It has been reported that Mozilla will be introducing a (paid for) premium subscription-based Firefox service this October to run alongside the free, open-source Firefox browser.

Why?

Mozilla’s share of the (free) browser market has been squeezed by some heavy competition from Google’s Chrome browser and although the Firefox browser is present on many computers and is used to sell people services, it isn’t actually making Mozilla any money.  Also, Mozilla relies heavily on revenue that it receives from search companies that pay to be featured in the Firefox browser, with much of that money coming from its competitor Google. Mozilla, therefore, is looking to diversify and find a way to build its own additional independent revenue stream from the bundling of value-adding services that it already has.

What?

Reports indicate that the new paid for bundled service could include:

• VPN bandwidth that exceeds what’s available (free) via Mozilla’s ProtonMail VPN partnership i.e. giving paying customers for its new service access to a premium level VPN bandwidth.
• An as yet, unspecified allotment of secure cloud storage.

Other possible parts of the bundled subscription service could include (although this has not been confirmed):

• Mozilla’s free file transfer service “Firefox Send”.
• Mozilla’s password manager “Lockwise”.
• Firefox Monitor, Mozilla’s service, similar to HaveIBeenPwned.com, which allows you to check whether your personal information has been compromised by any of the numerous data breaches.
• The “Pocket” application, also known as “Read It Later” which helps with managing a reading list of articles from the Internet by letting you save web pages and videos to Pocket in just one click. Mozilla acquired this service in 2017, and it already has a Premium version available for $45 per year.
• Tools from ‘Scroll’ (a start-up working with Mozilla) that could result in users of the new premium service getting access to certain news sites.

How Much?

Current reports indicate that the premium Firefox service could cost users around the $10 per month mark.

Still Free Firefox

Mozilla has announced that it won’t charge for existing Firefox features as part of its shift to offering subscription services and that the free Firefox browser will continue to run as normal.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For Mozilla, this offers a way to diversify and generate a stream of revenue that isn’t connected to Google and monetises the synergies that it can get from a bundle of some of the products and services that it already owns. It’s also another way to compete in a tough browser market where there is one very strong and dominant market leader that already monetises popular advertising services that display across other browsers and platforms.

For users, access to a premium level VPN bandwidth and secure cloud storage from a known and trusted brand may justify a monthly subscription, particularly with some of the other value-adding services that could be bundled in and may not have been tried businesses to date.

A recent Barclaycard survey shows that 48 per cent of Chief financial officers (CFOs) think that current accounting systems are too complex.

Complex Systems

According to the survey, some of the main reasons that CFO’s find their accounting systems to be too complex are that they are not digitised enough and too are labour intensive.  This is the reason why 44% of CFOs say that they would want more automation when they upgrade.

Not Investing Could Be Affecting Bottom Line

The Barclaycard survey also found that a Chief Financial Officer’s (CFO’s) leadership style and willingness to invest in their financial and accounting software has a real impact on their businesses’ bottom line.  For example, over a fifth (22%) of finance heads believe their accounting software is out of date, which, according to Barclaycard, could mean that UK CFOs are missing out on £6.7 billion each year by not taking advantage of early payment discounts.

Complex And Out Of Date

According to Barclaycard’s survey results, even though 85% of the CFOs surveyed said they recognise the need to continuously invest in their accounting systems, this is clearly not happening and this may be because more than three-quarters (77%) admit to not having time and resources to find the right one.

This lack of investment and time, coupled with apparent resistance to change in many businesses appears to have led to a situation whereby 22% of businesses are using out-of-date accounting software, with 40% of businesses not having upgraded their accounting software for five years!

Missing Out

Barclaycard’s survey indicates that because many accounting software systems are outdated, companies can’t automate payments to meet supplier conditions for an early settlement discount, and this could mean that UK corporates are missing out on of £14.4bn of saving per year (the equivalent of £75,389 per business).

The Survey

This survey, conducted on behalf of Barclaycard conducted by Opinium Research in February 2019, was carried out among 500 senior financial decision makers in companies with turnover of £6.5 million or more and who do not outsource their accounts payable.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

Even though the research was conducted by Barclaycard, which has an interest in accounting systems, it does highlight some of the challenges and barriers to upgrading that many businesses face, such as not having the time, money, and other resources to help them invest in a new system, thereby making them miss out on possible savings from early settlement discount.

It is not just with accounting systems that businesses would like to reduce complexity and increase automation where possible but struggling with accounting technology and systems is certainly not uncommon.  For many small businesses, it’s often a case of using desktop accounting software with related third-party apps and integration without much software training and asking the accountant for technology advice.  For example, a recent Zoho and AccountingWeb report showed that small businesses ask their accountants for technology advice 83% of the time, and 40% of those accountants say they are asked technology questions up to 20 times a month.

Mastercard has announced the introduction of its Digital Wellness program which utilises AI-based click-to-pay technology and new standards in order to provide an easier and safer online shopping experience.

The Program

The Mastercard Digital Wellness program provides tips and resources that are designed to help businesses (especially small and independent businesses) protect themselves from cyber-attacks and data breaches. The program includes Secure Remote Commerce, Mastercard’s Cyber Readiness Institute (a collective of business leaders), and The Global Cyber Alliance which provides SMBs with free cyber-security tools.

