The first UK pilot scheme using CCTV to specifically target motorists who throw litter from their cars will shortly begin in Maidstone, Kent.

LitterCam

The Maidstone Borough Council is enlisting the help of LitterCam technology, which uses AI to remotely detect vehicle-based littering, and number plate recognition to identify cars involved in littering.

LitterCam is a third party, private company that offers a “complete vehicle-based littering solution for street scene, enforcement and highways maintenance professionals” with the aim of helping them to “Improve environmental quality and reduce the risk of litter clearance”.  According to LitterCam, its remote littering-spotting camera solution “includes all hardware, software and services – from detection device to the point where a debtor makes an appeal”.

Fines

The video evidence from LitterCam, combined with a DVLA check of the vehicle owner (based on the numberplate recognition images) can then be used to back up the issuing of an automatic £90 fine. If unpaid after 15 days, the fine will rise to £120.

The Problem

There has been a 500 per cent increase in littering since the 1960s (CPRE figures) and Highways England reports that it picks up more than 200,000 bags of litter from the roadside each year. The problem of littering from cars is reported to have become worse during the pandemic lockdowns, with reports that it has increased in the Maidstone area (where the LitterCam pilot is to be run) by almost 250 per cent.

In addition to looking untidy, littering is responsible for causing:

– Large clean-up bills and usage of resources for local authorities.

– Injuries to wild animals, particularly birds.  The RSPB reports 5,000 calls a year regarding litter and 14 calls a day regarding animals affected by litter.

– Pollution and damage to the environment. For example, this can be plastic waste finding its way into rivers and the sea and being swallowed by animals resulting in injuries and death, and toxic pollution of the land and water from chemicals such as that caused by polluted runoff from litter (petrol and consumer waste) infiltrate the soil and water supply. For example, polluted water can affect the environment and can be ingested by fish, other animals, and humans.

Unpunished

Many environmental commentators see the reasons for the problem reaching its current scale as not having an effective tracking and deterrent/punishment system in place (until now), priority and money being given to tackling other issues, people being careless and lazy in a throw-away society, people being able to quickly distance themselves from the results of their littering (being in cars), as well as people not understanding/underestimating the negative impacts of littering.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Technology related to CCTV surveillance has become much more sophisticated and widespread in society as a whole as its benefits have been realised (e.g. reducing and deterring crime) and protecting business premises, saving money and resources, and gathering accurate evidence. The environment is now recognised as being a very important issue as more facts about the surprising effects of littering have been acknowledged (e.g. huge amounts plastic waste in the sea). Motorists littering has also been a real challenge to local authorities with stretched resources in terms of clean-up bills and difficulty in catching the mobile culprits and being able to conclusively link them to the offence. Advanced AI technology (used in conjunction with remote CCTV) is proving to have many varied benefits in various different environments and settings. If this pilot proves effective, it could be rolled out in other areas, thereby benefiting society as a whole and creating new business opportunities for companies offering similar and related services to those of LitterCam.

Amazon has opened its first ‘no-till, just walk out’ grocery store in London where customers are automatically billed on exiting the store.

Frictionless

The new Amazon Fresh store offers a “frictionless” experience to shoppers as they are given what feels like an incredible level of trust and hopefully save time in the shop thanks to the use of some serious surveillance technology.  After registering that they have entered the store by scanning a barcode from their account on the Amazon Shopping app on their smartphone, customers are only required to place the groceries they require in a bag (or carry them by hand) and then simply walk out of the store.

Technology

The technology at work in the Amazon Fresh store to enable the removal of tills includes cameras and depth-sensors as well as deep-learning and AI-based software, similar to that used in the first Amazon Go stores in the US.

Own Brand Too

In addition to the groceries from Morrison’s, Booths and other supermarkets that Amazon has arrangements with, around one-third of the products in the Amazon Fresh store in Ealing are Amazon’s own-brand products.  These include staples such milk and eggs, sourced in the UK, as well as an “Our Selection” sub-brand for premium products.

Concerns

Some of the main concerns about Amazon’s new ‘frictionless’ store idea becoming more widespread in the future include:

– Worries that it could mean job losses.  For example, Paddy Lillis, general secretary of the USDAW union has expressed concern that an expansion of this kind of concept could see a number of retail jobs in the high street disappear, ironically not long after the same key workers had been hailed as heroes in the pandemic.

– Although Amazon has said that it will only keep shopping data in a customers account for 30 days, there are still concerns about privacy, liberty, and rights groups (e.g. Big Brother Watch) about the privacy implications of tracking shoppers and what the records and analytics could be used for.

Amazon in London

Amazon has had a presence in the grocery market, and particularly in a ‘bricks and mortar’ way in London since it launched Amazon Fresh there back in 2016.

