Tech Tip – Tidy & Focused
If you’d like to quickly clean up a messy desktop in Windows 10, and if you’d like to stay focused by clearing away all open apps except for the one you’re working on, here’s how:
To hide desktop icons quickly:
– Press and hold (or right-click) the desktop.
– Select ‘View’ and ‘Show desktop icons’ – this will clear the desktop.
To get the desktop icons back, select ‘Show desktop icons’.
– To clear your workspace of all open apps except the one you’re working on:
– Select and hold the window you want to stay open.
– Give your mouse (or finger) a back-and-forth shake.
– All the other open apps will automatically minimise.
Tech Tip – Format Painter
If you’re preparing a Word document in Windows 10 and you like the look of the formatting in one section and you’d like a quick and easy way to apply the same formatting to other sections, try using ‘Format Painter’.
You can find Format Painter on the top left of the screen – a paintbrush symbol. To use it :
– Highlight a paragraph in your document which has the formatting you like.
– Click on the Format Painter symbol.
– Click in the document next to the section you’d like to change to that formatting (you’ll see the paintbrush symbol appear) and highlight the new section.
– The formatting you like will automatically be applied.
Blue Light Thinking Wrong Suggests Research
New research results from the University of Manchester suggest that the popularly accepted wisdom that the sharp blue light emitted by our smartphones and laptops is harmful to our health and disruptive to our sleep may be wrong.
Blue Light
The current thinking, which has led to device makers adding filters to our devices (e.g. Night Shift in the iPhone 11 and even the Windows 10 Night Mode) that show warmer colours at night is based on the idea that too much exposure to artificial blue light emitted by our devices at night is bad for us. For example, as highlighted by Samsung (on its Australian website), too much blue light displayed on the screen of a device has been thought to suppress the production of sleep-inducing hormone ‘melatonin’, hence the need to filter out the blue and replace it with warmer colours. Samsung also suggests that its filter could “reduce digital eye strain”.
Mixed Messages
The new results presented by the University of Manchester researchers show that not only is this belief about blue light (and the need for warmer light filters at night) likely to be mistaken, but also that using warmer light filters may be sending our bodies mixed messages.
Why?
The new research, which was carried out using mice, has revealed that blue colours associated with twilight have a weaker effect than white or yellow light of equivalent brightness. The research results appear to show that, in fact our eyes naturally associate warmer, brighter colours with daytime, and dimmer and cooler colours (blue and darker) with night as our body clock synchronises with the environment. These cool colours are signals to the brain that it’s twilight and, therefore, time to start getting ready for sleep.
Meaning?
This means that rather than suppressing sleep-inducing hormone ‘melatonin’, the emission of blue light (in dimmed conditions) may actually be more restful than yellow light, and that showing ‘warmer’ colours (via a filter) rather than blue light could be sending the wrong message to the brain. If this is so, it may be the warmer colours of the filter that are more likely to suppress the production of melatonin rather than the blue light glow from our devices.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
For device-makers who have developed filters based on the opposite of theses findings, these research results may be unexpected, embarrassing, and highlight an area where costs have been incurred unnecessarily. That said, the view that blue light needed to be filtered at night was widely supported by many credible, expert sources and these filters were developed by device makers with the customer’s wellbeing (and a marketing/value-adding brand benefit) in mind, based on what appeared to be correct information at the time. Also, these new results were based upon one study involving mice, not humans, and that more research is likely to be needed before this new opposite idea about blue light can be widely accepted as the new truth.
AI Better at Breast Cancer Detection Than Doctors
Researchers at Good Health have created an AI program which, in tests, has proven to be more accurate at detecting and diagnosing breast cancer than expert human radiologists.
Trained
The AI software, which was developed by Good Health researchers in conjunction DeepMind, Cancer Research UK Imperial Centre, Northwestern University and Royal Surrey County Hospital was ‘trained’ to detect the presence of breast cancer using X-ray images (from mammograms) from nearly 29,000 women.
Results
In the UK tests, compared to one radiologist, the AI program delivered a reduction of 1.2% in false positives, when a mammogram was incorrectly diagnosed as abnormal, and a reduction of 2.7% in false negatives, where a cancer was missed. These positive results were even greater for the US tests.
In another separate test, which used the program trained only on UK data then tested it against US data (to determine its wider effectiveness), there was a very respectable 3.5% reduction in false positives and 8.1% reduction in false negatives.
