to 100% or leaving it to charge overnight).
Tech Insight : Voice Changers
In this insight, we look at ‘voice changers’, technology that lets users change and disguise their voices in real time and in playback.
What Do They Do & How?
Voice changing software (and hardware) alter the sound of a person’s voice in real-time or during playback. Voice changers can be implemented through software applications installed on computers, smartphones, or dedicated devices. Some voice chat programs or messaging apps may also include built-in voice modulation features. The latest voice changers use AI to help change and disguise voices.
Voice changers generally work by applying various effects, such as pitch shifting, modulation, distortion, echo, and other audio manipulations. There are free and paid-for Pro versions (often available on the same platform).
What Are They Used For?
Voice changers can be used for various purposes, including entertainment, anonymity, and practical applications. Here are a few common use cases:
– Entertainment. Voice changers are often employed in the entertainment industry for creating unique character voices in movies, TV shows, and video games. They enable actors and voice artists to transform their voices to match specific roles or enhance their performance.
– Gaming. In the gaming community, voice changers are popular for online multiplayer games. Players can modify their voices to match the characters they are portraying, adding an extra layer of immersion and fun to the gaming experience.
– Anonymity. Voice changers can be used to conceal one’s identity during online communication. By altering their voice, individuals can protect their privacy and maintain anonymity during voice chats, online gaming, or other virtual interactions.
– Pranks and humour. Voice changers are often used for practical jokes or comedic purposes. They allow users to mimic famous personalities, create funny sound effects, or generate exaggerated voices for amusement.
– Accessibility. Voice changers can also serve as assistive technology, helping individuals with speech impairments or conditions such as laryngitis to communicate more effectively. By modifying their voice, they can overcome communication barriers and make their speech more understandable.
What’s The Difference Between Voice Generators and Voice Changers?
AI voice changers modify an existing voice, while AI voice generators synthesise new voices from scratch. Voice changers alter and manipulate the characteristics of an input voice, whereas voice generators create entirely new voices using artificial intelligence techniques. That said, some AI voice sites offer both voice changers and voice generators.
Examples of AI Voice Changers
AI voice changers employ artificial intelligence techniques to modify and transform voices. Here are a few examples of AI-based voice changers:
Voice.ai (https://voice.ai/) is a free, real-time voice changer where users can choose from 1000s of different voices in its ‘Voice Universe’ UGC voice library, or use the AI Voice changer to change their voice in real-time across different apps, e.g. Zoom, Discord, Minecraft, GTA5, Fortnite, Valorant, League of Legends, Among Us, Skype, WhatsApp, Teamspeak and more. Voice.ai does, however, have a low Trustpilot rating which appears to be based around several issues including the quality of results, privacy, subscriptions and more.
Lyrebird (https://www.descript.com/lyrebird): Canada-based Lyrebird (AI research division of Descript) is an AI voice synthesis platform that can mimic and imitate human voices. It allows users to generate speech in different voices by training the AI model on a small voice sample. The resulting synthesised voice can be used to alter the speaker’s voice or create entirely new voices.
Modulate.ai (https://www.modulate.ai/). Modulate.ai is an AI-driven voice modulation platform that enables real-time voice changing in video games and virtual reality. It uses machine learning algorithms to transform the user’s voice into various character voices, enhancing the gaming experience and adding immersion.
Replica Studios (https://replicastudios.com/). Replica Studios offers an AI-powered voice synthesis platform that allows users to generate voices for characters, voice-overs, and other applications. The platform utilises AI models to create realistic and customisable voice effects, enabling voice actors to modify their voices to match specific requirements.
Resemble AI (https://www.resemble.ai/). Resemble AI provides an AI-based voice cloning and voiceover platform. It uses deep learning techniques to analyse and recreate a person’s voice based on a few minutes of recorded audio. This technology enables voice actors, content creators, and companies to generate personalised voices for different applications. Resemble AI’s voice changer allows users to use speech-to-speech to apply their voice’s cadence to an AI voice of their choice.
Respeecher (https://www.respeecher.com/). Although it is known as a voice cloning platform, it can transform input voices into a range of output voices.
VoiceMod (https://www.voicemod.net/ai-voices/). This real-time voice changer provides 10+ (and soon many more) different voices and a large number of voice effects for users. It focuses on users in the entertainment industry – games, movie character voices, streaming, and more.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
The advent of AI voice changers has ushered in a new era of opportunities for businesses and individuals alike. These innovative technologies have not only opened up new avenues for creativity and entertainment but have also resulted in significant cost and time savings. With free voice changers, voice cloning tools, and other advanced AI tools becoming accessible to everyone, businesses can harness their potential across different industries.
One of the key advantages of AI voice changers is their adaptability. They offer a wide range of uses, allowing businesses to leverage them for various purposes. In the entertainment industry, voice changers enable actors and voice artists to transform their voices, creating unique character voices for movies, TV shows, and video games. Gamers can immerse themselves in virtual worlds by modifying their voices to match their characters. Voice changers also offer a layer of anonymity for online communications, ensuring privacy and security.
Moreover, AI voice generators have revolutionised voice synthesis, enabling businesses to generate artificial voices that sound natural and human-like. This has opened up avenues for virtual assistants, audiobooks, voiceovers, and other applications where synthesised speech is needed. The ability to create personalised voices using AI models has provided content creators, voice actors, and companies with powerful tools to enhance their projects and engage audiences effectively.
Risks
However, as with any technological advancement, there are risks associated with the use of AI tools. The accessibility of AI voice changers and related technologies means that some individuals may employ them for malicious purposes, such as impersonation, fraud, or spreading disinformation. This calls for responsible use and ethical considerations in utilising these tools.
The rise of AI voice changers has brought about unprecedented opportunities for businesses and individuals. These tools have unlocked creative potential, saved time and costs, and opened doors to new experiences across industries. However, it is crucial to be aware of the risks and ensure responsible use of AI tools to mitigate any potential misuse. By harnessing the power of AI voice changers in a responsible manner, businesses can explore new horizons and leverage the transformative capabilities of this technology, from marketing to training & onboarding for example.