Also, Amazon had previously operated its own ‘Amazon Restaurants’ food delivery service in London, but this was closed in December 2018 following strong competition from Deliveroo, Uber Eats and Just Eat, among and others.

Fast forward to 2020 and in April, the Competition and Markets Authority announced that Amazon could invest in food distribution company Deliveroo. Also, in July 2020 the Amazon Fresh grocery service was re-launched in London and parts of the home counties so that Amazon Prime customers could buy groceries online and have them delivered same or next day for free (for orders over £40). This put Amazon in competition with the supermarkets and Ocado.

In the US in 2017

Amazon made some big moves into the grocery market in its home country of the US back in 2017 when it extended Amazon Fresh to bricks and mortar locations in its home city of Seattle. Also, in June 2017, Amazon acquired struggling grocery chain Whole Foods Market Inc for $14 billion, thereby giving it a base to start taking on bricks-and-mortar grocery giants such Wal-Mart.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Amazon has had its ups and downs trying to get into the bricks and mortar groceries market in the UK and this latest move shows very clear intent while firing a shot across the bows of grocery competitors in the UK in terms of demonstrating how technology can now be used to up the game, yet again, for customer convenience.  It may also be a way to showcase the technology that could be sold to rivals along the way. Although the ‘totally frictionless’ experience is reported to have been a little strange for the first customers, after a pandemic (where not touching things and minimising contact with others has been important) this type of shopping experience may be something that looks particularly valuable looking forward. It is understood that Amazon intends to open more of these stores, most likely in the centre of cities, and although many good sites are already taken by express versions of competitor supermarkets, the effects on the high street of the pandemic in terms of store closures may make other sites available. This may give competitors cause for concern in the near future and/or may make them investigate investing in technology to perhaps create their own versions.

New features for Microsoft’s Teams include cross-organisation channel sharing called ‘Teams Connect’ that has been likened to a very similar feature in Slack.

Announced at Ignite

At Microsoft’s ‘Ignite’ annual conference, held online this year, Microsoft announced a number of new collaborative working features for its Teams platform.

Microsoft Teams Connect

One key new feature (available now in private preview, with full rollout later this year) is Microsoft Teams Connect, which allows users to share channels with anyone, internal or external to an organisation. The shared channel appears within a user’s primary Microsoft Teams tenant next to other teams and channels, thereby giving easy access. The shared space enables users to chat, meet, collaborate on apps, share, and co-author documents in real-time in addition to giving admins access to granular controls, thereby enabling them to control how external users access data and information.

Like Slack Connect

Tech commentators have noted the similarity of this new feature to competitor Slack’s Connect feature which was introduced in June 2020.  Slack’s version also offers a secure environment/channel where an organisation can connect with up to 20 external partners, clients, vendors, and others.

Other New Features

Also announced at Ignite were a number of other new features for Teams including:

– Interactive webinars. These can be held with up 1,000 attendees from inside or outside the organisation. The 1,000 can be “seamlessly” extended to a 10,000 or 20,000-person view-only broadcast if necessary.  The webinars include “custom registration, rich presentation options, host controls such as the ability to disable attendee chat and video, and post-event reporting”.

– Microsoft PowerPoint Live in Microsoft Teams. Presenters can lead more engaging meetings and feel more confident due to being able to see notes, slides, meeting chat, and participants all in a single view. Also, attendees can personalise and have more control over their experience by privately navigating the content at their own pace or using the screen reader to make content accessible.

– Presenter mode. This feature allows presenters to customise how their video feed and content appear to the audience. For example, ‘Standout’ mode displays the speaker’s video feed in front of the shared content, Reporter mode displays content above the speaker’s shoulder (like a news broadcast) and ‘Side-by-side’ mode puts the presenter’s video feed alongside their content.

Hardware Too

In addition to the new software features, Microsoft has announced that it will also soon be launching Teams-focused hardware including Teams Intelligent Speakers. Microsoft says that these can identify and differentiate between the voices of up to 10 people talking in a Microsoft Teams Room and have been created in partnership with EPOS and Yealink, and allow attendees to use the transcription to follow along or capture actions, by knowing what was said in the room, by whom.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Remote working resulting from the pandemic lockdowns has seen the war between remote, collaborative working platform competitors Zoom, Slack, and Microsoft Teams intensify, with all platforms trying to match their competitors’ features while introducing some new ones of their own.  The pandemic brought huge popularity to Zoom. For example, in September last year where it raised its annual revenue forecast by more than 30 per cent as, in addition to receiving a huge boost in user numbers, it converted much of its vast free user base to paid subscriptions.