In short, these results appear to show that the AI program, which outperformed six radiologists in the reading of mammograms, and only had mammograms to go on (human radiologists also have access to medical history) is better at spotting cancer than a single doctor, and equally as good as spotting cancer as the current double-reading system of two doctors.
Promising
Even though these initial test results have received a lot of publicity and appear to be very positive, bearing in mind the seriousness of the condition, AI-based systems of this kind still have some way to go before more research, clinical studies and regulatory approval brings them into the mainstream of healthcare services.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
This faster and more accurate way of spotting and diagnosing breast cancer by harnessing the power of AI could bring many benefits. These include reducing stress for patients by shortening diagnosis time, easing the workload pressure on already stretched radiologists, and going some way towards helping bridge the UK’s current shortage of radiologists who need to be trained to read mammograms (which normally takes more than 10 years training). All this could mean greater early diagnosis and survival rates.
For businesses, this serves as an example of how AI can be trained and used to study some of the most complex pieces of information and produce results that can be more accurate, faster, and cheaper than humans doing the same job, reembering that, of course, AI programs work 24/7 without a day off.
Glimpse of the Future of Tech at CES Expo Show
This week, at the giant CES expo in Las Vegas, the latest technology from around the world is on display, and here are just a few of the glimpses into the future that are being demonstrated there, with regards to business-tech.
Cyberlink FaceMe®
Leading facial recognition company Cyberlink will be demonstrating the power of its highly accurate FaceMe® AI engine. The FaceMe® system, which Cyberlink claims has an accuracy rate (TAR, True Acceptance Rate) of 99.5% at 10-4 FAR, is so advanced that it can recognise the age, gender and even the emotional state of passers-by and can use this information to display appropriate adverts.
D-ID
In a world where facial recognition technology is becoming more prevalent, D-ID recognise the need to protect the sensitive biometric data that makes up our faces. On display at CES expo is D-ID’s anti facial recognition solution which uses an algorithm, advanced image processing and deep learning techniques to resynthesise any given photo to a protected version so that photos are unrecognisable to face recognition algorithms, but humans will not notice any difference.
Hour One
Another interesting contribution to the Las Vegas CES expo is Hour One’s AI-powered system for creating premium quality synthetic characters based on real-life people. The idea is that these very realistic characters can be used to promote products without companies having to hire expensive stars and actors, and that companies using Hour One can save time and money and get a close match to their brief due to the capabilities, scale/cope and fast turnaround that Hour One offers.
Mirriad
Also adding to the intriguing and engaging tech innovations at the expo, albeit at private meeting there, is Mirriad’s AI-powered solution for analysing videos, TV programmes and movies for brand/product insertion opportunities and enabling retrospective brand placements in the visual content. For example, different adverts can be inserted in roadside billboards and bus stop advertising boards that are shown in pre-shot videos and films.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
AI is clearly emerging as an engine that’s driving change and creating a wide range of opportunities for business marketing as well as for security purposes. The realism and accuracy, flexibility, scope, scale, and potential cost savings that AI offers could provide many beneficial business opportunities. The flipside for us as individuals and consumers is that, for example, as biometric systems (such as facial recognition) offers us some convenience and protection from cyber-crime, they can also threaten our privacy and security. It is ironic and probably inevitable, therefore, that we may need and value AI-powered protection solutions such as D-ID to protect us.
Email Security
| Following on from last month’s featured article about email security (part 1), in part 2 we focus on many of the email security and threat predictions for this year and for the near, foreseeable future.