New Click-To-Pay Checkout System

Coming out of the Digital Wellness Program is Mastercard’s new click-to-pay checkout system which is enabled by Mastercard’s deployment of EMVCo’s (Europay, Mastercard, Visa) specification. The standards that make up EMVCO’s specification provide a foundation that enables the processing of e-commerce transactions in a consistent, streamlined fashion over a variety of digital channels and devices, including smartphones, tablets, PCs and other connected devices.

This means that the click-to-pay checkout system can be used for all kinds of online shopping, across multiple devices, and across cards, and can replace old key-entry checkout systems.

Tokenization and NuData

The click-to-pay checkout system incorporates tokenization and NuData, which represent Mastercard’s AI and machine learning tech. NuData can prevent fraud by (for example) monitoring website traffic changes, analysing changes in browsers and web surfing speeds, and verifying all the user data that makes a user unique (such as an individual’s scroll speed on their device).

The inclusion of AI technology means greater security and no need for customers to enter passwords when they pay.

The Advantages

The key advantages of the click-to-pay checkout system from the Digital Wellness Program are that:

• It tackles the problem that customers feel unease when it comes to paying for things online because of the added security.
• It’s fast and easy – the instant click-to-pay with no need for passwords tackles the reluctance of online shoppers to create a new user account.
• Merchants who adopt the system have a system from a known and trusted provider that could give them a better chance of preventing fraud.

These factors mean that the system could make customers more likely to feel comfortable shopping for things on smaller websites or with unknown retailers.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

For Mastercard, this is a way of selling its services to the huge market of smaller and independent businesses.

For merchants, it’s a way for them to leverage the latest AI tech to protect themselves and their customers from fraud, and tackle popular known barriers to purchases from smaller retailers online i.e. worries about security and the unwillingness to take the time to set up a new user account when they want to buy something.

For customers, the system should provide a safe and fast purchasing experience which can only reflect well on the merchant.  It remains to be seen, however, how many merchants take up the new system and what the cost versus benefit implications will be.

The “iFalcon Face Control” AR glasses that incorporate an 8-megapixel camera in the frame and NNTC facial recognition technology (are due to go on sale next year) are reported to have already been deployed into several security operations.

US / Dubai Manufactured

The facial recognition-enabled smart glasses are made by American company Vuzix and use facial recognition algorithms from Dubai-based company NNTC.  It has been reported that the NNTC facial recognition algorithms rank in the top three for accuracy in the US government’s Face Recognition Vendor Test and can detect up to 15 faces per frame per second, thereby enabling them to identify a specific individual in less than a second.

To date, only 50 pairs of the facial recognition-enabled glasses have been produced, all of which have been sold to security and law enforcement and are, according to NNTC, being used as part of security operations in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi.

The iFalcon Glasses Won’t Need An Internet Connection

The iFalcon Face Control glasses that are due to go on sale next year will come with a portable base station.  This will mean that they will have a portable connection to a stored a database of targets, thereby giving the user greater mobility as they won’t need an Internet connection for the software to function.

Similar Used In China

Facial recognition glasses have already been used by police forces in China last year in order to keep blacklisted people e.g. certain journalists, political dissidents, and human rights activists away from the annual gathering of China’s National People’s Congress.

Other Deployments

Known use of facial recognition for law enforcement already happens in the US through its incorporation with body cameras and CCTV cameras, and in the UK it has been used in deliberately overt trials and deployments e.g. a two-day trial in Romford, London by the Metropolitan Police in December 2018 using use vehicle-mounted cameras, at the Champions League final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff 2017, and at the Notting Hill Carnival in 2016 and 2017.

Criticism and Problems

The use of facial recognition technology at events and trials in the UK has, however, come under fire over several issues including poor levels of accuracy, a lack of transparency in how it is used, the possible infringement of privacy and data security rights e.g. what happens to images, and value for money in terms of deployment costs versus arrests.

This led to ICO head Elizabeth Dunham launching a formal investigation into how police forces use facial recognition technology (FRT) in the UK.

Data security and privacy are such thorny subjects for agencies, organisations and businesses alike that even though using facial recognition to help organise photos has been a standard feature across the social media industry, Microsoft is now issuing an update to its Windows 10 Photos app that prompts users to perform the almost impossible task of confirming that all appropriate consents from the people in the user’s photos and videos have been obtained in order to use facial recognition to find photos of friends and loved ones.  This move shifts the burden of responsibility away from Microsoft to the user.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The covert and mobile nature of these new glasses not only seems to be somewhat dystopian and ‘big brother’ but could, in theory, provide a way for users to simply get around existing data protection and privacy laws e.g. GDPR.

As a society, we are to an extent, used to being under surveillance by CCTV systems, which most people recognise as having real value in helping to deter criminal activity, locate and catch perpetrators, and provide evidence for arrests and trials. The covert use of facial recognition glasses is, however, another step further on from this and from the deliberately overt and public trials of facial recognition in the UK to date.  As such, to be used in the UK, it will require faith to be put in the authorities that it is used responsibly, and that its accuracy is proven, and that rights groups are able to access facts, figures, and information about the technology, where and how it is used, and the results.  Presumably, the ICO may also have questions about the use of such glasses.

If there is no public transparency about their use, this could also result in suspicion, campaigning against their use and a possible backlash.