Slack reported having a massive 12 million daily active users back in October 2020, a number which had been increased by 2 million since January 2019 and has been rising through the pandemic. Slack is known for its stickiness, strong user engagement, and for being a very useful chat app, but its challenge has been convincing big businesses that it is adding enough value and features to justify it being a worthy, paid-for alternative to Microsoft’s Teams.

The Microsoft brand and the proliferation of Windows has given Teams huge user numbers and as far back as pre-pandemic December 2019 it reported having 20 million daily active users. When the first lockdown hit in March 2020, Teams reported such a boost in user numbers that is saw a massive 12 million user boost in one week as a result of the switch to remote working. The latest introduction of features is the next competitive step in Microsoft’s ongoing battle for users and market leadership with the big remote, collaborative work platform competitors. Making sure that the platform at least has the features that competing platforms have and the capacity and the flexibility to keep introducing more convenient and relevant features in line with changing customer needs and designing platform features that become so embedded in customer workflows are things that Teams is looking for to keep gaining numbers and deter switching. For business users, Microsoft is a trusted brand but the war with Zoom and Slack is set to continue.

If you would like a quick and easy way to bring all relevant files from different drives into one virtual folder that you can search at one time, use the Windows 10 ‘Libraries’ feature. Here’s how:

– Go to/open File Explorer.

– If ‘Libraries’ isn’t listed e.g., under ‘This PC’, right mouse click in the navigation pane and click ‘Show Libraries’.

– To create your own library, double click on ‘Libraries’ and right mouse click > New > Library. There are also four default libraries that are already in user account.

– Click on the new Library folder you’ve created and, top left, click on the ‘Manage Library’ folder icon.

– You can then click on the ‘Add’ and ‘Remove’ buttons to organise your virtual Libraries.

With ‘audio-only’, social media app Clubhouse starting to hit the news after its launch one year ago, we take a look at exactly what it is and why you might consider using it.

What Is It?

Clubhouse is an invitation-only iPhone app where users can set-up their own (or join other users’) virtual public or private chat rooms.  Everything is live and in real-time and only a certain number of people are allowed to speak while others listen and have the opportunity to raise their hand (virtually) to ask to be allowed to speak.

The Hype

Some commentators have pointed out that Clubhouse’s rise has been extremely fast and surrounded by some hype.  For example, the app was only launched in April 2020 by Paul Davison and Rohan Seth of Alpha Exploration Co. and by May 2020 was valued at nearly $100 million, a total which had risen to a staggering $1 billion by January 21, 2021! Clubhouse only has around only two million active users but has already proven to be very popular in the US, China, Brazil, and Turkey.

Part of the Hype, which has been increased by the exclusivity of ‘invite only’ (users can only invite two other people) has been boosted by some of the big business names and CEOs who are reported to be using the app (e.g. Elon Musk and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg).

Strengths and Opportunities

Some of the strengths and opportunities of Clubhouse as a user include:

– Users can have the kind of direct access to and an audience with influential people and industry leaders from around the world that it would be very difficult, costly, and time-consuming to get normally.

– The real-time conversations mean that time is saved – issues, ideas and plans can be addressed and discussed instantaneously.

– The app can help save the cost, hassle (and now the risk) of having to travel to meetings and conferences with users being able to get similar or perhaps better results. This is also a way of safely beating global lockdown restrictions.

– Users have a fair amount of control.  For example, they can move between groups and discussions, set up their own groups, and talk privately or publicly.

– The discussions and the other users of the app could provide new business ideas and opportunities. For example, users can easily find groups relating to their industry, thereby finding a new, authentic way to boost their brand.  Also, conversations can be very interesting and diverse, and journalists have now start hosting their own weekly rooms discussing trends that could represent new publicity opportunities.

– Although now banned in China, the app provides a way to avoid the government restrictions that some states have placed on other social media platforms.

Weaknesses and Threats – Mainly Security and Privacy Concerns

Many of the possible weaknesses and threats are based around security and privacy concerns about the app. Some of the main weaknesses and threats include:

– There does not appear to be end-to-end encryption on Clubhouse (unlike competitors like WhatsApp).

– Some commentators have pointed to the app’s China connection. For example, Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) has recently suggested that user data is routed through Chinese servers and by implication, the Chinese state. This means that data could technically be intercepted, transcribed, and possibly used against people.

– The app has been designed so that all conversations are not recorded/and no playbacks of conversations are made available, and the app’s terms and conditions stipulate that there should be no recording or streaming without the explicit permission of the speaker.  However, individual users could choose to record the audio as it happens. This could result in recordings being shared without permission, constituting a privacy breach, accidental and/or deliberate disclosure. Making any real privacy promises is, therefore, likely to be very difficult and the onus is on users to be very careful what they discuss using the app.