Looking Forward In part 1 of this ‘Email Security’ snapshot, we looked at how most breaches involve email, the different types of email attacks, and how businesses can defend themselves against a variety of known email-based threats. Unfortunately, businesses and organisations now operate in an environment where cyber-attackers are using more sophisticated methods across multi-vectors and where threats are constantly evolving. With this in mind, and with businesses seeking to be as secure as possible against the latest threats, here are some of the prevailing predictions based around email security for the coming year. Ransomware Still a Danger As highlighted by a recent Malwarebytes report, and a report by Forbes, the ransomware threat is by no means over and since showing an increase in the first quarter of 2019 of 195 per cent on the previous year’s figures it is still predicted to be a major threat in 2020. Tech and security commentators have noted that although ransomware attacks on consumers have declined by 33 per cent since last year, attacks against organisations have worsened. In December, for example, a ransomware attack was reported to have taken a US Coast Guard (USCG) maritime base offline for more than 30 hours. At the time of writing this article, it has been reported that following an attack discovered on New Year’s Day, hackers using ransomware are holding Travelex’s computers for ransom to such a degree that company staff have been forced to use pen and paper to record transactions! Information Age, for example, predicts that softer targets (outdated software, inadequate cybersecurity resources, and a motivation to pay the ransom) such as the healthcare services will be targeted more in the coming year with ransomware that is carried by email. Phishing The already prevalent email phishing threat looks likely to continue and evolve this year with cybercriminals set to try new methods in addition to sending phishing emails e.g. using SMS and even spear phishing (highly targeted phishing) using deepfake videos to pose as company authority figures. As mentioned in part 1 of the email security articles, big tech companies are responding to help combat phishing with new services e.g. the “campaign views” tool in Office 365 and Google’s advanced security settings for G Suite administrators. BEC & VEC Whereas Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks have been successful at using email fraud combined with social engineering to bait one staff member at-a-time to extract money from a targeted organisation, security experts say that this kind of attack is morphing into a much wider threat of ‘VEC’ (Vendor Email Compromise). This is a larger and more sophisticated version which, using email as a key component, seeks to leverage organisations against their own suppliers. Remote Access Trojans Remote Access Trojans (RATs) are malicious programs that can arrive as email attachments. RATs provide cybercriminals with a back door for administrative control over the target computer, and they can be adapted to help them to avoid detection and to carry out a number of different malicious activities including disabling anti-malware solutions and enabling man-in-the-middle attacks. Security experts predict that more sophisticated versions of these malware programs will be coming our way via email this year. The AI Threat Many technology and security experts agree that AI is likely to be used in cyberattacks in the near future and its ability to learn and to keep trying to reach its target e.g. in the form of malware, make it a formidable threat. Email is the most likely means by which malware can reach and attack networks and systems, so there has never been a better time to step up email security, train and educate staff about malicious email threats, how to spot them and how to deal with them. The addition of AI to the mix may make it more difficult for malicious emails to be spotted. The good news for businesses, however, is that AI and machine learning is already used in some anti-virus software e.g. Avast, and this trend of using AI in security solutions to counter AI security threats is a trend that is likely to continue. One Vision of the Email Security Future The evolving nature of email threats means that businesses and organisations may need to look at their email security differently in the future. One example of an envisaged approach to email security comes from Mimecast’s CEO Peter Bauer. He suggests that in order to truly eliminate the threats that can abuse the trust in their brands “out in the wild” companies need to “move from perimeter to pervasive email security. This will mean focusing on the threats: – To the Perimeter (which he calls Zone1). This involves protecting users’ email and data from spam and viruses, malware and impersonation attempts, data leaks – in fact, protecting the whole customer, partner and vendor ecosystem. – From inside the perimeter (Zone 2). This involves being prepared to be able to effectively tackle internal threats like compromised user accounts, lateral movement from credential harvesting links, social engineering, and employee error threats. – From beyond the perimeter (Zone 3). These could be threats to brands and domains from spoofed or hijacked sites that could be used to defraud customers and partners. As well as recognising and looking to deal with threats in these 3 zones, Bauer also suggests an API-led approach to help deliver pervasive security throughout all zones. This could involve businesses monitoring and observing email attacks with e.g. SOARs, SIEMs, endpoints, firewalls and broader threat intelligence platforms, feeding this information and intelligence to security teams to help keep email security as up to date and as tight as possible. Into 2020 and Beyond Looking ahead to email security in 2020 and beyond, companies will be facing plenty more of the same threats (phishing, ransomware, RATs) which rely on email combined with human error and social engineering to find their way into company systems and networks. Tech companies are responding with updated anti-phishing and other solutions. SME’s (rather than just bigger companies) are also likely to find themselves being targeted with more attacks involving email, and companies will need to, at the very least, make sure they have the basic automated, tech and human elements in place (training, education, policies and procedures) to help provide adequate protection (see the end of part 1 for a list of email security suggestions). The threat of AI-powered attacks, however, is causing some concern and the race is on to make sure that AI-powered protection is up to the level of any AI-powered attacks. Taking a leaf out of companies like Mimecast’s book, and looking at email security in much wider scope and context (outside the perimeter, inside the perimeter, and beyond) may bring a more comprehensive kind of email security that can keep up with the many threats that are now arriving across a much wider attack surface. |