– Recently, it was reported that a Clubhouse user (now banned) found a way to stream multiple rooms from their own feed to a website in what has been downplayed as a data ‘spill’. After realising that it was possible to be in multiple rooms at once, the rogue user reportedly connected a Clubhouse API to his website, thereby sharing his login remotely with anyone who wanted to listen to audio chats from the app.

– The app is audio-only.  Although this does provide the benefit of a podcast feel, other apps allow more media such as text, pictures, and videos.

– Having the app on a work device could expose the network to another security threat.

– There is concern over the requirement on sign-up that users must upload their device address books, thereby sharing other peoples’ contact details without consent.

– The app’s apparent privacy weaknesses may mean that it isn’t taking account of data protection laws like GDPR.  For example, the app has already fallen foul of German data protection authorities for possible breaches of GDPR.

– Discussing work/business matters on the app could technically constitute breaching an employment contract and company policies (privacy).

Looking Ahead

Clubhouse has risen fast with the help of some hype and is currently burning brightly which has led some commentators to suggest that it has the appearance of something that may be short-lived.  Others, however, have suggested that it looks a little like the pattern that Zoom took when it started out.  Clearly, the app offers many unique opportunities for business users in terms of access to other important contacts and finding new opportunities.

There are clearly many security and privacy concerns for the app to address before it gets better press, although it is still early days for Clubhouse, and the company says it is reviewing cyber-security.

The popularity of the app means that it now faces the threat of big social media players quickly launching their own versions (e.g. Twitter’s ‘Spaces’).

For users, it may simply be a case of weighing up the known risks against the possible benefits, accepting that this is simply an exclusive space to meet and chat but that it comes with potential privacy and security risks at this stage in the app’s life.

Twitter has announced that it will soon launch a ‘Super Follow’ feature where account holders can charge their followers for access to exclusive content such as newsletters, videos and deals.

What is ‘Super Follow’?

The Super Follow feature, which was announced in an investor presentation last week, will allow Popular Twitter users to charge a monthly subscription to their followers who would like access to extra content that other followers will not be able to see.

Twitter used an example of $4.99 as a monthly subscription fee, although there will most likely be a range of prices set to a number of parameters. There has been speculation that one qualifying factor to use the feature could be a follower number threshold and Twitter also suggested that the feature could incorporate a one-off ‘tipping’ option.  It is likely that Super Follow will be introduced at some point this summer.

Twitter Spaces and Revue

Other features that Twitter is going to introduce include:

– Twitter Spaces, which has been described by some commentators as a competitor to the audio-only, real-time, virtual-room app ‘Clubhouse’ which has become very popular in the US, China, Brazil and Turkey. Spaces, which is currently in beta testing, and not available to the Twitter audience, will enable Twitter users to participate in audio chats.

– The ‘Revue’ feature, which allows Twitter users to publish paid or free newsletters to their audience.  Twitter says, “Revue makes it easy for writers and publishers to send editorial newsletters — and get paid”. Revue appears to be Twitter’s own competitor to Patreon, the US-based membership platform which “provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service” and “helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers”.  Patreon says that it has “200000+ creators earning salaries from over 4 million monthly” and that it “makes it easy for creators to get paid”.

Why?

The ‘Super Follow’ feature should provide a revenue stream, other than advertising, for the social media giant, and provide a way for Twitter to offer more value to its really popular users while keeping them loyal (i.e. stopping the temptation to leave for other platforms like Clubhouse).

The success of platforms like Patreon, Substack and OnlyFans which has been fuelled by the demands of whole new industries and segments for influencers and those who want to make money from their own popularity, while at the same time publishing content that keeps fuelling their popularity is something that Twitter (and Twitter’s very popular users) have been eyeing.  Twitter’s investors have also been hoping that Twitter would use its brand power to get a piece of this market and make money from its own competitor to the likes of Patreon.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

With Twitter Spaces (and Revue), Twitter is appealing and offering value to its really popular users and those who are likely to be using the platform for professional purposes (e.g. influencers, celebrities, music artists and similar). Real fans and followers of these users are more likely to want to pay extra for exclusive content through ‘Spaces’ or to sign up for more content through ‘Revue’. Most average users may not perceive any new, realistic revenue-generating opportunities for themselves in offering their few followers the features.

For Twitter, now that it has seen how these markets (and the competition) have grown, this is a way to take advantage of new business opportunities, create new non-advertising-based revenue streams, use its brand power to seriously compete against the likes of Clubhouse, Patreon, and others, keep its most popular users loyal, and boost its own image as a company that is moving forward and being more innovative.  It is also a way for Twitter to please (and show that it’s listening to) its investors and users.